The SONG of SHIVA
Authors: Michael Caulfield
A Novel
________________________
Michael Caulfield
Koh Chang Publishing
BANGKOK ● CHESTER ● DENVER
TABLE OF CONTENTS
The SONG of SHIVA
is, in every respect, a work of pure invention, inspired by a bit of travelogue prose I received from an old expat friend some years ago. As such, every person, place and thing contained herein is entirely fictitious, having sprung solely from my imagination and therefore, should in no way be confused with any actual person, place, business enterprise, governmental entity or any other thing existing in our otherwise real and present reality. Any names that may fall familiar upon the ear, therefore, should be understood as being employed only in the strictest fictional sense, though usually to make a specific literary point.
That being said, I
have
made use of some broad concepts, observations and themes believed to have originated in the minds of others. In no way do any of these “borrowings” constitute outright theft. Scripture holds that there is absolutely no new thing under the sun. If that is true, and I believe that it is, it must then follow that every so-called
novel
, at least since the origin of the form with Defoe and Richardson, must stand upon the shoulders of some earlier but similarly-told tale, stirring the embers of an
even older
story by this newer retelling; each subsequent author, struck by the power of the muse, adding here or there a bit of updated ornament, but all of it no more than fuel for the fire of the original creation. Perhaps in all of Western history there have been but three
completely
original
stories:
The Iliad
,
The Odyssey
and
The Tale of Gilgamesh
. The rest, to my mind at least ― this present work included ― can never rise above mere rewrite, alteration or some combination of one or another of these three, deriving theme, plot, soul, inspiration, heart, truth, in fact, their very essence, from one or more innumerable earlier iterations. Everything created by the artist is but a prelude to the past.
I offer this idea neither as an excuse nor an admission of guilt, but only by way of explanation. I am hardly the first creator, nor am I likely to be the last, to find his soul stirred by some universal arch-tale through the murmurings of that self-same ancient muse. Selfless protectors of original thought ― referred to in this litigious age as “intellectual property” ― are invited to dispute the finer points of this argument. All I can offer in rebuttal are ten long years of arduous labor at the task, though doubtless that defense will not satisfy everyone.
To be absolutely clear, I believe any claim an author may make to
ownership
of a certain arrangement of words is
presumptuous, at best; and wishing to act completely without hypocrisy, I here avow that I will not pursue anyone who purloins a word, a rhyme, a glimmer of theme or drift of phrase, a sentence, a paragraph or page, even the entire manuscript ― if the intent of that borrowing is strictly for the purpose of passing along the inherited
ideas
herein contained. If the purpose is for profit, however, that is entirely another matter. Any person considering an altruistic or informational distributive action, therefore, has my full, unreserved permission to proceed.
Be assured, I have little interest in the pecuniary return from this or that word ― or even a good long run of the best of them. I have scribbled this narrative in pursuit of far bigger game and would consider the weight of any coin of the realm hanging heavy in my pocket as a result of my effort to be something of a hindrance to attaining my intended goal. If still in any doubt about this, feel free to contact me at
[email protected]
.
Michael Caulfield - May 16, 2016
Original Cover Art and Book Design: Mica Studios – Bangkok
Interior Text set in Garamond. Titles in Tempus Sans ITC.
(Printed Version Only)
For anyone who has ever prayed desperately to be given a second chance, only to discover, after receiving one, that an answered prayer is not always a blessing.
Beloved, be not troubled by the fiery ordeal which is to try you, as though some vile thing has happened unto you, but rejoice
.
‒
1 Peter 4:12
— BOOK ONE —
CHAPTER ONE
The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand
Anonymous
Below the waterline, twin diesels droned. Above deck, under the merciless equatorial sun, a flood of passengers jostled for position as they washed up the narrow gangway. With a hi-hat snick the boarding gate was closed behind a final straggler. The last mooring line was tossed over the rusted railing by a wiry deckhand who nimbly followed it aboard. Three sharp whistle blasts pierced the afternoon. Deep-throated engines roared in reply.
Standing at the afterdeck railing, Lyköan braced himself as the hull broke from the dock. The riverboat pulled away from the bank and steamed for mid-river, cutting a gash through the blanket of mist and water hyacinth. Left astern, a vast amphitheater of drab, gray structures rose uninterrupted to the construction-crane-infested horizon. Under the unblinking gaze of those great mantis-like observers, lay a glistening crown of skeletal engineering.
Hidden in the creases of that bright web of iron ribs and mirrored windows, a far older and darker second city slumbered. Cool, even in the heat of the moribund afternoon, this other city, submerged beneath a thick patina of wear and neglect, whispered with a voice that, for now, was still every bit the equal of the distant cranes.
This particular stretch of river, lined in abandoned warehouses sagging in slow-motion collapse, obviously belonged to that second city; every arc and shadow evidence of the power of decay. Foundationed deep in the muck of history, the river had been silent witness to the city since its earliest days, a city that had now grown fat and filthy rich, bloated far beyond the literal translation of its quaint founding name ―
bang kok
in Thai ―
the
village of wild olives
.
The cranes were like enormous scythes slowly swinging through time. They were the city’s true divisors, cleanly separating past from future. The derelict warehouses lining the bank no longer bustled with commerce, having relinquished that role years ago to the gleaming spires multiplying upon the distant skyline.
Progress has a long and rich history, the voice in Lyköan’s head seemed to say, and an irresistible, almost magical appeal. He also knew, almost intuitively, that the day was not far off when even this forgotten stretch of ruin along the great Mother River’s rotting bank would surrender to its charm. And when that day arrived, when this present comforting patina of wear and neglect was finally reworked, replaced by a sterile new veneer of silica and stainless, something wondrous and important would be lost forever.
Like those old lines from that ode to something-or-other
, he thought.
Robust growth surrenders to decline, succumbs one day to sweet decay
―
and with its final breath, seeks out the welcoming arms ― of oblivion
.
Anyone with half a brain could see the protected days of this god-forsaken bend in the ancient Chao Phraya were numbered. The tired structures along the bank might still possess enough character to cast evocative shadows, but they were just begging to be devoured by those hungry cranes slavering on the horizon. It was only a matter of time.
Maybe it was the heat or the uncertainty of the next half hour, but as he stood at the railing, in a moment of weakness, Lyköan had allowed the impermanence of this desultory scene to overwhelm him and, by the power of a long-suppressed memory, been swept back through time. While the nature of the triggering remembrance was far more personal, it shared enough with this present picture to stir a wave of tangential regret.
With considerable effort, he shook off the uninvited memory, just as a fare girl emerged from the afterdeck shadows. She was soliciting payment from the new arrivals by rhythmically shaking a long metal canister already half-filled with coins. Dressed in a crisp white blouse and sharply creased, vaguely military khaki shorts, she cut across the crowded deck as effortlessly as an indolent koi might push through a weak current. Before the simile had fully faded from his thoughts, she was standing in his shadow.
Lyköan dug into his pocket, removed the meager contents and pressed twenty baht into her outstretched palm. With practiced elegance, employing a delicate lotus-fingered dance that had become flawless through endless repetition, she sent the two coins spinning into the now open cylinder. Then, using the canister lid's sharp edge, she cleanly sliced halfway through a small red paper square torn from the roll at her waist and returned the now-cancelled ticket with his change. An even-toothed smile flashed for an instant and she was gone, gliding gracefully towards two adolescent girls standing nearby.
Sporting identical school uniforms
― starched white blouses drawn provocatively tight around breasts and hips, tucked tautly into short black skirts in blatant contravention of the strict government school dress code
― each girl paid the eleven baht fare with exact change, stuffing their tickets into identical pink plastic purses.
Lyköan grinned reflexively. One of the girls excitedly pointed to something in the distance. Curious about what had caught her eye, he attempted to discreetly sight along the girl’s outstretched arm. What had stirred her to such excitement? Was it the stately golden
wat
spire gleaming halfway up the shadowed hill? Much closer, there was a
balcony hung with inverted rainbows of dripping laundry sagging precariously over the dark shimmering radiance of the petrol-painted river. In all honesty, the view in every direction was literally bursting with wonders ― if you were still young or innocent enough to appreciate any of them.
Damn
! The girls had noticed his eavesdropping. Making unabashed eye contact, heads pressed close together, they began whispering coyly one to the other, eyelashes all aflutter, their laughter tinkling like fine crystal in the empty air. Lyköan self-consciously shifted his weight and looked away, returning with grim anxiety to the far more pressing concern
that had been dogging him since dawn.
Jimmy had called out of the blue. Refusing to say a goddamned thing over the phone, however, Lyköan’s only link to the Thai royal family had insisted on meeting in person ― somewhere public. Lyköan ran through the tired script one more time, the plan he and Jimmy had hammered out weeks before ― a plan that would have already been put into action with the Primrose brass ― if it hadn’t been for TAI.
Less than two weeks earlier, the government broadcasts still busy denying everything, during the most hysterical and terrifying days, the distance between wild rumor and complete civil breakdown had come close to disappearing altogether. Close enough the risk had been thought so dangerous that even the aging king’s name and influence had been thought necessary, adding weight to the Ministry of Health’s insistent lies. Weeks had passed. Thousands had died. The
de facto
evidence had grown. Until one day when it finally exceeded even Thai worship-the-king gullibility. And only then had the current regime decided that the time had come to admit the truth.
A few days after that admission ― that an epidemic of unknown origin
really was
in progress ― the mysterious plague had ended, almost overnight. Afterwards, the official line seemed much easier to swallow, that the government’s closed-lipped policy had been necessary while the Thai authorities were busy “diligently assessing the true nature of the threat.” Not only was the secrecy intentional, the story went, but it had also been “instrumental in
protecting
the public by limiting unnecessary panic.”
While that claim might actually contain an element of truth, it didn’t provide any explanation for why the epidemic had come to such an abrupt end. If there were people in the kingdom who knew the answer to that one ― and Lyköan suspected there might be a few ― none of them was talking.
Maybe, like SARS decades earlier, this TAI thing had simply run its course. The idea didn’t exactly satisfy Occam’s razor, but how many mysteries in life ever did? Once the fever had broken, however, few residents of Bangkok were at all interested in knowing why. In just the last few days, respiratory masks had all but disappeared from Bangkok’s once again bustling streets. Two weeks ago, half the city had been wearing them. Downtown businesses were flourishing again. If this boatload of smiling faces was any indication, TAI was fast becoming ancient history. Its value as an useful excuse with Primrose was fading just as rapidly. Jimmy’s strange disappearance certainly hadn’t improved Lyköan’s chances in that regard.
Three days. Where had the little twerp been hiding? And why? Lyköan glanced at his watch.
Can this goddamned tub move any slower
?
A few minutes later the riverboat again struck for the bank. Lyköan let out a labored sigh. He held the next breath, heavy with Frangipani and diesel fuel. and saw that the approaching dock was even more crowded than the last. Exhaling, he swore under his breath.
The last year had been nothing but trouble. If Bangkok’s Primrose Biologics didn’t accept his stewardship in their thus-far unsuccessful attempt to get Western importation approval for their knock-off pharmaceuticals, he would be out of business. In an effort to secure that one contract he had been forced to spend millions of baht ― most of it borrowed ― hoping to realize billions, maybe even get a foot in the door at globe-spanning Innovac Pharma. Rumors had been circulating for months that the British biotech giant was already sniffing around the much smaller Thai generic drug manufacturer.
But instead of glorying in what should have been sweet success, here he was, stranded in the middle of nowhere, about to learn a truth that could easily dash any chance of success that still remained. Maybe Jimmy had asked for this friendly little “public” chat for his personal protection, knowing how Lyköan might react when he finally came clean and admitted his personal failure delivering on his original promise. And if that was the case, all Lyköan’s hard work and borrowed money might as well be lying at the bottom of a local squat toilet as it was now irretrievably lost to the notorious vagaries of the corrupt Thai business environment.
Such reversals were hardly without precedent. Business success in Bangkok, particularly for an expat like Lyköan, depended almost entirely on the services of an inside man. Jimkret “Jimmy” Sawadviphachai had been Lyköan’s. For a hefty up-front retainer ― as well as a percentage of any realized net ― the ambitious royal family outlier had agreed to supply all the leverage required and grease every itchy palm between bid and contract acceptance. Unfortunately, the minute Lyköan had deposited the requisite mountain of cash in the demanding little middleman’s bank account ― like a slippery eel in the turgid Chao Phraya ― Sawadviphachai had vanished.
The hull squealed to a stop against the dock’s tire-strapped pilings. Lyköan waited, anxiously surveying the flood of passengers as they sluiced down the gangway, waiting for the indistinguishable tide to wash aboard again.
Well, there’s a surprise
, Lyköan thought, recognizing a face halfway along the boarding queue. There was a flash of mutual recognition as their eyes met above the sea of bobbing heads.
“Lyköan!” the man shouted with a wave. A moment later he was pressing through the crowd, extending a hand Lyköan felt obliged to take.
Whitehall spoke first. “What, are we taking the scenic route today?”
“Something like that,” Lyköan replied. “I was looking for the slowest boat to Krung Kasem Bridge. Looks like I found it. On my way to the Tip Gaan Poey ― on business. What brings you out this way?”
Whitehall ignored the question. “The Gaan Poey is it? Seriously? Aren’t out to impress anyone then, are we? No matter. Whatever your business, you have my sincere wishes for success. Been a hard go of it lately for everyone then, hasn’t it? First the damned global economy tanks, then the southern Thai Muslim troubles flare up again, and now this bloody TAI contagion, what?”
“It’s always something,” Lyköan agreed. “But I see the two of us have survived. Must be all that clean living.”
Moving away from the press of passengers, the two men crossed the deck together. Though they were hardly friends, nearly everyone in Bangkok’s tight-knit expat community knew Whitehall and his stor
y.
How, after a long stint at the helm of a successful Belfast insurance agency, the now wealthy Brit had come to Bangkok to live large off the fruits of his labors and
enjoy an active retirement
― the polite euphemism for diddling young Thai women who eagerly gravitated to older men of means. Bangkok was literally teeming with both.
Lyköan had never doubted the story. During the heyday of
The
Troubles
, catastrophic loss premiums in Northern Ireland had been veritable goldmines for courageous risk-takers. Well into his sixties now, the old boy was simply making the most of his money. Why begrudge a man the dissipation of an honestly-earned fortune? Weren’t fortunes sought precisely so they
could
be pissed away?
In stark contrast, Lyköan was still many years from even the possibility of similar leisure. With forty-five already in the rear-view mirror, only one thing seemed certain: that he was past his prime. Unless something happened ― something big and sometime soon ― a comfortable retirement anything like the one Whitehall was enjoying would be out of the question. Maybe it was envy. Except for Whitehall being twenty years his senior and not nearly as fit, Lyköan couldn’t think of a single reason why he
shouldn’t
envy the man.