Vyacheslav Molotov (with a touch of irony):
I hope that was everything you wanted.
Sam Sary:
No.
Anthony Eden, Pierre Mendès-France,
the other delegates: (hold their breath)
Vyacheslav Molotov: (looks taken aback)
Sam Sary:
I should like it made quite clear who will bear the costs of the International Control Commission in Cambodia.
Vyacheslav Molotov (smiling (unusual), in a light-hearted tone
(even more unusual)):
Given everything else you’ve achieved here, you can surely afford it.
Sam Sary:
No, unfortunately it is beyond our economic capacity.
Playing his audience. But his portrayal of that dramatic nocturnal battle works. His listeners follow every twist and turn. He finishes the first part of his presentation (placing a subtle emphasis on concessions and historic): “I did not leave the Palais des Nations until about three o’clock in the morning. Our military delegates then spent a sleepless night revising the accords, so that they were in agreement with the concessions the communists had made at the last minute during a night that was so historic for the conference.”
Almost in passing he points out that a multinational agreement as comprehensive and important as this, made as it was under such special circumstances, will undoubtedly contain certain unclear elements. Elements that do not only invite interpretation, they demand it.
Which, he says, leads them on to the second point of the evening: how should the agreements be implemented?
Her presence (real or imagined) has now been reduced to no more than background interference that can be ignored. He moves on to North Vietnam’s obligations under international law. The demand made by the signatories of the agreement that there should be a withdrawal from Cambodian territory within ninety days has been respected. Indeed, the Vietnamese fulfilled that commitment with five days to spare. But, he says, and begs them to recall the doubts aired by His Excellency Penn Nouth, chairman of the Council of Ministers, in the October number of Journal d’Extrême-Orient:
I quote, he says and quotes: “According to figures provided by our general staff, only half of the Viet-minh troops have returned to Vietnam: where are the rest? A large number of them are probably still in the Cardamom Mountains, which face the Gulf of Thailand and are a traditional resort of smugglers, since they provide a route between Thailand and South Vietnam. As far as the Cambodian Viet-minh is concerned—that is to say the so-called khmer rouge, our own countrymen who either from malice or compulsion have become collaborators—many of them have now got organized, though it has to be said that they are still only poorly armed. Those responsible claim that ‘all military equipment has been destroyed’. We dispute that in the strongest terms possible, because there are numerous bands of khmer rouge continuing to campaign secretly against the royal government.”
He raps his forefinger on the dark wooden surface of the lectern as he reminds them of the hidden caches of weapons discovered along the border (a fact that reinforces the suspicions that he and Penn Nouth share):
“On our side, the royal government has fulfilled everything that was prescribed for us, legally as well as morally!”
And he continues (to deconstruct methodically all the myths and fallacies that surround the Geneva Accords. His accords).
(Afterwards/on leaving the platform) Sary is standing in the middle of a small group wearing light suits. He has given up hope that she may still be there, somewhere among the men talking together in the hall.
Quarter of an hour earlier: Thunderous applause. He was forced to quieten them before stepping down. (The account that reaches the royal chancellery will be one of anything but moderation. And be noted by the prince, that inscrutable mixture of brilliance, suspicion and whim.)
He has exchanged a few friendly words with Prince Monthana. The noise level has risen quickly since then. The double doors swing open, waiters in red jackets march in carrying trays of champagne. A petite surprise on the part of the organizers.
Now he is standing with Little Cook, the British chargé d’affaires, on his right and Prime Minister Leng Ngeth on his other side. (In formal terms Leng Ngeth is Sary’s superior; informally, he does what Sary tells him.)
Among the dark clouds of night, pale shafts of light can be seen through the tall open windows.
Little Cook says obligingly (his French coloured by English) that it feels absolutely right that this speech, which has captured the Cambodian kingdom’s struggle for freedom so well, should have been made in the locale which had earlier housed the French Haut Commissariat.
(Around them: conversations, glittering glassware, cigarette smoke.)
There are no French representatives near them, so he answers that such is the course of history. That there are many countries still waiting to come into their own. The British Gold Coast and Nigeria, for instance.
Little Cook nods. The fact that the French have lost Indochina, the jewel among French colonies, is undoubtedly (yet one more) proof that a different world order is knocking at the door. But, as we know, a great deal has been invested in the colonies. Politics is one thing, economics another. Both sides have legitimate economic claims, don’t they? Of course it is your country that the railway runs through, but the iron in the rails comes from France.
And the hands that cleared the jungle and laid the track were Cambodian, Leng Ngeth points out in an amiable enough voice.
Quite, Little Cook hastens to say, but the engineers’ wages were paid by the French state.
With the profit they made on our raw materials, Leng Ngeth interrupts him. Perhaps you British might have something to learn from our example in your… not entirely successful… handling of the Mau Mau. How many dead terrorists have you reached so far? I think ten thousand was the latest figure I saw, wasn’t it?
(Sary, searching for a change of company, lets his eyes survey the suits in the hall.)
Little Cook pretends not to notice Leng Ngeth’s acid tone. Instead, he leans forward confidentially and says that, irrespective of the economic background, it seems just a tad strange to an outside observer that, having taken fiscal power and all the economic interests away from Paris, you have allowed Paris to retain so much political influence.
Sary looks again into Little Cook’s very blue eyes. A receding hairline even though he can hardly be forty, but indisputably an ambitious and intelligent fellow. He says that he assumes that what Cook is referring to in this case are the French military advisers?
Little Cook:
Your Excellency, bearing in mind that it’s your American friends who are generously sending you the equipment, it wouldn’t be too much to assume that they were the people best suited to explaining how best to utilize the materiel.
Sam Sary:
We are keen to have friends in every country. Even in Paris.
Little Cook:
I think you understand what I’m getting at.
Leng Ngeth:
We understand what you mean.
Sam Sary:
Politics is a rational discipline. A discipline of Deliberation. I’m sure we agree on that. But, Your Excellency Little Cook, the value of intuition should not be underestimated, should it? Without it no one would ever become more than… shall we say… a chargé d’affaires.
Little Cook: (laughs politely)
He smiles a smile that makes it clear that the conversation is over. But no sooner has he caught the eye of High Commissioner Gorce than Little Cook (that lackey of the Americans) holds him back: “I happened to notice that Your Excellency said nothing about the fallacious nature of the claim that the independence of your kingdom was negotiated in Geneva. His Royal Highness the Prince usually takes great pains to emphasize that de facto independence was actually achieved by him the year before. Now it sounds rather as if it was Your Excellency who…”
He interrupts him coldly: “What
do you mean? Nowhere did I say that credit for our independence should go to those negotiations.”
Little Cook smiles again and says, no, of course not, and: “But the prince takes the line, doesn’t he, that the Geneva Accords are of secondary importance given that independence had already been achieved?”
He looks at the British diplomat again. (The conversation has definitely taken an unpleasant turn.) He says: “The title of this lecture was ‘The Geneva Agreement’, n’est-ce pas Monsieur? In which case it is hardly surprising that that is what I talked about. And, moreover, the prince’s line is my line. Stop. End of story.”
And off.
As the cabinet meeting is coming to a close there are a few moments of spontaneous stillness. The ministers raise their eyes from the table and look at one another in silence. The table in front of them is covered in documents. In the middle (like islands in the sea of paper) are the big black ashtrays with coils of smoke curling up slowly from them. Jackets are hanging over the backs of chairs, ties were loosened hours ago. Light is reflecting up from the white papers, spectacles gleam like polished disks.
(The odour of sweat, tobacco and hair tonic. A hand reaches out towards one of the ashtrays and taps the long grey column of ash off a cigarette.)
Where is Sary in all this? On one of the long sides of the table, near the middle. A cigarette in the fingers of his left hand, a pen in his right.
This is the kind of occasion that Sary would have looked forward to. Earlier. It would even have implied a certain amount of stress. The majority of the gentlemen present are older (and more experienced) than him and so he (and everyone else) has been brought up to respect them (which in practice means: to be subservient—without question—to their will).
But now he is, if only informally, an extension of the arm of the prince (and, moreover, from the moment that he gave way, he became an iron fist attached to that arm).
He is conscious that his rapid rise from (almost) nowhere has made those present envious. (That and the fact that he is so comfortable in his elevated role, that he seems to take it for granted.) (Which, in his own opinion, is perfectly sensible, given his education, his capacity for work and his inborn qualities as a leader. In other words, there is every reason why the prince should have such faith in him.)
But as things are, he feels no sense of satisfaction about what awaits them. It will take energy. And all his energy is focused elsewhere.
The silence and stillness last a few moments more, until Mau Say glances to the side and then leans over his notes again. His pen scratches, his fingertips are stained with ink.
Sary watches Mau Say fill yet another row with unclear symbols. And another.
Then he looks at Chuop Samloth, the justice minister, and at old Kim Tith, who has responsibility for internal security, at Lon Nol, the army chief of staff, at Sim Var in his horn-rimmed glasses and at all the others along the opposite long side of the table. For a second his eyes meet those of Pho Proeung, the minister of the interior.
He breaks eye contact and looks out into the night beyond the windows.
(The guard steps into the light of a street lamp, then out of it again in the direction from which he had emerged. Hands in pockets, rifle across his back. The glow of his cigarette moves along, gently undulating. Insects swarm around the lamp, their wings glittering.)
The meeting continues. Sim Var (clears his throat) draws attention to the last item but one on the agenda.
Pho Proeung confirms the arrangements at the polling stations. A couple of questions are raised and answered briefly. The time is after ten. (An infectious yawn spreads through the room.)
Sary seeks permission to speak but it is not given. Sim Var sees him raise his pen (of course he sees it) but moves on to the last item.
He keeps his face expressionless though his body tenses with annoyance. He can sense the purr of fellow feeling among the rest of them around the table—old loyalties are being confirmed.
He lays down his pen, interlaces his fingers in front of him and waits patiently.
Then it’s his chance. And he says in a low calm voice that the prince wants to be able to look forward to election day with confidence. Indeed, we all want that, don’t we? And that is why there must be an end to private initiatives that do not promote the common goal. (A slight shuffling can be heard in the room.) He says that he (no longer referring to the prince) will not tolerate any further pieces of improvisation.
As if dealing with a gathering of subordinates (which, in practice, is what they are at this point), he orders them to keep their people at a suitable distance when the polling stations have closed. That should be drilled into every level of their various organizations—emphatically.
Any questions that arise, you can bring to me; any objections must be taken to the prince.
Is that understood?
As I said, he says, public order. You must allow the representatives of the electoral commission to do their work.
They have all gone. He stays behind for a while, leafing through, but not concentrating on, a report the minister of justice gave him. Fatigue is making him feel slightly sick. He shuts his briefcase, struggles into his jacket and goes down to the foyer with its gilded suite of sofa and armchairs.
Mau Say (as arranged) is waiting in one of the armchairs. The young man’s eyes are shut, his mouth closed, his hands resting on the papers in his lap.
He puts his bag down by the sleeping man, goes along the adjoining corridor to the gentlemen’s toilet. Standing at the urinal his eyes move across the tiles to the left and there he sees it, raised on the sharp points of its thin legs on the filthy floor cloth in the corner. Shining plates on its black back; the strip lighting reflected in its many eyes; its jaws underneath.
(He feels his stream cut short involuntarily.)
Then it is gone.
He looks again. The floor cloth in the corner is still a floor cloth.
The large scorpion that was sitting on top of it a moment ago has gone.
(He looks again, all at once uncertain whether it is the floor cloth or the scorpion that was the illusion.)
Perhaps it was the creases in the rag that made the shape of the animal? But they aren’t folded in the kind of way that might lead anyone to make that mistake.
He swills his wrists under cold water from the tap. Bathes his dry eyes. If it had been an ordinary scorpion he would simply have told the caretaker to deal with it. But the one he thought he saw was one of those poisonous tree-dwelling scorpions that he knows are only found in the most inaccessible jungle provinces. If one of that species were to turn up in the cabinet office pissoir, it really would be a zoological mystery. (And now it has become even more mysterious since it has disappeared into thin air.)
The hands of the clock over the door are approaching eleven. He studies the pale, washed-out version of himself.
He thinks that perhaps it is the spirit of the building trying to tell him something. But in that case what? If it was just a hallucination, it is even more disturbing because that would imply that his brain was overheating as a result of all the work, lack of sleep and pills.
He washes out his mouth. Returns to the room with the sofas and armchairs and puts his hand gently on the shoulder of the sleeping man. Mau Say’s face slowly comes alive and he apologizes. Sary rattles his little red metal tube of pills. Mau Say nods. Without water they swallow one each and Sary says, now we’ll continue.
(Evening/cinematography) The blonde woman sits down on the grass slope that runs down to the road. She picks up a small insect from the sand, puts it on the back of her hand and blows it away to freedom. Smiling she watches it disappear, after which the sad, sad and sorrowful, expression returns to her face.
Then music can be heard. She turns her head. There are three men in peaked caps coming over the brow of the slope behind her. They are walking merrily in a line, the first of them playing a flute, the second a clarinet and the last a French horn. They walk past
her without a second glance. In the next scene she is walking behind them slowly, with an almost peaceful smile.
She makes a playful pirouette.
He sneaks a look at the prince’s face beside him. In the light reflected from the screen, there is something timeless about the face. Soft, smooth, but with a sort of paradoxical cruelty. (On the other side of the prince he can see Monineth’s pretty profile and then her friend, a girl whose name he has already forgotten.) Cigarette smoke drifts above them in the light of the projector.
The landscape shots in the film take him back to France. It’s a year since he was last there. Fully a year. The children still talk about their months in Menton. While there his daughter became more of a tomboy than ever. Hardly to be wondered at given her four brothers and then the two sons in the Clement family. She has calmed down a little now that she has begun training with the Royal Ballet. She is, of course, too old and too big to be really good, but at least it provides a suitable environment. (The royal couple take a great interest in the ballet. The little dancers come from good families.)
The blonde woman in the film has arrived at a circus encampment. He hears the prince giggle when the fiddler the woman is watching takes a puff from a cigarette jammed between the tuning screws of his minute fiddle.
Suddenly the prince’s face comes very close. The odour (heavy): eau-de-cologne, wine, a touch of sweat.
That’s the director’s wife, Gelsomina. Nothing to speak of, what?
(He answers in a whisper:) Not exactly Hollywood.
Rossellini did it better!
Song for an Approaching Storm Page 17