William Vollmann - The Atlas

At the Martini they all said that they knew her, and two girls in a bar by the Russian market in dresses of netting and sugarcaned starch insisted that she worked at the Lido.

So they went back to the Lido. A woman sat outside looking old. At first he thought her the madam. She was merely another dancer who'd accomplished too many dances. His wife probably looked like that now.

She know her! cried the driver, so happy for him. By the river, in floating restaurant!

You believe her?

She say she know her, said the driver. She have house by the river, but she change her house. Now she work at floating restaurant. Yes. No. She have ever seen her.

It seemed almost a platoon that set out for the nightclub where his wife, who might or might not be dead, might or might not be working. There was the husband, of course, first, last and foremost. He had his driver to speed him there through the rainy streets. At his side rode the dancer with her motorcycle driver. Two other motorcycle drivers followed for a time just to keep company with their own amazement. A dozen barefoot kids in torn gray rags ran behind them laughing; they were, however, soon forsaken. The two supernumerary motorcycle drivers duly recollected their responsibilities to Cambodian commerce; they peeled off. (And speaking of Cambodian commerce, they passed the false Vanna, who was riding on a motorcycle behind a suited man; Vanna's husband nudged his driver and pointed to her but the driver only laughed: You cannot be Kampuchea. Your nose too big!) So there were four who arrived at the market in front of the floating restaurant, and the motorcycle drivers stayed to watch their vehicles while he followed the Lido girl up the gangplank over the water where two women patted the Lido girl down and he offered them his thighs and buttocks to pat down, too, but they only laughed, proving him not consubstantial with the Lido girl, who led him onto the deck around the floating restaurant, led him under weird still lights on the black water, and girls girls girls lined up on the porch as they came in. In that season they seemed to like black skirts with silver belts. They strolled with heads tossed back and pouting lips. They had rounder fleshier faces than the Thai girls. Some had a Chinese look. Every now and then one would go to the railing and smoke a cigarette, staring out into the water and the still Cambodian darkness.

There was a disco ball like a die in the darkness, waiters in white passing on creaky boards over the water. One waiter seated him, so he ordered Tiger beers and a plate of nuts for the Lido girl. The Lido girl said something and nodded at him. To the waiter he showed Vanna's photo, his logotype.

Just wait and they will inform you, said the waiter.

He sat outside with devitrifying eyes, unmoved by the dancing or the dark-clothed figures at white-covered tables. He and the Lido girl had nothing to say to each other. He watched as an UNTAC guy from Holland with a nice ID got pulled inside by his Khmer girlfriend.

You must come back tomorrow, the waiter said. (They all spoke some English now, it seemed.) She did not come because of the rain. Tomorrow, ninety-nine percent, one hundred percent, she will come. Come to this table at seven or eight-o'-clock.

The woman from the Lido took his hand, pointed to herself, and said: Dancing?

He patted her shoulder. — Me-you brother-sister. I dance only with Vanna.

She nodded sadly.

What is this one's name? he asked the Cambodian at the next table. The Cambodian had been an interpreter until his identity card expired.

Dounia, he said.

Oh, that's her name with the foreigners. What's her Khmer name?

She shook her head and refused to answer.

Well, then I won't give her my real name, either. Tell her my name is Sihanouk.

At this everyone choked with laughter.

I'll see you tomorrow, he said to the former interpreter.

To the former interpreter this was an even funnier joke than the last. — You see, he chortled, tomorrow I will be— absent!

You must go for Dounia at the Lido tomorrow at seven-o'-clock, the waiter interposed. She will bring you here.

She'll bring me to my wife?

Your wife — ha, ha, ha, ha! Yes, yes — to your wife!

That night he slept less than well, poundinghearted as he was by the probable insaturation of his wife (no matter that she was dead). Actually he had terrible dreams. In the morning he was exhausted. He could not add up his stacks of riels when he paid for anything. He forgot his hat in a restaurant and the waiter had to run after him for a block calling out. He thought about the coming and final night and hoped without believing.

In the hotel lobby, men in immaculate white shirts and black loafers rested Rolexed arms on the knees of their creased trousers. The billboards showed telephones and overflowing steins of beer.

There were still the narrow alleys paved with black mud where men repaired motorcycles, ladies carried pots of steaming soup, and barefoot kids rode plastic cars, but now the alleys pulsed with generators and the formerly empty shopcaves were selling pigeons and refrigerators. At the hairdresser's where two yean before the woman had laughingly cut his hair and made gestures of marriage, this same woman now looked at him and said: No.

The hotel maid was very busy. He gave her a hundred dollars. The lobby swarmed with UNTAC men from Malaysia. They were taking more than forty rooms, the maid said. He went outside and watched small fishes drying on a wooden trencher on the sidewalk.

A block or two from the hotel a Japanese girl in a kimono was weeping before a stern man in a golden robe; this occurred on a color television in a black-on-white room of shut gratings and dirty chessboard tiles in which people barefoot and in sandals sat in rows of lawn chairs, some couples close together, a girl in a striped shirt in the back row with her chin in her hand, smiling in amazement. He sat in the row of skinny men who smoked cigarettes and drank Cokes. Every time someone opened a can it sounded like a pistol-shot.

The maid's family had invited him to lunch. They wanted to see the photograph. He showed them, and they burst out laughing, and the brother-in-law said: But she is old!

As he came into his room the other maid said: Sir, I am very poor. Buy me gold rings, buy me gold bracelets!

Oh, he said. Boys do that for their girlfriends. Are you telling me you want to be my girlfriend?

Yes, she said.

Well, come in then, he said, crooking a finger. All he would have done was give her five hundred riels and shake her hand, because he was married to Vanna. But she didn't know that; she shook her head and ran away.

On his bed was his laundry, which still another maid had left with this note:

Dear frined

See you a soon.

Love and all good wises of you.

your frined,

Love

Well, he thought, someone loves me anyway. — This encouraged him, so he went out and showed four motorcycle drivers Vanna's photo, but they said: No good! Maybe more than thirty years old!

He went to another hairdresser's shop, and even though a man did most of the work, even though the people weren't friendly and the water they used to shampoo his hair smelled like stale meat, still the woman scratched and scraped the lather into his head with her fingernails most pleasantly; for a few moments he felt as he had when Vanna shaved him.

He passed one of those tapering glass cabinets of cigarette vendeuses with red stacks of riels in the topmost shelf, and reminded himself: Two hundred and fifty dollars. I can easily do that for her.