When Broken Glass Floats: Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge

by Chanrithy Him

  In the morning I awake, horrified. The sunlight filters through a small, dirty window exposing thick cobwebs intertwined along the ceiling, the walls, and the old bicycle parts that litter the floor where we have slumbered. Around me, children are squeezed close together, like small lumps of human dough. Like me, other children have had to sleep sitting up, leaning against bicycle parts.

  I need to get up to pee. My legs are numb and weak. I gingerly stretch them out, then limp over the sleeping children and down the stairs. Outside the shop, tree branches, coconut leaves, and other debris are scattered in disarray, still wet from the rain. This is a real village, a place where people actually used to live. Real houses, real shops, not makeshift huts. Now empty.

  I limp back up the stairs and go back to sleep.

  “Wake up. Wake up, comrades. It’s time to go to work. WAKE UP!” a female voice yells from the bottom of the stairs.

  I want to obey, but I can’t. My wound is throbbing and my body feverish. I steal glances at three children on the floor by the corner of the wall. By the sounds of their groaning, I know they’re very sick, and I’m relieved that I’m not alone.

  After most of the children have left, the brigade leader demands, “Comrades, why aren’t all of you going to work?”

  “I’m sick. My foot swells and I can’t walk,” I say.

  “I have a fever,” another girl reports humbly, her voice soft and small.

  The other two sick children roll over to face her and report their illnesses.

  “That’s enough. That’s enough! All of you stay in here and don’t go anywhere. Later, a comrade will take you to peth [clinic]. Nobody leaves this place,” she emphasizes.

  We go back to sleep. Later in the day, I’m awakened by a soft, gentle voice.

  “Ey, wake up. Wake up. I’m taking you to peth to give you medicine. Wake up!” A woman mildly shakes a girl’s shoulder.

  I sit up, gazing at her. Dressed in a black uniform, she has short black hair that hangs no lower than her earlobes. She’s gentle. A lady, a doctor, disguised in the Khmer Rouge uniform. Her hand touches the girl’s neck as if checking her body temperature.

  “Are all of you sick?” she asks gently, looking at us.

  We answer by saying yes or nodding our heads.

  “Come with me and you’ll stay in peth until you get better,” she replies.

  “I can’t walk that well. My foot is hurting me. It swells up,” I announce. I show her my foot, and she is aghast at the sight of the raw wound. She is the first comrade who has ever reacted to the sight of my foot with compassion.

  She carries me to a small hut nearby. Her warm arms embrace me against her chest, holding me as if I were her little sister. She looks young, perhaps in her late twenties. Her complexion is light, as if she has never been exposed to hard labor, to the sun.

  She squats next to me and touches my shoulder while I lie on a shelflike bed made of old slabs of bamboo. She asks, “P’yoon srey [Young sister], how long have you had this wound?”

  I’m touched by the tender way she addresses me. It’s a term I have never heard from a Khmer Rouge. For the first time, I wonder if some Khmer Rouge are actually nice, quietly hiding among the ranks of the cruel.

  “I’ve had it for a while. It almost healed before I came to work in Phnom Srais because I cleaned it every day with the juice from slark khnarng. My father used to put penicillin powder on my knees when my wounds got really bad. Does bang [elder sibling] have penicillin?”

  It is an outrageous request, considering how far we are from civilization. She gazes at me briefly with a trace of a smile, amused, perhaps, that I even know the word.

  “I’ll go and look. I’ll be back,” she promises.

  She disappears into a cubicle at the other side of the hut. She returns quickly, holding something in her hand.

  “I have penicillin. I’ll put it on your wound for you.” She shows me the vial.

  I can’t believe my eyes. It looks just like what Pa kept in his medicine drawer—a vial with a rubber cork and a shiny metal band wrapped tightly around the top. The last time I saw modern medicine used was before my father’s execution, during Lon Nol’s time. It seems like another world.

  She opens the vial and holds it above my left foot. She warns, “It will sting.” Again, I’m surprised by her knowledge of medicine. But I welcome the pain of healing. “Don’t cry, p’yoon srey.” She cringes, wrinkling her forehead as if to brace herself for me. She taps gently at the mouth of the vial, then again, but the powder is stuck. She taps harder, and an avalanche of white powder crashes into my hollow wound.

  “Oh, all the medicine is in your wound! Wait, I’ll scoop some out for you.” She rushes away.

  In seconds I scream in pain. I scratch crazily around the wound. “Oh, bang, it hurts,” I call out. “Mak, help me, Mak, it hurts so much!” My palms slap at the bamboo slats and I bite my lips to control the sharp, pinching pain, which I can barely stand. I blink back tears as I study the wound. She scrambles back, trying to calm me down.

  “Don’t cry, don’t cry,” she stammers softly. She rubs around the wound. When I grow quiet, she gently tilts my foot to let some of the powder fall into the palm of her hand. About a third of the medicine falls into her hand. Carefully, she guides the leftover medicine back into the vial—surely as precious as gold.

  For days I apply penicillin to my wound. About two weeks later, it looks better. The tissue starts to grow, slowly filling in what was once hollow. I’m in awe of the power of the body to heal, given the simple ingredients of rest and medicine. Most of the bloody pus disappears, and I can walk and get my own food ration.

  The kind doctor has offered to apply penicillin powder to my wound, to care for it herself, but I politely decline. The offer of nursing care is sweet, thoughtful—a gesture of personal kindness I haven’t seen among the Khmer Rouge. And yet, she has already helped me more than I could have dreamed possible—the clinic, the medicine, bringing me a ration of rice gruel when I couldn’t walk. She checks on me every day. Her kindness begins to reshape my view of the Khmer Rouge. Not everyone has a heart of stone, only living to serve Angka. Not all thrive on the power and cruelty. Some retain a seed of human goodness.

  When my foot is nearly healed, a brigade leader orders me to return to work near Phnom Srais. The doctor comforts me. She says I’ll be okay as long as I clean my wound after working and apply penicillin to it at night. She acts as a surrogate mother, as good a friend as any child could ever ask for.

  We toil under the unwavering gaze of chhlops and brigade leaders, dressed in black uniforms standing on the bank. Yet I see them through different eyes. Is their cruelty a mask, hiding humanity deep within? The world is no longer as black as their uniforms, as white as rice. At least I have shelter and better food rations, solid rice rather than the rice gruel. I only wish I could share this rice with Mak, Avy, and Map.

  Each day is the same. They wake us early in the morning. During the working hours, they watch us. A stretch of children laboring in the fierce sun like a mass construction line clawing the earth, leaving a long, wide ditch that lengthens slowly each day.

  Later, Communist leaders announce that a mobile brigade is coming from Phnom Kambour to help us. The arrival of this brigade means I might see Chea, Ra, and Aunt Rin, if they have survived.

  My wish comes true. As soon as the brigade leaders shout that it’s time for lunch, we peel away from the ditch, scattering into the open field, heading to the cooking area located a mile away. Suddenly the wave of children in front of me starts to run. In the distance, I see a mass of people in gray, discolored uniforms swarming around the cooking area. Some stand in lines while others are sitting or squatting on the ground.

  “We should hurry before they give all the food to the mobile brigade,” says a girl, running past me, followed by others.

  “Athy, Athy! Wait for me.” I turn. I stop when I realize it’s Ary. She waves tiredly at me, her face dark yet white.


  Out of breath, she reports, “Athy, I’m tired. I can’t run anymore. Let’s walk instead.”

  I tell Ary to walk faster, worried that the food will be gone, distributed to the troop of the mobile brigade. I can hear her lungs labor, her mouth gulping air. We both hobble on, stiff-legged. Our stomachs growl.

  Hundreds of children and young adults cluster around the cooking area, which is open, without a shelter to shield it from the rain or sun. The natural landmark is a dead tree, leafless with only the brittle skeleton of tree branches sticking out. People hover close by, sitting and squatting on the dirt, shoving rice into their mouths. Ary and I wait in a children’s line, our eyes stealing glances at the rice and thin fish soup people are already devouring. Suddenly a faint eager voice calls out my name, “Athy!” again and again.

  I turn, looking for the voice. I see Chea emerging from the waiting lines and people sitting on the ground. It’s hard to believe this is my sister. The image makes my heart ache—she’s thin, her face darkened and worn by the sun. Her clothes are very old, grayish-black pants and a rag of a shirt with an old faded scarf around her neck.

  “Chea, Chea,” I croon. I’m giddy with jubilation and frozen with shock at the deterioration of my sister’s beauty. I’ve heard that many in the brigades have died from exhaustion and illness. Yet she’s running to me, her eyes glowing. She would have opened her arms wide to embrace me if space permitted it. I don’t care about being in line, I don’t care about eating. Chea is food for my soul.

  “Athy, where are you staying?” Chea inquires urgently. Her face closes in on mine, but she recoils, horror-stricken.

  “Your eyes have white lines of tissue in them.” She gently lifts my eyelids with her fingers, then spits out her blunt conclusion. “Your eyes look bad. You could go blind, Athy.”

  Her words scare me, and I blink hard—my eyes suddenly feeling heavier than they felt before. Chea has to leave right away, but she promises me that she’ll look for me. I find my way back to the food line. I know I’ve had problems with my eyes. When I wake, my lashes are glued together. And it’s been hard to see, my eyes squint painfully under the sun. I’m frightened about the possibility of going blind.

  The following day Chea sneaks over to see me briefly during mealtimes. One evening, during the ration, Chea seems anxious. She waves, signaling me to come to her. “Athy, do you want to go with Ra and me to see Mak? We’re going to see her and bring her rice.”

  The thought overwhelms me. “I’m scared, Chea. I want to go, too, but I’m scared. I’m afraid they’ll catch us on the way.”

  “It’s okay. We’re going at night, and we’ll walk in the woods and not through villages. My coworker knows a way. Don’t worry. I’ll come to get you at your shelter when it gets dark. I have to go now,” she says, touching my shoulder, a gesture of reassurance that comforts me.

  Night sets in. Chea, Ra, two other women, and I stoop and crawl past shelters, out of the labor camp. The only thing I hear is my own breathing and theirs, soft whispers of air. The sound of our footsteps is muffled by sandy earth. The trees along the oxcart path cloak us, but they also darken our way. My eyes, which strain in bright sunshine, are of little use at night, but we don’t run into anything. Chea’s coworker must know her way around these villages. I wonder if she’s one of the “old people.” I can’t tell. In the dark, I see only shadows, the dim silhouettes of Chea and Ra. I recognize Chea only by her voice. There, I put my trust.

  We leave the oxcart path, turning onto a different path flanked by trees, bushes, shrubs. It looks familiar: This is the oxcart path that snakes through many villages, leading us close to Daakpo village. Though we are still in the woods, there is more light. Our fears lessen as we get a glimpse of the familiar community of huts, all in shadow.

  The two coworkers go their separate ways to their families. My sisters and I head to our mother, cautiously weaving past the sleeping huts. We walk quietly into the hut, trying not to scare Mak, Avy, or Map, who are already asleep.

  “Mak….” Chea sticks her head into the doorless hut, whispering.

  “Mak!” Ra echoes in an enthusiastic whisper. I join in, climbing into the hut for our secret homecoming.

  Scooting close to Mak in the dark hut, it’s hard to believe that I’m actually back with her, Chea, Ra, Avy, and Map. Mak awakes, confused to find us all in the hut.

  “Mak, we’ve brought you rice,” I whisper, producing a pouch of rice the size of a small melon from my scarf. She puts her arms around me. Chea and Ra sit by her side, their eyes gazing at Mak’s silhouette, loving her in the Cambodian way. In our voices, Mak can feel our longing to be near her as clearly as any physical embrace. Our escape, the effort to bring food, speaks louder than any warm words we might offer.

  “Achea [Chea], did you all sneak out? Aren’t you scared the chhlops will catch you?” Mak softly inquires, her voice concerned.

  Chea answers, “There are other people who sneak out to see their families, not just us.” Her voice is at ease, reassuring.

  Tenderly, Mak warns us, “Always be careful. Look after p’yoon, Athy, too. She’s small.” If they torture us, she says, it will kill her. Again, she warns us to be careful.

  Chea reassures Mak about how careful we are. Mak turns to the rice. She asks Ra to wake Avy and Map up to eat, too. The moon wanes, its luminescence fading near the entrance to our hut. Mak, Avy, and Map eat quickly. Into their mouths the rice flies.

  “Preah, the rice is delicious, sweet,” Mak softly exclaims, her voice grateful. “I haven’t had solid rice for so long. Having rice is like going to heaven.”

  After eating, Mak updates us on their life in Daakpo. All they have to eat are leaves from the woods or the fleshy tubers from water plants nine-year-old Avy picks in a nearby lake. Sometimes they’re lucky—Mak or Avy catches a few crickets or toads. Mak speaks of their hunger easily, as if it were a natural condition.

  It’s very late, perhaps after midnight. I can tell time only by how silent Daakpo is. Quickly I fall asleep. Before long I hear Chea’s voice. “Athy, it’s time to go. We have to go back. Those two people are here. Get up, Athy.”

  Chea helps me off the platform of the hut and into the woods, safely back to the labor camp through the inky early morning darkness.

  Here in the labor camps, Chea is our mother. She, Ra, and I continue to sneak a scant ration of rice back to Mak, saved from our rations. Every week I look forward to this escape, to spending as much time as we can with Mak, Avy, and Map. Since Angka orchestrates our lives, we don’t know how long our good fortune will last. But for the moment we allow ourselves a small sliver of pride.

  Just the hope of seeing Mak creates a horizon for me in a world with no horizons. Even during our short visits, she cares for me, comforts me. For my infected eyes, she tells me to use my pee, caught in a leaf folded into a cone. She instructs me on how to do it, holding the point above my infected eyes, releasing the stinging yellow liquid in slow, steady drips. She says a woman’s milk will also help—I’ve heard that before, too, but where do I find a woman with milk? There are so few babies.

  The only time I see adults show any interest in each other is among the Khmer Rouge mekorgs, the children’s brigade leaders, who flirt with each other. Workers would watch and nod. “They have the flesh,” they explain. “Without flesh and blood, there is no desire.”

  There is only work. The irrigation canal is near completion, to be finished by an adult brigade. I’m surprised that children are being allowed to return to their respective villages. My eyes have healed from the infection, “cured” with my own pee. In addition to the infection, I’ve suffered from an ailment called “blind chicken,” which caused my eyes to stop working at night. During mandatory meetings Ary had to hold my hand, guiding me there and back to my shelter. As the infection subsides, so does the night blindness.

  With my sight restored, my eyes again open. There is more to see.

  9

  Now I Know
the Answer

  Under the Khmer Rouge, reunions are precious but brief, appearing like a sudden summer shower that opens the sweet plumeria, and ending just as quickly. After Phnom Srais, children are sent back to villages to work with the adults, mostly mothers now, to clear woods and to weed fields for planting yams. The work site is within walking distance, perhaps two to three miles. But at least we are together again. We fall back into comfortable chores, gathering leaves to cook with rice and salt, going on forays for firewood or water. Back in Phnom Penh, we did household chores without thinking, and the conversation was casual—Chea talking about a history test or plans with her friends. Now we perform our daily tasks mostly in silence, lost in our private thoughts and afraid to look too far into the future. At night I lie on the floor of our hut and try to absorb the feeling of those I love held tight under one roof. The soft sounds of night breathing, a concerto of crickets, cicadas, and small frogs. I lock these things into my mind for safekeeping.

  In weeks, Chea and Ra are gone, sent to another labor camp. The day the Khmer Rouge line them up I see them off, my feet dragging. I’ve learned to hate these good-byes, for with them comes the fear that I’ll never see them again. As they walk to join the end of the line, I’m shocked to see Aunt Rin also standing in line. My pretty aunt, her eyes flooded with tears, her body thin and pale. I say nothing but her name. She turns away, coping with her grief, her feelings so raw that she can’t face separation again. I let her be, praying for her to summon the strength and courage to fight and stay alive.

  In a matter of minutes—too soon—the line begins moving. Before they leave, I want to say good-bye to Aunt Rin. I want to run and hug Chea and Ra, or even just hold their hand one last time, or call their name, but my tongue freezes. Only my eyes work. I search for Aunt Rin, watching her until I can see no more than her feet moving, fading between people before and behind her. Chea and Ra drift away, too.

  Our family ebbs and flows like the tide. With one wave, Chea and Ra are gone, but Than returns from a labor camp, a relief to Mak. Again, Ry finds a refuge at the hospital Peth Preahneth Preah by pretending to be sick. It is a tricky gamble. By staying behind, she escapes possible death from exhaustion and labor, but she must be clever to avoid amoebic dysentery, grown rampant among patients at the hospital. The rest of the family—Mak, Avy, Map, and I—have to survive our own way, working in the woods since we’re not in the age group needed at the labor camp. Than does whatever the informants and village leader tell him, plowing the rice field or working in the woods with the quickly shrinking pool of men, mainly fathers.