First They Killed My Father_ A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers - Loung Ung [38]
I remembered then that in Phnom Penh, when she was the most beautiful girl on our block, Ma said that she could have her pick of anyone to marry. Each month, Keav would travel with Ma to a beauty salon to have her hair styled and her nails painted. I used to watch Keav fuss over her school uniform, pressing and repressing her blue pleated skirt and white shirts so they looked as crisp and new as possible. Now the joy of beauty is gone from her life. With the red-and-white checked scarf covering her thinning oily black hair that peeks out beneath it, she looks more like ten years old than fourteen. Keav follows the soldiers, with twenty other boys and girls, and never turns to look at us. Chou and I stand together with tears in our eyes and watch Keav’s figure until she is no longer in sight. I wonder if I will ever see her again.
At the other side of the town square some base children scurry back home. Though there are no gates, an invisible line divides the village in two halves. The new people know better than to cross the line. Occasionally, the base men walk through our side of the village, spying on the new people and inspecting their work. A few base children who have not yet gone home stand there now watching us with frowning faces. Rarely do I ever get to see them, or recognize them as individuals. I don’t even know how many base children there are in the village. In their new-looking black pajama pants and shirts, their arms and legs fill out their clothes and their faces are round and fleshy. I narrow my eyes with envy and hatred.
“It is good for the family to be separated,” Pa says quietly and goes off to work. Ma says nothing and continues to look in the direction Keav has disappeared.
“Why did she have to go? Why didn’t Pa beg the chief to let her stay?” I ask Kim when my parents cannot hear me.
“Pa is afraid the soldiers might learn who he really is. The Khmer Rouge soldiers will hurt the whole family if they find out Pa worked in Lon Nol’s government. If we are separated when they discover who Pa is, they cannot get to all of us.”
I never understand how Pa knows things, he just always does, and he keeps us informed so we will not be careless with our information.
“Pa, will they kill us?” I ask him later on that night. “I heard the other new people whispering at the town square that the Khmer Rouge soldiers are not only killing people who worked for the Lon Nol government but anyone who is educated. We have education, will they kill us too?” My heart races as I ask him. Pa nods grimly. That is why he has told us to act stupid and never discuss our lives in the city.
Pa believes the war will last for a long time and this makes the very act of living sad for him. Every day we hear tales of other families who cannot see the end to their terror and thus commit suicide. We live knowing we are in danger of being discovered at any moment. My stomach churns with nausea at the thought of death. But I do not know how to go on living with such sadness.
I remember painfully the anger I felt toward Ma when she spanked me for breaking her fine china plates, or screamed at me for jumping on the furniture, for fighting with Chou, or trying to sneak candies from the cabinet. Then, as a five-year-old used to getting my own way, I stormed through the apartment during my tantrums. Lying in my room, in a tearful sulk, I often wished I were dead. I wanted to make her suffer for what she did to me. I wanted her to feel hurt and guilty, to know that she drove me to kill myself. Then from the heavens, I would look down and gloat over her misery. That would be my revenge. Above the clouds, I would look down at her puffy, sorry face, and only when I believed she had suffered enough would I return to forgive her. Now I realize that when you die, you don’t get to come back to life whenever you want to. Death is permanent.
To fight death, the new people work hard planting