When Broken Glass Floats_ Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge - Chanrithy Him [106]
Even with the nightly prayers, our souls cannot be comforted. The sound of war is powerful. We have to leave Korkpongro. Many families move on, even though there’s still rice to glean. Having collected some food, we decide our safety takes precedence.
We arrive at the next village, Chhnoel, before nightfall. Here, there are people camping along the shoulder of the road, by the huts and cottages, and beneath the coconut, mango, and palm trees. Their shelters are in place, made of blankets, sarongs, and tarps. Everyone looks weary, especially Map. I know he is hungry, but he doesn’t cry for food as we search for a place to camp in a dry rice paddy.
The next day, warned by the neighboring women that rice is hard to find, requiring a lot of walking, we decide to have Map stay in the tent or play outside with the other children. As we leave with the women, Map cries, his eyes following us. After a few days have gone by, Map is better at coping with our daylong absences, and plays with other children.
Living near our tent is bang Meng’s remaining family. She and Ra worked together in the same labor camps. She, her aunt, young sisters, and a baby brother also used to live in Daakpo. She is about twenty, Ra’s age, short and thin with straight black hair down to her chin. Her eyes and light complexion suggest she’s part Chinese. By her composure, she appears intelligent. She reminds me of Chea. In only a few days, our families have become close. We have both lost parents and are learning to depend on ourselves.
Rice is becoming scarce. It’s been a week since we arrived here. Today we barely glean enough for a day’s meal. When we get back, news awaits us—a letter from the Khmer Rouge telling us to leave Chhnoel.
A couple were given the letter and told to warn everyone. In it, the woman says, they warn us to leave this village. If they should find us here, no one will be spared. They will kill everyone, including a baby in a hammock.
“Oh, I don’t think they’ll come,” a man says, his hand brushing aside the fear. “They probably think the Vietnamese soldiers are here and are afraid to come. They just want to threaten us. Don’t worry.”
The following day we go to glean rice again, leaving Map at the tent. Since rice is hard to find, Ra and I go north with a group of women while Ry and Than head south with others.
Ra and I work quickly, trying to get as much as possible of the little rice left. In the distance my ears pick up faint dull, hollow sounds. I pause.
“Ra, the sounds of gunfire. Can you hear it?” I shout.
“Yes, ming, the sounds of gunfire! Coming from there,” Ra cries, pointing. She signals to the women near us to come.
“Oh, it’s far away,” a woman says, brushing aside our anxiety. “I’m staying a bit longer.” She returns to her stack.
My heart hammers. I want to leave. The gunfire becomes louder. I turn to Ra for a decision, but she looks at the other women.
“I’m staying a bit longer, too,” one woman decides, then the rest agree, including my own sister.
Another hollow boom sounds closer than before. “Ra, let’s go!” I scream at her. “Can’t you hear it? It’s getting louder and louder!”
“Everyone is still—” Before Ra finishes, the woman next to us takes off.
She cries, “I’m going, I’m not staying, my children—”
Ra grabs the rice bag and the basket, and off she runs. Again, I’m behind her, along with the other women.
The resonant booms approach closer and closer to Chhnoel. When one explodes nearby, all of us cry. In my mind I scold the women, and I’m angry at Ra for not listening to me.
Across the rice paddies near Chhnoel, children, women, and men are running for their lives, like red ants whose hole has been destroyed. Mothers with babies, one arm pinning them against their bodies while the other holds on to the bundles of belongings riding on their heads. Some