When Broken Glass Floats_ Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge - Chanrithy Him [84]
“Comrade, which brigade are you in?” a food-ladling woman inquires, her forehead creased with curiosity.
“I’m sick,” I reply softly, taking my place in front of her. The woman scoops a bowlful of rice onto my plate, then drops a pinch of coarse salt beside it. I feel her stare, her eyes questioning. But I walk on, one hand holding the rice.
“Never seen her before,” says the woman.
“That comrade has been sick, huddling in her hut all the time,” a voice replies.
“I gave her the same as the workers!” The woman complains.
The food begins to change me. With each bite, some life seeps back. My brain clears. The idea of my own survival had almost been erased from my mind. But I’m still too hollow to work for the Khmer Rouge.
While everyone labors in the hot field digging irrigation ditches, I sit in my shack, a squatty thatch shelter. Beneath my legs I can feel the itch of loose dry grass scattered about. I stare through the doorless entrance. My mind is pulled outward. I want to talk to Preah:
Preah, why is the day bright, yet seem so dark to me? My life has no meaning, I hear myself say. Why am I so empty, so sick inside? Was this how Mak felt? Did this cause her to get bad so quickly?
As I ask these questions, my mind readily summons the image of Mak in the Choup hospital, offering no resistance. Did Mak sacrifice too much for us? Did she miss Pa, Avy, and Vin? Preah, stop letting people die, put an end to this suffering.
For the first time in the twelve years of my life, I don’t pray to Buddha requesting him to stop the suffering. I demand his action. I want to have a say in my suffering, my family’s, and others’. How much more do I have to endure?
Do you care?
I question his mercy, his divinity, like I used to argue with my own father. Even now, I can remember one summer back in Phnom Penh when I asked him if I could go to a private school.
Pa didn’t say yes or no. He simply said I was young (eight) and didn’t need to go to a private school. Smiling, Pa explained, “If all my children want to go to private schools, with book costs, school costs, Pa will be dead [broke].”
I couldn’t accept it. I told Pa that if Chea could go to a private English school and buy expensive hardbound books, why couldn’t I too go to summer school?
“I want to improve my math. Why can’t I do that, Pa?” I said, standing before my parents while Pa was having breakfast.
Pa was quiet, his mouth chewing. Mak gazed at him. Still, he was silent. I needed to leave for the first day of class, my hands already holding my notebook and pencil. All he had to do was pay.
Silence.
I burst out crying, “Koon wants to go to school and Pa doesn’t want to pay. I’m not important.” I sobbed, my nose burning.
Pa was surprised. Never before had he known any child my age who wanted to study this badly.
“Stop crying,” Pa said, grinning. “Pa will pay. Little, yet ambitious.”
Mak beamed. I smiled through tears, then hurried to class.
This was my earthly father. He understood when I reasoned with him. A Buddhist nun once told Mak that I was koon Preah (God’s child). If I am, then Preah should understand my suffering. Stop my suffering.
I shut my eyes. My heart aches.
On the dusty ground by the entrance to my shack, I look at the distant red sky. The sun is setting. Strangely, no one has made me work. Perhaps everyone is repelled by the way I act, the way I look, and how lost I am in my own mind. For a long time I used to worry, but I don’t now. I’m not even scared of my brigade leader—don’t even know what she looks like. Maybe she’s the one who often sticks her head into my shack, calling me “comrade.” She can call me, but I’m hiding in my mind. Sometimes I think of Mak briefly, in no more than small bits and pieces. Then a door in my mind slams shut. Again, I’m as quiet as the night.
As the sun retreats, I’m drawn back into the corner of the