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dangers, they would have to keep going, wherever fate would lead them. There was no turning back.
    After ten days or so in Neak Luong, they made contact with the new smugglers, who took them by bicycle to Phnom Penh, approximately sixty kilometres away. Once they arrived in the capital, the hungry, tired fugitives and their weak baby hid in the roof space of a small house. In the early hours of the next morning, they set off for the provincial town of Battambang, the second most populous city in Cambodia after Phnom Penh, three hundred kilometres away. They followed the national highway by foot and at night slept hidden in the shadows by the roadside. Along the way, my father saw many European cars—Peugeots, Renaults and Mercedes—abandoned by the side of the road. Chaos had descended upon Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge regime. Anyone caught in possession of a luxury vehicle—a sure sign of a capitalist—was likely to be butchered by the Khmer Rouge.
    One night, as they were preparing to sleep on the roadside, my father walked away from the group in order to go to the toilet. To his surprise, he came across a manufacturing facility which was heavily guarded by Vietnamese forces and allied Cambodian soldiers. It looked as though this was some sort of checkpoint. The factory appeared to be newly built and bore the logo of Blackstone. My father knew of the company because his sister had had a Blackstone diesel engine in her rice-husking mill. The sight of the familiar logo brought his family sharply to mind and all at once he missed them so much his body ached. He knew that his departure would mean trouble for them with the authorities.
    Days turned into nights, comprising a series of anxious hours until they finally arrived at Battambang. From there they travelled along the railway towards the town of Sisophon. Like Vietnam, Cambodia too had been colonised by the French, and between 1930 and 1940 the French had built a railway from Phnom Penh to Poipet on the Thai border. From Battambang, there was a single-track line. People travelled along the railway on a single flat panel made of bamboo and attached to wheels; it was moved along manually with a type of pump. If there was an oncoming traveller, everyone would gather their belongings and lift the wheeled panel off the rails. This method was used to transport animals, people and produce. As the smugglers got the contraption ready, my family sat in a nearby field among some cattle, eating a small ration of food.
    Finally they arrived at the town of Sisophon, roughly fifty kilometres from the Thai border. There they hid in a tailor’s house until the smuggler could arrange for another four people and bicycles to take them further. The gentle old Cambodian tailor gave my mother a mandarin. It was almost completely dried but had enough juice left to give to my brother Văn. A little juice and vitamin C was a luxury that he sucked on ferociously. The old man’s kind presence radiated humanity. ‘Go to Thailand?’ the tailor asked in Cambodian. My father understood the word Siam and indicated that they were. The old man looked at the baby boy gnawing the fruit and smiled. This simple generous gesture from a gracious stranger would forever embed itself in my father’s memory. He would later reflect that it could have been this little drop of juice that separated Văn from life and death.
    This moment of humanity soon dissipated when the smuggler demanded money from my parents, declaring that Mr Thad not paid him. Drenched in desperation, my parents explained that the only possessions of value were their wedding rings and my mother’s diamond earrings, an heirloom wedding gift from my maternal grandmother. The smuggler searched my parents and discovered that they had spoken the truth; they had nothing left to give. The smuggler stripped them of the wedding jewellery. These were precious items that were symbols of a prompt union, bringing my mother back to a day where she