by Geoff Ryman
Map's French failed him. He said in Khmer, “Her ex-husband beats her up. She has finally left that horrible place. You said once there would be a room for her here. Can you give her a room? Est-ce que vous avez une chambre?"
Madame bundled Mliss inside, reached up to take the bags. Map stood outside on the step.
"Entrez! Entrez!" Madame implored him.
"I am sorry. But I am bad luck and it would be better if I do not."
He backed away. “Take care of her. She is a good country girl. She was always good at her studies. She used to be happy and play. She is happiest...,” he took a deep breath, “when she is with the other children."
Madame didn't understand a word, but she was alarmed for him. “Monsieur Tan? Monsieur!"
He walked away backwards so he could see Mliss as he left. She looked up and smiled sweetly, as if he were walking towards her, not backing off.
"Bahn bon," he murmured. Good luck. And then because this was a big occasion, he wished her luck more formally. "Soam a-oy ban chok chay." The phrase had a note of prayer in it.
"Lea haoey," she said, an ordinary good-bye. She gave him a pretty little wave.
No letters. No phone. Kompong Thom baked in the dry-season heat.
Map wrote a letter to Siem Reap HQ requesting news about Veasna. No answer.
Map jumped on a supply truck going to Siem Reap in a convoy. The sun had baked the roads as hard as asphalt and he was there by evening. He stalked into his old camp.
"Where is Private Nim Veasna?” he demanded. He slammed the desk to shake up the little clerk who had taken over the job of quartermaster. He was a frightened little flower who shook every time he spoke to Map. He stared at Map in surprise and dismay.
Map shouted, “Where is Private Nim Veasna!"
Lieutenant Sinn Rith came into the office. “Who are you talking about?"
"My brother-in-law who was blown up. I left him here."
"Oh, him. I don't know."
"Where is he?"
Rith smiled. “Always the same, eh, Map? You know if you weren't such a coward and threatened the Khmers Rouges as much as you threatened us, maybe you would help us win this war.” He pretended to search through papers. Papers, who kept papers on anything? Rith probably couldn't read anyway.
"Ah yes, here we go. Yes, there was no one to take care of him so he....uh....went to rejoin his mother."
Map walked to Battambang along the open road. He was hoping to be shot, but a man who has lost the compassion of Buddha and who is damned will not be lucky enough to be shot. Buddha wants him to see how deep the curse will run.
So Map got to Battambang, and Veasna's mother had been at the palm wine. She had an evil tongue, and smelled of alcohol. Her teeth were black. Map would see her, years later, living in one of the temples as a nun, but for now she was a drunk.
Veasna was not there, and as far as Map could tell from his mother, he never had been. Map did not get angry. He asked her again. Had she seen Veasna since he was hurt?
"Oh,” said, his mother, curious. “Was he hurt?"
Map turned and walked out without any further words.
He went back to the camp. By now he should have been shot several times over. By now he knew he was cursed. He walked into the office and there was the frightened little flower of a quartermaster, even more uncomfortable than before.
"Where is Nim Veasna?"
"I don't know,” said the little flower. The little flower was shaking. “People say that he went back to his mother."
"He didn't...,” Map bit back on rage, “go back to his mother."
"Oh. Well. Map. You know, when people say someone sleeps with his fathers or has gone back to his mother....especially these days when....when there are so many mothers who have died, that can just mean that they have died....too?” His voice trailed away.
"How?"
"Oh! You know he was badly wounded."
"How?"
"He would not have had a happy life, it was such a terrible thing.” The flower really was trembling in the wind.
Map advanced.
He was thinking, I was cursed enough before, it hardly seems that anything I can do can make the curse worse. As if he already knew what he was going to do.
He asked the little flower, “What did you do with him?"
"I? I? I did nothing....except, except, from time to time, I would bring him food, you know. Not many people did that, you know how soldiers hate....to be reminded, and some of the people in this camp are just peasants and very superstitious about bad luck..."
"What did they do to him?"
"I....I..."
There were always rumours. Not enough rice to go around. They don't take care of the wounded anymore. In fact, they think it's a waste to feed them, since they can't fight and transport is so difficult. It was whispered that sometimes they even...
Map's voice was a whisper. “Did they shoot him or just let him starve to death?"
"What? Oh no, nothing..."
Map couldn't be bothered to let the man finish. He swung up his rifle and blew off the top of his head.
The body was flung in an arc against all the unfiled papers nobody could read.
There is no God for me and there is no law in Cambodia, so who is going to track me when there are no roads, and who is going to judge me when everybody in the whole country has killed something to survive?
The dead flower's body still trembled. I've seen this before, I've done it before. You weren't worth a bullet. I should have pulled out all your fingernails first, like we used to do when we wanted to have some fun, and then pulled out your tongue and made you sing a song for Angka. I should have made you dig your own grave naked in the rain and then lie down in it. I should have weighed you down with a heavy stone and found Veasna's shorts and made you eat them and then and only then would I have beaten your head in with a hoe.
You'll try and come and find me. You'll try to kill me back.
But I have to do some things first.
He patted the dead quartermaster's pocket for the keys. He wrapped himself round with belts full of ammo, and a tin of extra fuel. He got into an army truck, revved it up, and roared through the barrier out onto the road. He pushed it bounding up and down over ruts, jarring and weaving around potholes, his headlights full on. Come on and shoot me if you're going to, don't do anything halfway!
He swerved around debris. Piles of cow shit hid mines. Heaps of reeds hid mines, even little bumps hid mines. You people are lazy. I know how you do it; I've done it myself.
He drove back towards Kompong Thom, and down the old track, headlights blazing and beeping his horn. It was dawn, but no straw was burning this time. He pulled the truck up with its engine running and let off a round of ammunition. “Out of the house!” he shouted. “Out, get out now."
He started shooting at the roofs and shouting. The Chams stumbled out of the house. He shot over their heads, but made sure his blank eyes told them: I'll kill you no problem. They begged, they pleaded, they saw he was crazy. He got back in the cab, revved the engine again, and drove the truck head-on into the house. They shouted “No, no, not our house,” and he said, “It's my house. Nobody gets it."
He went round the back, got out the gas canister, splashed the truck, splashed the broken bulk of the house, especially sploshed the open cap to the gas tank. He made a trail of gas away from the truck.
Then he took out a cigarette lighter, the one Veasna bought the day he found his mother.
He stood back; fire fluttered forward; there was a whoosh; the truck was alight, and the houses caught and then there was a bone-rattling thump in Map's chest. The back of the truck lifted up and there was a fist of fire going up into the air.
A grand house, we used to call it. It was a peasant's house, full of hope and not much else. Work hard, study, be good, give your money to the poor as if we weren't the poor ourselves, work in the hot sun, drink evil water and get sick. Oh, thank you, Lord Buddha, Preah-ang B
uddha, for this abundant life!
My parents aren't here, my brother isn't here, Veasna isn't here, nobody's here, not even as ghosts. Mom and Dad, they were dead at the beginning of all of this. There have been so many waves of ghosts since. The spirits of my family will have been washed away on floods of ghosts. Cambodia has floods of murder more regular than the Tonlé Sap.
Well, this is my place! This is the place where my brother Veasna and I should have farmed. Where his many sons and his beautiful daughters should have prospered. This is where my brother Heng should have come if there were any justice. He would have come as a general with his beautiful wife, down from the city, big and fat and army-fed, his children looking down their noses at our cows and hens and supper of catfish.
Somewhere my wife is pouring water over her head, and she is singing sweetly because all she has ever seen is sunrise and sunset and neighbours given dinner because they helped to build a new shed. My plump and happy wife stands at the crossroad at New Year to collect money for the monks. She sends our sons off to school every morning wearing their clean little school shorts.
At New Year she goes from house to house doing traditional dances, her fingers arched, dances that are about fishing and hunting and laundry. My wife dances beautifully and sweetly and she loves her sister-in-law Mliss because they have known each other all their lives and have always been friends. They dance together, and they can go from house to house, and Mliss is not frightened of the sun, she is not frightened to leave the house. Mliss goes up to anyone's house and dances for them happily and in perfect safety. And Mom and Dad died in their hammocks, and their ashes are in urns safe in the stupa, the cheea dai, so I know where they are and I can ask the monks to chant for their spirits so they get the food that I leave for them. My sons paint the spirit houses white and they hang tinsel in the New Year and on the porch we lay our table for all our ancestors, and they come in peace and love for these are happy spirits who do no harm.
As they did no harm in life.
But watch out for me, Buddha. Since you can't save me, watch out for what kind of avenging spirit I will become. I will have many heads like the Naga, and staring eyes like a demon. I will be the Monkey King who murders Lord Rama and rapes his wife and joins the demons!
Map walked away. Behind him the fire leapt up joyfully like a troupe of celestial dancers, and the folds of the fire's swirling dresses enveloped the straw, the wood and the lopsided Kompong Thom spire. No Muslims will have it, no yuon will have it, no Angka farmer who butchered people and thinks he got away with it will have it. No one will have it. You won't have it, Buddha. You can't take it.
He could hear the Chams behind him sobbing. He rattled more bullets over their heads. He walked back up the track to the main road, and kept walking.
Map felt he had won. I have nothing left, Buddha, so what are you going to take now?
Mliss committed suicide.
Map knocked on Madame's door, and she saw him, and reeled back, and said, “Oh, Monsieur Tan. Oh, I am sorry.” She tried to tell him in Khmer, but she garbled it and it took ten long minutes of confusion and false starts. There was some insecticide and she drank it. It was a bad thing; I won't make you unhappy by telling you. Yes, yes, monsieur, it took her a long time to die and she was in great pain. Yes, monsieur. Die. Morte? Elle est morte. Yes, monsieur, yes, yes, that is what I have been saying. She was so unhappy after her husband's injuries, and....monsieur?
Madame was used to little Cambodians who nittered gratefully at her heels like puppy dogs. Madame was not used to great raging Cambodians with round staring demon eyes. Madame was not used to seeing Cambodians when they break open like eggs and everything that has been done to them is done back.
Map was bellowing at her.
"That baby is not an orphan! Samnang is not an orphan! Samnang has a family!"
Map shouted so hard he fell onto his knees. He jabbed a finger at her and roared. “That baby does not get adopted. The baby stays here, I pay. Il n'est pas pour....pour donner aux autres! "
"Oh monsieur! Oh! I understand. Do you want the child? Do you want me to get him for you?"
"Dtay! ” he screamed. It means no, but she forgot that. He waved the child away. Samnang must stay away from him, or the luck will spread like black dye. “Dtay, dtay, dtay, dtay! ” And he couldn't stand up, so he crawled away as fast as he could, crawled for Veasna, in honor of Veasna who could only crawl, crawled because he was only worthy of crawling. Map would die and not even come back so high as an insect.
Oh, Buddha, what a mind you have, how clever you are, what traps you set. Oh, what else could you take from me? Okay, Buddha, you win! I honor you out of terror; I honor you out of grief. I honor you because you eat my country, licking your fingers like it's sweet fruit. Okay, you win!
On his knees, Map bowed again and again, and touched his forehead to the ground. Now I understand! Now I understand!
You are Angka, God!
Yes, yes, Angka was the palest imitation of you. Perhaps the Khmers Rouges suffer now because they failed. Even Angka made mistakes and let some live, but you, you destroy all. And you tell us to smile, and to accept, well, Okay, look! Look, I'm smiling, see? I get the joke.
It is funny. Ha ha ha ha! I'm laughing, see? Hear me laugh, Preah? I bow to you, Lord Buddha, and your superior wisdom and all the people's brains you slammed into the roadway. Oh, I am pissing myself from desire to serve you!
Is that enough? Can the killing stop for just a little while?
Can Samnang live, Preah-ang Buddha? Will you let him keep his legs and his hands? Will you stave off making him a deaf-mute, or perhaps even spare him being shot at?
Can he go to school, Preah? Please? Sohm, Preah oeuy, sohm preah oeuy, sohm...
Map was curled up on the pavement, and he was dimly aware that Madame was holding him and rocking him, going ssh, ssh, ssh.
Map became embarrassed. He stood up and wiped his face and sompiahed. Madame was wise enough and scared enough to let him go.
He weaved away unsteadily, to join the police. The police carried guns too.
At least when the army finally came to shoot him, he would be able to shoot back.
The Vietnamese said the war would go on for two more years and indeed the UN showed up in 1993. But the chain of conflict did not finally end until 1998. The Vietnamese lost 53,000 troops in Cambodia, almost the same as the number of Americans who died in Vietnam. There is simply no counting the numbers of Cambodians who died.
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April 1151
There were many things about being a slave that Jayavarman could accept.
He could make himself love the mud. Mud could cover his skin and keep out the sun.
He could love nursery rice. It would nourish and give life. He could not love bending over for hours pushing the young and tender plants into flooded fields. He could not love the ache in his back. He could feel pain making him old. It numbed his brain, closing down the world.
At first he had told himself that enslavement would be a valuable lesson in humility and acceptance. He had still been thinking like a prince. He soon learned that aching shoulders could teach him nothing. They shrivelled as they ached, losing strength and skill. He remembered all the foolish tales of heroes grown stronger through labour. He walked now with knees permanently bent.
You called yourself Nia, Slave, out of arrogance. You thought you were being noble climbing down mahogany steps in condescension.
You were a slave all along. It was your destiny. And how you ache for each day to end, so you can rest a body so full of pain that it stops your mindfulness.
You look up at the slow sun, waiting for it to crawl across the sky, so you can crawl into your hammock. Sometimes you cannot even see the sun, your eyes sting so much from sweat.
Jayavarman Nia had learned other things.
He had learned that Buddhists could be evil taskmasters. It made no difference to a slave if his masters spouted
empty words of compassion and forbearance. They still looked through you as if you were a beast.
Jaya had taught himself to speak Cham. He had to, to survive. His Cham was crude and halting, and it reduced him to the level of a child. It made him sound ignorant, like a peasant. He remembered laughing at the airs and graces of the Chinese, who had seemed to him to be so ignorant and crude. They were only foreigners, trying to learn and take part.
He had learned that you needed hope and strength to be sociable.
The man labouring next to him said nothing. Jaya did not know his name, knew nothing about him, and cared nothing about him.
The man next to him stood up. This was dangerous. It drew attention. He croaked at Jaya, demanding something in a tribal language. He was some sweaty unwashed wild man, who did not smell any worse than Jaya.
He barked again. He had the eyes of a soldier who had seen too many battles. His voice went high and rough, requesting something. He gestured as if embarrassed towards the knee-deep flooded field.
Then he knelt down into the water and pushed his own head under.
Move, Jaya told himself, and didn't.
Jaya, move. The man is drowning. Jaya looked up at the guards. They shovelled rice into their mouths. One of them glanced up and kept eating.
Jaya felt his way through the water, as thick as a cloak, and he could not find the man under it. Finally he struck an arm, grabbed it and pulled upwards.
The arm was smeared with mud but underneath it, the flesh was feverish in Jaya's grasp. Jaya had a dull thought: he could make me ill too.
The mountain man groaned and gasped and said a word in pidgin. Jayavarman had heard the word used of fish thrown up onto a bank.
The man pointed at himself. Drown me, he was saying. Drown me!
Jaya shook his head. No.
Once again the wild man pushed himself under the creamy green flood, and disappeared. Jaya felt as if the whole weight of the sky was bearing down on him. He had no words. What would he do?
The man wanted to die. But he was ill; maybe it was the fever talking.
Jaya reached down into the mud again, and pulled the man up.