Little Mountain (20 page)

         Now Rocky’s eyes darted back and forth, wild, wild. His palms were planted flat on the cushion.

         “Open your mouth and let’s find out.”

         In the musty air, Viseth caught a whiff of urine. A dark circle began to form in the crotch of Rocky’s Bermuda shorts.

         “Open your mouth or I’ll bust it open!”

         The twin barrels barely fit inside Rocky’s mouth. Snot and tears rolled onto the barrels. Viseth heard the rapid, muffled clack-clack-clack of teeth against metal.

         He pulled both triggers.

        
Click.

         “Oops,” he said. “These shells are used!” As he pulled away the gun, he giggled until he thought he’d wet his pants, too.

         Rocky fainted and fell back on the cushion, the wimp. A pile of junk clattered to the floor.

         “Viseth?
Son?
Is that you downstairs?” His mother had a voice like a dying sparrow. “Ky is on the telephone. She needs you right away.”

         “Tell her to wait a minute,” he said. “I’m coming.”

         He slapped Rocky’s face until his eyes opened. “This is your last warning, kid. You say anything about
this,
I’ll use real shells next time. You can bet your dirty little ass I’ll use real shells next time.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Sam had started the morning with an irritating pebble in his shoe. He’d walked for two blocks down Mersey Street, speaking to everyone he could find, sometimes in Khmer, sometimes in English. “Do you know Bin Chea?” “Who would want to kill him?” “Why?” “Can you tell me anything, anything at all?”

         No one knew anything about Bin Chea, which meant that they knew a lot. The little stone nagged Sam.

         The man was sitting on a wooden step, his nicotine-stained thumb and forefinger grasping the stub of a cigarette. A strand of tobacco stuck to his lower lip; crow’s-feet radiated from the corners of his eyes. He looked straight ahead, as if in a trance.

         “Who would shoot him in the face? Someone brave,” the man said in Khmer.
“With the heart of a tiger and the brains of a fish.”

         “Are you saying he was stupid to kill Bin Chea?”

         “He can start making his funeral plans.”

         “How do you know that?”

         “Because
Angka
will get him before you do.” The man threw his cigarette next to Sam’s feet, then stood up and turned to go inside.

         “Wait a minute,” Sam said.
“Why
Angka
?”

         “I’m very busy,” he said, and the door closed behind him. There was only one
Angka.
He remembered it all too well.

The truck full of prisoners rumbled past the main building and through the open gate. Thirty men jammed into the truck bed that was too small for fifteen, while soldiers with automatic rifles rode on the outside and held onto the sideboards. The engine coughed, sputtered, briefly drowned out the buzz of flies and mosquitoes, and died.

         A jeep followed with four more soldiers and a rocket launcher. No one spoke.

         The main building was two stories of white stucco and had once been widely known as the hub of a small plantation. Its Japanese owners likely lay at the bottom of the pond. Soldiers wearing black and red checkered
kramas
walked in and out all day long. Sambath was glad he’d never been inside. Glad he only had to watch the action and clean up after it.

         But the sight of new prisoners, three or four truckloads a day, kept his muscles tight and his guts aching. When would his own turn come to meet
Angka
? A soldier passed close by and dropped a cigarette at Sambath’s feet. “I love
Angka
,” Sambath said aloud as he swept up the butt.

         “I’ll kill them,” Vacheran mumbled. Sambath froze. Vacheran almost never spoke at all, and never like this. He was going to get himself killed.

         Nearby, two soldiers seemed oblivious. They talked while Sambath pretended not to listen. One wore the
krama
on his head instead of around his neck. “Comrade Bin says we need more security now that those prisoners almost escaped.”

         Sambath knew the whispered story. Yesterday a truckload of prisoners had bolted and run, but they had been gunned down in a road and shoved into a ditch. Someone had escaped alive into the jungle, but those were whispers, only whispers.

         “Took the whole day to find him,” the soldier said. He pointed at the body behind the jeep. The man was tied to the rear bumper with one end of the rope tied around his wrists.

         The other soldiers jumped off the sideboards and began pulling men off the back of the truck.

         A soldier raised the butt of his rifle at a prisoner. “Get in line, you!” he said. “Wait for an announcement by Comrade Bin.” The prisoners had purple bruises and crimson scrapes on their arms and faces. They shuffled in place, looking down at their bare feet.

         Sambath worried about Vacheran. He’d never seen him this way before, his eyes burning with vengeance.

         Sambath turned away and inspected the smooth ground for pebbles that weren’t there. They swept the courtyard with brooms that had heavy wooden handles. The stiff bristles were grass that grew along the far edge of the pond. Comrade Bin demanded a clean courtyard, so they swept the ground smooth. They brushed away leaves and smoothed out the tire tracks that the trucks left in the morning. From time to time, they brushed dirt over dark red patches of blood. When their brooms disintegrated, they swept up the pieces with other brooms.

         Vacheran usually grinned like a simpleton as he tied new grass to the heavy broom handle. Now his lips were pursed in a tight line of fury. Was Vacheran rushing his fate?

         By the lake shore, a worker dumped a bucket of leeches on a fire, which vomited billows of black smoke straight into the sky. Above Sambath’s head a loudspeaker hung atop a pole and spat screeches and static.

         And then
came
the voice from the loudspeaker, high and raspy. “Enemies of Democratic Kampuchea,” the voice began. “Comrade Bin welcomes you to Little Mountain. You will be well taken care of here. You have admitted your past crimes, and soon you will meet
Angka
. You will see that
Angka
forgives you.”

         Forgives them for what? The prisoners all knew about
Angka
--The Organization. Meet it and die.

         “Go to the soccer field to the left of the pond and wait,” the voice said. “We are going to show you a movie, and then Comrade Sihanouk will give a speech.”

         In single file, they followed a pair of soldiers down a muddy path. Sambath glanced toward the school building as Comrade Bin stepped out.

         “I love
Angka
,” Sambath shouted. “The world quakes--” He put his hand to his mouth to hold in his breakfast. The world quakes before mighty Kampuchea, he’d planned to say. But the wind had shifted, and now the smoke from dead leeches stung his nostrils and turned his insides into a raging typhoon.

         How many soldiers believed the lies about Prince Sihanouk? For all Sambath knew, the Prince wasn’t even in the country. And there couldn’t be a movie screen within a hundred miles. Why did Comrade Bin even bother making up a story? The prisoners already bowed their heads because they knew their fate.

         Sambath cultivated the blank look that
Angka
wanted to see on everyone’s face. Vacheran, playing the contented fool, kept all his thoughts inside. When Comrade Bin finished speaking, the truck turned around and lumbered down the road.

         Comrade Bin was probably pure Khmer, with his black hair and deep golden skin. His voice was usually soft when he spoke directly to a worker. He saved his harsh voice for bigger audiences.

         Comrade Bin pulled a leaf out of his pocket,
then
bent over near Vacheran as though he’d made a discovery on the ground. “What is this?” he shouted, like an actor on a stage. “This courtyard is filthy!”

         Vacheran lifted his broom and pulled back. He’s going to kill him. He’s going to smash his head.

         Comrade Bin stood up quickly, his hands up to show what he had found, paying no attention to the sweepers. He held the leaf high in the air for the other soldiers to see.

         The broom began its arc when Sambath thought
Oh no Vacheran, don’t do that! Please don’t
. He reached out to grab the broom, to stop his friend from committing suicide.
and
then it connected with Comrade Bin’s ribs with a
crack.

         The second crack followed as Vacheran reared back for another blow. The bullet caught him in the shoulder, and he crumpled to the ground at Sambath’s feet. Two soldiers ran to Vacheran to finish him off.

        
“Stop!”
Bin screamed, and the soldiers stopped. Sambath knelt down by his bleeding friend for a moment, for longer than he dared.

         Vacheran, you fool, you sweet fool. You never spoke, even to me. You always waddled like a constipated duck and laughed at the clouds, and they mistook you for a harmless idiot. Why did you have to change?

         They lashed Vacheran to stakes several centimeters above hot coals, where he slowly blistered like a pig on a spit. Hours later, when the sunset blazed like an orange coal, a soldier untied him and tossed him on the ground.

         “Finish him.” Comrade Bin’s command electrified Sambath. “We know you are his friend.”

         Sambath looked into Vacheran’s eyes.

         “Kill me, Sambath. Please kill me.”

         “I love you, dear Vacheran. Forgive me,” Sambath said. He placed his hands around Vacheran’s throat and applied gentle pressure. But the gurgle he heard came from his own throat, not Vacheran’s. Sambath recognized the taste of shame.

         “Comrade,” Bin said in his soft voice, “
look
at me. Your friend hurt me terribly.”

         The soldier smashed a pistol butt against Sambath’s jaw, and the pain nearly made him faint.

         While Vacheran had suffered over the fire, Chea must have gone into the house to change; now he wore a clean shirt with a neat red and white
krama
that he wore as an ascot. He held up Vacheran’s broom and smiled a passionless smile. His dark brown eyes showed no feeling at all. How could the comrade leader not show anger? Only the lines around his eyes betrayed the pain he must have felt from Vacheran’s attack.

         Comrade Bin nodded to the soldier, who held out a bamboo pole. “Use this,” Bin said. “I suggest a quick blow to the head. You have one chance before the wheel of history crushes you.”

         Sambath raised the pole slowly, desperate for the courage to finish off Comrade Bin. Would it be so bad to join his family in death? Could he wash away his sins with a single blow at the enemy, as Vacheran had done? Maybe in his next life he would marry, raise a family,
live
in peace.

         This life was finished.

         Vacheran looked up at Sambath and whispered. “Kill me quickly.
Please.
”

         A dozen soldiers and all the workers stood in a circle. Sambath held the bamboo pole high,
then
brought it straight down onto Vacheran’s head.

Sam couldn’t stand the rock in his shoe anymore. His shirt was soaked with sweat, and it clung to his skin as he stood in the shade of a porch and took off his shoe.