“Elephant Tusk Landing.” The village took its name from a legend that recounts an epic war between two mighty elephant kingdoms. As the mammoth armies marched into battle, they created a furrowed path that would become a river, and along the river rose a strip of land shaped like an elephant’s tusk, a sign that buried deep in an unreachable layer of the earth lay the petrified remnant of the elephant king who’d died in battle, his troops defeated and subsumed into the victorious parade. As a little boy, Narunn would plumb the depths of the river and lake with his gangly band of naked pals, overturn anthills and termite mounds in the hope of finding the fabled relic, the possession of which—even a tiny shard—was thought to bring great luck not just to the finder but to the whole village. It’d never occurred to the stripling Narunn that one day he, a grown man, would scour the same earth and water for the remains of his family. Aside from his mother, who took her last breaths in his arms, his other family members had died without him as witness, and he could only guess where they might’ve been taken and killed. After the Khmer Rouge, whatever skull or bone he chanced upon, he would take to the village temple so that the monks could accord them the proper ceremony. As for the rest—his loved ones and the countless lost—he allowed himself the consolation that they’d become inseparable from the terrain, woven into the story of this place.
“Let’s return him to his family,” he says, placing the turtle in Lah’s palm so she can lower the creature back into the water. Again, Narunn rises, unfurling in one sinewy movement, one arm extended to Teera. She slips the journal safely into the hammock behind her, descends the few planks of the stairway unclaimed by the water, and steps into the dugout, steadying herself against his weight. Cautiously, she proceeds to the middle and lowers herself next to Lah on the seat. He smiles, one brow raised in question—Ready? The two nod vigorously, eager to begin their voyage.
Narunn walks to the bow, where he takes command of the crisscrossed oars pivoted on a pole near the prow, and begins to row. Beneath them the river rolls like a mirrored walkway, opening ever wider in the distance ahead. He is tuned to the rhythm of boat and water, the physical memory that flows through him, his body recalling each stroke forward and back. Tuk tov . . . kompong nov, they’ve all said, those who remember him from his childhood when he first learned to navigate this flooded terrain. Teera understands it now, sees it so clearly. In just a few short days, he has completely shed his urban, educated sheen, stripping down to the bare-bone tautness of one in constant movement with the water. Even his speech is reduced to mostly susurrus and smile, as if all words lead back to the same basic truths. If she came upon him now as a stranger, she wouldn’t be able to tell him apart from the other fishermen. He appears not just part of the landscape but deeply steeped in it.
They arrived in Siem Reap more than a week ago and spent the first few days at a hotel in town, taking time to see some of the ancient ruins of Angkor, until Narunn finally located a childhood buddy of his from the village, one of the boys he used to roam the terrain with. They visited him and his wife—a childless couple—as they were about to set out on their sampan to cast their nets in the vast expanse of the Tonle Sap Lake. Given the itinerant nature of their livelihood, the couple would be gone for some time, but, as they’d already conveyed to Narunn on the phone, they wished the three visitors would enjoy their home on the water. “I’m afraid it’s just this one room,” the wife apologized, gesturing to the modest but neatly kept space. “And the area in the back, for cooking and washing. And of course, the veranda—our bit of luxury!” It was lovely, Teera told her, thanking them both for their generosity. Again, the couple expressed their regret, wishing they’d known sooner Narunn was coming, but at this point it was too late for them to reverse course: they had to check on traps set days earlier. If they didn’t, they could lose the bulk of their catch, the main source of their income for the year.
The Great Lake is at its most bountiful, most generous, the husband explained. Now, at the beginning of the dry season, with the rains having only just disappeared, the water remains high but not churning with silt and sediment, as in those turbulent months of the monsoon. Some parts are so tranquil they reflect the forest and sky in astonishing detail. “Quite majestic, in fact,” their host concluded. “You must see it for yourself.”
Teera needed no further convincing, and by then, hardly an hour into the visit, Narunn had already changed into a kroma, ready to take his first plunge. He saw his friends off, swimming alongside their sampan, slaking his body’s long-forgotten thirst.
News of his return traveled fast, and soon a cluster of boats gathered around the house, carrying old friends and neighbors eager to be reacquainted. Some had brought along food, explaining the strict instructions from the fisher couple to feed their guests well, to look after them during their sojourn. The stream of visitors continued into the evening, and throughout the next day, and the next, bearing a continuous variety of dishes just prepared—local specialties Teera and Lah might enjoy, Narunn might have long craved. Even strangers came, and though they’d never met Narunn until that moment, they felt they knew him in some way, knew of his great loss—his large family—and his brave continuation in the face of that loss. It was as if he’d never left, nearly two decades of absence barely a ripple in this estuary of timelessness. He was remembered, he was deeply missed, and, as far as they were concerned, he was family, as if the borders of their hearts were as fluid as the terrain shaping them.
Teera contemplates now the topography before her—the man and his landscape. Narunn moves with the oars, his narrow back rippling with its own runnels and rivers, a force of strength at once quiet and resolute. In his company, she’s learned to let words and perceptions slide, as easily as water slides off the skin. Here, in the eyes of the villagers, she is his “wife,” and Lah their “daughter.” In her heart, there is no name, no spoken language, for the love she feels, the immediate and profound connection she shares with these two, each a life as adrift as hers, and yet together—the sight of them together—a kind of harbor all its own. Teera dares not cling or hope for more, dares not peer too far into the future, the vast unknown.
They glide past other boats, and houses on stilts, most painted blue or green, deepening the hues of the water. Past a vendor with her boatload of fresh fruits and flowers and vegetables for the morning market. Past a “minimart” afloat under the shade of a giant umbrella offering individual packets of Nescafé and instant noodles, tin pots and pans and plastic dishes, hats and sunglasses, prepaid phone cards and, incredibly, international call services. Past a little boy rowing his even littler sisters in an oversize aluminum bowl—the kind used for laundering clothes—all three dressed in crisply ironed uniforms, heading toward a school buoyant on pontoons of rusted oil drums. The boy winks at Narunn, as one man would to another, acknowledging the concentrated effort required to ferry one’s family safely across the water.