Grandad, There's a Head on the Beach

by Colin Cotterill

  “There’s one I can think of.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Fiction!”

  She laughed.

  “You want me to lie?”

  “Only if you have an aptitude for it. There’s nothing more embarrassing than a poor liar.”

  “And how do you propose my daughter lies her way out of the mess we’re in?” asked the mother.

  I reached dramatically into my shoulder bag and produced three sheets of Times New Roman. I handed them to Noy.

  “When we got back this morning I was a little too psyched-out to sleep. When the slaver story broke, all the wire services were on the phone. Justin from The New York Times contacted me for quotes. I know him from articles we’d worked on together. Nice fellow. Bit serious. But when I mentioned you, Noy, and told him about the predicament you were in, he was fascinated. He’s good-looking and available, by the way. We came up with a solution. Neither of us believe they’ll take up the story in the newspaper, but they have a long list of subsidiaries, magazines, Web sites. So I took the liberty of writing up your press statement. I’m pretty darned pleased with the way it turned out. But you read it. Talk about it with your mother. If you really don’t think it would solve everybody’s problems, then I’ll give you our truck and some money, and you can live on the road one step ahead of the police. All that in spite of the fact you haven’t actually broken any laws. Face-breaking isn’t illegal, as far as I know. Read it.”

  Noy opted to read it aloud so her mother could hear.

  “The Poor Student Who Said, ‘I Can,’” she began, then looked up and glared at me.

  “Just read it,” I told her.

  “My name is Thanawan and I was one of the lucky ones. Based on my results at a suburban school and a generous quota system, I won a scholarship to study in the U.S.A. It was a science program at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. It’s one of the top learning establishments in the country. And from the day I arrived, just looking around at the brilliant students from all over the world, I felt really out of my depth. The knowledge I’d acquired at my school suddenly felt so inadequate. And to make matters worse, I shared many of my classes with ML Chaturaporn, a young lady of aristocratic blood from a family I had admired all my life. She let me call her by her nickname, Goong. I was surprised at how amenable she was, how friendly and helpful. Not only was she a beautiful person, she was also a brilliant student.”

  Noy put down the paper.

  “Is this the point where I throw up?” she asked.

  “Just keep reading,” I told her.

  She sighed.

  “… a brilliant student. While I was stumbling through the textbooks, scratching a C here, a D there, she was sailing along with As and distinctions. And yet, for reasons I have yet to understand, she continued to see me as a friend. She helped tutor me on difficult points. She talked to me as an equal. She even helped me through a bad relationship I fell into—through my own naiveté—with an American boy. She was there to hold my hand when I cried. She … OK, pass me the bucket.”

  To my surprise, Mamanoy told her to keep reading.

  Noy’s eyes passed from me to her mother, then back to me. She understood that this wasn’t a game.

  “I can’t tell you how close we became,” Noy read. “Me, the daughter of a schoolteacher. She, of refined birth. I couldn’t believe my luck. But then the final exams drew near and I fell into a panic. I considered how it would destroy my parents if I failed. How disappointed it would make my local community. How would I be able to go on living if I didn’t graduate?

  “My friend Goong felt my fears and set herself a challenge of tutoring me to excellence. She told me that I had a solid basic knowledge. All I lacked was confidence. During the break before the final semester, we worked every day and late into the night. Bottomless coffees. No sleep. All the theories that had baffled me became clear through her eyes. She was an amazing tutor. And so we were in the final semester and I was full of confidence. I hardly noticed how pale and wan my friend was becoming with every month that passed. She missed classes. Was late with some homework assignments. Yet still she continued to tutor me. It wasn’t until just before the last assessments that she confessed to me about her poor health. She had low blood sugar and was taking medication. Our late-night blitz had taken its toll. On the night before one important exam, her body temperature was way down. Her doctor said she had severe hypoglycemia and recommended immediate hospitalization. But this was finals week. She too had obligations to her family. And so we sat those exams. Me with my new-found confidence. She, dull and sedated—barely able to read the words on the paper. It’s incredible, given her circumstances, that she was able to pass anything at all that term.”

  Noy sighed, not for the first time.

  “Well, there’s some truth, at last.”

  “Final paragraph,” I said. “Be patient.”

  “But I excelled, just as she had promised,” Noy read. “I felt I had stolen her glory. I was so embarrassed. I knew she would never hold a grudge against me. She’s such a kind person. She comes from a fine, upstanding family. All I ask and pray is that Georgetown University can find it in their hearts to give her a second chance. To allow her to resit her final courses and show the world what a brilliant scholar she is.”

  Noy laughed.

  “Wow,” she said. “What a bunch of lizard poop.”

  “Smelly though it may be,” I said, “this way you keep your degree, the duchess maintains her dignity, and if we’re lucky, you can go home and live your old lives.”

  “I think it’s perfect,” said Mamanoy.

  “Mum, you can’t be serious?”

  “I am. This is exactly what Jimm says. It’s a get-out clause. It’s a face-saver. If The New York Times runs this in one of their magazines as a feel-good piece, all the media in Thailand will pick up on it. They’ll have you and Goong hugging on national television. The bigger it is, the safer we are.”

  “Then she comes out of this as a heroine,” said Noy.

  “So what?”

  “She’s an asshole.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “It’s a little late to start worrying about pride. At the end of the day, you end up with a degree from Georgetown. That’s all that counts. Once your picture’s out of the press, nobody will tie your name to this farce. You’ll have employers queuing up to hire you.”

  “You expect me to sit through an interview and read all this … crap?”

  “No. I want you to tell it as if it really happened. As if you’re remembering it. I want you to add little personal details. How you exchanged Hello Kitty e-mails. Taking photos together in a passport photo booth. Late nights in pajamas eating marshmallows. The sloshier the better. I want it all to really have happened. And if it makes you feel better, just imagine how uncomfortable the duchess is going to be when her family forces her to join in with the charade. They’ll come out of it smelling pretty sweet if the daughter plays along. I can see you having a grand old time at the TV interview.”

  Noy stared at her mother. Mamanoy smiled and shrugged.

  17.

  And All the Lettuce Was Alone

  (from “Papa Was a Rolling Stone” —NORMAN WHITFIELD and BARRETT STRONG)

  It had been a very discreet return invitation. My own verbal invite to our party had been loud and glorious.

  “Aung, this’ll be great,” I’d said, leaning over him at the metalwork shop, his Thai and Burmese co-workers looking at me from their lathes. The boss was seated at a desk at the rear, counting the minutes to dock from Aung’s salary for this lack of production.

  “It’s a party,” I went on. “I want you to bring Oh and the kids and all the Burmese you can muster. It’ll be the defining moment when Thais and Burmese forget their differences and meet on neutral ground. All those invasions and historical massacres forgotten. We’ll drink together and share rice and the world will be a lovelier place.”

  Aung looked up at me bri
efly. The boss docked another minute.

  “Jimm, I’m sorry,” he said. “We have a religious ceremony planned for that date.”

  I got the hint. I hadn’t yet told him when the party would be. But I understood. Hundreds of drunk Thais? The Burmese were more likely to take their chances against the military junta in Yangon.

  The return invitation arrived in the hand of a beautiful, long-haired, powdered-cheek girl on a bicycle. When she was asking for me, she pronounced Jimm like a Western man’s name. No rising intonation. She looked away when I took the note from her. It said: 6:30 tonight. Burmese party. Don’t bring anyone.

  It was written in Thai by a child’s hand. I didn’t know what to expect of a Burmese party. It was on the eve of our own shindig. I thought I might convince a few to come along. I wanted to know what had become of Shwe and the other sixteen slaves—fifteen, if you didn’t count the dead man. I checked the beach every morning, expecting him to turn up. Despite the warning, I had Arny along as my after-dark back-up. We lefted and righted our way through the Pak Nam back lanes until Aung’s door cast a yellow glow across the alleyway in front of us. Nobody lifted my skirt as I stood in the doorway, and to my surprise, the little living room was crowded. There had been no indications of a throng from outside. The shoes had been placed elsewhere. There was no music and everyone spoke in a whisper. The Burmese had learned not to make a spectacle of themselves.

  Aung welcomed us and cleared us a place on one of the small mats in a circle of shy Burmese. Oh brought us each a glass of warm beer, whose chill factor had been entrusted to a single ice cube. Me and Arny appeared to be the only beer drinkers. All the other guests were sipping tea or had water glasses on the ground in front of them. I looked around and was surprised to see Shwe and his wife two circles away. I waved at him, and he nodded in recognition.

  “I thought they’d sent everyone to the immigration holding center,” I told Aung. “What’s Shwe doing here?”

  “He came to collect his family,” said Aung. “He’s going back to Myanmar tomorrow.”

  “How did he get out?”

  Aung smiled.

  “It isn’t a prison,” he said. “There are no locks. We sent him money, and he hiked to the bus stop and came back south.”

  “But what about…?”

  “The trial?” His eyes sparkled. “Jimm, it’s your country, so I’m sure you understand the system better than we do. Court procedures take time. Especially bringing a conviction against policemen. The witnesses would have to be there in the center for another four months before the case against the MP and his brother made it to court. One reason the center isn’t secure is that they’d prefer it if we left. With no witnesses, the perpetrators can’t be charged. And, honestly, what Burmese is going to sit in a holding cell for four months? Not earning. No money going back to his family. To the world community, it looks like the witnesses aren’t reliable. The Thais can say they did all they could to bring a conviction, but those damned Maungs…”

  I wasn’t really surprised.

  “You’re right. No point.”

  “Oh, there was a point, Jimm.” He sipped his tea and looked around the room. “The point is that from a group of seventeen, sixteen survived. Shwe will have stories to tell his grandchildren. The others will have another life to do better with.”

  “Did they all go back to Burma?” I asked.

  “The survivors?”

  “Yeah.”

  Aung smiled for the first time.

  “Look around you,” he said. “You don’t recognize them?”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  I did look around. Of course I didn’t recognize anyone other than Shwe. It had been dark that night and I was exhausted. I hadn’t had time to study faces. And the Burmese? Well, they do kind of look alike.

  “They’re all here?” I asked.

  “Every one of them. They all left the holding center and came back here to collect up this failed part of their lives and move on to the next misery.”

  Arny leaned into my ear and voiced a thought that already nestled in my mind.

  “You’d think they’d be happier to see you,” he said.

  * * *

  We stayed there for an hour. There were nods. Shwe practiced some English on me. But, largely, it was Burmese in conversation with Burmese. If we didn’t leave soon, Arny and I were in danger of vanishing completely. But when I made a point of studying my watch and telling Aung we had to go, I noticed one or two stares in my direction. That was as excited as anyone got.

  As Arny and I walked back to the Mighty X parked on the main street, it occurred to me that nobody had said thank you. There had been no leis, no cheek kisses, no gushy promises of eternal friendship. No Thai wais or name-card exchanges. Not even a greetings card with sixteen signatures. But as we climbed into the truck, I noticed that the party had broken up behind us. The guests were skulking their ways home in the shadows. Some would have to walk for an hour. And that’s when I understood their gift to me. They had come. The first thought in every one of their minds was to get the hell out of this nutty country, but they’d stayed. They’d attended this non-party to pay respect to me. They didn’t express their gratitude in words because it must be hard to show gratitude for something everyone else takes for granted. Freedom. Human rights. But they’d come … for me. Arny drove home and wisely made no comment about me bawling my eyes out beside him. He had a little bit of a sniffle going too.

  * * *

  It’s common at the Lovely Resort and Restaurant to have parties to celebrate good fortune. In the past year we’d had exactly … one party to celebrate the engagement of Arny and Gaew. That was it. But our second party was something special. With everyone rushing off either for police interviews or to avoid police interviews, Sissi conducting live conference calls to Korea from a Bangkok studio, and Mair down in Pak Nam painting the walls of her forthcoming Burmese school, we’d had to wait five days before we could have a party to celebrate our victory on the high seas.

  Because we were fundamentally broke, we couldn’t afford to provide free booze for everyone. That, ironically, would have liquidated us. So we announced it was to be a traditional Aussie BYO party. The “bring your own” was one of the few impressive cultural norms I’d picked up during my stay in Aus. You announce you’re having a party, open your front door, and guests arrive with all the drink you need. That’s the theory. I was doubtful it would work in Maprao. Thais expected to be catered for at parties. But because this was to be a cultural theme night, they dipped into their stills and their bottle cellars and turned up with a vast array of dangerous liquor. Luckily, I still had my stash of Chilean red. I was starting to wonder whether the stock I’d brought with me from Chiang Mai would ever run out.

  Fortunately, the effects of the lady Viagra had worn off, so I wasn’t likely to find any men in our district attractive. Certainly not engaged-Ed, who had left his new fiancée at home. There were plenty of other single men to choose from, were taste not an issue. The whole village was there, and it felt splendid for our little resort to have a blast of atmosphere. I decided we should have BYO nights more often. The monsoon was set at “off” that night, so we could light garbage bonfires on the sand without filling up the cabins with smoke. The back stream was all but dry. The tide was low. There were even stars in the sky.

  The Noys weren’t there. The New York Times reporter had tried to rush the story through. There was never much hope of getting it into the actual newspaper, but we’d hoped for a subsidiary magazine piece. In the meantime the finished article with photographs did make it onto their Web site. Spotted early by Tweeters in Thailand, the story was already big on various radio stations, and Noy had repeated her statement to half a dozen newspapers. There was a quote from the duchess, saying that she bore no ill-will toward the poor student and would be happy to meet up with her—“to renew their friendship.” Channel Five was arranging that reunion on-air. A spokesman from Georgetown Univers
ity was quoted as saying that they would be delighted to examine the medical records of the student who was too ill to pass her exams. More good news was that the Noys and the father were back in their house and were minor celebrities in their suburb. All the current attention made them safe. Only time would tell how deep the venom ran through the veins of the nobles. But that wasn’t really good enough. As a sort of back-up, Sissi and I sent an anonymous e-mail from a U.S. account to the father of the duchess under the heading, Blackmail. It went on to say, We have photographs of your daughter at a drug party in D.C. Accept this version of the truth or we release them to the press and tell the real story of what happened in the States. We didn’t have any evidence that the daughter attended a drug party, but given her lifestyle, it was fair to assume that she had. The fact that Sissi had hacked into the father’s private e-mail account should have been enough to let him know we weren’t just talk.

  We were a couple of hours into the party. Everyone had brought seafood, so there was plenty to eat. Neither Bigman Beung nor Captain Kow had arrived, and my darling Lieutenant Chompu would be turning up late as he was coming directly from Phuket, where he’d been undergoing cosmetic surgery on his nose. The surgeon decided, as it was broken anyway, now would be a good time to set it to order. Evidently, misshapen noses were only fashionable in those who took the male role in gay relationships. If anything, Chompu would be going for the Audrey Hepburn look.

  But the rest of Maprao had turned out in full. There were still news and radio reporters mingling and getting quotes from people who’d slept through the entire slaver night. Last count, there was one computer in Maprao. PI Meng was there, as well as a bunch of other people I’d never seen in my life. And the spotty guy from the Internet shop. And Ari, the monkey handler, who we had to keep away from Mair’s cabin. The dogs were there—four-legged vultures, doing the “I don’t get fed by my owners’ routine and stuffing their faces with barbecued seafood.

  I was chaperoning Mair, keeping her away from the booze. One sniff and she was the Marchioness de Sade. The cheapest date on the planet. I knew I couldn’t keep an eye on her the whole night. She’d sneak a shot of whiskey and be doing her Coyote Ugly on the bamboo table. So I wanted to get her alone and sober before all that happened.