Cambodia Noir (21 page)

When he does have passengers, he pilots over the swells at breakneck speeds, and the wake of each passing fishing boat threatens to spill them into the surf. But most of the time, he says, no one is interested in tours. He has no way to advertise his services, and for most of the week he makes a meager living driving a taxi around town.

“I would like to show [tourists] the region, the beauty,” he says. “But no one comes.”

It goes on over three issues. No jobs, locals barely hanging on, cutting the trees for fuel and taking payoffs from timber smugglers, and dynamiting the water to catch fish. A country eating its own future. Too bad the photos are crap—

It would have been me with her.

I'd have been desperate to get out of town; Gus would have humored me. The thought makes me shiver.

June talked to everybody: the Ministry of Environment, the governor, local shop owners and tour guides. A few quotes from Wendy Koenig, country director for Global Partners Cambodia—the NGO that got broken into. No mention of the guy June described, Luke. If she found out something about them, it's not here.

I go back to the journal.

It's the same: the wind-whipped town, the sea, the sea, the beauty of the sea, the open boat where—

. . . all around the water is the lightest blue imaginable, and in the distance it blends with the blue of the sky until the whole world seems painted on the inside of a globe of glass, and at its center a tiny boat and its three tiny occupants, gazing up . . .

She wanders hidden coves and secret islands in the mangroves, a regular smuggler's tour, to distant floating villages—

. . . fantastic concoctions of piers, sheds and shacks that bob on makeshift pontoons of plastic tubs and barrels, and between them a web of streets nailed together from planks, old boat parts and driftwood, swaying and shifting with the waves . . .

It's like June's words are echoing in my head as I read. Try to focus—

My mind is moving too fast, running away from me, and that great machine still churning with June and Bunny and Senn and Charlie—

. . . they have boats in hidden coves, and ride the waves after nightfall, not doing anything yet but listening to the dark . . .

Sweat streaming into my eyes. I wipe it away. The car is moving now, fast, uphill, and bouncing through potholes, and each jolt sends a current like electricity through my head. June is sitting to eat, her back against a tree—

. . . when I notice I'm surrounded by legions of tiny ants: on the dirt beneath me, on the tree I'm leaning against . . . precise, military columns, around my feet and up over my arms and under my clothes, my face . . .

—crawling over me, how the hell did they get in the car—

. . . not just one of them, they're everywhere, all through the swamps, I couldn't believe it at first, but true, a whole network, just waiting to come alive . . .

. . . soak everything in poison, (tons of it) till it chokes you, but you will never even slow them in their determination to carry it all underground . . .

. . . the whole country is slipping away a bit at a time, sinking . . .

I heave myself to the open window and vomit something tiger-striped onto the dizzying grass.

Shit,
I think,
there goes the Tylenol.

It begins to dawn on me that I have a fever, that I'm hallucinating, but there's nothing I can do except hang on as the car crests the hill and dives into the nuclear green of the valley, through mist and days of rain, and then plunges into the sea, and I'm struggling with the seat belt and look over to Phann for help, except he's not Phann anymore: he's the Aussie, head lolling and chest sliced near in two, and when he opens his mouth, little silver fishes swim out.

“You put me here,”
he says. From the backseat, dead Charlie reaches around to finger the Aussie's bloody nipple.

I throw myself at the door, scrabbling with the lock as the car fills with water until finally, finally we hit bottom and it shudders open. They've built a life-sized replica of Kabul down here—
See, that's touristic investment
—and I'm swimming through the ruins of streets I once walked. I can hear Charlie and the Aussie gurgling as they come after me. They've got the others with them now: Joost, who got a bullet right under his Kevlar and died there in the street, and Tom cut in half when his jeep took an RPG, and the mujahideen boys fluttering like deadly eels with machetes in their teeth, Bunny paddling along behind them with flipper hands.

Up on the surface, there's a boat—June's boat, she's out for her tour, and I'm supposed to be with her; if I can just reach her, I'll be safe, they won't get me, and I break the surface and grab the rough plank side to pull myself up, but it's not June at all.

It's Fatima, throat cut red and dress black as grave earth, and she grabs me with fingers that slide between my ribs like knives, and—

I could swear this part is real

—back in some tiny, dingy room she's leaning over me, whispering in my ear:

“She'll make you wish I'd torn you apart.”

IN SIHANOUKVILLE, TENSIONS HIGH AS VOTE NEARS

By Jun Saito and Sok Narit

Additional reporting by Christopher Grimsby-Roylott

SIHANOUKVILLE—“I do not plan to vote this year,” says Leang, as he takes a break from stocking the coolers of his small fish shop in Sihanoukville's central market. “I am afraid of what will happen. If it is like last time, it is us who will suffer.” Like many other business owners, Mr. Leang did not want his full name used for fear of reprisals.

With Cambodia's third parliamentary election only days away, the mood in this southern port town is tense, with many voters saying they will stay away from the polls altogether. Opposition party leaders and watchdog groups have accused the ruling Cambodian People's Party of carrying out a vigorous campaign of intimidation with the aim of keeping its leader, Prime Minister Hun Sen, in power. Though most of the incidents they cite have occurred in villages and rural areas, the heavy hand of the CPP is also feared here in downtown Sihanoukville. Several merchants said CPP campaigners have come to their neighborhoods with dark warnings about the consequences of voting for the wrong party.

“They say if the opposition takes seats [in Parliament], it will be dangerous for Cambodia's future,” said Sovanny, who runs a small wicker furniture shop. “The message is clear.” Others cited veiled threats against their businesses or homes. And a legal case is still pending against five members of the Sam Rainsy Party, who were charged with assault after a violent incident in a Prey Nob suburb. The defendants claim they were investigating charges of vote buying by the ruling party when they were attacked by hired thugs. (See story, p 7.)

But for many, staying away from the polls is less about intimidation than simple fear over what will happen if the opposition is successful.

“Hun Sen does not like to lose,” one prominent local businessman said. “We saw what happened last time [in 1998], when an opposition party made gains in the election: he removed them by force. This time, you have two big opposition parties, not one, and they are strong, especially in the cities. They might do well, and if they do, no one knows what will happen.”

Everyone is nervous: The elections are a bomb waiting to go off. Back in Phnom Penh I thought it was just the old White Men, the thrill seekers, scheming about what could go wrong, but it's more than that: something almost
has
to go wrong. The whole country smells of gasoline. . . .

And so I am making my preparations. I got a letter from Indonesia, there's a school there that could take me. I have to run, I can't face the darkness that is breaking free down here, it could sweep me away in its jaws as if I never existed. . . .

I am so afraid.

But lying here with the night music drifting in my window, I hear that voice speaking to me out of the dark . . . and I want to
see
. Almost more than I care what happens next. Is this what the boys feel—what the photographer felt, all those years ago?

Has it already got me?

It feels like years, but finally, the madness begins to pass. Perhaps I sleep. When the hands grab me again, they're just mosquito netting. The sunken city a cheap hotel room. I'm awake—more or less.

It's day.

New pack of cigarettes on the nightstand. Light one and my head clears a bit.

No memory of where I am—nothing since the car. The room tells me little: walls of white tile, pink fluorescents. One window, less than a foot square and well above head height, speckled with dust and dead mosquitoes. A little bath with a clapboard door, smelling of stagnant water. A TV is bolted to the ceiling, like in a hospital. The local news is on, volume low: cops and crime scenes. Looks bloody; must ask someone.

I struggle my way out of the mosquito net, careful not to touch it with the ash: that's a bad end. Check my bag. Everything's there. My ex-junkie driver found God, I guess. I make a note to keep him around if he wants the pay. Count my cash and think wistfully of the envelope of money I left with the Aussie.

There's a knock on the door, and I crack it on the chain: Phann, looking unconcerned, scratching at his ear with those long fingernails. I let him in.

“Thank you,” I say, staggering back to the bed.

“No problem.” He stands there.

“I've got plenty of work for you here, if you want it,” I say, in Khmer.

He nods. “You speak Khmer well.”

“How long have I been out?”

“About a day.”

“Jesus.” I hand him some cash. “That's for the ride, and four days' work. I'll give you more if we stay longer. And this is for supplies. I need a new cell phone. And some antibiotics.” He nods. “And some grass, if you can find it.”

I half expect him to argue, but he just nods again. Good enough.

“Get the stuff, then see if you can find a guy in town named Lon Chmmol. The Dane should know him. Tell him we want to rent his boat for a tour of the swamps. As soon as possible.”

Phann nods again and disappears.

I lie on the bed and smoke. After a while, the hotel guys bring me penicillin and some food. It's simple stuff, rice and fish soup, but when I've finished I'm able to stand without my knees buckling.

I stare at my camera awhile—wondering about Charlie, and what he was doing in my hallucination. I don't want to look, but if there's a clue to what happened, it's here. Finally I switch the thing on. Scroll past the screwing around, the cramped hotel room brown and orange in the low light, bodies pressed together, a haze of movement—

Next photo: two men entering. They're dressed in tank tops and camo pants. No effort at concealment. The first is dark—zoom in on a square face, broad nose, mouth a sullen line. Cheeks spotted and rough with acne, or scars. Can't guess his age, but not old.

Next: they crowd in. The second is a kid—might be sixteen, eighteen. The machetes are coming up.

Next: a blur of motion.

Next: Charlie rising from the bed, his face bisected by a yellow blade. They went for him first.

Next: falling. A smudge on the edge of the frame, maybe the Aussie trying to get away. Then he's down, too.

Next, next, next. Blades slash the air in glowing curves. Orange walls speckled with brown—then splattered, then soaked. The face of the older killer: quiet, calm as he raises his weapon. The younger's is never clear, but the glimpses I get look like joy. Like ecstasy.

Next photo: the bed a splatter of blood, a pile of meat. The figures stooping. They leave in a blur.

Last photo: the door hanging open.

Not much past what I knew already. Machetes suggest a vengeance thing, but these men have clearly done this before. A contract hit, made ugly to send a message. It would help if I could ID them, but there's no one I can show these to. Still, they might be useful at some point. I make a slit in the inner sole of one of my sneakers and cram the memory card inside.

Then I get up. I need a drink. Maybe a dozen.

The Dane has been in Koh Kong forever. Married a girl from here, years ago, and stayed. His guesthouse is the biggest building in town: two floors, wood-frame. Most of the front is a huge balcony, strewn with plants, looking over a mess of palms and flowers with names like fruit drinks. It's a thin town, thin and tough, and the Dane has to pull just about every foreigner who comes through to make ends meet.

But there are compromises. Four of them are sitting on the deck now: fat reptiles in polyester print shirts. They've got a kid with them, a tiny girl in a dirty pink dress, cradling a naked plastic baby doll. She's being passed around the circle, taking turns sitting on each one's lap.

I grab a bottle of vodka from the bar, and go looking for the Dane before I start looking for needles. Find him hiding in the kitchen.

“Germans. They disgust me,” he snarls. “But what can I do? Trade is bad enough already.” I hold out the vodka, and he takes a long chug. “I saw your fella, Phann. Came around looking for Lon. He's taking a bunch of Koreans to Sihanoukville tomorrow, but I can find you another boat.”

“I want Lon.”

“Then you have to wait until Sunday to go out.”

“I'll keep busy.”

“Good, good.” He glances at the camera slung over my shoulder—an attempt to look like I'm here for work. “You taking pictures?”

“Yeah. Pretty trees and shit. Could be some money in it.”

“There was a girl down here from the paper. A couple months back. Japanese name.”