Bangkok Noir

“You cheap Charlie!” said the tall one, guessing, I suppose, that this was some kind of trick. So I pulled out my red and purple notes and gave them a whole stash in advance.

They relaxed a little, and the smaller one said, “You want, we do.”

“My wish is your command,” I said emptily. The tall one—she was lying between us now, and her legs stretched almost to the end of the bed—said she’d always wanted to be a girl. She’d always felt incomplete somehow—a broken jug, she seemed to gesture—and when she’d been very young, she’d made a promise to herself that if she ever got the chance, she’d follow her dream right through. So she saved her money and came to the city, and made more money here, and—well, now she was what she’d always wanted to be. Her story had a happy ending.

The other one, sweeter—I liked her more—said something about a “Mama” and a child, and her promise to keep them healthy by going to the big city. She’d come here and found that men weren’t very much in demand in the City of Angels. A month’s wages for a construction worker’s job would give her pennies to send home. And she’d thought of her mother waiting, her promise, and then she’d decided to take a gamble.

There was a knock on the door then. I suppose our allotted time was up, and I called back, “We’ll pay for the whole night—tomorrow, too,” and there was the sound of receding footsteps. And the girl said she’d taken her gamble. She’d passed through the mirror, and now her mother had a new house; her daughter was at school.

Then they looked at me, and I told them everything. The things I couldn’t tell my friends, the things it had been hard for me to tell even you. About Sarah, I mean, and what I learned about her after she died. What I learned about myself. What I did in the house alone, what I thought of doing. All of it: everything that had been waiting to come out for nine months—263 days. I even told them how I’d said to you, that afternoon in the park, “What I really want is a genie,” and you’d said, “You’d better go abroad. They don’t do genies in central London.”

They do, actually, now—they do everything, everywhere—but I thought that sisters know best. And then I told them about my saving my money and coming away from the city, and away from my family, towards what I knew nothing about. I suppose they were bored—it was almost light now, and we could see the colors changing through the little window, which looked out onto a wall—but they looked as if they were interested, and when I was finished, the small one leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek. The other one—Jin, she told me her name was (the smaller one was Nit)—asked me if I had a handkerchief. I gave her mine, and she brushed at her eyes a little. Something in the night had moved her.

We’d overstayed our deposit, of course, but I’m not sure that any of us wanted to go. It was cool in the room, and it was quiet; the lights made everything different. Finally the tall one said, “Go home now,” and we went down to where the street was empty, just overturned tables and rubbish in the thin grey light, and a sort of bulldozer machine that noisily went back and forth, back and forth, collecting all the relics of the night. It was like coming back to something real after a night in a very different country

The girls took me to a tuk-tuk, one of these fourwheeled rickshaws they have here, and bargained on my behalf with the boy in the front seat; they were going to go home on the backs of motorcycle taxis across the street. “You good man,” said Jin. “You want meet again, you call.” And, taking a flyer from a McDonald’s nearby, she scribbled down her number on the back of an advert for a Happy Meal.

“I see you tonight? Same place?” said Nit, and I said, “Who knows? Maybe you will.”

I got into the back of the rickshaw then and sat under the red light, as the boy banged his horn and reeled into the traffic. In daytime the magic of the city was gone, except this time it wasn’t gone at all—only postponed, perhaps. The djiinn was beside me on the seat—the djinn was inside me—and this evening, or tomorrow night, or the evening after that, anything, everything seemed possible. Just telling your story, I thought: could any crime be so secret?

Pico Iyer

Pico Iyer is the author of several books about globalism and travel, including Video Night in Kathmandu, The Lady and the Monk, The Global Soul and The Open Road. Based in Asia since 1987, he first visited Thailand in 1983, and has since been back to Bangkok more than 50 times. Since 1992, he’s been living in rural Japan.

Halfhead

Colin Cotterill

Samart Wichaiwong, a.k.a. Teacher Wong, awoke to find his legs off the mattress and flailing. It was as if his conscious self was fleeing his subconscious in panic. It wasn’t the first time Halfhead had chased him out of a dream. She was no man’s fantasy. She always reminded him of the he-’n-she act at the transvestite cabarets. The singer, tucked between the stage curtains, turns to the left and he’s a man, to the right and she’s a woman. Remarkable. Except Halfhead turns to the left and she’s a Gray’s Anatomy centerfold. One side of her skull is missing, sliced down the center like a severe homicidal parting. One red eye, half a nose, left-sided mouth with a sluggy-black tongue spilling out. But it was the drool that really repulsed him. The drool. Samart slapped away the memory of his nightmare and stumbled around his apartment in search of the remains of a bottle of Archa beer, a refugee from last night’s binge. He chugged it down. It didn’t taste any better than the scum in his mouth, but he needed nutrition. He changed out of his striped pajama bottom and into his white silks. His belly formed a third trimester mound inside the smock top. He swept back hair that hung like a hula skirt from his bald dome and tied it behind his neck with a rubber band. Finally, with all the artistry of a likay performer, he sat at the mirror and encircled his bulging eyes with a crimson bruise of lipstick. He checked the time, then took off his watch and placed it beside the DVD player. He walked untidily down to the ground floor, across the vacant lot, and unlocked the door to the humble bamboo hut in which he supposedly lived. He was early but he knew this could be a most significant day.

The two latte-brown uniformed officers were seated in front of the stage on an itchy grass mat staring at Samart, who sat cross-legged and apparently comatose on a flat cushion facing them. He was surrounded by porcelain animals, pickled reptiles gazing drowsily from glass containers, coloured vials and bottles and skulls of all sizes, animal and human. The hut’s curtain was drawn, and a small fish tank lamp illuminated Samart from below, casting a campfire shadow that bent all his features upward. His red, up-all-night eyes stared dully into space. It was an image that had impressed many but obviously wasn’t having a positive effect on today’s audience.

“How long are we supposed to sit here like mutton?” the Colonel asked. He was in his forties, sturdy, and his looks were as ugly as his manners.

“He’ll come out of it soon, sir,” his captain told him. Captain Pairot was a skinny version of the Colonel but with skin as loose as lettuce. Given the common Thai propensity to subscribe heavily to police corruption, he’d no doubt fill it out soon enough.

“His soul will become aware of our presence here on earth and leave the Otherworld to join us,” he said.

“Is that right? Take long, will it?”

“Could be half an hour.”

“Hmm, sorry, I can’t wait that long.”

The Colonel unholstered his pistol, aimed and shot the head off a plaster giraffe. The bullet passed through the bamboo wall and probably wounded one of the stray dogs that loitered in the lane outside. Teacher Wong didn’t appear to care, or flinch or blink. The Colonel leveled the weapon at Samart’s head and started counting down from five. The shaman was out of his trance at three-and-a-half.

“Ah, officers,” he said. “Have I kept you waiting long?”

“Yes,” grunted the Colonel, reholstering his gun.