When Broken Glass Floats: Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge Paperback (31 page)

To supplement our meager food rations, Than, at sixteen, decides to go with some older men to the frontier and smuggle people in. Later he operates on his own, since he knows the way to the New Camp and has learned enough Thai to communicate with the soldiers. When he is gone longer than he told us he would be, I worry. I can see him being shot, and having his money taken from him. When he returns, I’m relieved, gazing at him with admiration for his bravery and his help in acquiring more food for our family. Later, when Uncle Aat and
bang
Vantha go with him, I sleep better.

My efforts to learn English don’t stop when I can no longer pay my former teacher. I study English on my own. I review the translations of words from the
Essential English Book I
I bought and my notebook. I practice combining words to form sentences, speaking out loud to myself.

I find another way to learn English as well. Wandering around the camp, I once overheard English words spoken through a window overlooking an alley. I followed the voice and saw four men standing in the middle of a long hut, copying something into their notebooks. Standing on my tiptoes, I peered between the men’s shoulders into the class and saw English letters and vowels written on the blackboard.

Though I am ahead of the class, I’ve been coming just to listen to the English words spoken by the teacher. I’ve learned to rise early to secure a spot by the window so I can see the blackboard, as others have also discovered this place. Mostly men, along with a few women, come crowding behind us. Looking over our shoulders, they copy notes from our notebooks, and those who are behind them copy from theirs. With each passing day, more people come, plugging up the whole alley. The famished crowd of Cambodian students spill out into the adjacent alley almost as far as a quarter of a mile, copying notes under the hot sun.

The presence of the other women makes me feel a little more at ease, less concerned about what Ra, Than, or
bang
Vantha might say to me if they found out that I’ve been standing among men. Together we bend the rules of our own culture. It’s not appropriate for a woman to be among men, Cambodian elders would say, and some of my relatives would likely echo this view. But I would defend myself and say, I’m here to educate myself. If people are concerned about the inappropriateness of the situation, then they can give me money and I’ll sit in class and be proper.

After weeks of corresponding with Uncle Seng in Portland, Oregon, sending him information about our birthdays and birthplaces, we have been notified that we must move to another camp, called Sakeo II. The people who get to go are Aunt Eng and her family,
bang
Vantha, Ra, Ry, Than, Map, me, and Savorng, who is listed as our sister. All except Uncle Aat,
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Vantha’s cousin. He came to the camp after our seven names had been sent to Uncle Seng for sponsorship. Still,
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Vantha wants Uncle Aat to go to America instead of Savorng, but Ra says we can’t leave Savorng here because she’s a child, only six or seven years old. Uncle Aat, on the other hand, is an adult, she reasons, and he can fend for himself. Later, like other families, he can apply to go to America or another country like France, Canada, or Australia. Uncle Aat looks sad, disappointed, but he seems to understand Ra’s dilemma, having to choose between him and Savorng, whom she and
bang
Vantha have welcomed into our family.

Uncle Aat has been nice to us; he has shared food with us and given me money to spend. He speaks politely to us, unlike
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Vantha, who acting aloof toward us ever since he began spending time around his so-called “cool friends.”
Bang
Vantha has changed. Now he is more belligerent, especially toward Than, particularly since Than began earning money from his smuggling.
Bang
Vantha often puts Than down or berates him for no reason. Than ignores him, but later he tells him to back off and to act like an adult, as an older brother in-law should act.

One night
bang
Vantha came home and told Ra in front of us that his friends had said that “friends are hard to find, but a wife is easy to get.” He agreed, he said. He smirked, proud of himself. He avoids walking beside Ra now that she’s pregnant. Ra keeps her thoughts to herself.

In the evening he provokes fights between Savorng and Map so he can watch. He makes them clutch the bamboo rods at the roof of the hut and tells Savorng to kick Map hard. Ra can’t seem to stop him, and we can’t say a thing because he is like a dictator ruling our family. In the end, Map and Savorng hurt each other and they both cry. Usually Map gets hurt the most since he can’t swing fast because of his protruding stomach, a lingering trace of mal-nourishment left from the Khmer Rouge time. Savorng ends up kicking him in the stomach. They continue fighting until
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Vantha thinks they’ve had a good fight. When they cry and
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Vantha smirks, I wish Ra had married Uncle Lee. She would have been better off with him, for he adores her and our family. But now it’s too late. She is pregnant and will give birth soon. And here we are about to be moved to Sakeo II Camp, a place I am leery about. I’ve heard it houses a lot of former Khmer Rouge. And here we are in buses waiting to be taken there.

My fears quicken as the bus picks up speed and the trees and landscape on the road pass by. I cry as my fears turn to sadness. With each passing moment, I’m taken farther away from Cambodia. I miss
Pa
and
Mak
, Chea…. I turn to look for Ra and Ry behind me. They too, cry. Many people do, their red eyes expressing their silent fears. Soon an English song eases our sorrow. A Thai man sitting by the driver reaches out to a portable stereo and presses one of the buttons. Suddenly a song comes on and the bus fills with sensational music:

Smiling through my tears, I gaily tell Ra and Ry that I understand these words. They smile, looking proud. I turn back, wiping away my tears and enjoying the song.

I
t is July 1980, and here we are in a new camp. Sakeo II Camp is smaller than Khao I Dang, but it is cleaner and nicer. Doorless shelters, called quads, are built in groups of four, all facing each other with a large open space in front. Along an unpaved road lie rows of quads, made of wood and thick gray sheets with wooden floors. Also on this road, which snakes through the camp, are a large two-story wooden building that says “Public Health Center” and, across from it, quads where people can send letters or applications to the American, Australian, French, and Canadian embassies requesting permission for resettlement.

A family of seven, we share the quad with another family. As at Khao I Dang, we receive food and water rations. Many times the rations are better than what we got there. However, it’s still not enough for all of us.

Refugees here are no different from those I saw in Khao I Dang. They wear flowered blouses and sarongs or pants. I haven’t seen anyone wearing black uniforms like those of the Khmer Rouge, so I am not as scared as I was before coming here.

I walk along the main road to the market, approaching the Thai soldiers’ barracks. Suddenly a Thai song comes over the loudspeakers. Ahead of me, I see a few soldiers stop and stand straight, their rifles lowered. The butts of the rifles touch the ground. Other Cambodian refugees have noticed them, so they too stop. I do the same.

While the song is being played, an old man limps past me, his eyes staring at the ground. The old man keeps on tottering along. As soon as the song is finished, one of the soldiers darts after the old man, raises his rifle, and strikes him on the back. The man drops facedown, struggling. When he fumbles to get up, the soldier roars in his face, speaking in Thai. Then the soldier drags him to the barracks, disappearing behind the metal gate. The old man looks perplexed, frightened. Horror-stricken, every Cambodian refugee stands rooted to the road, watching helplessly.

Later the barracks becomes a place where it is common to hear people squealing in pain. One day a man’s voice screams in agony. Suddenly a tall man with brown hair leaps over the fence and quickly takes snapshots. The Thai soldiers run up to him and corner him. One snatches the camera from him, pulling the film out of it, and shoves it at his chest. The photographer walks backward as the soldiers snort at him in Thai.

A few weeks later, I witness a torture within my own family. A friend comes running over to Ry and me, telling us that
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Vantha has beaten Than up, and Than is chasing after him with a hatchet.

On the main road, Ry and I proceed, looking for Than. Ahead of us is
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Vantha, sauntering. When we reach him, Ry asks him what happened, and he says, “I hit Than a little bit, and he chased after me with a hatchet, so I told my friend to tell the soldiers to arrest him. Now the soldiers are beating him. Go help him.”

Through the metal gate, Ry and I peer, wondering where they have taken Than. We shake the gate, crying. Soon a soldier lets us in, and lying on the ground is Than. His face is swollen, soaked with blood and dirt. His body rolls as the two soldiers kick him and beat him with the butts of their rifles.

Ry screams, and I wail for every blow they strike at Than. We press the palms of our hands together, begging them to stop, but they keep on beating Than, then pour water on him, and when he groans they beat him again and again.

“Please stop torturing my brother. Stop!” I yell, moving in closer to the soldiers. “He’s only a kid. Please stop hurting my brother….”

All of the soldiers there watch, including a man in civilian clothes. They look on as Ry and I plead for mercy. Ry’s fists pound the ground as if the pain she sees being inflicted upon Than is too great to bear. Turning away from the sight of Than being beaten, I implore the oldest soldier, who is sitting on a chair, to stop the beating. He looks away, his face cold. Finally they stop, and we take him home.

Ry, Than, Map, and I move in with Aunt Eng and her husband and two daughters. We sleep inside the quad and her family sleeps in the alcove in the front. Savorng remains with Ra and
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Vantha. Ra doesn’t say much about what happened. It seems that
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Vantha has again succeeded in convincing her that the fight wasn’t his fault but Than’s. Perhaps she is too devoted to him, or has succumbed to her role as the submissive wife. But whichever it is, her inability to resolve the situation, along with
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Vantha’s immaturity and rudeness toward us, has caused our family to drift apart. We hardly see her or Savorng anymore.

A few private English classes have just opened. I attend all of them, then quit each class as soon as the teacher reminds everyone to bring money to pay the class fee.

Later my dilemma is solved. A public school called Sras Srang opens in the camp. It is situated in a big open space on the outskirts of the camp near the woods. Built on pilings with stairs and a landing, the school has five classrooms for grade six to nine. English is taught as well as math, Cambodian composition, and physical education.

It has been six years since I attended a formal school. Now, at fifteen, I enroll in the seventh grade, two grades higher than when I lived in Phnom Penh. Today in class I survey my classmates, perhaps fifty of them. We sit on the wooden floor that still gives off the fragrance of freshly cut wood. Boys sit among themselves, and the girls sit with girls, and I’m with them, folding my legs near the door of the classroom with a notebook, pen, and pencil in front of me.

Like me, Than, seventeen, who recovered from the soldiers’ abuse, also enrolls in the seventh grade, but in a different class from mine, and he has a different teacher. Ry, on the other hand, attends an eighth/ninth-level class, which is down the hall from mine. Later she plans to take a teaching course, she says—her goal is to become a teacher, teaching children Cambodian.

Ra had a baby girl on September 30, 1980, a week ago. One afternoon she and Savorng bring the baby, Syla, to our quad. When Ry, Than, and I come home from school, they are sitting in the alcove where we cook our food. With them are Map, Aunt Eng, and her daughters.

Syla is tiny, dark-skinned with thick black hair. Her eyes are shut, lips suckling, her hands formed into fists. Savorng cradles her, and she sleeps peacefully. We all look at her, and talk about her, and not much else.

Nowadays going to school is like a hunger. Every night I anxiously look forward to returning to school the next morning. After school I diligently study math and English. As soon as I get back to the quad, I do my schoolwork, going over my notes and what will be taught the next day.

One day my teacher, whom I call
Lok Kruu
(
Lok
means “sir,” and
Kruu
means “teacher”), hands back our math test. Knowing I did all the problems correctly, I am eager to get my test back. When I get it, I see the red mark indicating a score of nineteen out of twenty. I check a multiplication problem marked wrong and realize that my answer is correct.

I show
Lok Kruu
, who changes my grade. Happy, I smile as I return to my seat. I show my test to a classmate who sits behind me. She says it’s good that I got everything right. She, on the other hand, made a few mistakes. She asks if she could borrow my test. I hear giggles behind me; Sida hands me back my test, then goes to
Lok Kruu
with her test in her hand. She comes back, smirking. She says to me, “Thy, I’ve gotten more points, too. Twenty out of twenty!”

Shocked, I’m speechless. How can she be proud of cheating, having copied my answers to get more points! But soon I’m even more appalled. Two girls sitting behind me, as well as a few boys, go to
Lok Kruu
after Sida showed them her test.

Lok Kruu
’s face reddens as they come up to him. I watch, taking deep breaths. He tells them to go back to their seats, then darts out of the classroom. When he returns, he says nothing, sitting at his desk, composed.

Loud footsteps stride down the hall. Soon the principal, who is in his early forties, appears. I want to get up and tell him what has transpired. I want to point to Sida and those who copied the answers from my test.

As soon as the principal steps into the classroom, he demands, “Who instigated the cheating? Who did it first?” his hand on his hip.

I stand up to explain. “I—”

“You!” The principal attacks me, his index finger stabs at me repeatedly. “Why did you instigate the cheating? What kind of a student, a girl, are you? Cheat….”

Shocked, I peer at him, rooted to the floor. My face becomes hot.

Ever since I was a little girl I was taught to respect my elders, but how can I respect this man? I was oppressed by the Khmer Rouge, who took away my freedom, but
no one has the right to treat me this way now!
I glare back at him as he continues to fume.

My hand on my hip, mirroring the principal’s stance, I tell him, “If you don’t know the truth, don’t accuse me of inciting the cheating. If you’re stupid, don’t act like you know.” Words tumble out of my mouth, words that I could never imagine using when addressing an adult. My hand is raised, my index finger pointing back at him. “You are an adult, act like one. If not, no one will respect you, even though you’re the principal.”

The principal barks, pointing, calling me an insolent girl. Composed, I tell him to behave and to listen to himself, speaking like an adult telling a hysterical child to calm down.
Lok Kruu
scurries over to the principal, then firmly says, “That student didn’t instigate the cheating.”

The principal recoils, his eyes searching
Lok Kruu
’s, as if he is trying to digest what
Lok Kruu
has just said. Suddenly I feel as if I’m in a corridor of silence. The principal leaves as quickly as he entered.

On the wall of the post office I read news and advertisements about missing families. Perhaps some long-lost relatives might be looking for us. I then scan the lists of names of people who have mail from relatives. Soon I see my own name.

I open the letter, and it says: “Dear Granddaughter Thy, Grandpa has arrived in Khao I Dang and is staying with your friend Sonith’s father at the temple…. Your aunts, Chin and Leng, and their families are still in Phnom Penh. Later they will also come to Khao I Dang…. As for your mother’s side of the family, your aunts and uncles and their families are also living in Phnom Penh….”

I can’t believe that Grandpa has found me after all this time since he, Aunt Chin, Aunt Leng, and their families left us at the village before Korkpongro. It was about a year ago today. Now we are reunited through a letter.

A few weeks later, I receive another letter from Khao I Dang. Accompanying it is a picture of Aunt Chin and her children, and Aunt Leng with her second husband as well as Cousin Navy, who is the only survivor in her family of seven. Everyone was brought safely into Khao I Dang. I’m so grateful. Only years later can we laugh together about the perils of their journey. Knowing how risky it was to come to Khao I Dang, they hid their jewels of gold and gems in their bottoms. But when they grew exhausted from the long, tiring journey, no one seemed to remember about their treasures. Aunt Leng’s husband, on the way to the New Camp, had to defecate behind a bush, and it was there he left behind the hidden gems. A similar thing happened with Aunt Chin’s daughter.

The other stories were thoroughly grim. The vicious killings in Year Piar came full circle in the end. The remaining relatives of the people who were executed returned for retribution soon after the liberation. In a rice paddy they went up to those people who were involved in the execution of their families. There, with knives, they killed those people, butchering them.

Years of cruelty had thus been answered in kind, yet I took no satisfaction in learning about this. I’m sad that these remaining relatives who survived the Khmer Rouge were reduced to the Khmer Rouge’s level. Such revenge will change nothing, I think. It doesn’t bring back the dead. But I’m relieved that none of my relatives were involved in this revenge. I’m grateful that I didn’t have to witness this killing.

Considering how unhappy I’ve been at Sras Srang school since the incident with the principal, I elect to quit. Now I have a new experience to embark upon. Ry and I have enrolled in a training program for physical education instructors. One thing that is comforting is that I can learn English on my own, and soon Ry suggests, I will go to America and shall have the opportunity to study many things. In this program, we’ll get paid a monthly salary of 150 bahts. We are to be trained as teachers, yet we get paid.

Ry says I am to tell the recruiter that I am nineteen because you have to be at least eighteen to enroll. She says that they’ll believe me since I’m taller than many Cambodian women of eighteen. At the Department of Physical Education and Recreation, a number of girls and women, perhaps twenty, have signed up to be trained as instructors. Sitting at the benchlike tables, we study the rules of volleyball, which are described in a four-page handout. After going over them for two mornings, we begin the actual training of volleyball, and the chair of the department informs us we will get our uniforms, which brings a smile to our faces. I can’t wait to get into mine.

At first we are terrible at the game. As we practice, we all get better. I love the game and become one of the best players. The women’s volleyball games draw not only an audience of refugees but also some Western foreigners and a few Thai soldiers who carry rifles. After one game, Rey—one of the players who didn’t play the last game—nudges me. She says that she has noticed the Thai soldiers watching me, and that they speak among themselves as if they are interested in me. I turn, glancing at them; they are still standing by the volleyball court looking our way. A pang of fear overwhelms me. I become jittery, recalling stories of rape.