PhnomPhen: restaurant

The country is at war and the restauranty is always full of soldiers. They all flirt with me. All of the soldiers want me to serve them.

I make my own clothes, long cambodian skirts and sexy shirts. Long hair, high heels, a lot of makeup. I am so famous, so pretty.

And now I am rich. I make so much money on tips. So many of the soldiers are married but they are in PP alone and they come to the restaurant at night to flirt. Some of them come three times a day. My brother’s wife is a waitress and she is so pretty too. They flirt with her.

The soldiers drink a lot, white and red wine with a lion lable. They have guns and sometimes the begin fighting each other at the tables. There are too many men but I want jewelry, clothing and they are sometimes so generous.

My best childhood friend Thea is in PP in medical school
His parents and mine have the same last name, and in Cambodia that makes you like family. When he was young he came to our house and stayed while he went to high school and college. I am four years younger than him. His family is middle class, richer than us.

In PP, Thea spoils me so bad. He takes me out all the time. One time I go to the bathroom in the restaurant and I have a worm from eating too much raw meat. I don’t know what is wrong and I come out of the bathroom and say “Gee, I have something” and he say “Oh, you have a worm” and he brings me medicine and stays with me for 24 hours, follows me around to make sure I am okay. He kisses my forehead, touches my hand.

On one of my visits home, mom tells me that Thea’s parents want him to marry a girl who is in medical school with him. Her parents are very wealthy and they are going to buy their son a house and a car when they marry. I remember that Thea’s father once told me “I don’t care who my son marries so long as he is happy.” But I get a funny feeling.

Thea keepscoming to see me at the restaurant. One night we go out to dinnerx He has a blue vespa and I sit behind him as we drive through the city. “Do you see that house,” he asks. “That is where the girl my parents want me to marry lives. I don’t want to marry her. When you and I get married, we won’t have a big wedding.”

But he never asks and now I am 21 and mom is worried I will get pregnant. She is afraid I am going to do something stupid. I am always telling her “Don’t worry, mom. I am going to get married. You will see.”

A lot of soldiers want to marry me and three of them begin fighting over me. “Go ask my mom,” I tell them. “I will marry the man who goes to see my mother.”

Why I do that? A couple of months later, one of the soldiers, he is important but much older than me, not at all handsome, takes me up on it. He visits my mother. He has been married before and has a son. He is not in the active army. He works in the city.

We marry in my mother’s house. We close the restaurant and have a big party with a security guard outside because we are still very much in danger from the old married soldier who threatened to kidnap me.

I am married to the man who won me in a contest. We move into a small house near my second sister. It is 1973. I sit in this house day after day, waiting for him to come home. Sometimes he doesn’t come for days and days. I get pregnant without planning to.got pregnant without planning. I had only had sex a couple of times.

I spend a lot of time with my sister next door and her kids.

The kidnapping begins. During the night, the Khmer Rouge come. Neighbors just disappear. They are gone in the morning. No one knows. No one says anyting.