When Broken Glass Floats_ Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge - Chanrithy Him [31]
Even at nine years of age, I recognize that this meeting is deceptive. How can these Khmer Rouge leaders blindly say things that many of us, even children, already know to be false. What are their intentions?
After a few hours of listening to numbing chants under the hot sun, I know only that I feel a defiant seed sprouting deep within me. The entire time, I never sink into the dirt. It is a small act, but an important one.
The next day my asthma returns. As always, Pa is my doctor—he’s there for me, checking my breathing, listening to my lungs, trying to make things better as my chest rides up and down, struggling for air. At night before going to sleep, Pa listens to my labored breathing again, then gives me medicine one more time. As always, Pa has a way of putting things right. Good father that he is, he smiles warmly, then says, “Koon, when your medicine is gone, let’s stop getting sick, okay?”
I look into Pa’s eyes and know what he means.
Since I’ve been sick, Pa has me sleep outside downstairs, sharing the oak bed sandwiched between him and Kong Houng. The next evening as I sleep, I hear Pa’s voice calling my name, and then his hand gently touches my face.
“Athy, koon, do you have difficulty breathing? Sit upright if you do.”
I open my eyes and Pa’s silhouette is beside me. He pats my head, then rests his ear against my wheezing chest, listening to my lungs. Knowing Pa’s near, I groan a little just to let him know I hear him, then my eyes shut. When I open them again, Pa disappears, and I sink back into my restless sleep.
“Please sit down. Yes, please,” a voice says.
“Yes, yes,” a chorus of three voices exclaim.
My eyes open. And there, opposite me, at the end of the bed, are two men and a woman, whom I have never seen. All are dressed in black uniforms with red-and-white-checked scarves draped around their necks. Greeting them is Kong Houng, whose voice I heard earlier. He’s sitting near me, illuminated by a dim oil lamp beside him. Feeling delirious and anxious, I get up abruptly. Then I see Pa make his way down the stairs.
“Pa,” I cry out. I feel warm and shaky.
“Stay there, Pa’s coming.”
After he greets the strangers, Pa sits near me, beside Kong Houng, facing the strangers, with his legs folded casually on the oak bed. He strokes my hair and tells me to go back to sleep. I obey and close my eyes. But I can no longer sleep. These three people have come to ask Pa many questions regarding Uncle Seng’s whereabouts and Pa’s previous occupation, as well as Uncle Surg’s and Uncle Sorn’s. I lie facing them, finally understanding what this meeting is about.
Kong Houng has told Pa and all my uncles about local people wanting to meet them. Back then, it sounded harmless, a neighborly get-to-know-you meeting. But now it feels sinister. These people are interrogators. Their unwavering, direct gaze burns into Pa—an unrelenting eye contact uncommon in Cambodian culture—as Pa dutifully explains his own work history and the other uncles’ previous jobs.
As soon as Pa finishes, the woman quickly attacks, asking Kong Houng about Uncle Seng. “Where is your other son, the one who flies an airplane?”
“I don’t know why Seng hasn’t come home. Most of my children and their children came,” Kong Houng says gently, appearing genuinely concerned and curious. He turns to Pa and says, “Atidsim told me that they got separated on the way here. I don’t know what else to tell you.”
Pa comes to the rescue. He explains that Uncle Seng was separated from us during the chaotic evacuation from Phnom Penh, lost in the madness of those final days. It is the only lie he utters.
He tells them we waited for Uncle Seng, but that he never showed up. “I figured he can find his way here, so we decided to continue our walk. I don’t know why he isn’t here yet. We hope he gets to see all the relatives.” Pa speaks politely and convincingly.
Pa’s fabricated story conjures up memories of Uncle Seng leaving our home and Pa’s helplessness as he watched him walk