Boozing with a Khmer Rouge:
Võ Diệu Thanh
“Grandma, the Khmer Rouge!” Nga screamed before wading into the water to head to the home nearby where she lived with her mother and grandmother.
Uncle Ba’s wife dropped her chopsticks and flung her rice bowl at the man as he moved toward the water away from her house. Then she grabbed a broom and a chair, but Vân and Uncle Ba held his wife tightly. Uncle Ba winked at Sáu Khên, hinting that he needed to leave quickly.
It was pitch black outside and the floodwaters had reached the house’s threshold. Sáu Khên jumped into the water with no idea where he was going.
Vân was confused as well, but she unmoored the sampan and followed her daughter.
Uncle Ba’s wife was incensed and flung chairs in every direction.
Since returning to Nam Vang**** to visit her old house, Uncle Ba’s wife became enraged whenever anyone mentioned the Khmer Rouge or Pol Pot. One day, twenty years prior, when she was a thirteen-year-old student, her teachers drove all the students out of the school to the border between Việt Nam and Cambodia. Arriving at the Tịnh Biên border, Uncle Ba’s wife saw houses on the roadside burn to ashes. Grotesque configurations of bodies lined the streets. She wanted to return home to Nam Vang, but the Vietnamese who already had returned home after fighting in Cambodia questioned why she would want to do that, as Pol Pot’s men had run rampant in the village, killing everyone. Uncle Ba’s wife resisted. She assumed the Khmer Rouge would have left after ransacking it. Uncle Ba’s wife just wanted to go home; she missed her parents dearly. But the ceaseless famine, Pol Pot’s perpetual carnage, and Vietnamese soldiers who were missing, dead, and disabled were beyond imagination. Uncle Ba’s wife simply had to grind her teeth and wait.
When tensions eased, and she had saved some bushels of rice, Uncle Ba’s wife finally was able to return to her home in Nam Vang. The city was empty. Houses remained intact but unoccupied. They said nobody had returned after the massacre.
Nobody could stop Uncle Ba’s wife from resenting the Khmer Rouge.
Was Sáu Khên a Khmer Rouge? Vân wondered while rowing the sampan back to her house. She saw him struggling in the flooded road. He tripped over something and disappeared in Uncle Ba’s watery spinach swamp.
Vân also saw Nga flailing in an attempt to float in the waters near their house. She was sunk up to her neck and screaming, “Grandma, Khmer Rouge!”
Nga’s grandmother, Năm, poked her head out of the window of her stilt house and asked frantically, “Khmer Rouge what? They no longer exist. Don’t be crazy!”
“Over there! He’s wading in the road.”
In the dim light coming out from the house, Năm looked at the man stumbling through the water toward the market.
“Hey, where are you heading this late? Come in, over here.”
“He’s a Khmer Rouge, Mom,” Vân interjected.
“Really?”
“Yeah . . .” he muttered.
“You can’t escape. Come on in. I won’t kill you. I promise.”
Sáu Khên reached the house when Vân’s sampan touched its stairs. She was unsure what to do so she just sat quietly in the sampan, holding it while her mother tied it to a house’s pillar.
Sáu Khên walked onto the deck. Water dripped onto the floor as he stood hesitating. Năm quickly went inside and came back with clothes in her hands.
“Go change your clothes,” she said. “These are my son-in-law’s. Don’t get sick.”
Sáu Khên was looking around for a place to sit while water continued to fall from his hair onto his shoulders. A bamboo bed covered with a mosquito net sat in one corner of the humble home, but he opted for a wooden board leaning against a pole. Năm was sitting on the opposite side of the room. She went into the back room and asked her granddaughter, Nga, to change her clothes. Nga was reluctant. She craned forward to peer around the room divider and get a look at the Khmer Rouge. Ever since she was young, she had heard countless stories about the Khmer Rouge. They burned houses, slaughtered people, and stabbed and tore children apart as if they were chicken wings. Nga imagined they had blood-red skin and sharp, pointed fangs. But this man had dark skin, and teeth as straight as Uncle Ba’s.
“You aren’t scared of Khmer Rouge, are you?” he asked.
“They have limbs just like me. The only difference is their brutality,” Năm replied. “But being brutal is not a sign of strength, so why should I fear them? Do you drink?”
“Do you? But you’re a woman.”
“What can I drink, if not wine? When my husband died, his siblings came to visit me often out of sympathy for the tragedy that left me a widow with four fatherless children. They wanted me to heal with alcohol. But I was somewhat familiar with death already. Surviving is already a blessing and drinking is a celebration. Vân, grill some dry squids for us.”
Năm went inside to fetch a bottle of rice wine and reached for a cup next to the teapot to cover the bottle top.
“I still have some jugs of alcohol. Do you . . . ?” Năm didn’t finish her sentence because she heard someone wading next to the stairs.
“Năm, let me tell you this,” came a voice.
Uncle Ba’s wife was standing there soaked up to her chest.
“I’m sober and honest. I know you used to be very fierce. Pol Pot was nothing to you. And our neighbors in Phước Hưng Village could’ve escaped the slaughter like Ba Chúc’s thanks to you. But do you know what you are doing? What if this man smashes your head while you and your family are asleep? Who would come save you? You shouldn’t judge him by his appearance. When he bashed our people’s heads in Nam Vang, did he look so nice to you? They change their faces but don’t forget that they once murdered people as easily as they grilled rice paper. Will you stay up all night to watch him? Shoo him away! They are brainless, they are blood thirsty.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of him.”
“No, you won’t. We aren’t living in wartime anymore. Killing a person, whether he is a Khmer Rouge or not, will get you locked up in jail. Get rid of him.”
“What if he goes away and kills someone else? Do you want the entire village to stay up and watch him?”
“Turn him over to the commune chairman.”
“Who wants to deal with him?”
“Gosh, is it . . . ?”
“Please go home and sleep well. If I can’t take care of him, I’m not a true ethnic Cambodian.”
“You’re too stubborn.” Then she called the kids, “Hey, come sleep at my place. Your mom is too headstrong; let her die alone. Vân and Nga, follow me.”
Nga grabbed Vân’s lapel. Vân was sitting quietly by the stove, staring at the dry squid being grilled. The entire house smelled like the burned squid.
Năm scraped off the burnt crust of the squid flesh with a chopstick.
“Don’t you want to drink and chew on this dry squid? You speak Vietnamese, don’t you?” Năm asked Sáu Khên.
“I speak some Khmer and some Chinese, but I’m best at Vietnamese. It’s because I like it best.”
“The woman you just met is also Chinese Khmer. When in Nam Vang, her family was very rich. But Pol Pot took power when she was still a student. The school wanted to protect their students so they sent them all to Việt Nam. She became homeless. Damn the war! Let’s drink. How much you can handle?”
“I don’t know. You?”
“I don’t know either. Let’s drink until we get sauced. Then crash.”
“Did you fight the Khmer Rouge in this village?”
“Yes. No one was left alive.”
“How many died?”
“Plenty. They swarmed us, killing three people at a time. Monsters.”
“Three people is not many. In Ba Chúc, four thousand people were killed. In Cambodia, millions.”
“Shut up. A single person killed is plenty. I would never spare the Khmer Rouge.”
Năm slammed her glass on the table and it shattered. Her face became fiery red because of the wine and from frustration. Nobody would call her a woman. She must be Trương Phi or Quan Vân Trường.*****
Sáu Khên knew she didn’t mean it, so he remained seated and quietly picked up the glass shards before pouring another glass of wine and raising it without offering a toast. So did Năm. Everything was quiet. Vân could hear the sound of wine flowing in their throats.
The sound of wine brought her back to a bygone time.
No, it was the sound of breathing. The water had receded and the land awaited the northern wind that would follow it. Yet tonight, Vân sensed strong overflowing currents. The water surged in the souls of those who had soldiered through the monstrous war.
Vân saw another battle happening before her eyes. The victims. The killers and the killed were victims. She recalled vividly the days the Khmer Rouge flooded the village. Life was hard but peaceful before a deafening explosion echoed in from a house adjacent to Tám Sớm creek. Blood overflowed in the main road. Năm rushed home from Châu Đốc and dashed to the creek. Vân ran after her. Năm told Vân to go inside and watch her siblings. Did Năm reach the trees at the border? Did she enter a bunker? Pol Pot’s forces had gathered in the field near the Dung Thăng River. Năm didn’t know when they had retreated; she could only see a cannon left beside the trench.
Vân could picture the scene but never understood how her mother commanded those soldiers to lower their cannon and target the Khmer Rouge who had swarmed along the Dung Thăng riverbank. They collapsed along the border as it went up in flames.
People died. Enemies died.
“Those Khmer Rouge were only seventeen or eighteen.”
Năm told and retold that story to Vân, her siblings, and soldiers who came to booze with her.
“They couldn’t even grow a mustache yet.”
Those Khmer Rouge teenagers died. They had been dying before they even entered this village and before they crossed the border. They were dying once Pol Pot came to power. They died once their parents and relatives were sent to concentration camps and held as hostages. They had lost their souls. Those men who marauded, gored, and murdered were only robots. They marched into this village like robots.
They swarmed in and mercilessly slaughtered people, but not for any sort of revenge. As killing machines, they didn’t fear death or have morals. They butchered any living creature, and they were butchered in return. The northern army was unfamiliar with the southwest’s topology, and because they were ignorant of the ways of the devilish robots, they died, wave after wave. Recalling the deaths of the soldiers, Năm drank like a thirsty person consuming a jug of rainwater. The more she drank, the thirstier she became. It made her cry.
“Those strangers coming here could hardly go home again. Vân’s father died in Châu Giang and my heart remained broken. I can’t even think about all the parents in the north who lost their children. Pol Pot—a fucking bastard. How could he have risen to the head of the government? I’ll chew him up.”
“How could you be so fearless? They were so bloodthirsty. Who wasn’t scared of them?”
“I didn’t care. I had nothing to lose. The Khmer Rouge were so monstrous and brainless. Why should I fear them? They were so immature.”
Năm started speaking about the boys again. She described the corpses of people who couldn’t even tell the difference between right and wrong. They had no dreams, aspirations, or lovers. How could they love? Only their blood relatives remained, but they had been sent to concentration camps to tend cattle. Only by serving as killing machines could the boys assure their families’ safety. If they had even an iota of human affection or faith, their families would be executed. They had no choice—either to die in combat or to leave the army and watch their families be killed. Becoming a zombie, an automated killing machine, was the only option.
That’s how Năm was able to confront them. They were as young as Vân. When dead, the corpses of the soldiers were as small and vulnerable as Vân and her siblings.
“That Pol Pot. I’ll chew him up.”
Sáu Khên looked at Năm’s fierce expression and his face became darker. Vân observed him closely. His skin was glowing. His eyes hollow. What was he thinking? Was he once one of Pol Pot’s trained assassins? Vân had read books about the carnage reaped by Pol Pot. One story claimed that during a tranquil night, dogs started barking in the distance as the Khmer Rouge entered a village. They raised their guns. Death came so easily to what had been peaceful lives. The floods today seemed to have made everything tranquil now, but what remained submerged?
“Can I go into the back of the house?” asked Sáu Khên.
“Go ahead.”
Vân hid behind the room divider and peeked into the kitchen. Sáu Khên was sitting, staring into the distance as if he were waiting for someone. It was dark outside. The floodwaters seemed to stop seething. And Vân could hear his long breaths.
Vân listened to the sound of water in the distance. Was it a boat or some other vessel parting the water, entering the village from the Hậu River? What would Vân do? Vân would be like her mother and confront whatever evil was coming. If Vân had to die, she would kill all the devils first. She wouldn’t leave any of those killing machines alive.
He was still sitting there. He didn’t pee nor drink any water. So why had he gone back there? Who was he waiting for?
Năm staggered toward the back of the house, flashlight in her hand.
“Why are you here? It is dark, so watch your steps. Don’t fall. Oh gosh! Why are you crying? Come in here.”
“I . . .”
“Are you repenting?”
He sat down and poured some more wine without putting it to his mouth. Instead he raised the glass to his face. His hands squeezed it as if it held something horrible.
“Would you like to hear my stories?”
“Please tell me. I want to hear your Khmer Rouge stories. I won’t kill you, so don’t panic. But if Pol Pot were still in power, I would never spare you. You were coerced back then. But today you are free. If you hadn’t been insane, you never would’ve killed anyone like that. But if you dare to kill my people now, your life is doomed.”
“You sound like you know a lot about the Khmer Rouge.”
“I stayed at the border after Pol Pot lost power. But honestly, I’d only heard about the Khmer Rouge and never seen them. When leading the logistics team to Nhơn Hội where they were fighting the Khmer Rouge, I heard rumors and saw the soldiers’ dead bodies only after the war. Now I want to hear your stories.”
“My stories aren’t very long. In the 1970s, I was like the other Khmer Rouge who fought side by side with Vietnamese soldiers against the Americans. Back then Lon Nol ruled the country. The year I was stationed in Koh Kong, Pol Pot was a nobody. Suddenly, the government, or rather Pol Pot, ordered Koh Kong to attack Vietnamese soldiers. We had been sharing meals and sleeping in the same beds with Vietnamese soldiers. Then they ordered us to kill them. How could we do that? The forces in Koh Kong refused to participate.
“Not a month later, the Koh Kong forces merged with the central forces who had been fighting Lon Non’s men. But then, in an act of great betrayal, the central forces turned their guns on us. We fled the bloodshed and ran toward Việt Nam. During the flight, all nine of my family members were killed.”
Sáu Khên stopped talking. He lifted his glass to his mouth and emptied it down his throat, as though he were drinking poison. The wine didn’t flow into his mouth, but into his eyeballs, and into his dark, glowing skin.
Năm stared at Sáu Khên, unconsciously waving her hands as if shooing something away. Her hands knocked against the wine bottle, sending it down to the floor. Nobody picked it up, so the wine flowed out.
“Nine people? Gosh! How could you live with that?”
Sáu Khên took the bottle, muttering, “Displacement, war, and people were just like worms. Now, in retrospect, I don’t get it—how could I survive? But the pain was part of the healing. If we hadn’t been hurt, we all would’ve died after the war ended. You know this.”
“So you don’t hold any pieces of the Khmer Rouge in your heart? What did you tell Ba’s wife that got her so agitated?”
“I didn’t know I had upset her. Mr. Ba and I are friends. So during dinner, I told her who I was. She didn’t let me finish my story but became furious. I had to swim away in mid-conversation.”
“Nine people. Gosh! Pour me some more.”
Năm drank as if she were dehydrated.
“But if I hadn’t fled when I did, I would’ve killed ninety or nine hundred people.”
“Damn it!” Năm just mumbled the phrase over and over and then drank several more glasses in a row. The thirst crawled into her fingers and her hair.
Then she collapsed.
Tears were filling Vân’s eyes. But what if he was making up this story? Was he plotting something? Năm was sleeping and Vân’s husband wasn’t at home.
Vân gripped a knife.
The man leaned forward to look at Năm. He grasped her shoulders and, putting his face next to hers, he touched her cheek with his.
“You could never kill me. My family brewed wine for twenty years. And don’t you know that I’m a ladies’ man? I could woo any woman. But when I look at you, the man inside me dies. You’re neither a woman nor a man. You’re iron. You’re a rock. You’re a stone—a kind of stone that holds no glittering crystal; tough, tough for a thousand years, ten thousand years. If it weren’t for women like you, many more Khmer Rouge soldiers like me would’ve smashed in more heads. Thank you.”
He hit his head on the table several times and then fell asleep right there. His hands still on Năm’s shoulders on the dinner table.
Vân dropped the knife. She cleaned the empty wine bottles and put away the dried squid. She set up the mosquito net so it covered both Sáu Khên and her mother. He was so drunk. Any man who boozed with Năm fell asleep right at the dinner table. They often slept next to each other like that, like men.