First They Killed My Father_ A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers - Loung Ung [80]
Forcing myself to focus on something else, I try to shake off the feelings of pity I have for these patients. I look intensely at my hand in the yellowish light. It looks stubby and waxy like five pale fat worms attached to the palm. When I move my fingers, they wriggle and I momentarily envision them detaching and crawling away. My toes wriggle in the same way. I am jerked out of this vision by the moans of the sick. This must be how Keav died, lonely and afraid. Am I to die in a sea of sick people I do not know?
In my dreamlike state I hear Ma’s voice calling to me. “Loung! Where are you going? Come to us!” I wake up, gulping air. Am I hearing voices? Am I going crazy? “Ma?” I whisper. My heart dances with hope, but I suppress it. “Ma?” I cry in anguish. “Over here!” I hear the voices of Chou, Geak, and Kim! I force my eyes to open wider against the heavy pull of my swollen lids, searching among the people for their voices.
Far in the corner of the room, I see hands waving excitedly in the air. I stare at the faces of Ma, Geak, and Meng. Chou and Kim run toward me, smiling broadly. Everyone in our family but Khouy is here! I cannot believe my eyes. I look into their beaming faces: Chou is barely able to suppress a laugh, Geak looks at me in confusion, and Ma is crying.
“Silly girl,” Ma hollers at me. “You almost walked past us.”
“I’m so glad you are here! I was afraid to be here alone!”
“This is the only infirmary in the area!” Ma replies. She pats the ground next to her, gesturing for me to sit. My knees go weak and I fall into Ma’s arms. My eyes wide open, I clutch her sleeves while the rest of my siblings look on awkwardly. “We’re all together now. We’re all together,” her voice is muffled through my hair. Looking into the faces of my siblings, I no longer fear I will die alone.
As Ma releases me from her grasp, Geak crawls over and seats herself between us. Ma tells me that she and Geak came here five days ago with stomach pains. Like me, all the siblings traveled separately and were lucky to find each other here. Ma says that Chou was the second to arrive, followed by Kim and Meng, who just arrived yesterday. Everyone is here but Khouy!
We spend our days in the infirmary lazily talking to one another about many things but never about Keav or Pa. No one in the family has ever explicitly stated that we are not to bring them up in our conversations. Yet we all know not to speak about them. Each of us keeps our memories of them private and safely locked in the boxes of our own heart. Instead, we spend the time telling Ma about our lives. Chou tells us she enjoys being one of the only two cooks at her camp. She says the other girl is nice. Being in charge of the food supply, she is able to steal a little of everything to bring to Ma. When the girls make her mad, she takes revenge by spitting in the food. At his boys’ camp, Kim works day and night in the fields planting and harvesting rice. The setup of Kim’s camp is identical to that of Chou’s and mine, where all the children sleep together in a large hut. Every night he also has to attend the same propaganda meetings that Chou and I do. Meng tells us that before he fell sick, he and Khouy were still loading bags of rice onto trucks that are rumored to be delivered to China. He reports that he still lives with Khouy and Khouy’s wife, Laine. Despite our curiosity, Chou and I never ask Meng about her. Three years living under the Khmer Rouge regime has taught us that some things are better left unsaid.
Though we do not have to work, we are given a ration of rice and salt and sometimes fish. The amount of food is comparable to what I was given while I worked. Though from our shiny faces and swollen bodies, we realize that we are all suffering from similar symptoms: stomachache, extreme exhaustion, diarrhea, and aching joints. After much discussion, we conclude that we are not so much sick as weak from starvation. First thing in the morning and after dinner, the nurses walk over and pour water into a smooth, polished coconut shell bowl, then