A monk in a flowing brown robe met them at the temple door, accompanied by a gray-robed nun. Each of their heads had been shaved bald. The nun seemed old enough to have been Colonel Pham’s mother. She pressed her hands together in front of her face when they entered the temple, greeting them, and then walked away toward one side of the altar, where a large cymbal hung from the ceiling.

They followed the monk to the altar, standing just behind him. A huge gold Buddha towered over them, flanked by flowers, brass bowls, and plates filled with fresh fruit. The monk lit another bundle of joss sticks. Then he moved them up and down, just as Condley and Mrs. Pham had done at the family altar, and placed them in a larger jar at the Buddha’s feet. The monk stood for a long time at the altar, praying to the Buddha. Then he walked off to their left, kneeling on the floor in front of a hollow wooden drum.

Colonel Pham stepped forward, bowing his head before the Buddha. Condley, Van, and Mrs. Pham remained just behind him. It was now their time to pray. He found himself at first talking to Mai, telling her that he was sorry for everything, even for loving her, but especially for having been away when they came to kill her, that he had killed them back for her and had refused to love anyone else, but that it might be different now if she would only help him. Then he talked to his friends, Vietnamese and American, those who had died alongside him, the others who had died because he had left. Then finally he talked to the six years’ worth of people he had killed.

His hand brushed against Van’s leg. She reached out without looking and took it, wrapping a fist around one finger. He looked over at her hand, and then up to her face. She was done praying. And she smiled.

Colonel Pham finished last, stepping back to join Condley and the two women. Condley had no doubt the old soldier had prayed through a much longer list. They all sat cross-legged on the cool tile floor. The nun banged the cymbal with a mallet, two short gongs and then a long, lingering one that ran through Condley like the aching sadness of the past. Off to one side the monk began striking the wooden drum, the go mo, in a quick insistent rhythm that was soon matched by his high-pitched chanting.