A Boy Named Rindy, page 27
“Rindy?” a voice emerged through the stillness, a voice that also belonged there, in that memory. The voice was deeper now but was somehow still the same.
I spun around, as a tall boy walked through the underbrush toward me, his smile wide, his hand raised.
“Vuthy!” I lunged toward him. He ran toward me. Our bodies collided, and my heart pounded. I pulled him away to look at him. He had become taller than I was. I felt the muscles on his lean back and smelled the sweat clinging to his overworked body. It was the smell of life. He had survived.
“Are you all right?” he asked at last, searching my face. That’s when I noticed a curling scar behind his left ear.
I nodded, my voice failing me.
“You look just about the same.” He grinned, eyes shining. “Somehow, I’ve gotten taller than you. But maybe I was born taller.”
I laughed, and it surprised me, as it rattled around in my ribcage, wanting to get out. After my sides stopped heaving, I looked Vuthy in the eyes again.
“Where did you come from? What did you do? How did you survive?” The questions burst out.
“I worked in a battalion that repaired bridges. We were working on a bridge in western Cambodia, before the Vietnamese came.” His answer was absent as if it was already a distant memory. “Command fell apart, and I got away as quickly as I could.”
We stood in silence for a moment, reliving our nightmares.
“What about you?” His eyes refocused to the present.
“Let’s not talk about it any more today.” I waved his question off and began to pick up the bamboo, happy to change the subject. “How’d you find me?”
“I found Mteay, Ly, Sotha and Khan near Chidaun’s home—or what’s left of it. They told me you were here, gathering poles to build a new hut. I can’t believe we’ve all survived. Everyone but baby Tang."
A clouded look entered his eyes. Was he wondering if it were all real? If this was some strange kind of dream we hadn’t woken from yet? Because that’s what I wondered.
“Yes, everyone but Kiry has come. Have you seen him? He joined the Khmer Rouge before the takeover.”
Vuthy shook his head. “I always expected to find him over the years, but I think he joined in a different region.”
I nodded.
“Do you think he killed people?” Vuthy asked. “The way the others did?”
I shuddered, feeling the nightmare of the past four years gnaw at me again. By the look on Vuthy’s face, the memories were eating at him too. I nudged his shoulder, and we walked back to camp, holding the bamboo poles that would help us rebuild our lives. Vuthy was here, he was alive, and we would continue to survive, together.
47
The Vietnamese
“So, the people starve again.” — Rindy
March 1979
“Wake up.” I heard the words float fuzzily through my sleep. But whose voice? I ignored it and drifted back off. I wanted to sleep forever. To forget. To heal from the past. But this night had been fitful and filled with haunting dreams. Again.
“Come on Rindy, wake up,” the voice said again, and someone shook me. Squinting, I saw Vuthy standing over me in the murky darkness. It had to be early morning, the moon still hanging in the western sky.
“We’ve got to move. There’s about to be fighting in Phnom Sampov, I’m sure as soon as it gets light. There are Vietnamese troops camped a few miles away in the paddies. Their camp fires are everywhere. We’ve got to leave now, before it gets light.” I blinked, hoping this was just a bad dream, but the air smelled like smoke and panic.
Several days before, while cutting bamboo for our hut, I had snuck up on some Khmer Rouge soldiers camped just inside the jungle, but I hadn’t anticipated the Vietnamese soldiers pursuing them this far into Cambodia. They must be pressing farther west, inland from Vietnam, following the Khmer Rouge who were retreating toward the Thai border or fleeing to the Cardamom mountains in droves.
I wanted to believe we could be done running and swallow my fears of the Vietnamese, but that wasn’t possible.
“We look like the Khmer Rouge soldiers.” Vuthy’s brow furrowed. “Do you have a change of clothes? Do you think they’ll wait for us to shoot at them before they shoot at us?” Vuthy ripped at his clothes, the remnants of the Khmer Rouge revolution still clinging to him. I looked at my own tattered, black pants and krama, and bare feet—my black shoes had worn out long ago.
“We were a part of Angkar, remember? They won’t see us as victims but as supporters of the regime.”
I sighed. He was right. Rumors had been running rampant from every starving and displaced child of Angkar. Our liberators were our greatest fear. We’d heard from other refugees who were looking for their missing family members that the Vietnamese troops had been seen tying refugee’s hands with their own kramas and leading them into the trees. I knew how that story ended. Why had Vietnam invaded Cambodia to begin with, if it wasn’t to liberate us? What did they have to gain?
Our campsite stirred, Ly and Sotha waking. Khan came running down the road, and Mteay called from her hammock sleepily. Vuthy stood and threw some sticks on the fire, rousing its embers, so we could see to gather our belongings.
“Mteay can’t walk.” I sat up, my voice croaking.
“We’re going to have to carry her in her hammock.” Vuthy shrugged. “Let’s, get moving.”
I nodded, pushing myself up from the ground to collect our food. In addition to the little bit of rice I had gathered before the paddy fires, I had also gathered wild yams, taro root, bamboo shoots, snails and even managed to catch a few fish in the canals before they ran dry. I placed what food we had left in a sarong and tied it tight. It wouldn’t last us long, maybe a few more days—but if we knew anything, we knew how to conserve food.
I looked over my shoulder at the stilt hut Vuthy and I had nearly completed, as the flicker of firelight illuminated it's unfinished form. After clearing the wreckage from Chidaun’s home, we cut and planted thick beams for stilts, fastened the floor with bamboo poles, made the walls with finely thatched palm branches and had just begun on the roof. We would have to abandon another attempt to make our home here.
“Now, we’ll go to the Thai border. It’s the only option.” Khan heaved, as he leaned against a palm tree, taking the weight off his foot. Khan had been talking about a rumored “refugee camp” on the Thai border that had been set up by an organization called “United Nations.” He had been relentlessly trying to sell the idea of going there for weeks.
Vuthy and I had no interest in going to the Thai border, and with Khan’s bad leg and Mteay’s condition, Khan’s plans lived inside the confines of his constant grumbling and incessant prayers to his many spirits. However, with the approach of the Vietnamese army, we could not remain here any longer.
“It’s got to be over 100 miles,” Vuthy roared, jumping up to face Khan. I looked up in surprise, since we both largely avoided Khan and left him to his scheming in private.
Vuthy had grown bold in his time under the Khmer Rouge and would no longer cower to anyone—not even to Khan. I looked at my hands, tying the last knot in the sarong.
Vuthy came back strong, while I came back broken. He was the rightful one to take charge, although I was the oldest. He was braver, stronger and smarter than me. I wasn’t fit to make decisions because I always seemed to make the wrong ones—the cowardly ones.
“Are you head of the family now?” Khan stood straight, meeting Vuthy’s gaze,“Who are you to question my decision?”
Vuthy stood a few inches taller than Khan, which made me smile. Vuthy took after our Aupouk.
“You’ve got a useless leg and Mteay is going to have your child soon.” Vuthy drug out the word “your” to further insult Khan for his carelessness. “You want us running toward the border—the place the Khmer Rouge are running to? You’re mad as a dog.”
“And you think camping here, waiting for a battle is a better idea?” Khan replied. “You know as well as I do that the Khmer Rouge are hiding in the jungle and caves around Phnom Sampov. Do you honestly think it will be that simple? We can just hide from the Viet Cong—the most dangerous and bloodthirsty soldiers ever to walk the earth? What will we eat when a war is waging around us? You’re a—”
“Stop—just stop.” Mteay pushed herself up on her elbows. Her hair streamed around her pale face, black eyes sparking in the firelight. “I know of a military hospital near Battambang. I think it’s time I go there.”
We all looked surprised at Mteay. She had known about this hospital all along?
“How do you know this?” Khan moved to her side, “Why haven’t you said anything before?” His voice popped with agitation. We had wanted to tend to Mteay for weeks, but all the doctors had been killed during the Khmer Rouge rule, all hospitals disbanded, or so we thought.
“I heard that one hospital was allowed to remain and sometimes women who were having trouble in childbirth were permitted to go there. Most did not make it to the hospital.”
Mteay’s voice faltered. “I fear this one, I fear crossing the water…” Her voice trailed off. Women had referred to childbirth as “crossing the great water,” for as long as I could remember. It was a journey many Cambodian women did not successfully make, even before the Khmer Rouge took over. Childbirth was always spoken of in fear and dread, as if shrouded in evil spirits. My stomach clenched. We couldn’t lose Mteay. Not now. Not after all she had endured.
“We’ll get you there.” I gathered up a felled bamboo pole and laced it through her hammock loops. Vuthy ran over and picked up the other side. We would find this hospital. There was nothing left here for any of us. Grasping at normalcy during this strange war was as futile as spitting into the wind.
“My strong sons.” Mteay’s breath wheezed through a faint smile.
“You’ve become a very little woman.” Vuthy grinned, even as deep lines squiggled across his forehead. He was malnourished and his strength was a fraction of what it could be on a full meal. I tried to shift most of the weight to my shoulders, but he was taller than I, which made it difficult. The girls huddled together behind us, black eyes revealing the fear they didn’t dare voice. They carried the food, the sarongs and the rusty rice pot.
The open road was dangerous, so we kept to the jungle around Phnom Sampov as much as we could. The journey to the hospital should have taken about four hours, but it was hard to walk at a regular pace while carrying Mteay. My breath heaved, and my steps were awkward.
Before long, we heard gunfire ripple through the air. We stopped and listened. It seemed to be coming from behind us. Relief, thumped in my chest. I was glad we had left when we did.
As sunlight began to cut through the tops of the giant Doa and coconut trees, the fog curled around us, making it difficult to see far. Peering through the veil, I imagined Vietnamese soldiers emerging from the shadows, guns sticking out in front of them and their eyes wild.
Tripping over a root, I nearly dropped my end of the pole. After that, I was more careful with my feet, although still trying to fight back fear. The density of the fog trapped the gun’s screams in its thick web, making it difficult to know where the gunfire originated. I couldn’t tell if it was getting louder or farther away.
My shoulder ached under the weight of the pole, and my head pounded as beads of sweat dripped into my eyes. Then, suddenly, it went quiet. I only heard the heave of my own breath and the rustling of my own feet. I wished the fighting would start again, so we could try to gauge their location. In silence, there was no way to know if someone was sneaking up on us or if we were about to stumble upon a Khmer Rouge hideout.
We stumbled along. Something rustled behind us. A twig snapped; leaves breathed.
Vuthy slid his end of the bamboo to the ground, and the rest of us followed quickly. We held our breath. What had he seen?
Vuthy and I rolled Mteay in the hammock and concealed her under low-hanging rattan leaves, then crept under them beside her. Ly and Sotha slipped into a bamboo patch, their slender bodies disappearing in the shadows. The fog, once thick, now writhed over our heads, leaving us exposed as sunlight began to consume it. I rested my head on the dirt, clenched my eyes closed and waited.
Feet trampled through the underbrush. My eyes flapped open. Two-dozen Vietnamese soldiers crept toward us through the jungle. Their eyes darted and their guns were cocked and ready, twitching in their hands. One soldier supported another, whose blood-soaked pant leg flapped loosely as he walked, but everyone else looked sharp-eyed. Ready to kill.
First, they passed my sisters. Then, they moved toward us. I wished to still even my heart, but it beat like a thousand pounding raindrops. Vuthy’s hand curled around my ankle reassuringly. We lay there, frozen to the dead leaves and the dirt. A boot landed near my head, so close I could see the bloodied mud caked on its heel. The boot paused. The soldier slapped at his neck. His cigarette smoke and body odor flooded my lungs. I hoped he couldn’t smell my fear.
Then the boots kept walking. They crept toward Khan. To my dismay, Khan’s foot was visible, barely protruding from under the leaves where he was hiding. I couldn’t take my eyes off Khan’s scuffed heel. I willed his foot under the leaf, hidden completely out of view, but it remained, taunting me.
The seconds hung in the haze, as trapped as we were. At last, the soldiers continued to walk. Slowly, they passed Khan. I let out half a breath, my panicked heartbeat only allowing that much. Then one of the last soldiers paused. I couldn’t see where he was looking.
Why are you stopping? The question pounded in my head. A bug crawled on my ear. I didn’t move. My heart thundered. The air was suffocating. At last, that soldier continued walking, disappearing into the jungle like the rest.
I lay with my cheek imprinted in the earth, Vuthy’s charcoal eyes returned my stare. We lay there silently for what felt like hours, until the birds and monkeys forgot us and resumed their song. Eventually, my heart slowed to a normal pace, but my limbs still trembled. Mteay hadn’t moved the entire time. I feared the fright of the morning might have done her frail body in. I put my hand on the hammock and felt her faint breath rising and falling.
The sound of bullets ricocheted through the trees ahead of us. The Vietnamese must have found a Khmer rouge hideout.
Vuthy and I jumped up, hoisted Mteay in one coordinated motion and ran out of the jungle toward the main road. Avoiding the open road, we ran into the scorched rice paddies. We didn’t stop, even when we heard gunfire in the jungle behind us. We ran until the sound of the bullets faded. The Khmer Rouge had burned this area as far as the eye could see. Total destruction of the “breadbasket of Cambodia.” My stomach sank. The area around Tonle Sap Lake was demolished. It was an area with rich earth, where much of the rice was produced for the whole country. If the rice was destroyed here, Cambodia was doomed. There would be only starvation.
Around midday we stumbled into Battambang. The city that once rang with the sound of vehicles, people hawking their wares and the aroma of noodle stands, had been reduced to people rummaging through the wreckage looking for food. Stray cats and dogs that typically scampered through the streets were missing. They had either run for their lives or were being roasted over someone’s fire.
I passed an old woman who lay crumpled in the dirt, like a cast-off garment. Her gaunt face and bony fingers were frozen. Merely being here had done her in. Why had I survived when so many hadn’t? That thought was a relentless fly buzzing in my ears. I shifted the pole and continued onward, gritting my teeth to ignore the pain in my shoulder.
“We die with the Khmer Rouge, and we die without them,” Mteay whispered through parched lips. She rocked from side to side, suspended and helpless.
We asked several people for directions as we sifted through the desolated city, and we finally found the hospital. We were told a western-trained doctor had been allowed to practice there for a short while after the Khmer Rouge took control. He was eventually killed, of course. When the Khmer Rouge’s stranglehold collapsed, doctors who had survived were rumored to have begun practicing in the run-down hospital.
It was a massive structure with peeling stucco walls and the cloying stench of death. Could we trust this place? What if it was a trap? What if it was set up to lure the sick people in to kill them?
We camped in its shadow, trying to determine what to do next. We argued until Mteay once again spoke.
“I fear I will not be able to have this baby alone. I know it’s coming soon. I can feel it, but it’s too soon. If I die, then I will die at least trying to live.”
We all were silent for a moment, sorting through what to do next.
“I’ll take you. Sotha and Ly, you come too.” We looked up as Khan lifted Mteay and hobbled inside with her. The girls followed obediently, but not before casting frightened looks at us.
Vuthy and I sat—alone once again. We looked at each other. A strange mixture of dread and relief squatted between us. We sat in indecision for only a moment, before I voiced the obvious, the continual need that drove us. “We’ve got to find where the Khmer Rouge stored last year’s rice harvest.”
Vuthy nodded.
48
Chasing Rumors
“The currency was rice and gold.” — Rindy
March-December 1979
Over the next several months, Vuthy and I chased rumors. We tracked down every whisper of rice that we heard. If we could have filled our bellies with these rumors, we would have been fat as kings. Most of them turned out to be as useless as the air they floated on, but in blind hope, we chased every single one.
