I’m more than willing to plant rice. When the chhlop leader, Srouch, orders me to work with Mak and other women from Daakpo, I’m deeply relieved. Every morning I rise early with Mak to report to the rice field while Avy stays home with Map. I’ve learned to accept what cannot be changed. Living on scanty rice rations in the village—less than at the labor camp—is still better than the alternative. I trade food and cruelty for some sense of family.
With Mak, I head to the dark, flooded rice fields each morning. There are no rest days, no holidays, no breaks, unless we are forced to attend a required meeting. I comply, even when my body is weak. Thoughts of food push me, and I pin my hopes on the promise of shade and a scanty lunch of leaves and rice. In the fields, I go hunting. Tiny field crabs, a slender snake, a crawling snail—any living tidbit can make me scramble after it.
Like the older women, I step into the muddy field, heading for the tender green rice seedlings, spears poking out of the water like young grass. By now I know the routine, unlike my first time planting rice in Year Piar. I help with work that doesn’t need to be explained—scattering rice seedlings, transplanting them alongside Mak and the rest of the women until we’re finished. Then the next field, drenched with black, muddy water mixed with cow dung. I walk along the elevated pathway between rice paddies. My mind is elsewhere, dreaming about food, but my feet carry me to the next field. One foot sinks into the soft mud and onto a sharp point. Pain slices across the top of my left foot.
I know I’m in trouble—a cut in contaminated field water and no medicine. In a second I want to undo my last steps, to remove the injury that is already spilling warm blood over my foot. Reaching down into the mud, I fumble to find what hurt me, a tree branch hidden in the mud. I want to take it to dry land so no one else will step on it. I struggle to crawl out of the rice field. I wipe the gray-black mud off my injured foot, a steady red river breaking loose. With an open, bleeding gash, I’m afraid to go back into the paddy. I know this will invite infection. But as an escapee, I have no choice. To stay invisible, I must transplant the rice. Everyone is working. I can’t risk another punishment. I don’t want to be taken away from Mak again. And I can’t let Mak see my foot. I know she’ll worry. I swallow my thoughts and wade back in.
Infection develops quickly. It gets worse every day, from the long walk through the woods to the field and back to the hut. Sand, soil, mud. From standing in the manure-soaked rice field, transplanting rice seedlings all day. The infection ignites like a flame. At night I can’t sleep. It becomes itchy and painful. So painful that I scream out at night. Over and over, I call out to Pa. To ease this pain. To stop my tears. To be my doctor. Or just to be here with me. In my mind, he is so close, almost within my grasp. I yearn for his strength.
Soon the pain becomes unbearable, erasing everything else. I cry out, begging, “Mak, help me, please help me.” Her shadow comes to me. Softly, she scratches around the wound. Her gentle touch soothes me to sleep, but the pain wakes me again, as if a large fierce bird is tearing at my foot, pinched tight in its claws. My throat hurts, raw from my own cries. I bang on the wall made of bamboo and palm. For one week, I cry every night. I’m used up, and Mak’s getting ill from lack of sleep and fatigue. I can’t help it. I keep calling for her, begging her to rub around my wound; she helps me many times, but when she is exhausted, she goes back to sleep, leaving me to scream alone.
The sharp stabs throb from the inside out, pulsing up my leg to my waist and head. Mak can’t sleep. She asks me to sleep away from her, Avy, and Map. All alone like Vin before he died, I’m banished to a small alcove. I realize now how helpless he must have felt. With no medicine, I know that I too will die. My wound is caked with pus. At night I study my foot, scratch around it, try to massage it, and cry. I beg for Mak again and again. But she doesn’t come.
In the morning the fog of pain lifts long enough to allow me to make a decision. If I am to live, I must find slark khnarng, sour leaves, an ivylike vine that grows wild in the woods. It’s a valuable leaf, typically used for cooking. But I have my own ideas. When boiled, sour leaves produce a sharp acidic juice that used to sting my fingers when I had an open scratch. It reminds me of the rubbing alcohol that Pa used to clean out my scraped knees. Maybe the juice of the sour leaves could work a little of Pa’s magic as a disinfectant. At the same time, I can’t rely on Mak, can’t expect her to find sour leaves. The leaves grow in the woods, not in the rice fields. She barely has the strength to work for the Khmer Rouge and keep up with her trips in search of edible leaves to supplement our scanty rice rations. She’s doing all she can to keep our hearts beating.
I cannot walk—since my left foot can’t take any pressure—so while others work in the field, I crawl on my hands and knees away from the village, past a grove of mango trees to a hill where the dead are buried. I follow a tight path carved to fit oxcarts. Past guava and bamboo trees I crawl, searching for sour leaves, the leaf of life.
Finally I see some. Big green leaves sprawling on the ground, climbing up over other shrubs on the other side of a thorny fence. I try to reach them but can’t. Tree branches armed with sharp thorns shield the sour vines. I crawl around the bank until I see a small hole in the fence, through which I wiggle into the field.
In joy, I grab the thick stem, stripping away all the leaves into my hand. Hands flying, I grab the other sour vines, pulling leaves, shoving them into the pouch in my scarf. I am lost in the movements. I fall into a rhythm, for a moment forgetting even about the pain in my foot.
“Comrade, what are you doing? Are you stealing?” a fierce voice demands.
I turn. Before me stands a tall, skinny man, dressed in black, carrying a long curved knife on his shoulder.
“No, I’m not. I’m not stealing. I’m only picking slark khnarng,” I say timidly, frightened by his accusing words, his sudden appearance.
He grabs me by the arm and drags me around the yucca field like a bag of rice. My arm feels as if it could be yanked off. I beg him repeatedly, “Please don’t hurt me,” but he says nothing. Reaching a tree, he drops his long knife to the ground and pulls my arms behind me. Snaking a rough rope around my skinny arms, he binds them tightly from wrist to elbow. Ignoring my pleas, he yanks my scarf from my neck and throws it on the ground. He pushes me down on my knees and binds me to the tree, the posture of a criminal soon to be executed. He must see the sour leaves, now all over the ground.
With cool indifference, he announces my sentence. “I will kill you at sunset,” he says, delivering his verdict from behind a tree.
I beseech him, my voice rising. “Please don’t kill me. I wasn’t stealing. I was just picking slark khnarng for a swollen foot. I’m telling you the truth! Please spare my life!”
“Don’t lie, comrade,” he shouts. “I don’t believe you. I will kill you. Say no more!”
I sob, “If you don’t believe me, just look at my infected wound. I don’t lie. I need slark khnarng. My foot hurts at night. Please spare my life. Don’t kill me….”
I wish I could bow down to him, sink into the dirt before his feet, begging his forgiveness. But it’s too late. My words don’t reach him.
His voice trails off, shouting in near-triumph, crowing like a bully who has had his way, “I’ll cut off your head at sunset so people coming from work can see you—they won’t follow your bad example.” His footsteps crunch on dry leaves.
I look at the sour leaves scattered on the ground. I keep thinking how it’s the small things that get me into trouble. Sucking sweet grass with Cheng. And now this. How can I be accused of stealing when there’s nothing in my scarf—only sour leaves. I stare at the hole in the fence where I sneaked through only moments ago. Now I wish that whoever made it had left more thorns in it. I wouldn’t have gotten in. As time passes, I cry hard and loud, tears of fear and frustration. In time, my sobbing becomes softer. My destiny awaits.
The sun is now behind the tree, its rays filtering through branches in a shifting dance. Suddenly I’m awakened by birdsong. Maybe they cry for me. I listen to them and I remember an old Cambodian warning: “When the owl cries, it will take someone’s life,” the spirit winging away with the bird. Now I hear birds cry. Later, perhaps the owl will hoot, announcing the fact that I will be beheaded.
As the sun begins to set, I speak to my heart, to Buddha, to Pa’s spirit, silently begging for a second chance at life. I’m not ready to die. My prayers are broken by my fear of the man in black. I imagine him returning, raising that long curved knife in the air. I can feel my own body cringing, feel the hiss of air as it swings toward my neck. Fear chills me. I shut my eyes and lower my head, looking for the courage to face the blade.
Suddenly footsteps echo on the dry leaves. I drop my last tears, my eyes dry with fear. The air is warm, but I’m shaking with cold. I look down at the ground and shut my eyes. I tighten my body, bracing for pain. I don’t know whether I should scream or bite my lip. When he comes closer, I get ready to die.
All of a sudden, I feel a tug on the rope that snakes about my arms. I cringe. I squint my eyes tighter. Soon my arms swing free, released from the trunk of the tree, and I slump to the ground. I open my eyes and turn.
The man in black speaks sternly. “Comrade, now I set you free. Don’t do that again.” He says no more.
He loosens the rough rope from my numb wrists. I grab my scarf and put it around my neck, leaving the spilled sour leaves on the ground. I struggle to get up and walk but can’t; in the unimaginable excitement of being freed, I have forgotten that I cannot walk. I crawl back as fast as I can through the hole in the fence without turning back.
Around me, birds sing in the woods. Every sense is sharpened, and I’m amazed at my own energy. I struggle down to the ox path and slowly crawl up the other side. I pull myself up, grabbing vines along the bank. I’m numb with my good luck, can’t believe that I have been released. It seems like a strange, powerful dream. The voice of the man still echoes in my head.
As I crawl past the grove of trees, dragging my swollen left foot along through the dirt and dung, I’m elated to see our tattered community of huts. Never before have I seen the beauty in them. I’m anxious to tell Mak about my brush with death, my release. I’m giddy with the joy of survival. As I approach our hut, my eyes run hungrily over every detail. I can’t stop looking. A short time ago, I faced a certain death. Now I’m home. “My hut,” I call softly, crying, as if the palm walls were human, a close friend whom I’ve missed.
From the ground, I look up to see the pale, thinning shape of my mother’s face, old at thirty-five, peeking out at me from the hut. In the twilight shadows, her face is a dream.
“Oh, Mak,” I cry in joy and disbelief, “I thought I wouldn’t see you again.”
My words spill out, a tumbled, babbling story about leaves and a man in black cutting my head off. In that moment I feel I must never let her out of my sight. My heart clings to her, my eyes can’t let her go.
Mak strokes my hair. “You’re lucky. I’m so glad that you weren’t killed.” Tears stream down her cheeks. She reaches out to hold me, tightly embraces me. I feel Mak’s love. Her fear of losing me. Suddenly she stops crying. She wipes her tears. Then mine. Sitting near Mak, I’m lost in indescribable happiness. I’m oblivious to Avy or Map. I don’t feel the throbbing in my foot, the pain in my puffy leg. Only an unreal sense of gratitude.
Mak says, “Stop crying, Mak cooks leaves for you. Stop crying, koon.…”
The next day Mak, Avy, and Map come home with slark khnarng packed in the pouch of her scarf, wrapped around her neck. I’m grateful. Eagerly, I greet them. Their presence is medicine to me.
My foot gradually gets better from the daily cleaning with the slark khnarng. Guided by vague memories of my father, I prescribe for myself the care I think my foot needs to heal. Twice a day I disinfect it with the stinging acidic juice. With my thumb and forefinger, I gently scrape and pinch away the crusted yellow pus that has formed overnight, releasing a fresh stream of blood. Mak is like the head doctor, checking my foot almost every night.
I’m relieved, almost grateful, not to be forced to work. I sleep soundly, trying to make up for the restless nights caused by my throbbing foot. One morning I’m pulled from slumber by a fierce voice. The next thing I see is the ugly chhlop looking down at me.
His voice strikes like a fist. “Comrade, why don’t you go to work? Go to work, or I’ll take you to reform! You must go to work.”
I don’t know what to say to him—I’m ambushed before I have a chance to think. Tears come before words, but I abstain from crying.
Finally I spit out the words, “I can’t walk. My foot is painful, it’s swollen. I will work when my foot gets better.” Submissively, I show him my foot. Red blood spurts out the side of the yellowish curve of my wound. The bleeding is probably the result of getting up so quickly. The blotchy face glances briefly at my foot, recoiling from it. Then he is gone. I know he’ll keep an eye on me.
In time, my foot improves. In the cool evening I stand in front of the hut. For the first time, I feel as if I need to inhale more air. Suddenly I sense a weight upon me. The ugly chhlop is out hunting again. I hop up into the hut, frightened. “Mak, it’s him again!” I flatten myself against the front wall of the hut, hoping he won’t see me.
In a cold, detached voice, he barks at Mak, his elder. “Comrade, where is your daughter? Your daughter has to work.”
“She’s still sick. Her foot has not healed yet,” says Mak meekly.
“But she can walk some,” he snaps.
I listen to them, my body shaking. He sticks his face inside our hut.
“Comrade! Get out of there and come with me,” he orders.
I obey. I burst into tears as I move away from the wall. I plead to Mak, “Mak, help me. Help me!” He grabs my arm and yanks me out of the hut as I grab Mak’s hand.
He threatens, “If you don’t go, I will take you to Angka.” He speaks the words we fear. The mysterious Angka. I don’t know where he wants to take me—another distant labor camp, nearby fields? All I can do is cry.
“Go, koon, so they won’t harm you.” Mak lets go of my hand.
I limp beside this awful boy who thrives on his small measure of power.
“Don’t hurt my daughter,” Mak begs, appearing behind me. Her sunken face bespeaks pain, added to my own.
The next morning I’m herded with a pack of malnourished kids by a group of chhlops. After an hour’s walk I limp onto a rough, barren field. Another labor camp. I sob silently, wishing Mak could stop them from taking me away. I wish Pa were still alive to make my foot better. I’m the slowest kid, lagging behind a scattered crowd of children. As if the hard labor weren’t enough, pain is again my working companion. It’s only morning, but the sun is fierce. I’m fighting the pain. The sun. This time there’s no Cheng to help. I don’t know how I’ll survive another labor camp.
The new labor camp, near Phnom Srais, isn’t far from Daakpo, perhaps five miles. We must stay here, they command, but there isn’t any shelter. Before we have a chance to rest, they order us to work. They throw hoes, baskets, and carrying sticks at us. Even the youngest know better than to disobey or talk back.
As in Oh Runtabage labor camp, a mekorg breaks the children into groups of four or five. I’m assigned to a group of five, one of whom is elected to be the group leader. She oversees everyone’s work and reports to the mekorg. At least she’s one of the “new people.” The mekorg hands me a hoe since I can’t walk well. I break up the hard dirt and scoop it into everyone’s baskets. I repeat the task over and over, and the vibration from the hoe as it strikes the earth sends an echo of pain that crawls up through my foot, to my leg, and all the way to my waist. Dust swirls and settles, threatening more infection. The intense heat is suffocating. Everyone moves slowly, a weary production line, an army of ants that could be crushed under the heel of Angka.
I have a fever. I announce to no one in particular, “I’m very sick and my foot is painful. I want to stop a little.” I squat down, allowing myself the brief luxury of leaning my shoulder against the hoe. The group leader takes over my task. She begins to break up the dirt. She looks at me urgently.
“Comrade, why aren’t you working?” A loud, forceful voice erupts behind my back.
“That comrade said she’s very sick,” answers the group leader, pointing at me as I struggle to get up.
“Now, you dig the dirt,” she says, pointing at the group leader. “You”—she points to me—“carry the dirt. No more resting.”
I carry the baskets filled with dirt, struggling feebly up the bank with the weight. The scene is a familiar flashback: Mekorgs and chhlops stand among us, watchful. I wonder if I’ll ever be free of their constant scrutiny.
The hot, scorching day changes abruptly. By late afternoon the sky turns cloudy. More clouds move in and it gets very dark. Thunder roars. Lightning strikes, flashing bright jagged lines, lighting up the dark sky. Everyone stirs, anxious and agitated. We look for anyone with the authority to dismiss us, but two mekorgs order us to continue working until, they say, Angka Leu tells us to stop.
Thunder echoes again. The rain falls in dense plops, beating down on me. Then it falls in heavy sheets, stinging our arms. We run in a frenzy. The mekorgs and chhlops vanish. Everyone, all at once, runs. Knowing I can’t run, I plead for help, “Please wait for me. Wait for me!” I’m scared for my life. Everyone scrambles. The lightning strikes brutally across the sky, revealing chaotic crowds of frightened children moving through the drenched, muddy field. Some cling to one another. Others trudge by themselves, scattered bodies in the field. The only way we can see where we’re going is by the flashes of lightning. I lag behind.
Another lightning bolt lights the sky. I see a group of four children holding on to each other, with dark clothes covering their heads, walking beside me. I grab a girl’s soaking scarf, draped over her head. Then I switch, grabbing her arm instead, making sure I won’t be lost in this tempest. She turns. Glances at me, startled.
Now the sky is totally dark. The intermittent flashes of lightning stop. The sky roars, thundering. The angry rain still falls, beating, slapping my body. Everyone shudders. My jaws chatter. I’m cold, yet I feel warm with fever. We stumble into a ditch, slamming into baskets and hard pieces of wood. Screams erupt in unison: “Mak, help me. Mak….” My words mingle with the other pleas. In the chaos of mud and baskets and the collision of bodies, I struggle to stand. I reach out in the dark, looking for the kids I’ve been with. I feel a hand, grab it, and say, “Please wait for me.”
The sharp, pinching pain in my foot is immense, but the fear of getting lost, swallowed up in the cold darkness, cannot be measured. I cry the pain away. My own suffering is lost in this madness. Somehow we rise and move on. We must move on.
As suddenly as it started, the rain is over. The darkness lingers, daytime tumbling into night. Some children’s cries pierce the night, other children whimper. I release my long-held fears, calling out to Mak in my mind. A man’s voice from a distance rises over the children’s cries. It sends a wave of hope. The group I’m with steps up the pace, shifting our bodies in the direction of the man’s voice. We cling together, a chain of human links. As we get closer, we can make out the man’s words of warning.
“Don’t cross the water! Stand there! I’ll help you one by one,” the man’s voice commands, loudly but with compassion.
“Ow, help me!” a voice bursts out, choking. “I fell in the water. Help me, Athy. Help me….”
Who is calling out my name? I rack my mind, trying to think. Suddenly it clicks—the voice is Ary’s, a girl I know from Daakpo. I saw her earlier, when we were working.
“Ary! Ary! Where are you?” I yell at the top of my voice. I want to pull her out of the gushing water, but I can’t see anything in the darkness. I can hardly move. My body is as stiff and cold as a corpse. I feel my way with my hands, threading through other children, reaching forward in the dark, trying to get to her.
I shriek, “Where are you, Ary? Where are you?”
“I’m in the water…. Help me, Athy,” she cries, choking and coughing.
“Ary, wait, I’m coming.” My feet slowly sink in the slick, muddy soil. The cold water gives me chills. I stoop, my hands working as eyes. Suddenly the man’s voice shouts, breaking my own fear of getting swept away like Ary. “Don’t get into the water,” he commands. “I’ll get her. Stay there!”
I stop, relieved and grateful. Everyone else, it seems, has abandoned us. He somehow manages to get Ary out of the water.
The man guides us with a flashlight. We squeeze together, shivering. As we walk through the field, I suddenly feel concrete beneath my feet—a distant memory of a more civilized world. I know we’re now in a village, but I can’t see anything before me except the curtain of darkness. A woman’s voice guides us up a wooden stairway to a darkened building. I’m exhausted, yet with every step I take I encounter a rug of children, sprawling and packed closely together.
I resign myself to the darkness and sink down amid some mysterious metal objects, hugging them like a soft pillow.
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.