If they knew his past, they would see that his injuries—his partial blindness and physical disfigurement—convey not just transgression but a bodily dossier of unconfessed crimes. It’s time you merit a better karma. They encouraged him to join the sangha, their spiritual community of ritual contemplation. Let go of the troubles of the world and you’ll find the peace you seek.
He declined. He’d come to the temple not to escape retribution but to put himself at the gates of forgiveness, knowing full well that he could never be forgiven, that he did not deserve the charity and kindness he received, that his only salvation was in the realization of his own worthlessness, his evil and monstrosity. This was to be his deserved punishment—to live the rest of his days in self-condemnation, self-loathing.
Or so he thought.
A young Malaysian flight attendant in a blue flowered batik dress—a kabeya, Teera remembers from an article in the in-flight magazine—leans forward, pushing the heavy compact metal cart with her slender frame. She asks the elderly couple sitting next to Teera what they’d like. They don’t understand. Teera isn’t at all surprised these two old people can’t speak English, though she noticed earlier that they carry American passports. Like many elderly Cambodians she’s come across, they may have never, aside from this trip, ventured outside their community.
The flight attendant repeats the meal choices, raising her voice slightly as if the old couple were hard of hearing: “Beef fried rice or mushroom omelet?—Asian breakfast or Western,” she adds for clarification. Still, they don’t understand. Teera tells her, “Fried rice—for both,” knowing, without having to confer with the old couple, they’ll always prefer rice. It’s in their blood. Once they may have even risked their lives to steal a spoonful.
Rice. Mama, rice. Her brother’s last words. He was born some months after the Khmer Rouge had taken over. When they left home that April morning in 1975, joining the forced mass exodus out of Phnom Penh, Teera hadn’t known her mother was pregnant. Rin hungry. Tummy hurts. Hunger was among her baby brother’s first words, his first knowledge, and he died as he was just learning to talk. She blinks away the memories.
“And you, ma’am?” the flight attendant asks, her gaze on Teera.
“Coffee, please,” she says.
In the first years after their arrival in America, she and Amara did try to put it all behind them. When Amara was asked if the Khmer Rouge regime had been as horrible as portrayed, her answer was always simple. Yes. Amara’s silence reinforced her own. It built thicker and higher walls, until it seemed the two of them existed in separate cells, prisoners to all they couldn’t say.
“What about breakfast?” the flight attendant says.
Teera shakes her head. She wants to explain she’s not hungry, but the effort of finding words for her thoughts requires more energy than she can muster. Besides, there are crackers in her bag. She’ll nibble on those if needed. She hasn’t felt hunger, felt the desire to eat since boarding the flight in Minneapolis more than twenty hours ago. Since Amara’s death, really.
“No, just coffee, thanks.”
Teera sips the lukewarm diluted liquid, letting the mild bitterness glide down her throat. Next to her, the old woman seems overwhelmed by all the little packages on her tray, unsure what to tackle first. Then, following her husband’s lead, she peels the foil cover from the rectangular dish and sniffs the fried rice. The thick smell of reheated grease is overpowering. Again, Teera feels nauseous. She tries holding her breath to block the odor.
The old woman begins to pick out the greasy, stringy beef with her fork and puts it in her husband’s dish. Turning to Teera, she says in Khmer, “No teeth left.” She smacks her exposed gums together and grins.
In spite of herself, Teera smiles and reluctantly lets down her guard.
“Is this your first time going back, chao srey?”
Teera’s heart skips a beat. It isn’t at all unusual for Cambodians to address one another in familial terms, but she can’t remember when she was last called “granddaughter” with such tenderness. An image of the cave where Teera left her grandparents blooms in her mind, its entrance illuminated by the setting sun, giving the impression that it was lit from within. She swallows, wondering as she has countless times over the years how they perished. Who went first—her gentle, diminutive grandmother, or her stoic, once-imposing grandfather? They’d already been starving, their bodies weakened and damaged beyond saving, when she and Amara were forced to abandon them in the cave in order to keep up with the rest of their group as they navigated the jungle. They probably didn’t last through the night. They had survived through the regime, through four long, miserable years, only to end up betrayed by life, handed over to death in the middle of nowhere.
Teera takes another sip of the coffee to help ease down the lump in her throat. She gives only a tentative nod to the old woman’s inquiry. Already she regrets allowing herself to be seduced by those toothless grins.
“It’s our first trip as well,” the old woman says. “Now that we’re getting on in years we haven’t got much time left, as you can see. Soon we’ll be too old and sick to travel.”