When Broken Glass Floats_ Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge - Chanrithy Him [42]
In a short time, a community of huts springs up amid the forest. Huts appear like mushrooms after a hard rain. Our crude village is a social laboratory, a brutal experiment to test if anyone will survive the Khmer Rouge’s utopian theory.
There’s a mandatory meeting for the “new people.” We assemble in an alley between huts, in the generous shade of a cluster of trees. The village leader orders us to rid ourselves of anything that is of the “American imperialists.” “That includes,” he commands, “watches, gold necklaces, bracelets, diamond rings.” His hand clutches a gray bag in which he’ll collect the goods, disposing of these things for us like a monk demanding that we renounce our sins. “These things are impure, which Angka dislikes, and comrades cannot possess them. It’s okay that comrades have had them before, but now Angka doesn’t want these corrupt materials around. Angka wants comrades to bring these things to me,” he emphasizes.
After receiving our instructions, we return to our hut. Safely inside, Mak and my sisters talk quietly among themselves, whispering and frowning. They disagree about what to give to the village leader. I take refuge in the shade of a hut near ours. From where I squat, I observe people giving up their possessions to the leader. He nods as if he is royalty. He has power, control over the smallest detail of our lives.
“Mak! Only give him my watch. Don’t give him everything!” Chea insists, grabbing Mak’s arm as my mother is about to take a small bag of fine jewelry to the leader.
Mak shoots her a sour face. She glares at Chea and softly hisses, “You take it to him then.”
Chea obeys, relieved to end the heated discussion. She surrenders her watch. Whether she has the watch or not is irrelevant. It’s only a matter of time before most of us will die, and it doesn’t matter whether we can measure it, counting down the hours on a wristwatch.
In taking our timepieces, the Khmer Rouge are deliberately stealing the last remnants of our connection to the outside world. Increasingly, the atmosphere in our camp is one of unreality—people squeezed into huts next to each other, all steeped in distrust. We’re constantly uneasy, wondering who might be listening to us. Traditions are being shattered daily. We are shocked to see that we are separated only by a wall from neighbors who have full-grown sons. In the past, parents and grandparents would have clucked over such an arrangement, worrying about how inappropriate it was. But the Khmer Rouge have no use for formal courtesy.
Still, we see glimmers of what used to be. One day my sister Chea is trying to water the meager assortment of plants we’ve been growing in the patch behind our hut. Nearby, our neighbor, the oldest son, busies himself tilling soil.
“Look,” Chea says, observing with surprise that a squash plant had grown bright white flowers. “Is it supposed to be white?”
He laughs. “Mademoiselle, where do you come from?”
Mademoiselle. A word clue to the hidden privileges of the past. Chea bursts out laughing, delighted to find a hint of education in another person.
“Parlez-vous français?” she inquires.
The discovery creates an instant friendship. Speaking the same language, they share the same culture. Though the Khmer Rouge can control every other aspect of our lives, they cannot scrub out our minds, polish away our intellect like an empty brass pot. In the midst of the daily fear of Khmer Rouge village life, it is a delicious secret. And I’m proud and amused to witness it.
Our lives continue to shrink. Less freedom. Fewer family bonds. Food rations dwindle, just as our living space