“Why not? I am after all a white sorcerer of formidable power,” he said to the reverend. “Certainly, I can whisper a charm spell into my letter.”
Once Phineas had arrived at the clinic to find, before his apothecary cabinet, a spread of square baskets woven from banana leaves. They were filled with offerings of rice, fresh flowers, and sweets. Two clay figures—a man and a woman—had also been left to serve as ghost servants for a chest of enema tubes. It did not delight him that his patients held him in similar esteem as their witch doctors, men who entered into trances to speak the tongue of spirits or who claimed to be able to send ghostly imps to strangle adversaries.
The reverend encouraged the misunderstanding. “A step to faith in the doctor is another to the doctor’s God,” he said.
Tonight, the reverend tapped Phineas’s arm and informed him that tomorrow he’d be accompanying Winston on another outing beyond the compound.
“But what of the mission hospital? Who will tend to the infirm?”
“You’ll be far more effective in your duties once you begin to know this country. We can trust Miss Lisle to handle most of the basic cases.”
“And what of cases of greater severity?”
“We’ll leave those to the witch doctors,” the reverend said with a grin, before bidding him good night and walking up to the second-floor sleeping quarters. The reverend occupied the first room next to the stairs. Phineas’s was the narrow room between the women’s and Winston’s. It contained few furnishings beyond a rudimentary desk and a raised platform where he slept on bare wood and a burlap pillow stuffed with coconut husks.
What he loved most about the room were the parrots that gathered in the tree across from its windows. Sunlight poured through the leaves and lit up tiny gold-and-orange flowers along the branches, where the birds perched in pairs. They were colored green and blue, with a necklace of ruffled topaz spots. All day and night they chattered, as if gossiping, and quarreled and sang seemingly joyful songs. Strangely, their noises did not bother him but instead gave him comfort as he lay in his bed, far from the familiar sounds of the wide green valley back home.
Winston wanted nothing more than to shoot these birds—nowhere as meaty as the quail he talked of hunting back in the States, but eating was beside the point. Winston claimed to be able to aim his pistol across the width of a canal and pick off a dragonfly. The reverend would not allow a demonstration of this skill for fear of offending the Siamese, who deplored such killings. They believed that Man was an animal and that, after death, a soul might reenter the realm of the living in the body of a different beast. They would not want to see their fathers shot for some foreigner’s pleasure. They will come for us with sticks and knives, the reverend had warned.
Phineas woke to the sound of tapping outside. He stood up and stepped through the mosquito net to reach for a scalpel from his desk. A clang, followed by thuds. Someone was out there; he was certain. He unlatched the door and stepped out to the balcony, the scalpel tucked in his fist.
Winston dangled over the wall, having returned from some mysterious nocturnal errand. When he saw Phineas on the balcony, he lifted a lone finger to his lips and winked.
“He is not like us,” Miss Crawford had said, after disclosing that were Winston not the only skilled and willing printer available in the capital, he would have long ago lost his place in the house.
“Up late, Dr. Stevens? Too much excitement ticking in that head of yours?” Winston whispered.
“Excitement? For what?”
“Tomorrow’s festivities.”
This much he’d learned in these few weeks: no occasion for raucous debauchery and superstition went unobserved in this heathen city. His alveoli had blackened from Chinese families burning money to dead relatives; his cochlear spirals had deformed from cannons fired at the Siamese forts to repel celestial leviathans swallowing the moon. The upcoming three-day ceremony, he’d heard, involved a monstrous swing.
In fact, he had seen the swing once, on his way to address a Dutch sea captain’s gangrenous arm. The Siamese had raised the red swing beside a busy thoroughfare, where it loomed over no fewer than three gambling houses, an outdoor Chinese opera theater, a Buddhist temple, and a number of gold shops. With unbroken trunks of ancient mountain teak serving as its two main legs, it stood by Winston’s estimate as high as fifteen men standing on one another’s shoulders.
“You’ll see, Doctor,” he said now. “I’ve never before witnessed such daring from mortal creatures, and I have gone eye to eye with Santa Anna’s army in Chapultepec.”
“I’m certain I won’t be disappointed. Sleep well, Winston.”
If calamity were to visit me, it would be from this man, Phineas thought. He stepped back into his quarters and latched his door, his heart still pounding. Unable to close his eyes, he lit a lamp at his desk and opened again the envelope from his brother. Inside was a sketch of Gransden Hall that Andrew had drawn for him. What graceful lines, presumably made with soft Borrowdale graphite. There was nothing here for him but crumbly shards of coal, should he wish to return the favor.
He hoped Andrew would soon receive the letter he had sent this afternoon, without the reverend’s knowledge, for it also contained a petition to the Society for his immediate transfer to Canton, Rangoon, or wherever else his medical skills could be better applied, with adequate resources and due seriousness of endeavor.
In the same letter he also wrote of his recovery from a mild gastrointestinal illness, he believed from overripe mangoes devilishly selected by the cooks, and how Miss Lisle had taken charge of his care during that period, cleaning him, performing tasks that should only be asked of one’s hired aide or kin. She eliminated marauding mosquitoes from his room and read to him from the few English tracts available to them. Such magnanimity yields much its intention, he’d written, and noted how grateful he was to count himself among such kind souls in this alien territory. He continued,
The Siamese as a race thrive in the aquatic realm. They live as if they have been born sea nymphs that only recently joined the race of man. A traveler arriving at the mouth of the Chao Phraya steams upriver along mangrove beaches until the muddiness yields to long patches of coconut groves, alongside of which one may observe fishing villages where frog-limbed men, with spear or woven trap in hand, serenely perch on poles protruding from the water. Farther on lie endless expanses of wetland grass until the land solidifies into forests of flowering trees, fragrant in the breeze, and banana plants of endless variety. The wilderness gives way to towns where women squat at the shore with their washing and canoes as numerous as autumnal waterfowl in the Hudson’s marshes row out, each with its freight of cooped poultry or mounds of fruits ready for the floating markets. And an hour beyond, before one can be lulled to an afternoon slumber, lies the capital, its riverside lined with rickety stilt houses that look incapable of withstanding even the most delicate wake of a modern steamer yet somehow maintain a mysterious integrity. Their occupants drink, swim, wash away their filth, and fill pots to make soupy meals of their catches, everyone joined in the same confluence of fluids.
It is my conjecture that the waterborne city inspirits our undoing. Its fluvial systems—the natural ones and also the mesh of canals throughout the capital—carry to us miasmata that weaken the body.
Daily, we face our catastrophes, if not by pestilent vapors, then devised by bureaucrats, birthed from faithlessness, self-incurred. I comprehend the Society’s preference for men and women of youth, as ample health and vitality are needed to withstand the corrosion of these climes.
I am less concerned for myself than I am for the mission. Since my arrival attendance at service has not increased beyond the dozen or so minority Chinese families converted years prior. Piles of translated tracts and pamphlets lie untouched. Few Siamese pay us heed, unless they are seeking medicine or soliciting us to purchase their goods. The reverend is rightf
ully proud of what he has managed to achieve at the station under the circumstances, but there are times when I believe him prouder of his bountiful rambutan trees. Miss Crawford and Miss Lisle hold fast to optimism, despite caring for children who prefer craft lessons to the learning of letters and maths. The man Winston, to no surprise, harbors no apparent worries.
Whatever blessings of civilization are accorded to the Siamese will, I fear, bear little fruit. They are a proud, even arrogant people, having yet to come under the domain of a more advanced nation. They seem to regard our own purpose as merely to serve and sustain them in their lifelong pursuit of frivolity. If you ask me, they are full of guile as well, having played off the ambitions of the French and the British, whose territories surround them, so as to profit from the impasse and continue to fly their elephant flag. Without significant headway into the interior of the country—there being no concession for missionary efforts similar to the Treaty of Nanking—I fear the reach of the mission will remain severely limited. Despite the outward friendliness of the Siamese, especially when my medical capacities are needed, the opposition to our presence is profound. That the reverend even managed to secure land for the mission and to procure materials for its construction is a minor miracle.
Another hindrance lies in the people’s devotion to demon worship. Few have either the capacity or the desire for literacy, and even the Tripitakas and other texts of their own faith are a mystery to the majority of the people. Seeking solace outside of the passivity encouraged by their religion, the Siamese have embraced the worship of charms and objects, whether a tree or a termite mound.
My dear Andrew, I hope that I have not encumbered you with my distant despair, a world apart from the comforts of our valley, and that instead my musings shall provide you with some thin trickle of amusement. I hereby include a promised watercolor of frolicking parrots to guarantee a lift in your mood. It’s very rudimentary, I’m afraid, as I’m forced to get along with the means available. The green comes from soaked pandan leaves, the yellows from turmeric. May their pungent odors fade before your receipt of these words.
Did I tell you in my previous letter what became of the previous occupant of my room? A hooded cobra trespassed the mosquito screen one night, and when the man woke, the snake was roused as well. Not a waking hour passes in that room without my suspicious glance at crevices between the floorboards.
I hold little fear, however, as I consider these present circumstances trials meted by His hand. From my own treatment of patients, I’ve found that body and spirit are often restored by what most consider tribulation, be it piercing to let foul humors or the administration of black calomel to purge disease and restore balance to the constitution. To be touched by Grace, a soul must not fear enduring harm.
Yet, I must admit, the knowledge of your prayers does provide me with immeasurable comfort. Will you continue to pray for us here, as I pray for you all? Earthly survival, as transient as it will ultimately prove to be, presents a very desirable prospect. By His grace, may I hope to see each morning light?
CADENCE
The way Clyde tells it, the suicidal man was a sergeant, and the band had been trucked to the base to change his mind. “By playing ‘My Blue Heaven,’” says Clyde. “His friends thought it worth a try. They told us the song always put the sergeant in a better mood.”
It’s three o’clock in the morning. The nerves in his knees are shooting lightning. He has just played two sets straight to a room that carries on, chattering and cackling, like he should thank them for letting him play.
He looks for Griang and Marut, but they’ve slunk away, leaving him at a squeaky vinyl-upholstered booth with these young white officers on their five-day leave from either Utapao or Korat or a few hundred miles east in the big show itself—the country he’s more often heard referred to by numbered tactical zones or just “the war” than by its official name of Vietnam. By their accents, he knows these boys are from the South. There are Americans everywhere in Bangkok, he likes to say with a drop of complaint, but he’s not unhappy when he catches a familiar drawl through the cigarette smoke, summoning warmer memories of the Carolina shipping town where he was born. Besides, his countrymen pretending to be warrior-gods means good business. The swaggering packs of Americans who clot up the sidewalks on Petchburi Road keep him playing weeknights at the Servicemen’s Club and weekends at the Grand Eastern Hotel’s lounge.
He should be grateful for what he has going, according to Bobby Blue Eyes. Maybe, but if Bobby comes through, Clyde will be able to look forward to the long-awaited reprieve of a proper show. This time, he’ll be the headliner and people will be listening because they’ve made a point of coming to hear him, not because he happened to be behind the piano that night. He’ll play his own songs and none of the standards some Joe Dope might request, waving a twenty-baht bill as if that’d make someone’s whole night. Ring you after tonight’s show, Bobby had said. Have a drink ready.
“So this sergeant, what happened with him?” asks a lieutenant with premature gray striping the sides of his head.
Clyde says, “We’re driven down this road lined with cinder-block army housing, and I can see ahead exactly where we’re stopping, because there’s already a small crowd of MPs and GIs around the sergeant’s quarters. It’s monsoon season, and everything’s sunk in mud. They’ve built us a makeshift stage out of sandbags and pallets, with an upright Baldwin smack in the middle. It’s so hellishly humid I can feel the keys stick when I press them, and right away I know the piano’s out of tune. They order us to start playing, so we do. Oh, what a disaster. I think about it, and I still want to bury my face in that dirt. When we finish the song, we look around, and they tell us to play it again. Five, six, fifteen, I don’t know how many times, and I’m praying that they’ll realize what a bad idea this is and also thinking I’ll hear a gun pop any moment. Then the door busts open and the man comes out waving his .45 and screaming, ‘Stop, you’re fucking everything up!’ The MPs push him to the ground and that’s it.” He slaps the table with a hand. “That’s how I saved a man’s life.”
This late, everyone’s easy to laugh. He gets Happy to come over from the bar with drinks, four to a hand. There’s a toast. He clinks his glass against the others and resumes his pose, propped on his elbows.
If opportunity allows—and he usually finds it—he’ll tell his new friends about touring the bases in Europe, sharing the stage with Red, backing up Mabel at packed supper clubs, and, more recently, gripping the railing as a metal bird swerved between mountain cliffs and hoping the piano slotted next to him wouldn’t tear from its netting. He likes to dip his voice lower when he talks about the uninvited percussion—mortar rounds being fired into the jungle from hilltop camps. “Then I realize the bang completes my sound,” he’ll say.
“Clyde, you ever listen to them shows from Hon Tre?” asks one of the officers.
His smile wanes at the mention of rock this, groovy that, and especially the Brazilian stuff the clubs have been asking him to play.
“You like gunk in your ears?” he asks. “Those AFVN know-nothings only play you the riff and hook stuff. And if anyone disagrees, send them to Crazy Legs Clyde. I’ll show them what’s right.”
By now, a man his age has made peace with his stage name. It’s all anyone ever remembers. What the hell, he once thought. Oh, what the hell, he still thinks. Most awful is the obligation of having to still give them the Crazy Legs part, as if everything else about his music hasn’t mattered. Worse, that name also means he has to be ever so lively, despite the ruined knees, with his feet flopping and sliding on the stage floor like fresh catch on a dock. Something has to make up for his weakened voice.
“Phone,” Happy says from the bar. He slides out of the booth and winks to the lieutenant who has gotten up to let him through. The lieutenant returns it with a courteous nod. Church boy can’t help but keep his good manners, Clyde thinks.
> “So did you get that consulate gig for me or not?” he says into the receiver.
“Working on it,” says a voice in piercing, accented English. “But there’s something else. A small function. Tomorrow.”
“I’m not playing a wedding, Bobby. I’ve told you that.”
“No, Clyde. Not a wedding. Listen, please. It’s a private show at a house. The client’s a big Crazy Legs fan.”
“Bobby, I might as well play on a toy piano at a temple fair.”
Morris would have laughed at him for tolerating this indignity. He remembers tugging Morris back by the slide of his horn when a patron kept scraping a fork on the china. Those were splendid times: they played until morning, there at the Roost, and also at Leon’s and the Onyx, where, night after night, Clyde listened to music so unearthly he thought he’d heard his bones cry. Even after those joints gave way to the ratholes businessmen ducked in to see girls writhing naked, they kept the jams loud and alive at the few places that hadn’t closed, like at Max’s basement in the Village, or sometimes up on rooftops in the Bronx, where they kept playing through, undershirts soaked, as the El roared past them in the steamy dark.
“What about that nightly at the Oriental? When are you going to snag that for me?”
“Clyde, that’s coming. This is now. This is easy money.”
“Hold on. Have to look at my grid,” Clyde says, and takes his time to check an imaginary calendar book. “How much bread is this going to get me?”
Bobby Blue Eyes gives him the number, five-figured in bahts, good enough along with what little he has saved for a plane ticket across the ocean.
He has known plenty of cities—starry metropolises with wide, endless boulevards, towns with piazzas empty at dawn, and slums in the shadow of medieval towers—each distinct from the one before, and the countless faces and tastes and smells, each an ocean’s width removed from the last. After he woke up from that European dream, Johnny John, who’d flown back from drumming gigs in Asia, suggested he try his luck in Bangkok. He thought he’d swing in for a warm winter. Five years have passed.
Bangkok Wakes to Rain Page 2