As Suteera approaches the pavilion, Amara gets up to leave, but Channara gestures for her younger sister to sit back down. “Please,” she pleads, seeming afraid to be alone with her own daughter. “I need you here . . .” Her words trail.
The three of them remain silent for some time before Channara begins again, turning to young Suteera. “You know, when I came back from America in 1962, your grandfather had this pavilion built for us, a wedding gift to me and your father.” She lets out a tight, bitter laugh. “Perhaps as a reminder that the reason we have a roof over our heads at all is him. He allows it. We’re all at the mercy of his generosity, his noblesse oblige. He thinks he’s king.”
Suteera stares at her mother, not knowing what to say, afraid of sounding stupid or childish. It’s tricky to be around her mother when she’s in this mood, unpredictable. She can snap at you or shoot a look that can silence you into submission.
Channara glances up at the ornate carving of the mythical Rahu straddling the sun and the moon that lines the edge of the roof. “Rahu chap chan,” she says, alluding to the ancient tale that inspired the carving. “The sun and moon are destined lovers. Long ago the gods separated them, tore the lovers apart, believing the unification of their opposite qualities would ignite a cosmic war . . .”
It’s so like her mother to try to explain everything through stories. She’s a writer even when she’s not writing. There are of course many legends about the sun and the moon, and Suteera, a child more well read than even most adults around her—the throng of servants working for them—is quite familiar with the tale depicted in the carving, in which the demon Rahu, during the war of the gods, propelled himself between Chandra and Suriya and, when no one was looking, devoured each in turn, causing a total eclipse. But this particular story about the sun and the moon as “destined lovers” torn apart by the gods who feared their union would cause an all-out cosmic war is one Suteera has never heard before. What’s more, it doesn’t make sense. How could they be destined for each other yet easily torn apart?
“But once in a long while, their paths will cross . . . and when this happens, Suriya and Chandra will swallow each other, darkening the world with their love.”
Suteera suspects this is one of her mother’s more ironic interpretations of the ancient tale, published under her pen name, Tun Chan. A male name, Channara explained, so that it’s possible for a woman to write and publish. When Suteera’s grandfather had agreed to let his elder daughter take up writing, he’d thought nothing would come of it. But to his chagrin, Channara’s reung toan samai—“modern renderings”—of these complex tales in a series of graphic novels had become especially popular among the illiterate peasants and the urban poor, who, even if they couldn’t read and write, could still make sense of the stories through pictures. This was how Suteera herself had learned to read by the age of four, first drawn to the colorful illustrations, and then prompted by curiosity to connect the words to the actions depicted. Her mother says it has been her intention all along to offer some means of education to those with little or no access to schooling, especially women and girls, who, unlike boys, cannot live at the temple and receive instruction from the monks.
“The problem, Suteera,” her mother explains, sounding angry, “is when men play at being gods, the consequence is war. You cannot decide another’s path without drawing resistance. Sooner or later, there’ll be a clash, a collision so dark and huge it’ll eclipse any battle we’ve seen.” Her mother pauses, looks at her, and frowns, as if suddenly realizing she’s talking to an eight-year-old. “Do you understand what I’m trying to tell you?” She seems annoyed at the whole world, scornful of its ignorance.
Suteera nods, though she’s not sure whether what she understands is the same as what her mother intends. A sorcerer of sorts, her mother can weave an entire universe into existence, a world so intriguing you can lose yourself in it for days. But as a child, Suteera still sees her world—the real one she shares with her family—as preferable to any conjured up by words. Suteera understands her mother’s story to mean that, even if it seems there’s someone or something trying to separate them now, in the end her father will return, they will see him again, and, like the sun and moon, her parents will be reunited.
“Your grandfather may believe himself to be this god-king who decides everyone’s fate. But war has come, whether he likes it or not.”
Whatever antagonism her mother and grandfather harbor for each other has turned more dangerous in recent months, with Channara abandoning her comic books in favor of writing newspaper articles that criticize the rich and powerful, people like themselves, people Suteera’s grandfather knows intimately. The senior statesman sees this as an outright assault against him and has many times ordered his daughter to stop. But Channara keeps at it, arguing that because she’s publishing under a fake name—various ones, in fact, for different articles—no one will trace these writings back to her. You’re safe, Father, she hissed during one of their more seething arguments. You and your good name.
“And for all his power and influence, he’s no match for it. We’ll all be scorched. Few will escape its fire. We have to change, or we’ll be torn asunder—”
“What your mother means,” interrupts Amara, who hasn’t said a word until now, “is that we must look after one another.” She glances at Channara disapprovingly, then back at Suteera with a smile. “We must be attentive amidst all the coming and going.”
Suteera knows her aunt is attempting to reassure her. Gentle like Suteera’s grandmother, Amara is the peacemaker in the family, and in this explosive environment, she strikes Suteera as the bravest. It takes courage to stay composed amidst angry words flying.
“And you,” her aunt continues, “mustn’t wander off too far by yourself.”
At seventeen, her aunt is calmer and wiser than most grown-ups Suteera knows. While Channara is brilliant in many ways, it is Amara who often makes sense when no one else does. Still, Suteera finds it unsettling that neither her mother nor her aunt has spoken yet of her father’s absence, that neither seems to be addressing his abrupt departure in the middle of the night. Do they know where he’s gone and why? Did the two women plan the big party so that he could take advantage of the commotion to slip away unnoticed? No one sees it necessary to explain what has happened, and Suteera is too afraid to ask. She keeps hoping that she’s just imagining things, that in reality her father has gone on a trip to the provinces to talk about music and recruit new talent, and that by nightfall he will return, as he always does.
“I want us to prepare ourselves for it,” her mother concludes prophetically.