Breaking Free

by Abby Sher

  He took her to a hut that was built on stilts. It leaned over like a giant sagging birdhouse. Inside was a schoolteacher named Mam Khon and his wife, Pen Navy. The floor of their home was covered with children chatting, giggling, and slurping soup. Mam Khon and Pen Navy welcomed Somaly. They didn’t ask her any questions. They didn’t make her fetch their water or wash their clothes. Pen Navy dished out a bowl of rice for Somaly. She ate it so quickly and gratefully, she felt her whole body hiccup.

  Soon Somaly went to Mam Khon’s hut every day. Grandfather never knew because Somaly was always careful to get her work done first before slipping through the rice stalks to the sagging birdhouse. Pen Navy was a baker and let Somaly help her with the cakes she sold. Sometimes she even let Somaly eat one on the way to market.

  Somaly didn’t know how to thank this beautiful, generous family. Mam Khon said she could call him Father and Pen Navy, Mother. They had six children of their own. Somaly shyly began to call them sisters. The family clothed her, fed her, and took care of her when she was sick. She dreamed of hiding under the stilts of their house so Grandfather could never find her again. But he expected her home every morning and evening to cook his meals and bring her earnings to him. She could not bear the thought of getting her new family in trouble.

  One day, Pen Navy asked Somaly if she wanted to go to the school where Mam Khon taught. It wasn’t much more than a floor with a thatched roof to keep out the rain; there weren’t even any walls on the sides. Somaly knew it was near their home because she heard children singing and laughing there all the time. She wanted to go very badly. She wanted to dress in the blue skirt and white shirt that all the other girls wore. Somaly told Pen Navy she didn’t know how it could ever work, but that she would love to go.

  That was all Pen Navy needed to hear. Somaly never found out how he did it, but Mam Khon persuaded Grandfather to let her go to school. The rules were that she had to get up and finish her work before seven each morning. She went to school from seven until eleven. Then she had to go back and either work in the fields or do military training. She washed her uniform in the river, prepared Grandfather’s supper, and did his cleaning and chores. Then she willed her eyes to stay open as she studied her schoolbooks under the last shred of moonlight. (Grandfather rarely had enough money for an oil lamp.)

  School was the greatest gift for Somaly. For those four hours of school each day she was free. Free to speak out loud and learn new words. Free to read books and write numbers in a line. Free to open her mouth and her eyes and her mind in a thousand new directions.

  Best of all, on the first day of school, Mam Khon told the other teacher, Mr. Chai: “She’s my daughter. I lost her in The Troubles, but now I’ve found her. She’s mine.”

  Somaly was shocked when she heard him. She didn’t think it was true, but she ached for it to be so. Mam Khon also told Mr. Chai that her name was Mam Somaly. Mam, because she was part of Mam Khon’s family. Somaly meant “The Necklace of Flowers Lost in the Virgin Forest.”

  Somaly was so ecstatic about her new name she wanted to shout it to the skies. She was eleven years old, and for the first time, she knew who she was.

  “Nobody is ready for everything. I always encourage the girls to prepare not only for good things, but also to be ready for failure, and ready to stand up and try again.”

  ~Somaly Mam

  Lamp Oil and Candy

  Grandfather finally saved up enough to buy lamp oil. Or at least that’s what he told her. He sent Somaly to pick up the oil at the Chinese merchant’s shop. When she got there, the merchant seemed confused at first. She didn’t have any money with her, or even a bag of rice to trade for the oil. But then the merchant nodded his head with a slow, strange smile.

  Somaly didn’t know what it was about that smile, but it made her shiver.

  Somaly knew this merchant pretty well. He and his wife were usually kind and gave her a small cake or a piece of candy when she came to buy oil for Grandfather. Only this time, the merchant’s wife was nowhere in sight.

  The merchant gave Somaly a cake and told her to follow him into the storeroom. He quickly pushed her onto a pile of rice sacks, then held her down and beat her until she was bleary. Somaly lay there, frozen in shock. Then the merchant forced his body onto and into hers.

  Somaly didn’t even know that what he was doing to her was called rape. She thought maybe he was cutting her between the legs with a knife. She felt a lightning bolt of pain slicing through her insides. When he was done with her, the merchant said if she spoke about what happened he’d find her and kill her. Grandfather owed him too much, and using her body was the only way he could be repaid.

  Then he offered her a piece of candy, as if they were now friends.

  Somaly couldn’t understand what had just happened, but she knew she felt sick with shame. She ran to the river and jumped in with all her clothes on, begging the water to carry her away.

  Even after Somaly figured out that the merchant had raped her, she knew she could not tell anyone. She was too humiliated and scared. She was most scared of Mam Khon and Pen Navy finding out. They were traditional Cambodian people—very quiet and private. Mam Khon had told Somaly that all proper girls should be silent, like the dam kor, or silk-cotton tree. She wanted so badly to please her new parents. They would be horrified if they found out who she was now. Somaly knew it wasn’t her fault, but she also felt stained and marked for life.

  Somaly went back to Grandfather’s and he didn’t even ask her where the lamp oil was. He just got angry and beat her because she’d come home late. Not that she could feel his blows. All she could feel that night was terror and disgust. And soon after, somewhere in the back of her head, it all clicked into place. Something in the way Grandfather treated her after that day at the merchant’s gave him away. She realized Grandfather had sent her to that merchant not for oil, but to be used. He sold her virginity to the Chinese merchant to repay his loan.

  Somaly stopped talking to Grandfather. She stopped talking to anyone. She didn’t know where to turn or how to ask for help. She went to school and did her chores, but it was like she was walking through a fog the whole time. She didn’t trust herself to speak without crying. And what could she say even if the words did come out?

  According to Cambodian society, once Grandfather took Somaly out of Bou Sra, she was his. Grandfather “owned” Somaly and dictated exactly what she could and could not do. Soon after he used her body to pay off his debt, he made another deal. This time with a soldier named Than.

  FICTION:

  If you are a man in Cambodia and you sleep with a virgin, you will get new strength and vigor. You will also live longer, you will be protected from AIDS, and your skin will get lighter.

  FACT:

  Men in Cambodia will pay hundreds or thousands of dollars to rape a virgin for a week because of a virgin’s “magical” powers. The brothels today will often sell girls who are five or six years old. After the week is over, the girls are sewn up on the inside so they still look like virgins. Then they can be sold again.

  Tamarind Leaves

  Grandfather told Somaly to dress in her school uniform. He brought her to a wooden hut with a priest inside. There they made offerings to the ancestral spirits, and the priest announced that Somaly and Than were officially husband and wife. She had never before met Than. He was almost ten years older than she was. He stood stick-straight like a soldier at attention and only looked at her to bark orders.

  He told Somaly that she had to say goodbye to her adoptive family and school because he was taking her many miles away to a village called Chup. Then he flashed his angry eyes at her and dug his sharp fingernails into her skin, so she knew he meant business. Somaly hated him immediately.

  Somaly’s mother and father could not stop him, even when they saw Somaly in tears. It was like an unwritten law of the land. When a girl was married, she became the husband’s “property.” Somaly had no choice but to obey.

  When Somaly and
Than made it to Chup, the first thing Somaly did was try to hatch a plan for running away. But she soon found out there were soldiers hiding everywhere in the fields and plantations around their hut. They all knew Than. They’d rat her out as soon as she stepped foot out of his door.

  Than beat her regularly, either because he didn’t like the way her hair looked or didn’t think she was good at cooking rice. Somaly missed her family and her school so much. She wept all the time, even in front of Than. It didn’t matter. He acted like he couldn’t see her unless he needed a meal or sex. The only relief she had was when he got an assignment and left her alone. At least then the silence was bearable. Sometimes he was gone fighting for days or weeks at a time.

  While Than was away, Somaly needed money for food, so she started working as a nurse at a nearby medical clinic. The work was grueling and dirty. People came in all the time screaming in pain. They had legs and arms missing from all the land mines planted around Chup. Pregnant ladies came in to give birth, too. Everyone at the clinic tried their best to get the babies out alive and sew up the maimed soldiers, but nobody really knew what they were doing.

  The “doctors” were military medics who were guessing most of the time. There was one nurse who took a single class at nursing school. Lots of times, they ran out of medicine and anesthetic. Somaly had to tie the patients down while they operated. She learned how to wash wounds with a dressing of boiled tamarind leaves, water, and salt. Then she said a little prayer and waited to see if the broken patients would live or die.

  A lot of them didn’t make it. But Somaly wasn’t scared of death. She told herself that these corpses were just skin and bones. Not people. That was the only way it made sense.

  Somaly felt like she was just skin and bones, too. First Grandfather and the Chinese merchant, then her violent husband Than. Sometimes the men in the clinic who called themselves doctors forced themselves on Somaly, too. All of them grabbed and poked at her body. Now that she was about fifteen and looking more like a woman than a girl, the men pressed and rubbed themselves against her as if playing a game. If she resisted, they would beat her or threaten to tell Than, who would beat her more.

  One night the chief doctor raped her and then told her she should be grateful to him because she was too ugly to deserve him. Another doctor, whom Somaly considered a friend, showed her there was no such thing as friendship between a man and a woman.

  Somaly had to separate her heart and mind from what they were doing to her physically. She had to tunnel somewhere deep inside while they had their way with her skin and bones. She did this over and over again, squeezing her eyes tightly shut until all she could see was emptiness, until all she could hear was the pulse of her own blood. She climbed into her memories, where she could breathe in the forest air and taste the waterfalls of Bou Sra again. She imagined herself dancing around the harvest fire and swaying in her hammock.

  This was how she survived. Her spirit was the one thing these men could never touch.

  There was a day though, when Somaly’s body frightened her. Than was away fighting when Somaly woke up to see blood flowing from her secret place. She had no idea what was happening to her, and she was sure she was cracking in half. She hid at home, waiting for the blood to stop.

  When she went back to the clinic for work the next day, the chief nurse screamed at Somaly and demanded an excuse. Somaly had to tell her the truth. The nurse explained that the secret-place blood was her period. This meant soon it would be Somaly’s honor to make children for her husband. Then she gave Somaly cloth bandages from the supply closet to put in her underwear and told her she was a real woman now.

  Somaly thanked her. But inside she was screaming with new fear and shame. Her body was truly not hers anymore.

  “I believe in reality. Only you can drive your life and make decisions on how you want yourself to be.”

  ~Somaly Mam

  Untouched and Untouchable

  One day, Than left for a battle along the border. He was supposed to come back in a few days. The days turned into weeks … then a month. Somaly was pretty sure he was dead. There was no part of her that was sad he was gone, but she also didn’t know where she could go to live safely on her own.

  Grandfather showed up at her door with a “solution.”

  He told Somaly to pack her bag. They were going to the capital, Phnom Penh. Phnom Penh was wild and noisy compared with the tiny villages and forests where Somaly had lived. Instead of walking paths and huts made of leaves, there were “roads” made of mud, stones, and garbage. There were also rickety buildings, huge open-air markets, and nightclubs.

  Grandfather brought Somaly to a woman named Aunty Nop. She lived in a filthy apartment off the central market. Aunty Nop had a wide, pudgy face covered in makeup so thick and bright it looked like a Halloween mask. Somaly couldn’t tell if the woman was supposed to be a demon or a geisha doll. Aunty Nop scowled at Somaly and then talked to Grandfather in mumbles before he left.

  Aunty Nop told Somaly to put on a special dress and clunky shoes. Then she smeared Somaly’s face with the same white, pasty makeup as she used, so Somaly looked like a geisha-demon, too. They walked through a maze of dark alleys to another building that was rotting from the inside out. There were two floors with a cooking pit and sleeping pallets made of grass and dirt. On each pallet was another girl putting on the exact same mask and costume. Even though most of the girls’ dresses were made of silk, they pulled them on slowly, like they were made of lead.

  Somaly couldn’t get enough air to breathe. She knew already that there was something very wrong in this horrible place. Stocky armed guards were posted by the door. The huge room stank of sweat and sadness. The girls on the grass pallets didn’t even look up at Somaly as another woman, named Aunty Peuve, showed her around. Everyone looked so tired and small.

  Aunty Peuve had a short conference with Aunty Nop. Then she took Somaly to a little private room in the back. (Private because there were a few scarves strung up to keep this corner separate.) Aunty Peuve said she was going to bring Somaly her first client. Somaly knew exactly what was going on now, but she also couldn’t let it be true. She thought the walls would come crashing down on her. Maybe the sky, too.

  Actually, she longed for that to happen. But it didn’t.

  One of the girls warned Somaly that she’d better do as she was told or she’d be beaten senseless.

  Somaly told Aunty Peuve that she refused to have sex with anyone. Aunty Peuve slapped her and brought the man in anyway. Somaly stood in front of him, shaking. Every inch of her skin felt like it was on fire. There were no windows. No doors except the one flanked with guards. Nothing but this horrifying moment where the world was spinning so fast she couldn’t see straight, and there was no way to stop this man from coming toward her.

  Somaly tried. She definitely tried. She fought that first man mightily. He was tall and strong. She was like a pinned butterfly, struggling to break free and fly away, but caught in his grip. When she was bruised and bloody from his fists, he raped her. Then, to prove he was still in charge and she was utterly helpless, he raped her a second time.

  The next night was even worse. Aunty Peuve was furious at Somaly for causing so much trouble. She said Grandfather owed a lot of money and it was up to Somaly to pay off his debt. So Aunty Peuve sent three burly men to use and abuse Somaly’s body however they wished. Each of them was more ferocious than the last. One of the men beat Somaly with a belt buckle and a crutch before forcing his way inside her. She later found out that he was actually Aunty Peuve’s husband.

  But marriage meant nothing. Love meant nothing. The only reason why men came into Aunty Peuve’s hellhole was to grab a young girl and molest her any way he wanted. Then the girls were thrown back on their pallets, limp and lifeless. Their painted-doll faces made it even easier for the men to toss them around like toys.

  After night two, just to show her who was boss, Aunty Peuve took Somaly down to a cellar that was filled with
snakes, scorpions, and sewage. They tied her up and poured snakes all over her. Somaly screamed and cried for hours. She was loud—louder than she’d ever been before. Not because she was scared, but because she was enraged. She didn’t know how or why there was an entire planet of people walking, eating, and dreaming, and not one of them could save her.

  How was it possible that she was here? Who were these aunties, and since when did Grandfather “owe” them something? And why did Somaly have to pay this cruel man’s debts with her life?

  When Somaly was released from the punishment room, the same girl who’d warned Somaly the first night found her again. She slowly wiped Somaly’s wounds with peroxide. It was the first gentle touch Somaly had felt in years.

  Isn’t there some way out? Somaly longed to ask the girl. But the girl’s lips were shut tight. When she was done wiping away the blood and sewage from Somaly, she walked away. Then she started putting on her white face paint again. Silently.

  Whether she wanted to or not, Somaly fell into a kind of routine and learned the ropes. Aunty Peuve and Aunty Nop were meebons. That meant they were in charge of feeding, clothing, and housing the girls during the day. Every night the meebons rented out the girls to whoever came by. Somaly had no choice but to obey if she wanted to stay alive. Most nights, she wondered if she did want to stay alive in a world like this.

  Life at the brothel meant that each night Somaly had to have sex with a new lineup of angry, heartless men: soldiers, shopkeepers, truck drivers, even policemen. The soldiers were definitely the fiercest. They threw Somaly around like a rag doll. Sometimes she was forced to go to the central market and have sex with taxi drivers. The taxi drivers rented wooden planks and lined them up on the sidewalk, so people walking past could see them with Somaly. She felt so horribly degraded with every footstep she heard going by.