When Broken Glass Floats_ Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge - Chanrithy Him [57]
As soon as the mekorg goes on patrol after lunch, I slip away with a hoe, carrying it on my shoulder. If I get caught, I’ll announce I’m going to bot chhurng thom, “fold big leg,” a polite way of saying “pooping.”
Alone at the fishing spot, I take out the fish hook and a length of polyester thread—my fishing line salvaged from an old rice bag—and a small ball of rice I’ve saved from my lunch ration. Now I need a fishing pole. I break a tree branch and pick off the leaves. My fingers mash the rice to make a bait. I gently sink the fishing line into the water so as not to disturb the fish. A few fish make sudden moves. Their tails wiggle faster, propelling them forward. In my mind, I speak to them, coax them: Come on, eat the bait, eat the bait. I recite my chant over and over while trying to hold the fishing pole still.
One fish approaches, studying the bait. Suddenly its jaws open and the bait vanishes, and I pull. Into the air flies a silver fish the size of a tablespoon, jerked free from the hook but landing on the bank. I run over to it and cover the fish with both of my hands. Then I pinch its head until it stops moving. For a moment my fingers are frozen in victory.
Holding the fish beneath my hands, I know the life has seeped out of it. But it takes courage to move them, for I fear that it will somehow leap from my grasp and tumble back down the sandy bank out of my reach. To be safe, I move it, setting it back several feet, and return to the water. I gently lower the hook again and promptly catch two more fish the same way. Again, I sink the rice bait, and as soon as the next fish gulps the bait, I pull. My eyes follow the fishing pole in the air, then to the ground, but I don’t see the fish. I look into the water. There goes the fish and the polyester thread, the bait and the hook. Ah, the fish must have been hungrier than I am, I decide. Still, I have my catch. I roll up the three fish into the elastic waistband of my pants to hide them.
Cheng’s eyes open wide when I show her the fish. Her eyebrows rise when I tell her how I caught them. And her hand reaches out to see the hook. I tell her about losing the hook and the string, and promise that I’ll show her and Larg how to make fish hooks. The three of us sneak into the underbrush to make more hooks. Now our shirts are held together with bits of vine or safety pins. We fish whenever one of us can sneak away. Any catch is shared among us, sneaked into the embers to be cooked a little. For a while our extra catch helps. Later, everyone is closely watched and we don’t dare try to leave our work. Still, we have each other.
Months have passed. We operate on a cycle of endless longing. A yearning for the lunch ration pulls us through the morning. The desire for a dinner ration tugs us through the remainder of the day. It’s a circle of hunger. It obliterates everything—the heat, the exhaustion, the loneliness. Every day we slave for the Khmer Rouge in a vast barren field, digging irrigation ditches, hauling dirt in woven baskets. But we’re also slaves to our own hunger.
Hungry and exhausted as I am, I can hardly lift my feet up as I carry two baskets full of dirt balanced on either end of a carrying stick that rests across my shoulder. When I turn around, Cheng is right behind me, tipping her baskets, dumping the dirt out. She whispers to me.
“Athy, do you want to eat sweet grass? When I went to pee, I sucked on this long grass and there is juice in it. It tastes like sugarcane.”
Cheng gestures with a quick motion of her head.
My mouth waters at the thought of sugarcane. These words seem old, far distant. It’s been more than a year now since the evacuation from Phnom Penh. Suddenly the word “sugarcane” triggers images of good times. Eagerly, my mind slips away to Takeo.
Here is Mak, emerging through the gate, baskets full of groceries, bending against their weight. Avy, Than, and I race over to her. Each of us is eager to find out if Mak has bought our desserts. Eagerly, we call out “Mak, Mak,” squealing like baby birds in need of worms.
Than