LONG LOVE, SHORT LIFE

CHAPTER 13

POL POT DIES, THE KNOT OF LOVE REMAINS

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Part 1

It was in April 1998 when Pol Pot, the leader of the Khmer Rouge, died in Cambodia’s jungle at Anlong Veng near the Thai border. The Khmer Rouge broke into pieces, followed by mass defections of the rebel fighters who joined the government of Phnom Penh. But the bond of Dara and Duongchan’s love continued to blossom.

Dara now has a better paying job working as a correspondent for a foreign news wire called Rooster News AmeriCAM. His wife Duongchan was a happy wife. Their smart and lovely 4-year-old daughter Sakura had begun classes. Although they lived in the countryside in a small house made of wood and a roof covered with palm leaves, the couple called where they lived as ‘last long love of home’. This partially happened thanks to their fate and fortune. Dara was born in the year of the horse. His wife Duongchan was born in the year of the cow, and their daughter was born in the year of the rabbit.

Many peoples see the short, well-built Dara with intense eyes as an easy going person. As a correspondent he covered a wide ranges of stories from breaking news to his own broken knee e as the result of his motorcycle hitting a pothole on the road home. He covered economics, sport, and features about Cambodian life in the post-war era. Dara himself at one point could not find his way out after interviewing former Khmer Rouge soldiers who lived in the former battlefields where some areas were still littered with land mines.

Dara’s value is sort of half-Asian and half-American although he is hybrid guy whose mother’s blood is from Southern China about 275 years ago in Guangdong where they faced hardship, and his father is Cambodian.

Dara is not a materialist but a romantic. He sometimes commutes to work by cycle, walking miles when he covered the demonstrations in town and outskirt of the Phnom Penh.

At the weekends, he visited his family about 120 km south of Phnom Penh. He scooped water into buckets and carried them all the way from the lake behind his house to fill up the big container made of cement which they called Peang in Khmer.

His wife Duongchan is pleased with his help and joked with him, saying, “You are strong like a horse.”

Dara replied as he carried the bucket full of water, “because I was born in the year of horse. By the way what year you were born in?”

“I was born in the year of cow,” she said.

Dara half smiling-half giggling said, “That is why you are beautiful… I mean you have big breasts, big tits… like dairy cow.”

Duongchan laughed, saying, “shut up!” but raising her eyebrows, more a sign of love than annoyance.

The sun was about to set. The wind in December was mild with cold flows from the North of Cambodia. Duongchan helped her daughter take a bath and dress then returned to Dara with a surprise announcement, “hey darling, we are invited to attend a friend’s wedding party on the other side of the village. Should we leave in about half an hour from now?”

Dara answered happily, “why not. Let me put on my jeans and white shirt.” Once they were ready, Dara started his motorcycle and his wife and daughter sat behind him. They were happy and were greeted by friends and villagers at the wedding party. As Dara was chatting with the villagers at the dining table, he was shocked to see Duongchan looking sad and her eyes glistening with tears.

To be continued …

Part 2

Dara moved close to his wife’s ear and asked: “What happened to you?”

Duongchan did not say anything other than, “I am Ok. Please enjoy your dinner. I will tell you when we get back home.”

Dara comforted her by patting her back with one hand while he fed Sakura with the other.

It was quite dark on their way home, driving alongside the rice fields. The motorcycle light attracted insects as they drove. An insect landed in Sakura’s eye. She cried and cried as the toads, frogs, and crickets made their noises heard all over the area in the late evening. It was like a concert of animals’ voices. Dara stopped and removed the insect from her eye. They arrived home, Dara gently parked his motorcycle and they walked in.

Duongchan started in a broken voice, “Darling, I have everything in this life but one thing we do not have is our wedding.”

Dara, who fully understood her feelings, moved closer and hugged her with soft and sweet words. “I understand your feeling. I love you. I can do a lot of things in this world as you know and I always do what I can. But one thing I have failed to do so far was to get our parents from both sides to get along and agree to our wedding. Our wedding ceremony is not complete without our parents as guests since they are still alive. Again, I totally understand how much pain this has caused you as a Khmer woman. How embarrassed you are, given it is very important and so meaningful to Khmer people to have lawful marriage, especially to a woman like you. Darling, please be calm and be happy. As long as I am still alive I will take care of you and Sakura. I have sworn before you since day one when we fell in love that I love you more than anything else on this earth. I keep saying my love for you is larger than the universe, deeper than the ocean’s depth, and sweeter than honey.”

The optimistic Dara continued with assurances, “you can see our country’s situation has changed with one thing after another since the1980s but our love has remained the same, which I am very proud of. Mentally speaking, our heads and hearts are woven together as one and we share the same values and we eat the same food. Scientists can measure the depth of the ocean, the mass size of the earth, and have some idea of how big the universe is, but no-one can measure how big our love is. Once we have love we can do anything.”

Duong attentively listened to Dara and was satisfied with her husband’s point of view. They then got the mosquito net and tied it to the house wall with string, preventing mosquitos from biting them.

It was almost midnight, the moon had risen and shining into the house through the gaps in the wall made of palm leaves. Dogs barked at strangers who walked on the other side of the village. Not long after, light rain started. The moonshine disappeared and was replaced by a dark night and the breeze touching the tree branches instead.

Dara said in low voice to Duongchan in her white thin pajamas, “good night. Early to bed, early to rise makes the man healthy and the wife have another healthy baby soon.”

Duongchan was about to fall asleep but she giggled after hearing her husband’s words and she joked back “Good night, naked husband, I am napping nearing you, and snore well.”

END OF CHAPTER 13