by John Burdett
"Lek?"
"To the last nuance, as you would say." She looks me full in the face for a moment, then faces upstream, toward Laos. "You're the one who is always explaining that we humans are simply the visible ends of karmic chains, intimately interwoven with others, that stretch back thousands, even millions, of years. You just didn't want to apply that to an American in love, did you?"
Touche, and I would not mind leaving it at that. But Kimberley is farang, after all. "Sonchai, you don't have to answer yes or no to this question. I'll know by the way you look. Is this-this thing I'm feeling-is it really just the reflex of a sexually frustrated thirty-something? I mean, you don't really think it's all about dominance, money, power, and exoticism? You were just angry when you said all that? He's more than ten years younger than me, I know, and very feminine…" She coughs. "Yeah, well, he's totally irresistible. That beauty, that sensitivity-to an American cop like me, it's a miracle he exists at all in this world. Two nights ago I watched him put his makeup on before he went to that bar of his. All my life I've been bored by women's makeup rituals, but I could have watched him all night. What is happening to me?"
27
Five A.M.: the bus station at Surin is as big as an airport, with buses going everywhere but mostly to Bangkok. Even at this hour my nomadic people are on the move. We keep our restlessness hidden under serene exteriors, but check our life itineraries, and you'll see we never stop moving from country to city and vice versa. Like temple dogs, we carry our fleas with us and never stop itching. I left the FBI at the airport at Phnom Penh; she was retrieving a picture of Lek that she had captured on her cell phone. He is beautiful, of course, but also very ethnic; he looked out of the FBI's cell phone as if he were peering at her from another planet and knew it. She looked at him as if there were not a single thing about him she did not understand.
I'm lucky to get a seat at the back of the bus to Ubon Ratchathani. There's that usual feeling of relief, of a journey finally started, when the driver climbs in and starts the engine. At the same time he plays a noisy video on the monitor, which is on a bracket above his head. Unfortunately it's a sickly romance full of empty beaches, long sultry looks, and sustained close-ups of teary eyes; an ophthalmologist's vision. I close my own eyes and drop off in seconds. I must be exhausted because I do not normally sleep on buses. The seat is quite uncomfortable, and I have to continually adjust by bracing my knees against the seat back in front of me; then when that position becomes intolerable, I twist around so my head is resting on the window; and so on. In the waking intervals I observe a hybrid landscape of failed development projects, sprawls of poor quality housing that looks unfinished even though it's been there for decades, ragged streams, and sultry remains of jungle. The wasteland continues for a few miles, but by the time we reach Pak Cheung, there's been a subtle change. Nature is not so cowed out here: the ramshackle settlements are like barricades against the dense creeping green of the hinterland.
After lunch I get into a conversation with the young woman next to me. We beat about the bush for a couple of minutes before we admit to each other we're both in the flesh trade. She works in Nana Plaza and has been doing quite well these past few months. She's going home for a few days to be with her five-year-old daughter by a Thai lover whom she hasn't seen since she told him she was pregnant. She doesn't say it, but I can see she is also looking forward to the respect her fellow villagers will show her for taking care of her parents and siblings; it will make a change from being just another whore on the Game in the big city. I ask her if she knows Black Hill Hamlet, where Damrong came from. She nods: Yes, she's visited there a few times. Even for Isaan, it's a very poor village. She saw children eating dirt there; they really are on the breadline in that area.
From Ubon Ratchathani I hire a four-wheel drive with driver to take me to the hamlet. Now I'm in true Isaan country. It's starting to get dark, but there's enough light to observe the mystically flat landscape that makes you feel like you're at the lowest point on earth. Wild-looking day workers with T-shirts wrapped around their heads flash by in the back of pickup trucks. Regular tree lines form windbreaks for the smallholdings where women prepare food over charcoal fires; the mystic green of the paddy is immeasurably enhanced by the inexplicable presence of elephants. The pachyderms graze or stand impossibly motionless, relishing the emptiness. I'm reminded that Surin province is the elephant capital of Thailand. During the last weekend in November there is a festival, called the Elephant Roundup, in Surin town, and the roads are crowded with the beasts for weeks on end. In the country it is considered lucky, even vital, that children should run under the lumbering animals as they trundle past.
It's dark by the time the four-wheel drive gets to the hamlet. I don't bother to ask anyone about Damrong's folks — I'm too tired. I find a woman who is prepared to let me sleep in her house for a modest fee of one hundred baht, including breakfast. Like every other house in these parts, it is on stilts. When I've climbed the wooden stairs, I see it consists of one huge room with a few futons on the floor and all the owner's worldly possessions piled up in a corner. Being a widow and middle aged, there is no stigma in putting a man up for the night, nor any suggestion of impropriety. The house is in a compound surrounded by houses belonging to her relations. I don't think she has ever experienced urban paranoia in her life. She shifts her futon to the other end of the room, though, and I fall asleep gratefully. In the morning she gives me rice gruel with a fried egg on top. Starting off gently, I ask her as obliquely as I can about Damrong and her family. I haven't told her I'm a cop.
She has heard about Damrong's death, of course-the whole hamlet has been talking about it for days. How did she hear about it? She shrugs: grapevine. I guide the conversation to Damrong's home life. What kind of people?
Despite the labyrinthine forms of politeness and diplomacy with which country people broach delicate subjects, I've clearly hit upon some subtle level of the whole affair known only to the villagers. I see from her face that my hostess believes that magic, karma, or even divine vengeance were involved. When I open my wallet to offer to pay a little more for a cup of coffee if she can manage one, she understands immediately and, in a sudden change of mood, starts merrily and loquaciously to spill her guts.
Damrong's family were hard people, my hostess explains. She uses a particular Isaan word which indicates a combination of fear, respect, and doubt: even in the country it is possible to take toughness too far. Damrong's father died when she was in her midteens, but he was quite the country gangster in his day, who used sorcery to protect himself during his midnight raids on other villages. His tattoos kept him safe for years. In those not-so-distant times there were very few cops around, and those few were not exactly diligent. Damrong's father killed five men during his life, mostly in brawls or simply because they got on his nerves-generally with the upward thrust of a knife under the ribs. The courting of Damrong's mother consisted of abducting her and keeping her in his house for three days. Whether he raped her or not during that time is irrelevant; at the end of the three-day period, she was ruined as far as any other man was concerned, so she had to marry the country gangster. She didn't much mind, so the story goes, for she had that extra tough-some would say criminal-streak herself, which is why the gangster chose her in the first place. Nobody liked doing business with them. A darkness hung over that family. Damrong's violent death was seen hereabouts as simply one more chapter in a black family history.
My hostess pauses in her compulsive nattering and looks at me. "You know the tradition of making children run under elephants during the festival? Well, I happened to be there when her mother made Damrong do it. Personally I think it's very cruel-some kids are so terrified they're mentally scarred for life. Think of what it must mean to a six-year-old, seeing those enormous legs, those terrifying feet, and being told by your own mother you have to risk your life by running underneath them. Elephants are not gentle giants-they're vicious and unpredictable."
"How did Damrong take it?"
"That's the thing, I never saw a child so terrified. But her mother beat her. I mean, she just kept on hitting her until she was more terrified of another smack than she was of the elephant. She ran under it, but I'll never forget the hatred in her eyes-not of the elephant, of her mother. She didn't run to her for comfort, she just stood there on the other side of the street totally traumatized. Such a pretty girl too. You could see what she was going to become even at that age. What choice did she have?"
We're interrupted by a shout from below. One of the neighbors has heard that a stranger is staying here and wants to take a look at him. "We're talking about Damrong!" my hostess yells down. "I'm coming up!" yells the other.
She is a very short country woman, perhaps no more than four feet nine-a diastrophic dwarf, the smartest kind of little person — in a worn sarong carrying a plastic bag containing a large spiky green durian that she no doubt hopes to sell somewhere today. To see her as poor, though, might be missing the point. I recognize her as belonging to a specific type which is fast disappearing. Even today, all over rural Thailand, especially here in Isaan, there are still people like her who live off the land in a literal way, people who are sufficiently familiar with the woods and jungles to survive there without much external support. Her face is deeply lined with a great forehead and young bright eyes under the sagging lids. This woman has never experienced depression in her life; she lives on some elemental level and shares her mind with spirits.
"The gentleman was asking about Damrong," my hostess explains.
"Oh, of course," says the dwarf, not at all surprised that someone should appear out of nowhere and demand to know all the gossip. "So sad."
"I said she comes from a hard family."
"Hard?" The dwarf also uses the Isaan word. "You're not kidding." Looking up at me and, I think, quickly identifying me as some kind of authority figure: "They say her brother, Gamon, is heartbroken."
"Oh, yes," says my hostess, distressed at having left out a dramatic detail. "They were so close. But of course, he is a monk, so he will know how to take it."
"We'll be lucky if he doesn't kill himself," says the dwarf in a contemplative kind of way, "monk or not. She was the only backbone he had."
When we hear yet another voice downstairs, a curious neighbor wanting to see the mysterious visitor, I know it's time to go. I dig out my police ID to flash it. No one is particularly surprised. The dwarf undertakes to lead me to Damrong's mother's house.
The house-actually a large shack-is the only one without a flower garden; garbage is heaped up in a corner in front. Unlike the other houses, the stilts supporting this one are entirely of timber, with no concrete support; they are rotting along with the stairs that lead up to the front door. I have to knock a few times. When she opens the door, I see one large, almost-empty space populated by plastic buckets to catch leaks from the roof. In a far corner a small black-and-white television flickers in front of a futon.
She's drunk already and very thin in the way of terminal alcoholics: worn gray sarong wrapped around her skeletal form, black T-shirt. Whatever it is that happens to the legs of drunks has happened to hers: she walks stiffly with a jerk, as if there's a broken nerve in the link between leg and brain. I've never seen a face so black with fear and loathing. No doubt she was hard as nails twenty years ago, but now the hardness has disintegrated, leaving only a rickety body and a damaged brain as processing unit; there's been no higher consciousness here for decades. I know there's no point questioning her, so I have to change my plan on the wing. I flash my ID. "Your son, Gamon, says hello."
She glares at me, apparently not understanding the word "son." I look for signs of him from the doorway and see, of all things, an old publicity photograph for a Harley-Davidson motorbike pinned to a wall. If I am not mistaken, it is a Fat Boy. A flicker of light passes through her eyes. She makes a shooing gesture with her hands. "Fucked off."
"He joined the Sangha."
She glowers. "Fucked off."
"And your daughter, Damrong?" The name seems to have no meaning for her at all. Perhaps she would remember her daughter's family nickname, but I don't know what it is. From my pocket I fish out a still from the video: Damrong's beautiful face about five minutes before she dies. It has a strange effect on the old woman, as if evoking not memories so much as a parallel world. She points at a flimsy structure in one corner of the space, which seems to form a separate room made of thin plywood, with a door that is locked by means of a cheap padlock. "Borisot," she says: virgin.
I know the country tradition of building a special space for a daughter who has reached puberty and whose honor needs to be kept inviolable until a husband can be found. It is a custom which is emphasized in every second soap that appears on our TV screens. By a fantastic psychological maneuver Damrong's mother must have decided one fine day to protect the virtue of her absent daughter, whom she forced into prostitution and from whom she has not heard for years. I have to give her two hundred baht before she will fish out the key to the padlock and open the door. Inside, the tiny room consists of two-by-four studs holding up plywood walls. There is nothing else at all except for two photographs, both of Damrong. One is about eight by twelve inches, old and yellow, pinned to the plywood: the kind of romantic pic only country photographers produce, with softened lines, starry eyes, and a stiff white dress with plenty of lace. Damrong could not have been more than thirteen years old when it was taken; she has been told to look skyward to a TV heaven of handsome husbands and air-conditioning. Despite the photographer's efforts, her classic beauty shines through, and there is no denying the power of it. The other photograph is of a child running under a huge elephant. The old lady sees me stare at it and starts into an incomprehensible babble in her native Khmer. I think this hopelessness I feel, intensified by a factor of millions, must have been exactly what Damrong decided to combat one fine day when she was still very young.
"Just one thing, Mother," I say, putting a finger to her lips. To my surprise, she stops ranting on the instant, like an obedient child. Gently I turn her around so she has her back to me and lift up the T-shirt. She yields as if she's undergoing a medical examination. Sure enough, the tiger tattoo begins somewhere in the small of her back and leaps up so that its head is just peeping over her left shoulder. Interesting. The other tattoo is an elaborate horoscope. Both are very faded and wrinkled, I would guess she's had them since her teens. I examine the horoscope for a while; it is written in ancient khom, of course. I don't think there's much more to be gained here, so I say goodbye and descend the stairs to the ground. Outside, looking up at the rickety hut with its rotting stumps and the black madness of the old lady who is at this moment slamming the door, I experience an overwhelming rage. What psychological mountains did Damrong have to climb just to function, just to get up in the morning-merely in order to believe in herself enough to work? What superhuman power enabled her to do it all with genius and panache? They knew nothing of all that, of course — Baker, Smith, and Tanakan-when they made use of her charms. I knew better but carefully concealed that knowledge from myself while I took my pleasure; just like them, mes semblables, mes freres.
The hamlet is a sprawling affair that takes up a surprising amount of land because each family owns a smallholding which separates it from the others. A few of the homesteads are quite affluent, even boasting carports with pickup trucks; most are at subsistence level. Everyone has heard that a stranger, a cop, has arrived, and ragged kids emerge blatantly to stare. Nobody wants to be seen talking to me in public, though. I decide to try my luck with the family who live next door to Damrong's mother. A woman in a sarong is squatting under her long roof, using a pestle and mortar to make somtan salad. She has been watching me from the corner of her eye, and when I pause at her gate, she calls out, "Have you eaten yet?"
"Not yet."
"Eat with us."
There is a sliding iron gate, which I push open. At the same time three
kids appear, the youngest about three years old. A bent old man, probably in his eighties, emerges from the house on wobbly legs, holding a bottle of moonshine. Behind him nagging abuse streams from an old lady. Now a young woman appears, walking very slowly. It is almost a perfect replica of Nok's family. The first woman, who is in her fifties, has been watching my face as I gaze with a professional eye on the young woman.
"Medication," she says.
"Yaa baa?"
"Her second husband was a dealer. The police shot and killed him, but not before he'd screwed up her head with his drugs. One half of her brain is mush. The mental hospital was going to keep her locked up for seven years if I didn't guarantee her. I have to pay for the medication every month or she loses it completely."
"Those are her kids?"
"All by different fathers. If it wasn't for my first daughter, I don't know what we'd do."
"Your first daughter works in Krung Thep?"
She turns her eyes away. "Of course." She begins serving the somtan and places a wicker basket of sticky rice between us.
I regret the insensitivity of my question and change the subject even as I stick my fingers into the rice and make a ball out of a handful. "I've been talking to your neighbor."
"I know. You're here because of Damrong."
"How long have you lived here?"
"Forever. We're villagers-this is the only land we own."
I decide to let her talk in her own time. She rolls her ball of rice around in the sauce of the salad, which is crimson with chili, and eats for a while, then says, "So, you're a cop investigating poor Damrong's death. That's one family with very bad karma." Shaking her head: "What other explanation could there be? We are poor too, we suffer just the same as them, but we don't go bad. We're good people, we go to the wat, we make merit, we keep a clean house, we never break the law." A pause while she shakes her head. "What's that mother going to be, chart na? She can't even talk properly anymore. She's going to hell. When she gets out, she'll be lucky to be reborn a human. I've never seen anything that dark, that hopeless. What people do to their minds, hey?"