The Thai Amulet (15 page)

We saw only the doorman on our arrival. Jennifer still had her key for the elevator, and we went up to the guest floor. She packed quickly, as she had promised. “Do you think we could just leave without saying anything?” she said.

“No,” I said.

“Well, could I leave a note?”

“Look, I’ll go up with you. You have to thank them for their hospitality. If there’s no one there, then you can leave a note. You shouldn’t be intimidated by them. You are your own person, and you can do whatever you want. What they think about it doesn’t matter in the slightest.”

“Okay.” She sighed. “I just hope I don’t run into Chat. I can’t bear to talk to him right now.”

The family floor was very silent when we emerged from the elevator. We looked in the dining room. The table was set for dinner, but there was no one there. We went into the living room. Dusk had fallen, and the light was rather dim, with only one lamp lit. The room was absolutely silent.

“No one here, either,” I said. “I don’t know where else to look. You may be right about leaving a note. Wait a minute! Now this is interesting,” I said, walking over to the two Fitzgerald Senior portraits. I looked very closely at the one of the two brothers, Thaksin and Virat.

“Aunt Lara,” Jennifer said.

“Look at this,” I said. “The sword the younger brother is holding.”

“Aunt Lara,” she said again.

“You know, I think I own that sword,” I said. It was identical, I was sure, to the one I’d bought at the auction: the same bone handle, the same silver decoration on the scabbard. “It’s back in my room at the hotel! Come and see. I’ll show it to you when we get back. There couldn’t be two exactly the same, could there?”

“Aunt Lara, please!” Jennifer said. I turned to her at last. She was standing in front of one of the large wing chairs. She looked very, very pale. I went to stand beside her.

“I don’t think he’s breathing,” she said.

Khun Thaksin sat propped up in the chair, his eyes wide open, head flopped to the side, his hands clasped in his lap. He hadn’t been breathing for some time.

Chapter 7

The days and weeks following the death of the king are dangerous ones in Ayutthaya, particularly at this juncture, given that the dead king’s wives had not produced an heir.

This meant that various factions were plotting for control. Spies were everywhere, and one had to take great care not to be heard supporting one candidate over another.

There were really only two contenders with blood ties to the king: the king’s younger half brother, Prince Thianracha and Prince Yot Fa, now eleven years old.

Lady Si Sudachan, who heretofore had shown little interest in her sons’ welfare, and was well known to have had various flirtations while the king was away at war, suddenly appeared the grieving lover and doting mother. Her hypocrisy was completely transparent to me and, of course, to my mother, but apparently to no one else. Or rather, it suited some in the palace to support the dissembling, no matter how false.

In the midst of all this intrigue, my mother fell desperately ill. Just before she died, she took my hand, and with tremendous effort, exacted a promise that I would look after Prince Yot Fa and Prince Si Sin. I have wondered since, given both my mother’s robust health and the event that would follow, whether in fact she had been murdered. It is a bitter thought that coils around my heart like a cobra.

It was Prince Thianracha, finally, who resolved the issue of the kingship and brought the political turmoil to an end, at least for a time. Recognizing that our enemies would take advantage of a leader less Ayutthaya, the good prince withdrew to a monastery to lead the exemplary life of a Buddhist monk. Invited to reign by the priests, astrologers, and government ministers, Yot Fa ascended the throne with great ceremony. Given that he had not reached the age of the cutting of the topknot, however, his mother, Lady Si Sudachan, became regent. At that time, in a most ominous way, an earthquake racked our city.

Sometimes I think that because there is a certain sameness to big cities everywhere—oh, there are differences, architectural details, setting, and so on, but essentially every metropolis shares something fundamental—those of us from the West who visit cities like Bangkok delude ourselves into believing we understand the place. Or worse yet, that we share a common understanding with those whose city it is, a belief that they view the universe from the same perspective we do.

It is a pitfall I try to avoid. Doing business around the world teaches you over and over again the folly of assumptions like these. But still I am lulled, only to be jolted out of my complacency, usually by the smallest of details, the patronizing comment of a fellow
farang,
or insignificant events, on the surface at least, that remind me just how ignorant I am.

“I’m so glad you’ve come,” David Ferguson said. “And you must be Jennifer. Terrific! Please come in. The ceremony starts in about ten minutes.”

“We won’t be able to stay long,” I said, taking him aside. “Jennifer’s beau’s father died yesterday. She’s really upset, and I don’t know how long she’ll feel like staying. It’s a little complicated. She had a fight with her boyfriend, and now this happened, and she isn’t sure what to do.”

“What happened to his father?” Ferguson said.

“Massive heart attack, apparently. Jennifer found him.”

“Too bad,” he said. “Let’s hope this will take her mind off it. What’s her beau’s name, by the way?”

“Chat Chaiwong,” I said.

“Not
the
Chaiwongs,” he exclaimed. “Thaksin died. It was in all the papers.”

“Those Chaiwongs,” I said.

“Good lord,” he said. “I didn’t realize that. I suppose you never did mention their names. Why should you? That is quite the family your Jennifer has hooked up with.”

“They’re certainly wealthy,” I said. “She finds it all a bit much. This may be academic, of course. As I said, she and Chat had a fight. I’m not sure whether it’s a permanent rift or not.”

“I do have dealings with Ayutthaya Trading on a fairly regular basis,” Ferguson said. “They’re regularly courted by U.S. companies trying to set up joint ventures here. I’ve visited them with our trade people. Rather fabulous offices.”

“Speaking of fabulous,” I said, looking around. “This place certainly qualifies.” David’s new home was an old one, on stilts, with a steeply peaked roof and wide, decorative barge poles that curved gracefully at the ends. To top it off, it was right on a
klong,
with a staircase that went down into the water, so that visitors could arrive by boat. At one time it had probably been home to a family of ten, but it was really quite small. The front half was veranda, screened in, and at the back was a very small kitchen, a bathroom only partly roughed in, and a small bedroom with an alcove off it that overlooked what I assumed would eventually be a tiny garden. The walls were all paneled, and the door thresholds raised so that you had to step up and over them.

“It is great, isn’t it? I’m really pleased to have found it.”

“The teak is wonderful. It will look really beautiful once it’s been cleaned up. And I love the openness of it.”

“I think so, too. The place is nowhere near finished yet, and it’s small, I grant you, but I love it. It’s the first house I’ve had since I left Nebraska. I feel truly at home in Thailand. I don’t know why.”

“Didn’t you say you were born here?”

“Yes, but I left rather young. And even if I was born here, I’m a
farang.
You’re always a
farang
if you’re a white guy, even if you live here all your life. Still, this is where I want to stay.”

“I almost forgot,” I said. “This is for you,” I said, handing him a bottle of scotch. “And this is for the house.” I handed him a package wrapped in handmade mulberry paper.

“Thanks,” he said. “You didn’t need to do this, but I appreciate it. Aren’t these great?” he said, as he opened the package. “They’re for my spirit house, aren’t they? The little cart and the elephants. These are extraordinary. Where did you find them?”

“Robert Fitzgerald,” I said.

“You met him, did you? Was he the portrait painter?”

“No, his son, the wood-carver.”

“Did you learn much from him?”

“Unfortunately not.”

“Too bad. These are way too good for my spirit house. I just bought one in the local equivalent of a hardware store. I was informed that the decision had been made as to where it should go, and I wasn’t ready. I bought the first one I could find.”

“Well if you’re ever in the market for a special one, go see Fitzgerald. His are amazing. Now where’s Jennifer?”

“I think she’s just sitting on the edge of veranda looking at the
klong,”
he said. “We can’t have her moping. I’ll introduce her to some of my younger friends in a minute. Come and meet my aunts, would you?” he said to us both, guiding us over to two elderly woman seated in deck chairs. “This is Auntie Lil,” he said, introducing me to one of them, a rather plump older woman of about eighty in a pretty blue dress. “And this is Auntie Nell,” he said, indicating her companion, a slim and still pretty woman about the same age. “Aunt Lily and her best friend Nelly raised me. They made me the man I am today.”

“Which is a shiftless wanderer who has finally got himself a home,” a tall blond man said. “Something most of us do long before we turn fifty. Now if he’d just find himself a decent woman, he’d be all set. I’m Charles Benson. I work at the Embassy with Dave here.”

“I’m Lara McClintoch,” I said, shaking his hand. “And this is my niece, Jennifer.”

“Lara. Jennifer. Those are pretty names,” Aunt Lily said. “Is this your first trip to Thailand?”

“Yes,” Jennifer said. “But Aunt Lara has been here many times. Is it yours?”

“Oh no,” she said. “I lived here for a number of years. It’s Nell’s first, though.”

“Now don’t you two be rushing down to the Pat Pong,” Charles said. “You’d better stay out of trouble while you’re here.”

Lily giggled. Nell did not. I found Charles rather patronizing.

“When did you live here?” I asked.

“A long time ago,” she said. “Just after the war. It’s quite different now. Bangkok is just another big city, like New York.”

“Ah,” Charles said. “Here it is again: the glorious past to which the present never measures up.”

I wished he’d just go away. I like stories about the past. It appeals to the antique dealer in me.

“It was very hot, then. No air-conditioning, can you imagine? And then there was the cholera every year. You had to boil and boil the water. The electricity was a bit on and off, too. You were never without candles. And you cooked on charcoal braziers. We didn’t cook, of course. There were servants for that. Such good servants, too, and so nice. Everyone was nice. There was none of the resentment of foreigners you saw in other countries. I suppose it was because Thailand was never occupied by one of the imperial powers, so they didn’t develop the hatred for Europeans that others did.” As she spoke, Charles, already bored, wandered off.

“We had such lovely parties,” she said. “You never go to parties like that anymore. Bangkok was ever so much smaller and friendlier than it is now. Everybody knew everybody. There weren’t all that
many farang
in Bangkok. There was always a ‘do’ for some charitable venture or another, or a coming out party for one of the young women. I had a splendid coming out party, didn’t I Nell?”

“I don’t know, dear. I wasn’t here,” Nell said. Nell seemed to be a better shape than her friend, Lily. Her eyes were bright and intelligent.

“I forgot,” she said. “It happens quite a bit these days. Pity, really. The best party of the year was the Fourth of July
fete
at the American ambassador’s. I looked forward to it for weeks. I always had a new frock for the occasion. My friends did, too. Oh, it was lovely.”

“When did you move back to the States?” Jennifer asked.

“I can’t remember. Can you, Nell?”

“It was 1953, dear,” Nell said. “That’s when we met.”

“That’s right,” she said. “Davie was just a toddler. There was a tram on New Road, but we loved to take
samlohs.
You know what those are, don’t you dear? Pedicabs, you’d call them, on three wheels, pulled by Thais. They had bicycle bells, and they rang them all the time. For years, whenever I heard a bicycle bell, I was carried back to Bangkok. They were much nicer than those noisy, dirty motorized things we have now.”

“I don’t suppose you remember Helen Ford?” I said.

“Oh yes,” Lily said. “I remember her. Very pretty girl. Something bad happened to her, didn’t it?”

“She was accused of murdering her husband,” I said.

“Yes,” she said, vaguely. “Terrible thing to happen. We got to know the better Thais,” she continued. Inwardly I cringed. “The well-educated ones,” she said. “And rich, of course. Some of them actually came to our parties. You know, sometimes in the rainy season, you gave your beau your shoes, and you hitched up your long skirt and waded up to the house where the party was. It was rather fun, now that I think about it. Some of the parties you got to by boat. Most of us had homes either on the Chao Phyra or one of the
klongs.
They’ve filled in so many of the
klongs.
It’s a shame. They’ve turned them into paved roads. It used to be such fun to go everywhere by boat. The tradesmen came by boat. The merchants delivered everything to your door that way.”

“Now Lily,” Nell said. “I’m sure that Lara and Jennifer have heard enough about the past. We should enjoy the party we’re at. I think the ceremony is about to begin.”

“I’m so glad Davie found this place and is having it all done properly,” Lily said.

Two monks in saffron robes officiated. The house was wrapped in a cord of some kind, which I was told could not be taken off or the magic would evaporate. David had already put his little animals and people out at the spirit house, which had been placed in a corner by a little pool filled with lotus flowers. I could smell sandalwood, which I think was part of the ceremony. I couldn’t understand a word, but it was very affecting, and I was happy for David.