by Jeff Long
For a moment, a terrible moment, Molly saw her mother in him, crazy as hell, ricocheting from the kindness and torment of strangers, lost to the world, surrounded by dogs. A chill shot through her. For all the smothering wet heat, goose bumps flared along her arms and legs.
The sight of him made Molly fear for herself as she had been long ago, for the half-forgotten infant in her mother’s arms. How many animals had circled them, too, waiting for a meal? How many lamplights had her mother sheltered beneath? The miracle of that baby’s survival flooded Molly, not with awe, but with terror.
Had flies billowed around the smell of breast milk on her mother’s blouse? Had truckers ejected the roadside Madonna and child when they caught a whiff of unchanged diapers? Molly had floated through a gauntlet of loathing and dangers that she could never precisely know. But the sight of this stranger, this walking suicide, threw her into a panic.
Molly’s hands went to her stomach, her womb, as it were, and felt the passport wallet hidden under her sundress. Inside it were her passport and money and one other thing, perhaps her most valuable possession, the driver’s license issued in 1967 to a teenage girl named Jane Drake. The image came to her, Molly’s same black hair, Molly’s same green eyes. Molly had three inches on her, and outweighed her by ten pounds, but they were still the same woman. She closed her eyes and drew up the sweet optimism on that face, and it was nothing like the harrowed madman in their headlights. Her alarm subsided.
She snapped a picture of Luke through the cracked windshield, mostly to return to herself. The big Mercedes pulled alongside. Kleat looked down from the cab. “What are we waiting for?” he said.
Molly was sitting in the front seat of the Land Cruiser. Luke took the backseat, next to Duncan. He was thin as a willow wand, but when he climbed in, the vehicle sagged under his weight. She thought the shocks must be worn out.
“Please fasten your seat belts and place your trays in an upright position,” Molly said to him. She was excited. A great discovery was about to unfold. Then she glanced back, and Luke’s face was joyless.
10.
Highway 7 lunged at them. No neat white lines. No mile markers. No speed limit. No warning signs. Speed was their only safe conduct, or so she gathered from the way their driver drove. They didn’t slow even when they passed through darkened villages or swerved for potholes Molly could not see.
She had never ridden at night in Cambodia, and so help her God never would again. To conserve their headlights, everyone drove with their lights off. Trucks, cars, buses, all hurtled at them from the darkness. Only at the very last instant would their lights spring on, then off, blowing her night vision, leaving her—and presumably their driver—more sightless than before.
The boy hunched in the darkness, like a reptile, his chest to the steering wheel, his forehead pressed to the glass. He was the youngest of the brothers, maybe nineteen or twenty, with wrists little thicker than the plastic steering wheel. Born and raised in refugee camps, they had come up through misery she could only imagine. He was wearing a blue-checkered kroma, and his arms and neck were cross-hatched with tattoos. He kept humming Smashing Pumpkins tunes learned from the RE-1 soldiers.
She wished Duncan would tell some of his jokes and stories, but he was mostly silent beside the stone lump of their guide. The boys weren’t having fun. It was a road trip, not a funeral. She tried to prime the pump. She handed out little Jolly Rancher cinnamon candies from her bag, offering one to the driver.
“His name is Vin,” said Duncan.
“Vin,” she said. The boy smiled.
“Heng Putheathvin,” Duncan amplified. “Among Khmers, the surname goes first, though it varies from child to child depending on the parents’ whim. It can get confusing. They might use the mother’s surname for one child, and the father’s for another. It’s like a gift they decide upon at birth. Sometimes the father will give his surname to a favorite child. Sometimes he gives it to a bad luck child just in order to protect him. Or her.”
“A bad luck child?”
“It’s a curious custom, a kind of fetal scapegoat. While the baby is still in the womb, he or she bears responsibility for any bad luck that lands on the family. Say a mother goes into labor and sends her son for the midwife, and along the way a dog bites the boy. The infant is held responsible. From then on, you’re marked. Everyone around knows you brought bad luck from the womb. But the father can help deflect it by giving you his family name.”
“That’s so unfair,” said Molly. “To blame an unborn child.”
“It’s that destiny thing,” Duncan said. He spoke to Vin in Khmer. The boy responded shyly. Duncan laughed. “I asked him, and Heng is their father’s name. He said he and his brothers are all bad luck children.”
“Ask him about his tattoos.”
Duncan and Vin went back and forth. Vin seemed quite proud.
“They’re called sak,” said Duncan. “It’s warrior magic. The tattoos protect him from knives and bullets. He has them on his arms, legs, and chest, even a little one in the part of his hair. He got them because his brothers have them. His oldest brother has the most elaborate ones. That’s because he was actually a soldier with the government. His brother has killed men. Rebels. Vin wants to get a tiger done on his legs, the tail down one leg, the head down the other. That way he’ll be safe from the land mines.”
“Jesus, man.” It was Luke, staring at Duncan in dismay. “You talk like a believer.”
“We’re not in Kansas anymore,” Duncan said to him.
“And what’s this?” Molly asked, pointing at the most unusual marking. She’d seen it earlier. Duncan shined his light on Vin’s neck. At the upper tip of a series of welts lay a reddish image of George Washington.
“That,” said Duncan, “is an American quarter. In reverse.”
“He had a quarter tattooed on his neck?”
“Not tattooed. It’s folk medicine. Koh khchal, ‘coining,’ in English. It’s not so different from medical philosophy in medieval Europe, the idea of ridding yourself of bad humors. A healer, or it can be a parent or a friend, dips a coin in kerosene to get a good grip, then they rub like hell, usually on your back or chest or arms.”
Duncan asked Vin a question. “He has a headache. One of his brothers gave him a good, hard session. The coin can get pretty hot. His brother pressed it on his neck, like a signature. George Washington was here.”
“Tell him I have a tattoo,” Molly said, “a butterfly.”
Duncan told Vin. “He said he’d like to see it someday.”
“Oh, it’s in kind of a private place.”
“In that case, I’d like to see it someday.”
Molly’s eyes flicked up at the mirror, but she could see only Luke’s dark face. Duncan laughed and told the boy. Vin tucked his head, mortified.
“You didn’t have to embarrass him,” said Molly.
“He’ll survive.”
“Listen to you.” It was Luke, his voice hard.
“Yeah?” asked Duncan.
“You’re losing yourself.”
“No harm in connecting with the culture. It is their country.”
“Maybe,” Luke said, “you should stick with your own kind.”
“And why is that?” said Duncan.
“It’s all tricks, you know,” Luke said. “You’re only fooling yourself.”
Duncan’s smile faded.
Molly turned to Luke. Talk about bad luck children. “What about you?” she tried. “Where do you come from?”
It was like talking into an empty pipe. He said nothing more. The Jolly Rancher candy sat in his hand. After that the talk died. The miles went by.
A small light flipped on and off as Duncan periodically marked their position on a map spread across his legs. She guessed they must have covered two hundred miles, though it was impossible to know with the gauges broken or unhooked and the dash light dead.
For years the American embassy had been warning against travel into the d
istant provinces, especially at night. Rogue soldiers and war cripples were epidemic, with a nasty habit of highway robbery. The wars were over, she told herself. Those days were done. But she knew they were not really. Violence lay just beneath the skin here. Rebels still came together for various causes, and the countryside held more land mines per square mile than even Afghanistan or Bosnia.
But mile after mile there were no roadblocks, no highwaymen, and Molly tried to relax. Apparently the bandits had exploited the road too efficiently. It seemed they’d driven themselves right out of business.
During one stop to put more oil in the smoking truck, Kleat came up to them.
Molly made some remark about the wild night driving.
“You’re afraid? Good,” said Kleat. “Fear is a gift. It purifies us. Listen to it and you can see right through the night.” He was exultant. “And how’s our guide? How are you doing, Slick?” he said to Luke.
Luke looked at him. “Johnny Hollywood,” he said, like he knew him.
It startled Kleat. He flinched, almost as if it meant something. He spit on the road. “Do we have some problem?”
“Are you really sure you want to be here?” Luke asked him.
Kleat glanced suspiciously at Molly and Duncan to see if they’d been talking among themselves. Molly shook her head at him and frowned. She didn’t know what this was about.
“I’m helping pay for your ride, aren’t I?” Kleat said to Luke.
“That don’t make it your party. Slick.”
“How’s that?” Kleat said.
But Luke only trained his eyes back on the road. He had nothing more to add. Molly couldn’t make sense of it. Neither one of them played well with others. But hell if she was going to be the mommy. Let them sort it out.
Kleat let loose his grip on. He returned to the truck and climbed up into the cab. The convoy started off again, back into the flash of metal giants roaring by in the night.
The moon broke from the clouds, and the paddies bracketing the road jumped to life. The highway became a dark strip sandwiched between hundreds of reflected moons. The land turned dreamlike, a world of harbored water arranged in honeycombs. The clouds sailed over, returning them to darkness.
Molly checked her watch. Barely eleven. A long night of the soul still ahead. Thankfully, whether because of the deepening night or their growing remoteness, the traffic grew sparse. They passed more villages, more paddy fields with their thousand moons.
“Mamot,” Duncan noted. The map rustled. A little later, he said, “Snuol, is that where we’re going?”
Molly could see Luke in the rearview mirror, his face yellow in the penlight. He tapped his dusty head. “I haven’t forgot. It’s all up here.”
“Up there,” said Duncan. “Is that like a state of mind or something?”
Molly listened. It wasn’t like Duncan to taunt.
“What’s to worry?” said Luke.
“It’s just that you seem to be making it up as we go along.”
“And you’re not?”
Molly wanted Duncan to leave it alone. If the night was a bust, it was their own fault. Luke wasn’t duping them. They were duping themselves. He had whispered to their expectations, and they had run with it. The man wasn’t about to give up his secret, and that was that. Their destination, real or not, was the only currency he had. She wished Duncan would quit worrying with the maps and turn off his light. It glared on the windshield and made the road that much harder to read.
“Run it past me again,” Duncan said, “how you found this place.”
“It seemed like the place to go,” said Luke.
Duncan persisted. “You were just out knocking around? Slumming in the provinces?”
“Like that.”
“Except you don’t have the look of a tourist. More like a runaway.”
That had been another conjecture among RE-1, that the gypsy had escaped from some Asian jail. It would explain why he stayed at a distance, but always stayed. According to the theory, he was scared and homesick and needed their proximity. He didn’t sound scared or homesick tonight.
“There’s things you can’t run from,” Luke said. “You’re here, aren’t you?”
“Not really. You can thank Mr. Kleat for our presence. He’s the one so hungry for it.” Duncan didn’t mention Molly, even though she was his real reason for coming along.
“The big appetite.” Luke seemed amused. “What’s he think is up there?”
Up where? Along the road or higher? Molly was listening intently.
For a month, Kleat had been slandering Duncan behind his back, calling him a liar, a sad sack, a fraud, laboring to get him tossed from the dig. Duncan wasn’t stupid. Molly knew he knew. Now was his chance to strike back.
Instead, Duncan said only, “Redemption.”
It was gracefully said, and Molly was glad for it. Somewhere in the complicated knot that was John Kleat was a human thread. It would take a good heart to see it so cleanly, and Duncan was saying he’d seen it. She was glad, not because she cared about Kleat, but because Duncan was a rock. Maybe she could trust him.
“Redemption?” said Luke.
“He’s been looking for his brother for years.”
A noise came from the backseat, startling Molly. It sounded like an animal—a monkey, a jackal, something with sharp teeth—a single, feral bark. A hoot. Vin jerked his head to see in the mirror.
It was a laugh, but not like anything Molly had ever heard. “He says that?” said Luke. “He says his brother?”
“I’m missing the joke,” said Molly.
“What brother?” said Luke.
“He went missing in the war. It’s unfinished business.”
“You sure you want to be sticking up for him?”
“I’m just telling you.”
“He wants back in,” Luke told her. “That’s how come he tracked you down. He thinks he found a ride. He thinks he’s going home.”
Molly had no idea what he was talking about. “He didn’t track me down. He was there at the dig when I arrived.”
“Waiting for you,” Luke said. “We knew you were coming.”
We?
“Sometimes there’s no second chances,” Luke said. “He wants to belong so bad. He won’t ever belong.”
“Belong to what?” Duncan said. “Who’s this ‘we’ you’re talking about?”
“The boys,” Luke interrupted. Molly frowned. That was Duncan’s term. Had the man sneaked up one night and overheard them? It wasn’t impossible.
“Whatever,” said Duncan. “I take it you belong.”
“Same as you.”
“And me?” said Molly. He was like Job, this raving prophet, but without a god to blame for his misery and ugliness. She wanted to hear what he would say.
He looked at her. “Who else do you think we come for?”
A huge dark shape—a truck—thundered past, lights out. The Land Cruiser rocked in its wake. Her thoughts scattered. It was a relief, she decided, to quit the conversation.
11.
They came to a town, or what was left of it. The moon made a brief appearance, and the destruction leaped out at Molly, the dirt as red as Mars. Here and there lone walls stood scored by thousands of bullet holes, the rest of the houses chopped away. Otherwise the place was a shantytown floating on stilts between the rubble.
“Snuol,” Duncan read from his map.
“What happened here?” Molly asked.
“I’d say the United States Army paid a visit,” Duncan said. He had taken the red and white kroma from around his neck and draped it over his head, like blinders almost.
“Birth is death, brother,” Luke said. “Somebody has to feed the machine. This was their turn.”
The destruction fascinated Molly. The war had erected an architecture so grotesque, it verged on beauty. And the people let it stand, that was the strangest thing. They chose to live among the ruins.
“We’re getting there now,” said Luke.
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“North to Kratie,” Duncan guessed. “From there, it’s not so far to Sambor.”
“You know the country?” Luke was amused.
“I came this way years ago,” Duncan said. “I was retracing the footsteps of the great Dutch explorer Van Wusthoff. He was making his way to Vientiane. This was back in 1642. He was the first Westerner to set eyes on the supposed ruins of Sambupura, the capital of a pre-Angkor civilization in the sixth century. Sambor, it’s called now. The locals stripped it clean centuries ago. They took away the building stones to make dikes. There are a few foundation stones left in the ground. Some scholars doubt the Sambor stones mark the real Sambupura. They think the stones are just traces of a satellite city, that the capital must have been somewhere else. Skeptics say Sambupura never existed, it’s just the local version of Shangri-la.”
“More tricks,” Luke said. “You and your folklore and history.”
Duncan was quiet for a moment. “It’s what I do. Temple restorations. My specialty is the pre-Angkor period.”
“Let’s say that’s so,” said Luke. “What’s that change?”
Duncan looked stricken. His little light hovered above the map. Molly didn’t know why he let the crazy gypsy get to him.
The road forked ahead. “Tell the boy to go right here,” Luke said.
They exited Highway 7 onto a side road that actually improved. The ripped asphalt of Snuol smoothed into compacted dirt. Duncan’s map rustled. “East to Mondulkiri,” he said. “This is an old logging road. The Ho Chi Minh Trail branched all through these parts.”
“History,” Luke said.
Night spilled over the windshield. Molly felt vaguely seasick. Since leaving the dig site at seven that morning, she had been on one road or another for over sixteen hours. She was tired. Her head ached. She was thirsty from the lobster, and her mouth tasted sour. She prayed Kleat had grabbed her toiletries kit when he’d gone to the hotel. She was going to want a toothbrush, a T-shirt, and a tent, in that order.