The Lost Goddess

41

“Dude.”

The swamp mist cleared from the Butcher’s Lake of his mind. He was still alive.

“You had us worried. Big time.”

Jake sat up; he was in a bed. A clean white bed in a clean white room without windows. Tyrone was standing at the end of the bed, laconically leaning, skinny in his blue jeans.

“But…” Jake sought his watch. His watch was gone. “Where am I? How long have I been out?”

“Six fucking days! You nearly died. The doctors had to put you in a coma. Induced. To save you. But you should be fine now. We put all your blood back. Those idiots, the morons, on the back road, they thought you were someone else. We didn’t think you would take the back road.”

“Ty.” He was beyond confused. He wondered if he was still hallucinating. “Where am I?”

Tyrone pulled up a chair and sat down.

“Balagezong. In the clinic. Top of the mountain. Bala village. Great views. Shame you haven’t got any windows.”

The electric realization shot through him.

“Chemda!”

Jake leaped from the bed — but he didn’t leap from the bed. A metal clanking noise, and a sharp pain in his ankle, told him why. He was chained: ankle-cuffed to the steel frame of the bed.

Uncomprehending, Jake stared at the irons clamped around his leg. He was a prisoner? Then why was he rescued?

Tyrone tutted.

“Relax. Chemda is fine. And here, take this, madman.” Tyrone threw a plastic bag onto the bed. “Sorry about the leg irons, necessary precaution. We thought if you woke up in the dark and panicked and bolted, you might wander off a cliff. Or get angry or something. Lot of cliffs around here.” He grinned. “Hey. You must be hungry, eat the food and I’ll come back in a moment. We can talk more. Lots to talk about.”

Tyrone walked out of the room. Jake stared at the blank white concrete wall. Chemda was OK? What was going on? How had Tyrone made it here so quickly? Had he really been unconscious for six days?

It was too much. He was very hungry.

The plastic bag contained bottles of mineral water and a couple of sandwiches wrapped in foil. Jake drank the water and ate the food. Then he lay back, still hungry, staring at the bruises in the crook of each arm. Where they had tried to drain all his blood.

So he hadn’t imagined that.

There were so many questions, it was tiring: physically wearying. He found himself drifting into unconsciousness once again. His sleep was disturbed by the creak of the door.

Tyrone. The American gave him another sardonic smile.

“That’s better. Bit of color in your cheeks. For a Brit.”

This time Tyrone pulled up a chair, swiveling it so he was sitting reversewise, arms laid on the top of the chair back. Jake gazed, the bewilderment fighting the tiredness in his mind.

“OK,” said Tyrone. “Give me your questions.”

“All I care about,” said Jake, “is Chemda. Where is she?”

“Patience. Jesus, you really do love her, don’t ya? She is fine. Unharmed. What next?”

“Sovirom Sen. Did he make it here?”

Tyrone pulled the chair nearer.

“Yes. He’s here.” Tyrone sighed. “OK. Yes. It’s confusing: let me explain. First thing you gotta know. Prepare yourself.”

“What?”

“Sovirom Sen is Khmer Rouge. And not just that. In the 1970s he was a member of the elite, just beneath Ieng Sary and the Butcher. A cadre. A leader.”

Jake fought his utter confusion. “Sen? But Ty, he is a known anti-Communist, famous for it.”

“Dude, he lied. He is a liar. He lies. He was the most committed Communist of all. But the Khmer Rouge fell. And of course he is not stupid, he is a very clever and far-sighted man. Sharp as fuck, like all the KR. He realized that to survive and prosper in the postregime era he had to pretend that he hated communism, hated the Pol Pot regime.”

“How could you get away with that?”

Tyrone’s smile was pert.

“You think he is the only one? How many former Khmer Rouge officials are now at the top of the Cambodian government? Some of the more foolish are open about it — many more conceal it, the more subtle operators, perhaps. And the transition is easy. We see it across the world, right? Regimes change, yet the personnel stay the same. And in Cambodia everyone assists in the deception. Because the country’s tragedy is too large to endure, the grief too immense, two million too big. Only the deaf and the mute survive. And the only exit is survival. So they have this conspiracy of denial, of silence, of accepting the common lies.” Ty sighed. “Poor old Cambodia. Still, they shouldn’t have gone bat-shit crazy, should they? Gooks.”

Jake attempted a question: “But what does this mean? Now?

“I have pieced together the narrative, with a bit of help. Apparently the trouble began when Chemda, your beautiful, smart, and determined little Khmer princess girlfriend…” Tyrone’s eyes were bright. “The trouble started when she took a more detailed interest in the recent history of Cambodia. Working with the United Nations, the ‘reconciliation’ tribunals. Talking about the babies they smashed against trees. The monks they burned alive. The people they threw into the sea.”

“Sen tried to dissuade her.”

“Yup. He was worried, but then he reluctantly decided she should have her way. He reckoned she would soon tire of her idealism and meet a young man, and she would then want a family like any good Khmer daughter, and she’d give up the lawyering. But she persisted. And then she began investigating the Plain of Jars. Coming close to her grandfather’s history, to his concealed past.”

Jake gazed across the room.

“The professors in Laos?”

“They were pressured, and how. By Sen. Khmer Rouge people in Phnom Penh. The Lao. All of them together. And when Samnang topped himself, Sen thought that would be it, that Chemda would quit, yet he could tell from her phone calls that she was determined to continue.”

“So her mother got the witch to arrange the kun krak. To scare her off. I know that.”

Tyrone nodded empathetically.

“Yeah, that bit we know all about, right? Madame Tek was aware that Chemda shared her irrational superstitions. The mother hired the spider queen. To do the embryo juju.”

“And it worked—”

“But when she got back Chemda was the same girl! Mmm? Right? Still convinced of the need to confront the past. She just didn’t realize that confronting the past meant… unmasking her own grandfather. And you know how Chemda thinks. She reveres Papa Sen. Father Number One. Sen was like her real dad and Chemda was Daddy’s little girl.”

Tyrone abruptly stood. He walked to the other side of the room and gazed at a wall chart. A picture of the human brain.

“She loved and revered her grandfather. It would rip her open to know that Grandfather Sen was a friend of the Butcher. Of Ieng Sary. Pol Pot. And Sen in turn, apparently, rather likes his granddaughter’s love and respect, so he did not want Chemda’s hatred. He needed her out of the country, away from these mysteries. And they had another reason for her to leave.”

On the horizon, the truth was rising, like a sickening moon.

Jake asked, “Which was? This reason?”

“People were being killed. Scientists across the West. People who had helped in the experiments they did in Phnom Penh, the experiments that have continued here. Sen knew that danger approached. In desperation he thought maybe you would take her to England or America. She loves you, Jake. She would follow you, if no one else, right? You were their best hope. As a final inducement, Sen arranged for your apartment to be fired—”

“Sen? It was him? How the hell was that meant to persuade me?”

“Seems you left the Sovirom compound too soon that morning. You weren’t meant to see the actual fire bombs, you were meant to agree to the marriage and then go home and see the already gutted apartment and realize your life was in real danger. You would marry Chemda nice and easy — and take her far away out of harm’s reach, away from the terrible truth. And then papa-san would deal with the threat as best he could. But it went wrong. You escaped — eloped, even — and then Sen got angry and decided to take more drastic action. In Anlong Veng. Kill you, seize Chemda. He felt you already knew too much. I saved your ass.”

“But what are you doing now, Ty? You saved me then? But what are you doing now? We have to save Chem, get her out of here, away from Sen—”

Tyrone sighed.

“I’m coming to that. You are my friend, Jake, really. I really did save you in Anlong Veng. I was rooting for you, dude, but then a couple of weeks ago…”

He paused.

“Tell you what. Maybe you need some visuals.” Tyrone walked to the door, pulled it open, and signaled to someone beyond.

Sovirom Sen stepped through; his smile at Jake was halfway between delicate pity and pure condescension. His smile at Tyrone was entirely civilized.