Part 2 (1/2)

There's so much I want to ask him, but I can't form the thoughts, especially not in Chinese. I'm young, Corey. I'm not thinking karmic cycles. What are you trying to ask me?

”I thought Si Ui ate children's livers,” said Corey. ”Not some dumb old birds'.”

We were still on the klong, turning back now toward civilization; on either side of us were crumbling temples, old houses with pointed eaves, each one with its little totemic spirit house by the front gate, pouring sweet incense into the air, the air itself dripping with humidity. But ahead, just beyond a turn in the klong, a series of eighty-story condos reared up over the banana trees.

”Yes, he did,” I said, ”and we'll get to that part, in time. Don't be impatient.”

”Grandpa, Si Ui ate children's livers. Just like Dracula bit women in the neck. Well, like, it's the main part of the story. How long are you gonna make me wait?”

”So you know more than you told me before. About the maid trying to scare you one time, when you were five.”

”Well, yeah, Grandpa, I saw the miniseries. It never mentioned you.”

”I'm part of the secret history, Corey.”

”Cool.” He contemplated his Pokemon, but decided not to go back to monster trapping. ”When we get back to the Bangkok side, can I get another caramel frappuccino at Starbucks?”

”Decaf,” I said.

That evening I go back to the house and find Mom in bed with Jed, the police detective. Suddenly, I don't like Jed anymore.

She barely looks up at me; Jed is pounding away and oblivious to it all; I don't know if Mom really knows I'm there, or thinks me just a shadow flitting beyond the mosquito netting. I know why she's doing it. She'll say that it's all about getting information for this great novel she's planning to write, or research for a major magazine article, but the truth is that it's about survival; it's no different from that concentration camp.

I think she finally does realise I'm there; she mouths the words ”I'm sorry” and then turns back to her work. At that moment, I hear someone tapping at the entrance, and I crawl over the squeaky floor planks, Siamese style (children learn to move around on their knees so that their head isn't accidentally higher than someone of higher rank) to see Sombun on the step.

”Can you come out?” he says. ”There's a ngaan wat.”

I don't know what that is, but I don't want to stay in the house. So I throw on a s.h.i.+rt and go with him. I soon find out that a ngaan wat is a temple fair, sort of a cross between a carnival and a church bazaar and a theatrical night out.

Even from a mile or two away we hear the music, the tinkling of marimbas and the thud of drums, the wail of the Javanese oboe. By the time we get there, the air is drenched with the fragrance of pickled guava, peanut pork skewers, and green papaya tossed in fish sauce. A makes.h.i.+ft dance floor has been spread over the muddy ground and there are dancers with rhinestone court costumes and paG.o.da hats, their hands bent back at an impossible angle. There's a Chinese opera troupe like I've seen in Shanghai, glittering costumes, masks painted on the faces in garish colours, boys dressed as monkeys leaping to and fro; the Thai and the Chinese striving to outdo each other in noise and brilliance. And on a grill, being tended by a fat woman, pigeons are barbecuing, each one on a mini-spear of steel. And I'm reminded of the open fire and the sizzling of half-plucked feathers.

”You got money?” Sombun says. He thinks that all farangs are rich. I fish in my pocket and pull out a few saleungs, and we stuff ourselves with pan-fried roti swimming in sweet condensed milk.

The thick juice is dripping from our lips. This really is paradise: the music, the mingled scents, the warm wind. Then I see Si Ui. There aren't any birds nearby, not unless you count the pigeons charring on the grill. Si Ui is muttering to himself, but I understand Chinese, and he's saying, over and over again, ”Si Ui hungry, Si Ui hungry.” He says it in a little voice and it's almost like baby talk.

We wander over to the Chinese opera troupe. They're doing something about monkeys invading heaven and stealing the apples of the G.o.ds. All these kids are somersaulting, tumbling, cartwheeling, and climbing up onto each other's shoulders. There's a little girl, nine or ten maybe, and she's watching the show. And Si Ui is watching her. And I'm watching him.

I've seen her before, know her from that night we squatted on the veranda staring at American TV shows. Was Si Ui watching her even then? I try to remember. Can't be sure. Her name's Juk.

Those Chinese cymbals, with their annoying ”boing-boing-boing” sound, are clas.h.i.+ng. A man is intoning in a weird singsong. The monkeys are leaping. Suddenly I see, in Si Ui's face, the same expression I saw on the s.h.i.+p. He's utterly still inside, utterly quiet, beyond feeling. The war did that to him. I know. Just like it made Mom into a wh.o.r.e and me into...I don't know...a bird without a nesting place...a lost boy.

And then I get this...irrational feeling. That the little girl is a bird, chirping to herself, hopping along the ground, not noticing the stalker.

So many people here. So much jangling, so much laughter. The town's dilapidated paG.o.das sparkle with reflected colours, like stone Christmas trees. Chinese opera rings in my ears. I look away, and when I look back they are gone--Sombun is preoccupied, playing with a two-saleung top that he's just bought. Somehow, I feel impelled to follow. To stalk the stalker.

I duck behind a fruit stand, and then I see a golden deer. It's a toy, on four wheels, pulled along by a string. I can't help following it with my eyes as it darts between hampers full of rambutans and pomelos.

The deer darts toward the cupped hands of the little girl. I see her disappear into the crowd, but then I see Si Ui's face too; you can't mistake the cold fire in his eyes.

She follows the toy. Si Ui pulls. I follow, too, not really knowing why it's so fascinating. The toy deer weaves through the ocean of feet. Bare feet of monks and novices, their saffron robes skimming the mud. Feet in rubber flip-flops, in the wooden sandals the jek call kiah. I hear a voice: Juk, Juk! And I know there's someone else looking for the girl, too. It's a weird quartet, each one in the sequence known only to the next one. I can see Si Ui now, his head bobbing up and down in the throng because he's a little taller than the average Thai even though he's so skinny. He's intent. Concentrated. He seems to be on wheels himself; he glides through the crowd like the toy deer does. The woman's voice, calling for Juk, is faint and distant; she hears it, I'm sure, but she's ignoring her mother or her big sister. I only hear it because my senses are sharp now; it's like the rest of the temple fair's all out of focus, all blurry, and there's just the four of us. I see the woman, it must be a mother or aunt, too old for a sister, collaring a roti vendor and asking if he's seen the child. The vendor shakes his head, laughs. And suddenly we're all next to the pigeon barbecue, and if the woman were only looking in the right place she'd see the little girl, giggling as she clambers through the forest of legs, as the toy zigzags over the dirt aisles. And now the deer has been yanked right up to Si Ui's feet. And the girl crawls all the way after it, seizes it, laughs, looks solemnly up at the face of the Chinaman-- ”It's him! It's the c.h.i.n.k!” Sombun is pointing, laughing. I'd forgotten he was even with me.

Si Ui is startled. His concentration snaps. He lashes out. There's a blind rage in his eyes. Dead pigeons are flying everywhere.

”Hungry!” he screams in Chinese. ”Si Ui hungry!”

He turns. There is a cloth stall nearby. Suddenly he and the girl are gone amid a flurry of billowing sarongs. And I follow.

Incense in the air, stinging my eyes. A shaman gets possessed in a side aisle, his followers hushed. A flash of red. A red sarong, embroidered with gold, a year's wages, twisting through the crowd. I follow. I see the girl's terrified eyes. I see Si Ui with the red cloth wrapped around his arms, around the girl. I see something glistening, a knife maybe. And no-one sees. No-one but me.

Juk! Juk!

I've lost Sombun somewhere. I don't care. I thread my way through a bevy of ramwong dancers, through men dressed as women and women dressed as men. Fireworks are going off. There's an ancient wall, the temple boundary, crumbling...and the trail of red funnels into black night...and I'm standing on the other side of the wall, watching Si Ui ride away in a pedicab, into the night. There's moonlight on him. He's saying something; even from far off I can read his lips. He's saying it over and over: Si Ui hungry, Si Ui hungry.

So they find her by the side of the road with her internal organs missing. And I'm there, too, all the boys are at dawn, peering down, daring each other to touch. It's not a rape or anything, they tell us. Nothing like the other girl. Someone has seen a cowherd near the site, and he's the one they arrest. He's an Indian, you see. If there's anyone the locals despise more than the Chinese, it's the Indians. They have a saying: if you see a snake and an Indian, kill the babu.

Later, in the market, Detective Jed is escorting the Indian to the police station, and they start pelting him with stones, and they call him a dirty Indian and a cows.h.i.+t eater. They beat him up pretty badly in the jail. The country was under martial law in those days, you know. They can beat up anyone they want. Or shoot them.

But most people don't really notice, or care. After all, it is paradise. To say that it is not, aloud, risks making it true. That's why my mom will never belong to Thailand; she doesn't understand that everything there resides in what is left unsaid.

That afternoon I go back to the rubber orchard. He is standing patiently. There's a bird on a branch. Si Ui is poised. Waiting. I think he is about to pounce. But I'm too excited to wait. ”The girl,” I say. ”The girl, she's dead, did you know?”

Si Ui whirls around in a murderous fury, and then, just as suddenly, he's smiling.

”I didn't mean to break your concentration,” I say.

”Girl soft,” Si Ui says. ”Tender.” He laughs a little. I don't see a vicious killer. All I see is loneliness and hunger.

”Did you kill her?” I say.

”Kill?” he says. ”I don't know. Si Ui hungry.” He beckons me closer. I'm not afraid of him. ”Do like me,” he says. He crouches. I crouch too. He stares at the bird. And so do I. ”Make like a tree now,” he says, and I say, ”Yes. I'm a tree.” He's behind me. He's breathing down my neck. Am I the next bird? But somehow I know he won't hurt me.

”Now!” he shrieks. Blindly, instinctively, I grab the sparrow in both hands. I can feel the quick heart grow cold as the bones crunch. Blood and birds.h.i.+t squirt into my fists. It feels exciting, you know, down there, inside me. I killed it. The shock of death is amazing, joyous. I wonder if this is what grownups feel when they do things to each other in the night.

He laughs. ”You and me,” he says, ”now we same-same.”

He shows me how to lick the warm blood as it spurts. It's hotter than you think. It pulses, it quivers, the whole bird trembles as it yields up its spirit to me.

And then there's the weirdest thing. You know that hunger, the one that's gnawed at me, like a wound that won't close up, since we were dragged to that camp--it's suddenly gone. In its place there's a kind of nothing.

The Buddhists here say that heaven itself is a kind of nothing. That the goal of all existence is to become as nothing.

And I feel it. For all of a second or two, I feel it. ”I know why you do it,” I say. ”I won't tell anyone, I swear.”

”Si Ui knows that already.”