Love Songs from a Shallow Grave

jumpier than he’d been that morning. I got the feeling he feared for his life on a twenty-four-hour basis. He used the urinal and left. I queued for a cabinet. Once inside I read the note. I only had time to go through it once but the gist was this:
    “Your comrade knows the truth about this place. He broke out of the embassy compound. They’re looking for him. If they find him they’ll kill him. Only diplomatic channels can save him. Tell the Chinese as soon as you get out of the country. It’s your only hope.”
    “Oh, Siri, no,” Daeng said, quietly.
    “I was in a panic. I destroyed the note and went back to the reception. There were Chinese everywhere but I hadn’t met one who could speak Lao or French or who would admit to speaking Vietnamese. I can’t speak a word of Chinese. I honestly didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know who to trust. It’s hard to describe to anyone who hasn’t been there. There was an oppressive charge in the air like science fiction. The Khmer Rouge weren’t…they weren’t human. You couldn’t talk to them. They were frightening robots.
    “I endured the rest of the evening and they let me go to my room. There were mud footprints outside on the carpet The lock of my door had been picked and left unlocked. I went inside with trepidation. I don’t have what you might call luggage but nothing appeared to have been disturbed. I went across to Siri’s room. That wasn’t locked either but there was no sign of forced entry. There were no muddy footprints inside. Siri’s bag had been upended onto the bed. He travelled light too but I remember he had a book with him.”
    “Camus,” said Daeng, her voice crumbling like river salt.
    “That’s right. It was gone. Plus a notebook he kept. I don’t know whether he’d taken his travel documents to the embassy with him but they weren’t there either. I was lost.
    At first I felt outrage. How dare they do this to us? I decided that anger might be the key. Beasts respond to violence. I went down to reception. I made a lot of noise. Kicked over a pot or two. Insisted on talking to a senior official. Insisted on a translator. But, of course, nobody could understand me. When I tried to leave the hotel, the guards grabbed me roughly and spat some insults at me. I looked into their eyes, Daeng, and I saw my death. And I saw the death of others. I saw it so clearly it was as if I had already been killed. I went back to my own room and wedged a chair against the door knob. I was afraid. My legs were shaking. I was afraid for Siri but I was afraid for myself, too. I thought they’d be coming for me. If Siri was up to something they were sure to think I was involved. I didn’t grab a gun and hold it to the head of one of my captors…”
    Civilai’s eyes had become as grey and damp as the evening clouds above them.
    “That’s what heroes do,” he went on. “But I crept to my bed with the light blazing and I lay there all night wide awake. I lay there quivering like a coward. I considered all the things they might do to me. I’d seen the look of fear in Ambassador Kavinh’s eyes. I had no weapon, only one last resort. They said they had no use for money but I didn’t believe them. And I had dollars. At least I thought I did. I hadn’t checked my secret stash. I took the bag into the bathroom and locked the door. I sat on the tile floor and couldn’t stop my hands from shaking. It was half an hour before I was calm enough to peel through the layers of cloth in the strap of my satchel. And that’s when I found the letter. It consisted of three single sheets. They had been folded and refolded into a three-centimetre square and wedged into a little plastic coin bag. Somebody had put it into my secret dollar compartment but they hadn’t touched the money.”
    “Siri,” said Mrs Nong.
    “He’s the only one it could have been,” Civilai agreed. “The only one who knew. I thought about the footprints and the picked lock and I imagined he’d found his way back into the hotel somehow and come to leave me the note. That’s what I wanted to believe. But the sheets were written in Khmer. The handwriting appeared to be from three or four different sources with signatures at the end of each segment. The last side comprised of musical notes on uneven, handwritten bars. What looked like lyrics were written below. It all meant nothing to me. I wanted to scream my frustration.”
    “Calm down, brother,” said Madame Daeng. Mrs