Black Tiger (16 page)

I nodded, amused. Siegfried smirked like a satisfied cat.

‘That precious ambulance. It stayed an ambulance for exactly three days—for the photo opportunities!’

‘And then?’ This time, obligingly, I prompted.

Siegfried closed his eyes and yawned, showing a marshmallow-pink tongue. ‘They painted it pink, staffed it with floozies, and turned it into a mobile brothel. They say it paid for itself three times over the first month, touring the bases—and it was American money that purchased the facility in the first place! A sweet deal for somebody, eh?’ He licked his lips appreciatively.

I studied the dark, exquisite face, seeking clues. ‘You know someone who could verify that?’

Siegfried shrugged, suddenly bored by this intrusion of pragmatism. ‘Many who could, not one who would. Everyone knows. How did it happen?’ He shrugged, skilfully avoiding spilling his drink. ‘Stolen, borrowed, hired out, handed over to the wrong general—who knows? The American knows it; he is CIA, he should know everything. But he will not tell Madame!’ He giggled. ‘These good ladies. They make the adventurous trip upcountry, and what do they find? The primitives rejoice in illiteracy and squalor! So, the good ladies, they collect money and they donate the toilettes of porcelain that flush. The village headman accepts, a photogenic child is photographed making pis-pis into the porcelain, too cute, everyone is content! Alas! Later, an observer visits the village, and there are the primitives all about as usual, making pis-pis and kaka behind the trees and in the river, in the most splendid naturalness. You see, none of the villages in this area have running water. So the flushing toilettes, it is an impracticality!’

‘Why did no one think to mention that fact?’

Siegfried opened his eyes so the whites glistened all round the protruding dark irises, like licorice all-sorts. He clicked disapprovingly. ‘What? Disappoint the charitable ladies? Too ungracious! Besides, although her dear little daughter Genty is a hophead tart, Madame has become a great lady. She is tutor to the young king.’

‘What does she teach him?’

Siegfried shrugged. ‘What you think,
chéri
? How to be an American. In case he ever needs to know. I must fetch Cedric. He will pout so if he misses the party, and Laila will not forgive me. Laila collects exotica. Cedric is part of her menagerie. Like me!’

He waggled his fingertips mischievously and was gone.

‘Sir!’ The van Hooten girl stood before me, clutching her glass in both hands, like a good child. Her demure Biba granny-print dress covered her ankles. The unfocussed gaze of her dilated pupils was unsettling. I recalled Siegfried’s words, wondering how much was accurate, how much sheer malice.

‘I did admire your talk,’ she said breathlessly. ‘I admire educated people. My mom…’ She glanced furtively across the room. ‘She’s
fixated
on getting me educated. She was just in Switzerland, checking out schools. Do you know Switzerland, sir? What’s it like?’ The vague eyes ransacked my face. Her voice trailed off in an enervating fretful whine.

‘Cute as a cuckoo clock, pretty as a chocolate box, runs on time.’ In lazy clichés I dismissed Switzerland. The mother signaled imperiously to the girl across the room, and she drifted away listlessly. The woman was lecturing what Angel Fleischer and I, in our wicked old unreconstructed pre-PC days, would once have called a Slaphead—a rotund, stocky Siamese with a hairless skull and the inward, self-satisfied smirk of a carved idol. This was my first sight of Prince Premsakul, Pim’s father. He now extricated himself from the group and tapped his way through the partygoers, forging a path for himself with the righteous self-absorption of a blind man, striking with his cane at skirts and legs, ignoring the winces and squeaks. But he was not blind. The eyes that fastened on mine had the liquorice darkness of leeches that would suck my blood and brains out through my own eye sockets. Then, mercifully, heavy lids dropped over his eyes like curtains, and I almost breathed a sigh of relief. He stood smiling up into my face.

‘Phra Om Chaaw Premsakul,’ he announced. ‘Prince. In the old days, you’d have had to bang your head on the ground three times before addressing me. What larks, eh?’ The vowels were vintage Oxford, the phatic elements old-world county. ‘Jolly interesting talk, old boy, good show! Quite an honour, you clever young chaps taking an interest in our country.’ He invested no attempt at sincerity in this conventional statement.

‘Yours is an extremely fascinating country, Highness,’ I countered as gamely as I could.

The prince sniffed, feigning deprecation. ‘It has certainly inspired many poets. You are interested in poetry, Dr Raven, besides hard scientific facts?’

‘Considerably, Excellency.’ I’ve found these two words useful in many ambiguous situations. The prince’s smile broadened; I was reminded of the glee of a toad watching a fat insect flit within range.

‘Always delighted to meet a fellow scholar. Chance me arm at the odd spot of translation and composition meself—hardly what you might call a dab hand.’ I tried to imagine circumstances under which I would wish to call anyone, anywhere, a dab hand. ‘I fear me Siamese isn’t really up to snuff, what?’ The prince waved a golden paw. ‘Drawback of a Western education, dontcha know? Still, I’ve turned out one or two trifles in me time that have been tolerably well received among the cognoscenti.’

I cocked an eyebrow, feigning fascination with this information.

‘Oh, yes, indeed!’ the prince simpered modestly. ‘Transposition of early Thai poetry into contemporary English. My especial forte!’ He beamed expectantly at me.

‘Impressive!’ This was the inadequate best I could come up with.

‘Oh, I dunno. More of a knack than anything. Now, how does this strike you?’ The prince, with lofty indifference to the circumstances—the rising hubbub of voices, the chink of glasses, the whoosh of strings and whirl of woodwind from the garden—now adopted a recitative pose, leaned backward, placed his feet more securely on the polished teak floor. Recognising the imminent rendition of a literary quotation, I braced myself. Even so, I was unprepared for what followed.

The Prince elocuted portentously:

‘What ere be yon spot ‘pon my Beloved’s cheek?

What winsome gnat, naughty mosquito or merest midge

Did it there wantonly plant?’

‘Course,’ the prince added modestly, abandoning the declamatory mode for his own soft, lisping tones, as though forestalling my rapturous acclamation, ‘you lose a lot in translation—rhythms of Thai poetry, inordinately complex. But you’re a young academic with international contacts. No sense beating about the jolly old mulberry bush, what? Bit of a hobby-horse of mine, I’m afraid. Our great Thai poets deserve wider recognition in translation. Can’t expect other poor beggars to learn Thai in order to appreciate ‘em, what?’ He giggled, then grew serious again. ‘Now, if one’s own poor efforts were deemed worthy of a wider audience…a word to the wise, pull a few strings…’

So that was the way the wind blew! The compulsion of fortune’s darlings, the well-born and wealthy, to be valued for their achievement also.

The prince went on. ‘Come to tea. Always appreciate a chance to chat with one’s fellow literati.’ He lowered his voice and pushed his round head closer to my ear. ‘You would not find me ungrateful…’

‘Father!’

It was then that I first noticed them, Princess Pim and Chee Laan Lee. They stood watching me and the fat little prince expectantly. I doubted they had recognised me on the plane, or that they did so now. Slender, sweet-faced Pim, with her cloud of soft flyaway hair, looked more European than Asian. Her face was long and her features straight and fine. Whereas all the other women were dressed to amaze in transparent gowns, sequins, and rich brocades, her dress was sober as a nun’s habit, misty dark blue, its neck modest, the sleeves long. She wore no jewellery, and her long sweeping eyelashes and dusky golden complexion owed nothing to art.

‘M’daughter, Pim,’ said the prince with an airy wafture of the hand. His darting gaze glanced off his daughter’s companion, and his glistening smile suddenly acquired a harder edge.

The princess was undeterred. ‘Father, this is my friend Chee Laan Lee. We were in France together. You know her grandmother, Madame Sunii Lee.’

I looked at Chee Laan Lee and caught my breath. Her emerald green cheong sam poured over her shapely body like water, its gold-edged seams and frogs catching the light as she bowed her glossy black head, which rose from the high collar like a dark poppy. The defiance with which she paraded her traditional garment was not lost on me, nor was the irony of her deep obeisance for the prince. I observed, I admired, and I speculated.

‘Charmed,’ murmured Prince Premsakul without moving his lips, as if he were practising for a new career as a ventriloquist. ‘Well, time one was making a going noise,’ he turned to me, grinning jovially. ‘Seen that brother of yours, Pim?’

But the young princess, taken aback by her father’s brusque lack of cordiality, was staring toward the other side of the room, and what she saw caused her narrow lips to tighten into a grim expression of disapproval. People were moving aside, pointing, exclaiming. Around the edge of darkness a young leopard padded with its rolling gait, blinking in the lights, its jewelled collar flickering in the candlelight. On the end of the leopard’s plaited buffalo-leather leash strolled Siegfried, looking insufferably smug.

‘Meet Cedric!’ he announced, and made a little bow.

The leopard stared round haughtily. Conversation ceased. Princess Pim spoke loudly into the sudden silence. Her voice was sharp with accusation. ‘And how did you acquire Cedric, Baron? Did you commission poachers to kill his mother, or did you perhaps bribe a game warden in the Khow Yai Nature Reserve?’ She stepped up to him, ignoring the leopard, consumed by anger. ‘What will you do when he grows too strong, or you become tired of him? Try to palm him off on a zoo? Or will you simply put a bullet through his brain?’ The leopard, disliking the sudden attention, gave a low growl, tentative but increasing in volume.

There was a silence. Then in quick succession came three sounds: Laila Drinkwater’s high-pitched laughter, the leopard’s growl, and the tapping of Prince Premsakul’s cane on the polished floor. ‘My daughter,’ he turned his professional smile on the astonished guests, ‘suffers from the effects of a Western education. Destabilises ‘em. She’s a little hothead! I’m convinced the fair sex is ill-suited by Dame Nature to cerebral challenge! Ah, the ladies! How they keep us on our toes, with their sudden enthusiasms!’ He sighed indulgently. His eyes glittered black.

The girl stamped her little foot. Ignoring the murmurs, she went on, undaunted, ‘Stability! The situation in this country is not stable; it is restless. Everyone knows it. Especially since His Majesty King Rama’s tragic death. So what do we do? We drink cocktails, we keep tame leopards, and we appoint yet another field marshal! How many field marshals does Thailand need to achieve stability? Four? Ten? A thousand? A thousand like Sya Dam?’ She strode up to the astonished Siegfried and snatched the leopard’s leash out of his hand.

Chee Laan Lee moved to the princess’s side. I was just close enough to hear her say to the other girl, in low, urgent French, ‘Don’t mention his name. Not here, among so many. You know what can happen. They are everywhere.’

The leopard’s head was between them, but he seemed to have calmed down. Pim reached out a trembling hand and rubbed his ear and he tilted his head like a domestic cat. She looked at the other girl. ‘The time for caution is past, Chee Laan; someone has to speak out before it’s too late.’

I moved closer and caught the note of urgency in the Chinese girl’s voice as she laid her small hand over the princess’s. ‘Pim, you are putting yourself in danger.’ The princess laughed lightly.

‘From this leopard? He’s not dangerous.’

Anger flashed in Chee Laan’s eyes. ‘You know that is not my meaning!’

‘I know. You mean Sya Dam. But Chee Laan, my dear, I can take care of myself. In part thanks to that wretched bully Fleischer. And I have good comrades.’

‘We are leaving,’ her father commanded. He took the leash from his daughter and handed it ceremoniously back to Siegfried. The leopard looked from one to the other and lazily licked its lips. It occurred to me that it was drugged. Pim turned away from her father.

‘Leave when you like,’ she said. ‘I will go home with Chee Laan.’

The prince’s tone remained soft and lubricious, but he seemed ready to burst with rage. ‘You return home with your family. Now!’

Siegfried laughed gaily. ‘I think Cedric has enjoyed sufficient excitement for one day,’ he said. ‘Come, Cedric, say goodnight to the ladies and gentlemen.’ The big cat looked at the people sleepily with his green-gold eyes. He had lost interest, and padded after Siegfried as docilely as a tabby cat up the carved teak stairs, his powerful haunches and barred golden tail swinging contemptuously.

Chee Laan looked up at me. I could see her wrestling with some familiar element, distracted from placing me by questions of how much I had overheard, and how much I might have understood. Then she smiled suddenly, a disarming social smile. She greeted me with a graceful
wai
, holding the glass between her slim fingers as she bowed her head. ‘
Khun Ajaan
, honourable teacher! A warmest welcome.’ She half turned toward her friend. ‘You must excuse us. Pim has high principles. She has been up all night, picketing the university to demonstrate against the sacking of liberal professors. She disapproves of keeping wild animals as pets. Siegfried’s pet pussycat was the last straw for her.’

‘Her father seems a little out of sorts, too,’ I fished. Chee Laan held her glass of iced water against her cheek and looked up at me through her lashes.

‘How strange, the death of all ambition,’ she said. Even I, with my negligible knowledge of Chinese poetry, recognised the quote. ‘But his ambition is far from dead. So. I think it is time I left. Pim and I will slink off together in disgrace.’

I did not want her to slink off. I wanted her to stay there, on the rim of that noisy festive gathering, on the edge of the dark garden where torches flickered here and there on the palm trees and the night creatures chirped and sang. I wanted her to stand looking at me, with her head tilted like a flower on a slender stem, and I wondered what the hell had gotten hold of me. I had admired her spirit and her grim tenacity in boot camp, grimy, bruised, humiliated, oozing blood and sweat in that hostile and unaccustomed environment. She was a poor little rich girl, bent on proving she could face a challenge, a spoiled but gutsy kid giving Fleischer’s sadistic circus her best shot. This was different. She was different. Her poise and the ironic slant of her dark eyes mesmerised me. I loomed there like an ox and could think of nothing more intelligent to say than to ask: