When Broken Glass Floats_ Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge - Chanrithy Him [124]
Ry screams, and I wail for every blow they strike at Than. We press the palms of our hands together, begging them to stop, but they keep on beating Than, then pour water on him, and when he groans they beat him again and again.
“Please stop torturing my brother. Stop!” I yell, moving in closer to the soldiers. “He’s only a kid. Please stop hurting my brother….”
All of the soldiers there watch, including a man in civilian clothes. They look on as Ry and I plead for mercy. Ry’s fists pound the ground as if the pain she sees being inflicted upon Than is too great to bear. Turning away from the sight of Than being beaten, I implore the oldest soldier, who is sitting on a chair, to stop the beating. He looks away, his face cold. Finally they stop, and we take him home.
Ry, Than, Map, and I move in with Aunt Eng and her husband and two daughters. We sleep inside the quad and her family sleeps in the alcove in the front. Savorng remains with Ra and bang Vantha. Ra doesn’t say much about what happened. It seems that bang Vantha has again succeeded in convincing her that the fight wasn’t his fault but Than’s. Perhaps she is too devoted to him, or has succumbed to her role as the submissive wife. But whichever it is, her inability to resolve the situation, along with bang Vantha’s immaturity and rudeness toward us, has caused our family to drift apart. We hardly see her or Savorng anymore.
A few private English classes have just opened. I attend all of them, then quit each class as soon as the teacher reminds everyone to bring money to pay the class fee.
Later my dilemma is solved. A public school called Sras Srang opens in the camp. It is situated in a big open space on the outskirts of the camp near the woods. Built on pilings with stairs and a landing, the school has five classrooms for grade six to nine. English is taught as well as math, Cambodian composition, and physical education.
It has been six years since I attended a formal school. Now, at fifteen, I enroll in the seventh grade, two grades higher than when I lived in Phnom Penh. Today in class I survey my classmates, perhaps fifty of them. We sit on the wooden floor that still gives off the fragrance of freshly cut wood. Boys sit among themselves, and the girls sit with girls, and I’m with them, folding my legs near the door of the classroom with a notebook, pen, and pencil in front of me.
Like me, Than, seventeen, who recovered from the soldiers’ abuse, also enrolls in the seventh grade, but in a different class from mine, and he has a different teacher. Ry, on the other hand, attends an eighth/ninth-level class, which is down the hall from mine. Later she plans to take a teaching course, she says—her goal is to become a teacher, teaching children Cambodian.
Ra had a baby girl on September 30, 1980, a week ago. One afternoon she and Savorng bring the baby, Syla, to our quad. When Ry, Than, and I come home from school, they are sitting in the alcove where we cook our food. With them are Map, Aunt Eng, and her daughters.
Syla is tiny, dark-skinned with thick black hair. Her eyes are shut, lips suckling, her hands formed into fists. Savorng cradles her, and she sleeps peacefully. We all look at her, and talk about her, and not much else.
Nowadays going to school is like a hunger. Every night I anxiously look forward to returning to school the next morning. After school I diligently study math and English. As soon as I get back to the quad, I do my schoolwork, going over my notes and what will be taught the next day.
One day my teacher, whom I call Lok Kruu (Lok means “sir,” and Kruu means “teacher”), hands back our math test. Knowing I did all the problems correctly, I am eager to get my test back. When I get it, I see the red mark indicating a score of nineteen out of twenty. I check a multiplication problem marked wrong and realize that my answer is correct.
I show