Paul Theroux - Mr. Bones - Twenty Stories

Joyce’s smile tore at his heart, because she didn’t know anything, because she was happy, solicitous, believing he was overworked. He knew how murderers felt when they were in the presence of their unsuspecting victims: powerful, even perhaps pitying.

“I’ve made chowder. Your favorite.”

He thought, That man is not here anymore.

Joyce made excuses for him because he was too ashamed to concoct any for himself. “Of course you’re tired. You’re not yourself. Think of the distance. Flying is no fun. All those security checks. Remember to get some exercise. Don’t drink alcohol. And I really hope you make some friends there.”

He was relieved to be summoned to Boston by Haines, the CEO, to hear the decision. It was up to them. His fate was not in his own hands.

Haines said, “We’re extending you.”

Which meant to him: Song. He called her from Logan Airport. He heard music.

“Where are you?”

“Waiting you. Siamee Nigh.”

He contrived to see her the day he arrived — and, landing, he felt younger, hopeful; life was more complicated but richer. Meeting her involved a lie to Fred Kegler, which appalled him. But it was worth it to see Song’s feline face, her straight hair stylishly chopped apart, her pretty mouth, her full breasts. Her secret ambiguity excited him. A ladyboy was more emphatically feminine to him in an old-fashioned way that reminded him of his youthful romances, and the pallor of her complexion made it seem as if he was always seeing her by moonlight.

They couldn’t spend the night together — it would require him to tell another lie to Kegler. But he saw her on the weekend, not in a bar but by a lake in Lumphini Park.

She wore sunglasses, she carried an umbrella. “Thai people hate sun.”

“What do Thai people like?”

“Like shadow. Like night.” He laughed. She went on, “ Farang like sun.”

“I like shadow. I like night.”

So he was no more than a farang ? He struggled to make an impression, he talked about taking her on a trip. But he found wooing her like this a humiliation, because she didn’t need him. She was always in a bar, always being pursued.

He wondered if, in spite of the longing he felt, he was kidding himself. How could he care this much for a ladyboy he’d met in a bar? Was it that he’d had a glimpse into his sexuality that he’d kept in a dark corner, a sort of corner like Siamese Nights, where he’d groped Song and not been shocked? Or in the room. It my knife.

That night, alone, he went to Soi Four and chose a ladyboy bar at random. It was loud, filled with drunken farangs, some ladyboys in shorts dancing on a mirrored stage under a glitter ball.

“You buy me drink?”

“Sure, what’s your name?”

“Me Nutpisit.”

She was elfin, with eager eyes. But he knew she was a ladyboy, cute, rather small, pigtails, a miniskirt, knee socks. They drank together — she had a Coke — and later he paid forty dollars to the bar to release her. They walked to a hotel off a side street nearby.

“I give you shower.” Nutpisit took him by the hand and switched on the bright lights in the bathroom. Through the open door, he saw himself in the mirror, his surprised face, the leering lipsticked boy.

“No,” he said, and pulled his hand away. In a panic of self-disgust he began to apologize. The ladyboy Nutpisit, who had seemed so girlish, began to rage at him. Osier was frightened by the violent temper of someone so small. Nutpisit began to push him, then slapping him so hard, reaching for his face, she scratched his upraised arms. She raked his ears with her furious fingers. He pleaded with her, but she would only be quieted with fifty dollars.

Osier fled down the street like a felon, plucked at by the teasing girls sitting outside massage parlors. He had hoped he might respond to another ladyboy; then he would feel liberated from Song. But the experience had only served to show how much he needed Song.

He called her and heard loud music. He knew she was not at Siamese Nights. “I have to see you. Where are you?”

“Tomorrow better.”

He agreed; how quickly she had power over him. It was physical, it was her flesh. It my knife. To show her he was serious and protective, that he respected her and was even proud of her, he took her to dinner at a restaurant by the river. Some people stared. They seemed to know.

“They say, Why you with katoey ?”

He didn’t care. This wasn’t Maine. He said, “I want you.”

At this she touched his hand, and he caught hers, and they held hands across the table like lovers.

“I never did anything like that before,” he said.

Song said, “I understand.”

The softness, the sympathy in the way she said it, the word itself, made him confessional. He explained what an ordinary life he had lived, the places he had been sent to audit accounts, that he had no brothers or sisters, that he had felt lonely when he’d gotten back to the States. She listened, she held his hand. He could not stop himself from talking — and it was more than he had said to anyone the whole time he’d been in Bangkok, more than he had said to his wife for years.

When he was finished, Song said again, “I understand.”

They sat on the terrace, watching the narrow sampans that were powered by big square engines and long drive shafts that, plowing the river, gave them impressive waterspout tails. They ordered bowls of noodles, he drank beer, she drank lemonade. Strings of tiny bulbs, like Christmas lights, had been draped on the low hedges and spindly trees at the margin of the terrace. They cheered him as the same sort of lights had cheered him when he’d been a boy. Was this an effect of travel? That if you went far enough you found a version of your childhood?

“We go upstairs?” Song asked, pincering noodles with her chopsticks.

Osier knew what she meant — his hotel was nearby. He wanted it, but superstitiously he told himself that there was plenty of time.

The sidelong looks of people did not embarrass him, but only reminded him of how happy he was to be with Song. And a defiant thought that had entered his mind and that had been developing over the past days was that the very oddness of the affair, an older man and a ladyboy, such an unlikely pairing, had to be proof that this desire was real — not mere curiosity but passion. And if love was the feeling of generosity, of gratitude, of unending mutual possession, it was perhaps love, too, driven by a sexual desire that had a reviving power.

“We go upstairs tomorrow night,” he said, to give himself the thrill of anticipation. “I have a meeting in the morning. Early. You know boss?”

“I know boss.”

“Boss have meeting.”

He had begun to talk in this halting oversimple way and was glad that no one but Song could hear him.

Song said, “I know meeting.” She took out her handbag and applied makeup. “You business.”

“Me business,” Osier said.

She raised her head in a superior way, flashing her eyes, and said, “ Natang meehoo — pratoo mee da. ”

Osier smiled and leaned toward her.

“Window have eye — door have ear.”

He said, “Where you going now?”

“Go to bar.”

Something in his heart convulsed. Jealousy, and more than jealousy, a wrenching, like a sickness.

“Why not go home?”

Song shrugged. He knew that shrug — it meant, What about money? A certain cluck meant money. A way of rolling her eyes meant money. Men in the bar would buy her a drink. She might allow herself to be touched, or persuaded for money to go with them. What did he know?

“You want money?” he asked.

Song didn’t speak. She was thinking hard, her face smoothed by the thought she was keeping to herself.