Kitabı oku: «Spice», sayfa 3

-Chapter Three-

Safe Haven

Ravuth shielded his eyes against the bright beam shining in his face. The man wielding the torch spoke, but Ravuth couldn’t understand him. The man lowered the torch and Ravuth could make out a large silhouetted figure as two soldiers rushed over and shone their torches at him.

A soldier spoke to Ravuth in Khmer, “Who are you and where did you come from?”

Ravuth replied with a quake in his voice, “My name is Ravuth. I am looking for my family and I came from the jungle.”

The man in the background spoke to the soldiers, who ordered Ravuth to go with them. Terrified, he did as instructed and they went into a well-lit tent where a soldier told Ravuth to sit.

He could now see the man who was a large, rotund foreigner with a grey beard. He wore a black smock with a white circular collar and a smiling old face that put Ravuth at ease.

The man said something to a soldier and left the tent. The Thai soldier told Ravuth that he was in a refugee camp near Chantaburi, Thailand, that housed Cambodians fleeing from the southern province Khmer Rouge. He told him that the man who just left the tent was Father Donal Eggleton, an English priest who ran the camp.

Donal returned to the tent with a hot bowl of noodles. He laid it on a table, motioning for Ravuth to eat.

Ravuth ate, while the soldiers and priest spoke amongst themselves.

When they had finished, the Khmer-speaking Thai soldier told him, “You are safe and can stay here.” Then the soldier noticed something.

“What’s that?” he asked, pointing to the banana leaf box tucked into Ravuth’s shirt.

Ravuth took out the box, removed the photographs, and handed them to the soldier.

“These are of my family,” he said.

The Thai soldier looked at the photographs and showed them to the priest who looked and then handed them back to Ravuth. He then said something to the soldier who told Ravuth,

“Keep them safe. We don’t get many people coming through now. This camp is only a transit stop. It is the first port of call and from here we move the Cambodian people to permanent camps in Thailand or send them abroad if eligible.” He looked at the bedraggled youngster, smiled and said, “Good luck finding your family Ravuth.”

The priest again said something to the soldier who translated, “We will take you somewhere to sleep and come see you in the morning.”

They took Ravuth to a small bivouac and then left. Feeling confused, but safe, Ravuth lay on a thin grass mat under a low canvas roof canopy. He held onto his box, which he placed on his stomach and fell asleep.

The next morning Ravuth awoke at daybreak and wandered around the camp. The Cambodian refugees were starting their day, and pots of rice and water bubbled away on open fires. Ravuth gazed at his country-folk, who, although happy to be safe, had a look on their faces, which Ravuth could only later describe as fear and despair.

A family invited Ravuth to join them and share their food. They told him how they and others had escaped the Khmer Rouge when they overthrew Phnom Penh. The father told Ravuth of their horrific journey to the Thai border, both in their motorcar, and then on foot. Ravuth could see the fear in the parents and the trembling children’s eyes as they told him of the atrocities they had witnessed, their narrow escape, and the chilling accounts of what had happened to the others in their party who never made it to the camp. He listened and after hearing similar stories from the other refugees, Ravuth felt trepidation for the safety of his family and cried himself to sleep every night for the first few months.

Ravuth spent the next few years at the transit camp. He learned that the Church of England still had several missionaries and clerics in Cambodia who they now believed slaughtered after setting up the camps there. With only a few Cambodians who had escaped the Khmer Rouge coming in, word permeated through the camp of the genocide and atrocities committed in Cambodia.

After showing his photographs to the Cambodians who came through, and with no one recognising his family, he became disheartened, fearing that he would never see them again.

Ravuth settled into a lonely unrewarding life. Father Eggleton and the occasional visiting missionary taught him English, while the Thai soldiers taught him Thai. He could now speak three languages, although he could only read and write in Thai and English. Ravuth made himself useful in the camp, both as a cook and a translator; an invaluable asset with the new refugees brought in. He put the terrified individuals at ease, by cooking them Cambodian food, although he noticed the later arrivals looked so malnourished they only sipped water and most died soon after arriving. Father Eggleton and Ravuth grew close. Donal had spent his life with the clergy and never married or had children, so he cared for him like a son. Ravuth never knew his date of birth, as birthdays were not something rural Cambodians knew or celebrated. Father Eggleton knew this could pose problems for Ravuth. With birth certificates made in Thailand for Cambodian refugees’ repatriation, the priest applied for a passport, giving Ravuth the same day and month as him, guessing him to be around his late teens. Several weeks later, Donal handed Ravuth a small brown-paper-wrapped package, smiled, and said, “Happy eighteenth birthday, Ravuth.”

Ravuth eyes widened as he opened the present and flicked through the small bible, which he later put in his treasure box.

The year was 1978. Now in his late 50s, Father Eggleton’s health deteriorated because of the damp climate, poor hygiene, and diet, along with the tropical diseases exposed to over the years in the dirty camp. The English church council decided that Donal had done enough in his lifetime to help the underprivileged and needy. It was now time to replace him for a younger priest. They wanted him back in England to spend his remaining years at a quiet country parish. Donal agreed but insisted on one stipulation.

The young Cambodian had never seen nor heard of an aeroplane before, let alone been on one. Ravuth sat on board a DC-10 Thai International aircraft, bound for Heathrow Airport, London. He squeezed father Eggleton’s hand as the plane went airborne, but once they flew above the clouds, Ravuth felt excited but nervous. He stared out of the plane’s window, overawed by this strange new world on his way to a new life.

Ravuth drank a Coca-Cola and enjoyed the fizzy sensation and the taste of the first cold drink he had ever had.

The flight was a long, tedious thirty hours with several refuelling stops along the way, giving Ravuth time to wander around different airports and see other races. It was a journey filled with wonder for the Cambodian boy.

‘Wait until I tell Oun about this,’ he thought, and although feeling sad when thinking about his family, he smiled.

Father Eggleton, with help from the church’s legal departments, waded through the red tape in Thailand and got temporary custody for Ravuth. Once in England, they went to the Parish of St. Wulfram in Rutland, near Grantham, and moved into the vicarage.

Ravuth loved his new home, which felt strange at first.

Father Eggleton chuckled after showing him the light switch and Ravuth stared wide-eyed as the light went on and off.

“What’s that?” he asked, pointing to a large radio.

Father Eggleton tried to explain and Ravuth asked, “And what’s that?”

For the first few days, Ravuth questioned everything. He found it difficult at first to sleep on a bed, preferring the hard floor, but he soon became accustomed to the mattress as the stone floor felt cold.

Father Eggleton regained his strength and took up his position as the parish vicar.

Because he didn’t feel confident enough to speak English at first, Ravuth was shy and reclusive, but the small English community took the little lad from Cambodia to their hearts. The townsfolk were unaware and uninformed of Pol Pot and Cambodia’s plight. These were English country folk, with no interest in events taking place 7,000 miles away. They had their own concerns, trying to get their local heroin, Maggie Thatcher, into the Prime Minister’s spot.

Ravuth lived in a small room at the vicarage and assisted Father Eggleton with his clerical duties. The priest was a kind man, but the church paid him little, so the congregation rallied around to help with clothing for Ravuth, who spent his days in the church cleaning and helping organise events. He was too old to attend school, so father Eggleton spent afternoons educating him in English history, current affairs, and mathematics, which, with Ravuth’s thirst for knowledge, he soon learned. His language skills improved and as he became more confident, he mingled more with the community.

One of his duties was to go to the local bakery to collect sandwiches and Cakes for the weekly parish meetings. He loved the smell of the bakery with the aroma of fresh bread making his mouth water. The woman who owned the shop always saw the look of delight on Ravuth’s face when he came in to pick up his order and one day she asked, “The baker is preparing a new batch. Would you like to see how bread’s made? ”

Ravuth smiled, “Yes please.” He said, and the woman took him through to the bakery and over to a man in baker’s whites.

“My name is Patricia, and this is my husband, John, he’s the baker.” She chuckled and said, “I know you have been coming here for a long time, but I don’t know your name.”

“My name’s Ravuth,” he said smiling.

Ravuth watched John as he mixed the ingredients, put the bread dough in baking tins, and popped them into the oven. He showed Ravuth how to make cake sponge and Ravuth loved the silky aroma from the fresh baking products.

Ravuth went back to the bakery the next day at 6:00 am, and every day after, to learn and help John before returning to the vicarage at 9:00 am.

The bakery was a quiet workplace, with Ravuth’s permanent smile brightening up John, Patricia, and the customers.

After a while, John let him experiment with various ingredients, and impressed with the results, he used Ravuth’s recipes

John paid Ravuth £2 a week and let him prepare the morning stock of products, with the morning customers complimenting on the baker's fresh-tasting treats.

Ravuth spent lonely nights shivering in his cold room at the vicarage, clutching his banana box to his chest and remembering his family. His life and struggle in Cambodia now seemed like a lifetime away.

They had no T.V. and keeping abreast of world events had been difficult because Father Eggleton rarely listened to the radio. However, one parishioner informed Ravuth in 1979 that they had seen on the TV that the Khmer Rouge had lost power to Vietnamese liberation forces.

After hearing the news, Ravuth felt elated but knew that Father Eggleton did not have the funds for him to return to Cambodia and find his family. Despondent, he cried himself to sleep but remained hopeful.

It had taken time for lawyers, bureaucrats, and embassy officials to sort out Ravuth’s legal papers. In 1980, the necessary paperwork came through and Donal adopted him. Ravuth Eggleton was now a citizen of the United Kingdom and his old legal guardian was now his dad.

He spent the evenings with the ageing priest, learning the Gospels and reading his bible. Although Ravuth had no religious beliefs, he liked the stories of Christ and the Virgin Mary. Donal baptised him on in his 20th birthday.

The long years ticked by.

Patricia and John sold the bakery, realising that supermarket bakeries and their cheap products would push them out of business. Ravuth continued baking at the vicarage for the weekly meetings and his father. With more variety of ingredients becoming available in supermarkets, he experimented with foreign food, especially Thai and Cambodian cuisine, which he had made at the transit camp.

Ravuth was forty-two when Father Eggleton died, which devastated him. The old priest was his only family, mentor, and friend. His Cambodian family and roots were now just a distant memory. The two companions had been together as father and son for over a quarter of a century and once again, Ravuth felt a lost, desperate soul, with no family or friends.

They buried Father Donal Eggleton in the small cemetery at the side of the church. On the day of the funeral, Donal’s replacement handed Ravuth a brown envelope containing the priest’s gold crucifix on a chain, a cheque from the church’s lawyers that represented Father Donal Eggleton’s estate, and a notice to vacate the vicarage. Ravuth hung the crucifix around his neck and read the letter.

“What does it mean,” He asked, frowning.

The new vicar smiled and said, “Sorry Ravuth, but you have to leave the vicarage. My family will arrive tomorrow, so there would be nowhere here for you to stay.”

The following day, Ravuth packed his bags and moved into a room in a bed-and-breakfast in Grantham. The small room had a shared bathroom, although there was a sink in the room, there were no cooking facilities. Ravuth only owned a few clothes, his crucifix, old bible, and his banana leaf box, which the years had aged, but although now tatty, it gave off a sweet, pleasant aroma. Other than that, he had no other possessions to show for 42 years of life. His skin was now a lighter shade of olive because of harsh English winters, but he had remained active by walking everywhere.

Ravuth spent the first few days in his B&B room watching T.V. During the time, he had spent at the vicarage he had never seen a T.V., as Father Donal never had one, telling him that it took away the ability to learn from books and conversations. Ravuth had read many books and became knowledgeable in many things, except for life in the big mad world. One day, during breakfast, he met another long-term resident, a young unemployed Indian man. After several hours of talking, the man mentioned the internet, email, and computers, and took Ravuth along to a nearby internet café to show him how to use the technology.

After learning about the wonderful worldwide web, Ravuth spent most of his time in the internet café, glued to the screens. He researched events happening in Cambodia and found a renewed purpose in his life.

With the world now at his fingertips, he became intent to search for his lost family.

One day, Ravuth sat on his bed, opened the banana leaf box, took out the faded Polaroid photographs, and stroked them. He removed the archaic leaflets he’d found in the Koh Kong café and studied them. He then took out the seedpod. Memories of the adventure with Oun flooded back and made him smile as he recalled his last happy memory of his family. He sniffed the now brown shrivelled plant.

‘It still smells pleasant, like a honeydew, vanilla, air-freshener,’ he thought, as he looked at the gnarled shrivelled up pod. ‘Although old and looks like a lump of dog turd, it keeps my box smelling nice,’ he chuckled.

He stood up, looked over at the mirror above his sink, and smiled.

“Old and rough looking, just like me,” he said and chuckled to himself as he rubbed the dark patches under his eyes. He put the seedpod back into the box along with his bible, closed the lid, and placed it on a shelf.

Taking a folder from the bedside drawer, he put the old leaflets alongside sheets of printed out instructions, directions, and information that he had found on the internet. He hoped they would help him with his quest, and he would take them along with him the following day on his flight to Phnom Penh.

With his thoughts in turmoil, many things went through Ravuth’s mind. ‘Would I be able to find the village and are my family still alive? Maybe Oun now has a family of his own. Would they remember me?’ His stomach then churned and his eardrums popped as the plane descended.

2002. Cambodia felt unfamiliar to Ravuth Eggleton. He landed at Pochentong International Airport in Phnom Penh and after getting glares from the customs officials after looking at his UK passport, he caught a taxi into the city. He smiled as the warm air and familiar smells of Cambodia brought back fond memories as he looked out of the taxi’s window. They drove past large modern buildings and small open food restaurants filled with smiling Khmers eating and chatting.

He checked into a hotel recommended by the taxi driver on the Riverside. During the time Ravuth lived in Cambodia, apart from the short, unnerving visit to Koh Kong, he had never left his village, so knew nothing about the country he used to call home. Having been a long time since he had spoken Khmer, he struggled to speak or understand his native language as the taxi driver spoke to him.

Arriving mid-afternoon, his plan was to visit the registry and records offices in the Council of Ministry buildings on Confederation de la Russie. But first, he wanted to get a taste of home. He left the hotel and went into the first open-air Cambodian restaurant, ordering plates of Cambodian food.

“Ahh,” Ravuth sighed with pleasure as he crunched on fresh Cambodian vegetables. He smiled, ‘Beats pot noodles’ he thought after living on Pot Noodles and any other dehydrated food that he could cook with his kettle in the B&B. He spent the rest of the day contacting various departments and making appointments for the following day.

Ravuth went out in the evening and strolled along the Riverside. The large, still, Basaac River glistened, and Ravuth watched the lights of small boats as they flitted back and forth. He had brought some pounds sterling with him and after the bank teller advised him to use US dollars instead of the Cambodian Reil, he exchanged his cash to USD. ‘I will use my bank card when that’s gone,’ he thought. He hoped he had more than enough in his UK bank to cover any costs he might incur.

Tourists and locals walked up and down the pavement, while noisy tuk-tuks and moto-dop taxis drove up and down looking for customers. The noise of the big city at night made Ravuth feel uncomfortable

He saw several Khmer and foreign-owned restaurants and watched Khmer touts and beggars approaching foreigners, who tried to ignore the nuisances. He sat in a restaurant, ordered a meal and a beer, and after finishing his food, he returned to his hotel room and sifted through his information for the next day’s meetings. Realising the first obstacle he had to overcome was to find out his family’s name. Living in a small village, the family’s details only got recorded at the local Sangkat (district council) and they issued family books to each family as a record. His father took care of all those details as none of the family could read or write, Ravuth was unaware of his family’s surname or real date of birth. He realised it would be a hurdle after spending the next day shunted around different offices and achieving nothing.

Over the next few days going through the archives, his search came up fruitless. He spent the evenings walking along the Riverside and a few hours at an internet café before returning to his hotel. His week in Phnom Penh disheartened him because he had uncovered nothing. Ravuth had hardly spoken to anyone, since the Khmers seemed standoffish and cold toward him, considering him an outsider who had escaped the Khmer Rouge. The foreigners also ignored him, assuming he was a tout wanting to sell Killing Fields tours or sexy massages. He felt alienated and lost and kept himself to himself, concentrating on his seemingly impossible quest. He looked at the records of the genocide museum at Tuol Sleng. Surprisingly, the Khmer Rouge that had controlled the central provinces kept meticulous records; including photographs of any unfortunate individual that came through the hellish place. Ravuth sifted through every photograph, knowing the demise of the individuals whose emaciated images now stared back at him. He felt relieved that his family were not amongst the victims of this nightmare. Ravuth had studied several articles on the website about the atrocities committed by Pol Pot and his indoctrinated band of murderers. Now that he was in Cambodia, the facts became a lot clearer and realised that his parents were probably dead, but hoped Oun had survived. While alone in his hotel room, he tried to imagine how that terrifying period could have affected Oun and remembered his brother’s happy, smiling, grimy face as they played and went on adventures.