When Broken Glass Floats_ Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge - Chanrithy Him [119]
We are given colorful plastic plates, bowls, water buckets, and blankets. These are our blessings, and I count them. Yet I wish for the day when we won’t have to ration food or water, when we can each just help ourselves to the steamed rice or soup and not have to worry that we might have taken too much.
A few weeks after our arrival, Thai merchants come to the fence, hovering by it, away from where the soldiers are patrolling. We’re hungry, and they bring cooked corn on the cob, eggs, and vegetables to sell to us. Word spreads from one hut to the other. At night boys and men run to the fence to trade, which results in one death—a boy is shot by the soldiers.
In a month, instead of people running to the fence to trade, Thai merchants bring their goods inside the camp. After midnight the shuffling of feet and the whispering of anxious voices echo along the alleys on both sides of our hut. They have to keep their activities secret from the Thai soldiers.
Every night there’s trading, then the chase along the alleys, followed by the search of people’s huts. Through it all, whether we are involved in the trading or not, we get harassed. But the people who suffer most are those Cambodian buyers who get caught, whom the soldiers kick and beat with the butt of their rifles. Eventually a makeshift market springs up during the daytime, filled with noodles, vegetables, and even beautiful blouses and sarongs.
Today our hut is filled with the sweet fragrance of curry spices cooked with freshly squeezed coconut milk, beef, onions, string beans, and yams. In a green plastic strainer on an empty water bucket are bundles of noodles arranged in a spiral formation, which are to be eaten with the beef curry, bean sprouts, and mint. Fifteen guests, mostly Ra’s and bang Vantha’s friends, are all crowded into our hut. With their legs folded, some sit on the mats spread on the earthen ground near Ra and bang Vantha. Others stand by the door.
Savorng, Map, Ry, Than, and I sit on the bamboo deck on which we sleep, watching Ra and bang Vantha being married by an old man, perhaps a former Buddhist priest. In the far corner of the bamboo deck is an offering Ra makes to the spirits of Mak, Pa, Chea, Avy, Vin, Tha, and our ancestors. Two bowls of curry. Two bowls of noodles. Two waters, and burning incense secured in a small tin can of rice. This offering is an invitation to the deceased to attend the wedding, and at the same time signifies that a favor is being asked of them to bring happiness and health, and whatever else Ra has prayed for.
“May Ara and Vantha have a happy marriage and lots of children,” bang Vantha’s closest friend, Uncle Lee, wishes. Everyone laughs.
Ra, twenty-two, smiles sheepishly. Her face is smooth, refined. Her hairstyle elegant with upswept curls, she looks like a Chinese movie star in her cream lace blouse from Phnom Penh, which she managed to keep safe during the Khmer Rouge time.
Uncle Lee smiles fervently, gazing at Ra and then at bang Vantha. He has been to our hut and has gotten to know our family, and we’ve gotten to know his, and he kept telling bang Vantha to marry Ra. Many times he warned bang Vantha in front of us, “If you don’t marry her, I’ll marry her myself. I’m not joking. What are you waiting for? She’s a good woman and from a good family.”
Bang Vantha and Ra sold their twenty-four-karat gold necklace and bought this food for their wedding celebration. Uncle Lee’s mom helped us purchase the meat, vegetables, and noodles as well as do the cooking.
When night falls and everyone is in bed, a soft, gentle voice whispers a song. A song of excitement, lust, and regret. It is Ra’s voice, coming from a room she made by hanging blankets on a separate deck opposite the place where Ry, Than, Savorng, Map, and I sleep.
Ooy…Excited. All my feelings aroused, nervous
On this honey night I regret my body