Voice of Destiny

by JH Fletcher

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  1

  Somaly was punctual to the minute, and they went to a restaurant that she knew. The proprietor bowed, smiling all over his face as he led them to a table. In the middle of the room a wedding party was having a good time, the men laughing and drinking toasts while the women sat quietly and did not speak. Somaly smiled ruefully. ‘Is it too noisy for you?’

  ‘Not at all. Let them enjoy themselves. They deserve it, after everything they’ve been through.’

  Somaly ordered for both of them. While they waited to be served, she said: ‘Khieu used to dine here often after he came back from France. He used to say that the tiger, the fish and the lobster had brought him back.’

  Lucia didn’t understand. ‘Is that some kind of food?’

  Somaly laughed, her hand covering her mouth. ‘It’s a gambling game, a street game, really, but they play it here sometimes. Khieu was very fond of it, he was a great gambler. He always said it would make him rich.’

  ‘And did it?’

  ‘Of course not. The only one who makes money out of that game is the dealer.’

  ‘You’re right about being a gambler. He took a gamble coming back, didn’t he? And lost.’

  Somaly shook her head. ‘He died, certainly, but he would not have agreed that he lost. This was his country. While he was in Europe I think he forgot that, but as soon as things started going wrong here, he came back. He knew it was not right for him to stay away. He accepted that the Khmer Rouge were going to win and that they would probably kill him, but this was his place, especially as our father was dead. That is very important, isn’t it? To know your own place in the world and be there when it’s necessary?’

  A fragment of verse came to Lucia’s mind.

  ‘Aimer … loisir

  Aimer et mourir

  Au pays qui te ressemble,’ she quoted.

  ‘To love and to be free

  To love and to die

  In the land which is yours …

  ‘Do you know Baudelaire?’

  ‘Of course,’ Somaly said. ‘But not that one. It is very true, isn’t it?’

  A bowl of what smelt like chicken soup arrived. While they ate, Lucia said: ‘Tell me what happened when the Khmer Rouge came.’

  2

  ‘When the fighting stopped, everything was still. No people in the streets, no radios, no voices. Nothing. People were tearing up strips of white cloth and hanging them on poles out of windows. Each street was a mass of white. Then the Khmer Rouge arrived. They were very young, hardly more than children, with filthy clothes and sunburned faces, but they were all armed to the teeth. They were riding in jeeps with machine guns on the bonnets. Little kids were running alongside them. Everyone was laughing and waving; it was more like a holiday than anything else.

  ‘Later more soldiers arrived. They said they were looking for government soldiers and traitors. Khieu told them there weren’t any. They went away but later others came and told us we had to leave the city at once. Everyone was being evacuated, they said, because the Americans were going to bomb it and we would all be killed if we stayed.’

  3

  They had finished the soup. The bowls were taken away and replaced by a dish on which lay a steamed fish in a clear sauce, with bamboo shoots around it.

  ‘What fish is this?’

  ‘I’m not sure of its western name. Pomfret, I think, something like that. I hope you like it.’

  Somaly broke off some of the flesh with her chopsticks and placed it in Lucia’s bowl before helping herself.

  ‘And did you leave the city?’ Lucia asked.

  ‘What else could we do? They had guns and we didn’t. Besides, the Americans had done so much bombing, it was easy to believe they might bomb the city next. Even the patients from the hospital had to leave. People were pushing hospital beds down the road. There were four of us: Khieu and myself, my mother and grandmother. Everywhere children were crying. No-one knew where we were going. We passed piles of bodies, each with a notice saying they’d been killed because they’d refused to obey the orders to leave Phnom Penh. All the time we could hear gunfire. They were shooting people all over the city, some right by us. There was a woman with twin babies. They were only a few days old. She was in tears because she didn’t know where her husband was. She was all alone with the babies. After a time she couldn’t go any further. Two Khmer Rouge came and shouted at her but it was no use, so they shot her. One of the soldiers was going to kill the babies, too, but the other told him to leave them. Don’t waste your bullets, he said. They’ll die soon enough. And he was right. No-one had any strength to look after two strange babies. I expect the ants got them.

  ‘That first evening they came around asking if there were any doctors. One man put up his hand. He thought they wanted him to help with the sick people but they took him behind a nearby ridge. We heard shots and that was the end of him.

  ‘There were people in cars, on bicycles, in trishaws. Most were on foot. Every so often we came to a roadblock. Each time we were searched. They were looking for radios, pens, watches and, of course, weapons, but after the first check nobody had anything. They searched us, all the same.

  ‘That first evening pedlars came round selling pork but at such high prices that hardly anyone could afford it. People were selling ice and cigarettes, too. The next day we went on again.

  ‘I went to get water from a pond but it was full of bodies. I didn’t know what to do. The idea of drinking such water … I thought it might kill us, yet we had to drink. I decided to look further away. I had good luck. I found another pond with clean water, so I filled my bucket and went back.

  ‘We reached Pochentong on the second evening. We were all made to register. We sat in rows on the ground and the Khmer Rouge came and questioned us.

  “‘Name? Occupation? Place of birth?”

  ‘Khieu gave them his correct name. He told them he’d been born in Phnom Penh. He didn’t tell them he was a conductor of western music; he said he was a farmer. They seemed satisfied and went on to the next person. Then one of them stopped as though he’d thought of something and came back.

  “‘Show me your hands, comrade.” He ran his thumb over them. “Soft hands for a farmer, comrade.”

  ‘He called another soldier, who also checked Khieu’s hands. There was no need to say anything; with hands like that, he couldn’t possibly have been a farmer. They took him away and I never saw him again. I don’t think they knew who he was, or cared. They could see he was an educated man and that was enough. They were killing all the people with education. Later my mother and grandmother also died. The only reason I survived was that I pretended to be mad. I worked on a rice cooperative and never spoke. I was afraid they would rape me, but they didn’t. They were afraid, you see. They thought that if they touched me they might catch my madness. Every night, after I lay down in the corner of the hut, I recited a poem by François Villon. I said it in my head, afraid that otherwise someone would hear me. I’d memorised it at school and for some reason it had stayed in my mind. I suppose you could say it was appropriate.

  Frères humains, qui après nous vivez,

  N’ayez les cuers contre nous endurcis …

  Human brothers, who will live on after us,

  Do not harden your hearts against us …

  4

  Tears were running down Lucia’s cheeks.

  ‘I should never have asked you to tell me about it. It was too much for you.’

  Somaly was dry-eyed. ‘After everything the Khmer Rouge did, there is no such thing as too much. As for tears … I ran out of them long ago.’

  There were cheers and yells from the wedding party. Two of the men were on their feet, red-faced and swaying, daring each other to a drinking contest. Somaly smiled.

  ‘That is why people make so much noise now. They are happy because they find it hard to believe they are still alive.’

  They were silent for a while, then Somaly said: ‘This
concert? What is it for?’

  ‘To celebrate the overthrow of the Khmer Rouge.’

  ‘And after it is over?’

  ‘We shall go home.’

  Lucia saw in Somaly’s face an expression of pain, a helplessness not of body but of soul.

  Somaly said: ‘We are grateful to you for coming. But I ask myself what happens afterwards. We have suffered so much, you see. Most of the adults will survive, but for the children it is different. There are thousands upon thousands of them without parents or shelter. Hundreds of thousands, maybe; nobody knows. Most have no hope of even the most basic education. They are crippled by starvation and neglect, blown apart by landmines. Did you know the hospitals do seven hundred amputations a month because of landmines? Plus all the ones who die without getting to hospital at all. Even the ones who survive … Who wants a crippled wife or husband? Male amputees aren’t even allowed to become monks. What can they do? I’ll tell you. They become criminals, or beggars. Those children are this country’s future. I tremble to think what that future will be if nothing is done. The problem will continue for years after you have gone. What will happen to us then? And who will care?’

  Australian children of the streets and outback. The lilting sound of death. The detonation of endless mines.

  Lucia said: ‘There’s something I’ve been thinking about, that I want to discuss with you.’

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  1

  The concert was successful beyond their dreams.

  Ruth read extracts from Out of the Depths, followed by the poem expressing not only grief at her husband’s death but triumph in the knowledge that she would never be parted from him. Alfredo sang Wolfram’s ode to the morning star, as Lucia had suggested, with its expression of faith in the future and, at the last, triumph: Da blick ich auf zu einem nur der Sterne …

  In her head Lucia translated the words as he sang them: I lift my eyes to that distant heavenly star …

  Then came her own contribution, Elizabeth’s miracle song, followed by the Mahler. The Resurrection symphony. First, Lucia sang her own arrangement, solo voice substituting for the chorus. Aufersteh’n, ja aufersteh’n wirst du …

  And then the words, recited in English by Ruth Ballard: Rise, yes, you will rise …

  Again Lucia’s thoughts and memory ran on. You will live again. Nothing is lost. And, at the last:

  In the struggle for life

  Shall I fly

  To the light no eye can pierce!

  EMI had flown out sound engineers to record the concert. Maude Arkwright was ecstatic. ‘A million sales! I guarantee it!’

  Lucia was also delighted. With her plans, she was going to need all the money she could get.

  2

  ‘What you have done, what you plan to do, will be very good for this country, and for its children,’ said Somaly.

  ‘I hope so. It will be very hard but I shall try.’

  Somaly smiled. ‘And succeed. I have faith, something I thought I would never have again. There is to be a ceremony for my brother. I shall be honoured if you and your friend will come.’

  The flowers spread outwards across the waters of the Tonle Sap, the mysterious waterway that at certain seasons of the year reversed its flow. Lucia watched as the blossoms took the shape of another flower extending across the dark waters like a farewell, or tears, or even perhaps a celebration. She was moved, weeping for loss, the bereaved, the power misused by wicked men. It gave her a new perspective of the worth of the man whose death she had come here to lament. She had known him and admired him as an artist, yet now, seeing and feeling the people standing here beside her — Somaly, Ruth Ballard, all those others unfamiliar to her — she realised she had not known him at all, that anyone whose life was capable of evoking such gentle mourning must have been special indeed and that she by the failure of her awareness had slighted him.

  Life was transient: that was the message of the flowers. Yet death was a facet of renewal. The wheel of birth and rebirth, of twilight and sunrise, going on for ever.

  Later, back at the hotel, she stood on the balcony of her room and looked out at the market with its kerosene lanterns flaring in the darkness, the noise and bustle of the city. Perhaps because of the feelings evoked by that afternoon’s ceremony, she was intensely aware of the world beyond the lights, the starshine representing unknown realms of space and time. Out there were galaxies so far away that they were utterly unknowable. Aeons after this earth had ceased to exist, after the sun and its neighbouring stars had been consumed in a vast conflagration that would present itself to the universe as no more than a blink of light upon the blackness, the fires of those distant galaxies would continue to illuminate what by then would be no more than cosmic dust. That, ultimately, was the future. Yet the flowers gave another message: that eternity existed beyond the material and that the spirit, in some form or manner, would survive.

  3

  Lucia sat with Ruth Ballard, thinking of all she had seen and heard. Jacques’ article, written so long ago, in which he had spoken of the killing of children, likening it to a scarlet sword of retribution. The man who had introduced her to a tiny section of the Australian outback, bitterly quoting what someone had said about the workers in the nineteenth century. Kill ’em off, you get rid of the problem. We’re smarter. We let ’em do it to themselves. Somaly saying, there are seven hundred amputations a month. The soft, lilting sound that Tran had heard as the dying children drew closer to death. Yet another image: a young woman leading a child across the landscape of a country at war. Her mother with the child whose life she had saved.

  On and on.

  She said: ‘I feel the need to do something with what’s left of my life. I’m famous. That should be good for something. But I’m frightened of tackling something that’s beyond me, beyond anyone. There’s something else, too. I’m afraid I might be doing it for the wrong reasons, out of pity for the victims and not because it’s the right thing to do.’

  ‘It’s more than pity,’ Ruth told her. She watched the slow trudge of a bullock cart. ‘I love the ponderous way those things move. They show how foolish we are to rush around so aimlessly. You can be sure it’ll still be trundling along, linking past and future, long after we and all our frenetic activities are in the grave. It displaces time.’ She smiled. ‘I went in one once, during the war. I was hiding under a load of rice straw, trying to escape some Japanese soldiers.’

  Lucia did not understand. ‘What’s that to do with helping children?’

  Ruth seemed astonished by the question. ‘It has everything to do with it. In our world, the truth is seen as unimportant, even an irritant. From tycoons to media, integrity is a joke. The result is that people don’t believe in anything any more. Yet, even though they don’t realise it, they miss it. The good is stronger than people think. The bullock cart brings back a sense of reality. Your plan to set up a worldwide fund for destitute children does the same thing. It restores people’s faith in themselves and the future. These days people are always yapping about what they call the wrongs of the past. They use buzz words like “reconciliation” as an excuse for doing nothing. It’s no good. We have to be aware of the past but must never become its prisoner. People wring their hands, telling themselves how terrible it all is. What you’re planning to do is to say, yes, things are terrible, so what must we do to put them right? You are daring to look forward instead of back. And with your backing and prestige … I think it’s wonderful.’

  Lucia asked: ‘Would you be willing to help?’

  ‘Try keeping me out of it!’

  4

  Somaly saw them off at Pochentong Airport.

  Lucia hugged her. ‘I’ll be in touch.’

  ‘Please do. We are all waiting to do what we can. You have given us hope.’

  It was joy, and a great and terrifying burden.

  She flew with Ruth to Australia.

  In Sydney she gave a press conference to announce to the world what she
planned to do.

  ‘Is this only for Australia?’ she was asked. Like: why us?

  ‘Not at all. I’ll be saying the same thing in Europe. I’d go to the States, too, but unfortunately they’re still out of bounds to me.’

  ‘Will you be looking for government funding?’

  ‘Yes. The problem is far too great for one individual. There are hundreds of thousands of children. Millions. In Tibet, Afghanistan, Cambodia, India, Africa and, God forgive us, in Australia. Everywhere. You would need a billion dollars, ten billion, and a hundred lifetimes, to sort it out completely. That’s the danger. The problem is so vast that people do nothing. I shall have to select. I don’t know how.’

  One of the journalists — power suit and sceptical eyes — put up her hand.

  ‘Some are going to say all this is mere tokenism, a way to keep your name in the headlines now you’ve retired. What do you have to say to that?’

  Lucia smiled at her, thinking: Cow. She said: ‘In a sense they’ll be right. I hope that the foundation will become a token of what can be done. I want to shame governments into doing something. It’ll make a change from chucking bombs at each other, from claiming there’s no money to alleviate suffering.’

  ‘How will you go about it?’

  ‘I haven’t the slightest idea. I shall need advice on everything. There may be trouble from some governments, political groups, religious maniacs of all types. Well, I thrive on challenge. It keeps me young. So let ’em all come, the fanatics who murder in the name of God, the lying politicians, the lawyers who cash in on suffering, the banks that ruin the world. I am here, in a small way, to reawaken my own conscience, but I hope that by my actions I shall affect how others think, too. I have been greatly blessed by God or fate, or whatever terminology you prefer. I intend to pay something back. Perhaps it is no more than a token, given the size of the problem, but it’s a start. And remember this: if we can help one child in Cambodia or Australia — the victims, the deprived — we raise a shield of protection over all victims, whether from the Holocaust or Tibet or Palestine. Because it is my hope that we can teach people, once again, to care. To save one child — one! — will have made my life worthwhile. As for those who look for ulterior motives that don’t exist … As I said before, let ’em all come!’