LONG LOVE, SHORT LIFE

CHAPTER 14

AMERICAN KNIFE ENGRAVES ETERNAL LOVE ON TREES

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Part 1

It was January in 2003 after a busy week of covering the events of the Cambodian anti-Thai protests in Phnom Penh, where the Thai embassy had been burned and looted. Dara took the weekend off and visited his wife and daughter who waited for him in the small house in their village.  Dara woke up early in the morning and prepared items—including a small American knife he bought in Los Angeles when he studied journalism at the University of Spoiled Children. He then drove to a local shop where he bought some milk for his daughter and some items for his wife as he usually did.

Dara was not a materialistic person. He kept working hard so that he could save some money for his family, given he is the only breadwinner. He put on his old and smelly helmet and got on his old-fashioned scooter both of which he bought in 1993 when he worked as a reporter for The Cambodia Diamond newspaper. His scooter emitted quite a lot of smoke when he started it, making people stay away from it. But that did not bother Dara as long as his scooter works and can carry him all the way to see his beautiful wife and daughter.

He drove quite fast along the national route 2 and he sometimes hit potholes in the road left since the civil war, yet still he has no complaints. Dara reached the halfway point to his wife’s house, and felt hungry so stopped for a snack, eating grilled snake which a local was selling under some palm trees. He also ate six fried frogs with garlic. He twists lemon and mixed it with salt and pepper to finish the last leg of fried fat frog.

He ate two palm fruits and drank a bit of palm juice to clean his throat from eating snake and frog. He had been visiting his wife and daughter almost every weekend over the last ten years. Almost all that time, when visiting the family, he liked to wear his old journalist jacket which his Japanese friend gave him when he was in Japan. It had been winter of 1994 when Dara chose to attend an environmental journalism course in Tokyo. For the first time ever, he encountered severe cold and stood freezing and shivering waiting for a Japanese photographer to pick him up and go to try Sushi cuisine.

Dara stood under Sakura flowers surrounded by embers of leftover finished cigarettes. He is quite social and likes to chat with whoever he came across, no matter whether it is the one-legged lady who lost her limb to a landmine or the one-eared girl who survived the U.S. bomb shrapnel. Fat or skinny, ugly or pretty, poor or rich, big or small, tall or short, it does not matter to him. They are all friends of Dara. When he meets kids, he gives them sugar, which is part of the reason that makes their teeth decayed and fell apart.

He is more known to the local children who call him “Pou Kaset” which translates as “Uncle Journalist” thanks to his shabby journalist jacket with eight pockets that looks like a military vest a soldier would use to keep grenades, a knife, and bullets.

Around lunch time, he reached the dusty path which linked from national road 2 to Prasat village. The noise of his scooter could be heard as far as 300 meters away, letting his wife know that her husband Dara was about to arrive home safe and sound.

He stopped before his wife’s house and his 9-year-old daughter Sakura ran out of the house calling, “daddy, daddy, daddy is home again”. Duongchan walked fast towards him. The three of them hugged each other as if Dara had returned from the battlefield. Dara’s journalist jacket and his bag has turned brown from the dust thrown up as he drove home.    

“Let me get some old cloths to clean the dust from your jacket,” said his wife. Duongchan cleaned the dust off Dara’s back as his daughter kissed him, while the dog wagged its tail and jumped up and down to greet Dara as usual.

Dara opened his bag and said, “As you know my work as a journalist means I do not have much money like other business people or friends who work for a U.N. agency.” He hadn’t yet finished his words when Duongchan interrupts: “As long as your love for me continues to shine from the bottom of your heart and as long as you take care of our daughter. This is all I want in this world, money is not everything.  As you know, when we fell in love I was quite poor and struggling. You helped me then. All I need in this world is that we live happily altogether with our daughter… and…” Dara interrupted, “… and more children to feed as well.”

They laugh as Sakura sips the milk, making sure it is tasty before she will take the rest. The dog ran after a female dog from the other side of the village looking to mate. Duongchan learned that her poor husband Dara was tired but still tried to make the family happy.

“How was your work today?” she asks.

“It was a busy week for me. As you live in the countryside, you may not have learned about the bad news that a group of Cambodian people who were angered with a Thai actress who claimed that Angkor temples belong to Thailand even though our government media outlets did not air the news. The protests led to violence and finally the mod burned the Thai embassy and other Thai establishments in Phnom Penh, such as hotels, were looted and others burned to ash. This was not good; violence did not solve the problem. Anyway, I reported quite a lot to the company I work for.”

Dara paused and took a deep breath and joked, “Do I have to report to you as well?”

He opened his eye wide open and looked into her eyes. “Oh, no. You do not have to report to me but it would be nice if you could tell me what is the consequences from such an incident?”

“I think Cambodia will have to cover the losses from the damage. Hey babe, it is too much talking about that. This is my weekend and let us talk about our life and love instead of about gangs looting properties in town.”

To be continued …

Part 2

“Sounds great,” she replied and smiles, “let’s have lunch first, then later we will go and see the sunset behind the village.  Remember the place we went to before? The lovely palm trees and coconut trees are still standing waiting for you to see them, the clear and clean water is still flowing from the edge of the mountain, the birds still fly around. I am sure you would like to see this landscape again.”

“Yes, let’s do that then. By the way, what do we have for lunch today?” he asked.

 “I know you live in Phnom Penh so you are always eating beef and pork. So I prepared countryside food for you, wild food, such as fried snakes and rice crabs. I bought them from the local market this morning.”

Dara took a deep breath, “Oh, dear, I just ate fried frogs on my way here. Let’s have some more snakes and crabs then. How often do you eat those wild foods?”

“Not often since you keep giving me some money to support us. We eat pork, fish, and eggs. But Sakura loves eating vegetables, such as carrots and banana flowers.”

“That is right, Sakura was born in the year of rabbit so she likes those foods.”

After lunch, the couple take their daughter to visit the countryside landscape, located about 400 meters from their house. Dara put some guavas in his pocket along with parcels of salt and red chilli and a knife he bought when he was in U.S.

In those days Cambodia still lacked many things, even tissues. Dara likes to put a handkerchief in his back pocket with half of it hanging out and dangling like a horse’s tail as he walks. He puts his daughter sitting on his shoulders. Sakura dangles her legs as her mom walked behind. Duongchan carries some mangoes, bananas, and water.

In the month of January, the sun shines brightly. Cambodian farmers enjoy harvesting their rice crops. The birds fly from one field to another and eat the ripened crops. The wind brings along clean air along with a good smell of fragrant rice from the paddy fields stretching from one village to another. At this time of year, the weather is cold in the west but it is perfect in Cambodia.

Sakura was then 9. She could tell her dad was a bit tired after half an hour walking.

Sakura made a joke to her parents, saying, “Look! I am sitting on dad’s shoulders like riding a horse while mom walks fast behind me.”

Dara interrupts, “So behind me is the female horse then.” Sakura then called: “Mom, please walk faster.”

“Your mom has gained quite a lot of weight since she eats healthy food in the new Cambodia.  She cannot walk as fast as before when she was skinny during the Cold War era.”

“You mean she is fat now?” asked his daughter.

Duongchan heard and shouted: “The horse and the rider should shut up!” Dara turns back to see Duongchan about 50 meters behind, and said to his daughter, “Your mom is not as fat as my women friends. They are much bigger because they eat fast food and drink beers at the river front after work. Unlike your poor mom who eats wild food she gets from the rice fields and bushes behind the village, and she drinks palm juice after a meal.”

Sakura looked back and asked, “mom, could you please walk faster otherwise you cannot find the way to the river.  And watch out because there is a lot of animals’ waste along the muddy path.”

“I will reach you in a minute. Shit! Let me tie up my loose trousers,” said Duongchan as she walked and tried to tie her trousers and prevent them from dropping.

After about an hour walk on the muddy path along the rice fields, they arrived at the river.

Duongchan pointed at the river, “Look! The small river that links from the foot of the mountains where there are small waterfalls there. The beautiful landscape, the greenery of rice fields, the trees, the birds chirping, it is such a beautiful place, is it not?”

“Such a lovely landscape!” Dara exclaimed. “This is much better than the riverfront in Phnom Penh. This is much more beautiful than the Tonle Sap and Mekong.”

He continued, “As long as our love keeps shining, so does this landscape here. All the times n I visit here there is one question lingering in my head; why is there only one coconut tree growing next to the palm tree and the rest are different trees? Someone must have dropped the seeds or someone could have planted them here.”

Duongchan looked around saying: “It must be one or the other because there was neither strong typhoon nor cyclone that could carry the seeds of coconut tree and palm tree all the way across the Gulf of Thailand or Indian Ocean to here.” “It was impossible,” she assured, adding, that, “Such trees must have been planted by the hands of Khmers although I am unsure if by Khmer Rouge soldier or Khmer Kroam (Khmer Kampuchea Kroam).

Dara sat on a flat stone next to his wife, pointed to the trees and said, “Look! The coconut and palm trees are at least 20 years of age. So, they could have been grown after the fall of the Khmer Rouge by the Vietnamese who invaded Cambodia in early 1979. I love the trees. You see the creeper vine and wild flowers of white, yellow, red plants growing along the trees. The branch of the coconut tree stretches long and wide, providing lots of shade.”

“I am glad to see such scenery too. This landscape did collapse although the war was over. The Cold War collapsed, Cambodia’s civil war ended, but this landscape continues to blossom even better. Look! The trees are now growing bigger and taller and more wild flowers are growing everywhere… and more leeches too, maybe.”

“I hate leeches so much in my life. You know leeches are one of the obstacles that hampered my parents from allowing me to get engaged to you. My mother and I are scared of leeches, the scariest animal that sucks blood on earth. The leech’s flesh is soft and hard. The animal’s size is smaller than a green bean but after it sucks blood, the animal’s size is as big as a human toe,” Dara said and looks around where he sits to make sure that there are no leeches around.

To be continued …

Part 3

“I think leeches have disappeared gradually as the result of farmers using pesticides in the rice fields,” said Duongchan who tried to calm down her husband from being scared of the bloodsucking animals which live in mud, water, and on trees.

“Maybe, maybe not… do not talking too much about leeches. We should talk about love instead. Love is helpful to our conversation, leeches are not.”

They talked and talked… Dara wanted to eat some fruit. So he got some fruit and cut it into pieces and gave them to his wife and daughter. After they ate the fruit, Dara raised the knife and showed it to his wife, saying, Look! This is an American knife. It has multi-functions, including opening cans and of course it can open my beer bottle as well. I have great memories of this knife. I had to cut my shoelace once with it when the lace got stuck to the elevator in Los Angeles. It was embarrassing. I was like a butterfly catcher when I was in L.A. I mean I know very little about America’s world, apart from the journalism course.”

“You are quite good at describing the knife,” she replied.

“…because I am a journalist.”

“Yes, I can tell… you are a jealousy journalist. Aren’t you?

“You hit the right spot.  I am like that because of you… I love you more than anything else in this world. My love for you is larger than the universe and deeper than the Pacific Ocean as I told you before. No matter what happens to you, my love for you will never die. We love and live together in this life and the next life and our spirits will live together forever,” Dara said as he took his wife’s hands and held them tight.

“Yes. That is so true,” said Duongchan, smiling at him as their daughter walked around and picked wildflowers.

The couple sat next to each other. It is 4:30pm local time. The golden sun shines at a lower angle over the rice fields. The smell of fragrant rice merges with the smell of wildflowers. Dara reached out his hands to scoop the clear water from the river and cleaned first Sakura’s face, then his wife’s, and lastly his own.

“I need to get my knife and do something.”

“You are not going to stab me in the heart are you?” she joked and laughed.

Dara laughed too, saying, “Why would I do that?  It is pointless.  I need the knife to engrave the tree bark to mark our eternal love.”

Dara looked into the eyes of his wife, “Duongchan, you have seen how much we love each other. The Cold War collapsed, but never our knot of love. We need to tell the whole nature that our love is eternal. Please, the spirits of all kinds look after us. Please witness our love. Khmer ancestors of the Angkor time made art by carving on stone walls from which we could learn something of their lives 900 years ago.  We cannot do that but we can engrave our names on the trees, marking our eternal love.”

Dara pulled out the sharp knife from his shabby backpack. He bought the knife in 1997 from a local shop near Hollywood called “the Knife the Knots of love” while he studied journalism in California at USC.

The couple engraved each other’s names on the trees. Dara’s name is now written on the palm tree and Duongchan’s on the coconut tree. They engraved carefully for more than one hour.  The characters in Khmer and in English are carved beautifully.

They both swear to each other under the trees that their bond will never break. Also, Dara placed his palm below his name while his wife used the knife to cut the tree bark between Dara’s figures, a sign of his raised hand in swearing. Dara, in return, did the same for his wife, while their daughter enjoyed her day walking from one rice field to another and collecting crabs and shells from the muddy fields.

Dara continued, “once we die of natural causes, our bodies will be buried under these trees, my remains will be buried under palm tree. I’d love to see my coffin draped with Cambodia’s flag along with your picture.”

“My body will be buried under this coconut tree,” his wife replied, adding that, “I’d love to see your picture along with Cambodia’s flag cover my coffin.”

A nature lover, Dara likened the long and large leaves of the coconut tree to a woman’s long hair. The tree branches swing up and down, back and forth by the power of wind, it is like a dancing tree in the open space. Dara likened the coconut tree to a beautiful lady showing off her beauty to attract a single man looking for love.

Duongchan interrupted, “Wait, wait, what about the palm tree on your left? You are making nice descriptions about the coconut tree. But you have said nothing about the palm tree. That is unfair, isn’t it?”

“That is because I respect ladies.  The lady is first and the man after.”

Duongchan responded, “No, that is not always the case.  I mean, in a bad, deep shit situation—such as where the area is suspected of having landmines or poisonous snakes — then the man should be first and the lady after. Don’t you agree?”

“You are not wrong, I mean you are right. It depends on the situation. O.K, now with the palm tree; it has short leaves like a man’s hair.  Its trunk is stockier, like a man showing his muscles to impress a single woman.

Although the palm is not quite as beautiful as the coconut is, they match each other in many ways.”

To be continued …

Part 4

Dara continued, “Look! The coconut tree stands to the east of the palm. The coconut tree provides shelter to the palm in the morning, but in the afternoon it is the palm tree providing the shelter for the coconut tree. The two trees seem to be supporting one another. The roots of the palm tree absorbs the fertilized land from the rice field and meets with the roots of the coconut tree absorbing water from the river. You can see the two sets of roots weaving together and sharing one life like husband and wife. Like you and me.”

“Good description. Well done, Dara,” she said giggling.

“Thanks, because I am a reporter.”

“Shut up, bragger,” she said jokingly.

Dara spoke highly about the friendly environment he was enjoying, “I cannot believe that after all these years, the river, the trees, and the rice fields are still beautiful”. As Dara described the trees, Duongchan compared Dara’s words to a sweet poem, almost making her fall asleep.

“Do not fall asleep yet, I have not finished my descriptions,” he said.

“Keep talking, Dara”.

He continued likening the palm tree to a handsome guy. The palm trunk is not curvy as the coconut tree which looks like a healthy woman with big tits and ass. Both trees are healthy trees producing lots of buds, flowers, and fruits. But, what is so funny to me is the shape of the palm flower; it is round and long like a penis. You can see the palm fruit is round like testicles.”

At this point, Duongchan laughed out loud.

“Stop! That is more than enough. Please stop there,” Duongchan asked him to stop talking. But, Dara likes to make jokes and make the moment into a joyful weekend by adding, “…and the coconut fruits are big and round like a woman’s breasts... and.”

Duongchan is shy and interrupted her husband as she giggles: “I said stop there, please.”

“That is it. Does it make sense to you, Duongchan?”

“No. It does not make sense, but it sounds funny,” his wife replied.

Sakura is happy as she hears her mom laughing at the jokes from her dad. Sakura walks and she beams from the corner of the rice field after wading in shallow water. She collects crabs and baby fishes she catches from the muddy water. She shows them to her parents from a distance.

Dara again looks into Duongchan’s eyes, “I swear to you that I love you forever.”

Duongchan, in response, “I swear to you that our love is eternal.”

Dara kisses the hands of Duongchan. She kisses, in return, Dara’s mouth.

This is their world in the wild fields. They kiss and hug each other. About half an hour later, Sakura returned to her parents with the wildflowers she picked from bushes and made into two bunches of flowers by using creeper vine as string. One for her mom, another for the dad. Both stood next to each other under the trees.

Dara and his wife were so pleased with the 9-year-old daughter’s action. Such a moment was like a couple at their wedding ceremony who receive flowers from their friends who attend.

Dara pretends the excited moment is a wedding party. “Thanks all for coming to our wedding party.” Dara said to his daughter before his wife. He bowed his head and receives a bunch of flowers from his daughter, saying “thank you very much for your kindness.”

Duongchan’s voice suddenly breaks and she said to her daughter: “Thank you so much, my sweetie.”

Sakura looks sad. She looked to the ground. She had told herself that once she gave the bunches of flowers to her parents it would make them happy. But it turned out the other way around as her mom is crying. Dara’s eyes are glistening too after seeing his wife’s tears rolling down her cheeks. 

“I am sorry that I made you cry,” said Sakura.

Her mother responded, “No, not at all, Sakura. I am happy instead. I am happy to cry to mark this moment and having you witness my pure and eternal love for your dad. I am so thrilled with your gesture. Please keep doing more of this in the future, my lovely daughter.”

Duongchan raised her hands with palms together into the air saying, “May the king of nature and the spirits of all kinds hear our swearing to having eternal love.  Please take care of us all. We only ask for love, peace, happiness and to live together as husband, wife, and daughter—no more, no less—until we die of natural causes.”

Dara walked to the small river about six meters from where they stood. He dipped his scarf into the water and cleaned the face of his daughter and passed it to his wife so she could wipe away her tears.

The fading colour of the sun look even more now as it shone over the ripened rice fields.

Dara again held his wife hand’s hand and looked into her eyes, saying: “My love for you is eternal. We live together in this life and the next life and more. If I die, please cover my remains here under the palm tree next to yours.”

Duongchan again said, “I swear to you before nature. I solemnly announce to the whole world, especially before you and our daughter who now hear my words that my love for you remains unchanged. No matter what happens in this world, our love survived the Cold War, so our love and life can overcome anything in the future. The climate has changed, the dark clouds have disappeared and parted by the powerful wind, but nothing can shape my love to leave you.”

“Please bury my body covered with the Cambodian flag here under the coconut tree next to my loyal husband Dara,” Duongchan repeated as her daughter Sakura stood and listened. The voices of the couple already sound like the dead as when their voices mixed with the wind, it sounded like ghosts’ voices falling from heaven.

The sun was lower and was about to set, sending red tones across the sky.

Sakura walked to another rice field and continued enjoying catching animals. Not long after, Sakura screams for help.

Sakura screamed, “there are strange animals sucking my blood, my legs and feet are bleeding”. Sakura did not know about leeches. Her dad ran quickly towards her. He was terrified by leeches. He could not help. Dara then called Duongchan to remove the animals from their daughter’s legs and feet.

Sakura had no idea what was happening when the black leeches bit and clung to her and sucked her blood. One leech was as big as a toe. The leech’s belly had inflated from sucking the blood and was now dangling below Sakura’s knee. Two other leeches were sucking Sakura’s blood from between her toes. Sakura kept screaming for help and trampling on the muddy ground as her dad held her to calm her down, saying, “You will be alright. Your mom will help you.” By the time Duongchan arrived, Sakura was about to collapse.

“Why do not you remove the leeches from my legs and feet?” Sakura asked her dad.

Dara was embarrassed and was about to respond. His wife Duongchan answered instead, “Please do not be angry and blame your dad. He is so frightened by leeches himself. That is one of the reasons that his parents did not agree to let us get engaged when we fell in love because they were so worried that your dad cannot support me by working in rice fields where leeches sucking farmers blood is common.”

Dara did not say a word but shook his head, saying sorry to his daughter that he cannot help.

Dara, however, said that: “I can fight the poisonous snake, kill and eat rats, and carry heavy items. I can carry your mom and climb a mountain, I can cycle hundreds of miles and more. But the one thing I see myself as a loser in is when I encounter the scary leeches. They are leeches, not love.”

END OF CHAPTER 14