When Broken Glass Floats_ Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge - Chanrithy Him [15]
Sala Santeu Mook (elementary school) is my school and also Than’s. Colorful flowers in planters stand sentry before each building and around the flagpole, where we uniformly line up to salute the flag every morning and sing the national anthem:
We the people of Cambodia are well known in the world. We succeed in building monuments. Our glorious civilization and religion, our ancestors’ heritage, have been kept on this earth. Cambodians, stand up, stand up, fight, defend the republic. When enemies attack, we defend, we fight.
Two years after Vin was born, Mak has another healthy baby. He is adorable with dark brown eyes and light skin like Mak, but his face resembles Pa’s. After his birth, a nurse told Mak that the placenta had been wrapped around his body. This means he will be a teacher when he grows up and will be smart and compassionate. That makes Mak smile, her eyes gazing at his pink face. His name is Phalkunarith, but sometimes Pa calls him Map (chubby) because his cheeks are plump.
Now I’m eight, forgetting the past with its enemies and bombs. I’ve learned new things in school, among them Cambodian history, which I have to memorize. Sometimes I find it boring because it is filled with wars, battles with neighboring countries, and dead Cambodian kings with names as long as my first and last name combined. It seems Cambodia has never been a country fully at peace. Chea says it’s important to learn Khmer history. But right now I’d rather learn math or, better yet, I’d like to know more about the magical power of the medicines tucked in the drawers of Pa’s desk.
When no one is around, I gently, ever so gently, slide open one of Pa’s medicine drawers. Before me lie boxes of powdered medicine in vials, and clear liquid medicine in small glass cylinders blown into different shapes. There are tiny metallic seesaw blades, which Pa uses to saw into the cylindrical glasses, and alcohol papers wrapped in little packages. I am spellbound by the array of glittering, magical treasures. Finally my eyes come to rest on two things: the medicine for the injections Pa gives me in my butt and the liquid he shoots into the veins of my arms.
There is a kind of magic in my home: medicine. I’m not sure where or how my father has learned medicine, but he does so hoping never to be as helpless as he was during Tha’s and Bosaba’s illnesses. This is very much like Pa. To him, life is a series of problems waiting to be solved.
Pa is a good father and, now, a good doctor. When I am sick with asthma, he always takes care of me. When my breathing is labored, he puts his ear against my chest and back to listen for wheezing. Sometimes he takes me to a hospital for X rays and blood tests. Then he knows what medicine to give. Somehow, with seven children to treat, he readily makes room for other patients. No appointments necessary. As he helps my ailing cousins and the neighbors’ children, I look on with adoration. I hold Pa’s hand and say to him, “Pa, when I’m big I want to be like you. I want to give people shots. Make them better.”
Beside Pa, Chea is my number two idol. She’s very smart. She often receives presents and awards for being at the top of her class. Mak and Pa are proud of her. I want to be like her—to do math in a thick spiral notebook and have lots of good friends. Chea teaches me how to sing French and English songs. Often I ask her to teach me how to count to ten “in American.” Noticing my fascination with the language, she promises me she will talk to Pa about enrolling me in a private English school called Engloria when I turn ten.
There’s no doubt Pa will let me. He and Mak are pleased when my brothers, sisters, and I study. It makes me think of a poem Chea once recited to me:
“Knowledge cannot be destroyed by termites…. One can spendit and never run out of it.”
Our household shifts once again. Pa helps arrange Aunt Cheng’s marriage, then takes her and her husband under his wing. They stay with us until they can find their own place. It’s nice to have Aunt Cheng around. It feels strange to see her