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embassy.’
    Ishmael, I thought, wasn’t that the narrator from Moby Dick? The name seemed eerily prophetic; and Estonia, well, I didn’t know much but I would be surprised if there was an Estonian embassy anywhere in the world.
    ‘You can pretty much choose any group to go with,’ the German said.
    ‘I will go with him,’ said Ishmael, pointing at me.
    I looked at him for a second, trying to ignore the rumble of the tanks crashing through the gates of the airport.
    Then, hurriedly, Ishmael and I showed the German the map. It was a relatively straight route with the American embassy located right next to the king’s palace, and all the other embassies clustered together on the other side of the diplomatic district bordering the airport.
    ‘Let’s move. The American group follows them,’the German shouted, pointing at Ishmael and me. ‘Others follow me.’
    We ran out from the rear end of the terminal, jumped over the crumbling fencing surrounding the runway and split in different directions.

    Ishmael and I ran at the head of the twenty-odd American hippies, glancing in every direction to check for signs of the black-clad Khmer soldiers. We didn’t stand a chance if we ran into them. Despite knowing almost nothing about the Cambodian revolution, a lifetime spent playing rough sports had me convinced that any fifteen-year-old boy with a shiny black gun would pull the trigger, no matter how slight the provocation.
    What a mess, I thought, as I ran faster to keep pace with Ishmael, and to think it started as a vacation.
    The embassy was three miles away as per my estimation; a good thirty minute run, maybe longer. We would be very lucky if we didn’t encounter any soldiers en route. And what if the embassy had already been evacuated, I thought suddenly. If the coup had taken place the previous day, like the marines on the flight had said, the Americans wouldn’t be hanging around, would they? Where would we go then?
    ‘Have you been to Thailand?’ I puffed to Ishmael,who was running calmly in front, not breaking into much of a sweat despite his shaggy, emaciated look.
    He nodded. ‘It’s safe there,’ he said.
    ‘The map indicated that there is a forest bordering Cambodia and Thailand. Do you think we can get there if we manage to slip inside the forest?’ I asked.
    ‘The forest is strewn with land mines to keep out the Thai. Besides, the border is a hundred miles from here. How will we get there?’
    ‘What do we do if the embassy has already been evacuated?’
    He shrugged. ‘Shit happens.’
    Indeed, I thought. A five minute trip to the MIT international affairs department would have given us the latest on the crisis. Instead, we had taken a twenty-five hour journey to arrive in the middle of it. I had no one to blame but myself.
    Two miles in and the road became less bumpy. Dirt tracks gave way to narrow, pebbled streets, and the deserted countryside was replaced with colonial buildings. There was still not a soul in sight, neither soldiers, nor the ordinary junta. I prayed Ishmael had read the map right.
    ‘What is the Khmer Rouge after?’ I asked him. ‘Why don’t they just take over the government and be done with it? Why the violence?’
    ‘They are extreme communists. By “they”, I mean the top lieutenants, not these boy-soldiers of course.The soldiers are just village kids looking to kill for kicks. The leader of the Khmer Rouge is a crazed communist despot called Pol Pot, who hates the “bourgeoisie”, a word he uses for just about everyone who isn’t a farmer - teachers, doctors, industrialists, factory workers, city dwellers, foreigners, even the Red Cross. His personal ideology is less Marx, more Hitler on steroids. He wants to exterminate all bourgeoisie, partly to make this a nation of farmers, partly because he is a psycho.’
    ‘Would they attack the embassy?’ I asked.
    He shrugged. ‘Who knows? I don’t trust them one bit. They are all crazy motherfuckers.’ He laughed.