Mrs. Pollifax and the Golden Triangle

by Dorothy Gilman

  His sigh was that of a man goaded beyond endurance by fools. "I don't need guides," he told her coldly, "I've trekked in these mountains before, with and without them." He added hastily, "I'm a photojournalism Is it due to you that I've been waked up and dragged here? What are you doing here?"

  Bonchoo, beside her, murmured, "Deliver me from journalists!"

  Mrs. Pollifax said curtly, "I've already introduced myself. This is Bonchoo, and the headman next to him is Nouvak, and the men you called savages were being extremely kind and looking for my husband, who is lost."

  "Lost?" Mornajay's glance raked Bonchoo. "Can't say much for your guide, then." To Bonchoo he said, "Very poor judgment, allowing a client to wander off, isn't it?" Turning back to Mrs. Pollifax, he said, "I suppose you're on one of those Jungle Treks they advertise, but I think you ought to be told that your guide has very unwisely taken you much too far off the beaten track and into quite dangerous territory."

  Bonchoo and Mrs. Pollifax exchanged glances and said nothing.

  "Is this a Meo village?" he asked, looking around him.

  "Akha," she said. "As Nouvak can tell you."

  "I assume he doesn't speak English?"

  Mrs. Pollifax enjoyed replying to this; very sweetly she said, "Actually he speaks it very well."

  Mornajay had the grace to look embarrassed. Extending a hand to Nouvak he said gruffy, "Apologies to you then. I can only tell you it was a great shock to be waked out of my sleep by strange men with guns. Damn alarming, too."

  He had a point there, conceded Mrs. Pollifax, and decided to forgive his rajahlike attitude, and his reference to savages, but still she could not like him and there was a strong feeling that he was not apologetic at all but only doing what was expedient.

  "Now if no one minds—if I can finally sleep" he said curtly, "1 will spread my sleeping bag out on the ground here, and get on with my sleep, for I want to get a very early start in the morning."

  "Where are you heading?" asked Bonchoo.

  He received no answer. Nouvak had called to someone in the shadows and was speaking now to the gnarled little man who had escorted them to the village. To Mornajay he said, "Lipha gives space to you for sleep in his house."

  Tightlipped, Mornajay picked up his sleeping bag, nodded coldly to them and strode down the compound with Lipha. His departure brought silence. The charcoal fire was dying, and the night air growing cool. Several of the men turned and left, the children smiled happily at Mrs. Pollifax and one of them came up to her and touched her sleeve to smile shyly into her face. "Goodnight," called Mrs. Pollifax, as they left with their mothers. Apha came up and touched her arm, her eyes huge, shy and warm, and Mrs. Pollifax followed her inside to the women's side of the house, where Apha pointed to a bowl of water in which Mrs. Pollifax washed her face. She then crossed to the men's side, where Nouvak pointed to a bark-hide mat near the door.

  Gingerly Mrs. Pollifax lay down and arranged her tired muscles; it was not so hard a floor as she'd expected, being of flexible bamboo. Dismissing a longing to brush her teeth and climb into pajamas, she thought instead about their long day, about Cyrus, about Bonchoo, about the two Shan naklengs and Mornajay, but mostly she thought about Cyrus. She remembered that after marrying Cyrus there had come moments during the first month when she had acutely missed her old life, the small apartment in the middle of a city, her Garden Club friends and even Miss Hartshorne, whose managerial tendencies had once terrified her, and then one day she'd understood that Cyrus was missing old rituals, too, and they had talked of it, and after that she'd stopped looking back and had entered the present and stayed there happily. Now, lying on her woven straw mat, she could no longer imagine a life without him, and she had to face the fact that he might not be found. Bonchoo had explained his remark to Mornajay about journalists by saying that in the past several years some thirty journalists had been killed by violence in these mountains; people could simply disappear without a trace. Cyrus didn't speak Thai, he had no means of explaining either his innocence or his identity and she could see that English was not frequently spoken here.

  She sighed and tried instead to think of Mornajay. She decided that her predominant feeling about Mornajay was embarrassment that he could be so pompous and rude. Like a bandit he had robbed the village of dignity with his comment about savages... savages indeed, she sniffed, and wondered what he was doing in these remote mountains. She wondered, too, what another day would bring. The night was filled with noises: a pig grunted, dogs barked, the bamboo walls creaked and from the jungle came the shrilling of cicadas. She hoped that she wasn't going to be too tired to sleep, and turning over, she began counting backward from twenty, very slowly; before she reached eight she had drifted into an uneasy, restless sleep.

  It was still dark when she jerked awake: the men were dark sleeping shapes around her but on the other side of the partition the women were stirring. Mrs. Pollifax's eyes closed, she slept again and when she awoke the whole village had come to life: women were calling to one another, dogs barking, she could smell the woodsmoke of many fires, and from the kitchen came the murmur of voices. On this side of the partition only Bonchoo remained; he was sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

  "Well, Bonchoo," she said.

  "Yai—we are still here," he said ruefully. "I hoped if I rubbed my eyes it would all go away." He rose and peered around the partition. "Ah—breakfast!"

  Once again Mrs. Pollifax arranged herself cross-legged on the floor and ate from the rice bowl, forming rice into balls that she now expertly tucked into her mouth and swallowed; there were also pickled greens and a refreshing tea. They had just finished when Nouvak appeared, ushering in a young boy of thirteen or fourteen. Both carried long thin muskets.

  "Ami," Nouvak said, pointing to him. "He goes to show trail, I borrow him to you."

  Ami smiled and nodded cheerfully. He, too, wore the game bag over his shoulder, but jauntily, with a machete tucked into his belt and the long pencil-thin musket over his shoulder. His face was round and very dark, his eyes lustrous and his black hair curly.

  Strolling outside, Mrs. Pollifax blinked at the liveliness of the compound, at women at work pounding and sifting rice, weaving, bringing in pails of water, all of them in the curious headdresses that Nouvak explained were called u coe. The women glanced up and smiled, as if the memory of the evening lingered and still occupied them. She had supposed that Mornajay had long since left—it was already seven o'clock—but there he was, striding down the compound, looking incredibly immaculate still.

  "Not gone yet?" he said amiably. "Where are you heading today?"

  "West," Bonchoo said.

  "West!" Mornajay's eyes narrowed. "That's pretty tricky territory. Did you check it out first with the Thai patrol for insurgents?"

  Mrs. Pollifax said politely, "I have to remind you that we're looking for my husband. Did you check with the Bonier Patrol?"

  "Of course not, they'd have insisted on an escort, which would be tedious and—in my case—unnecessary."

  She looked at him curiously. "We're searching for a man, what are you looking for, Mr. Mornajay?"

  He hesitated for just an instant. "For a lost monastery."

  "A what?"

  He said firmly, "A lost monastery. I told you I'm a photojournalist. When not on news assignment I'm putting together a book of photographs of Thailand's temples, chedis, shrines, with accompanying text on the Khmer influence, the Indian influence, et cetera. It would be a tremendous feather in my cap to find and photograph a centuries-old monastery no one else has seen."

  Bonchoo said, "What makes you think there is one?"

  "Oh, my good man," he said chidingly, "how does one learn anything? Scholarly research... a reference in an old manuscript, a chance meeting with a Border Patrol chap who claimed to have stumbled across it in the jungle. It would probably date back to the mid-thirteenth century when Burma was dominant, and when Buddhist monks moved freely back and forth between Ava in Burma and Chia
ng Mai in Thailand. That would predate the Mangrai's reign, no less! I really must find and photograph it."

  Mrs. Pollifax thought it a pity that his personality tended to be so abrasive because she could admire his enthusiasm. Seeing that Nouvak hadn't understood, Bonchoo turned to him and described what Mornajay had been talking about; she thought Bonchoo looked amused but she was startled when the headman threw back his head and laughed. A small suspicion entered her mind that both of them knew already of the monastery but she tucked the thought away for the moment. "It's time we go, isn't it?" she asked. "Is Anu ready?"

  "Ami?" repeated Mornajay. "Who's that?"

  "Our guide."

  Mornajay looked startled. "I thought he was your guide." He pointed to Bonchoo.

  "No," said Mrs. Pollifax gently, "Bonchoo is a friend, not a guide. Now if you'll excuse us—" She drew Bonchoo aside. "What do we owe them for their hospitality and for their lending us Ami, Bonchoo? I'm so grateful, I'd give them too much."

  He suggested a sum and she pressed the money into his hand, but still it did not feel enough to her, and while Bonchoo dealt with paying Nouvak she went off to find Apha. She found her pouring mash into a trough, surrounded by piglets.

  "Apha," she said. The woman looked up, smiling her shy mysterious smile, and Mrs. Pollifax wished with sudden devoutness that she could ask her what she was thinking and feeling, what lay behind that sensitive worn face, what it was like for her, an Akha woman in this remote village living the Akha way. Wanting to give her something personal, she groped in her purse and brought out her pocket mirror, the cluster of large safety pins that she carried for emergencies and a lipstick.

  Apha looked at them and then at Mrs. Pollifax. She reached out, drew her hand back, looked again into Mrs. Pollifax's face and then as her fingers curled around the gifts her mouth curved into a joyous, radiant smile, she murmured excited words and ran into the house. Mrs. Pollifax called after her, "Goodbye!" and went back to find Bonchoo.

  Mornajay was still in conversation with Bonchoo. Seeing her, he said, "Since you're heading west and have a guide I trust you won't mind if I accompany you for a few miles?"

  She was not surprised, she had wondered only if he would ask politely or simply announce his intentions. She said amiably, "If it's all right with Bonchoo and Anu. You've given Nouvak the money?" she asked, turning to him.

  "It is done."

  As they turned to leave, Apha ran out of the house holding something that she pushed into Mrs. Pollifax's hand.

  "It's a present," Bonchoo said. "She made it herself, she wants you to have it."

  Now it was Mrs. Pollifax's turn to smile shyly and to stumble over words that were all the more fervent because she had never seen anything like what was being given to her: it was a necklace made of black seeds and white shells interspersed with pear-shaped brown gourds and bright red feathers, all strung together on a cord. Without regard for any custom or taboo that she might violate she gave Apha a warm hug. "Tell her," she asked of Bonchoo, "that I will always cherish this, it's lovely. And may her spirits of the forest be with her."

  Bonchoo translated this for her and then said crisply, "We go!"

  Mrs. Pollifax looked back only once at the cluster of dusty huts still wreathed in mountain mist. Smoke rose lazily from the kitchens; the boys and men were leaving to hunt or to work their distant fields, the women would cook and weave and spin and husk rice and carry water and firewood and welcome the men back at dusk. Everyone had a place, and work to do, she thought, with rules to live by and a tribal culture to guard and share. She would not forget: one day, perhaps while tending her geraniums at home she would remember Apha and the simple harmony in which she lived, but remembering home was to wonder with a stab of apprehension if Cyrus would be there with her when she reached it...

  They passed the guardian gate, crossed a field of stubble and then Anu led them to a narrow trail that entered the forest, and they were returned to that very different universe of the jungle.

  Some half a mile farther they came out on the crest of a hill and Bonchoo stopped, pointing. Drawing up beside him, Mrs. Pollifax caught her breath at what lay below them: from this vantage point, this small clearing, the hills slanted away and down like a cover of green corduroy tossed over the rounded knobs of earth and graceful hills, dipping, rising, falling until, far below, the forest reached a valley that lay at the base like the bottom of a cup. She saw, miles below them, a thread of road, a cluster of tiny roofs shining in the sun and all around them the uninterrupted sloping walls of green.

  Hearing a click behind her, she turned and saw Mornajay taking a photograph. He lowered his camera, frowned over it, adjusted something and took another photo. "Marvelous specimen of Bambus vulgaris," he said.

  "Where are we now?" she asked, turning to Bonchoo.

  "Very high," he said. "Not just high in the mountains but on your map we are now very close to the top corner of my country. Over there is Tanen Range," he added, pointing, "and over there is Burma. Not far."

  "You know," she said, looking into his face, "you speak very good English. Do all—uh—smugglers speak it so well?"

  He grinned. "Would you believe I study two years at Thammasat University on scholarship when I am a young man? Five children and a wife ago—that long!"

  She was surprised, and started to speak, but Anu was waiting and Mornajay had put aside his camera to join them. They continued walking, leaving Mrs. Pollifax to consider just how a student in a Bangkok university might become—rive children and a wife later—a smuggler of teak in northern Thailand. This thought occupied her as the trail dropped away from the ridge and they entered deep forest again, the trees closing in on them, the air growing humid. A rattling of palms startled her, followed by a harsh and raucous scream and a flash of brown and yellow among the trees.

  "Nohk koon fawng!" called Bonchoo cheerfully. "Speaking bird."

  "Genus Acridotheres, one of your Asiatic starlings," Mornajay announced authoritatively. "You would probably call it a mynah."

  "Probably," said Mrs. Pollifax and turned her head to glance at Mornajay curiously.

  "We should also see some Luscinia Golzii, or at the very least a member of the pycnonotidae family called the crested bulbul," he added pleasantly.

  "How nice," she murmured and turned back to the trail. The freshness of their morning's start was beginning to diminish as yesterday's overextended muscles resumed their protest. They walked in single file along the narrow trail, Anu in the lead, Bonchoo, then herself, followed by Mornajay. Her quick glance behind her had shown him to be tireless and she began to resent the pressure of his pace behind her. Bonchoo, she thought, at least had the grace to pant occasionally after negotiating a steep hill but Mornajay hiked uphill with ease and she wondered if he would either pant or sweat, and doubted either. He was, she thought crossly, as inviolate as the knife-edge creases on his khaki slacks; he was probably accustomed to lifting weights each morning or to jogging, a thought especially obnoxious to her because after each steep ascent she worried as to how Cyrus was managing them. If he remained ahead ...If...

  The trail leveled out; they passed massive teak trees, five and six feet in girth and rising beyond her vision into the sky; bamboos with marvelous fronds at the top, like dust mops; clumps of pampas grass, tall, soft and pale as dandelion fluff, and almost always the palms, rustling secretively as if in conversation among themselves. Her antenna went out to absorb it, her eyes beginning to mark its variety and the infinite patterns that yesterday had struck her as monotonous.

  Behind her Mornajay had stopped again; she heard the click of his camera as a brilliant-colored parrot flew away. He said with satisfaction, "Genus Acridotheres, a zygodactyl, order of Psittaciformes."

  This time Mrs. Pollifax felt deeply and peevishly annoyed, and would have replied tartly if Ami had not held up a hand, muttering several words to Bonchoo.

  "Border Patrol coming," Bonchoo said.

  Once again they plunge
d through the underbrush, crawling under and over vines, Mrs. Pollifax feeling considerable satisfaction at seeing Mornajay crawl on hands and knees in his immaculate clothes. Up among the tree-tops a mynah bird squawked and flew away, and a subtle hush came over the jungle. She too heard it now, the thud of feet clad in boots filling the corridor of the trail. A line of men came into view, walking quickly in single file, wearing dull green camouflage uniforms and berets, guns slung across shoulders, ammunition belts thickening their waists. So young, thought Mrs. Pollifax, looking into their faces, and quickly looked away lest they feel her glance and peer in among the screen of vines and branches. She thought, Those are police or soldiers, I ought to rush out and stop them, I should be telling them about Cyrus, demanding they find him. I should be—ought to be— Why am I sitting here watching them silently pass?

  She sat.

  To anyone looking for Wen Sa's men, she realized, these dozen soldiers passing by were the enemy, a thought that shocked her with its cruelty. She was under hill-country law now, in territory where soldiers patrolled in the safety of groups, where the click of Mornajay's camera could just as easily be the click of a safety catch from a concealed gun and where Akha boys and smugglers of teak hid themselves at the approach of the military, just as Wen Sa's men would hide, too—or shoot. Bonchoo had been right in that respect: only those outside of the law had any chance—and a slim one at that—of finding Cyrus in these miles of densely packed mountains.

  The men passed; they waited. Anu at last stood up and parted the vines and they returned to the trail.