by Loung Ung
To protect Khouy from being conscripted into the army and Laine from being abducted by soldiers, they are married quickly in a quiet, secret ceremony with both sets of parents giving their blessings. After they are married, Khouy and Laine go to live at a labor camp where they have been assigned to work. Pa does not fear the Khmer Rouge soldiers will want Meng to join the army because he is physically weak, so Pa allows him to stay unmarried. However, the soldiers say that Meng, at eighteen, is too old to live at home with us, and they force him to go live in the labor camp with Khouy and Laine.
Unlike our village, only young men, some with wives and others single, live in the camp. There they do the hard manual labor of loading and unloading shipments onto trucks. Khouy reports that they mostly load rice and unload arms and ammunition. For their hard work, they are given more than enough food to eat. My brothers secretly dry their leftovers and bring them to us when they visit. In the beginning, Meng and Khouy were permitted to visit us every other week. But as time goes by, the soldiers make them work longer hours and allow them to return to Ro Leap once every three months.
When my brothers visit us, Khouy’s new bride, Laine, having no family in our village, stays behind at their camp. For this reason, I know very little about my sister-in-law. I have seen her only that one time at the wedding ceremony and thought she was very pretty, even though her eyes were wet with tears. During his visits, Khouy speaks very little about his wife beyond the fact that she is alive and well. It is clear even to me that it is a marriage of convenience and not of love.
There are times when I stare at my brother from across the room and search for the martial artist who jumped in the air and made me laugh. But the martial artist is gone now. In Phnom Penh, Khouy never just walked from one place to another, he sauntered and glided, stopping many times along the way to greet friends and pretty young women. Wherever he went, a crowd of people always surrounded him.
In our small grass hut at Ro Leap, Khouy sits next to Pa and talks incessantly. He sits with his back straight to the wall as if afraid to lean on it. With his legs crossed and his palms flat on the floor, he is ready to leap up instantly. He is still strong, but the energy and confidence that attracted girls to him are gone. At sixteen, he is already old and hard, and alone. Even with us, he wears a mask of courage that stretches tight over his inflexible face.
Whereas Khouy always put on a brave front, Meng’s face hides nothing from us. When he speaks, Meng’s voice softens and trembles as he tries to reassure Ma and Pa that everything is okay at the camp. Unlike Khouy, whose body is made more muscular from hard work, Meng’s is thin and lanky. Sitting in our hut, he slouches into the bamboo walls and his breath sounds labored and exhausted with each word. When he looks at us, his eyes linger on our faces as if absorbing every single detail so he will not forget. Under his gaze, I shift my position uncomfortably and move away from his sight, troubled to receive such love from my brother when all around me there is only hate.
A few months after Khouy and Meng left, rumors that the Youns, or Vietnamese, have tried to invade Cambodia cause the Khmer Rouge to take many teenage boys and girls from their homes. One day, three soldiers come to the village and tell the new people gathered at the town square that the Angkar needs every teenage male and female to leave tomorrow for Kong Cha Lat, a teen work camp. Upon hearing the news, Keav’s eyes well up with tears and she runs to Ma.
“Everyone has to honor and sacrifice for Angkar!” the soldiers yell. “Anyone who refuses Angkar’s request is an enemy and will be destroyed! Anyone who questions the Angkar will be sent to a reeducation camp!” Keav and Ma turn to each other and embrace. Pa silently turns his head and takes Geak from Chou’s arms.
In the morning, Ma packs Keav’s black pajama pants and shirt in a scarf. Keav sits next to Ma with their hands touching. Quietly, we walk out of the hut and over to the town square, where other teenagers and their families have already gathered. The other teenagers all have tears in their eyes as do their distraught parents. Keav and Ma embrace and hold on to each other so tightly that the knuckles of their fingers turn white. In a matter of minutes, the soldiers come and lead the children away while we watch in quiet despair.
My heart feels as if an animal has clawed it out. I try to muster a smile, so I can send my sister on her way with a final picture of hope. She is Pa’s first daughter, and at fourteen she must survive on her own. “Don’t worry, Pa, it will be all right. I will survive,” she says and walks away, waving. In her black shirt that hangs below her bottom and pants that are frayed at the hem, she looks smaller than the rest of the group.
I remembered then that in Phnom Penh, when she was the most beautiful girl on our block, Ma said that she could have her pick of anyone to marry. Each month, Keav would travel with Ma to a beauty salon to have her hair styled and her nails painted. I used to watch Keav fuss over her school uniform, pressing and repressing her blue pleated skirt and white shirts so they looked as crisp and new as possible. Now the joy of beauty is gone from her life. With the red-and-white checked scarf covering her thinning oily black hair that peeks out beneath it, she looks more like ten years old than fourteen. Keav follows the soldiers, with twenty other boys and girls, and never turns to look at us. Chou and I stand together with tears in our eyes and watch Keav’s figure until she is no longer in sight. I wonder if I will ever see her again.
At the other side of the town square some base children scurry back home. Though there are no gates, an invisible line divides the village in two halves. The new people know better than to cross the line. Occasionally, the base men walk through our side of the village, spying on the new people and inspecting their work. A few base children who have not yet gone home stand there now watching us with frowning faces. Rarely do I ever get to see them, or recognize them as individuals. I don’t even know how many base children there are in the village. In their new-looking black pajama pants and shirts, their arms and legs fill out their clothes and their faces are round and fleshy. I narrow my eyes with envy and hatred.
“It is good for the family to be separated,” Pa says quietly and goes off to work. Ma says nothing and continues to look in the direction Keav has disappeared.
“Why did she have to go? Why didn’t Pa beg the chief to let her stay?” I ask Kim when my parents cannot hear me.
“Pa is afraid the soldiers might learn who he really is. The Khmer Rouge soldiers will hurt the whole family if they find out Pa worked in Lon Nol’s government. If we are separated when they discover who Pa is, they cannot get to all of us.”
I never understand how Pa knows things, he just always does, and he keeps us informed so we will not be careless with our information.
“Pa, will they kill us?” I ask him later on that night. “I heard the other new people whispering at the town square that the Khmer Rouge soldiers are not only killing people who worked for the Lon Nol government but anyone who is educated. We have education, will they kill us too?” My heart races as I ask him. Pa nods grimly. That is why he has told us to act stupid and never discuss our lives in the city.
Pa believes the war will last for a long time and this makes the very act of living sad for him. Every day we hear tales of other families who cannot see the end to their terror and thus commit suicide. We live knowing we are in danger of being discovered at any moment. My stomach churns with nausea at the thought of death. But I do not know how to go on living with such sadness.
I remember painfully the anger I felt toward Ma when she spanked me for breaking her fine china plates, or screamed at me for jumping on the furniture, for fighting with Chou, or trying to sneak candies from the cabinet. Then, as a five-year-old used to getting my own way, I stormed through the apartment during my tantrums. Lying in my room, in a tearful sulk, I often wished I were dead. I wanted to make her suffer for what she did to me. I wanted her to feel hurt and guilty, to know that she drove me to kill myself. Then from the heavens, I would look down and gloat over her misery. That would
be my revenge. Above the clouds, I would look down at her puffy, sorry face, and only when I believed she had suffered enough would I return to forgive her. Now I realize that when you die, you don’t get to come back to life whenever you want to. Death is permanent.
To fight death, the new people work hard planting rice and vegetables. Yet it seems that the more crops we plant, the less food rations we receive. The harder we work, the thinner and hungrier we become. Still we plant and harvest while the trucks come and go with our crops in order to continue the war. While Ma and Pa help the war effort in the fields, Kim returns home each night from his work as the chief’s errand boy bruised and injured from his own war. Handing the leftover food to Pa, Kim talks loudly about his day as Ma touches his bruises, whispering softly, “Thank you, my little monkey.” Without a word, Pa takes the food and rations it to us.
Sitting on our step with Chou one evening, I see Kim’s figure walking slowly home. Above him, angry clouds cover the sky so that no stars can show him the path home. In his hand, he carries the leftovers wrapped in his kromar and my stomach lurches with happiness in anticipation. As he nears us, I see his shoulders heavily hunched over and his feet drag as if he is trudging through mud.
“Kim, what’s wrong?” Chou asks him. Not answering, Kim silently climbs into the hut, with Chou and I following closely behind.
In the dark, Kim walks to Pa and kneels before him. With his head down, he says in a trembling voice, “Pa, the chief told me not to go back to his house.”
Pa is still and breathes softly.
“I’m sorry, Pa,” Kim says. “I’m sorry, Pa,” Kim repeats, his words softly floating in the air. Hearing his despair, Ma puts Geak down and crawls over to Kim. Reaching him, she wraps her arms around his head, pulling him into her chest.
“Thank you, little monkey,” she whispers in his hair, stroking his hair as his shoulders heave up and down.
The wind outside blows violently now, trying to part the clouds but to no avail. The stars are still hiding themselves from us. Chou and I reach for each other’s hand and brace against the chills. Since the day we first arrived in Ro Leap five months ago, the chief’s steady supply of leftovers has kept us from starving. Now we will again go to bed hungry. After what seems like a long silence, Pa tells us that we will get through this somehow.
The next day, standing in the rows of ripe red bell peppers, tomatoes, orange pumpkins, and green cucumbers, I thought of Keav. It is now March and a month since she had left. Keav loves pumpkinseeds and used to eat them noisily at the movie theater. Thinking of her makes the sun burn hotter on my skin and my pores push out more water, drenching my clothes.
Next to me, Kim wipes his forehead and continues his work in silence. Our job is to fill up the baskets and deliver them to the cooks in the communal kitchen. As my fingers pluck the green beans, my mouth waters. Feeling the fuzzy hair of the beans between my thumb and finger, I crave to put it in my mouth before anyone sees me, but instead I drop it in the basket.
“I’m hungry,” I say quietly to my brother.
“Don’t eat the vegetables. The village’s chief will beat you if you get caught.”
Heeding his order, I continue with my work, stopping every once in a while to steal a look at my brother. In Phnom Penh, while Pa took us girls to the swimming pool on Sundays, Kim could usually be found in the movie theater across the street from our apartment. When we returned, we would be greeted at the door by Bruce Lee, the Chinese God, the Monkey King, or a number of kung fu masters ranging from the Drunken Disciple or the Dragon Claw to the Shaolin Monk. Throughout the day, Kim, in character, would jump, sway, twirl, punch, and kick at Chou and me whenever we were in the room with him.
Remembering the little monkey of Phnom Penh, I look away. I wish Kim could go back to work for the chief and continue to bring us their leftovers. But the chief doesn’t want Kim to work for him anymore. Neither Kim nor Pa was given any explanation to why he sent Kim away. But Pa suspects that it has something to do with someone named Pol Pot. Lately, the base people in the village are whispering the name as if it is a powerful incantation. No one knows where he comes from, who he is, or what he looks like. Some people are saying that maybe he is the leader of the Angkar, while others argue that the Angkar’s leadership is comprised of a large group of men. If it was Pol Pot who gave the order to place more soldiers at the village level, the increase has created a shift in the power balance. In the beginning, the chief was all-powerful and ruled the village with his enforcer soldiers. Now that the number of soldiers has multiplied, they wield more power and the chief’s role has been reduced to that of a manager.
“Kim, where are the soldiers taking all the food?” I ask.
“When the Angkar formed armies, there wasn’t enough money to buy guns and supplies for the soldiers. The Angkar had to borrow money from China to buy the guns and weapons. Now it has to pay China back,” Kim explains as he continues to drop the vegetables into our straw basket.
“If China is helping the Angkar and giving them money, why then do the soldiers hate us Chinese so much? The other kids hate me because of my whiter skin. They say I have Chinese blood in me,” I whisper to him. Kim stands up straight and sees that the other children are out of hearing distance from us.
“I don’t know. We should not talk about this. The Angkar hates all foreigners, especially the Youns. Maybe the peasants cannot tell the difference between a Chinese and a Youn, who also have light skin. To someone who’s never left the village, all white-skinned Asians look alike.”
Later that night, Pa tells Kim that the Angkar wants to expel all foreigners. It wants to bring Democratic Kampuchea back to its glorious past. The time when Kampuchea was a large empire with territories encompassing part of Thailand, Laos, and what is now South Vietnam. The Angkar says we can only do this if no one else owns us.
I do not care why or how the Angkar plans to restore Cambodia. All I know is the constant pain of hunger in my stomach.
new year’s
April 1976
It is April again and soon it will be New Year’s. After New Year’s, I will be six years old and am still only as tall as Pa’s hips. Ma is worried that I will stay this height forever. Ma and Pa worry that malnutrition will stunt my growth and I will never grow to be big like them. I have not looked at myself in a mirror since we left the city. Sometimes, I try to see my reflection in a pond, but the water is always dirty. The blurred child staring back at me looks hollow and distorted, not at all like the little girl in Phnom Penh whose neighbors called her “ugly.”
The Khmer Rouge’s Kampuchea does not permit the celebration of the New Year or any other holidays. Still, I dream and relive the New Year’s celebration we had in Phnom Penh. In Cambodia, New Year’s is our biggest and most important holiday. For three days, stores, restaurants, businesses, and schools are closed. There is nothing to do but enjoy the food and festivities. Every day there are parties at friends’ houses. At these gatherings, the host serves roast pig, duck, beef, sweet cakes, and beautiful candies. The part I liked best was when the parents took the children around to their friends Children are not given presents during this holiday. Instead, we are given money—brand-new crisp bills in decorated red paper pouches. Of course, all that no longer matters to me; my thoughts now are focused solely on food.
Dreaming of food makes my stomach growl with pain. I’d give anything now for a tiny piece of moon cake or a leg of roasted duck. My mouth waters at the thought, and a wave of sadness washes over me. I know that no matter how hard I dream, I am only wishing for the impossible. I hope Ma and Pa don’t know what we kids think about all the time. They want us to forget about our past lives and to survive in the present. It is no use thinking about food knowing you will not get any. Still, it is hard to think of anything else. Hunger eats at my sanity.
Many people in the village are risking their lives to steal corn from the nearby fields. I see the way they sneakily eat food, quickly hiding it when
they see me walk by. I want to ask them to share some with me, but I know it is useless for then they will have to admit their crime. As much as I want to become a thief myself, I do not have the courage to do it. It seems a lifetime ago when I was rich and spoiled in Phnom Penh, when children stole from me and I did not care. I could afford to be stolen from, but I judged them harshly for doing so. I thought thieves were worthless, too lazy to work for what they wanted. I understand now that they had to steal to survive.
On New Year’s eve, I have my greatest dream and my worst nightmare. I am sitting alone at a long table. The table is covered with all of my favorite food in the world. There is food everywhere as far as my eyes can see! Red and crispy roasted pig, brown and golden duck, steaming dumplings, plump fried shrimp, and all kinds of sweet cakes! Everything looks and tastes so real that I do not know it is a dream. I shove everything into my mouth at once with both hands, licking my fingers deliciously. Yet the more I eat the hungrier I become. I eat with great anxiety and urgency, fearing the Khmer Rouge soldiers will come and take it all away from me. I am so greedy, I do not want to share the food with anyone, not even with my family. In the morning, I wake up feeling depressed and guilty. I wake up wanting to scream, yell at Geak, and beat up Chou because I do not know what to do with my despair. Always the hunger pains are there, never ending, never leaving me. Often, I feel guilty because in my dream, I gorge and hide the food from even Geak.
Every minute of the day, my stomach grumbles as if it is eating itself. Our food ration has been steadily reduced to the point that the cooks are now only getting a small twelve-ounce can of rice for every ten people. My brothers’ food rations are so small that they have very little to give us when they visit. They try to come often, but the soldiers make them work harder, leaving no time to visit.
