Figurehead (28 page)
‘Of course.’
‘But leave it to brew a minute or two longer, won’t you? Unless you would prefer it weak?’
‘I prefer it strong.’
‘Good. Me too. You pour it when the time is right for you, then.’ He paused. ‘But, tell me, how are you feeling about all this business? Are you angry?’
‘I am disappointed, Big Brother, but not angry. Not surprised, either.’
‘Good. Anger is beside the point, no matter the depths of the betrayal. It serves no useful purpose, once an event has passed. And it clouds the mind. I prefer to try to understand.’
‘I agree.’
‘Somewhere on our journey, I think Ieng Sary became too attached to a life of comfort.’ Pol Pot paused and sighed. ‘But that cannot be the whole story, surely? A soft mattress, is that it?’
‘I think he prefers a firm mattress. He has terrible trouble with his neck.’
‘What a lot of carry-on for the sake of one man’s neck. Why could he not endure the pain? Anyway, if he wants a firm mattress, he can get that here. My own bedding is as hard as concrete. An electric refrigerator, is that what he craves? A restaurant that serves frogs’ legs, is that all he strives for now? After all we’ve been through, can he be reduced to that?’
‘He’s been preaching surrender, quietly, for two years or more.’
‘Yes. I heard all that rubbish. I still have eyes and ears everywhere. He stopped believing that there was any point to winning. Should we have given him more to do? Paid him more attention?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘He missed the attention, don’t you think? He missed being pompous. There’s not much call for it around here.’
‘I suspect he would like to retire to New York. He’s always loved it there. I think they reward pompous behaviour there.’
‘I was complimenting him when I called him pompous. You, also, can be pompous when the circumstances demand it ... Why did he have to take Pailin from us? Why didn’t he go to China? Surely they would have granted him entry? Why not just slip away? Why did he have to take so many with him?’
‘They were going anyway, I think. There are many more who want to follow, I suspect.’
‘You are right. They were lost to us and we can do without them.’
‘Big Brother, I wanted to tell you that Ieng Sary has taken Akor Sok with him.’
‘But ... Surely not.’
‘Recently I suggested that he give his motorbike back to the community. He wasn’t happy. I suppose he doesn’t have the stomach for the fight anymore.’
‘You shouldn’t blame yourself. You taught him well. He failed to learn.’
‘He was so itching for the challenge when you first sent him to me. Do you remember? We sat in a clearing and he condemned Lon Nol because he thought that’s what I expected. I told him to think big. I quoted Liu Shao-chi: “The average party comrade is far from possessing the great gifts and profound scientific knowledge of the founders of Marxism-Leninism, and most of our comrades cannot attain their deep and broad erudition in the theory of proletarian revolution. But it is perfectly possible for our comrades to grasp the theory and method of Marxism-Leninism, cultivate the style of Marx and Lenin in work and struggle, constantly heighten their revolutionary quality and become statesmen of the type of Marx and Lenin, if they really have the will, take a really conscious and consistent stand as vanguard fighters of the proletariat, really acquire the communist world outlook … and exert themselves in study, self-tempering and self-cultivation.” I told him that I did not believe in fate any more than I believed that this life is predetermined by the last. I told him that there are key moments in a man’s life: whether you grasp these moments or mess them up or carry on oblivious that they have even occurred depends on preparation and hard work and clarity of thought. It seems he never learnt that lesson.’
‘Perhaps he learnt it too well. Tell me ... and be honest: are you sorry that you did not go too?’
‘Of course not, Big Brother. I will never abandon the struggle. I will never surrender.’
‘What do you still hope for?’
‘Negotiation is always possible, I suppose. The world is full of rehabilitated politicians. Why not me?’
‘And me? Could I be a future leader of a reconciled Kampuchea?’
‘Perhaps not, Big Brother. Not directly, at least.’
‘Not even if I change my name?’
‘Don’t tease me, Big Brother, it makes me sad.’
‘But we are still a fighting chance, don’t you think?’
‘No, Big Brother. I am sorry to say that I believe we are as exposed as a monkey in a minefield.’
‘Don’t be sorry. I’m not blind. Not completely, anyway. I’m not stupid.’
‘Mok wants to fight for Pailin.’
‘Ha. Mok lives in a tiny world. It always involves war.’
Pol Pot rose unsteadily.
‘Are you all right, Big Brother?’
‘Sometimes I feel better if I stand up for a while.’
Pol Pot went to the Nestlé box and pulled out a bottle of Jim Beam bourbon. ‘A gift from Mok. It came with the truck that brought his beer. He’s
such
a kind man, isn’t he? We will toast Ieng Sary, our old friend, and Akor Sok, your former protégé, and we will wish them as much luck in the future as they deserve.’
‘Are you sure that’s wise?’
‘They deserve no luck at all. That is exactly what we will wish for them.’
‘Is it wise to take a drink, I mean?’
‘One sip won’t kill me. And what if it does?’ Pol Pot poured the liquor and handed Kiry an ample serve. ‘Perhaps you should consider offering yourself completely to Mok.’
‘Mok knows nothing of the world beyond the brothels in Aranya-pathet. He’s never set foot in Paris or Geneva. I doubt he could even find Washington on a map. I’m pretty sure he thinks Korea and China are one big country. And he lacks taste. He has the ugliest house in the whole country.’
Pol Pot smiled a black-gummed smile and held aloft his glass. ‘To absent friends,’ he said, ‘and to friends we wish were absent.’
* * *
‘In my day football was kick and catch, kick and catch. Handball was a last resort … like drinking your own urine on a desert island,’ Ted said.
‘Here it comes: “When I was a boy, blah blah blah,”’ Lea said.
‘Did you ever play?’ Lea’s colleague Bazza, a sports reporter, asked Ted.
‘Oh, don’t go asking him stuff like that, Bazza, it only encourages him.’
‘As it happens, I did play for a few years. Showed some potential. But I had to choose between footy and seeing the world. I chose the world.’
‘Yeah, yeah, but did you ever drink your own urine?’ Lea said. ‘Hold still, Grandpa.’ She pinned an ‘Official SANFL Photographer’ badge to Ted’s chest. ‘There, you’re legal.’
‘In my day, when the coach told me to play at full-back that’s where I stayed. I did not “run off” – that’s the right expression, isn’t it, that’s what the TV commentators go on about? I never, not once, left my man and sprinted to the forward pocket as a loose man looking to kick a goal. That would have been sacrilege.’ Ted paused and winked. ‘Of course, in my life I’ve often been accused of being a loose man. But that’s a whole other story.’
‘Bazza doesn’t need to hear your fantasies, Grandpa. Come on, let’s go.’
Lea and Ted sat on low fold-up chairs, hard against the boundary line, careful not to obscure a beer advertisement that was painted on the fence. ‘Are you comfortable, Grandpa? You’ll tell me if you’re not, won’t you? Are you all right with your legs squashed under like that?’
‘I’m fine. Don’t fuss, love. Just do your job and pretend I’m not here.’
‘Don’t get too comfortable. We’ll have to move in a little while. I prefer to watch the match from different angles. All right?’
‘Fine.’
There was a smattering of applause and some good-natured heckling as the Port players came onto the ground.
‘There aren’t many people here,’ Ted said.
‘Three and a half thousand, maybe four: that’s a pretty decent turnout these days, since the big league went national.’
Lea hung a camera around Ted’s neck, a tiny silver box that Ted was disconcerted to find beeped like a kidney machine. It was a brand Ted had never heard of and couldn’t pronounce. He pushed a button and a zoom lens unfurled itself. He peered through the viewfinder and was stunned by the magnification.
‘Not bad,’ he said.
‘It’s the latest,’ Lea said.
‘Even so, it’s not bad.’
Lea brought out a camera with the biggest lens Ted had ever seen and screwed it onto a tripod.
‘When I was in Vietnam and Cambodia I used nothing but a tiny little Canon Regulator. Did I ever tell you that?’
‘I think you might have, maybe a hundred, a hundred and fifty times.’
Once the game started, Ted watched Lea working almost as much as he watched the game, which at ground level moved too quickly for him to follow. Mostly she stayed hunched over the camera, staring through the peephole. Occasionally she leant back and reminded herself of the bigger picture. Ted thought it was a whole lot of effort for the single photograph that would make it into the next day’s newspaper.
‘Cricket must be easier,’ Ted said. ‘At least you can rest up between balls.’
‘Cricket goes on and on and on.’
‘But if you did the cricket you could travel all over the world.’
Late in the first quarter, his knees aching, his roll of film all used up, Ted leant back against the fence, watching Lea. Hunched over her camera, staring through the peephole, she was as still as a sniper. He followed the line of her lens back onto the field. A Port player, tackled as he kicked, slewed the ball from the centre towards the wing.
Another Port player reached the bouncing ball first and soccered it straight towards Ted. A Port and a Norwood player sprinted after the ball. Close to the boundary line the Port player pulled up. But the Norwood player – a compact, hairy mass of muscle – realised too late that the ball would beat him out of bounds. He narrowly missed decapitating a boundary umpire and ran into the fence beside Ted, who ended up on his buttocks. The Norwood player gave Ted’s shoulder a tap of apology as he stepped back onto the field. ‘Well done, Scotty,’ someone in the crowd called out. ‘Keep at it. Show ’em who’s in charge.’
Scotty pushed past several players and shoved the Port player who had soccered the ball. ‘Hear the footsteps, eh?’ Scotty yelled and shoved him again. The Port player collapsed as if he had been shot in the heart. He lay motionless. When he understood that the umpire would not award him a free kick he miraculously recovered. ‘If you’re gonna hit him, Scotty, make sure he doesn’t get up,’ someone in the crowd hollered.
Lea helped Ted get back onto his stool. ‘Are you all right, Grandpa?’
‘All right? I’m wonderful. This is what I came for, the biffo. I like that Scotland fellow. He should be playing in the national league.’
‘He’s too slow,’ Lea said. ‘Everybody says so. He says so himself.’
From the boundary throw-in, the Port ruckman dropped the ball in front of his feet. A scramble ensued. Scotty was the fifth man to jump into the pack. Ted couldn’t imagine what he hoped to achieve other than to inflict more hurt. The umpire was about to halt play when, miraculously, the ball came free. A Norwood player, already running at full pace, scooped the ball up without breaking stride and wrong-footed a Port player, who turned and chased hard. After the Norwood player had bounced the ball twice, and as the Port player was about to catch him, he kicked. Ahead, a curly-headed lump of a lad, his imposing physique emerging from young fat, ran forward. He arrived too late to mark the ball but he crashed the pack, thumping his knee into the shoulder of one of his opponents. His fist connected with the ball, which fell at the feet of a tiny Norwood bloke who scooped it up, ran forward, looped a handball over a defender’s head to a team mate who turned and kicked an easy goal.
‘Good onya, Scotty,’ a voice in the crowd called.
‘Your goal, Scotty.’
Ted was perplexed. Gary Scotland was a hundred and fifty metres away, closer to Ted than to the goals. ‘What’s it got to do with him?’ Ted asked Lea.
‘Brilliant,’ she said, leaving Ted no wiser.
By half-time Ted’s legs were cramping. Lea had planned ahead. She settled him into a seat in the grandstand, fortified with a couple of cushions and a meat pie. She coerced a ground attendant to bring him a light beer – ‘Only one, mind you!’ – and, later, to help him to the toilet.
Ted was disappointed with his photos. He had tried to capture players kicking goals: impossible. He tried to convey how the lump of a lad – ‘Destined for greatness,’ Lea said – dictated the movement of every other player on the field, depending on whether he ran left, right or ‘down the guts,’ but his photograph revealed nothing other than distant statues standing motionless on the muddy, green-tinged field.
One of Lea’s photographs – not the one of a smiling winner they put in the newspaper – was a revelation to Ted. It captured the moment when the pack of players formed directly in front of them, just after Scotty had leapt onto the others and at the exact moment that the ball came free. In the centre of the frame, emerging from limbs and torsos and flying green mud, was a hairy, tattooed arm, unmistakably Scotty’s. The ball lay on a direct trajectory from his fist to the feet of his team mate who, running past, had swept it up.
‘It’s a brilliant photo, love,’ Ted said. ‘You should have it framed.’
So she did. She blew it up, inserted it in a silver frame and hung it on a wall in a café in Norwood. A businessman bought it for four hundred and fifty dollars. When Lea rang to tell Ted she was more excited than he’d ever known her to be.
‘He asked me if I had any more,’ she said, her voice quivering in triumph.
The commotion woke Nhem Kiry. He lay in the dark, momentarily confused. But then he heard Son Sen’s voice protesting his innocence. Kiry knew that Pol Pot had long suspected his defence minister of disloyalty. He knew what must be happening.
Kiry squinted at Kolab. She lay with her back to him, breathing evenly. He knew that she was feigning sleep. And who could blame her, he thought. The girls were somewhere else, as usual, at one of the border towns, or in Bangkok again. These days Kiry never knew exactly what they were up to but he was relieved that they weren’t here for this.