The door of the freight car slams shut. We move forward, and we move nowhere. I look at the threads of sunlight filtering through cracks in the car’s sliding door. The view reveals no details, not even a snippet of landscape. As the day fades, the night crawls in, smothering the dark car with a thick blanket of ink. Around me, tired bodies are crowded haphazardly, with someone’s feet planted next to another’s sleeping head. Planting filthy feet next to the head of someone else is a sign of disrespect. But no one cares, and that’s even more shocking.
Squeezed alongside my siblings, I breathe in the foul smell of sweat, warm bodies, and urine that permeates the entire car. Hours ago, people began peeing behind the water barrel, the only spot affording any privacy. The Khmer Rouge never stopped except to shove in that water barrel. The night comes, and I see only shadows in the shadows. The train slows. My fear escalates.
From a distance, men’s voices shout. As they come nearer, I hear “Bread, bread.” The door slides open. Two men, one with a flashlight and the other with a bundle of bread, appear in the dark. Warm French bread is passed about. I reach out for a small loaf, the size of a squash, and devour it. The bread settles in my stomach Why do they give us bread if they intend to kill us? Maybe not yet. Maybe they’ll use us first, then kill us. The bread gives a flicker of hope as the train resumes its course.
Night stretches into day. The revolution of the train wheels on the track sings me to sleep, then I wake to rays of sunlight that flirt through the cracks of the sliding door, telling me that time has passed, even if my own world has stopped, brought to a standstill in this freight car.
The train stops and I’m jerked back to reality. The sliding door is flung open, and we’re released, disoriented, wobbling out of our cage. Sunlight bathes us as we trudge behind others across the dry, cracked earth. It is the first time I’ve been able to stretch my legs in twenty-four hours, and my muscles protest as I struggle like an old woman to master my coordination.
Our lives are like a phrase from a familiar song, Chivith choun reang choun pleang. “Life sometimes has drought and sometimes has rain.”
This is our time of drought.
6
Worse Than Pigs
The New York Times
July 9, 1975
“Cambodia’s Crime…”
Some twelve weeks after the Communist entry into Phnom Penh and the forced exodus on foot of millions of urban Cambodians to distant countrysides, a veil of silence still cloaks the full horror of what has happened—with the worst yet to come in predicted deaths from hunger and disease. The agony and degradation that followed may never be fully known. Tens of thousands are believed to have fallen by the wayside, victims of hunger, thirst, exhaustion and disease, including a spreading cholera epidemic….
Can life be worse than it already is? This question becomes a mental game, a way of throwing down an emotional challenge to myself: It can’t be any worse. It can’t be any worse. This is enough. They can do no more.
In my mind, the words become both a dare and a comfort.
Just as we were randomly squeezed into the train cars, now we’re discharged. Hundreds of us march into a desolate field, rushing behind the Khmer Rouge. Carrying our remaining belongings, we trudge behind them. Children, mothers, and elderly parents hurry past each other. Little children sob constantly as they’re yanked along, scolded to keep up with the moving crowd. We cross one barren field into another, propelled by sheer will.
As we enter a green grove of trees and shrubs, they command some of us to stop. The rest of the group funnel down a path flanked by bushes and trees. Among these people, I don’t see my grandparents, aunts, or cousins. We’ve been so hungry and scared that we haven’t had time to worry about our extended families. But now we depend so much on our immediate family, and in the faces of my mother, my brothers, and my sisters, I feel a sharpened sense of their value which I’ve never known before. For the moment we take refuge near clumps of wild vines that snake around shady trees.
A man dressed in black appears. He’s tall and slender with dark skin and short hair. He looks smart, different from many of the stocky Khmer Rouge peasants we’ve seen. Standing before us, he explains that he’s a leader of Daakpo village. As soon as he opens his mouth to talk, I’m intrigued by his strange accent. I’ve never heard anything like it, and it almost makes me giddy.
“Mak, how come he talks funny?” I can’t help asking as we follow along, carrying our belongings.
Mak smiles and says, “This part of the country, near Battambang province, speaks this way, in rurdern [a drawl].”
“It sounds funny,” I say chortling, realizing there are actually other Cambodians who speak this oddly, in this drawn-out, singsong way. As grim as our situation is, I find it hard to take him seriously.
“Comrades, this is where you’ll stay,” the village leader announces, standing under four tall shady trees.
I’m shocked. I was hoping to see shelters, huts or beds where we can rest. But there’s nothing except trees, thick woods. It looks like no one has ever lived here before. Green and quiet, it is nature in its naked form. Trees are my walls, the sky my roof.
“Comrades, there’s a pond near here. Right over there,” the village leader says, pointing. His voice no longer amuses me.
A few days later, bamboo, palm leaves, palm thread made from palm bark, and freshly cut trees are brought to us. Shrubs and trees have to be cleared to accommodate the sudden swelling population, hundreds of us accumulating here and in nearby villages in a matter of days. Local people, farmers, and “old people”—natives of the province who have attained status because of that fact—build the framework of huts, a simple platform on short stilts designed with two rooms separated by palm slats. Each compartment, the size of a small shed, will be occupied by a family. We are assigned to a hut the same size as that of the neighbors beyond our wall, a family of four. On our side, we have nine. Is this what they mean by equality?
In a short time, a community of huts springs up amid the forest. Huts appear like mushrooms after a hard rain. Our crude village is a social laboratory, a brutal experiment to test if anyone will survive the Khmer Rouge’s utopian theory.
There’s a mandatory meeting for the “new people.” We assemble in an alley between huts, in the generous shade of a cluster of trees. The village leader orders us to rid ourselves of anything that is of the “American imperialists.” “That includes,” he commands, “watches, gold necklaces, bracelets, diamond rings.” His hand clutches a gray bag in which he’ll collect the goods, disposing of these things for us like a monk demanding that we renounce our sins. “These things are impure, which Angka dislikes, and comrades cannot possess them. It’s okay that comrades have had them before, but now Angka doesn’t want these corrupt materials around. Angka wants comrades to bring these things to me,” he emphasizes.
After receiving our instructions, we return to our hut. Safely inside, Mak and my sisters talk quietly among themselves, whispering and frowning. They disagree about what to give to the village leader. I take refuge in the shade of a hut near ours. From where I squat, I observe people giving up their possessions to the leader. He nods as if he is royalty. He has power, control over the smallest detail of our lives.
“Mak! Only give him my watch. Don’t give him everything!” Chea insists, grabbing Mak’s arm as my mother is about to take a small bag of fine jewelry to the leader.
Mak shoots her a sour face. She glares at Chea and softly hisses, “You take it to him then.”
Chea obeys, relieved to end the heated discussion. She surrenders her watch. Whether she has the watch or not is irrelevant. It’s only a matter of time before most of us will die, and it doesn’t matter whether we can measure it, counting down the hours on a wristwatch.
In taking our timepieces, the Khmer Rouge are deliberately stealing the last remnants of our connection to the outside world. Increasingly, the atmosphere in our camp is one of unreality—people squeezed
into huts next to each other, all steeped in distrust. We’re constantly uneasy, wondering who might be listening to us. Traditions are being shattered daily. We are shocked to see that we are separated only by a wall from neighbors who have full-grown sons. In the past, parents and grandparents would have clucked over such an arrangement, worrying about how inappropriate it was. But the Khmer Rouge have no use for formal courtesy.
Still, we see glimmers of what used to be. One day my sister Chea is trying to water the meager assortment of plants we’ve been growing in the patch behind our hut. Nearby, our neighbor, the oldest son, busies himself tilling soil.
“Look,” Chea says, observing with surprise that a squash plant had grown bright white flowers. “Is it supposed to be white?”
He laughs. “Mademoiselle, where do you come from?”
Mademoiselle. A word clue to the hidden privileges of the past. Chea bursts out laughing, delighted to find a hint of education in another person.
“Parlez-vous français?” she inquires.
The discovery creates an instant friendship. Speaking the same language, they share the same culture. Though the Khmer Rouge can control every other aspect of our lives, they cannot scrub out our minds, polish away our intellect like an empty brass pot. In the midst of the daily fear of Khmer Rouge village life, it is a delicious secret. And I’m proud and amused to witness it.
Our lives continue to shrink. Less freedom. Fewer family bonds. Food rations dwindle, just as our living space has been steadily reduced to the small hut, a cage really, where my family now resides. The rice rations are five times less than what we were given back in Year Piar, and they continue to be reduced, stingily measured out in a small tin milk can. In time, the quantity diminishes from a few cups of dry rice to only enough to make a thin liquid gruel, which we supplement with pigweed and salt. The first week of our arrival, we receive a few ounces of pork. Then it too diminishes, just like the coarse salt we initially received, from a few tablespoons to nothing.
Even as food rations are cut, our labor demands remain the same. We work long hours in the woods to ready the fields for planting yams and yucca. Every morning a young Khmer Rouge informant sweeps through the village, bellowing bad news: “Time to get up, time to get up. Go to work!” As we lie in our huts, we hear his shrill voice as he approaches. I squeeze my eyes, wishing to pinch my ears shut, too. But if you don’t move, he will sometimes poke his face right into your doorless hut. He’s only twelve or thirteen, but he carries the cruel clout of the Khmer Rouge.
Once I hear an older woman—beautiful and elegant before the ravages of poor nutrition and field labor—quietly cursing him behind his back. She goes by the name “Grandma Two Kilo,” for the weight of dirt she can carry. And in the early morning, I hear her fierce whispers, “You’re the one who will be hit by the bomb. I haven’t died [slept] long enough. And here you wake me up. You come again, I’ll throw something at your head.”
Next door, I hear our older neighbor laughing behind the wall. “Grandma Two Kilo, don’t be a blabbermouth,” he murmurs. “Be careful. Don’t be brave.”
Malnutrition takes its toll on everyone. Mak’s once-lustrous skin and glistening black hair show the signs of starvation. Her eyes are sunken. Her hair is brittle and wiry, and her skin covers her arms and cheeks like a thin, loose-fitting bedsheet, as if her muscles were being eaten away from within. Her starving body mirrors what the rest of us look like.
Just as the Khmer Rouge suck the life out of us, we drain our pond—a small body of water grown murky with a thick forest of algae and water plants. It is peppered with insects, sediment, and other debris. The water tastes of dirt, but it’s all we have—the next pond is miles away. So we drink from it, depleting it quickly, our village acting like a giant elephant trunk drawing even fetid water to quench its thirst. In addition, we must use this pond water for washing, cleaning our pots and pans, our clothes. Those who have no inkling of sanitation discard their dirty, soapy water on the bank of the pond. Some water seeps into the clay soil, the rest dribbles back to the pond.
Soon we have a new neighbor. Death has taken up residence here, moving in like a malevolent, unwelcome visitor. Within months rampant illness begins to touch the newest arrivals. This sickness takes many forms, creeping into our lives quietly, stealthily. Like many adults and children, I squat outside my hut each morning to catch the first sunlight, desperate to warm my body, which is now racked with strange intermittent chills. Rocking back and forth, I’m somehow soothed by the rays of the sun, intangible hands that sway me to sleep in a squatting position. A few hours later, my body moves from being warm to burning hot. I wobble to the hut. Up I climb, my body soaked in my own sweat. Then comes the ache and pain, from my legs to my head. I’m delirious and confused. Finally I’m exhausted and hungry. I gradually regain my senses.
So it goes, this strange routine. No one understands what is wrong. But my condition doesn’t seem to improve, my extremes of fever and chill grow worse. I begin thrashing in a delirious stupor. Vaguely, I’m aware of what is happening to me, and yet I listen and observe it as an outsider, unable to control the words as they tumble from my mouth. It is odd to be aware of the fact that I am making no sense. Strangely, I begin crying out, demanding, pleading for a food offering. “A bowl of rice with fried fish with tamarind paste!”
Around me, voices murmur, “These are foods her father would ask for!” My father’s spirit has possessed me, they decide. “The ghost is inside her,” someone concludes.
As crazed as the situation is, I feel embarrassed. I can hear who is talking, feel the eyes of onlookers—my mother’s horrified gaze, a neighbor’s well-intentioned suggestion. “Maybe the ghost of your husband is hungry.” My mind absorbs this, but my body refuses to respond.
Mak flies out of the hut, desperately searching for someone, anyone, who will trade her for fish and tamarind. She wouldn’t dare approach the “old people,” only the new arrivals. But no one can help. She returns, offering my father’s ghost all that we have—the thin rice gruel. Later Mak complains of a fierce stomachache. Everyone concludes that it is her punishment because my father’s angry spirit has had to go away hungry.
It is sad, but unavoidable. In Cambodian culture, we try hard to please the spirits of our ancestors. Sickness, bad luck, disappointments—all are often blamed on spirits who have gone away unsatisfied. When I pray to Buddha for protection, I routinely pray to my father’s spirit as well. Food offerings are presented as thanks for our good fortune, and as insurance for our continued wellbeing. My mother is frustrated that she cannot appease the spirit, but there is nothing to be done. Her face bespeaks her anguish, an expression of utter disbelief. “How could one find a fish in this day and time?” she murmurs. Her eyes plead her case. Here, we have nothing to eat. Why do you ask, spirit?
Within a half hour, I feel a physical transformation, as if my body has been raised from the floor of the hut and abruptly dropped. I feel control seeping back into my limbs, which now listen to my brain. My skin seems to open, and I sweat profusely. “What happened?” I ask.
Chea explains that my father’s ghost possessed me, and I can feel her fear. Her eyes grow large as she recounts it. Then Than speaks up, an expression of relief. “I’m glad I’m not Pa’s favorite koon,” he whispers.
The episode leaves me weak, my fever still an unwavering companion. Even when ill, we don’t get anything extra to eat to help nurse us back to health. Pa, whose magic I had depended on, has been taken away from me. Food is scarce and so is medicine. The magic is gone. We don’t even have clean water to drink. The nearby shrinking pond becomes a scar created by us. It’s depleted, polluted, the water evaporating to expose its bottom, a withering carpet of water plants. Unlike the pond, we’re more capable, more adaptable in this survival game. We can make another move, seek water elsewhere, even if it’s miles away. Even if it isn’t clean.
People in the village are now afflicted with severe diarrhea. So rampant is th
e problem that it defies embarrassment. Signs of sickness are everywhere—staining the fields and stinking in the bushes near the huts. The telltale symptoms are obvious—excrement containing blood and mucus, quickly attracting buzzing flies. Toilet paper consists of any leaf you can grab. The helplessness of sufferers makes them feel ashamed—another form of pain that adds to existing suffering. Sometimes we try to make light of it. Later, when the diarrhea passes, adults mock their discomfort by explaining, “I had a loose bolt.”
Others don’t seem to rebound from the parasites that plague us. For more than a week, my three-year-old brother Vin has suffered from dysenteric diarrhea. Every day he soils his few pairs of worn pants and the other clothes that Mak uses to cover him. On the wooden floor of our hut, his little body lies still, disturbed only by the slow, rhythmic motions of his breathing. He lies sideways, wearing only a shirt. He is naked from the waist down—it’s pointless to try to keep clean pants on him, and his tiny bottom is perpetually swamped by flies. We have a new job. Someone must sit near him, fanning the flies away. Thinking back, I remember Pa curing one of my cousins of diarrhea. He would have known what to do. Water and salt, to help with the dehydration. But nothing is available to us. Fanning flies away is the only care we can give him. The only thing we know to do to protect him. Helplessness haunts us.
“Mak…Mak, please let me sleep by you. I’m cold,” Vin beseeches, his voice small, soft, and sad. “I’m cold, Mak. Let me sleep with you for one more night.”
“Koon proh Mak,* Mak doesn’t want you to make your brothers and sisters sick. Please sleep over there, my son,” Mak begs.
“Mak, let me sleep with you one more night. Only one more night, Mak. Tomorrow I’ll go to the hospital and then I’ll feel better. Please let me, Mak, I’m cold,” Vin cries out once again.
When Broken Glass Floats: Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge Page 10
