At the wildlife sanctuary, Lah quickly forgets their earlier sorrow on the road, delighted by every creature they encounter. A baby elephant with a partially ruined ear greets them, extending its trunk toward the little girl in that exhalation of a Cambodian kiss. A peacock shows off its iridescent plumage, and they note that one of its legs is missing. A sun bear with a bandaged paw nuzzles an opened coconut, licking it again and again, savoring every drop of juice. The bear falls on its back, rolling in the dust, the coconut stuck to its face, like a toddler with his bottle.
In front of a large wired cage, a ragtag group of village children are gearing up for some sort of showdown with the gibbons. One of the boys, with hair as wild and dusty as the monkeys, presses his lips to the cage, gives a little hoot at a solemn-looking female, she hoots back, he does it again, she gets excited, hooting until her body shakes—revved up like an engine for some long minutes—so that she has to hug herself in order to stop. The boy bows, conceding loss, and offers the crowd’s thundering applause to her.
Narunn goes up to the cage and tries to repeat the boy’s feat, but the gibbon he’s baiting turns its back in gruff defiance. The children laugh, telling him that the male gibbons are stingy and less likely to fall for human tricks. Seizing the opportunity, the boy with wild copper-colored hair quickly appoints himself as their “tour guide,” offering facts and tidbits about the animals they’ve just seen. Teera learns that the animals, like the humans here, have suffered much. They are former victims of one cruelty or another, rescued from illegal trade, from those who sought to sell them for profit, for game and pleasure, or for some misconceived cure for human afflictions. The baby elephant was wounded when a poacher shot and killed its mother. The peacock lost its leg in a trap set up by those who kill such birds for medicine. The sun bear had its paw broken by an owner who thought it a difficult pet because the cub didn’t like being chained by its neck. The owner had sold the cub to a Chinese restaurant specializing in bear paw soup for wealthy Asian businessmen. Seeing the terrified expression on Lah’s face, the boy quickly assures, “But it’s safe now—and happy!” And to prove his point, he raises his arms high and whistles to the sun bear. The little cub stares at him for a moment, then reluctantly abandons the coconut, slowly stands up, and raises its unhurt arm, keeping his bandaged paw lowered. The boy gives the sun bear a triumphant whoop.
They’ve noticed that the boy has burn scars all over his body, and as they meander along, Lah stares and stares at him, then finally blurts out, “Little uncle, why is your skin wrinkly like tree bark?” Unfazed, their guide says, addressing the grown-ups, as if all this time aware of their persistent but muted curiosity, “When I was little I got gasoline mixed up with cooking oil. When I poured the gasoline into the frying pan, flames leapt up and swallowed me whole!” A shadow darkens his face for a few seconds. Then, banishing it with a shake of his wild hair, he declares, “But I was only five then—now I’m nine!”
They walk past a large enclosed muddy pit with what at first resembles a group of cement statues but on closer look turns out to be a cluster of live crocodiles lazing about in the muck. One has its jaws wide open. The boy informs them, “It’ll snap at whatever you toss its way—bananas, mangoes, monkeys.” He glances at Lah, and then, winking at Mr. Chum, pretends to whisper—in a voice loud enough for all to hear—“And little girls who ask too many questions!” Mr. Chum lets out an uproarious laugh, only to be promptly silenced by a look from Teera. Lah scurries away from the mud pit and attaches herself to Narunn.
The two walk hand in hand for a while, one very tall and the other very small, and as they approach the reptile den, he lifts her up and perches her on his shoulders so that she can see inside—a clutch of pythons curled like giant painted pretzels, the near stillness of their breathing belying the strength of their grip.
“Nineteen . . . seventy . . . eight,” the man murmurs aloud, saying each number slowly, as he scribbles the year across a paper on the stack in front of him. He puts down his pen, looks up, and asks, motioning to the tray atop his desk, “Would you like some tea?”
Tun makes no reply, and his host pours some from the pot into the only cup. To Tun’s relief, the tea appears to be cool, not scalding hot as he feared. The man ponders the faintly brown liquid, takes a sip, and sets the cup down, nodding to his young colleagues, his directive barely perceptible. The boys escort Tun into a chair facing the man’s desk in the middle of the room. His head spins, his vision wavers, and Tun feels he might pitch forward, falling flat on his face onto the smeared tile floor, if not for the hands gripping his shoulders. Irrationally, he’s grateful to be sitting down—on a chair no less, and in a room with a writing desk, the very implement of education, reason. Maybe it’ll be different this time. His faint heartbeat rises.
“How can we make this easier, less painful, for both of us?” his host murmurs from behind the desk, his head turning to the window that frames the expansive trunk of a tree. Tun wants to speak, tell the man how grateful he is, but his mouth will not open, his jaws throb in resistance. He can only swallow, tasting the tea against his parched throat, his body’s thirst overwhelming. It’s not hunger that will kill you . . . His mind strays, and he wonders what else besides the giant tree exists beyond the small square window lined with iron bars. Earlier, he was blindfolded as they pushed him across the compound, and now inside the room, with the door shut, he is allowed to see again. Other rooms they’ve taken him to were stripped of furniture, and without windows. This one seems strangely civilized, ordinary. How can we make this easier, less painful, for both of us? Tun reins his thoughts back in, trying to make sense of the question, what more they want from him. He has told them everything, his entire biography. Exhausted the list of possible traitors and enemies he can name.
“Nothing?” The host keeps his gaze fixed on the tree trunk. To Tun, the bark appears to be rippling, like the skin of a moving animal, a python perhaps. Or maybe they are armies of ants marching along the grooves. Again, his vision wavers, burns, and when he tries to blink, he sees the contour of the steel cable that eviscerated his face in the predawn hours. The ants circle his encumbered ankles, prickling his skin. How did they get in? He glimpses a trail stretching from the doorway to him. Blood. On the floor and walls. Everywhere. It assaults him, colors everything he sees, seeps into everything he tastes—his own saliva, the sweat on his lips, the air.
His host turns from the window and begins to shuffle through the stack of papers on his desk, glancing at each page, the sweep of his hand sometimes brusque, sometimes drawn out. He appears angry—no, impatient, annoyed. But never angry. “Nothing,” the man repeats, even-tempered. “Absolutely nothing we can use.”