When Broken Glass Floats: Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge Paperback (16 page)

“Tie both of them up and don’t give them food! Have other comrades watch them so they won’t follow their bad example,” the
mekorg
orders the
chhlop
, pointing to a stump near the entrance to the girls’ shelters.

Against the rough bark of the stump, my ankles, arms, and hands are bound tightly behind my back. Then my chest. Never before have I felt so utterly defenseless, so humiliated. The
chhlop
snakes the rugged rope, half the size of my wrist, around me over and over again. There is no struggle left in me. As soon as the
chhlop
leaves, having finished binding Cheng against the opposite side of the stump, my grief tumbles out.

“Athy, don’t cry too hard,” Cheng sobs. “Stop crying….”

“Cheng…I…I miss…my mom….” I gasp for air.

“I miss my mom, too….” Cheng weeps.

The sun sets. My legs go limp. The rope bites into me. I feel delirious, drowsy. Suddenly I hear a voice approaching. Slowly, I turn my head to see the
mekorg
,
chhlops
, and an army of children marching back from the work site. Like obedient soldiers, they walk single file, passing us. Each head turns briefly, throwing a glance at us. We are their lesson.

“This is what will happen to you if you don’t follow
Angka Leu
.” The dark, ugly
mekorg
jabs at Cheng and me with a stick. “Observe, comrades….”

The night is here. The food ration is served. The children are asleep. But we stand through the night, without being given food or water.

The night turns to morning. The children pass us, escorted by the
mekorg
to the work site. With shallow breaths, my ribs fight against the ropes around my chest. My body slumps against the stump.
I’m on the verge of death
, I think, and the very words terrify me. I breathe slowly. Every breath I take is for the deadened weight in my arms, wrists, and legs—they’re hungry for air.

It’s so quiet. Cheng is already dead. She must be. She has made no sound since the children passed by on their way to the fields. I call out her name. Every part of my body braces for an answer. Finally a faint groan. I’m relieved, but my body feels strange, numb. It can no longer hold itself up, and I fear that the lack of circulation in my limbs will kill me.

When night comes, the same
chhlop
releases us. He warns us of tougher punishment if we repeat our offense. After he leaves, a shadow appears. It’s Larg. She brings us rice rations, placing them by the stump. Slowly my legs and arms awaken, burning, as blood and oxygen find their way back. Cheng and I go to our shelter. In the dark, we devour our food. I thought I would never again know the taste of rice. Or salt.

We are now watched closely. Working conditions get worse. Every day we are awakened long before sunrise and return only after the sun surrenders its light. Their goals, our leaders stress in mandatory meetings, are for us to beat the “set date.” To exceed the quota. To compete with other brigades digging irrigation ditches that will join ours. I measure our progress in inches. The few feet of the elevated roadway and the depth of the canal in which I work every day. Almost around the clock, dirt is my landscape.

The long days of forced labor have taken its toll on us. Many children grow ill. Some come down with malaria. Others with fever or diarrhea. At night I hear the sounds of pain, of sickness. Near the shelters are signs of diarrhea covered with flies. Soon I too have diarrhea, then it gets worse. I have what Vin had, amoebic dysentery. Every day I lie in the empty shelter, which is built close to the open field near the work site. I’m drained, weak from days of losing fluid. I constantly soil my pants. Two pairs, that’s all I’ve got. Every night I think of
Mak
, Map, and Avy. I close my eyes and imagine lying in the hut beside
Mak.
The longing is a physical ache, competing with the pain in my own belly. I try to console myself,
I’m lucky to have Cheng
. She takes care of me.

At mealtimes I wait for Cheng to bring me my ration. At our shelter, she kneels down, reaching out to help me up. Pointing at a plastic cup, she reminds me that she’s also brought water, cloudy like a light milk-chocolate drink. In a short time, a
chhlop
’s voice roars, ordering children to return to work. Cheng obeys, but I know she will be back—the one thing I’ve come to count on. In the evening she washes my soiled pants, then covers me with her only scarf. She leaves her own head bare, working in the hot sun. Never once has Cheng complained. Her silent sacrifice fills me with a deeper gratitude than I have ever known.

The follow night Cheng wakes me. Her footsteps storm out of the shelter. In a few minutes she returns with stomach cramps. She curls up behind me, groaning. Her body feels unusually warm, a sign of illness. I’m scared for Cheng, scared for both of us. How will we survive if both of us are sick?
Who will get us rations?
Certainly not the
mekorg
, even though she’s in charge of us. She is indifferent, only interested in us when we have strength. If you are weak, you are useless. I know we can’t rely on Larg. Since our punishment, we’ve seen less and less of her.

The next morning, as always, the
mekorg
wakes everyone. She peeks into our shelter and orders Cheng to work, not me, since she knows I’ve been sick. Cheng tells her that she has diarrhea. But she says Cheng has to work.

Cheng obeys. Quietly, she gets up, then disappears among the shelters. At lunch, her face drawn and pale, she appears with my ration. At night she has to get up several times with diarrhea, the next symptom of amoebic dysentery. The next afternoon Cheng brings my ration and explains to me what she has been plotting since last night.

“Athy, we’ve got to escape from this place,” she begins softly. “You’re very sick, and I’m getting sick like you. If we stay here, we’ll die. We need rest and medicine.”

Cheng speaks like an adult, the kind of strong, comforting tone I would hear
Pa
or
Mak
use when I came down with a fever or an asthma attack. “If you don’t escape with me, you’ll never see your mom again.” Cheng looks into my eyes. She knows. And so do I.

The Khmer Rouge have never given me medicine. Now they simply glance at me—I’m not worth their breath. But as harsh as their indifference is, it’s better than being beaten to death, I reason, recalling their warnings about what happens to those who attempt to run away. As much as I want to see
Mak
, I fear this more. But the odds are grim. I face the chance of dying here in camp of an illness I can’t control, or risk the punishment of death if I’m caught escaping. Back and forth I work the choices in my mind, but nothing becomes clear. How odd to be wrestling with the question of how I might die.

“I must escape. If I stay here, I’ll die. I might not die if I escape,” Cheng states. I’ll help you tomorrow if you want to go with me, but, Athy, I won’t stay here.” She looks sad but determined.

“But I don’t have the energy to walk. I can’t walk fast enough, Cheng. And so they will see us. They’ll see us walking across the open field. There aren’t enough trees to block us.” I imagine us running away. My mind is willing to go with her, but I don’t know if I can trust my legs to carry me, to keep up.

“I’ll help you walk. I’ll come and get you, and we’ll escape tomorrow while they’re eating lunch. I have to go back to work.” Cheng hurries out, returning to work as the shrill voice of a
chhlop
rings out in the distance.

Our day to escape comes. I get ready for Cheng, readying both my mind and my body. Sitting in the shelter, I rehearse our escape in my mind, visualizing Cheng and me running, or rather walking, for I can’t run. The cool morning turns into another warm day. Without watches, we must observe the sky. When the sun is bright above the shelter, Cheng comes looking anxious. She frowns, squinting from the harsh sunlight.

“Athy, are you ready? They are lining up for food. We must go now.”

“Ready,” I quickly answer. Inside I’m scared, trembling. I want to tell Cheng, but something holds my words back.
I must not tell her now
,
not now
.

Cheng whispers, asking me for my plate. Together with her own, she slips my plate under her jacket, securing a drawstring at the bottom. I watch her with wonder.
Why take plates when we must run? Shouldn’t we travel light?
But Cheng has thought this through. We carry out her plan. Silently, Cheng motions her head, signaling to me to crawl out of the shelter. She holds my right hand and we walk slowly, cautious as we pass other children’s shelters. Cheng slips an arm around my shoulders, helping to steady me as I struggle to walk on my weakened legs. On her own shoulder Cheng carries a hoe, making it appear as if she is helping me to go defecate in the open field. In the distance, about a mile away, is a row of trees—our first goal. We hope to make it at least that far, a natural screen to cloak our escape. At any moment I expect to feel a hand on my shoulder, or hear the shuffle of another pair of feet behind us in the grassy field. We try not to look behind, only ahead. With every step, the trees seem further away. I imagine the
chhlops
or our
mekorg
chasing after us, almost expect it. This time, I think, I’ll never survive any kind of physical punishment, being as ill as I am. The more I think about it, the more fear moves me—a rush of energy surges through my body, propelling me forward with a force I didn’t know I had.

Now we are too far from the shelters for anyone to believe that we’re going to defecate. If the
chhlops
see us now, surely they’ll know. I walk even faster. Cheng grips my hand tighter. We walk, then we run—an awkward, hobbled hopping, but in my mind I want to move the trees closer to us. As soon as we reach them, Cheng drops the hoe to the ground and commands: “Athy, walk faster. We must walk faster.” She begins to run, pulling me forward.

Cheng drags me, and I let her. I drift behind her like an anchor as the pull of her hand tows my frail body. Through the fear, I somehow feel free. I no longer think only about the
chhlops
or the
mekorg
coming after us. Nor the dry grass that licks our ankles or my own weak muscles. I think about what I’m running toward, not what I’m leaving behind. I think of
Mak
. And the thought pulses through my veins like a newfound power. With each step, something loosens in my soul.

I am free.

Even though we’ve passed the trees, our first obstacle, the horizon seems so far. Not a sound passes between Cheng and me, only soft, labored breathing. She pulls, I follow. We keep on walking fast, using the clump of trees we’ve passed as a visual block.

We’ve covered quite a distance already—a few miles, I think. Over the sound of our shuffling footsteps, we hear voices approaching. We pause, crouch down, looking at each other, horrified. Spontaneously, we both sprawl flat on the ground, like soldiers listening to enemy voices.

Cheng grabs my hand. We run, stoop, hunker down. By the time we reach the bushes, we have to stifle our gasping breaths. The voices are men’s, coming closer. Already I know the terrible torment that will befall us. As they near, I’m surprised to hear them talking about fishing, not about us. I feel reassured enough to peek: one man carries a fishing net on his shoulder, and the other an old bucket. Cheng and I look at each other, relieved.

Without a map, we let the landscape guide us, looking for clumps of trees, letting memory lead the way. As Cheng and I figure how to get to Daakpo village in the twilight, my emotions run high, mixed with fear, nervousness, and excitement. We pass two villages. Then the path begins to look familiar. Fearing informants, we keep to back pathways, zigzagging, trying to stay invisible. Somehow, in the darkness, Cheng and I find our way back to Daakpo village. But the discovery brings uncertainty. What if we don’t find our mothers? Before we go our separate ways, Cheng makes one last request: “In case they catch me, if you see my mother, tell her that I escaped with you.” Cheng’s shadow turns once again, as if to study me, then begins to fade. I run through layers of darkness to find her, to make the same request: “Tell my mother, too, if I don’t see her.”

Alone, I’m again on guard. I’m nervous, but I’m also eager to see
Mak
. I swallow the urge to run back into my mother’s arms. Instead, I walk to the hut, cautious. Like an adult, I’ve learned to anticipate obstacles, to avoid drawing attention to myself. When I see the tall trees near our hut, my personal landmark, I’m exhilarated. The cooking fire in the corner casts a dim glow around the entrance. At last, I see her.
Mak
sits beside the fire—so typical, so ordinary, as if I never left. Her gaze transfixed, she is studying the contents of her cooking pot like a fortune-teller, as if something will be revealed in the tangle of leaves that swim within it. For a moment I’m frozen, stilled by my own joy. Then, the impossible. I walk up to her, reaching out to embrace her.

“
Mak
, I’m back!” Just to speak those words fills me with pride and jubilation, a swell of feeling I haven’t known since they took me away. To be so near her. To smell her familiar scent. In an instant, I realize the depth of my love for her. I know exactly how much I need my mother. How much my family means to me. To my survival.

Mak
turns, startled. She jumps to her feet and her voice explodes with delight, “
Koon
, they let you come back! You’re finished….”
Mak
gropes for words.