Steve Toltz - A Fraction of the Whole

Take it from me: the thrill and anticipation of voyage is compounded when traveling on a fake passport. And we were taking a private plane- Dad’s famous face wasn’t going to get out of Australia without a hefty bribe. Hidden under hats and behind sunglasses, we arrived at the airport and went through a security gate straight out to the tarmac. Eddie said the plane belonged to a “friend of a friend,” and he handed envelopes of cash to a couple of unscrupulous customs officials, which was to be shared among the corrupt ground crew and baggage handlers. Frankly, everyone we met looked utterly at ease with the transaction.

As we waited for Eddie to finish the dispensation of bribes and the completion of phony paperwork, Caroline rubbed Dad’s back while Dad ironed out the wrinkles in his own forehead. Nobody would look at or talk to Eddie. I couldn’t help but feel a kind of grief for him. I knew he deserved the alternating fury and cold shoulder he was getting, but his congenital half smile made him look so hapless, so un-Machiavellian, I might have risen to defend his indefensible behavior if only the jury present weren’t so predisposed to a beheading. “Once we get in the air, we’ll be fine,” Dad said, to calm himself down. That surreal phrase stuck in my head: “Once we get in the air.” No one else said anything; we were all lost in thought, probably the same thought. The whole time we avoided talking about the future, as it was inconceivable.

We boarded the plane without incident (if you don’t count Dad’s inhuman sweating as an incident), afraid even to cough so as not to blow our cover. I beat Eddie to the window seat, as this was my first time leaving Australia and I wanted to wave goodbye. The engines started up. We took off with a roar. We climbed the sky. Then we leveled out. We were in the air. We were safe.

“Narrow escape,” I said.

Eddie looked surprised, as if he’d forgotten I was there. His gaze drifted past me to the window.

“Goodbye, Australia,” he said a little nastily.

So that was it- we had been hounded out of Australia. We were now fugitives. We would probably all grow beards, except Caroline, who would dye her hair; we would learn new languages and camouflage ourselves wherever we went, dark green for jungles, shiny brass for hotel lobbies. We had our work cut out for us.

I looked over at Dad. Caroline had her head resting on his shoulder. Every time he caught me looking at him, he gave me an “Isn’t this exciting?” look, as if he were taking me on a father-son bonding holiday. He’d forgotten we were already insidiously bonded, like prisoners in a chain gang. Outside, the sky was a flat color; stark, austere. I watched Sydney disappear from sight with something approximating grief.

Five hours later we were still flying over Australia, over the inconceivably bleak and uninviting landscape of our demented country. You can’t believe how it goes on and on. To appreciate the harrowing beauty of the interior you have to be in the middle of it, with a well-stocked escape vehicle. Topographically it’s incomprehensible and terrifying. Well, that’s the center of our country for you. It’s no Garden of Eden.

Then we were flying over water. That’s it, I thought. The stage on which our unbelievable lives played out has slipped away, under the clouds. The feeling ran deep inside my body until I felt it settle in and get comfortable. All that was left to think about was the future. I was apprehensive about it; it didn’t seem to be the type of future that would last long.

“What does he want with us?” I asked Eddie suddenly.

“Who?”

“Tim Lung.”

“I have no idea. He has invited you to be his guests.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, how long does he want us to stay?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you know?”

“He’s looking forward to meeting you.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“Christ, Eddie!”

We were giving ourselves up to the mysterious Tim Lung. Having used Dad to filch millions of dollars from the Australian people, did he now want to thank Dad for playing the sap so amiably? Was it curiosity- did he want to see how stupid a man could be? Or was there some darker purpose none of us had thought of?

The lights in the plane were turned off, and as we flew across the planet in darkness, I thought about the man I’d be killing. From media reports I’d learned that frustrated detectives in Thailand, unable to locate him, made assertions that he was the embodiment of evil, a true monster. Clearly, then, the world would be better off without him. Nevertheless, I was depressed by the realization that murder was the only utilitarian idea I’d ever had.

“There’s no one here to meet us,” Eddie said, scanning the airport crowd.

Dad, Caroline, and I exchanged looks- we hadn’t known there was supposed to be.

“Wait here,” Eddie said. “I’ll make a call.”

I watched Eddie’s face while he spoke to someone who I assumed was Tim Lung. He was nodding vigorously, bent over in an absurdly servile posture and with an apologetic grin on his face.

Eddie hung up and made another call. Dad, Caroline, and I watched him in silence. Occasionally we gave each other looks that said, “Things are out of our hands but we have to do something, and this knowing look is it.” Eddie hung up again and stared at the phone awhile. Then he came over, rubbing his hands together gloomily.

“We have to spend the night in a hotel. We’ll go to Mr. Lung’s place tomorrow.”

“OK. Let’s get a taxi,” Dad said.

“No- someone is coming to take us.”

Twenty minutes later a small Thai woman arrived, so wide-eyed it seemed she had no eyelids. She stepped toward us slowly, trembling. Eddie just stood there like a cow chewing its cud. The woman wrapped her arms around him, and as they hugged, low sobs escaped through her small mouth. I knew Eddie was lost in the moment because he suddenly ceased looking slippery. Their embrace went on and on until it became monotonous. We all felt painfully awkward.

“I have long wanted to meet you,” she said, turning to the rest of us.

“You have?” I asked doubtfully.

Then Eddie said, “Ling is my wife.”

“No, she’s not,” Dad said.

“Yes, I am,” she answered.

Dad and I were thrown into shock. Eddie was married?

“Eddie, how long have you been married?” I asked.

“Nearly twenty-five years.”

“Twenty-five years!”

“But you live in Australia,” Dad said.

“Not anymore.”

Dad couldn’t get his head around it. “Eddie,” he said, “twenty-five years. Would that mean you were married when we met in Paris?”

Eddie smiled, as if that were an answer and not another question.

We left the airport bewildered. We were not just in another country but another galaxy, one in which Eddie had been married for twenty-five years. Outside, the heat hit us forcefully. We all piled into an old olive-green Mercedes and sped off to the hotel. As it was my first time in a foreign country, my eyes soaked it up- but I’ll save you the travelogue description. It’s Thailand. You know the sights, you know the smells. You’ve read the books, you’ve seen the movies. Hot, sticky, sweaty, it smelled of spicy food, and everywhere there lurked a hint of drugs and prostitution, because like most travelers, we had brought our preconceived notions with us on the journey and did not check them, as we should have, into immigration as hazardous materials best suited for quarantine.

In the car, Eddie and Ling spoke quietly in Thai. We heard our names mentioned several times. Dad couldn’t take his eyes off Eddie and his wife. His wife!