In the Shadow of the Banyan Read Free Page B

language.
    Grandmother Queen, half deaf and half daydreaming, said, “Eh?”
    “The shelling!” Tata repeated, almost shouting. “Didn’t you think it was awful?”
    “What shelling?”
    I suppressed a giggle. Talking with Grandmother Queen was like talking through a tunnel. No matter what you said, all you could hear were your own words echoing back.
    Papa looked up from his newspaper and was about to say something when Om Bao stepped into the dining pavilion, bearing a silver tray with glasses of the chilled basil-seed drink she made for us everymorning. She placed a glass before each of us. Resting the tip of my nose on the glass, I inhaled the sweet ambrosia. Om Bao called her drink—a mixture of soaked basil seeds and cane sugar in ice-cold water, scented with jasmine flowers—“little girls hunting for eggs.” When Old Boy picked the blossoms earlier they had been tightly closed, but now they opened up like the skirts of little girls with their heads dipped in water—hunting for eggs! It hadn’t occurred to me before, but the basil seeds did look like transparent fish eggs. I beamed into the glass, delighted by my discovery.
    “Sit up straight,” Mama ordered, no longer offering me a smile.
    I sat up straight, pulling my nose back. Papa glanced at me, mouthing his sympathy. He took a small sip from his glass and, looking up in surprise, exclaimed, “Om Bao! Have you lost your sweet touch?”
    “I’m terribly sorry, Your Highness . . .” She looked nervously from Papa to Mama. “I’ve been trying to cut down on the cane sugar. We don’t have much left, and it is so hard to find at the market these days.” She shook her head in distress. “Your servant humbly regrets it’s not so sweet, Your Highness.” When nervous, Om Bao tended to be overly formal and loquacious. “Your servant humbly regrets” sounded even more stilted, when across the table from His Highness, I was lapping up my soup like a puppy. “Would Your Highness—”
    “No, this is just right.” Papa drank it up. “Delicious!”
    Om Bao smiled, her cheeks expanding like the rice cakes steaming away in the kitchen. She bowed, and bowed again, her bulbous behind bobbing, as she walked backward until she reached a respectful distance before turning around. At the steps of the cooking pavilion, Old Boy relieved her of the emptied tray, quick as always to help her with any task. At the moment he seemed unusually agitated. Perhaps he was worried that I’d revealed his and Om Bao’s morning canoodling to Grandmother Queen, who forbade such displays of affection. Om Bao patted his arm reassuringly. No, no, don’t worry, she seemed to say. He turned toward me, obviously relieved. I winked. And for the second time this morning, he offered me his gappy grin.
    Papa had resumed reading. He flipped the newspaper back and forth,making soft snapping noises with the pages. I tilted my head to read the headline on the front page: “Khmer Krahom Encircle City.”
    Khmer Krahom? Red Khmers? Who had ever heard of that? We were all Cambodians—or “Khmers,” as we called ourselves. I imagined people, with their bodies painted bright red, invading the city, scurrying about the streets like throngs of stinging red ants. I laughed out loud, almost choking on my basil-seed drink.
    Mama gave me another warning look, her annoyance now easily piqued. It seemed the morning hadn’t gone in the direction she wanted. All anyone wanted to talk about was the war. Even Om Bao had alluded to it when she mentioned how hard it was to find cane sugar at the market.
    I hid my face behind the glass, hiding my thoughts behind the little floating jasmine skirts. Red Khmers, Red Khmers, the words sang in my head. I wondered what color Khmer I was. I glanced at Papa and decided whatever he was, I was too.
    “Papa, are you a Red Khmer?” It came out of me like an unexpected burp.
    Tata set her glass down with a bang. The whole courtyard fell silent. Even the air