'I am a very stubborn girl!” she shouted at the spirits. “You do not scare me.'
She turned up her iPod and finally slept.
As soon as the sun was up, she roused her driver, slumped deep in his hammock.
'Come on, we're going to Soriya Market,” she said.
The driver looked up at her dazed, then remembered to smile and lower his head in respect.
His face fell when she showed up in the garage with all forty-two of her mobile phones in one black bag.
It was too early for Soriya Market to open. They drove in circles with sunrise blazing directly into their eyes. On the streets, men pushed carts like beasts of burden, or carried cascades of belts into the old Central Market. The old market was domed, art deco, the color of vomit, French. Sith never shopped there.
'Maybe you should go visit your Mom,” said the driver. “You know, she loves you. Families are there for when you are in trouble.'
Sith's mother lived in Thailand and they never spoke. Her mother's family kept asking for favors: money, introductions, or help with getting a job. Sith didn't speak to them any longer.
'My family is only trouble.'
The driver shut up and drove.
Finally Soriya opened. Sith went straight to Dara's shop and dumped all the phones on the blue countertop. “Can you take these back?'
'We only do exchanges. I can give a new phone for an old one.” Dara looked thoughtful. “Don't worry. Leave them here with me, I'll go sell them to a guy in the old market, and give you your money tomorrow.” He smiled in approval. “This is very sensible.'
He passed one phone back, the one with video and email. “This is the best one, keep this.'
Dara was so competent. Sith wanted to sink down onto him like a pillow and stay there. She sat in the shop all day, watching him work. One of the guys from the games shop upstairs asked, “Who is this beautiful girl?'
Dara answered proudly, “My girlfriend.'
Dara drove her back on the Dream and at the door to her house, he chuckled. “I don't want to go.” She pressed a finger against his naughty lips, and smiled and spun back inside from happiness.
She was in the ground-floor garage. She heard something like a rat scuttle. In her bag, the telephone rang. Who were these people to importune her, even if they were dead? She wrenched the mobile phone out of her bag and pushed the green button and put the phone to her ear. She waited. There was a sound like wind.
A child spoke to her, his voice clogged as if he was crying. “They tied my thumbs together.'
Sith demanded. “How did you get my number?'
'I'm all alone!'
'Then ring somebody else. Someone in your family.'
'All my family are dead. I don't know where I am. My name is…'
Sith clicked the phone off. She opened the trunk of the car and tossed the phone inside it. Being telephoned by ghosts was so…
She stormed up into the salon. On top of a table, the $1500, no-mess dog stared at her from out of his packaging. Sith clumped up the stairs onto the roof terrace to sleep as far away as she could from everything in the house.
She woke up in the dark, to hear thumping from downstairs.
The sound was metallic and hollow, as if someone were locked in the car. Sith turned on her iPod. Something was making the sound of the music skip. She fought the tangle of wires, and wrenched out another player, a Xen, but it too skipped, burping the sound of speaking voices into the middle of the music.
Had she heard a ripping sound? She pulled out the earphones, and heard something climbing the stairs.
A sound of light, uneven lolloping. She thought of crippled children. Frost settled over her like a heavy blanket and she could not move.
The robot dog came whirring up onto the terrace. It paused at the top of the stairs, its camera nose pointing at her to see, its useless eyes glowing cherry red.
The robot dog said in a warm, friendly voice, “My name is Phalla. I tried to buy my sister medicine and they killed me for it.'
Sith tried to say, “Go away,” but her throat wouldn't open.
The dog tilted its head. “No one even knows I'm dead. What will you do for all the people who are not mourned?'
Laughter blurted out of her, and Sith saw it rise up as cold vapor into the air.
'We have no one to invite us to the feast,” said the dog.
Sith giggled in terror. “Nothing. I can do nothing!” she said, shaking her head.
'You laugh?” The dog gathered itself and jumped up into the hammock with her. It turned and lifted up its clear plastic tail and laid a genuine turd alongside Sith. Short brown hair was wound up in it, a scalp actually, and a single flat white human tooth smiled out of it.
Sith squawked and overturned both herself and the dog out of the hammock and onto the floor. The dog pushed its nose up against hers and began to sing an old-fashioned children's song about birds.
Something heavy huffed its way up the stairwell toward her. Sith shivered with cold on the floor and could not move. The dog went on singing in a high, sweet voice. A large shadow loomed out over the top of the staircase, and Sith gargled, swallowing laughter, trying to speak.
'There was thumping in the car and no one in it,” said the driver.
Sith sagged toward the floor with relief. “The ghosts,” she said. “They're back.” She thrust herself to her feet. “We're getting out now. Ring the Hilton. Find out if they have rooms.'
She kicked the toy dog down the stairs ahead of her. “We're moving now!'
Together they all loaded the car, shaking. Once again, the house was left to ghosts. As they drove, the mobile phone rang over and over inside the trunk.
The new Hilton (which does not exist) rose up by the river across from the Department for Cults and Religious Affairs. Tall and marbled and pristine, it had crystal chandeliers and fountains, and wood and brass handles in the elevators.
In the middle of the night only the Bridal Suite was still available, but it had an extra parental chamber where the driver and his wife could sleep. High on the twenty-first floor, the night sparkled with lights and everything was hushed, as far away from Cambodia as it was possible to get.
Things were quiet after that, for a while.
Every day she and Dara went to movies, or went to a restaurant. They went shopping. She slipped him money and he bought himself a beautiful suit. He said, over a hamburger at Lucky7, “I've told my mother that I've met a girl.'
Sith smiled and thought: and I bet you told her that I'm rich.
'I've decided to live in the Hilton,” she told him.
The rainy season ended. The last of the monsoons rose up dark gray with a froth of white cloud on top, looking exactly like a giant wave about to break.
Dry cooler air arrived.
After work was over Dara convinced her to go for a walk along the river in front of the Royal Palace. He went to the men's room to change into a new luxury suit and Sith thought: he's beginning to imagine life with all that money.
As they walked along the river, exposed to all those people, Sith shook inside. There were teenage boys everywhere. Some of them were in rags, which was reassuring, but some of them were very well dressed indeed, the sons of Impunity who could do anything. Sith swerved suddenly to avoid even seeing them. But Dara in his new beige suit looked like one of them, and the generals’ sons nodded to him with quizzical eyebrows, perhaps wondering who he was.
In front of the palace, a pavilion reached out over the water. Next to it a traditional orchestra bashed and wailed out something old fashioned. Hundreds of people crowded around a tiny wat. Dara shook Sith's wrist and they stood up to see.
People held up bundles of lotus flowers and incense in prayer. They threw the bundles into the wat. Monks
