The Thief

by Claire North

  “Remy,” he muttered, as the other slipped onto the stool beside him. “Not dead, yet?”

  “Not yet, Winston,” he replied, gesturing at the bartender for a drink. “Can I top you up?”

  “Don’t see why not, sport, don’t see why not.”

  They talked.

  “The Japs don’t want to invade Siam, you see,” he grumbled. “This place is a little fish, something that can be scooped up easily enough once they’ve got the prize.”

  “And what’s the prize?”

  “Singapore! Malaysia! Take out the British first, take out the big resistance, get your guns ready to do India and once you’ve got all of South-East Asia in the bag, nibble up Siam as an afterthought.”

  “And what are the British doing about this?”

  “Bugger all, lad, bugger all!” he wheezed, panting for breath in the settling evening heat. “What can they bloody do about it? Hard enough time keeping the natives in line, let alone dealing with some imperialist samurai whatsit. You see that man over there…?” He pointed with a purple-tinted finger, subtle as a torpedo, delicate as a hurricane. “He’s one of the Jap lot. Lovely man, really. Genuinely believes – this is the part I love – genuinely believes that he’s going to free Asia from the colonial oppressor. That Japan will come as liberators, not conquerors, and that by going to war against the Brits and the Frogs and that lot, he’s defending his country from the inevitable European scourge! At least the Europeans have the good grace to have given up on any pretence of dignity or generous feeling. Bless him –” he waved cheerfully at the victim of this analysis, who tilted his drink in reply – “he’s a good sport, and a not half-bad spy, but he’s terribly mistaken.”

  “In what way?”

  “His bosses! His bosses talk the whole ‘liberation from the colonial’ stuff, but they’re ideologues and bullies, the lot of them. No good having a decent middle management if the word from the top is cleanse the ethnics and that, is there?”

  “And what about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “Where will you be when all this happens?”

  “Oh, India, I think. Or Ceylon. Far from here as I can get, really!”

  “Another drink?”

  “You’re a sport, Remy, always have been, always a sport.”

  And later:

  “Do you remember Abhik Lee?”

  “God, yes! Unpleasant sort, but good at the game, if I recall. Played an extraordinary hand of monopoly once against a Yank who was something big in rubber. Won half the plantations of Malaysia, a US senator and the love of the Yank’s wife, all because the other’s tanker got caught by pirates in the Strait of Malacca. Personally I thought the wife business was a bit much since he clearly didn’t love her, but he was always a vindictive little sod, was Abhik, winning things he didn’t need simply to prove that he could.”

  “I’m playing a game with him.”

  “Good God, are you? Which one?”

  “Hide-and-seek.”

  “You’re seeking?”

  “Hiding, as a matter of fact.”

  “Bloody hell, sport, you’ll do better than to come round here. Half the people in this godforsaken place are trying to get into the Gameshouse, you know how quickly they’ll rat you out?”

  “I’ve put up a smokescreen.”

  “Won’t last – chap like you stands out.”

  “That’s why I’m doing a little legwork now. I was wondering if, in your easy way of things, you knew where Abhik lived?”

  “Don’t get me involved in your stuff, Remy; I’m out of the Gameshouse and have the failing lungs to prove it. Bet my sclerosis against his asthma and look where I am now!”

  “Perhaps I could help with that?”

  “Only if you win, sport, only if you win.”

  “Well then – help me win.”

  And the night after that…

  He caught her as she was getting on a ferry heading south towards the sea. She wore grey; he wore a large hat pulled low against the torchlight; she saw him in the corner of her eye and smiled anyway, recognised him for what he was.

  As the ferry chugged slowly through the waters, he worked his way round to her until, like two strangers meeting upon a lonely voyage, he stood by her side, hands folded on the railing, and said,

  “Thene.”

  “Remy.”

  “How are you?”

  The woman called Thene considered, her lips thinning and stretching as she toyed with an answer. “Well,” she said at last. “Still here.” Beautiful Thene, we remember you from another time, another game, do we not? And you are still here, your dark hair shorter now, your smile older, your features as beautiful and unchanging as the moon. You wore a mask once, and played to crown a king in Venice. That mask is gone, and yet perhaps all it did was sink into your flesh, become your flesh, a thing invisible that you wear still.

  “I hear you’re in the middle of a game,” she murmured.

  “Indeed.”

  “Silver mentioned something.”

  “Ah – I wondered if he would.”

  “How’s it going?”

  “Abhik’s going to win.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. I assume you haven’t come to me for help?”

  “There’s nothing in the rules which says I can’t.”

  “But to ask another player for assistance would be…extraordinarily dangerous,” she mused, turning her weight on the rail to regard him better. “Think of the concessions I could get from Abhik if I were to tell him about this conversation now.”

  “You could,” he conceded, “probably get more from Abhik than I can offer you, and in doing so you could guarantee that he wins, whereas by helping me you merely shift the balance of probability against my losing.”

  “The matter is settled then – I must help Abhik.”

  “However…” he interjected, laying his hand gently on her cold arm, “…if you did help me win, you would have in your debt a player far older, and far less temperamental in his loyalties than Abhik is now.”

  “A player who got drunk and took a foolish bet,” she retorted, pulling her skin gently free from his touch, “is not a player whose services I can rely on.”

  “Then help me for your code,” he said, moving round quickly to block her view as she turned away.

  “My code? I am a player,” she replied. “I have no code except victory and the game.”

  “I think we both know that isn’t true, Thene. I have played you in both lower and higher league games, and you have beaten me every time save once. The one time you did not win, you would not sacrifice the life of the woman you had embedded in my minister’s palace. You knew what he would do to her when her treachery was found out and though exposing her would have won you the game, you played a different piece and were mistaken, and it was the only game you lost.”

  “Sometimes I make mistakes.”

  “You lost two oil wells, a railway company, a seat in the Politburo and your appreciation of the taste of strawberries from that game. I have never seen you make mistakes of that kind since.”

  “I won back the taste of strawberries over a game of snap,” she answered easily. “Where, if memory serves – and it always does – you lost your perception of the richness of the colour purple.”

  “Which only proves my point – that you have always beaten me, except that once.”

  She sighed and turned back to face the water, her eyes elsewhere, but her body still here, still waiting. We watched and waited with her as Remy waited too, holding tight to the edge of the railing as Thene studied the waves parting before the ship.

  “What do you want, Remy?”

  “I need to learn something of Abhik Lee’s past. Where he came from, games he’s won, his form, his style.”

  “You have pieces; why use mine to gather this?”

  “My pieces are outside this country. If I accessed them, I would be in violation of the rules of the game.”

  �
��My,” she murmured, “Abhik really did nail you on this one, didn’t he? Why did you come here, Remy? You were drunk and you agreed to play a game in a country where you have no resources. You should have stayed in India where you have enough pieces to have an advantage in any game.”

  “Where would be the challenge in that?”

  They watched the water a while, the two of them in silence. Then he said, “Silver’s going to play the great game.”

  “I know. He’s been preparing for a very long time. Don’t look so surprised. As you say, I am a very old player. I have observed my enemy’s form. Silver has been gathering pieces into his hand for centuries now, building up a reserve to rival the Gamesmaster for when he eventually makes his challenge.”

  “And when do you think that will be?”

  “Soon, perhaps – soon.”

  “And do you think he can win?”

  “I don’t know. Both he and the Gameshouse hide their resources and their intentions. You would be unwise to trust either.”

  “Do you think the Gameshouse has an agenda?” She didn’t answer. “Thene. Your silence speaks volumes.”

  “You interpret as you will,” she replied, eyes not rising from the river. “My silence will not sway you from your course.”

  “Will you help me?”

  “I will need something in return, some day.”

  “Name it.”

  “I don’t yet know. A favour. Information. A piece. Something of that ilk – in proportion, of course, to the risk – in proportion. We must always be balanced in these things, must we not?”

  “It’s yours.”

  “Then I shall see what I can learn.”

  “Thank you.”

  “It is merely an exchange,” she replied, turning away from the water and drawing herself up straighter. “This too is part of the game, though perhaps we flatter ourselves in thinking that we are the ones who play it.”

  So saying, she walked away.

  Chapter 35

  The next morning, a report reached the ears of Abhik Lee that Remy Burke – or at least a man conforming to his appearance – had been seen in Khon Kaen. So certain was the news that Abhik Lee at once boarded the first train heading north, leaving behind him three other entirely separate yet plausible sightings of Remy in Bangkok.

  We wave goodbye to Abhik at the railway station, and he does not return the courtesy.

  That night, information came to Remy Burke and two hours later, he lets himself into Abhik Lee’s private rooms in Ratanakosin.

  Thrilling intrusion! We drift through Abhik’s life, seeing spread in all the things he possesses the story of this man. We feel godlike, naughty, wonderfully intelligent as we pick through his belongings, knowing him to be far away. Who would live a normal life when they could live like thieves and umpires as we do now? He has lived in this place a good long while, not three streets from the Grand Palace. The fans swirl slowly in the ceiling overhead, the flies press against the mesh across the windows, the shutters closed behind them. A mosquito net hangs across a dishevelled double bed – dishevelled because he had not time to make it when news came to send him north, dishevelled because Abhik Lee will trust no man with his privacy, his possessions.

  He has taken all information regarding his pieces, those generals and colonels, diplomats and ministers who he has been playing from his hand – but there is still plenty to examine. Shelves of books: Das Capital to Mein Kampf, Dostoevsky to Hemmingway, Ishwar Gupta and Kavi Kant, Sunthorn Phu and Sei Shonagon. When did Abhik learn to read medieval Japanese? (A game of detectives in an Iranian country palace. A minor princeling was found dead and Abhik caught the killer before his rival could do the same. Abhik had bet his knowledge of Hindi versus the rival’s study of Japanese – a good bet fairly played.) A kitchen stocked with rice and vegetables, nothing too sugary, no meat at all. No alcohol, but water three-times filtered, boiled and cooled. So eager was Abhik to leave Bangkok that a bowl of rice stands cold and glutinous by the sink, the dirty spoon hanging off it, flies coming to feast. Seven different kinds of tea, including a jar consisting of several different kinds stirred together in perfect proportion. A map of Bangkok – abandoned – and when he dials the telephone exchange, the last number they connect him with is the personal number of the Minister of the Interior.

  A small table set with incense. A small pillow on the floor before it, curved with the shape of Abhik’s knees. It might have been an altar, so carefully is each part arranged, but no deity stands watching, no symbol is invoked. A gramophone player. The music is the Indian sitar. He rifles through records underneath as the music plays. Wagner, Elgar, Mozart, Muddy Waters and Billie Holiday.

  The bathroom is small and bare. Cracked tiles on one wall in blue and white, a gently rotting bathmat flung across the side of the tub, a basin stained faintly yellow around the plug. He opens the cupboard and finds it bare of essentials – Abhik took his toothbrush at least to Khon Kaen. He rummages through the small wicker bin below and pulls out a brown glass jar with a dipper in it. A label on the front has Abhik’s name, a date and a trademark – Oculimol. The bottle is empty, the date within the last three weeks. Remy had lost track of time until his return to the city.

  He slips the bottle into his pocket and lets himself out the way he came in.

  Chapter 36

  On his fifth day in Bangkok, a letter was posted under his door.

  How the letter came to his door – how Thene found him – he will never know, and we, respecting the privacy of a player, will not tell.

  Within it was listed every game Abhik had played, the stakes wagered, the prizes won, the prizes lost.

  In seven years, he had been busy, winning a small fortune in territorial concessions, willing governors, questionable executives, busy generals. In the last nine months he had gone to some extraordinary lengths to win prizes in Siam, including, Remy couldn’t help but see, a great many of the military men who had so recently seized power – always, but always! – in the name of the king. In this country most things, we know, are in the name of a king. Only once did Remy see his own name – that night he played poker with Abhik, a lower league game, nothing of significance, surprised, impressed even, that it cropped up on Thene’s list.

  He read the list once, and then read it again, and only on the second view did he find the game he was looking for.

  On the sixth day, Abhik Lee returned to Bangkok and that same night, Remy thought he saw two men watching his hotel. He moved that very hour, fleeing through the dark, but he was fearful now, his deal with Silver done, an end coming to the chase.

  He has run for nearly three months. No one could have believed that Remy Burke would stay hidden for so long.

  On the seventh day, as he walked towards the river, he heard the sound of a motorcycle behind him, and looking back, saw two men approaching, one riding behind the other, arms about his waist. He did not recognise their faces, but he knew their intentions, and ran. They followed, swinging round and past him, the man on the back of the bike throwing himself into Remy’s path, the driver coming back to cut off Remy’s escape. Too soon, too soon, they had found him too soon!

  Remy runs straight at the nearest man, tackling him with a bear-hug around the waist. They both tumble; someone strikes someone else, someone falls, someone kicks, someone snarls, someone – Remy! – bites the other’s man face! He bites him like a dog, gnaws and gouges, a wild animal; where did this come from?! (It came from the forest, from the mud, from the heatstroke and the hunger, the thirst and the fear.) And for a moment – for an implausible, incredible moment – Remy is winning. Pounding a stranger to death in a dirty street in Bangkok, while the wives look on from their open windows and the passers-by know better than to get involved, involved with a European at that, a man who’ll complain to his embassy who’ll use it as an excuse to commit…some implausible excess not yet fantasised in the ambassador’s mind…the people look on until, coming up behind him, the driver of the motorbike
starts pummelling Remy as hard as he can with a tin helmet.

  Remy falters.

  Stumbles.

  Falls.

  Blood runs down his face, his neck.

  The skin is shredded from his knuckles.

  His arms are red and will soon be purple, brown, black.

  This is it, Remy Burke, we whisper to him. This is the last game you will ever play, the death of your mind, the destruction of everything you are. Abhik could have been kind, challenged you to play to the death, but no! He wanted you to live, ignorant and forgetful, wanted to steal your senses, your memories of the prayers of the holy men as they crawled towards Varanasi, the smell of the fires besides the Ganges, the shrieking of the jungles that encroached on the holy places of Laos and Cambodia. He wants the memories of your mother’s song, your father’s stories, the touch of your fingers on bare flesh, the excitement of a tongue in your mouth, the smell of moonlight, the thrill of victory, the line of Fon’s back as she turned away, he wants your soul. And when he has it, he’ll watch you wander, bewildered and afraid through the world, and laugh at you in silence, and turn away without another thought. This is what Abhik Lee will do to you when he’s won, so get up! Get up and fight!

  Remy kicks out, blind, blood in his eyes, and catches someone’s leg. He kicks again, and the man who stumbled is now collapsing, a foot buried in his stomach, winded but whole. The breath buys him a moment; he takes it. Remy rolls to one side, chest burning, face streaming, heart rushing, crawls on his hands and knees to the edge of the road, strangers parting about him, crawls to his feet and, half blind, he staggers up and runs.

  He gets nearly half a mile before he collapses in the doorway of a house.

  A woman opens it and starts screaming.

  He manages another quarter of a mile before he falls down again. Three men and two women walk by before a woman with a child stops to ask if he is all right, if he needs to get to a hospital.