Read Online In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Vaddey Ratner
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Suddenly the whole day’s events came back to me—leaving the house, the crowded streets, the rash shootings and separations, the chaos everywhere.
I stopped eating. Mama noticed. “Don’t you want to have some more food?” she asked, worried by my abrupt change of appetite.
I shook my head. I felt sick to my stomach.
• • •
I found Papa and Big Uncle settled like two shadows in the low wicker armchairs on the balcony, a bottle of red wine on the coffee table between them. Except for a tiny glow from the cigarette between Big Uncle’s fingers, they were sitting in the dark, deep in conversation. Before them the Mekong coursed like a dark glittering snake as boats lit with torches glided across its surface. Campfires had sprung up along the shore. Here and there stood the dark silhouette of a Khmer Rouge soldier hugging his gun, keeping constant watch. From somewhere high in one of the coconut trees radio music crackled through a loudspeaker:
We are the Revolutionary youth!
We must rise, rise! Take up arms!
Follow the glorious path of the Revolution!
I went over to Papa, and he lifted me up onto his lap, saying to Big Uncle, “I just don’t understand . . . It doesn’t make any sense, Arun.” The wine in his glass seemed untouched, while Big Uncle’s glass was empty, except for a darkish ring at the bottom.
We must bring down the enemies!
Smash them with all our might!
“What’s clear to me,” Big Uncle said, extending his arm to keep the smoke as far from me as possible, “is that reprisals will be taken against those with links to the Republic and the monarchy.” He got up with ashtray in hand, took a drag, and exhaled. Then, stubbing out the cigarette, he returned to his seat. Auntie India said Big Uncle smoked when he worried.
Papa nodded. “People like us, I suppose.”
I looked up at the night sky, searching for signs among the stars. At night, Milk Mother said, even the sky told a story. A blinking star means a child is about to be born, and a shooting star means someone has died and the spirit is passing into the next world. But at the moment I saw nothing, heard nothing, nothing that revealed to the world what I aloneknew—I’d be shot because I too was an intellectual, an avid reader, a lover of books.
“They’re starting with a clean slate,” Big Uncle noted, brow furrowed. “It might be weeks or even months before we can go back. In the meantime a new rule, a new regime will be established in our absence.”
“But why empty the city?” Papa wondered.
“Chaos. It’s the foundation of all revolutions. This one is just beginning, and I’m not sure what it is. It has yet to be named.”
How strange, I thought. Everything had a name. Even the preats, spirits condemned to wander homeless and hungry, had names. The soldiers themselves had names, indeed many names: Red Khmers, Communists, the Khmer Rouge, Revolutionary soldiers.
“You mustn’t have any illusion about these soldiers, Klah,” Big Uncle said, calling Papa by his nickname, Tiger. “These children.”
Once again I saw the face of the Khmer Rouge soldier who’d aimed her gun at the old man’s head. It occurred to me that the look on her face, as she shot the old man, as she watched him fall to the ground, had no name. It was neither anger nor hate nor fear. It was absent of rage or anything recognizable, and I remembered thinking that she had looked neither like a child nor an adult, but a kind of creature all to herself, not altogether unreal, in the same way a nightmare monster is not unreal.
“You see that they are children, don’t you?” Big Uncle waited for a reply.
For a long time, the two men remained quiet, each lost in his thoughts. From the river a chorus of voices sang through the loudspeaker:
Wonderful, glorious Revolution!
Your light shines on our people!
Papa broke the silence. “What do we do now? Do we stay here?”
“We can’t,” Big Uncle said. “Sooner or later,
I stopped eating. Mama noticed. “Don’t you want to have some more food?” she asked, worried by my abrupt change of appetite.
I shook my head. I felt sick to my stomach.
• • •
I found Papa and Big Uncle settled like two shadows in the low wicker armchairs on the balcony, a bottle of red wine on the coffee table between them. Except for a tiny glow from the cigarette between Big Uncle’s fingers, they were sitting in the dark, deep in conversation. Before them the Mekong coursed like a dark glittering snake as boats lit with torches glided across its surface. Campfires had sprung up along the shore. Here and there stood the dark silhouette of a Khmer Rouge soldier hugging his gun, keeping constant watch. From somewhere high in one of the coconut trees radio music crackled through a loudspeaker:
We are the Revolutionary youth!
We must rise, rise! Take up arms!
Follow the glorious path of the Revolution!
I went over to Papa, and he lifted me up onto his lap, saying to Big Uncle, “I just don’t understand . . . It doesn’t make any sense, Arun.” The wine in his glass seemed untouched, while Big Uncle’s glass was empty, except for a darkish ring at the bottom.
We must bring down the enemies!
Smash them with all our might!
“What’s clear to me,” Big Uncle said, extending his arm to keep the smoke as far from me as possible, “is that reprisals will be taken against those with links to the Republic and the monarchy.” He got up with ashtray in hand, took a drag, and exhaled. Then, stubbing out the cigarette, he returned to his seat. Auntie India said Big Uncle smoked when he worried.
Papa nodded. “People like us, I suppose.”
I looked up at the night sky, searching for signs among the stars. At night, Milk Mother said, even the sky told a story. A blinking star means a child is about to be born, and a shooting star means someone has died and the spirit is passing into the next world. But at the moment I saw nothing, heard nothing, nothing that revealed to the world what I aloneknew—I’d be shot because I too was an intellectual, an avid reader, a lover of books.
“They’re starting with a clean slate,” Big Uncle noted, brow furrowed. “It might be weeks or even months before we can go back. In the meantime a new rule, a new regime will be established in our absence.”
“But why empty the city?” Papa wondered.
“Chaos. It’s the foundation of all revolutions. This one is just beginning, and I’m not sure what it is. It has yet to be named.”
How strange, I thought. Everything had a name. Even the preats, spirits condemned to wander homeless and hungry, had names. The soldiers themselves had names, indeed many names: Red Khmers, Communists, the Khmer Rouge, Revolutionary soldiers.
“You mustn’t have any illusion about these soldiers, Klah,” Big Uncle said, calling Papa by his nickname, Tiger. “These children.”
Once again I saw the face of the Khmer Rouge soldier who’d aimed her gun at the old man’s head. It occurred to me that the look on her face, as she shot the old man, as she watched him fall to the ground, had no name. It was neither anger nor hate nor fear. It was absent of rage or anything recognizable, and I remembered thinking that she had looked neither like a child nor an adult, but a kind of creature all to herself, not altogether unreal, in the same way a nightmare monster is not unreal.
“You see that they are children, don’t you?” Big Uncle waited for a reply.
For a long time, the two men remained quiet, each lost in his thoughts. From the river a chorus of voices sang through the loudspeaker:
Wonderful, glorious Revolution!
Your light shines on our people!
Papa broke the silence. “What do we do now? Do we stay here?”
“We can’t,” Big Uncle said. “Sooner or later,
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