Free The Road of Lost Innocence by Somaly Mam Page A

up on the street. I saw the Toyota Land Cruiser with the humanitarian agency’s logo on it drive slowly past me as I stood on the sidewalk, and then it circled around the block and came back and stopped.
    Aunty Peuve was watching, as usual, and she handled the negotiations and took the money. It was the first time I had ever had a white client, and I thought he looked strange. He was about twenty-eight, much taller than any Khmer, and his hair was a long stripe down the middle of his head and short everywhere else.
    Dietrich didn’t just take me to a room of some kind, either. He took me to a street stall first, because he was hungry and wanted to eat. He didn’t speak more than eight words of Khmer, and I certainly spoke no Swiss German, but he bought me dinner, which no client had ever done, and he tried to talk to me. He clowned around, mimicking things, and he tried to make me laugh. He pushed at the corners of my mouth so I would smile. When he took me to the guesthouse room he’d rented, it was the first time I’d ever seen a mattress. I was very unsure of myself. I didn’t know what this foreigner was going to do to me. I thought maybe white people were different from Khmer. He sat down on the bed and patted it, for me to sit beside him, but when I sat down it felt soft—as if something were swallowing me—and I leaped up, frightened. This client laughed again and motioned for me to go in the bathroom and wash myself.
    I was glad to have a reprieve from the mattress, which was genuinely scary, but the bathroom was strange too. It was very clean, but I had to look everywhere for the basin of water to wash myself. The only water I could see amid the shiny taps and empty white containers was a tiny amount at the bottom of the toilet. I had never seen a toilet like that, so I thought it must be the washing bowl. I splashed the water on my face, thinking, That’s all the white people use to wash in?
    When I went back into the room, Dietrich said to me with gestures, “Did you shower?” and I shook my head. He came back into the bathroom and turned on a shiny thing, like a snake, and it flashed to life, spitting at me. I jumped back, certain that thing was evil and would hurt me. I was frightened, thinking it might be a phantom of some kind, and I ran out screaming. Dietrich had to explain running water to me—the pipes, and the showerhead. It was another world. I was scared that the water would flood everything and I would drown. Despite my fear, I tried to have a shower, all wrapped up in a towel and leaving the door open so that I could run out if the phantom came back. That was the first time I ever used proper soap, and I remember how good it smelled, like a flower. Soap is expensive, and the only thing we ever used was soapflakes, the kind you wash clothes with.
    After my shower Dietrich did pretty much what all the clients did, although he didn’t hit me. He also drove me back to Aunty Peuve’s place and gave me extra money, which no client had ever done before. It was a lot. He paid fifty U.S. cents to Aunty Peuve for me, but he gave me twenty dollars.
             
    Dietrich used to come looking for me at Aunty Peuve’s brothel, but I could tell he didn’t like doing that. Sometimes he’d send his translator for me—a Cambodian man who worked in the office of Dietrich’s relief agency. When I was with Dietrich, I would spend all night with him in a nice room in a small hotel or at one of his friends’ apartments. In the morning, he would always drive me back, with money for Aunty Peuve and money for me.
    Sometimes Dietrich gave me enough money so that I didn’t have to work for Aunty Peuve at all for a few weeks. I’d give most of it to her and then leave and spend a couple of nights with other girls I knew. One of them was Heung, who was living on her own now. Aunty Peuve had thrown her out—she was at least twenty-eight, which is old for a prostitute, and she was sick, so she wasn’t