For the Sake of All Living Things (78 page)

“Met Sar...”

“I’m sorry. You’re not allowed to talk now. Leave the blindfold on. I’ll return shortly.”

An hour passed before Sar returned. His steps were heavy. At first he did not speak but only opened the cell door and sat beside Nang. A terrible foreboding swept into the cage with him. “Nang.”

“Yes. What’s happened?”

“I’m sorry. I’ve spoken for you but there are problems.”

“Problems?”

“Have you ever....No. Never mind. I don’t understand but someone has given you a dagger and not a blossom. It must be unanimous.”

“Who? Huh? What?”

“I don’t know. You received a dagger. All the others have been accepted. You know them. Met Rin. Met Nu. Even Ngoc Minh who was trained in Hanoi and surely is a yuon in Khmer skin.”

“I haven’t...”

“I know.” Sar sighed long and low. “Would you like me to attempt to talk to them again?”

“I...I...I don’t know. Would you?”

“Do you truly love Angkar? Do you truly wish to serve the Party?”

“Oh, yes. Yes!”

“Can you serve me with all your energies?”

“Met Sar, I’ve always served you. With all my heart.”

“Then I’ll try again. This has never happened before. Wait my return. If you don’t receive all blossoms you’ll be banished. It is so written.”

Again Sar left. Nang began a long torturous wait. At first he was numbed by Sar’s pronouncements. “Never before...only you...banished...” Why? he asked himself. Why? Because of my face? My hand? What Nang did not know was that all of the candidates were being treated identically, all told the same lie—a ploy designed to deepen their commitment to Angkar Leou. Yet in Nang the questioning and anguish swiftly shifted, and in numbness other questions surged. A dagger? Who would dagger me? In his mind he visualized Meas grasping a tiny carved bamboo sword from the double basket and dropping it into the empty side. Banished! What would I do? Why didn’t Sar sponsor me? That bastard. I’ve been set up. Oh...Oh shit! I
have
been. Nu is accepted. She talked. I’m...I’m no longer pure. Nang squatted in a corner of the cell and hung his head between his knees. Do they know? Did she tell them? Bitch! Smelly stinking whore! Wait. Just wait! Banished! They can fuck dagger holes in the dead. Meas! Hump! “Who am I?” Who did he think I was? He didn’t know? Everyone’s heard of Met Nang. “I know of no Met Nang...!” What an idiot. Or was that Dy? They didn’t know I commanded a battalion? A
battalion
! Morons! Prepare the battlefield. Why didn’t I know it was a battlefield? I’m part of them! They can’t banish me. I can kill them. I’ll kill them all. They...They...They’re the ones who need be banished. Who need elimination! If they’re the best, I don’t need them.

Nang stood but the cage roof was low and he wasn’t able to stand without stooping his head. Still he tried. Then he knelt, held his head high, his shoulders square, but he saw in the darkness Met Nu’s nakedness, smelled her aroma, tasted her saltiness. The vision excited him but he hated it.

Two, three, four hours passed in solitary confinement. No word. No sound. No light. No water. Nang was thirsty. He needed to relieve himself. As the hours passed his thoughts vacillated but generally they moved further and further from Angkar, from the Movement, from the Brotherhood. They had already abandoned him. Now he mentally mourned the passing and prepared for banishment. A robotic cold swept over him. I don’t need them, he told himself. What a waste of my struggling....But
I
don’t need them. He relieved himself at one corner of the cage.

“Nang. Come, Nang.” It was Sar.

“Where...”

“Don’t talk. Let me check the blindfold.” His voice was flat, revealing nothing.

“Are they—”

“Don’t talk.”

Sar led the boy through the twisting maze to the darkened room. No one spoke but all around Nang could hear people shuffling, sniffing, breathing. Sar pushed him, guided him forward, to the side, then turned him to face away from the table. At each elbow he could feel another standing. Then, through the blindfold he could sense bright light.

“Candidates,” Sar’s sweet ceremonious voice bloomed in his ears, “remove your blindfolds.”

Nang shoved his thumbs under the cloth and lifted. The light was blinding. All around the room men were clapping, cheering, smiling. At his right was Nu, at his left Ngoc Minh, then Rin and three men he didn’t know. The applause grew louder then slowly faded as old members converged on the new patting them on the shoulders, grasping their hands, congratulating each with great sincerity. Sar grabbed Nang and hugged him and Nang raised his arms and hugged his mentor. As he hugged, his chin over Sar’s shoulder, he stared at his mangled hand and thought, I don’t need them. I don’t need any of them.

The next morning Nang appeared before Sar and Dy. Without recognition of the previous day’s event Sar said, “Your battalion will spearhead the drive east. There is a small town”—Sar pointed to a map of the Northeast—“here, called Phum Sath Din. Just beyond it there is an NVA headquarters and hospital complex. Rendezvous with the resistance. Ngoc Minh has more specifics.”

“You have reached the age of reason,” Chhuon said. He was sitting on the step with his youngest son, Sakhon, whom they called Peou. “From tonight, you can be my assistant.” The night was clear and dark without moon or lantern light. Only a single small candle burned on the low table in the central room behind them.

“Papa,” Peou said, his voice questioning, demanding, “was Grandpa an exploiter?”

“My father!” Chhuon immediately glanced back though he knew Hang Tung was not in the house.

“He rented land to farmers, yes?”

“No. The Cahuoms always worked their own land.”

“But you didn’t. I remember when you had a truck. You drove everywhere. We had fields, so you must have rented them.”

“Who tells you that?” Chhuon lightly put an arm about his son’s shoulder but the boy pulled away.

“They say in school everyone who owns land but doesn’t work it is an exploiter.”

“My cousins worked our land,” Chhuon said defensively. “I didn’t exploit them. When I was young I worked in the fields.

My father insisted all his sons go to school and each of us moved from the paddies to more important responsibilities.”

“My teacher says nothing is more important than growing rice.”

“What about obtaining the seed?”

“That’s what she says. Nothing’s more important.”

“Does she allow you to think about where the seed comes from? About those who develop new strains? About the men who ship rice? About those who build the boats in which rice is shipped?”

“She said, ‘Nothing’s more important than
growing
rice.’ I think she’s right.”

“Growing rice is important, Peou, but...”

“It’s the only important thing.”

“Peou, you are still very young. What one sees is not independent of what one is.”

“Oh, Papa!”

“It is true.”

Dinner that night was rice from the new harvest, a tough dark grain with short ears cooked into a heavy paste with a few crayfish for flavoring. Chhuon barely spoke. His mother no longer ate with the others; his wife was trapped in bitterness and no longer looked at her husband. Without Hang Tung Chhuon’s conversation was restricted to chatter with his youngest son.

“Do you remember the beautiful white rice from before the war?” Chhuon asked.

“No,” Peou answered. “Before the revolution we didn’t have very much so I don’t remember it.”

“Oh, we had lots. More than...”

“No we didn’t.” Peou was staunch.

“Yes.” Chhuon responded. “We had wonderful rice.”

“That’s because you exploited your cousins.”

“Damn it!” Chhuon smacked his fingertips on the low table. “I did not exploit my cousins. You’ve got to resist their teachings.”

“You’re calling my teacher a liar.”

“Where do you learn these things?”

“My teacher says that exploiters will say that things were better before. That...” The boy became excited and tongue-tied.

Chhuon tapped his chest. “I...I am chairman here. The new seed is wrong. It’s old. It’s the wrong strain. Better suited for lowland provinces. Even the monks in the fields knew the seed was poor. I...”

“She said,” Peou, in tears, blurted, “exploiters would call her a liar. But she’s not. You’re the liar.” Peou jumped up jarring the table. He ran from the house.

Before Lieutenant Colonel Nui and Political Officer Trinh, Hang Tung made his accusations and displayed his timetable evidence.

“You’re sure?” Colonel Nui asked.

“I’m sure,” Tung answered. About them, in the NVA headquarters camp east of Phum Sath Din, was but a skeleton staff of logistics and personnel officers and workers. On the mountain below the main headquarters building the dispensary had been enlarged to hospital size. Operating and ward rooms had been carved into the earth and, aboveground, a set of hootches had been erected for convalescence.

Nui stood. He walked toward the wall, then back to Hang Tung then again toward the wall. In the village to the west there were now twenty Viet Namese families, almost one hundred people, or ten percent of the population of Phum Sath Din. They were dependants of cadre and officers with semipermanent stationing at the NVA headquarters, and their integration into the life of the village was nearly total. They lived in homes amid Khmer homes. Their children went to the new school with Khmer children. The wives “shopped” and received rations with Khmer, wives. And all suffered the demands of the army. Even Colonel Nui’s wife complained about the army’s needs and the lack of quality production materials. In perfect Khmer she chatted quietly with others while waiting in line for tins of rice. “The war demands more,” she would say, “and we produce less. With each new regiment coming south their needs increase.” To her husband she would say in private, “These people, these poor people. Must they sacrifice so?”

Nui turned, stopped. He looked at Tung. “You’re sure?” he asked again. How badly he wanted the Viet-Khmer integration to work. How badly he wanted liberty for all Indochinese under the tutelage of the obvious leaders of all Indochinese, the North Viet Namese. And how well it was working. The Americans had suffered heavy blows and were “
bo-
ing” Viet Nam, not simply withdrawing but discarding their ally.

“Colonel,” Cadreman Trinh addressed Nui. “Let me call him in for interrogation. Perhaps he’ll confess.”

“Of all men,” Nui lamented. He plopped down in the chair, exhausted.

Chhuon could not overtly disobey. It was not in his character, not in the national character. To even verbally contradict one in authority, or a friend or relative, was painful to both. For Chhuon his entire body would physically tighten, cramp, giving him painful stomachaches which would be followed by burning, and painful headaches which could cause his eyes to blur and his teeth to throb. Thus each directive he received from Hang Tung or Colonel Nui he followed, passed on and enforced. He had learned to keep quiet, to show no emotion, learned this as much to avoid the pain as to avoid ostracism or reproaches. When Nui was feeling harassed or was in an ugly mood, Chhuon assuaged his irritations by asking for and usually receiving extra work or extra compliance from the villagers. They too could not overtly disobey. When Nui was in a generous mood, Chhuon made requests for more lenient rice taxes or administrative control, for better rations, more oil and salt, or for less militarism in the civilian areas. And Nui, if it was possible, complied. On the surface their relationship was good. Too good.

When village resentment increased dramatically in late 1971, Chhuon openly sought solace amongst the KVM/NVA cadre and soldiers. When his wife’s bitterness forced him from the house and when his alienation from the old families hit its peak, Chhuon spent nights playing cards or listening to the radio at Colonel Nui’s. The alienation from his own home served him well. Night after night he was found wandering the village streets, so often that the militiamen looked forward to chatting with him to break the monotony of guard duty. Yet though he could not overtly disobey, he did have an outlet.

Each night he wandered in a pattern. He checked the pagoda which now housed Hang Tung’s office and that of several new officials. He sat there with the guards and smoked a cigarette. Then he meandered amongst the old market stalls, pausing here and there to listen to the chirp of the crickets, walking softly, attempting to draw as close as possible before they sensed him and ceased their forewing songs. Then on he went, between old homes and new huts to the edge of the berm where always he found a militiaman in need of a smoke. Then, particularly if he thought Sok’s laments and wails had been heard by the neighbors, a most un-Khmer embarrassment, he followed the alleys to Nui’s abode, called lightly so as not to wake the children, then entered. And often, somewhere, between the market and the alleys, Kpa or Sakhron or his cousin Sam would appear and an exchange would take place.

What joy! What elation it brought to his heart. Sam was alive, well, resisting. And Chhuon too, though he could not overtly disobey, resisted.

“what have you?” Chhuon whispered.

Without a sound Sakhron slid a cartridge trap from his black trousers and placed it in Chhuon’s hands. Chhuon did not look at it but immediately slid it into his shirt. “maha vanatanda has dug the hole,” Sakhron whispered.

“there’s a new machete at bunker six,” Chhuon whispered back. Both departed.

In the darkness Chhuon wandered back to the pagoda to smoke with the guard, then out to the berm where he quickly found the small hole in the path which led to the command bunker from which the Viet Namese cadre oversaw the militia. Chhuon twisted quickly, checked to ensure no one was near. From his shirt he removed the trap, a small circular board about three inches in diameter with a nail sticking straight up inside an attached bamboo tube. Chhuon dropped the trap in the hole, pushed it down until the board was on firm earth. Then he armed the trap by placing an AK rifle round in the bamboo tube. Quickly he camouflaged the hole. Only the tip of the round was exposed. Then he backed quietly away and fled into the alleys thinking, Blood for blood. Blood for the Holy One. Blood for blood!