He pauses and gives a quick glance to the Asset, who nods, smiling.
In a trembling voice the FBI continues: “This was excellent advice. Without it I never would have lasted. But what is the use of lasting? As the spirit was slowly crushed in me, it responded by burning all the hotter. I was sure I would explode. I became fascinated by stories of young men who stockpile firearms before their terrible coming out. I recognized a godseed in me that was violated with every conforming thought or act, that was drowning in the superficial. No matter how much the world rewarded me, I condemned me for the coward and slave I had become. But where was the real message? Who was speaking words of truth? Who had the strength and the vision to show the way out?”
He stops shyly. There is great courage and sensitivity in the way he forces himself to look at me with tears in his eyes. “I once was lost but now I’m found,” he says and turns away.
I see in him what, I suppose, most people would see: a man, no longer exactly young, who has chronically failed to find love. My mind flashes to my darling, if wayward, Chanya. Compared to him, I am lucky.
“See what I mean?” the Asset whispers to me out of the corner of his mouth. “See the hunger that drives him? There are billions burning in silence just like that. Humanity festers in its clingwrap.”
Now the Asset says something to the FBI. The FBI nods, shakes his head to clear it, and smiles at me with evangelical warmth.
“Matthew will take you to see some friends who will help with your initiation,” the Asset says. He turns on his heels and abruptly returns to the garden.
I have become used to sudden changes in my half brother; this is the first time he has been quite so open in his arrogance, like one who perceives that the need for patience and civility is almost over. Like a man whose time has come.
I do not recall consenting to any initiation; nevertheless, I follow the FBI out of the house and sit next to him in the back of the sky-blue Rolls-Royce. The driver knows where to go, and within about ten minutes we arrive at the old Siamese house on stilts in the middle of the jungle of high-rises. During the ride I send SMSs to Chanya and try to call her several times, but as before there is no reply. The first, sly suspicion that the Asset has sent me away from him so that he can abduct her enters my vulnerable heart.
Matthew waits in the limo while I climb the stairs to the front door. I have no doubt all has been arranged and choreographed and that Krom will answer.
The door does open on the first press of the bell, but it is Madame Gloria Ching who opens it. Her eyes stare sightless at the sky while she sniffs me. We wai each other politely and she invites me in.
“You’ve just missed Krom, who popped out on an errand,” she says in those hyper-English tones and adds a smile as she leads me clicking down the corridor.
“I don’t believe you,” I say, mimicking her smile.
The contradiction startles her for a moment, then she relaxes. “Of course, I should remind myself, a detective is not an ordinary human being.” She turns her blind eyes to me and breathes deeply. “You’re right, it was decided that I would have a few words with you first.”
We are in the panoramic back room with all the perfume bottles. As before, I am overwhelmed by the range of aromas that hit me in half a dozen vulnerable and exotic places. It is impossible not to feel high and intrigued in this room, as if a thousand mysteries could be solved through the subtle computations of smell.
Gloria Ching settles herself on the sofa. “I am supposed to simply tell you about myself. I grew up suddenly during the Cultural Revolution, before I was smuggled out of the PRC. I experienced collective barbarism close up. Basically, there has always been and will always be two kinds of humanity. Up to now the civilized have kept the hordes at bay with technology. Now that technology has risen to a different level. We no longer need the masses, they can be replaced by machines. Their riots and revolutions can be put down, we have no need to be intimidated anymore. Let them have their pornography and their football and their TV series while we-the-saved take over. The New Humans are simply those with the civilization and the learning skills to acquire talents that would only destroy the inferior half of our species.” She turns her head to the ceiling. “If I were in your place, I would be thrilled at the chance to get on the program at all. To have the kind of future they are offering you, as brother to the Messiah-you have it made, my friend. You are literally the luckiest man on earth. That’s what they wanted me to tell you. And now I think I hear Krom in the hall.”
Gloria Ching takes me, clicking, to the door and opens it on Krom, who cannot look me in the eye. I follow to her room, which is not at all what I expected: none of the ruthless minimalism of a willful dyke, more like the boudoir of a practiced seducer. All over the room, including the ceiling, the female form is celebrated in oils, watercolors, photographs, and, naturally, lady lamps. The counterpane on the bed is midnight-blue silk; a replica of a primeval mother goddess, with huge breasts, belly, and vagina, hangs on the wall above.
“Chanya was here with you, wasn’t she?” I say. “I can feel it. Where is she? What have you done with her?”
“She’s safe, Sonchai. You’ll see her very soon. You’re nearly there, man. Just one more hurdle to go.”
“What are you talking about?”
She seems about to reply, then changes her mind. “The way we’re doing it, we’re showing you the life stories of different initiates, but you already know mine.”
The room sports a bentwood rocker in a bay window that looks over the garden. I cannot bear to look at her, so I sit in it, staring out at the frangipani trees and the bougainvillea, the pond and the cats all prone around it. She speaks while I stare.
“You know what I was, because you’ve seen so many examples. A trashy dykey piece of female garbage that nobody wanted, a total nonentity like someone dying at the bottom of a well. I think you know what I’m talking about. I think you’ve been there. There’s only one thing that remains when you’re in that state. Just two primeval words that won’t go away: I am. It’s not a lesson you ever forget. I am plus body. My beautiful, young, female body that so loves to be with other female bodies. Basically life is either money or sex, and for me it was a no-brainer. Naturally, I had them give me the sex App soon as I was ready.”
“There’s a sex App?”
She draws a chair up and sits obliquely behind me so that I can feel her breath on the back of my neck.
“Sonchai, it’s not just because you’re a man that you have no idea. Most women don’t realize either.”
“What?”
“What a world of sensuality lies just under a woman’s skin. Thousands of years of male jealousy and dominance have left us stupefied and totally cut off from our own sexual identity, which ought to be so vivid, so life-filled. There are ways of releasing that, my friend, ways for a woman to come out, to wake up to her deep, hungry, life-affirming power.”
“You used some kind of drug on her?”
“Don’t kid yourself, it’s not just a matter of chemicals. It’s something inside so deeply denied…As the song says. You know that much about her. I can help you. That of which I speak is not exclusively homosexual. Even a man can learn how to enhance a woman’s sensuality. I have to give her back to you, anyway. There, I’ve said it. I’m not allowed to keep her. You are the brother of the Messiah, you win. You only have to join us, which you almost have anyway.”
“But why is everyone so keen on me, Krom? I’m flattered. Why is it so damn important that I become one of you?”
“Your genes, Sonchai. I don’t know the details. It seems all your father’s kids at the camp were unusually gifted. After he met you, Dr. Bride confirmed that you seemed to have those characteristics, that same kind of genius.”