Phnom Penh Express (24 page)

“Diamonds in them chocolates, eh?” he says while warily moving to the worktable. While maintaining aim at Merrilee and Tzahala, he blindly runs his free hand over the table’s surface till it collides with a plastic box. He fumbles the lid off and takes out a chocolate; his eyes don’t leave the women for a second. Billy carefully bites off a tiny piece and lets it melt in his mouth. His expression changes, slightly. Then he takes another bite. Soon, Billy has finished the chocolate. No diamond.

“Bullshit!” he decides. “I wanna find out the truth of what the hell is really going on in here — or people are gonna get hurt very soon.”

But something else is already going on in Billy’s mind. The space chocolate is starting to impact on Billy’s view, which is beginning to judder, and also his overall manner which, strangely, is growing warmer and rosier by the second. When he’s distracted by the rhythmic pulsing of a door hinge, Tzahala is first to notice the barrel of his rifle gradually lowering. Without hesitation, she throws a backfist punch to Merrilee’s face, following with a rapid elbow strike to her head. Merrilee stumbles and goes down while Tzahala dives for her gun which is still laying a few metres away on the floor.

Everything that follows happens in quick succession, as if life has sped into fast forward mode.

Tzahala snatches up her gun, swirls round and aims at Merrilee.

Phirun has been following everything with extreme interest. Things now remind him of those funny silent movies, somehow. The moment he sees Merrilee gets knocked to the ground, he stands groggily up and hurries towards her suddenly filled with unbearable longing to come to her aid. Hardly a fraction before Tzahala’s shot rings out, making the windows vibrate in their frames, Phirun hurls himself at Merrilee, driven by a flood of emotion that wants a hug, even if the Colonel hadn’t been responsive to the same request. Then his body slumps downward while spatters of blood spray Merrilee’s face.

Via automatic reflex and with improbable speed, Merrilee unsheathes the knife strapped to her right shin and throws. Tzahala has no time for a second shot. She sinks to her knees as if imitating the Colonel. Merrilee’s knife is stuck deep into her throat.

Merrilee doesn’t wait until her enemy’s body hits the ground. But when she swings around, she finds herself staring straight down the barrel of the rifle that Billy is pointing between her eyes at point-blank range.

THE OUTDOOR HOSPITAL grounds are swamped with people competing for a better spot, out of the oppressive sun and into the ever moving shade. They have marked out their territories with rattan sleeping mats, cooking pots, plastic chairs and bags of food. Small children look after tiny babies while their mothers prepare meals for infirm relatives inside the old hospital.

Nina picks her way carefully through clusters of people sleeping on the floor, playing cards or cooking rice.

“The rehabilitation section, please?” she asks a passing nurse.

When she enters the building even its main corridor exudes misery. People who cannot afford the luxury of a private room share space with other unfortunates and their visiting family members. The hordes who cannot afford a shared room lie on rusty makeshift beds in the aisles lining the stained, peeling walls. And those who cannot pay the treatment fees in advance are kept waiting until they find a relative, friend or neighbour who will lend them the money. Those without cash, relatives or friends, suffer silently and alone.

Holding a bunch of colourful orchids, Nina gently knocks on the door, neglects to wait for an answer and enters. Everything inside seems old and worn: the metal bed that must once have been beige, the broken wooden nightstand, the dripping tap, the rattling fan, and the mosquito screen ridden with fist-sized holes.

Phirun is lying with his eyes half open, and his upper body swathed in bandages. Nina seats herself at his bedside and puts her hand on his.

“Wakey wakey
, Rambo,” she whispers.

Phirun manages a faint smile swiftly followed by a grimace. He has a dazed look about him; probably the drugs they’ve been pumping into him, reckons Nina. At least they’re prescribed substances, this time.

“What’s all the fuss about? Never been shot before?” Nina jokes, gently squeezing his hand.

Phirun smiles. “Don’t make me laugh, it hurts,” he whispers. “Not laughing also hurts...”

Nina starts cutting an empty plastic bottle of Minéré water in half. She fills one half with water and carefully arranges the flowers in it.

“Thanks, they’re beautiful.”

“So your operation went well. One more night here, then we can fly you to Bangkok for further treatment, the doctor confirmed this morning. How’s your memory today?”

“Everything’s come back now — I think. Although I wish...” He cuts himself off. “Merrilee...?”

Nina sighs.

“I’m sorry Phirun. That was the one thing you managed to say before they put you under... Everything’s over now, and I thank God that you’re alive. Let’s concentrate on getting you finished with all these hospitals as soon as possible, all right?”

Phirun wants to know more but he is interrupted by the sound of squabbling in the corridor outside. A voice with a heavy American accent is steadily rising in volume, betraying the speaker’s growing frustration with every subsequent statement.

“But what’s the goddamn room number?”

“Baat!
Number!”

Nina opens the door quickly and peers outside. The argument stops instantly, then a man walks into Phirun’s room, wearing khaki coloured shorts and a loud Hawaiian shirt. Billy positions himself at the foot of Phirun’s bed offering a plastic bag of sliced yellow mango.

“Good afternoon, soldier,” Billy winks. “That was one hell of a heroic performance you pulled off, boy!”

“Like Jack Bauer in
‘24’,”
Billy enthuses. “You know him, right? It’s the best goddamn TV series on, er... TV.”

Phirun smiles, “I’ve heard of it...”

“No, you goddamn
were
it. For real!” Billy gushes. “Ain’t that so, ma’am?” he looks at Nina.

Nina can barely believe it. She thought the circus was over, but not so. This is not the best time for a comedy interlude; Phirun needs to rest.

“General,” she addresses Billy, “if you’d like our hero back to continue his adventures, we should give him some peace and quiet now. May I suggest a strategic retreat?”

***

From his bed, Phirun stares at the lavish orchid arrangement Nina left behind. Their vibrant colours form a stark contrast against his otherwise predominantly grey surroundings. Next to the makeshift vase, on a large plastic tray, are the mangoes gifted by his rather surreal new American friend. Their discreet fragrance is slowly pervading the room. Phirun can almost taste the sweet, soft flesh.

He’s so glad to be alive.

He closes his tired eyes and lets his mind wander while the fan’s regular, almost reassuring creaking effectively cancels out the hospital’s ambient noise. He drifts in and out of slumber, his notion of time gradually slipping away.

Outside the hospital grounds, the traffic intensifies bit by bit, announcing the tail end of late afternoon. The tropical sun is sinking slowly but surely towards the city’s horizon, dragging much of the day’s colours along with it. Soon it will be twilight.

***

“My real name is Farina. Farina Ahmad.”

The voice is soft and when the words reach Phirun, his eyelids heavily open. With difficulty, he turns his head sideways and looks into Merrilee’s face.

She doesn’t meet his opiate gaze. She is sitting with her back straight against the wooden chair next to Phirun’s bed, looking down at the tiled floor in front of her. She doesn’t say anything further, but when Phirun silently turns his head back and looks up at the cracked ceiling above, Farina, formerly Merrilee, continues. Her voice sounds drained.

“My name is Farina,” she repeats softly. “I was born in Australia, during the Cambodian war, in a refugee detention centre.”

She pauses and the room falls silent.

When she continues, almost whispering, she tells of her childhood, how her father and only brother stayed behind in the People’s Republic of Kampuchea and were killed, of how being a Cham Muslim was not favoured by the Khmer Rouge guerrillas.

“My early memories of Australia are vague. I barely remember my mother. Her life as a refugee took its toll on her early. She died when I was six. Ironically, it seems that her death became my salvation, in a sense.”

She clears her throat; her voice hardens. She talks faster.

“About three years later an Israeli organisation, Yemin Orde, learnt of our plight and made an offer to the Australian government to take in a number of refugees. Being a nine-year-old orphan, I was selected, along with a few other kids from the detention centre.”

She stops and regards Phirun whose eyes remain fixed on the white ceiling above him.

Farina continues though she might as well have been in an empty room. But she also is in her own world now, as much thinking aloud as explaining herself. She talks about her young life being returned to her, and the Yemin Orde Youth Village, her new residence in Israel. How the organisation’s mission was to provide homes and futures to abandoned children from around the world. How the village is located on a peak of the Carmel mountain range and provided her with heavenly peace; it was a true Shangri-La, that place. How she was given shelter, food, an education and life skills, as well as a new family of some two hundred peers from all over the world.

Farina’s words are by now pouring out in a torrent. She speaks about her early memories of the nightmare she had been born into, and how they were gradually replaced by the love and care of her new kin. How she started going to a synagogue and later converted to Judaism.

“I must be the only Jewish Cambodian Cham in the world,” she smiles faintly.

But her smile quickly disappears.

“When I turned eighteen, it was time for me to leave the village and face the world on my own. Everything changed again.”

She glances at Phirun, taking his silence as a tacit licence to continue.

She explains how, barely a week after she found a job in a hotel in Haifa, two friendly, good-looking men approached her. They were from the government, they told her. Because they mentioned Yemin Orde and were well-informed about her past, Farina believed them. They took the young girl out for a fancy dinner and interviewed her, and by the time dessert had arrived, they had offered her a job. With the government, they said. Well-paid with progressive career opportunities, Farina couldn’t believe her luck and accepted immediately.

“It turned out that they were indeed from the government,” Farina murmurs. “From Mossad, but at the time I didn’t really know what that meant.”

A minute’s silence fills the room again.

“Part of my new job was administrative work, but then there was also ‘training’. They fed me with details about my family’s past; how they were all murdered. They told me that Israel had saved me, spared my life and provided for me, educated me — and that it loved me. In a way they were right, I guess, but they took my loyalty to the Yemin Orde and exploited it for their own ends. Anyway... none of this matters anymore.”

Farina grows restless describing how, after some time, she was being indoctrinated against Hezbollah, told endlessly about how the terrorist organisation existed to destroy Israel. Her Mossad ‘mentor’ showed her pictures, she recounts, of dead people, brutally murdered by Hezbollah agents. Just like the Khmer Rouge had tried to exterminate the Cham in Cambodia, he’d explained. She’d believed him. Presently she was offered the chance to demonstrate her gratitude to Israel, her saviours; to serve a higher purpose. She felt lucky to be involved.

Phirun is no longer staring up; his eyes rest on her.

“I hadn’t had any boyfriends yet; I didn’t know yet what romantic love was; I had nobody but Mossad. But suddenly I felt I had a clear, noble mission — a purpose — and by the time I ended the programme, Mossad was my new family. I was willing to do whatever they asked of me.”

Farina averts her eyes. Phirun remains quiet, still watching her.

“I graduated into a new, elite programme — and I felt honoured to do so. Soon I became top student. I re-learnt my native Western Cham dialect, polished my Khmer, and added Arabic along the way. My physical condition was on a par with my male student colleagues and I excelled in Mossad’s specially adapted martial arts programme. I learnt to kill and ‘interrogate’. Most importantly of all, I learnt how to forget about having killed. They also recognised two unique advantages of my service: I was attractive, and I had a provable Muslim background.”

Mossad sent her on minor missions first.

“Compared to what I did later, those missions were merely warm-up exercises. It was on the third such mission that I killed for the first time in my life.”

Farina emits a quick, sarcastic laugh.

“Huh! Their training programme wasn’t so foolproof, after all. I still remember the face of that first one.”

Phirun doesn’t talk. He is lying still, breathing calmly, but the look in his eyes betrays fierce concentration.

Then one day, she continues, her Mossad mentor said she was ready. A special meeting was called and some important-looking people she had never seen before were present. She was to infiltrate Israel’s number one archenemy — Hezbollah, it was explained.

It would be a long-term project, starting in Australia, the place she thought she had left behind forever. Mossad would arrange a cover identity, complete with background story, the works. Falsified school reports would be drawn up, employment documents created, group pictures retouched, the whole shebang. It would be as if she had never left Australia. She was to be the orphaned Muslim refugee who had lost her way in life. She was to approach a hard-line Lebanese group and start attending ultraconservative mosques, all in Melbourne.

Farina keeps on talking, faster, as if afraid someone might interrupt her before she can finish. It’s a story she has never told before.