Bangkok Haunts

is that not so?”
    He leads, I follow, out into the blinding light and the never-ending business of the street. I remain half a step behind him, as protocol requires. We keep pace with a man in a straw hat pulling a cart piled high with brushes, brooms, and dustpans while I bend my ear to catch the monk’s every word.
    Damrong, according to her brother, was something of a female
arhat,
or Buddhist saint. Born with the name of Gamon, now using the Sangha name of Phra Titanaka, he was a sickly child. Even at that time their mother was a
yaa baa
addict and losing her mind, given to sudden bouts of irrational violent anger. Their father was a career criminal whose body was covered in tattoos bearing magical incantations in
khom,
the ancient Khmer script, who was ritually murdered by local police when Gamon was seven years old. Both parents were Khmer refugees, who fled after Nixon bombed the eastern half of their country and destabilized the whole of it. Both children were born in a refugee camp on the Thai side of the border. His reverence for his sister is impressive.
    “I would never have survived without her. She took all my beatings when our father was still alive—she wouldn’t let him touch me. She was so fierce, he was afraid of her. And she saved me from our mother too.”
    “She paid for your education?”
    “Yes. All of it.”
    Our eyes meet. My own education was funded in the same way. I cannot help asking, “You knew where the money was coming from?”
    “Not at first. Of course, I grew up and could not help knowing.”
    His discipline is excellent. The single trickle down his cheek from his left eye must surely cause an itching sensation, but he makes no attempt to wipe it away. From his level, even his emotional anguish is simply another misleading phenomenon, like everything else in the world. He is amused that I admire him. He has no idea how tempted I used to be, perhaps still am, by the monastic life. I spent a year in a forest monastery in my midteens. It was the most peaceful year of my life, and the simplest.
    We stop at a crossroads to let a motorcycle trolley pass; it is festooned with lottery tickets and brightly colored magazines, to the extent that the guy riding it is invisible. The cop in me has a cruel question: “Do you know how good she was at what she did?”
    He suppresses a shudder. “Of course. She was very beautiful and had a brilliant mind. That’s how she paid for my education, from the time she reached sixteen and could sell herself. The way she saw it, she could provide me with the chance she never had. But I was never that clever. I think in another country, or if she had been born into a different class, she would have been a great surgeon.”
    “A surgeon?”
    “She had a natural healing gift and was a supremely unselfish person. She learned about nutrition and drugs so she could stop our mother from killing me.” He allows himself a gulp. “She was very gentle.”
    “When did you hear of her death?”
    A shrug. “She came to me in a dream.”
    Since his information is voluntary, I have no way of forcing him. I am intrigued, though.
    “There is nothing more you can tell me? You’ve gone to a lot of trouble to check me out.”
    “I needed to know if you would be receptive. I’m overjoyed to have found such a devout man as you.”
    A thought wings its way into my mind, perhaps originating in his. “You knew she was dead because she came to you as a ghost. How could you be so sure?”
    He has turned to face me, with exactly the same abstract elegance as all his other movements. “I have said enough for the time being. I came to make contact.”
    “How shall we proceed?”
    “When I have more information, I will find a way of telling you. I would not like to meet at the police station again, though. We shall meet at the local
wat,
if you don’t mind.” I experience a sense of loss, a fear I might not see him again. He offers a compassionate smile. “Don’t worry—whom the Buddha intends to bring together, nothing can keep apart.”
    I smile, quite seduced by this extraordinary saint. “That’s true,” I say enthusiastically. Then the cop within starts with his annoying doubts, which I suppress.
    It is pathetic, but I cannot help wanting this young man’s approval. Nor can I help feeling the need for some kind of absolution. “Did you know your sister worked at my mother’s club for a while? We knew each other, Damrong and I.”
    My question