by Frank Meintjies
In Hao Lao, light shines through the death
Through the eyes of shackles
Stories tie-dyed in the colour of flags,
Stories moored by flagpoles. Flagpoles like stakes.
Prison built by the French.
run by administrators imbibing coffee – superior coffee – and
eating croissants. Dons at
creating and raising stakes; experts in expertise
and battering rams against our spirit world.
Iron shackles anchored to bed-frames
no sleepwalking to shores of freedom.
In the centre of a room: a guillotine.
The next day, I meet Vuth
He is steeped in memory work
He wants to know, ‘When will words like
never again truly mean never.’ He reveres Mandela; we
doff our hats, proverbially, but
he wonders
how are we really doing; are South Africans
really conversing? We rabbit on: how the story
goes from prisons to museums. Can trauma
bridge us to democracy? In 1975, this Phnom Penh was
a ghostly town. Someone like Vuth
would be taken to the fields, to work. Now
new-coin bright, now straggly and grit-lined, it’s
filled with youth, beeping tuk-tuks, tourists. I slide
a beaded flag, stamp-sized and pinnable
across the table. We rise, exchange wan smiles and hug.