Another boat putters towards them. The silence is long except for one whispered question. Then a calm voice calls clearly across the lake. The boys chuckle with relief and shout; feet thump onto the deck and there is hearty laughter.
A rough voice barks. ‘You should have seen it! It was a sight. They all thought the Khmers Rouges had come for them again! The whole town was running away. We shot a few extra bullets here and there to add to the party, and then all the power went, like it does every New Year, and all the women screamed.’
‘New Year, let them remember New Year!’
‘Happy New Year!’
‘Well, let’s have a look at our prizes. I want to see their eyes.’
More feet thumping, and a rough sound of wood sliding. ‘Whew! You guys stink!’
A padding of feet and a tugging at the tape over Luc’s face. Suddenly, with a ripping sound, it’s torn away, taking Luc’s eyebrows with it. Thank heavens, he thinks, that I keep my hair cut short, number one buzz cut. Torchlight blazes like sunlight into his eyes. He blinks, dazed. The torchlight becomes beautiful, like a star fallen to earth, surrounded by a corona.
‘Welcome to Siem Reap Hilton,’ someone says in accented English.
Luc squints, dazzled by the light. Don’t look at their faces! He turns his head away and sees the General’s bloodhound face – heavy and crumpled, with dark, wounded eyes.
The same barking, exuberant voice says, ‘Hey General, you must have thought everything was going the way you like it. Welcome back! Make yourself at home here in the hotel. We have everything! Food, water, a comfortable bed. Guns.’
The General stares heavily and says nothing.
They’re showing us their faces; they don’t care if we see them. That’s bad. Before he can stop himself, Luc looks up, eyes now adjusted to the light. He sees the face of an older Cambodian man. Luc’s eyes dart away, but not before he realizes that he knows the face. From where?
The older man berates him in English. ‘Barang. Welcome to the real Cambodia. Lots of mosquitoes. No air conditioning. Real Cambodian cuisine.’
Unceremoniously, a whole burnt fish, small and bony, is pushed into his mouth.
The man has a competent face, the face of an old, tough businessman. He looks like he runs a shoe factory. He’s wearing half-moon spectacles and Luc tries to remember where he has seen those before. The eyes are wide, merry, glistening, yellow splotched with red. The teeth are brown and broken, framed in a wild smile. It’s not a face I’ve seen smiling. That is why I cannot place it.
Luc feels sadness for the world. This is a world of roses, forests, rivers, and wild animals. It is a world of mothers and children and milk. How do we get so wild-eyed, so anguished, and so cruel?
Luc, you are already a dead man.
‘Chew it, barang, the fire’s burnt all the bones. They break up in your mouth. It’s more than we have to eat most nights. It’s New Year. A celebration.’
The old man switches to Khmer. ‘You too, General. Without us, you wouldn’t have a job to do. Eat!’
A head appears through the trapdoor and warns, ‘Lights!’
The smile drops and the face settles into its usual immobility. It looks numb; the mouth swells as if novocained. The staring, round eyes are encircled by flesh. Fish Face, Luc thinks.
Fish Face says, ‘Ah, make a lot of noise, wave the fish at them, wish them Happy New Year.’
With the smile gone, Luc recognizes who it is.
‘If they don’t go away, shoot them!’ Fish Face jabs a casual thumb in Luc’s direction. Then he sniffs and pushes the tape back over their mouths. Luc needs to spit out the bones and can’t. He can’t swallow either. The bones and half-chewed fish plug his mouth.
Fish Face wrenches himself round on his haunches and as if levitating shoots up and out through the trapdoor.
Luc remembers the farmer in whose fields they found the Book.
Luc tries to remember everything Map had told him about the man. He had been Map’s CO for a while.
They are in the hands of ex-Khmers Rouges.
Luc hears the chortling of an engine. Fish Face seems to be going. So what’s he done with the Book?
That damned Book. I should have left it with the Army and walked away. Even if it was stolen, melted down and lost forever, I should have made sure that it was the Army who carried the Kraing Meas.
Instead, you made sure that you did. From now on, Luc, the Book is number two. You have to be number one.
I wish I had a God that I could pray to. I wish I believed in miracles, or had enough faith to find comfort in eternity. Hell. I want my mother.
My trousers are full of shit, I need a drink of water and my mouth is taped shut. I need to wash, I need a friend nearby, I need more courage than I have.
The only thing you can do, Luc, is regard this as an opportunity.
Luc decides to listen to the birds. They flute and warble as dawn approaches.
Birds and lapping water, so many things, are beyond the reach of guns.
Jayarajadevi read books.
This might be harmless. The girl would sit cross-legged on cushions, as perfectly poised as a long-necked samsoan marsh bird.
There was nothing idle about her reading. She clicked the palm leaves over as regularly as an artisan weaving cloth. Indeed, some people said: she reads like a man. She thinks if she reads she will grow a beard and become a Brahmin.
Jayarajadevi was beautiful and of royal stock and would beyond doubt marry a prince. She was a Rajanga, a person of the highest degree, and the name Jayarajadevi was also a noble title. For everyday use she had a Khmer name, Kansri, which meant Beautiful or Happy.
Jayarajadevi Kansri was an especial devotee of the Buddha. Her mind could flick through the arguments for Buddhism as purposively as her fingers flicked through the leaves of her book. She had the art of presenting these arguments to her teachers while showing no disrespect.
Kansri had caught the attention of the great Divakarapandita, Consecrator of Kings. His title Dhuli Jeng, Dust of the Feet, meant he was the King’s deputy, at least in religious matters.
Divakarapandita enjoyed her interrogations. She was not at all frightened of him and he enjoyed the way she listened and responded.
Jayarajadevi would sit with him beside the four pools, high in the upper storey of the Vishnuloka. In the shaded gallery, they would debate. Sometimes her even more formidable older sister would join them.
Today, thank heaven, it was just her. The two sisters together were too much even for a Consecrator of Kings.
‘It is of course permitted to be a devotee of Gautama,’ Divakarapandita granted her. ‘No doubt he passed onto us the greatest possible insight into how to escape the toils of this world. But he is not a god, and devotions to him must be balanced, no not balanced, outweighed, by actions of devotion to the Gods.’
Jayarajadevi considered this and she was like water dripping from a rock garden, steady and in relaxing rhythms. From all about them came the whisper of brooms sweeping.
‘But, Teacher, Gautama was so wise that he taught the Gods themselves how to attain Nibbana. If gods so privilege his teaching, then surely so must we? Especially if he speaks the language of a human and shows us the limits of what humans can achieve.’
Kansri