The Clay Marble

“Soon the Communist soldiers took over the village, announcing that they had ‘liberated’ us...Liberation turned out to be a long nightmare of hunger and misery. And fear—always that cold, silent fear.”

This passage alludes to the years of terror and starvation under the Khmer Rouge regime of the Communist dictator Pol Pot (See: Background). The passage once again speaks to The Effects of War on Civilians: While the soldiers promise the civilians “liberation,” the reality is “a long nightmare of hunger and misery” marked by constant “fear.” In contrasting the empty promises of the militias with the cruel results for ordinary Cambodians, the passage highlights the vulnerability and suffering of civilians like Dara.

“And it suddenly struck me: everyone was part of some family—not the cold-blooded Khmer Rouge version, the state as family, but a living, laughing, loving family.”

The Khmer Rouge had sought to break up families and destroy personal bonds, claiming that Cambodian citizens owed their loyalty only to “the state as family,” not to blood relations or friends. As Dara and her family make their way to the Thai border soon after liberation, she is heartened to see that families are regrouping, a joyous scene full of “living, laughing, loving.” This gestures toward the novel’s emphasis on maintaining strong interpersonal ties, both in terms of family and through Friendship and Loyalty.

“‘Dead,’ the girl said simply. ‘As are my sisters, and the parents of the cousins who live with us.’ She gave the pot of rice a quick stir. ‘My grandmother and three brothers, too. All dead.’”

In less than five years (April 1975-January 1979), at least one-fifth of Cambodians perished under the Khmer Rouge. Virtually every Cambodian lost several close relatives. Dara’s new friend Nea has probably lost more than most. Here, Minfong Ho provides a brief sample of how conversations between strangers began in the aftermath of the Cambodian Genocide, with a “terse tally of the dead” (16). Nea’s description of her personal losses reflects The Effects of War on Civilians.

“I followed Nea as she carried her pail of water to a massive beam of solid stone half-sunken in the fields. ‘My grandfather says that it might have been the crossbeam of an ancient temple during the Angkor Empire,’ Nea said, pointing to the stone. ‘If so, it’d be almost a thousand years old.’”

Long before its troubles in the 1970s, Cambodia was renowned for its magnificent temples and statuary, mostly relics of the Angkor Empire, which flourished from the 19th to 15th centuries. The temple complex of Angkor Wat, built in the 12^th century, exemplifies the Empire’s massive yet ornate style, and is one of the most admired stone structures in the world. The beam of stone Nea shows Dara may (she says) have come from this temple; in any case, it is very old, and its faint carvings of a dancing figure evoke a lost world of grandeur and artistry. For Dara, its massive singularity serves as a sort of landmark later in the story, when she has been separated from her family and returns to the camp, hoping to find them there. In a land riven by political chaos, cruelty, and civil war, it is a comforting symbol of age-old stability, order, and civilized life (See: Symbols & Motifs).

“Even on the Border, there were separate base camps made up of Khmer Rouge soldiers, Khmer Serei soldiers, and Khmer People’s National Liberation soldiers, not to mention the Vietnamese soldiers to the east and the Thai soldiers to the west—all fighting one another. None of it made any sense to me.”

Dara here offers a clear-eyed view of the absurdity of war, particularly a civil war like Cambodia’s, with its many factions and ever-shifting loyalties. Though her knowledge of the political situation is rudimentary, it is not lost on her that the country’s anti-communist nationalist factions (e.g., the Khmer Serei and the Khmer People’s National Liberation Front) are busily fighting one another instead of forming a united front, and that the so-called communist forces (the Khmer Rouge and the Vietnamese puppet government) are also in a fight to the death. She has little faith in the ability (or desire) of any of these armies to restore peace to her country, which is one of the reasons why, later in the story, she is so angry at her brother for wanting to join the Khmer Serei.

“Yet the more I watched her, the more convinced I became that Jantu’s hands were gifted with some special powers, some magic. How else could anyone explain how she made that wonderful mobile, of two delicate dolls husking rice?”

To Dara, who has had limited experience with artmaking, her friend Jantu’s artistic talent seems like a form of magic. Jantu’s creation of “two delicate dolls husking rice” evokes a peacetime world of stability and simple domestic routines, which has been destroyed by the civil conflict they are both enduring.

“Maybe, I thought, maybe she did put some magic in the marble. After all, why else would I feel better, just holding it?”

After the bully Chnay destroys Jantu’s handmade mobile with its female figures, she consoles Dara by making her a “magic marble” out of clay. Holding it in her hand comforts Dara, for its solidity and for the feelings of friendship that created it. Here, she believes that there is indeed “some magic in the marble.” Over the course of the novel, however, she will grow to learn that the Hope and Courage in the Face of Adversity she draws upon comes not from this marble, but from within herself.

“‘Everything crumbles, so easily.’ Absentmindedly she picked up a dirt clod and crushed it in her fist, letting the crumbs of dirt dribble out. ‘We don’t even have real families anymore,’ she said, ‘Just bits and pieces of one.’”

Jantu, who has lost most of her relatives, is acutely aware of the devastating nature of her loss: Without the support and love of a thriving family, one that “grows,” an orphan like herself can easily fall through the cracks. One of the most destructive aspects of war, especially civil war, is its shredding of the family unit, which makes life very difficult for the survivors. Jantu’s fondness for making clay figures seems to be a reaction to this: an impulse to create a pretend family for herself. But as Chnay’s destruction of her mobile reminds her, families can be as fragile—and as vulnerable to violence—as pieces of clay.

“‘Come on,’ Jantu said firmly. ‘How can you dream if you don’t learn to shut off the thoughts you don’t want?’”

Despite her many losses, Jantu has not given up on the future. Instead, she is a strong advocate for maintaining Hope and Courage in the Face of Adversity. Already she envisions a new, extended family for herself and Dara, once the two broken families are united by marriage. Together with Dara, she molds figures of the large, happy family out of clay, believing that negative and self-defeating thoughts must be “shut off” to make way for a “dream” that can inspire hope.

“The Vietnamese soldiers inside Cambodia were mobilizing their forces for one last attack as part of their dry-season offensive, so the Khmer Serei resistance scattered along the Border had to recruit more men to counter the Vietnamese attack.”

The Khmer Serei’s pressing need “to recruit more men” into their ranks for their war against the Vietnamese once more speaks to The Effects of War on Civilians. This passage foreshadows how Dara’s own brother will soon fall victim to the militaristic propaganda, jeopardizing the family’s future.

“Lost: that single, terrifying word. I felt as if a rock had slammed against my stomach and lodged there...We were lost. Just like that little girl with the broken doll, crying in the crowd. For a second I felt like wailing for Mother, too.”

In the chaotic mass-movements of civilians during war, children and others are sometimes separated from their families and lost in the crowd, which has happened to the little girl Dara is remembering here. These children often never see their families again; if they survive, they end up in a refugee camp or orphanage, and their relatives do not know where to look for them. Dara is terrified by the prospect of being lost in this way, and although she “felt like wailing for Mother,” she will soon rise to the occasion to avoid disaster.

“I laid my cheek down on the sun-warmed stone and pressed against the carved pattern on it. The carving on this one stone has survived a thousand years, I told myself. What does it matter that your silly clay dolls didn’t make it through the night?”

After much searching, Dara finds the ancient beam of stone. As she waits for her family, she takes comfort from the solid permanence of the stone and its carvings, whose age-old stability and warmth is like that of her flesh-and-blood family. The endurance of the stone reminds Dara of the importance of Hope and Courage in the Face of Adversity.

“I felt as if something had been torn from me, and I ached with the loss of it…No, I thought, not the rice seed, too. That’s meant for us, for the women and children, for the harvest next year, for our new lives.”

Dara’s shocking discovery that the Khmer Serei are feeding their new recruits on rice seed illustrates (again) how the narrow rationales of war can steal from the future—specifically, from families, women, and children. This waste of the precious seed echoes the scene in which Chnay destroys Jantu’s mobile of the women pounding rice. In Dara’s experience, women do most of the work of planning for the future, such as sowing and pounding rice and raising children; men, by contrast, seem besotted with violence and war. The loss of this rice seed to the soldiers also reflects The Effects of War on Civilians.

“‘Magic has a way of working for those who believe in it,’ she said slowly. ‘Maybe it wouldn’t have been magic for someone else, but you were brave and patient, Dara, and you believed in the marble, so maybe the magic worked for you.’”

Jantu has a grasp of human psychology beyond her years. As she only fully reveals later when she is dying, she knows that the clay marble has no true “magic”: It is a vessel, formed from Friendship and Loyalty, for Dara to discover her own inner strength.

“The next morning, Nea and I watched Sarun go off to his military practice. Silhouetted against the morning light, he reminded me of the times he used to go off to the paddy fields at dawn, a hoe on his shoulder. The only difference was that instead of a hoe there was now a gun…‘He’s changed, hasn’t he?’ she said.”

The image of Sarun trading in his hoe for a rifle evokes The Effects of War on Civilians. Living at the Khmer Serei military camp, he has succumbed to the siren songs of guns, political slogans, and military anthems, and is no longer as sensitive, patient, and generous as before. He no longer talks about returning to the family village to sow rice, and he shows signs now of haughtiness and greed. Like the rice seed the Khmer Serei crushes to feed its new recruits, a young man of great potential is on the brink of being consumed by the grinder of war.

“I thought for a moment. ‘Yes there is,’ I said. ‘We could make the preparations for leaving now—clean and oil the oxcarts, load them up, and then pick up Jantu, all in time to join the caravan.’”

Abandoned by her brother, who shows little willingness to return to farming, Dara here makes a bold decision: Though she is only a girl of 12, she and Nea will do the “men’s work” of readying and loading the oxcarts with tools and the heavy sacks of rice seed, and then make the dangerous journey on foot to find Jantu. Dara is gradually finding the Hope and Courage in the Face of Adversity that Jantu said would come to her, as long as she kept hold of the “magic marble.”

“‘Getting married,’ Jantu repeated, in an awed whisper. Her eyes were glowing. ‘Just like we had dreamed. So I was right! Sometimes if we dream hard enough, those dreams can shape our lives.’”

Jantu, who mapped out their two families’ shared future with clay dolls and toy houses (50), is enchanted to hear that Nea and Sarun are engaged, just as she dreamed. When these dreams do come true, however, it will be due largely to Dara’s newfound willpower and strength rather than to Sarun. In The Clay Marble, it is indeed women and their dreams that give birth to the future.

“Finally, with a tremendous effort, he grasped the bottle and pulled it up. Beads of sweat glistened on his forehead, but a small, triumphant smile lit his face…‘I did it,’ he said.”

Just as Jantu has goaded Dara into finding her inner Hope and Courage in the Face of Adversity, she coaches a boy who has lost his legs to challenge himself physically and achieve a level of independence. This boy, who earlier confessed, “I don’t know why I keep on living” (127), now has more hope for the future. As with Dara, Jantu’s guidance and inspiration may have helped save his life.

“I thought of the Thai villages we had caught a glimpse of on the road outside Nong Chan. They had probably been there for hundreds of years without once being touched by war. No bombs were ever dropped on their paddy fields. None of their men were ever herded off to work camps. Nobody had ever been taken to the nearby forest in the depth of night, and clubbed to death. Nobody had had their legs blown off walking across a field.”

Reflecting on Duoic (the boy who lost his legs) and others like him, Jantu observes that “[l]ife isn’t fair” (130). This makes Dara think of the arbitrary nature of war, chaos, and oppression, which seems more a matter of geography and luck than anything else. Having lived in fear and hunger for most of her life, it is hard for her to imagine how different it must be for those who escape The Effects of War on Civilians.

“‘They all say the same thing. They seem to think it’s a game…They take sides, they switch sides, they play against each other. Who wins, who loses, whose turn it is to kick next—it’s like an elaborate soccer game. Except that they don’t use soccer balls. They use us.’”

Gravely wounded by one of Sarun’s fellow guards, Jantu issues a bleak verdict on Cambodia’s civil war and its various factions, comparing them to callous children playing a game with others’ lives. As Jantu asserts, the figurative “soccer balls” kicked around in the conflict are, in actuality, the innocent civilians caught in the crossfire. This is Jantu’s bitter objection to The Effects of War on Civilians.

“You’ve got to believe in yourself, Dara. Not me. Not magic marbles. There’s no magic in that marble I gave you, or in this lump of clay in my hand. The magic is only in the making of the marble. You’ve got to do it on your own.”

Jantu, who suspects she is about to die, reveals to Dara what she has only hinted at earlier: Dara must reach into herself to find the “magic” that will save herself and her family. Just as she taught Duoic, the boy in the hospital, humans are capable of more than they know, once they stop looking to others (or to superstitions) to solve their problems. Here, she urges Dara to embrace the Hope and Courage in the Face of Adversity that has dwelled within her all along.

“‘You wouldn’t understand,’ he said. ‘It has to do with being a soldier. With defending the revolutionary cause. It has to do with a man’s courage.’”

Sarun, whose guard detail has accidentally shot Jantu while she and Dara were returning to the Khmer Serei camp in the dark, has not let this deadly error soften his stance: In fact, he announces his intention to enlist with the Khmer Serei, rather than return with the women to their village to restart their farm. Further, he says his decision is beyond Dara’s comprehension as a woman, because it involves “a man’s courage.” This articulates one of the main oppositions of the story: “A man’s courage” (as Sarun sees it) is little more than the thrill of action and supposed patriotism. A woman’s courage, on the other hand, involves such farsighted labors as planting and harvesting food, raising a family, and building a home and a village.

“It scared me, how much I hated my brother then. I took a deep breath. ‘Courage?’ I echoed. ‘You talk of courage? What courage does it take to shoot a girl walking home in the dark? What courage did it take to kill Jantu?’”

As Dara notes, as a would-be soldier, Sarun’s notion of “courage” seems centered largely on firing his new weapon, rather than doing the hard, risky work of helping his family and loved ones. True courage, Dara implies, would be tackling the hard, long-term work of life-building—of helping his family regrow their farm and raising a family with Nea—instead of helping the Khmer Serei terrorize and kill more people, including innocent civilians like Jantu.