“Bong Srei, what happened to him?” I ask the nurse as she prepares to clean him.
“He was walking here to visit—”The boy screams then, making the old woman sob louder. My toes and feet tingle when I hear the nurse say the boy either kicked a grenade or walked over a landmine. I quickly walk away and leave them with the boy screaming until he passes out.
When I find the grandmother, she is in the process of having her bandages changed by a nurse. The nurse is young and pretty, and wears a graying white uniform. She kneels by the grandma and reaches out for her arm. The grandmother swats her hand away and screams in protest. Hearing the screams, another nurse walks briskly over to assist the first nurse. She holds the grandmother by the shoulders and pushes her down on the cot. Under her weight, the grandma is forced onto her back.
“Are you with her?” the nurse asks, noticing me standing behind her.
“Yes.”
“Well, you better help us then. She is a tough one. Grab on to her other leg so she won’t kick me. I have to change the bandages.” I quickly obey her.
With one nurse pushing her down by the shoulders and my arms wrapped around her leg, the nurse unravels layers of bloody bandages as the grandmother squirms and shakes to be free of us. The bandages coil on the floor like red-dotted albino snakes, exposing the grandmother’s ankle. It is red, raw, and covered by a thin cake of dried blood. Just above her ankle is a tiny black circle the size of a cigarette burn. “It’s lucky the bullet went straight through the flesh. Any lower and it would have shattered the ankle.” The grandmother screams in response. “It looks good, but we still have to clean it.” The nurse takes the silver tray of tools and pours alcohol into a white plastic bowl. With a pair of thongs, she dips a piece of white cloth into the alcohol bowl, allowing it to soak through. “Okay, it’s time to really hold her down now.” I grip her leg tight, my nails digging into her flesh as the nurse swabs the alcohol-soaked cloth on the wound. The grandmother screams and curses us, but the nurse continues to jab the cloth at the wound, wiping away the caked brown blood. When she is satisfied it is clean, the nurse wraps the ankle up again with clean white bandages.
“Please,” the grandmother pleads, her bony fingers dragging the snot from her nose onto her cheeks, “please give me some medicine. It hurts very much.” For that brief moment, the grandmother looks vulnerable, desperate, human. My heart goes out to her. The nurse looks at her and slowly shakes her head. “I’m sorry, Grandmother. If we had some I would gladly give it to you, but we do not have any medicine.” The grandmother cries, both hands massaging near her ankle. She looks so frail and sad that even I pity her.
When the nurse leaves, the grandmother’s face darkens and she turns her attention to me. “What are you doing? Give me my food!” she barks at me and unwraps the banana leaves to find rice and salted pork. “Stupid girl! I know you ate some on the way. I am old and I need this more than you.” I say nothing and continue to stand there. “You are a little thief—I know you are. You are not even grateful we took you in. Stupid little thief!” Hearing her hateful words, I cannot find it in my heart to feel sorry for her anymore, and I leave her with her cries and moans and the stench of impending death.
The next day, the father brings the grandma home from the hospital. In the hut, she laughs and plays with the grandchildren, ignoring Chou and me standing outside the hut. A few hours later, while Chou and I feed the children their lunch of rice and fish, we watch the father walk up to Kim as he waters the garden. Standing in front of him, the father says something that makes Kim’s lips purse. Putting down his pail, Kim walks over to us.
“We have to leave in a few hours; the family can’t afford to keep us. He says there’s a family that will take us, and he’ll return soon to take us there.” Kim’s voice is strong and firm, but his shoulders sag. Kim and Chou are surprised by the father’s abrupt announcement. I, on the other hand, expected it to come sooner, and I wonder how much I am to blame for his decision. We have lived with them for almost two months and we have grown used to being there. I am thankful he has found a family who will take in all three of us. I am relieved that we will not have to go back to living alone on our own.
Chou and I continue feeding the children while Kim returns to the garden. After their meals, I wipe and clean the children’s hands and faces of dirt and dribbles. In the hut, Chou folds our spare set of black pajama shirts and pants, now faded and tattered, and puts them in Kim’s backpack.
By the afternoon, the father returns and asks Kim if we are ready. Kim nods. Grabbing the backpack, he carries all we have on his shoulder while Chou and I follow him, our hands clasped tightly together. Our eyes looking ahead of us, we leave without saying goodbye to the mother or the children. The father walks us to a house a mile away and introduces us to the new family. He tells them we are good workers. Kim thanks the former father for his kind words and for finding us a new family. Taking Kim’s cue, Chou and I bow to him and thank him. Abruptly he turns and, without a word of comfort or bidding us good luck, walks away.
This new family consists of a mother, father, and their three little children who are between ages one and five. They live in a larger hut than the first family, but still we are relegated to the corner of the room. Behind the hut grows a big, luscious vegetable garden. In the front stands a tall mango tree heavy with fruit. Chou and I are to help look after the children, the garden, and various other chores while Kim fishes and collects wood with the father. Dropping our bags, the mother hands me the baby, instructs me to look after her kids, and leads Chou to the garden. Outside the hut, with the baby balanced on my hips, I watch the mother squat next to the rows of vegetables and proceed to pull the weeds. Obediently, Chou does the same. Her faded black Khmer Rouge pajama clothes hang loosely on her thin body as her back bends over the garden. Chou is eleven and only three years older than me, but at times I feel much older than she is. It still amazes me how she can survive by being accepting and not fighting back.
Though we live with the family as their helpers, they treat us kindly. Many times the family will have special treats such as coconut cake or sweet rice balls for dessert. No matter how we crave them, it is not proper for Kim, Chou, and I to take a piece for ourselves. The mother and children can reach for whatever they want, but we have to wait until it is given to us. Even with his children screaming for extra pieces, the father always puts a piece on each of our plates. They occasionally raise their voices but never swear or raise their hands at us. Despite the Khmer Rouge ban on religion, they are able to continue to practice Buddhism in secret. A major Buddhist mantra preaches kindness to others or reincarnate in the next life as a slug for all to step on. Being from the country, the family is very superstitious—especially the mother. Whenever anything happens that she cannot explain or understand she blames it on supernatural powers. Every day she prays to the earth goddess for plentiful vegetables, the river god for plentiful fish, the wind god to bring rain, and the sun god to bring life.
One of my daily chores is to wash the family’s laundry. Many villagers are wearing colorful clothes now, including our new family. I look wistfully at the mother’s dark orange sarong and marvel at her sky blue blouse. I remember the red dresses Ma made for Chou, Geak, and me. Our first red dresses.
One New Year’s morning, I remember Keav, with big pink, yellow, blue, and green prickly plastic rollers in her hair held in by a hundred small black bobby pins sticking up everywhere like porcupine quills, as she combed my hair and tied it in ponytails. Next to her on our bed, Chou worked on getting Geak dressed. After Keav finished with my hair, she put red rouge on Geak’s lips and cheeks as Chou and I slipped on our new dresses and stood in awe of each other’s beauty. On our bed, we bounced with glee as our mattress squeaked, prompting Keav to yell at us. On the other side of the hallway, Ma picked out gold necklaces and bracelets from her collection for us to wear. She set aside a pair of red ruby earrings for Keav because she was the only one of us girls with p
ierced ears. In the kitchen, our helpers cut brown roasted ducks and arranged white moon-shaped cakes on a large blue plate. In the living room, Pa, Khouy, Meng, and Kim, dressed in their best clothes, lit orange incense sticks. After bowing three times before the red altar decorated with gold and silver Chinese symbols of peace and happiness, they inserted the incense into a yellow clay bowl filled with rice.
The baby in my arms pulls my hair and brings me out of my reverie. Looking at the mother, I assume she feels happy and joyful wearing her colored clothes. Glancing at my own, I wonder when I will also get out of the Khmer Rouge uniform and into some colorful clothes. I dream of one day owning a red dress to replace the one the soldier burned.
The mother interrupts my reverie when she takes the baby and asks me to do the laundry. After too many green mangoes, the three kids have had diarrhea all over their sheets. I roll the dirty clothes and sheets into a wicker basket and walk down to the river. With the basket balanced on my hip, I wade into the river until the water reaches my knees. I take out the sheets and spread them open on the surface of the water, allowing them to sink slowly while the diarrhea floats to the top. while doing this, little fish swim over and eat the mess. Some nip at my legs. With no detergent or soap, I must beat the bedsheets against rocks to try and clean them. This chore disgusts me, but I do it without complaining, afraid that if I don’t, the new family will send me away.
Sometimes the mother sends me to the forest to gather firewood. I meet Pithy along the way and we set off, making sure to stay clear of the Youn base. One day while walking, a stench attacks my nose and I begin to cough. It resembles rotting chicken livers left out in the sun for too long. Coming around the path into a clearing, I know what the smell is before I even spot the body. The corpse lies decomposing in the sun. I hold my breath and walk toward it.
“Come on, let’s go back,” Pithy urges, looking pale. I wave my hand at her and proceed forward while she stays back. Pinching my nose, I approach it. The face looks as if it has melted, exposing the cheekbones, the tip of the nose cartilage, and teeth in a lipless mouth. Beneath decomposing lids, the eyes are sunken deep into the skull. The eyelids and mouth are covered with small white eggs, some already hatching to become maggots, which crawl and disappear into the skin. More maggots wriggle around on the lids and out of the open mouth. Long black hair sinks into the grass, becoming one with the dirt. The chest cavity is caved in beneath the black clothes, home to hundreds of the black-green flies feasting on the body. I cover my mouth and push down vomit, not daring to look anymore. Quickly, I turn and walk away, but the smell of death still clings to my clothes.
“He was a Khmer Rouge soldier. He deserved to die. Too bad they are not all dead,” I say vehemently to Pithy. She says nothing. I do not in fact know if the body is a civilian or a soldier. Thinking of the body as a civilian makes me think of Pa too much. It is easier to feel no pity for the dead if I think of them as all Khmer Rouge. I hate them all.
Holding on to my hate for the Khmer Rouge also allows me to go on living the mundane details of life. Another one of my fixed duties is to go down to the river and gather water for the family. Each morning, balancing two water pails on a long flat piece of wood over my shoulders, I set off to fetch the water. The walk to the river is only ten minutes, but in the February sun it always feels much longer. Squinting at a reflection in the water, I make out a figure of girl standing on the bank. She is not much bigger than I am and with one hand on her hip, she peers at the riverbank in frustration. She removes the pails from her plank and hits at something on the grassy bank.
“What are you doing?” I ask her.
“I’m trying to loosen the body so it will flow downstream,” she says between halting breaths. A few feet from where we are standing, a body floats past, dressed in a black pajama shirt and pants. He is an adult man, bigger than most men in the village, and much fatter. He bobs up and down in the water, his hands and feet shiny and swollen as if made of white rubber. His upper body sways with the currents, but his pant leg is caught on some branches from the bank. His head bobs in the water each time the girl pokes him with her wood.
“I want to loosen him up so he’ll go downstream. He’ll dirty the water, maybe his juices will flow into my pails.” Her logic makes complete sense to me. I remove my pails, and with my stick help to push the body away. With the two of us beating on it, it bobs and sways even more. Finally we loosen the leg and the body floats a few feet down before getting stuck again near the bank. This time he is inches away from us.
“The water is too shallow. On the count of three, you push the body and I’ll push the head,” I direct. After a concerted effort, the body finally floats down the river, his long hair spreading around. The picture tugs at my heart and knots up my stomach. For a few brief seconds I think of Geak and hope the soldiers did not put her in a bag and throw her into the river. I nearly cry at the thought of someone poking at her body, but I push the tears down. “Another damn Khmer Rouge,” I mutter under my breath. “I hate them. I hope they all die.” We wait a few minutes until we believe the body fluids have all floated past us before fetching our water.
At the hut, the clay water container stands as tall as my chest. It takes me many trips and most of the morning to fill it up and still the water runs low by the end of the day. In the evening Chou, Kim, and I repeat our water chores before we go to sleep. We keep the pot full so we can have easy access to the water for we fear we will fall in if we have to reach to the bottom.
Kim, Chou, and I have had red eye disease for two weeks now. I fear I might have given the disease to them because I dare to look at the dead bodies. Somehow, the disease must have flown from the bodies and into my eyes, making them red as the blood I poke at with my stick. Every morning I wake up unable to open my eyes because both of my lids are glued together. Painfully, I pick, pinch, and pull the crud off of my lashes, but it is so thick that I have little success.
“Kim, are you there?” I call out to him. In the dark I sense a hand searching for me, finally finding my arm.
“It’s me,” Chou whispers. “Are you ready? I’ve got Kim’s hand.”
“Yes.”
Grabbing Chou’s hand, Kim slides on his behind until he reaches the edge of the hut. Then jumps to the ground and helps Chou and me. Linked together by our hands we feel our way to the water pot. Kim retrieves a bowl full of water and puts it on the ground. Squatting around it, we scoop water with our hands and wet our lashes.
By this time the mother has awakened and is looking at us suspiciously. “You must have been looking at dogs when they mate,” she tells us. “It’s a sin to look at dirty things. The gods have punished you to make you blind.”
khmer rouge attack
February 1979
The sky is pitch black and the air is still. All is quiet except for the rhythmical chirping of crickets calling out to each other. Suddenly a loud explosion awakens us. I sit bolt upright, my ears still ringing from the blast. My heart and stomach vibrate from the shock. Then we hear a shrilling whine before another rocket ruptures nearby. The straw walls and roof of the hut rustle and shake. The children scream at the top of their lungs, clambering around the mother. The father jumps out of the hut and runs to look outside. Chou, Kim, and I follow him. Outside, the earth shakes violently as crackling yellow, orange, and red flames devour a neighbor’s hut. Gray smoke floats to the sky and white ashes fall on us like powder.
“Chou! Kim!” I yell.
“Follow me, stay together,” the father hollers to his family. He picks up two of the children and jumps out of the hut. The mother holds the baby tightly in her arms and follows. Kim leaps into the hut and grabs his backpack while Chou and I wait. All around us people cry and scream for help as more rockets rain on the village. The dark night is bright as many houses are engulfed by fire and villagers rush to evacuate.
With our legs shaking in fear, we follow the father, ducking when he ducks, keeping low when he keeps low. We come
to the river and, holding hands, wade across it. The river splashes in waves as thousands of people jump in it at once trying to get to the other side. With small bundles on their heads or draped on their shoulders and small children hanging on their backs, the villagers wade across the chest-deep stream, desperately reaching for safety. Once on the other side, we find shelter in an old abandoned warehouse with a low concrete roof, propped up by three remaining walls.
“We stay here tonight,” the father tells us. “It is guarded by the Youns and it is safe.” The shelter is filling up fast as more and more people arrive. Among them I see Pithy running through the door.
“Pithy! Over here!” I scream over the wails and moans of others. She waves and runs toward us with her mom and brother, settling in the space next to us.
We spend the night in the dark, afraid that any light might signal our whereabouts to the Khmer Rouge soldiers. Everyone is quiet, breathing softly, some even trying to sleep. My heart beats loudly, jumping at every sound as I crouch in between Pithy and Chou, praying to Pa to protect us. Chou sits beside me, holding Kim’s hand tight. I grit my teeth hard together to stay calm. Outside in the distance, the mortars and rockets continue to explode through the night.
The hours pass slowly. I tap my feet as if to the beat of some fast song, hoping to make time go by faster. Chou now sits cross-legged, her hands clasping together and then unclasping. Next to her, Kim lies on the ground, using his backpack as a pillow. The father and mother stretch their legs beside us, with the children sleeping on both their laps. All around us, families are lying down on the ground with no mats or blankets separating them from the dirt. Their knees pull up close to their chest, and their arms prop up their heads like pillows.
By early morning it is quiet again. I can almost feel the shelter expand with air as everyone lets out a sigh of relief. Then, without warning, the whistle of a rocket flies near us and hits our shelter! The blast almost knocks the air out from my lungs. I reach for Pithy’s arm, then jerk my hand back as my palm touches something wet and sticky on her. My stomach churns. I turn to see Pithy lying facedown on the ground, quiet and motionless. The top of her skull is caved in. A pool of blood slowly seeps into the dirt around her head. Her hair is wet and matted with small bits of a tofulike substance on her black head. Her blood and pieces of brain are still on my hand. Pithy’s mom screams for her, then gathers Pithy into her arms. I wipe her blood and brains on my pant legs. In a panic, I get up and run after Kim and Chou out of the shelter, away from Pithy. Away from her screaming mother. Away from the sorrow that threatens to take residence in my heart.