Clamour in Cambodia a short story by Martin Bradley
Hi, I’m Steve Maldon, but if you want to be really
picky the name on my passport is Stephen Muldoon. I pretend to be a PI (Private Investigator) to pull the ‘birds’ in Malaysia. Sometimes it works, mostly it doesn’t. I have a small office at the back of the tourist enticing Central Market, Kuala Lumpur. I do ‘divs’ (divorces), ‘mispers’ (missing persons), background checks and the usual nonsense we ‘PIs' are known for. Last year I solved a murder. True I had a little help, but it was mostly me... The AirAsia flight from Kuala Lumpur, (Malaysia), to Siem Reap, (Cambodia), is delayed. I, and a whole host of others, constantly look at the digital display. We are looking for the boarding time, looking at that ominous digital clock read out. The eternal question arises, do I have time to take a pee? “Should I stay, or should I go”, (those lyrics by The Clash have never seemed more relevant). I go. Just as I enter the cubicle, close the door and begin “Final call for passengers on Air Asia AK 540.” That’s my flight. Of course it is. Damn, my pee takes ages to stream under stress. Now I’m hurried and anxious. I rush the process. Well, I’m wearing dark trousers, no-one will notice. Just out, rushing to the gate (L8) “Mummy, mummy look. That Mat Salleh peed his trousers” a small Chinese child shouts out for the world to hear, tugging on her mother’s dress. Bugger! The on-board, ‘complimentary’, ‘Nasi Lemak’ (some airlines give alcohol, this one gives coconut milk rice) doesn’t really make up for the extra half hour I had spent cooling my heels at the overcrowded ‘Gate’, but the tightness of the air hostesses’ red uniforms, does. I am a simple man with very simple needs. On arrival in Siem Reap, I receive more good news. My black ‘Pilot’ bag, the one I bought on 98
the Costa Brava (Spain) a couple of years ago, has one of the locks broken off. Now, it’s either that my clothes were in such a hurry to get out and sample Cambodia that they impatiently broke the lock, or some nefarious individual was too eager to gain egress. He (or she, for it’s an equal opportunity world in which we live) would have been most disappointed to see only a collection of cheap, white, Cambodian shirts, Marks & Sparks black underpants and black socks, and my practically antique leather belt. Or, there again, maybe not, it is an ever increasingly strange world in which we live. I continue trying to keep a brave face on as I make a report at the airport office, and fill in the (probably unnecessary) form. “Can I help?” A tall, thin, man dressed in the tight dark blue of the local Police, asks. His name tag identifies him as Saroeun Sok, his stripes as a sergeant. I explain. He smiles, and walks off. Now what the hell was all that about? I think no more about the strange Police Officer, and go outside to change my phone SIM card to a local ‘Smart’ SIM ($3). In the burgeoning heat (and have you noticed that Asian heat generally is, burgeoning, that is) I take a brown dust covered tuk tuk, (which is basically the local taxi comprised of a small motorcycle and rider at the front, and an open sided four seater ‘cabin’ at the rear). My tuk tuk, for whatever reason, is made out in Batman livery. Its painted all shiny black, with the yellow bat insignia on both sides, all of which is covered in the local red laterite dust. I jolt up and down the long, straight, dusty, brown, road from the airport, the tuk tuk constantly dodging potholes and green motor-cycle lorries (which are pretty much tuk tuks but with a lorry flat bed attached). I enter into a very busy Siem Reap town.
