When Broken Glass Floats: Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge Paperback (7 page)

“Athy, stop thinking about him. Keep walking,” says
Pa
softly. He looks straight ahead. Akie has been a part of our family, and I don’t want to lose him again, like during the Viet Cong invasion.

“
Mak
, Akie doesn’t walk behind us anymore,” I whisper to my mother, eyes teary.

“He’s probably lost,
koon
! Stop worrying about him. Keep walking.”
Mak
sounds concerned. Her motherly voice soothes me, and I obey.

We make it across the river onto a stretch of paved highway, which is covered with lines of people—thousands and thousands, marching out like a giant flock of birds in forced migration, hurrying to beat the arrival of a storm. Now that we’re out of the city, the sky is blue and the sun is shining, and little children cry. Wails of misery and confusion form the background noise to moving feet.

The Khmer Rouge are everywhere. We pass an open field and see them loading people into trucks. On the shoulders of the highway the Khmer Rouge soldiers stand sentry, holding rifles upright. They survey the moving crowd suspiciously, eyes darting among our faces.

In the distance, I can see what seem to be military trucks and people in different uniforms moving in a field off the right side of the highway. When we get close, almost everyone is curious.

“
Pa
, the Khmer Rouge tie Lon Nol’s soldiers up,” Chea announces.

“
Pa
knows,” says
Pa
softly, as if he’s afraid someone will hear.

His voice makes my heart hammer. What does this tying-up mean? What will happen to these men? There are about one hundred of Lon Nol’s soldiers in green camouflage. They are tied up, hands behind their backs. Walking behind them are lines of more tied-up men, including a few in civilian clothes. But among them are also those with their hands behind their heads, as the black-uniformed Khmer Rouge point rifles at them.

Pa
quickly walks the scooter into a thicker mass of moving people, trying to blend in with the crowd. Among them, he’s the tallest. He hunches his shoulders and spine, eyes studying the speedometer of the scooter.
Mak
notices this and so does everyone in the family. The worry passes through us all like a sudden chill.

We pass the field, the checkpoint, and I’m relieved.
Pa
is, too. He walks the scooter normally again, his back straight, his eyes looking ahead. Ateek, Aunt Heak’s two-year-old son, sobs in misery.
Pa
puts him with Vin and Map on the scooter foot railing, and it’s enough. He’s quiet.

Ahead of us, people slow down. From a distance, I see Khmer Rouge cadres stop every family.
Pa
stops the scooter. He murmurs something, tells me to stay still, then slips two watches above my wrist under the sleeve of my blouse.
Mak
gazes at him with a sour face. He assures her, “They won’t search children.”

“Don’t say anything,” warns
Pa
softly. “Achea, Ara, hide your watches…. I’ll talk with them.”

“Comrade, do you have a watch?” a Khmer Rouge soldier shouts at a man ahead of us. “If you have, give it to me! Have it or not?” The man before us fumbles through his cloth parcel, trying to show the angry soldier he doesn’t have any watch. With irritation the Khmer Rouge shoves the man forward, and his family nervously follows behind like dutiful slaves.

Then it’s our turn to pass through the checkpoint, which consists of five Khmer Rouge soldiers with machine guns.
Pa
walks ahead, as if he’s stepping up to a ticket window for movie passes.

“I have a watch, you can have it,”
Pa
exclaims. He stops walking the scooter and secures it nearby. He removes the watch from his wrist and hands it over.
Pa
knows the game. He’s cooperating.

“Does comrade have more?” the soldier asks him fiercely as he hands
Pa
’s watch to a younger cadre standing behind him, who looks at my father’s watch with interest. His wrists are already decked out with many different watches. He grins shamelessly, like a greedy child who can’t have enough.

I stand behind
Pa
and look down, trying to be calm.

Pa
politely says, “I have only one watch, no more.”

The soldier waves for us to pass through.

Ahead of us, on the shoulder of the highway, are farmers, five of them, standing, holding chunks of pork, still fresh, all bloody. They shout to us to buy their meat, “fresh pork,” they bid.
Mak
and
Pa
give an okay to buy some pork. They are relieved, and surprised, to know there’s a makeshift market in a time of need—we’ll need more food for the days ahead, maybe a week, as we journey to Year Piar village.

At Sturng Krartort Lake, our resting place for the night, we find that hundreds of people have arrived before us. The spires of smoke from campfires rise everywhere. As late arrivals, we have to camp about half a mile away from the lake. After our meal, my parents, Aunt Heak, and some adults who camp near us, sit together talking about the future. Unlike my sisters and brothers, I mingle with these adults. Much is speculation, best guesses. Having some insight into the living conditions in Red China,
Pa
shares it with the group. “In China under Mao Tse-tung, when you want to eat your own chicken, you have to ask permission. Your property is under the government’s control. You have to have their permission to do things. Come to think of it, it’s better to be an American ‘servant’ [ally] than to be Chinese—because there’s freedom. Russian Communism, I think, is better than the Red Chinese because they use currency.”

“How about the tied-up soldiers?”
Mak
interrupts
Pa
. “Those we saw on the road. What will happen to them?”

“I don’t know what they’ll do to them. But I think the Khmer Rouge won’t just take the country. I think a government fights for its nation to liberate its people,”
Pa
philosophizes. He wants to believe the Khmer Rouge can be forgiving, that it can become the Cambodian people’s government.

After that evening at Sturng Krartort Lake, we journey through many villages and make several stops. Our routine is simple. We walk most of the day and sleep during the night. The sky has become the roof of our home, and the distant stars replace our fluorescent lights. As we crowd together on blankets and plastic ground coverings, the loose tent of mosquito netting around us does little good. Mosquitoes feast on our blood, leave itchy red welts on our hands and legs.

Within a week we approach
Yiey
*
Narg’s house,
Pa
’s aunt, in Srey Va, a small rural village set amid dry, sandy fields on our way to Year Piar. I’m thirsty and hungry, eagerly expecting good food and comfortable rest on a soft bed like the one I left behind.

But it is just a dream.
Yiey
Narg and her husband are modest farmers who have already lived under the Khmer Rouge for five years. Their wooden house is small and crowded. There are no chairs, only a hard platform and a bamboo counter near it. Instead of lush greenery, the overwhelming color here is drab brown. I stare at a few banana and papaya trees thriving in a dry, sandy backyard. The soil is as worn-out as the expression on
Yiey
Narg’s and her husband’s faces.

Yiey
Narg informs us how restricted her family’s freedom has been since the Khmer Rouge arrived. They had touted a promise of equality. And yet, her family can’t fish or trade with other people as they used to. They can’t travel outside the confines of their own rural neighborhood. As a result, there are deprivations. It seems they have little salt for cooking. And so they’ve learned to improvise, using ashes from the cooking fire to preserve the fish they’ve caught.

After we have a simple rural meal,
Pa
wants to head to Year Piar immediately. But
Yiey
Narg insists we all rest overnight at her house.
Pa
is polite but adamant about going to see his father.

“Then your wife and children stay. And Heak and her children. All right, you stay, rest.” She makes up her mind for all of us, which is almost always the way it is with Cambodian elders. “Tidsim,”
Yiey
Narg continues, “be careful. I’ve heard rumors. Some families have had to go elsewhere, beyond their home provinces, because the Khmer Rouge are not trustworthy. They’ll question you about your past profession. Who knows what they’ll do to you…. Be careful, don’t trust them,” she warns
Pa
.

Be careful, don’t trust them.
The words sound ominous yet abstract—an open-ended warning. But my fear is more realistic now, especially when I hear this admonition from a relative who has lived under the Khmer Rouge for five years.

Pa
takes me with him to Year Piar. I’m very tired, but relieved to be leaving. Like
Pa
, who believes in human goodness, I still believe that life could return to what it used to be. Already, as we are about to leave for Year Piar, I look forward to something less grim.

“Athy,
koon
, don’t sleep, do you hear?”

Even as I close my eyes, cheek pressed against
Pa
’s warm back, I feel the fog of exhaustion settle over me. But I must leave this place. And I’m happy to be here, clinging to
Pa
like a weary little monkey.

The labored strains of the scooter engine propel the wheels along a dried-mud path while my tired eyes struggle to stay open.

“
Pa
, are we almost there yet?”

“We’re almost there,
koon
. Don’t sleep now.”

“No,” I say softly.

I lie. My eyes are barely open. My hands are losing their grip on
Pa
’s waist. Already I’m beginning to doze off. Now and then I feel
Pa
’s hand shaking my back repeatedly. I hear him say, “Don’t sleep,
koon
. We’re almost there.” I open my eyes, then close them once again.

Soon I hear children’s voices. Gradually the chorus becomes louder, “Look, those things spin!” The chatter of joyous laughter follows. A wave of young children run toward us as if we were a traveling novelty act.

Pa
slows down, then suddenly comes to a stop, causing our bodies to jerk forward. Children swarm around us out of nowhere, hovering the way flies cluster around raw flesh. They chase us, pointing and giggling like fools at the wheels. Some reach out to touch the rubber scooter tires, which hold a strange, hypnotic allure for them.

This herd of half-dressed and naked children, ages two to nine, are unlike anything I have ever seen. The poorest of the poor. Their clothes are ragged, beyond old, the color faded beyond recognition. So many patches have been sewn haphazardly atop each other that their garments are thick and bulky. These are not typical country children but a postrevolutionary product. Dirt is a uniform, and everyone seems to need a bath. The youngest ones approach with noses encrusted with soot and snot.

As filthy and disadvantaged as they seem, their fascination with the tires strikes me as weirdly out of place. It irritates me, at first, to watch them act so silly over something as basic as a scooter tire. I am repulsed, recoiling from these children, some even my own age, as they continue to chase us. It never occurs to me that for many this might be the first time they’ve ever seen a motorized vehicle.

The purges that took hundreds of thousands of lives in the aftermath of the Communist capture of Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975, have apparently ended for the most part, according to the informants. But the new system is said to function largely through fear, with the leadership making itself felt at local levels through what is described as “the organization.”

 

W
e’re met by the familiar smells of the country, and I’m cast back into the past. I breathe deeply, taking in the sweet stench of urine, animal dung, and hay—a powerful formula that reminds me of the times when
Pa
brought me to visit
Kong
(Grandpa) Houng,
Yiey
(Grandma) Khmeng, and
Yiey Tot
(Great-grandmother). I glance down and realize how far I am from Phnom Penh.

Along the path lie flat pools and small hills of verdant, runny dung left by cows, water buffalo, and oxen. I stare at the random drops as
Pa
maneuvers the motorbike around them. It is a crude landscape, where mud and dirt and dung are a fact of life. Houses are built on stilts. Children play not in the dusty road but in the field. Roads are where they go to collect dung for the rice fields.

Pa
and I arrive at
Kong
Houng’s house before sunset. The hum of the scooter announces our approach. Waiting to greet us is Aunt Cheng, along with other local people I don’t recognize. As she carefully makes her way down the steep oaken stairs, Aunt Cheng smiles her familiar, ever-present smile, almost a trademark. Her thick black hair is shorter than the last time I saw her—it’s been snipped from waist length to her chin. As in Phnom Penh, she wears a white blouse with a flowered sarong.
*
She smiles brightly at me, then asks, “Athy, where is everybody, your mother?”

“
Mak
’s at
Yiey
Narg’s house. Everybody will come here tomorrow.”

I quickly survey my new surroundings. A barn is used as storage for generous mountains of unhusked rice; bundles of hay are stacked near it, and among the fruit trees nearby, a large, branched tamarind tree stretches to the heavens, almost as tall as the barn.

I stand in front of the stairs, looking at a place that was once familiar but now seems strange, for I haven’t seen it for five years, half of my life. The house is built on large pilings. Compared with the homes of other country people, my grandfather’s house is big; the wooden stairs and a banister skim down the left side. My grandparents are relatively well-to-do people by local standards. They own many cattle and much of the farmland around Year Piar and other villages as well. On earlier visits, I can remember my grandmother explaining how
Kong
Houng would have to go away to collect “rent” from farmland in remote villages. Often the payment came in the form of rice. His success was achieved through hard work, a family tradition. His parents before him had farmed, acquiring property with time and patience.

When the Khmer Rouge came, they ordered him as well as his younger brother,
Kong
Lorng, to give up their property. When they refused, both were tied up and sentenced to be executed. In any society, whether it’s capitalist, socialist, or communist, connections do pay off—they were saved by a relative who knew someone who knew Ta Mok, the infamous one-legged man who is one of the Khmer Rouge highest-ranking military officials, overseeing executions.

“Athy, Athy.”

I look for the eager voice calling my name, only to find a familiar face smiling at me.

“Than!” I croon. I didn’t know how much I loved my brother until we were separated.

He looks different than the last time I saw him in Phnom Penh, only two weeks ago. My last image of Than was of him leaving with Uncle Surg to retrieve my aunts, grandmother, and cousins during the chaotic days before evacuation.

I study him. His hair is shorter, and he is darker, the pigment drawn from walking in the sun many days. A peasant color, I think, like that of the local farmers.

Than makes his way downstairs as he holds the railing, watching his step and smiling brightly. I walk toward the stairs, elated to see my old sparring partner, despite the way we used to constantly fight. I’ve missed him, and the thought surprises me. I realize that I once thought I would never see him again, and my honest acceptance of this shocks me.

If it was permitted within our culture to embrace, I would have thrown my arms around him. But that’s only appropriate for someone older who comforts someone younger. Instead, Than tells me to hold on to the stair railing, his own shyness eliciting affection as we both climb into the house. In two large spherical bamboo baskets are different Cambodian desserts wrapped in banana leaves. Also, in colorful steel platters are pieces of dark, sweet glutinous rice with fresh grated coconut and sesame seeds scattered on top. After
Yiey
Narg’s modest fare, this is sumptuous. This is Cambodian tradition, greeting guests with a sprawling bounty. With Than around, my appetite seems to kick in. He’s good medicine.

“Thy, you can eat as much as you want. They made all of these desserts for our family. They made a lot when I came with
Poo
Surg.”

Than’s voice energizes me, like sugar on my tongue.

“Let’s go see the banana trees. Hurry, pick something, let’s go!” he urges me.

Than’s separation from us seems to have had no effect on him whatsoever; or maybe he’s just happy that it is over. Than persists, “Athy, do you want to see pineapples and bananas?” His eyes are wide. “There are a lot in the orchard. I’ll take you there. And there’s also a well, and it’s deep. You want to go now?”

Before I answer, Than helps me grab some dessert. We hurry to the orchard.

I’m in awe of the lush green pineapples that flourish everywhere in the shade of fruit trees and along the path to the well. Pineapple plants grow bigger than a child, and rising among the long, thorny leaves are the pineapple buds. Some are about the size of a fist, while others grow two or three times that size. Never have I seen such a thing.

I’m still spellbound by the beauty and abundance of the pineapples, but Than is already at the well, like a happy dog wiggling his tail at the prospect of something intriguing. Than calls to me, “Look in there, Athy, you can see your shadow in the water during the daytime.”

Surrounding the well are more pineapples, then bananas scattered in rows with long green leaves and buds sprouting out of their trunks. From the barn to the well are tall-branched lamut trees, full with their rough-skinned fruit, that are the color and shape of kiwi. The fruits are still green, but abundant.

“Can we pick lamut?” I ask Than.

“You want some?” Than’s eyes glow, his eyebrows raised.

“Yeah!” My eyes widen. On the road, fresh fruit was not to be found, and lamut is one of my favorites.

Than and I hurry back to the house so he can show me where he has kept his private stash, the ones hidden in a rice barrel to ripen.

The next day is a homecoming.
Mak
, Aunt Heak, her two sons, and my sisters and brothers roll into Year Piar in rumbling oxcarts, joining other relatives who have already arrived. Their final arrival seems to mark a family reunion for my grandparents, who look relieved. Now, five of their seven children have returned home with their families. In my own family there are ten of us. The other families consist of my aunts, uncles, and cousins, totaling twenty-nine people, including my grandparents. We now share three large bedrooms. The crowding is not bad, but the lack of electricity bothers me.

Later in the week, more homecoming. Most of
Mak
’s side of the family.
Mak
’s parents as well as her sisters and brothers and their families. Fourteen altogether, too many people for
Kong
Houng to accommodate even in his large home. Sensitive to their situation,
Mak
’s parents and siblings elect to turn the rice storage area into their makeshift home. Everyone learns to cope.

After dinner Chea, Ra, Ry, and I rest in our room, surrounded by our belongings, which lean against the walls like weary travelers. Listening to Chea, Ra, and Ry talk is like a balm. All of a sudden Chea jumps up. She scurries to her school briefcase to look for her watch.

“You guys, it’s almost time for the Voice of America.” Chea’s eyes widen. “Ra, where’s the radio?”

Ry and I jump up as Chea and Ra locate the radio near one of the suitcases.

“Athy,” Chea exclaims anxiously, “go get
Pa
.”

In a minute I have
Pa
with me, along with
Mak
, Than, my aunts and uncles, and Grandma, all crowded into the room and the doorway. Already Chea is fumbling for the Voice of America’s frequency. The static crackles loudly.

“Achea, turn it down,”
Pa
says, knitting his eyebrows.

The faint, brassy strains of American music come through—the theme song of the Voice of America.

“This is the Voice of America in Khmer,” a man’s voice announces in English. Then a woman comes on, speaking in Cambodian: “From the city of Washington, I’m…Ladies and gentlemen, please listen to the events that have taken place in Cambodia….”

At first I find comfort in her voice, for she connects us to the world, unveiling facts, or what the broadcast claims to have happened. But that sense of comfort is brief. I become nervous when I notice
Pa
frowning. Then everyone else—Chea, Ra, my aunts and uncles—all look anxious, sad. They glance at
Pa
after he sighs. He is a thermometer for our fear.

“Achea, turn the radio off,”
Mak
orders. “They’ll suspect us.”

Chea throws
Mak
a glance, but her hand doesn’t obey.
Mak
strides toward the radio and reaches to turn it off.

“Not yet,”
Pa
cries, raising his hand to shield
Mak
from the radio.

Then
Kong
Houng’s head peeks through the door. He nervously whispers, “There’s someone standing below the house listening. He stands right underneath this room,” he points, stabbing at the floor, with its wide gaps. “It’s a
chhlop.
*
You’d better be careful.”

Pa
turns to his father.
Mak
quickly reaches over and flips the switch off. She disconnects us from the outside world but links us to the mask of horror on her face. By then my father has digested what his father just said.

The next day a Khmer Rouge cadre seizes the radio, his simple black uniform a mark of his authority. He says the radio now belongs to the commune. All I know is fear. At night, following the
chhlop
’s eavesdropping, I’m afraid to speak to my sisters, even to utter words like “hand me the blanket,” as if whispering anything at all will cause trouble or bring bad luck.

At night I lift the mat below me and look through the spaces between the floorboards to see if a
chhlop
is beneath the house, lurking like a demon. Sure enough, I see the shadow of a person standing in a dark corner of the house just below our bedroom. Quickly I drop the mat, recoiling as if I’ve just scorched my fingers on a hot iron. I snuggle closer to Chea.

Within a few days of our arrival, Year Piar Khmer Rouge leaders, who were formerly my grandparents’ employees or tenants, order my father and uncles to work in the name of
Angka Leu
. The office for
Pa
is now replaced by an empty field. A hoe, woven baskets, and a carrying stick replace pens and paper. They order the newly arrived men to dig dirt, to build water canals for no pay, in order to advance their revolution.

After dinner, the evening breeze brings my relatives and me to the solid oak bed—a heavy slab of wood, really—which has been brought outside and down the stairs. With the heat and fieldwork, the men seek relief, yearning for a cool breeze the way some men thirst for a quenching drink of water.

It is here that
Pa
shares his thoughts and feelings about his first day of labor for the Khmer Rouge. “These people are dumb,” he mutters, shaking his head. “They use educated people to dig dirt, the kind of work people without education can do.”

“In this era,” he says, his mouth widening into a smile, “all you need do to pass an exam is know how to dig dirt.”

Some of us join in with light laughter.

Mak
looks around. “Your father is careless about what he says,” she warns. “If they hear what he says, we will be in trouble. Joking without thinking.”
Mak
gives
Pa
her patented look of disapproval. Everyone knows what it means.

Mak
’s words erase our smiles.
Pa
glances around us. “Let’s stop talking,” he says softly. “Nowadays, walls have ears.”

Already the Khmer Rouge, the phantoms of the jungle, seem ubiquitous. They are like flies buzzing around us, everywhere but invisible. They are the breeze that ruffles the banana trees, unseen but powerful.

Angka
is now the master of our destiny, it seems. The next morning Khmer Rouge order us to attend a meeting. A meeting for “new people,” we are told. As recent arrivals, most of my family must attend except
Mak
, who stays home to look after Vin, Map, and Avy.

We dress as if we were going to visit the Buddhist temple or attend school. I hold my father’s hand as we journey to this meeting on foot.
Pa
wears a white short-sleeved shirt with slacks, and I wear my school uniform. After we walk about four miles, we come to a large open field, filled with people dressed in spring clothes—they are not local villagers. There are hundreds of them, and everyone squats or sits on the ground on plastic material or cloth. Together we look like nicely dressed vagabonds, surprised to find we have put on good clothes only to sit in the dirt.