Early in the diaries there were several references to Helen. I didn’t know whether this was Helen Ford, of course, but there were at least a dozen references to her sitting for her portrait and of other more domestic activities: “Helen and I went shopping today to find her a frock. She told me I was the only person in the world who was completely honest with her, and would not let her buy something which made her look like a fat pig. Not that she could ever look that way.” Or another: “The rains were terrible today making it almost impossible to go out at all. Helen and I sat and read, but soon Helen was bored, and started inventing word games for us to play. I really just wanted to paint, but I had left all my brushes at the studio, careless man that I am, although all were carefully wrapped against the rain. I decided not to venture forth, as it would be folly to do so. Helen, much braver than I, went visiting. She is not happy anymore, just being with me. I ask her where she goes, but she won’t tell me. Whom does she see? What do they do? I wish to know, but part of me dreads the answer.”
At some point in the narrative Helen disappeared, to be replaced with references to merely H. “H has confided in me. I am horrified by what she has told me, but somehow not surprised. I had thought the trip to Singapore five years ago was the end of it. What will become of her?…
“H was here today with W,” one entry said. “She looked so beautiful, radiant really, that my fears for her vanished, if only for an hour or two. I am happy that she has confided in me, but I worry so about what might come of this.” Or later: “This cannot end well for H or the other two, but it is H I care about. How I wish I could convince her to take another path.
“H’s marriage is a mistake. What if he finds out about W? I have beseeched her time and time again to go back home and forget all of this. I have told her how much I love her, how I would do anything for her, that she must listen to what I say. She is adamant!”
Toward the end of that diary, there was this terse statement: “What I most feared for H has happened. I am too much of a coward to help her. I can only help with W and B. I cannot write any more. God help us all.” The entry was in September of 1949. There were no further entries that year, only blank pages. The newspaper clipping said Helen Ford’s husband’s dismembered body was found in October of that year. If what his son had told me was true, Robert Fitzgerald Senior didn’t write another word in his diaries until I960.
This is just too hard, I thought, suddenly. I don’t want to try to figure this out anymore. This was supposed to be a bit of a holiday. I can say in all honesty to Natalie Beauchamp that I tried to find her husband, and I just didn’t succeed. End of story.
I could, though, I thought, call David Ferguson and ask him more about Khun Wichai. There! I’d managed to assuage my guilt at not doing Chat’s financial statements for him. I was doing something for him, anyway. As I reached for the telephone, I noticed the sword was not in the place I thought I’d left it. How did it get over here, I wonder? I said to myself. I’m sure I left it over by the cupboard. I looked it over carefully but could see absolutely nothing wrong with it. The lady who cleans, I thought. There was no harm done. Still, I did continue to have the feeling that someone was going through my belongings.
“Come to think of it,” I said right out loud. “Who told Robert Fitzgerald I was coming to visit?”
Robert Fitzgerald had said I was late. Surely that meant he’d been expecting me. He had a bad concussion, and I suppose one is not expected to be coherent when you’ve been hit on the head. But still, it was something else to think about later. I picked up the phone and dialed.
“I’m glad you called,” David said. “I’ve been meaning to ask you if you’d like to go out to dinner tomorrow night after the performance.”
“Sure,” I said. “But tell me a little about what we’re going to see. I know Sompom is an expert in it, and the performance tomorrow is dedicated to the memory of Thaksin, who was a patron of the theater. I also know Chat would really like us to go, but I’m not entirely sure what to expect.”
“A performance of Khon. It’s a very ancient form of masked dance and theater, brought to Thailand from the Khmer empire in Cambodia, and it tells the story of the Ramayama, or in Thailand, the Ramakien. The Thai version was probably developed in the Royal Palace of Ayutthaya several hundred years ago. It was lost when Ayutthaya fell to the Burmese, but it has been revived since. The National Theater puts on performances of it. To do the whole thing would take weeks of continuous performance, so we’ll just see an episode or two. The costumes are really quite wonderful. I think you’ll enjoy it.”
“I’m sure I will. Now, what can you tell me about Khun Wichai?”
“Where will I begin?” David said. “He gets mixed reviews. He’s smart, can be very charming, obviously good at business—he’s rich. He’s a poor boy from the boonies, in this case Chiang Mai, who has made good. For a guy who started out with a couple of rice barges, he’s built quite a transportation empire. He ships all over the world. Companies line up to do business with him. He is rich, but he isn’t part of the upper crust, if you understand me. He probably lacks a little finesse, that’s all.”
“He wants his daughter to marry Chat,” I said.
“That would take care of the social standing, wouldn’t it? That’s unlikely I think. Isn’t Chat sweet on Jennifer still, or again, whichever it is? They’d just had a fight when I met her.”
“They’re back together, and yes, he is sweet on her. But you said Khun Wichai gets mixed reviews. Is just his social standing on the downside? Chat seemed a little nervous about him, or at least about doing business with him.”
“There are rumors,” he said. “Nothing substantiated. In a word, drugs.”
“He uses them, or he ships them?”
“Maybe both. I repeat there is absolutely no proof. When any of his ships are searched, they’re clean as a whistle. The authorities do search boats at sea and find them loaded with drugs—there was one a couple of years ago, boarded in the Andaman Sea between Thailand and Myanmar, Burma, just loaded with the stuff. Heroin and crystal meth. You might know that as ice. Millions of tablets and bags of the other stuff. But are these boats ever linked in any way to Wichai? Absolutely not. He sits up there in Chiang Mai looking much like a warlord, with his cadre of followers who are intensely loyal. But there’s nothing anyone can prove against him.”
“Anything else?”
“There’s a sense that his opposition tends to disappear.”
“Disappear?”
“As in disappear like our friend Will Beauchamp. They’re never heard from again.”
Chapter 10
Indeed the young king had every reason to be out of sorts, and not just with me. Lady Si Sudachan, now the mother of a daughter by Khun Worawongsa, went to her chief ministers and suggested that, given Yot Fa had still not reached the age of the cutting of the topknot, that is thirteen years, and because he was, according to his mother, although I would not agree, still uninterested in affairs of state, the enemies of Ayutthaya might try to turn this state of affairs to their advantage. The solution, she said, was that the ministers should invite Khun Worawongsa to administer the kingdom until Yot Fa was of age.