A Boy Named Rindy, page 16
“This way,” Mteay called, snaking her way through the crowd to the rice paddy and a vacant rice storage shed that had belonged to Chi Ta, before her Chidaun had sold the land with his passing. When we reached it though, it was already crowded with people. Khan began to shout and claim that it belonged to him, but a Khmer Rouge officer stalked over and declared that fighting was not allowed, and we needed to respect that others had gotten there first. We would have to camp somewhere else for the night. I was exhausted, and my sisters were too, even though they didn’t have to carry the rice sack. Sotha cried, hiding behind Mteay’s legs.
We walked deeper into the dry rice paddy. We approached a paddy next to a canal when the Khmer Rouge began to direct the crowd off the road. The land already sparked with hundreds of glowing fires and makeshift shelters. Some of the shelters were made of blankets, bamboo leaves and clothes, thrown together out of desperation. Each structure shivered in the midnight breeze, displaying the desolation everyone felt. There were already hundreds of people huddled beneath the cloudless sky, clutching their belongings, drunk with exhaustion, their faces reflecting in the pathetic fires they had managed to build. Even the stars hid in the blackness of the sky.
Khan led us through the maze of people until he found a vacant space large enough for all of us. Mteay laid blankets down, not bothering to make a shelter, as it was already almost morning. We collapsed into a patchwork of blistered feet, dirty clothes and exhausted faces.
“I’m hungry,” whined Sotha, once all fell quiet.
“Shh,” Mteay whispered, slipping her a piece of dried fish when she thought no one was looking. As she handed over the pathetic nibble, her movements were quick and almost unnoticeable, and there was hesitancy in her eyes. I knew she wanted to hoard it back, reserve what she could as she didn’t know what the future held. I knew better than to ask for some fish too. I didn’t want to see her hesitancy turn to a shade of panic. She didn’t have enough for all of us to eat our fill. No one else said a word. We merely stared into the black sky, ignoring our stomachs.
I had not seen a single airplane the entire day, and I had stopped even looking for them. My focus was on the soldiers and their black uniforms and checkered krama’s. Even though no one voiced it, we all knew we had been lied to. I tried not to think about it as I drifted to sleep listening to Mteay’s song, swelling in a mournful tune.
The soldiers’ barking commands woke us in the morning as they snaked their way between the people scattered across the ground.
“Every man is to come and receive a piece of paper. Write down your heritage and every job you have held, so we know how you can best serve Angkar."
What was Angkar? No one seemed to know. Maybe Norodom Sihanouk was Angkar. If so, why was he being so secretive about it? If they gave his name, everyone would be excited to cooperate.
"Everyone has a place in Angkar. Each will do his part to serve. If he cannot serve, he will not be a part. If you cannot not work, you will not eat.”
Mteay and Khan had been fighting almost continually in quiet spats so the soldiers wouldn’t hear.
“Will they let us go home after this?”
“I don’t know what they will do.”
“Are we just going to sit and do nothing?”
“In case you didn’t notice”—Khan stood, unable to sit still—“I am not the one with the gun.”
The rumblings were on everyone’s lips. How long until we will be allowed to return to our villages?
Obediently, the scores of men lined up to receive their piece of paper and nub pencil, before peeling off to begin their homework for the day. Khan returned to the rest of us, still huddled together on the blanket. He clutched his paper nervously, his face matching in color.
“They must want to know each of our capabilities and the level of education we’ve reached,” a man next to us whispered excitedly to his wife, his eyes large behind his wire-rimmed glasses. “Perhaps they want to offer us positions. The Khmer Rouge will need qualified people to help manage everyone. I may get a high position because I am a schoolteacher."
“What if it’s some kind of trick though?” His wife looked scared, her eyes darting from side to side.
“How could they not want educated people? What benefit would it be to punish those who could be the greatest asset to them in building a new society?” the man said, already beginning to write.
“I don’t know, I just don’t have a good feeling about it.”
The man stopped and looked up at his wife. “But what choice do I have? Should I lie and risk being pointed out by one of the children later if they do have ill intent?”
His wife didn’t respond but bowed her head in submission.
The man’s pencil scribbled across the paper until he had transcribed the extensive details of his education, which spanned the entire page.
Khan continued to stare at his blank paper, and I wondered why he was not as excited as our neighbor was. Then he began to write slowly, as if weighing out each word before putting it down on the paper. I noticed the words “banana farmer” scribbled in bad handwriting at the bottom of the page, before he pushed himself from the ground to shuffle back into the swelling line. I was puzzled, wondering why Khan would lie about his former occupation. Then I remembered the smoldering uniform. Curious, I followed him.
A soldier, who sat behind a makeshift table, scrutinized Khan as he handed them his piece of paper with a forced smile.
“I’m sorry for the poor handwriting,” Khan began. “I hope you will be able to make it out.”
The soldier’s eyes inched down the page, his face blank and eyes narrow.
“Where did you sell your bananas?” he asked, looking up quickly.
“At a small market in Phnom Sampov,” Khan replied, but his hands clutched the side of his pant legs. “It was a bad year for them though.” He shrugged. “I hardly made half of what I did last year. Had some problems with the monkeys.” Khan laughed, but I couldn’t help but notice that his hands were still clenched.
“Did you have any involvement with the fight between the Khmer Rouge and Lon Nol?” the soldier asked, his eyes absently scanning the page.
“None at all.” Khan responded, his knuckles turning white. “I live a long way from Phnom Penh and have a large family to take care of, three daughters and three sons. My oldest son, Kiry, is a Khmer Rouge soldier, but I do not know where. He’s a good boy, and I raised him to love Cambodia.”
After glancing one more time into Khan’s face, the soldier nodded his head and waved the next man forward. It was the man with glasses. The soldier took the man’s extended paper and began to read it, his eyes darting from one word to the next as he consumed them like a starving man consuming food.
“Oh, you are an educated man.” The soldier hummed approvingly, nudging the other soldiers nearby to look at the man’s paper.
I didn’t wait to find out why they were excited as I hurried back to rejoin Vuthy. I couldn’t help but wonder what position they would give the man though and decided it must be one of authority from how they were acting.
Later that night, hours past sunset, I was awoken by voices coming from where the man with glasses slept.
“Angkar wants to meet you and your whole family.” A soldier said, instructing the man to follow him. The soldier’s black uniform blended into the moonless sky.
Getting up the man with the glasses followed them without question. Glancing over his shoulder, he stared at his wife, regret written across his features. The moon glinted off of his glasses as he turned to go, his wife following, as they disappeared into the blackness of the night.
I never saw that family again.
29
The Color Black
“The grip kept getting stronger and stronger.” — Rindy
May 1975
“You are here because Kampuchea is starting over,” the short Khmer Rouge official shouted, his voice shrill in the evening air thick with smoke. “All the ‘new people,’ the city dwellers, and those who have moved away from the land have been invited back to the land to learn from the ways of the ‘old people’—those who have always been our comrades. Here is where you will stay. There is nothing left for you in your former homes, and everyone is invited to be a part of this new Kampuchea. If you try to leave, you will be brought to Angkar or face disciplinary action.”
I had seen a few people try to take their belongings and leave by the road, but they were turned back by the soldiers positioned at checkpoints further down. Some had even tried to escape through the rice paddies, but they had all been caught. A few of them had been shot as an example of the “disciplinary action.”
“What you have been taught in the cities is wrong, and you must be re-educated. Capitalism is evil. We are all brothers and sisters; all equal, all the same. No one is a lok. No more ‘Srey’, we are all the same class, the same level.”
He paused, taking a deep breath for emphasis. “There need not be division amongst us. The imperialistic west has tried to eat Cambodia up with its false ideas and with its propaganda. They say the rich and educated are the ones who should be in control. That is not true. Cambodia has been made prosperous by the hard work of the lowest classes, not those who benefit from them. If we do not have rice, we do not have life.”
I blinked my eyes, trying to stay awake. The Khmer Rouge instructed us to go to meetings every evening, after we worked in the rice paddies, to prepare them for seed planting when the rainy season arrived. The rain was coming, I could feel it in the air. We didn’t all have oxen, but they gave us each a hoe to dig up the clumps and ready the land for planting. The ground was hard and dry, not softened by rainfall, but they yelled all day repeatedly, “if you do not work, you do not eat.” I looked down at my hands and picked at a blister.
“This is why none of us can have personal property,” the speaker continued to shout, his voice mounting in pitch. “We are not different from each other. There does not need to be a separation between what is mine and what is yours. It all belongs to Angkar.”
The wind blew out of Mteay’s lungs, as she sat just behind me in the grass holding Tang. She was scared. The Khmer Rouge had set up a cafeteria and several small huts for their soldiers to live in near the road, made of bamboo poles, thatched walls and metal roofs. We were given two meals a day, one of mushy rice porridge and another of a salty broth with bits of rice. The soldiers who served us said our meals were provided by “Angkar,” but I still didn’t know who or what “Angkar” was. After we ate, Mteay secretly cooked a meal inside our tent with a tiny fire and a rice pot because we were always left hungry. We had been rationing the little bit of food we had brought for the last few weeks and were on our last cup of rice. Hunger had begun to grip my every thought and every movement, as the portions grew less and less with each passing day.
“We are Cambodia. We are one. We will demolish the division.” The man’s voice cracked.
With fresh zeal, the Khmer Rouge soldiers commenced to purge the camp of items of personal property, inspired by the speakers’ ideals. No one dared to risk being taken to “Angkar” or being shot on the spot. They explained that they were not “stealing” but were “collecting for the corporate good of all.” Extra blankets, food, dishes and jewelry were all confiscated to serve the larger purpose of Kampuchea. Thick tarps were distributed to provide shelters, appearing to have been stolen from the villages. Each family was searched, and no one was spared. Some of the soldiers were kinder than the others and some were so young, their guns seemed too heavy for them to carry.
I watched as the soldiers rifled through the belongings of a wealthier family who camped a few rows away from us. The children sat crying as they handed over their belongings. One of the women soldiers eyed them greedily when the old woman’s hands trembled as she handed over a necklace of elaborate green, bracelets of blood red and rings of starry yellow. The bright droplets of color disappeared into the black pockets of the soldiers.
“We are not stealing but are collecting these items for the good of all.”
When the soldiers approached our tent, I knew they wouldn’t find anything so costly or alluring because Mteay had pawned anything of value long ago to buy food.
“Hand over any supplies you have,” a soldier droned routinely. “Any jewels, books, additional clothing, pots and food.”
We sat and stared, wondering what we possibly had to offer.
“If you don’t produce anything, we’ll search you,” the soldier barked, unable to bite back his impatience. A young female soldier stood beside him. She looked about my age, her arms weighted down by the machine gun she carried. She had deep brown skin, and she looked at the belongings like she had never seen such beauty and color before.
We searched our things, realizing how very little we had brought with us. Ly produced a bundle of clothing, Sotha tearfully handed over her doll, and Vuthy grudgingly placed a pocketknife and extra pair of sandals on top of the small pile of belongings. Khan emptied his pockets, revealing a few crumbled riel, a photo of Buddha and a watch. I reluctantly handed over the writing pad Mr. Thach had given me. There wasn’t any space left, and the paper was nearly worn through, but I had kept it so I could remember and practice what I had learned by drawing characters in the dirt. I had also kept it because of Mr. Thach and his kindness.
We all looked to Mteay next. She relinquished her pot and the last sack of rice with trembling hands. After poking around our campsite for anything else, the soldier tossed our belongings into an ox cart and moved on. The young female soldier eyed Sotha’s doll like she wanted to touch it, but her hands clutched her gun instead. Had she ever had a doll before?
“Everyone come, wash and dye your clothes,” was the next command to be shouted. Large pots of murky, black water were positioned throughout the camp, and each family was instructed to dye their clothing to match the Khmer color—black. Every mteay helped their children strip off their dirty clothes and wash them in the black water, with stained hands and sullen faces.
When our turn came, Mteay helped us out of our outer garments and plunged them into the pot, scrubbing briskly, as if she was trying to scrub the color away. The small pile of colorful garments at her feet turned into dripping lumps of coal, as she was careful to wash each piece of clothing we had gathered in our hurried departure from the village.
“Why, Mteay?” Sotha asked, as she watched her yellow sarong become engulfed in the black water. “They said we would only be here for a few days. Why do we have to look like them?”
“Don’t ask questions,” Mteay responded quietly, while scrubbing violently. A tear fell from her eye and ran down her nose, splashing into the dark water. As I watched Mteay’s tear fall, I realized the truth. We were not going home. The dying of our clothes meant there was no turning back, no separation between us and the nightmare that plagued our every waking moment. Fear attached itself, like a leech. It showed on every face, in every word whispered and every movement made. The camp became blanketed in black, as if ash had rained in the night. It was a blackness that was not only seen but felt.
30
Hunger
“I was a young kid. I didn’t know much about anything and I was scared.” — Rindy
May-October 1975
The realization that we weren’t leaving soaked into our bones. It rained on our heads and ate our feet like mud. It started with a few panicked whispers then turned into an exchange of blank stares and the sound of starving stomachs. Each person sank into his or her fate like a bug realizing the spider has caught it in its web, a binding too tight to escape. The meager food rations of porridge or salty broth with a little rice, dwindled. The portions became too small to sustain any of us. Those in the camp began to faint from hunger and some couldn’t walk to get the little bit of food that was allotted to them.
“Angkar has just won a great victory and is poor because of the great losses and the struggle,” the soldiers would say as we lined up to get food. “But only for a short time. Angkar will provide food for us, but sometimes the food will be late. That is why we must plant rice. With rice we will be wealthy and happy. Rice is life.”
Later that night, Khan and the man who had built a shelter next to us spoke in whispers.
“There just isn’t rice.” The man looked around, making sure a Khmer Rouge wasn’t patrolling.
“What do you mean?” Khan spat.
“Keep your voice down,”the man hissed. “I heard the typical rice crops in Cambodia had been affected badly by the war, but I never could have expected it to be this bad.”
“Yes,” said Khan. “I heard soldiers talk about tramping through rice paddies while they fought for the Lon Nol, destroying crop after crop.” Khan was still concealing his identity, but I knew he had tramped through rice paddies himself. “Many left planting rice to fight in the war on one side or the other because they couldn’t farm their fields in peace and needed an income. Looks like most joined the Khmer Rouge.”
“It’s true, but the Americans drove them there.” The man’s tone was laced with barely suppressed rage. “I had a brother in Kandal Province who was killed by the B-52 bombs—he and his whole village were destroyed. The bombs took out rice paddies for miles around, and I doubt they will be farmed for years to come. That was just one small village. It happened in hundreds of villages.”
Khan and the man stopped talking when the patrolling soldier stopped nearby to light a cigarette. I heard the click of his lighter and then silence. I fell asleep and dreamed of a tiger, crouching in a rice paddy, creeping closer and closer to me, but I was unable to move, unable to flee.
The days passed into weeks, which passed into months of plowing and planting the rice paddies. Soaking rain fell most nights, so the Khmer Rouge allowed us three days to build stronger shelters. Vuthy and I helped Khan cut bamboo poles and weave together palm leaf strips to make the walls and a roof for our shelter. We draped tarps over the top to keep out the rain. It wasn’t large, but when we laid down, we all fit. Khan yelled at us several times for not doing it right or cutting the poles too short, but he didn’t beat us because the Khmer Rouge came over and yelled at him to quiet down. He feared them, and I too had found some one to fear far more than I had feared Khan.
