5

She didn’t acknowledge his presence, but it was her right not to. The guesthouse was a public place, but one that nevertheless allowed for a certain amount of privacy.

He lingered by the door, even though he was curious about the hearth, which had been prepared for a demonstration of the coffee ceremony. An authentic kettle hung from an iron tripod. There was a sack of marsh coffee, a grinder, a coffeepot—everything necessary for a hospitable cup, even a battered tin of sugar.

Marshmen started coffee fires the ancient way: with flint. When he was first shown the fire starters, which were shaped like spearheads, he’d marveled at the ingenuity of finding a domestic use for a killing point. Later, he was told that the similarity of the fire starters to spear tips was coincidental, but he preferred to think of it his own way: the beating of a sword into a plowshare. It seemed to represent progress. This was back when he believed in progress, when he saw himself as an agent of it.

The fire starters were supposed to be in a leather bag that hung from a hook as one entered the guesthouse, always on the right, never on the left. He looked on the right side, but there was no leather bag. Neither was it on the other side of the doorway.

In addition to the fire-starting fetish about left and right, the marshmen also had a rule about north and south. He walked the length of the guesthouse and found the bag hanging in exactly the wrong place: by the left side of the southern door.

He took the bag and hefted it. Its precious shifting contents felt strangely intimate in his palm. He looked around self-consciously, but there was no one here to call him out, no one to mock him.

He squatted by the hearth and made a small pile of dried grass. He could sense objections forming inside of her, but she didn’t voice them. The tinder pile sparked easily. He built up a mound of sand around the base of the tripod, and as the water heated in the kettle, he added a ring of stones. The stones weren’t really necessary. There was plenty of sand to kill a fire, but he wanted her to relax.

He toasted a handful of coffee beans, then ground them. The grinder was fancier than he was used to. It had a porcelain knob. He was used to wooden knobs worn smooth by palm leather. He tapped the grounds into two empty cups.

Her interest was gathering, along with the impulse to tell him to put these things down. These were artifacts, museum property. Who was he to handle them? But she saw that he knew what he was doing. It had been decades since he’d made marsh coffee, but it all came easily back.

When it was time to pour from the kettle, he wrapped his sleeve around the hot wire handle. Only then did he realize he’d made a mistake: marshmen never brewed coffee by the cup. They brewed it in a tall coffeepot with a long wooden handle; a fine example was sitting practically under his nose. How had he forgotten that crucial step? It had all seemed so natural up to that point.

He ransacked his memory for a time—a bivouac or hunting trip—when he’d seen coffee brewed by the cup.

Once begun, the ritual must not be interrupted. Part of the pleasure of the marshman’s coffee was its preparation, which followed along scrupulous lines. He rinsed the coffeepot and then decanted the foaming cups into it, declaring with this gesture that he’d meant to make two cups of coffee and two cups only, rather than an entire pot. Of course, in the marshes, such precision would have been interpreted not only as frugal, but also as downright rude.

There was a certain showmanship involved in pouring coffee from a height. He’d known experts who could extend the stream nearly a yard without spilling a drop. He raised the pot as much as he dared with his unsteady hands.

He was glad to find the sugar in its authentic state, too, fused in small chunks like gemstones. He gave her one and took one for himself. A marshman liked to hold the sugar in his front teeth while he drank.

She started to drink that way, then shifted the sugar to her cheek. This was an expression of her good manners. She didn’t want to make him feel self-conscious.

In that way, she was unlike a woman of the marshes, who would have been glad for the chance to demonstrate the superiority of her teeth.

They sat in silence and sipped their coffee, listening to the distant lowing of water buffalo. As faithful as the recordings were, they’d been produced with the average length of a museum-goer’s visit in mind. The sounds cycled every few minutes. The same water buffalo was ever lowing, the same waterfowl crisscrossing the sky.

He waited for her to speak. It was pleasant to be sitting in a guesthouse, in the proper clothing, sipping sludgy coffee. He’d always felt at home in the marshes. That comfort had been at the very heart of his troubles.

Finally he broke the silence, saying that he was certainly no expert, but he did wonder whether the fire starters were in their proper place.

“I know!” she said, adding that she’d pointed it out herself, but was overruled by one of her colleagues who produced a photograph to bolster his claim. Her theory was that the photograph had been printed backward, an occupational hazard with old negatives.

The subject ran its course. There was another lull, which he finally ended by saying the exhibit was brilliant. He didn’t mean to sound patronizing, but praising her efforts, dressed as he was, in that setting, was practically the definition of the word. He was an elder. In the guesthouse, offering praise or criticism wasn’t just permitted; it was his essential role.

She started to cry. He didn’t try to soothe her. He simply made himself still until the crying stopped. She thanked him and went on to say that she’d just been handed a tough decision. A terrible insult, really.

He made more coffee the same way as before, which caused her to tell him, very gently, that she’d never seen it done that way.

He laughed and said he knew it was wrong, but hadn’t wanted to admit it.

She took two sugars. She’d wanted two sugars before, she said, but was ashamed of her sweet tooth. Then she told him that some very powerful politicians had threatened to block the museum’s funding on account of the marsh exhibit. They claimed it was too “neutral,” meaning that the marshman was nowhere held responsible for his crimes against the homeland. Nowhere was there mention of the bloody insurgency that had cost so many lives, or of the barbaric practices that were routinely employed against coalition forces.

She smiled ironically. “And all we did was drain the marshes and destroy their civilization.”

The director had given in to the politicians. A huge kiosk devoted to the crimes of the insurgency was to be installed in the middle of the exhibit, destroying the illusion of naturalism she’d worked so hard to create. All she’d wanted was to re-create a way of life that had vanished, but now the exhibit would be a war memorial. The marshman’s guerrilla tactics and methods of torture would be showcased. All the old stereotypes were to be studiously reinforced. It was sure to be very popular.

He considered telling her that the kiosk would be balm for the nation’s guilt; that war memorials were building blocks of empire; that museums were no different from any other institution: it took money to keep the doors open. But she was too upset for platitudes. He leaned in to dry her tears with his sleeve. Then, drawn closer by the gravity of her round wet cheeks, he closed his eyes and kissed her.

After the kiss, she sat quietly for a few moments, then pulled a tissue from her purse and wiped her mouth. She got up, brushed the stiff fabric of her skirt, and walked the length of the guesthouse. When she returned to the hearth, she nodded, and in a voice full of resentment told him she understood.

He didn’t really know what she meant. What was there to understand? She’d bared herself to him. He’d seen a bit of himself reflected there and reached for it, like the boy in the ancient myth.

He was a broken-down relic. He knew that. She was strong and healthy and so much younger. It was a shameful mismatch. Now he saw just how shameful. Who was he to think he could comfort her?

She said she was running late and asked him to hurry up and finish his coffee.

He put out the cooking fire, and then, in the surest sign yet that she’d ceased to trust him, she knelt down and heaped extra sand on the buried embers, as if to suggest that he didn’t know how flammable a reed hut could be.

But of course he knew. He’d seen his share of burning villages.

She didn’t look back at him during the long walk to the exit. The lighting was undergoing a test. They were working on sunset. One of the attempts in particular was very much like the way night fell in the marshes, suddenly and completely, like a loss of consciousness.

She stopped at the bronze gates and fumbled with her purse. The sight of it alarmed him. He told her she’d already been far too kind.

“Yes, well,” she said, “you may need this.” She handed him her business card. The tiny letters swam before his eyes: Thali Addison.

She told him to come back at the end of the day. She’d be in meetings all afternoon fighting a holding action.

He found it sad that she used the language of war to describe her workday, and in such a peaceful setting as the back halls of the museum, where even the dust motes seemed to follow the rules of an unspoken truce.

He quit the museum and wandered windblown streets, his lips tingling from the coffee. Towering clouds dominated the sky. The air was raw. His new clothes kept him warm, but he was hungry again. He felt dazed and alone, like a doted-on housecat suddenly forced to live by its wits.

He sat at a playground for a while and watched the clouds. A pair of boisterous twins came to play on the swings, but their parents spirited them away when they saw how he was dressed. He didn’t mind. Clouds were easier to watch than children; no one glared at him for looking.

He lost track of time and hurried back to the museum, only to learn by the lobby clock, which was fixed to a stela imported from some conquered desert or other, that he’d been gone for less than an hour. The guards took an active interest when he settled onto one of the leather benches. He considered showing them the business card, but decided not to.

A change had come over him. He was less frightened than before. He took off his shoes and sat cross-legged on the bench, like an elder determined to drink in the peace of the evening before disputants arrived to shatter the calm.