When Broken Glass Floats: Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge Paperback Read Online Free

harden the skull. You knew an infant was maturing when the powder fell away. When Mak married, you might say her paley had not yet fallen away. But it made little difference. High expectations were common among many mothers-in-law, whose words ruled. A woman isn’t just married to her husband, but to his whole family. But Pa didn’t see it that way; he was a man who had the courage to turn away from cultural expectations with which he disagreed. In time, they had two children, both of whom died. Their third child was a skinny, sickly baby. They held little hope for her survival, but she surprised them, earning the nickname Chea, which means “heal.” With a frail new baby, Pa and Mak left Year Piar.
    They embarked on a journey, abandoning the financial security of their families to seek their own way, to make a life on their own. They went to Phnom Penh. Bitter about his parent’s unyielding expectations, Pa and Mak made a vow on the Preah Monivong Bridge: If they didn’t succeed in life, they would never return to Year Piar to see his parents. They would kill themselves first, jumping into the deep, flowing waters that ran beneath them.
    Now in their early twenties, they were no longer troubled by this vow. Together they built a home in Takeo. Pa was a good husband and father. At twenty-five, he was successfully supporting a growing family. In truth, my father and mother surprised not only his parents but also Mak ’s. A home was a status symbol, a measure of making it. Even their parents wondered, Where did they get the money to build a house this big?
    They didn’t know of the vow that burned deeply in Pa and Mak . The home was the temple of their vow. A trophy Pa won for Mak , his bride.
    It was in this home that I first heard the word “war.” The year was 1968, and I was three years old. It was a clear night and the sky was adorned with stars. Mak came into our living room and asked my siblings and me if we wanted to see a comet. Mak said it had a long, bright tail.
    I remember our excitement. I hurried along with five of my brothers and sisters. They were Chea, eleven, whose intelligence and thoughtfulness earned her the respect an oldest child demands; Ra, ten, my shy sister who liked to help Mak cook and clean—her tidy, domestic ways pleased our mother. At nine, Tha was my oldest brother. He was good in math and mischievous. Tha’s way of finding out if the corn was sweet was to take a bite out of every cob on the platter. Ry, seven, was my easily amused sister, who liked to baby-sit me and Avy, our one-year-old sister. Than, five, was the second-oldest brother, whose tree-climbing sense of adventure often invited my own curiosity. He was my rival.
    As we followed our mother, we scurried close behind her like six chicks following a hen. Mak lifted me up and I saw the heavenly body with a starlike nucleus and a long, luminous tail. Its radiance was intensified by the dark sky and the surrounding stars. We were all in awe, crowded near our mother, leaning against the railing.
    A moment later my mother’s joy seemed to fade—even a child could feel it. She told us of an old folk superstition: When the tail of the comet pointed to a particular place, Cambodia would be drawn into war with that country. The word “war” diluted the aura of excitement, even with me, a child who didn’t have the slightest idea what the word meant. I sensed the fear in my mother and older siblings. I wondered what the word “country” meant, and what country the tail of the comet was pointing to.
     
     
    In 1969 war comes, and I am only four.
    Loud rumbling noises wake me. I fumble in the dark, trying to open the mosquito netting around my bed. I run in the dark toward the living room, searching for my mother and father. “ Mak! Pa! ” I scream with all my might, trying to compete with the raucous sounds.
    From the living room, I hear my oldest sister, twelve-year-old Chea, screaming: “ Mak! Pa! Yeakong chol srok