Love Songs from a Shallow Grave

Siri with him. Nothing ever seemed so dark when friend Siri was around. He could have used the old boy’s sunshine to brighten up the dull afternoon at the state farm.
    “This is an orange,” the commentary had begun. “It achieves its bright orange glow from the combination of fish entrails mush and fertilizer blended from our own chicken manure. The orange, a tropical fruit, originated in…et cetera, et cetera.”
    They’d given everyone a slice of orange to suck on. In spite of all that shit blending and offal mushing, it had tasted like any common or garden bloody orange. And Civilai had looked along the rows at all the bananas and papayas and mangoes and lemons and pomegranates and jack fruit and star fruit and he knew what a lot he had to look forward to and how much more fun this fruit cocktail party would have been with his brother at his side. And would that he were with him now. There was something sinister about this country. It wasn’t a comic parody of a socialist state, it was a deadly serious parody. It was as if they believed that this was how it was supposed to look. They’d read the Communist Manifesto and missed the point. Just as Christian and Muslim extremists found hatred and vengeance that didn’t exist in their respective manuals, these Red Khmer believed Marx and Lenin had called for the obliteration of personality and pleasure and free thought. Believed that blind allegiance was the only way to proliferate their doctrines. Civilai had never read it that way because that wasn’t how it had been written.
    So far, he’d only seen what they wanted him to. Yet, instinctively, he knew that something unpleasant lurked below the surface. He felt it in his heart and he wanted to have Siri around to talk through his theories. He wanted to know what the little lunchtime drama had been about, whether Siri had learned anything more about this weird place. But, most of all, he wanted to be sure his friend was safe. As far as Civilai was concerned, their departure the following day couldn’t come a moment too soon.
    He was startled by a knock.
    “Siri?”
    There was no answer. Civilai hurried to the door and threw it open. Comrade Chenda stood there, pale and flustered.
    “It is time to go down,” he said.
    “But what about Siri?”
    “Comrade Siri might join us later.”
    “Where is he?”
    “He’s…It’s time to go.”
    “What is it? What are you not telling me?”
    “It’s time to go down.”
    “You’ve already said that. Now perhaps you’d do me the courtesy of telling me what you know about – ”
    But the young guide had turned on his heel and was heading back towards the staircase.
    “Everything will be explained,” he said. “In due time.”
∗
    Phosy had spent the day interviewing, phoning, knocking on doors. He had all his notes spread around him on the floor and sat at their centre like a frog on a white lily pad. He had become more confused as the day progressed. Malee lay on the bed gurgling and laughing at the stars-and-planets mobile circling above her head. Her parents noticed she was particularly fond of Pluto. Phosy crawled across to the bed and took hold of his daughter’s hand.
    “What would you do in my situation?” he asked.
    Dtui burst in through the door and threw her bag on the floor.
    “If I have to go to one more Nurses for a Better Future meeting I’ll scream,” she said. “I hope you two aren’t talking about me.”
    Phosy looked up at her with the hopeless expression of a pig on its way to the slaughter.
    “He didn’t do it,” he said.
    “Who didn’t do what?”
    “Neung. He wasn’t the one.”
    “Malee told you that?”
    She squeezed her husband’s shoulder as she walked to the kitchen corner of the room.
    “In a way, yes. Neung’s wife was away on the weekend of the murders. He was looking after their son. He’s six. Now, whoever killed those three women had gone to a lot of trouble, put a lot of planning into it. But there he was babysitting all weekend.”
    “So?”
    “So why didn’t he get his mother-in-law or a neighbour to look after the boy? He could have pretended to be working over the weekend. Why risk your son waking up in the middle of the night and not finding his dad there? Crying the damned house down? And how would he do it? Put the boy to bed, run off to K6 in the early morning, have a romp in a sauna with his boss’s wife, stick a sword in her, drive home and kiss his son good morning?”
    “He