The King's Last Song

by Geoff Ryman

  The portrait bust that the stone mason makes, inspired by Jayavarman in meditation, is indeed meant to be the small head on display at the National Museum, Phnom Penh.

  1160

  One of the most difficult problems I had to solve was: what is Banteay Chmaar?

  This temple in the far west of modern Cambodia is another Jayavarman-style complex with battle reliefs reminiscent of those on the Bayon. But the battle honored is not the retaking of Angkor Wat. Instead it shows Jayavarman-era troops battling what look like legendary monsters called Bharata-Rahu. What on earth could those have been?

  I found my personal solution in “The Religions of Ancient Cambodia,” by Kamaleswar Bhattacharya (published in Sculpture of Angkor and Ancient Cambodia: Millenium of Glory, ed. Helen Ibbitson Jessup and Theirry Zephir, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Réunion des musées nationaux, Paris, Thames and Hudson, 1997).

  The article discusses a chthonic religion which focused on mountain gods and which may have merged with worship of Siva, also identified with mountains. Ba Phnom southeast of Phnom Penh and other temples were identified with human sacrifice, but a sacrifice intended to allow the God “a human vehicle through which the community can communicate via an intermediary."

  My somewhat fanciful solution was a peasant revolt against the Hindu religion and the role it played in validating kingship. My Bharata-Rahu became a suitably demonised false prophet. In this fictional universe, Jayavarman fought against a peasant revolt led by masked priests. This at least accounted for the images of contemporary soldiers battling with what look like monsters from mythology.

  But what was Jayavarman's role in the battle? When did it take place? Inscriptions honor four great heroes who died in the battle, and three of them have the title kumara, often translated as Crown Prince. Was Banteay Chmaar built in honor of Jayavarman's sons killed in battle? That would make sense.

  But why were these sons not listed in other inscriptions? If they were not his crown princes, whose sons might they be?

  My fictional solution was to make them the noble sons of Yashovarman, also known to Jayavarman and honored by him. This of course meant the battle had to happen before the overthrow of Yashovarman, thus giving me a fictional date and a chance to make a character, the Usurper, later called Tribhuvanadityavarman.

  1165

  The relationship of Root and Rajapativarman echoes the Cambodian folktale A Khaavk A Khvin, “The Blind Man and the Cripple."

  There is general consensus that Yashovarman was killed in a campaign about the time that the Usurper took power. The Phimeanakas Inscription baffles me at this point. Jayavarman seems to have gone to the Cham Kingdom of Vijaya “to support the king.” How would going to Vijaya help the king? Was Jayavarman fleeing the victorious Usurper? That's likely but not the stuff of heroic legend.

  My solution was to have Jayavarman forge an alliance with the Cham to remove the Usurper with loyal Cham troops. The battle in this section is not historically attested.

  1177

  There is no confusion over the date when the Cham deposed the Usurper and took possession of Yasodharapura themselves.

  There is confusion over the number and names of Jayavarman's sons and wives. With the exception of Rajapativarman, any name I use for his wives or sons is attested, though the real situation is probably more complex than I show (or know). Rajendradevi is listed as the King's main wife: my fictional reason for this is that she gave birth to the King's chosen heir, Indravarman. In fact, we don't know for certain that Indravarman was Jayavarman's son. We also don't have a birth date for him. Bringing his birth and the date of the Cham conquest together meant I had a fast-paced dramatic chapter that ends with Jayavarman's decision, finally, to make himself the Chakravartin, universal king.

  Jayavarman lived in an age of warfare and treason. He would on occasion have had to be ruthless. The entirely fictional murder of the Brahmin here is one of the few times my fictional Jayavarman shows a ruthless streak.

  April 1181

  The use Jayavarman makes of a white rabbit is fictional, but the idea is not unlike traditional Khmer stories about Subha Dansay, a rabbit, often Judge Rabbit.

  The idea that Jayavarman's Cham allies were the sons of his friend Jaya-Harivarman is a fictional solution to the problem of placing Chams fighting with the Khmer against another Chams.

  The scene between Jayavarman and the Cham King is entirely imaginary, though at least the Cham's name is accurate: Jayaindravarman. The Cham, like the Khmer, were Hindu-ized and like them used Sanskrit for things like official titles, so the similarity of the two men's names is without much significance.

  The two battles on the lake and on land are as accurate as I could make them. Indeed, inspiration for this book came the moment that Roland Fletcher mentioned that Jayavarman had described the site where Preah Khan was to be built as a Lake of Blood.

  I spent a lot of time staring at and drawing the bas-reliefs at the Bayon which show both the lake and land battles. In depicting the kinds of boats and their use in battle, and the ways in which elephants, infantry, and cavalry worked at the time, I made extensive use of L'Armement et l'Organisation de l'Armée Khmère: aux Xlle et XIIIe Siècles by Michel Jacq-Hergoualc'h (Presses Universitaires de France).

  Jayavarman VII did indeed make the Cham Vidyanadana a yuvaraja, crown prince, but after the taking of Yashodharapura. I took some dramatic licence in placing him alongside Jayavarman at the battle for the city. His being one of Jaya-Harideva's sons is entirely fictional.

  The celebrations described in the following leaves draw on the bas-reliefs on the Bayon.

  1191

  We know that the consecration ceremony for Preah Khan (Nagara Jayasri) was held in 1191 and that the foundation stone was written by Jayavarman's son Virakumara. However I have no evidence of the date of Jayarajadevi's death. To make it simultaneous with the foundation ceremony of Preah Khan is pure dramatic license. The Phimeanakas Inscription makes plain that Preah Khan was built or being built at the time of its writing. I took my cue from that.

  Some Cambodians who otherwise enjoy the book feel that I have idealised Jayavarman VII. For me the challenge was trying to imagine someone who is worthy of veneration. His dispatch of a wayward Crown Prince by placing him in danger is entirely fictional, as is its contribution to the death of Jayarajadevi. That is sufficient feet of clay for me.

  We do know that Jayavarman married Indradevi after the death of Jayarajadevi. The poem she begins to write in this chapter quotes from the real Phimeanakas Inscription.

  Leaves 151-155

  According to Chandler, the Brahmin Sri Jaya Mahapranjana served Jayavarman VII and also his two successors. Tellingly, an inscription devoted to this Brahmin is one of the few that also mention King Indravarman only in passing, establishing his death sometime around 1243. The inscription contains not a word of praise for the King, and his death-name is not given, all of which can be read as meaning that this king was not venerated. I imagined this high-ranking Mahapranjana as being a leader of the revolt against Buddhism. There is some evidence of a visit by either Jayavarman or one of his sons to Ceylon, and in this fictional universe it was a visit in search of a cure. To be clear, there is no direct evidence that Indravarman was either Jayavarman's son or a leper.

  The farewell to the King at Neak Pean described in these leaves is purely fictional. But it was an easy farewell to imagine, standing in that holy site with an orchestra of disabled men playing traditional music.

  The Modern Story

  The modern story is also based on informal sources; just visiting, just talking.

  My most recent experience of Cambodia is of increasing wealth in both Siem Reap and Phnom Penh. A whole generation, the majority of the population, has grown up since the 1980s. For them the Pol Pot era and the Communist society and civil wars of the 1980s are not even memories. Urban young people are cool, averse to both the curiosity and sympathy of foreigners. They no longer smile so readily, whic
h might be a good thing. Some of them don't believe that the depredations of the Pol Pot era are anything other than propaganda. They want to have fun; they want a voice; they are bored by the past. Though their parents might be depressed, alcoholic, or dead; though the rape of karaoke girls is not thought worth investigating by police; though the numbers of ethnic Vietnamese are still one-fifth of what they were in the 1970s, they think that Cambodia is now normal. They move through the dust of the wars without knowing. The sadness is that that dust is merely tiresome, boring. Cambodia yearns.

  Awakening

  The story of how William got a western name is based on the life of a motorcycle driver I met in Battambang. The way his family died, with the Khmer Rouge murdering volunteer fisherman on the grounds they must be Vietnamese, is based on the memoir by Ronnie Yimsut, “The Tonle Sap Lake Massacre."

  The description of William's home life is based on my stay with Mr. Kot Ker and his family.

  Mr. Son Soubert, in reviewing parts of this manuscript, told me that the high-school diplomas given to refugees in Thailand were not recognized by the Hun Sen government, creating the kind of educational problems William faced.

  Map's name comes from the name of a family member in When Broken Glass Floats, by Chanrithy Him (W. W. Norton and Company, New York, 2000). I was charmed that it meant Chubby.

  Mr. Leam Ran is a Patrimony Policeman who met me many times in the police village by Angkor Wat. He also accepted money from tourists for overnight stays in the Wat, though I never stayed there. He did lead this particular tourist up a staircase at Angkor Wat that disappeared at the top just as a joke. The five hundred dollar bribe to a land-mine clearance agency happened to a friend of his.

  It was Mr. Leam who gave me mental permission to paint a darker Cambodia than I had in earlier drafts and to imagine a political, rather than financially motivated, theft of the kraing meas, when he outlined his fears that bandits would hold tourists hostage in Angkor Wat....and he'd be the guy to be shot.

  April 1967

  The description of Phnom Penh in 1967 owes some details and much of its spirit to Cambodian Witness by Someth May. There is no chapter set in the Pol Pot era because of the wealth of excellent writing about that time by Cambodians in translation. Please go and read them.

  April 13, April 14, 2004

  The description of panic in Siem Reap after the fictional kidnapping is a touch overdone for 2004. It's based on the panic in Phnom Penh caused by the violence of the 1997 coup.

  The description of how the Patrimony Police celebrate New Year in the temple is based on a quiet party I had with them in 2001. The description of the old Army HQ in Siem Reap is based on my own visit there.

  April 14, 2004

  The lines about the garment industry came from a casual conversation with a returning Sino-Khmer refugee who owned garment factories. The giant radar photographs are based on those shown to me by Roland Fletcher in 2000.

  April 1988, April 1989, April 1990

  This long chapter has many sources. In an interview Helen Jarvis provided details of where Mliss might live, the Calmette Hospital, and the orphanage near the Samarki hotel. Specific details of life in the 1980s come from two volumes of journalism by Jacques Bekaert: Cambodian Diary: Tales of a Divided Nation 1983-1986 and Cambodian Diary: A Long Road to Peace 1987-1993 (White Lotus, Bangkok, 1997; 1998). For example, the detailed description of the New Year celebrations, from the crowded stalls in the Central Market to the festive horse race, come from his book.

  The song Map and Veasna sing was taught to me by my London Khmer-language teacher, Mr. Bun Ny Chea. He also contributed the meaning of Luc's name when heard in Khmer.

  Hun Sen: Strongman of Cambodia contributed the scene in which Map burns his old family farmhouse.

  Avoir 20 ans à Phnom Penh, photographs by John Vink, texts by Kong Sothanrith and Frédéric Amat (Editions Charles Leopold Mayer), provided inspiration for the photo of Map's wedding and the description of Veasna in Siem Reap hospital after a landmine explosion.

  September 1960

  Saom Pich is an entirely fictional character. There was not a showcase Brother Number One. Otherwise, all named people are real and were likely to be there.

  I first heard of the September 1960 train-station meeting that founded the Workers Party of Kampuchea in Evan Gottesman's Cambodia after the Khmer Rouge (Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2003). David Chandler provided more information on the meeting and on Pol Pot's career in his Brother Number One, a Political Biography of Pol Pot (Westview Press, 1999).

  April 15, 2004 part two

  The visit to the farm at Leung Dai is based on a visit with Mr. Leam to a farm owned by his relatives. The scenes on the lake result from trips from Battambang by boat and a visit to the Vietnamese village with Mr. Kot Ker.

  April 16 and April 16, night

  The visit to the warehouses of APSARA in Siem Reap (and the certainty that much of the statuary in the monuments are in fact copies—including the statue of Jayavarman) happened entirely because of the skills and determination of Mr. Leam.

  Rith's home is based on the home of someone who rented cars to tourists that I visited in 2001. The exorcism that Sinn Rith sees Map perform is based on a description in Cambodian Witness, by Someth May.

  The Season of Rain and Flooding, Sweat and Drought

  The description of a severe case of malaria was contributed to by medical student Trent Walters.

  Saom Pich's hysterical summary of Cambodia's recent history owes something to so many sources: Gottesman, Baekaert, Chandler, also Henry Kramm's Cambodia: Report from a Stricken Land.

  The final leaves and their reference to Bhaishjyaguru, the healing Buddha, were inspired by the well-known inscriptions on the houses of the sick that were built or repaired by Jayavarman. The slight presence of a rapper during Map's prisoner term results in part from an impromptu recorded interview with the rapper Sdey recorded in Phnom Penh in 2004.

  2004

  Cambodia changes so quickly that there is no “present day” to write about. The British publishers wanted the modern story to be dateless, but I persuaded them we needed to be clear at what stage of development the story was happening. The year 2004 was the last possible moment the story would have happened like this.

  The Siem Reap I describe in this book has disappeared. The novel would have been more aptly set in 2002. Then it was still a sleepy country town with as much in it for Cambodians as for tourists. Now the smoky roadside food stalls have gone, and there are modern gas stations, not immaculately dressed women selling gasoline in plastic bottles. Even some of the old colonial town has been demolished for modern buildings. Manicured, lawned, and air-conditioned, Siem Reap is a more comfortable experience for people wishing to visit the monuments.

  You would not find William living on a farm anymore, though ravenous motoboys will still cluster around you as you arrive.

  William's house would be sold for redevelopment to business people or NGOs for, say, $12,000. Since families, not individuals, own houses, the money would have been divided up among most of the family and rapidly spent on new motorcycles, electronics, or the rent for tiny concrete flats, which is where William will have ended up living with a young family. Perhaps he would have been able to finish his degree, but I doubt it. If lucky he will be working in the tourist industry. If not, his sole elevation will have been from motorcycle to duk-duk. If Map ever gets out of jail, and his spirit remains unbroken, he will not stay in Cambodia. He will get out by hook or by crook, to Thailand or the palm-oil forests of Malaysia.

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  A Note on Spelling

  There are many systems for transcribing Khmer into English but every Khmer language course or dictionary seems to use a different one. In practice, this lack of a single system produces many different spellings of Khmer words in everyday English language texts. This is true even of well-known people's names—for example the singer Sin Sisamuth or Sisamou
th. A search on Google will produce numerous websites that spell the same name in either way. This is even true of many common words. The rule for this book is simply to spell a Khmer word in the English transcription in which I first encountered it. I champion no one system and my transcriptions are not consistent, though this may cause concern for people who love the country and its language.

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  Acknowledgments

  Special thanks for John Weeks for organizing a range of meetings for me in Cambodia. Other people who were extremely helpful during that visit include Jane Martin, Terry Yamada of the Nou Hach Literary Journal, You Bo of the Khmer Writers Association; Amrita Arts Association—especially Sal, Hang Sreang, Kho Tararith of the Sower's Association, and Yim Luoth. That particular visit was made possible by a grant from the Author's Foundation.

  People who read early drafts and provided comments are hereby noted: Alexandra Haendel tried to correct my many misconceptions of life in the Angkor era; John Marston commented on contemporary cultural issues; Mr. Son Soubert took time out of a crowded schedule to comment on the section dealing with the 1980s.

  People who worked hard to make the drafts they read better: Tudor Parfitt and Anna Davis; people who kept my pecker up: Paul Brazier, Leslie Howle, and Kim Stanley Robinson.

  Many people helped me work through issues of the survival of the Book. I am very grateful to the Wellcome Foundation and Nigel Allan for a tour of their palm-leaf manuscript collection. Advisors on palm-leaf manuscripts or people who directed me to them include Jinah Kim, Elizabeth Pye, Alison McKay, Ann Bodley, and U Be Thein. Especial thanks to Peter Skilling, who suggested in a letter that the Book might be written on gold.

  The novel was inspired by a tour of Angkor Wat given by Roland Fletcher of the University of Sydney.

  Thanks to Bun Ny Chea for lessons in Khmer and cultural advice and Sambath Phalla of CASUNIK. Others who gave advice on contemporary culture, historical issues or archaeological practice include Dougald O'Reilly, Christophe Pottier, Thina Ollier, Yin Luoth, Chhay Bora, Chat Pier Sath, Sam Player, Hang Sreang, Helen Jarvis, Leam Ran and Kot Ker. Tom Chandler shared his visualizations of ancient Angkor with me. Laurence Festal checked my French.