“Pak Beng. We can stop for water, briefly, it is surely safe here. No one comes here. Then we have another few hours and we can get to Thailand. I hope.”
They tethered the boat. Jake stepped ashore and grabbed a warm cola from a man running a stall in the village. He had one eye and one arm and one leg, and a full set of grinning white teeth.
Jake returned to the boat. He didn’t feel refreshed, he felt utterly exhausted and still very hunted. The sun was so ferociously, predatingly hot; even the cooling river breeze did not help as they motored slowly upstream. The silence of the river and the memory of the smoke baby, hanging from the door, weighed on him, like oppressive humidity before a storm. He wanted to talk. He didn’t know what to say. Chemda spoke.
“Why do you feel guilt, about your family?”
It was one of her direct, even piercing questions.
He shied away from answering. “What do you mean by that?”
“When we were on the plain. You said…” She softened her voice, as if she knew her words might hurt him. “You said that you felt guilt, about surviving your family, or your mother and sister. Why?”
Again, something in Chemda seemed to invite the truth from him, and again he yearned to tell her everything; maybe because she had darkness in her past, too.
“When my sister was run over, I was… holding her hand. I was looking after her, but I was only seven, and she was five. Stupidly young. But I was still in charge, you know? And still I let go and, and, and she ran into the road.” He half-swallowed the rest of the story, eyes fixed on the walls of jungle imprisoning the river. “It was after that my mother fell apart, and then she walked out. Broken heart. I don’t know. But in my mind it was all my fault. If I hadn’t let go of Becky none of it would have happened. None of it. Kids blame themselves, don’t they? That’s what I did, and sometimes still do. When I’m not working. Or drinking. Or watching football. You know.”
The motor puttered as they curved another, tighter riverbend. Pang was staring rigidly ahead to where smooth rocks protruded from the brown-and-silver water.
“I have a photo. Of Rebecca. It’s the only thing I keep, the only bit of her left.”
Chemda said nothing. Instead she put her hand briefly on his, offering that tender electric shock. Then she sat back.
He reached for his rucksack, unzipped it, and took out his wallet. There. The photo. One of the first photos he had ever taken. Of his sister just before she died. He handed the little Polaroid to Chemda like he was trusting her with his most precious possession. A pathetic photo. By a seven-year-old. But it was precious: a photo taken by himself of his five-year-old sister, smiling her impish smile, wearing a hat three sizes too big. Laughing.
Chemda’s eyes moistened.
“She was… very pretty. I’m so sorry.”
Jake shrugged and took back the photo and put it away. Carefully zipping it up safe.
“Sometimes I wonder if I’m being a bit morbid. Keeping it all this time. But it’s my only purchase on the past. You understand?”
“Of course,” said Chemda. “Of course….”
He watched her as she gazed at the rippled water. Her expression was maudlin and quiet.
“Tell me about yourself, Chemda.”
“Yes?”
“Well, twenty-eight. Unmarried. Boyfriend?”
She faintly smiled his way. “I am a virgin….” A pause. She added, with a more sincere smile: “In Cambodia.”
He laughed, somewhat uncertainly.
She said, “It sounds absurd to talk about all this, now.”
“Hey. What else can we talk about?”
“OK. OK. How to put it? I was not quite so chaste in LA. There were lots of boys. The wrong kind of boys.” Her eyes met his. “The insecurity was appealing. I was always drawn to boys who wandered away, adventurers, boys who couldn’t be tied down. Probably because I didn’t want to be tied down. Ah. You have to remember, Khmer culture is quite conservative, girls are expected to marry young. My parents have seriously started to worry about me. Especially now I am over twenty-five…. Ah well.”
The river birds were swooping again, silver and blue, maybe some kind of kingfisher. They talked some more, but then the silence fell, and with it the fear returned — and then the oppressive heat drove them to separate corners of the boat.
Jake gargled horribly warm water from the dirty water bottle, then dipped a T-shirt in the river and draped its wetness over his broiling face.
The motor chirred. Wearied by his own anxiety, and the sadistic heat, Jake lay back against the uncomfortable planks of the pirogue, and almost immediately felt the mermaids of sleep dragging him under. Soft female arms pulling him down. And down. Into the darkness of sleep, with the murmuring bones.
When he woke, his watch showed three hours had gone by. Now Chemda was asleep. The sun was filtered by the riverside palm fronds. Twilight. Pang was gazing at him.
Pang said, “We are soon there. You and Chemda very tired, I think.”
This was startling. It had not occurred to Jake that Pang spoke English. All this time he had presumed the man’s silence was due to his not understanding their conversation. Jake hadn’t even offered the boatman a proper word of hello.
“Please, Pang. I didn’t realize you spoke English… you know. I’m so sorry.”
“Not problem. I understand, much danger. Do not worry.” The old man nodded, distractedly. He was steering them carefully around floating logs and sudden rocks.
The river had become notably narrower, the current faster, the shorelines steeper, almost cliffs. Impenetrable jungle adorned the clifftops on either side. A younger Mekong.
“I take tourist up here, many years, for Madame Agnès. In the hotel. I know her family long time.” The boatman hesitated. “One time I know her family, too, they friend with Agnès.”
“Who did you know?”
“Her grandmother. Madame Sovirom. She live in Luang after the war.”
Jake paused, and pondered. Surely not. The grandmother was killed by the Khmer Rouge. But surely it had to be. The Hmong knew her, or knew of her; why not someone in Luang?
Pang revved the engine, steering for the opposite shore. Chemda was still fast asleep, her delicate head resting on a folded sarong, her bare dark legs smeared with mud.
The boatman’s Manchester United shirt was stained with salt and river and oil; the grime of honest hard work. He said, “I not like tell Chemda. Sad story. Maybe she not know?”
“What story?”
“I tell you. But secret. Everyone pretend they know nothing. Madame Agnès, everyone. The famous lady from Phnom Penh, royal lady. She lived at the Gauguin after the war, for a few year. She sit every day by the river, in the garden, and every man with a boat know who she was. She just sit looking at the river, every day for three year, maybe four. Some men call her bad name, Khmer name—vierunii—”
“It means?”
“Lao-lao. Whiskey. But also it mean… stupid woman, made bad by drink. Like she drunk.” He cocked his head and slacked his mouth, doing a caricature of someone palsied, or retarded. “She like this. Spitting.”
“She just sat there? Was she ill?”
Pang shrugged, his frown deep and troubled.
“Not ill. Own fault. She say, ‘Give me.’”
“What?”
“They cut her up, but they say she want this.” Pang sighed. “I do not know, maybe I say nothing.”
“But I want to know.”
A pause. They were just a few meters from the shore. Jake spotted a modest mud bank, and a rough track leading up the steep river cliff into the bush. He realized this must be Thailand, this shoreline: beyond the cliff was Thailand and roads and proper airports and 7 Elevens and safety—they were close to safety—but before he alighted he wanted more information, as much as possible.