DokHak

"Excuse me. Do you know where Acharn Thongkham's house is?"

I asked an elderly lady whose house was lying on the same street as Thongkham's house used to be.

Telling the truth, I frequented this street before and each time I was there, my heart pounded heavily. It was not different this time though 17 years had passed. In fact, I should remember where her house was. Passing Dongdok University with a right turn for a few hundred yards and a little alley a few hundred feet away from the main street, her house should be there. Unfortunately, when I got there again, everything looked different. A lot of new houses sprang up along the street especially one big concrete building kind of towering over the place I thought her house used to be. Worse, there was no visible alley in sight.

"You mean Acharn Thongkham whose dad was a schoolmaster?" An elderly lady asked for more confirmation.

"Yes" I responded excitingly.

"Her house was at the end of the street. Too sad, her dad just passed away not a long time ago."

The first time I went to Thongkham's house 20 years ago, her dad struck me as a very protective dad. Maybe, because I was nourishing a feeling of love towards her, I tended to see her dad likewise. Or maybe, because I thought I wasn't good enough for him, I didn't know. What I knew was I dared not enter her house whenever her dad was around. In fact, to be fair to him, he was not the main reason I shied away. Insead, it was the young man, a classmate of hers, who occupied my place almost everytime I got there. I knew that her family had a ricefield, and that guy was good at farming. Me? I was a son of an urban parent who wasn't good at anything but books. I thought her parents must have preferred that guy over me so the only way left for me was to kick myself out. And that was precisely the thing I did 17 years ago.

We drove our car to almost at the end of the street. Still, I couldn't find her house _ the house I vividly remember in my heart. Fortunately, my wife's sister who came with us knew a friend whose house was towering ove the place. After a few minutes gone by, the owner of the house came to our car and pointed her finger to the uknlikely alley hardly reminiscent of the alley I used to pass.

"Thongkham's house is behind mine. Take this alley and her house was at the end of it."

Believe it or not. The owner of the house was Thongkham's classmate whom I did remember for I used to pass by her class a number of times. At that time, I was a senior in Lycee de Vientiane (high school) while both Thongkham and my wife's were juniors.

The day, in fact the night, I first met Thongkham was completely an accident. My junior friend who was also the president of her class was tutoring math to a group of classmates in the big hall of Lycee de Vientiane. Knowing that I did this kind of math before, he asked me to help him out. I had to say that I was struck with love at first sight when my eyes fell on a young girl whose name was Thongkham. I couldn't tell how much happy I was to be close to her. Too bad, I was too shy to say anything but the silly math language.

I tried to see her again after that night but I just couldn't drag my lef forward when her classroom was in sight. One time, I gathered my strength to visit her at the hospital after her surgery with a bouquet of flowers but noticing a group of her classmates in the room, I instead had my sister delivered the flowers to her. What a coward I suddenly became!

My classmate, the driver of the car and also my uncle by default of marrying to my wife's aunt, took his car past the many potholes full of murky water until we reached the end of the alley. In and out of the car, my sister in law and my young aunts were not done with the complaints that I should have told them that Thongkham was a female, not a male as the name seemed to suggest. Too bad, if I let them know before hand, they would have bombarded me with an endless question of who she was. That was not going to be pleasant at all.

The house I saw in front of me looked different. It seemed a little bit bigger and there was no champa tree in front as before. Still, the old memories kept coming back.

There, I took her picture leaning against the champa tree with her little brother sitting on one of the branches.

There, I admiringly watched her while she was washing her parents' clothes, and then before I left, poured a bucket of water on her Pimai Lao or not.

There, I had my little brother delivered Khao Taum my mother made for TakBaht to her while I waited outside.

There, I rode my bike every day for over an hour each way to teach her mathematics during the summer.

There, I rode my bike to from the Morning Market with her litte sister on the seat behind while she was riding another bike alongside me.

There, I gave a drawing of a revolutionary youth icon, Che Guevara, with a caption:

"Let's go the master of the glorious sunrise

on the lonely and deserted road

for the freedom of people you love

for the freedom of people you love."

There, I gave her a short story I wrote and got published in Vientiane Mai newspaper entitled "Dok Hak Kang Douang Jai". It was a story of a young man who came back home after years of study abroad. One day, he met a little girl whose face reminded him of a girl he loved. This little girl had to help support her family by selling flowers after school. He also knew that her mother was sick and her father was sent to a seminar camp. To help out with the girl he once loved, he bought flowers from the little girl every day, and also, had his doctor friend taken her as his special patient. Though she was still everything to him he wouldn't allow himself to see her again. From the little girl, he learned that her mom treasured a drawing of Che Guevara he gave her. In the end, the girl knew who was behind the good things she seemed to have lately, his doctor friend just couldn't bare the thought of keepig the secret from her anymore.

At the graduation day of a little girl, the girl was waiting anxiously to see him and thank him for his genereosity but he didn't come for he decided to leave the town for good. After all, it wouldn't be proper for him to see her again. Let the bygone be the bygone. With that, his love he had for her would always be pure in the bottom of his heart.

There, I helped her fix a transistor radio. Not once, my hand rubbed on hers.

And there, I mistakenly said that I loved her as a brother would do to a sister. I didn't know what made me say that. Maybe, because I was not brave enough to receive a rejection from her if I just said that I loved her.

...

A little girl was playing inside the house. She did look like her mother, a girl I used to love, a girl I had never had an unwholesome thought and a girl who I always had the word "give"to her.

"Is your mom home?" I asked the little girl.

"Yes, she is taking a nap." her voice sounded like her mom I knew.

"Can you wake her up?"My friend asked the girl for he might have sensed that Thongkham was more than a friend to me as I proclaimed her to them.

A moment later, a door opened. A young woman that was always in my heart appeared. Though 17 years had passed, she still looked the same - her warm smile, her sweet voice and her gentle demeanor. I knew she was surprised to see me again after 17 years but you never knew for, then and now, she never let anybody know what she really felt.

From the conversation and the album pictures, I came to realize that she was happily married to a university professor who loved her very dearly. That I did not have a single doubt. What distressed me was that he lifetime commitment to a revolutionary cause gave her nothing but a life of a constinuous struggle. Being a teacher herself, she had to resort to teach English outside school to support her family.

We talked for a while. In fact, it was my friend who did the talking and asking. What I did was to look at the album pictures, and to recall the old happy days inside myself. Maybe, my friend and my wife's relatives realized that I might have something to say to her personally, they told us they were going outside. Alone with only the two of us, I still kept flipping the album pictures, she let me know that she kept the pictures we took together, the pictures I took for her, and the drawing of Che Guavara in her bedroom drawer. I couldn't tell what I felt at that moment - glad in the sense that what I held dear in my heart she did feel the same, and at the same time, sad that after all I had done to her she still had me somewhere in her beautiful heart.

Over 17 years ago, I had no one to blame but myself. I never understood love for I had never had one before. I kept going from one girl to another even with her own friend because I always thought she didn't love me but just being nice to me only. If she did love me, it must be like what a sister did to a brother.

In fact, I should have noticed that what she gave to me was more than a brotherly love. Once, we exchanged notebooks which we put down our intimate thoughts towards one another. Yes, there was no mentioning of the word "love" but the fact that we did that thing, we already stepped beyong a mere friendship.

At another time, I was about to leave her house and my tire was kind of half out of air. I didn't notice it at all until I was half way home when the tire was completely flat. The sun was setting down and the darkness was creeping in, I was kind of worried to walk home in this lonely hour. Then out of nowhere, her brother sent by her rode a bike bringing with him an air pumper to me. And at another which I would never forgot, she came to my house with two of her female friends to see my parents. They truly adored her and because it was the time of Pimai Lao, they showered her with a bucket of water. That image was still fresh in my mind even today.

About five minutes gone by, I still said nothing to her but gazed and gazed. Noticing that a valuable time had passed, she told me that her husband was about to arrive at any minute. It would be unpleasant for him to see me at this place. Her words caught me by surprise. Did it mean that her husband thought of me as her lover and so did she? To me, we did never step beyond what friends were. That was why I dared to come to see her at her house with my wife's relatives.

Before, I departed her house once and for all, she gently placed her warm hand on my arm and sadly said "You know what I feel towards you so please don't come here again. Let the bygones be the bygones. This way, we won't hurt anybody."

While walking to our car, I saw her taking a last glance at me with the kind of eyes I finally understood.

That was the last time I saw her at her house. Before I left for the U.S., I saw her one more time at the school she taught. She gave me a phone number I could reach her. Deciding that it was not proper for both of us to continue our relationship, I shredded that piece of paper and let those thousands pieces drift away with the wind...

Now, I can die with the peace of mind that I still have someone to love me, and that my love towards her is as pure as a true love can be.

May she live happily ever after

and may Dok Hak blossom in our hearts forever!

Hakphaang,

Kongkeo Saycocie