Some cautious enthusiasm now, from the old guys.
“And if we ask ourselves how it came about that red-faced primitives from the far Northwest managed to dominate and militarize the whole world for more than three hundred years, there really is only one answer: opium. Millions upon millions of tons of it. They grew it in India and shipped it to China under armed escort until twenty million Chinese were addicted.”
I pause again because I’ve finally got the full attention of the two oldies, who have leaned forward in fascination. “By the nineteenth century the entire British Empire would have gone bankrupt without the narcotic. The French were similarly active in Indochina, the Dutch sold anything to anyone, the Germans tried to catch up, while the Americans stuck mostly to slavery. What do these countries all have in common? Only this: that through narcotics trafficking and trading in slaves they were able to invest in heavy industry that put them two hundred years ahead of the field, which has only now begun to catch up. But it’s a macroeconomic strategy that can only be achieved by a united nation. Gentlemen, for the sake of the global economy, peace, and the evolution of our species, you must join together today in this great venture of sale and purchase-if you do not, the Cambodians or the Vietnamese surely will.”
Well, I think that’s done the trick in terms of putting it all in historical perspective; at least it’s made me feel better about what I’m doing. Both men are now looking suitably self-righteous about the deal, with Well-I’m-not-going-to-be-the-first-to-break-the-contract looks on their hard old mugs.
I sit down again and adopt a less statesmanlike tone. “The structure is a little complicated, but it’s the best we can do on short notice. You both will agree to own equal shares in a trading company based in Lichtenstein. The trading company’s bankers over there-based in Zurich, of course-will send the paperwork, which your lawyers will check. If all is in order, you will sign before notaries on a date and time to be approved by your astrologers, but in not more than five days from receipt of the documents. For the sake of simplicity, the value of each share will be one million dollars. You each will buy twenty shares, and you will bear the administrative and other costs and disbursements equally. As soon as forty million dollars has been deposited in the trading company’s bank account, the bankers will issue an irrevocable letter of credit in that sum in favor of whatever person or vehicle the Tibetan specifies. The letter of credit will be held by a nominee whom you both trust. I will accept the responsibility if you wish to so honor me. In any case, the letter of credit will be brought to the site where the goods are to be tested. When chemists approved by yourselves have examined the product and found it to be ninety-nine percent grade four in the agreed quantity, the letter of credit will be handed over to the Tibetan or one of his nominees. Are we all agreed?”
32
How did the meeting end? Answer: I don’t know. Those two old pythons started knocking back the booze and reliving old battles as soon as I’d established substantial agreement on all terms of the proposed partnership and deal. Zinna had never owned a corporation before, so this was a brand-new ego adventure to get all puffed up about, and Vikorn had to gently dissuade him from designing the stationery; this wasn’t going to be the kind of operation where you do a lot of letter writing. Vikorn, of course, owned hundreds of corporations in various corruption-friendly locations around the world, but his sophistication did not extend to letters of credit-his were still mostly cash-only sales-and this new business tool also excited his ego: he was keen to try it out on his partners in Miami, who bought most of his yaa baa and liked to tease him about being a third-world ignoramus. So they got drunker and friendlier and after a while out came the jao paw’s favorite fantasy tooclass="underline" the pocket calculator. If the Tibetan was on the level, their markup of the product on delivery to Europe or America would be 200 percent. Zinna saw an endless line of beautiful and cooperative young men visiting him in a six-star villa overlooking the Andaman Sea somewhere. Vikorn saw a massive global empire: he was not too old to go into something legal after the first five-year plan had leveraged his dough; maybe video games? In short, farang, both of them slipped amicably into that form of masturbation capitalism with which I am sure you are familiar, while I felt worse and worse. I couldn’t stop thinking about all the people we were going to poison, and how black my karma was going to be. When the two of them were too drunk to notice, I persuaded one of Zinna’s officers to find me a car to take me back to Krung Thep. He found a white Toyota limousine and a sergeant in fatigues to drive it. Then, just to honor his boss’s high spirits, he threw in a motorcycle escort as well. His intentions were good, but the effect was to increase my self-disgust. In fact, I was searching my mind to find something about myself that I still liked when my cell phone rang.
“Call me back, I don’t have any money,” a woman’s angry voice said in a UN accent.
The number on the log began with 977: Nepal. Not that there was any doubt about that. I called the number, and she let the phone ring for quite a while before she answered it.
In a hoarse, hard voice: “So, where the hell have you been?”
“Huh?”
“Thought you’d take advantage of a poor third-world girl while you had the chance, then just dump her like a Kleenex, didn’t you?” She managed to insert a great, self-pitying clot of bloody, low-grade emotion into her tone, which had me frowning at the telephone, not believing what I was hearing.
“ Tara?”
“The Chinese killed all my family. I’m an orphan, and I’m a cripple, too. Is that the kind of man you are, to use and abuse a girl who was only looking for love and shelter? If I still had a brother he would go over there and punch you on the nose.” This was followed by what sounded like floods of tears.
“ Tara, I can’t believe this is you.”
She let a couple of beats pass, then said in her normal voice, “It’s okay, don’t worry, I was exorcising a demon. It’s good practice, you should do it too. Since the demon came from you, I thought you’d like it back. You felt slightly raped after our Tantric evening, didn’t you? Since then I’ve had to deal with a whole stream of minor goblins from the Southwest. That’s you. You must have been feeling like an abused teen to churn up those guys-you wouldn’t believe how ugly some of them are.”
“ Tara, this is just crap. It’s sheer low-grade, bargain-basement, boulevard occultism you’re doing here.”
“Oh, yes? Then how do I know you had a wet dream about me last night? You did, didn’t you? And I can tell you exactly what you did to me in that dream. Listen.”
I’m not telling you what she said next, farang, it’s too embarrassing. I broke out into a cold sweat. “ Tara, do one thing: at least admit you’re in league with Tietsin, that way I can try to explain you rationally to myself.”
“You know very well I never met him until you came into my life like a little orphan left on my doorstep. And what are you doing indulging in a need for rational explanations at this stage? You’re not supposed to still be a novice.”
I hesitated, then said, “ Tara, that was the most fantastic sex I ever had. I mean it. I didn’t understand what you were doing at the time, I admit that, but I’ve been thinking about it and I’m starting to understand. To sublimate like that really is the essence of Buddhism-it’s just a little unnatural at first.”
“What is?”
“Resigning yourself to only having one orgasm a year.”
She giggled. “Try being a refugee-a lot of deprivations come naturally to us after a while.”