She thinks of an early excursion they made to the waterfalls at Kirirom together with some friends of her big brother. Sar was friendly with them too. There was that paradoxical feeling of strength and delicacy about him, like poetry she thinks now. How she had immediately felt she wanted to spend endless amounts of time in his kind, attentive company.
She had not waited for him to take the initiative. Patience of that sort is not in her nature. Then, as now, behind that charming and easy-going exterior he was very cautious. He never seems to do anything in too much of a hurry, he waits until it is possible to survey all the consequences. She can’t imagine how long it would have taken him to make an approach. So instead she had asked him whether he would like to come to Kep-sur-Mer with her and her friends the following weekend.
He had said yes—after a moment’s hesitation, if she remembers rightly. She wonders now what he had seen in her, in that self-confident precocious schoolgirl who had invited him so bluntly. On that occasion she had obviously forgotten any sense of what was proper, filled as she was with the feelings of closeness and intimacy she sensed had arisen instantly between them.
There had been no shortage of suitors before Sar. But they had courted her in one of two ways: either by being ingratiating, bowing and scraping; or by acting superior, as if generously offering to raise her to their level.
Sar on the other hand had talked to her as if she was just like him.
A little while after his departure, however, their past began to lose colour and as the months turned into years, he became a sort of abstract love. She had then begun to focus her desires on the future and on his return. But there were times when she felt destroyed by the seemingly never-ending present that consisted only of countless days without him.
But, she thinks, even while she clung on loyally to the thought of his return and the many forms of welcome she was planning for him, she was unconsciously settling into a different kind of existence. An existence that was undoubtedly dependent on Sar, since he was the one she always pointed to when her family (maternal grandfather, mother’s two paternal aunts, all her many uncles, her many uncles’ wives, the majority of her cousins) demanded that she should marry or at least accept a male guardian. But Sar was on the other side of the globe and that meant she was her own master. And it also meant that his absence, which she viewed at the time as an unbearably long ordeal, gave her a respite in which to contemplate the role that tradition had allotted her in the life she was expected to lead. It allowed her to come to a number of conclusions that even someone as broad-minded as Sar found difficult to accept.
It can be put even more bluntly: his absence was the precondition for her to become the person she became.
The person she is now.
And with time she got used to the loneliness, although she described it to others and to herself as a burden she had to bear. But that, too, eventually became a lie, though it was one she continued to believe in.
And she thinks, in what she thinks of as a moment of clarity, that she misses the Sar that she missed when he was away, not the one who stubbornly insists on being everywhere now that he has returned.
She is still very fond of his company, but their meetings leave her with a feeling that there is a gap, and it’s a gap that’s growing. She doesn’t know how to deal with this expanding empty space.
She looks out over the square and suddenly remembers a visit she made to the cinema with two of her mother’s younger friends when she was a fifteen-year-old. The friends had been visiting from France and she both envied and was fascinated by their self-confidence and elegant cynicism. She has forgotten the name of the film but she can remember that it was about two people in love whose relationship became more and more destructive. By the end of the film they hated each other as much as they had loved one another at the start. In spite of this they could not bring themselves to go their separate ways. After the film her mother’s friends were ecstatic as they walked through the insect symphony in the clear starry night. Suddenly they turned to her and asked what she had thought of the film. It was so unexpected. That she had been allowed to go with them, that they had even asked her opinion, gave her the courage to be open-hearted. She answered that she had found the couple’s relationship improbable. Why had the two of them come to hate one another? And why had they continued to let themselves suffer in the relationship when they were neither married nor engaged? Her mother’s friends had exchanged glances and one of them asked whether she had ever experienced passion. She answered, a little uncertainly now, that she didn’t know whether she had or not. They had laughed at her and said that if she didn’t know she certainly had not. One of them had then added that you will understand one day, my little one.
She still does not understand that stupid film. But she is in no doubt that her mother’s friends were right. She recognizes that her relationship with Sar is not like that, however carried away she has been at times.
And what about Sary? She thinks it unlikely that her relationship with him constitutes a passion in the sense of the film, though it is perhaps too soon to know for sure. But she is fascinated by his remarkable ability to attract. She has met many powerful men who have been used to power in itself being attractive to young women.
It has never had any effect on her. Indeed, it has usually had the opposite effect.
But in Sary’s case power does not precede attraction, nor is it its precondition, so to speak: it is sort of secondary and sort of entwined with something else. And what is that something else? She knows it is not his appearance, nor the way he behaves, nor any great fortune, because none of those things are particularly remarkable. It is something else, something she did not even notice when she decided at the beauty pageant to accept his invitation and join him at his table. But since then she has been drawn into his magic circle, which she is absolutely sure she can leave whenever she wants, but she doesn’t want to leave it since it both interests and entertains her.
She feels that it’s rather like taking part in some sport or game at which she is proving to be very good even though she has never played it before.
Then she sees Chinnary standing with her bicycle outside La Tavèrne, feet down by the pedals as if she has been forced to stop unexpectedly. Standing there, sort of rigid, sort of at a loss. She assumes that Chinnary has come straight from teaching. She is wearing her dark-blue teacher’s skirt and her white blouse, her bicycle basket full of books.
She lifts her hand, gives a little wave with her gloves. Her friend sees the movement and seems rather relieved.
Chinnary orders a Vichy Célestins, takes a seat and fans her round perspiring face with today’s paper, which flickers back and forth between VICTORY and Gitanes for the Real Connoisseur.
And says (her voice has its usual sharp ironic tinge): Well, who would have thought it would be so clear-cut?
Somaly’s initial impulse is to give in to the pressure caused by weeks of uncertain waiting (an uncertainty that has now been reduced to neat voting statistics and transformed into harmless percentages) to discuss the result of the election and the reasons for it for hours. Not in order to understand, because she certainly does understand, but in order to put into words something that is nagging at her because it is wordless.
But the predictability of a conversation of that sort only induces a feeling of jaded weariness. And she realizes that she wants to be alone with her disappointment. Disappointment about what? Not necessarily (or not at all) because the Democrats lost. Nor because of what Chinnary is actually saying, which is that what happened was inevitable but it’s a pity it was done with such a complete lack of finesse. No, the feeling of loss has more to do with the end of an expectation—an expectation which, in itself, had been quite sufficient for her.
Perhaps, she thinks, it hadn’t so much been a different world she wanted from the change, what she had been longing for was a change in herself.
Then, of course, there is Chinnary, who still thinks o
f Sar and Somaly as a unit and therefore presumes that Somaly shares her fiancé’s outrage at the unfair defeat of the Democrats. And who will consequently talk to her in line with a series of assumptions that would reduce Somaly to something she isn’t—and she is not in the mood to pretend.
How can Chinnary be so sure of her opinions? Somaly asks herself (without acknowledging that she herself has consistently supported the opposition until now). If the Democrats succeeded in overthrowing the kingdom with its many thousands of years of history, she would lose her title of princess, along with the modest privileges it brings. And quite apart from her own loss of rank, wasn’t she more likely to be loyal to her family, her kin, her heritage, than to the upstart who was her fiancé? Was there any serious chance that she would completely distance herself from her upbringing, from where she really belonged?
So she sits there in silence while Chinnary chatters on: It’s one thing to lose the election, but to do so in such a humiliating fashion! Who is going to believe statistics like that? My students are in a state of uproar. What will the outside world say? That the prince likes to make a fool of himself on the screen is one thing, but to produce a farce with the whole world as its audience is just excruciating.
She doesn’t answer, waits for her friend to finish.
But she continues. As if the violence hadn’t been bad enough? Murder, riots, arson. Brutality. The arrest of Vannsak and other party leaders. Do you have any news of them? Chinnary asks, her anger undisturbed by any signs of concern.
Somaly shakes her head.
Chinnary says that, at least, Sar is back at school, that he was teaching earlier today.
How does Somaly feel about receiving that particular piece of information? She had been unconcerned, convinced that he had left the city.
Her appearance gives nothing away. The same inscrutable expression behind the sunglasses, the drinking straw rolling back and forth between the fingertips of her left hand.
Inwardly, however, the impulse to flee, to get away, to go, is raging.
But, she thinks, trying to gain control of her panic, irrespective of when his working day finishes or finished, he must be (or must have been) in a hurry to catch the bus. It’s difficult to get to Kompong Thom before dark, and he has even farther to go if he is to get to his parents’ farm, on small roads that are not much more than ox tracks, if she remembers rightly. So it is very unlikely that he will turn up at the Café de la Poste.
But what does Chinnary mean when she says that Sar is back? She asks in a carefully modulated tone of concern, adding that so much has been going on recently, what with the election, that she had assumed he had been too busy to keep in touch—and so on.
Chinnary tells her that several of the politically active teachers had not been at work the week before. Some had been arrested and others stayed out of sight because of that. It was a relief to see that Sar was one of the latter. And: The police wouldn’t touch such a popular teacher unnecessarily.
His cautiousness again, Somaly thinks.
Furthermore: so that’s what his future looks like now. Not a minister, a magister more like. A respectable enough profession, you only have to think of her own father, and there is a certain amount of space for theoretical radicalism behind the desk. But it’s a long way short of the major political circles he has been moving in over the last year. No sign of glittering prospects there, no sign of the position their marriage would demand. Nothing.
It’s as if the future has finally arrived. The fact that the family allowed her mother to marry an ordinary schoolteacher has come to be seen over the years as the big mistake, even though he came from a good family. Sar doesn’t even have ancestors (the goodwill he has been able to draw on at court, Somaly knows, arises simply from his sister having been the old king’s favourite concubine for a while). And if Somaly insists on continuing the relationship they will all be against her. She would run the risk of being disowned. That’s a risk she would have taken earlier—partly from love and partly to show them that she makes up her own mind. But now?
The complications are overwhelming. It’s impossible to think a way to any sort of conclusion, she thinks. Only time can produce a clear answer out of all these conflicting emotions.
Chinnary takes a sip of her Vichy water, gives a little burp, carries on mulling things over, says that this business of the ballot boxes, this business of the election officials filling them with false ballot papers. It is all so… so unsophisticated.
She sits there in silence, testing her feelings. She shares Chinnary’s relief that Sar has come to no harm. And feels a misplaced pride that he is popular with his students. But what she feels above all is that she does not want to be part of some tacit understanding with Chinnary. Why not? It’s true that they have never been close friends but they have almost always seen eye to eye in politics. Now, however, what she is saying seems exaggerated, sleazy.
She asks: How can you be so sure of it?
Chinnary snorts that the litter bins outside the polling stations in Russey Keo were so full of voting papers that the lids wouldn’t close. And they weren’t the papers with the prince’s portrait on them, whatever people say. And there are many similar cases.
Taking advantage of the inscrutability provided by sunglasses, she says in a tone of indifference: The prince is very popular.
She can’t decide whether she has succeeded in confusing her friend, who is now leaning forward over her glass and appears to be watching the regular round bubbles rising to the surface. But she wants Chinnary to stop believing things about her, to stop assuming that her loyalty is a given.
The problem, of course, is that she herself is no longer certain where her loyalty lies.
She places some coins on the table, makes an excuse and says she has to go.
Chinnary shows no sign of getting up. Merely adds that the election result will soon be overturned, that the International Control Commission will never endorse it. Her friend looks up, her eyes just as defiant as before.
She forces a quick smile, says, see you soon and means the opposite.
Where is Somaly’s mother, her Maman?
She finds her mother in the garden behind the house. She is bending over the bed by the far wall. Sunglasses, an elegant cadmium yellow sun-hat and a stained apron in the same shade.
Completely unnecessary work, Somaly thinks, spoils your nails and your hands.
She dries the stone bench under the trees with a dirty towelling rag. From the weather-bleached pattern of roses she recognizes it as her own towel, one she had been looking for a month or so before.
Her mother is standing there straight-legged but bent double over the low bushes of white flowers. The secateurs snip through the thin grey branches with their dark thick leaves.
The garden is silent, resting in afternoon stillness.
Still perspiring from her walk home she would like something to drink, but the servants are taking their siesta. She lights a cigarette instead, watches the smoke rising slowly, unruffled by the wind.
Delicate pink lotus flowers are reflected in the pool in front of her. She can hear the sharp click of secateurs. They could employ a gardener if mother wanted one. But Maman enjoys doing that kind of work herself.
Not that any gardener would allow a garden to look like this one. It lacks both beauty and structure. Some parts of it seem to have been neglected on purpose, others utterly regimented. There is no position from which an observer can get a really good view without low trees and bushes obscuring it. The colours of the flowers rarely harmonize with one another and the placing of some of the plantings appears to be arbitrary.
It seems to her quite the opposite to mother’s well-organized and productive rubber plantations. They are closer, she feels, to Sar’s idea of what is beautiful. He has always sought perfection and has no understanding of the attraction of imperfection. Of things that are flawed. And this trait has become even more marked since he returned. Earlier on he did at least
show some openness in the face of the incomplete, whereas now he seems to be constantly striving to achieve the absolute.
And her other man, how does he view perfection and imperfection? She doesn’t know but she imagines that he sees them as possibilities rather than as static conditions. Something that can lead him and the country towards the goal that is always in view but always remains at a constant distance.
The reason for the endless hours Mother spends in the garden is something that evades her. Her first thought was that it might be the same beauty of imperfection that she herself is so fond of. But when she mentioned this, her mother replied that if Somaly didn’t understand then there was no point in trying to explain.
In spite of all the work she does, Mother never makes any fuss about her jardin when they have guests. Aperitifs are sometimes served out on the veranda but no one ever mentions the asymmetric layout down below.
They are sitting together now on the stone bench. Mother wipes her hands on her apron and asks about the city. She answers that it seemed normal, that she has spent a while at the Café de la Poste and there was no one there apart from Chinnary, whom Mother only knows by name. But that was to be expected, wasn’t it, since it’s just before the feast days. She adds that the streets around the burnt-out party headquarters have obviously been cordoned off.
Mother says that that’s what happens. That those sans-culottes had gone too far, hadn’t understood the limits of what was achievable.
A week earlier Somaly would have contradicted her, quoted Sar and said that everything is possible if people want it, but a statement like that seems naïve and meaningless now.
She sees just a hint of a supercilious smile on her mother’s lips, as if to say: I know what you’re thinking.
Song for an Approaching Storm Page 22