“But to a near-arhat like you, how can a cop help?”
Perhaps it is my imagination, or perhaps that really was a wince that distorted his features for a moment.
“Her spirit craves justice” is all he will say.
A few beats pass. He is the one who finally breaks the silence to prompt me: “Why don’t you ask me questions that will push the case along? Isn’t that what you’re here for?”
A pause. “Okay, do you know about the video?”
More beats, no answer. I say, “Someone sent it to me anonymously. I think it must have been you.” Still no answer. “I thought you wanted to help with the case. You do know about the video?”
A long pause before he says, “I am still in touch with my village. Monks are allowed e-mail.” A very long pause, during which he seems to dwell in another universe, then: “The function of the West is to turn bodies and minds into products. It cannot understand that the rest of the world holds this to be an obscenity, a corruption of our nirvanic nature.” He follows this statement with a scowl.
I find I am cast into doubt about him all over again, perhaps by a twitch or gesture, a subtle alteration in his diction, which turned vulgar.
I cough apologetically. “Phra Titanaka, may I be permitted one very personal question?”
“For a monk there are no personal questions.”
“Then for the sake of forensic inquiry, would you tell me how close you and your sister were?”
His eyes dart, but he says nothing. Instead he stands up abruptly- inexplicably-and leaves me on his balcony to cross the compound to the bot. I remain in a semilotus, watching that elegant, measured walk in the flowing saffron robes until he enters the temple. I think he expects me to leave, and I’m half tempted to do so. I wait, though, feeling foolish and distracting myself by watching the muted but incessant life of the wat until he returns about an hour later. He makes no sign of surprise to see me still here, slips down into a semilotus a couple of yards from me, and says with that peculiar abruptness that I suppose is a consequence of his mental discipline:
“We were closest when she was in her early twenties and I was a teenager. She always said she was sorry for using me as a pillow to cry on, but it was the only way she could cope. She said maybe if she paid for my education, I would be able to figure it all out better than she.”
“She used to talk about her customers?”
I stare in fascination while his serenity morphs into hatred. It is as though he has peeled off a rubber mask to reveal an alien monster from a denser planet. “Every sweaty, pink, brown, black, overweight, desperate, lovelorn, emotionally crippled, fucked-up, shit-eating one of them. It took all she had to pretend enthusiasm. She even had to pretend to love them sometimes-that’s the kind of assholes they were.” A scowl at me: “That was before she became a numb professional.”
I am struck dumb not only by the sudden change in personality but also by the way he seems quite unaware of it. Something else, too, has made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. He sounded exactly like Damrong; same voice, same tricks of speech.
Thoroughly unnerved, I say, “I see.” He is still scowling and turns his head away, perhaps aware that he has said something inappropriate but is not sure what. He has lost his serenity and fidgets with his robe. He clearly wants to get rid of me.
Now it is my turn to stand up, wai him, and leave, telling myself that the man who pronounced those bitter words in a growl of the most vulgar slang was not the monk Phra Titanaka; it was someone else.
In a state of shock I wander across the compound, past the great white chedi, which is the oldest part of the temple complex, and ask a senior monk where I might find the abbot. The monk replies that he is in the same hot from which Damrong’s brother just emerged.
The abbot sitting in semilotus under the dais is fat, almost the perfect image of a laughing Buddha, and acknowledges my high wai with a nod. I use the most polite form of address from a hierarchy of dozens as I sit, careful to keep my head lower than his. In the jolly face shrewd eyes examine me. I explain I am a detective investigating the death of the monk’s sister. The abbot confirms that he is extending hospitality to the Khmer monk, who arrived last week and seems very devout.
“Have you noticed anything strange about him?”
“Strange? We humans insist on inhabiting a charnel ground -isn’t that strange enough for spiritual creatures without splitting hairs?”
“He seems to be two different men. His personality switches from moment to moment.”
“Only two? Perhaps there is something wrong with your eyes. Look more closely and you will see he changes with every exhalation. So do I. So do you.”
I wai once again, thank him for his wisdom, and take my leave.
23
The monk’s sudden entry into the case has brought me to an emotional dead end. The intensity of my guilt over Nok’s death is tempered by the great mountain of suffering this young man has climbed over; and anyway this afternoon has long massage written all over it. I use a fairly large, well-known establishment on a side soi which joins Sukhumvit and Soi 45. A lot of people use the soi as a shortcut, and it has plenty of cooked-food stalls with specializations that can be known from the shape of the stalclass="underline" braised pork with rice; boiled chicken with rice; som-tan salad with sticky rice; and mango and sticky rice plus a lot of kong wan, sweets. Don’t miss the crispy pancakes with coconut cream fillings, farang. I’m watching a hawker prepare Thai coconut pudding in the old style, pouring the batter into tiny hollows of a large round pan, then pouring sweet coconut milk into them. You don’t often see it done properly these days; sometimes I’m driven to steamed banana cakes, thanks to globalism and the fast-food fad.
I have brought the FBI by way of developing our kiss-and-make-up strategy. We had it all out yesterday in a hurricane of calls, text messages, and e-mails, only the most hurtful of which are really worth recording:
Me: It’s just hormonal consumerism. You’re no different from the middle-aged Johns roaming Nana Plaza.
The FBI: Oh, and what about you and Damrong, huh? When it happens to you, it’s Cupid, it’s Orion marching across the night sky, it’s chakras and lotus petals in the head. When an American woman falls in love, it’s hormonal consumerism.
Me (aware that I am about to make a serious tactical blunder): Exactly-that’s the cultural difference.
The FBI: So you are a cultural chauvinist, exactly what you’re always accusing the West of.
Having duly noted the magnificence of each other’s claws, we found something else to talk about, and I invited her to the massage parlor so we could sign off on our peace treaty. Now the FBI, all bright, smiling, and looking professional (I know she took Lek out for a drink on Soi 4 Pat Pong last night, however; Lek called me afterward; she was a little fresh but took no for an answer after an aborted grope), tells me she has good news which she will share during the massage.
“I don’t know if I’m going to stay awake, Sonchai.”
“You’re not supposed to. If you don’t nod off, the masseuse isn’t doing her job.”
It’s a relief to step out of the crowded soz‘ into the air-conditioning. The girl at reception asks if we want traditional Thai or oil massage, I say “Traditional Thai” without consulting Kimberley. I order two hours each. Two hours of pure mental emptiness: at three hundred baht I see it as a bargain.