Private Dancer

by Stephen Leather

  I took her left hand in mine and turned it over so I could see her wrist. There were three red razor scars there, alongside the old scars from the cuts she'd made when her mother had died and her brother had crashed her motorcycle. There were other marks running down her wrist, small black cuts. I frowned as I examined them. She turned her wrist so I could see them better. Letters. P. E. T. E. Oh Jesus, she'd carved my name into her flesh. I traced the letters with my finger.

  ‘I do for you, Pete,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Why, Joy? Why?’

  ‘Because I want you know I love you.’

  I didn't know what to say. I'd seen the photograph of her and her husband. Hell, I'd sent her a copy of it so she knew that I knew she was married. And she knew that I'd seen the questionnaire she'd filled in.

  ‘What you want me do, Pete?’

  I didn't know. I didn't know what to do and I didn't know what to say. I took her back to the flat and we made love. Afterwards we sat on the balcony, looking across the city. Joy chain-smoked and told me what she'd been doing, planting rice on a farm in Khorat, she said. She'd lost weight and she said that was because she'd been smoking marijuana. ‘Because I think too much,’ she said.

  I asked her what she wanted to do and she said she didn't want to work as a dancer. ‘I not same before, Pete, now I good girl. I be good girl for you.’ She was going to speak to the mamasan in Zombie and ask if she could work as a waitress. ‘What you think, Pete?’ she asked, leaning her head against my shoulder. ‘You think good idea?’

  I said yeah, I thought it was a good idea.

  JOY

  Wan phoned me to say that Pete was back. I'd been dancing in a bar in Soi Cowboy but business wasn't good. The police in Soi Cowboy don't allow topless or naked dancing, or any shows, so most tourists go to Patpong or Nana Plaza. The men who go to Soi Cowboy are usually working in Bangkok, they've been there for a long time so they're tighter with their money, you can't con them into paying five thousand baht for a night. I'd only been working there for a few days when Wan called, so I quit straight away.

  I went to Nana Plaza three times before I saw Pete. The first two times he wasn't there and I ended up going to a short-time hotel with an American guy who used to barfine me when I danced in Zombie.

  Pete looked terrible, like he'd been staying out too late and drinking too much. He looked old. He kept asking me where I'd been, what I'd been doing. I wanted to tell him it was none of his business because he hadn't sent me money for months.

  He took me back to the apartment he was sharing with Bruce. It was huge. Three big bedrooms, a sitting room that was almost as big as Zombie, and a balcony. Every bedroom had its own bathroom. Six Thai families could have lived there but Pete and Bruce were staying there on their own. It was too big, I felt I was lost and I'm sure there were ghosts there.

  Pete kept asking me what I wanted to do. I didn't know what to say to him. I wanted him to take care of me, to give me enough money so that I didn't have to work, but he didn't offer to do that. Dancing was the best way of earning money, but I knew he didn't want me to dance, so I said I'd work as a waitress. He seemed to like that idea. I explained that waitresses were paid only half what the dancers earned and Pete said he'd pay the difference. Big deal, huh? Last of the big spenders.

  PETE

  Joy started work as a waitress. She looked really cute in her uniform - a white shirt with a thin black tie and a long black skirt. She worked really hard, serving drinks, emptying ashtrays and cleaning tables. She seemed to enjoy it, too. I guess she was happier because she didn't have to bare all in front of the customers.

  Every time I went in she'd make a big fuss over me, hugging me and kissing me, and whenever she wasn't working she'd stand next to me and talk to me. Waitresses could have their bar fines paid, same as the dancers, but I never paid it. I told her that I wouldn't treat her like a prostitute again. I'd see her before work, or after, and on her days off, but I wasn't prepared to pay money to the bar so that she could leave work early. She said that she understood, that she wanted to prove to me that she could be a good girl. To be honest, I'd have preferred to have her working in a shop or a restaurant or a regular bar like Fatso's, but I knew that she could earn more working in Nana Plaza.

  I went in pretty much every night to see her. Sometimes I'd stay for an hour, sometimes for a lot longer. And every time I left, she'd walk me to the door and kiss me goodbye as if to let all the other girls know that she was mine. Or that I was hers. Whatever. Sometimes she'd call me at three o'clock in the morning, just after the bar had closed, and she'd ask if she could come and see me. Half an hour later there'd be a timid knock on the door to the apartment and she'd be there, smiling shyly, still wearing her waitress uniform, and she'd spend the night asleep in my arms, pressed up against me, barely breathing.

  I was trying to get some work done, but she was all I could think about. I don't know why I loved her, I really don't. If I drew up a list of everything I liked about her, and compared it with a list of why she was totally unsuitable, there'd be no doubt about which would carry more weight. She was a former bargirl, she'd slept with God knows how many men. And it's not as if she was forced into it: I'd seen Joy with lots of different men in Zombie and she was always vivacious, full of life, enjoying herself while she worked. I hated to think about it, but I knew she'd be the same with them in bed. Sex was just something she did, enthusiastically and with flair, and I had no illusions that she was only that way with me.

  She was a liar, too. She'd lied to me so many times that I'd lost count, and even taking into account the Thai propensity for telling you what you want to hear, it was still impossible to base any long-term relationship on lies. The big lie was her husband. She'd insisted that he was only in her house for a few days, that he wasn't in her life any more, but prior to my detective uncovering what was going on, she'd always denied that she had anyone. It wasn't just the emotional betrayal, it was the fact that she'd been making love to a Thai while she'd been sleeping with me. That was a big thing all right because we didn't always use a condom.

  It happened almost by mistake, a couple of months after I'd starting paying her bar fine. I was with her in a short time hotel and the condom broke. That happens a lot with condoms made in Thailand, they must use cheap rubber or something. Anyway, I felt it break and I pulled out. It had torn apart and I took it off. It was the last one I had. I knew I could go out to reception and buy one off the guy there for ten baht, but Joy held on to me. ‘Pete, I not sick. I not have Aids, I not have anything. I make love to you, only one.’ Then she pulled me back down and I finished making love to her without a condom.

  Since then I'd rarely used one, and I'd never caught anything. I always figured that Joy was being faithful, but once I'd discovered that she had a Thai boyfriend, I'd started using condoms again. Initially, anyway. Then Joy had asked me not to, she said she wanted a baby, she wanted to have children with me to show me how much she loved me. I told her that I was scared of getting sick but she told me that there was no need to worry, Park had gone, she only made love to me, and she'd gone for an Aids test when she got back to Bangkok. I did as she asked, but at the back of my mind was the thought that maybe she was still lying to me.

  So how could I continue a relationship with such a deep level of mistrust? I don't know, I really don't know. It was her looks, partly, but it must have been more than that because the bars of Bangkok are packed with beautiful girls, all willing, all available. Okay, so Joy had the sort of hair I loved and a body to die for, and I think she's the prettiest girl I've ever seen, but that wouldn't be enough on its own to make up for the betrayal.

  It was a thousand small things she did. The way she spoke softly to me on the phone, the way she giggled, and the way the giggle would turn into a loud raucous laugh if she heard something really funny. It was the way she was always looking at me to see if I was happy, the way she'd ask me if everything was all right whenever I looked glum. I loved the
way she sat with her back arched, as if she'd been groomed at a Swiss finishing school. The way she brushed her hair behind her ear.

  I loved watching her dress. She'd spend several minutes checking herself in the mirror, looking over her shoulder to see that her shirt was just right at the back.

  Some of the things she did were so damn cute. Thais have a thing about heads and feet. The head is the most important part of the body, the feet the worst. So it's bad manners to point your foot at anything, or to touch something with your feet. And it's equally impolite to make contact with another person's head, even by accident. When Joy wanted to touch my hair, even if it was just to brush it away from my face, she'd wai first and say 'khor thot ka', excuse me.

  Her religion was so important to her, too. Whenever she entered or left Nana Plaza, she'd pass a shrine and she'd wai it. I guess it's the equivalent of a Catholic crossing herself when she goes into a church. It can be done automatically, a gesture with no thought, or it can be done with care, with reverence. With Joy it was the latter. She meant it, she respected the shrine, despite the fact that it was at the gateway to a red light area, a den of iniquity. It was as if she was untouched by what was going on around her.

  She was always telling me that she loved me. One time I asked her why. She looked deep into my eyes, right into my soul. ‘Because I same you, Pete. Your mother die when you were young. My mother die when I was young. We the same. I understand you, Pete.’ When she said it, it took my breath away. I was expecting one of the standard Thai bargirl responses. ‘Because you good looking, because you fun, because you take care me.’ I didn't expect such an emotional appeal and I was lost for words, all I could do was to reach out and hold her.

  She'd never asked me to explain why I loved her, and if she had, I wasn't sure what I'd have said. Words like ‘cute’ and ‘pretty’ weren't enough, not compared with the way she'd explained her love for me. Anyway, trying to rationalise it never made any sense to me. I'd just keep going around in circles. I loved her, but I could never trust her, and without trust was it really possible to love? So if it wasn't love, what was it? I don't think infatuation would have gone on for so long, and I don't think infatuation would have withstood her lies and betrayal. Obsession, maybe.

  Bruno had an explanation; one that sounded ridiculous when he told me, but one that I'd come to think might possibly be true. He said that Joy's village was close to the Cambodian border, and that many parts of her culture were closer to Khmer than to Thai. The Thais believe that Khmer witchdoctors have strange powers, especially involving love and sex. The Thais believe that Khmer girls can ask the witchdoctor to give them a tattoo, an invisible tattoo, somewhere on their body. The tattoo is magic, and once a man touches it, his heart belongs to the girl for ever. It doesn't matter whether or not she loves or wants him, it doesn't matter how she treats him, he's hers and will be forever.

  I laughed when Bruno told me the story, but the more I thought about it, the more it had a ring of truth. There was something inexplicable about the way I felt about Joy, and magic seemed as good a way of rationalising it as any. I had asked Joy about the invisible tattoo and she'd thrown back her head and laughed until she'd cried.

  JOY

  It's true about Khmer girls and the invisible tattoos, but I'm not Khmer, I'm Thai. Thai girls don't need magic to get farangs to do what they want. It's technique, it's something you can learn to do. You have to know what farangs want, and be prepared to give it to them. And what do farangs want? Some just want sex, and they're the easiest to satisfy. Sex is easy. You just lie back and open your legs and let them get on with it. Some farangs who come to Thailand on holiday want a temporary girlfriend. They want sex, but they want someone to show them around, take them to the Grand Palace, that sort of thing, then wave them off at the airport. They're easy to deal with. Some farangs want you to love them, and that's easy to fake, too. It's not magic that Thai girls use to keep farangs, it's psychology.

  Sunan and Mon taught me how to do it, and now I teach the girls who come down from our village. The first thing you have to teach them is not to be scared of farangs. I tell the girls to think of them as water buffaloes. They're big and they can be intimidating, but they're basically stupid and very easy to lead by the nose. And it doesn't matter if you don't speak very good English. The farangs will always play stupid games with you, and they'll speak really slowly and mime. All you have to do is to be sweet to them. When you first go up to them, you shake their hand or wai, and then you ask them if it's okay to sit down next to them. And you never ask them to buy you a drink, they have to think it's their own idea. That's the big trick, to make them think they're giving, rather than you taking. I never ask a customer to pay my bar fine. I wait for them to ask. Some of the girls are really pushy but eighty per cent of farangs hate pushy girls. And if a customer doesn't ask me if he can pay my bar fine, then there are plenty of other buffaloes in the fields.

  I quite enjoyed working as a waitress. It wasn't difficult, and I could spend time talking to my friends. I got lots of drinks, too, and tips. A lot of farangs seemed to think that because I was a waitress I was a good girl. It became more of a challenge, I think, because they thought waitresses didn't go with customers, so they'd buy me lots of drinks and didn't paw me as much as when I was a dancer.

  Pete came to see me every day, which was great, because every time he came in he'd give me money, sometimes as much as a thousand baht. The rest of the girls were so envious. They really admired me, too. Pete had found out about Park, he knew that I'd lied to him, but he still came back and gave me a thousand baht a day. They wanted to know how I'd done it, how I'd stopped him from finishing with me. I just laughed and said I had a Khmer tattoo.

  JIMMY

  I sometimes wonder if Thais are stupid, or if they just behave stupidly. There’s a difference. And it’s not just the people I’m talking about. Let’s start with flies. The insects. Flies have no intelligence, they’re just biological machines. You can’t teach a fly anything. But flies in the UK are cunning. Or at least they exhibit cunning behaviour. They sneak up on your food when you’re not around, they keep out of your reach most of the time. It’s damn hard to kill a fly in the UK. You have to stalk it for ages with a rolled-up newspaper or a can of fly killer before you get one.

  Flies in Thailand are totally different. They land on your food while you’re eating. They fly in front of your face, again and again. They sit on your spoon on the way to your mouth. You can kill flies in Thailand with your bare hands. Mosquitoes, too. Clap, and they’re dead. Shoo a fly away in the UK and it gets the message. You are a threat, it will then avoid you. Thai flies, you can shoo them away a dozen times and they keep coming back. The only way to stop a Thai fly is to kill it. So are Thai flies stupid? No, because they don’t have any intelligence at all. They just exhibit stupid behaviour. Maybe it’s Darwinian, maybe it’s the heat, but the end result is stupid behaviour.

  Consider now man’s best friend, and I don’t mean the go-go dancers in Nana Plaza. I mean the humble dog. Now, in the UK, where I have driven for getting on thirty years, I have only twice seen a dead dog on the road. I have never, ever, seen a dog in the act of being hit by a car. I have seen dogs look both ways before crossing a road, I have seen dogs using pedestrian bridges. I have seen dogs wait at zebra crossings for traffic to stop. I have seen dogs in the UK sit and wait for traffic lights to change.

  Dogs in Thailand are a totally different kettle of fish (I know, mixed metaphors, but what can you do). On any drive of 300kms or more I can pretty much guarantee that I will see a Thai dog get hit by a car. Not a dead dog, but a dog actually hit by a car. I have seen dogs explode when they’ve been hit by trucks, I’ve seen them mowed over by four-wheel drives. I’ve come close to personally running dogs over at least half a dozen times. I’ve seen a dog run over by a motorcycle on Sukhumvit Road. How hard is it to hit a dog with a bike? I couldn’t do it if I tried. Up country, the roads are littered with dead dogs. And
you know why? Because Thai dogs have no sense of what traffic is. They never look when they cross a road. I have seen a dog walk into the path of a truck without even wondering what the noise was. In Bangkok, dogs lie down and go to sleep in the middle of a crowded pavement. You never, ever, see that in the UK. So are Thai dogs stupid? Difficult to tell, but one thing is for sure – they exhibit stupid behaviour.

  Now let’s look at Thais. Start with Thais at the wheel of a car. They have a death rate on the roads FIVE times higher than in the West. They drive motorcycles without helmets, boots or gloves, and they die in their thousands. They happily drive the wrong way down roads. They drive drunk. They drive too fast. They don’t wear seat belts. They overtake on blind corners. On a simple trip from Bangkok to Pattaya on a recent holiday weekend I saw the aftermath of SIX major accidents. I have seen countless accidents actually happen here. In the UK I have only ever seen one accident. In the UK I have never seen a fatality. In Thailand, I have seen seven over the years, bodies literally bleeding to death in the road. The Government knows what’s happening and they run road safety campaigns. They flood the roads with police at Songkran. And it doesn’t make a blind bit of difference. Thais die in their thousands. So, are Thai drivers stupid? Most Thais I meet are drivers and they are clearly not stupid. But as a whole, Thai drivers consistently exhibit stupid behaviour. I’m not saying there aren’t stupid drivers in the UK. Of course there are. But they are a small minority. Stupid behaviour on the roads is the norm in Thailand.