The ending is not the end

So I have been working away in secret, I think it's the best way. Working away since I went away on Xmas Day to a friend's log cabin. You might remember I wrote about it here. It might seem from that post that I didn't get a lot done. I did. the most useful thing was to make a quite detailed plan of what I needed to do to finish this book.  In Jan and Feb I kept going, but didn't get as much done as I'd hoped, but in March, I switched the Do Not Disturb sign on in my brain and seriously hunkered down at home. (Yes! At home in Newtown and not in some exotic location like Morocco, Bali, Yangon, Istanbul, Vietnam, Cambodia, where I have already put a lot of the hours in on this book). Guests coming and going and the occasional visit from an artist friend did not deter me. I carried on writing in the living room in the middle of it all, so I could meet the March deadline set for our annual Draft Swap.

Jennifer Moore and Kerry Dwyer swapping their drafts (sound of cheering).

I didn't quite meet the deadline, but most of our writers did. Those like me who didn't, have an extension until Feb 17, when our next monthly meeting of Draft Busters takes place. 

Good Friday was a good day for writing. Went out for a walk, got some hot cross buns and chocolate eggs and hunkered down. Didn't tell anyone, just put the DND sign on the front door and got cracking. Four full days to write! Got quite a lot done, don't know if the writing is good or bad, I just made sure I kept going.

So below is my ending (in draft form don't forget). Yes, hallejuhah I got to the end! Well it's the postscript after the afterword which is after the actual ending. And I still have to go back and do a lot of weaving in of new material I've written. But don't tell anyone, ok? Let's keep it it a secret, we don't want to jinks it!

My Mother Duras - Excerpt

Postscript

2016

I’m doing the final rewrites and go online to double check info on the filming of Rithy Pahn’s movie, The Sea Wall (Un Barrage Contre Le Pacifique) in Ream National Park. On Google page one, I come across a blog post called, On the Set in Ream. I feel a surge of excitement that someone out there may have what I’m looking for and scroll down to a photo of the dance hall, Chez Bart. As I look closer I’m more than surprised to see myself in the picture. Scrolling back to the top I find that the article was written for a major SE Asian travel blog by Rob Schnieder who hosted my workshop in Sihanoukville. It tells of the day we went out together to find the set of The Sea Wall. When I switch to searching images, among the random photos of MD, Isabelle Hubert, and stills from the Sea Wall, I again find this photo of me in front of the dance hall, Chez Bart. I recall another time when searching MD images, of finding photos of her grave in Montparnasse from my own blog post. I feel a little thrill to think I am connected in some small way to my literary hero by my presence on the MD path. That the traces of my journey, tracing MD’s tracings in Indochine, are leaving their own trail in the ether.

Photo by Rob Schnieder

And if I think my search for MD in Indochine is over, I must think again. I never did find a plaque, the imaginary one I innocently went looking for when I began my search in Hanoi, that I naively thought would be attached to a charming French villa, announcing that the famous French writer Marguerite Duras once lived here. I had long given up expecting to find such a thing anywhere in Indochina until I stumbled across a video online of some French travellers searching for MD’s house in Prey Nop. Not in the spot Rithy Panh placed it, but further inland at the 184 km marker on Highway 4, about 25 kms outside Sihanoukville. Down a red dirt track populated with traditional stilt houses, banana trees and cheeping chickens, the camera finds two stone foundation blocks in the garden of Cham family. In between the stones stands a tall plinth with a carved inscription written in the looped lettering of the Khmer language. According to the info that accompanies the video, it states that the author  Marguerite Duras lived here between 1925 and 1933 with her mother and two brothers. This is the place where the book Un Barrage Contre Le Pacifique was set.

An article in the Phnom Penh Post, written in 2012, says the plinth was erected a few years before, but who by, it doesn’t say. Perhaps it was the village council in response to the number of tourists (as in Sadec) who had started to come looking for MD’s house. Rithy Pahn had also been there researching for his film — maybe he erected the plinth. According to the article the elders of Samong Leu commune, who were young boys when the Donnadieu family lived here, remembered the wooden bungalow, with its rice loft and small river filled with fish nearby.

As for me, I was so close to finding that plaque that I couldn’t see it for the trees.  On my first trip I had even driven right past it on Highway 4 on my way to and from Sihanoukville. Still, now I have found it on the internet, I can let some one else’s film footage take me there.  It doesn’t matter that I haven’t physically been there, I remind myself. Surely this journey is over, this book must be put to bed, I can’t just go off on a whim following down every last little thing. Or can I?

When I see the note beneath the video. Sarin de Sarin Tour Service à Sihanoukville peut vous y conduire   — Sarin of Sarin’s Tour Service, Sihanoukville, can take you there, I am not so sure. 

THE END

Jan leads annual Writer's Journeys in inspiring international locations
Heading out in 2016/17
Creative in Bhutan - Aug 18 -30
Haiku Walking in Japan - Nov 1-11
Moroccan Caravan  - Jan 26 - Feb 8
See here for all info and bookings