The Embassy of Cambodia

0–20

‘So you’re a guest and this is your guest?’ the girl behind the desk asked.

‘I am a guest and this is another guest,’ Fatou replied.

‘Yeah … that’s not really how it works?’

‘Please,’ Fatou said. ‘We’ve come from a long way.’

‘I appreciate that,’ the girl said. ‘But I really shouldn’t let you in, to be honest.’

‘Please,’ Fatou said again. She could think of no other argument.

The girl took out a pen and made a mark on Fatou’s guest pass.

‘This one time. Don’t tell no one I did this, please. One time only! I’ll need to cross off two separate visits.’

For one time only, then, Andrew and Fatou approached the changing rooms together and parted at the doors that led to the men’s and the women’s. In her changing room, Fatou got ready with lightning speed. Yet somehow he was already there on a lounger when she came out, eyes trained on the women’s changing-room door, waiting for her to emerge.

‘Man, this is the life!’ he said, putting his arms behind his head.

‘Are you getting in?’ Fatou asked, and tried to place her hands, casually, in front of her groin.

‘Not yet, man, I’m just taking it all in, taking it all in. You go in. I’ll come in a moment.’

Fatou climbed down the steps and began to swim. Not elegant, not especially fast, but consistent and determined. Every now and then she would angle her head to try to see if Andrew was still on his chair, smiling to himself. After twenty laps, she swam to where he lay and put her elbows on the tiles.

‘You’re not coming in? It’s so warm. Like a bath.’

‘Sure, sure,’ he said. ‘I’ll try it.’

As he sat up his stomach folded in on itself, and Fatou wondered whether he had spent all that time on the lounger to avoid her seeing its precise bulk and wobble. He came towards the stairs; Fatou held out a hand to him, but he pushed it away. He made his way down and stood in the shallow end, splashing water over his shoulders like a prince fanning himself, and then crouching down into it.

‘It is warm! Very nice. This is the life, man! You go, swim — I’ll follow you.’

Fatou kicked off, creating so much splash she heard someone in the adjacent lane complain. At the wall, she turned and looked for Andrew. His method, such as it was, involved dipping deep under the water and hanging there like a hippo, then batting his arms till he crested for air, and then diving down again and hanging. It was a lot of energy to expend on a short distance, and by the time he reached the wall he was panting like a maniac. His eyes — he had no goggles — were painfully red.

‘It’s OK,’ Fatou said, trying to take his hand again. ‘If you let me, I’ll show you how.’ But he shrugged her off and rubbed at his eyes.

‘There’s too much bloody chlorine in this pool.’

‘You want to leave?’

Andrew turned back to look at Fatou. His eyes were streaming. He looked, to Fatou, like a little boy trying to disguise the fact he had been crying. But then he held her hand, under the water.

‘No. I’m just going to take it easy right here.’

‘OK,’ Fatou said.

‘You swim. You’re good. You swim.’

‘OK,’ Fatou said, and set off, and she found that each lap was more distracted and rhythmless than the last. She was not used to being watched while she swam. Ten laps later, she suddenly stood up halfway down the lane and walked the rest of the distance to the wall.

‘You want to go in the Jacuzzi?’ she asked him, pointing to it.

In the hot tub sat a woman dressed in a soaking tracksuit, her head covered with a headscarf. A man next to the woman, perhaps her husband, stared at Fatou and said something to the woman. He was so hairy he was almost as covered as she was. Together they rose up out of the water and left. He was wearing the tiniest of Speedos, the kind Fatou had feared Andrew might wear, and was grateful he had not. Andrew’s shorts were perfectly nice, knee-length, red and solid, and looked good against his skin.

‘No,’ Andrew said. ‘It’s great just to be here with you, watching the world go by.’