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can say a word. He seems to be forgetting that she is still the Rent Collector, a woman with the power to kick us out of our home at any time.
    She ignores his tone, looks past him as if he weren’t there, and instead directs her question to me. “Do you have my rice wine?”
    Ki steps sideways to block her view. “You get nothing until you carry out your part of the bargain.”
    “Out of my way!” She threatens—at least as threatening as a staggering, drunken woman sounds to a larger, stronger man. She attempts to move around him, but Ki Lim will have none of it.
    “Don’t you dare!”
    I don’t know if he’s defending me or begrudging her. I assume it’s the former and I step to his side.
    “Ki, it’s okay.” I interrupt with words, coupled with a soft touch to his shoulder. “It’s not worth it,” I whisper. “She is still the Rent Collector.”
    Then, with Sopeap watching, I reach out and place a twice-polished bottle of Bourey’s finest distilled rice wine into her hands. “You need this worse than we do.”
    She is about to stumble away when I stop her.
    “Sopeap, you forgot these.” I force her fingers around my three pencils and hold her clasped hand tightly. Then, before she has a chance to see the moisture forming in my eyes, I thank her for coming and retreat behind the safety of our curtain.

Chapter Five
     

     
    As I pour a spot of menthol oil into my hands, its pungent odor wafts around the room and Nisay immediately begins to wail.
    “Oh please, child, I haven’t even touched you yet.”
    He doesn’t care and I hear his objection loud and clear. “ True, you haven’t, but you’re sure as certain about to! ”
    And he is right, but I have no choice. It is a remedy practiced by my mother and father, and by their mother and father, and I’m certain by a line of waiting parent ancestors that stretches past heaven. It is as old as Cambodia itself. It is called Koah Kchol, a name that means to scrape air.
    It starts with oil distilled from leaves of the Mentha arvensis, a menthol plant that grows wild in the jungle. Once the oil is rubbed thoroughly onto the skin and it’s had a chance to soak in, a coin or other piece of round metal, held sideways, is used to scrape the recipient’s back, chest, and arms, using long parallel strokes.
    The skin is scraped to bring toxic air to the body’s surface and restore the natural balance of hot and cold, keeping these universal elements in harmony. As a side effect, it also causes blood vessels just beneath the surface to rupture, resulting in maroon, zebra-like lines that remain for two or three days before they fade.
    Once, several weeks before, after one of Nisay’s treatments, an American doctor arrived at Stung Meanchey on behalf of Charity House, a Christian service organization that had come to offer free medical assistance for the day to children at the dump. Naturally, I took advantage, hoping it would finally be a time for answers. When the doctor noticed Nisay’s lines, through a translator, he called my treatment superstitious nonsense and a complete waste of energy. He said I should instead trust modern medicine and administer a course of antibiotics, which he then provided.
    I will try anything to help my child and so I followed his instructions implicitly. However, ten days later, when the medicine ran out, Nisay’s symptoms returned. I would like to find that doctor and explain to him the difference between superstition and intuition, and to let him know that his solution proved to be nonsense and a complete waste of energy. He didn’t leave a forwarding address.
    And so I continue to search for answers, and as I scrape my son’s skin today, I console with words meant to soften his cries—words that I suppose are meant for me. “Child, we only want you to get well. Understand that while it’s painful, it’s for your own good. If we do nothing, your illness will worsen. I promise that in spite of your complaints, one