For the Sake of All Living Things

by John M. Del Vecchio

  “Perhaps in his last life he was perfect. Perfect he will be again in his next.”

  Sophan caressed the infant’s head as they walked. The baby cooed softly, then snorted. “He’s perfect now,” Sophan said gleefully. Her eyes twinkled, her entire face lit in impish smile. “Ssshh.” She touched Vathana’s arm. Very quietly she whispered, “He’s perfect now but don’t let anyone hear. If the spirit of his previous mother knows, she’ll be jealous.”

  When they entered the apartment Teck was standing before Vathana’s desk staring up at the framed portrait of Prince Norodom Sihanouk. The volume of the radio on the refrigerator was turned up high. Thiounn, Kim and Louis sat quietly on the sofa. Sakun squatted by the coffee table. His face was distorted and he wept openly. The young men did not turn as the women entered.

  Unknown to Thiounn, to Vathana, to them all, two days earlier, North Viet Namese and PRG officials had met with high Khmer officers to negotiate an NVA/VC presence on Khmer lands. Also unknown to them were the mixed messages Lon Nol was receiving from America and South Viet Nam.

  “What...?” Vathana began.

  Teck tilted his head toward the radio. Again the Phnom Penh station repeated the announcement:

  In view of the political crisis created in recent days by the chief of state, Prince Sihanouk, and in conformity with the constitution of Cambodia, the National Assembly and the Council of the Kingdom during plenary session held on 18 March at 1300 hours have unanimously agreed to withdraw confidence in Prince Sihanouk.

  As of 1300 hours 18 March, Prince Sihanouk shall cease his function as chief of state of Cambodia. Mr. Cheng Heng, chairman of the National Assembly, is entrusted with the function of chief of state in conformity with the national constitution.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “AIN’T NO WAY, L-T. I got me a fine young woman waitin’ and I don’t mean to disappoint her.”

  “I only said think about it, Conk.”

  “Yeah, but you say ‘think’ and we always end up doin’.” The American sergeant pushed his floppy bush hat to the back of his head. “I’m short. Down to sixty-six and a wake-up. That’s it for me.”

  “It’s a big city, Conklin,” the lieutenant said. “Besides, you guys trained some of them Cambos. No more being stuck in a little corner of the Delta. No more Major Travis. Phnom Penh, Conk. We could be in Phnom Penh.”

  Lieutenant John L. Sullivan, 5th Special Forces, leaned forward in his chair in the small operations bunker. He had been an advisor to a Viet Namese provincial force for almost a year. He passed Ian Conklin the Ba Muoi Ba beer the two had been sharing.

  “Those dudes are ripe for disaster,” Conklin said. “Coup...new government...God! It’s chaos. What do they have? The Khmer Serei? Two or three thousand U.S.-trained troops. Those guys are goina be like foreigners in their own country. They’ve been in Nam too long. Ya can’t go back, L-T. Just because they hated Sihanouk...that ain’t good enough. What else does this Lon Nol got? No, thanks.”

  “They’re going to reach out to us, Conk,” Sullivan said. The lieutenant took a deep breath. He raised his hands to his face, cupped his mouth and nose and exhaled into his palms. Then he wiped his hands back over his freckled cheeks and up through his coppery hair.

  “Sure, L-T. Sure. While Nixon’s cuttin’ back he’s goina commit to takin’ on the Cambos. Even suppose authorization does come down”—Conklin shook his head—“ain’t no way I’d get picked. Or I’d accept.”

  The two men sat in silence. The night was relatively cool though the humidity was high. A hiss came from the radio, the one a.m. situation report from the PRU, the breaking of the radio’s squelch by the Province Reconnaissance Unit, an eighteen-man Viet Namese force the advisors often worked with.

  Sullivan began again. “Their minds...,” he said, “...they’ll have to be disciplined to induce the habits of patient investigation. You’ve seen it work here.” The young lieutenant rubbed skin flakes from his sunburnt nose. “It can work there.”

  Conklin didn’t answer. Again they sat in silence. Again Sullivan broke it. “You know what’s going to happen?” Conklin looked over. “It’s Nam, Conk. Nam 1960. Or ’56.” Sullivan was adamant, intense. “They’ll go nuts. Make a mess of it. They’ve got to be trained to conquer haste, to work methodically at uncovering the infrastructure...”

  “L-T, you’re beatin’ on me again.”

  “Naw.” Sullivan switched tone. “Am I?” He smiled broadly.

  “It’s like Quay says”—Conklin readjusted his hat—“unless the South drops about a hundred thousand troops on Hanoi, there ain’t no way in West Hello we’re ever goina stop the attacks. Infrastructure or not.”

  “That’s it!” Sullivan snapped his fingers. He sat up straight. “Exactly.” He tapped the desk before him. “Cambodia is the opportunity. We can knock on Mister Charlie’s back door. Serve him eviction papers. Follow it up with proper police procedures. That’s the winning combination.”

  Conklin chuckled. “Ain’t nothin’ goina stop ’em unless there’s the firepower to back it up.”

  Sullivan got up. “What about Huntley?” he asked. “He worked with the Serei.”

  “He can’t speak it.”

  “You can?”

  “No. Some. Re or Quay always interpreted.”

  “Hum.”

  “There’s no way, L-T. It’s total chaos.”

  “Let’s make a way.”

  “No one ever even said we’re goin’ in!”

  “We’re going.” Sullivan clapped his right fist into his left palm as one might do with a baseball glove. “You bet yer sweet ass we’re going. Now it’s up to us whether that front gets the best, which is us, or some dipped-in-shinola Saigon desk jockey who doesn’t know...who doesn’t understand and who has no quantitative skills. No ability to apply the system. Where’s Huntley?”

  “He’s on ambush with the PRU.”

  “Prince Sihanouk is gone,” Chhuon lamented to Hang Tung in private.

  “A shame,” Hang Tung answered.

  “Yes, I suppose,” Chhuon said. He was confused. Bewildered.

  There was no chaos in Phum Sath Din. In three weeks of Khmer Viet Minh control, life had changed little. Information flow in and out of the village had been further reduced, and the land tenure system, said to be temporary, was in flux, but activities in homes, the market, the pagoda remained as before. What was happening in Paris, Moscow, Peking was unknown, but that had been of concern to only a very few. The radio announcement that the Cambodian National Assembly, all members of the Prince’s own political party, had voted ninety-two to zero to withdraw confidence in the monarch, that the monarchy, the entire governmental system, had been deposed, shocked all. Yet they did not react, could not react, were not allowed to react.

  Phum Sath Din, which had never known as much as a one-man police force now harbored an eighty-man platoon. And with Khmer Viet Minh entrenchment the NVA set up a new base camp and way station in the forest to the northeast. The village, which had never had a formal government other than a council of elders and a part-time administrator, now had overlapping tripartite committees: four encompassing the village quadrants for work and defense; eleven, one for each of the basic cells (kroms, or family groups, with ten to fifteen families per group), for political indoctrination and social change; plus a village central committee consisting of the newly appointed chairman, Cahuom Chhuon, the new vice-chairman, Ny Non Chan (of the village’s traditional Ny family), and a committee “member” from among the new people, Hang Tung.

  “Now we have the yuons to deal with,” Chhuon said.

  “Yes Uncle,” Tung answered with appropriate concern. “But you will see, they’re here to help us, to defend us.”

  Suddenly Chhuon threw his arms into the air. “Defend us?!”

  “You’ll see, Uncle.” Hang Tung paused to size up the older man. “There are riots and killings in the unliberated zones. People are butchered. But not here. Here, everything is better.” Tu
ng spoke with quiet conviction. “You and I will persuade the farmers, teach them, make them conscious of the need for political and social change. Peasants can no longer be passive. You’ll see. Within a month, two at the most, the People’s Liberation Army will free Phnom Penh.”

  Chhuon stared at Tung. His fists were clenched, his arms tense as if to throw a punch. “What are you saying?” he screamed. For a brief moment everything seemed clear. “The country’s lost its head! And...and you talk of...of what army?!”

  “Our army, Uncle.” Hang Tung remained calm. “You and I shall raise an army.”

  “Tung”—Chhuon felt crazy, out of control—“the North Viet Namese are here! There’s the army!”

  “They’re here to help us, Uncle,” Hang Tung said. “And we’ll help them. We’ll help them win the confidence and affection of the people. You and I. We’ll achieve a perfect understanding between the people and the army.”

  Chhuon shook his head violently as if the words were slime which couldn’t be shaken off. His shoulders quaked, his knees seemed to swell, to ache. The army that had killed his son and daughter, that had taken his cousin, that moved through the country at will—that was yuon—and he, Cahuom Chhuon, was being asked, asked the evening of the day his king was ousted, to help that army, to raise an army to aid the element he most despised.

  “You’ll see, Uncle,” Hang Tung assured him. “You’ll see. Tomorrow we’ll gather all the villagers at the pagoda. We’ll tell them what has really happened. You must help me so no one is hurt.”

  The rally did not take place on 19 March, nor on the twentieth. The village was isolated. The people waited, unaware of the explosive forces released throughout much of the country, aware of Lon Nol’s denunciation of their Prince, aware of some upheavals, of rumors that the American CIA was behind the coup, but unaware of the riots, demonstrations and fighting between the NVA with their Khmer Viet Minh allies and the national (no longer Royal) army, or between the KVM and the Krahom, who had based much of their propaganda on Sihanouk’s sellout to the Viet Namese. Phum Sath Din waited, isolated, cut off. Chhuon did not leave his house, nor did he allow Peou to leave. Sok and Chhuon’s mother prepared extra food which they hid in the family bunker. Only Hang Tung came and went.

  On 21 March a Khmer Viet Minh armed propaganda team entered the village. With the militia, they requested for military reasons, cajoled with patriotic phrases, then demanded, searched if necessary, and confiscated every radio from every home. Still Phum Sath Din waited, more isolated, as if floating, a tiny community in flux, alone.

  Late on the evening of the twenty-second, propaganda team members knocked respectfully on Chhuon’s door. “Tomorrow, Uncle”—Hang Tung spoke for the team—“we will have a very large rally. Tomorrow everyone will come to the pagoda. You will see that no one is absent.”

  Chhuon nodded. He felt lost. There was no alternative, no place to run, no way to fight. “I’ll do what I can,” he answered.

  “No, Uncle,” a team member said. “You’ll have everyone there. For their own safety, Uncle. The Americans are going to invade. They must know the escape plans.”

  Chhuon closed his eyes. “Everyone will be present,” he said.

  “It has been a long time since we spoke,” the bonze said softly.

  “Yes. Since my son was killed.” The two men sat in predawn dimness on the floor in the small pagoda room where Chhuon had found the monk praying. Respectfully Chhuon had deposited the gifts of sugar, tea and canned milk he’d meant to bring almost two years earlier. Respectfully he’d waited until Maha Vanatanda finished his meditation.

  After Maha Nyanananda was assassinated the spiritual leadership of Phum Sath Din fell to this younger monk. From him Chhuon sought the advice he’d been unable to bring himself to seek from his old teacher—unable because of embarrassment, because he had become lax in the years he’d worked as a rice trader and agronomist, because he had lapsed further in the time following the destruction of Plei Srepok.

  “And in your heart you have harbored an anger?” Vanatanda asked.

  “Yes.” Chhuon’s voice was low, sheepish.

  “Has anger helped your son or you?”

  “I, ah...n...no.”

  “Has it blocked you from attaining proper recourse?”

  “I...Yes. Yes it has.” For an hour Chhuon related to the monk his dream, the trip to the mountains, the military columns and all the events since. Then he said, “I no longer care for my home. The village, my life mean nothing. I renounce their value. I free myself from the pain of witnessing their destruction.”

  Maha Vanatanda said nothing.

  “I renounce control of my life. I’m their mouth. I give up my life freely. Still, I’m not straight.”

  “You have come for instructions on calming your mind.” The monk’s voice was compassionate, knowing. Chhuon nodded carefully. “You are very agitated.”

  Chhuon said nothing.

  “Chhuon, when one gives in to worldly desires,” the monk said, “there is no struggle, no fire, thus no process to transform the inner world into unity. But to renounce worldly desires for the sake of austerity, for pride in that austerity, for masochism, this is not the middle path. You may sacrifice all worldly desires to punish yourself but then you have not sacrificed your suffering. If you sacrifice all worldly desires to free yourself, you shall also sacrifice suffering. To suffer to show yourself, or to show others, that you can bear the suffering is merely to demonstrate one’s attachment to one’s self. Do you desire to show everyone how badly you’ve been hurt?”

  “I don’t know, Maha Vanatanda,” Chhuon lamented.

  “If you crave to demonstrate your pain, doesn’t the desire create its own image and isn’t the image an illusion? Hasn’t the craving created the illusion?”

  Chhuon dropped his head. “There is something else.”

  “Yes.”

  “They want me to lead the village.”

  “The new administrators?”

  “Yes.”

  “They will pass.”

  “They say if one cadre is injured, ten villagers will likewise be harmed. If a cadreman is killed, ten villagers will die. They’ve even drawn up a list which tells the order in which villagers will be executed. You...I thought to escape to the forest, to join the maquis, but they say if I go one hundred people will be executed. You are first on the list.”

  The monk smiled. “I should be honored to be thought of so highly.”

  “Should I surrender to their demands?” Chhuon asked.

  “When a tree falls on a man his knees buckle and he surrenders to its weight,” Maha Vanatanda said. “This is a surrender which is not a surrender.”

  A wave of anguish flooded Chhuon’s mind. Maha Vanatanda has not grasped what I say, he thought. Vehemently Chhuon said, “They hold us prisoner.”

  “Time passes,” the monk said. “Do not be trapped in time. This authority will pass as have all others.”

  “We’re being enslaved!” Chhuon was exasperated. “We’re prisoners!” He tensed. His knees flared with pain, his stomach burned.

  “We hold ourselves prisoners,” the monk said. “If our bodies toil for them, then our bodies are enslaved, but we are not our bodies. If we let them convince our minds we are slaves, then they have enslaved us.”

  “But”—the heat rose, hit the back of Chhuon’s throat—“if we don’t recognize the prison or the guards, how can we escape?”

  “From which prison, Chhuon, do you wish escape?” The monk paused. “Come to your center,” he said gently. “Let your desires fall away.” He closed his eyes. “I vow,” the monk chanted quietly, “to become enlightened for the sake of all living things. Do you remember the vows?”

  “It’s...it’s been a long time.” Chhuon hesitated. He clenched his teeth.

  “I will cut my ties to delusive passions,” the monk chanted. Chhuon breathed deeply. He hesitated. The monk remained silent. Lowly Chhuon repeated the prayer. “I will open m
yself to the supreme way of the Enlightened One,” the monk droned.

  “I will open myself to the way of the Enlightened One,” Chhuon said. He would try, he told himself.

  “Listen. Trust your heart. If you are in doubt, listen more closely. Do not be your desires, but that does not say, ‘Do not be.’ If doubt persists, pause. Actions which are necessary will come to you.”

  From the street the blare of loudspeakers interrupted them. “Trust your heart,” the monk repeated.

  From the steps of the pagoda Chhuon saw two jeeps mounted with speakers, thirty, perhaps forty village militiamen, a dozen North Viet Namese soldiers wearing pins with the usual picture of Norodom Sihanouk, and scores of village children grasping for the Sihanouk buttons being freely distributed. Chhuon’s brow furrowed. He inhaled deeply, exhaled, inhaled deeply, exhaled. Trust your heart, he repeated to himself. Trust your heart. Among the children were Khieng and Heng who had stripped Samnang of his pants so long ago. Chhuon stood on the top step, alone, watching the grasping horde grow to include young adults, middle-aged women, old men, all reaching out for the trinkets. For illusions, he thought. On the far side of the village street, unreaching, watching, was the orphaned Mountaineer boy, Kpa, who as a toddler had been brought to the village to live with and help a childless couple, Kpa who had defended Samnang at school so long ago. Chhuon stared into Kpa’s distant face and saw the reflection of his own Kdeb, asleep, peaceful, without tension, without aggravation. Chhuon looked up past the overhang, through the trees into the overcast. I shall become enlightened...

  “...I have been odiously calumniated and dishonored by the Lon Nol group...” The voice of Norodom Sihanouk burst from the loudspeakers. On 19 March, Sihanouk had flown from Moscow to Peking where over the next four days he had conferred with Zhou Enlai, Pham Van Dong and representatives of the Pathet Lao, Viet Cong and Khmer Rouge (both the Khmer Viet Minh and the Khmer Krahom). On the twenty-third the Prince announced to the international press his assumption of the role of leader in absentia of a Communist front (FUNK, an acronym from the French for National United Front of Kampuchea) comprising Khmer Rouge, Viet Cong, NVA and Pathet Lao forces to “liberate Cambodia from the right-wing dogs of Lon Nol.”