For the Sake of All Living Things (6 page)

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.”