The Windup Girl

Kanya flinches. Jaidee hides a smile at her discomfort. Ahh, Kanya, he thinks. We all have choices we must face in life. I've made mine. But you have your own kamma. He speaks gently. "Go on and eat more, you look skinny. How will you find a special friend if you're only bones?"

Kanya pushes her plate away. "I don't eat much these days, it seems."

"People are starving everywhere, and you can't eat."

Kanya makes a face and scoops a sliver of fish onto her spoon.

Jaidee shakes his head. He sets down his own fork and spoon. "What is it? You're even more glum than usual. I feel like we've just put one of our brothers in a funeral urn. What's bothering you?"

"It's nothing. Really. Just not hungry."

"Speak up, Lieutenant. I want straight talk from you. It's an order. You're a good officer. I can't stand having your sad face. I don't like any of my people to be sad-faced, even the ones from Isaan."

Kanya grimaces. Jaidee watches as his lieutenant mulls what she will say. He wonders if he was ever so tactful as this young woman. He doubts it. He has always been too brash, too easily angered. Not like Kanya, dour Kanya, all jai yen all the time. Not sanuk at all, but certainly jai yen.

He waits, thinking that at last he will hear her story, her full story in all its painful humanity, but when Kanya finally summons the words, she surprises him. She speaks in a near whisper. Almost too embarrassed to form the words at all.

"Some of the men complain that you don't take enough gifts of goodwill."

"What?" Jaidee sits back, goggles at her. "We won't participate in that sort of thing. We're different than the rest. And proud of it."

Kanya nods readily. "And the newspapers and whisper sheets love you for it. And the people love you for it."

"But?"

Her miserable look returns. "But you don't get promoted anymore, and the men who are loyal to you get no help from your patronage, and they lose heart."

"But look what we accomplish!" Jaidee taps the sack of money between his legs that they confiscated off the clipper ship. "They all know that if they have a need, they will be helped. We have more than enough for anyone in need."

Kanya looks down at the table and mumbles, "Some say you like to keep the money."

"What?" Jaidee stares at her, dumbstruck. "Do you think this?"

Kanya shrugs miserably. "Of course not."

Jaidee shakes his head, apologizing. "No, of course you wouldn't. You've been a good girl. You've done great things here." He smiles at his lieutenant, almost overwhelmed with compassion for the young woman who came to him starving, idolizing him and his years as a champion, wanting so much to emulate him.

"I do what I can to squash the rumors, but…" Kanya shrugs again, miserable. "Cadets say that being under Captain Jaidee is like starving of akah worms. You work and work and get skinnier and skinnier. These are good boys we have, but they can't help but feel ashamed when they have old uniforms and their comrades have new crisp ones. When they ride a bicycle two at a time, and their comrades ride kink-spring scooters."

Jaidee sighs. "I remember a time when the white shirts were loved."

"Everyone needs to eat."

Jaidee sighs again. He pulls the satchel out from between his legs and shoves it across to Kanya. "Take the money. Divide it equally amongst them. For their bravery and hard work yesterday."

She looks at him surprised. "You're sure?"

Jaidee shrugs and smiles, hiding his own disappointment, knowing that this is the best way, and yet saddened immeasurably by it. "Why not? They're good boys, as you say. And it's not as though the farang and the Ministry of Trade aren't reeling at this very moment. They did good work."

Kanya wais deep respect, ducking her head low and raising her pressed palms to her forehead.

"Oh, stop that nonsense." Jaidee pours more Sato into Kanya's glass, finishing the bottle. "Mai pen rai. Never mind. These are small things. Tomorrow we'll have new battles to fight. And we'll need good loyal boys to follow us. How will we ever overcome the AgriGens and PurCals of the world if we don't feed our friends?"

8

"I lost 30,000."

"Fifty," Otto mutters.

Lucy Nguyen stares at the ceiling. "One-Eighty Five? Six?"

"Four hundred." Quoile Napier sets his warm glass of Sato down on the low table. "I lost four hundred thousand blue bills on Carlyle's goddamn dirigible."

The entire table falls silent, stunned. "Christ." Lucy sits up, bleary with drink in the middle of the afternoon. "What were you smuggling in, cibi-resistant seedstock?"

The conversationalists sprawl on the veranda of Sir Francis Drake's, all five together, the "Farang Phalanx" as Lucy has styled them, all of them staring out at the dry season blast furnace and drinking themselves into a stupor.