The survivor

Sixty-Seven

The midday sun ruled the sky, one giant ball of white flame. It gleamed off the steel gates of St Paul’s Hospital and glinted off the damp red brick of the building.

Red Mask saw this spectacle, and all at once, he reared at the memories the image brought back. Reared so hard, he almost dropped the jar he was holding, and that most certainly would have been a great — perhaps deadly — mistake.

His body trembled. He wavered on the hospital steps, recollecting the images of Section 21. They were horrific. And he could not understand why they preoccupied his mind. He had not thought of that dark place in years. In most ways, the two buildings were entirely different. Style, size, even colour.

But something took him back to the time when he was eight years old. The worst time of his life. And then, without searching, he found the answer. It was the sun, beating down upon him with the same blinding white intensity it had every single day of the Angkors’ occupation of Cambodia.

Beating down upon his father as he toiled in the Killing Fields fourteen hours a day, his frail accountant’s hands cracked and bleeding, under the watchful eye of machine-gun guards.

Beating down upon his mother as she was hog-tied and raped for eleven days before the guards got bored and slit her throat.

Beating down on him and the other children as they were thrown together into that dusty pit where there was no food or water or safety from the guards.

Beating down upon them all with as much mercy as the Angkor offered.

Which was none.

Red Mask felt his body wilting from the cruelty of his thoughts. Where were these memories coming from? He was a man now, not some eight-year-old child — not Child 157. That boy had died long ago.

‘The spirits,’ he found himself saying. For there could be no other reason.

He closed his mind and willed his feet to move. And though his body listened, his mind was not as obedient. With every step, the memories of that time became clearer. The images more vivid.

Until he relived the nightmare all over again.

And Mother was screaming.

Screaming.

Screaming…

Her ungodly cries filled the camp all night. Like the other nights, there was much laughter from the guards — cruel reptilian sounds — as Mother cried out for her ancestors to save her, or at the very least deliver her quickly into death. But the hours passed and her cries went unanswered.

Child 157 balled up in his cell, in uneven rows with the other children. Some of them writhed in hunger, some in pain. Others had not moved for a very long time. He barely noticed them; Mother was all that mattered. Her voice was everything. He tried to drown out her cries, to pretend he had no knowledge of what was happening to her. But he knew. He always knew.

At day’s end, when the guard entered to pour broth, Child 157 was quick to steal the key from the ring the man so lazily left hanging on the wall. The moment the guard finished his duties, Child 157 began prying the thin flesh of his ankle out of the shackle that bound him to the floor.

It was a slow and agonising task.

By the time he freed his leg, it was deep into the night, and even later before the pain subsided enough that he could walk on it. His bloodied foot was now a lump of ragged flesh, yet he limped to the door, unlocked it, and slipped outside.

He had no plan. No training. Not even any knowledge of the camp layout.

But he also had no choice.

Father was gone, for many days now. Too many to count. Taken to the Killing Fields, from which no one returned. Sisters Du and Hoc were dead, their necks broken with steel bars so the guards could save bullets. The only ones left were himself and Tran — Child 158 — and somewhere in the east building with the other infants was baby Loc.

Child 157 knew the truth. He was the eldest. Only he could save Mother.

The night was hot and black. Child 157 limped across the camp, with only the moon as a guide. He was only eight years old, and small for a boy. ‘A field mouse’, as Father often called him. The runt of the litter. He had barely gotten halfway across the camp when One-tooth caught him cutting in between the sacks of rice.

‘Rule-breaker, rule-breaker,’ the guard sang, his voice thick with cruelty. He pounced on Child 157 and dragged him out by his hair. He pulled him close, smiled. ‘You want to see much, then I will show you much, rule-breaker. Show you much, yes.’

Child 157 tried to break free of his grip, but that only angered One-tooth, who rose up and screamed in his face. Beat him down into the dirt. Beat him until he tasted his own blood and could not move. Beat him until One-tooth’s fists grew tired.

One-tooth then called the other guards, and together, they dragged him to the hollowed grounds east of the main building. Where the grass was always red and the earth was soft and mushy.

In the centre of the hollow stood the Nail Tree — a thick-trunked, knobby tree that was almost dead. Its branches had been sawn off and large nails driven into the bark. At the base of the tree were many bones.

The remains of the little ones.

‘We have a show for you,’ One-tooth told him.

And before Child 157 understood the meaning of One-tooth’s words, two of the other guards came out of the nearest building. They carried with them a small sack. At first he thought it rice, or grain — maybe they were going to eat in front of him and laugh at his starvation. But then a tiny arm dangled out, and he realised with horror:

‘Baby Loc!’

Child 157 rose up. He struggled to free himself, desperately, with all the strength he owned, but One-tooth held him in place with little effort.

‘Release me, RELEASE ME!’ He bent his head down and bit One-tooth on the hand as hard as he could, his teeth tearing into the flesh and drawing blood; when the guard screamed and let go of him, he raced for Baby Loc.

But he did not get far.

One of the other guards knocked him down, and before he could stand back up, One-tooth was on him, pinning him down in the grass, holding him firmly — the weight of a grown man’s body on that of an eight-year-old child’s.

He was helpless.

One-tooth yanked his head back, forcing him to look at the Nail Tree.

‘Bye, bye,’ One-tooth sang. ‘Bye bye, Baby Loc.’

He nodded to the two guards. One of them undraped the sack, then grabbed hold of the infant by both his legs. Child 157 screamed and struggled to get up, but One-tooth held him down firmly, laughing at his weakness.

Baby Loc was crying now, reaching out for Mother, but finding nothing. The guard holding Baby Loc’s ankles swung him around like a piece of wood, his head flying towards the Nail Tree. And there was a terrible crunch.

Child 157 screamed for Baby Loc. It did nothing.

The guard holding baby Loc swung him again. And again. And again. Crunch, crunch, CRUNCH.

The sound of Baby Loc hitting the Nail Tree stayed in Child 157’s head like a bad ghost. It would never leave him. When at last One-tooth climbed off of him, something snapped inside Child 157’s mind. Like a twig that could never be whole again. The pain was gone, the fear was gone. Everything was gone — replaced by a complete and total numbness.

It was all he knew.