The Rent Collector

Ki goes with Sang Ly to take a taxi, but he is still confused at how Sang Ly means to find Sopeap. Sang Ly cryptically says that Sopeap went to her real home—since the dump never truly became home for her—and she thinks she might know who can help her find it. With a car that Rathana supplied, Sang Ly, Ki, and the housekeeper’s family (Grandma Sin, Rathana, and several others) drive to the wealthy gated district in Phnom Penh where Sopeap once lived. Grandma Sin points out the house where her daughter worked as a housekeeper. When a guard approaches them, Sang Ly lies and says that the homeowner is expecting them and they are there “to see the old woman.”

The guard is confused and hesitant, but calls the homeowner, who tells him to let the car into the driveway. The carload of people emerges from the vehicle and meet a well-dressed man at the front door, who announces himself as the homeowner, Mr. Rangsey. After confirming that Sang Ly is there to see the old woman, the man reveals that Sopeap approached him weeks ago, insisting that she needed to die in this particular house. The man refused until Sopeap explained she was a teacher, and since the man’s father was also a teacher killed by the Khmer Rouge, he finally relented. Sopeap, he says, is on the rooftop garden, though she is very ill.

Sang Ly climbs several sets of stairs and finds Sopeap lying in a bad on a half-covered balcony amidst the rooftop garden. Sang Ly sits beside her, and Sopeap opens her eyes and quietly whispers that Sang Ly just won’t let her be. Sang Ly answers that Sopeap was too wrong to be left alone, and insists she will explain, but first she must meet some people.

Grandma Sin steps forward and clasps the teacher’s hands; Sopeap already recognizes her, and taps her her chest above her heart, whispering, “Three holes.” Grandma Sin tells Sopeap that she knows her daughter’s death was not her fault. When Grandma Sin has made her peace, Rathana and her husband introduce themselves, and thank Sopeap for her kindness, explaining that the packages of money she sent paid for good educations and lifted their family from poverty, and thus they have come to honor their benefactor. Two more families follow suit.

The families, having said their goodbyes, leave Sang Ly and Sopeap in peace. As Sang Ly sits with her teacher, the old woman’s heavy breathing makes her think of the dying elephant, and rain begins to fall “like elephant tears.” Sang Ly and Mr. Rangsey start to move the bed, but Sopeap insists she wants to be left in the rain. Sang Ly sees that she is dying. To ease her mind, Sang Ly pulls the phoenix story from her bag, opens it, and begins to read, and as she does Sopeap visibly relaxes. The story tells of a bird born in the Garden of Paradise, who every hundred years burns itself up, leaving a red egg in the ashes from which a new phoenix will be born.

Sopeap breathes her last breath. Sang Ly places the book upon her chest and sits with Sopeap’s body, holding her hand in the rain for perhaps an hour, “pondering the wonder and sacredness of the day.” She pulls a blanket across the body and leaves, finding Ki asleep in a chair waiting for her, and silently reflecting that her husband is a hero. As Ki wakes, he tells Sang Ly that Mr. Rangsey said they could stay the night, but instead they opt to walk home to Sopeap’s house, through Sopeap’s “renewing, restoring, astonishing, redeeming rain.”