by Maggie Downs
I don’t know how much time passes before a phone call goes through to my friend Jill, who shows up in a car. She swoops us up, brings us to her house, and tucks us into bed. From that moment on, Cambodia is a relief.
I MET JILL AND HER HUSBAND, BILL, IN PALM SPRINGS. The couple are adventurers by nature and have traveled all over the globe, leading tours through China, Thailand, Peru, Israel, New Zealand, and even Mount Everest base camp. When they traveled to Cambodia, though, they had no idea how much their lives would change.
Bill had heard stories about Aki Ra, a former child soldier who once placed landmines for the Khmer Rouge. As an adult, Aki Ra wanted to make amends for the past, so he sought out landmines with a stick and deactivated the explosives by hand, created a museum to teach visitors about the horrors of landmines, and opened a facility to care for dozens of children who had been wounded by landmines. (Though the conflict has long ended and it’s impossible to know how many explosives remain active in Cambodia, an estimated 6 to 10 million still pepper the jungles, fields, and farmland. The weapons continue to maim or kill thousands of children, farmers, and other civilians every year.)
During his first visit to Siem Reap, Bill found Aki Ra and was impressed by the man. Here was someone willing to place his life on the line to better his community and elevate the lives of his neighbors. He was someone focused on making the future better, not dwelling on the past.
Bill, who has eleven marathons under his belt and has climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, is someone who knows how to get things done. He sold his marketing consulting business in Palm Springs and then assisted Aki Ra with getting the proper certification and equipment to legally and safely remove the mines. He learned everything there was to know about finding explosives and disarming them, and he came up with a plan to train and employ Cambodian teams of deminers. Then he established a nonprofit organization, the Landmine Relief Fund, to pay for these efforts.
Finally Bill and Jill packed up their belongings, sold their house, and moved to Cambodia for the rest of their lives. While most people settled down for their retirement years, Bill and Jill reinvented themselves. The great thing about having friends who do selfless work is that their actions inspire me just by bearing witness. The bad thing is that it makes me question if I’m doing enough with my own life.
It’s easy to see why Cambodia carved a place in their hearts. There are pink lotus blossoms, pale like a tinted lip gloss, that float over glassy ponds. There are monkeys that tumble alongside the red-orange dirt roads. And of course the temples are remarkable, among the largest religious structures on earth and an artistic achievement.
STANDING BEFORE ANGKOR WAT, I SEE THE TEMPLE NOT just through my own eyes, but also slightly disassociated from my body.
I remember the copy of National Geographic in which I saw Angkor for the first time. I was maybe six or seven, and the cover image floored me. It was simply a carved stone face with cracks, bisected by a green vine that promised new life. The headline to the right of the carving said, “The Temples of Angkor: Will They Survive?”
At that time, Cambodia was the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea, and the temple complex was controlled by government troops. Hardly anyone had seen the temples since the Khmer Rouge took control of the nation. Some thought the structures had been severely damaged or demolished—until a National Geographic writer, editor, and photographer were granted entry to see the seventy-two major monuments. What they catalogued for the magazine was an architectural wonder of the world that had been damaged by war, conflict, vandalism, and the surrounding jungle, but it still existed, was still magnificent, and was not beyond the point of preservation.
The articles were accompanied by maps, aerial images, illustrations, and close-ups of bas-reliefs, each page more enchanting than the next. I had never seen anything like it, and my mother hadn’t either. I remember the wistful tone in her voice, the cock of her head, the way she tucked a blonde curl of hair behind her ear. This was a place she desired to go, but in the 1980s, it seemed unlikely. Angkor was about as attainable as Atlantis.
Now I’m here. The temple that looms before me is not in a magazine. I see the majestic spires, the elegant bas-relief carvings, the expansive complex that is probably bigger than my hometown. The five peaks of the central building are supposed to symbolize Mount Meru, a sacred golden mountain that is considered by some religions to be the center of the universe and to exist in both spiritual and physical planes. The way the sunlight hits this tower now, I can envision it—as though I’m standing in that mythical place and only my feet are still on a ruddy dirt path in the jungle.
I see all this with my own eyes, but I also absorb it through the lens of my mom as well. This is awesome in the purest sense of the word.
The Siem Reap province contains dozens of Buddhist and Hindu temples, most of which date back to the twelfth century. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which means that people flock to the archeological park from all over the globe, but none of them are as excited as me. They can’t be.
I am comforted by these ancient spaces. I do think about all the now-dead people who have passed through the same doorways and passages where I walk now, but more than that, I think about the life that existed here. How many people loved and danced, prayed and cried, took vows, made jokes, sang songs, chanted long into the night? How many mothers have held their daughters’ hands? How many people mourned? How many people were just like me—carrying around three months of fresh grief, or ten years and three months of extended grief, struggling under the weight of emotional baggage?
Those people might have been lost to memory, but I know that matter stays here on earth. We are made of tiny particles, and it relieves me to think that the smallest pieces of people remain here, that atoms of all walks of life exist here—some of them strangers to me but possibly some of them relatives too. They have mingled with the ground and the air, they have become part of this silent city itself, and I stand with them and among them and breathe them in.
My family doesn’t have a mythology to call its own, but here, in a vast temple that has seen layer upon layer of life, I believe I am a part of an intricate and special network.
Later I walk around a relatively small tenth-century temple called Banteay Srei, which instantly becomes my favorite. Compared to Angkor Wat, this temple feels tiny, like a music box, but the carvings are even more intricate and spectacular. It’s constructed out of pink sandstone, and some of the bas-relief panels have been deepened with moss and the shadows of centuries. The temple was dedicated to the Hindu deity Shiva, and most of the carvings are feminine with decorative borders; leafy, ornamental swirls; fantastical birds; and beautiful women. There’s one woman in particular who resembles my mother in her strong nose, the spread of her hips, the slight smile of her lips. The figure is an apsara, a supernatural female spirit of the clouds and waters, and with one hand up by her shoulder, the other extended, it looks like she is poised to ask someone to dance. Seeing her is like looking at someone I know, but slightly rearranged, like looking at a loved one in a dream.
Looming over the entire scene is a carving of Kala, a mischievous-looking character who represents time, the destroyer of all things.
AFTER SIEM REAP, ANGIE AND I SPEND SEVERAL DAYS EXPLORING the busy capital city of Phnom Penh. The city feels sprawling and cosmopolitan. We take a boat trip along the “four faces”—the place where the Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers meet the lower Mekong and Bassac rivers. We get massages and have cocktails at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club along the waterfront. We take a Khmer cooking class. We pay our respects to the dead at the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.
During one last excursion before Angie heads home, we make a shopping trip to the Tuol Tompoung in Phnom Penh, more often known as the Russian Market for its popularity among Russian shoppers and expatriates. It’s lively and confusing, a maze of vendors selling everything from fine textiles and silver jewelry to (probably fake) Rolex watches and whiskey bottl
es with dead cobras coiled inside. There are tables piled with brand-name clothing, like Banana Republic and J.Crew—items that are made in Cambodia and sold at steep discounts here—as well as high-end handbags at bargain prices. Also piles of sunglasses. Everybody loves Ray-Bans.
The stalls are pinched closely together, covered by a patchwork of corrugated metal and colorful cloth awnings, filtering the hot, late-afternoon sun into beams of blue and pink light. The overlapping umbrellas of cafés form a ring around the market, where sweaty and hardworking cooks dunk noodles into hot metal pots of soup, grill meat on sticks, and artfully chop up bags of fruit. Plastic chairs and tables overflow into the chaotic streets, where even more shops and restaurants line the roads.
I’m in the market when I see a Western man. He’s older, standing stiffly in an intersection of stalls, where a rainbow of embroidered cloth purses hang all the way to the ceiling and baseball caps are sold alongside alleged antiquities. The man appears overwhelmed, like most every tourist here, but there’s something else. It’s a familiar look in his eyes. I know it. I’ve seen it a million times in my mother’s.
I’m not a doctor, so I can’t diagnose him. I don’t know if he has Alzheimer’s or some other type of dementia. But his gaze is empty, as though he’s trying make sense of a 3D image with a hidden picture inside. I am certain he is lost.
I approach him gently and touch him on the shoulder.
“Can I help you find something?” I say.
A wave of relief crashes over his face, and his words tumble out, tripping over themselves, not forming a full sentence: “I’m just … my driver … I don’t know where … I can’t … my hotel?” and finally he says he can’t find his way outside.
I introduce myself, and I take the tall, rumpled man by the arm. I’m happy to show him the way, I say, even though I’m not sure if I should be taking this on. What happens once we get outside? Am I responsible for him? But I know I would feel guilty leaving him inside the market, disoriented and alone.
There were people who did this for my mom. They counted her money at the grocery store, located her car in a busy parking lot, and helped her find her way home again. Maybe some people took advantage of her too; I’ll never know. One thing that will always haunt me is the fact that my mom was still involved in the world for a long time before my family realized she needed some protection from it.
This man and I walk through the labyrinthian hallways toward the main entrance, which seems like the most likely place to go. I have my arm looped through his, like he’s my genteel grandfather, and occasionally I have to tug at the man to keep him moving in the right direction, not wandering into a stall. Along the way I ask for his name, and he doesn’t know it.
What he does remember are Catholic saints, and he tells me that I’m like St. Anthony, a thirteenth-century Franciscan priest, the finder of lost things.
“I used to ask St. Anthony to find my car keys,” the man says, grinning. “Now I’m always asking him to find myself.”
We chat a little more about patron saints—I briefly attended Our Lady of the Rosary for elementary school, and sometimes I surprise myself by plucking random Catholic factoids out of my brain like a bear snatching a fish from a fast-moving stream—and then we arrive at the entrance of the market.
“Martin!” a Cambodian man shouts.
The man at my side looks across a buzzy crush of people, and the light snaps into his eyes again.
“That’s me!” he says. “I’m Martin.”
The eagerly waving Cambodian man is his driver. I guide Martin across the street to the place where the man is waiting next to a tuk-tuk. There is a nice leather messenger bag on the backseat and an open soda can on the floor. When I talk to the driver, it’s clear the two are well-acquainted; the driver says he has been taking care of Martin for a few days around Phnom Penh. Usually he accompanies Martin, but for some reason today Martin wanted to venture into the market by himself. He had been in there for hours; at this point, the driver wasn’t sure if he should go look for the man or stay with the vehicle, where the two agreed they would meet up again.
From what I can tell from this brief conversation, Martin made this trip from the United States to Cambodia by himself. I don’t know why, and I’m not sure how long he’s been traveling or where he intends to go. I only know he’s been relying on the goodwill of others to help him stay the course.
People with Alzheimer’s or other types of dementia often experience “sundowning,” when they become agitated and confused late in the day and into the night. They wander. They pace. They are restless. Maybe traveling to Cambodia was Martin’s version of sundowning, a restlessness that involved changing continents.
My family expected my mom to wander when she still lived at home, which is why we put stop signs on the door and outfitted her with a GPS-tracking-device wristwatch, but she never went far. What she did was prowl the downstairs of the house, shuffling from one room to the next, wringing her hands, as though she had forgotten something. It was always something just out of reach, like trying to retrieve a dream that had already dissipated, the memory evanescent. Whenever we encouraged her to sit or to rest, it only made her irritable and aggressive, so we let her pace until it was time for bed.
Often she looked out the window at passing cars. Sometimes she stared at the Hummel figurines and glass animals in the china cabinet, treasures she put on layaway and obtained one by one; by the time she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, she didn’t remember them at all. They were things that gathered dust.
I recall trying to settle my mom one night. She stood by the living room window, her back to me, angry because I told her she needed to get some sleep. When she finally turned to face me, she swung around so fast, I thought she was going to strike me, which was unlike her but typical of a confused and frustrated person with Alzheimer’s.
Instead she wobbled for a minute and then steadied herself. She looked vulnerable, a face crumpled with exhaustion, a woman who had been wrestling with demons. She touched a hand to her forehead, then pressed down on her temple.
“My head. Why does it hurt?”
Let Go
I AM WAIST-DEEP IN BRASSIERES.
The shopkeeper thrusts more and more lacy lingerie my way while pulling from a Jenga tower of ribbons, tulle, and silk that threatens to engulf us both. I know this was probably a mistake—the market in Hanoi would be a better choice for picking up new luggage or an umbrella—but I need a new bra, and right now this market is the best option I have.
I’ve been traveling for eleven months now with the same two bras. They are utilitarian. One is black, one is nude, neither is pretty. Over time, they have both started to fall apart, but the nude one has sustained considerably more damage. It was stained a weird gray after sharing the wash with Thai pants that leaked blue dye. It smells like a musty gym sock, thanks to a Laundromat that stuffed my washed clothes into a plastic bag before they were dry. I no longer want this bra close to my skin.
The piles of pretty lace at the market are seductive, and I want those new, frilly things. They look so feminine and joyful and clean. I want to be that clean. I want clothes that are frivolous and impractical, underthings with bows, something that will chafe if I wear it on a hike. But today, I will settle for a bra that fits. Any bra. And this is proving to be a challenge.
The shopkeeper doesn’t speak English (because why would she?) and I don’t speak Vietnamese.
She hands me bras that look like wispy handkerchiefs, bras so flat they are practically concave, and push-up bras with something that feels like raw chicken positioned in each cup.
I try to communicate that I need something more substantial. I point to my chest. I cup my hands in front of my body and make a sinking gesture with my palms. “Big,” I say. “Very large.”
The woman nods. She pulls out more bras. She tosses them in my direction, rapid-fire, like a blackjack dealer.
Some of them are horrifically ugly with rhinestoned
florals, garish crimson with gold sequins, cartoon characters. But most of them simply have no chance of fitting around my frame. It makes me think back to Buenos Aires and all the jeans I attempted to squeeze my body into. Back then, I thought the problem resided with my body; I was trying to conform to another canister, to shape my body into something that wasn’t mine. Now I see that my body is fine. It’s the clothes that don’t work.
I point to my chest again, and inexplicably I sound like the Incredible Hulk at a fruit stand. “Need big,” I say. “Big like mango.”
By now a small crowd has formed. They have come from the perfume stalls, the shoe stalls, the purse stalls. They gape at me, and I should be self-conscious, but I’m not. I recognize how bizarre I must look, a frazzled white woman hoisting her own breasts in the air, hollering, “Bigger!”
The shopkeeper nods. We go through the whole thing again. More bras, none that will ever fit because all of them have tags that say “A.” I point to the tag and scribble down letters. “C”? “D”? Heck, “Z”?
The shopkeeper plunges into the recesses of her stall, and I wait.
I think of my mom all the time, of course, but the memories are strongest when I’m shopping for clothes. My mom loved pretty things. She loved slipping into something new, becoming a different person. We didn’t have much money, but she always dressed well. She often put clothes on layaway, paying them off a little at a time, until she could slide them into her closet. She stain-treated items carefully, washed them lovingly—by hand, if she had to—line dried in the backyard, pressed with an iron and spray starch, and then hung them in her closet again. When her closet got too full, my dad bought a separate wardrobe for her dresses, blouses, and sweaters. She loved to buy clothes for me too, even though our tastes didn’t match so our choice in clothes rarely did.
The first time she brought me bra shopping, it was because I was required to wear a uniform at Our Lady of the Rosary. The Peter Pan collar shirt I had to wear each day, my choice of white or light blue, was made out of thin fabric, and I was self-conscious about my budding body. I began to wear undershirts to put one more layer between my body and the world. I don’t remember which boy noticed, but someone named Jeremy or Brian or Brad saw the strap and assumed it was a bra. Then that kid spread the word that I was the sluttiest girl in our fourth-grade class because I wore a bra and none of the other girls did. (His logic was flawed, but so is the logic of many fourth-grade boys.) Soon afterward, I asked my mom to take me bra shopping, and she was surprised, but I wanted to own that. If I was going to be shamed by my class, at least let me claim the source of it.