The Rent Collector

To the Provider of hopes, dreams, and second chances

“When you realize how perfect everything is you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky.”

—Buddha

Chapter One

I once believed that heroes existed only in old men’s fables, that evil in the world had triumphed over good, and that love—a true, unselfish, and abiding love—could only be found in a little girl’s imagination. I was certain the gods were deaf, that Buddha was forgotten, and that I would never again see the natural beauty of my home province.

It was a time when I learned about shape-shifters, shadows, and redemption; when I finally grasped the meaning of a Chinese proverb whose venerable words still rattle about in my head:
The most difficult battles in life are those we fight within.

It was also the year that I came to truly know the Rent Collector.

*****

Beep beep beep.

The steady rumble of uninvited trucks tries to pry into the safety of my dream, a dream in which I am still a child prancing along the trail toward the rice fields where my family works in the Prey Veng province of Cambodia’s countryside. It is a cheerful morning as I pull at my grandfather’s bony fingers, tugging him along while he struggles to keep up.

“Hurry,
Ancient Snail,
” I say with a smug yet spirited bounce.

“If I am a snail,” he quips, “you are
salt,
and you’ll soon have to drag my dead and lifeless body back home and explain to the village what you have done!”

I pay him no mind and instead pounce like a frog, jumping from rock to rock along the path.

“Perfect,” I answer, not letting my determination waver. “Everyone in the village loves snail. Tonight, we’ll eat like kings.”

I catch the slightest smile before he heaves a sigh—but then he shuffles to a stop. His gaze sharpens, his head tilts, his attention shifts to the distant countryside. Then we both feel the ground beneath us tremble.

He bends close, squints his eyes at mine, and peeks into my thoughts as though he were the village fortune-teller. I find it unnerving and so I glance down at my bare and dirty toes. He won’t allow it. With a touch from his calloused finger to my chin he raises my gaze. He speaks assuredly, but still with enough grandfatherly giggle trailing in his voice to make certain my little-girl ears pay attention to every smiling syllable.

“Life will not always be so hard or cruel. Our difficulties are but a moment.”

I stare back, trying to make sense of his words, for my life is neither
hard
nor
cruel.
I am still too young to recognize that we are poor—that in spite of the grandeur of the province and the hours my family toils each day, we don’t own the land on which we work. I haven’t yet grasped that earning enough money to buy food on the very day we eat it isn’t an adventure embraced by the world.

The rumble grows louder, and Grandfather rocks forward on his toes.

“Remember, Sang Ly. When you find your purpose—
and you will find your purpose
—never let go. Peace is a product of both patience and persistence.”

How can a child pretend to make sense of such a puzzling phrase?

“Sang Ly,” he repeats, as if he finds eminent joy in the sound of my name, “it starts today. Today is going to be a very lucky day.”

I am tired of the games, tired of his words zipping past like dizzy fireflies. I reach out and latch on to his cheeks, pinching them tightly together. “What are you saying, Grandfather? You don’t make any sense.”

“Sang Ly, the trucks are coming. It is time to go.” His lips continue to move but his voice grows younger, stronger. “Sang Ly, wake up. The trucks are here. It’s time for me to go.”

As my husband, Ki Lim, rocks me awake, it isn’t my grandfather who is sucked away from the safety of a child’s dream. Rather, it is me.

The touch of my husband, the stir of our child, the relentless beeping of the snaking trucks confirm that I am no longer a girl of seven at home in the distant province but a grown woman of twenty-nine living at Stung Meanchey.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper to the dark shape of the man standing over me. “I overslept. I dreamed that I was . . .”

I rub at my eyes. My dreams don’t matter. I was supposed to pack last night’s rice into Ki’s carry tin for today’s lunch. He needed to get an early start, as we must earn an extra 12,000
riel
today to have enough to pay the Cow.

“I am sorry,” I say again, seeking his understanding with all the softness and sincerity that a dazed and drowsy wife can muster. “Hurry. Go now, and I will bring your lunch.”

Like Grandfather in my dream, Ki also sighs deeply.

“If you come, please be careful. Watch for needles and stay back, far away from the trucks. You know what happened to Prak Sim.”

I nod, still groggy, but awake enough to wonder if I can lie back down after he leaves, close my eyes, and coax Grandfather’s dreams back into my head—but then the baby cries.

With careful hands, Ki picks up our son, Nisay, from the floor near the foot of our mat where he sleeps and passes him to me. At nearly sixteen months, the child is still small enough that I can carry him in one arm with ease. He should be talking, watching our lips, listening to us repeat his name, mimicking our words with baby laughs and giggles. Instead, when he’s not fussing, his gaze is hollow and distant. His hair is thin and patchy, his little naked belly protrudes below his skinny ribs as though he’s swallowed a ball, and I feel like a neglectful mother every time I take him out onto the city’s streets.

It’s not that we aren’t trying to feed the boy; we beg him to eat. When he does, however, it mostly races through him, flowing out the other end as a never-ending bout of nighttime diarrhea that I scrub off the floor each morning.

“Do we give him the medicine this early?” Ki asks.

“Later, after he eats. It will be easier for him to keep it down.”

“Let’s hope he’s feeling better.” Ki says, before turning toward the sound of the trucks.

“I’m certain of it,” I reply, wanting to tell him about my dream. Instead I wrap our naked baby in a towel and gently rock him in my arms, hoping to settle his cries.

“Please be careful,” Ki repeats as he steps to the canvas curtain that serves as our front door to pull on his boots.

I lift the baby’s broom-handle arm and attempt to wave good-bye to Daddy, but Ki Lim has already stepped outside and is trudging off into the early-morning darkness, answering the incessant siren call of the burping trucks.

“I dreamed again about Grandfather,” I finally whisper to the only one possibly listening, a child now quietly suckling against my chest in the darkness. “Only today it was different.”

I listen to his labored breathing, imagine him tilting back his head and asking, “
How?
How was the dream about Grandfather different today, Mother?
”

I pause instinctively before I answer, waiting just long enough to heighten his interest. “Today was different, Nisay, because before he left, Grandfather promised that it would be a
very lucky day.
”

*****

When people ask where we live, I tell them we reside alongside the bank of a beautiful river called
Stung Meanchey.
After all, the name does mean
River of Victory.
If they know the place at all, they hesitate, smile quizzically, and then we both break out into tremendous laughter, for in spite of being named
river,
Stung Meanchey is the largest municipal waste dump in Phnom Penh—indeed, in all of Cambodia.

The place is mountainous, covering over 100 acres. Piles of putrid rubbish tower hundreds of feet high, surrounded by constantly shifting valleys that weave and connect like the web of a jungle spider. Navigating its changing paths can be tricky.

I tie my hair behind my head and step outside the structure that we call home: a three-walled shed of sorts that was once used to protect bags of concrete from the rain. It sits atop a small mound at the dump’s northeastern perimeter, slightly elevated above the shacks that lie distant on each side.