Timothy Hallinan - The Queen of Patpong

He does arm curls with the water containers. "Easy as buttoning a shirt."

"Sometime you not so good with shirt."

Howard laughs. "Light a cigarette. It'll relax you. Oh, wait. I almost forgot." And before she can even react, he drops the water bottles to the deck, making it shake underfoot, slides his big hands under her arms, and lifts her straight up like she weighs nothing. She laughs and beats at his chest as though he's a monster, but he carries her across the pier, leans forward, and puts her down in the boat, which rocks enough beneath her weight to make her grab the side. "Trip wouldn't have been any fun without you," he says, watching her hang on. "You'll have your sea legs in no time." He turns back to the water containers.

"See legs?" she asks, raising one of hers.

"Not like 'see,' not like looking at legs." He's been pointing at his eyes to illustrate, and now he picks up a huge bottle of water in each hand and waves her away so he can lower them into the boat. "The sea," he says, nodding at the Andaman as he puts the water aboard. "That's the sea. You know, it goes"-he puts his hands in front of him palms down and makes wave motions-"like that. It can make you sick at first. When you get used to it, we say in English you've got your sea legs."

She sits on the wooden bench that runs around the passenger compartment and opens her purse. A cigarette sounds good right now. "Sea legs. You have sea legs?" She's taken to repeating every new term she hears so she can file it in memory, hoping to improve her English more quickly. In her imagination she sees herself in two or three years going to farang parties as Howard's wife, speaking perfect English.

"I don't need them," Howard says. "I'm a fish." Rose suddenly remembers Oom describing herself as "half fish" the night Rose-Kwan then-went with Captain Yodsuwan. It seems like years ago. Howard puts the other two water bottles aboard and bends to the dock to pick up the black rubber wet suit that looks to Rose like an empty person.

"Not cold," she says. She finds the pack of Marlboro Lights and shakes one out. "Water okay." She swam the day before for hours, forgetting for once about not getting dark from the sun, no longer worried about what the customers and the other girls would think. The water was much warmer than the shower back at the apartment. "Why only one?"

"You won't need one," Howard says, climbing aboard with the suit tossed over his shoulder. "And it's not for cold. It's for something else. I'll show you when I see one." He rolls the suit up and stuffs it beneath one of the benches, then straightens and shades his eyes, although the day's not bright, and squints up at the sky, dark gray in places but with one or two small, tattered patches of blue. "We left the rain in Bangkok."

"Maybe later," Rose says, watching him as she takes the first puff. He's right; the smoke makes her feel smoother. Howard, on the other hand, seems even more energetic than he has the past couple of days, as though his blood is carbonated, bubbling in his veins. There's something bristling, something sparky about him that reminds her of the first day she drank Nescafe. That buried kernel of energy. If she could see through Howard right now, she wouldn't be surprised to find a flame at his center.

In all the months she's known him, she's never seen him do a muscleman exercise like the one he just did with the water bottles. His body tells her he exercises often, but it's something he does privately, and although they've been together for three and four weeks at a stretch, she has no idea when.

Howard steps up onto the edge of the boat and makes the leap to the dock. The boat's stern swings outward behind him, but the prow stays put, anchored by a thick rope that's been passed over one of the vertical timbers that supports the dock. He pulls the loop of rope off the timber, tucks it under his arm, and jumps back onto the boat, which rocks alarmingly. He holds the rope out to Rose.

"Coil this," he says.

She says, "What?" This "coil" is not a word she knows.

"Circles," Howard says with an edge of impatience. "Just-" He makes a circular motion with his index finger, pointing down. "The rope," he says. He makes the gesture again, giving her the wide eyes she sometimes gets when she's too slow for him.

"Fine," Rose says, getting up tentatively. The boat is still rocking, and she has to put out a hand to steady herself. "Coil." She goes to the place where the rope has been knotted inside the boat and begins to feed the loose rope onto the deck in a circle. "Coil," she says again experimentally.

At the wheel, Howard mutters something and takes a long drink off a smaller bottle of water.

Rose says, "What?"

Without looking back, Howard says, "I said, Jesus Christ."

"Oh." She finishes making rope circles and drops the end, then nudges the rope with the toe of her flip-flop to make it rounder. "Why Jesus Christ?"

Howard screws the cap onto his water bottle, but he doesn't look at her. "Something I always say when I go out to sea," he answers without turning. She has to cup a hand to her ear to hear him. "Like a prayer." He turns a key beside the wheel and pushes a button, and the engine growls to life with a racketing sound, spewing gray smoke. "Sit down," Howard says, almost pushing past her. He goes to the back of the boat and releases a little catch that lets the engine drop into the water. The noise is cut in half, and the dock begins to slide by beside them. He returns to the wheel, and the boat points itself away from the dock. She grips the edge of the bench in both hands and turns back, seeing the widening V of their wake, churned greenish white in the center behind the propeller, seeing the island fall away behind them. It seems to get smaller very quickly.

"That way is India," Howard says, pointing west. He's at the wheel, and he zigzags right and left. The boat's sudden wobble makes Rose dizzy. "The old Thai boats had the engine at the end of a pipe," he says. "The long-tail boats were steered by pushing the pipe right or left."

"I see before."

He gives her a lengthy look before he replies. "Am I boring you?"

"No. Just… cold." She glances at the sky, which has turned darker, partly because the clouds have thickened and partly because the day is beginning to dim. The island is far behind them now, although she can still see it rising, pale and irregular, on the horizon.

"So get a jacket. That's why we brought the suitcase, remember?" He passes a loop over the wheel. "Do you see this?"

She gets up, feeling the wind hit her, and finds the handle of the suitcase. "Yes," she says. "See."

"You're not looking. This holds us on a straight course."

Rose says, "Yes."

"Born to be on the water," he says. "The wheel makes the keel under the boat go side to side." He demonstrates by holding his right arm straight out, pointed toward the engine, dead center in the water. "When you turn the wheel to the right, the keel goes this way"-he shifts his arm-"and the boat goes right. Turn it the other way, et cetera."

Rose says, "Et cetera." She shivers. "Cold."

Howard shakes his head. "So open the suitcase. Oh, never mind." He picks up his water bottle, unscrews the cap, and drinks. Then he pulls the suitcase away from her, puts it on the bench, and rips the zipper open. He paws through a couple of layers until he comes up with the bright pink windbreaker Rose had bought the day before. "Put it on."

"Why you angry today?"

"All I want," Howard says slowly, "is for us to have a good time. I don't want to have to say everything ten times, I don't want you shivering with cold when it's eighty fucking degrees, and I don't want you arguing with me all the time."

Rose's stomach muscles tighten the way they would if she were afraid of being punched there. "Not argue."