When Broken Glass Floats: Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge Paperback (24 page)

“I won’t fall,” I say, shaking my head, but my tears betray me.

From tree to tree, thicket to thicket, I run with him at his prompting. Then all of a sudden he says, “I’m going back. I can only help you this far. Be careful.”

I watch him disappear. I cry and I’m scared. I pray to God and the spirits of
Mak
and
Pa
to protect me. I say the prayer silently, chanting it again and again in my head. As if I am being guided by a spirit, suddenly my fears fade, and my mind focuses on returning safely to my zone. My body feels light, comforted as I hike through the woods and climb the bank onto the bridge, leaving Zone 3 behind.

Safe on the ground of my zone, I turn to look at the grove of trees where the warehouse and hut are. A place where a good memory was born. A memory of kind men and Ra, who brought me to them.

I
t is late 1977. For some reason I am sent to a new camp in a stretch of large rice paddies along with a group of children. Like many labor camps, it is as anonymous as the people who work in them. I don’t know where we are or what this place is called. From dawn to dusk, I chase birds away from the ripening rice. Now it is midmorning and the sun is shining, and the day is now bearable, warm.

But early in the morning I’m always cold since the shirt I have on is inadequate to shield me from the cool air. The one other shirt I have is at the shack, which I keep for changing into the next day. The morning dew from the grassy elevated pathways coats my bare feet, making the morning almost unbearable.

As the sun shines, I unfold my arms from my armpits like a chick being hatched. Standing up, I fidget, my hands rubbing against each other, my mouth blowing warm air at them. On the distant horizon, amid rice paddies, I see the silhouettes of adults heading out to harvest. It looks as though their heads are floating on the rice stalks.

Just as humans rise to work, so do birds, ready to start their day. Already they are up, flying like black waves. They maneuver over rice paddies as if trying to select the right ones to feast on. As soon as they land, children whose assigned fields are being invaded run toward the birds. Their heads bob between the heads of the rice. They give chase. They shout “Shoo! Shoo!” Their little arms flail in the air.

The birds take off, making fierce chirping sounds as they fly to other rice fields—mine. Then I too run toward them. “Shoo! Shoo!” I shout, joined by a chorus of other children. My hands thrown in the air to scare them.

Laughter erupts in the air as the birds fly from rice paddy to rice paddy. Now it is like a game of land-and-chase. They chirp, we laugh. Beads of sweat roll down my forehead. Our laughter is food for my soul. It has been a long time since I had some. I feel revived—like a little girl again, the thirteen-year-old that I am.

With improved food rations, better than in the village, I think of my family, wishing they were here. Every night I wish fervently that they could enjoy what I’ve been having: steamed rice and soup with fish and vegetables. I wonder where Ra is now, whether she is still at that camp bordering Zone 3, or whether she has been transferred elsewhere. I wish Avy, Vin,
Pa
, and
Mak
were still alive.
Mak
would have been happy just to have rice and salt. “Having solid rice and salt is like going to heaven,” I remember her saying, her eyes filled with longing.

As the night sets in, lying on my earthen bed made of a pile of hay in a small shack, I think of
Mak
. Images of her pale, swollen face at the Choup hospital pop into my head as in a dream. It seems only days ago when Map and I visited her, and now she’s gone. Since I feel better, my mind allows me to go back in time to be with her again. Drifting into sleep, I yearn to talk with her, wishing she were here with me.

Mak
appears, sitting across from me and Map at the end of an oaken table that resembles
Pa
’s medicine desk at our Phnom Penh home. Below hazy fluorescent lights, I’m spellbound by her presence—her complexion is pretty and healthy, just like it was back in Phnom Penh.

As she gazes at me, I notice the deep sadness in her beautiful face, framed by her neatly combed black hair. I stop feeding Map rice gruel, place the spoon on his plate, and get up from the chair. I pad gently toward her, but before I can say anything, she floats away toward the ceiling. She begs:

“Athy, please take care of your little brother. Feed him food,
koon Mak
. Look after
p’yoon
for
Mak…. Saniya Mak
[Promise
Mak
].”

“
Mak
, I want—”

“
Saniya Mak
,”
Mak
interrupts me before I can finish what I wanted to say. Her face is despondent, and I look at her searchingly.

“I promise…” I answer, wanting so much for the deep sorrow in her face to disappear. I want to tell her why I couldn’t go take care of her at the Choup hospital. But as soon as I make my promise to her, she vanishes as suddenly as she appeared.

“
Mak
, please come back…” I cry, looking for her.

Eyes open, I awake in the darkness.
Where am I?
I ask myself. As I turn my head, the soft sound of the crushing hay beneath my back speaks. Then I know: I’m in a shack, not in my Phnom Penh home with Map or
Mak
.

Mak was real. She talked to me! Mak, did you come to tell me what you couldn’t before you died. Oh, Mak, please talk to me again. I’ll be waiting.

But she doesn’t come; instead, a firm voice awakens me.

“Get up. It’s time to work.” The shack is rattling.

The familiar shadow of Comrade Thore Meta, my brigade leader, peeks into my shack. When I crawl out of the shack, she disappears. It is early in the morning, still twilight. Another day running along the rice fields, I think tiredly. At least there are no informants to police me. I’m on my own all day with the other children.

Thore Meta, a
neradey
, the Khmer Rouge from the southwestern part of Cambodia, is unlike my former brigade leaders. She has never scolded me when I’m slow to wake up for work. She is lenient and understanding. She is, perhaps, in her early twenties, with a calm face and chubby cheeks. Her eyes are big and dark. Her complexion is white, in striking contrast to her new black uniform, lighter than many
neradey
women’s. Hugging her cheeks and earlobes is her naturally curly black hair. She’s short, and so is her neck. It looks as if she doesn’t have one, as if her head is attached to her shoulders. Though she’s not pretty, her kindness makes her more approachable.

Months ago, rumors spread of vicious killings that took place soon after the
neradey
arrived in Daakpo and other villages around Battambang province (in the western part of Cambodia). Their aim was to take over the leadership here and to purge local Khmer Rouge leaders. Even though
Angka
forbids people from talking, word of its orders to execute these leaders spread like the pungent smell of rotten rats. This killing calls to mind a Cambodian saying:
Domrei gnob khom yok chong-ey tao kroob
. “An elephant dies, and one tries to cover it with a flat basket.”

That “elephant” was
Ta
Val, people said. He was the top Khmer Rouge leader who oversaw the building of irrigation canals and dams in the western part of Cambodia. He, among others, was captured, placed in a sack, and then run over by a tractor. His crime, the
neradey
charged, was building a dam toward Thailand so that he and his conspirators could escape. Shocked by the news, I wondered why
Ta
Val and others wanted to escape.
What did they fear?
How terrifying it must have been for them in their last moments, as the muffled sound of the roller approached, quivering the earth, then crushing them to death. The
neradey
are brutal, people say, but I’m grateful that Thore Meta doesn’t fit that description.

Many rice fields turn golden. The head of the rice weighs down the stalks. Women have been sent here to reap the crop and process the unhusked rice. Their huts sprout near the wooden bridge like mushrooms after a drizzling night. One used to process rice is half a mile from my shack. Behind it, women winnow pounded rice. Their hands tilt rice baskets, one at the back, the other in front. Their fingers spread at the brims, so that the husks fall freely and separately from the white rice.

Inside the hut, other women sift the winnowed rice on a large mat. Diligently, they swirl flat round baskets in circular motions; the grains of rice filter through the tiny holes. Before the evening ration I am hungry, so I linger at the entrance of this hut. Since no one scolds me, little by little I move to squat by the rice piles, then my hand pinches a few grains and shoves them in my mouth. Other children follow, stealing glances at the women. In return, the women flash us warnings as their hands keep busy.

“If you keep it up, you’ll get diarrhea,” warns a woman in charge who is known as Comrade Murn. She’s in her fifties, stocky with dark skin and black hair covered by an old cotton scarf.

I’m relieved to hear a caring warning, and not a scold or a slap. Diarrhea later, but hunger is now. My teeth grind away at this new crop, producing a sweet powdery flavor in my mouth. We take whatever amount Comrade Murn tolerates, shoving it in our pockets or whatever we have, a scarf, or our hands.

As the weather gets hotter, the rice ripens quickly. Bags of pounded rice lean against the outside walls of the hut. The women are twice as busy, working up a sweat as they sift, winnow, and bag piles of processed rice into burlap sacks. Suddenly a woman shoves her sifting basket aside, gets up, then cries, “Oh, I can’t hold it anymore! I’ll pee in my sarong.” She staggers as if her legs are numb from sitting too long.

“Who forbids her from peeing?” says Comrade Murn, chuckling. Her eyes glow, lines form around her dusty temples as her hands sift vigorously. Other women glance at her, their mouths flashing a weak smile.

I stare at the lonely basket sitting on the rice pile and the spot vacated by the woman. On an impulse, I jump into the woman’s area, scoop the winnowed rice into the basket, and swirl it. The sifting around me stops. The only thing I hear is the sound of my own sifting basket. I fear Murn will soon scold me.

“Look, look at her! Young like that, yet she knows how to sift rice like an adult,” Comrade Murn says in amazement. “And she’s not even a farm kid.”

Koon la-aw
(good child) Comrade Murn calls me, and wonders from whom I learned this skill. I gaze briefly at her, then at everyone. I learned it from watching my mom, I explain.

After
Pa
was executed in Year Piar, I wanted to learn the ways of farm life so I could help
Mak
. I watched her process rice from start to finish. One day I thought I was ready to make use of my observations. I thought I had gotten everything down, so I told
Mak
that I wanted to help her, and she let me. As I sifted the rice, I felt awkward. The rice in the basket didn’t go in a circular motion as it did with
Mak
. The basket was bigger than me,
Mak
concluded, and I needed practice. I perspired profusely as I struggled with the weight of the rice and the size of the basket.

Mak
beamed and said, “
Koon
, swirl the basket, not your
koot
[butt]. Look at you. Your face is red, your veins bulging. You look like you’re going to the lavatory.” Her hands reached out to take the basket from me, but I wasn’t done learning. I lightly pushed her hands away and resumed my sifting practice.
Mak
laughed at my awkwardness. It had felt good to hear her laughter.

Comrade Murn grins, glancing at me, and so does everyone there. I’m surprised to be the center of attention. I feel a sense of connection with these people. Suddenly I feel as if they’re my family, a surrogate family.

I’ve saved up rice in a bag and salted fish in a tin can, hidden in my shack for Map and Chea in Daakpo. Chea has been staying in Daakpo to look after Map, Ra had told me when we were in the labor camp near Zone 3. Ry is still at the hospital and Than has been sent away, Ra didn’t remember where. Sometimes I wish I could just run to Daakpo and take this food to them. I imagine how happy they would be.

I would say to Chea, “Chea, chasing birds away from rice is not hard. Even you would like working as a scarecrow. It’s not like building irrigation canals.”

Chea would be delighted with me, I imagine, like a proud mother.

The harvest reaches to full speed. Men from various villages will be here, Comrade Murn tells me, to take processed rice to their respective villages. Perhaps someone from Daakpo can take the rice I’ve saved to my family, she suggests, somehow knowing I’ve been saving the rice for Map and Chea.

A few days later a caravan of oxcarts arrived by the time I’d finished with the day’s work. In the nearby field are skinny cows eating small stacks of hay set in front of them, as if their food is also rationed. Their bodies are covered with sheets of skin, their hip-bones protrude like their eyeballs.

Quietly I pad beside the oxcarts. I prowl, peeking beneath each oxcart, where exhausted men are resting. They are sound asleep, arms bent over their foreheads to shield them from the sun. But at one oxcart an old man stands untying a rope from it. Something about him is familiar.

“Excuse me, are you from Daakpo?” I ask in a soft voice. The man turns, his eyebrows creased as if to say,
Who are you?

“That’s right,” he says, pausing from untying the rope.

“Are you
Ta
Barang?” My memory speaks. “You used to work in a sugar place in Daakpo, didn’t you?”

“How do you know my name?” he asks.

“Do you remember Chea? I’m her younger sister!” I say, surprisingly excited.

A year ago, I tell him, he was kind to Chea and me. At the Daakpo sugar factory where palm sugar is processed for the whole village, he let us scrape white bubbles of sugar formed atop the rim of a huge, heavy pot in which the liquid palm sugar was being reduced to a dark brown, viscous sugar. “Sometimes you gave Chea sugar to bring home. Other times you let her dip yucca roots in the sugar until they were cooked and coated with sugar. Chea said you were the nicest person there.”