Song for an Approaching Storm

by Peter Froeberg Idling

  The pale-red sky is becoming a cobalt blue firmament in which the stars are taking up their familiar formations. (Large shadows emerge from the top storey of the casino and join the growing yelping cloud of fruit bats. They swoop around the building before disappearing down towards the jungle.) Every time he shuts his eyes he feels a flutter of weariness come over him.

  An adjutant comes down the steps, announces in a low voice that dinner is served and enquires considerately whether he should have a table set for them out on the terrace. The prince waves away the offer, invites him and Sim Var to join him for dinner. It’s very modest, the prince explains, just a taste of what the sea has to offer. And he adds with a wink: Take the chance while you have it. Come Monday you may be unemployed.

  The prince:

  And where is La Miss, by the way?

  Sary:

  She’s inside. I’ll see that she joins us.

  The prince:

  And not a moment too soon. I’m looking forward to becoming better acquainted with this exquisite bloom on my family tree.

  They mount the steps. A matt golden bowl has been placed at the door. It’s full of big red apples, all the same size. The prince picks one up, carefully bites into its shiny peel. His Excellency Zhou Enlai, he explains, was kind enough to send me these apples from China. We got on to the topic of apples one evening in Bandung. He insists that nowhere else will you find apples as good as those that grow outside Yingkou in the north-east. I’m inclined to agree with him. Help yourselves, Messieurs!

  Each of them takes an apple. The prince waits until they have taken a bite, peers at them and then continues: Tell me, it’s strange, isn’t it, dear friends? Here we are standing on the very highest peak in Cambodia, but in the juice of this fruit we can taste the rain that fell on the rolling hills of Liaoning last year.

  WEDNESDAY, 7 SEPTEMBER 1955

  A fine layer of invisible grains of sand on the brown surface of the bureau. He can feel them on his skin when he wipes the palm of his hand across the smooth surface. (And sand under his bare feet when he walks across the floor to the door they had obviously left ajar overnight.)

  The sky outside is milky white. The sea is shading over to grey. The waves regular. The cool morning of a hot day. The shimmering flight of dragonflies in the trees down on the shoreline.

  The head gardener and a helper pass under the branches. They are carrying a bucket and tools.

  Sary leans on the doorpost. Lights a cigarette and smokes it restlessly. Returns into the darkness of the room, fetches a towel.

  The surface of the pool is smooth. A couple round red leaves are drifting slowly on invisible currents. He sits down on the edge, slips into the water and pushes off with his feet. With powerful strokes he swims noiselessly to the short end, turns, feels the water streaming past his naked belly.

  As he walks back across the tiled garden path, his wet footprints dry as fast as he passes. The heat is already building up.)

  He pulls on his trousers, buttons his shirt. Looks at her, lying asleep on her front. The sheet is crumpled here, stretched taut there. Her shoulders are uncovered. Her face has a solemn look, the make-up around her eyes is smeared. He puts on his socks, stuffs his tie in his trouser pocket. Buckles his belt, his eyes resting on her skin and the black tangle of hair around her face. He notes: she looks (even) younger when asleep.

  The contours of her body under the sheet. Breathing slowly through her mouth, open lips. He stops dressing, his hands come to rest.

  But, he thinks, just finished washing. Stupid to undo it.

  Instead, he quickly picks up his shoes and walks softly to the door. In the doorway he turns his head (she is still lying in the same position). He takes a few more steps, bends and ties his shoelaces, parts his damp hair with a steel comb and carries on.

  (Provincial Route 33/31: return journey at 60 kph) Is he satisfied now? Now that he has managed to bring her to this point? Can that question be answered with a yes? He feels (naturally) that he has crossed a boundary he has been longing to cross. But (naturally) the question could also be answered with a no. For what he wants, what he is trying to reach, is something different. (To put it bluntly: she won’t allow herself to be reduced to a disposable item, which he hadn’t really expected anyway, though he hadn’t totally excluded the thought.)

  But that is not what he is thinking just now. He has other things on his mind and he lights a fresh cigarette from the old one. (What is on his mind is not the fact that he has been unfaithful (again) to Em. The uneasiness he felt on the first few occasions has been blunted into a kind of indifference to adultery (his own, anyway). Not that he himself would call it “blunted”. The feeling reminds him rather of the clarity he believes he has achieved in his work, the unsentimental realpolitik that he (jokingly, in close and trusted circles) calls his sole ideological fixed star. In the present case, then, the term realerotik might perhaps be a suitable designation.)

  He has emptied his briefcase onto the seat. He opens a new folder, thumbs through the sheets. The blue stencils smell of spirits.

  (The engine is purring under the bonnet. The road humming beneath the tyres.)

  He finds what he is looking for. Reads it quickly, makes notes in the margin. Vibration makes his handwriting shaky to the point of becoming unreadable

  The bends and the smell of the stencils make him keep his eyes on the road for a while. It’s empty, no other motor vehicles. His driver (Phirun) drives fast but at a steady speed. The flat of his hand on the horn. Warning anyone who ventures out onto the tarmac. The car avoids ox-carts and the maize and peppers that have been spread out on the road surface to dry.

  (Naked children wave. The bowed silhouettes in the rice fields look up as the shining black paintwork and gleaming silver chrome roars past.)

  He lights another new cigarette from the old one and throws the butt out through the slightly open window (it bounces a couple of times, spluttering and glowing across the tarmac behind them).

  Phirun drives in silence. A motionless broad-shouldered shadow enclosed in a grey uniform. His big hands slowly operating the steering wheel, the gear lever, the nasal-sounding horn. The only thing uncontrolled about the man are the drops of sweat. They burst out of the hair on the nape of his neck, find a way down inside his starched (itchy) collar.

  Every now and then there are signs at the side of the road. Sary thinks: It’s peculiar to feel anything for road signs, but I really like the bloody things.

  What is there to like about them? Well, they have a sort of civilizing feel, don’t they? (Place names printed in white letters on a deep blue background. The Double Dutch that fills the mouths of the peasantry is now firmly attached to the road. To be read through a windscreen while rushing along at high speed. By the pioneers of the future.) (Incidentally, the sign that just flashed past said Kampong Trach.)

  Now that he has taken his eyes off his work he can return to Somaly (who, he assumes, is still lying in bed in Kep-sur-Mer). He thinks: of the way she walked down the staircase of the casino yesterday, out into the car he is now sitting in. Of the smoothness of her skin. Of her eyes tight shut in ecstasy. And in his mind he reverses the decision he made after his swim and takes her again. Half-asleep, a little surprised when he carefully draws her up onto her hands and knees. Spits on his hand for lubrication, the morning light on her back. (Goosebumps on the skin of her thighs.)

  But it’s better this way.

  But next time he will stay. (For there will surely be a next time?)

  Now to the ministry.

  He looks at his wristwatch. He has won an extra quarter of an hour thanks to being abstemious. Perhaps as much as half an hour.

  (The neon green rice fields slip past. Sugar palms. Pointed sandstone hills rising from the plain. On their summits, pagodas glimpsed through greenery. Pennants in many colours. Gilded details that look dull when it’s cloudy. Occasional small red- and white-painted milestones at the roadside.)

  He goes bac
k to his papers. Approves a number of routine decisions taken by his staff. Thinks that you never think as clearly as you do in a car driving along a road through the countryside. He continues the thought: I’ll be damned if government meetings shouldn’t be held on the back seat of a Mercedes! But we’d need more tarmac. The present network of roads is more suited to water buffalo and elephants.

  The next folder: the renovation of the electricity power station in Russey Keo. He reads: “Long since underdimensioned for the needs of the city. Built some decades ago by French engineers; machinery and other components of French manufacture. Not clear that an upgrade can be carried out without French involvement. Essential for the electrification of the new sectors of the city.” Etcetera, etcetera.

  New sectors of the city. New electricity works.

  More of everything.

  He scribbles: Investigate further. You have my permission to contact Saigon for possible non-French expertise.

  He asks Phirun to stop where they can get a cup of coffee. A couple of minutes later they pull into the side of the road (at the next village). He opens the door out to the fresh air. Out to the contrast between them speeding onwards and the pleasing peace of the countryside. A gentle breeze is rustling the tops of the palm trees. Moisture-laden air, the smell of earth and of the smoke from a fire. In the distance metal striking metal in an irregular rhythm.

  Phirun in his grey uniform looks enormous in front of one of the stalls that sell things to passers-by. The stallholder hurries from his hammock, bows (alarm written all over his face).

  Sary gets out and leans on the car, keeps his trousers clear of the dirt on the mudguards. Takes out his sunglasses. He thinks: this utter submissiveness when faced with authority. So provoking, so simple, so usable. But it undermines every serious project. How few people there are who are prepared to weigh their own responsibility, their own competence, against respect for those of us who are their superiors. We ought to be leading development, not having to lever it with a crowbar. But given half a chance this fellow with the stall would lie in his hammock until death came and got him.

  (Phirun shouts a question about sugar, about milk. He waves his hand in a negative gesture.)

  The coffee arrives. A small glass on a plastic plate with faded floral decorations. Phirun passes it to him stressing the words Your Excellency. The stallholder, who had followed a few steps behind the uniform, looks even more frightened.

  He sips the coffee. He nods to the little man. Looks at him benignly. Really good, my good fellow! (No one is going to be able to accuse him of being unable to make easy contact with the electorate.)

  Chung, 47: I was nervous when a fine car like that stopped here. It was as if a snake were slithering its way through my intestines [untranslatable wordplay]. We’re just ordinary people, after all. Nothing special. It must be at least a year since last time. Then it was whites wanting water for the engine. I don’t know who it was this time, but he had fine clothes, black glasses and pale smooth skin. He wanted coffee. No milk and no sugar. He must be tough to drink his coffee like that! I got paid without any haggling about the price. Well paid. The notes were all clean and new, even better than the ones you get from the jeweller at the market. The fine gentleman liked my coffee. I’ve told everyone about that. I think more people will come to drink my coffee now. It’s sort of become a bit special. He also asked who I was going to vote for. I’d been thinking of voting for the Democrats. I went to one of their election meetings and I thought they had a strong message. They had a clear and sensible plan. But I didn’t dare say that to the fine gentleman, who was a friend of no less than the king, or prince as he now is. So when it came to voting, I voted for the king. It felt the right thing to do. It was as if we’d reached an agreement when they bought my coffee.

  (Early afternoon/somewhere in the kingdom) He is talking about tarmac, about schools, about vaccine. He is talking about responsibility, justice and water. He is talking about the spark of electricity.

  He is talking about canals and bridges. He is talking about concrete.

  He is talking about the prince’s courage and everyone else’s lack of it. About the importance of the election.

  He paraphrases the fable about the credulous monk and the monkeys.

  He talks about the fire carriage on rails. How the rails will come all the way to their village. How the locomotive will come to a stop with a squeal of brakes at the station building that he constructs in a subordinate clause. (And the loco: shining black, gleaming brass.)

  He talks about unity, about the difference between two clenched fists and ten spread fingers.

  He looks out over his audience. Over to the right the sunshine on the gilded parts of the pagoda is dazzling. Straight rows of seats in the shade of the trees for the local dignitaries. Beyond them a tightly packed crowd of sunburnt peasant faces.

  The loudspeaker is a good one.

  He plucks out a headword from the notes he has on the lectern. He talks about schools and hospitals and then wipes his forehead with his handkerchief. He talks about the decisive role he played in Geneva when their country once more became their own.

  The bright green rice fields and the horizon are shimmering in the heat. Swallows glide above the open space.

  He talks about the colonial wars that are now raging (Morocco, Kenya, Cyprus, etc.), turning children into orphans and leaving parents childless. He says that a bloodless liberation such as theirs is a gift. That it is up to them, up to the people standing in front of him, to take charge of that gift at the election on Sunday.

  Upright and earnest, he receives the applause that follows. His shirt is sticking to his back, sweat is making his forehead itch. He takes the lead himself in distributing packets of rice, gifts of cloth and tobacco. One by one his listeners accept the goods, their heads bowed, their eyes lowered. Gratitude lights up their weather-beaten faces.

  (An interior) What kind of sacrifices are being demanded? In the present context the question may be taken in two ways: (1) In order to win the election? (2) Of him?

  By the time Sary gets back his office is awash with survey responses. He is now sitting with the summary in one hand and reports from his many and widespread trusted informants in the other (the cigarette banished to the corner of his mouth). And he wishes he could turn the clock back a couple of hours to when his world was filled with the cheering of a jubilant audience. Back to unequivocal clarity. For what is it all really about (for fuck’s sake)? Where is Ly Chinly hiding? And what has he done with the walkover election Sary and the prince reckoned on at the start? The opposite looks likely now—it could go in any direction.

  So? Something must be done, but what? Is it time to follow his father’s advice and to cancel the election?

  Or to stand one or two opposition politicians in front of a firing squad in order to send out a signal?

  He thinks of the family that took an interest in him in Paris. Of conversations with them and then later all the discussions he had with French students at the political science institute. (He had been older than most of the others because having been awarded a scholarship in 1939 he was forced to wait, wait and wait until the war was over and done with.) They had convinced him—indeed, more than convinced him—that a democracy in which every citizen has a vote is the only decent system. To measure the will of the people honestly and fairly by means of regular elections. Even in a country like his (where the majority of the population cannot even spell their own names).

  But, Sary thinks, what ought to be done when the system turns against its own creator and runs the risk of destroying itself (and its creator—that is to say, him)?

  He remembers what one of the chastened civil servants who had spent decades in French Indochina said to him in Geneva (at the end of the day’s round of negotiations): The biggest weakness of your countrymen, Monsieur, is that they lose every ounce of courage when faced with determined authority.

  The opinion of the bully, of course.

/>   But nevertheless.

  (A different occasion): Sary has just witnessed two traitors being blindfolded, tied to stakes and then, to the rattle of rifle fire, shot through their pale-grey shirt-backs by two four-man firing squads. (After which the officer in charge steps forward, grasps the hanging heads by the hair and blows away any remaining spirit of rebellion that might have been in their heads with a pistol shot.) Afterwards there is a reception in the royal pavilion outside the palace—unlimited quantities of champagne and exclusive imported nibbles. The prince gives an improvised press conference to a handful of invited journalists. Sary, standing a couple of metres away, hears the prince say that the bundles of dollars the traitors had received weighed light compared with the deaths they subsequently had to put on the other end of the scales. But what he remembers most clearly is the look in the prince’s eyes. They were the very eyes he encountered in the mirror when, as examining magistrate, he had lost control of himself while interrogating certain criminal elements. A kind of electric presence, coupled with a blackness that paradoxically made the eyes seem bottomless at the same time as lacking any depth at all.

  Is that the true gaze of his people? he asks himself. (Is that the gaze he is meant to affirm?)

  Perhaps his father is right when he says that a Western form of government does not suit the soul of our people. Perhaps our soul needs to be put face to face with determined authority?

  That, perhaps, is actually the most sophisticated tool of oppression the colonialists possess. They have implanted their own values in him, thereby robbing him of his true identity. Convinced him that his inherited reactions are wrong.

  So? If that is the case, what should the conclusion be? That the time has come to give free rein to quite different forces?