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

says, that now calls out on the radio, in Peking, China, beseeching Cambodian people to join the Khmer Rouge in the jungles. Pleading for us to join the “king-father” and fight against people supporting the “American imperialists.” The broadcaster reports the mounting casualties among soldiers and civilians and pinpoints outlying provinces where skirmishes have taken place. It is news that still seems very far away.
    Although I make time for adult news, I also turn my back on it, drawn to my childhood duty in life—to have fun. When Than and his friends are about to play kick-the-can, I dash out and open the gate. I hope they haven’t divided into two groups yet. I make my way into the circle of boys. “Hey, can I play?”
    Than says, “Wait! Athy, come here!” He waves me away from his friends.
    “What?”
    “Don’t play with boys—you’re a girl. Go play with your own friends! Go!”
    “But I want to play kick-the-can. You can play with them, why can’t I play with them?”
    “But they’re my friends! If you play, I’ll tell Mak . Mak will hit you for playing with boys.” He glares at me as he makes his way back to his friends.
    Right behind him, I say, “Well, your friends don’t say I can’t play!”
    I couldn’t care less about the culture or what Mak will do or say to me. Besides, Than’s friends don’t seem to mind that I play with them. During the game, I run as fast as any of them. I have fun and forget all about Than’s warning.
    Than runs home. I race with him. I pass Mak sitting on the red couch and Pa sitting at his medicine desk with his glasses on, inspecting something.
    “Athy, where did you come from, all sweaty?” asks Mak .
    “Play.”
    “ Mak , she played with boys! I told her not to, but she’s stubborn.”
    “Why is that, Athy?”
    I walk back to the living room to defend myself.
    “ Koon , they didn’t want you to play with them, why didn’t you listen?”
    “Why couldn’t I play? His friends didn’t say I couldn’t play. Only Than told me not to play!” I reply.
    “But she was the only girl, Mak !”
    “But my friends weren’t playing tonight. Why couldn’t I play kick-the-can with your friends? Selfish!” I retort. “Want to have fun by yourself.”
    Mak laughs as if amused by what just transpired. She turns to Pa , sitting at the desk, then says: “ Pa vea [Father of the children], listen to your children!”
    I look at Pa , bracing for what he will say. I wonder if he will have me kneel on his desk again as my punishment, as he did when I sneaked out to watch TV at my friend’s house after he had told me not to watch ours. By now Pa should know that this sort of discipline will never work with me. Crying as hard as I possibly could, I had slowly climbed up the chair onto the desk. My shrieky cry was more difficult for Pa to handle than having me kneel on his desk. So now I wonder what Pa will do as he slowly looks up. He turns to Mak and gazes above his glasses, which hang on the tip of his nose. To my relief, he grins.
    The verdict is clear. I’m exonerated again.
    Strangely, without my knowledge, the same thing that has been going on in our childhood game of kick-the-can has been escalating throughout the country, on a grand, and dangerous, political scale. Just as my friends and I challenge each other to sneak in and kick a tin can over to the winning side, so government and grassroots armies have been challenging each other, jostling for a win. Just as neighborhood children size up their teams, picking the strongest players, so the Khmer Rouge has been sizing up their allies. Who to pick? Who can run the fastest? Communist China? Russia? Certainly it cannot be France or the United States. In the midst of all of this, Cambodia has become the coveted tin can. We begin to feel the reverberations of a game growing out of hand.
    Fighting around the country is escalating. As the Khmer Rouge begin to seize outlying provinces, thousands upon thousands