They made love twice, and slept for several hours. Then they snuck out to buy food and clothes, ate a twilit dinner, and afterward fell asleep, once again.
When he woke the sun was diagonal at the windows and it was Monday morning and she was fellating him. He gazed down as she sucked, at the veil of her dark hair flung over her head. Jake sighed, tightly gripping the cool cotton bedsheets. He felt himself concentrated into one tiny, intense source of joy and disquiet, down there, as she swallowed him, beautifully, frighteningly, carnivorously; she was voracious Kali, the eater of men, she was a disembodied face, hovering over him, submissive yet delicious, exquisitely devouring — yet this was wrong, something was wrong: there was a shadow on the window, that was it. He jerked upright—
Something was outside. Chemda was naked, and kneeling, gazing down. She couldn’t see.
Jake could see. His blood thumped.
A man was standing there, at the window. Staring in.
19
Chemda gathered a sheet around herself, backing up to the bed, calling out:
“Jake, what is it? What?”
The figure at the window shrank away as Jake walked across and pressed his face to the glass.
He scanned. His eyes absorbed: a fire escape, metal walkways, stairs, the shadows of jackfruit trees. And there—a Khmer man, hiding in a corner, nervous yet staring out, a pleading expression on his face.
There was something deeply strange about him. He had a hat on, a red fleecy baseball cap. In this heat?
Jake wasn’t scared now: the man didn’t look frightening, just eerie and furtive. Flinging on some clothes and finding the back door of the apartment took half a minute; Jake stepped out onto the shade and heat of the fire escape.
The Khmer man was still there, in grimy overalls, old shoes, that peculiar cap. As Jake approached, the man shrank farther into the shadowed and dusty corner.
“It’s OK,” said Jake. “It’s OK.”
This was ludicrous, it was not OK. The man had been staring in at the window when they were having sex, a leering expression on his awkward face: he was a peeping Tom, he was deviant. But as Jake neared the trembling Khmer man, he began to feel pity; he couldn’t help it, this disheveled figure was so weedy, so pitiable, like a street urchin unfed for a week.
Chemda had dressed and joined them on the hot shadowed walkway. The jackfruit trees kept the direct glare of the sun off the metal, but the ambient dry-season heat smothered everyone, like a hot blanket, like an arbitrary punishment they all had to suffer.
She spoke in Khmer to the man. He mumbled incoherently, not even words. He pointed to his mouth and shook his head. She murmured, “I’ve no idea what he is… who he is. But maybe harmless.”
Again the man pointed to his mouth and shook his head.
But Jake understood.
“You can’t talk, can you? You’re mute?”
The man nodded.
“But,” Jake continued, “you can understand English?”
He nodded again, this time vigorously. Then he reached into the pocket of his overalls and pulled out something. Jake flinched, but it was just a small notebook and a stubby pencil. The man was writing in the pad, awkwardly using his knee as support. The little scene exuded sadness.
A glance was swapped between Chemda and Jake. Her dark eyes were wide with mystification.
The man had finished his scribbling. He tore out the note and handed the paper over. Jake took it and read.
I am Ponlok the janitor. I am sorry I scared you.
The English was good. This was bizarre. He showed the note to Chemda and she asked:
“How do you know such good English? Why can’t you talk?”
The man’s eyes moistened; for a second they seemed to fill with a memory of tears. Jake felt the surge of pity again, the stifling, discomfiting pity.
Another note was rapidly scrawled. Jake snatched it from the man’s hand.
I used to be a teacher. English teacher. At the lycee. Then the Khmer Rouge did the experiment on me.
“What experiment?” Jake said. “It left you speechless?”
The janitor, Ponlok, nodded — morosely. And then he slowly reached up to his cap and pulled it off.
A hideous scar lurked beneath. But it wasn’t just a scar, it was also a kind of concavity in the upper forehead. As if the skull had slightly caved in, as if a chunk of brain had been removed, then the skull had cratered — though the skin had grown over.
It was horrible, and it was pitiable. The damage was so bad the hair had refused to grow back, the livid pink scar left naked in its strange hollow. No wonder the poor guy wore a cap.
The small Khmer man put the cap back on and cast his eyes to the floor, like a child ashamed of bedwetting.
Jake swore, quietly. He was thinking of the skulls and the bones on the Plain of Jars. The skulls with holes in the same place. Jake remembered the old Cambodian prophecy: Only the deaf and the mute will survive.
The first intimations of a narrative glimmered in Jake’s mind.
Chemda had taken over the interrogation.
“Why did the Khmer Rouge do this to you?”
I do not know. They took away my memory with some of my brain. And my talking.
“When did they do this?”
In 1976.
“Did you volunteer to have this done to you?”
I do not remember. I hope not. I know some people did.
“Do you know where this happened?”
Yes. Near here. Let me show you.
Chemda said nothing, her expression spoke of confusion. Another note:
I know who you are. Chemda.
“What?”
Your grandfather gave me this job. When he built the apartments. He took pity on me.
Amid the strangeness, Jake could understand that bit of the story. He’d never felt such pity. To have your brain opened up, to be turned into this shrinking, deformed, helpless leftover man? Like an experimental rat, with little pieces of your mind thrown in the trash.
Grotesque.
That is why I came here this morning. To tell you.
Chemda gazed at the man.
“Tell me what?”
The next note took a long time to write. Jake stood in the heat, trickles of sweat down his back. This man knew who they were, even this wretched specimen of a man had identified them. It was hopeless: everywhere, everyone was watching. The fucking jackfruit trees were watching them. It seemed there was no shade in the entire country. Everywhere was exposed to the heat and the danger.
The sweat ran down his back like those tickling claws of the scorpion, the tickle of fear on his spine. He wanted to get back inside the apartment.
At last the note was handed over.
I saw you coming into the apartment yesterday, I watched you. I know who you are, Chemda Tek. Because you are famous and on UN and because you are granddaughter of Sovirom Sen. Everyone knows who you are. But I know more. I knew your grandmother. I saw them bring her to Tuol Sleng and then to S-37. They didn’t do anything to her in Laos. They did it here. They brought her back and experimented on her. I can show you. I do remember some things.