A block or two from the hotel a Japanese girl in a kimono was weeping before a stern man in a golden robe; this occurred on a color television in a black-on-white room of shut gratings and dirty chessboard tiles in which people barefoot and in sandals sat in rows of lawn chairs, some couples close together, a girl in a striped shirt in the back row with her chin in her hand, smiling in amazement. He sat in the row of skinny men who smoked cigarettes and drank Cokes. Every time someone opened a can it sounded like a pistol-shot.
The maid's family had invited him to lunch. They wanted to see the photograph. He showed them, and they burst out laughing, and the brother-in-law said: But she is old!
As he came into his room the other maid said: Sir, I am very poor. Buy me gold rings, buy me gold bracelets!
Oh, he said. Boys do that for their girlfriends. Are you telling me you want to be my girlfriend?
Yes, she said.
Well, come in then, he said, crooking a finger. All he would have done was give her five hundred riels and shake her hand, because he was married to Vanna. But she didn't know that; she shook her head and ran away.
On his bed was his laundry, which still another maid had left with this note:
Dear frined
See you a soon.
Love and all good wises of you.
your frined,
Love
Well, he thought, someone loves me anyway. — This encouraged him, so he went out and showed four motorcycle drivers Vanna's photo, but they said: No good! Maybe more than thirty years old!
He went to another hairdresser's shop, and even though a man did most of the work, even though the people weren't friendly and the water they used to shampoo his hair smelled like stale meat, still the woman scratched and scraped the lather into his head with her fingernails most pleasantly; for a few moments he felt as he had when Vanna shaved him.
He passed one of those tapering glass cabinets of cigarette vendeuses with red stacks of riels in the topmost shelf, and reminded himself: Two hundred and fifty dollars. I can easily do that for her.
It began to rain, so he returned to the room and slept for an hour. At six-o'-clock he went down without hope or enthusiasm. He flip-flopped his rubber-sandalled way through the hot ankle-deep street-ponds, looking for a place to eat. He wasn't hungry and hadn't been for days. He saw a sign that said CAFE and went inside but it was only a bar with a brand-new bank of slot machines. Crossing the street, he encountered a restaurant whose long tables were covered by stained white cloths. New money proudly illuminated glass cabinets of beer and soda. Outside the double glass doors, motorcycles rolled in magical silence across the silvery black wetness, and neon string wriggled. For a moment those activities seemed almost meaningful and he remembered some place of lights and hot exciting rain where he had been alive; at the same moment he experienced a passionate flush of hope and belief and then that died.
Two young waitresses stood behind him, watching. At last he pulled out Vanna's photograph. There she was in the hotel that didn't exist anymore, sitting in that teakwood chair in her starchy gauzy disco dress of rainbow colors. He loved her sadly but without shame.
Madame? said one.
He nodded.
Madame you? said the other incredulously.
Sure. Why not?
They looked at the picture, then at him, then burst out giggling.
The restaurant was replete with music and empty chairs. The songs were sung by a Cambodian woman with a shrill yet very beautiful voice whose turned vowels reminded him of a harpsichord's metallic loneliness. The chairs were all pulled back a little as if skinny ghosts were sitting in them. He felt a longing for death which passed as quickly as the earlier gush of joy. Outside, a white UNTAC pickup went by, possibly to a nightclub. A very dark truck passed in the opposite direction, heaped with hideous earth like the cargo of another mass grave.
The lady behind the bar wore a night-blue dress and a long golden necklace. She was older than Vanna, but no one laughed at her. She opened a plastic bag of cashews and poured it out onto two saucers for the waiter to take away. When he had gone, she slipped a single nut happily between her teeth.
The singer sang: Ah, la, la, la.
It would be seven soon. He felt very nervous.
The Lido was completely empty and dark. He went upstairs. Dounia was not there. The second floor was half as huge as a city block. Its windows looked out on the street. Mirrors, neon-strings, glowing beer signs, mirror-pillars, loud music and the whirling disco ball — these things just made him more alone, because no one was there. He swam the expanse of dark tables, avoiding the light which whirled meaninglessly on the dark and empty dance floor. It was almost terrifying. So empty and huge! After awhile he saw a man sitting alone in a corner. The man looked at him, got up, and left.
