‘Oh well.’
‘Didn’t you say your wife was going to be in Pattaya? And your girls? How long is it since you last saw them? How many weeks?’
‘That is irrelevant. Anyway, I need to be available.’
‘Who to? German tourists?’
‘Don’t be petulant. We will have a beach holiday another day.’
Airline officials herded Kiry and his entourage onto a rusting red bus that smelt so heavily of gasoline that Kiry told Ol not to smoke. The bus deposited them beside a building. A security officer led them along a winding concrete corridor and through a door that slammed behind them. They found themselves inside the main terminal, but when they turned to retreat the door would not open.
‘You imbecile. You stupid monkey,’ Sok yelled at the security officer, who tried to salvage the situation by leading them towards the safety of the Qantas Golden Club lounge. But in the distance, several waiting journalists saw Kiry and came running.
‘Quickly, Your Excellency, this way,’ Sok said.
‘No. I want to talk to them.’
‘I beg you, Your Excellency, not today. You have not been briefed. You are not ready, after such a shock, to know what it is best to say.’
‘I will speak to them.’
‘Please, Your Excellency, you are a mess.’
‘Exactly.’
Sok ran ahead to brief the reporters, the same faces who had farewelled Kiry at dawn.
‘Please do not crowd in. His Excellency Nhem Kiry has suffered a terrible shock. He is not so well. No photos.’
‘That’s not up to you,’ one reporter said.
‘If you take photos, His Excellency will not speak.’
Sok positioned himself at Kiry’s right shoulder. Kiry blamed himself for this: as the peace negotiations had dragged on for months and years, he had set Sok the task of monitoring the public statements of the US administration. It was important work and it gave Sok something to do in the world’s hotel rooms other than watch pornography. But clearly, Kiry now saw, Sok had watched too many CNN news conferences during which brash American politicians were incapable of answering questions unless they had a row of faces – people, farm animals, cardboard cut-outs, it didn’t seem to matter – standing behind to nod and bray in unison.
‘Stand back there. I won’t be long,’ Kiry told Sok, who looked aggrieved.
Kiry knew these reporters. They reminded him of a pack of stray dogs roaming the streets at night, frothing at the mouth and baring their teeth at passers-by, scavenging and, come morning, slinking under houses or behind garbage bins. Their predicament amused Kiry: they were desperate to damn him in print but they tied themselves in knots feigning objectivity.
‘How are you feeling?’ a fat American man asked.
‘Fine, all things considered. I have no serious injuries. I thank you for your concern.’
The corners of the American’s mouth were flickering and his blue eyes gleamed. He could barely contain his amusement at Kiry’s predicament.
‘Who did this? Who is responsible?’
‘Who? You ask
me
who? How would I possibly know? All I can do is ask questions of my own: is this an act perpetrated by Cambodians or is this the work of foreigners? Is this the behaviour of locals and lovers of peace or is this the behaviour of visitors, of those lovers of imperialist mayhem who hate the very excellent Paris Peace Agreement?’
‘Are you suggesting that the demonstration was staged?’ asked a wiry Italian woman. As Kiry had come to expect, she addressed him in a derisive tone, choosing to disbelieve him even before he opened his mouth. He peered down at her and wondered, not for the first time, why she bothered to be so aggressive in person when her articles were so tame and lacking in insight.
‘Of course it was staged, and more than that I—’
‘But surely the Cambodian people have the right to reject the Khmer Rouge? Surely this protest represents the very essence of the democratic reforms the world is giving Cambodia?’ an Irish woman interrupted.
‘If I might be allowed to finish: of course it was staged. Because the Cambodian people would never participate in such a low and misguided act. The Cambodian people understand and respect me. They know that I love Cambodia. And they rely on my party – and my party alone – to resist the Vietnamese, who everybody knows have not really withdrawn from Cambodia. We believe that Cambodians of all stripes should not quarrel or fight each other any longer. We should forget the past, which after all was not caused by Cambodians … It’s quite similar to the situation in Belfast, now that I think of it.’
The Irish woman persisted. ‘Prime Minister Hun Sen says he urged you to take certain precautions for your own security but you refused.’
‘What is your question?’
‘Doesn’t he have a point? Didn’t you bring this upon yourself?’
‘No. And no.’
‘But what about—’
‘Does anybody have a relevant question?’
‘What broader ramifications does the attack on you have for the peace process?’ a thin Australian man asked. Beside him, the Irish woman, aghast at a question that she considered too friendly, hopped from foot to foot.
‘I do not want to say anything concrete about that right now. But you must understand that it is not just me who has been shamed today. The United Nations has been shamed too, for if the Supreme National Council, of which I am a rightful member according to all the nations of the world, cannot meet in Phnom Penh, then there can be no peace process. Still, I am an optimist. I believe that we should maintain a mature and mild attitude to such setbacks, however troubling, and not give in to those who hate peace.’
‘It is irony on a grand scale, don’t you think,’ the Irish woman said, ‘for the Khmer Rouge to demand early deployment of the UN forces?’
‘That is not a helpful question.’ Kiry paused, and with self-restraint avoided scratching the scab on his forehead, which had begun to itch and ooze. ‘I’m terribly sorry, but that’s all I can manage today. I’m sure you understand.’
By the time Kiry retreated to the privacy of his hotel suite he felt drained – literally bereft of fluids that might allow his brain not to scratch and bump against the inside of his skull. He needed silence and solitude to retrieve his bearings and his self-control. But Sok, himself tired and tense, irritating but somehow comforting, refused to budge.
‘The medic said not to leave you alone.’
So while Kiry showered, Sok stood by the towel rack holding a pillow, ready to dive forward and cushion Kiry should he slip or faint. Then, as Kiry prepared to rest, Sok admitted a succession of visitors.
First came a mournful, fidgety Thai doctor. He’d been treating Kiry on and off for years, and had delivered his second daughter into the world.
‘What’s your name?’ the doctor asked, shining a pen torch in Kiry’s eyes.
‘Doctor Henry Kissinger.’
‘What day is it?’
‘It’s my day of great triumph. It’s a day when all Cambodians can finally and truly believe that peace has broken like the first rains in May.’
‘Er—’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, it’s Tuesday.’
‘Where are you now?’
‘Purgatory.’
‘
Where?
’
‘Room 877, executive suite, Lotus Hotel, Bangkok.’
As the doctor left the hotel manager arrived. He presented Kiry with a bowl of fruit, a get-well card on behalf of the citizens of the Kingdom of Thailand and a heavy hint that he could arrange for a ‘lovely lady’ to come and comfort Kiry.
‘Maybe later,’ Kiry said. Sok nodded eagerly.
As the manager left a UN delegation arrived.
‘Please stay calm,’ their spokesman said. ‘The situation is being actively attended to.’
‘Please accept this fruit bowl as a token of my goodwill,’ Kiry said. He kept the mango, but when he later cut it open it was bruised and soft all the way to the seed.
As soon as Kiry lay down, the telephone rang. Sok answered. ‘It’s your wife,’ he mouthed. Kiry shook his head and closed his eyes. ‘He’ll ring you back,’ Sok said and hung up. Almost immediately, the phone rang again. Kiry faked a snore but Sok shook his elbow.
‘Your Excellency, you must take this.’
‘Unless it’s Nelson Mandela I’m not interested.’
‘Please, Your Excellency.’
Kiry lay on the bed and half-listened as Nuon Chea harangued him for being a victim: ‘How can you have been so careless? And why on earth did you speak to those reporters? You might have said anything.’
It was close to midnight before Kiry was finally alone. But by then sleep seemed impossible. He was unable to prevent waves of fear from passing through him. So he dressed and took the glass elevator – another opportunity, he thought, to watch the ground disappear beneath his feet – to the Wild Rice Restaurant and Piano Bar.
He sat at a large table in the farthest corner of the restaurant and scattered the world’s newspapers around him. Before dawn he had sat at this same table, with the same newspapers, and prepared himself for the day ahead with black coffee and papaya. Since then, he had drunk nothing but water and eaten nothing but paracetamol.
The restaurant was nearly empty. A Chinese-Malaysian businessman sat in a corner. Like Kiry, he could not avoid listening to a young Australian couple recounting their expedition to the red-light district of Patpong, where they had photographed each other in front of a long line of school-uniformed prostitutes. At the street market they had bought Calvin Klein underwear. ‘Cotton is cotton,’ they decided, although the material was scratchy. ‘It probably came from the same factory as the real stuff,’ they agreed, although the labels read ‘Kelvin Clein.’ Clutching their new knickers in a plastic bag, they had found themselves in a subterranean bar where they watched a naked teenager shoot ping-pong balls from between her legs into a half-drunk glass of beer on the far side of a stage.
Ol and one of the other bodyguards entered the restaurant. Ol’s frown disappeared when he located Kiry. Kiry waved them to a table halfway between him and the Australians. They immediately ordered steak and beer and recommenced their endless card game. One day, stuck in transit in an airport lounge, Ol had tried to explain the rules of the game to Kiry. But Kiry could not grasp the game’s purpose. He had lost badly, an outcome that stunned Ol.
Beside Kiry’s table stood a large, bubbling fish tank. He tapped the glass. A decorative school of fish veered away but a fatalistic lobster held his gaze. It looked healthy, but Kiry didn’t think he could be bothered hacking into the hard shell of the tail, although he was tempted to send Ol to find Sok to do it for him.
‘I want a plate of Singapore sambal prawns and a bottle of Moët.’
‘An excellent choice,’ the waiter said.
‘Don’t go skimping on the prawns. And I want a jug of cold water with lime, no ice.’
Kiry picked up a newspaper: ‘Nhem Kiry is widely considered a puppet of the notorious Pol Pot, but one unnamed UN source also described him as a “savvy and dangerous political operator with his eyes firmly on the prize.” On his first evening in Phnom Penh Nhem Kiry is scheduled to attend a private meeting with Prince Norodom Sihanouk before attending a cocktail reception being held in his honour.’
Kiry let the paper fall and closed his eyes. The champagne came.
‘It says here I am made of wood,’ Kiry said to the waiter.
‘Oh no, sir, I don’t agree. Not at all.’
‘Neither do I. Wood doesn’t bleed.’
The prawns and the rice came.
‘According to this I have my eyes firmly on the prize,’ he told the waiter.
‘Oh yes, sir. I’m sure you do.’
The prawns were juicy and sweet. He ate them in a rush. His stomach was bloated but he finished the rice, as was his habit. He departed for his room with a stomach ache, which he cured with a glass of Glenlivet.
At 1 a.m., lying in bed, the lights dimmed, the television on CNN with the sound low, he remembered with a groan that he hadn’t rung his wife.
* * *
Two weeks after he collapsed in the Núi Café, dispirited and nervous, and feeling thoroughly defeated, Ted encountered an officious customs officer at Adelaide airport. He ached everywhere and his ankles were bloated with the bottle of shiraz he had drunk on the plane to help smooth the transition from East to West. All he wanted was to get processed and retreat to the suburbs before the sun came up.
Although Ted’s legs felt heavy as concrete, he shuffled forward and forced a smile. He carried nothing illegal and he had passed through such checkpoints thousands of times, yet he felt oddly nervous. Perhaps, he thought, this customs officer was really an intelligence officer. But then he admitted to himself, with a tinge of regret, that ASIO had probably archived his file a decade or more ago. Or worse, pulped it.
He declared a set of teak chopsticks. That didn’t seem to help. He removed his boots and declared the dried Mekong Delta mud embedded in the tread. A gleam appeared in the customs officer’s eyes. He unzipped Ted’s case and fingered everything – books, papers, his giant unfinished manuscript on the life of Ho (‘Great man,’ Ted couldn’t help himself from murmuring), dirty underwear, sweat-stained shirts – as if rubbing the items might reveal some criminal purpose. He found nothing incriminating: no marijuana brick, no asylum seekers, nothing but a half bottle of Mekong whisky, which he sniffed and returned. ‘That’s probably a waterways hazard,’ Ted said. The customs officer half-smiled but said nothing, for which Ted was grateful: he wasn’t sure he could survive any banter about having your life in a suitcase.
Ted paused before the doors that led to the arrival lounge, unfolded a photograph and studied his family: his middle-aged son, Michael, and his daughter-in-law, Anne. He was determined to avoid the embarrassment of walking straight past them.
Michael was a lawyer. Ted knew that much. Anne too, apparently. Ted didn’t much trust lawyers but he was willing to give them a go.
The doors opened. Ted stepped onto concrete-hard carpet and into harsh light. Michael walked towards him. Ted identified his single arrowhead eyebrow from the photo, but mostly he recognised him because they looked so alike. Michael smiled broadly, letting his mild gingivitis show.