Breathing Water: A Bangkok Thriller полностью

“He drives them crazy.” She turns her hand palm up and wraps her fingers around his. “He’s dirt, up from some pigshit village, and he rubs their noses in it every day of the year. He shoved his way in here, with his awful skin and his burned hands and his one low shoulder, and grabbed a place at the dinner table without being invited, and then he pushed all their plates and glasses onto the floor, and spit on them. And then he bought everything they owned, two or three of everything, and covered them with gold just to make them uglier. And he takes the most beautiful women in the country, the ones they all want, and drags them behind him like a parade.”

“What’s the point?”

Rose shakes her head. “To prove that someone like him can have everything they have, everything that makes them special, and then shit on it. That someone can get rich without pretending to be one of them or trying to hide where he came from. The richer he gets, the cruder he gets. It scares them. They think he does it on purpose, just to build his personal power base.”

Power: the word Arthit had used. “Does what? Act like a pig?”

She turns the cup in the saucer, just doing something while she thinks. “That’s one side of it. But then he also gives money away like old newspaper. He sets up what he calls ‘banks’ up north. But they’re not really banks. Real banks lend money at interest and take away houses and things. His banks make small loans, maybe three or four hundred dollars, to poor people who have an idea for a business. If the business works, they pay back a little more than they borrowed. If the business fails, they don’t owe him anything. There are weaving villages now, woodcarving villages, silver-jewelry villages. There are men who own three or four trucks that they rent to farmers whenever they’re needed.”

“Why does that upset anyone?”

She dips her index finger into her cup and flicks coffee at him. “You’re supposed to understand this country. You wrote a book about it, remember?”

“I’ve never claimed to understand it. That’s why I married you.”

She pushes the coffee aside. “It upsets people because poor people are supposed to stay poor. They’re not supposed to have papers that say they own their land. They’re not supposed to have money in the bank so they can stockpile their harvests until the prices go up. They’re not supposed to do anything except live and die, and get fucked over in between. Grow the rice and sell it for nothing. Clear the land so some godfather can kick them off it and build ugly, expensive houses. Go where they’re told and stay where they’re put. Present themselves for sacrifice on a regular basis so the rich can stay fat.”

“And Pan is rocking the boat?”

“Sure. Rich people steal from the poor and pretend they’re giving. And here he is: He was poor, he still behaves like a peasant, and he’s really giving. He’s built two hospitals in Isaan, not big hospitals but good ones, and he pays doctors to work there, to take care of people who have never seen a doctor in their lives.” She stands and goes to the sink. He looks at the day heating up through the window, hearing the clink of her spoon against the jar of instant coffee and then the flow of water as the tap goes on. “Do you remember a girl from the bar, short and a little fat, always laughing, named Jah?”

Rafferty searches his memory. “Sort of. Maybe.”

“You have to remember her. There was that girl, the ugly, awful one, who was dancing when you first came into the bar. She wore glasses, and you can’t tell me you’ve forgotten that.”

Rafferty feels his face go hot.

“So you thought she was a college student or something, and you gave her-”

Rafferty tries to wave the rest of the story away. “I remember.”

“-you gave her five hundred baht. Because you were a sap. And the next night when you came in, everybody was wearing glasses.”

“Oh,” Rafferty says, the light dawning in the east. “Jah.”

“Right. She was the one whose glasses were so strong she walked off the edge of the stage and landed on that foreign woman. Anyway, Jah tested positive.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry.” Rose is right, Jah had always been laughing.

“She’s okay.” She comes back and takes her seat again. “She got into a place here in Bangkok with about a hundred and fifty women in it. I know five or six of them. They get the drugs without having to pay for them, they have a place to sleep, they get three meals. They’re not out on the street, dying, or curled up in some shack up north, with the whole village pointing at them. Pan pays for it all.”

Rafferty says, “Last night he was calling the women on Patpong whores.”

“They are,” Rose says.

“Well, yeah, I mean, sure, literally.” This is not his most comfortable subject. “But he used the word-I don’t know-contemptuously.”

“That’s who he is. He uses the worst words he can think of. And then he goes and sets up a place like the one Jah is in.”