"I'm sorry," I was saying, "I'm so sorry. You walk fast. I was running to catch you. I must've tripped," I swivelled to look for what had tripped me, a parody, I hadn't tripped at all. She had heard the rapidly pounding footsteps and moved quickly aside, directly into my path. It hadn't been her fault. Stupid adolescent old man. I tried to skip the situation, "Are you going for a pizza?"
She pointed to a pharmacy. "No. I'm going there," no expression neither in her face nor her eyes. I had no choice but to dismiss myself, to wai in submissive apology, to turn around and to walk away in a blizzard of embarrassment. If I had looked back I may have seen the blood on her knees. I struggled for equilibrium, trying to discern my emotional position and direction. I had spiralled into an orbit with her at its centre. The writing of 'Secrets Of Loi Kroh Road' had got me to think of her more than I otherwise would have. It directed a discovery of details; a love of singing, a delicious half-giggle half-chuckle, a creative instinct - she too wrote. She showed me a notebook and let me glance over a few pages; charmingly naïve prose, all written in English. I queried the absent content - the balance. Where was the anguish and despondency? "I only write sweet thoughts," was the answer. I had taken her (together with a workmate) out for pizzas. I saw it as a step beyond a mere commercial relationship. At work she was triumphant, when twisting my back, if she could get it to click.
"Have you ever broken your customers' backs?"
"No," she had laughed, "only their hearts."
She claimed not to have a boyfriend but that was implausible to my heart and rigorously irrelevant to my reason. If I was much younger I would not have had immediate cause to twist my motive to a purpose different than the conquest of her heart.
The short story got a good reception and I had given her a copy on my way to the old city. I was proud of it. I was sure she would be flattered, Thai women seem to be suckers for flattery, and then, when returning on the evening of the same day, like an over-familiar besotted old fool I had knocked her down.
I stayed away a few days more than usual, hoping the time would fade her memory and, with the realization of how I perceived her, that she would forgive me. And so it happened that the cashier intercepted me. Mook would be finished in fifteen minutes if I cared to wait.
She emerged with minimal greeting. "I have to eat," she said and bought herself a noodle soup from a pavement vendor. "What kind of massage do you want?" she asked upon her return.
"I'd quite like an oil massage," I said timidly, "but you decide. Whatever you feel like doing."
"Up to you."
"No. This time it's up to you," I insisted.
"Okay, foot massage."
I was wearing long trousers. I did mention that it may be a little uncomfortable. She didn't think so, and that's how I ended up with tightly rolled jeans choking much of the blood supply to my feet.
"Did you like my story?"
She looked at me apparently puzzled.
"The one I gave you," I said with what may have been a note of dismay.
"I've been too busy to read," she snapped, "We've been cleaning as well." They had been expanding their shop, breaking down walls into the adjoining one. I closed my eyes to concentrate on the movements of her fingers on the soles of my feet. They opened again to the sight of an elderly American with a jovial face and the body of a balloon. He was escorted to a sofa by three beaming masseuses and presented with his after-massage tea. The girls crowded around him as he sprayed 100 baht tips in all directions, including to the cashier. "What about mine?" Mook pleaded, my feet all but forgotten.
"You weren't in the massage," the fat old American said dismissively. "How much for a joob-joob?"
"100 000 baht," she laughed.
He stayed for a long time it seemed. Mook joined the conversation between him and her work-mates, continuing my massage mostly by reflex. I slipped into a semi-conciousness occasionally opening my eyes to imbibe Mook's features in profile, yet again surveying the disquieting aspect of her beauty as it flickered across her cheek. It was at night when her image seemed most veiled by the sheen of external beauty. I was searching beyond the borders of occular vision but, not too far. I ignored a slanted sidelong glance and the words "I have a plastic heart." I was more comfortable outside of the conversation. It was banal and dominated by the fat old american. I pretended to keep my eyes closed.
A meek young man emerged from a massage with Fon, a new masseuse. Her features; her nose and eyebrows were straighter than Mook's, less oriental. I had remembered thinking she was as pretty as Mook when first I saw her. She had less self-confidence and consequently more sensitivity. I wondered what it would be like to get a massage from her. She stood at a sofa next to her customer while he drank his tea but, her eyes kept on meeting mine with a hint of concern. I was grateful. It would have been a lonely experience without her. I gave Mook a 100 baht tip, and regretted it immediately. She hadn't deserved it. I had done it merely to 'compete' with the fat old American.
It got me to thinking how life seems to come at me in waves, each arising from interest or excitement, many falling into confusion and pain. Nothing ends happily ever after. It just ends with nothing much more than backwash. Perhaps the ideal is to remain suspended at the crest of illusion for as long as possible and then, somehow, to exit decisively before descending into the gloomy trough of reality, the dwelling of most comfort to the cynic. I prefer to inhabit the brighter amplitudes when I can.
I recalled the sight of the bar-girls; the innocence in their eyes as they gazed up at those chanting monks, a clue as to how they endured. Innocence has been described as the filling of an empty glass, a sense of heightened reception. To regain it is to empty the glass. Was that what those monks had been doing for them? It reminded me of a moment (recounted in 'Drifting away') when I feared that to drop the weight of all my emotional baggage would mean the loss of my identity or even of my sanity. But could it, at least in part, be an enlightenment? The Zen Buddhist perspective views enlightenment and innocence as similar, maybe even the same. Though it was a late afternoon, my thoughts inspired me to ride up Doi Sutep and to visit the temple of Wat Phrathat.
It's about the height of 20 storeys from the base of a straight flight of stairs, lined all the way by the huge glittering bodies of two seven-headed snakes. The Naga (snakes) are revered as protectors of the Buddha. I walked up against an exodus of camera-wielding sight-seers, relieved we were heading in opposite directions. I was taken by the beauty of the place, and the variety and individuality of 'worship'. I witnessed a candle-lighting ceremony where seven monks actively participated. On completion, one of them turned to look at me with a twinkle in his eye, and an implied invitation to follow him to the bot. (It's the most sacred area of the temple reserved exclusively for monks. I didn't know that at the time though.)
I knew little of Buddhism so was cautious. I remained outside and noticed Thai lay-men did the same. It was clearly a ceremony meant exclusively for monks. Many small groups of falangs however, mostly over-weight and sweaty (despite having come up via the funicular), felt no qualms and continuously entered the bot to flash their cameras at the monks and themselves, heaving around in various grinning poses, oblivious to their own arrogance. I was one of them. They were of my own race. I was too embarrassed to remain.
I went to the old city, to a roof-top bar where the food is good and cheap. The festival of Yi Peng was imminent. I watched as some early sky-lanterns rose from the streets. It's said that when they float off into the air; they take your bad luck with them. I noticed a young good-looking Canadian, a regular customer. I felt a little envious. If only I had come to Thailand when I was his age. I shook myself, I had no excuse for envy. There was so much to learn, so much to enjoy.
Mook intercepted me on my way home, as friendly and charming as she had been before I'd knocked her down. She quizzed me about the first three times she'd tricked me. I remembered the names of her substitutes, and the circumstances, and she accepted my recollection. She made no further comment. I couldn't guess what she was thinking. She prided herself in never showing her true emotions. She asked me to take her to Burger King. I had vowed never to go to a falang-style fast-food outlet, over-priced and bland, but the Thais love them, it's crazy. Again, one of her friends was chaperone. Thais don't have a tradition of chaperones but I didn't mind. If I were to go alone with her it would have the appearance of her being a hooker. Why else would a girl as young and beautiful as her be accompanying someone like me? I walked a few paces behind the two of them to further lessen the appearance. It let me observe how other men perceived her. To me she seemed timeless in traditional clothes and the silver earings and her long black hair knotted around a silver hair-pin. Perhaps it was the silver which suggested an aura of ancient moonlight. The falangs gave her lingering looks but the Thai stall-holders surprised me. They were mesmerised, staring at her with an awed desire tinged with a semblance, it seemed, of fear. It's one of those things one notices but doesn't contemplate until some time has passed. She showed me the scab on her knee, still almost an inch across after more than a week.
She had once told me that she prayed to Buddha for two hours per day in the years before she started working. Thais follow the Theravada ('doctrine of the elders') Buddhism. It was established in the first century after the Buddha's death and is the only one of the original forms to survive. It seems to be based on paradox - whatever we believe to be reality is not real but merely a personal conception of it ("up to you") and, that opposites are alike ("same same"). There are the 'Three Treasures' of:
- Buddha: The ideal or highest spiritual potential.
- Dharma: The teachings of the Buddha.
- Sangha: The community of those who have attained enlightenment.
There are various precepts (rules of behaviour) depending on how ambitiously one follows the teachings. These are from the 'grave precepts':
- Affirm life
- Be giving
- Honour the body
- Manifest truth
- Proceed clearly
- See the perfection
- Realize self and other as one
- Actualize harmony
- Experience the intimacy of things
The restaurants at the summit had closed. I sat at one of their tables on the outer edge of the northern side of the temple perimeter. The sound of monks chanting filtered clearly through the walls. I could hear many more voices than on my previous visit, some special occasion. I tried to get a feel for the rhythm. The words were evenly paced, monosylabic, the chant continuous, no discernable pause for breath. the timbre was medium with rhythmic dips to a deeper tone sometimes once, sometimes twice or three times every eight or so words. It sounded almost like the beat of drums. I didn't understand the words and I had been digging around on the Internet, so my mind wandered.
My thoughts drifted around those little shrines on the pavements of Loi Kroh Road and into the ancient pre-Buddhist realm of mythology and spirit worship. The spirits are called phi. Every family has a guardian phi which brings bad luck if neglected. So I guess the shops in Loi Kroh Road must have a similar, though less familial phi. Oddly enough, there was no shrine where Mook worked. I had dug a little deeper and came across a phi song nang, spawned by the death of a woman before marriage. It appears as a very beautiful woman, and at night it hunts for handsome men to prey upon. It lures the man to a secluded place with hints of sexual favors. Once alone, it attacks him, draining him of his blood. Thai men have been known to wear nail polish and nighties to bed, hoping to trick phi song nangs into believing them to be women. Back in the 1980s in Thailand, a phi song nang was blamed for the spread of a mystery disease which killed some 230 migrant workers. It was called Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal Death Syndrome. Those who claimed to be survivors described a sudden fear come over them as they slept and, upon waking, feeling a strange presence and an increasing pressure on their chest. They were unable to move or scream.
I had looked in a mirror with relief. My body is firm for my age. I move as easily as I did in my twenties. I do stretch exercises every morning and almost always walk up the nine floors to my room. My eyes have pigments of grey, green and blue with one or the other dominating in different lights, but I've lost most of my hair, except in those places where I shouldn't have any. There's a looseness to my cheeks and I have the beginnings of a turkey neck. Whenever I introduce myself to Thai women as a 'falang ling ghe' (old foreign monkey) it usually sets them off on fits of giggles, probably because I'm saying what they are thinking. If phi song nangs only go for handsome men then I was reasonably safe.
Chimes from a line of lucky bells brought me back to my surroundings. I ambled to the eastern edge where a crimson bougainvillea framed a view of the city below. Various pagodas housed priceless collections of drums, bells, statues, and intricately carved wooden frescoes. It could have been a museum but it was no sterile collection of artefacts, no protective glass panels, no signs, no warnings, no prohibitions.... I took off my sandals to enter a pavillion walled by enormous dish-shaped bells all facing inwards. When some were struck the frequency was so low as to resonate in my skeleton but to be virtually inaudible. The bells responded differently to each person, amplifying their touch, leaving a clear impression of their age and character without my knowing what they looked like, or whether they were man or woman. I left the one set of reverberations for another. They drew me up a broad flight of stairs to the inner temple. The chants were getting louder to my ears as I approached and then entered with bare feet through the southern edge of the western wall.
The temple is of white marble, a square with the perimeter roofed over statues of the Buddha and the walls painted with scenes from his life. At the centre is the gold-leaf stupa; luminous with the effect of concealed floodlights. It towers into the sky, easily visible from the far side of the city beyond the Ping river and thousands of feet below. Against the southern wall; a mixed congregation of about 50 lay-people, monks and nuns faced an equal number of chanting monks. In fact they were beating drums, but so subtly it seemed the drums were chanting too. I circled north and then east passing a young couple elegantly dressed in traditional clothing and kneeling in front of a jade Buddha. Behind them a few superstitious women rattled a box of sticks wrapped in paper. When one falls out the number written on the paper is the key to a page in a chest which tells them their fortune. In an alcove, set in the eastern wall a monk was giving councel to a lay-man. I was then within a few metres of the chanting monks, the sound at its loudest, and I relaxed into the Tai Chi posture for standing meditation, emptying my mind to let the rhythm flow freely past any preconceptions of my consciousness, but it wasn't doing anything for me that hadn't already been done. I headed back to the western wall to leave an offering at the Buddha statue for the day of my birth. The Friday Buddha stands in contemplation with his hands crossed over his chest; the right above the left. The hand posture symbolises his first sermon. Having left some cash in the bowl I stepped back to view the stupa with a strange sense of inversion, as though I was looking down from the temple to the sky. The moon seemed tethered to the golden stupa like a giant disk of raw white silk, as if it was a ghostly vessel floating on a deep blue sea. An electrical current coursed through me. An intense emotional desire tightened across my chest. It had nothing to do with Buddha. I was in the wrong place.
As I left I was looked at with yet another knowing twinkle of an eye; a blue eye, a narrow face, a wisp of blonde hair, her white robes revealing a slender figure; a Buddhist nun.
My rented scooter was the only one remaining at the base of the temple steps. It was raining. The road was 15 kilometres of slippery mountain pass winding steeply down through the night shadows of a jungle. I had broken a rib in two places just six months earlier on a scooter at a bend on a wet road. I had to concentrate. Once I reached the outer city limits the sensation which triggered my departure was all but forgotten and, I was to discover at my own inconvenience that most of the roads into the centre had been cordoned off. Of course, the full moon, I had forgotten all about Loi Krathong; the annual sacrifice to the river spirits, the three-days of festivities and carnival. It was only by luck that I found a way through to my condo.
Showered and shaved, I headed up Loi Kroh Road to the old city. I saw Mook through the window. She was massaging the feet of the fat old American. She made frenzied gesticulations at me to return. Her eyes flashed with an unusual gleam of hunger. The cashier came out. "Mook only start now. Come back one hour."
"Okay," I looked up at the wall clock, "I'll come back at nine," and gave Mook a confirming wave with a surge of the current which had moved me from the temple. Those of her work-mates who weren't busy were making loi krathongs using bread-sized slices from the trunk of a banana tree as a base which they wrapped with banana leaves into the shape of lotus flowers. They were selling them with the candles, incense and flowers which, together with a few coins, makes the traditional offering to the river spirits. I intended to buy one or two, if Mook would join me, on my return. I was ravenous by the time I got to my favourite roof-top bar.
I ordered Pad Thai Moo noodles with pork and a beer, lit a cigarette and wondered about what seemed to have become an amplified sensitivity; both sensual and emotional. I've had similar episodes, but never really thought about them at the time. Usually they had accompanied an obsession; a falling in love or, an inspiration which had seemed to offer unlimited opportunity. Was it one of those or was it neither? This time there wasn't the same rosy haze of euphoria. This time there was an unusual clarity. This time I had little fear, if any, of delusion and despite my preoccupation with the phi, no concern for the fragility of fantasy.
My food arrived as two plump english-women sat down at the bar counter next to me, the only two chairs available. They effortlessly ignored me. Falang women are unable to detect men over the age of forty. Fortunately I smoke, so my appetite wasn't much diminished by the invisible cloud of perfume which ruthlessly condensed on all nostrils within a two-metre radius. I had almost finished my meal when, to my surprise, one of them addressed me.
"No offence," she said; "after all I am 35, but do you know where the young men are?"
"None taken," I laughed. "There is a Canadian. You would like him but, he doesn't seem to be here tonight. Your best bet is to head to the north-east of the old city. That's where all the hostels are. Any other time I could have taken you there but, I have to meet a young woman in less than ten minutes from now."
Back on Loi Kroh Road I bought two big khom lois (sky lanterns), about 1.5 metres high and half a metre in diameter. They're made from the same kind of paper that chinese paper lamp-shades are made from. The base is a circle of wire with four spokes. I tucked them under my arm and headed down for my appointment with Mook. I would pay for a massage but instead of having one I would take her down to the river. We could launch the khom lois, wave farewell to bad luck, float loi krathongs and please the river spirits. I was almost skipping with excitement when I arrived. She had finished her massage of the fat old American and was sitting next to him.
"Look," I crowed, "I've got us a pair of big khom lois. Let's go down to the river." She seemed more than a little hesitant. "Don't worry. You won't lose any money. I'll pay for a massage, even if it takes us more than an hour."
"I can't," she said.
"Why not?"
"I have a customer waiting," she gestured behind her at the doors to the oil-massage rooms.
I don't recollect exactly what went through my mind. I don't remember saying anything. She may have read my eyes.
"No, not later either. I'm booked up for the whole night."
I felt someone's hand on my arm.
"Come," it was Fon, "I can do it with you, if you like."
She wouldn't come down to the river with me though; apparently Mook would consider it too personal.
"She isn't my girlfriend," I needed to remind myself, "She won't mind."
"I know, but you don't understand. These girls can be funny about some things."
"Is it okay for you to give me an oil massage then?"
"Yes, that's okay. It's her fault. She was supposed to give you one."
Using thin wire, we each tied a ring of wax, about the same size as a ring doughnut, to the base of the sky lanterns where the spokes intersect. Then we set fire to the wax, waiting until the heat inflated the lanterns before releasing them. Mine lifted smoothly but Fon let hers go too soon and I had to sprint across the street to catch it before it got entangled in electrical cables. I owed her. It would not have been fair if her bad luck remained. I needed a smoke. I asked Fon if she minded waiting. I knew she was heavily in demand but she was fine about it. My defences were up. Was she being a little too kind? I stubbed it after a few drags and followed her. The room had four raised massage beds, when in use a curtain is drawn for privacy. No curtains were drawn. We were the only ones there.
"Where is Mook?" I asked as nonchalantly as I could, "Has she gone to her customer's house?"
"No she's in the other room. Have you never been there?"
"No. What's the difference?"
"In that one the beds are on the floor. I can take you next time."
Her massage was a good one, perhaps a little more sensual and intimate than Mook's had been, but my mind was elsewhere. It was responding to a challenge, one I had anticipated and prepared for, a sub-conscious effort of discipline; a release and a letting go, the first real test.
When I emerged for my cup of tea I recognised another of the customers; the young Canadian. He was leaving. Mook was talking to the cashier, frequently glancing back at me with a guilty grin. The Canadian was waiting out on the pavement. Mook disappeared into one of the back rooms. I sipped at my tea and remembered Fon saying that she had to leave me; another customer was waiting. I was waiting but what was the point? I knew what I would see.
I left and walked up the road, thirty paces, then turned and retraced a few. What for? I turned again. No. She at least should know that I knew. I headed slowly back and, with ten paces to go, she came out the door smiling brightly at the Canadian, her handbag slung over her shoulder. She saw me and I smiled at her as I walked past then crossed the road beyond. I turned and watched her follow him, a few yards behind, she may have hesitated. I haven't seen him since, but that would be called circumstantial evidence, even if his corpse were to be found. It would be a coincidence only in the context of this story.
I was smiling because I was smiling. I could feel life stirring and flowing past me like the wind through my hair (if I had any). I could sense a clearing of the passage of perception from my senses to my mind. I was seeing more shape in the shadows. It brought a tingle to my fingers and a shiver to my spine. I was exposed to an intense sensitivity of colour, flavour and scent and, perhaps also to the the progeny of fear and hope. I had passed the first test. I had taken a small step into innocence, into the source of creative power.
"I think, therefore I am." A painter transforms figments to a canvas. From a fresh perspective of space and time, a writer makes history anew. A city exists only as a vision before the houses, streets and alleys become a material reality. In their shadows and behind their doors is much which is unknown, whether it be covered by indifference or disguised by design. The spirits of Loi Kroh road may only roam within the innocent confines of our minds, but what cannot exist in the mind cannot exist anywhere in any way which has a meaning to us.
I had crafted the extra dimension of Mook's beauty as an external and transient spiritual essence which could release her once I had passed the summit of illusion. The beauty which cloaked Mook is the spirit of Loi Kroh Road. The spirit of Loi Kroh Road is my heart.
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