Private Dancer

by Stephen Leather

  Look at AIDS. They knew it was coming here. It hit Africa and America first. Then Europe. The Thais knew it was coming. I was here long before AIDS. I saw AIDS decimate gays in the States. I saw it ravage Africa. I remember the first case in Thailand. We know AIDS is pretty much preventable, we knew that long before it arrived in Thailand. Don’t share needles, wear a condom when you have sex, check blood before giving a transfusion, and AIDS cannot get a foothold. Yet it ripped through Thailand. Why? The Thai medical experts aren’t stupid, and they did all they could to warn the population. But the warnings had no effect. Why? Because Thais consistently exhibit stupid behaviour.

  Restaurants? Don’t get me started. Anyone who’s eaten in Thailand more than a few times will have stories of the wrong food arriving, or courses arriving out of sequence. You might think you’re being deliberately ripped-off with padded bills, but in my experience more often than not it’s stupidity that leads to the miscalculations rather than a deliberate attempt to cheat.

  I go into my local Starbucks and ask for a ham and cheese baguette. I do this three or four times a week. I always ask for it cold. I don’t want it microwaved. This time the guy puts it in the microwave. When I see what he’s done I say I don’t want it hot. He smiles, takes it out and hands it to me. Doesn’t he see that it is already hot? Of course he does, it’s steaming and the cheese has melted. Does he think that I am just going to accept something that I don’t want? Is he stupid, or just behaving stupidly? Again, of course you get bad service in the UK. But it’s unusual. And when management is informed, it’s put right and apologies are made. Not in Thailand. Here stupid behaviour is the norm. No one complains. It is simply accepted, generally with a shrug and a wry ‘what can you expect, this is Thailand.’

  Let’s look at Thai builders. Anyone who has ever had a house built will tell you the horror stories. I’ve just had a new bathroom put in my apartment. When I empty the bath, the shower fills with water. They’ve connected the two drain pipes. Stupid builders? They didn’t seem stupid, but they did a stupid thing.

  I had a guy come in to fix an air-conditioning unit. I showed him the faulty unit and left him to it. When he’d finished, he’d repaired the wrong unit. Let me rephrase that. He worked on the wrong unit for an hour. It worked exactly the same when he left as when he’d arrived. But he’d managed to leave me with a gaping hole in the plaster below the unit and a wall covered in dirty handprints. Leaving aside the fact that he didn’t fix the unit that needed fixing, did that guy stand back when he’d finished and congratulate himself on doing a good job? Didn’t the fact that he’d left the wall in a filthy mess even occur to him? Clearly not. So is he stupid? I don’t know. But he exhibited stupid behaviour.

  I had a hole in my bedroom ceiling because a roof tile fell off a neighbouring building. Two tiles fell actually, the second six weeks after the first. In any other country someone would have gone up to check the safety of the roof after the first tile fell. Not in Thailand. It was an insurance job and a workman came and did an appalling patch up job. Words can’t describe what a botched-up job he did. So I complained and he came back. I showed him what was wrong. He nodded and spent five hours redoing it. When he had finished, it was exactly the same as his first attempt. He didn’t seem a stupid man, but he could not see that he had done a second-rate job. He just couldn’t see it. I had to call in a second builder and pay him myself. The second guy did a perfect job. Why couldn’t the first guy? Was he stupid? Or just behaving stupidly?

  So, going back to the original question. Are Thais stupid? I don’t know. I’ve met some very smart Thais over the years. Articulate Thais. Thais who have made a lot of money. But over the years I’ve been here I’ve learned one thing. Time after time, Thais do stupid things. They behave stupidly Don’t ask me why. They just do. The flies do stupid things. The dogs do stupid things. The people do stupid things. From my experience, the way to survive in Thailand is to always assume that, given a choice of behaviours, more often than not Thais will take the stupid option.

  How could this have come about? You know, I think it probably is Darwinian selection. Or rather, the lack of it. In the West, people are criticised or even punished for stupid behaviour. Over time, they learn not to behave stupidly. In non-confrontational Thailand, they aren’t. So the population as a whole continues to behave stupidly. Until they wander into the road and get hit by that large truck….

  PETE

  Bruce went up country for a few days with Troy. The morning after he got back he knocked on my bedroom door. ‘Pete,’ he said. ‘Can I have a word?’

  I opened the bedroom door but he’d gone back into the living room. He was pacing up and down. ‘What's up?’ I asked.

  ‘Look, I'm not accusing anybody, but has anybody been here?’

  ‘Been here?’

  ‘Visitors. Have you had any visitors?’

  I was still half asleep. ‘Err, Joy. That's all. Why?’

  ‘There's a watch missing from my room.’

  I was staggered. Joy had never, ever stolen anything from me. She'd never taken anything without asking first, and more often than not I had to press her to accept something as simple as a shirt or a photograph. There were three watches in my room, and more than ten thousand baht in a drawer. There was no way she'd have taken a watch from Bruce.

  ‘Where was it?’ I asked.

  ‘On the dressing table. It was there before I went to Nong Khai. And my business cards have gone.’

  ‘Your business cards?’

  ‘I only just got them. There was a box of business cards on the dressing table. Okay, I don't care about them, but the watch was expensive.’

  ‘Bruce, what are you saying? You think Joy stole a box of business cards? Why would she do that?’

  He shrugged. ‘Maybe she didn't know what they were?’

  I sighed in frustration. ‘If she didn't know what they were, why would she steal them?’

  ‘They were in a wooden box. Maybe she thought it was a pretty box. Anyway, it's the watch I'm more concerned about.’

  I sat down at the dining table. ‘Look, she was never out of my sight, Bruce. She was with me all the time. There's no way she could have got into your bedroom.’

  We went backwards and forwards like that for almost ten minutes, me saying that she wouldn't have and couldn't have, Bruce insisting that the watch had gone, and so had the business cards. The thing was, I'd been in Bruce's bedroom several times to use the phone while he was away, and I hadn't seen the watch or the cards. There was some other stuff on the dressing table, including some photographs of him and his family, but no watch and definitely no business cards.

  Eventually Bruce went to work. Nothing I'd said had swayed him from his conviction that Joy had stolen from him.

  BIG RON

  Yeah, Thais will steal you blind, given half a chance. The Land Of Smiles, they call it, but that's PR bullshit. The smiles aren't real. The smiles are masks so that they can conceal their real feelings, their true intentions. That's why so many farangs come a cropper when they come here. They see happy, smiling faces and they think everybody loves them. That's what makes the Thais so dangerous, why their country's never been colonised. They smile and welcome you in and they take everything from you, steal you blind given half a chance.

  I've a friend works in a tower block down Silom Road. Thirty stories high it is, and there are four toilet blocks on each floor, two for gents, two for ladies. It used to be that every Monday morning, the management put toilet rolls in every stall. That's something like six hundred toilet rolls in all. By Monday afternoon every single fucking toilet roll had gone. It happened week after week. Now, I ask you, what sort of person goes to all the trouble of stealing a toilet roll? What does a toilet roll cost? A few baht. And it wasn't as if one guy was wheeling out hundreds of toilet rolls, that wouldn't be so bad. One bad apple they could deal with. No, it was hundreds of office workers, each of them stealing a single toilet roll to take home. In the end th
e management gave up and they issued individual toilet rolls to each office. So my mate, he works for one of the big British stockbroking firms, if he has a visitor who wants to go for a shit, he has to ask his secretary for the bog roll.

  They rip me off in the bar, all the time. Small-time stuff, a few bottles of Singha each day. I know it's going on but I just factor it into their wages. Then once a month a pick-up truck pulls up at the back and a few crates of Singha are wheeled out. I know who's doing it, and I could stop it if I wanted to, but she's a good worker and stealing probably keeps her on her toes. What's the alternative? If I sack her I only have to get a replacement, and the replacement would probably just come up with an even more devious way of ripping me off. Better the devil you know, is what I say.

  JOY

  I couldn't believe it when Pete told me what Bruce had said. I'm not a thief. I've never stolen from anybody. Even when I was small and my family had nothing, I never stole. Pete should have known better. He's left me alone with his wallet and I never even looked inside it, which is more than can be said for him. I know he goes through my bag, checking to see if I've got any photographs of other men or extra money. I never said anything to him about that, and he should have showed me the same respect. He should have just told Bruce that I never steal, and left it at that. Pete kept pressing me, telling me that he wouldn't get angry if I had taken the watch so long as I gave it back. That was as good as accusing me. I was so angry, but I didn't show it.

  I mean, how many watches can I wear? I have the Mickey Mouse watch that Pete gave me, why would I want another one? And the business cards? That was just stupid. I said to Pete, ‘How much would I be able to sell the cards for? A million baht? Two million baht?’ It was crazy. If I was going to steal anything, I'd have taken money. Pete and Bruce always have money lying around, and I'm sure they wouldn't have noticed if I took a few hundred baht. But I'm not a thief. Pete should know that. If I wanted money, I could get a farang to give it to me. I could go short time and get two thousand baht, and if I flirt with a guy I can get a big tip without even having to have sex with him. There's no need for me to steal a watch. Or business cards.

  What made it worse was that Pete said I couldn't go back to the apartment any more because Bruce was worried that I might take something else. I felt so insulted. Whether or not I go to his apartment isn't important, it's not as if I have to pay if we stay in a short time hotel, but I just feel so angry at being treated like a criminal. I'm not a thief and Pete should know that. Bruce, too.

  BRUCE

  I don't know why Pete is making such a big fuss about the watch. There's no bloody mystery. I went to Nong Khai with Troy, and before I went my business cards and the watch were on the dressing table. When I came back, they'd gone. I told Pete that Joy had fucked up big time because I had five hundred dollars in travellers cheques in the bottom drawer. I reckon what happened is that she nipped into the room while Pete was in the shower and grabbed the first thing she could lay her hands on. It stands to reason, right? I didn't steal them. Pete didn't steal them. Pete says that the only visitor while I was away was Joy. You don't have to be Hercule fucking Poirot to work out who the guilty party is. But Pete wouldn't have it. Kept insisting that I must have put the watch somewhere and forgotten about it. Bloody ridiculous.

  I think the world of Joy, and Pete should have done the decent thing by her months ago, but you've just got to look at her. She's not in the same league as Troy. I know I can trust Troy: many's the time I've had a few drinks too many and I've given her my wallet, and she's never taken so much as a twenty baht note. Troy is totally honest. I reckon Joy's more than capable of stealing, though. Look at the way she lied to Pete about her husband, even when he had photographs of them together and everything. She denied it right down the line. And Pete's caught her out in countless other lies. So why does he think he can believe her when she says she didn't take the watch?

  The day after I mentioned it, he helped me search the apartment. We went through all the rooms, checked all the drawers, even went through the kitchen. Nothing. Then he started asking me if I was sure I hadn't brought anyone back to the flat. Bloody cheek. Then he wanted to know if I'd taken the watch anywhere with me, when was the last time I'd seen it. I got fed up with him in the end and told him he'd be better off interrogating Joy. He stormed out of the flat. The sad fuck.

  PETE

  Joy called me and asked me if I wanted to go and eat before she started work. She said her step-sister and three cousins had come down to Bangkok from Surin and they all wanted to meet me. We said we'd meet at the German restaurant in Soi 4 at six o'clock. I was supposed to get the edited proofs of the Bangkok guide to the courier service I used but I figured Alistair wouldn't mind waiting an extra day. I was already a week past deadline so I figured he'd changed the schedule anyway.

  I'd had a couple of gin and tonics by the time Joy arrived. She was already wearing her waitress uniform and had her numbered badge clipped to her belt. Server 127. She waied me and introduced the girls. There was her step sister, Dit, who like Apple was a younger, slightly chubbier, version of Joy, and her cousins, Ning, Moo and Wandee. They all stood slightly behind Joy as if they were frightened of me, but Joy encouraged them to wai me.

  We sat down at a table by the window and ordered drinks. I had a gin and tonic and all the girls had orange juice. Ning, Moo and Wandee were looking around the restaurant and pointing at the pictures and the place settings, and I got the feeling that it was their first time in a Western restaurant.

  I gave Joy a laser pointer I'd bought for her in Patpong. It was on a keyring and could flash a laser beam more than a kilometre. I figured she could have fun with it in the bar. She showed it to the girls and they examined it curiously.

  I let Joy order the food and she told the waitress what she wanted. The younger girls watched as Joy ordered and I could see that Joy was taking pride from the fact that she was in control.

  Joy asked me what I'd been doing and I explained how the book was getting on. She translated to the other girls, and again I could see that she was enjoying showing off her English skills. She kept using the word ‘farang’ rather than my name, but I wasn't offended because ‘Pete’ probably wasn't a name they'd heard before.

  I asked Joy how long the four girls were staying in Bangkok and she surprised me by saying they'd come to work. In Zombie. I could imagine Dit in a bar, but Ning, Moo and Wandee seemed too shy.

  ‘Working as waitresses?’ I asked.

  Joy shook her head. ‘Dancing, same me before,’ she said.

  Dit nodded enthusiastically. She seemed to be the brightest of the four and she'd been listening intently to the conversation Joy and I had been having and occasionally interrupted to ask Joy something, presumably for a translation. The other three girls were talking to each other in hushed Thai.

  ‘Have they danced before?’

  Joy giggled and said no, they hadn't.

  ‘Aren't they shy?’ I asked.

  ‘No, not shy. They want money too much,’ she said.

  The food arrived and Ning, Moo and Wandee examined the dishes like surgeons preparing for an operation.

  Joy nodded at Dit. ‘What you think?’ she asked me. ‘Pretty?’

  Dit smiled at me showing beautifully straight, white teeth. She'd probably never sat in a dentist's chair but she had a perfect mouth. Her hair was as long as Joy's had been when she was dancing, thought it was slightly wavy. Her face was virtually identical to Joy's, though Dit had a small mole to the right of her nose.

  ‘Suey mark,’ I said. Very pretty.

  Dit giggled and put her hand over her mouth. It was a gesture I'd seen Joy do a thousand times.

  ‘Same father, different mother,’ said Joy.

  While we were eating, Joy took a piece of paper from her purse and gave it to me. It was a letter, addressed to me. It wasn't Joy's writing, the letters were all capitals and down the margins were childlike scrawls of hearts and flowers. It was a
love letter, but the sort that an eight-year-old might write. I read it, with Joy and Dit watching my face intently, looking to see how I'd react. It was signed ‘Joy’ but it wasn't her signature.

  ‘Who wrote it?’ I asked.

  ‘Friend Joy,’ said Joy. ‘What you think?’

  ‘Lovely,’ I said. ‘Why didn't you write it?’

  ‘Her writing better. I tell her what I want say to you and she write for me.’

  I put the letter in my back pocket. I wasn't sure what to say. Joy was perfectly capable of writing to me, she'd written dozens of letters. So why had she asked a friend to write to me?

  Ning, Moo and Wandee were tucking into the food. Joy put prawns on to my plate, and then poured more tonic water into my gin. She said something to the girls, not in Thai but in Khmer, I think, and all the girls nodded. I got the feeling that she was telling them what she was doing and why.

  When the bill came I paid with cash. Joy said something to the girls and they all waied me. She'd obviously told them to thank me.

  Joy asked me if I'd go over to Zombie with them. It felt strange walking into Nana Plaza with Joy and four very young girls, as if I were a teacher taking a class on a field trip. Dit looked about nineteen, the same age as Joy when I met her for the first time, but Ning, Moo and Wandee all looked as if they were under eighteen. They held hands as they walked past the touts and the neon lights advertising the bars, huddled together like frightened rabbits.

  We went into Zombie and Joy sat everybody down and went over to get drinks for us all. Then she stood in front of the girls and began talking in Thai, pointing out various parts of the bar, the toilets, the changing rooms, the short time room, the dancing stages. The girls sat wide-eyed, sipping their orange juices and hanging on her every word.