Song for an Approaching Storm

by Peter Froeberg Idling

  The street widens out into the open ground in front of Le Champ de Courses. An audience of a hundred or so are facing the improvised stage. (Which is more than Sary had been reckoning on, but not so many—in this context—as to constitute a critical mass.) The voice, lit by spotlights, is standing at the microphone. White shirt, sleeves rolled up. Sweat gleaming on his high forehead. Insects swarming around the lights.

  A tirade about the oppressor being replaced by the oppressor’s lapdog.

  The people standing right at the back are now turning round to the new arrivals. The ripple of anxiety that runs through the gathering is almost visible. Listeners out on the fringes (it can be assumed that they are there out of curiosity rather than anything else) quickly slip away into the shadows.

  Non comes up to him, informs him that their own loudspeaker system has been moved forward. He gives the go-ahead. A minute or so later the national anthem is booming out from diagonally behind him.

  Up on the platform Keng Vannsak loses his thread. He puts his hand up to shade his eyes from the spotlights. Another handful of listeners drifts away. But there are still many left and they begin applauding the platform. Vannsak composes himself (he has, after all, been in this situation before) and continues at a very much louder volume.

  Non passes Sary a microphone. Sary swallows and then breaks in. His words meet Vannsak’s words (the latter unexpectedly ceding him the advantage).

  He thinks their voices are like the thunder of gods in the night. One of them in the light, the other in the darkness. (Which, he thinks, is ironic, since he is the one who represents the true, the golden light, isn’t he?) While the mere mortals listen, terrified. And Vannsak, standing small and alone up there, all eyes directed at him. On the defensive against an invisible adversary.

  The listeners are silent at first. But they respond when Non and his men begin shouting sexual obscenities at the stage. Some of the listeners come closer. Hands waving. Lips shining with saliva.

  That’s how easy it is, he thinks. And continues jousting with Vannsak through the microphone.

  Dear listeners, why did you come to listen to a liar?

  Freedom of assembly is guaranteed in the constitution, Your Excellency Sam Sary. We have every right to hold this election meeting. That should come as no surprise to a man of the law like you.

  A freedom is only a freedom as long as it isn’t abused, Mr Keng. Or should I perhaps call you Mr King instead? For those of our dear listeners who aren’t familiar with the English language, “king” means ruler and that is what that liar on the platform wants to be.

  You are in breach of the constitution, Your Excellency.

  How could you possibly trust KING Vannsak? He is lying now and he will continue feeding you with lies if you elect him. Just like the old primaryschool teacher he is, he is now trying to teach basic law to a member of the Council of State!

  Dear listeners, you can see for yourselves that the Mafia gang running the country has no respect for the rights of the people. It doesn’t even respect its own laws!

  King Vannsak talks rubbish. What does he care about you Cambodians? He calls himself a nationalist but Cambodian women aren’t good enough for him. Not a single one of them is good enough for this fiery nationalist King Vannsak. His own people aren’t good enough, so he has gone and married a foreigner instead.

  His Excellency Sam Sary isn’t satisfied with just one Cambodian woman, he uses them like handkerchiefs. Wipes himself a couple of times with each of them before quickly moving on to the next.

  Another lie to add to King Vannsak’s pack of lies. Listen now, Vannsak, are you married to a foreigner or aren’t you? Well? I deal in facts while you wallow in gossip. Slander is punishable by law and I’ve got plenty of witnesses among our dear listeners.

  A man’s will to serve his country should be judged on what he does for that country, not on whom he is married to.

  Oh, oh, oh, dear listeners, a true word at last from our self-appointed king. What was Monsieur King doing while I was in Geneva negotiating the independence of our dear country a year or so ago? I’ll tell you what, I’ll tell you. He was lazing around in Paris with his foreign wife!

  Only snakes can talk snake language to snakes and only dogs can talk to dogs. We all know that independence would have been achieved weapon in hand if your establishment gang hadn’t stolen our just struggle.

  Weapon in hand, possibly, but not cock in hand in a luxury flat in Paris.

  The pot calling the kettle black!

  Statement

  Response

  Etcetera

  Etcetera

  Now?

  Soon.

  A shove. A couple of hands grab a shirt collar. Angry faces an

  centimetre or so apart. Bodies lurching around.

  He cuts Vannsak off with a shout, followed by a stern command to the two fighters to let go of one another. Several people step between them, the yelling continues.

  According to the script (I): Almost a riot. Calmly, slowly, in a carefully articulated way, he informs them that the meeting—in the name of the law—must disperse. (By my authority as Deputy Prime Minister, I order all those present to go home.)

  For his part Vannsak exhorts the audience to stay. Not to let themselves be provoked.

  (The dialogue between the gods, however, has ended and is beyond all redemption.)

  Some of the men behind him throw stones and whatever they can find on the ground into the crowd by the stage. He repeats his command.

  According to the script (II): Non is standing beside him and receives an affirmative answer to his question. He hands the microphone and his tie and jacket to Non. Non disappears in the direction of the loudspeaker set-up, which responds with a feedback howl.

  He lights a cigarette. (His hands tremble slightly in the flare of the flame.)

  Vannsak, still alone on the platform. Calling for calm. Then his voice is drowned out again by the crashing cymbals of the national anthem.

  According to the script (III): He takes a last puff and throws away the half-smoked cigarette. Moves the bamboo club to his right hand. Turns round. His men are gathered there, clubs in hand. In a loud voice he asks whether they are ready to give these bastards what they deserve. As one voice they answer yes.

  Then everything turns into flashes of tight concentration and disconnected sequences: people screaming and fleeing / blows falling on backs and skulls / oaths / bodies lying in the mud like bundles of rags with men beating them / Vannsak being quickly hurried away from the spotlit stage / a half-grown boy crying his eyes out / shouts / some young men in school uniforms fighting with their feet, their shirts soon stained with blood / an old man cowering / smells of sweat, wet earth, fear / the well-aimed blow above the ear he lands on a fleeing man, who crumples to the ground / the crowd beginning to thin out / blows raining down on fewer and fewer people.

  And then the national anthem, sort of fading in again. Laughter, shouting, the elation of violence shining in the men’s eyes. (It’s that look again, the one he has seen on the prince’s face—and on his own in the mirror.)

  He takes a comb out of his back pocket and, hands still trembling, combs his hair. Then a cigarette. Calls to some of his men to stop beating a man on the ground (possibly the man he himself struck down).

  In the light of the spotlights—still lit—the area in front of the stage is a wasteland. A hundred or more abandoned sandals (he finds the sight comical, as if they had broken up a shoemakers’ convention). Several muddy and broken placards. (Someone abruptly lifts the needle from the record and the music cuts off in the middle of a crescendo.)

  FRIDAY, 9 SEPTEMBER 1955

  The short report from the security police lies on the table in front of Sary. Slap Soumlap is dead it seems. (Who the hell is he?) A neat sheet in a pale-blue folder. Stamped, signed by an unknown hand. (The superintendent of the hospital personally confirms it in an attached note.) According to the report this Slap Soumlap is—well,
had been—Keng Vannsak’s personal driver for a few days. Taken to the Calmette Hospital at midnight by his uncle, pronounced dead exactly one hour later. Cause of death not yet determined. But according to the duty doctor it seems “not unreasonable to assume that the cause of death was blows to the head with a blunt implement”. The body is being held until further notice in spite of pressure from the family. Several family members are said to be sympathetic to the Democrats, although none of them is as active as the dead man had been.

  He runs through (edited parts of) the evening before, more particularly the baton stroke with which he felled the fleeing man. Can it have landed that badly? Can he really have been so bloody unlucky?

  Less than twenty-four hours ago young Mr Slap’s existence was utterly insignificant (just like any other anonymous worm). Now his non-existence is a real problem, since he will provide the Democrats with another martyr (to place alongside the monk Chung). Another grainy photograph (derived from identity papers) to print on their placards. (We can assume he will have the same simple-minded stare as all the rest who have only had their photograph taken once in their lives, Sary thinks. And then he thinks: The way the political game works is truly unjust. Here we are working hard to chart all the various relationships, who wields influence over what and whom and how. And then up pops a nobody—what’s more, a dead nobody—from nowhere and becomes a factor in the power game.)

  The question now is this: what is the best way of dealing with this unfortunate situation? Denial? In which case, what tone should they adopt? And via which channels? Doing the usual thing and blaming it on a private quarrel, fuelled by palm wine and resulting from borrowed money / women / local loyalties / etcetera would be pretty insensitive in a situation as sensitive as this, wouldn’t it? And there are likely to be a number of witnesses from the previous evening.

  But (and he stretches unconsciously) why so defensive? He thinks: I’ll be damned if being careful has ever got me anywhere. Better to take the opposite strategy. And actually blame this appalling murder on that big bastard (Vannsak).

  (Tried and tested tactic: if you say something loud enough and often enough it will eventually stick to the target. On the principle of no smoke without fire.)

  He opens the next folder. A mint-green one. (His untouched cigarette is burning away in the ashtray.)

  It is from the chief of police and the folder he thought he was opening when he opened the pale-blue one.

  Keng Vannsak has been arrested at his house (without resistance) in accordance with His Excellency Sam Sary’s orders. He has been taken to the prison at Prey Sar.

  So that’s clear then. The time for moderation is now definitely over.

  He takes the top off his fountain pen. A clean sheet of paper on which he quickly writes an order to the director of the prison. The prisoner Keng Vannsak is to be held in solitary confinement. No (underlined) violence is to be done to him. Any objects that might be used to take his own life should be removed. But (underlined) the prisoner shall be deprived of sleep and adequate meals, including water. All daily routines are to be performed at irregular intervals. Prisoners are to be maltreated in the next cell, even at night. Everything to be done as you consider appropriate. Inform the prisoner that he is the subject of a murder inquiry. But (underlined) under no (underlined) circumstances should his life be put at risk (three exclamation marks).

  His initials. Stamped. For immediate dispatch.

  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 sky is dark. No sun. Rain is pounding down on the roof, blocking out the world in the square of the windows.

  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 Skuon.

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

  Given the noise of the rain, the loudspeakers are too weak.

  He picks up the telephone, books (commands) a conversation. He can’t pretend he hasn’t thought it through. In spite of everything, however, he has hesitated by the telephone several times. It still comes as something of a surprise to hear Somaly’s voice saying Hello? (But as if he was the one giving a surprise.)

  He raises his eyes from the sheet, hears the croaking of the frogs in the darkness outside. Two words, one following the other, have disturbed his concentration.

  But the window has closed down again and he cannot remember which two words opened the door back to the year before last, to the house they no longer live in.

  That is where his mind is now, at his old desk in his old study (one leg crossed over the other, elbows resting on the tabletop). The cool of the dry season through the open windows. He remembers the rooms clearly. Remembers how they are laid out, how the furniture was arranged in them.

  What else does he remember? The way she moves through his study. Not much more than that actually. The way she finds a job to do in there when she sees that he is watching her. The way the whole course of events, in all its easy simplicity, is rather unexpected. What then follows, however, the actual embrace on the sofa, has (as always) become rather abstract.

  (Somewhere at some point he has read: physical pain and sexual pleasure are the two emotions that the human mind is incapable of recreating.)

  All that is left of that meaningless affair with the insipid governess / nanny / trollop is spiritual suffering, not physical. He prefers not to think about what happened afterwards. But now (because of some vague association in the text of the report) he finds himself once again sitting opposite Em at the dining table. (Her head bowed, face red with weeping. Her meal (fish soup) untouched in front of her.) Her eyes meet his all of a sudden and he can read that there is something irreparable in there. He can read what lies splintered beyond the tears and the rage.

  He takes off his glasses and tells her to hit him. (In his heart he now shudders at that pathetic pose.) She does nothing, does not answer, just stares blankly and unseeing.

  The quarrel about that idiotic episode on the sofa had been preceded over the years by other scenes of similar origin. Violent storms, all following the same dramaturgy (quarrel-tears-promises-reconciliation-etcetera). (It soon became familiar and, as a paradoxical consequence, provided a sense of security.) But it quickly became clear that this time was different. (He can’t understand why. His best theory, though he has no evidence for it, is that it’s because this little slip took place under their own roof.)

  And an ice-cold recognition of the irrevocable nature of the change had seeped down through the layers of their emotions.

  (A quick flash of indignation at the injustice of this. The change of fortune is not in any kind of proportion to what he felt for the girl; others (earlier / later) had been much more significant than that one.)

  He had left the table, his dinner untouched, and not come back for several days.

  He has two ways of returning after scenes like this. (I) To stride across the threshold combatively, his mouth full of what hadn’t been said (or what bore repeating). (II) To open the door furtively, with overflowing bags rustling with sweets / silk scarves / perfumes.

  But since everything was different this time, he had arrived home as if it were any other day. And Em greeted him as if it were any other day.

  Nothing was said about what had led to his absence.

  (Since then, he thinks, the glass through which she views him has been crazed with fine cracks. A slight distance that she makes impossible for him to bridge. And this business of the absence of any reconciliation. He cannot understand that: your enemies are the ones you don’t reconcile with, aren’t they?)

  There are other lasting differences.

  (For example) Em’s anger when she hears news of something inappropriate, or believes she does, is wilder and m
ore explosive these days. (As if the merest spark of suspicion is fanned into flame by the memory of that governess.)

  (For example) He, for his part, has become more careless. (However hard he may try, what has been done cannot be undone.) Which is why he finds himself playing with the idea of suggesting to Em that they employ Somaly as the children’s new governess (she could move into the room beyond his study—it is still unused).

  Em must understand. Who else could? She is the most brilliant woman he has met. Her unique intelligence must understand his feelings. (He is a man, for God’s sake, and still in the prime of his manhood.)

  He remembers the French fable of the frog and the scorpion. He told it to Em once. (It was before they had children.) She had wondered why and he answered that he found it hilarious.

  Hilarious? It is difficult to understand now what he meant by that.

  That is my nature.

  He puts the bundle of papers down on his desk (and knocks over the untouched glass of tea as he reaches for the packet of cigarettes. He sweeps the spilt tea onto the floor with the palm of his hand).

  Someone close to the prince ought to tell him that fable. (Someone who’ll be allowed to collect his tongue from the cloakroom attendant afterwards.)

  He returns to Em and in his mind he says to her: Doing no wrong is not the same thing as doing right.

  And with his eyes already scanning the text to find the last sentence he read or the first one that is unread, he repeats (a thought he often thinks): You have to be true to the circumstances you have been given. You must not allow considerations demanded by those around you to completely destroy your potential.

  He begins reading again. (“We consider it possible that diplomatic relations between Vietnam and Cambodia will finally be established once the governments in question have succeeded in regularizing the issues that remain unclear following the dissolution of the former Cochinchina and so on and so on.”)