by Nick Seeley
It’s Fatima, throat cut red and dress black as grave earth, and she grabs me with fingers that slide between my ribs like knives, and—
I could swear this part is real
—back in some tiny, dingy room she’s leaning over me, whispering in my ear:
“She’ll make you wish I’d torn you apart.”
DIARY
July 23
IN SIHANOUKVILLE, TENSIONS HIGH AS VOTE NEARS
By Jun Saito and Sok Narit
Additional reporting by Christopher Grimsby-Roylott
SIHANOUKVILLE—“I do not plan to vote this year,” says Leang, as he takes a break from stocking the coolers of his small fish shop in Sihanoukville’s central market. “I am afraid of what will happen. If it is like last time, it is us who will suffer.” Like many other business owners, Mr. Leang did not want his full name used for fear of reprisals.
With Cambodia’s third parliamentary election only days away, the mood in this southern port town is tense, with many voters saying they will stay away from the polls altogether. Opposition party leaders and watchdog groups have accused the ruling Cambodian People’s Party of carrying out a vigorous campaign of intimidation with the aim of keeping its leader, Prime Minister Hun Sen, in power. Though most of the incidents they cite have occurred in villages and rural areas, the heavy hand of the CPP is also feared here in downtown Sihanoukville. Several merchants said CPP campaigners have come to their neighborhoods with dark warnings about the consequences of voting for the wrong party.
“They say if the opposition takes seats [in Parliament], it will be dangerous for Cambodia’s future,” said Sovanny, who runs a small wicker furniture shop. “The message is clear.” Others cited veiled threats against their businesses or homes. And a legal case is still pending against five members of the Sam Rainsy Party, who were charged with assault after a violent incident in a Prey Nob suburb. The defendants claim they were investigating charges of vote buying by the ruling party when they were attacked by hired thugs. (See story, p 7.)
But for many, staying away from the polls is less about intimidation than simple fear over what will happen if the opposition is successful.
“Hun Sen does not like to lose,” one prominent local businessman said. “We saw what happened last time [in 1998], when an opposition party made gains in the election: he removed them by force. This time, you have two big opposition parties, not one, and they are strong, especially in the cities. They might do well, and if they do, no one knows what will happen.”
Everyone is nervous: The elections are a bomb waiting to go off. Back in Phnom Penh I thought it was just the old White Men, the thrill seekers, scheming about what could go wrong, but it’s more than that: something almost has to go wrong. The whole country smells of gasoline. . . .
And so I am making my preparations. I got a letter from Indonesia, there’s a school there that could take me. I have to run, I can’t face the darkness that is breaking free down here, it could sweep me away in its jaws as if I never existed. . . .
I am so afraid.
But lying here with the night music drifting in my window, I hear that voice speaking to me out of the dark . . . and I want to see. Almost more than I care what happens next. Is this what the boys feel—what the photographer felt, all those years ago?
Has it already got me?
WILL
OCTOBER 10
It feels like years, but finally, the madness begins to pass. Perhaps I sleep. When the hands grab me again, they’re just mosquito netting. The sunken city a cheap hotel room. I’m awake—more or less.
It’s day.
New pack of cigarettes on the nightstand. Light one and my head clears a bit.
No memory of where I am—nothing since the car. The room tells me little: walls of white tile, pink fluorescents. One window, less than a foot square and well above head height, speckled with dust and dead mosquitoes. A little bath with a clapboard door, smelling of stagnant water. A TV is bolted to the ceiling, like in a hospital. The local news is on, volume low: cops and crime scenes. Looks bloody; must ask someone.
I struggle my way out of the mosquito net, careful not to touch it with the ash: that’s a bad end. Check my bag. Everything’s there. My ex-junkie driver found God, I guess. I make a note to keep him around if he wants the pay. Count my cash and think wistfully of the envelope of money I left with the Aussie.
There’s a knock on the door, and I crack it on the chain: Phann, looking unconcerned, scratching at his ear with those long fingernails. I let him in.
“Thank you,” I say, staggering back to the bed.
“No problem.” He stands there.
“I’ve got plenty of work for you here, if you want it,” I say, in Khmer.
He nods. “You speak Khmer well.”
“How long have I been out?”
“About a day.”
“Jesus.” I hand him some cash. “That’s for the ride, and four days’ work. I’ll give you more if we stay longer. And this is for supplies. I need a new cell phone. And some antibiotics.” He nods. “And some grass, if you can find it.”
I half expect him to argue, but he just nods again. Good enough.
“Get the stuff, then see if you can find a guy in town named Lon Chmmol. The Dane should know him. Tell him we want to rent his boat for a tour of the swamps. As soon as possible.”
Phann nods again and disappears.
I lie on the bed and smoke. After a while, the hotel guys bring me penicillin and some food. It’s simple stuff, rice and fish soup, but when I’ve finished I’m able to stand without my knees buckling.
I stare at my camera awhile—wondering about Charlie, and what he was doing in my hallucination. I don’t want to look, but if there’s a clue to what happened, it’s here. Finally I switch the thing on. Scroll past the screwing around, the cramped hotel room brown and orange in the low light, bodies pressed together, a haze of movement—
Next photo: two men entering. They’re dressed in tank tops and camo pants. No effort at concealment. The first is dark—zoom in on a square face, broad nose, mouth a sullen line. Cheeks spotted and rough with acne, or scars. Can’t guess his age, but not old.
Next: they crowd in. The second is a kid—might be sixteen, eighteen. The machetes are coming up.
Next: a blur of motion.
Next: Charlie rising from the bed, his face bisected by a yellow blade. They went for him first.
Next: falling. A smudge on the edge of the frame, maybe the Aussie trying to get away. Then he’s down, too.
Next, next, next. Blades slash the air in glowing curves. Orange walls speckled with brown—then splattered, then soaked. The face of the older killer: quiet, calm as he raises his weapon. The younger’s is never clear, but the glimpses I get look like joy. Like ecstasy.
Next photo: the bed a splatter of blood, a pile of meat. The figures stooping. They leave in a blur.
Last photo: the door hanging open.
Not much past what I knew already. Machetes suggest a vengeance thing, but these men have clearly done this before. A contract hit, made ugly to send a message. It would help if I could ID them, but there’s no one I can show these to. Still, they might be useful at some point. I make a slit in the inner sole of one of my sneakers and cram the memory card inside.
Then I get up. I need a drink. Maybe a dozen.
* * *
The Dane has been in Koh Kong forever. Married a girl from here, years ago, and stayed. His guesthouse is the biggest building in town: two floors, wood-frame. Most of the front is a huge balcony, strewn with plants, looking over a mess of palms and flowers with names like fruit drinks. It’s a thin town, thin and tough, and the Dane has to pull just about every foreigner who comes through to make ends meet.
But there are compromises. Four of them are sitting on the deck now: fat reptiles in polyester print shirts. They’ve got a kid with them, a tiny girl in a dirty pink dress, cradling a naked plastic baby doll. She’s being passed
around the circle, taking turns sitting on each one’s lap.
I grab a bottle of vodka from the bar, and go looking for the Dane before I start looking for needles. Find him hiding in the kitchen.
“Germans. They disgust me,” he snarls. “But what can I do? Trade is bad enough already.” I hold out the vodka, and he takes a long chug. “I saw your fella, Phann. Came around looking for Lon. He’s taking a bunch of Koreans to Sihanoukville tomorrow, but I can find you another boat.”
“I want Lon.”
“Then you have to wait until Sunday to go out.”
“I’ll keep busy.”
“Good, good.” He glances at the camera slung over my shoulder—an attempt to look like I’m here for work. “You taking pictures?”
“Yeah. Pretty trees and shit. Could be some money in it.”
“There was a girl down here from the paper. A couple months back. Japanese name.”
“June.” Though I don’t mean it to, it comes out heavy, like a prayer or invocation.
“That’s right.” He settles his arms across his massive chest. “Interesting girl. She did a nice story.”
“I never met her.” Try to sound casual this time. I’m sure I fail, but he bites.
“Well, she was all right, I think. Not the kind who sees just what people tell her, you know? She was looking for what was really going on in this place, if you see what I mean? The real thing, the story behind the story.”
I have no idea what he’s talking about, but I nod along, encouraging. “She find anything?”
“She was asking about smuggling. I know it goes on, but I don’t know much about these things. You know, for a businessman, it is better not to know. But I told her to get Lon to take her to some of the Cham villages out in the mangroves, Koh Sraluav and those. They are very poor. People out there, they might have stories.”
I take another swig of vodka, pass the bottle back to him. “Word is she ran off somewhere,” I say, as he drinks. “Disappeared.” What can I say—I like to bury the lede.
He gets a funny look and hands the bottle back. “Well, this is Cambodia,” he says, like that explains everything.
* * *
I stagger back to the hotel; the world isn’t spinning yet, but the tilt light is on. Maybe vodka wasn’t such a great idea. The Dane drank a good whack of it, at least, while I quizzed him about Luke and Wendy and their NGO. They’ve been at it almost a year, and for an organization that’s essentially a funding broker, they seem pretty hands-on. Luke is out in the swamp all the time with the locals, gathering info: Which areas should the government protect, which should it develop? Where are the openings for private investors? And he’s secretive. Not surprising: that stuff can cause resentment. People start thinking the government’s going to fence off the forests, take away their work—especially if their work is already not quite legal. The Dane thinks it’s all some kind of World Bank plot, but he said most people here are so poor, any kind of development sounds good to them. But someone’s always left out—I’d like to find out who.
The hallway by my room is unlit. I lean against the wall to open my door—
Listening to the dark.
Stumble inside, lock tight behind me.
Sitting on my pillow: a secondhand cell phone—no ID necessary—and a plastic bag stuffed with half an ounce of tarry, black grass. Well done, Phann. I think I like him better than Khieu.
I’m looking longingly at the bed, but despite the drink and the pills, I can feel the fever still clinging to me: a restless, hectic energy that won’t let me sit still. Start to roll a joint while I call Gus.
He perks right up when he hears it’s me.
“I don’t know what trouble you’re in, but it brought friends.” Yesterday’s anger all blown away: now there’s news: “Two bodies in one night, and one of them is another FUNCINPEC official: the third guy from His Highness, gunned down outside his office . . . seems like the old one-eyed dog is getting serious about the competition.”
“What’s the other one?”
“Oh, that one was personal. You remember that singer, the one supposed to be Hok Lundy’s mistress? She got hit with acid in the street. Didn’t make it. They figure it was probably the wife, but . . .”
“There’s more.”
“Eh?”
“The son of a police colonel got hacked to bits in a room in the Crane Hotel, along with an Australian backpacker.”
“I didn’t hear about that.”
“Would have looked like a hate crime, or a personal beef. Given that he was found with his boyfriend’s cock in his mouth, boyfriend not attached, I’m guessing Daddy kept it quiet.”
“You didn’t see that on the news,” Gus says carefully.
“I got a little too close.”
“How close?”
“About five inches.”
“Hijo de puta.”
“That’s two dead people who were close to high-ranking cops. Start looking, I bet you’ll find more.”
“Right.” He pauses, and I can almost see him rolling his fingers into fists as he thinks. Old fighter’s habit. I know what he’s thinking: men in uniform with brown packages on their shoulders. “I assume General Peng didn’t like the look of his cell.”
“He still in lockup?”
“No, he’s out. What about the FUNCINPEC guy?”
“Could be separate. Peng kills Van and the singer, Hun Sen takes out Bunny and your official, for different reasons. What’s he saying?”
“Hun Sen? He’s claiming the murders are part of a conspiracy to discredit him.”
“That’s not so far from what you said the other day. Maybe it’s all Peng: taking on the cops and trying to pressure the PM at the same time.”
Gus whistles. “Then this is going to be a coup: it’s too big for a turf war. Hun Sen won’t like being pressed. Someone else doing that much killing in his city makes him look weak. He’ll have to prove he’s still in charge. One way or another, there’ll be a show of force. Tanks in the fucking streets.”
I can smell it, coming over the wire: the smell of bloody murder, of demonstrations, the crack of police batons—and just over the horizon the riots, the city in flames. I should be there, in the smoke, shutter clicking, waiting for the crash or the flash or the pain before it goes dark—
Try to control my breathing, to fight the excitement creeping up my spine—
From the shadows, the dead Aussie smiles at me. “Give it a go, eh, mate? Wat’cha got to lose?”
I see the rest, crowding in behind him. Feel sick. Shut my eyes, light the joint, inhale. When I open them, the corner is empty and so am I. The thrill is gone.
“You still there?” Gus says, distant.
I don’t have an answer.
* * *
“Wheels within wheels,” that’s what Gus would say. He’s right about one thing: this is too big for just a turf war. Maybe Peng really thinks he can move himself into the big chair—but it’s hard to picture. I keep seeing him in the back of that police car, eye swollen shut, leaking blood. Seems more like he’s desperate to me. But why? Could Hok Lundy have him in that tight a corner? It doesn’t feel like Cambodian politics as usual: people die, sure, but that’s just PR. In the end, these things get worked out. A guy like Peng doesn’t go all in.
Unless there’s someone we haven’t seen yet: an outside player, pushing at this thing, stirring up trouble. But what for?
Sometimes simple answers are best.
Simple like Charlie?
He had a target on his back all along. Gabriel wanted him photographed because of his dad’s position in the police: it was clear from the start that it was tied up somehow with the heroin trade, the big bust at Peng’s house. Gabriel thought Charlie’s dad could tell him something, maybe do something for him if properly motivated, and Charlie was a weak spot. But if Gabriel could see a vulnerability, others could, too. So when Peng decides to strike back at the cops, who does he go after? Not the bosses, yet: the w
eak links. Hok Lundy’s mistress. A police colonel’s gay son. The guys who did it could be military, easy. They’d have been watching for hours, maybe days. When Charlie ditched his guards and his thug friends and went to that crappy hotel with a boy, he was a perfect target.
And I put him there.
From the shadows, he grins.
“Better lucky than smart,” says a voice behind me.
Bunny.
“You’d know, asshole,” I say.
Stagger to my feet. The Aussie is leaning against the door, dripping blood on my backpack. Shove past him, out into the dark hall, and slam the door on the whole fucking lot of them.
* * *
The night clerk has off-brand vodka in little miniatures. It’s rotten stuff, from some Muslim Central Asian country with no business making it. Tastes enough like lighter fluid that I’m scared to smoke while I’m drinking, but it does the trick. I take them back to the room and empty one after another, pausing for joints. When the dead show up, I pitch bottles at them. Get Charlie square in the eye, and he actually winces before disappearing in a fit of pique, which is fucking hi-larious.
Open the next and toast his health. Poor, lonely, dead Charlie. Sure, he was the kind of guy who’d fire automatic weapons into crowds for fun, but he didn’t get much choice in the matter. He never went looking for this shit; his family was playing blood poker long before he was born. Of any of us, he has the best excuse.
“You’re not one of us,” Joost mutters in my ear. “Not yet.” He always was a dour fucker, even before I got him killed. The Aussie cackles and steals the spliff out of my hand.
I shouldn’t even be here. I should be in some suburb of Hoboken with a car and a brat and a family photo studio; an idea for a coffee-table book I’ll never finish. But I screwed that up. Wanted to see the world—went too far. You scratch the surface, and faster than you’d think, you’re out here in the swamps with Charlie and his friends.