The Iron Bridge: Short Stories of 20th Century Dictators as Teenagers by Anton Piatigorsky Page B

stands in stark contrast to his present, decadent existence. The bitter memory of the monastery’s privations and restrictions has faded with time, leaving Sâr with a distilled recollection of that period in his life: the pride warming him each evening as he lay on his thin pallet, staring at the ceiling’s wooden slats, weary from hours of prayer and study, from washing and sifting rice, from sweeping courtyards covered in banyan leaves, from countless mundane but purifying tasks that were executed in an air of enforced silence, that were always done with great awareness of right conduct, right diligence, right motivation. His muscles ached each night inside his red novice’s robes. Goodness, wholesomeness, and purity filled young Saloth Sâr all throughout that year. Yes, there was the constant threat of beatings—and the pain of actual abuse—but that wasnothing compared with this present torture, this pointless life of filth and shame.
    Sâr walks towards the water, conscious of his body, all too aware of how his muscles move his legs. All around him the grass is mowed, the paths paved, the weeds pruned. Tall trees, mostly palms, spot the terrain. This pseudo-French park, extracted from a south Asian jungle and groomed into compliance, is located on a protruding elbow of land that marks the merging point of the powerful Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers. The wide blue sky above is fermenting into a longer spectrum of orange, yellow, red. The sun moves to kiss the horizon. An almost imperceptible breeze dries his skin. A distant
kahark
escapes from the throat of a grey heron riding the air currents above the river. Each step on the downy lawn forgives the trespass of his foot. Sâr wants none of this worldly stimulation. This body, this fleshy thing that pulses incessantly, that eats and ejaculates, imprisons with its various hungers, is not a welcome home. At this moment he would very much like to do away with it.
    He finds a wrought iron bench beneath an ornate lamppost and takes a seat. The water passing before him is calm, almost still, and the far shore is imperceptible in the distance.
The Chaktomuk
, he thinks. Sacred Four Faces: the confluence of Cambodia’s two powerful rivers, merging, mixing, and splitting again into two separate entities.
    He knows it was not right to visit them like that, to arrive at their small home fuelled by such desire. It was not proper at all. He must resist thinking about their bodies. He must not submit. But even now the boy can’t stop the flood ofimages, can’t stop his recalled bliss—the unimaginable pleasure, the way they stroked and pawed him, those gentle kisses delivered with smoky lips, the long scratches from hard fingernails. All of it makes his ears grow hot. His stomach churns rice and
prahoc
. Digestion seems a base and loathsome thing. An image of Chanlina, glassy eyed and recumbent, too intoxicated to get herself dressed, steals across his mind, and he clenches his teeth in an effort to make it go away. “You must not visit those dancers again,” he says out loud. “You must begin to foster a pure consciousness.” If he does not think in a pure way, how can his behaviour be pure?
    Now, closing his eyes, sealing them tight, Sâr tries to recall the sutras he memorized years ago, the ones he repeated by rote every day for the holy purpose of erasing himself and suppressing his desire, but the only thing he can manage to recall is the thrilling swelter of the dancers’ dingy room, the hot flush in their cheeks, the moisture of their brows, Chanlina’s smooth skin and tapered breasts, and the way her palm enveloped and cupped and stroked his—
    No!
    He knows sutras of great austerity. He knows antidotes to desire. His Pali, however rusty, allows phrases of extreme admonition to slip from his lips. He will loop them, repeat them, ad infinitum, until his need is gone, his desire abolished, his body lost in rhythm. “
The eye is to be abandoned
,” he chants in a