The Rent Collector

Sang asks Sopeap if she can read the book that she gave to Sopeap before they started their lessons. Sopeap agrees, but only if Sang reads it to Nisay. Sang agrees, but only if Sopeap will be there while she reads. Nisay, however, is interested only in eating the book, so Ki holds him while Sang reads.

The story, Love Forever, and it is about the love of a parent for a child. The illustrations are striking and accompany passages that speak about this kind of love: “If I were the trees […] I would turn my leaves to gold and scatter them toward the sky so they would circle about your head and fall in piles at your feet […] so you might know wonder” (154). Although Nisay does not get much out of it, the story entrances Ki.

Sopeap returns and gives the book to Sang and tells her why the book affected her so greatly. Written by a good friend of Sopeap’s specifically for Cambodian children, the book was completed and illustrated right before the “Khmer Rouge soldiers pushed into the city” (156). The Khmer Rouge killed Sopeap’s friend as well as the illustrator, and Sopeap assumed that the books had all burned—until she saw the book in Sang’s house.