“I knew you were coming today. I saw a white bird through a crack in the ceiling and I knew it was you. I’ve become totally Thai, haven’t I?”
“How have you been?”
He pulls the string to rattle the chain a little. “Fantastic. I’ve been promoted-how about that!”
“A blue boy? A trusty?”
He snorts. “Do I look like a snitcher? No, they finally realized they had a use for Germanic efficiency and attention to detail-I’m in charge of our little red-light district.”
“They’re bringing girls in now?”
A shudder. He speaks with incredible rapidity in a loud whisper, like some kind of eccentric genius-or a madman. “There are still things about your country you don’t know. Of course they’re not letting girls in-they’d be torn apart. I’m talking about the pig farm. Your people are genuinely homophobic, did you know that? A female pig rents for twenty-five times what a male will rent for-short time, by the half hour. They’ve given me the books to keep and of course I’m scrupulous about the time and the money both. I’ve even rigged up a little electric buzzer so the john knows when it’s five minutes before withdrawal time.” He holds up his hands. “What can I say? It’s an honor-last year they let me run the cockroach project, and I increased production by a thousand percent-the improvement in the standard of nutrition and general health of the prison population was immeasurable, and of course I’ve always been the upwardly mobile type.”
I give him the nod-something so slight that in the beginning I could not believe anyone could notice such an infinitesimal movement-and he rubs the back of his ear. This means the guard sitting in the chair in the corner will turn a blind eye. Perhaps Fritz has bribed him with a few 555s. I take out the pack of Marlboro, select one of the cigarettes I worked on, light it, then make a questioning gesture to the guard, who nods. I hand the lighted cigarette to Fritz through the bars, he takes a couple of drags, then pinches it out. With a faint smile: “I’ll save it for later.”
I tell him that this time there is something he can do for me and he listens with his usual paranoid alertness while I tell him about Bradley and Dao Phrya Bridge. It is a matter of choice whether to speak in English or Thai, since he is now fluent in both and knows more prison slang than I do. When I’ve finished I light up another cigarette and pass it to him. This time the guard seems not to notice. Fritz takes a couple of tokes and pinches the end, as before.
He knows nothing about Bradley or the squatters under the bridge but he agrees there must certainly be someone in Bang Kwan with the information I need. He is full of his usual twitches and restless hand movements and his eyes pierce me, asking for more information. I find myself describing the woman in Bradley’s oil painting, which does not seem to trigger any response until I add a reference to the Khmer. His eyes light up for such a tiny fraction of time I would never have noticed if I had not been trained in prison semaphore. I stop in mid-sentence. I have been speaking in Thai, but now he switches to English.
“I’ve heard of her. Everyone in here has, she’s a legend because of those Khmer. Even the Thai thugs are scared of them. She runs some kind of yaa baa operation and uses the Khmer as protection-that’s the story anyway. The reason she’s so respected is she’s managed to turn herself into a religious figure for them. You know how jungle Khmer are at the best of times, but apparently they would literally die for her. That’s the legend, anyway. I haven’t paid any attention to it until now. I’ll see what I can do.”
He asks politely after my mother and we discuss his chances of a pardon this year. By the time I leave I have passed him all the cigarettes stuffed with banknotes. This is the cash flow which has kept him alive all these years. Someone in Germany wires the money into my account once a month.
The road from the grim prison buildings to the outside world is very long and very straight and ends in a public garden overflowing with hibiscus, bougainvillea, orchids and the luscious green leaves of the Tropics. How could a meditator not see it as a proxy for the axis of the mind?
Back in my cave I find my spirit has exhausted its capacity to deal with the world and I’m in agony from the wound. A meditation aid is called for, as always after a visit to Fritz.
Ganja is, of course, much frowned upon by mainline Buddhist tradition and indeed the Greatest of Men expressly forbade intoxication in any form. On the other hand, Buddhism (I explain to myself) was never intended to consist of a static set of rules boilerplated for all time. It is an organic Way, which automatically adapts itself to the present moment. I keep it under the futon.
I roll a fat spliff, light up, inhale heartily. Now all of a sudden I’m distilling grief. I’m ripping off every Band-Aid, I’m daring to bleed, and I’m concentrating the pain (sweet Buddha, how I loved that boy!). I don’t want relief, I want him. With my agony carefully located right between the eyes, I take another toke, hold it as long as I can, repeat the process. I don’t want enlightenment, I want him. Sorry, Buddha, I loved him more than you.
29
Anyone in the business will tell you: detection is a mundane task of putting two and two together. Very often the mind will do this automatically, like a software program running offscreen, and the answer will pop into your head as if by magic, when there is really no magic about it, merely the organization of a hundred subliminal clues, hints, words dropped inadvertently or perhaps deliberately by someone who has not the moral fiber to tell the truth to your face. The suspicions had been forming long before my week in hospital, but when she told me she had business in town I experienced that sinking feeling deep down, similar to a lover who expects the worst.
She had been complaining about the boredom of country life for quite some time, and her harebrained moneymaking schemes encompassed everything except narcotics, of which she disapproves, although she has developed a taste for ganja in middle life. I’ve discouraged her from illegal immigrants, endangered species, a country brothel, a casino and trying to join a syndicate dedicated to fixing the national lottery.
Over the telephone recently the hints have multiplied without blossoming into a confession, although the sinister word “premises” has begun to recur with alarming frequency. Now she has had to confess the address because she needs help. Still in pain from the stitches, I take a taxi to Soi Cowboy. The “premises” consist of a small parcel of land between the Wetlips Club and Ride ’Em Bronco, two enormous fun houses employing several hundred go-go dancers in high season. The squashed little pub in between belonged to an Englishman who had inexplicably refused to allow prostitutes on the premises and-my mother explains without looking me in the eye-therefore lost his license because he could not pay the police protection.
She is wearing black leggings which hug her crotch and bum, a white short-sleeved shirt and a crimson neckerchief. Her hair is in a glistening black plait with a flowery decoration at the tail. Gold hangs from her ears and matches the Buddha who swings from her neck as she yanks at a crate of Singha beer out on the street. She looks fantastic when she smiles at me and smells just like that shop Truffaut used to take us to in the Place Vendôme.
“But why would he need police protection if he wasn’t running prostitutes?”
My mother tuts disapprovingly. “You have to maximize profits in this street. Run your money hard, make it work for you. You can’t pursue a romantic dream, that’s the surest way to bankruptcy.”