Song for an Approaching Storm

by Peter Froeberg Idling

  The colonel keeps smiling his imperturbable smile while saying that it is very easy—for a military man—to see the strategy. They cannot conquer us face to face, weapon in hand, which is why they are relying on their alternative battle plan. He explains that it is important to have several choices, one for each eventuality and all of them equally well prepared. In other words, the result is more important than the road you take to get there. And given this kind of low-intensity offensive, society would eventually—and soon—fall under the control of foreign powers.

  He says that he hopes that within the near future the prince will see to it that the cathedral is levelled to the ground it is currently desecrating. And will then expel all the foreigners. For the prince, he states emphatically, is a patriot.

  Just take our language, he continues after a short pause during which his indignation grows even more intense. (It seems to her to be quite independent of his dancing, which continues to retain the same lingering seductiveness as before. And his smile is still in place.) But his ill-concealed agitation makes for a less than pleasing disjointedness in the colonel’s paradoxical and unconscious charm, a charm that stems from combining a patina of sophistication with a lack of refinement. It’s as if jigsaw pieces of the colonel’s face have been placed on top of another face. (That particular image manages to hold her attention for a moment—a welcome chance to gather her thoughts which had stubbornly insisted on straying over to the trio on the balcony.)

  Just take our language, he says. For decades we have been captivated by everything French. We have adopted French vocabulary and expressions in spite of the fact that our own language has fully adequate equivalents. Advertisements are infested with them. It feels, he says, as if people believe there is some kind of unstated qualitative distinction, with French being a rather better language than ours!

  We are under attack from every side at once, he states. But the majority of our people haven’t even begun to understand it. And the elite of society, the people dancing here, they are incapable of recognizing the enemy within themselves.

  She says that she attended the consecration of the cathedral. Not because she is a Catholic but because the nobility was invited. She says he’s right to say it’s very ugly. A sort of architectural mixture of factory and church. Remarkably dull and heavy, yet aggressive at the same time.

  The colonel looks at her sceptically, but then his face softens again and he looks as he did before. Take a photograph of it, he jokes, because quite soon it’s likely to be no more than a memory.

  The melody comes to a long drawn-out close and she excuses herself. The orchestra takes up the next tune, Mon amant de la Coloniale.

  It is not just the colonel who has been overcome by indignation during the dance. Somaly herself has ended up in an icy rage (or is it desperation she is feeling). As she leaves the colonel on the dance floor, she berates herself for not having been prepared for Sary to come with Em. Her mind had been preoccupied with how to behave if, in spite of everything, Sar risked turning up. And as for Sary, she had been happy simply to fantasize about the amusing possibilities of indiscreet glances and ambiguous exchanges. But the presence of that cow in the room has put paid to any such thought. The kind of game she’d had in mind, while remaining invisible, still demands the full attention of the other player.

  The easiest thing for the two of them would be to pretend that he is the passing acquaintance everyone assumes him to be. But to be subject to a set of rules she hasn’t been involved in drawing up (which is how she describes it at the moment) is impossible. Nor does she have it in her to cause a scene. That would quite simply be bad form.

  She turns abruptly to a Chinese man standing on his own watching the dancers. She hasn’t met him before but he stands out because he is wearing a close-fitting silver-grey suit instead of the appropriate white one. His hair is cut short and matches the shades of his suit. He gives the impression of being a man of the world, even if his shirt collar is too high to be the modern fashion. His delicate features are made for the round steel-rimmed glasses he is wearing. Despite his grey hair she judges him to be younger than Sary.

  He accepts and offers her his arm. They glide out among the other dancers. (His light touch and neat figure in marked contrast to the colonel’s obtrusive physique.) If he is confused by her taking the initiative he keeps it to himself.

  She can’t see if Sary is watching her.

  The Chinese man says he is new to the city. Come from Singapore. Business, he pronounces it in English in the middle of the flow of French. His voice is soft and natural. She thinks that everything about this man seems to be well balanced. Well balanced and refined.

  He tells her that he earns his living by arbitrage. And that now that the kingdom has its own currency, he will have reason to come here again. And he feels that the Chinese in the city—what do you call them, la bourgeoisie?—have been welcoming. Perhaps they view him more as a compatriot than as a competitor? Or maybe people here are so provincial that they still practise good old-fashioned hospitality? His line of business is still in its infancy here.

  She listens. His voice, his attractive features and the nature of the dance compensate for the conventional content of the conversation. But her temper is quite unpredictable and, moreover, he subverts every statement he makes, so to speak. As if he is being ironic. Or is it just his accent, perhaps?

  As the final notes die away he bows and thanks her without laying claim to the next dance.

  Her eyes look for Sary, but she pulls herself together and goes to join Maman’s group.

  Just a step away from the dance floor she is stopped by a Frenchman. He looks almost American to her with his prominent jaw and the quick smile that comes to his suntanned face. The white suit hints at an athletic body. He introduces himself as Monsieur Klein, cultural attaché at the embassy in New Delhi. Now on holiday and visiting the Angkor Wat temples and the Côte d’Opale. The temples, he assures her, are particularly interesting from an Indian perspective. But, he continues, we can talk about that another time. He explains that he would like to invite her out to dinner, or lunch if that is more appropriate, in order to tell her about a number of future events that ought to involve Miss Cambodia. He gives her his card, which has a telephone number written in large unambiguous figures in pencil on the back. My hotel, he says, slowly running his forefinger across the number while keeping his eyes on her.

  She puts his card in her bag, thanks him and walks towards the row of papier-mâché pillars where she left her mother. The other guests are moving in the opposite direction, towards the dance floor where the orchestra is just introducing Blue Velvet, last year’s hit. She can see Colonel Heng with a new partner. She can see Monsieur Hanin with Penn Nouth, the president of the council, a rather thin man. But she can’t see her mother’s sky-blue dress anywhere.

  And then, suddenly, she finds herself just a few steps away from Sary. Despite the fact that her field of vision closes in, that she experiences the following sequence in slow motion as if underwater, she doesn’t manage to notice the people he is talking to. As he passes he smiles at her, quickly, efficiently. And she thinks as she moves away through the people, the world having returned to normal speed, that his eyes and his smile did not match up.

  She does not respond to the smile. And she wonders if there was anything in her face that gave her away.

  Then she sees her mother, standing with her back to the seats occupied by Nana, Voisanne, Mari and several of her other friends.

  Sweet, lukewarm pink milk. Cigarettes. Her face in the mirror, the way the make-up brings it all together. Immaculately. It would have lasted the whole evening and half the night. But she’d had to leave the soirée. She is surprised by how disappointed she is. By the strength of her feelings. But she feels that she is not like other people, that there is no reason why she should simply put up with things.

  She runs through the course of events as if everything had happened simultaneously, and it i
s only now, in retrospect, that she can separate things and see the individual elements. She does not dwell too long on the moment she turned to the Chinese man and asked him to escort her from the soirée. Nor the hushed sensation it caused when the national beauty queen left an event early escorted by an unknown and inappropriately dressed foreigner. She did not notice whether Sary saw them, but he would undoubtedly have heard about it. No, the scene she replays in her mind is of her sitting in the car saying goodbye and the Chinese man about to close the car door. At the very moment of closing it he says: my name is Monsieur Zhau.

  There is nothing improper about that, quite the reverse, and she should perhaps have introduced herself too. But there was a hint of eagerness in his voice, in contrast to the way he had done her bidding without any glint in his eyes behind his round spectacles when she asked him to escort her from the soirée. He was correct throughout, and politely distant. And then he tells her his name as if it is important for him to say it. What does he want me to do with it? Does he even know who I am?

  Her first thought had been to leave discreetly, without anyone noticing. But then came the notion of making something of it. She is too tired and still rather too drunk to assess the consequences. (She starts the lengthy process of removing powder, eye shadow, lipstick.) She is, she thinks, possibly going to wake up with her body in the vice-like grip of anxiety, her head splitting from grinding her teeth. But then her anger flares up again. She is the one who is in the right. And she becomes even more angry, when she meets her eyes in the mirror and watches the lines drawn by the eye pencil begin to be dissolved by treacherous tears.

  SATURDAY, 17 SEPTEMBER 1955

  Kunthea knocks, comes in, says, Good morning, Miss.

  She thinks she can smell the penetrating scent of lilies that have just come into flower.

  Is it a real smell? The night was a jumble of very strange and utterly convincing dreams. There were times she thought she had woken up but quickly realized that she was still in a dream. And although noises from outside told her that the time was passing, she had been incapable of rousing herself into a state of wakefulness. Time after time she had slipped back into the soft darkness.

  Through half-closed eyelids she sees Kunthea as a darker patch in the darkness of the room, a silhouette placing a vase of what she takes to be lilies on the table by the bed. A silhouette that is suddenly outlined by sharp white light when the shutters open to let the morning in.

  Is she really awake?

  There is an envelope poking out of the bouquet and she lifts the mosquito net to reach it. She breaks the seal and reads. Pardonnez-moi. Sary.

  She sinks back in the bed, the stiff white card in her hand. If this is a dream it is a dream of victory.

  She carries on towards the river, in her hand the magazine she bought at the news-stand. She passes the small funfair that has been closed for some time. She finds an empty bench in the shade of the trees on the riverbank. She shares the shade with a fortune teller and a seller of swallows. The silent birds are crowded into a cage made of chicken wire; the fortune teller mixes chalk and betel nut in a leaf and folds it with practised fingers. Both women gawp at her. She, however, looks out over the brown swirling waters of the river. Heavily laden barges are fighting the current and the ferry makes its way back and forth, back and forth, between small open fishing boats.

  Beyond the boats the other bank can be glimpsed through the haze. An untidy line of palms and trees.

  Like an image of the future, she thinks. A vague goal in the distance with various ways of getting there.

  Somaly’s relationship with the future has changed with time. When it became clear there was no longer any money for schooling, the outlook had become limited to an advantageous marriage. She had been too young to question the actual assumption and had instead gathered all her strength to have the last word as to who the lucky man might be. Everything has changed now.

  The two points of decisive importance are, first, her mother is solvent again and, secondly, the mayor with the sweaty hands placed that diamond tiara on her head. As a result of that she is no longer an economic burden to be transferred to someone else’s shoulders. Nor does she lack real opportunities to make what she will of her life.

  She may even be on the threshold of an international career that could eventually make her a fashion icon.

  She thinks of the evening that followed the grand beauty contest. There was a show of the latest creations by Maggy Rouff and Hermès. She and the French girls walked slowly under the stars, slowly around the side of the illuminated swimming pool at the Hôtel Le Royal. They changed four times, from one magnificent dress to another. The audience applauded, there were even cheers as they made their last circuit together. She can see them now, all gathered on the lawn with reflections from the underwater lamps playing on their faces. Ministers, military men, courtiers, businessmen. All with their eyes and smiles on her.

  Then an extended cloudburst had driven them all indoors.

  She was allowed to choose a dress to keep. Her choice fell on a cocktail dress in champagne-coloured chiffon.

  But even more important is that the French beauty queens were so friendly, that they said that she was très chic.

  And now there is this cultural attaché Klein. What kind of event does he have in mind? Working at an embassy, working with culture, with the kind of winning appearance he has, he must be familiar with Parisian society. Probably part of it. Which means he knows the people she wants to know. The question is, which would be more advantageous—lunch or dinner? How to balance advantage and propriety?

  The coming years pass before her eyes. She sees life as a fashion model in Paris. She sees good earnings. Given a small amount of capital she should then be able to design a collection under her own name. Something up to date but also drawing on the traditions of her own people. Several of Maggy Rouff’s creations had eye-catching primitive details: leopard patterns, a touch of Africa. But, as far as she could tell, nothing from Asia. That’s where she would have her own niche. Given a couple of years as a model she ought to have made the necessary contacts. And her brother might even put some money into it once she has made a success of it. If things went really well he might even join her business. That really is a sweet prospect—the businessman of the family working for her.

  The air suddenly fills with big shimmering dragonflies as she plans her own maison de couture in her mind. In the margin of the magazine she makes a new sketch for an evening dress, a playful variation on Christian Dior’s New Look. Her own feeling is that the accentuated waistline patented by Dior looks particularly good on her figure.

  And how would Sar fit into this French vision? He wouldn’t. What part could a schoolteacher play in that sort of life? On the other hand, she was good enough to wait here while he was there. For the sake of fairness, it should be possible in reverse. But she knows that he would never accept his wife being exposed to all the dangers and temptations of being abroad on her own. Nor having people laugh at him and thinking him a fool for believing that the beauty queen who had absconded would ever come back.

  She suddenly remembers the oblique kind of jealousy of the actual city of Paris she had felt when it took Sar from her. And she wonders if he would feel the same sort of thing if his wife went there.

  And Sary? (Her heart pumps a warm wave of longing through every blood vessel in her body. This is a phenomenon that does not cease to amaze her.) He has friends there and he would certainly travel there quite regularly. Sends a telegram: MA CHÈRE STOP ARRIVE PARIS 4 DEC 17H STOP MEET ME AT PLACE DE HOTEL DE VILLE STOP IMPATIENT S STOP.

  The distance and the absence of formal links would allow her world to remain open. She would be free to shape her own life, but in the certainty that Sary was there in the distance. With someone else, but for herself.

  I am the one who will decide, she thinks. I am the one who will decide.

  She looks at the clock, gets up and waves for a cyclo. The driver
obviously recognizes her from the covers of magazines, his coarse suntanned face breaks into a smile—all bad teeth and masses of wrinkles. She describes an alley behind the Bamboo Market and the man pedals (slowly) up onto Avenue de Verdun.

  The alley lies in shadow, the air still and heavy with the stink of rubbish coming from the market. Some dirty children recognize her and wave. The cyclo driver, his peace of mind now mixed with uncertainty in view of a destination that doesn’t correspond to where a beauty queen ought to be going, offers to wait for her at no extra cost.

  Somaly passes through the doorway and climbs the dirty and uneven steps in the dark stairwell. Political slogans and obscene scribbles on the walls.

  The tailor himself opens the door on the top floor, at first just a crack but then, nervously, he lets her into the apartment, which also serves as a workshop. He opens the heavy curtains, banishing the darkness from the room, and she asks whether he has finished the job.

  He hasn’t. He rarely has.

  She says nothing, just allows her anger to grow.