Jake Fonko M.I.A. (12 page)

She leaned down close to my ear and whispered: “Please sir. You help me escape from this madhouse?”

“Pliz! No! Innocent rice advisor!” Wait a minute. She said escape. Was this some kind of trick? Would I be any worse off if I fell for it? “Did you say escape?”

“Angka bunch of looneytoons. We die if stay here. You help me escape, please?”

“You’re serious?” I asked in a whisper. “I’d be glad to help, but I wouldn’t know where to begin.”

“I have plan,” she whispered. “I observe you carefully, last few days. I think you can help.”

“You mean, because of the way I withstood the torture?” I asked.

She looked at me incredulously. “Torture?” she gasped. “You think you 
tortured
?” She reached around behind me and put her weight on the cord holding my arms up, jerking them about two feet higher. Then she slipped the tip of her knife blade under one of my fingernails and gave it a twist. Point well taken—I hadn’t been tortured. Come to think of it, neither the hose nor the kicks had actually inflicted any damage. She’d been pulling her kicks and limp-wristing the hose, and the rest of it was just harmless fun. “Was putting a show for cadres,” she explained, apologetically. “Why hurt you if you can help me escape? So, agreed? We escape together?”

“I’ll do my best,” I assured her.

“That good,” she said with relief. “Otherwise I must kill you. My instruction today was, break you or kill you.”

“Consider me broken,” I offered. “What do I do next?”

“You good actor. That give me escape plan. Could be work pretty good. Okay. First we put on big show. I told my guys I use secret techniques today, they can’t watch. Now we need some blood.” She applied that knife to a couple spots—no pain to speak of, but blood streamed all over the place. “Now, do some screaming.” I obliged, no problem—it was the most natural thing in the world, just then.

I don’t know what she did next, because I didn’t even see it coming. 

She’d knocked me
unconscious somehow. I awoke on a straw mat, in a different room. My hands and feet were untied, and somebody had cleaned me up. They’d even washed my clothes—I must have been out for a long time. I sat up and checked out the situation. The door was closed, and the window, while open to the outside, was blocked by heavy screen. I listened for a while. No sounds. “Hello?” I ventured. The lock clicked, and the door swung open. One of the teenage cadres looked in and smiled. Still seated, I smiled back and dipped my head in a little bow. He ducked back out and returned with a cup of water and a little pile of rice on a tin dish. There was a tiny chunk of fish beside the rice. He put them down beside my mat. I put my hands in front of me, prayer-style, and bowed again. Courtesy is contagious, they’d drummed into us in grade school. Always worth a try. He went back out, locking the door behind him.

Things were definitely looking brighter. The amount of food had been jacked up, from sub-starvation to anorexic. Considering the supply situation in Cambodia just then, I doubted the Khmer Rouge cadres ate much better. I nibbled the rice slowly and sipped the water, savoring every mouthful. Why squander the ecstasy? Besides, stretching it out helps calm hunger pangs. A little later the door unlocked again, and the girl entered the room. She wore the same black pajamas and the same tight bun as before, but looked more attractive today—except for that severe, all-business manner, almost cute.

“Hello, American guy,” she said.

“What makes you think I’m not from Yugoslavia?”

“Easy to tell difference. Some Russkie guys come by our place last year ago—so boring. Some American guys on tanks, they come to Cambodia, shoot up the Viet Congs, then go back across border—very cheerful, bunch of eager weasels.”

“Beavers,” I said, helpfully.

She looked puzzled. “Beavers weasels? Make no sense. American crazy language, worse than English. Anyhow, how many capital in Yugoslavia? You say Moscow, Stroganoff, Smirnoff, Dracula, Karloff, so many I lose track. Good thing nobody else hear you. Next time anybody ask, it Belgrade. Never mind. You no from Yugoslavia any more. You from Albania.”

“Why Albania?”

“Only thing Angka know about Albania is, poor place and they hate everybody. Cambodia poor too, and Angka hate everybody. So, Albanians their friends.”

You’ll never meet a stauncher Albanian patriot than me that day. I’d have proudly proclaimed Klingon citizenship, had I thought it would help.

“Another thing…” She regarded me thoughtfully .”..you one of those paint-face guys?”

“What paint-face guys?” I asked.

“Out in jungle, over by Vietnam border, our leaders sayed, ‘Watch out those American paint-face guys—very dangerous.’ That black on face and hands, maybe you same one?”

“Oh well, a lot of American guys put black stuff on their face and hands. You ever hear of Al Jolson?” But I’ll admit to feeling a little glow of pride, hearing that even the Khmer Rouge had such high regard for us LRRPs. Our officers had told us so, but we always passed it off as morale-puffing.

She looked me up and down, a slow and searching inspection. “Hmmm,” she concluded. “Never mind, we find out soon enough.”

Her name was Soh Soon. I told her to call me Jake. She was eighteen years old. She’d been living with her father, a Chinese trader, on a rubber plantation near the Vietnam border. They’d moved there from Hong Kong in the mid-60s to run this branch of the family trading company. She’d joined the Khmer Rouge in 1972, never really had much choice in the matter, and had worked her way up to heading a cadre. Angka, the ruling claque, recognized her leadership potential, and had groomed her for higher positions. By seventeen she’d already made junior officer rank.

Khmer Rouge battle doctrine was to just keep coming and damn the losses, so peasant kids from the villages did the front line fighting. Barefoot, illiterate, hungry and poorly supplied, their job was to wear the enemy down by absorbing their ordnance. Rather than waste Soh Soon in suicidal combat, once she’d proved her willingness to fight they’d trained her in interrogation techniques, figuring there’d be plenty of that to be done once they took power. I was her first customer. She lacked the heart for the work. Besides, she’d concluded that the people comprising Angka were barking mad. They’d emptied all the cities so as to ruralize the nation. They’d cut off relations with every country but China. They were doing away with money. She’d seen them throw stacks of currency from the National Bank into a big pile in the street and then torch it. That was the last straw for Soh Soon. She couldn’t imagine anything more insane than burning up money.

Her plan was to flee to her father’s place. But first we had to get out of Phnom Penh, a delicate proposition. As far as Angka was concerned, everybody was a perpetual treason suspect, and especially the Khmer Rouge cadres. If you weren’t sacrificing 110% of everything for Angka, every minute of every day and night, why then, obviously you were the worst form of traitor. You were sabotaging the people. Angka had streamlined their justice system down to simplicity itself—if they didn’t like your looks, or even if they did, but you happened to be standing in the wrong place at the wrong time, they killed you on the spot. They especially didn’t like saboteurs of the people.

We had to get as far out of Phnom Penh in the direction of her father’s place as we could, without arousing suspicion, then make our break. My rice advisor yarn had given her an idea. If she could pass me off as a rice expert, we might be able to arrange an inspection tour.

“So,” she explained. “I tell them you rice expert from Albania. I break your spirit with torture. You now faithful servant of Angka.”

“I don’t know any more about rice than I do about Albania,” I cautioned her.

“Still more than Angka know,” she assured me. “They bunch of too much school idiots.” She briefed me on the opposing team. Cambodia had been a French colony along with Laos and Vietnam. After the French defeat in 1954, the Khmer Communist guerillas had taken to the hills and jungles and continued their campaign to seize control of the country. Angka, which roughly translated to “the Organization,” comprised about twenty people, with an inner circle numbering eight, the Elders or Old Guard. Of the heavy hitters, one was a woman. They’d studied on scholarship in France in the 1950s, mostly devoting their energies to radical left politics. Like virtually all modern revolutionaries, they were from the middle-class, not peasants. Most had trained as school teachers or professors. There wasn’t a farmer or a mechanic or a shopkeeper among them. After all, what use did they have for practical knowledge? They were keen students of Sartre, Marx and Mao.

The hard core was three men. Saloth Sar (who later took the name Pol Pot), flunked out of radio electronics in Paris in 1949, then returned to Phnom Penh and worked at school teaching and left-wing journalism before pegging off to the jungles in the early 60s. Ieng Sary had been active in student politics in Paris while studying commerce and politics. He, also, had taught school in Phnom Penh until they set up shop in the jungle. Khieu Samphan, commander in chief of the Khmer Rouge, had written his university thesis on the Cambodian economy. He figured that it should be collectivized for the good of the country, which meant transferring non-productive population from the cities to the country. This, Soh Soon told me, was the topic of many long speeches the leaders made to the cadres as part of their political education. The Elders made speeches—long, impassioned, repetitive speeches—just about every night, part of the Khmer Rouge indoctrination process. From these speeches she deduced that none of them had ever raised a stalk of rice or produced a useful item in their lives. Only after they’d taken power did Angka’s program and philosophy disturb her. She’d thought it was all empty talk, like any other politician’s speeches. But now it seemed they actually were bent on doing all the crazy things they’d been saying.

The immediate problem was food. Not just Phnom Penh was starving, but all of Cambodia. Ten years of war, bombing and neglect had destroyed the intricate irrigation system of dams, dikes and canals on which rice farming depended. The nation’s roads and bridges lay in shambles. Villages sat abandoned. Last year had seen no rice crop to speak of, and this year’s wouldn’t be planted until after the rainy season, which didn’t even begin until May. Right now we were in the last month of the dry season, so the rivers and the large lake to the north, Tonle Sap, were low, and therefore so was the supply of fish. No rice, no fish—the two Cambodian staples. The country faced imminent famine.

“Angka need all help possible,” Soh Soon told me, “but they not listen to anybody. Should give farmers back their land, get equipment and seeds, let them go back to village and grow rice. No way. Angka now own all land. No money, so no can buy equipment and seeds. Angka no want villages, want get rid of priest and pagoda and collectivize everything. Crazy. Angka Elders arrive in Phnom Penh just few days ago. Need ideas for reforming country. So,” she concluded, “I tell them you have secret Albanian agricultural plan. Tomorrow you present to Angka.”

“It’s going to take a little work,” I protested. “Tell me how they grow rice around here, and maybe I can fake something. Can you stall them off for a few days?”

“No worry,” she told me, “it all figured out. Just do what I say.” She went on to outline her scheme. None of Angka could speak English very well, and some not at all. They had no idea what Albanian even sounded like. She’d persuaded them she could translate my Albanian pigeon-English, so would act as interpreter. All I had to do was, when asked, talk fast, make it sound like English, and make sure none of them could understand it. She’d handle the rest. She’d worked out a system of hand signals to guide me. When she was sure I had them down pat, she told me to get a good night’s sleep, as we’d be on first thing in the morning. Angka liked to take it easy during the heat of the day.

“How’d you knock me unconscious?” I asked her.

“Drug on knife blade. I no want you say anything stupid, might get us both killed. Better you knocked out. Everybody want help clean you up. Too much chance wrong person hear wrong thing.”

“Everybody wanted to help out because I was so important?”

“Other way around. Cadres hate westerners, and Khmers can’t stand human soil. Cleaning you up so disgusting job, everybody want to help to show how big they sacrifice for Angka.”

Then she left and they locked me in, leaving me to ponder the fact that my future lay in the hands of an eighteen year old Chinese girl whose only leverage was her ability to understand my version of Albanian pigeon-English. Still, I had to admit it was a big improvement in my situation. At least I wouldn’t be so hungry and filthy when they shot me. 

Next morning for
breakfast they served me my largest meal yet—that is, a bigger cup of water and two little chunks of fish, in addition to the ball of rice. Soh Soon arrived with her squad while the sun still sat at the horizon, and we trooped over to the villa where Angka had set up headquarters, which I recognized as previously occupied by one of Lon Nol’s generals. They’d moved me away from the torture chamber while I was unconscious, so we had only a couple block’s walk. I was clean and, for the first time in days, walking unfettered. They’d cleared the corpses from that part of town, leaving the air smelling sweeter, and the cool of the morning refreshed me. It felt so great to be out and around that I came close to forgetting that the curtain soon would open on the acting job of my life.

Soh Soon left her guys at ease in the garden and led me into what had been a salon, but now was arranged more like a courtroom. Eight stone-faced, forty-ish Cambodians sat on the other side of a long, polished rosewood table. They wore well-made tropical leisure suits, no black pajamas for this crew. They didn’t seem to have missed many meals lately. Plastic ballpoint pens festooned their breast shirt pockets. I noticed that the three in the middle of the row displayed more pens than the others. I entered the room with my hands locked in the prayer position, smiling with every tooth in my mouth showing and raking the table with deep bows. I caught hints of a couple grudging smiles in return. Soh Soon gave me a tiny wink. So far, so good.