The policeman opened the door of the café to allow Julia through. The morning air was mild, for early November, wistful. He shook her hand. Then he said, “There is one more curiosity.”
Julia had already sensed there was more; with a creeping sense of dread, she asked: “Yes?”
“I was prepared to dismiss the crossbreeding as sheer speculation. A fanciful idea. But then, yesterday, my junior made another discovery.” His smile was bleak. “It seems there was a serious attempt in the 1920s to crossbreed man and animals, man and the higher apes specifically. And Professor Quoinelles, the grandfather, he was part of that. The leader, in fact.”
A flock of dirty city pigeons clapped into the air behind Rouvier, as if applauding this revelation.
“Why the hell would you do that?”
“Military purposes. Supposedly they wanted to create a soldier with the brain of a man and the strength of a wild animal. A real killer. They actually made the attempt! We must remember this was the 1920s, different morals would apply, eugenics was still permissible. But the lengths they went to — they are still incredible, repulsive. They used apes imported from French colonies, and human women. They seized African women, imprisoned them, and tried to impregnate them with animal sperm. We know this happened.”
“The French army did this? The French government? My God.”
“Ah no, not the French. I have misled you, sorry.” He hesitated, then explained: “Albert Quoinelles, Ghislaine’s grandpère, was another well-known leftist. A sympathizer with Bolshevism. Quoinelles did his experiments for Stalin, he was recruited by Moscow. He did his experiments for the Communists.”
He bowed her way, then turned and crossed the busy street, heading for the dark, mouthlike arches of the Gare du Nord.
18
An hour had passed since the fire-bombing. His phone was nearly juiced out. He’d called Ty, then the embassy — which was shut. Now he had just enough battery left for a conversation with Chemda. And he didn’t have time for niceties. Just the brutal facts. The fire-bombing. Sen’s bizarre offer.
She received his story with shocked silence; she stammered her sympathies about his apartment. But he interrupted her with a question.
“Why did you tell me your grandfather was away?”
“He was! He was away. But he came back early. The maid told him you were there…. Jake… Please…”
Her voice faded behind the noise of a tuk-tuk.
Jake was standing in the shuttered doorway of a pharmacy, near the great river. Sidling farther into the hot and tropical shadows, away from the street noise, he pressed the phone closer to his ear, waiting for her explanation.
“Maybe it was stupid, asking you to, ah, ah, come to the house. I am sorry. I was nervous, scared. But believe me, please believe me, I am perhaps almost as disoriented as you. Can you understand that, Jake? Hnh? My own mother is trying to frighten me, to curse me, and now my grandfather, the man I most respect in the world, he has — he has tried to marry me off, like chattel.”
Another tuk-tuk passed, its two-stroke engine rasping in an ugly and primitive way.
“Jake, I need to know. If you don’t trust me… then I understand. But then you must leave me alone. I’ll manage.”
What to do? He pondered her words. But even as he steeled himself he could feel the lush emotions melting his resolve; he was wary of her, yet he also felt a powerful sense of mutuality: they were in this together. She knew his darker secrets; she was closer to him than Tyrone now. And besides, he also craved her friendship. Her warmth. That proud and royal smile. He couldn’t deny it.
“Meet me.”
She whispered her reply: “Where?”
“You tell me, Chem. Somewhere discreet.”
Her silence spoke of her thoughts; then she answered. “A temple. Near the central market. One hour.”
He agreed and closed the call.
Jake stepped out of the shadows. The city stared at him, blankly. A moto hooted, seeking business. Sensing his exposure, he slipped down a side road, then doubled back down an old alley paved with rotting banana leaves. The alley led to the rear of his block. The fires must have been doused, there was no smoke. He could see hoses, and a couple of firemen at the corner, in wet, yellow overalls, smoking cigarettes.
A back door gave onto his stairwell. He walked to the gray metal lockers: he was lucky, the fire hadn’t made it to the ground floor. Jake twisted his little key and swiftly grabbed his stuff: his spare passport, some money, a few cards. He kept it all here so he could jump on a plane with a few minutes’ warning, imagining himself as the dashing foreign correspondent. He had never imagined this stash would be so useful—after an attempt on his life.
Cards and passport zipped in his small rucksack, he hurried to the temple. It took twelve anxious minutes. Chemda was waiting in the courtyard. Her face was beautiful and it was dark and her skirt was very blue. He felt a sudden and unwarranted need to kiss her. Perhaps the surge of the life force, in such proximity to death.
“Jake, we have to hide.”
“Where?”
Chemda reached out and touched his hand. Like a nervous bride in church, meekly seeking reassurance from her groom.
“I know a place, my grandfather owns a block of apartments. One of them is empty, it’s just come up for sale. Jake, I have a key—and he doesn’t know.”
He shook off her hand, gazed around.
A young novice monk in his saffron toga was sitting on the steps, vaguely looking their way, lazily swatting flies from his face. His expression was sleepy; it was so hot. The smell of incense, and rotting fruit, spiced the air.
Chemda had chosen this place because it was supposedly discreet, but the ambience was unnerving: blue smoke and hot sun and intense dark shade from the overhanging eaves of the temple. And a languid, skinhead monk, observing them.
Still shaken by the attempt on his life, Jake didn’t know if he could trust his own feelings. He swallowed the bitter dryness of anxiety.
Two men wandered through the ornate wooden gate and nodded at the monk, then made a ponderous bow, a samphae, at a gilded and gaudy shrine. The men were clean-cut, prosperous, thirtyish. Businessmen? In a temple? Jake watched them leave again, his eyes following them suspiciously, ensuring they were really gone.
Chemda came close, and repeated herself; still meek, but also insistent:
“Jake, there’s no one I can trust. Not anymore. Can you understand that?” She bit a lip, shut her eyes. “The only person I still trust in Phnom Penh is you. Only you. My friends are in America, my mother is… I wonder if she knows me. Loves me. My own mother. How could a mother do that? With the kun krak? I don’t understand, I don’t understand them. Not anymore. Maybe I have been away too long. They are dissolving again, dissolving all over again — like the past coming back. And then my grandfather, how could he just sell me off, like a concubine for Sihanouk, like meat, like the pigs’ heads in the market. Jake. And the people at the UN, they are the same, they do not understand, they are not Khmer. I am lost in the middle of it all. So it’s you. Just you. Not even my grandfather. Just you.”
She was gazing at him, unblinking. “You are different. Aren’t you, Jake? You come from outside and yet you, you became my friend, you are unsullied. I trust you. Jake. But if that is not given back… if it’s not what you feel, then that’s what… I understand, of course, ah, but we can’t meet again. Never. Because.”