For the Sake of All Living Things by John M. Del Vecchio Page A

brother’s
    feet with chicken blood and
    rice alcohol.
    May the tiger stay in the
    forest,
    May the crocodile stay on
    the
    shore
    May our bodies be cool,
    sleep deep
    snore loud.
    Chhuon, his body hot and sticky with smoke and mist, shivered. He felt his heart pause, then overfill and contract. A giant pulse flooded his body. He did not turn to look at Chung, but in himself said, May I not fall into the river.
    With the straw tip at the bottom of the jar Y Ksar sucked up the fermented-bran numpai as the others again began to eat. It was difficult to pull the numpai up through the long straw. For young men it was considered a test of their manhood. As he swallowed, Y Ksar slipped his thumb over the mouth end of the straw to keep the wine-beer from falling back. He drank for some minutes, then thumb-covered the straw. “Measure,” he called out. Sraang came with a smaller jar and a measuring cup. She knelt before the large jar, filled the measuring cup with water from the small, then poured the water into the large, measuring and pouring until the large jar was again full.
    “Ha ha.” Y Ksar laughed his spirited laugh. “Six plus a half.” Carefully he passed the straw to Chhuon, still not allowing air to drive the numpai back into the jar. Chhuon smiled, knowing he was expected to match the feat of six and a half measures. Y Ksar looked at Chhuon’s eyes and laughed and laughed. Then he began to tell stories, some in Jarai but most in Khmer. He was a lively, witty storyteller, chanting long embellished tales. Jaang and Sraang brought more food. Chung joined in the circle and invited Mayana to sit just behind him. Y Ksar told tale after tale. He joked and laughed at the jokes himself and he made everyone else, especially Mayana, laugh too.
    “Uncle,” Mayana asked in her little-girl voice, “why do you live up here? How did the mountain people get here?”
    Y Ksar winked at her. “According to ancient legend,” he said, “long, long ago, after forty days and forty nights of rain caused the waters to cover the earth and after the waters receded and the mountains could again be seen, Giong, great-grandson of the Spirit of Time, soared above the earth in a kite. From the kite he could see the coast and the plains and the mountains, and all the people begged him for land. To the Khmer and to the Lao, Giong granted the valley of the great river. To the Viets he gave the coastal plain. But the Mountaineers, they did not plead. They did not even listen because they were busy eating sugarcane.” Y Ksar laughed, rolled back and stomped his enormous right foot. “Ha! Niece and nephew, we mountain people never knew which land was ours so we have roamed here and there and scattered into a hundred tribes and settled by a source of clear water. And now you shall be Mountaineers with us. We shall call you Y Nang and H Yani. You are my grandchildren. My children, as your father is my brother.”
    After he had eaten, Y Ksar lit his pipe. Mayana went with Sraang and other women to the village watering spot. Draam Chung returned to work on his motorcycle. Only Y Bhur, Chhuon and Samnang remained about the jar with the old man.
    “Your trip was good?” Y Ksar asked Chhuon as Chhuon continued to suck on the straw. If a man could be from two different milieus simultaneously, Y Ksar was such a man. Long ago he had filed his upper teeth to nubs and painted the lowers with ebon lacquer. His hair, what was left, was pulled tight to his head and tied in a chignon, his earlobes held fat ivory plugs. His clothing was an ornate length of cloth wrapped between his legs and about his waist. Had time run back a thousand years and dropped him in the mountains of the Srepok Forest, the inhabitants would have welcomed him as a contemporary. Yet, if one could see within his mind, Y Ksar was a tenth- and nineteenth- and twentieth-century man. Very early in his life he had become the village blacksmith, forging swords and lances, bushhooks and