First They Killed My Father Part 4

"In this village, as in the whole of our new and pure society, we all live in a communal system and share everything. There is no private ownership of animals, land, gardens, or even houses. Everything belongs to the Angkar. If the Angkar suspects you of being a traitor, we will come into your home and go through whatever we like. The Angkar will provide you with everything you need. You new people will eat your meals together. Meals will be served from twelve to two P.M., and from six to seven P.M. If you come late, you will get nothing. Your meal will be rationed to you; the harder you work, the more you'll eat. After dinner each night, I will let you know whether or not there will be meetings. The base people and our comrade soldiers will patrol your work area. If they see you neglecting your duties and report that you are lazy, you will get nothing to eat." My eyes follow the chief as he paces around the circle of people. I pray that I will remember all he has said.

"You must follow all the rules set for you by the Angkar. This way, we will never have to deal with the crimes and corruption of the city people."

"Yes, comrade," the new people echo in unison.

"Each family will be a.s.signed a house in the village. Those who do not get a house today will be built one tomorrow. Your first work a.s.signment is to build houses for each other."

"Yes, comrade."

"Children in our society will not attend school just to have their brains cluttered with useless information. They will have sharp minds and fast bodies if we give them hard work. The Angkar cannot tolerate laziness. Hard work is good for everyone. Any kind of schooling carried out by anyone without the government's approval is strictly forbidden."

"Yes, comrade."

"All right, you can sit down and wait while we make arrangements for your housing." The chief spits into the dirt in front of us again and walks away. As soon as he is out of sight, the nervous crowd separates to seek out shaded areas to rest. I lie down on a mat that Ma has spread out next to Chou and fall asleep. I wake up many hours later to the sound of people whispering nearby. When my eyes focus, I see that large crowd has gathered a few feet from us and Pa disappears into it. He comes back moments later and reports that a family, a doctor from Phnom Penh with his wife and their three children, have committed suicide by swallowing poison.

Though we are all supposed to be equal, there are nonetheless three levels of citizenship in the village. The first-cla.s.s citizenry comprises the chief, who has authority over the whole village, his aides, and the Khmer Rouge soldiers. They are all base people and the Khmer Rouge cadres. They have the power to teach, police, judge, and execute. They make all decisions: work details, food rations per family, severity of punishment. They are the eyes and ears of the Angkar at the local level. They report all activities to the Angkar and have full power to enforce the Angkar's law.

Then there are the base people. If the first-cla.s.s citizens are the all-powerful brutal teachers, the base people are the bullies who work closely with them. Though they are not omnipotent like the first-cla.s.s citizenry, they lead almost autonomous lives away from the prying eyes of the soldiers. They live in their own houses on the other side of the village, separate from us. The base people do not eat communally or work with the new people. However, they are often seen on our side of the village, patrolling the area and telling us what to do. Many are related to the first-cla.s.s citizens and keep the chief informed of our day-to-day activities.

The new people are considered the lowest in the village structure. They have no freedom of speech, and must obey the other cla.s.ses. The new people are those who lived in cities and have been forced out to the villages. They cannot farm like the rural people. They are suspected of having no allegiance to the Angkar and must be kept under an ever-watchful eye for signs of rebellion. They have led corrupt lives and must be trained to be productive workers. To instill a sense of loyalty to the Angkar and break what the Khmer Rouge views as an inadequate urban work ethic, the new people are given the hardest work and the longest hours.

Even among the new people there are different cla.s.ses. Those who were formally students or involved in professions such as civil service, medicine, art, or teaching are considered morally corrupt. Then it's the ethnic Vietnamese, Chinese, and other minority groups who are considered racially corrupt. When asked about jobs in their former lives, the new people lie and claim to be poor peasants, like Pa did, or small shopkeepers. In the Khmer Rouge agrarian society, only good workers are valuable, all others are expendable. Thus, the new people must work extremely hard to prove they are worth more alive than dead. Pa says because we are different-Chinese-Cambodian-we will have to work harder than the others.

After the chief issues us our meal bowls and spoons and a.s.signs us our hut, we have only minutes to settle down before the 6 P.M. bell rings, signaling mealtime. Gripping my wooden bowl and spoon, I run with my family to the communal kitchen. The kitchen is nothing but a long table, with no chairs or benches, and under a thatched roof with no walls. In the middle of the open hall, there are a few brick ovens and one long table but no chairs or benches. On the long table sit two pots, one full of rice and the other salted grilled fish. There are six or seven base women stirring and scooping food from the pots. A long line of new people has already formed around the table. Like us, they have all changed from their city clothing into their black pajama pants and shirts, the only clothes we will wear from now on.

My heart lurches as I see the long line in front of me. Eyeing the many black pots filled with steamy food on the ground, I tell my stomach to be calm. The line moves quickly and silently. Under my breath I count the heads before me, eliminating them one by one, anxiously waiting for my turn. Finally, it is Ma's turn. She puts Geak down and holds up two bowls. She bends her head and shoulders so she is lower than the cook, and quietly says, "Please comrade, one for me and one for my three-year-old daughter." The woman looks down blankly at Geak, who barely reaches Ma's thigh and puts two scoops of rice and two fish into Ma's bowl and one of each in Geak's bowl. Ma lowers her head and thanks the woman and walks away with her food, Geak trailing behind her.

My stomach growls loudly as I step up to the table. I cannot see into the pot and my mouth salivates at the smell of the rice and fish. I raise my bowl to my eye level to make it easier for the comrade to serve me. I dare not look up at her, afraid she might become angry with me for staring and not give me my food. Eyes focused on my bowl, I see her hand dump some rice in my bowl and drop a whole fish on top of it. Somehow, I manage to whisper "Thank you, comrade" and walk away, praying that I won't fall and spill my food.

Sitting in the shade underneath a tree, our family eats the food together. Though it is the most food we have eaten in a long time, before nightfall we are all hungry again. Realizing we have to find a way to get more food, Pa somehow arranges for Kim to work at the chief's house as his errand boy. The next night, Kim comes home with leftovers.

"The chief did not have any work for me to do so he tells me to work for his boys. The chief's two boys are my age and they like me," Kim answers. His mouth turns upward in an attempt to smile when we ask how his day went. "They boss me around and I always have to do jobs and errands for them, but look what they gave me! They said that from now on I can take their leftovers home!" We stare unbelieving at the rice and meat Kim displays on the table.

"You did a good job, little monkey," Ma tells him.

"Their leftovers are a feast! White rice and chicken! Look Pa, there's even meat left on the chicken!" I yell excitedly, staring at the juicy shreds of meat still clinging to the chicken bones.

"Quiet. We don't want others to hear us," Ma cautions me.

Hungrily, my siblings gather around Pa, our bowls in hand. One by one, Pa scoops up some rice and gives us a piece of bone. When it is my turn, he gives me the piece with the most meat on it, the breastbone. I walk over to the corner of the hut and proceed to pick the meat off until finally there is no more. Then I chew on the bones to get the flavor and bone marrow out. That night I go to sleep with a full stomach.

Over the next few weeks, Kim and the chief's children become fast friends, and they allow Kim to bring us their leftovers every night. It is clear from the red marks on his face, cheeks, and legs that Kim suffers abuses from his new "friends" who spit at him and beat him. However, at ten years old, Kim knows he has to endure their cruelty to help feed his family. Each morning as he walks off to the chief's house, Ma watches and whispers, "My poor little monkey, my poor little monkey." In appearance, Kim is beginning to look more and more like a monkey. His black hair is sheared close to his head and thinned from malnutrition, exposing his large forehead. Brown skin stretches over his gaunt face, making his eyes and teeth appear to bulge, too big for his young boy's face. Though I lower my head as his black-clad figure disappears, I am grateful for the extra food he brings us.

My stomach knots each time I look at Pa's face as he receives the food from Kim. Pa is now so thin that his face is no longer the shape of a full moon. His soft body is emaciated, making him wince when Geak tries to crawl onto his lap. The round belly that I once loved to wrap my arms around is caved in, showing his rib cage. Yet he always takes the last and smallest portion of the leftovers. He eats the food tentatively, as if forcing each bite down when his heart wants to spit it back out. At times his eyes linger for many minutes on the fresh bruises on Kim's face, and he swallows even harder, trying to make the food go down. The pain on his face makes me feel such shame, but I am glad for my brother's sacrifice. Each night, in my dark corner of the hut, filled with shame and with quiet tears, I suck and chew the chicken bones until there is nothing left.

In our new home we have no time to get to know our neighbors, visit other villagers, take walks, or hold conversations with anyone outside the family. Social contact among the new people is almost nonexistent. Everyone keeps to themselves, fearing that if they share personal thoughts or feelings someone will report them to the Angkar. This happens frequently now because turning someone in to the chief can reap rewards and favors such as more food or, in some cases, life over death.

Because of the extra food Kim brings home, for the first few months, life is better for us in our new environment. My parents, my older brothers and sister work in the rice field while we younger kids stay behind to work in the community garden. I miss my family and see them only briefly each night when they return exhausted from working twelve to fourteen hours in the field. Three or four times a week after dinner, the new people sit through an hour or more of meetings. The village is closed off to the outside world and even to other villages. Mail, telephones, radios, newspapers, and televisions are all banned, so the only news we get comes from the chief.

"What was the meeting about tonight, Pa?" I ask, waking up from my sleep when he comes in late that night.

Kissing my forehead, Pa says the meetings are the same as on all the other nights. The chief teaches and explains to the adults the philosophy of the Angkar while all the new people sit and listen. The chief preaches and revers the achievements of the Angkar, the philosophy of the government to build this perfect agrarian society where there are no crimes, no deceit, no trickery, and no Western influence. The Angkar says our new society will produce many thousand kilograms of a rice surplus within two years. Then we'll eat as much rice as we want. And we will be self-reliant. Only by becoming self-reliant will the country be master of its own fate. The chief says the country will go through some hard times and not have enough to eat as it stops accepting charities from foreign countries. The chief says by all of us working hard to grow rice, we will soon be able to feed the country.

At night, fearing we will be heard, we say only a few quiet words to each other before going to sleep. In the dark, the soldiers patrol the area, listening and looking into the houses. If they hear or even suspect people discussing politics-especially capitalism-the entire family will be gone by morning. The soldiers tell us that the family has gone to a reeducation camp, but we know they have disappeared, never to be seen again.

Day after day we work, seven days a week. Some months, if we have been very productive workers, we are given half a day to rest. In those hours, Ma and us girls wash our clothes in a nearby stream, but without detergent they are not very clean. I look forward to those hours off as our special time together. Of the five hundred or so new people in our village, there are only two or three babies among the families. Although I cannot fully understand her words, I overhear Ma say women are so overworked, underfed, and filled with fear that most cannot become pregnant anymore. Even when they do, many suffer miscarriages. Most newborn babies do not survive more than a couple of days. Pa says there will be a generation of children completely missing from our country. Shaking his head, he looks at Geak. "The first victims are always the children."

Pa says Geak will not become the Khmer Rough's next victim because the chief likes him. The chief allows Kim to bring extra food home, and he knows that things are easier for us because of that. Pa works harder and longer than anyone else in the village. Because of his humble upbringing, Pa has many skills and can do anything the chief asks of him. He is a skilled carpenter, builder, and farmer. Pa is always quiet and even seems enthusiastic about the work-a trait which proves to the chief that Pa is an uncorrupted man. He picks Pa to be the leader of the new people, a position that comes with a raise in the food ration.

Though the Angkar says we are all equal in Democratic Kampuchea, we are not. We live and are treated like slaves. In our garden, the Angkar provides us with seeds and we may plant anything we choose, but everything we grow belongs not to us but to the community. The base people eat the berries and vegetables from the community gardens, but the new people are punished if they do. During harvest season the crops from the fields are turned over to the village chief, who then rations the food to the fifty families. As always, no matter how plentiful the crops, there is never enough food for the new people. Stealing food is viewed as a heinous crime and, if caught, offenders risk either getting their fingers cut off in the public square or being forced to grow a vegetable garden in an area near identified minefields. The Khmer Rouge soldiers planted these landmines to protect the provinces they took over from the Lon Nol army during the revolution. Since the Khmer Rouge planted so many landmines and drew no maps of where these mines are, now many people are injured or killed traversing these areas. People who work in these areas do not come back to the village. If people step on one and their arms or legs blown off, they are no longer of any value to the Angkar. The soldiers then shoot them to finish the job. In the new pure agrarian society, there is no place for disabled people.

The Khmer Rouge government also bans the practice of religion. Kim says the Angkar do not want people worshiping any G.o.ds or G.o.ddesses that might take away devotion to the Angkar. To ensure that this rule is enforced, the soldiers destroyed Buddhist temples and worshiping sites throughout the country with major destruction done to the area known as Angkor Wat, an ancient religious site important in Kampuchean history.

Covering more than twenty-five miles of temples, Angkor Wat was built by powerful Khmer kings as monuments of self-glorification in the ninth century and completed three hundred years later. In the fifteenth century, Angkor Wat was abandoned to the jungles after an invasion by Siam and forgotten about until French explorers rediscovered it in the nineteenth century. Since then, the battle-scarred temples with their beautiful statues, stone sculptures, and multilayered towers remain one of the seven man-made wonders of the world.

I remember clutching tightly to Pa's finger as we walked along wide crumbling corridors. The temple walls are decorated with magnificent detailed carvings of people, cows, wagons, daily life, and battle scenes from long ago. Guarding the ancient steps are giant granite lions, tigers, eight-headed snakes, and elephants. Next to them, sandstone G.o.ds with eight hands who sit cross-legged on lotus flowers watch over the temple ponds. On the walls beneath the jungle vines, thousands of beautiful apsara G.o.ddesses with big round b.r.e.a.s.t.s wearing only short wraparound skirts smile at visitors. I reached up and cupped one of the b.r.e.a.s.t.s, feeling the cold, rough stone in my palm, and I quickly removed my hand to cover my mouth in a fit of giggles.

Pa led me to a temple area where the trees were so tall that they seemed to reach the heavens. Their twisted trunks, roots, and vines wrapped themselves around the ruins like gigantic boa constrictors, crushing and swallowing the overturned stones. He lifted me over the wobbly steps to the dark mouth of the temple cave. "This is where the G.o.ds live," he said quietly, "and if you call out to them, they will answer." Anxiously, I wet my lips and yelled, "Chump leap sursdei, dthai pda!" ("h.e.l.lo, G.o.ds!") Then wrapped my arms around Pa's leg when the G.o.ds answered me: "Dthai pda! Dthai pda! Dthai pda!"

At the temples in this area, Khouy says the soldiers mutilated its animal guards, and either knocked or shot off the stone heads of the G.o.ds, riddling the sacred bodies with bullets. After they destroyed the temples, the soldiers roamed the country searching for monks and forced them to convert to the Angkar. Those monks who refused were murdered or made to work in minefields. To escape extermination, many monks grew their hair and went into hiding in the jungle. Others killed themselves in ma.s.s suicides. Although these monks maintained and took care of the temples, now they are left to the jungle once again. I wonder where the G.o.ds go now that their homes have been destroyed.

labor camps

January 1976

By our third month in Ro Leap, things begin to worsen. The villagers work longer hours with decreased food rations. The soldiers roam our village daily, looking for young, able-bodied men to recruit into their army. If recruited, you must join. If you refuse, you are marked a traitor and could be killed. For this reason, my parents force Khouy to marry Laine, a young girl from a nearby village. Khouy, who is only sixteen, does not want to, but Pa says he must to stay out of the Khmer Rouge army. The Khmer Rouge are less likely to recruit him if they know he has a wife who will give sons to the Angkar. Laine also does not want to marry my brother, but her parents force her to as well. They fear that left alone she might be raped by soldiers and end up like Davi, another young woman in our village.

Davi is the teenage daughter of one of our neighbors. She is about sixteen years old and very pretty. Despite the war and the famine, Davis body continues to grow into that of a young woman. Like all of us, her hair is cut short, but unlike us, her hair is thick and curly and frames her small, oval face nicely. People often comment on her smooth, brown skin, full lips, and particularly her large, round brown eyes with their long lashes.

Davi's parents never let her go anywhere by herself. Her mother follows her when she goes to collect firewood and guards her when she needs to relieve herself. Her parents are skittish about her, grabbing her arms and pulling her away anytime someone tries to talk to her. Davi is rarely seen without a scarf covering her head or mud on her face to hide her beauty. Yet no matter what they do, her parents cannot protect her from the gaze of the soldiers who patrol the village.

One evening, three soldiers went to the family's hut and told her parents they needed Davi and another friend to go with them. They said they needed the girls to help them pick corn for a special event. Davi's mother cried and wrapped her arms around her daughter.

"Take me," she begged the soldiers. "Davi is a lazy girl. I can work faster and pick more corn in less time than she can."

"No! We need her!" they retorted sharply. Davi cried harder at their words and clung desperately to her mother.

"Take me," her father pleaded on his knees. "I can work faster than either one of them."

"No! Don't argue with us. We need her and she must perform her duty for the Angkar! She will return in the morning." Then the soldiers grabbed Davi by her arms and pulled her from her mother's shaking hug. Davi sobbed loudly, begging them to let her stay with her mother, but the soldiers dragged her on. Her mother fell to her knees, palms together, and pleaded with them not to take her only daughter. The father, still on his knees, lowered his head to the ground, banged his forehead on the dirt, and also pleaded with the soldiers. As the soldiers took her away, Davi turned around many times to see both her parents still on the ground, palms together, praying for her. She looked back until she could see them no more.

The sounds of Davi's parents' anguished cries echoed into the night. Why were they doing this to her? In our hut the faces of my family were somber and hopeless. Khouy and Pa sat on either side of Keav, who was contorted and white with fear, wondering what they would do if the soldiers took her. Keav, who is fourteen-the same age as Davi-sat holding her knees to her chest, her eyes misted over, her shoulders heaving visibly. Hearing her sobs, Ma left Geak with Chou, crawled over to Keav, and wrapped her arms around her. Without a word, the rest of us moved to our sleeping spots and tried to go to sleep. Shivering, I crawled over to Chou and grabbed her wet hand and lay on my back, staring at the ceiling. In the black night, we tried to sleep but were kept awake by Davi's mother, who wailed like a she-wolf who had lost her cub.

True to their word, the soldiers returned Davi to her parents the next morning. But the Davi they returned was not the same one they took away. Davi stood before her parents in front of their hut, hair disheveled, face swollen, shoulders slumped, arms hanging like dead weights. She could not meet the gaze of her parents. Without a word, she walked past them and into the hut. They stepped aside to let her enter and followed her in. Their hut was quiet from then on.

A few days after her abduction, the bruises on her face turned deep purple before they gradually disappeared. The scabs on her arms dried up and became little scars, barely visible. But to Davi, they would always be there. I see Davi sometimes in line at mealtime, but she no longer talks to anyone. Her body walks as if there is no more life in it, and her head is always down. No one speaks about that night and no one ever questioned her about what happened-neither her parents nor the villagers. Whenever I see Davi, I veer away from her path. If there is a gathering of people, they become quiet when they see Davi.

As the days go on, more and more people begin to treat Davi as if she were invisible. Sometimes, I catch Davi's eyes watching the villagers at the town square, when she lingers there long after the crowd has departed. Other times, she marches straight into the group of people, as if daring them to say something to her. The gatherers shuffle their feet, cough into their hands, avert their eyes, and walk off in the opposite direction. Often, Keav heads toward Davi only to clench her fists and walk back to us.

The soldiers do not stop with Davi. They come many more nights and take many other girls. Some of the girls are returned in the morning but many are not. Other times, the soldiers come back with the girl and tell her parents they have married. It is her duty, they say, to marry soldiers and bear sons for the Angkar. Many of the girls who are forced to marry soldiers are never heard from again. It is rumored that they suffer greatly at the hands of their "husbands." The soldiers are often heard saying women have their duty to perform for the Angkar. Their duty is to do what they were made for, to bear children for the Angkar. If they do not fulfill their duty, they are worthless and dispensable. They are good for nothing and might as well die so their food rations can go to those who contribute to rebuilding the country. There is nothing the parents can do to stop the abduction of these young girls because the soldiers are all-powerful. They have the power of judge, jury, police, and army. They have the rifles. Many girls choose to escape from their abductors by committing suicide.

To protect Khouy from being conscripted into the army and Laine from being abducted by soldiers, they are married quickly in a quiet, secret ceremony with both sets of parents giving their blessings. After they are married, Khouy and Laine go to live at a labor camp where they have been a.s.signed to work. Pa does not fear the Khmer Rouge soldiers will want Meng to join the army because he is physically weak, so Pa allows him to stay unmarried. However, the soldiers say that Meng, at eighteen, is too old to live at home with us, and they force him to go live in the labor camp with Khouy and Laine.

Unlike our village, only young men, some with wives and others single, live in the camp. There they do the hard manual labor of loading and unloading shipments onto trucks. Khouy reports that they mostly load rice and unload arms and ammunition. For their hard work, they are given more than enough food to eat. My brothers secretly dry their leftovers and bring them to us when they visit. In the beginning, Meng and Khouy were permitted to visit us every other week. But as time goes by, the soldiers make them work longer hours and allow them to return to Ro Leap once every three months.

When my brothers visit us, Khouy's new bride, Laine, having no family in our village, stays behind at their camp. For this reason, I know very little about my sister-in-law. I have seen her only that one time at the wedding ceremony and thought she was very pretty, even though her eyes were wet with tears. During his visits, Khouy speaks very little about his wife beyond the fact that she is alive and well. It is clear even to me that it is a marriage of convenience and not of love.

There are times when I stare at my brother from across the room and search for the martial artist who jumped in the air and made me laugh. But the martial artist is gone now. In Phnom Penh, Khouy never just walked from one place to another, he sauntered and glided, stopping many times along the way to greet friends and pretty young women. Wherever he went, a crowd of people always surrounded him.

In our small gra.s.s hut at Ro Leap, Khouy sits next to Pa and talks incessantly. He sits with his back straight to the wall as if afraid to lean on it. With his legs crossed and his palms flat on the floor, he is ready to leap up instantly. He is still strong, but the energy and confidence that attracted girls to him are gone. At sixteen, he is already old and hard, and alone. Even with us, he wears a mask of courage that stretches tight over his inflexible face.

Whereas Khouy always put on a brave front, Meng's face hides nothing from us. When he speaks, Meng's voice softens and trembles as he tries to rea.s.sure Ma and Pa that everything is okay at the camp. Unlike Khouy, whose body is made more muscular from hard work, Meng's is thin and lanky. Sitting in our hut, he slouches into the bamboo walls and his breath sounds labored and exhausted with each word. When he looks at us, his eyes linger on our faces as if absorbing every single detail so he will not forget. Under his gaze, I shift my position uncomfortably and move away from his sight, troubled to receive such love from my brother when all around me there is only hate.

A few months after Khouy and Meng left, rumors that the Youns, or Vietnamese, have tried to invade Cambodia cause the Khmer Rouge to take many teenage boys and girls from their homes. One day, three soldiers come to the village and tell the new people gathered at the town square that the Angkar needs every teenage male and female to leave tomorrow for Kong Cha Lat, a teen work camp. Upon hearing the news, Keav's eyes well up with tears and she runs to Ma.

"Everyone has to honor and sacrifice for Angkar!" the soldiers yell. "Anyone who refuses Angkar's request is an enemy and will be destroyed! Anyone who questions the Angkar will be sent to a reeducation camp!" Keav and Ma turn to each other and embrace. Pa silently turns his head and takes Geak from Chou's arms.

In the morning, Ma packs Keav's black pajama pants and shirt in a scarf. Keav sits next to Ma with their hands touching. Quietly, we walk out of the hut and over to the town square, where other teenagers and their families have already gathered. The other teenagers all have tears in their eyes as do their distraught parents. Keav and Ma embrace and hold on to each other so tightly that the knuckles of their fingers turn white. In a matter of minutes, the soldiers come and lead the children away while we watch in quiet despair.

My heart feels as if an animal has clawed it out. I try to muster a smile, so I can send my sister on her way with a final picture of hope. She is Pa's first daughter, and at fourteen she must survive on her own. "Don't worry, Pa, it will be all right. I will survive," she says and walks away, waving. In her black shirt that hangs below her bottom and pants that are frayed at the hem, she looks smaller than the rest of the group.

I remembered then that in Phnom Penh, when she was the most beautiful girl on our block, Ma said that she could have her pick of anyone to marry. Each month, Keav would travel with Ma to a beauty salon to have her hair styled and her nails painted. I used to watch Keav fuss over her school uniform, pressing and repressing her blue pleated skirt and white shirts so they looked as crisp and new as possible. Now the joy of beauty is gone from her life. With the red-and-white checked scarf covering her thinning oily black hair that peeks out beneath it, she looks more like ten years old than fourteen. Keav follows the soldiers, with twenty other boys and girls, and never turns to look at us. Chou and I stand together with tears in our eyes and watch Keav's figure until she is no longer in sight. I wonder if I will ever see her again.

At the other side of the town square some base children scurry back home. Though there are no gates, an invisible line divides the village in two halves. The new people know better than to cross the line. Occasionally, the base men walk through our side of the village, spying on the new people and inspecting their work. A few base children who have not yet gone home stand there now watching us with frowning faces. Rarely do I ever get to see them, or recognize them as individuals. I don't even know how many base children there are in the village. In their new-looking black pajama pants and shirts, their arms and legs fill out their clothes and their faces are round and fleshy. I narrow my eyes with envy and hatred.

"It is good for the family to be separated," Pa says quietly and goes off to work. Ma says nothing and continues to look in the direction Keav has disappeared.

"Why did she have to go? Why didn't Pa beg the chief to let her stay?" I ask Kim when my parents cannot hear me.

"Pa is afraid the soldiers might learn who he really is. The Khmer Rouge soldiers will hurt the whole family if they find out Pa worked in Lon Nol's government. If we are separated when they discover who Pa is, they cannot get to all of us."

I never understand how Pa knows things, he just always does, and he keeps us informed so we will not be careless with our information.

"Pa, will they kill us?" I ask him later on that night. "I heard the other new people whispering at the town square that the Khmer Rouge soldiers are not only killing people who worked for the Lon Nol government but anyone who is educated. We have education, will they kill us too?" My heart races as I ask him. Pa nods grimly. That is why he has told us to act stupid and never discuss our lives in the city.

Pa believes the war will last for a long time and this makes the very act of living sad for him. Every day we hear tales of other families who cannot see the end to their terror and thus commit suicide. We live knowing we are in danger of being discovered at any moment. My stomach churns with nausea at the thought of death. But I do not know how to go on living with such sadness.

I remember painfully the anger I felt toward Ma when she spanked me for breaking her fine china plates, or screamed at me for jumping on the furniture, for fighting with Chou, or trying to sneak candies from the cabinet. Then, as a five-year-old used to getting my own way, I stormed through the apartment during my tantrums. Lying in my room, in a tearful sulk, I often wished I were dead. I wanted to make her suffer for what she did to me. I wanted her to feel hurt and guilty, to know that she drove me to kill myself. Then from the heavens, I would look down and gloat over her misery. That would be my revenge. Above the clouds, I would look down at her puffy, sorry face, and only when I believed she had suffered enough would I return to forgive her. Now I realize that when you die, you don't get to come back to life whenever you want to. Death is permanent.

To fight death, the new people work hard planting rice and vegetables. Yet it seems that the more crops we plant, the less food rations we receive. The harder we work, the thinner and hungrier we become. Still we plant and harvest while the trucks come and go with our crops in order to continue the war. While Ma and Pa help the war effort in the fields, Kim returns home each night from his work as the chief's errand boy bruised and injured from his own war. Handing the leftover food to Pa, Kim talks loudly about his day as Ma touches his bruises, whispering softly, "Thank you, my little monkey." Without a word, Pa takes the food and rations it to us.

Sitting on our step with Chou one evening, I see Kim's figure walking slowly home. Above him, angry clouds cover the sky so that no stars can show him the path home. In his hand, he carries the leftovers wrapped in his kromar and my stomach lurches with happiness in antic.i.p.ation. As he nears us, I see his shoulders heavily hunched over and his feet drag as if he is trudging through mud.

"Kim, what's wrong?" Chou asks him. Not answering, Kim silently climbs into the hut, with Chou and I following closely behind.

In the dark, Kim walks to Pa and kneels before him. With his head down, he says in a trembling voice, "Pa, the chief told me not to go back to his house."

Pa is still and breathes softly.

"I'm sorry, Pa," Kim says. "I'm sorry, Pa," Kim repeats, his words softly floating in the air. Hearing his despair, Ma puts Geak down and crawls over to Kim. Reaching him, she wraps her arms around his head, pulling him into her chest.

"Thank you, little monkey," she whispers in his hair, stroking his hair as his shoulders heave up and down.

The wind outside blows violently now, trying to part the clouds but to no avail. The stars are still hiding themselves from us. Chou and I reach for each other's hand and brace against the chills. Since the day we first arrived in Ro Leap five months ago, the chief's steady supply of leftovers has kept us from starving. Now we will again go to bed hungry. After what seems like a long silence, Pa tells us that we will get through this somehow.

The next day, standing in the rows of ripe red bell peppers, tomatoes, orange pumpkins, and green cuc.u.mbers, I thought of Keav. It is now March and a month since she had left. Keav loves pumpkinseeds and used to eat them noisily at the movie theater. Thinking of her makes the sun burn hotter on my skin and my pores push out more water, drenching my clothes.

Next to me, Kim wipes his forehead and continues his work in silence. Our job is to fill up the baskets and deliver them to the cooks in the communal kitchen. As my fingers pluck the green beans, my mouth waters. Feeling the fuzzy hair of the beans between my thumb and finger, I crave to put it in my mouth before anyone sees me, but instead I drop it in the basket.

"I'm hungry," I say quietly to my brother.

"Don't eat the vegetables. The village's chief will beat you if you get caught."

Heeding his order, I continue with my work, stopping every once in a while to steal a look at my brother. In Phnom Penh, while Pa took us girls to the swimming pool on Sundays, Kim could usually be found in the movie theater across the street from our apartment. When we returned, we would be greeted at the door by Bruce Lee, the Chinese G.o.d, the Monkey King, or a number of kung fu masters ranging from the Drunken Disciple or the Dragon Claw to the Shaolin Monk. Throughout the day, Kim, in character, would jump, sway, twirl, punch, and kick at Chou and me whenever we were in the room with him.

Remembering the little monkey of Phnom Penh, I look away. I wish Kim could go back to work for the chief and continue to bring us their leftovers. But the chief doesn't want Kim to work for him anymore. Neither Kim nor Pa was given any explanation to why he sent Kim away. But Pa suspects that it has something to do with someone named Pol Pot. Lately, the base people in the village are whispering the name as if it is a powerful incantation. No one knows where he comes from, who he is, or what he looks like. Some people are saying that maybe he is the leader of the Angkar, while others argue that the Angkar's leadership is comprised of a large group of men. If it was Pol Pot who gave the order to place more soldiers at the village level, the increase has created a shift in the power balance. In the beginning, the chief was all-powerful and ruled the village with his enforcer soldiers. Now that the number of soldiers has multiplied, they wield more power and the chief's role has been reduced to that of a manager.

"Kim, where are the soldiers taking all the food?" I ask.

"When the Angkar formed armies, there wasn't enough money to buy guns and supplies for the soldiers. The Angkar had to borrow money from China to buy the guns and weapons. Now it has to pay China back," Kim explains as he continues to drop the vegetables into our straw basket.

"If China is helping the Angkar and giving them money, why then do the soldiers hate us Chinese so much? The other kids hate me because of my whiter skin. They say I have Chinese blood in me," I whisper to him. Kim stands up straight and sees that the other children are out of hearing distance from us.

"I don't know. We should not talk about this. The Angkar hates all foreigners, especially the Youns. Maybe the peasants cannot tell the difference between a Chinese and a Youn, who also have light skin. To someone who's never left the village, all white-skinned Asians look alike."

Later that night, Pa tells Kim that the Angkar wants to expel all foreigners. It wants to bring Democratic Kampuchea back to its glorious past. The time when Kampuchea was a large empire with territories encompa.s.sing part of Thailand, Laos, and what is now South Vietnam. The Angkar says we can only do this if no one else owns us.

I do not care why or how the Angkar plans to restore Cambodia. All I know is the constant pain of hunger in my stomach.

new year's

April 1976

It is April again and soon it will be New Year's. After New Year's, I will be six years old and am still only as tall as Pa's hips. Ma is worried that I will stay this height forever. Ma and Pa worry that malnutrition will stunt my growth and I will never grow to be big like them. I have not looked at myself in a mirror since we left the city. Sometimes, I try to see my reflection in a pond, but the water is always dirty. The blurred child staring back at me looks hollow and distorted, not at all like the little girl in Phnom Penh whose neighbors called her "ugly."

The Khmer Rouge's Kampuchea does not permit the celebration of the New Year or any other holidays. Still, I dream and relive the New Year's celebration we had in Phnom Penh. In Cambodia, New Year's is our biggest and most important holiday. For three days, stores, restaurants, businesses, and schools are closed. There is nothing to do but enjoy the food and festivities. Every day there are parties at friends' houses. At these gatherings, the host serves roast pig, duck, beef, sweet cakes, and beautiful candies. The part I liked best was when the parents took the children around to their friends Children are not given presents during this holiday. Instead, we are given money-brand-new crisp bills in decorated red paper pouches. Of course, all that no longer matters to me; my thoughts now are focused solely on food.