In the Shadow of the Banyan (20 page)

Rooted, yanked, planted.
My head was filled with such words. Spoken as they were, they rang with concealed rancor and venom. Even as a seven-year-old child, I recognized a tenor of the absolute: you’re either for or against the Revolution. There was to be no ambiguity, no middle ground. The old sweeper had too many “bad” connections—the town, the temple, the monks, and now us—therefore he couldn’t be trusted. “Weeds must be uprooted before they multiply!” said the soldiers, and as if to reinforce their militant counterparts, the Kamaphibal would further intone, in the same calm manners and voices with which they’d greeted us at the beginning, “Brothers and sisters, comrades, together we must forge a new political consciousness. We must let go of our old habits and desires, make personal sacrifices for the greater good . . .”

Listening to them, seeing how they moved and carried themselves, you’d have to wonder if they had been young Buddhist novices in their earlier incarnations. If, like the old sweeper, they’d spent part of their adolescence sweeping the grounds of temples, while learning to read and write through the recitation of Buddhist principles:
Life is filled with suffering, the cause of suffering is desire, but we can end suffering, and we do so by choosing the right path
. . .

“The glorious path of the Revolution is not without obstacles,” the bespectacled cadre asserted, standing once again in the middle of the school grounds outside the classrooms, flanked on either side by an older-looking member of the Kamaphibal. There were just the three of them this time, and it occurred to me that the young owlish cadre wasn’t the leader of the clique, or even its spokesman, as we’d all assumed, but an apprentice. His elders were testing him out by letting him lead, in the same way senior monks would try out a novice, test his readiness to carry on their work by putting his knowledge of the sacred text to use.

“We’ve traversed jungles,” he sermonized, “crossed rivers and mountains, and braved one battlefield after another to arrive at your doorsteps.”

Something about him reminded me of Papa. A poet’s sincerity
perhaps, a respect for words, as if each one had weight and value beyond the sound it made. He spoke solemnly, carefully. “Now we need you to help construct a new world. A Cambodia that is democratic, prosperous, and
just.
”

His audience was unmoved; their tired faces stared back with indifference. They reminded me of worshippers who grew weary when a Buddhist sermon had gone on far too long, become too repetitious. Still, no one dared walk away from the meeting, which was being called more regularly now, every other evening around the same time, when the heat of day subsided, when the women were busy preparing meals for their families and only the men were free to attend. Perhaps this was the Kamaphibal’s intention all along—to get to the men first. I would always follow Papa to these meetings, holding tight to his hand, sitting on his lap, or sometimes falling asleep in his arms when the speech droned on.

This evening, though, Mama had ordered me to stay in our room and keep an eye on Radana and the twins while she prepared our dinner. I watched and listened from a safe distance, my chin resting on the window ledge. Outside Mama and Auntie India chopped vegetables and set the rice to cook, looking up occasionally at Papa and Big Uncle standing several yards away, among a small group of men gathered outside the bigger circle around the Kamaphibal. Papa, his head bowed, his arms crossed over his chest, seemed the only one listening to their speech. He appeared unusually attentive. Beside him, Big Uncle kept rolling his shoulders as if to release some tension, stealing glances at his older brother, looking more anxious about Papa’s contemplative silence than about the Kamaphibal’s presence, their oddly familiar but impenetrable rhetoric.

“Comrades, you’ve only to look at the suffering around you to know you are needed. You must rise, offer your education and skills.”

This seemed to resonate and the crowd stirred. Vacant stares flashed with understanding, heads reluctantly nodded in agreement.

The two elder members of the Kamaphibal noticed and, taking advantage of the opportunity, one of them pulled something out of his
shirt pocket—a page from a notebook folded into four, the perforated edge frayed like lace trimming. He unfolded the paper and began to call out names. A long list of names:
Vong Chantha, Kong Virak, Im Bunleng, Sok Sonath, Chan Kosal
. . . I thought I heard our name, but I couldn’t be sure. Maybe it was Sinn Sowath, which would be another name, another family entirely. So many Khmer names sound alike, Seysarith, Sireyrath, Sim Sowath.

. . .
Pen Sokha, Keo Samon, Rath Raksmei.

The list ended. The senior cadre folded the paper along its original creases and put it back in his shirt pocket. He narrowed his eyes, searching among the faces staring back at him, like a magician looking for volunteers from an unwilling audience. No one moved, no one breathed. Even the sky seemed frozen above our heads, a still, white tableau. The senior cadre stepped forward, his feet pounding the ground. If no one was willing, he seemed to be saying, then
he
would decide. He would make a proffering, choose a sacrifice. Looking at the list again, he called out, “His Highness Sisowath Ayuravann. A prince—a prince and a poet.”

Something crashed. My eyes shot in the direction of the sound. It was Mama—she had dropped the rice pot; uncooked white grains littered the ground like ants’ eggs. My gaze shot back to Papa. He did not look up, or even stir, but remained as he was, head bowed and arms crossed, his every muscle still. Beside him, Big Uncle turned toward us with a look of stunned terror.

“We’re honored to count you among us,
Votre Altesse,
” the senior cadre enthused. “You’ll be an example to others. Please, come forward,
Altesse.
” He waited.

Still, not a leaf moved.

“Comrade Ayuravann, we know you are here. Please identify yourself.”

•  •  •

Back in our room panic ensued. “It’s a trick,” Big Uncle rattled. “They pretend they know you’re here to draw you out; if they really knew, they would’ve handpicked you from the crowd, they only have a piece of paper to go by, they don’t really know you’re here. It’s a trick, you must wait, listen to me, Ayuravann, don’t go, don’t reveal yourself. They don’t
know what you look like. You can vanish—be invisible. It isn’t too late.
Please—
” He ran out of breath.

Papa said nothing, his eyes fixed on me and only me, his hands clasped and pressed against his stomach as if to cushion the fragile calm he tried to pass on to me amidst the fear and frenzy around us.

“You can’t go,” Mama declared, putting herself in front of him, forcing him to look at her. “I won’t let you. Arun is right—it’s not too late. I won’t let you think so.” She shook.

Papa couldn’t comfort her. He remained where he was, his gaze still fixed on me as if all he could do at the moment was to make sure I saw him, right there in front of me, and that I knew all would be fine, that nothing was going to happen.

“You ought to run,” Tata offered, hysterical. “But where would you go? There’s a trap everywhere. They’ve trapped us like animals.”

Papa remained silent and his silence was like a hundred voices whispering a hundred stories. I didn’t know which I ought to listen to—to believe.

•  •  •

“Do you know why I told you stories, Raami?” he asked. We’d left the others, their panic and fears, and hid ourselves in the solitude of the meditation pavilion.

I shook my head. I knew nothing, understood nothing.

“When I thought you couldn’t walk, I wanted to make sure you could fly.” His voice was calm, soothing, as if it were just another evening, another conversation. “I told you stories to give you wings, Raami, so that you would never be trapped by anything—your name, your title, the limits of your body, this world’s suffering.” He glanced up at the face of the wooden Buddha in its corner of the room and, as if conceding to some argument they’d had earlier, murmured, “Yes, it’s true, everywhere you look there is suffering—an old man has disappeared, a baby died and his coffin is a desk, we live in the classrooms haunted by ghosts, this sacred ground is stained with the blood of murdered monks.” He swallowed, then, cupping my face in his hands, continued, “My greatest desire, Raami, is to see you live. If I must suffer so that you can live, then
I will gladly give up my life for you, just as I once gave up everything to see you walk.”

I shook my head. I could not accept it—this senseless and cruel barter of one life for another. My outlook was simple—he was my father, I, his daughter; we belonged together. I could not fathom my existence without his. I wanted to tell him, but I couldn’t find the words, I didn’t know how. Again, I shook my head.
No
.

His whole face trembled, a still pond disturbed, rippling with agony, anguish. “I’m telling you this now—this story, for it is a story—so that you will live. When I lie buried beneath this earth, you will fly. For me, Raami. For your papa, you will
soar.
”

I didn’t respond. I wanted him to stop talking. Whatever it was he was trying to tell me, it sounded like a good-bye.

He pulled back, inhaling. “I know you don’t understand, but one day you will.”

A stream of tears slipped from the inner corner of his right eye and trickled down the curve of his nose, caressing it, lingering at the flare of his nostril.

“Forgive me when you do. Forgive me that I will not be here to see you grow up—”

He couldn’t say more; instead broke down in a sob, his face buried in his hands. A hundred
tevodas
joined him, their cries sounding like a flock of birds taking to the air, their wings beating across the dusky sky.

thirteen

“Y
ou must sacrifice for the Revolution!” the senior cadre thundered, smashing his fist against his palm, the veins in his neck bulging, his every word and movement exaggerated beneath the orange flames from the torches held high by the Revolutionary soldiers pacing the grounds. It was clear now that this senior cadre—the same one who’d read the list of names—was the leader of the Kamaphibal. “All your comrades here, including myself, have given up our families and homes in order to build Democratic Kampuchea!”

I couldn’t tell how big a group they were, but there seemed to be hundreds of them now in this flickering, wavering light, their silhouettes like a series of paper cutouts, one a duplicate of another, strung together apparently by some silent vow of solidarity, some predesigned uniformity. The young apprentice cadre, with his glasses and a poet’s solemnity, was the only incongruity, standing now to the side as if demoted from his place in the center for having failed in his duty to persuade and garner a following.

“You’re not the only ones who have lost those you loved,” the Kamaphibal leader continued. “We too have lost and suffered much. But our losses and suffering have liberated you and this country from the injustices of the old regime. Now you must join us in the fight! Come forward before it’s too late! Before another child dies in your arms!”

He meant Mr. Virak’s baby. I didn’t think it was right to mention
the dead baby in front of his parents, to use his name to get people to join the Revolution. As if recruiting living people wasn’t enough, they had to recruit a dead child as well, use his death to stir the sadness of his parents.

“Those of you whose names were called, you’ll be given a chance to reveal yourselves of your own accord. If you choose still to hide, or to run, we cannot guarantee your safety, or your family’s.” He paused, letting the words sink in. “Come forward, comrades. Now it’s
your
choice.”

There was a long silence. Finally, a man raised his hand. I saw the rolled-up sleeve of his white mourning shirt. Mr. Virak. The Kamaphibal clapped.
Kong Virak
. His name had been second on the list. He must’ve given it to the soldiers. How else would they know? Since the baby died, he hadn’t been himself, and now just as everyone feared, he unthinkingly raised his hand. Next to him another arm went up, or maybe not. Maybe it was only a shadow of Mr. Virak’s arm. Again, the Kamaphibal clapped. There were shadows everywhere. I couldn’t be sure who was who or how many people had raised their hands. Mr. Virak stood up and revealed himself like a target.

•  •  •

Back in their room, Mr. Virak’s wife cried. She begged him to explain his decision. He said he couldn’t stay here. He couldn’t stay with her. They had nothing between them now except sadness and tears and memories. He pierced her body with words that ripped holes and wounded like bullets. His anguish drove her wild. She ran into our room, crying, “Please talk to him!” She pulled on Papa’s sleeve. “Talk to him!” Mama walked up to her and slapped her across the face. “Be quiet!” she ordered. “I can’t hear myself think.” Mr. Virak’s wife fell to the floor in stifled sobs. Turning to Papa, Mama demanded, “
Why?
Tell me why you’re giving up. There’s still another way—an exit.”