by Robert Power
He points me to the phone. I begin to wonder exactly who is involved in all this scheming. I am beginning to see and hear ulterior motives in all that is said and done around me. I pick up the phone. My comrade from the factory floor stays where he is, a smile on his face. I ring the number on Hoang’s business card. The woman at the end of the phone knows who I am. In broken English she tells me to meet Mr Hoang at factory number fifty-four the following day and to bring the leather briefcase with me.
The morning breaks over Macaroni Wood. First the leaves stretch and uncurl to meet the dew of the dawn. Then the birds begin their songs and the animals of the woodland floor scratch and scurry around for the first meal of the day.
In his quarters in the main building of the compound, Eric opens his eyes. His first thoughts are of the activities and events he has planned. He always dreads the weeks when the inner-city kids come, especially those from special education units. They always smoke drugs and fight with the local youths. And whatever he suggests they do they suck their teeth and look away. So today he has decided he will fall back on the BMX bike track and the pool tables.
He looks at his clock as the automatic tea-maker clicks into action. As he listens to the water heating by his ear he begins his daily stretching exercises. Just like a cat: one limb at a time. Then he gets up, slides into his slippers and walks across to the en suite bathroom. By the time he has urinated the tea is made. He turns on the radio, and, as with every morning, blows on his tea to cool it down as he put two slices of wholegrain bread in the toaster and flicks on the kettle for coffee. He always drinks half his cup of tea and then has coffee.
As the toast pops, Eric hears a tapping at the kitchen window. He turns to see the face of a young girl peering through the glass. It’s the teacher’s daughter. The one who sits alone playing her flute while the other kids mess with each other and show off. Eric points to the door and the face disappears from view. He quickly scans the room to check everything is in order and then opens the door.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ says Lottie, blushing, looking awkward.
‘No need, no need to be,’ says Eric in a friendly voice.
‘Only …’ replies Lottie, sheepishly, not sure what to make of this man with the slightly startled expression. ‘The music room … by the table tennis. I wondered when it is open.’
‘Any time you like,’ replies Eric, beckoning her in. ‘I have the key somewhere. Come on in, while I find it.’
Lottie hesitates then comes into the room. In the background, through a door leading to the kitchen, a kettle boils.
‘I was about to have some coffee. Would you like some? While I find the key.’
‘No, I’m okay.’
‘Sure?’
‘Sure … well, alright, thank you. I’ll have some, thank you.’
‘So,’ says Eric, heading off to the kitchen, ‘make yourself comfortable and I’ll get the key. And make some coffee.’
Lottie sits on the edge of a sofa and casts her eyes around the room, to the accompaniment of clattering cups and Eric’s whistling. On the floor are piles of clean and dirty sportswear. She stands up and walks over to the bookcase. She’s tall for her age and thin. She has the mouth and nose of her father, the jaw line, eye and hair colouring of her mother. Like her father she is prone to obsessive behaviour. As with her mother she has a tendency towards black and white, right and wrong.
The bookshelves are filled with coaching manuals and walking guides. On the mantelpiece are two trophies: one for windsurfing, the other for rock-climbing. Above them is the only picture in the room. It is a poster of the routes up Mount Everest. Lottie reaches up and traces her finger along the line of the North Face. When she turns around Eric is standing in the doorway, two mugs of coffee in his hands. On one mug is a map of the Lake District, on the other an image of a Golden Eagle. She feels embarrassed to have been found standing and moves to sit down again.
‘Sugar?’ says Eric, offering the mugs.
‘No thanks,’ she answers, looking down at her feet.
‘So,’ says Eric after a short silence, ‘are you enjoying yourself here?’
‘Sort of,’ says Lottie, eyes averted, keeping her mug to her mouth, blowing away the steam.
There’s another silence.
‘I didn’t want to come here in the first place,’ she continues, staring at the map of Everest, its snowy peak, the beautiful blue sky all around. ‘I’m supposed to be with my dad, but he had to go away, so I had to come here with my mum. And her.’
‘Her?’ asks Eric, for something to say.
‘Christine. Mum’s girlfriend.’
‘Girlfriend?’
‘Yes, girlfriend,’ replies Lottie in a matter-of-fact tone.
‘Oh, I see,’ says Eric, trying to hide his shock, unused to such cosmopolitan behaviour and attitudes. He has spent most of his life out of doors and is not skilled in the wiles and ways of the modern world. He is someone who would rather be alone in the wilderness, yet finds himself working with children who are more worldly wise than he.
‘I just wish one of them would think of me,’ says Lottie distantly, imagining herself on top of the mountain, the eagle on her cup circling beneath her as she stands on the roof of the world.
‘One of them?’ queries Eric, thinking about the time he applied to be an outward bound instructor and the humiliation of being told he lacked social skills and charisma.
‘Mum and Dad. They both do their own thing. Put themselves first. Dad and his precious laboratory. Mum and her love life. And Mum cares more about her kids at the unit than about me. She makes me feel guilty for asking her to be home. She says I’m privileged, that I have everything. So she stays late when one of the kids has a crisis. Which is all the time. And I get to stay home on my own.’
‘And your dad?’
‘Oh, he agonizes, but he’s always travelling with his job.’
‘They probably try to do their best,’ says Eric, remembering his own childhood in Pembrokeshire. His mother and father merely tolerating each other for their only son, who disappeared to the hills and the coast at every opportunity, to get away from the deathly silences that hung between his parents.
‘And your flute,’ smiles Eric, ‘you have your playing. I heard you last night. You play beautifully.’
‘Yes, I have that. Yes, I do, thank you.’
A peculiar intimacy arises between them, something emanating from the complicity of the lonely child. After a short while Eric produces a key from his pocket and holds it aloft.
‘The music room,’ he says proudly. ‘It’s all yours.’
Lottie stands and takes the key. ‘Thank you, and thanks for the coffee.’
‘My pleasure,’ he says, and leads her to the door.
She walks away across the lawn in the direction of the music room and doesn’t look back.
There is plenty of activity coming from the dormitories. Shouting and music, cursing and banging. Lottie is pleased her mother at least made the effort to arrange a room for her, so she could have some privacy. She looks to where her mother and Christine are staying. The window of their room is wide open and the curtain is fluttering in the early morning breeze. She can’t be sure, but she fancies she hears the sound of her mother’s laughter. She keeps walking, key in hand, to the music room.
I expect intrigue and secrecy, shifty characters and lookouts at the doors. But it’s not like that at all. Mr Hoang arrives at the agreed time with half a dozen workers. He greets the factory owner like an old friend. I am beckoned to follow them into the office. We sit together, drink tea and smoke cigarettes. The workers stare and smile at me. I smile back. Mr Hoang asks me about my family. I lie to make things easier, describing the ideal nuclear family, rather than the nuclear holocaust that is closer to the truth. We smile some more. Then Mr Hoang stands up and says it is time to get to work. The factory manager lets us into the warehouse where the rubber samples are stacked and stored. Then he leaves us alone.
&nbs
p; In an unnervingly casual manner Mr Hoang asks me for the briefcase while his team busy themselves unfurling the rolls of rubber. I watch as Hoang produces a key from a pocket, unlocks and clicks open the catch. Inside the case are dozens of slim, almost flat, oblong packages. I know these contain the rare and vital poppy seeds. Whether the workers are equally well aware of this is something I realize I am unlikely ever to know. On the face of it they do not seem conscious of being involved in any illicit activity. They laugh and joke amongst themselves as they take the unmarked packages and place them, like sandwich filling, between two layers of rubber sheeting. The edges of each sandwich are then heat-sealed to make an invisible join and the rubber sheets are rolled back into their original shapes. I watch them package and nail the rubber rolls into small wooden crates. Mr Hoang, I suddenly realize, is standing close behind me.
‘You see everything is going very smoothly. There can be no problems with the correct planning and the correct documentation. Everything is arranged for your flight tomorrow to Bangkok. There is a good connection through Saigon. You shouldn’t be delayed. I do hope you have a safe and enjoyable trip. As we Buddhists say, you merely need to go with the flow.’
I look blankly at my strange accomplice. The light casts a shadow across his smiling face. Now it is as I imagined. I feel as if I am in a black-and-white B movie in a bootlegger’s warehouse.
In the darkness, Caitlin can retreat. The sound of the water pumping through the pipe that runs along the base of the room. The clatter of her chains against the metal as she shifts position. Her mind tripping and weaving through the endless hours, playing games, creating and recreating patterns.
‘Would you want to know me, if you knew you had a daughter?’ she asks of the image of the father she keeps deep in her mind. ‘Would you jump ship to save me? Leave your family behind – you must have a family – and rescue me. Where are you, Father? Would your heart break if you knew your daughter was chained and bloodied? What stories would you tell me in the night of sights your heart saw, ways your heart went? Do I look like you? My eyes, my nose, the shape of my feet? The way I come to think about the day? I wonder what you are doing now, this second – what you are thinking, the look on your face, and how it would have been if you’d ever known me and I you.’
9
East meets West
The Sathorn Hotel in Bangkok is an hour’s taxi-crawl from the airport. The rubber samples and their fillings are safely stored in the transit warehouse. The WHO insignia ensures they will be left alone. I slump on my bed, relishing the prospect of a free day before the next stage of my journey to Chicago and the Institute of Health Studies, where I’ve been asked to speak about my work. Once in Chicago I’ve been told I’ll be contacted by another ubiquitous Taneffe rep for instructions to move on to Bogotá in Colombia and the end of my journey. I have little choice but to trust Dr Foster and her instructions. I have to believe she will stick to her end of the bargain, that Caitlin will be freed and we can pick up the pieces of our lives. All I can do is what seems to be the next right thing, the next right action. But for now I need to escape the unholy muddle of my life and give myself a break.
I dump my jacket, loosen my tie and, with thoughts of sobriety several time zones in the past, take a Singha beer from the minibar. Feeling like an aged rock star on tour, I flick through the TV channels and settle on Thai boxing from Lumpini Park. I light a Camel cigarette and leaf through the tourist guide. Between boxing, beer and cigarette, I ponder the problem of translating the AIDS prevention message into a Thai culture that views illness as an inevitable atonement for past misdemeanours. I shave, shower and change.
Out on Silom Road I need no reminding Bangkok is one of the hottest and most polluted cities in the world. The fumes fight with the heat and mingle with the sweat on my back, making the shower but a sweet memory. I light another cigarette in the firm belief its fumes are less noxious than the air around me. I drop my spare coins to the first limbless beggar and turn into Patpong, heading towards some form of leisure.
I edge past the garish market stalls and dodge the young boys in their striped, distinctive silk shirts, plying for trade outside their clubs. Surveying the endless row of neon signs I remember another trip when I met Poon, the heroin dealer, who played pool on a snooker table and trained the infant rose sellers in Chiang Mai. Poon told me Patpong clubs with royal titles were run by his uncle and would be as honest as you’re likely to get in this part of town. With a little knowledge doing me no harm, I climb the stairs to ‘King’s Paradise’.
Inside, the false ceiling has just opened up and the Harley Davidson with its copulating passengers is being lowered to the stage. Seated on stools around the circular set, the assorted men, from East and West, of a certain class and wallet, sip their drinks as women massage their limbs and stroke their temples.
‘Welcome to Thailand. Are you from the World Bank meeting?’ hums the beautiful woman who guides me to an empty seat, beckoning the bartender.
I drink my beer and watch the show, as the woman, no more than a girl, squeezes my thigh, moving her body against my back. After the motorbike comes the birthday cake, the darts and balloons, the razor blades and the cigarette smoking. Girls move around the bar seeking men to take upstairs or to nearby hotel rooms. I enjoy the anthropology and the attentions of my new companion. I say I have nothing to do with the World Bank, but am involved in improving health and reducing disease.
‘Like the AIDS?’ she asks.
‘Yes, like the AIDS,’ I reply.
I ask her if they use condoms in the bar, an issue Richard Pryce told me was a big problem in brothels. She gives me a curious look and says her name is Soylam and she likes gold. She asks me if I want a good time, Johnny. I drink more beers and tell her about a young Thai doctor I’d heard about who was working to set up health promotion north of Chiang Rai. When she finally realizes I am genuine in my interest about AIDS she talks of the mamasan in the bar who trains the girls about HIV, provides condoms and brings a doctor to the club for tests.
‘But, you’ll pay my time?’ she asserts, ever the professional, the eye of the mamasan always overseeing her troop of girls.
I nod and drink more beer. There’s never going to be enough beer, no matter how many bottles I drink.
‘But they’re not all like this,’ she adds, never releasing her contact with some part of my body, clicking and massaging my fingers as we talk.
Above us, on the circular stage, girls dance and gyrate, waiting for a man to pick them out and rent them from the bar. She goes on to describe the hotels where small children are kept to be used by the highest bidder; of the cheap condoms, sold at some bars, which split on contact; and of the teahouses, lounges and numbered hotels where the desperate and drug-addicted women work, doing anything for money. She explains how the police take their pick, when and any way they want. Soylam speaks of her village, how much she misses her family, how she worries about her younger brothers and sisters.
‘Pay the bar and I’ll come home with you,’ she whispers gently in my ear, blowing warm breath, her hair the deepest black, her skin so soft and silky.
Soylam had learned quickly – English and other essential tricks – from the lounges in Chiang Mai, where she sold herself to the Hmong labourers, lost like her in the big city, losing, like her, their identity; spending their wages on an hour’s passion in a mirrored room above a restaurant. Like so many others before her, she graduated to the dance clubs in Bangkok, where she was taught to pull the short white shift beneath her breasts and twine her legs around the calves of foreigners as they paid double for beers and treble for ladies’ colas. She saved what she could hide from the debt collector, living in the hope of returning to her village and family. The debt she owed was the money the agent gave to her parents when she was bought. And this debt never seemed to reduce, no matter how many men grunted and sweated between her thighs, no matter how much she repaid.
The tuk-tuk, red and blue lights f
lashing, hurtles along the road avoiding the pools of rain left by the afternoon downpour. It is well into the night, but we find a bar close to my hotel. Sitting at a table by the door I tell her of my last visit to Thailand for a World Health Organisation symposium and my brief trip to the northern hill tribes. She recounts her own journey in the opposite direction. She describes how opium was part of life and ancestry in her village, but heroin arrived and changed everything. Young boys crave the drug, even selling off their little sisters to the agents who come from the town to replenish their stocks.
She tells me how the village boys buy one needle, telling the shopkeeper it is ‘to inject hormones into chickens’, and then make it last the group for weeks.
‘I have a cousin,’ she says, ‘a herbalist, who was offered a place at Chiang Mai University. But he stayed behind because the headman needed help with the drug addicts. Every day he makes up a pot of herbs and gives them a drink to help with the addiction.’
She fears for the girl prostitutes who return to their villages with more than the scars of a lost childhood. She also worries for the young drug-addicted men, who in the old days only smoked opium. Now the drug dealers pass through the villages on the way to the cities and bring them heroin. Before long the boys are stealing from their families to support their habits. The old people sit around bemused, horrified at what is happening to their families and their way of life.
She is truly beautiful, this young woman from the bar with the skin and soul of an angel. She speaks from the heart of experience, with more knowledge and insight than a junket full of epidemiologists and associated experts. The light from the candle on the table illuminates the youth behind eyes that have seen more than they should have.
Children play with a ball in the street outside the bar. There are noises and flashing lights and people hurrying in all directions, even though it is late. The gentle stroke of Soylam’s fingers on the nape of my neck brings me back to her.
‘You want good time now?’ she asks.