Butterfly Stories

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But the end of the story is not the end of the story; that doesn't happen until THE END when they lower you into your pitch-dark grave. The punchline of the closed episode recedes as experience continues, which must be why it's so difficult to learn anything.

I wonder if she's waiting for me at the disco, the journalist said. Maybe she misunderstood -

I'm sure she is, drawled the photographer. Yep, she's just sitting around waiting for her knight in shining armor.

That night he had a dream that he was getting married and everyone was so happy for him; all the street orphans were there drumming and dancing; reformed Stalinists made him fish soup; the cyclo drivers donated their vehicles to serve as chairs. .

When he told the photographer a little more about it, the photographer said: She must have thought you were a real pain in the ass.

They were on the way to the battlefields, although not much was going on there; truth to tell, that was how they liked it. Their official driver (the interpreter assured them that he was not in the secret police) sped importantly down the road in the government car whose insignia meant secret police; every fifteen seconds the driver honked. A woman rode side-saddle on the back of. a motor scooter, holding a basket of green fruit in her lap. The driver honked and the motor scooter skidded aside; the woman almost went flying. The driver gunned it and pulled ahead, drowning her in dust. Down the hot white road where cyclists bore bushy loads of grass, the pale car rocked and bumped. The driver honked, and pedestrians leaped for their lives, scrambling up the dyke of yellow dirt. They passed angle-roofed tin-walled houses on stilts. A naked brown child was fishing in tea-colored water. A water-buffalo sucked its mother. - There are two kinds of land mine, the interpreter was saying. One explodes if you touch it anywhere. The other kind explodes only if you step on it. - The journalist was barely listening. He could not stop remembering the way she'd been looking at him when he started crying and she was trying to cheer him up by smiling and teasing him with her finger though her eyes were sad and distant like always, so he tried to smile back like a good sport even with the tears running out of his eyes and he could not miss her looking at him so searchingly and then she rose to pray her hands ah Uvun and goodbye, gently going out the door.

You see, an English student had told him (another of his myriad helpful interpreters), sometimes I too like to play with taxi girl. But, you see, I have girlfriend.

And I think you have already had a taste of Cambodian girls? the interpreter said suddenly.

Uh huh, said the journalist, thinking: Which spies and busybodies in the lobby didn't report us?

A poster of a worker, hammer in one hand, gun in the other. Jungle to the left (to the far left); that was where the Khmer Rouge were. More empty orange rivers; a kid barfing out the window of the Red Cross van. . The journalist rubbed his balls.

The Chief of Protocol received them on a high porch. He was pleased with the journalist's French. He read their dossiers and clapped a hand to his mouth in mirth.

Ah, a beautiful girl there — did you remark her? he said in the car.

No, Monsieur, said the journalist.

But I believe you do regard them.

Yes, I do regard them, replied the journalist in the most pompous French that he could muster. For me, every girl in Cambodia is beautiful.

The Chief of Protocol laughed so hard that he had a coughing fit.

Clearly it was his job to amuse the Chief of Protocol. - In Phnom Penh, every girl is a delicious banquet, he said.

Delighted, the Chief of Protocol embraced him.

What did you tell him? asked the interpreter.

I said that it is very hot today, said the journalist.

The Chief of Protocol said something to the interpreter, who giggled.

Yes, yes, said the interpreter, and Battambang is famed for its lovely roadside flowers.

Sounds like we'll be gettin' some pussy tonight, said the photographer.

Well, said the journalist cautiously, that's up to them. But at least we know it's in our file.

At the expensive restaurant where they had to take the driver, the interpreter and the Chief of Protocol, two hostesses came to sit with the white boys. The journalist tried to give his girl to the Chief of Protocol, who sat constantly at his right hand talking until his ears ached, but no matter how many circumflexes the journalist piled on, the Chief of Protocol said: I am married!

So am I, said the journalist, kissing the hole on another can of Tiger beer. You see, Monsieur, I married a flower in Phnom Penh.

A flower — in Phnom Penh! Hee, hee, hee!

The journalist did not want a Battambang flower. He wanted Vanna. But he did not want to disappoint or humiliate the hostess. And he did not want to make the Cambodian officials think less of him. It seemed so important to them. .

The woman smiled at him shyly. He smiled back. He could think of nothing to say to her. He was exhausted.

Tell her I'm in the KGB, he said. Tell her I want to take her to Russia with me. My name is Communist Number One.

She says, she don't want to go with Russian. She afraid. She go your friend.

So the photographer got two girls that night. The journalist was relieved. He yawned and blew his nose. The Chief of Protocol was very sorry for him. It all worked out well: the journalist with a good night's sleep, the driver and interpreter well amused, the photographer with his girls grinning vanilla-teethed, nodding on his shoulder, the Chief of Protocol grinning hilariously in the dark doorway behind. .

Riding atop the jolting Soviet tank in the rain, he saluted the staring or laughing girls, kissing his hand to them, waving to the kids, the old men and ladies, tossing ten-riel notes down into the road like bonbons (the photographer and the driver did the same; the driver was dressed in a black uniform today, and wore his Russian pistol especially for the occasion); and the interpreter and the Chief of Protocol and the soldiers with their upraised machine guns watched the journalist, grinning, and the journalist saluted for hours as they rolled back in from the tame battlefield. He was utterly and completely happy. In Cambodia he could never disappear; now at least when people gawked at him they saw someone comic and grand, a man with a private army who gave them money; he felt like God — a loving God, moreover; he loved everyone he saluted; he wanted to love the whole world, which (it now seemed to him) was all he'd ever wanted when he had whores; his balls still felt funny; all he wanted to do with people was hug them and kiss them and give them money. His forehead glowing with sunburn and three beers, he sat against the spare tire, blessing everyone like the Pope, nodding to his elders, wishing that his lordliness would never end. Most of the time they waved back. Girls on bicycles giggled to each other. Children saluted back with slow smiles. Skinny white-grinning men waved back. These gratifying demonstrations almost balanced those other stares they'd given him and Vanna… He ached to hold her. Since he was drunk and only a flightless butterfly, he squeezed the spare tire instead.

The Hotel Victoire, which just after the liberation they used to call the Hotel Lavatoire, was a very good hotel, possibly the world's best. It had running water, electricity, air conditioning, a toilet and screen windows. No matter that none of these worked. Sleeping there was like sleeping in a sweltering locker room. It cost two thousand a night for the photographer's and the journalist's room, and five hundred for the driver's and the interpreter's room. This infuriated the photographer, but the journalist said: Look on the bright side. We're paying for everything. At least we don't have to pay twenty bucks a night for their room, too. - He went up to the room, and the interpreter told him that it was his turn to get a girl that night.

I only want to salute her, he said.

Excuse me? said the interpreter.

OK, I'll make her happy, he sighed.

His fever was getting worse. Even his lips felt sunburned. He picked a cunt-hair out of the K-Y jelly and slathered some on his forehead. .

He went for a walk in the rain to cool down; everyone laughed at him. After awhile he came back drenched, and a dirty gentle little boy came into the lobby (which was otherwise utterly empty) to slap palms with him and smile. The journalist had a nasty cough from Vanna. - Every time you get a new whore, you get a new disease! growled the photographer, shaking his head. - The boy stood very sincerely wiggling the sheets of glass that lay evenly spaced upon the long white-clothed table that no one used, and the boy hummed to himself and said unknown words, yawning and smiling and stretching his neck; he sat down in an adjoining chair, and when the journalist winked at him the boy winked back, singing and holding his knees. Outside the big fancy windows it was grey and dripping and peaceful. The palm-trees seemed to stretch, drinking in cool mist. - He went out again and saluted a line of white cows running in the rain, necks down, halters dragging, ears flapping; somehow it wasn't the same. .

So are you going to do one or not? the photographer wanted to know.

Not me. No whores for me. I'm going to wait for Vanna.

Oh, Jesus, said the photographer, covering his face in disgust.

Besides, my balls ache.

All right, all right.

So, said the journalist, the long and the short of it is: maybe. After all, I'll never see Vanna again. .

At these cheerful tidings the photographer brightened markedly. He came out from under the sheet, killed two mosquitoes, played with his flash, and initiated a fabulous conversation on a subject which they had never before discussed: namely, whores. For hours the two of them discussed whose cunts had been tightest, what the differences were between Thai and Cambodian women, how many times the photographer or the journalist had been so low, cowardly, perverted and immoral as to use a rubber, and so they whiled away the suffocating hours until it was time to pick up the Chief of Protocol and head for the Blue River restaurant. .

Ask this sixteen-year-old if she wants to marry me, said the photographer, with a mirthful glance at the journalist.

She says, she will bear you children, cook for you, do dishes, but she cannot marry you because she is too far beneath you.

The photographer shrugged. - Tell her she is prettier than a flower.

She says, a flower that is smelled too many times begins to wilt.

Interesting that the photographer, who wanted to break as many hearts as possible, and the journalist, who wanted to make as many happy as possible, accomplished the same results. .! Does that prove that the journalist was lying to himself?

A sweet fat girl in yellow silk pajamas was already sitting next to him, cutting up his food. Her flesh had the odor which fat girls sometimes have; he'd always found it pleasant. If it weren't that such tidings would further complicate this already intricate tale of betrayed commitments, I'd tell you that he once almost married a fat girl. .!

I don't want her to get sick from me, he said. That would be too cruel.

But no, it is nothing! cried the interpreter. It is her duty, her occupation!

Tell her I'll be blowing my nose all night. Tell her I have so much nasal mucus I hope she knows how to swim.

The interpreter only laughed. The Chief of Protocol winked -

Tell her it's up to her. Tell her I'll pay her regardless, but she doesn't have to come with me. It won't hurt my feelings. .

She says she don't mind about that. She says please don't worry. She want to come with you.

Please believe me when I say that he did not want to be unfaithful to Vanna this time, that he took her to the Hotel Victory for the same reason that he bought other girls drinks: when anyone asked him for something, he hated to cause disappointment. I honestly think that the journalist was fundamentally good. I believe that the photographer was fundamentally good. Even Pol Pot must have meant well.

The photographer was already doing his sixteen-year-old while Marina washed up with buckets of water in the bathroom, and the journalist lay feverish and blowing his nose and coughing in the double bed by the window. The night was as thick as Stilton cheese. She came back in and let down the mosquito netting around the two of them so that they were in their own nest of darkness; the air became even thicker and mosquitoes still found their way in, but who knows, maybe the mosquitoes that had malaria were excluded; why not look at the bright side, which is to say why not look at Marina in the darkness, a yellow-silver shimmer of pajamas with a pattern like flaking gold; most of all, a dark kind face. .? - He coughed, burped, sneezed, farted, and blew his nose. No, she was nothing like the hypersexually sophisticated Thai ladies sequined in green science fiction light, the Thai transvestites' faces like skull-bubbles in the lightning-jagged darkness. .

All night her hand checked his forehead and throat. She never slept; she was worried about him. She hugged him tight, held his hand; her hands were big, rough and callused; she was a farm girl. What had the Khmer Rouge done to her? He couldn't bear to ask the interpreter. . She didn't like him to touch her body, and he tried to respect that; but whenever he wanted she'd open her legs and put him inside her, and she was always wet; she threw the rubber down in disgust, never did let him do that… In the middle of the night she woke him, moaning to have him make love to her again; her cunt was fiery, dripping wet like his feverish face; she went oh oh and squeezed him very tight. .

In the morning she and the other girl left early. They didn't want anyone to see them.

Just for variety's sake they went to the Blue River for breakfast, the river lower and browner by the table, everyone eating chicken noodle soup, ants in the sugar jar (which had previously served as a bottle of Ovaltine), and the Chief of Protocol, grey-haired and bespectacled, kept laughing shrilly and slapping the journalist's shoulder.

My dear friend, how is your health today? said the Chief of Protocol.

Much better, thank you, Monsieur. I was cured by Dr. Marina.

Hee, hee, hee!

The girls sat at the table by the TV, looking over at them from time to time. So Marina was his girl now. Well, he seemed to have a lot of room in his heart; he was as accommodating as any other whore. . She was wearing her yellow chemise again. Sleepily she put her head down on her soft arms. On his way out she looked up and smiled at him. .

And did you enjoy your lily? asked the interpreter.

Always, replied the journalist calmly.

How many times?

Three. Since I was sick, you know. Ordinarily it's four. And you, what's your rule?

Two! laughed the interpreter nervously. Or one!

Surprisingly enough, it was going to be a very hot day. The journalist was sticky with sweat already; the Chief of Protocol had a big fly on his forehead…

Sliding the press pass across a wide table to a lieutenant who sat making notations far away in an immense notebook, the journalist surreptitiously cradled his aching balls. Displaying duly sycophantic attention to the irritable-mouthed Deputy Commander of the Provincial Army, who glared in dark green, the journalist thought of his various love-secrets. They don't know who I really am, he thought smugly; but then he thought: But of course they do. They put everything in my dossier. In a way that pleases me, because sometimes I don't know who I am, either. - He had to give every official something: a carton of cigarettes, or twenty US dollars, or a bottle of Johnny Walker Black; on the whole (so to speak) he liked the whores better. These people wouldn't translate the battle program on the blackboard; they wouldn't explain the pushpins on the Vietnamese-made topo maps, whereas Marina. . On the way out he saw a pair of Soviet-made PPM guns squatting on wide low spade-footed tripods. They wouldn't let the photographer take a picture of that. - What are we doing here when we could be fucking whores? said the photographer loudly. The interpreter turned and frowned; the Chief of Protocol looked very sad. .

They went to see waist-high green.107 shells, captured exploded Khmer Rouge trucks with bullet holes in the Chinese-starred windshields, golden narrow AK-47 bullets; they squelched through the mud between sheds.

Take care, the interpreter said. That grenade may explode.

It's all a crock, said the journalist.

The journalist had to bite his lip not to laugh. Oh, he was happy; he kept thinking of whores! Why couldn't he be as conscious and watchful as the driver steadily guiding their car of state over bumpy roads, his big shoulders moving easily, his big hands gripping the wheel, the brim of his black cap absolutely level, his black hair going straight down the back of his neck, the dark green Thai army uniform rendering him a living shadow and concentration of the light green rice paddies that he flashed his passengers through; why couldn't the journalist be professional like him?

Another hospital to visit (a little too close to the jungle, maybe; that must be why the interpreter was anxious). The kid's long skinny leg ended abruptly in a bandage; he'd stepped on a Khmer Rouge mine. The baby girl lay with her mouth open; a mine had found her, too. - And the journalist thought: I do feel for them, but what about Vanna dancing and rucking for almost nothing; what about Marina so hopeful and trying so hard to love me when I love only Vanna?

(It cost two hundred and fifty riels to dance with Vanna. The English teacher who didn't speak English had said that she got paid a hundred and twenty-five, but the journalist wasn't sure whether that meant per dance or all night, which was from seven to midnight. .)

The director of the hospital was talking to him in French. He didn't understand a word. He was tired; he wanted to lie down in Vanna's arms and sleep forever.

I suppose the photographer and I are going to get canned when we get back to the States, he said to himself. We're not really doing our job. It's really more sad for him than for me; I know he'd like to see the whores of Rangoon someday. .

Now it is the wet season, a doctor was saying. So we have many children with diseases like malaria and dengue. What is very fantastique in Kampuchea, is that they are so alone, so isolated. And so we feel it is getting worse and worse. And this lack of sanitation is another grave problem -

What about AIDS? the photographer cut in.

AIDS? Ah, SIDA. There are no cases reported so far in Kampuchea.

Is that right? Is that right? You see, doc, I fucked this GREAT sixteen-year-old whore without a rubber; I practically had to rape her. That pussy was nice. Come to think of it, I didn't use a rubber on the other one, either. .

The photographer and the journalist became security risks after that. When the journalist was waiting to interview the Commander of the Provincial Army, he shifted in his seat there at HQ Battambang, and as suddenly as he moved he found the driver standing an inch behind him with his hand on the holster, watching him with ferocious care. .

At dinner he got Marina again, and she was so happy and sweet. He took her in just the same way the driver would hurtle along on the good stretches, honking his horn to make other vehicles in both directions pull over so that the mud-spattered government car could forge ahead; and sometimes the journalist would see a child or an old lady leap out of the road into the mud as the driver barreled forward, honking maniacally. He groaned and grunted on Marina until the photographer doubled.<.p laughing. In the middle of the night she woke him up again; she wanted him to fuck her again. He couldn't do it; his balls ached. She touched his biceps to show that he was strong enough to do it; then she wept. He wanted to do it, but remembering what had happened with Vanna, he only embraced her and rubbed her back (he wanted to stroke her hair, but it's bad manners to touch anyone's head in Cambodia); then he went back to sleep. .

On their last morning in Battambang they breakfasted at the Blue River, of course. There was a thatch-roofed canoe in the water; a man poled a skiff past the empty tables; the blue river was brown and the floorboards creaked. No one had turned the fan on yet, but the music was already blaring; it was six-thirty. The interpreter sat blinking. The girls were nowhere in sight. The Chief of Protocol had already been paid off. The driver stared down at his coffee, the heavy Russian pistol strapped to his belt, his uniform fresh and green; he was calm, alert. His steel watch caught the light. His eyes flickered around.

Marina was at the table far away, and when he turned and smiled at her she smiled back.

How many times? asked the interpreter. The driver leaned forward, too, extremely interested.

Only seven, said the journalist.

Seven! You are not joking?

I never joke about such things.

When it was time for them to go to the car, Marina came with him, in full view of all the customers. He was face to face now with a Buddha as huge as a whore's face about to kiss him, the eyes half closed, the mouth smiling like a ripe pea-pod, lips parted, skin mottled black and gold… He embraced her.

She says she want to come to the jungle with you, said the interpreter. She don't care how dangerous. .

The journalist was stunned. Was she the one who really loved him, then?

Should I take her? he stammered. Maybe I should take her-

We are not bus drivers, said the interpreter contemptuously.

THE END