First They Killed My Father_ A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers - Loung Ung [108]
“Don’t fall in—the smell will never wash away!” I yell to the other kids.
back to bat deng
April 1979
While staying at the displaced people’s camp, Meng, Khouy, and Kim leave to go fishing every morning. My job is to search for wild vegetables and mushrooms in nearby woods while Chou guards our tents. Usually, we eat half of what the boys bring back each day. The rest we salt, grill, or dry to save. These days we go to bed on a full stomach every night. We have fish, wild vegetables, and the rice Meng and Khouy stole from the Khmer Rouge. We are the lucky ones. Most of the old and very young he sick on the outskirts of the sites where the displaced people gather or die in the camp from disease and hunger.
At the end of April, Khouy and Meng decide we are ready to leave Pursat City. They believe we have gathered enough supplies to last the long trip to Bat Deng. Abandoning our tents, we pack our few pots, pans, clothes, and all our food. We leave with two of Khouy and Meng’s women friends but the third stays behind to search for any surviving family members. Khouy and Meng each carry a fifteen-pound bag of rice on their shoulders and the rest of us help with bundles of clothes, blankets, and other food.
Balancing the rice pot on my head, I turn around and look one last time at Pursat City. My eyes linger on the mountains, thinking of Pa, Ma, Keav, and Geak. The mountain peaks majestically jut into the sky as large clouds cast dark shadows on them. It all looks so calm and normal, as if the hell we have lived through for the past four years has never happened. Four years ago, on April 17, 1975, the Khmer Rouge took over Phnom Penh, a course that eventually brought us here to Pursat. Up there somewhere in the mountains, Pa, Ma, Keav, and Geak are still trapped and unable to go home with us. “Pa, Ma, Keav, Geak,” I call out to them, “I am taking you all home now. I will not say goodbye. I will never say good-bye.”
Day after day, we walk onward, stopping only to rest at night. In the dry April sun, our black clothes absorb the rays and the heat weighs heavy on our skin. Our bones grow tired, our backs ache, our feet blister, yet still we march. Almost exactly four years ago, we evacuated Phnom Penh. I remember how I cried and whined about the hot sun and how the touch of Pa’s hand on my head soothed me. I was not used to the heat, the sun, and the hard ground then because Pa provided us with a sheltered, middle-class life. Now my body is accustomed to the extreme environment and weather, but my heart has never come to terms with the absence of those we have lost. Now we are leaving them behind. I hope wherever they are, their spirit will follow us back to Bat Deng.
One night, we find shelter in an abandoned hut. We are in the middle of nowhere and are highly vulnerable to a Khmer Rouge attack. The makeshift refuge must house the seven of us and one other family who arrived there before us. The other family consists of a mother, father, and baby. He is sick, his face and feet are swollen, as are hers and their baby’s. When I see the mother of the other family, I think she is Ma. The woman could be a double for Ma! I want to run to her, talk to her, and hold her, but then I see her husband lying next to her. He is about Pa’s age, but the resemblance ends there. I know then she isn’t Ma, because she would never be with anyone else other than Pa. I don’t dare ask my siblings whether they see the resemblance too. Watching their eyes, I notice they do not linger on the sight of the mother the way I do. Do my brothers and Chou see the resemblance too?
While the family stays on the ground level of the hut, our group moves to the top floor. Before they fall asleep that night, my brothers practice jumping out of the second floor to plan their escape route in case of a Khmer Rouge attack. They leap off in different ways and clear the area