Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction

by Leigh Grossman

  “What are they talking about?” Mary said. She was properly prostrate, but seemed distracted. She was probably uncomfortable without her trusty notebook.

  “I haven’t the faintest idea. It’s all in Pali or Sanskrit or something,” I said.

  “Namodasa phakhavato arahato—” the monks continued inexorably.

  At length they laid their prayer fans down and the chief luangphoh doused a spray of twigs in a silver dipper of lustral water and began to sprinkle Phii Lek liberally.

  “It’s got to be over soon,” I said to Mary. “It’s getting toward noon, and you know monks are not allowed to eat after twelve o’clock.”

  As the odor of incense wafted over me and the chanting continued, I fell into a sort of trance. These were familiar feelings, sacred feelings. Maybe my brother was in the grip of some supernatural force that could be driven out by the proper application of Buddha, Dharma and Sangkha. However, as the luangphoh became ever more frantic, waving the twigs energetically over my writhing brother to no avail, I began to lose hope.

  Presently the monks took a break for their one meal of the day, and we took turns presenting them with trays of delicacies. After securing my brother carefully to the wall with the sacred twine, I went to the kitchen, where my grandmother was grinding fresh betelnut with a mortar and pestle. To my surprise, my father was there too. It was rather a shock to see him bald and wearing a saffron robe, when I was so used to seeing him barechested with a phakhoma loosely wrapped about his loins, and with a whiskey bottle rather than a begging bowl in his arms. I did not know whether to treat him as father or monk. To be on the safe side, I fell on my knees and placed my folded palms reverently at his feet.

  My father was complaining animatedly to my grandmother in a weird mixture of normal talk and priestly talk. Sometimes he’d remember to refer to himself as atma, but at other times he’d speak like anyone off the street. He was saying, “But mother, atma is miserable, they only feed you once a day, and I’m hornier than ever! It’s obviously not going to work, so why don’t I just come home?”

  My grandmother continued to pound vigorously at her betelnut.

  “Anyway, atma thinks that it’s time for more serious measures. I mean, calling in a professional exorcist.”

  At this, my grandmother looked up. “Perhaps you’re right, holy one,” she said. I could see that it galled her to have to address her wayward son-in-law in terms of such respect. “But can we afford it?”

  “Phra Boddhisatphalo, atma’s guru, is an astrologer on the side, and he says that the stars for the movie theater are exceptionally bad. Well, atma was thinking, why not perform an act of merit while simultaneously ridding ourselves of a potential financial liability? I say sell out the half-share of the cinema and use the proceeds to hire a really competent exorcist. Besides,” he added slyly, “with the rest of the cash I could probably obtain me one of those nieces of yours, the ones whose beauty your daughters are always bragging about.”

  “You despicable cad,” my grandmother began, and then added, “holy one,” to be on the safe side of the karmic balance.

  “Honored father and grandmother,” I ventured, “have you not considered the notion that Phii Lek’s body might indeed be inhabited by an extraterrestrial being?”

  “I fail to see the difference,” my father said, “between a being from another planet and one from another spiritual plane. It is purely a matter of attitude. You and your brother, whose wits have been addled by exposure to too many American movies, think in terms of visitations from the stars; your grandmother and I, being older and wiser, know that ‘alien’ is merely another word for spirit. Earthly or unearthly, we are all spokes in the wheel of karma, no? Exorcism ought to work on both.”

  I didn’t like my father’s new approach at all; I thought his drunkenness far more palatable than his piety. But of course this would have been an unconscionably disrespectful thing to say, so I merely wai-ed in obeisance and waited for the ordeal to end.

  My grandmother said, “Well, son-in-law, I can see a certain progress in you after all.” My father turned around and winked at me. “Very well,” she said, sighing heavily, “perhaps your mentor can find us a decent exorcist. But none of those foreigners, mind you,” she added pointedly as Mary entered the kitchen to fetch another tray of comestibles for the monks’ feast.

  * * * *

  The interview with the spirit doctor was set for the following week. By that time the wonder of my brother’s possession had attracted tourists from a radius of some ten kilometers; his performances were so spectacular as to outdraw even the talking cinema in Ban Kraduk.

  It turned out to be a Brahmin, tall, dark, white-robed, with a long white beard that trailed all the way down to the floor. He wore a necklace of bones—they looked suspiciously human—and several flower wreaths over his uncut, wispy hair; moreover he had an elaborate third eye painted in the middle of his forehead.

  “Narayana, Narayana,” he said, with the portentousness of a paunchy deva in one of those Indian historical movies. This, I realized, was a sham to impress the credulous populace, who were swarming around the stilts of our house. One or two children were peering from behind the horns of waterbuffaloes, and one was even peeping from a huge rainwater jar. The Brahmin had an accolyte just for the purpose of removing his sandals and splashing his feet from the foot-washing trough, an occupation of such ignominy that I was surprised even a boy would stoop to it. He surveyed my family (which had been suddenly expanded by visiting cousins, aunts, uncles, and several other grandmothers junior to my own) and inquired haughtily, “And which of you is the possessed one?”

  “He can’t even tell?” my grandmother whispered to me. Then she pointed at Phii Lek, who was crawling around the front porch moaning “tachyon, tachyon.”

  “Ah,” said the exorcist. “A classic case of possession by a phii krasue. Dire measures are indicated, I’m afraid.”

  At the mention of the dreaded phii krasue, the entire family recoiled as a single entity. For the phii krasue is, as everyone knows, a spirit who looks like a normal enough creature in the daytime, but at night detaches its head from its body and, dragging its entrails behind it, propels itself forward by its tongue. It also lives on human excrement. It is, in short, one of the most loathsome and feared of spirits. The idea that we might have been harboring one in our very house sent chills of terror through me.

  Presently I heard dissenting voices. “But a phii krasue can’t act this way in the daytime!” one said. “Anyway, Where’s the trail of guts?” said another. “This fellow’s obviously a quack…never trust a Brahmin exorcist, I tell you.” “Well, let’s give him the benefit. See if he comes up with anything.”

  The Brahmin spirit doctor took a good look at us, clearly appraising our finances. “Can he be cured?” my Elder Mother asked him.

  “Given your very secure monetary standing,” the Brahmin said, “I see no reason why not. You can take him inside now; I shall discuss the—ah, your merit-making donation—with the head of the household.”

  My grandmother came forward, her palms uplifted in supplication. “Fetch him a drink,” she muttered to my mothers.

  My mother said, “Does the than mo phii want a glass of water? Or would he prefer Coca-Cola?”

  “A glass of Mekong whiskey,” said the spirit doctor firmly. “Better yet, bring the whole bottle. We’ll probably be haggling all night.”

  * * * *

  Since Phii Lek was no longer the center of attention, Mary and I obeyed the spirit doctor and brought him inside. He chose that moment to snap back into a state of relative sanity. We knew he had come to because he immediately began demanding chili peppers.

  “All right,” he said at last. “I’ve been authorized to tell you a few more things, since it seems to be the only hope.”

  “What about that monstrous charlatan out there?” Mary said. “He’s only going to delay your plans, isn’t he?”

  “Not necessarily. I want you to
insist that he perform the exorcism at the archaeological dig. Once there, I’ll be able to home in on the device and get rid of the giant cockroach at the same time. You know, that exorcist wasn’t far wrong when he said I’d been possessed by a phii krasue. Would you be interested in knowing what my alien overlords like for dinner?”

  “I take it they’re scavengers?” Mary said.

  “Exactly,” said my brother. “But no more of this excremental subject. You have to convince that exorcist of yours. Unless the device is returned, there will be awful consequences. You see…the aliens were here once before, about eight hundred years ago. They planted a number of these devices as…well, tachyon calibration beacons. Well, this one is going dangerously out of synch, and some of the aliens aren’t ending up in the bodies they were destined for. I mean, this psychic transference business is expensive, and the military ruler of nine star systems doesn’t want to get thrust into the body of a leprous janitor from Milwaukee. That is precisely what happened last week, and the diplomatic consequences happen to be rippling through the entire galaxy at this very minute. Anyway, if the beacon isn’t sent back post-haste for deactivation, guess who gets it?”

  “You?” I said.

  “Worse. They call it a preventative measure. They randomize the solar system.”

  “I think that’s a euphemism for—” Mary began.

  “That’s right, Beloved Younger Siblings! No more Planet Earth.”

  “Can they really do that?” I said.

  “They do it all the time.” My brother reverted for a moment to cockroachlike behavior, then jerked back into a human pose with great effort. “They might not, though. All the xenobiologists, primitive cult fetishists, and so on are up in arms. So it might happen today…it might happen in a couple of years…it might never happen. Who knows? But galactic central thinks that no world, no matter how puny or insignificant, should be randomized without due process. But…I don’t think we should risk it, do you?”

  “Maybe not,” I said. The theory that my brother had contracted one of those American mental diseases, like schizophrenia, was becoming more and more attractive to me. But I had to do what he said. To be on the safe side.

  Mary and I left Phii Lek and went out to the porch where the spirit doctor had consumed half the whiskey and they had lit the anti-mosquito tapers, whose smoke perfumed the dense night air.

  “Excuse me, honored grandmother,” I said, trying to sound as unassuming as I could, “but Phii Lek says he wants the exorcism done at Mary’s archaeological dig.”

  “Ha!” the exorcist said. “One must always do the opposite of what a possessed person says, for the evil spirit in him strives always to delude us!” His sentiments were expressed with such resounding ferocity that there was a burst of applause from the crowd downstairs. “Besides,” he added, “there’s probably a whole army of phii krasue out there, just waiting to swallow us up. It’s a trap, I tell you! This possession is merely the vanguard of a wholesale demonic invasion!”

  I looked despairingly at Mary. “Now what’ll we do?” I said. “Sit around waiting for the Earth to disappear?”

  It was Mary who came to the rescue…and I realized how much she had absorbed by quietly observing us and taking all those notes. She said, speaking in a Thai far more heavily accented than she normally used, “But please, honored spirit doctor, the field study group would be most interested in seeing a real live exorcism!”

  The spirit doctor looked decidedly uncertain at being addressed in Thai by a farang. I could tell the questions racing through his mind: what status should the woman be accorded? She wasn’t related to any of these people, nor was her social position immediately obvious. How could he respond without accidentally using the wrong pronoun, and giving her too much or little status—and perhaps rendering himself the laughingstock of these potential clients?

  Taking advantage of his confusion, Mary pursued relentlessly. “Or does the honored spirit doctor perhaps klua phii?”

  “Of course I’ m not afraid of spirits!” the exorcist said.

  “Then why would a few extra ones bother the honored spirit doctor?” Mary contrived to speak in so unprepossessing an accent that it was impossible to tell whether her polite words were ingenuous or insulting.

  “Bah!” said the spirit doctor. “A few phii krasue are nothing. It’s just a matter of convenience, that’s all—”

  “I’m sure that the foundation that’s sponsoring our field research here would be more than happy to make a small donation toward ameliorating the inconvenience—”

  “Since you put it that way—” the exorcist said, defeated.

  “Hmpf!” my grandmother said, triumphantly yanking the half-bottle of whiskey away and sending my mother back to the kitchen with it. “These farangs might be some use after all. They’re as ugly as elephants, of course—and albino elephants at that—but who knows? One day their race may yet amount to something.”

  The whole street opera of an exorcism was in full swing by the time my brother, Mary, and I parked her official Landrover about a half hour’s walk away from the site. It had taken a week to make the preparations, with my brother’s moments of lucidity getting briefer and his eschatological claims wilder each time.

  By the time we had trudged through fields of young rice, squishing knee-deep in mud, several hundred people had gathered to watch. A good hundred or so were relatives of mine. Mary introduced me to some colleagues of hers, professors and suchlike, and they eyed me with curiosity as I fumbled around in their intractable language.

  Four broken pagodas were silhouetted in the sunset. A waterbuffalo nuzzled at the pediment of an enormous stone Buddha, to whom I instinctively raised my palms in respect. Here and there, erupting from the brilliant green of the fields of young rice, were fragments of fortifications and walls topped with complex friezes that depicted grim, barbaric gods and garlanded, singing apsaras. A row of trunkless stucco elephants guarded a gateway to another paddy field.

  Every part of the ruined city had been girded round with a saisin, a sacred rope that had been strung up along the walls and along the stumps of the elephant trunks and through the stone portals and finally into the folded palms of the spirit doctor himself, who sat, in the lotus position, on a woven rush mat, surrounded by a cloud of incense.

  “You’re late,” he said angrily as we hastened to seat ourselves within the protected circle. “Get inside, inside. Or do you want to be swallowed up by spirits?”

  If I had thought Phii Lek’s actions bizarre before, his performance now shifted into an even more hyperbolic gear. He groaned. He danced about, his body coiling and coiling like a serpent.

  I heard my grandmother cry out, “Ui ta then! Nuns dropping into the basement!” It was the strongest language I’d ever heard her use.

  Mary clutched my hand. Some of my relatives stared disapprovingly at the impropriety, but I decided that they were just jealous.

  “And now we’ll see which it is to be,” Mary said. “Science fiction or fantasy.”

  “He’s mumbling himself into a trance now,” I said, pointing to the exorcist, who had closed his eyes and from whose lips a strange buzzing issued.

  “Are you sure he’s not snoring?” one of my mothers said maliciously.

  “What tranquillity! What perfect samadhi!” my other mother said admiringly, for the spirit doctor hadn’t moved a muscle in some ten minutes.

  Phii Lek’s contortions became positively unnerving. He darted about the sacred circle, now and then flapping his arms as though to fly. Suddenly a bellow—like the cry of an angry waterbuffalo—burst from his lips. He flapped again and again—and then rose into the air!

  “Be still, I command thee!” the exorcist’s voice thundered, and he waved a rattle at my levitating brother and made mysterious passes. “I tell thee, be still!”

  A ray of light shot upward from the earth, dazzlingly bright. The pagodas were lit up eerily. The ground opened up under Phii Lek as he hovered. There he w
as, brilliantly lit up in the pillar of radiance, with an iridescent aura around him whose outlines vaguely resembled an enormous cockroach…

  The crowd was going wild now. They clamored, they cheered; some of the children were disobeying the sacred cord and having to be restrained by their elders. My brother was sitting, in lotus position, in the middle of the air with his palms folded, looking just like a postcard of the Emerald Buddha in Bangkok.

  The flaming apparition that had been my brother descended into the pit. We all rushed to the edge. The light from the abyss burned our eyes; we were blinded. Mary took advantage of the confusion to embrace me tightly; I was too overwhelmed to castigate her.

  We waited.

  The earth rumbled.

  At last a figure crawled out. He was covered in mud and filth. He was clutching something under his arm…something very much like a Ming spittoon.

  “Phii Lek!” I cried out, overcome with relief that he was still alive.

  “The tachyon calibrator—” he gasped, holding aloft the spittoon and waving it dramatically in the air. “You must get it to—”

  He fainted, still clasping the alien device firmly to his bosom.

  The light shifted…the ghostly, rainbow-fringed giant cockroach seemed to drift slowly across the field, toward the unmoving figure of the exorcist…it danced grotesquely above his head, and he began to twitch and foam at the mouth… .

  “I’ll be dead!” my grandmother shouted. “The spirit is transferring itself into the body of the exorcist!”

  In a moment the exorcist too fainted, and the sacred cord fell from his hands. The circle was broken. Whatever was done was done.

  I rushed to the side of my brother, still lying prone by the side of the abyss.

  “Wake up!” I said, shaking him. “Please wake up!”

  He got up and grinned. Applause broke out. The exorcist, too, seemed to be recovering from his ordeal.