Love Songs from a Shallow Grave

Nong had hold of her husband’s hand. It trembled as he recalled that awful night. “There really was nothing you could have done.”
    “There was so much I didn’t understand,” Civilai went on. “If he’d found his way back to the hotel, why didn’t he come down to the reception? Surely with so many people around he would have been safer than wandering alone through Phnom Penh. I had far too much time to think. I refused to go on their ridiculous irrigation tour the next morning. I told the guide I’d been asked to pay my respects to the Chinese ambassador. Of course it was out of the question. So I stayed in my room until it was time to board the flight to Peking. Even before we took off I was hustling the Chinese on board. I found one woman, one of the official journalists. She spoke Vietnamese poorly. During the flight I did my best to convey to her everything I knew and everything I didn’t. She passed my story on to the Chinese delegation. Once we landed, at last I was able to agitate. I still carried a little clout in China from my politburo days. Some people remembered me. The Lao ambassador to Peking came to see me and together we went to the central committee where I repeated my story in the presence of an official Lao-Chinese interpreter. The committee members seemed, not upset exactly, more…frustrated. Like the parents of a naughty child.”
    “Would the Khmer listen to the Chinese anyway?” Daeng asked. Her voice was calm but not even her tightly clasped hands could disguise the shaking.
    “They’re the only people they would listen to. All their funding, all their weapons, all their credibility…it all comes from China. Their influence is enormous there.”
    “So enormous they could bring the dead back to life?” Daeng asked.
    “Now, stop that,” said Mrs Nong. “They aren’t going to harm a delegate from an allied country. The worst that can happen is they arrest Siri for stepping out of bounds and put him in prison. They want to be seen to be strong. With Chinese intervention they’d have him out in no time. Right, Civilai?”
    Her husband’s face didn’t convey the confidence she’d hoped for.
    “What of the note?” Daeng asked. “The Khmer letter.”
    “We found a translator,” he told her. “There’s no shortage of Khmer royalists holed up in Peking. The Chinese like to hold on to different factions from this or that country and offer them immunity. They collect them like elaborate chess pieces in case they might come back into play somewhere along the line. They’ve got old Sihanouk sitting – ”
    “Civilai!” said Nong.
    “Yes, right. Right. The translation. I’m not sure, as it stands, if it could be called evidence and I don’t get the feeling the Chinese were particularly surprised by its content. But it made a lasting impression on the ambassador and myself. It was written by officials at the old royalist Ministry of Communication. They wrote of atrocities they’d witnessed and their treatment at the hands of the Khmer Rouge. I suppose it can be best summed up by the words of one young man, the one who wrote the song. He said his name was Bo something-or-other. His note was dated April the twenty-first, 1975. He was a musician and a junior official at the ministry. He said that he and many of his colleagues were patriots and that they remained at their posts even after the invasion in the hope that they could offer their expertise to the liberation forces. At first, the revolutionaries were kind to them and welcomed them into the new brotherhood. Bo and his fellows explained their work and taught the newcomers the skills they needed to operate equipment.
    “On the second day of occupation the troops took the managers for what they called reorientation. They told the juniors it was necessary to teach them the ways of the new regime. Bo said he heard gunshots every day and night, not from a battle but from what sounded like firing squads or single shots. The young soldiers wouldn’t let them leave the ministry building to go home to their families. Bo said that the Khmer Rouge were not like them. They were country people who had never seen cars. Never had electricity. It was as if they saw Bo and his kind as the enemy and Bo began to realise his life would be a short one. That was when he began to collect the testimonies and signatures.
    “On the third day he watched them shoot his office mate in the forehead for no apparent reason. The guards