In the Shadow of the Banyan

by Vaddey Ratner

  “What life?” she snapped, then, as if to put his mind at ease, added, “That pig has as much to lose as we do. If caught, I’ll declare in front of the soldiers and guards, in front of everyone, their leader accepted our offer.” She was talking about the camp leader. “He didn’t know what it was—your tie pin. I didn’t bother to explain. As long as it’s gold, he said, that’s all his wife cares about.”

  Big Uncle said nothing. He bit into the sugarcane, and together we ate in silence, our chewing muffled by the flow of the creek. Afterward, we gathered the chewed remnants and tossed them into the bamboo thicket.

  • • •

  We barely made it back in time. At the bell’s final call, Mama rushed ahead to claim her yoke and baskets, while Big Uncle and I negotiated a narrow bamboo bridge over what would be a reservoir for rainwater. A couple of soldiers brushing past us imitated our walk, one limping right, the other limping left, laughing hysterically, amused by their own theater. I didn’t care. Stupid animals.

  • • •

  The sun was bright, brilliantly hard. A sound broke out above our heads, like pebbles thrown against a metal roof. Suddenly millions of silvery darts fell from the sky and melted against our skin. It was raining, just like that. Across the embankment people stopped working and turned their faces up to the sky, and as they did so, the rain stopped, as abruptly as it had come. Not a drop left. Then another shower started and stopped. Again and again the sky played with us; all the while the sun never once blinked.

  It went on like this for days, weeks, with small bursts coming and going, disappearing without a trace on the broken earth. Pliang chmol, the local folk called them, “male rains.” They came when we least expected them, when we couldn’t bear the heat anymore, and as soon as they came, they disappeared. Afterward, the sun scorched, the earth heaved, the air became heavy as steel. But the male rains were nothing to fear, we were told. They were only messenger rains. They were sent to warn us of the female rains. “Female rains?” someone asked. “What are they?”

  “Rains that weep a whole river,” said a woman from a village not far from here, “and flood a plain.”

  “When will they come?”

  “When everything is dead.”

  • • •

  “It is time!” the camp leader declared early one morning at a meeting he’d called on the top of the embankment, the bullhorn held to his face like an extension of his oily protruding lips. “It’s time to prove our strength! On this auspicious day, April seventeenth, 1977, the Second Anniversary of Liberation, we once again declare our might!” He looked up, as if speaking to the sky, challenging it. “See what we have built? A mountain out of nothing! Have you ever seen anything so amazing? Look! Look at the green rice fields before you!”

  I looked and saw on one side our thatched huts, the trees covered with layers of dust, the ground all broken up, and on the other side the parched scrubland, blackened with patches of sun-charred grass. There was no green rice field.

  “Imagine them once we have our embankment and reservoir! Yes, this area will be covered with rice. Fields and fields everywhere!”

  My temples throbbed, my mind spun.

  “All over Democratic Kampuchea our brothers and sisters are building embankments and digging canals! Together we will conquer the sky, the rivers! We will plant rice where we want! Even on rocks! We will have so much that we will be the envy of other nations! The Vietnamese will not bother us anymore.”

  Why couldn’t he disappear like the male rains? I wished there were trees up here, some kind of shade. Pretend you’re riding on the back of the Dragon Yiak, I told myself.

  “If we have rice we have everything! We can do anything! We must unite and demonstrate our Revolutionary might!”

  Claps and cheers. I felt my skull cracking, breaking in half. I wanted to run but could not even bring myself to stand up. I stayed where I was, trapped between a grave and a burning sky, between Buried Civilization and disappeared rains, between endless claps and cheers.

  • • •

  The day grew hotter, my stomach emptier. In the late afternoon, it started to rain again. The Revolutionary soldiers and guards let out a victory shout, their guns held high above their heads, as if they had made the rain come, as if they were winning some battle against the sun and heat. They allowed us a brief moment of rest. I stuck my tongue out to taste the warm drops. A cricket jumped in front of me, but I did not have the strength to go after it. My breath felt shallow, filtering through my nostrils rather than rising from my chest. When I tried to breathe more deeply, my rib cage hurt, my head pounded, my vision became blurred. I looked for Mama but could not see her anywhere. Big Uncle leaned against the side of a ditch he was digging, not bothering to come out, taking advantage of this brief moment to close his eyes, letting the fast, heavy drops fall on his lids, soothing the burning underneath.

  Then the rain stopped and we started working again. The heat intensified, everything slowed down. I wished the day would end. But the evening wasn’t any better. It came with a half bowl of watery rice soup. I drank it down in one gulp and licked the bowl clean. Mama pushed it away and gave me hers. I stared at it, wanting it, not wanting to want it, ashamed of my greed, yet not knowing how to rid myself of the hunger. She nodded for me to go ahead, fingers lifting a clump of hair plastered to my cheek and tucking it behind my ear. I kept my face down as I drank the soup, unable to meet her eyes as she gazed at me. When I finished, she asked, “How do you feel now?”

  “Still hungry.”

  Rain gathered in her eyes and I felt that if she blinked it would drown me.

  Night fell, stiflingly hot. Everyone began heading for the top of the embankment, where there was at least some breeze. Mama pulled out a shirt from our bundle and started to mend it. “Come, Comrade Aana,” said one of the women in our hut. “It’s not often we get the night off. Why waste it mending clothes?” The woman extended her arm out to me, as a way to coax Mama into going with her. I edged off the bed, but Mama, fixing me with her gaze, said, “I need your help threading the needle.”

  She waited until everyone was gone, then, throwing the shirt aside, grabbed Radana’s little pillow and ripped it open with her bare hands. A pair of silvery hoops dropped from the pillow and landed near my knee, the tiny diamond-studded bells jingling with a familiar sound. It took me a few seconds to recall what they were—Radana’s anklets. I hadn’t seen them since we left Phnom Penh. It was now 1977, the camp leader had said. I didn’t know what startled me more—that there was a specific time, a month and a year, to this perpetual darkness, or that a life and a world I once knew had vanished entirely in the span of only two years. I’d completely forgotten the anklets existed. In the torch’s light they flickered and gleamed, translucent as a pair of newly hatched snakes. Mama snatched them up from the mat and put them in her pocket.

  “Come,” she said, pulling me by the arm.

  • • •

  We waited in the woods behind the kitchen. The trees and bushes waited with us. Not a branch stirred, not a leaf waved. Near us heaved a small dark mound of rotting vegetable peels and fish bones. Insects moaned over the mound as if attending a funeral. Suddenly a branch moved and the grass crackled. A soldier, I thought, or maybe a member of the Kitchen Committee. A shadow appeared out of the hazy dark carrying a small clay pot. The shadow kept walking toward us. I wanted to run, but Mama held me still against her.

  It was the camp leader’s wife. She thrust the clay pot at Mama, and Mama gave her Radana’s anklets. The woman examined them, frowning as if they weren’t what she’d expected. She tried pushing her chunky wrist into one of the anklets. “They’re a bit small, aren’t they?”

  “Well, they belonged to a child,” Mama told her.

  The woman looked at me. “Hers?”

  “Yes, a long time ago,” Mama lied, then added, “but they’re yours now.”

  Satisfied, the woman put them in her pocket and disappeared, becoming one wit
h the dark.

  Mama scooted closer and, placing the pot of rice in front of me, said, “They were yours.”

  I pushed one handful of steamed rice after another into my mouth, swallowing the lumpy mush without really tasting it. Mama watched me, resting her chin on her knees, rocking back and forth on her heels.

  “The anklets,” she continued. “They were yours first. I had them made for you when you were born. I wanted you to wear them as you learned to walk, so that I would always know where you were by the sound of the bells. So that I would never lose you. But you had polio, and I put them away. Then . . .” She paused, unable to bring herself to say Radana’s name. “Then your sister was born, and I took what was yours and gave them to her.”

  I stopped eating and stared at her. I didn’t know what to say. My guilt and shame were as overwhelming as hers. We lived, while Radana, who’d done no wrong, died.

  “They’re the last pieces of our jewelry, what we brought with us. After this . . .” She attempted a smile. “Well, we’ll have to figure out some other ways, won’t we?”

  I swallowed, feeling queasy. The stench of rotting waste was overpowering. I couldn’t separate it from the odor of the rice.

  “Hurry and finish it,” she pushed, looking around, seeming fearful now of being discovered.

  I continued stuffing myself, not wanting to disappoint her, even though the rice was rancid—soggy, like it had been sitting in its own sweat all afternoon. Or maybe I’d forgotten the taste of steamed rice. I kept eating, while Mama continued to observe me, lost in her own thoughts.

  My stomach churned, not from hunger now but from nausea. Nearby the insects continued to moan and feast on their funeral mound.

  When I’d finished, Mama smashed the clay pot against a rock and threw it into a bush. I wiped my hands with the leaves.

  Once again she pulled me by the arm and we hurried back to our hut. At the doorway, we paused and looked up at the night sky. Above us, the stars shone as bright as diamonds. Bells of white gold.

  • • •

  The next morning, before the first light, I took my place at the foot of the embankment next to Big Uncle, in a shallow crater with about ten or twelve other people. The taste of spoiled rice coated my mouth and a painful cramp gripped my stomach, but I did not bother to ask a soldier if I could go use the woods. I had emptied my bowels of everything the night before, getting up repeatedly to vomit and relieve myself. The cramps were no worse than the hunger pangs. Besides, it would take too much effort to walk the scarred terrain. There were craters and holes everywhere now, some as big as ponds, some deep as graves. Light from the torches planted in the ground cast long shadows that quivered and trembled like ghosts waking from their slumber. The sound of digging began to fill the air, echoing across the predawn darkness.

  In the sky, the stars were still blinking. I tried to find Mama among the figures going up and down the embankment, but it was difficult to tell who was who. At this hour it was impossible to separate people from their shadows, from the baskets and the bamboo poles and their shadows. All had the quality of indefinable sorrow.

  I heard Big Uncle’s hoe bite into the earth. He pulled out a chunk of dirt and pushed it toward me. I broke it into smaller pieces with a spear-like rock and swept it into a basket. Nearby a soldier sat leaning against the side of the crater, his face hidden under a black cap, trying to steal a few more minutes of sleep.

  Finally dawn emerged. But as soon as the sun appeared, it disappeared again. The sky turned moody, its belly hung low like the concave roof of a mosquito net. A big dark cloud drifted overhead, its immense shadow enveloping the entire camp. Far in the distance, the horizon curled like burning paper and rolled toward us, bringing with it more giant dark clouds. A strand of lightning flashed, but it made no sound. A raindrop, fat and heavy, landed on my arm. Another drop fell, and another, and suddenly countless more in rapid succession. Tiny splatters popped up all over the ground, like blisters bursting on damaged, infected skin.

  The rain poured, so thick it looked black. Everyone ran down the slope, screaming toward the huts. Suddenly someone bumped into me. I slipped and fell. A hand yanked me up, as quickly as I had been knocked down. “Where’s your mama?” Big Uncle screamed through the rain. “I don’t know!” I shouted back, trying to hear through the cacophony of sounds. We looked up at the same time. And there she was—a small, dark figure whipping in the wind at the top of the embankment. She was the only one there. Her black clothes looked even blacker wet. Her body swayed, leaning with the rain, like the sail of a boat caught in a sea storm. Suddenly she threw her arms open wide. I turned to Big Uncle and shouted, “The female rains! They’re here!”

  “What?” he hollered back, leaning closer to me. “I can’t hear!”

  “The female rains, they’re here, and Mama is welcoming them!”

  “What?”

  It was no use. The storm was deafening. Like thousands of women weeping simultaneously. Lightning crashed and the sky roared with thunder. Water flowed, and soon the whole world was flooded.

  • • •

  The Dragon Yiak’s grave was melting. Mud ran down its sides, and the rains kept coming, one storm after another, like waves of flying bullets. We worked day and night to keep up with them. When they slowed down, we sped up. When they rested, we moved forward. We had to take whatever chance there was. It was now the middle of the night. The rains had temporarily subsided. The air was imbued with the premonition of new battles. Thunder resounded, lightning flashed. Above us the moon was full and bright, its luminosity waxed by rains. The camp leader marched back and forth across the embankment, screaming into the bullhorn, “There’s no time to waste! We must seize every opportunity to strengthen the Revolution! We must work harder! Faster! The embankment must stand as proof of our strength! We must make it higher! Bigger! We must strive forward! In rain, fire, or storm! We must strive forward!”

  I looked up from my hole and saw Mama coming toward me. Even under the white light of the moon, her face appeared red, flushed with fever, her eyes eerily glassy. She put down her empty baskets and picked up two new ones. Knees bent, she lifted the bamboo pole onto her shoulder and pushed herself up, her whole body trembling, vibrating like an overstretched rubber band before it snaps. She turned around and once again began to make her way up.

  “OUR REVOLUTIONARY FORCE,” the camp leader bellowed as he descended the embankment, coming closer to us now, “IS STRONGER THAN NATURE’S FORCE!”

  The moon shivered. Halfway down a man lost his step. He fell backward and tumbled down the steep slope, his baskets rolling ahead of him. No one got up to help. No one even took notice. There was always someone slipping and falling. Accidents were rife. Death was the norm. He might not even be alive.

  “WE CAN CONQUER THE SKY!” the camp leader screamed. “WE ARE UNSTOPPABLE!”

  Everyone kept working. I didn’t know how long I could keep going. My arms felt as if they were splitting off my shoulders. Near me some of the smaller children, the five- and six-year-olds, were busy draining the craters and holes, the rainwater reaching as high as their waists. Some were hidden in ditches so deep and narrow you couldn’t see them at all, just water flying from raised clay pots and buckets.

  My body was numb with cold. I didn’t care if I lived or died. I only wanted the night to end.

  • • •

  The embankment collapsed. It collapsed in the night, while we were working. Four were dead. Three girls and a boy. They had been in one of the narrow ditches when it fell. It happened quickly. We didn’t see them, didn’t know they were in there. The rain had blurred everything, drowned out the noises—their screams for help, our own voices. They were just the right size for the ditch, we’d all agreed when we put them in there. Not too big, not too small. But when the embankment fell, we forgot them, we remembered only ourselves. Later Big Uncle ran back with the other men, but the ditch was sealed. A covered grave.

  If we wash the mud off t
heir bodies, I thought now, clean their faces and nostrils, maybe then they will open their eyes, maybe then they’ll breathe again.

  But they lay so still on the bamboo table, almost hugging one another. They were found that way. Huddled together like baby rabbits in a hole. Big Uncle and the other men had dug them up and brought them to the communal mess. A bucket separated one of the girls from the others. Big Uncle and the men had tried to take it away. They’d tried to pry her fingers open. But her grip was too strong. She was weak strength. Not too big, not too small. Now she was no strength. Nothing at all.

  “We have to take them back,” Big Uncle said to the crowd gathered around him, his voice small, but calm. “We have to bury them.” His eyes were red. Bloodshot. His hands, I noticed, were shaking. He had been like a madman, wouldn’t stop digging until he’d found them. Now he untied the kroma from his waist and covered the bodies.

  Sobs seeped through the silence. A muffled wail. Crying was against the teaching of the Revolution.

  • • •

  We buried them where we’d found them, in the watery grave they had dug themselves. Big Uncle and the men lowered the small bodies, one at a time, into the open ditch. The little girl, the bucket still hanging from her hand, was put in last. Go back to sleep, baby, I heard Mama’s voice from another night, another fight with death. It’s not morning yet. They’re babies, I told myself. Yes, babies being put back into their crib. Why should I weep for them? Why should I be sad? Sad was too small a word. It’s not morning yet . . .

  Next to me, Mama, with her fever-flushed face and hard bright eyes, stared past everything, all the way back to that night when Radana died.

  Everyone stepped back. The men began hoeing the earth. The rain had softened to a drizzle. The earth mourned. The sky rumbled with the threat of another downpour.

  When the grave was covered, the sun broke through the clouds. It beamed. A bright, glorious smile. The smile of the Revolution.

  • • •

  Later, I went to find Big Uncle. I found him sitting alone in front of the children’s grave. I lowered myself next to him. His eyes took in the ravaged landscape. “They rule with the logic of a child in a land where no children remain, Raami.” He turned to me. “I buried them myself . . .” His voice was soft as the drizzle that had started to fall again. “Your auntie India squeezed tight between the boys, Sotanavong on the right, Satiyavong on the left. Your Tata on top, facedown, like a mother hen watching over them. I buried them myself, you see. In a single grave I dug with these hands.” He held out his trembling hands to me. “They didn’t make it, you see.”