by John Burdett
There was a touch of Thai coolness (perhaps repugnant to you, farang, but somewhat charming to me) in the way Chanya watched for his reaction to the opium. The alcohol reached his brain first, with the usual effect. His mood changed, he joked with her and commenced to undress her. They took the ritual shower together (he called it whore hygiene), and her body worked the usual magic. There was no doubt about it, at these moments he literally worshiped her. She could not cynically characterize it as simple lust-there was such reverence in his love-whispers, such gratitude at the relief their coupling would bring to his feverish mind, such genuine awe at her beauty, especially when she smiled. What woman would not be impressed? This was heady stuff, better than the movies and apparently authentic.
Just when he slid his muscular thigh over her body in preparation for mounting her, he gave a long, slow incredulous grunt of satisfaction, like a man who has finally broken the curse of a lifetime. His right leg lay heavy across her own, and she was able to experience the progressive relaxation of the muscles. One by one they opened like flowers, giving up their insane energy, that mad grasping that the Buddha identified as the source of all karma and therefore all suffering. She was so surprised and impressed (the old crone really knew a thing or two after all) that all she wanted to do herself was to lie there, as if she also had taken opium. It was such a relief to experience this great masculine tornado finally let go, the catharsis was hers as well as his. They lay like that for fully ten minutes with him staring at the whorls in her right ear and her listening to the relaxed, deep breathing of a mind that had temporarily healed its terrible wounds. Peace rearranged his tormented features.
It was difficult to overestimate the effect this moment had on her: all of a sudden the expression on his face was normal, human. For more than a year she had assumed that this strange giant was a being-a farang-constituted differently from anyone she had ever known. Now she was witnessing a transformation in which he returned to the human family, with the inevitable implication that everything that went before was a form of insanity, a farang delusion leading nowhere, walking evidence of a whole society's failure to grow up. She was in shock. Finally she managed gently to push his leg off and lay him on his back. He held her for a moment, staring unseeing into her eyes.
"Marge," he whispered.
"Yes, Homer," she replied, doing her best to imitate the cartoon character despite her Thai accent.
The teeniest little chuckle as he spun off into some intriguing puzzle where she could not follow. She put a pillow under his head and wrapped a towel around herself and left him there. Eight hours later he came around feeling delightfully refreshed and in the most serene of moods.
"Opium," she told him. "I put opium in your wine."
The news didn't puncture his serenity at all. Just as the crone had predicted, he asked her for more.
41
H ow like a farang to find a sweet spot in life and then ruin it by excess! In the golden days of opium, a gentleman smoker would restrict himself to a couple of pipes a night and might live to be a hundred, contentedly carrying out his daily chores with the confidence that an exotic vacation from the mundane awaited him on his divan in the evening. (Buddha knows where you get the idea that the unvarnished monotony of the inventory-obsessed mind is normal and healthy, farang.) No one thought the poppy was the answer to life's problems; everyone understood it as merely a break in the interminable workings of the mind; nobody expected to stay high all day.
Chanya made several visits to Mitch after his opium debut. The drug almost replaced her as his main focus of attention, and he always wanted more. He became expert in the use of the pipe, and she grew accustomed to his smeared eyes and stares into the middle distance. The upside was his great gentleness and gratitude. From the depths of serenity he was a perfect lover and husband, although their sex life did reduce in intensity. That also was probably no bad thing. She liked the long, contented silences, during which the farang obsession for filling space with noise was replaced with-glorious emptiness.
On each visit she brought more opium, but with a sinking heart. The crone was becoming alarmed at the amount the farang was consuming. She didn't see herself as a dealer at all-she simply gave people who needed it the traditional herbal cure that was part of her culture. It went with her role as village crone. Finally she warned Chanya she wasn't going to sell her any more. The last thing she needed was some farang drug enforcement agency on her back, or the local cops demanding a cut. Chanya determined to tell Mitch he would have to quit, because she couldn't get him any more of the drug. For once, though, fate seemed to intervene in her favor.
On her next visit Mitch told her a strange story that, in retrospect, she realized had a profound effect on him, although how much was truth and how much fantasy was impossible to say; he at least seemed to believe it.
One evening about a week before, on returning to his apartment from one of his interminable roams around the small town, which he now knew like the back of his hand, he slid his key into his door only to find it open. The truth was, he had grown somewhat absentminded with the various drugs he was abusing and could not be sure that he'd locked it in the first place. As he walked in, however, two pairs of hands pulled him into the front room and silently closed the door behind him.
The scene before him so exactly resembled his worst nightmare that for a moment he was quite paralyzed with fear. The two young men who were holding his arms looked like burly Malays in skullcaps. Seated on the floor was an imam of some kind with a long gray beard, Muslim robes, and a highly decorated cap. Seated around him were about fifteen men, most of them middle-aged, all in skullcaps, who clearly were disciples of the holy imam. The two young men forced him to sit on the floor, facing the imam.
After the first wave of quite devastating paranoia, which made it hard for him to breathe, his training returned to the extent that he panned the group to check for weapons. He saw none, and indeed even the two young guards were unarmed. Mitch's muscles were so developed from decades of pumping iron, he reckoned that he could probably overpower the young men and make a run for it. Evidently this thought had not escaped the minds of the imam and his group, who were making gestures with the palms of their hands that seemed to be requesting him to stay seated. He made a quick assessment. If this group intended to kill him, they could do so whenever they chose. If he escaped from this room, they could easily assassinate him before he reached the airport in Hat Yai-before he could leave Muslim Thailand, in other words. His nerves were badly damaged from opium and speed, but he controlled himself enough to stay seated. He even tried to prepare himself for death. It was deeply embedded among his most sacred promises to himself that he would at least die like a brave American, even if his life had been less than perfect. You can at least do that, he told himself above the violent thumping of his heart.
His self-esteem was not much improved, though, by the imam, who seemed to intuit the depth of Mitch's terror and smiled somewhat patronizingly, as if to a frightened child. The other middle-aged men, at least some of whom Mitch recognized as respectable and influential citizens of Songai Kolok, many of them successful hoteliers, were also making calming gestures with their hands. When it was clear that Mitch was not going to make a run for the door, one of the young Malay guards respectfully seated himself next to the imam.
"Please forgive us, Mr. Turner," the imam began. "I'm afraid that if we had approached you in any other way, certain interests would have taken notice and your life would have been in danger, not to mention our own. Mr. Turner, we are here to help you stay alive. We will do you no harm ourselves, but our warning to you is not without self-interest, as you will see." A cough and a strange gesture that would burn into Mitch Turner's memory: the imam had a habit of moving his hand in a curving, horizontal motion as if he were caressing a pet cat. "Mr. Turner, we know you work for the CIA and that you are here to spy on Muslims, especially fanatics from Indonesia and Malayasia who might be part of Al Qaeda or s
ome other terrorist organization. Believe me, Mr. Turner, we are not at all out of sympathy with the cause, only with the manner of your country's serving it." A placatory raising of the hand. "But no matter, we are not here to convert you, only to try to help you. Mr. Turner, do you really think your presence has gone unnoticed throughout the Muslim world in Southeast Asia? Of course, no one believes your cover story about working for a telecommunications company, and of course your identity, even your photograph, has been broadcast throughout the Muslim networks. How many young fanatics do you think would be only too happy to dispatch you in a suicide bombing? We have been approached by three separate Indonesian groups, two groups based in Malayasia and a couple of young Thai Muslims who are enraged by your provocative presence here. You are an intelligent man, Mr. Turner, even a brilliant one, so I do not need to tell you about the advantages your ruling elite would derive from a permanent war with Islam. Oil and arms, Mr. Turner. America is so much easier to govern and exploit when it is at war, is that not so? Indeed, the world is so much easier to exploit when it is at war." Another pause. "Allow me to quote a very smart American: America is a giant but a deformed one. Yes, Mr. Turner, you are not the only ones who can eavesdrop on the electronic world-most of your components are fabricated over the border in Malaysia, don't forget."
A long pause. Mitch Turner was trying to come to terms: what the hell was going on here? That quote was from an e-mail he'd sent to a close friend in the United States.
The imam continued. "We do not want war, Mr. Turner. We are Thai citizens and happy to be so. However, we are also Muslims, and perhaps I do not need to tell you how ruthless Thai Buddhists can be when they feel the integrity of the kingdom under threat. If you are murdered down here in the south, Mr. Turner, Washington's screams will be heard worldwide. Enormous pressure will be brought to bear on the Thai government, which already has contingency plans to intern Muslims in camps if the security situation worsens. That of course will be the beginning of the end, not only for us but for peace in Southeast Asia. But I don't think your government minds much about that." A short pause. "We want you out of Songai Kolok, Mr. Turner. If you will not go to save your own skin, then do it for our sake. I believe you are a Christian, is that not so? Perhaps you know how deeply Islam reveres Christ? For Christ's sake, then, go away." Looking deeply into Mitch Turner's eyes: "Pursue your death wish in some other land, Mr. Turner. That way perhaps you will be the only victim, rather than half the world."
And with that the imam rose and crossed the floor with great dignity, leading the others behind him. He paused at the door: "Mr. Turner, there are so many problems with Western society, but there may be one above all others that will destroy civilization. I speak of your inability to conceive that you might be wrong."
Now Mitch Turner was alone. Down below in the huts around the police station the night was in full swing. Mitch Turner was shaking with shock. Pacing up and down his flat with his head reeling, it took him more than five minutes to notice a package on his coffee table done up in ornate green and gold wrapping and topped off with a gold ribbon. In the circumstances a booby trap was unlikely, but his nerves were in such bad shape, he fumbled time after time while opening it. Inside: a ball of dense black viscous opium, far bigger than anything Chanya had ever brought him.
He knew I have a death wish, he saw it, Mitch Turner muttered as he prepared his pipe.
42
N ow Chanya couldn't believe what a bad turn everything was taking. Mitch Turner was an opium addict, and it was all her fault.
A Thai shrug. Karma was karma. Perhaps she should not have introduced him to the drug, but the kind of obsessional behavior that turned it into a dangerous addiction came from his own background-she could hardly hold herself responsible for that. She had acted with the best of intentions, but as the Buddhists said, the only real favor you can ever do for another being is to help him or her on the way to nirvana. Everything else is mere indulgence. She felt it was about time she ended her own indulgence. In any event, she had now made the decision to come work for us.
With the simplicity of a Thai in a fix, she changed the sim card in her mobile telephone and stopped replying to his e-mails. With the determination of an American in the grip of an obsession, he found her after a few months at the Old Man's Club.
Chanya had nothing against my mother's bar, but it was a drag, frankly, to return to that sordid mind-set just when you thought you'd escaped. She had nothing against the johns either-in the whole of her long career, she had come across no more than five or six who'd given her trouble, and she knew how to deal with that. More than anything it was the indignity. Being twenty-nine simply was not the same as being nineteen. You couldn't laugh it off as some game you were playing on the way to growing up. Whenever she could, she avoided fellatio. Nothing to do but to put a brave face on it all, though. A sad whore is a bankrupt whore. The johns come to be cheered up; generally they had problems of their own-why else would they be hiring flesh? It was a sad and fallen world, under the surface, just like the Buddha said: there is suffering. She could hardly believe it when she saw him sitting there in the Old Man's Club that night.
She had already been with one customer, and it was her right to go home if she wished, but she was working at full power. She was taking it easy at that moment, though, and had just emerged from one of the upstairs rooms where she had been resting for half an hour, by which time the brooding farang was sitting in his corner, ignored by the rest of the girls. She caught my eye when she reached the bottom of the stairs and made it look as if she were following a hint from me to go and sit with him. She exercised all her powers of self-control, not because it mattered particularly that this customer was her lover, but because like all Thais she loathes any kind of public scene. She was thankful that Mitch understood enough about Asia to respect this. Indeed, she was impressed with his appearance. He seemed much healthier and mentally more together than when she'd last seen him.
His approach to her that night was quite new. He no longer relied on wacky humor to seduce her, but he obviously intended to impress her with his sobriety. Apparently he was able to drink a couple of beers without losing control. He was doing Cool with considerable success. He admitted to being lonely and to missing her badly, but strictly within the parameters of the sane. He wanted to try again, to show her that he was not nuts, that the thing could work. There was enormous charm in the humble way he told her how good she looked, how deeply he was in love with her, and offered to pay her bar fine.
He had rented a room in a reasonably clean hotel just a short walk from the bar. They held hands as they left, and on the way to his hotel she asked how he was managing to cope with the culture shock, the boredom, the lack of purpose down there in Songai Kolok, where frankly even she would feel lonesome.
"Stop," I tell her. "I can't stand any more of your lies."
43
W hat lies?"
She is startled. Her narrative seemed to be going so well. Perhaps she had started to believe it herself.
"Lies of omission. The tattoo, darling. You have to tell me about that."
She takes a deep breath. "I do?" Checking my face with an ancient question in mind: Can he take it? "Okay."
Hard to say what happened first-Mitch's interest in Islam, or his decision to finally go ahead with a large tattoo. Somehow they seemed a product of the same desperate impulse. Even then his conversation had begun to lack coherence. Putting it all together as best she can, it seems that the CIA spy befriended the very imam who had come to see him that night to warn him of the threat to his life by radical fanatics. Chanya's memory of his conversation at this time is vivid but partial, like the intense but inexplicable images of an opium dream, which it may well be, for at this stage Mitch hardly left his room without smoking at least one pipe.
The imam lives out of town in a modest wooden house on stilts in the middle of a lush green hollow, of the sort his Arab brethren associate with paradise. An artesian
well with the long crossbeam of former times joins land and sky. There are no electric or telephone cables here; this is an oasis undefiled by utility. Nestled still more deeply into the hollow and no more than five minutes' walk from the cleric's home: a mosque so cute, it might have been invented by a cartoonist. The dome's compass is no greater than that of a large house; the minaret is less intimidating than a radio antenna. On his first visit Mitch found himself at the center of a small gang of bodyguards, one of whom spoke to a servant woman, who reported that the revered cleric was in prayer but would see him in due course. He sat cross-legged on a rush mat, drank sweet peppermint tea, and exchanged small talk with the bodyguards who, apparently convinced by intuition that he was harmless, did not search him. Then quite different men began to arrive. They were bearded, wore the long robes and skullcaps of Muslim clerics, and took no notice of him at all.
Now five quite elderly men with graying beards arrived with the dignified bearing of magi, each one more straight-backed than the last, each smoothly descending to the floor and crossing his legs under his long robes with the fluidity of the enlightened, each composing himself with a sigh and a closing of the eyes. They communicated with brief unintelligible murmurs and paid him no attention. Finally the host arrived. He owned all the bells and whistles of an aesthete, including the gaunt features, the long gray beard, the straight back, the prayerful manner-but there was an extra energy in his gestures, a gleam in his coal-black eyes. A young man translated the imam's words for Mitch: