Bible of the Dead

Chapter 18

Chemda gathered a sheet around herself, backing up 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 walk-ways, 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 flat 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 further 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 dishevelled 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 in 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 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 there 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 skullbone 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 was 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 in 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 apartment. He took pity on me.

Amidst 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 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 flat.

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 S37. They didn’t do anything to her in Lao. They did it here. They brought her back and experimented on her. I can show you. I do remember some things.

Chemda insisted:

‘I want to see this place. Now.’

‘Wait -’ Jake put a restraining hand on her soft bare shoulder. She was in a midnight blue singlet. Her skin was dark and lovely. He could still remember her naked, crouched over him, the man staring through the window.

‘Can we trust him?’

Chemda shook her head, frustratedly; Jake whispered in her ear:

‘I know he has information, Chem, and I know I feel sorry for him, but look at him! And he might go straight to your grandfather. And he was standing at the window.’

Ponlok was waiting, like a lowly servant, a man used to being ordered around, used to revulsion and disdain. The Khmer Rouge had turned him into a serf.

Chemda replied, her voice hushed.

‘He was just coming to see us! Hn? He wasn’t doing anything. And whatever happened to this poor man,’ she gestured at Ponlok, ‘happened to my grandmother. He may be able to help, to tell us. I want to know more. This is our chance. And besides he’s seen us now, we have to do something. We need to win him over, make sure he doesn’t go to my grandfather.’

Jake shrugged and resiled. Chemda’s willpower was formidable, and if she wanted to know about her grandmother’s fate, he could hardly argue.

‘If you want I’ll go alone with him,’ said Chemda. ‘You can stay here.’

‘Are you kidding?’

A minute later they were climbing down the fire escape, following the small, slightly limping Khmer man, in his fleecy cap.

A hundred metres and two alleyways brought them to a slightly busier street. A spirit house stood on the corner, with offerings of dark fish sauce in little egg cups.

Jake waited, and listened. Chemda was explaining to Ponlok: why the janitor should keep this very quiet, that no one should know she and Jake were here, not even her grandfather. Even as he tuned in, Jake felt sure this plan was not going to work; it was too much of a risk: they couldn’t trust Ponlok. As soon as this immediate and ghastly task was done, they would have to leave, flee Phnom Penh entirely. Run away into the countryside.

But where could they go?

Jake stared down the leafy suburban road, looking west, away from the sun: thinking of escape routes, places they could hide. He stared, and a brush of horror made him jerk, like an icy hand had been suddenly pressed to the back of his neck.

He realized where they were. The hulking grimy concrete building at the end of the road was unmistakeable. So that’s why he had recognized the area.

Tuol Sleng.

They were right by Tuol Sleng, the notorious Khmer Rouge prison.

At the end of the road Jake could see a bus, decanting tourists. People doing the Holocaust Tour. Jake had done it himself, when he’d first arrived in PP. He’d seen the iron beds where people were flayed with electric cables; he’d seen the bleak and foetid concrete cells where women and children were raped with truncheons, or tied down screaming as their living organs were removed, in live dissections.

Tuol Sleng. The hill of the poison tree. S21.

Seventeen thousand went through Tuol Sleng alone. And twelve survived.

Just twelve survivors, out of seventeen thousand.

Another note from Ponlok. The janitor handed it to Jake.

No. It is not in Tuol Sleng. It is secret place. S37. Come?

He was guiding them away from the torture garden. Jake felt a brief frisson of relief: they were ducking away from the busyness and tourist police of Tuol Sleng.

But where were they going? Ponlok was heading down an alley, slippy with rotting fruit, and soggy bags of discarded noodles, and clinking Royal Ginseng beer-bottles. The alley culminated in a dead end: a patch of earth and rubble, and a shattered building, a small concrete shack, just another one of Phnom Penh’s ruins.

It was surrounded by bamboo stands and high grasses, it was almost overrun by the riotous tropical fertility of the Cambodian lowland. Just another ruin. But not just another ruin.

This was S37.

It was roofless, the size of a large one-car garage. A sinister iron bedframe stood in the middle, rusting away.

Two metal cupboards sat next to it, the drawers flung open and empty. Only an ancient, grimy, very broken syringe, lying on the floor, showed that this place might once have had some medical significance.

Chemda spoke:

‘This is where they did the experiments?’

Yes.

The man was trembling again, glancing at Chemda, looking at her bare legs. Jake wished, suddenly, that she had worn jeans, not the short blue skirt.

Your grandmother was brought here. I know. Then they cut open her head and she was changed. Forever. Like me. Like many members of your family.

Chemda stared at the note.

‘Other people? My family? Who else?’

The note fell from Chemda’s hand to the floor. She was visibly and entirely shocked, her mouth trembling. Jake went to touch her, she waved him away.

Jake turned to ask the janitor another question.

‘How do you know?’

But Ponlok wasn’t listening, he was staring at Chemda’s legs. He moved closer to Chemda, then stopped. He trembled, he quivered, riven with some internal conflict. At last he scribbled a note, and handed it to Jake.

You must go

‘What?’

They make me like this

This note was stained with spittle. Ponlok was actually drooling. Laboriously the janitor wrote another note, with a quivering hand.

The scrawl was so shaky it took Jake a few seconds to decipher the words.

At last he made sense of the spidery writing.

I cant help it

Too late, Jake realized the danger. Ponlok was already between him and Chemda, and Ponlok was moving fast. The janitor lunged at the girl. He grabbed her bare legs. She screamed. The wiry old man pushed her over, and down, and shoved his hand inside her skirt.

Jake grabbed the Khmer man by the arms, pulling him off, tearing at his dirty collar, pulling out fistfuls of the old man’s hair; but then Jake felt a flash of metal, deeply cutting his forehead.

A knife. Ponlok had produced a huge knife from somewhere, he’d swivelled and slashed, slicing Jake hard across the face.

The pain was momentarily blinding. Jake staggered, and gasped. The blood was gushing from his forehead; frantic and angry he wiped it away, and stared through the crimson pain.

Ponlok was on top of Chemda, her panties were half-torn and they were dangling from an ankle. The janitor was unzipping himself, but the other hand was holding the knife, pressing it tight against Chemda’s throat, so tight it was whitening the dark skin of her neck. Chemda’s eyes blazed in terror, staring at Jake.

Help me

Jake stood, frozen with exquisite indecision. One slash of that brutal knife could kill Chemda.

But the janitor was going to rape her. In front of him. On the grimy concrete floor of S37.