Cambodia Noir

by Nick Seeley

  I don’t even want him. I don’t know why I go. Why does Gogo come back to Didi, day after day? Better to wait together than wait alone? But even that simple act means giving away some of yourself.

  You say to him: I want to go somewhere. He says go, if you’re going. Turns back toward the seaside, where the children are launching fireworks, tossing sparklers into the churning water.

  You say to him: I have an idea. He says better save it.

  You say: I’m looking for something, he says what else do you need?

  I could choose to forget tonight. I could let these sobbing hours drift into the white and vanish . . . black out these words, so that even if you did try, some day, to remember, you would be unable to. Perhaps you would recall this little room, seen as by a camera: the spinning fan, the shape that once was you, curled up on the naked bed. You would make up a story to explain what had so spun you. Of course it wouldn’t be real, but you’d cling to it, so that you could see your life as singular, a true story, not a script that had been cut and changed and rewritten. . . .

  I know better . . . I was you, remember?

  Of course you don’t. But I remain: the thing you’ve written out.

  I was with you all those nights—all the way back to the night she left. I have kept them through the years, while you keep sunlight and warm air.

  Shall I tell you what I remember?

  No . . .

  You don’t want to read this. Black it out when you are done.

  WILL

  OCTOBER 8

  “You shoot that thing, it’s gonna be loud.” I’m edging backward into Two’s apartment. In the hall, there’s nowhere for me to get out of the line of fire. “People will hear.”

  “Yeah, I’m aware just how fucking loud my gun is, man.” Barry’s in the doorway now, keeping pace with me. “I had a quieter one, but I sold it. Anyway, shooting you is really plan B. Stop.” I’ve almost reached the end of the hall, where it opens into the living room. I stand still: cornered. I am slow, tired, beat to hell. I don’t like my options. But since Barry didn’t gun me down in the doorway, I guess he really wants to talk—and I want to hear what he has to say.

  “Can I turn that thing down?” I ask. On the TV, some blond chick is loudly kicking the crap out of Billy Idol.

  “Sure. Move very slow.”

  I do as told. Feels like a million years before I can reach the volume.

  Barry edges out of the hall, gun always trained on me. He lets his eyes flick over to Number Two, passed out on the sofa. “So he’s not getting up anytime soon, huh?”

  “Unlikely. Mind if I roll?”

  Barry laughs. “Make two.”

  He’s silent, watching, until I’ve tossed him his. Lights it one-handed, eyes and gun never leaving me. “I didn’t do it.”

  “Didn’t do what?”

  He doesn’t quite react, but I see his hairy paw tighten around the gun. “Don’t fuck with me, man. I know you’re looking for the girl. I’m telling you it wasn’t me.”

  I take a deep drag off the joint.

  “What makes you think someone did something to her? All I’ve seen so far is she’s on a long vacation and not answering her phone.”

  Barry is disgustingly pleased with himself. “Well, now we’re making progress, aren’t we? What we have here, Will my boy, is the basis of a negotiation. I have something you want: information. And I’m smart enough not to let you drag it out of me for free.”

  I fucking hate business writers. “All right, shoot.” Poor choice of words, Will. “What do you want?”

  “What does anyone who comes out here want?”

  “To be left alone.”

  “Bingo. That’s it, okay? I like it here. Nobody cares that I’m a fat fuck, or that I like computers too much, or that I’m not fucking executive material.”

  “I definitely think you’re executive material.”

  “You always were a dipshit, Keller. But I don’t actually care what you think, anyway. It’s them.” I must look blank, because he goes on, “The women, man. Back home, they could fucking control us. We were nothing without them.”

  “That why you set them on fire?”

  “Ah, see, Marie: perfect example, thank you! I wondered if you’d found out about Marie yet. I mean, you’re a dumbass, but it was just a matter of time, it was in all those damn newspapers.” Through all of this, he’s never stopped smiling: it’s a great joke, and we’re all in on it. “Marie is the perfect example. She was a drunk fucking whore who made that retarded kid in the McDonald’s ad look like a Nobel Prize winner, okay? But she still managed to control me. For years. Back home she was the best a guy like me could hope for. Everyone said so, you know? My family, my friends. My mom. ‘Oh, she’s a prize,’ ‘She’s a keeper,’ ‘Best thing that ever happened to you.’ Like I didn’t know what that meant: ‘You’re not good enough for anyone except this fat, sloppy cunt.’ For a while, they really got me believing it. So I put up with her shit, day after fucking day after fucking day. Then one night, I come home and she’s hammered out of her goddamn mind, screaming about how I only want her to cook and clean. Fine, she says, she’ll cook me dinner. She can barely stand. She’s falling all over the kitchen, grabbing shit out of cabinets, sticking it on the stove.” He giggles. “I should actually have smacked some fucking sense into her, y’know? If I had, cunt would still be alive. But I just walked away. And the dumb fucking whore passed out with the stove still on and put me through a federal indictment and five years of fucking bullshit. Even dead, that bitch was controlling me, you see what I mean? Then I came out here. Fucking paradise. It’s all out in the open here. Back home, I was worthless cuz I couldn’t get a girl. But out here, I see some rich, slick bastard with shiny hair and a beautiful chick on each arm? Hey, it’s cool. He’s no better than me: he’s paying for it. I want those girls tomorrow, I can have ’em. This place shows pussy up for what it is: a commodity.”

  I know better than to interrupt someone this fucking crazy, but if he does not get to the point soon, I am going to go for that gun no matter how slow I am.

  “So you see: I’m finally free. I don’t want some other bitch fucking it up. I want this as far from my fat ass as fucking possible, okay? And you, as it happens, can do that for me. This is the deal: I tell you what I know, and you spin it so however it goes, they don’t come near me.”

  “You had to hold me at gunpoint for this?”

  “Motherfucker.” He laughs. “Everyone knows it doesn’t pay to get close to you. You’re kind of an emerging market. So, y’know, of course I need a hedge.”

  “So, I do what you want or you kill me?”

  “Hey, this is a good deal.” He sounds genuinely offended. “But look, if you wanna be that way . . . Obviously I can’t keep this gun on you twenty-four/seven. So, just in case”—he leans in, like that makes him think I’ll listen closer—“I know why you’re out here. I got it out of Gus one time, when he was drunk. Thought it might come in useful someday.”

  A shiver runs through me; he sees it.

  There are things I’m not allowed to think about.

  So I think about the deal: the only reason Barry would make this trade was if he was sure something led back to him. It’s not the diary, he doesn’t seem to care. So something else: something he was seen to do, something he gave her—

  “Sure,” I say. “I’m curious. But if I find out you’re lying to me, it’s right back on your doorstep.”

  “That’s fine. Just remember it’s not in my interest to lie, any more than it’s in yours to betray me.”

  “So tell me: What am I covering up? What am I going to find that points to you?”

  “The reason I know June was in trouble, capital-T kind of trouble, is that before she left, she asked me to get her a gun.”

  Hell.

  Gotta hand it to Barry, he sees the angles. It’s no secret he likes to shoot stuff. After fifty years of war, this country is drowning in hardware. One of the less s
avory aspects of the tourist trade: barangs pay well to go out in the woods and fire off AK-47s and grenade launchers. Sometimes the guys running the tours give them cows or goats to shoot at. Sometimes, I’ve heard, they give them people. Never tried to find out. Barry loves these excursions, and he’s in tight with a couple of the guys who run them. Even someone new, like June, would know that if she wanted firepower, she could go to him. So if a gun came up or was found, someone would sooner or later look to Barry. His past would get dragged out, and someone with a badge and a low IQ would certainly assume he killed June.

  “What kind of gun?”

  “She was very specific about what she wanted—something small, that she could silence. Knew makes and models and everything. My guy didn’t have exactly the thing, but he came pretty close.”

  “When?”

  “Early August. I got it over a weekend, but she’d asked me a couple days earlier—maybe the fourth or fifth.”

  Interesting: Just a few days after she comes back from Koh Kong.

  “She didn’t say why she wanted it?”

  “I really didn’t ask.”

  “Do you know who she spent time with?”

  “Other than us at the paper, I wouldn’t know. She was closest to Two.” Grin. “But I guess you’ve already asked him.”

  “Did she say anything to you about her past? Family?”

  He snorts. “This is Cambo.”

  “The Khmer you saw her arguing with—was that real, or bullshit?”

  “That was real. I don’t know what it was about, I couldn’t hear them. It wasn’t a blowup-fight kind of argument, more a very intense discussion.”

  “How’d you come to see it?”

  “Drank too much. Passed out, woke up.”

  “Who was he?”

  “I don’t know. But I’ve seen him around, somebody has to know him: middle-aged, pot belly, shitty wardrobe and expensive haircut. He had that look: he was ex-cop, ex-military, some shit.”

  “Why would June be arguing with someone like that?”

  “That, my friend, is your job to figure out, not mine. Unless you have more questions, I’m done with this shit.”

  Exhausted, I shake my head.

  “Then I’ll be going. I’ll pretend this never happened, but we have a deal. If you really need to talk, then come to me in the office, say you gotta buy me that drink you owe me. I’ll find you someplace quiet.” He pauses, breathes deep. “Please, don’t follow me. Don’t make me do something neither of us will regret.”

  I pull the makings from my pocket; start rolling another joint. He backs away, into the darkness of the stairwell, the gun still pointed at me.

  Then he’s gone.

  * * *

  Moon’s risen by the time I leave: nearly full, throwing long shadows in front of me as I walk. Brain full of hornets. Barry lies, but if his story isn’t true, why would he talk at all? Where’s he trying to lead me?

  It’s the Khmer he saw June arguing with that bothers me most. Military, Barry said, or police. June was working the heroin story—maybe the guy was a source? Feels like a long shot that one of those guys would talk, and I can’t see them going to an American intern. Definitely not a woman.

  The cops who hang around foreigners have another agenda. Mostly they’re looking for work: You pay a few bucks, buy a few drinks, get your own pet policeman. He’ll buy your coke, fix your traffic tickets, make trouble for your enemies. I don’t like to think what would get June within miles of a guy like that—but if she’s buying guns off Barry, she’s in deep. And I still don’t know what started it. A con gone wrong?

  I can probably find out. There’s a particularly unpleasant police lieutenant who hangs around the Heart, Pisit Samnang. Lots of bent cops out there, but Sam’s a rare breed: works with foreigners because he likes to fuck with us. He’ll jump through hoops for you, and you think you own him—then one day you realize he owns you. The kids from the paper stay miles away from him, even talking to the guy is enough to get you fired—but if June was playing around with the police, Samnang would probably know. I won’t go to him unless I’m desperate, but I’m not sure that’s very far off.

  By the time I’ve climbed the stairs to my room, I can barely stand up—but June is so loud in my head, she’s practically screaming. Again, I open the journals.

  DIARY

  July 20

  I can’t sleep. When I close my eyes, all I see is the girl in the photograph.

  It was taken in Kabul, in the early nineties. The Taliban hadn’t come to power yet. Gus says they called that period the war of warlords. The country was in the process of regressing from the twentieth century to the seventh, where it would remain for the foreseeable future, and this was the image that captured it.

  It won’t come out of my head . . . so I will put it here:

  The girl is lying in the street, surrounded by a crowd of people who appear to be cheering. She’s crying, but you can still tell that she’s beautiful. Her hand is to her neck. It’s not a gory image at all: only when you look closely do you see the blood on her hands, the pool of red spreading under the feet of the crowd. What you see is the faces: the unholy joy of the onlookers, the sorrow of the girl in her last moments, as she realizes all she’s about to lose.

  The caption is “Girl killed by her family for being pregnant out of wedlock.”

  Gus says it should have won the Pulitzer. It was short-listed, but got edged out by something more America-centric. The Cold War was ending, no one wanted to be reminded about Afghanistan falling apart.

  You’ve guessed who the photographer was, of course. Gus says he was great, once upon a time: the guy everyone looked up to. William Keller would go places other people wouldn’t dare. He knew how to keep his mouth shut, he didn’t judge his sources, and he could get along with anyone. He was patient, waiting days, weeks, for the right opportunity . . . and when it came, he got right up close.

  I’m pretty sure Gus was trying to tell me something . . . about being a journalist, or living out here? I don’t know. I wonder if he suspected why I want to go to Koh Kong, after all. . . .

  He has a whole book of Keller’s old stuff hidden away in his apartment. There’s a series of pictures of the girl in the street: the crowd cheering and chanting, a woman in a burka who I think must be her mother, waving the bloody knife in the air.

  Scenes from a village in the countryside, where a man beats a boy to death with a metal pipe for talking to a different militia.

  In the hills with mud-caked warriors in sandals made of old tires, cigarettes welded into their faces until they died. They all died.

  “Afghanistan changed him,” Gus says.

  I think he was trying to tell me something with that, too.

  Some days I wake up crying, and I don’t understand why. Other days I stand on my balcony, and the shining river and the palace roofs and the wet grass and the palms in the distance are all so beautiful I think I won’t actually be able to stand it, that my heart will burst and I will die right there. I don’t understand that, either.

  I thought that by coming here, I could be someone different. It seems I was right . . . but I don’t know who she is.

  WILL

  OCTOBER 8–9

  It’s spring in Kabul, and roses bloom outside the empty windows of the old villa where we’d meet. A hidden castle in a secret garden: its walls cracked and overgrown, reminders of this city’s bright days, before the Russians came. Warm air blows through the sun-bleached sheets we’ve strung to hide us from the world. I’m waking from a doze with the soft weight of her head on my chest, her arm thrown over me, and I reach down to take her face in my hand—

  “Fatima, baby, you wouldn’t believe what I dreamed.”

  She smiles up at me: “Are we home?”

  “Soon.”

  And her lips light me up, her mouth sweet and warm and my whole body is on fire with her—

  Something’s wrong.

  “I have something
to tell you,” she says. “A surprise.”

  “Baby, you know I hate surprises.”

  “This is a good one. We are leaving soon?”

  “Just two weeks, that’s all I need. Everything will be ready.”

  You’re dreaming. She’s gone—

  she’s gone, and I’m alone in the villa, looking at the cobwebs spun in dusty corners and the sheet flapping in the wind, but it’s as if I can still feel her presence: she’s here, invisible, but she’s lying on top of me, her weight—

  her body

  —bearing down on my chest and I can’t breathe, she’s crushing me, cold and heavy as lead, cold hands on my face, cold lips on mine, pulling the air from my lungs into her dead mouth—

  And then I’m running: running through the street, body on fire and brain trailing ash, until I get to her house and I see it all again: the men shouting, the cheers, the bloody knife in the air—

  This is where I live: forever and ever. This moment when I want so much to run to her, to cradle her and kiss her and pull her away, but there’s nothing I can do, she is seconds from death and they’re pouring gasoline and they’ll kill me if I go to her so I don’t, I stand frozen, a statue, a cheap and unconvincing replica of humanity, set here as a memorial—

  I do the only thing I know how:

  I raise my camera.

  * * *

  Broken glass everywhere.

  Torn paper, ash. Shelves overturned, shattered chair. Blood on the sheets from the cuts on my hands.

  What the hell happened?

  It’s red behind my eyes and all I want is a shot, but there’s none, I’m clean and I light another goddamn cigarette.

  It almost helps.