Snakehead

it, Krung Thep. City of Angels.
    Sitting in the back of the air-conditioned sedan, gazing out the window, Alex wondered quite how it had gotten that name. He certainly wasn’t impressed by his first sight of the city, a sprawl of ugly, old-fashioned skyscrapers, blocks of apartments that were like discarded boxes piled up on top of each other, electricity and satellite towers. They stopped at a toll booth where a woman sat in a cramped cubicle, her face hidden behind the white mask that protected her from the traffic fumes. Then they were off again. Next to the road, Alex saw a huge portrait of a man: black hair, glasses, open-neck shirt. It was painted on the entire side of a building, twenty stories high, covering both the brickwork and the windows.
    “That’s our king,” the driver explained.
    Alex looked again at the figure. What would it be like, he wondered, to work at a desk inside that office? To pound away at a computer for eight or nine hours a day but to look out at Bangkok through the eyes of a king.
    They left the highway, driving down a ramp into a dense, chaotic world of shrubs and food stalls, traffic jams and policemen at every intersection, their whistles screaming like dying birds. Alex saw tuk-tuks— motorized rickshaws—bicycles and buses that looked as if they had been welded together from a dozen different models. He felt a hollow feeling in his stomach. What was he letting himself into? How was he going to adapt to a country that was, in every last detail, so different from his own?
    Then the car turned a corner. They had entered the driveway of the Peninsula Hotel and Alex learned something else about Bangkok. It was actually two cities: one very poor and one very rich, living side by side and yet with a great gulf between. His journey had brought him from one to the other. Now he was driving through a beautifully tended tropical garden. As they drew up at the front door, half a dozen Thai men in perfect white uniforms hurried forward to help—one to take the luggage, one to help Alex out, two more bowing to welcome him, two holding open the hotel doors.
    The cold embrace of the hotel air-conditioning reached out to welcome him. Alex crossed a wide marble floor toward the reception area with piano music tinkling somewhere in the background. He was handed a garland of flowers by a smiling receptionist. Nobody seemed to have noticed that he was only fourteen. He was a guest. That was all that mattered. His key was already waiting for him. He was shown into an elevator—itself the size of a small room. The doors slid shut. Only the pressure in his ears told him that they had begun the journey up.
    His room was on the nineteenth floor.
    Ten minutes later, he stood in front of a floor-to-ceiling window, looking at the view. His suitcase was on his bed. He had been shown the luxury bathroom, the wide-screen TV, the well-stocked fridge, and the complimentary basket of exotic fruit. Alex tried to shrug off the heavy fingers of jet lag. He knew he had little enough time to prepare himself for what lay ahead.
    The city was spread out on the other side of a wide brown river that curved and twisted as far as he could see. Skyscrapers stood in the far distance. Nearer by, there were hotels, temples, palaces with perfect lawns, and—standing side by side with them—shacks and slum houses and warehouses so dilapidated they looked as if they might fall over at any time. All manner of boats were making their way up and down the murky water. Some were modern, carrying coal and iron. Some were ferries with strange, curving roofs, like floating pagodas. The nimblest were elongated, long and wafer thin with the driver leaning wearily over the tiller at the very back. The sun was setting. The sky was huge and gray. It was like looking at a television screen with the color turned off.
    The telephone rang. Alex went over and picked it up.
    “Hello? Is that Alex?” It was a man’s voice. He could make out a slight Australian accent.
    “Yes,” Alex replied.
    “You arrived okay then?”
    “Yes, thanks.”
    “I’m in the reception area. You feel like a bit of dinner?”
    Alex wasn’t hungry, but that didn’t matter. Even though the man hadn’t introduced himself, he knew who he was talking to. “I’ll come right down,” he said.
    He hadn’t had time to shower or change after the flight. It would just have to wait. Alex left the room and took the elevator back down. It stopped twice on the way,