Thoughts?The Accused
Khun Srun
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Night. Seventh day of the rainless half of the month. The moon, a quarter moon between the window's bars. It shines tonight with greater intensity than on previous nights.
How I love it, this gradual moonrise! How I love the moon as it grows, gets rounder, and shines brighter! The others perhaps wait only for its fullness to begin loving it.
I have been watching you for half an hour. It's been so long. You had gotten much bigger and I hadn't realized it. Tonight, I will fill my eyes with you...
O moon! Celestial remedy! You are freshness, tied to the sweet, light breath of the wind. You are a balm on my heart. You are the smile, the duration of a long moment of forgetfulness...You are so beautiful, moon, so pure, with such a clear glow! One might say you are a gold leaf some artist has applied to the sky's ceiling! And in spite of the miasmas of our world, in spite of the impurities hurled at you by men's greed, you still shine with the same strength, beautiful, untouched, equal to yourself. You have conquered all that is sullied! You are the shadow protecting us! You are what sustains the world and are the shelter of all creatures.
You have only one fault, moon: you are too far away from me.
Lately, I've heard prayers being recited around seven at night. The voice is powerful; it almost makes my eardrums shake. It is, in all certainty, several voices. I hear them distinctly, as if they are chanting their stanzas on the other side of the wall. I see myself as a little boy at the pagoda. Each night, I would pray in order to honor Buddha and the community of monks, to receive happiness, prosperity, grace, and peace. I see myself sitting and bowing, my legs tucked to the side, next to several little boys my own age, whom I've since lost track of. Nearby are a half dozen bonzes, symbols of the peace of the soul, of purity, of true renunciation of personal interest; two or three candles and several incense sticks are slowly burning amid thick spirals of smoke. I prostrate from time to time, hands joined in prayer, before the smile and the serenity of the Master. [End Page 55]
Smoke of candles and incense. Like the smoke shooting up from the crematoriums' chimneys. It rises to the sky and disintegrates little by little in the breeze. To quote a Western movie hero alone with nature: "This is the time when the living go to sleep, freed of all torment..." Touching prayers! Where do they come from? I'm digging deep into my memory. I'm trying to visualize the buildings around me: one kilometer to the east, Wat Ounalom, and a little more to the south, Wat Sarawan, the two monasteries placed far enough apart for the voices from one not to overlap with the voices from the other; at the west, Wat Kah, hidden by two hospitals and a small group of villas; finally, at the north, after Wat Phnom and I don't know how many kilometers, Wat Srah Chak.
I asked a guard. He told me it was only the prisoners praying. "Each evening," he added, "before going to sleep, they must pray in their small cells. All of them have to do it, whether they know how to pray or not, whether they are believers or not, whether they are Khmers, Chams, or Chinese." He added, "You're lucky they haven't sent you over there. Just look at them!You can find all kinds there: gamblers, outlaws, crooks, even the political kind."
I'm frightened. I lie down with my back on the mat. I'm suddenly aware of the force of these chants, of the power they have to flow inside you and seize your soul. I think about all those people. I don't know anything about them, anything about what's happening to them. But I am full of love for my poor little self! I become this light plaint, the hmmm full of despair that stands for the sufferings I cannot show.
I think of my wickedness as a child. I can see the nooses, the decoys with which I used to catch quail, turtledoves, blackbirds, either by their claws or their feathers, and I can see them flapping their wings and struggling to free themselves. I can see the crickets and the fighting fish I used to keep in little glass bottles, and they seem to be moaning for freedom. I can see the cane hoop nets I used to place in the ditches of paddy fields to trap phtuek and roh fish flanked by their offspring. They would sometimes stiffen like corpses or thrash in all directions, entangling themselves more as they tried to escape. All these blackbirds, all these quail, all these turtledoves, all these fish—I can see them struggling till their deaths. I see their beaks opening, I see their mouths curving with terrible pleading. They wanted to live...To go back to their mates, to raise their little ones. I wasn't aware of that. To take a life is to destroy a family.
My mother would reprimand me each time, slapping me or scolding me. I had to think, she said, of retribution for my acts. At the time, I didn't believe her. I don't know if she remembers, but since I've been in my cell, I remember everything! In my cell, I am worth nothing more than those pelicans, hens, lions, tigers, monkeys, pythons, turtles, and crocodiles that are exhibited in iron cages for the curiosity of tourists. If I am better off, it is because I, unlike them, can speak of my suffering. [End Page 56]
But I also have several good deeds to my name: giving of alms, offerings to the ancestors, participation in Kathenceremonies, in Flower Festival processions, in school inaugurations, contributions to the construction of sanctuaries, of monk cells, of school buildings, and of hospitals. If these good works are worth anything, if I am able to improve myself, to abstain from wrongdoing, I owe it to my mother and the virtues of Buddhism. Salvation has come to me from their tolerance: my mother's tolerance, Buddhism's tolerance...I am convinced of one thing: an ugly look is enough to engulf the world in flames and cover it with blood; and conversely, a sign of love, even a single one, is enough to spread love across the great cycles of existence.
A guard calls me. "Mister Chea Em, get dressed!"
Sudden pain in my stomach. I was starting to calm down, I was falling asleep, and here I am again, caught up in my story...
"Mister Chea Em." He calls me again, flashing the citation.
"Yes, yes, I'm coming."
I get up from the mat, my stomach tight with fear. What do they want from me now? These nighttime interrogations are done by the inspector, even at midnight. I don't mind it. I know it's an interrogation technique. They choose the moment that will yield the best results. Then why am I so frightened? Why am I incapable of staying calm? I'm angry with myself. The last time I had seen the citation order, it was right after mealtime, so I couldn't digest properly. This time, it's worse. The fear is like a ball inside my stomach. I can't do anything about it.
I get dressed in a hurry and go down with the guard, my stomach swol-len with fear. I look at the guard. He seems completely normal.
The inspector slams the door behind him. I find myself in a room I don't know, buried in a deep silence. An agent of an impressive height, possessing a tough face and thick, muscular arms, stands by me. He looks at me from head to toe without blinking, without a word, waiting for orders. The inspector has told me several times that in my case they would use neither torture nor fists, but this small room and double-locked door terrify me...
Yet I am not a coward. I've never been scared by stories of the dead, of phantoms that cling to your bike, that hang by your cart, that hit you, that break your neck, or by stories of horrible, restless ghouls who stick out an enormous tongue and whose crystalline lullabies suck up your soul in a vortex. They say such encounters are terrible and the horror is such that it can make you sick, turn your hair gray, drive you mad, and even kill you. But I know that there isn't anything human in that, anything really tangible. Nor am I scared by brutes, thugs, or villains. I've always told myself that you just have to anticipate their blows, the moment when they take out a blade or draw a gun, and vanish as fast as you can. Unless, of course, you can't run. Unless you have already been tied up. In that case, everyone to his own karma... [End Page 57]
I know it's dangerous to live among men. I've known it for more than twenty years, since I've been able to reason. And yet I've never been so afraid as now. Never. Even the day they scraped my jaw, when my head was but a vibration and the noise of the drill filled the entire room. Even the day of my surgery, when all I could hear was the rattle of the instruments and the rustle of bodies, when I saw their big needles, blood everywhere, and the sharp brightness of the lancet, when around me there were only strange faces, hidden behind masks. But now, I'm all by myself, unaware of how to react, unprepared. Here, I have no support, no recourse...
I'm curled up, my arms joined around my body, like a little wet animal. I stare silently at every corner of the room. My eyes move from the table to the floors, the walls, the door, the agent, the inspector, and come back to look at myself. I glance up, down, to the right, to the left, in front, behind.
At the north point of the room, behind the inspector's back, a photo of the Chief of Statehangs on the wall. I feel as if he is looking at me. This makes me think of Sartre's play Morts sans sépulture, in which one of the executioners looks at Pétain's portrait and is outraged by his distance and indifference. I don't say a word to the inspector, but I focus on my comparison, hang on to it as long as I can. I'm hoping to trick my fear this way, but it resists, my fear; it encircles my thoughts, it shoves my determination down my throat.
In the west corner, by the door, is a metallic machine. It's so big it towers over me. Under the instrument's body: a space of about ten centimeters, just enough to let in an arm or a leg. A huge screw goes from one end to the other. What use could this machine have? Whom do they want to crush in it? And what if it were my bones, Lord, that they wanted to grind! There are a couple of other machines of the same kind but smaller, baring their jaws and seemingly eager to sink their fangs into my flesh.
The inspector interrogates me at great length, then suddenly gets up and rushes to open the cabinet next to me. A big cabinet, wide and solid, which has been eyeing me scornfully, casting a black, sidelong glance. What is the inspector looking for? What will he pull out of this cabinet? My heart races madly, like a locomotive in the night. I tremble all over. My chest burns with fear. My feet and hands are frozen. I try to control myself, but my nerves won't listen to the demands of my brain any longer. Suddenly an old expression comes to mind: scare the living daylights out of you.
Ten minutes elapse, then twenty, then half an hour, an hour, an hour and a half...In front of me, the big hand of the clock hanging on the wall seems petrified. I am exhausted, one step from passing out. I invoke the ancestors, the tevoda, my mother's merits, my masters' good deeds. I pray for all this to end, for the inspector to stop, to stop asking me questions in this small room where there is nothing, absolutely nothing to diminish my isolation, to ease my terror.
In the end, the inspector allows me to return to my cell. [End Page 58]
After these interrogations, I am weakened and need almost uninterrupted sessions of coining therapy. I am wiped out for almost three days, unable to swallow anything but a little rice. Each time, I am sure, I lose several years of my life. I pray fifty, sixty times a day for my case to end. Each interrogation is like an exam I must pass in order to recover my freedom. So I prepare. It is a constant effort. I try to anticipate all possible questions. I measure the effect of my words, I ponder every possible meaning of my sentences, as I have to satisfy the inspector and try to soften him up. If I give the wrong answer, I may be sent to court—a word that alone conjures up the nightmare of the Main Headquarters or the jails of Prey Sar. Yet my grandparents have told me numerous times, "One trades in his own yard, not somewhere else!" I don't even want to imagine what would happen if the inspector punctuated his questions with a physical threat or if, between sentences, he were to grab a club or something else...What would happen to my body, so thin already, so tired? It would probably survive, but in what state and for how long?
I do have one hope left, however. A tiny one. I know I am innocent and wrongly accused. So I try to fool myself, I try to be an optimist: the inspector is a Khmer; he has dark skin and the same blood as I do.
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Khun Srun was born in 1945 in the province of Takeo. When he was eight, his father died, and he and his siblings were raised by his mother. A brilliant student, he studied Khmer literature and psychology at the university in Phnom Penh, becoming widely read in the sciences, mathematics, and European literature. Amid the turmoil of the 1960 s, he worked as a professor of mathematics and a journalist while writing novels and poetry. In less than four years, he published three collections of poems, short tales, and philosophical anecdotes; two collections of autobiographical short stories, The Last Residence and The Accused; and a final volume of poems, For a Woman.He was imprisoned twice by the right-wing Lon Nol government for refusing to collaborate, but refused to align himself with the extreme left. After 1973, he joined the revolution; but in 1978, he and his wife were assassinated by the Khmer Rouge. "The Accused," in this issue of Manoa, was influenced by both existentialism and Cambodian Buddhism; it was written in 1971 , after his first imprisonment by the Lon Nol regime.
Christophe Macquet is a translator, teacher, and researcher. He was born in 1968 inBoulogne-sur-Mer, France. After receiving a master's degree in literature, he taught French for two years in the Philippines. Since 1994 , he has taught literature and translation at the Royal University of Phnom Penh, where he is the head of the French Translation Program. He has translated numerous books from French to Khmer, including Herge's Le lotus bleu, St-Exupery's Le petit prince, and Maupassant's Le Horla. From Khmer to French, he has translated a Bassac opera, poems by Kram Ngoy, and fiction by Khun Srun, Kong Bunchhoeun, Soth Polin, and others. He has also published numerous articles on Khmer culture and language. In 2003 , he published, in the French literary review Europe, a portfolio of Cambodian writing.
Daniela Hurezanu is a lecturer in French at Arizona State University and a specialist in translation. She has published several translations, most recently Phrase, a collection of poetry by Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, and a book of literary criticism, Maurice Blanchot et la fin du mythe.
Stephen Kessler is a well-known translator of Spanish and Latin American writers. His latest book is a translation of Luis Cernuda's Written in Water: The Collected Prose Poems. He has also published six books of original poetry, including After Modigliani (2000 ). He lives in Northern California, where he is an editor for The Redwood Coast Review.
Mac's Khmer Fiction, Pt. 4 - "The Accused"
Mac's Khmer Fiction, Pt. 4 - "The Accused"
Source: Copyright © 2004 University of Hawai'i Press. All rights reserved. Manoa 16.1 (2004) 55-59.
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