After the boys quiet down, five girls walk up to the front and stand facing the crowd. All are wearing beautiful black shirts and pants, not the faded, gray-black I have on, but shiny and new, with bright red scarves around their waists. They wear red ribbons across their foreheads with red fake flowers made of dyed straw. Forming a line, they sing and dance for us. All the songs are about worshiping the powerful leader of the Angkar, Pol Pot, the glory of Angkar society, and the unbeatable Khmer soldiers.
They dance scenes depicting farmers at work, the harvesting of rice, nurses helping wounded soldiers, and soldiers winning battles. There is even a song about a woman soldier hiding her knife in her skirt and thrusting it into the heart of a Youn. Though I dislike the songs, it is music nevertheless, and it is something of a respite from the life I have been living. In the nearly two years I lived in Ro Leap, there was no music or dancing. The chief told us the Angkar had banned it. This must be a privilege that we, as child soldiers, have been granted.
Watching the girls sing and dance, a strange feeling comes over me. Though the words they sing describe images of blood and war, the girls smile. Their hands move gracefully in unison, their bodies sway and twirl to the rhythm of the music. After the dance, they hold hands and giggle as if they have had fun. This thought warms me, bringing a smile to my lips. Laughter has become a distant memory and I cherish the echo of a different time. In Phnom Penh, Chou and I used to take Keav’s clothes out of her drawers and play dress-up with them. At fourteen, Keav was beautiful and stylish, and bought only the latest fashions. Her clothes were so grown-up and pretty, just like Ma’s. Long, flowing dresses, short shimmering skirts, and ruffled-collar shirts filled her closet. Chou and I slipped in and out of her clothes, laughing and giggling, calling each other Madame and Mademoiselle. Then we’d go into Keav’s jewelry box and put on her necklaces and earrings. Keav inevitably came home and caught us. Screaming and yelling, she swatted at our bottoms as we ran out of the room.
After the performance, all of us are invited to dance. The girls get up and dance with each other and the boys group tightly together. I have always loved music and dancing. For a few minutes, my feet move to the beat of the drums, my arms sway to the rhythm of the song, and my heart is light and joyful. After the dancing is over, Met Bong comes over and says, “For a young girl, you are a good dancer.”
“Thank you,” I reply softly. “I like to dance.”
“What is your name again?”
“Sarene,” my lips easily say my new Cambodian name.
“Sarene, I want you to join the dance troop. We’re putting together shows for the soldiers. This would mean taking time off work for rehearsal. We only dance for fun now, but we will dance for the soldiers if a unit comes to the village.”
“Thank you, Met Bong. I would like it very much.” After she leaves, I cover my hand over my mouth, stifling a scream. Me! A dancer! I get to get off work for rehearsal and travel. New clothes! Fake flowers in my hair! For the first time since the takeover, I feel young and light. A smile crosses my face.
The reality, though, is more painful and tiring than I had imagined. Every morning before we start rehearsing, Met Bong wraps our fingers together with elephant grass. Then she forces our hands to bend backward creating a beautiful curve when the hand is unwrapped. The process is incredibly painful and it takes many years to achieve a permanent curve. She cuts the grass bondage after an hour, leaving my fingers stiff and throbbing with pain. Then in our line formation, she teaches us a few simple steps each day. When I am not busy with dance rehearsals, I work from morning until midafternoon in the rice field. The rest of the time I spend learning the songs and listening to Met Bong preach the philosophy of the Angkar.
On my first day of field work, after only a few steps in the muddy water, my ankles and toes start to itch. I lift one foot out the water and scream loudly. There are fat black leeches all over my ankles, feet, and between my toes. I have seen leeches before, but never ones so big and fat. These are bigger than my fingers. Black and slimy, they attach themselves to my flesh with suction cups, sucking my blood! Their bodies writhe and vibrate, making my skin itch and tingle. Frantically, I try to peel them off, my fingers grabbing their cold squishy bodies. The leeches stretch with my pull, become longer. They refuse to let go. Finally, I get one head off but the other end stays firm and continues to take more blood.
A workmate comes over to me and laughs. For a brief second the sound of laughter startles me. “You are so stupid! This is the only way to get them off.” She pulls out a stalk of grass. Her hands hold both ends of the stalk, and she swipes the grass down and around my ankle. The leeches fall off onto the ground, leaving my ankle bleeding.
“This way both heads come off at once. Next time, put the legs of your pants down, and tie them tight around your ankles so nothing can get in.” I had rolled my pants up so as not to get them wet. I was wondering why everyone wore them down.
“What about my feet and toes?” I ask anxiously. The girl shrugs her shoulders.
“There’s nothing much we can do. They don’t hurt and they can’t take much blood. I pull them off at the end of the day. Get used to them.”
I shudder at the thought and wonder if I can. From afar, Met Bong screams for me to stop being lazy and get back into the water. My heart beats quickly. Laziness is the worst crime against the Angkar. I tie my pants tight around my ankles with long grass and jump back into the rice paddy. In the water, the warm mud oozes itself between my toes and after a few steps, my feet and toes begin to tingle and itch again. “Get used to it!” I mutter to myself. Gritting my teeth with determination, I bend over to plant the rice. The work is back-breaking and boring, and the sun burns my black pajama clothes. As the hours pass, my mind wanders to Keav. This is what she did every day until she died. Sweat drips down my face and chin as my stomach convulses. I have no time to be weak. At the end of the day, I did forget about the leeches clinging to my toes, but I did not forget about my sister.
It is September, two months since I last saw Chou. Met Bong is training the younger children to protect themselves now. She tells us Pol Pot senses troubles ahead and we must prepare ourselves. Pol Pot is sending soldiers into villages and towns and taking all children eight years and older from their homes, including base children. Depending on their size and age, the children are given different jobs and training. They are put in camps to grow food, make tools, work as porters, and train as soldiers on bases like ours.
“You should be proud,” she says. “Your training with me puts you far ahead of these other children.”
“Met Bong,” I ask, “I have done nothing but work in the field and watch the older girls train.”
“It is very easy to train someone to use weapons,” she replies, “but to train the mind is much more difficult. I have been training your mind all these months. I have tried my best to place Pol Pot’s words in your head and to tell you the truth about the Youns. Children must be taught to follow orders without hesitation, without question, and to shoot and kill even their traitor parents. That is the first step in the training.” I seethe when I hear her words. Rage boils quietly inside me, but I contain it. I will never kill Ma for them. Not ever!
The New Year passes over without any celebration or joy. The January breeze turns into April heat and I am one year older. Life at the camp continues as always while I divide my time between the field and the training lessons. Like Keav, I am alone here, even though I eat the same food and sleep in the same hut with eighty girls. Besides our obligatory discussions about the power of Pol Pot and his army, we live together in silence. We keep to ourselves because we are all hiding secrets. My secret is our lives in Phnom Penh. For another girl, it may be that she has a handicapped brother, has stolen food, possesses a pair of red pants, is nearsighted and used to wear glasses, or has tasted chocolate. If she is found out, she can be punished by Met Bong.
Though I know the danger of developing a friendship with the girls
, sometimes I wistfully think about it. Without Chou, I am alone. Until now, I’ve always had Chou to play with, fight with, and talk to. In Phnom Penh, Khouy and Meng were already adults, Keav was a teenage girl, Kim a prepubescent, and Geak a baby. Chou and I were closest to each other. When I was sad and upset, it was she whom I invariably sought out to share my feelings. I never realized how much I would miss her now that we are apart.
At the new camp, the nearest thing to friendship comes from the palm tree boy. I do not know his name and have never spoken to him. He comes to our camp often, sometimes by himself and sometimes with his father. I learned from Met Bong that he lives with his family in a nearby village. He and his father share the job of collecting palm sap and fruit for the village’s chief. The boy and his father often give Met Bong some palm fruit to eat. If they are there when I am around, the boy usually throws a palm fruit in my direction, smiling and waving to me with his hand still clutching the cleaver.
Every day, our nightly lessons grow longer and longer. It seems Pol Pot has replaced the Angkar as the source of power. I don’t know why or how it happened. I do not know anything more about him, except for what Met Bong tells us at our nightly lesson. Met Bong says he is the one responsible for bringing the Khmer Rouge to power. He is the one who will restore Kampuchea to its ancient glory. Met Bong’s voice rises as she speaks his name, as if uttering “Pol Pot” brings her closer to his power. Since the Khmer Rouge takeover of Phnom Penh, I have heard of Pol Pot but I never knew exactly what his position with the Angkar was. Now it seems that it is the Angkar that is working for him, and that we all work for him. More and more each day, we call out his name in place of the Angkar. In the propaganda reports, we now give thanks to Pol Pot, our savior and liberator, and not to the Angkar. It seems that nothing is accomplished without the credit going to Pol Pot. If our rice production is increased this year it is because Pol Pot made it happen. If a soldier is a strong and skillful fighter, it is because Pol Pot taught him. If the soldier gets killed, then he did not listen to Pol Pot’s advice. Every night we praise and commend Pol Pot and his Red Khmer soldiers for defeating the enemy.
In violent details we hear of the soldiers’ mighty strength and supernatural powers to kill the Youns. The Youns are superstitious and believe that if their body parts are not buried together when they die, then their souls are doomed to wander the earth for all eternity. These souls cannot rest or be reincarnated back to earth. Knowing this, our soldiers cut off the Youns’ heads and hide them in bushes or toss them in the jungle so they cannot be found. All this information we get in gory detail until we too become desensitized to the violence.
Within the next month, one by one the older boys and girls leave the camp with nothing more than the clothes they are wearing. They are sent off to help the war. Some go to live in other camps, where they learn to make poison stakes, and others follow the soldiers as porters. As porters they carry supplies, food, medical aid, and weapons for the soldiers and are often put in the line of fire. Many of the children have been moved to so many locations that their parents do not know where they are. Once gone, many of them are never heard from again.
Then the boys’ camp closes altogether. Met Bong says Pol Pot needed the boys to go and live in the mountains so they are closer to the other soldiers. There the soldiers can protect them. She tells us Pol Pot knows best but still she seems angry with their move. On the boys’ last night, while the children were sleeping, I got up because I had to go to the bathroom. From the bushes, I spied Met Bong and Met Preuf together by the fire. They were sitting on the ground, their shoulders touching. They talked softly, but the words were drowned out by the crackles of the fire. Met Bong then rested her head on the male supervisor’s shoulder and he put his arms around her. She is, after all, a young woman, and anywhere else this would be an everyday scene. I wonder why she is allowed companionship when we are not. When the boys left, they took their instruments with them. Now Met Bong still requires the girls to practice with the hope that soon the boys will return and we can all dance again.
Soon our camp population is reduced to forty girls, ranging in age from ten to thirteen. Now it is our turn, Met Bong tells us, to increase our training and fulfill our duty to Pol Pot. She gathers the girls together and instructs us to sit in a circle. “You are the children of the Angkar. You are here because you are the brightest and fastest. You are fearless and are not afraid to fight. The Angkar needs you to be our future.” She says this slowly, deliberately, filling us with pride. “One day soon you will join the older girls to fight the Youns, but for now there are many things you will need to learn.”
Met Bong stands up and disappears, only to return moments later with an armful of tools. They clang noisily as she drops them in a pile in front of us. Sitting before us she says, “All these tools you know already. We use them to harvest rice, plant vegetables, and build houses. But in the hands of fighters, they are also weapons of war. The round sickle, the hoe, the rake, the hammer, the machete, the wooden stick, and a rifle.” She reaches for the sickle and holds it up. “The sharp edge can take off the enemy’s head,” she says. “The point of the sickle can pierce a person’s skull.” My eyes widen as these images are imprinted on my brain. The top of my skull tingles. I look to see the other children listening intently, displaying no emotion. “The hammer smashes the enemy’s skull; the machete cuts them. When you have to protect yourself, make whatever you have into weapons,” Met Bong shares with us. I stare blankly at her, absorbing her words, showing no feeling while my hate for her grows stronger. These are the weapons Pol Pot’s men used on their victims, victims like Pa. I blink rapidly several times trying to chase away the images.
Met Bong picks a rifle from the pile, the same kind I have seen many times before on the shoulders of the Khmer Rouge soldiers. “This is a weapon I wish we had more of but they are very expensive. The ammunition for them is very expensive too, so we have few rifles to waste. The rifle is easy to shoot. Anyone can learn to use them—even a child can shoot it.” She calls me from the circle of forty girls. “This is one way to carry it,” she says as she puts the rifle on my shoulder, its butt digging into my chest. It rests heavily on my shoulder, perhaps a fifth of my weight. Met Bong then instructs me to sling one arm over it, balancing its weight with my arm. I do this easily but against my will. She then takes the rifle and slips the strap on my shoulder. The rifle hangs on my back a foot from the ground, its butt bouncing lightly on my calf. “Obviously, it is too long for Sarene to carry this way,” Met Bong says.
I focus on it, realizing that this is the weapon that made Kim bleed, the same weapon that smashed into his skull. My hand shakes slightly, but I steady it by clutching the stock tightly until my knuckles turn white. “Your extended left hand holds and balances the rifle. Your right hand aims and squeezes the trigger. See, it’s easy!” Met Bong’s voice sounds enthusiastic and jubilant, but I feel neither her joy nor passion, only my hatred for her and Pol Pot. “When the bullets come out of the rifle, they travel in a straight line. Many soldiers say they can escape the bullets by running in a zigzag.” She calls each child one by one and teaches her how to hold the rifle. After our first lesson, Met Bong assures us that this is only one of many lessons to come.
During the day, no one can hurt me, but at night, as I drift off to sleep, sandwiched among forty girls, away from Chou, my mind wanders and dreams of my family, keeping me awake. In the morning, my head throbs and I am drained of energy. I cannot allow this weakness to control me, or let it seep into my spirit. If this happens I know I will die because the weak do not survive in Kampuchea.
The nights when I do not dream of my family, I have nightmares of something or someone trying to kill me. The dream always begins the same way. The sky is black and echoes with the thunder of monsoon storms. I am crouching in a bush and sweat runs down my forehead and stings my eyes. Shivering, I bring my knees closer to my chest. I hold my breath when I hear leaves rustling all around me, then
footsteps. Instinctively, I know something is after me; it is looking for me in nearby bushes, looking to kill me.
Two giant hands separate the leaves and expose me. My body is paralyzed when I see what stands before me. It is both a man and a beast. It hovers above me, coal black eyes bulge out of its sockets, and large, flat nostrils flare from his fat, furry face. Fear grips me as I notice the silver machete in its hand, gleaming sinisterly in the moonlight. As the beast bends down to grab me, I run and make my escape between its legs. It turns around and slashes at me with the machete, barely missing my leg. As I run I hear the blade landing nearer and nearer to me, slicing through the bushes around me. The faster I run the faster it runs after me. It chases me until I am cornered.
Then the jungle closes in on me, forming thick walls. There is no escape. The beast raises the machete over its head, aimed directly at me. I am sick of it now. I’m sick of being chased and tired of running. My blood boils with rage as I hurl my body into it, knocking it off balance. It drops the machete. I ram my body into it once more and it crashes down onto the ground. I get up and grab the machete. Time freezes as I chop off its hand. Its stump squirts blood all over me, but I do not care. Again and again, I raise the machete and hack off pieces of its body until it lies motionless, dead. In the morning I wake up soaked in sweat and fear, yet strengthened by the nightmare since I turn out to be the victor.
The dreams are always the same, but the character changes. The “enemy,” a Khmer Rouge soldier or a wild beast, a monster or a ghostly man-creature, comes after me with knives, guns, axes, machetes. There is always a struggle until I obtain control of the weapon and kill the enemy before it can kill me. In the end, I, the hunted, turn and become the killer. Each night before we can sleep, Met Bong gathers us together in the hut for another hour of propaganda reports. She lights one candle and holds it in her hand. The orange glow lights up her face while the rest of us are in the dark. At one meeting, as I lean against the straw wall and slowly fall asleep, a loud scream shocks me awake. With my heart pounding, I wonder if it was me who screamed. But then I see that the girls have closed in tightly around Met Bong.