For the Sake of All Living Things

by John M. Del Vecchio

  Sar flipped through the pages of the first section, paused to read, to check his thoughts. He scanned the twelve commandments—rules based on the teachings he’d developed for the Pong Pay Mountain school—now refined, honed, designed to create, in this period of turmoil and unprecedented opportunity, instantaneous loyalty to the Movement.

  (1) Thou shalt love, honor, and serve the people of laborers and peasants.

  (2) Thou shalt serve the people wherever thou goest, with all thy heart and with all thy mind....

  (6) Thou shalt do nothing improper respecting women....

  (10) Thou shalt behave with great meekness toward the laboring people and peasants, and the entire population. Toward the enemy, however, thou shalt feed thy hatred with force and vigilance.

  Sar paused. After the word “however” in the tenth commandment he inserted a caret and between lines penned, “the American imperialists and their lackeys.”

  (12) Against any foe and against every obstacle thou shalt struggle...ready to make every sacrifice including thy life for the people...for the revolution and for the Movement, without hesitation and without respite.

  Again Sar paused. The Khmer word for “movement” did not please him. For a year Krahom cadremen had been using the Khmer word for “organization.” He reflected upon it, weighed it. “Organization” pleased him. It sounded less Viet Namese. Sar scratched through the word “movement” and over it in bold letters wrote Angkar. From henceforth, we are Angkor.

  He sat back. The pleasure of changing the word was fleeting. He breathed heavily, the dampness in his lungs clinging like glutinous rice to the sides of a cooking pot. He coughed. Coughed again. Then a series of spasmatic hacks which broke loose slimy green grain-sized clots that flew to his throat and mouth, one onto the papers. He turned, hawkered on the dirt floor. Turned back and with a cocked finger snapped at the clot on the paper. The slime, instead of flying off the page, stuck to his fingernail and smeared against the sheet. Sar turned. Spit again on the floor. Wiped his finger on the far corner of the table. Then he sat there, puzzled. He looked about. With what could he clean the page? The bunker was bare except for the table, chair and lamp. He clenched his teeth, snarled, banged his fist, yet he did not call out. He banged his fist again. How could he possibly shame himself by calling his bodyguard, yet how could he clean the page? His suit was spotless—not the black cloth of the yotheas or even the green fatigues of the cadre, but a civilized light gray of the Gray Vulture of the eastern zone.

  Sar slid the sheet with the offensive clot to his right, to the edge of the table. Then he broke down the remaining stack into four sections. His eyes fell to a top page: To defeat the American imperialists and their lackey, Lon Nol, we must achieve absolute internal unity....Cadre are cautioned against regurgitating “empty theories which will not achieve success in Kampuchea.” They are cautioned to accept only true and pure assistance from foreigners. In past transactions counterproductive results have ensued....Foreign advice has “hindered and even...destroyed the revolutionary movement and progress....” Until we took charge of the Movement our organization was in peril because of two-headed lackeys who betrayed certain cells.

  Sar cleared his throat loudly, cautiously, lest he again foul a page. He lowered the lamp flame then called his bodyguard. Immediately a strack soldier entered. “Met Reth,” Sar said politely, “please get me some oil. The lamp is low.” The man left and Sar smiled. Again he scanned a top page:

  With proper education everyone can develop the true proletarian attitude as long as the party has pure and correct leadership.

  Cadre must be aware of the middle class and the intellectuals who retain the nature of their origin.

  Cadre shall study the rice peasants in order to be like them, not so that they lead the cadre but so that they are comfortable in following.

  Met Reth returned with a can of oil. “Here. Don’t spill it,” Sar said. “Sit there.” He indicated the edge of the table. Met Reth hesitated but Sar, seemingly distracted and anxious to return to his work, pointed. Sar turned slightly to the left as the guard eased down toward the small table. Quickly Sar turned back, grabbed the paper stack beneath the descending thigh. “Oops!” He lifted the stack against the man’s leg. “Not on these,” he sputtered. “Oh, shit! Don’t spill it! Do it outside!”

  After his paper was cleaned, Met Sar again set to work, now on plans, not history. In a memo to members of the Center he penned, “It is time to bring renegade and independent elements under tighter control.” He thought of Nang in Kompong Thom, bit his lip, thought, What is he doing up there? Sar’s task, as he saw it, was to consolidate the control of the Center over the zones while keeping the zones isolated from each other. He wrote, “For too long each zone has been a separate whip flailing against the country-stealing puppets; each end has flailed but inflicted only shallow wounds. If we tie the whips like a cat-o’-nine-tails the power of the armies will multiply tenfold. Everyone is against us, yet our modest countenance adds purity to our cause.”

  Sar paused again. Again he thought of Met Nang in Kompong Thom. Why had he not escaped? What was he doing there? The details had been sketchy. Sar covered his eyes with his pudgy hands. The greater cause, he thought. When a seed goes bad it must be eliminated. His own army!

  Sar called for Reth. He handed the bodyguard the memo he’d composed and directed him to have a runner bring the memo to Met Meas, Sar’s scrivener, and to have Meas make copies for Center distribution.

  Plans, Sar thought. Betrayals by allies. First in 1954 when the yuons gained half their country, leaving the Khmer Reds with nothing. Then in 1964, in the wake of American buildups, Hanoi supported Sihanouk at Krahom expense. Again in 1970, the North Viet Namese sided with Sihanouk’s government in exile.

  Sar threw his pen, grasped his hair and pulled. Out loud, frustrated, angry, to no one but himself he seethed, “When I was a member of the IPC only treacherous yuons led. I carried their dung to the vegetable gardens.” Back to paper he wrote, “Kampuchea has been betrayed. Kampuchea has been victimized. Kampuchea has been humiliated. Either we strike with all our powers or the Viets and Americans will roast us and the Khmer race will vanish....

  “From henceforth Angkar will have a presence in every village. The people must be gained. Republic functionaries must be eliminated. Absolute secrecy must be ensured. Party membership must be expanded. The army must be increased. Every effort must be made to train and equip the front line. We must struggle to gain mastery over command, control and coordination. We shall be modern in communications.” Sar ceased. He closed his eyes. The light of the lamp shone dimly through his eyelids but in the soft glow he saw a hundred answers and his enthusiasm exploded. “For Kampuchea, international communism is a lie. It serves only yuons. We shall mobilize the people to revolutionary battle. We must proselytize until they are committed. The Khmer Viet Minh must be usurped. Then we shall commit the army. Then, in victory, the Party shall emerge. The November battle at Kompong Thom was a heinous crime in which we lost six Krahom platoons for yuon gains. Never again. Never!

  “The army is built of platoons, organized to companies. Now is the time to develop battalions. Viets can storm Khmer cities from the outside. We can win the people from within. Do not let the NVA take any major towns.

  “Learn from what happened in 1968 at the New Year’s offensive. Learn from the American withdrawal from the eastern sanctuaries. Learn from that drive to cut the trail in Laos. The NVA is committed first to gaining the South. Each offensive pulls their troops from Kampuchea. Each setback means they must first rebuild. Wait! Be patient! Wait for the yuons to drain from our land. Then seize the offensive. Let the cities explode.”

  He thought of his father. It was the third anniversary of the hundredth-day rite. To Chhuon his father was calmness, peace, right thought, right action. He was everything Chhuon no longer found in himself in his new role in the new land under the foreign administrators. He knelt before the family altar
, bowed his head to the floor. Quietly he uttered a chant in Pali. In most of the homes in Phum Sath Din, the family altars had been dismantled at Hang Tung’s insistence—dismantled, scattered, secreted, not destroyed. In the home of Cahuom Chhuon an odd twist had taken place. With every additional order placed upon the people, Chhuon had added to his family altar. To each restriction on worship at the wat, Chhuon responded by first adding more family pictures, then pictures of the more distant relatives in Phum Sath Din and of those who had moved to neighboring villages or to a city. Soon he added a large painting of the Enlightened One and several statuettes, then another table and more flower vases and baskets and photos of other village families. Each addition made Hang Tung shudder, yet he’d borne the first in silence and acquiesced to what followed. He rationalized his laxity by telling himself that because he allowed this one quirk, Chhuon had fallen completely in line and was now a valuable member of the village’s new, fraternal Khmer-Viet administration. Indeed, cooperation between the old villagers, the refugees, the new settlers and the new government had never seemed better. Colonel Nui and Cadreman Trinh escorted administrators from other villages through the Phum Sath Din model village with such regularity the peasants no longer stopped to take note but simply continued their work and basked in the cognizance that they had accomplished a peaceful, if not desired, transformation.

  “Come, Uncle,” Hang Tung called.

  Chhuon did not answer. He took his time finishing his prayers, then arranging various articles and finally checking the rice bowl for Samnang in which there now was a constant small portion of uncooked rice topped by three delicate shrimp which Chhuon had carved from rosewood.

  “Uncle, in four days the deputy commissar for political affairs from the A40 Office will visit. We must ensure that the new work is completed.”

  “Eh?” Chhuon looked to Tung as if he, Chhuon, had been unaware of the young man’s presence. Then, “Oh. Yes. Yes. From the Central Office for Kampuchean Affairs? Ah well, another bigwig, eh?”

  Hang Tung laughed. Perhaps, he thought, Uncle Chhuon is going senile.

  As the two men walked, Chhuon hummed various traditional tunes. He spoke only when spoken to. In June the rice ration for the village had been increased without explanation. The rumor had spread, until it was universally believed, that Cahuom Chhuon had somehow, quietly, persuaded the Viet Namese. Some villagers believed Chhuon had traded the Chhimmy family homes for rice, had guaranteed to the Viets that the newest settlers, Viet army dependents, would be treated kindly if not truly welcomed. Some seethed at the chairman’s sellout. Some Khmers indeed welcomed the Viets. They were, after all, people. They could not help it if they had been fated to be born Viet Namese. Most neither welcomed the aliens nor scorned Cahuom Chhuon but simply accepted that the North Viet Namese power over them was absolute and they were no longer starving.

  Through the village streets and out to the paddies, as Chhuon and Hang Tung headed to the new work site, children and rice farmers bowed or nodded or whispered a few words to Chhuon, showing him the respect of a traditional elder.

  “You see, Uncle,” Tung said easily. “The revolution develops according to scientific law, yet there is not just one formula for advancing it. We must be pragmatic, flexible.”

  “I am seeing that,” Chhuon said.

  “The revolution cannot be pushed to meet subjective wishes. It succeeds only when the people’s sentiment has been raised to embrace it.”

  “Yes, Tung. Yes. And as they embrace it more, my stomach burns less.”

  Tung smiled. Before them men, women and girls of the village’s northwest quadrant production team, along with two squads of village militia boys and an entire platoon of Viet Namese regional force troops, labored, digging, carrying dirt, deepening trenches and building bunkers and fighting positions.

  “Hello there, Uncle Chairman,” Khieng called. He leaned upon his shovel as two small girls lifted the basket he’d filled. The girls carried the basket on a pole between them, struggled to climb out of the deepening trench, then headed off to the growing fighting-point bunker.

  Chhuon acknowledged Khieng with a smile. To Tung he said, “The progress is great. With this section the entire perimeter...”

  “...will be complete,” Tung finished the sentence.

  “And that...?” Chhuon indicated a second point, a circular mound which had risen, complete with vegetation, since he’d last inspected the section.

  Hang Tung smiled, pleased that Chhuon had asked, that he didn’t know.

  “What kind of barrel?” Chhuon had spied a tube with a large flash suppressor poking from the branches.

  “Those are our AA guns.”

  “Our what? No one bombs the village.”

  “Colonel Nui wanted them to protect his family.”

  “Better to have none,” Chhuon rejoined. “Better to keep the army far away and not give them an excuse to bomb, eh? What’s that?”

  “A KS-19. One hundred millimeters. It shoots over 13,000 meters high. We can shoot B-52s.”

  “Tung! This is crazy. That will bring the bombers.”

  “Good. Then we’ll kill them, eh? The guns are radar controlled.”

  “No! Tung, move them back!”

  Early that evening Hang Tung left the Cahuom home to arrange a meeting at Colonel Nui’s home. In his absence Chhuon felt an emptiness. His mother was now very feeble and, though aware of every change, aloof. His wife was embittered. His only child still remaining under his roof was, even at six-and-one-half years, distant.

  “They have made me join the Women’s Liberation Association,” Sok whispered.

  “It’s a good group,” Chhuon answered aloud.

  “Have you turned from me?” Sok said very sadly, very quietly. “The walls have ears and you...”

  “We have nothing to hide,” Chhuon said.

  “We have nothing left,” Sok retorted. “Today Peou came home from school singing revolutionary songs.” She stopped. Then in a muffled, heart-rending wail cried, “How did they corrupt you?”

  “I’ve nothing everyone else doesn’t have. I look out for the people. Our people.”

  “Better to dig their trenches than carry their words.” Tears moistened her eyes. “Quit. Tell them! Please tell them! You can no longer be their chairman. Let someone else...”

  “Who?”

  “Anyone.”

  “If I leave who will succeed me?” Now Chhuon spoke in a whisper. “Who will watch out for the people?”

  “How horrible you’ve become,” Sok cried. Tears dripped from her eyes. “The demon has you. My Chhuon would never support them. You’ve become one of them. Half the villagers say you’re yuon. Is it for me? To get more rice? To have the altar? Samnang’s spirit will find its way without the altar.”

  “It is”—Chhuon’s voice rose—“dear wife, because the revolution has come. We still have the land. Still the rice grows. Still people need food. And people no longer suffer a trung tian bao ta. No more...”

  “A what?”

  “The middlemen. The riffraff agents who bled the peasants for the landlords or the governors.”

  “You even use the yuon language as if...Ea-hump!” Sok squeezed her fists before her sagging breasts. More tears fell from her eyes but she made not a sound, not a movement.

  “I must go.”

  In the chair before the altar, Chhuon’s mother cleared her throat. A raspy voice emerged. “If one is to be corrupt, it is better to be corrupt for one’s own purse than for another’s spirit.”

  The night sky was soft, laden with moisture. Chhuon walked the familiar path toward Colonel Nui’s. Tonight, he thought, but he did not complete the thought. He passed into the northeast quadrant and entered the long alley which led to the old Chhimmy Chamreum home which was now occupied by the Nuis. Three doors from the colonel’s house Chhuon stopped. In the alley the night was darker than along the village street. Chhuon listened. He bent as if to remove a stone from his sandal. Slowly he
turned to check behind him. From below anyone walking would be silhouetted against the opening to the sky. Chhuon waited. Then he knocked quietly on the courtyard door. Two raps, a pause, two raps, a pause, one rap. Noiselessly the door opened. Chhuon rose, stepped in. The door closed. Inside, the courtyard seemed empty. Then Chhuon’s eyes discerned movement, as if the clay had come to life. He hugged the wall, paced the perimeter, edged to the dark of the kitchen lean-to. Arms grabbed him. He hugged the unseen man. “kpa,” Chhuon whispered. “without your spirit i would die.”

  “without your help, uncle, all would perish.”

  “just below the new bunker, there’s a shovel.”

  “yes. we need shovels.”

  From under his loose shirt and about his waist Chhuon removed his krama. Rolled in it were four kilos of rice. Quickly he unraveled the cloth and carefully poured the precious grain into Kpa’s sack, “in four days there will be a visitor.”