When Broken Glass Floats

The Khmer Rouge announce that young adults must marry and produce children to repopulate the country. Those who don’t will be sent to the battlefields. Athy’s sister Ra decides to marry; she is terrified of being killed, having already been jailed and tortured for running away from a camp. She marries a local man named Na in a mass marriage ceremony.

However, Ra resents having to marry, especially a stranger, and she still spends much of her time with her family; she is even publicly scolded by her mother-in-law. Worried that Ra will be punished, Athy remembers the execution she witnessed three years previously: A pregnant woman and her lover were beaten to death in front of a crowd for the crime of loving each other without permission.

Prior to the execution, the children in the crowd were told to stand close to the site where the two would be executed. It was, Athy remembers, “a brutal lesson,” and she fears “for Ra for avoiding Na, a defiant act against Angka. [Athy is] afraid her silent rebellion will carry a heavy price” (247).

Later that year Athy rejoins the children’s brigade, working the rice paddies. As she and the other children work, they see two chhlops speaking with the brigade leader, and then the three get into a boat and row away. Soon the news spreads that the Khmer Rouge have been overthrown.

Athy rushes back to the village, and everywhere she looks are more signs that the Khmer Rouge are gone. As she and the others celebrate, she cannot help but think of their losses; her family of nine has dwindled to only five: “Ra, twenty; Ry, seventeen; Than, fifteen; [Athy], thirteen; and Map, four. The other four—Mak, Chea, Avy, and Vin—are all dead. Like Pa. Gone forever” (249).

The fear and foreboding escalates in this section. Chea’s death hits Athy and her remaining siblings the hardest. Chea was the oldest, and more like a mother to her siblings than an older sister, especially to Athy and Map, with whom Chea spent the most time after the Khmer Rouge came to power. Furthermore, Chea was smart and funny, able to defeat the Khmer Rouge at their own game: She knew when to flatter those in charge and when to confuse them, as she does by shaving her head and acting as if she is mentally ill.

Athy dreams of being with Chea. This dream, which seems comforting, depicting Chea as happy and healthy, surrounded by loving people, also symbolizes Athy’s despair. When she asks Chea to wait for her, she is indicating that she also wants to die, despite her inner promise to study medicine in Chea’s honor.

Athy’s grief and exhaustion continue in the next chapter, and the Khmer Rouge’s insistence that young people marry and produce children leaves her dumbfounded. At just 13 years old, she already recognizes that Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge “is a nation that houses the living dead. Around [her] are there are starving, overworked, and malnourished people. Death is rampant […] Yet Angka is nonchalant, doing nothing to stop this plague” (240).

The Khmer Rouge’s insistence on the importance of children would be laughable if Athy had the capacity to laugh. Her story about the pregnant woman and her lover’s execution is brutal, but it demonstrates the tragic irony of the regime’s desire for more children. They had children, Athy is saying, but they’ve killed them, directly and indirectly. Most people feel like Athy does, but they have all learned not to speak their criticism openly.

Moreover, they’ve also learned to follow the regime’s orders, even ones they disagree with, such as the order for young adults to marry. Ra’s decision to marry stems from her fear of being sent to the front lines, but she seems not to understand the consequences of not acting as if she is married. Athy ends this chapter on a foreboding note, afraid that Ra will be punished for behaving as if she is married in name only.

Athy’s fears ease as the Khmer Rouge falls to the Vietnamese. Unlike the long buildup to war before their takeover, their desertion of Cambodia is seemingly swift and almost silent. In the memoir it’s symbolized by the disappearance of Athy’s brigade leader, who leaves without a word. Athy and the others are delighted that the Khmer Rouge are gone, but Athy cannot forget their terrible losses—the death of her parents and three of her siblings. Athy draws attention to these losses at the end of this section to highlight how this trauma will continue to affect them in the years to come.

Athy and her siblings travel to Sala Krao village and reunite with Ry and Than. Some Vietnamese soldiers, who flirt with Athy’s sister Ra, protect them. Than befriends an older man in the village who allows them to stay under his house, as protection from the Khmer Rouge’s attacks.

Every day, hundreds of people travel past the village headed for a refugee camp on the border between Cambodia and Thailand, and Athy decides to make waffles to trade for processed rice. Soon other people are also selling things, and a small market springs up on the roadside; people trade for food, and some pay with pieces of jewelry hidden from the Khmer Rouge. As more and more people sell things, Athy and her siblings make less profit, and Athy decides to go with a friend and her mother to the market near Thailand to purchase things to sell; Than and Ra have already made the journey.

The journey is dangerous. There are attacks by the Khmer Rouge as well as ordinary thieves, and some of the fields through which they travel are littered with landmines. Eventually, “thanks to everyone’s calmness and meticulousness” (269), they make it through the many obstacles and to the New Camp.

At the New Camp, Athy reunites with Ra and Than, and meets Vantha, a friend of Ra’s. They set up a business exchanging gold for Thai money; Athy weighs and assesses all the gold that is brought to them. Soon they are ready to move to a different camp, and Than returns to fetch Ry and Map.

Once Ry and Map arrive, Ra announces she will marry Vantha, and they adopt an orphaned Cambodian girl whom they name Savorng. The move to a different camp in Thailand is postponed, and the Khmer Rouge attack the camp where the siblings are staying. They flee into the forest, and a few days later are picked up by an army truck, which takes them into Thailand. Athy “bid[s] good-bye to the spirits of [her] family. Good-bye, Mak. Good-bye, Pa…Chea….We have to go….” (283).