2019
NORTH CAROLINA L I T E R A R Y RE V I E W
the songs on the radio, accompanied by twanging guitars and booming drums. She preferred the quiet of the Temple, the serene eyes of the Golden Buddha watching her from a round Khmer face. Buddha was the source of her saamnangol. Luck. She had not returned to church, but some Khmer people came by her house and talked to her about Jesus. Their Jesus seemed kinder than Pastor Le’s. Their Jesus had also suffered because of cruel people. At least, Sok did not go to Pastor Le’s church. One day when Sok drove her to the Asian store, she made him stop the car at a street corner where a man was selling black wall cloths with pictures printed on them. Most were Americans like Martin Luther King and Elvis Presley and President Kennedy, Sok had explained. She had Sok buy one of Jesus, which she hung on the wall across from the Buddhist shrine. She did not think Buddha would be offended. Sokha went to the front door. She seldom left the house alone. The streets of America frightened her. All streets frightened her. But the street she most vividly remembered was in Phnom Penh, twenty years before, the young soldiers parading cheerfully along it into the city. She had been much younger then, forty-four, pregnant with her seventh child. She thought how she had stood on the balcony of her father’s house watching the army move past, the laughing boys with red checked scarves draping their necks, rifles slung over their shoulders. This was not like any army she had ever seen. Some wore ragged black pajama-like pants and sandals made from rubber tires. People stood on the sidewalks and cheered. Many handed the boys flowers. Sokha waved, relieved the war was over. Now, with a new government, their lives would improve. Three days later, the soldiers came again to her street. Army trucks drove by the house, blaring commands through loudspeakers. Their voices boomed among the houses. Later that day, for what seemed no reason at all, she too was on the street, walking beside the soldiers, along with her parents, her husband, Keang, and their children, all six of them, the oldest son, Norn, with his wife and two children, hurrying away from their house and the city of Phnom
PHOTOGRAPH BY LIEN TRUONG
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Sacramental Silk, 2016 (acrylic, enamel, silk, fabric paint, antique gold-leaf obi thread, smoke on paper, 30x22) by Lien Truong
Penh. Keang carried Satya on his back, while she held the baby Sok. The older children and her parents took turns pushing a cart piled with sacks of belongings – kitchen utensils, rice, canned goods, tea, cured meat, clothing, a radio. Their gold jewelry was hidden in an old teapot, their money tied into scarves, which they pinned under their clothing. Soldiers waving guns hustled them along the street, but this time the soldiers did not laugh. One soldier shot a small brown dog that raced barking from a house, trying to follow its family. The soldier skewered the dog on his bayonet, raising it like a flag. Hundreds soon joined Chhem Sokha’s family. They poured from their houses, a human river, merging into the slowly flowing ocean of people. Some were old friends and neighbors, most strangers. A few drove cars or pedaled bicycles. Others like Sokha’s family pushed carts piled with whatever they had grabbed from their homes. Those who did
They poured from their houses, a human river, merging into the slowly flowing ocean of people.