The Rent Collector

by Wright, Camron

  I once told a doctor, who asked what I fed Nisay, that on occasion we eat boiled snails. He jerked around excitedly, as if snails were a staple in everyone’s diet, and then added that he’d eaten them at Le Bouillon Chartier, one of the finest restaurants in France. He was the same doctor who told me that the practice of scraping Nisay’s skin was a waste of time, and I couldn’t tell by his tone if he was mocking me about the snails or if he was being sincere. I presumed the latter, and so the next time I cooked snails, I explained to Ki that we were eating just like the rich do in France. I don’t remember his exact reply, but I know it contained the word chkuat (crazy).

  Teva Mao’s oldest girls are playing out in front, and when they realize where I’m headed, they follow along for the adventure. As we approach the ponds, there are already others gathering, and in spite of the fact that we’re talking about snails from the dump, I pick up my step anyway, worried I’ll miss out. Though the water is muddy, a quick inspection confirms that the snails are still too small—until we wade out to where the water deepens. Not only are they larger, but they are plentiful. Then it starts to rain.

  I work an area where the water reaches my knees but where there are still patches of reeds, and there I pluck snails the size of errant limes. As I gather them into my bag, the rain increases. It’s a bit treacherous as I try not to slip, but I can’t complain. The job is tolerable until I glance at my ankle while stepping through the water to see what looks like a black spot of mud.

  In this life we all have our own phobias and fears. Lena hates snakes. Narin dreads stink beetles. Dara Neak can’t stand the thought of spiders. I, in turn, am terrified of leeches—just like the one now attached to my ankle.

  I’m not stupid enough to leave my bag behind, but I clutch it tightly and high step out of the water as if I’m about to be eaten by a swamp creature—which I am. Once I reach the safety of higher ground, I toss my sack aside and reach down to pull the miserable creature off of my skin, but I can’t. Either my fingers are too slippery from the snails I’ve gathered or my hands are too shaky from my panic. No matter how hard I try to grab hold of the monster still sucking blood from my body, I can’t get a grip. I try an alternative tactic, which entails repeatedly stomping my foot against the ground, as though my pants have caught fire at the dump, hoping to shake the leech loose; but the stubborn little animal doesn’t budge.

  “Girls! Come quick!” I scream, as if the swamp water has also caught fire and if they don’t come this instant, we’ll all be consumed. They continue splashing at each other and giggling.

  I scream louder.

  When they finally reach me, Vanna, Teva’s oldest, rolls her eyes.

  “Pull it off, quick!” I say, and she reaches down to give it a try. It stretches out, long and plump, sliding through her slender fingers, and I’m certain it’s getting longer and plumper every second.

  “This one’s hard to get off,” she says as she tries again and fails miserably.

  Teva’s youngest pipes up next. “Usually they let go once they’ve had their fill of blood.”

  It’s an interesting tidbit of advice that I have no intention of testing out!

  “Quick, give me your sandal,” I say to Vanna.

  She slips it off and hands it to me. Using a flat end, I finally scrape the wretched leech from my leg. After I do, blood continues to ooze out from the spot on my skin where it has been attached.

  “I’m going home. I’m through gathering snails,” I declare with a pout as I pick up my bag and stomp away, looking carefully where I step. I feel like a tantrum-throwing child who refuses to play when she doesn’t get her way, but I don’t care. Teva’s girls don’t care either. They shrug, wave, and then, after I’m distant, laugh at me.

  By the time I arrive home, I’ve calmed down. I give Ki the snails I successfully gathered before the cruel leech attack, watching as he dumps them into our Styrofoam box. He swirls them around with water to clean them off, then mixes in a little salt to draw them out of their shells. As he works, I rehearse the vicious assault in more vivid detail. He tries not to smile but does a poor job hiding his amusement.

  “Where exactly did it bite you?” he asks, and I can’t tell if he’s concerned or just teasing. I think I’ve already shown him, but to eke out as much sympathy as possible, I twist around and pull up my pant leg so he can see for himself.

  “It was right here—” I point to my wound, but when I look down, there’s nothing there. I must have mixed up which leg got bitten. I twist to the other side and pull up that pant leg instead. “I mean it was—” It’s not on that ankle either, which is confusing, and suddenly, I can’t remember exactly where it bit me.

  No matter; Ki can hardly contain himself. I want to join his laughter, as the situation really is hysterically funny. Instead, I shake my disgusted head, bend down, and transfer our dinner into a cooking pot, promising myself not to speak another word to the man until well into the evening.

  *****

  “I have been thinking about something you said last time we met,” I say to Sopeap after we finish talking about the story we have just read.

  “Then you do listen.”

  I ignore her sarcasm. “You said we all want to be the story’s hero.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I asked Sida Son what she thought about heroes.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She chuckled and told me to look around at where I lived. She said to let her know when I saw a hero walking past, but that I’d grow old waiting—and then she left.”

  “Perhaps she’s looking for the wrong kind of hero.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Heroes come in many varieties—some are reluctant, others are willing; sometimes heroes act alone, other times they represent a group. Seldom are heroes perfect.”

  “Then what makes them heroes?”

  “Most teachers will agree that the true mark of a hero, what sets him apart from everyone else, is sacrifice. A hero gives something up, sometimes even his own life, for the good of others.”

  “Does giving up time for another count, like you teaching me how to read?”

  Our discussion so far today has been friendly. Instantly Sopeap flashes anger. “Don’t pander to me! I won’t tolerate it.”

  I don’t understand how she can turn so mean so quickly. “I’m not . . . or I don’t think I am. I don’t even know what pander means.”

  She isn’t finished. “Understand, child, I’m nobody’s hero.”

  As always, I should shut my mouth. But when she gets angry for no reason, it makes me . . . well . . . angry. Rather than show it, I decide to play dumb.

  “But you are teaching me—isn’t that a sacrifice?”

  It works. She steps so close I have a hard time focusing on her eyes. Her tone reaches out with invisible fingers and grabs my neck. “Don’t you ever assume that I’m doing this for you. I am not a hero—not to you, not to anyone! Do you understand me?”

  I’m not certain exactly what point I’ve proven, but it feels as though there must be one in there somewhere. “Yes,” I answer. “I’m sorry.”

  Sometimes when I get Sopeap angry, we finish early for the day. I think if I had to put up with me, I’d drink also. But today, she gathers her composure and keeps going.

  “There are other vital characters beside the hero. Stories are littered with characters you will recognize from our everyday lives. We should talk about them as well.”

  “Like who?”

  “Have you ever known someone who pretended to be something they were not? A friend, perhaps, who later crossed you?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Then you have met a shape-shifter—and yet it’s not always a person. Fate is the most maddening shape-shifter you will ever encounter.”

  Perhaps it’s because my face is all scrunched up that she thinks I don’t follow. I do. It is just that she is talking so fast I have to concentrate to not miss something. “Tel
l me about others.”

  “Do you have friends or acquaintances who are always mischievous and making jokes?”

  “Everyone does.”

  “Not only do these people provide relief with their wit, but their often impish actions point out the absurd, things that need to change.”

  “Just like Lucky Fat,” I say.

  “Explain what you mean.”

  “The other day Lucky joked about how ridiculous it is that the buyer pays less to women and children when they bring in scrap than to a man—and he did it right in front of the buyer’s face. I thought it was funny, but the buyer seemed annoyed. Yet, when he paid me that day, it was as much as if Ki had gone.”

  “Then you are already acquainted with the benefits of a trickster.” Sopeap raises her arm to cover the lower part of her face, then crouches at her waist. She glances wildly about the room, and when she speaks, her voice almost sounds sinister. She is actually acting; it’s a side of the woman I have never seen. “And then there’s the mask of the shadow,” she says, “a cunning character indeed.”

  “The shadow character must be the evil person, like the gangs,” I say.

  “It could be,” she agrees, standing back up straight. “Sometimes, the shadow is the villain, but a shadow may also be someone who simply disagrees with the hero and tries to pull him or her in a different direction. And sometimes the shadow isn’t a character at all.”

  “Why not?”

  “At times the shadows can be within us—all of our dark secrets that try to tear us apart, secrets that we can’t or don’t admit, even to ourselves.”

  “There is something you’ve said that confuses me,” I say.

  “Some of the things I say confuse me also. What is it?”

  “If the shadow isn’t always evil, if it can also be someone who disagrees, does that mean Ki is a shadow when he tells me I’m wrong?”

  “Good question. Remember, from the shadow’s point of view, we are the shadow and he is the hero. And here is something else just as confusing: sometimes these characters are all mixed together. We may find that any character in the story can temporarily wear the mask of any or all of these, even the hero.”

  “Then how do I keep them straight?”

  “Often we don’t. That is why literature—and life—are so exciting. These characters can be right in front of our faces and yet we don’t see them.”

  Sopeap hesitates.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “Also think about this, and then we will finish for the day. All of these characters we have discussed, and many more that we haven’t—their struggles aren’t always evident. In almost every story, the fiercest battles often take place within.”

  Sopeap places her books in her bag, a sign that tells me we are finished for the day. Perhaps it’s the confusion still pinned to my face, or that I’m finally silent and not asking incessant questions, but either way, just before heading out the door, she leaves a thought that I sense will percolate in my head for the rest of the afternoon.

  “Just when we think we have our own stories figured out,” she says, “heroes arise in the most unexpected places.”

  *****

  The Momordica charantia is a tropical plant grown in Cambodia that is widely known for its edible fruit. The fruit is a grassy green color and comes in a variety of shapes and sizes, though typically oblong with bluntly tapering ends. In short, it looks like a skinny cucumber with a horrific case of warts. It is also called bitter melon, and rightly so. Of all the fruits in Cambodia, there is none more bitter or acrid to the taste.

  Teva Mao says the leaves of the bitter melon plant stimulate digestion, reduce fever, and just may help my son. When she returns from a trip into the city, she brings back some leaves that she purchased at the market, and I am most thankful. Nisay is not as excited. I don’t care. He’s been getting worse and I’ll try anything. I boil the plant until the bubbling water has leached color from the leaves, turning the liquid a pale emerald green. It actually looks quite delicious, until I take a sip. My lips tighten and purse and my tongue involuntarily blocks access to my throat. It makes me wonder: If I can hardly stand its taste, how am I going to get Nisay to try it?

  Ki thinks it’s funny, so I give him the job of feeding it to the child. He starts with a spoonful, and while Nisay is eager on the first try, he’s not stupid. I question how much of the liquid the boy actually swallows as green splashes trickle down his bare chest. On Ki’s second try, Nisay cries, spits, and jerks his head sideways, and it’s plain to everyone—okay, at least to me—that this is not going to work. Ki, however, can be as stubborn as Nisay. He tells us that he’ll be back, and he soon returns with a small container of juice from a fruit called Tieb, also known as custard apple. (I have no idea where he got it, and he refuses to tell me.) While the bitter melon is known for being sour, the custard apple is known for being sweet. On the third attempt—Nisay twists away at first—Ki finally forces a spoonful of the sugary liquid against the child’s lips. The fussing stops, Nisay turns to Ki with interest, and his tongue pokes out of his mouth, as if to say, “Hey, something is different here!”

  The transformation is so swift we can’t keep from laughing, and Nisay now looks like a baby bird waiting for breakfast. I almost feel sorry for the child, as I can see what’s coming. He gulps; he realizes; he coughs; he cries. Ki then presses another spoonful of the sweet liquid to his lips and the process starts all over again. It is parenting by deception at its finest, and my husband is quite proud of himself—in spite of the fact that our son will have obvious issues with trust well into adulthood.

  Still, it’s a happy day and I have hope that the medicine will help. But by the next morning, there is more diarrhea, this time a pasty green color, and my son cries for most of the morning before I hand him to someone else, someone who is not his mother, someone who doesn’t care about him as much as I do, and I trudge back home to learn about literature because it’s supposed to somehow, in my warped mind, help my child.

  When Sopeap finally arrives, she asks, “Are you okay, child? You look as though you’ve been crying.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Dreams are curious.

  Most dreams are nonsensical scenes that cause us to giggle when we recall them in the morning. Others are frightening nightmares during which we are attacked by gangs, chased by garbage trucks, or endlessly falling in menacing darkness. A few rare dreams are so real, so detailed and profound, that they alter the course of our lives. Last night I had such a dream.

  It was not of my childhood. I didn’t speak with my grandfather or try to decipher his often puzzling advice. In fact, I didn’t utter a word. Instead, when I awoke in the morning—or thought I had—I opened the flap on the front of our little home at Stung Meanchey to find the entire dump covered in a blanket of white ash. I assumed that the fires must have been especially terrible to create so much ash, but then, as I looked over the horizon, I could see Jorani Kahn. She was waving me to follow, and it was then that I understood Stung Meanchey wasn’t covered in ash at all—it was covered in snow.

  I have never seen snow in person, never felt its touch against my skin. I only know about snow through occasional pictures of faraway countries that we find in discarded travel magazines—and from Jorani Kahn’s stories. She once visited a place called Co-lo-ra-do in America with her father when she was a child. She told me about molding snow into balls like cotton, but heavy like mud, and throwing them at other people for fun. She said that the piles of snow in the mountains were so tall that they would almost reach the height of the trash at Stung Meanchey.

  I didn’t have time to play in the snow. Nisay had been sick again and we had no money for the doctor. I had to work, but when I looked again for Jorani Kahn to tell her, she was gone. Instead, I saw only stillness—no rumbling trucks, no clanking bulldozers, no scavenging workers, no grunting pigs, no clucking chickens, no boisterous children, no buzzing flies. It was completely and utterly silent
.

  In spite of the unusual scene, I snatched my picker and an empty canvas sack, as if it were just another normal day of work. Yet the fact that it was just an ordinary day is partly what made it so extraordinary. I stepped out into the snow, but as I began to dig down through the sheet of white, I realized the putrid trash was no longer there beneath. Everything dirty at Stung Meanchey was gone—no germs, no stench, no toxic water, no smoke, no fires, no bustle, no gangs, no rotting food. The filthiest place on earth had been made clean.

  As I turned about, marveling at what had happened, in the distance I could see my home province of Prey Veng. I understood that this was impossible, since Prey Veng and Stung Meanchey lie far apart, a distance that requires a long trek by bus, much hiking, and lastly a ride by boat—but I could see the province anyway. And in my village home, a man stood waiting with his hands stretched out in my direction, as if he wanted me to hand him something, or perhaps he was beckoning me home. At first I assumed him to be my grandfather, for he often visits me in my dreams. However, this man stood too tall, too straight, too broad to be my grandfather, even in his younger years.

  And then he spoke.

  “You should have come sooner. Why didn’t you come sooner?”

  He repeated the question three times before I responded. But just when I was about to ask his name and what his question meant, I awoke with his voice still ringing in my ears:

  “Sang Ly, you should have come sooner.”

  *****

  “Do you dream?” I ask Sopeap before we end for the day.

  “As in goals, such as ‘reach for your dreams’? Or do you mean waking up relieved that I wasn’t actually working naked in the dump?”