Pran’s Confession
The young men in Bangkok sometimes called him Grandpa or Uncle as he clutched their lithe oiled bodies. His fingers grasped a bit too tightly; his nails dug into their skin and drew beads of blood. Sometimes he’d choke them, but never enough to kill them. He had to be careful. He was gaining a reputation among them, and a reputation was something he had to stay away from. But it was hard not to let the old feelings overcome him, the memories flooding into his mind of how it once felt to watch a life quickly fade behind the suffocating film of a plastic bag.
Samnang startled. He clutched frantically at his shirt pocket. The piece of paper was still there.
It was a long, tedious train ride from the Thai border in the northwest to the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh. He slept most of the way, getting out to stretch at Battambang and again at Pursat, where he ate a quick meal of fish soup. He fell back into another short, fitful nap. Hard to sleep because of the dreams. His dreams of Pran.
There were other dreams, too, other nightmares of those times. Dreams of Duch, the prison’s director; his parchment-like face, teeth too big for his mouth, his death-like smile. How could one not have nightmares about him? But it was Pran who coaxed Samnang back to prison S-21. Not the nightmares of the beatings, the beheadings, the children in black peasant garb with red scarves, suffocating men and women with clear, plastic bags — men and women who could’ve been their parents.
No.
It was the simple dreams of Pran whispering to him in a voice worn down from days of screaming—
The train pulled into the Phnom Penh Train Station. Samnang got off with a small backpack. He pulled his New York Mets cap down low on his forehead and looked out over the waters of Boeng Kak. Tendrils of dawn reached out over the lake’s surface revealing the shapes of small boats and early risen fishermen setting out nets.
He felt for the piece of paper folded in his shirt pocket. Rubbed his fingers absently over the tiny protrusion it made against the shirt’s fabric. A tremor ran along his arm up to his shoulder. His tongue felt dry. He wanted to lay down here as the sun rose, shut his eyes to the sound of the cormorants and egrets, and sleep for a hundred years. But he knew if he did that now, Pran would continue to come to him in his sleep. Plead to him forever—
He turned in a circle to work out the painful cramps in his calves, then found a cyclo and driver to take him south down the city streets and boulevards. He recognized many of the buildings, the monuments, the roads — yet something had drastically changed in his absence. What was it?
In the markets, vendors busied themselves over colorful displays of fruits and vegetables and the silver bullet shape of fresh fish. Monks shuffled past in bright saffron robes. Children with outstretched hands implored him to toss them spare change. So many people bustling about in the warm morning air. So many people.
That was it. The people. They moved about freely now, and there were so many of them. Not like the days of the Khmer Rouge, when the city had been emptied of nearly everyone, its citizens forced to the outlying hills and labor camps. They’d been promised peace, but were given nothing but violence and death.
Now the city thrived. But the urging of the dead kept Samnang moving. He closed his eyes and tried to sleep as the wheels of the cyclo whirred over fresh blacktop.
Was that the only reason he came? To put a continuing dream to rest? To give peace to just one of many souls that begged for justice? Surely, there were other reasons.
He awoke when the cyclo driver braked to a squeaky stop.
There it was. The prison.
Now it was a museum. The Tuol Sleng museum. A testament to the atrocities of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. Back then it was referred to simply as Security Prison 21.
S-21.
Samnang tipped the cyclo driver and stood alone outside the gate, reading the old red sign.
The words chilled him.
Samnang kept his sunglasses on and his Mets cap pulled low. Would anyone recognize him after all these years? Most of the ones who’d feared him were killed long ago, and besides — his hair was mostly gone now, the rest of it wisps of bone white. His skin was creased with age, and there were scars on his neck and face where dozens of black, cancerous moles had been removed.
He nodded at the guard standing casually at the museum’s entrance and stepped into the compound. For one dizzying moment he felt as if he’d never left, as if his years in Bangkok were nothing but a sweet, vivid dream.
Phantom smells of sweat, blood, and feces invaded his nostrils.
My uniform. Where’s my uniform?
He’d be punished without his uniform.
And Duch — he sensed him in the walls. Felt that he’d step around a corner at any moment with his donkey teeth, guards on either side. One nod and the guards would descend upon Samnang with hard black batons.
The sound of children playing on the grounds of the compound snapped him back to reality.
Before this was a prison, it was a school. Funny how things have come full circle. Children again play on the open field.
Do these children know the ground they now play on is saturated with the blood of human slaughter?
Samnang swept back thin strands of hair and tucked them back up into his cap. He walked into one of the buildings.
Prison cells that had once been classrooms.
Samnang gasped as he peered into one of the cells. Black and white photographs covered the walls from floor to ceiling. Mugshots that Samnang himself had taken.
There were hundreds of them. Thousands. Every room that he passed was full of them. Photographs of the prisoners who lived and died here. Doomed faces, blank eyes, unsmiling mouths. They continued to look at Samnang as they did all those years ago.
This one died easily. And here — she hung herself with her trousers. And this one — and here — taken out to Choeung Ek. The killing fields. And this boy here begged for his mother.
So many of them crowding around him. How could he remember them all?
Over 17,000 prisoners.
Only seven survived.
He felt once again for the paper folded neatly in his pocket. He searched for Pran’s face among the photographs on the walls.
So many. So many. The light from their eyes lost as they stare at the camera, their wills smashed. It’s as if they are already dead.
