The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year-I

by Jonathan Strahan

  What is real and what is not? When something that happens is terrible enough, does it take on a life of its own, as a ghost perhaps? In this haunting tale a young woman is followed by the ghost of her father's past.

  In Cambodia people are used to ghosts. Ghosts buy newspapers. They own property.

  A few years ago, spirits owned a house in Phnom Penh, at the Tra Bek end of Monivong Boulevard. Khmer Rouge had murdered the whole family and there was no one left alive to inherit it. People cycled past the building, leaving it boarded up. Sounds of weeping came from inside.

  Then a professional inheritor arrived from America. She'd done her research and could claim to be the last surviving relative of no fewer than three families. She immediately sold the house to a Chinese businessman, who turned the ground floor into a photocopying shop.

  The copiers began to print pictures of the original owners.

  At first, single black-and-white photos turned up in the copied dossiers of aid workers or government officials. The father of the murdered family had been a lawyer. He stared fiercely out of the photos as if demanding something. In other photocopies, his beautiful daughters forlornly hugged each other. The background was hazy like fog.

  One night the owner heard a noise and trundled downstairs to find all five photocopiers printing one picture after another of faces: young college men, old women, parents with a string of babies, or government soldiers in uniform. He pushed the big green off-buttons. Nothing happened.

  He pulled out all the plugs, but the machines kept grinding out face after face. Women in beehive hairdos or clever children with glasses looked wistfully out of the photocopies. They seemed to be dreaming of home in the 1960s, when Phnom Penh was the most beautiful city in Southeast Asia.

  News spread. People began to visit the shop to identify lost relatives. Women would cry, "That's my mother! I didn't have a photograph!" They would weep and press the flimsy A4 sheets to their breasts. The paper went limp from tears and humidity as if it too were crying.

  Soon, a throng began to gather outside the shop every morning to view the latest batch of faces. In desperation, the owner announced that each morning's harvest would be delivered direct to The Truth, a magazine of remembrance.

  Then one morning he tried to open the house-door to the shop and found it blocked. He went 'round to the front of the building and rolled open the metal shutters.

  The shop was packed from floor to ceiling with photocopies. The ground floor had no windows—the room had been filled from the inside. The owner pulled out a sheet of paper and saw himself on the ground, his head beaten in by a hoe. The same image was on every single page.

  He buried the photocopiers and sold the house at once. The new owner liked its haunted reputation; it kept people away. The for sale sign was left hanging from the second floor.

  In a sense, the house had been bought by another ghost.

  This is a completely untrue story about someone who must exist.

  Pol Pot's only child, a daughter, was born in 1986. Her name was Sith, and in 2004, she was eighteen years old.

  Sith liked air conditioning and luxury automobiles.

  Her hair was dressed in cornrows and she had a spiky piercing above one eye. Her jeans were elaborately slashed and embroidered. Her pink T-shirts bore slogans in English: CARE KOOKY. PINK MOLL.

  Sith lived like a woman on Thai television, doing as she pleased in lip-gloss and Sunsilked hair. Nine simple rules helped her avoid all unpleasantness.

  1. Never think about the past or politics.

  2. Ignore ghosts. They cannot hurt you.

  3. Do not go to school. Hire tutors. Don't do homework. It is disturbing.

  4. Always be driven everywhere in either the Mercedes or the BMW.

  5. Avoid all well-dressed Cambodian boys. They are the sons of the estimated 250,000 new generals created by the regime. Their sons can behave with impunity.

  6. Avoid all men with potbellies. They eat too well and therefore must be corrupt.

  7. Avoid anyone who drives a Toyota Viva or Honda Dream motorcycle.

  8. Don't answer letters or phone calls.

  9. Never make any friends.

  There was also a tenth rule, but that went without saying.

  Rotten fruit rinds and black mud never stained Sith's designer sports shoes. Disabled beggars never asked her for alms. Her life began yesterday, which was effectively the same as today.

  Every day, her driver took her to the new Soriya Market. It was almost the only place that Sith went. The color of silver, Soriya rose up in many floors to a round glass dome.

  Sith preferred the 142nd Street entrance. Its green awning made everyone look as if they were made of jade. The doorway went directly into the ice-cold jewelry rotunda with its floor of polished black and white stone. The individual stalls were hung with glittering necklaces and earrings.

  Sith liked tiny shiny things that had no memory. She hated politics. She refused to listen to the news. Pol Pot's beautiful daughter wished the current leadership would behave decently, like her dad always did. To her.

  She remembered the sound of her father's gentle voice. She remembered sitting on his lap in a forest enclosure, being bitten by mosquitoes. Memories of malaria had sunk into her very bones. She now associated forests with nausea, fevers, and pain. A flicker of tree-shade on her skin made her want to throw up and the odor of soil or fallen leaves made her gag. She had never been to Angkor Wat. She read nothing.

  Sith shopped. Her driver was paid by the government and always carried an AK-47, but his wife, the housekeeper, had no idea who Sith was. The house was full of swept marble, polished teak furniture, iPods, Xboxes, and plasma screens.

  Please remember that every word of this story is a lie. Pol Pot was no doubt a dedicated communist who made no money from ruling Cambodia. Nevertheless, a hefty allowance arrived for Sith every month from an account in Switzerland.

  Nothing touched Sith, until she fell in love with the salesman at Hello Phones.

  Cambodian readers may know that in 2004 there was no mobile phone shop in Soriya Market. However, there was a branch of Hello Phone Cards that had a round blue sales counter with orange trim. This shop looked like that.

  Every day Sith bought or exchanged a mobile phone there. She would sit and flick her hair at the salesman.

  His name was Dara, which means Star. Dara knew about deals on call prices, sim cards, and the new phones that showed videos. He could get her any call tone she liked.

  Talking to Dara broke none of Sith's rules. He wasn't fat, nor was he well dressed, and far from being a teenager, he was a comfortably mature twenty-four years old.

  One day, Dara chuckled and said, "As a friend I advise you, you don't need another mobile phone."

  Sith wrinkled her nose. "I don't like this one anymore. It's blue. I want something more feminine. But not frilly. And it should have better sound quality."

  "Okay, but you could save your money and buy some more nice clothes."

  Pol Pot's beautiful daughter lowered her chin, which she knew made her neck look long and graceful. "Do you like my clothes?"

  "Why ask me?"

  She shrugged. "I don't know. It's good to check out your look."

  Dara nodded. "You look cool. What does your sister say?"

  Sith let him know she had no family. "Ah," he said, and quickly changed the subject. That was terrific. Secrecy and sympathy in one easy movement.

  Sith came back the next day and said that she'd decided that the rose-colored phone was too feminine. Dara laughed aloud and his eyes sparkled. Sith had come late in the morning just so that he could ask this question. "Are you hungry? Do you want to meet for lunch?"

  Would he think she was cheap if she said yes? Would he say she was snobby if she said no?

  "Just so long as we eat in Soriya Market," she said.

  She was torn between BBWorld Burgers and Lucky7. BBWorld was big, round, and just two floors down from the dome. Lucky7 Burgers wa
s part of the Lucky Supermarket, such a good store that a tiny jar of Maxwell House cost US$2.40.

  They decided on BBWorld. It was full of light and they could see the town spread out through the wide clean windows. Sith sat in silence.

  Pol Pot's daughter had nothing to say unless she was buying something.

  Or rather she had only one thing to say, but she must never say it.

  Dara did all the talking. He talked about how the guys on the third floor could get him a deal on original copies of Grand Theft Auto. He hinted that he could get Sith discounts from Bsfashion, the spotlit modern shop one floor down.

  Suddenly he stopped. "You don't need to be afraid of me, you know." He said it in a kindly, grownup voice. "I can see, you're a properly brought up girl. I like that. It's nice."

  Sith still couldn't find anything to say. She could only nod. She wanted to run away.

  "Would you like to go to K-Four?"

  K-Four, the big electronics shop, stocked all the reliable brand names: Hitachi, Sony, Panasonic, Philips, or Denon. It was so expensive that almost nobody shopped there, which is why Sith liked it. A crowd of people stood outside and stared through the window at a huge home entertainment center showing a DVD of Ice Age. On the screen, a little animal was being chased by a glacier. It was so beautiful!

  Sith finally found something to say. "If I had one of those, I would never need to leave the house."

  Dara looked at her sideways and decided to laugh.

  The next day Sith told him that all the phones she had were too big. Did he have one that she could wear around her neck like jewelry?

  This time they went to Lucky7 Burgers, and sat across from the Revlon counter. They watched boys having their hair layered by Revlon's natural beauty specialists.

  Dara told her more about himself. His father had died in the wars. His family now lived in the country. Sith's Coca-Cola suddenly tasted of anti-malarial drugs.

  "But. . .you don't want to live in the country," she said.

  "No. I have to live in Phnom Penh to make money. But my folks are good country people. Modest." He smiled, embarrassed.

  They'll have hens and a cousin who shimmies up coconut trees. There will be trees all around but no shops anywhere. The earth will smell.

  Sith couldn't finish her drink. She sighed and smiled and said abruptly, "I'm sorry. It's been cool. But I have to go." She slunk sideways out of her seat as slowly as molasses.

  Walking back into the jewelry rotunda with nothing to do, she realized that Dara would think she didn't like him.

  And that made the lower part of her eyes sting.

  She went back the next day and didn't even pretend to buy a mobile phone. She told Dara that she'd left so suddenly the day before because she'd remembered a hair appointment.

  He said that he could see she took a lot of trouble with her hair. Then he asked her out for a movie that night.

  Sith spent all day shopping in K-Four.

  They met at six. Dara was so considerate that he didn't even suggest the horror movie. He said he wanted to see Buffalo Girl Hiding, a movie about a country girl who lives on a farm. Sith said with great feeling that she would prefer the horror movie.

  The cinema on the top floor opened out directly onto the roof of Soriya. Graffiti had been scratched into the green railings. Why would people want to ruin something new and beautiful? Sith put her arm through Dara's and knew that they were now boyfriend and girlfriend.

  "Finally," he said.

  "Finally what?"

  "You've done something."

  They leaned on the railings and looked out over other people's apartments. West toward the river was a building with one huge roof terrace. Women met there to gossip. Children were playing toss-the-sandal. From this distance, Sith was enchanted.

  "I just love watching the children."

  The movie, from Thailand, was about a woman whose face turns blue and spotty, and who eats men. The blue woman was yucky, but not as scary as all the badly dubbed voices. The characters sounded possessed. It was though Thai people had been taken over by the spirits of dead Cambodians.

  Whenever Sith got scared, she chuckled.

  So she sat chuckling with terror. Dara thought she was laughing at a dumb movie and found such intelligence charming. He started to chuckle too. Sith thought he was as frightened as she was. Together in the dark, they took each other's hands.

  Outside afterward, the air hung hot even in the dark and 142nd Street smelled of drains. Sith stood on tiptoe to avoid the oily deposits and cast-off fishbones.

  Dara said, "I will drive you home."

  "My driver can take us," said Sith, flipping open her Kermit-the-Frog mobile.

  Her black Mercedes Benz edged to a halt, crunching old plastic bottles in the gutter. The seats were upholstered with tan leather and the driver was armed.

  Dara's jaw dropped. "Who. . .who is your father?"

  "He's dead."

  Dara shook his head. "Who was he?"

  Normally Sith used her mother's family name, but that would not answer this question. Flustered, she tried to think of someone who could be her father. She knew of nobody the right age. She remembered something about a politician who had died. His name came to her and she said it in panic. "My father was Kol Vireakboth." Had she got the name right? "Please don't tell anyone."

  Dara covered his eyes. "We—my family, my father—we fought for the KPLA."

  Sith had to stop herself asking what the KPLA was.

  Kol Vireakboth had led a faction in the civil wars. It fought against the Khmer Rouge, the Vietnamese, the King, and corruption. It wanted a new way for Cambodia. Kol Vireakboth was a Cambodian leader who had never told a lie or accepted a bribe.

  Remember that this is an untrue story.

  Dara started to back away from the car. "I don't think we should be doing this. I'm just a villager, really."

  "That doesn't matter."

  His eyes closed. "I would expect nothing less from the daughter of Kol Vireakboth."

  Oh for gosh sake, she just picked the man's name out of the air, she didn't need more problems. "Please!" she said.

  Dara sighed. "Okay. I said I would see you home safely. I will." Inside the Mercedes, he stroked the tan leather.

  When they arrived, he craned his neck to look up at the building. "Which floor are you on?"

  "All of them."

  Color drained from his face.

  "My driver will take you back," she said to Dara. As the car pulled away, she stood outside the closed garage shutters, waving forlornly.

  Then Sith panicked. Who was Kol Vireakboth? She went online and Googled. She had to read about the wars. Her skin started to creep. All those different factions swam in her head: ANS, NADK, KPR, and KPNLF. The very names seemed to come at her spoken by forgotten voices.

  Soon she had all she could stand. She printed out Vireakboth's picture and decided to have it framed. In case Dara visited.

  Kol Vireakboth had a round face and a fatherly smile. His eyes seemed to slant upward toward his nose, looking full of kindly insight. He'd been killed by a car bomb.

  All that night, Sith heard whispering.

  In the morning, there was another picture of someone else in the tray of her printer.

  A long-faced, buck-toothed woman stared out at her in black and white. Sith noted the victim's fashion lapses. The woman's hair was a mess, all frizzy. She should have had it straightened and put in some nice highlights. The woman's eyes drilled into her.

  "Can't touch me," said Sith. She left the photo in the tray. She went to see Dara, right away, no breakfast.

  His eyes were circled with dark flesh and his blue Hello trousers and shirt were not properly ironed.

  "Buy the whole shop," Dara said, looking deranged. "The guys in K-Four just told me some girl in blue jeans walked in yesterday and bought two home theatres. One for the salon, she said, and one for the roof terrace. She paid for both of them in full and had them delivered to the
far end of Monivong."

  Sith sighed. "I'm sending one back." She hoped that sounded abstemious. "It looked too metallic against my curtains."

  Pause.

  "She also bought an Aido robot dog for fifteen hundred dollars."

  Sith would have preferred that Dara did not know about the dog. It was just a silly toy; it hadn't occurred to her that it might cost that much until she saw the bill. "They should not tell everyone about their customers' business or soon they will have no customers."

  Dara was looking at her as if thinking: This is not just a nice sweet girl.

  "I had fun last night," Sith said in a voice as thin as high clouds.

  "So did I."

  "We don't have to tell anyone about my family. Do we?" Sith was seriously scared of losing him.

  "No. But Sith, it's stupid. Your family, my family, we are not equals."

  "It doesn't make any difference."

  "You lied to me. Your family is not dead. You have famous uncles."

  She did indeed—Uncle Ieng Sary, Uncle Khieu Samphan, Uncle Ta Mok. All the Pol Pot clique had been called her uncles.

  "I didn't know them that well," she said. That was true, too.

  What would she do if she couldn't shop in Soriya Market anymore? What would she do without Dara?

  She begged. "I am not a strong person. Sometimes I think I am not a person at all. I'm just a space."

  Dara looked suddenly mean. "You're just a credit card." Then his face fell. "I'm sorry. That was an unkind thing to say. You are very young for your age and I'm older than you and I should have treated you with more care."

  Sith was desperate. "All my money would be very nice."

  "I'm not for sale."