At that very moment, Rosen’s mobile starts to ring. I note that he has chosen the theme tune from Star Wars for his ringing tone, whereas I myself opted for “The Blue Danube” (thereby demonstrating that I am no more than an impostor in Western culture, a naÏve tourist anyway, with the musical taste of a grandmother; I can’t think why I didn’t choose Star Wars, which I actually prefer). The voice on the other end is someone he calls “sir”; it causes a gray and haggard look to dominate his features.
“We’re not investigating him, sir… That’s correct, we did e-mail that picture, which was taken from the scene of a murder attempt on the local detective who is investigating… I know the Bradley case looks like a narcotics vendetta but… The piece was stolen from Bradley’s home, sir… Mr. Warren exchanged a number of e-mails with Bradley… No, there’s not necessarily any connection… No, I don’t want another screwup… That’s right, I agree, neither I nor the Bureau need the heat… Well, I don’t know that I can do that, we don’t have any investigative powers here… Leave it to the local police? That’s exactly what I am doing, sir… Goodbye sir.” He folds the telephone and his eyes are glittering when he looks at me. “Quantico has no comment on the picture. They say it didn’t come out clearly enough on the e-mail.”
Cynicism has distorted Nape’s face, but I’m most sorry for Kimberley Jones, who looks ashamed and cannot meet my gaze. She says to Rosen in a quiet voice: “This man nearly died.”
“But I’m not American,” I say with a cute twist of my lips.
A long pause. Rosen says: “Looks like you’re on your own. Kimberley here will accompany you whenever you feel you need her. She’ll… she’ll help with anything that doesn’t lead to Warren.” He shrugs.
“Can I at least have a picture of Warren?”
Three furrowed brows. Kimberley Jones says cautiously: “Sure, we can get you one of those. There’s probably a thousand in the public domain. He’s been photographed at the White House scores of times. Right?”
“Yeah, right,” Rosen agrees. “But don’t make it obvious it came from us.”
“I’ll use a brown paper envelope,” Jones says with heavy sarcasm. A Do I need this? look from Rosen.
26
Nong sits and watches while the nurse changes my dressing. She holds herself together while the nurse is in the room, then bursts into tears. Drying her eyes: “The person who did this to you will not make a good death.”
I’ll have to explain that, won’t I? Look at it this way: you’re facing old age, your sins have been mounting steadily, but you cannot for the life of you see how you could have reacted differently, given the pathetic cards Fate handed you at birth, and now you have to consider the inevitable karmic bilclass="underline" You think this lifetime has been tough? See that legless guy on his atrocious trolley begging on the sidewalk? Last time around he wasn’t nearly as bad as you’ve been, why, he was a saint compared to you.
With us the lifting of the egoic veil at the moment of death reveals the workings of karma in all its pitiless majesty: see that clubfoot in your next life, that’s from when you fouled your best friend on the football pitch; see those buckteeth the size of gravestones, that’s your cynical sense of humor; see that early death from leukemia, that’s your greed.
To make a good death is to proceed gracefully into a better body and a better life. The consequences of a bad death are hard to look at. You will not make a good death is a power curse; it makes Fuck you sound like a benediction.
Nong stays with me while they carefully help me into a wheelchair and push me down the corridor to the lift, which takes us down to the garden. This is my first outing and I insist on sitting near the deliciously swishing irrigation system. I like the intermittent spray on my face, the return to infancy in more luxurious surroundings than I ever knew. Is it just me or are we all hardwired to expect our first years to be spent surrounded by flowers in a magic garden? I’m surprised that my mother seems to read my thoughts, holds my hand and smiles. Over the wall the harsh city claws away like an animal. I experience the invalid’s repugnance toward return: two more days and they will let me out. I suppose it would be unmanly to ask to stay a little longer?
A hospital orderly brings some of the art books and sets them on a table near my chair, then a few minutes later Rosen comes with a complex expression on his face where shame does battle with career-path paranoia. On the one hand, he gives me the photographs himself in broad daylight in front of my mother; on the other, they are in a brown paper envelope on which no eagle or other identification appears. He departs rather abruptly, too. After a while Nong takes her leave with some unconvincing excuse. She is bored and a little repulsed by the anodyne atmosphere. She belongs on the other side of the wall, in the lusty, clawing city.
Now that I’ve had a chance to examine the pix (as the FBI call them), I wonder if Rosen is making a point: Warren with the first Bush, Warren with Clinton (twice), Warren with the second Bush, looking older and sleeker. I was not expecting a jeweler to be a man of steel, but that’s how he comes across, as if it was sheer willpower that got him into the Rose Garden every time. Clinton was tall, and Warren is the same height, but leaner. Gray-blue eyes, thinning light brown hair turning elegantly gray. He looks so much more sophisticated than the President, with his even tan, filigree gold chain on his left wrist, the posture of a man who has no need to insist. You can almost smell the cologne. He will outlast this President, his smile says; every time. I put him down on top of one of the art books, feeling my strength start to fade. I doze off for a couple of minutes and wake to find him still there, staring at me. I pick him up again. Perhaps it is the power of the White House that triggers an old appetite for the art of detection. Often when we are sick the mind is temporarily released from its prison in the body and floats freely. During this afternoon I sense my own begin to dock again with its destiny.
“What’s the matter?” Kimberley Jones asks me when she comes up behind my chair and catches me staring at Warren for the thousandth time. “You were frowning as if you know him.”
How to explain? I dare not mention the dark figure that, spiritually speaking, I see standing behind him in each of those pix and whom I seem to recognize.
27
In Kat’s modest home the scent is mostly sandalwood, from her joss sticks. Like me, she lives in one room which our national optimism leads us to call an apartment, although hers is inches bigger. Her picture of our beloved King hangs in exactly the same position as mine, and her Buddha shrine sits on a high shelf near the door. I watch her bow to the Buddha three times with the incense held in a bunch between her hands. She concentrates mindfully, no doubt praying for luck. She is wearing a baggy housecoat and, I suspect, nothing else.
“I’m going to have to practice, Sonchai, I missed five balloons last night. You don’t mind? It’ll be like old times. Did you ever tell your mother how you helped me? I didn’t, I was afraid she might be angry with me for corrupting your young mind.” She walks to a slim cupboard in the opposite corner and takes out a plastic lunch box.