Pol Pot's Beautiful Daughter

by Geoff Ryman

  I am not your daughter!

  If you were false, I have to be true.

  Her old house looked abandoned in the stark afternoon light, closed and innocent. At the doorstep she turned and thrust a fistful of dollars into the motoboy's hand. She couldn't think straight; she couldn't even see straight, her vision blurred.

  Back inside, she calmly put down her teddy-bear rucksack and walked upstairs to her office. Aido the robot dog whirred his way toward her. She had broken his back leg kicking him downstairs. He limped, whimpering like a dog, and lowered his head to have it stroked.

  To her relief, there was only one picture waiting for her in the tray of the printer.

  Kol Vireakboth looked out at her, middle-aged, handsome, worn, wise. Pity and kindness glowed in his eyes.

  The land line began to ring.

  "Youl prom,” she told the ghosts. Agreed.

  She picked up the receiver and waited.

  A man spoke. “My name was Yin Bora.” His voice bubbled up brokenly as if from underwater.

  A light blinked in the printer. A photograph slid out quickly. A young student stared out at her looking happy at a family feast. He had a Beatle haircut and a striped shirt.

  "That's me,” said the voice on the phone. “I played football."

  Sith coughed. “What do you want me to do?"

  "Write my name,” said the ghost.

  "Please hold the line,” said Sith, in a hypnotized voice. She fumbled for a pen, and then wrote on the photograph Yin Bora, footballer. He looked so sweet and happy. “You have no one to mourn you,” she realized.

  "None of us have anyone left alive to mourn us,” said the ghost.

  Then there was a terrible sound down the telephone, as if a thousand voices moaned at once.

  Sith involuntarily dropped the receiver into place. She listened to her heart thump and thought about what was needed. She fed the printer with the last of her paper. Immediately it began to roll out more photos, and the land line rang again.

  She went outside and found the motoboy, waiting patiently for her. She asked him to go and buy two reams of copying paper. At the last moment she added pens and writing paper and matches. He bowed and smiled and bowed again, pleased to have found a patron.

  She went back inside, and with just a tremor in her hand picked up the phone.

  For the next half hour, she talked to the dead, and found photographs and wrote down names. A woman mourned her children. Sith found photos of them all, and united them, father, mother, three children, uncles, aunts, cousins and grandparents, taping their pictures to her wall. The idea of uniting families appealed. She began to stick the other photos onto her wall.

  Someone called from outside and there on her doorstep was the motoboy, balancing paper and pens. “I bought you some soup.” The broth came in neatly tied bags and was full of rice and prawns. She thanked him and paid him well and he beamed at her and bowed again and again.

  All afternoon, the pictures kept coming. Darkness fell, the phone rang, the names were written, until Sith's hand, which was unused to writing anything, ached.

  The doorbell rang, and on the doorstep, the motoboy sompiahed. “Excuse me, Lady, it is very late. I am worried for you. Can I get you dinner?"

  Sith had to smile. He sounded motherly in his concern. They are so good at building a relationship with you, until you cannot do without them. In the old days she would have sent him away with a few rude words. Now she sent him away with an order.

  And wrote.

  And when he came back, the aged motoboy looked so happy. “I bought you fruit as well, Lady,” he said, and added, shyly. “You do not need to pay me for that."

  Something seemed to bump under Sith, as if she was on a motorcycle, and she heard herself say, “Come inside. Have some food too."

  The motoboy sompiahed in gratitude and as soon as he entered, the phone stopped ringing.

  They sat on the floor. He arched his neck and looked around at the walls.

  "Are all these people your family?” he asked.

  She whispered. “No. They're ghosts who no one mourns."

  "Why do they come to you?” His mouth fell open in wonder.

  "Because my father was Pol Pot,” said Sith, without thinking.

  The motoboy sompiahed. “Ah.” He chewed and swallowed and arched his head back again. “That must be a terrible thing. Everybody hates you."

  Sith had noticed that wherever she sat in the room, the eyes in the photographs were directly on her. “I haven't done anything,” said Sith.

  "You're doing something now,” said the motoboy. He nodded and stood up, sighing with satisfaction. Life was good with a full stomach and a patron. “If you need me, Lady, I will be outside."

  Photo after photo, name after name.

  Youk Achariya: touring dancer

  Proeung Chhay: school superintendent

  Sar Kothida child, aged 7, died of ‘swelling disease'

  Sar Makara, her mother, nurse

  Nath Mittapheap, civil servant, from family of farmers

  Chor Monirath: wife of award-winning engineer

  Yin Sokunthea: Khmer Rouge commune leader

  She looked at the faces and realized. Dara, I'm doing this for Dara.

  The City around her went quiet and she became aware that it was now very late indeed. Perhaps she should just make sure the motoboy had gone home.

  He was still waiting outside.

  "It's okay. You can go home. Where do you live?"

  He waved cheerfully north. “Oh, on Monivong, like you.” He grinned at the absurdity of the comparison.

  A new idea took sudden form. Sith said, “Tomorrow, can you come early, with a big feast? Fish and rice and greens and pork: curries and stir-fries and kebabs.” She paid him handsomely, and finally asked him his name. His name meant Golden.

  "Good night, Sovann."

  For the rest of the night she worked quickly like an answering service. This is like a cleaning of the house before a festival, she thought. The voices of the dead became ordinary, familiar. Why are people afraid of the dead? The dead can't hurt you. The dead want what you want: justice.

  The wall of faces became a staircase and a garage and a kitchen of faces, all named. She had found Jorani's colored yarn, and linked family members into trees.

  She wrote until the electric lights looked discolored, like a headache. She asked the ghosts, “Please can I sleep now?” The phones fell silent and Sith slumped with relief onto the polished marble floor.

  She woke up dazed, still on the marble floor. Sunlight flooded the room. The faces in the photographs no longer looked swollen and bruised. Their faces were not accusing or mournful. They smiled down on her. She was among friends.

  With a whine, the printer started to print; the phone started to ring. Her doorbell chimed, and there was Sovann, white cardboard boxes piled up on the back of his motorcycle. He wore the same shirt as yesterday, a cheap blue copy of a Lacoste. A seam had parted under the arm. He only has one shirt, Sith realized. She imagined him washing it in a basin every night.

  Sith and Sovann moved the big tables to the front windows. Sith took out her expensive tablecloths for the first time, and the bronze platters. The feast was laid out as if at New Year. Sovann had bought more paper and pens. He knew what they were for. “I can help, Lady."

  He was old enough to have lived in a country with schools, and he could write in a beautiful, old-fashioned hand. Together he and Sith spelled out the names of the dead and burned them.

  "I want to write the names of my family too,” he said. He burnt them weeping.

  The delicious vapors rose. The air was full of the sound of breathing in. Loose papers stirred with the breeze. The ash filled the basins, but even after working all day, Sith and the motoboy had only honored half the names.

  "Good night, Sovann,” she told him.

  "You have transferred a lot of merit,” said Sovann, but only to be polite.

  If I have any m
erit to transfer, thought Sith.

  He left and the printers started, and the phone. She worked all night, and only stopped because the second ream of paper ran out.

  The last picture printed was of Kol Vireakboth.

  Dara, she promised herself. Dara next.

  In the morning, she called him. “Can we meet at lunchtime for another walk by the river?"

  Sith waited on top of the marble wall and watched an old man fish in the Tonl Sap river and found that she loved her country. She loved its tough, smiling, uncomplaining people, who had never offered her harm, after all the harm her family had done them. Do you know you have the daughter of the monster sitting here among you?

  Suddenly all Sith wanted was to be one of them. The monks in the pavilion, the white-shirted functionaries scurrying somewhere, the lazy bones dangling their legs, the young men who dress like American rappers and sold something dubious, drugs, or sex.

  She saw Dara sauntering toward her. He wore his new shirt, and smiled at her but he didn't look relaxed. It had been two days since they'd met. He knew something was wrong, that she had something to tell him. He had bought them lunch in a little cardboard box. Maybe for the last time, thought Sith.

  They exchanged greetings, almost like cousins. He sat next to her and smiled and Sith giggled in terror at what she was about to do.

  Dara asked, “What's funny?"

  She couldn't stop giggling. “Nothing is funny. Nothing.” She sighed in order to stop and terror tickled her and she spurted out laughter again. “I lied to you. Kol Vireakboth is not my father. Another politician was my father. Someone you've heard of…"

  The whole thing was so terrifying and absurd that the laughter squeezed her like a fist and she couldn't talk. She laughed and wept at the same time. Dara stared.

  "My father was Saloth Sar. That was his real name.” She couldn't make herself say it. She could tell a motoboy, but not Dara? She forced herself onward. “My father was Pol Pot."

  Nothing happened.

  Sitting next to her, Dara went completely still. People strolled past; boats bobbed on their moorings.

  After a time Dara said, “I know what you are doing."

  That didn't make sense. “Doing? What do you mean?"

  Dara looked sour and angry. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.” He sat, looking away from her. Sith's laughter had finally shuddered to a halt. She sat peering at him, waiting. “I told you my family were modest,” he said quietly.

  "Your family are lovely!” Sith exclaimed.

  His jaw thrust out. “They had questions about you too, you know."

  "I don't understand."

  He rolled his eyes. He looked back ‘round at her. “There are easier ways to break up with someone."

  He jerked himself to his feet and strode away with swift determination, leaving her sitting on the wall.

  Here on the riverfront, everyone was equal. The teenage boys lounged on the wall; poor mothers herded children; the foreigners walked briskly, trying to look as if they didn't carry moneybelts. Three fat teenage girls nearly swerved into a cripple in a pedal chair and collapsed against each other with raucous laughter.

  Sith did not know what to do. She could not move. Despair humbled her, made her hang her head.

  I've lost him.

  The sunlight seemed to settle next to her, washing up from its reflection on the wake of some passing boat.

  No you haven't.

  The river water smelled of kindly concern. The sounds of traffic throbbed with forbearance.

  Not yet.

  There is no forgiveness in Cambodia. But there are continual miracles of compassion and acceptance.

  Sith appreciated for just a moment the miracles. The motoboy buying her soup. She decided to trust herself to the miracles.

  Sith talked to the sunlight without making a sound. Grandfather Vireakboth. Thank you. You have told me all I need to know.

  Sith stood up and from nowhere, the motoboy was there. He drove her to the Hello Phone shop.

  Dara would not look at her. He bustled back and forth behind the counter, though there was nothing for him to do. Sith talked to him like a customer. “I want to buy a mobile phone,” she said, but he would not answer. “There is someone I need to talk to."

  Another customer came in. She was a beautiful daughter too, and he served her, making a great show of being polite. He complimented her on her appearance. “Really, you look cool.” The girl looked pleased. Dara's eyes darted in Sith's direction.

  Sith waited in the chair. This was home for her now. Dara ignored her. She picked up her phone and dialed his number. He put it to his ear and said, “Go home."

  "You are my home,” she said.

  His thumb jabbed the C button.

  She waited. Shadows lengthened.

  "We're closing,” he said, standing by the door without looking at her.

  Shamefaced, Sith ducked away from him, through the door.

  Outside Soriya, the motoboy played dice with his fellows. He stood up. “They say I am very lucky to have Pol Pot's daughter as a client."

  There was no discretion in Cambodia, either. Everyone will know now, Sith realized.

  At home, the piles of printed paper still waited for her. Sith ate the old, cold food. It tasted flat, all its savor sucked away. The phones began to ring. She fell asleep with the receiver propped against her ear.

  The next day, Sith went back to Soriya with a box of the printed papers.

  She dropped the box onto the blue plastic counter of Hello Phones.

  "Because I am Pol Pot's daughter,” she told Dara, holding out a sheaf of pictures toward him. “All the unmourned victims of my father are printing their pictures on my printer. Here. Look. These are the pictures of people who lost so many loved ones there is no one to remember them."

  She found her cheeks were shaking and that she could not hold the sheaf of paper. It tumbled from her hands, but she stood back, arms folded.

  Dara, quiet and solemn, knelt and picked up the papers. He looked at some of the faces. Sith pushed a softly crumpled green card at him. Her family ID card.

  He read it. Carefully, with the greatest respect, he put the photographs on the countertop along with the ID card.

  "Go home, Sith,” he said, but not unkindly.

  "I said,” she had begun to speak with vehemence but could not continue. “I told you. My home is where you are."

  "I believe you,” he said, looking at his feet.

  "Then…” Sith had no words.

  "It can never be, Sith,” he said. He gathered up the sheaf of photocopying paper. “What will you do with these?"

  Something made her say, “What will you do with them?"

  His face was crossed with puzzlement.

  "It's your country too. What will you do with them? Oh, I know, you're such a poor boy from a poor family, who could expect anything from you? Well, you have your whole family and many people have no one. And you can buy new shirts and some people only have one."

  Dara held out both hands and laughed. “Sith?” You, Sith are accusing me of being selfish?

  "You own them too.” Sith pointed to the papers, to the faces. “You think the dead don't try to talk to you, too?"

  Their eyes latched. She told him what he could do. “I think you should make an exhibition. I think Hello Phones should sponsor it. You tell them that. You tell them Pol Pot's daughter wishes to make amends and has chosen them. Tell them the dead speak to me on their mobile phones."

  She spun on her heel and walked out. She left the photographs with him.

  That night she and the motoboy had another feast and burned the last of the unmourned names. There were many thousands.

  The next day she went back to Hello Phones.

  "I lied about something else,” she told Dara. She took out all the reports from the fortunetellers. She told him what Hun Sen's fortuneteller had told her. “The marriage is particularly well favored."

  "Is that true?” He look
ed wistful.

  "You should not believe anything I say. Not until I have earned your trust. Go consult the fortunetellers for yourself. This time you pay."

  His face went still and his eyes focused somewhere far beneath the floor. Then he looked up, directly into her eyes. “I will do that."

  For the first time in her life Sith wanted to laugh for something other than fear. She wanted to laugh for joy.

  "Can we go to lunch at Lucky7?” she asked.

  "Sure,” he said.

  All the telephones in the shop, all of them, hundreds all at once began to sing.

  A waterfall of trills and warbles and buzzes, snatches of old songs or latest chart hits. Dara stood dumbfounded. Finally he picked one up and held it to his ear.

  "It's for you,” he said and held out the phone for her.

  There was no name or number on the screen.

  Congratulations, dear daughter, said a warm kind voice.

  "Who is this?” Sith asked. The options were severely limited.

  Your new father, said Kol Vireakboth. The sound of wind. I adopt you.

  A thousand thousand voices said at once, We adopt you.

  * * * *

  In Cambodia, you share your house with ghosts in the way you share it with dust. You hear the dead shuffling alongside your own footsteps. You can sweep, but the sound does not go away.

  On the Tra Bek end of Monivong there is a house whose owner has given it over to ghosts. You can try to close the front door. But the next day you will find it hanging open. Indeed you can try, as the neighbors did, to nail the door shut. It opens again.

  By day, there is always a queue of five or six people wanting to go in, or hanging back, out of fear. Outside are offerings of lotus or coconuts with embedded josh sticks.

  The walls and floors and ceilings are covered with photographs. The salon, the kitchen, the stairs, the office, the empty bedrooms, are covered with photographs of Chinese-Khmers at weddings, Khmer civil servants on picnics, Chams outside their mosques, Vietnamese holding up prize catches of fish; little boys going to school in shorts; cyclopousse drivers in front of their odd, old-fashioned pedaled vehicles; wives in stalls stirring soup. All of them are happy and joyful, and the background is Phnom Penh when it was the most beautiful city in Southeast Asia.