“I am a prince. A Sisowath prince.”
I knew this already. We were all princes and princesses. A prince wasn’t all my father was. Art, he’d told me in response to Grandmother Queen’s story, is our divine expression, and as far as manifestation is concerned, it’s we humans, not the gods, who must be worthy to reveal ourselves. More than a prince, I thought, Papa was the poetry he wrote.
“Sisowath Ayuravann,” he said now, as if uttering the name of someone who’d died long ago. “Do you know what this name means? The story that comes with it?”
I waited as he stared at the water, searching perhaps for a fissure that would allow him entry into another world.
“When I was about ten years old,” he began, “I had a friend. He was a bread seller. Every morning, he’d come around hawking those little French baguettes on the streets outside my school.”
The sky let out a distant rumble. I looked up. A small, wispy cloud was moving across the waxing quarter moon, like a veil pulled over a lopsided smile, trying to hide its amusement from us.
“His name was Sambath. He was poor, but I didn’t know it—I didn’t care. All that mattered to me was that he was my friend—my best friend.”
The cloud passed and the moon seemed bigger and brighter, more like a full-lipped pout now. Tousana, Papa had called it, I remembered now, from the Pali word dassana, meaning “insight.” When something seemed both familiar and new all in the same moment. We’d been talking about storytelling, how there could be many versions of the same story, many ways of telling it, and how each version was a kind of manifestation, as if the story itself was a living, evolving entity, a god capable of many guises.
“Being who he was—a poor boy—Sambath of course couldn’t come into the school. During break, though, when the students were allowed to step out to buy snacks on nearby street corners, I’d go out to meet him. We’d sit and talk, sharing a baguette I bought from him, dipping it in steamy condensed milk I got from another vendor. I’d stay out for the rest of the break to be with him, even as other children retreated to the school compound to play with their own kind. Once, on the sidewalk near the guard station, we played a game of marbles. Sambath won, I lost. I was upset. I wanted the marbles back. He said no. He won them fairly—justly.”
Papa had told me this story before, but he’d never mentioned any games they played, let alone disagreements between them. This was all new, and it struck me that not only did the story sound different, but that Papa seemed not to realize he was telling it. Instead he was visibly upset and confused, as if caught still in the middle of this quarrel over some marbles.
“Justly? Why would he use such a word with me? Had I been unjust to him? Rage filled my lungs. We fought, at first calling each other names—Liar! Cheat! Thief! Shameless dog, you think you’re better than the rest of us just because you’re a prince! Then I threw the first punch, and just like that, we were exchanging blows and kicks.” Papa’s hand balled up in a fist at the memory of that punch. “It was our first real fight. Why did he have to ruin everything by reminding me who I was? Prince or not, I was just his friend. He should have understood this. I kneed him in the stomach. Sambath kneed me back, twice as hard.”
I could well picture the tussle, thinking how boys kick and punch and wrestle even when they’re not angry.
“A school guard returning from his lunch break saw us and, instead of inquiring, started to beat Sambath with his club. Pounding him with it. I begged him to stop. He wouldn’t. He kept beating Sambath. This should teach you to know your place, he growled at the mound collapsing at his feet. You worthless garbage! Don’t you know who you’re talking to?” Papa’s voice was so harsh that for a second I believed it was the raging guard speaking. “A prince! You’re talking to a prince, you dirty worm! Again and again, he reminded Sambath of this.”
Another rumble resounded. I scanned the sky for lightning, but there was none. Still, I wanted us to go. It might start raining any second.
Papa seemed not to have heard the thunder at all. He swallowed, moistening his throat, and continued, “He kept referring to my name, my title, reminding Sambath and all the children gathered to watch, and I’d never been so ashamed of who I was as in that moment.”
Something jumped in front of us. A silver-tailed fish. It flashed like a knife in the air and then disappeared again beneath the surface. Papa’s gaze followed the ripples shimmying in the water, and for a moment he looked as if he would jump into the pond and follow the fish. He often looked like this—like he wanted to escape but knew he couldn’t. “The guard didn’t know better, you see. He thought he was honoring me by beating a boy—a worthless street urchin, in his eyes—who dared to curse me, defile my noble name.”
Grandmother Queen had said that “Ayuravann” was a Buddhist monk’s reformulation of “Airavata.” The monk had interpreted Grandmother Queen’s dream to mean that Papa would die young, as the gods would strike down any human who dared to assume their guise. The monk thus consulted a sacred Buddhist text and came up with “Ayuravann.” The name would shield Papa from those who intended him harm and anchor him to this world. He would enjoy a long and prosperous life. We had nothing to fear.
“Sisowath Ayuravann. My wrong and redemption, Raami. Both strung into the story of this name. As a boy, I knew there existed different worlds, but I also believed that these worlds were traversable by friendship. Yet, when my friend was beaten, made to understand that certain boundaries could not and should not be crossed, I realized that not only did we live in different worlds, but mine was fiercely guarded.” He turned to face me now. “I might as well have beaten Sambath with my own hands. The landscape of his face, bloody and broken, Raami. I could never put it back. It stays with me to this day. My culpability. I let it happen, you see.”
I saw the lopsidedness of his revelation and couldn’t keep quiet any longer. “But you didn’t do anything.”
“That’s just it—I didn’t do anything when I could have. I could have called for help. Could have kicked and scratched the guard. Could have taken the blows of his club myself. But I did none of those things. Instead, a man beat a boy because of my name. And, sooner or later, I’ll have to answer for the injustice of it all. I’ll have to pay for my crime.”
“But it wasn’t your fault,” I reasoned. “Remember the turtle you caught? Well, we could have had it for soup. But you let it go. You couldn’t even hurt an animal. How could you hurt a person?”
He didn’t hear me, lost to despair. When he finally spoke, it was more to himself. “Yes, I am a prince, a minor prince, but still a prince . . . Sisowath. This name matters. It matters to the Revolutionary soldiers and the Kamaphibal. It has always mattered. I should’ve been able to do more with it.”
It was just a name, I thought, no more meaningful than the nonsensical appellation the Kamaphibal had concocted for themselves, and, as far as Papa was concerned, I didn’t care what name or title he answered to. Sisowath, Ayuravann, the Tiger Prince, His Highness . . . Even if he were to bear a hundred more names, he would still be my father, and there was no one, neither prince nor god, gentler than he.
“You’d still be the same person to me,” I told him, my hand brushing his hair, “even if you didn’t have a name. Even if you were nobody.”
He pulled me to him and, resting his chin on my head, murmured, “Once, in a journey’s dream, I came upon a child bearing my soul . . .”
“Once, in a journey’s dream,” I replied, knowing well the routine, the game we’d often play with the verses he’d written, tossing them back and forth, testing them aloud, “I came upon a reflection of myself.”
A frog jumped into the pond, and the water rippled again, undulating under a sky that had darkened now to the color of despair. A father’s bruised conscience.
“Words, you see,” he said, looking at me again, “allow us to make permanent what is essentially transient. Turn a world filled with injustice and hurt into a place that is beautiful and ly
rical. Even if only on paper. I wrote the poem for you the day you lay sick with polio. I stood over your crib and you looked at me with such mournful eyes I thought you understood my grief.”
Maybe I did, I wanted to tell him. I do now. I certainly understood what it felt like to want to do more than you could.
A gust of wind blew from the east, sending water lapping at our feet. I felt Papa’s sadness surge through me.
• • •
Night arrived, a giant wing closing on us, carrying in its folds the silhouette of another giant, a yiak with a gas lantern illuminated in his raised hand: Big Uncle stood next to the meditation pavilion, his shadow contending with its shadow, like a scene from a shadow-puppet play of the Reamker. “There you are!” he exclaimed. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”
Papa turned. “What are you doing here?”
“I could ask the same of you,” Big Uncle said, descending the wooden stairs toward us, his steps heavy and grave, like the rumbles of the sky, shaking the earth with their might. “It’ll rain any moment, you know.” He offered his hand. I grabbed it and he hoisted me to a standing position. We followed him up the steps. At the top he faced us and said, “The whole family is mad with worries.”
Papa lowered his gaze, hands in his pockets, and murmured, “I’m sorry, I can’t erase what was said—what I wrote.”
Big Uncle shook his head. “I’m not talking about that. They’re worried about you.”
We started walking. It was just the three of us outside. It appeared everyone else had sought shelter from the impending storm. A constant stream of cool wind was blowing now, stirring the trees and bushes around us, sending their shadows collapsing into ours. We passed the open prayer hall, and I looked up, to the tops of the pillars, expecting to see the statues of Kinnara coming alive and taking flight. But I could barely make them out in the dark, their silhouettes inanimate. Several yards away, the Walking Buddha statue guarded the entrance, reassuring in its solidity.
“How are you feeling?” Big Uncle asked after a moment’s silence.
“I shouldn’t have behaved as I did,” Papa told him. “How’s India?”
“It’s understandable. Remember me at Mango Corner? We each have our moment, I suppose.”
“I don’t know, Arun.” Papa shook his head, unconvinced. “I should’ve been able to behave in a saner way.”
“You were scared, and so was India. But she’s fine now. We move on. We take our next steps. Remember what we talked about? The plan to settle here with the townsfolk? Take up royal residence in Rolork Meas,” he added jokingly. “Hey, that has a rather nice ring to it! What do you think, Raami?”
I didn’t answer. It wasn’t a time for jokes. Had they been planning this whole time to settle in Rolork Meas?
“Well, I think we should just do it,” Big Uncle continued. “Make this place our home for now. Even if it means we’ll be put in different households.”
Different households? Live separately? I felt panic rising in my throat. Big Uncle kept walking, his steps light, nonchalant.
“But how?” Papa said. “We have no connection here.”
“We could declare a connection.”
“With what? With whom?”
“The old sweeper. He came looking for you,” Big Uncle explained. “He brought some eggs from his hen. We could say he’s Aana’s relative—a distant uncle, perhaps. It’s plausible. Don’t you see it? He could be our peasant connection. Our safety net.”
Papa stopped abruptly and, letting go of my hand, turned to Big Uncle in the dark. “Have you spoken of this with him?” he asked, visibly upset.
“Of course not!” Big Uncle rumbled with indignation. “I haven’t said a word to anyone. I wanted to talk with you first. See if it was even a possibility.” He softened. “Besides, your friend was in no mood to talk; I couldn’t discuss it with him even if I’d wanted to. He was all shaken up about something.”
We continued walking, with me in the middle now. Papa kept silent, thinking. Then, after a moment, he said, “No, it’s too much to ask of him. I’d be risking his life for mine. I’m in this alone.”
It was Big Uncle’s turn to be upset. “What do you mean you’re in this alone? We’re all in it together.”
“No, it could be just me, Arun. Just me. Don’t you understand?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I wrote my name and occupation,” Papa began to explain, quietly, matter-of-factly. “Our family history is brief: I’m the only Sisowath; the rest of you are my in-laws. Commoners. You, Tata, and Aana are siblings, and your parents were formerly fruit growers—mangoes and bananas mostly—from Kien Svay. Your mother’s alive. But your father died, drowned in the Mekong when his boat sank while transporting fruits to the city.”
“But why? Why would you say all this? None of it makes any sense.”
“Listen, Arun,” Papa said, hands in his pockets, his manner strangely calm and casual. “I think that young cadre, the Kamaphibal’s spokesman, I think he recognized me. I don’t know how, but I think he knows who I am. If he doesn’t, he’ll find out. Tata’s right—he’s one of us. He could see right through me. When I’m called, I’ll go. Alone. Please understand. I need you to understand, Arun.”
I heard the lantern break against the hard earth as it dropped from Big Uncle’s hand. “Oh, my brother,” he heaved, breathless with horror, “what have you done, what have you done? You’ve clipped your wings. You have clipped your own wings.”
Lightning struck, the sky roared, and the night cried a giant’s tears, thunderous and inconsolable.
eleven
In the stillness, I woke to find Papa gone. Mama was also gone, her blanket gathered in a pile at the foot of the straw mat. I sat up, letting my eyes adjust to the dark that felt as thick as ink, becoming aware of the sound of a bamboo flute playing outside. A familiar melody. It weaved through my mind and I recalled the words that went with it:
Since I was a little girl, I’ve never been so scared,
As when Your Highness took hold of my hand.
A passage from a lakhon drama. But a lakhon out here? At this hour? There was a faint orange glow coming through the front doorway. In the room, no one but me was awake. I could easily make out who was who from the silhouette each person formed on the floor: in one mosquito net, Big Uncle a mountainous bulk, the twins a pair of nautilus-shaped knolls, Auntie India a slender hill of dips and curves, and in another net, Tata long and straight like a pestle, Grandmother Queen globular and malleable like a clay mortar in the process of being molded. No sign of Mama or Papa anywhere. Where could they be? I wasn’t alarmed. On the contrary, I felt strangely subdued, calmed by sleep that hadn’t quite left my body and by the music of the bamboo flute, which sounded more like the trill a bird would produce than anything a human being could conjure up with his lips.
Beside me Radana snored gently, hugging her small bolster pillow, her face squashed in doughy bliss, completely ignorant of Mama’s absence. I pulled the blanket from the foot of the straw mat and covered her with it, gathering the edges in around her so she would be secure and safe within its soft enclosure. Then I let myself out of the mosquito net and went to the doorway. There I saw them.
They were sitting outside by a small fire, their faces turned so that I could see only the slight curves of their chins glowing like two quarter moons. She was in the middle of dressing the wound on his hand, with a strip torn from the kroma on her shoulders. She felt the bandage and, seeing that it could use one more layer, ripped another strip from the checkered scarf, Papa contemplating her every gesture and movement. Neither one noticed my presence, absorbed as they were in each other, their minds wooed to stillness by the bamboo flute. I wanted to say something to let them know I was there, but as my voice hadn’t yet come to me, I swallowed my wordlessness and lowered myself to the floor, my senses slowly awakened by the cold air, which had set in after a night of pouring rain.
Please, Your
Highness, I beg you let me go . . .
I belong to another, he who is humble as I.
I glanced in the direction the music seemed to be coming from and saw in the surrounding dark another shadow crouching in the doorway of the building across the school ground from ours. It was the old musician, the elongated silhouette of the bamboo flute extending from his lips. His fingers moved over the instrument’s air holes, weaving a refrain:
Please, I beg you let me go . . .
Your Highness, please let me go.
He paused, played a couple of notes, and slowly moved into a tighter, more controlled piece. Again, I heard in my head the words that went with the music, the insults thrown back and forth between two adversaries, the thievish prince and the impoverished perfume seller:
O, you minuscule animal of the savage world,
Seeing a fire flaming hot, you imagine it a game!
O, mountain, you tower over all . . .
Your name places you in the family of gods—
Yet, you stand lower than grass!
It was from Mak Thoeung, a beloved Khmer classic told in verse. I knew the story well. I’d seen several lakhon performances of it and heard it read on the radio. It tells the story of a perfume seller and his beautiful young wife. One day while they are at a market selling fragrances and oils, a young prince spots the wife and takes her for his concubine. The perfume seller goes to the king and informs him what the young prince has done. The prince denies it. The king, on the advice of his most trusted senior court minister, orders the two men to carry a large, heavy drum to faraway fields and back, as punishment for their insolence. Unbeknownst to them, inside the drum crouches a little boy who is to note the conversation between the two offenders and report it back to the king. Thinking themselves alone, the perfume seller and the young prince begin throwing insults as sharp as blades:
Your race is heavenly,
So priceless and beautiful, as no word can describe.
Yet, you show not even human understanding,
In the Shadow of the Banyan Page 12
