Free In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner Page A

to him. Mama, with her own bundles and sacks, carried Radana. Auntie India and Tata, in addition to what they carried, each took a twin, while Big Uncle, the biggest and strongest, carried Grandmother Queen on his back and a load on his chest. Together we descended the silty incline toward the Mekong’s mangrove-covered shore, grabbing on to branches and vines and one another to keep from sliding.
    At the bottom a line of boats waited along the shallow edge, swaying like hammocks rocked by all the coming and going, while many more littered the deeper waters. The boats were setting out loaded with passengers and returning empty. There was no time to decide if a boat was safe or not, if there would be too many of us in one vessel. A young Khmer Rouge soldier gestured to us, then pointed to a fishing canoe that looked as weather-beaten as the old fisherman who stood in it. I swallowed and felt the whole river rushing down my throat.
    •  •  •
    As we approached the long stretch of shore on the other side of the river, the old fisherman maneuvered the canoe into a space between a rock and another boat. In front of us a crowd was gathering to look at something that had washed ashore. There were murmurs and gasps. Mama turned back to look at us, unsure whether to stay or get off, her face blanched with motion sickness. I got up, wanting to have a look, but Papa quickly pulled me back down. A soldier marched toward the gathering crowd. “What use is it to gawk?” he thundered. “She’s dead! Move before someone else ends up like her! NOW!” He turned, waving hisgun in our direction. “OUT! WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR—A CARRIAGE TO CARRY YOU? OUT!”
    Mama clutched Radana in her arms and scooted off the boat. The rest of us followed close behind, rushing past the dark mound lying on the sand. Papa tried to keep me from looking, but I saw it anyway. The body. It lay there on the muddy sand, facedown, with strands of jasmine wrapped around the neck and entangled in the hair. I didn’t see her face, so I couldn’t be sure if it was the same girl we’d encountered that day leaving Phnom Penh. It was unlikely. There were countless other little girls selling jasmine garlands every day. Still, it was her voice I remembered, her voice I heard now calling out to customers: New Year’s jasmines! New Year’s jasmines!
    A couple of Khmer Rouge soldiers picked up the body and threw it into the nearby bushes. They wiped their hands against the leaves as if they had just thrown away a dead fish. More soldiers came and hurried us along. A young female soldier pushed Mama forward, yelling, “MOVE! MOVE!” Frightened, Radana cried out and wrapped her arms around Mama’s neck, the red ribbon still tied to her wrist like a good-luck string.
    “MOVE!” echoed the other soldiers. “MOVE!”
    Papa picked me up and we followed the surging throngs, scrambling up the sandy riverbank toward the dark expanse of the forest.
    •  •  •
    The soldiers led us across a jungle-like terrain, where vines bore thorns as steely as metal prongs and where trees looked like yakshas, giant sentinels who guarded the entrance to a hidden world. Mama screamed when what she’d thought was a branch suddenly slithered across her path. Papa paused in his walking to flick a scorpion as large as a lizard off his forearm. When a wild boar came charging at us out of nowhere, the soldiers fired rounds of bullets in its direction. None hit the animal, but the clatter managed to scare it away.
    On we pushed, bathed in sweat, braving sun and heat, fighting hunger and thirst. Only at nightfall when we met with water again did it become clear we’d journeyed across an island. At first I thought this newstretch of water was an ocean because it was bigger than any river I’d seen and looked much deeper than the river we’d already crossed. But Papa said it was still the Mekong. Pointing across the water toward the lights that dotted the otherwise pitch-black