For the Sake of All Living Things (63 page)

“You’ve lost a lot of weight,” Pech Chieu Teck said to his wife.

“And you’ve gained it.” Vathana laughed politely.

“The children are too thin,” Teck said, his voice edged with involuntary harshness.

“We manage.” Vathana smiled. She lifted the eight-month-old Samol to her lap and gave her a small squeeze. The infant’s eyes shone as she gurgled and cooed and grabbed at her mother’s thumb.

Teck moved closer. He poked a finger into his daughter’s belly and laughed, quietly pleased as the baby giggled and churned her arms, her whole body wobbling with the motion. He looked beyond the baby to the mother. Though thin and shabbily clothed Vathana was still very beautiful. As he watched her face, the winds outside shifted and blew the scent of the camp and the odor of the hospital tent into the sectioned-off corner where Vathana, Sophan and the two infants had made their home. The smell went immediately to Teck’s stomach. His abdominal muscles tightened, his breathing stopped. He stood, backed away from the baby as if she might dirty his spotless uniform, then, first dusting Sophan’s bamboo slat cot with his hand, sat. “Where’s that
phnong
you let suckle the children?”

“Sophan? She’s not a Mountaineer.”

“She’s as black as one.”

“She’s Khmer. She’s at the river with your son. They went to bathe and get some fish.”

“The economy’s getting worse, isn’t it?”

“You didn’t come to see your children, did you?”

Teck dropped his head. At once he felt shame and pride, loathing for this creature who lived in filth, superiority and self-justification. “I...I’ve come to...” Teck stopped. “I’ll get to that in a minute.”

“If you haven’t come to see the children...” Vathana began. Teck’s uneasiness robbed her of her own harmony.

“There’s a fable circulating I want to tell you.”

“The one,” Vathana broke in, “of the tiger and the dragon. I’ve heard it. Ever since the Foreign Ministry revealed the ARVN atrocities and those men left, I’ve heard it. Every day they talk of it. When the ARVN closed the river base, there was a great celebration and an
aacha
told everyone of the tiger and the dragon.”

“No,” Teck said. He had not heard that fable and wished to, but he could not admit to his wife that she knew something he didn’t. “No. This is the fable of a cobra and an eagle and a crab. You haven’t heard it because I’m the first one to bring it to Neak Luong.” Teck paused. He crossed his legs beneath him as he spoke—spoke not in the manner of the traditional storyteller but spoke quickly, jerkily, at times pausing, seeming to have forgotten the tale.

“One day,” he began, “there was a lovely black cobra sunning itself upon a barren rock. The snake was very long and from its head looked down at its stretching, curving body glistening in the sun, and she decided she was too beautiful for any other creature. Yet, to win her love many creatures came and piled riches about her which she accepted. A rat came with diamonds laid in a gold ring which he slipped over the end of her tail. She smiled, slithered a bit off then coiled and sprang and ate the rat, leaving only its feet. Still more animals came, until the cobra had great treasures, yet still no one pleased her. Then came a crab and an eagle. The eagle soared high, looped and rode the winds above the snake and the cobra sang out saying, ‘If you will hold me and let me fly and show me all the world, I’ll be your bride.’

“ ‘Don’t go,’ whispered the crab.

“The snake turned, for in the pile of gems she had not seen the crab. ‘You’re ugly,’ the cobra hissed.

“Just then the eagle lifted the snake and showed her all the world and then lit in a grassy field where he fucked her very well. Later the cobra returned to her rock and found it barren once more. The crab had even eaten the feet of the rat.”

Teck stopped. Vathana said nothing. She didn’t know if there was a point to the fable, Khmer fables often being without moral. For a moment she fidgeted with Samol’s small shirt. “You know,” Teck began again. “We must take care of the people while keeping the boat level in the river.”

“Teck,” Vathana said, as she mustered her courage, “you’ve come for some reason. Does it suit you to divorce me?”

“No, it doesn’t. You’re my wife. Now let me finish.”

“I’m not certain you’ve begun.”

“I have,” Teck said sharply. “Listen. Half the rubber plantations have been burned, bombed or occupied by foreigners. If the Americans weren’t forcing this war on us, there’d be no war in Cambodia. We’re not strong enough for a military confrontation, so for our preservation we must offer multiple support. I’m sorry if you’ve gotten mixed up in all this, but you have.”

“Teck? What—Two months ago you said FANK...”

“We’re all Khmer Patriots,” Teck interrupted her. His voice lowered. “You must maintain absolute secrecy.”

“Absol—?!”

“ssshh.” He continued in a whisper, “i can offer your camp protection.”

Vathana let out a short burst of laughter, but seeing Teck’s serious face, her laughter ceased, “protection?” she whispered mockingly, “you?”

“I have been authorized by the Association of Khmer Patriots to say this. Also to bring you word of Peou.”

“Peou! Who sent...?” Confusion seized her. Words, thoughts stopped. She tensed.

“Because of American bombing about Kratie, he’s been returned to Stung Treng.”

“How...how do you know this?” Vathana’s voice was thin.

“From the Khmer Patriots,” Teck said. “We are Khmer Patriots.”

Vathana shook her head in disbelief. “Who...?” This man-boy, this flimsy failure who had barely mourned his father’s death, who’d spent all their lives together in dancehalls or opium dens, who only months earlier had embraced Lon Nol’s holy crusade, was now telling her he was a Khmer “patriot,” using not the word form meaning a person who loves his country but, just as her dark assailant had earlier, a form designating an organization. The incongruity shook Vathana to the core. She shifted. “Do you know what you say? Do you have word of my mother and father?”

“Perhaps.” A smile creased Teck’s cheeks. “Perhaps,” he repeated. “For the sake of your camp, Angel...” Inside, Teck was melancholy, disturbed, destroyed, yet he would not show it, not an inkling. Harshly he pushed on. “...And for your parents and your brother...”

“What? Do what?”

“As my father would say, ‘What will happen if we do nothing?’ Well, Angel, keep your American. Fuck him well. We all have responsibilities during our country’s most difficult time.”

“My Am...What do you know?!” Vathana lashed out. “What is it to you?! To your own wife you...”

“Don’t be afraid.” Teck seemed indifferent. “Others will come but no one will hurt you. I’m told that a mistake was made. Aah! Someday, Angel, we’ll live in a great villa.”

When Sophan returned with the two-year-old Samnang she found Vathana under a blanket on her cot clutching Samol like a child in the dark clutches a doll for security. Sophan touched Vathana’s head to check for fever. Vathana shook off the hand. “Angel,” Sophan said softly, “are you ill?”

“No, Sophan. Not ill. Only tired.”

“Doctor Sarin is here for rounds and there’s an American supply truck with mosquito netting, a thousand cans of milk and a thousand bottles of soda.”

“Sophan?”

“Yes Angel?”

“What do you think of Captain Sullivan?”

“What do I think?” Sophan laughed gently.

“Um-hum.”

“He’s good to you?”

“He loves me as if I were a porcelain doll.”

“You’re...Angel?”

“Do you like him, Sophan?”

Sophan turned, from Vathana. “He can’t help it if he’s American,” she said.

“If he were Khmer...” Vathana probed.

“Even if he’s American”—Sophan turned again to Vathana and smiled—“he’s very nice. Much better than a husband who abandons his children.”

Late that evening Sullivan pulled his BSA Lightning with a new metallic-red gas tank into the refugee camp at Neak Luong. It was raining hard. Wind buffeted the big canvas tents and the ground was slick deep mud. Sullivan revved the engine, alternately slipping and disengaging the clutch. The rear wheel spun and shot to one side then the other. He kept both feet off the pegs, legs out, catching and righting the machine as it tried to splat itself into the mire. Each time the bike tipped the headlight jarred to the side, and in the grass or in the gutters between tents, Sullivan saw rats, some scurrying, others bold enough to stand fast, their eyes reflecting like ruby beads.

Since July Sullivan had come to Neak Luong as frequently as his duties, travel restrictions and the war would allow. Each time the city had been surrounded by more barbed wire, and each time, seemingly, the outposts and perimeter had shrunk back toward the enclave. With the closing of the ARVN river base in August, the ferry crossings had come under ever-increasing pressure and night crossings were prohibited. Still he’d come. For the right price, no matter the time, it was always possible to find an independent riverman with a boat large enough to carry the BSA.

Throughout the summer it never occurred to Sullivan that Cahuom Vathana might have an ulterior motive for maintaining their relationship. To him everything was too right, too pure for there to be an evil element driving them together. He spoke freely about FANK personnel; who was good, who loathsome. He hid little about equipment delivered or about operations, though he revealed little for he believed Vathana wasn’t interested in details. These things made up but a fraction of their talk.

For her part, beyond the politics and pressure which she did not fully comprehend, Vathana had accepted the relationship as she had her marriage—as if it were a professional contract. In Cambodia, marriage was a sacred conjugation with ramifications rolling into the future as the Samsara rolling through time.

Teck’s visit had confused and embarrassed her. All day and all evening she’d worked cleaning the sick, feeding the disabled, scouring communal facilities and organizing rice and milk distribution. The camp had shrunk. With the announced closing of the ARVN base, thousands of able-bodied refugees had packed their belongings and headed upriver to Phnom Penh. Within a month the population, which had peaked at fourteen thousand and stabilized at nine thousand, fell to slightly under six thousand. Those left were the most disadvantaged and the sleaziest hustlers.

The bike revved one last time then died. Before Sullivan dismounted a dozen children surrounded him. In broken Khmer, pidgin English and basic French they welcomed him and he hugged them and lifted them onto the BSA’s tank, consciously hefting each marasmic child, thinking each was thinner or lighter this time than last. Then from his pocket he pulled two hundred-riel notes. “You take care for me,” he said to the oldest boy while tapping the motorcycle. “Understand?” he added in Khmer. “You help.” Sullivan pointed to a shy girl of perhaps eight. With a bill in each hand he said, “For you—and brothers and sisters. Buy food. No candy.”

“Cigarette?” a boy said.

“No cigarette. Rice.”

As he talked with the children he felt restless, almost frantic. It had been three weeks since he’d seen her, since he’d touched her dark skin, run his fingers in her thick hair. “Ouch!” The children giggled. The boy who’d asked for cigarettes had ventured to pull the bushy red hair on the back of his hand.

“Hello, J. L.” Vathana stood demurely by the tent flap. In the single light above, rain droplets glittered like descending sparks from the tail of a skyrocket. She stepped forward. “Where have you been?” Her French was the most beautiful sound he’d heard in what seemed like years. He stepped toward her. She burst into laughter. “You’re all mud.”

“You’ve two days to help me clean up.”

“We obtained for you an office. With so many gone you can have your own house.”

“Can you show me?” He blushed through his smile and through the mud that caked his face, and she felt the blush.

“Where have you been?” Vathana said later that night. “I’ve been so worried for you.” She cuddled onto his chest and brushed a hand in the swirls of hair.

“There’s so much,” Sullivan said. “The Northern Corridor’s as active as the border. My God, Vathana, they’re driving a wedge right down to the heart and those bastards, all of them, they’re like puppets, like caricatures, playing roles, reading lines without paying the least bit of attention to what the hell’s happening about them.”

“You’ve been up north again?”

“Oh, to Kompong Luong, Skoun, Phum Pa Kham and Baray. I took a helicopter to Kompong Thom. One of the nights I was there an entire FANK garrison just disappeared. No signs of a fight. Nobody knows what happened. I choppered back to Oudong and then back to headquarters.”

“That’s where...in the North, where General Lon says the
thmils
are massing, yes?”

“Thmils?”

“The foreign pagans.”

“Is that what that means?”

“Um-hum.”

“All along the corridor I heard that word but no one would tell me what it meant.”

“It’s a very sad word,” Vathana said. She laid her head on his chest. His heartbeat was strong, slow, rhythmic, and with each beat their bamboo cot shivered. “A long time ago the prophets forecast a dark age which would be heralded by foreign atheists who would conquer the people of faith.”

“Umm.
Thmils
.” Sullivan had difficulty with the idea of prophets and forecasts but he knew many Khmers strongly believed in them.

“General Lon Nol says the Viet Namese are the
thmils
and if the Communists win a dark age will descend upon Kampuchea.”

“I brought you something to keep that from happening.” Vathana lifted her head, put both hands on him and rested her chin on her hands. “It’s a TT-33.”

“And what is a TT-33?”

“It’s a pistol. I’m going to teach you how to use it.”

“Teach the FANK soldiers. They’ll protect me.”

“With what I’ve seen you may need to protect yourself and the children...from them.” Vathana was about to say something but he put his hand to her lips. “Don’t. I’m serious. It’s an NVA pistol I got in Baray. There’s four hundred rounds.” Again Vathana tried to speak and again he hushed her.