Love In a Distant Land: Rachel Marie Series Book One

by David B. Smith

  “Uh huh.”

  “Right-o. Well, that seventh game is running tonight if we’d like to come over once again. Another splash in the pool and then you can watch your lads go for the cup and all.”

  She shook her head, confused. “That can’t be right. I’m sure they played last night in L.A., which means it’d be on”–she gave a little start–“right about now! Yikes!”

  Benjie laughed, his mustache quivering. “That’s what Nigel told me. But the schedule in the paper says the American channel, whatever it is, is running the contest both right now and then a TV repeat again at night. So if you can stay away from hearing the final score, tonight would be just as good as the first time round.”

  It was an intriguing idea–Game Seven against the Braves. Plus, though she hated to admit it, another Bangkok evening around that sumptuous pool, enhanced by Nigel’s worldly-wise conversational banter, was a strong temptation. Khemkaeng had a board meeting this evening anyway, she told herself.

  “I think I can,” she admitted, trying to mask her evident pleasure. “So when do we go?”

  “Actually, the bloke said something about an errand he wanted us to help with. Can you run off campus soon as we get out?”

  “I suppose.” She had stayed up past ten the night before, diligently getting ahead in lesson plans and a new science game; now she could reap an unexpected reward. “Right at 3:30, then?”

  “You got it, love. Nigel said he’d pop round with the car.”

  “Okay.”

  Rachel Marie felt pleasantly distracted during the last two periods of the day. It seemed innocent enough having two separate friendships going: wonderful, spiritual restaurant evenings with Khemkaeng, and now the zest of a pool, the Dodgers, and Nigel’s street savvy and sparkling conversations. One didn’t have to encroach on the other.

  A large van pulled up at the front gate of Bangkok Christian School promptly at half past, and the two teachers climbed in. “Hiya, mate.” Benjie huffed as he scrambled to find a spot in the rear bench seat.

  “Hello, dearie.” Rachel Marie gave a start when the handsome TV reporter leaned across the seat and bussed her casually on the cheek. “School go all right and all?”

  “Uh . . . sure.” Flustered, she reached around for her seatbelt. What was that all about? “The days really fly by when you’re a teacher.”

  “Yes, that’s what Mr. Cey, here, always tells me. You start the term, and before you blink it’s the merry month of May and you head for the seashore on holiday.”

  “That’s why I do it.” Benjie snickered as he looked around at all the video equipment. “So where are we off to, old boy?”

  “Hold on a bit.” Nigel gestured toward a nicely dressed Thai man in his mid-twenties. “I’d like you to meet my good pal here, Chalerm. He’s my main cameraman here in Bangkok–does an ace job for me. Right, Chally-man?”

  The Asian nodded with a careful smile.

  “Where are we going?” Rachel Marie asked.

  Nigel had a laptop out and was poking out a few lines as he spoke. “I got a ring over the weekend. Seems there’s a school about fifty kilos from here where the headmistress put in this program of religious tolerance. Starts right with Form One and goes up the line. Buddhists understanding Muslims. Christians respecting Jews. Has the kids putting on skits and role-playing the art of dialogue and getting on with each other and all. Local Thai paper had a write-up and I caught sight of it and pitched it to the big boys.”

  “Huh.” Rachel Marie brightened. “Are all the kids Buddhist?”

  “Yeh. Mostly, that is. Here in Thailand, the Muslim population is pretty much south on the peninsula, and they’ve had some violence down there. But two or three families who send their kids here are Islamic, and this lady–she’s Catholic, by the by–took it on herself to start this new way of indoctrinating. Figures it’s the wave of the future for her country and all.”

  They left Bangkok’s downtown area and soon were surrounded by lush countryside. Kilometer after kilometer of green rice paddies was broken up by occasional primitive communities and service stations. Rachel Marie noticed Shell outlets and also a brand called Caltex, which Benjie informed her was the Asian subsidiary of Texaco.

  “Right here at the next light,” Nigel reminded Chalerm, who said a few words to the driver. They pulled up at a badly plastered stucco building, three stories tall, with a nearly empty parking lot. Two boys who looked like they might belong in Rachel Marie’s sixth-form classroom were idly kicking a soccer ball between them.

  “Wait a bit,” Benjie cut in. “School’s out, chum. How are you going to do a story now?”

  Nigel climbed out, stretching his tall frame. “We came out yesterday and got all our B-roll footage. Got this Mrs. Wongsawat and her kids doing an acting production, and also in the classroom as they did two-person dialoguing. But right after school, she had to buzz into the city for some emergency, and we missed the chance to tape her one-on-one. So that’s why we’re back. Right, Chalerm?”

  He brightened. “Right, boss.” They all laughed as they climbed out.

  The headmistress was in her office waiting for the television crew. Nigel graciously introduced his friends. “These are teachers at Bangkok Christian School, so they are most interested in your good work here. Getting Buddhists and Christians and all to see each other as equals, not enemies.”

  “Yes.” She bobbed her head up and down agreeably, then added in a stiff English: “Good to meeting you.”

  Chalerm quickly set up the camera and adjusted two tiny portable lights, gazing into a monitor until he was pleased with the effect. Pulling a wireless microphone out of its leather case, he affixed it to the collar of Mrs. Wongsawat’s blouse and asked her to say a few words into his headset. She awkwardly recited a few lines of something innocuous in Thai, and he nodded. “Dee mahk.”

  “Okay.” Nigel motioned for Rachel Marie and Benjie to move to the side so they didn’t create shadows. “Quiet on the set, dear people. It’s just about showtime.” Rachel Marie grinned at his tongue-in-cheek Hollywood-ism. He was clearly camping it up strictly for her benefit, she realized.

  He read a question off his laptop, and Chalerm translated into Thai. The woman nodded.

  “Can she respond in English?” Nigel wanted to know.

  “I try.”

  “Okay, tell her in five . . . four . . .” He counted down with his fingers, then pointed at her.

  She appeared nonplussed, then began to launch into a stilted reply. “We try to . . . instruct all Thai children that religion is not . . . how you say, a divide . . . issue. So many times, teaching of love is change and become . . . become . . . uh . . . matter of hating and loss of communicating.”

  “Cut.” Nigel said it gently, but barely managed to hide a tiny sigh. “Sorry, lovey. That’s just a bit slow for our audience.” He turned to Chalerm. “Ask her if she would prefer to give her answers in Thai.”

  The young man translated, and the principal brightened. “Kop kuhn kah.”

  “Okay, then.” Nigel repeated the question and asked his assistant to translate. “Let’s go at it again.”

  This time Mrs. Wongsawat, smiling into the camera, rolled out a long and erudite reply, gesturing and animated.

  “Much better! Bravo!” Nigel gave the woman a thumbs-up of approval. “That’s good television, my dear.”

  “Senk you.”

  Consulting his laptop screen, he read the second and third questions and had Chalerm tape her detailed replies as well.

  “Did she give good answers?” Nigel lowered his voice and shot his assistant a penetrating glance.

  “Yes, boss. Very clear. Audience will like story very much.”

  “Okay, then. Tell her we got it and a million thank you’s.” Nigel stepped from behind the camera and came over to the principal. “Kop kuhn krahp. Dee mahk.”

  “Mai bhen rai.”

  Rachel Marie smiled, remembering the classic Thai response. You’re welcome.
It’s okay.

  Benjie gave Chalerm a hand with the gear as they headed out to the van. “Great,” he huffed, glancing resentfully at the hot sun. “We’ve got three brilliant Golden Globe moments on tape, all of them in Thai.”

  “No worries, mate.” Nigel came up behind them and pointed at his own forehead. “I’ve got me a solution, and it’s a right pretty one too.”

  “What, then?”

  “We can knock this out in fifteen minutes flat.” Plopping himself down on the floor of the van and facing out with his computer perched on his lap, he called Chalerm over. “Look, can you spin back that tape and let us watch it right now?”

  “Of course, boss. Right away.” He fumbled with a few buttons and steadied the small color monitor on a box he pulled from the trunk. “You want to see?”

  “No, I want you to see. Run that first bit and tell me what she said.”

  “Okay.” The technician spun the tape back and they could hear the high-pitched chatter of a soundtrack in reverse.

  “There!”

  Chalerm ran the tape for a few seconds, then hit pause. “Okay. She say: ‘Thailand has long heritage of toleration, and yet often Buddhist culture, being so dominant, fails to acknowledge honest and sincere motives of other faiths.’”

  “Hold it a bit.” Typing furiously, Nigel input the translation, adding a few words here and there to smooth out the grammar. “Okay, go on.”

  “She say next: ‘Goal of new program is fourfold. First, to give all children appreciation for reality that in world create by God, respect for differences is obedience to God. It is in likeness of God that we love other people, not create wall or separation.’”

  “Excellent.”

  Rachel Marie stood there, agog, as the star reporter’s fingers flew over the keyboard. “Perfect. Go on to number two, Chalerm. You’re amazing, my friend.”

  The man grinned, dutifully spinning the videotape and providing a basic translation.

  “Hang on hang on.” Nigel muttered to himself, deleting a few words and substituting a better phrase. “There! That’ll do.”

  “Now what?” Benjie, equally impressed by his friend’s editing skill and on-the-fly creativity, peeked over Nigel’s shoulder. “You’re going to put subtitles in or what?”

  “Better than that.” Nigel turned and tugged on Rachel Marie’s sleeve. “Come along, dearie. I’m about to make you a star on the telly.”

  “No!” Startled, she shook her head and backed away. “What?”

  “It’s nothing,” he soothed. “Just a voiceover.”

  “Why can’t you do it?”

  “It’s industry tradition, lovey. You interview a lady, you VO with a lady’s voice. Come on now.”

  She remembered CNN stories where a local authority or aid worker in Asia or Africa related a brief story on tape. The underlying English voice did seem to match the gender of the original speaker, she admitted.

  “So what do I do?”

  Nigel fished around in a small case and pulled a microphone free. “Here, darling. We clip this around your ear so the microphone is just so, and then you simply read these brilliant Shakespearean lines penned by yours truly.”

  “Don’t you want someone with . . . you know, a British accent?”

  He snorted a laugh. “Can you do one?”

  Rachel Marie gulped. “No.”

  “Doesn’t matter, lovey. This particular piece is for America anyway. CBS this weekend.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeh. I mean, they can always cancel on me, but we still get paid.”

  “So I just read?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He adjusted the headset and asked her to say a few lines.

  Trying to calm down, she glanced over at Benjie. “Yes, okay. ‘Testing, one two three. Listen up, CBS people. Let it be known that I am going to personally hold Mr. Benjamin Cey’s head under water for two hours later tonight as punishment for getting me into this.’”

  “Perfect!” Nigel grinned at her witticism. “Perfect sound and perfect sentiments, sweet thing. I’ll help you pin the blighter down if he squirms too much.”

  He held the laptop at eye level and beamed as she flawlessly read through the lines. “My my my, a star is born. I mean, a star. Did you see that, lads? One take!” He grinned. “Benjie, my boy, note the time. When she gets the Oscar, you and I will be seated in the balcony, saying, ‘We knew that bird when she was just a slip of a thing in Bangkok.’”

  They all laughed, and Nigel motioned to the driver. “Home, good fellow. We have drinks waiting, and pools to leap into.” He beamed at Rachel Marie. “And you have your beloved baseball game, eh, love?”

  * * *

  The expensive pool area was magically transformed by the evening illumination. Tiny green lights flickered throughout the garden area, and the swimming pool itself was a heady paradise, deliciously balmy and lit up. Rachel Marie did a leisurely lap, soaking in the cool Bangkok elegance.

  “I could get right used to this,” Benjie declared, floating along at the deep end. “Old Nigel’s got himself a sweet deal here, eh?”

  “I know.” She peeked at the big television monitor and noticed that Los Angeles was ahead by three runs in front of a rabid sellout crowd. She wondered idly if Adrian might have scored a corporate ticket to the game and was sitting in the loge section right before her eyes. Does he have any idea that I’m watching it too, 9,500 miles away in this opulent pool? A moment later she had to remind herself that the repeat telecast, like her sharing this fantasy life in Nigel Blaine’s world, wasn’t real.

  “Come along, lovey.” Nigel, sporting a pair of trunks and expensive robe, motioned her out of the water. “We’ve got some snacks here.”

  Rachel Marie sat with the two men, still clad just in her bathing suit, feeling the eyes of her handsome host taking in her feminine glow. He grinned like a guilty teen, then peeked at the screen. “Looks like your team is close to victory again.”

  “I know.”

  “Then it’s on to the World Series, eh?”

  “Uh huh.”

  Nigel spread some cheese dip on his gourmet cracker and popped it into his mouth. “Well, love, I’d adore being your baseball pal for the real tourney, what?” He motioned to the pool and the luscious surroundings. “Come by whenever you wish, dear lady.”

  She rode back to her apartment, feeling guilty over the late hour and the continued flirty tone of the evening. All during the drinks and the chatter after the game ended, Nigel Blaine kept scooting his chair closer and ever closer, making her feel a strange but not unpleasant rush of emotions.

  What caused her disquiet, she mused, as she watched Benjie’s head dip in drowsiness, was how electric Nigel’s personality was. The man knew about everything; he was widely-read and clever. He had traveled the world, been to war zones, done stories from deep in the jungles and on naval bombing runs.

  There in the darkened limousine, a tiny scowl of artless impatience etched itself on her forehead. Khemkaeng was the epitome of grace, of thoughtful care. Yet she doubted if he knew much of anything about her country beyond the fact of the president’s name and that there were fifty states–only two of which were named California and Michigan. Nigel, on the other hand, was well versed in U.S. politics. Not only did he know the names and functions of the President, Vice President, and Secretary of State, he had recently been part of a reporter’s pool sharing a long transatlantic flight with the Senate Minority Leader and current Speaker of the House.

  “Those were a pair,” he had confided to Rachel Marie, chuckling over his ever-present cocktail earlier tonight. “We got them going there in the Air Force plane, back and forth, arguing and poking each other in the chest. Brilliant stuff. But they had both said before they gave it a go: ‘Off the record, lads.’ So we were stuck with these devastating sound bites, just dynamite lines, enough to topple a government, and couldn’t use a one of ‘em!”

  Arriving at the apartment, she thanked the hired chauffeur and sa
id a quick goodbye to Benjie. It was well past midnight and Rachel Marie carried up the stairs a nagging sense of self-disapproval. She pulled back the covers and fell into bed. Emotionally spent and bewildered, she mumbled a short, incoherent prayer before nodding off to sleep.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “You’ve outdone yourself, Marilyn.” Rachel Marie tried to simply will a dose of her old enthusiasm back to life. The administrator’s wife had slipped away early from school to spend most of the afternoon cooking, and her table groaned under the weight of tasty recipes.

  “Yes, sir!” Pastor Mike wolfed down a second helping of her corn and mashed potatoes. “But this is a lot like back home.”

  “Our pineapple in Thailand is very famous,” Khemkaeng observed as he passed the serving plate over to the visitor. “Sahparot.”

  “It really is. I can’t stop eating this stuff.” He speared another slice of the juicy tropical fruit, ripened to a rich yellow, and took a healthy bite.

  John had invited a few teachers to come over to the house for a supper and brainstorming session. “And, of course, you ought to come,” he said to Rachel Marie earlier that morning. “Since Pastor Mike hails from your home church and you’re friends and all.”

  It was inspiring to sit with her children each morning as the warm-hearted pastor from California shared funny DVD clips and then poignant character-building tales with the middle school students. It was always policy at BCS that the Week of Spiritual Focus was the single event each calendar year where translating into Thai was allowed.

  “Many students are still struggling with their English,” Khemkaeng had suggested during a recent faculty meeting. “Which is good. As they seek for words and listen to teachers, this is how they improve their skills. However, with such an important event as these five presentations, it is best to let them relax and simply hear the Christian message in Thai. It is more comfortable for them.”

  Malinee, a fifth-grade teacher from Ubon, in one of Thailand’s eastern provinces, spoke acceptable English and had been drafted to translate Pastor Mike’s talks for the assembly periods where 6C was attending. She was a quiet but friendly woman who listened attentively to his anecdotes and Bible references and then smoothly changed the words into Thai, matching the speaker’s gestures and inflections. Every now and then Rachel Marie was able to link an English word with its Thai counterpart, and she noticed her kids nodding with interest as they absorbed the clever presentations.