WORRY FURROWS CREASED CAHUOM Chhuon’s forehead. He was trapped, held in an amorphous iridescent blue, almost black, dream. Images parted, blurry, as if he were looking through deep water, as if he were at the bottom of a great basin. To one side a massive fuzzy maw stretched mechanically open, bit down, then slowly opened, rhythmically, like the breathing of a fish in a stream, the mouth pulsing, open closed open closed, not breathing but biting, ingesting all which entered the current. To the other side the basin floor rose. Colors, people emerged. They were all there by the side of the river. His entire family, Sok, Vathana, Yani and the boys, all, but much younger, even his father, strong, large, powerful. There too were distant relatives, neighbors, friends from the far reaches of Cambodia, even the Mountaineer, Y Ksar from Plei Srepok, all gathered as if for a great celebration. But the occasion was not happy.
His worry rose. He felt besieged. People were in small groups, some in the shade beneath the trees, some in the sun at the edge of the road leading back to Phum Sath Din, some at the river’s edge. Only his older brother spoke to him, listened to him, but it was as if he, Cahuom Chhuon, were not really there but only a body like his and that body spoke a foreign tongue. He tried to call his brother, to explain, to warn....He did not know of what. Something. Something very important. Something to be done. The people looked to him, to that body? He felt responsible but he was not there? Why? Why could he not reach them? Why was his brother resisting? He must reach them.
They milled around behind his brother, milled, not as a mob but more as if guests at a wedding, yet without happiness, without laughter, without the traditional feast. Behind them the river was brown. The sky turned mist green, green from the lush forest growth through which he watched. Dusk was upon them. Chhuon shuddered, stiffened. The waters of the Srepok, swollen by monsoon rains, roared over rapids. To his nose came the rancid aroma of river mud. Then a terrible, foul stench which made him retch. Then, on the river, in the river, all fallen into the quick current, frightened, not fighting the flow, riding the rushing water—Sok, Vathana, whole families fallen into the stream, sucked down current. From one bank tigers slashed mighty claws, from the other crocodiles slithered. Then, in the water, elephants, massive, swimming down upon them, coursing more quickly than water flow, overtaking him, them all, crushing them beneath their immensity, smashing them into rocks, into banks in their frenzy, he popping up like a cork, riding the empty water. Alone.
Phum Sath Din, Stung Treng Province, Cambodia, 5 August 1968—The sound of a heavy truck struggling through mud woke Cahuom Chhuon from his restless dreaming. He lay on his back on the sleeping mat. It was very dark in the house. Chhuon’s children lay side to side on a second mat. Chhuon listened. The truck was close, just across the river. He raised his arms, crossed his forearms over his face. Every day, he thought. The truck passed. Chhuon brought his arms to his sides, folded his hands over his navel. He thought deeply, meditated, attempting to resee the dream, attempting to sink back into the restless disturbing journey. Later, he thought, if I can recall it, I will tell the khrou, or perhaps the monk. He dozed.
“ssst,” Samnang hissed to Samay.
“ssshh,” the older boy hushed his brother.
“ssst,” Samnang whispered again. Chhuon coughed in his sleep.
“ssshh,” Mayana whispered to both, “you’ll wake papa.”
“he talks in his sleep,” Samay said.
“i know,” Samnang hissed, “i was awake, i never sleep.”
“ssh!” Vathana’s hiss was quick, terse, “it’s not time to get up.”
Very quietly, so the girls couldn’t hear, Samnang whispered to his brother, “samay.”
“eh?”
“does the devil really have a great ledger for recording all the evil deeds we do?”
“you think of things like that at this hour, eh? go back to sleep, look how you disturb papa.”
“samay,” Samnang whispered again, “why can’t a monk and a girl come in contact?”
“sleep,” Samay ordered, “if you didn’t put bad thoughts into your head, you would sleep like peou.” Again all was silent.
At six o’clock Chhuon rose quietly, moved to the door of the bamboo, wood and thatch home. His mother snored quietly in her small area of the central room. Snuggled next to her was Sakhon, Chhuon’s three-year-old son. Ever since the death of his father three months earlier Chhuon’s mother had withdrawn into deep lamentation, reaching out only to this youngest grandchild. Chhuon’s wife, Neang Thi Sok, lay asleep on her mat against the near wall. I should wake her to start the fire, he thought, but he did not disturb her. The other children slept along the far wall. Chhuon looked at them: Vathana, lovely, tiny, not five feet tall, eighteen, arranged to be married to the second son of his brother’s associate, a wealthy shipper with a section of pier on the Mekong at Neak Luong; Samay, his eldest son, fifteen, ready to leave the family for two years Sangha study with the monks; Samnang, almost twelve, a smart, agile though distant boy who Chhuon determined should follow him in business; and Mayana, Yani, eight, the image of her mother. Chhuon looked again at his mother and Sakhon, whom they called Peou, a nickname which simply designates last child. He lifted a tiny statuette of Buddha which had been carved from one of his father’s teeth. It hung from a cotton cord about his neck. He kissed the Buddha seven times, once for each of his children, and he thanked the Blessed One for having spared five of the seven.
In the 1950s and early 1960s almost half of all Cambodian children, ages one to five died; more in rural provinces. Chhuon whispered another prayer, a special prayer to Buddha for having seen Samnang through his terrible illness. In the faint light Chhuon could just see the slim boy’s form behind the mosquito netting and beneath his blanket. They had nicknamed him Kdeb (pronounced “Kay”), Spanky, because as a toddler he had chugged about so happily, eyes shining, before he could speak always cooing, later chattering without shyness to everyone. At six years old Kdeb fell ill to jungle fever, remained ill for half a year, changed from happy, chunky boy to frail, sullen child. His mother, father, eldest sister or a grandparent coddled him continually until Samnang, in an un-Khmer flourish of independence, revolted, as if, to his six-year-old mind, the illness was a betrayal, as if the pain were tied to the very people who cared for him. He became withdrawn, distrustful. By eight he had seemingly recovered, yet he harbored a coldness which pooled at the back of his eyes. Chhuon felt it, deep, hidden, a painful secret a father could never acknowledge. By nine Samnang again seemed happy, yet he was prone to sporadic bursts of uncontrolled behavior. In school other children shied away from him. Only in the mind of Chhuon was this boy still Kdeb.
Chhuon said another prayer for his family. He lit a cigarette, closed his eyes, took a deep drag, held the smoke, exhaled. Perhaps, he thought, after we return I’ll see the monk and seek his analysis of the dream. Perhaps the khrou, the fortune-teller. He leaned his shoulder against the doorjamb, closed his eyes and replayed the dream in his mind to ensure he would be able to recall it. Such a strange dream, he thought. He contemplated the water, the colors. He began to say another prayer but his mind slid to the dream. A chill skittered up his spine as he recalled the entrapment by crocodiles, tigers and elephants while in the rushing current.
He felt old, older than his forty-three years. It was a custom in his family, as in many Khmer families, to discuss dreams and to analyze them in relationship to family problems. On this cool morning Chhuon felt stiff, sore, worn down by the struggle which was his life. He was aware that had he had this same dream ten years earlier, or were he more traditional, he would postpone the trip. The awareness increased his disturbance. Again he exhaled slowly. The smoke from his breath mixed with the morning mist and hung in a cloud before him. Is it an omen? he thought. A message from Papa’s spirit?
Chhuon finished his cigarette. He wrapped a yellow checked krama about his neck, the long ends falling to his waist, then descended the few stairs to the muddy ground. He was a short man, short for Cambodian, five three, yet he was strong with muscular chest and legs. He bent, removed his sandals, then stood, straightened his back, rolled his shoulders attempting to loosen the stiffness. It had rained every night for three months and the village streets were saturated. He squatted to loosen his stiff knees, stood and looked into the dark morning sky, into the graying mist, patchy amid the village buildings and orchards, thick in the surrounding forest. He could hear the river rushing. The sound made him tense. Everything was telling him to cancel the trip. I’m becoming like a Frenchman, he thought. Maybe worse. Maybe like a Yuon or even an American. First the khrou, he thought. Then the monk. Ah, but first the trip. I’ll bring Kdeb and Yani with me. Their uncle and Y Ksar will like seeing them, and a day away, it will settle him. Ah, deliveries must be made, eh? Despite dreams.
Chhuon stepped to a small house on a post before his home. He reached inside, removed an incense stick, lit it, placed it back into the house. He said a short prayer to the angel spirits asking them for a peaceful journey and a peaceful life.
“This is the Cambodia of 1968,” Chhuon seemed to hear his older brother, Cheam, say. “We’re a growing nation. No longer can we indulge ourselves with the old ways.”
It’s true, Chhuon thought. People are slowed by old beliefs. Ah, but on this morning, it would be good, eh? to fall back on tradition. Ah, to tell the fortune-teller, the healer, the monk! Sok...what will she say?
For much of his life Chhuon had followed traditional patterns. All the people, even the simplest rice farmer, consulted the khrou, the monk, or the lay priest, the aacha, if they had a disturbing dream. Cheam’s imagined voice whispered again, “Younger Brother, I’ve a dream of good rice and good fortune; you, a dream of disaster. Yet it’s the same day and the same business. One dream must not be true. Besides, we’ve promised deliveries. If we are to run our own country we must learn from the Chinese merchants. Commerce waits for no man.”
Chhuon took a deep breath. “Older Brother,” he muttered into the mist, “are we to be so removed from custom you do not even shave your head when our father dies?”
Like his parents, grandparents, siblings and children, Cahuom Chhuon had been born, raised and educated in Phum Sath Din. His father had been a rice farmer as had his uncles and most of his cousins. The village had changed little in Chhuon’s four decades—even though the nation had changed dramatically. The population of Phum Sath Din had decreased from just over 500 to about 420. Both of Chhuon’s sisters, with their husbands, moved away, Voen to Phnom Penh and Moeun to Battambang. All children who came of age and who were able to pay the bonjour, the kickback, for advanced studies moved first to the provincial capital, Stung Treng City, then, if qualified, to Phnom Penh.
In 1957, with proper “donations” from their father to local and provincial authorities, Cheam had left Phum Sath Din and founded a delivery service seventeen kilometers east in the provincial capital. Chhuon had joined his brother in 1960 and had taken the task of supplying and educating local farmers, and later mountain peoples, in new varieties of rice and other crops which were being developed in China and in the West. In the years since he’d begun his small personal campaign, rice production in his area had increased from less than one to just over 1.25 metric tons per hectare. Amongst the small farmers Chhuon was held in great esteem.
Phum Sath Din remained essentially a private community separate from the state. People left but few came. The four families which had founded it three hundred years earlier were still the four families who owned the land and worked the fields. Chhuon knew every resident, each knew him. They knew one another’s history, finances, strengths, aspirations and fears. Of his siblings, only Chhuon remained in Phum Sath Din, remained with his parents because he alone saw the village as the best of Cambodia. To him it was a neat, well-administered small town without corruption, without the bastardization of generations of French colonial rule. To Chhuon the villages were the heart of a new, emerging Cambodia, were a peaceful link between the traditional kingdom and a forward-looking, independent, Buddhist-socialist state. Yet with Cheam in Stung Treng the Cahuom family entered Cambodia’s tiny middle class and with that entry, traditions wobbled, fell and shattered.
Chhuon opened the hood of the small Japanese-built pickup truck. He tapped the dipstick seven times, then withdrew it to check the oil. He replaced the stick, gently closed the hood, wiped the headlights. He smiled at the truck, his brother’s truck, one of only two trucks in Phum Sath Din. He looked down the graveled muddy main road of the village which ran parallel to the river. At the middle of the village he could see the silhouette of the pagoda’s roof jabbing up through the mist. The decagonal temple or vihear and the adjoining hall or sala were the community’s house of worship, school and focal point for all village celebrations and rites. They were Chhuon’s anchor to the continuity of life from past generations through present. He whispered another prayer, then told himself, When we return I will bring the monks sugar and tea from Stung Treng, maybe cloth from Lomphat, and an ebony block from Plei Srepok.
Again a chill skittered on his spine and caused him to stiffen. His eyes darted toward the river. In the midseventeenth century the first pagoda in the village had been erected by Chhuon’s ancestors just outside the walls of the settlement at the confluence of the San and Srepok rivers. A hundred years later the settlement had been lost to Viet Namese control. Ancestral tablets in the pagoda recorded the history of the Cahuom family through most of these times. Chhuon turned back to the village. Before his ancestors arrived, as early as the turn of the millennium, Khmer warriors had defeated Chams in bloody battles along the rivers and the Khmer Empire extended over most of Indochina. Permanent settlements were few in the heavily forested regions. The site of Phum Sath Din was occupied by Mountaineer tribesmen perhaps once every twenty years, a camp in their rotational nomadic hunting. Then came the Cahuoms, then the Viet Namese, the Khmer reconquest, and the loss of political decree to French colonialism though no Frenchman ever administered in the tiny settlement. Japanese occupation and new French rule had had little effect inside the community. Chhuon walked to the back of the truck. The bed of the cargo box had been covered with wood planking for animals which Chhuon frequently carried. He checked the hemp ropes he used to tie his loads, then he pulled his krama more tightly about his neck to ward off the chill. He squatted, checked the tires, scooped the mud from beside one to ensure that the sidewall had not been cut when he’d driven into a deep pothole. He squeezed the mud into a ball, worked the ball in his hand.
A child’s scream pierced the mist. Chhuon whispered a prayer. He was well known for his patience, well respected for his adherence to the Eightfold Path of moral behavior: right belief, aspiration, speech, doing, livelihood, effort, thought and meditation. Again the scream. Peou, Chhuon thought. He stood. For a man to be known as patient with his children was a great accolade. Chhuon breathed deeply.
In the house Samnang addressed his father. “Peou wants to come with us,” he said.
“Then we’ll make room for him,” Chhuon answered.
“There’s no room,” Sok, Chhuon’s wife, said.
“Papa, if you wish me to stay home,” Samnang said, “Peou can have my seat.” A simper flicked to his face, then vanished.
Chhuon looked approvingly at Samnang. The boy’s behavior was proper. His own cheeks wrinkled with a thin smile, so slight it did not betray his thought: This son, whom others think odd, behaves perfectly.
Peou screamed again. “I won’t go! I won’t go! I want to stay with Grandma.”
Chhuon nodded. “You stay,” he said gently. The boy ran to where his grandmother was sitting, plopped onto her and hugged her lap.
Vathana handed her father a bowl of hot rice and pepper soup. “Papa...,” she said. All about them was activity. “...last night, when you told of Samdech Euv’s system of voluntary contributions...”
“Eh. He thinks he can raise a national budget...”
“But it should work, shouldn’t it?”
“Um.” Chhuon nodded. “But it doesn’t. The state has no money. It can’t modernize. And the roads! Our poor truck.”
“Or the army,” Samnang piped in. He came from behind his sister and stood between the two. Vathana put an arm over his shoulder and gave a gentle hug. The boy’s shoulders jerked.
Chhuon slurped soup from the bowl. His mind was not on their conversation of the night before but on the day’s trip. Thoughts of the dream faded. “What do you know of the army, eh?” He chuckled.
“Only that you said it is poor. Will we see soldiers today? You said it’s too small to guarantee security. I heard Mama’s cousin say it can’t hold the border.”
“You,” Sok called over from the table, “have big ears for a little boy.”
“Yeah, big ears,” giggled his little sister, Mayana.
Vathana hugged Samnang with both arms. “You hear all you can,” she whispered.
Chhuon finished his soup. He looked at the two children, the beautiful young woman and the frail, yet beautiful small boy. “Learn,” he said. “Learn all you can. But it is not always wise to tell all you know, eh!”
“Yes, Father,” Samnang muttered.
“One day all the young will live in the cities and only the old will work the land, eh, Sok?” His wife smiled her assent.
“Oh Papa”—Vathana’s voice was frivolous—“you’ll never be old.”
“Even when Yani was born,” Chhuon said, “it was different. Now you will marry and move away. Then Samay. Then...” Chhuon looked at his middle son’s face. The large dark eyes were turned down. He wanted to call him Kdeb but he said, “...Samnang.”
“Papa,” Vathana said, “could you buy a photograph of Samdech Euv?” She used the loving appellation referring to Prince Norodom Sihanouk. “When I go to Neak Luong I should bring the best photograph.” Her smile was easy and radiant. With a slight, conscious pout she added, “There are none here. Near Uncle Cheam’s there’s a store that has the very best.”
Chhuon winked at her. Though delicate, Vathana was nearly as tall as he, and to him she, with her almond-shaped eyes and long black hair tied back in a scarf, was so beautiful he whimsically wondered how she could have been born to him and his also short and stocky wife. A perfect bride, he thought. A perfect wife. Not just beauty but intelligence, with high respect for learning, able to talk of business, politics or religion. How she will help her husband. What honor this marriage brings to our family. “I’ll ask Cheam to get the very best in all of Stung Treng.”
Chhuon moved to where Sok sat at the central table. He spoke quietly as she gathered the few dishes. Samay sat across from them. He had not eaten. His head was buried in a book and he was unaware of anyone about him. As the time for him to enter Sangha monastic training approached he prepared himself by practicing concentration, self-control and self-denial. Soon he would renounce his family and all material aspects of life.
“It’s time we go,” Chhuon announced. “We’ll eat in the city while the truck’s being loaded.”
“Take this with you,” Sok said. She handed Yani a basket with fruit and cooked rice. “One never knows what may happen on the road.”
“Yes, Mama,” Yani answered sleepily. She held her head down but glanced up to Vathana, wishing her older sister were coming instead of Samnang.
Before Chhuon, Samnang and Mayana left the house, Chhuon went to his mother. The old woman, with Peou in her lap, was praying before a small altar, a low table with a painted wooden Buddha in the center. Above the statue was a framed picture of Buddha in repose beneath the bodhi tree. A small picture of Prince Sihanouk, the symbol of the repository of merit for all Cambodia, was to one side. Pictures of the family were to the other. Ancestral tablets, fresh flowers, incense and candles completed the altar. Chhuon knelt and bowed his head to the floor before his mother and spoke softly, asking the old woman’s blessing. She in turn placed her feet upon his shaved head and uttered a prayer.
Ground mist wrapped the village and foothills in a coal-gray blanket. Chhuon started the truck. Beside him, Yani lifted her jacket collar and sleepily tightened it about her neck. She snuggled against her father’s side. Chhuon lit a cigarette. The smoke hung in the humid air, condensed on the windows making it almost impossible to see. Slowly Chhuon backed the truck onto the village street, shifted, then nursed the vehicle over the muck surface toward the bridge. Samnang sat against the passenger door. He stared blankly out the side window. At school the day before there had been another incident. Chhuon felt Yani’s body sag limp in sleep.
“Papa,” Samnang said quietly, “is Grandma ill?”
“No, just tired. With all that’s happened...”
“When Grandpa died, I had terrible dreams. I’m afraid...Grandma...”
“Everyone dies, son. The Blessed One said there shall always be birth, old age, death, sorrow, grief and despair. But he also enlightened the path to the cessation of misery. You’ve discussed the dreams with your grandmother, eh?”
“Yes.” Samnang was reluctant to continue. He’d brought the subject up more as diversion than as conversation. They were silent as the truck crossed the rickety wood bridge over the Srepok River. Chhuon’s eyes searched the water, the bank. His dream rushed back to mind. He offered an inner prayer to the spirit of the river and another to the spirit of the forest. Samnang squeezed the armrest. With Yani asleep he feared his father would bring up his, Samnang’s, school problem.
Beyond the bridge the road split, the main road continuing south. Chhuon turned right. The side road was rough, unsurfaced. He’d driven the back road to Stung Treng many times and he knew every rock, every soft spot which might mire the truck, anticipated every turn, recognized every peasant hut, every field. It descended steeply beside the surging, swirling river, not much more than a riverside trail completely canopied by the jungle. Chhuon concentrated on the path lit by the truck’s headlights. He felt the tires slowly descend into each groove, roll over each boulder.
“Papa?” Samnang said.
Chhuon did not take his eyes from the path. “Yes?”
“Why doesn’t the government attempt to harness the river?”
“Someday it will,” Chhuon said. He tried to speak to his children in an educated manner, almost as equals, keeping in mind the importance of setting a good example. “Someday we’ll build hydroelectric dams—one on the San, one on the Kong. Perhaps with the Laotians a giant one across the Mekong. Then all this territory will have abundant electric power and we’ll be able to regulate the flow of the water for the farmers to irrigate new lands. Someday, Cambodia will be a very wealthy nation.”
“Not the Srepok?” Samnang asked.
“No. The valley’s too broad on this side of the border. South of Lomphat where it crosses into Viet Nam, there’s a hydroelectric dam. Just west of Ban Me Thuot. You know that city?”
“Yes. When Samay enters Sangha, will he study about the land or only about religion?”
Chhuon glanced at Samnang. Perhaps, he thought, Samnang will feel that loss more than any other family member. “I don’t know. Do you think someday you’ll follow him?”
“No way!” Samnang said.
“No way!?” Chhuon repeated the Western idiom which had crept into use with schoolchildren.
“I mean, ‘No, Father.’ I don’t believe a religious life is for me.”
“Every generation of our family has had at least one son follow the path into the monastic life,” Chhuon said. “My eldest brother left our home when I was six. It’s a noble calling. Only within monastic life can perfect awareness be gained. Only then can people learn from the monk the path to deliverance from suffering.”
“Oh Papa, people will continue to suffer. You’re the holy man. Your work feeds more than all the monks.”
“Ha! Who tells you that?”
“You’re educated. You read. You travel. The village farmers look up to you.”
The words embarrassed Chhuon. “We’re talking different kinds of suffering,” he said. He was pleased that his son respected him, yet he was upset that Samnang was so secular. His own son seemed a symbol of the transitions occurring within Cambodia. “Life is suffering,” Chhuon said. “Birth is suffering, aging is suffering, death is suffering. The presence of material things we hate is suffering, and to be separated from objects we desire is suffering. For our wishes not to be met is suffering. Suffering ceases only when we no longer crave...”
Samnang hung his head. Chhuon’s sermons made him shrink. At his father’s next pause he said simply, “I don’t think I should become a monk.”
“Follow your heart,” Chhuon answered. “My soul is filled with joy at Samay’s choice. Though I...I’ll miss him.”
“Papa,” Samnang said sharply, “I don’t understand why, when a boy enters the Sangha he must renounce his family. Why do people say he’s no longer a family member? I don’t understand why the bonze can’t be both.”
“It’s a deep question,” Chhuon said. “This is something we should ask Maha Nyanananda. I know only when a boy approaches manhood, he must renounce his family. It’s always been that way. In two years if he doesn’t follow the monastic life, he may rejoin them.”
Samnang did not answer and Chhuon let the conversation stop. They descended out of the hills. The road surface became smoother though softer and Chhuon wove the truck back and forth to avoid potholes. The road leveled onto the broad flood-plain of the lower Srepok. The jungle thinned, the tunnel of vegetation giving way first to sparse forest, then to intermittent brush and grass, then to cultivated rice fields stretching as far as Samnang could see into the mist. Buildings and villages increased, though were still few and far between. Mayana curled tighter in against Chhuon, pulled her jacket tight and continued dozing.
After a period Chhuon said, “In seven days it will be one hundred days since my father died. When we return home, I want you to see Maha Nyanananda. Arrange for me to meet with him. Bring him six cans of milk.”
“Papa,” Samnang’s voice was again sharp, “why don’t the monks have food like other people? Why must someone—every day—bring them food?”
“Holy men aren’t allowed to accumulate wealth or possessions,” Chhuon said. “Thus material goods can’t tarnish their spiritual work.”
“But Father! Some monks don’t work at all.”
“Eh?” Chhuon pursed his lips. “You’ve spent many days at the pagoda. Do the monks work?”
“Only...I mean...well, Maha Nyanananda. He’s always busy. But even he doesn’t work like the farmers. Not even like you.”
“They administer to our minds, our souls. Because you don’t see them stoop in the paddies or load trucks doesn’t mean their work’s not hard. I seldom load or unload anymore, does that mean I no longer work?”
“But you do work with the farmers.”
“Only as a teacher,” Chhuon said modestly. “Every year there is new rice and each variety must be separately tended. That’s my work: to teach the farmers about the new rice and to help them guard their fields. Monks teach people to guard their spirits. That’s their work. Each new rice has its own weakness, so we plant a little and watch it. Each new day presents challenges to our weaknesses. Those too must be watched.” Chhuon glanced at his son. If the boy was to follow him into business he should be taught everything Chhuon himself had learned through long hours of study. And if his spirituality was to grow, that too must be nurtured.
Chhuon stopped the truck in the center of the road and rolled his window down. Beside him Yani opened her eyes, yawned, looked about and seeing that they were only halfway to their destination, closed her eyes again. “The new IR 8 is semidwarf and resists lodging,” Chhuon said. “That means the farmers will lose less of their crop to the wind. Look at this field. Cambodia grows eight hundred varieties of rice. Most of it, when the grain fills, and that during the windiest part of the monsoons, gets top-heavy. When it lies down like those plants,” Chhuon pointed to an entire paddy where thousands of rice stems made horizontal line patterns indicating the wind direction of the day before, “the plants die and the grain rots.”
“And semidwarfs prevent that?” Samnang asked.
“Yes,” Chhuon said. He rolled his window back up, leaving it open several inches to clear the fog from the windshield. “Not completely though. And there are other problems—more pests, more plant disease. Uncle Cheam says in a few years we’ll receive a new variety, IR 24, which is semidwarf and grows so fast that the grain will fill before the heaviest winds. The farmers will harvest in August, plant a second crop and harvest again in November. Instead of just the late harvest. Uncle Cheam is very optimistic, but I’ve read in French journals that the double cropping requires fertilizer.”
“And we sell that,” Samnang said happily.
“Yes. But most of our farmers can’t afford commercial fertilizers.”
“Then what will happen to the crop?”
“If it wears out the paddies the next crop will be poor, eh? There has to be a balance between what the land receives and what it gives. Just like a person’s spirit, eh? A balance. American scientists are experimenting with a rice that produces three crops a year. That’s fine in rich nations, but here...maybe only those who can afford fertilizers will be able to grow rice. Maybe the peasants will borrow money to buy chemicals. Maybe the price will come down. Maybe they won’t pay back what they borrow. Maybe they lose their land, eh?”
The conversation lapsed. They drove in silence for several kilometers. Then Chhuon said, “We should talk about what happened yesterday.”
Samnang looked at his lap. He glanced to see if Yani was still asleep. “Yes, Father,” he said. “I...”
“I’m concerned about your schooling,” Chhuon said. “If you’re to be accepted into secondary school you must do well now. You cannot learn if you’re not in class.”
“The boys teased me again, Father.”
“You’re smart.” Chhuon looked toward his son. “Very quick. I wasn’t that way. You’ll go further with your education than me. Today everyone goes to school, eh? You’ll go to the university. But...how do you think your teachers look upon it?”
Samnang’s voice was faint. “They called me ‘girlie.’ They say I should have been a girl.”
“They know you were ill, eh?”
“They still tease me.”
“And you...,” Chhuon began. It was hard for him to see his Kdeb in pain.
“I screamed at them. I wanted to hit them. Then I cried.” He was on the verge of tears.
“Did you hit one?”
“Yes.”
“And that’s when they stole your pants?”
“Yes.” Samnang’s head was down, his voice weak.
“And you didn’t go back into class?”
“No! Some of the girls already saw me because Khieng and Heng held me. They said they’d show the girls I really was a boy. If Kpa hadn’t stopped them, I would’ve jumped into the river and never come back. I’ll never forgive them.”
The road smoothed as the small pickup neared Stung Treng. Two boys on Honda motorbikes whisked by in the opposite direction. Chhuon tensed. He watched the bikes in the mirror until they disappeared. Mayana moved restlessly. Without looking up she asked, “Are we there yet?”
“Soon,” Chhuon answered. The clouds lifted, the mist became drizzle. Below the raised-dike roadway paddies glowed green. The road narrowed to one lane. Chhuon strained to see through the film-covered windshield.
“Oh! Stop!” Samnang shouted. “There’s a...”
“I see.” Chhuon’s voice was calm. He tapped the brakes. A squad of soldiers had set up a roadblock. Two soldiers were on the road. Six were visible on the north side, two more on the south. Roadblocks were becoming more and more frequent. Since January, with the incidents in Ratanakiri Province and the rioting, troops had increased their vigilance.
Chhuon stopped the truck. He flashed the headlights, then advanced. Someone shouted. Several soldiers scampered from the north embankment to the south. “They’re crazy,” Chhuon muttered in the cab. “They see me every week.” Yani scrunched up tighter to her father. Samnang rolled his window down. “Roll it up,” Chhuon ordered harshly.
“Father!” Samnang said, shocked at the tone.
“Roll it up,” he repeated.
Samnang raised the window. “I just wanted to see the soldiers.”
Chhuon proceeded to a point twenty meters before the barrier. He stopped the truck, opened his door. “Hello,” he called out. “You know me.”
“Is that you, Professor?” one of the soldiers shouted back.
“Yes,” Chhuon called. “I’ve my children with me.”
“Advance and be recognized,” a sergeant commanded.
Of course, Chhuon thought. He pulled the door shut, shouted from the window, “Now, Brothers?”
“One minute, Professor,” called the soldier who had first shouted. The soldier and the sergeant spoke briefly, too quietly for Chhuon to hear. Samnang’s heart raced. “Come forward....” the soldier called. “Slowly, Professor.”
Chhuon put the transmission in first gear, slipped the clutch until the truck rolled, then feathered the clutch to keep the pace slow. Ten meters from the soldier and the sergeant he stopped the truck and turned the engine off. “Father...” Samnang’s voice shook. Chhuon glanced at him. Then, without a word, he got out of the truck and stood in the muddy road. Samnang looked down the embankment. The government soldiers looked motley. The sergeant before the truck wore an impeccably tailored new uniform.
The soldier came forward, his weapon slung across his back. He put his hands together and bowed slightly to Chhuon. Chhuon returned the lei, a salutation common in Cambodia. “Cautious today, Brother, eh?”
Quietly the soldier said, “I’m sorry, Professor. He’s a new sergeant. From Phnom Penh...doesn’t know country courtesy. He wants me to inspect the truck.”
Samnang watched his father. The new sergeant stood a short distance before the truck, his carbine at the ready. Samnang bit his lower lip. “Do soldiers always stop Father?” Yani asked her brother.
“Yes,” Samnang said. “I think. But they don’t make him get out. He pays them and they let him pass.”
Chhuon led the soldier to the rear of the truck. “Are you carrying new rice, Professor?”
“We’re going in for short-season rice,” Chhuon answered.
“And what have you seen on the road?” The soldier rummaged through the hemp ropes.
“Nothing,” Chhuon said. “A few boys on motorbikes.”
“No bandits?”
“I hope not.”
“May I see your papers, please?”
“They’re inside.”
“First, lift the boards,” the soldier said.
Chhuon lifted the boards from the truck bed and the soldier glanced under them. “You inspect the pig platform?” Chhuon asked, smiling.
“Because of the explosions,” the soldier said. “The sergeant thinks explosives are brought in by merchants. Now we inspect all the trucks.”
“What explosions?” Chhuon asked. He led the soldier back to the cab. The drizzle was coming harder.
“Two this week. Since May, more and more. This week seven people are killed.”
“That’s terrible,” Chhuon said. “I haven’t heard a word.”
“Hello little brother. Hello little sister,” the soldier addressed the children. “Step out, please.” To Chhuon he said, “They wish to keep it secret.”
Yani looked at her father, who nodded for her to come to him. Samnang followed. He stared at the sergeant. The sergeant turned away. The soldier bent forward, made a cursory search of the cab, then called to the sergeant, “This truck’s clear.”
“Step back,” the sergeant commanded. Behind him, several of the other soldiers were rolling their eyes upward and making gestures to one another and to the first soldier, indicating the sergeant was insane. “You,” the sergeant said roughly to Chhuon, “open the hood.” Chhuon smiled and bowed to the sergeant. He unlatched the hood and opened it. “Step back,” the sergeant said. He pointed his carbine into the engine compartment. “Come here.” Chhuon approached, slipped the sergeant ten fifty-riel notes. “Now it’s clear,” the sergeant announced.
The sergeant looked at Samnang, flashed a very large smile, and said, “You want to be a soldier like me?”
Samnang looked at his father, then to the sergeant. “Captain,” Samnang said, “if I were a soldier could I carry a rifle like yours?”
The sergeant laughed. “I’m not a captain. I’m just a sergeant.”
“If I were a sergeant,” Samnang said, “I would have a uniform as beautiful as yours.”
“Good,” the sergeant said. “Someday the professor’s son will be a soldier.”
Now Chhuon laughed. “And I’m not a professor,” he said. “I sell seed. Sometimes a few animals.”
“Mister Cahuom,” the soldier said to his sergeant, “brings new rice. He studies the grains and instructs the farmers. My brothers say he is a great teacher.”
“Then, Teacher,” the sergeant said, “be on your way.”
After the roadblock Chhuon barely spoke. He drove quickly past the last fields, the airport, the ferry landing, the river choked with barges and sampans. He did not wish to show his anger but it manifested itself in his driving, a gentle man who lovingly tended his vehicle speeding like a cowboy until a fish truck pulled from a side alley and caused him to jam the brakes.
Chhuon broke his silence. “Samnang,” he said. A line of women carrying baskets of goods crossed the road before them.
“Yes, Papa?”
“If I forget, remind me to ask Uncle Cheam to arrange for the wedding rice.”
“Yes, Papa. And the photograph of Prince Sihanouk?”
“Yes. And the photograph.”
Samnang smiled. As they passed through the riverfront market area he heard the high-pitched cackle from the stalls, studied the two- and three-story buildings rising on the left and, on the riverside, the fruit and vegetable stalls heaped with bananas, melons, sugarcane, sweet potatoes, tobacco and fish. They passed a dance hall and several cafes. Samnang envisioned himself in the city as a student, perhaps dancing with a girl. Mayana felt overwhelmed, it was her first visit in more than a year, but Samnang was bursting to be part of the city. Stung Treng fascinated him. As the most northern Mekong River market in Cambodia, Stung Treng was the heart of the Northeast. The port handled all river traffic to 120 kilometers south where rapids at Kratie disrupted continuous river transport. Fifty kilometers from Laos, and at the edge of the Srepok Forest, the wharves of Stung Treng handled nearly all of the nation’s meat trade between Cambodia and its northern neighbor, all hardwood trade between mountainous Ratanakiri Province to the east and the rest of the nation. The city was more than a market, it was the regional center for culture, education, provincial government, finance and the Royal Army. And here people did not know Samnang, did not know the humiliations known to all in Phum Sath Din. Even at eleven years old he could sense that someday he would make a new start and he hoped it would be in this exciting city.
“Papa?” Samnang said.
“Yes.”
“I’d like to go to the secondary schools here. I could live with Uncle Cheam.”
“Yes, I hope you will.”
Chhuon slowly worked the truck through other trucks, cars, bicycles, motorbikes, carts and samlos (bicycle-drawn carriages). Above the stone levee merchants were preparing their stalls. Barefoot boys and girls in straw hats ran among parked farm carts. A stallkeeper bowed politely to a city policeman. Two young boys carrying transistor radios wandered aimlessly. Chhuon spotted them and thought, Everything is changing. We’re being Westernized. Samnang saw the boys, grinned inwardly and thought how grand it would be to wander amongst the wharves. From the last pier of the line Samnang could see the Mekong still to the west, a yellow water channel two kilometers wide, and the Srepok beside them, its red-brown mouth a kilometer wide, the waters mixing like fluid art.
Chhuon parked before the last warehouse. He pulled his Buddha statuette from his shirt, kissed it seven times and gave thanks.
“Good morning Uncle Cheam,” Samnang called. He used the formal Khmer appellation which indicated not simply “uncle” but “my father’s older brother.” Cheam, like Chhuon, was stocky and muscular, though as he’d aged, his barrel chest had slipped to his waist. Samnang liked him. He saw his uncle as more aggressive than his father, perhaps as less Buddhist, less prone to passivity, though not less honest or less concerned for others.
“Nephew,” Cheam grunted politely. Immediately he became stern. “I must speak with your father.” The boy’s face fell, became expressionless. To Chhuon, Cheam said, “Mister Pech Lim Song is here. We’ve much to discuss. But first...” Cheam stopped. He looked at Samnang and Mayana. “Children, go see your aunt. There’s noodle soup for this cold morning. Younger Brother, come with me.”
Samnang and Yani followed the stone path along the side of the warehouse. At the back of the building there was a modern wood and brick home with a tile roof and a porch overlooking the paddies which dropped west to the Mekong. Samnang led his sister to the house but he stopped, let her go to the stairs alone. “Come, come, little niece,” their aunt called, seeing Mayana on the steps. “Have they started talking politics? That’s all they talk anymore.”
At the front of the warehouse Chhuon held his older brother’s sleeve. “I know,” Chhuon said. “Mister Pech can provide the very best rice for the wedding days. That’s all the more reason I must supply the most beautiful—the whitest ever seen in Cambodia. Good rice is so hard to find.”
“Uhm!” Cheam shook his head. “You worry too much. It’s my honor to provide the rice for Vathana’s wedding. We trade in rice. Don’t you think we have connections?”
“You. Not me. I thank you deeply. This marriage is so important. Mr. Pech’s second son will be my son-in-law. My daughter his daughter. The Wheel of Life...”
“Not the Wheel of Life.” Cheam laughed brashly. “The Wheel of Commerce. Vathana will be the daughter of our chief supplier.”
“You’ve arranged a fine union,” Chhuon said sincerely. “Again, thank you. Vathana asked, would it be possible to purchase a large portrait of Samdech Euv.”
“Uhm.” Cheam grunted again. “I’ll bring one as my wedding gift.” Chhuon released his brother’s sleeve, stepped toward the outer door to the office. But now Cheam held him. “Did they stop you again?” Cheam asked.
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Five hundred riels. Each time they ask for more. Last night I had a terrible dream. I dreamt the ancient dream of all Cambodia. We were being forced to choose between being eaten by tigers, devoured by crocodiles, or trampled by elephants.”
“Ooh! You and your dreams! Younger Brother, you have dreams because you listen to old ladies. All the dream is is a folktale. Next you’ll tell me you’re going to the khrou. Better you should study finance.”
Samnang returned to the warehouse and entered through a small back door. Quietly he walked the length of the large dark room, running a hand along the racks on one wall where rice sacks were stacked to the roof. His eyes skimmed the bins on the opposite wall full of ebony, mahogany, rosewood and teak blocks for statues. Outside the office he peered into the small rack for experimental rice seed. He could hear his uncle’s voice. Then Mister Pech’s. The men spoke of rice, fertilizer, hardwoods and breeding stock. Samnang listened but the words didn’t interest him. He ran his hands over the cold metal of a gas-powered forklift truck parked in the center of the floor. He wanted to sit in the seat but was afraid to without permission.
Mister Pech’s voice came strong into the warehouse. “He’s a proper son,” the older man said. “A little lost right now, like all the university boys, eh?” Chhuon answered but Samnang couldn’t hear the words. Mister Pech continued. “He’ll come around. He’ll be a good husband. He comes from good stock, eh?” The men laughed loudly and Samnang laughed quietly.
Then Samnang heard his uncle say, “Who’s printing these?”
Cheam’s voice was so harsh, so uncharacteristic of Khmer society, in which overt expressions of hostility are considered reprehensible, that Samnang twitched. The boy crept forward to peek into the room. Cheam held a handful of fifty-riel notes. “This is what you brought.”
Samnang squatted by a pallet of sacks they would later take to Lomphat and Plei Srepok. He listened quietly.
“There’s a problem, Older Brother?”
“These are fake.” Cheam did not disguise his disgust.
“Fake?!” Chhuon responded.
“Counterfeit!” Cheam shouted. “The bank won’t take them. Even street vendors recognize them and refuse to accept. These are the notes you brought last trip.”
“I received money from Mister Keng and Y Ksar. They’re honorable...”
Cheam scowled. “Y Ksar’s too stupid to counterfeit.”
“Mister Keng’s a farmer,” Chhuon defended him. “He wouldn’t print fake money.”
Cheam turned from his brother. “But who? All the money you brought last time...all of it is the same. It’s worthless. Where do they get it?”
“I don’t know,” Chhuon said.
“Ask. Today, you ask. Look at these. See here, this is how you tell if they’re fake. Corruption—everywhere!” Cheam slapped a stack of notes into his palm. “Bribery—everywhere! This”—his voice sank to conspirator level—“is what we’ll do.” Samnang strained to hear. Before he could decipher the words, Cheam exploded again. “I can’t even send out a damn empty truck without paying hoodlums.”
Chhuon hung his head, did not answer. In Khmer culture for a man to contradict another of equal or higher station caused both terrible humiliation. Yet his brother’s tone disgraced him before Mister Pech. He sat quietly. Chhuon believed both Cheam’s and Mister Pech’s authority came to them as divine incarnation, that their rank reflected how much merit they’d earned in earlier lives. The first belief was a vestige of the Hindu base of Khmer society, the latter came from Buddhism’s emphasis on personal salvation through the earning of merit. Both led Chhuon, at times, to extreme obedience.
In the shadows of the warehouse Samnang suffered his father’s weakness. He recalled once overhearing his mother explaining his uncle’s behavior, “It’s because he has no children.” Samnang didn’t care. He wanted to storm the office, attack his uncle, tell his father to stand up.
“La sale guerre,” Mister Pech Lim Song said in French. “It is this dirty war that causes you these problems.” He spoke in a way which absolved Chhuon of his brother’s charge and yet did not offend Cheam. “I think it’s the Prince’s fault,” Mister Pech continued in French. “His love for power keeps him from stopping corruption. He’s bound to our feudal heritage. He’ll never carry out the reforms needed to unify our country, to keep it safe from Viet Namese hegemony.” Cheam also spoke in French. “Khmers are warriors,” he said with passion. “Always we’ve fought for our people, for freedom and independence.”
“Fighting is none of our business,” Chhuon said in Khmer. In his home, with his family, Chhuon’s speech was refined, lyrical Khmer full of sound redundancies, alliterations and rhymes. In business, he changed to a more technically based Khmer with a smattering of French. He was fluent in that language, used it liberally with officials in Stung Treng and Lomphat, but he detested it because it was non-Khmer. “Leave war to the politicians. It does nothing but serve the Prince of Death.”
“Don’t be fooled, Brothers.” Mister Pech switched back to Khmer. “This is not something to ignore. It’s there whether we wish to see it or not.”
“The country’s a mess,” Samnang heard Cheam say. “Mister Pech was telling me what he’s discovered about the attacks in Ratanakiri.” Now Cheam began to rant. “It’s not enough to nationalize imports and exports, to nationalize the internal distribution of goods...but we’re paid in counterfeit notes. And now this!”
“Now what?” Chhuon began.
“Corruption and foreigners,” Cheam blurted. “The Chinese control business, the Viet Namese labor. I won’t abandon commerce to the Chinese and I won’t hire a Viet Namese. They work hard but I don’t trust them. They work until they’re in just the right position, then, bam, they take over. Ingrates. There, Brother, are your crocodiles.”
“The country is a mess,” Mister Pech repeated. “What the Royal Army did in Battambang Province last year...you know of the murders.”
“I’ve heard rumors,” Chhuon responded.
“Riots in seventeen of nineteen provinces,” Mr. Pech continued. “Thirty thousand Royal troops internally yet no one to protect the borders. And this in the highlands.”
“What in the—” Chhuon began again but Cheam interrupted him.
“He thinks he can push everyone around.” There was anger in Cheam’s voice. “Brothers, we must respect the rights of all Cambodians, Khmer or not. The Holy One says that, eh? Tribal people are people, eh? If Samdech Euv wants to build a rubber plantation on their land...”
“Is that what you were telling?” Chhuon asked.
“I have a friend, Colonel Chlay,” Mister Pech said. “He tells me for two years his officers in Lomphat and Senmonorom have reported exact Yuon locations, exact units, exact strengths. The Prince has done nothing. Worse. He cut ties with America to earn respect from Hanoi and Peking. Now, who knows? Maybe he changes again. But he lets the yuons have the province, and he kills Mountaineers.”
“The attack at Veunsai, eh?” Chhuon said.
“I can no longer support the Prince.” Samnang heard his uncle’s vehement whisper.
“It came one week before the North Viet Namese launched their New Year’s offensive against the South,” Mister Pech said. “The yuons haven’t tolerated Royal troops in those mountains for a year. Now, now?! I have heard”—Mister Pech hesitated—“the troop movement was a guise. My friend tells me it masked Viet Namese staging for their attacks on Pleiku and Kontum.”
“He would not do that,” Chhuon said.
“How can I support him?” Mister Pech said. “His troops supported the Communist offensive. He was a party to their Tet!”
“ssshh!” Cheam said. “Mister Pech! The walls have ears.”
Chhuon drove south on Highway 13. The road climbed quickly out of the floodplain, away from the rice fields, into the forest. On the uphill stretches Chhuon dropped to second gear so the small truck could pull its load. Under a tarpaulin in the bed of the truck were the dozen forty-kilogram sacks of rice and four sacks of fertilizer which Samnang had squatted beside as he listened to his father, uncle and Mister Pech. In a separate plastic bag were two ten-kilo sacks of experimental seed. On top of the load two small black breeding pigs were being soaked by driving rain.
Chhuon leaned forward, wiped the windshield with a cloth. The moisture and smoke residue smeared. He wiped harder. “Damn,” he muttered in French. “Maybe one more trip before the rain makes the roads impassable.”
“Papa,” Samnang said in Khmer, “why do all educated Cambodians speak French?”
“Hum?” Chhuon said. He squinted, trying to see the familiar landmarks which would tell him he was nearing the junction with Highway 19.
“France is eleven thousand kilometers away,” Samnang said.
“Yes,” Chhuon said. They were approaching the turnoff. Mayana squirmed restlessly in the seat beside him. “Yes,” he repeated. “France is far away. It would be better to learn Jarai, Rhade or Mnong, but the educated look down on the mountain peoples.”
“I can speak Jarai,” Samnang said.
“You cannot,” Mayana challenged him.
“Can too,” the boy shot back.
They spoke intermittently. Chhuon again was gentle with the truck. On downhills where the wet brakes had diminished effect he slowed to a crawl and let the engine control the speed. As he drove he thought, How can I ask Mister Keng about these notes? What will I do if the soldiers recognize them? I should have seen the khrou. With such a dream how could I travel? Mayana and Samnang began playing a hand-slapping game and Chhuon felt relieved he didn’t have to entertain them.
Highway 19 ran east over a small set of hills, then turned north and descended into the valley of the Srepok River. As they emerged from the forest Chhuon kept the truck in second gear, then shifted into third as the road leveled and the forest gave way to more paddies. They passed several poor hamlets where peasant families tilled their half-hectare plots, raising rice and vegetables. Too poor to afford fertilizer, they jealously reserved their own excrement, a source of nitrogen, for the family garden.
They approached the river. Chhuon again said a prayer to the water spirit. Then spontaneously he said, “He who controls the water, controls life. Rivers flow like life flows, like ancestry, like rice in its rhythmic reproduction. In my great-greatgrandfather’s time,” he continued, “Cambodia covered all the Ca Mau Peninsula to north of Saigon. Saigon was Prey Nokor, ‘the Forest Home.’ Cambodia covered the Bolovens Plateau of Laos all the way to Luang Prabang. Even much of Thailand. All because we controlled the water.”
“What happened?” Samnang asked.
“Yuons, Thais, they invaded. They destroyed the irrigation because they were jealous.” Chhuon’s tone was didactic, without anger.
“What happened to your great-great-grandfather?” Yani asked.
“My father told many stories of the ancestors,” Chhuon said. “He said yuons killed him. And my grandfather. But my Uncle Choeu says no. He once showed me on the tablets that great-great-Grandpa lived eighty years. Choeu said Grandfather was killed by the French.”
“The French?” Yani asked.
“During the uprising of 1885. They were fighting to keep all the fields in the name of the king because in those times everyone worked the land and kept most of their rice. They didn’t worry about someone taking their fields. The French thought that was barbaric and insisted all land was private property. That’s when farmers began to lose the land.”
“Yuons killed your great-great-grandfather?” Samnang said.
“I don’t know,” Chhuon repeated.
“If yuons killed him, I shall hate them forever,” Samnang blurted.
Chhuon was aghast. Sternly he said, “One must exorcise traditional hatreds. We must tolerate all people who live beside us.”
The conversation stopped. Samnang tensed. Hadn’t he just overheard Mister Pech describe the treachery of the Viet Namese?
Chhuon drove on. He did not know how to handle his son’s animosity. Highway 19 consisted of long stretches of uninhabited dirt and gravel ridge with deep shoulder gullies to carry away the heavy rains. “At one time”—Chhuon began a story he felt would ease their talk—“rice grew wild. It had very large, very white grains and it had the fragrance of cow’s milk. A single grain would fill a hungry man. Men were good. Then they became selfish. They learned to lie, to steal and to possess. The rice grain deteriorated. The aroma faded. Now rice alone cannot sustain.”
“Will we get the good kind for Vathana’s wedding?” Yani asked.
“We’ll get the most beautiful that grows,” Chhuon answered.
“Father,” Yani’s little-girl voice giggled, “is Vathana the prettiest girl in Cambodia?”
“To me”—Chhuon smiled—“my daughters and their mother are the prettiest girls in all the world. But it’s their compassion that’s important.”
“But Vathana really is the prettiest, isn’t she?” Yani persisted. “When all Teck’s uncles and aunts came to our house, and his parents, I loved them right away. They’re so gentle. I wish, when I’m eighteen, a kind and handsome man is found for me.”
“We’ve some time before we concern ourselves with that,” Chhuon laughed.
“Shouldn’t Mister Pech work for you?” Yani asked. She then announced, “When I get engaged, my betrothed shall work for you for a year.”
“Little Yani”—her voice warmed Chhuon—“that custom has lost favor. Except amongst some farmers.”
“Will they live with us?”
“No. They’ll live in Neak Luong. Pech Chieu Teck is in business there with his father. They’re a good family. This will be the most spectacular marriage. Through their children we’ll be linked to all generations, for all generations.”
Again they rode in silence. The land dipped and the forest gave way to uncultivated marshland or to small rice or sweet potato farms. Under the low monsoon clouds and heavy rain the land appeared unpopulated. “The Holy One,” Chhuon broke the silence, “has taught the responsibility of each man to do good works.”
Samnang had been slowly seething since his father’s call for toleration. “But,” he said dryly, “Buddha also fought dishonesty and deceit. He fought against privileges of one class over another.”
“Man is born,” Chhuon said. “He lives, grows old, dies. Buddha teaches that man is then reborn to live again. The cycle continues. Life means suffering...” Samnang clenched his teeth. He hummed to himself. “If one is to alleviate suffering, one must renounce evil and pursue good. Only through good conduct can a man ease his burden; only through good deeds can one lighten his karma until he has no karma at all. Then he will enter the state of nirvana where there is no physical existence.
“Keep the right thoughts,” Chhuon continued. “Anger produces anger. Gentleness produces gentleness. Aggression produces aggression. Generosity produces generosity.”
“Papa...” Samnang’s voice was cold. “Why do you support Samdech Euv though he allows yuons to run rampant over our country? Though he allows corruption and lets the army attack farmers?”
“Who told you...? You were in the warehouse, eh?”
“Yes, Father.” The boy pressed. “What did Mister Pech say happened in Battambang? I heard him on Ratanakiri.”
Chhuon hesitated. He glanced at his son and daughter. He wanted to say to Samnang, I can’t tell you before Mayana, but he was sure the boy would take it as another shun. For a minute he was silent. Then he told them what he’d heard of Samlaut and the riots. Then he said, “If it weren’t for Mister Pech and Uncle Cheam we’d never know. The Prince tries to protect us by keeping these things hidden. Just as I try to protect you.”
Chhuon stopped. He looked at his children. Mayana’s mouth was open, Samnang’s eyes glared. “Is this what you want to hear?”
“Yes, Papa,” Samnang said. “I should know these things.”
“Yuk.” Yani broke from her trance. “Why do you want to hear that?”
“Men should know these things,” Samnang said to his sister. He leaned forward to talk directly to his father. “Why don’t we riot?”
“There’s been too many arrests, too many exiles, too many teachers have run to the forests. Khmers must talk to Khmers. It’s a national flaw. If we don’t agree, we don’t talk. If we disagree, we are enemies forever.”
The small truck entered the high plateau north of Lomphat. Chhuon made an ever-increasing number of detours over temporary culverts, around washed-out sections. Then the road split. Chhuon turned onto the lesser road and headed south down the mountains. The grade was steep. He forced the transmission into first gear. He said nothing as the truck descended but prayed silently. After half an hour of curves and drops the road leveled onto the floodplain of the upper Srepok River.
“Isn’t there a better road?” Yani asked.
“Always—” Chhuon began.
A warning burst of rifle fire cracked over them. Samnang jerked. Chhuon scanned left and right. A small plastic lean-to at the road’s edge protected four or five soldiers from the rain. A corporal stood by the road’s edge. Behind his carbine he smiled broadly. The soldiers didn’t even look up. Two rifles lay on the pavement as if abandoned. Not far off the road three smaller huts of plastic had been set up amid a cluster of trees. Women and children, the families of the soldiers, were busy collecting firewood and cooking.
“Your papers,” the corporal said. Chhuon had never seen him before. He handed the corporal his pass and smiled ambiguously. The soldier studied the form, then said, “From Stung Treng you come this way? Everyone out!” The soldier jerked the door open. Other soldiers surrounded the truck. One jumped into the bed and threw the pigs off. Hanging by their tethers they kicked and squealed. Another soldier ripped the tarpaulin back. Mayana clutched at her father. Samnang froze, unable to move.
“Hey,” Chhuon said. “Brothers, my papers are in order. I’m to make two deliveries.” A soldier stabbed his bayonet into one of the rice sacks. “Stop. What do you look for?”
“Silence!” the corporal yelled.
Chhuon pulled a wad of counterfeit riels from his pocket. He peeled off ten fifty-riel notes and shoved them at the corporal who quickly stuffed them into his own pocket. “As you know, Brother”—the corporal’s manner softened and he again smiled—“this is a toll road.” To his squad he yelled, “Cover that rice. Pick up the pigs.” Then to Chhuon, “Have the children get back in. There’s no reason for them to get wet. The charge for road use is five hundred riels.”
“Five hundred?!” Chhuon feigned shock.
“Bandits raided the road,” the corporal said. “If it’s to remain open, eh? we must collect a road tax. Otherwise”—he shrugged—“there’ll be no money for protection. Then you would be robbed.”
Again Chhuon removed a wad of riels. This time the soldier placed the bills on a clipboard. Don’t, Chhuon ordered himself, look at the money. He turned, looked beyond the road at the plastic huts. “This must be a very hard job,” he said.
From the corner of his eye he could see the corporal studying the notes. “Eh...” the man groaned, “yes. You may go.”
“A very tough and very important job, Brother,” Chhuon said.
Samnang was shaken. His respect for his father increased. Why, he trembled inwardly, do I freeze? He felt humiliated. He might just as well have broken down and cried or screamed like a girl—like the girl Khieng and Heng said he really should have been. In the truck he was silent, sullen.
“It’s okay,” Chhuon said to them. “It’s okay now. In a few minutes we’ll see the tall building of Lomphat. It’s okay to be scared. I was scared myself.”
“Father,” Yani cried. Tears were in her eyes and on her cheeks. “You’re so brave.”
Chhuon hugged his daughter. Brave, he thought. Stupid maybe. I shouldn’t have them with me.
It was one in the afternoon when Chhuon pulled the heavily laden truck into Lomphat. The town was different from primarily Khmer Stung Treng. Its ethnic makeup was a mix of Khmer and Cham plus a number of minorities, including a substantial Viet Namese district, a small Chinese business district and Lao, Brao, Rhade, Jarai and Mnong sectors. The short main boulevard through town was dotted with cafes and dance halls and there was a provincial government office building. On a rise south of the main road was the governor’s villa. “Can we stop?” Yani asked.
“For a minute,” Chhuon answered.
“Buy me a cola?”
“Yani,” Chhuon warned, “Mister Keng will be insulted if we don’t eat with him.” Chhuon parked before a small cafe. “Be quick,” he said.
Behind the counter a thin woman bent over a crude sink. She did not look up, did not really notice Chhuon or the children. In Viet Namese she asked for their order.
“Three colas, please,” Chhuon said in Khmer. The woman straightened, gave them the bottles, took a counterfeit note and gave change without saying a word.
Mister Keng bowed with his hands touching before his very round and very large head. He greeted Chhuon with a farm idiom which would translate literally as “Have you had rice today?” but in essence meant “Good afternoon.”
“Mister Keng,” Chhuon returned his client’s greeting with a gracious lei. Samnang and Mayana also bowed. Keng Sambath ushered them into the central room of his small home. Immediately a servant brought the men a hot curry lunch. Keng’s wife, to Samnang’s umbrage, pushed him and Yani out the door and to a small lean-to kitchen at the side of the house. There they ate a simpler lunch, and each was treated to a single sweet rice cake.
Inside, the men’s speech was animated. This was a happy occasion, good friends meeting after not having seen one another for some time. They spoke of irrigation problems and new rice, of how, where and when to plant the new seed, how much seed they would plant directly in the paddy, how much they would germinate and replant. And they asked after each other’s family. Then Mister Keng asked about the explosions in Stung Treng.
Outside, Samnang could hear the early talk, but then it quieted. The men finished, sipped tea and nibbled on watermelon seeds. Samnang fidgeted. He wanted to hear. For a long time he had been curious about his father’s business and with what he’d overheard earlier, his insides were tense. “Ssshh!” He hissed at his sister each time she spoke.
Chhuon had become contemplative. Prince Sihanouk’s own intelligence reports indicated that the Viet Namese, soldiers and civilians, were becoming increasingly hostile to the Khmer people and governmental authorities in the border provinces. Because Chhuon thought Sambath held similar beliefs to his own he ventured, “Some say Samdech Euv is selling out to the yuons.”
“The North Viet Namese,” Mister Keng countered hard and loud before his wife and servants, “and the Viet Minh treat us with more respect than our Royal troops. It’s rightist factions that cause this evil. If Samdech Euv listened to someone other than that fascist colonel, the army wouldn’t treat us so.”
Chhuon, with a most enigmatic smile, answered, “If I may broach this subject, Mister Keng, may I ask, from whom do you receive your largest cash sums?”
For a split second Mister Keng’s face showed shock, then he too smiled. “I sell my rice to those who wish to purchase it,” he said.
“Dear Honorable Sir,” Chhuon addressed his host in the most formal fashion, “I would not ask you this if it were not for a problem I have had. Please, Brother, I do not question your honesty for one second, but please...” Chhuon removed from his briefcase an envelope containing the order from their last transaction plus 400 fifty-riel notes. He spoke very softly as he fanned the notes and pointed to the defect. “Someone, Dear Brother, has paid you in counterfeit riels. These are the notes you paid with last.”
Outside, Samnang heard none of the quiet talk. Suddenly Mister Keng’s voice blurted loudly, “There is a problem developing with an insect I’ve never seen before. Come to the paddy. Examine the new plants.”
Alone the two men walked the dikes to the far corner of one field where a small area had been sectioned off by a temporary low, narrow dike. “Mister Cahuom,” Keng Sambath began. He spoke very differently in the field than he had in the house. “I love my country very much. I love Samdech Euv. He’s a gentle king. I don’t know how to say this. One must be discreet, eh? Our problems are serious. I’ve no choice. I sell to the Viet Minh. They pay world market prices instead of the low rate set by the government. At first they bought only a little and I was happy to receive such a price. Then they asked to buy more. Still they paid a fair price. Last year they purchased half of what I produce. I told them they ate too much. I needed to sell more to state merchants. They told me they would need even more this year. And they told me...they told me how much I must produce. The Viet Minh say each hectare must produce one-point-two tons. They say I will harvest twenty-one tons. They say five tons will keep the government happy.
“Dear Chhuon, I don’t wish to deprive the Prince or my country of profit it should make from exporting rice but I have no alternative. You know better than anyone, I don’t reap one-point-two tons on every hectare. My yield’s seventeen, maybe eighteen tons. Now you tell me they pay with fake money. It used to be so easy to live. I’ve always believed the rice yields were good because Samdech Euv had accumulated much merit. The Viet Minh say the Prince is surrounded by evil. By men who won’t protect us but still collect taxes. I’ve heard say the Prince hoards gold and has many women. I don’t believe it. When it’s time for war, I’ll stand with my king against all invaders. But why doesn’t the government help us?”