Louis just looked at her, noting the light-hearted mockery in her voice, realising quickly that she was probably right. There was no point arguing; the mayhem he had observed on the streets of Bangkok for the past two days had been enough to dissuade him. He settled next to her and Jacques sat in the back. While Jade pulled adroitly into the already heavy traffic, the boys became mesmerised by the spectacle around them. There was no point trying to listen to the radio, as the noise outside had already reached a level which forbade all talk unless it was shouted. The colourful stalls lining the streets were already packed with shoppers, chickens and sheepish bone-skinny dogs in search of food scrapes. The blaring of hundreds of radios competed with the exhaust of the tuk-tuks, car horns, screeching birds and the splattering of empty bottles being thrown away. Bits of conversation, peals of laughter and music seemed to come in and out of earshot, while Jade avoided colliding with bicycles, zigzagging mopeds and motorcycles carrying improbable amounts of passengers dangling on the sides.
Jacques and Louis’s shirts soon stuck to their back. The temperatures had reached upwards of 35 degrees and their watch indicated it was not yet 9:00 am. Grime and dirt streaked their faces. Thick dust matted their hair. It took two hair-raising hours to get out of the city as they headed north. As soon as they faced the open road, Jade pulled over and handed Louis the wheel. This time around, Jacques sat by his side and Jade sat behind them, positioning their bags in such a way as to form a solid backrest against which she laid, her feet neatly tucked under her. Jade continued to indicate the way until they found themselves on what was marked on their map as a highway. Jacques turned up the radio. They crossed rice fields, where here and there they could see men and women hunched over the rice paddies, their heads covered with large cone-shaped straw hats to protect them from the unyielding sun. They barely gave the jeep a glance. The intense green of the fields, the brilliant blue of the sky, the stillness of the country side, the air so fragrant after the pollution of the city, led them to sit in the comfortable, companionable silence of those who had known each other for such a long time that conversation had become superfluous. Jade respected the sociable reprieve and dozed, looking up at Louis’s profile once in a while, but only when she was sure that he was concentrating on the road and could not see her observing him.
When they finally arrived at the ranger station, they stepped out of the jeep and stretched their legs, while Jade went inside the teak built outpost to explain to the authorities that they were going into the park to film the wildlife and that they would be camping for a couple of weeks. On their map stretched out on a wooden table, she indicated their basic trajectory so that someone could come and look for them if, within 10 days, they had not returned and could not be contacted. She showed them her gun and rifle permit and they took a copy of it. One of the rangers came around the car to register the vehicle’s license plate and waved and smiled to the young men, who were smoking a cigarette a few feet away from the car. Once all the paperwork was in order, the ranger indicated the best route to follow to reach their first base camp before nightfall. This time, Jacques volunteered to drive and since it was only a question of treading the rough road and that there was little chance to get lost, since in effect there was only a single road stretched before them, Jade and Louis happily relinquished the task. At this point they would have both sat next to each other in the back, had they dared. But Louis stayed in the passenger seat and Jade, in the back, held tightly onto the seat bar whenever a pothole, somewhat deeper than necessary, made the car pitch and pull. It was about 4:00 pm when they reached the first camp. The camp was comprised of three small but individual thatched roof bungalows built on a rather large platform, the whole structure being raised on stilts and built on the edge of what must have once been a rice paddy. The setting was idyllic. They could hear the gurgling of a stream running nearby.
“Why don’t we throw our bags in one of the huts and then go for a swim?” suggested Jade. “It has been a long drive and a very long day and I hate the dirt and dust on my skin.”
“Excellent idea” concurred Jacques.
He grabbed his bag and gallantly grabbed Jade’s as well and climbed the short ladder to the platform.
“How neat!” he exclaimed. “We could almost have one cabin each! At least none of our stuff will get wet. This is great. And so much better than pitching a tent!”
He took a quick look around, unloaded the two bags and added; “I’ll go and see whether we can swim somewhere in the stream. Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be right back.”
Having noticed Jade’s reserve, Louis went inside one of the huts and closed the makeshift bamboo door. He re-emerged five minutes later wearing a T-shirt and long board shorts. Jade was sitting on the edge of the platform. She had changed into a one-piece suit, which accentuated the perfection of her body, like a nineteenth century corset. Louis could not find his voice and covered his emotion by asking her instead whether Jacques was back from his reconnaissance.
“Louis, Louis!” cried Jacques excitedly as if on cue. “I found a rather large waterhole; it seems deep enough to swim in. It’s beautiful, surrounded by large flat rocks. It’s maybe 100 metres to your right. Go ahead, I’ll join you in a few minutes. I’ve to change in more appropriate clothes as well.”
Likewise, he could not help but stare when Jade stood up, modestly wrapping a brightly coloured sarong around her lithe body. Women that beautiful were rare indeed. He shook his head; it was going to prove rather difficult keeping Louis focused on the work ahead, of that he was sure.
They swam around like kids, splashing away the long trip, washing off the dirt and the grime. Jade was an accomplished swimmer and she was fast at eluding Louis who was trying his best to grab her and push her head under water. After one hour, they decided that it was time to go back to their lodgings and figure out what to lay on the dinner menu. Jade retreated into one of the huts and re-emerged, her long hair pulled back into her ubiquitous ponytail, a simple shirt tucked into wide-legged pants, drawn at the waist.
“I’ll be back shortly,” she stated. “Why don’t you dry off and unpack. I’ll have dinner ready in no time.”
She took a net and a long spear-like stick with a hook on the end and set out in the rice fields. It was not long before she had spear-headed two fish and captured them in her net. When she came back, the boys had set out a make shift table with one of the trunks after locating the bowls, the spoons, the rice wine and the water bottles. In the middle of the modest compound they had found what appeared to be an old hearth, with three sticks set up like a rotisserie. They congratulated Jade on her catch and she asked them to gut the fishes while she fetched herbs and spices. Jacques expertly speared the fishes through the dorsal fins so that they could hang them and rotate them easily on the stick. Louis had lit the fire, thanks to a stack of small wood they had found piled inside one of the huts. In a pot, Jade put rice to cook and covered the fish with some mysterious spices. Within a few minutes, the smell of cooking fish drifted upwards and Jade filled small tumblers with the rice wine. As dusk started setting in, they began to relax. They listened carefully to the calls of night birds and the sounds of animals wakening from the slumber of the day. The fields rustled around them. The temperature had not yet cooled, but a light breeze made it bearable.
They ate dinner almost in silence, each lost in their own thoughts. The wine tumblers were refilled quickly. At the ranger’s station earlier, Jade had also bought some mangoes and she was now cutting them up expertly. They decided to walk back to the stream to wash their dishes and avoid leaving open remnants of food lest it attracted undesirable insects during the night. They brought along their torchlights, in case they had miscalculated the distance to their earlier swimming hole, as night fell quickly in this part of Thailand. No sooner had they washed their dishes in the stream, they realised they would need their torchlight to find their way back. Louis unnerved by the constant rustling of the grass in front of him tried to make
light of it, when all of a sudden, he felt something wrapping itself along his leg. For a split second, his panicked scream silenced the nightlife.
“What is it?” asked Jade alarmed.
“I don’t know, something slithered up my leg,” he replied completely freaked out, and as he reached down to see what was impending his stride, the unmistakable head of a snake came up through his waistband, hissing.
“Don’t move, I’m pretty sure it’s just a water snake but it looks rather large. Don’t do anything brusque. Jacques, did you take a walking stick?”
“I did. And what do you want me to do with it?”
“Beat the grass around Louis’s feet. The noise should scare him. If that fails, hit Louis’s leg.”
Jacques did as he was told and the snake, surprised, quickly slithered off Louis’s body and back into the paddy.
“Well done,” noted Jade. “I gather we all need a drink, now. That spooked me. On second thought, we should probably not have ventured out like that at dusk. That was stupid of me. I apologise.”
Louis still shaking was quick to reach the relative safety of their base camp.
“Fuck that was scary! It came up my pants! It’s not just a stiff drink that I need but a stiff joint as well,” he declared. “After this, do you guys really think it’s actually wise to sleep through the night? Shouldn’t we take turn and stand watch? I mean this snake did not think anything of climbing inside my shorts uninvited, so why should a few stilts scare them off?”
Jade chuckled at the thought but Jacques nodded his agreement energetically. The snake had been rather large and it had taken him back; they were novices at best and he now suspected their mission could be filled with more unsuspected dangers than he had initially planned on.
With their backs to one of the huts, they huddled together and rolled a joint, refilled their glasses and examined the feasibility of staying up all night, taking turns to sleep. Louis, as self-designated knight in shining armour, refused for Jade to stand guard by herself, claiming it would be all too dangerous and too tiring. He offered to do a double shift instead. As they were debating the pros and cons, laughing and carrying on, they suddenly noticed that Jacques had simply nodded off. Louis carried him to his grass mat, covered him with a light blanket and went back outside to join Jade. The star-filled night hung like a dome over them, casting a light glow over the rice paddies stretching in front of them. Jade pulled up a couple more mats and laid down besides Louis, talking animatedly, while holding her head in the pose of a reclining Buddha. They had lit a large and pungent candle to keep voracious mosquitoes at bay and Louis had lathered himself with a citronella rub, not the sexiest of smells, but certainly a very effective one. At this point, Louis was fighting fatigue but he was loath to miss the opportunity to spend a few hours alone with the enchanting woman at his side. Sensing this, Jade offered him a small jade-coloured pill, in the unusual shape of the infinity mathematical symbol, asserting that it would make him feel better, give him the energy he lacked and while away quickly the hours until dawn. She vaguely compared its effects to the Lipovitan drink they had at Paul’s a couple of nights earlier. Louis accepted it unquestioningly and washed it down with a glass of water, now at room temperature, grimacing his distaste for the tepid drink. Jade did the same.
They spoke for hours. The infinity shaped-pill helped them ignore the disquieting noises around them and forget the incessant buzzing of the mosquitoes. They were now laying close to each other, staring at the night sky, Jade resting her head on Louis’s flat stomach, laughing at the rumblings of his digestion. She made sure that plenty of water was kept nearby, within easy reach. By common accord, they decided to let Jacques sleep through the night, agreeing that the driving the next day would be all his. Louis in fact felt fantastic. Everything around him seemed so sharp and so vibrant despite the obscurity. He could not recall being this happy in a long time. It felt like an out-of-body experience. For some reason, the memories of his first high kept on coming back to him, every time he closed his eyes. Nothing seemed to matter but this very moment. It was almost dawn when they finally fell asleep and Jacques, when he woke up at dawn the next morning, found them tightly embraced, with a contented smile on their faces. Shaking his head at what might have happened between them, he cursed himself for falling asleep so early and left them as he found them, deciding to take an early swim, remembering this time to take his antivenin kit, a walking stick and a bottle of water.
He could smell the coffee brewing when he returned but was slightly vexed when he realised that neither of his companions had noticed he had gone. Laconically, he asked them how the watch went, adding that since they were still sleeping when he awoke, he had gone for a swim. Neither noticed the bard nor the angry tone, inviting him instead to join them for coffee and share some of the leftover rice from the night before which Jade had made somehow more palatable as breakfast fare by mixing it with sweet dried fruits. When she finally stood up, to take her turn to bathe in privacy, Louis enthusiastically explained to Jacques that the watch had been painless thanks to Jade, who had given him some mysterious little pill. In the moment it had completely erased his fatigue and buoyed his spirits, prompting them to stay up all night, talking and keeping watch. Circumspect at the pat explanation, Jacques could not help but ask if they were now an item. Louis stared back at him, sincerely shocked by the suggestion and was quick to confirm that unfortunately nothing had happened. His cheeks coloured as he said it and Jacques did not quite know what to make of it: Louis usually boasted about his conquests and would have been admittedly embarrassed to admit that even by putting his best foot forward nothing had come of it. Moreover, his friend’s blushing at the mere mention of a woman was a novelty, so he decided to leave the matter well alone. Time would tell anyway.
After their simple breakfast fare, they began to methodically explore the area around the compound, giving themselves a generous one-kilometre radius to investigate. Jacques took the camera while Louis carried the bags. It did not take long before they uncovered other water snakes of varying sizes and were able to film them as they slithered through the rice paddies. This time though, they were more careful, watching their every step. Across the stream, in the near-by hills, they were able to capture green viper snakes sleeping on branches covered in moss of the same colour and even came upon, quite accidentally, a reticulated python of about three metres in length, in the process of swallowing a baby antelope, the action hampering his movements: caught mid-act, the animal could not move away from the intruders, who watched and filmed him, simultaneously fascinated and disgusted by the overtly brutal carnal scene. The day after that was a repeat of their second day, yet each time, they pushed further the boundaries of their self-designated perimeter. Neither night though, turned to be a repeat of their first.
Only on the third day did they decide to pack up their gear, abandon the protection afforded by the huts and walk up the trails. They left the heavier equipment locked in the jeep and took their backpacks including two waterproof tents, a rifle and ammunition, mosquito nets and basic food supplies. Thanks to their handheld GPS, they trekked in the direction of Namtok Wang Heo, renowned for its huge waterfall and the spectacular island formations dotting the 60-metre wide river. Quickly, they left behind the relative safety of the plains to engage in the vibrant and lush tropical rainforest. The size of the trees, all invariably overgrown with parasitic plants, the soft old growth soil, where the foot alternatively sunk into the moss or hit a boulder, made their trekking slow and treacherous. They spoke little, concentrating on the path before them and watching the canopy of trees overhead. While the temperatures were much cooler than the previous few days, they still sweated profusely, as humidity rose the deeper they entered the rainforest. When, late in the afternoon, they had reached what looked like a relatively dry spot, on a slightly elevated rock formation, at the foot of which ran a small stream of limpid water, they decided to set up camp. The temperature had dropped yet again, b
ut it did not prevent them from stripping to their bathing suits and splashing happily in the cool waterway. Once refreshed, Jade asked Jacques if he wanted to accompany her as she looked for fresh fruit to add to their supper. Overhearing the conversation, Louis shrugged in a studied gesture of indifference, yet was slightly upset that she had not taken the opportunity to spend a bit more time alone with him. When they came back, one hour later, with a basket full of what Jade explained was jack fruit and tamarind, laughing and chatting animatedly, Louis’s jealousy reached boiling point, yet he kept it in check, unwilling to test the fragile friendship he had established with the young woman, sensing that even if she reciprocated his interest she might never act on it by sheer propriety.
While Jade cooked the rice and peeled the fruit, Jacques returned to the stream to collect water for their tea. His frantic screams put Louis and Jade on alert. He ran back to their small encampment, shaking his arms frenetically and all Louis could distinguish were small black worms hanging off his every limb. Every time Jacques frantically tried to pull one off, it seemed to dig deeper into the skin.
“Leeches,” said Jade with a slightly disgusted frown. “Don’t move like that, let me help you. Louis, go and fetch the salt please.”
Both boys thought she had gone temporarily insane, but Louis did as she asked. She shook the salt on the suction point of where the leeches attached themselves to Jacques’ fair skin, and one by one, with tweezers, removed them without difficulty. Afterwards, Jacques’ inflamed skin was nonetheless covered in reddish brown patches.
“In the First Aid kit,” instructed Jade, “there is some anti-inflammatory skin cream. Rub it where the marks are and the inflammation will come down within a few minutes.”
The Samui Conspiracy Page 10