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By Root 1323 0

has been steadily reduced to the small hut, a cage really, where my family now resides. The rice rations are five times less than what we were given back in Year Piar, and they continue to be reduced, stingily measured out in a small tin milk can. In time, the quantity diminishes from a few cups of dry rice to only enough to make a thin liquid gruel, which we supplement with pigweed and salt. The first week of our arrival, we receive a few ounces of pork. Then it too diminishes, just like the coarse salt we initially received, from a few tablespoons to nothing.

Even as food rations are cut, our labor demands remain the same. We work long hours in the woods to ready the fields for planting yams and yucca. Every morning a young Khmer Rouge informant sweeps through the village, bellowing bad news: “Time to get up, time to get up. Go to work!” As we lie in our huts, we hear his shrill voice as he approaches. I squeeze my eyes, wishing to pinch my ears shut, too. But if you don’t move, he will sometimes poke his face right into your doorless hut. He’s only twelve or thirteen, but he carries the cruel clout of the Khmer Rouge.

Once I hear an older woman—beautiful and elegant before the ravages of poor nutrition and field labor—quietly cursing him behind his back. She goes by the name “Grandma Two Kilo,” for the weight of dirt she can carry. And in the early morning, I hear her fierce whispers, “You’re the one who will be hit by the bomb. I haven’t died [slept] long enough. And here you wake me up. You come again, I’ll throw something at your head.”

Next door, I hear our older neighbor laughing behind the wall. “Grandma Two Kilo, don’t be a blabbermouth,” he murmurs. “Be careful. Don’t be brave.”

Malnutrition takes its toll on everyone. Mak’s once-lustrous skin and glistening black hair show the signs of starvation. Her eyes are sunken. Her hair is brittle and wiry, and her skin covers her arms and cheeks like a thin, loose-fitting bedsheet, as if her muscles were being eaten away from within. Her starving body mirrors what the rest of us look like.

Just as the Khmer Rouge suck the life out of us, we drain our pond—a small body of water grown murky with a thick forest of algae and water plants. It is peppered with insects, sediment, and other debris. The water tastes of dirt, but it’s all we have—the next pond is miles away. So we drink from it, depleting it quickly, our village acting like a giant elephant trunk drawing even fetid water to quench its thirst. In addition, we must use this pond water for washing, cleaning our pots and pans, our clothes. Those who have no inkling of sanitation discard their dirty, soapy water on the bank of the pond. Some water seeps into the clay soil, the rest dribbles back to the pond.

Soon we have a new neighbor. Death has taken up residence here, moving in like a malevolent, unwelcome visitor. Within months rampant illness begins to touch the newest arrivals. This sickness takes many forms, creeping into our lives quietly, stealthily. Like many adults and children, I squat outside my hut each morning to catch the first sunlight, desperate to warm my body, which is now racked with strange intermittent chills. Rocking back and forth, I’m somehow soothed by the rays of the sun, intangible hands that sway me to sleep in a squatting position. A few hours later, my body moves from being warm to burning hot. I wobble to the hut. Up I climb, my body soaked in my own sweat. Then comes the ache and pain, from my legs to my head. I’m delirious and confused. Finally I’m exhausted and hungry. I gradually regain my senses.

So it goes, this strange routine. No one understands what is wrong. But my condition doesn’t seem to improve, my extremes of fever and chill grow worse. I begin thrashing in a delirious stupor. Vaguely, I’m aware of what is happening to me, and yet I listen and observe it as an outsider, unable to control the words as they tumble from my mouth. It is odd to be aware of the fact that I am making no sense. Strangely, I begin crying out, demanding, pleading for a food offering. “A bowl