Roosters Crow, Dogs Cry by Wojciech Tochman

Author:Wojciech Tochman [Tochman,Wojciech]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Letter

The Magic Boy

The boy’s name is Kong Keng; he’s two years old, and he lives in a wooden house on pillars. The lame, blind, deaf, and ulcerated made pilgrimages to visit him from all over the country. They came alone, or they were carried here by their relatives. Sometimes it took several days. “Will sick people start coming here from abroad?” asked the local newspapers, “in wheelchairs and on stretchers, now that the press in Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand has written about the Khmer child’s miraculous powers? There’s even been a report in the English-language daily, The Bangkok Post, which is read worldwide by those interested in South-East Asian affairs.”

For the healing touch of his little hands, or rather—as the local radio stations kept saying—for a blessing from the Magic Boy, each desperate wretch had to pay a dollar. Gifts were also welcomed, such as a can of Red Bull or a packet of cigarettes for the boy’s grandfather.

The newspapers reported that the grandfather had been in extremely poor health. He wasn’t at all well, but with the last of his strength he’d taken his grandson in his arms; perhaps he thought his final hour had come, or maybe he wanted the scent of a loved one to accompany him on his journey into the afterlife—the journalists didn’t explain this point, but in any case, they stated clearly that his grandson’s touch had suddenly cured him.

Once the boy’s mysterious abilities had come to light, a pretty good harvest was soon flowing into the village, a rapid stream of cash, a magical gold mine. For many weeks the relatives collected the money in plastic bowls. And they had plenty to collect, because up to a thousand people waited in line each day. Worn out, weak, and sweaty, they lay on dusty mats, groaning, as the heat blazed down; their healthy relatives picked up banana leaves to fan them with, and they all grew hungry and thirsty. So the local residents didn’t waste the opportunity, as we can see on YouTube: they cooked rice, various kinds of soup, and green vegetables, they served duck eggs and coconut milk, and were soon, a roaring trade, amid the atmosphere of a fair, or a fiesta, with music, pipes and drums, plenty of Chinese crap on sale, including cheap, brightly colored toys—it was worth buying any old thing as a gift for the little miracle worker, as then one’s chances of being cured were vastly multiplied.

After a while, the little kru khmer was tired of all the toys, the clamor, and the moist stranger’s hands from dawn to dusk. He was annoyed, and began to protest. The whole house was shaking, and every day the crowd of ailing people thickened, pressing forward as if half the country had come here. Most were Khmer peasants: skin tanned by the sun, weary eyes, bones protruding, old clothes, old slip-ons. Were they all hoping for good health? Did they all want a long life?

The loving mother, Mrs. Phat Soeun, aged twenty-one, took her son away to the home of relatives nearby.

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