by Jess Row
This is crazy. What are you going to do, Silpa, shave down every part of my anatomy?
What do you mean? We’re only talking about alterations to the face. Plus skin tone, of course, which is chemical. No other surgery.
Then why do I look so different?
He laughs. It’s the eyes, he says. I see it all the time. Change the eyes, tweak the nose, and it’s a different person. Haven’t you heard the old saying about how a nose job takes off fifteen pounds?
No.
I suppose it’s a joke in the business.
Who is this man? I close my eyes and open them again, slowly, and again; I turn my face away and back; I get up from the stool, go out into the hallway, shut the door, open it, and reenter. Who are you? How are you? How did you come to be, sourceless human being, person from nowhere, person who has never existed, who should never exist? It’s a vertiginous feeling, a feeling that starts in the feet and gathers momentum in the thighs, as if I’ve leaned over a balcony railing, drawn by something I’ve seen fifteen stories down. A vertiginous feeling, that is, of having leaned against the natural settling order of one’s joints, but also a feeling that originates between the thighs. Arousal. Arousal out of something deeply wrong.
What this is, I think, without stopping to explain the thought, what this is, is a kind of incest. A violation of the natural process. A skipping ahead.
Let’s go through the next steps, Silpa says. I turn back to face him, and he folds his hands in his lap, retreating into doctor mode. First, we make up an agreement and sign it. It’s a formality, but we have to do it, because it’s a two-way financial transaction. Because by electing to pay for the operation, you become a shareholder in the company. Understood? Next, you write your RLTP plan. You’ve read Martin’s, right? In your case I think we have to forgo the actual period, because of the anatomical difficulties. But you need to have a full day of reflection before the surgery begins.
What anatomical difficulties?
Because in your case, unlike Martin, there’s no way you can pass without the operation being complete. You understand, right? There’s no halfway point here. Once you go, you go all the way.
I understand.
Immediately after that—really as soon as possible—you have to give me your passport. Altering U.S. passports is an enormous task these days. We have the best technicians working on it, but it can take more than two weeks. Because of all the new security features. What other passports are you going to want? PRC? Taiwan? Singapore?
I can choose more than one?
You can do more or less whatever you want. We’re starting from scratch, aren’t we? The only question is how much you want to spend. And of course, some things are off limits. No one can become a North Korean citizen. The CIA has been trying for sixty years. And of course, outside of the realm of the impossible, there are still time constraints. Complete U.S. or UK or German citizenships take six months. With Scandinavian countries or Canada, if you have enough money, it’s better to start elsewhere and go through immigration. By those standards the PRC is actually extremely easy, if you go through the right channels. We have an ex-PLA contact here in Bangkok who can do it in a week—passports, ID cards, all the relevant databases, everything. I think the going rate is around two hundred thousand baht. That’s about seven thousand U.S. Taiwan is a little more—maybe three hundred thousand. But, of course, as a U.S. citizen you can live in Taiwan as long as you like. It’s all a matter of where you want to feel at home.
How much does changing the U.S. passport cost?
Oh, don’t worry about that. Martin’s covering it. It’s his gift to you. I think he called it your country club initiation fee. You must know what that means better than I do. Of course, you know, U.S. citizenship can be problematic, once you get into a certain income bracket. You might take this opportunity to choose a tax haven. Those are the easiest, of course. The Cayman Islands, for example. Or Monaco. I believe Martin himself has his assets somewhere in the Caribbean. Antigua, or the Virgin Islands.
I’ll have to think about it.
Of course. And we have an accountant, too, who works with us. Kamala. A very nice Indian lady from Singapore with an MBA from the Wharton School. She speaks Mandarin, Cantonese, Toishan, Hindi, Malay, English of course, French, and Italian. She can talk to you about all the financial ramifications. I know that’s not your specialty. Nor mine. The most important thing, frankly, is the narrative. You have to have it down. You have to believe who you are. Or else there’s a risk of a certain schizoid feeling.
You make it sound so straightforward.
One day it will be. All this documentation, it’s just a charade, really. A smoke screen. Soon none of it will be necessary. You know what they do now, with sex changes? Change-of-gender cards. It’s an announcement that comes in the mail, like a wedding or a birth. I will now be known as Martha instead of Mark.
And that’s all right with you?
His smile is almost giddy. There’s something elastic about his limbs, as he crosses his legs, leans back, wiggles the chair a little, getting comfortable.
The need is there, he says. Let’s put it another way. The desire is there. Does this just sound like a pile of crap to you? Stay with me for a minute. Let’s say, just for argument, desire is a kind of a wormhole, a door in time. Any deep human desire is really just an expression of how things will be in the future. How did we get airplanes? As soon as Homo sapiens stood up, he wanted to fly. For a time we thought we would all become angels in heaven. Or flying arhats, or celestial apsaras, in a future life. Then that dream popped like a bubble. Then we built airplanes. Get it? Look around you! Look at yourself, as an example. Your ancestors would think of you as a god. You can fly across the world in a day; you can live just about anywhere you like. Marry anyone you like. How far in the future can it be when people say, I don’t want to be me anymore? Isn’t it just as simple as that? Listen, it’s already happening.
For those who have the resources—
You think this is an argument for decadence? You need to read Marx more carefully.
He slides open a desk drawer and hands me a palm-sized photograph in a battered tin frame. It’s black-and-white, poorly printed, with water stains at the corners: a group of young men in white shirts and dark armbands around a table, talking earnestly, papers and books, flags and batons, piled up in front of them.
I was there, at Thammasat, he says. 1976. That was our Tiananmen Square. Our May of ’68. You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you? Hok Tulaa. The Thammasat University massacre. Don’t feel bad. They don’t even teach it in schools here. But you can go down to the campus and look at the memorial. Suffice it to say this: out of the seven people in that picture, I was the only one who survived. We were the student liaisons to the Federated Trade Unions of Thailand, and when the student rebellion happened, when we took over the campus, we all slept outdoors in the same tent. I just happened to be the one furthest away from the street. When the Red Gaurs came, the paramilitaries, I cut a hole in the side of the tent and ran straight to the river and dove in.
I—
Don’t say anything! You don’t have to express your condolences to me. I’m alive. And their bodies were burned out in the countryside, in pits, so no one could mourn them. Anyway, I escaped. I swam. It was like swimming in motor oil. Eventually a boat picked me up and drove me ten miles upstream. There were Communists all over Thailand in those days. I was handed from one to the other, all the way up to Isaan. I spent three years up there on a commune learning how to grow bananas and sugarcane. And reading Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Mao, and Ho Chi Minh. Those were the only books we had. Until I finally had my realization. It’s very simple. Too simple, really. Just this: the dialectic is nothing to be afraid of.
He takes a flat cardboard package from his breast pocket, shakes two pieces of gum into his palm, and unwraps them carefully, still looki
ng at me. The writing is in Thai, but I recognize the colors: Nicorette.
I mean, what other conclusion can you draw, from all that analysis, all that modeling, all those patterns? Eventually it’s going to happen as Marx predicted. In the broadest general sense. Capital is not self-sustaining. We know that much. What else have we seen, in our lifetimes? The expansion of the world economy is finite. What we think of as decadence is really only a shadow. Technology is neutral. That’s what medicine teaches us. Stainless steel was first developed for weapons. Now it saves a million lives an hour. Chewing gum. Developed as candy for children, now it’s saving my lungs.
He chews more aggressively, exaggeratedly, to prove his point.
And who are we saving?
Who the hell knows? Excuse my language. But look, Kelly, you’re part of this now. You have to learn to think in larger increments. Decades, not years. Eras, not news cycles.
Millions, not thousands.
Billions, not millions.
He laughs at my face, which, I imagine, has registered some kind of dismay. At what? Being behind the curve?
Want my advice? Leave your Protestant guilt behind. Make that a promise to yourself. Read all those books you never thought you needed. Carnegie. The Art of the Deal. The Seven Habits one. And this, too. He reaches into the lowest drawer of his desk and hands me a battered hardcover without a dust jacket, the corners foxed, the binding split. Awaken the Giant Within. I can’t remember the name, but I remember the teeth: a giant, voracious mouth, a jaw like a moray eel. He had infomercials on late-night TV when I was in high school. Anthony Robbins, Silpa says. Call it trash. Call it vapid. I call it my bible. Does that shock you? Good. That means you’re ready. Read it before we put you under, and you’ll wake up a new human being. Genuinely. No, take that copy! I know it by heart.
Why should I believe you? I wonder. Looking at him, for the last time, out of my own eyes. The dialectic is nothing to be afraid of. This could all be a bit of theater, custom-designed for my benefit, and it wouldn’t matter.
I don’t need a rationale, I should tell him, I don’t need a conceptual framework. I’ve had my entire life to come up with that. The switch has been flipped.
Thanks, I say. I mean, thank you. Sincerely. For doing this. For the opportunity.
He grins. Never thank a surgeon until you’re in recovery, he says. It’s bad luck. But okay. I appreciate it.
There’s really no way for me to express—
You don’t have to, he says. That’s the wonderful thing about my line of work. No words are necessary. I get to be the first one to hold up a mirror and see the look on your face. That’s my payment. That, and the cash. You’ve talked to your bank, yes?
It’s all set.
It’s a beautiful thing we’re doing, he says. Put that in your book. You’re still writing your book, aren’t you?
I’m not sure.
Because it’s no longer about Martin.
He gives me one of his blank smiles, his eyes receding into their creases, their laughing folds.
Among other things. There was the matter of an agreement.
Oh, he says, that money was more like seed capital. It’s the kind of thing you write off in an instant. Don’t let that worry you. We all work together as a unit now. Your energies may be better spent elsewhere. The field’s moving very fast these days. Books are a little slow.
He glances at his watch and stands up. When I hold out my hand, he grasps it between his tiny palms, cradling it more than shaking it.
In any event, he says, staring not quite at my eyes, but slightly above them, you’re living your life now. How can you live a life, and write a book, simultaneously? I’ve never quite understood it. It seems to me you have to choose one or the other.
RLTP
Kelly Thorndike (GI: Curtis Wang, Wang Xiyun )
April 30, 2012
PATIENT STATEMENT
I was born in Tianjin in 1975 and left China in 1981 with my parents and younger brother, Xigang (Kevin). We lived in Hong Kong for a year while my parents negotiated our US visas, and then moved to Athens, Georgia. My father, Wang Geling, started on a research fellowship and eventually became a professor of biochemistry at the University of Georgia; he died of a stroke in 2008. My mother, Xi Tande, was a professional dancer in China who performed in traveling shows during the Cultural Revolution. In the United States, she worked first as a bank teller and later as a branch and regional manager at NationsBank. She died of liver cancer in 1998. Kevin converted to Catholicism while a student at Georgetown University and is now a brother in the Cistercian order at Abbaye Pont-Desrolliers, in Alsace, France. He observes a strict vow of silence, and my only contact with him has been on two visits, the last of which was three years ago.
My childhood was happy and mostly uneventful. I attended public schools in Athens and had a very close circle of friends from my neighborhood, though I now keep in touch with them only sporadically. In high school I played bass in a local band that was moderately successful and recorded two LPs. I attended Harvard and switched majors three times, from philosophy to East Asian Studies to English. Through my roommate I became involved in an Internet startup, Amoeba.com, in 1996, first writing content and later designing the first version of the website. Amoeba had its IPO in September 1999, and I sold my shares a week later, resulting in a net profit of seven million dollars. Though the company went bankrupt and liquidated in February 2000, during the first dot-com bust, I was left an accidental millionaire. Since then I have spent most of my time in Silicon Valley and Marin County, working in venture capital.
None of my projects have performed as well as Amoeba, but I’ve had some close calls, and my net worth has grown a bit over time. I was married to Sarah Duffy from 2004 to 2009, but divorced amicably without children. My father’s death prompted me to become more interested in my Chinese roots, and I have spent the last few years becoming familiar with venture capital markets in East Asia and the possibilities of new investment in high-tech startups in China.
Amazing, Martin says. It reads like a dating profile. Nearly put me to sleep. You’re really good at vanilla, you know that?
We’re having a working dinner alone at the kitchen table. Tariko is upstairs plinking away at his guitar; Julie-nah, having served us coconut rice, cold tofu with chili and lime, a tomato salad with edamame, and chicken sautéed with ginger and basil—it’s nothing, she said, as we watched her working, each hand doing four things at once, her mouth set in a rictus of bland anger—has now retired into the garden, where she sits with a pile of string beans in her lap, staring at nothing in particular.
Isn’t that the point? To be normal? I mean, not to arouse any suspicions? No reasonable doubt? I’m supposed to be passing, not doing a lion dance.
And the fifteen-minute rule?
This is the rule of thumb for a fake ID, he told me: your new identity has to survive fifteen minutes of Internet research by an intelligent amateur. Any more than that is just overkill. You think the world is full of investigative reporters and intelligence analysts who actually do their jobs? They’re looking at kittens playing the piano on Facebook like everyone else.
Amoeba’s still listed in some databases, I say. Wang Geling and Xi Tande have obits in the Athens Banner-Herald. And there’s a memorial page on the University of Georgia website. Plus all his academic publications. And there’s a few hits in Chinese, too, from their hometown Party newspaper.
Listing the kids’ names?
Survived by two sons, Curtis and Kevin. And Curtis did go to Harvard. Or at least a Curtis Wang did.
You learn well, grasshopper.
It wasn’t difficult, though I won’t tell him that. It wrote itself. I left the names blank and filled them in at the end. It’s not hard, with a billion and a half people and only a hundred surnames: pick Wang, Chen, Li, and you can more or less write any l
ife that suits your fancy. It’s not unlike doing algebra. Simple patterns and infinite variations.
This is the easy part, he says. The question is, are you ready to be Curtis Wang? Are you, Kelly? You heard what Silpa said. There’s no halfway point.
It’s already done, I say. Actually it happened a long time ago.
That’s what I hoped you’d say. And you know why I believe you? Because you had me fooled. You were in drag. I took you for a normal.
I took myself for one, too.
One more day, he says. It’s hard to wait, isn’t it? Don’t worry. Deciding is the worst part. The agony is already over. Now you just have to coast a little longer. Go downtown. Eat some great curry, get a massage, see the sights. Check your mind at the door. Can you do that? Can you relax, Kelly? Turn off those analytical faculties?
Julie turns and looks my way, chewing on a bean, shading her eyes against the blade of evening sun.
I am relaxed, I say. This is me, relaxed. Can’t you tell?
11.
Not until the water taxi has rolled away from the pier, the thrum of the engine vibrating the balls of my feet, not until we’ve muscled past two long-tailed boats, thin as barracudas, and the hot brackish wind from the river has caught me full in the face, can I look over my shoulder and say for certain, certifiably, that I’m being followed.
It’s ridiculous, the phrase, the whole idea, I’ve been telling myself that all day, as I shuffled along with the columns of tourists at Wat Phra Keow, the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, which even I could recognize was the Disneyland of Thai temples—every tile and mosaic buffed and shining, every ornament dripping with ornament, the grass poison-green, security guards glaring straight ahead every few feet. It was a young kid in an orange-and-white polo shirt, who tried and failed to be inconspicuous, turning every corner just behind me, not more than twenty feet away, and who stared frankly at me every second, as if fearing I would disappear before his eyes. Later I sat for forty-five minutes in a massage chair at Wat Po, the Temple of the Reclining Buddha, and when I opened my eyes at the end I thought I’d imagined the whole thing, or maybe he was a young hustler, or just some crazy teenager following me on a whim. But as I left the temple gate and crossed two blocks, almost tottering in the heat, following the map in a Lonely Planet Tariko lent me, looking for a vegetarian café he’d highly recommended, a man on a motorbike kept pace with me, sidling through the crowds of elderly Japanese ladies with floral handbags, the groups of Chinese all wearing the same ill-fitting red mesh baseball caps printed, in gold, Empire West. He wore the absurdly tight brown uniform all Bangkok police wear, with gold aviator glasses, but the bike was unmarked. At the café I took a seat in the window, and ate an excellent papaya salad and Massaman curry with tofu, keeping watch. Nothing. Of course, I thought, reeling back through every detective novel I’d ever read, every episode of Law & Order or Magnum P.I., if the target is in a home or a business you don’t have to park out front, only somewhere with a clear view of the entrance, unless the target is savvy enough to find a back door. In which case you have to have two followers anyway, guarding each exit.