LITMIR.BIZ

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here?’

      ‘We’re not entirely sure. But in 1976 Pol Pot made an order. That’s the famous Khmer Rouge leader –’

      Jake bridled.

      ‘I have heard of Pol Pot, Chemda. He was a famous weather presenter, on morning TV?’

      For the first time since he had met her this morning, she laughed, sincerely; her serious face was transformed, delicate white teeth revealed, eyes wide and smiling.

      ‘OK. Sorry. OK. My professor at UCLA once said I was “a tad didactic”. Am I being . . .’ her brown eyes met his, ‘a tad didactic?’

      ‘Well. Yes. A bit.’

      A silence. The driver buzzed down a window and spat. The inrushing cold was piercing and stark. Jake shuddered, wishing he had brought a proper coat. All he had was a raincoat packed in his rucksack. No one had told him he would need to keep warm.

      Conversation might keep him warm.

      ‘So, Chemda.’

      She was staring at the darkness: the bombed and lethal plain. She turned.

      ‘Sorry. I was thinking. But let me finish the story. We know that in ‘76 the Khmer Rouge, and the Pathet Lao, and the Maoist Chinese, they all sent a team here, to the, ah, Plain of Jars. A team of historians, academics, experts who knew something about the remains, the Neolithic ruins. Then they made people search the whole area, despite all the lethal UXO.’

      ‘Unexploded ordnance.’

      ‘Yes. Hundreds died. The KR didn’t give a damn . . . nor the Chinese. They were looking for something. We don’t know exactly what. In the scale of things,’ her eyes sought Jake’s and found them. ‘In the scale of things it is a pretty minor atrocity. Just a few hundred killed, a thousand injured. What’s that compared to two million dead?’ She shook her head. ‘But it’s a puzzle, and it was cold blooded murder. And Pol Pot and Ieng Sary and Ta Mok the Butcher, all the Khmer Rouge leadership, they were, ah, obsessed with this project, likewise the Chinese. They had no money but they spent lots on this, in the summer of ‘76. Searching the plain. Searching for what?’

      ‘And these historians?’

      ‘Most of the academics were later purged by Pol Pot. Murdered at Cheung Ek. The killing fields, of course. But two survived. I tracked them down. We asked them to come with us, to show us where they searched, all this is part of the UN’s work . . . To, ah, dig up the truth. But these guys – they were very unwilling.’

      ‘So what did you do?’

      ‘They were ordered to help us, by the Cambodian government. They had no choice. But they don’t have to say anything, we can’t force the truth from their mouths. Can we? Now one is in hospital, and there is one left. Doctor Samnang. Not happy. Sometimes I wonder . . .’ She sighed. ‘I wonder if I am doing the right thing, in forcing these old men to rake over the past. But, it is my job.’ The steeliness had returned to her soft Khmer vowels; her English was only slightly accented. She turned to face him, square on: and she stared him out.

      ‘And then. There is a personal angle.’

      ‘OK.’

      ‘My grandmother died here.’

      Jake said nothing. Chemda’s face was ghosting in the twilight.

      ‘I think she died up here in the Plain of Jars. She was one of the academics the Khmer Rouge brought with them.’

      ‘How do you know this?’

      ‘I have a Khmer friend in Los Angeles. Her father was also sent here. And he claims he saw my grandmother, in the Plain, that she was one of the team. My grandmother was quite well known: my family is quite well known. So, my grandmother was an anthropologist, ah, we know she disappeared around that time, and we know there were rumours she came here. No one will tell me the truth because maybe no one knows the truth.’

      Chemda’s words were like a litany, softly and reverently repetitive, a whispered prayer in the gloaming of a church.

      ‘That is one of the reasons I am doing this, Jake. By uncovering the truth about my family I can uncover the truth about Cambodia. It doesn’t make me popular, many people want to forget. But I don’t care.’

      They drove in silence for fifteen minutes. The cabin was cold. Then Chemda’s cellphone chirruped, an incongruously jaunty song. Cantopop. She picked up the call, but the signal was bad.

      ‘Tou? Tou? Can you hear me?’ Rattling the phone, she cursed the reception, and explained. ‘Our guide, Tou. Trying to reach me. Cellphones are almost useless up here. Outside the towns.’

      Jake was not surprised. A place without electricity was hardly likely to be superbly linked with telecommunications. Nonetheless the thought added to the growing sense of isolation.

      An hour passed in even more subdued silence. And then:

      ‘Ponsavanh!’

      The driver had spoken for the first time since the morning. They were entering, what was, for Laos, a largeish city. Straggling and busy and concrete, it was an ugly place, especially in the harsh glare of rudimentary streetlights. Jake saw an internet cafe, people in scarves locked on bright screens in a dingy room; a few closed tourist shops had Plain des Jarres scrawled in crude paint on their windows.

      The pick-up swerved a sudden right, onto a very rough and rubbled track.

      ‘Here we go. The only hotel in the area. Home.’ Chemda smiled, with a hint of sarcasm. ‘My guide Tou is here. And the historian. The one who can, ah, still walk . . . It is good we are arriving at night; this is less conspicuous. The Pathet Lao do not want us here. Of course. They want us gone.’

      ‘You are intruders. Raking up the past.’

      ‘Yes. And also . . . there is tension. The Hmong.’

      ‘The hill tribesmen?’

      ‘They live in the uplands right across Southeast Asia, but here is the real Hmong heartland. And the jungles and mountains south of here. There are still Hmong rebels down there. Some say. Still fighting the Vietnam war.’

      ‘I heard a few stories.’

      Now Jake could see lights of a distant building. Chemda continued:

      ‘The Hmong helped the Americans in the Vietnam war, when Laos was a secret battlezone. The North Vietnamese were using Laos as, ah, a route, to ferry arms to South Vietnam.’

      ‘The Ho Chi Minh trail.’

      ‘Yes! You know your history.’ Her eyes brightened, momentarily. ‘Yes. It came right through here, the Plain of Jars. So the Americans secretly infiltrated Laos, and secretly bombed the trail, and they recruited Hmong to help them, in the air war, because the Hmong hated the communists, the Pathet Lao, the people still in power now. The Lao regime.’ Her voice softened to a wondering tone. ‘The Americans actually had a whole secret city in the hills south of here, with airstrips, warehouses, barracks. And maverick pilots, specialist bombers, fighting a completely clandestine war. The Hmong helped, some actually became fliers . . . So there is still a lot of, ah, very bad feeling, and the Lao don’t want outsiders here, stirring things up.’

      The car jerked to a stop outside a blank concrete building. The car park was almost empty: just a couple of dirty white minivans. Chemda got out and Jake joined her, yawning and stretching; the cold upland air was refreshing now, he inhaled deeply the sweet night scent of pollution and burning hardwood.

      ‘Come and meet the team. What’s left of it.’

      The walk took a minute, along a walkway, to a door, where she knocked. Silence replied. She knocked again, there was no reply; Jake leaned against the door jamb, impatient with weariness. As he did he realized he was standing in something sticky.

      The revelation was a slap of horror.

      ‘Jesus,

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