Confiement Three

Ban Apinihan, 28/4/2020



Is it a forgotten city? I have always thought of her as such. A mole of forgetfulness in the Mekong plain going about her little business.



During the days of the lockdown the city, never a strong force in our lives, receded into a distant noiseless approach. Parties were at a muffled distance, traffic a seldom rumour.



Last night blended perfectly in from yesterday afternoon when I had some errands to run in town and instead of coming home directly I rode along on the city’s ring roads, past the Settatirat Hospital and into the courtyards of the open and illuminated temples there to confide amongst the gold-tinted reclining Buddhas and lone courtyard trees.



The streets were growing. People were out, shops were open and men sat drinking beer together. The lockdown is to be lifted on Monday next, in one week and already the people of Vientiane are spreading their wings. The traffic is buoyant if delicate, subdued yet flourishing. Everyone wore a mask as a concession to the orders.



Like every man with a family to care for at the edge of this brave new world, like every blindfolded sucker waiting for the axe to drop and the future to come smashing on our plans with its sharp and inevitable blade… like all men everywhere I sometimes look into the precipice and ask myself, wondering out loud. Whether there will be a world for my children.



In the midst of dark and frightening thoughts, thoughts like a granite gargoyle, thoughts as welcoming as a cob-crypt I found a meadow, a spot of forest and then, just then, I got a telephone call from people I had not seen or spoken to in twenty years; people who have always stayed in my heart, tucked like a reserve diamond in a refugee’s coat; a little wooden box I would open now and then to preserve their beauty.



And there they were. On WhatsApp. Older, yes, and still the same grace and humility, still the same love song to life and it came to me – the dry stone hills of the Galilee, the little hippy community of goat-cheese makers, the lone wood-burning stove in the living room of the old stone house. Rosh Pina.



The call from my past, their accented Hebrew, the inevitable joy and resignation. Sickness, old age, forever flourishing.



That is when I went temple hopping. The gates were open and the lights were on and at every corner the bright and accepting silent receiving of the Buddha statues. The delicious placidity and sweet gecko calls, the flying ants smothering the naked light bulbs carving halos through the night.



From temple to temple, like sailing through Greek islands until I made it home.