Several months later Tun did join Prama. At his funeral. Prama was killed during the crossfire between the insurgents and the government army at a jungle-shrouded temple outside of Siem Reap. It was never really clear whether he was killed during battle or captured by the other side and executed. Either way, his body was abandoned in an open field and reclaimed by the government soldiers who identified him as Kim Pramaborisoth, the son of the silk merchant Kim Houng. Neither Prama’s alias nor his role in the revolutionary movement was ever known. It was better this way for all concerned. The body was brought back to Phnom Penh, where Tun had joined the family for the funeral, taking his daughter with him. It was the first funeral she would attend.
Sorrow floods his chest, and the Old Musician lets it overtake him. Eyes still closed, he shuts out the present completely. His mind swings back to that morning on the promenade when his friend was still alive, when, before jumping back on his bicycle, Prama grabbed him and hugged him hard, his fist affectionately pounding Tun’s back as if to say, Stay strong, pal. Tun, facing the car, looked up from his friend’s shoulder and saw his daughter watching them. He waved to her playfully, mouthing he would soon be done, but she blew on the window, fogging the glass with her breath, shutting him out.
By March 1974, he was indeed a full-fledged member of the resistance and would soon go underground, leaving his daughter behind. He would come back for her, but during his long absence she’d outgrown a father’s coddling adoration. Oh, Papa, I’m not a baby anymore. Her one reprimand was enough to leave a permanent bruise on his heart.
He feels a stream of water from Dr. Narunn’s brush landing on his face. He opens his eyes. To his surprise, he sees only the young physician in the ceremony hall with him. The ceremony has finished, everyone is gone—as are all traces of sunlight—and night has made its pale appearance in gray.
Smiling from across a lit candle, Dr. Narunn teases, a hint of concern in his voice, “I didn’t think my chanting was so melodic as to induce such melancholia. You’re crying, my friend.”
Interlude
Morning comes
soft
steps
on
liquid-green
marble
tiptoeing
toward
my bed
________________dragging a thin beam of sunlight like the magic wand of a child at play.
I sleep . . .
dreaming of you— a sanctuary
tucked
in the landscape of childhood memories— a daughter’s prayer nipped in the bud by
whizzing bullets shouts of revolution A father’s disappearance.
A bird calls from the walled garden whistling
its morning song Coffee-colored salamanders cross paths, nod, How do you do? I’m fine, thank you, and scurry away like two arrows shooting in opposite directions.
Fear tosses and turns, fighting a battle already lost, Old hurts seep through layers of selves, travel the river of histories, remembered voices, then, like grains of sand, vanish into oblivion.
And I . . . I wait for you in the calm and silence
of a thousand textures and hues I wait for you
in the folds of white hibiscus.
Second Movement
Her gaze falls on the young man, and it’s like staring at a silhouette she’s known all her life, a figure she’s encountered repeatedly in her disparate dreams. His head is bowed so that she can’t quite make out his face, but the rest of him is clearly delineated through the incense smoke wafting in the vihear. Tall and lean, with broad shoulders and elongated collarbones that seem to exaggerate the width of his exposed chest, this prince-like figure appears statuesque, chiseled from stone, his mannerisms and movements stylized, choreographed by some ancient code.
Covered only from the waist down with a swath of white cotton knotted into a loose kben, he bows three times to the principal image of the Buddha at the center of the prayer hall and once in each of the four cardinal directions. And only then, as he turns, does Teera feel certain she’s met him before. “He’s beautiful,” she murmurs.
“Well, yes, and maybe it’s okay to say so, since soon he’ll no longer be a monk.”
Teera turns to Mr. Chum standing beside her and stammers, “W-what, he’s a monk?” No wonder he appears so strikingly familiar. She looks again and realizes now where she met him, on these same stairs, when she visited the temple the first time a week or two ago, when she ran fleeing from him like an idiot. “I’m sorry . . . I don’t mean to offend.” Sometimes she forgets the culture she’s returned to, its rules of behavior, what a woman can or cannot express aloud.
“Oh, I don’t mind!” Mr. Chum lets out a soft chuckle. “If only some pretty young lady thought that of me!”
Teera is grateful for his lightness, his easygoing attitude. Then, unable to help it, she ventures further, “How do you know he’ll no longer be a monk?” She reddens in spite of herself.
“He’s wearing the white garb of a novice who’s just been given permission to disrobe.”
Disrobe. Stop it!—He’s a monk. Or was. All the same, she feels scandalized at the sight of those bare shoulders. She looks away, upset with herself. You have no shame.
Mr. Chum continues, oblivious to her inner monologue, “He’s paying final respects before he puts on regular clothes again and returns to lay life. Let’s go introduce ourselves.”
“No!” Teera blurts out, and promptly silences herself lest they disturb the man in the vihear. “He should have his solitude, don’t you think? Maybe we can come back afterward. I’m—I’m afraid I’ll change my mind again if I don’t do this now.”
Mr. Chum nods. “I’ll wait for you here, then? Are you sure you don’t want me to come along?”
“Y-yes.” She dithers, overwhelmed by the sense she doesn’t know what she’s doing.
In the car on the way over, she managed to explain her earlier confusion and fear, why she’d panicked and run the last time they came to Wat Nagara, what this place held for her, what it holds for her still, and, despite her persistent apprehension, the reasons that compel her to revisit the temple.
“I have to do this alone,” she tries to reiterate with more conviction than before.
“All right then,” Mr. Chum says decisively, as if to push her along. “Just signal if you need me.”
He’s referring to the routine that has served them well when they venture out together: she speed-dials him on her cell phone, allows just one ring, and he comes to their agreed meeting place. He’s grown protective of her, assuming the avuncular role accorded him through the familial titles they use for each other, and getting a local mobile number was his idea, for the convenience as well as for her safety.