Chronicle & Humor: Bernard, King of the Bar Stool in Cambodia

Bernard arrived in Cambodia eight years ago. He never left. Neither did his belly. Bernard orders his Anchor at 4pm sharp, knows every bartender's name going back to 2018, and for the past six months, he's even found love. Well, a version of love. And you hear him before you see him.

Illustration photo only — © Cambodge Mag

The Stool

He always sits in the same spot, so faithfully that the seat has molded itself to the exact shape of his backside. Staff stopped asking for his order long ago. "The usual, mate!" he calls out to the bartender, at a volume that carries to the farthest table on the terrace. Anchor, ice, lime. An unshakable ritual.

"It Was Better Back Then"

Bernard explains to the new arrival at the bar how it used to be "before all this got touristy," tapping his neighbor's shoulder to punctuate every sentence. "I'm telling you, man, it was chaos, but the good kind of chaos, you know what I mean!" "Before," as it happens, means two years ago, before a second 7-Eleven opened down the street. He tells this bygone era with all the emotion of a war veteran recalling the trenches. He already lived, back then, in the exact same air-conditioned apartment, and already carried a fair share of the belly he carries today.

In eight years, he's picked up eleven words of Khmer, nine of which are for ordering drinks and haggling over tuk-tuk fares. His English isn't much better. He endlessly repeats the same three phrases — "you understand?", "no problem, no problem", "same same" — like a well-meaning parrot permanently stuck on its one routine. None of this stops him from holding a firm opinion on domestic politics, the country's history since the 1950s, and "the Cambodian mentality" in general. "But hey, you gotta live here to really get it, you know." This from a man who, in eight years, has never had a conversation longer than four sentences with anyone who doesn't work in hospitality.

Sophea

Bernard describes their meeting as a cosmic event. "She looked at me, and I just knew." What he never mentions is what Sophea herself actually thinks. In six months, the question doesn't seem to have troubled him much.

Kevin Learns a Lesson

A young backpacker named Kevin, who arrived the day before, sits down at the bar and starts explaining to Bernard "what Cambodia's really like." Bernard listens for forty-five seconds, just long enough to finish his sip, before cutting him off at a volume that turns heads at two neighboring tables, belly thrust forward like a medal on display: "Whoa, easy there, kid! You just got here, you're talking and talking, but you don't have a clue. I've even got a Cambodian wife. Come talk to me in eight years."

Kevin, stung, drifts off toward a table of more receptive backpackers. Bernard orders a second Anchor and settles further into his stool. Sophea, at the next table, clears plates without a word.

Retirement, Bernard-Style

Bernard is nearing retirement, and he talks about it as something he's "totally got sorted." On paper, he still lives with his friend Gérard, back in Roubaix — an address he hasn't actually seen in six years. Gérard collects his mail, answers the phone if anyone calls, and confirms that "yes, Bernard does live here."

A regular at the bar, a rather naive Belgian who's only been around three months, finally asks the question nobody ever asks: "So are you ever planning on moving back to France?" Bernard bursts out laughing, as if he'd just been asked whether he still believed in Santa Claus. "Move back? But I'm already home, mate!" He pats his chest, then his belly, in that order — a gesture he clearly finds quite moving. The Belgian, satisfied with the answer, doesn't push further. Nobody ever does.

"You've just gotta be smart about it," Bernard sums up a little later, to no one in particular this time. He orders a round for the table — "go on, my treat, you only live once!" — with the generosity of a man who knows, somewhere in the back of his mind, that it isn't really him paying.

The Way Home

Bernard walks home, four hundred meters he describes every evening as a polar expedition, his belly leading the way with the calm authority of an explorer. The number of Anchors consumed over the course of the afternoon turns this same short walk into a slightly different adventure every night: this time, he warmly greets a parked scooter, apparently mistaking it for an old acquaintance, apologizes politely for bumping into it, and wishes it a good night before carrying on, pleased with this extra bit of social interaction. He's already talking about settling down for good, buying a little house for the two of them. What Sophea actually thinks about any of this remains, like most things concerning her in this story, a question he hasn't yet found it necessary to ask.