Darrow figured at that rate, he could spend the rest of his natural life photographing the grounds and never have to see another dead soldier. Yet at night they could hear thunder on the horizon, the war’s pulse, beckoning.
The two men shared a small room like a monk’s cell, crowded by a mountain of photographic equipment Darrow insisted on cleaning and moving it into the room each night so none of it would be stolen. Veasna usually stayed behind to help clean, while Samang hurried to town to chase women.
“So, Boss,” Veasna said. “You get me good job?”
“I’ll certainly put in a word for you in Saigon,” Darrow said.
“No, Saigon. I stay number one in Cambodia.”
“But there’s nothing here. No war.”
“Less competition then.”
Often Darrow stumbled across Linh in out-of-the-way corners, writing on scraps of paper that he quickly put away when approached. He caught glimpses of words and was surprised they were in English. His little AWOL friend a never-ending mystery. Nights in the stone city, when the workers returned to the village, seemed haunted to Linh. Darrow worked away, oblivious to his surroundings, the obsession of his work keeping him from the luring obsession of the war, but Linh felt ill at ease in this mausoleum. In the stillness, the place swarmed with gliding shadows. He, Samang, and Veasna took their meals in the village. Veasna talked about how the Cambodian traditional life was being ruined by the royal family, how they needed to return to the roots of the village, the communal life of the family. He said Samang had gotten corrupted by spending time in Phnom Penh. Linh stayed to drink tea and talk with the other Vietnamese and Cambodians on the project. Many talked of broken families, hardships, and escaping across the border to avoid being conscripted into the army.
The first night Linh came back too early and saw a woman from the village leaving Darrow’s room. The lamplight outlined her figure as she stood outside, as full and rounded as the carved apsaras on the walls of the temples. Darrow came to the doorway and pulled on the cloth around her hips, reeling her back inside. After that, Linh made sure he did not come back till midnight.
“Where are you so late?” Darrow asked when Linh came in.
Linh did not like this man’s disingenuousness.
“Found a girlfriend?”
“I’m married.”
“Sorry. Of course not.” Darrow nodded. “Stay for dinner sometimes. I like conversation. And I cook.”
“You have friends.”
Darrow smiled. “Lovely, huh? My God, lovely. Naked, she’s the replica of the ancient statues here. Brought to life. As if no time had passed since this place was built.”
One hot afternoon, the air as heavy as stone, Linh sat alone on a terrace far away from where they worked. They had been up since before the sun to capture the light on the buildings at dawn. Sleepy, eyelids weighted, Linh heard only the stillness, broken by the occasional shrill cries of the monkeys who scampered across the warm stones in search of offerings of fruit. The monkeys were feared. They bit and sometimes were rabid, and the workers trapped them and roasted the healthy ones for meals.
He had knotted a piece of jute rope and slipped his hands through the circle, then proceeded to twist so that the rope bit a tighter and tighter figure eight around his wrists. At each tightening, he felt a burning and then relief, his mind filled only with the white-hot sting of his wrists instead of the deeper pain that was always there. So preoccupied by heat and pain, he did not notice Darrow passing by.
Darrow disappeared and then returned minutes later, drenched with sweat. “How about it?” he called to Linh from across a courtyard. Pretending ignorance, he climbed the stairs in his big, loping gait, carrying two beers. Linh was so dazed he did not notice Darrow’s heavy breathing, did not know that Darrow had run back to his room like a madman, torn open a cooler, grabbed two beers, then run back.
Bound, he nodded, too late to hide the fact of the rope.
Darrow leaned over with a knife and cut the twisted rope between the purpled wrists. Acting as if it all were the most normal thing in the world, he then pried the caps off the bottles and handed one over. He’d noted the freshness of the scars when Linh first arrived. Darrow knew the wreckage of war. “Let’s talk.”
Linh rubbed his hands against each other, felt the tug of his callused palm, blood slow like sand through his veins.
“You were Tran Bau Linh last we met. An SVA soldier.”
“That man is dead. Now I’m Nguyen Pran Linh.”
“Okay.”
“I shouldn’t have lied that I’d worked for you.”
Darrow rubbed his face. “A cursed day, the day we met.”
“Yes.”
“Does this”-Darrow waved his hand at the rope-“have to do with that night? You disappeared.”
Linh looked away. “I do good work for you?”
“Best assistant I’ve had.”
“Is that the price to keep my job? To tell you?”
Darrow took a long sip of his beer and looked across the nearby jungle. “You don’t trust me yet. That’s okay.”
“You’re happy here?” Linh asked.
“Like getting a chance to explore the pyramids. Gary ’s a good guy, but he doesn’t get it. I’ve had enough war, you know? Hell, of course you know. Just can’t quite get around to quitting. So what ever your reasons for being here are, okay by me.”
Linh took a slow sip of his beer. “You think you are in a peaceful paradise here. But you’re hiding in a graveyard. Their violence is simply past, ours is happening now. 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 hell; myself am hell.’ ”
Darrow was speechless at his Milton-quoting, AWOL soldier-turned-assistant. 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, 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 prongs of his fork and felt queasy.
