Three Flames. Alan Lightman

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      THREE FLAMES

      This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

      Copyright © 2019 by Alan Lightman

      First hardcover edition: 2019

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

      An earlier version of the chapter “Ryna” first appeared in Daily Lit magazine under the title “Reprisals.” An earlier version of the chapter “Pich” first appeared in Consequence magazine.

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Names: Lightman, Alan P., 1948– author.

      Title: Three flames : a novel / Alan Lightman.

      Description: First hardcover edition. | Berkeley, California : Counterpoint, 2019.

      Identifiers: LCCN 2018057994 | ISBN 9781640092280

      Subjects: LCSH: Cambodia—History—Fiction.

      Classification: LCC PS3562.I45397 T47 2019 | DDC 813/.54—dc23

      LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018057994

       Jacket design by Jaya Miceli

       Book design by Wah-Ming Chang

      COUNTERPOINT

      2560 Ninth Street, Suite 318

      Berkeley, CA 94710

       www.counterpointpress.com

      Printed in the United States of America

      Distributed by Publishers Group West

      10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

      This book is dedicated to the strong and courageous young women of the Harpswell Foundation.

      CONTENTS

Ryna (2012)

Nita (2009)

       Kamal (2013)

       Thida (2008)

       Pich (1973)

       Sreypov (2015)

       Notes and Acknowledgments

       RYNA

       (2012)

      Ryna had just finished putting a quarter kilo of pork and a half dozen rambutan into her burlap shopping bag, wondering if her husband would scold her for spending too much, when she saw the man who had murdered her father. At first she wasn’t sure. She hadn’t seen the man for thirty-three years, since she was twelve years old, and he was now whitened and bent over and barely able to support his skinny body with a walking stick. But he had the same crooked mouth and angular cheeks that she remembered, the same mole above his left eye, and as she studied him from three stalls away, she became more and more certain. Many times over the years since the war, she had imagined what she would do if she ever saw him again. What she had most wished for was some catastrophe to permanently separate him from his family, as had happened to her family, or for him to be stricken with cancer and die a slow and painful death.

      That evening, after her husband had finished eating his dinner, Ryna said to him, “I think I saw Touch Pheng in the market this morning.” The smell of the pork blended with the odor of mildew, always present during the rainy season, when nothing could be kept dry.

      “Who?” said Pich, wiping his mouth.

      “The commander of the camp at Sopheak Mongkol.”

      She looked over at Pich through the dim yellow light and tried to read his expression. The one room of the house was lit only by a single bulb, which dangled from wires that ran along the tin roof, down a wall made of packed palm leaves, around the two storage bags of corn and СКАЧАТЬ