Dr. Narunn climbs the few short steps to the ceremony hall, joined now by four other younger novices. The monks lower themselves onto the row of cushions atop the straw mats, with the young doctor taking the honored middle seat. They each assume a lotus position, facing the river about ten meters away.
The lute in hand, the Old Musician follows and takes a seat on the straw mat a bit off to one side. A couple of koan saek—“parakeets,” as they’re called, little orphans who mimic a monastic existence by learning to chant and observe basic precepts but who are still too small to be ordained—enter the hall, each carefully balancing a tray with glasses of water for the monks. Kneeling, they put the trays down, bow three times, place a glass in front of each monk, and again bow three times, their heads touching the floor each time. Then, with their backs bent to keep their heads lower than those of the monks, they exit the ceremony hall the same way they came, pausing briefly to offer a glass of water to the Old Musician as well. For a pair of otherwise rambunctious mischiefs, their steps are so perfectly choreographed that they rouse a chuckle from Dr. Narunn, forcing him to break from the solemn demeanor required for the occasion.
The Old Musician draws the brass plectrum from his shirt pocket, slips it around the tip of the ring finger of his right hand, pauses in a moment’s concentration, and then plucks the sadiev. He lets the copper string vibrate for a second or two before silencing it with the base of his palm. Grasping the cone-shaped knob of the tuning peg, he tightens the string and plucks it again, his head slightly cocked to one side, his torso leaning forward, listening with his entire body. He repeats the steps several times more, tightening and loosening the solitary copper string until it produces the desired pitch, a tone that articulates the essence of the music he has invoked in his head. Tuning, he used to tell his students, is not about fiddling with a cord or peg but searching for the kernel, that core sound around which the rest of the notes and melodies weave themselves.
If he could name that vital force akin to pralung—that which had kept him alive all those months in Slak Daek—he would call it music, the incipient resonance from which both the named and nameless emerge.
He lifts the lute, holding it aslant, letting it stretch from his left collarbone to the right side of his abdomen. With the domed sound box over his heart, he begins to coax out a kind of bampae—a lullaby—gentle and jaunty, each note mimicking the sound of a child’s footfall, a happy skip toward home after a day’s careless wandering.
The temple officiant guides Makara and his parents into the ceremony hall. Meanwhile the mae gru—a female spiritual medium—leads the relatives and friends in a procession around the hall. Cradling a clay vessel in one arm and waving its lid with the other, the mae gru beckons Makara’s spirit to enter the vessel, her stylized gestures a kind of dance.
In the countryside, such a procession would weave a path through the forests around the house of the sick person. But here in the city, where life moves at a much faster pace and space is constrained, the group merely circles the ceremony hall thrice.
The mae gru snaps the lid over the clay vessel, indicating that she has caught Makara’s pralung. The Old Musician eases the tempo, weaving a more sedate phrase. Then, with the sound box directly over his heart, he bends the string, plucks, and releases, ending on a ghost note.
March 1974. It’s Suteera’s eighth birthday, and they’re celebrating it with a big party, an unusually huge gathering of family and friends. She doesn’t remember it being this grand last year. At some point in the night, her father pulls her aside from the festivities and tells her, in a rather urgent voice, “I’m going off to hide.” Suteera laughs, thinking he—her solemn father—is going to take part in the game of hide-and-seek some of the littler children are playing at the moment. But tears flood his eyes and he quickly gathers her into his arms. Then, in a hushed voice, his cheek against hers, lips grazing her hair, he begins to sing, as he would a lullaby when she was smaller to help her sleep, to ease in their separation during the night.
“Your birthday smoat,” he says when he’s finished, releasing her from his warm but shaken grip. It suddenly hits her that this isn’t a game, that he is really leaving, and this is his parting gift. She doesn’t want it. But how can you return a song that’s already been sung, silence a poem already spoken? There’s nothing she can do to stop it—to stop herself from turning eight. Suteera wishes there were a clock within reach for her to rewind. But the only ticking she hears is the panic of her own heart. Faster and faster it gallops, as the rest of her stands stock-still. Wait! she wants to cry out, but the word lodges in her throat. Choked, she watches her father turn and disappear from sight.
Romvong music rises from the garden overlooking the Mekong, the male singer beckons, and the female vocalist croons her response, the pair weaving their steps and gestures around each other. Grown-ups and children alike rush to dance. Cheers erupt, and it seems everyone is singing now. The celebration continues late into the night, indifferent to Suteera’s shock and grief, her inarticulate confusion.
The next morning she wakes up thinking it was all a dream. But when she goes out to look for her father, he’s nowhere to be found, his absence a palpable gloom hanging over their vast estate, silencing the memories of last night’s festivities.
Later in the morning, when it seems the household has resurfaced from its collective mourning, Suteera hears voices coming from the wooden pavilion by the water. “We remain who we are, Father, at our peril . . .”
“Channara, I didn’t give you all that education so that you could run off to the jungle!”
Her mother and grandfather are in the middle of another tense exchange, while her young aunt Amara listens on silently, forced to stay put by the two combatants who each want her to take their side. But as always Amara shows no sign of getting involved, remaining where she is, if only to bear witness to their words should later one accuse the other of saying what hasn’t been said, as often is the case with Suteera’s mother and grandfather.
Noting Suteera’s presence, the formidable patriarch fixes his eyes on his elder daughter and growls, “I forbid you to follow him. I forbid you, do you hear?”
Channara retorts, “There are things beyond even your control, Father, and war is one of them.” She sounds as resolved and unafraid in her erect slenderness as the statesman appears authoritative in his ministerial stance.
Suteera’s grandfather issues a warning look. “We’ll discuss this later, like adults, among adults.” He strides away, brewing with silent fury.