The Deceivers (22 page)

“For these people, life revolves around water. Very often the houses change according to the rise of water and the season.”

“I can't imagine what it's like for them during the monsoon and heavy rains.”

“Some of them don't survive.”

The houses were on floats or flat boats. Some were connected to the road by a wooden runway but a lot of them were just sitting in the water.

“If they stay on the water, how do they get their supplies?”

“They have merchants in boats that go from house to house to sell their products. Their fresh water is stored in the earthenware jars like the ones in the villages in front of each house.”

People in small boats were bringing in their fishing nets with the catch of the day.

We passed an old plantation house and she said it dated from the days when Cambodia and the rest of Indochina were part of the French colonial empire.

“The finest collection of Southeast Asian art isn't here but in France,” she said. “Taken from us by our colonial masters.”

I didn't bring up the old controversy about whether the collections of cultural treasures from Africa and Asia sitting in museums in Europe and America had actually preserved the artifacts from destruction.

“The turnoff to where Kirk is at is just up the road. We'll have to stop and ask for directions after that.”

We left the main road and went onto dirt roads that were little more than paths through dense foliage to get to Kirk's location. After we had driven for half an hour, Chantrea stopped at a village to ask specific directions to the field where Kirk and his team were working. Most of the roads were unmarked. I didn't know how she found her way that far without some local guidance.

A village boy about twelve years old climbed on the hood of the car with his feet dangling over the front end. He pointed straight ahead and jabbered to her in Cambodian.

“He's going to show us the way,” she said.

As we got going another boy climbed onto the roof and leaned over the side on his belly, grinning at me through my side window. He laughed as he struggled to hang on while Chantrea moved the car over ruts and bumps. I couldn't help but laugh myself.

Every so often the boy riding in front would shout an instruction and signal with his hands.

“He says we're getting close.”

“Are we okay to drive on this road? I mean, are there any mines?”

“There are no mines on this road.” She glanced at me. “Now.”

“So this is land mine country that we're in right now.”

“Yes. Most of the mines are found in rural areas and especially in the north and west provinces of the country. So you definitely don't want to walk in dry rice paddies or forested areas without a guide with you. Hopefully you're not the one who steps on the wrong spot first.”

“How do they find them? Like the one Kirk's working with.”

“One of the villagers was picking bananas where he came upon an old temple site. There are thousands of sites scattered around, mostly overgrown with jungle. He broke off a piece of artwork.” She gave me a look. “I am horrified at the destruction of my people's cultural heritage, but at the same time I don't have the heart to lay blame on poor peasants who live short lives with little besides the shirts on their backs and the dirt between their toes. Finding a small piece of old stone, which is what it is to them, can mean a great difference in their lives.”

She left a pause for me to fill in but I didn't. It was all too much for me. I'd heard of people who engendered pathos but the whole country seemed to provoke it.

“Anyway, he stepped on a land mine on his way back. He crawled back to the village with no legs and died. The villagers found more mines and Kirk was called in to take care of them.”

Hearing that didn't leave me with a good feeling in my stomach.

“How many land mines are out there?” I asked as I held on to the hand support above me as we went over the uneven ground. I didn't know how the boy above me was staying on top of the car. I would have fallen off a long time ago.

“I've heard an estimate that eighty million mines lay buried in more than sixty countries. Each day fifty people, many of them children, are killed or injured. Here in Cambodia?” She shrugged. “Most estimates are in the millions. We have more land mines and unexploded bombs than people. They're left over from decades of war and civil wars, troubles along the border with Thailand and Vietnam, plus warlords and drug lords staking out their territory.”

“Drug lords plant land mines?”

“Oh, yes, just like the warlords, they use them to define and protect their territories.”

Jesus. I was beginning to wish that Scotty had beamed me up and put me back down in my Manhattan walk-up. “What about the ones Kirk's working on?”

“He thinks it's probably from one of the civil wars. They've de-mined a lot of the suspected and known minefield areas so far but there's always places that they miss.”

“What a horrible thing it must be to know that if you step out to pick fruit you might get blown up by something planted decades ago.”

“It's not a pretty sight. Over thirty-five thousand amputees and many deaths have occurred since the war ended. I suppose knowing about land mines isn't a big thing in your country.”

“A nonexistent thing. We don't have them, period. I mean, I know they're used for military purposes and that they maim and kill people. How does he find and disarm them?”

“Kirk hasn't told you about his work?”

“Not how it's actually done.”

“You'll have to get him to tell you about it. It's really quite fascinating. And dangerous. Being a bounty hunter for land mines must be one of those unique jobs in the world, almost macabre—like being a wild animal trainer or leading mountaineers up Mount Everest. He'll never be tamed, you know.”

I laughed. “I don't have any plans for housebreaking him.”

“Good, because he will ultimately self-destruct.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I don't mean suicide. It's just that there are people in this world who aren't destined to live to a ripe old age. Dangerous explosives have mesmerized him. He can't walk away from them. If he left Cambodia, he'd go to Rwanda or the Sudan or somewhere else where life is lived on the edge.”

That was about the same deduction I had made about him.

She took her eyes off the bumpy road for a second and met my eye, her features cynical, her smile bitter. “But there are no guarantees for any of us, are there? I don't expect I will see old age, either.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because that's the way my life is written. You Westerners believe that you have control over your own destinies. We of the East believe differently. Our fates are sealed by our karma. Good and bad actions in this life or in a previous one determines our fate.”

“Are you saying that you've been predestined for a bad ending? Or at least an abrupt one? What a negative thought that is.”

She shook her head. “You don't understand. It's not a negative thought. It's my cosmic destiny.”

“I see. And have you seen this destiny in a crystal ball?”

“I see my destiny in the past lives I've led and the one I'm leading now.” She glanced at me again. “Do you think you will see old age?”

I shrugged and mumbled something to the effect of “I hope so.” Her voice and demeanor had grown melancholy. Talking about the old days—old horrors—had brought back bad memories.

I remained silent to give her space to struggle with her demons.

“
Chap teuv
,” she said, out of the blue.

“What?”

“
Chap teuv.
It means ‘taken away.' During the Khmer Rouge rule it came to mean never to be seen again.”

I didn't get it.

“That's how I feel about my life. Family, love, happiness—it's all been taken away. Never to be seen again.”

 

U.S. D
EPARTMENT OF
S
TATE

Bureau of Consular Affairs
Washington, D.C. 20520

 

Consular Information Sheet:
CAMBODIA

 

L
AND
M
INES

 

Land mines and unexploded ordnance can be found in rural areas throughout Cambodia, but especially in Battambang, Banteay Meanchey, Pursat, Siem Reap (the region where Angkor is located), and Kampong Thom provinces.

At no time should travelers walk in forested areas or even in dry rice paddies without a local guide. Areas around small bridges on secondary roads are particularly dangerous.

Travelers who observe anything that resembles a mine or unexploded ordnance should not touch it.

They should notify the Cambodia Mine Action Center at 023-368-841/981-083 or 084.

23

Kirk never took his eyes off the ground as he walked on the well-worn path that led to where a man had stepped on a land mine. He had a metal detector on wheels and a long rod in front of him. The suspected minefield was off the path but Kirk didn't want to take any chances.

The man accompanying him, a French missionary-schoolteacher who came to the rural area of Cambodia to teach near where the mine was found, had asked to watch the land mine procedure.

The schoolteacher's presence was a nuisance. Not in regard to land mines, but smuggling. The village headman told Kirk that he had something “special” for him. It wasn't hard to figure out what it was. The peasant who stepped on the land mine had looted an antiquity site in the jungle. He was carrying the looted piece at the time.

It wouldn't be the first time Kirk had bought an artifact with blood on it.

“I'm curious about how land mines are found in the ground,” he said.

“Unfortunately, they're often found by stepping on them. The government has a program to sweep known minefield areas but the job's too big and the money to pay for it is too small. So, all too often the first word of a minefield is someone stepping on one. And it usually means there's more unless it's an orphan left from a prior sweep of a field.”

“It's sad how people have to live with this terror. Worse than having a forest full of wild animals. At least an animal can be heard or seen.”

“Sad, but we have to deal with it.”

“What do you do once you are advised there's a minefield?”

“That depends a lot on the terrain. Sometimes mines can be spotted; usually they've been in the ground for so long they're covered with dirt or overgrown with vegetation. We have to find the mines and decide whether they can be removed or have to be exploded on the spot.” Kirk grinned at the Frenchman. “My personal preference is exploding them but that can be hazardous, too. I have a steel roller I call a sweeper that can be extended from the front of a bulldozer. It can be used to set off small devices called APLs, antipersonnel land mines. The APLs can kill but often maim, taking off feet or legs. The ones with smaller charges amputate your foot up to the ankle, the bigger charges take off your leg. These don't damage my sweeper, but if I hit a mine designed to take out a tank, the explosion and shrapnel could take me out, too. Sometimes they planted tank and antipersonnel mines in the same field. So I have to know what's what. And that means going into the minefield and seeing what I'm up against.”

The Frenchman shook his head. “Insanity.”

“Once a minefield is spotted, you can't just walk up to it. Older APLs are usually set off by pressure—stepping on the detonator on top. But sometimes they go off just touching them, or by vibrations around them; some have trick triggers that go off when you try to disarm them; some are booby-trapped with a trip wire. Sometimes they're so damn old they just go off from pure meanness.” He grinned at the schoolteacher. “Some clever bastard invented mines made out of plastic so a metal detector won't sound off over it.”

“You must be commended for the valuable job you do.”

Kirk shook his head. “Unlike you I'm not out here for humanitarian reasons. I came to Cambodia to do a job, and I'm still doing that job. That's all there is to it. I won't be winning any humanitarian awards.”

At forty-two, Kirk knew he was too old for the dangerous games he played—hunting down land mines and smuggling antiquities. Like most people who had a dishonest income, trying to change and do something else was wishful thinking. He liked the danger, he liked the big money. He saw himself as a little guy taking on a corrupt government that was permitting the destruction of priceless artifacts.

Kirk had seen the destruction hundreds of times—poor Cambodian peasants destroying big pieces of their cultural heritage to break off a little piece that they could sell, or an army commander using his troops to steal pieces so he could pay them with the proceeds.

He knew that until an honest government had tight reins on the country, the police, army, and customs officials could be bought and the cultural slaughter, the “genocide” of the relics of ancient empires, would continue.

He didn't kid himself into believing that in a way he was saving the nation's cultural treasures from ruin by getting them out of the country and into the hands of wealthy museums and collectors. In his mind, the “owners” of the art had been dead for a thousand years … what they left behind was up for grabs to those who were the toughest and the smartest.

If he had to define exactly why he dealt in contraband art he would say it was for the money and the excitement.

“This is not my personal technique,” Kirk said, “but I've seen mine-clearing personnel go into a field wearing big, pillowlike pads strapped to the bottom of their boots. When they hit a mine, the pad spreads the force of the explosion. The theory is sometimes better than the result.”