When Broken Glass Floats: Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge Paperback (17 page)

“
Mak!
” I whisper. “Don’t speak so loudly.” I glance around the hut, and so does she. At that moment I notice Map and Avy gazing at
Mak
and me nervously. I lean closer to
Mak
and whisper into her ear, “I escaped from the labor camp.”

Mak
pulls away, horror-stricken. Her expression scares me. Freezes me. I look at Avy and Map. Their silence triggers more fear in me. Hunger has wrung out their spirits. My heart races as I realize the repercussions of my escape. Now I fear what my homecoming could mean to my family. At the Phnom Kambour labor camp, Chea had warned me that I should have stayed with
Mak
, Avy, and Map and looked after them. At the time her words made me feel guilty and fearful, like a bad omen. Now that I’m here, I hope to stay, to make right what should never have happened. After a dinner of boiled leaves and salt with
Mak
, Avy, and Map, I lie down beside
Mak
’s warm back, just as I envisioned. Silently, I pray to Buddha and
Pa
’s spirit that the
chhlops
or the
mekorg
will never come take me back to Oh Runtabage.

To avoid my being spotted by the
chhlops
,
Mak
warns me not to leave the hut while she’s at work with Avy and Map. I’m to stay in the hut at all times. She leaves me boiled leaves so I don’t have to go outside to cook. Even so, the
chhlops
can check the hut whenever they want to. Knowing this, I brace myself when I hear footsteps, flattening myself against the palm-thatch wall, afraid even to breathe for fear that my slightest movement will rustle the dry palm leaves. Only when the footsteps subside do I relax, lying down again, cherishing every moment of my rest time. In the evening, as the sun drags into twilight, I look forward to
Mak
’s return.

In my self-imposed isolation, news travels slowly. Though I don’t dare ask around—I’m too caught up in my need to stay hidden—I assume that Cheng must surely be finding the rest and comforts that I am. But I am wrong. Within weeks I learn through her younger sister that Cheng has died from edema.
How? The strong girl who pulled me through grass and woods, who helped me escape? How could she go so fast? Was it the amoebic dysentery that had so scared her back in the camp?
My heart cries out to her as grief rises in me. Pictures of how she took care of me return in my mind, of the days when I was groaning and delirious with fever and Cheng had lain beside me, patting my arm. She saved me from the death camp.

There is no modern medicine, but
Mak
tries to cure me with folk remedies. She boils guava bark to extract a bitter juice for me to drink, to help stop the diarrhea. I am the good patient, diligently drinking the concentrated fluid, so strong that my brain seizes up. Gradually,
Mak
nurses me back to health. Soon a
chhlop
discovers me. His young, splotchy face peeks into our hut, spotting me. Mysteriously, I’m neither tortured nor sent back to Oh Runtabage. Instead, they send me to work in a rice field close to the village. Perhaps the Khmer Rouge’s disregard for the individual works in my favor—they have simply forgotten who I am and where I’m supposed to be.

I
’m more than willing to plant rice. When the
chhlop
leader, Srouch, orders me to work with
Mak
and other women from Daakpo, I’m deeply relieved. Every morning I rise early with
Mak
to report to the rice field while Avy stays home with Map. I’ve learned to accept what cannot be changed. Living on scanty rice rations in the village—less than at the labor camp—is still better than the alternative. I trade food and cruelty for some sense of family.

With
Mak
, I head to the dark, flooded rice fields each morning. There are no rest days, no holidays, no breaks, unless we are forced to attend a required meeting. I comply, even when my body is weak. Thoughts of food push me, and I pin my hopes on the promise of shade and a scanty lunch of leaves and rice. In the fields, I go hunting. Tiny field crabs, a slender snake, a crawling snail—any living tidbit can make me scramble after it.

Like the older women, I step into the muddy field, heading for the tender green rice seedlings, spears poking out of the water like young grass. By now I know the routine, unlike my first time planting rice in Year Piar. I help with work that doesn’t need to be explained—scattering rice seedlings, transplanting them alongside
Mak
and the rest of the women until we’re finished. Then the next field, drenched with black, muddy water mixed with cow dung. I walk along the elevated pathway between rice paddies. My mind is elsewhere, dreaming about food, but my feet carry me to the next field. One foot sinks into the soft mud and onto a sharp point. Pain slices across the top of my left foot.

I know I’m in trouble—a cut in contaminated field water and no medicine. In a second I want to undo my last steps, to remove the injury that is already spilling warm blood over my foot. Reaching down into the mud, I fumble to find what hurt me, a tree branch hidden in the mud. I want to take it to dry land so no one else will step on it. I struggle to crawl out of the rice field. I wipe the gray-black mud off my injured foot, a steady red river breaking loose. With an open, bleeding gash, I’m afraid to go back into the paddy. I know this will invite infection. But as an escapee, I have no choice. To stay invisible, I must transplant the rice. Everyone is working. I can’t risk another punishment. I don’t want to be taken away from
Mak
again. And I can’t let
Mak
see my foot. I know she’ll worry. I swallow my thoughts and wade back in.

Infection develops quickly. It gets worse every day, from the long walk through the woods to the field and back to the hut. Sand, soil, mud. From standing in the manure-soaked rice field, transplanting rice seedlings all day. The infection ignites like a flame. At night I can’t sleep. It becomes itchy and painful. So painful that I scream out at night. Over and over, I call out to
Pa
. To ease this pain. To stop my tears. To be my doctor. Or just to be here with me. In my mind, he is so close, almost within my grasp. I yearn for his strength.

Soon the pain becomes unbearable, erasing everything else. I cry out, begging, “
Mak
, help me, please help me.” Her shadow comes to me. Softly, she scratches around the wound. Her gentle touch soothes me to sleep, but the pain wakes me again, as if a large fierce bird is tearing at my foot, pinched tight in its claws. My throat hurts, raw from my own cries. I bang on the wall made of bamboo and palm. For one week, I cry every night. I’m used up, and
Mak
’s getting ill from lack of sleep and fatigue. I can’t help it. I keep calling for her, begging her to rub around my wound; she helps me many times, but when she is exhausted, she goes back to sleep, leaving me to scream alone.

The sharp stabs throb from the inside out, pulsing up my leg to my waist and head.
Mak
can’t sleep. She asks me to sleep away from her, Avy, and Map. All alone like Vin before he died, I’m banished to a small alcove. I realize now how helpless he must have felt. With no medicine, I know that I too will die. My wound is caked with pus. At night I study my foot, scratch around it, try to massage it, and cry. I beg for
Mak
again and again. But she doesn’t come.

In the morning the fog of pain lifts long enough to allow me to make a decision. If I am to live, I must find
slark khnarng
, sour leaves, an ivylike vine that grows wild in the woods. It’s a valuable leaf, typically used for cooking. But I have my own ideas. When boiled, sour leaves produce a sharp acidic juice that used to sting my fingers when I had an open scratch. It reminds me of the rubbing alcohol that
Pa
used to clean out my scraped knees. Maybe the juice of the sour leaves could work a little of
Pa
’s magic as a disinfectant. At the same time, I can’t rely on
Mak
, can’t expect her to find sour leaves. The leaves grow in the woods, not in the rice fields. She barely has the strength to work for the Khmer Rouge and keep up with her trips in search of edible leaves to supplement our scanty rice rations. She’s doing all she can to keep our hearts beating.

I cannot walk—since my left foot can’t take any pressure—so while others work in the field, I crawl on my hands and knees away from the village, past a grove of mango trees to a hill where the dead are buried. I follow a tight path carved to fit oxcarts. Past guava and bamboo trees I crawl, searching for sour leaves, the leaf of life.

Finally I see some. Big green leaves sprawling on the ground, climbing up over other shrubs on the other side of a thorny fence. I try to reach them but can’t. Tree branches armed with sharp thorns shield the sour vines. I crawl around the bank until I see a small hole in the fence, through which I wiggle into the field.

In joy, I grab the thick stem, stripping away all the leaves into my hand. Hands flying, I grab the other sour vines, pulling leaves, shoving them into the pouch in my scarf. I am lost in the movements. I fall into a rhythm, for a moment forgetting even about the pain in my foot.

“Comrade, what are you doing? Are you stealing?” a fierce voice demands.

I turn. Before me stands a tall, skinny man, dressed in black, carrying a long curved knife on his shoulder.

“No, I’m not. I’m not stealing. I’m only picking
slark khnarng
,” I say timidly, frightened by his accusing words, his sudden appearance.

He grabs me by the arm and drags me around the yucca field like a bag of rice. My arm feels as if it could be yanked off. I beg him repeatedly, “Please don’t hurt me,” but he says nothing. Reaching a tree, he drops his long knife to the ground and pulls my arms behind me. Snaking a rough rope around my skinny arms, he binds them tightly from wrist to elbow. Ignoring my pleas, he yanks my scarf from my neck and throws it on the ground. He pushes me down on my knees and binds me to the tree, the posture of a criminal soon to be executed. He must see the sour leaves, now all over the ground.

With cool indifference, he announces my sentence. “I will kill you at sunset,” he says, delivering his verdict from behind a tree.

I beseech him, my voice rising. “Please don’t kill me. I wasn’t stealing. I was just picking
slark khnarng
for a swollen foot. I’m telling you the truth! Please spare my life!”

“Don’t lie, comrade,” he shouts. “I don’t believe you. I will kill you. Say no more!”

I sob, “If you don’t believe me, just look at my infected wound. I don’t lie. I need
slark khnarng
. My foot hurts at night. Please spare my life. Don’t kill me….”

I wish I could bow down to him, sink into the dirt before his feet, begging his forgiveness. But it’s too late. My words don’t reach him.

His voice trails off, shouting in near-triumph, crowing like a bully who has had his way, “I’ll cut off your head at sunset so people coming from work can see you—they won’t follow your bad example.” His footsteps crunch on dry leaves.

I look at the sour leaves scattered on the ground. I keep thinking how it’s the small things that get me into trouble. Sucking sweet grass with Cheng. And now this. How can I be accused of stealing when there’s nothing in my scarf—only sour leaves. I stare at the hole in the fence where I sneaked through only moments ago. Now I wish that whoever made it had left more thorns in it. I wouldn’t have gotten in. As time passes, I cry hard and loud, tears of fear and frustration. In time, my sobbing becomes softer. My destiny awaits.

The sun is now behind the tree, its rays filtering through branches in a shifting dance. Suddenly I’m awakened by birdsong.
Maybe they cry for me
. I listen to them and I remember an old Cambodian warning: “When the owl cries, it will take someone’s life,” the spirit winging away with the bird. Now I hear birds cry. Later, perhaps the owl will hoot, announcing the fact that I will be beheaded.

As the sun begins to set, I speak to my heart, to Buddha, to
Pa
’s spirit, silently begging for a second chance at life.
I’m not ready to die
. My prayers are broken by my fear of the man in black. I imagine him returning, raising that long curved knife in the air. I can feel my own body cringing, feel the hiss of air as it swings toward my neck. Fear chills me. I shut my eyes and lower my head, looking for the courage to face the blade.

Suddenly footsteps echo on the dry leaves. I drop my last tears, my eyes dry with fear. The air is warm, but I’m shaking with cold. I look down at the ground and shut my eyes. I tighten my body, bracing for pain. I don’t know whether I should scream or bite my lip. When he comes closer, I get ready to die.

All of a sudden, I feel a tug on the rope that snakes about my arms. I cringe. I squint my eyes tighter. Soon my arms swing free, released from the trunk of the tree, and I slump to the ground. I open my eyes and turn.

The man in black speaks sternly. “Comrade, now I set you free. Don’t do that again.” He says no more.

He loosens the rough rope from my numb wrists. I grab my scarf and put it around my neck, leaving the spilled sour leaves on the ground. I struggle to get up and walk but can’t; in the unimaginable excitement of being freed, I have forgotten that I cannot walk. I crawl back as fast as I can through the hole in the fence without turning back.

Around me, birds sing in the woods. Every sense is sharpened, and I’m amazed at my own energy. I struggle down to the ox path and slowly crawl up the other side. I pull myself up, grabbing vines along the bank. I’m numb with my good luck, can’t believe that I have been released. It seems like a strange, powerful dream. The voice of the man still echoes in my head.

As I crawl past the grove of trees, dragging my swollen left foot along through the dirt and dung, I’m elated to see our tattered community of huts. Never before have I seen the beauty in them. I’m anxious to tell
Mak
about my brush with death, my release. I’m giddy with the joy of survival. As I approach our hut, my eyes run hungrily over every detail. I can’t stop looking. A short time ago, I faced a certain death. Now I’m home. “My hut,” I call softly, crying, as if the palm walls were human, a close friend whom I’ve missed.

From the ground, I look up to see the pale, thinning shape of my mother’s face, old at thirty-five, peeking out at me from the hut. In the twilight shadows, her face is a dream.

“Oh,
Mak
,” I cry in joy and disbelief, “I thought I wouldn’t see you again.”

My words spill out, a tumbled, babbling story about leaves and a man in black cutting my head off. In that moment I feel I must never let her out of my sight. My heart clings to her, my eyes can’t let her go.

Mak
strokes my hair. “You’re lucky. I’m so glad that you weren’t killed.” Tears stream down her cheeks. She reaches out to hold me, tightly embraces me. I feel
Mak
’s love. Her fear of losing me. Suddenly she stops crying. She wipes her tears. Then mine. Sitting near
Mak
, I’m lost in indescribable happiness. I’m oblivious to Avy or Map. I don’t feel the throbbing in my foot, the pain in my puffy leg. Only an unreal sense of gratitude.

Mak
says, “Stop crying,
Mak
cooks leaves for you. Stop crying,
koon
.…”

The next day
Mak
, Avy, and Map come home with
slark khnarng
packed in the pouch of her scarf, wrapped around her neck. I’m grateful. Eagerly, I greet them. Their presence is medicine to me.

My foot gradually gets better from the daily cleaning with the
slark khnarng
. Guided by vague memories of my father, I prescribe for myself the care I think my foot needs to heal. Twice a day I disinfect it with the stinging acidic juice. With my thumb and forefinger, I gently scrape and pinch away the crusted yellow pus that has formed overnight, releasing a fresh stream of blood.
Mak
is like the head doctor, checking my foot almost every night.

I’m relieved, almost grateful, not to be forced to work. I sleep soundly, trying to make up for the restless nights caused by my throbbing foot. One morning I’m pulled from slumber by a fierce voice. The next thing I see is the ugly
chhlop
looking down at me.

His voice strikes like a fist. “Comrade, why don’t you go to work? Go to work, or I’ll take you to reform! You must go to work.”

I don’t know what to say to him—I’m ambushed before I have a chance to think. Tears come before words, but I abstain from crying.

Finally I spit out the words, “I can’t walk. My foot is painful, it’s swollen. I will work when my foot gets better.” Submissively, I show him my foot. Red blood spurts out the side of the yellowish curve of my wound. The bleeding is probably the result of getting up so quickly. The blotchy face glances briefly at my foot, recoiling from it. Then he is gone. I know he’ll keep an eye on me.