“There must be other girls, in Battambang,” Nita said. She understood that she shouldn’t say something with a knife blade in it to her father, but the words just came out of her mouth. Ryna looked over at Pich and waited for him to talk.
“Mr. Noth has heard that you are clever,” said Pich. “And he and Cousin Narith are good friends.”
“Just let him meet you,” said Ryna. “You don’t need to say anything to him.”
Pich frowned at his wife. “Daughter should certainly talk to him,” he said.
The next Sunday, in mid-afternoon, a big silver car drove up the rutted road to Nita’s house. It couldn’t get all the way, because of the mud, so it stopped about a hundred meters from the gate, and Mr. Noth began walking. It had to be Mr. Noth, thought Nita. She’d never seen a car like that in her village. She hurried down the ladder and ran to Lina’s house and hid in her storage shed.
An hour later, Nita heard her mother’s voice from outside the shed. “Dearest daughter, mi-oun, please come out now.”
“I don’t want to.”
For a while, Ryna didn’t say anything. “I know how you feel,” she said.
“So don’t make me come out,” Nita said.
“Dear daughter . . . I love you so much. Do you understand that?”
“Yes.”
“You remind me of myself when I was your age. You’re prettier and smarter than I was. I was so confused. I didn’t know anything about anything. I didn’t really know your father. But look at us. We’ve made a life together. It’s been twenty-five years now.”
“I’m not you,” said Nita.
“Your father wants you to meet Mr. Noth,” said Ryna.
“What do you want?” said Nita.
“My dearest daughter,” Ryna said in a low voice, almost whispering. She hesitated. “I want you to stay in school. But . . .” She didn’t finish the sentence.
Nita sat down on an old bucket in the shed. She tossed off her flip-flops and pressed her foot hard against a rock until she could feel the pain. Nita loved her mother. She thought about how her mother was just doing what she had to do, so she came out of the shed, but she slammed the door so hard that the wood splintered, and she didn’t say a word to her mother as they walked back to their house.
Mr. Noth sat in one of the two chairs of the house, Pich in the other. Pich was wearing his nice silk shirt, which he usually wore only during the Khmer New Year. Mr. Noth was dressed in a jacket and lace-up shoes. He had bushy eyebrows that met in the middle, and the hair on his head was starting to fall out, and when he stood up he leaned to one side, as if one leg were shorter than the other. Maybe it was.
Nita stood against the wall, keeping a distance. Mr. Noth knew that she’d been hiding somewhere. “I like a girl with spirit,” he said, and grinned. Nita noticed that he had all of his teeth. At least he had that. Mr. Noth began asking her questions about various things, like what kinds of jobs people did in her village and the cost of tires at the market. At first, Nita didn’t want to talk to him. But she knew all the answers. And she did have her dignity.
“She’s a pretty girl, isn’t she,” said Ryna.
“Not so pretty,” said Mr. Noth, “but she’s clever.”
“Yes, she’s clever,” said Pich. That was the first time in her life that Nita had ever heard her father say she was clever.
Lina was angry at Nita for planning to marry a man who lived far away. She said she’d probably never see Nita again. Battambang was on another planet, she said. But what did Lina know, thought Nita. Lina had never been outside Kandal. Neither had she. But she knew a lot of things that her mother had told her. “What will happen to me?” said Lina. “I can’t go anywhere. I have no money. You’ll eat good food and ride in your husband’s car, and he’ll take you to shops in Battambang City. How did you have such good luck?”
Nita replied that she’d rather shovel cow dung for the rest of her life than get married to Mr. Noth. Lina began shouting about how Nita didn’t know about anything except her school lessons, and then Lina started in on her own rotten luck and how her husband was not making much money on the fishing boats in Malaysia. She started crying and put her arms around Nita. Lina did love her, Nita thought to herself. She told Lina things she didn’t tell anyone else. She had told Lina when she had her first period.
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