For the Sake of All Living Things (124 page)

He glanced at the reports spewing from the borrowed attaché case onto the polyethylene surface. “...we must arrange the Party’s history into something clean and perfect, in line with our policies of independence and self-mastery.” They were Pol Pot’s words, words from the Party’s journal. Uck, he thought. In the dining room behind him people were picking at their food. He watched plate after plate being carried to the automatic dishwasher, heaped with untouched mashed potatoes, or enough steak to feed a village for a week.

Though it was against our law, his mental oration ran, though it was against our policy and against normal operating procedure,
Some
Americans committed atrocious crimes. That most were honorable, brave, honest and righteous, that their cause was one of freedom for a people assailed by the modern-day
Hun
, the
Hun
whose slaughter paralleled that of seventeenth-century Swedes in Poland, paralleled that of Stalinist Russia, is to no account. Or is it only my righteousness? Ay, ye
America
, condemn thyself before all the people of the world, tell them you are not worthy and abdicate all responsibility to all humanity. Fornicate in BMWs. Masturbate in stone-washed
dun-
gar-ees. Truckle thy principled manner to microwave ovens and world-class shopping sprees. Spread thy thighs for stereo-television, camcorder complexes projecting images of thy vile and hideous past, thy violent streets, thy corrupt and exploitive businesses. That most of you are decent means nothing.

Conklin, of all people! He had agreed to go back. Him with his lady. Divorced now. In January of 1976, one report said, the defection of Krahom troops was so high some referred to it as the second revolution. In Ratanakiri, only a few months back, the Krahom minister of defense led KK Regiment 703 in an open uprising against Pol Pot’s local forces. Then there was an aborted rebellion in the eastern zone and a Colonel Rin and thousands of troops had escaped to Viet Nam and were forming a new Khmer Viet Minh.

Abdicate thy role, America, Sullivan snarled inside. I am not worthy. I am not worthy. To every nation: Know ye, America is not worthy.

A second famine is reported to be sweeping Democratic Kampuchea and upwards of half the population is estimated to be at risk of perishing. What the fuck, Sullivan thought. It ain’t on TV. It can’t be true. How did Elie Wiesel, the Nazi holocaust survivor, put it? “...if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices.” Is it so painful to look at that we deny it? Forget it? Change the historical script? Or is it no such deep and hidden psychological defense mechanism but instead our hedonistic and narcissistic shallow selves attempting to entertain ourselves to death with the latest lust from the giggly-boob tube? Is it cover-up or just plain apathy?

Sullivan downed another shot. In his mind he blared to the world, Expect nothing if insurgents attack. We’ve nothing to offer. It is the lesson we’ve learned from Viet Nam. Lo, if thee shall fall behind the creeping curtain of restricted information flow—we know not your suffering. How can it be?! It’s not on our TV.

“
In the lee of world view
,” the report said, “Khmers
had
to march to their deaths even when they knew that was where they were marching.” My daughter, marching to her death, he thought, and the anger in him was so immense, only another shot kept him from tearing the bar from the floor and thrashing the people behind him, beside him.

Fornicate in your BMWs, he screamed at them in his mind, while the filthy fat female sighs lewdly over your vehicular speakerphone, only three dollars per minute. Masturbate in stone-washed
dun-
gar-ees. You are not worthy to entertain the thought of assisting others. Abdicate thy responsibility with dry, stinkless armpits. You can be sure you are not worthy. You can feel soft as a gentle summer breeze—as Khmers toast.

Soft leather reclining bucket seats with six-speaker vehicular video-audio...Lao die under yellow rain from poison bee pollen shaken from bugs by PAVN high explosives and napalm. Peace at last in Southeast Asia!

Peace is at hand. Sullivan now drank directly from the beer bottle, purposely hoping it disgusted the well dressed about him. The domino theory has been disproven. Angola does not touch Kampuchea. I am not worthy. Abdicate thy responsibility to the people of the world. Do not give me your homeless. They probably carry disease. I am not worthy to even think I may be intelligent enough to sort out what is decent from what is foul. The insurgents have legitimate points, after all. World, you are not worthy of the sacrifice of even one American life. Have a bag of money. Let me sell you some bombs. It is the lesson of Viet Nam.

I have a daughter!
She is the property of Angkar Leou! You bastards. Fornicate in thy Mercedes in your sealed, secure garage, behind your tight security system—in your stone-washed denim lacy lingerie from Freddie of HoBo Woods.

Why? Bastards! You devious, calculating...make a “new communist woman” of my daughter...Is that a manifestation of your “purity of purpose,” your desire for pure communism?

What of our myths, our moral foundation, our history, my fellow Americans? In January 1961 John F. Kennedy said

In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger....The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it—and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.

Was it not that spirit which propelled me, us, into the Viet Nam era? Change the word “spirit” to “purpose” or “motive.” The spirit, purpose, and motive survived Lee Harvey Oswald’s bullets. But it could not survive the icon busters. Revelations that JFK was boffing MM or whomever while Jackie was on hold tarnished the hero in the tabloid brains of America and that tarnish dulled his beautiful, altruistic and moralistic ideals. Results: the hero falls from grace and with him the mythical strength, his high ideals
and
with that, the motivation to emulate. Cultural idealism wanes. Society accepts less, standards fall, people emulate the mores of television vamps and the generation gurus.

Lock your iron triangle on thy guilt, oh nation. I am not worthy of any good. Thus I am free from trying. Look out for number
one
! It is the lesson of Viet Nam.

Reexamine your viewpoints, your foresight and hindsight—
not, for most, your principles.
Fifty million people have been enslaved in Southeast Asia since the falls, fifty million political hostages. Around the world “free” nations are backing off to appease Soviet expansionism because of America’s decline in power, not firepower but willpower. Oh, to lie you down, America. Right there. On that couch. Lie down, you big overstuffed oaf. Oh to be the guide on your psychoanalytic journey—not because you are nuts, but because you’ve got so much right with you, so much of positive value to offer the world. If only you weren’t hung up on immediate gratification. If only you could cope with your insecurities and face reality. If only you had a sense of your own, and world, history.

Fuck it! Fornicate on the hood of your Ferrari. Nay, masturbate, America. No one wants to lie with the guilt ridden.

But know this, world, America may stay at home—but John Sullivan is coming.

“I
KILLED MY FATHER,”
Met Nang told Vathana. He had had her brought to his house, bathed, scrubbed raw, fed, given chloro-quinine and tetracycline, and put in the cage in his room. “Well, not really,” Nang continued. His words were quick though he tried to portray himself as detached. “He killed himself. I could have prevented it. Maybe not. He...he was so...I mean he confessed. He confessed to being infected with yuon disease. He confessed to many horrible and malicious acts against the people and against the state. Of course, he had to die.”

“I killed my father,” Nang repeated. Vathana said nothing. She was not expected to comment. She squatted in the low cage when Nang came, squatted, stared, listened. At times the young man babbled straight Krahom-Marxist cliché babble; at other times he referred to very intimate details of his personal life, yet all of it was scattered and out of context. For months Vathana had no idea what he was talking about. Always there was the one recurring theme: I killed my father.

When Nang was not home Met Nem, the housekeeper and teacher of Nang’s children, often let Vathana out of the cage. Nem was severe yet, within her own system, consistent and just. She was given the task of remaking Vathana in the image of Angkar. It was serious business. Angkar was strong. Vathana must be strong. Angkar was powerful. Vathana must be powerful. Angkar was righteous, pure, single-minded. Vathana must hold only the beliefs of Angkar Leou. The skin of her feet and hands, which had looked like dried wax when she’d been chosen, began to moisten and fill. Her hair grew out. Clumps with scabs fell off leaving bald pink patches on the scalp but these were soon hidden beneath thickening new growth. Daily Nem coined Vathana, rubbing her back or shoulders or legs with a brass coin until the skin seemingly glowed red. Nem pulled her earlobes, her hair. Vathana, having twice been starved to the point where food was repulsive, was now again force-fed until she continuously craved food. In the cage her body filled out like a calf being fattened for veal.

Each day Nang made Nem undress Vathana before him so he could gauge the results. The sickly stick figure became curvaceous. Nang lifted her breasts—once nothing but shriveled nipples in a sunken chest, now, slowly, the lovely tissues of femininity—with his pincer. “It is,” he told Nem, not even addressing Vathana, “the best way to assess the progress.”

Then for days he would be gone and Vathana would sit or squat or lie in the small tiger cage in his room in his house in the forest isolated from the horrors, forced to listen to Radio Phnom Penh, to listen to Pol Pot’s three-, four-, five-hour broadcasts. Then the winds shifted, the rains passed and the harvest season came. During daylight new winds carried a constant low moaning. At night, all night, the wind brought a ghastly, odorous cloud. There was a great thrust at the border, vicious fighting, constant reports of Khmer victories, each nearer to the heart of Democratic Kampuchea.

Nang returned. He was flushed, feverish, agitated. Again he babbled the nonsense about killing his father, but now to Vathana he seemed not to hear his own words. Then he said to her, “You are now loyal to Angkar.” She, as always, did not respond. He turned on her, a harsh evil glare contorting his scarred features. “You are now one with Angkar.”

“Yes, Met Nang.” She did not know what he wanted. She wanted only more food.

“Yes. You had better say yes. We destroyed the foreign devils. Yes?”

“Yes, Met Nang.”

“Where is Nem?”

“I’m not given to...”

“You,” Nang exploded, “are
one
with
Angkar
! Angkar saved you. Angkar gave you life.” Nang reached out, grasped her shirt, jerked it hard throwing her across the room. The shirt opened. He leaped toward her, grabbed the shirttail and ripped up, over her head. Vathana cringed. Nang seized her skirt, yanked it from her. “I fuck them,” he shouted. “Do you doubt me?”

“N...no.” Vathana rushed the answer.

“I fuck them and kill them because they are evil. Do you
doubt me
?”

“No.”

“Should I fuck you?” he screamed. He stood over her, his teeth clenched, his hands balled into rock-tight fists ready to smash her to death. Vathana looked into his eyes. Behind his insanity she saw his fear and she relaxed. “Should I?” Nang screamed. Vathana lay back. She touched her fingertips to her shoulders, above her breasts, her elbows at her side. She did not know why but she was not afraid. She resisted by offering no resistance.

“I fuck them all,” Nang seethed again. He dropped to a knee, grasped her pants, ripped them apart. “Then I cover them with city evils.” As he spoke he shoved his stubbed hand between her legs, rubbing, separating the labia. “Rouge, lipstick, necklaces.” Nang laughed. Vathana stared at the roof. She shuddered from a stab of pain. Still she did not resist. “The yuons stuff women with rice stalks. Ha! But you are one with Angkar.” His tone became less severe, his pressure softened. “You are not yet called to walk to Thailand. Struggle, Met Ana. Struggle courageously to be one with Angkar.”

Now Nang smiled. He seemed relieved, then dizzy, then relieved again. It was very hot, the moaning was very loud. “I fucked you well, eh?”

“Yes, Met Nang.”

“We must have faith in Met Sar, in Pol Pot, in Angkar. Angkar will crush all enemies.”

“Yes, Met Nang.”

“Now you must come with me. I will show you how enemies are crushed. Then we can fuck again. The CIA pays thousands of evildoers but we ferret them out. Everyone must be scrutinized. Anyone may be an agent. Anyone!”

In late December the Viet Namese launched a massive broad-front attack stretching from the Gulf of Siam to the high plateau of the Srepok Forest. Again fear of treachery set off a wave of killings in the interior and again Met Nang became very busy. Now he did not leave Vathana in the cage but brought her to witness his efficiency. First he showed her the prisons, the meticulous records room, the photography “studio,” the confession chambers.

“You must read his confession,” Nang told her one day.

“Whose?”

“My father’s. He was very evil.”

Vathana stared at Nang. She was reluctant to answer. This creature had total control of her. “If you wish me to see...”

“Ha! Maybe sometime, Met Ana. You are very brave. Tonight I will fuck you well. Very special. Now I will show you a platform ceremony.”

The Viet Namese invasion fizzled in January 1978. The Krahom armies drove the invaders back toward the border, and in celebration the Center launched a new purge. For two months Vathana accompanied Nang to witness one atrocity after another. Some were small: a married couple stripped, the wife raped by several yotheas before her husband—then his genitals hacked off and given to her—then both disemboweled. Some were large: platform ceremonies like the earliest ones, except now the women and children were told they were being reunited with fathers or husbands who had disappeared years earlier. They were lined up on the platform, given a speech, given flowers to present to the men who would come shortly. Till the very end the ruse continued. Bloodlines were being eradicated. Some were massive: groups of a hundred or two hundred were led, arms tied, to dikes of neighboring
sangkats
, then they were bludgeoned to death with hardwood clubs. As young children shrieked for their kin, yotheas bayoneted them or grabbed them by the feet and used them as clubs to smash the adults. The neighbors were called to bury the dead. Then they were ordered to dig deep ponds which later became their own mass graves.