by Tom Vater
“And you don’t find that scary, Les?”
The American brushed his thumbless hand across the faded tattoos on his left arm.
“I have seen whole valleys go up in flames, turned to steam by the payloads of B-52s. For my country, I poured napalm over children and I pushed men out of helicopters. In Khe Shan, we were attacked by Vietcong who had loaded syringes taped to their arms, syringes filled with heroin. Every time I walked out of the compound after a battle and found a dead soldier, I had myself a shot. It was always Grade A quality. The war made me both killer and victim. I saw ghosts. Before death stalks the paddies, a young woman appears. Everyone, every child, who’s served at the front will tell you this. I see the same ghosts and accept the same laws of nature that people here have faith in. Kep’s my final destination – as the name of my modest establishment should tell to you.”
Maier looked Les straight in the eyes. “Then you lose nothing if you tell me what is going on here.”
Les looked uncertain and began to roll another joint.
“What kind of music do you listen to, Maier?”
The detective shrugged in his vest.
“You have found my weak point, Les.”
“People who don’t like music are strange, Maier. What did you do in your last life?”
“As I told you, I was a journalist, first in East Germany, then, after the fall of the Wall, in West Germany.”
The American’s eyes widened with surprise. “You’re a commie?”
Maier laughed and tried to steer the conversation into more profitable waters.
“I was a journalist for six years in communist Germany. I was born there and grew up there. I was a war correspondent working for an agency in the reunited Germany for eight years. I have seen a few ghosts too, in my time.”
The American digested the news and changed the subject. “Kaley was married to Tep’s oldest son. He was a real piece of work, worse than the second son, whom you know from the Heart. This guy, Hen, he was a cop in Kep. He stole from tourists and set a small bungalow operation on fire that wouldn’t pay him his bribes. He also had something to do with the bomb at the hotel in Sihanoukville which killed a foreigner. He opened a small brothel behind the Angkor Hotel and brought some girls in from Saigon. Kaley had Hen’s child eight years ago, a daughter. A beautiful girl called Poch. Hen used to beat Kaley. At that time there weren’t that many foreigners in town. But we all knew what was going on. Kaley was the most beautiful woman in Kep. She still is today, but then, she looked totally irresistible. It hurt to watch her being mistreated. But no one did a thing. Perhaps we were all sadistic swine, because we could not have her for ourselves. Of course, the entire expatriate community was scared of Hen and his father. Two years ago, Poch borrowed a hammer from the neighbours and beat her father to death in his sleep. Shortly after, Kaley and the kid stood in front of my door. What could I do? I took them both in. I slept with her and it rained. A few days later, she went back to Tep.”
Les sighed. His eyes had glazed over with sadness and loss.
“Tep took his revenge. He installed Kaley in the brothel and invited the men from the plantations. It always rained afterwards and local people believe that anyone who sleeps with Kaley is cursed and will die a violent death.”
“What do you think?” Maier asked and lifted his empty glass.
Moments later, an ice-cold vodka orange stood in front of him. Drinking was part of the job – Maier repeated this troubling thought like a mantra and held on to the bar.
“I don’t think I got much time left. That’s why I didn’t throw you out.”
“And what happened to the daughter?”
Les held up his hands in defence. “You will have to ask Rolf that. And now go home; I’ve had enough of you.”
Maier left some dollar bills on the counter and drifted into the night. He’d not been this smashed in a long time.
ENLIGHTENMENT
Though Maier had spent years in Southeast Asia, he’d mostly stayed away from the taxi girls. He wasn’t averse to the looks of Asian women, and he’d communed with a few. But for Maier, sex had to be an explosive exchange, a kind of celebration of body and soul. If the woman wasn’t hot for it, then neither was Maier.
Taxi girls weren’t hot for it. At least not hot for sex.
And when the occasional hotel receptionist or flight attendant had sought to slip between Maier’s sheets, usually she had done so in the hope of being able to hang on to him. Sex was weapon and tool in Asia, especially as long as so many women couldn’t emancipate themselves. Equality for women in Asia was a future as desirable as it seemed utopian to Maier. How often had he looked at a Cambodian woman’s behind and then taken the young lady from Bremen or Santa Barbara who’d been drinking at the next table home with him? As a war correspondent he’d never had to worry about finding partners for the long nights on the frontlines of the world. A pretty and lonely NGO worker or reporter could be found even in the world’s darkest recesses. For a private eye, having a love life was more complicated. Maier rarely told people the truth about what he did. But at the age of forty-five, his remarkable eyes had never let him down yet. Eyes like magical flashbulbs.
Lying in Maier’s hotel room, Carissa slowly turned in bed so he could admire her in his own time. Her hips gleamed with sweat and Maier watched a large drop of moisture slide down a smooth thigh, before it was trapped in the hollow of her knee.
“You should meet Raksmei, Sambat’s sister. She’s no shrimp. Half barang and half Khmer, a ravishing-looking woman. If you ever look into her eyes properly, you’ll never share a bed with me again. That said, she’s too young for you.”
Sex and death stuck close to one another. The little death and the big death. Carissa had heard of the underwater execution and travelled down from the capital in search of the story.
“The NGO is called Hope-Child and Raksmei founded the orphanage and pulled in the foreign donors. Her brother Sambat used to help her, but for the past year, he has been hunting down paedophiles and kidnapping their victims right from under their noses. You know, some of these sex tourists that come here – as well as many well-connected locals – are after kids. Sambat had very good connections in the media who protected him. Even had a couple of Swiss guys busted, with the help of journalists. They had this mutually beneficial relationship and as he was half-barang, he thought he’d be reasonably safe. Raksmei thinks that his murder has something to do with Bokor.”
Maier slowly slid his hand down Carissa’s spine. Despite the conversation, he found it hard to keep his fingers off her. He liked this woman more than he remembered.
“Why are these two young Khmer so active? You definitely need protection if you are going to kidnap trafficked children from their captors. This sounds so incredible.”
“Raksmei and Sambat are orphans. No one knows anything about their parents. That means that the most beautiful woman in Cambodia is alone right now, drowning in sorrow, vulnerable. Why don’t you go and see her? She might help you with your case. As you won’t let me help you…”
“You can help me any which way you want, Carissa. I am powerless. And I like older women.”
The Kiwi journalist pushed a few stray white hairs from her face and laughed.
“When I first met Raksmei, she thought I was an old woman. In Cambodia, only old women have white hair. In her eyes I must have looked sixty.”
“You’d pass for fifty any time.”
The kick in the ribs hurt.
“Maier, you are a low-down chauvinist.”
“Let’s celebrate that.”
“Help me with my story. You know much more than I do about what’s going on here. What’s happening up there at the casino?”
Maier held his aching side and contemplated into which cheek of her delectable arse he would sink his fingers and twist. Then he shrugged and feigned innocence.
“I have no idea what is going on at the casino. I was in Bokor but not in the casino. I f
ell off my bike and broke my head open, as you can see.”
Carissa carefully pulled a lock of hair away from his ear.
“I can see a man who got whacked over the head with a blunt object and won’t admit it. Maier, you’re a right bastard. You pump me all the time and give nothing back.”
“I like pumping you, Carissa.”
“Until your case is solved, then you run off and work some other exotic locale where you’ll also pump a journalist or an NGO secretary who is so lonely that she will go to bed with a down-at-heel private eye and think it’s romantic.”
Maier had nothing to say. She was right, he also knew women in Kathmandu, Bangkok and Singapore. Women with whom he’d almost stayed. And now, in his room at the Angkor Hotel, with his old flame in his arms, he could imagine staying with her. It was all pretty romantic.
“Can you imagine me moving back to Phnom Penh? What would I do? Prove that half the older men in town have committed crimes against humanity?”
Carissa sighed, “No, of course not. We’re both used to our freedoms. And after forty, people rarely change. But I have another seven years to go before I am forty, Maier. You’re too old for me. Your life has already run its course. Mine is almost still ahead of me.”
Maier had only recently started thinking about his age. He had got as far as deciding to avoid wars for the rest of his life. He had decided that he wanted to grow old. But a relationship, or a family, the concept of permanent cohabitation in compromise lay a long way off. Still, he felt hurt by Carissa’s sarcasm.
“Don’t be macho now and don’t start feeling sorry for yourself. You’re great in bed and I have to be careful, otherwise I’ll fall in love with you a second time. You’re a strange man. Just looking into those eyes of yours, which never rest until they see something pleasant or foul, makes me dizzy. But then they move off somewhere else. You’re an obsessive. You’re like a child in a toy shop, blown away by all that’s on display and you go all the way to get it. Life just offers too much to a man like you. And that’s why you’re so lonely, Maier.”
She crawled into his arms. He did not have to look at her to know she smiled sadly.
“There’s a Chinese curse…”
“Yeah, Maier, with which you tried to impress me years ago. ‘May we live in interesting times.’ You’re cursed, lover. All that time ago, it was just your way to pull me in, now it’s the truth.”
A few minutes later, they’d reached another place, free from the tired obligations of verbal communication.
DAWN
He woke up alone. The bed was still warm next to him. The night and the hangover from the day before stuck deep in his bones. What a woman.
She couldn’t have gone far. For the second time since his return to Cambodia, Maier was suddenly scared for his old girlfriend. He got up, put on a pair of shorts and went downstairs. It was just getting light. The guard lay snoring in his hammock. The sun would remain hidden behind the Elephant Mountains for a while yet and it was refreshingly cool. The early morning looked innocent; a few birds rushed over his head along the almost deserted shore road, an old woman stood by the roadside and, still half asleep, wrapped her krama around her head before she set off for the crab market, laden down with plastic buckets. Even at a considerable distance, he could make out the red hair of the Englishman. Carissa sat on the beach with Pete.
Not that Kep had a real beach, but he could see the two clearly on the sandy strip below the road. Pete gesticulated wildly, but at this distance Maier could not make out what he was saying.
“Good morning, Maier. I am just trying to explain to your old lover here, that her investigations could kill her, if she insists on digging around down here.”
For once, the detective shared the same opinion as the wrecked-looking dive operator.
“You look like you had a wild night, Pete.”
“I always have wild nights, mate. At least since I’ve lived in Cambodia.”
He lit a red Ara and blew smoke-rings into the perfect morning air.
“I don’t understand you people. The country is beautiful. The people are polite and a bit retarded. The women are hot and always within reach. Genocide has its good sides too. Come on, Maier. Germany is wealthy today because we flattened you in World War Two. And we flattened you because you killed too many people. It’s the same here. In twenty years, Cambodia will be back on its legs. And if we make the right decisions now, we will be able to contribute to the rebuilding of a nation. We will be the new colonial masters, independent of state power or ideology. We take what we can, wherever we can. That’s called globalisation. The published truth about a few not totally legal investments will not stop or even slow the development of this country.”
By now, Maier had made up his mind that he didn’t care for the Englishman. Apart from his shady business associations, he carried too much baggage from back home, too many tabloid hang-ups vis-à-vis his European neighbours. And he carried it like a medal around his neck.
“Pete, I think you are a bit behind the times. Germany and Great Britain have been at peace for some years now.”
Pete sighed. “You’re idealists. The world is bad. We have to make the best of it.”
Maier laughed. “Your world is bad, Pete. Our world is OK.”
He knew this was all just posturing, his old girlfriend would not be put off by the Englishman. She would follow her story to its bitter end. Any journalist in her situation would want to know why Sambat had been killed.
Pete got up and wiped the sand off his pants. He looked stressed.
“Maier, mate, don’t come back to me later and tell me that I didn’t warn you. I’m assuming that your investor story is bullshit and that you’re some kind of journo as well.”
Maier looked across to Carissa, but her face was turned and hidden under her white hair. All of a sudden, he was angry. Angry at Carissa, who’d risk her life for a story about a few old murders. Angry at Pete who’d risk anyone’s life for a few dollars. The probable result was the same and went with the locality: killing and burying were still acceptable solutions to all sorts of problems in this broken land. And many foreigners took to the local traditions like fish took to water. Maier no longer felt like holding back.
“I am not a journalist, Pete. But I might become your worst nightmare yet. If anything happens to Carissa, I will personally order the tiger shark back and make sure he gets fed.”
The English pirate jerked his head in surprise and met Maier’s stare with expressionless eyes. Not a good sign. Most people were scared of Maier when he threatened, as he threatened rarely. There was no hope for this man.
“Yeah, Maier, mate, now I’m almost impressed by you. Wow. So I’ll say it again. The future of Kep won’t be defined by you two ageing angels. Even yours truly here will have just a tiny hand in what’s going to happen.”
Without another word, the red-haired pirate got up and walked along the shore towards the market. Carissa hadn’t moved. Now she turned to Maier. She had tears in her eyes.
“Who the fuck do you think you are, Maier? No one hears a thing from you for four years and then suddenly you show up and throw everything into disorder. You fuck your old girlfriend for a few nights and pull every scrap of information she has from her, only to solve your enormously important case. You’re here for a few hours and people start dying like flies. But you give nothing yourself and make grand speeches how you will take your revenge on that little wanker, if he burns a hole into your mattress. Mate, wake up.”
Maier waited until she’d calmed down.
“OK, Carissa, I will tell you everything I know, but you have to promise me not to go to see Mikhail in Bokor. I was wrong. I think it is a trap.”
“Maier, I’m not going to promise you anything. I know Mikhail, he’s eccentric, but he’s not a murderer. And he knows more about the people here than you do.”
The sun had risen above the Elephant Mountains. It was starting to get hot. Carissa looked beautiful. B
ut Maier could not bring himself to apologise for his emotional agnosticism.
“OK, wait one more day and we’ll go together. I have been invited for dinner by Tep.”
“On the island?”
“On his island. Pete will take me across later.”
Carissa looked at Maier for a long time. She looked like a white goddess in the bright morning sunlight, a divine entity who’d just appeared on earth to find a prince. It was probably already too late for Maier. He wasn’t prince material.
“Maier, you might not come back from there. Pete is close to Tep, very close. And if he assumes that you are some kind of snoop or investigative journalist and passes that impression on to Tep, then that nasty old general will get rid of you.”
“A few days ago, I deposited a large chunk of money in a bank to which Tep has connections. Enough money for a house down here. I am sure he knows about it and will try to convince me to come in with him on his schemes. The true reason why I am here is to get Rolf out of Cambodia. But he will not leave without his girl. I am trying to find out what is forcing him to stay and what Kaley has to do with Tep. And the only way to find that out is to accept the invitation.”
Carissa thought for a while.
“What happens when the case is done? You will just disappear again?”
Maier swallowed hard. Maier had no idea what she wanted.
“I don’t know what will happen. I won’t stay in Phnom Penh.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment.
“Perhaps you might tag along to Hamburg?”
The goddess from New Zealand said nothing and stared across the placid water. Maier rearranged his beard and tried to rearrange his thoughts.
“Perhaps,” she said, finally.
Maier felt queasy. He had reached a place he was not familiar with. He smiled. Finally, a real challenge, something totally new.
“Don’t get happy yet, old man. First we have to solve the case,” she mumbled and fell into his arms. A few hundred metres away, he watched Pete turn around and stare back at them.