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 He became withdrawn, distrustful.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 rec
orded 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 f
ather 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?”
For the Sake of All Living Things Page 3
