Beyond The Road

In a café on the outskirts of Little India, I sat across from four men. There was a pot of coffee on the table between us, as well as some pastries that looked as if they had been baked the day before. The gleam coming off the metal from the machines behind the barista’s counter gave everything in the room a faint color of orange. There was a hiss as the machines were operated and momentary signs of traffic from beyond the glass walls that allowed us to peer into the outside world. The chairs were very comfortable as well. All of us at the table were travelers passing through the modern port of Singapore. The city with its skyscrapers carved out of a tropical island was a brief rest, a taste of civilization before anyone moved on to rougher parts. But these men were in a league of their own. I could not compete with them, nor would I ever want to.

Each of us wore the clothes best befitting a traveler. There was a casual, non-descript look about us enough to give the impression of rumpled worldliness. I had just finished doing my laundry, and lacking an iron I had the distinguished honor of being called a man who had been “shot with the wrinkle gun.” In contrast, my newfound compatriots looked immaculate in their appearance as if they had spent hours working, planning, coordinating their outfits with each other. Instead of the professional migrants that they were, they looked more scholarly. If you had met them yourself, perhaps you would have assumed that they had recently embarked upon a lengthy sabbatical. Yellow and red beards sprouted from their faces, with exception of one who merely kept his sideburns long. Just from looking at them, I could not imagine these four figures in any kind of professional setting. They would look comical if they dressed in suits. They discussed literature, and all of them carried books around in their satchels. One of them even held an MFA, which I was a little jealous of because I have always thought of myself as a writer. I was never good enough at it to support myself, and here was a man who earned his daily bread from his pen.

It is true. I was jealous of this man, but that same feeling should really be extended to the whole group. With their beards, their clothes, and their habits, they all looked as if they might have been one person who split into four different pieces. I suspect the original man from which they had split from had had too big a personality to be confined within a single individual. Most likely he had split into pieces the way a cell does during a film presentation of mitosis. The bond of having once come from the same entity probably kept them from separating. They needed each other to do different tasks. Like both parts of the brain need to work together, the same could be said for this group of men. Each of them took responsibilities for various tasks that needed to be done such as the buying of maps and the planning of routes. The writer of the group was responsible for recording all the stories from their expeditions so that he could write them down later and publish. This was how they supported themselves. To see them in action was to see different parts of the same organism working together. I could not imagine a situation in which they could be parted from each other, for the group would surely break down as a whole and the four of them would die. This is how much a part of each other’s lives they were.

I met the group during a brief stay in Singapore. My English teaching position in the Malay Peninsula was coming to a close, and I was exploring the region for other opportunities. The group of travelers was staying at the same youth hostel as I was, and they introduced themselves to me in one of the shared dormitories. Singapore was an appropriately exotic place to meet such a group that defined itself by traveling to as many countries as humanly possible. The morning after I had checked in they invited me to café across the street for breakfast, which was where we all sat and started to talk at length about our various trips to the corners of the earth. Almost immediately they started to list the cities they had traveled to with as much ease as a person recounting the members of their extended family: Bangkok, Jakarta, Sydney, Buenos Aires, Timboktu, Fez, Zurich, Moscow, Cairo, Baghdad, Mumbai, Bhopal, Chengdu, the list was simply endless. They had ridden camels and donkeys when it had suited them, and flown in jets and hot air balloons when they deemed it absolutely necessary. For the most part, I gathered that they simply liked to walk or ride the bus as much as possible.

It was hard to imagine that there were any places where they had not been. As they talked, I listened and looked at all of them carefully. As the sun rose, the light changed from red to yellow as it painted their beards and faces. It was early, but none of them seemed the least bit tired as they munched on bagels and muffins. They explained how they lived and how they functioned as a group, but any question I asked about their origins was immediately ignored. They might have agreed with you if you accused them of having spontaneously appeared out of thin air one day. As if these people were not strange enough, none of them knew where they were going.

“We’ve been on the road for as long as we can remember. Who is to say that we were even born or had a life before this one?”

“But you must have a passport, or some country of origin? Surely you cannot simply walk across the Chinese border and say, ‘Hey everyone, here I am!’”

“We have ways of getting around passports and visas and such. It is not easy, but it works. Besides, we have no country that we could call our home.” This was all a little ridiculous, but I was willing to listen to them just to be entertained.

The writer spoke up. “It has been a long time since we began our journey, and it will be longer still before we end it.”

I looked at them with an incredulous expression that they must have seen nearly a thousand times before. “How can you keep going like this? I’ve only managed to do two or three weeks of travel before I had to call it quits. Not knowing where your next meal was coming from, always trying to find a bed before dark, it was exhausting. Besides, after you’ve been to a few hundred cities, doesn’t every place on earth begin to look alike? How have you kept it up for so long?”

The leader of the group spoke up. He was the tallest, and his beard was the largest. “There are not many people who can continue on as we do. We’ve heard questions like yours before, but we still can’t answer them to anyone’s satisfaction. It helps that we have very few needs except for one: the feeling that we are in motion and heading off towards someplace new. Hearing the sound of an engine beneath our feet or the sound of waves crashing against a hull is a feeling that has a greater affect on us than most people. To know that we are hurtling like a bullet towards the unknown is everything that we live for.” The group nodded to each other, and I had no choice but to admire the simplicity of their existence. Everything except the voyage was a trivial matter to them. They were not bogged down with careers, family, or any concern for the opposite sex. A good day’s journey was all that they needed to stay happy.

When we decided that it was time for all of us to leave, they asked me if I wanted to come with them. They could always use an additional partner in tough situations, and they said they had often traveled with others before because it gave them company. I declined, even though I wanted to join them very badly. I knew that I could not keep up that life for very long, and that I would die of exhaustion and want of a home after a few years. They understood when I told them this, and without making a fuss we made our goodbyes. When they filed down the road, I watched them walk for a little while until they disappeared.

They were monks of the open road. And I envied them for it.

Tiger and Ox

Once, while I was in a brief trip to Singapore, I had the pleasure of attending a concert given by a Chinese youth orchestra. The reason for my hearing their performance was completely accidental. I was wandering around the city looking for some form of distraction, and I happened to stumble upon a public square full of people watching a red colored stage. It was the month of Chinese New Year after all, and I gathered that this was in some way connected the celebration. I arrived during the middle of one piece, but as soon as it ended a woman in a splendid red dress came to the center of the stage with a microphone. She began to give us a description of the following piece, but since it was in Chinese I grew disinterested in the sounds of so many tones falling and rising. Suddenly there was English with faint lingering on British vowels: “For our last piece this evening, ladies and gentlemen, we would like to present the traditional Chinese work ‘The Ox and Tiger.’ The music depicts a battle between these two animals. Who do you think will win? The tenacious ox or the fearsome tiger? Listen carefully, and you will soon know!” I listened to the music eagerly, but neither the movements of the performers, the prolonged tremolos in the music, nor the rattling of gongs and drums provided me with any clues as to who had won the battle. If I absolutely had to guess, I would say that there was a draw between the two animals. The two forces were forces of an eternal struggle for balance and order, and their contention fit well within the confines of an Eastern philosophy. There was no victor in this particular battle, which was settling in some way, but when I returned to my life and home in Cambodia I soon found the answer as to who would eventually win.

At the public high school in Bott where I taught English, there were two were two different teachers with whom I worked. Mr. Vannak was the ox. Stalwart, trustworthy, and hard working, he was faithful to his friends and his students as he was uxorious to his wife. He divided his time between the classroom and the school offices, and carried out his duties there faithfully and without error. Everyone adored him, and I considered myself grateful to be counted as one among his friends. In fact, I could think of no better praise for him than to be called “Vannak the American.” The man often blushed when I said this, and I often wondered if I had accidentally called him a traitor. He loved his country, as most Khmers do, and perhaps being called a foreigner was not something that he reacted well to. I never asked him, but he was far too polite to ever tell me that I had offended him.

Every morning, I would see him ride into school on his motorbike. His shirts were always clean, and his head was always groomed. He would lead the flag ceremony every morning, barking at the students to stand to attention and to sing the national anthem with some degree of enthusiasm. It was a valiant effort he gave very day, even though the students would simply mumble through the words and march sleepily off to their classrooms. Never the less, he was always there.

The antithesis to Mr. Vannak was Mr. Bunhoan. Where the former was sober and alert every morning, the latter was hung-over and sleepy. He always up for morning assembly, but his clothes were dirty, rumpled, and reeked of alcohol. If this was not enough, his hair was unkempt, and he sported an adolescent looking mustache that he swore made women want him badly. Bunhoan would walk to class and teach his morning classes, but by the middle of the after noon he was raving drunk. He bought beer when he could afford it, but his main source of liquor came from a dark red concoction of rice wine. If being an alcoholic was not bad enough, the man was incredibly indiscreet about his habit. I suspect that there was something in that homebrew he bought that made him more than a little mad. On most afternoons he could be seen lying in his hammock underneath a cluster of trees that were just outside our classroom buildings. For his own amusement, he would sing loudly and shout the most obscene nonsense to anyone who passed by. He was only harmless if not provoked. During an afternoon class I paused the lesson to go and have a chat with Bunhoan. When I politely asked him in his own language to pipe down his infernal racket, he rose from his hammock with a stick and threatened to hit me with it. I backed away slowly and started mumbling calm entreaties, but as soon as he heard me speak he fell to the ground in a heap of laughter. Of course I complained to the other teachers, but what was there to be done about it? The school director thought the man highly amusing, and kept him on the payroll as long as he caused no significant trouble. However, Bunhoan’s antics caused me no end of trouble, and I often found myself in Vannak’s office complaining about it.

It was afternoon after the stick incident that I felt particularly incensed. “But surely something has to be done about this! We can’t go on like this? Today he threatens me with a stick, tomorrow he goes and smashes a bottle over someone’s head. The man needs help.”

Vannak was looking at some of the files on his desk. He was slumped over in his chair, and I suspect he had not listened to a word I had said. “Oh…I don’t know…”

“But doesn’t it make you make you mad? I mean, you and I have to listen to that prattle through class, and its hard as hell to talk over, not to mention distracting.”

“You only think that because you are a foreigner. You are not used to Cambodian people.” I hated this reply. It was the standard answer to everything that made me mad or frustrated in this country, but it did not make it true.

“The culture and the people be damned! The man’s an alcoholic!” Vannak did not understand that word. I explained what I meant, but once he understood the meaning of it he dismissed its importance. His mind fell back to the papers on his desk. I fell into a state of defeated lassitude, and as I sat there I remembered the story of the ox and tiger.

“Vannak, if you witnessed a battle between an ox and a tiger, which animal do you think would win?”

Vannak looked up from his papers, stared off into space for a moment, and gave his answer very slowly. “Tiger. A tiger would win.”

“I was hoping you would say ox.” I could see that Vannak was busy, and that my being there was just a distraction. With that, I went off to lunch.

Despite Vannak’s reluctance to act, I was convinced that action was needed. I knew that Vannak would not act against Bunhoan unless he had some kind of personal reason to. Any motive he possessed would have to be reasonable, and would have to exclude the school director and myself. Having the boss involved was always a sure path to having unintended consequences. When I ate my usual lunch of chicken soup and rice, I thought of countless ways in which I could embarrass the drunken Bunhoan in such a way that he would have to be reprimanded by most of the teachers, including the school director and Vannak. But no matter how hard I thought, the plans that I came up with were ridiculous and intrinsically juvenile. The best I could come up with was simply trying to move Bunhoan while he was safe within the realm of inebriated slumber into compromising positions. For example, someone discovering a naked, drunken teacher on the floor of the women’s dormitory would put pressure on someone like Vannak to act out of sheer embarrassment for the guy. I could almost imagine the delicious lashing that the man would be given. “Bunhoan!” they would scream at him, “This time you have gone too far!” I sat at my usual restaurant gnawing at some chicken bones while I played out the scene again and again. Of course, I had sense enough to realize that this plan and others like it were childish and doomed to failure if I ever tried to carry them out. By the time I had finished eating, I had slumped into my plastic chair. Defeated by my own schemes, I decided that there was ultimately nothing to be done about this man. I was simply going to have to live with Bunhoan during the time I had left in the country and that I had better find ways of coping with it. It was not easy, but it was the best resolution I could come up with.

Bunhoan died the next day. Naturally I felt awful at having thought terrible things about him, when it was obvious that his habits were a disease. We all took solace in the fact that he had died in his sleep, and it did not appear to have suffered much. It was still strange though. Usually one thinks of the elderly dying in their sleep near the end of a long life, and not someone who was thirty four. Bunhoan had looked maybe ten to fifteen years older than he was, but this did not add anything to the tragedy. I never found out what the exact cause of death was, but I imagine that the alcohol he had consumed the night before had numbed him to whatever had done him in. The last time I saw him, he was in his hammock, the same one he used to set up over by the trees. I might have thought that he was asleep if someone had not told me that he was dead. A car came later that morning and took down the laterite road to his own village. His funeral and cremation services were all held there and I never saw him again.

When the sun had risen later that afternoon, I walked into Vannak’s office feeling tired, dejected, and sweaty. My friend was typing something on his computer, and I was not in the mood for talking. Instead of taking my usual seat across from his desk, I chose one in a dark corner where I could sit undisturbed. After some quiet moments looking at the floor, I looked up to see two geckos dancing rapidly across the whitewashed wall in front of me. Vannak paused from typing and room grew eerily silent when the lizards had gone. He spoke without looking at me.

“I think I was maybe wrong when I answered your question.”

“What?” I had not the slightest clue as to what he was talking about.

“The ox would win. I think maybe the tiger would lose.”

I looked at him with an incredulous expression on my face that he did not bother to look at. Some moments later I realized exactly what he was talking about. The ox, slow, patient, hard working and reliable had defeated the tiger. The latter had been too quick to jump at everything that life had offered him to eat, and was now reduced to a pile of ashes. The ox, on the other hand, sat calmly in his office, working away and enjoying the luxury of time that life had to offer him. He needed not to fight the tiger, just outlast him.

I studied Vannak’s face for a smile, but it never came. Such a thing would have been inappropriate for either one of us, despite our differences in culture. Instead, we both excused ourselves while citing the work that we both had to get back to.

Witchika Does Not Like Rice

Witchika does not like rice. “Eat rice,” his father says calmly. Two hands place a bowl of steaming white rice before him on the wooden table, but he does not look up. Another pair gives him a hard-boiled egg. Witchika moves forward in his chair and picks up a fork. He pokes at the rice, and then at the egg. The supple white surface now looks like it has suffered several puncture wounds. Witchika looks around at the other members of his family, and then at me. We are all taking soup out of a large communal bowl and dishing it into our bowls. Witchika is not ready for this kind of food yet, so he mostly eats eggs instead. Still, everyone is eating rice. He looks down at the bowl before him and stares at it. Perhaps he refuses to eat on a matter of principle? Only five years old, and he is beginning to form the idea that rice is a symbol of his place in society. The rejection of it means that he does not have to be a prisoner of his social class. In fact, the freedom to eat anything he wants could be part of a movement. The Witchika revolt! Freedom for the palate! I secretly support his rejection of the staple. “I’m not very fond of eating rice every day either,” I want to say to him right there and then. However, the bowl of rice before me must be emptied simply for appearances sake, so I give him a smile instead.

He turns to face the blaring television, which is far more interesting than eating. His body is facing his bowl, but his head is now turned to his right. The soft eyes are watching the flickering images of a dancing troupe from Phnom Penh. Mother notices that he is not eating and repeats the same command, only much louder. Still he will not eat. Good, Witchika, hold fast and stick to your guns. Mother grows angry. Perhaps she has had a bad day at the primary school? Something has happened which has affected her temper. She stands up and tears off a piece of straw from the thatched roof above her. Her face reveals nothing about what she is about to do. She walks over to her son. Witichika does not see the threat coming in time for him to retreat. He is still watching the television when a soft blow comes down on his hands.

Witchika cries in pain. Quickly, he dislodges himself from the table and runs for safety. Mother emits a guttural rising pitch of indignation and follows chase. Bory and I look up from our meal and exchange glances and nervous smiles. The scene has become too farcical to ignore. Mother and Witchika are locked into circumnavigating the table. The boy’s small yellow pajamas make for an easy target, and his little legs cannot outrun her for very long. Witchika is upset and tired. He finally sits down with his back resting against a wooden pole and begins to cry. His tears are hot and his wails can be heard from far away. Poor Witchika! His brothers are laughing at the scene, but his parents are stony faced. Their eyes are focused on their bowls of rice and soup. The crying enervates him to the point where he can go on no longer. His strategy has saved him from more blows, but he is now back where he started. He rejoins the group and sits down at the table. “Eat rice,” his father calmly tells him. His tone is didactic. Witchika picks up his fork and spoon and begins to carve up the egg resting on the edge of the bowl. A saucer of fried meat is brought over for him from one of his brothers, but he takes no notice. His concentration is fixed. Witchika’s egg is now divided into three equal pieces. He picks up one, covered in sticky rice, and puts it into his mouth with his fingers. He washes it down with a couple of pieces of fried meat. Witchika does not know that his cheeks now have many grains of rice on them.

I ask him what kind of meat he is eating. He tells me it is pork. I ask him if I might have some of his delicious pork, and he gives me the whole saucer. I take one small piece, and politely offer the rest of it back to him. He needs the protein more than I do. He does not care to eat the rest. The dogs will eat what he has not eaten after the meal.

Witchika is not afraid of anything, except mother. He practices his fighting skills in the front yard of our house. He is usually by himself. Mother is usually at school or at the boh-boah stand across the street, and Father is usually at work. For the most part, Witchika plays in his own world. When he brings out his toy trucks or monsters, I play with him. However, his war games are much too dangerous to participate in.

Here he is with his legs are spread apart and bent at the knees. His hands are ready and cocked in fighting position. One fist is held ready at his ear, and the other is at the other end of his extended arm. In an instant, his legs will jut forward and his fist will punch the air in front of him. Watch carefully. There he goes! A few more punches and he finishes the combination with a kick in the air and a yell. I take a break from my Khmer studies and watch. The television, which is always on, starts to broadcast a program about ghosts and the supernatural. I ask Witchika if he is afraid of ghosts. “No,” he tells me, “ghosts are afraid of me.” Don’t you wish you had that kind of pluck at his age? He goes for one of his favorite toys. It is a plastic gun with two red barrels on the end, a banana clip, and a little fireman that sits on the top just before the sights. When you press the trigger, the voice commands, “Fire!” I have always wondered about that toy. Is it a gun or a firefighting device? Father once heard the sound of an AK-47 on the television, and recognized it at once. He lived through the war, but Witchika knows nothing about it.

Sometimes his bravado can get the best of him. Here he is now playing with the little girl from the house across the street. They are both lying in the dirt, and the little girl is looking idly at the trees above her. Witchika is playing with a big, red blow-up airplane, but he is suddenly looking at the little girl. Without her noticing, he reaches up and hits his companion with the airplane. She is too shocked for words. Witchika hits her again, and the little girl’s hair is messed up. Her cheeks start to swell up, and she cries as he runs for the safety of her mother. She is picked up, caressed, and brought out of harm’s way. Witchika suffers no rebuke from her. Witchika smiles with delight at this act, his brown head held high.

But here comes mother.

Sam On The Near Side

Dear Eleanor,

I’m trying to imagine you reading this letter. You’ve probably picked it up from beneath the spillage of magazines and utility bills below the mail slot, and hidden it somewhere in your bedroom. I’m guessing you’ll save it until Sunday morning when you can read it over coffee, store-bought pastries, and the Times (are you still afraid of our beloved Post?) I suspect it is still cold over there this time of year. You’ve wrapped yourself in that pink bathrobe that I once said made you look like a famous panther (have I been forgiven for that?). You probably don’t notice them, but I’m imagining the sounds and smells of our beloved city in the background. The white noise around your brick house on university hill is painting an image in my head. It’s beautiful, but probably inaccurate due to outdated information.

I know, I haven’t written in a while. My output of letters these days is not what it used to be, which is sad because I’ve missed the sound of my pen against cheap, course, Chinese paper. When I first arrived in this place, I was writing volumes of letters to friends and family back in the “world,” as I started calling it (I think I read the term in book somewhere). They were well received, and so I kept writing more of them. It seemed that the people who read them were thrilled to read something about the strange, distant, and exotic. A friend from university once called me, “Sam On The Far Side,” in response to a rather lengthy essay about the great distances I traveled. However, as life became less exotic and more ordinary, my writing turned into something less interesting to my audience. The responses slowed to a trickle until I received no news from the “world” at all. It did not matter to me very much at the time. By that point I was so engrossed in what I was doing over here that I didn’t care about what was happening over there. However, I decided yesterday that I should write one last series of letters. And who better to write to than you, dear friend?

The farm is still as fertile as our last correspondence. The various, ingenious mechanical inventions we installed on it have allowed us to increase production tenfold. I wish you could see this place, I really do. Even after all of these years of living here, the beauty of the land has not diminished at all for me. I go walking throughout my little kingdom every evening at dusk, and I inhale the sensory exhilaration from all that comes near. The red sun hovers above the black lines of coconut trees scattered on the horizon as I stroll through the fields. Near our small orchard, the cows are sitting down. Their white, long faces reveal fatigue and desire for rest. Even the chickens in the coop near the house are silent. They know they’d better go to sleep before the rooster wakes them up at the crack of dawn. Only when the dim light fades, do I make my way towards the house. The cool air slides past my rolled up sleeves, and my sandals move silently upon the dirt. Can you picture me as a farmer? You said once that you could barely picture me as a teacher. It’s true, I did love the nightclubs, early morning coffee, and fast moving trains in my previous youthful life, but I wouldn’t trade this land for anything. The feelings I have for this patch of earth has grown and developed over the years, and yet it is this land that will be the cause of my eventual ruin.

I’m dying, El. The fecund nature of the climate has created within me a kind of rot that is eating me from within (I always thought that there was something sinister sounding about the word “bio-diversity”). It’s a slow and painful process. The native people developed thick, waterproof skins a long time ago in order to protect them from such diseases. The same cannot be said of men whose ancestors wrapped themselves in bearskins to fend off the cold. I tried to keep myself clean and dry as best I could, but ultimately it was no use. My body was penetrated by the rot some years ago, and has lay dormant until now. I can feel it coursing through my veins, and choosing a target from where it will eventually spread to other parts of my body. Who knew that an environment capable of creating such beauties as the lotus flower would prove to be so fatal?

I haven’t sought Western medical treatment for it because I know that what I have is beyond even their powers to heal. You always worried about my health, and I hate that I am telling you this now after all the advice you gave me over the years. You must believe me that I did take care of myself as best I could. Consider this an unintended consequence of a tropical lifestyle. No matter. I’m proud of what I have done here. Have you ever heard of a man stripping himself of all his former habits and customs as I have done? D.H. Lawrence, eat your heart out. I’m telling you, Eleanor, it’s something I had dreamed of doing, and now I’ve done it. What does it matter if it has cost me a life? What I have done is so much greater.

The height of the hot season is coming up on us rather quickly, and I’m forced to write these letters at my desk during the cool of night before I succumb to the darkness and fatigue. I’ll write more when my strength returns to me. You wouldn’t believe how terrible this season can be. Imagine our summers in the city, only with no ice, air-conditioning, fans, or anything else like that. I once tried to install a bicycle powered ceiling fan in our house, but it did not make any sense because I would have to work up a great deal of sweat before it would really begin to work. If you have any ideas as to how to keep cool, let me know. I’m always open to suggestions. Enjoy your winter.

Cheers,
-Sam


Eleanor,

It’s truly a damn nuisance when you can’t walk. The rot has installed itself in my feet at long last, and I can barely get around the house without a great deal of pain. My wife (yes, I’m married El, but I know that you are not the least bit jealous) is quite beside herself. She insists on being my nurse, but I would rather not have her see me in my present state. On most days, I send her to the market to sell some of the fruits and vegetables we have grown in one of our gardens. I think she knows that I don’t want her to see me suffer and stumble about in my debilitated state, and that I’m constantly sending her away on purpose. She still goes to the market anyway. Her friends are there. They can console her in ways that a husband never could.

We don’t have any children, and it is impossible for us to have any now. The part of me that the disease killed off first was actually the part that would have made that possible. My wife, I think, was the most disappointed by this development. I think she desired a child from me so that she would have had something to remember me by when I’ve been eaten alive. She never told me, of course. Her expressionless face is still hard to read after some odd years of marriage, but I’ve known her long enough to know when she wants to tell me something, but can’t. Our dinners together have been kept in the normal and unintentional silence as a result. She always wanted children, and I can’t blame her for that. A childless marriage is looked down upon over here, and I’m sure all a neighbor would have to do is look at her with a hard glare to say, “Why no children?”

The people know now, of course, the reason for this. Nothing is ever kept secret here. There have been several attempts to cure me through their knowledge of traditional medicine and contact through the spirit world (You shouldn’t look down upon the power of superstition!). On one occasion, the elders came to my house to try and exorcise the evil demons from my infected body. A troupe of six men and women arrived, and brought with them the instruments of supernatural torture. First they took a glass teacup and put it within the coals of our woodstove until the edges of it glowed red. Then, using forceps, they placed it on my skin squarely in the middle of my forehead. I felt the searing heat down into the back of my eyes. I screamed, and they said this was good because the demons were reacting to the pain through me as a vessel. They then scraped my entire body with a rough sort of coin until the skin was red and bleeding. When the magic was done, I was a raw boiled lobster ready to be broken in half. Despite all of this trouble, I am still dying. I do find some comfort in the fact that by going though all of these practices, I am at last going through a kind of pre-death ritual (you remember how I just adore rituals?). I’m guessing that you find this just a little bit morbid; it is part of the process that I’ve begun to be a little bit fond of.

Do you remember the day before I left? I asked you if you would come out with me on one last romp around the city. You initially said no, saying that your husband would never approve of such an act. I pleaded, and you finally relented. I always liked your husband, and I hope that the episode did not cause too much trouble with him. I would have invited him as well, but a night out with an old friend isn’t exactly the same as a night out with an old school friend and her husband. We went downtown and saw a movie at the Alliance Française that we both wanted to see. I teased you by saying that you used to speak French, but you responded by shouting one of your Russian diatribes at me. It translated as “having more important things to do with your time,” and it was heartbreaking for a moment. You know how I have always loved the French. We got out, and dusk was settling over the alabaster buildings along Constitution Avenue.

We walked there from Dupont Circle (Why did we walk? The metro could have taken us in five minutes). We passed an old green house with yellow awnings that we always used to say was haunted. (I saw something like it a few years ago in this country when I went down the river a ways to visit a friend and buy some supplies. I think a Frenchman lived there during the days of European conquest, and it is amazing that something like that still stands. When I saw it, all the memories of youth came flooding back to me, as if ghosts were telepathically putting them in my head from the great beyond. I think your right, my dear. I think that house is haunted.) We strolled past the dark places and the white monuments, and came back to our favorite Greek restaurant on the other end of Eastern Market. I drank too much red wine there, and I remember you telling me that, despite having a purple mouth yourself. You wore a terrific dress, though I didn’t tell you (I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea). Summers in the city were lovely, even though everyone else hated them. The next day, I left for a place that carried that summer right into January and beyond.

No letters after this for a while. My wife has begged me to see a Western doctor in the capital for some time, and I have finally relented. These foreign devils think they can cure anything that they see before them, but I think that I will soon prove them wrong.

-Sam

Ellie,

Have you ever lived in a tropical climate? Nearly every day is the same except for two: the day the rainy season begins, and the day when it ends. Other than that, there is no real difference in the weather. The same brilliant blue sky appears at least at some point during the day, and the darkness envelopes our surroundings around the same time every evening. Time marches on in a continuous goose-stepping parade towards the future. Thus, I live in perpetual July. I have no way of knowing when or at what stage in time will be that where I am forced to leave this world. That vague sense of the future is probably what is keeping me buoyant.

The doctor in the capital told me what I already knew. Maybe I have a year or so to live? It is hard to say. It was already a painful trip down to that awful place. The bus jerked and bumped over every goddamn pothole on the road, and the entire journey felt like an ill-maintained carnival ride. The disease has halted its progress for the time being, which is the only reason why I could even go on this insane expedition. Lately the ratio of my diseased body to my healthy body has been similar to the cafés au lait I get at a restaurant in our provincial town. On some days, there is more milk than coffee, and on others there is more coffee than milk. The same with my body: some days more diseased than healthy Sam, others more healthy Sam than diseased. You never quite know what the amalgam of the two is going to be.

When I arrived at the hospital, I went through all the procedures of checking in. After a short lifetime in purgatory, I met a fresh-faced young doctor who was just off the boat from America. He was very enthusiastic about his work, to say the least. He shook my hand vigorously, causing me a lot of pain, before we got down to brass tacks. After a humiliating physical exam and about a hundred tests done in their basement laboratory, the young man came and told me that there was nothing they could do for me. He then asked if I was going to go back to my home country to be with loved ones before I died. It wasn’t any of his business, but I told him that all of my loved ones were here. He seemed rather perplexed by this, and looked at me like one does upon seeing the quadratic equation for the first time. I didn’t bother explaining my story to him. What would be the use? I thanked him for his time, and left. It was late in the day, but I didn’t bother getting a hotel. I simply hung around in a café drinking glass after glass of tea until the next bus came bound for the rural serenity I call my home.

I know your husband is a doctor, El, but you must not take this letter as a symbol of burning hatred for Hippocrates and all who take his oath. I am sure that their wondrous abilities have increased tremendously during the years that I stopped paying attention to the world. I am also sure that there are many cures and treatments for diseases that would have once thought to be virtually impossible. Mine, however, is still not among them. That sort of makes me feel special in a bizarre sort of way. I could have said to the doctor, “Ha! The tiny creatures eating away at my flesh and soul and I have defeated you and all of modern science!” I didn’t say this simply out of respect for polite conversation.

Speaking of your husband, let him know I said hello. From “Sam On the Far Side,” to “Sam on the Near Side!” (Admit it, you never could resist our name. I think Oscar Wilde has a play written about the attraction of names. You know the one I am talking about. If it is playing at theatre sometime, you should go and see it. I would if I were you)

Much Love,

-Sam

El,

When a person changes his cultural settings, what do you think they think of first? Food. This is followed by sex, but usually those with less prurient interests think of their stomachs first. Even to this day, I still have a strong obsession with bread. I went so far as to build a mud oven behind our house solely for the purpose of creating this delicacy. The result, which mystified our friends and neighbors, was something resembling the desired creation but not entirely. I’m sure that the disgusted owner of a patisserie would have loved to take a sledgehammer to my oven and batches of bread if he ever saw what I was doing. I myself was satisfied with what I managed to create, but no one around me would eat it! It is sad to see such a wonderful and delicious piece of work go to waste like that.

You have probably noticed the change in handwriting by now. I’m in bed, and I am dictating this letter to my wife. She doesn’t speak English very well, but she knows the alphabet enough to take down letters. I’ve hit a bad spell in the disease, and I’m beginning to think that this is the beginning of the end. Yes yes, I know. I’m so dramatic. I always hoped that the only dying I would have to do would be to perform a standup comedy routine at my high school talent show. If you’re hearing crickets right now, then my point has been proved exactly.

Did I ever explain to you why I never came back? I suppose it is something I’ve hinted at, but never fully explained during our correspondence. I do hope that I get the right answer this time (my reasons change every time I think about it). It’s nothing surreptitious, of course. I’ve tried to make it known to as many people as possible, but the fact is that hardly anyone believes me when I tell them. I trust you will be most understanding, El.

The simple answer is that I became quite comfortable in the new life that I was leading, and I did not want to simply abandon it. You remember how I first came over here as a teacher, yes? I taught the people here everything that I know. History, geography, English, French, Chinese, and astronomy were all part of my various curricula. When I finished, I had a choice. I could have either gone back home, or stayed to try and eke out an existence for myself. I had made a few friends, and I was fairly comfortable in this life. Up until that point, I had seen my experiences as continuing process of needless abandonment. Once I had gotten fairly comfortable with one life and one particular living arrangement, then it became time to rip myself away from it. Essentially, going back would continue this process (funny to think of a former home as being part of the unfamiliar, isn’t it?). So I decided to break this pattern. I stayed and made a life for myself among these people. I bought some land, and learned how to bring it into submission through irrigation and plowing. I married, became ever fluent in the language, and slowly began to replace the local customs with ones that I had imported from far away states. The only thing I kept from my previous life was my native language, although there were many times when I simply wanted to forget it. I’m glad I didn’t though, for I would have never been able to write these letters to you.

It’s Christmas Eve here on the far side. The fiery, red sunset, and the radio is blaring an advertisement that has something to do with “crissma.” There’s no snow, and I don’t think that Santa Clause delineates this far from his trajectory to drop presents. Still, it would be nice if he dropped by. I don’t have any cookies for him, but maybe he would accept a bowl of fish-head soup?

Merry Christmas!

-Sam

My Dearest Eleanor,

I must tell you that this will be my last letter. You should know that I have taken great joy in writing these letters, and there is no else whom I would have shared my final thoughts with. I imagine you are sad at receiving this news, but please don’t let it upset you. I have led a happy life, and I have no regrets. The pain from the rot is now extraordinary; I have felt nothing like it before! Imagine a million tiny mouths running wild throughout your body, gnawing away at your flesh and gorging themselves on your blood. I shall overcome the microscopic monsters to finish this letter. They haven’t defeated me yet!

As I have lain in bed during the last few days, I have continually thought about what I’ve wanted to write to you about in this final letter. The obsession of writing “the perfect letter” has gripped me from time to time, as if this series would come to an explosive and fulfilling climax. Instead I have foolishly wasted both ink and paper, both of which are precious commodities, and am doing what I do best; rambling. I wouldn’t be quite your beloved Sam if I didn’t ramble, yes? Despite this shortcoming, there are several things that I need to tell you before I succumb to fatigue.

If there is anything to be gained by these letters, it would be the comforting feeling of knowing that I am understood by at least one person. I have found that when you live in a situation such as mine, the desire for understanding becomes chief among the hopes and dreams of the present. Many people back in our home country as well over here did not understand why I left places like your brick house and never returned. There’s a certain amount of alienation and loneliness that comes with that.

I have also discovered that life is also a continuing process of trying to understand the world around you. Often enough, many of your attempts and conclusions that you draw are proved false. Even though I have lived here for many years, and have learned a great deal about how this society operates, there are still aspects of this culture of which I know nothing about. When confronted with these, my ignorance forces me to admit that I know very little around me. I remember one incident during the early years of my presence that provoked this thinking.

I was waiting for a taxi in our village one day hoping to go to the provincial capital. While I was pacing around and kicking the dirt with my feet, a woman came up to me and started asking me questions. There are few foreigners around where I am, even fewer back then; therefore, this was not an uncommon occurrence. However, it did seem that this woman was more aggressive than most other people. After a minute or two, she started poking me in the chest, very impolite, and shouting in my ear. One of the men nearby was watching the scene unfurl, and quickly moved at this point to gently move the woman away. I watched dumbstruck with my mouth hanging open as she was taken away. One of the passengers in the shared taxi ride later told me that her husband has run off with another woman, and that she was crazy because of that. For a person such as myself, this was almost hard to believe. Having spent the better part of a year in the country, I had grown accustomed to seeing the seemingly strange and the bizarre as part of normal and everyday life. This being so, I couldn’t even recognize craziness when it was right in front of me. I thought that it was all completely normal. It was a seminal moment; for I could see how little I understood about the world I was living in. I still have moments like these on occasion. While they are a bit discomforting, I recognize their value.

I am saying all of this to you, El, because all of this, all of the things I’ve lived through and seen have showed me how important the desire for understanding is to me, if not for the whole human race. I would be happy to know that you have understood even a thousandth of what I have done in my struggle to live as I have done. I would have loved to hear from you (my mailbox at the post office was taken away because of disuse some years ago), but like I said, “I have no regrets.”

I imagine that you are reading this over your morning coffee, and eating the croissants that you have bought from Quartermains. The little pastries have made your fingers greasy, which has made the edges of the letter transparent. You are trying to wipe the grease off, but it really isn’t working. Don’t worry about it. I’d rather have this letter as tasty as possible. Go and sip your coffee, as it is getting cold.

Sincerely and Affectionately,

-Samuel Ashley

The Gecko

Have you ever seen a gecko hunt? It is quite beautiful. I sat at my bedroom desk one evening and watched one eat several moths that were mere inches away from my nose. Is this too calm a description? It almost sounds like it must be the most desultory occurrence in all of Asia. Nothing could be further from truth; it was the only time I have ever seen a gecko so close. The sight of a large green reptile should have triggered an instinct of mine to flee, but it did not for a very good reason. You see, there was an understanding of sorts between us. Think about it for a moment: human-reptile communication. I will have to insist that I am not that far off base. Is it not true that many people communicate with dogs, cats, dolphins, and other animals on a daily basis? Well, then the same could be true of large, moth-eating reptiles! I promise that you will be inclined to agree with me once I have told my story.

Every evening after dinner, I retire to the upstairs bedroom of my house and crawl inside a large, green mosquito net. Inside of this net is a desk with an inkwell, pens, candles, a typewriter, and large sheets of mulberry paper (Yes, I am old fashioned. What of it?) I was leaning over my desk and scribbling away at something one evening when I looked up from my work and saw a great green gecko crawl towards the light of the candle. This one was as long as my elbow to my knuckles, and about as wide as my middle finger. It had large black spots running up and down its body, and a fearful looking head. The suction cups on its hands and feet made no noise as they crawled along the wall. I suppose I was not too terribly surprised to see a gecko, for two or three of them are always crawling on the walls of the house somewhere. I know this because they leave their droppings wherever they damn well please, and they make a frightful row when they are mating. The candle on my desk was attracting the moths, which were stuck on the other side of the net. This in turn attracted the gecko. My guest came towards the light, and noticing my presence raised its head to look at me more closely. The black eyes on top of its head reflected the dim yellow light, and it stayed in this position for a few seconds. I remained motionless. It almost seemed like the creature knew that because of my size, the space around me was under my domain. Naturally, it was waiting to see if I would give my permission for it to hunt in this area. Still I did not move, hoping to give it the free reign it desired (I have ceased to like moths ever since one flew into my ear as a child, so the fewer the better). The gecko bowed its head in gratitude, and turned its attention to the evening meal.

After spotting an attainable quarry, the gecko steadied himself. The muscles in its legs and tail quivered slightly and tensed, ready to be released like a spring. With one quick reflex, it lunged, flew diagonally down the wall, opened its mouth, and swallowed a nearby moth. It was all terrifyingly quick, but still I carefully recorded every move. The tail and feet worked quickly to reattach the flat belly to the wall, and soon the creature was adroitly righted. A pink lizard tongue slithered out of the mouth, and licked up and over the teeth. Wasting no time, the gecko turned itself around and continued the hunt. With the same movements, it swallowed two more moths and one insect that resembled a mosquito but could have been something else.

The prey in this region soon got wise to the gecko’s actions, and moved away to other regions of the room beyond the green mosquito net. The gecko moved away as well, and it crawled away into the darkness. From some corner of the room, it began its call; a sort of “Ack Ack Ack Ack!” clicking sound. I interpreted it as a form of thanks. I wanted to thank the creature for getting rid of the moths, but what human sound could I have uttered that could be easily interpreted by reptile ears? The sound of my voice would have frightened it away. Silence was all that I could offer it.

And there you have it! Have you agreed with me? Yes, of course you have; no one could deny such a remarkable thing.

Faith In The Native Land

Sophia walked into the market before the sun was strong enough to burn her. The quiet paved road that had snaked out before her for about a kilometer suddenly became crowded with cars, trucks, people, and animals. Instead of the serene bucolic landscape, a collection of shakily constructed tin houses greeted her. It was a fray in every sense of the word. Sophia braced herself before entering it. She often daydreamed about being some highborn person of society that could make the people part like the Red Sea before the staff of Moses. It was going to be difficult to get through with all of her wares intact. The vegetables were not going to be a problem, but the eggs would be if she were jostled in the wrong place. If the eggs broke, how could she show Pastor Moon how to make an omelet for lunch? The glare from a metal roof was becoming brighter and brighter by the minute. Sophia held her head low under her hat. She walked off the asphalt into the wide area of red dirt, tables, blankets, and women towards the produce. It was seven o’clock in the morning, and she was already sweating profusely.

Sophia sang to herself while she maneuvered her way through the crowd. The words formed silent circles on her lips. “When morning comes to Morgantown…” rang out to no one except her. Trucks hauling manufactured goods buzzed by on the paved road and unloaded their wares in impromptu parking lots. Pigs that were drugged and strapped on their backs to motorcycles screamed their final breaths as they lay helplessly. Ladies in big straw hats set up their vegetable and egg stands in stalls, their wares hidden beneath large flowery skirts. A bullock cart was slowly making its way towards the center, plodding in the way it had for centuries. The oxen took no heed of the buzzing flies, nor of any of the noises that sprang forth from the confusion. There was a smell in the air; meat, mud, steam, and sweat all mixed together. It was putrid, but expected.

Sophia walked amongst the people, her people. She rubbed up against many of them while looking at the produce and wares. She smiled and chatted with the ladies as she picked out what she needed for lunch that day. The ladies smiled back. They were friendly with her, but still a little reserved. Her features put her as one of them, but her American clothes and accent did not. An apple here, an onion there; she felt each of the round objects and inspected them for defects before she bought them. Her mother had taught her how to do that in America before she died. She bought everything except meat, for the sight of butchered animals hung up on hooks frightened her. If she wanted it, someone else had to buy it for her. There was always smoke coming from somewhere in the market. Someone was always cooking. Sophia always left before she started sneezing and had to apologize because sneezing in the native land is extremely rude.

How long had she lived here? How many hours had she spent in the market? She calculated that at this point she had spent at least several days in total here. It was a desultory morning routine, yes, but it still gave her a thrill to do it. Among her own people, following her habits and customs and working for their benefit, it was a good life.

Sophia would be surprised to know that the women talked about her behind her back when she had left the market. They would be even more surprised to know what they said. “ I’ve heard of people going to America and making just pots of money,” one of them said to another. “She probably has a big house with one of those fancy toilets that looks like a chair.”

“Maybe she even has her own car!”

“Why would she give that up to live here?”

“I want to know how much she paid for her clothes.”

“Has she got a boyfriend?”

“I heard from her family’s neighbor that she doesn’t, and that she isn’t looking for one.”

“She’ll be an old maid soon with that attitude.”

“Disgraceful! It is indecent that she is not married by now.”

A murmur of indignation went through the ring of women, who turned the morning’s conversation towards other matters.

From the market, Sophia walked along a narrow dirt road towards the church at the other end of a field. The red, sandy earth made clouds as she walked. The road led east, and sun had risen to make its presence felt even more than before. She sweated more and more. Finally Sophia reached the yellow concrete building and walked around to the side. A giant red cross was painted above the big glass doors, which squeaked as she opened them. The condensation from her hands made the handle slippery, and the motion of the door was smooth in her hands. She walked into the dark space. Folding chairs were arranged in aisles, and a simple altar was set up at the far end of the space. The only light coming in was from little slits cut in the sides of walls, or from the door. The walls were barren, puritan. A fading yellow paint covered the walls and created a space that was more like a public school assembly room than a church.

Pastor Moon was there to meet her. He smiled slightly when he noticed how much she was sweating. Sophia noticed the smile and looked at herself briefly. Her skirt revealed nothing, it was not supposed to, but her blouse and hair did look like she had been through a rainstorm. She took off her hat and started to fan herself, laughing and began to say something about the heat in the native tongue. Pastor Moon started to laugh as well, and responded in the same language because he knew that she was trying to practice her skills. Pastor Moon kept pronouncing Sophia’s name in such a way that the “f” sound in the middle of her name was traded for a hard “p.” She smiled. She had corrected him several times when she had first met him, but he had paid no attention. She did not mind it so much after a while. They exchanged formal greetings, and chatted for a few minutes before they switched languages. For the most part it was easier for both of them if they simply spoke in English.

Pastor Moon’s face suddenly became grave. “I must tell you. Brother Joshua has decided not to come to church anymore,” he said.

“Oh no!” Sophia was very disappointed, and slightly agitated. “What did he tell you?”

“Yes, he said that his father would be very angry with him if he did not honor him in the correct way after he died. His father did not think that his son would be able to do that if he went to this church. He was afraid that they might bury him in the ground, and that his body would be eaten by evil spirits. The people believe that you cannot go to the Other Place if you are buried. He could not disagree with his father. So he has stopped coming to the church.”

Sophia sighed. It was a common problem for her work. She would explain the teachings of the gospel to those who wanted to listen, gather together some people who were interested in joining her at church, but many of them would turn away. The reasons they always gave were legitimate, of course. They would never lie to her. It was always something about family, ancestors, or anxiety about their status in the community. Once she had almost convinced the son of the district governor to join, but he had turned away. How was he ever going to grow up and become a district leader if he were a Christian? The people would never accept him. Little events like this made the work all the more frustrating. She believed, as many people do, that God revealed himself to all people in many different forms around the world. Whether this was in the form of idols or prophets, it was still His work. It was rational to believe that the commandment “honor thy mother and thy father” was also included in these teachings. She understood that, but it bothered her knowing that anyone who turned away from the gospel was condemned to hell. It was up to her to do whatever it took to save as many souls as she could. It was her own people whom she was saving too. She may have grown up in another country, but she was still one of them. She reminded herself of this more times than she would have liked to admit. After all, her mother had been an obstinate convert at one point in her life. She owed it to the memory of her mother to continue on with the work no matter how frustrating it became.

At nine o’clock, Sophia helped Pastor Moon wheel a big whiteboard into the church. A side door was opened to let in more light, and the pair arranged some of the folding chairs into a semi-circle around the board. Sophia pulled out some teaching materials from her book bag, and waited for the students to arrive. They usually arrived in groups, and today was no different. At several minutes past nine, she heard the squeak of bicycle brakes outside the main door. The students came in, dressed in uniforms and smiling. Sophia was ten years older than they were, but she still felt very close to them in age. They greeted her in the native way, with palms together and the nose dipped rapidly towards outward thumbs. She greeted them all by name, she had a talent for remembering names, as they sat down and opened their notebooks. Teaching English was not her calling, but she did it dutifully and with air of modest satisfaction. It was enough that students enjoyed themselves.

Sophia started the lesson. She placed an array of white note cards on the board behind her, each of them numbered. She taped them down so they would not fly away. Sophia explained to the students that each of these cards had a word written on the reverse side, and that each of the words had a matching pair. The students were instructed to find the matching pairs, and that the first one to do so would be rewarded with a prize. They smiled, but they looked confused. She did an example of what she wanted them to do. The smiles went away and were replaced by studious eyes and open mouths. They played the game quickly and easily, and the girl who always sat in the middle of the row of chairs was the first one to name all the pairs. Sophia smiled and clapped her hands in a kind of ostentatious delight. The prize was a piece of candy that Sophia had remembered to procure at the market that morning. She gave it to the girl, and clapped her hands to signal that the others should do the same. The girl, pleased with what she had won, put the candy to the side of her desk to be eaten later.

The lesson progressed onward. Sophia took each of the cards, and explained what they meant. She then walked over to her bag, pulled out a pile of paper handouts, and passed them out to each of the students. The document was a white piece of paper, written only on one side, with the words “A True Story” in large black letters at the top. The font was something one sees only in algebra textbooks or street pamphlets about the end of the world coming soon. She read the story aloud, and then had each of her students read it. The words that they had just gone over were highlighted in purple, and Sophia paused when she read over them.

The story was about a man named Jesus, who had died and was now alive again. After Sophia and the students had both read through all the words, Sophia asked the class what they thought of the story. Blank stares were the only reaction. She called on one by name. “Why do you think Jesus came back from the dead?” she asked him. The student smiled and said, “I don’t know, teacher.” She knew it was hard, but Sophia desperately wanted her students to think about everything in their reading, to analyze it, and to engage with her about it. She wanted passion, but she only got awkward confusion. For a moment or two, the class stood there, staring, not knowing what to do. Sophia sighed, looked down, and moved quickly to teach something else. Grammar! They always need more grammar, she thought, and pointed out several examples of the present perfect continuous that the text had used. Sophia had them practice a little more with it, and then dismissed the class.

The students stood up, collectively thanked the teacher, and said goodbye to her in the native way. Sophia did the same. As the class filed out, she caught the attention of the girl who had won the candy (the prize was safely tucked away in her shirt pocket). “Do you want to learn more about Jesus?” she asked, almost pleadingly. The girl bowed her head and giggled a little. “No, teacher,” she said. “My father says that all religions are the same.” The girl said goodbye again in the native way, and walked towards her friends who were waiting for her on the bicycles.

Sophia was crestfallen.

II

She began the letter the following morning.

Dear Sarah,

I wish that I could write to you in a happier state than this, but I really need to put my thoughts down on paper. It’s the best way to work them out.
I am troubled by the struggling souls I see around me. Everyday I work to save them, stubborn and unwilling to change though they might be. I want all of them to feel the joy that I do knowing that Jesus loves me, and that he holds me in his heart dearly. I often think about how my mother was once, before she met my father. She must have looked just like the young women I see around me. I think of her often now, and it is good to know that I have come back to the place where she was born. Now that I have returned to the native land, I often wish how that my mother were alive today just so I could ask her about what it was that made her see the light. Of course there was father’s charm, but there had to be just a little more than that. What was it? Oh, I wish I knew. It is extremely frustrating to know that many people in this community have heard the message of the Lord, and yet they turn away from it!
When I first came here, I was very nervous about living with family whom I had never met. I don’t think my aunt ever approved of her little sister running off with an American, but both my cousins and she welcomed me with open arms when I arrived. They took great pains to show me all the things about my culture that mother never had time to tell me. They are some of the kindest and gentlest people I know, but they refuse to come to the church with me. It really bothers me knowing that they will be eternally trapped and hidden away in the total absence of God’s love. A little girl whom I teach laughs when I ask her if she is interested in Jesus, but she is a great student and a good person. She studies hard to become a nurse so that she can take care of her family when they are older. Isn’t that fundamentally good? Does she really deserve to be trapped in Hell if she does not change?
I am confused and troubled Sarah. It would do me a world of good if you could offer me some advice.

Love,
-Sophia

The answer that she got back a few days later was not what Sophia had expected, nor what wanted to hear. In fact, she was very surprised that her friend could say so little and shatter her so completely.

Dear Sophia,

I think that you are right to say that you are confused. You have to remember those who follow the path of God are the righteous. Those who turn away from his love are no better than Satan and his evil servants despite whatever reason they might have. Filial obligation is simply just one of Satan’s tools to dissuade those who might otherwise follow the holy path that leads to Jesus. You must remain strong and not be troubled by these feelings that you have. I will pray for you.

Love and beauty always in God’s merciful presence,

-Sarah


Sophia read the letter multiple times, carefully dissecting the meaning of every word. The problem for her was that Sarah was right in every way. There was no way of getting around it, but the thought of her students, her host family, and the busy people all in boiling flames in some small pocket in Hell made her shudder. Would this really happen to them? It was easy for Sarah to pass judgment on Sophia’s people because she was far away and did not know them as well as Sophia did. The words on the paper ran wildly through her head, but she could not accept what they meant. It was driving her crazy, so she locked them in an upstairs desk drawer of her mind and went on with life, work, and the things that come in-between.

The English classes went on as usual, the students smiled, and Sophia had numerous meetings with Pastor Moon about how to increase membership in the church. She asked him how he had become a Christian, wondering why she had not simply asked him this when she first met him. “My parents died when I was a boy,” he told her. “I had no one to turn to, and then I met a man who called himself a “Christian.” I wondered what this meant, and I asked him. He introduced me to members at his church, and taught me about what Jesus had done for people everywhere; we would all be saved if we followed what He had taught us. I wanted to be saved. I wanted to belong.” Sophia pondered this. With no family, he had almost everything to gain and nothing to lose from joining the church. It was much easier that way.

III


Sophia’s family invited her to come to a ceremony. Was this part of the native religion? The thought of appearing in some sort bizarre ritual of which she knew nothing made her unsure about going. Her mother in America was a Christian when she knew her, and never spoke about what she was before. Sophia had read in books about killing animals as a sacrifice to the Gods. There were vivid descriptions in those books about buffalo being butchered with a machete, and then being skewered in some horrible fashion. There was gestured dancing and squawking noises involved, or was that simply her imagination run wild? In the end it was simple curiosity that convinced her to go. There was mystery in that word “ceremony.” Her younger cousin kept saying it repeatedly when Sophia pressed her for details.

After dinner, Sophia and her family left the house under a shining moon. They walked on a dirt path through the forest alongside other families who were all chattering quietly. However, all noise ceased when they found themselves under the temple gates. So this was where they were going! Sophia felt a shiver of disgust mixed with apprehension go through her, for the place contained all the evil that she was working against. Sophia managed to hide her revulsion only because the family had been so excited about taking her here. She relaxed a little when the younger cousin smiled at her, and took her hand.

The gate was a short stone structure wide enough to make it look more of a tunnel. Its face was covered in ornaments of various figures, but the roots of an ancient tree had hidden these away. An immense, sprawling tree sat on top of the gate, and its gnarly branches and roots sprang forth in every direction. From the dark it looked like the gate opened up a cavern in the tree itself. Sophia and the family entered the darkness, and came out the other side into a courtyard. A man in a bright red robe and shaved head greeted them in the native way and collected their shoes. He placed them on a bamboo rack and gave each of them soft white slippers out of a bag he carried on his shoulders. The man smiled at Sophia as she passed. Everyone put their slippers on, and the noises they made while walking all but ceased. In the dim light, they walked along a path lined with lotus flowers in clay pots. A tall, stone building loomed up before them. The surface was smooth and polished, and one wide entrance led to the inside. Another long dark hallway led to the main chamber, where they joined the other people who had come from the town.

Out of the darkness, the group finally came into the light. The roof was open, allowing the moonlight to shine in, and at least a thousand yellow candles of every shape and size burned intensely. The whole interior was lined with white marble, and the reflection increased the radiance of the light pouring into the room. A large sphere made of gold was lit up at the far end of the room, and was the only piece of decoration. In the center of the room was a spiral staircase made of silver that led up to a walkway on the edge of the wall. The people who came in through the entrance sat at the other end on the smooth surface, their legs tucked to one side. No one spoke or made any noise. When it looked as if two hundred people had arrived, a priest started to come down the spiral staircase. He walked through the crowd in the direction of the sphere. The people looked at him, and started to hum. When he reached the sphere, he turned and faced the crowd. Suddenly in the light, his robes of bright saffron and gold made him look radiant.

The priest instructed the people to rise, and they rose. They lifted their hands with open palms towards the ceiling and they clasped them together looking up. The people kneeled. The priest began to sing. Everyone listened intently as if a hypnotizing spell had been cast. The man looked upon the congregation and began one note; it was high, long and pure. There was no deviation in pitch, volume, or any other suggestion of change. He had mastered the art of circular breathing, and could maintain this note for as long as he wanted. The people knew when to join in. A chorus opened up several semitones higher than the man’s note, and lasted for a brief, tremulous response. They could not touch the priest’s note. It was sacred; only those who were deemed worthy of it could be allowed to raise their voices to its level.

Sophia looked at the people around here, everyone was crying and racked with emotion. She had not wanted to join in, to remain separated from this evil, but she felt more and more called to it. Whatever was going on was surely evoking a passionate response. Twice more the people responded with their own note, and twice more they shook when they sang. When the second had finished, it looked as if everyone had been spent. The priest stopped singing, and the people groaned quietly while doubling over. Some fell on the floor completely. The priest’s long arms were now outstretched, and the people began shuffling to the exits on either side of the room. They filed out until the only person left in the room was the priest, who finally relaxed when he was alone.

Outside in the courtyard, the people had assembled in a group facing a brick platform behind the main building. They could now talk amongst each other, and they did so loudly and without any reservation. Sophia thought the whole thing was over until the priest appeared out o darkness behind them. He walked through the crowd carrying a small torch, smiling and greeting the people he knew there. People lowered their heads as he passed. He walked over to the brick platform, and as he got nearer to it the light from the torch illuminated a neatly stacked pile of chopped wood. The priest bent over with the torch, and set fire to the mass. The priest stepped back as an explosion of sparks suddenly sprang forth from the pyre. When the flames had grown higher, Sophia could see that there was a body wrapped in white tissue placed on top of the pile. She gasped. Was that person dead? The consternation she felt made an obvious expression on her face. Sophia’s little cousin tugged at her sleeve, and smiled. “Do not worry! Grandmother is now in the place where light is eternal and happiness knows no bounds…the Other Place.”

“But…I don’t understand.”

“Her body died several days ago, but her soul is still trapped inside! This is only way we can release her. The ash from her bones will be carried into the Absolute.” She smiled a great smile, and turned her attention towards the pyre. With the others, she started to hum a low note of solemnity.

With the others, Sophia stood, hummed the one note, and watched the pyre burn to the ground with the others. For a brief moment, she could finally see how beautiful everything was. The fire blazed against the darkness under the protection of a full moon, and the people watched as the person’s soul was released from her body and carried into the afterlife. It was magnificent to behold, and a great feeling of awe swept through Sophia’s head. Whatever speculative fear she had about the native religion was largely put to rest.

Sophia walked home that evening with the family. She had been thinking about responding to Sarah’s letter before she went out that night, but she never got around to it in the morning. Nor did she the day after.

There Is Nothing Beyond The Jungle

The end of the rainy season brought near disaster to the town of Bott. An angry sky released an onslaught of water that came down upon the little town with a fury and threatened to wash everything away. The people welcomed the rain at first because the previous month had produced very little in a time where they needed it badly for the rice harvest. When they saw the water was rapidly filling the river and irrigation canals they began to worry. Soon the fields where green rice shoots had once proudly stood now were turned into giant lakes. All of the schools were inundated with water, and the boatmen now carried people from one end of town to the other instead of up and down the river. It was eerie sight to see their long wooden boats sailing silently alongside immobilized four and two wheeled vehicles. The market remained dry, and the people gathered there under the wood and corrugated steel shacks to talk about they could do. What was going to happen to the rice? If the water did not go down soon, there was fear that the whole harvest would be lost. The farmers encouraged each other to buy fruit and sticks of incense as offerings for their household shrines. Surely Buddha will protect us, they thought. The only reasonable course of action was to pray.

At the high school, Teacher Bory lay in his bed and listened to the pelting sounds of the morning rain hitting the tin roof. Both his house in Angkor Chum and the teacher’s dormitory in Bott were flooded with brown water, which cooled and heated with the passing of the sun. When the rains stopped, he would have to walk to the classrooms through water up to his knees, his feet sinking in slimy black mud. He knew this, but it did not bother him as much as it should have. It was Sunday, and most of the other teachers had gone home for the weekend. The jumbled sounds of a television drifted in through an open door, and a heated announcer’s voice meant that someone was watching a kickboxing match. Teacher Bory felt no desire to get up; his mind was preoccupied.

Teacher Bory had both a problem and a cause for celebration in his current affairs. He had recently found himself looking at a student more than usual during one of his classes, and he could not fathom why he had not noticed her before. Since the monsoon rains came now at night, the afternoon sun had a chance to shine on the girl’s face and hair. The illumination had first caught his attention, and now he was ensnared. Perhaps she noticed that he was looking at her as well because she soon began to stay after class to ask questions. Questions turned into conversations, and conversations turned into smiling, laughter, and amorous glances. Teacher Bory could not remember any other time when a woman, other than his mother, had shown interest in him. He was desperate to demonstrate that the affection was mutual, and to show her how he felt he bought a gold necklace. He had saved up a small but not inconsiderable amount of money over the past few years from teaching, and he thought the gift was money well worth spent. Upon giving her the necklace, he studied her face as it lit up with delight. This was a cause for celebration. What made Teacher Bory even happier was the fact that the teenage girl had come to his classes several times wearing the necklace. He swelled with pride every time he saw the hint of gold around her neck. The elation he felt was the problem; he was in love.

The object of Teacher Bory’s affection sat in 10D, a class that met every Tuesday morning and Thursday afternoon. Her name was Channa. Ostensibly assiduous, she came to the private English classes he held and spoke to him more than the other bored-looking students. While the other students sprawled over their notebooks and played games on the their cell phones, she sat upright in the center front row next to her best friend. She was always the first to stand up when Teacher Bory came into class, and the last to leave. Her notes were made with ruler precision, and her glasses were well polished. She was not the prettiest girl at school, for the glasses concealed a dimpled face on someone who was shorter than average. She did have enough charm to attract the male teachers who taught her. In fact, most everyone thought her rather clever. She went to private classes because she could afford to, and she had enough ambition to know that a better life for her lay elsewhere than the tiny district town of Bott.

Teacher Bory looked at his dark brown feet that were calloused and riddled with mosquito bites. Imagining Channa’s clean white cuticles next to his made him smile. There was only one other teacher there with him, and Teacher Bory felt like talking. He began to explain how he felt about Channa. “I feel love for the first time,” he said.

“Is she interested in you?” the other teacher asked. His name was Teacher Oem.

“I think so. She sends me text messages on my mobile every day. Sometimes she asks about English, but other times she asks about me.”

Teacher Oem began to leer. One could tell he had something bawdy on his mind. “Maybe you could arrange to have a private class, just you and her?!”

Teacher Bory laughed and kept a smile on his face. He was happy to be in love with Channa. He was also happy to have a reason for being in Bott. He had otherwise no real attachment to it. Teacher Bory had grown up in Angkor Chum, and had lived there most of his life. When he graduated from high school, he went to the Regional Teachers Training Center in Battambang to become an English teacher. He had hoped that upon completion of his training he could go back to his old high school and teach there. His family and friends were all in Angkor Chum, and he could live comfortably in his own house. When he went to see the assignment officer, he received a very different view of his future.

Teacher Bory sweated profusely in the sweltering office while he waited for the bureaucrat to announce where he would be sent. The man sitting across a desk from him was going through a stack of papers that no doubt had to do with his progress reports and teacher request forms. A portrait of King Sihanouk the elder, his wife, and Sihanouk the younger hung on the wall under an open window, and a slight breeze made the heat of the room barely tolerable. The heavy-set man with thinning hair, jowls, and a proclivity for taking long pauses kept reading, turning back to the computer to click on a few things, and then shuffling the papers again. The chair squeaked every time he made the slightest movement, and Teacher Bory wondered when this would end. Finally, the man spoke.

“You have two choices. You can either go to Srei Snam or to Bott.” His tone was flat, resolute. Teacher Bory was rather dismayed.

“I cannot go to Angkor Chum? That is my home.”

“We have too many teachers there already.” The assignment officer paused for a moment and then grinned. He showed his teeth as he spoke. “Though I am sure, if necessary, we could find a place for you there. How badly do you want to go?”

Teacher Bory sighed and looked at his feet. He had no money to pay the bribe that the assignment officer wanted. He finally agreed to go to Bott, for that was the closest town to Angkor Chum that he could go to. And thus his life began anew in a small rural community north of the Tonlé Sap.

Instead of living with his family, he lived in a yellow concrete dormitory with the other male teachers. He had few possessions aside from some books, his bed, his mosquito net, and his motorbike. The other teachers provided companionship, for they were also in the same situation. Far from their homes and families, they faced the difficult challenge of teaching in an understaffed high school. All of them had to teach far more classes than they should have. In addition, they were also forced to hold private classes outside of the regular ones. Teacher salaries were low, and this was the only way they could make enough money to feed themselves every day. In his first year, Teacher Bory made twenty-five dollars a month. Rather than give this to him on a monthly basis, the government supplied it in an annual lump sum. Most of his day-to-day expenses were paid for with money that he had to make from private lessons. He was overworked, for his usual day involved teaching from seven in the morning to seven at night. Sundays were his only day off, and he mostly slept.

Teacher Bory did not have much to be happy about in Bott, but his love for Channa was something that he held onto. It was like a dream pulled together from the bits and pieces of the subconscious; all the karaoke videos, pop songs, movies that celebrated romantic love he had seen were pieced together into a single fantasy where he was the star. Had this fantasy been turned into a film, the title of it would have been “Teacher Bory in Love.” He spent most his spare time within this fantasy, so much that at least he forgot where he was once or twice.

Choosing Channa as a future wife made sense to Teacher Bory because he thought her beautiful and it was a monetarily advantageous decision. Simply put, finding a wife in Bott was a bargain. The families of the girls living in Angkor Chum demanded a far higher bride price than the ones in Bott. For a poor teacher, this would have been easy if it were not for the fact that he was in love with a girl from a somewhat wealthy family. Of course, Teacher Bory knew exactly who her family was. None of the other teachers could figure why he fell in love with a rich girl knowing the obstacle that this would present. Surely, she would go off to some university when she was finished with her studies here. She would leave him and her former life behind and begin a new one in the city somewhere. Some of the other teachers had high hopes for her. She will go to Phnom Penh! Maybe she will come back to Bott as a rich woman. None of these grand speculations included Teacher Bory. He was so inveighed by his own visions of love that he could not believe that an alternate future in which he was not married to Channa. He had begun to watch couples on television, and thought of his own future wedding lit up in Technicolor gaiety. From love come would come happiness, flowing into his heart from institutional unity and finally giving him a reason to be happy in an otherwise miserable situation.

As time wore on, the floods went down and the town returned to its normal state. When the cool dry season arrived, a wind swept down from the Himalayas during the night and caused a sudden need for light blankets. Columns of workers began to appear on the side of the roads, armed with hoes and sickles and walking towards the fields. All were dressed in rubber sandals, long pants dirtied by mud, long shirts, straw hats, and red kromahs tied around their heads to protect themselves from the sun. Once they reached their chosen position, they waded across the canal in water up to their waist. As soon as they got to the other side, they began to work. Standing in ankle deep mud, they bent over the tall green plants and began to cut them down leaving only the their stumps. They stuffed them into bags, and when they had gotten enough they waded back to the other side of the canal. Taking a few dozen of them at a time, they tied them into bundles and placed them on the side of the road to dry. Every few hours, a wooden bullocks cart came along and collected the dry bundles. The cart then took the bundles to a threshing machine. The giant blue monster separated the little green pellets of s’rou from the rest of the rice plants as it spewed gasoline fumes. The waste was given to the cows to eat, while the s’rou was sifted and laid out in the sun. Eventually it was collected by a giant truck and taken to Vietnam to be processed.

With all this work to be done, attendance at the school dropped. The sons and daughters of the land traded their books and pencils for tools, and stopped going to classes for at least two months. There were enough students whose families worked in the market, and therefore did not need to work in the harvest, to keep the school going. Even as numbers dwindled, Teacher Bory carried on. He taught his classes from behind the teacher’s desk, and lectured the students with long readings that they had no chance of understanding. His voice was sleepy, and all it accomplished was to induce hunger and weariness. He played volleyball with the other teachers, watched the television, played cards, and drank rice wine to alleviate the boredom of being in such a situation. When wedding season began, he skipped his classes to go and get drunk from canned beer in the middle of the afternoon. In the morning he would still be hung-over, and would stagger to class with his clothes rumpled and smelling of bodily odor. The students would usually ask him to stop teaching after about an hour. They could not concentrate with him garbling his words and swaying from side to side as he read from the Teacher’s book. And through all of this, Teacher Bory’s love for Channa grew inflated until it was ready to burst.

Everything seemed to be going well until he noticed that Channa was flirting with another man. It could have been anyone; Another student, a different teacher, the school director, or from someone outside of the school, but it had to be Teacher Oem. He was responsible for making announcements to the students in the morning and working with the class monitors. He was considered handsome, and was admired by many of the young women at the school. There he was, chatting and laughing outside the classroom not knowing that Teacher Bory was watching both of them from an open window. A friend, even more a confident, threatening to steal away one’s love was always worse than a perfect stranger. The betrayal made it worse. Teacher Bory tried to keep his eyes focused on the teacher’s book sprawled across the desk, but he could not help steal a glance outside to see if they were still there. He kept his cool, but his blood was boiling beneath the collar. When the two of them disappeared from view, the image of Channa squinting her eyes and racked with laughter burned in his head. It was driving him mad! He tried his best to concentrate on the lesson, but wound up ending it in a hurry. With the class dismissed, he sat on his motorbike and tried to think about what to do next.

The obvious choice was to confront Teacher Oem with what he had seen, and to demand if he was trying to deliberately steal Channa away from him. No, this was not a good plan, he thought. She must laugh and flirt with many people, but it is only me that she loves. This is true, is it not? There had to be a way to prove that her love was meant for only one. Teacher Bory came up with a plan that he thought was fitting, but which others would have considered swollen with temerity. This plan would guarantee Channa’s hand in marriage. He would go to her house, and meet with her family. He would tell them that he had a large sum of money given to him by the government in compensation for some land they had purchased. The money would be the family’s, fulfilling the customary bride price of the groom’s family. It was a handsome amount, one that could not be refused very easily, and would it matter if he did not have the money right then and there? Surely by the time Channa finished school he would be able to save enough from teaching to give it to them. Teacher Bory began to grin from ear to ear. It would work, how could it not? The film heroes always exercised an audacious effort to win the girl. The same would work for Teacher Bory. He was so excited by what he had thought of that before he knew what he was doing, he put the key in the ignition and rode straight to Channa’s house.

Teacher Bory now sat on a thin straw mat in a big open room. Some large wooden benches sat imposingly in the corner, but Channa’s mother refused to sit in them. They were more for decoration. Channa’s father bought and sold meat in the market, and her mother worked at a stall there as well. They owned some land, but hired other people to work it during the planting and harvesting seasons. They had done very well for themselves, and their house was the largest in the commune. Both Channa’s mother and grandmother had taken a break from their work to meet with Teacher Bory and listen to his proposal. The grandmother sat with her legs tucked to one side and serious look on her face. Her shaved head gave her a kind of monk-like presence. Her daughter struck a similar pose with a younger, softer face and black hair in a bun behind her head. Neither of their faces revealed any emotion while Teacher Bory spoke.

The two matronly figures listened to teacher Bory speak, nodding here and there and listened to his argument. When at last he had finished, the two of them looked at each other and burst out laughing. It took them a while to stop before the mother started speaking. “We have known for some time that you were in love with our daughter. Did you really think that we wouldn’t notice the necklace you gave her? We thought that it was just a crush you had, and that you would get over it soon enough. But this! The declaration of your love for our daughter, and the absurdly concocted lie that you have enough money to give us.”

Teacher Bory felt the blood rush to his face.

The grandmother continued. “We know all the families whose land was recently bought by the government in Angkor Chum. What they got was far less that what you claimed, so either you are exaggerating your wealth because you don’t have any of the money, or what you do have is far below what you claim. In either case, you are still a poor high school teacher, and we both agree that our daughter has no business getting mixed up with you.”

The two women got up to go back to their work, but Teacher Bory still sat on the floor. This was a moment in his life unlike any other. In just over five minutes, the one reason he had for wanting to stay in Bott was destroyed, obliterated before his very eyes. Had this really happened? Was it all part of some terrible dream with stimuli matching the real world in every possible way? The movie had ended, and it was time for everyone in the theater to go home. A fog enveloped around his head. It was as if time stood still for a second, and his life was split into two very distinct parts: the moment before the women stopped speaking, and the parts afterward. Incredibly, he slowly realized that women had stood up and that he was expected to leave now. He was on autopilot, his mind was full of emotions he could not make heads or tails of. Through all of this, he was able to still able to go home and cook dinner, but neither felt, nor heard anything around him at all. If you asked him about that afternoon, he could tell you only that he remembered the food sliding down his throat and the sound of his head falling on the pillow.


*


Teacher Bory and Teacher Oem once again sat in their dormitory while the rain fell outside. Teacher Bory had told his friend what had happened, and they were both resigned to the fact that Channa would probably never marry either of them. While Teacher Bory contemplated the destruction of his one warm feeling for Bott, Teacher Oem sat in silence. Suddenly he started to speak.“There is nothing beyond the jungle.”

“What?”

“I heard it from a foreigner. I was in Siem Reap walking along the river on my way to my aunt’s house. A foreigner suddenly popped out of a hotel, and we crossed paths. I wanted to practice my English so we started chatting. I asked him where he had been in Cambodia, and the only thing he kept saying was “in the jungle.” Finally he turned to me and said that searching for anything beyond the jungle was useless. He made this long speech about how he imagined the jungles in Asia to be full of tigers, elephants, and lost settlements of humanity; all the stuff he read about in books. But when he finally came here, he searched for all of this in vain. There were no forgotten tribes or anything of the sort. As he walked, the jungle stopped and became rice fields. Then there was just more jungle. It went on like this, until he stopped and declared, ‘There is nothing beyond the jungle.’ I could have told him that. He had a special fascination with tigers, and he kept going on about them as if they were some mythical animal. The whole thing was simply ridiculous! I was glad to finally say goodbye to him, even though I did get to practice my English.”

Teacher Bory felt somewhat sympathetic to that foreigner for some reason. The image of some hulking white explorer trudging through the undergrowth was tragic, if a little silly. The fortunes of both himself and the foreigner had taken a similar turn. They had both chased after something as elusive and dangerous as a tiger in the jungle, only to be disappointed when it did not appear. Yet the two men would continue chasing after tigers, even though the chance of spotting one was very rare. But even if they were to finally find their long sought after beast, what would they do with it? Smile and take its picture? Surely the tiger would want something in return, something they would not want to know of.

Teacher Bory carried on teaching classes, fatalistic about his predicament. Channa continued to be eager to please. She continued to flirt with Teacher Bory, but there was something different about the way that he saw her in class. Instead of the smiling, unctuous young woman before him, he imagined her with long fangs, striped fur, and ears that rotated back and forth when they recognized familiar sounds. With a grin that stretched from ear to ear, he found her less appealing than he had before he heard the story of the foreigner. He grinned back. It helped him put her out of his mind, and so he turned his attentions elsewhere.