For the Sake of All Living Things (87 page)

Nem leaned slightly in, separating Kosol from Vathana. “We should listen to Mister Thun,” she murmured.

“We’ll be back in a minute,” Keo Kosol said confidently. With that he directed Vathana toward the door. “You are the Angel of Neak Luong, aren’t you? I’ve seen you in camp and at the hospital.” He ushered her out, into the street. Several blocks down, before the Office of the Mayor, a crowd had gathered. People were chanting slogans. The fringe looked turbulent. They walked toward the storm. One chant became clear. “We want rice! We want rice!” Kosol spoke in quick sentences, urgent phrases. Vathana felt secure in his confidence, felt as if she’d known him from life in Phum Sath Din.

“Phnom Penh doesn’t need to protect farms or farmers,” Kosol said. “It depends on America for food. It couldn’t give a damn if the entire country collapsed.”

He led her into the midst of the throngs, into the heart of agitation and vulnerability. “Tell me more, Angel. Of the radio, tell me more.” Vathana told him about the North Korean advisors directing Khmer Rouge units, about the coming FANK reorganization. About them people were pushing. At the fringe the most radical threw rocks breaking the windows. Police and army troops descended upon the crowd. Tear gas canisters popped and hissed. Now stampede, chaotic, not directionally away but swirling to avoid the gas and remain on the scene. “Goddamn government can’t do a fucking thing right!” Kosol raged, his voice booming in her ears. Suddenly a blast exploded inside the building. The windows flared orange, glass shards shot into the masses. Again the swirling bodies, now screaming. FANK troops opened fire. A dozen people fell. Now the stampede surged over them. Vathana fell. Someone stepped on her arm, another on her ankle. Above her hundreds of bodies hurled over and around, flashing shadow arms, elbows, torsos running, more shots, mouths shrieking. Then strong arms swooped her up, away, into the quiet of an alley.

“Immoral bastards.” Kosol seethed. “Do you feel it?”

“Yes,” Vathana cried. She was shaken, shaking. He held her. His chest was hard, his arms strong. She lay her face against his neck, grasped his arms, the arms that had saved her, had kept her from being trampled to death. She clung to him, pulled herself into him.

“Immoral foreign fucking bastards,” he snarled.

“What would you do, Louis?” Teck did not look at his friend but beyond into the restaurant’s best section where Japanese and Western journalists were eating, chiding one another, drinking heavily. In the courtyard the jacaranda trees were heavy with violet clusters. The waiter came with the wine, looked disgustedly at Louis in his rumpled civilian clothes, disapprovingly at Teck in his impeccable uniform. Teck gritted his teeth. He was certain the waiter assumed he’d brought this male prostitute into the dining room to soften him before the evening’s vice began. Fine, Teck projected the thoughts of the waiter. Fine for a foreigner but undignified for a Khmer.

“I cannot even begin to know,” Louis said. He smeared a thick gob of butter on the warm slice of French bread and shoved half of it into his mouth.

“If she were corrupt,” Teck said, “I would divorce her. Just like that! But the Communists wouldn’t have anything to do with her...if...if she were corrupt. It’s because she’s become a symbol of Khmer honesty for the whole city that she’s targeted. They’ll either corrupt her or eliminate her. But if they corrupt her, then I should...well.”

“And he himself brought the photo album?” Louis asked after swallowing. “What gall.”

“Actually, he was charming,” Teck said lightly. The journalists, more than usual, were acting like buffoons.

“Mister Tall-Nose?” Louis said. “Charming?”

“Sullivan,” Teck said.

“Eh. The blue-eye.”

“Yes.”

“The Western guy? His name is Su-van?”

“Sul-li-van. He’s an American advisor.”

“He’s corrupt?”

“I think he’s just naive. I rather liked him.”

“Teck!”

“Things happen in war, Louis. The whole East is cut off. Except Svay Rieng and Neak Luong. I...” Teck hesitated. Louis jabbed a second thick slab of bread into his mouth, Teck leaned forward, “put some in your pocket,” he whispered, “for later, mother’s paying a fortune for this table, we might just as well use it.” Teck cleared his throat, leaned back, sipped his wine. “You spied her at the demonstration?”

“Yes.” Louis plopped the remainder of the loaf into his jacket pocket. “Three people were killed. Seventeen wounded.”

“By the soldiers, eh?”

“Yes. All. Others were hurt in the rush. I don’t know how many.”

“He wasn’t there, was he?”

“No. She was alone, I think. There were people who helped her up.”

“She’s still my wife,” Teck said, businesslike. “I miss her. Look at me. I’ve made something of myself. She must come here.”

“She was...ah...with the American.”

“You can say it. She was fucking him.”

“Do you want him killed?”

“What do I care? You like her, yes?”

“Yes! Ha! She’s too good for you, Teck. You want to give her to me? Ha!”

“Sure. I’ll ask her to fuck you, too. You need some good ass.”

“Teck. Don’t be a fool.”

“Eh. When the war is over, I’ll...”

“Go see the fortune-teller, Teck. That’s what I would do.”

Nang studied his face in the mirror. For months he’d harbored a new hate he could not identify. It festered in him. The infection encapsulated, pressured his entire being. Still he could not identify it. He repressed it, denied it. Soon Sar would have him back to work, soon the festering would be buried beneath one more layer, but now, in the lull, in the void, it expanded, seeking a weak route to the surface, silently screaming to manifest its repressed horror.

His eyes locked on Rin. How easy it was for Rin to change clothes, change looks, enter Phnom Penh. How easy it was for him to find a girl. The thought disgusted Nang. He tightened the tucks and folds in the krama he’d wrapped about his head turban-fashion. Again he looked in the mirror. Rin left. They’d barely spoken. Reth had left hours earlier. Vong was asleep. Their basecamp on the outskirts of Phnom Penh between the railroad tracks and the Tonle Sap River was little more than a refugee shack in an area of scattered hovels. Neither police nor soldiers bothered to patrol there and they were free to move, to bring in supplies, to carry lout Sar’s directives.

Nang grasped the rippled scar of his cheek with his pincer, squeezed, stretched the skin, searched for changes, for repair. Instead he saw a deepening of color in the valleys, an absence of pigmentation on some ridges. The landscape of his right profile was grotesque. He turned, looked at the image of the left side. He smiled. A handsome youth smiled back. He faced straight on. Looking back were the fused halves of two different people. “He raised his good hand, placed his thumb below his left eye and with the fingers extended, covered the scar on the right. The eyes, he thought. They are nice. The nose is okay...except right there. He adjusted his hand to cover the stabbing blade of scar tissue which curled onto the right nare. I could have a girl, he thought.

Vong, in sleep, startled. His legs twitched. Nang watched, amused. Then he sat. Other than a cooking pot, a few plates and mosquito netting, the shack looked empty. Hidden, in walls, in the floor, above the rafters, were the squad’s tools. “There are places,” Sar had told him when he’d reported to Mount Aural, “right, in the city”—the high general sounded amazed at his own revelation—“places to do secret work. The soldiers are foolish. The police have eyes like moles in sunlight. We can move about as easily...”

Nang thought of Met Rin. He was pleasant. He was competent. But he and the Gray Vultures of the Eastern Zone, Nang thought, have not suffered as have the Black Watercrows of the North. Rin can smile, can laugh. He thinks nothing of patronizing the business ventures of impure women. Nang ground his teeth. His stomach churned. Outside, the evening sky rumbled and raindrops broke loose and crashed heavily on the roof.

Nang thought of Sar, thought of him as his first teacher, thought of his great influence. “Shanghai Communique or not,” Sar had said. “Nixon, Zhou Enlai or not. China will not discard Viet Nam. Perhaps the imperialists will sell out, but not the Chinese.” Sar had leaned closer to Nang. He had whispered conspiratorially. “This is absolutely secret. I’ve just returned. Sihanouk sees the military aid. He says, China grants the yuons aid on the same massive scale as the Soviets. But what of the Krahom? We brought the yuons here, we can get rid of them, eh? That spring offensive, it wanes but it determines the nature of future actions. Or of negotiations. Still our ‘allies’ hinder our supply delivery. Still there are Khmer Viet Minh cadre. This is where you come in, Nang. Did you know in China, hero leaders are killed? In this way potential leadership is eliminated. The revolution is protected, eh?”

Warped thought, Nang thought. Someone called Sar’s words “warped thought.”

Nang ran the tip of his tongue over the edge of his teeth. His thoughts jumped back to Rin. “Did she make you kneel?” he had asked quietly the first time Rin had returned from the district by the old casino.

“Kneel?” Rin had laughed out loud. “No! Of course not.”

“Did she suck your fingers?” Nang had asked.

“My fingers!” Rin guffawed. “Fingers?!”

“Mine sucked my hand,” Nang blurted. “Really. She did.”

“You’ve never been with a girl, have you?” Rin’s smile was bright, his words loud enough to attract Reth and Vong.

“I have,” Nang insisted. “Not a prostitute, either.”

“Maybe your mother?” Rin chided him without maliciousness.

“She was a sister. A sister in the Sisterhood of the Pure.”

“Doesn’t sound pure to me,” Reth injected slyly.

Nang spun. Reth backed off. Rin chuckled, coughed out, “Fingers?!”

At the first combined meeting with Sar, Rin had whispered over Nang’s shoulder, “Hello, good friend. Do you remember me?”

Nang had not needed to turn. He recognized the voice. “Met Rin of Svay Rieng,” he’d said slowly.

“Ay. Now we get to work together. This is very good.”

“Only twelve of you,” Sar was saying. “You’ll work the capital in three teams. One runner, one sniper, one agent, one sapper. This is where you each fit in.”

The second time Rin returned from the old casino district he put his arm about Nang’s shoulder. “You’re a puppy, aren’t you?” He’d laughed and winked toward Reth.

“A puppy?! What are y—”

Rin tapped the scar on Nang’s face. “You’re so young...” He slid his fingers under Nang’s nose. Nang jerked his head away. Rin laughed. “You know, Puppy”—Rin laughed—“you were right. It is like she sucks your fingers. Do you like her smell?”

Nang shook Rin’s arm from him, stamped to the wall of the hut. I don’t need to sneak off, he told himself. I don’t need that...that...disgusting odor.

After the team had settled and become accepted amid the refugees, Vong left, returned with word from the Center. “There are four names,” Vong had said. His speech was standard rural.

“Use the capital dialect,” Nang admonished him. “The walls may hear you.”

“Tell us!” Reth sat up, delighted, their work would finally begin.

“Not everyone, Met Nang”—Vong was angry—“is as good with words as you.”

“Tell us,” Rin said.

“Xiao Zhongshu,” Vong said. “He’s a butcher but he supplies rice to FANK soldiers so they do not desert.”

“I know of him,” Reth said. “His shop faces an open area on Mount Penh. The shot will be easy.”

“Ney Suon and Non Sarar,” Vong said. “Both are Sihanoukists. Suon was KVM but he wants to defect to Angkar. He has said the NVA liberation war is only for the South. No longer Cambodia. Yet he has told some that he is afraid of Krahom bitterness.”

“Better to concentrate on those overseas Chinese imperialists,” Rin said. “We should leave the KVM alone.”

“Ah,” Reth scoffed, “you say that because you’re from the East. I know them too. I can eliminate them.”

“It is the wish of Angkar,” Vong said. “Last is Pech Chieu Teck. He is reported to play all sides. Do you know him?”

“No,” Reth answered. Rin shook his head. Nang squeezed his chin with his claw.

“His mother is a Sisowath,” Vong said. “She is very corrupt. And his wife sleeps with an American. He is reported to have had contact with KVM agents, to have received documents from an American advisor.”

“The name is familiar.” Nang had tapped the side of his head, unable to place it. “It makes no difference. You point him out to me. I’ll take care of him.” I’ll take care of him, Nang thought. Again he rose, looked in the mirror. I’ll take care of them all.

“Having a drink, Captain?”

“Oh! Mrs. Donaldson. Ah, no! I mean...”

“Rita.”

“Rita. Just a Coke.”

“You don’t drink?”

“With friends.”

“Then let me join you and buy you one. I owe you that.”

“You don’t owe me...”

“You know what I wrote, I didn’t mean to harm you...personally. I’ve done some homework on you. You’re a real Boy Scout.” Sullivan swallowed hard. “I mean that as a compliment.”

“Thanks, I guess.”

“I’d like to get to know you better.”

Sullivan looked into her face. Her blue eyes were clear, hard yet pretty. He turned away. “I’d like that, too,” he said.

Two hours earlier John Sullivan had been wracking his brain over the new reports and his half-finished letter to Vathana. In South Viet Nam President Thieu had declared martial law and lowered the draft age to seventeen. Saigon’s students were in an uproar. Many who were three, four, even five years older held seventeen-year-old IDs to avoid the eighteen-year-old draft. In Washington, antiwar Congressmen and demonstrators were saying they would allow full capitulation in exchange for peace.
Peace?
Sullivan had thought. The fighting in the South had deadlocked around An Loc with high casualties on both sides. And a new U.S. Senate delegation report on Cambodia had just been released. The report concluded:

The government of the Khmer Republic, and especially the Khmer military, has taken advantage of United States assistance over a sustained period of time, substantially subverting the intended purpose of that assistance. The situation which the delegation found is wholly unacceptable.