Lawrence Osborne - Hunters in the Dark

“No salads,” Robert said, and they seemed to instantly agree on something — but it was not the undesirability of salads.

A waiter brought to the table what looked like a cologne bottle, with a label that read Huile d’Olive. He set it down.

“So I put out an ad,” Sar went on, his hands relaxing on the surface of the tablecloth. “I thought there must be a fair number of nice educated young foreign men in a city like this — and one of them might be the right person to teach my daughter perfect English. Between you and me, however, we want — how can I say it? — a gentleman. We are not going to hire someone in cargo shorts and flip-flops who wants a few months bumming around Cambodia.”

“I understand.”

“I interviewed a few fellows. They showed up in shorts.”

“I’m sorry to hear it.”

The doctor expelled a heavy sigh tinged with a kind of macabre hidden humor.

“This is the way it is these days. Well, I won’t have it in my house. Do you wear shorts, Mr. Beauchamp?”

“Never.”

“Not even at the beach?”

“I never go to the beach.”

“Excellent answer, by Buddha.” The doctor finally laughed. “I think that merits a glass of Sancerre, don’t you?”

“I do.”

The doctor’s hand rose and the ordering of the Sancerre consisted of two quick motions of his index finger but no click. A whole world of sly provincial wealth was expressed in that gesture, an authority whose true root was obscure to an outsider.

“They know me here. They know what I drink.”

He’s easy, Robert thought, and he relaxed. The doctor looked like he would give him some work. He just had to be a gentleman.

“Naturally,” Sar was continuing, “we need to know a little about you. My daughter has been rather ill lately so she is staying at home with us. Nervous exhaustion, I think.”

“Was she working here?”

“Not yet. She is looking. Her time in Paris didn’t do her much good. I don’t know what she got so exhausted from — I have scratched my head over it for weeks. My wife says — but she always has a theory. It’s easy to have a theory, isn’t it?”

“It is, yes.”

“I say there’s no point having a theory. Just give me an explanation and a plan of action. I thought working on her English would do her the world of good. The social scene here—”

He pulled a face which, unexpectedly, made his face much handsomer. The wine arrived and they made a silent toast, but the doctor had not let go of his train of thought.

“—I mean, for kids of good family. The high-society kids. Well, it’s appalling. They can do what they want. Sophal hangs out with the sons of air force generals and suchlike. The children of the rich. I can’t seem to talk any sense into her. They do a lot of drugs and do what they want and no one will touch them. The boys are utterly worthless. They can kill any homeless person they want and nothing will happen. It’s difficult to explain to you, you being a foreigner. I can’t stand the thought of her ending up with one of them. I thought if she got her English up to speed…”

The doctor emitted his second sigh and the Tournedos Rossini arrived, the foie gras laid carefully on their surfaces. It was service au guéridon, the steaks prepared tableside.

“Then her chances for happiness will increase?” Robert said to himself.

“Wrong wine for steak,” Sar laughed, “but I don’t care. Do you care, Mr. Beauchamp?”

“I don’t care, no.”

“Then we don’t care. If we don’t care, no one does!”

“It’s delicious wine — thank you.”

“Thank you for coming to a job interview at such short notice. Bon appétit. Now tell me about you. What brought you to Phnom Penh?”

On his long walk over from the National Museum Robert had prepared his story. He thought it best to be at least half truthful. The issue was whether he should own up to being a teacher; it had its pros and cons.

In the end he decided against it. English teachers were a dime a dozen in this city and in most cities like it. They formed a kind of sub-society all over the Far East, a loose confederation of dubious individuals with their own social niche and their severe reputation for being mangy and broke, though somewhat successful with the girls. Several of his friends at college had gone on to pursue that way of life in places where the koel birds sing and nothing more was ever heard of them. The tropical English teacher in his cargo shorts and flip-flops and his bad haircuts, saving his pennies by eating local every night and scouring his adopted city for sexual scraps and tidbits: easy to find here and free for the young. No money, yet still plenty of honey. But that was not his niche and he intended to stay as far away from it as he could. The clothes he had unexpectedly inherited, strangely enough, had nudged him into other ideas. It seemed absurd, in fact, to step down from them. He didn’t really want to go this route at all, it was just that he couldn’t think of any other way to make some quick cash. It was ironic, given that it was the only skill which he actually possessed. The doctor, meanwhile, seemed to sense — or rather wanted to believe — that this artfully disheveled youth was more than he appeared.

“The truth is,” Robert said, “I’m just traveling around Asia for a few months. I know it’s a horrible cliché—but there we are. I was working at a bank in London and got absolutely fed up with it.”

“A bank, you say?”

“Just a company that audits banks, actually. Terribly boring.”

“I see. What was the company called?”

“Deloitte.”

“Well, all you young people seem to be traveling these days. Sophal says she wants to travel as well. Travel where? I ask her. She has no idea. Anywhere as long as it’s travel. I can’t really understand it myself, but then I am not twenty-five anymore. What is the point of travel just to travel? How old are you, if I may ask?”

“Twenty-eight.”

“A fine age, a fine age. A fine age for a man if you ask me.”

A fine age for anyone, Robert might have replied.

“At twenty-eight,” Sar added, “you can do whatever you want. Or you can nowadays. When I was twenty-eight it was rather a different matter. When I was thirty I was in the countryside being whipped.”

This seemed like an unpleasant topic so Robert steered the conversation away from it. He talked on about himself. Outside, the light visible through the windows dimmed a shade and Robert knew that the sunny part of the day was already over. He talked about England, life in London — tedium, monotony, gray skies, high taxes, the usual things that people living far away always like to hear about, as if they simultaneously both damaged and solidified the sterling image of Albion. He began to talk about his parents, but then stopped, thinking that he was overstepping the mark.

“No, no,” Sar objected, “do go on.”

“My father worked in a bank as well and my mother wrote plays for the radio. They live in East Grinstead.”

“East Grinstead?”

A thin smile came to the old man’s lips. He always seemed to know more than he immediately let on.

“Are they aware that you are running around the world?”

“They disapprove, if that’s what you mean.”

“I would disapprove too if I were them.”

Robert decided to find this amusing.

“It’s only for a short while. I wanted to see the world a bit.”

“Where are you living, by the way?”

“I found a place called Colonial Mansions. It’s just around the corner.”

“I know it well. The American embassy sets up many of its employees there. It’s not terribly cheap, is it?”

Robert shrugged.