THE GATE
By FRANÇOIS BIZOT
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003. 304 pages, $24

reviewed by Sarah Stephens

When John Le Carré introduces a book by calling it "that rarest thing: an original classic," the pages that follow have a lot to live up to. François Bizot's recounting of his experiences of Cambodia on the brink of genocidefirst, as a prisoner in a detention camp (the only foreigner ever to be released from a Khmer Rouge prison), and second, as a virtual prisoner within the French Embassy during the fall of Phnom Penhis not only a very personal journey of suffering, but also a fascinating record of a regime coming to terms with its own ideology.

In 1971, Bizot was a young French scholar studying Cambodian Buddhism in the north of the country. He had a Cambodian wife and child, spoke fluent Khmer (something which was to prove a lifesaver), and lived a peaceful, reflective existence. All this was shattered when he and two Cambodian colleagues were arrested by a Khmer Rouge patrol on suspicion of being American spies. At this time, much of the north of Cambodia was already under the control of the Khmer Rouge, even though it would be another four years before the whole country would fall. Unable to believe that a foreigner would willingly live in such a remote area, the patrol took Bizot straight to a detention camp.

It is here that Bizot first witnesses the viciousness of the regime, and meets the man who will be both his captor and his savior, the notorious Douch. Now better remembered as the unflinching warden of Tuol SlengPhnom Penh's prison and torture center, where thousands of Cambodians were slaughteredthe Douch who imprisons Bizot is still a young revolutionary, full of idealism and blind rhetoric but not yet a hardened killer. Chained to a tree and wearing only a loincloth, Bizot spends the next few months developing an uneasy but fascinating relationship with the man who could, at any moment, send him to his death.

Around the camp, the prisoners are dying of hunger, disease, and torture. Daily, men are led away, never to return; there is an unspoken knowledge among the captives that they are unlikely to leave the camp alive. Yet Bizot continues to hope that he will be freed, and repeatedly protests his innocence. Douch, in turn, is intrigued by this foreigner's passion for and knowledge of Cambodia, and by his defiant attitude. They spend many nights discussing Cambodia's history, Buddhism, revolutionary theory.

The picture Bizot draws of Douch is complex and unsettling. It would have been easy to portray him as an unflinching monster, yet Bizot remains true to his memory of Douch as an intelligent, fiercely revolutionary thinker. When Douch admits one night that it is he who routinely tortures the prisoners, Bizot is genuinely shocked.

It is clear that Bizot is still haunted by what he has seen and experienced, despite the cathartic process of writing his memoirs. There are graphic and harrowing accounts of people lost, saved, broken, denied, and killed. He doesn't flinch from exposing his fear, his pain at leaving loved ones, his horror at his adopted country's trajectory towards self-destruction. When he is finally set free after several months, Bizot returns to Phnom Penh, but his reunion with his family is glossed over, and we are swept forward in time to the fall of Phnom Penh and yet more tragedy.

At the French Embassy (behind the gate which gives the book its title), Bizot finds himself a semi-captive, along with hundreds of other French nationals and Cambodians, as the Khmer Rouge set about emptying the city. As the foreigner with the best command of Khmer, Bizot is again catapulted into a unique, unenviable position, translating all communication between the Khmer Rouge and the French diplomats. In addition, he is charged with scouring the city daily to find food and water, and to round up the straggling expatriates still trying to live normally in a rapidly deteriorating city.

Again, the vignettes are harrowing. Eminent Cambodians arrive at the gate to the embassy begging asylum and are refused; only those with foreign passports are admitted. French husbands and Khmer wives are forcibly split. Dignified men are consumed with madness and break down. Eventually, Bizot leads the final exodus of French over the border into Thailand, but even then, he cannot stop feeling responsible for the fate of those left behind. A young half-French girl who has clung to him all the way and tried to cross with him is stopped and turned back. He writes, "She looked at me, and her eyes, hollow with fear, bored two black holes in my brain that have never stopped deepening." The weight of the pain and responsibility that Bizot carries with him is devastating.

The book closes with a return visit to Cambodia in 2000, in which Bizot hopes to lay some of his ghosts to rest; but trips to Tuol Sleng and even to the site of the camp where he was held seem to do little to help him. He writes unconvincingly at the end that his "ghosts are purged" and that perhaps the burden has been eased a little by writing The Gate, but it seems more likely that there will always be a part of Bizot that remains trapped behind the gate of the French Embassy.