Estuary 5

"Long in my life I have walked trails like this," Malu said. "As a boy I tested myself. I stalked the big cats downwind. I spent hours getting close, and then I made a distraction to get away. I climbed trees with boas in the branches. I ate crocodile and pirhana. I stole into rival villages. I spied on their women. But that was as a boy.

"When I reached the waist of my father he started to bring me into the fields. Then I worked. I grew strong. When I had to leave I was ready. The regime came to power. Pol Pot, may his black spirit burn forever. The brother of my mother was a troublemaker, they said. But no, he was a kind man. He had only a little ego. He been to Hong Kong to study. Everyone thought he was lucky. After the regime, that was not lucky anymore.

"They took the men of my family away. I was on one of my adventures. I returned at dawn to my wailing mother. My sisters were in shock and kept quiet, the way children become when adults break down. My mother sent me away. With a little bread I walked. I made it to Malaysia. Then I could relax. I could sleep on the earth, even gather grass for a little bed. After a long time I came to the sea. And then to Borneo. Look."

Ahead there was a short stone wall that grinned on a gummy slope. Plastered with mud and eroded mineral like coffee stains, jagged and chipped by a bareknuckle fighter, no higher than a dentist's chair, I might have missed it. My shirt was sticking to my back. I swatted a mosquito and mustered the will to take a photo.

"It's hardly Angkor Wat," I said.

Malu whirled on me. I braced for a strike. "What do you know of Angkor Wat? You think civilization began with the Greeks. The Cambodian people, my ancestors, had philosophy, law, government, everything long before the West. We knew what you only now seek. Thousands of years ago we knew. The seat of mankind was the city of Angkor Wat. Europe was animals."

I spoke quickly. "The ruins there are beautiful, certainly. There has never been architecture like that in the world since. Your people were skilled engineers, too. Rivals to the Egyptians, I'm sure."

Malu appeared mollified. "Things are on this land no Westerner has ever seen. Maybe I will show you. That would be valuable, no? Maybe then you will be impressed." He laughed. "Your eyes respect only what is new."