Hand-in-hand, they made their way through the inner precincts of Angkor Wat. They moved slowly, turning their heads every which way to catch every detail, trying to commit it all to memory and knowing they never could. They resisted the temptation to capture the sights with their cameras and smartphones: this was as much to avoid seeming stereotypical Americans as to actually see, the images impressing directly on their eyes rather than through the shrinking distortion of an LCD panel.

She was a tall brunette with reddish highlights and an impish almost-pout that seemed to invite trouble. But it was her green eyes that fully betrayed her playfully sensuous, sensually playful nature: when the light caught them just right, especially when her hair was tied back (as it wasnow), they invited mischief. She wore a wide-brimmed hat to protect her fair skin from the sun; her eyes sparkled out from beneath it, catching the odd beam of sunlight and reflecting it back onto her companion whenever he glanced her way. He was tall, though barely taller than she: today she wore flats, but in any high-heeled shoe she seemed to tower over him. And he was brown-eyed and bearded, with a slightly brooding outward mien that betrayed nothing of his real self; most who met him could be mistaken for thinking him almost ascetic, a notion belied by his companion. Indeed, he often felt like he was living two lives: the public intellectual, and the private hedonist. If asked, she would say she too was very conventional; but she carried herself, and manifested a personal style — of dress, of speech, of political conviction — that suggested otherwise. Yet while she pursued fulfillment in all its forms, she found herself craving too the pedestrian, and could only with great difficulty reconcile her conflicted and conflicting selves. Heightened self-awareness, she ruefully considered, was not always beneficent. At times, indeed, it could feel paralyzing; the effort to ”push through” and quell her internal dissonance, draining.

Today, however, there were no such strains; she was a simple tourist, enjoying one of the world’s great treasures. They moved at their own pace, pulling each other to come and get a better look at this relief, that statute, the platform over there. The group moved from one gallery to the next, the guide’s excited lecture, in his pidgin-inflected English, a speech he had recited a thousand times already and would recite, in all probability, several thousand more before he was done. Whenever they fell behind their group, they attached them selves to the next one coming through behind; then they would catch up only to fall behind again, and then again, so that after half an hour they had heard the same temple features described no fewer than four times, by four different guides, and they were able to asses which was telling the truth, mostly, and which was bending or twisting it to elevate the interests of his own small business. Finally, they fell off the tours entirely, taking the complex at their own pace, int heir own way: they wanted to absorb the imagery, rather than the history as recounted shakily and often absurdly, each busker animated in his own special way but all sharing the same timeless DNA that transcends place and culture.

”What do they remind you of?” she asked him quietly, as the last of their adopted groups pushed ahead.

He followed her gaze, then glanced at her shrewdly, as if to assess her thoughts. ”Same as you, I expect,” he said. ”A mountebank.” At that, she slipped her hand into his and then pulled him playfully into an area she had noticed, a gallery that was not on the tour. They moved close to one of the enormous bas reliefs, the better to appreciate the details of the piece. She reached out her hand, traced the length of Krishna’s finger with her own, then clapped her hands together and skipped back to admire the entire scene, take it in as it surely was meant to be seen, of a piece. She ran forward and pulled his arm, pulling him back although he was clearly absorbed in the fine, detailed work and did not wish, at that moment, to take the long view. He scowled, and she scrambled back — but playfully, almost a pout. Then she kissed his cheek and the scowl melted, giving way to something else.

He turned toward her pulled her closer, wrapping his free arm around her shoulders and bending his head just so, the interplay of their lips transitioning swiftly from playful to fevered. She moaned softly, which always encouraged him. The clamor of another passing group stilled them, and they held their breath and watched the tourists climb the stair to the upper level. The two of them slipped out, to an outbuilding they had noticed earlier. The enormous stone faces stared down at them. ”Do you think they can see us?”

”Let’s find out,” was his reply, and he grabbed her hand and practically hauled her up the steps and through the doorway.