Excerpts from
Ghosts Among the Ruins
© 1998 by Edessa Ramos

John and I chose a spot by the window where I could sit balanced upon the sill and watch the silver globe of moon rise over the Mekong. Once in a while, I stole a glance at my companion, with his elbows on the windowsill uncomfortably close to my thigh and his face turned towards the night sky. This British-Chinese mestizo who, in an unsettling way, blended into his surroundings and yet stood apart. A motley of contradictions and unspoken mysteries. He reminded me of this land, of myself. The night brimmed with untried questions, the air thick and tangible between us. In a second of weakness, I felt a flush of mortal tenderness towards him.

The cacophony of foreign voices in the room became more distant but somehow comforting. I began to float in an unknown space between the past and the present.

How beautiful, how beautiful to forget. To know only the seconds ticking by without counting. To feel only the night sinking into my skin, the wind licking my brow and slightly lifting my hair. From the breeze of the past, the sharp odor of a tortured colonial history came wafting to me. I could hear the music of a people stoic in their resistance and a quiet determination to survive. This country has been forced to live with the terrible memory of massacres and killing fields, episodes of which are ongoing even to this day. Sculpted on the face of every Cambodian was the devastating portrait of loved ones lost in the wars, executions and labor camps. Earlier today in my walks through the city, I was struck by the sight of the orphans playing in the park. And the widows selling fermented duck eggs and bottles of gasoline in sidewalk stalls and tiny cafes, their babies strapped with blankets to their chests. Like a fingerprint pressed onto my brain, I would carry the memory of men with missing limbs crossing the streets on crutches or mounted on wheeled wooden boards. Everywhere around me the people lived, smiled, and greeted strangers with polite curiosity. They drove their motorcycles smoothly, negotiating the bustling lanes of their city the way they bravely and deftly negotiated life.

I was intensely aware of the daily news even as I tried hard to ignore their disturbing effects. There is fighting again in the areas bordered by Thailand, today's papers said. The remnants of the Khmer Rouge were active in the hills and gearing up for their dry season offensive. They have been abducting farmers from the fields and conscripting villagers into forced labor to build their supply roads and serve in their army. With a start I remembered my plan to visit the Angkor Wat.

"That's in the province of Siem Reap, the KR operates there," stated a young Frenchman with sandy hair who sauntered over from the bar to hand us our drink. Apparently, he and John had met somewhere before.

"And there are land mines in the rice fields."

"How far away are the conflict areas from the main town of Siem Reap?" I asked, all ears. "Isn't it true that all fighting forces honor an unspoken truce in the area of Angkor?"

His laugh over my question was not quite the answer I expected and I felt a tinge of hurt. "Oh dear," he said, wiping the tears of mirth from his eyes with the back of his hand, "pardon my rudeness. But even agreements signed and sealed on paper are never honored, what more an unspoken truce? Listen here, foreigners are particularly vulnerable. A few weeks before you arrived, three English backpackers - two young men and a woman - were abducted from a train on their way to Siem Reap. They were executed by the KR."

"They should have listened to the travel advice," I argued. " 'Only by air, never go on a land trip through the countryside.' Besides, I'm brown and Malay enough to pass for a Cambodian."

"Not with your trendy white shorts and long flowing hair, honey."

"The wardrobe is easy enough to discard and I can hide my hair in a kroma." I was referring to the local woven scarf women wind around their heads.

He frowned at my retort and switched attention to John. "Your friend's not really thinking of going there, is she?"

"I can't stop her," John said. But clearly there was a look of concern in his eyes.