Music of the Ghosts

by Vaddey Ratner

  A wind blew from the direction of the river, carrying the heavy scent of mud and monsoon. If it rained, the concrete overhang above would keep him dry. Maybe he ought to just sleep out here on the landing, in the open fresh air. But, on second thought, he remembered the deranged beggar’s mumbled warning—You’re in the company of the hungry and the starved. You ought to be careful with your sack of rice. Narunn felt fear all around him, in everyone he’d met, in the guarded silence and stillness of the families returning to hide behind the closed doors of these apartments in which they coexisted with ghosts. However charming and peaceful this city might have once been, he sensed the threat of violence beneath the present disquiet. He hadn’t come all this way only to be robbed and killed. He’d better go inside and find a safer place.

  At the end of the long hallway stood an empty apartment with the door missing. He walked across the grimy tiles of the living room to a pair of doors on the opposite side, leading out to a small open terrace, with an enclosed kitchen and bathroom adjoining it. Everything had fallen into disrepair. Yet, he felt this was more than adequate. Back inside, he entered the bedroom. Dust danced in the fading evening light cast from a tall window with broken shutters. He opened the window, pushing the shutters all the way out, then, stepping back, he saw on the wall beside the window these words—Darling, if you are alive, come back to me . . . Come back to me. In the same charcoal tone, the careful outline of a slender hand—a woman’s left hand, with long graceful fingers—hovered above the love letter, and next to it, the half silhouette of her right hand, as if left purposely unfinished for him who would respond. The few words that followed brought Narunn to his knees. I wait for you. Always.

  Night fell. Having no home to go to, no family to reunite with, he found this missive on the wall inexplicably welcoming. He felt safe and cared for in the presence of the partially rendered embrace. The apartment became his home. Where else could he find a place that echoed with such intimacy? The walls spoke to him of his own longings, his search for a love that would endure and reverberate across worlds.

  Mr. Brown and Mr. Smith hover on the grass at the river’s edge, happily splashing each other with water from their cupped hands. Something about them reminds the Old Musician of the freshwater dolphins he once encountered during a boat ride in Kratie. Perhaps it’s the way they communicate with gurgles and codes only they understand. It’s easier to think of the boys as Dara and Sok when they’re not reciting their English lessons. Stripped of the sanctity of the cloth, with only the inner brown wraps for modesty, they have been turned by the water into children again. They have helped him down the naga stairway so that he can wash his clothes in the river. He’s found a comfortable perch a couple of steps up from the bottom where he can easily reach into the river.

  The two novices jump naked into the Mekong, their undergarments flung aside, and race toward a submerged water buffalo with only its head sticking out. A young girl with long black hair underneath a conical hat stands straight and tall on its back, so that from a distance it appears she’s floating on water. She turns ever so slightly, her reflection like the shadow cast by the gnomon of a sundial, and remains unperturbed even as the two boys approach her with loud splashes and squeals. “Hey, where’re you going? Are you Vietnamese? Is this your water buffalo? Rt p!” Sok teases in Vietnamese, which he speaks passably, like most from his village near the border. The Old Musician himself knows a few phrases—a remnant of his days spent in forest encampments with Vietnamese comrades—and wonders whether “Very beautiful!” is meant for the girl or her water buffalo.

  The two swim to the front and lift clumps of water hyacinth to the animal’s mouth. “How old is he?” The girl does not answer. Her inner stillness seems godlike, immense and impermeable. The Old Musician wishes her to turn around. A familiar ache lances his heart. She’s not much bigger than his daughter was when he left her to fight for a cause he now fails to comprehend.

  His gaze follows the little girl as she glides erect downstream and out of view.

  A small boat sputters past, loaded with pomelos and sugarcanes, prow pointing toward the city. Waves unfurl and lap toward him, hitting the steps and shore one by one, and he feels himself lulled, pulled into the tides of remembering. Just as, moments before, with the ease of a blink, he had slipped into the night of his disappearance, then, in a single imperceptible shudder, emerged to find himself back on the naga steps, his world divided as before, one half in shadows beneath the eye patch and the other in the brightness of the afternoon sun.

  “Lokta, Lokta!” The Old Musician turns toward the voice and sees Dara wading hurriedly through chest-deep water, his raised hand clasping something dark and stiff.

  A catfish, he thinks, noting its bent shape. Strangely, its stillness worries him. Then as Dara nears, he sees it’s not a fish at all. Fear climbs up his spine and his first impulse is to jump into the river and seize the gun from the youngster. Throw it away! he wants to yell out to the boy but thinks better of it. If loaded, it could fire. Dara, knowing full well the danger of his discovery, places the revolver carefully on the steps. Sok, orphaned by guns, has gone completely mute, and the Old Musician can only imagine what’s running through the youngster’s mind—Who has this gun wounded or murdered? Noting its newness and shine, the Old Musician suspects the revolver recently found its way into the river. Certainly it doesn’t look like it’s been lost for years in the sand and silt of the Mekong.

  He wipes his hands on his shirt several times before lifting it. Pointing the gun away from himself and the boys, he pulls out the chamber, careful not to touch the trigger. Never point your weapon at anyone you’re not ready to kill, the commander at his training base seethed in the denseness of the jungle. He shakes away the memory and refocuses his attention on the weapon at hand. No bullets. Relief washes over him. He should’ve guessed. Even a single bullet can be easily sold on the black market for quick cash, with the added advantage that, unlike a gun, one doesn’t have to fear being caught with it. I found the bullet on the street, a child like Dara or Sok could say to a dealer in one of the dingy alleyways off rue Confédération de la Russie, where a whole string of stalls trade in such implements of death, under the front of selling imitation US military uniforms and memorabilia.

  The Old Musician recalls the abundance of weapons, the seemingly inexhaustible supplies suddenly available to the revolutionary armed forces when they took over the country that April in 1975, combining their own arsenal with that of the Lon Nol government, which had received nearly two billion dollars in military aid from the United States in those final years of the civil war. During the subsequent forced exodus, and throughout the revolutionary regime, .38 revolvers similar to the one he’s holding now, along with AK47s and M16s, were copiously dispensed like toys to the young, most of whom, uneducated and illiterate, had no understanding of any doctrine or cause they were fighting for but nevertheless felt the thrill and power these weapons gave them. Now an AR15, cherished like a family heirloom, might be pawned by a former revolutionary soldier to pay for the funeral of his little daughter who died of malaria, and an unearthed grenade, sold and bought and sold again for a couple of dollars, is finally thrown by a farmer to be rid of a neighbor vying for a tiny strip of farmland bordering their two properties. A young mother employed as a deminer routinely replants land mines she’s extracted, fearing that if all the mines were removed she would have no work to provide for her young ones, even with the knowledge that a Bouncing Betty has already made her a widow and that a silent killer left in the ground can remain active for decades.

  The Old Musician has met them all, these fragmented souls, at once helpless and hazardous, each both a victim of their circumstances and a weapon by the choices they make. All it takes is a single tripped wire—fear, anger, desperation—for them to detonate and cause irreparable harm.

  “What should we do, Lokta?” Dara asks, while Sok continues to stare in muted horror.

  “We take it to
the abbot,” he attempts to reassure the boys. “His Venerable will know what to do.”

  As they climb the stairs, what seizes the Old Musician’s throat is not the discovery of a gun by two youngsters in their naked innocence but the ordinariness of weapons today as a currency for food in the cycle of poverty and violence.

  He sees his culpability in everything.

  “So that’s how those footprints led me here, to this room.” Narunn lifts Teera’s chin so that he looks right into her eyes as he cradles her. “To this moment with you. Sometimes a couple’s lost love is requited in the union of another pair, years or decades or a lifetime later. You called, I came, and since then I’ve waited for you.”

  Teera swallows. “Where were they . . . the hands?”

  Narunn sits up, pulling her forward, and turns so that he holds her, cupping her from the back as they both face the closed window above the bed. Then, lacing his fingers into hers, he leans to place their hands on the wall.

  “Here.”

  At the open-air ceremony hall, a throng quickly gathers around the Old Musician, the gun in the middle on the straw mat, wielding a hypnotic power, drawing every gaze to it. “Where did it come from?” one of the monks asks amidst the multitude of shorn heads and saffron robes. “I found it in the river!” Dara gloats, pride having replaced fear. Where in the river? How did it get there? Whose? Can it shoot? Does it have bullets? I think it belonged to a corrupt policeman. Questions and opinions erupt. No, that’s the kind I’ve seen bodyguards carry. It must be expensive . . .

  The Venerable Kong Oul appears and everyone promptly quiets down. “Such intense curiosity is better applied toward your studies,” says the abbot, lowering himself onto the straw mat opposite the Old Musician. He looks around, smiling, as if this were just another gathering. “Back to your quarters, disciples.”

  The throng issues a collective moan. But recognizing an order, however gently expressed, they begin to disperse. Except one novice who remains rooted to the spot. Makara. His parents have recently forced his ordination to keep him out of trouble. “How much is it worth?” he asks bluntly.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t know.” The abbot seems unperturbed by the youth’s behavior. “It’s not something you ought to concern yourself with.”

  “Probably at least fifty dollars,” Makara insists, and the Old Musician can’t tell whether the glint in his eyes is greed, inspired by the thought of such a large sum, or the effect of substance withdrawal.

  After the ceremony to call his spirit back had failed, Makara’s parents took him to a local rehabilitation center, where the method of treatment was literally to beat the drug out of the boy. Makara lasted a week there. Against his father’s angry warning—The boy will not change if we don’t let him suffer!—Makara’s mother brought him home, devastated by the injuries and bruises covering their son’s body. The boy swore he would give up drugs, but in no time at all he was caught stealing what little jewelry his mother had and pawning it to feed his habit. The distraught parents pleaded with the abbot to take their son in.

  Now the boy stands in a monk’s robe, seeming to challenge the only possibility left for his recovery. “I know where to sell it,” he offers. “I mean I know who to take it to. Someone who’ll probably pay more than fifty dollars . . .”

  The abbot waits, saying nothing, his gaze at once gentle and unwavering. He seems to think it best to let the boy finish his thoughts.

  “I-I’ll bring back the money,” Makara stutters, unable to keep still, body twitching, like someone about to have a seizure.

  Finally the abbot says, “There’s no need for your involvement, my dear samanae.” Then, as if suddenly remembering something, his face lights up. “Your mother was just here! She’s brought you some fried noodles, along with some other snacks. She’s left the tiffin with one of the nuns in the kitchen. Go and see. Perhaps you can have a nibble before dinner. Discreetly, of course.”

  Though monks are not allowed to take any food past noon, the Old Musician remembers that an exception is made for Makara, as the abbot believes the boy needs all the nourishment he can get to rebuild his strength and recover.

  Makara fidgets and, after a moment, as if unable to bear the abbot’s kind gaze, excuses himself: “Kanah.”

  Once the boy is out of hearing range, the abbot turns to the Old Musician. “Ah, the tricks one must resort to in order to turn the mind of a youth!” He glances at the revolver on the mat, and the Old Musician notices for the first time how strained, how uncharacteristically discomposed, the old monk appears, despite his cheerful words. Perhaps this discovery bothers him more than he initially let on. “I wasn’t at all sure what to think when Sok came and said there was a gun. It was all he could tell me.”

  “My apologies, Venerable, but I’d sent the boy to fetch you so as to give him some distance from the weapon. He was quite upset by its presence.”

  “Yes, he was obviously distressed. Hopefully, some calm has returned to him. I gave him a new English phrase to recite. A breath in, a breath out, each breath a journey all its own . . . I’ve found, even for myself, this often works better than chanting the ancient sutras.” As if to prove the point, the abbot inhales and exhales slowly, repeating the cycle a few times. “Ah, I feel better already . . . Now, how did this come into our possession?”

  The Old Musician quickly summarizes what transpired at the river, while the abbot listens, thoughtful in his disquiet. “We’ve poisoned our rivers with all sorts of pollutants,” he laments when the Old Musician has finished.

  “One hopes, Venerable, that it fell into the river accidentally, or if thrown there, that it was done with good intention, by someone who understood the harm such a weapon could cause.”

  “But,” the abbot proffers tentatively, sensing the unspoken, “you imagine a more complicated journey for the gun?”

  The Old Musician nods. “You read my thoughts, Venerable.”

  “Go on . . .”

  “It’s pure conjecture, of course, but it’s just as probable that someone tossed the weapon into the river, perhaps in a moment of fear, or remorse for some crime committed. Given its value, an innocent handler would simply sell it if he wished to be rid of it. Fifty dollars—if the boy’s right, it may be worth more—that’s a month’s wage for most, and one does not throw away that kind of money. Again, it’s a leap, on my part.”

  The abbot sighs. “Well, your leap might be quite close to the truth, given the reality we live in . . . The question now is, how can we end its journey?”

  “We cannot turn it in to the authorities, Venerable.”

  “Absolutely not,” the abbot agrees, sounding forcefully adamant. “We can’t count on them to keep it out of the wrong hands.” In a calmer voice, he asks, “Do you recall the death of a young girl in the karaoke bar in Chruay Chongvar some while ago?”

  The Old Musician nods. “It was all over the news, Venerable.” A beer girl, they called her, killed by a highly decorated police officer because she was too slow bringing drinks. Barely fifteen, she was made to dress in an outfit suggesting she was as much for sale as the alcohol she offered to entice the male customers. Like most of her peers, she’d come from her village to the city hoping to earn money to support her family back home. Her family did indeed receive money, not through her work but through her death. And her life? Worth no more than a few bottles of Hennessy, which the police officer and his friends drank in abundance that afternoon he shot her. The officer paid the family to keep them from pressing charges, and they had no choice but to accept this “grief money” because even if they had gone to court, it would have come to nothing. A police officer of his rank has khnong, as they say, the backing of someone more powerful.

  “Has something happened?” the Old Musician ventures, when the abbot appears suddenly lost in thought. “Has the family decided to press charges after all?”

  “I wish it were something as valiant as that.” The abbot shakes his head and lets out another melanchol
ic sigh. “There’s been yet again a fatal incident with the police.” He inhales deeply. “And this time, it’s brought us a dilemma . . . Along with the gun, we now have a girl.”

  “A girl?” The Old Musician frowns in confusion.

  “Like so many in the city, she will be abandoned . . .”

  “I’m afraid I don’t follow, Venerable.”

  “Her mother was killed recently, and this morning a friend of the slain woman—someone who comes now and then to our temple—pleaded with me to take the girl in.”

  “You don’t think . . .”

  “No, no, the two things—the girl, and this gun you’ve found—are not connected.”

  The Old Musician lets out an audible breath. He listens patiently as the abbot struggles to explain.

  “The friend, an older woman in her late fifties, has acted as the girl’s temporary caretaker. But, impoverished herself and with hardly a home, she will not be able to keep the child much longer . . .” The abbot gazes into the distance, his mind wandering, searching.