across the country. Then followed two years of famine. When the foreign relief workers arrived and no one knew Khmer you had endless work translating.
You said, All through Pol Pot time people could not speak freely. Neighbor against neighbor. Children trained to report on their families. People tried to hide inside the same skin. People pretended not to be city people, pretended not to understand foreign languages, tried to disguise soft hands, tried to pass as farmers, taxi drivers, street vendors.
Who did you find? Did you find Tien?
Musicians were the enemy. Students were the enemy. City people and educated people. Everything I had been was the enemy.
A soul protects itself from what it cannot bear. You would not speak of your family. You said, But I found a new chapei teacher. Some people survived.
You got up then and took your chapei from the corner of the room and unwrapped it. You sat on the bed cross legged and you lay the instrument across your lap and plucked the two strings. You sang an old folk song about yearning for the time of the monsoon winds, oan samlanh, yearning to go to the festival with your love, wearing a new phamuong, oh dear one, going together to the festival with your love.
You looked at me to see if I still liked your singing.
When you first got back you walked across the city to your old street, past your old front door looking for your family. Nothing. You went to the Red Cross center with their lists of names. Nothing.
I met Chan, I said.
You went to my home?
Yes. It was the first place I looked.
You said, The country was like a shattered slate. Before they could think of drawing lines on it, they had to find the pieces and fit them together again.
You pulled open a drawer and took out a school notebook and flipped through it to show me pages of lyrics written in your precise Khmer script.
I have been learning the old songs, you said. I know many more than when I knew you. I have broken with tradition by writing them down.
Then you closed the book and put it back in the drawer and you took me in your arms and said, It seems like a dream, you here.
Dawn light soon filled the lines between the shutters and I did not want daylight and heat. We lay in bed touching, whispering.
What did you do?
I did not tell you the pain of receiving no word. I did not tell you how I wondered if a human being can invent love. I did not tell you how I began to notice that people marry every day not for love but because they are well matched, or lonely.
I said, At first I tried to telephone you but it was impossible. I sent letters to Phlauv 350. I studied and later I taught.
Your eyes were so alive. I laughed and said, I rented your old apartment. I painted the bedroom yellow again. For years I tried to tell myself that it was over. But a few weeks ago, I saw you on television. It was a ceremony for the dead at a school here. I thought I saw you in the crowd.
You said, I never go to those ceremonies.
I laughed, Then there was no reason to come at all.
I pretended to get up to leave but you pulled me back and I was happy that you could still play.
I said, The night after I thought I saw you, there was a late spring snowstorm. I walked from Bleury Street up past the Yellow Door and past La Bodega, where I tasted my first sangria with you and near the pub where you sang. I climbed past the university to the top of the mountain, where we argued about you leaving, and then I walked toward St. Joseph’s. Do you remember how we watched the people climbing the steps on their knees? I did not want to go home and I walked all the wayto the train station past Marie-Reine-du-Monde. I was tired but I kept walking, to old Montreal, past L’air du temps and I remembered Sonny and Brownie. Finally I went home. The whole city and every step reminded me of you.
A single tear slipped along the side of your nose and you brushed it away. You said, Let’s go out for a walk.
I said, No, wait. Tell me what
You said, All through Pol Pot time people could not speak freely. Neighbor against neighbor. Children trained to report on their families. People tried to hide inside the same skin. People pretended not to be city people, pretended not to understand foreign languages, tried to disguise soft hands, tried to pass as farmers, taxi drivers, street vendors.
Who did you find? Did you find Tien?
Musicians were the enemy. Students were the enemy. City people and educated people. Everything I had been was the enemy.
A soul protects itself from what it cannot bear. You would not speak of your family. You said, But I found a new chapei teacher. Some people survived.
You got up then and took your chapei from the corner of the room and unwrapped it. You sat on the bed cross legged and you lay the instrument across your lap and plucked the two strings. You sang an old folk song about yearning for the time of the monsoon winds, oan samlanh, yearning to go to the festival with your love, wearing a new phamuong, oh dear one, going together to the festival with your love.
You looked at me to see if I still liked your singing.
When you first got back you walked across the city to your old street, past your old front door looking for your family. Nothing. You went to the Red Cross center with their lists of names. Nothing.
I met Chan, I said.
You went to my home?
Yes. It was the first place I looked.
You said, The country was like a shattered slate. Before they could think of drawing lines on it, they had to find the pieces and fit them together again.
You pulled open a drawer and took out a school notebook and flipped through it to show me pages of lyrics written in your precise Khmer script.
I have been learning the old songs, you said. I know many more than when I knew you. I have broken with tradition by writing them down.
Then you closed the book and put it back in the drawer and you took me in your arms and said, It seems like a dream, you here.
Dawn light soon filled the lines between the shutters and I did not want daylight and heat. We lay in bed touching, whispering.
What did you do?
I did not tell you the pain of receiving no word. I did not tell you how I wondered if a human being can invent love. I did not tell you how I began to notice that people marry every day not for love but because they are well matched, or lonely.
I said, At first I tried to telephone you but it was impossible. I sent letters to Phlauv 350. I studied and later I taught.
Your eyes were so alive. I laughed and said, I rented your old apartment. I painted the bedroom yellow again. For years I tried to tell myself that it was over. But a few weeks ago, I saw you on television. It was a ceremony for the dead at a school here. I thought I saw you in the crowd.
You said, I never go to those ceremonies.
I laughed, Then there was no reason to come at all.
I pretended to get up to leave but you pulled me back and I was happy that you could still play.
I said, The night after I thought I saw you, there was a late spring snowstorm. I walked from Bleury Street up past the Yellow Door and past La Bodega, where I tasted my first sangria with you and near the pub where you sang. I climbed past the university to the top of the mountain, where we argued about you leaving, and then I walked toward St. Joseph’s. Do you remember how we watched the people climbing the steps on their knees? I did not want to go home and I walked all the wayto the train station past Marie-Reine-du-Monde. I was tired but I kept walking, to old Montreal, past L’air du temps and I remembered Sonny and Brownie. Finally I went home. The whole city and every step reminded me of you.
A single tear slipped along the side of your nose and you brushed it away. You said, Let’s go out for a walk.
I said, No, wait. Tell me what
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