“ssst!”
“Huh! Huh! Who’s there?”
“ssshh. sakhon, it’s me, number two rabbit.”
“Oh! You did it again; Ha! What do you have for me? It’s been a long time.”
“tonight, the best present of all.”
“You brought a girl?!” The sergeant laughed out loud and several others awoke.
“tonight i bring liberation, tonight i bring angkar. come with me. i’ll show you.”
“Should I wake the others?”
“yes. ask them if they wish to come, all can come but only if they do so of their own free will.”
Without fear of making noise the sergeant passed amongst his small perimeter waking the tired, underfed and unpaid FANK soldiers. “Rise up. We’re moving.”
“Augh, Sergeant Brother—” one began, but Sakhon silenced him with, “Number Two Rabbit wants us to follow.”
The soldiers packed up and followed Nang into the blackness, each troop holding the man to his front, none knowing their small column included three armed yotheas of Angkar. Nang led them circuitously toward their garrison subpost, closer and closer, led them down animal paths and along raised treelines and finally through flooded paddies where the water had risen to waist high.
“sakhon, you and i shall go inside, the others must wait.”
“Rabbit, I can’t go in before dawn.”
“we’ll be quiet, we won’t wake the officer, i want to talk to brother yu and uncle neth. i’ve so much to give.”
Quietly Nang and Sakhon approached the perimeter. In a minute they stood with the sentries, two who recognized Number Two Rabbit. A minute later Nang, Sakhon and four sentries, the only other men awake in the subpost, were chattering quietly and opening the main gate.
In the paddies Eng slithered to the last concealment opposite the gate. Behind him Soth, Horl and eighteen men and boys, yotheas, porters and vassals, lay in the wet awaiting the signal. A softening of the misty shroud, first light, spread across the sky. Still no signal. The shroud grayed. At the gate two sentries emerged, unarmed, smoking cigarettes. They sat on their heels and stared across the lower black earth. Eng crept forth. In line with him came six armed yotheas creeping like one long segmented animal until they were a stone’s throw from the FANK gate and the sentries. Nang appeared at the garrison gate, squatted between the sentries. He pointed quietly, grunted, finally lifted one guard’s hand and pointed it toward Eng’s position. On that signal, Eng rose, walked forward, bowed to the FANK soldiers and said, “Follow me.” The two sentries left their post.
In the paddies the six yotheas stood, came to Nang, followed him into the garrison. As they entered, a group of five FANK soldiers, armed and with full gear, followed Met Soth out the gate. Then a second group of five followed Met Rong. In the billet area Sakhon and the two sentries woke soldiers one by one and told them to gather their entire issue. One by one the FANK troops obeyed until sixty soldiers had been woken, dressed, armed, and led off in groups of five, led first to Eng’s waiting squad where they were given rice balls, then away, north, with their weapons, meeting up with the troops from the LP, whispering phrases of purity, sovereignty and independence.
By dawn the garrison soldiers were six kilometers from their base, six kilometers and a light-year, surrounded by welcoming peasant-soldiers armed to the hilt.
“Many of you know me as Rabbit.” Nang spoke clearly. “I am Met Nang. You are welcome to join our Organization. Today I will ask you to give us your hearts and arms and we shall lead you to our forest home. I ask you to give me two days. If then you do not wish to join us, you may return to your Kompong Thom fortress.”
In a temporary treeline reindoctrination camp west of Phum Voa Yeav, the sixty-four FANK “volunteers” were treated as if they were lost sheep, as if they were brothers returned. Nang did all he could to impress them.
“How many of you have M-16 rifles?” Nang smiled. He knew only half a dozen could raise their hands. “With Angkar each shall have this.” He held up a Soviet Kalashnikov assault rifle. A yothea plant applauded and the FANK troops joined in. “Look at this,” Nang sneered. He lifted a 1916 Berthier 8mm rifle. “What poor rascal was forced to carry this antique? He had thirty-one cartridges. How would he get more?”
For three hours Nang spoke. “Angkar’s goal is a pure and classless society,” he told them. “Our soldiers are instruments of the Organization. They are heros of Kampuchean nationalism. It is their patriotic endeavor to roll with the Wheel of History.” Each word he spoke, each phrase Eng added, each act of encouragement the yotheas gave out was full of enthusiasm. The yotheas and cadre of Angkar ate with the volunteers, slept with them; led them on patrols. After two days the city militiamen were asked to choose: remain with Angkar for Kampuchean independence or return to the lackey puppet forces of the imperialist warmongers; vow poverty, chastity, obedience and hard work in the service of the people, the nation and Angkar or return to the graft, patronage, lust and sloth of Kompong Thom; usher in a millennium of happiness or sell the country into bondage.
Two thirds chose to take the vow, “I am desire not contrary to duty. I will do whatever Angkar asks. I will die for Angkar if it is so deemed.”
A third turned back to Kompong Thom, unharmed and unarmed. Before they reached the garrison, a second and third subpost were emptied. By the second week of September 1971, the Krahom army of the North could boast of new summer recruitment or conscription of nearly three thousand FANK militiamen, village men, boys and girls. Phase two, expand the army, was well under way.
A pull on his arm. Nang jerked fiercely. Again the tug. In the blackness of their hiding place Nang cocked his arm, ready to bludgeon the small boy. Nang’s chest tightened as he coiled.
Then he relaxed. Slowly he moved his hand forward, his index finger extended, stiff as a teak twig. His fingertip touched hair; he slid it down to, into, the little boy’s ear. Slowly he pushed. The boy’s head rolled with the pressure. Nang continued pushing. The boy’s body shifted. Soundlessly Nang bore down, pushing, pushing, the boy fell to his side on wet earth yet uttered not even the faintest whimper. Like a ballet couple, Nang flowed with him, pressing harder and harder, his fingertip jamming into the little boy’s ear canal. The boy’s head shuddered beneath the pressure, his body shook, he kicked his feet, clamped his teeth.
The commotion brought Eng. Almost imperceptibly he whispered, “stop!”
Nang halted. His finger was buried to the first joint in the flesh of the ear. Slowly he eased the force, withdrew the shaft and returned to his position.
Krahom recruitment success had created, in Nang’s mind, unwieldy problems that came close to outweighing the gain. First and foremost in his thoughts were the crybabies. “Just let us do the job,” he’d told Met Nim, a runner from Met Sar. “Half these runts need their mothers.”
“Train them, Met Nang. We must increase the army. Keep the young ones separate. Let them serve you in the most desperate situations.”
“Indeed!” Nang had uttered the one word. He understood. On line to his right, now, were four of these small children, tiny boys and girls trained by sugar and stick to mindless obedience. Nang thought bitterly about Nim’s directive. Further expand the army! he thought. Weaken it! Dilute it! Nang hated it. Feared it. It would destroy him. To him Kampuchea needed but a small, well-disciplined elite.
The second problem concerned the liberated hamlets north of Kompong Thom City. The NVA had shifted south and left their Khmer Viet Minh village cadre behind to control the people. When the Krahom moved into old NVA positions, the Khmer Viet Minh were caught between nationalist and internationalist Communist ideologies. Met Nim had simply given Nang the order: “Clean the Brotherhood of the Pure. Once our enemies are engaged we must have no inner contradictions sapping our energy or blocking its flow. Eliminate contradictions.”
Now, before him, them, sitting on stilts high above the ground, was the house of Ote Samrin. Nang lifted the boy he’d staked to the g
round. “Now,” he said. “For Kampuchea. You will be known as a national hero.”
Down the line Eng told a six-year-old girl, “Soon you will see Buddha. He will dress you in white and you will eat the finest rice.”
To Nang the little boy cried, “I’m afraid.”
“Afraid! Afraid of what?”
Nang expected the boy to say, “Afraid of dying,” or “Afraid it will hurt.”
“I’m afraid of ghosts,” the boy said. “If I go will I get a ghost-face like you?”
“Angkar”—Nang’s voice was hard—“is greater than all ghosts. Angkar protects you.”
The little boy and little girl stood. Between them two toddlers rose. They grasped hands, sidled forth toward the base of the ladder leading to Ote Samrin’s house. The boy trailed a cord. The six-year-old girl began to climb but immediately Mister Ote’s bodyguard heard them and shone a flashlight down. “Halt! Who are you?”
“Mother’s ill, Uncle. We’ve come to get Grandpa.”
“Don’t move.” There was bustling on the platform but nothing to be seen. The little girl led her “brothers” up a few more rungs. “Halt, damn you.” The flashlight flicked on again. “Mister Ote lives here. Who’s your grandfather?” The toddlers began to whine. “Oh, come up. In this blackness it’s a wonder you found any house at all.”
As the girl topped the ladder she called loudly, “Grandpa?”
Nang began to count, “twenty, nineteen, eighteen....”
“Come here, child,” the bodyguard said.
“...thirteen, the toddlers should be up. nine, eight...”
“What are you carrying?”
“A basket for Grandpa.”
“I’m not your grandpa,” Ote Samrin said, coming onto the porch with a lantern. “I’m...”
“...two. one...” The boy was up. “zero.” Nang smacked the clacker. The boy exploded. The fireball and concussion detonated the other children and as their bodies were being thrown by the first blast they too exploded, blowing up with them the entire house, the bodyguard, Ote Samrin, his family and the KVM presence from Phum Voa Yeav. Phase three, eliminate contradictory elements, was complete.
“You’ve lost a lot of weight,” Pech Chieu Teck said to his wife.
“And you’ve gained it.” Vathana laughed politely.
“The children are too thin,” Teck said, his voice edged with involuntary harshness.
“We manage.” Vathana smiled. She lifted the eight-month-old Samol to her lap and gave her a small squeeze. The infant’s eyes shone as she gurgled and cooed and grabbed at her mother’s thumb.
Teck moved closer. He poked a finger into his daughter’s belly and laughed, quietly pleased as the baby giggled and churned her arms, her whole body wobbling with the motion. He looked beyond the baby to the mother. Though thin and shabbily clothed Vathana was still very beautiful. As he watched her face, the winds outside shifted and blew the scent of the camp and the odor of the hospital tent into the sectioned-off corner where Vathana, Sophan and the two infants had made their home. The smell went immediately to Teck’s stomach. His abdominal muscles tightened, his breathing stopped. He stood, backed away from the baby as if she might dirty his spotless uniform, then, first dusting Sophan’s bamboo slat cot with his hand, sat. “Where’s that phnong you let suckle the children?”
“Sophan? She’s not a Mountaineer.”
“She’s as black as one.”
“She’s Khmer. She’s at the river with your son. They went to bathe and get some fish.”
“The economy’s getting worse, isn’t it?”
“You didn’t come to see your children, did you?”
Teck dropped his head. At once he felt shame and pride, loathing for this creature who lived in filth, superiority and self-justification. “I...I’ve come to...” Teck stopped. “I’ll get to that in a minute.”
“If you haven’t come to see the children...” Vathana began. Teck’s uneasiness robbed her of her own harmony.
“There’s a fable circulating I want to tell you.”
“The one,” Vathana broke in, “of the tiger and the dragon. I’ve heard it. Ever since the Foreign Ministry revealed the ARVN atrocities and those men left, I’ve heard it. Every day they talk of it. When the ARVN closed the river base, there was a great celebration and an aacha told everyone of the tiger and the dragon.”
“No,” Teck said. He had not heard that fable and wished to, but he could not admit to his wife that she knew something he didn’t. “No. This is the fable of a cobra and an eagle and a crab. You haven’t heard it because I’m the first one to bring it to Neak Luong.” Teck paused. He crossed his legs beneath him as he spoke—spoke not in the manner of the traditional storyteller but spoke quickly, jerkily, at times pausing, seeming to have forgotten the tale.
“One day,” he began, “there was a lovely black cobra sunning itself upon a barren rock. The snake was very long and from its head looked down at its stretching, curving body glistening in the sun, and she decided she was too beautiful for any other creature. Yet, to win her love many creatures came and piled riches about her which she accepted. A rat came with diamonds laid in a gold ring which he slipped over the end of her tail. She smiled, slithered a bit off then coiled and sprang and ate the rat, leaving only its feet. Still more animals came, until the cobra had great treasures, yet still no one pleased her. Then came a crab and an eagle. The eagle soared high, looped and rode the winds above the snake and the cobra sang out saying, ‘If you will hold me and let me fly and show me all the world, I’ll be your bride.’
“ ‘Don’t go,’ whispered the crab.
“The snake turned, for in the pile of gems she had not seen the crab. ‘You’re ugly,’ the cobra hissed.
“Just then the eagle lifted the snake and showed her all the world and then lit in a grassy field where he fucked her very well. Later the cobra returned to her rock and found it barren once more. The crab had even eaten the feet of the rat.”
Teck stopped. Vathana said nothing. She didn’t know if there was a point to the fable, Khmer fables often being without moral. For a moment she fidgeted with Samol’s small shirt. “You know,” Teck began again. “We must take care of the people while keeping the boat level in the river.”
“Teck,” Vathana said, as she mustered her courage, “you’ve come for some reason. Does it suit you to divorce me?”
“No, it doesn’t. You’re my wife. Now let me finish.”
“I’m not certain you’ve begun.”
“I have,” Teck said sharply. “Listen. Half the rubber plantations have been burned, bombed or occupied by foreigners. If the Americans weren’t forcing this war on us, there’d be no war in Cambodia. We’re not strong enough for a military confrontation, so for our preservation we must offer multiple support. I’m sorry if you’ve gotten mixed up in all this, but you have.”
“Teck? What—Two months ago you said FANK...”
“We’re all Khmer Patriots,” Teck interrupted her. His voice lowered. “You must maintain absolute secrecy.”
“Absol—?!”
“ssshh.” He continued in a whisper, “i can offer your camp protection.”
Vathana let out a short burst of laughter, but seeing Teck’s serious face, her laughter ceased, “protection?” she whispered mockingly, “you?”
“I have been authorized by the Association of Khmer Patriots to say this. Also to bring you word of Peou.”
“Peou! Who sent...?” Confusion seized her. Words, thoughts stopped. She tensed.
“Because of American bombing about Kratie, he’s been returned to Stung Treng.”
“How...how do you know this?” Vathana’s voice was thin.
“From the Khmer Patriots,” Teck said. “We are Khmer Patriots.”
Vathana shook her head in disbelief. “Who...?” This man-boy, this flimsy failure who had barely mourned his father’s death, who’d spent all their lives together in dancehalls or opium dens, who only months earlier had
embraced Lon Nol’s holy crusade, was now telling her he was a Khmer “patriot,” using not the word form meaning a person who loves his country but, just as her dark assailant had earlier, a form designating an organization. The incongruity shook Vathana to the core. She shifted. “Do you know what you say? Do you have word of my mother and father?”
“Perhaps.” A smile creased Teck’s cheeks. “Perhaps,” he repeated. “For the sake of your camp, Angel...” Inside, Teck was melancholy, disturbed, destroyed, yet he would not show it, not an inkling. Harshly he pushed on. “...And for your parents and your brother...”
“What? Do what?”
“As my father would say, ‘What will happen if we do nothing?’ Well, Angel, keep your American. Fuck him well. We all have responsibilities during our country’s most difficult time.”
“My Am...What do you know?!” Vathana lashed out. “What is it to you?! To your own wife you...”
“Don’t be afraid.” Teck seemed indifferent. “Others will come but no one will hurt you. I’m told that a mistake was made. Aah! Someday, Angel, we’ll live in a great villa.”
When Sophan returned with the two-year-old Samnang she found Vathana under a blanket on her cot clutching Samol like a child in the dark clutches a doll for security. Sophan touched Vathana’s head to check for fever. Vathana shook off the hand. “Angel,” Sophan said softly, “are you ill?”
“No, Sophan. Not ill. Only tired.”
“Doctor Sarin is here for rounds and there’s an American supply truck with mosquito netting, a thousand cans of milk and a thousand bottles of soda.”
“Sophan?”
“Yes Angel?”
“What do you think of Captain Sullivan?”
“What do I think?” Sophan laughed gently.
“Um-hum.”
For the Sake of All Living Things Page 49
