Before us loomed the silhouette of a wooden boat as big as a house. This type of craft, Papa said, was used for transporting livestock, which was why it looked as it did—cavernous and windowless. Now it would transport us. “Don’t worry,” he reassured us. “It’ll be just a few minutes.” Looking at the coffin-like monstrosity, I didn’t think I could bear even a second inside.
On deck stood several Khmer Rouge soldiers holding torches crested with bright orange flames and coiling black smoke. The smells of burning tar and hay filled the night’s air and, even though the river was right in front of us, I couldn’t smell it. The odor of fire, of burning, overwhelmed all others. Shadows and lights skimmed the surface of the water, entangled in one another’s folds and grasps, like water sprites fighting in anticipation of their nightly feed.
Once again we had to line up. The soldiers did not speak, just grunted and shoved. They seemed younger and more closemouthed than those we’d met coming out of the city. During our trek across the island, they had hardly spoken even to one another, let alone us. A door, riddled with moth-shaped holes where the wood had rotted out, swung down from the belly of the boat like a tongue sticking out of a gaping mouth. A couple of Khmer Rouge soldiers guarded the entrance, one wielding a long-barreled gun, the other a torch with its tar-smoked flame. One by one people trudged past the lit entryway and disappeared into the dark within.
When our turn came, Papa rolled up his pants legs and, with me in his arms, waded through the water to get to the wooden gangplank. Mama and Radana stuck close behind, followed by the rest of our family.
At the door, the soldier with the gun stopped us, the tip of his weapon brushing against Papa’s arm, barring us from entering. “What’s this?” he demanded, eyeing the metal brace on my right leg.
“My daughter needs it for support,” Papa told him.
“Is she crippled?”
Indignant, I blurted out, “
No.
”
The soldier’s eyes flashed at me. I lowered my face.
“She had polio,” Papa explained.
The soldier looked at him. “Throw it in the water.”
“Please, Comrade—”
“Take it off and throw it in the water! It’s a piece of machinery!”
“But—”
“The Organization will cure her!”
It seemed to take forever, but finally Papa got the brace off and cast it into the water. It sank like a toy ship. Now, I thought, I’d never walk like Mama. I had always hated the brace, but knowing I’d lost it, I wanted it back. At least we got to keep my shoes. The soldier moved his gun away and let us through.
Inside the boat it was dark, except for a small kerosene lantern that hung from the middle beam high above our heads. I couldn’t breathe. It smelled of rotten hay and manure, as if we’d just stepped into the belly of a cow instead of a boat. Cages, crates, buckets, and bales of hay lay scattered on a wooden floor stained with dark patches. We found a spot near a large wire cage, the kind used to transport chickens and ducks. Papa moved the cage to one side and Big Uncle covered the floor with clean hay for us to sit. There was no possibility of escape. Up high on either side, small round openings, like slatted moons, lined the otherwise windowless walls. They provided the only glimpse of the outside world. I kept my eyes on them.
The last person entered. The door slammed shut, a giant mouth closing on us. No one would hear us again, I thought, panicking. No one would know we existed. I opened my mouth and screamed at the top of my lungs.
• • •
“Feel better now?” Papa asked, once I’d quieted down.
I nodded.
“That’s good,” he said, ruffling my hair. “You scared me.”
• • •
By the time the ship docked, it felt as if we had spent the entire night inside. We stumbled out onto a makeshift pier next to a small floating village. There were thatched huts on stilts rising from the water, boats with woven rattan canopies, and sampans with wing-like sails. Lights glimmered here and there, and in the half-lit dark I could see silhouettes of people moving about their nightly tasks—a fisherman cleaning his net, a woman bathing with her child on the inundated steps of their hut, a family sitting down on the floor for dinner under the bluish glow of a kerosene lantern. They watched us from afar, silently curious and aware, as if all along expecting our arrival. Yet no one waved, no one called out a greeting or welcome. Still, I was grateful to be outside again. There were stars in the sky, fresh air. People. Trees. Grass. It was as if we had been swallowed by a sea creature and were being spit back out, whole and alive, all our senses intact. I could smell the river now when I hadn’t been able to before, and it carried with it a faint scent of the monsoon. Had it rained while we were inside the boat? I wished it would now. I wanted to wash the odor of manure off my body and clothes.
A pair of torches lit our way as we walked down the wooden gangplank. I proceeded slowly, cautiously, clinging to Papa’s arm for support, as I stepped onto the uneven ground. Without my metal brace, my corrective shoes were practically useless, and the sandals I wore now did not help at all with the limping. Without support, my right leg tired easily. Even so I was ecstatic to be released from the cattle boat and be outside again.
On the shore, more Khmer Rouge soldiers waited for us, guns slung on their shoulders, swarthy as the night. We would have to spend the night here, they said. The soldiers led us away from the floating village to a clearing interspersed with coconut trees. Pointing to the darkness beyond, the commander of the group said, “No one leaves this area. Runaways will be shot on the spot. If someone tries to escape, then the whole
family will be shot. You’re not to fraternize with the locals. We will decide whom you can make contact with and where you will go. If you disobey, you die.”
People quickly began to lay claim to the area closest to the river. There was no fighting, no arguing. “It isn’t worth getting shot for,” a man told his wife. “It makes no difference what spot we choose. Everybody’s sleeping on the ground.”
We found a place just a few yards away from the water, by a coconut tree that stretched horizontally toward the river. Papa and Big Uncle put down their heavy loads and immediately went to work pitching camp. They cut down thorny bushes and shrubs using a pair of kitchen cleavers we had brought along. They pulled out vines and cleared away what might be poisonous climbers, stomped on the grass, and checked for scorpions and tarantulas. Big Uncle recruited the twins to help him haul away the cut debris. While all this was going on, Grandmother Queen and Radana sat among our sacks and bundles clucking at each other like a pair of wild pheasants, curiously contented to be still. Papa unfurled one of the sleeping mats on a space he’d just cleared so that Grandmother Queen would have something to lie on. A few feet away Mama was busy starting a fire. She broke some dry branches, stacked them in a little mound, and lit the mound with a match. Flames leapt up, sparks flew, crackling with life, and as the bigger branches caught on, embers began to glow. She placed three stones in a triangle around the fire, filled the kettle with the water she’d brought from the river, and perched it on top of the stones. Again, she’d taken charge, figuring out what we could eat from our limited food supply and how much. She’d assigned my aunts specific tasks so as not to overwhelm them. Except for Mama, all of us had had servants our whole lives, and suddenly we were simultaneously without help and home.
Tata was now preparing the rice for cooking. She untied the rice bag, measured into a pot the number of cups Mama had suggested, and rinsed the rice with water. Beside her, Auntie India was occupied wiping excess salt off dried fish with pieces of a banana leaf. Mama showed her how to place a strip of the fish between the fork of a small branch, tie
the ends with a piece of vine, and lean it against the kettle to grill. When Auntie India got the hang of it, Mama started another fire for the rice.
All around us everyone was doing the same. Before long the whole camp became alive with movements and sounds. People borrowed one another’s pots and pans, dishes and cups, baskets and knives. They exchanged dried goods—a can of condensed milk for a cup of rice, a clove of garlic for a spoon of sugar, salt for pepper, dried fish for salted eggs. There was an atmosphere of gaiety, like at a market, and the glow of cooking fires only made it feel more festive.
Even the Khmer Rouge soldiers, who paced the periphery of the camp, guarding and watching, didn’t seem as threatening as they had initially appeared. They divided into smaller groups and, from a distance, looked like us, like families gathered to prepare their meals. While I couldn’t hear what they were saying, I could tell they were joking with one another. Every now and then laughter broke out, thunderous, like birds flapping their wings. I felt a mixture of fear and curiosity.
Papa came toward us, a coconut in his hand, grinning from ear to ear. “Look what I’ve got! Appetizer!” He sat down next to me and, with his cleaver, hacked the outer shell, pulling the hard, wiry brown husk off until he got to the hard inner shell. Then, with one clean whack, he cracked it in the middle, poured the juice into a bowl, took a sip, and gave the rest of the juice to me.
Just then a frog the size of my fist leapt out of the grass from under Mama’s bottom and onto the leaning coconut tree. Papa and I looked at each other, eyes wide, and broke into a laugh. Mama frowned with embarrassment. She turned her back to us, pretending she didn’t know what we were laughing at. Papa and I roared. “If it were under
my
bottom, that frog would’ve been dead meat!” he exclaimed, hooting like a gibbon. “To think we almost had stuffed frog for dinner! A fine delicacy!”
Mama snapped, “You’re so crass!” But in spite of herself, she also started giggling uncontrollably.
Papa rolled over, delirious with glee, as if being here, in the wild, he was becoming wild himself. It was contagious. Pretty soon the others—Grandmother Queen, Auntie India, Tata—were chuckling too. Even
Radana, who I was sure didn’t understand a word of this whole exchange, was chortling. She bounced up and down, as if she alone grasped the irony, the last innuendo Papa made, and this of course only sent another peal of laughter through him.
Finally, breathless, he pulled himself together and sat upright again, sniffling and wiping tears from his eyes. He picked up the coconut, which had rolled to the side during the course of his laugh attack. “Would you like some, darling?” he asked Mama, in a voice as serious as he could muster. “It’s delicious—I don’t mean to toot my own horn!” Again he hooted, but with a glare from Mama quickly got control of himself. He turned to me instead. “You want some?”
I nodded, the coconut juice whetting my hunger.
During the journey across the island, we’d been allowed only a quick meal: a packet of rice and broiled fish the soldiers had handed out to everyone. They’d said the food was from the Organization, and I’d imagined the Organization was a rotund cook like Om Bao sitting in some kitchen wrapping rice and fish in lotus leaves, tasting everything, surrounded by mounds of packets. Where was she now, this gluttonous deity? Was she gorging on food meant for us?
Papa peeled the hard white meat from the shell, broke it into chunks, skewered each chunk on a stick, and handed one to each of us. We held the skewered coconut pieces over the flames leaping from under the pot of rice now set to cook. The smell was exquisite. I inhaled until my lungs hurt. When it was done roasting, I pulled my coconut off the stick and bit into it, huffing and puffing with renewed hunger.
Big Uncle emerged with two more coconuts, followed by the twins, each cradling a fruit in his arms. We attacked those as well while we waited for our dinner to cook.
• • •
“Listen up!” the Khmer Rouge commander called out. He stood in the middle of the camp, backed by his whole troop, light from fires and shadow flickering across his face like alternating masks. People moved closer in to better hear him. “Tomorrow you will be taken to your next destination—”
“Next destination?” someone from the crowd interrupted. “What about home?” The man stood up, shaking with suppressed anger. “When will we go back to Phnom Penh?”
“There’s no going back,” the commander growled. “You’ll start a new life—”
“What do you mean a
new
life?” someone else asked, and then others started speaking as well, barking with fury. “What about our home? What will we do here, in the middle of nowhere? We want to go back to the city! We want to go home!”
“The city is empty!” the Khmer Rouge commander thundered. “There’s nothing to go back to! Your home is where we tell you!”
“But we were told we could go back!” challenged the man who had started it all. “Three days, you told us. Three days! Well, it’s been more than three days! We want to go home!”
“Forget your home!” the commander thundered. “You’ll build a new life out here—in the countryside!”
“This is nowhere! Why should we leave our home for a life here?”
“It is the order of the Organization!”
“The Organization, the Organization!” another voice shouted from the throng. “
What
or
who
is this Organization?”
“Yes, tell us who they are! Give us a face! We want to know!”
“Tell us something we can believe!”
“Yes, stop telling us your Khmer Rouge lies!”
BANG! A bullet resounded in the night sky.
The voices stopped. No one stirred. The commander put down his pistol. “You will stay and go as you are told, understand?” He waited.
No one responded. A defiant hush all around.
“UNDERSTAND?” he roared, his gun sweeping across the wall of people in front of him.
The crowd murmured and nodded submissively.
“GOOD!” The commander lowered his weapon. He made as if to go but then turned and faced his challengers once more. “We are
Revolutionary soldiers,
and if you say ‘Khmer Rouge’ again, you will be shot.” He marched off.
The whole camp fell silent. A long time passed before anyone fell asleep.