by Paul Theroux
He was glad for the darkness, for the rattly air conditioner, because its noise killed conversation.
Song pulled the blinds and led him by the hand, like a child, into the bathroom. Dressed in a bathrobe and standing just outside the stall, she gave him a shower. Afterward she dried him and put him to bed. While he waited, buffeted by the air conditioner, it seemed to him that he was not in a room at all but another dark tunnel, being propelled toward its end and unable to do anything but allow himself to be tumbled.
Song had taken her shower, and in semidarkness she lay beside him and held him. She was the protector, she was active, while he lay safe, thinking, I am flesh, I am insane, I am happy, hold me.
“Magic knife,” he said, touching her.
But she hadn’t heard.
That became the pattern of their meetings: her room, the separate showers, the drawn blinds, the roaring air conditioner; and the pattern turned into a ritual without words. As a ritual, everything was allowable, and later he never thought about what had happened, having left everything in the dark: life with the lights out.
5
His floating dream-like indecisive life away from the precision of work matched the city with its smothering heat. The clasp of humidity and the gutter smell gagged him, and yet his mood swelled him with buoyancy. This, with the whole hot city pressed on his eyes, blurring everything around him, made him feel like someone bumping forward under water.
He stopped his diary, stopped sketching anything except market stalls and boats on the river, or the pepper pots of Buddhist stupas and the daggers of temple finials. He did not dare to draw any people for fear of being reminded how different he was from everyone else. Abandoning the diary and doing fewer drawings, he shook off the spell he’d cast on himself in his sketching.
That perplexed, oversimplified cartoon figure he drew to represent himself, wearing glasses, a startled question mark over his head, trying to make sense of Bangkok, no longer appeared on the pages of what was now a cluttered sketchpad. He could not bear to depict his confusion. He wanted to be a blank page. Ceasing to account for his days, he clouded his memory—memory, the useless ballast that gave the slow passage of his aging a heaviness that dragged him down. He was renewed each day by not remembering, stewing in a pleasurable anticipation of seeing Song, savoring the foretaste of desire, a creaminess of vanilla on her skin.
Now he knew why he had spent so many nights at the railway station. That waiting had been an evasion of this settled mood of acceptance. In a discarding frame of mind, flipping through the pages of his pictorial diary, he found a sketch he had made early on of the man-woman who’d demanded money from him. It had been done weeks before she’d accosted him, when he’d seen her as just another of the station’s loiterers. He’d drawn her as a fussed and fretting creature, bird-like with her beaky nose, in a Gypsy skirt with a bright shawl. He had not seen her distress or the spittle on her lips. The sketch was colorful, even merciful. He let it stand.
Putting all his earlier life aside, not thinking of Maine, concentrating on the present—himself and Song—he was happy. He still called Joyce every day, or she called him. Song said, “Who?” because the calls were so frequent. He never said, “My wife.” He denied he had a wife—he told himself he was sparing Joyce the indignity of mentioning her.
“Boss,” he said. Song knew the word well.
Joyce was satisfied with the plainest details of his life in Bangkok. The more mundane details pleased her most; she understood them best, stories of power cuts at the plant, heavy traffic, a tummyache. Joyce was like an old forgiving friend, a link with another life, a different narrative. He could not tell her how happy he was. Where would he begin? She and her mother were consumed by ill health; they didn’t complain; for every ailment there was a remedy, yet this speculation occupied the whole of their lives. Any mention of his happiness, his luck, his good health, would be a violation of their self-absorption.
He’d never believed he could be this happy. He had assumed he’d finish here, hang it up, go home, persist, try not to die. But this was life itself, and he had always felt he’d lived on the periphery. Now he knew he was isolated in his happiness. The others at the plant seemed to know. Strangers did not wish him well, and he sensed that Fred begrudged him. One evening, saying, “I want to show you something,” Fred had tried to reopen the cautioning conversation. He took Osier to a bar. He did not talk to the girls. The bar was on the same soi as Siamese Nights. It was as though he was demonstrating his superior self-control.
“Some people come here and take things so seriously,” Fred said. “They see poor people and want to give them money. They see little orphan kids and want to try to rescue them. They even fall in love. Bottom line, collateral damage.”
And with clatteral, like a slickness on his lapping tongue, Fred leaned across the table, seeming to peer into him, trying to determine if Osier had been touched by what he’d conjectured.
Osier said, “And some people come here and make generalizations. Most people do.”
“Life can be so simple,” Fred said, talking over him. “Just be a tourist. You can have a hell of a time here if you don’t take it seriously.”
Osier said, “You can have an even better time if you do take it seriously.”
“You Catholic?”
“Fallen away, pretty much. But if I’m anything, I suppose . . .” He didn’t finish the sentence.
“Me too. What about church?”
The mention of church in this bar, the girls leering from a banquette, offended Osier as much as mentioning Joyce’s name here. He knew they were talking about Song without saying so, and that Fred was pained by the subject.
Fred left him there. He hadn’t been specific, but Osier knew that someone must have seen him with Song. And everyone talked.
Osier walked to Siamese Nights and met Song, and while they were sitting, holding hands, Joyce called to tell him that spring had come to Owls Head, the snow had started to melt. After he hung up, Song stared, the obvious question on her face.
“Boss,” Osier said in a burdened voice.
“Boss,” Song replied, more lightly, but eyeing him.
One afternoon Song called to say that she’d meet him after work at the plant. She had a surprise. She’d never come to the plant before. She was calling from a taxi on her red phone.
She remained in the taxi, parked next to the security fence, away from the guard in the security box at the gate, but even so, Osier knew that she’d been seen. She wasn’t being indiscreet—showing up like this proved that she cared for him. She didn’t go to bars anymore. She saw him most evenings, and on weekends he stayed at her apartment, marveling at the completeness of his new life. Still, she seemed suspicious, as though wishing to know him better, perhaps wondering whether he was withholding a secret.
“My mudda come,” she said when Osier got into the taxi.
Her mother was at the apartment, cooking. Song wanted to prepare him for it—the old woman was staying for a week.
But she was not an old woman. She was probably younger than Osier, only mannish and careworn from a hard life.
“She have a farm.”
She was no more than fifty or so, which meant that Song was younger than he’d guessed. The woman was faded, with a deeply lined face, sad eyes, and a laborer’s coarse hands. He saw that Song was a refinement of her mother.
The woman, who was named Wanpen, did not speak English. She was active, eager to please, expressive in her movements, and through Song gave Osier to understand that she was glad to see him. Then, as if to show her gratitude, she labored in the kitchen cubicle, strands of damp hair against her face. She whisked vegetables in a wok and made soup and noodles and spring rolls.
Osier did not spend the night when Song’s mother was there, but he visited most evenings after work and was content in this secret nighttime life. He sat and was waited on in a rather formal way, the old woman calling to Song, and Song serving him; and i
t seemed to him that his life had never been this full. He was surprised when, at one of these meals, he got a call from Joyce.
He kept the call short, while Song whispered to her mother. And when he’d finished, Song said, “Boss.”
“Boss,” he said.
He was not apologetic anymore. He was grateful. Perhaps that was love, the sense that you were reborn, remade anyway, given hope.
“I’ve just been back to the States,” Larry said, one lunchtime that week, taking a seat in front of him, setting his meal tray down. “Saw my wife. My kids. Just what I needed.” This was the same man who had hooted, Soi Cowboy! Great bars! The girls are hot—they wear boots and Stetsons! Then he said, “You can go home too, you know.”
Did he regret having taken Osier to the clubs? Maybe he felt he was responsible for whatever Osier was rumored to be doing.
Osier said, “One of these days.”
Relieved, Larry began eating.
Osier could not tell him what was in his heart. He wished he were alone, that he were not part of this enterprise—the hotel, the plant, the company. It was too much like an encumbering family.
Passion had brought him to this point, and in the week of not being able to spend nights with Song, because her mother was there, he could see his life more clearly—not in the hot headlong way he had first felt, blinded by desire, but calmly, studying Song in his mind, and himself with her. It seemed incredible that the consoling softness of someone’s skin and the contours of a body could change the course of his life—and so late in his life too, when everything had seemed so circumscribed by the inevitable.
Now—it was odd but not upsetting—nothing was certain. He was happy, he was hopeful, he felt lucky. He was amazed by the completeness of his life.
“She like you,” Song said on her mother’s last night. And Wanpen smiled, seeming to understand what was being said. “She ask who you talk to on phone.”
The mother was that shrewd. Osier said, “What did you tell her?”
“I say boss.” She laughed. “She not believe me.”
With feeling and a flutter of helplessness, Osier said, “The boss tells me what to do.”
Song spoke again to her mother, who answered solemnly. Song said, “She trust you.”
Osier felt a burden of responsibility, the woman putting her faith in him.
“She always worry about me,” Song said, and seeing that Osier was thoughtful, she added, “Because I different. I not like other people.”
Osier wanted to say, Maybe I’m not either. Maybe I’m different too. But he said, “Tell her not to worry.”
Repeating this in Thai, Song made her mother smile. The woman pressed her hands together and bowed in gratitude. She was small, sturdy, and seemed unbreakable.
Osier knew he’d made the woman a promise. He had spoken without thinking, yet he meant it. As on those other nights, he thanked the mother and said goodbye without kissing Song, backing up, clumsily chivalrous.
The following night they met at Siamese Nights, Song with a glass of lemonade, Osier with a Singha beer. Song said, “My mudda, she really like you,” and it seemed to mean everything.
“She’s a lovely woman. So energetic. You know?” He motioned with his hands. “I imagine your mother in her village, and I see sunshine and green fields and chickens and fruit trees . . .” He described the idyllic landscape he had seen from the train on his one-day trip out of Bangkok, which he’d sketched in his diary.
When he finished, smiling at the thought of what he had described, Song said, “I understand.”
Later, at her apartment, she took charge of him, bathing him, scrubbing him, massaging him, exhausting him, being generous. It seemed that she was rewarding him for being so kind to her mother, but with a lavishness that approached debauchery.
Of course they suspected something at the plant, but they didn’t know him, or were less sure of him. He was like a man receding as they watched him, backing away, growing smaller and simpler, blurring in the distance on a long road. Osier liked that. He was strengthened by his secrets. He knew now that a kind of happiness existed that no one could even guess at—unthinkable for these techies who assumed everything was thinkable.
Joyce, too. His happiness gave her heart. She could not imagine the source of his happiness, nor would he ever be able to explain it to her, yet she would accept it, as she accepted most things. She heard that note in his voice.
“I’m glad it’s all going well.”
Pleasure made him bold, passion made him guiltless. He did not wonder how she would manage without him. Already she was managing without him, and if she wanted to know what the future held for her, she only needed to visit her mother, as she did most weekends.
Osier’s confident frame of mind made him more efficient, more observant of the routines at the plant, catching the shuttle in the morning, working on the accounts, making small talk in the cafeteria, heading back to the hotel in the shuttle with the others. Larry and Fred did not stop at the clubs anymore.
Some weeknights Osier slipped away to see Song, but that meant a late return to the hotel. Weekends, from Friday night to Sunday evening, he spent with Song at her little apartment near Siamese Nights.
One Friday at lunchtime, Fred sat heavily at Osier’s table, commanding attention in the very act of seating himself—elbows on the table, arms upraised, trapping him.
“Great news. I just found out there’s an awesome old church here on the river. Holy Rosary. Catholic. Services every Sunday.”
Fred said this with the same gusto as he had in the past, shouting in a strip club, I’ll mud-wrestle you for that one.
Osier said, “I had no idea.”
“They’ve actually got a priest. I emailed him and told him about us. The company—American company, expat staff, Catholics. He was stoked. They got a pretty diverse collection of communicants.”
Osier was not sure what Fred was saying, whether this was innocent enthusiasm or some sort of ploy. He’d winced at clection. He tried to think of an answer to the question he knew was about to be asked.
“So how about it? You want to come along?”
Had Fred suggested going to a market, or a concert, or an art exhibit, or even a Buddhist temple, Osier would have found it easy to say no. But a church service—Catholic—was another matter. He felt ambushed. He was the one who had been disapproving of the clubs, the one who had kept his nights a secret. He guessed that Larry and Fred had their suspicions. Why else had Larry harped on going back to the States? You can go home too, you know. A club would have been easy to reject, but how on earth could he turn down a Catholic Mass on a Sunday?
“Okay,” Osier said.
And now he had to explain to Song. Sunday-morning Mass meant that he could not spend Saturday night at her apartment, because that would complicate meeting Fred in the lobby at seven a.m., as he’d agreed.
“Company business,” he said, hating his lie. And sitting in Siamese Nights, he made up a story in which the boss figured.
Song listened, watching him with her smooth moonlit face. She heard what he said and nodded, but Osier knew that all her inarticulate alertness, her wordless wondering receptivity to every twitch and pulse, told her he was lying. But now it was too late for the truth. If he changed his story and honestly told her about the church service, she’d still be convinced he was lying.
She said, “When I see you then?”
“Saturday night’s out. Sunday’s a problem.”
“I understand.” And the way she said it, lightly, with no bitterness, he took to be a measure of her wounded pride.
Siamese Nights was quiet, the other girls gathered at one table, facing the front door for customers. Osier hugged Song to make a point. Normally he never touched her in public. She stiffened, resisting him as though violated, as though he’d touched her head.
“We can go to your place.”
“No. You busy.”
He wasn’t busy. He knew this was a rebu
ff. And a moment later his phone rang. He had forgotten to shut it off. He looked and saw Joyce’s number, and didn’t answer.
Sensitized, Song noticed that too. “You don’t want to talk to your friend?”
He said, “It’s nothing. Nobody.”
No one was more alert to a further slight than someone who felt rejected.
“Nothing. Nobody,” she said.
And to prove it was nothing, he called Joyce back, damp and breathless with shame, Song watching, and before Joyce could speak more than a few words, he said, “I’ll have to talk to you later. I’m in a meeting,” and switched off the phone. Song was wide-eyed.
“See? Nothing. Just work.”
“Nothing,” she said.
“My boss,” he said.
“I understand.”
That simple exchange made him suffer. Saturday, he called Song. She didn’t answer—no Please leave a message, either. He tried to calm himself by sitting in the garden of a temple, sketching a Buddha, but the picture was no good, the face lopsided, the eyes cruel.
No answer from Song later that night, even after five tries, the last at midnight. Imagining the most lurid scenes—scenes he himself had enacted—he couldn’t sleep. Nor did she answer in the morning. And he reflected that in all the years of being married to Joyce he had never tasted such delight or endured such anguish as in his six weeks of loving Song.
“This is Missy,” Fred said in the lobby on Sunday morning.
A woman of forty or so, freckled, in a blue dress, with kindly eyes, said, “Melissa DeFranza. I know Fred from Vancouver. I’m in sales and marketing. On my way to a workshop in Singapore.”
“I mentioned I was going to a church service and Missy jumped,” Fred said.
She said, “That’s what I need. Spiritual renewal. So nice of you guys to include me.”
In the taxi, Missy said that she hoped to do some shopping and wondered if the stores in River City were open on Sunday. Fred talked loudly about his family and said that he had managed to live as an expatriate in Bangkok because he had created—crated—a special relationship with Jesus. He talked; Osier tuned him out.
