by Kim Fay
“He exhausted resources and manpower building his cities,” Loung went on. “He emptied what was left of the empire’s coffers to build this temple. It was to be his refuge if he was ever forced to flee.”
How is it possible that I did all of this for nothing?
“When Jayavarman died, his successor had nothing to work with.”
How is it possible that Mr. Simms could have been so wrong? That the scrolls have been taken and he and I have no idea where they are now?
“By the fifteenth century, the Orient’s prosperity relied on the sea,” Loung said, persisting with her scholarly monologue, as if duty-bound. “Angkor Wat was too far inland, and the Khmer couldn’t conduct this kind of trade. Meanwhile the Siamese continued to invade, and the Khmer population continued to grow. The people needed more food, but too much cultivation cleared the lower slopes. Erosion caused floods, and the barays and canals silted over. There was also the gradual adoption of Buddhism across Cambodia, and there is no place in the Buddhist religion for a god-king.” She paused, and when Irene did not respond, she asked, “Am I wrong in assuming that this is the story you’ve come here to find? How the kingdom came to its end?”
At least Loung had memorized the empire’s history before the scrolls were taken from this place. Perhaps she had even written it down on some of these palm-leaf pages and kept it safe among the accounts of Jayavarman. That should be enough. That is what you told her you wanted, nothing more than to know what the scrolls revealed. But it wasn’t enough. Of course it wasn’t. Irene wanted to see the scrolls for herself, to touch them, to discover them, even though she no longer needed to possess them. Unable to rouse herself from her position on the floor, she could only murmur, “Thank you for telling me.”
“Irene, open your eyes.”
Irene raised her head and squinted up at the nun, whose gray robe filled her vision. Loung was holding something out, and as Irene gripped the object in her hands, it took a moment for her to apprehend that she was holding a copper scroll.
Made of metal, the thin sheet was slightly curved, as if it had been unrolled from a longer piece. Reverently, Irene ran her fingers over and around it. Its sides were smooth, but at the top and bottom, the edges were ragged. At one time the scrolls must have been of a single piece, but they had been broken into sections upon being opened. She examined the script, engraved into the back so the letters were raised on the front, and even though she knew what they said from Loung’s telling, she still longed to read them for herself.
The polished scroll had been well cared for, showing not a trace of verdigris. Reluctantly taking her eyes from it, Irene looked at Loung and asked, “Why did you want me to think they’d been taken?”
“I had to see your face when I told you the scrolls were gone. I had to hear your reasons for wanting them. I had to be sure.”
“Are you?”
“I could take the scrolls and run deeper into the trees, but one day there won’t be anywhere left to run. The earth is round. I will simply end up where I began. Ever since the French took control of our country, we have been preparing ourselves for this. It is inevitable, isn’t it? That the world will discover us.” Loung’s eyes were wet as she set a flat wooden box at Irene’s feet. She knew that it was over. She was a vestige of an extinct civilization. A king’s scribe. The last of her kind. Once the library was given over to the twentieth century, she and her successors would not be needed. Louis’s Leica could do her entire job in less time than it would take her to transcribe a single book. “We know it’s only a matter of time. We have been waiting and hoping for the right person. But you. I never dreamed it would be you.”
Irene was still incredulous. Not only was it actually happening—she was claiming the written history of the Khmer—but also she had found the entire chronicle of the Khmer’s most important king. A lifetime’s calling, the justification of her hopes, all contained within this room. Cradling the scroll to her chest and picking up the box, Irene stood and said, “The people I’m with, they all want something different. They all think they know best. I want to protect the scrolls, but I don’t know what’s best for them. Not yet.”
“That’s a chance I must be willing to take.” As Loung watched Irene put the box on the table, she said, “Open it.”
Carefully, Irene undid the latches and lifted the lid, and there they were, eight more scrolls separated by layers of cloth.
“You should know, Irene, there is more,” Loung explained. “Woven throughout the scrolls’ script is a cryptogram. All of the pieces fitted together form a map to the king’s last treasure. During the Burmese assaults on the Khmer regions taken over by Siam, the scrolls were brought to our library by Jayavarman’s heirs for safekeeping. To be hidden away, like this temple, with the hope that the empire would one day rise again. When I first heard you were coming, that’s what I thought you were looking for. The treasure map.”
“I’ve never even heard of it. Where is the treasure?”
“We don’t know.”
Irene remembered her mother’s diary. We would spend the rest of our lives searching and always wanting more. Her mother and the others must have had their one scroll translated. They must have discovered hints of the map, and they came here hoping to find the rest of it. She said, “You don’t know because there’s a missing piece. Is that right?”
Loung nodded. “If you have the last scroll …”
“If I have the last scroll …”
Clasping and unclasping her hands, Loung whispered, “Now that the world has changed, now that it has become such a different place, what if you are meant to be my successor?”
Always a girl and an orphan.
Irene had lost an hour to the storm and had spent nearly another reading her mother’s diary. She didn’t know how long she had been in this room with Loung. But what she was suddenly aware of was that most of the night was gone and dawn came early at this latitude. She tucked the ninth scroll into the box and secured the lid. The case had a leather strap for carrying, and she lifted it over her shoulder. “I need to make it back to camp before it’s light out. I need to figure out a place to hide this before anyone wakes up.”
Wordlessly, Loung led Irene back to the foyer, its periphery studded with the pebbled glow of oil lanterns burning down. Still wearing Louis’s flannel coat, Kiri stood beside the open doorway that led out to the front porch, his body tucked against the wall as he peered around its frame. He did not move as Irene and Loung came up behind him. Irene leaned out to look past him. She saw Clothilde standing on the porch with her back to the façade of the white house. Her gun, the Mauser she claimed to be able to sight at fifty yards, was drawn.
“Clothilde,” Irene whispered, envisioning the return of the Brau tribesmen. “Who’s out there?”
“Your friends,” Clothilde said.
“All of them?”
“Yes.”
“Are you talking to Irene?” Simone called to Clothilde from outside, beyond Irene’s line of sight.
Irene asked Loung, “Is there another way out of the building?”
But as Irene listened to the nun explain where the pathway out the back door led, she thought, And then what? She could run, but where would she go? Beyond the frontier of this Cambodian night there was impenetrable jungle, and then more jungle. She would have to cross the ravine. She did not know the way back to Stung Treng. She had no supplies, no weapon. And what about Marc? Thinking rapidly through every possibility, she realized that even if she could hide the scrolls somewhere out back and return for them, Simone would not let her out of sight for a second. Irene had no options, and she was surprised by how relieved this made her feel.
“Clothilde,” she said, “put down the gun.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?” Irene asked.
“I’m afraid she’s going to shoot me.”
Warily, Irene leaned farther out so that she could see past Clothilde. Beyond the steps, Marc and Louis we
re standing in the soggy grass, none too happy about their position, caught between Clothilde and Simone. Clothilde’s Mauser was aimed in their direction at Simone, who stood behind them in the yard, her pistol pointing back, having situated herself in order to use the men as shields.
Irene chided herself for ever thinking that Simone might become a rational person merely because she was no longer adrift on Luminal. Knowing too well what Simone was capable of doing if pushed too far, she stepped onto the porch. Despite the distance between them, she was aware of Simone staring at the box that lay against her hip. Its embossing was coated in silver leaf, shining brightly, impossible to ignore. Irene would have to act quickly, before Simone did something rash. “This is a library,” she said. “The history of Jayavarman the Seventh. There’s an entire room of palm-leaf books. Come and see.”
“Tell her to put down her gun,” Simone said.
“She has to put hers down first,” Clothilde said.
The men remained motionless as Irene begged, “Simone, please.”
Insistently, Simone said, “The second I put this down she’ll grab that box from you and disappear. You’ve heard her. She hates us, she hates what we’re doing here. She was born here. She can vanish into the trees, and we’ll never see the scrolls again.”
“I would find them,” Irene assured her.
“The world’s too big,” Simone declared.
“Don’t underestimate me. I’ve found everything I’ve ever gone hunting for so far.” To prove her point, Irene lifted the box.
It was then Irene noted that Clothilde was unusually silent for a woman who should have been defending herself. She saw, suddenly, Clothilde sitting with Murat Stanić in the hotel café in Phnom Penh, their heads bowed together. It was not the posture of a woman who did not want to be associated with a man, as Clothilde had said of Stanić. But Irene remembered other words of hers, as well. Whenever it’s among your choices, always choose the child. A parent will do anything for his child.
Observing Clothilde closely, Irene said to Simone, “In any case, it’s not in Clothilde’s best interests to cross us. I know where her daughter is.” It was a weak bluff, but it was all Irene had.
Clothilde must have been wondering how she had gotten herself into this bizarre situation. Despite all that had happened, could she ever have guessed that her pact with Mr. Simms would come to anything like this? Her tone sharp, she said to Irene, “What if I came all this way, what if I did everything I was told to do, but for whatever reason, through no mistake of my own, I didn’t fulfill my end of the bargain? Or what if I did fulfill it and you decided not to pay me?” She kept her eyes and gun trained on Simone as she spoke. “This has been a gamble for me. If you were me, Irene, if you were a Cambodian woman with no other options, you would have listened to what Stanić had to say. You can’t fault me for that. You would have played all of the odds too.”
“And what specific odds did you play?” Irene asked. “Did you tell him what we’re looking for?”
“No.”
“But you did let him think you might bring him whatever we found,” Irene accused.
Defiantly, Clothilde confessed, “He’s waiting for me back in Kratie, just in case I have a change of heart.”
Irene noticed the trembling of the gun in her hand, could feel her desperation. “If Mr. Simms made a deal with you, Clothilde, I will honor it. You have my word.”
Although the Cambodian woman did not seem reassured by this promise, she shoved the Mauser into Irene’s hands. “Don’t ever speak of my daughter again.”
Irene was not pleased about having to push Clothilde in such a way, but right now Simone was her main concern. She examined Clothilde’s gun, its blunt muzzle, its heft. She appreciated the confidence it gave her, but the last thing she wanted to do was hurt Simone, and she did not believe Simone wanted to hurt her. She dropped the gun into the grass and looked at Loung, who had drawn Clothilde and Kiri to her. Irene thought about their world, intact for centuries until people like her and Simone came along. But she knew there was nothing to be done to stop the forward motion.
Irene began walking toward Simone. The ground was a slush of dirt and weeds beneath her bare feet, and as she neared Marc, he whispered, “Keep talking. If you can distract her—”
Irene passed him, refusing to acknowledge him, afraid that her feelings for him, her feelings about the two of them, would make her weak. She approached Simone, whose face was dark with scrapes and still stained orange from iodine. Her heart pounded with fear. “Tell me why you want them,” Irene said to Simone. “The real reason.”
Holding the pistol with its barrel pointed toward Irene’s stomach, Simone said, “You know why I want them.”
“Yes, but do you?”
“What do you mean?”
“I know something now.” Irene’s fingers slid across the cover of the box, drawing Simone’s attention downward. Her mind was racing, excavating. She unearthed her conversation with Monsieur Boisselier about how Roger had said Simone would betray him for her first love. Irene had thought this was Louis, and then she had thought it was the revolution. But no. It was the Khmer, their legacy—the desire to be a part of it. Just as it always had been for Irene. Holy, Simone had called Angkor Wat, before Irene had uttered one word about the scrolls at Anne’s party. Irene said, “You can’t know what you really want from them until you’ve seen them.”
Envy stiffened Simone’s expression. “Why do you want them?”
“I’m not going to make it that easy for you.” Irene bowed forward as if she were going to sampeah to Simone. “Hold the gun to my head.”
“What?” Simone asked.
With calm certainty, Irene repeated, “Hold the gun to my head.”
“You’re trying to trick me,” Simone said.
“Do it.”
“Irene, don’t test her,” Louis called out. “Simone, please, there’s no reason for it to come to this.”
“If what she really wants is her revolution,” Irene said, “I’m the least of her obstacles. If she can’t shoot me, then she’s not going to get very far.”
Marc did not protest, and Irene loved him more for not preventing her from doing what she had to do.
She said, “I won’t give you the scrolls, Simone. I will fight you for them, and you will have to shoot me. Prove it. Prove that this is what you want more than anything else. More than even my life. Try to take the scrolls from me.”
Despite her broken wrist, Simone clutched the pistol’s handle in both hands and raised it. Her voice was deep with anger. “You can’t talk me out of them.”
The muzzle brushed Irene’s forehead like a kiss.
Shivering, Irene did her best to keep steady. “I don’t intend to talk you out of anything. I’m not that stupid. Or that clever.” Keenly aware of Simone’s finger resting unreliably against the trigger, Irene reached for the box. She was terrified, and yet somehow this made her even more determined. She unfastened the latches and reached inside.
She watched Simone’s face behind the pistol’s gray silhouette as she removed a scroll from the box and bolted the lid once again. Simone must have tried to ready herself for this moment, but she had craved it for too long; she was incapable of stifling the elation in her eyes. Irene held out the sheet of copper. Simone did not move. Gripping the pistol tightly with her arms raised, she could not take the scroll without making herself vulnerable.
“Put it on the ground,” Simone ordered.
“No.”
“Now!”
“No,” Irene said. “Not until you tell me what you really want. Say it, Simone, admit it.”
Simone pressed the gun so hard into Irene’s forehead that Irene felt it bruising the bone. Simone’s face was red with anger as she hissed, “You don’t think I have it in me.”
Fighting the urge to draw back, Irene said, “I don’t think you’re like your husband, if that’s what you mean.”
“This is different.”
/> “That’s exactly what we said when we killed him, to absolve ourselves of what we’d done.”
Simone’s fury shook the gun, and the muzzle slid sideways.
Irene dodged in the other direction.
Fumbling, Simone’s hands sought to right the gun, and in that moment Irene swung the scroll as hard as she could into the side of Simone’s face. The pistol fired into the starlit sky. Marc and Louis leapt forward to hold Simone down, but there was no need. She collapsed to the ground, lying perfectly still, just as her husband had in the tall grass of the Chinese countryside.
Irene knew the scroll was not heavy enough to have really hurt Simone. The death that was taking place before them was not physical. Still, she pressed her thumb against Simone’s throat. The pulse was quick and very much alive. Irene whispered, “No one wants to give the Khmer their pride back more than you do. No one will ever want that more than you do. But it’s not selfish, Simone, to want the scrolls for yourself too.”
Simone opened her eyes, and as she stared toward the Southern Cross, Irene watched her armor fade away.
Irene slipped the strap of the box from her shoulder. She was thinking about how naturally Marc had immersed himself in studying the Khmer since he had met her. She was thinking about Louis’s sincere desire to give the Cambodians access to their own history. She was thinking that there was no guarantee any of them could protect the scrolls from the government, or looters, or the museums of Paris and Seattle. But with enough money, Mr. Simms’s money, as much as she could beg from him, and with the four of them on the scrolls’ side, each in his own peculiar way, who better to try?
“Here,” she said to Louis, holding out the box.
He stared at it but did not take it.
“A chance for real preservation and scholarship,” she said. “That is what you want, isn’t it?”
He nodded, his expression revealing his amazement.
Kiri had crept down from the porch, followed by Clothilde and Loung. They stood at the edge of the yard, where moonlight filtered through the lace of lime trees. A cotton batting of clouds drifted over the sky. Irene reached for Marc’s hand. She said, “I’m ready to want that too.”