The next day the lesbian and the English boy and the boy who wanted to be a journalist went to the underground bazaar. The English boy"s jaw was still numb where Ulrich"s hand had struck him, but he hadn"t lost any teeth. In fact the incident had significantly benefited him, since Ulrich was gone and the lesbian had been very sympathetic. The boy who wanted to be a journalist permitted his jealousy to construct a proof of almost geometric rigor that the English boy had planned it. It was true that the English boy"s thoughts, at least as he had expressed them, seemed to possess little shape or divisibility, but that might well be simply a manifestation of the English boy"s cunning. In short, the lesbian and the English boy were now holding hands. Maybe the lesbian wasn"t a lesbian after all.
17.
Nonetheless, he felt a very strange sense of well-being. The lesbian and the English boy were away at the Turkish baths. He went to visit the hotel clerk, a dark-skinned boy who always smiled. Since the trip was almost over, and the boy who wanted to be a journalist could not possibly use up all his Swiss cereal, he gave the clerk some. The clerk didn"t know what it was at first, but when the boy who wanted to be a journalist ate a handful as a demonstration of its gustatory powers, the clerk also tried a taste. His eyes widened. Then he got out his flute and played a song for glee. He beckoned the other boy to the counter and pointed to his lips to show that he had something he wanted to say. He patted his cheek. Then he got out his Turkish-English dictionary. He searched for the words for a long time. Finally he frowned, mouthed something to himself as though he were rehearsing it, and then his forehead smoothed and he patted the boy who wanted to be a journalist"s shoulder and smiled delightedly and said: I - love - you . . .
18.
He went outside to take his pill, and Ulrich found him. Ulrich"s palms were lacerated and gritty with fragments of gla.s.s. Ulrich said: Because I kill my father, you know. In 1972. That doctor you cry for, he was just a little b.a.s.t.a.r.d. But my father was SS. He was the peak. He was good enough to die at my hands . . .
Do you love your father? said the boy who wanted to be a journalist. I need to know what love means.
Love? said Ulrich. Why not love? You tell me this now, you want to know what love means. Who do you love?
n.o.body.
Ah, then no more pills for you, my poor American. You love no one? No one? Good! You are the peak. You and I, we know what love means . . .
And he began to applaud, slamming his great grey hands together until the blood and gla.s.s shivered out - One obvious question concerning the ultimate reproductive success of males is whether it is better for a male to invest all of his sperm in a single female or else to copulate with several females.
Bert Holldobler and Edward O.Wilson, The Ants (1990).
1.
Once upon a time a journalist and a photographer set out to wh.o.r.e their way across Asia. They got a New York magazine to pay for it. They each armed themselves with a tube of cool soft K-Y jelly and a box of Trojans. The photographer, who knew such essential Thai phrases as: very beautiful!, how much?, thank you and I"m gonna knock you around! (topsa-lopsa-lei), preferred the extra-strength lubricated, while the journalist selected the non-lubricated with special receptacle end. The journalist never tried the photographer"s condoms because he didn"t even use his own as much as (to be honest) he should have; but the photographer, who tried both, decided that the journalist had really made the right decision from a standpoint of friction and hence sensation; so that is the real moral of this story, and those who don"t want anything but morals need read no further. - Now that we"ve gotten good and evil out of the way, let"s spirit ourselves down (shall we?) to the two rakes" room at the Hotel Metro, Bangkok, where the photographer always put on sandals before walking on the sodden blue carpet to avoid fungus. As for the journalist, he filtered the tap water (the photographer drank bottled water; they both got sick). There was a giant beetle on the dresser. The journalist asked the bellboy if beetles made good pets. - Yes, he grinned. It was his answer to every question. - Good thing for him he doesn"t have a p.u.s.s.y, said the photographer, untying his black combat boots with a sigh, putting foot powder on; and the journalist stretched out on his squeaking bed, waiting for the first bedbug. The room reminded him of the snow-filled abandoned weather station where he"d once eked out a miserable couple of weeks at the North Magnetic Pole; everything had a more or less normal appearance, but was deadly dangerous, the danger here being not cold but disease; that was how he thought, at least, on that first sweaty super-cautious night when he still expected to use rubbers. The photographer had already bought a young lady from Soy Cowboy. In the morning she lay on the bed with parted purple-painted lips; she put her legs up restlessly.
Last night tuk-tuk fifty bhat, she said. * Come back Soy Cowboy, thirty bhat.
So you want some more money for the tuk-tuk ride, is that what you"re trying to tell me? said the photographer in disgust. Man, I don"t f.u.c.king believe it. You know she only let me do her once. And then she wanted a thousand bhat - that"s why I had to get that five hundred from you.
The woman"s teeth shone. She slapped her thigh, yawned, walked around staring with bright black eyes.
Where do you come from, sweetheart? asked the journalist, flossing his teeth.
Me Kambuja.
Cambodia?
Yes. Kambuja.
We go Kambuja, said the journalist. You come Kambuja?
* In 1991 a US dollar was worth about 25 Thai bhat, or 1,000 Cambodian riels.
No.
Why?
She grimaced in terror. - Bang, bang! she whispered.
Outside, the tuk-tuks made puffs of smog. Men huddled over a newspaper by the Honey Hotel. - You want Thai food I wait for you, she said.
Oh, that"s all right, said the photographer. You go on back to Soy Cowboy. We"ll find our way around.
You come Soy Cowboy me tonight?
Sure. Sure, honey. You just go back to Soy Cowboy and sit there and hold your breath.
You like? You like me?
Sure. Now beat it.
You come tonight I have friend she go hotel with you, the girl said to the journalist.
OK, he said. He smiled at her. She smiled and darted into a tuk-tuk.
Well, I guess we go get her and her friend tonight, right? said the journalist.
Are you crazy? said the photographer. There are thousands like her, twice as nice for half the price. She had the nerve to ask me for a thousand bhat! I"ve never paid more than five hundred before. You don"t have to give "em anything after you buy "em out. I remember one time this b.i.t.c.h kept pestering me for money; I sent her away with nothing, man. She was crying; it was GREAT!
So what did you pick her up for?
Her? She really stuck out - her long hair, her shorts up the crack of her a.s.s; I really liked that. But next time I want a big girl, man. Not one of these f.u.c.king little babies that don"t know what the h.e.l.l they"re doing.
But later he said: I felt sorry for her. Next time I pick up a girl, I won"t screw her.
2.
On the slightly tippy table visited by flies, there were four jars: one with salt, one with capers and vinegar and other things like aquarium plants, one with curry powder, and one with pickled peppers. The photographer and the journalist sat there having lunch, in the alley with colored striped sheets for awnings, and colored umbrellas over the tables. They had noodle soup with vegetables. Roof-water dripped slowly into pools on dirty glazed trestles. It was monsoon season. Motorcycles pa.s.sed slowly between the tables. The young smooth-faced vendeuses turned and sc.r.a.ped the meat in their woks, looking patient behind their gla.s.s bulwarks stacked with eggs, tomatoes, bok choy, sprouts, noodles of all kinds. The vendeuse squirted new oil into the wok, then strolled to a grating, where she reached into her ap.r.o.n and gave someone money; then she made her easy way back, just in time for the oil to bubble. A policeman came by, took out his wallet and bought ice. Water dripped onto mossy benches.
The journalist kept thinking of the hurt look in the Cambodian girl"s eyes. What to do? Nothing to do.
3.
At half past four in the afternoon, the sticky feeling of sweat between his fingers felt like fungus growing. There was an American detective video on: gunfire and smashing gla.s.s and roaring cars at maximum volume. He sat reading the Bangkok Post: "Big Five" see eye-to-eye on Khmer arms cuts. Two girls were sitting at the bar where it curved, playing a game like tic-tac-toe with poker chips in a wooden frame. Their cigarette smoke ascended the darkness of the long mirror. When a man was tortured on TV the girls looked up with interested smiles. Then they clicked the chips back into the board. More girls drifted in, filling out forms, making business calls. The whirling circles of light began to go around. A girl watched a fistfight on TV, her forefingers meeting in a steeple on her nose. A girl came in to refill the journalist"s beer gla.s.s so that the bottle could be taken away and then she could sell him the next; the web of skin between his fingers continued to stick more with each pa.s.sing moment. Another gunfight. The girls saw him grinning and grinned back. Bored with their game, they peered through the holes in the gameboard which stood on its end like a grating between them.
A white man came in, rubbing his mouth, checking his wallet, resting his arm on the table.
The smokers raised their hands to their mouths like buglers. One of the girls was playing the game of plastic counters with a white boy, and she smiled much more when she won or lost now than she had when playing the other girl. The boy put a cigarette in his mouth, and two girls" hands reached to light it for him.
Slowly, the beer receipts piled up in the journalist"s ringed teakwood cup. When a girl refilled his beer, she exhibited the utmost concentration, holding it critically to eye level.
Straight-eyebrowed faces, arch-eyebrowed faces, all gold and oval and framed by straight black hair, watched the gameboard or the TV or themselves in the pink-bordered mirror. Whenever something violent happened on TV, they looked up with calm interest.
Traffic crept outside. A police whistle shrilled steadily, then there came a sound of faraway singing or screaming; a tuk-tuk pa.s.sed slowly enough for the pa.s.sengers to watch the TV. At a quarter to six, when the next white man came in, they switched on the music for a minute, and a girl started dancing, leaning on the bar, clapping her hands. Outside, the lights were turning red and the girls were standing everywhere in s.e.xy skirts. A middle-aged midget in a double-breasted suit came down the alley, walked under one girl"s dress, reached up to pull it over him like a roof, and began to suck. The girl stood looking at nothing. When the midget was finished, he slid her panties back up and spat onto the sidewalk. Then he reached into his wallet. The music was getting louder everywhere; girls grinned gently in every doorway as the businessmen pa.s.sed, sometimes hand in hand; a girl leaned against a vegetable cart smoothing her long hair as the motorbikes pa.s.sed.
The long-haired girl in the burgundy shirt looked up from her calculator and came to put ice in the journalist"s beer.
4.
There was a bar aching with loud American music, pulsing with phosph.o.r.escent bathing suits. He picked number fourteen in blue and asked her to come with him but she thought he wanted her to dance, so she got up laughing with the other girls and turned herself lazily, awkwardly, very sweetly; she was a little plump.
You come with me? he said when he"d tipped her.
She shook her head. - I have accident, she said, pointing to her crotch.
She sat with him, nursing the drink he"d bought her; she snuggled against him very attentively, holding his hand. Whenever he looked into her face, she ducked and giggled.
You choose friend for me? he said. Anyone you want.
When you go Kambuja?
Three days.
She hesitated, but finally called over another lady. - This my friend Oy. My name Toy.
You come to hotel with me? he said to Oy.
She looked him up and down. - You want all night or short time?
All night.
No all night me. Only short time.
OK.
5.
In the back of the taxi he whispered in her ear that he was shy, and she snuggled against him just as Toy had done. She smelted like shampoo. She was very hot and gentle against him. Knowing already that if he ever glimpsed her soul it would be in just the same way that in the National Museum one can view the gold treasures only through a thick-barred cabinet, he tried to kiss her, and she turned away.
Please?
She smiled, embarra.s.sed, and turned away.
No?
She shook her head quickly.
6.