Never Fall Down: A Novel (9 page)

So next time a tank comes, me and one other boy, we run to it and climb on like monkey. The other boy, he slip off the top, and I don’t see him anymore. I hang on, tank still moving, like big angry animal underneath me. I turn the handle, open the top, and drop the grenade inside. Then jump off and run back to the woods very fast.

Big noise, then the tank goes in direction like crazy, crash into trees.

Again I feel this electricity in me. Like I have a power bigger than me. Like even if I do crazy thing, I can’t be kill. Then I look back and see the other boy sitting in the middle of the road, his leg not right, too short, with bone sticking out, jagged, white, and blood gushing. He points to something a little bit nearby, something on the road where the tank just pass by. His foot.

After this big fight, we get a new gun. Like Vietnamese gun, this one shoot many bullets no stopping, automatic, just touch the trigger. Lighter also, this gun, and smaller. Good for kids like us.

But no one show us how to use it. They just give it and leave. And one boy, kid from dance group, he just playing around. All of a sudden the gun shoot itself; and this boy has blood on him, and thing from inside, like liver, intestine, now outside, spilling out. He try to catch it with his hand; but all these bloody thing, slippery, keep spilling out.

I go over and hold this boy, rock him like a baby, and also hum a song from my aunt, a song for falling asleep, until his body turn cold, his face like wax, no life in him anymore.

I stand up, see myself cover in blood—so dark, almost black, like ink. I think maybe I should wash it, get rid of it. But I think maybe it can protect me, this boy’s blood on my body, so I paint myself with it—wipe it on my face, my throat, my arms. I take his gun also and strap it across my chest, two guns on me now.

I go see Phat, the Khmer Rouge boy who say I’m not real soldier. So he can see what I am now.

CHAPTER NINE

SOMBO NOW IS VERY STRICT. NO MORE TIME FOR HIM AND ME
to sit together and talk or listen to the radio. Always gruff face, always short temper. And I think maybe now this guy, this only friend I have, he doesn’t like me anymore.

I see some kid give up. Just slip behind and never seen again. Other kid, I see them shoot themself, I think on purpose. One kid, he go crazy and run straight into bullets. And sometime I think maybe I will give up, too. Or run away. My family, probably everyone is dead. My friend Siv, Kha, Mek, I probably never will see them again. If Sombo, the only person I know in the whole world, he doesn’t care about me anymore, then why I keep going?

I look at him now, across the fire, soup cooking in the middle, his face hard, like different person from the guy who let me steal food, guy who I teach to play the khim, and think maybe he won’t care, maybe not even notice, if I disappear.

Soup is almost ready. First time in three day we kid have a meal, and everyone lean close to the pot and smell it—rice girl on one side of me, and Phat, the Khmer Rouge kid who hate me, on the other side. Then, from nowhere, we hear the whistle that says a bomb—from Vietnamese cannon—is coming this way. Sombo, he reach across the fire and grab me, throw me on the ground. The shell land right in the pot and metal and soup and dirt fly everywhere.

After, I look up from the ground and see Phat, the kid next to me, piece of him hanging from the tree, piece of him on the ground. And I wonder: why Sombo save me but let this other kid die?

Big battle that night, many kid die. Kid run right in front of me, get killed. You think you never can get used to a thing this sad, kid dying, but you do. You think maybe you want to die also. But you don’t.

You not living. And you not dead. You living dead.

The Angka voice on Sombo radio now says we have to walk north. And so after many days walking one direction, now we go the other. Same field we saw before. Same place where we fight the Vietnamese and so many kid die. The radio says Vietnamese now gone from here, but I think I still can smell their bad smell in the air.

Walking very quiet now. In case maybe they still around. No sound. Not even breathing. Then the little rice girl, she step on stick or something in the ground, something that make a click. Right away Sombo yell at her, “Don’t move!”

But this little girl, she so scare by Sombo yelling, she shy back from him and turn to me, then—
pop!
—a puff of smoke where she was standing.

After, her leg is gone. She cries very hard, scream for her mother, until she faint from pain.

Sombo tell us the Vietnamese do this, bury small bomb in the ground, called land mine. You step on it, you can lose your leg; you touch it, you lose your hand. A coward weapon, he says, for scaring us, for making us afraid every step.

This weapon, this land mine, it means now that even the earth is our enemy.

Some kid in our group, they grumble now. They say Sombo is no good. They say too many kid getting kill. And one guy, he look at me and say, “It’s your fault Phat get kill.” Another one, he point at me. “You,” he says. “You Sombo’s favorite.”

Then Sombo come by and yell at me, say I have to carry the rice sack and my gun from now on.

The other kid smirk, but I understand now why Sombo so gruff to me. Like before, like back at the camp, he protecting me.

We carry the little rice girl, take turn, her leg tied in a rag where used to be her knee. Now we go even slower. Too hard to walk and carry this girl. And too scare to even put our foot down on the path.

Bad smell now coming from her leg, all swole and turn black. She very sweaty, too, and panic, even when she sleeping; she toss and turn and cry from the pain. All of a sudden she grab me in the night, call me Mama, and say, “Please, please, stop this pain.” Then she die. And finally, for her, no more pain.

We hike to camp to get a new rice girl, but only get a skinny boy, smaller than the girl, too little even to carry a gun, kid name Koong. How this kid can carry rice sack, I ask Sombo. This kid, Sombo tell us, has special job. This kid special trained to catch rat, insect, frog, snake, anything we can eat. Beside, he tell us, hardly any rice left in our sack.

Many more days walking, and I think sometimes we go one way, next time the other. Like maybe we don’t know where we are. Many rice field now are all weed. Some with big hole where the Vietnamese shoot the cannon. Village now are only building, no people, all cover with weed, with vine.

But one place we stop looks like a place I been before. Small pond, full of frog, near the train track. I know this place. This the place where I come with Hong for frogging. Long time ago. Before I ever hear of the Khmer Rouge. Back when I was a kid.

Sometime when we wander around in the wood, we see other platoon, like ours, small, sometime kid only, sometime regular soldiers. And always one girl with them to carry the rice. One time our group, we pass another group resting in the forest. This group, real Khmer Rouge, very high ranking, has one little rice girl—tiny, hair almost turn white like old woman. We walk by, and this girl whisper my name. How she know me, I wonder.

She say my name again, and I know now this is my sister. My little sister, Sophea, ten year old, now like tiny old woman, bent over from carrying the rice sack.

Too dangerous to show that we are family. And so I pass by, giving her only one small nod of the head. Then I say to Sombo that I’m too tired to keep walking—I don’t care now about the other kid saying I’m Sombo’s favorite—and Sombo, he says okay.

When night comes, I go to my sister. She touch my face and whisper how she love me. Her lips crack from no food, no water; they touch my ear and it feel like butterfly wing, like angel, like heaven. She pinch me, too, and say I’m too skinny. I don’t know what I look like anymore; but I look at this tiny girl, crooked back, knee swole from not enough food, belly full of air, and I think she is the most beautiful thing I ever see in my lifetime.

When morning come and it time to go, she touch my face. “Don’t be too brave, Arn,” she says. “You hide from the bullet so I can see you again. Okay?”

Long time ago I kill all hope in myself. And live only like animal, survive one day, then one day more. Now here is my little sister. My family. Someone who love me. Alive. And I say, “Now I know you are still living, I will live, too.”

CHAPTER TEN

SOMBO SNEAK AWAY NOW TO LISTEN TO HIS RADIO. BUT I SNEAK
behind and hear two thing.

Voice of Angka says glorious victory is coming soon. Vietnamese now are running away in shame and defeat. Angka says Khmer Rouge fighters cut off the ear, cut out the tongue, eat the liver of dead Vietnamese, get stronger every day.

Voice of America says Vietnamese now in control of the eastern province, taking more land every day. Also that many people from Cambodia fleeing to Thailand.

I don’t know what is truth. But I keep in my mind this place, this Thailand.

Hiding in the trench tonight, we can see smoke from bomb each time getting closer. Big open field between us and the Vietnamese; but their cannon can shoot everywhere, this way and that, trying to find us. Each time a bomb land, Sombo, he turn his head in that direction and count, only his lip moving, like he can do a math that tells where the next one will land.

All of a sudden he pick me up out of the trench and tell me to run. I do like he says; but a big burst of wind, like the hand of a giant, it push me in the back, shove me on the ground. For one second the air all around is hot, thick, sucking my inside out—my lung, my ear, even my eye, they feel like they coming out of my head. Then the whole world explode, everything flying—dirt, tree, rock, everything in the air. And me, I fly, too. And I think: oh, my sister, I’m sorry; I can’t see you again because now I’m dying.

When I wake up, now in a different place, my whole body is sore. I touch my leg, my arm, my head, and each part still there. Inside of my head is thick, like mud, but I can hear a voice telling me to drink a little water. It’s Sombo, his canteen to my mouth.

I drink a little and ask him, “Why you save me again?”

He frown a little. “You have to live to see your sister.”

Now I frown. “How you know about my sister?”

“All the time I’m watching you,” he says. “All the time.”

I don’t say it to Sombo, but all the time I watch him, too.

One day walking over a hill we look down and see a strange thing. A village like before the Khmer Rouge. People living in the house, family, working in the field. Even chicken in the yard. Like toy, this village, so pretty.

Maybe the war is over now. Maybe we been in the wood so long we don’t know it. Maybe we can go this village and have real food: chicken, maybe also vegetable, maybe fish stew even. Then I see some Vietnamese soldier walking through the village, calling out to the people. “All people,” he says. “War is over, come to the center of village for free rice. Gift from your new Vietnamese ruler.”

All the villager, we see them run to the soldier, open hand for food, basket, can, anything they can fill. I see one old lady fall down, then hear the gunshot that kill her. Then many gunshot. Sombo yell at us to shoot, too, to shoot down at the Vietnamese from our spot on the hill. And now everyone is shooting at the toy village, until finally it is only smoke and fire and dead body.

After, Sombo make us walk through the village to make sure no one is left. I do what he says, but each time, I turn the body over and look at the face. I know they don’t live in this village, this place so far from my town; I know I won’t find them, but each time I think maybe I will see my family.

One woman I find not dead. She’s lying on the ground, her body like cut in half, legs not attach to her body and blood, blood everywhere. She sit up, like all of a sudden she has strength, like cobra, and she spit at me. “You Khmer Rouge,” she says. “I hate you.”

I think for one second maybe she mean somebody else.

“You!” she says again. She mean me—me, I’m Khmer Rouge.

Then she start to cry. “Please,” she says. “Kill me.” She grab my ankle and beg. “Don’t let me die like this. Please shoot me.”

And I look at this woman, pretty face, long braid, dying slow in the hot sun; and I do it. I shoot her.

At night many things to be afraid of.

Leech, they glow white; they crawl in the soil, then jump on your body, your leg, your private part, your back, all time sucking the blood from you.

Small noise, gecko calling, stick breaking, any small noise can mean Vietnamese are close.

Snake, tiger, poison frog, all these thing can come in the night, kill you no noise at all.

Now I have one more thing to be afraid. Now, if finally I can go to sleep, I dream of the woman who spit at me and call me Khmer Rouge. Now, in my dream, I feel her finger, cold, only bone, but strong like a giant, pulling me down into the grave with her.

A few days later, another big battle. Our soldiers, they run in every direction, scatter like rat. Too much tank, too much cannon from the Vietnamese, and so everyone run and get separate. Our group, now only seven kid plus Sombo and Koong, the little ratcatcher boy, is walking again—walking, walking, always walking, not knowing where we go, just walking.

We walk so much we walk sleeping. Big guy in front of me, I hold on to him, grab his shirt, so I don’t get lost or maybe fall down asleep. He try to shake me off, but I hang on him for my life.

We carry gun, bullet, grenade, many thing for fighting; but also we carry food and water, pot for cooking, also other thing. Heavy thing. So heavy now we drop thing, one small thing first, then more, then more, till we have only the gun and bullet, no food, no water. After this so thirsty, but no water to drink, so we drink the urine. One more day walking in the sun and now not even urine to drink.

Only place to go, only place to hide now is the jungle. But inside is many thorn, so sharp it rip the clothes, cut the skin; and so many tree—palm tree, banana tree, banyan tree, bamboo tree—so thick the daytime in here is dark like night. And vine everywhere—some fat like the chest of a man, some skinny, like old lady fingers, crooked, growing crazy, grabbing our feet. Tangle so thick not even a breeze can get in.

How I will ever find my sister in here, I don’t know.

We not the only ones hiding in the jungle. At night sometime we can smell, just a little, a cooking fire somewhere. No way to know if it’s close or far. Cambodian or Vietnamese.

The jungle in the daytime is hot, like oven, at night, damp and cold. With no straw mat, no blanket, we dig into soil and cover ourself with old leaf, old branches. But our teeth, our bones, they chatter so loud I think maybe the Vietnamese can hear.

Sombo always sleep now with the little ratcatcher boy to keep him warm. I think Sombo also like this kid special, like sort of favorite. But also I know Sombo need to keep this kid who catch our food alive. So the rest of us can stay alive.

A million mosquito, like army, attack us all the time now; and some kid, they have the fever. Sweat like rain on them, then shiver so hard their brain is shaking inside the skull. The little ratcatcher boy now has the fever; and Sombo cover him with leaf, with stick, with his own shirt even, and go off in the jungle with his radio. And me, I follow Sombo, always watching.

His radio dying now, but Sombo lick the end of the battery and hold it to touch the other one, and for one minute his radio talk. It is the voice of Angka, saying victory is near, saying soon the Cambodian army will march into Vietnam as conqueror. Then the radio goes dead, and I see for the first time Sombo really has worry on his face.

Long time now we been hiding in the jungle, sometime we join up with other fighter, sometime we by ourself. The other fighter, they don’t talk to us, but I listen to what they say to each other. Thailand. All the time I hear this word.
Thailand, Thailand, Thailand.
I don’t know what’s this place. But one soldier, he tell the other, if you want to get there, you go where the sun set.

Next day that guy is gone.

Sombo says we have to go north. Big fight with Vietnamese coming in the north. All soldier have to come. I don’t know what’s north, but Sombo, he make us walk along a stream.

One day we beg him to let us get in the water. Leeches there and also poison fish, but we don’t care. So Sombo say okay. This water very cool and also very clear. I see under the water a stick, very pale. I move, it move. This stick, it’s my leg. All this time I see many other skinny kid, leg like stick; first time I see my own body also is skeleton.

Now all the soldier heading north; we see other platoon in the jungle. Sometime we stop and camp, sometime we just pass each other. All the time now I look for my sister. Then, like it’s miracle, we pass her group.

I run to find her and see her on the ground, lying still, her skin, her eyes, everything yellow now from sickness, almost dead. And dirt all over her—on her face, her clothes—like people walk on her. I say her name, and she open her eyes very big; but she can’t talk, can’t move.

Inside my head I go a little bit crazy. I touch her face and talk about how it will be when the war is over, how we can climb trees, eat ice cream, how she can get a new dress, how she can teach me to swear; but inside my head I think what really will happen. If the Vietnamese find her, they will rape her, they cut the throat, the ear. If wild animals find her, she will die slow while they eat her.

Now my hand is on my gun. Because I know I should kill her by my own. So she won’t get rape, get eaten by tiger. I touch her cheek and push close her eyes with my hand. I touch the trigger and pray to our ancestor for help, to forgive me for killing this little girl, this only person left for me in the whole world.

But I don’t do it. I just walk away.

I walk, stumble, my leg like no bone in them, then walk again. This is the only thing to do. Keep walking.

Big battle happen. Lotta kid get killed. Lotta soldier, too. One time I stand up and wait for the bullet to come for me. Why they don’t hit me, I don’t know.

Even if I want to die, I can’t.

Survive. That the only thing I can do.

Sombo take us deeper into the jungle. Always it seem we walk to join the other fighter. But now we don’t see the other soldier, and I think maybe he taking us a different way, maybe to get away from the war. Maybe to Thailand.

Deep in this jungle we come all of a sudden to small village next to stream. Not a real village, like before, but maybe ten hut made of stick and also mud. Like hideout, this village, with family, children, everyone living here secret.

They see us coming and the mother, she grab the baby and run to the bush and hide. The men, no gun, make begging face and say only, “Please, please,” hands like praying. “Please don’t hurt us.”

Then one guy, he come running to Sombo and give him a gift: one bottle of Coca-Cola. Crazy, to see this soda in the jungle after all this time living like animal, nothing modern, nothing from outside world. Sombo make a frown face, like maybe he can’t trust these strange hiding people, but the little ratcatcher boy, he beg Sombo to take it. So we take this soda and walk on, leave these people alone, with Sombo shaking the head like maybe a little bit angry, a little bit confuse.

That night we sleep near the stream farther away. Sombo open the soda, banging on the top with his gun; and we all stand around drinking this thing, this sweet drink that squirt out everywhere like crazy. Four years almost, nothing to eat but rice, and rat and cricket, and now in the jungle we have Coca-Cola.

That night, while all of us dream of soda bubble, a bomb land near our campsite. Sombo grab us and tell us to jump into the stream to hide. One kid, he can’t swim. He stand there and cry; but the rest, we jump in the water and hold on to branch, on to each other. Piece of bomb hit the water, sizzle, so hot from explosion, sizzle all around us in the water; but no one get hit. After, we get out and see the boy who can’t swim, lying dead, his mouth open like still crying.

Sombo very angry now. He doesn’t say it, but I know he think the people in the hiding village tell the Vietnamese where we are. He says he gonna go back to that village, warn them that Vietnamese are near. He ask me to come; but I say no, I don’t feel good, because now I’m afraid what he will do. But I follow him, always watching.

Full moon this night, and I can see Sombo, also the face of the village people he ask question. They say no, they good Cambodian, not helping the Vietnamese. But Sombo, he doesn’t believe it; and I hear, very quiet, wet, slicing sound, the bayonet going through the skin. One by one he kill the people, the mother, even the baby, always very quiet, with bayonet, or maybe just hit on the head with the rifle, silent, so no one can hear.

Now no one left in the world for me. Sombo, this guy who is like big brother to me, three year protect me, save me all the time, I see he like all the other Khmer Rouge, killing easy, killing with no heart, killing even little baby. Long time I been on my own, but now really I’m alone. I survive the killing, the starving, all the hate of the Khmer Rouge; but I think maybe now I will die of this, of broken heart.

I think to run away, to live alone in the jungle, but I know Sombo can find me, that he can figure out why I run away, because I saw what he did. So I stay with the group, maybe couple day more, then run away. Also I stay a few day because of the fever. I have it now, drench with sweat in the day, cold as a stone at night. Maybe a few day I’ll be stronger, ready to live on my own.

Little ratcatcher boy, he very sick now. Eyes yellow, burning all day from fever, shake all night. Sombo, he watch this kid very careful, give him little extra soup. But now this boy, he doesn’t wake up. His eyes roll back inside his brain; his body droop like a dead flower when Sombo pick him up.

“You in charge now, Arn,” Sombo say. He put this kid on his back, and the boy groan like his bone hurt from moving. “Five day maybe it will take me to carry him to the border, cross the river. To Thailand. I get him to hospital there, then I come back and find you.”

Why Sombo gonna leave us all a sudden, I don’t understand. Why this kid not just die like all the other? Maybe because he Sombo favorite. Or maybe because Sombo have a plan he not telling us about.