John Burdett - The Godfather of Kathmandu

Farang, it’s time to wind this up. I know you are itching to find out more about my spiritual development. I’m still with the blade wheel-I fear it will be my companion for many incarnations-but, as I’m sure you guessed, Chanya made a family decision that I would give up the position of consigliere. We have discovered the hard way that names matter. As a free spirit, buzzing around Vikorn’s ear urging restraint, I feel more myself; call me his consigliere, give me a quarter-million baht a month-and I feel enslaved. In my personal form of Buddhism, morality is organic and impossible to codify. You cannot grasp the way with your hand, nor even your mind; you have to let it lead you.

Oh, by the way, Rosie McCoy is still inside, but has adapted with genius: she has bribed the head screw to give her a private cell with computer and Internet connection. Her webpage charges three dollars a pop to download pix of her naked body in various erotic poses. Mary Smith is now in the same holding prison and has somehow managed to find favor with the big Nigerians, who protect her. Although the Frank Charles case remains officially a suicide, Sukum did get his promotion and became impossible to live with for a week, but he has not yet exchanged his Toyota for a Lexus; there is hope for his next incarnation.

Do not judge me too harshly, farang. (You know how you are.) In the wasteland where narrative rots, Good Thief may be the highest aspiration. Let he who is without karma cast the first stone.

I am yours in dharma, Sonchai Jitpleecheep.

Farang, I have a question for you: do we have a happy ending? I myself cannot decide, but it might help your deliberation if I share with you yet another anonymous package which arrived a couple of days ago. It is a single yellow Tibetan prayer flag, which has been unstitched to reveal the tiny paper prayer within. The prayer is in Tibetan and Chinese script; fortunately, the anonymous sender has provided a translation in English and Thai. I am not an expert, but I would guess the incantation to be unusual:

Hey, China, stop being stupid!

Don’t go down this road anymore!

Look at the West. It may be confused, but it has been down this road of yours and has much to teach: Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Franco, Nixon, Botha. And there’s a guy called Mao you really need to study more deeply. Know who they all were, these guys? They were the direct cultural products of Clive, Palmerston, Kitchener, Curzon, Younghusband: the kind of guys Marx hated most in all the world. Remember Marx?

Monocultures with iron fists don’t last very long these days. Better get yourself some variety if you want to survive.

Things are looking good for you at the moment, aren’t they? Did anyone explain the Third Reich was supposed to last a thousand years?

Listen, China, this is a new age we have here. Freedom isn’t a theory anymore, it is an instinct people are born with. So is the longing for the transcendent. Nothing you can do about it: it’s even stronger than money!

Here’s something from your own culture:

A cup of wine under the flowering trees;I drink alone, for no friend is near.Raising my cup I beckon the bright moon…

Li Po is the greatest poet in world literature. He was also a Buddhist, by the way. So were the Emperor Wu of Han, Yao Xing, Cao Xueqin, Liu Ying, Li Shizhen, Commissioner Lin, and the Emperor Ming.

You better link up again with those guys if you want your good karma to continue. The way you treat my people is filling the Illustrious Ancestors with shame.

Let my people go, China. The alternative is too ugly to contemplate.

Om mani padme hum