In the Shadow of the Banyan

by Vaddey Ratner

  Yes, I see.

  He was a giant who would break at his own words.

  Little words.

  They didn’t make it.

  I mustn’t let anyone, anything break me.

  • • •

  We found him one afternoon. In Men’s Hut Number 5. Big Uncle had hanged himself. With the rope he’d woven with his own hands. He’d lost the will to live, the soldiers said. It wasn’t so. His will was broken. He killed himself, they said. But I knew they’d killed him long before.

  • • •

  The female rains came in greater force. They could turn day into night. They came wearing their anger like diamond jewels. They thrashed and whipped and screamed. At night when there were no Revolutionary soldiers, no camp leader, no Kitchen Committee or Burial Committee, when the eyes and ears of the Organization were not watching and listening, I heard them, so close I dreamt they were inside the mosquito net next to me. Some nights they wept and moaned loudly, choking on their own tears. Other nights they cried quietly, correctly, as if they were afraid, as if they knew they were being observed. Once they whispered a child’s name, Rad’na? Where’re you running to? Where are you hiding? I answered, screaming, She is dead! Don’t you understand? She is dead! And they wept even harder. Why must you hurt us so? What could I do then but try to comfort them? But you have me. I’m your sacred ground. You can dig a hole in my heart and bury all your sadness. I’ll be your grave. Please just stop crying. What do you want me to do? Everyone is gone. What are you crying for? Nothing will bring them back. Stop crying or I’ll leave as well! But of course they continued to cry, deaf to my pleas and threats. They would not stop. Not until they’d brought everything back to life. Until the earth was alive again.

  I understood the female rains. They were my mother’s rains.

  twenty-nine

  There was no time to mourn. No time to look back. Again planting season came. Mama was sent to another location to dig irrigation ditches, and I was put in a youth brigade that traveled from one area to the next planting rice. There were about twenty of us in the group—all girls—and we worked from dawn until sunset. We slept together in one hut built at the edge of the forest near our work area. Our parents, we were told, couldn’t be wasted caring for us. We were not children anymore. This morning at the rice fields, a new Secret Guard was assigned to keep an eye on us. He paced back and forth on the narrow dike, going nowhere, eyes watching. The long gun hanging from his shoulder brushed against the ground as he walked. A black cap shaded his eyes, and the muscles of his jaw flexed in and out on clenched teeth. He tried to look older than he was. If only he knew we were afraid of him because he was so young. Around me tiny figures in black rose and bent, up and down, up and down, a step or two back, the rhythm I could count and feel even in my sleep. We moved slowly, pushing rice shoots into the mud, burying the stalks halfway in the water. No one sang, no one spoke, no one looked up. We were just moving figures, up and down, up and down. I could no longer tell the living from the dead. Ours was a world in between.

  In the distance was the darker green of the forest, and before it stood a lone sugar palm, so high it appeared to touch the sky. I looked up to where a group of vultures was circling, waiting. They called out softly to one another, to the silence below, and the wind answered, its breath entering my nostrils, the smell of rotten corpses, of bodies abandoned not long ago.

  I stole a glance at our brigade leader in the row beside me. She was only a girl, a child like the rest of us, but because she was Mouk’s relative, everyone feared her. Through her, the eyes of the Organization were always watching. Her eyes met mine. “You’ve hardly moved from your spot,” she snarled and quickly eyed the others to see how they reacted to her critiquing me. “Don’t you think we should punish her?” The others lowered their gazes and made no response.

  I did not understand this vague grudge she harbored against me. Kum, it was called. Spite. It had no reason, and it seemed too small a thing—a playground sentiment almost—for the consequences it carried. Yet it was not guileless or without purpose. I’d seen it before—in the Fat One’s snicker when she eyed Mama’s loveliness, in Mouk’s scar when it leapt to destroy the district leader, and now in this girl’s rage when she saw others pity me. Again and again it appeared in different faces, young and old alike, the vectors of Revolutionary venom, spreading like a disease, expedient and merciless as that from the bite of a death-carrying mosquito. And even if it was petty, it was obvious that when propped up and given the right platform, pettiness became poison.

  “Move!” she shouted.

  I tried pulling my right leg forward, but it remained stuck in the mud. I struggled, my left leg digging deeper into the sludge. Around me, the girls of my work unit stooped into the rice paddies, pulling farther ahead, pretending not to notice.

  “Useless cripple.”

  I mumbled under my breath.

  “What?” she hissed.

  “I’m not a cripple.”

  “Maybe you don’t know what you’re supposed to do then.”

  “I know.”

  “Then do it!”

  “Leave me alone.” Every day she despised me a bit more. Every day she found something to attack me for. I was tired of it. It couldn’t go on. I didn’t know where I found the strength, but I challenged, “You’re not doing much either—”

  “What?” She cut me off, teeth clenching.

  I didn’t answer. The others paused in their work. They knew what I meant. That was enough for me. It gave me strength, even if only to smile to myself.

  “I’ll report your laziness to the Organization!” she thundered.

  I stood up straighter; my breath suddenly halted. I looked up and the Secret Guard was staring down at me. He pushed the tip of his gun deep into my chest. If I moved, it would explode. The others averted their gazes. I opened my mouth but no words came out. My lips started to tremble and I couldn’t stop them. I couldn’t think straight. Tears welled up in my eyes. I didn’t know why. I wasn’t afraid. Why was I crying?

  “Shoot her!” she said.

  I closed my eyes. When I lie buried beneath this earth, you will fly.

  “What are you waiting for? I said shoot her!”

  Her shout forced my eyes open, lids fluttering. The Secret Guard let his gun drop and took a step back. He laughed, and to the girl, said, “Killing her is no loss, but she’s not worth a bullet, Comrade.”

  “That’s right—you’re a useless cripple!” she declared for all to hear. Leaning into me, she hissed, “You’ll die on your own soon enough. Meanwhile, watch what you say, and do as I tell you, do you hear?”

  For me, Raami. For your papa, you will soar.

  “Do you hear?” She spat on my face.

  I blinked. Tears streamed down my face. I tasted the blood on my lower lip where I must have bitten myself. It tasted salty, warm. I let it soothe me. Like the urine trickling down my thigh. No one looked at me now and I looked at no one. I kept my eyes on the muddy bank of the paddy. A tiny crab came out of its hole, with eyes protruding like antennas. I reached for it, but it scurried back into its hole as quickly as it had appeared.

  Yes, your papa left you wings.

  “Get back to work!”

  But it is I who must teach you to fly.

  Voices, they came at me now.

  They didn’t make it . . .

  “Why do you stand there?”

  And you wonder why she speaks only to ghosts.

  Voices of their ghosts, weaving in and out, like filaments of a solitary rope around my neck. I’m telling you this now . . . so that you will live.

  I took a step back, my feet as light as the crab’s. Another step, and another, and further back. Until I reached only silence. Deep within myself, within the dark, grave-like hole, I lay.

  They couldn’t touch me anymore.

  • • •

  To keep you is no gain, to kill you is no loss. Under the rules of the Organization we were
reduced to this dictum. How was I to live by such words? With so many carted away on the tiniest pretense, how could any child believe she would live beyond this day, this moment? How could she hope for tomorrow? In a world of senseless death, I didn’t see the purpose, couldn’t grasp the meaning. If this was our collective karma, then why was I still alive? If anything, I was as guilty as those who survived and as innocent as those who died. What name then can I give to the force that carried me on? With each life taken away, a part of it passed on to me. I didn’t know its name. All I could grasp was the call to remember. Remember. I lived by this word.

  After that day at the rice fields, I no longer feared guns because I no longer feared death. The brigade leader continued to threaten me. But I never answered her. Instead, silence took root in my blood. I became deaf. I became mute. I thought only of the work in front of me. Standing in the paddy, I planted the rice shoots. When eating, I could only think of eating. In sleep, I thought of nothing else. Hunger made my body frail. Many times I was punished for being too lazy. Without rice, I lived on leaves and small animals found in the mud. The tiniest I would swallow at once. Sometimes I would be punished, though I could never know when. It was futile to worry, to think of tomorrow. The life I’d once known was gone, and with it, the people. There was nothing to say, no one left for me to speak of, so I chose not to speak.

  Still, I saw. Still, I heard. In silence, I understood, and I remembered.

  • • •

  Harvest came and for weeks there was talk of plenty. We would eat well again. I knew their lies. All there would be was more to steal. Back in town I was assigned to be a scarecrow again. I had learned to sew large seams into my shirts and pants to hide rice. At dawn I’d catch a ride on an oxcart and return to the same hut where I had come the season before to keep watch on the rice fields and chase away the crows. Alone, with no soldier or guard in sight, I felt the world was all mine again.

  • • •

  Each day I grew more feeble. I felt the disappearing of my body, the deadening of my mind. My skin had become jaundiced, the color of stale turmeric, and I craved the tastes of burnt wood and charcoal. Sometimes, I imagined myself a beysach, one of those fabled creatures combing the crematory, yearning for the taste of burnt coffins, for my own ashes. She’s not going to make it, people would say when I drifted past them. Poor thing, she’s going to die, and her mother is not here to comfort her when she takes her last breath. Poor thing. Their words would jolt me out of my dark trance, and I’d claw my way back to the light. Once more I fought, seeking every opportunity to stay alive. In the rice fields, hidden behind a termite mound or the trunk of a palm tree, I would light a small fire using a lighter I’d stolen from the communal kitchen and cook the rice in empty snail shells. Often, though, I would eat it raw. I could never be sure who was watching. The eyes and ears of the Organization were everywhere. At night I allowed myself the comfort of dreamless sleep. This, however, was not always possible. Sometimes, I was awoken in pitch blackness by voices of those long dead, and those soon to die. I’d hear their screams, their pleas, the sudden gunshots, and the silence that followed. Who is it this time? I’d wonder in the dark, my eyes shut tight. I never knew their names—didn’t want to know—those who were taken, or killed on the spot. They had no names, I’d tell myself. I didn’t know them. But their screams, their pleas—Please, comrades, spare my baby—would echo in the night and lodge themselves inside my head. In such moments I wanted only to get away, from these voices that were not my own, the thoughts I could not speak out loud, the words I could no longer form with my lips.

  One night, after the cut rice had been piled in high mounds, I felt a presence inside my mosquito net. I braced myself for death.

  “It’s me,” said a voice that sounded like Mama. I thought I’d imagined it. But then she spoke again, grabbing my arm, “It’s me, Raami. They’ve sent me back to thresh the rice.” My eyes adjusted to the dark and I saw her. What had she traded for her escape? Our diamonds and jewels were gone. Papa’s notebook? His poetry? Their love? Herself? “We’ll never be separated again, I promise,” she said, hugging me tight. “Never.” I didn’t know why, why she promised me anything at all. How could she?

  The next day she asked me questions I didn’t know how to answer—“Why won’t you talk? Why?” She gripped my shoulders, her eyes searching my face.

  I said nothing. Deep inside of me, my voice screamed from a hole where I had buried it.

  • • •

  “The wind of the Revolution is blowing too gently! We must take the strongest measures to purify the state! Democratic Kampuchea must be rid of all contaminations! We must weed out the enemies from among the people! We must cut them down! Pull them out! Yank them like weeds from among the rice shoots! No matter how small they are, how harmless they may appear, we must destroy them before it’s too late!”

  Mouk stood on a stage, a bullhorn in his hand, the sickle-shaped scar on his face twitching even as he paused to survey the crowd before him.

  “Remember that servants of the king once lived in the palace, teachers still know how to read and write, and chauffeurs once drove cars. Our enemies are always our enemies! We must seek them out, bring them forward, and destroy them! Destroy what we cannot use! The time has come for another war! A war to purify our state! We must cleanse ourselves! Our Motherland must be pure of foreign elements! We must separate the contaminated Khmer from the pure Khmer! We must eliminate those who look and act like our enemies! Those with Vietnamese faces, Vietnamese eyes, Vietnamese names! We must separate them from real Khmers! Only by taking the strongest, most extreme measures can we speed up the wind of the Revolution!”

  The enemy now had a face. Anyone who looked Vietnamese, behaved like Vietnamese. I didn’t know who the Vietnamese were, or what they looked like, but Mouk—who had now become the head of the Kamaphibal—said they were here among us. He ordered his soldiers to drag out an example. It was Mui’s father.

  “I am Khmer!” Comrade Keng shouted.

  “Yes, but your wife is a Vietnamese whore!”

  “No, we are all Khmers—”

  Mouk shut him up. A bullet through his mouth. I closed my eyes.

  When I opened my eyes again Comrade Keng was gone, but his blood seeped down from the stage to the ground and I couldn’t help but think how it looked just like any other blood—red, glorious, shining.

  Mouk screamed into his speaker, “Vietnamese spy! This is what happens when we find you!”

  • • •

  The next day I woke up as usual before dawn and went to the outhouse behind the villa. In the hazy dark I heard sobs coming through the trees from Mui’s house. “Hush!” a voice growled. “Get in the cart!” More sobbing, louder now. I couldn’t move. I stayed hiding in the outhouse. A short while later Mama found me on the front steps of the villa, the morning sun shining on my face. “It’ll be a scorching day,” she said, sitting down next to me, her skin brushing against mine. I made no reply.

  She turned and looked at me. “You’re shaking,” she said, putting her arms around me. “Why are you shaking?”

  My teeth chattered, and I hugged her back, glad for her nearness.

  We sat in silence, except for the sound of my teeth. After a while she said, “It’s still too early. Won’t you come back inside?”

  I shook my head and pulled myself away. I wanted to be alone. Go away. She looked at me, puzzled. Then, nodding, she got up and climbed the stairs back into the villa. I remained where I was, my mind running back and forth, throwing itself in every direction. I wanted to escape—get out of this place. But where? Where would I go?

  Finally, my oxcart came. I climbed into it. Again, the driver brought me to the hut where I guarded the rice fields from the crows. Here I could talk without words, without sounds—

  “No!” A scream suddenly split the wind from the forest behind me. I heard them. I knew their voices, had recognized them on the first sobs. “No! Please, comrades,
no!”—Aunt Bui. “Mother! What’s happening?”—Mui. I walked toward the voices. “Please, don’t do this! I beg you!”

  “Dig!” The same male voice I’d heard earlier at the outhouse. “Do you want me to shoot the girl first? I said dig!”

  I stopped. Mui’s frightened weeping. I could hear it.

  Aunt Bui’s giggle—where is it? Vietnamese, the soldiers had called her. Her skin was too light, they said. Her eyes slanty, Vietnamese eyes. What about her giggle? Is that Vietnamese too? Where is it now? Why won’t she laugh? Laugh, damn it. Laugh!

  “Deeper! More!”

  The sound of digging echoed and vibrated. I lowered myself to the ground, careful not to make a noise. I waited. I did not know why. Why I waited. Had I not heard enough, seen enough? Had death deepened my appetite for more? Dulled my senses to violence—a friend’s murder? Was it shock, paralysis that kept me there? I couldn’t explain it, but I remembered all those times when death had brushed by me and I’d close my eyes or turn away. I couldn’t do this anymore. I couldn’t let those I loved face death alone. From now on, I told myself, I would stay put, be here for them, and when their spirits left their bodies, they would see that I’d been here all along to hear their last words, their last breath, and they would know that I had witnessed not only their deaths but, more importantly, their fight for life, their desire to live.

  I pulled my legs up toward my chest and rested my head on my knees, telling myself my fear was nothing compared to that of my friends. I silenced the voices inside my head. I calmed my heart. I braced myself—embraced them.