Bangkok Haunts

would have forgotten about him by now.”
    We are sitting at a table near the bar that is empty except for Marly, who is taking a break from her new porn career with Yammy, and Henri the Frenchman, who has sneaked in early because he’s heard that Marly is here. Henri is one of those who decided tragically early in life that they wanted to be an author and didn’t notice the passage of time until it was too late. Now he is short, bald, and forty-three. As is often the case with literary genius, especially the unpublished sort, Henri has no disposable income at all and just about makes ends meet through a little English-to-French translation work over the Net, which he considers a serious threat to his psychic health and intolerable for more than an hour a day (“another fucking microwave manual,
mon Dieu,
I don’t have to translate the
fuckeur.
I know by heart a fucking large fucking potato takes
cinq minutes,
and if you wrap it in aluminum, you can expect a wonderful little firework display with lots of fine crackles and pops—there are days when I would give my
membre virile
for a little ambiguity,
double entendre,
obscure literary reference, even a well-placed adjective,
nom de Dieu
”), and lives in a tiny room on the notorious Soi 26, a stone’s throw from the still more notorious Klong Toey area (they almost pay you to live there). He is, for reasons of impecuniosity, therefore not the most popular customer among the girls, which might explain the pining quality of his prose. He does, though, to give him his due, own not a little of the elegance of the nineteenth-century Paris he so much wanted to inhabit and when sauced can charm them with his silver tongue:
    Henri to Marly (I suspect the secret heroine of his perpetual work in progress): “When they told me you were going to be here tonight, I abandoned my work and rushed over.”
    “Lork?”
    “Yes, and what is more, this anguish seems to have sharpened my perception, because when I saw you, I experienced all over again that joy, that leap of recognition which I experienced the very first moment I set eyes on you.”
    “Lork?”
    “And I even love the way you say
lork.
On the lips of another Thai woman it is just as dreary as that pathetic English word
really,
but from you it possesses the intangible quality of nirvana.”
    “Do you want me tonight? I have time for a quick one, before I start filming down by the river.”
    Henri forces his features into an exaggerated beam. “I’m saving up. Three more microwave manuals and five DVD players, and you will be mine,
chérie.
On the other hand, why don’t you extend to me a little credit? The orders are in, I just have to do the work.”
    Marly, who thanks to Yammy’s irresponsible encouragement has set her sights on Hollywood, raises her eyes to the ceiling in disgust and turns away. I smile at her and invite her to join us, in the hope it will put an end to Nong’s moaning. “How’s the filming going?”
    “Fine, I think. Yammy’s
ting-tong
—I mean, the guy is
totally
nuts—but he really knows what he’s doing.” She checks her watch.
    “Give me a
ting-tong
Jap any day against a two-faced
farang,
” Nong growls. I feel sad because I know where her anger comes from. She didn’t expect much from renewed contact with the young American soldier she fell in love with more than thirty years ago, only a certain belated sharing, a pride in the son they made together—I haven’t turned out that bad after all, compared to most
leuk kreung
from the Vietnam War—a chat about old times. It’s his meanness of spirit she resents with its racist implication: would he have been so neglectful of a white American girl? Marly looks at me, and I raise my hands to convey helplessness. Luckily, at that moment Greg the Australian walks in. Nong has the same soft spot for him as I have for Henri, and she gives him a big welcoming smile. He responds with an inept
wai
that makes Nong grin and shake her head. Without waiting for his order, she goes behind the bar to open a cold bottle of Foster’s and hands it to him without adding it to his slate; she is using this gesture to change her mood. “Love the way you look after me,” Greg says. “You’re better than twelve mums.” The idea of someone having twelve mothers tickles Nong’s funny bone, and she cackles at him.
    A word about Greg. Endowed by nature with a metabolism that keeps him slim no matter how much Foster’s he drinks, he looks quite