For the Sake of All Living Things

by John M. Del Vecchio

  “I’ll be,” Chhuon said. Before them was a large, round, adobe-brick structure with a few small windows and a high, intricately woven, spearhead-shaped thatched roof. Beside its wide entry there was a raised platform and before that a swept courtyard with several low log tables.

  Mayana slid across the seat, out the door. She stood close by her father as a horde of villagers, men and children mostly, came to greet them. Samnang slithered out his side window and immediately was lifted by the soldier who had ridden the right fender.

  “Hey! Hey! Hallo! Hallo!” An old man leading the procession called out joyously in heavily accented Khmer.

  “Hello, My Brother,” Chhuon clucked back in Jarai.

  “Hello, Uncle.” Samnang ran to Y Ksar. “What’s that?”

  “Come, come inside and I’ll tell you everything.” Y Ksar laughed gaily. “Come, we shall open a jar and get drunk.”

  The common room of Y Ksar’s longhouse was hot and dark, the still air thick with humidity and smoke. To one side, on a raised hearth a large caldron sat on inverted iron cones embedded in hot embers. Chhuon paired off with Y Ksar; Samnang, accepted as an adult, paired with Y Bhur. On the floor between them was a five-gallon earthenware jar. Mayana, her eyes tearing from the smoke, squatted with Sraang, her grandmother Jaang, and other women, sisters and aunts, near the hearth. By the door, Draam Chung, Y Ksar’s eldest son (in the village Y Ksar was known as Ama Chung, “father of Chung,” as it was the tradition to call a parent after the firstborn), held a live chicken by the neck. At the back wall, on an elevated pallet which ran the length of the room, were sixteen more huge jars.

  “To you, Y Chhuon, father of Samnang, my newest brother,” Y Ksar began a buoyant, poetic invocation:

  You have brought us rice.

  You have brought us fat breeding

  pigs.

  You have honored the Spirit of our

  Door.

  May your body be cool,

  sleep deep

  snore loud.

  Y Ksar presented Chhuon with an elaborately woven winnowing basket heaped with glutinous rice and topped with bananas and slivers of chicken. He dipped his hands into the basket and lifted a sticky mass of food to Chhuon’s lips. From a second basket Y Bhur followed suit, offering Samnang both friendship and sustenance. Y Ksar continued with the sonorous coughing prayer:

  May our young brothers

  and our old brothers catch no sickness.

  May you again return in peace to

  your village and again to ours.

  May your truck tires remain plump.

  May no one stop you on the road.

  Samnang took his cues from Chhuon. When his father raised his head from Y Ksar’s hands, the boy raised his from Y Bhur’s. He felt uneasy yet proud. Chhuon scooped up a large handful and held it up for Y Ksar. In Jarai he attempted:

  Spirit of the Mountain watch over all

  men, all things,

  watch over those who live in Plei

  Srepok,

  I command you, watch over the high

  villages and the low.

  At that moment Draam Chung slit the chicken’s neck. Blood spurted, then dripped into a neckless jug. Y Ksar, finished with the exchange of food, broke the seal on the large jar before him. His rich voice chittered gaily.

  Rice beer be dark and ripe and strong

  as the nightstar,

  May all be in unison and full of joy.

  I command all here in my home

  to eat your fill of chicken

  to drink your fill from the jar

  May your bodies be cool

  Do not let me hear an angry voice

  Do not kill me with your words.

  As he recited the verse, Jaang stuffed the jar with lalang grass to keep the thick bran at the bottom. Then the jar was topped off with water. Y Ksar tipped the jar as he inserted a four-foot-long straw to the bottom. Properly, a few drops of beer spilled onto the floor. He incanted:

  May the Spirit of the Belly of the

  paddies

  make the rice grow,

  May the pigs get fat and have many

  piglets,

  Let us do as the ancestors did in

  bygone days,

  as the Mother of Yesterday did in

  bygone days,

  Let us eat chicken until we are full, Let us drink rice beer until we belch, Soul of this food and drink do not

  fear us,

  so we may again eat food and drink

  numpai.

  With those words the women and other villagers began to eat, but Draam Chung’s bellowing voice halted them:

  May the magic of the elephant plant

  strengthen all

  May the snake slither away before

  you step on him.

  We are about to anoint my brother’s

  feet with chicken blood and

  rice alcohol.

  May the tiger stay in the

  forest,

  May the crocodile stay on

  the

  shore

  May our bodies be cool,

  sleep deep

  snore loud.

  Chhuon, his body hot and sticky with smoke and mist, shivered. He felt his heart pause, then overfill and contract. A giant pulse flooded his body. He did not turn to look at Chung, but in himself said, May I not fall into the river.

  With the straw tip at the bottom of the jar Y Ksar sucked up the fermented-bran numpai as the others again began to eat. It was difficult to pull the numpai up through the long straw. For young men it was considered a test of their manhood. As he swallowed, Y Ksar slipped his thumb over the mouth end of the straw to keep the wine-beer from falling back. He drank for some minutes, then thumb-covered the straw. “Measure,” he called out. Sraang came with a smaller jar and a measuring cup. She knelt before the large jar, filled the measuring cup with water from the small, then poured the water into the large, measuring and pouring until the large jar was again full.

  “Ha ha.” Y Ksar laughed his spirited laugh. “Six plus a half.” Carefully he passed the straw to Chhuon, still not allowing air to drive the numpai back into the jar. Chhuon smiled, knowing he was expected to match the feat of six and a half measures. Y Ksar looked at Chhuon’s eyes and laughed and laughed. Then he began to tell stories, some in Jarai but most in Khmer. He was a lively, witty storyteller, chanting long embellished tales. Jaang and Sraang brought more food. Chung joined in the circle and invited Mayana to sit just behind him. Y Ksar told tale after tale. He joked and laughed at the jokes himself and he made everyone else, especially Mayana, laugh too.

  “Uncle,” Mayana asked in her little-girl voice, “why do you live up here? How did the mountain people get here?”

  Y Ksar winked at her. “According to ancient legend,” he said, “long, long ago, after forty days and forty nights of rain caused the waters to cover the earth and after the waters receded and the mountains could again be seen, Giong, great-grandson of the Spirit of Time, soared above the earth in a kite. From the kite he could see the coast and the plains and the mountains, and all the people begged him for land. To the Khmer and to the Lao, Giong granted the valley of the great river. To the Viets he gave the coastal plain. But the Mountaineers, they did not plead. They did not even listen because they were busy eating sugarcane.” Y Ksar laughed, rolled back and stomped his enormous right foot. “Ha! Niece and nephew, we mountain people never knew which land was ours so we have roamed here and there and scattered into a hundred tribes and settled by a source of clear water. And now you shall be Mountaineers with us. We shall call you Y Nang and H Yani. You are my grandchildren. My children, as your father is my brother.”

  After he had eaten, Y Ksar lit his pipe. Mayana went with Sraang and other women to the village watering spot. Draam Chung returned to work on his motorcycle. Only Y Bhur, Chhuon and Samnang remained about the jar with the old man.

  “Your trip was good?” Y Ksar asked Chhuon as Chhuon continued to s
uck on the straw. If a man could be from two different milieus simultaneously, Y Ksar was such a man. Long ago he had filed his upper teeth to nubs and painted the lowers with ebon lacquer. His hair, what was left, was pulled tight to his head and tied in a chignon, his earlobes held fat ivory plugs. His clothing was an ornate length of cloth wrapped between his legs and about his waist. Had time run back a thousand years and dropped him in the mountains of the Srepok Forest, the inhabitants would have welcomed him as a contemporary. Yet, if one could see within his mind, Y Ksar was a tenth- and nineteenth- and twentieth-century man. Very early in his life he had become the village blacksmith, forging swords and lances, bushhooks and hoes, from imported iron ingots. In 1926 his older brother had been ordered by French colonial authorities to report for militia duty. In his stead he had sent Y Ksar. For fifteen years, Y Ksar assisted in the “pacification” of the Srepok region. He learned to handle Western weapons, to dress in Western dress, to use the colonial monetary system. For fifteen years Y Ksar traveled—from Ban Me Thuot to Stung Treng, from Kontum to Phnom Penh. He learned to speak French, Khmer, Viet Namese, Bahnar and Rhade. For fifteen years he was away from his village and people. Then, in 1942, he became canton chief, the highest governmental post allowed to one of a minority race. In 1947 he was appointed a member of the district council of the French colonial government. After the devastation caused by Viet Minh and French conscription and by cholera, in the early 1950s, Y Ksar quit his post and led many villagers on an escape march to a hidden valley where they remained until 1954. Then, with the help of the Mountaineer movement, even though all major political powers ignored it, Y Ksar, his sect and the people of Plei Srepok attempted to establish an autonomous region.

  “We were stopped by a North Viet Namese patrol very near here,” Chhuon said, breaking from the jar, indicating to a house girl that he wished the jar to be measured.

  “Yes,” Y Ksar said. “We’re used to them now. They camp in the Cloud Forest, where the mist and drizzle never stop, where the Spirits live. The yuons force us to sell them rice, which is why we buy rice.” He laughed. “No rice, no rice beer. Ah, how well now they pay. At one time they simply took it.”

  Chhuon glanced at his old friend. He was not sure how to respond. He was not sure if Y Ksar was being shrewd, knew the riels were counterfeit, but was not letting on, or if he truly did not know. He decided not to confront the old man. Instead, he imagined himself reporting to Cheam that the soldiers at the NVA roadblock had demanded ten of the twelve bags. He himself would pay for two and all would be accounted for. “Are there many soldiers in the forest?” Chhuon asked.

  “Yes,” Y Ksar said. “There are many. Thousands, but not all at one time. They flow like the river. Sometimes they pool deep. Always there are puddles. I’m told they’ve a large hospital in the forest—and a sports arena. Ha! Every evening our scouts see their columns. For a time we coexisted. This changes. The Mountaineers switch allegiance.”

  “Switch allegiance?!” Chhuon said.

  “That’s what the village commonhouse is about.”

  “The brick building?” Samnang asked, astonished.

  “Ah-doh-bee,” Y Bhur pronounced the Spanish word slowly.

  “But from where...”

  “My Brother.” Y Ksar laughed. His old eyes were bright, his back straight. “We have a brick press from my sons in the Jarai village at Duc Co. American Special Forces gave them the press and taught them to make granaries. Our grain’s better stored in the xum, but look what we’ve done. Now when we have a large sacrifice the whole village can sit in the courtyard. Or inside.”

  “From the Americans?” Chhuon asked.

  “Yes. And we’ve brought our children to them. Draam Wah was very sick and the shaman said he might die even though Ama Wah sacrificed all his chickens and his pigs and two buffalo. Y Ko heard of it and directed Ama Wah to bring the boy to the Duc Co Special Forces camp. I wasn’t there but I was told the phalang medic wasn’t concerned Wah was not from his village. He treated Wah. Wah is better. They treat us like people, not like dogs as yuons and Khmers. They treat my people like you treat my people.” Phalang was Khmer for “white foreigner.”

  “And the yuons?” Chhuon protested. “They must...”

  “We’ve carried their supplies for ten years,” Y Ksar said. “We’ve fed them. Now we tell them, ‘no more.’ Are we beasts of burden? They steal my pigs. For them three of my sons have been guides across the border. All are dead. We were approached by a Jarai man from Duc Co. ‘The Americans want to hire you.’ The Oppressed Races Front agreed. Seventeen of my people are with CIDG [Civilian Irregular Defense Group].

  “This is our land,” Y Ksar continued. “We’ve told the yuons no more will we be a part of their war. Once we saw the Communist soldiers as allies. Then we see they think this is their land. This is Mountaineer land. Giong granted it so. We don’t want Sihanouk’s soldiers; we don’t want Viet Namese. I’ve sent them all word: Stay away! Get away! Ha! The Americans pay better too.”

  “You are very wise,” Chhuon said to Y Ksar. The rice beer was making his heart beat in his head. “Anyone who harms you, who harms your crops, your people or your belongings, is your enemy. It makes no difference if they’re Viet Minh, North Viet Namese, South Viet Namese, American or even Khmer.”

  “Especially Khmer.” Y Ksar laughed. “Understand, the North Viet Namese threaten us, ‘Be on our side.’ Sihanouk threatens us, ‘Be on my side.’ Side? This is our land. They want us to be their slaves. At least when the French were here, we were autonomous. Now everybody’s a liberation armed force. Liberation for whom? To me they’re slave masters.”

  “They’re evil.” Chhuon was drunk. “There’s nothing good in them. Not a single organ.”

  Y Bhur drank three measures of numpai and passed the straw to Samnang who immediately let the straw drain and had to work to get the fluid back up.

  “Here we are,” Chhuon continued. “Khmer and Jarai, part of Cambodia, but often our children go undernourished, our debt grows. The elite in Phnom Penh grow fortunes in paddies of corruption. Our sweat, our blood, are their fertilizer. North Viet Namese tax you. Viet Minh tax us.”

  “Not just tax,” Y Ksar said. “Attack. And across the border South Viet Namese troops attack Jarai saying they help the enemy. American reconnaissance teams ambush us. Death to them all! A typhoon has swooped down upon the mountains. In one lifetime we have moved from separate villages that have never known outside control, never a mountain kingdom, to villages everyone from the outside wants to control. Now in FULRO we’re as the fibers which make a single tree. We must have autonomy. Freedoms we knew in isolation are gone. To be free in a forest of foreign armies, we must be strong.

  “My “Brother,” Y Ksar went on, “here we want what all Khmers have. We want our schools to be the same system as the rest of the country. Not frontier schools. We want the rights of citizenship; passports if we want. We want the province officials to be Mountaineers, not Khmers. We want our defense forces to be recognized as semiautonomous. We’ll support Phnom Penh if they supply us. Let us keep foreign armies off this land. We want to be able to trade with merchants from Lomphat and Stung Treng and Pleiku because that will bring us a better life.

  “Royal troops are the same as yuons. NVA attack one village, Sihanouk another. They want nothing but to slaughter us. But we will grow back ten times as strong.”

  While Y Ksar gave an embellished account of the government attack to rid the basalt plateau of Mountaineers, Samnang worked to raise the rice beer. Finally he swallowed a large mouthful. He forced back the impulse to vomit and held his breath as he heard his father say, “Evil. They’ll be destroyed. They must be destroyed.” In his entire life Samnang had never heard his father say anything so blasphemous.

  “Our soldiers protect us,” Y Ksar said. He too was feeling the numpai. “Americans make fools of the yuons.” The old warrior laughed loudly. “They send SOG teams. Ha! The yuons think they’re safe in Cambodia.
They say, ‘International law will protect us.’ Ha! Jarai and American teams ambush the yuons. Ha! International law! This is a Mountaineer nation. Umph! What international law protects us? Not a single nation recognizes us. Upon ourselves only can we rely.”

  “That’s best,” Chhuon said emotionally. “The best way for a man, a family, a village, a nation. Self-reliant. Anyone who harms you or your village is evil. How can anyone ever forget what Royal troops have done? For all eternity our blood will call for revenge. Blood for blood.”

  “To forgive them,” Y Bhur piped up, “would be a sign of weakness.”

  “It’s better to ignore the fact they’re human,” Chhuon said. “To act the way they have acted is to renounce their humanity.”

  Samnang passed the straw to Y Ksar. Never before had he drunk alcohol. Never had he seen his father more than sip from the jar. Much later he would become very cruel to anyone caught drinking alcohol and he would never again drink himself. But he also would never forget Y Ksar’s tale of how Royal troops and yuons treated and slaughtered Mountaineers. And he would never forget his father’s words.

  Late that afternoon, with the truck unloaded, Chhuon prepared to leave Plei Srepok, alone, for a trip halfway down the mountain, back toward Lomphat. From a small Rhade village sawmill he would buy a truckload of rough-sawn teak blocks which would eventually be made into either busts of Norodom Sihanouk or statuettes of Buddha.

  It’s quarter to five, Chhuon thought as he checked the truck’s tires. I can be to Buon O Sieng by five-thirty, loaded by six. Then back here by six-thirty, no, quarter to seven....That’s too late. I must be there by five-fifteen, leave by five-forty. Then I can be here to pick up Kdeb and Yani by six-fifteen. We’ll leave by six-thirty. I must drive quickly if we’re to reach home before dark....The yuons will have a roadblock. Maybe they won’t keep me long. The Royal troops will have pulled back and probably be asleep. Stress is bad for children. Another roadblock and Yani’ll become ill. Y Ksar’s wise. I’ll leave them here, then drive back all the way on 19.