First They Killed My Father (11 page)

I remember clutching tightly to Pa’s finger as we walked along wide crumbling corridors. The temple walls are decorated with magnificent detailed carvings of people, cows, wagons, daily life, and battle scenes from long ago. Guarding the ancient steps are giant granite lions, tigers, eight-headed snakes, and elephants. Next to them, sandstone gods with eight hands who sit cross-legged on lotus flowers watch over the temple ponds. On the walls beneath the jungle vines, thousands of beautiful apsara goddesses with big round breasts wearing only short wraparound skirts smile at visitors. I reached up and cupped one of the breasts, feeling the cold, rough stone in my palm, and I quickly removed my hand to cover my mouth in a fit of giggles.

Pa led me to a temple area where the trees were so tall that they seemed to reach the heavens. Their twisted trunks, roots, and vines wrapped themselves around the ruins like gigantic boa constrictors, crushing and swallowing the overturned stones. He lifted me over the
wobbly steps to the dark mouth of the temple cave. “This is where the gods live,” he said quietly, “and if you call out to them, they will answer.” Anxiously, I wet my lips and yelled, “Chump leap sursdei, dthai pda!” (“Hello, gods!”) Then wrapped my arms around Pa’s leg when the gods answered me: “Dthai pda! Dthai pda! Dthai pda!”

At the temples in this area, Khouy says the soldiers mutilated its animal guards, and either knocked or shot off the stone heads of the gods, riddling the sacred bodies with bullets. After they destroyed the temples, the soldiers roamed the country searching for monks and forced them to convert to the Angkar. Those monks who refused were murdered or made to work in minefields. To escape extermination, many monks grew their hair and went into hiding in the jungle. Others killed themselves in mass suicides. Although these monks maintained and took care of the temples, now they are left to the jungle once again. I wonder where the gods go now that their homes have been destroyed.

By our third month in Ro Leap, things begin to worsen. The villagers work longer hours with decreased food rations. The soldiers roam our village daily, looking for young, able-bodied men to recruit into their army. If recruited, you must join. If you refuse, you are marked a traitor and could be killed. For this reason, my parents force Khouy to marry Laine, a young girl from a nearby village. Khouy, who is only sixteen, does not want to, but Pa says he must to stay out of the Khmer Rouge army. The Khmer Rouge are less likely to recruit him if they know he has a wife who will give sons to the Angkar. Laine also does not want to marry my brother, but her parents force her to as well. They fear that left alone she might be raped by soldiers and end up like Davi, another young woman in our village.

Davi is the teenage daughter of one of our neighbors. She is about sixteen years old and very pretty. Despite the war and the famine, Davis body continues to grow into that of a young woman. Like all of us, her hair is cut short, but unlike us, her hair is thick and curly and frames her small, oval face nicely. People often comment on her smooth, brown skin, full lips, and particularly her large, round brown eyes with their long lashes.

Davi’s parents never let her go anywhere by herself. Her mother follows her when she goes to collect firewood and guards her when she needs to relieve herself. Her parents are skittish about her, grabbing her arms and pulling her away anytime someone tries to talk to her. Davi is rarely seen without a scarf covering her head or mud on her face to hide her beauty. Yet no matter what they do, her parents cannot protect her from the gaze of the soldiers who patrol the village.

One evening, three soldiers went to the family’s hut and told her parents they needed Davi and another friend to go with them. They said they needed the girls to help them pick corn for a special event. Davi’s mother cried and wrapped her arms around her daughter.

“Take me,” she begged the soldiers. “Davi is a lazy girl. I can work faster and pick more corn in less time than she can.”

“No! We need her!” they retorted sharply. Davi cried harder at their words and clung desperately to her mother.

“Take me,” her father pleaded on his knees. “I can work faster than either one of them.”

“No! Don’t argue with us. We need her and she must perform her duty for the Angkar! She will return in the morning.” Then the soldiers grabbed Davi by her arms and pulled her from her mother’s shaking hug. Davi sobbed loudly, begging them to let her stay with her mother, but the soldiers dragged her on. Her mother fell to her knees, palms together, and pleaded with them not to take her only daughter. The father, still on his knees, lowered his head to the ground, banged his forehead on the dirt, and also pleaded with the soldiers. As the soldiers took her away, Davi turned around many times to see both her parents still on the ground, palms together, praying for her. She looked back until she could see them no more.

The sounds of Davi’s parents’ anguished cries echoed into the night. Why were they doing this to her? In our hut the faces of my family were somber and hopeless. Khouy and Pa sat on either side of Keav, who was contorted and white with fear, wondering what they would do if the soldiers took her. Keav, who is fourteen—the same age as Davi—sat holding her knees to her chest, her eyes misted over, her shoulders heaving visibly. Hearing her sobs, Ma left Geak with Chou, crawled over to Keav, and wrapped her arms around her. Without a
word, the rest of us moved to our sleeping spots and tried to go to sleep. Shivering, I crawled over to Chou and grabbed her wet hand and lay on my back, staring at the ceiling. In the black night, we tried to sleep but were kept awake by Davi’s mother, who wailed like a she-wolf who had lost her cub.

True to their word, the soldiers returned Davi to her parents the next morning. But the Davi they returned was not the same one they took away. Davi stood before her parents in front of their hut, hair disheveled, face swollen, shoulders slumped, arms hanging like dead weights. She could not meet the gaze of her parents. Without a word, she walked past them and into the hut. They stepped aside to let her enter and followed her in. Their hut was quiet from then on.

A few days after her abduction, the bruises on her face turned deep purple before they gradually disappeared. The scabs on her arms dried up and became little scars, barely visible. But to Davi, they would always be there. I see Davi sometimes in line at mealtime, but she no longer talks to anyone. Her body walks as if there is no more life in it, and her head is always down. No one speaks about that night and no one ever questioned her about what happened—neither her parents nor the villagers. Whenever I see Davi, I veer away from her path. If there is a gathering of people, they become quiet when they see Davi.

As the days go on, more and more people begin to treat Davi as if she were invisible. Sometimes, I catch Davi’s eyes watching the villagers at the town square, when she lingers there long after the crowd has departed. Other times, she marches straight into the group of people, as if daring them to say something to her. The gatherers shuffle their feet, cough into their hands, avert their eyes, and walk off in the opposite direction. Often, Keav heads toward Davi only to clench her fists and walk back to us.

The soldiers do not stop with Davi. They come many more nights and take many other girls. Some of the girls are returned in the morning but many are not. Other times, the soldiers come back with the girl and tell her parents they have married. It is her duty, they say, to marry soldiers and bear sons for the Angkar. Many of the girls who are forced to marry soldiers are never heard from again. It is rumored that they suffer greatly at the hands of their “husbands.” The soldiers are
often heard saying women have their duty to perform for the Angkar. Their duty is to do what they were made for, to bear children for the Angkar. If they do not fulfill their duty, they are worthless and dispensable. They are good for nothing and might as well die so their food rations can go to those who contribute to rebuilding the country. There is nothing the parents can do to stop the abduction of these young girls because the soldiers are all-powerful. They have the power of judge, jury, police, and army. They have the rifles. Many girls choose to escape from their abductors by committing suicide.

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.