Your Face in Mine (24 page)

What does the sign say?

Silpasuvan East-West Medical Research Institute. Or something like that.

Not looking for off-the-street customers, are you?

We’re not looking for customers, period, Martin says. They find us. He laughs. All the great companies start in garages, don’t they? This is our garage. Look, man, don’t be nervous. He doesn’t bite. Geniuses, real geniuses, are nothing to be afraid of. Up close, anyway.

Based on your vast experience?

He stares straight ahead.

I’ve known two in my life, he says.

Who else? I ask. And then, as soon as the words have sounded, I know.

Do I really need to spell it out?

No.

Two is enough, I think, he says. For any one lifetime.

—

We cross through the doorway into a gust of cold, sterile air, hospital air, and remove our shoes, as one does everywhere in Thailand. Neat rows of shoes, expectantly, around every entranceway. With his big toe
Martin scoots me a pair of black Chinese cloth slippers. Suki, he calls out, and from the end of a long corridor a tall, pale Thai woman in a royal blue business suit comes hurrying toward us, clacking her heels.

Mr. Kelly, she says, holding out her hand, and simultaneously I feel the thickness of the fingers, the mass of the knuckles, and look up at her cheekbones and the wideness of the jaw. A ladyboy, of course, as Martin said. A trans man. I’ve forgotten all the words. Very glad see you, she says.
Sawatdi kha.
Come this way, he’s waiting.

Suki is our one-person office staff, Martin says, a little too loudly, as we follow her back to the elevator. She’s been with Silpa forever. Since before he scaled back. Dr. Silpa was the number-one MTF doctor in Bangkok, isn’t that right, Suki? That’s male-to-female.

I was his patient, she says, holding the elevator door and ushering us in. Before that. A satisfied customer.

She smiles, widely, openly, and I note, as I never would otherwise, how difficult it must be to get up in the morning and lipstick yourself perfectly, pencil in the daggerlike eyebrows, spread the mascara to its right thickness. Which is not to say she’s different from any relatively flashy woman in any office. Or, rather, she is: but only because she has nothing to do with me. The thing about ladyboys, I read in the guidebook on the plane, is that they’re not
trans
sexuals in the accepted sense of the word, they’re not passing, they’re truly a third gender, with its own variety, its own continuum of appearance and attraction. This isn’t for
you
, her body says; this isn’t open to your scrutiny. These are just tools used for another purpose.

I think they say heat wave tomorrow, Suki says. The elevator is tiny, barely three inches above her head. Forty-two. You want to sit outside or inside?

Outside.

Too hot for Americans. She giggles.

My friend here gets a little carsick, Martin says.
Agan kleun hyan.
He needs the fresh air.

—

What I notice first about Silpa—what I remember, even now, as a thought process, an unfolding observation—is, my god, he’s
small
. He comes through the sliding glass doors, winds his way around an enormous slate planter filled with birds of paradise, and then emerges onto the terrace, where we’re sitting, next to a low gurgling waterfall, drinking iced jasmine tea, a tiny, very dark man in a lab coat, dark suit pants, and black rubber slip-on shoes that make no sound at all. A narrow, delicate face, high cheekbones, unnaturally large goldfishy eyes, long lashes. If I were to stand up—I’m not tall myself, five-seven on a good day—he would come up to my chin. I’m not sure he’s even five feet tall. Don’t get up, he says, waving us back down. At ease, at ease. He cups my outstretched hand, surrounding it with ten fingers, only momentarily, and lets go. Kelly Thorndike, he says. What a pleasure. Thank you for joining us here. You must find this whole phenomenon somewhat improbable.

It takes me a moment to respond. He seems to be in no hurry.

I did, I say, finally. When I first met Martin. Now I almost take it for granted.

Isn’t that astonishing? he says. Your mind takes only a moment to acclimate. Modernity at work.
All that is solid melts into air.
You know that quotation? Marx? Sometimes I think I should have that on my business card. Even if it makes the investors uncomfortable.

Martin gives a short chuffing laugh. I don’t think anyone would mistake you for a Communist, he says.

Really? You never know. They are still everywhere, you know. Radicals and dreamers.

Suki comes clacking out onto the balcony with a fresh pitcher of tea, and hands Silpa a note, which he glances at, folds, and slides into his shirt pocket, so smoothly that it almost seems rehearsed.

I was thinking, Kelly, he says, earlier today, about how I wouldn’t
want to have your job. I mean, on a practical level. There is too much to say, isn’t there? I mean, what question should you ask me first? Where do we begin? The conceptual level, the cultural level, the actual nuts-and-bolts part? You have complete access, you know. We are going to do this once and do it right. Want to watch some surgery? Fine. No confidentiality laws here. Want to interview the staff? No problem.

I’ve been trying to place his accent, and now I’m hearing it: upstate New York. Rochester, I remember; he did his residency at the University of Rochester. There’s that slight midwestern nasality, the crisp, definite, let’s-lay-it-out tone of an actuary or a school principal. And, at the same time, the wry melancholy that comes from surviving nine months of lethal winter, the heaps and barrows of snow, the rusting city with its empty museums and obsolete innovations. This is a Thai man, of course, and we’re in Bangkok, in the throbbing heat of mid-morning, birds chattering around the edges of the roof, but if I turned ninety degrees and listened to him without looking I could swear we were standing in a silent white-tiled hallway, next to the emergency eyewash station, watching snow fall over a parking lot in a blue-black winter afternoon. He has a little winter madness in his voice.

I appreciate that, I say.

I’m not sure that I’m doing you a favor.

No, in a way, it is. I mean, my focus is still on Martin. Of course. So all this stuff, this operation, as you say—it’s all about explaining the process step by step. It’s not a magic trick. It’s not science fiction. It’s not, like, an
illusion
.

He stares at me again for a long moment.

No, he says, no more than anything else.

From a Buddhist point of view.

I suppose. I would have said from a human point of view.

Well, folks, Martin says quietly, if you’re going to keep philosophizing, I’m going to be on my way. More houses to see. I only came to introduce Kelly, in any case. He hitches up his elbows and makes ready to
stand, with a wry, ingenuous smile. I knew you would hit it off, he says. Now you see, Kelly, why I said you had to come here? I mean, I may be the face, but Silpa’s the voice. I prove that it’s possible, but only he can prove that it’s
right
.

He’s like a fawning graduate student, I’m thinking. A disciple at his guru’s feet. That combination of terror and glee in the presence of the master. Okay, I say, trying, again, not to sound as annoyed as I am. Should I take a taxi back?

No, no. Silpa says. One of our drivers will take you.

Best not to take a taxi in Bangkok, Martin says. Not on the highways, anyhow. The drivers are all on
yaa baa.
Burmese meth. It’s like letting a toddler onto the Autobahn.

Silpa smiles, a wide, still smile, as if to say,
you said something
. No agreement or disagreement, no concern or unconcern. And Martin walks away, silently dismissed.

—

For lunch, he says, we have to go
outside
, meaning out of the building, away from the groaning traffic on Sukhumvit Road, and down a series of narrow alleys to a bigger alley, a side street, properly speaking, where cooked-food vendors have set up plastic tables from one sidewalk to the other. You can call it a Thai buffet, he says, gesturing up and down the row of stalls. Whatever you like. Shrimp? Barbecue? Whole fish? Papaya salad?

You pick. Surprise me. I still have moments of dizziness, the world sliding around at the very edges of my peripheral vision, but my stomach seems to be settling, now that I’m back on the ground, at street level.

Good. Smart man. He leads me from one huge tray to the next, pointing and calling out to no one in particular. There are heaps of fragrant long beans and Chinese broccoli, enormous prawns swimming in a marigold-colored curry, shrimp poking their feelers out of piles of grated mango, crabs, eels, whole fried frogs, chicken wings, duck
webbing. When we finally arrive at our table there are seven dishes waiting for us, magically, steaming hot, with a basket of sticky rice in the middle, and a sweating bottle of Pellegrino with two plastic cups.

Do we pay afterward? I ask him.

Oh, he says, they have me on credit. I come here nearly every day. Every month or so I settle up my bill, and then they get a big tip for Songkran. That’s Thai New Year, you know. It was just three weeks ago. The end of the dry season. You don’t mind eating here, do you? I dislike restaurants. Anyway, Thai food has to be eaten outside.

It reminds me of where I lived in China.

Of course, he says. In hot weather you are supposed to live outside. Do everything outside. When we lived in Rochester, in the summer, my wife and I, we used to shock the neighbors when we did the dishes on the back porch. Bucket of dishes, bucket of soapy water, and the hose. That was our
sala
. People used to come over and tell us to put screens on our windows. Because of the mosquitoes! I said, look, do you have malaria here in Rochester? Do you have dengue fever? Fire ants? Pythons? To them it was as if we’d stepped out of
National Pictographic
.

National Geographic.

Right. And speaking of pictures, I have something for you. He reaches into his briefcase—in all this time I’d hardly noticed him carrying a briefcase—and hands me a slim, heavy, blue three-ring binder. Unmarked on the outside. I open the cover and read, in large bold letters,
Case History of Martin Wilkinson.

I had Tariko put it together, he says. Took quite a bit of time, but I think it will make your life much easier. I’m quite proud of it, too. You could say it’s my
Dora
. My most famous case. Though probably more successful than anything Freud ever did.

Because the criteria are different?

Excellent question! He beams at me, like a professor who’s discovered a bright student in office hours. Who can say, if we want to get terribly theoretical, how much aggregate happiness we could provide to the
world, if we gave people the option to be something other than what they are? But watch out, the food’s getting cold. Eat this. Here. He passes me a bowl of finger-sized fish, served whole, tails facing up. They’re marinated in lime leaves for twenty-four hours, he says. Put the binder away. You have plenty of time for that later. Take ten minutes and just
eat
.

At the other end of the block, where the street meets another broad avenue splashed with midday sun, there’s a low, disorganized clangor: a sound of cowbells and paint buckets and frying pans pounded by amateurs, with no beat. A stream of red-shirted marchers comes into view, carrying signs, banners, and flags—also red—flooding the sidewalks and spilling onto the pavement. Air horns begin shrieking. The people around us look up for a moment and return to their food. Silpa scoops up a hunk of rice and rolls it delicately into a perfect ball.

Who are they?

Oh, he says, the People’s Party. On their way to the parliament building.

Do they do this all the time?

There’s a crisis at the moment. A look of sour boredom appears on his face; then he shakes it off, as if reminding himself who I am. With the prime minister. About rice and the commodity market. Frankly, I’m no expert. You’d do better to read the
Bangkok Post
. But are you interested, really, in politics?

As context, at least.

Deep background, as the reporters say? He laughs. Well, Kelly, I have a deep-background question of my own. I’ve been waiting a long time to ask you this, and I can hardly stop myself.

Go ahead. Why wait?

Did you ever find out what the
miao
character means?

I look down at the binder, which I’ve placed under the table, between my legs, as if the answer is hidden somewhere in there. And then, without wanting to or meaning to, I begin to laugh: a deep, froggish belly laugh, rising up from my diaphragm, a sound I don’t think
I’ve ever made before. A group of businessmen stooped over bowls of noodles at the next table look up at me with wary curiosity.

It’s publicly available, you know, Silpa says.

Only if you have access to the right database.

That part was very simple. That’s what assistants are for.

I can’t stop myself from laughing; I wipe the tears away with my sleeve. Dr. Silpa—

Just Silpa. Everyone calls me Silpa.

What could you possibly want out of my dissertation?

He gives me another of his bland, detached smiles.

Homo faber,
he says. We are what we make, right? We are what we produce. Look in that binder and you will find me. How do I come to know a person—a writer, a scholar? How else? You think I’m interested in you as a hired hand, an employee. I’m not, really. That’s just circumstantial. Do you know what the Buddha says about karma? If you brush by a person on the street, that’s because you knew them in five hundred previous lifetimes. You think you just met Martin out of nowhere, for no reason, in some parking lot in Baltimore? Life doesn’t work that way. You
present
yourself to us. We present ourselves to you. It’s an opportunity, not an accident. So the question is, what next?

You make it sound like a conspiracy, I say.

And as soon as the words are out of my mouth, I realize that that’s exactly what it is. For a moment I feel the sour taste of Phran’s fruit under my tongue again; to squelch it, recklessly, I take a forkful of ground-pork salad, dotted with red onion and tiny green chilis. Why not? I’m thinking, as the white heat shoots up into my nose, my sinuses, my eyes leaking tears. If I’m going to get burned, I’m thinking, without quite knowing why, let me be completely burned. Nothing left.