“There you are,” said Jean-Baptiste. “How’re you getting on? Do you like football?”
“Yes,” said Raksmey, flushed from his exertions. “Did you find Grandma?”
Jean-Baptiste got down on one knee. “Yes, of course,” he said. “She had just gone out to find her old house, and she had gotten lost. How silly of her. Apparently she had left a note for us but it had slipped underneath the bed.”
Raksmey studied him. “But she was sick.”
“You know your grandmother. She’s never one to let anything keep her down,” he said. “Have you made any friends here?”
Raksmey shrugged. “Some of the boys are mean.”
“Yes, well, this happens, unfortunately. And I’m afraid it won’t change, wherever you go. These boys are scared of their own deficiencies.”
“Yes, Papa.”
“How are the studies? Are they difficult?”
“They put me with the oldest class in science. It’s a bit easy. But the boys laughed at me. They said I was un phénomène de la nature.”
“Well, that doesn’t sound so bad,” said Jean-Baptiste.
Raksmey blinked at him.
“Okay, go out and play. Score some goals!”
“They won’t let me score,” Raksmey said and ran off.
Monsieur Than joined him on the sidelines. He was carrying a rolled-up umbrella, even though the sky was clear.
“You were right,” said the rector. “Raksmey is most unusual. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a student quite like him.”
“You need to protect him. The other children don’t understand.”
“Boys can be like that. We’ll make sure he gets the attention he deserves.”
“Did you get my instructions?” Jean-Baptiste asked.
“Yes, I wanted to talk with you about this—”
“I’ve been thinking,” said Jean-Baptiste. “I believe this break has caused too much discontinuity in the experiment. I’d like to do the observations myself, at least for the first month or so. Then I can train one of your own teachers to pick up after me. But it’s critical right now—”
Monsieur Than cleared his throat.
“Monsieur de Broglie, I admire what you’ve done with Raksmey. You’ve clearly taught him a great deal. But you’ve sensed there are things that. . that you cannot teach him. This, I assume, is why you’ve brought him to us.”
The whistle blew. Raksmey had fallen. He looked over to where Jean-Baptiste and the rector were standing and then pulled himself up. Another boy slapped him on the back of the head. Jean-Baptiste instinctively cringed.
“I realized I could not be everything for him,” Jean-Baptiste said, staring at the boys milling about. “He needs socialization with other children.”
“Among other things,” said Monsieur Than. “He also — and please do not take this the wrong way — he also needs to be away from his father for some time.”
Jean-Baptiste took a step back. “What do you mean? I made him into who he is!”
“No, Monsieur de Broglie, you did not make him—”
“Where would he be without me?”
“Nor did his mother make him. Nor did God, nor Buddha, nor whomever you ascribe your ascendant powers to. Raksmey can only make himself, and in order for him to do this, your project — as honorable as it is — must end here. I won’t force you. You’re free to withdraw Raksmey from the collège at this very moment. But if you choose to keep him here, if you truly wish for us to be partners, then you must agree to entrust him to us and to let him go. I would ask that you leave and visit us again in four months. I know this may seem harsh, but it’s absolutely necessary. For you as much as for him.”
• • •
JEAN-BAPTISTE STAYED in Saigon for two more weeks. At night, in search again of that beautiful, horrific sensation du familier, he began to frequent an opium parlor in District 5. The door was tended by a madam named Phuong. She never smiled as she took his money. The dimly lit parlor, which consisted of a damp cement room adorned with a meager collection of pillows and dull green army mattresses, was populated by potbellied French colonials who had lost their way; sleepy-eyed American servicemen on R&R, happy enough to wax melancholic about the impending war; the occasional Chinese diplomat who took his drug and said nothing at all.
Jean-Baptiste lay there in the gloom and thought of his wife, of his mother, of his father, of Raksmey, of Tien, of the river and the jungle, the jungle that had become his jungle. He thought of everything that had come to pass, all the words spoken and not spoken, everything said and done and never done, and the promise of a forgiveness that would never come. The depth of his loneliness surprised and soothed him. Stumbling home from the parlor late one night, his left hand bleeding from an incident he could not recall, he realized he would always be alone — that he had always been alone.
There was nothing left but to leave.
“Please,” he told the hotel’s concierge. “If my mother shows up, tell her to wire this number in Phnom Penh. They’ll get word to me. Give her this letter. Tell her I’m not angry. Tell her I love her.”
“Monsieur,” the concierge said, bowing.
“You’ll tell her?”
“Monsieur?”
“You’ll tell her everything?”
The concierge bowed again. “I will try,” he said.
Jean-Baptiste packed his bags and hers, including the little wooden doll, and started back to the place from which he had come.
7. MARCH 1975
There were only five other people on his flight to Phnom Penh, and none appeared to be Cambodian. Raksmey squinted out the airplane window at the rolling green expanse of his country. He had not been home in eleven years. The plane lurched, then steadied itself. In the distance, something burned, the smoke pooling pleasantly in the air. From this height the world was in miniature, like a museum exhibit, content with its own beauty, wanting of nothing.
After his passport was stamped by a plump, bored army officer, Raksmey wandered through what looked to be an abandoned airport. Inside the main terminal, a series of plastic buckets filled with greasy mechanic’s tools were lined up next to a deserted security checkpoint. Nearby, a lone worker mopped at the floor, though the floor appeared to be clean.
As he was walking past the shuttered airport café, Raksmey heard someone call his name — once, twice. He turned, and there was Tien, standing in a white short-sleeved shirt and slim blue slacks. The two men embraced, laughed, nearly falling into a dusty ficus tree.
“You survived?” Tien asked in Khmer, holding on to Raksmey’s shoulder as if he might fly away.
“Survived what?” Raksmey answered in French.
“Sometimes the Khmer Rouge shoot at planes coming to land.” Tien switched to French.
“No one told me this!” said Raksmey.
“Better not to know,” Tien smiled. “How is life in Europe? You are a big man now?”
Raksmey held up his arms. “Not so big.”
“Where do you live?”
“Geneva,” said Raksmey. “Switzerland.”
“Your father. .” His voice caught. “He said you are working inside a tunnel. Like a rabbit.”