For the Sake of All Living Things (49 page)

Sullivan began again. “Mrs. Pech...,” he said tentatively.

Vathana smiled. “Cahuom Vathana,” she said. “In Cambodia a wife does not take her husband’s name.”

“Chum Vatana,” he repeated, trying, to catch all the syllables and the inflection. “You are the woman they call ‘the Angel’?”

“Only Sophan does that.” Vathana opened her hand toward the stout older woman. Sullivan was lost for words. Vathana’s movement was at once simple, elegant and graceful.

“J. L.,” Sergeant Huntley whispered, “look at this here.” He had flipped open the photo album of Vathana’s wedding. “Look at this dude in the gold loincloth. Wow!”

Sullivan did not answer Huntley. He had not taken his eyes from Vathana’s face. Her skin was perfectly clear, smooth, the loveliest bronze he’d ever seen. Her lips were full. Ripe, he thought. But most of all he noticed her eyes. They twinkled. They sparkled. They held an irrepressible glow so steeped in love not even the war could tarnish the luster.

“Your mother—” Sullivan began after a pause.

“Madame Pech?” Vathana said. She did not look into Sullivan’s face but slightly down and to the side. “Madame Pech is my mother-in-law. Her son was my husband.”

“Oh,” Sullivan said, taking the “was” to mean her husband had been killed. “I’m sorry.”

Vathana realized immediately the American’s misunderstanding but she did not correct it. She found she was enjoying speaking French to this man, found she was enjoying his exotic appearance, found herself liking his polite manner of standing serenely. What she did not like was how she felt she looked to him, her face and lips puffed in pregnancy, her walk a waddle of wide hips.

“You are looking...”

“Oh! Yes. For the man in charge of the camp.”

“I’m the man in charge,” Vathana said. She raised her shoulders and giggled slightly.

Sullivan giggled too in what appeared to Ron Huntley as the weirdest behavior he’d yet seen from the officer, though he, Huntley, did not understand the language being spoken.

For an hour Vathana and Sullivan talked, at first very politely in the living room then rapidly over papers and charts, some of which had been brought by the officer and others of which Vathana had produced from her files. As they talked Sullivan struggled with himself, struggled to keep his eyes on the charts, yet he watched her at the periphery of his vision. He at once felt giddy and intimidated. When she placed her hand on a page and pointed to a figure, he could not keep his eyes off her hand, off the long slender fingers. He forced himself to be more businesslike than he normally would have been. Finally they finished.

“Damn it,” Sullivan whispered to Huntley who was sitting on the sofa, sipping tea and watching Khmer TV, mesmerized by the black-and-white tube though he understood not a word spoken.

“What’s up?” Huntley rose slowly, still watching the TV as if he didn’t want to miss an important part of a dramatic plot.

“For one, they only received a hundred sheets,” Sullivan said. He turned and bowed to Sophan and Vathana.

“That cor-roo-gate-tad plastic shit?” Huntley Said when they were back in the corridor.

“Yup. We sent a thousand. The camp received a hundred. Same with everything. The shipping orders match but somebody’s changed the numbers.”

“Think she sold it?”

“No. No way.”

“Why not? Cause she’s knocked up?”

“Huh?”

“Wouldn’t a minded a piece a that myself a few months back. What about you? I see you lookin’ at them swelled tits.”

“Fuck you!”

“Hey, J. L., I was just askin’.”

“Come on. Mrs. Cahuom said we can go to the camp.”

Within moments “after the Americans left the apartment building, there was a harsh series of raps on the door. Sophan opened it. A young, thickset Khmer pushed his way in, slammed the door. Both women startled. From the bedroom the infant Samnang screamed.

“Cahuom Vathana! I have a message.” The man spoke in rural dialect. Vathana stepped forward. “Only for you,” the man snapped.

“See to the baby,” Vathana said quietly to Sophan.

“How many children have you?” The messenger smiled a snarling eerie smile as he said the idiom which might be interpreted as a simple greeting between old friends who had not seen each other for a long time, yet from his lips it came as a piercing threat. He did not let the young mother respond. “Your brother, Sakhon”—the man’s words were hard—“he should be with you.”

“Peou! Is he here? Who...”

“It is your father’s wish.”

“My father? Where is he? Did he send you? Is my mo—”

The messenger spoke quickly, stopping Vathana’s questions. “He’s home. He’s okay. He wishes Sakhon to live with you.”

“Yes. Yes. Of course.”

“For Angkar Leou to bring your brother you must help.”

“Certainly. For who? Help who!?”

“If you repeat a word of what I tell, you’ll not again see your father, mother or brother. You’ll be told what need be done. Befriend the American.”

Nang sat in the open field east of Baray, sat in the posture of perfect attention. He had matured in five months, had become bulkier with the arms and legs of a man instead of the spindles of a boy. Though he could still contract to look like a child he could no longer pull off the feat with certainty. His mind, too, had changed. A bitterness, a deeper distrust, had gripped its core. After June’s successful rear attacks on the NVA at Kompong Thom, after the ARVN recaptured the city from the Northerners, Nang had been recalled to Mount Aural. There he’d endured his first real
kosang.
At first Nang and Soth had bragged of their exploits to a group of new conscripts, to an operations officer, to three political commissars. They had spoken in generalities, relaying sketchy details, then, with greater and greater elan, Soth had boasted to the commissars how easily the mighty NVA soldiers fell.

“Comrades”—Soth had beamed—“you should have been there.” The commissar said nothing. “They are not gods,” Soth had shouted exactly as he’d heard Met Sar shout about the Americans. “They are not gods. Me, this backward hillbilly with a minimum of arms and men...we inflicted great loss upon them. Great loss. More casualties than FANK with its fighter-bombers. Haw ha! They never expected it. It was Nang. Met Nang. He is to be congratulated on ordering us. He is to be honored for his courage.”

Then, after accusation, led by Met Soth, a score of boys from their unit had condemned Nang, their platoon leader. For hours senior officials berated him until he, Nang, yothea of the Brotherhood of the Pure, confessed, broke, cried, withered like a tree plucked from the earth, like a little boy whose pants had been stolen from him at school.

Met Sar had badgered him for his arrogance and stupidity. “What have you done?!” Sar had screamed. “Do you realize the ramifications? The revolution struggles to attain victory over such contemptible personal pride.”

For more hours he had endured their screams. What had he done?! North Viet Namese reaction to the “fifth column” assault had been to covertly relegate the Krahom army to shadow status. No longer were battle plans, or attacks, shared. No longer were the nationalist Communists informed of NVA movements. No longer were the Khmer Krahom and the Khmer Viet Minh running parallel revolutions. The NVA/KVM-KK break was partial, informal. To the outside world, all Communist forces in Cambodia still appeared to be united under Norodom Sihanouk.

Nang’s fingers tightened. His teeth ground. One hour more, he thought. One day more. After all these months, it is nothing. Before him Met Sar prepared to address the troops assembled east of Baray. To one side were units in black uniforms from the Northern Zone, to the other were troops in gray from the East. Cadre and yotheas sat, chatted amongst themselves. A few men rose, left, returned. A cool drizzle fell. Cadremen lay their kramas over their heads for protection; yotheas opened theirs like small tents or in pairs or threes sat beneath huge banana leaves. Nang did not move. He sat with his krama wrapped like a turban about his head, with his pants rolled up to his knees. He visualized himself a cat, ready to pounce, waiting, patient, waiting for battle, or for Met Soth.

After the
kosang
he had been thrown into a small bamboo cage for three days. On the second evening Met Sar arrived, dismissed the guards, sat on the earth beside his caged protégé. “It’s okay,” Met Sar had whispered. “Be patient.” Nang had stared the stare of a captured beast. The older man had smiled and left. Hours later he’d returned. “They argue over your fate,” he’d said pleasantly. “Remember, I told you you’d have to swallow your pride.” The older man had rocked back on his round bottom and giggled. “Oh how they argued!” He’d turned to the cage, grabbed the bamboo with his soft pudgy hands. He rolled to his knees staring into the cage more wildly than Nang stared out. “Meditate on this.” The words had slid from Sar’s mouth like oil. “You have damaged the enemy. Your imprisonment has drawn out true attitudes. I am but an officer of the general staff, but I report to the one who must always remain masked. He knows of you. Of your work. When it is time, contradictory elements will be eliminated.”

For minutes the two had stared, frozen, locked in an evil aura passing between their eyes. Then Met Sar had grinned, rolled back onto his plump ass, and asked, “Tell me, Met Nang, did you kill them because they killed your father?”

“ ‘Soldiers,’ ” Met Sar began the address with a passage from another conqueror’s speech to his troops, “ ‘you have, in fifteen days, gained six victories, taken twenty-one stand of colors, fifty pieces of cannon, several fortified places, made fifteen hundred prisoners, and killed or wounded over ten thousand men.’ ” Met Sar stopped reading. He looked at the boy before him. “Do you think,” he asked harshly, “it was because of their superior numbers? Because of their materiel?” Met Sar smiled contemptuously, dropped his head.

To the Krahom, to Met Sar, to Nang, just as to Lon Nol and all Cambodians except the Khmer Viet Minh, the new siege of Kompong Thom was unacceptable. After Nang’s release from the cage, Sar had told him, “Go back, my eyes, back to Kompong Thom. I need you, my ears, now more than ever.” And Nang had gleefully reinfiltrated the Northern Corridor. For months he’d slipped into unliberated villages acting the scared, disoriented orphan whose village had been bombed, who had nowhere to go, nothing to eat. On most attempts he’d been accepted, fed, treated for cuts and bruises—self-inflicted to corroborate his muttered explanations. In most villages he’d contacted or established a Khmer Krahom agent. The work was enjoyable, rewarding. He was a salesman selling his country to its people, to people he liked and wanted to help, to people he wanted to teach his just beliefs. He gathered what information he could, passed along plans and propaganda.

“Be patient,” Nang had told them. “Be resourceful. Extend the network. The liberation of Kampuchea is the responsibility of every Khmer. You and I are their sole authentic representatives.”

A hundred Krahom agents had moved into Kompong Thom and the surrounding villages during the late summer of 1970. By fall the Center had directed the zone armies to release all the yotheas they could for the coming battle. Scores of temporarily transferred Krahom platoons had secreted themselves in outlying jungles and swamps. Now the transferred elements were grouped east of Baray. Nang sat between groups, rigid, letting his urge for revenge fester.

Sar continued his address with the 174-year-old quote. “ ‘Destitute of everything, you have supplied yourselves with everything. You have won battles without cannon, crossed rivers without bridges, made forced marches without shoes, bivouacked without spirituous liquor, and often without bread.

“ ‘...Thanks to you, soldiers! your country has a right to expect of you great things. You have still battles to fight, cities to take, rivers to pass. Is there one among you whose courage flags? One who would prefer returning to the sterile summits of the Apennines and the Alps, to undergo patiently the insults of that slavish soldiery? No, there is not one such among the victors of...of Kirirom, of Pich Nil, of Kompong Speu, of Ty Po.”

Inside, Nang sneered. Of that stinging red ant who infiltrated our ranks, he thought. What great pleasure to kill, to weed out the bad seed and destroy it.
Kamtech khmang
, the enemy must be utterly destroyed. For the good of Kampuchea.

“ ‘Friends,’ ” Met Sar said. Now he altered Napoleon’s words, “ ‘I promise you that glorious conquest...be the liberators of peoples.’ ” Met Sar omitted the end of the line: “ ‘be not their scourges!’ ”

Met Sar spoke on and on. As the revolution progressed and small gains were consolidated, the speeches of Krahom officials lengthened. Had not Khmers come to expect effusive babble from their leadership? Norodom Sihanouk and Lon Nol delivered radio harangues lasting four, five, six hours. If Krahom leaders spoke for less, wouldn’t their leadership appear to be less?

“Ay, comrade.” A thin man of perhaps twenty, dressed in the uniform of the Gray Vultures of the East, squatted by Nang. He spoke quietly, casually, as if commenting on the weather. “A man’s mind can build a world, ay comrade?”

Nang looked at the soldier. He’d come from the side of the cadremen, from among an eastern zone group of which Nang had not before seen a single man. Nang played dumb. “What? A world?”

“You are Met Nang, are you not?”

Nang studied the man’s movements. “There are many comrades called Nang.”

“Ha. That’s very good.” The man did not look at him but faced Met Sar. The old man was reveling in. his description of how, with the advent of the foreign invasion, the Americans and the ARVN had inadvertently assisted them, had plucked victory from the hands of the NVA. “Nang of Bokor. I saw you there. Rang of Stung Treng. I was there too. What I wish to tell you, Met Nang is”—he paused, glanced suspiciously to each side, then went on—“is that that world may be disconnected from reality. Under great pressure, one can build a system of justification so tight, warped thought seems straight.”

Both paused. Met Sar’s voice droned over them; “...pluck victory because the NVA are too mechanized. They are a regular army in a war which will be won by the guerrilla. Soon the battle will recommence....”