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The Sad Part Was Page 7


  Her name was Rattika.

  Though of course, this was all hearsay; anyone who claimed to have it ‘straight from the vampires’ mouth’ was as full of shit as the police. Pattaya vampires didn’t give interviews, and they weren’t the types to get cornered for a chat. They were the ones who made advances, and those they did approach were unlikely to feel grateful for the attention.

  If the drivers had it right, Rattika’s murderer, the Russian, would have had to pretend to fall in love with her. He would have had to be a gang member, a contract killer. When the target was a Pattaya vampire, it wasn’t just a matter of showing up for the deed. He would need the brains to devise an ingenious plan and the patience to then bide his time, waiting for just the right moment. He would have had to earn her trust. It wouldn’t have been enough to convince her that he loved her – she had to fall in love with him.

  Just as it was for humans, love was the Achilles heel of all Pattaya vampires. It had been a long time, perhaps hundreds of years, since Rattika had fallen prey to it. Her recent infatuation should have been seen as a a warning sign, a sign that she had walked right into a vampire trap. Poor Rattika, she shouldn’t have let her guard down.

  But if the bar girls were right, the story would have had an entirely different outcome, one in which Rattika and her son lived happily ever after, or at least were happy right now. If Ken really existed, as the bar girls were convinced, he would be a half-blood – half vampire, half human. Such things were considered scandalous in Thai circles, so the girls didn’t dare raise their voices when they mentioned it. But they whispered, among themselves, and what they whispered was that Ken’s father was a monk. That would explain Rattika’s decision to disappear; she must have wanted to take Ken far away from the depredations of the vampire world, before he had a chance to be corrupted. He wasn’t merely half human; he was half holy. Rattika would have wanted her son to grow up like a normal person, maybe even a good person. There was nothing good about the Pattaya vampire community. The bar girls claimed that Rattika and Ken had gone to live in a country where vampires were rare or even extinct. For some reason, they decided that Switzerland was the country that fit the bill.

  Last week, a German tourist was out jet-skiing when he found a trash bag that had washed up on the shore. Inside were chunks of flesh. Autopsy results soon revealed that these were human remains, likely those of a child, who was probably male, and probably Asian. Other than that, the police had absolutely zero to go on in terms of identifying the corpse

  The bar girls remarked that those chunks of flesh might well belong to Rattika’s son, shaking their heads over the tragedy of it all, while the motorcycle drivers seemed disappointed that it wasn’t the ravishing vampire herself. But see? Someone got murdered exactly like we said.

  So where was Rattika now? There was no evidence that she’d been killed, and if the body in that trash bag was really Ken’s, the notion that she’d gone to raise her son in a pristine, respectable country, unsullied by the taint of vampires, had to be abandoned.

  The drivers tried to come up with an answer, but didn’t have much luck. Maybe she just took a vacation, one of them sighed eventually. If I see her, I’ll let you know.

  Shallow/Deep, Thick/Thin

  There are no secrets in this world.

  But once you leave this planet, secrets float in abundance, outnumbering scraps of meteorites many times over.

  One fine day, a bit of secret the size of a thumb flew through the earth’s atmosphere and landed in the heart of a forest reserve in this country’s southern region.

  A traveler stumbled upon that piece of secret from outer space, and his story spread by word of mouth to become front-page news all over the kingdom.

  Reporters unanimously declared that a great discovery had occurred, but the traveler could not reveal what it was, because it was a secret.

  People close to the lucky traveler bombarded him with questions about what the thing he saw was really like. The traveler would only shake his head.

  No one saw that piece of secret again, but its fame continued to grow until it became a worldwide sensation.

  Although the traveler announced to the public that he could not reveal the details of his discovery, the various media outlets would not relent. They persisted in pestering and pressing him for information, until he became an international celebrity, deprived of any privacy whatsoever.

  He should never have gone and found that secret.

  As the hounding escalated, the traveler reached the limit of his endurance. He decided to make an official television appearance for the whole world to question him.

  Everybody waited eagerly for this live broadcast, which was to be a special program with no fixed duration. The producers, it was rumoured, would let the interview continue until the traveler caved and laid the secret bare to viewers. They would allow the broadcast to go on for days if need be. Advertising was not a concern because all kinds of brands threw their sponsorship behind the event – from the makers of sanitary pads to computer hardware, everyone wanted to get the secret out of the traveler.

  When the crucial evening rolled around, everybody was sat in front of a television set, their eyes glued to the screen. Nobody did any work. Nobody so much as glanced at their homework. There were no sports. There was no gambling of any kind. There weren’t even any robberies, murders or rapes. There was no war, international or civil. There was no stock trading. There were no religious ceremonies. There was no testing of weapons of mass destruction. There were no political sessions.

  This live broadcast was many times more monumental than when the United States sent men to walk on the moon, because now a person walking right here on earth held an important key to the outer-space mystery that mankind had wanted to solve back then.

  The studio was silent. Other than the producers and their team, no one was allowed in to watch the interview. They feared that if they opened it up to a live audience, things might get out of hand and have the place in an uproar. Every aspect of the event was carefully planned, even down to the pickup and drop-off of the new celebrity.

  From the early hours of the morning in question, the traveler prepared himself physically and mentally. He got up several hours before the alarm clock crowed, notwithstanding that he had spent half the night lying awake with his arm on his forehead. Before he could fall asleep, he’d had to concentrate on counting hundreds or maybe even thousands of sheep jumping over a fence; it had reached the point where the sheep themselves were on the verge of passing out from exhaustion.

  The traveler had never suffered so much anxiety in his life. The more he thought about it, the more he resented that it had to be him. He was just a traveler in search of nature’s beauty – he’d never asked to land in a mess like this. He could probably never return to the sort of life he’d used to live. Every time he set foot outside of his home, no matter where he went, there was always someone who recognised him. Everybody wanted him to spit out the secret from outer space. People made him all kinds of offers – money, gold, land, other valuable possessions. Some people even wanted to give him their sons or daughters. No one cared what kind of person he was, or what gender. No one ever bothered to ask his name, for that matter.

  The traveler had plenty of stories from his life that he would readily share with the public, but nobody cared to hear any of them. The sole thing that everyone wanted to know was the one piece of information that he could not divulge.

  Does no one want to know where my two feet have taken me? Does no one want to ask what I saw and what I felt when I stood tall on top of a mountain high above the sea, or when I descended down into the miraculous darkness of the underwater world? And these eyes of mine? They’ve seen it all, from the wretched poverty of people who don’t even have soil to eat, to the indescribable luxury enjoyed by billionaires, who have everything at their fingertips without having to getting out of bed. Does
nobody care that I’ve seen several species of rare plants? That I’ve seen insects that’ve nearly vanished into extinction? That I’ve seen various freakish human rituals which, no matter how many times you witness them, are so bizarre you can barely trust your own eyes? I’ve encountered natural phenomena so beautiful it felt as though I was gazing upon heaven. I’ve also experienced those so violent and cruel it was like I was journeying through hell. A tsunami nearly engulfed me once. I’ve come this close to falling from a steep cliff, down into the abyss of death.

  Just a thumb-size bit of secret – for me, it’s nothing to get excited over.

  What does it matter if you know the secret, when the whole point is that it doesn’t want to be known?

  Exploring nature’s different. Nature always stands ready to welcome me. Whatever I want to know, I just have to walk over and ask, and I get an answer in no time, if not from a rock, then from a seed, if not from a blade of grass, then from the scent of mud.

  I hold so much knowledge inside me, it’s practically oozing out of my pores. Why does no one want to know what I know?

  They only want to know about the secret. But what’s so great about that?

  The show’s host was a familiar face on television. He was a middle-aged man, his head still densely covered with black hair that he wore parted on the left and held flat to the head with styling wax. That day, he was sporting a dark blue suit and a maroon tie. When the traveler stepped into the studio, the host made a beeline to greet him.

  “A great pleasure. Don’t be nervous. Relax. The program will start in just a moment.”

  He scrutinised the traveler from head to toe, and then one more time back up from toe to head: Why did a guy like this have the good fortune to find the secret from outer space? He’s dressed like a bum.

  The traveler was wearing a white T-shirt with the English words “Save the Whales” printed on the chest, above a pair of faded jeans. A pair of flip flops poked out beneath their ragged hems.

  A smartly-attired blond foreigner walked over. The host smiled broadly as soon as he caught sight of the westerner.

  “Let me introduce you. This farang is an American. He’s going to sit with us and translate the interview into English for viewers around the world. He’s very fluent in Thai.” The host clapped the foreigner on the shoulder.

  The American smiled and held his hand out to the traveler. “Hello. A great honour to meet you.”

  The traveler offered his hand in return, and the pair pumped each other’s hands with sufficient vigour to demonstrate decorum.

  “How about a bit of makeup? The whole world’s going to be watching!” The host cupped his chin with his right hand, as if contemplating how to improve the appearance of his important guest.

  “I don’t think that’s necessary,” the traveler responded, his tone polite as always.

  The host was still holding his chin.

  “Yeah?” He sounded unconvinced. “Alright, alright, you can go on air just as you are, given that we don’t have much time. It’s almost ten thirty. Excuse me. I’m just going to use the men’s room. Make yourself at home. If there’s anything you want, just let the team know. I’ll see you in a few minutes.” Then he walked away.

  The westerner waited until the host was out of earshot, then he turned back toward the man who guarded such an important secret. He whispered as though plotting some intrigue.

  “I think I understand how you’re feeling right now. Having the whole world’s focus on you must make you uncomfortable. Come to think of it, it’s not fair that you have to bear this massive burden alone. I feel for you. Still, I have to side with the others because I want to know the secret, too. So I want to make a plea to you: reveal the mystery. We don’t want to waste people’s time and make them stare at the TV screen any longer than they have to. Please. Think of the world.”

  “It’s not easy to spit out a secret, but I’m going to try. My life is miserable these days. You have to understand that I never wanted something like this to happen to me. The sooner it’s over, the better for me.”

  The foreigner nodded. “Please do try your best.”

  In the studio, a voice yelled out for all the participants to take their place.

  It was more than ten minutes past ten thirty when the metaphorical curtains opened on the live broadcast that everyone had been waiting for. It began with the program’s title and song then cut to a top-half shot of the host. The right-hand corner of the screen had a little rectangular area for the sign-language interpreter. Tonight’s duties in this regard had been assigned to a middle-aged lady in an emerald-green Thai silk suit.

  The host put his palms together to wai the viewers through the camera. The woman in the small frame did the same.

  “Good evening to our viewers at home. You already know why tonight’s program is special.” The host paused to flash a grin. The lady in the screen’s corner was unsure what to do, so she attempted an equally suave, polished grin.

  “He’s sitting here with me now, viewers, the traveler who discovered the great secret in the heart of a well-known forest reserve here in our own country. For several weeks now, people have tried to contact him, this man, to inquire about his experience in the forest that day, but our traveler has refused to reveal the mystery, saying that a secret is a secret.” Tickled by his own humour, the host interrupted himself briefly to laugh. The woman in the corner frame tried to find the correct sign language to convey that the host had succeeded in amusing himself.

  “It’s truly great news, viewers, that he changed his mind and agreed to be questioned in detail about that secret. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank our traveler for giving our program the honour of interviewing him tonight, on behalf of people around the world. Without further ado, let me introduce our famous traveler.”

  The camera zoomed out until all of the participants appeared in the frame. The traveler was sitting on a grey sofa, flanked by the show’s host to his left and the blond westerner to his right. Each had a tiny microphone attached to the garment closest to his lips; the traveler’s was clipped to the neck of his T-shirt.

  “Hello.” The host greeted the traveler with a wai.

  The traveler waied back nervously.

  “The foreigner who’s with us tonight is an American who will simultaneously translate the interview into English for foreign viewers everywhere.” Once he’d finished this introduction, the host stuck his right hand out to the westerner, missing the tip of the traveler’s nose by just a hair.

  “Hello. Good evening. Welcome.” The host gave a burst of rapid-fire English while he shook the American’s hand.

  “Let’s give him a moment to introduce himself to viewers abroad.”

  While the westerner was communicating with the rest of the world with words that sounded like foot, fit, four, five, the show’s host smiled broadly into the camera. The traveler was sitting still but his eyes were darting back and forth. The lady in the screen’s corner sat with her hands tucked away, staring blankly at the incomprehensible barrage of English.

  As soon as the foreigner finished talking, the host hurried to keep things rolling.

  “What a great thing that people around the world will be able to listen to tonight’s historic interview all at the same time. OK, without any further ado, let’s begin our conversation with our special guest.” The sign-language lady resumed her duties in earnest.

  “Mr. Traveler, we spoke a little bit backstage before we came on air. I understand that the main reason you’ve refused to reveal the secret you saw is its ‘secretness.’ In a moment, I’d like you to elaborate a little further on that point. But first, can you tell us briefly what the heck you were doing that led you to discover the secret from outer space?”

  The westerner promptly translated the question. In the meantime, the traveler tried to search his brain’s memory bank for thi
s apparently extensive backstage discussion. When the foreigner finished talking, the traveler was still distracted and made no move to speak. Unable to bear any lulls in the conversation, the host quickly chimed in.

  “According to the information I have, you were hiking in the forest that day, correct?”

  The traveler nodded.

  “And then you saw some kind of brilliant light radiating from a bamboo grove not far from the path you were following, so you decided to head towards it.”

  The traveler nodded again. He was more than a little surprised that the host knew the details of the story, as though he’d witnessed it with his own eyes. How does this guy know about the bamboo grove? Did I tell somebody about it?

  “And then you saw it.”

  This time the traveler shook his head. “I didn’t see it right away. The light was quite bright, which made it hard to see anything.”

  “It was that bright, viewers. What colour was the light, can you remember?”

  “It…” The traveler paused to think for a moment. “It… It had no colour… It was white-ish and bright. That’s it. It didn’t have colour like electric light. It was more like an orb of light, like a small sun.”

  “And then you saw it.”

  The traveler nodded slowly. The westerner excitedly raced to translate.

  Just as the traveler was about to open his mouth, the host cut in.

  “It’s truly riveting, this thing we’ve all been waiting to hear from Mr. Traveler’s lips. The revelation is getting closer with each instant. But first, let’s take a short break and meet the sponsors who made tonight’s special program possible. We’ll continue to solve the mystery after the break.”

  The team in the cutting room rolled the commercial footage, starting with an ad for engine oil, to be followed by a breath mints spot.