The Brittle Limit, a Novel (19 page)

“Is that what’s happening?” Andrew asked.

“We hear this land, I mean the land above us,
was conceded a couple months ago for exploration. Now, it’s only a
matter of time before the digging starts and we’re found out. And
as you well know, we’ve got some less than friendly neighbors
outside, shooting at anything that moves. We don’t know what that’s
all about but it makes a walk in the woods a dangerous
proposition.”

Andrew nodded. “I think I might know.”

Frank nodded and turned back to Andrew.
“Well, you’ll have to let me in on it sometime. Pains in my ass.”
Frank led Andrew back toward the camp. “There’s something else you
need to see.”

“I told you we were busy here in the 90’s,
trying to make ourselves comfortable for the long haul, build out
our infrastructure, expand our camp. You can see we have power,
courtesy of an inexpertly scuttled Russian submarine. We have water
from the river. So we explored down here, dug around to see what
else there was to see. And we found some artifacts. In fact, we
uncovered a world made of metal.”

“What do you mean?” Andrew frowned.

“Son, I can only show you. Words just won’t
do. Come along with me.” Frank called out to Stu to join them.

Frank led Andrew to the river, where several
rough-hewn wood canoes were beached. They loaded themselves into
the largest one, Stu in the front, Frank in the back, Andrew in the
middle. Frank pushed them out into the water.

“Hang on son,” Frank said. “It’s quite a
ride.”

Frank paddled to the river’s center, where
the water ran swift. Andrew felt the current grip the canoe. The
water was clear and blue, so unlike the Mekong.

They floated for several minutes in silence.
It felt to Andrew like they were heading downhill. They began to
move quickly. Ahead, he heard a roar.

“Hold tight everybody.”

The roar got louder and the water around them
rougher. Away from the well-lit cavern, it was dark. Andrew could
not see what lay ahead, could only guess. Suddenly Andrew felt
himself falling, the canoe dropping several feet in the dark. He
hung on as he’d been instructed. They fell for what felt like a
good minute. The canoe crashed down and immediately started moving
forward again. Andrew could hear Frank in the back paddling. Ahead,
Andrew saw light.

The canoe rounded a corner, revealing what
the men had found. The river slowed and meandered now by a vast
sloping plain. The roof of this second cavern was so high, Andrew
could not see it. Lights had been strung up, as in the first
cavern. What lay in front of him was without question the most
stunning sight of his life.

Chapter 23

Severine climbed into the tuk-tuk, closing
the plastic flaps behind her. As Kiem drove slowly away, Severine
leaned forward on the front seat, so her head was next to his.

“Kiem, when you turn the corner, I want you
to slow down, but don’t stop and I’m going to hop out. I want you
to keep driving and then to meet me at the entrance to Wat Steung
Meanchey in thirty minutes.”

“Miss Severine...” Kiem sounded doubtful and
more than a little scared.

“Kiem, please, just do this.”

As they turned the corner, Severine glanced
back and could see Heang and the guard Cho through the plastic
windows. They were standing watching the tuk-tuk. Once the tuk-tuk
had turned the corner and she knew they were out of sight, Severine
tapped Kiem on the shoulder. He turned his head briefly to
acknowledge her and cut his speed in half, down to about five miles
an hour. Severine opened the flap and hopped out, running quickly
down the little alley that ran behind the houses.

Kiem sped up again and in a moment was gone.
Severine stood in the dark of the alley, listening to the water
running in the open sewer. She walked forward down the alley,
counting the houses as she walked by. The wet ground squished under
her sneakers.

She counted eight houses and at the ninth
house, she stopped and looked up. It was three stories and Samnang
had been on the third floor. She had walked down a long hallway.
Samnang’s room was at the back of the house. Severine could see the
little window above.

As thin cloud cover passed, revealing the
moon, the night grew bright again. In the light, Severine saw the
third-story window open. Samnang had understood.

Samnang stuck her little head out. Severine
heard her little voice call out.

“Miss Severine?”

“Yes. Yes, Samnang, I’m here!” Severine waved
and hoped they were far enough away from the front door that the
guard would not hear them.

Severine flicked on her flashlight and turned
the light up toward Samnang. Severine stood directly under the
window.

“Samnang, are you ready?”

“Yes.”

Severine hoped the knot she had tied around
Samnang’s waist was strong. She’d brought the thin rope in under
her light sweater, coiled around her own waist like a belt. She was
grateful that the guard had not thought to frisk her more than a
quick pat down her back, arms and legs. When she hugged Samnang,
she’d pulled off the rope and tied it to Samnang’s waist, tying the
other end to the bedpost. Samnang weighed nearly nothing and the
rope only needed to support her for a minute.

Samnang looked out the window again and then
the next thing Severine knew, she had pushed her whole body through
the little window and was hanging by her fingertips to the
windowsill.

“OK. Samnang. I’ve got you.” Severine braced
and tried to think of how long the rope was. She thought it was
about fifteen feet. Samnang was turning in circles as the rope
uncurled around her and she tumbled in circles at Severine, coming
to a sharp halt, her thin body hitting the wall of the house.

“Ungh!” Samnang grunted with her impact
against the house and the yank of the rope against her body. She
was, Severine saw, at the rope’s end, but hanging three feet above
where Severine stood.

“Samnang, are you OK?” Severine
whispered.

“Yes, Miss Severine. Yes, OK.”

“Samnang, I can’t reach you. We need to
hurry. I’m going to give you a knife and I need you to cut the
rope. OK? Can you do that?” Severine reached into her blouse and
pulled out a thin penknife.

Severine mimed cutting a rope. “Like this,
see?”

Samnang nodded. Severine stood on her
tiptoes, stretching her arm upwards as far as she could, holding
the knife by the blade up to Samnang, who reached for it and
grabbed it in her little hand. She began to saw at the rope.
Severine stood beneath her, her arms outstretched, waiting. With a
last hard drag of the serrated knife, Samnang tumbled into
Severine’s arms. The knife fell with a splash into the murky puddle
at Severine’s feet.

Severine burst into a run. She was not sure
how much time they had. A dog had started barking nearby and would
soon wake the neighbors. She did not need any curious passersby
asking what she was doing.

With Samnang on her back, her bony little
arms wrapped around her neck, Severine jogged down the alleyway
back to where she had jumped from the tuk-tuk only minutes before.
Samnang was light on her back and Severine breathed into the cool
night air. Her feet made quiet footfalls as she moved down the dirt
alleyway. If she could just get down to the main road where she had
told Kiem to wait.

Heang stepped out from the shadow of the
building, his gun pointing at Severine.

“You are a persistent woman,” Heang said.
“But your tuk-tuk driver is foolish and circled back to see if he
could find you. We wondered why he had come back, so we stopped him
to ask. He said he was worried about you. Isn’t that sweet. But I
am afraid he won’t be driving you anywhere, any more.”

Severine’s stomach turned. Oh no, poor
Kiem.

That was her last thought before the
injection delivered by Cho knocked her out. The Ketamine forced her
into a deep place.

*******

The old Cambodian lady walked slowly down the
street with the wide circular basket of fruit on her head. She
hoped to sell everything today, there were many workers at the
construction site and they were always very hungry. As she waited,
she spied a big dark lump lying on the side of the road and
curious, she approached it. It was a man, she saw, lying in a
crumpled heap. She kicked him and scolded him in Khmer.

“Have some respect for yourself. Drunken
fool, lying in the garbage.” She kicked him again and shook one
hand at him before she walked away.

Kiem stirred. He was lying in a small dirty
stream lined with rubbish. A stray chicken walked by and pecked at
his foot. His head hurt and he put his hand at the back of his
skull. It was sticky. He pulled his hand away and looked. Blood,
but not too much.

He remembered waiting for Miss Severine last
night, then deciding to drive back to find her. He had worried she
was not safe with those bad gangsters so close by, she was too
risky for a lady, he thought. He had parked his tuk-tuk a few
streets away and then tiptoed forward to the alley where he had
dropped Severine. Then someone had hit him on the head with
something hard and after that he did not remember. They must have
dragged him into this stream of garbage.

As he stood up, he felt sick to his stomach
and fell back down to his knees. Some local women walking near him
on their way to work giggled at seeing him sitting in garbage and
at his dirty clothes. He yelled at them and asked them for some
water. They giggled some more, and one called out “Crazy old man,
sitting in the trash, you should know better.” They thought he was
a beggar.

But one of the younger ladies approached him
shyly and gave him a bottle of water. “Sum tho,” he called out, as
they walked away. Thank you.

They were still giggling, looking back at him
as Kiem took a sip of the water, then a bigger sip. Then he tilted
his head forward and dumped the rest of the water on the back of
his head to clean the cut.

He checked his pockets. He still had his
phone. Stupid gangsters. He dialed Miss Severine but there was no
answer. But he heard a ringing sound nearby. He hung up and the
ringing stopped. He dialed again. More ringing. He stood up slowly
and walked in the direction of the sound. There, lying near a
sleeping stray dog, was Severine’s phone, ringing.

Uh uh, Kiem thought. Not good.

He picked up Severine’s phone, dried it with
his shirt, and slipped it in his pocket. He walked down the slowly
waking street, past a wire basket filled with chickens, clucking at
him as he walked by.

Something bad must have happened to Miss
Severine after they bumped his head.

He had wanted to go to his homeland today, to
see his family. He knew his wife was busy making rice with sesame
seeds and coconut milk for their ancestors. But instead he would
look for Miss Severine.

He walked to the end of the road, away from
the house where Severine had visited. Kiem turned right onto the
busy street filled with a steady flow of early morning traffic.
Tuk-tuks, bicycles, and flatbed tracks rolled by him but he didn’t
flinch or yield as he walked along the side of the road. He started
to cross the street and the traffic gave way, flowing around him,
parting for him as he moved forward.

Across the street, he walked down a sandy
path that led below the bridge and onto a sand road that ran along
the soapy river. He walked along the path by several tin houses
until he reached a small hut about a half-mile from the bridge. He
pushed aside the rickety metal door and stepped inside.

The room was sparsely furnished: A cot, a few
beaten-up cooking utensils and a pile of clothes that looked like
they needed a serious wash. Behind the bed, which was piled high
with more dirty clothes and blankets, was an oily tarp, stained and
patched. Kiem looked around to see if any passers-by were near. No
one. Then he lifted the tarp, revealing a gleaming red motorcycle.
Despite his steady dull headache, he smiled. He hid the bike
because he knew gangsters would steal it otherwise. He used it only
to go back to his province, his distant homeland, to see his family
- it was much faster than driving the tuk-tuk on those muddy jungle
roads. And today he needed to be fast.

He knew where Heang’s home province was, as
it was his own as well. He would go there now to search for Miss
Severine. He would search until he found her.

*******

The sun shone on the hard pavement. The
courtyard was surrounded on four sides by tall gray walls. Severine
lay in the corner. Her chest rose and fell slowly, as if she was in
a deep sleep. A guard watched her from a cot, where he lay resting
in the afternoon sun. He had been instructed not to hurt her more
than she was already. He had watched Heang beat her and it had
thrilled him.

Finally, Severine stirred. The drugs they had
given her had left her groggy and nauseous. She sat up and the pain
hit. Her head hurt and her back and her legs. She groaned. She was
blindfolded but could hear distant traffic noises and talking from
passersby. She assumed she was in a courtyard not far from where
they’d taken her. It smelled vaguely of garbage.

She heard someone moving around the courtyard
and she called out. “Please, may I have some water?”

The guard did not see the harm in that. He
poured water from a red ceramic jug sitting on the plastic
countertop into a chipped yellow mug and carried this to Severine,
lifting her to a seated position. He untied her hands and handed
her the mug. Her blindfold he left in place. He did not want to her
to see where she was. He thought it would give her ideas. He did
not want her to have ideas.

The courtyard itself had once been a garden
but the current owner did not cultivate flowers or plants. Decay
was evident in the empty beds and brown twisted dead branches. The
rain had further damaged the garden by eroding the dirt, which
spilled from the low shallow beds onto the concrete, in crooked
brown lines