First They Killed My Father_ A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers - Loung Ung [14]
After a quick lunch of rice with salted fish, we climb in the truck and move again. I watch as a stream of people seems to follow our trail. Fighting drowsiness caused by the smothering heat, my thoughts race from one subject to another. I question why we had to leave, where we are going, and when will we return home. I do not understand what is happening and long to go back home. The sudden sputtering and choking of our truck halt my daydreaming. It kicks and whines, and finally stops. I climb off hoping it will move again.
“The truck’s out of petrol and there’s no petrol station around here,” Pa says. “Looks like we have to walk the rest of the way. Everybody grab only some clothes and all the food you can carry. We have a long way to go yet.” Pa then orders us what to take and what to leave behind.
“You!” someone yells. We all stop what we are doing and stand paralyzed.
“You!” A Khmer Rouge soldier comes over to us. “Give me your watches.”
“Certainly.” With shoulders bent to show submission, Pa takes the watches off of Meng and Khouy’s wrists. Pa does not look the soldier in the eyes as he hands the watches over.
“All right, now move,” the soldier orders and then walks away. When he is out of earshot, Pa whispers that from now on we are to give the soldiers anything they want or they will shoot us.
We walk from the break of day until the dark of the evening. When night comes, we rest by the roadside near a temple. We unpack the dried fish and rice and eat in silence. Gone is the air of mystery and excitement; now I am simply afraid.
seven-day walk
April 1975
The first sight I see when I open up my eyes the next morning is the glum upside-down face of Chou against the background of cloudy skies as she tugs at my hair. “Wake up. We have to move again,” she tells me.
Slowly I sit up and rub the seeds out of my sleepy eyes. All around me, a sea of people wake: babies cry, old people groan, pots and pans clang against the sides of wagons whose wheels grind the dirt beneath them. There are many more people than the numbers I know to count them with. My eyes follow Khouy and Meng as they walk into the temple with big silver pots to fetch water. Keav says there is always a well near a temple. Moments later, Khouy and Meng return visibly shaken with their empty pots.
“We went into the temple but found no monks there, only a Khmer Rouge soldier,” they tell Pa. “They yelled for us to stay away from the temple well. We stopped and came back but other people went in anyway—” Khouy’s words are interrupted by the sound of gunshots coming from inside the temple. Hurriedly, we pack our belongings and leave the area. Later on we hear the Khmer Rouge soldiers had killed two people inside the temple and wounded many more.
Today, our third day on the road, I walk with a little more bounce in my step. In Phnom Penh, the soldiers had said we could return home after three days. The soldiers told us we had to leave because the United States was going to bomb our city. But I have not seen any planes in the sky and have heard no bombs dropped. It is strange to me that they made us leave just so we can turn back and go home after three days. I smile at the silly picture of us marching like black ants coming to a stop at the end of the day only to head back home. I do not understand, but I guess three days is how long it takes for them to clean the city.
“Pa, will we go home soon? The soldiers said we can return home after three days.” I tug at Pa’s pants. It is afternoon and we are not even slowing down yet.
“Maybe, but meanwhile, we have to walk.”
“But Pa, this is the third day. Are we going to turn around and walk back home now?”
“No, we have to keep walking,” Pa says sadly. Reluctantly, I do what Pa tells me. Everybody has to carry something, so I pick the smallest item in the pile, the rice pot. As I walk, the pot becomes heavier and heavier in my hands as