“Srok yeung . . .” Mr. Chum murmurs, as if “this country of ours” were explanation enough.
“But where are their homes? There are no huts here, not even trees to offer shade. Where do they come from? And where are their children?—Who cares for them? . . .” Teera grows more agitated with each word.
“They come from villages around here,” Narunn says, keeping his voice even. “To some who pass by, they are just beggars. But they are grandparents, and the little ones are their grandchildren. Many are orphans because their parents have died.”
“Of what?”
“Disease. Hunger. Poverty.”
“But their heads are shaven . . . Are they in mourning?”
“Perhaps some are. It’s possible that some have recently lost loved ones. But it’s also because they’ve taken the Buddhist vow of renunciation and, as you know, under normal circumstances, they would be meditating at temples, trying to find peace in their old age.”
“But the heat—it’s too hot for them to be out there. It’s too hot. They should not be out here. They shouldn’t.”
“But there they are.”
There they are. Forfeiting their comfort to stoop on this dusty road and beg for food to feed their children’s children. The simple truth of it slices Teera. She remembers her grandparents, sees them now among these living ghosts in the path of the car—her proud, powerful grandfather hiding stolen grains in his mouth to keep for her when he returned home from the fields; her grandmother tentatively tasting this fruit or that leaf to make sure it wasn’t poison before giving it to her. What kind of mother can’t keep her child alive? her grandmother had wept bitterly that afternoon upon learning the fate of her grandson and elder daughter. At first Suteera thought it an accusation against Channara, but over time—as she watched her grief-stricken grandmother, witnessed her unfaltering gentleness toward others in spite of her own anguish—she would come to understand it as a mother’s indictment against herself. Perhaps, like Channara, her grandmother wanted to die, to punish herself for failing to keep her child alive. Certainly it would’ve been easier for her to let go, to renounce this world with its interminable suffering. But her grandmother lived, carried on, because she had Suteera to look after. Just as Yaya, Teera realizes all of a sudden, must’ve fought to live in order to care for her brood of grandchildren, even as she mourned her own children in the ground.
Perhaps the question isn’t how anyone can live like this, bearing a lifetime of cruelty and deprivation, but what makes them want to live in a world indifferent to their struggle. What? Is it the recognition that life extends beyond your own being—that it doesn’t reside in you alone but in everyone and everything you wish to see endure?
A river surges through Teera, flooding her face, the desolation around her. “Please stop the car,” she says, barely able to speak. “I— W-we can’t just drive past them.”
Lah, seeing the tears, pulls Teera to her chest. “It’s okay, Mommy,” she says. The child, in her bewilderment, must be confusing Teera with her absent mother. “It’s okay. Don’t look, Mommy. They make you sad. Don’t look at them.”
“But they have nothing,” Teera sobs, in the way she never could, would never allow herself, when she witnessed her brother’s starvation, the hunger that would kill him. “They have no food, no shade. They have nothing, and they’re giving us their water.” She knows she’s not making any sense.
“Please don’t cry.” Lah presses Teera’s face tighter against her tiny chest, caressing her. “We can give them our picnic food—I don’t need any! I’m not hungry.”
Both men are silent. Mr. Chum has managed to pull the car onto the side of the road, parking it on a patch of scraggly, dried-up leafy vines. Lah continues to caress Teera, humming softly now.
When Teera regains her composure, Narunn, reaching for her hand, asks, “Should we get out and say hello?” Teera hesitates, heart fluttering, then nods.
As they approach, a throng gathers around them, puzzled, curious. Lah passes out the food Teera brought from the hotel café and the fresh fruits they’d purchased along the way. Mr. Chum, who knew what to expect from having driven this road many times before, starts dispensing the stack of hundred-riel notes Teera saw him change at a gas station earlier. Narunn and Teera contribute some bills of their own to the pile. It’s not enough. It’s never going to be enough, Teera realizes with dismay.
How is it that even decades after the war the suffering seems ineradicable? In the beginning Teera thought she might become used to it, that its sheer breadth and magnitude would simply numb her. But the longer she stays, the more she struggles with it. A child bathing in an open sewage canal. A mother raking through mounds of trash to feed and clothe her little ones, beneath billboards advertising luxury watches, all-you-can-eat buffets. A sightless father playing his instrument, as his exquisitely poised daughter sings beside him in rags, offering beautiful music to a world that does not deserve it. Each time she encounters them, Teera is gripped by the desire to give away everything. Some days she is driven mad with despair, the sense that there’s not a single thing she can do. Then there are moments, like this, when she feels enraged and inspired in equal measure, because the struggle for breath, for meaning and purpose, is never more courageous than amidst insurmountable injustice.
They’ve done what they can for the moment. There’s nothing more to give. As they say good-bye, Teera feels a hand grasp hers. She turns toward it, and a toothless grandmother says, “My daughter . . . she was about your age.” The thing about loss is that it rims the silhouette of every face you encounter. “I’m sorry,” Teera tells her, thinking now of the grandmother she abandoned to die in a cave. She says again, “I’m so sorry.”
The elder nods, lets go.
*