i know what happened to this man, how it all ended up after the days of stark suffering. he told me his story.

"So you are married, right? You were married during the Khmer Rouge regime, is it correct?"

Yes, that is correct. I was forced to marry a woman from the next work unit, a few villages away.

"What do you mean you were forced to marry? How were you forced?"

We were eating our rice one night, and the captian read out a list of all the men who would marry the next day, so be ready to leave before dawn for the walk.

"What did you think of that?"

I thought it was strange, I thought it was just another crazy cruel thing the leaders made us do. This was not the only crazy thing. There were the long work days and then barely any food, but still you had to make your quota, even when there was no rain, no rain for almost a year.

"Did anyone object to getting married?"

No, no one objected. What was the point. It was certain punishment to question, sometimes even death. Maybe we would get more food at the wedding, so we were glad for that. Besides, we all knew, the men at least, that marriage met nothing during that regime; the ceremony lasted only a few minutes, then we were separated back into our own work units.

"So you didn't live together with your wife?"

We lived together for three days after the wedding ceremony. There were about 50 couples at the wedding, all the men on one side of the room, all the women on the other, all from different work units. The cadre called our names one by one, a man and a woman, and we had to pledge our loyalty to Angkar and to each other. It lasted no more than a minute or two for each couple. Then we ate some chicken with rice.

"That was the wedding? What happened next?"

The cadre brought us to a long hut that was separated into small cells just big enough for a sleeping mat, all in a row with an open front, separated by grass walls. The hut was elevated on stilts, and the chhlop, most of them boys and girls, hung around below to make sure we were getting along. If there was any arguing they'd come up and take us away to be re-educated, which usually meant punishment. But they were also listening to make sure we . . . consummated the marriage, had sex. In the day we went to work as usual, and at night we came back to these small rooms to sleep together. We were together for three nights.

"Did you have sex during that time?"

We did not. Believe me, I wanted to, I was terrified not to, and it had been . . . on my mind. But we did not in those first days. First, we were too exhausted, and we were so ugly at the time. I was shamed by my frail frame, when I once had been so strong. Also, I could tell it was really a horrible thing for her, to be matched with this strange man and forced to spend the night with him. Marriage is very different for women, I could see in her eyes and her drawn skin how afraid she was, how deeply disappointed, how worried she was for her parents and ancestors. So we whispered to each other on that first night, I said I will not hurt you or force you, but we have to pretend, so the chhlop do not suspect. She was quietly crying, and said, I am so afraid to have children, if I do not die from the pregnancy, I will die of the birth, and if I don't die then the baby surely will. What is the point to bring a child into this world?

So we agreed, we we would avoid having children.

"Did it work?"

Those three days we were watched. She slept with her head on my chest, my arm around her, so no one suspected anything. After that we went back to our own work camps, so it wasn't too hard, since were permitted to see each other only once a month or so. And during the visits, there were no spies. But to answer your question, it did not work. we have two children from that time.

"And everyone survived? Your wife, the children?"

Yes, though my wife had very hard pregnancies, forced to work until the very day of birth. I had such pity for her, and when I could I'd come early for my visits and finish her work so she could rest. I was there when the second child was born, secretly called just in time, running the whole way, out of breath when I arrived. I was sure she would die, I was so sad for this pregnancy, but she survived, she said, for our child—I remember those were her words, "our child" and my heart was so grateful to her. In between visits I horded as much of my rice as I could, secretly caught fish and dried it in the sun in a hidden place. When i came to her I always brought something, for her and later for the children also. Sometimes I could find salt; once i found a can of sweet milk rolled up in my work unit captian's sleeping mat. By some miracle, she too had things for me—a mended krama, a handful of cashews, herbs from the forest to help me forget hunger. Somehow we all survived.

"What about now, today? Do the children know you were forced to marry?"

The children know this is the person we are each fated to be with, from even before our birth, kou prenh. They know we did not pick each other, that we were strangers, that our family, the fortune teller, the ancestors had not been consulted. And they know how we fell in love, a love deeper than I hope they will ever have to experience. We survived because of each other, for each other. In those days, she gave me the reason to live, when every day I was sure to die. Our visits, our family, sleeping with my arm around her, provided me a drive I had never known before. I love her also for the fear she showed me those first nights, the fact I did the right thing (because not all of the men did so, we could hear through the grass walls, the women weeping and pleading). That made me a better man, I am sure of it. And today, I look at how old we are, and I laugh, and when she is a little drunk, I pull her around the house dancing like the lucky ones we are.