William Vollmann - Butterfly Stories

Well, said the photographer, why should she come to work? You got her a fucking gold bracelet for Chrissakes. She probably sold it ten minutes after she got rid of you. That money should last her a few weeks.

I used to not have enough money to spend on whores, the photographer said. Now I don't know what else I'd ever spend my money on.

The photographer had fallen in love with the money-changer just outside the hotel, and asked her to marry him. All day she sat smiling at the world. So they were engaged. After that, practically every time the journalist went in or out, he'd see the photographer leaning on her glass-topped table grinning down at her as she sat there among her rubber-banded bundles of money sideways stacked; when customers came she'd look up with her calculator already in hand; she'd be ready to sell anyone her pink packs of Ruby Queens, her silver-topped red packs of Marlboros, her red-topped Bentleys, gold Dunhills, green Wrig-ley's spearmint gum; and then she'd go back to giggling with her fiancé, making him write down everything he said so that she could have the other English students translate for her, and the photographer said: I will come for you in one year. . and the photographer asked again: Do you love me? and she nodded radiantly and sold the customers cartons of cigarettes from her secret glass shelves. - Well, I guess I'll have to divorce my wife, the photographer said glumly.

So they went to the market to get flowers for their girls. It was the journalist's idea. He wanted to give Vanna something. He wanted to get down on his knees before her, in the disco with everyone watching; maybe then she'd know he meant it even though what did he mean?

The Vietnamese waitress, henceforth known as the plump girl, was coming to meet the photographer at the hotel at seven although she was scared because she wasn't a taxi girl so she asked the English teacher who couldn't speak English to take her there. That rendezvous had to be taken into consideration, explained the photographer as he led the journalist into the market where a woman passed by with a wide plate of fruit on her head. - I'm pretty sure I know where the flowers are, the photographer said. - Down the long aisle crowded with combs and light bulbs and locks and cords of string, a series of counter-bays enclosed the people who worked beside the orange flames bending out from sooty ash cans to stroke the undersides of gigantic frying pans mountained with sprouts and noodles; underneath the ash cans, tables were stacked with cordwood to feed them; there was a sound of sizzling; steam came out just like the vapor from the journalist's ice-crammed soda glass; and the girls who shooed the flames away from their bowls of rice and occasionally added pinches of flour to things and stirred thick sauces and spooned purple slush into plastic bags for whoever paid, topping the treat with crushed ice, laying the banknotes down on top of a tray of dried yellow fruit for a minute while they went to retrieve their soup bowls, these girls stared at him and the photographer just as everyone always stared at him in Cambodia, maybe considering him a tall fat-buttocked white idiot or maybe just considering him a novelty; the answer was surely as complicated as the bewildering central polygon with its glass counters of watches, gold bracelets and lenses, where he was always certain to get lost, and they did get lost but since the journalist had learned the Khmer word for flower and kept saying it they got where they were going finally and they each bought bouquets which immediately began to wilt in the heat.

When they got back to the money-changer's stand she was busy piling bundles of banknotes into other men's paper bags, so she had the photographer sit down in her chair. The street kid called the Playboy came up to see the photographer's bouquet. Usually the photographer bought the kid cigarettes. This time he yelled: These flowers aren't for you! Can't you see that? Get lost, fuck off, screw! For two cents I'd knock your block off! — The photographer's fiancée giggled nervously.

Raise the curtain on the next act, the plump girl on the bed laughing, the English teacher who couldn't speak English and his best friend laughing at their ease, basking in the reflected glow of their masters, the plump girl glittering the place up with her white teeth and black eyes, sweeping and gesturing until the photographer dug her in the ribs. The photographer was talking with the money-changer, his fiancée, when the plump girl came to the hotel, so the journalist had had to bring her in himself, to keep the photographer's fiancée ignorant of this minor unfaithfulness; as a matter of fact the photographer had already made up his mind not to screw the plump girl so her very presence was pointless but she didn't know that yet; the journalist led her into the lobby and all the bellhops, maids, concierges and Ministry of Foreign Affairs underlings who just happened to be there watching him go in and out did not exactly stare him down in any unfriendly way but somehow conveyed that the world disapproved of this his latest action; he took the plump girl upstairs and made her comfortable and then the power went off so he found his headlamp. Just then the photographer came in, glum because his fiancée had not been fooled (probably because the plump girl had gone right up to the photographer as he stood at the money-changing stand and she'd squeezed his shoulder); then the English teacher and his friend knocked, and the party began which I have just described. The plump girl was starving. The photographer had promised to take her out to dinner. He'd already eaten. - Well, I really think you should do it, the journalist said. I feel kind of bad for her. - Tell her I'll take her out to any restaurant she wants, the photographer yawned to the English teacher who couldn't speak English. But tell her I'm very sick; tell her that after that I must rest. - The plump girl was giggling and the journalist played with her feet to make her laugh because the photographer was ignoring her and the photographer groaned: God, I'm tired. How did I ever get myself into this?

The English teacher (who did not always speak English) said: She is not a taxi girl.

She isn't? said the journalist in amazement.

Yes.

You're trying to tell me that she isn't a taxi girl?

Yes.

So why's she here?

Yes.

She comes to sleep with my friend?

Yes, sir, she sleep here, in hotel, with your friend.

And she wants him to give her money?

Maybe yes, she want money your friend.

Then if she sleeps with him for money, isn't she a taxi girl?

Yes. Yes, she is taxi girl.

That point having been cleared up and epistemologically grounded, the taxi girl who was not a taxi girl led everyone to the Hotel Pacific. She knew exactly where she wanted to go. She took them past the dancing girls going slowly aieeeeeyoo in the grid of flickering spots and before he knew it she'd brought them into a private room in the back where the waitress came at once, bearing menus in French with no prices — always a bad sign. The journalist sat thinking the same things he'd thought at noon, while the photographer slept and he lay staring up at the ceiling's fan and blue decaying paint, wondering whether Vanna had been there last night and he hadn't seen her or whether she'd been out fucking, whether she'd sold the gold bracelet yet, whether she wanted to see him again; she always seemed so sad and distant. - Meanwhile the plump girl ordered lobster and rice while everyone else got Tiger beer or Coke, and it was already five of eight, which meant that in five minutes the journalist's new English learner was due at the Hotel Asie to go with him to the disco to interpret for him with his now possibly never to be seen again Vanna; this same slender boy in the high-collared white shirt was the one who'd written out at the journalist's dictation that letter suitably transposed into Khmer which described the journalist's truest feelings. - Well, it felt quite jolly to be racing back for this new appointment even though his balls ached. The plump girl, pouting, said she'd see him tomorrow -