HE STOOD IN OUDONG, in his filthy stinking Caucasian skin, in his rotting fatigues, in his disgust, attempting, why he didn’t know, to control his exasperation and the volume of his voice. “Talk to the refugees,” he said. “We still don’t know what really happened. Talk to them.”
“Oh yes, Captain! We know.” The FANK liaison officer smiled broadly. “It is very good that you aren’t killed.”
“Damn it!” Sullivan could no longer control it. “There’s a proper system for this. There’s a way to get results. You can’t continue to fall headlong into these things without knowing what you’re hitting.” With Sullivan were a small group of frightened civilians, as filthy and emaciated as he from their months of hiding, trudging through backwater swamps, not knowing the front had evaporated, not knowing they could have safely emerged weeks earlier.
“Here”—the liaison officer’s smile pasted on his face infuriated Sullivan—“in Cambodia we have our own ways. My senior officer...”
“Let me talk to him.”
“Of course, Captain. You must clean up; have dinner with...”
“Damn it,” Sullivan barked. “Look!” He grabbed a map from a second rear staff officer. “Look, you’ve got to get to the heart of this. Your commander has a responsibility to more than the glory of command. He’s got people. He’s got...” Sullivan stopped. Ten feet to his right Rita Donaldson was snapping his photograph. “What the hell’re you doing?”
“Are you advising, Captain?” She laughed mockingly. “Phew! You’re a sight!”
“Only observing end use, Mrs. Donaldson.” Sullivan backed a step away from the Cambodian.
“Ms.”
“Hum?”
“Ms. Not Mrs., Captain. I think the photos will show you advising. You’ve been...”
“You got a real obsession with that, don’t you, lady?”
“Do you mean, I’m obsessed with following the letter and spirit of American laws?”
“God! For what, a month I’ve...” He curbed his speech.
“Yes, tell me. You were missing in action. General Cleland will be happy you’re back.”
“Back! I...” Again he curbed his tongue. “Who?”
“While you’ve been doing what you say you haven’t, MEDT had a command change. Cleland for Mataxis. Now...it’s John, isn’t it? May I call you John? Call me Rita.”
Sullivan sighed. He shook his head. “I...”
“Yes? Where have you been?”
“I’ve been watchin guys, the bravest soldiers I’ve ever known, stop an NVA charge. One guy...You bitch! I’ve been struggling to get back....Where the fuck do you think I’ve been? I watch this guy, Suong...poor fucker got greased...and you, Mrs. Donaldson! come up here one fucking hour after I get dragged from the fucking swamp and tell me I’m advising!”
“Photographs don’t lie, Captain.”
Stung Treng was symbolic. The Krahom had moved back, east, into KVM-NVA territory. The NVA had withdrawn its main force units to border sanctuaries and staging areas for duty yet farther east. The drain-off was at hand.
The Standing Committee of the Central Committee of the Kampuchean Communist-Party, the Center, infiltrated the city. Riding a wave of questionable victories they met secretly, not like animals in forest hovels but as winning commanders in conquered territory behind the new front, met in a modest wood and brick home overlooking rice fields that reached west to the Mekong. Met Sar welcomed each member. With him, smiling, her political demeanor as pleasant as the best of first ladies, Sar’s wife, Met Pon, also welcomed the party’s “old men.”
“You’ve lost weight.” Met Yon grasped Pon’s hands after passing the guards.
“A little.” Pon tilted her head slightly to one side. Her smile twitched involuntarily.
“As always you’re lovely,” Yon said. He himself was gray haired and frail. “Did China agree with you?”
“A, little yes”—Pon’s eyes fixed on the planner—“a little no. What weight I’ve lost, the Prince has gained.”
“Ha! He grows fat, yes?”
“More than ever.” Pon smiled.
Inside, the intensity of Sar’s, Met Phan’s and Met Dy’s informal talk was rising. “We’ve learned so much,” Yon heard Sar say.
Phan agreed. “When that terrifying, murderous force broke loose, our soldiers, just children, jumped into those flames, into those explosions. I”—the tactician tapped his chest—“taught many of them at Pong Pay. Ah, many died. Still their heroism saved the revolution for millions.”
Sar’s eyes flicked to the others as he spoke. “Their sacrifice makes my sense of life more acute. What greatness! What courage! The willingness to die for the future of others. Angkar must, forever, record their sacrifice.”
“And yet,” Met Dy said with bitterness, “there was the other. There was tragedy.” He turned slightly from Sar. Dy had lost a son in the Northern Corridor fighting. As the personnel chief of the Krahom, he felt as if he’d lost a thousand.
Sar seethed. “Tragedy is caused by disgraceful elements, by irresponsible allies.”
The Center’s January meeting was the most important meeting of the year. Security was tight. The entire Krahom leadership was assembled; the first planning session was attended only by the Center’s very core—the ideologues and the high generals. “They hold Kampuchea by fear, terror and ruthlessness.” There was disgust in Met Sar’s voice. “Kampuchea can be delivered only by greater terror, greater ruthlessness. Answer terror with terror, attack with attack.”
Politely Met Yon interrupted the general. “Our forces,” Yon said, “have taken magnificent steps, yet military advantage does not always fall to the successful. Until it does, the main thrust of our energies must be aimed at stimulating the internal contradictions of our enemies. Now it’s American hearts and minds...”
“It’s no longer a matter”—Met Phan shot the words at the frail Yon—“of anyone’s hearts and minds. Words are slow. We have the force.”
Met Yon rushed to change the subject. To Sar he said, “You met with the Prince, eh?”
“Meas”—Sar impatiently indicated the secretary-scribe—“has the record.”
Met Meas opened what looked like a great ledger. He recounted the formal meetings with Norodom Sihanouk and Penn Nouth. “In China,” Meas said, “there is the slogan ‘Revolution is Endless.’ Met Sar told the Prince, ‘In Kampuchea, revolution has just begun.’ ” Meas paused, glanced at Met Sar, continued. “Chairman Mao stated long ago, ‘War is the highest form of struggle for resolving contradictions.’ Met Phan told the Prince, ‘In Kampuchea, contradictions have just been broken into their elements. Now the dialectic process may surge forth.’ ” Meas closed the ledger, looked back to Sar.
“Meas”—Yon leaned forward—“I want to know more of Sihanouk. What does he do? What did he say about the battle in the Northern Corridor? About irresponsible allies?”
“We have his support,” Sar answered for Meas. “We’ve guaranteed him ours.”
“And the arms?”
“He’ll press the Chinese.” Sar turned to Phan.
“I told him,” Phan began, “the Viet Namese steal weapons destined for our armies.”
“What did he say?” Yon asked.
“He’s cognizant of yuon hypocrisy,” Sar said.
“All Khmers, I told him,” Phan continued, “need beware of the Viet desire for hegemony. He agrees. But he’s powerless. Without us.”
“It makes no difference,” Sar said, cutting the point short. “We have reached a critical moment. Perhaps, all our enemies can be defeated by destroying just one. That should be our focus, eh?”
“Who?” Meas said. “The Yankee aggressors? That traitorous Lon Nol-Sirik Matak clique? Those stinging red ants from North Viet Nam?”
Met Sar and Met Phan laughed. “For a year,” Sar said, “we’ve waited for Hanoi’s withdrawal. This is the greatest of opportunities. We’ve inherited what is justly ours.”
Phan added, “To achieve national unity we shall neutralize the propaganda of our enemies, divide those of the unliberated zones one against all and all against each other until there is confusion and no ability to withstand the Will of Angkar.”
Phan and Sar laughed again and, for a few moments, the meeting broke into paired talk. Then Met Dy addressed the group. “We reorganized the army,” he said. “We expanded our forces even while they were engaged in combat. Last quarter we lost four battalions in the Northern Corridor yet this past year’s gains have resulted in a great influx of yothea-trainees. In the northern zone alone, Met Koy notes in September he fielded five thousand fighters. Now his strength is doubled.”
“Reports from other zones are similar,” Phan said. “Along with FANK deserters, more and more recruits flee unliberated cities to join the Khmer Patriots.”
“Our territory has doubled,” Dy said. “We’ve expanded against Lon Nol and greatly against the yuon. Our population resource has increased sevenfold.”
Phan spoke again. “We were able to completely frustrate the NVA in all except the eastern and northeastern zones, and the Americans everywhere they attempted...”
“How?” Sar barked. “How have we used the Americans? Dialectics! American strength is down by four hundred thousand. Those troops once brought a false economic boom to South Viet Nam that seeped across our border. Now they’re going. In their wake is massive unemployment. Recession. Depression. Here too! As the economy worsens the lackey clique will be hard-pressed to satisfy its greed. Prices soar. FANK’s corrupt leaders steal more and more. Victims are our most vehement supporters. Organize the urban populations to prepare the way for our military advances!
“For a year we’ve denied the yuons a major city,” Sar continued. “Now we must deny them the ability to communicate their position to potential supporters. Stimulate yuon internal contradictions and isolate them from the people. Our military position must be strengthened. There’s where to use America. Assist the imperialists in destroying the yuons and assist the Viets in evicting the imperial running dogs. Public opinion is an objective factor which must be manipulated. America is vulnerable: Nixon promised the war would end. His people scrutinize his every word. Help the yuons force concessions. Be a sliver in the foot of the giant. Be a mosquito in his ear. Distract him while the wolves tear at his throat.
“But don’t publicly harm the North Viet Namese. We will beat them. Met Nang of Kompong Thom has shown all that they are not gods! But the world must witness our united front under that lackey Landless Johnny in China. Sihanouk! Bah!”
Sar stood. “Let the goal be two pronged. In prepared areas let the armies respond. In enclaves like Neak Luong and Battambang where the government still dupes the people, proceed with political offensives. As to the yuons, their flaws are our opportunities. They’re tied to preparation for a new offensive in the South. Can we eliminate that painful humiliation of COKA? FANK’s military weakness makes the republic vulnerable on the political front. Let our ideology control our actions. Our system is righteous and pure. Our strength grows. The Khmer people, all the world’s people, have become skeptical of Lon Nol and the morality of the imperialists.”
“You can go now,” Sullivan said.
“Yep. I kin go now,” Huntley answered. He hung his head. “You gonna be ah right, sir?”
“I’m okay, Ron.”
“Goddamn fuck, J. L....” Huntley lumbered over to his old team leader, grabbed him in a bear hug, squeezed him, then let go.
Sullivan returned the hug but without feeling, as if he needed to cap his emotions, as if, if he didn’t, they would break, run wild, explode. “You really got them to extend you until I got back?”
“Ah, weren’t nothin. I knew you’d make it. But I couldn’t go till I knew you’d made it.”
“Thanks, Ron.”
“Jus one other thing, J. L.”
“Yeah.”
“Mrs. Cahuom in Neak Luong...” Huntley paused. A flash of pain shot onto Sullivan’s face. “Naw. Nothin’ like that,” Huntley said, reading Sullivan. “I got word she knew you was missin’ and was real concerned. That’s all. Ya oughta take some time, go en see her.”
“Yeah. When, Ron? When?”
“Soon as you kin, J. L.”
“You’re going to miss your flight, Ron.”
“Yeah. I gotta git.”
“I’d take you if they’d let me out of here.”
“It’ll blow over.”
“Yeah.”
Huntley turned to leave, then turned back. Again he embraced Sullivan. This time Sullivan squeezed back. “I love ya, J. L.,” Huntley said. “Don’t get yerself KIAed. This war ain’t worth it. And, ah...J. L....you don’t gotta kill all the commies yerself.”
“You hold, within your bodies, within Angkar, infinite powers.” Sar paused. In the long center aisle of the warehouse, nearly a hundred top cadre and fighters of Angkar sat on makeshift pews of rosewood, mahogany, teak or ebony. They had come from all zones, though mostly from the north, northeast and east, a hand-picked elite subcore, representing their zonal army or party center apparatus. Some had been trained at Pong Pay, some at newer schools. Some were children, most were teenagers. Seven were secretly, unknown even to themselves, tapped for provisional membership in the Kampuchean Communist Party.
The themes of the general meeting rehashed the conclusions from the Center’s meeting: move with force against the KVM and NVA and seize their areas; move militarily against FANK to create ambiguity and doubt within government-controlled areas and within the minds of the republic’s chief sponsor; covertly increase Angkar’s propaganda and proselytizing in the enclaves to stimulate contradictions and weaken the people’s will to resist. But the crux of the meeting was not themes. This was Met Sar’s show, a moment for him to display his soft-spoken piety, his polished confidence. It was a stage to build his personal following, to solidify allegiance to Met Sar. In other meetings other elements—higher cadre, zone secretaries, zone commanders—would be the target audience. But in the Stung Treng warehouse the aim was to develop ties with those just beneath the zone leaders, to develop allegiances which could circumvent the chain of command when necessary.
For an hour Sar lambasted the traitorous Phnom Penh arch-antipeople fascists: Lon Nol, Sirik Matak, Son Ngoc Thanh, In Tam, Cheng Heng, Sosthens Fernandez and all others whose names and titles flowed from his cunning mind to his tongue. In a sweet voice he explained the failings of Norodom Sihanouk and the gang of exiled leaders in Peking. He noted that their sins were caused not by malicious hearts but by stupidity and incompetence. He added that although this was a family matter to be kept within Kampuchea, those sins, for whatever reason, were committed and the people had suffered horribly from the commitment.
Then Sar stopped. A mangled hand caught his eye. “We shall develop into a society where the great majority of the working class is served by all,” he said. His eyes jumped to a disfigured face. “As in China, we too shall give the people five guarantees: enough food, enough clothing, enough firewood, an honorable funeral, and education for the children.” Nang shifted. He lay his mangled right hand on his clean black trousers. Sar’s voice roughened. “For this,” he said—his eyes would not leave Nang’s features—“we must rely solely upon ourselves. Never again can we ally ourselves with tigers who are black on one side, white on the other. Kampuchea for Kampucheans.”
Four hours later Nang stood alone with Met-Sar. “You’ve sacrificed greatly for Angkar.” Sar struggled to keep his eyes from Nang’s face and hand.
“I am...” Nang began. Suddenly, before Sar he felt powerless, felt as if he’d been reduced to a robot. “...the sacrifice.”
“Angkar recognizes your sacrifice.” Sar’s voice was flat. “You’re to receive special privileges.”
“I ask nothing,” Nang responded.
Sar reached forward. He grabbed the boy gently by both upper arms. “This must be kept absolutely secret,” he whispered.
“Never has a secret seeped from my lips,” Nang answered.
Sar raised Nang’s right hand and stared at the jumbled, scarred mass. In his mind the repulsive paw reduced the yothea’s worth. Nang suspected the older man’s thought. He sees an invalid, Nang thought. An ugly pathetic cripple to be used and discarded.
“Struggle,” Sar hissed. “Struggle hard, Nang. Nothing is impossible. Let your will drive ten cadre. Let theirs drive ten leaders. Let the leaders’ drive ten squads and the squads’ drive ten cells. In that way your will multiplies and the revolution expands.”
“It is the Will of Angkar?”
“Yes. Each Khmer shall kill thirty Viets before he dies. You must drive them. Some will kill less. You must kill more to make up for them.”
“It is the Will of Angkar!”
“In this way we will regain our lands and liquidate our enemies. Indochina shall have no Viet Nam. Six million Khmers will rule.”
“I am desire not contrary to duty,” Nang answered. Inside he tensed at his own answer. As much as he loved Sar he did not like the near-magical control that Sar had over him.
“Very good. Tomorrow you shall be brought before the Center.”
Nang had not had, perhaps, never would have, an adolescence. He had the School of the Cruel. He had yothea training. Cadre training. Ever-growing combat experience. Beneath the hundred layers of barbarity still lay a small boy who had never grown up, who perhaps would never grow up, who would react to every confrontation, no matter how slight, with survival-mode behavior learned at eleven and twelve years of age, react because the very core beneath the cold layers was as insecure and fearful as a child in nightmare, was, since the scalding of his face and the cleaving of his fingers, further frightened for its own biological integrity. At fifteen Nang was, as Sar fully recognized, a perfect candidate for provisional membership. Along with Met Rin of Svay Rieng, Met Nu, head of the quickly expanding neary force, and four others, Nang was tapped for membership because he was controllable, predictable, capable of great violence without visible remorse. Sar knew the awarding of provisional status would whet Nang’s appetite and further cement Nang’s loyalty to him. Too, it would encourage others to struggle. Giving the new status to Nang was like improving the guidance system of a sophisticated weapons system. Despite his human core, Nang had reached a new automaton level—an ideologically preprogrammed intelligence capable of learning, capable of the most complex reasoning, yet still an ideopathic robotoid. Like every weapon system, inside, at the core, lay a flaw, a vulnerability, a weakness. In Nang, it was the fear, the nightmarish insecurity of preadolescence, that made him both capable of being controlled and susceptible to losing control. As older boys were shaped for the brotherhood Nang remained aloof, alone, loyal to Met Sar’s ideology; ever climbing, ever grabbing for more influence, more power, more something to sate the insatiable, to fill a void of the past that could have been filled only in the past and thus would always remain hungry and grabbing. And to it would come new confusions, new inner contradictions.
“Come Nang.” They had met, as Met Nu had suggested at the end of the general meeting, at dusk at the back door of the now vacant warehouse. For half an hour, Nang had wandered the streets of Stung Treng. There were no cars, no samlos, few carts or trucks. Where market women once had cackled behind stalls heaped with produce, fish, tobacco and common wares, there were only the wooden skeletons of stalls. Where boys and girls had lingered before dancehalls, there was no one. Where students had wandered aimlessly listening to their transistor radios there was a jeep with a tape recorder and an amplifier blaring a recent speech by Norodom Sihanouk out to the sampan village which still clung to the south bank of the Srepok. “...join with all Khmer Patriots to oust...” Distant small-arms fire north of the confluence had interrupted Nang’s concentration.
“Come Nang,” Met Nu said again. She was as tall as he, as heavy as he. Only in her midtwenties, Met Nu was the commander of the neary force, an all-girl-woman brigade of the Krahom. Nu’s skin, deep brown from years in the jungle, was lined and cracked but her vibrance made up for what she lacked in personal care, youth, natural beauty.
What’s happened to the city? Nang thought but he did not speak. A slow, steady, hot dry wind was being sucked from the mountains toward the vast central plains. In it city dust swirled. The city had fallen to the NVA/KVM without much of a fight and again to the Krahom without battle. Few of the two- and three-story structures showed signs of war. Stung Treng had not been bombed. Nothing was reduced to rubble. Still the city’s countenance was one of war weariness and depletion.
“Come back into the warehouse with me.” Nu smiled pleasantly. “I want to show you something.” Then harshly she cursed, “Did you hear that fucking demagogue say all that crap about Khmer Patriots? Someday I’ll have him under my guns.”
“Oh,” Nang said as they entered the darkened cavern, “the broadcast...I don’t listen to him anymore.”
Again Nu’s voice was sweet. “Come Nang,” she said. “Come here next to me.” She stood with him close, face to face. “I like you. Do you know that?”
“I owe you my life,” Nang said, thinking of the unnamed hamlet south of Phum Chamkar where, by holding her skirt, he’d pretended to use her as a hostage and thus kept the Khmer Viet Minh agents at bay. Her closeness made him uneasy.
Nu stepped closer until their breaths mingled in the stale air of the warehouse. “It’s okay,” she whispered sweetly. Nu placed her hands at his hips. Nang thought of countermoves, of parries, of leg sweeps. Her touch was soft even though her hands were rough and callused. “It’s okay,” she whispered again as she slid one hand between his legs and gently squeezed him. Nang stood perfectly still. He was afraid, confused. A yothea was pure. A yothea was righteous. A yothea was desire not contrary to duty. Nu massaged the growing erection in his pants, “You like that, don’t you? I can tell.” Nang’s face flashed a silly smile. Nu unbuttoned his fly. Then she took his left hand and brought it to her breast. “It’s okay, Nang,” she said sweetly. “Squeeze me. Feel me.”
Nang squeezed Nu’s breast as she lightly stroked the hard rod pressing against his pants. For him the sensations were new. Her soft firmness, the nipple projecting into the center of his palm, the warmth. With his right hand he rubbed her hip, back to the hard muscular ass, down her outer thigh. She nuzzled her face into his neck and nipped him, then turned her head and gently bit his jaw, then his chin. As she did she slipped two fingers into his pants and touched, pulled at his cock. “I...I...I am of the Brotherhood of the Pure,” he stammered, confused.
“And I, of the Sisterhood of the Pure,” Nu purred. “That makes it okay. Two pure people can do this. It’s right for us. Undo my shirt.”
Nang raised his right hand to the buttons. Nu opened his pants. Immediately Nang dropped his hand. Nu grabbed both his hands and crushed them to her breasts as she thrust her groin against him. She grabbed his right hand and kissed the stubs. She licked them. She sucked them, all the time forcing his good hand under her shirt. “These”—Nu gasped, licked the stubs again—“these are a symbol of your love for our people and for Angkar.” Her left hand was strong, hard. With it she held his right wrist and jammed his mutilation into her mouth. Her shirt was open. She gyrated her breasts against his arm and chest. She grabbed his erection and pressed it against her pants. Then she backed half a step away to stare at the manhood in her hand as she roughly stimulated her own left tit with his two-fingered paw.
In Nang’s mind a floodgate holding back the long-inundated past creaked open, splashing his consciousness with humiliation. Some of the girls already saw me, a voice whimpered. Khieng and Heng held me.
Nu opened her pants. Nang’s erection wilted. Nu mashed his two-fingered hand against her pubic bush, mashed and rammed it back and forth opening her labia. “This is your first time, isn’t it?” Her mouth was wet, juicy. “I’ll make it very special,” she whispered. She pushed him down to his knees, circled him, removed his shirt and hers. She stood before him. Removed her pants, advanced, rubbing her thigh against his scarred face. Then Nu put a foot under his cock and balls and worked it side to side, back and forth, working her big toe to the rim of his anus. “You’re such a sweet boy,” she babbled. Again she held his right wrist, now working his stubs over her clitoris. As if moonstruck Nang bit her thigh, hard from thousands of miles of trail walking, bit her as she undulated against his hand and head. “Do you think, my lovely Nang,” Nu mumbled, “that that bastard in China does this? He steals a hundred thousand riels every month to wine and dine Chinese whores while we fight and die for the people. Ooo!” She rubbed his stubs hard over her clit. “Smell me! Do I smell like Sihanouk’s whores? Oh, my little piggy. Can you smell other men on me?” She grabbed his head and forced it between her thighs. “Smell me, Piggy. Snort me. Root your nose in me, Pig. Am I a butterfly? Ummm...!”
Nu backed away, panting, spent. She smirked at the mostly naked boy still kneeling before her. “Next time,” she said as she pulled her clothes on, “I’ll make it very special...for you.” Then she left.
For a moment Nang remained on his knees staring down the length of the warehouse. He felt used, dirty, humiliated. He felt excited. He could not think. Then his mind cleared as if he simply erased all thoughts, as if in so doing he could protect himself, maintain his biological integrity. Then he thought, where’s the forklift? There used to be a forklift truck in here.
The room was dark. On a table at one end two small candles in thick glass cups flickered red-yellow. Behind the table were four men, Met Phan, Met Yon, Met Meas and Met Dy. There were others in the room, along the side walls and behind him but in the darkness Nang couldn’t see them. By his side, having led him to the room blindfolded, led him through a labyrinth of twisting corridors, was his mentor, Met Sar.
“Comrade, you bring before the Center a candidate.” Phan’s voice was cold.
“I do,” Sar responded.
“Are you his sponsor?”
“He’s his own sponsor.”
“Let him stand alone,” Phan directed. Sar disappeared into the blackness.
“Candidate”—in Meas’s voice there was disgust—“who are you?”
“I am Met Nang,” Nang answered. The two dim candles in the darkness seemed to move, rise slightly then fall. The entire room felt liquid and Nang felt off balance.
“I know of no Met Nang who qualifies for membership,” Met Dy responded.
“I am Met Nang of Kompong Thom,” Nang, said more loudly. “I am the commander of Battalion KT-104.”
“A battalion commander? That’s all?” There was a pause. Then Dy added, “Who is his sponsor?” No one answered. “Take him out of here.”
“Wait. Ah, I...I’m my own sponsor,” Nang said.
The leaders talked quietly amongst themselves. What reached Nang’s ears was “Only a battalion comm...” “...104th? Lost half his strugglers, didn’t he?” “Perhaps he didn’t fight...” “I heard some ran.” “Okay. Okay.”
“We have but two questions for you.” Phan was harsh, sneering, speaking as if Nang’s presence were an irritant. “Why should we accept you as a provisional member of the Party?”
The candles tilted again and the room seemed to shift. Nang was unprepared. The first slogan that came to mind blurted from his mouth. “I believe in what Angkar has done for me, for all people and for all eternity.” Nang hesitated. No one spoke. To fill the void he added, “I believe Angkar is a gift to the people. I praise and adore Angkar.”
“Hump!” Dy leaned toward a candle. The light streaked eerily up his face. “What can you do to advance the Will of the Party?”
“I can fight.” Nang’s words were clipped. “I can struggle. I can use my will to drive others as Angkar directs. I know how to fight the Viet Namese. And the nationals.”
When Nang stopped Meas asked curtly, “Is that all you have to say?”
Nang felt his answer was good. He stuttered incoherently.
“Blindfold him,” Phan ordered. “Take him away. The Center will inform the candidate in a short while.”
Sar led Nang to a pitch-black holding cell. “Remain here,” he directed the boy. “Think only of how much you wish to be a provisional member and of how much you love Angkar. I’ll be back shortly.”
“Met Sar...”
“I’m sorry. You’re not allowed to talk now. Leave the blindfold on. I’ll return shortly.”
An hour passed before Sar returned. His steps were heavy. At first he did not speak but only opened the cell door and sat beside Nang. A terrible foreboding swept into the cage with him. “Nang.”
“Yes. What’s happened?”
“I’m sorry. I’ve spoken for you but there are problems.”
“Problems?”
“Have you ever....No. Never mind. I don’t understand but someone has given you a dagger and not a blossom. It must be unanimous.”
“Who? Huh? What?”
“I don’t know. You received a dagger. All the others have been accepted. You know them. Met Rin. Met Nu. Even Ngoc Minh who was trained in Hanoi and surely is a yuon in Khmer skin.”
“I haven’t...”
“I know.” Sar sighed long and low. “Would you like me to attempt to talk to them again?”
“I...I...I don’t know. Would you?”
“Do you truly love Angkar? Do you truly wish to serve the Party?”
“Oh, yes. Yes!”
“Can you serve me with all your energies?”
“Met Sar, I’ve always served you. With all my heart.”
“Then I’ll try again. This has never happened before. Wait my return. If you don’t receive all blossoms you’ll be banished. It is so written.”
Again Sar left. Nang began a long torturous wait. At first he was numbed by Sar’s pronouncements. “Never before...only you...banished...” Why? he asked himself. Why? Because of my face? My hand? What Nang did not know was that all of the candidates were being treated identically, all told the same lie—a ploy designed to deepen their commitment to Angkar Leou. Yet in Nang the questioning and anguish swiftly shifted, and in numbness other questions surged. A dagger? Who would dagger me? In his mind he visualized Meas grasping a tiny carved bamboo sword from the double basket and dropping it into the empty side. Banished! What would I do? Why didn’t Sar sponsor me? That bastard. I’ve been set up. Oh...Oh shit! I have been. Nu is accepted. She talked. I’m...I’m no longer pure. Nang squatted in a corner of the cell and hung his head between his knees. Do they know? Did she tell them? Bitch! Smelly stinking whore! Wait. Just wait! Banished! They can fuck dagger holes in the dead. Meas! Hump! “Who am I?” Who did he think I was? He didn’t know? Everyone’s heard of Met Nang. “I know of no Met Nang...!” What an idiot. Or was that Dy? They didn’t know I commanded a battalion? A battalion! Morons! Prepare the battlefield. Why didn’t I know it was a battlefield? I’m part of them! They can’t banish me. I can kill them. I’ll kill them all. They...They...They’re the ones who need be banished. Who need elimination! If they’re the best, I don’t need them.
Nang stood but the cage roof was low and he wasn’t able to stand without stooping his head. Still he tried. Then he knelt, held his head high, his shoulders square, but he saw in the darkness Met Nu’s nakedness, smelled her aroma, tasted her saltiness. The vision excited him but he hated it.
Two, three, four hours passed in solitary confinement. No word. No sound. No light. No water. Nang was thirsty. He needed to relieve himself. As the hours passed his thoughts vacillated but generally they moved further and further from Angkar, from the Movement, from the Brotherhood. They had already abandoned him. Now he mentally mourned the passing and prepared for banishment. A robotic cold swept over him. I don’t need them, he told himself. What a waste of my struggling....But I don’t need them. He relieved himself at one corner of the cage.
“Nang. Come, Nang.” It was Sar.
“Where...”
“Don’t talk. Let me check the blindfold.” His voice was flat, revealing nothing.
“Are they—”
“Don’t talk.”
Sar led the boy through the twisting maze to the darkened room. No one spoke but all around Nang could hear people shuffling, sniffing, breathing. Sar pushed him, guided him forward, to the side, then turned him to face away from the table. At each elbow he could feel another standing. Then, through the blindfold he could sense bright light.
“Candidates,” Sar’s sweet ceremonious voice bloomed in his ears, “remove your blindfolds.”
Nang shoved his thumbs under the cloth and lifted. The light was blinding. All around the room men were clapping, cheering, smiling. At his right was Nu, at his left Ngoc Minh, then Rin and three men he didn’t know. The applause grew louder then slowly faded as old members converged on the new patting them on the shoulders, grasping their hands, congratulating each with great sincerity. Sar grabbed Nang and hugged him and Nang raised his arms and hugged his mentor. As he hugged, his chin over Sar’s shoulder, he stared at his mangled hand and thought, I don’t need them. I don’t need any of them.
The next morning Nang appeared before Sar and Dy. Without recognition of the previous day’s event Sar said, “Your battalion will spearhead the drive east. There is a small town”—Sar pointed to a map of the Northeast—“here, called Phum Sath Din. Just beyond it there is an NVA headquarters and hospital complex. Rendezvous with the resistance. Ngoc Minh has more specifics.”
“You have reached the age of reason,” Chhuon said. He was sitting on the step with his youngest son, Sakhon, whom they called Peou. “From tonight, you can be my assistant.” The night was clear and dark without moon or lantern light. Only a single small candle burned on the low table in the central room behind them.
“Papa,” Peou said, his voice questioning, demanding, “was Grandpa an exploiter?”
“My father!” Chhuon immediately glanced back though he knew Hang Tung was not in the house.
“He rented land to farmers, yes?”
“No. The Cahuoms always worked their own land.”
“But you didn’t. I remember when you had a truck. You drove everywhere. We had fields, so you must have rented them.”
“Who tells you that?” Chhuon lightly put an arm about his son’s shoulder but the boy pulled away.
“They say in school everyone who owns land but doesn’t work it is an exploiter.”
“My cousins worked our land,” Chhuon said defensively. “I didn’t exploit them. When I was young I worked in the fields.
My father insisted all his sons go to school and each of us moved from the paddies to more important responsibilities.”
“My teacher says nothing is more important than growing rice.”
“What about obtaining the seed?”
“That’s what she says. Nothing’s more important.”
“Does she allow you to think about where the seed comes from? About those who develop new strains? About the men who ship rice? About those who build the boats in which rice is shipped?”
“She said, ‘Nothing’s more important than growing rice.’ I think she’s right.”
“Growing rice is important, Peou, but...”
“It’s the only important thing.”
“Peou, you are still very young. What one sees is not independent of what one is.”
“Oh, Papa!”
“It is true.”
Dinner that night was rice from the new harvest, a tough dark grain with short ears cooked into a heavy paste with a few crayfish for flavoring. Chhuon barely spoke. His mother no longer ate with the others; his wife was trapped in bitterness and no longer looked at her husband. Without Hang Tung Chhuon’s conversation was restricted to chatter with his youngest son.
“Do you remember the beautiful white rice from before the war?” Chhuon asked.
“No,” Peou answered. “Before the revolution we didn’t have very much so I don’t remember it.”
“Oh, we had lots. More than...”
“No we didn’t.” Peou was staunch.
“Yes.” Chhuon responded. “We had wonderful rice.”
“That’s because you exploited your cousins.”
“Damn it!” Chhuon smacked his fingertips on the low table. “I did not exploit my cousins. You’ve got to resist their teachings.”
“You’re calling my teacher a liar.”
“Where do you learn these things?”
“My teacher says that exploiters will say that things were better before. That...” The boy became excited and tongue-tied.
Chhuon tapped his chest. “I...I am chairman here. The new seed is wrong. It’s old. It’s the wrong strain. Better suited for lowland provinces. Even the monks in the fields knew the seed was poor. I...”
“She said,” Peou, in tears, blurted, “exploiters would call her a liar. But she’s not. You’re the liar.” Peou jumped up jarring the table. He ran from the house.
Before Lieutenant Colonel Nui and Political Officer Trinh, Hang Tung made his accusations and displayed his timetable evidence.
“You’re sure?” Colonel Nui asked.
“I’m sure,” Tung answered. About them, in the NVA headquarters camp east of Phum Sath Din, was but a skeleton staff of logistics and personnel officers and workers. On the mountain below the main headquarters building the dispensary had been enlarged to hospital size. Operating and ward rooms had been carved into the earth and, aboveground, a set of hootches had been erected for convalescence.
Nui stood. He walked toward the wall, then back to Hang Tung then again toward the wall. In the village to the west there were now twenty Viet Namese families, almost one hundred people, or ten percent of the population of Phum Sath Din. They were dependants of cadre and officers with semipermanent stationing at the NVA headquarters, and their integration into the life of the village was nearly total. They lived in homes amid Khmer homes. Their children went to the new school with Khmer children. The wives “shopped” and received rations with Khmer, wives. And all suffered the demands of the army. Even Colonel Nui’s wife complained about the army’s needs and the lack of quality production materials. In perfect Khmer she chatted quietly with others while waiting in line for tins of rice. “The war demands more,” she would say, “and we produce less. With each new regiment coming south their needs increase.” To her husband she would say in private, “These people, these poor people. Must they sacrifice so?”
Nui turned, stopped. He looked at Tung. “You’re sure?” he asked again. How badly he wanted the Viet-Khmer integration to work. How badly he wanted liberty for all Indochinese under the tutelage of the obvious leaders of all Indochinese, the North Viet Namese. And how well it was working. The Americans had suffered heavy blows and were “bo-ing” Viet Nam, not simply withdrawing but discarding their ally.
“Colonel,” Cadreman Trinh addressed Nui. “Let me call him in for interrogation. Perhaps he’ll confess.”
“Of all men,” Nui lamented. He plopped down in the chair, exhausted.
Chhuon could not overtly disobey. It was not in his character, not in the national character. To even verbally contradict one in authority, or a friend or relative, was painful to both. For Chhuon his entire body would physically tighten, cramp, giving him painful stomachaches which would be followed by burning, and painful headaches which could cause his eyes to blur and his teeth to throb. Thus each directive he received from Hang Tung or Colonel Nui he followed, passed on and enforced. He had learned to keep quiet, to show no emotion, learned this as much to avoid the pain as to avoid ostracism or reproaches. When Nui was feeling harassed or was in an ugly mood, Chhuon assuaged his irritations by asking for and usually receiving extra work or extra compliance from the villagers. They too could not overtly disobey. When Nui was in a generous mood, Chhuon made requests for more lenient rice taxes or administrative control, for better rations, more oil and salt, or for less militarism in the civilian areas. And Nui, if it was possible, complied. On the surface their relationship was good. Too good.
When village resentment increased dramatically in late 1971, Chhuon openly sought solace amongst the KVM/NVA cadre and soldiers. When his wife’s bitterness forced him from the house and when his alienation from the old families hit its peak, Chhuon spent nights playing cards or listening to the radio at Colonel Nui’s. The alienation from his own home served him well. Night after night he was found wandering the village streets, so often that the militiamen looked forward to chatting with him to break the monotony of guard duty. Yet though he could not overtly disobey, he did have an outlet.
Each night he wandered in a pattern. He checked the pagoda which now housed Hang Tung’s office and that of several new officials. He sat there with the guards and smoked a cigarette. Then he meandered amongst the old market stalls, pausing here and there to listen to the chirp of the crickets, walking softly, attempting to draw as close as possible before they sensed him and ceased their forewing songs. Then on he went, between old homes and new huts to the edge of the berm where always he found a militiaman in need of a smoke. Then, particularly if he thought Sok’s laments and wails had been heard by the neighbors, a most un-Khmer embarrassment, he followed the alleys to Nui’s abode, called lightly so as not to wake the children, then entered. And often, somewhere, between the market and the alleys, Kpa or Sakhron or his cousin Sam would appear and an exchange would take place.
What joy! What elation it brought to his heart. Sam was alive, well, resisting. And Chhuon too, though he could not overtly disobey, resisted.
“what have you?” Chhuon whispered.
Without a sound Sakhron slid a cartridge trap from his black trousers and placed it in Chhuon’s hands. Chhuon did not look at it but immediately slid it into his shirt. “maha vanatanda has dug the hole,” Sakhron whispered.
“there’s a new machete at bunker six,” Chhuon whispered back. Both departed.
In the darkness Chhuon wandered back to the pagoda to smoke with the guard, then out to the berm where he quickly found the small hole in the path which led to the command bunker from which the Viet Namese cadre oversaw the militia. Chhuon twisted quickly, checked to ensure no one was near. From his shirt he removed the trap, a small circular board about three inches in diameter with a nail sticking straight up inside an attached bamboo tube. Chhuon dropped the trap in the hole, pushed it down until the board was on firm earth. Then he armed the trap by placing an AK rifle round in the bamboo tube. Quickly he camouflaged the hole. Only the tip of the round was exposed. Then he backed quietly away and fled into the alleys thinking, Blood for blood. Blood for the Holy One. Blood for blood!
“Hello! Hello! Colonel Nui! It’s me, Chhuon. Hello!”
“Ssshh!”
“Oh! Excuse me! Hello. Is the colonel in?”
“Please, Chairman Cahuom.” Nui’s wife spoke in a hush. “Both little ones are asleep. You understand. They’ve got the fever.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. My husband’s in camp tonight. I’ve just gotten the littlest one to sleep. Please, come tomorrow.”
“Of course. Please accept my...What was that!”
“Don’t wake the children!”
“I’m sorry. I heard a small explosion. Let me go investigate.”
The Khmer Krahom regimental task force had crossed the Kong River just north of the ruins of Phum Sath Nan. There they set up a bivouac in a small, tight canyon about a trickling rocky creek. Four battalions strong, they packed the canyon, concentrated yet hidden, like a nest of bees.
“Our task,” Ngoc Minh said, “is to prepare for the orderly transfer of administrative control.” Nang nodded. He did not answer. His lethargy, his foot dragging, antagonized Ngoc Minh, the new regimental political officer. Again, as an outcome of the Stung Treng meetings, the Krahom armies had reorganized to a higher level. The battalions that first had been seen during Chenla II were now clustered under loose regimental command. The independent insurgent squads of the recent past had become main force units. Though the units did not have the rear-echelon personnel and logistics support of modern armies, they did have the intelligence and command support structures.
“Met Nang,” Ngoc Minh called the youngest battalion leader. They had been together since their provisional induction into the Khmer Communist Party. “You seem preoccupied.”
Nang grunted. He did not like Ngoc Minh, did not like his mixed ancestry. Yet, before the other unit commanders and the regimental staff, he did not wish to provoke Ngoc Minh’s animosity. Instead he raised his half-coconut shell and sipped the sugary palm juice. Duch, Nang’s radioman, nudged him. The silence about the command post was as oppressive as the humidity in the shadowy canyon.
“Nang!” Ngoc Minh snapped. “Your battalion will...”
“I was thinking,” Nang interrupted, “of Mita and Horl. Such heroes.”
“It’s time you thought of this operation,” Ngoc Minh said flatly.
“There’s time.” Nang answered as if his inner clock had run down. “Patience, Minh,” he said softly.
“We must advance,” Minh countered. “The path to success is through unremitting patriotic struggle.”
“Ngoc Minh,” Nang said. “You are strictly a political struggler. Your achievements are impressive and your revolutionary spirit is beyond question. I am but a soldier. I remember those who fell in battle when the situation was not favorable.” Nang sipped from his shell. He smiled gently. His eyes were bright, shining, hiding the ice coursing in his veins, covering the schemes hatching in his mind. “My orders are first to make contact with the local resistance. Eventually we shall regain the lost people and the lost land.”
Nang rose. Met Nhel, the regiment’s commanding officer, rose too. Nhel was not a combat veteran and had received his position on the basis of his long membership in the Party. In 1970, he had organized the communal conversion of villages near Rovieng, seventy kilometers north of Kompong Thom, in the first district entirely controlled by the Khmer Krahom. During and after the Northern Corridor fighting, Nhel’s communities received most of the evacuees, processed them and expanded. All was done away from the ground fighting though there had been sporadic, terrifying bombings. Met Nhel dreaded the new assignment.
Nhel walked behind Nang as Nang meandered to the trailhead which would take him to the 104th area. “You know this area,” Nhel said. “You should be the one to make contact.”
“We’ve no preparation. Where are the files?”
Duch joined them as they slowly walked to the creek then climbed the slippery rocks heading back into the ravine. “The Center is sending them,” Nhel said. “We move faster than they, eh?”
“Then we must stop,” Nang said. To Duch he added, “Go to Met Eng. Tell him Angkar needs a spy.” Nang stopped in the creekbed and let Duch pass. Alone with Nhel he whispered, “Ngoc Minh, if he stays there will be no success. If he goes, we lose nothing.”
For ten days the regimental task forcer sat, hid, cramped in the gorge with few rations, few comforts. The young yotheas became restless. Each day they cleaned their weapons and ammunition and sat. At dusk they swatted mosquitos and retreated into night darkness, into their lonesome existence. Each morning Eng ran a political education class for the 104th in which he extolled the virtues of work, order, discipline and celibacy. The soldiers drank from the trickling rill, turned rocks to find tiny clams to eat, washed their kramas and themselves and grew hungrier and wilder. Nhel attempted to ameliorate the friction between Nang and Ngoc Minh and between Ngoc Minh and Von, one of Nang’s yotheas in the Northern Corridor fighting and now commanding officer of the 81st Battalion, but his efforts were to no avail. Each day the innuendos grew coarser and more blatant. “I’ve heard,” Ngoc Minh said sincerely to Nhel in the presence of the battalion commanders and regimental staff, “if a soldier is wounded twice he becomes overly cautious, even cowardly.” Before Nhel could answer, Nang snickered to Von, “How would he know?”
Then the runners arrived. Not one, but a squad—messengers, armed yotheas, a guide-scout and eleven porters. With them were carefully prepared maps of the area with NVA installations marked and quantified. Included were detailed orders and directions: contact the local resistance; supply them with the weapons the porters carry; organize them, use them, take control; reconnoiter the area; plan the attack; prepare the battlefield. Then wait. Do not attack until the NVA has committed itself to the new offensive in the South. At that time, your mission is to strike at the NVA, liberate the Khmer villages and return the people to the Northern Zone for protection. With the orders was a file box of dossiers on resistance, village and enemy leaders.
With Nhel, Ngoc Minh and the others, Nang reviewed the dossiers. Lieutenant Colonel Nui’s file was the thickest and on the jacket there was a yellow X, marking him for elimination. Another folder described Political Officer Trinh, and a third Deputy Political Officer Trinh Le. Both folders carried the yellow X. A thin dossier had been compiled on Committee Member Hang Tung. This one was marked with an asterisk. Files on Ny Non Chan, Maha Vanatanda, and Cahuom Chhuon were like marked. A packet of folders wrapped in red cellophane were designated by a symbol which to Nang looked like a tower of the Angkor ruins. In the packet were details on Kpa, Sakhron, Cahuom Sam and Neang Thi Sok.
Nang swallowed. He did not speak, did not allow his recognition, his shock, to show. Yet inside the names seemed to crash against the side of his brain. Chhuon! Sok! Sam!
Chhuon bowed his head before the small sun-dappled spirit house in front of his home. Within his mind he muttered, I shall become enlightened for the sake of all living things. He raised his head and straightened a tiny plaited curtain on which a picture of Buddha in the lotus position, had been painted. He whispered a prayer. “Lord Buddha, Enlightened One, Blessed One, I have destroyed a man’s foot. For this I am sorry; For this I am guilty. What is the right path for my life? Angel Spirit, protect my home and my family.”
“Uncle.” Hang Tung had approached silently from behind. It was unusual to see him during the midday rest period. His singular utterance betrayed his nervousness and irritability. With each soldier withdrawn, with each AA gun moved east, with the continuing reduction of the NVA camp, Hang Tung’s nervousness had become more and more manifest. “Uncle,” Tung repeated. “You must join me.”
Hang Tung said no more. He motioned for Chhuon to follow him to his office in the old pagoda. Chhuon’s mind raced wildly, searching for a reason for Tung’s silence. Immediately he thought of his night rendezvous with Kpa. There had been no exchange. Only a message. “Do not launch an assault until the yuon army commits itself in the South.”
“Kpa,” Chhuon had asked, “what does this mean?”
“I can’t tell you,” the mountain boy had said. “Only we have new weapons. Gifts from the Kampuchean Patriots Liberation Front.”
Chhuon’s mind jumped track. Seed, he thought. We’ve gotten the new seed and Hang Tung wants to organize the first planting so the seedlings will be ready in May. Too early. Much too early. What have they discovered? Do not think. I am a stone. Do not betray yourself. “Nephew,” Chhuon said as they reached the pagoda steps, “have we received new seed? We must have a better strain than last year’s.”
“Oh,” Tung said slyly, “this has nothing to do with that. Cadreman Trinh wishes to speak with you. That’s all.” Hang Tung escorted Chhuon to Trinh’s small office. Then he left. Trinh was not in.
For three hours Chhuon sat, waited, alone. At first he glanced about the windowless cubicle. The walls were bare except for portraits of Norodom Sihanouk and Ho Chi Minh. The small desk was full yet orderly. In each of the upper corners were two perfectly aligned stacks of papers. To the right were five ballpoint pens, parallel and squared. At the upper center edge were two eraser pencils with brushes and between, twenty paper clips evenly spaced, and forty overlapping rubber bands laid out as two flowers. Chhuon counted the pens, the clips, the rubber bands. He visually measured the stacks. Each was precisely the same height. He recounted, remeasured, relooked and renoted. Then there was nothing to do. His mind jumped to his guilts—to Kdeb and Yani whom he’d abandoned, to the soldiers his boobytrap had killed, to his inaction at the river when Chamreum and San were gas-ragged to death. He thought of Ry, of the NVA soldier she’d entertained and of his corpse which had lain only a few meters from where he now sat. Then he thought of Kpa, of Vanatanda, of Sam, of the foot he’d helped blow to pieces and of his ruse with Nui’s wife and his insincere assistance with the shrieking young soldier as other Viets had loaded him into a jeep to be rushed to the headquarters hospital.
Chhuon sweated. The sweat poured from him in rivers as it might from a fat man exercising for the first time on a hot tropical day. He fidgeted. He squirmed like a seven-year-old who needs to urinate but who has been ordered to sit for punishment for a transgression he can no longer recall. Then Chhuon froze. I am a stone, he said in his mind. A pebble. An insignificant pebble.
“Chairman Cahuom.” Trinh finally entered. “Do you have your papers with you? Are you all right? You look ill.”
“Fine. Fine. I’m fine.”
“Have you been here long?” Trinh asked pleasantly.
“For a little while,” Chhuon answered.
Trinh smiled. For three hours he had watched through a peephole as Chhuon had squirmed. “There are to be new papers.” Trinh smiled. “New passes. Everything will be color coded. A good idea, eh?”
“Ah...yes. I’m certain it is. I’m afraid I didn’t bring mine. Tung startled me while I was cleaning by my home. I thought it was urgent. I didn’t go back in.”
“Oh, that’s all right. Actually I wanted to talk to you about other matters. There are enemy agents and spies in the village.”
“Here?!”
“Yes.” Trinh leaned toward Chhuon. In a harsh whisper he said, “We know who they are.” Then he leaned back. “What would you do with them?”
“I, ah...I...I don’t know.”
“Hiding an enemy is punishable by death.” Trinh smiled a forced, tight smirk. “If someone knows a spy and doesn’t come forward, both will be eliminated.”
“Surely,” Chhuon tittered nervously, “you don’t suspect any of the villagers.”
“Yes. That’s exactly whom I suspect. There have been nine incidents of violence this year. Poor Sergeant Doan lost a foot. These are manifestations of narrow-minded nationalism.”
“Let me talk to the people,” Chhuon said. “Let me talk to the quadrant chairman and the association leaders. Certainly we can stop this.”
“Yes. That may help. Talk tonight. Tonight we’ll have a village assembly.”
As the sun set villagers began congregating before the old wat. Along the village street militiamen posted kerosene torches and connected these with a long red cordon tape. On the steps Cahuom Chhuon reevaluated his opening remarks. More villagers arrived. Some straggled in, others came en masse with their quadrant group or production group or age or sex or trade association group. For a few it was a festive time, a time to rest, to talk with neighbors whom they seldom saw anymore because of the arduous work schedules, but for most it was another imposition on their limited time with their families. Most dragged themselves in without enthusiasm, expecting nothing other than perhaps a new, tightening of some minor regulation—just one more thing to endure, to repress, to drive them mad.
The meeting began. Chairman Cahuom, standing before Colonel Nui., Cadreman Trinh and Hang Tung, explained about the new passes and papers. Then, for a long moment, he stood silent. He seemed to be looking for a face in the crowd. The yellow torchlight danced and trembled on the few brown faces turned up, glimmered off the few hung heads with just-washed hair, seemed almost like a cloud sinking to the rounded shoulders of the workers, settling there, one more weight. Chhuon cleared his throat, began to speak, but no sound emerged. He cleared his throat again. People stilled. “There is amongst us...,” Chhuon began, but again he stopped. “I am told...” He abandoned that opening. “You all know me,” he said. “You know that what I have done, what I do, I do for the good of the village. You know I’m a devout Buddhist.” In the crowd all motion stopped as if the yellow glow from the torches had gelled and encased them in a clear acrylic block. “Today, I have been informed there are enemy agents amongst us. Spies who endanger the village and our lives by their activities. Saboteurs who plant bombs which threaten the lives of our children as well as those of our village militia and the protection forces. This situation, these activities, are very serious. Crimes of sabotage, of hiding enemy agents, will be dealt with most severely. I have asked Cadreman Trinh and Colonel Nui to establish a lenient amnesty program for any villager who has, in the past, committed a crime against the people and who, by tomorrow night, comes forward and makes a full confession.”
Chhuon stopped. He took a step back, looked up into a clear night sky where stars glittered untarnished. Among the nearly one thousand people crammed into the cordon before the wat, there was little movement, though amongst the guards there were nudges, smirks, a few derisive comments.
Colonel Nui stepped forward but immediately stepped back and let Cadreman Trinh come forward and address the silent throng. “It is,” Trinh said in a solemn voice, “a principle of government and of the army that one who serves must love the people. He must love all the people as if they were his own flesh. He must learn from the people and aid the people. It is only through such love that one can truly serve. Yet there are those who serve not the people, who love not the people, but who whittle the stick at both ends, who engage in the duplicity of seemingly serving two masters while they serve only themselves. Manifestations of feudalism, neocolonialism or narrow-minded nationalism must be eradicated. A few years ago every Indochinese rice farmer was enslaved by indebtedness, by taxes introduced by colonialists, by the price-fixing of imperialists, by exorbitant interest rates charged by moneylenders. To exist a peasant sold pieces of his land until what remained was a plot so miserable he was barely able to feed himself. We have eliminated all indebtedness. We have increased plot size to bring back efficiency. This we have done, because of love. Phum Sath Din has become the model of the new Indochina, because of love, because of hard work—your love, your labor. Now, amongst you we find a traitor, a man who deceives all in his attempt to reestablish the power of the imperialists and moneylenders. A man who supports the Lon Nol clique which so humiliated Prince Norodom Sihanouk, which soiled his name and continues to debase and insult him in the most wicked and unjust manner.”
Trinh paused. His expression was one of calculated sorrow, not anger. He continued to face the crowd. “Chairman Cahuom, you’ve asked for an amnesty program, yes?”
Chhuon stepped forward. His chest was tight. “Yes,” he said.
“The charade goes on!” Trinh erupted at the crowd. “We know the truth! No one! No one can get away with lying! We have captured a traitor who has identified all criminal elements.” Trinh stopped. The villagers startled. Eyes flicked to each side, heads remained rigid. Chhuon swallowed the rising burning bile bubbling at the back of his throat. “Traitors,” Trinh shouted, pointing before him to the bottom step of the pagoda. “Stand there! Now! Now there is amnesty. Now you may be reeducated. In one minute there will be no amnesty. One minute and you will be treated like the criminals you are.”
There was silence. No villager moved. No guard. Chhuon’s teeth chattered. He clamped them shut to control his jaw. Who? he thought. Who have they captured? Who would tell? It’s a ploy. Where’s Vanatanda? Chhuon’s eyes searched for the derobed monk. His eyes widened until they felt as if they’d pop from their sockets.
“Ten seconds!” Trinh screamed.
Still there was no sound, no motion.
Then, in the Children’s Association group a small boy jumped up shouting, “I know. I know who the traitor is. It’s him.” Peou ran toward the wat porch. “It’s him!” he yelled angrily. “He’s a traitor,” he shouted, pointing at his father.
“Come here,” Trinh said kindly to the boy. Peou climbed the steps. “Him?” Trinh squatted by the child.
“Him,” Peou cried. He stood ramrod straight with a stiff arm, hand, finger aimed at Chhuon. The mob of villagers buzzed.
“The chairman?” Trinh asked sweetly. “A traitor? What has he done?” People nudged one another with their hands or elbows, kept their heads and bodies stiff.
“He said we must resist. He said the teachers lie. He calls Viet Namese ‘yuons’ and says we must resist their teachings.”
Behind Chhuon a man’s voice boomed, “He also plants bombs which kill innocent civilians.” Hang Tung smiled from ear to ear. “That fact has been established.” The villagers now began to shuffle, mumble, tremble. “You can’t deny it,” Tung shouted.
“You don’t know what you’re saying.” Chhuon’s voice was weak.
“You are a traitor. A saboteur,” Hang Tung said. He relished the public accusations. “You must apologize to the people.”
“I’ve never done...” Chhuon began a stronger defense.
“Your colluder has been identified,” Cadreman Trinh interrupted.
Chhuon’s energies rose. “I’ve no colluder,” he snapped. “I’ve done nothing. I am the chairm...”
“Kpa has confessed,” Trinh snarled.
“Kpa?” Chhuon repeated. The revelation of the mountain boy’s identity shocked him. He sucked in an erratic breath. The mob, too, stood shocked.
“Tonight”—Trinh’s voice was menacing—“you’ll tell me all.”
Now Colonel Nui addressed the crowd. The people froze. “The evidence,” he said sadly, “against Cahuom Chhuon is irrefutable. In spite of his subversive duplicity we have progressed rapidly. There will be further realignment and expansion of the fields for work by mutual-assistance groups. The May planting will be the first totally communal operation with Khmer and Viet Namese working together as brothers. Cahuom Chhuon”—Colonel Nui sighed—“I’ve treated you like a friend, like a brother. You’ve betrayed me. But worse, you’ve betrayed us all. On 18 March, to commemorate the vile ousting of Norodom Sihanouk by the American imperialists, you shall publicly hang until dead.”