First They Killed My Father_ A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers - Loung Ung [100]
“He was a Khmer Rouge soldier. He deserved to die. Too bad they are not all dead,” I say vehemently to Pithy. She says nothing. I do not in fact know if the body is a civilian or a soldier. Thinking of the body as a civilian makes me think of Pa too much. It is easier to feel no pity for the dead if I think of them as all Khmer Rouge. I hate them all.
Holding on to my hate for the Khmer Rouge also allows me to go on living the mundane details of life. Another one of my fixed duties is to go down to the river and gather water for the family. Each morning, balancing two water pails on a long flat piece of wood over my shoulders, I set off to fetch the water. The walk to the river is only ten minutes, but in the February sun it always feels much longer. Squinting at a reflection in the water, I make out a figure of girl standing on the bank. She is not much bigger than I am and with one hand on her hip, she peers at the riverbank in frustration. She removes the pails from her plank and hits at something on the grassy bank.
“What are you doing?” I ask her.
“I’m trying to loosen the body so it will flow downstream,” she says between halting breaths. A few feet from where we are standing, a body floats past, dressed in a black pajama shirt and pants. He is an adult man, bigger than most men in the village, and much fatter. He bobs up and down in the water, his hands and feet shiny and swollen as if made of white rubber. His upper body sways with the currents, but his pant leg is caught on some branches from the bank. His head bobs in the water each time the girl pokes him with her wood.
“I want to loosen him up so he’ll go downstream. He’ll dirty the water, maybe his juices will flow into my pails.” Her logic makes complete sense to me. I remove my pails, and with my stick help to push the body away. With the two of us beating on it, it bobs and sways even more. Finally we loosen the leg and the body floats a few feet down before getting stuck again near the bank. This time he is inches away from us.
“The water is too shallow. On the count of three, you push the body and I’ll push the head,” I direct. After a concerted effort, the body finally floats down the river, his long hair spreading around. The picture tugs at my heart and knots up my stomach. For a few brief seconds I think of Geak and hope the soldiers did not put her in a bag and throw her into the river. I nearly cry at the thought of someone poking at her body, but I push the tears down. “Another damn Khmer Rouge,” I mutter under my breath. “I hate them. I hope they all die.” We wait a few minutes until we believe the body fluids have all floated past us before fetching our water.
At the hut, the clay water container stands as tall as my chest. It takes me many trips and most of the morning to fill it up and still the water runs low by the end of the day. In the evening Chou, Kim, and I repeat our water chores before we go to sleep. We keep the pot full so we can have easy access to the water for we fear we will fall in if we have to reach to the bottom.
Kim, Chou, and I have had red eye disease for two weeks now. I fear I might have given the disease to them because I dare to look at the dead bodies. Somehow, the disease must have flown from the bodies and into my eyes, making them red as the blood I poke at with my stick. Every morning I wake up unable to open my eyes because both of my lids are glued together. Painfully, I pick, pinch, and pull the crud off of my lashes, but it is so thick that I have little success.
“Kim, are you there?” I call out to him. In the dark I sense a hand searching for me, finally finding my arm.
“It’s me,” Chou whispers. “Are you ready? I’ve got Kim’s hand.”
“Yes.”
Grabbing Chou’s hand, Kim slides on his behind until he reaches the edge of the hut. Then jumps to the ground and helps Chou and me. Linked together by our hands we feel