by Nick Seeley
It’s not even death, death was something that happened long ago. Cambodia is what remains: the place of the skull . . .
. . . Dried bones in salt earth . . .
. . . Sun on black water . . .
. . . Rivers of mud . . .
No shelter.
How could I expect the journey to end anywhere but here?
WILL
OCTOBER 6
Everything hurts. I drift for hours through dreams of being kicked by hobnail boots. Eventually I wake up enough to crawl out of bed. It’s 7:00 a.m.
Make a packet coffee. It doesn’t help, so I pour some whiskey in it, chase it with a handful of 800-proof Advil, and curse myself for giving Gabriel all my Percocet.
June’s diary: face down on the floor. How long was I reading? I can’t remember. I stayed as long as I could, trying to follow her story through those tangled lines. Read the end first, hoping for an easy clue: nothing that made sense. The last legible entry was an essay about visiting the Killing Fields. So I started at the beginning. It was hard going, easy to get lost among the overwritings and interruptions—and when I did, sleep took me.
I pick the book up and set it back on the desk, smoothing out the creased pages.
My apartment feels strange. I keep looking at the door, like I’m expecting her to walk through it. The way she talks about this place—
My life, with someone else living it.
It makes me edgy—but what have I really learned from her monologues about airports and descriptions of the city? June is like all the new scum: she thinks she’s got a place in the world, and she’s dead set on finding it. She’s full of clever ideas, so she thinks she’s a writer. She’s got a morbid streak. But she’s not telling me what happened to her. Most likely she doesn’t know herself—even if she is still alive.
I finish my coffee in a long gulp. No more losing sleep trying to suss this girl out. I’ll find June the same way I find anything else: by looking. And the first place to look is the river.
* * *
After the first hour of showing June’s picture around the boat companies, I’ve stopped wincing at every step—I think maybe my body is warming up. After the second hour, I feel like there’s a drill bit stuck in my ribs on low speed; I’m out of Advil and out of leads.
June told Gus she was going to Angkor. The drive is hours of slow-motion misery on dirt roads with potholes like swimming pools. Flying is expensive. For most folks, that leaves the boats. The companies that do the run up to Siem Reap, they copy your passport when you buy a ticket. A few bucks in the right hands will get you a look at the manifests. If June really went north like she said, I could find the boat, the arrival time—I’d have a trail to follow.
But there are no hits on her passport, no one believable remembers her, and as the pain in my side gets worse, and one company after another comes up empty, I try to ignore the obvious: I knew this was a dead end. Air travel is harder to check if you’re not the law, but Gus has a friend who can do it. I’ll call in that favor, but it’ll be a bust, too. June didn’t pack for a tourist jaunt. She was planning to go somewhere, though—somewhere the river doesn’t know.
At least by now the office will be open.
The moto ride isn’t long, but it nearly breaks me in half. I’m gasping as I stagger up the stairs—reception area still jammed with boxes of last week’s issues, so I sit on one to catch my breath. Listen to the chatter from around the corner.
Bland sixties rock on the radio. Phones ringing, overtired scum answering and trying to sound cheery. Number Two and Barry debating whether Cambodia’s leaders really want to trade in organized crime for garment factories and call centers.
Could be any morning, ever.
I stay in the hall. The archive is here, slotted into three-ring binders on floor-to-ceiling shelves. Ten years of paper, but I only need the last twelve weeks. I carry the binders back to the photo office; start flipping through, looking for June’s byline.
Her first week, there was another big drug story. On July 8, a Jakarta-registered cargo ship docked in Sydney harbor with a load from the Cambodian port of Sihanoukville. Aussie police were waiting. They jumped in and found twenty-two kilos of Burmese heroin, and a bunch of guys from a local syndicate busy unloading it. Bit of a black eye for Cambo, but everyone played it cool: law enforcement agencies will cooperate, all that. Then, out of nowhere, a court in Sihanoukville arrested three customs officials, saying they were responsible for the smuggling. Three days later the prime minister let them out of prison with official pardons. All the opposition groups went nuts, screaming that Hun Sen was protecting the drug trade. The police stayed quiet.
June isn’t the only byline, but she gets some play. The timing interests me, too: it couldn’t have been long after this that the local drug market started drying up. Was the Sydney operation the start of something? But June never gets to it: she does three or four pieces as the whole mess is developing, then the story dies. With no one talking, the paper just runs out of stuff to print. June moves on to other things.
She’s ambitious, I can see that. Lots of enterprise, lots of features: she’s going out and finding stories, making them hers. They can be about anything: business, the environment, sports, archaeology. She’s got a gift for it. Young yet; her style is still rough around the edges. She indulges in purple prose, and Gus, for some reason, lets her. I guess he saw what I’m seeing: June knows what questions to ask. She’ll start with something simple—say, an environmental assessment in a coastal town—and over twelve column inches she’ll tie it into everything: the collapsing economy in the provinces, political corruption, urbanization, globalization. She does her legwork. The stories aren’t brilliant, just promising. But give her a few more years—
Hell.
What I don’t see here is a red flag: a conflict with some local figure, a sensitive political story she’s sniffing around—the standard stuff that gets reporters in deep water. After three hours flipping through back issues, I’m not sure I’m any further than when I started. Her last byline is a goddamn press release, about the graduation ceremony at a school for kids injured by land mines.
Shove the binders away, light a cigarette. Desk covered with ash. I stare at it for a while, but nothing’s happening in my head. Finally I head back to the newsroom. It’s mostly empty—everyone’s out interviewing. I don’t see Gus.
The Khmer reporters have their own room, side by side with the main one. No desks in there, just old couches melting into the floor. TV in the corner, for the fights. When I come in, a couple of the young guys are sipping Cokes and watching MMA—Australian, looks like. I throw myself on the floor next to them and start rolling a joint.
One glares at me; think his name is Yun. “Come on, man. We get trouble for your shit.”
“Sorry.” I stuff the result in my pocket. The Khmers don’t like trouble—they’re the opposite of the foreigners. No one this side of the wall is on a mission from God. I light a cigarette instead, letting it burn away the sour, sticky taste in my mouth. The fat fighter gets the other one in an armlock, and the guys next to me start shouting in the tones of men with money at stake.
The new scum hate this room. They stick their faces around the door, all they see is lazy natives lounging in the shade. Half the time they get racist; the other half, they lecture Gus about it: How are the Khmer reporters supposed to build capacity if they spend all their time sitting around, and then colonialism, imperialism, some more -isms.
I got most of my Khmer in here: endless hours listening to them shout back at the television, trade sources, argue over politics. These guys are old pros. They see the foreigners come and go, but they stay. They know what lines they can’t cross, and don’t ask questions that won’t get answers. Why should they? Even a guy like Khieu, who speaks mostly fine English and can tell you what the cops are doing an hour before they know themselves—he’s still going nowhere. He might string for AP or Reuters, but he’ll never get hir
ed. He’ll never make it to the foreign desk at the Times. He thinks his job’s important, but he plays it safe.
The highest honor Cambodian journalism offers is a bullet in the head.
Light another cigarette, ask Yun if he knew June.
He shrugs.
Did he ever work with her?
Shrug.
He’ll never ask why I wanted to know.
The wrestlers get timed out, and the announcer lines up a new match: some skinny Canadian kickboxer is taking on one of those big Brazilian grapplers. This should be good.
Half an hour later, Khieu rolls in. He’s been at the Interior Ministry, getting jerked around, and doesn’t want to go over two months ago’s news.
“Heroin,” he says, like he’s talking about what he had for breakfast. “A lot, twenty kilo. Australians find it on a ship from Sihanoukville. They make investigation. The judge find evidence, he find papers, for shipping, sign by customs men in Sihanoukville, so he arrest. Three days, they in jail. Then Hun Sen let them go. Everyone very upset, the human rights very upset—they say this show our judges not independent.” Khieu gives a little snort: Like that’s news. “Nothing else. I think they still looking.”
“Did the thing in Sydney lead to the raid on Friday?”
“Police not say. All we know is they still question the people they took at that house, the army people. Say more arrests soon.”
“What about June Saito?”
“What about?”
“She worked on the Sydney story with you. Know who she talked to?”
“United Nations, mostly, I think.”
“Anything strange happen?”
“What strange?”
I switch to Khmer. “Did June talk to anyone who could be dangerous?”
“The United Nations is very dangerous for my country.” He smirks. It’s the “crazy barang” look, the one they save for wacky newcomers with no idea where they are.
I’m getting desperate. “When she was working with you, maybe she found something out? Something someone didn’t want her to talk about?” It sounds just as silly in Khmer.
Khieu’s face has gone dark: anger brewing in him now, anger and something else— “Come on,” he says, in English, then switches back. “You know how things are. There are no secrets. Suppose you found out Hun Sen was dealing drugs, and stealing money from the country? So what? Everyone knows that already. The people with real power, you don’t touch them. They don’t care what you say. If you become political and oppose them, then they shoot you.” His voice is bitter. We’re not talking about June anymore. “If you’re a real journalist, they’re only dangerous if you get in their way in the street.” He turns to go.
“Bunny, which was he? Did he die because he was political? Or did he just get in someone’s way?”
Khieu stops walking for a second; doesn’t look back. “Does it make a difference?”
* * *
Ray is at his desk, starting layout. I stay in the doorway a second, watching him as I light my cigarette: nearly seven feet tall, skinny going on dead—sitting folded up in front of the computer, he looks like some giant, easygoing stick insect.
He hears my lighter and turns, gives me a faceful of giant white teeth. “Hey, man. How are ya?”
I have to be careful with this crew—not just because I don’t want to give too much away about June’s disappearance. I can’t discard the possibility that one of them had something to do with it. I’m starting with Ray because he’s the safest: been out here for ages, likes his dope and his backpacking, and no funny stuff. He never hurt anyone except by accident.
He has a lot of accidents.
“Talk to me about interns. I need more shooters if we’re gonna have a war on.”
He furrows his brow. “This bunch is weird. They’re all out of Syracuse, don’t ask me why Gus took a whole class, but they all want to do, like, new media, Web video projects and stuff, uh . . .”
“Christ. Can any of them work a real camera?”
“Beats me, man. You see the girl with the eyebrow ring? You should talk to her, she’s pretty gung ho. She’s got a little point-and-click thing, at least. Her name is—”
“Eyebrow ring. Got it. She any good with a story?”
“Dunno yet, man, they’ve only been around for, like, two days.”
“Sure. What about the last bunch? Wasn’t there a girl shot film?”
“Last bunch? The only girl was June, and I don’t remember her having a camera, man.”
Interesting. “Yeah, she’s the one. What’s she like?”
“She was a sweet kid, totally. She’d come out with everyone, have a laugh. Real smart, man, like, impressive. I don’t know if she could shoot, but I bet she’d be good at it. But she’s gone, anyway, man.” There’s no nervousness about him, his face is as blank and guileless as ever.
“Isn’t she coming back?” I ask. “Gus said she was coming back, she left some stuff behind and everything.”
“I dunno. Maybe she just abandoned it, man?”
“Well, shit, you’re the one who knew her—she say anything about her trip?”
He looks blank.
“What did you guys talk about?”
“I . . . I dunno. Just, y’know, what was the what with Cambo. She wanted to hear about everything, man.” He shakes his head, as if trying to clear it. “I thought she was out, but you should ask Number Two and Barry, she hung out a bunch with those guys.” More interesting. “They should be back in a minute.”
“Right. I’ll figure it out. Anyway: eyebrow ring?”
“Dude,” Ray says, suddenly puzzled, “what’s with your face?”
* * *
“June?” Barry says, barely glancing up from his spreadsheet. “I’d have done ’er. Those skinny girls can rock it in the sack. But it might not be worth the effort . . . she was a bit of a freak show, know what I mean?”
I don’t. Raise an eyebrow.
“That chick had fucked-up shit in her head, and, man, she liked to show it off. Not too bright, either. Get this: We’re out drinking, right, her and Two and me and Ray, and she’s going on and on about this drug story, like no one in this town ever heard of heroin before, right? I don’t even remember what she was talking about, but Two starts shutting her down because she doesn’t know shit. And then she’s trying to correct him, like, “No, a courier would do this” and “The organization will be structured like that,” and all. I mean, I guess she had some balls on her, but, man, the ego. She was a pain in the ass. Still . . .” His eyes meet mine, and he mimes someone giving a blowjob.
Barry.
He looks like something Frank Bacon dreamed up after a night of bad acid and sodomy, and he acts like a seventeenth-century plantation owner—but he’s got a sweet, shit-eating grin, and somehow he suckers folks into believing there’s a heart of gold in there. Cambo’s a playground for guys like him. I had him pegged for a garden-variety predator, out here to smack whores around and score cheap coke, but watching him leer about June, I’m starting to wonder. Has Barry moved on to rougher games?
I light a smoke; give myself time to think.
“Whatever,” I say, “I don’t need a charming personality, I need someone can use a fuckin’ camera.”
“Beats me.” He shifts his bulk in the chair and shouts down the hall. “Hey, Two!”
Number Two has been in the kitchen, getting coffee. I wanted to talk to them separately, but before I can think how to stop it, Barry’s got him back. When Two sees my face, he starts jumping up and down and shouting, “Holy fuck, man, what happened to you?” I shrug. He keeps going: “For God’s sake, man, what did you—” He sounds like he’s doing the Hindenburg disaster for Radio 4. Barry’s grinning.
“I was shooting at Radio Ranariddh. Someone didn’t like it.”
“For God’s sake,” Two says again. “Trouble does find you, doesn’t it?”
“Never even buys me a drink.”
“Keller was asking about
your girlfriend, Twoey,” Barry says, bored already. “Or maybe she was your boyfriend, you know, it’s hard to tell.”
“Ask your mother,” Two says, not even blinking. “She knows.” He thinks Barry is joking. He thinks this is banter. “Which one is my girlfriend now?” he asks me.
“Little, yellow, different?” says Barry.
“June Saito,” I say. “When’s she back?”
Two looks puzzled. “She isn’t coming back.” Is there something else in his eyes, some nervous edge? “She went home.” He starts to turn away, as if that was that.
“Weird,” I say, to stop him. Trying to be normal—what now? An impulse: “She left all her stuff behind. Her suitcases are still sitting on my landing. Tripped over them this morning, nearly died.”
I don’t even get to the diaries: Two’s gone corpse colored. I can smell the fear coming off him, and my fingers start tingling. Barry’s looked up from his screen and is watching us with quiet amusement. Has he guessed my real interest? No choice now. I keep going: “Who told you she left?”
“Sh—uh . . . she did,” Two says weakly. “Said it was a family emergency, so she wouldn’t make it to Siem Reap after all.”
“Awww, looks like someone got dumped,” Barry says, rubbing at his eyes.
“Would you please get a bloody sex life so you can quit imagining mine?” says Two, recovering himself.
“Touchy,” Barry says, with little mince. Then, turning back to me: “See, told ya that girl was full of shit.” His eyes narrow. “If you’re really interested, there was some Khmer guy she hung around with.”