In his clean new tunic and pants, the Old Musician is transformed from a mendicant to a respectable elder. Such loose-fitting clothes were popular among the leaders of Democratic Kampuchea, except then everything had to be dyed black. Black is simply practical, often worn by peasants when working in the fields. During Democratic Kampuchea, though, black was equated with the peasantry itself, with a way of life that was incorruptible, absolute. Black meant erasure.
The mistake of the party leaders was to believe that people could easily be reeducated, that culture and tradition and history, all thousands of years in the making, could be obliterated in a single angry stroke, like a painter’s tableau smeared to suit an abrupt change in perspective. Perhaps it’s because these leaders had been so thoroughly transformed by their own reeducation abroad, particularly by Le Cercle Marxiste, in the Paris of the 1950s.
As for himself, besides that brief flirt with America, he had never traveled anywhere else, not to France, where many of the party leaders had studied in their youth; not to Yugoslavia, where Pol Pot had his revolutionary awakening; not even to neighboring Vietnam, where many of his comrades had gone into hiding; none of those countries whose Socialist aspirations he would come to adopt. He was the product of a homegrown education—if there was such a thing, given the deep colonial influence—first learning the basics of reading and writing from the monks at the temple, then continuing primary years and collège in public schools based on the French system, which emphasized Western classical studies and often used French as the principal language of instruction.
Perhaps because of this requirement to learn French, the tongue of their former masters, he saw English as a liberating novelty and seized upon the language when it was introduced to him at the School of Arts and Trade. Later, during that last spring at the vocational school before he was to leave for America, when he enrolled in the intensive English class, his Indian teacher from Burma, rumored to be a Communist, spiced up the methodical lessons on syntax and grammar with talk of self-rule, political sovereignty, and equality for all. Concepts inherent not only to Communism, the teacher had rhapsodized, but to democracy as well. Anil Mehta was inspired by events in his homeland, India’s progress after independence in establishing a democratic republic.
Looking back on it now, he wonders if his political consciousness first awakened when he was that eager student poring over a copy of Anglais Vivant d’Angleterre, as Mr. Mehta, in his philosophical voice, added social and political commentary to sentences from the book, alternating between English and French. Or perhaps it took root much earlier. With music.
The Old Musician pours himself a cup of tea, kept hot in the large thermos that—like the kettle and the other possessions of this cottage—he’s inherited from the late temple sweeper. He blows on the steaming liquid, which smells faintly of jasmine, and takes a sip.
Music. Always it followed him, at every stage of his life, nudging its way into all he saw and did, like the unyielding will of the father whom he feared but whose musical genius he could never aspire to, despite the caning to his back.
His father was a man of uncompromising vision. The old man saw music as a kind of sublime blessing, like rain or sunlight, something not to be taken for granted or reserved for the privileged few. While the old man could have made a place for himself among the country’s most respected music masters, could have earned enough money to feed the family by playing for the rich and powerful, he would feign chronic rheumatism when invited, claiming he wasn’t fit to entertain, choosing instead to play for the poor, for whom music was the only antidote to daily struggles. In the beginning, his father would play all kinds of music, from the sacred to the secular. As long as his audience was the needy and the indigent, he’d gladly share his melodies. Then one day, his father stopped playing altogether, except in the capacity of a medium where his sadiev became the voice used to communicate with the ghosts and spirits. The old man became impoverished, barely able to feed him and his mother, and he, the ten-year-old son—Tun, as he was called then—had to find his own way in the world.
As an adolescent, he joined an ensemble in which he eventually became known not only for his sadiev playing—honed under his father’s strict guidance, he must admit—but also for the songs he wrote, the sublime lyrics he sang for the dead in exchange for handouts from the living. If music, as his father believed, is a kind of cure, then destitution, he realized in those dire years when he and his mother existed hand to mouth, was the worst kind of ill. He would use his music to escape it. It was this vow he’d made to himself—not his father’s beating—that fueled his discipline, pushing him to excel in his art. Later, even as a respected and sought-after musician, he never forgot his humble beginnings and would align himself with those striving for change, those seeking to make Cambodia a more just and fair society, a modern nation. He joined a political group, attracted to its progressive ideals, and then, when his hometown was bombed by the Americans, became a member of the underground movement, embracing its radical ideology, its anger.
The Old Musician drinks the remains of his tea. A procession of voices floats past his doorway. “Let’s go, little one,” he murmurs, picking up the lute, waking it from its slumber near the wall. “It’s time for the ceremony.”
*
The Rattanaks and their boy, Makara, along with relatives and friends, are gathering in front of the sala bonh, the open-air ceremony hall, where the ritual for calling back the spirit will take place. The sun has set, streaking the sky yellow and orange, reminiscent of spirits in flight. Before them, the Mekong darkens, a long, sinuous shroud, boats and sampans swaying on its surface like ornaments tentatively fastened to a tapestry. Suddenly it seems this mighty ancient river, cut deep into the earth centuries ago, could be lifted and shaken loose, smoothed of its wrinkles and creases. At these twilight hours, the world appears insubstantial. Vaporous as a child’s etching on a fogged surface, the Old Musician thinks. He remembers. And once again, his daughter’s voice comes to him unbidden.
Look what I drew, Papa!—You and me! It was a misty morning, and she nodded at a scene she’d rendered on their car window. What’s this long thing here? he asked, his mind elsewhere. A naga serpent?—A caterpillar? She laughed. No, you silly old papa. It’s a river, with other rivers connecting to it, just like the one in front of us. We’re going to travel on it. We’re going to go places together. She must have believed then that she would accompany him on all his journeys. He had been suddenly seized with fear. Would she grow up to love another more than she loved him in that moment? Here comes our boat! she exclaimed, adding to the drawing, fingers moving constantly. With the head of a phoenix! Or should I make it a plane?
He lifts his hand as if to wipe away the scene. Dr. Narunn appears beside him. “Your path is clear,” his young friend assures, obviously mistaking his gesture as an attempt to find his way in the dusk.