When Broken Glass Floats_ Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge - Chanrithy Him [30]
“In this era,” he says, his mouth widening into a smile, “all you need do to pass an exam is know how to dig dirt.”
Some of us join in with light laughter.
Mak looks around. “Your father is careless about what he says,” she warns. “If they hear what he says, we will be in trouble. Joking without thinking.” Mak gives Pa her patented look of disapproval. Everyone knows what it means.
Mak’s words erase our smiles. Pa glances around us. “Let’s stop talking,” he says softly. “Nowadays, walls have ears.”
Already the Khmer Rouge, the phantoms of the jungle, seem ubiquitous. They are like flies buzzing around us, everywhere but invisible. They are the breeze that ruffles the banana trees, unseen but powerful.
Angka is now the master of our destiny, it seems. The next morning Khmer Rouge order us to attend a meeting. A meeting for “new people,” we are told. As recent arrivals, most of my family must attend except Mak, who stays home to look after Vin, Map, and Avy.
We dress as if we were going to visit the Buddhist temple or attend school. I hold my father’s hand as we journey to this meeting on foot. Pa wears a white short-sleeved shirt with slacks, and I wear my school uniform. After we walk about four miles, we come to a large open field, filled with people dressed in spring clothes—they are not local villagers. There are hundreds of them, and everyone squats or sits on the ground on plastic material or cloth. Together we look like nicely dressed vagabonds, surprised to find we have put on good clothes only to sit in the dirt.
I shake my father’s hand. “Pa, people sit on the ground.”
“Pa knows.”
We are struck by this churning mass of people sitting on the ground like mushrooms. In the bright pulsing sun we squint, blocking the rays with hands shelved above our eyes, an unintended salute. I gaze at the bulging body of people, sweeping over the scene again and again like a surveillance camera taking snapshots of intruders. In my wildest dreams, I could never have visualized such a meeting, a goofy, dressed-up tribal gathering, a trip back in time.
I glare at Pa. Why must we sit on the ground and obey the Khmer Rouge? We can’t just obey them. We don’t owe them our respect. Deep in my heart, there’s a fire. I feel that if I sit down, I will forever give in to the Khmer Rouge. In my mind I shout, You cannot tell me what to think!
For the first time, I’m defiant, very angry at the Khmer Rouge who are shaping my life as well as my family’s. I am no longer sad or afraid. Now I know the taste of anger, for I know I don’t want to be in this whirlpool of darkness without reason, yet I get sucked into it.
Behind a mile of people, Pa squats, sitting on his heels, and I stand by him. The rest of my family squats near us. Pa tells me to sit down. I answer with a single sharp shake of my head.
I don’t want to dirty my clothes, I don’t want to listen to them, I don’t like them. Anger boils in me. Internally, I take it out on my father as I squint defiantly at the makeshift stage, glaring at the Khmer Rouge in their stupid black uniforms and ugly tire sandals. As much as I loathe their backward revolution because it has threatened my safety and security, I dislike their stage even more. A deck covered with gray roofing with two beams in front, each mounted with bell-shaped loudspeakers. It seems a false altar to their power.
Finally the loudspeakers squawk, followed by a man’s commanding voice: “Comrades, now we are all equal. There are no longer rich and poor. WE ARE EQUAL. WE ALL WEAR BLACK UNIFORMS.”
Black? I look at my clothes, then at Pa. He cracks a smile.
“We fought the ‘American imperialists’ with bare hands, and took victory over them. We’re brave…. Chey yo [Long live] Democratic Kampuchea, chey yo, chey yo…. Para chey [Down with] the ‘American imperialists,’ para chey, para chey.”
Since we are merely the Khmer Rouge’s puppets, we are supposed to do the same, shouting “chey yo” with