Passport to Death

by Zur, Yigal;

  I didn’t reply. The worst thing you can say in this sort of situation is, “I told you so.”

  “He said she owed him money.”

  “How much?”

  “A hundred thousand dollars.”

  I let out a whistle. “That’s serious money,” I said. I wanted to ask her again what Weiss had told her, whose name he had mentioned. But I didn’t. In retrospect, I think maybe I didn’t really want to know. Not then, at least.

  What had Sigal gotten herself mixed up in? A hundred thousand dollars is a lot of money anywhere in the world. Here you can get a bullet in the head for much less. The owner of a guesthouse in the north murdered an Israeli backpacker for two thousand dollars. He followed him up a mountain footpath, shot him, and took his passport, camera, and money. Two thousand dollars. It was months before the body was found. The kid had a bullet in the back of the head. The locals all knew who had done it, but no one talked. A hundred thousand dollars wouldn’t lead to a single body. That much cash would pave a trail of bodies. And a hundred thousand dollars wasn’t a duffel bag filled with weed, either. It was much more serious. I did the math. Such a large sum of money could only mean heroin. It was transported from Shan State in northern Myanmar to northern Thailand, and from there to Bangkok. If, like most smugglers, Sigal was carrying bricks of heroin in sealed wrappers, the kind known as Double Lion because of the image on the logo, she could fit about thirty into a duffel bag. Assuming that each brick weighed about seven hundred grams, we were talking twenty-one K of the finest heroin available. If she got on a train, she was probably heading for Rayong in the south, a main stop on the southern smuggling route to Malaysia. As a mule, she could earn two hundred and fifty a brick, for a total of seven thousand five hundred dollars.

  Unless …

  Unless she disappeared on purpose, taking the bag with her. If that’s what happened, she had done the unthinkable. It was no wonder she had lit a fire under the whole of Bangkok. A lot of people now owed a lot of money to a lot of other people.

  “He told me she has to return the package,” Reut said. “Or else he wants his money back. If he can’t get it from Sigal, he’ll get it from me.” She sounded frightened. With good reason.

  I didn’t like it that Weiss had threatened her. It meant he was in a corner, under pressure. Whether he had promised to supply the heroin or had already paid for it, without it he was in deep shit. I decided to keep the fact that Reut’s life was in danger to myself. I didn’t think Weiss would hurt her, at least not at this stage when he still had a chance of finding Sigal and her duffel bag.

  A large part of investigative work is this kind of brain work. You turn things over in your mind again and again, consider the options, and see what you’re left with. What I still had to figure out was how Sigal had gotten involved in something this big. Backpackers generally smuggle small quantities, usually for their own use. It took organized syndicates to move such a large amount, and they used locals. Did someone hook Sigal up with Weiss? There was another possibility, too: someone was planning to steal the shipment out from under Weiss’s nose and keep the profit for themselves, and Sigal was in on it from the beginning. A scheme like that would take humongous balls.

  Valium with his filthy dreadlocks suddenly showed up, his head hanging low as usual. “Hey, bro, buy me a beer? I could really use one.”

  “You always hit on the same sucker twice?” I asked. Raising his eyes, he looked directly at me for the first time. “Sorry, bro. All I see in front of me is the bottle.” Then he noticed Reut, and we both saw the confusion come over his face. “But … what’re you doing here? Shiva Dharma, god of ganja, I’m seeing double.”

  We stood there in puzzled silence for a moment until it registered. I’d seen the family resemblance between Reut and Sigal’s passport picture, but until now, I hadn’t realized how strong it was. “How much are you and your sister alike?” I asked her. “In appearance, I mean.” Now it was Reut’s turn to look confused. “We’re sometimes mistaken for each other,” she said, “but she’s prettier.” There was more than a trace of envy in her voice. The older sister had done all the hard work, and then her younger sibling had come along and reaped the rewards.

  Valium was already moving off. I ran after him.

  “Where did you see her?” I asked him.

  “See who?” His brain was becoming befuddled again. I knew I’d lose him soon. By the time the sun came up, his mind would be totally in the dark. I didn’t have much time.

  “Her,” I said, pointing to Reut.

  “With Achan Phra Pavana in the temple across the river. Where we sleep.”

  “Take us there,” I said.

  He smelled an opportunity. Coaxing like a child, he said, “Buy me a beer, bro, and we’ll talk about it.”

  We were standing in front of a bar. I signaled to the waitress who brought me two bottles of ice-cold Singha. I handed him one and held on to the other. “You’ll get this one on the way,” I told him.

  The three of us started walking toward the top of Khao San Road. In this last hour of darkness, youngsters, drunk or stoned, were sitting on the curb, getting ready to welcome the dawn by sipping on the dregs of a bottle or rolling a joint with a shaky hand. The street sweepers with their large straw hats and primitive brooms would soon arrive. The dust they raised would send the kids back under their sweaty sheets in guesthouses with thin moldy walls. At the corner, cabs were waiting for the nighttime stragglers. We climbed into a cab and made the short ride to the river, getting out at one of the ferry stations along the bank.

  In the early hours of the morning, the Chao Phraya is a living history of trade as it was once conducted. Heavily laden boats and barges busily unload produce brought to the city markets from the fertile plains: coconuts from Nakhon Pathom, orchids from the region of Ayutthaya, dried fish from Lopburi. All the colors, odors, and sounds of Thailand. A large ferry slowly made its way to the bank, tying up against the pier. Aside from us, the only passengers were a few elderly monks whose orange robes flapped gently in the morning breeze. Hyacinths bobbed on the water, floating in the opposite direction. Valium took a seat on one of the wooden benches, holding the empty beer bottle and staring at the foamy wake behind the boat.

  I handed him the second bottle. He drank it like a hot cup of morning coffee, taking small, measured sips. Reut and I leaned on the metal railing, our arms brushing against each other.

  “It looks so putrid, and yet it holds the seeds of new life,” Reut said, gazing at the murky water.

  “You’re talking to a simple guy,” I said. “We’re not even halfway to where we need to go.”

  She turned to look at me before saying, “You know as well as I do, happiness doesn’t just happen on its own. You have to work at it. It takes time and effort. If a person wants to be happy, he has to know how to change.”

  “Can we talk about this some night when I’m not so busy?” I asked.

  “I’m just wondering,” Reut said. “Who’s really running away?”

  She fell silent, finally returning her gaze to the river and the bank on the other side. Dilapidated wooden houses were scattered among the new apartment blocks and gleaming temples that had sprung up beside the water.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I’m worried. I’m taking it out on you and that’s not fair.”

  “I understand.”

  “We were overprotective. So much so that we smothered her. But I didn’t think she’d run so far to get away. She doesn’t need the money. My father gives her whatever she wants.”

  “That’s exactly what she doesn’t want,” I said. “She’s looking for love, not money. If we can figure out where she found it, we might find out what happened to her.”

  She gave me a strange look.

  “What?” I asked.

  “It’s my fault.”

  “Your fault?”

  “Yes,” she said. “You know, the usual story. Two sisters fall in love with the same man. At least they both thi
nk they’re in love with him. So they compete for his attention. One wins, and the other is left behind. Except this time the one who got the man was the serious, levelheaded sister, and not the one who really loved him.”

  “And …”

  “And it didn’t last. It wasn’t true love. Sigal hated me for it. That’s when it started. She began using. You know how it is. At first, she just wanted to feel better, to forget. Then it became a way to escape from herself. The sad part is that it was my father and I who suggested she go to Thailand to clear her head.”

  “Clear her head,” she repeated bitterly after a pause.

  The ferry tied up at the rocking pier of Wat Arun. The monks held their robes close to their bodies, arranged their orange bags on their shoulders, and disembarked quickly, their plastic sandals clicking as they headed toward the temple. We followed behind.

  On the pier, a young boy in monk’s robes and shaved head was tossing bits of bread to the large catfish in the river. Valium held out his hand and the boy gave him a chunk of bread. Slowly, he rolled the bread between his fingers, letting the crumbs fall into the water. The fish climbed over each other in their eagerness to catch the crumbs in their huge mouths. Reut stood next to him, watching.

  “Look how happy they are,” Valium said.

  “You’re not a fish.” I laughed. “You can’t tell if they’re happy.”

  He turned to look at me. He was standing right beside me, but he was very far away. “You’re fucked up, man,” he said. “You’re not me, so how do you know I can’t tell if they’re happy?”

  I brought my face close to his, so close, in fact, that I could see into the dilated pupils of his eyes. “Yeah, I’m not you. I barely know you. What I do know is that even on your best high, you’re not a fish, so I know you can’t tell if the fish are happy or not.”

  “What do you know about what he is or isn’t?” Reut challenged me. “You’re so sure of your take on the world. It’s all so clear to you. Don’t you ever question it?”

  I considered that for a moment before answering. “Sometimes. For instance, I’m not so sure you’re really looking for Sigal. We’re not here to find happiness.”

  “You can be sure,” she said. “The only reason I’m in Thailand is to find Sigal. But you’re very good at taking me to places where I don’t like to go.”

  Valium was still watching the fish. Then he turned to me again. “Let’s start over,” he said. “You asked me how I can tell the fish are happy. The question itself assumes that it’s possible for them to be happy. When I stand here, I know they are.”

  Without warning, he turned his back on the water and started walking toward the temple. We followed him. Along the pier was a row of small white stupas, shrines to Buddha. Placed here in this manner, they represented the line between the worldly and the sacred. The temple compound was surrounded by a tall whitewashed wall. The entrance was guarded by two statues of demons with sharp fangs and forbidding eyes holding spears. We walked through the gate into a large courtyard paved in gray bricks. In the center was a big white temple with a red-tiled roof. It was flanked by the wooden structures on stilts that are typical of Thailand. Here they appeared to serve as sleeping quarters for the monks and apprentices.

  Young orange-robed monks were sweeping up the fallen leaves of the sacred ficus tree. Chickens wandered the courtyard searching for worms and caterpillars in the moss that grew in the cracks between the bricks. A group of novices was sitting on the steps of a building with pages on their laps. One of them read out the text, beating the rhythm on the step with a small stick. The others repeated after him: “If it is suffering you fear, if it is suffering you abhor, do no evil—overtly or covertly.”

  We passed a large concrete statue of Buddha. Plain and unadorned, not even painted, it was meant to prevent the students’ eyes from growing accustomed to vain beauty. Finally, we reached a big wooden building. A monk was sitting on the worn steps, his head shaved, his orange robe over one shoulder, and his eyes half closed, perhaps basking in the pleasure of the warm sun. Valium stopped beside him and he, too, closed his eyes. We waited. The monk mumbled a mantra, “Om ah hum vajra siddhi hum.” His quiet voice was absorbed into the silence around him, reaching beyond images, beyond words.

  Valium went inside, with me and Reut on his heels. It was a sleeping hall. Several foreigners were lying on the simple wooden cots. A sour odor hung in the air, the odor of unwashed sheets and clothes that hadn’t been changed for days, the characteristic smell of places that offer a cheap bed for the night.

  There was a small sink against the wall. An emaciated junkie, his skin the jaundiced color typical of your average long-term heroin addict, was washing his face. Taking a tattered green towel from a nail, he dried himself off. I went over and pointed to the people on the beds. “I’m looking for someone,” I said.

  He turned to me, holding a hairbrush in his right hand.

  “An Israeli woman,” I added.

  He just stared at me.

  “Her name is Sigal.”

  His murky blue eyes, the whites yellowed from jaundice and drugs, opened wide. Slowly he began brushing his shoulder-length hair. “I don’t know names,” he said. “What’s a name anyway? I can’t even remember my own. So I’ll get a new one.” He laughed and went back to his hair, totally ignoring me.

  All of a sudden, I felt very tired. Drained. It takes too much energy to deal with these happiness-seekers. My world is black and white: give and take, hit or get hit. I can’t get my mind around all this mindlessness.

  “This is goodbye,” the crazy junkie said. I got that he was talking about his hair.

  “It’s all coming off, even the eyebrows. I’m gonna look weird.” He smiled. The spaced-out drughead was gone, leaving only an inherently human smile.

  I don’t understand this world, I thought to myself. I grabbed Reut’s hand and pulled her near me.

  “What?” she stuttered.

  “She looks like her,” I said to the junkie still smiling at himself in the mirror.

  He glanced at her with an obvious lack of interest. “We all look the same, man,” he said. “We’re all the same. A worthless shell of flesh.”

  “Come on,” I said to Reut. “We’re wasting our time here. We won’t get anything out of them.” We continued our tour of the temple compound. A monk of Western origins was sitting on the steps of one of the buildings. He was a big man, but somehow, he managed to look refined in his shaved head and orange robes. As we drew close, it was Reut who made the wai gesture to him. Smiling, he nodded.

  “Sawadee khrup,” she greeted him. “We’re looking for someone.”

  Her voice held a request, not a demand or a bid for attention. A simple request, the type you can’t refuse.

  The soft morning light fell on the monk like a cloak. He didn’t reply, merely examined her studiously, looking deep into her eyes like an ophthalmologist of the soul.

  Finally, he spoke. “That doesn’t surprise me. Everyone’s looking for something. It’s a good start. You can speak Hebrew.”

  “You speak Hebrew?” I blurted. It was a stupid question, but the surprise was real.

  He smiled again. “Yes. You might say that in another place in my life I was Israeli. Kibbutz born and bred. But that was long ago and far away. I’m not even sure that man was me anymore. In any case, it was someone who bore my name, the name my parents gave me, that is. Now I only have the name God gave me.”

  We let that slide, although we would have liked to hear more. But we weren’t here to satisfy our native curiosity about an Israeli who had become a Buddhist monk. And I knew he wouldn’t tell us any more.

  “We’re looking for a young woman by the name of Sigal. We think she was here at the temple,” I said. “We don’t know when, but it’s almost certain she passed through or stayed for a while. I assume you know an Israeli they call Valium? He saw her here.” Pointing to Reut, I added, “This is her sister. They look alike.”

 
The monk turned sober, dropping the smile and listening attentively.

  “It’s very important for us to find her or find out what happened to her,” I said. “She’s in serious danger.”

  “I would like to help you, just as I try to help everyone who comes here,” he said. He paused for a moment, radiating self-possession and serenity. “But you must understand. For these people, this is the end of the road. They have nothing to go back to. The Western world spit them out. Even Bangkok can be a cruel city for those on the fringes of society. The people who come here have nowhere else to go. They are totally alone. Lost souls. We do not ask them who they are or where they are from. Never. We do not ask about the past. We have no interest in past regrets. Or in thoughts of the future. We want simply to give them a little peace of mind in the present. That is all we have to give. She may have been here and she may not. I cannot say.”

  “Don’t you keep any records?”

  “We have no record of those who come. Many pass through the temple.”

  There was nothing more to say.

  “You must realize that some come here to die,” he went on. “Most are addicts in the final stages of AIDS. They come when their systems start to fail and no hospital will take them. Where else can they go? When they return their souls to their Maker, we burn the bodies and scatter the ashes in the river.”

  “Isn’t that illegal?” I asked.

  He held his hands out in a gesture of resignation. “Here? In a place of total forbearance? What meaning do human laws have?”

  “I understand what you’re saying,” Reut said, “but it’s very hard for me to accept.”

  “I know,” said the Israeli monk. “You come here fraught with powerful emotions and you expect us to respond accordingly. To share your anxieties. To put it simply, it doesn’t work like that. You must let go, and then perhaps Sigal will emerge from wherever she is.”

  “I know you’re right,” Reut answered. She lowered her eyes and stood there in silence. Finally, she said, “But the search is all I have left.”