The King's Last Song

by Geoff Ryman

  His wife took his hand. “They sound like exceptional people."

  The tears came again. “They were. And I hardly knew them."

  She made him look at her. “We will make a new family,” she promised. “We will people that family with children who will honor and respect you. We will build a house of our own, a great house where all our families can come home."

  "And I will learn about the Buddha. My family were Buddhists. Did you know that?"

  She smiled. “Everyone knows that, Nia.” She shook her head. “That is why we were matched."

  The Prince bounced up and down. “Well. We will build a Buddhist capital! We will make a city of compassion.” Jayavarman, Victory Shield, clenched his fist. “We will make a precious jewel of a kingdom and keep it safe from thieves and hold it up as a shining star to light the rest of the world!"

  His wife, his queen, draped herself across him. “Yes, my Lord, yes,” she said. There was a sensation as if they had mounted on the back of a swan. Their world was winging.

  Then Jayavarman went away to war.

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  April 14, 2004

  The hatch clunks open.

  Luc feels sweet air move on his cheek. He smells sun-baked wood, muddy water, and reeds. Something in that smell tells him it's early morning and he imagines open blue sky and the expanse of the Great Lake.

  The boys on the deck grunt. “Ugh! It smells like a pigpen. You. Out here to wash."

  Wash! The only thing Luc wants to do now is wash; dust and sweat coat him like a layer of latex. Luc tries to sit up and bashes his forehead on the low ceiling. He inches his way foreward on his buttocks. He hears the General being seized by his ankles and hauled backwards across the shallow hull.

  No thanks. Luc rolls over onto his hands and knees, and backs his way towards the hatch. He hates not being able to see anything. The joists press into his shins.

  Hands grab his arms and pull him up the hatch, peeling off skin from his elbows and ankles.

  But the air is as sweet as spun sugar, and the sunlight as warm as a mother's touch. The bungee cords around his wrists are unsprung. He can move! He hears the tape being torn away from the General's face and then the plunge when the other man jumps off the boat. The thought of cool, cleansing water makes Luc chuckle with anticipation.

  Then a boy shouts. “He's gone under. There! There! There!” Terrifyingly close to Luc's ear, gunfire slams out towards the reeds. Feet thud on the deck and the water parts with a puff-whoosh as someone dives.

  The General is trying to escape.

  Luc reacts like a child. I won't get my wash, he thinks. He wants to cry from disappointment. He imagines the General diving under the thick layer of floating plants and slipping away through the reeds. He imagines himself left alone with the kidnappers. Despair comes instantly.

  Then a thumping on the deck and a streaming of water. “Get back up here you old roostershit! Move!"

  And despite himself, Luc feels relief, a certain warmth around the heart. He will not be left alone.

  Something is heaved onto the deck. The General starts to call out but two quick snaps of gunfire cut him off and he keens like a seagull.

  They've shot him. The General yelps and squeals as he's hauled across the deck. The boat's tiny engine begins to throb and gurgle.

  The boys shout, “Get in! Get in!” The boat moves and turns. Cold wet hands grab Luc and push.

  "I'm going, I'm going!” Luc grunts through the tape. He stumbles down through the hatch and the boys club his head with the butt of a rifle or pistol, to beat him down into the hull. He ducks and dives, slamming his forehead.

  The boys clamber down after him and cram him up against the General. The General's cold skin twitches and he makes a thin continuous wheedling sound, fighting pain. Tape is ripped around him; he howls in agony as someone lifts his legs, presumably to bungee them together.

  The boys leave the General tossing back and forth like a child trying to rock himself to sleep.

  The hatch closes. The boat drones on for hours.

  * * * *

  William pulls up at the Phimeanakas at 8:00 a.m. and finds the forecourt crammed with foreigners he doesn't know.

  They are climbing into the back of the dig's pickup truck. “They say the airport is open again,” says an Australian tourist.

  "What has happened?” William shouts to him.

  "They say one of the archaeologists who is staying here has been kidnapped.” The man's mouth sours into an odd mix of the fearful and the exhilarated. “We're heading out."

  William tries to find the team's Cambodian director. Prak the security guard stops him, a hand planted on his chest. William is only a motoboy and not allowed even into the forecourt of the Phimeanakas.

  Normally Prak has a sweet temper, but not today. He glowers and his breath smells of beer. “Wait outside. If your friends are here they will come out for you."

  "What's happened? Who was kidnapped?” William asks.

  "I don't know,” says Prak and stomps away.

  If all the tourists leave, there will be no money. No money for anybody.

  One of the other motoboys eyes William. William thinks of himself as a businessman. He lays claim to the patch outside the Phimeanakas. He pays a commission to Mrs. Bou—and all the other Phimeanakas motoboys pay him.

  This is Mons. Mons is older than William and doesn't like paying him money or being trapped as a motoboy. He pretends to be friendly, but everything he says has hidden teeth.

  "So you have no more UN friends,” says Mons.

  "Neither have you."

  "Oh, I have plenty of business today. I drive people to the airport."

  "Do you know who got kidnapped?"

  "It is a terrible thing. Grandfather Frenchman. Your mentor!” Mons looks glum but he says it loudly, for everyone to hear. The other motoboys look sullen and confused.

  "You can drive a tourist back to the airport only once,” William replies in a quiet voice. “And when all the other tourists stay away, you'll see. This is bad for you too."

  The other motoboys hang their heads.

  William turns to the foreigners, smiles, takes off his baseball cap, dips and bows. He tries his Japanese on some Asian tourists and gets business. He's unsure about some of the Europeans. He tries German; they turn out to be Italian, but they understand “Five dollars, five dollars to airport."

  "I have suitcases,” says a man in strange English. William organizes two motorcycles for him, ten dollars, but it's still cheaper than a taxi. “I'm sorry,” William says. “Today taxis will be hard to find."

  The man nods and smiles, grateful for anything. He's from Iran. William gets his name and asks about the government. “Is the religion Islam?” he asks.

  He gets business for all the motoboys and pointedly leaves Mons until last.

  Luc, he thinks. Of all the people they could have done this to. Those idiots! The foreigners bring money, they come here to help us! Why are they doing this? What will it do to Cambodia?

  The US special quota for garments will end soon. The garment industry brings 250,000 jobs and when it goes, what will replace it? All we have is tourism!

  William feels the trickle of dreams washing away. I won't get my new bike. I won't be able to help aunty buy her new house. The land we were hoping to sell for development—twelve thousand dollars we were told we would get for it—maybe that won't sell. I won't have the UN archaeologists to talk to, to find out about things.

  He remembers one of Luc's students insisting to Mrs. Bou that William was a colleague, not a motoboy. He got William inside the pink marble dining room of the Phimeanakas and up the stairs into the social area. It was large enough to unfold huge photographs of Angkor taken from airplanes.

  One photograph covered seven hundred square kilometres. It used a kind of radar to penetrate the ground one dot at a time, and a computer joined up the dots. The signals had bounced off a satellite in space. Luc's
student explained geosynchronous orbits to him. William's head jerked back with shock and pleasure. What a wonderful idea.

  The machine is always falling, but the ground falls away at the same pace. So it always stays above the same spot of ground.

  Who would do things like that for him now?

  Luc had bought him a mobile phone. He simply passed it to him one day outside the guesthouse. “This is so we can telephone you whenever we need you."

  William had stood in silence, stroking the phone. He didn't want to show strong emotion. He was embarrassed, and fearful of doing something unseemly like crying.

  A mobile telephone made him part of the world. His friends could telephone from Japan, from Australia, and say, William, we are coming, please organize a trip. William, we are at the airport, can you come and fetch us?

  William was silent for so long, wary of speaking, that Luc had become worried that he'd done something wrong. “I've paid for the sim card and for fifty dollars’ worth of calls. But you'll have to show up with your family ID card to collect them."

  Finally William had something neutral to say. “I know the people in the shop.” He coughed and still did not dare look at Grandfather Luc. He was horribly aware that he had said nothing polite, not a word of thanks. The beautiful numbers were illuminated from within.

  Nobody had ever done such a thing for him before. Not unasked, not something so perfect for William. Luc must have known it was perfect for him without having to be told.

  William coughed again, trying to find words. Finally he'd said, still not looking up. “This is a very good action. This is a thing that is full of merit."

  Then he was able to look up and bow and sompiah respect and thanks. “Luc, I am so lucky that you are my friend. I tell my aunt about you. She says you must be a very good man. I am so unhappy whenever you go away."

  Unmanned, he had to thumb water out of his eyes.

  Those tears well up again now. What they have stolen from me, what they have taken from Cambodia! Do they even realize?

  Sangha, the Cambodian dig director, stands in front of him. He doesn't greet him with the usual, “Are you happy?” He is looking directly into William's sad eyes and sees what is there: grief.

  William sompiahs in forlorn respect. Sangha's face goes solemn, his words kindly and formal. “The dig has been closed, William. All the foreigners are going. I telephoned Geneva and they say to use any money to help APSARA with the investigation."

  Sangha has a meeting and needs William to drive. William feels better; at least he has work for today.

  They go along the river, past the repainted Wat, the Grand Hotel, and the new Foreign Correspondents Club, its white marble luxury now closed. The road narrows. Along the bank, the houses of poor people stand out over the water on stilts. People had been saying no more poor people will live in Siem Reap soon, only rich people and hotels. What will happen now?

  APSARA HQ is an old villa behind walled gates, with offices upstairs and a simple meeting room downstairs. Sangha gets off his bike, and William says, “Please, Loak Dik Sangha. May I go to the meeting too? Teacher Luc is my mentor, he did so much to help me, I want to help him."

  Motoboys don't go into villas and attend meetings. They wait outside. Guards in three different kinds of uniform—blue, brown, and green—eye them. Sangha says kindly, “I will tell you everything that happens, William. Don't worry, you have a contract with us, I'm sure there will still be work for you to do."

  That's not what I meant; that's not why I'm worried.

  Sangha smiles and nods and walks off to the meeting.

  I am smart; I could do much more to help than you think.

  William approaches the guards, offers them cigarettes and asks them all kinds of questions. How was the Book taken? Has anybody written or telephoned to make demands or say why they did such a thing?

  "There were shots this morning, out on the Lake,” says one of the guards. “Two. One for each of them."

  Luc could already be dead. William cannot stop himself spinning on his heel. “When?"

  "Very early this morning. So the Lake Police are helping too, looking at all the boats."

  The army had roadblocks on all roads, with APSARA's agreement. Within a forty-square-mile area, the investigation was the responsibility of APSARA and therefore of the Patrimony Police who worked for them. Outside the Angkor precinct, federal, provincial, lakeside, and tourist police forces were involved.

  The guards tell him all the details. Two stolen pickup trucks were found with blood in the back. Their legal owners spent a bad night locked up in tourist police cells. “Oh well, at least they had a view of the Grand Hotel!” The guards are relaxed enough now to joke with him.

  William waits for four hours, plans for action itching inside him. Sangha finally comes out, looking pleased and amused.

  "We've got a job for you, William,” he says. His smile is crooked. “I don't know if you'll like it."

  "I will do anything I can to help,” William says, slightly dismayed at the picture Sangha has of him, even now, after all the times they have spoken together, all the intelligent questions William has asked.

  Sangha looks at him with pity. “I'm afraid you are going to be Sergeant Tan Map's driver."

  William does not miss a beat. “Excellent,” he says.

  * * * *

  The boat passes a succession of radios playing Vietnamese music.

  Finally it shushes to a halt. They wait.

  The stench in the hull is terrible. Luc imagines the filthy water getting into the General's wounds. Vutthy writhes continually, lost to the world, occupied by pain.

  There's no one else now, Luc. You are responsible for both yourself and the General. If either of you is to survive, it is down to you.

  Luc has read somewhere that you survive kidnapping by building alliances with your captors. By talking with them. His mouth is taped. He's unshaven and stinking; he must look like a vagabond. Already, so easy to kill.

  The General starts to thump his head against the wall from pain.

  Luc tries to mew sympathy at him through the tape.

  The General makes a sudden, angry gurgling in his throat. Everything is irrelevant except the agony in his legs.

  Luc has never considered himself to be a wise person, but he has a certain kind of faith in people that he attributes to his mother.

  At a time when it was not so easy for a woman without a husband, his mother had supported them by herself. She had not told Luc who his father was, but he understood well enough. His father was an important man, who would never be part of their lives, someone very high up. Luc never dared to speculate who, but he did note that whenever the President of the Republic was on the TV news, his mother walked briskly out of the room.

  They lived well away from France and any potential scandal. His mother coped with living in a foreign country, working as liaison for the Royal Cambodian Ballet. In practice the job meant liaison with France and sometimes Russia. She had taken the company to perform in Moscow and Japan.

  Once she told her son, when he was suffering one of his bouts of adolescent angst, “You have a quality of listening, Luc. That is good. Because how you listen to people is exactly how they listen to you."

  So how, Mama, do I listen to Fish Face?

  He imagines a reply in her tone of voice.

  Well, perhaps you start by NOT calling him Fish Face. I don't suppose you have a name for him? No. Well, I would call him by the name of someone you like. Try to listen to him as if he were that person.

  Nobody I like points a gun in my face.

  Exactly. If he likes you perhaps he won't either. I know you like a lot of people, and they are often people who don't like you. It is your most endearing trait, Luc; really, it is most touching sometimes. I would suggest that in these crucial circumstances you ensure that the person concerned also liked you.

  He imagines her cool, reassuring voice; her rugged, slightly rueful smile of amusement
and acceptance. Already things seem easier to bear.

  I'll pretend he's Arn.

  I can't help you choose, that is for you to do. Is Arn dead? Don't surround yourself with the Dead. You might find it too easy to join them.

  She means herself. She is dead too.

  She seems to lean closer. He sees her with her 1966 hair teased high, her jet-age eye makeup, and her arts-administration directness.

  You have more chance of survival if you refuse to accept even the possibility of death. You....will....live.

  I will live.

  Another boat shushes to a halt next to them. Luc hears Fish Face's barking voice. Don't think of him as Fish Face. He's Arn.

  That's Arn's voice, grim with anger but not harsh, not yelling. Arn is angry with the boys for shooting someone. And perhaps for coming to a place where there are people.

  The boat rocks as he steps onto it. The engine coughs to life again and they begin to move.

  More hours in the heat and the dark. Sealed in tape, Vutthy is sobbing.

  Finally the boat stops, one hour, two hours later. The hatch at last is opened and sweet air pours into the hull.

  The old man says, “This is not bearable, we can't stay on this boat with this stench. Untie the barang, and bring him out here."

  Luc tells himself: this is Arn, helping me. The cords spring free again. Luc lifts his knees and is immediately disabled by cramps running up his calves, deep into the muscles of his thighs. He groans.

  The tape is peeled away again from his head. His cheeks stink from having been sealed for a day.

  Luc flounders his way like a walrus along the floor and grasps the edge of the hatch. The boy's voices are clenched as if they are going to be sick. They don't want to touch him. He pulls himself up and it's sunset, a beautiful sunset, wonderful blue-grey clouds on fire along the edges. The satin-surfaced water reflects it. Everything is cooler, grey, gold, and blue. On the very tip of a reed, a tiny bird bobs.