“What do you intend to do about your toilet block?” Mamanoy asked.
“I was thinking we might issue snorkels and goggles to customers asking to use the bathroom,” I said.
“I must say you’re all taking this remarkably calmly,” she said.
“You know where your cheeks are, but that doesn’t stop you biting the inside of your mouth from time to time,” said Mair, looking out to sea.
We all nodded. None of us had any idea what that meant, but our guests had obligingly learned to surf my mother’s squalls. They were becoming family. I wanted them to stay. Having found out what had happened in the States, I knew I’d never sleep again if I couldn’t make some sense of it. I didn’t want to scare them off by asking directly. I needed a ploy to squeeze information out of young Noy drip by drip without her realizing what I was doing.
In order to obtain their trust, I decided to share my Burmese findings with them. Severed head stories aren’t always the best accompaniment to a meal, but the Noys appeared to take them all in bon goût. I went on to list the indignities our Burmese neighbors were experiencing day in day out in our land of smiles. Then I even added the myth of the slave ships and the alleged execution of mutineers. By the time my tale was told, all eyes were on me, and only I had a full plate.
“Serves ’em right,” said Grandad Jah.
“For what?” I asked.
“Turning against the British,” he said.
I was surprised the old man knew the first thing about regional history.
“Stick with the Brits,” he went on, “and you’ve got a royal family at your back. Can’t beat royalty for political stability.”
I wondered whether to point out that Thailand had entertained no fewer than thirty-nine prime ministers since 1932, seventeen of whom were planted after military coups. But you never won an argument with Grandad, even when you were right.
“The Malays stuck with the Brits,” he said. “The Indians. The Australians. And look at all them. Democracy is government by the people. These countries aren’t run by halfwits in tin hats bleeding their countries of all their natural resources and treating their citizens like unpaid coolies. If they’d just stuck with the Brits, we wouldn’t have any Burmese on Thai soil. Not a one. We’d be sending our laborers over there to build high-rises and roads.”
Grandad was a man who generally dribbled words sparingly. On the few occasions he let the floodgates open, you appreciated those dribbly moments that much more.
“That’s really sad,” said Mair.
“Just pay attention to the lessons learned from history,” said Grandad.
“They can’t even count,” said Mair.
We all paused.
“Who can’t count, Mair?” Arny asked.
“The Burmese children,” she replied. “And they’re so adorable in their little clothes and powdery cheeks. It hadn’t occurred to me that they weren’t in school. I shall build one.”
“Mair, you aren’t nearly connected enough for a Nobel prize, and will you stop spending all this money we don’t have?” I pleaded. “We can’t even afford to clean up the shop or salvage the latrine from beneath the mighty ocean, let alone set up a school.”
“It shouldn’t cost much,” she said, her mind already seeing the smiling faces sitting in the front row, the hands raised, the queue for the pencil sharpener. “We could hire ourselves a little teacher. A Burmese teacher wouldn’t cost very much. And we could drive over to Ranong and buy books, and I could teach Thai once a week, or sewing.”
And off she went, describing her Burmese school, the Noys smiling and offering suggestions, Grandad Jah grumbling that nobody ever listened to him and collecting the lunch plates, Arny smiling like the little boy whose mother told fantastic stories to three little children with no father. And me, unappreciated, carrying the worries of the world. I reached into my pocket, palmed two antidepressants and washed them down with the last of my Coca-Cola. And to my utter surprise, with my mother sitting to my left yakking on about blackboard paint, a familiar sound emerged from Mair’s cabin next door. It was the sound of a headboard clattering against a wooden wall.
7.
They Say Love Is More or Less a Gibbon Thing
(from “I’m a Believer” — NEIL DIAMOND)
“Are you out of your mind?” I asked, and immediately knew it was a silly question. Of course she was.
Grandad Jah and I sat opposite Mair, who was seated on her bed with the monkey sprawled across her lap.
“What in the world possessed you to kidnap a monkey?” asked Grandad.
“She needed me,” said Mair.
“She told you that?”
“Not in words.”
“Well, that’s a relief.”
“She told me with this,” said Mair. She lifted the animal’s left leg and rolled her over. The monkey’s back was diced with welts, some quite fresh. Her hair was patchy, and there were sores everywhere. Ari, the monkey handler, used to bring her once a month to collect coconuts from our trees. The first time they’d arrived I’d been relatively amused by the animal’s skill. But from then on, it was just a monkey on a rope and I can’t say I paid much attention. I’d go to the truck when it was all over, count the nuts, and take our share of the profits. It looked like only Mair had taken any notice of the monkey.
“Mair,” I said, “we had seven policemen here, and you had a kidnapped monkey in your room.”
“I didn’t kidnap her. I rescued her. And why should the police search my room? We were the victims, weren’t we?”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” I asked.
“I didn’t think you’d let me keep her in the room. But I was sure it couldn’t have been much of a secret. She was causing such a fuss. You certainly heard the noise.”
“Yes, but I thought it was…”
“What?”
“Never mind.”
“What are you planning to do with it?” asked Grandad.
“There’s a gibbon rehabilitation project in Phuket,” she said. “I was thinking of sending her over there.”
Grandad Jah stood, cracked a few bones, and walked over to get a closer look at the monkey, who bared her teeth at him. Mair monkey-whispered and the animal melted back onto her lap. I imagined her doing the same to me when I was a snarling two-year-old.
“One,” said Grandad, “this isn’t a gibbon. It’s a macaque. And two, Phuket’s six hours away. You going to put it on the bus?”
“I haven’t been in a hurry to think it through, Father,” she said. “She still hasn’t recovered, and I’m not going to send her anywhere till she’s better. Now stop picking on me.”
* * *
I left my mother and grandfather to it. There really was nothing I could do. We had a monkey. And I secretly cursed that monkey for stimulating my libido under false pretenses. But an incontrovertible process had begun that first headboard-clattering night and now I had an itch to scratch. There was only one man in Maprao who came even vaguely close to my “type.” I’d been married for three years to a man who wasn’t my “type” at all. I’d dated a platoon of men who weren’t my “type.” And I’d arrived at the conclusion that perhaps my “type” and my “realistic options” were so far removed I might have to compromise.
Ed the grass man was leading the field in my compromise chart. He was younger than me, which perhaps played on some fantasy I’d never admit to. He had dreamy chocolate eyes and … No, look. I don’t aspire to writing romance fiction. Forget what the tall slim stack of muscle looked like. I was desperate. He was divorced. And it wasn’t a coincidence that it had been Ed the grass man there with me in my erotic dream. So, why not? As I rode in search of him, it hadn’t occurred to me how totally against character and culture and common sense this potential seduction was. I was being led by a force much greater than my brain. I’d taken the bicycle in search of Ed. I figured all that pedaling might calm my ardor by the time I found him. It wouldn’t do to appear too needy. Lu
st may have addled my mind, but it hadn’t damaged my common sense. I had a condom in my bag. It made me feel terribly naughty. This would be an encounter never to be forgotten but not one to be remembered every nappy-changing, school-uniform-darning, prison-visiting day for the rest of my life.
I missed Ed at his house, at the boatyard, and at the orchard whose cut grass bore his precisely manicured signature. But I found him at an empty building site, where he was assembling a fitted wardrobe. He was certainly a versatile young man. The bricklayers and electricians and cement renderers had completed their tasks, leaving Ed to finish the woodwork himself. Destiny had placed him here in front of me in a future bedroom.
“Ed?” I said, and in my mind’s eye we crashed into one another, locked in a passionate embrace. Our lips mashing one against the other. He looked up from his chiseling and wiped sweat from his eyes.
“Jimm?”
Everything was going so well. I sat on a metal grinder carry-case and crossed my legs. I was wearing shorts. Nothing erotic, but he was a man. Just the sight of skin drove them insane.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“Just to visit,” I said.
“How did you know I was here?”
“I asked at the boat dock. They laughed mischievously when they told me. Honestly. Men.”
There was a long pause.
“That’s a very nice fitted wardrobe,” I said. “I had no idea you were so good with your hands.”
He nodded.
“Do you want to take a break?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I have to get these frames done by four. They’re bringing in mirrored doors.”
“Just a quick break,” I said, and licked my top sensual lip. “A break … to remember.”
He put down his chisel at last.
“Remember what?”
“Remember the time, not so long ago, when you came to me with a proposal.”
“Is this about when I almost asked you out?”
“Almost, yes. Rudely interrupted by me. You see? It was too soon, Ed. I didn’t know you then. Ha, I barely knew myself.”
“It was seven weeks ago.”
“Time enough for me to let down my defenses. It was so obvious you found me attractive. I wasn’t ready then. But, Ed…”
“What?”
“I’m ready now.”
“What for?”
“For you.”
I reached out my hands to him. It was the moment. Our fingers would touch and the electricity would course through us. I could already feel a tingle.
He just stood there.
“I’m engaged,” he said.
“What?”
My hands dropped to my sides.
“I found somebody. We’re engaged.”
The cement floor beneath my feet gave way, and I dropped fifteen floors to the nuclear bunker. I landed on the wiring board of the strategic defense system and started a war.
“What?”
“You’ve said that already.”
“I know, but … not even two months ago you were suffering because your wife ran off with a glazier and you wanted me.”
“And you said no.”
“You give up that easily? How can you be so … indiscriminate?”
“I didn’t want to be alone.”
“So you ask everyone on your list till you get a yes?”
“It’s a bit more complicated but, yeah, something like that. But thanks for thinking of me.”
“Thanks for…?”
* * *
I burned off a lot of frustration on my pedaled escape from that unfinished house but not nearly enough to prevent a slideshow of Hong Kong and Taiwanese male movie stars flickering in front of my eyes. I even looked sideways at an elderly farmer with no shirt who was tugging his cow beside the road. I might have even stopped and talked to him if my cell phone hadn’t sent out a chorus of “Mamma Mia.” I stopped the bike under a tree and looked at the screen. It was Sissi.
“You not left yet?” I asked.
“Jimm, listen. Whatever you do, don’t open that packet of trial antidepressants I sent you.”
* * *
I was exactly in the mood for the teens at the Pak Nam Internet shop. They could obviously tell I’d have gladly bumped them on the head with my personal mouse if anyone had attempted to stop me getting on to my regular computer. Even the craggy-faced shop owner desisted from his preachy “We do have a queuing system here, you know?” The last time he’d tried it I threatened to call the school board and tell them about all the young boys here who spent their homework time surfing for big-eye-contact-lens Japanese idols in bikinis. That had shut him up. Just about anything I needed a computer for would have been more important than that. And this evening I had two very important reasons for getting online.
First, I sent an e-mail to my friend Alb in Bangkok. He ran a sort of unofficial Australian news agency. He made big bucks out of those scandalous Aussie celebrities arrested in Thai resorts. He specialized in drug orgies, but he had a nose for all kinds of sin. I’d first met him when we were both investigating a pop singer pedophile holed up in a five-star hotel in Chiang Mai. We staked him out together and kept in touch as we followed the subsequent trial and suicide. We were good friends.
Alb, I wrote. What do you know about slave ships in the Gulf of Thailand?
I pressed SEND. He was an e-mail addict. Even if he wasn’t at his desk, he’d have his iPhone set on Taser buzz. He kept it in a small pouch hanging from his belt, like a sporran, so I knew there was something kinky about it. While I waited for an answer I Googled FLIBANSERIN. I got eighty thousand results almost immediately. The first site I clicked had the headline VIAGRA FOR WOMEN. I said “shit” eleven times in English, but the word was obviously on the high school vocab list because everyone looked at me. I read on.
AFTER THE FIRST ROUND OF TESTS THE BOEHRINGER INGELHEIM CORPORATION HAD BEEN DISAPPOINTED THAT ITS WIDELY TOUTED ANTIDEPRESSANT FLIBANSERIN HAD NO ANTIDEPRESSANT QUALITIES WHATSOEVER. THEIR CHEMISTS MADE SOME SLIGHT ALTERATIONS AND SENT THE DRUG FLIBANSERIN II FOR A SECOND ROUND OF TRIALS. BUT UNEXPECTED FEEDBACK BEG—
Alb had answered. He could wait.
UNEXPECTED FEEDBACK BEGAN TO FILTER IN FROM WOMEN WHO’D TRIALED FLIBANSERIN I. THEY WERE CLAIMING THAT SINCE THEY STARTED TO TAKE THE DRUG REGULARLY THEY HAD DEVELOPED RAVENOUS SEXUAL APPETITES.
“Oh my word.”
WOMEN AS OLD AS 76 WERE …
I couldn’t read any more. I was so embarrassed. I was a love junky. I’d thrown myself at a gay policeman, a happily married man, and just a few hours earlier I’d forced myself on a grass cutter. The story would have made the rounds of the entire district by now. They’d write things about me on the walls of public toilets. Fathers would bring their teenaged sons around for their first experience. I’d end up an old hag in mesh stockings and a push-up bra beckoning passing drivers into the resort. What had I done?
I clicked Alb.
Lots, he wrote. What do you want to know specifically?
I typed Everything and sent it.
I looked around the Internet shop. Some of the boys looked away embarrassed. They’d heard. I was dirty laundry.
“We saw the harlot in the Internet shop last night,” they’d tell the teacher in the morning.
Alb replied. We should chat.
And we chatted on Gmail for half an hour. Alb had heard all the same rumors. On the Andaman coast out west he said there was indisputable evidence of kidnappings and failure to pay salaries. There was an island, he said, that a bunch of Burmese fishermen had escaped to. They’d been there six months. Nobody knew what to do with them. They didn’t have papers. They were illegal aliens. The Burmese junta wasn’t about to send a pleasure boat to pick them up. Nobody else wanted to take responsibility. Now, if they were Swedish, he wrote, then we’d have a story. But what you’ve got is disposables. It’s like the big tsunami that hit Thailand in 2004. If it had just swallowed up Thais and Banglades
his, there’d have been a couple of days of press in the West. “100,000? How tragic. Anyone know what the cricket score is?” But that same tsunami hit five-star resorts and took out German sportsmen and blond fashion models and Italian executives. And there was outrage. Millions of dollars were donated. It could have been us, they cried. Someone tried to sue God.
So, fifty Burmese on an island? Slaves in deep-sea vessels? Summary killings of little brown men with no culture or religion to relate to? Collateral damage in the harsh world of the peasant, my dear. Investigating it would be expensive and what do you end up with? Couple of columns in The Age that eighty percent of readers skim over on their way to the comics. No, Jimm. We get a lot of tip-offs but, quite frankly, nobody gives a toss.
A twelve-year-old with fake, pink mouth braces—which had mysteriously become all the rage with teens—leaned over me and flashed his queue number. I was so upset that I let him have my seat. Now this was actual depression and I didn’t even have anything anti to take. And perhaps the worst part of this whole affair was that the effects of Viagrafem were getting stronger. Just how long would I have to wait for it to wear off? Until it did, no man was safe.
* * *
We had two new guests for dinner that night. The sea level had dropped sufficiently for re-entry into the kitchen, so I made spaghetti seafood. One of our bamboo picnic tables had been washed away. Not far away. We could see it rocking back and forth some way out, like one of Robinson Crusoe’s failed escape attempts. Mair refused to allow Arny to swim out to retrieve it. She said losing another nephew to drowning would be too much to bear. The other four tables were still where we’d left them. From table two there was a clear view of the sunken latrine, nose down in the sand. Grandad Jah had turned a spotlight onto it, and the effect was every bit as spectacular as Pak Nam’s own concrete battleship. The night was calm. The sky was starry. The beach garbage looked almost picturesque in the shadows.
Joining us all the way from Hong Kong was Arny’s fiancée, Gaew. If you were to project a slide of Miss Thailand World onto a brick kiln, that’s what Gaew looked like. The hurricanes had yet to offer up a wind that would blow her off her feet. But we all loved her bubbly personality and sense of humor, especially my mother. And Gaew seemed every bit as pleased to see Mair as she was to be reunited with Arny. My brother grinned like a love-sick donkey at everything she said. Noy picked up on this interaction and remained subdued all evening. Gaew picked up on Noy’s subjugation, added to it the girl’s innocent beauty and youth, and decided it wouldn’t be a bad idea to hold my brother’s hand all night and feed him fried squid with a fork.
Grandad, There's a Head on the Beach Page 10