Black Tiger (41 page)

I frowned at Chee Laan, puzzled.

‘Nickname for the Gaw Taw Paw, Field Marshal Praphan’s spies!’ she whispered.

The big man guffawed scornfully. ‘Gestapo! What can they hear, inside their air-conditioned limousines?’

‘Inflation’s driving me nuts!’ complained a rangy youth with legs already gnarled and old, as if he had graduated to samlor driving from pedalling an upcountry pedicab. ‘I tell you, it’s driven me to the Planned Parenthood centre!’

‘How come?’ the Southern Thai chuckled, astonished.

‘Well, see, the girls are charging two hundred baht a trick, instead of sixty, like the good old days. These days, the only lay I can afford is my own wife!’

A gale of laughter swept the table. Then someone, in a new, more serious tone, asked: ‘Anyone see the demo today?’

‘Students!’ The scarecrow spat again. ‘Idle layabouts!’

‘Not this time. Demonstrating for the working man. Price of rice, not just politics!’

‘I heard there was some deaths. Up Rajdamnern Avenue. Young girls, too. Doesn’t seem right.’

Chee Laan had been listening with interest and amusement. Now her expression changed. She signalled to the waiter urgently. He appeared, wielding his small black abacus, ducking under the table to check for empty bottles.

‘The evening papers will be out,’ Chee Laan said. She spoke quickly and urgently to the waiter, who immediately ran into the street and soon returned with a sheaf of newspapers. All carried stories about Prince Premsakul’s riverboat party. Revelling socialites were depicted in attitudes of refined debauchery. Only one small Chinese newspaper carried a report of the demonstration, with a few pictures.

‘Bless Khamthorn!’ Chee Laan exclaimed. ‘The
Bangkok Herald
probably refused to print his pictures, so he sold them to this Chinese newspaper.’ She translated quickly: ‘The streets of Bangkok ran with blood again last night. After a citywide student action, which left several demonstrators dead, six universities and a college of education have been closed down in the Greater Bangkok Area for an unlimited term. The student protest centred on the expulsion of six Chulalongkhorn University students, who had produced a news sheet accusing the government of corruption, injustice, and ineffectual administration.

‘The students held an all-night candlelight vigil on Rajdamnern Avenue, around the Monument to Democracy. They demanded interviews with the Director of State Universities, the President of the Universities Council, and Colonel Sya Dam.

‘Futile!’ she said, looking up. ‘They’d never agree. They couldn’t; they’d lose so much face if they showed up just because a student rabble summoned them!’ She held up the paper, trying to make out images from the blurred photograph. Together we looked at the sprawled bodies of the dead. We didn’t recognise any of them. In the centre lay the body of a young woman in a curious white shift, like that of a Buddhist nun. Her face was covered. The slender limbs were folded over themselves like a drooping marionette.

‘Pim was there.’ Chee Laan folded the paper and stood up abruptly. ‘I don’t believe they would arrest Pim. They wouldn’t dare—she’s too well known! Her family are too well connected. We must go to her at once. She can tell us what happened.’

In innocent anticipation, we left Chinatown and set off for the Premsakul mansion. Chee Laan was quiet, but composed. I was still dazed with a sense of unaccustomed euphoria, delighting in our intimacy. It’s strange to recall that now. Strange, and uncomfortable.

The demonstration had seemed at first a momentous success. Rajdamnern Avenue, Bangkok’s most majestic carriageway, swept as wide as the River Chao Phraya around the Monument to Democracy. From one blood-red wall to the other, it brimmed with a tide of humanity. Eight thousand students had gathered to protest against the sacking of the six student editors and the price of rice, demanding greater political freedom. Steel-helmeted riot police, armed with truncheons and tear gas, formed a cordon four deep across the avenue in front of the Thai Military Bank. Five hundred riot police from all the Northern Bangkok stations and the notorious Crime Suppression Division of the Special Branch reinforced them. A memorandum was formally read out: the Prince Regent exhorted the police to avoid bloodshed at all costs. This was greeted with ironic cheers. Pim, helped up onto a small pillar by willing hands, had called upon the students to sing ‘Thailand, Awake!’ and they responded enthusiastically, despite the tension and their exhaustion.

A small delegation of students was permitted to leave the cordoned-off area to seek provisions for their comrades. On their return, police refused to allow them to re-enter the area. A male student was struck in the face, smashing his nose. A student leader, seeing the blood, seized the microphone and shouted a denunciation of police brutality; a breakaway group of students charged the barricade and rushed the police cordon.

Police retaliation was immediate and savage. Several students were beaten down with truncheons. Members of the Arrowhead, the student leadership group, sought to control the angry demonstrators by holding hands and placing themselves between the police and their fellow students. Over the loudspeaker, again and again, the Arrowhead spokesmen urged, ‘Non-violence! Remember, comrades, non-violence!’

Stones were thrown. The demonstrators vented their rage on a police minibus, denting it and breaking a window. Tear gas canisters were tossed into the heaving mob, and shots rang out. When the gas cleared, the bodies of six demonstrators lay on the pavement. Ironically, all six were members of the Arrowhead—pacifists who had struggled to prevent the demonstration from getting out of hand. All the newspapers in Bangkok ran a story covering the riots.

Riot police today opened fire on demonstrators at the Monument for Democracy. Six students were killed.

Bangkok Lucky Sun
, Chinese-language daily

Among the students who tragically lost their lives in the assault on a peaceful demonstration on Rajdamnern Avenue was Princess Pim Premsakul, only surviving child of Their Highnesses the Prince and Princess Premsakul. Speculation is rife that the attack was funded by certain powerful elements in the business community to discourage the students from pursuing their anti-protectionist campaign.

Bangkok Herald
, English-language daily

The Bangkok Riot Squad was called into action again today when a rebellion was rumoured to be imminent among samlor drivers in Lopburi Province. When police arrived on the scene, order was restored.

All Bangkok Thai-language newspapers

Stop press: Bangkok’s Chinatown ravaged by arson and assassination. Widespread damage to property. Number dead not yet known.

UPI wire service

The samlor drivers of rural Lopburi, far from being rioters, proved to be model law-abiding citizens who were mystified and flattered by the unexpected attention of the Bangkok Riot Suppression Force. The mayor hastily delivered an impromptu speech welcoming the police. The riot squad removed their helmets and boots and sat around under the giant sacred monkey tree, smoking, scratching, and enjoying a well-earned rest from their uncomfortable jeep ride up the northern highway. Some enjoyed a nap. Others sampled the local noodle stalls and threw gobbets of food at the sacred monkeys, who returned fire with nuts and dirt.

It was as good as a holiday outing to the zoo. There was general regret when the sergeants started prodding the drivers of the jeeps and minibuses into action.

However, when they reached Bangkok headquarters, they were blasted out of their idyll, encountering a thunder-faced captain who demanded where the hell they had been.

‘Lopburi, sir!’ the sergeants shouted.

‘I suppose you know what’s been going on here?’

‘How could we, sir? Please, sir, we’ve been in Lopburi!’ one young sergeant asked innocently. He’d not long worn his sergeant’s stripes. Judging by the look his superior officer bent upon him, he would not retain them.

‘All hell’s loose in this city!’ the captain accused. ‘And meantime, the Riot Squad goes joyriding!’

‘I bet it’s those wastrel students again!’ someone muttered.

The captain spun on his heel and confronted him. ‘Quite right! Reprisals! There’s a hysterical mob running amok through Chinatown, burning, looting, murdering!’

‘Murdering the Jeks?’ someone asked, amazed.

‘Naturally! Haven’t you read the papers? The people who gunned down those students were in the pay of the Chinese!’

Now they all stared. Every man knew who among his comrades had fired on the students. Impossible to say who had hit what, but they all knew who had fired into that crowd of girls and boys armed only with stones and loudspeakers and sheets of paper.

‘But, sir…’ The young sergeant broke off, biting his lip.

The captain’s fierce eye quelled him. ‘Those who killed the students were bribed by the Chinese. It was a cunning plot by the Triad societies to discredit the Thai Riot Squad and reduce the confidence of the public in its constituted defenders. I want every man here to remember that.’ He swept his compelling gaze from one face to the other. ‘This episode was intended to turn public opinion against you, you dunderheads, brains of water buffalo—and against the state, whose honourable servants you, with luck, may remain. Now, back aboard those vehicles, men, and proceed to Chinatown, where your orders are to take control of the situation.’

‘You said there’d been more killing, sir?’ one sergeant asked.

‘Some,’ the captain nodded curtly. ‘In Chinatown. But now they’re setting buildings on fire and damaging property, and that’s more than the city can afford. So you get in there. But remember: the Jeks asked for it. In the eyes of every right-thinking Thai, the Jeks are getting a gobful of the rotten fish they serve up to everyone else.’

‘Very good, sir!’ they shouted. They rushed to their vehicles, eyes alight with excitement and rapacity. There was booty aplenty in Chinatown—the looter’s El Dorado. With the Jeks on the run, anything might happen. As the jeeps reversed showily and screamed off, there were war whoops and horseplay among the younger men.

The captain watched them go, then turned to make his report to Colonel Sya Dam. He had, he reflected with satisfaction, followed Colonel Sya’s instructions to the letter.

Chee Laan Lee

‘That beastly riot,’ pouted Siegfried, ‘quite spoiled my party!’

Raven and I had been refused admission at the Premsakul home. A weeping servant informed us Pim was dead. In numbed silence, we made our way back to the Drinkwater residence, where we found Siegfried and Laila on the terrace, as usual, reclining in the limp, self-pitying attitudes of those nursing hangovers. Neither Raven nor I offered our sympathy. We exchanged glances that spoke volumes. When I heard Siegfried’s reaction to the night’s events, I glared at him, outraged by this exhibition of egocentricity.

‘It was the most marvellous party, Raven, darling!’ he declared defensively, alert to my unspoken censure. ‘Truly, you should have stayed with us! Three huge pleasure craft and the temple guesthouse all to ourselves, lavish feasting, exquisite dancers, fantastic musicians. Wonderful fun, especially after our host and hostess, the Prince and Princess, retired to the temple.’ He sighed, remembering. Then his face became solemn. ‘They sent a motorcycle policeman there, to tell them about the princess. Poor young girl! Ah,
quelle dommage, si élégante, si gentille
!’ Siegfried’s affectation of sorrow came too late to appease my fury.

‘Why this sudden attempt to blame the Chinese?’ Raven demanded. ‘The Chinese had nothing to do with it. The demonstrators were gunned down by the Thai riot suppression forces, surely?’

‘Look, Raven,’ I said, conscious all three foreigners were watching me: Raven protectively, Laila anxiously, Siegfried with a hint of malice. ‘It is clear! The forces of law and order’—I did not attempt to curb the bitterness which crept into my voice—’cannot be blamed. The gallant police force will be exonerated. Otherwise, Pim would be condemned as a violent demonstrator. It would reflect badly on her family, who are very powerful. The left-wing students, in turn, would proclaim her a socialist martyr. This would not please her family either. Therefore, a third agent has to be identified. What more convenient villain than the Chinese?’ I added. ‘Not that Premsakul himself has the brains to devise such a solution. I am convinced there is someone cleverer pulling the strings.’

‘Such as?’ Raven’s eyes bored into mine. His expression was tense. I knew he was remembering our day in Chinatown, who I was, where my loyalties must lie.

‘Who else but Sya Dam!’ Even the air seemed to quiver apprehensively around the syllables of his name.

‘When he got the news about the demonstration and his daughter,’ Siegfried said thoughtfully, as though considering my suggestion, ‘Prince Premsakul requested that the patriarch of the local temple address the assembled members of his influential riverboat party, presenting what he called the “true facts.”‘ He snorted contemptuously. ‘The patriarch is a saintly geriatric whose view of events faithfully mirrored Prince Premsakul’s own. He claimed the bloodshed was Chinese instigated, because so much of the country’s capital is in Chinese hands.’

‘So left-wing agitators could be regarded as a threat to the Chinese business community,’ Raven interjected, nodding.

‘Exactly. And,’ I added, ‘if the government wants to hand a scapegoat to the left wing, they can easily sacrifice the Chinese! Eighty per cent of the Thai population will not move a muscle to defend us, and the other twenty per cent will delight in our discomfiture.’

‘It is true.’ Siegfried nodded sagaciously. ‘Of course, all the journalists became extremely agitated at missing the big story and rushed off to Bangkok in fleets of taxis. The riverboats were much more comfortable after that. Room to stretch your legs, and nobody being sick over the side.’

‘I bet the prince planned that whole party as a diversion!’ Raven said.