Bangkok Haunts

superhuman power enabled her to do it all with genius and panache? They knew nothing of all that, of course—Baker, Smith, and Tanakan—when they made use of her charms. I knew better but carefully concealed that knowledge from myself while I took my pleasure; just like them,
mes semblables, mes frères.
    The hamlet is a sprawling affair that takes up a surprising amount of land because each family owns a smallholding which separates it from the others. A few of the homesteads are quite affluent, even boasting carports with pickup trucks; most are at subsistence level. Everyone has heard that a stranger, a cop, has arrived, and ragged kids emerge blatantly to stare. Nobody wants to be seen talking to me in public, though. I decide to try my luck with the family who live next door to Damrong’s mother. A woman in a sarong is squatting under her long roof, using a pestle and mortar to make
somtan
salad. She has been watching me from the corner of her eye, and when I pause at her gate, she calls out, “Have you eaten yet?”
    “Not yet.”
    “Eat with us.”
    There is a sliding iron gate, which I push open. At the same time three kids appear, the youngest about three years old. A bent old man, probably in his eighties, emerges from the house on wobbly legs, holding a bottle of moonshine. Behind him nagging abuse streams from an old lady. Now a young woman appears, walking very slowly. It is almost a perfect replica of Nok’s family. The first woman, who is in her fifties, has been watching my face as I gaze with a professional eye on the young woman.
    “Medication,” she says.
    “Yaa baa?”
    “Her second husband was a dealer. The police shot and killed him, but not before he’d screwed up her head with his drugs. One half of her brain is mush. The mental hospital was going to keep her locked up for seven years if I didn’t guarantee her. I have to pay for the medication every month or she loses it completely.”
    “Those are her kids?”
    “All by different fathers. If it wasn’t for my first daughter, I don’t know what we’d do.”
    “Your first daughter works in Krung Thep?”
    She turns her eyes away. “Of course.” She begins serving the
somtan
and places a wicker basket of sticky rice between us.
    I regret the insensitivity of my question and change the subject even as I stick my fingers into the rice and make a ball out of a handful. “I’ve been talking to your neighbor.”
    “I know. You’re here because of Damrong.”
    “How long have you lived here?”
    “Forever. We’re villagers—this is the only land we own.”
    I decide to let her talk in her own time. She rolls her ball of rice around in the sauce of the salad, which is crimson with chili, and eats for a while, then says, “So, you’re a cop investigating poor Damrong’s death. That’s one family with very bad karma.” Shaking her head: “What other explanation could there be? We are poor too, we suffer just the same as them, but we don’t go bad. We’re good people, we go to the
wat,
we make merit, we keep a clean house, we never break the law.” A pause while she shakes her head. “What’s that mother going to be,
chart na
? She can’t even talk properly anymore. She’s going to hell. When she gets out, she’ll be lucky to be reborn a human. I’ve never seen anything that dark, that hopeless. What people do to their minds, hey?”
    Suddenly the dwarf woman has appeared from nowhere. She is peering around the open gate, looking in. My hostess catches her eye. “Have you eaten yet?”
    “No.” The dwarf joins us, lowering herself onto the rush mat we are eating off of and sitting upright with the straight back of a child.
    “He’s asking about poor Damrong.”
    “I know,” the dwarf says. She looks me full in the face, as if she has decided it’s time I knew the truth. “She was a very strong spirit with very bad karma,” she explains. “That’s why she incarnated into that family. She was very strong.”
    “The mother’s spent a long time in jail,” I say.
    “Yes.”
    “There’s Khmer writing under the tiger on her back.”
    “Yes.”
    “And I think the horoscope is in the black tradition. Did she belong to some criminal cult?”
    “Yes.” She nods without casting me a glance. Even in the midst of such a dark subject, her fifty-year-old child’s eyes are dancing over the house, the kids, the catastrophe of poverty, a smile always on her lips.
    “Black sorcery?” I ask.
    She shrugs.