Everyone Burns (32 page)

I take my time lighting a second cigarette and look at him as if I’m weighing things in my mind.

When he realises I’m not about to speak he sits down and says, “So what happens now?”

I flick my ash and lean forward. “Two things,” I reply. “First, I’m going to send you a whopping bill for wasting my time; and I’ll be including the cost of the hotel I had to book Wayan into after your night-prowling gave her the jitters.”

“That’s fair. And the second thing?”

“You’re going to go and see Wayan,
tell her everything and apologise.”

His face drops. “She’ll think I’m some kind of creepy weirdo.”

“No, she’ll understand you’re more of a pathetic saddo than a creepy weirdo. Actually,” I add more kindly, “she is a very understanding lady, particularly where people are honest with her. You might come out of this none-too-badly. Better than you deserve in fact. And for the record, Wayan is my housekeeper and a valued friend, but
nothing else
.”

Sinclair takes a deep breath and capitulates. “I’ll go and talk to her. I don’t know what I’ll say, but you’re right. I owe her an explanation.”

“Then we’re finished here.” I rise from the chair.

“Just before you go. Did you
really
see Kwanchai touting for taxi business with one of my cars?”

“I did
,” I say. “But don’t even
think
about asking me to tail him.”

*       *       *       *       *

Kat has SMSed me while I’ve been with Sinclair:
Can I come and see you on Sunday morning while DC is playing golf?

I wonder whether this was prompted by my call to Rattanakorn yesterday, but I’m not going to think about this now. I have other stuff bouncing around in my head that I have to resolve first. I send a quick reply
:
OK 11.00am my office

The Sinclair line of inquiry has turned out to be a dead end. He’s no murderer
, just another lovelorn farang; and a rather sad one. I need to check up on the Nikom Promsai angle otherwise as far as the burning murders are concerned I’m out of leads.

I call Prasert.

“Have you heard anything from your brother?” I ask.

“Nothing. Nothing at all. I can tell you I’m worried.”

“He’ll turn up, Prasert, I’m sure.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“Where are you now? I’d like to talk to you.”

“I’m in Lamai. I’ve just finished a meeting with a client. I’m just about to have something to eat.”

“Can you meet me at the abandoned building project site today? You know, the one you and your brother were involved in?”

“I can,” he says sounding mystified. “But why there?”

“I’ll explain later.”

“OK. I can meet you at the coffee shop there. Say around two o’clock?”

“
The coffee shop?
” I ask. “There’s nothing at the site but rubble and coconut trees.”

“I don’t know which site you’re talking about, but at
our
old site they’ve built some shops, and there’s a very nice coffee shop.”

“Never mind, Prasert. Listen, forget I suggested a meeting. Let me know if your brother calls.”

I ring off.

Bollocks.

In less than one hour all my carefully-constructed hypotheses have collapsed.

Coincidence
s and fanciful thinking. That’s all it’s been. The building project, the mysterious foreign investors, the Rhino beetles, Sinclair’s dead wife, the parked car outside my house, the lot. I’ve been imagining associations where none exist. Curse that Old Monk and his interconnectivities. My brain is so gummed up with my own problems that I’m not thinking straight. Indeed I’m barely thinking at all.

Bollocks.

Bollocks.

Bollocks.

So far as the burning murders are concerned I’m back to square one. I’ve got nothing at all. Nichts. Niente. Rien. Zip. Sweet FA. Nada.

*       *       *       *       *

The attentional practices of Theravada Buddhism stress that in our approach to reality we do not observe closely enough. The Zen schools conversely might argue that our problem lies in the fact that we have not engaged ourselves unequivocally: that the observer and the observed remain separate.

Whatever.

If attaining wisdom, or
prajna
, means realising no-mind, then today I must be very wise indeed, because my head is so scrambled I’m barely capable of thought.

The Old Monk tells me he prefers me this way.

We are back at the clearing on the hillside, sitting cross-legged in the shade of the trees. Despite the slight breeze rising from the sea, my body is running with sweat and I feel slightly giddy. Whether this is due to the fact that I have had no lunch or to the intensity of the guided meditation that the Old Monk has just put me through is hard to say. I have no sensation in my limbs and real misgivings as to whether I will ever be able to move them again. A vertiginous lightness swirls around in my skull.

My orange-robed companion studies me and makes the observation, “You seem less opinionated today
, less cocky. That is progress.”

I laugh mirthlessly.

“Progress? You must be joking.”

“I would doubt that. I rarely joke.”

He hands me a bottle of water and to my relief I discover my hands are still capable of functioning, even though unscrewing the top is unusually tricky. The water is warm and my tongue feels like some fat slug twisting around
slowly in my mouth.

“Are you still involved in the murder investigation?” he asks.

“Yes, but I might as well not be. I’m out of ideas. I’m afraid your suggestions on interconnectivity haven’t produced a useable lead. I’ve just been blundering down one blind alley after another, over-indulging my rather lurid imagination in the process.”

“Why is solving this problem so important to you? Surely this is a matter for the police?”

“It’s a long story, and a rather inglorious one on my side. But perhaps you are right. Perhaps I should just let it go. I’m only supposed to be helping with profiling, after all.”

“You should be concentrating on Your Problem.”

“Ah yes, My Problem. And what exactly
is
that?”

The Old Monk mimes that he wants a cigarette. We both light up.

“Your Problem,” he says exhaling a deep lungful of Marlboro, “Is that you spend too much of your time on things that are unimportant.”

Oh yeah. Like, for instance, my wife, vindictive anonymous letters, Kat Charoenkul’s body, murdered
farangs, and making a living. All of them unimportant.

“A monk’s life is simple,” I retort. “You don’t have the complications
and responsibilities we non-holy folk have. You can devote your whole life to becoming a Buddha.”

“You don’t know what you are talking about.
You
think a raven is like a writing-desk,” he states with a sly grin.

“That’s
just a riddle,” I say gruffly, “a sort of joke.”

“You treat too many things like a joke. You are not serious enough in your practice. You will never achieve enlightenment the way you are going.”

“Me achieve enlightenment?” I laugh. “I don’t think so, not with my track record. I have more skeletons in my closet than I have coat-hangers.”

“It is irrelevant what you have done. It is what you
are doing
that matters.”

“Won’t my past misdeeds have created bad
karma that will hold me back?”

The Old Monk snorts. “
Karma means ‘action’. Like many, you misunderstand its nature. Past misdeeds can be corrected before your karma ripens: it is not some pre-determined fate. It is what you do
now
that counts.”

“Forgive me, Old Monk, but my sins are multitudinous. You wouldn’t understand.”

“What makes you think I wouldn’t understand?” he says with an edge to his voice. “Do you suppose that I have always been a monk and am therefore ignorant of the ways of the world?”

“I didn’t mean to –”

“I will tell you how I spent my time as a young man, shall I? I was a person for whom violence was always the answer. The power of the gun: that was the shrine at which I used to worship. For years I was an enthusiastic member of the Thai security services. That way of living culminated in my taking part in the massacre at Bangkok University in the 1970s. Afterwards I was so sickened with myself that I became a monk so that I could purge away all that I was responsible for. What do you think of that? Do you imagine you have done worse things than I have?”

I am
struck momentarily dumb. The 1976 massacre was the beginning of the chain of events that led to the suicide of Bee’s father in the coconut grove. The same grove where the two Westerners died; all of which in turn brought me into the investigation of the burning murders.
Interconnection
...

“And even if you had,” he continues quietly, “
that would not matter
now
. Have you heard the story of Milarepa?”

I shake my head.

“He was a black sorcerer and murderer, whose life was changed through the teachings of the Buddha. He became a great practitioner, a Buddhist saint. All things are possible.”

The Old Monk stubs out his cigarette and looks at me meaningfully.

“Have you ever wondered why local people come to see you, a farang, at your offices? Does it not strike you as strange that Thai men and women are prepared to confide their deepest fears and hopes to someone who is not from our culture?”

“I have thought about it.”

“And?”

“I have no answer.”

He begins tracing strange shapes again in the dust as he talks.

“It is because they sense something within you, something that you cannot see, and that they
themselves do not understand. But they are aware of
something
. I tell you it is a potential within you. Unrealised, but present nonetheless. You cannot feel it yet, but
I
can. When I call you the White Tathagata, you imagine I am joking, but as I have said I rarely joke.”

“You’re saying I have the makings of a Buddha?” I smile, but a stern glance from the Old Monk stops me.

“Everyone has the Buddha Nature,” he says carefully, “but with some people – not many – the latent capability of attaining enlightenment is closer to the surface. Why do you think I spend time with you? Why do you think I persevere through your self-pitying episodes?”

“I don’t know,” I reply simply.

He traces more shapes in the dust. They are incomprehensible to me. Almost as incomprehensible as this conversation.

“And yet
,” he continues after a moment, “there is something that holds you back, something strong. I do not mean your obvious lack of self-control or your cynical attitude; these can be corrected in time. Buddhism first requires great doubt, if there is to be great realisation.”

He studies me carefully, and chooses his words.

“You have compassion but by itself it is not enough. It is almost as if you carry around inside you some dead thing. Some heavy black cinder in your heart that burdens you; a ponderous anchor that tethers you to the past. Until you can burn it away, you can never truly live in the present, in the
now
. Until you can live in the now, you cannot see things as they really are. Meantime you are a man who is wilfully blind. You have eyes and yet you will not use them.”

If he is correct, if I have compassion, it is a circumscribed and conditional compassion. I help Yai, the wilfully blind, to see while I myself remain stubbornly sightless.

I ponder on Yai’s self-imposed darkness. I realise that what angers me about him is the qualities we share.

He
presents to me a mirror. And I do not like the image that is reflected back.

*       *       *       *       *

After my time with the Old Monk I went to see Yai to make my peace with him. It was easier than I thought. He was like a man reborn, having made peace with his family and himself. No trace remained of the black cinder in
his
heart. Within days he would be able to see again, to view the face of his beloved grand-daughter. Looking at the old man, it was almost as if he already had his sight back.

I envied him that he had been able to break the chains of bitterness and regret that had held him prisoner. It made me aware of the chafing of my own chains, and since my
hours at Wat Son today I had begun to feel a building-up of tension inside me, an increase in pressure which would soon have to find an outlet or a rupture at some point of weakness.