So she stays hidden behind her dark glasses, protected in the borrowed anonymity of being “foreign.”
“It’s okay,” Mr. Chum consoles, as if she were the one in need of consolation. “There are too many. You can’t help them all.”
She nods, pushing back the emotions that compete to find expression on her face. When she can’t bear it any longer, she allows herself the solace of knowing that she is among the luckiest—she not only survived, she escaped.
“What are you concocting?”
The Old Musician startles out of his remembrances. He looks up and sees Dr. Narunn standing before him. “I—I was going to have some tea, Venerable.” As customary, he addresses the ordained physician by the title used for a monk. He is about to add, With my evening meal, but refrains from any mention of food in front of one who adheres to the monastic discipline of no food or drink besides water beyond noon. “I didn’t see you coming, Venerable.”
“Well, you know, I thought I’d sneak up and steal a cup of whatever you’re brewing.” Dr. Narunn lowers himself on his haunches, gathering the hems of his saffron robe and tucking them in place. “I’ll have a bit of hot water with my condensed milk, please. And a slice of that cake, if you don’t mind.” He chuckles, his Adam’s apple bouncing happily. “I’m parodying myself, of course. The first time I was ordained and had to fast, that was all I could think of—food. I imagined what I’d say if people invited me into their kitchens during our alms round! Of course no one did.” He lets out a resounding laugh. “I’m not made for this life!”
The Old Musician’s mood is instantly cheered by the doctor’s presence, the buoyant energy emanating from his friend. There is a nobility to the young man’s carriage, an assuredness in each movement. Every year for a month during the rainy season the doctor enters the sangha to meditate and take a respite from the demands of his profession.
“You know,” Dr. Narunn says, observing him, “you are constantly squinting now, more than ever before. We really ought to protect what’s left of your sight.” It was Dr. Narunn whose help the Old Musician had enlisted to write the letter. “Please let me get you a pair of glasses.”
“Thank you, Venerable, it is very kind of you.” How can he tell the young doctor that his sight cannot be remedied, that his partial blindness is rooted in the betrayal of his mind, not his eyes? “I would feel too disoriented with those modern things on my face.” Let others believe he was a stubborn, benighted old peasant, refusing the aid of technology. “Maybe an eye patch to cover the bad eye is better suited for me—more dashing, don’t you think?”
“You’re right! I don’t know why I didn’t think of it. It’ll certainly strain less if you keep it covered. I’ll see what I can find.”
“I was only joking, Venerable. You mustn’t bother.” The truth is it’s best not to be able to see at all. As it is, one already perceives too much suffering . . .
“Yes, and less easily, but surely one also glimpses the possibilities for change, for transformation.”
He’s startled by the doctor’s response. It happens more and more now that he speaks aloud without realizing it. The line between thought and speech bleeds, and he is back in his cell—Tell us what you know! Confess! Or else you’ll end up like the others! Blood obscures his vision, seeping down into his skull.
He blinks and sees only Dr. Narunn looking at him intently. He remains silent, terrified of his own mind.
“I’ve just spoken with the abbot,” the young doctor says, changing the subject. “He has some urgent matter to attend to outside the temple. He wants me to take his place and lead the chanting in the evening’s ceremony. I understand you are to play your sadiev?”
“He’s so young, Venerable.”
“Pardon me?”
“The boy, I mean.”
“I was just as surprised to find out it was our Makara. His parents brought him to my clinic a few weeks ago. He showed all the symptoms of a meth addiction. You’d think he was a ghost, not just a person who’d lost his spirit to one.”
“He turns twelve today and, I’m told, his parents have chosen his birthday to have this ceremony, to symbolize a rebirth. At this age, Venerable, one hasn’t lived long enough to acquire a habit, let alone an addiction.”
“Unfortunately, they’re younger and younger, the children who’ve fallen into drugs. One encounters them as young as seven or eight. Meth is a popular drug among the poor youth, like Makara, who turn to it to escape their realities. You can’t blame them. Here, in the city especially, they see everything at close range. Fancy houses and fancy cars, flat-screen TVs, digital cameras, computers and laptops, exorbitant wealth in the hands of a few . . .”
The Old Musician is not familiar with some of these. Flat-screen TVs, digital cameras, laptops. He repeats the words silently, learning them as he would in his youth any new English words, committing them to memory. They didn’t exist a few years ago in Cambodia, and certainly not when he was a young student in America. As for computers, he has seen the one the Venerable Kong Oul has in his study, a small square machine humming and glowing, flipping pictures like some creature of memory sorting through its recollections. He thinks back to the days when monks were barely allowed to own a pair of sandals. How much the world has progressed, despite the failed revolutions. If only he’d had more patience, more faith.
“They’re privy to all that excess and glitter,” Dr. Narunn continues, his voice becoming taut, “while they themselves have no access to the most basic things. Do you know that the cost of a handgun could buy a family like Makara’s enough corrugated tin sheets for a new shelter?” The doctor shakes his head. “Yet, it seems, there are as many handguns as cell phones, because our Excellencies and their children dispense them like playthings to their bodyguards.”
It’s obvious to the Old Musician why his young friend needs the enclosure of the sangha now and then. To critique the government so openly on the street could get one killed. Assassins could be made on the spot for as little as a few hundred dollars.
“Perhaps you are right,” Dr. Narunn concedes, sighing. “There’s so much suffering. It’s everywhere—inescapable.” Despair seems to have supplanted the doctor’s earlier hope. “The poor remain poor, trapped in a slum, which is a kind of underworld for the living, if you ask me.”
The kettle spews steam from its lid and spout, hissing violently.
“Ah, it’s angry at my diatribe!”
They both try to laugh, but disconsolation has joined their company, refusing to leave.