The King's Last Song

by Geoff Ryman

  Their sergeant lined them all up and tightened his own belt and announced to the company that there had been many changes. Volunteers were needed for the front. One of the volunteers was Nim Veasna.

  Map and Veasna waylaid him afterwards, but the sergeant was ready for them, with a tiger smile and a ready temper. “I know what you are going to say,” he said before Map or Veasna could speak, and his hand seemed to fling everything else away from him. “It is no accident you two are separated. You are a bad influence on each other and all the other men. You, Veasna, you're out of my company and at the front. No longer my problem.” And he walked on, leaving them standing.

  Veasna had been volunteered to help the 196th regiment take back Pailin from the Khmers Rouges. Pailin was a gem-producing town. The 196th regiment had a bad reputation for smuggling gemstones and ducking the fight. People joked that Veasna would see no fighting and come back rich.

  For Map, there were other uses. Despite the war, the government was reopening Angkor Wat to tourists. Idiotically, in Map's view, they were restarting the airline. Flights would start landing in December. Map had read his book on Angkor Wat over and over and enthused about it to other soldiers. Someone must have heard him do it, because they made him a tourist guard.

  The woods all around the monuments were crawling with Khmers Rouges fighters. Map could imagine the tourists huddled together and surrounded by troops, stepping on snakes or threading their way through fields of land mines. The Khmers Rouges hated foreigners and thought all white people were Soviets and shot at them. The Vietnamese hated the Chinese and despised the Thais, so they would be rude to Asian visitors. Sihanoukists, the ANS, had always been active in Siem Reap, and they would sabotage any effort by the Vietnamese-sponsored state to earn money. Even the KPNLF had revived themselves and made Siem Reap province one of their strongholds. The allied guerrilla factions sabotaged, mined, and took potshots, sometimes at each other.

  Map and Veasna said farewell over a bowl of rice at a roadside stall. The army trucks poured out blue smoke. Two friendly guys nodded to them. They were ANS guerrillas, good guys fighting for their king.

  Veasna was measured and serious. “The war will be over in two or three years,” he said. “We start our farm then. Maybe we could try to get your old family farm back. We could move there."

  They didn't see each other for over a year.

  Professor Luc Andrade was one of the first Westerners to go back to see the monuments. In one of his albums is a photograph of Map. Map's forearms are as thin as twigs and his face is cratered with acne scars. He stands in front of the Bayon, which looks as ruined as the National Bank, with shrubs and grass growing out of it. Balanced on Map's shoulder is a grenade launcher, aimed, thankfully, away from the monument.

  Map began to overhear English and learn it. “Hello well come,” he said to Luc, which is how he ended up being photographed. He started to explain the history of the monuments, how the architect of Angkor was allowed to copy only the stables of heaven. Luc remembered.

  Map ate plain rice. Map patrolled the monuments and pondered: how did we build these things and then end up where we are? He wondered at the wealth of cameras and sun creams that the tourists bought with them. He heard buzzing and looked up at the tiny, vulnerable aircraft that would be so easy to shoot down. The sound of mortars would come sometimes from Kulen, sometimes from Banteay Srei, sometimes from the town. He saved his money for paper and wrote to his sister and got no replies. He asked everyone for news of the 196th regiment.

  * * * *

  That January was, depending on your viewpoint, either the tenth anniversary of the Vietnamese invasion or of the founding of the People's Republic of Kampuchea.

  It was decided to celebrate the latter. Map was given leave to go to Phnom Penh for the celebrations.

  His bosses must have thought he wouldn't be able to go. Travel through Battambang province was no longer safe—Sihanouk's 27th brigade was slamming Viet positions all along Route 68. And anyway, Map had no money for travel.

  He sold his services to a corporal with a line in smuggling secondhand cars across the border to Phnom Penh. The guy had got hold of a Mercedes. Map would get five thousand riels on delivery. Map gave lifts to some of the other guys, which meant they got to go home and he got extra protection. They took off through Kompong Thom province, carrying extra fuel, speeding up through every narrow pass and seesawing up and over ruts and washouts. They could smell the extra fuel leaking in the boot. Nobody smoked.

  But it was fun pretending to be playboys driving a Mercedes, swapping jokes and getting out to push when the ruts and dust meant they could not get up a hill. They would jam branches under the tires to give the Mercedes extra grip. Sometimes even that didn't work and they would have to drive off the road, certain that there were landmines somewhere under the leaves. They rode the bouncing seats like broncos, accepting that any moment they could be spinning up into the air in pieces.

  You had to laugh.

  Map parked the car in front of the Department of Fisheries, walked in with his AK-47 and was actually paid the full amount by a well-fed functionary. He bought presents for Mliss and could even afford to take a cyclo to her flat.

  The Royal Palace was freshly cream and gold. All up Monivong Boulevard, the buildings had been repainted. Yellow and red flags lined all the streets, except the ones still barricaded with barbed wire and the wrecks of cars.

  Mliss looked pleased enough to see him, and got some dishes from her neighbours. Map called her the Aerial Princess. She smiled and served the food calmly, working around her expanding belly. Map started to wonder how she had survived alone with her beauty. He tried to get her to talk about her first husband.

  "Oh. He was okay,” she replied. “He has security job now."

  "You should write to Veasna,” said Map. “He will worry."

  "Oh. There is no post. Where would I send it?"

  "196th regiment at Battambang. He will get it and be happy. I know he misses you. Things are safer again in Battambang. Hun Sen asked the Vietnamese back.” Map passed her a gift of paper and pencils.

  "I will write,” she said in a mild voice and put the paper down.

  Map said to her, “You know, I'm thinking of getting back our old farm. You could be the schoolteacher there. They will need teachers when the war is over."

  Mliss's smile was radiant. “The war will never be over."

  The smile encouraged Map. “Who knows maybe I will get married too! They'll be babies everywhere for you take care of."

  Mliss added, “And orphans."

  "Good!” Map was trying to cheer her up, get her to smile again. “We will adopt them. We will have a big farm full of people."

  "There will be so many ghosts wandering around homeless that there'll be no room for the rice.” She tried to turn it into a joke. She tried her princess smile. It cracked.

  Map leaned forward. He took her hand, which was still and cold. “If we went home, we would be close to Mom and Dad's stupa. We would lay out the table for them at Pchum Ben."

  She said something very strange. “They will still come back angry."

  Peering into her face, Map saw that she had combed her hair so it fell over one side. He watched the curtain of hair move. It seemed to him that he saw the faded ghost of a bruise on her cheek. If Mliss's old husband came back and beat her up, what else did he do?

  Map never told Veasna. But.

  Who could be sure the child was his?

  * * * *

  The baby was due in April.

  As February and March passed, Map got increasingly frantic. He had not heard from Mliss; he had not heard from Veasna. The army was clear; it would not give Map leave to attend the birth.

  There was a new junior officer called Sinn Rith. Map pleaded with him. “I must go on leave. My sister is giving birth."

  Rith shook his head. “You only get leave if your father dies. Your sister should have married."

  "She is marri
ed. Her husband is my buddy Nim Veasna. He got volunteered to join the 196th. You know where he is? Can you radio him?"

  "We cannot radio anybody. You remember what happened at Kandaol? Things are bad everywhere, Map! Look, let your friend take care of this. It's up to him to get to his wife. Not you. We are too stretched, we can spare no one."

  Every night, going to sleep in the tent, Map prayed for Mliss and the coming child and for his brother. Prayer was all he had. Hope, he had been taught, meant nothing.

  They give Map two jobs, guarding monuments by day, and in the evenings, writing up records. Most of the officers were younger than Map and could not read or write. Map, to their very great surprise, was literate. He was old enough to have lived in a country with schools. He could keep the records and fill in the forms. That gave him access to paper.

  Map wrote often to his sister, to reassure her, to ask for news, and to beg her to write to Veasna. Post sometimes got through, but he had no idea which letters. So he said the same things over and over. He had no money for stamps, so he shined all the officers’ boots for cigarettes, and then sold or traded the cigarettes. This made the officers think he must be getting married himself. “That Map, he is coming around to life."

  Finally, in late March, Mliss wrote to him. A letter from home, the first Map had ever had. He opened it up slowly, and read it.

  Mliss did not mention her pregnancy except to say that she herself was well. It was mostly about the children at the school. They had put on a play. She described each of the children and the roles they played. There were, of course, no parents to see it, only the staff, but they all stood up and applauded.

  Map folded the letter carefully and put it back in his pocket. Then he worried about it getting worn and creased. He had nowhere to put things. The hammock was kept tightly rolled in his pack. The tents had no shelves; boots hung from poles. Finally he put the letter back in the top pocket of his shirt, and then worried about the ink spreading from his sweat.

  Map sat and thought about his loyalties then stood up and visited the corporal who smuggled cars. He went AWOL again. This time he drove a BMW.

  On Highway 6, he was stopped by two soldiers like himself. They too would supposedly be paid 1500 riels a month, only they didn't get it. They smiled like skeletons through the car window.

  "You're a lucky guy to drive a car. How much you get for that while we stand here like targets for the Khmers Rouges?"

  "I'm 118th regiment, I know how it goes."

  "So you share with your friends.” One of them lifted up his rifle.

  "I haven't been paid yet. I don't have the money. I don't get the money till I deliver this car.” Map offered them cigarettes. Cigarettes cost fifty riels a box. They stored them behind their ears.

  Map kept smiling. From the slightly Vietnamese twang to their voices, Map guessed they were from the southeast, Takeo or even Svey Rieng provinces. They would have families and untended fields. “Hop in with me,” he said. “I could get you partway home."

  The two soldiers went AWOL as well.

  This time the monkeys at the Department for Fisheries played monkey business with him, and did not pay him the full amount.

  Outside a civil servant was loading crates of cognac into the car Map had delivered. Both car and crates were going to some army officer. The civil servant looked at Map's uniform in despair. “Is this any way to fight a war?"

  "None of that stuff gets to the guys who fight,” said Map. “The guys who fight get nothing."

  "The likes of us don't either,” said the civil servant, his eyes like deep dry wells.

  Which, thought Map, is how all this mess happened in the first place.

  He walked to Mliss's house. As he feared, Mliss had made no preparations for the birth. She had bought nothing for the baby, not even a blanket. Map knocked on the neighbours’ doors and borrowed bowls, baby clothes, and towels.

  "We did wonder about her,” said one of the prostitutes. “She seems distant from her situation."

  Forget the army. Map stayed with her.

  The child was born during the New Year.

  Mliss looked as delicate as the leg of a tiny bird. The pregnancy looked too big for her and when the contractions started she floated no longer. She held her belly and wailed.

  The delivery took nearly a week. The midwife plied her with as many traditional remedies as she could find. Some of them made Mliss throw up. Some of them were stimulants to spark labour and actually made the pain worse.

  She couldn't stand the hammock for some reason and tried to give birth on the floor. Map spent hours sitting beside her on the floor. He tried to hold her hand; she fought him, wrestling. He was forced to conclude that she just did not want to have the child. She didn't want to bring it into the world.

  On the third day the midwife demanded money for more medicaments. Map gave it to her and it was late afternoon before he finally admitted that the woman was not coming back.

  He ran to the orphanage and found Madame. He shamed himself and lost all dignity. He could not smile, he could not accept. He just wept and tried to explain in French to the headmistress.

  "Why not tell me?” the woman demanded in her rough Khmer, with her long pink nose and long pinched face. Her name was Suzanne, but Map couldn't hear it properly, let alone pronounce it. Map couldn't understand whether she was angry at being disturbed or contemptuous of him for showing such a miserable face, or enraged at his stupidity. She slammed pots of leftover food onto her gas stove, and spun around her rooms getting money. She gripped his arm and flung him into a cyclopousse and went with him down Monivong.

  Her face fell when she saw the room. “Mliss habite ici?" Mliss lay on the floor, with the look of death about her.

  "Est-ce qu'elle peut marcher un petit peu?” the Madame whispered, and for the first time Map understood that she was deeply distressed.

  Together they carried Mliss down the five flights of stairs.

  "Where are we going? I don't want to leave my house!” Mliss wailed and reached back as if to grab hold of the railings.

  The same cyclopousse driver was waiting in front of the alleyway. “I knew you would need help,” he said, gently.

  "Calmette,” said Suzanne. The Russian hospital.

  All during the journey, Mliss rocked and sobbed and rocked. She stared about her wildly, and Map realized that she hated leaving her regular route between work and school.

  "There are robbers! They drive up alongside cyclopousses and shoot. Oh!"

  The cyclo driver apologized. “I'm sorry she is not well. I'm cycling as fast as I can."

  Mliss flinched at the white sunlight on the baking buildings. “It's full of bad people here!"

  The Calmette was baking hot as well, and the Russian and East German doctors and nurses seemed to float with fatigue. Their eyes went unfocussed when Suzanne spoke to them and it took some moments for them to reply. They did have a delivery table. One woman was whisked off it, some kind of towelling laid over it, and Mliss was left there. It was a holiday and there were no Cambodian midwives.

  It took hours. Mliss would not open up, and there were no drugs to ease the pain or relax the muscles, not unless they had a lot of money. Did they have money? The nurse looked askance and hopeful at the same time.

  "Where are the drugs?” Madame demanded. “I'm not paying you until I see them.” She disappeared too. It got dark, and Mliss started to tell the child to die. Madame came bustling back, with a clean syringe she had also bought and a tiny bottle of clear fluid. She elbowed the attendants aside. “I was nurse!” she snarled in Khmer. She injected Mliss, and leaned over and stroked her hair, which hung like water weeds to either side of her pinched and feverish face. The drugs took hold and Mliss relaxed. The birth of Veasna's child was suddenly over with, like the easy delivery of a rich entrepreneur's son.

  Then they had to make Mliss stand up and walk. The floor had to be swabbed.

  "She can come home and stay with me,” said
the East German.

  "Mliss, elle a peur.” Map explained in his halting French that Mliss was afraid of any change. “Elle n'aime pas les rues. Elle fait seulement maison-école, école-maison."

  Madame paid again for a cyclopousse. Mliss slowly climbed the stairs. The prostitutes crowded into her room, cooed, and helped Mliss into her hammock. They plucked at her stomach to help cure her. The eldest, who acted as a doctor for all of them, warmed some glasses and lined them up on Mliss's back. Purple-brown circular welts rose up under them. Mliss stared straight down at the floor, without her princess smile.

  Madame gripped Map's arm. She had rooms. “Nous avons des chambres pour les assistantes à l'école. Mliss, elle sait ça. Dites à elle que ces chambres ne coûte rien. Dites-ça à elle."

  Madame went home. The doctor-prostitute wrapped the child in a blanket and gave it to Mliss and it rested on her stomach. Map saw its face, new pink, and scrubbed. It looked like Veasna.

  Before he could think, Map said. “Well, there's no doubt it's Veasna's."

  Mliss heard him, looked up, and fixed him with an unblinking stare.

  Map had to get back to the army. The next morning he said goodbye to his sister. Madame came and Map could sompiah her. Map promised Mliss that Veasna would come when he could. Mliss's princess face was firmly back in place.

  Her grin looked huge, but Map noticed for the first time little stringy muscles around her mouth.

  "Tell Veasna he has a son called Nim Samnang. Tell him everything is very good, no problems.” Samnang meant Lucky. She held the child out from her, rather than nestling him.

  There was a boat going all the way back to Siem Reap that took passengers. It needed protection. Sitting on the roof of the boat, his gun ready as defence, Map looked at the water, full of fish and reflected sky. Map pondered his newborn nephew. A child in the family. A child in his family, the child of the two people he loved most in the world. A double nephew, the son of his sister and of his brother.

  He didn't want what had happened to him to happen to Samnang. He wanted him to grow up educated, happy, to pass his exams and work for the government. He didn't want him to be shot at, dragooned, or starved.