First They Killed My Father Part 9

Hearing her name, Geak walks over to Ma and sits on her lap. Ma smoothes her hair and kisses the top of her head.

"I'll have to be more careful from now on," Ma continues. "I worry about who will take care of Geak if something happens to me." Ma stares at Geak and sighs. Her biggest worry is that her sick child does not get what she needs. I look at Geak; she is quiet in Ma's arms. It strikes me then how she does not have much command over the language to complain about her hunger. How does a five-year-old tell us about her stomach hurting, her heart aching for Pa, and her fading memories of Keav. I know she hurts and feels pain. It is rare when she does not thrash and cry in her sleep. Her eyes look lost. "I'm so very sorry," I say to her with my eyes. "I'm sorry I am not good like the rest of the family."

"Chou visited us a few weeks ago," Ma says. "She was able to get permission slips to visit every other month now. She said the old Met Bong was taken away by soldiers and the new one is nice. She tells the new Met Bong she has a younger sister at this camp living with another family. Being a cook, she is able to sneak rice out of the kitchen and dry it in the sun. She brought us a feast the last time she came." I flinch with shame as Ma's voice trails off. I cannot listen anymore. I did not bring Ma and Geak anything. I am tormented by the knowledge of how much my family is willing to sacrifice for each other. If Chou gets caught sneaking food she will be severely punished, but she risks it. Kim stole corn for us and was brutally beaten. Ma was a.s.saulted trying to get Geak a bit of chicken meat. I have done nothing.

I look at Geak and choke back my sadness. She was so beautiful when we lived in Phnom Penh. She was everyone's favorite. Her big brown eyes were always so full of life. She had two of the world's rosiest, chubbiest cheeks, which no one could keep from touching. Now she has lost all her color; her face is sunken and hollow. There is always sadness and hunger in her eyes. I stole her food and now I'm letting her starve.

"A lot has happened since you left." Ma's voice brings me back. My eyes stay on Geak. She does not talk anymore. She is so thin it is as if her body is eating itself up. Her skin is pale yellow, her teeth rotten or missing. Still she is beautiful because she is good and pure. Looking at her makes me want to die inside.

When the sun falls behind the hut it is time for me to leave. The camp is a few hours walk and I need to reach it before dark. Ma and Geak walk to the road to see me off. With Geak hanging on to her leg, Ma takes me into her arms. She smells of sour body odor and dirt. My hands hang awkwardly to my side as I lift my face from her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and push myself away.

"I'm not a baby," I mutter and try to smile.

Ma nods her head, her eyes red and br.i.m.m.i.n.g with tears. Bending down, I lay my hand on Geak's head. Her hair is fine and soft. Gently, I smooth out the strands that stick up in the air. Then I quickly turn and walk away. They are both crying. I walk away not knowing when I will see them again. Though I long to be with them, being with them brings back too many memories of my family, of Keav, of Pa.

the last gathering

May 1978

The period of plentiful food did not last long. Once again our rations have been reduced and many people are becoming sick. My stomach and feet swell as my bones protrude everywhere else. In the morning I find myself short of breath just walking to the rice fields. I have lost so much weight it feels as if my joints are rubbing against each other, making my body ache. In the rice paddy, my head throbs and it's difficult to focus on the task at hand. By midday, during lunchtime, the effort of pulling the leeches out of my toes requires more energy than I have in me. So tired, I allow the leeches to feed on me and only remove them at the end of the day.

Each morning my face puffs out a little bit more, my cheeks rounder and my eyelids more swollen. Each day, I awake feeling weaker and weaker, my arms, fingers, stomach, feet, and toes feeling heavier, until I am no longer able to train or work.

"Met Bong," I wheeze out the words, "may I have a permission slip to go to the infirmary? My stomach hurts very much."

She sighs with impatience. "You are so weak. You must learn to be strong," she shouts at me and walks away, leaving me standing in the sun with my head down. I curse myself for being small and weak. As I turn and walk back to the hut, she calls to me. "Where are you going, you stupid girl?" Met Bong puts a piece of paper in my hand. "Go to the infirmary and recover, then come back. I am taking you out of the dance troupe!" I let out a sigh of relief and thank her.

The infirmary is a few hours' walk from the camp. With permission slip in hand, I walk toward it. The sun climbs higher and higher above the trees, heating everything around me. I walk over to a shallow pond near the roadside and squat down. The mud oozes warm and soft between my toes, soothing my aching joints. I wade in deeper to where the water is clearer, but each time I move, my feet disturb the water, making it brown and hazy. Standing still until the residue settles to the bottom, I scoop up the water in my hand. It is warm and soothing to my throat but tastes of rotten weeds.

I move on until the water reaches my chest. Slowly, I put my face in the water, my arms floating on the surface. My upper body floats easily in the water, pulling my feet up from the bottom. The water amplifies my heartbeat so that the thumps are much louder. The rhythm sounds normal but my heart feels very hollow. Listening to my heartbeat, my mind wanders to Ma and Geak. April and New Year's are behind us, so now we are all one year older. Geak is six now. She is a year older than I was when the Khmer Rouge took over the country three years ago. It has been six months since I visited Ro Leap when Ma showed me her bruises. Nine months since I pulled my hand out of Chou's grasps. Twelve months since I said good-bye to Kim, seventeen months since the soldiers took Pa away, twenty-one months since Keav-I stop myself from counting more dates. It is no use remembering when I last saw them. It will not help bring them closer to me. Yet in my world where there are so many things I don't understand, counting dates is the only sane thing I know to do.

When I am cooled down, I raise my head and spot a small cotton field in the distance. I get out of the water and walk toward it. The cotton stands as tall as my chest, puffy, white, and soft like the clouds, but I can actually touch the cotton. I pick a ball and pull it open. In the middle of the puffy cloud, there is a cl.u.s.ter of black round seeds like pepper. I have heard that they are safe to eat, but I hesitate momentarily before putting one in my mouth. I roll the seeds on my tongue-they are hard and have no taste. Tentatively, my teeth crack the sh.e.l.ls and dig into the soft, oily meat. Slightly sweet, the seed quiets the noise in my stomach. I quickly pour the rest of the seeds onto my hand. Scanning the field to check for guards, I shove the seeds in my mouth as fast as I can. Then I collect a few more handfuls and put them in my pockets.

By midmorning I arrive at the infirmary, an abandoned concrete warehouse with moldy, crumbling walls and open s.p.a.ces for rooms. There is no electricity so it is dark, except for the area that is illuminated by sunlight pouring in through the gla.s.sless windows. In the air hangs the unmistakable smell of rubbing alcohol and stale flesh. The two hundred or so patients are lined up on straw mats or cots on the floor, their cries echoing off the cold stone walls. The bodies lie motionless, some bloated, others skeletal, all on the verge of death. Some are so sick they cannot get up to relieve themselves. There are not enough nurses to help so they He in their own messes.

Keav's face flashes before my eyes as I gasp for air, only to cough at the stench of death that floods into my nostrils. Keav slept in cots similar to these, drenched in urine and waste. Some people come to this hospital hoping to be cured of their sickness, but many are dumped here because they are too weak to work and therefore of no use to Pol Pot. Those "who can no longer work come here to die. A cold draft hits me and p.r.i.c.ks my skin with tiny stings as I imagine Keav staggering here alone to die among a thousand strangers. In a makes.h.i.+ft hospital, on these yellow-stained cots, many of these patients will die before the sun rises tomorrow.

Forcing myself to focus on something else, I try to shake off the feelings of pity I have for these patients. I look intensely at my hand in the yellowish light. It looks stubby and waxy like five pale fat worms attached to the palm. When I move my fingers, they wriggle and I momentarily envision them detaching and crawling away. My toes wriggle in the same way. I am jerked out of this vision by the moans of the sick. This must be how Keav died, lonely and afraid. Am I to die in a sea of sick people I do not know?

In my dreamlike state I hear Ma's voice calling to me. "Loung! Where are you going? Come to us!" I wake up, gulping air. Am I hearing voices? Am I going crazy? "Ma?" I whisper. My heart dances with hope, but I suppress it. "Ma?" I cry in anguish. "Over here!" I hear the voices of Chou, Geak, and Kim! I force my eyes to open wider against the heavy pull of my swollen lids, searching among the people for their voices.

Far in the corner of the room, I see hands waving excitedly in the air. I stare at the faces of Ma, Geak, and Meng. Chou and Kim run toward me, smiling broadly. Everyone in our family but Khouy is here! I cannot believe my eyes. I look into their beaming faces: Chou is barely able to suppress a laugh, Geak looks at me in confusion, and Ma is crying.

"Silly girl," Ma hollers at me. "You almost walked past us."

"I'm so glad you are here! I was afraid to be here alone!"

"This is the only infirmary in the area!" Ma replies. She pats the ground next to her, gesturing for me to sit. My knees go weak and I fall into Ma's arms. My eyes wide open, I clutch her sleeves while the rest of my siblings look on awkwardly. "We're all together now. We're all together," her voice is m.u.f.fled through my hair. Looking into the faces of my siblings, I no longer fear I will die alone.

As Ma releases me from her grasp, Geak crawls over and seats herself between us. Ma tells me that she and Geak came here five days ago with stomach pains. Like me, all the siblings traveled separately and were lucky to find each other here. Ma says that Chou was the second to arrive, followed by Kim and Meng, who just arrived yesterday. Everyone is here but Khouy!

We spend our days in the infirmary lazily talking to one another about many things but never about Keav or Pa. No one in the family has ever explicitly stated that we are not to bring them up in our conversations. Yet we all know not to speak about them. Each of us keeps our memories of them private and safely locked in the boxes of our own heart. Instead, we spend the time telling Ma about our lives. Chou tells us she enjoys being one of the only two cooks at her camp. She says the other girl is nice. Being in charge of the food supply, she is able to steal a little of everything to bring to Ma. When the girls make her mad, she takes revenge by spitting in the food. At his boys' camp, Kim works day and night in the fields planting and harvesting rice. The setup of Kim's camp is identical to that of Chou's and mine, where all the children sleep together in a large hut. Every night he also has to attend the same propaganda meetings that Chou and I do. Meng tells us that before he fell sick, he and Khouy were still loading bags of rice onto trucks that are rumored to be delivered to China. He reports that he still lives with Khouy and Khouy's wife, Laine. Despite our curiosity, Chou and I never ask Meng about her. Three years living under the Khmer Rouge regime has taught us that some things are better left unsaid.

Though we do not have to work, we are given a ration of rice and salt and sometimes fish. The amount of food is comparable to what I was given while I worked. Though from our s.h.i.+ny faces and swollen bodies, we realize that we are all suffering from similar symptoms: stomachache, extreme exhaustion, diarrhea, and aching joints. After much discussion, we conclude that we are not so much sick as weak from starvation. First thing in the morning and after dinner, the nurses walk over and pour water into a smooth, polished coconut sh.e.l.l bowl, then they put a small cube of white granulated material on my palm, telling me to eat it. I put the cube on my tongue and feel it dissolve. A smile spreads across my face when I realize it is sugar! Sugar for medicine. I plan to stay in the infirmary for as long as I can.

Even with the daily ration of "medicine" I am always hungry. It is hard for me to walk, but I must scavenge for food. I search the bushes for frogs, crickets, gra.s.shoppers, or anything else that can be eaten. But I am a clumsy predator, moving slowly in my sickness. On my way back to the infirmary one afternoon, I see a rice ball left unguarded beside an old woman. My hand quickly grabs it and puts it in my pocket. My heart pounds rapidly, and I walk away as fast I can before anyone notices.

Once alone outside the compound, I am wracked with guilt for what I have done. The fist-sized rice ball rests weightily in my pocket as the face of the old woman comes back to me. Her gray oily hair clings to her skull and her chest contracts and expands in shallow breaths beneath her black clothes. Her lids are half closed, exposing the whites of her eyes. Her helpers will return to find the rice missing and they will have nothing more to give to her. Knowing she will die anyway, they may forget about her. By taking her food I have helped kill her. But I cannot return the rice. I lift it to my lips as salty tears drip into my throat. The hard rice sc.r.a.pes down in a dry lump, thus I put a marker on the old woman's grave.

With heavy feet, I make my way back to my family. They are sitting quietly, happy to be together. Somberly, I sit next to Ma and scratch my head with both hands. My hair is in greasy knots and my head itches. Our clothes are tattered and have not been washed in weeks. The well water is reserved for the nurses' use and the stream where we bathe is far away.

"Come." Ma's hand reaches for my head and parts my hair. "We will fix that." She reaches, into her bag and takes out her special lice comb. She sits across from me and spreads her red-and-white scarf on the ground. She gently pushes my head down so that I am looking at the scarf and drags the brown plastic comb with its micro teeth through my hair. My scalp hurts from the pull, but it is worth it as I see the six-legged bugs fall from my hair onto the scarf. They scurry all over the scarf, trying to escape but are met with our thumbnails crus.h.i.+ng them to bits. Blood squirts from their bodies and they make small popping sounds. Chou and Geak laugh and join in the killing. One by one, Ma combs our hair and rids us of the lice. We spend our days this way, sitting around, talking, laughing, and loving each other again.

One night I dream about Keav. She is beautiful, young, and exuberant. My dream starts peacefully. I am somewhere alone with her. We are talking, walking. I reach out to her but stop because her appearance is changing. In front of my eyes as she continues to talk, she grows thinner and thinner. Her skin becomes yellowish, aged, and hangs loose from her bones. Then the skin on her face begins to melt, becoming transparent, exposing the outlines of her large eye sockets and the skeletal bones behind them. I want to run away but I also want to stay. Her lips are still moving and she says, "I'm all right, I am not as you see me." I love her and want so much to be with her, to find out where she is now so that I can meet her. I do not understand what she is saying and I scream myself awake. Determined to live, the next morning I force myself to walk the hospital grounds looking for food to steal to fill my stomach.

I stay in the infirmary for as long as I can, and with the sugar cubes and food and rest from work, my body gradually grows stronger. After one week, the infirmary becomes overcrowded and the nurses force us to leave. First they kick out Meng, then Kim, then me. I cry, whine, and he, but in the end I am forced to leave. Walking away, I break my farewell rule and look back to see Ma, Chou, and Geak crying and standing in the doorway. It was a mistake to turn around, my body aches to run back to them, to hold on to them. Expanding my lungs with air, I straighten my shoulders and march away firmly, wondering when I will see them again.

the walls crumble

November 1978

Another six months has pa.s.sed since our family reunion at the infirmary. Back at the camp, my life continues as before and with another increase in food rations, I become still stronger. We no longer work in the fields but spend the hours learning to fight in combat as rumors spread that Youns have invaded our borders. During the day, we train with the few sickles, hoes, knives, stakes, and guns that are available in the camp. Most of the training is repet.i.tive, but Met Bong insists that only when the movements become automatic will we be able to fight well. In the evening, after our meal, we gather brush and sticks to build a fence around our camp.

Early one morning, I wake up with dread and panic. My stomach knots and I am drenched with sweat. I tell myself it is nothing, just nerves; I convince myself that I get nervous easily. After was.h.i.+ng my face, I join the other kids in training. Met Bong takes her old clothes and stuffs them with leaves and straw to make dummies. For the heads, she stuffs her red checkered scarf with straw. She calls them her Youn dummies and hangs them on trees in the field. After another long report about the evil of the Youns, she lines us up single file across from the dummies.

With a six-inch knife in my hand, I stand at attention in front of the line. Panting like an animal, with my legs shaking and my hand gripping the knife, I attack at Met Bong's cue, charging at my dummy, I yell, "Die! Die!" Though I focus on its head, I am only tall enough to thrust my knife into its stomach.

The next morning, I wake up in great agony. My head throbs, my stomach hurts, and my chest constricts as if someone is sitting on it. I wrap my arms around my stomach, wanting to scream to the world. Something hurts inside me. Rage erupts in my body, making me jump and run out of the hut. I don't understand the electricity in my body, this panic, this sadness, hatred, emotions that manifest into physical pains.

I have to see Ma. It is dangerous to travel without permission, but I do not care. I have to go to her. I know I cannot leave through the front gate; if the girls see me, they will tell on me. I walk around the hut and search for a part of the fence where I can make my escape. I see a loosely built part where the stakes are far apart and the bushes spa.r.s.e. Making sure no one can see me, I drop to my knees. Quickly, I part the p.r.i.c.kly brushes, get on all fours, and crawl through.

I walk in the hot sun without food or water. Though my throat begs for water and my feet crave to stop, I push on. My heart races as images of Ma and Geak flash before me. Their faces are long, their mouths turned down, their eyes glisten with tears. They sit at the hut in Ro Leap, calling out to me, as if they are trying to tell me something. I know why they are calling out to me. But I cannot accept it. I know.

My thought turns to Pa, and I remember how he told me I had extrasensory perception. Even as young as I am, I have always felt as if I live 80 percent of my life in deja vu. In Phnom Penh, many times I knew who was on the other line even before Pa picked up the phone. Walking in the streets with Pa or eating noodles with Ma at the shops, I would sense that we'd run into a certain person and we would. In Ro Leap, I had a dream that a certain house would catch on fire, and it did. Pa said it is a power and though I did not fear it then, I fear it now.

The minutes turn into hours until I reach Ro Leap. It is midmorning. The village is quiet. When I enter the village, I run to Ma's hut. "Ma," I call out frantically. "Ma! Geak!" No one replies. "Ma!" I run as fast as I can into the garden. Ma and Geak are not there. Tears blur my vision as I run back to her hut. Everything is still there. Their wooden rice bowls and spoons. The small pile of clothes. "Ma!" I scream, my voice hoa.r.s.e.

"They are not here," a voice answers. A young woman stands in the doorway of the next hut. She is new; I do not recognize her. "They left yesterday. My baby is sick so I did not go to work. I saw them leave."

"Where did they go?"

"I don't know. They went with soldiers," the woman says quietly and looks away. She stares into the distance, refusing to look back at me.

We both know what it means when the soldiers come to the village and take someone with them. Part of me cannot believe what the woman says, but the other knows it is true. Yesterday I could not explain the mental anxiety and physical pains I woke up with. Now I know it was Ma and Geak telling me about the soldiers.

"Ma, where are you? Ma, you can't do this to me!" I scream into the empty hut. They cannot have survived three years of starvation and the loss of Keav and Pa only to be taken now! The last time I saw her she was doing okay without Pa. I believed she was going to make it. She fought so hard to live! She cannot be gone. Poor little Geak, she never got anything good out of life.

At the sound of her baby's cries, the woman goes into her hut. Inside, the woman hums her baby back to sleep. A memory of Ma singing me to sleep in Phnom Penh flashes before me. I cannot be strong anymore. My wall crumbles and collapses on top of me. Tears run uncontrollably down my face. My chest compresses, my insides gnaw at me, eating away at my sanity. I have to run away, I have to leave. Somehow my legs take over and carry me away from the village. "Ma! Geak!" I whisper to them. Their faces flood my consciousness. My mind races, remembering the time I stole rice from the container, out of their mouths. She never knew how it felt not to be hungry. My mind will not leave me alone. My body goes weak when I wonder which one the soldiers killed first. My mind projects pictures of the two of them together.

I see them marched slowly in a long line of twenty people collected from other villages in the province. A group of five or six Khmer Rouge soldiers walk on either side of the villagers. The soldiers' rifles point at the prisoners. The rain three days before has left the field wet and slippery with mud, making it difficult for the villagers to keep their balance. Besides the grunts, moans, and whimpers of the villagers, all is quiet. Both the soldiers and the villagers have on black pajama clothes and red-and-white checkered scarves with mud stains on their bottoms and knees. The men walk with their fingers locked behind their head. Sweat drips from their forehead and stings their eyes. But they dare not unlock their hands to wipe them. The women, children, and old villagers are allowed to use their arms to balance while they work their way on the uneven ground. Whatever their history, whatever their past, they are marching now because the Angkar branded them traitors to the government.

Trailing along at the end of the line, Ma carries Geak on her back. Ma cries softly, her body tense with fear and her hands holding on to Geak. She feels Geak bounce slightly on her back as she catches her balance and prevents herself from a fall in the mud. Biting her lips, she thinks of Pa and wonders if he was this afraid when they took him away. She shakes her head, not allowing herself to think of him as being dead. Parts of her will always believe he is alive somewhere. It has been almost two years and still she misses him every minute of the waking hour. In her dreams, he is so real that she wakes up hurting more than the day before. Sometimes, while she pulled weeds from the vegetable gardens, her mind wandered to their first meeting by the river, when she first caught his eye. She thought he was so handsome but knew her parents would not approve of him. She loved him and despite her parents' objections, she ran away and they eloped. She just wanted to be with him. Maybe she would be with him again soon.

The soldiers lead them past the rice paddies, past the swaying palm trees, to a field at the edge of the village. There, away from all eyes, they make Ma kneel with the other villagers. Sinking in the cool mud, Ma and Geak cling to each other. She hugs Geak tight to her chest, as if trying to push her baby back into her belly to spare her from the pain. She slides one hand up the back of Geak's head to make sure her face is turned away from the ma.s.sacre about to happen. In her arms, Geak's body shudders and her teeth clatter near Ma's ears. She feels Geak's small hand gripping her neck yet she is quiet.

The soldiers stand before them, their rifles aiming at the group, their fingers poised on the triggers. The dark clouds move over them, casting black shadows on the soldiers. The wind blows warm air around them, but Ma is s.h.i.+vering. She knows there is no fighting her fate. She knows no amount of begging will allow her to escape. She wraps her arms even tighter around Geak and squeezes her eyes shut, praying while the others beg for mercy. She brings Pa's face to mind and waits. That second feels like an eternity. She fights the impulse to scream, to provoke the soldiers to just get it over with. She does not know how much longer she can be brave. The wait makes her heart begin to believe in hope. Could the soldiers have changed their minds and let them all go? She finds herself breathing faster at this thought. "No, I must be strong for Geak. She must not leave this world in terror."

Then Ma hears the slush of mud as a soldier moves his position. Her heart pounds as if it will rip through her chest. One soldier slings his rifle across his back and walks toward the group. Ma fells the ground beneath her become warm and wet. Glancing to her side, she sees that the man next to her has wet his pants. A soldier approachs the group. He walks straight toward her. Ma's eyes widen with hope. Her heart palpitates with fear. The soldier reaches down and grabs Geak's shoulders. The two of them scream a loud shrill scream that echoes through the air. But the soldiers do not stop and pull Geak out of her grasp as they cling to one another, yelling to each other not to let go. The soldier tears them apart until only the tips of their fingers hold them together, then that chain too is broken. All the villagers cry and beg and start to get up off their knees. Suddenly the rattling sounds of the rifles go off and bullets pierce through their bodies, silencing their screams.

Geak runs over to Ma's slumped-over body with her face in the mud. Geak is only six years old, too young to understand what has just happened. She calls Ma and shakes her shoulders. She touches Ma's cheeks and ears, and grabs her hair to try to lift her face out of the mud, but she is not strong enough. While rubbing her eyes, she wipes Ma's blood all over her own face. She pounds her fists on Ma's back, trying to wake her up, but Ma is gone. Holding on to Ma's head, Geak screams and screams, not stopping to take in any air. One soldier's face darkens and he raises his rifle. Seconds later, Geak too is silenced.

Walking away from Ro Leap, I am deafened by the ringing in my ears. All the stories I have heard of how the Khmer Rouge kill their victims come back to me. Tales of them tying their victims in potato sacks and throwing them in the river and stories of their torture chambers frequently circulate among the villagers. It is said the soldiers often kill children in front of their parents to elicit confessions and names of traitors. The ringing in my ears becomes louder, making me disoriented. Ma's face appears before me. I choke as I think of the pain she feels as she watches the soldiers hurt Geak. My mind obsesses over the pictures my mind makes up of their deaths, which refuse to let go of me. Then my head feels full and heavy.

Tears pour from me as I drag my body away from the village. Someone once told me that if you hit your head hard enough you lose all your memories. I want to hit my head hard. I want to lose my memory. The pain in my heart hurts so much it becomes physical and attacks my shoulders, back, arms, and neck like hot pins p.r.i.c.king at me. Only death will relieve me of it. Then something takes over me. It is as if I am drifting away into another place, into the deepest recesses of my mind to hide from the pain. Suddenly, the world becomes hazy and blurry. It is black all around me, soothing and empty. My pain and sadness no longer feel real or personal-no longer mine-when the blackness swallows my surroundings and me with it.

When I regain some level of conscious thought, I am back at my camp, standing before Met Bong. My hand ma.s.sages my stinging cheek; I taste blood in my mouth. Met Bong has slapped me awake. "Where have you been?" she demands, as the world comes back in focus. The girls stand around us, watching me.

"I don't know," I manage to say. "I went to see-"

"And you stayed for three days? Don't you know the Youns are everywhere?"

My eyes widen in disbelief. No, I don't know where I was," I tell her honestly. Her hand lands hard across my face again. The pain makes me dizzy, I almost lose my balance.

"You won't tell me? You won't have any food tonight and I will reduce your food ration until you do!" She screams into my face and walks away. After she is gone, I walk to the well and pull up a pail of water. Drinking some, I pour the rest over my feet. Rubbing one foot against the other, I remove the layers of red mud to expose my small, wrinkled toes. "Ma is dead," I repeat to myself with little emotion. "Ma is dead." I have no memory of the three days after I left her village.

In our training the next day, I charge at the Youn dummies even before Met Bong's cue. My skin vibrates with hate and rage. I hate the G.o.ds for hurting me. I hate Pol Pot for murdering Pa, Ma, Keav, and Geak. I stab my wooden stake high into the dummy's chest, feeling it puncture the body and hit the tree. Hard and fast, I stab it, each time envisioning not the body of a Youn but that of Pol Pot. Now it is all real. Now I no longer have to pretend to be an orphan.

the youn invasion

January 1979

Hugging the rifle to her chest, Met Bong paces back and forth nervously at our nightly session. "The Youns have invaded our country! They are taking over our towns! These monsters are raping Khmer women and killing Khmer men. They will kill you if they catch you. You must protect yourself in any way you can. Pol Pot is all-powerful and we can defeat the Youns!"

"Angkar! Angkar! Angkar!" we scream in unison even though her words make no sense. While I pretend to listen, I wonder why the Khmer Rouge fears the Youns if we can defeat them. If we can beat them then why are they able to take over our country?

"Instead of one, two girls will now guard the camp at night. You are to shoot the Youns dead when you see them."

That night none of us can sleep as we listen to explosions of mortars and rockets in the distance. Though we are afraid, Met Bong tells us the Khmer soldiers will keep them away from us. After a few hours of sh.e.l.ling, all is quiet again. Then without warning, a mortar explodes near our base, blazing the sky white like lightning. Fear runs up my spine and shoots into my heart. I scream and cover my ears with my hands just as another mortar whistles and hits our hut. The straw walls and roof burst into flame. Screaming and wailing, the girls try to escape before fire consumes the hut. The girls run and crawl to the door, their faces black from smoke and their eyes white with terror. Many are dripping blood from their arms and legs where shrapnel sliced through their skin.

I jump up and head for the doorway as fire spreads everywhere. "Don't leave me! I'm hit! Help me!" a voice screams out shrilly. She is lying in a pool of blood. Propping herself up on her elbow, she begs us to help her. She is shaking and s.h.i.+vering. The other girls do not stop. Seeing me looking at her, she holds out a b.l.o.o.d.y hand to me. "Help me!" On her elbows, she tries to crawl to the door but pants in frustration after a few yards. Her tears fall into her mouth. Fire spreads through the camp quickly, debris falling everywhere. "The smoke! The fire-help me!" Her hand grabs her chest as she coughs out blood. I want to help her. I wish to help her, but I am much smaller than she. I scream and cover my ears as another mortar explodes nearby. Panicked, I turn my back on her and jump out of the hut. When the roof collapses, the girl continues to scream long anguished cries as flames engulf the hut.

All the girls head off in different directions in a desperate bid to escape the camp. In the dark, the straw walls and roofs combust into yellow and orange flames, illuminating the red faces of girls running away. On the road, I find myself crowded among thousands of people walking amid deserted towns and villages. I have to find Chou. I am alone without her. Automatically, my body takes control of my feet and veers me in the direction of her camp. There is no time to be afraid.

Her camp is dark and empty when I get there. "Chou! Chou! Chou!" I scream her name. I circle around the compound, but she is not there. I run back out into the traffic, not knowing what to do next. I don't know where to find my older brothers. All around me the people move like a herd of cows in a stampede, yelling and crying out family members' names. "Please, let them be alive," I whisper while people b.u.mp and push me out of their way. Not knowing what to do, I walk out of the traffic and climb onto a big rock on the side of the road. Hugging my knees to my chest, I cry as the traffic rushes on ahead of me, leaving me behind. It is like the ma.s.s of humanity leaving Phnom Penh all over again, but I am alone now. I do not have Keav's arms around me, protecting me, or Pa, Ma, and Geak by my side, or Khouy and Meng leading the way.

I sit there hugging myself when I feel a hand grab my shoulder. It's Kim. He's alive! Chou is with him, holding on tight to his hand. "Chou!" I exclaim happily. I have never been so happy!

"Come, we have to leave quickly!" Kim yells and grabs my hand as we head back onto the road and into the traffic.

Though we do not know where we are supposed to go, our goal is to somehow try to find our brothers. Kim is once again in charge of the family. As we walk, Kim tells us that once he heard the explosions coming from our direction, he escaped from his camp and ran here to find Chou. They were on their way to look for me. Chou and I follow Kim's lead and do as he says. He seems so much in control that I forget he is not quite fourteen.

As other people carry their pots, pans, clothes, food, and other belongings on their backs or in their wagons, Kim carries a backpack with a few clothes in it, while Chou and I hold his hands and walk with only the clothes we are wearing. We walk through the night with the sea of people, following their route. Kim says it is safer if we keep with the crowd. Though my feet and body crave to rest, through half-open eyes, I lean on Kim and totter on. Soon the sun comes out. In crimson red, golden yellow, and fiery orange, it lights up the world around us. In the field, tall elephant gra.s.s glistens with morning dew while gray smoke floats into the sky from distant villages. The small red gravel roads are swarmed body to body with people in their black s.h.i.+rts and pants. The traffic does not stop and continues to move, everybody dragging their feet slower and slower. Those who cannot move any farther sit at the side of the road, some curl up in a fetal position and sleep. Others leave the traffic to scavenge for fruits and berries a few meters from the road, all the time keeping themselves close to the traffic. The snakelike traffic pushes on with the strong able-bodied men forming the head, and the old, young, weak, and hungry trailing behind as the tail. As soon as the first snake disappears from our view, another one comes winding along for those left behind to join.

As the sun climbs higher in the sky, my stomach begins to growl. Kim spots a small gra.s.sy footpath hidden behind some bushes and veers us toward it as the traffic moves on. Walking in silence, Chou and I follow Kim's lead. After five minutes, Chou and I glance at each other nervously, afraid to be so far away from the traffic but we dare not question Kim. Another ten minutes pa.s.s. We have walked a kilometer away from the road before our path leads us to a deserted village. Alone in the village, all is quiet except for the m.u.f.fled grunts of pigs and cackles of chicken. The villagers evacuated in such a hurry that they left clothes, sandals, and scarves strewn everywhere on the ground. In the communal kitchen, smoke still rises from the ashes. Chou enters a hut and comes out with a few metal pots, aluminum bowls, and the remaining few small bags of rice and salt. I grab three scarves, spare black pajama clothes, and three light blankets. Placing them in the middle of another blanket and tying its corners together, I make a big bundle to balance on my head.

In one house, a pig and two chickens scurry about. After a few minutes of chasing after the pig, we become tired and let it go. Even if we could catch it, we do not know how we would slaughter it since we do not have a knife. Kim catches the two chickens and locks their wings behind their backs. We look around for a sharp object to slit their throats. Not finding one, Kim grabs the bird and walks over to a well. Holding the chicken by its legs, he swings it like a bat and smashes its head against the stone wall. From ten feet away, I hear the bird's skull crack as blood sprays everywhere on the wall, splattering onto Kim's feet. The chicken's body struggles and twists, refusing to die, until Kim whacks it again, this time smas.h.i.+ng its head. Then he does the same with the other chicken.

Chou fetches water from the well and pours some over Kim's feet, rinsing the blood off. She pours the rest of the water into our new pot while Kim rekindles the fire by adding dry leaves and branches. Chou puts the chickens in the pot, submerging them in water to boil them whole. After an hour, she takes the chickens out and we pluck the feathers off. Then she boils them for another hour or so. When they are cooked, she pours salt on them so they will not spoil. While she prepares the chickens, my stomach growls and my mouth waters. I have not had any kind of meat in such a long time.

Finally Chou announces they are done. Kim breaks off a leg, scoops up a bowl of rice, and hands it to me. He gives Chou the other leg, takes the b.r.e.a.s.t.s himself, and saves the rest for our trip. With our plates in front of us, we eat in silence. Slowly, I peel off the skin, which tastes tough and rubbery. I eat the rest of the chicken with joy and sadness as I remember how Ma was beaten for trying to get some for Geak.

After the meal, we pick up our bundles and walk back out to join the mob of people. Not knowing where we are going, we follow the traffic. We walk all day and stop to rest for the night along with everyone else. While others build fires, cook food, and talk, we eat our food in silence. On every side of us, men talk vehemently about the Youn invasion and the defeat of Pol Pot's army. They spit out the evil Pol Pot's name and swear to each other they will hunt him and his officers down to avenge their suffering. Their voices grow to a feverish pitch as they recount the bodies they saw in the fields nearby their villages.

Their words make me think of Met Bong. For a year while I was at the camp, Met Bong told me everyday the Youns were attacking Cambodia and that the mighty Khmer Rouge army would defeat them. She was so afraid of the Youns taking over our country that she was paranoid the Youns would populate Cambodia and in a few years the country would become no more than a Youn colony. How fearful she must be now-if she is alive-that the Youns, our enemy, have invaded Kampuchea, and as a result, stopped the Khmer Rouge from killing more Cambodians. Every night she told us that a Khmer Rouge soldier could kill twenty Youn soldiers because our soldiers are better and braver fighters. I wonder what happened to the mighty Khmer Rouge soldiers. Maybe the Khmer Rouge's power is just another one of Pol Pot's many lies.

My legs hurt and my body aches from the walk, but physical pain does not matter anymore. My mind wanders to Pa, Ma, and Geak, and I become deaf to the conversations around me. Pa cared about politics. I am too young to understand Pol Pot's strategies for creating a cla.s.sless pure agrarian society. I do not know why Pol Pot did what he did when he made us leave Phnom Penh, gave us very little food, or took Pa away from me. All I know is if the Youns invading Kampuchea could have saved Pa, Ma, Keav, and Geak, I wished they would have come sooner.

After we eat more of our chicken, Chou spreads one blanket on the gra.s.s and I roll up the scarves to use as pillows. We have settled in the middle of an open field that sits at the edge of a forest.

"The open field," one man says, "is safe from the Youns' crus.h.i.+ng monster."

"Met Pou," I ask a comrade uncle curiously, "what is this crus.h.i.+ng monster?"

"You don't know?" he asks, incredulous. I shake my head in reply. "No one has actually seen it, but they say it is like a wild monster and nothing can destroy it. It is part machine, part man, but very evil. It is bigger than a hut and can shoot out flames and bombs. It has many wheels for legs and rolls across the land like thunder, destroying everything in its path. It can smash trees, rocks, metal, everything. Nothing can destroy it!"

My eyes open wide as I learn of this evil machine, wondering if it is sitting in the woods waiting for us.

"So it is safer for us to be in the open so we can see it approaching and run out of its way?" I ask as my knees go weak and my imagination creates images of the crus.h.i.+ng monster chasing after us.

"Chou, let's move into the middle of the crowd," I plead with her as I grab her hand. Kim frowns at us as we repack our bundles and get ready to move.