The Rent Collector (27 page)

My hands began to tremble, causing the shaking eggs to click nervously against one another, till I was certain all of them would break. I glanced at Samnang. Ignoring the warm steel barrel ready to end his existence at any moment, his gaze shifted rapidly about the room, and I could tell he wasn’t just weighing the gravity of the situation but also processing possibilities for escape. My breathing quickened. Did he really have a way out?

I’d often taught my students, many no older than the boyish soldiers who held us captive, that words are powerful. “Life-changing!” I would say as I’d lecture to the class. “Words demand justice, encourage freedom, change minds, and soften hearts—and words save.”

What I didn’t understand was that in spite of their power, word meanings are sometimes hidden or disguised. I also didn’t anticipate the words my husband would speak next.

“Soriyan, it’s okay. Come here. If we are to die, let it be together.”

With the threat of death looming, Samnang called out across the room toward me. Only he wasn’t looking at me. Rather, he was staring intently at our young peasant housekeeper, Sopeap Sin. She may have been a clumsy girl, but she wasn’t stupid. In an instant, her puzzlement jelled into understanding. She grasped what he was asking, what he was hoping.

She looked toward me for just a moment, as if to seek my approval. As our eyes connected, I expected to see a reflection of my fear. Instead, her face shone with confidence. Normally, when we spoke, she looked toward the ground. Not today—and our gaze shared words, silent words: “I am just a clumsy peasant girl, a housekeeper, who has often let you down. But today, I will finally make things right. I will make my family proud, and I will make you proud. No matter what happens, I will not spill the eggs again today.”

And then she made her decision without me.

When Samnang called my name a second time, Sopeap was quick with her reply.

“I’m coming.”

With calmness and assurance, as if she were a princess in the king’s palace, she strode toward him.

The soldier behind Samnang furrowed his brow in confusion and then cast a glance at another, perhaps his superior. Sopeap didn’t offer either man time for mental debate. The girl I’d berated moments before carried herself like a woman of culture, a wife, a mother, a queen.

In turn, I, her teacher, stood frozen, desperately clutching my half-basket of eggs.

If Sopeap expected the guns that tracked her to fire, she never let it show. The guns remained silent. My heart wanted to leap from my chest and protest, but instead, my will cowered in silent fear.

When she reached my husband, he calmly ignored the threat of a gun against his head, stood, and pulled Sopeap close. As he did, the soldier’s focus shifted away from me and toward them. My husband’s plan—one that my mind was finally comprehending—was working. And when Samnang was certain, in his grasp of Sopeap, that the soldiers couldn’t read his expression, he stole a glance in my direction.

His eyes assured that this was the best choice, the only choice—and his soft gaze offered a silent good-bye.

Words are powerful. I could have used them to call out, “No, this is not right. I am Soriyan. I am his wife. I am only holding this basket of eggs because the housekeeper was too clumsy.” But in my cowardice, I said nothing.

She could have called out. “Don’t harm me. I am Sopeap Sin. I am just a villager. They are the educated ones. They are the ones you seek.”

But in her bravery, she said nothing.

Boom!

The bullet from the young soldier’s gun sent Samnang reeling backward; blood spattered across our furniture; soldiers laughed.

“No!” I screamed, opening my mouth for the first time and letting my basket of eggs scatter across the floor.

Boom! Boom!

Sopeap twisted sideways, first from a shot to her chest, and then from another that entered her head just above her ear. Her limp body slumped over Samnang’s.

And then our baby, asleep in the back bedroom, began to cry.

All six soldiers turned, startled at the unforeseen interruption. I tried to step forward but was grabbed around the neck as others readied their weapons to fire.

“Don’t kill the child,” I pleaded. “I will take him.”

The soldier nearest the bedroom headed toward the cry first.

Boom!—and the cries of my child ceased.

The deafening sound of the gunfire in the bedroom served as the impetus for my body to begin heaving deep, convulsive breaths. The walls and ceiling began to constrict, bend, and sway. The soldiers yelled commands, but I couldn’t understand their words as their voices distorted into strange and meaningless clamor. Though I tried to remain standing, my legs buckled beneath me and I collapsed onto the hard tile floor.

“End it now. Please, end my life now,” I sobbed to no one listening.

If they understood my pleas, they didn’t obey. Their aim wasn’t to kill the peasants or farmers, but rather the educated. And as far as they were concerned, the only person left alive in my home that day was a clumsy, illiterate housekeeper. To them, I was just Sopeap Sin—and so that is who I became.

Two days later, I was marched out of the city with hundreds of thousands of refugees. Only in farming could we serve the good of the new society. I was relocated to the district of Khum Speu where I was assigned to a group growing rice. The Khmer Rouge would lead Cambodia back to a better time, a time before Western culture had corrupted society, a time when farming flourished and the worker ruled—and they would do it by force.

I had read essays describing the horrors of genocide committed during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. I had lectured on Jewish literature detailing the atrocities carried out by Hitler. I had read the words in my head but never comprehended their depth in my heart—until I lived them. Only later would I realize that there are no words harsh enough, no paragraphs wide enough, no books deep enough to convey the weight of true human sorrow.

Every day I expected to die. “Traitors of the society” were identified, trucked away, and massacred. After all, in the new Cambodia, in the perfect Khmer Rouge society, there would be no need for the educated—no doctors, no lawyers, no mechanics, no engineers, no drivers, no merchants, no students, and certainly no teachers. I watched children starving, old people being beaten to death with sticks, entire families being branded as traitors and murdered because a distant relative had once visited America.

It was utter insanity.

By the time the Vietnamese army overthrew the regime four years later, well over a million innocent people had been brutally exterminated. Those of us still alive had been bruised in more sinister ways.

I eventually made my way back to the city—but life was different. Just as my home in Phnom Penh had been destroyed, I was also damaged beyond recognition. I mostly lived on the streets, sometimes hoping to heal, but mostly drinking to forget.

Then, in 1995, I found my way to the river Stung Meanchey and I let it swallow me. It felt tolerable, perhaps even comfortable, as a place for old, discarded, and spoiled things to finish out their existence—even if that thing was me. Still I remained Sopeap Sin, it being less painful to never look back. I swore silence and waited for my story to fade away with the stories of others, a heartbreak too full of shame to ever share. But then another illiterate, backward girl from the province reminded me that even tragedies offer lessons worth repeating.

Pay attention to my final lesson, Sang Ly.

I could have saved the life of Sopeap Sin, my housekeeper, but I stayed silent. I have been paying the price ever since. Be careful in your choices. Consequences, good or bad, will always follow.

I offer my final good-bye, Sang Ly.

From your teacher,

Sopeap Sin

“No!” I scream as I finish reading Sopeap’s last words. “You are wrong! That is not the lesson. That is
not
the lesson!”

I dry my cheeks on my shirt. My fingers tremble. Ki rushes from the back of the house to my side, though all he can do is wait for my explanation.

“Her name is not Sopeap Sin,” I cry, shaking my head in disbelief. I speak the words a second time, as if repeating them will add more understanding to all who now listen. “Her name is Soriyan, not Sopeap Sin.”

Teva Mao tilts her head as she tries to make sense of my ranting.

“Sopeap Sin was her housekeeper,” I say.

“Her housekeeper? What does that mean?” Ki asks.

My resolve has never been greater. “It means we must find her before it’s too late. She’s the teacher and she doesn’t even understand her own lesson. We must find her! Will you help me?”

Chapter Twenty-Six

Though I know that my teacher’s real name is Soriyan, I continue to call her Sopeap Sin. Not only does it seem fitting, but it’s too difficult to explain the situation to others who won’t understand.

Mother volunteers to trek across the dump to visit Sopeap’s home again. She returns to announce that nobody answered and the neighbors confirmed that they had watched her leave. No surprise. I continue to read through the essays, though my eyes grow tired and, once the sun sets, I’m not certain I’ll be able to continue by lamplight. The stories are entertaining and enlightening, though not all are happy. Some make me laugh, others border on the tragic, all teach important lessons—perfect literature. A number of the lessons are evident; most are hidden deep beneath the layers—so typical of Sopeap.

There is a story about the first year of her marriage and it makes me smile. Each morning she wrestles with her husband so as to not be the last one up, as they have an agreement that the last person out of the bed has to make it—and it teaches me about endearing love.

There is a story about a roommate with whom she lives in college while attending a university in Boston. The girl makes an elaborate quilt with her sisters for their ninety-five-year-old grandmother, but when they present the quilt, the old woman is so surprised, she has a heart attack and dies—and it teaches me about irony.

There is a story about two desperate parents who trade a child they can’t afford to feed for a bicycle, so that the father can ride to work. However, both the bicycle and the child end up at the dump. She calls the child
Lucky
—and I can’t help but wonder.

There is a lesson on poetry with an untitled work from Sopeap that teaches me about anguish and how simple verse provides a glimpse into our souls.

*****

I scream in the dark at my weakness, with disdain not heard.

I seethe at my failure in the daylight, hidden by an impenetrable wall never seen.

I shed tears of shame in quiet moments that race to my lips, and only I taste.