“Come on now, girls,” said Roper, attempting two or three languages but there was no reaction. He and the pilot resorted to wrestling them from their seats and carrying them off the chopper. Some thirty people from the village had gathered around, smiling, waving, obviously overjoyed to see the girls, who were soon engulfed by the crowd and swept away. Roper spoke their language but Daeng did not. After five minutes of back-and-forth, Roper told Daeng that the father had not yet returned from a hunt. The villagers would take care of the children until his return. But Daeng knew the girls’ names from the official file and had noticed that nobody had used those names. The pleasantries appeared to be more for the benefit of the Englishman than the children. If they were truly pleased to see the girls they kept their feelings in the soles of their feet.

“Do you see this?” Daeng asked Roper.

“See what?”

“This is not a happy homecoming. Nobody’s really excited. It’s a show.”

“It’s because we’re here,” he said. “You have to understand ethnic culture. The tribespeople are reluctant to show their true emotions in front of strangers. We’ll get out of their hair as soon as we’ve attended a brief reception.”

The reception was designed to be as brief as possible. In the central pavilion, on a table, there were five plates of moldy-looking sweets and five plastic beakers of something too orange to be potable. The headman, who strongly resembled a bulldog on its hind legs, ate one of the sweets and took up one of the beakers. Roper did the same. The pilot documented it all on an 8mm recorder as per Roper’s instructions. Daeng took a step toward the table, then shouted, “Oh, I forgot my camera. Won’t be a minute.”

“The pilot’s filming the whole thing,” said Roper.

“I’d like some photos for my album,” said Daeng.

And she ran back to the helicopter.

The headman gave a painfully slow speech. Roper nodded in agreement with some of the sentiments. They all sipped politely from the beakers, all except Daeng, who had returned without a camera and remained behind in the shadows. With the speech over, Roper said a few words in response. The villagers smiled at the tall white man who had wasted his life learning their language. And it was all over. The girls were nowhere to be seen. The visitors climbed aboard the chopper and retained their seats. Roper waved from the open doorway. Daeng did not. The pilot put on his terribly cool Ray-Bans and attempted to start the motor. Nothing happened. There wasn’t so much as a cough of ignition. He tried again. Nothing. The villagers were getting restless. Some were already walking away. Enthusiasm is a hard lie to keep up.