The 38 Million Dollar Smile - Stevenson Richard. Страница 44

smaller ones and grabbing their food.

I said, “I’ll bet that guy was Prime Minister Thaksin’s

minister of defense.”

“Or head of his police.”

There were a few other farangs climbing the two hundred or

so steps, and a number of Thais. The Thais appeared to be

couples and small families who had come to pray or for an

outing with a view. We could see two men on motorcycles

stopped down below, but they didn’t seem to be paying any

attention to us.

As we approached the summit, Hua Hin was now visible to

the north, spreading westward from a long arc of sandy beach.

The high-rise hotels along the water and the green hills inland

gave the place a mini-Rio look, though instead of a huge cross

overlooking the town there was a Buddhist temple, and now we

were approaching it.

The place had the customary Buddha figure on a platform in

a cozy room, with candles flickering and floral and other

offerings below the altar. This gold-leafed Buddha was seated in the lotus position, palms pressed together in a wai, and he was

smiling in his serene way.

I said, “You go into a Christian church and an agonized

Jesus is stuck up on the wall looking like a bit player in a Wes Craven horror flick. You go into a Buddhist temple, and this

guy really gives you a feeling of peace. I like this better.”

194 Richard Stevenson

Though long-since lapsed from the Mother Church, Timmy

stiffened and gave me one of his looks. “If the Buddha had

been crucified by the Romans, he might not look so thrilled

with his circumstances either. But, lucky for him — and for

much of Southeast Asia — he was not.”

“True enough.”

“But I do share your deep good feelings about the Buddha,

Donald, and about Buddhism. Even if I don’t believe in

reincarnation, or in a system of rewards for good behavior that

feels to me as if it’s organized a little too much like the Delta SkyMiles program — still, Buddhism is so wonderfully

enveloping with its philosophy of acceptance and tolerance, and

its rejection of violence, and its aesthetic of simplicity. I’m so glad I came to Thailand — even though I came closer to dying

here than I ever thought I would at this stage of my life.”

We walked over to the parapet, where the setting sun was

putting on its gaudy show over the hills to the west.

“I was so afraid for you,” I said. “Pugh thought we could

rescue you, but he wasn’t sure we could do it in time. And after what Yodying’s goons did to Geoff Pringle and to Khun

Khunathip, we knew what a cold-blooded bunch they are. It

was your presence of mind, really, and the Millpond reference,

that made the rescue possible.”

“Well, it was your presence of mind to pick up on the hint

that saved Kawee and me. As soon as I understood that you

had heard me, I knew we were going to be okay.”

“Really? I wasn’t all that confident.”

“I told Kawee that you had the information that would free

us, and he said yes, he could tell that you were a man who was

up to the job because you reminded him of a kind of gay Bruce

Wayne.”

“That’s a bit confusing.”

“Anyway, he really was prepared to accept whatever his fate

might turn out to be. He said he had long ago accepted that

suffering was central to being human, and also why should he

be afraid of anything he couldn’t control? His calm in the face

THE 38 MILLION DOLLAR SMILE 195

of danger was really amazing. And while I didn’t follow all of

his logic, I saw how his belief in an ongoing cosmic continuum

of life gave him strength and confidence, and just being tied up in the same room with Kawee gave me strength and confidence,

too.”

“So those goons didn’t… You know…beat you or

anything?”

“No, they didn’t. And they fed us decently, too. I can’t really

complain about our treatment. Except for having to crap in a

bucket. I wasn’t crazy about that.”

“But the heat and the tedium must have been pretty

grueling. What did you and Kawee find to occupy yourselves

with in that room for a day and a half?”

“Oh, we just fucked and whatnot.”

“I wondered about that.”

“I thought you might, after that Paradisio episode. No,

really, what we did was, we basically just talked about how

much we liked our lives and how lucky we had been with so

many things in our lives up till that point. Except for one thing, in Kawee’s case. When he was seventeen, he had a boyfriend

back in his village who died of malaria. The kid was Burmese

and went home to visit his family in Shan state and got sick.

Burma has no health care system to speak of, and the guy was

too weak to make it back to Thailand, and he just died. Kawee

says this guy, Nonkie, was his great love. Some day, Kawee told

me, he wants to visit Shan state, because a Burmese friend who

was there told him that Nonkie’s ghost had been asking people

traveling to Thailand to find Kawee and invite him to come

over. Kawee said he would have gone by now, but it’s hard to

get a visa. And anyway once you’re inside Myanmar the military

government could grab you and put you on some forced-labor

road-building project. He wants to see Nonkie’s ghost, but he

doesn’t want to get trapped inside that sad country.”

The sun was gone now, but the entire western sky was

aflame over southern Thailand and Lower Burma and the

Andaman Sea beyond.

196 Richard Stevenson

I said, “Has Kawee seen ghosts before? He might be

disappointed. I know Thais believe in them, but I’ve never

actually met a Thai who has run into a ghost.”

“Kawee told me about his uncle who was in the hospital

with several cracked ribs after he fell off a logging elephant. The doctor showed the family the uncle’s X-ray, and they all saw his phee on it. That’s his ghost.”

“I wonder if Griswold believes in ghosts. He seems to be a

genuine convert to most of the bigger ideas here, both Buddhist

and the old superstitions like astrology and numerology that got dragged along when Buddhism spread eastward from India.”

“But if in a previous life Griswold was Thai himself,”

Timmy said, “and was Buddhist, then he’s not really a convert.

The unfortunate diversion from his true path was his being

born to Max and Bertha Griswold in Albany. He must have

done something really nasty way back when to have been

karmically punished by ending up for a while in the steel

business in Albany. Oh, you know what? There’s something

Kawee said that might help explain it.”

“What?”

“Kawee said Griswold once told him that somebody else in

his family had committed a very great sin. It was something so

terrible that Griswold himself would have to help compensate

for it with offerings and with meritorious works in order to

protect his soul and the souls of family members.”

I said, “I don’t think that in Buddhism you can be punished

by being born into the wrong family on account of sins that that family hasn’t even committed yet at the time of your birth.

Buddhism is fairer than that, more morally logical.”

“But what if the sin was committed before you were born?

By your parents or grandparents.”

“There’s only one way to figure this out. We have to ask

Griswold. It may be part of what set him spiraling off into la-la land six months ago — hiding out and plotting whatever it is

he’s plotting.”

THE 38 MILLION DOLLAR SMILE 197

“You’re just going to ask him about it outright? Good luck

with that.”