For the Sake of All Living Things (122 page)

Nang straightened up. They approach us here, eh? he thought. He removed Chhuon’s arm from about his shoulders, looked into Chhuon’s face. “I must go now, Papa. Good-bye.”

F
OR MORE THAN A
year Vathana had existed in the gulag of Sangkat 117. It was the time of the great starvation, the second famine. But to call it a year is very odd. Time crumbled. There is no time in a gulag. For a while Vathana made daily trips to the fertilizer factory but then she was allowed to return to the fields. She was expected to tell all. She told no one.

In the gulag all people were now to eat in the communal dining place, but there was room for only half and rations for only half. The healthiest people hustled from the fields to gain a place in line, the weakest stumbled and fell and died. Midline was a place of shoving, cutting, prodding. Yotheas encouraged it until it became tiresome. Then they bashed people with their clubs. Each day people became more desperate; each night the rice riot became worse. Some nights the yotheas announced there would be no rice and the people would have to “make do.” Always they blamed enemies. “The rice shipment we expected was seized by imperialist saboteurs. Anyone caught hiding rice will be severely punished.”

As the famine deepened cadre changed, first at
srok
level, then at
khurn.
The newest cadre were the most cruel. The population of the commune rose with new deportees, then fell because of “natural causes.” In August 250 people died of starvation in Sangkat 117; in September, 300. More people came, more died. Two communes were combined and together totaled 12,000 workers. Then a mobile youth brigade of 2,000 was force-marched toward Battambang or Siem Reap. No one knew for certain. With it went Mey’s eldest daughter. In October rations were cut further. Now, in the center of thousands of hectares of rice fields, the ration for an adult full-time field worker was seventy kernels of corn per day. Other adult workers—mat weavers, tool makers—received thirty-five. For nearly 10,000 people the enforcers, chiefs and controllers allowed but ten children to be on fishing detail. Foraging was prohibited. October’s death count stopped at 400 but there were more.

Robona and Vathana were frail, Amara was the weakest. All were distraught. “I went to Met Rama,” Amara said to her sister and cousin. The three lay on mats on the raised floor of the hut. Everywhere about them, under them, falling on them, was water. It was the time of the heaviest rains, the time the sparsely manned cadres had the least control over the people. “I said, Amara’s lips quivered, “Brother, we must have food.”

“Did he answer?” Vathana asked. Others in the hut took note of their speech and the three women huddled closer and lowered their voices.

“he said it is his order to see each person has one milk can of rice each day. but he said there is no rice. i said, ‘then let us eat the forest.’ he answered he would not stop us but he was not the security enforcer but nava was. i kissed his feet and left, tomorrow one of us must get food, you’re the strongest, we’ll tell the
mekong
you are ill.”

The next day the two sisters went to work. Vathana lay moaning on her mat until all the women except the old mat weavers left. Then she rolled to her knees and slowly crawled to the doorless doorway. Purposely she made her belches loud as if she were about to vomit. The old women eyed her, shied back, pretended not to notice. Another one nauseous from overexertion and starvation, from dysentery or other diseases. Another one probably to die in a day or two. Best not to get to know her. What could one do?

Vathana backed to the door, let herself slowly down into the water. It came to midthigh. She rolled her skirt up and stumbled away. The area north of the hut was intermittent forest, empty of fields, of people. She came upon a path and followed it. The rain came hard all day. The sky and land and vegetation blurred in their grayness. Here she picked a water lily stalk, broke it, chewed it to mush though her gums seemed barely able to keep her teeth in place. She swallowed it knowing it would have been okay cooked, fearing raw it would make her stomach swell. She came to a banana tree with no fruit. She picked a young leaf and again chewed. Her experience with Kpa, Le and Sam helped her forage but in her dazed and feeble state the land seemed picked clean. Then attached to a large lily she spied a snail. Her eyes darted about ensuring that no one saw. She snatched it and stuck it in the waistband of her skirt. Now she looked frantically for snails, for shrimp. In the water were dozens of small fish. She tried again and again to snap one up. She caught one. The slower she moved her hand in the water, the more she was able to grab. These too she rolled in her waistband until she had several dozen. She caught three more and ate them on the spot, savored them, crunching their delicate bones between her few good molars. She caught another, was about to pop it in her mouth when she spied movement. She hid. Four girls stumbled toward her. They were filthy, covered with sores, as sickly as the sickest in her commune. The girls saw her but only one seemed to comprehend. Lowly the one muttered, “How much food do you get in your cooperative?” It had become the new idiomatic greeting of all Democratic Kampuchea.

In fear Vathana said nothing. The girls wandered on. Vathana trekked deeper into the forest. She came to a slight rise. The earth was saturated and the path was slick. She fell. She raised her head. This mud oasis, she thought, it could be a hideout. She rose. Now she walked more carefully, more afraid, as alert as her condition would permit. Months without proper nutrition affected her ability to concentrate. Swimming in her mind was the thought of ambush but it wouldn’t coalesce. She stumbled down the rise into a small clearing, into a slime pit where blackbirds fed ravenously, where smaller birds chirped and dove on scraps dropped by the ravens. Before she saw it she sensed it, felt the restless spirits of souls not blessed with proper ceremony. Then she saw the bodies floating as if suspended in a viscous twilight, face up, facedown, no face at all, floating in the rain, swimming, struggling to the surface of the pool, the decomposition gases filling internal sacs, rising, muck wings for the departed who could neither kick nor stroke but only do the deadman’s float until they broke the surface faceup, facedown, no face at all. Vathana fled. In her haste and dizziness she took a wrong path and ran into a clearing where a hundred low-lying objects were wrapped in opaque plastic bags. Again the feeling, again the hesitation, again the fixed eyes searching confirmation of a terror she wished not to confirm. A torn bag. A head crushed beyond recognition, the bag tied at the neck, the entire body buried. Vathana backpedaled, faster and faster. The fish in her waistband spilled. She spun, ran, fled, fled from the dark age of the
thmils
, but these were not
thmils
, not foreign atheists, but Khmer men and boys and girls turning the nation upon itself, turning it into a charnel house.

“You! Halt!”

Vathana stopped. A calm descended upon her. It would be better to die than to witness more. She turned to the voice. It was Met Nava. With him was Nem. They were killing the girls Vathana had seen earlier. Calm vanished. She ran hard. She would have run on leg stubs had they cut off her feet; on hands had they taken her legs. Her heart pumped wildly. She crashed through brush, splashed in the low water, lunged, dove-rose-dove in the deep.

That night there was an education session. The words changed little, the people in their exhaustion barely heard. “You work well,” Met Nava told them. “You are strong. You don’t need to eat. Work. There is no need to think. Give yourselves to Angkar. Angkar protects all, provides for all. Rebuild yourselves in the spirit of Angkar Leou.” Then came new orders. Do this, do that. “Tomorrow all will double their production. Mothers may suckle newborns only one month. Then they will be given to the lactaters of the children’s center.” Do that. Do this. Not that. Not this. This and this. People became confused. Confusion was punishable by death. Nava shouted, “Someone was seen stealing food from the people. She entered the forest. That person must stand.” No one moved. “If she does not stand—we know who it is—her family will fade away.”

Vathana lightly shut her eyes. Lord Buddha, she thought, they can only kill my body.

“Stand!”

Vathana rolled to her side but before she could rise seven women were up. Others began to cry. Then a man stood. Then another and another. Robona stood. Amara stood. Tears ran on Vathana’s cheeks. She stood. Everyone stood. To save face Met Nava grasped the closest woman to him. She was never seen again.

The rice gruel and the corn soup became yet thinner. One six-ounce can of rice in water per day was issued to sustain twenty adults. Met Nem teased the starving by letting them watch her eat plates of pork ribs, large boiled fish, dishes of vegetables. Some people went crazy. Others became apathetic. Bodies consumed themselves. Muscles atrophied. Skin sagged from bones without meat. Bones weakened as the minerals were metabolized to keep the organism alive. When few people could work and production fell below quotas, yotheas and
mekongs
feared that their lies to the enforcers, the padded production figures, would become sources of suspicion. Then they turned their backs when people plucked and ate worms from the fields. For many it was too little, too late. By the time the waters began to recede a quarter of the people of Sangkat 117 had died.

The first of the new rice was picked early and eaten green. This too caused problems because the grain was indigestible. A thousand people fell ill. In her sickness Amara gave Vathana her three-year-old son. To Robona she gave her five-year-old daughter. Her baby was dead. “You will get well again,” Vathana whispered to her cousin.

“No,” Amara said. She was too weak and too ill to rise from her sleeping mat. “When the
mekong
allows, you must take him. If I see him again, I will eat him.”

As Vathana brushed Amara’s hair from her eyes, Amara, unseen, under a rag blanket, slit her wrist with a shard of glass. Her head drooped to one side. Vathana thought she slept. She brushed her hair, quietly singing a sweet lullaby. Then she knew Amara was dead. “Go, dear Sister,” Vathana whispered in her ear. “Go to the true life.”

As fast as the new crop came in the yotheas ordered it removed. People stole what they could but the famine did not stop. At night, after work, Vathana’s mind ran terribly. She could not stop her thoughts. She was not yet ready to love her new son whom she was allowed to visit only one hour each week. For this she felt guilty. The guilt led to frustration, and the frustration to anger. She was angry at Angkar. Angkar was lies. Angkar promised them food for work but though the crop was sufficient there was no food. She was angry at the cadre who now openly admitted to being Communists. She was angry at Pol Pot who now openly admitted to being head of Democratic Kampuchea. Now Robona was near death. Her body swelled, blood flow to her extremities stopped. She lay down and refused to rise up. Vathana’s anger turned to Lon Nol, then to America. Shame, she thought. Shame on America for bringing on this misery. Shame on them for their indifference. Do they know? Do you know, John Sullivan? Does he know? How does he react? Does he cry for me? How does America react? Surely they know. Are there demonstrations in Washington? Maybe in Paris? Shame on them for their half-boiled policies. It would have been better to give no aid at all. None. Not just enough to keep us alive and suffering. They are as bad as the Khmer Rouge. Will they aid us again, bring us to life again, keep all Kampuchea suffering only to let us die again? John L., our daughter is lost. You didn’t even see her.

Then came new demands. Angkar, all were told, wishes the population to double. Women no longer menstruate, Vathana thought, and Pol Pot wants the population to double! Men! Do you know this, John L.? Do your people cry for mine? Do they know of this bloodbath? You warned me. How I hate myself for not believing you. You wanted to teach me? I used to teach my brothers and sisters how to forgive. In Phum Sath Din I helped Samay with his schoolwork. Oh, how Papa had plans for the family. Between the extremes, he said. In a Buddhist-Socialist state we would live well. But there is no state. Nothing can be done. All is lost. When I die I will go to my mother and to my children. Let us all die together. Let the Americans drop their atomic bomb. Then we can escape this life.

The night Robona died Vathana cried over her body. Beneath the platform a child spy heard her and the next day she was told she would not eat for a week. To cry was to criticize the regime.

In a few days Vathana’s body swelled. Her hands and feet became cold. She could not urinate though her urge was constant. She lay down and like Robona refused to rise for morning work call. At midday an old mat weaver came to give her water but she had no desire to eat or drink. Her eyes dulled, her body bloated, her lungs became congested. She lost control of her anal sphincter and diarrheic water fouled her skirt and mat. When conscious she thought to rise, to clean herself, prepare her body for death, but she did not care. Someone moved her from the hut. Someone forced palm sugar water down her throat. She vomited.

An entire month passed without her being aware of her treatment. Slowly she realized she was living in a house instead of a communal hut. What act of kindness had returned her from the dead she knew not, but she feared she was only being set up to be starved again. For a long time she remained morosely silent. Inside she wept. Another month passed. Each day the housekeeper brought three meals. At first she could not eat. Then she could not resist. She was brought new clothes, black, like all clothes, but clean and pressed. She saw no one except the housekeeper though she often heard a man’s voice and at night she heard clunking and scraping. She was not allowed to go from the house or to peer from the windows or doors. Then one day she was told she would marry Met Leng at the 17 April celebration. “But who is Met Leng? I cannot marry...”

“He is a veteran of the war,” the housekeeper interrupted. “You were dead, just as he was dead. He has given you life, just as Angkar had given him.”