You will see I took to running on faith, sprinting with what I had – hoping the future would brighten.
“How does it matter to us? Let them run their business and we will run ours. Let us all move ahead, why should we make retrograde moves? I do agree, we will tell them about our findings and then let them manage the situation internally the way they deem fit. You know they will find a scapegoat and sack him or her. I am sure their accountants and lawyers will find ways of cleaning the mess up, however, if we don’t pass the audit, there will be a public cleaning up that will impact a lot of people, including shareholders and vendors, like us,” he spoke evenly, calm and logical; a sound resonant logic that I would have upheld till as recently as a few days back. But now, I rejected it. Right there, sitting opposite Georgy, that recently broken, shattered part of me turned bitter, wanting to curdle and congeal things and people around me, like a ribbon of culture in a vessel of warm milk, unleashing a streak of vendetta towards those who still had complete, intact, unbroken, seemingly happy urban lives.
Why? It was because a part of me that confronted my own loss prevented me from accepting this convivial logic of abetting crimes before muting into a mutually beneficial existence. An existence filled with happy families that turn away from the crimes of compromised decision making that its bread winners fool that other world with, the world of the lost and the broken, one I had become a part of.
Georgy’s phone buzzed silently, its screen glowing with the Facebook profile picture of Fang Wei, which had been changed a few months back, me being the conspicuous exclusion from it. In a measured move, he turned the phone over and into silence, gently putting it face down on the table between us. I am not sure if he saw I had noticed her appear on his phone. I am not even sure if it was her, yet it was deeply wrenching for me to witness my wife calling common friends, while choosing to stay cut-off from me. Behind my back, they would discuss each pertinent thread of detail, vilifying the core of this plot, me and my string of follies.
“Georgy, we have known each other for years, I can’t do this mate, I can’t be the one who passes this audit,” I said, again with forced calmness.
A calm, if it caps a volcano, is an internal eruption one should mange well, venting slowly, till no pressure remains.
“You should think about this carefully, I don’t think you understand the fall-out of your decision. Yes, we go back a long time, and that is the reason why I think you should give it one long-hard thought before you let me know how you want to move forward. Let us talk about it tomorrow. I will hold people off till then; don’t worry about the deadlines etc. at least not for a day. But, tomorrow let me know your final decision,” he delivered his caveat with grace. To his credit, he remained business like right till the end.
To him, I would have appeared slumped and lowered, which I was, given how I felt - very close to giving up.
“Sure, I will see you tomorrow,” I got up and left, not just the meeting room but the office itself, knowing that my decision on this matter was far greater than the sitting at my desk, attending to mundane office matters that an afternoon demands.
A hangover, I was certain, could not last till this late in the afternoon. For I knew I had not had that much whisky on the previous evening. I went straight to Dr. Tho, my physician, a specialist of sports-medicine whom I had been seeing for years of niggles, picked in the squash room now and then.
Neck pain, I believe, was right up his alley.
“Doctor, it is my neck,” I burst into his office, aware that he would do a quick consultation before sending me away for a few scans, mostly x-rays, asking me to return in about thirty minutes with the films, looking at which he would declare my prognosis.
After I suffered the humiliation of being stripped, I was asked to first stand and then lie down in still-awkward positions. The staff at the department of radiology was not rude; they were simply clinical, offering neither sympathy nor tenderness, wanting to work through patients without the build-up of a queue, working robotically till the shift changed. I was sent back to Dr. Tho’s clinic, where I awaited news. I was certain it would be the onset of spondylitis, or some such inflammation or internal disfigurement needing prolonged treatment. Or, worse still, a cancer, which had finally reached and invaded a sensitive portion of my body like the nerves in my spine or the base of my brain, the medulla oblongata. A flash recollection of anatomical nomenclature left me pondering the consequences of diminished body function caused by paralysis.
“Your neck and your shoulders seem fine,” Dr. Tho said, still looking at the film illuminated from the light coming through his viewing lamp, counting the bones of my upper vertebra with the rubber tip of his pencil, which he drummed the dull glowing celluloid with. He actually whispered “One, two, three…,” trailing off at four.
“There is no structural problem that I see, it could be just muscular. I wouldn’t worry about it,” he said, switching off the viewing lamp.
“Can I play squash?” I asked, a bit surprised that he had found nothing. Maybe more revealing scans were required, ones that look deeper, which he would recommend after the pain refused to abate over the coming weeks, or, worse still, after the pain morphed into more serious symptoms, stemming from the damage to cranial anatomy.
“Yes, of course, you can play squash, as much as you like. In fact I think it will do your condition a world of good,” he said, smiling. I had stuck with him for seven years for precisely this one reason; his smiles made my pains better and his demeanour of supreme confidence made me feel well.
“Why so?” I asked.
“Look, there is nothing wrong with you. You may have been stressed these last few days. Squash will pump adrenalin into your system, which will help ease you out. Try to relax and get some rest, you will be OK,” he spoke, compassionately.
It is certain if I had not broken down in front of Ortega, I would have in front of Dr. Tho. Acts of compassion, even in small measures, and that too from mere acquaintances, held the trigger which could send my built-up grief into a flood of tears.
“I am going to prescribe some pills for you. Have them an hour before you go to bed, and make sure you don’t drive after you have had them,” he said, writing in scribbles, before I left his clinic with the medication. He had also thrown in some rubs and such; useless I knew, simply meant for me feel adequately rewarded for my visit.
He was right. At the squash club I emptied with the hitting what the high-strung nature of the day’s events had left my body and mind in. The pain did not disappear, but the cold steel all over my shoulders warmed dramatically. I did not join the guys at the bar, knowing I should not mix the sedatives I intended taking later, with alcohol. Relieved of the pain, I postponed in my thoughts the decision due to Georgy on the following day.
At home, I called the Police in Pattaya, knowing well, if they had found her, they would have called. I could not get through to them for hours, which forced me to use an intermediary, SriJaya, who went across to the station and physically handed the phone to the Thai officer.
“Sir, we are no longer working on that case, it has been transferred to the missing persons file and it is now handled by the central team,” he said.
“But, how do I get any updates?” I asked.
“They would have given the contact details, database id’s etc. to the person who filed the report, your wife I believe,” he said.
“Can you please share the same with me as well?”
I asked, growing anxious, knowing that I was being insulated from Li Ya, even though she was still out there, somewhere.
“I don’t have all those details myself; you will just have to get it from your wife,” he said, trailing away as he handed the phone back to SriJaya.
“Sir, when are you coming back to Pattaya? I have something for you,” SriJaya, seemed eager and friendly. I simply mumbled goodbyes, one part of me wishing I was with him now.
My sms’s to Fang Wei, asking for the details which the
Missing Persons Bureau may have given her, were met with vacant unresponsiveness.
At home, I avoided Li Ya’s room, not wanting to go in there since I knew it would be disturbing to see and touch her things, completely ruining my hopes of falling asleep.
Instead, on the internet, I surfed pharmacological sites, gleaning details of the sedatives that Dr. Tho had prescribed, and, more importantly, trying to ascertain if they could be consumed with alcohol or with other anti-depressants and sedatives, of which I had a small stash. Most of the information was conservative, choosing the option of fore-warning over the measured risk of experiment that I was seeking. The user forums were a bit more encouraging. Eventually, it turned out to be an ordinary night, simply falling asleep with the one medication that Dr. Tho had prescribed.
When I woke up, the spread of steel across my skull had shrunk; I simply felt a metal pellet of freeze at the base of my neck. By the time I was riding the trains, the pain returned in identical fury from the previous day. The pain, it diverted my mind, bringing back the horror of my failing health, making me take a detour from my way to office back into Dr. Tho’s clinic.
“Doctor, I have the same searing pains, what could it be?” I was close to a lament, a bit panicked, and convinced that I was sick and withering.
He pushed the films and papers away, simply folding his arms “You are fine, you need to work out what is bothering you and then calm down. I can refer you to a psychiatrist if you like, sometimes therapy can be very effective in such conditions,” he was clearly unimpressed by my symptoms.
“Psychiatrist?” I was a bit taken aback.
“Look, if you are in a situation where you need to find a care group, just to speak to people about things, I don’t know what it is, but you need to take it out of your system, otherwise there is no medical route except psychiatric intervention,” he said calmly, spending the time for me to understand that I was going mad.
At the office, on the internet, I searched for groups who helped others with similar problems. In my case, I found no forums for suffering parents of lost kids in Singapore, but when I dug enough I found Rashmi, a single lady who was registered on an internet forum for parents who had lost their child, a girl child. I was drawn to her since she was based in Singapore. I wrote in, asking for a time to meet and hoping she would reply.
“So, what have you decided?” Georgy, he was on my back, clinging like a diseased monkey.
“Come, let us grab a room,” just his sight brought the skull crushing ache back into the afternoon.
“I have taken time from BMI tomorrow; if you are agreeable we can head up to their office and then close the audit out. We can also discuss the next phase of our contract renewal with them. Come, let us leave things behind us,” he said, clearly hoping that the steady ticking bomb of our interpersonal calamity would defuse.
“Did you return Fang Wei’s call yesterday?” I simply asked, poker faced, ignoring the aches, as I faced my issues.
He was clearly caught off guard; I could see the sudden-nervous twirling of the pen he had at hand.
“What do you mean?” he began, buying time to construct mentally where he may head in this conversation.
Fundamentally, he remained dull.
“I mean, are you in touch with Fang Wei? I saw her call on your phone yesterday,” I repeated myself.
“Look, let us talk about work first, OK?” Yes, he was in touch with her; it was apparent by the way he shifted into a crooked posture into his chair, and the way he did not want to talk about it.
“Work is simple, I don’t support the passing of audit that you are proposing,” it was an impulsive outburst, with images of Fang Wei weeping on Georgy’s shoulder fuelling the anger that melded in the ache that my head regressed further into.
“If that is your choice, then we will have to let you go,” his eyes hardened, like when tying oneself to a resolve of decisive, yet unpalatable action. He placed a large envelope on the table, “This has the terms of separation that we propose, and a cheque of severance that accounts for your years of service, unutilised leave etc. Really sorry it has to be this way,” he made good on the threats that he had delivered on the previous day. “It does not have to be this way, but it is your decision. If you do not uphold and support the larger cause of our long term business, then we will have little choice in this matter.”
I took the envelope and reached inside, looking for the cheque, which I found to be substantial. The rest of the documents were straight, crafted agreements of severance, simply needing my signatures ensuring I was bound to the confidentiality of audits I had been involved in over the years past.
“Got a pen?” I looked up and asked Georgy.
I could make out he was surprised, not expecting me to accept the end so soon.
When I look back, I too am surprised by the ease with which I gave up my career, comprehendible only in the background of larger losses - my family. Only in that light can one understand my urge to give the remainder up too. I did not want to thrash about, preserving and grabbing at the remainder of divisible loss. Instead, I craved grace, allowing my losses to pile, and hopefully remaining stoic through them. In other words, I was giving up.
“Don’t do it man. Please, you know it is the wrong decision,” he was sympathetic. It was I who became adamant, wanting to throw to the wind what remained. Suddenly an imaginary gale ripped everything off me, my past and all of my present, leaving me cleansed to write afresh upon my restored consciousness.
“It’s OK, maybe it is better this way,” I had signed the papers with a pen that I found on me, my head throbbing as if a freight train was thundering through it.
One stroke of the pen, the deposition of devices and cards, and I was left loosening knots in the elevator shaft, plummeting away from a life that I would barely look back upon through the roller coaster years with Miho and Thuy Binh ahead of me. The future where I was headed, my past life paled in insipidity, though the loss of Li Ya defined both my lives; it defined all the crimes that got committed, as you shall see.
In the train, voices of school kids buzzed around me with talks of quizzes and grades. I did not sit down since I assumed all seats were taken; it took me a few months before I settled down, before I joined the ‘day people’. People who don’t crowd trains at rush hour, they are of the same average age as the ‘rushed ones’, except they are distributed awkwardly in years, well away from the median. The old ones carry bags by their side, walking slowly as they block entire passageways with uncertain strides and their width of baggage. Kids, they walk abreast, giggling, leaving me to nudge forward in compliant ‘excuses’ towards the bus stop from where I would be carried away. At the bus stop, the old folks and the kids catch up and we board the same buses that I had hurried towards, thinking I was getting ahead. The day people, they greet and chat-up the bus captain, who rides unhurriedly in smiles. When I reach my stop, I hurry towards the traffic island, waiting for lights to change, as the ‘day people’ catch up again, soon waiting alongside.
I stopped at the tuck shop, exchanged ‘hellos’, and to the keeper’s surprise, bought a bottle of liquor. Surprise, since I passed up the good stuff, settling for local brew. Singapore is safe and I bought it with confidence, avoiding his friendly questions, smiling. Back at my apartment, I lay down in my boxers with a bottle’o whiskey beside me. Cheap stuff, it still has alcohol.
Before I got too drunk, after about a half bottle, I masturbated, my thoughts roaming in the fleeting flesh of desire, knowing not that I was to get what I most desired, stoned-slow-safe-rhythmic sex, with a one who moaned in the inner world of her own pleasure, flowing from hallucinations, attributable to me who thrust deep, making real the world of fantasy. Such is the world of drugs, measured drugs, allowing one to close eyes in the pleasure of music or whatever it is that gives us pleasure. It is alcohol which makes the closing and resting of eyes horrific, keeping the entire torso turning and twisting till one vomits.
I ha
te drugs and alcohol. They don’t.
Without employment, time stood before me and I noticed its stillness all about the household, with just me and the bottle in bed. The alcohol that afternoon pushed me towards the torrent of grief that was soon flooding down the plains of my face. The tears of alcohol were empty, like when you drink enough for any theme of life to open the sluice of sorrow. In the empty house, from Li Ya’s room, every now and then I thought I heard her voice, “Give me it”. Kids, they have a way of learning languages with distortion. In Li Ya’s case, she said that for years. “Give me it,” instead of “Give it to me.” We would laugh playfully with her, repeating, “Give me it, it, it ,it,” and then we invented games around which one among the three of us could say “it it it,” three times, no more, and when said quickly enough, it would be like saying a single “it”. We let Li Ya win, letting her know that she had the fastest it-it-it in town. “Give me it” echoed all afternoon, as I cried.
The alcohol and the pills, they kept me in bed for the rest of the day and in the intermittent patches of consciousness, masturbation happened before I simply reached for more pills and the vile liquid from another bottle of liquor, which I purchased before the shops closed for the night.
All morning, I lay on the sofa, physically shattered from the excesses of the previous day, almost sleeping through the visit of Fang Wei who caught me just as she had wanted to, passed out on the couch.
She simply collected most of her stuff and left, just as I was coming around and murmuring “Wait, wait…”
Lost in Pattaya Page 5
