It is important for children from broken families to hate and loathe their parents; it then leads them to the pleasure and satisfaction of building complete lives for themselves. That hating had never surfaced in Li Ya, at least not towards me. Miho would have detailed the mystique and completeness of my life to Li Ya, through calls and emails, making me the role model, a role that should be taken up only by a father who remains with his family. Li Ya would have arranged the bits about her strange Pattaya holiday, piecing together the picture of Fang Wei’s deceit over time, making me the victim whom she was drawn towards, first with pity and them idolatry.
The moves were left for me to make, from the Inn that afternoon. Call Kawai, cut an arrangement of delivering Miho in exchange for Li Ya. Straightforward, except that it undermined the evolution of Miho’s thinking; she would cross the possibility of me handing her over to Kawai with a sword of harm placed right above Li Ya.
On the other hand, I could call Fang Wei and Georgy, asking them to intervene and help get Li Ya back. Logical, except that they would get too much force from the authorities in Singapore deployed, making the gangsters twitchy and prone to crude resorts.
The option of simply walking away from the situation, it too was plausible. Li Ya would look for me, get frightened and uneasy in a few days, and finally take the flight out of Bangkok.
Eventually, I chose a completely different path, picking the phone up and calling Inspector Aziz instead.
Part 4
Sins of the Mekong
Inspector Abdul Aziz from the Thai police force and I, we knew each other well, but we had never found a reason to see another. I knew of him from Thuy Binh, since he acted as the conduit of money and information from our undergrowth through to the world above, like a light-shaft into the world of governance and law.
Aziz dealt with us on their behalf, ensuring there were no authoritarian surprises when it came to the management of prostitution. It was not very different from any other business that paid its due share of taxes, just that in our case we could measure the returns that we got from our payments. It was not uncommon for us to prioritise upgradation of infrastructure, like road works and sewage, over other neighbourhoods in the city. Conversely, it was not uncommon for Aziz to demand a bit more than the agreed rates every now and then, depending on the overall financial deficits of the city. Through the Asian financial crisis, the prostitution ring had saved the city from bankruptcy, a debt no government could recognise, yet debts no subsequent government ignored. Inside the police force, not many would know of Aziz’s existence and role. In fact, if he himself got in a jam it would take him considerable effort and time to convince and prove that he was a part of the force that stood on the side of Thai law. He operated truly under cover, often remaining cut away from the force for months at end, taking orders from trusted emissaries, once in a while, when the need to communicate upwards arose. When he did feel the need for messages, he could reach levels of authority that ordinary policemen would take weeks to simply explain.
I hope you have gathered that Aziz was not a corrupt man; he was simply required, to ensure that a city ran smoothly through good and bad times. Aziz never promised any of us protection, he simply made a vow of smooth governance, of which public-opinion was paramount. In fact, irrespective of the bribes, he demanded that our work be peaceful, conducted in a manner undisruptive of day to day rhythm. In some sense, like any policeman, he did ensure that the city and its residents remain in peace. When Thuy Binh’s and Kawai’s clashes had spilled out on to the streets a decade ago, it was he who had intervened, mediating with a threat of armed force if the street violence did not end.
When I called him, he seemed unsurprised by my call.
“Mr. Palash Mitra, I was waiting to hear from you,” his voice came crystal. I imagined a plain clothed, undercover, ordinary looking policeman on the far end of the line.
“Inspector Aziz I need your help,” I said.
“You mustn’t ask for help without a proper introduction, even if we know who we are. It is not elegant. Anyway, I can’t talk on this phone line. I am in Bangkok, we can talk in person, maybe you will be more polite when we meet,” he said, and it struck me, it was barely a few hours before I wanted to put my plan into action, politeness was as distant to me as dry-land maybe to a drowning man.
“Lumphini park, near the reclining Budha, in about half an hour, can you make it?” I asked him.
“Yes I can,” he hung up.
As I walked to the park, again, it hit me that he probably knew how I looked, and I was right since we did not have any trouble meeting one another.
“Mr. Mitra, I know you have not been too well lately, do you have any coke?” he asked, strolling alongside me. He was short, in a grey tucked out bush shirt, and a well used navy blue trouser. His eyes were a bit slanted; he was wheatish in complexion, like Thai Muslims are.
I handed him some of my coke, comforted, like when one finds a likeminded friend, to share a bad habit with.
“What are you planning on?” he asked, after he was done getting flashed. I needed no explanations, he was on top of the happenings around me.
“I just want to rescue her, and, I am sorry I am coming to the point without the politeness which I know you will excuse, since I am desperate,” I said, pausing, wanting to know how much of me Aziz already knew.
“Whom do you want to rescue? Your daughter or your mistress, Thuy Binh,” he asked, still strolling, pointing up at a blue-breasted kingfisher as it swooped over the surface of the lake, his fingers followed the bird as it dove into the water, till it emerged fishless, to his disappointment.
“My daughter,” I simply said.
“Good, because it is probably impossible for us to rescue Thuy Binh,” he said, his expression falling, like when a bad thought clouds a good trip.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“She is the past now, she has been captive with Kawai for a few days, ravaged and left to die, well beyond the extreme of physical and mental torture that the most fecund deprivations can inflict. I am sorry; I know you were close to her. She was a good woman, and I respected her, but there is little that can be done now,” he said, arresting his stroll to finish his sentence, suddenly turning and facing me, respectfully touching my shoulder as if in consolation. Aziz, he turned out to be a good man.
How could Thuy Binh rise to rule over the men that had raped and ravaged her? She could not, not without help.
“Look I just want to get my daughter out of this mess and back to her mother,” I said, hiding my concern and love for Thuy Binh, wanting Aziz to focus on the matter at hand, the rescue of Li Ya.
After hearing me, he was reluctant to get involved, let alone help. Not that my demands were beyond the capacity of his actions, just that they did not fit well in the schemes that accommodated Aziz. With Aziz, emotional persuasions were useless; he was too hardened by a life of crime to be melted by a father wanting to reunite a daughter with her mother. Aziz found it only amusing that I had called him for this trivial chore. In the end, what swayed him was the money that I gave him, right there from my bag, and the promise of more for his help that evening. With the proposed trade, the need for politeness quickly disappeared. He pocketed the money with a slight smile to his lips and a faint frown on the breath that escaped his nose.
“Mr. Mitra, you may appreciate that I don’t contact many people who actually know who I am, and, when I do, it is usually business. I will do what you want me to but I insist that you take this money back, it will make me happy,” he handed back the wad of notes to me, and I felt small, not having been polite and friendly with him earlier. He decided to help me simply for his own pleasure.
Years on, this point of my life became the defining moment. Had Aziz got offended and walked away, all would be lost.
If my plot closed as planned, it would probably set right the botch of my entire lifetime. Not that our lifetime matters, but that the blame we pile upon oursel
ves is lessened.
When the light in the sky began to fade, I traced my steps through the dim sparkle of Patpong awaking in the early evening. The whores and the lady-boys were arranging themselves for the night ahead and a few smiled at me, waving me into the dark holes and bars in the streets, almost as practice calls for the night ahead.
At the end of the street, the temple was ordinary with a large statue for the reverent to bow and pray to. I looked around, did not see them, took off my shoes and stepped into the temple. I prayed an awkward ugly prayer since I could not recall any of the prayers that I had learnt as a child. It frustrated me, to stumble and stutter along in my mind as I tried to recollect what at one point had been committed to memory. It was symptomatic of my life, the inability to build continuously till the monument of satisfaction is reached towards the twilight years. My years were just starts and stops with no equity of industry to look back upon in these advancing years. The empty passage of my life, I prayed a half prayer for myself to be forgiven by me, absolved for doing nothing in a lifetime.
The prayer was an involuntary mental diversion. The purpose of entering the temple was to be visible enough to Miho, so she knew I was here to collect my daughter. When I turned and slipped my shoes on, a little boy tugged at my shirt and pointed them out, Miho and Li Ya standing at the edge of the street, hidden well from me had the boy not come to my aid.
When I walked towards them, they began moving away, coming to a stop after about twenty meters, settling in the high chairs of a dingy bar, straight across from the temple of my failed prayers.
As I sat down I fingered the empty edges of Kawai’s strange visiting card, circling with my fingertips the vacant gap left where I had torn the SIM card out, placing it in an old cell phone, not turning it on yet.
Li Ya was stoned, placing large expensive shopping bags on the floor of the dirty bar, peering through her sunglasses wanting to hide her red swollen eyes, from me.
“How are you Li Ya?” I asked.
“Fine dad, I hope I did not cause you any anxiety. I called mom too, I told her that I am not heading to the Gold-Coast with them. I am gonna stay here, joining them when they fly back home,” she said, her head bent, since she knew it was not an acceptable recourse and I knew it would have left Fang Wei and Georgy distraught, probably shattered enough to cancel their trip. They would imagine her with me and my life of excess, wanting to keep their daughter away from me, rightfully. They could never imagine what Miho was capable of, as regards excesses of living went.
“Okay, it is good that you called them. They would have worried for you,” I said, even toned, hiding my disappointment in her damaged juvenile decisions.
“Remember, when you were a kid, we used pray at this time of the evening, on weekends when we visited the temple?” I put my plans in action, a bit uncertain since I myself had forgotten the verses which at one time I had tried nailing assiduously into my child’s memory, in a language that we both barely understood. I should have dwelt instead on the purport of the prayer and its translation into living actions.
“Yes I remember,” she trailed off.
“Go to that temple there and say your prayers, for me, it will make me calm,” I asked Li Ya.
“Dad, please,” she lamented softly, in the mild meaningless protests that kids reserve as responses to any paternal instructions. Then she looked at Miho for approval, which she got with a gentle nod of the head. “Ok I will go and pray at the temple,” Li Ya rose from the high chair and moved towards the temple. From where I sat I could see her, moving languidly, even though I was looking at Miho who was seated facing me, with her back towards the receding figure of Li Ya. I had planned it such, being able to converse with Miho while I observed the unfolding of my plan and the efficiency with which my volunteer, Aziz, executed my wishes.
“She is mine now,” Miho said, sipping from the golden iced tea that the topless waitress brought for us.
“No, she was always yours, from the moment she left my side in Pattaya as a child. You became her everything from that moment on,” I replied, not really building logic or moving to any destination with this conversation. I was just buying time so I could observe what was happening behind Miho in the background. On the street, I saw Aziz, trailing Li Ya, walking about seven metres behind her. It was mostly dark by now, yet I could make out the bulge of the sidearm and the switch blade that he was carrying on him.
“Do you think we are even now?” I meant Miho having had sex with my daughter as vengeance against me, the instrument of Thuy Binh’s betrayal, at least in her eyes. In my eyes, it was silly at my age to think about sex with any one as a sign of belonging together for a lifetime. Not to say that promiscuity is my motto, it isn’t, but to enjoy a respectful physical union that completed both individuals’ desire, that is elegance; and I thought Miho to be childlike in her possessiveness over her lover, more so since both had risen from the gutters of whoredom.
I could not see them, but in my mind I was counting the steps that Aziz was taking towards the temple and on my wrist watch I was measuring the time we had agreed upon, the time it would take to finally abduct Li Ya. In my pocket I fiddled with the power button of the mobile phone in which I had housed the SIM from the strange visiting card.
“Do I think we are even now? No I don’t. In any case, Li Ya and I were in love since many years back. It was just that I respected my marriage to Thuy Binh, like any honest couple should do without betraying another,” she said, self-confidence from a youth’s pillar of un-shattered principles exuded her words. Age leaves all our principles compromised, and us, damaged; hence it is best for us not to prescribe any mantras to our youth, it will only damage them before their time. Let them make their own mistakes, they don’t need our help.
I have to say that I was grateful to Miho for not succumbing to her lust for Li Ya when they were on the diving expedition, grateful for her restraint, even though it was rooted in the baseless arguments of nuptial loyalty towards another woman. A life time, it is too short to love a person, but, having sex with only that person for a lifetime is another matter. At the back of my mind, I imagined Miho and Thuy Binh arranging for their own selves a ceremony of marriage, meant to lock and seal the relationship of lovers, ensuring they were committed, rather condemned and knotted together, even after time dimmed and eventually killed the flame. Ridiculous it must have been, like all marriage ceremonies are, and will be.
“Miho, I owe you a lot, and I am sorry, since I meant not to hurt you in any way. Here is the surprising part, I don’t even love Thuy Binh, no more or no less, before or after whatever it is that you saw on the Yacht. If you will forgive me I will be grateful. I just want my little girl not to be a part of our world. Let her go, please,” I said; ready to plead if the need arose, searching in vain for any softening of her eyes. I was ready too, to power the cell phone on with a slight depressing of my forefinger.
“I can’t do that, even if I wanted to, we got married this morning,” she said, looking deadpan, up at me, still swallowing what she had sipped.
“Stoned marriages are lovely bar-stories, I mean Bangkok is the Vegas of the East,” I laughed out loud; it was a false forced laughter. Inside, I was wrenched, imagining my under-age child marrying a dyke in the shattered logic of coke. They would have rushed back to enjoy the pleasures of touch, the first one after a marriage, as if finally legitimate, like honey from the moon.
“Palash, the Lord has been the witness to our conjugation. I will not take lightly you talking that way about my partner,” she became sombre, and I began giving up on her.
I gave up on arguing the reason that I wanted Miho to see, untangling the convoluted ball of love and revenge that had proportioned large in her mind. It was apparent, she was beyond counsel and I only dithered momentarily before I condemned her.
“Miho, you are a child and I can only warn you, please don’t do this. The lord will forgive you for having divorced a child straight after marriage. Go to P
attaya, and claim your kingdom, you will be the pearl of Pattaya,” I delivered my caveat, glancing at my watch, assured, it had ticked past the fifteen minute mark that me and Aziz had agreed upon, before we played my next move.
“Fuck you, I would have killed you, had you not been my relative,” she said, looking at her wrist watch, a gaudy fake Casio, knowing well that Li Ya was not penitent enough to spend this amount of time kneeling in contemplation before the Lord.
It struck me then, other than Li Ya, I had no relatives whom I thought of as mine.
Miho was beyond counsel and too far down the road for turning back, so, I pressed the power button on the mobile phone, the same one that would alert Kawai, the prince of Bangkok. I had only guessed that the SIM was traceable with geo-position trackers, alerting him to the latitude of the victim he targeted. I imagined a printing press, pressing out visiting cards, clamped in complicity with the mobile service provider of Bangkok. I slipped the phone into the shopping bags on the floor.
“I need to pee,” I said, getting up and moving towards the toilets, which were outside. It was easy melting into the crowd since the streets were packed with people, mostly tourists soaking in the famous night life of Bangkok. Walking past the temple, I was relieved to see that Aziz and Li Ya were not in sight. As planned, I moved towards the row of taxis, got into the one at the head of the queue, and declared my destination after I was seated and sealed in the icy cab “Suvarnabhumi Airport Terminal 1.”
Lost in Pattaya Page 13
