Chemda stared at the ground, saying nothing, saying as little as possible. Jake did the same. But the thinnest cop, with the sweatiest shirt, seemed enraged by their muteness. He glared and he shouted. His face was so thin, everything about him was thin, the nylon of his clothes, the plastic of his shoes, the vowels in his curses. He was thin and angry and fifty and sweating hatred for everything Jake represented: money, the West, youth, privilege, the English language — all the Western kids puking on the steps of the temples of Vang Vieng, all the Westerners polluting beautiful ancient Laos.
Jake almost wanted to say sorry.
He said, “Sorry?”
The man shook his head angrily and spat out a question; but he spoke barely any English. He stood and he shouted at Jake, incomprehensibly. What was he shouting? It was all said in Lao. Jake tried not to cower in his chair. He got the sense this particular policeman was a millimeter away from whipping out his gun and slapping it across Jake’s face, breaking his nose like balsa, squirting blood onto the desk. Was that already a bloodstain? On the wall?
Jake stayed mute. Staring ahead. Meek and polite — and mute as possible. That’s what Chemda had advised. Say nothing. But this was nasty. Jake had heard vague stories of Western journalists being seriously abused in Laos, for going where they were not wanted: journalists flung in jail, and tortured, by a prickly Communist regime, a cornered country, now surrounded by capitalists. He’d seen men on the terrace of the FCC in Phnom Penh with limps and bruises and ragged, disbelieving expressions: I just got back from Luang, where the beer is good and the girls are cute, but man, oh man.…
The cops turned for a moment. And walked away.
Chemda whispered: “Remember what I said at the hotel.”
He couldn’t forget. The hours since the discovery of the corpse were now a stark and unforgettable tableau, luridly lit in his mind.
When they had discovered the body, Chemda had stifled her immediate shock and suppressed any hint of tears, and with extraordinary calmness she had turned to Jake and intoned, “The police will use this against us, try and get rid of us, or worse. When they interview us — say nothing.” Then she’d gone straight to the hotel manager, leaving Jake with the corpse, swinging gently as the door creaked on its hinges.
Soon after, Chemda had returned with the manager, a fat man with red eyes who gaped at the body in horror, and who tiptoed past the blood like a bizarrely corpulent ballet dancer.
The rest was a series of grisly procedures. The ambulance. The sirens. Lights in the parking lot. Dirty white police cars behind. Frantic phone calls and texts. Tou had been searched for — and not found. Eventually Jake had collapsed onto a bed in a spare room for a few meager minutes of sleep.
And then the police had come back, just after dawn, to snatch Chemda and Jake and take them to the station — for the interrogation, maybe more. And so they were brought here, to the Ponsavan police station, an anonymous yet menacing concrete block in this anonymous yet menacing concrete city, a building adorned with three Communist flags hanging limply in the dawn light over the concrete porch.
The young Lao officer who had first collected them was polite enough. Just enough. He spoke some English. He’d led them through corridors of dusty policework to this stuffy room, where his desk loomed large, and handcuffs and batons hung from a hook. Jake had wondered what tools they had in the basement. And then, at last, the questioning had begun: long and incessant, remorseless. Hours of grinding questions. Repeated relentlessly, like the cops expected them to suddenly change their answers if they asked the same question for the tenth time.
Hours later, they were still here. Was this ever going to end?
Jake stared, now, at the hammer-and-sickle flags hung around the room, as the thin cop questioned Chemda. So many flags? They implied a very defensive insecurity. This was a nervous place. The flags said: We are Communists, definitely. Ignore the rampant capitalism everywhere. Look instead at all the flags. Jake wondered again how many people were taken to the basement. Such a big concrete building would definitely have a large and chilly basement.
The questioning of Chemda continued. Jake reached into his pocket and took out his light meter. It was the only bit of gear he had. All his cameras were back at the hoteclass="underline" he felt like a soldier forcibly deprived of his rifle. He fiddled, uselessly, with the meter.
And now the cop came back to Jake with his questions, interpreted by the English-speaking policeman. They were the same questions, all over again.
Why were Jake and Chemda here? Who was the dead man? Why had Tou disappeared? Why had Tou telephoned them last night? Why would anyone kill a harmless old historian?
Jake replied quietly, and meekly, and honestly. And repetitiously. For another hour.
At some unspoken signal, they were both asked to stand, and separate. The authorities were dividing them. They were apparently going to be questioned individually. Chemda gave Jake a long glance as she was led away, then she reached and subtly grasped Jake’s hand. The touch was like a mild electric shock. Then she let go.
Jake stared at her. She was turning now and regarding the smiling, faux-polite, English-speaking cop: her regal Khmer expression was proud, uptilted, daring the police to do their worst. There was a shamelessness to her loveliness in that tiny moment. A kind of unabashed and aristocratic pride. Imperious and defiant.
He admired her stance, her confidence. And yet he worried for her. He wondered what the Communist cops would do to this beautiful and well-born girl who openly defied them.
The door closed; he was alone with the thin cop. All the other policemen had gone, along with Chemda.
The assault came at once. Like the anorexic cop had been just waiting for his moment, when he was at last unobserved, he leaped from his chair, grabbed Jake by the hair, and yanked his head back, painfully, pulling at the roots. Now he spoke over Jake’s face. Spoke down. Salivating. Angry. Hoarse. Speaking Lao.
There was something foul in the cop’s breath, some overripe Asian food, a pungent meat, or last night’s Chinese liquor; Jake blocked out the man’s spittled words. He closed his eyes and said nothing, letting the policeman rage and snarl. How else should he respond? What else could he do? He counted the seconds as the cop slapped his face. Once, then again, then a third time. Hard.
Jake kept his eyes shut. He heard the cop say a name. He opened his eyes. The cop gestured angrily, and then eagerly stepped to his desk, like a boxer going to his corner, impatient for the next round. A drawer was flung open. The cop was rifling, briskly searching. Looking for what? A knife? A scalpel? The fear tingled in Jake’s fingers.
The door swung open. Chemda stepped through, followed by the policeman who spoke English. She lifted her cell phone and explained: “I did it — I got hold of people in Phnom Penh! They confirmed it all… our presence in the Plain of Jars. We’re OK, Jake, we’re OK.”
It was true. The mood had altered. Somehow. She had done it: she had saved them. She had saved Jake from a real beating. The English-speaking policeman nodded at the room, nodded at everyone, as if he were saying This is over, for now.
Jake stood and said nothing about what had happened. The thin cop was staring furiously, but quietly, through the grubby window.
Doors were opened. Hands were very cursorily shaken. The English-speaking officer escorted them from his office. As they walked, he told them they were free to go, but only free to leave the police station. He wanted them to remain within Ponsavan city, until his initial investigations were concluded.