“Fish amok.”
“Amuck.”
“You can’t mock, it’s not polite!”
Heather’s antenna was up now, tuned in to the conversation. It was like having the radio on seek in your car back home; when you hit a sound you liked, you stopped searching. She’d already determined they were Australian. The open vowel sound, the distinction between her own clipped Kiwi vowels and these voices. Can’t sounded almost American. She no longer rushed to engage with such sounds, but she still listened. It was comforting to hear English.
“Remember what we agreed. We’re tourists and we’re guests in this country, so we must be polite and respectful. It’s fish amok, not amuck, so no more mocking. Shall we eat here?”
Heather liked the voice that quietly reprimanded. She looked up to see a tall woman in her forties. A kind face, small even white teeth for she was smiling now. She had a husband and three children in tow. The husband, Heather noticed, was short, much shorter than his wife.
One of the children persisted.
“Amuck!” But her voice trailed off at the end so the ‘k’ sound was barely audible, as if she was already regretting it.
“You heard your mother!” This voice was quiet but authoritative. “Remember what we talked about before we left home. You’re representing your country when you’re a tourist.” There was a chorus from two of the children:
“Polite footprints!” Enthused, eager, not jaded, they believed the mantra.
“Polite footprint?” There was a disbelieving whine in the voice of this child. Heather tended to side with the child. A polite footprint was an odd concept.
“It’s about the impression you leave behind.”
The father’s voice was firm, if a little sanctimonious. Heather was drawn to the Australian family as they took their seats nearby. The children, all three, were at that gangly, lithesome time of life, not too thin, but breakable all the same. They were tawny too, that golden glow that disappears, and who knows where it goes, but you rarely see adults with skin like that. Heather looked critically at her own now heavily-freckled forearm.
She sipped her gin. In this heat, a gin was perfect. Pure alcohol and almond peel, orris root and angelica. It worked the way a wine couldn’t in the humidity. Wine would spread like a fug throughout her. When she first arrived, she was so dehydrated the 50 cent beers barely touched the sides. But her hips were spreading and her stomach, which had never been flat, was becoming fat. That was back in May and now it was October and a gin was perfect.
“What are you having?”
The mother had her arm across the shoulders of what looked like the youngest tawny-gangly child.
“Chips.”
“You can have chips, but not just chips, we’re in Cambodia. Try something local and we’ll order a side plate of chips.”
“I hate rice.” “No you don’t.”
“I do.”
“You don’t.” This was the middle child assuming a holier-than-thou attitude to the younger sibling, who was now pleading without speaking, eyes fixed on his mother, urging her to take sides.
“You’ll like the fresh spring rolls.”
The exuberant dad was pointing to the menu to distract them. His wife frowned.
“Hands, hands,” she said, a discreet frown forming.
But the exuberant dad didn’t understand. The wife mimed washing her hands and mouthed deep fried.
But the youngest child wanted fresh spring rolls. The parents exchanged looks and somehow without words, a decision was reached. A risk could be taken, it seemed. Out of her handbag, the wife produced a mini bottle of disinfectant hand wash.
Spring rolls were ordered, the fresh kind.
“And we’ll have fish amok for two, banana blossom salad and the beef kebabs with lime and pepper sauce.”
Heather sipped her gin. It hit the pit of her stomach. She loved that. It was both bliss and a curse because once, a gin would have hit her in the head, sharply, enervating. Her Khmer vegetarian curry arrived. Chunks of red pepper glistened in the gold. Outside the restaurant, a man sat with a giant grater scraping the milky flesh from green coconut husks. The first time she noticed him, she was surprised that the husks were green and not the bearded brown husks she knew from home. Now she knew that the hairy coconuts were really the old ones and this grating of the green coconut meant fresh food. Every night a pile of husks would accrue on the pavement and be gone by the morning.
“No coriander.”
This voice was from another table. A young Korean woman. She was confidently ordering from the menu in rapid-fire on behalf of herself and her European boyfriend, or perhaps husband, but Heather didn’t think so. She liked to think she could tell. Briefly they argued, because he liked coriander, but she overruled him.
“I book-id the circus for tomorrow night.”
The Korean woman spoke English with an almost-perfect American accent but the giveaway was the ‘id’ sound at the end of booked.
“Oh wow, you did, awesome. I saw that weedy bare-chested guy at the Old Market eating fire this morning. You reckon he’s part of the circus?”
Heather knew exactly who the young (American, she’d decided) referred to. But the fire-eater wasn’t from the circus. Heather speculated he was a young man who had run away from the circus and who now made a living eating fire and juggling for bemused tourists. She’d often admired his slim but taut chest and took umbrage at the use of weedy. Phare, the circus, had been set up as a school for orphans and street kids. They performed acrobatics set to haunting and hilarious themes. Whenever Heather felt low, a trip to the circus would lift her spirits.
Now the Korean girl was disseminating the menu to the amusement of her boyfriend, or lover, giving him a rundown of ingredients. They looked intimate. What happened, Heather wondered, when they made love? Did they climax in English, or did they whisper sweet Korean nothings to each other? You could see she was in the driving seat and he was a passenger minus a seat belt, minus coriander too. Most nights now Heather sat eating curries and momentarily inhabiting other people’s lives. She knew she could never be that sort of passenger in a relationship.
Heather’s gin was just a slice of lemon now. She lifted her glass as a waitress passed and a beautiful smile broke in acknowledgement as it was whisked away for replenishment. The Australian family’s food was arriving now to a chorus of oohsand aahs.
“Sticky rice is good for your digestion.”
This was the Australian dad. He was poking the rice with his chopsticks as if to ensure it was sticky.
“Why’s it sticky?”
“It’s the gluten.”
“It’s not gluten, as in gluten, darling, it means the rice is glutinous and therefore sticky.”
The Australian wife was polite in correcting her husband about the glutinous rice. Heather observed their eyes meeting in harmonious concession, he to her superior knowledge. But he had more to say.
“Your mother’s right about the gluten. I remember reading how the sticky rice contains an ingredient that aids digestion. But, more importantly, this is the main source of income for most people. They grow rice all over Cambodia. It’s almost all they do.”
The man’s voice lowered as he spoke the last sentence and he looked around as if hoping he wasn’t overheard.
“You remember we talked about Pol Pot before we left?”
“Pol Pot.”
The mother put her fingers to her lips as the three children chorused Pol Pot as if, like fish amok, he was on the menu.
Heather observed the couple’s complicity, their underlying harmony, even when the wife disapproved of what her husband said. A tricky thing that she’d never achieved in any of her own relationships; always ascendency or dependency, and neither of those satisfactory.
At that moment local musicians began setting up outside. Heather had nicknamed them the Landmine Orchestra, although this remained unspoken. She knew most of them now by sight, and they her. She always gave them money when she could, just small change, sometimes local currency and now and then a dollar or two. Not all were landmine victims, she’d discovered. Some had arms or legs amputated because of road accidents, but the primary source of injury was landmines left over from the Pol Pot years, and they were all men. Presumably women also lost limbs to landmines but they weren’t visible in this town. These men sat most evenings on a blanket in the street and played their traditional stringed and percussion instruments. It wasn’t pop music, that was for sure.
The Landmine Orchestra had become part of her evening routine. Heather liked to observe the tourists, their reactions to these limbless men and their music. She tried to guess who would give money and who wouldn’t. She’d become an expert at reading donor body language. She could tell from the way groups of people went quiet and looked away, or talked louder and banded together...they were not about to give money. It was when people got isolated, or were alone, walking past, that they became too ashamed to ignore the men without legs and arms. Guilt was tangible when you were alone. In a group it became diffused, you could shake it away, tell yourself that you couldn’t give to every beggar in the world.
Heather’s favourite donors were the ones who worked themselves up to it. They walked past. Then the guilt began to insinuate. They stopped. She would watch and she knew all the steps. They’d move to the side of the road and fumble in their money belt, looking for change small enough, discarding the large bills into another compartment and hoping to find something not too paltry. Wads of unused 100 riel, worth practically nothing to the tourist, would be hastily thrown down. And then there were the more determined donors, who plucked a decent bill, maybe five US dollars, and dropped it delicately, making sure the men could see their generosity—these people walked away more embarrassed than the people who threw their riel away.
The second gin had moved from the pit of her stomach and lodged somewhere in her legs. Heather was settling in and would order some spring rolls, deep fried, her favourite. She knew she shouldn’t, but she knew too, she couldn’t drink a third gin without them. Although all her marking for the day was done, if she went back to the school too early, she’d end up doing more work.
Observing tourists in the evenings was now one of her favourite pastimes. Heather was 45, unmarried, and speculated now and then what it would be like to be loved. Sometimes she went so far as to imagine being a mother, but less often now, especially since her last disastrous and now embarrassing relationship with the school manager. Mostly, she loved Khmer curry and a gin or two and consoled herself that she was making a difference.
Teacher, teacher.
Wherever she went in Siem Reap, she was greeted with cries of affection.
Teacher, teacher.
No one called her Heather except her colleagues, and then rarely, because none of them spoke to each other very often. Down massage lane, almost every small business employed one or more of her students. In the restaurants, the waitresses were either current or former students. Cambodia was her fourth country. She had a Masters in TESOL, and had worked for 10 years in Korea, five years in Japan, another five in Vietnam, and now eight months all up as a volunteer in Cambodia.
Her spring rolls arrived and now the Australian dad was giving five US dollars to one of his tawny offspring to give to the Landmine Orchestra. The child unfolded from the table to deliver the money with an air of solemnity and reverence. Mother, father and the other two siblings watched proudly, and the five dollar note was placed like a sacred offering beside the musicians. The child hesitated and then looked up at his family for approval. One of the amputees put his hand out and towards the young lad. This man was playing music with his feet. His other shoulder was a stump, so the hand he offered was, in fact, his only hand. The young Australian boy shyly accepted the handshake and his family, looking down from their table, glowed.
When the young boy returned to his family, the father began a confidential conversation about landmines, cluster bombs and the perils of war. The wife shook her head, but he was on a roll and the kids were fascinated. Heather noted the growing moral overtone in the Australian dad’s voice. She’d been like that when she first arrived. Nothing in her teaching career before had prepared her for these limbless men and the poverty. But now she hated to hear tourists assuming they knew more than she did. That, and a patronising pity.
The Korean woman and her star-struck lover were busy on their iPhones but beneath the table both his legs were entwined around one of hers and she seemed to be pulling away, leaning back as if trying to extricate her leg. They were both smiling at their phones, as if having a private conversation with other lovers while sitting eating together, her leg trapped between his.
“Tomorrow we’ll visit the landmine museum.”
The three children looked up in awe at their dad while their mother did her barely-there and just for her husband frown.
“Six million left they reckon.”
“Six million what Dad?”
“Landmines.”
“Surely not?”
The wife coughed, an expression of caution. But her husband had a captive audience now and he began to roll out the statistics, oblivious to anything other than his careful research on the topic of landmines—proof he was anything but a shallow tourist.
“The US bombed Cambodia, you know.”
“When Dad, when did they bomb Cambodia?”
“No, no, you mean Vietnam.” The wife, in spite of her disapproval, was sure her husband had it wrong. It was during the Vietnam War.
“Vietnam, we’re going there next, aren’t we Dad?”
“People don’t realise the Americans bombed Cambodia...napalm, to flush out the Viet Cong on the borders. It’s in that book I bought yesterday.”
Now the young American man with the Korean girl was turning his head to listen. There was no stopping the Aussie dad. He seemed to sense their engagement with his family, was aware he had a wider audience. His tone had become part performance. Heather briefly indulged the idea that he was flirting with her. But then too, in this regard, she was frequently wrong. Look, he was saying, I’m a well-read, caring, international traveller and my children are not just here on some indulgent holiday, we’re sensitive New Age tourists with polite footprints. And too, she realised, it could be the very attractive Korean girl that he was trying to impress, or equally the young American boyfriend—he might be wanting to piss him off.
A third gin allowed Heather to indulge her imagination. She swapped places with the almost-frowning wife and tried out being the wife and mother on holiday with this smaller than average Australian man with his elevated sense of self-importance brought about by perhaps a genuine compassion—who knew, how could you tell? Perhaps he donned this demeanour in cafes all over Southeast Asia, just for his children, to annoy his wife, to impress his wife...or, and now she was the wife and annoyed, because perhaps the man’s intentions were merely to flaunt his knowledge, to flirt (and here, she gave herself the benefit of the doubt) with Heather.
The Australian dad was interrupted in his landmine lecture. A young girl carrying a swaddled infant stopped at the table. She had a grubby face, dark shadows that belonged on an older face, and if you looked closely, she might even be too young to be a mother.
“I don wan money.”
A waitress delivering cocktails to the Korean woman and boyfriend stopped as if considering saying something, but then placed the cocktails with fancy straws on the table and moved on. She glanced back over her shoulder, checking on the young girl and the swaddled infant. The Korean woman leaned over and whispered to her lover and he turned and they both shook their heads. Heather knew why they shook their heads. She could intervene, but she was fascinated now to see if the well-read, urbane, and caring Aussie dad was up with the play.
“I don wan money.”
The young girl had the Australian father directly engaged now and he was up for it. The wife was watching minus a frown, her mouth open, compassion dripping from it, and her three young children were mesmerised.
“Milk, I need milk...I don wan money.”
There were warnings all over town if you looked, but still, every night, another girl, another baby and a caring tourist.
“You come with me buy milk for my baby. I take you supermarket. I don wan money.”
It was perfect. The Australian dad loved that this young woman didn’t want money and he explained to his children the difference between outright begging and wanting food for your baby. He solicited the help of his eldest child, an eager wide-eyed young version of the attractive mother—the same open mouth. Together the father, the daughter and the young woman with the baby left the restaurant to go and buy milk. The Australian mother looked uncomfortable but proudly uncomfortable, left alone at the table with her other two children while her husband and daughter strode off down the road following a young girl with a swaddled baby.
Heather knew she should pay and leave. There was still some prep she could do for tomorrow’s lessons, but she was compelled to wait and see the return of the Aussie dad and his daughter from their charitable mission. She ordered a green tea. It wasn’t the sort of restaurant to order coffee, although it was coffee she really wanted after three gins. The Korean girl and her American lover—Heather had tuned in to their conversation as she waited for her tea—were now arguing about the bombing of Cambodia. He was in denial and she was quoting from a book by an author called Joel Brinkley that left no uncertainty as to the certainty of her conviction. They left, still arguing, although the American lover was softening his position, conceding but not out of conviction but because, Heather could see, he was used to this, concession was part of their relationship.
“Napalm, they used napalm on North Korea in the 50s.”
“Jesus, where’d you hear that, seriously, you don’t believe it? No shit, that’s just Kim-boy’s propaganda, seriously.”
“Kim Jong-un,” his girlfriend corrected him.
“Okay, okay, Kim Jong-un. I believe you about his name, but napalm, no shit, no way, that was Vietnam.”
His girlfriend cuffed him affectionately across the shoulder and they rested their heads together momentarily.
“Okay if you say so, Jesus, you read too much woman.”
Heather was hopeless at concession. She’d lost several lovers and an almost-husband as a result. She held tight to her opinions, relied on fact, went into useless battle on the smallest of issues, could never concede. She knew the Korean woman was right, the Americans had bombed Cambodia, and dropped napalm on North Korea, she scorned the young man for his ignorance but worse, his willingness to concede for the sake of peace—it was so weak, she felt he should have stood his ground, even though he was wrong...and even as she thought this, Heather knew she was wrong.
Recently, she’d dallied with concession, for the sake of what she imagined could be a meeting of minds. The new school manager last term. An Australian with a droll sense of humour. She thought he’d shared her thoughts on the NGO scams that abounded, the too-comfortable bureaucrats who turned a blind eye to the millions misappropriated by the government so they could maintain their lifestyle, purporting to be non-profit, but profiting all the same. Together they had scoffed at the busloads of middle-aged American women on missions to orphanages, here for a week with shiny name tags, spilling their brand of social tourism around town in the trendy new cafes that made real coffee. She’d tried to match him cocktail for cocktail—eschewed coriander in her spring rolls to please him—worked late and shared her lesson plans with him—defended him when he spoke motherese to the students—so embarrassing to remember. And all for nothing. He’d hooked up with the young volunteer from London, fresh from CELTA, legs up to her armpits, and ordered spring rolls with coriander for the end of term party. But worse than that, she discovered he was on the payroll of a local Cambodian, his own lifestyle subsidised while the rest of the staff including Heather were all unpaid.
What about the Australian wife? Did she know that the milk powder her husband had gone to purchase was a scam? She watched the wife, now interacting with the two siblings left behind, drawing them out about the day’s adventure—just which temple they’d loved the most, Angkor Wat or the Bayon Temple, and it seemed the monkeys won hands down. The monkeys who ran along beside their tuk-tuk en route to the temples.
Heather had fallen for the milk powder scam when she first arrived. It was before the new school manager and during a my biological clock is ticking phase. She’d wanted to take the baby from the dark gypsy-like girl holding it and claiming to be its mother. Even then, a part of her knew the girl was surely too young to be the mother. Nevertheless, she’d followed her to the supermarket and she’d even briefly held the infant while the purported mother had gone to get the milk powder.
The Australian father and daughter returned with almost beatific smiles.
“We bought milk powder for the baby, Mum, fifteen dollars!”
The father did a small eyebrow raise towards his wife about the fifteen dollars, as if to say who’d have thought milk could cost so much? But they were a harmonious couple and she deciphered his eyebrow raise and did a small head tilt that said, what’s fifteen dollars when you are role modelling charity?
“You can have my two dollars.”
“And mine.”
“I gave my two dollars to Dad.”
Now the children were competing to be the most charitable child.
Something rose up in Heather. She wanted to shout at the family. You fools! Don’t you see what you’ve done? Can’t you see? That woman probably isn’t even the mother of that poor swaddled infant. Haven’t you got eyes in your head? It’s a scam. A scam for God’s sake. The milk powder goes straight back onto the supermarket shelf, just as soon as you turn your back. You’re part of the problem. If tourists stopped buying the milk powder, those poor babies wouldn’t be traipsed all over town in the hot sun or late at night, just to fill the supermarket’s coffers. Locals breastfeed their babies, you fools, the milk powder is for the tourists.
But the family was now standing to leave. They’d paid their bill and so had Heather. They collided as they stepped down on to the road beside the Landmine Orchestra.
“Daddy, Daddy, can we have a photo?”
The father looked at Heather.
She took his phone. The Australian family stood beside the Landmine Orchestra, the tawny-gangly kids, all smiles and wide-eyes. Their parents, the father so much shorter than the tall solemn mother who was looking a little uncomfortable.
Under her breath, Heather said “say landmine”, but what came out was “say cheese”, thankfully. And the family did, they said cheese, and Heather pushed the soft digital button and several photos ensued, one after the other, four or five of them, proof perfect they had been to Siem Reap, seen the limbless men, and there’d be no arguing over the authenticity of this moment, their polite tourist footprint.