The Mammoth Book of Short Erotic Novels (30 page)

At last she arrived from across the dance floor, eyeing him with what he interpreted to be an aloof and hangdog look. A man said to him:
Yes
, my friend! . . . and began to explain
something to him at great length, while the journalist nodded solemnly and Vanna stared straight through everything. The journalist offered him a can of cream soda as a prize for the speech. At
last the man pointed to Vanna and then to himself, joining two fingers together. Then he said something involving many vowels, concluding with the words
twenty dollah
. Buying a girl out was
only ten. The journalist reached into his money pouch and handed the man a twenty-dollar bill. The man rose formally and went behind the bar, speaking to a gaggle of other smooth operators as the
journalist took Vanna’s hand and tried to get her to rise, but she made a motion for him to wait. The man came back and announced:
twenty-five dollah
. The journalist shook his head.
Then he took Vanna’s hand. She walked behind him without enthusiasm. Every eye was on them. The photographer’s girl made one more attempt, weeping again. He was too exhausted now to
feel anything for her. Outside, Vanna shook her hand away from his. He’d already slipped her a stack of riels under the table. She picked out a motorbike and he got on behind her. The hotel
was only three blocks away but she didn’t like to walk much, it seemed. When they got to the hotel she paid the driver two hundred from her new stack, and they went in. The lobby crowd
watched them in silence as they went upstairs.

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?

OK. I go with you, the other clerk finally said.

That’s
great
, the journalist said with what he realized was 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 nearly 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 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 until tomorrow morning.

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.

He’d made up his mind, as I’ve said. No sex. 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. 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. 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.

The photographer 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. At last they reached a video arcade that 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 a while 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.

Then he looked at Vanna. The smile that she gave him was worth everything. And she took his hand in front of them all.

People stared at them and snickered. A woman with her three young children was sitting on a bed frame on the sidewalk, eating rice. When they spied Vanna and the journalist, they forgot their
rice. Someone called out:
Does you loves her?
She stared ahead proudly; he hoped that their cruelty did not touch her.

He still didn’t really want to fuck her. He just wanted to be naked next to her, holding her for the last ten minutes or two hours or whatever it would be until she went to work. He
stripped and took a shower. While she did the same, he looked for his gonorrhea pills. When she came out he got into bed with her. She pointed to her watch. She had to go soon. She snuggled him for
a minute, then pointed to the tube of K-Y jelly. He didn’t want to confuse or disappoint her any more. If that was what she expected, then he’d better do it. She touched his penis, and
he squirted the jelly into her and rolled the rubber on and got ready to mount her, and then something in her face made him start to cry and he went soft inside her and rolled off. She was not
pleased, no two ways about it. After all, it was their honeymoon. She was rubbing him; she wanted him to try again. He put more lubricant inside her and took the rubber off and threw it on the
floor. The doctor had said he wouldn’t be contagious any more; sex was only hurting him, not anyone else. As soon as he was inside her, he went soft again. He was crying and she smiled,
looking into his face, trying to cheer him up; he was behaving like a baby. He traced a heart on his chest, pointed from himself to her, and drew a heart between her breasts. She nodded very
seriously. He made a motion of two hands joining and she nodded. He said: You, me, go America together . . . and she shook her head. She drew a square on his chest, not a heart, then pointed to a
heart-shaped chain of gold that some other man must have given her.

She got up and took a shower. He started to get dressed, too, but she gently motioned him back into bed. She dressed very quickly. She came and sat with him for a moment on the bed, and he
pointed to the number eight on his watch and signed to her to come to the hotel then and she nodded and he said:
Ar kun
. Then she stood up to go. She clasped her hands together goodbye and
he was crying and she was waving and kissing her hands to him and then she was gone.

I wonder if she’s waiting for me at the disco, the journalist said. Maybe she misunderstood.

I’m sure she is, drawled the photographer. Yep, she’s just sitting around waiting for her knight in shining armor.

That night he had a dream that he was getting married to Vanna and everyone was so happy for him; all the street orphans were there drumming and dancing; reformed Stalinists
made him fish soup; the cyclo drivers donated their vehicles to serve as chairs.

When he told the photographer a little more about the dream, the photographer said: She must think you’re a real pain in the ass.

The chief of protocol received them on a high porch. He was pleased with the journalist’s French. He read their dossiers and clapped a hand to his mouth in mirth.

Later, in the car, he pointed out the window and said, Ah, a beautiful girl there – did you remark her?

No, monsieur, said the journalist.

But I believe you do regard them.

Yes, I do regard them, replied the journalist in the most pompous French that he could muster. For me, every girl in Cambodia is beautiful.

The chief of protocol laughed so hard that he had a coughing fit.

Clearly it was his job to amuse the chief of protocol. In Phnom Penh, every girl is a delicious banquet, he said.

Delighted, the chief of protocol embraced him.

What did you tell him? asked the interpreter.

I said that it is very hot today, said the journalist.

The chief of protocol said something to the interpreter, who giggled.

Yes, yes, said the interpreter, and Battambang is famed for its lovely roadside flowers.

Riding atop the jolting Soviet tank in the rain, he saluted the staring or laughing girls, kissing his hand to them, waving to the kids, the old men and ladies, tossing
ten-riel notes down into the road like bonbons (the photographer and the driver did the same; the driver was dressed in a black uniform today and wore his Russian pistol especially for the
occasion); and the interpreter and the chief of protocol and the soldiers with their upraised machine guns watched the journalist, grinning, and the journalist saluted for hours as they rolled back
in from the tame battlefield. He was utterly and completely happy. In Cambodia he could never disappear; now at least when people gawked at him they saw someone comic and grand, a man with a
private army who gave them money; he felt like God – a loving God, moreover; he loved everyone he saluted; he wanted to love the whole world, which (it now seemed to him) was all he’d
ever wanted when he had whores; his balls still felt funny; all he wanted to do with people was hug them and kiss them and give them money. His forehead glowing with sunburn and three beers, he sat
against the spare tire, blessing everyone like the pope, nodding to his elders, wishing that his lordliness would never end. Most of the time they waved back. Girls on bicycles giggled to one
another. Children saluted back with slow smiles. Skinny grinning men waved back. These gratifying demonstrations almost balanced those other stares they’d given him and Vanna. He ached to
hold her. Since he was drunk and only a flightless butterfly, he squeezed the spare tire instead.

They were staying in the Hotel Victoire, which just after the liberation they used to call the Hotel Lavatoire. It had running water, electricity, air conditioning, a toilet,
and screen windows. No matter that none of these worked. It cost two thousand riels a night for the photographer and journalist’s room, five hundred for the driver and interpreter’s.
Sleeping at the hotel was like sleeping in a sweltering locker room.

So are you going to do one or not? the photographer wanted to know.

Not me. No whores for me. I’m going to wait for Vanna.

Oh,
Jesus
, said the photographer, covering his face in disgust.

Besides, my balls ache.

All right, all right.

So, said the journalist, the long and the short of it is: maybe. After all, I’ll never see Vanna again . . .