*
The four comrades had reached an intersection between a temple and another ferry dock, smaller than the ones by the bridge, and quickly turned left to avoid exposure on the open road. Finding the narrow footpath they’d noted during their reconnaissance visit, they slipped into it single file, like ants into a crack, moving in sequence through untamed woods and carefully cultivated orchards. Last in the queue—with Comrade Nuon and the other two men a meter or so ahead of him—Tun had the complete solitude to examine the course he had traveled these past years. He searched his memory for overlooked opportunities, possible second chances.
During Channara’s visit to his apartment that day after their chance encounter at Chaktomuk, Tun could hardly resist the desire to take her into his room and make love to her. If Suteera had not been with them, he might’ve found the mad courage to do just that, for in that mined, embattled geography of his heart, she was never his songsa but his wife. You should’ve married me, he wanted to tell her. You should’ve been my wife. Channara must have felt his insanity for she suddenly brought Sokhon into the conversation, mentioning how her husband had finally received his doctorate in musicology and was now teaching at the University of Phnom Penh, as well as holding an advisory post in the Ministry of Culture. Tun felt a jab of regret, remembering his abandoned studies, his unrealized dreams. Channara, conscious of what she had done, mumbled an apology, explaining she hadn’t meant anything by it. Oh, la bonté, regardez l’heure! Où est passé l’après-midi? She took the opportunity then to say good-bye. Au revoir, monsieur, Suteera murmured solemnly, echoing her mother, who had suddenly chosen to speak in a foreign tongue, as if this would somehow make their farewell seem less intimate. Tun could only offer a silent nod in return. That was the last time he’d seen Channara.
Second chances, he realized now, favor the brave. The four had reached Al-Azhar Mosque on the eastern shore of Chruay Chongvar. A shadow emerged from the thicket of banana trees across the road and introduced himself as their “comrade in the movement.” There was no exchange of aliases, for aliases were numerous and deciduous as leaves. The young revolutionary, who looked to be in his early twenties, examined their clothing and, judging the simple cotton pants and shirts—peasant clothes—to be appropriate for the journey, handed the men each an embroidered skullcap and Comrade Nuon a white cotton head scarf. “Just in case,” he said, and they understood this to mean that when necessary they would put on the head wear and pretend to be Cham fisher folk. It was an effective disguise, as fishermen traversed the river at all hours, and Chams were not usually suspected of being Communists. Those who joined the underground movement, like the young comrade before them, felt that for too long their people were pushed to the periphery, their history and culture effaced, and now, with talk of revolution and a just, egalitarian society emerging from the chaos, saw the opportunity to play a more central role. But the recent attacks on their religion from within the movement, particularly the ban on praying five times a day, had led to numerous defections and kept countless other Chams away.
Nodding for them to follow, the young revolutionary ducked back into the banana thicket and led them down an incline to a long canoe covered and hidden beneath the curve of a mangrove, whose twisted roots were partly swallowed by the rising water from the monsoon. An old fisherman stepped forward, blinking at their tilted silhouettes on uneven ground, and, recognizing the young Cham, beckoned them onto the canoe. Tun sensed the old fisherman was not one of them, not a Communist, but someone sympathetic to their cause. The two Muslims exchanged greetings, Salaamu alaikum, Alaikum es-salaam. An alliteration of goodwill and wishes, Tun heard in the emotion, the words foreign to his ears. Then, with nothing more said, the old fisherman took to the oars and, slowly, they glided from under the shadow of the mangrove out onto the open water, its smooth surface illuminated by the heavens and the intermittent flares of distant explosions.
Tun kept his eyes on the peninsula, peaceful and seemingly unreachable as another world despite its nearness. Through a clearing he glimpsed the minaret of Al-Azhar Mosque, the carved crescent moon cradling the star at the top, in the aureole of the real moon, full and encompassing. A dream, he told himself. He’d journeyed into a landscape that harbored not one moon but two, where a self could exist both as a fragmented sliver and as a complete whole, not contradictions but inverted reflections of the same truth. Yes, it was possible to love someone and at the same time let her go. First Channara. Now his daughter. He thought of her curled up in her bed, her body embracing sleep. Sita . . . my soul, my shattered self.
Teera hears a familiar, playful beep-beep from a motorcycle and spots Narunn among the crowds, waving to her from the back of his black Honda Nighthawk. She recognizes him even with his face hidden inside his helmet. They have agreed to meet at the pavilion and will later choose a restaurant nearby for dinner. He wedges the Nighthawk—the one extravagance in his otherwise self-deprived existence—into a space between two parked cars, alights from his seat, secures his helmet to the handlebar next to the spare one he always carries, and strolls toward the pavilion.
“Oun,” he greets, hand smoothing his hair into place, eyes luminous as if drawing light from the silvery strands at his temples.
Oun. As always, her heart flutters at the word. Its familial tenderness, its shy intimations. Little Sister. Darling. Wife. You peel away the concentric layers of meaning and find your place in its folds. And the way Narunn says it—in its breathless wholeness as if the sentiment is vastly larger than the word can ever contain—makes Teera feel she is all these.
“I drove by a bit earlier, honked and waved,” Narunn tells her, “but you seemed completely preoccupied with a little boy. My competition, perhaps?”
She shrugs noncommittally.
“Anyway, I went around the block several times, until a space opened up to park. Didn’t mean to keep you waiting.”