My cop’s mind processed what he’d said despite myself. I, too, felt a terrible reluctance to see something that, I guess, many people sense but will not acknowledge. I thought again about that incident on the river. “It’s not actual killings that…feeds these…products?”
“No. It’s the destruction of the souls doing the killing. That’s what it feeds on. And you do have to feed it, regularly.”
“But feed who or what exactly? Something that is no longer human? So what is it?”
“Ah! How difficult it is for a modern man to answer that question, which a medieval man would have answered with confidence in a second.”
“You’re talking about the devil?”
“Aren’t you?”
I thought about that and decided to change the subject. I was on the point of leaving, after all, with the most pressing question still unanswered. “Doctor, may we now talk about the elephant in the room? Why have you gone to such lengths to help me understand all this? Surely not on the strength of one phone call from a Bangkok cop in the middle of the night?”
“I was asked to,” he said with a smile.
“Who by?”
He cocked his head. “Well, if we stick to the terminology, I suppose I would have to say the devil.” He stood up and disappeared into the interior of the suite for a moment, to return with his Camels, his ivory cigarette holder, and his Zippo. I watched and waited while he lit up. “Of course,” he said, coughing out a stream of smoke, “one has always to bear in mind that in the more sophisticated forms of Christianity, the devil is simply Christ seen from a different angle.”
–
An English gentleman to the last, later that morning Christmas Bride accompanied me to the airport, where I took the next flight back to Bangkok. While I was waiting airside I called Chanya to tell her a little about my adventures. She said she had had lunch with Krom while I was away, but did not elaborate.
Part 3
27
It is a busy night at the Old Man’s Club and I am on my own: Mama Nong complains that I’ve managed to avoid my bar-minding duties for over a week already and she did not see why a couple of days in Cambodia should excuse me from my obligations as junior shareholder, which, she pointed out, pays better than my cop’s salary. When I’ve finally kicked out the last drunk and locked up and am looking forward to going home to my wife, my phone vibrates in my pocket:
Darling, I’m so incredibly f##**g bored and Krom just called to ask if I wanted to go see a show-so that’s what I’m doing. C.
The message hits me in a place that suffered collateral damage during the war of adolescence: nobody loves me and I feel lonely. My jealousy is of the self-pitying kind: I was looking forward to telling her all about my adventures in the jungle; but she is with Krom and our contract of intimacy has been compromised. I don’t want to go home to an empty hovel, so I decide to stroll instead while suppressing a voice of rage against Chanya for leaving me all alone late at night. And she’s with that dyke Krom!
Sukhumvit has changed. Most of the bars have closed after the one a.m. curfew; those that have remained open have locked their doors and will only allow entrance to farang or those Thais with the correct password. The luckier girls found customers and are either in a hotel bed somewhere if the deal was for “all night” or snug in their own beds if it was merely chuakrao or short time. The rest are hanging out at a long line of collapsible tables and chairs placed around makeshift bars on the sidewalk that have suddenly appeared and stretch, with intermissions, for over a mile. Fortune-tellers also have emerged from whatever underworld they inhabit during the day: a square of dark cloth on the ground, some Hindu diagrams of the body, some Buddhist diagrams of the mind, a couple of packs of well-worn tarot cards, a guide to palm reading, and you’re set up as a clairvoyant, or mordu, of the night. It’s a clever piece of targeting: almost every girl who is still around at this time is feeling down on her luck and needs reassurance. Generally, though, the ladies of the night resort to the more reliable relief of a bottle of rice whiskey shared among friends. At the same time I’m wondering in some dark alley of the heart, Are they having sex together right now, Chanya and Krom, this minute, while I’m walking along?
Nothing like self-regard to strip you of your street smarts: I do not hear the car roll up, or the door open and close, or quick steps behind me. I do not even realize I am no longer alone until a feline caress begins at the base of my spine. Even then I assume it is a girl risking all on the last chance of the night; I turn with a Sorry, darling smile on my face. It is him.
–
He is taller than me by about four inches with a proportionate advantage in body mass. It is his superhuman fitness, though, that intimidates. I do not feel threatened-I do not think he is about to kill me-but I am unmanned. He walks beside me with effortlessness grace, while I immediately begin to sweat and my pulse rate increases. When he takes my arm I’m unsure how to react: to pull away might be offensive; on the other hand, that gentle but firm hold on my right forearm is freaking me out. Now he leans over to me to whisper a sweet nothing in my ear:
“ ‘Twice or thrice had I loved thee before I knew thy face or name, so angels affect us oft.’ ”
He smiles into my shock. It is important, though, to keep walking. “I know you’re a compulsive, like me,” he whispers. “You’ve read everything in your search for self, haven’t you? But it’s time you realized something very important.”
“What?”
He wants me to look him in the face again, but I am unable to. That pale skin, slightly tanned, those cornflower-blue eyes, that short hair so blond it is almost white: the eerie beauty that came over in the video clip is tripled in real life. A trillion dollars of farang brainwashing from Hollywood is telling me how perfect he is, theoretically. I need to keep walking with my eyes focused on the pavement, like a woman propositioned by a strange man late at night.
“That old man in the hospital, our biological father, he can’t tell you anything about yourself,” he whispers in my ear. “He is the past. He has no relevance anymore. We are on our own in the world, you and I. We need to bond.” He speaks gently, as if to a child. “Don’t be frightened of me. I wouldn’t hurt you for anything. You’re all I have, my love. All I have on this great wide earth.” He hesitates. “This sterile promontory, as the poet said.” He leans around as we walk to produce a caring, loving smile right in my face. I cannot do other than to give a half smile back. Fear aside, the sense of being trapped in a submissive female role is profoundly irritating, but even if I had not seen what that superbody can do, his superior training and strength are too obvious, too much a part of his reality to ignore.
He sighs. “It’s okay, I understand, this is all very new to you. How did you like the camp, though? What a dump, huh?” He makes a face that I suppose is intended to be nonchalant. “Oh, how I wish you could have seen it at its height, with us kids running around, everything shipshape, spick and span, every day a holiday. Football, baseball, fencing, athletics, classical music, poetry-we were all so smart, you see, junk culture could not seduce us, for the Doc had inculcated us with his own tastes in the arts-cries of joy, our little souls overwhelmed by our great good fortune all the livelong day. It was our holiday camp long, long ago. That’s where I met our daddy for the first time…I wanted so much to be there with you when you visited, but they told me, ‘No, it’s too soon, the poor love has to catch up with things you’ve known all your life.’ ”