The water slapped against the side of the wooden boat. The smell of rotten fish was overwhelming. Had Maier had more room to maneuver, he would have stuffed bits of cloth or pieces of wood into his nostrils, but he lay less than twenty centimetres below the boat’s deck in bilge water. He was trapped.
He’d managed to vomit twice without suffocating or being discovered. Did he want to be discovered?
He could see across the lake through a small hole in the side of the boat. Phnom Krom, the mountain at the western end of the Tonlé Sap, bopped up and down a few kilometres away. Grasses and plastic rubbish floated close by.
The boat was being loaded. Heavy boxes packed with fish crashed onto the deck, which pressed down onto Maier. The wooden boards above his head were bending closer and clos
