Colin Cotterill - Love Songs from a Shallow Grave

He often talked to himself when he was overwhelmed with fear. He saw it as a more dignified reaction than wetting himself. And, invariably, it helped. With his legs back under control he walked one more short block, looking over his shoulder the whole way. He was at the intersection of a wide street. It was one he knew well. One he recalled often when searching for happy thoughts. This was Boulevard Noradon, named after the fickle regent, the mood-swing prince who rented out his soul to any passing devil. Siri was no fan of royalty but if only half the stories he'd heard today were true, he wouldn't be at all surprised to find Sihanouk's head on a pole on his own street. He couldn't imagine Brother Number One chumming up with the little regent.

He stepped onto the deserted tree-lined boulevard. This was where he and his wife had walked hand in hand back in the forties. It was one of his golden scenes. Those moments had become fewer and farther between as Boua became fanatically entwined in the struggle for independence. He needed to hold on to that Phnom Penh for as long as he could. But there were no smiling faces now. No lovers on benches. No impossible beds of tulips and roses. This was a morning-after Boulevard Noradon. Most of the imported trees had withered through lack of care. There was litter everywhere and evidence of vandalism. One street lamp was bent like a boomerang. Across the street stood half the national bank. A large dented strong room, open and empty, peeked from between destroyed brickwork.

Siri began to walk along the central reservation in the direction of Phnom Temple. He passed a porcelain toilet and, twenty metres further on, waded through slippery puddles of French piastre coins. To his left the central market, the old Chinese quarter, was a graveyard of wrecked umbrellas and shredded awnings. It gave off none of the market scents, no rotten vegetables, no stale cereals, no putrid meat. This was a market lifeless for three years. It was about now that Siri began to hum. There was certainly nothing to hum about. The last dregs of joy at being alive in this world had been drained out of him in the cellar of the Lao embassy. But it was the type of annoying ditty you might pick up from the radio or Thai TV commercials. He couldn't shake it off.

He still had that 'last man after the atomic bomb' feeling as he walked past the impressive Ecole Miche where he and Boua had attended night classes beneath ceiling fans vast as helicopter blades. He reached the European quarter. He had no idea how long he'd been walking but recently he'd been stepping to the tune in his head. He tried to find words for it but nothing came. It was lulling him into a bloated sense of security and self-confidence. Making him think that it was perfectly all right to be walking the streets of a hostile city all alone. He reached Le Cercle Sportif. To his right the Phnom Temple stood defiant at the top of its lion-guarded steps. Across the square was the national library. He knew he was only a block away from his hotel. All being well he could stroll past the guards and nobody would say anything.

Such was his aim. He had survived. He headed off across the untended grass and could see the roof of house number two in the distance. But when he reached the lawn of the national library he stopped cold. His sadness for a beautiful defiled city turned to a bitter acid in his gut. Strewn across the grass were the soggy remains of thousands of books. Tens of thousands. Some old tomes had been set alight and had melded together. Illustrated pages flapped in the breeze.

Precious and priceless volumes providing mulch for the next generation of plants. He crouched and paid reverence to the victims of ignorance and wondered whether anyone else in this city had been able to mourn the death of culture. It was then that he believed it all. If Big Brother could destroy literature and history, he could destroy lives.

He walked back through the overgrown grass of the lawn and raked his fingers through his hair. He had to get out of this place, this country. He was in the dead centre of a dead city. He had to convince somebody of what was happening here, but he had no proof. One more block and…The song was playing loudly in his brain now, confusing his thoughts. And finally the lyrics came to him. Not to his mind, exactly, but to his ears. He could hear the male tenor voice as clearly as from a radiogram. It was even more hauntingly beautiful than he remembered it from his dreams. It came to him not from the giant speakers in front of the Ministry of Information, nor from the prayer room of the empty temple, but from the ground beneath his feet.

This was the spot. This was, in some inscrutable way, the answer. He dropped to his knees, put his hands together to show respect and, without once considering the ramificartions, began to dig into the rain-softened earth.

Phosy and Dtui had run out of tears. They were as dry and exhausted as old batteries. Phosy had squeezed his wife's hand bloodless. They sat on the flat roof of the police dormitory on two director's chairs their neighbour had once requisitioned for evidence and forgotten to give back. There was still rain in the air but it was an almost imperceptible mist. The low clouds denied them a view of the universe, and the night all around them was so black they might have been in the belly of a giant river dragon. But still they thanked the stars they couldn't see that only Siri and Daeng had been witness to their foolishness.

Phosy had been astounded at Siri's accusations at first. Why in blazes would he have an affair? Who'd want him? Where would he ever find the time? How would he muster the enthusiasm? And, what would the point have been? He already had a wife and he was doing a poor job of keeping her happy. At first he'd wondered whether Siri had been encroaching on the subject because the old fellow himself was on the hunt, or already had his snout in the chicken coop. But then, no. Who in their right mind would cheat on Madame Daeng, a woman very handy with a cut-throat razor? And then the note. Siri's hurried note before he left. Tying up loose ends. Expressing doubts, and then the postscript. The last thought of Chairman Siri. "If you're having an affair, stop it."

He'd told Dtui about the note. He hadn't been able to show it to her because he'd destroyed the postscript. But he laughed it off as one of Siri's overprotective moments. A ridiculous thing.

"Are you telling me you aren't having an affair?" Dtui had asked.

"Why on earth would I want to?" he'd replied.

"That wasn't the question."

"No, Dtui. Of course I'm not having an affair. Don't be ridiculous."

And that introduction had led into a long painful confessional of the doubts of the pair of them. They'd asked policewoman Wan to look after Malee and they'd fled to the roof where nobody could hear. And all the anxiety, the frustration and stupidity were released into the night like steam from an old rice cooker. Phosy, for the first time since they'd been together, perhaps for the first time ever, had shared his feelings. It was a significant step for a man who kept everything bottled up inside. He told her about his family and his first wife and his fears that one day he'd come home to find their room empty. When the words were all out they both sighed. Phosy noticed that he was holding Dtui's hand in his and it felt squashed and numb, but she hadn't attempted to wrestle it free. The fine rain had mixed with their tears and left them fresh-faced. Everything would be all right. Malee wouldn't be growing up in a single-parent household.

"All you need is love," said Dtui, in English.

"What?" said Phosy, who didn't speak the language.

"Beatles."

He had no idea what she was talking about.