A Haunting Smile

by Christopher G. Moore

  “You wrote in Liberation—The True Story, the Real Story that I was killed by one of my own subjects,” said Montezuma. “I wasn’t looking. So how am I to know? I was the victim. You were the aggressor. Not that your position counts for much now.” Montezuma gave a high-pitched laugh.

  “I assumed the murderer was one of your subjects. But could I be certain who killed you? No. I had no TV cameras to record what actually happened,” said Cortez. “I had conflicting information on the subject. I couldn’t very well write to Charles V that I, Cortez, didn’t know who was responsible for killing you.”

  “Think of all the hundreds of books that would have been written about me, and the dozens of films, TV movies, and mini-series,” sighed Montezuma. “An eternity of work. Instead of working for eternity on interviewing you plugging your book to an audience who has never heard of you or us, and can never buy a single book to find out. Because the dead have no money.”

  “I’m thinking. Okay, here it is. The mystery of who killed you and why could use better special effects. It’s for your own good. If we can alter how your life ended, then your death becomes far more important than your life or Aztec culture. The stone—let’s make it a fist-sized diamond—used to kill you would be worth a small fortune at auction. Your face and the diamond go on T-shirts. Now, even though you’re dead, you’re a living legend. People will have studied every frame of the film; written doctoral theses on how and why you died, who was responsible for your death and the cover-up surrounding your death.”

  “And Cortez would be the villain?” said Montezuma, starting to warm up to the idea.

  “Most likely. Four hundred fifty years ago who ever heard of retakes, hitting your mark, make-up, special effects, changing the script to make it politically correct, dailies, weekly box office takes? Monty, our film based on my book Liberation…”

  “Stop, I know the title,” said Montezuma.

  “Our film wouldn’t be only about the hurled stone. You took three days to die. Zapruder could have interviewed you on your death bed. Asked you who you thought threw the stone. About your theories on who your real enemies might be. Your theory of life, human sacrifice, bloody idol making as a handicraft art, that sort of thing.”

  “What are you really up to? Escape, isn’t it? Well, it’s not going to happen,” said Montezuma, as the soldiers finished dumping bodies in the pit and a back hoe scooped up dirt and rock and the operator pressed the levers to dump the contents into the pit.

  “This ‘They’—I never had any idea who ‘They’ were—killed your son and daughters and all the other chiefs we had captured. Zapruder would have had a field day filming all those murders. Of course, they tortured most of your relatives and chiefs before killing them. What a film that would have made. Think if after Kennedy had been shot dead, they had killed his wife, kids, the vice-president, the speaker of the House, the Secretary of State, and the CIA director—in front of the TV. That would have been something. Just as if a TV camera had recorded a real bloodbath in Mexico, then everyone would have said about Kennedy’s assassination—a bad thing, a sad thing, but realistically, folks, with no insult for the violent streak of people living at the time—what happened to Kennedy was nothing when played next to the violent and horrible Montezuma videotape which included the bloody idols and his dead relatives and advisers.”

  Montezuma sat silently for a moment as the Earth Moving Machines finished covering the grave. The soldiers got back into their trucks and jeeps and drove off into the night.

  “You think they will get away with it?” asked Montezuma.

  “Did you see any phones or TVs?” asked Cortez. “There’s your answer. Events no longer exist as they did in our time. Images on tape and shown on TV define all that is real. If the movement isn’t recorded for eye wave transmission, how can it exist as part of history? There is only room for captured images. What we used to call events of history—like the dumping or secret burial of bodies—fail to have force unless they are made into entertainment.”

  “Like when we tape before our freshly killed audience?” asked Montezuma.

  “Monty, you were never any good at stand-up, even when I ordered you put in chains.”

  Montezuma shook his head, thinking that Cortez was right about the responsibility for events and how this limitation had caused him so much grief in the old days. Before Cortez arrived in Mexico, Montezuma had sought a reading of events—this was the function of wizards and prophets—and you could always have them and their families executed if they read the future wrong. As Montezuma remained misty-eyed—a condition arising out of materializing out of mist—thinking of the old omens of the wind blowing over a boiling lake in Mexico, one of the Thai spirits rose from the toxic waste dump and walked over to Montezuma.

  “Who are you?” asked the Thai youth of about twenty.

  “Montezuma,” he replied. “Of course you’ve heard of me.”

  “Never heard of you,” said the youth.

  “And this is Cortez,” said Montezuma.

  “Never heard of you either,” replied the boy in the universal language of the dead. “What are you doing here?”

  “We have come to count and collect you. You’re our guest audience for the next taping session of Liberation—The True Story, the Real Story. This Indian interviews me, I count you, and I tell you about my newold book. It’s our job to entertain, and your job is to be entertained. Don’t worry, you only have to sit through it once,” said Cortez.

  “Think of us as gatekeepers. Cortez has one of those counter jobs they use for cattle. Click. Click. You’re another number. Our job is to count the mob members who didn’t make it. Those who did not survive the massacres,” said Montezuma. “How many others down there with you?”

  Before the youth could tally the number, a cluster of similar spirits appeared on the surface of the dump. Cortez and Montezuma inspected the crowd, compared numbers; Montezuma looked over Cortez’s shoulder. “A rather thin audience. The numbers are the same except for him,” said Montezuma, pointing at Weird Bob. “He’s not a reporter. I already checked.”

  Cortez hated it when Montezuma was right before he had a chance to be right. All the other dead were no more than twenty-two years old. One was a young upcountry girl named Daeng; she had a half-moon-shaped scar on her face. She looked frightened. “My poor mother, can someone tell my mother that I’m all right?”

  “We’ll look after it,” said Cortez. Shit, he thought. This was his one chance to knock a single digit off the vastly inflated number of Aztec dead. He had failed again. It was enough to make the angels weep, this constant inability to remove a single number from those he had counted in the streets and lakes of Monty’s home town.

  Weird Bob was the only middle-aged face among the fresh group auditioning for the part of new-old audience; and the only farang face as well.

  “You, the one with the bad rug on your head. Yes, you, the tall guy wearing a wig no one should be caught dead in, this way,” said Montezuma, blowing into a seashell. The waves of sound pushed Weird Bob back.

  “But why?” asked Weird Bob.

  “You aren’t part of the audience. We can’t count you. You must wait for the other gatekeepers,” said Cortez, asserting his command.

  Weird Bob, his fan rotating above his head, the red ribbon and bow fluttering, began sinking back into the toxic dump. When he was waist high, he called out to Cortez. “Who am I waiting for?” asked Weird Bob.

  “The Third Hand,” said Montezuma. “He’ll act as your host. You others, line up, count-off down the line, and then let’s go. It’s time for us to begin our live taping before a dead audience.”

  On the way out of the dump site, Cortez calmed his new charges. “It’s just a matter of time before you will no longer occupy space or time. This is a transitional phase. You’re the lucky ones unlike Monty and me. You might say we pulled celebrity duty because of our past association.”

  “One question,” said one of the Thai
youths. “Back there you told the farang to wait for the Third Hand gatekeeper. Who in the fuck is the Third Hand gatekeeper?”

  Cortez smiled at Montezuma. “That’s an easy one.”

  Together they chanted, “The place without a gate or a keeper. The place which is not a place. The place with no tape play or sound to wave. The wait for a date which cannot be made or unmade.”

  PART 6

  THE HUMAN CONDITION

  1

  “YOU ARE PLUGGED into Radio Bangkok 108.3, and this is Denny Addison bringing you on the spot news from the City of Angels. No one can answer the big question. Is it over out there? The phone calls are telling us that the Army is pulling back. Is my brain fried or what? After four days of broadcasting from the sixth floor, I may have no brain left. Wait, one minute, I’ve just been passed a message. The armored personnel carriers parked downstairs have left the scene. Could this mean no more assault teams ordered to the sixth floor with orders to kill us? That’s cool. I’m not endorsing these stories, you understand. I haven’t personally looked out the window. Hey, what are you doing? Sorry, folks, that voice you hear in the background is Asanee. Asanee, sweetheart. Come over here and say a few words. Don’t be shy.”

  Asanee, “Here is your camera, asshole. Whenever you get that sinking feeling you can sit on this end.”

  Sound byte: Plastic casing and metal crashing on a desk, footsteps falling and a door slamming.

  Addison: “Martyrdom. An avenging angel. Get-even time. I survived repeated attacks by armed men in uniform, and now? Am I to be taken out of action by my girlfriend? What is this she’s doing to my equipment? She looked normal, healthy and then under the pressure of the moment, she cracked and has gone mad. Was it only the pressure or could it be genetic? Or maybe it’s the lack of sleep? Or could she have been intoxicated by rage and anger over some complicated emotional problem from her childhood? In the media those of us in the public eye attract the deeply disturbed who need a scapegoat. I’m a good guy for me, and a good guy for you. Not some corporate shit or dry Embassy type. Let’s track through the possibilities. Could this have been something caused by her genes? Her father is a well-known resident. Robert Tuttle who made a reputation by recording for posterity the following selections at HQ: 108—Say You, Say Me. 129—No Coke. 127—I Feel the Earth Move. 139—Like a Prayer. 279—Be My Baby. Numbers 239 and 249—Simply Irresistible. 233—Unchained Melody.”

  Sound byte: A fist slamming into a jaw, the cracking of bones, and whiney groans.

  Addison: “God, I’m bleeding. Send for an ambulance.”

  Sound byte: Addison falling off his chair, as he passes out, and landing hard on the floor.

  Asanee: “DJ Addison has fallen into his mike and must now leave the air. And soon the country. Thank you for the audition. We will call you back if we can use you. Some music from U2’s The Joshua Tree album. Mothers of the Disappeared.”

  Sound byte: Addison groaning and moaning in the background.

  2

  AT DAWN THE violence in the streets ended. The Army pulled back. A mixture of happiness, bitterness, despair and relief ran through the crowds at Ramkhamhaeng University. It was strange to suddenly realize it was over. The time had come to disperse and go home. But what had the protesters achieved? One man screamed at the sky, tearing off his black headband. Some others cried; some applauded. In this time of confusion people milled in small groups, but small clusters split away and disappeared. Tuttle, who had failed to find Daeng, began the long walk home from Ramkhamhaeng. One of the people he had talked with earlier walked alongside him. For a few minutes neither one said anything.

  “You’ll find your friend now,” Dow said, walking down the litterfilled street. The barrels in which fires had been lit still had embers burning at dawn. The barricades spilled into the street, and they walked around a burnt-out car.

  “It ended like it started. With great speed,” he said.

  He looked at her, wondering what she was doing following him. Dow, who had been at the barricades for twenty hours, stuffed her hands in her jeans pockets, and walked with her head down. She had a lonely and dejected attitude; as if a shudder of gloom had squeezed her shoulders forward. He knew little about her, other than she was a twenty-nine-year old engineer; but could have passed for a student in her jeans, T-shirt, and a black pro-democracy headband wrapped around her forehead. Dow had been one of those who cried when the word came down that the Prime Minister would resign and the troops had been ordered to withdraw.

  “It was all for nothing. People killed for what?” she asked. “Nothing. And I fucking hate that.”

  The metal grates were closed on the shop houses. People were sleeping on mats inside. The streets were like those of a ghost town. They walked down the center of the road—there was no traffic—and Tuttle thought about a Thai middle-class woman expressing her frustration and grief. Dow was a modern Thai woman. Using the “fuck” word was unusual even among the HQ girls. But Dow had spent her formative life amongst a rougher crowd—engineers.

  “Why are you walking with me?”

  “I’m fucking depressed and I don’t want to be alone.”

  He thought for a moment. “What about your friends?”

  “They don’t understand,” she said.

  “And you think I do?”

  “You risked your life looking for someone you didn’t even know. Some upcountry girl no one cares about. Isn’t the English word compassion?”

  He looked at the street, then felt her arm thread through his own. She gave his arm a light squeeze. Her act startled Tuttle; it was out of character for a respectable Thai woman to make physical contact. Dow’s character had escaped being shaped by an abiding fear of being embarrassed. Respectable Thais normally didn’t trust a strange foreigner. The risk of embarrassment in front of others—family and friends—was too great. They avoided foreigners who couldn’t hope to know the rules. It wasn’t the foreigner’s fault. The rules weren’t written down and were not articulated; but among the Thais all such rules were fully understood. One of them was never to be seen to touch a farang. Only prostitutes would be so bold. Dow had broken one rule after another. And Tuttle found himself asking what had happened in her life to kill her fear of embarrassment.

  “You’re like a couvade,” said Dow.

  “Couvade? Is that Thai?”

  “French. But it’s an old, old practice in some tribes where a husband takes to bed when his wife goes into labor. The husband experiences the pain of childbirth with her. He doesn’t stand apart or at another place. He doubles up with her pain of childbirth. They share the birth process. You take another’s pain as your own, make it your own, and you find the truth of sharing,” she said.

  “I’m going home,” he said. In two decades in Thailand he had never quite met anyone like Dow. Out of the blue, in the middle of a crowd, she had attached herself to him.

  “I’m going home with you. If you can handle that.”

  Dow was definitely the next generation, he thought. On the walk back, Tuttle discovered why this outsider had attacked and criticized those who had left—something Thais rarely did with a farang. Dow was from an ordinary family. She had studied engineering at university in America, returned to Thailand, finding she could never really come back. Then the killings started, and for the first time, walking with Dow, Tuttle understood what had joined people together in Bangkok—they felt like “outsiders” who united to resist the generals. When suddenly the Army withdrew, and the Prime Minister promised to leave, the bond of outsideness created by a common enemy had been crushed, and the bulk of those who went into the street disappeared, faded away, leaving Dow, isolated with her American engineer’s vocabulary and directness, once again standing apart.

  The end of the killings did not end the pain. She remained as far outside society as before. For a brief few days she had found herself almost accepted. Once more she knew instinctively she would be cast away. She had tagged onto Tuttle, this strange f
arang, looking to rescue a bar girl. She saw something of her own futility in his action. He was her couvade. And the longer they walked and talked about what had happened at Sanam Luang, the politics in England, and her work with an oil company in Texas, the more normal she felt. She was grateful to find someone who could lessen her heartache and, for a while, fill the vacuum left when she discovered that what she had found in the crowd wasn’t ever really present. Tuttle told her the story about how he had confused bones floating on the Nan River for stones, and how he had filled his kayak full with the treasures only to arrive at Daeng’s village and find out he had been a floating fool. He told her about the tiny hand-carved ivory heads General Xue had braided into his moustache.

  The first thing Tuttle did inside the house was to turn on the radio. He then went to the fridge and poured two large glasses of orange juice. Dow sat on the couch, looking at the Denny Addison folders stacked on the table—relics that Ross had left behind.

  Then Tuttle heard his own name on the radio. Dow’s head popped up from a photograph of Addison with a Filipino girl, and she looked at the radio. She saw Tuttle a couple of feet away holding the two glasses of juice. It was Denny Addison on Radio Bangkok 108.3:

  “Her father is a well-known resident. Robert Tuttle who made a reputation by recording for posterity the HQ jukebox songs by their correct numbers. That’s how I want to be remembered. Robert Tuttle met Asanee’s mother when she was a teenager. The mother worked a coffee shop on Soi Nana. Tuttle took Bunny—dig the name—back to her hooch on Soi Sarasin. In those days, there was a klong which ran alongside the soi, and the shacks were built next to the water. Asanee told me her mother had one of the best hooches in the slum. Bunny and Tuttle lit mosquito coils, drank beer, and rolled around on bamboo mats. Boom boom, is the technical, scientific term for this behavior. What could Tuttle have said, ‘Be my baby’? Whatever he said, he gave Bunny a baby girl. Enough, enough, my sound engineer says. Okay, let’s update the latest on the end of terror in Bangkok. Reuters has reported that a compromise has been reached under which the Prime Minister has agreed to step aside. The troops have been ordered off the streets…”