by Geoff Ryman
Luc reads and wants to cry. They thought they were doing so well. They thought the country was coming back. “You have been very effective,” he says quietly.
"You are right there, barang,” says the old man.
Gunfire, panic, evacuation, airports. Nothing about the Kraing Meas.
Luc asks, “Where is the Golden Book? Have you sold it?"
The old man gives a sideways smile. “You think everything comes down to money."
Luc's voice goes thin. “Do you still have it safe?"
"Why do you care?” the old man asks.
A very good question. Luc goes quiet. “Because I love Cambodia."
The old man looks at him with his fish's face—unmoving and unreadable, perhaps a bit sullen. “Why?"
"Because when I was young I fell in love with a Cambodian, and ever since then I sometimes see the world through his eyes."
His? Gloop. You're tired, Luc. They hate khutoy.
The fish face does not move. “You are a very lucky barang,” the old man says. What does that mean? The old man is looking at him askance. “You speak good Khmer. You were an old colonial.” A dangerous statement.
"I grew up here,” says Luc.
"So this is your home. You like coming back here. You're sorry the country is so badly run and you think you could run it better."
"I am glad the French no longer hold it."
"Why?"
"I went to France and found I did not like it."
"But you think the country is badly run."
Luc says, “This is not my country, I cannot say."
The old man laughs at him. Luc goes back to reading aloud, shivering with sweat, hunger, fear, and exhaustion.
He has told the truth. Maybe it was good that he had said “he.” Otherwise the story could have been one of a rich barang stealing Cambodian women. Luc is now utterly dependent on whether an ex-Khmer Rouge hammered by thirty years of war will comprehend a common humanity between them.
How much would he mind dying? Luc is surprised at how little he minds. He's over fifty years old and no genius. There are no great works to complete, no children to support, no wife to grieve. He's eaten superb meals, seen the Pyramids, and spent his life outside Europe, the grey place that bored and oppressed him. Perhaps his years in the East have made him crypto-Buddhist. Perhaps he half-believes in samsara, the cycle, the coming back.
If he died now, he would die content. Filthy and sleepless in a fish-stinking boat.
And fearless.
I never knew that. I always thought I was a terrible coward. Was all that fear a pretence? What did I get out of pretending? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. What a waste.
I'm doing what they tell you to do in this situation. I'm talking to them.
Food comes—rice and steaming land crab. The old man waves at them to eat. He stands up and gets out of the hull. The General looks up at Luc mournfully, like a penned animal, round-eyed and wet. He takes the bowl with shivering hands. Luc puts his own bowl down and helps him, breaking open his crab.
"Ugh!” shudders Vut. The main central body of the crab, its brains and intestines, stinks.
The bandages at the back of Vut's knees almost phosphoresce with orange and green stains.
"You should eat the rice at least,” says Luc.
Vut groans again. He's sick. Luc eats only the legs, cracking them open and sucking out the meat.
"You said you loved a man,” says Vut.
Luc uses the truth to prevaricate. “I love everybody."
The old man comes down soon after. “You eat this part,” he says, and shows Luc how, prising apart the central body. It's full of green gunk. Luc's eyes seem to shine a narrow band of torchlight on the old man's bitten fingernails to see what he does. The old man does not touch the guts but expertly tears out white flesh.
Luc can allow no barriers. He shrugs forward and takes the crab. Its labyrinthine inner chambers scratch his palms like plastic. He eats as the old man showed him.
The old man munches out a question. “What do barang think about the khmei kraham, Khmers Rouges?"
Luc finds his mind is dull. “Nothing of interest. They think they were crazy people who killed many Cambodians. Some of them know that the US bombed your country and kicked out your Prince. Some of them know the US and China supported the Khmers Rouges to keep them fighting the Vietnamese. Most of them know very little. It was a long time ago."
The old man shrugs. “What do you think?” For the first time the old man truly smiles at him, and before Luc can answer, he says, “We were crazy people who killed many Cambodians.” He grins, watching Luc's reaction.
"We were angry. That made us stupid.” The old man shakes his head. “Angry at all the people who used our country for their own wars, angry at all the city people who were corrupt and scornful. All those city people got bribes, money on the side.” His face went harsh. “They deserved to die. I'm glad we killed them."
"But my friend died too. He was a farmer from Kompong Thom."
"Ah,” the old man's smile now looks regretful. “What we didn't know was that the High Organisation, the Angka Loeu, was run by city roostershit as well. Well, I did, because I knew them all, but I was young and thought that all Cambodians must know about rice. Those jerks knew nothing about rice and farming. They made us do stupid things and we all starved. Everybody. So I learned: no matter what educated people say, there is no one that country people can trust but ourselves."
The old man butts Luc's foot with his heel; rude but not meant to hurt. Arn, Luc tells himself, Arn is teasing me. And it seems that, yes, perhaps there is something friendly about the old man.
The old man says, “Sorry about your friend from Kompong Thom. He was a good man?"
"Very."
"Then that's why he's dead, only bad men are left.” Grin. Joke. “Like me."
For a moment the old man looks like Map. The same flash of hatred of the self, of the world. “Cambodia is at the bottom of the well. The only people who come down here are not the people who hurt us. I am sorry it has to be you."
That you imprison? Or that you are going to have to kill?
The old man reaches back round for his gun. He prods the General's kidneys with it. “This one here? We will eat his liver. Maybe we will cut it out of him while he is still alive. Like we used to do."
Luc urges Vut in English, “Talk to him, for God's sake."
Vut replies in Khmer, “You speak better Khmer than I do."
This amuses the old man, who prods the General with the gun again. Vut reacts like a sack of rice. He needs all his energy to stop himself complaining or crying aloud. Pain takes the form of trickling sweat.
Luc says. “He is a broken man. You've won."
"Not till we eat his liver.” The old man turns and grins again.
Luc advances. “He was only trying to earn merit by protecting the Book."
The old man sniffs and shrugs as if under a burden. “Ah! This book. What is this book?"
"It is an ancient book. It is the story of Jayavarman's life, written by himself."
They can hear birds in the reeds, calling. They can hear the slop and gurgle of little waves against the overlapping boards of the hull. Like going fishing with an uncle in the warm afternoon.
First, the old man looks solemn. Then he looks angry. “It is our book!” he insists.
"Yes, it is,” says Luc.
"Barang,” he says, sneering like Elvis Presley. He leans back and looks at Luc with narrowed eyes. “You say you love Cambodia. So do I. I am going to do something very Cambodian with that book. And if you can guess what that is, I will let you live."
It's a game, without significance. The old man could shoot him anyway. Luc finds that he is genuinely smiling. “Okay,” Luc says lightly. “Will you let the General live too?"
"Mmmm,” replies the old man with no commitment, looking up and down the barrel of his rifle. His smile now looks like Luc's; he likes Luc's acceptance of
the basic terms. This is indeed a game, only with bullets.
"How long do I have?"
The old man levels the gun directly at Luc's forehead. “As long as you need. But only one guess."
Well, I could stew for weeks and still get it wrong.
The lapping of the water, the crying of the birds. Time is measured in pulses of thought. Think quickly, and time slows. Speed can make time infinite. So I have as long as I need.
I know he does not want us to have the Book, and I know he regards the Book as his, “he” being the people of Cambodia, but the people for him are country people only; he will not want barangs touching it, translating it to other tongues for other people. He will not want the General and all the people who defeated him and his kind to gain any merit or make any money from the Book. He certainly will not want Thai art dealers to get it. He wants to shoot it over all our heads, but keep it safe and warm and sheltered. He would push it back in time if he could, or push it forward.
What the hell.
Luc says, “I can guess now."
That rouses the General. "Preah-ang Buddha!" he whispers.
Keep it simple, Luc.
"I think you are going to take the Book and bury it again."
The fish face freezes. Then the old man bursts out laughing. “Barang!” he roars, this time with approval. He leans back laughing and shaking his head, looking like a happy drunken farmer at a party.
A good Cambodian joke now would be to shoot Luc anyway.
Luc advises him. “Wrap it back up in the same bundles of ten leaves. Don't wrap it in anything modern. Wrap it in the same orange linen."
"Maybe I should burn it so it goes up to heaven!” Eyes twinkling, he scans Luc's face for signs of dismay. The old man then murmurs an emollient sound, as if in some way Luc's correct guess had been a victory for both of them. “What's your name, barang?"
"My personal name is Luc."
"Luc? Luc?” says the old man, his eyes widening. He laughs. Luc suddenly hears his name as a Khmer word. “Luc” means something like “reaching into."
"Are you reaching into a hole to catch a rabbit? Teacher Luc, reaching down and into. That's a good name for you!"
Still chuckling he shuffles forward and tapes shut their mouths. They are going to live a little while longer. To Luc's surprise, he hears the old man's boat start up. It heads off in the opposite direction from which it came.
Luc thinks: he said he knew the Angka Loeu.
That means he knew Pol Pot.
[Back to Table of Contents]
September 1960
The station in Phnom Penh: rain drumming endlessly on the roof.
The Battambang train arrives glossy as if with sweat. Shorts and headscarves are soaked; flip-flops squelch. People's foreheads reflect light through the windows like billiard balls as they hoist up suitcases, cages filled with hens, or bicycles.
The train blows out as if finally able to relax.
Saom Pich feels his way down from the carriage. He is eighteen years old and this is his first time on a train, his first time in the capital. He hopes to pass for a city person. His best clothes—trousers and a good pair of sandals—are smeared with soot and smudged water.
Down to the end of the platform, the brothers said, then turn left and find the row of offices on the other side of the track.
Saom Pich has great difficulty seeing. A train door slams behind him. Some functionary runs past Pich, his white shirt a blur. He fell asleep on the train and now has to run back to his office job.
Pich gets lost. It's nearly dark. Sounds echo high overhead. He looks up and dimly sees a huge vaulted ceiling with round arches. Is that a row of ticket windows to his left? He can hear windows sliding down, clicking shut. The echoes of footfalls are fading away. Already the train station is almost empty.
Pich mops his brow and carefully retraces his steps.
He certainly cannot say, Excuse me, sir, can you tell me where the Second National Congress of the Kampuchean People's Revolutionary Party is being held?
It has been an adventure to take the boat from the country to one big city, and then a train to another. The noise, the mud, the signs, the shouting of people, the sound of so much Chinese, so much French, all of it confounds him. The way some of the women sound as they walk—click, click, click, swish, swish, swish—he can hear that they wear entirely different clothes, lead an entirely different life. They smell of soap, perfume, and alcohol. Pich clings to—what?—his presence. His presence of mind, his sense of self.
I am the real Cambodia. I am who they need to know. They need to listen to people like me.
Pich sees lights to his right. He wanders into the toilets by mistake. They are made of concrete with tiles and taps and smell of soap and sweetness. We use tree-shadow and earth.
Someone comes in and says hello and asks, “What province are you from?"
Lon Nol's secret police?
"Siem Reap,” Pich finally admits. He traces the wall towards the door. He can clearly see a pattern of black flecks embedded in the yellow tiles.
"I'm from Kandaol,” says the other man. All fourteen provincial representatives are meeting. Could he be referring to that? “Can I help you find something?"
"No, thank you. I am just leaving."
Then the voice says, “Are you Saom Pich?"
Pich pretends not to hear and keeps walking.
"I....I was asked to look out for Saom Pich."
Pich grunts. The man shuffles ahead of him, probably deliberately dragging his flip-flops. He opens a door and a murmuring of voices cuts short, and there is a flood of light. The man seems to pause at the entrance. Waiting for Pich?
If this is the secret police, they already have my name.
Pich goes in.
Through the fog he can see a sudden and relieved smile. “Comrade,” says the smile.
Inside is a hot and tiny room with paint so peeling even Pich can see the patches. In that tiny room twenty other people are crowded, sitting on window sills or along the one desk.
"Notre camarade de la campagne,” one of them says, swift as a knife.
Pich recognizes the downturned smile of Nuon Chea.
"How goes the struggle in the country?” Nuon Chea asks, the friendliest of them to Pich, and to an extent his mentor.
"We do what we can,” says Pich. “Sihanouk has been very successful at eliminating opposition. I am alone. I have no information. I need support."
Nuon Chea smiles. “We are your support, Saom Pich. We are your library, your books.” Nuon Chea waves Pich forward.
It has been such a long and tense trip, and to finally be greeted, teased slightly and promised help all at once, is welcome and pleasing. Pich feels himself smile, and the smile seems to ricochet around the tiny, hidden, peeling room. There is a fog of chuckles for him.
In the corner is the huge beaming smile of Saloth Sar.
Pich can recognize Keo Meas and Sao Phim. Thiounn Mumm nods; his brother works with railway cadres, which is how they got this room. The non-party member Ieng Sary smiles through smoke and tobacco stains, more fog.
There are no introductions. Any names used are nicknames. From time to time, people address Saloth Sar as Pot.
"Comrades,” says Saloth Sar. “Our situation is perilous. The Sihanouk authorities savagely oppress the mass-struggle movement. Many members have been arrested and killed. Others have wavered and abandoned their duty."
Only last year, the in-country leader of the party defected.
"Of our old established leaders only one is left."
That is not quite true, there are other old guard cadres in the room, but Tou Samouth is still head of the party. There is a murmuring and dipping of heads towards someone sitting next to Saloth Sar. Pich squints, trying to get some idea of who Tou Samouth is as a person.
And why he is so silent and weak? Pich knows what this congress is about—replacing the old guard with all these educated young men from France.
Who spends the next five minutes praising the international revolutionary effort and the brotherhood of the Laotian, Cambodian, and Vietnamese peoples.
He's good at this, thinks Pich. You know there is a contradiction to follow and you sit smiling and waiting for it. I'd follow him. I've seen through him, but I would follow him. I think he's probably at his best sweet-talking students and sounding like everybody's idea of an enlightened man.
Sar summarizes. That same month, the Vietnamese workers party had resolved to liberate South Vietnam.
"And of course we support them in this. And of course they look to us to work primarily towards this aim."
The liberation of someone else's country. I see where this is going.
"That is why our comrades asked us to hold this meeting in circumstances of great danger. We are being asked to support a monarch because of his supposed anti-imperialist stance."
While he is murdering us.
Saloth Sar continued. “And because he supports the Vietnamese in their just war against American imperialism."
This, Pich realizes, is an anti-Vietnamese cadre.
Which could be useful. Some country people hate the yuon. All those ancient stories of the Vietnamese using Cambodian heads to make a table for their teapot.
But being anti-Sihanouk as well? Is that wise?
"The people love Sihanouk,” interjects Pich. After all, I am a blunt country fellow.
"Indeed, they do.” All Pich can see is the forgiving smile. “An example of false consciousness."
"He was more clever than we were at claiming credit for getting rid of the French. The people love Cambodia, and so love him. If I understand you correctly, Comrade Pot, the idea is to use nationalism to build a movement of class struggle."
Saloth Sar has to chuckle, and Pich thinks he sees the man's eyes widen. “You do not need books, Comrade."
Pich knows then that this man makes assumptions. He thinks a blind country person does not read. It is only things out of arm's reach that I can't see. I can read. I read anything I can, all the time. Which is why I am a dedicated and useful cadre.