SIX thousand baht for a simple delivery. Ratana had had this bad feeling, and he had said to himself, What can happen delivering a birthday card? Two hours and four thousand baht later, he had his nose put back in place and was back at his apartment nursing an ice pack over his right eye. He was thinking all the time he should have seen that punch coming. He phoned Frank Hogan while waiting to get his stitches at the hospital.
“You didn’t tell me this girl was involved with a Middle East terrorist,” said Calvino.
“TJ’s a dickhead Yank. Works freelance as muscle at the Hollywood.”
“He broke my nose.”
Frank laughed. “TJ was Golden Gloves champion in Chicago. A tough little dickhead.”
“So that’s why you sent me,” said Calvino. A doctor walked towards him with a syringe that looked sharp, mean, and hard.
“Call the cops. Have his ass thrown in for assault. What do you think?”
The doctor stabbed the needle into the side of Calvino’s face and slowly pushed the plunger down, injecting the drug that turned faces into numb putty.
“God, that hurts,” shouted Calvino, clenching his teeth. He squeezed his mobile phone, closed his eyes, and remembered that he was talking to Frank Hogan.
“Are you getting a massage?”
The needle came out. His face was already going numb.
“Pao’s right. You’re crazy, Frank.”
“You think I knew about TJ lurking around?”
“I think you had a good idea.”
“But that doesn’t mean that I knew for sure. I had heard rumors about her and dickhead TJ. Pao never told me that she had a boy toy American husband.”
“And you figured the card was a way of finding out. Only you neglected to fill me in on a few details.”
“Hey, you are the private eye, Vinee. You want to know something, all you have to do is ask.”
Calvino’s Law: Due diligence always on all clients and on all yings. No exceptions. Calvino had written this law down on a piece of paper and taped it to the mirror in his bedroom where the edges had turned up with age. He no longer read his own message.
“Frank, I have a message for you. I know why you don’t have any friends.”
He could hear Frank breathing on the other end. Only he didn’t say anything.
“Because you’re an asshole.” By now Calvino’s face had gone totally numb and the words came out like the singing of Happy Birthday on Pao’s birthday card. Try telling a guy he’s an asshole when your face is frozen. Calvino tried again, finally gave up, lay back and let the doctor finish the job of setting his nose.
THE first thing Calvino’s maid did when she saw him that night was cover her mouth and start to wail. And this set her half dozen dogs off howling. The water was so deep in the driveway that he had trouble opening his car door. Finally he stepped out and closed the door, sending a small wave splashing against his leg. He rolled his pant legs up to his knees, waded across the flooded driveway, leaving a wake that splashed against the staircase. He carried his shoes and socks and slowly edged forward, unsure what he might step on. Skin infections the Thais called Hong Kong foot were another hazard of Bangkok rainy season. The water covered the first step on the flight of stairs. Three steps up the stairs, his feet and legs were dripping, Mrs. Jamthong waited with a dry towel, dressed in an old faded nightgown, and four of her dogs, whining and shivering, sniffed around Calvino’s feet as if the pieces of floating garbage that stuck to his ankles might contain some food.
She handed him the towel.
“The khamoy beat you bad. Too much crime. Break your car. Break your face. They steal your money, too?” She shone a flashlight on his car, keeping the beam on the broken window.
“This wasn’t the work of khamoys,” said Calvino. Local thieves were being spotted along every soi as the recession hit deep, and the only way to survive was to take something away from someone who had more than you, someone who would still have enough to eat after losing some cash, a TV, a fridge, a car. “This was a birthday card gone all wrong.”
“You want me to call a doctor?”
“I already go to the hospital.” He had meant to say “been” to the hospital. Sometimes he just lapsed into Thai-Ling with the maid.
“I so sorry Khun Vinee. It rained and rained. I never see so much rain. And your face.”
By the time Calvino walked into his apartment and sat at the table to drink a Mekhong coke, the pain in his ribs, face and shoulders had shot back. He opened the bottle and popped one of the pain pills, washing it down with Mekhong and coke. The sound of the TV turned down low drifted across the sitting room of his apartment. He sipped from his glass. Holding up a mirror, he examined his face. The image in the mirror, had one eye swollen shut and a bloated, broken nose and looked somewhat like him, he thought. People with beaten-up faces were like the old: they all looked alike. A six thousand baht face, he thought. A ten-minute-job-for-easy-money face. He thought about his profit. Four thousand eight hundred for the hospital and doctor and eleven hundred baht to have the window repaired. He added it up. He had cleared one hundred baht. What was that in American money, he thought. Two and a half dollars. There was the non-money satisfaction of having taken TJ down, inflicted some pain on a man young enough to be his son, and with a well-placed knee in TJ’s spine, even convinced him of the wisdom of paying respect to his elders. But another man’s pain and humiliation wasn’t going to pay the rent, Ratana’s salary, or put gas in his 1987 Honda Accord. The previous car owner, Harold Jordan, an expat who had once been Calvino’s client, had suffered the misfortune of the bad economic times: lost his job, ran out of money, lost hope, sold his car and mobile phone to Vincent Calvino, and fled back to North Carolina. Harold moved in with his parents. Forty-three years old and he moved back into basement of mom and dad’s house where all his high-school stuff was still gathering dust and his closets smelled of mothballs and mildew.
He lay back on his bed feeling the Mekhong and painkillers doing their work. One eye was already swollen shut. He closed the other one and breathed in deep, listening to the rain outside.
A stranger arrived in the village during the middle of the night. No one saw from which direction he came or whether he had his own ox and cart or had walked in. No one had been there at the moment of his arrival. He seemed just to have appeared out of nowhere. His presence was announced when a sleeping villager first heard a new sound never heard before. Filtering into his dreams there was a crackling noise and the smell of smoke. Soon a baby cried, then another. A dog in the distance barked. Soon a chorus of barking dogs could be heard throughout the village. Livestock made snorting sounds. Calvino opened his eyes as he sensed someone stirring nearby, then he heard many voices. They called for family and friends to join them, and soon everyone was outside of their bamboo huts, gathering around the stranger who stood a head taller than the tallest of the villagers. The stranger stood with his back towards them, warming his hands over a fire. No one in the village had ever seen a fire before. They wondered whether the stranger might be a god, a heavenly messenger who possessed secrets more powerful than their own magic man. Fingers of flames licked at the night sky. The stranger dressed in black robes, his head shaved, wearing sandals.
Then the stranger slowly turned around, his bright eyes meeting the eyes of each of the villagers. Neither surprise nor delight nor fear shone on his face.
“I thought you would come,” said the stranger, nodding at Calvino.
Calvino looked to his side, then looked behind, then back at the stranger.
“You talking to me?”
The stranger pointed his long bony finger at Calvino. “You can help me explain to these people what fire is.”
Calvino looked at the large pile of burning logs. A substantial fire roared, filling the sky with flames. Smoke and flames rose higher than the largest house in the village; this was a fire to cause awe, and as for the villagers’ first ever fire, they witnessed a massive wall
of liquid light quavering against the black sky. A stranger had turned darkness into light. The villagers were dancing around, laughing, drawing close to the flame, feeling the heat, then falling back.
“I think they have a picture already,” said Calvino.
The festive mood ended abruptly as a village elder stepped forward, his sad eyes filled with suspicion.
“This is night. Who authorized you to make day from night with this trick?” He shook his finger at the burning mound of bamboo, dry elephant grass, and wood.
“They don’t all have the full picture, do they?” the stranger said as the elder came closer.
“He’s a village leader. What do you want me to do? This is not my village.”
“Nor is it mine,” said the stranger. “But like you I have come here to share knowledge. I have come to show them fire.”
“You’ve showed them. You are offering me a job, and I am telling you, I am not taking the offer. This fire has nothing to do with me. I am just trying to get by. Bringing light isn’t my business. Staying alive is. I am just trying to get through another night and not think too much.”
The stranger shrugged off the rebuke and smiled at Calvino. Kneeling down, he removed objects from an old leather case. He carefully arranged each object on the ground like a teacher preparing a lesson. Three more elders now joined the village elder with the wagging finger and none of them was dancing, singing, or laughing. The men formed a semi-circle around the stranger, who studiously ignored them. No one in the village had ever danced in the dark with light to see themselves or others. The stranger reached back and threw more sticks onto the flames. They crackled and popped, a red ember shooting from the midst and striking one of the elder’s robes, burning a hole through it. Calvino put out the flame. This was the elder’s best ceremonial robe. The stranger could not have known it had special importance attached. The robe was the elder’s rank, his face, his very self; it was worn on only the most important occasions or to receive a visiting dignitary. Now the robe was ruined. Destroyed in front of the entire village. The smell of smoke filled the elder’s nostrils and ash fell on the robe, turning it from pure white into a smudged black.
The stranger held up the objects for making fire, picking up a piece of flint, a stone, displaying each for the villagers to see; he was teaching them the art of fire making. Telling them it wasn’t magic, that any of them could do what he did. He did not speak their language and they understood nothing of what he said. Meanwhile, Calvino heard the elders exchanging whispers in angry, muted voices. They issued an edict for the stranger to cease and desist from his lecture, and to put out the fire at once, and to leave the village. The stranger continued speaking in his foreign tongue directly to the villagers.
What happened next came unexpectedly. Calvino had never known the elders to act so quickly, with such decisive force, such deliberation. This was as surprising as the fire. The small group of elders stepped forward as if the three men were one man on six legs, hoping to menace the stranger into silence. When that didn’t work, the strongest of the elders in a fit of temper grabbed the stranger and tried to restrain him but there was a struggle. Calvino was one step away from coming between the elder and stranger. One step too late. Before Calvino could rescue the stranger, the elders acted in concert to throw this stranger into the flames. It happened so fast that at first the villagers thought this was part of a ritual or a game that the elders had invented on the spot. After all, they had never seen fire or flames or smelled burning flesh. The man had appeared out of nowhere, and was now in the process of disappearing into nowhere. It was a perfect circle. This was an evening of marvels and experiences beyond all comprehension.
For what seemed to be an eternity the stranger stood in the center of the flames, arms stretched out, standing tall for one brief moment before collapsing. The villagers clapped with joy. They wanted to see this wonderful disappearing act again and again. But there would be no repeat. One moment a mysterious stranger had appeared in the village, a moment later they witnessed the lighting of the fire, and not longer thereafter they witnessed his disappearance into the flames. The elders egged on the villagers, clapping and dancing around the flames. Calvino sat back beside the blanket holding the objects to make fire. He watched until the dawn when the last ember died out and there was nothing but black ashes, charred bone, a piece of half-burnt sandal and smouldering robe. The stranger had vanished. The villagers waited and waited for him to reappear. They had no concept of someone being destroyed by fire. By noon they had begun peeling away from the ashes to find food. Calvino was left alone; he did not move from the base of the dead fire, the place of the stranger’s death. That night the villagers and elders returned to the place of the fire, expecting more pyrotechnics. The elders held up the stranger’s objects, showed them to the crowd, passed them amongst themselves. Everyone waited for the flames to appear. Only the darkness of night hid the disappointment on the faces of the villagers; on the faces of the elders were amusement, half-smiles. They fell on their knees and prayed to the objects. Still no flames rose from the ashes. Soon the villagers followed their elders and dropped to their knees. The elders told them a god had visited them, and that god had vested these objects in the elders. So long as the villagers obeyed the elders, then one day that god would return, and he would bring the flames from heaven once again so that they might sing, dance, and watch the pitch black night turn into a pocket of day.
Calvino finally rose to his feet and walked over to the spot where the fire had burned the night before. He picked up a charred bone and held it up. “The stranger was not a god. He was a man like any of you. He’s dead. Burned by the flames. He cannot come back.”
The elders laughed. “You see, like we told you, Calvino is not from this village. farang does not understand our ways. He cannot think like us.”
“You murdered him,” said Calvino.
The villagers began laughing. “Nonsense. You cannot murder a god,” said one of the elders. The others murmured their agreement.
“This bone is from the stranger’s body,” said Calvino. “He was a flesh-and-blood man and not a god. The fire killed him. He brought you the gift of fire. He was trying to teach you the art. Any man can make fire. You don’t need to be a god.”
“You see what a fool this farang is who has stayed in our village,” said the elder whose best garment had been burned by the night before.
“Can you make fire?” asked another of the elders, holding out the objects of fire making.
Calvino took these objects.
Calvino looked at the elders, the villagers, and then out in the dark. There was not much to see. He stared up at the stars because it was a clear night. Stars cast some light but not enough to illuminate even the closest face. But he knew already that he had a choice. Cry murder or make his peace with the village.
“Can do,” said Calvino. A spark leaped out of his hands.
A stream of fire shot across the sky, circled around and came straight at Calvino.
As he smiled, the fire hit his face, then the blunt instrument to make fire struck his ribs, knocking him to the ground. Pain spread from his nose and eye and soon his entire body was in agony. Something inside his body had broken.
There was a loud banging on the door. Calvino opened his good eye; a sharp pain made his head throb. He reached over to the nightstand and looked at his wristwatch. It was ten in the morning. The pain pills had knocked him out, and now the pain was back. He climbed out of bed, pulled on a shirt, and slipped into his pants. He walked out of the bedroom through the sitting room.
Calvino stared at Pratt through the peephole.
“I have a bad cold,” said Calvino. “You don’t want to get it.”
“Your maid said someone beat you up,” said Pratt.
Maids were always the major security leak in every farang household.
“A small bruise is all. This cold is terrible.” Calvino tried on his best fake cough, which caused his entir
e face to throb, and he moaned—that part was real.
“Vinee, I have a friend I want you to meet,” said Pratt.
“I am in a contagious state. A virus like this could be dangerous.”
“He has work for you. Well paid work.”
Calvino unfastened the chain on the door and opened it.
“The virus seems to have broken your nose and shut one eye,” said Pratt.
“Close contact with a pig.”
Pratt removed his shoes and waited to be invited inside Calvino’s apartment. “Ratana said something about you delivering a birthday card,” said Pratt. A secretary was the second major security leak. Another Thai followed Pratt inside.
Having talked to Calvino’s maid and secretary, Pratt would have known the full story.
“Okay, I had a little birthday card surprise last night. It turned out different than I had planned. But that’s life,” said Calvino stepping back from the door.
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