Lost in Pattaya

by Kishore Modak

  At the room we settled down, asking for sandwiches and ice-cream.

  “How is Miho?” she asked, waiting for what she thought was an appropriate moment.

  Her question, it stabbed me, opening possibilities that I prayed hard against.

  “What? What do you mean?” my speech was unsteady and my thoughts were scattered by the dope.

  “You know I stayed with her, you do right?” she asked.

  “Yes, but that was only for a brief period and that too many years ago,” I replied, leaving the half eaten sandwich limp on the plate.

  “I never lost touch with her, I have been exchanging messages with her almost on a daily basis, that is how I knew that you came searching for me, back to Pattaya and decided to stay on with them,” she said, still eating her sandwich.

  Li Ya knew of the prostitution ring’s existence and the profligate life that I shared with it, in addition to the bed of the ring leader, Thuy Binh.

  “Miho and I have been good friends all along, though I have not seen her in years. Also, I want you to know that I don’t think you any less, just because of your lifestyle. I mean, the stuff that you have gone through in life, I think you are a brave man if anything,” she said, picking up the soiled plates before depositing them on the floor of the hotel’s corridor outside our room.

  I went to the toilet, shooting up one last time that night, hoping to awaken refreshed, dealing with what I had just committed, the abduction of my own daughter, a case of which could easily be made out given that I was holed up here with her by my side while her legal guardians were launching a search.

  They, Fang Wei and Georgy, they were not looking for her. If they were, our door would have been knocked upon and knocked down by now.

  It was ironic; I had committed the same acts, abductions of daughters, almost as justice meted out against those who had been responsible for my daughter’s disappearance many years ago. Of course there were significant variations between the two abductions, first off being the detail of the abductees’ age, while the second pertains to my criminalisation; I mean how could I accept her silly suggestion of being away from her parents without consent for a few days, even if she had left them to be with her own father? Her loss as a child, it had defined the decay of my entire life. Now, when I had found her again and discovered that she knew the emptiness of my life, it seemed her being united with me had little meaning left in it. I had drifted into a dark-tide from which she was best kept away, even if it meant I never saw her again.

  I did not encourage conversation that night, simply wanting to sleep off the coke before picking threads up on the following morning. I lay awake, sensing Li Ya stir when she thought I was safely asleep. She rummaged through my stuff, found what she was looking for and disappeared to the toilet for a few minutes. She may have turned the tap on so she could mask the true purpose of her visit, insufflations. I suspected she had searched and found my coke, snorting it in the toilet, quiet in the confidence of youth that she was stealing behind my back. When she emerged back, she tiptoed about, settling on the couch, plugging in her phones, listening to music as the newly initiated often do in order to extract the pleasures from a high.

  I did not say a thing, knowing it was not the first time she was tasting this stuff. Addiction to substance needs a host. It wasn’t di cult to connect the dots through to the past, linking her trial and consumption of drugs at the coaxing of a new found friend many years ago, Miho, with whom she spent only a few weeks, before she flew back to Singapore. Her teenage growth would have been in communication with her hostess of pleasures, waiting for an opportunity to make real the memories of her juvenile highs.

  I did not say a thing since I felt incapable of admonishing another on a matter I myself had no restraint over. I lay awake, frozen tight in silence, feeling a complete loss of authority over Li Ya, my own daughter. This loss of authority was because I had not been a part of her growing years and felt unsure of guiding her, let alone control her. In that moment, I should have swung into action, calling Fang Wei, driving Li Ya to her good parents with urgent immediacy, but, I simply lay there pretending to be asleep, letting my own daughter get stoned, consoling myself with meaningless reason, logic that it was pure stuff she was having, a stuff that won’t make her sick with one or two hits.

  After a couple of hours, I summoned some courage, turning on my side towards her, “Li Ya, go to bed now,” I said, noticing the clock glowing green at three AM. She had fallen asleep on the couch by then and did not stir.

  It was I who remained awake to the fact that my reunion with Li Ya was tepid, without the jubilation my imagination had held. My daughter was idolizing the wrong dad, me.

  I decided not to say much in the time we had ahead but I made a mental note to completely distance myself from her after that, hoping that the sensible direction of higher education chosen by her parents would prevail, settling Li Ya into her years of youth and adulthood. In fact, in the morning I would leave her back in the safety of Fang Wei and Georgy, returning to the forgotten-lodge before planning on any further moves.

  I did not sleep at all and close to dawn I took all my little packets of coke to the toilet where I locked myself, contemplating flushing them down with the blood that would suffice if I acted upon the plan of slashing my wrists, a plan that did not seem as horrific or unachievable to me then as it might to you now. Death, it too was a plausible manner of disappearing; my disappearance ensuring things mended well. With me gone Li Ya would be forced to seek back her good parents, cutting short any misadventures of youth that she may be planning.

  All junkies wallow in the self-pity of addiction; almost none nerve-up to act upon their mindless plans of escape from it.

  When I emerged back into the room, I had already had a hit having restored all the coke back into my pockets. A small quantity of it, I left on the table in front of Li Ya, still asleep on the couch. I left some for her so she knew that I knew and I did not want her wandering the streets consuming contaminated stuff, coming in contact with the SriJaya’s of this city. Slipping out of the room, I surveyed the empty hotel corridor and headed out to Lumphini, where I would do my duty towards Thuy Binh, searching for her and hoping she was still alive. I would get back in an hour or so, speak to Li Ya before sending her back to Fang Wei, who was in a far better position to parent Li Ya.

  In such thoughts I walked about the lotus pool towards the centre of the park, noticing joggers and stretchers starting their day with a bout of vigour. Loud, hoarse, forced laughter fell ugly on morning ears, coming from the laughers across the lily pond. An energetic white dog darted ahead of me without a leash, frolicking in the morning air.

  Kawai, he welcomed me to the world of gang tattoos. His own was primarily on his back, and across the length of his spine, a coiled serpent, hood spread in aggression at the unfortunate beholder of body art, covered for now by the white vest that he wore.

  When I saw him across the lake, he seemed ordinary other than the sleeves of ink on his arms, emerging from beneath a linen white singlet. He did not really approach me; it was the white dog that bounded playfully towards him, making mirth with the Lord of Bangkok.

  “Hello sir, I know you?” the exquisitely tattooed man made his inquiries in a friendly sort of an ordinary manner, digging a squash ball out of his white short’s pocket, pointing it towards me, holding it up, as if for me to chase, then throwing it lustily into the air, letting it float before it landed in the lake, all to the delight of the dog who yelped in the glee of morning games, darting aquiline at the bobbing ball on the surface of the disturbed lake.

  “Hello, I am Kawai and I mean you no harm, since you are harmless,” he extended his hand, and I shook it, warmly.

  “How did you find me?” I asked, all the while holding close to mind the image of my stoned little girl at the Holiday Inn, hoping to just veer the entire juggernaut mess of my life away from the angel at the Inn.

  “I ask questions, I am Kawai and you ar
e using up too quickly the slack of politeness that I have extended,” he was still smiling at the soaking white dog that appeared with a hiss of impeded breath, given the ball in its canine jaws. Kawai turned in my direction only after he had re-launched the squash ball in a projectile trajectory. His expression became dour, facial contours all pointing earthwards, smile-less.

  “I am just a drifting man, I have nothing to do with her business, believe me,” my tone had softened, right at the threshold of begging.

  “Her business . . . you mean Thuy Binh, my whore, who kept you as her whore?” he asked, holding his unfurled palm up to the dog, indication enough for the dog to disappear behind us, where I was sure an entourage of gangsters petted and leashed the pesky beast in.

  “Whatever it is that you want from me, I will give you. Please, just let me go, I have played no part in this story,” I begged, my memory bleeding back to the stoned angel at the Inn.

  “We are brothers, ask me why.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we have fucked the same whores,” he smiled again, to my relief.

  I was silent, imagining his naked magenta body, pinning Thuy Binh roughly underneath, penetrating deep, till she was forced to give up. Her scream rose in my ears, cut short by him smothering her to submission. For her, it must have felt like being raped by the canvas painting of a monster.

  His fingers were tattooed with daggers along the phalanges, colours alternating between red green and black, laid out almost like the bones that provided stiffness to his palm.

  “Yes, I want something from you. Something simple,” he penetrated me with his look.

  “I want that rat; she goes by the name of Miho now. I know you think that is her name, whores are like that, the best ones are di cult to tell apart from their assumed names, including our bitch Thuy Binh.”

  The koi fish on his forearm, changed its colour from a scaly vermillion to a deep post-sunset red, then it swam away up his arms, disappearing under his singlet, as if escaping the morning’s un-glorious glare.

  The coke made my eyes well up.

  “No, I swear I don’t know where Miho is. If I do I will let you know,” I was stammering and he could probably tell I meant what I said, for my spirit was with the angel in the hotel room, and I was consumed by the compulsion to ensure the angel was not trapped in my web of helpless consequences.

  “Tell me, how will you tell me, do you know how to find me?” he was smiling, like a master to a dog.

  He stuck his painted palms into his pockets and pulled out a card. It was a curious looking visiting card. Along its edges it had daggers, red green and black, all entwined in serpents forming a frame for its contents, and on its top right corner was a SIM embedded in perforations that could be cut away, just above a number etched deep and clear in gold.

  “Call this number or simply activate this SIM when you want to find me,” he started moving away, alone, as if he was simply another morning visitor, seeking the peace and quiet of Lumphini Park.

  I sat down on a bench, scanning the people of the park, looking for eyes that may be following me. There were none that I could find. I must have been there for over fifteen minutes and it seemed that the Lord of Bangkok had come alone to see me, which obviously could not be the case. But, in not finding any trace of his gangsters it became amply clear that I was the one who was sticking out like a thumb among fingers. When I started walking towards the train station, I ensured I stopped around corners peering about every now and then; finding nothing that seemed unusual. On the trains I remained cautious, looking for rakes plying on the opposite side of the platform from where mine stopped now and then. I kept darting across and boarding trains in various directions before I felt sure that I would have shaken off anyone who may be on my trail. Eventually, I disembarked about four stations away from the Inn, taking circuitous routes, before waiting patiently for a large tour group to arrive, mixing with them and entering the hotel.

  All the while, Kawai’s strange visiting card seemed to gain weight and I felt it heavier in my pocket, in fact every now and then I fingered it’s edges, dreading the possibility of actually having to use it.

  I was relieved to find my room key card still working, but my heart fell when I realised I was by myself. Li Ya was not in the room. There were no notes or messages for me and I simply slumped on to the bed, hoping she would return soon so I could return her back to her parents. With her out of the equation, decisions would be much simpler.

  I cared for Thuy Binh, but with her in Kawai’s clutches there was little that I could do. I mean, I could not take on the Lord of Bangkok. I was just a failed auditor, tottering about after having botched a family and work life.

  I must have drifted into a snooze, for when the phone rang, I leapt, grabbing the handset clumsily, simply listening, and not saying a word at first.

  “It’s me,” came the voice over the line, it was unmistakably hers, Miho’s.

  “Where are you? Lots of people are looking for you,” I said.

  “Yes I know. Just thought I’d spend a day with my friend Li Ya,” she said.

  “Hi dad,” Li Ya’s voice came through, from the background.

  “Can you give the phone to Li Ya?” I demanded.

  “Hey dad, What’s up? Where have you been all morning?” she sounded happy.

  “Li Ya, where are you? I need to come and get you. You can’t be hanging around Bangkok with Miho. I know you are high and trust me, I don’t really care about that. I just want you to leave Miho and come back to the hotel,” I was working words, trying to find a way for me to reach her and then eject her out of what I had landed her in, a mess.

  “Why are you worried, I mean her and me, we are just having a good time? Don’t worry about me, hold on speak to Miho,” she handed the phone back to Miho.

  “What do want from Li Ya?” I asked.

  “Nothing other than unselfish love, a love that Thuy Binh betrayed because of you, it is the same love that I now seek from Li Ya. You should not have cheated me, you may end up paying a very heavy price,” she whispered, clearly not wanting Li Ya to hear the last bit.

  “What happened to Thuy Binh? Where is she?” I asked, wanting to prolong conversation, giving myself the time to think.

  “I gave her to Kawai, in exchange for Pattaya, which is now mine. She was born a prostitute and ruled for a while as the queen, now she is back to being Kawai’s prostitute and will soon die as his entire gang’s bitch,” Miho, she was avenging herself, wanting me to know that she had prevailed. Her revenge was meaningless to me, since I was concerned with only the safety of Li Ya then, and a way to ease her out of Bangkok, back to the safe company of her parents.

  “When will you get Li Ya back to me?” I asked.

  “Come to the same place in the evening, the temple along Patpong at the south end. She will be there with me, and she will tell you that she does not want to be with you. She is mine now, maybe forever. Come alone and don’t take any more actions that you may regret,” the phone clicked dead.

  Her bitterness at me having shared her mistress may seem excessive, but I understood it. They, Miho and Thuy Binh, were coupled in a far stronger bond than ordinarily married couples, since they were the holders of each other’s entire past, and would have sworn a far stronger allegiance than the mundane marital vows couple’s exchange. They had thrived, ascending to rule the badlands of Pattaya. Then, Thuy Binh grew bored of her teenage muse, latching on to a more mature and adult branch of love that came with me entering her life. She had wanted to enjoy both, the stability of an illicit empire, built on the Miho-alliance, and, the occasional deviation with me, becoming an ordinary woman, happy in making a man happy, even if it is for a short duration, away from the province of prostitution that she ruled.

  My reading of Li Ya was cloudy, since I didn’t know her at all, not having been a part of her growing years. What I was certain about, was Miho’s ability at luring any to a world of pleasure with her persuasions.
She would create all the colours of magic with her smoke and mirror tricks of drugs, sex and above all, promises of a future in which the mysteries of pleasure lay bare for any who took Miho’s hand. With coke working the senses, the touch of Miho would just take any host on a voyage of rapture, especially a host who may be entering the world of derived mineable pleasure with the first few tentative steps of discovery. It would take time for the pleasure to dull, till finally, the mine of pleasures would grow dark and deep, with no shimmer of gold and diamonds, eventually becoming nightmarish, inescapable, and claustrophobic.

  It did not upset me that Li Ya may be sharing her afternoon in bed with Miho, high on coke. The present, which was a day of drugs and lesbian love, paled when one imagined where the future was leading Li Ya to. If I could extricate her now and push her back on to a life of academic pursuits, this would become her memory of a wild time, to be cherished and related, when the time for recounting escapades with friends came.

  What upset me, in fact it crushed me was the weight of my own actions, the fact that I was after all the one who had lost Li Ya, right now during that phone call, I had lost her. She had chosen not to return to me, chosen to leave me tortured while she embarked on a day of psychedelic picnics. I had lost my daughter in the day just past, right after I thought I had found her. I thought I had found a way of including her in my life; instead, over the years past I had created a perfect symphony of events, culminating in the loss of Li Ya. I should have remained in Singapore after my marital breakdown, seeing her on weekends as the court orders permitted me to, till she refused to see me altogether. Most kids drift away from fathers estranged by separation with their mothers, such children simply come to hate their separated parent and the artificial weekends at the parks and beaches, which keep them away from their homes and the comfort of their friends and family. To a child, time with an ex-ed parent is a reminder of their broken family, a reminder they want to eventually avoid and pass on by. It works well since there is nothing to see and chase in a broken failed man, even if he is your biological father. I was responsible for Li Ya’s mental decay, since I never saw her, never giving her the opportunity at loathing me. Instead, with my absence, I became the imaginary pillar on which she leaned, hating Fang Wei and Georgy all the while, not appreciating what they were providing for her, hating the folks who could steer her to a decent life. Visualising shouting matches, Fang Wei and Georgy on one side, Li Ya on the other, I realised how I may have been present, like an unwanted guest, in their household all the time. I had probably got rid of them far more effectively that they had of me.