When Broken Glass Floats_ Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge - Chanrithy Him [71]
“Mak, we’ve brought you rice,” I whisper, producing a pouch of rice the size of a small melon from my scarf. She puts her arms around me. Chea and Ra sit by her side, their eyes gazing at Mak’s silhouette, loving her in the Cambodian way. In our voices, Mak can feel our longing to be near her as clearly as any physical embrace. Our escape, the effort to bring food, speaks louder than any warm words we might offer.
“Achea [Chea], did you all sneak out? Aren’t you scared the chhlops will catch you?” Mak softly inquires, her voice concerned.
Chea answers, “There are other people who sneak out to see their families, not just us.” Her voice is at ease, reassuring.
Tenderly, Mak warns us, “Always be careful. Look after p’yoon, Athy, too. She’s small.” If they torture us, she says, it will kill her. Again, she warns us to be careful.
Chea reassures Mak about how careful we are. Mak turns to the rice. She asks Ra to wake Avy and Map up to eat, too. The moon wanes, its luminescence fading near the entrance to our hut. Mak, Avy, and Map eat quickly. Into their mouths the rice flies.
“Preah, the rice is delicious, sweet,” Mak softly exclaims, her voice grateful. “I haven’t had solid rice for so long. Having rice is like going to heaven.”
After eating, Mak updates us on their life in Daakpo. All they have to eat are leaves from the woods or the fleshy tubers from water plants nine-year-old Avy picks in a nearby lake. Sometimes they’re lucky—Mak or Avy catches a few crickets or toads. Mak speaks of their hunger easily, as if it were a natural condition.
It’s very late, perhaps after midnight. I can tell time only by how silent Daakpo is. Quickly I fall asleep. Before long I hear Chea’s voice. “Athy, it’s time to go. We have to go back. Those two people are here. Get up, Athy.”
Chea helps me off the platform of the hut and into the woods, safely back to the labor camp through the inky early morning darkness.
Here in the labor camps, Chea is our mother. She, Ra, and I continue to sneak a scant ration of rice back to Mak, saved from our rations. Every week I look forward to this escape, to spending as much time as we can with Mak, Avy, and Map. Since Angka orchestrates our lives, we don’t know how long our good fortune will last. But for the moment we allow ourselves a small sliver of pride.
Just the hope of seeing Mak creates a horizon for me in a world with no horizons. Even during our short visits, she cares for me, comforts me. For my infected eyes, she tells me to use my pee, caught in a leaf folded into a cone. She instructs me on how to do it, holding the point above my infected eyes, releasing the stinging yellow liquid in slow, steady drips. She says a woman’s milk will also help—I’ve heard that before, too, but where do I find a woman with milk? There are so few babies.
The only time I see adults show any interest in each other is among the Khmer Rouge mekorgs, the children’s brigade leaders, who flirt with each other. Workers would watch and nod. “They have the flesh,” they explain. “Without flesh and blood, there is no desire.”
There is only work. The irrigation canal is near completion, to be finished by an adult brigade. I’m surprised that children are being allowed to return to their respective villages. My eyes have healed from the infection, “cured” with my own pee. In addition to the infection, I’ve suffered from an ailment called “blind chicken,” which caused my eyes to stop working at night. During mandatory meetings Ary had to hold my hand, guiding me there and back to my shelter. As the infection subsides, so does the night blindness.
With my sight restored, my eyes again open. There is more to see.
9
Now I Know the Answer
Under the Khmer Rouge, reunions are precious but brief, appearing like a sudden summer shower that opens the sweet plumeria, and ending just as quickly. After Phnom Srais, children are sent back to villages to work with the adults, mostly mothers now, to clear woods