Cambodian Book of the Dead (26 page)

 

HER EYES SAID GOODBYE

 

Siem Reap, formerly a provincial French town, was on its way to becoming Cambodia's second capital. The world had rediscovered the spectacular ruins of the Angkor Empire, and the landmines around the temples had been cleared. The tourists were back. Since the international airport had opened, investors, who circled like vultures above the UNESCO world heritage site, could not get hotels, restaurants, shopping centres, massage parlours, casinos and bars off the ground quick enough.

In the brand new Siem Reap International Airport, the immigration officer had photographed Maier, who was travelling under a false name on a new clean and French passport. Bangkok made such things possible.

Maier rented a motorbike and drove out to the temples. The town's first traffic light had just been installed and was guarded by three policemen with loudspeakers, who were giving twelve-hour-long lessons in basic traffic behaviour to passing motorists. In order to save trouble with the local authorities, Maier bought a ticket to the temples. Five minutes later, he circled the broad moat that stretched around Angkor Wat.

The largest temple in the world lay in the morning sun like a sleeping colossus, but the detective didn't stop. Instead, he opened the throttle and shot through the southern gate into Angkor Thom, the old Khmer capital, past the Bayon temple and its two hundred or so gigantic faces that smiled down stoically at Maier, challenging him to drive further into the jungle. It was too early for the tour groups and buses and Maier had the roads all to himself. Many of the ruins were surrounded by dense forest and Maier had to brake hard now and then, in order not to mow down one of the many monkeys who enjoyed sitting on the tarmac before it got hot.

Maier left Angkor Thom via the Victory Gate and ran past the eastern Baray, a huge reservoir built by the Angkor kings to help run the thousand year old empire's powerhouse economy. Village children jumped into the street excitedly as Maier passed, waving postcards and cans of Coke, hoping to make a few riel off this early traveller. Away from the temples and the tourists, Siem Reap was desperately poor. The Cambodian government and a private company shared the profits of the tourist dollars – virtually nothing trickled down to the traumatised population, for whom Angkor was the spiritual, cultural and economic heart of the country.

Beyond Banteay Srey, the Citadel of Women, the road turned into a red lateritic track, but Maier pushed on as fast as possible. He had planned to return to Siem Reap the same day and catch a night flight back to Bangkok. Small settlements stretched along the dusty road, huts on stilts, without electricity or water. Until recently, there'd been jungle behind the huts, but the poor who lived here had logged and burnt it all for rich landowners – the land looked like a wasted moonscape.

Beng Melea had been built in the twelfth century, following the same basic design as Angkor Wat.

Maier stopped in front of the overgrown temple. A CMAC crew, known to its international donors as the Cambodian Mine Action Center, was working close to the temple. Twenty young men in blue uniforms roped off a small piece of land next to the ruin and began to search the dry ground, metre by metre. It would take years, if not decades, to remove all the mines and explosives buried in Cambodia. Every month, innocent people lost their limbs. The war never ended. In almost all the countries Maier had worked in as a war correspondent, governments or opposition parties had mined parts of their own land. The result was always the same – the victims were mostly civilians, often children.

Maier drove along a narrow path into the forest, which forked several times. He followed fresh tyre tracks deep into the jungle of northwest Cambodia. An hour into his journey, the track broadened. Maier slowed as a crumbling stone tower emerged from the foliage ahead. He had reached his destination and pushed the bike off the track into the forest. Small green parrots chased through the canopy above and Maier could see a few flying foxes sleeping in the trees. The world was fine for the moment. For a while Maier sat at the bottom of a tree, letting the silence settle. This time he wasn't going to be overrun by murderous teenage girls.

The temple was smaller than Beng Melea and completely subsumed by the forest. Maier didn't see anyone, but he approached the ruin slowly and with care. He circled the building. The temple only had one tower. Two others had collapsed and pulled down part of the roof with them. An SUV stood parked behind the temple. The engine was still warm. The car was unlocked and Maier found a gun in the glove compartment. He stared at it for a moment, then left it where he'd found it. Partially-burnt suitcases crammed with cash filled the boot and the back seat.

Suddenly he heard voices from the temple interior and hunkered down behind the sandstone wall which surrounded the building. Something stank. Terribly. Slowly, ever so slowly, he raised his head above the wall.

Pete and Inspector Viengsra were barely recognisable. The two men grinned yellow teeth at Maier. The detective dropped back down behind the wall. Tep had brought the heads from Bokor, driven them onto wooden stakes and set them up at the entrance. Flies cruised in thick shape-shifting clouds around what was left of the two men. Pete's formerly red hair had turned rust brown and the eyes of the policeman were missing. Even on Maier's side of the wall, the smell was unbearable. He retreated to his bike, vomited into the bushes and sat in the shade until the sun dropped into the trees.

A couple of hours later, he picked a different entrance for his second attempt to enter the temple. This time he got lucky. He could hear the general's voice reverberate around the temple ruin. The old soldier spoke English.

“Cambodia no longer need you. Your men and your children are dead. All dead. Your power used up. The curse of the Kangaok Meas coming to an end.”

Maier slid into an alcove that might once have housed an
apsara
. Inside, he could barely make out Tep in the semi-darkness. The general wore a bandage around his neck and had his hands up. Kaley pointed a gun at Tep's chest.

Would she shoot, if Tep attacked her?

Tep smiled and Maier knew that the old general didn't feel threatened. He continued in Khmer.

“Please come. I will take you back to the car. There's no need for the gun. We're both Khmer.”
Maier couldn't work out why the old general had spoken English to Kaley. Did he know the detective had arrived?

Rays of sunshine poured through the partially collapsed ceiling. The dust that the two Cambodians kicked up snowed in narrow shards of light onto century-old dreams of withering stone. The might of the temples and the country's glorious past had to be a heavy yoke to carry for the Khmer, starved and crushed by endless war. The country would never be as proud again as it had been. Perhaps the burden of longing for past glories had contributed to the madness of the Khmer Rouge. Tep's madness.

Tep and Kaley had turned off into a narrow corridor. Maier followed slowly. He was still spooked by the young murder girls and desperately hoped he wouldn't meet one in the dark. But the temple was abandoned. Tep and Kaley were the only survivors of the Kangaok Meas Project. The general and his prisoner pressed on, with Maier following at what he considered a safe distance. He cursed himself for having left the gun in Tep's car. He could see no way of getting her away from the old soldier. He would have to jump the old man at the next corner. But the detective hung back, too far behind the kidnapper and his victim.

When Maier finally stepped from the narrow corridor into the open, it was too late. Tep didn't make deals. The old man had led Kaley into a logged clearing and disarmed her. Kaley stood stock still, forlorn and confused. The general was already fifty metres away, limping back towards his car.

Suddenly he spun around, saw Maier and shouted, “We give life to Kangaok Meas, my friend Lorenz and me. And when we need to, we take it as well. Today I finish our dream.”

Kaley stared at her tormentor without comprehension. Maier stopped on the lowest step of the temple stairway and called to her.

“Hello, Kaley.”

She did not turn. He called to her again. More than ever he now thought of her as a ghost. What had he been thinking, trying to save this shattered woman?

“Kaley.”

Tep raised his gun and fired a couple of shots at the detective. Maier dropped to the ground, looking for something to hide behind, but the old general was too far away and the bullets hit the temple walls a few metres away. Tep didn't come back for Maier, an easy target on the bottom step of the temple stairway. Mercy was hardly in the former Khmer Rouge soldier's repertoire of sentiments. So why didn't the Cambodian come and finish him off? Something was very wrong. The clearing in front of the Khmer ruin had gone dead silent. The general had stopped walking, his gun empty. As if waiting for something. For the end.

Maier waved at the woman and slowly started walking towards her, watching the general as well as the ground ahead. He didn't have to go far to understand how Tep had trapped Kaley and was using her as bait. But it was too late to turn back. A few metres to his right, a handful of warning signs for landmines had been thrown to the forest floor. Tep must have had them removed. The old general obviously knew how to cross the clearing without losing a limb. But Maier didn't. The detective suddenly had the feeling that the last unresolved questions of his case were about to be answered. Everything was falling into place. What had the Russian told him, before he'd left the roof of the casino?

“Don't forget, follow the sticks.”
 

It had sounded like nonsense. But the Russian was not stupid and had never said anything unnecessary. Mikhail's remark suddenly burnt like a flame through Maier's mind and he took another look at the clearing.

Mikhail was a step ahead. He had known even then, on the roof of the casino, that Maier would end up in a minefield. And not just in any minefield. In this minefield.

At a distance of about two metres, small sticks rose from the dry forest floor. Some had been broken and kicked away. Perhaps Tep had tried to obscure the safe way out of the clearing, but after studying the ground for some time, Maier could see a clear route all the way to the petrified woman. One just had to know. Without worrying too much, Maier stepped onto the dusty ground and slowly walked towards Kaley, who looked at him in shock.

After a few metres, something like dizziness overcame him. He stopped, only to notice that his sweat-soaked shirt was sticking to his back. Fear. It was all in the mind, he told himself. The Russian hadn't killed him in Bokor. There had to be a reason. Mikhail did nothing without reason. Mikhail had foreseen this situation.

Tep still stood on the edge of the clearing and watched Maier. He was too far away to shoot them. But he did not want to walk back out into the minefield. Which didn't stop him cursing Maier.

“Maier, so good to see you so close to death. You will go a traditional way, I promise you. I tell you our first meeting, we not like snoops in Cambodia. But you difficult to kill. Have nice day with lady. Today is last one for you.”

The old soldier turned in disgust and got into his car.

“Follow the sticks, what does it mean?”

Kaley shook her head. For the first time, Maier saw her, the Kangaok Meas, as a human being, fragile and vulnerable, without the aura, just like anyone else.

“And how do we get out of here?”

“Just the same way we came in. As a man in Bokor told me, follow the sticks.”

Maier looked at the ground in front of him. On the way out of the clearing, Tep had torn away many of the sticks. The way they'd come, back to the temple looked more promising.

“Look at the small sticks in the ground. We have to follow their path. Here and there some have collapsed but we should be able to see my footsteps.”

They began to walk back slowly.

Maier went first. Now and then he turned and looked back at Tep, who sat in his car, waiting for him or the woman to die. Thirty metres more.

Suddenly they reached open ground. Maier could not see any of the sticks. They were so close to the temple now. So close, fifteen steps, no more. Fifteen steps of death. Maier stood looking desperately for his footprints when Kaley passed him. She made directly for the temple. She almost had a spring in her step. Maier followed carefully and turned once more.

The general had been waiting for Maier's turn and waved from the car's driving seat before he bent forward to put the key in the ignition. The explosion threw the heavy SUV into the air. The heat of the flames was incredible. One of the axles came off and flew, tyres burning, across the temple wall. A second explosion ripped the car apart, perhaps the petrol tank had caught fire.

“Let's go, back into the temple.”

Maier squeezed past Kaley and took up the trail through the minefield. The last few steps towards safety were clearly visible. A few minutes later he stood with Kaley on the broad stairs of the temple. Maier wiped the sweat from his forehead and sat down in the shadow of the narrow corridor that led into the temple interior. Kaley had a dreamy expression on her face. An expression that Maier had not seen before.

She stepped towards the detective and embraced him.

“Thank you, Maier, you are good man. Les is right.”

The scene he had watched through the hole in the floor of the casino flashed through Maier's head. He never did have a chance to fulfil his promise. He had been deluding himself and the woman too. As she stepped away from him, he held out his hand, but he knew instinctively that she would not take it. Kaley was done with taking and had long given everything she had ever had. Just like Cambodia. All she expected him to do now was to witness her last pathetic, heroic act. She turned away from him and, no longer choosing her steps carefully, left the safety of the temple and walked into the morning. Maier did not try to stop her or follow her. But neither did he leave. He owed her that much, perhaps more, much more.