“ARE YOU HUNGRY?” NANG spoke slowly to the children though his inner pace was frantic. After only one week at Mount Aural he had been sent to Stung Treng to help accelerate Krahom recruitment. “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “We guarantee everyone will share equally in the nation’s food.” It was not the assignment he’d wanted. Every day he asked why. Why had Met Sar sent him away so quickly, away to these children, away when so much was happening elsewhere? “Here,” Nang said, “peasants work twelve hours a day. In Phnom Penh, government functionaries work two! They eat well. They pay no taxes.”
“You see.” Met Phan smiled. “Comrade Rang has been to the front. He knows victory is inevitable. He has killed enemy soldiers. He has blown up enemy tanks. He’s not much older than you.”
Nang bowed to the boys and girls. They sat elbow to elbow in the hot shack, sat in the posture of perfect attention as they had learned, sat in awe of Met Nang, to them Comrade Rang, a mysterious figure sent to them in their mysterious back-street hovel, sat in awe in the shadows as the January dry season sun baked the sleepy alley.
“Comrade Rang has been sent to us to teach us courage,” Phan said. He sat with the children, sat in perfect egalitarian posture, eyes on Nang.
“The Americans,” Nang whispered, “killed my uncle. He had been wounded in the leg and taken prisoner. While he still lived, they stabbed him in the mouth and cut out his tongue.” Nang paused. He trembled at the recollection, at the sight which he forced himself to believe. “The imperialists have poisoned the mind of Prince Sihanouk. Royal soldiers killed my whole family. If we show fear they will kill us all, but if we have courage...”
The youngest child, a girl of seven, watched Nang with widening eyes. He spoke with such feeling and gentleness she wanted to touch his hand, yet his words carried such horror she fought to control the undefined terror gripping her. Behind her an untrained boy of eleven stiffened. His imagination placed him in this soldier’s tale; his resolve to be courageous stiffened.
Each child had slipped away from a parent, each having been recruited because each had had a father or mother killed in the low-level guerrilla war of the preceding years. They were the core of Phan’s Stung Treng Children’s Brigade. Phan, a covert political officer of both the Krahom and the Khmer Viet Minh, had started the clandestine unit in 1967 with one boy whose father had been shot by government soldiers during an anti-government demonstration. Phan had asked the boy if he would like assistance in gaining reparation and the boy had followed him. “Tell me three of your friends,” Phan had said at their second meeting. “Bring a friend,” he urged during the third. Each child, once lured, hooked, sworn to secrecy, was required to recruit two friends. “One becomes three,” Phan repeated the Communist axiom. “Three become nine.” From early 1967 to mid-1969 recruitment had been difficult but tactics and the situation were changing. By 1970 Phan had nineteen cells of children, three to six youngsters per cell. Nang had come to bolster that recruitment.
“Children can be very courageous.” Nang’s eyes were soft. These children, he knew, would never be sent to advanced Communist training schools. They were not destined to become cadre; there would be no School of the Cruel, no ideological indoctrination. For them there would be only the underground school, the fetid back-alley shack, the brief afternoon classes in hate, the first all-night patrol, the first act of terrorism, and then death—death in the meat grinder of war, death to the naive, pushed knowingly into the funnel by ideologically secure cadres who not only would feed that grinder, but had justified in their minds their duty to feed it the most expendable, until the grinder itself ran down and the cadres could control it unilaterally. Nang continued. “Children can turn the tide of battle,” he said. “They can win wars. You know imperialists are trying to take the country from the people, eh? If you are a coward you will live your life in shame in a country owned by others. It’s better to die with courage than to live with shame.”
Nang paused. He lowered his head, closed his eyes. In the steaming motionless silence the little girl in the front and the boy in back leaned imperceptibly forward. Even Phan strained his ears to hear Nang’s next utterance though Phan had sat through the show four times with four cells and would listen fourteen more times with perfect attention. “Once,” Nang whispered, his eyes shut in pain, “we were caught in the crossfire of two American tanks. Met Peou snuck from his hiding place. He was so small. Only six years old. He didn’t wear any pants. He ran forward crying as the tanks came toward us. Under his shirt he had dynamite. When he reached the first tank it stopped. The enemy stopped firing and one soldier came out. Met Peou pulled the cord under his shirt and killed the long-nose. Peou stopped the tanks long enough for us to capture them and kill the crews. He was my little brother. His life is better than mine. He had more courage and he has no shame.”
Two girls wept. Nang let tears come to his eyes. He was pleased by the children’s reaction. It deepened his belief in the cause, the just cause of the Khmer Krahom, his cause. And...the tears were not entirely fake. In his mind he saw his own little brother and he saw him explode. Nineteen times in Stung Treng, a hundred times in the Northeast, he saw that image and it grew to be true and he hated it and a hundred times he chased away the intrusive thought and asked himself why—why had Sar sent him back so close to home?
Then came the government announcement; then Nang’s recall.
Vathana opened her eyes. Teck’s head was curled down upon his chest. From behind him she could see only the skinny shoulder of a headless form protruding above the coverlet. Between them lay the two-month-old infant, Samnang, asleep, angelic, snoring a high thin infant snore. Vathana cupped the baby to her side. She looked up. The canopy of sheer white mosquito netting fell in graceful folds about them like a protective cocoon. Teck snorted, rolled to his back, arched, melted back into the mattress like a deflating balloon. “Sophan,” Vathana called softly.
In the first weeks after Vathana’s trauma and the birth of his son, Teck had been more attentive than at any time since their wedding. Grudgingly he’d stumbled through the intricacies of river-barge management, on one occasion actually talking to the captain on the wharf. During those weeks he neither went dancing nor smoked heroin, and to him Cambodia seemed to open itself, denude itself, stand before him in raunch corrupt ugliness without the filter of his mother or the firm control of his father. He cowered. He wanted to hide, to run. But he held together and for that his mother rewarded him. One evening, she brought him to Phnom Penh to a most fashionable party; a party where wines flowed and young women chatted softly in French with handsome military men; a party where the undercurrent of conversation amongst the uniformed officers was of the Prince, the war, the rumor of the fabled white crocodile foreshadowing change, though on the surface no deep concern was expressed.
The dazzle of the party, of his mother’s growing association with the haut monde, captivated Teck. Capriciously he resolved to have his father purchase for him a commission into the Royal forces. Then he returned to Neak Luong, saw his weary wife up, about, able if still frail, and his resolve dissipated. Slowly he slipped into former habits.
The infant wheezed. Vathana hugged him, kissed him, then slipped her arm from around him to tug the mosquito net from its tuck beneath the mattress. “Sophan,” she called again. She rose.
A stout woman came and bowed. “Yes’m.” Sophan bowed again. She was one of the hundreds of women Vathana had rescued, had taken into her expanding refugee center after their homes near the border had been destroyed. Vathana had not particularly noticed Sophan amid the border people, but Sophan had chosen her, had attached herself to Vathana because she no longer had a family. Whenever Teck had left Vathana unattended in the hospital, it had been Sophan who had cared for her.
“Take the baby and nurse him. Then swaddle him in the sunflower blanket with the emerald-green bunting. His grandfather’s coming.”
Pech Lim Song burst upon the apartment like sun rays breaking through sluggish clouds. Teck was still in bed. Half the morning had passed. “Let me hold my grandson,” Mister Pech said. His speech was light, his movements quick, gentle, his face radiant as he cooed to the infant and praised his daughter-in-law. Then Teck emerged. The clouds thickened.
“Crocodiles consume the countryside...” Mister Pech said sarcastically. He stood before Vathana’s work desk eyeing the elegantly framed photo of Prince Sihanouk. “...while the nation’s young men sleep.”
“How is your health, Father?” Teck bowed though Mister Pech remained with his back to his son.
“They’re closing in,” Mister Pech said. “I quote the Prince. North Viet Namese armed penetration into Cambodia coupled with ‘an energetic subversion campaign aimed at my peasants, workers, Buddhist monks...attempting to organize a “Khmer popular uprising” against the monarchy whom they accuse of selling out to French colonialism.’ Yes! French! Those were his words! Nineteen fifty-three! ‘Anti-Sihanouk propaganda...terrorism...assassination of Khmer loyalists, officials and civil servants...’ Their objectives haven’t changed but their ability has blossomed a hundredfold.”
Teck glanced at Vathana. She had grasped the Buddha statuette at her neck and was whispering a prayer. “Father, you’re always welcome here,” Teck said to the older man’s back, “but it’s not good to speak such things before your grandson. He’s vulnerable to ill will.”
Mister Pech turned, looked beyond his son to Vathana and to Sophan with the listless infant tightly wrapped in a yellow blanket. “Someone’s here, eh!?”
Teck’s jaw tightened. “I can’t do this,” he mumbled beneath his breath.
“You’re too young to understand when a man must stand,” Mister Pech said. Still he did not look at his son. “Right action,” he said sharply. “All holy Buddhists are anti-Communists.”
“You wish me to die before yuon rifles?! That it, eh!?” Teck ground his teeth. “Or maybe under those damned American bombs?”
“I came with an amulet for Vathana and a toy for the baby,” Mister Pech said, dismissing Teck.
“How much do you know about the American bombings, eh, Father? You know the generals. Do you encourage them? Do you tell them to urge the Prince to formally sanction them? That’s what’s happening, isn’t it? It’s the bombings that are forcing the Viets onto us. It’s the bombings that deepen the crisis. Should we exchange the NVA presence along the border for an American invasion?”
Mister Pech turned, faced Teck squarely. “Who’s talking invasion?” he snapped. “For centuries Khmers have been warriors. For our safety”—Pech Lim Song pointed to himself and then to Vathana—“we must defend ourselves. For our dignity we must repel the Viet Namese. As a Khmer, you’re a disgrace.”
“Humph!” Teck snorted. Though their argument had been continuous for a year, Teck was uncomfortable arguing with his father. “Shouldn’t we clean our own house first?” He tried to control his tone. “The Prince hasn’t stopped influence peddling. He hasn’t stopped corruption. His wife engages in illicit trade with the Communists...”
“You want me to get you a commission, eh?!”
“...the yuons, the Chinese pay her to keep him in line. And her brother, Oum Mannorine, secretary of state for surface defense. Ha! He collaborates in rice smuggling. You want me to support them? General Sosthenes Fernandez—you know him, eh? Mother does—national security secretary! He takes bribes from the arms shippers. My friends at the dance hall know. Street peddlers know. But you, you refuse to know.”
“I don’t refuse to know,” Mister Pech said sternly. “I recognize it for what it is—an appendage of the Viet Minh conspiracy, a force we can’t cope with because the young men are all in dance halls!” Mister Pech turned from his son. To Vathana, in a pleasant voice, he said, “I’m very busy today. I came only to see my grandson and to give you this.” From his pocket he pulled a bracelet with a Buddhist prayer carved onto an ebony charm. “I don’t have leisure time to waste on anti-Khmer talk.” He smiled broadly. “I am a patriot. I would expect that of my son, but he...what does he call himself?—Epicurean. He cares not for the nation. I blame myself. Let this little one hear you talk, see you do business. Don’t swaddle him like his grandmother did to...did until he’s a twenty-two-year-old infant.”
“Damn it! That’s not true. Your cronies have power. They use it to bleed people.”
Mister Pech s eyes shifted momentarily toward his son then back to Vathana. “Have you heard from your mother and father?” he asked sweetly.
“It’s been a month,” Vathana said. “There’s no communication with the Northeast.”
For three days the winds increased until finally blowing so violently huge palm fronds littered the streets of Phnom Penh and all Cambodia’s cities, towns and villages. Then the monsoons burst upon the land, a mid-March—instead of April or even May—deluge. Dust-dry roads turned to ribbons of red muck stretching through paddies not yet green and jungles still covered with sand and grit. Dormant rills trickled, babbled, gushed as the saturated land attempted to shed the torrents. Streams became rivers, rivers escaped their banks and became mile-wide puddles. The Mekong, not yet inundated by Himalayan snowmelt, like a huge drain sucking the torrents from the land, seemingly searched for new ways to divert the deluge, new trenches, chasms, gorges, valleys into which to dump the excess wet. The whole country became precariously saturated and the heaviest rains were yet expected. And in every corner of the country, inside every political and military faction, in every household, and internationally, Cambodia was facing a precarious watershed. The once placid kingdom roiled in frantic power-grab waves.
“Viet Namese are snatching the country!” Met Sar on Mount Aural, was livid, was crazy with rage. “Viet Namese this...Viet Namese that!” He had been shouting continuously for an hour. Nang’s friend from Pong Pay Mountain, Met Eng, trembled before the verbal storm. Nang had never heard Sar rant so, fume so. He stood beside Eng in rank with thirty top yotheas and cadremen, stood listening with the bastardized perfect attention the Krahom had transfigured from Buddhist culture.
“They roll through the countryside one hundred thousand strong. More! Two hundred thousand. Everywhere! Lon Nol, that lackey puppet, has declared the figures before the National Assembly. Viet Namese are preparing to take the capital. They steal the revolution from Angkar Leou.” Met Sar banged his fists on a table; paced back and forth, looked not at his field leaders and agents but first up at the roof then down at the floor. “They outnumber Royal soldiers by at least three to one—outnumber the Royals in combat strength ten to one. They’re better equipped, led, trained. They’re more experienced! Sihanouk, that idiot! Aekarcach-mochasker,” Met Sar shouted. “Independence and sovereignty. Without them, Kampuchea will wither like an orchid snatched from the earth.”
Met Sar paused. No one moved. From Nang’s position behind a comrade he could see the older man had gained weight in the two months since Nang had been sent to the Northeast, could see that Met Sar’s jowls hung just like those of Norodom Sihanouk, could see that the leader’s face was sweat-drenched and mottled, that he was suffering from the increased weight he carried, not just physically but mentally, politically.
“There is no détente with the Viet Namese. None with Khmer puppets. We must have rapid improvement of our position! Take control! Organize the people! Order! Order! Order!” Again Sar banged his fists. “Angka will control!” he boomed. “Angka will order! Angka will lead! Sihanouk wants anti-Viet Namese demonstrations. We shall lead!”
“We are isolated,” Hang Tung shouted from the steps of the pagoda. “We need voluntary contributions to keep armies out.” Chhuon stood beside him. Behind them were five of the seven elders who had assembled earlier in Chhuon’s central room. Before them were a dozen armed guards, the core of Phum Sath Din’s new militia. Beyond the guards the entire village population spilled back toward the river and down the street. From Tung’s shrill call newcomers recoiled. To his words old families traded glances of resentment.
“My brothers and sisters,” Chhuon addressed the village in a firm yet anguished voice, “our village is isolated...from our country. My nephew wishes to sell self-determination bonds to raise the money necessary to equip and maintain a guard.”
From the audience came a lone call, “They’re already equipped. Who are they?” Then an entire chorus, “Ssshh! Mr. Cahuom can be trusted.”
“These men are here to raise money for a militia.” Chhuon’s voice was softened by the damp air. “We are isolated,” he emphasized. “Viet Namese are to the north, east and maybe south. Crazed provincial troops are to the west. The village of Phum Sath Nan has been destroyed. Survivors have come to us for safety. Some say American soldiers are invading the country. We must defend ourselves. Against all armies. We are the best of Cambodia. When this crisis has passed we will regain our position in the country and all will return home. But now we must act. Each family head must register. All the land which has been abandoned will be redistributed to newcomers. Every family must contribute to the self-determination fund. It will be used to expand and maintain the militia.”
From the middle of the crowd a man shouted, “How much must we contribute?”
Chhuon looked at the man. He looked remarkably like Hang Tung, but Chhuon did not recognize him.
“Brother,” Tung shouted, “the tax will be small. Today you will receive land. We’ll tell you then what is your contribution. Now that the village is liberated everyone will be better off.”
Late that afternoon the land distribution commenced with all paddies, those abandoned and those still worked by long-time residents, divided amongst not families but new village quadrant committees for further distribution to village quadrant production teams. To many the assignments seemed just, approximately the same as the old system. A few old-timers grumbled. Others reminded them there was a crisis and the distribution was to be temporary. Others saw it as unenforceable. Most felt, with an abundance of land, there was no need to be concerned.
What did annoy almost everyone, however, was the announcement of the “voluntary contribution for self-determination bonds.” Half of all existing rice stores were to be brought to the pagoda. One third of all new rice would be collected for the militia and for the village’s “contribution to the effort against the imperialist aggressors.” Each family was further required to write out a list of all personal property, “for their own protection,” and as a basis for determining the monetary tax.
The dozen militiamen in the village grew to a platoon of forty green-clad uniformed soldiers plus four cadremen to organize the new village quadrant administrations. Within three days Chhuon found he was answering to new masters, issuing their orders to the village in his name, under threat to the villagers themselves if he, Cahuom Chhuon, did not receive full cooperation.
“We must realize optimum production,” a cadreman told Chhuon. “We are now on a war footing and every effort must be made during our country’s most difficult period.”
Chhuon understood. There was no room for questions.
“Plant every plot,” the cadre said. “Plant early rice, late rice, ten-month rice. In their yards have them plant yams. Along the trails and roads they’ll plant maize. An agronomist’s dream, eh?”
Chhuon understood. Yet he did not fully understand. He had become an instrument in the takeover. Indeed, he, like most of the villagers, did not fully understand there had been a takeover. In the confusion Chhuon simply went along with what was ordered. There seemed to be no other course.
Thus did the Khmer Viet Minh, backed unseen by the North Viet Namese Army, almost bloodlessly take over the administration of Phum Sath Din. It had come not with a bang, barely with a whisper. Royal forces retreated from their thin, heavily perforated line in the Northeast, allowing the Communists to add all of Stung Treng Province east of the Mekong, with the exception of Stung Treng City, to their control, along with Ratanakiri, Mondolkiri, eastern Kratie and Kompong Cham provinces.
“Where do you think they’ll send us now?” Eng asked Nang as they scurried through the tunnel to the planning room.
“I don’t know, Met Eng,” Nang said pleasantly. He was pleased to be with his old friend, to be assigned a mission with him, to see that Eng, like he himself, had advanced to be included in such an elite group. And he was pleased to be back from the Northeast.
“One small group,” Met Ary, a staff officer of the Center, addressed the team, “ ‘with no resources at all, can free itself from the yoke of oppression’ ”—he paused for emphasis—“ ‘if it wants to badly enough.’ ”
“Chairman Mao,” Eng said.
“Yes,” Ary said. “We must want our independence and sovereignty badly enough to sacrifice whatever need be sacrificed in order to be free.”
“We are the sacrifice,” Met Ty responded. Nang did not comment. He’d often taught the same lesson and Met Ary’s remedial tutoring irritated him.
“Yes, we are the sacrifice,” Met Ary said. “But we must now be more. We must now be the guides. We must be willing to unite with whoever can help us without allowing them to change our course.”
“Who would you have join us?” Nang asked.
“You are all young,” Ary said. “You’ll pass as orphans.”
“Where?” Nang prodded.
“Though we’ve been united with the North Viet Namese in our struggle to oust Sihanouk, we now must unite with Sihanouk to oust the NVA and VC. But keep your lips sealed. Lead the people to terrorize our enemies. Then transform the people, step-by-step.”
“Met Ary,” Nang’s voice sliced out. “Where? Who? When?”
“Phnom Penh. Tomorrow.”
“How?”
“Riots. Government agents are right now baiting the students with tales of NVA barbarity and with documents proving their treacherous advance.”
Nang smiled. “What should we do?”
Ary paused. “Rendezvous with the students,” he said. “Once they have crossed the line, there will be no turning back.”
“There’s something wrong with him, isn’t there?” Vathana whispered to Sophan in French.
“He’s a good nurser,” the wet nurse answered. “A very good nurser, Angel. He’s a very beautiful boy.”
“But...” Vathana sat beside the squat woman nursing her baby. She reached for the boy’s chubby hand, hesitated, then gently seized it with thumb and forefinger. The infant’s hand was a cool stiff fist hanging from a listless arm. Vathana pried the tiny fingers back. They opened and reclosed about her foreknuckle without significant pressure as if the tendons were lifeless elastic bands keeping constant tension on mechanical levers instead of spirited tiny muscles instinctively clamping, clinging to life.
“I’ll work his hands,” Sophan said. “You’ll see, Angel. He’ll come along fine.”
Vathana groaned. She grasped the statuette at her throat, squeezed her eyes in prayer. “Why?” she lamented quietly. A bit louder she said, “There is something wrong with him.”
“What?!” Teck had been lying in bed wondering what he would do this day, lying, wishing not to arise but vaguely wishing also for a reason to get up. “What did I hear you say?” He rolled his knees over, dropped his feet to the floor. Neither Vathana nor Sophan answered. He stood, his Parisian silk pajamas hanging loose at his skinny hips. “There’s nothing wrong with that child,” he all but shouted. “He’s a sleepy baby. That’s all.” It felt good to assert himself in his own home.
“My brothers and sisters were never so sleepy,” Vathana cried back. “Never.”
“You don’t love your own child, woman,” Teck snorted. He fumbled in the closet pulling out first a pair of white trousers, then beige, then light yellow. “What’s all the noise out there?”
Vathana opened the bedroom door. Her eyes glistened with tears though she was not crying. From the street voices, shouts, could be heard though words couldn’t be distinguished. “We should have him examined by the doctors in Phnom Penh,” Vathana said.
“You’re a worrisome farmer’s daughter,” Teck shot back.
“And you”—Vathana’s tears burst—“you...you’re more French than Khmer.” In Khmer she added, “A Khmer man would never treat his wife or son so.”
From outside a subdued crackling staccato of firecrackers or automatic rifles could be heard. Then loud shouts. Screams. “What’s going on out there?” Teck boomed. The cacophony excited him, intrigued him. Not looking at Vathana, walking quickly past Sophan and the infant, Teck checked himself in the mirror then fled through the apartment door.
11 March 1970—Nang squatted in the doorway of a small shop on Monivong Boulevard in Phnom Penh. The early morning sky was heavy with dark clouds. In other doorways, behind fences, in courtyards, beneath blossoming trees, student leaders lurked, Krahom boys and girls waited patiently, government agents tensed and relaxed their muscles. Phnom Penh woke. Trucks clattered by, buses belched black clouds of diesel exhaust, motorbikes wheezed, and radios splashed their voices into streets unaware of those listening. Small battles, Nang thought—he did not wish to be sidetracked by the sights, noises, smells or opulence of the city—but promising successes.
Suddenly from behind, “What do you want?” a shopkeep demanded. Nang started. He had not heard the door unlatch. The man approached. Nang glared like a trapped cat, silent, wary. Then his face cracked in nervous eerie smile. “Go!” the shopkeep barked. “Get out of here!”
Nang slinked back. Jungle vigilance was easier than city, he thought. His neck stiffened. He leaned back against a wet concrete facade. Immediately water soaked through his shirt, chilled him. He raised his shoulders, pulled his elbows tightly to his sides. A truck horn blasted. Again he started. Evil, he thought. Cities are evil, just as Met Sar says. That woman. I bet she’s one. City women sell themselves. City noise is evil. City air is evil. City dwellers are evil. It’s our duty, our destiny, to establish order—for the good of Kampuchea. He shivered. The left corner of his mouth twitched.
Two students ran toward him. He tensed. Seemingly from nowhere young people began to seep onto the street, to flow slowly toward him, by him. “Come with us, Little Brother,” one called, and Nang became part of the growing crowd. “You look frightened,” the boy said jovially to Nang. Nang looked up with naive, trusting puppy eyes. “Little Brother”—the student was concerned—“have you eaten today? Are you hungry? Where do you sleep?”
“I have no home,” Nang said sadly. “It was taken by yuons.” He walked shyly, lagged behind the student.
“Where was your home?” The boy walked backwards, smiling, happy, hoping Nang would walk faster, not wanting to lose his friends.
“We lived in the Northeast,” Nang answered.
“Hey, listen to this kid,” the student called out, trying to slow his friends. “He’s one of ’em.”
“Come Tam,” one friend called back. “We don’t want to miss the speech.”
“They murdered my family,” Nang said, catching up to Tam.
“What?! Vanty! Chan! Listen!” Tam’s face lost its cheerful gleam. “We’ve got to bring him with us. The yuons made him an orphan.”
At each block the crowd grew in chunks as new marchers came from side streets. The occasion was festive though the sky remained ominous. Minor commotions erupted sporadically around student leaders, government agents and border refugees.
From one corner a chant began. “VIET NAM QUIT CAMBODIA! VIET NAM QUIT CAMBODIA!” Others picked it up. “VIET NAM QUIT CAMBODIA!” Through city center two thousand strong the demonstrators chanted. More joined. Several contingents of small motorcycles squeezed between walkers, the riders revving tiny motors in time with the chant. “VIET NAM QUIT CAMBODIA!” From Norodom Boulevard a second demonstration meshed with the first, a third came from the stadium, a fourth from the central market area. Ten thousand strong and growing they marched on the North Viet Namese and Provisional Revolutionary Government embassies. Throughout the crowd monks positioned themselves offering examples of controlled peaceful protest. Throughout the crowd Krahom children, government agents and soldiers pumped bellows on the fires of hate.
“When they came into our village,” Nang whimpered to Tam, his friends and perhaps forty listeners, “they said they would help. But they’re crocodiles. Samdech Euv gave them bases. He let them use the ports. He traded rice with them. But they’re crocodiles.” Nang paused. He felt the presence of someone hostile. Khmer Viet Minh, he thought. “We gave them rice. Then they took all the girls to their camp. They killed the elders. I ran to the forest. I saw the village burn.”
“And they still keep coming,” Tam shouted. “They’ll kill us all. They keep coming.”
“They’ve overrun Svay Rieng,” someone shouted.
“They’re in Prasaut,” another called.
“Don’t forget the provinces,” called an angry third. “They’ve overrun the Northeast.”
“They’re in Kompong Thom. My uncle lives there. They demand rice. They’ll murder all Khmers.”
Each voice was angrier. Each harsher, louder, more full of hate. The chant began again, “VIET NAM QUIT CAMBODIA!” Now fifteen thousand, now eighteen thousand strong, angry, in a culture that doesn’t condone anger, angry in a culture where anger is equated with madness, angry, angrily surrounding the elegant colonial-building embassies.
“QUIT CAMBODIA!” Nang joined in the shouting. “OUT! OUT! VIET NAM OUT!” Nang worked his way to the gate. From his pocket he pulled a stone. About him, amongst the masses, monks assuaged the people as if they were sponges capable of absorbing anger. Nang cocked his arm, threw the stone as hard as he could. A window crashed. A split second of silence swept the demonstrators—then—as if the window were a dam, they gave physical vent to seventeen years of placating neutrality, seventeen years of being slowly devoured. Hell broke loose. Stones, branches, bricks from the walls were hurled. Windows on every side of both buildings were shattered. In pressed the masses, ripping shutters, crashing the doors, crossing the line, ransacking the embassies wildly in a frenzy of frustration and hate.
Nang fled.
“Did you really ask the Ma’dam for a commission to the Royal forces?” Thiounn asked Teck. Since the time his father had obtained a position for him in Phnom Penh Teck had not socialized with his old friends. Because of the escalating government crisis, his office had been closed. He’d returned to Neak Luong that morning, 18 March 1970.
“Of course not,” Teck said defensively. “Louis started that rumor. He...”
“I did not.” Louis laughed. He nudged Sakun and Kim and they chuckled with him. “Hey,” Louis said, “this is just like old times, eh? Five of us. We can do anything with five of us.”
“Let’s go out,” Thiounn said. “The cafe’s open.”
“I...ah,” Teck mumbled. “When Vathana gets back, eh? She won’t be long. You know, she’s taken Samnang to the doctor.”
“A commission and now a papa!” Thiounn chided him. “If we go now, we’ll get our old seats.”
Kim smirked. “I’d rather stay here and see that wife of his.”
Louis rocked back into the cushion of the sofa. “If she were mine,” he said, “I wouldn’t let her out alone. Ha! Do you remember what he said before we saw her. ‘Just a girl!’ Ha! The rest of us should be strapped to that kind of just-a-girl.”
“Loui—” Teck began, but a loud crash outside the apartment cut him short.
“This is a serious time,” Sakun said somberly. “Really. We shouldn’t joke now.”
“Oh, Sakun!” Louis flopped a hand at him. “You always get so serious.”
“You know what I hear...?”
“More news of the riots, eh?” Teck said.
“There’s been no paper for four days, but I hear anti-Viet Namese demonstrations have hit every city and town in the country. I hear people are ransacking and looting their stores. Even burning their homes.”
“Maybe...” Thiounn said quietly, thoughtfully, “...they deserve it.”
“Thiounn!” Kim reared back in his seat. “You! You, a socialist, say that?”
“I...I said maybe, eh? You’ve read the government reports. I’ve seen some of the evidence. Truly, why are there so many—so deep in the country?”
“Did you read this?” Sakun picked up a 13 March newspaper from the coffee table before the sofa. “ ‘Prime Minister Lon Nol,’ ” he read, “ ‘has extended formal apologies to the North Viet Namese and the PRG for the embassy attacks. Simultaneously, he and First Deputy Prime Minister Sisowath Sirik Matak have canceled the trade agreements between the government and the Viet Namese Communists which allow the Viet Namese to purchase food and supplies in Cambodia. The prime minister has also announced the closing of the port at Sihanoukville to Communist arms shippers; and he has issued an ultimatum to VC and NVA forces demanding they leave Cambodian territory within seventy-two hours.’ ”
“Seventy-two—” Teck blurted. “That’s impossible. How could they—”
“That’s only part of it,” Thiounn interrupted. “You haven’t followed the news, eh? Before I left the capital I heard Lon Nol had put the army on alert—to prevent Sihanouk from...well, I don’t know, exactly, what he could do from abroad...but, so Sihanouk won’t block the cabinet’s orders.”
Kim started. “Thiounn, what do you mean? I haven’t heard...”
“Well, you know...” Thiounn began.
“No. Tell us. What have you heard?”
Thiounn looked at his friends. All except Teck were seated about the coffee table in the living room of Teck’s apartment. Teck stood by the window scanning the empty street for his wife and child. “You’ve really not followed the news, eh?” No one answered. “The Prince, you’ve heard this? He has threatened to have all the cabinet officers shot.”
“What!?”
“Oh, yes. From Paris, three days ago. He said he was very embarrassed by the embassy attacks. Some say a unit of Khmer Serei, returned from South Viet Nam, was responsible for the ransacking. That the CIA and Lon Nol were behind it! Even two days ago, after Lon Nol apologized, Sihanouk said the cabinet had broken faith with him. They would be shot. That’s why the army’s on alert. I thought you knew.”
“You’re not serious,” Louis said.
“Yes. You know he’s flown to Moscow, eh? And that the National Assembly has been in special session. My father says they were going to pass a constitutional amendment limiting the monarchy, but that’s when Oum Mannorine, Sihanouk’s own brother-in-law...”
“He’s a Viet sympathizer, eh?” Sakun inserted.
Thiounn nodded, continued. “Yes. Well, he tried to take over the government but Lon Nol foiled the coup. I think it will be in all the papers tomorrow. I can hardly believe you haven’t heard any of...”
“Oum?! He tried a coup? A coup d’état?”
“Yes. Truly. But the general’s men exposed him—his dealings with the Viets and his arm’s and rice kickbacks. The Republicans are furious. Teck, don’t you talk to your father? He must know. The government is coming apart.”
“Then, Doctor, there is something...” Vathana could not complete her sentence. She sat in the small cluttered office, her torso curled forward her shoulders sagging. Sophan stood near the door, her strong square legs planted like old trees, clutching the swaddled infant as if to protect it from the doctor’s words.
“We’ll have to wait,” the doctor said. He was a middle-aged man, younger than her father by perhaps four or five years. “The brain is a marvelous instrument. It has great capacity for rejuvenation.”
“I still don’t understand.”
“Well, it’s hard to say for sure. I think what happened”—the doctor paused, leaned on his small desk, shifted some papers as if trying to find the right words lying between paper clips and medical journals—“I think...You understand I wasn’t there at the birth...when the fertilized egg implanted in the uterus it lodged very low...very low. And in such a way, well, the placenta, the tissue which nourishes the fetus, developed across the cervix and that partially blocked the fetal descent.”
A loud crash was heard from the street. Then shouting. Sophan tightened her grip on the infant Samnang. Vathana slumped further, shutting out the noise. Doctor Sarin Sam Ol jumped, then settled again. Shouting in Khmer and Viet Namese continued. Then the wailing of police sirens approaching from a distance.
“Riots again, eh? This is the seventh day. Where do they find any Viet shops left to destroy? Oh...Where was I? Fetal descent...It’s a condition known as placenta previa...not really all that uncommon. At the end of your pregnancy when the cervix was very thin and beginning to dilate, the fetus was blocked from falling into the birthing canal. With the pressure on the placenta and the expanding cervix, the placenta ruptured. That’s when the mother hemorrhaged and lost so much of her bloo...”
“I’m the mother, Doctor,” Vathana whispered.
“Oh yes. Yes. I mean...I’m sorry. It’s these riots and all the talk of war and corruption. My own sons were caught in the rioting. Last night as I was plunged in meditation a great explosion shook my house. Next door a Viet Namese doctor...a very compassionate man...his family has fled toward the border even though they have lived here for three generations.”
“Our center,” Sophan broke in unexpectedly, “is overflowing with Khmers the yuons have uprooted at the border.”
“Yes. I’ve heard these things. Still, Doctor Truong was...is very decent.”
“Then...” Vathana’s voice was small.
“Then?” The doctor looked pitifully at the young mother clutching an amulet at her throat. “Then...for five hours...you understand, I wasn’t there...”
“I understand.”
“...for five hours you bled. The fetus was increasingly starved for oxygen. His brain wasn’t receiving oxygen. Had the medical team not forced you open and pulled the fetus out...neither of you would have lived.”
“I live, Doctor. With sorrow, with misery, with grief. With despair for what I have done to my son’s brain...It can rejuvenate...?”
“Yes. We don’t know how much. All that can be done is to wait and see. Someday...he may be almost normal.”
As Vathana and Sophan walked back through the streets of Neak Luong they avoided the debris left from the week of rioting, avoided not only walking through or over piles but avoided the thought by immersing themselves in talk of the doctor.
“The first Noble Truth should not be that hardship and suffering are part of life,” Vathana said softly, “but that they invade most quickly when life is most joyful.”
“Angel.” Sophan’s smile and tone were perfectly consoling. “Don’t desire him to be perfect and you won’t suffer. Accept him for what he is. You’ll see. He’ll be more than you could ever desire.”
“Perhaps in his last life he was perfect. Perfect he will be again in his next.”
Sophan caressed the infant’s head as they walked. The baby cooed softly, then snorted. “He’s perfect now,” Sophan said gleefully. Her eyes twinkled, her entire face lit in impish smile. “Ssshh.” She touched Vathana’s arm. Very quietly she whispered, “He’s perfect now but don’t let anyone hear. If the spirit of his previous mother knows, she’ll be jealous.”
When they entered the apartment Teck was standing before Vathana’s desk staring up at the framed portrait of Prince Norodom Sihanouk. The volume of the radio on the refrigerator was turned up high. Thiounn, Kim and Louis sat quietly on the sofa. Sakun squatted by the coffee table. His face was distorted and he wept openly. The young men did not turn as the women entered.
Unknown to Thiounn, to Vathana, to them all, two days earlier, North Viet Namese and PRG officials had met with high Khmer officers to negotiate an NVA/VC presence on Khmer lands. Also unknown to them were the mixed messages Lon Nol was receiving from America and South Viet Nam.
“What...?” Vathana began.
Teck tilted his head toward the radio. Again the Phnom Penh station repeated the announcement:
In view of the political crisis created in recent days by the chief of state, Prince Sihanouk, and in conformity with the constitution of Cambodia, the National Assembly and the Council of the Kingdom during plenary session held on 18 March at 1300 hours have unanimously agreed to withdraw confidence in Prince Sihanouk.
As of 1300 hours 18 March, Prince Sihanouk shall cease his function as chief of state of Cambodia. Mr. Cheng Heng, chairman of the National Assembly, is entrusted with the function of chief of state in conformity with the national constitution.