Cambodian Book of the Dead (22 page)

 

THE HANGMAN'S BOUDOIR

 

“Were you ever married?”

Lorenz smiled happily. The young fighting girls had cleared some of the overgrown garden behind the casino. Carissa, Maier and the White Spider sat in wheelchairs in the morning sun. The view across the Gulf of Thailand was gorgeous, the ridges of islands in the distance half submerged in clouds, the water placid and calm.

“Now, Maier, now we are getting closer to each other. Your critical, well-structured thinking is coming into play. Perhaps this is your true calling. Perhaps you lived your entire life in preparation for this moment. Now you are asking the questions that a good biographer would think of. You are beginning to dig for the morsels of information that lie buried between the lines of the official version – exactly the things that make a man what he is. You are writing my testament.”

Maier had turned his notes into prose during the night. He was no poet, but he weighed every word. The fear that the little shrimps would amputate Carissa's legs if he did not produce sat deep in his bones. To avoid this scenario, he needed to write like a Nobel winner.

Maier's most difficult assignment had only just started.

“I was married twice. I met my first wife in Croatia in 1942. She worked in a women's camp, in which I was employed as representative of the Reich. I was very young, still almost a teenager. Her father was a German, her mother from Croatia. I could never have married her back in Germany. She was ten years older than me. We were married by the camp commander. As I said, I was young. And I had no urge, like many of my colleagues, to rape the female inmates. They were too sick, and anyway, that kind of thing stood everything on its head. My mission and my ideological convictions stood in the way. We were trying to get rid of these people. A few months into the marriage, I was told that my wife was protecting one of the inmates.

“She had married me in order to save her friend, perhaps her lover, perhaps a dissident. My wife even told me in which part of the camp her friend was housed. She never really thought about what kind of a man she had married. Isn't that strange? I did not bother finding out who her friend was.”

The White Spider sat facing Maier, eyes glazed over, drifting away through the memories of his youth. Maier said nothing. He had opened a dark door in the White Spider's head. He hoped he would not drown in the flood of memories that was pouring out.

He was the biographer of death.

“Though she was older than me, she had a much lower rank. The next day I went to visit the camp commander. I told him the truth. At the same time I informed the SS in Zagreb. The commander would not have agreed to my suggestions without pressure from the outside. As I said, I was still young.”

Maier took notes, in direct speech. He would rewrite the text later.

Somehow.

The White Spider leaned forward and brushed his old thin hand through Carissa's white hair. The journalist recoiled from the pale, skinny fingers and looked past him, her gaze fixed.

“Yes, Maier, women. I learned early. If you really want to achieve something in life you will have to do without some things, some circumstances and even relationships, which we take for granted, which we feel we have a right to, simply because we are alive. But it's not like that. Man has no right. He takes it. Think of what will happen to the world if we let everybody reproduce, on and on and on. The lack of natural resources, our environmental vandalism, climate change, the little wars in the developing world: all results of our irrational attitude towards reproduction. One day this will bring us down. I don't care much. I won't be around to see it. But think about it. In China, the government tries to control population growth by passing laws. It doesn't work, because the system is so corrupt, but in principle, the Chinese are on the mark.”

“What was your first wife's name?”

The White Spider looked at Maier directly. The question had brought him back from his philosophical meanderings.

“Take notes, Maier, this was one of the key events in my life. I remember exactly how I stepped into my office that morning, after talking to the commander. The day is so clear in my memory, as if it had all happened yesterday. It was a bloody cold day. Sixty inmates had frozen to death the previous night. My wife was a guard in a place called Stara GradiÅ¡ka, the women's camp of Jasenovac. Her brother worked with her. He was really a nice man. But he had no ideology. He was an opportunist. A typical Croatian. I ordered two other Croatian guards into the office, very reliable men. Then I had her brother called. His name was Miroslav. I told him that my wife had been cheating me. Of course, he tried to defend his sister. He knew exactly what it was all about. My two helpers garrotted him right in front of my desk. My secretary passed out.”

The old German had got so excited he was out of breath and now coughed quietly into a white handkerchief.

“Take notes, Maier,” he repeated. “I am in the mood to have the odd toe removed from your girlfriend's foot. My girls never get enough practice. The visit of the Japanese collector was a rare opportunity to simulate the conditions of a field hospital in a combat situation.”

Maier began to write in silence. He did not dare to look across at Carissa. Lorenz looked at the detective, his eyes filled with expectation. Maier swallowed.

“You did not tell me your first wife's name.”

“That's correct, Maier. That's how it goes when you tell stories. I am getting there. Just a little bit more.”

Maier nodded and briefly glanced past the old German, at life. It was a long way away and he did not belong there. He had taken his place, close to the cold flame of the old white devil.

“I filled in an execution order for the entire block my wife had mentioned. About three hundred women and children. I had the camp commander sign it. The document contained very precise instructions as to how the inmates were to be killed. My wife was ordered to get them to dig their own graves. It was her job to kill them, with a shovel to the back of the head, one by one. After the thirty-eighth execution, Nada shot herself in the head.”
Maier and the White Spider sat, united by the indescribable. Maier looked at his captor and fell through black eyes into the depths of a bottomless ocean. Lorenz grabbed his wrist and smiled gently. “I killed my second wife myself, Maier.”

 

 

ALL'S FAIR IN LOVE AND WAR

 

Maier and Carissa had spent a second night on the roof of the casino. The boy had cradled his AK like a baby and had fallen asleep on the stairs in front of them. Four of the girls took turns guarding them during the night. They hadn't spoken or slept much. Just before dawn, Carissa had moved in his arms.

“Maier, we need to get out of here. I feel sick all the time.”

“I'm not exactly doing great either. Just be glad for the moment you still have your legs. Today we can walk again. Lorenz knows that everything here is going down the drain. He talks about dying all the time. Perhaps he has enough and wants to provoke an end, even if, or precisely because this would destroy his plans in Cambodia.”

Carissa got up and fished a crumpled joint from her trouser pocket.

“By the way, Rolf went crazy in Kep the other day. He had a fight with Pete at the crab market and then broke into Tep's resort. I don't know if he stole anything. After that he disappeared. Kaley was taken away by the policeman. I actually expected to see her up here in Bokor.”

Maier had caught up.

“They pumped me full of drugs and took me from the island to a temple north of Angkor, hidden deep in the jungle. The stuff they gave me really crushed my mind. I didn't know what was happening, or where I was. I even thought you'd been killed on the road to Bokor. But I escaped, found out that Kaley's sister, a German, had come to Cambodia, presumably searching for her sister, and got killed by Tep. I just missed him at Calmette where I went to make sure it really was Kaley's sister, but then got caught again coming back here.”
Maier's memory was back – he could remember that Raksmei had guided him through his toxic dreams, but he wasn't sure what had happened in his mind and what hadn't. He didn't have the energy to look closely at the past days, to separate hallucination from fact. He had caught up and found his centre once more, but the recent past appeared as several narratives that were coagulating into a new reality, its only objective survival.

“Did they interrogate you?”

She wouldn't make eye contact with Maier.

“Yes,” she mumbled.

A gust of wind brushed across the casino roof and Carissa took a deep drag on her joint. Maier shook his head. Carissa brushed her hand through his short hair.

“I think that Mikhail is involved in all this. But when I came to visit, he wouldn't tell me a thing. On the way back to Kampot, Tep stopped me on the forest road and took me to the pagoda on the plateau. I spent last week in a hole there. They didn't kill me, because the old German thinks that you will cooperate better if I'm alive.”

 

The fog lifted as the sun rose. Below them, the Gulf of Thailand stretched towards Malaysia. Phu Quoc, Koh Tonsay and a few smaller islands were clearly visible. Fishing boats moved up and down in front of Rabbit Island.

The boy had gone downstairs. Maier couldn't see anyone around the casino. The old buildings of the hill station, the post office, the church, the mayor's office, the old water tower, surrounded by rough rock formations and tall grasses – the entire community looked like a place from which man had been banished a long time ago.

Maier tried to imagine what the hill station might have looked like during Sihanouk's reign in the Sixties. The roads had been surfaced and lit by gas lights. The staff had worn pressed white uniforms and had spoken enough French to supply the guests with the illusion of savoir vivre at the end of the world. The cocktails had flowed night after night and the king had seduced countless women, specially flown in for the monarch. There had even been a toy train up here. The rich could be absurd anywhere.

There wasn't much left. Bokor was now a shadow world and the presence of the handful of rangers, who hardly dared to leave their station, was too weak to put a stop to the darkness. As Vichat had said, Bokor was ruled by ghosts.

“Today, we get down to business. I am sure that Kaley is here. I am ready for anything. I will not let them torture us again.”

Maier turned to Carissa.

“By the way, do you know what role Raksmei plays in all this?”

Carissa shook her head and squashed her joint on the red fungus which covered the rooftop.

“I don't know. It looks like she's the old man's assistant. But she hasn't been up here long. I have no idea which side she's on. I thought I knew that girl. And I think many of the girls that are being trained here come from the orphanage she ran in Kampot. A terrible thought. But I don't understand what they are doing here. What are they being trained for? Are Tep and the old man planning a second revolution?”

Carissa looked burnt out. Her white hair stood in all directions and the black rings under her eyes lent her a ghostlike quality, hardly softened by the morning light.

“I have an idea. Have a look at the papers when we are back in Phnom Penh, for unsolved political or otherwise remarkable murders. I mean professional assassinations. I would be surprised if witnesses did not see young girls near the scene of the crime.”

Carissa nodded in silence.

“I have the feeling that we got involved in something that's a little too heavy for us. What do you think, Maier?”

Maier returned her gaze and said, with all the optimism he could muster, “Today we find Kaley and disappear.”

 

Raksmei stepped onto the casino's rooftop, two syringes in her hands. The boy stood behind her, gun pointed at Maier. Behind the boy, two girls in black, remote-controlled eyes fixed on their prisoners, stood on the stairway.

Raksmei stepped up to Maier and said in halting English, “A car is waiting for you downstairs. Be quick and you will get there before this shot takes effect and your legs give out.”

He had no choice. The boy would shoot him if he tried to run and the shrimps would skin him before he'd reached the stairs. Raksmei's expression didn't change as she pushed the needle into Maier's arm. He felt dirty.

 

The old police station lay a kilometre below the ranger station. The boy raced the SUV as quickly as possible along the potholed road.

There was no sign of Mikhail, but Maier could see Vichat standing on the terrace of the ranger station. Ten minutes later, the boy hit the brakes in front of the overgrown building. A sign on the wall next to the broken door read
Police Municipale
. Like the other buildings scattered across the plateau, the former station was a ruin.

The White Spider was waiting in the shade of a mango tree, carrying his oversized hat in his thin nervous hands. Lorenz wore a worn, snow-white linen suit.

Two wheelchairs stood at the ready. The boy and Inspector Viengsra lifted Maier and Carissa into their chairs. The boy placed the computer on his lap and pushed him into the building. The White Spider followed him slowly.

“You are doing well, Maier. You are finding your feet. But you keep things a little short. Please do unfold your talents a little more, put a little more oomph in it, a little flair. And do ask me whatever you like, if there is something you don't understand.”

 

Les Snakearm Leroux sat in a chair in the office of the former station. The cells and toilets that Maier could see were empty and smashed up. Just like Les. The American pilot was not sitting. He had been tied to the chair.

Lorenz waved for the boy.

“Leave us alone today. These two here can't move and for me, it's a lot more exciting to be surrounded by three people who would like to kill me. Raksmei will help if there's a problem.”

The boy and the inspector looked at the old man in disbelief, but he waved a tired hand and his henchman disappeared. Seconds later the car started outside. Lorenz waited theatrically, until the engine noise had faded.
“As you know, Lesley Leroux is the owner of a bar in Kep. Having been told that we caught you here, he came up on the plateau and walked into the arms of our girls. Unfortunately, it turned out that Les had done a spell as a prisoner of war some years back and we were not able to find out who had informed the old man. Now, he is no able longer to tell us.”

Maier couldn't look away. The American had some serious head-wounds and they had sawed off his left thumb. He had been bandaged, but he was still bleeding like a recently butchered animal. He was alive.

“Did Leroux work for you, Maier?”

The biographer shook his head.

The White Spider sat down heavily on a rickety stool, the only option other than the chair Les had been tied to. The weak sunlight fell through the window onto his gaunt face, which appeared to dissolve into thousands of tiny wrinkles.

Maier stared into empty space, fascinated, and chewed his tongue. The amphetamines massaged his brain and urged him to jump up. This time Raksmei's shot had been anything but paralysing. Now he felt wide awake and, sitting opposite his adversary, irrationally happy. He didn't dare look at Carissa for fear of giving himself away too early.

All's fair in love and war.

He would choke the old bastard to death.

“You're alright, Maier, aren't you?”

The American had raised his battered head. Maier looked Les in the eye and nodded.

“It's over, Les.”

“That's good. I've had enough. This countryman of yours is worse than the Vietcong.”

“You are OK now, Les.”

Lorenz had gotten up and stepped impatiently in front of the American.

“Maier, you are here to write my story, not to help this decadent drunk to die.”

For a moment, Maier really saw him as a spider, a tough old tarantula, working her last net.

“Tell me the end of your story. What are you doing here?”

The old man looked at Maier with pity in his pale eyes. Maier thought the man looked at him as if he were an about-to-be crushed cockroach or a poisoned rat – something that was dying.

“You are right, of course. I appear like a dinosaur to you. Irony is rising up inside you. But you are wrong about me. I am not that old-fashioned, Maier. It's all about the money today. Dollars, euros, yen. Ideologies, racial theories, national pride, honour itself, these are all outmoded concepts that belong to the time of my youth. Those were simple years when people in Europe knew less. Today, they know everything, everything but values. They know too much. The West swims in an ocean of useless information – gossip, rumours, lies. I have made peace with all that. I will not die in Germany or for Germany. But I will tell you why I returned to Cambodia. Please take notes.”

Maier contemplated killing the man with his laptop. Instead he opened his file.

“I am all ears, Herr Lorenz.”

The old man grinned.

“In contrast to our American friend here, who has eaten his.”

Now he laughed like a small boy.

Carissa hissed impatiently in her wheelchair next to Maier.

“For the past two years, we have been offering an exclusive service. All in line with the priorities of the new century. For a substantial amount of money you can hire us, to get rid of your political enemy, your competitor, your lover, your lover's lover or husband's lover or members of your family. Anyone. You can read about it in the papers. I am surprised, Ms Stevenson, that no one from your professional circle has cottoned on to us yet. We have had to shut up a few local journalists already. Our ladies work in Vietnam, Thailand, Laos and of course Cambodia, for clients with the right money. As soon as we find the right teachers to train our staff in language skills, we will go global.”

“You will teach these girls English with a stick?”

The old man, full of pride, ignored the detective's sarcasm.

“You see, Maier, Cambodia has an oversupply of young girls. There are no jobs. Even prostitution does not offer every pretty girl an opportunity. The war killed too many men and yet women don't get any opportunities. Tep, my old friend, wants to sell Bokor. That's looking good; we just need a bit more money. Thanks to his efforts in Kep, not a great deal more. Then we can throw out the rangers and train more girls. We will soon have to leave our temple hideaway. The tourists are coming. That's why we will be restoring the casino, building a swimming pool, a golf course and a heliport, all the stuff Bokor needs in the twenty-first century. As an alibi for the real business at hand. Don't you agree it's a solid plan?”

“And where do the girls come from?”

Lorenz sat heavily.

“From orphanages, from mothers who can't feed their children. Cambodia is a country of unlimited possibilities.”

 

Hilmar Lorenz returned from Germany to Cambodia in the early Nineties and, with the help of former Khmer Rouge officers, started setting up an assassination service with global ambitions – the Kangaok Meas Project.
 

Lorenz's guardians are educated according to the inhuman and extreme values of the Khmer Rouge. Members of his organisation have allegedly committed more than fifty murders in Phnom Penh, Siem Reap and Sihanoukville in the past two years. The organisation is also active in neighbouring countries.
 

 

Raksmei held two syringes in her hands and stood behind the White Spider.

Maier closed the laptop.

The girl pushed the first needle into the old man's back.

Lorenz turned and tried to grab the girl, but the sedative worked quickly and he slumped forward on his chair.

Raksmei walked around the tall bent-over figure and pushed him upright. Lorenz looked up at her in surprise.

“Raksmei?”

Maier and Carissa had both stood up. Raksmei grabbed hold of the old German's arm, pulled the sleeve of his white shirt up and gave him a second shot, without bothering to tie him off first.