In countless conversations with an old pharmacist who’d been dislocated from his home in Phnom Penh to the countryside during the mass exodus and who’d kept his identity hidden to survive the Khmer Rouge regime, Narunn often wondered if healing is as much a leap of faith as it is a science, a paradox that embodies the inescapable knowledge of ourselves—death’s inevitability—and the desire to be tethered to this world, to be in the selfless service of others, to prolong what is essentially short-lived. You’d make an excellent doctor, the pharmacist said, encouraging Narunn to go to the capital, where such pursuit might be possible now that the country’s reconstruction had begun. If his own health hadn’t been irretrievably broken by the years of hard labor and starvation, the elder would certainly return to the city himself. While it was too late for him, he urged Narunn not to confine himself to this small village. He must continue learning—strive to expand his mind beyond the limit of his geography and birth. Ignorance, the old man told him, is its own kind of hell.
Thus, at the urgent behest of this mentor, Narunn set out for Phnom Penh, first by boat, then walking from one village to the next, hitching rides in oxcarts whenever possible, crossing rivers and streams in fishermen’s canoes, and once, to his amazement and delight, accompanying a mahout high up on the back of an elephant. Along railroad tracks overgrown with grass and saplings, he caught up with the slow-moving carcass of what remained of a train, and because he had no gold or anything of value to trade for a seat inside one of the cars, he was told he could climb atop the engine, where there was still space near the radiator vent at the front. It’s free, said the conductor, nodding at the flock of men perched there. You should know, though, that those who take the risk might never make it to their destination. This front of the train will be the first to explode if it runs over mines laid by Khmer Rouge bandits, or if we hit an ambush. Narunn surveyed the hardened expressions of his would-be traveling companions, then climbed on. He had to make a leap into the unknown. There could be no destination without first a journey. His mother’s words came back to him. I will see you on the other side. At the time, he’d thought she meant she would see him in death, the inescapable end to all existence, but gradually he came to believe “the other side” of the nightmare they’d endured was life. Go forward, my son. She would live through him.
Once in the city, Narunn searched for the apartment building that the pharmacist had told him about. Based on the elder’s descriptions, he imagined something grand and modern, indestructible. He asked everyone he encountered, reciting by rote the part of its name his mind was able to retain, but no one had any clue of a place called the White Building. Narunn would soon come to learn that most of the city dwellers were villagers themselves who had come to the city because it was one of the few places in the country safe from the Khmer Rouge. Most were just as lost as he. As for the original residents of Phnom Penh, a great number had perished during those four years in rural exile, and those who’d survived and returned to the city were too afraid to speak, to give out any information, so they lived in feigned ignorance.
Narunn didn’t know all this, however, on that first day. He continued searching in vain, and by late afternoon, exhausted and hungry, he was ready to give up when a deranged beggar, who had been shadowing him for some time, beckoned him to follow. Speaking an unintelligible mix of Khmer and what sounded like French, the beggar led Narunn to a mammoth, crumbling structure along the riverfront. Boeding sar, the beggar whispered, as if the place might be haunted, as if this “white building” was itself a ghost.
Inside, Narunn found indeed it was. A ghost of a building with its ghost inhabitants. I am afraid . . . So quiet here . . . Messages in charcoal crawled across the walls and floors. Only the soldiers are left . . . I am afraid. I am afraid. Some words had faded, leaving only faint outlines; others were black and sharp, with a feathery layer of charcoal dust, as if written only days before. Where are you?—Where am I? What is this place? The living speaking to the dead, and the dead searching for echoes of themselves, for shadows and silhouettes resembling their own, for signs they had once existed.
Names, dates, numbers. Slashes and marks in patterns decipherable only to those who had drawn them. Stick figures of a family, with every member crossed off except the last in the row. Wiggly circles on stems, like lollipops or flowers. Other scribbles made by children’s hands or minds gone mad. These renderings accompanied Narunn as he walked the ground level from one apartment block to the next, until he reached the block he was looking for. Dirt-encrusted footprints wove their way up the open staircase.
Narunn followed the footprints, only to find them vanish at the first landing without a trace. He continued the journey up, in place of whoever had left those footprints below. When he reached the intended floor, he counted the apartments from left to right, and again from right to left. Feeling certain he’d identified the correct one, he approached it. It was occupied. His heart leapt with hope. He told the people living there about the old pharmacist who had sent him to see whether his family had returned, as this had been their home before the Khmer Rouge chased them out. The middle-aged mother, with her three teenaged children gathered warily around her, said she had never heard of this pharmacist. Her own husband had died under Pol Pot’s regime, at the very end during the big purge, she explained as if to make certain there was no mistaking her and her children for the pharmacist’s family. She didn’t think the apartment belonged to anyone now. She had found it empty, without a single possession. She sounded suddenly guarded, afraid. Was Narunn certain this was the right unit? Yes. Perhaps other occupants would know then, she suggested, clearly wanting him to leave. It was a big place, with several linked blocks, and some units empty still. The new government allowed people to claim whatever home they found unoccupied, she told him. Perhaps the pharmacist’s family had found a bigger home, a fancy villa that had belonged to some rich people. Narunn nodded, sensing his search was over.
Dispirited, he thanked the woman and again headed for the open stairs. It had been several years now since the fall of the regime, and if any members of the pharmacist’s family were still alive, they would’ve already returned, as they’d promised one another when the Khmer Rouge separated them and flung them to different parts of the country. If you find them, tell them that you’re like a son to me, his mentor had said. If you don’t, there’s no need for words. I’ll understand your silence.