The Windup Girl(35)
Every time he makes plans for his future, he seems to fail. Every time he reaches forward, the world leans against him, pressing him down.
On Thanon Sukhumvit, in the sweat of the sun, he finds a news vendor. He fumbles through newspapers and the hand-cranked whisper sheets of rumor, through luck pages advertising good numbers for gambling and the names of predicted muay thai champions.
He tears them open, one after another, more frantic with every copy.
All of them show the smiling face of Jaidee Rojjanasukchai, the incorruptible Tiger of Bangkok.
7
"Look! I'm famous!"
Jaidee holds the whisper sheet picture up beside his own face, grinning at Kanya. When she doesn't smile, he puts it back in its rack, along with all the rest of his pictures.
"Eh, you're right. It's not really a good likeness. They must have bribed it out of our records department." He sighs wistfully. "But I was young then."
Still, Kanya doesn't respond, just stares morosely at the water of the khlong. They've spent the day hunting for skiffs smuggling PurCal and AgriGen crops up the river, sailing back and forth across the river mouth, and Jaidee still thrums with a certain exhilaration.
The prize of the day was a clipper ship anchored just off the docks. Ostensibly an Indian trading vessel sailed north from Bali, it turned out to be brimming with cibiscosis-resistant pineapples. It was satisfying to see the harbormaster and the ship's captain both stammering excuses while Jaidee's white shirts poured lye over the entire shipment, crate after crate rendered sterile and inedible. All that smuggling profit gone.
He flips though the other papers attached to the display board, finds a different image of himself. This one from his time as a muay thai competitor, laughing after a fight in Lumphini Stadium. The Bangkok Morning Post.
"My boys will like this one."
He opens the paper and scans the story. Trade Minister Akkarat is spitting mad. The quotes from the Trade Ministry call Jaidee a vandal. Jaidee is surprised they don't just call him a traitor or a terrorist. That they restrain themselves tells him just how impotent they really are.
Jaidee can't help smiling over the pages at Kanya. "We really hurt them."
Again, Kanya doesn't respond.
There's a certain trick to ignoring her bad moods. The first time Jaidee met Kanya, he almost thought she was stupid, the way her face remained so impassive, so impervious to any hint of fun, as though she were missing an organ, a nose for smell, eyes for sight, and whatever curious organ makes a person sense sanuk when it is right in front of them.
"We should be getting back to the Ministry," she says, and turns to scan the boat traffic along the khlong, looking for a possible ride.
Jaidee pays the whisper sheet man for his paper as a canal taxi glides into view.
Kanya flags it and it slides up beside them, its flywheel whining with accumulated power, waves sloshing the khlong embankment as its wake catches up. Huge kink-springs crowd half its displacement. Wealthy Chaozhou Chinese business people cram the covered prow of the boat like ducks on their way to slaughter.
Kanya and Jaidee jump aboard and stand on the running board outside the seating compartment. The ticket child ignores their white uniforms, just as they ignore her. She sells a 30-baht ticket to another man who boards with them. Jaidee grabs a safety line as the boat accelerates away from the dock. Wind caresses his face as they make their way down the khlong, aiming for the heart of the city. The boat moves quickly, zipping around small paddled skiffs and long tail boats in the canal. Blocks of dilapidated houses and shopfronts slide past, pha sin and blouses and sarong hang colorful in the sun. Women bathe their long black hair in the brown waters of the canal. The boat slows abruptly.
Kanya looks forward. "What is it?"
Up ahead, a tree has fallen, blocking much of the canal. Boats jam around it, trying to squeeze past.
"A bo tree," Jaidee says. He looks around for landmarks. "We'll have to let the monks know."
No one else will move it. And despite the shortage of wood, no one will harvest it either. It would be unlucky. Their boat wallows as the khlong traffic tries to slip through the tiny gap left in the canal, where the sacred tree has not blocked movement.
Jaidee makes a noise of impatience and then calls ahead. "Clear out, friends! Ministry business. Clear the way!" He waves his badge.
The sight of the badge and his bright white uniform is enough to get boats and skiffs poling aside. The pilot of their taxi flashes Jaidee a grateful look. Their kink-spring craft slips into the press, jostling for space.
As they ease around the bare branches of the tree, the khlong taxi's passengers all make deep wais of respect to the fallen trunk, pressing their palms together and touching them to their foreheads.
Jaidee makes his own wai, then reaches out to touch the wood, letting his fingers slide over the riddled surface as they pass. Small boreholes speckle it. If he were to peel away the bark, a fine net of grooves would describe the tree's death. A bo tree. Sacred. The tree under which the Buddha attained enlightenment. And yet they could do nothing to save it. Not a single varietal of fig survived, despite their best efforts. The ivory beetles were too much for them. When the scientists failed, they prayed to Phra Seub Nakhasathien, a last desperate effort, but even the martyr couldn't save them in the end.
"We couldn't save everything," Kanya murmurs, seeming to read his thoughts.