Love Songs from a Shallow Grave

left the corpse sitting there at his desk as a ‘reminder’. Bo’s final words were that he loved his country and he believed that this was a temporary madness, but he felt sure he would never see his fiancée again. She lived in Battambang and he prayed that the insanity hadn’t yet spread that far. He wrote that his only regret was that he would never be able to watch the expression on her face as he sang her the song he had written for their wedding. “It’s a poor substitute,” he wrote, “but I have written the tune and the melody on the rear of this note. If somebody finds this letter, I would like her to hear it. I would like her to know how much I love her. And I would like the world to know what craziness has descended on our beautiful city. These people are not Cambodian.””
    Civilai sighed and slouched back on his seat.
    “You think Siri found this note somewhere?” Daeng asked.
    “So it would seem. And thought it important enough to risk his life getting it out of the country.”
    “But Siri couldn’t read Khmer,” said Mrs Nong, drying her tears with a tissue. “He wouldn’t have known how significant it was.”
    “He would,” Civilai and Daeng said at the same time.
    “It’s possible somebody gave it to him to pass on,” Daeng told her. “But my husband had instincts other men don’t possess.”
    Of course she’d meant to say ‘has’.

19
THE THERAPEUTIC EFFECTS OF DYING HORRIBLY
    T ime has lost its meaning. Misery has lost its edge. The sounds I hear no longer bear any human elements. They are ornaments. They are jingles. They are pleasant, almost enjoyable bursts of spontaneous birdsong. My clarity has become a giddy drunken clarity. I see everything as a joke. A funny thing happened to me on my way to the cemetery clarity. As Civilai liked to point out, my smart-arse thyroid is playing up again. Somewhere inside I’m aware this is a symptom, the result of endless light and lack of sleep and poor nutrition. But there’s really nothing I can do about it. I’m experiencing madness and it’s funny. Move over Rajid .
    What good has all this conservation of energy done me? I mean, honestly. What can I do? When they nabbed me leaving Civilai’s room at the hotel, that was my chance. I had stashed my evidence and was on my way down to join the party when the black-suited monkeys were on me. I didn’t see them coming. But I was fit then, still burning calories from Peking. I could have done a James Bond. There were only two of them. Thugs, perhaps, but I could have felled them with well-placed karate chops. A sprint and a dive headlong through the window at the end of the corridor. Parallel-bar routine through the branches of the strangler fig tree and head for the border. Blew that one .
    Very weak now. Perhaps they’ll do me the favour of killing me quickly. Perhaps they’ll tire of the toenail-plucking and eye-gouging and just put a bullet in me. That would be nice .
    And where have you lot gone to? One by one you lost souls drifted away, off through the walls, east, west, north or south. No direction. No leadership. See if I don’t desert you some day, you traitors. But, dear ma, you’re still with me, my sweetheart. Too bad mothers have no choice. Even if they can’t see a hope in hell for their offspring they have to sit it out till the bitter end. Isn’t that right, my mother angel? Yes, chew your betels. Spit your blood. Perhaps we could chat about the old days when I come acr –
    A key in the lock. Why do they…? Never mind. And there you are, the dungeon keeper. Thirty-six, thirty-seven? Either way, half my age but skinny. Skinny as the Chinese ideogram for tree…written in biro. I could take you, you poorly written character. How dare they toss a twig into the lion’s den? No, Siri. Badly mangled metaphor. What would a lion care of a twig? I’ll work on that. But meanwhile you walk into my lair with your pail and your tin mug. It’s quiet beyond the door, and black. Are you the night watchman? What are your orders, twiggy? Keep him alive till morning. We’ll kill him properly then. How hard can that be? Feed me and keep me away from sharp objects. But you don’t look that bright, do you?
    So I lie still and I stare. I stare into the hypnotic glare of the strip light. My tongue lolls from my mouth like that of a sleeping sloth. My breathing stops. I am clearly dead. Call me a liar. Yes, you dare speak to me. Your words sound like ‘Is a saucepan