The Lost Goddess

15

The road out of Phnom Penh, once the road of ghosts, was now a cavalcade of makeshift Asian capitalism run amok: cyclos and fuming buses and whining motos and angry Mercedes passing impromptu gas stations where tinkers sold bottles of pilfered gasoline from suspended glass vessels. The liquid in the big upside-down bottles was blood-red and urine-yellow. Jake thought of men turned on their heads, leaking blood.

“Yes,” said Ty. “Let’s try the National, the new one in Abu Dhabi.”

Tyrone was sitting next to Jake in the back of the taxi, but Ty was apparently talking to someone in Jakarta. Or maybe Sydney. Or Hong Kong. He was schmoozing and huckstering, pitching and charming.

Jake envied Tyrone his contacts and his ruthless ambition, almost as much as he envied Tyrone his war stories, that elegant war weariness. Oh yeah, Bosnia, been there, done that, saw a brain in the road. Jake did sometimes wonder if Tyrone actually played up to the image of the cynical, war-weary correspondent; perhaps Ty had molded his persona to fit the cliché.

Whatever the answer, Tyrone McKenna had been doing it long enough that he really had become the stereotype, par excellence. The hard-bitten hack with hair-raising tales from global war zones.

Jake was glad Ty was with him; Jake was not so hard-bitten. Jake was properly scared.

“And let’s try Tamara. Yeah. That new ed at the Observer mag, slept with Marcus Dorrell — you hear that?”

Corralling his nerves, Jake locked his camera lens on the view through the window and took photos.

He didn’t want to think about their impending meeting with the spider witch of Skuon. It was cartoonishly unsettling, like a cheesy anime film come to life. Leaning out of the taxi, he took a photo of a garish, blinging red Buddhist temple surrounded by big, black, cockroach-glossy Toyota SUVs. Gangsters’ cars.

They were on the outskirts of Phnom Penh now, heading past the airport. Aimless concrete buildings straggled along the hot and disintegrating road; a mobile phone outlet, adorned with lurid pink balloons, stood next to a butcher’s shop with three orange pigs’ heads on a counter — and then Jake glimpsed the first dusty sparkle of paddy fields.

He was glad they were leaving the city: it meant less chance of their being successfully pursued. Any one of the cars around them in the city could be the police sent to arrest him, or just someone sent to do him in. But outside Phnom Penh, Jake could see exactly who was following, if anyone.

No one was following.

Calmed, a little, his thoughts reached for Chemda, working in the UN’s Extraordinary Tribunal, the Khmer Rouge Courthouse — not far from here, in the big building near the airport, where a handful of old men confessed to killing a hundred thousand little children. Every day, five days a week, eight hours a day.

Chemda had immersed herself in her UN court work by day and paperwork on the death of Doctor Samnang; she and Jake had talked long into the night. Yet Jake didn’t quite know what to say to her during these phone calls, so they had talked about other stuff, their lives, their daydreams, school days, the origins of Buddhism, the origins of penang curry, anything. And the conversation alone seemed to be enough, meandering and mutual reassurance: we are in this together, please be careful. Watch your back on Monivong.

“So, Ty.”

The American clapped his phone shut. “Yup?”

“Let’s go over it again — the plan.”

“I thought we did all this?”

Jake set down his camera on his lap, stared at it for a second.

“We did, but… indulge me? This is pretty unsettling stuff.”

“Fair point. OK. We are what we are. I’m a journalist, you’re a photographer.”

“Working for?”

“The Bangkok Post, that’s quite a big paper. Important enough to make the witch sit up, not so important she will actually, like, check. We’re doing a story on her, how famous and powerful she is, the Neang Kmav, the best sorceress in Cambodia. These people are vain, and they like to whip up business—”

“You sure she’ll buy this?”

“As long as we pay cash, and lay on the flattery, she’ll buy it.”

“Then we slip in a question?”

Ty nodded. “We certainly try. Play it by ear. We ask her about famous clients, rich notable Khmers. Because whoever ordered the kun krak has got lots of money. These aren’t bits of dead toad you sell to the villagers to cure their sniffles; smoke children are very, very expensive to procure, upper-class juju, aspirational. She must be proud of having such a prosperous customer. We’ll try and get a few names.”

The next question almost didn’t need to be asked, but Jake did: “And the risk, the downside, the worst that can happen?”

“She guesses who we are. She freaks. She casts a spell on you and turns you into a gecko. She tells her clients and they come after you. But Jake, what does it matter? You already have the Laos government on yer ass. You’re fucked, you’re double fucked, you’re a first-time virgin on a porno shoot and King Dong is in the studio.”

“Jesus.”

“Trying to make you laugh. So you won’t be scared.”

“Too late, I’m scared.” He forced a very weak smile. “Nice image, though. Thanks. Why did you never win a Pulitzer?”

“Dunno,” said the American. “Strange, isn’t it? But maybe this story will do it: New Yorker, front cover, ten thousand words, ‘Kiss of the Spider Witch.’” He stared at Jake with those been to Chechnya eyes and he sighed. “That was a joke. I’m joking. This is your story. I just want to help. And I can help. We simply have to keep our nerve.”

“And how do we do that?”

Tyrone’s shrug was not so reassuring. “She will try to scare us, try to spook us out, that’s how these people operate. Don’t fall for it.”

The car rumbled over potholes, the road worsening even as the landscape was improving. They were more than halfway to Skuon, skirting the river lands, the water meadows and swamp zones of the Cham, the secretive, Muslim, animal-sacrificing, river-fishing tribes of innermost Cambodia: descendants of the ancient kingdom of Champa, inhabitants of these desolate riverside settlements for centuries.

Jake knew the Cham had been almost wiped out. Yet more victims of the Khmer Rouge.

Water buffalo twitched their pink ears and stared at the passing car, truculent, inert; Cham fishermen patrolled the brown-yellow waters, gathering bamboo cages half immersed in the mud. Wooden stilt houses loomed beyond the stooping palms. Dark houses where old faces stared from the empty sockets of windows: old Cham women in strange white veils and robes.

The car jolted and swerved, abruptly, to avoid a barefoot child. She had just run out onto the road, between the cactus hedges.

“Fuck,” said Jake. “That was close.”

Tyrone said, “Lucky girl. The one thing you never get used to is the damn roads — the danger.”

Jake watched the girl disappear in the rearview mirror. She was playing with a ball, entirely unaware of how close she had come to dying.

He shuddered. His little sister hadn’t been so lucky. She was knocked to the ground, her eyes rolling white. Milky white, and staring; staring at her brother, who didn’t hold on. Who let her go to her death.

“You OK?” said Tyrone.

Jake shrugged. “Thinking about Becky.” He had told some of his story to Tyrone long ago: his guilt trips and his grief trips. He hadn’t told Tyrone as much as he’d told Chemda.

The American sighed. “Families! Jesus.” He cleared his throat, aggressively, and spat out the window. “What the fuck are families for? What do they give you but grief and guilt? What do they give anyone?”

“How about love?”

“Oh yeah. Love. Nice. And toasted sandwiches. Fuck that shit. You have to move on, Jake. The only exit is survival. Remember that’s what Duch said, at the Khmer Rouge trial? Last week? He may have been a mass-murdering cunt but he got that right. He could have been talking about the average nuclear fucking family. The only exit from your childhood is survival.”

The palm trees thinned. The river lands dried. The car took a left and a right and rattled down one of the more appalling roads in Southeast Asia, and then, at last, the haze of dust ahead showed they were approaching another dusty Cambodian town.

Skuon.

They pulled into the main square, essentially a sunburned roundabout with old buses waiting by beer shacks, and noodle stands, two hairdressing shops, and dirty palm trees. Jake and Tyrone climbed out of the car and stretched for a second, and then they were mobbed.

Cambodian ladies were running toward them. Young ladies, old ladies, fat ladies, lots of ladies were zeroing in, with tin trays balanced on their heads. And on top of the trays were pyramids of fried black tarantulas, decorated with rose petals.

“They dip them in Knorr ready-mix soup,” said Tyrone, waving away one lady. “No, aw kohn, no spider, aw kohn, not today—”

He turned and motioned to the driver: wait. Jake stared at the trays piled high with fat, ugly, greasy black spiders. The women were pointing at the spiders, smiling, begging them to buy.

“No. No thanks—” He edged away. “What is it with the tarantulas?”

“Tell you in a minute. C’mon, let’s go. Before we are forced to eat one in a bun.” Tyrone was already walking away from the car, and the women, and the trays of fat spiders, down a lazy dust-hazed street. The American elaborated as they walked.

“They claim it’s a tradition, the spider-eating. But I reckon it just goes back to the Khmer Rouge. In the late seventies everyone in Cambodia was starving — absolutely everyone. But they weren’t even allowed to eat their own rice or they’d get shot by Khmer Rouge soldiers. So I reckon someone dug up a tarantula one day and thought — hell with it, let’s roast this massive eight-legged motherfucker and eat it, and then they developed a taste, now they are a delicacy: people drive for miles to buy ’em.” He lifted a hand. “OK. You wait here? I’m gonna ask some questions. Find the house.”

Here was a collection of plastic tables outside a concrete beer bar. Jake sat down, watching his friend disappear. Tyrone spoke Khmer, after a fashion, and that meant he could do this kind of thing quicker if alone; Jake’s muted presence might unnerve people. But that also meant Jake would just have to wait. And watch. And perspire. And wait.

The sun was violently hot. Jake shifted his little chair into the shade of a red parasol. He ordered an Angkor beer. The beer arrived, it was stupidly warm. He left it undrunk, and gazed around. Two kids at an adjacent table were sipping 7 Up through straws, and staring at Jake with blank, cold expressions.

Jake looked the other way. Across the street in a small, scruffy square lot, a circle of men were sitting on their haunches, shouting and gambling, and drinking.

A cockfight.

He surreptitiously reached for his camera and took a few clandestine shots. The men were excited, calling out numbers, yelling. A flurry of dust in the middle showed where the cockerels were fighting. Jake used his telescopic lens, his sweaty hands urgently locking the gear into place.

There. He could see the roosters now, scrabbling in the dirt. One of them had pecked out the other’s eye; the defeated rooster was stooped, half blinded, bleeding and dying. A hand swept down and collected the victorious bird while the men laughed and chinked glasses and swapped wads of grubby riel banknotes. The blinded chicken was taken to the side and its neck was wrung, contemptuously. It flapped in the dust for a few moments.

“I found her house.”

It was Tyrone.

“That was quick—”

“Small town. Everyone knows her, she only lives around the corner. I’ve already spoken to her… secretary. If that’s the right word.” Tyrone exhaled. “OK, let’s get on with it. I really don’t like this town. Lot of people died here under the Rouge. A bad ambience.”

“And? The witch?”

“Her assistant said she can give us half an hour. So we need to work fast.”

The walk was as brief as promised. Two hundred meters of sandy road, past wilting stores selling Pringles, bottled water, and tarantulas, brought them to a large vulgar white house with fake Corinthian pillars. Like something particularly nasty in Miami.

Stupidly, crassly, Jake felt a slight tremor of journalistic disappointment. Somewhere inside he had hoped for something romantic and witchy, something vividly characterful to photograph, an old incense-sooted shack, cauldrons boiling with serpents, chicken blood on the walls. Not a coke dealer’s villa.

The big new wooden door was painted an insistent blue. It opened. A young woman with dark, dark eyes stared at them and conversed with Tyrone as they crossed the threshold.

The house was air-conditioned. Mercilessly air-conditioned: it was actually cold, like the owner was trying to prove something. Jake felt the blast of chilly air on his bare arms.

The girl escorted them down a hallway with kitsch paintings of Buddha and Jesus and Princess Diana, and showed them into a large room.

The spider witch of Skuon was a middle-aged woman wearing too much makeup and jewelry. She had a Chinese aspect to her eyes. She was seated on a leather sofa with her legs tucked under her, like a girl, oddly neat, even gamine. Her turquoise jumper was decorated with hearts made of sequins; around her neck, dangling from a gold rope necklace, was a glass amulet: a monastic talisman of luck. Jake reckoned she was maybe older than her face implied. An older woman who could afford a face-lift.

The lady offered a cold hand to be shaken, a queenly gesture. The bangles on her wrist jingled; her fingernails were long and lavishly varnished. The lady wafted the same bangled hand toward a large plate of huge black spiders, sitting on a glass coffee table in front of her.

Jake declined the spiders, and accepted instead a cup of water from a large jug. The bangled spider witch gazed at him. Then she smiled, and yawned, as if too busy and important to be intrigued; her left hand hovered over the plate, and plucked a large tarantula.

She munched on a spider leg, delicately. Then she ate the fat, oozing black thorax of the spider, staring at Jake as she did so. She ate with her mouth open. He could see the pulp of black spider flesh inside her mouth; he was staring at an old woman’s mouth with red lipstick on yellow teeth. And masticated black tarantula within.

A shudder of revulsion convulsed him. He was actually swaying. Maybe it was dehydration; he gulped down some more water, then busied himself with his camera, but he could feel the tarantula of fear slowly stalking down his spine. This was stupid. She was deliberately trying to spook him, as Tyrone had forewarned. The witch was trying to unnerve him; she was maybe succeeding.

The interview began almost at once. Ty asked questions in Khmer and the witch answered languidly, with a hint of vanity at certain points. She ate three whole spiders as they conversed. Jake watched her, helplessly fascinated. She was plucking off the big spider legs and popping them in her mouth, or chewing them like toffee strings. Her bangles chinked. She had crumbs of tarantula on her chin. One spider leg got stuck between her teeth — she pulled at it and then ate it, licking her fingers. Then she coughed another leg straight into a napkin.

Jake stared at the napkin as it unfurled itself on the table. The half-chewed black spider leg lay within the nest of uncrumpling paper, glistening, faintly pink and creamy with spider blood.

The urge to gag was overwhelming; but this, too, was maybe part of her act, her shtick. Her modus operandi.

Photography. Jake needed to take photos. That way he could distance himself from this grisly scene. But as he fumbled with his camera, he realized, with dismay, that his lens was smeared with his own sweat. The images he was getting were distorted. The witch was just a leering mouth full of blackness. A yawning insectivore in jewelry. Jake cursed. Always keep your camera clean. The first rule of photography; like a soldier learning to oil his rifle.

Seeking wet wipes from his bag, and dry tissues, Jake shivered in the cold of the overly air-conditioned room as he urgently cleaned the lens. He was barely aware, as he worked, of the silence in the room, then he noticed it.

“What?”

The witch had said something that had apparently given Tyrone pause. Jake noticed that the witch was staring his way now.

“What?” he asked. “What’s happened, Ty? What did she say? Is it about me?”

Ty shrugged, with an awkwardness. Silent.

“Tell me.”

“It’s just her doing her thing. Trying to freak you.”

“Ty!”

“She says you have sadness in your life….”

“And?”

The witch spoke quickly in Khmer. Tyrone translated further:

“She sees a ghost child. Uhm… The ghost of a ghost, a little girl? A girl who was snatched away.”

This was absurd — and grotesquely degraded. Jake waved away the idiocy. It was so chilly in this stupid room; why did they have the air-con turned so high?

But the woman was persistent, pointing at Jake. Tyrone continued to translate:

“She also sees a floating head, long hair, white face, a head with… I don’t know, don’t know the word. Something to do with your mother’s spirit, her ghost?”

“My mother? What does she know about my mother?”

“Don’t know, pal. I think it’s a Khmer ghost image, the arb, the floating woman’s head — trailing blood—”

Now the anger surged: Jake felt his own shameful and angry stupidity. He had walked into this. The woman had researched them. She was, of course, a charlatan.

“Fuck all this, Ty. Fuck her.”

“Calm down.”

“No. Fuck it. ’S obvious. She’s got some inside gossip on me. Trying to spook me—”

“Heck. I did warn you. These people make a lot of money for a reason.”

“OK, let’s spook her back, the spider-eating bitch. Let’s just ask her about the smoke children. Watch her choke on her bloody arachnids then.”

“But Jake — that’s a big risk—”

“Tell her we know about them!”

Tyrone paused, and pondered. Then he swiveled on the woman, and threw questions at her, urgent questions. The interview had become an interrogation. The witch waved an angry hand, bangles jangling. Her teeth were stained black from the roasted tarantulas. She didn’t care. She was irked and aroused, but she wasn’t saying any names. Jake heard no name in her stream of Khmer consonants.

Abruptly, the lady clapped her hands, twice, as if summoning guards. And then her voice deepened, to a weird and guttural muttering. Barely human. Growling.

“What the hell is she doing now?”

Tyrone backed away.

“I don’t know, I don’t know — maybe she’s casting some spell, some hex. Come on — let’s go!”

“We’re done?”

“I think we need to go? Don’t you think?”

The witch was swaying from side to side; her growling had evolved into a hissing; and she was pointing a varnished fingernail. But Jake was not done. He swerved on the woman.

“Who ordered the babies, you bitch? Who?”

She hissed once more through her black, spider-stained teeth. A snake at bay.

“Tell us? Who the fuck was it? Who ordered the kun krak? The smoke children? Who paid you to do that?”

Tyrone grabbed Jake’s angry arm; Jake angrily shook him off.

“Ty. You do it! Ask her. Tell her if she doesn’t help us we will write a story, tell everyone she is ripping babies out of women—”

“But—”

“And threaten her.”

Ty stiffened, as if finally snapping to attention; then he turned and he barked the question at the witch. He made the threat.

Her expression froze. Her eyes iced with hatred. Jake wondered if she was going to faint, or shout, or curse them again. But then she said, very slowly and distinctly:

“Madame Tek.”

The infernal, serpentine hissing recommenced. Jake grabbed his cameras and Tyrone snatched his notebook: they were fleeing, escaping the chilly house, racing for the door — and ignoring the protests of the assistant, lurking in the hallway.

The door slammed shut behind them; the heat was intense and immediate after the overly conditioned air of the witch’s villa.

“Sweet Jesus!” Jake said. “Is that who I think it is? Who ordered the smoke babies?”

Tyrone shook his head. “Yes. Yes, it is.” He hurried on. “Jake. It was Chemda’s own mother.”