The Road of Lost Innocence by Somaly Mam

Author:Somaly Mam [Mam, Somaly]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 0100-12-31T22:00:00+00:00

We went to Nice to visit Pierre’s mother. She had a yappy little dog, Tatou, who barked the whole time and ate from a plate at the table, which I found truly disgusting. The plan was for us to live with Pierre’s mother for a while, until Pierre found a job, but I could tell that she didn’t like me. To her I was a gold-digging foreigner who had seduced her son, and I tried to stay out of her way. Pierre was out most of the time, and I just sat in our room with no one to talk to and nothing to do.

I desperately needed to take French lessons, but we didn’t have much money. I had brought a French-Khmer dictionary with me from Cambodia and I asked Pierre to recommend a children’s book for me to read. Pierre told me I’d never manage it, but he bought me a copy of Joseph Kessel’s Le Lion. He was right—it was far too difficult for me. But I told myself I had to do it, and every night I wrote down words I had to learn.

Pierre went off to Paris to look for work while I stayed behind in Nice with his mother. One day I found a copy of the local paper, Nice-Matin. Looking through it, I came upon the classified section. I saw the word “Emploi” and looked it up in the dictionary—it meant “jobs.” I translated a few ads with the aid of my dictionary, and I saw that people were looking for cleaners and maids. I realized that even with little French, I might be able to find work.

I asked my mother-in-law how to get a job, and she took me to a temp agency and dropped me off. She didn’t care to help me, so I just walked in by myself. There were all kinds of foreigners inside. I explained to the director that I wanted to work. I told him, “Je veux travailler,” in a loud voice, and he got the message. He smiled broadly and told me I could start the next morning. I would be a cleaner at the Hôtel Hibiscus on the Promenade des Anglais.

That night, when Pierre phoned from Paris, I told him I had found work. He couldn’t believe it—that I would find a job before he could, without even speaking proper French. I was so happy about the salary. With 2,500 francs a month, I thought, I could begin sending money home to my parents.

The next morning my mother-in-law drove me to the hotel, and I carefully memorized the route into the center of town. When I arrived a Madame Josiane met me and gave me a dozen rooms to clean. She didn’t show me how, and I had no idea how to make a bed properly. I also didn’t know how to use the vacuum cleaner. It was like a long snake and roared at me—I was always frightened that it would suck up my feet or climb up my body.

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