Samnang backed away and took another long drag from the cigarette. He nodded. “Of course.”
Pran rubbed his cheeks against his shoulders as best he could to wipe away some of the sweat and tears.
“I am a teacher,” Pran said. “A teacher of history. Why is that so dangerous?”
Samnang said nothing. He waited patiently. The man taking notes looked up eagerly from his pad.
Pran looked down at the floor and ran his tongue gingerly over his swollen lips. “You say there is no family but Angka. You say there is no love but the love of Angka. But an idea cannot be a family. A set of principles cannot be love.” Pran looked up. “I love life. That is my crime in your eyes.”
Samnang flexed his fingers again. Curled them into a tight ball. He took a step toward Pran and raised his fist to strike.
Pran winced. “At least if I no longer breathe, if my body stops functioning, there is hope of something more.”
Samnang waited.
“There is hope that I will find my sisters, my brother, my mother and father, my two sons. That we will rejoin and live again in another existence.” Pran swallowed. “But if I choose your death, the death you are all living, then there is no hope.”
Samnang stood still. He felt a trickle of sweat flow from his forehead, down his cheek, and stop on his chin where it hung and would not fall. “That is your confession?”
“That is my confession.” Pran swallowed. “Please kill me so that I may hope to live again in peace.”
Samnang wanted so badly to reach up and wipe that drop of sweat away. He wanted so badly to scratch his chin where the sweat clung. But he remained calm and smiled at Pran. He turned to the note-taker. Held out his hand. The note-taker handed him the piece of paper. Samnang looked it over as if studying a grocery list. He held it under Pran’s nose. Blood dripped on it.
“This is not a confession,” Samnang said. He frowned. “This is a direct attack on Angka.” He folded it in half. Then in half again.
He put it in his pocket.
Pran whispered, “That’s all I have to say.”
“You want to die, then? That’s what you wish?”
Pran’s words were labored and slurred. “This is not a place for the living.”
Samnang ran his hand along the welts on Pran’s shoulders. “It is a place for the guilty. The traitors.”
“You say I’m guilty. You say everyone who resides here is guilty. Why then must I confess?”
Samnang stood in front of Pran, his hand stroking the back of Pran’s head like a lover. “We want the names of others. Where they hide. Who is helping them. We want names.”
Fresh blood began to seep from beneath the crust on Pran’s lips. He leaned forward as much as his shackles allowed so that it would drip on the floor instead of his chest. He quietly spit out a tooth as if it were a watermelon seed.
“All my friends, all my family — everyone I know is dead. I have no names for you.”
People like to believe there are always those who defy the system, who will stand up in defiance no matter what the cost. They relish the stories of heroes and martyrs who don’t give in to evil.
But not at S-21.
It didn’t matter how strong they were — how willful.
Here, they all gave in eventually.
Twenty-five years later, Samnang located Pran’s official confession within a gray metal file cabinet and carried the bulky drawer that held it to a table set up for scholars and researchers.
He remembered leading Pran along with five others to what used to be a playground. Where once the shouts of children at play could be heard, was now filled with the sounds of heavy clubs landing on flesh and breaking bones, the subtle thud of emaciated and beaten bodies landing on hard-packed earth. Bullets were considered too expensive to waste on the executions.
Pran died like the rest. Body broken. Soul crushed.
He’d given a new confession outlining the lies the Central Party wanted to hear.
Samnang now hovered over this confession. Blood marred it, bloody thumb and fingerprints, tiny neat drops spilled in random patterns. It attested to Pran’s treason and guilt. The words of a dead man.
Give me back my soul.
With his back to the lone guard standing watch over the room, Samnang pulled the other piece of paper from his pocket.
Is this what you want? Will this let you rest?
He replaced the official confession with Pran’s original confession. Folded up the official one and placed that in his shirt pocket. All too easy. He hefted the file drawer back into place and nodded at the guard. “I’m finished.” He wiped away the seedlings of tears in his eyes.
Now perhaps I can sleep at night.
Too easy.
Would this truly let him sleep?
He walked quickly down the corridors past cells once used for education, then again for re-education. He exited into the courtyard in the center of the compound and heard the laughter and cries of children. The sun was high and hot. The children were dressed in black shirts and red scarves.
Some of them looked up as he neared them. One caught a ball and held it against his chest. He motioned for Samnang to join them. They all stood watching Samnang, waiting. Samnang smiled at them. How long had it been since he played kickball?
The one with the ball drew back and rolled the ball to Samnang. It rolled unevenly over the close-cropped grass. There was hair on the ball, and tan flesh-like protrusions.
Ears, a nose, lips, eyes.
It stopped at Samnang’s feet. He did not kick it. He stood and stared.
Here. Here is Pran. This is Pran.
Pran’s lips contorted into a smile.
As Samnang stared, gasping, he sensed the children walking slowly toward him. They whispered one word over and over.
Confess.
A chorus of whispers.
Confess.
Confess.
Each of them pulled a plastic bag from their pockets.
Confess.
Whispers that rose up into the wind.
One after the other, they opened their bags.
Confess.
They surrounded him.
“Please.” Samnang held up Pran’s head. “I came here for him. That is all.”
A young boy came up to him. “Confess!” The boy pulled the bag over Samnang’s head.
A girl ran up to him. “Confess!” She put her bag over his head.
In quick succession, one after the other pulled their bags over Samnang’s head. As his vision faded, it looked as if the playground opened up. He felt bony hands reach up and grab him, pulling.
There is a story that the children visiting the Tuol Sleng museum that day now tell their friends and family. They say a man picked up a soccer ball and held it in front of him. They say the man cried and talked to the ball and kissed it.
They also say that the man turned blue, and that he fell to the ground tearing off the skin of his own face.
The children are often asked, “But what happened to the man? Did you help him?”
The children look away. How can they explain the pleasure, the rightness they felt as they each took turns kicking the old man’s body, beating it into the hard-packed soil? Or the museum guards who stood silently as they smoked hand-rolled cigarettes, their eyes black and dead like those in the photographs that lined the museum walls?
About the Author
Joel Arnold’s work has appeared in over five-dozen publications, ranging from Weird Tales and Gothic.Net to American Road Magazine and Cat Fancy. He’s the recipient of a Minnesota State Arts Board 2010 Artists Initiative Grant, and has participated in the Carol Connolly Speculations reading series. He lives in the aptly named Savage, Minnesota with his wife and two kids. He’d love to hear from you at joelarnold@mchsi.com. You can check out his blog at http://joelarnold.livejournal.com.