Butterfly Stories: A Novel

by William T. Vollmann

  66

  So are you going to do one or not? the photographer wanted to know.

  Not me. No whores for me. I'm going to wait for Vanna.

  Oh, Jesus, said the photographer, covering his face in disgust.

  Besides, my balls ache.

  All right, all right.

  So, said the journalist, the long and the short of it is: maybe. After all, I'll never see Vanna again . . .

  At these cheerful tidings the photographer brightened markedly. He came out from under the sheet, killed two mosquitoes, played with his flash, and initiated a fabulous conversation on a subject which they had never before discussed: namely, whores. For hours the two of them discussed whose cunts had been tightest, what the differences were between Thai and Cambodian women, how many times the photographer or the journalist had been so low, cowardly, perverted and immoral as to use a rubber, and so they whiled away the suffocating hours until it was time to pick up the Chief of Protocol and head for the Blue River restaurant . . .

  67

  Ask this sixteen-year-old if she wants to marry me, said the photographer, with a mirthful glance at the journalist.

  She says, she will bear you children, cook for you, do dishes, but she cannot marry you because she is too far beneath you.

  The photographer shrugged. - Tell her she is prettier than a flower.

  She says, a flower that is smelled too many times begins to wilt.

  68

  Interesting that the photographer, who wanted to break as many hearts as possible, and the journalist, who wanted to make as many happy as possible, accomplished the same results . . .! Does that prove that the journalist was lying to himself?

  69

  A sweet fat girl in yellow silk pajamas was already sitting next to him, cutting up his food. Her flesh had the odor which fat girls sometimes have; he'd always found it pleasant. If it weren't that such tidings would further complicate this already intricate tale of betrayed commitments, I'd tell you that he once almost married a fat girl . . . !

  I don't want her to get sick from me, he said. That would be too cruel.

  But no, it is nothing! cried the interpreter. It is her duty, her occupation!

  Tell her I'll be blowing my nose all night. Tell her I have so much nasal mucus I hope she knows how to swim.

  The interpreter only laughed. The Chief of Protocol winked -

  Tell her it's up to her. Tell her I'll pay her regardless, but she doesn't have to come with me. It won't hurt my feelings . . .

  She says she don't mind about that. She says please don't worry. She want to come with you.

  70

  Please believe me when I say that he did not want to be unfaithful to Vanna this time, that he took her to the Hotel Victory for the same reason that he bought other girls drinks: when anyone asked him for something, he hated to cause disappointment. I honestly think that the journalist was fundamentally good. I believe that the photographer was fundamentally good. Even Pol Pot must have meant well.

  71

  The photographer was already doing his sixteen-year-old while Marina washed up with buckets of water in the bathroom, and the journalist lay feverish and blowing his nose and coughing in the double bed by the window. The night was as thick as Stilton cheese. She came back in and let down the mosquito netting around the two of them so that they were in their own nest of darkness; the air became even thicker and mosquitoes still found their way in, but who knows, maybe the mosquitoes that had malaria were excluded; why not look at the bright side, which is to say why not look at Marina in the darkness, a yellow-silver shimmer of pajamas with a pattern like flaking gold; most of all, a dark kind face . . . ? - He coughed, burped, sneezed, farted, and blew his nose. No, she was nothing like the hypersexually sophisticated Thai ladies sequined in green science fiction light, the Thai transvestites' faces like skull-bubbles in the lightning-jagged darkness . . .

  All night her hand checked his forehead and throat. She never slept; she was worried about him. She hugged him tight, held his hand; her hands were big, rough and callused; she was a farm girl. What had the Khmer Rouge done to her? He couldn't bear to ask the interpreter . . . She didn't like him to touch her body, and he tried to respect that; but whenever he wanted she'd open her legs and put him inside her, and she was always wet; she threw the rubber down in disgust, never did let him do that ... In the middle of the night she woke him, moaning to have him make love to her again; her cunt was fiery, dripping wet like his feverish face; she went oh oh and squeezed him very tight . . .

  In the morning she and the other girl left early. They didn't want anyone to see them.

  72

  Just for variety's sake they went to the Blue River for breakfast, the river lower and browner by the table, everyone eating chicken noodle soup, ants in the sugar jar (which had previously served as a bottle of Ovaltine), and the Chief of Protocol, grey-haired and bespectacled, kept laughing shrilly and slapping the journalist's shoulder.

  My dear friend, how is your health today? said the Chief of Protocol.

  Much better, thank you, Monsieur. I was cured by Dr. Marina.

  Hee, hee, hee!

  The girls sat at the table by the TV, looking over at them from time to time. So Marina was his girl now. Well, he seemed to have a lot of room in his heart; he was as accommodating as any other whore . . . She was wearing her yellow chemise again. Sleepily she put her head down on her soft arms. On his way out she looked up and smiled at him . . .

  And did you enjoy your lily? asked the interpreter.

  Always, replied the journalist calmly.

  How many times?

  Three. Since I was sick, you know. Ordinarily it's four. And you, what's your rule?

  Two! laughed the interpreter nervously. Or one!

  Surprisingly enough, it was going to be a very hot day. The journalist was sticky with sweat already; the Chief of Protocol had a big fly on his forehead ...

  73

  Sliding the press pass across a wide table to a lieutenant who sat making notations far away in an immense notebook, the journalist surreptitiously cradled his aching balls. Displaying duly sycophantic attention to the irritable-mouthed Deputy Commander of the Provincial Army, who glared in dark green, the journalist thought of his various love-secrets. They don't know who I really am, he thought smugly; but then he thought: But of course they do. They put everything in my dossier. In a way that pleases me, because sometimes I don't know who I am, either. - He had to give every official something: a carton of cigarettes, or twenty US dollars, or a bottle of Johnny Walker Black; on the whole (so to speak) he liked the whores better. These people wouldn't translate the battle program on the blackboard; they wouldn't explain the pushpins on the Vietnamese-made topo maps, whereas Marina . . . On the way out he saw a pair of Soviet-made PPM guns squatting on wide low spade-footed tripods. They wouldn't let the photographer take a picture of that. - What are we doing here when we could be fucking whores? said the photographer loudly. The interpreter turned and frowned; the Chief of Protocol looked very sad . . .

  They went to see waist-high green .107 shells, captured exploded Khmer Rouge trucks with bullet holes in the Chinese-starred windshields, golden narrow AK-47 bullets; they squelched through the mud between sheds.

  Take care, the interpreter said. That grenade may explode.

  It's all a crock, said the journalist.

  The journalist had to bite his lip not to laugh. Oh, he was happy; he kept thinking of whores! Why couldn't he be as conscious and watchful as the driver steadily guiding their car of state over bumpy roads, his big shoulders moving easily, his big hands gripping the wheel, the brim of his black cap absolutely level, his black hair going straight down the back of his neck, the dark green Thai army uniform rendering him a living shadow and concentration of the light green rice paddies that he flashed his passengers through; why couldn't the journalist be professional like him?

  Another hospital to visit (a little too close to the jung
le, maybe; that must be why the interpreter was anxious). The kid's long skinny leg ended abruptly in a bandage; he'd stepped on a Khmer Rouge mine. The baby girl lay with her mouth open; a mine had found her, too. - And the journalist thought: I do feel for them, but what about Vanna dancing and rucking for almost nothing; what about Marina so hopeful and trying so hard to love me when I love only Vanna?

  (It cost two hundred and fifty riels to dance with Vanna. The English teacher who didn't speak English had said that she got paid a hundred and twenty-five, but the journalist wasn't sure whether that meant per dance or all night, which was from seven to midnight. . . )

  The director of the hospital was talking to him in French. He didn't understand a word. He was tired; he wanted to lie down in Vanna's arms and sleep forever.

  I suppose the photographer and I are going to get canned when we get back to the States, he said to himself. We're not really doing our job. It's really more sad for him than for me; I know he'd like to see the whores of Rangoon someday . . .

  Now it is the wet season, a doctor was saying. So we have many children with diseases like malaria and dengue. What is very fantastique in Kampuchea, is that they are so alone, so isolated. And so we feel it is getting worse and worse. And this lack of sanitation is another grave problem -

  What about AIDS? the photographer cut in.

  AIDS? Ah, SIDA. There are no cases reported so far in Kampuchea.

  Is that right? Is that right? You see, doc, I fucked this GREAT sixteen-year-old whore without a rubber; I practically had to rape her. That pussy was nice. Come to think of it, I didn't use a rubber on the other one, either . . .

  74

  The photographer and the journalist became security risks after that. When the journalist was waiting to interview the Commander of the Provincial Army, he shifted in his seat there at HQ Battambang, and as suddenly as he moved he found the driver standing an inch behind him with his hand on the holster, watching him with ferocious care . . .

  75

  At dinner he got Marina again, and she was so happy and sweet. He took her in just the same way the driver would hurtle along on the good stretches, honking his horn to make other vehicles in both directions pull over so that the mud-spattered government car could forge ahead; and sometimes the journalist would see a child or an old lady leap out of the road into the mud as the driver barreled forward, honking maniacally. He groaned and grunted on Marina until the photographer doubled .<.p laughing. In the middle of the night she woke him up again; she wanted him to fuck her again. He couldn't do it; his balls ached. She touched his biceps to show that he was strong enough to do it; then she wept. He wanted to do it, but remembering what had happened with Vanna, he only embraced her and rubbed her back (he wanted to stroke her hair, but it's bad manners to touch anyone's head in Cambodia); then he went back to sleep . . .

  76

  On their last morning in Battambang they breakfasted at the Blue River, of course. There was a thatch-roofed canoe in the water; a man poled a skiff past the empty tables; the blue river was brown and the floorboards creaked. No one had turned the fan on yet, but the music was already blaring; it was six-thirty. The interpreter sat blinking. The girls were nowhere in sight. The Chief of Protocol had already been paid off. The driver stared down at his coffee, the heavy Russian pistol strapped to his belt, his uniform fresh and green; he was calm, alert. His steel watch caught the light. His eyes flickered around.

  Marina was at the table far away, and when he turned and smiled at her she smiled back.

  How many times? asked the interpreter. The driver leaned forward, too, extremely interested.

  Only seven, said the journalist.

  Seven! You are not joking?

  I never joke about such things.

  When it was time for them to go to the car, Marina came with him, in full view of all the customers. He was face to face now with a Buddha as huge as a whore's face about to kiss him, the eyes half closed, the mouth smiling like a ripe pea-pod, lips parted, skin mottled black and gold ... He embraced her.

  She says she want to come to the jungle with you, said the interpreter. She don't care how dangerous . . .

  The journalist was stunned. Was she the one who really loved him, then?

  Should I take her? he stammered. Maybe I should take her-

  We are not bus drivers, said the interpreter contemptuously.

  THE END

  77

  The night that the photographer and the journalist got back to Phnom Penh, they dropped by the English teacher's house. The English teacher was not back yet, and they could not communicate with the English teacher's mother except by signs. The English teacher's little sister was there, and she did her best, crooning to him: One is for man, two is for voman, three is for boiee, four is for guhl, five is for motahcah . . . and he gave her a ride to the ceiling and was happy to be with her although she stank and had lice, and he dressed her up in his raincoat so that she laughed, and when the English teacher and his friend came home he invited the little girl out with them, and her mother hastened to dress her in her best, there in a dark corner where the candle did not reach, and then they all set out for a Vietnamese restaurant whose waitress the photographer had had his eye on for a week. The journalist put the girl on his shoulders. She was very small and light. At first she was happy to be carried, but then when everyone kept staring she became uncomfortable; the journalist put her down. He walked along beside the English teacher, holding her hand, and they kept staring ... In the blue glow of the Vietnamese restaurant's TV they sat laughing around the table and drinking beer with their friends and the waitress, who kept dropping ice in everyone's drinks (the little girl had Seven-Up; everyone else had Tiger beer) and she lifted more ice with the tongs, robbing the treasure of coldness from the blue plastic bowl, and her fat brown face gleamed with exciting TV shadows while a TV monster roared around and the beers shone and got more and more watery with melting ice until they became one with the sweat that ran down everyone's cheeks, and the little girl looked up at the journalist with her gaptooth glistening, slowly stroking her glass, only wanting to add from the bottle to her pleasure little by little, like the sweat that crawled down the journalist's neck; and the ice in the blue bowl glistened more and more while the waitress laughed slit-eyed at the little girl and the checkerboard floor was like TV static. - Ask that waitress if she likes Ho Chi Minh, said the journalist, who was getting drunk. - Yes, the English teacher replied. - The photographer was making good progress with the waitress. - She want to come to your room tomorrow at twelve o'clock, said the English teacher's friend. - The waitress had a friend who asked the journalist's age and he thought that she was gorgeous but he didn't need any more complications; she thought or pretended to think that he was sleeping with the eight-year-old girl. -Well, it is true that the photographer had said: I bet you'd like to get into that! and it is true that the photographer had said: You know what the difference between us is? There's no difference. We're both assholes.

  78

  He went to the disco. The photographer did not come because he did not want his girl to know that he was back in town. The journalist knew that he was starting trouble for the photographer by going in there but he missed Vanna too much; maybe he loved her; maybe he really did. As always in that hot darkness, he felt that he was doing something stupid and dangerous by being there. He could see nothing. The air was brownish-black like the tree they'd shown him at Choeung Ek, the tree whose bark was ingrown with hardened blood where the Khmer Rouge used to smash babies' skulls. He fumbled his way to a table sticky with spilled beer. Is Vanna here?

  You want one beer?

  Vanna. Girl. I want Vanna. Tall girl.

  You want Tiger beer?

  No - no - Vanna - she here?

  No no you miss mistake, my friend.

  Vanna -

  My friend -

  I want to take home Vanna. Only Vanna. Vanna and me like this.

  No no no!

&nb
sp; I want to marry Vanna. I buy her gold ring.

  No no no my friend no no!

  Gripping the journalist's upper arm firmly enough to bruise, the pimp or waiter or bouncer or whatever he was led the journalist outside. He looked back at all the faces watching him in darkness, the fat yellow cat-faces -

  79

  Well, said the photographer, why should she come to work? You got her a fucking gold bracelet for Chrissakes. She probably sold it ten minutes after she got rid of you. That money should last her a few weeks.