When Broken Glass Floats_ Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge - Chanrithy Him [114]
Her name is Sitha, a small-built, short-haired woman, perhaps in her mid-thirties. Her voice is gentle, polite. She reminds me that we met at Korkpongro, a village where we first heard the Khmer Rouge’s guns soon after leaving Daakpo. She says I would remember her father. She points to her hut, to a wise-looking, friendly man whom I now recall. I remember how much I prayed when we were in Korkpongro. Perhaps those prayers were heard, and here we are, meeting again. To my pleasant disbelief, she has seen Ra and Than, and gladly offers to take me to where they’re staying.
As we approach a golden-grassed shack situated near a mound with two tall trees, Aunt Sitha points to it and says that it is where Ra and Than are. Smiling, she bids me good-bye, leaving me excited about my reunion with my sister and brother. I imagine their surprise at seeing me, their little sister, standing in front of them. When I arrive in front of the doorless hut, I see a woman in a bright blue blouse and a flowered skirt sitting on a mat with her back toward me, engrossed in something she’s making. That’s not their hut, I think disappointedly.
I hurry toward where Aunt Sitha and I parted, hoping to catch her and tell her she was wrong, but she’s gone.
Returning to the hut, I decide to ask the woman if she knows Ra and Than.
“Excuse me.”
The woman turns around.
“Ra! Oh, it’s you.” I laugh, surprised and happy to find that she is my sister after all.
Beaming as she gets up from the mat, Ra asks, “Whom did you come with?” When did you get here?”
Ignoring her questions, I eye her from head to toe. Her healthy, glowing skin. Her eyes. They’re happy, vibrant. Finally I find the words to describe how different she looks since I last saw her a week ago. “Ra,” I say, smiling exuberantly, “you have spirit, you have meat [gained weight]. You have good skin. You look like koon chen [someone of Chinese descent].”
Ra grins broadly, her hands reaching out to me, speechless at my bluntness.
I sit on the mat beside Ra and she tells me that Than’s out trying to buy merchandise from Thai merchants to trade with travelers on their way to Cambodia.
“Isn’t he scared?” I knit my eyebrows. “I’ve heard that it’s dangerous. Thai soldiers arrest Cambodians and torture them, beating them up. Is that true, Ra?”
“Well, there are Thai soldiers patrolling, I’ve heard. But you have to know when to go to trade with the Thai merchants,” Ra explains, not so sure herself. Suddenly her face shines with excitement. “Athy, over here, if you have Thai money or gold, you can buy lots of things. They have everything. Pineapples, chickens, beef, ice, everything. All you could ever want to eat.” Ra grins comically. “All you need is money.”
“No wonder you have meat on you.”
So relieved and exhilarated, I chuckle with Ra. Since the Khmer Rouge’s takeover, I have not laughed this hard with my sisters or brothers. But today we laugh until my cheeks and belly hurt. My face becomes warm, my soul at ease.
Afterward I go to bang and her husband and tell them the news. They are relieved that I’ve found Ra. When I return to the shack, there’s Than, smiling, happy to see me. And squatting by the entrance to the shack, there is the man whom Ra has told me about, from Kompong Cham province. Dark skin, medium build, with long, defined eyebrows. His name is Vantha, his nickname Preag. He had traveled through Sala Krao with a few men and a woman from Kompong Cham. Everyone else, Ra says, has gone back except him.
Considering how uncomfortable Ra is around men, I’m surprised that Vantha is allowed to stay here. If Mak and Pa were alive, they would not have approved of this living arrangement. But then, who is to say that one should follow the old cultural rules when the circumstances are so changed? What I’m most concerned about is how to survive in this camp. When Than and bang Vantha go to trade with