Phnom Penh Express

by Johan Smits

  “Same shit, different day,” she mumbles distractedly.

  The commander continues rambling about how U.S. military ground intelligence has uncovered at least one extremist cell with links to a social services organisation in Iran that is suspected of financing Hezbollah. This new intelligence added more weight to earlier accusations of direct Iranian involvement in the insurgency.

  The commander drones on but something he just said has grabbed Tzahala’s attention. One word: Hezbollah. It has triggered something in her brain. And the longer she thinks, the clearer things become. It’s true it wouldn’t make sense for Driekamp to run off with one shipment but he wouldn’t hesitate trading diamonds with Hezbollah, Tzahala realises. He’s a bold South African; he’d deal with the devil itself. And she has never asked questions about his suppliers — not doing so had been something of a silent agreement between them.

  “Zoobi!” she curses again in her native Hebrew.

  If her theory is true, she thinks, it means that she’s been indirectly financing Israel’s archenemy number one. Driekamp’s sense of irony is impressive. Not that she’s got a problem with the idea — she doesn’t give a damn who she deals with. If she wants to continue with leading Israel’s fastest growing criminal empire, she can’t be choosy. She’s more concerned about the implications. In the best-case scenario, Driekamp had already been done in by Hezbollah — those boys are easily upset. But usually for a valid reason and Driekamp’s no fool. Besides, the likelihood that he never left Israel reduces the possibility of the Hezbollah scenario. Which leads to another line of thought: the worst-case scenario.

  She stands up and begins prowling the room, clutching her whisky glass. If Driekamp has been dealing with Hezbollah, she continues reasoning, then Mossad might have gotten onto his tail. And it wouldn’t take them too long to make the connection with her.

  She stops pacing and stands still. Sweat droplets have begun to break out on her forehead.

  But what about the missing shipment? she wonders. When Driekamp had called her in the evening, it was afternoon in Tel Aviv, and the shipment had already left that morning. That’s what he had said, anyway. Could Mossad have intercepted it? That’d be unlikely, in the given timeframe... And Driekamp had sounded his usual self, too. He certainly didn’t sound like he was talking with a gun pressed to his head. Moreover, if Mossad were on her tail it wouldn’t make sense for them to intercept the shipment; on the contrary, they’d follow it.

  This last thought calms her down. In one swift movement, she empties her glass and walks out of the bedroom, through the large living room and into the kitchen. It’s her favourite space to think. It’s quiet, light and airy, and the only place where she feels there’s a bit of soul in the house. When she started renting the villa six months ago, she had not chosen it for its charm and character. She needed a residence in a secure area where she could go about her business with discretion but also receive people in a certain style. Since most of her business dealings are with affluent Cambodian and Thai officials, the house had to radiate a certain kind of wealth — the one they can identity best with: the quick and easy kind. All the heavy furniture in her giant living room is in expensive, polished wood and two walls are decorated with gaudy Angkor Wat paintings favoured by the wealthy Khmers. An enormous TV screen dominates another wall while two crystal chandeliers hover over the room like ominous birds of prey. Outside on the driveway, a large black Hummer is parked but she never uses it, except for official visits. It’s too large and slow for Phnom Penh traffic. She prefers the low profile motodops, the local motorcycle taxis.

  Tzahala sits at the kitchen table and lights another cigarette. The nervous drumming of her fingers on the table’s surface is the only sound that fills the room but she doesn’t hear it, again lost in thought. Could one of her network here in Cambodia have set her up? Her drumming suddenly stops, but after contemplating it further she dismisses the idea. It’s a small, select team who know how ruthless she can be. They wouldn’t dare. And so far, her most trusted aid is the only other person who knows where the diamonds are hidden. Moreover, when she had started preparing the launch of her new network, she made sure to build in enough internal control mechanisms to avoid being screwed by her own people.

  One moment Tzahala’s mind wanders back to Mossad only to realise, again, that the theory doesn’t make sense. Despite her frustration with the enigma of Driekamp’s disappearance, it fills her with relief — Mossad’s involvement would be bad news. She lets out a big sigh. Back to square one... She finishes her cigarette and prepares for bed.

  Chapter FIVE

  IT’S ANOTHER TYPICAL morning in Phirun’s small flat. He wakes up to the penetrating stench of prahok, Cambodian fermented fish paste, that his landlord’s wife compulsively concocts in the flat downstairs. At the same time, the relentless tone-deaf wailing of the karaoke addict upstairs is slowly but surely pushing him towards the brink of insanity.

  He looks at the time — 6:45 AM. Grunting with effort, he stands up and finds refuge in the bathroom where the noise becomes slightly more bearable after he shuts the door and lets the shower run at full capacity. The cold water marshals him from the land of sleep to the land of waking; not always an easy journey for him.

  I could use a happy chocolate right now, he thinks, and tries to remember where he put the Paracetamol. Yesterday’s experiment has left him with a headache the size of a football pitch and his neighbour’s caterwauling is only adding to the pain. While most native countrymen would naturally start longing for fried fish while cheerfully humming along with the neighbour, Phirun’s foreign upbringing has rendered him indifferent to these two pillars of his birth country — smelly food and awful music. It makes him doubt he will ever become a proper Khmer.

  While the cold water gushes over him, Phirun lets his thoughts wander back over his past. His parents had been quite well off before the Khmer Rouge seized power over Cambodia in the mid-seventies. The family fortune had been lost during the war, but at least most of his kin had survived the murderous regime. The majority of them had fled in time, in contrast to countless other unlucky families. He wonders if that’s partly why he’s often treated like a barang in his own country, rather than a true Khmer. Or, rather, like an anikachun, a not very flattering term for a person with no fixed abode — a gypsy, a wandering refugee. Were some Khmer Rouge survivors envious to a certain degree? Did they resent the fact that Phirun had avoided the suffering unimaginable to those who hadn’t lived through the nightmare?

  The cold water soothes his headache and makes him stay in the shower for a few more minutes.

  Years after the war, towards the end of 1989, his parents, sister and he had ended up in Belgium in search of a future. Other family members found their new lives in France; some ended up in the United States. Settling in Belgium had brought on a monumental change in their lifestyles, especially for his mother. She had gone from being the wealthy, respected and well-educated wife of a successful high-ranking public servant, to an underpaid maid who barely spoke a word of her new country’s language.

  Phirun’s thoughts skip to a recent conversation that he held with his friend Ratanak, a local Khmer. They had met by chance at a wedding party, and had instantly hit it off. Not that they had much in common — Ratanak was a hardcore booze and karaoke devotee, while Phirun tended to enjoy life in smaller doses, somewhat more subtly. But they still felt a respectful curiosity towards each other.

  It was all the more surprising that one night, over a few cans of Beer Lao, his friend had called him an anikachun. It was late and Ratanak’s drunken ramblings were acquiring a sharp, bitter undertone. It wasn’t until a week later when they met again that Phirun’s friend apologised for the derogatory comment. He explained that he had lost his temper after being humiliated by an arrogant overseas-raised Khmer man who had treated him like a peasant earlier that day.

  Phirun steps out of the shower dripping wet, and moves to examine his face in front of the m
irror. He needs a shave, he decides, and starts lathering up.

  On that particular night in the bar, his friend had been talking about how all the rich anikachun were coming back now, their pockets bulging with wads of money, to exploit their own people — as if they hadn’t already suffered enough.

  “Oh yeah? Like me, or what?” Phirun had huffed. “You’ve got more money on you than I have.”

  But Ratanak had continued unabashed.

  “Rich or poor, it doesn’t matter. It’s that arrogant attitude your kind treat us with. Really, you secretly still think we’re all ignorant peasants who belong in rice fields, don’t you?”

  Phirun’s attempts to object went ignored as Ratanak continued his drunken tirade.

  “Your barang passport might be full of foreign stamps, but I don’t want a barang passport, you know, even if I could get one. I’m proud of my culture and my identity; I’m not selling it off like all those fake, so-called Cambodians who are only Cambodian when they reckon they can make a profit out of us.”

  At that point Phirun felt it was time to go home. It would be useless trying to explain to his friend how he himself had felt more Cambodian than anyone else around him, every single day of his teenage years. Those rural foreign schools were full of local kids clueless about the effect their casual racism and exclusion can have on a young boy. The daily humiliations, the constant reminders about the tawny colour of his skin, his limited vocabulary and funny accent, the fact that his parents were living off state benefits. All was fair game to the bullies. Not all kids had been like that, of course, otherwise he would never have survived. But the exposure to persistent xenophobia, even if it was only delivered by a minority, had scarred him permanently.

  When Phirun heard nostalgic stories about Cambodia from his parents, about Khmer culture before the war, certain values that were assiduously observed within his family even in exile, Phirun knew that one day he’d return to that fabled place where he might feel a sense of belonging. But he hadn’t found those old values his parents had spoken of yet in today’s Cambodia.

  With one smooth stroke he finishes shaving and wipes the foam off his chin.

  He had accepted Ratanak’s apologies, of course — everyone has their demons to confront — but they never really recovered the past connection they once felt. The unsavoury experience had shocked Phirun, for he had realised he was indeed different; he wouldn’t fit into Cambodian society as he’d hoped. He wasn’t even sure if he wanted to, for the hit-and-run culture of greed and quick money he’d been witnessing was a far cry from the picture of Cambodia his parents had painted.

  Phirun is feeling much better after his shower. He’s now reconciled to the idea of a healthy breakfast. He selects some fruit — an overripe papaya, a mango, a few small bananas and a quarter of a pineapple — and starts peeling them.

  Mulling over what Ratanak had said, he could understand his frustration. Cambodians had been dominated too often, and for too long. The last thing they want now is a horde of smart-ass overseas-bred Khmer treating them like dirt all over again. But then again, he had also heard a lot of good things about ‘his kind’.

  He’d been noticing how quite a few local Cambodians seemed to be starting to appreciate the straight-talking returning Khmers, a nice change from the corruption and cronyism of the happy few that tend to run the show. And when overseas Khmers return to Cambodia, they bring back a minimum of respect for the rule of law, rather than just the rule of money and intimidation.

  Phirun awakens from his reverie. He chops the peeled fruits and puts them in a bowl with plain yoghurt — his usual breakfast.

  But the fact remains, he concludes, whether local people loathe or love us, we’re not fully accepted yet. That much is clear.

  His mind drifts back to happy chocolates. He’s still tempted to continue with his experiments, despite Nina’s warning. Then he remembers his promise. Damn! He’s supposed to visit those officials today.

  Back up in his bedroom, Phirun selects a white formal shirt — the best he has — and his only tie. He knows that appearance is important to his people. Dressed up in his fanciest outfit, he takes the gift boxes from his old, third-hand fridge and arranges them on the kitchen table. Six visits, six gift boxes: perfect.

  When he loads them into his bag, something catches his eye. It’s part of a white label loosely attached to the side of one of the boxes. One of those labels that can be easily peeled from the packaging without damaging the box; it was probably left over by the transport company. But the odd thing is, it bears characters from a language he doesn’t recognise. At first glance he thinks the alien script might be Arabic, but the characters are too boxy for that. Upon more careful scrutiny he recognises it — it’s the same script that he saw in Antwerp every time he passed through the diamond quarter on his way to work. He saw it on the signboards of kosher food vendors, adorning the entrances to certain clothes shops, but mostly on diamond shop displays: it’s Hebrew.

  That’s odd, he thinks, he didn’t know that the Antwerp supplier was Jewish. It’s unheard of for them to venture into chocolate-making. Besides, this label must have been attached by the transport company not by the supplier, which, on reflection, makes it even stranger that it should be in Hebrew. He takes out a few other boxes and turns them over. It’s then he notices that all of the boxes are labelled. One bears the words Tel Aviv and Israel in Roman script.

  These boxes come from Tel Aviv not Antwerp, Phirun ponders. No wonder Nina complained, this is the wrong shipment altogether. Except, it couldn’t be — she did order them. It must be the supplier’s curious mistake. He studies a box for further clues. Perhaps some Belgian chocolatier has a distribution agent there? Perhaps it was cheaper to ship them from Israel, rather than directly from Antwerp?

  Should he open them? He hesitates for a moment, then picks up a box to inspect its sealed lid. If he opened it, he’d have to find a sneaky way to close it again properly. What the hell, he thinks, and carefully removes the plastic seal. Lifting the cover, the usual rich smell of dark chocolate greets him, wafting up his nostrils and filling his head with desire for cocoa. He looks inside the box and admires the beautifully crafted black, brown and white pralines.

  “Why not,” he mumbles and takes out one of the chocolates. But when he’s about to put it into his mouth, he freezes, wondering what on earth he’s doing. He’s supposed to deliver them, not scoff them. He decides he can’t afford to mess up a second time with Nina while she’s so volatile. Besides, he can have all the chocolate that he wants at work.

  Phirun puts the praline back inside the box and carefully seals the lid with transparent tape. He gives the stock of gifts a final once-over. Let’s hope they look expensive enough to loosen up those rigid officials, he thinks. Then he relegates the matter to the back of his mind as he hurries downstairs.

  Chapter SIX

  RETIRED LIEUTENANT-COLONEL PEETERS of the former National Gendarmerie of Belgium hesitates to answer his phone. The 21-year-old Thai girl he had brought back to Antwerp from his last trip to Thailand — a birthday present for himself — has her lips tightly wrapped around his fifty-year-old penis. He’s about to come when the call to the private line, which hasn’t rung for seven months, comes first. On the last occasion he’d received a call on this line, it was to alert ‘The Colonel’, as he is usually known, that one of his heroin shipments was being busted by Dutch customs. That had been a genuine mistake — the relevant authorities had been paid off, as usual, but a communication breakdown had occurred somewhere along the line. It had been most inconvenient, costing him numerous telephone calls and an extra five grand to get the container released. A real headache. But his little red phone only rings when there is a crisis — that’s why he had chosen red in the first place. The other handset, a bland, outdated model, is for everyday use. The red phone is still ringing. He allows himself one more second of pleasure, then pushes the girl aside and angrily picks up the receiver.

  “Wha
t?!” he shouts.

  Now it is the person on the other end of the line that hesitates.

  “Colonel Peeters?”

  “Who the fuck else would it be? Alice in motherfucking Wonderland?”

  The voice on the other end still hesitates.

  “Er... we have company in Cambodia, sir.”

  A momentary silence as Colonel Peeters absorbs the words while gazing down at his fast-shrinking member.

  “Serious company?”

  “Yes sir, it very much looks that way, sir.”

  “Where from?” the Colonel barks.

  “Tel Aviv, sir,” the voice answers.

  “Exactly how serious are they?”

  “They didn’t even try to conceal the fact that they are breaking into our market.”

  “What makes you think that?” the retired police commander asks, sounding more worried.

  “Just three days ago they openly handed out free boxes with items to a number of high-ranking Cambodian government officials, as if they wanted to spread the word. They concealed the diamonds in Belgian chocolates; it’s like they’re mocking us.”

  “Bastards!”

  “Yes sir.”

  “You no like me?” the Thai girl calls from the leather sofa upon which she and the Colonel had just been having sex.

  “Shut up,” the Colonel bellows, very irritated.

  “Yes, sir,” the voice in the handset answers immediately.

  “Not you, idiot. So, you think these imbeciles want to start a war?”

  “I don’t know, sir. They’re certainly not shy about provoking us.”

  “Them damn Jews are usually more careful,” the Colonel thinks aloud.