I was seven years old in the summer of 1975. At a hotel in Bangkok, I was with my family among a herd of Americans ordered to evacuate Laos. Hundreds of Americans, mostly military, filled the lobbies and halls of the hotel (wish I could remember which one).

Activities were organized to keep us young people occupied. A conference room became a movie theater where we watched American television (something I had little memory of ever seeing until then). I sat with the other youngsters on the floor toward the front of the room. My mother sat with the grown-ups toward the back of the room.

The room was dark.

At some point this is what I thought happened: I thought my mother stood up, walked to the front of the room, stood in front of me and looked into her purse asking “Where did I put them?”

Sitting cross-legged on the floor she looked unbelievably tall to me, her face barely visible in the darkness of the room. Standing in front of the bright movie screen her face was further obscured by shadows.

I said something to acknowledge her question, and she stepped from the room into the corridor where brighter lights let her see inside her purse.

Her leaving like this did not make sense to me. Minutes passed and she did not return. I repeatedly turned away from the movie screen and toward the door, expecting to see my mother return, losing track of whatever was playing on the screen.

I don’t know how much time elapsed, but after some time I stood up and went into the corridor to find her.

The problem was that that was not my mother. My mother, sitting at the back of the room, was looking right at me the moment I stood up and left the room. Puzzled as to why I just up and left without saying anything, and concerned about a 7 year old wandering around a vast hotel at a chaotic time, she came after me.

She found me looking over a railing at the crowds of people milling around in the lobby below.

She asked what I was doing. I explained “I thought you left!”

I explained what I thought had just happened, describing the woman with the purse.

My mother thought this incident extremely odd. For her part she had no memory of seeing anybody but me leave that room, and maybe she was a bit miffed that I would mistake someone else for her. How could I not recognize my own mother? I probably lacked words to articulate that this other woman’s face was in the dark and that was why I didn’t recognize her. “She sounded like you!” I remember saying.

I remembered this incident today (speaking of faces) after a correspondence with the author of Faces of Laos, an unusual picture book I found in my father’s desk drawer after he died.

I have known of this book for as long as I can remember. I saw it on the coffee table in the living room in Vientiane, and it appeared on bookshelves and in drawers throughout my childhood. It was always kept in a safe or prominent place.

Seeing the pictures again after at least 2 decades I was amazed at their quality. As a child I did not recognize their artistic merits, nor did I understand their significance. Numerous searches through library card catalogues and publishers’ catalogues returned no information about this book. Internet searches on the author’s name and other identifying information from this slim volume also returned nothing.

I scanned the pages of the book and posted the series to my web site. I did this mostly because I felt these amazing pictures should be seen, but I also did it with the vague hope of making random contact with Americans stationed in Laos in the early and mid 1970s.

Months later I got a letter at my Post Office Box from none other than the photographer himself. His son had stumbled across the pictures and sent him the web address. George Archer was happy to see these pictures on the web and declared no commercial interest in the book or the pictures, quelling my concerns about copyright and such.

Last week another correspondence came, this time from the author’s former wife. It was she who organized the photos and coördinated a gallery showing of the photos at the American-Lao Binational Center in 1973, and she was equally if not more excited than her former husband to see the pictures online.

She was also, I find myself thrilled to know, the dedicatee of the book. The identity of “mela” was a mystery that nagged at me any time I saw that page. Though not a source of deep dismay I thought this tiny mystery would get lost in time — if it had not been lost already.

I found this book in the desk drawer in which my father stored significant objects and mementos. This drawer contained pictures of my sister and me, military medals and honors, and other such things. The presence of “The Faces of Laos” in this place of honor surprised me at first, as my father was not much for the arts or photography. But he was proud of his two tours of duty in Laos, and I know he recognized the uniqueness of this volume.