Black heart, p.72
Black Heart, page 72
He took her away to the sink, splashing cold water onto her, aippmg it in his palm so that she rould wash the taste of bile out of her mouth He dried her face off with a towel, then 'ook her out of there, through the silent, breathless living 'oom
I He pulled the front door closed behind them, carefully I °*ing it They were silent all through the juddering elevator I "e and when someone got in on a lower floor, Lauren turned
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away, staring sightlessly at his shoulder. Her fingers were clawed and white as she held onto him and he could hear her breathing
The elderly woman who shared the elevator had blue-white hair and carried her handbag clutched protectively in both hands. She stared at them, half-hostile, half-frightened, recognizing them as strangers and therefore dangerous.
Out in the street it had begun to rain again. Neither of them had an umbrella.
'Tracy -' Lauren's voice was thick with rage and she could not go on, merely shook her head, turning west towards the river. She took a deep, shuddering breath. 'It's so goddamned unfair,' she whispered. 'I came back here hoping to find you. There was no answer at home; your office didn't know when to expect you.' Her head swung around and he saw the light in her eyes, that slight parting of her lips he loved so much when there was something on her mind and she was working out the best way to say it. 'And, you know, for a moment I panicked. I was certain something dreadful had happened to you. Something irrevocable and you'd sunk like a stone.' She lifted her head as if sure at last.' We'd sunk like a stone.'
'Lauren -'
She shook her head to stop him. 'No. Let me finish. That day at the beach I acted like a spoiled child. I wasn't willing to listen. I heard Bobby's name, I knew it was about his death and ... I'd ... like us both to forget that ever happened.'
Now that they were together again, now that she felt him so near her, she could no longer stem the tide of her emotions. The shock of Louis's death had deflected her for a time but now, out of the apartment, all the force of her love for him that she had kept hidden from herself since the moment of her spark of anger burst its bonds.
She reached up for him, her eyes full of tears and she sighed as she felt him come against her, felt his strength surge through her like a current of electricity. 'Tracy. Oh, Tracy ... I missed you so. I love you so.' She didn't care anymore, did not want to hold back or hide anything from him. Her meeting with the Monk and Tisah had shown her how much a prison life could be and she knew she never would want that for herself. Her own
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personal freedom lay in the truth, she knew that now, too. Her awful spite-filled adolescence was dead. It had been unnaturally prolonged by the nature of the life she lived: so highly prolonged by the nature of the life she lived: so highly specialized, so rabidly insulated, so full of tiny fears and pleasures that had nothing at all to do with the complex workings of the outside world.
'I thought I'd never get to see you again," Tracy said in her ear. 'Never get to talk to you. I thought '
'Quiet,' she said and opened her lips to his. They kissed, long and passionately, their mouths open, tongues duelling, speaking their hearts' desires and they were lost within themselves.
Eventually he broke away from her. 'I have to say this.. .just this much.'
Lauren studied him quietly.
'I was harder on your brother because I liked him so much. The first rule you live by in a combat situation is don't make friends. It's a cliche, I suppose, but for a very good reason.
'After his friend's death, Bobby lost a lot of his spark. I had to do something to shock him out of it. He had become a liability to himself and to the unit.'
He gripped her hard. 'Lauren, I want you to know I thought what I did was the right thing for him. Looking back on it, I think I was wrong. Bobby was a strange kid. I think if I'd taken more time I '
She put a finger across his lips 'Don't,' she whispered.
'I have to,' he said desperately. 'Don't you see7 I've been carrying this guilt around with me since it happened. I could've prevented his death '
She looked at him. Her eyes were very clear. 'You don't know that No one does. Whatever Bobby's destiny was .. he found it You were part of it, that's all. So was I. So was everybody who knew him There shouldn't be any blame.' She dropped her eyes for a moment. 'It's taken me a long time to come to that conclusion and I know it's right. You should, too.'
Something eased within his chest and he realized just how true her words were. They seemed suspended in time, old wounds healing.
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Then the heavy black-painted door to the building ot>en at their backs and they had to move to let someone pass TK moment was at an end. e
Tracy saw Ivory White sitting patiently behind the wheel the Chrysler and was reminded of what was waiting for him°
'I don't want to go but I've got a meeting with Thwaite ' H could not continue, could not find it in himself to explicate th ending of the process that he had begun so long ago. Not now not after what they had both witnessed in the apartment abov ' The idea was somehow obscene.
'It's business, isn't it?'
He nodded.
'Then I think I'd better go along.'
'What? I don't think -'
'I met someone in Shanghai.' She watched his eyes very closely. 'Someone you know and who knows you.'
'What are you '
'I also met Tisah.'
Her words stunned him into immobility. Tisah. Lauren had met Tisah. The unimaginable had occurred. How? 'How is she?' he said softly.
'She's fine.' What did she see in those eyes of his? Did he still love her? Certainly she had seen for herself that he dreamed about her. 'She's a prisoner ... of what she has done. The last POW. I think she's lucky to be alive.' She took his arm. 'But it's not Tisah I have to talk with you about.'
Then he made the connection and he started just as if she had touched him with a live wire. 'The Monk? You met the Monk? But how?'
'It was his doing. He took me to meet Tisah; she loves ballet but was not allowed to go to the performance. It was the most he could do for her.'
'But Lauren '
'Listen to me, Tracy.' Her voice turned urgent. 'Tisah is his daughter. She told him what you did for her, how you saved her life. He owes you a debt. He '
'Tisah is the Monk's daughter? Tracy stared at her and as he did so, he began to laugh.
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Lauren frowned. 'I don't see what's so funny.'
Tracy wiped the tears from his eyes, heaved a sigh almost of relief- 'No,' he said. 'I wouldn't expect you to. I was thinking
(jvlacomber.' He began to laugh all over again.
'I don't understand you.'
Tracy took her in his arms. 'Back in Ban Me Thuot, lylacomber was having an affair with Tisah; he was in love with
he1-' 'I know,' Lauren said. 'Just like she was in love with you.' She
stared hard at him. 'I think she still is.' She waited for a breathless moment, seeking an alternative to asking the question she knew she must put to him now. 'Does that mean anything to you?'
'Lauren,' he said gently, 'that was another lifetime. I have no desire to return to the life I led in Ban Me Thuot or any part Ofit. And that includes Tisah.' He felt a strung tension leaching away from her, an exhalation of a long-held breath. 'But I still think about her; I had hoped she was happy. It saddens me that she's not. She was very important to me once. She was my only lifeline out of the sewer I was in. Can you understand that?'
'I liked her,' Lauren said by way of answer.
'You've known how I felt about you ever since that moment when we kissed under the streetlight. It was always you who backed away.'
'I know,' she whispered. 'But after all that's happened to both of us I guess I needed to hear you say it again. I needed to know that one thing in my life hadn't turned upside down.'
'Now tell me why you want to come to this meeting.'
Her eyes were clear and sparkling as she stared up at him. She had begun to tremble again. 'It's Macomber, isn't it?' she said. 'Macomber's your enemy.'
'Is that what the Monk told you?'
'I worked it out for myself. But the information he gave me concerns Macomber and -'
He gripped her, his face turned into a mask. 'What do you know about Macomber?'
'Everything,' she said. 'I think I know everything.'
Hiott Macomber found Joy's blood as he was searching for
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|f1 .
caj, ' VJ Pstaits, the house was dark and still. Eliott wanted to
Ut something he could not explain restrained him. Oni went through the main floor, room by room. He found as if rT 3f ** °^ ^n*eu am* J0? an(* tnis disturbed him for it Was
is ^thet had already abandoned the place, and h**15' ^e went first to Khieu's room. The door was ajar n e C5>uld see ^y the shver revealed to him that the light was o ' ^e Cached out a hand, pushing the door inward with-
a s°tjnd.
£ S1, e-> he saw Khieu's pallet on the floor, his desk, all the fa lt^& He was familiar with. None seemed out of place. But w , ^s n° bedding and patches here and there on the mattress
Eh kened by stains-
,10tt f°Und himself inexplicably frightened. There was hi th*^ t^lere thtt should make him so yet he felt the pulse in b , °"at tHrobbing as if it were an open wound. His whole
H ^eme<:ito shiver with the heavy beat of his heart. on , ^c^ed out of there, his hands leaving dark stains of sweat b , d°Orframe. Turning in the hall, he looked into the ^ ^m there before moving on to the room that had been j ^^ >vhen he had lived here. Nothing. Silence; shadows th *eavily along the spotless furniture as if they were blankets
F K* e an<^ there; to dampen all sound. . c^ mOment he stayed inside the house he felt his anxiety ^' Cot>tmumg down the hallway to the far end, he pushed rc*on the half-open door to his father's and Joy's bedroom, th f a °noit>ent he stood poised on the threshhold, his eyes roving e Se"*ii-clarkness. Not once had he called out Khieu's name; his
0»ce tfcox seemed frozen.
e ^ook. one step into the room and his anxiety welled to such Pr°Po rtions that he was obliged to reached his hand out, scrabble r?Or the light switch.
, " mir>ations flooded the room and he saw Joy's blood. , V1 *»y ^ long brownish-red streaks along the wall opposite tn Ded- I t was quite lmpossible to say how Eliott knew these we sta»ns fro ^ the outpouring of joy's rent body ... but he did _ «- be^an to have trouble breathing and with a cons ett°rC; of vriu he jerked his gaze away. He saw the kmg-s«
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turned down as if for sleep, undisturbed. He saw a half-open Drawer in his father's dresser. He saw a print on the wall, lying jSkew. He went to the dresser to put back a white handkerchief jjjjt was lying along the open edge of the drawer. He picked it up. folded it carefully and put it back on the pile.
That's when his fingers touched the edges of the badly folded Jiary pages J°Y had failed to return to their hiding place. Eliott ,tared at them dumbly for a moment. Then he picked them up, ipening the sheets and began to read.
He went back twice, rereading the scrawled writing he ecognized as his father's. Then he very carefully folded the I jazes along their original creases. It took him a while his hands I vere shaking so badly. He could hear his own breathing sawing I nand out of his throat as if he had a wheeze. His mind was still I .tumbling over the information, thoughts coming in quick I Bright bursts, bewildering him and abruptly he began to cry, I irge hot tears rolling down, dripping onto the fabric of his I tousers just above the knees.
He lurched to his feet and, with a convulsive gesture, I socketed the papers. There was only one place he had not yet I arched, having already made his rounds of the first and second I fcors.
I The stairway down leered at him with hostile grimness. He I Dipped the railing and began his descent, his ears cocked. He I lead the clock ticking, its sound somehow magnified in the I asolute stillness.
I On shaky legs he left the staircase on the first floor, went Rough the living room to the door leading down to the lament.
I He was shaking so much he grabbed hold of the cool brass I0** WIth all his strength, leaning on it until he could regain |"«nblance of calm. Then he opened the door. I he staircase down to the cellar yawned at him and he froze.
I *nl!n? WSS °n' ^n<* now £^at ^e was star>ding quite still he
I n ar a thick sound almost like panting. It was as rhythmic
I 'udd n^lne and as alien to him as a beast's cry, sending a cold
?e(et '"rough him and he almost stopped right there. The
So no farther, to turn around, walk out of the house and
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never return was strong within him. But stronger still was his determination to find Khieu. So many long-standing feeling were shifting inside him, changing as the new knowledge he had just gained seeping through him like a fiery liquor. Everything he had felt toward his adopted brother ... wrong! All his hate ... misplaced. Oh, God forgive all my hate, he thought. In a terrible way, he had been very like Khieu, part of his father's gargantuan plan; a human part, doing what it was told and no more, knowing what it was given and seeking no more.
No more! his mind roared silently as he tottered at the top of the steps. For so long oh, it seemed like an eternity to him now! he had declined to face what was really happening, what was shaping his life. He could no longer turn away. For now he was no longer an outsider. He had penetrated to the core of the angka; to its very inception. And so utterly monstrous was it that he knew he had been wrong at Lutece. His father was not just a man; he was everything Eliott had once feared him to be. He was the scheming spider sitting at the centre of a hideous web. He was, truly, the god of war.
So it was with renewed confidence that Eliott began his descent into the basement thinking that at last the chaos of the outside world would be banished forever, that he could at last make his peace with Khieu and at the same time strike a blow for truth and against his father.
Pale light rose towards him as he descended, giving him an odd sensation, skewing for a moment his perceptions of perspective. He heard the stentorian sounds as if he were approaching a smoking smithy. His heart beat fast, his throat was thick with an unknown pressure.
His feet touched the cement floor and he turned slowly wondering what it was making the noise and what it was he was going to see. His eyes focused and he gave a yelp, tiny and strangled. His eyes bulged in their sockets and he fell back against a damp wall, his arms across his roiling stomach.
He tried to turn away from the sight but he could not. He felt pinned to the stone like a fly in amber, compelled to drink in the unimaginable sight before him. There was a prickling behind his eyes; ants crawled through his brain; a silent howling
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jjjjed him and he had the vertiginous sensation that all sanity had sbrUP'ly fled the world; that he had entered a madhouse and he Assessed no means of escape.
He fell to his knees, all the strength sapped from his legs and ^ayed there, drooling. There was no place left on earth for loin- No place to run; no place to hide. It was finished for him.
Before him, across the expanse of the basement's width Khieu tfas on his knees, his back hunched over. To one side there was a hole in the brick facing of the wall, a black hole gaping Ijeyond. But it was the thing he was working on that drew Eliott's attention like a magnet, that imparted to him the chill winds of chaos. Propped up against the dirty brick was what had once been a human being. It was white and yellow with drained blood and congealed fat tissue, dark purple bruises wealed the otherwise pale flesh and here and there brownish welts rose.
It was Joy Macomber's corpse Khieu was bent over.
But what was he doing? Khieu reached inside a perfectly straight incision down the centre of her chest, plucked out her heart; Eliott pulled at his own flesh. Khieu extracted her liver; Eliott scored his skin with his nails, drawing blood, whimpering. Khieu pulled out a handful of squirming intestines and Eliott collapsed, his ringers tearing at his hair.
'Stop,' he sobbed, tears rolling freely down his cheeks. 'Oh, please stop.' His voice was soft and infantile, lacking an adult's force of will. 'For the love of God, stop!'
Now Khieu became aware that there was someone else in the room. His senses had been so fine-tuned to the accomplishment of his task that he had missed the minute sounds of approach he would otherwise have picked up.
He swung around and Eliott said his name aloud like an involuntary gasp: 'Khieu!'
'Who is Khieu?' the man before him said. 'I am Chet Khmau.' His handsome features were distorted by inner forces, demonic 'motions which scoured him like fierce winds. His face appeared ravaged as if he had come off the line in a guerrilla war without "^ginning, without end.
'Chet Khmau,' Eliott whispered through dry, cracked lips. His "ind, still partially frozen in shock, was frantically trying to
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remember when and where he had heard the term before 'What does it mean?'
Khieu crept towards him as a lizard might and Eliott pressed his body back against the wall, flattening himself as much as possible. 'There were many names for us ... in those days.' Khieu's voice set the short hairs at the back of Eliott's neck on end; a stiff-bristled broom scraping over a rough sidewalk. 'The crow, Khmer Rouge... and Chet Khmau, the Black Heart. That is who I am.'
Eliott fought to hold back the terrified scream that was firing his throat, threatening to burst out. He gasped and coughed. 'What ... what are you doing with Joy?' Eliott's eyes were opened wide and he would not seem to look at Khieu in the face for very long as if he felt burned with every contact.
The Cambodian was very close to him now and he almost choked at the cloying stench of death swirling about him. Khieu's eyes had darkened. Always black, they now seemed to be open pits, depthless and glossy, mirroring a soul so twisted that no man should be exposed to its hideous writhing. . But Eliott was and his muscles trembled at the force of it. He scrabbled along the wall, seeking a corner, seeking distance for he felt seared by the proximity to his adopted brother.
