Cambodian Book of the Dead (11 page)

As Maier passed, the cur raised its head and looked briefly in his direction. But Maier was every dog's friend.

He found his bike, snapped it into neutral and pushed it as quickly as possible back to the last crossing. The fog was slowly drifting away and he could see the roof of the ranger station, barely a kilometre below. Lights twinkled down there. Maier let the bike roll.

 

MOTHER RUSSIA

 

The giant stood on the wide steps of the station and toasted Maier with his bottle and a wide, mischievous grin across his face.

“Tourists get lost around here regularly and it's a miracle that no one has fallen off the cliff down into the jungle. Some, I have been told, are thrown off by the ghosts of the casino. You were too heavy for the ghosts?”

Maier had not expected a welcoming committee, much less a camp, quite possibly drunk, Russian with a poetic bent. For a second he was tempted to throw the few phrases of Russian he remembered from school at the man, but then he decided to say nothing.

Mikhail had charisma. His command of English was perfect, even playful, his accent that of a Hollywood bad guy.

“Well, young man, have you been rendered speechless? Let's start at the beginning, dear. What's your name, and what dark power propelled you to enrich this godforsaken part of the world with your delightful presence?”

The Russian wore shorts and a big shirt that flopped open over his huge, smooth belly. His long grey hair framed an unshaven, beetroot-red face and he looked like someone who tried to give an impression of sloth and laziness. The eyes of this freewheeler were sharp and alive, though, sober in the extreme, and reminded Maier of his own – eyes you could switch on and off. The Russian was a few centimetres taller than Maier. Next to the park rangers, he was humongous.

Maier felt that the Russian was a man with a mission, just like himself, and that Cambodia was merely a stopover for a man like Mikhail. This old Soviet hippy was, despite his extrovert drunkenness, nowhere near the end of his line yet.

“Leave it be for a moment, Mikhail. I just came off my bike.”

Rolf and the young ranger had appeared behind the Russian.

“What, my name travels ahead of me?” Mikhail said. “You heard of me in Kep and defied the dangers of the jungle just to come and see me? Perhaps you heard of me as far away as Kampot or Sihanoukville? Or did someone whisper my name to you in the capital? I mean, young man, there's not much to see up here except for me.”

Rolf and the young ranger looked carefully into his blood-encrusted ear.

“What happened?”

Maier realised only now that the right shoulder of his vest was soaked in blood.

“I fell off the bike at the last crossing. I had taken my helmet off, started driving, puddle ahead, deep pothole, and bang, I fell flat on my face and must have passed out. The rain woke me up. But the bike would not start again.”

The Russian translated into Khmer.

The ranger seemed to understand at least part of what Mikhail said and shook his head in disbelief.

“Vichat thinks that you were up in the casino, fighting with ghosts.”

“Is he serious?”

“Serious, young man. He also suggests that we sow your ear back to your head. Vichat is the only man here who knows anything about first aid. He told me he even amputated a leg once.”

The Khmer looked at Maier questioningly and pulled a small mirror from his pocket. In the weak light of a single bulb, the detective did not need a thorough self-examination to decide that something had to be done.

“Is there any vodka?”

“Tonight, you will have to make do with whiskey, Maier. Otherwise there's the always reliable local rice wine, a drink that makes good people very bad.”

“Is there any ice?”

Rolf handed him a full bottle.

“Be a man, Maier.”

Vichat began to clean the wound with alcohol. Maier took a swig.

 

The four men sat outside the ranger station. Vichat spoke quietly on his radio set to a girl in Kampot, far below them on the coast.

“You want to offer guided night safaris through the casino?”

The Russian looked across at Maier and nodded, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

“I have been doing this for a while, with people who come up here by themselves. But I don't know what to do if something happens to a tourist. Some people fall off their bikes before they have even seen the casino.”

Rolf shrugged in frustration.

“It was just an idea Pete, Mikhail and I had. Mikhail does a great tour through the hotel, it's a total ghost ride. I almost shat myself.”

The Russian grinned with mock malice and showed yellow teeth.

“While Pete wanted to bed a couple of girls in the casino the first night he was up here. How is our happy-go-lucky British pirate? Does he still dream of infinite power and undeserved wealth?”

Rolf did not answer.

“Come on, Rolf, you are not stupid. You know how to run a business. You are good-looking. You still have a nice character. Be careful that you don't get stuck in the wrong country with the wrong people. Cambodia really sticks to some.”

“Are you going to tell me Kaley is a slut as well?”

Mikhail laughed and poured himself another glass.

“Deep inside, you know what she is, Rolf. Just be careful that you don't end up in the rain one day. You never know. But the local slut she is not – that's me! That is my privilege.”

Rolf didn't answer.

Maier coughed into the silence. “Well, are you going to let me in on something?”

“Only if you sleep with me tonight, young man.”

Mikhail laughed himself into a coughing fit.

“So here comes a well-preserved German of young middle-age with an alleged sack of gold and tells anyone who will listen that he wants to invest, though he has not looked at a single piece of land. And he wants to be let in on something? Into our dark secrets?”

“Why would I invest in a country like Cambodia if I didn't know who pulls the strings, at least locally? Especially in a small place like Kep.”

“You are right, Maier. Don't be so touchy. You don't need to justify yourself. You know how it is in Cambodia. People react to people who ask questions. Hardly anyone does, so it is noticeable. In time, you will make best friends here. Kep is full of nice people.”

Rolf interrupted the monologue.

“So nothing's going to come of it?”

“Of what, dear? Of us? Nothing, I think. You are too romantic. And you like the ladies too much. And the sad thing is, Rolf, that most of the women around here are so skinny that they almost look like men. Isn't that depressing? The poor suckers come from Moscow, Berlin and London, frustrated and fragmented by their luscious, voluptuous
devotschkas
and fall in love with these passive shrimps. Not with me, but with these skinny nothings, who have no tits and no asses. No opinions either. It's all about power. None of these girls are any good in bed. You need brains, imagination to be any good in bed. You have to be a bit of an artist. Like me. The tough guys from the West, they only come here to load one of these little mice on the back of their rented chopper cycles and drive around like apparatchiks.”

Maier was definitely amused. Mikhail was a freak, a prophet of the damned. A man not to be interrupted.

“But power is something very temporary, very transient. The moment these men look away from their shrimps, they are being ripped off. It was just the same with the French. Look around. This place was once a dream destination. And what happened? After fifteen years, it was all finished. The casino closed and the power evaporated. Even the Khmer, Sihanouk and Cambodia's elite could not save the dream. That's why I love it up here. Man defines himself here. The French played around with the country, the Americans flattened it, and the communists had graves dug for the entire population, socialist mass graves. Those exist in my part of the world too. What about yours, Maier?”
The Russian burped quietly and stumbled on without waiting for an answer. “And now the business types turn up. People like you. Do you really think you can help this country? Wouldn't it be better to throw all the foreigners out for five years, so that the brothels close and golf courses aren't built in national parks?”

“Is anyone building a golf course up here?”

Vichat increased the volume on his two-way radio. The girl on the coast started to sing. The Russian fell silent and listened to the young Khmer woman's love song. The moon had risen above the casino, clearly visible above them. The church and several other buildings rose out of the darkness like tombstones. North of the casino, the old water tower appeared to walk, like a UFO from a Fifties sci-fi movie, across the darkened highland. The voice sounded eerily metallic through the tiny speakers, but it dripped with genuine emotion. Words of love amidst war of the worlds.

The voice of the girl brought movement into the tall grasses beyond the station. Maier remembered good times in the old communist Germany, long walks with young women who'd also had beautiful voices. Even his headache was subsiding. Vichat smiled himself into a quiet daze. The song ended and the girl on the coast, a thousand metres below the plateau on which the four men sat, whispered good night.

“So, what about the golf course?”

“Maier, you are a Prussian hunting dog. The tears have not dried yet and you are already asking again. Was it not full of love, young man?”

“I can imagine how we could spoil a place so remote and lovely, and a national park to boot, but I would like to know first-hand of course.”

The huge Russian slapped his back

“Haven't you noticed yet, that we can spoil anything? Not just here, but in our backyards too. Why bother with Cambodia? Our backyards are legendary. Or is this just your roundabout way of asking more questions about what you are really after but don't want to tell us about?”

Mikhail had dispensed with his glass. He lifted the bottle to his mouth and took a long swig before he continued. “You will find strange bedfellows in Kep if you are looking to invest. Some people think the town is a gold mine. Others think the casino is a symbol for past glories. As I said, there are a million ways to spoil the world. And in Cambodia, they have all been tried. All of them.”

Maier turned to Rolf. “A golf course, up here? Who will pay for it? They would have to rebuild the road first, that would take years.”

The younger German did not answer.

Mikhail changed the subject.

“Rolf, I would love to do the tours, but in a few months, or perhaps weeks, the fun and games up here will be finished. You know it. And I am not worth any kind of investment. I am broke and happy, that's why I sit up here and drink.”

Rolf had nothing to say and stared into the void, his face distorted by something stronger than annoyance.

“If you think Cambodia is so corrupt, why don't you go back to Russia?”

The giant laughed bitterly.

“To Russia? You will make me cry, if you force me to think about my country. Our rivers are poisoned and dried up, inflation is as high as the Kremlin walls, and life on the street is as brutal as a weekend in a Siberian gulag. We are being ruled by evil
bratschnicks
, who want to take away our freedom, our culture and our right to drink excessively. We are being watched around the clock, blackmailed and threatened and we are at war everywhere. Just like it has always been. Mother Russia. The newscasters lie that the world will end soon. The president lies that it won't end. I like being here. For the Khmer, the end of the world will not come as a surprise. One golf course more or less will not make a difference.”

Rolf interrupted the Russian. “There's a Cambodian investor in Kep who wants to construct a golf course up here. Perhaps he has the necessary contacts in the government to get permission to build in a national park.”

“And that would be Tep?”

“Ah, Maier, so well informed. Then you must know that the resident foreigners in Kep are being asked to come in on the project. In some instances that request looks like an order.”

Rolf nodded. “Yes, Pete is on board.”

The Russian laughed. “Children, children. Everyone wants to have a go. The French, the Scandinavians. Last week, three Japanese showed up here, industrial spies, came from Saigon in a four-wheel drive and had a look at the area. Sweat shop on the beach, resort on the mountain. Everyone thinks you can put a golden cow onto this cliff. But the French already tried that.”

“And who exactly is Tep? Or rather, what is he? I met him a few days ago in the Heart of Darkness.”

Mikhail grinned, “Well, then you know everything there is to know. You don't look stupid, Maier, even if you fall off your bike without reason.”

It was getting cold. Vichat carried his radio transceiver into the ranger building. But the young man stopped for a second and looked at Maier, “Tep no good. Tep Khmer Rouge. Tep, he fight here, he live here. Maybe he think Bokor belong to him.”

The ranger disappeared into his room. Mikhail stared after him, his eyes full of longing.

“He's got a great behind, that Vichat. But he prefers to listen to the warble of his girl instead of throwing himself into my open arms.”

Mikhail leaned back like a fat diva and looked into the night sky, theatrical, self-important and mocking at once. “The world is not fair. Not even in Cambodia.”

“And Inspector Viengsra works for Tep?”

Rolf and Mikhail laughed.

Mikhail had found his glass and filled it, then drained it in one long swig.

“The dog lover? Has he shown you any property papers which he happened to have with him, when he passed you on his bike? There's only one thing to say. The relationship between Viengsra and Tep is the same as between the dog and the inspector – symbiotically bestial.”

“And how dangerous is the policeman?”

The Russian laughed drily. “It always depends who is swinging the hammer. It's all connected to gravity. And our dog lover is affected by it as much as anyone. Most of the time, he sleeps. Sometimes he does evil things for his boss. Kill the dog and he is finished.”