William Vollmann - The Atlas

In the morning she was standing in front of the mirror, slowly combing her hair by the light of the open door because there was no electricity. Her forehead was hot. She'd put his hand on it and made signs of fever.

He said again: I love you.

She gazed at him but did not reply. Probably she'd forgotten what that meant.

You are very lucky, the hotel maid said to him.

The hotel maid had watched the Khmer Rouge kill everyone in her family. Now she was poor and unmarried.

He told her not to come to the airport with him this time because the soldiers might cause trouble for her, and he said goodbye to her in the lobby where the maid had been interpreting; once more he told her that he loved her very much, nose-kissing her hand with that intake of hissing breath her countrymen favored. Everyone in the lobby cheered. She came outside with him. He said goodbye to her again, more quickly and casually because all the cyclo drivers, taxi drivers, doormen and motorcycle drivers were grinning and one man yelled: You go sleep her now hotel? so he did not want to bring any more shame to her who was too pure to be shamed as she had shown at the restaurant which before had been decrepit but which now was tiled and air conditioned; as before the waiter set a menu only in front of him, and he passed it to her. Then he remembered that this wife of his could not read. He said to the waiter: Ask her what she wants. — She take rice soup, said the waiter. — Now he remembered that she had always ordered rice soup before, too. Probably she was too shy to ask what they had, and so she chose the one dish that she could be sure of. — The rice soup had fish in it. Every now and then, with perfect naturalness, she tossed her beautiful head and spat fish bones onto the marble floor. The business suited ones regarded her sneeringly, and she was not shamed. So now most likely she would not be shamed if he'd taken her in his arms again, and it was even possible that by not taking her in his arms he was shaming her; and yet he remembered how in the wedding studio she'd posed beside him with such inwardness, maybe aloofness or reluctance even, never reaching for his hand; that was why he thought he was being good in merely waving, not looking back. He did not want to look back anyway; he was afraid of his own grief. Now a dozen beggar-children came running. He gave each of them five hundred riels; he'd already given her five hundred dollars. Their dirty hands closed enraptured, and other dirty hands came whirling around him like September's leaves in his own country of four seasons; and by the time he'd finished filling them, his vision had been choked by hands — not hers, not her incredibly brown slender fingers… so he got into the taxi and then as he raised his palm-edge to his forehead to salute them he saw her standing among them, and he waved and she waved and the taxi began to pull away and he saw her trying to smile and she stood there among the beggars, wringing her hands.

One dry season he came back. Cambodia was a kingdom again that year; the slogan was NATION — RELIGION — ROI . Do you know the floating restaurant? he asked the taxi driver.

But now no, the driver explained. Government everybody go away. But now everybody stop the work, because government no have.

So where do those girls go now?

I don't know.

When he got back to the Hotel Papillon, the desk ladies said: All your friends have been dreaming about you! and they gave him a ten percent discount. He went upstairs and took a bath in yellow water that smelled like sewage. The walls were starting to get dirty again.

The cyclo drivers said they remembered him, which might or might not have been true. Kien, the short one, the dirty one with the slight stubble, the wide eyes, and the hat with horizontal stripes, said he remembered Vanna and could find her. The husband told him to please do it.

He went out to talk with the cigarette vendors and he ran into the friend of the English teacher who couldn't speak English. The friend didn't remember him. — You want to sleep with Vietnamese girl? said the friend.

He didn't. He'd had enough girls. — And you? he said.

The friend giggled. — No, he laughed. I don't like.

In the restaurant they brought him a menu with a living cockroach on it.

The next morning the phone rang three times. Every time he lifted the receiver and said hello he was cut off. When he went downstairs they said to him: Your wife was here.

He felt a sickening dread in his heart.

Your wife, she come here every two weeks. Just waiting and waiting for you. Why you don't bring her home your country?

He looked at them and could not answer.

At eight-o'-clock the next morning the phone rang in his room and when he picked it up there was nothing but the noise of somebody dialing, and he hung up. He went downstairs, and the reception ladies said: Your wife was here. . and his heart turned over in terror — not the tiniest gladness, only fear and lonely dread. The ladies said: She come back in ten minute. — He sat down to wait. After two hours she hadn't come, and all the fear had become grief that she'd somehow found him out and had run away from his wicked emptiness; he felt so ashamed and hated himself so much and he longed for her. An hour later she came; and this time the joy flowered and exploded like fireworks in his soul and she drew away from him in shyness but then reached out her hand and then her arms were around his neck and she was giggling with tenderness. He knew that she was the one. He believed in her and knew that she was for him.

The last time he'd seen her she'd been at the peak of her beauty; now she was a woman, not a girl.

They went to a restaurant and she spoon-fed him and he was embarrassed. He tried to spoon-feed her too, but she said she wasn't hungry. She said that she was very sick. She had been sick for months. She touched her forehead and made signs for fever. He supposed that she had AIDS.

The taxi driver took them to a place that said BLOOD TRANSFUSIONS and led them in, beaming. She sat in a dirty room that smelled sweet like old mouthwash. A weary lady with a headlamp that took up half her face inspected her and said that she had rhinid allergy aigue . Vanna leaned toward her so attentively from the rusty steel chair with her feet canted beneath in a ladylike way. The lady with the headlamp had a kind frown; she was oldish and patient. She put on her glasses, which were very thick and dark on top like eyebrows, sniffed, and leaned down to write something very slowly which he could not see from behind the wooden stand with its four dropper bottles like relishes. Everything happened so slowly, as if in time with the shuffling footsteps outside.

He'd given Vanna fifty dollars, and she pulled the money out from between her breasts and gave it all to the lady with the headlamp as a tip. Then they went out to the pharmacy to fill her prescription. She swallowed a little of the first medicine, made a face, and never touched it again.

She said she want to cut out her eye, sir, because last time you leave, she take some medicine to kill herself, and it make that blind place in her eye.

He looked at her. Her face was merciless.

She say she have heavy headache for six months now. She want to kill herself if illness is incurable. Maybe she is joking. She say she don't want to be cured. She just want you to buy her a motorbike before she dies, because she is maybe joking again.