The King's Last Song

by Geoff Ryman

  The road is absolutely dark and still. On the last night of New Year. No one's traveling. They're all scared again, scared in their souls, scared all the way back to the war. Two gunshots and they're like birds flying in panic.

  We are so easily knocked down, Jayavarman. We try and try, we work so hard. We maintain our kindnesses. We smile, and help each other, and make life possible for each other. We perform our acts of merit and still our luck doesn't change.

  Acts of merit don't work, Jayavarman.

  They didn't work for Ta Barang, they don't work for those guides on the stone steps. So I don't do them, Jaya. I don't do good actions. Good actions don't get you anything; good actions have no power. Nothing seems to have any power.

  Why doesn't anything change? Why am I stuck on a bicycle? Why are my friends not teaching college instead of swatting flies in the dark? Why do our children give up being smart?

  Map imitates the children aloud to the moon. He says in English, in a child's voice, “Sir, you buy cold drink, sir? Something to eat, sir?"

  Map wants to weep for his people and their children. They wait all day in the sun to sell the beautiful cloth that is spun on bicycle wheels by people with no legs. They get up at 4:00 a.m. to buy tins of Coke and bottles of water and they carry the ice four kilometres and they are six years old. “If you buy cold drink later, you buy from me. Promise, sir?"

  Instead of going to school.

  Jayavarman answers, in the person of the moon.

  Because, the moon says in a soft voice. That is the only reason. Just because. You must work very hard now to catch up.

  Yeah, everybody's ahead of us, not just the Americans, but even the Thais. The Thais come here in air-conditioned coaches and won't use the toilets because they are too dirty. They cannot believe we ever built this city or gave them their royal language. The Vietnamese are way ahead of us, making their own motorcycles for profit.

  Moonlight reflects on the paved, smooth road as if it were water. The moon on the empty road speaks again.

  So. Cycle. Cycle hard, cycle fast, cycle all the way into your old age. The world won't notice.

  Work. Work without success. Grind and sweat and cheat with no merit. You are starting from the bottom. You are the lowest in the world.

  Because.

  "Because,” repeats Map.

  Excuse me, King. But I know who I am.

  I am a smart guy. I am a brave guy. I am a scary guy. I have power inside me, Jayavarman Chantrea, Jayavarman Moonlight. I could be anyone. I could be Hun Sen himself. So Because is why I am cycling on this road alone? Just Because? Is that all?

  The moon inclines his sympathetic head. No. You are cycling to rescue Ta Barang.

  Yeah, I guess I am.

  The moon says, Under all the bragging, you are a respectable man, Tan Sopheaktea. Sopheaktea is Map's real name, cruelly inappropriate. It means Gentle Face.

  "But I killed children."

  The moon purses its lips. You killed children.

  * * * *

  Everything in Sivutha Street is dark. Even the whorehouse bar is closed.

  The gates of the Phimeanakas Guesthouse stand locked and the forecourt lights are off.

  Map knows Prak, the Phimeanakas security guard. Like Map, Prak stays awake all night under mosquito nets. Like all of Mrs. Bou's staff, Prak is an honest man, meaning he doesn't steal and tells only harmless lies. Whether he is a good man is another matter. Map has known Prak in other lives, as war followed war.

  "Prak! Prak!” he hisses.

  Map peers into the courtyard that is crisscrossed with the shadows of tall fencing and palm leaves. “Prak?"

  Somewhere in shadow Prak says, “Go away, gunman."

  "Prak, this is the policeman, Tan Map. What has happened to Teacher Luc Andrade?"

  "I don't know, come back tomorrow."

  "Prak, they say he was taken hostage. Do you have any news, do you know anything?"

  "What do you mean? I don't know anything about it. Go away!"

  "What are Teacher Luc's team doing? Prak, don't be stupid, I'm no thief. The Frenchman is my patron, come on! What are the army doing?"

  "Mrs. Bou remembers you, she knows who you are and what you did."

  "I remember too, everybody remembers what everybody else did. Everybody did something to stay alive. So did you."

  "I am not coming out. I am coming nowhere near that gate."

  "What are people saying about what happened?"

  "I am not telling the whole street!"

  This is getting weird. “Prak, have you seen a ghost or something? I just want to know about my sponsor."

  "I don't know anything. The army came and talked to the guests and left. I didn't hear what they said; it was none of my business. Now go away!"

  Something clicks, a shutter closing.

  Prak was always roostershit; his pants were always full of it.

  Okay, Teacher Luc, I am committed to helping you so I must think very hard about what to do.

  The Patrimony Police didn't know the Book was being moved, and neither did APSARA; at least the guides didn't know and nobody from APSARA was in the car. So the army would have been in charge.

  Map smiles to himself. No gun. He only has a knife. He giggles. Stay out of trouble, Map. Me?

  Trouble is my girlfriend; I love Trouble; she comes up to me all slinky and says, you want to have a party? I don't even need a dollar to pay her, Trouble loves me so much.

  Okay let's go.

  * * * *

  There's no one at the gate of Army HQ.

  Map's bicycle crunches its way into the forecourt over the fine gravel. Lights blaze all along the long white veranda. One of the doors is open, full of light and talk.

  Oh, my old friends will be so happy to see me. They will have a party with Trouble too. Map sticks his knife into his belt and strolls towards the room.

  "Are you all happy?” he says, sticking his head through the door.

  A flicking of safety catches and a dragging of chairs; soldiers leap up from around a desk.

  One of them is Map's old officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Sinn Rith.

  "You?” Rith demands, “What are you doing here?” He looks fatter these days. Meaner too, his face behind mirror sunglasses after midnight. Map thinks: maybe moonlight blinds you, Rith.

  Map's smile goes snakelike. “I hear you guys got my mentor kidnapped, so I came here to find out more about it."

  Rith makes a light, swift gesture: guns down, hold back. “We think you already know all about it."

  Map shakes his head. “No, like I said. I don't know anything. That's why I'm here."

  Rith looks grim but amused. “We were just thinking maybe you did it."

  "That would not be clever. I kidnap my boss and lose all my money."

  Slowly, the guns creep back up. They really are still mad at me, aren't they?

  "It's more like this, Private Tan Map. We didn't tell anybody about the car. Nobody knew except the army and the Frenchman. But at the right moment, on the airport road, out come two pick-ups from those unfinished houses side by side. One stops in front of us, one stops behind. They shoot some of our men. They take General Yimsut Vutthy and the Director of the UN project, who is an important man we are supposed to protect. We ask ourselves, who else would know when the car was going and what it was carrying? Who else would Grandfather Frenchman know and be stupid enough to trust?"

  This is Trouble, all right. Trouble has strung up a hammock for me to stay overnight. All the safety catches are off, and they are all easing up to their feet.

  "I have another story,” says Map. “You've got some old general over you and nobody is getting any promotion. Who is going to be so fast and good at kidnapping from the army? Some Thai art dealers? Some farmers who only care that the Book is made of gold? How about some guys from the army who want an old general out of the way?"

  Rith is smiling and shaking his head. “Oh, I like that story. It's a good story. A good theo
ry, guys? So now we have two good theories. And we have you."

  The soldiers come towards Map slowly, like they're digging out clay at the brick factory and their feet are stuck.

  Map keeps smiling; he can't help it. Bad as it is, this is his idea of fun. “All those guns, pointing at one little policeman."

  They stand around him in an arc, but he's backed into the doorway so they can't surround him.

  They really believe this shit. I'm going to get beaten up. I've been beaten up before. Then they'll stick me in some hot little room until they can come up with something for a trial.

  Also, they have reasons of their own for wanting to hurt me.

  The soldiers start to hustle him backwards out of the doorway.

  Aren't we a dump of a country? Other places have spy satellites and missiles; we have angry little men and fists and rooms in the back. Doesn't mean to say it doesn't hurt.

  There are certain satisfactions in life. One is not waiting until you are hit first. Another is hitting them hard out here in the motel light, where everybody can see that it's eight to one.

  Map kicks the knee of the guy closest to him. The guy sinks. Map head-butts the guy who was trying to sneak around behind him.

  Then Map takes off. He runs, but to the right, not to the left towards the gate and his bicycle. He tears away, right, and then around the back of the building.

  My legs are my sons. He can hear their shoes on the gravel spurting off in the wrong direction and doubling back. You thought I'd go for my bike, but I'm going where there are no lights and I can make a straight run for the fence. You got razor wire round the top? That's why I'm going for it.

  Map is gleeful. It will take them a minute to find the perimeter lights. He sprints blindly in the dark for the fence. He hears shouting and whistling. Dogs. Sure they got dogs, I can outrun dogs and it's a still night, no wind. There's the moon, and he thinks this is fun too; he's grinning down.

  This is like the gang wars with the arrows when I was a boy. This is what I'll do when I die. They'll try to send me to hell, and I'll climb up the fence to heaven anyway.

  Fingers into mesh, and I hear the paws, the lovely padded paws of dogs. They'll jump at the fence, so scamper Map, scamper like the day they told you Mom was dead and you ran away and forgot that they'd told you that. It's vines, Map; you're climbing vines, back to Mom, back to your brother, back to everybody.

  The dogs bark, and here's the wire.

  Lightly as possible, as if vaulting on a hot skillet, Map pulls himself over the razors. They tear his hands and legs but he knows there will be leaves on the other side to wipe them clean.

  I always shoot better with sliced fingers anyway.

  You think I'll stay on the roads for you? You think I'm not a local boy, so I don't know how to keep out of sight?

  The dogs are going crazy, they're making hound music, and the big lights have snapped on and maybe you see me in pale light like a ghost, maybe you'll shoot, so I'll just duck behind the old TV station that's empty now, like an empty snail's shell.

  The road.

  Map starts to laugh. He imagines Lieutenant-Colonel Rith, swearing and stomping up and down. He imagines the guy whom he head-butted holding his bloody nose. Oh man, will they be after my liver after this! I'll be sleeping rough on the moon after this! I'll sleep under the hay! They'll chase me everywhere; I'll just be a ghost.

  He darts across the scrub field towards the dry flood canal that roaring waters had gouged so deep.

  Overhead the crazy moon laughs. Map laughs too. He's home.

  Map loves war.

  * * * *

  Luc is on a boat.

  It's made of overlapping timbers, so water slops and gurgles against the hull with a noise like musical springs. The floor of the hull stinks of fish and is ribbed with joists that aggressively jam against buttocks, kidneys, ankles, and hips. Luc is jammed under the low deck. It's impossible for him to sit up, let alone stand.

  Tape covers Luc's mouth and eyes; his legs and wrists are lashed with the sort of bungee cords that hold pigs and hens in place on motorcycles. He can do two things: hear and smell.

  Outside, marsh birds warble, whistle, or keen. Frogs make their odd beautiful sound like a cross between a gong and a flute. The boat rocks continually, and he can hear wind in reeds, so they are somewhere on the shores of the Tonlé Sap. Next to him, the General keeps groaning through the tape.

  Luc smells cigarettes and fish being kebabed on the deck above. He hears the slosh of drinking water in a bottle; he hears boys making light and friendly chatter. Then one of them hisses and everything goes still.

  Another boat putters towards them. The silence is long except for one whispered question. Then a calm voice calls clearly across the lake. The boys chuckle with relief and shout; feet thump onto the deck and there is hearty laughter.

  A rough voice barks. “You should have seen it! It was a sight. They all thought the Khmers Rouges had come for them again! The whole town was running away. We shot a few extra bullets here and there to add to the party, and then all the power went, like it does every New Year, and all the women screamed."

  "New Year, let them remember New Year!"

  "Happy New Year!"

  "Well, let's have a look at our prizes. I want to see their eyes."

  More feet thumping, and a rough sound of wood sliding. “Whew! You guys stink!"

  A padding of feet and a tugging at the tape over Luc's face. Suddenly, with a ripping sound, it's torn away, taking Luc's eyebrows with it. Thank heavens, he thinks, that I keep my hair cut short, number-one buzz cut. Torchlight blazes like sunlight into his eyes. He blinks, dazed. The torchlight becomes beautiful, like a star fallen to earth, surrounded by a corona.

  "Welcome to Siem Reap Hilton,” someone says in accented English.

  Luc squints, dazzled by the light. Don't look at their faces! He turns his head away and sees the General's bloodhound face—heavy and crumpled, with dark, wounded eyes.

  The same barking, exuberant voice says, “Hey, General, you must have thought everything was going the way you like it. Welcome back! Make yourself at home here in the hotel. We have everything! Food, water, a comfortable bed. Guns."

  The General stares heavily and says nothing.

  They're showing us their faces; they don't care if we see them. That's bad. Before he can stop himself, Luc looks up, eyes now adjusted to the light. He sees the face of an older Cambodian man. Luc's eyes dart away, but not before he realizes that he knows the face. From where?

  The older man berates him in English. “Barang. Welcome to the real Cambodia. Lots of mosquitoes. No air-conditioning. Real Cambodian cuisine."

  Unceremoniously, a whole burnt fish, small and bony, is pushed into his mouth.

  The man has a competent face, the face of an old, tough businessman. He looks like he runs a shoe factory. He's wearing half-moon spectacles and Luc tries to remember where he has seen those before. The eyes are wide, merry, glistening, yellow splotched with red. The teeth are brown and broken, framed in a wild smile. It's not a face I've seen smiling. That is why I cannot place it.

  Luc feels sadness for the world. This is a world of roses, forests, rivers, and wild animals. It is a world of mothers and children and milk. How do we get so wild-eyed, so anguished, and so cruel?

  Luc, you are already a dead man.

  "Chew it, barang, the fire's burnt all the bones. They break up in your mouth. It's more than we have to eat most nights. It's New Year. A celebration."

  The old man switches to Khmer. “You too, General. Without us, you wouldn't have a job to do. Eat!"

  A head appears through the trapdoor and warns, “Lights!"

  The smile drops and the face settles into its usual immobility. It looks numb; the mouth swells as if novocained. The staring, round eyes are encircled by flesh. Fish Face, Luc thinks.

  Fish Face says, “Ah, make a lot of noise, wave the fish at them, wish them Happy New Year."

  With
the smile gone, Luc recognizes who it is.

  "If they don't go away, shoot them!” Fish Face jabs a casual thumb in Luc's direction. Then he sniffs and pushes the tape back over their mouths. Luc needs to spit out the bones and can't. He can't swallow either. The bones and half-chewed fish plug his mouth.

  Fish Face wrenches himself round on his haunches and as if levitating shoots up and out through the trapdoor.

  Luc remembers the farmer in whose fields they found the Book.

  Luc tries to remember everything Map had told him about the man. He had been Map's CO for a while.

  They are in the hands of ex-Khmers Rouges.

  Luc hears the chortling of an engine. Fish Face seems to be going. So what's he done with the Book?

  That damned Book. I should have left it with the army and walked away. Even if it was stolen, melted down and lost forever, I should have made sure that it was the army who carried the Kraing Meas.

  Instead, you made sure that you did. From now on, Luc, the Book is number two. You have to be number one.

  I wish I had a god that I could pray to. I wish I believed in miracles, or had enough faith to find comfort in eternity. Hell. I want my mother.

  My trousers are full of shit, I need a drink of water and my mouth is taped shut. I need to wash, I need a friend nearby, I need more courage than I have.

  The only thing you can do, Luc, is regard this as an opportunity.

  Luc decides to listen to the birds. They flute and warble as dawn approaches.

  Birds and lapping water, so many things, are beyond the reach of guns.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  April 1147

  Jayarajadevi read books.

  This might be harmless. The girl would sit cross-legged on cushions, as perfectly poised as a long-necked samsoan marsh bird.

  There was nothing idle about her reading. She clicked the palm leaves over as regularly as an artisan weaving cloth. Indeed, some people said: she reads like a man. She thinks if she reads she will grow a beard and become a Brahmin.