When Broken Glass Floats: Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge Paperback (18 page)

In time, my foot improves. In the cool evening I stand in front of the hut. For the first time, I feel as if I need to inhale more air. Suddenly I sense a weight upon me. The ugly
chhlop
is out hunting again. I hop up into the hut, frightened. “
Mak
, it’s him again!” I flatten myself against the front wall of the hut, hoping he won’t see me.

In a cold, detached voice, he barks at
Mak
, his elder. “Comrade, where is your daughter? Your daughter has to work.”

“She’s still sick. Her foot has not healed yet,” says
Mak
meekly.

“But she can walk some,” he snaps.

I listen to them, my body shaking. He sticks his face inside our hut.

“Comrade! Get out of there and come with me,” he orders.

I obey. I burst into tears as I move away from the wall. I plead to
Mak
, “
Mak
, help me. Help me!” He grabs my arm and yanks me out of the hut as I grab
Mak
’s hand.

He threatens, “If you don’t go, I will take you to
Angka
.” He speaks the words we fear. The mysterious
Angka
. I don’t know where he wants to take me—another distant labor camp, nearby fields? All I can do is cry.

“Go,
koon
, so they won’t harm you.”
Mak
lets go of my hand.

I limp beside this awful boy who thrives on his small measure of power.

“Don’t hurt my daughter,”
Mak
begs, appearing behind me. Her sunken face bespeaks pain, added to my own.

The next morning I’m herded with a pack of malnourished kids by a group of
chhlops
. After an hour’s walk I limp onto a rough, barren field. Another labor camp. I sob silently, wishing
Mak
could stop them from taking me away. I wish
Pa
were still alive to make my foot better. I’m the slowest kid, lagging behind a scattered crowd of children. As if the hard labor weren’t enough, pain is again my working companion. It’s only morning, but the sun is fierce. I’m fighting the pain. The sun. This time there’s no Cheng to help. I don’t know how I’ll survive another labor camp.

The new labor camp, near Phnom Srais, isn’t far from Daakpo, perhaps five miles. We must stay here, they command, but there isn’t any shelter. Before we have a chance to rest, they order us to work. They throw hoes, baskets, and carrying sticks at us. Even the youngest know better than to disobey or talk back.

As in Oh Runtabage labor camp, a
mekorg
breaks the children into groups of four or five. I’m assigned to a group of five, one of whom is elected to be the group leader. She oversees everyone’s work and reports to the
mekorg
. At least she’s one of the “new people.” The
mekorg
hands me a hoe since I can’t walk well. I break up the hard dirt and scoop it into everyone’s baskets. I repeat the task over and over, and the vibration from the hoe as it strikes the earth sends an echo of pain that crawls up through my foot, to my leg, and all the way to my waist. Dust swirls and settles, threatening more infection. The intense heat is suffocating. Everyone moves slowly, a weary production line, an army of ants that could be crushed under the heel of
Angka
.

I have a fever. I announce to no one in particular, “I’m very sick and my foot is painful. I want to stop a little.” I squat down, allowing myself the brief luxury of leaning my shoulder against the hoe. The group leader takes over my task. She begins to break up the dirt. She looks at me urgently.

“Comrade, why aren’t you working?” A loud, forceful voice erupts behind my back.

“That comrade said she’s very sick,” answers the group leader, pointing at me as I struggle to get up.

“Now, you dig the dirt,” she says, pointing at the group leader. “You”—she points to me—“carry the dirt. No more resting.”

I carry the baskets filled with dirt, struggling feebly up the bank with the weight. The scene is a familiar flashback:
Mekorgs
and
chhlops
stand among us, watchful. I wonder if I’ll ever be free of their constant scrutiny.

The hot, scorching day changes abruptly. By late afternoon the sky turns cloudy. More clouds move in and it gets very dark. Thunder roars. Lightning strikes, flashing bright jagged lines, lighting up the dark sky. Everyone stirs, anxious and agitated. We look for anyone with the authority to dismiss us, but two
mekorgs
order us to continue working until, they say,
Angka Leu
tells us to stop.

Thunder echoes again. The rain falls in dense plops, beating down on me. Then it falls in heavy sheets, stinging our arms. We run in a frenzy. The
mekorgs
and
chhlops
vanish. Everyone, all at once, runs. Knowing I can’t run, I plead for help, “Please wait for me. Wait for me!” I’m scared for my life. Everyone scrambles. The lightning strikes brutally across the sky, revealing chaotic crowds of frightened children moving through the drenched, muddy field. Some cling to one another. Others trudge by themselves, scattered bodies in the field. The only way we can see where we’re going is by the flashes of lightning. I lag behind.

Another lightning bolt lights the sky. I see a group of four children holding on to each other, with dark clothes covering their heads, walking beside me. I grab a girl’s soaking scarf, draped over her head. Then I switch, grabbing her arm instead, making sure I won’t be lost in this tempest. She turns. Glances at me, startled.

Now the sky is totally dark. The intermittent flashes of lightning stop. The sky roars, thundering. The angry rain still falls, beating, slapping my body. Everyone shudders. My jaws chatter. I’m cold, yet I feel warm with fever. We stumble into a ditch, slamming into baskets and hard pieces of wood. Screams erupt in unison: “
Mak
, help me.
Mak
….” My words mingle with the other pleas. In the chaos of mud and baskets and the collision of bodies, I struggle to stand. I reach out in the dark, looking for the kids I’ve been with. I feel a hand, grab it, and say, “Please wait for me.”

The sharp, pinching pain in my foot is immense, but the fear of getting lost, swallowed up in the cold darkness, cannot be measured. I cry the pain away. My own suffering is lost in this madness. Somehow we rise and move on. We must move on.

As suddenly as it started, the rain is over. The darkness lingers, daytime tumbling into night. Some children’s cries pierce the night, other children whimper. I release my long-held fears, calling out to
Mak
in my mind. A man’s voice from a distance rises over the children’s cries. It sends a wave of hope. The group I’m with steps up the pace, shifting our bodies in the direction of the man’s voice. We cling together, a chain of human links. As we get closer, we can make out the man’s words of warning.

“Don’t cross the water! Stand there! I’ll help you one by one,” the man’s voice commands, loudly but with compassion.

“Ow, help me!” a voice bursts out, choking. “I fell in the water. Help me, Athy. Help me….”

Who is calling out my name? I rack my mind, trying to think. Suddenly it clicks—the voice is Ary’s, a girl I know from Daakpo. I saw her earlier, when we were working.

“Ary! Ary! Where are you?” I yell at the top of my voice. I want to pull her out of the gushing water, but I can’t see anything in the darkness. I can hardly move. My body is as stiff and cold as a corpse. I feel my way with my hands, threading through other children, reaching forward in the dark, trying to get to her.

I shriek, “Where are you, Ary? Where are you?”

“I’m in the water…. Help me, Athy,” she cries, choking and coughing.

“Ary, wait, I’m coming.” My feet slowly sink in the slick, muddy soil. The cold water gives me chills. I stoop, my hands working as eyes. Suddenly the man’s voice shouts, breaking my own fear of getting swept away like Ary. “Don’t get into the water,” he commands. “I’ll get her. Stay there!”

I stop, relieved and grateful. Everyone else, it seems, has abandoned us. He somehow manages to get Ary out of the water.

The man guides us with a flashlight. We squeeze together, shivering. As we walk through the field, I suddenly feel concrete beneath my feet—a distant memory of a more civilized world. I know we’re now in a village, but I can’t see anything before me except the curtain of darkness. A woman’s voice guides us up a wooden stairway to a darkened building. I’m exhausted, yet with every step I take I encounter a rug of children, sprawling and packed closely together.

I resign myself to the darkness and sink down amid some mysterious metal objects, hugging them like a soft pillow.

In the morning I awake, horrified. The sunlight filters through a small, dirty window exposing thick cobwebs intertwined along the ceiling, the walls, and the old bicycle parts that litter the floor where we have slumbered. Around me, children are squeezed close together, like small lumps of human dough. Like me, other children have had to sleep sitting up, leaning against bicycle parts.

I need to get up to pee. My legs are numb and weak. I gingerly stretch them out, then limp over the sleeping children and down the stairs. Outside the shop, tree branches, coconut leaves, and other debris are scattered in disarray, still wet from the rain.
This is a real village, a place where people actually used to live. Real houses, real shops, not makeshift huts. Now empty
.

I limp back up the stairs and go back to sleep.

“Wake up. Wake up, comrades. It’s time to go to work. WAKE UP!” a female voice yells from the bottom of the stairs.

I want to obey, but I can’t. My wound is throbbing and my body feverish. I steal glances at three children on the floor by the corner of the wall. By the sounds of their groaning, I know they’re very sick, and I’m relieved that I’m not alone.

After most of the children have left, the brigade leader demands, “Comrades, why aren’t all of you going to work?”

“I’m sick. My foot swells and I can’t walk,” I say.

“I have a fever,” another girl reports humbly, her voice soft and small.

The other two sick children roll over to face her and report their illnesses.

“That’s enough. That’s enough! All of you stay in here and don’t go anywhere. Later, a comrade will take you to
peth
[clinic]. Nobody leaves this place,” she emphasizes.

We go back to sleep. Later in the day, I’m awakened by a soft, gentle voice.

“
Ey
, wake up. Wake up. I’m taking you to
peth
to give you medicine. Wake up!” A woman mildly shakes a girl’s shoulder.

I sit up, gazing at her. Dressed in a black uniform, she has short black hair that hangs no lower than her earlobes. She’s gentle. A lady, a doctor, disguised in the Khmer Rouge uniform. Her hand touches the girl’s neck as if checking her body temperature.

“Are all of you sick?” she asks gently, looking at us.

We answer by saying yes or nodding our heads.

“Come with me and you’ll stay in
peth
until you get better,” she replies.

“I can’t walk that well. My foot is hurting me. It swells up,” I announce. I show her my foot, and she is aghast at the sight of the raw wound. She is the first comrade who has ever reacted to the sight of my foot with compassion.

She carries me to a small hut nearby. Her warm arms embrace me against her chest, holding me as if I were her little sister. She looks young, perhaps in her late twenties. Her complexion is light, as if she has never been exposed to hard labor, to the sun.

She squats next to me and touches my shoulder while I lie on a shelflike bed made of old slabs of bamboo. She asks, “
P’yoon srey
[Young sister], how long have you had this wound?”

I’m touched by the tender way she addresses me. It’s a term I have never heard from a Khmer Rouge. For the first time, I wonder if some Khmer Rouge are actually nice, quietly hiding among the ranks of the cruel.

“I’ve had it for a while. It almost healed before I came to work in Phnom Srais because I cleaned it every day with the juice from
slark khnarng
. My father used to put penicillin powder on my knees when my wounds got really bad. Does
bang
[elder sibling] have penicillin?”

It is an outrageous request, considering how far we are from civilization. She gazes at me briefly with a trace of a smile, amused, perhaps, that I even know the word.

“I’ll go and look. I’ll be back,” she promises.

She disappears into a cubicle at the other side of the hut. She returns quickly, holding something in her hand.

“I have penicillin. I’ll put it on your wound for you.” She shows me the vial.

I can’t believe my eyes. It looks just like what
Pa
kept in his medicine drawer—a vial with a rubber cork and a shiny metal band wrapped tightly around the top. The last time I saw modern medicine used was before my father’s execution, during Lon Nol’s time. It seems like another world.

She opens the vial and holds it above my left foot. She warns, “It will sting.” Again, I’m surprised by her knowledge of medicine. But I welcome the pain of healing. “Don’t cry,
p’yoon srey
.” She cringes, wrinkling her forehead as if to brace herself for me. She taps gently at the mouth of the vial, then again, but the powder is stuck. She taps harder, and an avalanche of white powder crashes into my hollow wound.

“Oh, all the medicine is in your wound! Wait, I’ll scoop some out for you.” She rushes away.

In seconds I scream in pain. I scratch crazily around the wound. “Oh,
bang
, it hurts,” I call out. “
Mak
, help me,
Mak
, it hurts so much!” My palms slap at the bamboo slats and I bite my lips to control the sharp, pinching pain, which I can barely stand. I blink back tears as I study the wound. She scrambles back, trying to calm me down.