The wedding feast was under way. The first two days of celebration had been, as Sok had whispered to Chhuon, “beautiful for a city wedding.” Chhuon, like his wife, missed some of the traditional aspects which had been set aside. Usually the ceremony was held at the bride’s parents’ home and the first day was given to erecting a three-room bamboo house for the groom. Indeed, in Phum Sath Din, villagers did erect a groom’s house, and they feasted and celebrated the village’s most spectacular marriage, but in the heart of Neak Luong no one erected a groom’s house. Instead Pech Chieu Teck, second son of Pech Lim Song, had arranged for the use of three apartments in the city’s first modern concrete-and-glass building. Vathana and her family were given a fourth-floor, three-room apartment which
