In a Rocket Made of Ice

by Gail Gutradt

  Wayne says he can tell a lot about a visitor by watching how the children respond to them. Do little ones circle warily, or hang back, or just make a beeline for their laps? Wayne trusts the children’s intuition as he trusts his own.

  Of all the volunteers I’ve known, I learned the most from Molly. When I first arrived at Wat Opot, Molly had already been there for a few months. She belonged to the same congregation back in the States that supported Rebecca’s work at Wat Opot. Once a year Rebecca went home to America, and while she was there she gave talks at her church to raise donations for the children. Sitting in the audience, Molly listened raptly to Rebecca’s stories. To Molly, Rebecca seemed like Mother Teresa, compassionate and saintly, and in Molly’s mind the thought grew of journeying to Cambodia to offer service.

  Molly was large and enthusiastic, a mass of curly red hair and goodwill and freckles. The children clung to her like iron filings to a magnet, and melted into her capacious warmth.

  When she was younger, Molly had ridden with a motorcycle gang. Her body was a tattooed memorial of dates and names and crucifixes, all dedicated to dear friends who had died or been killed.

  Recently she had been born again.

  For Molly, volunteering offered a fresh start in a new place, free from the complications of her past. Here, she could love simply and be of service, and the kids would welcome and embrace her. From her friends and congregation she raised enough money for a ticket to Cambodia. It would be the first time Molly had ever been out of the United States.

  From my first tentative days at Wat Opot Molly had helped me to settle into this large confusing family of children with unpronounceable names. I took photos of everyone, and she wrote the children’s names on their pictures and told me what she knew about each one. And she knew a lot. In her short stay she had learned their names and ages and medical histories. She knew which adults were related to which children, which women were the paid caretakers of which orphans and how some children were related to each other. She knew their stories, and she explained to me some of what they had been through in their brief lives. But most of all she knew them, knew that Mister Sampeah always teased Miss Malis, knew that Mister Ouen had massaged his dying mother even when she cried out in pain, knew who woke up afraid in the middle of the night. Molly had the beginnings of a basic, working knowledge of Khmer, and she had many Cambodian friends. She spent her days with the women and children of Wat Opot. She nursed the very small and very ill Mister Wat when he was dying of AIDS, so that he could feel happy and loved in his final days. At night, like Wendy in Neverland, she visited each dormitory in turn to say a comforting goodnight to the children. Sometimes a quiet voice—I think it was Ouen’s—would whisper back, “May God bless you.”

  Molly arrived at Wat Opot just as Wayne was leaving for a month to visit his family in America. Rebecca would be in charge. Taking care of both the children and adult patients was exhausting, and when her duties were over, Rebecca spent much of her time in her room. This left Molly on her own, and the children, missing Wayne, came to her for love and for reassurance that Wayne would return. To be more available to them, Molly moved her bed from Rebecca’s apartment to the screened porch outside.

  The Pagoda Boys also loved Molly. These were kids from the villages who had repeatedly gotten into trouble and were sent to live with the monks. Some had probably been abused, or had lived on the streets, and each had committed a series of petty crimes and, if unchecked, could eventually get themselves into serious trouble.

  Nor did the monks treat them kindly. The boys were ragged and dirty, and they were always hungry. Molly seemed to be the only person who could reach their hearts. She gave them food and, when Rebecca was in Phnom Penh, let them visit with her on the porch. Sometimes they would creep by her room at dawn and whisper her awake through the screens. Once she even let Mister Da, the oldest boy, take a shower in the shared bathroom in the holiest of holies, Rebecca’s apartment. She gave him shampoo and rinse and sweet-smelling bath gel, and a brush to scrub off the dirt, and a huge soft towel with Bible verses on it. When he emerged she gave him fresh clothes she had bought in the market, trimmed his hair and doused him with powder until he smelled like a flower garden. Mister Da gazed in the cracked mirror of Rebecca’s armoire and was amazed.

  A month after I arrived, Molly went back to America. Before she left she gave away everything she owned to the women and children of Wat Opot. To me, she confided that with all she had given away, she had never given anything to a monk, but we agreed that she had come some distance from believing that all Buddhists were going to Hell.

  She hated to leave, and we all missed her terribly. Every evening after dinner, when the flight to Singapore headed south over Wat Opot, the children would point up to the sky and call out, “Molly go Amérique!” Then they would look sad and ask me whether she would ever return, and I would tell them that I knew she would try her best, because she loved them.

  “Wayne,” I asked one day, “how come Molly was such a natural with the kids, especially with the Pagoda Boys?”

  Wayne grinned, and replied, “Molly is a Pagoda Boy.”

  It’s Christmas Eve, my first at Wat Opot. Rebecca is having a small gathering on her porch. We share some lychee juice and a bottle of Bailey’s Irish Cream. Here we sit, four seekers, none of us comfortable in our home cultures. Andrew, a young Australian, whose friends told him, “Why bother to travel, and anyway no need to stay very long.” Rebecca, who admits that “Jesus is the one man who never betrayed me.” Wayne, always the outsider, his new haircut making him look all the more like a penitent on a Dutch altarpiece. Me, feeling alone again amid all these people. Molly had the key. She never locked her door.

  Sothy and his younger brother Rith are watching TV. Their mother recently died of AIDS, and they have come to live at Wat Opot. It’s raining and cold tonight. Rith has fallen asleep beside his brother on the floor of the new dorm. Sothy moves Rith’s hand under the blanket, tucks the blanket up around his neck, bundles him up to keep him warm. Such a brave little boy! Later he carries Rith to bed, and then, wearily, he comes and lays his head on my shoulder, and it’s my turn to keep him warm.

  21

  The Rapture

  It was December 2006. I was going back to Cambodia for the second time. I was excited; I missed everybody, all the children, Wayne, the adult patients who were part of the community. I’d been there for five months the first time, and it was wonderful, but it was hard. I never had children of my own, and I often laughed that being there would take care of my kid karma for lifetimes to come. But deep down I also felt that I wasn’t very good at being with the children. Too often I would just do the wrong thing, or try too hard and muck things up. This time, I told myself, it would be different. I knew I must stop thinking that I had to do things or teach things. The first month I had been at Wat Opot I didn’t know what I was supposed to be doing. As I’ve said, I wasn’t good at teaching English, or teaching anything really, to scores of children ages four months to sixteen years old who wouldn’t sit still. One day at supper I told Wayne I didn’t know what I had done all day. I’d gotten up, eaten three meals, read a book, napped and hugged Miss Srey Mom. And Wayne thought for a moment and said, “A day when you hug one child is a good day.”

  I expected Wayne to meet me at the airport in Phnom Penh. But the day before I arrived I got an email that said, “Probably we’ll be there to pick you up, but if not wait half an hour, and if we haven’t come, you’ll know we’ve been Raptured and you didn’t get to go.” Wayne called himself a Christian then. He used to be an Evangelical, but he’d come to believe that when he gets to Heaven there’ll be Buddhists there, and other people of compassion. So his mission group labeled him a heretic and kicked him out because he wouldn’t try to convert anybody. They said he was going straight to Hell and taking the children with him. I was only the second Jew Wayne had ever known, and he used to kid me about it, and I would kid him back about his celibacy. “You
know, Wayne,” I’d say, “you’re going to get to Heaven and God is going to take one look at you and He’s gonna say, ‘Wayne! WHY?’ ”

  Wayne told me he’d been celibate all his life, and I got the feeling celibacy wasn’t easy for him. He said he took his vow seriously, in part because he had met so many people along the way who didn’t. Although he wasn’t a minister he wore all black; even his jockey shorts were black. I used to see them drying on the line. He said that he wore black shorts because if he ever found himself giving in to temptation, if he ever got stripped down as far as his underwear, he’d see the black color and he’d remember his vow.

  We had rabbits we were raising for food, but they wouldn’t have babies. Do you know how hard that is to do—to get rabbits to not have babies? Wayne said someone had told him it was probably because the cage had a concrete floor. He said he couldn’t see what difference that made. And I said, “Wayne, you’ve obviously never been on the bottom!”

  I think Wayne secretly thought I was a loose woman, but he never said anything. That’s the kind of relationship we had. I trusted Wayne, more than just about anyone I’ve ever met. In fact I made it a practice that any time I had a problem that I didn’t want to talk to Wayne about I’d go right to his office and tell him about it. And he never disappointed me or made me feel stupid.

  Wayne’s a contemplative man, and usually he keeps his energy focused inward. But once, when I was leaving for America, I looked deep into his kind gray eyes and he looked back into mine, and all the way to Phnom Penh, every time I thought of Wayne’s eyes I would find myself weeping, and realized I had been given a glimpse of something rare. I’d looked into the face of a truly good man.

  It’s afternoon now, and I’m playing on the bamboo bed with a bunch of children. We’re wrestling and laughing and rolling around—a whole puppy pile of us. As Wayne walks by he says to me, “You know, some of the volunteers would be afraid to do what you’re doing.” And that makes me feel good.

  And Dara is there. He’s nine, a skinny kid with chopped-up short hair, like someone had shaved his head and his hair hadn’t come to a consensus yet about how to grow back. And though he has two living parents—unlike most of the other kids, who are orphans—both of his parents have AIDS. Dara and I have been hanging out and getting to know each other, and he’s been playing all afternoon with a toy car I brought from the States, when a four-year-old boy—the son of one of the Home Care staff—comes over and starts crying, “Lan! Lan!”—“Car! Car!” He wants to play with the car too, and he’s really annoying, and he won’t stop whining. I ask Dara to please give him the car for a while and Dara shakes his head no. And it’s so hot today. And the little boy is insistent, “Lan! Lan!” Dara is stubborn. “Dara, you’ve had it all day,” I say. “Just let him play with it for a little while. Share it with him, okay? It’s good to share.” I take the car from his hands and give it to the little boy, who grabs it and runs away with it. Dara shoots me this look of pure loathing and throws himself down on the bed and starts to cry real tears. I can’t understand what I’ve done that’s so terrible. I try to apologize, but he isn’t having any of it, won’t even look at me. He just keeps wailing and sobbing.

  At dinner that night, I ask Wayne what I did wrong, and he says, “Well, Dara’s got it rough at home. His father drinks and hits him sometimes. So he makes friends with you and he’s having a great day and he’s opening up, and then you take his toy away and give it to that spoiled little kid who gets whatever he wants anyway.”

  “So what do I do now, Wayne? I think I’ve lost him.”

  “It’ll be okay.”

  “It’s hard, Wayne. I’m used to being able to explain, to talk about things. But we don’t have any words.”

  “Just do something nice for him. It’ll be fine.”

  “At this point I don’t know what ‘nice’ would look like. Dara won’t even look at me.”

  “Don’t worry. Just watch for a way. Just love him.”

  We’re sitting in the walled garden out behind the kitchen having our dinner. A few of the kids come back to keep us company, and sure enough, there’s Dara, pretending not to look at me. Normally he never comes back here. I pick out a nice big orange and walk over and offer it to him politely in the Cambodian manner, using two hands, and he gives me a great big smile and accepts it politely with both hands. Then he hugs me, and from then on I’ve got a buddy.

  There’s a little girl named Miss Punlok who recently came to Wat Opot. She’s about two years old. She and her mother were found living on the streets of Phnom Penh, and were brought here because her mother was dying of AIDS. For two months, while her mother lay dying in the hospice, Miss Punlok never moved from the foot of her mother’s bed. Punlok had a permanent look of horror and shock on her face, and although she could not have known what was happening, she could tell it wasn’t good. Probably she had never known her mother when she had not been sick. What’s more, we’ll never know what her life was like on the streets. But even here with our family she was so terrified that no one could come near her without her bursting into tears and starting to scream at the top of her lungs. And peeing. After her mother died, I tried to make friends with her, but any time I came near, her eyes would get big as saucers and she’d start to scream. So I would always say, “Hello, Miss Punlok,” when I saw her, and I learned just how much distance to keep between us so that she wouldn’t cry. But I secretly hoped that sometime before I left for America I might see that little girl smile.

  It’s evening now, dusk, just after dinner, before the children get their meds and before the generator goes on for our two hours of electricity. I’m going to leave for America soon, for the second time, and I’m feeling sad, and watching everything and everyone carefully so I’ll remember the details. We’re all just sitting around and the kids are playing jump rope with looped-together rubber bands, and running back and forth with pinwheels they’ve made out of twigs and twisted green mango leaves. I’m lying flat on my back on the still-warm concrete near the bamboo benches, and Mister Kosal walks by looking so cute, and I grab him and lift him up over my head and he throws his arms out and starts laughing and making airplane noises. Suddenly a whole bunch of kids are crowding around me and they all want to fly, and someone points up to the sky; the evening flight from Phnom Penh south to Singapore is just going way high overhead, and Miss Punthea says, “Madame Gail go Amérique!” and I say, “Not yet, sweetheart, not yet,” and grab her under the arms and throw her up over my head. At first she’s not quite sure about it and keeps her arms tight to her sides, but after a minute she starts laughing and spreads her arms wide and starts moving them up and down like a little bird.

  Way off on the side I see Miss Punlok. She’s standing all by herself, watching us with her serious face and wide eyes. But I see something new in her eyes. Maybe she’s thinking, “Ooh, those kids are having a good time, I wish I could do that, but maybe I don’t trust that barang, that foreign lady, but those kids are laughing and having so much fun, but I don’t know about that barang…” I look over and am feeling so good I’m suddenly not afraid to take a chance. So I wave for her to come over, and she walks slowly, cautiously, never taking her eyes from my face. I take a deep breath and pray, “Please don’t let me blow this,” and catch her and up she goes! She throws her arms open wide and starts giggling and squealing and soaring, and it’s amazing, because it’s the first time anyone has seen Miss Punlok laugh and she doesn’t even pee on me.

  I put her down and she sits on the warm concrete and looks so happy, and I go on playing airplane with the other kids. Then I see Dara, off to one side, watching. He walks over to Miss Punlok and looks right at me, and then, WHACK!, he slaps her in the head with the palm of his hand.

  Miss Punlok’s face contorts, and she opens her mouth to start screaming. Inside me a voice is roaring, “Damn it, it was perfect. You’ve ruined everything!”

  “Dara!” I yell out to him. “Why did you do that?” And he sm
acks her again. WHACK! Still looking straight at me. WHACK! Making sure I see him. WHACK! “Dara! Don’t do that! She didn’t do anything to you!” WHACK! “Dara!”

  Before I know what I’m doing I jump up, and I’m tasting blood in my throat. I grab him by his solar plexus and then I have him pinned on the bench with one hand, and my fist is pulled back to punch him. He is staring at me and his eyes are wide and I am staring down at him, and everything stops, and the world goes away, and I’m yelling, “If I ever see you touch her again you’ll be one sorry little motherfucker!”

  In that moment I understand precisely how someone could beat a child, and that knowledge terrifies me.

  Everyone has stopped moving and nobody’s talking and they’re all staring, waiting to see if I hit him. I stand over him for another minute, and slowly I lower my fist and release him, and he squirts away fast; all the energy drains out of me, and I retreat slowly toward Wayne’s office.

  “Wayne, I think maybe it’s time for me to go home. I almost punched a kid just now.” And I tell him what happened. “I’ll be on the first plane home if you want.”

  Wayne sits there for a long moment, thinking slowly, like a black glacier. Finally he takes a breath and says, “Well, you didn’t hit him. And Dara needs to learn that his actions have consequences and bring out reactions in other people. I think it will be okay. It might be a good thing. Don’t be too hard on yourself.”