Lost in Pattaya

by Kishore Modak

  Fang Wei had left without informing me. She had simply left a note in the room, packed her bags and gone away. When I called her, she replied with a message ‘SMS only please, I am heading back’. I couldn’t reply since the time it took for me to sort out a suitable response, the phone was ringing. It was Georgy.

  “Hey, the police are doing everything possible, I am going to receive Fang Wei from the airport,” his voice cracked over the phone.

  “OK,” I said.

  “Man, are you high?” we were buddies, and had done things together, making inhibitions flimsy when it came to the sharing of most acts.

  “Yes, a bit,” I replied.

  “I can imagine this is going to be tough for you and Fang Wei, I can take over the BMI audit and get it tied up, if that is what you want,” I knew, we had to deliver our assessment by the end of the month which was a week away.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Look, there is only that much we can do for Li Ya. I think you should head up to the bank and tie the quarter up for them, it will help you divert. There is nothing much we can do now, I know it is crazy but please try and busy your mind, work can be a useful diversion,” he said. It made certain sense.

  “Georgy, you are right, give me the day to sort myself out. Then, maybe I head to the bank directly from here and figure them out,” he could probably sense that I wanted to hang up.

  “Ok bud, you take care I will ask the agent to send you the tickets by email, I assume you will spend the day at the bank before returning to Singapore,” we spoke a bit more, before we hung up.

  Sort myself out, that meant sobering down before I could fly out, since I was in no state to pass through any immigration of any country in my state of disarray. But before I did that, I took one last hit off the table of the hotel room, flushing the remaining stuff down the toilet, an act I would want to undo in the desperation I knew I would reach by that evening. I sent for a DVD of ‘Apocalypse Now’, mostly because it was long enough to last an entire afternoon, and had enough audio-visual arrest that my stoned mind could succumb to.

  In the evening I ran on the beach, wanting to flush the drug out of my system. Wouldn’t a normal couple stand by each other in the moment of their largest loss, supporting one another, easing each other through the years that lay ahead? We were not normal as a couple, obviously, since she had gone back and I was running on the beach, contending with myself the possible diversions that could help lead me away from the loss, a loss we could not do much about now. It was a bit like death, or such realities; they simply are, and there is nothing that can be done about them, except worry and be tormented by them, be haunted in moments where we cannot think other thoughts nor do other deeds. Best to find diversions, like changing the course of my run to the ‘tourist’ end of the beach, which I was certain was being patrolled by SriJaya with his bag of delights.

  In about half an hour, I was at the score point, dripping, having run all the way but SriJaya was not there. Not having my phone I sat in the Buddhist temple by the beach, meditating to the best of my abilities, it being a routine that I followed often in Singapore after my runs. People milled about, holding sweet fuming incense sticks pointed upwards, bowing before moving around the sanctum, trying to send the scented fumes towards their Lord. The circular motion of their palms urged the smoke upwards in reverent circles. Children played in the temple courtyard, none of them looked despondent or dull from prolonged crying, which is what I searched for in any kid I saw, hoping to accidentally stumble upon my baby, with only the mending required from the damage that two nights can inflict upon a child. I would heal her if I found her, and then rebuild my family. I too, bought incense sticks, mimicking the pious, praying the only two prayers that I prayed in the years ahead, the prayer of a reunion in the first few years and then the simple prayer of peace for all, including Li Ya, wherever it is that she was.

  Since I was sober, I made the futile visit to the police station before returning to the hotel, confirming and printing tickets that were waiting in my Inbox. I let Fang Wei know my travel plans by email, and then I dialled SriJaya’s number, which went unanswered all evening, leaving me wanting to mine the sewers in desperation, down which I had flushed the coke in my silly act of rehabilitation earlier that afternoon. I felt anxious, knowing that I could not fall asleep that night; my mind was too charged up, and the absence of drug would keep sleep from me, simply because my thoughts would criss-cross in contrition. Drinking and sleeping was an option but the vast quantity of alcohol required for that would defeat the purpose of being reasonable before I flew out of Pattaya on the following morning. I could head back to the brothel, where I had spent the previous night; the coke, the grass and the gentle caress of the prostitute would do the trick, and the flight too would be left manageable in the morning. But, I forced myself to remain in the room, not even opening and checking the contents of the mini bar because I knew if I imbibed, I would hesitate in taking the sleeping pills that I always carried on me, prescription pills from Singapore, strong ones, for nights that involved no intoxication. I had been advised not to take those with alcohol, using them only after I was unable to fall asleep, after a few hours of trying. Yet, that night, like all nights when I used them, I popped one straight away, just before midnight, along with half a tablet of an anti-anxiety drug that I carried, from another doctor in Singapore. Those two pills worked well together and both had prescriptions which made them safe for me to carry in moderation. I also took an anti-inflammatory for my stomach, which I could feel flaring with all of the alcohol drunk recently and the acid accumulation from the deprivation of food, which the coke had thrown my abdomen into. I was glad the medication worked out, it helps immensely when you suspect a mild bout of cold-turkey; and I decided to head to the gym in the morning before I flew to Manila. Of course, I would I make the useless visit to the Thai police, before I flew out.

  * * *

  On the flight, tears, they just flooded my face. Having slept a full eight hours, and relatively substance free, the grieving began, in the company of strangers. They ignored me, knowing that in every crowd there is a pensive one. They were cautious when I began weeping, given that we were airborne, but in a few minutes my flight neighbours simply left me alone, realizing I was just another broken man, not intending to harass or harm anyone. In about twenty minutes, I had refused food and booted my laptop up, scanning the papers that I would show the manager of purchases at the Bank of Manila. The reading was important for me to prepare for my meetings, and, my half-heartedness in grasping what lay on the screen was enough preparation given my years of experience. My preoccupation though, was with the other gnawing half of my con-sciousness, the loss of Li Ya, and the fate that this day would bring upon her, and, the days ahead, moving her towards monochrome adulthood. She would be left colourless before the month ran out.

  In my estimate, a month as a child prostitute would be enough for her to be left unsalvageable, even if I found her.

  Would she be prostituted incessantly, day and night, looting what was made available in the narrow window of age and freshness that some seek? Customers would mentally map her age before selecting and laying waste the remains of abuse that would live on, dead inside her.

  A child is convinced easily with narrative of fable and fake. She would be taken in by the mere presence of promises, losing what she would never gain back, the colour of childhood truncated by acts that some might be committing upon her right now, as I, her father headed business-like for meetings, knowing not what else to do. I imagined her being promised the fluffiest of dolls if she simply spent the next hour in that room at the end of the corridor. To a child, it would be a profitable trade, even after the hour passed, since it takes years to realise the joyless evil that soft toys hold. During lean periods, would she be hoarded in rooms with other girls, where they would play ‘house’ and rest, before getting to work again.

  These thoughts sent me into an anxiety of panic, inescap
able, since the pills that could help were checked in, angularly cluttered in the belly of the plane. A sardine packed flight did not help as I sought a free-personal-space around me. From the window it seemed the plane was perched upon clouds, mid-flight, screeching noisily, above a vacant empty blue plunging space, which is not calming in the presence of the turbo din and the sense of emergency that physical altitude can leave the first few hours of turkey in. I simply shifted, breathing and taking the name of god, one name with each inhalation and another with a stretched measure of exhalation. The moment passed in about seven minutes.

  Even in choosing the name of God there is confusion, since urbanity exposes all religions, each of which has a salience of comfort that can be leaned upon in an hour of panic.

  Religion fails in pre-empting the moment of misery. It is the miserable who are forced to be religious.

  In utopia, one should always walk away from the infant ward, with another’s child.

  Across the aisle right opposite me, a family of three attacked their meals, with a child adventuring the world of cutlery in a mess, his caring parents managing one meal, the child’s.

  Me and Fang Wei, we could have another child, if only we could sit, talk and conclude on what we wanted for our future. I doubted sane conversations would help, unless I planned an evening of construed love, synced with the fertile period that a woman experiences each month.

  This was the silly plan of resurrecting my broken family, a plan I knew had no possibility, but it bubbled up, in the absence of any other thoughts that lent any possibility of building back my broken family.

  The words and the numbers on the computer screen, those that I kept scrolling without comprehension, it was a bit like reading a book without really assimilating anything that is written, ignorance flying past the eyes, and the brain beyond.

  As the plane descended, I asked for tea, the request awkward since the ‘belts’ lights were on, but the stewardess complied, having been witness to my sorry state all through the flight. I slurped black dip-tea, completely drowned by the landing of a jet liner. What is it that pulls us towards the unacceptable, like waiting for all of the two legitimate flight hours, before wanting and asking for a hit of tea, right at the point when it is unserveable?

  * * *

  Ortega, the manager of purchases at the RBM, was a man who held me in suspicion, and confessed he had never been asked for a meeting with an auditor from one of his vendors. Outwardly he was cordial, but inside, he was reticent, wanting to ascertain what had drawn me to him. In the meeting room, he was accompanied by a seemingly ordinary clerk, but whose presence was orchestrated, in matters that one wants to remain above board on. What put me out was the confined space, since the room did not have any access to the welcome externality of day, like what windows provide, or daylight itself, on a beach, or in an open meadow. The room wasn’t ventilated at all, discounting of course the steady hum from the draught that the strong air-conditioner spewed its processed air in. I simply hoped that the sweat and its sheen under my clothes, despite the low temperature, were not evident to the manager of purchases and his silly clerk, revealing to them my long hung-over week end.

  If you cannot tackle prolonged highs, stick to alcohol because all other mixed in stuff leaves you in waves, well beneath the high and the exhilaration, the crash of it being particularly violent, needing fortitude that only a few are blessed with.

  With long indulgent years, it is the heart that gets stained with the sin of life, eventually arresting.

  “Are you OK?” Ortega noticed my unease under the grey silk suit and the silk-brown Buddha neck-tie around my neck, the knot of which I reached for and loosened.

  “Actually no,” I said, tears suddenly streaming in torrents, triggered by his stupid question. The rest of my body was held business-like, funnily, as if I were completely normal.

  For a lone and desperate man, the company of strangers assumes a magnitude that one would fake as if he were with relatives and friends, who normally help work through the psychological detail of life and the loss it all holds. The detail of each passing day is buffeted on the foam of family and friends. Folks like Fang Wei and Georgy, in at least where I was then, a kite, cut-off, adrift, seeking the mooring of anything around me. Strangers, like the commonplace manager of purchases at the bank in front of whom I wept, childlike, letting my loss flow like a river in the spate of its own flood.

  It was the clerk who moved first, towards the door before looking at the manager, who simply nodded in bunched brows, signal enough for the clerk to leave us alone.

  Ortega too got up, and walked out before re-appearing with iced tea and bottles of water in a few minutes.

  “I am sorry Mr. Ortega, I have been un-elegant,” I said; face still damp, with t ears that became the failure of that afternoon.

  “It’s ok, may I offer you some water?” he asked gently in a very decent Pilipino accent.

  “Yes, No, I mean, can I get some air,” I said, wanting to escape from the little room on the thirtieth level of the bank’s tower, a building that rose like a needle from the earth, swaying perceptibly, depending upon the strength of gale.

  “Come let us take a break for a smoke,” he grabbed a bottle of water, barking instructions in Pilipino, across the office space before descending through the moving horror of the elevator, the shaft of which still retains the vision of hell in my mind. It was simply a metal box attached to cables and pulleys, moving through the building’s arteries; yet it was ghastly, churning the vertigo of fear in my stomach. Finally the elevator jerked to a stop, its doors opening, through which I jumped, even before they slid completely open.

  Outside, we were street side, with jeepneys and the local, urban-provincial people, contrasting the suits that we wore, as we stood there with them.

  “Here, you can have some of mine,” Ortega thrust his pack of smoke sticks towards me.

  “No, thanks, I don’t smoke,” I simply said. Ortega retracted his hand with a smile, “Feeling better?”

  “Yes,” I was better, feeling infinitely freed of the musty office that had contributed to my claustrophobic misery, even though we were now standing in a haze of street-side pollution that he smoked his noxious cigarettes further upon.

  Afterwards, back inside his office, I asked if we could simply settle in the café on the lower level of the bank’s monolith. The café was large with plenty of tall windows.

  We sat down for coffee and I apologized again, “I am sorry for my inelegance, I hope you will excuse me.”

  “That is OK, I hope you are freed from the pain that you may be feeling and I wish you all the best. Now, you wanted to see me?” he straightened his back, like when one reaches the end-point that a conversation is meant to arrive upon.

  “Yes, it is about the receivables that have been outstanding, almost four million dollars. I simply want to understand the situation and assess for myself the timeframe by when the payment will be received,” I was pointing to the screen of my tablet, on which were an assortment of scans, mostly purchase orders and invoices.

  “Well, we cannot make a payment in the absence of a contract; and the contract itself, our respective legal teams are still negotiating. Between you and me, they are deadlocked and I don’t see them resolving their differences anytime soon,” he said, brushing aside the tablet and its contents.

  In the stream of sunlight, I noticed a lizard sunning itself, indoors, in the cool of conditioned air.

  “But, you are using the equipment that BMI supplied, are you not?” I asked, genuinely wanting to get a fair appraisal of the situation.

  “They supplied the equipment, in their eagerness to recognize their billings, for their business to look good in their Quarter, almost nine months ago. We did not even put a purchase order in place when they supplied the equipment and sent the invoices,” he looked at me, knowing well that I was taken by surprise. “And, to answer your question, yes we are using the equipment,” he added.

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p; “So, in short the question of payment does not arise till the contracts are mutually agreed upon and accepted by both parties, which in your opinion will take a lot of time and doing,” I concluded, clearly wanting him to elaborate a bit more.

  “Look, it is very simple; BMI went ahead with the supply, hoping they would clean all the paper-work up quickly, within weeks if not days from the supply. This has weakened their position, since now the bargaining power is with us, and our lawyers are extracting to the last penny what they can from BMI. This is their job you know. In some sense we will keep using the equipment while the negotiations drag tiresomely on. In our landscape, months, even years can go by, leaving a dead lock profitable,” he said, being matter of fact.

  “Thank you Mr. Ortega, I have my assessment, and the information that I was seeking. I have just one more question. How does one resolve a situation like this?” I asked.

  “Simple,” he was smiling “Use forklifts, after sending a notice informing us that you are wheeling the equipment out, which would be well within BMI’s rights since the contract is still under negotiation. That would hasten things because the applications that we run on those servers keep our economy ticking, including the stock exchanges and all other banking transactions,” he was still smiling, as we stood and shook hands.

  “Promise me, you will take care of yourself,” he said in a kind melting way, and then turned away, showing me out.

  On the plane back home I prepared my assessment, which was due on the following day.

  I had to recommend a write down of the four million dollars worth of revenue that BMI had falsely accounted for more than six months ago. There was no outlook of getting that payment in a reasonable timeframe, given what I had heard from Ortega. I knew this would open up a completely new stream of work, with paper and e-mail trail, revealing dubious sales and accounting practices. Billings in the absence of contracts, purchase orders dated post supply, installation inconsistencies etc., each pointing to individuals who may have acted in complicity with greed, from bonus payouts linked with the revenue and profitability that the deal brought in. This trail would implicate key management figures at BMI and more importantly, call for a complete revamp of their internal audit and order fulfilment systems. It could steep in doubt my client at BMI, the Head of Finance, who I was sure was in on the decision to realise revenues and profits prematurely, well before they were legitimately due.