Bangkok Haunts

this statement with a scowl.
    I find I am cast into doubt about him all over again, perhaps by a twitch or gesture, a subtle alteration in his diction, which turned vulgar.
    I cough apologetically. “Phra Titanaka, may I be permitted one very personal question?”
    “For a monk there are no personal questions.”
    “Then for the sake of forensic inquiry, would you tell me how close you and your sister were?”
    His eyes dart, but he says nothing. Instead he stands up abruptly—inexplicably—and leaves me on his balcony to cross the compound to the
bot.
I remain in a semilotus, watching that elegant, measured walk in the flowing saffron robes until he enters the temple. I think he expects me to leave, and I’m half tempted to do so. I wait, though, feeling foolish and distracting myself by watching the muted but incessant life of the
wat
until he returns about an hour later. He makes no sign of surprise to see me still here, slips down into a semilotus a couple of yards from me, and says with that peculiar abruptness that I suppose is a consequence of his mental discipline:
    “We were closest when she was in her early twenties and I was a teenager. She always said she was sorry for using me as a pillow to cry on, but it was the only way she could cope. She said maybe if she paid for my education, I would be able to figure it all out better than she.”
    “She used to talk about her customers?”
    I stare in fascination while his serenity morphs into hatred. It is as though he has peeled off a rubber mask to reveal an alien monster from a denser planet. “Every sweaty, pink, brown, black, overweight, desperate, lovelorn, emotionally crippled, fucked-up, shit-eating one of them. It took all she had to pretend enthusiasm. She even had to pretend to love them sometimes—that’s the kind of assholes they were.” A scowl at me: “That was before she became a numb professional.”
    I am struck dumb not only by the sudden change in personality but also by the way he seems quite unaware of it. Something else, too, has made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. He sounded exactly like Damrong; same voice, same tricks of speech.
    Thoroughly unnerved, I say, “I see.” He is still scowling and turns his head away, perhaps aware that he has said something inappropriate but is not sure what. He has lost his serenity and fidgets with his robe. He clearly wants to get rid of me.
    Now it is my turn to stand up,
wai
him, and leave, telling myself that the man who pronounced those bitter words in a growl of the most vulgar slang was not the monk Phra Titanaka; it was someone else.
    In a state of shock I wander across the compound, past the great white
chedi,
which is the oldest part of the temple complex, and ask a senior monk where I might find the abbot. The monk replies that he is in the same
bot
from which Damrong’s brother just emerged.
    The abbot sitting in semilotus under the dais is fat, almost the perfect image of a laughing Buddha, and acknowledges my high
wai
with a nod. I use the most polite form of address from a hierarchy of dozens as I sit, careful to keep my head lower than his. In the jolly face shrewd eyes examine me. I explain I am a detective investigating the death of the monk’s sister. The abbot confirms that he is extending hospitality to the Khmer monk, who arrived last week and seems very devout.
    “Have you noticed anything strange about him?”
    “Strange? We humans insist on inhabiting a charnel ground—isn’t that strange enough for spiritual creatures without splitting hairs?”
    “He seems to be two different men. His personality switches from moment to moment.”
    “Only two? Perhaps there is something wrong with your eyes. Look more closely and you will see he changes with every exhalation. So do I. So do you.”
    I
wai
once again, thank him for his wisdom, and take my leave.

23
    The monk’s sudden entry into the case has brought me to an emotional dead end. The intensity of my guilt over Nok’s death is tempered by the great mountain of suffering this young man has climbed over; and anyway this afternoon has
long massage
written all over it. I use a fairly large, well-known establishment on a side
soi
which joins Sukhumvit and Soi 45. A lot of people use the
soi
as a shortcut, and it has plenty of cooked-food stalls with specializations that can be known from the shape of the stall: braised pork with rice; boiled chicken with rice;
somtan
salad with sticky rice; and