They got a tuk-tuk ride back to the hotel. In the room, she’d been shy and uncertain. He didn’t mind. He liked her, and besides, he could get laid anytime, one night without wasn’t going to kill him. He told her he didn’t want to do anything that made her uncomfortable, and she was welcome to spend the night if she liked. There was only the one bed, but they could keep their clothes on, it was fine.
So that’s what they did. She did most of the talking, telling him about her family, her city, her hopes for the future. Her father drove a tuk-tuk and her mother ran the house, taking care of two brothers and a sister, sewing garments for some of the clothes shops in town to earn a little extra income. They all slept in the same room of a low-rise apartment building and shared a bathroom with the neighbors. Both her parents had grown up orphaned by the Khmer Rouge, and sending their first child to college had required considerable sacrifice — so much so that it was unlikely any of her siblings would be as fortunate. She told him these things matter-of-factly, in response to his questions. Still, he wondered how much of it was true. Every bargirl in Southeast Asia had a story about a dying grandmother or a sick baby or an aging water buffalo, all intended to play on the rich foreign customer’s guilt.
At one point he started to doze off and she’d laughed at him, and when he apologized, she gave him a kiss, just a light one, on the mouth. That woke him up, and after looking at her lovely face for a moment, just a few inches from his, he kissed her back. Her lips were soft and he liked the way she smelled — flowers, and the hint of some exotic spice, too. He was aware that if the kiss turned into much more, he could easily get to the point where he’d want to persuade her and where he’d be disappointed if he couldn’t. Or where maybe he’d feel like he’d been rude in trying. So with some regret, he broke the kiss and said, “Sweet dreams, Chantrea.”
She got up early the next day to go to class. He would have walked her down to the lobby and gotten her a tuk-tuk, but he sensed she would have been embarrassed if the hotel staff had seen them together in the morning. So he just checked through the peephole and unbolted the door. He paused before opening it and looked at her.
“Ms. Chantrea, I’d like the pleasure of your company again, if your studies permit.”
A moment went by. “Why?” she said, looking at the tile floor.
He laughed. If she really wasn’t this innocent and awkward, she was a mighty fine actress. “Well, I like you is why.”
“I like you, too. But… we didn’t…”
He pulled five twenties from his pocket — a tip that would have been ridiculously large even if he’d seen some action last night, which he hadn’t. He hoped he wasn’t being a chump. Maybe she was just an exceptionally fine judge of character, a consummate con artist, and had spotted a way to milk him of some money without even offering any boom-boom in return. But he didn’t care. What kind of person would he be, if he avoided helping a nice girl on the off chance she didn’t really need it? Sometimes you had to act as if something was true, even if it might not be.
She looked at the money. “Why?” she said again, making no move to take it.
“Were you telling me the truth last night, about your family?”
She nodded.
He reached out and took one of her small hands and folded the bills into it. “Then take the money. I told you, I’m only in town for a few days and then I have to go. In the meantime, I’d like to see you again. And I’d like to help you and your family out a little. I’m not asking for any quid pro quo.”
“Quid pro quo?”
“An exchange. Reciprocity. You know, payback.”
She shook her head. “I shouldn’t take your money. I didn’t even… We didn’t…”
“That’s fine. I enjoyed your conversation. We can do it again, if you give me a phone number.”
She did. And since then, he’d seen her every day after class, and she’d stayed with him at the hotel every night. The second evening was a little awkward. He could tell she was willing, but he wasn’t sure if she really wanted to. And he was concerned that by giving her the money, he’d made her feel obligated, which hadn’t been his intention. So they’d talked for a while, and then he read a book while she studied, and in the end they’d cuddled but that was all. They fell asleep spooned together, with her in front, and he knew she could feel his hard-on against her ass right through his jeans. He was glad she knew he wanted her but that he was holding back. He’d given her another hundred when she left in the morning, and the second time seemed to establish a comfortable pattern. Maybe he’d make love to her before he left the country, maybe he wouldn’t. He wasn’t overly concerned either way.
He’d told her he had a meeting today. She didn’t inquire what about; she just asked if he wanted to see her in the afternoon, the way they’d been doing. He told her yes. He wondered what she made of him. A rich foreigner could be her ticket out — hell, her whole family’s ticket. But she never pressed. Maybe she wasn’t sure whether to trust him. Maybe she was afraid he would make her a bunch of promises, buy her off with some cash, leave without saying goodbye. Maybe she had decided sometimes you have to act as if something was true even if you couldn’t be sure, the way he had. It bothered him some, that she might have those kinds of doubts about him. It bothered him more that she had some reason. But he didn’t see what he could do about it.
He stretched and cracked his knuckles over his head. Still no sign of the broker, but that was all right, it was only ten minutes to noon. He didn’t even know what the man looked like, only that he went by the name Gant and that a former Marine buddy had vouched for him. “Some kind of spook,” his buddy had assured him. “Agency is my guess. But could be Homeland Security, or maybe even NSA outsourcing the dirty work. Whoever he’s with, he’s got juice — ask for whatever hardware and logistics you want, he’ll get it for you pronto. And his money’s green.”
He thumbed through his Lonely Planet guide, periodically lifting his eyes for a casual sweep of the approach to where he sat. Some Japanese tourists, clicking cameras at the Angkor-era statues in contravention of signs prohibiting photos of the exhibits. A Khmer mother and two small kids, making a picnic in the coolness of the veranda shadows. He couldn’t have seen more than a few dozen people since he’d arrived, and it occurred to him that the museum seemed to boast more artifacts than it did visitors. The place had a slightly strange feel — sleepy; half-forgotten; somehow provisional, as though the curators expected that any day they might suddenly have to crate up everything and move it underground. Habits of war, he decided. It’s not just the warriors who keep them after the conflict has ended. Civilians do, too, and maybe even more so.
He liked Cambodia. He’d never been anywhere in Southeast Asia that didn’t agree with him, and it was no coincidence he made his home in Bali. Phnom Penh was seedy and hot and shit-poor, with colonial buildings stoically crumbling in the tropical humidity, and sidewalks so dilapidated they looked like they’d been bombed. There were pockets of construction — hotels and office complexes and such — but these only seemed to emphasize the parlous state of everything else. Families economized by riding three and sometimes four at a time on legions of motor scooters, there were beggars everywhere, and food was apparently dear enough that an overweight Khmer was nowhere to be seen. But despite all this, the place thrummed with optimism and hope. The Cambodians had been sodomized for centuries — the Vietnamese, the French, and most of all, the homegrown Khmer Rouge — but no matter how life beat them down, they kept getting back up. They hustled at work, strolled with their children along the river quay, and never stopped smiling. He’d read somewhere how a wild thing never felt sorry for itself, no matter how bad its circumstances, and that seemed to describe Cambodia, too. Certainly it described Chantrea.