First They Killed My Father_ A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers - Loung Ung [74]
“What happened?” Met Bong asks the girl who screamed.
“I felt … it was a big hand. I was leaning against the wall. A hand reached through the straw and grabbed my arm, then my throat. It was wet and cold. I know it’s a Youn coming to get us.” The girl’s lips tremble, her face is yellow in the light, looking very much like an apparition. Met Bong turns to the older girls and tells them to go look.
“Take the guns—make sure they are loaded. Shoot anything that moves.” After the older girls leave, the group huddles together in the middle of the room, facing the walls. Images of the Youns attacking and killing us run in my mind, filling me with fear. In Phnom Penh, Pa once told me the Youns are just like us but with whiter skin and smaller noses. However, Met Bong describes the Youns as savages who are bent on taking over our country and our people. I do not know what to believe. The only world I know beyond this camp is the one Met Bong describes to me. Sitting in the dark, I find myself starting to believe her message about the enemies.
A few minutes later, the girls return and report that whatever was out there is now gone. In the moonlight, they saw large footprints around the compound. “The Youns are attacking us,” Met Bong informs us. Her hands grip the rifle tightly to her chest. “When they take over the towns, they infiltrate them and open up the prisons. The Youns are running around raping girls and pillaging towns, and the prisoners who are against Pol Pot are with the Youns. We have to protect ourselves,” Met Bong rambles on frantically. After that night Met Bong institutes a new policy and we now take turns guarding the camp at night.
I am asleep when a hand roughly jerks my shoulders. “Wake up, it’s your turn to stand guard,” a voice says to me from the dark. Grumpy, I sit up and rub the sleep out of my eyes. She puts the rifle in my hand, which is heavy, and I cradle it against my chest because my fingers are not long enough to wrap around its stock. I walk over to the doorway and sit down.
The sky is dark and cloudless, allowing the full moon to shine through, giving everything an eerie, silvery glow. The cool wind blows quietly. All is quiet, except for the crickets. I live with forty others, but I am so alone in this world. There is no camaraderie among the children, no blossoming friendships, no bonding together under hardship. We live against each other, spying on one another for Pol Pot, hoping to win favors from Met Bong. Met Bong says Pol Pot loves me, but I know he does not. Maybe he loves the other children, the uncorrupted base children with their uncontaminated parents. I came to this camp under false pretenses and lies. They think I am one of them, one of the pure base children.
I have never seen Pol Pot in person or in pictures. I know little about him or why he killed Pa. I do not know why he hates me so much. In the night when my defenses are down, my mind flashes from one member of my family to next. I think of Ma, Keav, Chou, and my brothers. My throat swells when Geak’s face floats into my mind. “No,” I tell myself, “I have to be strong. No time to be weak.” But I miss Pa so much it hurts to breathe. It’s been almost a year now since I held his hand, saw his face, felt his love.
The night sky looms ever more black in front of me. “Oh Pa,” I whisper to the air. As if answering me, something rustles loudly in the tall grass. I hold my breath and look around the compound. I know I heard something! My heart races. Everything out there is moving toward me. The tree trunks expand and contract as if they are breathing. The branches shake and swing, transform into hands. The grass sways like waves heading toward me. They are coming at us! My finger squeezes the trigger and the shots go everywhere! The rifle jerks back, hitting