In the Shadow of the Banyan

by Vaddey Ratner

  Through our doorway, I could see that some of the new arrivals had found themselves without a place and were heading, their belongings in tow, toward the monks’ sleeping quarters. There, they would see what we’d seen, and they would turn around, unwilling yet to live among the ghosts.

  Pulling himself up, Papa murmured something about a walk and asked if Big Uncle wanted to join him. Big Uncle responded with a solemn nod. They needed to talk. I knew better than to tag along. Outside they told Mama and Auntie India—who were busy washing the dishes—they’d be back shortly. “Just need to clear our minds a bit and work things out,” Papa explained, and Big Uncle added, “Think of our next steps.” The women murmured their consent, and once the two men were gone, Auntie India ventured cautiously, her voice lacking its usual singsong melody, “Do you think it’s true . . . about the prime minister?”

  “It doesn’t help to imagine what we don’t really know.” Mama tried to maintain her calm, but I could tell she was getting tired of explaining, taking care of everyone’s feelings. “We just have to do what we can not to stand out.” She scoured the rice pot vigorously with a piece of coconut rind. Then, noticing Auntie India’s lacquered nails, she looked up and said, “You should really remove the polish.”

  Auntie India seemed confused. “Pardon me?”

  “The nail polish,” Mama told her.

  “Oh, yes, I know it looks awful—all chipped.” She sounded distressed. “Makes my hands look like a market vendor’s. But I forgot the remover, and the bottle I’ve found in my purse is the wrong color, and of course I can’t—”

  “Use a knife,” Mama said. “Scrape it off.”

  Auntie India frowned but dared not contradict Mama. We had to rely on her judgment when it came to conducting ourselves as ordinary people, as commoners. Auntie India knew this. Still, Mama had to explain. “It makes you look like a city person.”

  “Oh, I see.” Auntie India nodded. She let out a sigh. Then, changing the subject, she said, “We’re almost out of rice. We may have to cut our meals. But the children and Mother—they’re always hungry.”

  “They’ll eat when they’re hungry,” Mama told her forcefully. “Even if the rest of us have nothing.” She rinsed the rice pot, put it aside, and looking at Auntie India, added, more gently, “We’ll take some things to trade this afternoon.” She attempted a smile.

  Auntie India looked somewhat reassured.

  I felt a hand on my shoulder. “Come here,” Tata beckoned, drawing me away from the door. “Help me set up a place for Grandmother Queen to rest.” She handed me a straw mat to unroll. Then she started to mumble, “The problem with being seven—I remember myself at that age—is that you’re aware of so much, and yet you understand so little. So you imagine the worst.”

  She was right. I didn’t understand. There was so much to piece together. So I asked her what I sensed was most immediate: “Do you think we’ll starve, Tata?”

  She didn’t answer right away. Finally she said, “No, Raami. No, we’re not going to starve.” She turned away, clearly upset.

  I swallowed. I didn’t know what troubled me more—the possibility that we might not have enough to eat, or the realization that Tata had just lied to me.

  The problem with being seven . . .

  I wondered at what age one understands everything.

  nine

  Several days later, at dusk, a group of solemn-looking men and women began to arrive at the temple. Like the Revolutionary soldiers, they were dressed in black from head to toe and walked with such furtive steps it seemed they appeared out of nowhere and were suddenly in our midst. They floated toward the school buildings, a black bat-like mass stirring the air with disquiet. Something about the way they moved, drifting like one giant shadow, made me think I’d seen them before. Then I realized indeed I had—days earlier when we were bathing at the pond, the black figures pacing the distant fields. They’d watched us surreptitiously from afar while pretending to survey the crop. The old sweeper had warned us of this. Now they’d come for a close-up, bearing baskets of rice and dangling chunks of cane sugar in bamboo nets as if to entice us like ants out of our holes.

  “Strange-looking peasants,” Tata murmured, watching from our doorway. “Wonder who they really are . . .”

  They introduced themselves as the Kamaphibal, as if to distinguish themselves in our eyes from the Revolutionary soldiers. They spoke Khmer using village vernacular, sounding like rice farmers even though they looked like they could be teachers or doctors. One was even wearing glasses. How are you, Comrade? they inquired, moving from door to door, family to family, passing out the food they’d brought, startling everyone with their way of talking, the words they used, as if they didn’t know adults from children, elders from infants. They invited everyone to meet outside. The man with the glasses stood over the charcoal outline of the hopscotch board. As he prepared to speak, the others stood back, opening the way for him with a resounding clap.

  “You may wonder why you are here,” he said, his voice even, monotonously soothing compared to the erratic booming we’d so often heard coming from the Revolutionary soldiers. “There is a reason, you see.”

  He had a slow-moving stare, like the lens of a camera taking in a large crowd, lingering now and then over a face.

  “The war is over. We’ve won. Our enemies are destroyed. But the fighting does not end here. The struggle must go on. Anyone can be a soldier in the Revolution. It doesn’t matter if you are a monk, a teacher, a doctor, a man, or a woman. If you give yourself to the Revolution, you are a Revolutionary soldier. If you know how to read and write, the Organization needs you. The Organization calls out to you to help rebuild the country.”

  His gaze rolled seamlessly from person to person, unperturbed by suckling infants or yawning elders, by coughing or sneezing.

  “You’re here because we believe there are many among you who could join us in our cause. While you may be new to the Revolutionary struggle, we need your proven expertise and skills, your practical knowledge and know-how.”

  I knew how to read and write well, but I doubted I could actually be a soldier. Perhaps he was exaggerating. As if reading my thoughts, he stopped and stared, his gaze steady on us. A smile or grimace, I couldn’t tell. A knowing blink. Papa, on bended knees, one arm around my waist, faltered in his position, and I felt his grip tighten around me as he tried to regain balance. I turned to face him, wondering if something was the matter, but he’d lowered his face, hiding it from view. Meanwhile, the man’s gaze didn’t linger; he’d moved on to other faces. It was obvious he’d recognized Papa.

  “Cambodian history is a history of injustice,” he went on, his tone consciously calm. “Now we must write a new history. We must build a new society upon the wreckage of the old. Come. Do not be afraid. We shall build the new Democratic Kampuchea together. Come.”

  He waited. No one moved. He turned to the other members of the Kamaphibal. They responded with a silent, collective nod. Then, as stealthily as they’d arrived, they began to leave, vanishing one by one in the gathering gloom, like shadows absorbed by the night.

  • • •

  Kamaphibal. “A Revolutionary word,” Papa tried to explain. “Made up probably of older Pali or Sanskrit words broken up and strung back together.” He went on, but I was no longer paying attention. My mind had caught on to the phrase “broken up,” which I thought was strangely apropos of this group that had appeared out of nowhere, as if emerging from the bits and pieces of all they’d broken and destroyed.

  For the next several weeks there was no sign of the Kamaphibal. Even so, their words, the language they spoke, continued to swirl like smoke following a magician’s disappearing act. If you know how to read and write, the Organization needs you. The Organization calls out to you to help rebuild the country. A kind of desperate confusion spread across the temple ground as people argued over what it all meant.

  Back in our room, Tata surprised everyone by wondering aloud
if we oughtn’t to put our trust in the Kamaphibal. “They’re certainly a more educated bunch,” she said, looking around for support. “Well, at least the one who spoke—he wore glasses, didn’t he?” Big Uncle looked at her as if this last statement was as inane as the Revolutionary soldiers’ justification to shoot someone for the very same reason. Tata tried to explain. “What I mean is that the man—whoever he is, the spokesman of the Kamaphibal—wasn’t bred in the jungle like the rest of these barbarians.” Big Uncle reminded her that stripped of their Revolutionary eloquence, and their peasantry pretense, the Kamaphibal were those same Khmer Rouge soldiers—those “vile Communists”—she so vehemently despised. To this, Tata pleaded, “But these people can reason! They made sense! It’s true they will need people like us to put the country back together.” Big Uncle looked skeptical but refrained from saying more.

  • • •

  Preoccupied with the Kamaphibal’s words, no one was prepared when a group of Revolutionary soldiers appeared one evening armed with notebooks and pencils.

  A boy—tall and lean with a smoker’s dark lips and yellowish eyes—strode into our room, brandishing a notebook and a pencil stuck in its spiraled spine. His gaze shot through the open doorway toward the small adjoining room where Mr. Virak and his wife were tending their baby who, in the past couple of days, had developed a fever. Feeling the soldier’s gaze on him, Mr. Virak straightened up, fist clenched as if ready for a fight. His wife placed her hand on his arm, holding him back. But the soldier ignored them, scanning our room now, his eyes on the twins, Radana, then finally me. “You!” He pointed with his notebook. “Come here!”

  I got up and walked toward him, my steps heavy, slowed, as fear coiled itself like a snake in the pit of my stomach. Papa grabbed my shoulder and held me in place. He addressed the soldier, “Comrade—”

  “SILENCE!” the boy roared, then again to me, “COME!”

  I heard Radana bawling and Mama trying to comfort her, but I dared not turn to look. I stepped closer to the soldier.

  “What’s your name?” the soldier demanded, his stare bearing down on me, and I felt myself pushed into the ground, small and crushable as a bug. “Your name!” he thundered.

  “R-Raami,” I stammered.

  “Who’s the head of your household?”

  I blinked, confused for a second or two—we have no house, so how could there be a head?—but before I could answer, Papa said, “I am.”

  “Klah . . .”—a breathless objection from Big Uncle. He started to come forward, but Papa told him firmly, “Arun, stay back.” Big Uncle retreated into his place by the window. Again Papa told the soldier, “I’m the head of the household, Comrade.”

  “Is he your father?” the soldier demanded.

  “Yes,” I let out, gulping down a fistful of air in turn. Papa’s hands grew cold and heavy on my shoulders. I heard heartbeats, fast and thumping, but I couldn’t be sure if they belonged to me or to Papa, or even the soldier.

  “What’s his name?”

  Again, Papa opened his mouth to speak and again the soldier yelled him down. “SILENCE!—I’m asking the girl!” He turned back to me. “Your father’s name!”

  “Ayuravann,” I whispered, regretting it as soon as it came out of my mouth. Mechas Klah—the “Tiger Prince,” as Papa was known among family members and close friends—would have sounded more impressive, intimidating.

  “Full name,” the soldier demanded. “Your father’s full name.”

  “Sisowath Ayuravann,” I rattled, saying the surname first, as Cambodians do. “And I’m Sisowath Ayuravann Vattaaraami.” I thought if I just went ahead and also gave him my full name, then I would compensate for my earlier slowness.

  But the soldier didn’t care. Thrusting the notebook at Papa, he ordered, “Write it down. Name, occupation, family history. Write it all down.”

  Papa didn’t see the pencil stuck to the notebook spine. Instead, as if by force of habit, he took the silver fountain pen from his breast pocket and began to scribble, first tentatively, then furiously, arms and shoulders trembling. I’d never seen him handle his pen this way, with such nervous haste. Writing for him, he often said, was synonymous with breathing, and his breathing was the most calming sound I’d ever heard. Now he was breathless with panic, and I could hear every scratch and stroke of the pen on paper.

  While Papa kept writing, I stared at the pistol tucked in the kroma around the soldier’s waist. A cobra rearing its head. I thought I heard it hiss. An echo of a shot resounded in my head, and again I saw the old man fall to the ground, a halo of blood spreading around him.

  Papa finished and handed the notebook back to the soldier. He pulled me to him, arms like safety bars on my chest. The soldier looked at the writing, frowned, then as if deciding it was good enough for now, turned and left the room, taking long-legged strides across the playground toward the opposite building.

  • • •

  “You shouldn’t have told them your father’s name,” Auntie India hissed when it was just us again, her voice accusing—harsh—its melodiousness gone. “You shouldn’t have.” Each word like a finger jabbing my chest.

  Big Uncle touched her arm, as if to placate her, but she turned at him, “Now they’ll also know who you are!” and, angrily, venomously, back at me, “You should’ve kept quiet!”

  I was scared. The harsh words, the screaming, Auntie India behaving as she did. None of it made sense.

  “I’m glad she told them,” Tata intervened, coming to my rescue. “Yes, they will realize soon enough who we are and give us some respect. If these idiots don’t, the Kamaphibal will.”

  Papa ignored them both. He turned to Mama, but she was staring at her hands in her lap, refusing to meet his eyes, trying to calm her quaking shoulders. I looked from one face to the next—What’s going on?—but no one would look at me.

  Finally, Papa said, “You didn’t know.” His palm brushed my hair in that gesture he reserved for forgiveness when I’d done something wrong. “It isn’t your fault.”

  Know what? What didn’t I know? What wasn’t my fault?

  “I don’t think the boy will remember,” Big Uncle said, holding Papa’s gaze to his. “He’s too young to know what it means. He’s just a child. Raami could’ve told him anything—said you were the king himself—and he wouldn’t know.” He turned to the others. “Really, there’s nothing to worry about.” He attempted a smile, but his face collapsed in uncertainty.

  “I’m sorry to intrude.” Mr. Virak spoke from where he stood by the door. “Did you write down everything he’d asked for?”

  Papa nodded and, to me, said by way of explanation, “I wanted him away from you. Whatever it took, I wanted him to leave the room.”

  “You gave them your real name then?” Mr. Virak pursued, looking like he was puzzling over a gnarl in his mind. “You wrote ‘Sisowath’?”

  “Yes,” Papa replied. “But I don’t think the boy can read.”

  “His leaders—the Kamaphibal—they can read,” Tata reasserted. “He’ll know soon enough who we are, and when he does, he won’t dare treat us as he did. None of them will.”

  Everyone looked at Tata like she’d become crazier than Grandmother Queen. “Well, he’ll think twice,” she said, trying to recover herself, and looking at Papa, “You are a Sisowath prince, for god’s sake!”

  “I don’t think he cares,” Papa replied, appearing more uncertain each minute. “I’m nobody to him.”

  Again, Auntie India turned to me and hissed through her sobs, “You shouldn’t—”

  “Leave her out of this!” Papa thundered. “Leave her out!” He punched the wall, then left the room, the earth trembling under his footsteps.

  I shook from the reverberation. He was my god, peaceful and self-contained. Not even an earthquake could disturb him. Why would he let an argument over his name upset him like this?

  ten

  Ayuravann. Ayu, from Sanskrit, meaning “life possessing,” and ravann, the
combined abbreviation of ras vannak, “to shine with letter or word; to be renowned with a scholar’s reputation.” Grandmother Queen had said she gave Papa this name because, while she was carrying him, she’d dreamt the god Airavata, Indra’s sacred elephant, raised his foot and touched her belly as if to impart his spirit to the life growing in her womb, and when Papa was born with the top of his right ear flipped back, like an elephant’s, she was convinced he was an earthly incarnation of Airavata. When Papa became known for his poetry, Grandmother Queen was ever more convinced of his divine origin. He’s a vehicle of the gods, just as Airavata is a vehicle of Indra. But I was not to be immediately persuaded. What about the Tiger Prince? Why was Papa called a tiger if he was in fact an elephant? To this, Grandmother Queen had impatiently replied, “Ah, ignorant child, a god has many manifestations!”

  I found him near the meditation pavilion, at the bottom of some wooden steps down the slight incline to the pond. Dusk was gathering, and in the greyness around us, he manifested himself in yet another way—fragile and fractured, a small snail hiding in his shell. I had the urge to take him in my hand and mold him whole again.

  I cleared my throat to let him know I was there.

  He didn’t turn but continued to stare at his hand, caressing it as if nursing an injured fish he’d rescued from the water. I went down the steps and sat next to him. “Let me see,” I said, taking his hand in mine, examining it—the skin of his knuckles torn and bleeding. I blew on it, imagining the hurt escaping silently with my breath. Ephemeral. A magical word, he told me. Nothing lasts. Not sadness, not pain. “It’ll be fine,” I said, even as I felt a solidity to his wound, something far more enduring and deeper than this slight, superficial injury.

  He turned to face me. “Do you know who I am?”

  Of course. What a funny question.