On their last morning in Battambang they breakfasted at the Blue River, of course. There was a thatch-roofed canoe in the water; a man poled a skiff past the empty tables; the blue river was brown and the floorboards creaked. No one had turned the fan on yet, but the music was already blaring; it was six-thirty. The interpreter sat blinking. The girls were nowhere in sight. The Chief of Protocol had already been paid off. The driver stared down at his coffee, the heavy Russian pistol strapped to his belt, his uniform fresh and green; he was calm, alert. His steel watch caught the light. His eyes flickered around.
Marina was at the table far away, and when he turned and smiled at her she smiled back.
How many times? asked the interpreter. The driver leaned forward, too, extremely interested.
Only seven, said the journalist.
Seven! You are not joking?
I never joke about such things.
When it was time for them to go to the car, Marina came with him, in full view of all the customers. He was face to face now with a Buddha as huge as a whore's face about to kiss him, the eyes half closed, the mouth smiling like a ripe pea-pod, lips parted, skin mottled black and gold… He embraced her.
She says she want to come to the jungle with you, said the interpreter. She don't care how dangerous. .
The journalist was stunned. Was she the one who really loved him, then?
Should I take her? he stammered. Maybe I should take her-
We are not bus drivers, said the interpreter contemptuously.
THE END
~ ~ ~
The night that the photographer and the journalist got back to Phnom Penh, they dropped by the English teacher's house. The English teacher was not back yet, and they could not communicate with the English teacher's mother except by signs. The English teacher's little sister was there, and she did her best, crooning to him: One is for man, two is for voman, three is for boiee, four is for guhl, five is for motahcah. . and he gave her a ride to the ceiling and was happy to be with her although she stank and had lice, and he dressed her up in his raincoat so that she laughed, and when the English teacher and his friend came home he invited the little girl out with them, and her mother hastened to dress her in her best, there in a dark corner where the candle did not reach, and then they all set out for a Vietnamese restaurant whose waitress the photographer had had his eye on for a week. The journalist put the girl on his shoulders. She was very small and light. At first she was happy to be carried, but then when everyone kept staring she became uncomfortable; the journalist put her down. He walked along beside the English teacher, holding her hand, and they kept staring… In the blue glow of the Vietnamese restaurant's TV they sat laughing around the table and drinking beer with their friends and the waitress, who kept dropping ice in everyone's drinks (the little girl had Seven-Up; everyone else had Tiger beer) and she lifted more ice with the tongs, robbing the treasure of coldness from the blue plastic bowl, and her fat brown face gleamed with exciting TV shadows while a TV monster roared around and the beers shone and got more and more watery with melting ice until they became one with the sweat that ran down everyone's cheeks, and the little girl looked up at the journalist with her gaptooth glistening, slowly stroking her glass, only wanting to add from the bottle to her pleasure little by little, like the sweat that crawled down the journalist's neck; and the ice in the blue bowl glistened more and more while the waitress laughed slit-eyed at the little girl and the checkerboard floor was like TV static. - Ask that waitress if she likes Ho Chi Minh, said the journalist, who was getting drunk. - Yes, the English teacher replied. - The photographer was making good progress with the waitress. - She want to come to your room tomorrow at twelve o'clock, said the English teacher's friend. - The waitress had a friend who asked the journalist's age and he thought that she was gorgeous but he didn't need any more complications; she thought or pretended to think that he was sleeping with the eight-year-old girl. -Well, it is true that the photographer had said: I bet you'd like to get into that! and it is true that the photographer had said: You know what the difference between us is? There's no difference. We're both assholes.
He went to the disco. The photographer did not come because he did not want his girl to know that he was back in town. The journalist knew that he was starting trouble for the photographer by going in there but he missed Vanna too much; maybe he loved her; maybe he really did. As always in that hot darkness, he felt that he was doing something stupid and dangerous by being there. He could see nothing. The air was brownish-black like the tree they'd shown him at Choeung Ek, the tree whose bark was ingrown with hardened blood where the Khmer Rouge used to smash babies' skulls. He fumbled his way to a table sticky with spilled beer. Is Vanna here?
You want one beer?
Vanna. Girl. I want Vanna. Tall girl.
You want Tiger beer?
No — no — Vanna — she here?
No no you miss mistake, my friend.
Vanna -
My friend -
I want to take home Vanna. Only Vanna. Vanna and me like this.
No no no!
I want to marry Vanna. I buy her gold ring.
No no no my friend no no!
Gripping the journalist's upper arm firmly enough to bruise, the pimp or waiter or bouncer or whatever he was led the journalist outside. He looked back at all the faces watching him in darkness, the fat yellow cat-faces -
Well, said the photographer, why should she come to work? You got her a fucking gold bracelet for Chrissakes. She probably sold it ten minutes after she got rid of you. That money should last her a few weeks.
I used to not have enough money to spend on whores, the photographer said. Now I don't know what else I'd ever spend my money on.
The photographer had fallen in love with the money-changer just outside the hotel, and asked her to marry him. All day she sat smiling at the world. So they were engaged. After that, practically every time the journalist went in or out, he'd see the photographer leaning on her glass-topped table grinning down at her as she sat there among her rubber-banded bundles of money sideways stacked; when customers came she'd look up with her calculator already in hand; she'd be ready to sell anyone her pink packs of Ruby Queens, her silver-topped red packs of Marlboros, her red-topped Bentleys, gold Dunhills, green Wrig-ley's spearmint gum; and then she'd go back to giggling with her fiancé, making him write down everything he said so that she could have the other English students translate for her, and the photographer said: I will come for you in one year. . and the photographer asked again: Do you love me? and she nodded radiantly and sold the customers cartons of cigarettes from her secret glass shelves. - Well, I guess I'll have to divorce my wife, the photographer said glumly.