The Rent Collector

by Wright, Camron

  “You will always do your homework,” she said.

  “Home work?”

  “No, not home—work. It is one word, homework. Say it again.”

  The classes had apparently already begun. “Homework,” I repeated.

  “Good. Now, have you ever done homework?”

  There was a school in the province where I grew up, but I had attended for only two years as a child before giving up to help Mother in the rice fields. I didn’t remember anything called homework.

  “I have never done homework,” I admitted.

  “You will begin now—and you must try your hardest. I can tell you are bright, but it will still be difficult. I will not have you waste my time. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Lastly, you will need some pencils, paper, and something hard to write on. Can you get these things?”

  “I believe so.”

  “Believing is not enough, Sang Ly. If you want to resurrect hope, doing is the most important. Can you do these things?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay.”

  She was about to walk away when I stopped her by asking, “But, Sopeap, when do we start?”

  “We will start . . . on Friday!”

  Chapter Four

  I was right about Ki Lim. He wasn’t happy at all.

  “You can’t be serious! We have to buy the drunken hag Bourey rice wine? Regular rice wine isn’t good enough? Who does she think she is?”

  Before I can answer, he asks a more probing question. “How do you know for sure that she can even read?”

  “I watched her eyes the night she was here; she was reading Nisay’s book.”

  “You watched her eyes?” he asks.

  “Well, yes, and she—” I stop. It is a reasonable question, and in less than a breath, I realize I am not absolutely certain. He may actually be right.

  He continues, “Let’s assume, just for a minute, that she does read, even a few words. That doesn’t mean she knows enough to teach you—or anyone.”

  “Well . . .”

  “And how much time will it take? Who will watch Nisay?”

  With each question, I grow more concerned. Perhaps I should have given my brain more time when planning my strategy in the dump.

  *****

  It hasn’t rained for several days and the heat is stifling. Before bed, I pull back our canvas tarp to provide some air. Now, hours later, with the moonlight finally breaking through the haze, it reflects off the hands of our wall clock that reads ten minutes after two. Naturally, since we have no electricity and the clock’s insides have been taken out, its time never changes. Ki found it in the dump several months ago, and I hung it on our wall because I liked the printed flowers that adorn its face. I tell Ki often that it’s right twice a day, and at the moment, if I had to guess, I’d say that it’s pretty close.

  In spite of the stench of burning trash, neither my husband nor my son has stirred for hours. I reach over again to touch the three used pencils that lie beside our mat, as if one may have tried to sneak away in the darkness. Like me, they remain prostrate, waiting for morning to come.

  Lucky Fat helped me find them, and, to my surprise, Ki sharpened them for me with his knife. They sit on top of their own sleeping mat, several sheets of various and assorted papers. The papers aren’t new. Every sheet has words or markings on the opposite side. No matter—I will still have sufficient space to write my letters. Next to the pencils and paper rests a bottle of premium rice wine—the expensive brand that Sopeap demanded. Ki had protested, but I reminded him that we only had enough money to buy it because Sopeap hadn’t made us pay this month’s rent.

  In the stillness of the morning, Ki’s breathing also reminds me that his concerns about the Rent Collector are valid. I don’t know for sure if Sopeap can read.

  I pretend the clock is ticking softly in the darkness, counting down the hours, the minutes, the seconds. I told Ki I wanted to hang the clock on our wall because I liked its flowered face—but that’s not exactly true. There is more. It helps me to remember that even though something is broken, it can still serve a purpose. Someday, if we ever have the money, I want to take it to a clock maker and have it repaired. It’s silly, I know, because buying a new clock would be less expensive.

  Sometimes broken things deserve to be repaired.

  My thoughts ramble. Will I learn to read? I implore the ancestors to just give me a chance. I’m wrong about a lot of things, but I believe that Sopeap really can read and that she’ll teach me. Like my clock and its telling of time, I hope this will be one of the moments, even if it’s only twice a day, that I’m right.

  *****

  I rush outside in the early-morning light and scan the hazy horizon, trying to spot Sopeap. The smoke is heavy and it’s difficult to make out silhouettes. After several minutes of study, I am certain that none of the shadows is my new instructor. I carry in more water and scrub the floor again where Nisay slept, to make sure it is spotless should Sopeap decide to sit there while she teaches. I pat the area dry, at least as much as possible, and then return to the path in the front of the house. No teacher.

  Our canvas wall is loose on the far end, and, using the rock that Ki keeps by the side of the house, I hammer the nails along the tarp’s top edge until all are tight. Then I hear someone coming and glance across my shoulder. Never mind. It is a neighbor who is just passing by.

  The massive cistern that holds our water at the side of our house is tipping slightly. I turn and twist the pot until it appears level and stable, and then I get on my knees and scrape up and pack enough dirt around the base to ensure it remains so. I imagine Sopeap will arrive when I least expect and interrupt me, perhaps even compliment me on being such a good worker. She doesn’t.

  Inside I organize my papers, sorting them again, this time by shape rather than by how much open space remains on the back of each page where I will write. I pick up one of my pencils and hold it to a paper as if I’m about to write something very important, though I can’t imagine what.

  With each accomplished task, my throat tightens, my breathing deepens, my focus shortens, and my hope fades like a morning moon. When Ki arrives at noon to see how my first day of learning is progressing, he finds me sitting alone on our mat, my knees pulled tight to my chest. I am not crying—I refuse. But as he enters, I neither move nor speak, afraid any discussion of the obvious topic will demolish my resolve.

  I expect him to say, “I told you so.” He doesn’t, though a heavy sigh handles the job just as admirably.

  “Where is Nisay?” he asks instead.

  “Mother wanted to work today, so Narin is watching him. Let me fix you something to eat, and then I will go and pick him up.”

  I have a cousin, Narin Sok, who also came to the dump from the province. On occasion, when special circumstances arise, we will watch each other’s children. Because I didn’t know what time Sopeap would show up, I left with Nisay before dawn, just after Ki Lim headed out for the day.

  Now, after preparing Ki’s rice, I reach for my sandals—and then we both hear a commotion at the front door, near where our curtain is pulled back. We look up at the same time. It is Sopeap Sin and she can hardly stand.

  “Where have you been?” Ki asks, before Sopeap enters and before I can say a word. He seems to be forgetting that she is still the Rent Collector, a woman with the power to kick us out of our home at any time.

  She ignores his tone, looks past him as if he weren’t there, and instead directs her question to me. “Do you have my rice wine?”

  Ki steps sideways to block her view. “You get nothing until you carry out your part of the bargain.”

  “Out of my way!” She threatens—at least as threatening as a staggering, drunken woman sounds to a larger, stronger man. She attempts to move around him, but Ki Lim will have none of it.

  “Don’t you dare!”

  I don’t know if he’s defending me or begrudging her. I assume it’s the f
ormer and I step to his side.

  “Ki, it’s okay.” I interrupt with words, coupled with a soft touch to his shoulder. “It’s not worth it,” I whisper. “She is still the Rent Collector.”

  Then, with Sopeap watching, I reach out and place a twice-polished bottle of Bourey’s finest distilled rice wine into her hands. “You need this worse than we do.”

  She is about to stumble away when I stop her.

  “Sopeap, you forgot these.” I force her fingers around my three pencils and hold her clasped hand tightly. Then, before she has a chance to see the moisture forming in my eyes, I thank her for coming and retreat behind the safety of our curtain.

  Chapter Five

  As I pour a spot of menthol oil into my hands, its pungent odor wafts around the room and Nisay immediately begins to wail.

  “Oh please, child, I haven’t even touched you yet.”

  He doesn’t care and I hear his objection loud and clear. “True, you haven’t, but you’re sure as certain about to!”

  And he is right, but I have no choice. It is a remedy practiced by my mother and father, and by their mother and father, and I’m certain by a line of waiting parent ancestors that stretches past heaven. It is as old as Cambodia itself. It is called Koah Kchol, a name that means to scrape air.

  It starts with oil distilled from leaves of the Mentha arvensis, a menthol plant that grows wild in the jungle. Once the oil is rubbed thoroughly onto the skin and it’s had a chance to soak in, a coin or other piece of round metal, held sideways, is used to scrape the recipient’s back, chest, and arms, using long parallel strokes.

  The skin is scraped to bring toxic air to the body’s surface and restore the natural balance of hot and cold, keeping these universal elements in harmony. As a side effect, it also causes blood vessels just beneath the surface to rupture, resulting in maroon, zebra-like lines that remain for two or three days before they fade.

  Once, several weeks before, after one of Nisay’s treatments, an American doctor arrived at Stung Meanchey on behalf of Charity House, a Christian service organization that had come to offer free medical assistance for the day to children at the dump. Naturally, I took advantage, hoping it would finally be a time for answers. When the doctor noticed Nisay’s lines, through a translator, he called my treatment superstitious nonsense and a complete waste of energy. He said I should instead trust modern medicine and administer a course of antibiotics, which he then provided.

  I will try anything to help my child and so I followed his instructions implicitly. However, ten days later, when the medicine ran out, Nisay’s symptoms returned. I would like to find that doctor and explain to him the difference between superstition and intuition, and to let him know that his solution proved to be nonsense and a complete waste of energy. He didn’t leave a forwarding address.

  And so I continue to search for answers, and as I scrape my son’s skin today, I console with words meant to soften his cries—words that I suppose are meant for me. “Child, we only want you to get well. Understand that while it’s painful, it’s for your own good. If we do nothing, your illness will worsen. I promise that in spite of your complaints, one day you will thank me. Be brave, my little son, and when you are a father and you pour oil into your own hands and your own sick child begins to sob, remember.”

  *****

  We don’t have running water—unless you count my pouring it out of a cup. Instead, we purchase our water from a vendor several huts to the west, who in turn buys rights from the government (read bribe) for the flow of water that comes from one of several pipes that feed into the dump. About once a week, I carry water to our home in two large jugs that hang from a stick draped across my shoulders. It’s an arduous, three-trip effort that, by necessity, requires I stare down at the path as I walk so as to not lose balance, trip, and spill my precious load.

  This morning I left Nisay with Teva Mao, my neighbor two houses down the hill, and when I am finished, I will watch her two youngest children while she repeats the effort for her own home.

  On my second trip back, I almost run over Sopeap, who has squatted squarely in the middle of the trail to wait. As I jolt to a stop, some of my water sloshes out. If she notices that I’m annoyed, it doesn’t show. She sets down her bag alongside her drooping socks so that she can gesture with her hands as she speaks. “Friday turned out to be a difficult day,” she announces.

  I want to blurt out, “Oh, really?” I don’t.

  “I’m sorry,” I offer instead. “You didn’t look well.” What I mean is that she acted like a drunken pig, but I hold my tongue.

  “Are you ready?” she asks.

  I turn. “For what?”

  “Are we going to hold lessons? Don’t you still want to learn how to read?”

  “I . . . uh . . . yes . . . I suppose, but I have Nisay . . . and then I need to watch Teva’s children while she gets—”

  She interrupts. “I can make arrangements. Do you trust Teva Mao to watch Nisay?”

  “I do . . . yes . . . certainly.”

  “I will speak with her. Carry back your water and I will meet you at your house.”

  I don’t know what to say but finally mutter, “Okay,” and then I add, “Ki will be surprised. He doesn’t think you—” I pause midsentence, regretting that my excitement has only highlighted my stupidity. I hope that she doesn’t notice, but I feel a guilty blush creep across my face as she turns.

  “He doesn’t think I can read?”

  “Well, um, he wasn’t sure. He thought you could be . . . pretending.”

  I wonder if she’ll be angry, but instead the notion brings her obvious pleasure. “Sang Ly,” she answers, “I have been called many names in my life. Some call me Sopeap Sin. Here at Stung Meanchey many call me the Rent Collector. Still others simply call me Cow. But my most cherished title, the one I most revere, was a long time ago in the Department of Literature at the Royal University of Phnom Penh. There, for nine wonderful years, the most cherished of my life, my students called me Teacher.”

  Chapter Six

  I already know the basic sounds of the Khmer (Cambodian) alphabet. I mean, other than being illiterate, I do speak the language. I’ve been told (mostly by those who don’t read or write either) that, with the speaking part out of the way, learning to match sounds to letters will be easy. Surprise!

  Perhaps ever more naively, I expect Sopeap to be understanding.

  “Sang Ly, pay attention! I won’t repeat myself.”

  I can’t help but admire the glossy pencil I hold in my hand, one taken from the stack she has extracted from her oversized bag. I touch its tip to the crisp, unused sheet of starched paper that lies on the varnished board in my lap—all supplies she has brought. I’m ready to take notes on every word—but of course, I can’t yet write. Still, even pretending feels sensational.

  I look up with such eager anticipation that she softens.

  “Please, put down the pencil, Sang Ly, and listen.”

  While I am crouched on the floor, Sopeap stands beside a small portable easel. I’m glad she has brought it with her because it makes our tiny home feel like a real school. The easel lets her write with a piece of chalk and then she wipes it away with ease. What a wondrous invention!

  She continues. “We’ve already talked about consonants and vowels. Now, Khmer consonants are divided into two series. The sound each vowel makes will depend on the series to which the consonants belong. I know it seems complicated, but it’s not. It’s these sounds that we’re going to learn first. Do you understand?”

  I nod yes, not understanding.

  “Good. Now, go ahead and pick up your pencil.”

  For the better part of the afternoon, Sopeap repeats a letter, writes it on the board, then announces the sound the letter makes. I copy it down exactly as she has written it. To help me remember the sounds, she has agreed to let me draw a small picture beside each letter. If the letter makes the b sound, for example, I will draw a picture of a bird beside it,
since both the word and the letter sound the same.

  “For your homework assignment,” Sopeap announces, “three days from today, I want you to have memorized all the letters we have written—both names and sounds. Can you do it?”

  “That quick?”

  “Yes. Can you do it?”

  “I will try.”

  “Trying is not good enough. Will you do it?”

  It has become a familiar question. “Yes. I will do it.”

  It appears she is satisfied because her head nods with mine. “That is good. Now, keep writing the letters we have learned.”

  I am on my fourth page when Ki pulls back the tarp and enters the room. We are both surprised.

  “What are you doing home?” I ask, perhaps sounding as though he isn’t welcome. “I thought you took your lunch with you today.”

  “Lunch? Sang Ly, I’m home for dinner.”

  “But it’s not . . .”

  Sopeap gathers her supplies. “It has been nearly six hours, Sang Ly,” she says. “You need to go and pick up your son, and I desperately need a drink.”

  *****

  “What is she like?” Lucky Fat asks, eyes as round as his cheeks. No one, including the boy, can picture Sopeap Sin actually teaching.

  “She is stern, but she is also smart. I mean, who would have guessed?”

  “Does she hit you?”

  I can’t help but giggle. “Hit me? No, of course not—at least not yet.”

  It’s his next question that catches me off guard. He glances down first at his feet, shuffles them in the garbage. “Sang Ly, after you learn . . . once you can read and write on your own . . . would it be all right . . . ”

  “What is it? Just ask.”

  “Could you teach me how to write my name?”

  I put down my sack and picture myself standing in front of a chalkboard, the same as Sopeap, showing Lucky how to carefully draw each perfect line. I take a deep breath, not caring that the air is particularly smoky, and then I try to remember if I’ve ever been asked a more satisfying question. I can’t think of what it might have been.