William Vollmann - Butterfly Stories

Wait, he said gently, his hand on her shoulder. He left her in the room and went downstairs.

Do either of you speak English? he asked the desk men.

Yes, they both replied in low voices.

Will one of you please come and help me? There is someone I want to talk to, and I cannot speak Khmer.

There is some kind of problem?

No problem. I just want to talk to her.

I cannot go, one clerk said, and the other clerk said nothing. Maybe if my friend comes I go or I send him. What is your room number, please?

102.

OK. I go with you, the other man said.

That's great, the journalist said with all the enthusiasm of his nationality. I sure appreciate it. .

She was standing in the middle of the room, staring into the mirror.

The journalist said: Please tell her I want to talk to her. I want to find out if she is angry with me.

The man in the yellow shirt said something, and she opened her mouth and began to reply. It was practically the first time he had heard her speak (but as long as he knew her it always seemed that way when she said something; she talked so seldom). He marveled at the lisping syllables, the clear calm childish incomprehensible voice.

Oh, it is only a misunderstanding, the man laughed. She think you are ashamed of her, because you walk in front of her very fast.

Tell her I thought she was ashamed of being with me, because she walked very slowly.

You walk very fast, she walks very slowly; it is nothing. I told her you seem to be a nice person, a good person; she says she likes you very much.

Please ask her what she expects from me.

Well, you know she does not like to ask you for anything. She never ask. But a small gold chain, for a souvenir of you, that would please her very much. To show your… — well, it makes her very happy.

Ask her if I should give her the money to buy whichever gold chain she wants.

She says she wants to go with you, to pick it out together with you.

Ask her if she has anything to ask me.

She says she wants to do what you want, to make you happy.

Ask her if she can stay with me tomorrow morning.

How long you want her to stay?

Up to her.

She says she can stay until eleven or twelve. She has a job in the morning. She gets paid by the hour to work in the fields for small wage; that is no problem, to miss that; she simply won't get paid. But after that time maybe her uncle comes looking for her. These taxi girls, you know, they do this work to make money for the family. They never tell the family what they do.

Then they were alone again. Once more she wasn't really looking at him. Then she smiled a little and got the towel and went into the shower. .

He'd made up his mind, as I've said, not to fuck her anymore. He just wanted to be with her. When they lay in bed that night he kept his arm around her and she drew him close, drumming playfully on his belly, pinching his nipples; but then she was very still on her back beside him and he could see that she was waiting for him to do what he usually did (as meanwhile in the street the photographer met his former girl, who'd come hunting for him again alongside the girl with the Chinese-porcelain face, who still entertained hopes of majoring in journalism on her back; the photographer's girl was sobbing and screaming in the street. .) He didn't even kiss her or touch her breasts. He just held her very close, and the two of them fell asleep. All night they held each other. He wanted to respect her. In the morning he could see that she was waiting for it again, so he got up and took a shower and started getting dressed. He couldn't tell if she was surprised. She got up, too, and pulled her bra on, while in the other bed the photographer lay grinning.

You mind if I hop her while you're in the shower? he said.

I don't think she'd like that, the journalist said evenly.

That's a good one, the photographer jeered.

He made eating motions and she nodded faintly.

He took her downstairs, this time holding her hand and introducing her to everyone as his girlfriend, but she didn't look anyone in the eye.

At the restaurant they pretended she wasn't there and asked him what he wanted.

Ask her, he said.

They looked at him incredulously.

He said it again, and she said something.

Uh, they said, she want, uh, only soup, sir.

Two soups, please, he said.

When the soups came she put pepper on his and smiled a little. She picked the meat and noodles out of hers, leaving the broth as people always seemed to do in Cambodia, and then she just sat there. He suddenly wanted to cry.

He drew an imaginary gold circlet on her wrist, and she nodded.

They went out, and he was about to take her by the hand to go to the market where he'd seen some gold things for sale, but she took him by the hand and led him to a motorbike and they got on. They traveled far across the city, down shady lanes of coconut palms, past clean white two-storey houses already shuttered against the heat, then a sudden crowded marketplace, then a sidewalk lined with the checker-clothed tables of the cigarette vendeuses, ahead more palm trees receding infinitely… He gripped her shoulders. Everyone was looking at him as usual. He kept expecting to get used to it; instead, every day it got harder to bear. There was a young soldier in fresh glowing green who lounged in sandals, smoking and talking with a friend sitting on a Honda; the soldier looked up suddenly and locked his eyes on the journalist's face; when the journalist looked back, the soldier was still watching. Two old brown faces leaning close together, smoking Liberation cigarettes over a bicycle, peered round and caught him. They stood up slowly, never looking away. A cyclo driver with veined brown pipestem legs saw him, and there was almost an accident. The journalist never tightened his grip on Vanna's shoulders; he did not want to add to her shame. They vibrated past shady chessboard-floored chambers open to the street, their corrugated doors and grilles retracted to let the last of the morning coolness in, glass-fronted shelves not quite glinting in the dimness, people resting inside with their bare feet up on chairs, schools of child-fish watching TV; and the journalist drank them in almost vindictively because so many had drunk him in; everywhere soldiers and gorgeous-greened police rode slowly on motorbikes, looking both ways.

At last they reached a video arcade which was also a jewelry store without any jewelry, without anything in the glass case except for a tiny set of scales on top of a cigar box. The Chinese-looking man in the straw hat opened the cigar box and took out three gold bracelets. Vanna gestured to the journalist to choose. He smiled and signed that it was up to her. She smiled a little at him. Already a new crowd was secreting itself, like the swarm of black bees eating the sugar and flour in the market's open bowls… — Two of the bracelets were slender and lacy. The third was quite heavy and had three blocks that said ABC. That one would obviously be the most expensive. She took that one. He took a hundred-dollar bill from his pocket and gave it to her. She looked at it as if she'd never seen one before, which she probably hadn't. The man in the straw hat said something to her; the motorbike driver joined in, and they all began to discuss the alphabet bracelet with its every ramification. There was one chair, and she gestured to him to sit down; he gestured to her to do it, but she shook her head. The man in the straw hat gestured to him to sit down; he gave in. The man in the straw hat got a calculator from somewhere and clicked out the figure 30 and said dollah. The journalist nodded. I guess I can give Vanna a lot of change, he thought. They all talked some more. The man in the straw hat clicked out 137. They were all watching him to see what he'd do. When he got out two twenties, everybody but Vanna started to laugh. Were they happy, polite, scornful, or sorry for him? What did it matter? The man in the straw hat brought out his miniature scales and weighed the alphabet bracelet against a weight. Then he switched the pans and did the same thing again. The journalist nodded. Vanna took the bracelet and draped it over her left wrist. He realized that everyone was waiting for him to fasten it for her. He bent down and did it, taking awhile because the catch was very delicate and he was clumsy and nervous with his fat sweaty fingers. The man in the straw hat came to help him, but he waved him away. When he'd finished, he looked up. An old lady was standing at the edge of the crowd. He smiled at her tentatively, and she stared back stonily.