Everyone Burns (19 page)

My mind, however, soon drifted towards the words of the Old Monk. In spite of the fact that we’d spent several minutes talking at cross-purposes about ‘
My Problem’ – whatever he imagined it to be – what he’d said about everything being connected had struck a chord.

I could sign up to the proposition of everything on the planet (and beyond) being in some way ultimately related to everything else. But so far as the murders were concerned, I had to work out which things were connected in a
significant way
; and which things were not significant, and therefore irrelevant.

As an exercise, I took out my notebook and started to draw a spider-web diagram; a sort of schematic micro-representation of the Jewel Net of Indra, Braddock-style. Names of people and
things
, I put inside circles and joined the circles with lines where I perceived a connection, however tenuous.

I put myself at the centre of the diagram, and expanded it outwards adding randomly, and sometimes fancifully as notions popped into my head. It was most certainly
not
a structured approach, more like a brain-dump. I realised after a while that the picture I was drawing was not solely related to the murders.

I put down my pen and looked at the web. A big chunk of my life had been reduced to circles, lines and letters.

I scanned the paper, like some old-fashioned English archaeologist deciphering hieroglyphs. I searched for pattern and meaning, but found only randomness. The lines joining the circles denoted relationships, but not for the most part
causal links
. I was reminded of the quotation about history being just one damn thing after another.

I needed more data; but at least I could rearrange, expand, prune as necessary and annotate later. It was a start. I figured that if I looked at the problem from as many different angles as possible, something might stick out.

I lit another cigarette and became aware that a waiter was hovering at my shoulder hanging around to take my order. He’d probably been there a while, just too polite to cough. I ordered some steamed rice with the catch of the day and he lumbered off and left me to my thoughts.

My thoughts were about flames, and the Three Fires, and
about what remains after the fire has burned out. I thought about ashes and I thought about cremations. And I thought about Claire and whether she would leave me.
The burnt-out ends of smoky days
.

‘
Everybody Hurts’, by REM, started playing on the crackly music system.
Yeah
, I thought,
that would be about right
. Everybody hurts and everybody lies. And everybody burns.

*       *       *       *       *

Everybody might burn, but not everybody is burnt. But two people have been. I reminded myself that this was not a game, not some dry intellectual puzzle for my bored brain. Two people were dead. The Old Monk was right: I needed to regain control of my monkey mind and focus.

My mind, however, has ideas of its own. It is not accustomed to long stretches of enforced discipline. It will tolerate that regime for a while before it starts screaming at me that it needs creative space
and that it needs to roam free.

If my mind w
ere a dog, it would be the sort of dog that chews the furniture, chases cars and defecates on the neighbour’s lawn. This afternoon I put my mind on a short leash. I made it sit, heel and roll over, then I tickled its tummy. It seemed inclined to behave itself, so I gave it the benefit of the doubt, but remained wary. Sooner or later I knew it would try to hump somebody’s leg.

I arrived at the coconut grove a few minutes early, but someone else had arrived there before me.

A young Thai girl – I would guess her age at 18-20 years – was sitting on a motor scooter under the shade of the trees. She looked vulnerable and undernourished, and something about her posture suggested habituated disappointment. On her lap she clutched a basket covered with a crimson cloth. The scene put me in mind of Red Riding Hood. As I climbed out of the jeep she looked at me with nervous eyes, like I was the Wolf.

“You must be Bee,” I said lightly in Thai, and made a
wai.

She had risen respectfully and returned my greeting. “Mr
. Braddock,” she said bowing her head.

“I understood we were meeting at your grandfather’s house.”

“I thought perhaps we could talk here for a while first, before we see my grandfather.”

She looked at me in a way that suggested that, while life had so far given her a good whipping, her spirit was not yet entirely broken.

“I am concerned for my grandfather and I do not wish to see him upset.”

There were a couple of large boulders near to where we were standing and I suggested we sit down to talk. She nodded but continued to hug the basket to her like it was a magic charm to keep me at bay.

“Bee,” I said, “I have no desire to distress either you or your grandfather. Why do you think our conversation might upset him?”

“It is personal. A
family matter.”

“And difficult to talk about to a
farang?”

She nodded.

“Does it concern your father?”

She nodded again.

“Yai told me your father died here. I’m sorry. It must be hard for you having to come here knowing what happened.”

Bee bit her lip. “Did grandfather tell you how he died? I mean, the circumstances of his death?”

“No.”

She paused and then said, “It is a long time since I spoke about this to anyone. I’m not sure I have ever
really
talked about it.”

“Perhaps it’s time you did.”

“But – here?” she said indicating the grove. “And to a stranger?” She shook her head. “No, no. It is impossible.”

“It is not impossible. Our setting is a little strange, perhaps. But it’s neither impossible nor ridiculous. Talk to me,” I said. “Tell me about your father.” I lit a cigarette to make it clear I wasn’t going anywhere. “What was his name?”

“His name was Wasan,” she said quietly.

“And was he a boat-builder like your grandfather?”

“Yes, he was. Although boat-building was not where his heart lay.”

“You mean he was more interested in his family?”

She shook her head sadly.

“No
, Mr. Braddock, that is not what I mean. My father provided for mother and me – even loved us in his own way – but we were not his real passion.”

“What was?”

“My father was a political activist.”

“Really? I shouldn’t have thought there’d be too many of those on Koh Samui.”

“There are some.”

“Well, everyone needs something to live for.”

“In my father’s case it turned out to be something to die for.” She hesitated and looked at me. What she saw must have reassured her because she continued. “How much do you know of the recent history of my country, Mr. Braddock?”

“Probably not as much as I should, given that I live here.”

“Have you heard of ‘Black May’?”

“I’ve heard of it, but I can’t say I know much about it.”

“Then I need to share some of our history with you, so you can understand.” She began to recite, as if from a history book. “In Thailand there has been a long struggle for democracy over the years. Fourteen years ago, in February 1991, Army Commander Suchinda Kraprayoon led a coup d’état which overthrew the elected government. The coup-makers called themselves the National Peace-Keeping Council and appointed a former diplomat as interim Prime Minister. A new constitution was promulgated by the junta-dominated Assembly and elections were held in March 1992.

“General Suchinda who had orchestrated the coup – and was not even a
Member of Parliament – was appointed Prime Minister, to the outrage of many Thai people. In a mood of anger, large-scale protests followed, and a strike was planned for 17th May, with an accompanying rally in Bangkok.”

Bee put down her basket and stood up, agitated. As she continued she began to walk around, occasionally leaning on a tree for a moment or two before becoming restless and moving on. When she talked it was as if she were talking partly to herself. Perhaps she was.

“My father had been passionate about politics for some years. In 1976, a student friend of his had been beaten to death by the paramilitaries during the 6th of October Massacre at the University campus in Bangkok. The climax to the day’s brutality was the burning of a heap of petrol-soaked bodies: the corpse of my father’s friend was among them. It left a very deep impression on my father, as you can imagine.

“So when this
new army-inspired injustice arose, my father felt he had to do something.

“Along with three of his friends he travelled to Bangkok for the rally. It was not easy to get there since the Interior Minister had ordered the provincial governors to prevent people from travelling.
But by various means my father and his friends made their way to the capital.

“By the evening of the first day of protests some two hundred thousand people thronged Sanam Luang, spilling on to the surrounding streets. After darkness fell, the protesters began a march to Government House to demand the resignation of Suchinda.

“However, when they reached Phan Fa Bridge, they were met with a razor-wire barricade, water cannons and riot police armed with batons. Violence ensued, and shortly after midnight the government declared a state of emergency.

“By the morning the army had brought in more troops, M16 rifles were fired in the air, and the protests spread to other parts of the city. The violence escalated.

“My father and his friends were arrested and separated, and my father was taken to the grounds of a school in a truck with other protesters. There they were kicked and beaten with rifle-butts, tied up and left out in the hot sun without food or water.”

Bee interrupted her narrative and took a deep breath. Her hands were shaking.

“Take a moment,” I said.

“I heard all this from my mother,” she said. “And it got worse. My father and a few other men were dragged into the centre of the school courtyard, and they had gasoline poured over them. The soldiers laughed at them and stood nearby smoking cigarettes and threatening to set them on fire if they didn’t behave themselves.

“My father remembered what had happened to the student protesters sixteen years before, and he was terrified. After a few hours, the soldiers hosed the protesters down with water and let them go.

“My father learned later that the King had intervened and an amnesty had been declared for the protesters. A few days later, General Suchinda stood down as Prime Minister.

“Fifty-two deaths were
officially
acknowledged by the government, and there were hundreds of injuries. Some of the injured were women and children. In all, three and a half thousand people were arrested, and many said they had been tortured. No-one knows how many people ‘disappeared’. A Special Committee concluded that excessive force had been used by the authorities, but to this day nobody has been prosecuted.

“My father’s friends were never seen again: they became part of the ‘disappeared’ statistics. Only my father returned home to Samui, and he was a changed man, traumatised by what had happened. He felt guilty that his friends had died and he alone had survived.”

“
Survivor’s syndrome
,” I said. “It must have been hard on you all.”

“I was only six at the time,” Bee replied. “I don’t remember any of it. The responsibility all fell on my mother. In the months that followed, father became more and more withdrawn. He said that he should have died with his friends; that he was a coward and didn’t deserve to live. He became obsessed with the idea of immolation – death by fire.

“One day he left our house and didn’t come back. He came to this grove, sat down cross-legged on the ground over there –” she indicated the spot where the murders had taken place, “– poured gasoline over himself and struck a match.”

“He burned himself to death?”