First They Killed My Father (32 page)

There he is. I stand and find myself almost face-to-face with him, separated by only fifteen feet. Automatically, I raise my scarf to cover my head and face. My heart beats wildly. Fear seeps into my body. He is looking at me. He can see me. What if he escapes and kills me? I take a step back, leaning into the crowd for protection. The crowd vibrates with anticipation and energy, closing in around the prisoner, glaring at
him. I have never seen an execution before. Rage heats up my body, seeing only one of them killed is not enough!

His face reveals nothing. His lips do not beg for mercy. He sits propped up on a highback chair on a gravel hill that serves as a stage. He is dark and wears the black clothes of the Khmer Rouge—the black clothes I still wear. His matted hair is sweaty and he hangs his head to focus on his feet. The rough hemp rope that binds his feet together is so tightly tied that it draws blood. More rope straps him to the back of the chair, it coils around him from the chest down to the stomach.

“Murderer! You deserve to die a slow, painful death!” someone yells.

That is what we have planned for him. I hope he knows his life is about to end. I hope he knows we are here because we want his blood and will soon rip him apart for it. People talk loudly about the best way to kill him. They argue about how to make the execution as drawn out and painful as possible. They discuss which tools to use to crack his skull, to slice his throat. Someone says we should let him sit in the sun, shave his skin open little by little, and rub salt into the wounds. Someone else wants to strangle him bare-handed. The discussion continues for a long time, but the people cannot agree on what to do.

Finally, two middle-aged men step up in front. The crowd hushes. The prisoner glances up. He looks scared now. His eyes are squinting and his lips move as if to mutter something, but he decides against it and purses his lips shut. Sweat pours from his face, slides over his Adam’s apple, and soaks his shirt. He bends his head, looks down at his feet again, knowing there is no way out. His government has created a vengeful, bloodthirsty people. Pol Pot has turned me into someone who wants to kill.

“Brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts,” one of the two men yell. “We have decided that this Khmer Rouge will be executed for his crimes. His blood will avenge the innocent people he has slaughtered. We are asking for volunteers to be the executioners.” The crowd roars. They look about, wondering who will be the first to volunteer. At first, no one raises his hand. For all the big talk, everyone stays silent. Then a few hands go up and the crowd comes to life again.

A woman, crying loudly, pushes her way to the front of the crowd. She is young, maybe in her midtwenties. Her straight black hair is tied
back, giving us a view of her angular, thin face. Like me, she wears the Khmer Rouge clothes. Though tears fall from her eyes, her face is dark and angry.

“I know this Khmer Rouge soldier!” she screams. In her left hand she holds a nine-inch knife. It is copper brown, rusty, and dull. “He was the Khmer Rouge soldier in my village. He killed my husband and baby! I will avenge them!”

Another woman then pushes her way out of the crowd. “I also know him. He killed my children and grandchildren. Now I am alone in this world.” The second woman is older, perhaps sixty or seventy. She is thin and wears black clothes. In her hand she holds a hammer, its wooden handle worn and splintered. One man takes the women aside while the others continue to speak to the audience. I am no longer listening. I am fixated on the prisoner. He looked up briefly when the two women came forth, but now he is back in position, head down, eyes to the ground.

I watch without emotion as the old woman walks slowly up to him, her hammer in hand. Above us the black clouds move with her, shadowing where she goes. She stands in front of him, staring at the top of his head. I want to shield my eyes from what’s about to happen, but I cannot. The old woman’s hands shake as she raises the hammer high above her head and brings it crashing down into the prisoner’s skull. He screams a loud, shrill cry, that pierces my heart like a stake, and I imagine that this, maybe, is how Pa died. The soldier’s head hangs, bobbing up and down like a chicken’s. Blood gushes out of his wound, flowing down his forehead, ears, and dripping from his chin. The woman raises her hammer again. I almost feel pity for him. But it is too late to let him go, it is too late to go back. It is too late for my parents and my country.

Blood splatters the woman’s clothes, body, face. She screams and swings the hammer up above her head again. Blood droplets land on my pants and face. I wipe them off. Red smudges are still on my palms. Another scream comes from the old woman, this time her hammer smashes his leg. His leg jerks but is held down by the rope. The hammer lands over and over again, on his arms, shoulders, and knees, before the younger woman moves toward him. Taking her knife, she pushes it into
the prisoner’s stomach. More blood pours out, spilling over his chair. She stabs him again, this time in the chest. The Khmer Rouge body convulses and trembles, as if electricity is traveling to the legs, arms, and fingers. Gradually, he stops moving, slumping over in the chair.

Finally the women stand still. Their weapons drip with blood as they walk away. When they turn around, I see that they look like death themselves. Their hair trickles blood and sweat, their clothes drip, their faces red and rigid. Only their eyes look alive as they seethe with more rage and hate. The women are quiet as the crowd parts for them to pass through. During the execution, the crowd did not cheer but watched, silent and devoid of emotion, as if it were the slaughter of an animal for food. After the women are gone, the crowd begins to buzz.

“Did you see how rich and dark the blood was? It was the color of the Devil’s blood!”

“It is rich because he has been feasting on the food we grew while my family died from starvation!”

“His blood is dark because he isn’t human. Humans do not have black blood!”

“Why didn’t they make him die more slowly?”

One by one, people return to their homes, leaving me standing there alone, staring at the corpse. My mind plays back images of my parents’ and sister’s murders. Again my heart tears open as I stand there and wonder how they died. Quickly, I push the sadness away. The slumped over corpse reminds me of Pithy in her mother’s arms. Pithy’s head bled in much the same way. His death will not bring any of them back.

The crowd is gone, except for ten of us kids waiting to see what the adults will do with the body. Three men eventually approach the body and cut loose his legs and hands. As they loosen the rope around the chest, the corpse tumbles off the chair and lands in the dirt. One man tightly wraps the rope three times around the corpse’s chest. Holding the end of the rope, the three men drag the body away, leaving behind a trail of blood in the dusty road. I follow along with the other children. The men haul the body to a well and stop in front of it. Four feet in diameter, the round concrete wall sticks two feet out of the ground. The once white concrete is gray with mold, the short grass around it brown and shriveled.

Turning to us they yell, “What are you kids following us for? Go home! Get away from here. There is nothing to see!”

I am not convinced and stand firm with the other children. Turning their backs to us, they bend and lift the dusty corpse off the ground and drop it into the well. I hear a big splash and a thud when it lands. Each man then wipes his bloody hands on the grass, picks up a handful of dirt, and rubs his palms together to clean off the blood. Finally, they leave together. The other children and I look at each other.

The smell coming from the well is horrible. Pinching my nose and covering my mouth, I walk up to it and peer in. The smell is so putrid it makes my eyes water. It takes a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the darkness of the well, then slowly, thirty feet below, I make out the shape of human figures floating on top of the water. What my eyes cannot see, my mind makes up for, and I picture dark dead faces staring up at me. The hair stands up on my arms and legs as I run away.

“Don’t fall in—the smell will never wash away!” I yell to the other kids.

While staying at the displaced people’s camp, Meng, Khouy, and Kim leave to go fishing every morning. My job is to search for wild vegetables and mushrooms in nearby woods while Chou guards our tents. Usually, we eat half of what the boys bring back each day. The rest we salt, grill, or dry to save. These days we go to bed on a full stomach every night. We have fish, wild vegetables, and the rice Meng and Khouy stole from the Khmer Rouge. We are the lucky ones. Most of the old and very young he sick on the outskirts of the sites where the displaced people gather or die in the camp from disease and hunger.

At the end of April, Khouy and Meng decide we are ready to leave Pursat City. They believe we have gathered enough supplies to last the long trip to Bat Deng. Abandoning our tents, we pack our few pots, pans, clothes, and all our food. We leave with two of Khouy and Meng’s women friends but the third stays behind to search for any surviving family members. Khouy and Meng each carry a fifteen-pound bag of rice on their shoulders and the rest of us help with bundles of clothes, blankets, and other food.

Balancing the rice pot on my head, I turn around and look one last time at Pursat City. My eyes linger on the mountains, thinking of Pa,
Ma, Keav, and Geak. The mountain peaks majestically jut into the sky as large clouds cast dark shadows on them. It all looks so calm and normal, as if the hell we have lived through for the past four years has never happened. Four years ago, on April 17, 1975, the Khmer Rouge took over Phnom Penh, a course that eventually brought us here to Pursat. Up there somewhere in the mountains, Pa, Ma, Keav, and Geak are still trapped and unable to go home with us. “Pa, Ma, Keav, Geak,” I call out to them, “I am taking you all home now. I will not say goodbye. I will never say good-bye.”

Day after day, we walk onward, stopping only to rest at night. In the dry April sun, our black clothes absorb the rays and the heat weighs heavy on our skin. Our bones grow tired, our backs ache, our feet blister, yet still we march. Almost exactly four years ago, we evacuated Phnom Penh. I remember how I cried and whined about the hot sun and how the touch of Pa’s hand on my head soothed me. I was not used to the heat, the sun, and the hard ground then because Pa provided us with a sheltered, middle-class life. Now my body is accustomed to the extreme environment and weather, but my heart has never come to terms with the absence of those we have lost. Now we are leaving them behind. I hope wherever they are, their spirit will follow us back to Bat Deng.

One night, we find shelter in an abandoned hut. We are in the middle of nowhere and are highly vulnerable to a Khmer Rouge attack. The makeshift refuge must house the seven of us and one other family who arrived there before us. The other family consists of a mother, father, and baby. He is sick, his face and feet are swollen, as are hers and their baby’s. When I see the mother of the other family, I think she is Ma. The woman could be a double for Ma! I want to run to her, talk to her, and hold her, but then I see her husband lying next to her. He is about Pa’s age, but the resemblance ends there. I know then she isn’t Ma, because she would never be with anyone else other than Pa. I don’t dare ask my siblings whether they see the resemblance too. Watching their eyes, I notice they do not linger on the sight of the mother the way I do. Do my brothers and Chou see the resemblance too?

While the family stays on the ground level of the hut, our group moves to the top floor. Before they fall asleep that night, my brothers
practice jumping out of the second floor to plan their escape route in case of a Khmer Rouge attack. They leap off in different ways and clear the area of anything that might hurt us when we land. Next they test the stability of the stairs under pressure, and rehearse running up and down them. Chou and I sit and worry about what will happen to us because we don’t think we can jump without breaking our legs. Now that we are together again, I fear something will happen to break us up again. I’m afraid that if there is an attack I will be left behind. If all of us cannot live then at least hopefully some will. I know Pa would have wanted it that way. Still, the thought fills me with anxiety. After I am sure my brothers are asleep, I take off my scarf and go to sleep on the ground at the bottom of the stairs.

Before we leave the next morning, and when my brothers and sister aren’t looking, I grab some of our cooked rice and wrap it up in banana leaves. Downstairs, the woman is awake and breast-feeding her baby. I do not have the courage to talk to her or look at her. Instead, I place the rice near her and leave before she can say anything. Looking back longingly at the hut, I wonder what will happen to them. It does not look like they will be able to leave today, with a sick husband and baby. They will probably spend another night alone.

Day after day, we push on until I lose count of how many days we have traveled. Every day we walk, only stopping at night to rest. All along the way, I travel with Pa, Ma, Keav, and Geak in my thoughts. In my mind, I talk to them. I complain to Pa about my blistering feet and aching joints. I describe to Ma all the pretty flowers I see on the roadside. I report to Keav the flirting that goes on between Khouy, Meng, and their women friends. And Geak—I have the hardest time finding words to say to her. To Geak, I keep silent.

“We’re very close to Bat Deng,” Meng says, breaking into my thoughts. “If our aunts and uncles are alive, we will be with them soon.” We have been on the road for eighteen days now and our food ration is getting smaller with each passing day.

As we walk the last few hours back to Bat Deng, Meng and Khouy ask many people on bicycles or wagons if they share our destination. When they say yes, my brothers plead with them to bring word to our uncles that we have arrived. Within an hour, we see a familiar figure on
a bicycle riding toward us. It is Uncle Leang! Uncle Leang still resembles the stick figure I drew in Phnom Penh, only his back curves more now. My brothers rush up to him and soon they are hugging each other and crying. Uncle Leang reaches into his bag and pulls out some sweet rice cakes. My eyes widen and my mouth waters at the sight of the roasted sesame seeds sprinkled over sweet rice.