My jaw has dropped. “You were the one with Plan C, not Manny?”
“Who?”
“Lieutenant Manhatsirikit?” She looks at me blankly. “Did Vikorn give you the hundred-thousand-dollars’ reward that he was promising to anyone who successfully needled Zinna?” This is not a disinterested question; for more than a week now we have not used contraception.
“I gave it away to a charity that helps rehabilitate prostitutes. I want clean karma. I don’t want any dirty money.”
So she’s even a better Buddhist than me? Well, at least I can see the funny side.
“What are you laughing at?” She hits me, a good strong punch in the arm. “You think I’m just some dumb half-literate superstitious whore, don’t you?”
I’m laughing too hard to reply.
49
We’re packing the eggs and other offerings into the back of the taxi, Chanya and I. While flattered that I considered her worth five hogs’ heads (that was my final bid), she didn’t appreciate the cooking, which, what with one thing and another, took us all night. (Ever tackled the logistics of boiling a thousand eggs over two gas rings? You’re lucky if your saucepan holds more than a couple dozen-think about it.)
Sharing the backseat with the fifth head, which would not fit into the trunk, we tell the driver to take us to Wat Sathon. It’s a power wat about forty miles outside Bangkok frequented only by Thais (a no-frills magic factory renowned for its capacity to fructify the barren, resurrect the impotent, heal the broken, and provide winning lottery numbers to true believers-not to mention the excellence of the cooked food stalls that surround it). The driver plays some upbeat Thai country pop on his music system.
When we arrive, we haul the eggs and heads, marigolds, lotus garlands, fruit, and vegetables into the temple, which is crowded with satisfied customers like us anxious to pay their dues. (I would guess at roughly a hundred and fifty hogs’ heads all told, and the boiled eggs numbered in the tens of thousands.) We lay them out to be scrutinized by the Standing, Walking, and Sitting Buddhas who populate the raised platform. Chanya and I light incense, hold the bunches to our foreheads in deep wais, and give thanks to be still alive and in love (you must value every minute), then break open the packs of gold leaf. You need to be nimble. Lesser practitioners end up with the frail leaf disintegrating all over fingers and faces, but Chanya and I manage to stick it on target every time. She favors the great fat Laughing Buddha, while I myself have a weakness for the Walking Buddha With Left Hand Raised (meaning: Don’t be afraid). Little by little, though, we work our way through all of them, plastering their heads and limbs with the gold as we go, making sure no one is left out. We return to the floor to kneel, wai, and pray. (I think she prays for a daughter; I pray she won’t leave me-how pathetic!) Now it’s time for the cooked food stalls and fried mussels in chiles (they really make the best here), miang kham on a lettuce leaf with coconut shreds, laap pet (spicy duck salad), and a few beers.
In the cab on the way back, in a jam on the outskirts of Krung Thep, I ask the driver to tune in to Rod Tit FM. Pisit is interviewing a famous abbot from one of our forest monasteries.
Pisit to abbot: The more I think about Thailand, the more it drives me insane-I mean, totally crazy, insane, mad.
Abbot: Because of our overwhelming problems?
Pisit: Yes, our overwhelming problems, exactly.
Abbot: Which problems are you most overwhelmed by?
Pisit: All of them.
Abbot: Excuse me, but are you really expressing yourself accurately? Is it not more precise to say that it is not the problems that are overwhelming-after all, they are just problems out there somewhere-but the difficulty in solving those problems?
Pisit, resignedly: If you like. Yes, the difficulty in solving them.
Abbot (with satisfaction): Ah, then Buddhism can indeed help you. At first I thought it could not, but now I am pleased to say that it can.
Pisit: Yes?
Abbot: Well, it’s very simple. It is not the country’s problems that overwhelm you but your egotistic belief that you can be instrumental in solving them.
A scream from Pisit, then silence.
Kalpa, farang (if you are still wondering): Imagine a mountain consisting of a solid cube of rock, one league in length, in breadth, and in height. If with a piece of cloth one were to rub it once at the end of every hundred years, the time that it would take to wear away such a mountain would not be so long as the duration of a kalpa.
Pichai: Last night he finally admitted the whole case had been a ploy on the part of the Unnameable to enable him to reincarnate in Chanya’s womb using my seed. She’s the best stock on the planet, he explained. Is there nothing from me you want? I asked, but he disappeared with a pop.
Breaking News: Superman is due to arrive in two days. (I have knots in my stomach from time to time, and Nong has resumed her diet; we’ve bought an extra half-kilo of grass and a little opium, just in case he’s still in Vietnam mode. Nong says that with farang on R &R, you never know.)
Lek is still popping the estrogen and giving me a daily bulletin re his breast size (still modest and disguisable at the time of writing). He can’t decide whether or not to have the full operation, though: maybe half and half isn’t so bad?
Consciousness trapped in a pipe: the human condition, the pipe being the body.
Nirvana: We look out on the world and see only a dust-laden collection of homemade symbols. Those that fit our prejudice of the moment we keep, the rest we dump. We are distracted from distraction by distraction. Nothing is happening. Nothing has happened. Nothing will happen. Emptiness is the ultimate challenge; identity is for suckers. Says the Buddha: All meaning is realized, the universe is nirvanic.
Be generous and grateful (and honest when you are not), humanity lives at the busiest crossroads in the seven thousand universes, I am yours in dharma, Sonchai Jitpleecheep (there is no ending and therefore no period)
Author’s Note
Bangkok is one of the world’s great cities, all of which have red-light districts that find their way into the pages of novels from time to time. The sex industry in Thailand is smaller per capita than in many other countries. That it is more famous is probably because the Thais are less coy about it than many other people. Most visitors to the kingdom enjoy wonderful vacations without coming across any evidence of sleaze at all. Indeed, the vast majority of Thais follow a somewhat strict Buddhist code of conduct.
On a related topic, I am bound to say that I have not myself come across police corruption in Thailand in any form, although the local media reports malfeasance on almost a daily basis.
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John Burdett is a nonpracticing lawyer who worked in Hong Kong for a British firm until he found his true vocation as a writer. Since then, he has lived in France and Spain and is now back in Hong Kong. He is the author of Bangkok 8, A Personal History of Thirst, and The Last Six Million Seconds.
