First They Killed My Father_ A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers - Loung Ung [79]
The infirmary is a few hours’ walk from the camp. With permission slip in hand, I walk toward it. The sun climbs higher and higher above the trees, heating everything around me. I walk over to a shallow pond near the roadside and squat down. The mud oozes warm and soft between my toes, soothing my aching joints. I wade in deeper to where the water is clearer, but each time I move, my feet disturb the water, making it brown and hazy. Standing still until the residue settles to the bottom, I scoop up the water in my hand. It is warm and soothing to my throat but tastes of rotten weeds.
I move on until the water reaches my chest. Slowly, I put my face in the water, my arms floating on the surface. My upper body floats easily in the water, pulling my feet up from the bottom. The water amplifies my heartbeat so that the thumps are much louder. The rhythm sounds normal but my heart feels very hollow. Listening to my heartbeat, my mind wanders to Ma and Geak. April and New Year’s are behind us, so now we are all one year older. Geak is six now. She is a year older than I was when the Khmer Rouge took over the country three years ago. It has been six months since I visited Ro Leap when Ma showed me her bruises. Nine months since I pulled my hand out of Chou’s grasps. Twelve months since I said good-bye to Kim, seventeen months since the soldiers took Pa away, twenty-one months since Keav-I stop myself from counting more dates. It is no use remembering when I last saw them. It will not help bring them closer to me. Yet in my world where there are so many things I don’t understand, counting dates is the only sane thing I know to do.
When I am cooled down, I raise my head and spot a small cotton field in the distance. I get out of the water and walk toward it. The cotton stands as tall as my chest, puffy, white, and soft like the clouds, but I can actually touch the cotton. I pick a ball and pull it open. In the middle of the puffy cloud, there is a cluster of black round seeds like pepper. I have heard that they are safe to eat, but I hesitate momentarily before putting one in my mouth. I roll the seeds on my tongue—they are hard and have no taste. Tentatively, my teeth crack the shells and dig into the soft, oily meat. Slightly sweet, the seed quiets the noise in my stomach. I quickly pour the rest of the seeds onto my hand. Scanning the field to check for guards, I shove the seeds in my mouth as fast as I can. Then I collect a few more handfuls and put them in my pockets.
By midmorning I arrive at the infirmary, an abandoned concrete warehouse with moldy, crumbling walls and open spaces for rooms. There is no electricity so it is dark, except for the area that is illuminated by sunlight pouring in through the glassless windows. In the air hangs the unmistakable smell of rubbing alcohol and stale flesh. The two hundred or so patients are lined up on straw mats or cots on the floor, their cries echoing off the cold stone walls. The bodies lie motionless, some bloated, others skeletal, all on the verge of death. Some are so sick they cannot get up to relieve themselves. There are not enough nurses to help so they He in their own messes.
Keav’s face flashes before my eyes as I gasp for air, only to cough at the stench of death that floods into my nostrils. Keav slept in cots similar to these, drenched in urine and waste. Some people come to this hospital hoping to be cured of their sickness, but many are dumped here because they are too weak to work and therefore of no use to Pol Pot. Those “who can no longer work come here to die. A cold draft hits me and pricks my skin with tiny stings as I imagine Keav staggering here alone to die among a thousand strangers. In a makeshift hospital, on these yellow-stained cots, many of these patients will die before