“Do they give you modern medicine, Mak?” I ask, happy to see even a glimpse of her smile.
Suddenly Mak weeps. “Koon Mak,” she sniffs, “they haven’t given Mak water for four days, and I can’t walk. Koon, life here has been difficult without anyone taking care of me, not even my own children.” Mak sobs.
Gazing up at her, tears well in Map’s eyes. “Many times I wished that one of you were here, just to get me water. That’s all I’ve wished, koon srey Mak.…”
Mak’s tears squeeze out from between her swollen eyelids, streaming down her cheeks; her mouth stops chewing the corn. Map’s hands cling to her arm, his head leaning against it, his face reddening.
My eyes are blurred by my tears, but my mind clearly remembers how beautiful Mak once was. I remember her all dressed up one day, wearing a slim, shiny black silk skirt with embroidered flowers at the bottom. Her ivory-colored sleeveless blouse rested lightly against her smooth, youthful honey-colored skin and her soft chin-length dark hair. Even at age four, I was taken by my mother’s beauty. But now I hurt as I gaze at her, my tongue tied, my heart aching. In her swollen face I can see her destiny. Already I feel myself bracing for the day when she’ll be gone.
When she dies, how much will I cry? I’ve asked this question before and I ask it again. Now the answer seems close. The only thing I know for sure is this—there will be agony.
Time is against us. Though we haven’t been here long, it seems what we’ve shared with each other is mostly pain. Now Map and I have to go.
Mak makes a request: “Athy, koon, when you go back, ask the cooperative leader to let you come here to take care of Mak, get Mak water. At night you can sleep outside on the bench.” Mak slowly motions her head. “Please don’t forget, koon srey mdaay. Ask Chea to help you talk to the leader. Don’t forget, koon.…”
By now I’ve learned. I’ve seen it so many times. To the dying, you make promises that cannot be kept.
“Cha [Yes], Mak, I won’t forget. When I go back, I’ll tell Chea to help me talk to the cooperative leader. I’ll come back soon.” My mouth forms the words to assure her, then I repeat them again.
“Mak, we’re going.” I don’t want to say good-bye; my throat tightens.
“Hurry and come see Mak again, Athy. You too, koon proh Mak.”
Map says his good-byes, his head turning, eyes wet. Mak doesn’t say “good-bye”—all she says, again and again, is “Come back soon…don’t forget.” I assure her we will, tears falling freely.
The orange sun shines behind us, edging above the horizon. The trip to Daakpo is short, the dirt road now cool beneath our feet. My mind thinks of nothing but Mak.
As Mak has requested, I ask Chea to help me. Together we go to see the cooperative leader. In the open communal shelter, I stand beside Chea as she explains Mak’s situation and her request to the leader. He looks away, listening, then says, “Comrade’s sister can go if comrade’s mother will recuperate from her illness. But if comrade’s mother dies, comrade’s sister will be punished.”
We walk away. Chea’s face burns with anger.
“What should I do, Chea?” My mind summons up images of Mak.
Chea wraps her arm around my shoulders, a warm comfort. Who will get Mak water? How sad will she be, waiting for me and Map to return?
“What about Mak, Chea?” I can’t escape Mak’s words. Her pleas echo in my head.
“When they give us more food,” says Chea, her voice soft and calm, “bang will go to Mak. Bang will tell her that you didn’t forget.”
Through the nights I lie awake, staring into the sheet of darkness thinking about Mak. Her words are clear, still ringing in my ears. The picture of her sitting on the bed is vivid. Her fading flowered blouse, a map, a clue, that marked her as my mother. I gaze at her in my mind, as if looking into a magic mirror. She’s all we’ve got, yet we can’t take care of her.
For several nights her words and pleading continue to echo in my head as if she’s calling to me from afar. But soon starvation and forced labor wring out my energy, blur my mind—I think less and less of Mak. Instead, I think about the scant watery soup ration I get from the communal kitchen, and my own survival.
Angka has ordered the communal kitchen to make noodles with fish soup—a rare luxury we only get when Angka wants us to attend its meetings. For many of us, the meeting simply means a resting day. We don’t have to work, just sit, listening to whatever Angka wants to preach at us. Production. Revolution. Threats. My eyes watch them obediently, but my mind mocks them. I recall the saying I used to hear Mak say: Doch chak tirk leu kbaaltea. “Like pouring water on a duck’s head.” They are wasting their breath.
Within the thatch-roofed shelter, both children and adults sit anxiously waiting at four long wooden benches. The noodles are already cooked, and the warm smell of the fish soup with ground lemongrass, kchiey root, and turmeric powder flows through the shelter. To smell these spices is to sniff heaven. Perhaps it’s nine o’-clock. I have to guess, since none of us own a watch. Suddenly I can hear bodies stirring as we catch a glimpse of the cooks coming toward us, women lugging baskets of noodles and pots of fish soup. They ration the thin white noodles, handing us three draped clumps. I save some of mine, shoving some aside on my plate for Chea to take to Mak. By the time I get back to the hut, Chea and Map have already gone to see Mak, Ra and Ry tell me.
I want to go to see Mak, too. I want to explain to her myself why I couldn’t come to take care of her, but only Chea and Map can go, given rare permission. The rest of us must attend the meeting.
The meeting takes place on a patch of open ground surrounded by tall shade trees. Among the clusters of people, I see a “new person,” a man in his late fifties, squatting on the ground beside the Khmer Rouge. His face, eyes, and complexion suggest he is of Chinese descent. He wears an old faded shirt and pants, muddy brown like our clothes. He looks relaxed, as if he’s somehow connected with these Khmer Rouge leaders. The Khmer Rouge point to him as a model worker. He speaks to us shyly. His candor coaxes smiles from us. This is the first time since the Khmer Rouge’s takeover that I hear and see people around me laughing and at ease. But the smiling faces fade as soon as the Khmer Rouge leaders get up to speak, lecturing us about rice production, the people in the “battlefield,” and Angka’s goals.
The meeting ends. The leaders quickly dismiss us, but we can’t go home yet. We must go to more meetings, one for children and the other for adults.
Suddenly I hear a soft voice behind me. “Bang! Bang!” I turn. From the deepest shadows beneath the shade trees, the silhouette of a little girl scurries toward me. I pause, lines creasing my forehead—I’m sure she’s calling me because there’s no one else around except trees.
The girl looks up at me. “They—they threw your mom in a well…a well of the deads,” she struggles to catch her breath, panting the news. “Your mom was still alive…. She groaned when they took her away.”
My heart thunders, rising against my chest. I think I hear what she has said, but nothing registers. It is as if something has lodged between my ears and my brain. I stare back. “What did you say about my mom? What happened to my mom?”
“The Khmer Rouge threw your mom in a well…and she was alive,” sputters the girl, her sharp eyes looking into mine.
Her words sink in. No! The core of my soul screams out from a deep hidden place. My legs carry me away before my brain can command them. Across a dusty path, toward a distant woods, I run as fast as I can, the fingers of anguish squeezing my soul, pumping out pain.
“Mak, oh, Mak.” I drop on the ground, landing by a bush underneath the shade of trees. “I’m sorry, Mak. Sorry I couldn’t help you.…”
Alone in the woods, I call out to my mother, my mind summoning up the last images of her sitting on the bed talking to Map, to me, begging, reminding me to remember to return to her. In frustration, my fist strikes against the ground as Mak’s words replay in my mind, stabbing inside my chest with each syllable
. My head hurts, swollen with sadness. My heart aches. “Oh, Mak, you’ve left me…. Koon somtoh [I’m sorry]….”
The pain of losing Mak comes fiercely, without respite. It lingers inside me, lodged like a root. How much will I cry when Mak dies?
Now I know the answer.
10
The Spirit of Survival
The sun penetrates through the cracks of my shack. Alone, I curl up, covered by a scarf; my eyes fix upon the fine particles of dust that drift through the morning light. Most of the day, I lie here, staring into the dark until I tire. The next day the sun rises, and my eyes return to the twirling dust, again awaiting the blanket of night. I think, but I’m not sure what I’m thinking. I don’t remember how I arrived here—a labor camp, I don’t even know its name. I vaguely remember what happened to Mak, but the wound of her death is fresh.
Nights and days pass. I wonder what happened to my siblings. Who brought me here? I am weak, yet I don’t feel like eating. Outside the shack I hear voices. The words, the commands never reach me. A woman in black sticks her head inside the shack. She softly says, “Comrade, go to work.” I glance at her, then away.
A voice within me speaks up: Something is wrong. You must eat. Finally it awakens me, and I obey.
When the sun is blindingly bright, I rise. Out of the shack I walk with my spoon and plate in my hand. I wobble, trying not to fall. I’m drawn toward a grove of trees. There lies a crowd of children; some line up for food, others squat on the ground eating. I trudge to stand in the food line, my flattened stomach slowly rising and falling.
“Comrade, which brigade are you in?” a food-ladling woman inquires, her forehead creased with curiosity.
“I’m sick,” I reply softly, taking my place in front of her. The woman scoops a bowlful of rice onto my plate, then drops a pinch of coarse salt beside it. I feel her stare, her eyes questioning. But I walk on, one hand holding the rice.
“Never seen her before,” says the woman.
“That comrade has been sick, huddling in her hut all the time,” a voice replies.
“I gave her the same as the workers!” The woman complains.
The food begins to change me. With each bite, some life seeps back. My brain clears. The idea of my own survival had almost been erased from my mind. But I’m still too hollow to work for the Khmer Rouge.
While everyone labors in the hot field digging irrigation ditches, I sit in my shack, a squatty thatch shelter. Beneath my legs I can feel the itch of loose dry grass scattered about. I stare through the doorless entrance. My mind is pulled outward. I want to talk to Preah:
Preah, why is the day bright, yet seem so dark to me? My life has no meaning, I hear myself say. Why am I so empty, so sick inside? Was this how Mak felt? Did this cause her to get bad so quickly?
As I ask these questions, my mind readily summons the image of Mak in the Choup hospital, offering no resistance. Did Mak sacrifice too much for us? Did she miss Pa, Avy, and Vin? Preah, stop letting people die, put an end to this suffering.
For the first time in the twelve years of my life, I don’t pray to Buddha requesting him to stop the suffering. I demand his action. I want to have a say in my suffering, my family’s, and others’. How much more do I have to endure?
Do you care?
I question his mercy, his divinity, like I used to argue with my own father. Even now, I can remember one summer back in Phnom Penh when I asked him if I could go to a private school.
Pa didn’t say yes or no. He simply said I was young (eight) and didn’t need to go to a private school. Smiling, Pa explained, “If all my children want to go to private schools, with book costs, school costs, Pa will be dead [broke].”
I couldn’t accept it. I told Pa that if Chea could go to a private English school and buy expensive hardbound books, why couldn’t I too go to summer school?
“I want to improve my math. Why can’t I do that, Pa?” I said, standing before my parents while Pa was having breakfast.
Pa was quiet, his mouth chewing. Mak gazed at him. Still, he was silent. I needed to leave for the first day of class, my hands already holding my notebook and pencil. All he had to do was pay.
Silence.
I burst out crying, “Koon wants to go to school and Pa doesn’t want to pay. I’m not important.” I sobbed, my nose burning.
Pa was surprised. Never before had he known any child my age who wanted to study this badly.
“Stop crying,” Pa said, grinning. “Pa will pay. Little, yet ambitious.”
Mak beamed. I smiled through tears, then hurried to class.
This was my earthly father. He understood when I reasoned with him. A Buddhist nun once told Mak that I was koon Preah (God’s child). If I am, then Preah should understand my suffering. Stop my suffering.
I shut my eyes. My heart aches.
On the dusty ground by the entrance to my shack, I look at the distant red sky. The sun is setting. Strangely, no one has made me work. Perhaps everyone is repelled by the way I act, the way I look, and how lost I am in my own mind. For a long time I used to worry, but I don’t now. I’m not even scared of my brigade leader—don’t even know what she looks like. Maybe she’s the one who often sticks her head into my shack, calling me “comrade.” She can call me, but I’m hiding in my mind. Sometimes I think of Mak briefly, in no more than small bits and pieces. Then a door in my mind slams shut. Again, I’m as quiet as the night.
As the sun retreats, I’m drawn back into the corner of the shack. Suddenly a shadow crawls in, too, and my heart jumps.
“Athy!” a woman’s voice whispers. “I’ve brought you rice crust.”
“Ra?” My voice cracks louder than I intended.
Ra hisses at me. Hastily, she tells me she’ll come back tomorrow, then she disappears—here, then gone. In the dark I hold the rice crust, still paralyzed by Ra’s sudden appearance. How did she know where to find me?
My stomach growls and my mouth waters as I inhale the brown-burned smell of the rice crust. Piece by piece, I eat it, savoring the chewy coffeelike flavor. With each bite, hope. I look forward to tomorrow—something I haven’t felt in a long time.
The day is overcast, still early. Children’s and mobile brigades have gone to work. Ra comes as promised. Scurrying into my shack, she issues stern instructions, “Hurry, go to Zone 3.” She grabs my hand and guides me, or rather pulls me, out of the shack. I let her tug at me, every part of my body tensing, increasing speed.
“Hurry, walk faster,” Ra commands, her voice anxious.
I trail behind her, watch her legs shuffle along. I want to stride as fast as she does, but my step covers one third the distance of hers. The bottom of her faded black pants slaps at her legs. Her old cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled up reveals a light golden flash of her youthful hands and arms. Their smooth beauty shocks me, delights me. Her arms swing fast, back and forth as if she is rowing herself forward. Hard labor hasn’t robbed her of her fine “city” features. Even in the tattered remnants of a faded uniform, Ra looks healthy, somehow vibrant. She’s more energetic than I. She’s like a rabbit and I’m like a turtle. I can’t keep up.
“Ra, why are we going to Zone 3?”
“To ask for food. Walk faster!” she barks. “Dar muy, muy [Walk slowly], the chhlops might see us now! Make big steps, hurry!”
Ra looks down at her own legs, as if showing me how to walk faster. I try, stretching my legs stiffly forward. I can’t make long strides. Ra steals glances behind us, worried. She commands me to walk faster again, her voice sharp with irritation.
“But I’m smaller than you, Ra, and I’m weak!” I’m angry at her. With Chea, it would have been different. My mind orders me to hurry. I give Ra everything, but she doesn’t seem to notice, moving ahead of me.
The sun is now shining. Beads of sweat stream from my scalp. Lagging behind Ra, I run, I walk. Tears well up and burn. I feel as if we are being watched by invisible eyes. Soon, I imagine, a forceful voice will command us to s
top. The thought of it drives my legs. Suddenly a long, open depression emerges just ahead. The landscape changes. I hold my breath. Ra slows down, and I pant. A green bridge is on the far left.
A river! I marvel. A great liquid ribbon with shimmering ripples. Alone in our discovery, it is as if the river is ours. I feel free, standing on the riverbank. Tall shaded trees and shrubs are on the other side of the river. All green. They thrive far better there than on the side we’re standing on—which is barren, only dry grass and rocky ground. Peaking in the distance between clusters of tall tree branches are palm and coconut leaves. This vegetation looks pretty, yet there’s a sense of danger lurking in the comfort of this natural beauty.
“Athy, why are you standing there? Climb down. Yeeh [Gee], look at you standing there looking,” Ra says, her voice raw with disbelief.
Her scolding tugs me back to reality. For a moment I forget why we’re here. A shower of small rocks and dirt tumble down the steep bank as I climb down behind Ra. My hands hold the earth, my feet hesitate, I’m afraid of falling.
“Ra, there’s a bridge over there,” I say, motioning my face toward it. “Why don’t we cross it?” I tense my body.
“Are you crazy? Chhlops!” She glares.
“Wait for me, Ra. I’m scared!” I sit still, my hand reaching out to her.
She climbs back up and steadies my hand as I crawl down. I wish I’d never come, trapped in this journey in search of food.
Be brave, I urge myself. If we go back, I reason, we might get punished and starved by the Khmer Rouge at our zone. If we move forward, we must face the river. And possibly be captured by chhlops. But maybe we’ll be lucky and find food. In a heartbeat, I resolve to go with Ra.
When Broken Glass Floats: Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge Page 19
