It’s Saturday morning and the otherwise tranquil atmosphere of Hotel Le Royal is abuzz, as if the hotel existed at a portal between past and present, most days retreating nearly a century back in time, ensconced in French Indochina semblance, and then on the weekends reemerging into the hectic modern world, with cell phones ringing in every corner, computers clacking away. A few seconds’ stroll through the lobby exposes Teera to a diversity of languages and nationalities, and the possible journeys that might have brought these sojourners to her homeland. On one sofa, a blond-haired, blue-eyed child sporting a UNESCO T-shirt speaks Khmer to her Cambodian nanny as fluently as she does some Scandinavian language to her siblings. A few seats away, an impeccably dressed designer of African descent, with a slight British accent and a profile as regal as that of any Angkorian king depicted on the ancient temples, looks over samples of Cambodian silk with his clients, a group of well-heeled Spanish-speaking women. In a discreet corner, a young interracial gay couple leans into each other, shoulders touching, as one peruses his laptop and the other the Wall Street Journal, an array of emptied espresso cups scattered on the coffee table before them.
Knowing that Café Monivong, where she usually takes her breakfast, will be crowded, Teera heads in the opposite direction for the bookshop café overlooking the pool garden. In the cool, echoing hallway, she passes the prominent glass display of the champagne cocktail stemware specially made to welcome the widowed Jacqueline Kennedy decades earlier, in November 1967. The visit, Life magazine claimed in its glossy spread that Teera came across long ago at Cornell, was the realization of Mrs. Kennedy’s “lifelong dream” to see the ancient, ruined monuments of Angkor. But for all its glamorous facade, history tells us the journey had a serious political intent—to repair the fractured relations that resulted when Sihanouk, enraged by the war spilling over from Vietnam, had severed diplomatic ties with the United States in 1965.
Camelot in the Kingdom of Wonder, Teera thinks every time she happens by the display. What politics shatter, myth can mend and recast anew. Not only did these glasses survive war and revolution, they were exhumed from the abandoned cellars en masse with barely a scratch. Among them one in particular supposedly even bears the lipstick of the former first lady, preserved somehow all too clearly.
Teera turns into a narrow room with books lining one wall and souvenirs the other. Easily overlooked among the hotel’s glitzier shops, it appears more like a secret nook than a café, which, when she first discovered it, appealed to her solitary nature, her desire for quiet and privacy. Morning light streams through the tall windows behind the counter and bounces off the glass display offering an array of sandwiches, baked goods, and sweets so decadent that Teera’s teeth throb at the mere sight. A young waitress greets her, a face she has not seen before, obviously someone new to the staff. The young woman seems shy, even more reticent than Teera. Relieved at not being drawn into extended pleasantries, Teera makes a quick order and then walks past the dark wood counter out onto the small balcony. She settles into a corner seat, pleased to be the only guest here. Her mind returns to the cocktail glasses and she wonders vaguely if her grandfather was among the dignitaries gathered that evening to listen to Sihanouk’s original jazz renditions in honor of Mrs. Kennedy. It’s easy to imagine he might have been, given the important advisory role he’d held in the Cambodian Embassy in DC. The thought that one of those glasses—these very grounds—could bear some imprint of her grandfather sends a shiver down her spine.
The ghosts are everywhere, crossing paths with her, joining her at the small table. Perhaps she is not alone after all.
Her coffee and croissants arrive. The waitress bows slightly and hurries back indoors, seeming glad to escape the curious scrutiny of her guest. Teera is equally grateful for the solitude, a moment to ease the nervousness, the apprehension that has accompanied her since waking.
She pulls out her cell phone, noting the time, and sets it on the table to not miss Mr. Chum’s call. She has enlisted his service for the long drive to Phnom Tamao. They will fetch Narunn from the White Building, go to Wat Nagara to meet the little girl, and together take her to see the hooting gibbons and sun bears at the wildlife sanctuary, as Yaya has suggested. While Teera is looking forward to the trip, she is also anxious about spending a whole day with a little girl whose name she’s yet to know, who has just lost her mother. How do you comfort a child whose parent, the only one she knew, was gunned down? I’m so sorry for your loss . . . Such words seem both formal and trite. Does the little one even know her mother’s dead? How do you explain such violence to a child? And then there’s the Old Musician. Teera can’t think of him without mourning her own loss.
She takes a sip of her coffee, as if caffeine would calm her nerves; tears a piece of croissant and nibbles on it, her gaze finding distraction at the far side of the children’s pool. Early on weekend mornings, outside guests as well as those staying at the hotel begin to lay claim to their favorite spots to linger for hours on end. Always among the first to arrive are Luna and her mother, Emma, who Teera now shares an easy exchange with whenever they cross paths at the pools. Emma, a single woman in her late forties, with exuberant red hair that seems a token of her strong personality, has lived and worked in Cambodia for many years. She’d adopted Luna three years earlier from an orphanage, an infant abandoned at the door of a clinic in an area known for its brothel scene. Luna, in the sagging two-piece swimsuit she practically lives in, bounces through the lounge area, closely followed by her mother, towing books and bags and various bottles. At the corner of the pool nearest the changing rooms, Emma dumps everything onto a pair of green-cushioned lounge chairs beneath a matching umbrella.