Nury Vittachi: The Feng Shui Detective

There was another thing. God or Allah or Buddha or-what did Joyce say? The Great Pumpkin? He must look that one up-might actually be there. He recalled once doing some private readings at an old church and encountering a terrifyingly powerful presence which had left him exhausted and disorientated. He recalled the words of Confucius, memorably quoted by the Tang Dynasty sage Han Yu: ‘Pay all re spects to spiritual beings but keep them at a distance.’

‘ Temples always difficult. Also big. And only one day. It will be difficult assignment.’ He put his fingers on his own temples and closed his eyes.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Joyce. ‘I’ll help. A friend of mine bought a fantastic CD case in a Saigon market-it’s sort of like basket-weave but in neon colours-and I want to see if I can get one. It would be kind of fun to stay in a monkey-house for a while. It’ll be all guys, won’t it? A hundred guys in bedsheets and me, totally rad.’

‘Monkey-house?’ asked Wong.

‘Yeah, monkey-house,’ said his young assistant. ‘Place where monks hang out. Not to be confused with “monastery”, which is the technical word for a building at the zoo where the monkeys are kept.’

Wong wrote it down. What a strange language English was.

Stepping out of the airport in Ho Chi Minh City was like entering the world’s biggest convection oven. There was a light breeze blowing, but rather than cooling the skin, the wind seemed to blast heat at them.

‘Wow. I won’t need a hairdryer,’ Joyce said. She watched amazed as an ice cream in the clutches of a small girl next to them melted in seconds and poured out of her hand. The young woman removed her denim jacket, being careful not to displace her earrings, a gold stud from Sri Lanka from which dangled a tiny holographic picture of a seated Buddha.

As is the case outside most Asian city airports, there was a bewildering mass of people standing around, and no obvious way of differentiating one party from another. How would they find who they were looking for? But seconds later, a tiny, brown, bird-like man in a floral print shirt scuttled up to Wong and shook his hand firmly. ‘CF, hello, hello, welcome to Vietnam. I haven’t seen you for a long time. Seven-eight years maybe?’

The geomancer nodded and bowed and then introduced the newcomer to Joyce. Porntip’s glee vanished like a popped soap bubble. ‘Oh dear, oh dear, no, no, no,’ he said, sharply withdrawing the hand that he had proffered in her direction. ‘I’m sorry…’ He looked back at Wong. ‘She’s a woman,’ he complained.

‘Yes,’ said Wong. ‘A woman.’

‘She’s not a man. She’s a woman.’

Joyce, irritated, grabbed the front of her skirt as if she were offering to lift it up. ‘Would you like to have a look and make absolutely sure?’ she asked.

‘No need,’ said Porntip.

‘Not necessary,’ said Wong.

In the car on the way to the temple, Wong and Porntip discussed the problem. Wong had apparently forgotten or had never realised how strict the temple was on the subject of women. It was rare for females to be allowed through the gates at any time of the day or night, the Thai businessman said, and one would never be allowed to stay the night.

‘No women at all, ever?’ asked Wong.

‘There is an open day once or twice a year, and then women can come, but only if they make a big donation or give presents, you know?’

‘When?’

‘May. The Lord Buddha’s birthday. Vesak. Also Dharma Day, Sangha Day.’

‘Fine,’ said Joyce. ‘I’ll just wait outside until May.’

‘Cannot. We are only here for one night,’ Wong explained.

Not for the first time, Joyce lamented the lack of irony in conversations in Asia.

The driver of the ageing Nissan was Porntip’s nephew, a chain-smoking young man of about sixteen, who went by the single name of Bin. He had left his window open and the temperature of the air rushing through the car varied from cool to searing, depending on its speed. After about forty-five minutes, the car hit the outskirts of Saigon proper, and slowed to a crawl. Porntip wound the window up and switched on a noisy and ineffective air-conditioner.

The little man had not aimed a single word at Joyce, and refused to catch her eye, despite the fact that when he turned around from his front passenger seat to talk to Wong, who was directly behind him, his line of sight ran past her.

‘Why no women can come?’ asked Wong.

‘They had a monk there who turned out to be a sex-change person,’ said Porntip. ‘When they found out, they threw him, er, her, out, of course. I think that was the last time they had a woman inside.’ He lowered his voice confidentially. ‘She was one of those, you know, third sex people.’

‘Yes, I know. In Singapore we have them too. We call them homo sapiens. They go to nightclubs. But in Singapore mostly are men.’

‘Yes. But sometimes there are women like that. Very perverted.’ Porntip gave that strange Thai laugh that signifies embarrassment rather than humour. ‘Women and women together,’ he added in a horrified whisper.

‘Have read about them. Pervert women. Short hair. In Singapore, they are known as Lebanese,’ said the geomancer.

‘Lesbians,’ Joyce inserted.

‘Yes, Lesbianese. Anyway, when did this happen? The sex-change monk?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe five-six years ago.’

Joyce, who was still seething, remarked that the temple did not seem to be very well up on the present understanding of the rights of transsexuals or transvestites or whatever the person might have been. ‘It doesn’t seem very religious to me to discriminate against people with a different sexual orientation,’ she said.

Wong gave her a long, hard look before replying. ‘Joyce please to remember. This is Asia. Those sort of people have no rights.’

Twenty minutes later, they were out onto the open road, and an hour of more restful driving into the rural areas brought them to the gates of the Buddhist Vihara of St Sanctus, in a tiny hamlet close to the village of Tho, southeast of Saigon.

Porntip told them to leave the bags in his car, while their arrival was announced. Wong answered several questions from Joyce about the organisation. The vihara was more like a convent than a standard temple, he said. It was closed to the public and its members were kept in a state of isolation. Nor was it involved in the sort of high-turnover ‘conscript’ Buddhism sometimes found in South-East Asia, where young men spend a couple of years as monks as part of their upbringing.

Just looking at it, Joyce could tell that this was a rural Zen Buddhist temple of a really old school. It was a large, prison-like compound. High, windowless walls in a muddy red colour framed a heavy wooden door with wrought iron fittings. You entered to escape the world, and some monks never left except in a box when they were dead, Wong had told her. ‘Scary,’ she had replied.

There was no need to knock. As soon as they approached, a small opening, about 6 inches square, slid open in the door. A pair of dark eyes glanced momentarily at Wong and then looked sharply and intensely at McQuinnie. The look was not one of lust, but fear. The little metal opening was slammed shut.

Nothing happened for a while. It was hot. Joyce was aware of her heart beating and her clothes being damp. The air felt clammy on her skin. The surroundings were quiet compared to Saigon. The boy Bin now kept staring at her. For some reason, she didn’t mind.

Six minutes and thirty-three seconds later, they heard footsteps again. The little opening slid open with a metallic scrape. A male voice started talking in Vietnamese. Porntip replied.