The Godfather of Kathmandu - By John Burdett Page 0,28
bar, but I’m way too stoned to order alcohol. I’m nursing a nam menau, lime-and-water, sitting at a table in back, watching the business of flesh take place in accordance with rituals I’ve known all my life. Just now a well-dressed, professional-class Englishman in his late twenties canvassed the girls one by one, sotto voce, to see which of them would tolerate anal intercourse, and for what price. Having carefully constructed a short list, he chose the volunteer whom, I assume, he found most attractive. He struck me as one of those metroman types who plans his vacations on a laptop. The decision made and the mouse double-clicked, he escorted his lunchtime bride courteously out the door, no doubt to one of the short-time hotels around here. Now that he’s gone, things are quieter than ever. The other farang are absorbed in their own conversations, or have dropped in for a quick lunch and to read the foreign-language newspapers. They are regulars who treat the place just like any other beer bar, and the girls know to leave them alone. Finally, I manage to rouse myself to go to the Buddha shrine, just like the girls do when they arrive. I wai the tree wrapped in a monk’s robe and ask for the mental strength to take me through the last chapter of my personal flashback. It’s a kind of pain therapy that forces itself on me, this reliving of catastrophe: the more it hurts, the longer I can maintain the trappings of sanity afterward—until the next bout.
• • •
After my interview with Vikorn, which took place immediately after I hit Bangkok that day, I was excited about Chanya and Pichai coming back from deep country in Isaan. I had begun to fantasize about getting enough dough together to retire early—say in five years—and go live the simple rural life up there where the air is cleaner and the grass greener. I liked the idea of a near-silent existence punctuated by visits to the temple, meditation, consultations with monks and abbots concerning my spiritual progress. I yearned for the comfort and cleanness of a life dedicated to the Buddha. When Chanya sent a text message to say they were at the bus station and were on their way, I texted back to say I would be there soon after they arrived at the hovel. I figured it would take more than two hours for them to reach home, because the traffic was so bad on Sukhumvit and Petchburi Road.
It was then that I made one of those trivial decisions that can have an enormous impact on the rest of your life: I turned off my cell phone. I wanted to take the moment to allow my mind to relax—I’d hit the ground running when I got off the plane from Kathmandu and had hardly stopped for breath. I went to the temple at Wat Rachanada on the river and in the silence allowed Tietsin’s mantra to spin without restriction in my head. I cannot tell you the specific Pali words, farang, for I am bound to secrecy, but I am allowed to describe the blade wheel, which is imagined as a star-shaped weapon closely resembling the shiken used by ninjas, although unlike the shiken it has a disturbing way of morphing into other shapes. The blade wheel is the enemy of self-delusion—“self-delusion” meaning just about everything in the field of normal everyday perception, in particular our most cherished delusions about ourselves. I didn’t switch the phone on again until it was all over.
It is usual in these kind of circumstances for the bereaved to say, I knew something was wrong; but I didn’t. Even when I noticed the small crowd outside our apartment and the way they could not look me in the eye, I failed to make any connection with the stain on the road or the private car parked nearby, or the driver in tears talking to some uniformed cops. When a young constable blurted that I needed to go to the hospital on Soi 49 immediately, I realized the stain on the street was blood, and my mind split into pieces. At the hospital Chanya and I could only stare at each other across the bed where Pichai’s six-year-old body lay dying.
“It’s my fault,” she said. “I let him get out of the taxi on the wrong side. The driver of the other car wasn’t going fast, he wasn’t doing anything wrong. It’s all my fault.”