When Broken Glass Floats: Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge

by Chanrithy Him

  I open my eyes and Pa’s silhouette is beside me. He pats my head, then rests his ear against my wheezing chest, listening to my lungs. Knowing Pa’s near, I groan a little just to let him know I hear him, then my eyes shut. When I open them again, Pa disappears, and I sink back into my restless sleep.

  “Please sit down. Yes, please,” a voice says.

  “Yes, yes,” a chorus of three voices exclaim.

  My eyes open. And there, opposite me, at the end of the bed, are two men and a woman, whom I have never seen. All are dressed in black uniforms with red-and-white-checked scarves draped around their necks. Greeting them is Kong Houng, whose voice I heard earlier. He’s sitting near me, illuminated by a dim oil lamp beside him. Feeling delirious and anxious, I get up abruptly. Then I see Pa make his way down the stairs.

  “Pa,” I cry out. I feel warm and shaky.

  “Stay there, Pa’s coming.”

  After he greets the strangers, Pa sits near me, beside Kong Houng, facing the strangers, with his legs folded casually on the oak bed. He strokes my hair and tells me to go back to sleep. I obey and close my eyes. But I can no longer sleep. These three people have come to ask Pa many questions regarding Uncle Seng’s whereabouts and Pa’s previous occupation, as well as Uncle Surg’s and Uncle Sorn’s. I lie facing them, finally understanding what this meeting is about.

  Kong Houng has told Pa and all my uncles about local people wanting to meet them. Back then, it sounded harmless, a neighborly get-to-know-you meeting. But now it feels sinister. These people are interrogators. Their unwavering, direct gaze burns into Pa—an unrelenting eye contact uncommon in Cambodian culture—as Pa dutifully explains his own work history and the other uncles’ previous jobs.

  As soon as Pa finishes, the woman quickly attacks, asking Kong Houng about Uncle Seng. “Where is your other son, the one who flies an airplane?”

  “I don’t know why Seng hasn’t come home. Most of my children and their children came,” Kong Houng says gently, appearing genuinely concerned and curious. He turns to Pa and says, “Atidsim told me that they got separated on the way here. I don’t know what else to tell you.”

  Pa comes to the rescue. He explains that Uncle Seng was separated from us during the chaotic evacuation from Phnom Penh, lost in the madness of those final days. It is the only lie he utters.

  He tells them we waited for Uncle Seng, but that he never showed up. “I figured he can find his way here, so we decided to continue our walk. I don’t know why he isn’t here yet. We hope he gets to see all the relatives.” Pa speaks politely and convincingly.

  Pa’s fabricated story conjures up memories of Uncle Seng leaving our home and Pa’s helplessness as he watched him walk away. As I stare at these Khmer Rouge, Uncle Seng’s last words replay in my mind: The Khmer Rouge are my first enemy. I won’t stay to see their faces. This is the delicious power of the mind—they can’t stop me from my silent thoughts. They can’t interrogate my memories.

  Another day, another new thing to learn. Since there are no markets, we constantly have to improvise. It’s the frustrating New World Order, the Khmer Rouge way. Ra and Ry are sent to the lake to catch fish for our daily soup. We don’t have a proper fishing net, so Mak suggests they use mosquito netting. The only fishing they’ve ever done was for fun back in Takeo, using string and hooks in the water to chase slices of silver fish by my uncle’s home. The hardest challenge was touching the earthworm. But what they are now asked to do is to walk through the lake with the open netting, sweeping through the water to trap fish and debris.

  Since I’m feeling better, I’m asked to help. I don’t want to, but Ra and Ry tell me it’s easy. All I have to do is carry a woven basket and follow behind them as they fish. The morning is overcast, a bit chilly. Ra and Ry stand on the bank overlooking the lake, now shrinking in the summer heat, and wonder exactly how they will go about fishing. “Where do we start?” they ask each other. They stare at the water, and I at the tiny green leaves floating on the surface of the lake, then at the tall grasslike plants and dead tree snags poking out like skeletons. Now my task doesn’t look easy anymore. I will have to follow my sisters into that water, and I dread stepping on things I can’t see, the lurking dangers of thorns.

  We start at the lower bank, where there are many tall grassy plants. The water is cool as I tiptoe into it barefoot. It feels strange as the soles of my feet sink into the mud, squeezing between my toes like cool, soft rice dough. I dread going further, but must follow my sisters, who are already far ahead, delicately lifting the netting above the grassy plants. Ra and Ry clumsily try to negotiate timing, deciding when to put the netting down to fish, becoming cross. Like me, they are squeamish but determined. The responsibility of survival rests on everyone.

  In time, their voices die down and the only thing I hear is the slurping sound of our feet parting the still water, stirring up sediment from the bottom in a crazy dance. Like the bits of lake bottom, I can almost feel the random collision, the political whirlpool touching us all, occluding the future. Like sediment, I know that life will never fall into the same order again.

  Already I’m learning to survive, catching fish as small as anchovies and as large as cucumbers. I cringe at the strange, slimy things that brush against my feet. Inasmuch as I dread walking and carrying the basket, it’s exciting to see the captured silver fish flop and shimmy in the netting. Amid all the excitement, something bites my leg. I lift my leg up and on it is a soft dark creature, the size of a string bean, that clings to my shin, bent in a semicircle.

  “What’s on my leg?” I ask Ry and Ra curiously.

  “Ra, leech, le—leech,” Ry stammers. She lifts her legs up, one right after another, checking for leeches.

  I shriek a long-drawn-out “Ow!” as soon as Ry says the word “leech.” The word means nothing to me, but her terrified face and the sight of her dancing in the water, stamping her feet like a scared little child throwing a tantrum, frighten me. I scream, stamping my feet and splashing water, dancing in a mirror image of her hysteria.

  “Help me, get it off me!” I run to Ry and Ra.

  Ry runs away. “Don’t come near me! Ay, ay,” she cries.

  “Stop moving!” Ra shouts. “Stay still.”

  I look away, crying, as Ra scrapes off the bloodsucker with the netting.

  After all the hysteria, Ra decides that we’re done fishing. On our way back to Kong Houng’s house, I ask my sisters about leeches. Leeches suck blood—the blood of humans, cows, and buffalo, they tell me. Ry laughs, her face red. Now she’s amused as she remembers how silly I looked, stamping in the water, screaming at the top of my lungs. Only now is it funny. I chuckle at the image of Ry running away from me, too. Like schoolgirls, we laugh at our silliness, our new experience, our new way of life.

  Now it’s a routine. After fishing, I wash up at the well. I’ve learned not to be scared by it. I lower the bucket, then scoop up as much water as I can carry. Only after fishing and cleaning myself up do I hurry off to breakfast. Usually I have meals with Mak and my siblings, cousins, and aunts. Pa, Kong Houng, and my uncles eat by themselves, but sometimes the women join them.

  It’s been two weeks since we entered this strange world and new life. Now Pa and my uncles are required to report for “orientation” with Angka Leu. They will learn about the new government, they are told, and will be gone for a while—exactly how long no one knows. They must attend and will be picked up in oxcarts. The news is unsettling to everyone, but little is said. By now we’ve learned to take our worries into our own quiet corners.

  The morning for orientation finally arrives, and I’ve planned to have breakfast with Pa before he leaves. Though I never shared my plan, I thought this would be a way to show him how much I will miss him.

  After fishing, I go to the kitchen and place the day’s meager catch by the clay stoves. I’m disappointed to find Pa already eating with my uncles and Kong Houng. All I hear is the sound of spoons scraping plates and bowls. Each man studi
es the spoon as he brings it to his mouth. I can almost feel the weight of their thoughts, even if I can’t hear them. Though together, they seem alone, like strangers who have never met. Their stillness sends a strange air through the house, a sadness so heavy that it radiates like thick smoke, choking me. Suddenly I feel lonely, as if something will be taken away from me. I dash down the stairs from the kitchen to the well. I quickly rinse the lake off my legs, then run back to the kitchen. The men are done, the kitchen empty. I want to look for Pa, but figure I have time to get a bowl of rice and soup to ease my growling stomach. With the bowl of food in my hand, I run looking for him in the house while shoving a few bites in my mouth. I see only Mak and my sisters and aunts.

  “Mak! Where did Pa go?” I ask, feeling scared.

  “They brought oxcarts to take your father and uncles.” Mak speaks softly as she sits on the floor folding clothes.

  I storm out, running down the stairs, one hand gripping my rice bowl, the other clutching the railing. I want to catch up with Pa, to see him again. I run to the path behind Kong Houng’s house, but he’s nowhere to be found. My uncles are gone, too. No oxcarts. No one there.

  My mouth no longer chews the food, but simply releases a sound of immense sadness. I run to the banana grove. I sink down onto the dirt. Only a moment ago I saw Pa, and now he’s gone. I wail, cupping my face, my agony, in my hands.

  Looking at the canopy of banana leaves, I beg, “Pa, come back. Come back, Pa. Come back to your koon.…”

  With each breath, I plead for Pa to come back. No, it’s too soon. You left so soon. You didn’t wait for me. No, don’t leave.

  Never before have I felt so much pain inside my body. My chest, my eyes. My throat. My grief encompasses every cell, touches every limb, every organ. For Pa has never left me for more than a day. Never. Now he’s gone, and I have the deepest intuition that something is wrong.

  Along with sorrow come the companion emotions of frustration and anger. Only nine, I already find myself furious at the Khmer Rouge for taking my father away. I take my burning anger out on the banana tree. I tear at the wilted, papery layers along the trunk, yanking them away and striking the tree with my fist. I rage at the Khmer Rouge. I cry until I’m drained of tears, until my body is limp from exhaustion, in need of the beat-up tree. I lean against it, my head resting on my knees. I feel utterly hollow.

  Days have gone by since the Khmer Rouge took Pa and my uncles away. I’ve counted the days until Pa is due back, noting them carefully with pen and paper. I draw my own calendar, recording each day without him. A month, Mak told me, which was what the Khmer Rouge had told her. During the day I return to the orchard. I cry alone, calling out to Pa. Like the earth without the sun, I’m drifting in the dark, thinking of him, wondering where he is, what he’s doing. Whether he misses us, misses me.

  After the sun surrenders to the night, I’m still thinking of Pa. I’m no longer scared of the informant hiding below us. I sit on Pa’s scooter, parked under the house where the informant used to eavesdrop on us. Holding on to the black rubber handles, Pa’s last handprints, I’m connected to the world as it was when Pa was with us. As painful as it is, I journey back in time, revisiting the past as my wet eyes gaze at the tachometer, the red needle aligned at the zero mark.

  Zero. Our lives are at zero. Year zero.

  I reminisce about better times, when Pa took us out to restaurants and to the palace where the royal family lived. I remember nights in Takeo. Pa would wake everyone up for pâté sandwiches. He’d carry me from my bed to the dining table. He’d feed me until my mind woke up, then my eyes would open to find a platter of meats, cucumbers, and French bread. My memory speaks until it hurts. Until I break down.

  “Athy, why are you crying? Are you okay?” Chea comes to rescue me.

  “Chea, I miss Pa. I miss Pa very much.”

  “Stop crying, p’yoon srey. I miss Pa, too.”

  Chea reaches out and pulls me close to her. In her arms, I cry harder, letting out pain that I’ve hidden from my family. Chea hugs me tight. Her hand massages my head, a soothing touch that softens my sorrow. It allows me to sleep, lying in the room beside my sisters, hugging Pa’s shirt. I hug him in my mind as I inhale his odor from his shirt. I inhale it deeply and hungrily. I love Pa—words I’ve never actually uttered. I miss him; the way I would miss a piece of my own body. I am adrift.

  One month has gone by. Still Pa hasn’t returned. Now the Khmer Rouge order Mak to a meeting with the other women whose husbands were taken away. At the meeting the Khmer Rouge ask everyone if they want to go to their husbands and work with them in an “office.” All of them say yes. Who wouldn’t want to be with their husbands? Mak wouldn’t. She tells the Khmer Rouge that she would rather stay in the village and work for Angka Leu. Mak would have told them otherwise if it weren’t for Som, whose husband had worked for Kong Houng before the Khmer Rouge “liberated” Year Piar. Som secretly came to Mak the day before the meeting and told her what to say. Even though there was no reason given, Mak obeyed, repeating her lines to Khmer Rouge leaders. Mak’s intuition to trust Som’s words saves my family. In time, those women who volunteered to be with their husbands are taken away.

  Walking in the village days later, Mak sees a man wearing Pa’s shirt—a cream-colored short-sleeved dress shirt with one pocket. In this village of poverty, a simple office shirt stands out. Without fear, she follows the man and demands to know where he got it. Baffled by Mak’s abrupt confrontation, he mutters that it has been distributed to him. Mak rages at the idea of someone giving away her husband’s belongings. Biting back her anger, she turns and heads to Som’s hut in search of the truth. Mak figures Som will know since her husband is one of the local people who now works for the Khmer Rouge who took Pa and my uncles to “orientation.”

  Som whispers urgently to Mak, asking her to tone down her voice. In her hut, lit only by the rays of sun that sneak in, she confides to Mak, revealing what happened to Pa—a truth that shakes the core of Mak’s already wilted soul.

  Pa, Uncle Surg, Uncle Sorn, and the other men were not taken to an orientation. They were taken to a remote field outside Year Piar to be executed. Upon their arrival, they were unloaded off the oxcarts and forced to dig their own graves. After they finished, the Khmer Rouge cadres tied them up, then killed each one with a hoe. The bodies tumbled into the very pits they had readied to catch them.

  “Your husband fought back while being tied up,” Som whispers. “He called them liars and traitors. They killed him right away.”

  Mak’s face gorges with blood, burning with sorrow and anger. The women who wanted to be with their husbands, along with their children and elderly parents, were also executed. Their bodies were buried in the empty field, but their personal belongings were brought back to Year Piar to be distributed among the villagers—Pa’s belongings as well as my uncles’. Possessions of the dead passed out as a gruesome prize to the living.

  Mak returns, telling us all at once. She is composed, unraveling the bad news carefully. There is no outward grieving, even as a family. Like other emotions, it must be tucked away. She delivers the news in a tone of resignation—relieved that Som has told her. There is no more wondering. And in a dull way, I am not surprised.

  But inside, questions bubble up. More confusion than rage. What has Pa done to be killed this way? He has never been anything but a caring father, a responsible husband, and a devoted son. Contemplating it all, I’m first baffled by this senseless killing, rather than sad. In this era, the rules are twisted: having education is a crime and honesty doesn’t pay. What will? I wonder. I answer this question myself. I recall a Cambodian proverb that I heard grown-ups quote among themselves: Don’t give up on the winding road, but don’t tread the straight one.

  Mak had treaded the winding road and lied to the Khmer Rouge. Her false act of patriotism prompted by Som’s secret warning saved our lives. Despite her fear and her new loyalty to the Khmer Rouge, Som recognized her human obligation, he
r old loyalty to Kong Houng, her former employer, and thus his family, his children and grandchildren.

  The Khmer Rouge leaders in the village want to see Yiey Khmeng (Pa’s mother) to interrogate her regarding the whereabouts of Uncle Seng. To prepare her for this, she, Kong Houng, Mak, and other relatives discuss what Yiey Khmeng should tell them. Already we’re playing within their rules, hoping we’ll survive this life-and-death game. This order to interrogate Yiey Khmeng provokes Kong Houng: “I already told them about Seng. Atidsim also told them. Now what do they want? These people are impossible.”

  Yiey Khmeng comes home distressed, agitated and shaking. Slowly she whispers, “They asked a lot of questions. After one of them asked me, the others continued interrogating. They kept asking ‘Where is Seng?’ One of them addressed me as Mae.* He said, ‘Mae, where is your other son and what did he do in the city?’ He questioned me sarcastically. ‘Tell Angka Leu where he is and what he did—that is, if you don’t want your son to be in a gas barrel.† Do you want your son to be in a gas barrel, Mae?’”

  “Why do they speak of such a thing?” she goes on. “These people are cruel. All I told them was that I don’t know where Seng is or what he did. All I knew was that I saw him carrying his books to school every day. One of them was furious and said: ‘What kind of a mother are you? Don’t you know what your son did? Comrade, you lie! Stop asking her more questions. When her son is here, put him in a gas barrel.’ And then he stormed out of the hut. These people are coldhearted.”

  Yiey Khmeng sighs, staring at the floor.

  Silence. The Khmer Rouge’s dark power renders us speechless, makes us paranoid. We’ve learned to watch over our shoulders for the chhlop. It becomes second nature. Our tightly drawn family community numbers forty-three people, all supported largely by my grandfather’s orchard, which is beginning to bear the signs of our dependence. The banana trees are nearly stripped bare; papaya trees and pineapple plants are overused. Still, we find things to eat, to survive.