‘You don’t look much like a refugee to me.’
‘Perhaps not. But I am, nonetheless.’
‘A rich refugee.’
If Ang detected Elliot’s sarcasm he gave no sign of it. ‘As you supposed, I was not without influence with the Americans. I succeeded in getting most of my money out of the country in the months before Phnom Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge.’
‘And yourself with the American evacuation, no doubt.’
‘Yes.’
Elliot detected a moment of pain in the Cambodian’s eyes.
‘Unfortunately my influence did not extend to the evacuation of my family.’ Ang glanced at Elliot and saw the contempt flicker across his face. A look he had seen on many faces since 1975. He examined his hands. ‘My wife, Serey. My daughter, Ny. She will be seventeen now. And Hau, my son. He will be twelve.’
‘If they are still alive.’
‘Oh, they are still alive.’ The light of hope burned brightly for a moment in Ang’s eyes.
‘How can you know that?’
‘I did not spend all that time in the refugee camps because I had to, Mistah Elliot. I have American citizenship now.’
‘Amazing what money can buy — and what it can’t.’
Ang faltered only momentarily. ‘I was there through choice. I talked to hundreds, maybe thousands, of refugees. They all told the same stories of what was happening in Cambodia — of the atrocities these murderers are perpetrating in my country.’
Elliot recalled the infamous Nixon pronouncement after the US bombing of Cambodia in 1970 — Cambodia is the Nixon doctrine in its purest form. No involvement. As if bombs were somehow neutral.
Ang was still talking. ‘There were always those in the camps seeking news of relatives or friends. Some were lucky, most were not.’
‘And you?’ Elliot found himself interested, in spite of an instinctive dislike of Ang.
‘I had almost given up.’ He remembered the hopelessness of it all. The skeletal figures with their pathetic bundles of ragged possessions who came out of the jungle day after day. Some had lost wives or husbands, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters. They thought they had escaped to freedom, when all that awaited them were the camps, and the indifference of the West. Barbed wire, rows of long insanitary huts. A Thai regime that didn’t want them was determined to keep them there, without home or country.
‘Until six weeks ago,’ he said. ‘I had a reported sighting at a commune north of Siem Reap. A woman who had known my wife in Phnom Penh. It was promising, but uncertain.’ He had recalled the woman vaguely. Her children had gone to school with his. She had told him it could have been his wife she saw. But one face looked much like another in the communes, she said. Blank. People did not speak. Recognition was dangerous. The past could kill. ‘I still needed confirmation. I got it ten days ago. No doubts. My wife is alive. And my daughter.’ He paused. ‘My son I do not know about.’ He sat silent for a long time, then he looked up. ‘Mistah Elliot, I will pay you half a million US dollars — everything I have left — if you will go into Cambodia and get them out.’
Chapter Five
The sun had been merciless, beating down in waves like physical blows, her only protection the conical hat and ragged black pyjamas she wore. Hands like leather worked the wooden shaft of the hoe to a rhythm that was as much a part of her now as breathing.
Serey had lost track of the passage of time since her death. For that was how she saw her life under the Khmer Rouge. A living death. An existence, nothing more. The endless hours in the fields, the indoctrination sessions when the sun went down. Young fanatics haranguing the new breed of Cambodians. Automatons serving the needs of Angkar — the Organization. Mercifully, these had become less frequent since moving to this commune. At first the speakers had been seductive, appealing to those with an education, those with technical, medical, administrative skills, to come forward and serve Angkar on a higher plane. Angkar needs you, they said. Angkar will reward you. And at first there had been those who succumbed. But they all knew now that a call to Angkar meant torture and mutilation in the woods. A bayonet in the stomach or, if you were lucky, a bullet in the head. The weak, the sick, all those who could not work went to Angkar.
There was no conversation, no friendly chatter in the fields, no eye contact, lest it be seen by the guards who watched them from the shade of the trees. The only sound was the scraping of countless hoes in the dry earth, and the idle talk of the guards as they smoked or ate from hampers of fruit and meat and rice. Serey could not remember the last time she had eaten fresh meat. She had eaten grubs, worms, all manner of insects, anything she knew would provide her with at least some protein. And there had been the berries she picked in the jungle, the tubers she dug from the earth. The three meagre portions of rice they were provided with each day would never have sustained her. But still she had the sores on her arms and legs and face that came from vitamin and protein deficiencies.
Ten metres away an old man buckled at the knees and fell face first into the earth. The nearest of the guards shouted at him to get up. He did not stir. The guard approached and kicked him in the ribs and struck him several times across the back with a bamboo staff. The faintest groan escaped the old man’s lips. At a signal from the first, a second guard came across and they dragged him away. Another sacrifice to Angkar. There was not the faintest flicker of acknowledgement among those left hoeing. Not a head turned. The rhythm of the hoes continued unbroken. In the early days Serey had heard stories of guards dragging people into the woods, using bayonets to cut open their stomachs. It was said they removed the livers of their still-living victims and ate them raw. She had found it hard to believe. Now she believed anything, and nothing.
Her back ached, her whole being ached, but she no longer felt the pain. Many times she had wished they would come and take her to Angkar. It would, perhaps, have been easier. But she’d had to stay strong for Ny, even though she could no longer acknowledge her as her daughter. Nor Ny her as her mother. Families divided loyalties. They owed loyalty only to Angkar.
It was a miracle that she and Ny were still together after the frequent moves from commune to commune. Somehow they had always contrived to be aboard the same truck. Here they even shared the same hut — with a dozen others. But their only contact was the occasional exchange of glances, a brushing of hands as they passed. Hau, she knew, was in a commune across the river. She had seen him once, sitting in the back of a truckful of guards as it rumbled through their village. He had an automatic rifle slung across his shoulder, and wore a kramar — the red, chequered headscarf of the Khmer Rouge. Twelve years old and they had made him one of them. He had seen her, too, she was sure. But he had turned his face away. She wondered if he, like some of the other children, had been made to pick out those whose faces he did not like, and watch as plastic bags were pulled over their heads to suffocate them.
It was almost dark as the siren sounded and they shuffled from the field back to the village and their respective huts. The women in Serey’s hut ate their rice in silence, slowly, without passion. Serey glanced at Ny and felt her eyes fill with tears. She had more flesh on her bones than the others, fewer sores, a lustre to her hair and a burning hatred in her eyes. Seventeen and beautiful — or should have been. So many things she should have been. So much that life should have offered.
Ny was aware of her mother looking at her, but kept her eyes down, ashamed to meet her mother’s gaze. She was consumed by shame, and hatred for the young cadre who would come for her before very much longer.