Children of the River (8 page)

CHAPTER
9

Sundara marveled as she parked the station wagon in front of Jonathan's huge white house. So big for only three people! Why did the Americans want all this space around them? Didn't they like to be close with their families? The yard was impressive, too, with these venerable old trees. She couldn't help comparing them to the pathetic twigs in her own yard. The McKinnons’ home had a look of permanence, as if the people inside had never lived anywhere else but right here.
Stomach fluttering, she climbed the sun-dappled brick steps. Was she really going to do this? Had she, Sundara Sovann, really accepted an invitation to go sailing with an American family? Without telling Soka?
It had seemed like fate—Jonathan asking her to come on the very weekend her aunt and uncle were going to Portland without her, leaving her behind to work the final Saturday market. And it wasn't a real date, Jonathan assured her. So how could she resist?
Resisting Jonathan was, after all, very difficult. At home each evening under Soka's watchful eyes, Sundara promised herself she would stop seeing him. But each morning at school, she quickly forgot her resolve. What harm in one more lunch together? And one more and one more … And now here she was.
Drawing herself up, she flipped back her braid and aimed a trembling finger at the doorbell, touching off a lovely peal of chimes.
In a moment the massive green door opened and there was Jonathan, looking a little shy himself.
“Hi. Come on in.” He called into another room, “She's here, Mom.”
Mrs. McKinnon appeared in the dining room arch. “Sundara,” she said. “Finally! I've been so anxious to meet you.”
Sundara could only smile, wavering between a formal Khmer bow and some proper American response she couldn't quite formulate. Mrs. McKinnon surprised her. She'd been expecting fancier clothes, more makeup, an American mother like on TV. Instead, in plain old jeans and a sweater, here stood this blond woman with the most open, fresh-scrubbed face.
“Jonathan's told us a lot about you.”
“Oh …” Sundara looked to Jonathan.
“All good stuff,” he put in, grinning.
Mrs. McKinnon kept smiling at her, taking her in with frank curiosity. Usually this American way of staring was unnerving, but Sundara sensed an innocence in Mrs. Mc-Kinnon's expression. She wasn't trying to judge or pry. Her look was somehow flattering.
I’m interested in you,
she seemed to be saying.
Sundara found herself smiling back into her blue eyes, the blue eyes she'd passed on to Jonathan.
“Is Dad ready?” Jonathan asked.
“He should be.” His mother gripped the polished newel post and shouted up the stairs. “Ri-chard? Sundara's here!”
From the upper reaches of the house a man's voice rumbled. “Where did you hide my Top-Siders?”
“Right on your shoe rack,” she called back.
“I want my
old
ones!”
“There,” Mrs. McKinnon said to Sundara with a wry smile. “Now you can see why Jonathan dresses the way he does” She headed up the stairs.
Mrs. McKinnon wasn't dressed so fancy herself, Sundara thought. Still, although her sweater was not new, it was of good quality and color—a subtle shade of dusty rose you'd never see at Valu-Time.
That was the look of their whole house, Sundara decided. Fine quality worn to a comfortable familiarity. She had been in so few American homes—their sponsor's, and Kelly's, and the home of the people from the church who'd hosted their welcoming party. Those houses were nice, but they could not compare to this.
Off to the left of the entry way she could see the living room with its velvety, russet-toned furniture. And their plush carpeting—no plastic runners! You were free to walk right on it, let your tennis shoes sink deep into its softness. To the right, in the dining room, she was drawn toward a chandelier hung with bits of flashing glass that caught and scattered the morning sunlight into rainbows on the pale gold wallpaper.
It's almost a palace,
she thought. Yet Mrs. McKinnon did not act like a queen. And there were newspapers on the sofas, magazines and bills on the dining table. They treated it
as
if it were nothing special.
“Your family must live here for many generations,” Sundara whispered.
Jonathan laughed. “Not quite. We moved here when I was six. Before that we were up in Seattle while my dad did his residency.”
“Oh.” Hard to believe. It all looked so … established. “Your mother have to work hard to clean such a big house. She have so many pretty thing to dust off.”
“Well, we have a housekeeper who comes in.”
“You joking. A servant?”
“No, not a servant. Just somebody to vacuum and stuff. Of course, she can't do my room. It's too much of a mess.”
“But Jonatan, Fm shock!”
“Why? It's no big deal.”
“Oooh … but when we mention to our sponsor that we have servant in Cambodia she get kind of mad at us. ‘Just forget that,’ she say. ‘We don't have servant in America. People gonna frown about that!’ We so scared! Soka tell me never talk about that again.”
“Hmm. That's interesting. You didn't have a telephone or television, but you had servants.”
“Someone to help with the dishes is better than a television, I think. Then you have more time to play with the children or have a lot of friend over, listen to music. We never have enough time here. Just work, work, work.”
“That's why it's so good you decided to come today. You gotta have
some
fun. You work too hard. You're always lugging around that huge stack of books.”
“Now I never read, though” She laughed.
“That your
fault. Before, I study all the time at lunch. Now I probably flunk
everything”
She picked up a newspaper clipping from a pile on the dining table. “Oh, picture of you!”
“Yeah. Didn't you see that in the paper?”
She shook her head. Naro and Soka didn't take the paper. “But what is this?” She looked more closely at the large book that lay open beside the clippings. “Everything is about you?”
“ ‘Fraid so. It's a scrapbook. You know, for pasting things you want to save. My mom's been working on it since I was born. Didn't you do that in Cambodia?”
Sundara could only smile. The things worth saving could not be pasted in a book. Glue and paper could not preserve the comfort of familiar voices, the good smell of her mother cooking chicken with garlic and lemon grass over the charcoal stove …
She flipped through the pages. So many football pictures. “You famous” she said. “The book is so fat!”
“And this is the third volume. I wish my mom wouldn't get so carried away.”
“Why not? I think she like you a lot, want to spoil you.”
“Yeah, I guess, but sometimes I feel like she thinks my main job in life is to come up with stuff for these books.”
Perhaps it was because she had only one child, Sundara thought. Only one son on whom to lavish all her love.
“Does your mother have a job? My aunt say all American women have job.”
“Well, not really. But she's president of the League of Women Voters around here, so that takes a lot of time.”
“What is that? League of Women Voters?”
“Oh, they study politics, social problems and stuff.”
“Sound important.”
“I guess.”
Sundara was thinking about Soka. Maybe she only told Naro all women worked outside their homes so he would stop feeling so guilty about her having to do it.
“Here's the scrapbook I'm keeping for international relations.” He tapped a thinner book. “Clippings about Cambodia.”
Sundara flipped open the book and read one headline: CAMBODIANS STARVE BY THE THOUSANDS. She shut it.
Jonathan's father came down the wide stairs, his size surprising Sundara all over again. He had sprouted a few gray hairs in his neatly trimmed beard, yet in his casual clothes he seemed younger than he had four years ago, when she'd seen him only in his stiff white coat. He smiled. His brown eyes had lost none of their warmth.
“How are you, Sundara? How's that little cousin of yours?”
“Oh, he very well, thank you.” He remembered! “Hard to believe he ever so skinny.”
“Are we all ready, then?” Mrs. McKinnon asked, coming down after him. “Let's load up.”
At that moment Sundara caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror over the sideboard. She froze, startled by her own reflection. But why? Had she forgotten for a moment that her hair was black, her skin darker than theirs? How strangely out of place she looked.
Outside, they got into a jeep-type truck with an empty boat trailer behind it.
Sundara whispered to Jonathan, “My cousin Ravy really like this kind of car. He want to get one someday.”
“Yeah, the four-wheel drive is great, especially for going to the mountains. Maybe we could go skiing sometime. Want to?”
She nodded, overwhelmed. She could hardly believe she was actually going on this one trip with him today and he was already making
more
plans.
The rush of air by the open windows made conversation difficult, but it didn't matter. Sundara was caught up in her thoughts, anyway. What a risk she'd taken…. What if— Oh, forget Soka! If her aunt never learned of the lunches at school, how could she possibly hear about this? Besides, the decision was made now, and whatever the consequences, she was here, sitting beside Jonathan with the sun shining and the smell of autumn in the air. Why not enjoy it?
“Can you believe our luck?” Dr. McKinnon said when they pulled into the parking lot at the lake an hour later. “Practically got the whole place to ourselves.” The concession stand was boarded up. Only a few boats dotted the water. The sweeping lawns were all but deserted.
“Gorgeous weather for October,” Mrs. McKinnon said. “Sure does make it hard to pull the boat out.”
“Why must you?” Sundara followed them out onto the long wooden dock. “Does everyone have to?” She had noticed another boat being hooked up to a trailer at the launch, and many of the mooring places were empty.
“They've already started to let the water out,” Dr. McKinnon explained. “It's a man-made reservoir—irrigation in the summer, flood control in the winter.”
So much of America was man-made, Sundara thought, looking out over the smooth water. Imagine. Men even controlled the lakes and rivers. How different from the mighty Mekong, never bridged nor dammed, which rose so high in the rainy season, flooding the rice paddies with the melted snow of the far-off Himalayas, turning the Tonle Sap into an inland sea. That great lake drained itself in its
own
time.
“Welcome aboard the
Bonnie Loss,
Sundara.” Dr. Mc-Kinnon helped her step down into the boat and Jonathan guided her to the bench seat. They sat facing his parents.
“I'm afraid this won't be the most thrilling sail we've ever had,” Mrs. McKinnon said. “Not much wind.”
Thrilling enough, Sundara thought as Jonathan's shoulder came to rest against hers. The sails caught the slight breeze, easing the boat away from the dock.
Now they were under way. Without the business of loading and setting off to occupy them, the silence began to seem awkward.
“Well,” Mrs. McKinnon said, “it's really nice that you could come, Sundara.”
Sundara smiled. Once more she wished she could simply offer a Khmer-style bow. A respectful nod of the head. But Americans expected you to talk.
Jonathan's parents traded a quick question with their eyes. Maybe they didn't know what to say either.
Dr. McKinnon cleared his throat. “Jonathan's told us about how you got to America, having to spend all that time on the boat.” Another glance at his wife, a hesitation. Then he tried again. “The thing is, when you and your family came into the clinic that first time … I'm afraid I just didn't …
realize
…”
“Oh, I shouldn't complain about that,” Sundara said, rescuing him. “Many people have a much harder time. Some have to stay in a refugee camp for many month, even a year or two. And all the boat people coming now— compare to them, we so lucky.”
She paused. Dr. McKinnon seemed relieved to have her do the talking. They all seemed to be waiting for more.
“Like the story about the lady who cry to Buddha because of her bad luck. You know this one? He tell her that her trouble will go away if she bring a seed from a house that has never known sorrow. The next week he find her singing so happy. When the Enlightened One ask if she find the Seed of Happiness, she say, ‘No, Enlightened One. At every house I find trouble worse than my own. So I now believe I am truly quite fortunate.’ ”
They were all smiling at her. Obviously, they liked the story. And it did contain much wisdom. Look at the Mc-Kinnons. With all their blessings, even their house could not produce the Seed of Happiness. Not when their hopes for more children had been dashed so many times.
While they ate their sandwiches, Jonathan's parents started telling about different sails they'd taken, and teased each other with stories, like the time Dr. McKinnon jumped out to pull the boat to shore and went in over his head. He insisted on describing all the features of his boat, which meant nothing to Sundara, of course, no more than the boat's odd name:
Bonnie Lass.
Then Mrs. McKinnon gathered up the paper plates. “Jonathan tells us you want to be a doctor,” she said.
Sundara nodded, glancing at Jonathan, wondering if he'd also told them how much she admired his father. “My family want me to become a doctor so maybe someday I can go back to Cambodia with World Vision or the Red Cross.”
Dr. McKinnon's bushy eyebrows went up. “That's quite a goal.”
He seemed surprised. Maybe he didn't think she was smart enough. She still did not meet his eyes, but lifted her chin a little. “I am hoping to go to Stanford.”
“Good choice!”
They were all smiling at her again.
“We went there,”Mrs. McKinnon explained. “That's where we met.”
Sundara smiled back, grateful she had managed to say the right thing. So difficult sometimes! She liked the American ideal of everyone being equal—even a peanut farmer could be President—but at times like this she missed the strict rules one followed in Kampuchea. At home she would have known their respective ranks and spoken accordingly, but here it was all so treacherously free and loose. A person might make a terrible mistake without even knowing it. Show too much respect and they thought you cringing; not enough, and you were rebellious. For there
were
different ranks of people. She knew now that even the Americans divided their people into classes—they just didn't like to admit it by spelling out the rules.
“So your aunt and uncle are planning to put you through college?”
“Dad, what is this, the Inquisition?”