For the Sake of All Living Things (48 page)

“What new rules?” Chan asked, picking up his second card.

“New passes,” the major said. “With all this bombing we can’t let anyone travel without a complete itinerary.”

Chhuon lifted his second card. As it touched the first the demon’s filaments spread and concealed its face. The emotions of a rock, Chhuon thought.

“No one travels now,” Chan was saying. He reached for some seeds.

“Any unauthorized travel will be dealt with most severely,” Hang said.

“That’s as it’s been. What are the new rules?”

Hang put his cards down. “It’s strictly a matter of paperwork,” he said. “New request forms. New passes. And enforcement.”

At that, rifle fire was heard erupting by the river. Then screams. Chhuon jolted upright. Chan slumped imperceptibly. The major paid no attention. Cadreman Trinh and Hang Tung smiled.

“Troi oi!”
The major dropped his hand. “Let’s see if they’ve got more crayfish.”

The riverbank was lit with torches and lanterns. On downriver trails flashlight beams flickered between tree trunks. A dozen Viet Namese, soldiers and a dozen young Khmer militiamen cursed, prattled, strutted. Four bodies lay by the water’s edge—two children, two women. The soldiers laughed, congratulated one another on the fine kills. A radio rasped. The two men who’d fled downriver had been caught.

Chhuon watched, empty, the rock, yet worried, agitated deep within. The soldiers soaked rags in gasoline and jammed them into the men’s mouths. Their ankles were tied, their elbows wired together behind their backs. The soldiers toyed with a torch, bringing it close, then withdrawing it, then again bringing it near to the rags. Chhuon knew both men. One was Chhimmy Chamreum, second son of the head of the Chhimmy family, the second-oldest family in Phum Sath Din. The other was Chan’s brother, Ny Hy San. Chan, very much in control, very cool, stepped toward his brother. “You idiot!” he denounced San. “What were you doing out here?” Chan reached to grasp the rag from San’s mouth but Hang grabbed Chan’s arm. “Let go of me. I’ll deal with him. He’s my brother. This is a family matter.”

There was commotion on the ill-lighted riverbank as soldiers subdued Chan. Still Chhuon watched. He did not move. Did not speak. Horrified, yet numbed, Chhuon, the rock, the undistinguished small stone which no one will notice, did not even gulp air.

San and Chamreum tried to vomit the rags from their mouths. The fumes alone made them nauseous—the taste, the fear intensified. Soldiers made bets. San tried to push the rag from his mouth with his tongue, tried to work his jaw, tried to call to his older brother and to Chairman Cahuom, but the rag had been jammed in, packed in, and his gagging could not dislodge it.

“The new orders...”—Major Nui broke into Chhuon’s numbness—“the new orders, you’ll post them tomorrow, eh? Anyone caught attempting unauthorized travel will be dealt with severely. Anyone unaccounted for will cause three others to be punished.”

Chamreum’s rag flared. He could not scream. San shuddered, unable to watch, unable to look away. Chamreum jumped horribly as his skin burned. Unable to hold his breath he inhaled through his nostrils. Hot flaming gases were sucked into his nose, yet still his diaphragm dropped, dropped uncontrollably, dropped sucking the flame into his lungs. His face burned, the stench was disgusting. San leaped back from a soldier approaching with a torch. Chhuon recognized the troop. He was not NVA but a local militiaman, a boy, his own son’s tormentor, Khieng. Chhuon bowed his head. San dodged back, jerked left, right. The soldiers laughed at the comical man with the gasoline-wet rag hanging from his mouth. Chamreum collapsed to his knees, dying from suffocation, not burns, dying as the fire consumed the oxygen about his face, dying because his seared lung linings could not have absorbed oxygen had there been any in the air to inhale.

Chan could not watch, could not save his brother, because soldiers still held him. He turned his head to Chhuon. The rock, the stone. Somehow, Chhuon, under Chan’s eyes, saw himself at fault. Somehow they read him, read his mind, learned of the escape plan. How many attempted? How many others were caught, will be caught? Did any succeed? The village will hold Chhuon responsible. Hadn’t he picked the night? How many villagers saw him with the major tonight? There was no other way. The rock, the stone. Without emotion Chhuon watched as Khieng lunged at San, watched as the rag ignited, as San fell back, down the bank into the current. The flame died. There was thrashing as San tried to right himself in the rushing waters of the Srepok. More thrashing then nothing. The current grabbed him, washed him away.

T
HE NEWS OF PECH
Lim Song’s execution had reached Vathana the day the first American craft docked in Neak Luong. For months afterward, she felt she would always associate Americans with sunshine and death. Through the tedious summer-month monsoons and into the fall she caught herself at odd times quoting Mister Pech to dockworkers, rivermen or refugees. Then she’d find tears welling in her eyes as his image and that of old Sambath came to her. And she would feel as though someone had ripped out her soul, as if her insides had been scraped clean leaving an empty cavity. And always the image mixed with clouds breaking in late afternoon, with sun rays beaming upon Americans and their war boats. Long after U.S. forces were withdrawn, after the Mekong from Saigon to Phnom Penh became, if contested, a South Viet Namese military highway, Vathana found herself searching the piers at dusk for the hairy long-nosed men who when they spoke flailed their arms like barbarians, whose crudeness and uncontrolled body movements both disgusted and amused her. Not until late September, after a force of two hundred South Viet Namese riverine vessels with fifteen hundred marines swept through the swamplands across from Neak Luong, between the Mekong and Bassac rivers, clearing out a major NVA/VC base area, did Vathana see another man from the United States.

The morning sky was gray as Vathana walked from the pagoda. Early every morning since she’d discovered she was again pregnant she had gone to the city’s main temple to pray for strength and the health of her baby. In her prayers she attempted to be selfless, feeling she could not ask for more than what the refugees in the swamp-camp received. Yet, for the developing new life, she asked for more, much more. A Westerner might say Vathana was under the care of Doctor Sarin Sam Ol. In the old style, he monitored her pregnancy, observed her habits. There were no sonograms in Neak Luong. If there had been, Vathana would not have been inclined to allow the test. Repeatedly she refused Madame Pech’s persistent offers to have her see a Western specialist in Phnom Penh.

As Vathana walked from the pagoda through the market the overcast broke up and the sun shot through the gaps. For two days she hadn’t felt the baby move. Now she feared it was dead. She fought the urge to see Doctor Sarin. It is too early, she thought. He’s busy. Perhaps, she told herself, the baby only sleeps. Perhaps it is only that I’ve been preoccupied and haven’t noticed.

The market stalls were full of goods—sweets, housewares, dried and fresh fish, chickens, pigs, vegetables. There were new items—military items—ponchos and thin camouflaged nylon quilts, canteens, a jeep radiator and truck mirrors, wiring harnesses, a few artillery shell casings, uniform shirts, American boots, a dozen rucksacks.

At her apartment Vathana lay down. She lay on the floor, her feet on a pillow. “Angel?” Sophan knelt beside her. “Are you okay?”

“Yes.” Vathana’s answer was calm. “I just wish to have my feet up a moment.” Why she did not tell Sophan her fear she didn’t know. Immediately she wished she had.

“Angel, guess what?” Sophan’s face shone.

“What?” Vathana said. She hid the trembling of her lower jaw.

“Samnang—this morning—he crawled. A meter. At least a meter. He’s asleep but you’ll...”

Vathana barely smiled, barely heard. She placed a hand on her abdomen, felt its tight, hard bulge. Standing in her long full black skirt and loose white blouse she didn’t look pregnant, not nearly six months, but lying on her back with the cloth falling to her sides, she looked very far along. She closed her eyes. Sophan padded softly to the kitchenette. Move baby, Vathana thought. Please. Just a little wiggle. The thought of the baby wiggling brought a warmth to her heart but immediately the smile was overridden by fear.

Vathana tried to supplant fear with other thoughts. There’s much to do today. The week’s food distribution plan for the camp must be recorded, copied and issued. There are still ten thousand refugees. Many have moved to Phnom Penh, yet more arrive. Vaguely she thought of the situation along the Mekong. The ARVN had taken over every riverside village in order to guarantee the security of the country’s aorta. Inhabitants had been forced to retreat away from the river’s edge, many into hamlets which the Communists controlled. In the Southeast the NVA and Viet Cong had instituted a deliberate program of expelling civilians and forcing them into national government areas—thus increasing the refugee burden while freeing themselves from responsibility for “nonproductive elements.” American bombings, too, were worse than in the spring. How, Vathana thought, do they say it?—because few hamlet relocations have been plotted for the pilots!

A flutter. Vathana’s eyes brightened. She rose, went to the desk. Then she thought perhaps she had willed the flutter and the fear crept back. To simplify the food distribution she had organized the camp into ten-family units, each unit having one appointed leader responsible for the rice, salt and oil ration. After an hour, Vathana closed the camp books and lifted the shipping ledgers. Her barge, Teck’s barge, had been “leased” by the government and was no longer under their control, yet she continued to maintain accurate logs for maintenance, as Mister Pech had taught her, and semiaccurate lading manifests of what and how much was shipped, where it was shipped, what the captain and crew reported about each trip. No longer were foodstuffs exported. Another hour passed. Vathana moved on to new business. At the camp this day there would be a foreign visitor, a Swedish doctor, who was coming to revamp the sanitation system.

Suddenly there were two knocks, two raps, almost simultaneously, one at the door, one from the inside of her womb. Vathana sat back, her entire face lit with joy and relief. Inside her the fetus rolled. “What are you doing in there?” she whispered. “Are you building a house?”

“Hello.” Vathana heard Sophan’s greeting. She could tell by the wet-nurse’s voice that the visitor was a stranger.

“Scuse me, ma’am,” an immense Caucasian said in English. Vathana went to the door. Sophan stepped back. “
Chow bah
,” the American said in bastardized Viet Namese. “Ah, shit!” The soldier rolled his head, neck and shoulders in what would have been, from a Khmer, a rude display of one’s body out of control. “Ah cain’t tahk ta these here little folk.” Vathana giggled. The huge American seemed more like a circus bear than a human. “La-ten-ent!” The soldier turned, called down the corridor. “Scuse me, ma’am,” the soldier said, shaking a hand with thumb pointing, “but he’ll be here in a minute.” To himself the soldier said, “God a’mighty, why’s that J. L. go tell me ta knock if he weren’t goina be here? Him en that dragon lady aide from the Foreign Ministry.”

“
Monsieur
”
—
Vathana raised her hands in a graceful fei—“
parlez-vous français
?”

“Augh, shit,” the soldier mumbled. He glanced furtively down the corridor. “There they go again with them hands.” Loudly he yelled, “La-ten-ent! There’s som-bodday home.”

From the hall came the voice of Madame Pech. “Dear,” she called in French. “Vathana, dear.” As she entered the room she smiled, a broad fake smile, not the ubiquitous smile of old Cambodia, which was a show of friendship and goodwill, but the fake smile of a Parisian debutante imagining herself before cameras. “Well, look at you,” she said quickly. “You look lovely. Are you taking care of our new grandchild?” Then Madame Pech turned to Sophan. She nodded, a gesture which was almost a nonacknowledgment, then back to Vathana. “How is Samnang?”

“Mother,” Vathana said pleasantly in Khmer, “who are these men?”

“This is Sergeant Huntley of the Military Equipment Delivery Team.” Madame Pech indicated the large man who’d knocked on the door. “And this”—indicating the man emerging from behind the sergeant—“is Lieutenant Sullivan. You know, like the American boxer.” Madame Pech raised her two tiny fists and circled them about like an old-time pugilist. “Lieutenant John L. Sullivan.”

“No relation,” the American officer said sheepishly.

To the officer Madame Pech said in English, “This daughter mine. She Angel Neak Luong.”

Vathana bowed again. The second American was smaller than the first, not much larger than a Khmer man. His hair was coppery and his face was covered with a thousand freckles. In simple Western civilian dress he did not appear to be a soldier.
“Pardonez-moi.”
Sullivan bowed, returning Vathana’s greeting with a clumsy
lei.
“Please excuse my friend and me,” he said in perfect French. “We’re sorry but we’ve not yet learned Khmer.”

Vathana’s eyes twinkled. In her womb the fetus flipped as if it were somersaulting. “French is fine,” Vathana said. She backed into the apartment, leading the visitors into the living room. “May I help you? You’re American?”

“
Oui
,” Sullivan said softly.

“How da ya like this!” Huntley blurted. “It’s a dang real live livin room. With a TV!”

“Ron!” Sullivan looked up at the big sergeant and squeezed the word out between his teeth.

“Oh, ah, sorry, J. L.”

“Mrs. Pech.” Sullivan turned his attention to Vathana. “I need to find the man in charge of the refugee center. Your mother...”

“Oh,” Madame Pech interrupted. She spoke quickly in Khmer. “Vathana, straighten this young man out. I’ve just come to tell you to have Teck’s clothes packed. I’ll send a servant for them. He’s going to remain in Phnom Penh where he can assist the war effort most effectively.” At that Madame Pech bid her daughter-in-law and the Americans adieu.