Bunkong Tuon Always There Was Rice

Always There Was Rice

bunkong tuon

on the black greasy stove. Always my uncles and aunts left for work in factories and plants where all day they stood between what they had escaped from and what lay ahead.

Always Lok-Yiey cooked Khmer sausages in a frying pan, transferred them to a red-and-white plate for my cousins and me. She always reused the same oil for the fish my uncles and aunts had caught in the Providence River the weekend before.

Always there was soy sauce, fish sauce, and chili sauce on the round table in the kitchen. Always karaoke on weekends. Someone always got drunk and cursed the stars and the shadows of the humid summer evening.

When my uncle and aunts returned in late afternoons I don’t remember them saying much. They ate the food that Lok-Yiey had prepared. After supper, my aunts cleaned the dishes while my uncles watched cartoons on TV.

At night, all the rooms were occupied by sleeping uncles and aunts, cousins and grand-

parents. The elders snored up dreams of a large white house in a city away from graffiti and broken bottles, sneakers on telephone wires, where we spoke perfect English, became doctors, lawyers, engineers.

I don’t remember my dreams. I remember the scent of Lok-Yiey, sweat and tiger balm, dirt in the folds of her skin. How deep her sleep was, as if she had gone back to Cambodia to be with her other daughter. I put my index finger close to her nose to be sure I felt her warm breath.