CHAPTER EIGHT

“AIN’T NO WAY, L-T. I got me a fine young woman waitin’ and I don’t mean to disappoint her.”

“I only said think about it, Conk.”

“Yeah, but you say ‘think’ and we always end up doin’.” The American sergeant pushed his floppy bush hat to the back of his head. “I’m short. Down to sixty-six and a wake-up. That’s it for me.”

“It’s a big city, Conklin,” the lieutenant said. “Besides, you guys trained some of them Cambos. No more being stuck in a little corner of the Delta. No more Major Travis. Phnom Penh, Conk. We could be in Phnom Penh.”

Lieutenant John L. Sullivan, 5th Special Forces, leaned forward in his chair in the small operations bunker. He had been an advisor to a Viet Namese provincial force for almost a year. He passed Ian Conklin the Ba Muoi Ba beer the two had been sharing.

“Those dudes are ripe for disaster,” Conklin said. “Coup...new government...God! It’s chaos. What do they have? The Khmer Serei? Two or three thousand U.S.-trained troops. Those guys are goina be like foreigners in their own country. They’ve been in Nam too long. Ya can’t go back, L-T. Just because they hated Sihanouk...that ain’t good enough. What else does this Lon Nol got? No, thanks.”

“They’re going to reach out to us, Conk,” Sullivan said. The lieutenant took a deep breath. He raised his hands to his face, cupped his mouth and nose and exhaled into his palms. Then he wiped his hands back over his freckled cheeks and up through his coppery hair.

“Sure, L-T. Sure. While Nixon’s cuttin’ back he’s goina commit to takin’ on the Cambos. Even suppose authorization does come down”—Conklin shook his head—“ain’t no way I’d get picked. Or I’d accept.”

The two men sat in silence. The night was relatively cool though the humidity was high. A hiss came from the radio, the one a.m. situation report from the PRU, the breaking of the radio’s squelch by the Province Reconnaissance Unit, an eighteen-man Viet Namese force the advisors often worked with.

Sullivan began again. “Their minds...,” he said, “...they’ll have to be disciplined to induce the habits of patient investigation. You’ve seen it work here.” The young lieutenant rubbed skin flakes from his sunburnt nose. “It can work there.”

Conklin didn’t answer. Again they sat in silence. Again Sullivan broke it. “You know what’s going to happen?” Conklin looked over. “It’s Nam, Conk. Nam 1960. Or ’56.” Sullivan was adamant, intense. “They’ll go nuts. Make a mess of it. They’ve got to be trained to conquer haste, to work methodically at uncovering the infrastructure...”

“L-T, you’re beatin’ on me again.”

“Naw.” Sullivan switched tone. “Am I?” He smiled broadly.

“It’s like Quay says”—Conklin readjusted his hat—“unless the South drops about a hundred thousand troops on Hanoi, there ain’t no way in West Hello we’re ever goina stop the attacks. Infrastructure or not.”

“That’s it!” Sullivan snapped his fingers. He sat up straight. “Exactly.” He tapped the desk before him. “Cambodia is the opportunity. We can knock on Mister Charlie’s back door. Serve him eviction papers. Follow it up with proper police procedures. That’s the winning combination.”

Conklin chuckled. “Ain’t nothin’ goina stop ’em unless there’s the firepower to back it up.”

Sullivan got up. “What about Huntley?” he asked. “He worked with the Serei.”

“He can’t speak it.”

“You can?”

“No. Some. Re or Quay always interpreted.”

“Hum.”

“There’s no way, L-T. It’s total chaos.”

“Let’s make a way.”

“No one ever even said we’re goin’ in!”

“We’re going.” Sullivan clapped his right fist into his left palm as one might do with a baseball glove. “You bet yer sweet ass we’re going. Now it’s up to us whether that front gets the best, which is us, or some dipped-in-shinola Saigon desk jockey who doesn’t know...who doesn’t understand and who has no quantitative skills. No ability to apply the system. Where’s Huntley?”

“He’s on ambush with the PRU.”

“Prince Sihanouk is gone,” Chhuon lamented to Hang Tung in private.

“A shame,” Hang Tung answered.

“Yes, I suppose,” Chhuon said. He was confused. Bewildered.

There was no chaos in Phum Sath Din. In three weeks of Khmer Viet Minh control, life had changed little. Information flow in and out of the village had been further reduced, and the land tenure system, said to be temporary, was in flux, but activities in homes, the market, the pagoda remained as before. What was happening in Paris, Moscow, Peking was unknown, but that had been of concern to only a very few. The radio announcement that the Cambodian National Assembly, all members of the Prince’s own political party, had voted ninety-two to zero to withdraw confidence in the monarch, that the monarchy, the entire governmental system, had been deposed, shocked all. Yet they did not react, could not react, were not allowed to react.

Phum Sath Din, which had never known as much as a one-man police force now harbored an eighty-man platoon. And with Khmer Viet Minh entrenchment the NVA set up a new base camp and way station in the forest to the northeast. The village, which had never had a formal government other than a council of elders and a part-time administrator, now had overlapping tripartite committees: four encompassing the village quadrants for work and defense; eleven, one for each of the basic cells (kroms, or family groups, with ten to fifteen families per group), for political indoctrination and social change; plus a village central committee consisting of the newly appointed chairman, Cahuom Chhuon, the new vice-chairman, Ny Non Chan (of the village’s traditional Ny family), and a committee “member” from among the new people, Hang Tung.

“Now we have the yuons to deal with,” Chhuon said.

“Yes Uncle,” Tung answered with appropriate concern. “But you will see, they’re here to help us, to defend us.”

Suddenly Chhuon threw his arms into the air. “Defend us?!”

“You’ll see, Uncle.” Hang Tung paused to size up the older man. “There are riots and killings in the unliberated zones. People are butchered. But not here. Here, everything is better.” Tung spoke with quiet conviction. “You and I will persuade the farmers, teach them, make them conscious of the need for political and social change. Peasants can no longer be passive. You’ll see. Within a month, two at the most, the People’s Liberation Army will free Phnom Penh.”

Chhuon stared at Tung. His fists were clenched, his arms tense as if to throw a punch. “What are you saying?” he screamed. For a brief moment everything seemed clear. “The country’s lost its head! And...and you talk of...of what army?!”

“Our army, Uncle.” Hang Tung remained calm. “You and I shall raise an army.”

“Tung”—Chhuon felt crazy, out of control—“the North Viet Namese are here! There’s the army!”

“They’re here to help us, Uncle,” Hang Tung said. “And we’ll help them. We’ll help them win the confidence and affection of the people. You and I. We’ll achieve a perfect understanding between the people and the army.”

Chhuon shook his head violently as if the words were slime which couldn’t be shaken off. His shoulders quaked, his knees seemed to swell, to ache. The army that had killed his son and daughter, that had taken his cousin, that moved through the country at will—that was yuon—and he, Cahuom Chhuon, was being asked, asked the evening of the day his king was ousted, to help that army, to raise an army to aid the element he most despised.

“You’ll see, Uncle,” Hang Tung assured him. “You’ll see. Tomorrow we’ll gather all the villagers at the pagoda. We’ll tell them what has really happened. You must help me so no one is hurt.”

The rally did not take place on 19 March, nor on the twentieth. The village was isolated. The people waited, unaware of the explosive forces released throughout much of the country, aware of Lon Nol’s denunciation of their Prince, aware of some upheavals, of rumors that the American CIA was behind the coup, but unaware of the riots, demonstrations and fighting between the NVA with their Khmer Viet Minh allies and the national (no longer Royal) army, or between the KVM and the Krahom, who had based much of their propaganda on Sihanouk’s sellout to the Viet Namese. Phum Sath Din waited, isolated, cut off. Chhuon did not leave his house, nor did he allow Peou to leave. Sok and Chhuon’s mother prepared extra food which they hid in the family bunker. Only Hang Tung came and went.

On 21 March a Khmer Viet Minh armed propaganda team entered the village. With the militia, they requested for military reasons, cajoled with patriotic phrases, then demanded, searched if necessary, and confiscated every radio from every home. Still Phum Sath Din waited, more isolated, as if floating, a tiny community in flux, alone.

Late on the evening of the twenty-second, propaganda team members knocked respectfully on Chhuon’s door. “Tomorrow, Uncle”—Hang Tung spoke for the team—“we will have a very large rally. Tomorrow everyone will come to the pagoda. You will see that no one is absent.”

Chhuon nodded. He felt lost. There was no alternative, no place to run, no way to fight. “I’ll do what I can,” he answered.

“No, Uncle,” a team member said. “You’ll have everyone there. For their own safety, Uncle. The Americans are going to invade. They must know the escape plans.”

Chhuon closed his eyes. “Everyone will be present,” he said.

“It has been a long time since we spoke,” the bonze said softly.

“Yes. Since my son was killed.” The two men sat in predawn dimness on the floor in the small pagoda room where Chhuon had found the monk praying. Respectfully Chhuon had deposited the gifts of sugar, tea and canned milk he’d meant to bring almost two years earlier. Respectfully he’d waited until Maha Vanatanda finished his meditation.

After Maha Nyanananda was assassinated the spiritual leadership of Phum Sath Din fell to this younger monk. From him Chhuon sought the advice he’d been unable to bring himself to seek from his old teacher—unable because of embarrassment, because he had become lax in the years he’d worked as a rice trader and agronomist, because he had lapsed further in the time following the destruction of Plei Srepok.

“And in your heart you have harbored an anger?” Vanatanda asked.

“Yes.” Chhuon’s voice was low, sheepish.

“Has anger helped your son or you?”

“I, ah...n...no.”

“Has it blocked you from attaining proper recourse?”

“I...Yes. Yes it has.” For an hour Chhuon related to the monk his dream, the trip to the mountains, the military columns and all the events since. Then he said, “I no longer care for my home. The village, my life mean nothing. I renounce their value. I free myself from the pain of witnessing their destruction.”

Maha Vanatanda said nothing.

“I renounce control of my life. I’m their mouth. I give up my life freely. Still, I’m not straight.”

“You have come for instructions on calming your mind.” The monk’s voice was compassionate, knowing. Chhuon nodded carefully. “You are very agitated.”

Chhuon said nothing.

“Chhuon, when one gives in to worldly desires,” the monk said, “there is no struggle, no fire, thus no process to transform the inner world into unity. But to renounce worldly desires for the sake of austerity, for pride in that austerity, for masochism, this is not the middle path. You may sacrifice all worldly desires to punish yourself but then you have not sacrificed your suffering. If you sacrifice all worldly desires to free yourself, you shall also sacrifice suffering. To suffer to show yourself, or to show others, that you can bear the suffering is merely to demonstrate one’s attachment to one’s self. Do you desire to show everyone how badly you’ve been hurt?”

“I don’t know, Maha Vanatanda,” Chhuon lamented.

“If you crave to demonstrate your pain, doesn’t the desire create its own image and isn’t the image an illusion? Hasn’t the craving created the illusion?”

Chhuon dropped his head. “There is something else.”

“Yes.”

“They want me to lead the village.”

“The new administrators?”

“Yes.”

“They will pass.”

“They say if one cadre is injured, ten villagers will likewise be harmed. If a cadreman is killed, ten villagers will die. They’ve even drawn up a list which tells the order in which villagers will be executed. You...I thought to escape to the forest, to join the maquis, but they say if I go one hundred people will be executed. You are first on the list.”

The monk smiled. “I should be honored to be thought of so highly.”

“Should I surrender to their demands?” Chhuon asked.

“When a tree falls on a man his knees buckle and he surrenders to its weight,” Maha Vanatanda said. “This is a surrender which is not a surrender.”

A wave of anguish flooded Chhuon’s mind. Maha Vanatanda has not grasped what I say, he thought. Vehemently Chhuon said, “They hold us prisoner.”

“Time passes,” the monk said. “Do not be trapped in time. This authority will pass as have all others.”

“We’re being enslaved!” Chhuon was exasperated. “We’re prisoners!” He tensed. His knees flared with pain, his stomach burned.

“We hold ourselves prisoners,” the monk said. “If our bodies toil for them, then our bodies are enslaved, but we are not our bodies. If we let them convince our minds we are slaves, then they have enslaved us.”

“But”—the heat rose, hit the back of Chhuon’s throat—“if we don’t recognize the prison or the guards, how can we escape?”

“From which prison, Chhuon, do you wish escape?” The monk paused. “Come to your center,” he said gently. “Let your desires fall away.” He closed his eyes. “I vow,” the monk chanted quietly, “to become enlightened for the sake of all living things. Do you remember the vows?”

“It’s...it’s been a long time.” Chhuon hesitated. He clenched his teeth.

“I will cut my ties to delusive passions,” the monk chanted. Chhuon breathed deeply. He hesitated. The monk remained silent. Lowly Chhuon repeated the prayer. “I will open myself to the supreme way of the Enlightened One,” the monk droned.

“I will open myself to the way of the Enlightened One,” Chhuon said. He would try, he told himself.

“Listen. Trust your heart. If you are in doubt, listen more closely. Do not be your desires, but that does not say, ‘Do not be.’ If doubt persists, pause. Actions which are necessary will come to you.”

From the street the blare of loudspeakers interrupted them. “Trust your heart,” the monk repeated.

From the steps of the pagoda Chhuon saw two jeeps mounted with speakers, thirty, perhaps forty village militiamen, a dozen North Viet Namese soldiers wearing pins with the usual picture of Norodom Sihanouk, and scores of village children grasping for the Sihanouk buttons being freely distributed. Chhuon’s brow furrowed. He inhaled deeply, exhaled, inhaled deeply, exhaled. Trust your heart, he repeated to himself. Trust your heart. Among the children were Khieng and Heng who had stripped Samnang of his pants so long ago. Chhuon stood on the top step, alone, watching the grasping horde grow to include young adults, middle-aged women, old men, all reaching out for the trinkets. For illusions, he thought. On the far side of the village street, unreaching, watching, was the orphaned Mountaineer boy, Kpa, who as a toddler had been brought to the village to live with and help a childless couple, Kpa who had defended Samnang at school so long ago. Chhuon stared into Kpa’s distant face and saw the reflection of his own Kdeb, asleep, peaceful, without tension, without aggravation. Chhuon looked up past the overhang, through the trees into the overcast. I shall become enlightened...

“...I have been odiously calumniated and dishonored by the Lon Nol group...” The voice of Norodom Sihanouk burst from the loudspeakers. On 19 March, Sihanouk had flown from Moscow to Peking where over the next four days he had conferred with Zhou Enlai, Pham Van Dong and representatives of the Pathet Lao, Viet Cong and Khmer Rouge (both the Khmer Viet Minh and the Khmer Krahom). On the twenty-third the Prince announced to the international press his assumption of the role of leader in absentia of a Communist front (FUNK, an acronym from the French for National United Front of Kampuchea) comprising Khmer Rouge, Viet Cong, NVA and Pathet Lao forces to “liberate Cambodia from the right-wing dogs of Lon Nol.”

“...my people have lost everything...”—the speakers blasted the recorded message to the villagers—“...peace, dignity, independence, territorial integrity...”

Chhuon’s mind stopped. On the moment of clarity a thick haze descended engulfing past, present and future.

“...my people are immersed in the worst suffering, the worst misfortunes and the worst catastrophe in their history...”

Chhuon’s mind bolted, searching the fog for the patch of blue; then, as in an inner chess game, he juxtaposed a hundred pieces in imagined scenarios, played out each move in seconds, then brooded. There was no escape. He looked for Kpa but the boy was gone. He thought of the small angel house before his home which had fallen into disrepair and thought of the steps needed to repair it.

“...I can only hope for total victory of the revolution...for total defeat of the reactionary and pro-imperialist...”

“Uncle.” Hang Tung joined Chhuon on the pagoda steps.

“...the American imperialists will be beaten by the Viet Namese and our Khmer People’s Liberation Army...”

“I’m very happy to see that you are already here.”

“I’m here,” Chhuon answered flatly.

“You left very early this morning.”

“The village is large,” Chhuon said. “There are many people now. The committee requires their presence, eh?”

“...in my name...the establishment of the government-in-exile...the National United Front of Kampuchea...”

“Then you’ve notified everyone?” Hang Tung asked.

“I have sent word for all to be notified,” Chhuon answered.

Hang Tung’s lips parted into a thin smile. He watched Chhuon as Chhuon watched the crowd grow. He will obey, Hang thought. He is Khmer, he is Buddhist. Khmer Buddhists obey authority.

“...in my name...”—the Prince’s voice boomed from the speakers—“...I call on all those of my children, compatriots, military and civilian, who can no longer endure the unjust oppression, join the Liberation Army...raise up and oust the pretender regime, the treacherous Lon Nol, his lackey Sirik Matak and their masters, the American imperialists...rise up before the Lon Nol clique massacres all...join the maquis...engage in guerrilla warfare in the jungles against our enemies...the People’s Army...patriotic volunteers will provide you with rifles and ammunition. You will be provided proper military training...”

“It is our destiny, eh, Uncle?” Tung whispered to Chhuon.

“Is it?” Chhuon hid a sneer. He offered a slight smile. My body, he thought, you can imprison my body.

“Yes.” Tung smiled. “Now we are a village under Prince Sihanouk, loyal to the Prince, protected by our own army.”

“This is very good,” Chhuon said, hiding his sarcasm. He now knew that to disagree would be dangerous.

“It is up to us to shape the village, to unite it, to rid it of tyrants.” Hang Tung’s voice was smooth. “When the country is liberated all Khmers will unite.”

Chhuon smiled, his face an actor’s mask.

For nine days North Viet Namese and Khmer Viet Minh armed propaganda teams played tapes of Sihanouk’s speeches and pleas in Phum Sath Din and in Vietnamese-controlled villages and cities from Bokor to Battambang, from Preah Vihear to Prey Veng. Sihanouk broadcast his appeals via Radio Peking, Radio Hanoi, Viet Cong Liberation Radio, and Khmer Viet Minh channels urging the Khmer people to join the revolution against the republican government. The pleas of Samdech Euv, Prince Father, ignited in the rural and urban poor uncontrollable fires. These speeches were the primary stimulus for the growth of the maquis throughout the nation. Sihanouk’s words gave the Communists a cloak of respectability which they had never achieved through terrorism, conscription, or proselytizing. In Phum Sath Din, Khieng and Heng were the first of many to join up. They, like most of the nearly seventy thousand volunteers who joined the rebels over the next year, thought they were joining a new faction, the Khmer Rumdoah. They saw themselves as Royalist, not Communist.

When the world outside seems to be disintegrating a man likes to establish a solid calm within his own family. So it was that Pech Lim Song invited his second son and son’s wife to dinner on the evening of 27 March, invited them on a dual pretext: first to show them his new home and second to discuss the new national situation and its demand for new business policies. Yet the true reason was he sought reconciliation with Teck.

“The house is marvelous, Mother.” Teck twirled, waving an arm at the vaulted ceiling, the chandeliers, the rosewood balustrades guarding the second-floor balconies. He tapped his feet on the tiled floor. “Absolutely marvelous, Father,” he said in French. “It must have cost a fortune.”

The new home was a modest villa set on a forested rise (Madame Pech called it a hill) on Highway 15 a kilometer north of Neak Luong. In the ballroom the chatter was light, happy. A servant offered hors d’oeuvres, a band played traditional music on a sailing vessel-shaped bamboo xylophone to which even Sophan swayed gaily, clutching Mister Pech’s infant grandson as if the baby were a dance partner. Vathana stood alone in the darkened dining room. Through the French doors she could see the dim lights of the city reflected on the rumpled bottom of the night overcast. To the east over Boeng (Lake) Khsach Sa, the surrounding swamps and paddies, and the small but growing refugee shanty town, the night was an impenetrable amorphous black wall.

“Cost is not your concern,” Madame Pech retorted gaily. “Of course with the riel’s devaluation, why, it’s forty percent less now than when your father began...”

Vathana stepped to the dining room door, grabbed the door handle for balance, squeezed her eyes closed then opened them and stared into the night. This talk, this opulence, she thought, it’s not Khmer, it’s...but before she could complete the thought Pech Lim Song’s voice carried throughout the villa. “Let’s dine,” he said cheerily.

Vathana turned toward the ballroom. Two servants were leading the family toward her. She reached up, massaged her forehead briefly, then, smiling, stepped toward her father-in-law as the lights opened refracting and sparkling from crystal stemware and chandelier. “Outside,” she said pleasantly, “the night is as dark as it was in Phum Sath Din, and in here, it’s as lovely as the sun on the river.”

“Did you see the whole house?” Teck asked, not recalling her presence during his mother’s tour.

“Every corner.” Vathana smiled.

“Vin, Madame?” A servant offered her a filled glass from a tray.

“Oui. Merci.”

Teck raised his glass. “To your good fortune and the good fortune of your home, Father,” he offered.

“To the good health of our family,” Mister Pech rejoined.

Conversation through the six-course continental meal was stilted, limited to details of house construction and banal chatter about the infant, Samnang. For an hour Vathana sat, uneasy, sure the topic would fall to politics. When it did she felt relieved.

“I hope he doesn’t return,” Teck said almost whimsically.

“I’m surprised you feel that way,” Mister Pech said.

“You were right, Father. Under Prince Sihanouk the country was weak.”

“It was a feudal kingdom,” Mister Pech said sadly. “Warlords, barons, each governor with his own fiefdom. The coup has brought a new era, an era of justice which will cleanse the system of feudal corruption. And yet...I...”

“You, Father?!” Teck smiled sympathetically.

“I’ll miss him. I won’t miss the corruption.” Pech Lim Song listed some of the more glaring mistakes of Norodom Sihanouk. After each item he said, “And still he was the monarch,” or “Yet still there was no amendment limiting his powers.”

Teck responded with conciliatory interjections of “He was a bore,” or “How I hated his films,” or “Those endless radio speeches.” Then Teck smirked, taunted his father, “But Father, you paid bonjour to everyone. It’s the traders who caused the bribes.”

Mister Pech glared at his second son, who now lowered his eyes, seemingly intent on the food. Madame Pech watched her husband. Vathana’s chest tightened. She was about to say business was impossible without bonjour when Sophan, who had been in the kitchen with the servants, approached and whispered to her. Vathana smiled. “Oh yes,” she said to Sophan. “Yes.” “It will take a few minutes, Angel.” Sophan bowed and left.

“Perhaps,” Mister Pech said when Sophan was gone, “you’re right. I wish it hadn’t happened as it has. I wish he weren’t humiliating himself and disgracing all Khmers with his Communist babble. La sale guerre, eh?”

Teck did not respond. Mister Pech tried to control his irritation but the absence of reaction made him seethe. “He was like a father,” Pech Lim Song said, “but a father who, though he sees to their needs, keeps his children locked in separate rooms so they neither mature nor unite. Now that he’s gone the feudal system will pass. The children will be free.”

“Free?” Teck blurted. “To mature? Are they prepared for that?” He smiled to soften his words. “Is the army ready for Lon Nol’s ‘holy war’? Are they ready to drive out the ‘evil ones’? If the new father is also a child, can the children become adults? Are you ready for it, Father?”

“I’m prepared to do what must be done,” Mister Pech said flatly.

Lightly Teck slapped the table. “Father! The country still has a feudal regime.”

“No,” Mister Pech said firmly. “It has passed. The National Assembly’s given only emergency powers to the prime min...”

“Sisowath Sirik Matak and Lon Nol!” Teck said the names as if they were an accusation.

“Yes,” Mister Pech said. “Your mother’s a Sisowath. This is good, eh?” Mister Pech cited the attributes of each man, then named other statesmen and listed their good deeds.

Teck countered each. “They instigated the coup...A bumbler....He’s of the old order....He’s as corrupt as Samdech Euv.”

“Bumbling! Corrupt! Do you think anyone can come in”—he clapped his hands—“like that! Take over like that! Without difficulties! Certainly, they scramble for support. I’ve been assured Lon Nol has even sent the Prince a private memo requesting his return, asking him to assist in expelling the Viet Namese.”

“Father”—Teck shook his head—“not one of those men has the intelligence, honesty or ability you have. If you ran the country, maybe there would be a chance for real reform. But you don’t. You stop short of involving yourself. We’ve only traded one king for another, and this one, he’s suspended the Bill of Rights. Now they arrest whomever they please.”

“At least he’s not aiding the Communists. He’s not leading the Viet Namese takeover.”

Vathana put her hand over her husband’s. She had been silent during much of the discussion. Now, with the security of belief in her opinion, she said emphatically, “Under Prince Sihanouk our shelter was ignored by the government. In nine days of Lon Nol we have been requested to file forms for assistance. All month new refugees have come to us. They’ve been bombed and attacked by Viet Namese.”

“They’re bombed by Americans.” Teck jerked his hand from under his wife’s, embarrassing her.

“The rivermen feel safer, too,” Vathana said. “If they call for help, someone responds.”

“As Lon Nol says,” Pech Lim Song said, bitterness creeping into his voice; “Sihanouk is a demon sent by the king of hell to destroy Buddhism.”

“Lon Nol is an American agent.” Teck did not disguise his anger.

“Well.” Madame Pech laughed. She tapped her long finger nails nervously on the table. “All we can really do is sit and wait to see what the Americans do, eh? If they decided to, eh? they could line up shoulder to shoulder on the western border and march east consuming everything like locusts. Or march east to west? Which is it? They do surround us, don’t they, mon cher? Thailand and Viet Nam are their satellites just, as the Communists claim. Oh dear!” Madame Pech turned to her daughter-in-law. “I must admit though, I would love to meet some Americans. What about you, Vathana? I understand in Saigon they throw the most extravagant parties.”

Softly Teck said, “Mother!”

“I mean with you, of course, dear. Just think of their wealth. Oh”—Madame Pech switched from French to English, which neither her husband, the young couple nor the servants understood—“to be as rich as an American!”

“You’ll do well with an American presence,” Teck said, ignoring his mother’s foreign phrases. “They always bring lots of money.”

“Then you also shall do well, husband,” Vathana said. Her face was calm but inside she was tense, angry—deeply angry still at this man for his heroin slumber the day she couldn’t wake him, the day she had nearly bled to death. “We’re in the same business as your father.”

“Talk of war and politics...it’s such a bore.” Madame Pech stopped the conversation. “Let’s talk, instead, of wine.”

“What is it, Mother?”

Aside to Vathana Mister Pech said, “There’s South Viet Namese and American escorts on the Mekong. And there’s talk of additional American assistance.”

“What!?” Teck yelped. Both Vathana and Mister Pech looked at him, alarmed. “American...”—he clapped his hands for emphasis exactly as his father had. From his throat burst a nervous titter—”...Lon Nol’s invited them, eh?”

“Better the Americans than the yuons,” Mister Pech said.

“It was the CIA behind the coup,” Teck snapped. “Better them!?”

“It wasn’t the Americans,” Mister Pech snapped back. “They supported the Prince. He’d moved much closer to them. This departure upsets the balance they established along the border.”

“That’s why it took them only hours to announce their backing for Lon Nol.”

“More likely the Soviets and their Hanoi clients were behind it. That’s who’s benefiting.”

“That’s who’s bene...!? The national army is seizing all Viet-owned property.” Teck’s voice cracked. “That’s who’s benefiting.”

“Still, better we align ourselves with America than with Communists.”

“Better neither,” Teck said bitterly. “Agh, Viets are only Asian Americans. They’re both expansionists. Both believe their culture’s imposition on anyone is a gift. Both are organizers, and followers of organizers! Agh!” Teck shook his fists before him like a little boy in a tantrum. “Why should I care if Americans or Viet Namese come!? Why? I should care only to kill both, to free myself and our land.”

“Humph!” Mister Pech scoffed. “How many yuons, or Americans, can you and that Louis kill from the cafes? Someday”—Pech Lim Song turned to Vathana—“he will grow up. Someday he will be like me.”

At that moment Sophan reappeared with the infant, freshly bathed and swaddled for warmth. Talk ceased. The aroma of Tiger Balm salve wafted through the room. The infant cooed, gurgled. Vathana smiled. Mister Pech’s eyes shined. “Watch,” Sophan said proudly. She loosened the blanket, nudged an arm out and placed a bamboo rattle in Samnang’s hand. The baby clumsily clutched it in a stiff hand then fiercely whipped it up and down and laughed an infant’s high-pitched snorting laugh.

As the grandfather clapped, his first servant came from the hallway. “Sir.” The old man bowed. “There’s important news on the radio. Poland has closed its embassy and in Kompong Cham two demonstrators have been shot.”

“Bring it here.”

“Wouldn’t it be wise,” Madame Pech addressed the table as the butler went for the radio, “not to take sides? If the Royalists return, we’ll live as before. If Lon Nol succeeds, well, so much the better. And if the Communists are victorious, you, my dear husband, should think of becoming commissar of transportation.” Madame Pech paused. She winked at her son, returned to her husband. “You do have contact with the Communists, don’t you, dear?”

Mister Pech did not answer. Vathana’s smile at Samnang’s antics drooped. Teck chuckled. “The Viet Namese call it attentisme. Fence sitting. Ha! I should have known.”

“It may be prudent”—Madame Pech’s voice was a sweet whisper—“to provide a little support to all sides, eh?”

“Here, sir,” the butler said, placing the Japanese transistor radio before the head of the house and adjusting the dial.

“...such a demonstration was, we are certain, the work of the Viet Cong who are masters of this kind of thing...”

“Who’s speaking?”

“A government spokesman, sir,” the servant replied.

“...incited by the Viet Cong, the demonstrators sacked the courthouse, the provincial offices. Several trucks were stolen. Some of the demonstrators approached to within three kilometers of Phnom Penh...”

“Three kilometers of the capital!?”

“I didn’t hear that before, sir. Only that a six o’clock curfew is now in force and that the army intercepted the demonstration.”

“...all patriots, especially the people of Kompong Cham, keep cool heads and remain calm...the army has been instructed to crush any further demonstrations...”

“Is that all?” Mister Pech asked as program music followed the announcement.

“Isn’t that enough?” Teck said lowly.

“The government has announced the mobilization of all former servicemen,” the servant answered. “Veterans are to report for duty. Sir, you’re a former serviceman, aren’t you?”

“I’m too old. What else did they say?”

“They said thirty-six hundred Communist soldiers are advancing on Phnom Penh. That they incited the riot. National assemblyman Trinh Hoan reported three Viet Cong columns of a thousand each have advanced to within fifty kilometers of the capital. All from the Northeast, sir. Plus six hundred from the Southeast. And sir, there is other news on VC Liberation Radio.”

Mister Pech carefully rotated the tuner until the dial lined up with a mark he’d made earlier.

“...we denounce the South Viet Namese attack into Kandal Province, which has killed fifty-three innocent people, as a heinous crime of war against the Khmer people...”

“Kompong Cham, Kandal, Phnom Penh,” Vathana murmured. “We’re surrounded by fighting.”

“...we warmly hail and actively support Norodom Sihanouk’s plan to build a liberation army to overthrow the Lon Nol regime...”

“It...it will never reach us,” Teck whispered.

“...reports reaching this station from Kompong Cham say thirty thousand patriotic Cambodian workers and peasants bravely resisted Lon Nol’s lackey army and liberated much of that city, even in the face of troops with heavy weapons raking the people with gunfire...”

“We”—Met Sar smashed his pudgy hand down hard causing papers and maps to leap from the table—“we are the rightful benefactors of the coup.” Again he smashed the table. He leaped up. “It must be ours.” In the empty warehouse his shout sent a whiplash of spittle slashing across the floor. “The exact stinging red ants against whom the coup was staged...the crocodiles...they profit because we are not properly organized.”

He strode left, right. He stopped before a wall map of Kompong Cham then before a poster of Mao, stopped staring like a rabid rodent into Mao’s eyes, swishing away, huffing so angrily as to choke on his words before the first syllables escaped his spit-wet lips. “Yuons!” Sar exploded. “Ingrates! Ally, humph!” He spun, crouched, as if ready to grapple with the first thing that moved. “North Viet Namese and lackey Khmer hooligans brainwashed in Hanoi! Why!?” He sat. Banged both fists on the report-strewn table. “Because they’ve got microphones. They’ve got speakers. They’ve got buttons!”

Met Sar untied the krama from his neck, wiped beads of anger-sweat from his high forehead. “That vindictive anoupra-cheachon, that subhuman king-father, Samdech Euv, siding with the very scum that led the coup, willing to destroy the country for his own vengeful pride.” Met Sar cleaned his lips and chin of saliva, his eyes of tears, his hands of moisture he found odious. He straightened the table, his tunic, his hair. At the door he calmly said to an aide, “Fetch the agents. Keep the Chams in the bunker. This isn’t for them.”

Thirty-five air miles from the border, Kompong Cham (City of the Chams) held Southeast Asia’s highest concentration of the ethnic remnant of the Kingdom of Champa, an Islamic-Hindu state which had flourished along the South China Sea until an expanding Viet Nam had wiped it out in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century city-by-city genocidal attacks. Throughout the late 1950s and into the sixties Kompong Cham was turbulent. A strong, if disorganized, Cham autonomy movement had been held in check by a ploy of Norodom Sihanouk and his Royal manipulators. They offered the ethnic masses meaningless local sovereignty while covertly prosecuting rising individual leaders who espoused ethnic unity. The Prince’s image amongst the Chams had been that of a benign dictator, a benevolent protector who held in check the ruthless ethnic Khmers. Yet despite that image, the Chams lived in fear. To counterbalance superior Khmer numbers, they entered into an informal alliance with the Communist Viet Namese, whose long-established encampments in the surrounding forest impeded Khmer domination. Though the best-educated Chams (and Krahom and Khmer Viet Minh proselytizers) had been aware of Sihanouk’s ploy, prior to the coup they had been unable to sustain a movement amongst the Cham people. With Sihanouk’s ousting, fear of ethnic Khmers increased. When government troops pulled down the last Sihanouk posters, the Chams, along with many local Khmers, went wild.

Met Sar rose like a prophet before the rank of agents. The Center had ordered him to come to Kompong Cham, to take direct command of the Krahom operatives, to infuse the nationalistic movement with a sense of urgency. Over the years, the Krahom had patiently built an extensive network of spies and proselytizers, yet here, in ten days of post-coup strain—ten days in which the NVA and the Khmer Viet Minh had overtly taken control of fully forty percent of the country, contested thirty percent and threatened what remained—even his closest and most trusted agents were cracking, turning.

Met Sar surveyed the agents with cool passion. A third, mostly older men, wore net masks to keep their identities secret; a third, mostly young men and women, stood boldly; a third, mostly boys trained on Pong Pay Mountain, stood armed.

“The Chams,” Met Sar said in a fatherly voice, “are a river. The power of their flow is unstoppable yet the direction of the flow is controllable. Accommodate yourselves to their power while you struggle to direct the flow. Move rapidly before others establish levees. Only we have the good interests of Kampuchea in our hearts. We, not new government functionaries, not alien invaders. Do not group us with the Communists. We alone are the nationalists.”

Met Sar paused. He stepped lightly to the first file and with his pudgy hands warmly grasped the hands of a masked agent. He moved down the line squeezing each man’s or woman’s hands in a bond of fidelity to the cause, the Movement. As he embraced his followers he said, “For each of you there are buttons with the portrait of Norodom Sihanouk. Flow with the river, lead the river, do not fight its power. Denounce anyone who denounces Sihanouk!”

“Denounce?” a young woman gasped.

“It is essential,” Sar said so all could hear, “that everyone be conscious of the purpose of the riots. Lower the riverbed in the direction of desired flow. Let the Viets lower it where our desires are the same. They will try to move their people into key positions. They will try to conscript the young. We will use the same tools but at the last we will snatch away the prize.”

As Sar worked the second row an armed yothea hissed, “They are pitiful snakes.”

“Don’t underestimate the yuons,” Sar said. “Exploit their strength and we will achieve promising successes. Without us, their actions constitute a foreign invasion. They have accelerated their Campaign X, already proceeding throughout the nation.

They invoke Sihanouk’s name while they launch attacks against national forces. In the North, in the Northwest, their aim is to occupy as much territory as possible, to expand their so-called Khmer Viet Minh revolution. In the East and Northeast their goal is to protect and further entrench their supply lines and sanctuaries. They have pulled four divisions from duty in the South for combat in our fatherland. Do not underestimate them!

“With us, their actions become civil war. Lead them as well as the people. The regime must be destroyed. Then all enemies shall be crushed and we shall establish a true and pure nation of Khmer and Cham.”

Met Sar’s voice was soft, fervent, as if he alone possessed truth. He continued to the last man in the last line. There he stood before Met Nang. “We are the sole authentic representatives of Cambodia’s people.” Met Sar grasped Nang’s hard hands. “Urge the people to demand their civil rights, to intensify their efforts in the name of the revolution. Whisper to them...tell them Hanoi sees the ousting as a rare opportunity to force the political collapse of Kampuchea. Tell those who are ready to hear that many NVA units, under the control of COKA—why should they have a Central Office for Kampuchean Affairs?—tell them Le Duc Anh, who heads COKA, tell them Le Duc Tho, who directs the Central Kampuchean Affairs Commission of the Viet Namese Communist Party’s Central Committee, tell them these men have ordered their military units to focus on Cambodian targets. Tell them Hanoi exploits the Prince.”

“What should we tell them of the bombings?” Nang’s voice, like his hands, was hard.

“The bombings?” Met Sar was caught off guard.

“The American dogs are bombing more and more along the border. They extend the bomb line...”

“How far?”

“Sixteen kilometers into the interior. The yuons are using it in their propaganda. They’re telling the people Americans are invading.”

“Float in the river, Nang.” Met Sar returned to the front of the room. “If the flow is strong, accommodate yourselves to it. It can only embarrass the Phnom Penh puppets to invite the imperialists. People will rush to join us.” In the back row Nang twinkled under Sar’s mention of him by name.

“We must struggle to serve the people,” Sar continued. “Struggle to serve the revolution, to stimulate the contradictions of the feudal system, to establish the peasant-worker alliance. We must gain momentum, retake the leadership of the maquis. The people, only the people, can shape the course of our future.”

The streets of Kompong Cham were littered with debris from the riots of 27 March yet the refuse was but a pitiful precursor of what was to come.

Nang squatted at the edge of a mob of two thousand. Quietly he snatched the pant legs of boys he felt he could influence. From outlying areas, from urban hovels, from the best homes, farmers dropped their hoes, fishermen left their nets, tradespeople abandoned their work and merchants their wares. First a thousand, then three, five, ten, pouring, again, into the streets, again, rising like the tide. Twenty thousand, thirty, Khmer and Cham, finally by midafternoon a floodtide of forty thousand people joyfully, tearfully waving placards of Norodom Sihanouk, chanting his name as they milled about the center of town. Then they broke, erupted, violently looted any home, any business without Samdech Euv’s face displayed.

“Here, Brother, a button for you. Come with us.”

“Eh?”

“Join us,” Nang said. “You too, Brother. Come with me.”

“Who are you?”

“Forget that kid. Come on. There’s a government house in the next block.”

“Let him go,” Nang said to the first. “Come with us. Lon Nol’s brother is near.”

“Forget him. He’s crazy.” The two ran off with the mob.

About Nang thirty boys had gathered. “Are there riches?” one asked. He wore a white collarless shirt, like all Cham males, and a green and white checked turban. Others spoke quickly:—six, eight, ten at once. “How can we do it?” “Is he sure?” “He’s Khmer.” “He favors Sihanouk.” “I’m going to ride a Honda.” “Why not?” “He says he can give us guns. I don’t like that.” “I do!”

“We’ll use the guns,” Nang said, “to smash the feudal apparatus and destroy the running dogs.”

“How?” the boy with the checked turban asked. “We know nothing of fighting.”

“One learns warfare through warfare.” Nang smiled satanically.

“You know warfare?” a boy of sixteen challenged.

“I can teach you how to set explosives,” Nang answered.

His eyes gleamed. “I’ve blown up Viet Namese trucks, American tanks.”

“Yeah, sure you have,” the older boy mocked. “Come on,” he said to the others. “We’re missing the march.”

Another older boy demanded, “Where are these guns?”

“He doesn’t have any,” the first said. “Come on!”

The older boys ran off to the main demonstration leaving the youngest, the most pliable, and the boy with the checked turban. Nang ached. Easily, he thought, I could have ripped out the older one’s throat. That would show them all.

The nine-, ten- and eleven-year-olds followed Nang. They were small, so small that when Nang brought them to his cache of clubs the sticks seemed long and unwieldy in their hands. “You said guns,” the boy with the checked turban snapped.

Nang could not hold back. He expanded before the boys, the chameleon transforming from ratlike urchin to apelike yothea, shedding the stoic exterior he had maintained at the earlier rejection, revealing to his charges piercing resentment, ready to pulverize the next challenger. “We’re here to transform the country,” Nang seethed. He raged hysterically about CIA and NVA collusion, about rightful benefactors. He warned his recruits of Viet Namese “sophisticated lying techniques.” He told them stories of American atrocities.

“Now,” he ordered, “follow me! We’ll join the others.”

Seven hundred strong, a battalion formed by forty agents, they merged with the mob, pushed the mob toward the new governor’s house and set it ablaze, marched the mob to the government offices where civil servants either fled, rallied to the rebel side or were beaten to death. Students and teachers, blamed for Sihanouk’s ousting, were hunted, dragged down, executed.

Attempting to escape, Lon Nil, brother of the new head of state, was captured and dragged by the feet behind his sedan, dragged over the rough roads as angry demonstrators kicked and stomped his broken body. Before the governor’s house Nang lunged at the body. His small platoon surrounded him, cordoned off the area. From beneath his shirt Nang pulled a bayonet. Immediately he sliced the official’s belly, then reached in, hacking at tissues and organs until he, Nang, held the liver, the seat of the human soul, high above the corpse.

“Follow me.” Nang sprung through the cordon, his band, trailing him, a merry snake dance to a roadside cafe.

“Cook it!” Nang ordered a quaking vendor. “Cook it!” the boys shouted. Nang leaped behind the stand, slapped the organ on the hot grill. The liver seared noisily. Nang shoved the vendor aside, slashed maniacally at the smoking meat. Then he scooped it onto a tray and darted amongst his boys distributing chunks to be eaten.

From the mob, “To Phnom Penh. To Phnom Penh.” Wild chanting. “Long Live Samdech Euv!” Frantically, cars, buses, trucks, motorcycles were commandeered. For four hours, as the city smoldered, a manic mob fled, a ragtag convoy, a ten-mile-long column of enraged citizens parading by the city’s inert west army garrison.

Two hours before midnight the column crossed into Koh Ky twelve miles from Phnom Penh. There the national military finally reacted. First the high screams then the explosions, 105mm howitzer shells rained down on the people. Then the horrible, loud growling T-28s strafed them. The multitudes scattered leaving sixty dead on the road. From Kompong Cham, finally with orders, west garrison soldiers caught the tail of the column. They drove into the stragglers, shooting, killing ninety, arresting hundreds. Nang gathered his shocked recruits, led them through paddies into the forest. The boy with the checked turban was dead.

Sullivan could not sit. Nor could Huntley. Conklin was hunched by the radios with his Viet Namese counterpart, Re. He was flipping through a three-week stack of newspapers and magazines he’d received that morning from his father. Major Travis, Quay and Lieutenant Hoa sat at the small field desk in the operations bunker perusing the stack of reports. Re adjusted the tuner for reports in Khmer. Takeo City, the provincial capital of Takeo Province, only twenty miles from the border, twenty-two miles from their position, was under heavy NVA attack.

“God damn it! Sit down, Sullivan.” Major Travis wanted to sound as if he’d risen to the occasion.

“I can’t,” Sullivan snapped.

“Sit down,” Travis snapped back. “We’re all antsy. That damn pacing only makes it worse.”

“How many have come in?” Sullivan stood between Lieutenant Hoa and Sergeant Quay. There were no more chairs.

“Many,” Quay said. His voice was high-pitched. “A forty t’ousand.”

“We must have ten thousand in our own compound,” Travis said. “It’s like a goddamned pipe burst. We’re being absolutely inundated.”

“Boy, those bastards are good,” Sullivan said. He wiped a hand over his face, then through his hair. “Those Commie bastards’re rolling that country up like...” He snapped his fingers three times.

Huntley laughed. He lumbered toward the table. “Not accordin’ ta them, L-T,” he said. “I seen the news. They still say they ain’t got no units in ol’ Cambo. No designs on the country.”

“I knew it.” Sullivan smacked his right fist into his left palm. “I told Conklin a month ago. A mess. They’d make a mess.”

“And you wanted me ta go,” Conklin piped up. “Me, thirty-three and a wake-up, with a fine young woman waitin’. Hey, listen to this. ‘The Vietnam Moratorium Committee, a leading antiwar organization, citing President Nixon’s April 21 announcement that 150,000 more U.S. troops will be withdrawn by April 1971, has disbanded and closed its doors.’ ”

“They need our help,” Sullivan said.

“Who?” Conklin looked up from his papers.

“The Cambodians,” Sullivan said as if Conklin had gone off his track. “They’re the key to the war, but without us...Damn! They’re attacking Viet civilians, running from the NVA. They’ve got to be turned around. They need advisors.”

“That’s exactly what this report says.” Major Travis flipped a few pages. “ ‘...in the event negotiations...’ ”

“Na-go-tiations,” Quay injected. “Humph!” “ ‘...fail, the NVA/VC will support the Khmer Rouge in guerrilla attacks against Lon Nol’s...’ No, that’s not it. Wait one.” Travis paged through the document. “Here it is. ‘The NVA is in a position to collapse Phnom Penh and turn all Cambodia into enemy territory. Communist forces have taken or threaten sixteen of nineteen provincial capitals. They have cut, permanently or temporarily, every major road, rail line and waterway to Phnom Penh. If the President does not respond immediately, the Cambodian domino will fall.’ ”

“Back to square one,” Sullivan said. “November ’65. Back to the first battle of the la Drang. Shit!”

For an hour the men reviewed reports of Cambodian riots and battles. Antigovernment riots on 19 and 23 March, Prey Veng and Takeo provinces. Suspected VC instigation. Anti-Viet Namese riots in every major city. How would this affect South Viet Nam? Racial animosity was already high. This added a new, tangential dimension to the anti-Communist war. On 27 March three thousand NVA regulars attacked the Cambodian town and garrison of Svay An Dong in Prey Veng Province; other NVA units hit Prek Chrou in Kratie Province; and South Viet Namese Rangers, on their first cross-border assault (1.8 miles) raided a 300-man NVA camp at Vinh Xuong in Kandal Province, killing fifty-three enemy. On 29 March, NVA units again assaulted Cambodian army outposts along the southeastern border. The next three days, in conjunction with Cambodian national forces and with American tactical air support, ARVN units engaged major elements of the NVA 5th and 7th divisions near Mimot and Snuol and the VC 9th Division (consisting of ninety-five percent Northern replacements) along Cambodian Highway 7. More ARVN forays occurred on 4 and 5 April. More NVA attacks hit Cambodian towns: on the sixth, Chipou in the Parrot’s Beak; on the ninth, FANK (the French acronym for Forces Armée Nationale Kampuchea, the government’s forced) totally abandoned Svay Rieng Province to the NVA; on the nineteenth, Cambodian forces relinquished Saang in the heartland, closer to Phnom Penh than to the border; on the twenty-first Snuol fell as did several towns in Siem Reap Province in the far west, more than two hundred miles from Viet Nam. The North Viet Namese consolidated their total hold on Svay Rieng Province and their partial hold on Kampot, Takeo, Kandal, Prey Veng, Kompong Cham and Kratie provinces—adding those areas to the provinces of Ratanakiri, Mondolkiri and most of Stung Treng. In all areas where NVA units were reported to have seized district towns, they had allegedly expelled Khmer peasants and taken control of roads and waterways. In addition, manpower and materiel buildup estimates showed “the largest manpower move thus far of the Indochina war.”

In response the ARVN launched its first significant thrust into Cambodia, Operation Toan Thang (“Total Victory”) 41. From 14 to 18 April, two thousand South Viet Namese soldiers attacked NVA sanctuaries in the Angel Wing area, one mile from the border. On the twentieth, the ARVN again crossed the border (three miles) into Svay Rieng Province.

“That’s not support for Cambodia,” Sullivan said.

“No?” Lieutenant Hoa was surprised at Sullivan’s comment.

“We’re just extending our buffer zone,” Sullivan said. “This isn’t going to shore up Mister Lon’s government.”

“What do you want us to do?” Major Travis said.

“Exactly what our team does here,” Sullivan said.

“Hey,” Conklin broke in. “Here’s a good one. ‘Senate Democratic leader Mike Mansfield is leading the opposition to any extension of American military aid, no matter what the form, to Cambodia.’ Let’s see. ‘Other opposition to Lon Nol’s appeal comes from Senators Frank Church of Idaho and John Sherman Cooper of Kentucky.’ Ah, Cooper...Cooper-Church...seeking a congressional ban on U.S. soldiers in Cambodia...”

“You’ve got to be kid—” Sullivan began.

“America wants much to go—” Hoa also began.

But Conklin continued, “ ‘...a prohibition similar to one passed last year regarding Laos and Thailand.’ ”

“Sir,” Sullivan addressed Major Travis. “When American advisors go into Cambodia, I want to be with the first team.”

The team leader looked up into Sullivan’s face. Before he could respond, Ron Huntley said, “Me too, sir.”

The week-long early burst of monsoon rains broke and the evening air was no longer oppressive. Sophan squeezed the infant tightly to her bosom as the gawking mob pressed them against the piling at the end of the pier. “Please.” Vathana used her back and shoulders to push back against a teenage boy. “Please! You’ll force us into the river.”

An hour earlier the pier had been deserted and only the chattering of river birds and the imposing beauty of the jacaranda trees thick with deep blue-red flowers had diverted their attention from the serenity of the Mekong. The two women, the slight young mother and the older, stocky wet-nurse, sat touching, holding each other’s arms, massaging the infant’s legs and arms, breathing full breaths of air as if they’d been locked away in a dank cellar and only just released—the younger woman pouring out her trepidations as the sun dropped into smoke-gray overcast, its rays first streaking through cloud clefts, then bursting like fire, refracting from the cloud base, glistening off leaves and buildings, barges and cross-river swamps, glittering like glass shards on the rippling surface of the brown river.

“We’re an island now,” Vathana had whispered. Her preoccupation with the events of the past month obscured her vision of the spectacular scene unfolding. “Worse. More like the overcrowded life raft of a sinking ocean vessel.”

Sophan answered tenderly. “Yes Angel. An island. A lifeboat. An outpost. With Svay Rieng abandoned the front is less than twenty-five kilometers away. How can one trust that Lon Nol?”

“Sophan, the refugees. I can’t keep up with them. Every day more. I can’t even count them.”

“Must they be counted?”

“Yes. It’s the only way to get them food.”

“What does your husband say? Oh. Look up there. All those birds.”

“Like always. He says it won’t reach us. The army, he says, is very strong at protecting enclaves. Enclaves! That’s what we are. He says each day the army becomes larger. Seventy thousand have volunteered.”

“Do you see the birds, Angel?”

Upriver, in the distance, a massive flock of gliding black dots circled and swooped. “Yes,” Vathana said. “Mister Pech says if the Communists try to take any major cities, the Americans will come to our aid. Yet even now the Viet Cong hold the riverbanks. I don’t dare sail the barge.”

“What’s floating up there?”

Vathana strained to see the upriver flotsam or debris but could only make out a blackish gray clog in the brown water. She told Sophan of the most recent refugees as the wet-nurse cuddled the baby, cooed softly to him so his mother’s fears would not be sensed and frighten the child. Vathana shook her head slowly. “I don’t know what to believe,” she said. “Some of the rice farmers say the Viet Cong expelled them. Some say they fled terrible bombings. Some want to help the Khmer Rouge. Some want the army to kill all the Viet Namese. Sophan....Sophan, you’re so compassionate. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Or I without you, Angel.”

Vathana shook her head. “It becomes more difficult to buy rice just when we have more refugees to feed.”

Suddenly Sophan shook. Her arms became rigid, her neck spasmodic. A shudder transformed her soft face into a ghoulish mask.

“Everywhere people say the North Viet Namese have set a course to capture Phnom Penh....Sophan! What is it?” Vathana lifted the baby from the older woman’s frozen hands. “Sophan!”

“I...I don’t know.” The spasm passed, leaving her limp. Along the street, at the upriver levees and piers, from the market stands with their geese and fish and vegetables, a hush, then a cackle, a hush, then a building commotion.

Vathana saw people surging toward the first pier. She heard unintelligible shrieks. She clasped Sophan’s thick right hand with her delicate left as she hugged the infant. Squawking birds thick as swarming gnats swirled toward them as the grayblack clog floated closer. Youngsters sprinted down the pier to get the best view as the mass approached. Behind them, young adults then younger children and middle-aged women, and behind them like a final wave the old men, mostly refugee peasants, and the old women, a thousand in all pushing onto the pier, those in back surging, forcing those in front to the very edge, against the tops of the pilings driven into the river muck supporting the old wooden pier.

“Please!” Vathana repeated. She had handed her baby back to Sophan and was now trying to protect both from the mindless wall of flesh. “Go in front! Let us out!” Vathana’s voice was firm, authoritative, yet it was lost in the mass of tittering, jostling people.

The last of the sun was upon the water and the clog. Vathana’s mouth slackened. A hush fell over the front of the mob though those behind continued their noisy positioning. Below her, bumping the piling at the water surface, out across the main channel and still coming from upriver like a single fetid swollen blob, eight hundred bodies, the mob-executed Viet Namese men of Chrui Changwar, hands tied behind their backs, heads with faces, sides or backs blown off, floating lashed together like a raft of meat logs. Vathana tried to close her eyes. Yet her face drained of energy. She stared. Bodies bloated with decomposition gasses hissed at her, at all the gawkers, as they slowly spun in the current. Open-eyed corpses stared at her with gray fogged orbs glistening as riverwater lapped the faces then trickled like tears back into the Mekong. Naked bodies, bellies so swollen that genitals disappeared as if swallowed by giant expanding balloons, sickened her. Gaping jaws frozen in death fears flashed broken-toothed fiendish smiles at her. A body’s leg snagged the piling against which the two women were pressed. For a moment it seemed as if the entire jam would stop. Then the pressure of the other bodies in the current overcame the snag. The legs stretched apart until the body ripped at the hip and anus and the regatta from hell, reviewed unwillingly by young mother and old wet-nurse, floated on.

“Blessed One”—Vathana squeezed the Buddha statuette on the chain about her neck—“be compassionate.” The mob pressure ceased as those at the back scurried toward downriver piers to view that which they ever after would wish they’d never seen. “Compassionate One,” Vathana whispered as she removed the necklace, “bless us. Enchanted One”—she placed the amulet about her son’s neck—“what is to happen?”

“I can’t fucking believe it,” Sullivan said. “One more fucker fuckin’ ’em in one more fuckin’ way.” He had gotten drunk after hearing the tape and reading the stories and the operations and intelligence reports and reducing them to his own analysis.

Eight hours earlier he’d been elated.

“Gawd damn!” Ron Huntley had bellowed. “You shittin’ me?!”

“Nope,” Conklin had said. “I’ll tell you the whole thing when the L-T gets in. I recorded it off AFVN.”

“He goina be here in zero-five,” Huntley said. “Better crack us some beers.”

Sergeant Ron Huntley had just come in with Sullivan from an uneventful three-day ambush patrol. They had not heard the news. “It’ll take this piece a junk zero-five just to rewind the tape,” Conklin said.

“Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!” John Sullivan burst into the teamhouse. “Did you...”

“Old hat, L-T,” Huntley said. His feet were up on the field table, his beer was half gone. The recorder clicked as the tape finished rewinding.

“Man!” Sullivan threw a right-fisted hook into the air. “Man! They’re goina do it. They’re doing it!”

Ian Conklin pressed the play button and for Sullivan and Huntley it was 9 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, 30 April 1970. “It is not our power but our will and character that are being tested tonight....” The voice was Richard Nixon’s. He was addressing America, announcing to his country the incursion of U.S. ground troops into Cambodia. Sullivan pulled hard on his beer. Huntley playfully splashed some of his on Conklin.

“...We take this action not for the purpose of expanding the war into Cambodia,” Nixon said, “but for the purpose of ending the war in Viet Nam and winning the just peace we all desire—”

Sullivan pushed the stop button. “Where’s Major Travis?” he asked Conklin.

“Went up to province HQ,” Conklin said. “Ever since this shit came down, we’ve been swamped with info. He’s trying to make heads or tails of it with Colonel Trinh.”

“Play some more,” Huntley said. He pushed the button.

“...If, when the chips are down...America acts like a pitiful, helpless giant, the forces of totalitarianism and anarchy will threaten free nations and free institutions throughout the world....”

“Yeah,” Huntley agreed quietly. The three advisors listened to the President’s speech in its entirety. A general feeling of euphoria held them. Sergeant Quay came to them when he heard that Sullivan and Huntley were back in from ambush. Jovially and profusely he congratulated them. It was a wonderful time, a wonderful maneuver. Re came too. And Lieutenant Hoa came with Major Travis.

Conklin rewound the tape and Sullivan replayed it. Something bothered him. He went into the sleeping quarters and rewound and replayed it again, now sentence by sentence. Something. He asked Huntley to listen to parts with him and the two listened and drank more beers. “Something isn’t right,” Sullivan said.

“Sounds more right to me than anything I heard in a fuck of a long time,” Huntley shot back.

“But look,” Sullivan said. He leaned forward. “Look what he’s done. He’s laid upon this one battle’s success the success of the entire war itself.”

“So?” Huntley didn’t want anything to spoil his pleasure in knowing that American forces were, right at that minute, driving into Cambodia, battling NVA troops that had eluded them for years, that had struck at them and then pulled back into the unauthorized zone. Major Travis had brought back updated reports of movements, engagements and results. To Huntley it could not have been more positive.

“Damn it, Ron! Since when does an army’s commander-in-chief, on the eve of a surprise assault, announce to the enemy the time, scope and goals of his raid?” Sullivan banged his hand onto his cot. “That’s inconceivable arrogance. That’s stupidity. It’s a goddamned war crime. Imagine if, on 28 January 1968, Ho Chi Minh had announced the Tet Offensive, its scope, targets and units.”

“Oh, come on, man!” Huntley said, and Sullivan got up and left and went to the operations room and got Major Travis’s reports and studied them.

Years later John Sullivan would conclude that “the speech, even more than the action, ignited dozens of fuses, setting off eruptions around the world. Its immediate effect,” he would write, “was numbing shock, a state in which the information distributors ignored the realities of the Cambodian nation (exactly as the highest U.S. authority had ignored many of those same realities). The biggest tactical-strategic blunder in American military history was Richard Nixon’s handling of that announcement. Had America’s highest leadership not been compromised by that bungling, ensuing events certainly would have turned out differently. Had the announcement come at the Saigon ‘five o’clock follies,’ from a junior-grade officer—after the ascent of the Lon Nol government—something to the effect of ‘...also, in agreement with, and at the request of, the Cambodian national government, American and South Viet Namese forces will begin joint operations with FANK units in the border region in an attempt to clear the NVA resupply and staging areas in the Parrot’s Beak and west of Binh Long Province’...period, the explosion of antiwar sentiment and activity would have been much reduced. Top military advisors in the United States and Viet Nam had begged the President not to make the announcement a major event. General William Westmoreland had attempted to enlighten the commander-in-chief about the realities of the sanctuary area—forest camps from which the NVA could easily withdraw until the heat passed, which then they could easily reoccupy. The President’s blunder, beyond all others, represented the essence of the failure of American leadership. America’s body politic became like a person gone mad: the heart and all other organs continued to function, but the seed of futility had been planted, and the spirit needed to continue the war began its slow, torturous death.

“Some historians,” Sullivan would conclude, “have placed the turning point of American spirit at Tet 1968. Others attributed the bankruptcy of spirit to the transgression of the secret Menu bombings. These views ignore both American public opinion polls and the successes and expanding peace in South Viet Nam. The 30 April speech became the critical fulcrum of American will, Became the instigator of actions and reactions, which accelerated exponentially. Four days later the single most decisive battle of the Viet Nam War ensued, a battle with four KIAs. That battle occurred approximately twelve thousand miles east-northeast of Saigon, at Kent State University in Ohio. But before that battle tens of thousands of Americans and South Viet Namese were committed to the new Cambodian front.”

Sullivan read the first report. “On 30 April four task forces crossed the border. ARVN troops (preceded by eight B-52 sorties) rolled unhindered through Prasaut and into Chipou. Early monsoon rains have abated. The land is in a dry-season state. This has aided armored and airborne operations and favored the Allies in the border region. Guerrilla units, also moving easily, have generally fled before the ARVN and US task forces.

“A second task force, code named Operation Shoemaker,” the report went on, “launched into the ‘Fishhook’ area on 1 May. 8,000 US plus 2,000 ARVN soldiers, led by B-52 strikes and heavy artillery shellings, the column of armor [Sheridan recon vehicles, M-48 Patton tanks and M-113 armored personnel carriers from the US 11th Armored Cav, and the US 25th Infantry Division’s 34th Armor], and infantry [the US 9th Infantry Division’s 2d of the 47th, and the ARVN’s 1st Armored Cav and 3d Brigade], and airmobile infantry [the US 1st Cav and the ARVN 1st Airborne Division], have met little resistance. They have, however, uncovered and destroyed tons of enemy supplies including numerous large military trucks.

“As of 1900 hours 2 May 1970, no evidence of Hanoi’s ‘key control center, its headquarters for the entire Communist military operation in South Vietnam,’ as outlined by the commander-in-chief, has been found.

“In Phnom Penh, government spokesmen have issued the following statement: ‘We are a neutral country. [We do] not approve of this type of intervention by foreign forces.’ American diplomatic gestures of the two-week period, 16 to 30 April, have been perceived by Phnom Penh as a repeated disregard of Lon Nol’s pleas for full support and massive aid. ‘The Nixon administration,’ the Khmer spokesman pointed out, ‘instead of granting Cambodia’s request for massive arms aid, has said the United States would only join other nations in providing small arms and other equipment to help Cambodia defend its neutrality without becoming an active belligerent.’ ”

The report also stated that Lon Nol felt that his honor had been completely disregarded by the American President, who had neither consulted with nor confirmed the raids with Phnom Penh. Nor had the Khmer government been allowed to make at least a joint announcement with Washington.

From Stars and Stripes, Sullivan learned that in Washington, D.C., the Senate Foreign Relations Committee had charged the Nixon administration with attempting to usurp the powers of Congress. It had then approved a bill to repeal the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. President Nixon and his chief architect of foreign policy, Henry Kissinger, were, according to the article, in seclusion in the White House, avoiding communications with the media and Congress.

That night and all the following day John Sullivan drank heavily. He was livid. To Quay, Re and Lieutenant Hoa his behavior was disgraceful. To Major Travis, it was barely acceptable. Huntley thought he was celebrating and drank with him. Conklin sat back and chuckled, “Twenty and a wake-up. Then I’m skyin’ for the land of the big PX.”

In Washington, General Alexander Haig sent a request to the FBI to wiretap, amongst other journalists, William Beecher, the New York Times reporter who’d first disclosed the secret Menu bombings. On 3 May, Communist troops seized Neak Luong, effectively cutting the Saigon-Phnom Penh river and highway link.

They arrived at the rate of almost a thousand a day, arrived with almost nothing, some not even fully clothed. By the second of May, their number had reached twenty thousand—twenty thousand unassimilated refugees packing the eastern swamp, the edge of Boeng Khsach Sa at the low-lying rear area of Neak Luong, packing together, instantaneously creating a squalid slum, a jumble of lean-tos erected by those fortunate enough to have been given a square of thin blue plastic tarp.

“There’s no salt,” a heavy, seated woman told a pleading young mother carrying two infants. “The oil is out but we hope to have more tonight.” The mother looked helplessly at the heavy woman. One infant grabbed her mouth. As she turned and left the large tent she kissed the baby’s hand.

Beside the heavy woman sat another young mother, shoeless, haggard though lovely even in her weariness. Her eyes were large, melancholy, shrouded by mental pain—eyes like those of a wounded fawn in the forest. Behind her in a small makeshift hammock slept her six-month-old son. The younger woman did not speak except when interviewing and registering new arrivals. She had vowed to keep a sixty-day precept of silence and fasting, speaking only when she was serving the work of the Enlightened One, eating only once daily, late each night. “Your village?” Vathana spoke softly to a new arrival.

“Phum Chey Kompok,” a young man with one eye answered. Without pausing for breath he added, “Will they bomb here?”

“I don’t know,” Vathana answered, recording the man’s village in a large ledger.

“The bombing is terrible.” His speech was quick, nervous. “The earth shook like a giant was walking in the paddies.”

Vathana looked at the man. She had been hearing the same story for three days...the bombings, the bombings, the terrible bombings. She continued her list of questions then motioned for the man to move to Sophan for temporary identification and ration cards. As the next new refugee approached, Vathana bowed her head and thought a prayer. Ever since she had witnessed the corpses jamming the Mekong she had prayed to the Blessed One for help in strengthening her personal discipline and in being one with those who suffered, with the war victims, the refugees, the Viet Namese civilians and all the soldiers.

As the crisis had worsened during the last days of April Vathana had mobilized all her organizational abilities, had called on all those whom she had helped previously and had beseeched every well-to-do Khmer, pleading with them to earn merit by extending the greatest possible compassion to the refugees who streamed into Neak Luong. Thirty thousand came from Svay Rieng Province, flowing like a river, passing through, heading for Phnom Penh, though like a river current swirling at the bank, many stopped in the backwater eddy of Neak Luong’s northeast swamp. From her father-in-law Vathana secured nearly fifty tons of rice—enough to feed the camp for a week. At the main pagoda she had arranged a special shelter for young children who had been either separated from their families or orphaned. Her original programs were expanded but in days were overwhelmed. Each day she begged local officials to establish control, each day she pressed FANK commanders for supplies and assistance, each day she telegraphed Phnom Penh pleading with Madame Pech to use her influence with upper-echelon Cambodian functionaries. And each day she received only a fraction of Neak Luong’s needs. “Dear Sister, the government just doesn’t have those quantities of supplies.” “Dear Sister, no one ever prepared the army for such a crisis.” “Dear Sister, there is only so much one can do. Perhaps we will receive aid from the IRC, or maybe the Americans.”

“Sophan, we must have a medical clinic for the camp.”

“Yes, Angel, we must. But we have no supplies, no personnel.”

“Major Fernandez has captured a large tent from somewhere. He’ll allow us to use it in exchange for the barge. With the river cut it’s of no use. And the premier will confiscate it if we refuse its surrender.”

Sophan laid the back of her hand on Vathana’s cheek. “Angel,” the wet-nurse said sadly, “you’re getting too thin. You can’t help everyone if you waste away. Tonight, just tonight, you must go home and sleep.”

“Tonight, Sophan”—Vathana’s eyes flashed with the energy of total commitment—“tonight we’ll erect the tent. Tomorrow we’ll find a khrou and perhaps a doctor and from them”—she indicated the mass of waiting, milling refugees—“we’ll gain nurses.”

3 May 1970—Suddenly, in the streets of Neak Luong, short staccato bursts of automatic weapons fire. Three dead, nineteen wounded in the first enfilade. Simultaneously, at every FANK outpost—across the river where a FANK company had secured the ferry landing and roadhead of Highway 1 leading to Phnom Penh; south of the city where a FANK garrison protected Highway 1 leading to Svay Rieng, the border and Saigon; and north on Highway 15 past the villa of Pech Lim Song where national troops lined the roadway leading toward Prey Veng—huge explosions.

“They’re bombing! They’re bombing here!” Clouds of mosquitos rose from the muck of swamp and paddy as hundreds of panic-stricken refugees bolted from lean-tos, crashed through rice-mat walls, attempting to disperse, to flee from the unseen attackers.

“Tell the men to tighten the ropes,” Vathana ordered. She stood inside the half-erected forty-man canvas structure, stood calmly by one of the thick center poles. About her, watching her, those helping fidgeted yet continued pulling at ropes leading to the canvas roof.

From outside came shouts. “Bombings! The bombs...”

“All the more reason,” Vathana said flatly. “We’ll need the clinic to treat the wounded. Now pull that side tight!”

More firing. In the hot musty air inside the tent the rifle bursts sounded like corn popping in a thick pan and the large explosions seemed like beats on a giant muffled drum. In the camp the firing was sharp cracking and not only were the explosions heard and the fireflash and smoke seen, but the winds of concussion felt. With each eruption more people ran into the swamp, yet most hugged the ground or simply sat or squatted where they were, many praying, most silently suffering the hopelessness of fleeing.

“Where is she?”

“Who?”

“Cahuom Vathana.”

“I don’t know her.”

“The one they call the Angel.”

“Oh. She’s at the medical tent.”

“What? Where?”

“Up there.”

Pech Chieu Teck charged from the edge of the camp toward the large tent. He had never before entered the refugee area. The swamps, the shanties, the filthy unwashed bodies revolted him as had the street urchins and the orphanage his wife had set up so much earlier. Teck’s tight polished-cotton shirt sweat-stuck to his back and shoulders as he raced in. Twenty military cots were crammed, touching, along one wall. Forty more were jammed in five rows along the back. At the front, one table served as an administrative office, a second as an examining room, a third as a small dispensary. The setup had been efficient, quick. Within two hours the cots had been occupied and two dozen aides had volunteered to assist the afflicted. Only a doctor and a khrou were missing, and even a single box of bandages or bottle of aspirin.

Teck made no pretext of compassion. He stood on one man’s cot and quickly scanned the room for his wife. Spying her he walked over the wounded and ill, stepping on a woman’s arm where there was no room for his feet, standing on a boy’s ankle to leap across another cot to an aisle.

“Come with me.” He grabbed Vathana by the pit of her arm and lifted her from the cot of an elderly woman who complained her heart was having problems. “Come on. We’re going.”

“Going?” Vathana shook herself from his grasp.

“Phnom Penh,” Teck said angrily.

For a moment Vathana looked into her husband’s eyes. She had vowed not to speak unless it served the compassionate duty of Buddha; thus, working or nurturing she was confident in her speech, but this, this served no duty, no reason, no principle. She shook her head and bowed it down.

“Now!” Teck shouted angrily. Again he grasped her. “The damn town’s about to fall.”

About the standing couple everyone had become silent; most had dropped their gaze in respect for the Angel. “To whom?” an old man called.

“To whom?! Does it matter?”

“Who’s bombing? Is it the unseen planes?”

“It’s the Viet Cong,” Teck snapped. “They’ve overrun the ferry garrison. They’re shelling the others.” He turned his bitter attention back to his wife, bitter as though her aid to these wretched creatures had caused the attack. “Come with me! Now! Where’s my son?”

Again Vathana said nothing. She stood limply before him, passive to the hands shaking her, rag-doll calm until the child-man flung her down over cots to the packed earth and fled as he’d arrived, stepping on whoever was in his way, screaming jumbled curses. Abandoning her, she thought. Again, she thought. When I need you the most.

By dusk, Neak Luong had fallen to the NVA. Falling did not mean North Viet Namese troops occupied the town or the camp. Indeed, though various elements of attached Khmer Viet Minh with a few Viet Namese escorts did enter the town on 3 May, generally the troops hit and overran only FANK’s three garrisons and the scattered outposts, the Northern troops being under orders to maintain as low a profile as possible with the Khmer civilian community. Not until 5 May would NVA propaganda and assassination squads enter Neak Luong.

Madame Pech had fled with the first rumors that Neak Luong was the next Communist target. Teck and most of the servants fled with the first shots. All fled to the nation’s capital. Pech Lim Song remained, at ease in his newly completed villa, remained, abandoned by all except his first servant, Sambath, an old genteel butler who in his youth had served as a houseboy to the French governor, then as chauffeur or butler to various embassies and foreign businessmen. He’d been in the employ of Mister Pech for seventeen years, ever since national independence.

“Perhaps, sir,” Sambath addressed Mister Pech in French, “perhaps I should bring the automobile about. My third cousin’s son has a ferry on the Tonle Toch. We can avoid the main roads that way, sir.”

“What’s the situation now?” Mister Pech turned the volume dial counterclockwise, leaned back in the old mahogany swivel chair, he’d used since he’d first entered business.

“Both southern garrisons have been occupied,” Sambath reported without emotion. “The northside one is negotiating its surrender. At Banam, sir, the yuon devils have routed our troops.”

“And the Highway 15 outposts?”

“The far one evacuated yesterday, sir. The near one’s...well, sir, we can’t know for sure. Have you heard anything on the military channel?”

“Not since morning. That’ll be the final cut. Have there been shots?”

“Only a few, sir. My nephew’s third son sold the soldiers ice at noon. He felt the yellows were only awaiting orders. He saw a tank in the Khsach Sa swamp.”

Mister Pech said nothing. He closed his eyes, put his hands atop his head and tilted the chair back to its stop. In the weak light of the small desk lamp the film of perspiration on Pech Lim Song’s forehead shone a satin redbrown, identical in color and brilliance to the redbrown of the oiled mahogany.

“The automobile, sir?” Sambath said quietly.

“I suppose that would be prudent,” Mister Pech whispered without opening his eyes. “Only...” He paused. A country in a bowl, he thought. And only one outlet. What a position and now it’s cut. “Only”—his voice sounded exhausted—“only if my daughter-in-law can be persuaded to accompany me.”

“She’s in the camp, sir.”

“Still?”

“Yes.”

“You’ve spoken with her.”

“Her precept, sir.”

“Still?”

“She vowed for sixty days.”

“And my grandson?”

“With her, sir.”

“She’s not coming?”

“She’s a very stubborn one, sir. She’s eaten so little I fear she’ll fall to an epidemic in all that filth. She insists upon staying.”

“Then, Sambath, we too shall remain.”

Pech Lim Song leaned forward, rolled his chair until his chest hit the edge of the desk. He twisted the volume dial of the Japanese transistor radio on his left until the sound was just audible. Viet Cong radio was rebroadcasting the news of Peking’s diplomatic break with Phnom Penh. The military radio before him dwarfed the am-fm. Slowly Mister Pech twisted the frequency tuners, pausing with each click, listening momentarily to each channel, hoping to intercept the military plans of the Viet Minh, as he called the NVA/VC, or of FANK or the Americans.

“Sir...” Sambath had waited to be dismissed.

“Certainly...” Mister Pech answered distractedly. Then his face tightened. “Sambath,” he said loudly, “fill the generator tanks. Turn the lights on. All of them.” For the first time in a week Mister Pech seemed back in control. “If the Viet Namese come,” he commanded, “invite them in and serve them. The same if it be Khmer Rouge.”

With the mass death and destruction of Khmer people and Khmer property came the accelerated decline of tradition. Fewer women wore the white blouse and black skirt of mourning. Fewer men wore the black arm bands of grief. Fewer heads were shaved for the killed fathers or mothers or older siblings. It was not a matter of callousness created by the enormity of the terror which had descended upon the Southeast but more a matter of the overwhelming speed with which villages and families were changing. From great suffering comes great insight, Vathana thought. She sat on the edge of an army cot at the deepest corner of the tent. Great insight and great compassion. On the cot two women and a young boy lay listless—all with fevers, with thick nasal discharges going unheeded, with persistent black flies feeding from small scratches as if invited. From great insight and great compassion comes a peaceful heart. Vathana felt nauseous. Her thoughts calmed only a single compartment of her honeycomb mind. Carefully she swabbed the boy’s face with a tiny square of cloth she’d dipped into her bucket of soapy water. The flies swarmed about her hand then relit on the boy’s face; the water seemed to sizzle and evaporate on his skin like drops on a hot skillet. Vathana dropped the cloth in a second bucket, peeled another square from her bundle and then dipped it and washed the face of the younger of the two women. She rose, her bare feet swishing through uncleared rotting garbage and vomit on the mud beneath the cot. Again her abdomen tightened as if to expel its nonexistent contents. Vathana settled at the other side to clean the face of the older woman. Mother, she thought as the woman shivered beneath her touch, if you wake from your ordeal all your passion, all your desires will have vanished and you will have inner peace. The nausea had been constant for two days yet in her vow of silence and fasting she’d pressed on with her mission to relieve the suffering of these homeless wretches, to excise her own desires by becoming one with the sufferers. She rose. Her soap bucket was nearly empty, the used-clothes bucket nearly overflowing. Vathana closed her eyes. The blackness turned slowly, increasing the squeamishness of her stomach. Her left knee began to buckle. She opened her eyes. Righted her head. Stared at the lantern over the table where Sophan held her son as she processed another in the endless line of the uprooted.

Vathana reached the table, squatted behind the wet-nurse, dumped the dirty clothes into a large basket then held on to Sophan’s chair with all her remaining strength. “Angel! Angel, are you...? You look worse than the bedridden. Angel?”

Vathana looked up. Her face was blank. Her large eyes were sunk in their sockets. Sophan caressed her cheek. “Come,” the stocky woman said. She turned to the refugee and indicated he’d have to wait to register. “Come. Let me take you from here.” She wrapped Vathana in one arm like a young child, carried Samnang in the other, whispering to both a stream of prayers interspersed with curses. “No medicine. No clean water. Fourteen thousand people living on top of one another. Shit in the paddies. Bathe in the paddies. Drink from the paddies. Of course they’re all sick.”

In Sophan’s arms Vathana trembled. The nausea and vertigo ignited in her fears far worse than the shellings. Sophan led her slowly from the camp toward the river and then toward the apartment. The queasiness of her stomach erupted in a renting spasm. “You must eat and rest,” Sophan ordered softly.

“Sophan.” Vathana broke her vow. “My bleeding is late.”

The lieutenant’s face was dark, grim, like the ash from the funeral pyre. All night he’d stared at the well-lighted villa on the rise, stared as he directed the burial squad in the proper manner of burning the bodies of their comrades in arms, his Khmer brothers who’d been killed by the surprisingly fierce resistance of the FANK outpost on Highway 15. All night he’d prayed for their souls—haunted by the image of three who’d died with their eyes wide open, died before they’d been ready to leave this earth. All night he’d prayed that when his time came his eyes would be shut. All night he’d cursed the mocking lights of Mister Pech Lim Song’s villa and the arrogant capitalist dog who had dared him, taunted him, openly defied him, defied the Khmer Viet Minh and their North Viet Namese sponsors.

At seven forty-five on the morning of 6 May, Sambath swung the doors open, bowed, his hands raised high in respectful greeting, and invited in a KVM and an NVA captain and their contingents. “Mister Pech,” Sambath said in French, “had hoped you’d join him last night for dinner, sir. We’d turned the lights on as an invitation.”

“The house is surrounded,” the NVA captain said as if reporting a business statistic. “Bring everyone here. Now.”

“Of course, sir,” Sambath answered. “There’s only Mister Pech and I.” Subtly Sambath took note of each of the officers and scanned the villa porch. Politely he apologized for the lack of servants to feed the accompanying soldiers. “If the men won’t mind, sir,” the old servant said calmly, “I’ll serve the officers first.”

The captains made no comment. Behind them a Viet Namese sergeant forced his boot heel hard against the foyer floor tiles as if mesmerized by their quality. Beside them the KVM lieutenant from the burial detail ground his teeth.

Mister Pech appeared briefly behind the upper rosewood balustrade. In Viet Namese he called, “Chao Bac.” Hello Uncle. “At last you’ve come to liberate us!” He disappeared, reappeared a moment later on the stairs. A reinforced squad of soldiers entered the house through various doors. “Please”—Mister Pech smiled broadly—“make this building your command center. We’ve room for many. And—the best radios. I’ve arranged with Colonel Le Minh Lam for your units to...”

“Mister Pech,” the Khmer captain stopped the older man. “From your mouth comes buffalo dung.”

“Captain!” Mister Pech barked. He straightened, hardened like a general about to reprimand a subordinate. “Four American divisions are eating ground in this direction. Colonel Le has prepared”—the captain snapped his head to the Khmer Viet Minh lieutenant—“detailed defense plans”—then pointed to Sambath. Immediately the lieutenant raised his carbine. A shot exploded. The old servant stood motionless then began to collapse to one side, his left leg folding neatly three inches above the knee as his body crashed upon the tiles.

“You...” Mister Pech roared. “Colonel L—” From behind, two soldiers grabbed the magnate at his throat choking off the words, pinning his arms. Sambath whimpered.

“The first phase in the destruction of the government”—the Khmer captain spoke as if instructing the lieutenant—“is the destruction of the regime’s local authority. Do this and the central government will be isolated, unable to raise an army, rendered ineffective.” The lieutenant nodded stiffly. “He’s yours,” the Khmer captain said, and he and the NVA captain and their entourages saluted and marched out.

The lieutenant’s face was grim. He closed the exterior foyer doors and then the interior doors to the dining room, the ballroom and the hallway to the rear of the house. He walked to each slowly, moved deliberately, closing off the room with almost grand gestures. As he moved his mind cleared of thought, of feeling. He became pure duty.

“Chao Bac,” the lieutenant mocked Pech Lim Song. He walked to Sambath, whose legs were floating in a pool of blood. The lieutenant stepped over the sticky fluid, kicked the servant’s hip to flatten him on the floor, then stood on the old man so as to raise himself higher than Mister Pech. Sambath coughed. The toes of his left foot lay lifeless beneath his right arm, pointing at the ceiling. “Uncle...” the lieutenant said grimly, darkly, not mocking, not hateful, indifferent. He opened a folder handed him by an aide. “La sale guerre, Mister Pech?”

The two soldiers still held the landlord by the neck and arms. He twisted defiantly attempting to free his head but their strength was greater than his.

“You have blasphemed against Samdech Sihanouk, eh? These are your words: ‘His love for power keeps him corrupt.’ ” The lieutenant paused.

Mister Pech’s mind flashed, terrified. “Why? Why are you with these Viet Namese? They attack a neutral country. Loh Nol has declared a path of neutrality.”

“Humph! Neutral! The Politburo has declared Cambodia an active participant in the war. Thus it is a legal and justifiable target.”

The lieutenant pulled a second sheet from the folder. Mister Pech cringed, silent, settling his thoughts on an exterior bitterness—Why is America dragging its feet? They profess to ally them selves with all who resist tyranny....

“ ‘Sihanouk refuses to carry out land reforms,’ ” the lieutenant read. “Isn’t that a strange contradiction—the land baron damning the Prince? ‘The Viet Namese are two-headed snakes set upon ruling all Kampuchea. What we must fear is their hegemony.’ Your words!” Again the lieutenant raised his carbine. The two soldiers released their hold.

“Wait...”

The lieutenant fired a single round, the bullet smashing Mister Pech’s left knee.

“Hang them outside by the good leg.” The lieutenant’s voice was flat, emotionless. “La sale guerre, eh, Mister Pech?”