'You know his name?' I asked Gabrielle.

'No. I only know he is an agent of the Khmer Rouge.'

The boy put down two small gold-crested cups and poured coffee for us; I could smell the kerosene on his hands. He looked very young, was probably not long out of school, was possibly still at school, one of the children Gabrielle hoped to photograph one day being blown to pieces in the sunshine, so that the rest of the world would wake up.

'And who is the man sitting near the far end of the bar?'

'With the gold-rimmed glasses?'

'Yes.'

'He is the Minister of Defence, Leng Sim.'

'It's safe for government officials to move around in public?'

'Not very. But he is known for that. He openly defies the Khmer Rouge. There are others like him, but not many, now the UN has gone.'

'Do they blame the UN for pulling out?'

She gave a little shrug. 'The UN began its peace-keeping operations with good intentions, and the conference in Tokyo was also well intentioned, but no one wants to go on protecting a country like this one, where there is no oil, no industry, no economy after twenty years of war and bloodshed at the hands of the Khmer Rouge — a country where poverty and disease and pollution have brought down the average life expectancy to thirty-six years, even without a shot fired. But we have to get help from somewhere, from someone. That is why I take my photographs.' She leaned towards me, her small, calloused hands clenched on the table. 'I have the blood of these people in my body. My grandfather was an administrator here as a young man under the French rule, and he married a Cambodian girl. So I understand them, from a source deeper than the intellect. I feel for them. I cry for them in the night. And I have to believe that if I and people like myself — like Jacques — work hard enough we can stir the compassion of the rest of the world, so that our little world out here won't be bled to death again in the Killing Fields.'