“How will you structure the advertising? Medical journals or triple X web pages?”
“Web pages, with plenty of visuals, but we think word of mouth will work for us over time. After all, there’s no one else in this field at the moment.” I think of geriatrics shuffling into the bar with crooked grins and bulging trousers, the missing link between sex and death. “So, Sonchai, what about it?”
“It could work,” I agree with some reluctance.
“Of course it will work. The trouble is there’s no way to patent it. As soon as the competition sees what we’re up to there’ll be a thousand similar bars springing up all over the city. We’ve got to move quickly, I’m not the only financial brain in the business.”
I watch while two young women try to walk past us carrying about ten plastic bags each, crammed with cheap clothing. There’s no room on the pavement and they walk around a taxi caught in the jam. This is where most of the sex traders buy their clothes and we have said hello to a lot of old friends today. My mother’s purchases are under the table. We are in Pratunam because a couple hundred yards away lies a vast market where T-shirts, shorts, skirts, dresses, trousers, blouses indistinguishable from the products of the ateliers of Calvin Klein, Yves Saint Laurent, Armani, Zegna et al. can be purchased for as little as three dollars each. Nong has bought her season’s wardrobe, which I noticed is a little more austere than usual, befitting a matriarch of industry. I call to the waitress to pay the bill, but my mother restrains me. “This is on me, darling, I want to thank you for signing those plans.”
I say okay, the plans did amount to a fair amount of work because she and the Colonel kept changing them. Of course there had to be a TV in every cubicle and in the end they decided to include a full Thai massage service, so each five-by-eight room has to be equipped with a small Jacuzzi in the corner with all the plumbing that goes with it. I foresee disaster with ninety-year-old scarecrows slithering around in the soap suds and expiring during the full-body massage. At that age surely a man might be knocked out cold in a skirmish with a mammary gland? But I have to assume the Colonel knows what he’s doing even if Nong has been carried away by her brief congress with the Wall Street Journal. I pass over the slim briefcase in which I’ve been carrying the plans and watch while she opens it. She takes out the plans and rifles through them with growing consternation.
“You forgot to sign them, darling.”
“No I didn’t.”
“But you promised.”
“I know.”
“So what’s stopping you? Here, use my pen.”
“No.”
“Sonchai?”
“I’m not having anything to do with this… Until you tell me.”
It’s one of those mother-and-son things. We have too much on each other not to be aware of the significance of this eye lock. I do not waver or blink. Finally she drops her gaze. “Okay, I’ll tell you. Just sign the plans.”
“Tell me first. I don’t trust you.”
“Brat.” Her hand is shaking as she reaches for yet another Marlboro and lights it.
“Why is it so difficult? If you don’t know who he was, if you were banging three a night that month, just say so, it’s not as if I don’t know what you did for a living.”
“Of course if I didn’t know I would have told you long ago,” she snaps, and inhales rapidly. “It’s not as simple as that.”
“How can it be complicated? For god’s sake, Mother.”
I might be hallucinating, but it does seem to me that some tiny tears have appeared at the corners of my mother’s eyes. “Very well, darling. But you have to promise to forgive me. Promise in advance.”
I experience profound suspicion but promise anyway.
“Sonchai, did you ever wonder why I made such efforts for you to learn perfect English? Did you even notice that almost every one of those trips we went on were with someone who spoke it perfectly, even Fritz and Truffaut?”
“Of course I noticed. If I didn’t notice before I would have noticed with that Harrods man. What else did he have to offer?” An image of a skinny Englishman with a huge nose through which he emitted most of his vowels and an even bigger mother problem, who derived strange pretensions from his apartment’s proximity to Harrods in London-an appalling two weeks when Nong had a screaming argument with his mother, who lived in the flat upstairs, and I went through a brief shoplifting phase in the great store-passes through both our minds. “I thought you were just doing the best for my future.”
“Well, I was, but it was more than that. I was full of guilt about… I was trying to make it up to you… He loved me, you see.” My mother bursts into tears. “I’m sorry, I’m so very very sorry, darling”-dabbing her eyes with a tissue from her handbag-“it was all those fire engines. And the food, it was so bland, they had no idea how to cook, it was totally tasteless.”
Thank Buddha I’m a detective and able to make sense of these fragile clues. Suddenly everything falls into place. A past I never had and a future I never will have flash before my eyes. My heart rate has doubled and for the first time in my life I feel like hitting her. Instead I reach for her cigarettes, take one, light it with shaking hand and order more beer. I drink in great gulps straight from the bottle. “An American?”
“Yes.”
“A serviceman?”
“Yes. Very brave. He had lots of medals. He was an officer. He had a terrible war, he was in a mess psychologically for quite a while.”
Inhaling deeply on the cigarette: “He took you to the States? He wanted to marry you?” A nod. “New York?”
“Manhattan. The apartment was near a fire station. There were sirens every five minutes. I thought the whole city was on fire.”
“And the food was awful?”
“Have mercy, darling. I was eighteen years old for god’s sake, I’d never been outside Thailand and I hardly spoke a word of English. I was terrified and I wanted my mother. I wasn’t the hard-ass I became. I grew up after I had you.” An exhalation. “They couldn’t even cook rice properly. His parents hated me. I was brown with slit eyes, and no matter what he said they knew how we had met, what I did for a living.”
“But he adored you?” A nod. “He knew you were pregnant?”
“He was crazy about you even before you existed. I had to run away. He came back to Thailand looking for me, but I hid up in the country. I was in a state of panic after New York. I’m sorry. I talked about it with the abbot-I went up to the monastery. You never knew that I’d been up there, did you? He asked me if my American lover needed me only while he overcame his shell shock. That was a good question and I didn’t know the answer, so I vowed to the Buddha that if you grew up strong and healthy and I had the luck, I would make sure you learned perfect English.”