Demanded bribes. Drivers made U-turns as soon as they saw the police. People without arms and legs moved in the shadows of doorways, begging, sleeves turned up and neatly pinned over stumps ofarms, harder to beg without arms, a few lucky ones on metal legs, or maybe a heaven-sent three-wheeled bicycle.
I handed Sopheap my empty bowl, said, Juab kh’nia th’ngay krao-y.
She smiled, Have you been here long?
A few days.
How did you learn to speak Khmer?
I studied at home. It is the language of my ...
I searched for a word. I knew how to say brother, father, husband, but I had never learned a word for lover.
It is the language of the man I love, I said. I am looking for him.
It was ordinary that people were missing in this place. As ordinary as missing an arm or a leg.
Sopheap smiled her radiant smile and said, I hope you find him. Tell me what he looks like and I will watch for him. I see many people every day.
After that I went each morning for breakfast at Sopheap’s cart. She told me she was young during Pol Pot and her mother had managed to keep her but that her older brothers died and her father died. She met her husband in a refugee camp on the Thai border. Her mother had wanted to take her abroad but they were not accepted. And so they came back.
In the afternoons I went to the Foreign Correspondents’ Club. I liked the Parisian yellow bricks, the thwuck thwuck of the ceiling fans, the clean tablecloths, the stools at an open bar looking over the river and boulevard, colonial decadence. A Westerner arrives with a few dollars and lives like royalty and this unheard-of wealth is the first thing I shared with the foreigners at the FCC. Here I did not have to be lonely. Heresomeone was always telling stories. Here was rest from struggle on the streets. Among journalists and foreign aid workers and UN workers and backpackers, among the deliberate wanderers of the earth, there was no need to explain looking for a lost lover. Backpackers talked about bars and dope in Thailand, beaches in India, cathedrals in Europe, their mothers. They drifted through Phnom Penh, explored sex and skulls and temples, talked about going to the beaches in the south for New Year’s. Down on the street, children tossed chestnuts in a game called angkunh, and people decorated their tables and stores for the holidays with lotus flowers. From the rooftop of the FCC I looked in one direction over the palace and imagined what it must have been like to live in royal opulence, to attend orange and gold Buddhist processions, to celebrate the plowing on the full moon, and in the other direction I watched ordinary people on their terraces, a woman slaughtering a chicken for dinner, a teenager nursing her baby in a hammock.
17
On New Year’s Day the FCC was quiet. Most people had been invited somewhere or visited the temples to thank the old year’s angels, to welcome new angels. A man I had often seen came through the door. He was very tall with wide shoulders and a bit of a belly, strong forearms, sun-darkened skin. His brown eyes took detail in, and I had noticed him watching me. He bought a beer, came over and slid onto a stool beside me at the empty bar looking over the street. He said, Can I join you? It’s crowded in here.
From the beginning Will Maracle made me laugh.
I’m Will.
I’m Anne Greves.
He said, I see you here every afternoon.
I know.
Happy New Year.
And to you.
He set his glass down where it sweated a ring of water and said, What are you doing here?
I am looking for my lover.
Are you American?
I’m from Montreal.
Me too, near Montreal. Funny New Year’s without snow.
Funny New Year’s in April.
He flickered with a sweet light. There was a rhythm in his English I could not place. I asked, Where near Montreal?
Kahnawake.
That’s Montreal.
No it ain’t. It’s on the other side of the river.
He laughed his easy laugh and said, Why on god’s green earth are you looking for your
I handed Sopheap my empty bowl, said, Juab kh’nia th’ngay krao-y.
She smiled, Have you been here long?
A few days.
How did you learn to speak Khmer?
I studied at home. It is the language of my ...
I searched for a word. I knew how to say brother, father, husband, but I had never learned a word for lover.
It is the language of the man I love, I said. I am looking for him.
It was ordinary that people were missing in this place. As ordinary as missing an arm or a leg.
Sopheap smiled her radiant smile and said, I hope you find him. Tell me what he looks like and I will watch for him. I see many people every day.
After that I went each morning for breakfast at Sopheap’s cart. She told me she was young during Pol Pot and her mother had managed to keep her but that her older brothers died and her father died. She met her husband in a refugee camp on the Thai border. Her mother had wanted to take her abroad but they were not accepted. And so they came back.
In the afternoons I went to the Foreign Correspondents’ Club. I liked the Parisian yellow bricks, the thwuck thwuck of the ceiling fans, the clean tablecloths, the stools at an open bar looking over the river and boulevard, colonial decadence. A Westerner arrives with a few dollars and lives like royalty and this unheard-of wealth is the first thing I shared with the foreigners at the FCC. Here I did not have to be lonely. Heresomeone was always telling stories. Here was rest from struggle on the streets. Among journalists and foreign aid workers and UN workers and backpackers, among the deliberate wanderers of the earth, there was no need to explain looking for a lost lover. Backpackers talked about bars and dope in Thailand, beaches in India, cathedrals in Europe, their mothers. They drifted through Phnom Penh, explored sex and skulls and temples, talked about going to the beaches in the south for New Year’s. Down on the street, children tossed chestnuts in a game called angkunh, and people decorated their tables and stores for the holidays with lotus flowers. From the rooftop of the FCC I looked in one direction over the palace and imagined what it must have been like to live in royal opulence, to attend orange and gold Buddhist processions, to celebrate the plowing on the full moon, and in the other direction I watched ordinary people on their terraces, a woman slaughtering a chicken for dinner, a teenager nursing her baby in a hammock.
17
On New Year’s Day the FCC was quiet. Most people had been invited somewhere or visited the temples to thank the old year’s angels, to welcome new angels. A man I had often seen came through the door. He was very tall with wide shoulders and a bit of a belly, strong forearms, sun-darkened skin. His brown eyes took detail in, and I had noticed him watching me. He bought a beer, came over and slid onto a stool beside me at the empty bar looking over the street. He said, Can I join you? It’s crowded in here.
From the beginning Will Maracle made me laugh.
I’m Will.
I’m Anne Greves.
He said, I see you here every afternoon.
I know.
Happy New Year.
And to you.
He set his glass down where it sweated a ring of water and said, What are you doing here?
I am looking for my lover.
Are you American?
I’m from Montreal.
Me too, near Montreal. Funny New Year’s without snow.
Funny New Year’s in April.
He flickered with a sweet light. There was a rhythm in his English I could not place. I asked, Where near Montreal?
Kahnawake.
That’s Montreal.
No it ain’t. It’s on the other side of the river.
He laughed his easy laugh and said, Why on god’s green earth are you looking for your
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