For the Sake of All Living Things (20 page)

Royal Cambodian forces from Stung Treng and Kratie were ambushed on the river on 8 November. They engaged enemy forces equipped with rocket-propelled grenades on the eighth and ninth, until the enemy withdrew. On 10 November the flotilla reached Siembauk, rendezvoused with an armored column from Kompong Thom and surrounded a lifeless, abandoned community. One hundred and fourteen people were found beaten to death within their homes. Seven people, the entire Kim Kamel family, escaped. No corpses of children between nine and fifteen years old were found. Presumably those children were conscripted. Also notably missing from amongst the dead were two hamlet elders of minor administrative importance. Nine enfeebled elders were wounded but not killed. They were evacuated and resettled with relatives in the town. Presumably this was a Khmer Krahom tactic designed to increase the burden on Siembauk and hasten its economic decline.

“Perhaps he was too old,” Met Dy whispered to Met Sar. The breakdown of order disturbed both men.

“Perhaps,” Met Sar whispered back. “Or perhaps of the wrong ethnic group, but other Jarai have worked well.” He paused, looked at the gathering of students before him and at the accused. The kosang had been in session for four hours. Met Sar and others, using the occasion as a class, had delivered long harangues: that which is rotten must be excised...soldiers must set an example of order and discipline...reactionaries must be disciplined...vigilance must be razor sharp or purity will be contaminated...

“I think,” Met Sar’s calm whisper began again, “it is neither age nor tribal origin per se. I think our mistake was to allow the Jarai to train with a Khmer class. He should have been separated and trained at Mount Aural with other eastern Mountaineers. Removed further from his old culture he would have been less apt to regress.”

Met Sar stood. “You have contemplated the judgment long enough,” he said. “Now it is time for sentencing. Team leaders stand and report. Student Pah.”

“Let him attempt to escape.” Pah snickered.

“Student Nang.”

Nang stood ramrod straight, tall and proud. His team had been honored by the battalion of regulars. No other team had been singled out, except Ur’s for disgrace, for violating the Krahom code, for subverting the operation. Student Ur had advanced to the home of Kim Kamel moments before the attack, had woken the seven people inside and had guided them to a hiding place at the village berm. From there they had escaped while Ur’s team went through the motions of burning the house. Ur was despicable, vulgar. Nang had long since mentally abandoned him. “My team would like to be first hunters,” Nang said.

“Student Kun,” Met Sar called.

“We are the team he betrayed,” Kun said. He spoke softly, yet his voice was full of hate. “Let us beat him until dead.”

“So be it.” Met Sar scowled. “Each sentence shall be carried out. Prisoner! Escape!”

Ur glanced at Met Sar. He was not bound though he was surrounded. He glared at his classmates. His breath came hard, his body tensed like that of a bull about to charge. There was no way out except through them. For a few seconds he froze, thinking perhaps it would be best to let them beat him to death where he stood, then he exploded forward crashing into little Pah, bowling him over, fist smashing Ka, breaking through the weakest team, sprinting toward the perimeter until Nang, chasing, flinging his club into Ur’s legs, upended him. Immediately Eng and Nika clubbed him, subdued him, broke his ankles with splintering blows. Ur spun his legs away, his feet flopping. He growled like an animal. Nika backed away, laughed. Ur’s eyes flashed daggers. The others surrounded him, though at a distance over which he could not strike. Nang scampered to the fore, retrieved his club. He tried to suppress his laugh, his delight. Ur locked eyes with him. Nang stared back. He felt the pressure of eyes, the look of Met Sar, of his own teammates. Eng swung from behind, breaking Ur’s left elbow. Slowly, methodically, each student approached, swung, first at Ur’s right hand, his last pathetic defense, until Ur could no longer hold the hand and arm up. Then from his feet they worked. They formed a line, each student with his ax-handle club, shouting, bouncing on the balls of his feet, waiting to be next, first in line, then shouting, “Traitor!” springing forward, ax handle raised then slammed down smashing a knee or hip until the bone was pulverized and Met Sar or Met Dy indicated a new bodily zone, each boy spinning after his hit, running to the end of the line, bouncing, shouting—Ur’s body slowly transforming into a seeping sack of mush—running, THUNK, the head so mashed as to be unrecognizable.

Then the students returned to the body. Each grabbed a handful of brain or intestine or sliced a piece of liver or heart, then smeared the bloody tissue on his face and arms. They smiled at one another, brothers in blood, bonded in deed. Nang came last. Ur’s head was scraped clean, his viscera empty. Nang removed his bayonet. At Ur’s left knee he made a deep incision, he looked to Sar and Dy for approval, then he proceeded to carve upward until he had removed the entire mashed quadriceps, the muscle wounded an age ago when Samnang and Y Bhur lost their boyhoods in the Cloud Forest above Plei Srepok.

“From this day forward,” Met Sar announced to the gathered class, cadres, guards and yotheas, “these men shall be comrades of the Movement, brothers in the Brotherhood of the Pure.” The final rite at the Liberation School was solemn. The students, eleven to thirteen years old, were mature and grave. In three months of cleansing, instruction and indoctrination, the shy, terrified conscripts had been reborn as
mets
, comrades, as yotheas, soldiers, of the Khmer Krahom. If any mind still harbored the possibility of reversal, that emotion would soon be extinguished by one last ritual, a confirmation of their status as soldiers of the Movement—a barrier designed to seal the possibility forever.

Met Sar stood before four large posters. Before the ceremony the new yotheas had stood below the portraits for a class photo—Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong overlooking them. “The moment the imperialist dogs and their lackeys are defeated and the country is ordered,” Met Sar announced, “we shall usher in an age of happiness. Everyone will be happy and will share in all the wealth of Kampuchea. Students, new comrades, come forward and receive your kramas. To you shall fall the responsibility of ridding our country of fascists, capitalists and reactionaries.” The class, now thirty-three, marched in an orderly line before Met Sar’s podium, received their scarfs, wrapped them about their necks and marched back. “You shall swear allegiance to the leadership of the Movement. You shall be disciples. You shall spread the message. ‘All comrades,’ ” Met Sar quoted Ho Chi Minh, speaking the words as if his own, “ ‘from the Central Committee down to the cell, must preserve the unity and oneness of mind in the Party.’ ”

The ceremony was formal. Like Buddhist monks, like Christian monks, the new yotheas took vows of poverty, chastity, obedience and hard work. “Through these vows,” Met Sar addressed the class, “you shall find a great burden lifted from your back. In loyalty to the Movement you will find the passage to inner freedom.”

Nang looked upon Met Sar with elation exploding in his chest, with a fervor that can only be expressed by the term “love.”

“We believe in the Movement,” Met Sar said in his soft voice. The students repeated the line. Then in unison they continued:

We believe in what the Movement has done for us, and for all people and all eternity.

We believe the Movement is a gift to the People; we praise the Movement.

The better we serve and honor the Movement, the better we serve and honor the People.

We shall grow in the Movement as rice grows in fertile paddies.

We shall search in the Movement and our souls shall have stable homes.

We shall share in the Movement and our strength will be multiplied a hundredfold.

The way of the Movement is not easy, but it is righteous and perfect.

We are desire not contrary to duty.

We are the sacrifice. We are the offering.

The Movement is the People!

We are the Movement!

We are Kampuchea!

“Met Nang.” Met Sar cornered the boy after the ceremony. “You and Met Eng have been chosen for special assignment. You shall go with Comrade Binh. He will brief you.”

Nang looked at Met Sar. He did not speak though he wished to. Nor did he smile.

Met Sar beheld Met Nang. He stepped to the boy and put his arms about his waist. “Learn everything you can,” Met Sar whispered. “Be cautious. You are going for international training to the camp where Bok Roh once trained. No one will recognize you. When you return, you’ll be a great warrior.”

T
HE INTERNATIONAL NEW YEAR
had passed (the Cambodian New Year falls in mid-April) and the dry season was upon the land. Cahuom Chhuon broke from his heavy labor. His pants were soaked with sweat and stuck in his crotch. He had eaten less and less each day for six months and his once stocky body was light, not frail but wiry. He mopped his brow with a rag, a worn krama Sok had begun to use for cleaning. When he’d grabbed it he’d felt a certain pleasure, a certain acknowledgment in the denial to himself of a new krama. For a month he’d washed it daily in the river when he’d broken from his chores.

Chhuon sat beneath a tree at the river’s edge. The afternoon sun bore through the branches to bake him but he did not move. He’d rinsed in the current, washed the rag, wrung it and sat. Slowly he placed the rag over his head. He sat erect, perfectly still, cleared his mind. His breath came shallow. He could feel his face, his jowls, sag. The weight of his thumbs felt like thousands of pounds, his wrists drooped, his hands turned inward on his thighs, the sun burned their backs.

Peou must go to school. Sok must eat. His thoughts ran down his responsibilities as if he had a list. Cousin Sam needs help repairing his furrower. A cloud passed in front of the sun. Coolness enwrapped him. He shivered slightly but refused to respond. Seed must be distributed, his thoughts continued. I must write Vathana. The cloud cleared and again the sun burned into his hands, arms, body. And I must awaken my people, Chhuon thought. But how? Awaken them to the yuon threat. How? There must be revenge.

Vathana was unhappy.

Pech Chieu Teck was proper. His lovemaking was proper, his behavior and manners were impeccable. The luxuries he, his family, especially his mother, showered on the new bride were marvelous, yet in a month’s time Vathana felt as if she’d been tethered to an elephant and was about to be trampled. She told herself it was natural, told herself, “Mama called them post-wedding blues.” Aunt Voen, in her intimate manner, had kidded Vathana before the wedding, “with all his money, you’ll have nothing to do”—she’d giggled—“but the best thing.” For a month Vathana clung to the thought that they, she and Teck together, were very proper.

Yet something was wrong. She hid her feelings from her husband, from everyone, blamed herself for feeling empty, felt guilty for having such thoughts. At the market she met a woman who lived in the same building two floors below and in a gush of desperation she whispered, “He’s like cold rice. He never talks to me. He doesn’t want me.”

The woman mocked her. “It takes time to adjust,” she said. “Rice doesn’t grow in a day and cold rice is better than no rice, eh?” The guilt increased.

By the second month Vathana was very unhappy. Indeed, she had nothing to do. This man was nothing like her father. He was proper but he seemed to have no interests, no desires, no passions, no drives. Or at least none he shared with her. People seemed to mean little to him. He was neither friendly nor aggressive. Business did not interest him; of his studies he seemed apathetic. Despite the new appliances, the closets full of clothes, the apartment with furnishings even Aunt Voen with a home in Phnom Penh would envy, Vathana felt nothing. No intimacy, no spirituality.

She prayed. Her very first memories of her father were of him praying, teaching her to pray, teaching her to look inside herself even before she had reached the age of reason. Always he had taken her to the pagoda to pray, to ask the Holy One’s blessing, to help the spirit of a recently departed villager. Always they had talked of things which concerned the family or the village, talked of business, politics, religion, of dreams, health and the beauty of growing rice. In the late fifties, when Vathana. was eight or nine, before Chhuon had entered business with Uncle Cheam, she recalled him donating to the monks a portion of the little they had, not because he, Chhuon, wished others to know he donated, not even to earn merit and ensure his next life’s status, but because he believed, without trappings, that it was right. It was his way. Now it was hers.

Teck was not like her father. After the ceremonies had ended, the guests had gone home, the food and presents had been repacked and stored, after they had settled in, alone, without family, without parents or siblings in a culture where solitude is almost unknown, Teck had called as many people as he could muster, his school friends, workers from the piers, peasants he knew in the city delivering farm goods, so they could witness him donating a few unwanted gifts and several hundred riels to the bonze. To Vathana, in their abundance, the gifts were meaningless, insulting.

And Teck didn’t work. Mister Pech had given his son a river barge as a wedding present. The barges traveled the Mekong from My Tho, South Viet Nam, to Phnom Penh, under new license and the semicontrol of Sihanouk’s nationalization of trade. Since September 1968, trade and banking were being gradually returned to private control. Both nationalization and denationalization had worked to Pech Lim Song’s benefit. Under each change his profits increased. But whereas Teck’s father managed every detail of order, purchase, transport and delivery, Teck appointed a barge captain and collected money due. Day after day she watched him sitting, listening passively to the radio. When she mentioned it, when she attempted to show affection, he shrank back, became defensive, then left for the dance halls to be with his idle pals from their student days. To Vathana the contrast between Teck’s cool, seemingly frivolous behavior and both her father’s and her father-in-law’s constant, diligent work was bewildering. Daily she compared the three men, daily her resentment grew. Even in her father’s withdrawal following the death of her siblings, she’d seen him labor harder and communicate more intimately than her new, wealthy husband.