Bangkok Haunts

those fingers are actually shaking rather wildly. Indeed, we must bear in mind that the whole hand is shuddering from the wrist. I exchange a glance with Kimberley, and she presses play.
    Now that the FBI has shared her wisdom, it is not difficult to pick up on other clues. When their foreplay is almost over, he lays her on her back to begin the first of five intercourse intervals before the final countdown (on her back; doggy style; with her on top; plus a couple of rather complicated maneuvers that have him penetrating her from behind while she twists around for him to thrust his tongue down her throat).
    The FBI takes us through the first penetration scene again in slo-mo. Now that I’m focused, I see that the hands that dramatically part her unresisting thighs are hardly under his control at all. At one point Damrong herself reaches down to grasp a bunch of his fingers in a comforting way: one professional to another. She also whispers something in his ear.
    “STOP!” I yell. This time Kimberley obeys. She goes to the minibar and brings all the miniatures she can find, about ten in all, a mixture of brandy, whiskey, vodka, gin; necessity is the mother of anesthesia. I gulp two;
my
hands are the ones shaking in this scene. I have no choice but to let Kimberley see my pathetic, tearstained face.
    “Stay with it, trooper,” she says, which only makes things worse. She has to hold my head in her arms, as she would comfort a child.
    “She’s giving him moral support,”
I say, hardly able to get the words out.
    Even the FBI is having trouble with self-control. “Say what you like about her, that is one amazing woman.”
    “It’s almost as if she loves him.”
    “Why not? He definitely loves her, though he might not know it.”
    “How can you be so sure?”
    “Why else would he be suffering like that?”
    “If he’s having so much trouble with his head, how can he still perform at all?”
    “Viagra is the lifeblood of the porn industry, Sonchai.”
    She presses play again. We are deep into intercourse territory now, with the camera somehow zooming in on private bits that, at this level of magnification, could be any part of the body at all; could even be the genitalia of some other anthropoid species; at one point the shading of flesh from deep crimson to light pink reminds me of carnivorous vegetation, say the pitcher plant.
    “Look!” He is taking her from behind again, but with such trembling in his knees that he is unable to maintain intimacy. Three times in this scene her small, elegant brown hand reaches down to reinsert his member.
    “Sonchai, for god’s sake!”
    “I bought her that ring,” I sob. I have just remembered. Our affair was so short, there was hardly any time for presents, and I recall how cheap I felt, buying her a silver ring from an antique stall at Wat Po for a few thousand baht, knowing she had slept with billionaires. It strikes me that it might not be a coincidence that this is the only jewelry she is wearing; that at this moment, exactly three minutes twenty-five seconds before her death according to the counter on the DVD player, she is perfectly aware that I would one day be watching this hand of hers, with my ring on it, giving comfort and aid to her executioner.
    When he finally takes her to a kind of trestle for her to lean on, so that no detail of the finale will be lost to the camera lens, and fumbles with the orange nylon rope so badly that he drops it and she has to pick it up for him, I grab the remote and switch it off.
    Kimberley looks at me with disappointed eyes. “Sonchai—”
    “I can’t.”
    “If you don’t, it’ll haunt you for life.”
    “I’m Thai. All Thais are haunted for life.”
    “Sonchai!”
    “Fuck your tough love, Kimberley. It’s destroying the world, haven’t you noticed?”
    Suddenly I’m outside her suite, slamming the door. It is a genuine tantrum, complete with amnesia: I have no idea how I got out into the corridor at this moment. I do know that I’m running, though. There is really only one thing to do at a time like this.
     
    I take a cab in the direction of the police station but have the driver stop at Phra Titanaka’s
wat.
Just outside the massive doors a string of stalls sell candles, lotus wreaths, and monk baskets. I am still shaking when I buy all the paraphernalia you need for a serious exorcism. The baskets these days are no longer wicker or bamboo but the same semi-transparent buckets of lurid hue you would