Free Alive in the Killing Fields by Nawuth Keat Page A

anymore. The Khmer Rouge had burned down villages and destroyed any system of property ownership. Ripe food in the fields was available for anyone who made the trip to get it—and who was able to avoid the land mines the departing Khmer Rouge had set up. They didn’t want “the enemy” to have the food. Next to rice fields and storage barns, they dug holes and put explosives in them. They covered the holes with bamboo and leaves. Unsuspecting people would step on a booby trap, fall into it, and be blown apart.
    We picked the vegetables and stayed away from most of the rice barns. We loaded our cart with produce, and then we took turns pushing it back to Battambang. We walked for days. At night, we slept on the ground under the trees. At some intersections, residents left pots of water for travelers to use. One afternoon I saw an oldman seated near one of the pots. He asked me questions about where we were going and how old we were. Then he asked to look at our hands. He was a palm reader.
    Ang, my brothers, and I each held out our hands for him to study. He said to each of my brothers, “You will stay here in Cambodia.” He said to Ang, “Your future is not clear to me. It is a mystery yet to unfold.” Then he looked at my palm and said, “Your future is very far away from here. You will tell people about what the Khmer Rouge have done to us.”
    I had no idea where “far away” might be, but I didn’t pay much attention anyway. I did not believe in palm reading.

Chapter Ten
WALKING
    “Mop, we want to talk with you,” said Van Lan one evening. In a lull between rainstorms, I was playing outside with my younger brothers in front of the house.
    I came in and sat down. Chantha was there, too, holding Vibol. He was on the verge of falling asleep.
    Van Lan said to me, “Chantha and I want better lives than we can have here. We want more for Vibol, too—and for you.”
    My heart started pounding. I could tell from his tone of voice that something big was going to happen. I had overheard Chantha and him talking about their frustrations. “There are no opportunities here,” Van Lan had said. “What good is our education if there is no work, and the country has no money to rebuild itself?”
    Chantha had said, “What kind of future can we give to Vibol? He’s only a toddler now, but there will be no school for him, no justice, no future. He won’t have a chance.”
    Then Van Lans aid to me, “Chanthaand I are determined to escape. There is nothing here for us. Anything of value that the Khmer Rouge did not ruin, the Vietnamese have taken. Would you like to come with us?”
    “How can we do it?” I asked.
    “We’ll use our brains. During these last few months in Battambang, we’ve worked enough here and there to get a little money. We are strong now, and we can walk as much as we need to. We think you can too. You are brave and you are smart.”
    I looked down, embarrassed by his generous words.
    He said, “We have seen that if you need something, you figure out how to get it. You don’t wait for people to tell you what to do or how to do it. You come up with your own ideas. This decision is up to you, Mop. It won’t be easy. Although the Vietnamese control the cities and most of the countryside, there are still pockets of Khmer Rouge. And that’s not all. The Vietnamese may try to prevent us from leaving, too. They don’t want the world to know that we’re not happy under their control. Do you want to think about it?”
    There was so much to think about, I could hardly think at all. I looked at Chantha. She was still holding Vibol, who had fallen asleep. She stared at me with an anxious expression on her gentle face. At that moment, she looked a lot like Mom.
    “Yes, I want to come with you,” I said. “What about Bunna and Chanya?”
    Chantha said, “Compared to you, Bunna is timid. Van Lan has asked him to help carry Vibol to the border. He has agreed to do it, but he does not want to risk