Song for an Approaching Storm

by Peter Froeberg Idling

  Undeniably.

  (Their smiles melt together.)

  The prince continues:

  “Did you notice the simple way they changed scenes with just a tiny little alteration in the positioning of the camera? I’ll borrow that for that… hmm… a little divertissement I’ve started filming. You probably didn’t notice it, but it was very neatly done.”

  He puts on an appreciative expression and thinks that the one thing that is lacking among the prince’s many talents is the ability to recognize where his talents end.

  He is not a connoisseur of film. But since the prince doesn’t lack resources (ultra-modern equipment, for instance), the reason for the feebleness and obvious amateurism that characterize the prince’s melodramas has to be sought elsewhere.

  How to explain it? Sary thinks that the prince is an example of the mystery of genius. To be more specific: what is the elusive artistic quality that explains why two painters of identical technical skill can paint the same person, and in one portrait the subject appears to come to life, whereas in the other (which is just as accurate a depiction) the subject remains flat and lifeless?

  (Watching (as he is now) films/listening to speeches in the National Assembly/observing the ocean from the deck of a ship/etcetera often inspires Sary to this sort of philosophizing.)

  Another example (of the same mystery): the fantastic photographs taken by his former driver Meta. Meta had never learnt photography professionally, his ability was obviously inborn. But the most banal situations looked like carefully constructed art in the pictures that Meta took. They became sort of representative rather than merely representational. (His own pictures, which had occasionally been taken on the same Duaflex film roll as Meta’s photographs, completely lacked that superior quality.)

  But, unlike the prince, he realizes that he lacks the talent, that he does not possess that elusive ability to perform magic.

  The prince’s lack of self-knowledge, his flagrant overestimate of his own abilities, is a daily (nightly in the present case) source of irritation. (The big brother syndrome again.) He has frequently considered explaining to the prince that filmmaking is an utter waste of time. But (the big brother syndrome again) it gives the prince so much pleasure, and his genuine, almost childish enthusiasm is touching. (And the prince does deserve some respite from all his many duties.)

  So he has let the issue rest.

  And (it has to be admitted) it is pleasant to be fetched to the palace in the evening, where there are comfortable armchairs in the private cinema and wine and very often female company. (What did she say her name was, the one along there?) It is, moreover, in the context of these film shows that the prince can be at his most visionary, and the two of them can draw up plans that don’t just deal with the trivia of the day but which extend out to the decades to come. According to the plans: the 1960s will concentrate on the further modernization of society, the extension of the infrastructure, the education system and other basic essentials. This foundational work will begin to generate its own values in time for the ’70s, and by the ’80s we shall be moving into the era of full bloom. With just a little luck, both of them will survive into the new millennium, and he likes (really likes) the image of the two of them, both bent low by age, welcoming the new millennium on a roof terrace high above the international metropolis they created together. The flash of exploding fireworks as dim-eyed (and in silence) he and the prince clink their glasses to the conclusion of their (joint) life’s work. The expression recently coined by the newspapers—Le tandem Sihanouk–Sary—will by that stage have become an informal institution. A concept that will be considered so self-evident that it will be the chapter heading in history books.

  Unfortunately, however, the prince’s self-belief does not restrict itself to the making of hopeless films. On the one hand, the prince is quite incomparable when it comes to seeing the talents of others and allowing them considerable freedom (Sary finds this impressive): it creates breathtaking dynamism in the powerful but informal circle with which the prince surrounds himself. On the other hand, individuals can be left with problems far beyond their power to solve. If they do succeed the prince is not slow to take the credit, but if they fail the failure is theirs and theirs alone. Sary, in fact, has no objection to that method as such. When all is said and done the prince is leader of the country. It is necessary to consolidate his legitimacy on a daily basis and, in the end, any progress is a result of the prince’s overall policies. But—and on this point he feels at a complete loss—it seems to him that the prince has begun to believe in his own corrected version of developments. (A sort of sense of infallibility.) And (this is what makes the problem both personal and acute) the absolute honesty he has always shown to his friend and monarch and which the prince has expressly valued in a court full of yes-men, that honesty… well… has not been so welcome of late.

  But, he tries to convince himself (with little hope of success), perhaps it’s the parliamentary election? Uncertainty? But surely it’s at times like these that honesty is most vital?

  The honesty between him and Em offers a prime example. There are, of course, things he doesn’t broach with her. (The most confidential affairs of state—and ditto those of sex.) But if she asks, he always answers honestly. A relationship illuminated by such an unsentimental light of honesty, he thinks, is not likely to start festering in the damp and darkness that surrounds things that are concealed, things that are hidden. And she in her turn is almost brutal in her honesty. He sometimes thinks that she carries it to extremes, using it as a weapon in the never-ending battle that is the relationship between two strong-willed people. Not that she needs to. But she finds the emotional and intellectual combat between them stimulating in itself. More often than not, as he is the first to admit, she has the upper hand.

  He turns his mind back to the new house they are going to build to their own design. The planning of it may perhaps be said to provide him with the same kind of relaxation as filmmaking provides for the prince (with the difference that it doesn’t burden the national budget). And, he thinks acidly, the result will be something that people will be able to talk about with admiration. She has already shown him her ideas for furnishing the various rooms. Tastefully. Ingeniously. Yet another of her many enviable talents. He looks forward one day to inviting the prince to their new home. He knows from Em’s sketches that it will make an impression on the prince (who is himself devoted to composing the furnishing of the rooms in the palace). He can see how the prince will surreptitiously take note of the sensuously entwined initials S and E on the Limoges porcelain Em has commissioned. And how the different varieties of wood contrast subtly with one another. And the alternating lightness and weight of the furnishings against the background of the big windows.

  A small modernist palace for and about their love.

  The film cuts (abruptly). The screen fills with dazzling squares and the music is replaced by the rattling of the filmstrip, which soon stops. He sees the prince turn to Monineth and her friend. (In the background: a pendulum creaks and then strikes two weak strokes.) He lights another cigarette and smokes it slowly while waiting for the projectionist to change the reel.

  THURSDAY, 8 SEPTEMBER 1955

  Eight untidily franked stamps. How long has it been on its way? It’s impossible to read the date. (But children are not fastidious collectors, anything pleases them.) Below the postmark the familiar French handwriting. Sary continues listening to Ly Chinly and Mau Say as he slides his paper knife through the envelope.

  The letter is the usual length (three thin sheets) and dated a fortnight earlier. He quickly scans the black ink of the opening and closing passages. (There is no suggestion that there will be anything alarming between the two. He puts the sheets back in the envelope to read later.)

  His correspondence with the family that took him in during his years in France provides him with a portal to something different. First and foremost to their joint past. Even more important, however,
is the opportunity to test ideas without the consequences being more than a well-considered handwritten reply. With them (his French family) he can broach every dilemma he faces without holding anything back and receive an answer that will relate to their fundamentally shared values. They do not know his country but they do know him (and his intentions). And consequently, when they give advice, they can take the long-term view and don’t have to take account of day-to-day political haggling.

  But is that valid any longer? Immediately after his arrival in Paris, as a matter of practical necessity (nothing to eat), he chose to put an advert in Le Figaro seeking a French family who would support a needy student during those difficult days of rationing. But the underlying thought, which was to gain access to the everyday life of an affluent and truly French family, was rooted in his long fascination with the French bourgeoisie (planted in him as early as his elementary school—which was run by Frenchmen). Education, good taste, without inhibitions but nevertheless controlled. The sort of attitude towards the world that he had earlier envied in the members of the French colonial service he had come in contact with. He saw an opportunity to gain access to the very heart of this attitude.

  It was in discussions with the other students in the informal dining club organized by the French family that he argued his way to the ideals and visions he later returned home with. (His conversations with the son of the family had been particularly rewarding. Partly because they were the same age, partly because he (Jean) had spent part of the war in a German internment camp and consequently felt he had been a prisoner of an occupying power.)

  What should he write to them this time?

  That they will have to forgive him for this temporary departure from the enlightened (modern) principles they share?

  (Or simply let it sink into the abyss between their world and his world, into the expanse of silence that stretches between their letters? And hope that the big French papers do not focus on those particular aspects of the election campaign? And anyway, what do those bloody journalists know about what is really at stake here? They fly in and then they fly out with something half considered, half digested, which they present as the truth.)

  He pushes back his cuff with the forefinger of the other hand. Sees how far the gold hands have travelled round the black face of his watch. (His calendar reads: “17.30 SOMALY”, “19.00 VANNSAK”. Taken together the two entries generate a mixture of anxiety and impatience that is difficult to channel.)

  He turns his attention instead to the men in the armchairs on the other side of the low round table. Ly Chinly with his harmonious facial features, Mau Say with his low-key intensity. The former is wearing a pearl grey suit, the latter chocolate brown. (Sweat glistens at their hairlines; the light at the windows is a dazzling white.)

  The two of them are talking about the price of rice in the city—which has gone up in recent days. A necessary increase (resulting from dwindling supplies). But the timing was unfortunate given that one of the planks of their electoral campaign is the notion that there is increasing material abundance. The question (more specifically) they are discussing is how to minimize the damage. To change course would come over as weak willed. There is no space on the radio or in the papers for a campaign to educate the public (no time to do so anyway). They could possibly lower the price of cooking oil and some other basic necessities on a temporary basis. But it isn’t clear whether the slight rise in the price of rice is having any effect on opinion. The question is whether they would be better spending their energy on other issues.

  He interrupts them and says that they certainly would. With an unlit cigarette hanging from his lips, he asks them for an assessment of their contacts with the electoral commission.

  Ly Chinly says, yes and of course, and gives an account (unenthusiastically) of the hastily revised instructions that went out that morning to the personnel manning the polling stations. About the colour and format of the ballot papers. That certain adjustments in the number of names on the electoral registers have been ordered. That the electoral commission has been given the task of investigating the political background of the polling station supervisors and, where necessary, replacing unsuitable individuals with others (put forward by Mau Say).

  Mau Say says that the latter point has to be understood with the usual reservation that there are insufficient competent people available. As they know, however, there is no reason for them to fear the fate that threatens some former colonies, which is that those who are well educated allow themselves to be tempted by the superior standard of living in France. (There is no one to tempt.) The only necessary qualification to occupy a lower-grade state office in this country at present is to have a backside of just the right malleability to fit the chair behind the desk.

  Sary says (so quickly after Mau Say’s last words that you could get the impression that he hasn’t been listening or has been waiting with a pre-prepared sentence) that he no longer cares how they achieve what they have set out to achieve. Nor does he care whether it’s done with any notable degree of sophistication. The main thing is that they get the right result (that is to say, the result the prince wants). So they must not permit a single voting statistic to reach the public sphere without having first passed before the eyes of those in this room. They are already fighting a war on several fronts with the foreign press, and they cannot expect any sympathy from that direction whatever happens. We will do what we have to do, irrespective of what the so-called civilized world thinks about it. Sary continues (after lighting a cigarette): Ly Chinly, my friend, you seem troubled by higher ideals—name me one country that has managed to introduce a democracy that functions fault-free during the first shaky year of independence!

  Ly Chinly meets his gaze but remains silent.

  He says: Well then. That’s everything.

  They gather up their papers (like three winners at a poker table). And up. And on.

  He closes his eyes, just for a moment. Opens them. Stands up. Walks quickly across the boards of the platform, taps the microphone lightly. Hears his tap crackle out over all the faces that are turned his way.

  The sun will soon be setting, deep red. The staccato notes of the insects in the trees.

  In a loud clear voice he says: My dear fellow-countrymen!

  He says: Kinsmen of our revered forefathers who built Angkor!

  He says, with a smile: Dear people of Takmau.

  Then, with an earnest, almost troubled, expression, he continues.

  The loudspeakers are useless.

  (Calendar entry 2: 19.00 VANNSAK, minus a minute or two) The scene viewed through a windscreen: the headlamps of the car sweep across them. The whites of their eyes light up. Men in everyday clothes. Young, middle-aged.

  Sary collects his thoughts for a moment, climbs out and is met by silence (apart from the ticking of the engine after it’s been switched off and the sounds of night—that is, barking dogs, wireless sets and so on).

  In the distance: the buzz of many people.

  Beyond that: stars impaled on the branches of the trees.

  The outline of Non emerges from the general shadow and leads him out among the waiting people. He recognizes a couple of them. (Students, ordinary labourers. A civil servant from the customs office.) They greet him humbly, with gentle tentative handshakes. An odour of tension and alcohol. And the smoke from the kitchen fires in the nearby houses.

  Cudgels in their hands, glowing cigarettes.

  His mouth still tastes of lipstick, whisky and canard à l’orange. She was on time for once. Yet another new dress (this time dove blue, deep lilac, red). Her footsteps across the black and white squares of the floor. Pearl earrings (her mother’s, she explained when he complimented her on them). The courteous smile as she stands up, which shifts to a more spontaneous one after a few steps. Her eyes fixed on his.

  They ate in the hotel’s dining room. The evening rain outside the window was whipping the water in the pool to a turquoise foam (lit from below). No tal
k of politics. She told him about a film she had seen.

  (A—he would say—dreamlike interlude from the whirling course of events he has now returned to.)

  When they were saying goodbye outside, she had kissed him quite shamelessly in the European manner, watched by the silent faces of the cyclo drivers. (The irregular drip, drip, drip from the leaves of the trees.) He had met her mouth.

  In the car on the way here her scent still clung to the skin of his hands.

  He had wiped his lips carefully with a handkerchief. Left it—with its pinkish red stain—on the floor of the car.

  Then the last turn to the right. The men picked out by the headlamps. All that was left when he stepped out of the car (into the silence of those gathered there) was the taste in his mouth.

  He asks for and is given a bamboo cudgel. Non offers him a cigarette (the same useless brand as in the café). He looks at the pale phosphorescent hands of his watch. The distant hum turns into applause. There is the crackle of a loudspeaker.

  They set off. (A man walks in front of Sary with a hand-cranked torch so that His Excellency’s Italian shoes won’t get wet in the puddles of water.)

  There is a seductive simplicity about this little walk, and the kiss earlier. And about what is going to happen soon. Being at the head of a group of men. Walking through the night. Stars up in the trees after rain.

  (But this simplicity is at least as much a matter of relief. For what is it if it isn’t the concrete result of having given in? Of just allowing the accumulation of irritation/aggression/antipathy to spill over all those who are vain enough to stand in his way? Making unreserved use of the force (one’s own or that of others) that the (superior) power he represents ultimately rests on?)

  The familiar voice in the loudspeaker. Soft, low-key, but inflammatory. Anti-royalist slogans. The murder of the monk Chung. The agreement with the Americans referred to as putting our independence on sale. Things that strike home, he thinks. (Shouts and applause.)