A Haunting Smile

by Christopher G. Moore

  “You come back tomorrow?” she called after him.

  He smiled, turned around in the street, hands in his pockets.

  “Wednesday. I come back.”

  The officer nodded to the soldier directly behind him, and pointed at the man in the street. The soldier stood up in the back of the jeep, braced himself for a clean shot and fired. An M-16 round ripped through the man’s head as he fished for his car keys. Skull and brains spattered the BMW windscreen, and he dropped in the street. Wednesday, I come back were his final words on earth; words which promised a time and place commitment and assumed a future he could not keep. The officer gave another hand signal, this time to the driver, who switched on the engine and sped away from the curb. The officer did not order the driver to stop for an examination of the body in the street. This “communist” had stolen property; he had slept with the officer’s minor wife. He had thought long but the decision was not that hard to kill the intruder. To have killed the woman would have been another, more difficult option but the thought crossed his mind. He thought of himself ordering one of his men to shoot her, and looking at the surprise on her face as the blood poured from the wound. She had taken his face, he would take her life. Then he told himself to have a cool heart. There was always another time and place. The body in the street would be a warning. There would always be a next time, he thought. She would not forget this night.

  The young woman ran barefoot into the road screaming, “No, no,” her thin naked legs flying from under the white silk night gown. The officer had given her the gown as a present. She ran into the street wearing the gift gown and dropped down on her knees, touching the dead man’s face. She felt his warm blood between her toes. The officer had always liked this white silk gown on her. As she wept, kissing the dead man’s face, she rocked back and forth, cursing the Army, the fighting, the killing.

  The dead man’s forehead was blown out. The bullet had left a large, ugly mallet of gunk—a stew of bone, brain, and blood. She rolled him over, reached inside his back pocket, removing his wallet, then his ring, and watch. She wiped her eyes and ran back into her shack. There was blood on the white silk which left a stain.

  When the officer asked her about the stain she said, bowing her head, that it was from her period. And the corners of his lips turned into a smile, as he remembered the snap of the man’s head in the street, and the whisper of the word Wednesday.

  She asked, “Did you kill anyone during the troubles?”

  He didn’t answer her, letting the question fill the silence between them for several seconds. He watched the light dancing in her eyes and wondered what the dead man had seen when he stared into her eyes.

  “Only a communist,” he finally said.

  “What is a communist?” she asked, lips pursed with irony.

  He had prepared himself for this question. He knew her attitude wasn’t political; she had merely wished to test him. He had practiced what his response would be and was happy to repeat the answer he had memorized.

  “A communist is a man who takes another man’s property without paying compensation. He violates another man’s property. He doesn’t believe in private property. He believes all property is public; owned by everyone. This is foolish. We cannot tolerate such acts. I am certain you agree.”

  “A capitalist invests in his property,” she said. “The better the property, the more the investment costs. And he must maintain his property or someone else may take it.”

  He handed her a gold necklace and she smiled, cupping her hands and raising them to her forehead in a perfectly executed wai.

  “I’m a good capitalist,” he said. “Tonight I want you to wear the white silk gown I gave you.”

  She looked him straight in the eye. “I cannot. A large rat chewed a hole in the gown. I had to throw it away.”

  “How do you know it was a rat?”

  “I saw its body caught in the trap. It was dead.”

  The officer liked her answer.

  She didn’t tell him about her nightmares from the previous nights. It wasn’t about a rat but her dead lover. In the nightmare she tried to wash the blood off her feet. But no matter how much soap and water she used, the blood was never washed away. She no longer remembered her dead lover’s face. She closed her eyes and tried. But this memory of blood gushed from a hidden source and flooded her dreams a deep shade of red. Red had been the color of the communist flag.

  2

  “YOU ARE TUNED in to Radio Bangkok 108.3. This is Denny Addison bringing you the latest news update in Bangkok. About ten minutes ago the Army tried to storm the staircase to our building. We’re on the sixth floor. The Navy personnel are outside the studio. We heard the soldiers rolling down the stairs. We have blood all over the place. It’s weird inside this building, and particularly in this studio. It’s like being a fish in a tank. We are surrounded by tanks and soldiers trying to blow us away. It’s wild, man. You remain our lifeline to the outside world. If they blow us away, let the people on the outside know that we gave our best. That we did everything to stay on the air. And we aren’t gonna stop for a minute bringing the latest updates on troop movements, the shootings, and the other chaos flying around the City of Angels. Remember one thing. Don’t believe anything you hear on the government channels. Let’s put it to a democratic vote. All those who believe what the Army is telling you raise your hand.” The DJ pushed the button for the laugh track. Several seconds of sustained laughter ripped through the airwaves. “Seriously folks, the Army may be a little confused about the truth of what they are doing. What’s on TV are lies and more lies. A lot of people are getting shot. Is the Army giving you the straight goods? Or showing you any pictures of the killing going on? No way, man. Check out the BBC and NHK. They have enough bodies and beatings on film to make a TV series. The whole world is watching the boys downstairs. The world knows who is being naughty and nice. They have your picture on film. We’ve got more reports of dead bodies loaded into Army trucks. We had a call from a banker. A banker saw the bodies. You know what? It was too much for him. He’s joined the demonstration. Hey, fellahs, where are you taking the dead? Here is another tune for the Army officers who keep ordering soldiers to break through to the sixth floor and silence us. They have threatened to kill us dead. So we send them this song with love. We Shall Overcome.”

  Reports and rumors careened around Bangkok like a drunk whore, slurring her words, forgetting where she’d been and where she was going next. Shoppers at Villa had pocket radios tuned to 108.3. Grabbing food hand over fist and listening through headsets plugged into their ears. The DJs whipped up their fear and paranoia.

  “Okay, we had a call. The callers says a general has been killed by his troops. Unconfirmed but there it is. Who knows who is killing outside or inside? Another rumor has the head general buying tickets for a flight to Sweden. Just in case things turn ugly for the Army,” said Denny Addison.

  Still other rumors circulated in the street; neighbor to neighbor, friend to friend, and in the work place. Some rumors had one faction of generals in control, staying for the duration and murdering anyone who resisted. Farangs and Thais had the rare experience of finding themselves equally at risk, on the outside, and facing a common enemy. In the panic people were on the run, hiding, pacing around, sneaking out for food. Life was on the skids greased with anger, fear, loathing, and confusion. Middle-aged white women, lipstick smeared from shaky, hurried hands, wearing crumpled sun dresses, rushed around the supermarkets stuffing wire baskets to overflowing with bread, tinned hams, packaged pasta, breakfast cereal, Coca-Cola by the case. These food wagons lined up for hours at check-out counters. The foreigners hugging their bags of food became insane with fear. Food fears, gun-shot fears, robbery, rape, vandalism fears wormed their way into the hearts and minds of everyone.

  “Someone threw a brick through a window at Villa,” said one of the women in the line for the cash register.

  “My maid refuses to leave the house. I have to d
o the shopping,” said another expat woman.

  “At least you have a maid. Mine is at the demonstrations,” said yet another.

  “They’ve closed the international school. They are cutting the electricity at seven tonight.”

  “My husband says the Army has orders not to shoot white people.”

  Gossip and rumors infected everyone in the city. The sudden realization of danger made people insane. Someone started a rumor that it was snowing in Chiang Mai. Some people believed it. The rumor disease swelled the size of the demonstrations; the crowds pressed into the streets hunting down shreds of half-truths, lies, distortions. Maids, students, yuppies, whores, hawkers, office workers, store clerks, hangers-on, media people, the old and the young, all bound by the bond of mutual curiosity, marched into the street all night long.

  “Democracy,” the students shouted. This wasn’t part of the sacred gift which was transmitted in the blood from generation to generation.

  Bang, bang. That was the reply of the troops, exchanging bullets for words. Some respectable people were shot in the head.

  The reign of confusion and terror swallowed all conversation, thoughts, and dreams. Except at HQ where the girls still went short time for three reds, and this fact contributed to the twisted rumor that Thai girls were seen plotting with three reds—so the confirmation bounced to the Army side that communists were seen at a place the farang called HQ. History hadn’t ended after all—it had holed up at HQ. The old enemies of Thailand were in the Alley of Revenge, looking to aid and abet all invaders, and the generals told themselves that the Army had to do what had to be done.

  Crowds clashed in deadly confrontations with soldiers who were following orders. Hit and run missions. Some demonstrators peered around a corner and an Army patrol opened fire. Thousands of rounds were fired into the air.

  “Radio Bangkok 108.3. We’ve got a contest for the best rumor. What are you hearing? What are you seeing? What in the hell is really going on out there? The numbnuts downstairs are still shooting at us. That ain’t a rumor. Listen for yourself.”

  Bang, bang.

  “Heard enough? We got a general escaping in a hot air balloon. What else you got, Bangkok? We just had a nice gentleman from the Army phone and say they were going to machine-gun my family. We already thought of the family death threat angle, fellah. We are one step ahead of you. The family is in hiding. Save your severed dog’s head and shot-gun attacks for another day. We are staying put. More rumors out there? Anyone seen that general hanging out of a weather balloon?”

  The mysterious Third Hand was sighted lurking in the shadows by an Army patrol, before the hand running on all five fingers disappeared down a narrow soi. Maw pii or witch doctors had visions of flocks of black swans circling above the city. There was a rumor of the Army splitting into factions, and the prime minister splitting with his supreme commander. Rumors of summary executions were high on the popularity list. More gunfire was heard around Democracy Monument. Reports of troop movements from Nakhon Ratchasima and Chiang Mai heading to Bangkok from upcountry passed from one fax machine to another. A detachment of marines were rumored to have protected a group of demonstrators from the Army. But the killing machine operated through the night, throughout the city—that was no rumor. Small groups of protesters hid themselves in doorways, trying to make themselves small. Troops were under orders to follow the demonstrators through the dark streets with full magazines loaded in their M-16s.

  Another fax: “Soldiers are reported arriving from the north and south and the west. Moderate factions of the Army are marching on Bangkok. The telephone lines will be cut in three hours. Then the electricity.”

  No one knew what would happen next. Farangs and Thai alike switched between 108.3 and the BBC, VOA, and ABC—avoiding the government stations which called the demonstrators troublemakers—the foreign journalists broadcast from the front lines, witnessing the killings, the beating, and telling the world that the city was waiting for the gunfire to draw closer...

  Tales of black magic rituals filtered out. The organizers had an old traditional formula for their revenge, working under a dim fluorescent light bulb hung inside a fruit vendor’s cart. An ingredient in a Thai black magic spell called kradook phi taihong—the bone fragment of a person who had died in an accident or violently.

  The bones were produced from an old bag and laid out on the table. Next a peasant with bowed legs and Khmer writing tattooed in blue ink on his chest returned with pieces of a brick from an abandoned temple, a broken monk’s bowl, and a broken pestle. One person untied the ropes holding a makeshift coffin on an ice cream cart. With some help from the tattooed man, they lugged the coffin off the cart and set it on the ground. They placed the ingredients inside, with a picture of the generals taped to the side. An old woman with cobweb hair spit in the pan as she stood before an open fire. The spit bubbled and hissed in the pan. A young girl in a school uniform stifled a scream. The old witch never missed a beat, and her croaky voice raised in a sing-song chant broke the silence. She used a wooden stick to stir a pan of chili and salt. She was cooking the food the spirits order before taking the requested revenge. The chef was a widow. She rotated the cooking duties with a widower who sweated over the fire.

  A small crowd—mostly upcountry peasants from squatters’ slums—watched the black-magic brew taking form; the air smelled of garlic and chili, the stringent smell of revenge. No one talked much in the darkness. Faces lit from the smoky fire. Lookouts watched for Army patrols. The old man turned the widow’s stick inside the pan. The chanting swept from the old man to the old woman and into the small crowd. As they stirred, the widow and widower enlisted the gods in the cursing ceremony to deposit nails, dirty socks, and broken glass inside the stomach of the cursed person.

  “Smells about right,” said Montezuma, moving from the shadows, and looking over the widow’s stooped shoulder. “Never underestimate the power of witchcraft. Generals fear spells, curses, pots boiling with the sickly smell of sweet revenge.”

  Cortez materialized next to the fruit cart.

  “Show time,” said Cortez, but without much conviction. He was looking for Daeng and had talked with her at the Royal Hotel. She was supposedly waiting for him; but Daeng didn’t seem all that reliable. Would she bolt? Or would she stay until he could help her? Cortez had so many questions and at the same time had to humor, and play along with Montezuma who would have struck Daeng dead if he’d had any idea she existed.

  “Ah, revenge,” said Montezuma. “The mere thought makes me flutter with that old-time anticipation.”

  “Time to gather some skulls, old chum.”

  “Not before we have our dinner,” said Montezuma.

  That was an Indian for you, thought Cortez. Dead four hundred fifty odd years and still he was a sucker for chili peppers sauted in an old witch’s spit. Montezuma read Cortez’s mind, and flashed a Jack Nicholson smile. “Of course, I would haven’t touched the spit without the chili.”

  “Radio Bangkok 108.3 broadcasting live. We just had a caller who wins a prize for the best rumor of the hour. This caller claims to have seen ghosts in the region of the Royal Hotel. One ghost is farang and his friend is some kind of American Indian. They weren’t speaking English. But they were rocking and rolling. Like the Blues Brothers. The Army has turned into a killing machine; and now this. Spirits of the dead coming back, shaking their heads—if ghosts have heads—and wondering why young people are being machine-gunned in the streets. I guess it would take a ghost to answer that one.”

  3

  CORTEZ’S TEMPLE

  by

  Harry Purcell

  WILLIAM HAWKINS MORRIS Purcell—fondly referred to by other family members as “Hawks” or the “Original Hawk”—in 1519 reported that Cortez experienced a weak stomach, blood in his stool, and a huge moral chip on his shoulder, a flair for command, and a king and Pope riding on his back. Cortez feigned a major hang-up with the Aztec universal practice of sodomy. That was C
ortez’s cover story; but as Hawks reported at the time, people write a lot of shit. They knowingly falsify reports to please those in power. Hawks’ account is vague on a number of central issues. For example, it is difficult to know exactly how much Cortez personally saw or how much he relied upon the lies in reports written by others who feared offending the orthodox views of those in Spain and Rome. Cortez was an able field commander. The weapons the family had sold him and which were under his command did the job. Thus there was never any issue of insufficient fire power or malfunctioning weapon systems. The hard lesson that Hawks passed down from generation to generation in the Purcell family was largely formed from his association with Cortez and was that generals were limited people. Power had not just corrupted them but limited them in the size and complexity of the world they sought to control. This limitation was their strength and weakness. Strength—they rarely suffered from over-thinking a problem or from indecision. Weakness—they rarely understood the limits of power. Cortez was a military type and mindset, his sixteenth-century Spanish brain was further disturbed by the great wash of daily masses and belief in God. Perhaps the temple with forty towers was not part of a temple after all—or at least not the kind of temple Cortez had any frame of reference for.

  If Hawks were alive today, he might see the Aztec temples were more likely prototype Patpong skull bars. The Spanish were just another bunch of soldiers on R & R, looking for sex, drugs, and rock ’n roll. What skull theory linked the three or four skull bars in Patpong to the Aztec skull temples? Before the big “A,” the Patpong skull bars filled up every night with shipwrecked sailors and off-duty soldiers drawn from the four corners of the earth. Bar girls slithered inside dark rooms, requesting money in return for supplying their head to these fighting men who were facing an uncertain future, thinking that taking a head in this way might be their last chance, it made them forget the war, and closed the open ring of passion before returning to combat.