“But you don’t really want to?”
“Don’t be such a farang. I owe you, I’ll pay, you’ll enjoy.”
Whispered: “Promise?”
“Promise.”
“Have you any idea how horny this is making me? How am I going to get back to sleep now?”
“Thanks.”
“I’m going to hang up, Sonchai. This is doing something to my head, I don’t know what.”
“You can say heart if you like.”
“Yes. Right. Heart. I said it. Bye.”
She hangs up. Now I’m alone again with Michael James Smith, the Superman who came in from the war one fine night to find his destiny waiting behind a bar in Pat Pong. The man I mythologized long before I knew his name. The bastard whose bastard I am.
I’m shocked that his name is really Mike Smith. I extracted it from my mother after three decades of cajoling and begging, but I was convinced she was lying. The name and the Vietnam record and the approximate age were all Kimberley Jones had to go on, plus the likelihood that he had become a lawyer and was born in Queens. I never asked her to do it. She must have thought about it for months before compromising herself. I guess that means a lot in farang-land, no?
What to do about him? While I am pondering this most challenging of questions, I see that I have received a new e-mail. When I check, it is from Kimberley again:
You kind of threw me just then. I guess I hadn’t really thought through what it must mean to you. I was holding out on one thing, but I guess if we’re going to be lovers I’ll have to share it with you. Just be careful how you use it and try to cover the traiclass="underline" mikesmith@GravelSpearsandBailey.com.
Ah, the immediacy of modern communications! I think I would have preferred the age of sail, when letters took months to travel from one continent to another and one might easily have died of cholera or heatstroke before knowing how one’s heart has been treated by the special correspondent on the other side of the world. But this is the twenty-first century, after all, and when in Babylon, one must do as the Babylonians do. A couple of clicks brings up our standard advertisement for the Old Man’s Club. I add the single line Hello from Nong Jitpleecheep and your loving son Sonchai, before zinging it off to Superman alias my biological father. I guess it’s the kind of early-morning message every middle-aged man with those kinds of skeletons in the cupboard least wants to receive. We’ll never hear from him, right?
I call my mother and tell her about Kimberley ’s e-mail, keeping to myself for the moment the fact that I’ve just taken the irrevocable step of sending him a message.
A long silence. Whispering: “She really got those details from the FBI?”
“Yes.”
“It’s been thirty-three years, Sonchai. I don’t know if I can handle this.” A muffled sound that could have been anything-surely not an uncontrolled sob? But she does hang up immediately, which is not like her at all.
Now I’m alone with him again. Hero and substance abuser, successful lawyer, lousy husband, absentee father (at least in my case). Lost soul?
My cell phone is ringing again. “Would you mind telling me what you intend to do?”
I confess that I’ve sent Superman her cyberversion of “Hello Sailor!” with our family name attached. A gasp. “Have you lost your magic tortoise? Sonchai, you could have at least discussed it with me. Don’t you have any respect?”
“He’s my father.”
She hangs up again. I shrug. When I call Bangkok Airways, they tell me there are nine flights per day to Hat Yai, only two a week to Songai Kolok. I book the next flight to Hat Yai.
12
FYI:
Roughly translated, the full name of our capital means: “Great city of angels, the repository of divine gems, the great land unconquerable, the grand and prominent realm, the royal and delightful capital city full of nine noble gems, the highest royal dwelling and grand palace, the divine shelter and living place of reincarnated spirits.”
Phonetically it goes like this: “ Krung Thep mahanakhon bowon rattanakosin mahintara ayuthaya mahadilok popnopparat ratcha-thani burirom-udomratchaniwet mahasathan-amonpiman-avatansathri-sakkathatityavisnukamprasit.”
There’s no Bangkok in it.
TWO. The South
13
On the flight to the deep South I sit next to two young sex tourists who are chuckling over a familiar chestnut:
“So I paid her bar fine and took her back to my room for an all-night, and when I went to use the bathroom in the morning, canyabelieveit, she’s actually been squatting on the seat-there are foot marks all over it.”
This particular story always annoys me. I think it does illustrate the cultural gap though, not because the girls are used to squatting, but because Westerners find it so important and shocking. I guess the toilet is right at the center of the farang mind, just as Buddha is with us, no? I’m afraid I could not resist an intervention.
“Recent research shows that people who squat rarely if ever suffer from cancer of the colon,” I tell the young fellow next to me (headscarf, nose stud, three-quarter walking shorts, and T-shirt).
A quizzical look. “That right?”
“Yes, soon you’ll all be squatting over there too. It’ll take a while to catch on, there’ll be squat-ins, everyone will have to go to classes, there’ll be how-to best-sellers with illustrations, talk-show hosts will demonstrate how it’s done, missionaries will be dispatched to other countries.”
“Huh?”
Isn’t universal education a wonderful thing? I turn away to stare out the window at weightless white puffs, still irritated, until I remember the venerable Monsieur Truffaut, who hired my mother for a few months in Paris when I was young. There was a squatters’ toilet even in his cinquième arrondissement apartment. My mother always respected him-and the French-for that. Actually, my mother and I both prefer to squat. Neither of us has ever suffered any kind of bowel disorder in our lives, by the way, farang.
In Hat Yai I catch a cab to the railway station.
Train: I think we must have bought our rolling stock from the British in the heyday of empire; I imagine an Edwardian in worsted wool somewhere in the English Midlands calculating that if he left out the upholstery, he could fit in one more native per seat. After half an hour the slats have imprinted themselves on my bum, which I am sure must resemble a wicket.