First They Killed My Father_ A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers - Loung Ung [64]
The next morning Ma comes to wake me, but I am already up. Chou and Kim are dressed and ready to go. Ma packs my one pair of clothes, wraps my food bowl in a scarf, and ties it diagonally around my back. Slowly I climb down the steps to where Chou and Kim are waiting for me.
“Remember,” Ma whispers, “don’t go together and don’t come back.” My heart sinks as I realize Ma really is sending us away.
“Ma, I’m not going!” I plant my feet to the ground, refusing to move.
“Yes, you are!” Ma says sternly. “Your Pa is gone now, and I just cannot take care of you kids. I don’t want you here! You are too much work for me! I want you to leave!” Ma’s eyes stare at us blankly.
“Ma,” my arms reach out to her, pleading with her to take me into her arms and tell me I can stay. But she swats them back with a quick slap.
“Now go!” She turns me around by the shoulders and bends down to give me a hard swat on the butt, pushing me away.
Kim is already walking away from us with his eyes looking ahead and his back rigid. Chou follows slowly behind him, her sleeves continuously wiping her eyes. Reluctantly, I drag myself away from Ma and catch up with them. After a few steps, I turn around and see that Ma has already gone back into the hut. Geak sits at the door, watching us leave. She lifts her hand and waves to me silently. We have all learned to be silent with our emotions.
The farther I am away from the village, the more my anger overtakes my sadness. Instead of missing Ma, my blood boils with resentment toward her. Ma doesn’t want me around anymore. Pa took care of us and kept us together. Ma cannot do this because she is weak, like the Angkar says. The Angkar says women are weak and dispensable. I was Pa’s favorite. Pa would have kept me home. Ma has Geak. She has always had Geak. She loves Geak. It is true that Geak is too young to leave, but I am not yet eight. I have nobody. I am completely alone.
The sun climbs to the backs of our heads, scorching them. The gravel path burns and digs into the soles of my feet and breaks through the hard calluses. I move off the gravel to walk on the grass. June is only the beginning of the rainy season so the grass is still plump and green. In November, the grass will shrivel up and become sharp like pins. The soles of my feet are so thick and callused that not even the pin grass can cut through them. However, when the grass is tall like it is now, the blades cut my skin like paper. It has been a long time since I have worn shoes. I don’t remember when I stopped. I think it was when we arrived in Ro Leap that they burned my red dress. In Phnom Penh, I had black buckle shoes that went with my school uniform; the soldiers burned those too.
Soon it is time for Kim to go off on his own path. He stops us and again repeats Ma’s instructions without emotion. Although he is only twelve his eyes have the look of an old man. Without words of goodbye or good luck, he turns and walks away from us. I want to run to him and put my arms around him, hold him the way I held Pa and Keav in my mind. I don’t know if or when I will ever see him again. I don’t want to bear the sadness of missing him. With my hands clenched into fists by my sides, I stand there and my eyes follow his body until I can no longer see him.
Though it goes against Ma’s warnings, Chou and I cannot separate ourselves so we head off in the same direction. With no food or water, we walk in silence all through the morning as the sun beats down on us. Our eyes look everywhere for signs of human life but find none. All around us, the trees are brown, their green leaves, wilted in the heat of the white sky, hang quietly on the branches. The only sound comes from our feet and the pebbles that roll away from our