First They Killed My Father_ A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers - Loung Ung [71]
“Met Bong,” I ask, “I have done nothing but work in the field and watch the older girls train.”
“It is very easy to train someone to use weapons,” she replies, “but to train the mind is much more difficult. I have been training your mind all these months. I have tried my best to place Pol Pot’s words in your head and to tell you the truth about the Youns. Children must be taught to follow orders without hesitation, without question, and to shoot and kill even their traitor parents. That is the first step in the training.” I seethe when I hear her words. Rage boils quietly inside me, but I contain it. I will never kill Ma for them. Not ever!
The New Year passes over without any celebration or joy. The January breeze turns into April heat and I am one year older. Life at the camp continues as always while I divide my time between the field and the training lessons. Like Keav, I am alone here, even though I eat the same food and sleep in the same hut with eighty girls. Besides our obligatory discussions about the power of Pol Pot and his army, we live together in silence. We keep to ourselves because we are all hiding secrets. My secret is our lives in Phnom Penh. For another girl, it may be that she has a handicapped brother, has stolen food, possesses a pair of red pants, is nearsighted and used to wear glasses, or has tasted chocolate. If she is found out, she can be punished by Met Bong.
Though I know the danger of developing a friendship with the girls, sometimes I wistfully think about it. Without Chou, I am alone. Until now, I’ve always had Chou to play with, fight with, and talk to. In Phnom Penh, Khouy and Meng were already adults, Keav was a teenage girl, Kim a prepubescent, and Geak a baby. Chou and I were closest to each other. When I was sad and upset, it was she whom I invariably sought out to share my feelings. I never realized how much I would miss her now that we are apart.
At the new camp, the nearest thing to friendship comes from the palm tree boy. I do not know his name and have never spoken to him. He comes to our camp often, sometimes by himself and sometimes with his father. I learned from Met Bong that he lives with his family in a nearby village. He and his father share the job of collecting palm sap and fruit for the village’s chief. The boy and his father often give Met Bong some palm fruit to eat. If they are there when I am around, the boy usually throws a palm fruit in my direction, smiling and waving to me with his hand still clutching the cleaver.
Every day, our nightly lessons grow longer and longer. It seems Pol Pot has replaced the Angkar as the source of power. I don’t know why or how it happened. I do not know anything more about him, except for what Met Bong tells us at our nightly lesson. Met Bong says he is the one responsible for bringing the Khmer Rouge to power. He is the one who will restore Kampuchea to its ancient glory. Met Bong’s voice rises as she speaks his name, as if uttering “Pol Pot” brings her closer to his power. Since the Khmer Rouge takeover of Phnom Penh, I have heard of Pol Pot but I never knew exactly what his position with the Angkar was. Now it seems that it is the Angkar that is working for him, and that we all work for him. More and more each day, we call out his name in place of the Angkar. In the propaganda reports, we now give thanks to Pol Pot, our savior and liberator, and not to the Angkar. It seems that nothing is accomplished without the credit going to Pol Pot. If our rice production is increased this year it is because Pol Pot made it happen. If a soldier is a strong and skillful fighter, it is because Pol Pot taught him. If the soldier gets killed, then he did not listen to Pol Pot’s advice. Every night we praise and commend Pol Pot and his Red Khmer soldiers for defeating the enemy.
In violent details we hear of the soldiers’ mighty strength and supernatural powers to kill the Youns. The Youns are superstitious and believe that if their body parts are not buried together when they die, then their souls are doomed to wander