Crossing Monivong Bridge over the Bassac River, they head back to the city, and in the far distance to the east, the Mekong shimmers in the sunlight like one long, exquisite poem.
Before leaving the temple, as she was thanking the Venerable Kong Oul for arranging the meeting with the Old Musician, the abbot asked whether she might do a favor by letting her driver give the departing monk—now ex-monk—a ride home with his few belongings. Dr. Narunn, Mr. Chum calls him, his tone emphatic with respect and admiration, using, as is customary, the first name even in formal salutation. It’s clear to Teera now that no one here is ever just one thing, what appears on first encounter. She supposes this is true to some extent of any place, and anyone, but feels it especially so in this landscape of evolving pralung. Aurora borealis. She recalls the Northern Lights she once saw from a friend’s lakeshore cabin in the depths of the woods near Ely, Minnesota. Here, among paddies and palms, where the dead walk and sit beside you, their heaves and sighs mingling with your breaths, you witness a similar phenomenon. Aurora spiritus.
“I hope it’s all right with you . . .”
It takes a second or two before Teera realizes the doctor is speaking to her from the passenger’s seat. “I’m sorry . . . my mind was elsewhere,” she admits ruefully.
“I should be the one apologizing.” He turns to look at her, then just as quickly faces front again, embarrassed by their proximity, the mirroring of their expressions. “I should’ve just flagged down a motodup instead of troubling you.”
“No trouble at all.” In truth, she would prefer to be alone with Mr. Chum, who by now is used to her long stretches of silence, her way of receding deep into her thoughts. But when a whole family often squeezes onto the narrow seat of a moped, Teera can’t bring herself to tell Mr. Chum she’d like the car to herself, at least not in the presence of a holy man who needs a ride. With his hair shorn and the smell of incense permeating his clothes, not to mention a palpable aura of tranquillity about him, she finds it difficult not to think of him as a monk. Any other time, under different circumstances, she would wholeheartedly welcome the doctor’s company, even desire it. His closeness only augments the sense of familiarity, the feeling that she’s met him in another time, another life.
“See, nothing to worry about!” Mr. Chum asserts jovially. He explains to Teera that it’s not far out of the way to Dr. Narunn’s home, someplace called the “White Building.”
“Well, thank you again,” Dr. Narunn says, hand sweeping the top of his head, brushing back the hair that’s not there, as if for the first time feeling self-conscious of his looks, the strangeness of his appearance, a bald man in everyday clothes. “You’re both very kind.”
Teera manages only a halfhearted smile in response, still trying to make sense of what transpired moments earlier. Until reaching the front of the cottage, she hadn’t been conscious of it, and only as she faced the Old Musician—the forgotten lyrics of her birthday smoat coming back to her—did the irrational question flash in her mind, unexpected. Could he be my father? For one brief moment as their gazes met, as they stood considering each other, the impossibility ripped through her. She knew it couldn’t be, and yet the long-buried accusation flared in her mind. The last time you held me, Papa, you left me shattering in the wake of your footfalls . . . She could barely imagine the words without trembling.
Following him into the cottage, Teera could hardly stand, shaken by her childish longing. She asked if she could sit, and having found a steady perch on the edge of his bamboo bed, she studied him: the patch on his left eye, the permanent squint in his right one, the scar bisecting his face, the evidence of cruelty branding his skin. At one point, exchanging pleasantries, she mentioned their home, the name of their family estate, and waited for that flicker of sorrow for its loss in his face. It never surfaced. It was foolish for her to hope, even for one brief moment.
They continued their polite, strained conversation, and she noted his movements, his profile as he turned, his frame and height. He’s not a towering figure by any measure, she thought, but neither is he small for a Cambodian man. She couldn’t understand why he appeared reduced, compromised in some profound way. Age and suffering diminish a person’s stature, or perhaps it was that low, dark space of the cottage. She’d imagined him tall, the way she had once thought her father towering, able to reach beyond the soaring palms to catch for her a bird flying in the sky. She was certain she had never met him before, yet he seemed familiar somehow.
Who then is this broken old man, this ragged and tormented being she’s just met? What depth or darkness has he risen from? What message from the dead does he carry for her? Where is her father? Does he lie beneath the soil like the rest of her family? Or is he among the living somewhere, existing as the palimpsest of his long-ago self, altered beyond recognition? What memory, what history does this old musician carry in the depths of his occluded vision? What new sorrows will he bring to her?
“Is it too much air-conditioning?” Mr. Chum cuts into her thoughts, looking at her through the rearview mirror. “You’re shaking.”
Teera stares, confused, unsure whether the chill surrounds her or rises from within. All the same, her cotton white dress, with its billowing half sleeves, which she thought was ideal for a temple because it’s both comfortable and modest, feels somehow inadequate now. She rubs her forearms and hugs herself tighter. “Yes, a little.”
Mr. Chum promptly turns off the AC. Dr. Narunn unwinds the kroma from his neck and offers it to her. “Please,” he says and, seeing her hesitate, jokes, “It’s only a little dirty, I promise.”
She thanks him, embarrassed she can’t engage more fully, can’t reciprocate his lightheartedness, and wraps the blue-and-white checkered scarf around her shoulders. It smells of candle and incense, incantation whispered into its folds, the musky warmth of another’s skin. She has the urge to gather it and press it to her nose.