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Another boy who longed to learn English lured the journalist up lightless stairs to a lightless apartment which was empty except for a table, two chairs, and a wooden sleeping platform: six thousand riels a month. He took the journalist out to the terrace where they could look down on the yellow dome of the central market, bugeyed with terraces, bikes and motorbikes lined up in rows; and all the journalist could think was: The disco is on the other side; I wonder if Vanna is there… — But I have no good teacher, the boy whined; I have no money for good teacher… — and the journalist thought: Your obsession is no better or worse than mine. - When the boy's begging began to get under his skin, he went out into a new rainstorm, all the people laughing at him sweetly; a woman came running up with an umbrella to hold over him and he smiled and thanked her and then stuck his arms out wide into the rain and flew away, laughing so happily while she laughed; he splashed drenched through the street puddles, and, giving everyone his best thumbs-up, yelled: Number one!
At the base of the great bridge which the Khmer Rouge had destroyed almost twenty years ago now, during the Lon Nol time, were barber stands, which is to say greyish card tables and old chairs in which soldiers, police, cyclo drivers and others sat to have their hair snipped; the street was black with hair. A barber stropped his razor at a desk. There were little mirrors on the tables, and a styling poster. . On either side of barber's row was a cement well whose stairs were pancaked with excrement; there was no way to avoid stepping on it. The journalist ascended this stinking way and came out onto the bridge, which seemed very far above the wrinkled brown water with its thatch-roofed junks. The Khmer Rouge had done a good clean job, shearing through steel, concrete and asphalt to leave a squared-off edge of sunny air. Remembering this much later, he thought: Three steps, and I would have been with Vanna forever, even if she stayed alive… — But at the time he entertained no such designs because Vanna was present and urgent; he'd see her as soon as darkness came. .
Her hand and face were amazed at the ice cube tray in the freezer; he knocked a cube out for her and she crunched it happily between her teeth. She was finally laughing and smiling and going psssst!… - she finally trusted him; yes, she loves you, the interpreter said; she trusts you; you can see it in her eyes… — She lay in bed with him singing Khmer songs in a soft voice until the photographer, who was very ill, sat up in bed and started mimicking her in the ugliest way that he possibly could, and Vanna became silent.
The photographer had made a mess of things. He'd bought everyone a dictionary, but then he was too sick to be there when they made a banquet to thank him. He'd caught a fever from the journalist, who'd caught it from Vanna. . Then the money-changer saw him with two different women and cried her eyes out and hated him. . He'd made up with his girl at the disco, probably for the journalist's sake since the journalist was going to go there for Vanna no matter what; now the photographer's girl was weeping because the journalist was asking Vanna EVERYTHING (by means of the English teacher), while the photographer only lay there not caring whether she stayed or went — preferring, in fact, that she'd go, because the photographer knew it was only a matter of time before he had to puke, and anyway Cambodia wasn't exactly his country the way Thailand was; the girls here didn't attract him as much, and everyone seemed so docile and lazy to him whereas he only respected people like his next door neighbor in San Francisco whom he'd caught pissing in the hall and the photographer started yelling at him but the neighbor only swung round his bleary terrible face and shouted: Next time I'll shit on your head! and then the photographer had to forgive and admire him; his girl in Cambodia didn't do that, not quite; and when the time came to send her away forever because they were leaving for Thailand early next morning, the girl began to weep and grovel again, soaking his knees with tears, clinging to him; it was horrible to see her; as affectionately as he could, the journalist kissed her hand goodbye. .
THE END
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But that wasn't the end, either, because in the morning, ' very early, there was a tapping at the door, and when he got up sick and fat and groggy in his underwear to see who it was he still didn't know; he opened the door and shouted VANNA! with glee and thankfulness and she was glowing at him; she'd brought loaves of bread for his journey; he shared one with her; the photographer, who'd passed out puking on the floor, lay feverish in bed; and the journalist opened the refrigerator door where the photographer had left his fruit to be abandoned and gave it to her, a gift for a gift, and she smiled and took it so that it became something special; lying in bed beside him she peeled a fruit somewhat like a giant grapefruit, each sector of it walled off by a bitter cuticle as thick as a flower petal, the reward inside being a mass of rubbery pale yellow teardrop-shaped fibers with bittersweet juice; and she put the segments into his mouth, and she said: I wuff you -
THE END
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When they got back to Bangkok, the journalist said to the photographer: Well, that was it. No more whores for me. - And he'd start talking about how he was going to marry Vanna, until the photographer said: Aw, you're driving me crazy! — The photographer went and got laid. He really wanted the journalist to do it, too. He looked out for him. When the journalist's balls had been at their worst, the photographer always got him meals in bed. But the journalist wanted to be good now; he said no. - Can I at least bring you back something? — Red-boiled by the sun until he resembled a vulture, staring blearily, grimly ahead, the harsh light of Bangkok illuminating the insides of his ears, the photographer had had a hard time getting through the daylight hours. But now all his grace was back. As ever, the journalist envied him and wanted to be like him. - Oh, that's all right, he said. You go spread one for me. - He stayed in and washed his underwear in the sink. The room was bright, cool and quiet, with hardly any cockroaches — this being the world-famous Hotel 38, you see, which they'd never heard of before; the two lower floors were all whores; and their room number was special also, for the Pakistanis down the hall had said: Room 302? Very unlucky. Whenever someone in Pakistan gets murdered in a hotel room, it's always 302! - Looking around and smiling, the journalist had said to the photographer: I think I'm going to LIKE this place! and the photographer laughed so hard he had to hold onto the wall. - I wonder, said the journalist to the air conditioner, do they call it the Hotel 38 because it has thirty-eight stars? I'll give it that many in m} book… — but the air conditioner didn't answer. When he'd scrubbed his underwear from brown to grey, he squeezed them out and left them hanging and dripping on the bathroom doorknob. (The photographer sometimes rearranged his laundry for him neatly. The photographer, pitying his incompetence in almost every sphere of life, did what he could to help him. - Don't ever leave your wife, the photographer always said to him. Without her you'd really have problems!) The journalist stood in the empty room. His mouth was very dry. Too tired to pump the filter anymore, he decided to go down to the alley to buy bottled water. The miniature pagoda was illuminated in the courtyard; the neon sign darted on its pole like a string of lizards, a spill of water on the concrete below twisting rhythmic orange in sympathy. . His guts churned a little, and so did his balls. Time for dysentery. The second-floor girls were coming down the corridor arm in arm, linked by pink lights, laughing harshly. One had already snagged some geek in a white shirt. . The girls poked the journalist in the belly and he poked them back. He stood on the landing between the second and third floors looking across interstellar darkness into the window of a garment factory where girls in pale uniforms sat sewing; it seemed to him very strange and bleak; the prostitutes probably had a better life, in spite of the shame. . Just after he'd turned the light out and gotten into bed, the light came on, and he opened his eyes to see the photographer with someone else in the hot glowing doorway. A moment later, Joy, the photographer's old Bangkok girl, was on the journalist's bed, holding his hand and hugging him so naturally like he was her brother while the photographer laughed. - Only one boyfriend me! she said, pointing to the photographer. I love him! — You are so sweet, said the journalist in wonder, meaning every word of it, wondering how many times he'd meant it. .