Free When Broken Glass Floats: Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge Paperback by Chanrithy Him

There are about one hundred of Lon Nol’s soldiers in green camouflage. They are tied up, hands behind their backs. Walking behind them are lines of more tied-up men, including a few in civilian clothes. But among them are also those with their hands behind their heads, as the black-uniformed Khmer Rouge point rifles at them.
    Pa quickly walks the scooter into a thicker mass of moving people, trying to blend in with the crowd. Among them, he’s the tallest. He hunches his shoulders and spine, eyes studying the speedometer of the scooter. Mak notices this and so does everyone in the family. The worry passes through us all like a sudden chill.
    We pass the field, the checkpoint, and I’m relieved. Pa is, too. He walks the scooter normally again, his back straight, his eyes looking ahead. Ateek, Aunt Heak’s two-year-old son, sobs in misery. Pa puts him with Vin and Map on the scooter foot railing, and it’s enough. He’s quiet.
    Ahead of us, people slow down. From a distance, I see Khmer Rouge cadres stop every family. Pa stops the scooter. He murmurs something, tells me to stay still, then slips two watches above my wrist under the sleeve of my blouse. Mak gazes at him with a sour face. He assures her, “They won’t search children.”
    “Don’t say anything,” warns Pa softly. “Achea, Ara, hide your watches…. I’ll talk with them.”
    “Comrade, do you have a watch?” a Khmer Rouge soldier shouts at a man ahead of us. “If you have, give it to me! Have it or not?” The man before us fumbles through his cloth parcel, trying to show the angry soldier he doesn’t have any watch. With irritation the Khmer Rouge shoves the man forward, and his family nervously follows behind like dutiful slaves.
    Then it’s our turn to pass through the checkpoint, which consists of five Khmer Rouge soldiers with machine guns. Pa walks ahead, as if he’s stepping up to a ticket window for movie passes.
    “I have a watch, you can have it,” Pa exclaims. He stops walking the scooter and secures it nearby. He removes the watch from his wrist and hands it over. Pa knows the game. He’s cooperating.
    “Does comrade have more?” the soldier asks him fiercely as he hands Pa ’s watch to a younger cadre standing behind him, who looks at my father’s watch with interest. His wrists are already decked out with many different watches. He grins shamelessly, like a greedy child who can’t have enough.
    I stand behind Pa and look down, trying to be calm.
    Pa politely says, “I have only one watch, no more.”
    The soldier waves for us to pass through.
    Ahead of us, on the shoulder of the highway, are farmers, five of them, standing, holding chunks of pork, still fresh, all bloody. They shout to us to buy their meat, “fresh pork,” they bid. Mak and Pa give an okay to buy some pork. They are relieved, and surprised, to know there’s a makeshift market in a time of need—we’ll need more food for the days ahead, maybe a week, as we journey to Year Piar village.
    At Sturng Krartort Lake, our resting place for the night, we find that hundreds of people have arrived before us. The spires of smoke from campfires rise everywhere. As late arrivals, we have to camp about half a mile away from the lake. After our meal, my parents, Aunt Heak, and some adults who camp near us, sit together talking about the future. Unlike my sisters and brothers, I mingle with these adults. Much is speculation, best guesses. Having some insight into the living conditions in Red China, Pa shares it with the group. “In China under Mao Tse-tung, when you want to eat your own chicken, you have to ask permission. Your property is under the government’s control. You have to have their permission to do things. Come to think of it, it’s better to be an American ‘servant’ [ally] than to be Chinese—because there’s freedom. Russian Communism, I think, is better than the Red Chinese because they use currency.”
    “How about the tied-up soldiers?”