Bangkok Noir

I went back to my hotel then—it was on one of those brightly lit lanes, which in the daytime turns out to be just a rather peeling, derelict back alleyway. But at night it is enchantment. They call this place the “City of Angels,” but I think that’s a kind of spell, a way of saying it’s not a place of djinns. Didn’t Nana tell us, one of those long winter afternoons—Scheherazade in Somerset—that the best devils in the world are the ones who look like angels?

I suppose you’ll say all this has something to do with Sarah, and finding myself alone again. A widower is a king exiled from his palace, I tell my friends, and they look at one another and tell themselves I’ve lost it. But it’s true. When you’re suddenly alone again, it’s as if you’ve lost not just your jewels, but yourself, your life. You’ve woken up in a strange place, and there’s no way to find the road back to the castle. Nothing makes sense, and you don’t have any money on you, and whatever past you thought you had is locked up in somebody else’s keeping. I suppose I realized that if everyone was going to misunderstand me in any case, I might as well go full hog and become someone entirely unexpected.

Which brings me to the part that’s going to shock you. I feel strange saying all this to you; I suppose if would be easier to call. But if I could hear your voice, I don’t think I’d be able to say anything at all. And anyway, with you off in Bangalore, I’d probably hear someone else’s voice, or someone pretending to be you. And you’re not who you usually are either, I imagine, in that tropical setting, with all those streets around.

Besides, there is something rather magical about coming into one of these little cafés at 1:00 a.m.—the young girl at the desk curtsies, the kids wait around in chairs, as if waiting to be claimed—and typing these words onto a screen, and then, that very minute, the same words appear on a screen in India, taken there by a genie with STD connections.

So, back to the part where you’ve got to block your eyes (or ears, or both). I asked myself, as I went out for breakfast that second night, what I really wanted here. The streets around me were thronged; they have this night market thing here which is a kind of Oriental bazaar in the dark, so mad with flickering neon and shouted prices that you can hardly walk. People are shooting numbers back and forth, or offering one another calculators on which their bids are typed. Girls are drifting out of the bars in underwear, or even less. People are selling blacklight posters, lanterns, false perfumes and little vials of something strange, bras, luminous green rings to wear around your neck and spices that are said to be love potions. All around, on every corner. And I, walking through the midst of it, thought, “What is it that I could do here that I could never do at home?”

What I’m going to tell you won’t make you very comfortable. But I suppose I was after something that’s the opposite of comfort; if it had been comfort I wanted, I’d have stayed in London. No, I thought; this is a chance—my best chance, maybe my last chance—to become someone different. To say abracadabra and whirl myself around so fast that the person who gets up again is someone other. You know how my reasoning works when there’s no real reason behind it.

People were pushing me, scraping past me as I walked, picking up panties and Rolex watches that cost less than a drink, fingering X-rated videos and bottles of Chanel that looked like colored water, and at last, having fortified myself with a beer, I went up to two girls I’d seen the night before. One of them had short, spiky hair—she was less tall than I was—and a soft, young face, virginal in a way. The other was much taller than both of us, with long hair and a tiger’s face, predatory and strong.

“What magic tricks do you offer?” I said, not meaning anything, I think.

They looked at one another—though I’m sure they’re used to worse—and then the small one, the shy one, said, “What country you come from?”

“England,” I said.

“Same-same, America.”

“Not really, no.”

“Where you stay Bangkok?”

“The Dream Palace. Over near the Golden Temple.”

They looked at one another appraisingly.

“You have ladee, Bangkok?”

“No,” I told the shorter one. “No lady at all.”

Here the taller one grabbed hold of my arm.

“You come with me,” she said.

“No,” said the other. “You come with me. Number one.”

“Same-same,” said the first. “You take us both.”

“I will,” I said, and the whole conversation stopped for a moment. Whatever they were expecting, it wasn’t this. It wasn’t what I was expecting, either. It was the moment speaking, taking me wherever it went.

They looked at me and the tall one said, “You want me and my friend?”