“You deprived me of a crack at the presidency of the United States because you didn’t like the food? That’s very Thai.”
“You got a crack at nirvana instead. What kind of Buddhist would you have been if I’d stayed in America?”
I choose to ignore this brilliant riposte. “I could have been an astronaut.”
“No you couldn’t, you can’t stand heights.”
“What did he do, what was his profession, was he a drafted man?”
“Drafted. He was going to be a lawyer.”
“What? American lawyers are all millionaires. I could have been a senator at least.”
My mother has dried her eyes. She is a master of abrupt recovery. “Children of American lawyers all die of drug overdoses at an early age. Look what I saved you from. Anyway, if you’ll only sign those damned plans we’ll make a million and you can go and live there if you like. See how long you can stand to be away from Thailand.”
I have smoked the whole cigarette in less than a minute, causing me to feel nausea. My heart rate is calming, though, and I’m beginning to see things with a little more focus. “What was his name?”
“Mike.”
“Mike what?”
“What difference does it make? Smith. There, now you know, has it changed anything?”
I do not believe for one moment that his name was Mike Smith, but I let it pass. I surprise her by giving her a big smile and patting her hand, which seems to relax her. She drinks a glass of beer in a couple of gulps, lights another Marlboro and sits back in her chair.
“Thank you for taking it so well, darling. For thirty-two years I’ve lived in fear of this moment. Did I do the right thing or not? Don’t you think I’ve been tortured by that very question? I wanted to tell you, but all the family advised me not to-what you didn’t know you couldn’t blame me for-that’s very Thai, isn’t it? Sometimes I think I must have been insane to leave America. Even if he’d divorced me after a couple of years, I probably would have got a work permit, the right to stay. But Thailand was a different place then, we were all so unworldly, so fearful of strange lands. We were prudes, too. Does that surprise you? A girl wouldn’t think of selling her body unless she was desperate. My father was sick with his heart problems, my mother was hit by a car when she was riding her bike, my grandmother had to be kept-she was blind by that time-and my two brothers were in their early teens. I had a right and a duty to work in the bars. These days girls will go on the game just to save enough to put a deposit on an apartment, they sell themselves for any old excuse, because they love sex and money, though being Thai they never admit it and like to pretend they hate the work. Would you believe I’m shocked at what the trade has come to? But what can one do? This is the real world.”
After I sign the plans, she pays the bill and we stand up. I embrace her warmly. She gives me a puzzled look as we say goodbye. She takes a taxi but I decide to wind my way amongst the jammed cars. What difference does it make? He adored me even before I existed. He loved her. I’m walking on air.
Still high, I am trying to be invisible as I make my way to Charmabutra Hospital. The complex is new and shiny and about one minute from the bars of Nana Plaza. There is a McDonald’s on the ground floor and a Starbucks in the first-floor lobby, a marble and glass reception area with parabolic front desk, Internet access from computers everywhere and a telephone wherever you put your elbow. But it is a hospital. The brochure boasts over six hundred highly qualified physicians and a small army of Singaporean, Thai, American and European managers and talks about the Heart Center, laser correction of nearsightedness, a stroke screening package, abdominal ultrasound, a complete laboratory analysis of blood urine and stool samples, liposuction, body contouring and laser resurfacing of the face, packages which take care of everyone’s travel needs from the U.S. and Europe and luxury rooms with brilliant city views. At reception I mention an interview I have arranged with Dr. Surichai. An administration official takes me in an elevator to the seventh floor, where the doctor is waiting for me. We spend about an hour together. As I am leaving the hospital a group of three large men surround me and bundle me into a waiting limo. It is a navy blue Lexus and there is plenty of room in the back for myself and two of my abductors. The third remains behind as we speed off with a corny squeal of tires which I feel is unworthy of my Colonel, who is lounging in the front passenger seat, wearing civilian clothes and dark glasses. It is his usual driver behind the wheel.
“May I ask why I’m being abducted?”
“You’re not. You’re being quarantined in preparation for your meeting. The last thing we need is for you to turn up in your Tommy Bahama rip-offs, flashing your police ID for every Tom, Dick and Harry to squint at.”
“Turn up where?”
“Give me your ID.”
I hand it over. “I would like to know where we’re going.”
The Colonel puts my ID in the pocket of his Zegna jacket, which is not an illegal copy, and shakes his head at my obtuseness. “Did I or did I not receive a written request at 4:33 p.m. two days ago to the effect that one Detective Jitpleecheep Sonchai be permitted to interview one Khun Warren Sylvester during his five-day stay in our country on a business trip from the United States?” He turns to look at me, raising his glasses. “Written request with date and time stamp?”
“I like to do things properly.”
“You like to fuck things up royally is what you like to do. To whom were you going to go with your copy of your written request with date and time stamp if I refused?”
“No one. There’s no one to go to. I just wanted to make it clear-”
“That in the whole of the Royal Thai Police Force there is one arhat, one pure, unblemished soul valiantly and heroically doing his job while the rest of us slop around in the sleaze.” My jaw hangs unattractively. “Have you any idea what shit you’re dragging us into? Why couldn’t you pop unobtrusively into my office when no one was looking and whisper plaintively in my ear that you needed to see the great Khun if I could pull the right strings and so long as it was okay with me and everyone with his foot on my shoulder all the way up to the top of the pyramid? You do know that the most important and influential women in the kingdom get most of their rocks from this jerk? Especially the Chinese. You do know that?”
“Yes,” I confess.
“You do know that when he is in Krung Thep officially he stays at the Oriental in the Somerset Maugham Suite with all its charming nostalgia and river view, and that when he is not here officially he stays somewhere quite different?”
“I did guess he might have two different preferences, as far as official and unofficial business is concerned.”
“Then you did guess that in return for generous donations to the Police Widows and Orphans Fund by the great Khun, quite a lot of effort is expended by your superiors to help the Khun keep his little unofficial pleasures from the notice of the media?”
“It probably crossed my mind.”
“And did it further cross your mind that any interview of the Khun by you would have to be witnessed by those qualified to deny anything incriminating he might say, in the unlikely event he says anything of importance to you at all?”