Currency

by Zolbrod, Zoe

  When the waiter left, she was ready with a question: “If I get caught, as an American am I at greater or lesser risk?”

  “Miss Miatta, at least I can assure you on this front. Even the powerful countries, the rich ones who dictate to others, realize that we pose no threat to general welfare.” Abu held his drink up to his chin. The candy-colored beverage looked out of place in his big hand. “The animal trade is second only to the drug trade in terms of profitability, yet it receives only a minuscule fraction of the enforcement money. Even those few who do get caught get sentences far less substantial than do drug traders working with similar worths. And, of course, this is a benefit to me and a benefit to you equally.” He sipped.

  “It is,” Robin said, both relieved and indignant at the news. She looked at Abu, at his wide, ageless face. She looked away. The cloud’s belly was pink now, the sky more dusty. The cloud’s roof looked to be made from blue smoke.

  “But your mind is not at rest.”

  “No, it is. I ...” The temperature had hardly dropped, but suddenly she felt preposterous sitting in a gift of a bathing suit. She reached for her shirt and held it in front of her, but he was still looking, measuring, waiting. “It’s just ... It’s not just animals, right? I mean, Nadja.”

  “Who’s Nadja?”

  “Anna and Irena. The Russian girls . . .”

  “What do I have to do with them?” Abu’s tone was no longer professorial; the question was not rhetorical.

  “Nothing. I don’t know. I ...” Robin heard her own cowardice, saw Abu’s disgust with it. “But they’re part of the trafficking, aren’t they?”

  “You see why I demand your questions? It’s very revealing, how quick you are to involve me in any crime you perceive. I’m indulging my vanity in wanting to set the American mind straight.” He lifted his empty sling in cold salute to her, and Robin shivered. “Volcheck is his own operation. For the time being, our interests overlap on a few matters. That’s all.” He sipped the last drops in his glass. The ice cubes clattered falling back down. “But regardless, here’s where you are wrong. You cannot equate a person and a beast. A person chooses. Volcheck doesn’t force anything; he offers an opportunity that many are willing to take.” Robin saw the bar in Patpong. The one white woman dancing there, the numbers pinned on all the women. She didn’t want to talk to Abu about it. He was describing the poverty in Russia, in the Ukraine, in Kenya, his deep voice devoid of the bemused patience that he had used on her before she’d stumbled and accused. She risked an interruption and turned the conversation away from women.

  “You’re arguing against yourself, then. It’s the rhino that doesn’t have a choice.”

  “The rhino can’t make a choice. He’s lesser. Therefore it doesn’t matter. In my eyes, that is God’s will. You, however, stole knowledge that upset you and still decided to travel for me again. It’s my turn to ask you: why?”

  The top bulk of the sky was night blue now, pierced through with a few stars, but the bottom, the part that curved around the earth, still clung to butterfly orange. The low full moon was orange-hued, too. Robin could make out its craters all the way from where she sat in the tiny speck that was Singapore. She remembered being on Ko Tao just a few months ago, charting each sunset and moonrise. No one wore makeup or shoes. She had sat in palmed shade with those nice American guys, those cool Dutch girls. She’d been traveling for months, so she had a store of adventures to share with them, or to play over like movies, private screenings running just for herself. Why, after all that, could she not have gone home? Her money was long gone by then. Why did she feel like she wanted more and more, more Thailand-even if she had to go into deep hock to get it? She had wanted to bottle the sweetness she had found lounging on that island, at peace with the world, at one with the way the earth curves, the sun rises, the tides roll. None of that sounded stupid, there. No wants, no worries. Even money moved slowly. How to learn that? She had thought that Piv could teach her. But then she remembered Zella’s rings, the red and golden and blue stones in them. Hadn’t she thought Piv connected to that as well?

  “I’m here because of money,” she said.

  “Exactly,” he said, the tolerant tone back in his voice. He was looking at the sky. “That’s why the Americans are always there. And then you condemn others either for not valuing money as much or for needing it more desperately.”

  He settled his gaze back on her. She saw again how thick his forearms were, his wrists, his hands.

  “I promise that you can trust me,” she said. “I won’t touch anything of yours again.”

  Abu sat still with his fingers knit together in his lap. The skin under his fingernails was soft pink, evident even in the gloom. “That’s important, Miss Miatta. That’s very important for you.” Lights came on inside the swimming pool; suddenly the water glowed the soft blue of a gas flame. Absolute dark fell over Singapore. “Your friend Piv, of course, is in a different position than you are. He can afford less ambivalence. As he’s told me, he wants to learn a trade that will allow him to travel. And he is practical. He understands the benefits. How would he put it? ‘This is one good one.’ Yes. I think that’s exactly how he’d say it. This is one good one for us all.”

  A shock went through Robin. The Thai inflections from Abu’s mouth sounded almost mocking. Piv’s voice was the medium she had been swimming in for over a month, but she hadn’t heard it in four days. Abu stood from his chair, tapped each foot so that his shorts straightened. “Supper?” he said.

  “You’ve talked to Piv.” She gripped the rounded plastic arms of her chair.

  “Every day. I need to keep my eyes in Bangkok open.”

  Robin’s empty stomach clenched once again.

  “Oh. How’s he doing?” She saw that one aspect of the quandary remained unexhumed even after her and Abu’s moral deliberations. How had Abu found out about her snooping? How did he know to press her about her ambivalence? She buckled with a nostalgia for Piv that was like a fierce pain, but she knew she couldn’t tell him about this conversation with Abu. She’d wait and see if he tipped his hand.

  Chapter 15

  How many ladies I been with? Why does number matter? I don’t know the answer to that one. How many farang ladies I been with for some time, more than one week? Easy to know that: before NokRobin, five. First one, American girl, Susan, from Rocky Mountains. Then one Swiss girl who tries to teach me German. She says Rocky Mountains are number two, Alps are better, but she can speak English, and so most times we speak that. Then one Canadian girl, one Australian girl, and one Australian nurse. These all say they’ll never forget me, that I am too sweet, I am too handsome-beautiful for the man, that’s one word they teach me—and sometimes they say they love me, sure. These ladies are sweet, too. Pretty, of course. But I know these farangs feel holiday love. In happy days, not working, everything’s cheap for them, sun shining, it’s easy to love someone. Any hard thing, or when the holiday ends, that love goes away, like the wave at Hua Hin goes away from the shore. Maybe it leaves some white shell, some seaweed, some broken crab, something, but this all goes away soon, too.

  I wait in the airport for NokRobin’s plane that flies from Singapore. When she comes, I watch how she carries her bag. Her arm bends to carry that heavy thing; the bag bends her over. She walks with short steps, too fast. She wears her blue dress, not the business one, and it’s like blue sky over her sandy skin; her nose is like the soft pink sun. Her face is crooked, looking for me. I watch her face. When she finds me, I see something. Her eyebrows, forehead, lift up and crease. Her mouth twists because she’s close and far. Her shiny eyes ask me ten thousand questions. For that moment, she doesn’t move. Then everything falls down-her crease, questions, twisting-now there’s only one thing: shiny eyes that need me in them. Not for happiness, this is some different thing. I know she loves me. She works now, not vacation. She’s not even happy on this day, not smiling. Now I know. It’s okay that I don’t make trip already. USA will come. S
he loves me in this other way.

  “Who are you?” she says when she walks up to me. “Who are you?” She makes this joke.

  When she’s close to me and smiling, I can see she has some pain from love feeling. This American farang, maybe she never feels this way already. Thai people wonder: Why do these farangs come alone to our country? Why do they sit alone in restaurants, go alone on train, alone to see something? But I already ask too many farangs, so I know. They say it’s good to be this way-the word to say it: independent. They say, Why wait for someone else to travel with them? Maybe they’ll see something more if no one’s with them. Maybe then no one will annoy their nerves, make them move too fast or slow. So I know, for NokRobin, who travels alone for so many months, moving when she wants to, it hurts her now when love makes it more hard to go. But it’s okay for her. I love her, too. We stand, our toes close to touching.

  “Your nose is bright, wow. Like pink sun. You go to beach in Singapore?” I say this soft. I tap her nose. I look one way, other way, smile. Then, quick, I kiss her there.

  “The hotel where we stayed had a pool. I brought you a postcard of it. You’d like it there.” NokRobin’s mouth smells like orange juice. When she talks, her lips kiss each other. I take the heavy bag from her.

  “I like every hotel if you’re with me,” I tell her. We go outside to get in taxi queue, and when we walk, we’re very close, very soft, like between her shoulder and my shoulder is some easy-to-break thing.

  But with NokRobin it cannot be Thai style; we must be international. When we stand in queue, she says, “Piv, I know this isn’t right to do here, but I’d feel better. Please. Before we get in the taxi, can we please hug?”

  Many people are around us, but I put the heavy bag down. I open my arms to take her in. I smell airplane on her clothes. I smell sky. I feel her body all along me, more soft on top, her bones growing when she breathes. I think maybe the people look at us when we make this cuddle, twist up their face. But it’s okay. No problem. Smell from NokRobin’s hot body takes over smell of the airplane. Soon I think she takes me home.

  However, at this time I don’t tell NokRobin that Abu has one plan to take us to United States. Why don’t I tell her this? She wants to go back to Star Hotel right now. No restaurant. It’s Saturday and we pass by weekend market, and she loves that place, but she doesn’t want to go there. She doesn’t want to have cocktail in Star Hotel lounge. She wants to lie in bed. So we lie together. We make some cuddle, we make something. After that, we lay on top of the covers without our clothes. NokRobin likes to do this. She’s not shy, like the Thai lady. But when I ask her to tell me about Singapore—What’s it like there? How much money did she get? When’s Abu coming back? What Abu say?-she acts shy. She rolls up like the small centipede, tries to cover her body with the sheet. Now, very sudden, I remember, I wonder. Is some trouble concerning the box why she acts this way? Maybe Abu said something? I put my hand on her. Very soft, I move my hand on her skin.

  “Why you don’t like Singapore?” I say into her hair.

  “How do you know I didn’t like it? Did Abu tell you?” Her body closes tight. I move my hand, soft, to open her heart so she won’t leave.

  “I don’t know if you like it. Please. I cannot go. I never leave Thailand. Share trip with me.”

  NokRobin rolls on her back. The sheet falls off her body, but she pulls it up again.

  “There’s not much to share. I had to be with them all the time. And Volcheck’s such a scumbag. He had two girls with him, from Russia. They were barely wearing any clothes. I know they’re prostitutes.” She looks at me. Hard eyes. “Prostitutes? You know, bar girls?” she says. She want something from me, but I don’t have it fast enough. “Don’t you care? I guess living in Bangkok makes you used to it.”

  Four days speaking Thai, English words don’t come fast now. It takes some time to find. “No,” I whisper. “I’m sorry. I never go to bar girl like that. I don’t like that. No.”

  NokRobin’s face changes. Her eyes get soft, I see them. Now she can’t find words to say, even though we speak her language.

  I move my hand, put it on her shoulder, put my other hand on her other shoulder. “I’m sorry you’re alone there,” I tell her.

  She rolls to me and I take her. I hug her. Something passes through my mind, but no. She’s afraid of Abu. She doesn’t like Abu. Why would she tell him about those boxes? No. The way he knows is not like that.

  “It would have been better if you were with me.”

  NokRobin and me press together. We have dry, smooth skin like powder is on us. Only powder, no clothes. We lie quiet. In the hallway of the Star Hotel, someone closes the door. NokRobin moves her head to look at me. Her eyes are almost green. More dark green now than I have ever seen them. “I feel like a bad person,” she says.

  “No. Not bad. You’re very good person.” Her head fits between my shoulder and my collarbone. “Very good person. I love this good person.” I tell her this many times. Maybe one hundred times.

  She tells me sweet things, too. While she does, she presses onto me, onto me, onto me. I feel her hair from down there. I think we’ll make something again. I get ready. And we do. It’s nice, the way we do it. Better than the first time. It’s full of peace. I think she feels better. But for now I wait. I wait to tell her about the big business in the USA with Abu.

  Next day, I still want to wait to tell her about USA, but I think it’s good time to tell her about one other plan, idea I have that I know will make her happy. I choose the right place to tell her this. We go to Phra Athit Road and eat lunch, then we take river taxi to Tha Chang Pier. I hire one long-tail boat for us there. Only us, no other tourists, and the driver will take us along the river and klongs for two hours.

  As soon as the motor starts, NokRobin feels exciting. She smiles, and where the driver can’t see, she holds tight onto my arm. She likes to see my city go by. Everything’s there for her. Wat Phra Kaew, Grand Palace, Wat Pho. Apartment houses of rich ones with balconies and gardens on rooftops. Small houses of poor ones with no windows, no walls, cooking outside. We go down the Chao Phraya and then into Klong Phadung Krungkasem. People are outside with their buckets, washing themselves, washing their clothes. Klong water is black and shiny on top, like the hard wings of some beetle. People have small restaurants along there, small stores, all outside. NokRobin wears the white Udon shirt that she got in Pai, and the wind presses that loose shirt close to her body, and her tan neck is long. This ride goes by very smooth for us, nice.

  From Klong Phadung Krungkasem we go to Klong Saensaep. I tell the driver to go this way. There’s wats on both sides of the klong-red and gold roof above the green trees-and NokRobin thinks they’re beautiful. Then we go underneath expressway, and it’s dark for some moments, and she doesn’t like that. Then there’s more people’s houses, and then the house connected to my idea. I ask the driver, please, stop the motor for some moments.

  “Look,” I say to NokRobin. “Jim Thompson’s house.” I know she loves this one. She goes there with her friend, and she always wants to go again because she loves it so much. She thinks Jim Thompson is number one guy; she wants to be like him.

  She makes happy sound now when she knows that she sees his house. “Oh!” That’s all she says. With the motor stopped the klong seems quiet, even though in Jim Thompson’s garden someone is using the saw to cut wood. The driver smokes one cigarette, and I can smell the smoke mix up with the sweet and rotten klong.

  “This is the way he planned for people to see it,” NokRobin says after some time of looking. “From the klong. And wasn’t he right! It’s so much better, seeing it this way. Look how it twinkles.”

  Twinkles, I don’t know that. But the red house is very pretty. Shape is tall and small like NokRobin’s body, little measure wider on bottom than top, and the roof in the Thai-style. I like to see that.

  “Now we’re somewhere beautiful, so I can tell you my plan for our business,” I say to her. She looks
at me and smiles.

  “I thought we had a plan.”

  “I thought of something better. Something like Jim Thompson. I don’t know why I don’t think of this already.” I light one cigarette and blow. I stretch my legs in front of me, make the boat rock some small amount. NokRobin looks at me very close. She wants to know what I say. I can feel her waiting. When the boat gets calm again I ask her. “What is the thing you love to buy? The thing you love to look at? What you want to sell?”

  “I don’t know. All different things. You know I love that Buddha. But we can’t afford to sell anything like that.”

  “You study art at university,” I say to her. “You like art things, nice crafts. It’s no problem for you to get ideas about Thai style, what you think farang will like, and you can draw pictures. It’s easy to get them to make it for you here, whatever you want. Just like Jim Thompson. And if you order many, price is small.”

  “What are you talking about? I don’t understand.”

  “Jewelry. Silver jewelry. That’s what you love. You show the factory how to make some good design, something special. It’s cheap to make that here. Then we take that to your country, to another rich country, and we sell it for five times, six times the money we pay.”

  Very slow, NokRobin makes her funny face—happy, like the baby clown. “A jewelry designer.” She whispers that. “You’re saying I could be a jewelry designer? Ha!” She laughs one time. She likes my plan. She likes me today.

  “You can draw some pictures of ideas, then I’ll talk to the factory. I know some friends who already do something like that. They’ll help us. Okay? You like this plan?”

  “I love the plan.” NokRobin puts her feet on the seat of the boat and holds on to her knees. “I’d love to do it. I love that you think I can be a jewelry designer. But how much would this cost? Wouldn’t we need thousands of dollars?”