Part 6 (1/2)
Each stone laid in place here is laid on top of blood. Violence all around you, but you don't recognize it. It's easy for you--you don't belong here.”
”I didn't make the war. I was just a mediocre photographer, headed toward wedding shots. War made me famous.”
”What about duty?”
”Far as I can see, you don't belong, either. Officially disappeared.” Darrow stared at him. ”So why not run?”
Linh bowed his head and was silent so long Darrow thought he would not answer.
”From what happened to me, there is no running. 'Which way I fly is h.e.l.l; myself am h.e.l.l.' ”
Darrow was speechless at his Milton-quoting, AWOL soldier-turned-a.s.sistant.
What in the world more would he find out about this man?
On their day off, Linh woke to the usual smell of cardamom-scented coffee being brewed but then smelled something else--sweet like the French bakeries in Saigon.
He found Darrow outside nursing a skillet over an open fire.
”Pancakes,” Darrow said, not turning. ”My wife sent me a box of mix. It even has dried blueberries in it. And a bottle of Vermont syrup. Get a fork.”
”You're married?”
”She thought it would make me homesick. You know how women are.”
”I'll never get over my wife's love.”
Darrow looked at him. ”I'm sorry...”
Linh waved away the apology. He didn't want to be one of those people who couldn't stand another's happiness. ”She would make my favorite, banh cuon banh cuon, rice cakes, each time I left.”
When breakfast was ready, Linh looked down at the golden cake on his plate, the brown puddle of syrup.
”Dig in!” Darrow said.
Linh took a bite and gagged. The texture and the sweetness and the flavor, all peculiar. He poked at the blue pools of fruit in the cake with the p.r.o.ngs of his fork and felt queasy.
Darrow ate a stack of five cakes, along with cup after cup of coffee. ”This takes me home.”
When he turned away, Linh threw the pancake into the bushes behind him. When Darrow turned around again and saw the empty plate, he smiled and plopped another on it, despite Linh's protests. ”You're turning more American by the minute.”
Later in the morning, Veasna had a question about drop dates, and Darrow was nowhere to be found. After searching for an hour, they finally tracked him down to where he stood in front of the carved stone face of Avalokiteshvara, the Buddha of Compa.s.sion.
Motioning Veasna away, Linh watched Darrow study the sculpture--blank, unseeing eyes, serene smile of the lips, the chips and cracks and lichen, shadows that changed the expression as the sun crossed it--until nightfall. Linh could work with such a man.
At his usual late hour, Linh returned from the village and stretched out on his hour, Linh returned from the village and stretched out on his mat. Darrow, as always, wide-awake and reading. Gla.s.s of scotch at his side, he insisted Linh join him with a small gla.s.s. Linh wet his lips with the alcohol--he would have drunk it even if it was poison to please--then closed his eyes and felt the walls spin. When Darrow came across interesting parts in his book, he read them aloud, regardless of whether Linh, muddled with drink, had fallen asleep or not, so that Linh acquired his knowledge of Mouhot's history of the ruins in dreamlike segments. He would never be sure if the stories were real or his imagination. The king of Cambodia, along with an The king of Cambodia, along with an entourage that numbered into the thousands, went elephant hunting through the dense forests northeast of the great lake, Tonle Sap, in the year 1550. In some places, pa.s.sage was so restricted that his slaves had to cut away vegetation and trees in order to pa.s.s through. They came upon a particularly thick, overgrown place through which they could make no progress. Finally they realized these were solid stone walls beneath the dense foliage--the outer wall of Angkor, rediscovered by the Khmers after having been forgotten since the twelfth century.
One day when work had finished early, Darrow rounded the corner of a building had finished early, Darrow rounded the corner of a building and ran straight into Linh, who quickly stuffed a sc.r.a.p of paper away into his pocket.
”What are you writing all the time?”
”Nothing. Scribbled poems, stories.”
”Really?”
”I used to write plays.”
”Let me read them? You write in English, don't you?”
Linh looked down, his skin flushed. ”Sometime, yes, maybe.” His hand a firm no no over his pocket. When he came to his room to go sleep that night, he found a new thick spiral notebook and a package of ballpoint pens on his mat.
Finally, the last picture taken, exposures packed away in their cans, Darrow taken, exposures packed away in their cans, Darrow could not prolong the inevitable any longer. Finally he would go. He would not starve himself any longer, but must gorge himself on war. On their last day, as the trucks were loaded, he walked among the workers, handing out small gifts. Veasna and Samang were nowhere to be found. Since Linh had taken the morning off, Darrow went into the village alone with only a translator. He hoped to catch a glimpse of the young woman who came nights, who fed him the soft-fleshed jackfruit and mangosteens, but knew he could not ask for her. He wanted to make the brothers a farewell gift of an old Rolleiflex that he had taught them to use. Unable to find anyone, Darrow had the translator question the villagers. Long minutes of back-and-forth, indecipherable, while Darrow sat on a rock, sweating and swatting at flies that he hadn't noticed while he was under the spell of his work. A shaking of leaves, and the young woman appeared from behind a banyan tree.
She leaned against the trunk and rubbed her hand against her thigh, a smile on her lips, and Darrow felt twice as bad about going. Finally a shrug from the translator.
”What?” Darrow said in a raised voice. His irritation, a breach of etiquette. The girl's hand dropped from her thigh, and she hurried away. Screw the camera, more than anything else he had an overpowering urge to run after her for one last meeting.
”Samang die of snakebite two days ago. Veasna is in mourning.” The brother had been climbing the side of an overgrown wall of the ruins when a cobra lurched out and bit him in the thigh.
Darrow slapped at the air. ”Why didn't anyone tell us? We have anti-venom. A doctor is only a few hours away.”
”He die fast. Not want to bother you.”
Shaken, Darrow returned to the camp, slammed his belongings into bags, the spell of the place broken--the girl, the temples, the pancakes--all of it ridiculous and driving him crazy; he just wanted to get back to real work.
Linh walked in and considered him.
”You heard about Samang?” Darrow snapped.
”It is sad.”
”Not sad! Stupid. Ignorant. It didn't need to happen. Forget this place.”
”Samang could have been working on other job when the snake found him.”
”But he wasn't. He was on my job.”
Linh picked up his bags. ”I'll go check equipment on the trucks.” He turned away, then turned back. ”He was very lucky, doing his duty, earning to support his family. You should give the camera to Veasna. If he does well, he can earn money. That is all that matters to Samang now.”
Darrow snorted and shook his head. He shoved a heavy case out the door with a hard push of his foot. ”I hope I'm I'm not as lucky as Samang.” He grabbed a towel and wiped not as lucky as Samang.” He grabbed a towel and wiped off his face, put his gla.s.ses back on. ”d.a.m.n unlucky in my book.”
”And then there is the young lady you entertained. Their sister-in-law. Widowed with two small children to feed. It would be thoughtful to give her some money so she could do something besides sell her body to foreigners.”
The Europeans, upon finding Angkor, refused to believe that the natives could have built the original temples. Briefly they entertained the thought that they had found Plato's lost city of Atlantis.
The young woman dropping pieces of warm fruit into Darrow's mouth had given him a false sense of understanding that was lost again, that did not transport to the modern world, where a syringe and a dying man were separated more by fatalism than actual distance. He felt like that ancient king hacking through the jungle, stone walls of his own trea sure barring his way.
Before leaving Angkor, Linh dropped a sheath of torn-out notebook paper on Darrow's lap. During the reign of King Hung there lived two brothers, Tam and Lang, During the reign of King Hung there lived two brothers, Tam and Lang, who were devoted to each other. They were orphaned at a young age and came to live with a kind master who had a beautiful daughter. As they grew up, both brothers came to secretly love the girl, but the master gave her hand in marriage to the older brother, Tam. The young man and woman were blissfully in love, so much so that Tam quite forgot about his younger brother, Lang. Unable to stand his unhappiness anymore--the Unable to stand his unhappiness anymore--the loss of the two most important people in the world to him, and his jealousy at their happiness--Lang ran away, and when he finally came to the sea and could go no farther, he fell on the ground and died of grief, and was changed into a white, chalky, limestone rock. Tam, realizing his brother was gone, felt ashamed of his neglect and went in search Tam, realizing his brother was gone, felt ashamed of his neglect and went in search of him. In despair of not finding him, he stopped when he reached the sea, sat down on a white, chalky, limestone rock, and wept until he died, changing into a tree with a straight trunk and green palm leaves, an Areca tree. When the young woman realized that her When the young woman realized that her husband was gone, she went in search of him. Worn out, she finally arrived at the sea, and sat down under the shade of an Areca palm, with her back against a large white chalky rock. She cried in despair at losing her husband until she died, and changed into the creeping betel vine, which twined itself around the trunk of the Areca palm.