Bangkok 8 Part 20

"Wh.o.r.e or cop," I snarl as I leave her.

42.

A small bribe to the registration clerk at Charmabutra Hospital avoids those weeks of delays which attend upon inquiries through official channels. Now I have a photocopy of Fatima's registration card: Ussiri Thanya, male, born in a remote village on the Burmese border in 1969, the year the Americans landed on the moon and Kissinger secretly met with North Vietnamese negotiators in Paris, desperate for a way out of the war. Ussiri's official address in Bangkok was a remote suburb way off to the east: Room 967, Floor 12, Block E, King Rama I Building . . . Even on paper it sounded like a hovel. It's the kind of journey best undertaken on a Sunday, when there's not too much traffic.

It only takes me an hour and a half to reach the blocks of reinforced concrete which stretch for acres in every direction. Housing is a specialized racket, not really suitable for police entrepreneurs, who generally leave it to the Lands Department and planners. One of the most popular scams involves using an illegally low ratio of cement to sand. The building looks fine at first, but the concrete doesn't have the resistance to the weather or, more importantly, to stresses and strains. Little by little holes appear, oxygen reaches the steel reinforcement, which starts to rust, someone in government has to decide on the optimum date for evacuation: as late as possible, obviously, since there will be a few thousand people to rehouse, but not so late that a big collapse causes too many deaths and an international scandal. I don't remember ever hearing about this estate, which looks as if it contracted smallpox a long time ago. There are big holes in the walls of many apartments, bare steel visible in columns which surely must be on the point of collapse. No one has lived here officially for years, but there is a thriving community of squatters who seem to be camped out in the car parking areas. There are the inevitable card players sitting around cross-legged on the ground, women bent over cooking pots on gas burners, TVs hooked up somehow to the public lighting, men conscientiously downing mugs of rice whisky this sweltering Sunday morning, dogs with serious diseases, kids and washing. n.o.body pays me any mind as I seek and find Block E and climb dangerously decrepit concrete stairs all the way to the twelfth floor-the elevators clearly gave out long ago. I'm breathing heavily by the time I arrive. Sweat drenches my shirt and pants. I'm itching all over from the heat, the exertion and perhaps some bugs endemic to old rotting buildings.

Room 967 is on a corner. The door yields to a single kick and I find myself in a familiar box. Somewhere there must be a government directive on exactly how little s.p.a.ce a Thai can be expected to occupy without going insane or turning communist. The dimensions are exactly the same as my own hovel's, but Fatima enjoyed the inestimable advantage of windows on two sides. From both the urban sprawl stretches to the horizon. The earth is flat and there are no real landmarks, only the inevitable combination of large housing developments and squatter-type shacks and small houses with tin roofs, all of them a little unreal and insubstantial in the haze. The room itself looks as if it was simply abandoned by the occupant, without any attempt at an orderly removal. I guess no thief was going to climb twelve floors to check out a poor boy-wh.o.r.e's belongings. Fatima, at this stage in his life, slept on a bamboo mat, smoked Marlboro Reds and joints, and kept photographs of young men dying of AIDS. They are studies in black and white pinned up on the walls: gaunt, skeletal, faces and chests bearing the insignia of Kaposi's sarcoma. One of them has it in his eye. If I squat in a corner opposite the door, I have this gallery in view in both directions. Now I am Ussiri, long before he became Fatima, my back against the wall, staring stoned at my inevitable future: the failure of the immune system, chest complaints rapidly deteriorating into pneumonia and lung cancer, failure of the body to heal itself inside and out, progressive loss of mental faculties, brain tumors, bewilderment: this was all for-what?

On the floor near the toilet I find a registration card for a medical clinic not far from Pat Pong. I know the clinic, which, like just about every clinic in that area, specializes in tests for s.e.xually transmitted diseases. It's where the wh.o.r.es go for their monthly checkups.

In Soi 7, off Silom, I sit patiently in the small waiting room while women, men and transs.e.xuals between the ages of eighteen and thirty come and go, either to give blood samples or to receive the results of the samples they gave yesterday. The vast majority are women. I can read their faces without strain. Only a few took risks this past month-perhaps giving in to a client who didn't want to use a condom (so many farangs farangs complain it kills their erections)-or perhaps permitting some other abuse; most of the girls are quite jaunty, confident they took the right precautions: rubbers, cold-water showers before and after, Listerine mouthwash. complain it kills their erections)-or perhaps permitting some other abuse; most of the girls are quite jaunty, confident they took the right precautions: rubbers, cold-water showers before and after, Listerine mouthwash.

HIV is not that easy to catch and the girls are mostly fanatics for hygiene, now that the government has done such a good job of explaining the mechanics of contagion. Things were different ten years ago, of course, when young Ussiri Thanya took pictures of his dying friends and waited in his hovel for his own death. Then it seemed as if the mystery disease was stalking Thailand in particular-Nong and I made many sad visits to friends in those special hospitals which look like Victorian insane asylums, and which are allotted to the poor to die in. Perhaps we rubbed shoulders with Fatima without knowing it?

The clinic is owned and run by an energetic middle-aged Thai man who steps incessantly in and out of his surgery in a white coat. Everyone who deals with wh.o.r.es on a daily basis learns wh.o.r.echarm, wh.o.r.echarm, which is to say a particular way of talking to the girls which neutralizes their tendency to irritability and generally makes them feel good about themselves. The doctor has mastered this art, which no doubt explains the success of his clinic (he is known to accept payment in kind from time to time, if a girl is having a bad month). He asks them when they last "worked" in a serious tone, resonant with respect, counsels against overuse of their a.s.sets in a way that gives them the giggles, makes them promise for the thousandth time always to use protection, sells them some Listerine and contraceptive pills and congratulates them on a successful test-"See you next month." I wait until the room is empty before flashing my ID and asking for his records relating to Ussiri Thanya. To my surprise he recognizes the name immediately and takes me into his surgery, which consists of a red upholstered couch, packs of hypodermics, test tubes and bubblepacks. There is a large refrigerator in one corner. which is to say a particular way of talking to the girls which neutralizes their tendency to irritability and generally makes them feel good about themselves. The doctor has mastered this art, which no doubt explains the success of his clinic (he is known to accept payment in kind from time to time, if a girl is having a bad month). He asks them when they last "worked" in a serious tone, resonant with respect, counsels against overuse of their a.s.sets in a way that gives them the giggles, makes them promise for the thousandth time always to use protection, sells them some Listerine and contraceptive pills and congratulates them on a successful test-"See you next month." I wait until the room is empty before flashing my ID and asking for his records relating to Ussiri Thanya. To my surprise he recognizes the name immediately and takes me into his surgery, which consists of a red upholstered couch, packs of hypodermics, test tubes and bubblepacks. There is a large refrigerator in one corner.

"He's still alive?"

"That surprises you?"

A thoughtful pause. "Not exactly. Even ten years ago most people didn't actually die, though everyone on the game half expected to. He was one of those who developed a real phobia about it-it was a common reaction at that time. I remember he came for a checkup once a week at some stage. I told him, 'Look, the disease takes a while to manifest, you may as well just come once a month,' but he was neurotic. The strange thing about him was that you sometimes got the feeling he wanted to be infected. That he hated the suspense. Maybe he wanted to join his friends. The male wh.o.r.es got hit even worse than the girls. It was pretty bad. Nowadays not many true professionals get caught-it's the amateurs, the weekenders who don't take proper precautions, who still get infected. Generally, AIDS has had a fantastic effect on our national health. Very little syphilis or gonorrhea around here these days-not even very much herpes. And of course everyone is fanatical about the checkups."

"His results were always negative?"

"Sure. Like I say, he was neurotic. He once told me he lost half his customers because he was so obsessed with disease it turned them off. He would bring his friends to see me, the ones who were too scared to have the test without someone to hold their hand. He was almost like a medic, he learned a lot about the disease. He was intelligent, he picked up the nature of the virus and could talk about it better than I could."

"He had a death wish?"

A shrug. "That to me is a Western idea. Humans are the only animal which is aware of death, so you could say we must all have either a fascination with it or an inability to face it. If he'd had a genuine death wish he'd be dead, wouldn't he? It's not difficult for a boy wh.o.r.e to die in Bangkok, if that's what he wants to do."

"But he was strange?"

"Obsessed with the disease. Obsessed with not getting it, but no way was he going to change his profession, even if he could. Not a death wish, maybe a death obsession."

"In the Buddhist sense?"

"Perhaps. He told me he meditated on death. It was the only reality. I got the feeling he was on the edge, you know? How many of your friends can you watch die when you're eighteen years old?"

"When did he stop coming to see you?"

A quick glance at me, then away. "I'd have to check. I don't think I've seen him for eight or nine years. Wait, I'll check. It was before I got this d.a.m.ned computer, so I'll have to look in the files."

"It might not be that important. You never saw him with a black American? A very big man, a marine?"

"No. Never."

"He never told you he was changing s.e.x?"

Raised eyebrows. "That's what he did?"

"Surprised?"

A frown. "Yes, surprised."

"Why? It's not unusual, is it?"

"No, not unusual, not around here. But you get a feeling for these creatures, the men as well as the women. They come in all shapes and sizes. Canny businesspeople some of them, on the game until they've saved enough capital to open a bar or a hairdresser's. Others are the same inadequates you see on the streets all over the world, with not only their bodies for sale but their personalities as well-slaves. They're the ones who go for the operation, generally. With no ident.i.ty to speak of they have nothing to lose. He never struck me as like that. Oh, he was as gay as a lark, but he had a strong mind. A good head on his shoulders. He knew who he was."

"Not a natural for the operation?"

"Look, I'm not a shrink, what do I know? I don't even practice medicine anymore, I find it too stressful, so I only do blood tests."

"There were pictures of boys dying of AIDS on the wall of his apartment. Some of them looked already dead."

"That sounds like him."

"I think he sat in his hovel staring at them for hours on end."

"Of course he did."

Out on Silom I pa.s.s a bookstore with a new biography of Pol Pot. There are aberrations on the Buddhist Path, just like any other. Pol Pot was a monk before he decided to kill a million of his own people. Sometimes the reality of death becomes overwhelming-and compelling.

At River City I pause before taking the escalator to Warren's shop. I'm nervous, without knowing why. Well, I guess I do know why. Fatima killed Bradley-and Pichai. I'm supposed to kill her, aren't I? How to kill that boy who sat in a hovel exactly the same size as mine, crying for his dead friends, just like me, wondering what the h.e.l.l it's all about-just like me? When I steel my nerves to take the elevator, she's not there. A different a.s.sistant, a very well-groomed young man who may or may not be gay, gives me a disapproving stare as I walk in. I make my excuses and leave quickly, relieved I don't have to kill anyone today. Back in my hovel I am Ussiri again, back in his his hovel, meditating on death. I bet he'd gone very deep into himself by the time he met Bradley. hovel, meditating on death. I bet he'd gone very deep into himself by the time he met Bradley.

Now the mind, in its inexplicable wandering, strikes off in a more practical direction. Monday, I use my mobile to call a clerk in the Lands Department who is amenable to persuasion. I promise him a thousand baht if he will make a few simple checks on his computer. He calls me back in half an hour with a very different address.

If you want to catch a wh.o.r.e at home, even a retired one, go in the morning. Old habits die hard. After more than a decade in retirement Nong, for example, never rises before eleven.

By the mid-nineties Thailand had established itself as a bona fide Asian tiger, complete with expensive roar and land prices shooting through the roof. Families who had had useless lumps of land on their hands for generations found themselves courted by estate agents and developers and became millionaires overnight. Bangkok was a hub, and there's nothing better than that for a city to be, is there? The magic words "developing economy" brought in hundreds of thousands of foreigners, all of whom needed places to live of international quality. Apartment buildings rose from steamy fields like mushrooms. Some of the best of them are to be found off Sukhumvit between Soi 33 and Soi 39, where the apartments rejoice in that attention to detail for which our j.a.panese cousins are justly famous. Every second restaurant and supermarket around here is j.a.panese, you can buy sushi, tapanyaki, tofu, harami, tempura, kushikatsu, otumani any time of the day or night. At the end of Soi 39, near Petchaburi Road, the three gigantic towers of the Supalai complex rise to kiss the muggy sky. The guard at the desk in the lobby wants to call up to the occupant of the four-thousand-square-foot penthouse, and can be dissuaded only with five hundred baht and a promise of incarceration if he gives me any more trouble.

Now I am riding the elevator to the thirtieth floor, wondering if today is the day I kill her. On the other hand, I have taken the professional precaution of bringing a small Dictaphone.

It is 10:35 a.m. and, standing outside the impressive double oak doors guarded by Chinese G.o.ds in green, red and white porcelain, I can hear the television when I press the bell. Sudden silence as the TV is switched off. Only the neurotically sensitive hearing of a cop like me could discern the soft padding of bare feet across the floor. Now I am being observed through the spyhole. Someone is giving serious thought to what to do next.

It takes five minutes, then the dull thud of a heavy bolt, a couple of clicks for the other locks, and I am face to face with an icon.

Even surprised at home at this unG.o.dly hour, she is nothing less than magnificent. A green and red silk kimono tied up negligently at the waist, her thick black hair hanging down over her shoulders, pearls in her ears, rings on her fingers, designer flesh, modest smile-"Sawadee ka."

"Good morning, Fatima. Nice apartment."

"Please come in."

It is a duplex. A polished teak staircase leads to the bedrooms upstairs whilst the eye is drawn to the floor-to-ceiling windows with a magnificent view of the city.

43.

Despite her impeccable postures, I have a sense that the sh.e.l.l has cracked. Smiles, frowns, hand gestures-fragments of personality-come and go, as if dredged up from memory, whilst something quite different, beyond the human, seems to control her. From time to time I think she is glaring at me, until I realize there is a total blackness behind the eyes when the postures fail.

"We met on a train to Chiang Mai. I probably don't have to tell you why I was going to Chiang Mai? I was twenty-seven and sick to death of the bar scene in Bangkok. The boys had mostly stopped dying of AIDS by then, but there was no romance left. The clients were mostly just pigs, white pigs. Gay white men on the rampage in Southeast Asia are not always the considerate type. I took the train up to Chiang Mai because the scene up there was supposed to be different. Everyone was so stoned on opium and heroin, so they said, you didn't really have to work at all. That's what I was, a b.u.m boy, a creature without self-respect, a poor, skinny, ladylike thing with a d.i.c.k, one of the world's lost, just dirt in the road. How could you be anything else, being half black and brought up here? Thais are the most racist people on earth, they despise Negroes. They even look down on pure-blooded Thais if they have dark skin. And look-I'm pretty brown.

"Being that kind of gay, I'd pampered myself and spent everything I had on a first-cla.s.s ticket in a sleeper that was supposed to be all my own. I'm enjoying a cigarette and contemplating suicide for the thousandth time that year when the door opens and there he was, a magnificent black giant who I would never have taken for a soldier by the way he dressed and moved, except for one of those big round green bags soldiers carry. He looked about forty, which has always been my favorite age in a man, and of course, being black, how could I not make that connection to the father I've never met? Super fit. I thought: What a wonderful country America must be, that someone so black can grow up br.i.m.m.i.n.g with self-respect, nonchalant, with a sense of belonging, even amongst all those white people. Of course I gave him my most seductive smile, not expecting any result. He smiled back, though, said sorry for disturbing me, he'd booked the compartment next door. I said: 'That's okay, love, anytime.' Just like a wh.o.r.e. I thought that would be it, because he looked so straight, you know? Usually when you talk like that to a straight guy, it turns him off, even disgusts him. He gave me this big smile, though, and asked if he could sit down for a moment. My little heart starts on the big thump-thump-thump thump-thump-thump."

An inhalation. "I won't bore you with the gory details of Chiang Mai. G.o.d knows why a man like him was going there at all, except that it's on the tourist circuit. G.o.d knows why he's with me. He never admitted that I was his first, you know, but I can tell this is not really a gay. Let's be honest about this, there are all different shades, and men who love s.e.x usually experiment at some stage in their lives. I think he was like that. I think he'd had women all his life and was at that stage of wondering if it's worth it, you know? Maybe that special something missing could be supplied by a man? I thought, Fair enough, I'm having the time of my life staying in a good hotel with the man of my dreams, when it ends I'll have nothing but wonderful memories, something to carry me forward into the next disaster. I can see he's not comfortable with me socially. To tell the truth, we never leave the room together. He would go out for a meal or a drink, I would go out separately. Socially, he's very very uptight. He's a marine, after all. He's going through quite a thing, but to my surprise he didn't dump me after the first night.

"Then, after five days, he gives me my marching orders. I say: 'Of course, darling, it's been wonderful for me, just wonderful, you're the best thing that ever happened to me. And by the way, can you help me out with ten thousand baht, I'm a little short of the readies?' We made that sordid little trip to the bank machine together, he hands me the cash in a dark alley and we walk off into our separate futures-or so I thought.

"Two days later, he came looking for me. He'd searched every gay bar in the town, and found me in the end, drowning my sorrows. That's when I knew something totally appalling was happening to this beautiful man. This giant stood there with tears in his eyes, looking at me across the floor. Of course, I would have done anything for him. Anything at all. If he'd said, Take this knife and cut your throat, I would have done it. You might say that it was a first for me too: love."

"But he never got used to you being a man?"

"No. Well, put it the other way: he never got used to him being queer. He held himself together for the first few weeks, but I could see it coming. I wondered what he was going to do with my poor body when he really started to break apart. Someone like me sees it all the time, it's a professional hazard: the middle-aged man who cannot admit what he is turning into, what he's doing. I wondered if he would have a fit and kill me with those magnificent muscles of his, not that I cared. It was as good a way to go as any. What for him was something squalid and nasty was the high point of my life. He was good to me, when he remembered what a generous-spirited American he was. And I simply adored him. He liked to smoke ganja and I would get some for him. Then the drinking started. I don't think he drank much before he met me, but soon he could get through a bottle of Mekong in an hour. It's like the song says: hate myself for loving you hate myself for loving you." A sigh. "I think he really did love me, at the beginning. I think I was a kind of liberation, in a way. After all, he'd been chasing p.u.s.s.y all his life and not gotten anything out of it. At least I understood him. I had testosterone of my own in those days, I knew how a man thinks. I've sort of lost that now. He never did beat me, though. Not once. Even his s.e.x wasn't particularly-you know-over the top. He dominated, of course, but it was more like an emperor expecting to be worshiped than a s.a.d.i.s.t demanding obedience. I hoped that things would work out. After all, he kept talking about retirement, and he wanted to retire in Bangkok, so I thought, Why not come out? come out? What have you got to lose? Spend the rest of your life in love and freedom. With me. I would have looked after him. My G.o.d, would I have looked after him. But of course, it never works out that way, does it? There's always something drags us down, just when we think we're being saved." What have you got to lose? Spend the rest of your life in love and freedom. With me. I would have looked after him. My G.o.d, would I have looked after him. But of course, it never works out that way, does it? There's always something drags us down, just when we think we're being saved."

"Was he into jade at that time?"

"Oh the jade, the jade. Yes, he was into it. I think one of his retirement dreams had been to go into the gems trade. I think when he was in Yemen and all those other dreadful places, he fantasized about coming to Thailand and exporting gems and jade to the States. Perhaps making his own designs. My G.o.d, that's almost like me fantasizing about becoming a marine. I'm not an expert, but in my little opinion you don't get near the gems trade out here unless you're Chinese, or very well connected to the Chinese. I wasn't going to tell him that, of course. I helped him, with a sense of foreboding I must say."

"You helped him?"

"He needed an interpreter. He was talking to all sorts of people, including tribespeople from up in the hills and including my own people, the Karen. So I was very useful. I translated into Thai and into Karen and back again into English. I had this bar-boy English at that time, nothing like as good as I speak it now. I have him to thank for that.

"We even got as far as buying a couple of lumps of jade and having them worked into little trinkets by some craftsmen in Chinatown. I had to tell him in the end they were laughing at us. The jade he'd bought was third rate, and his designs were sort of-well, not exactly world cla.s.s. That p.e.n.i.s on the web page was the best thing he did. He modeled it after his own, of course. Even I started wondering where his head was, that he thought starting a web page with a whacking great c.o.c.k on it was going to change his life. Funnily enough, I think that web page was his way of coming out, his way of finally telling the world what he was: a beautiful, perfectly formed c.o.c.k.

"Then things started to fall apart. He'd borrowed quite a lot of money to buy the jade and have it worked. I thought he would have borrowed from a bank or something, it didn't occur to me until it was too late that he'd borrowed from Chiu Chow loan sharks. I mean, how dumb can you get? Did he think he'd get special protection because he was a marine? Did he think the President of the United States would send an aircraft carrier if he got into trouble with the sharks? He had that very naive streak, you see. A blind spot, I suppose you would call it. Perhaps it was from being in the Marines all those years, there were things in front of his eyes on the street he just did not see. That's when his drinking and his ganja smoking started to get out of hand. He had to get a medical certificate a couple of times because he wasn't fit for work. He was terrified of random drug tests. That's also when he started into me, telling me I'd destroyed his life, calling me all the names a b.u.m-boy gets called when his man starts to freak. Even then, I have to tell you he never hit me. I don't think that he was a violent man by nature. Not until someone turned him violent. But I didn't know that at the time. All I knew was my luck was as bad as ever. Even though it wasn't my fault, I'd sort of brought bad luck to this man I loved. I made him pray with me. I was Christian, he was brought up a Christian-at first he didn't understand that someone like me can be a believer. So we prayed and somehow I think that might have made things go from bad to worse."

"How so?"

"Because he really got into the praying, and bought a Bible and started preaching to me about salvation. He would go on for hours, usually after he'd had a bottle of Mekong, and I used to sit at his feet and murmur adoring approval. It was like those American preachers you see on the TV sometimes, all emotion and intensity and certainty about G.o.d's grace. We Karen are religious groupies, we love everyone's G.o.d, we've had more missionaries over the years than you can count: all kinds of Christians, Buddhists, Muslims. We take them all in, believe every word and never bother about the contradictions. So I was a perfect audience for him. We would reach this peak a few times a week, after ganja and whisky, when we were certain that the doors of heaven were about to open and we would walk right in. You have to bear in mind that he was under a lot of pressure. The loan sharks were closing in. They didn't want to kill him, of course, but they were charging twenty percent a month and at that rate things get on top of you very quickly. He would get these three-in-the-morning telephone calls and the guy's English would be so bad I'd have to take the phone and have him make his threats in Thai so I could translate. It was the usual stuff, you know, what they would do to his body, his face-especially his face. They're not stupid, those people, they know a person's weakness."

"And at this time, you were still . . ."

"Still a man? Oh yes. My change came later. I would say that we decided I would start to take the estrogen together, it was a family decision which popped up quite casually. We were in bed one night, drunk, and he was caressing me and I asked him if he would like me to have t.i.ts. I don't think it had occurred to him before. He sort of jumped a bit. Maybe he saw it as a solution to at least one of his problems. If he turned me into a woman he could claim not to be queer, couldn't he? But that wasn't what I'd had in mind. I was just suggesting the estrogen as a sort of-you know?"

"s.e.xual adjunct?"

"Exactly. So I got hold of some local stuff and, lo and behold, the t.i.ts start to grow. The effect on him was weird. I mean, he started obsessing about making changes to my body. I said, 'Sweetheart, I'm starting to feel like a lump of jade that's being worked on.' He laughed, but it was true. And the funny thing was that at that time, everything seemed to change for the better. He told me he'd been contacted by someone very very big in the gems trade in America and it looked like a little real business would be coming his way. Nothing big to start with, but at least there was light. And this jeweler-he never told me his name in the early days-was going to pay off Bill's debts. Boy, I mean, it was just like the clouds lifted all at once, all thanks to this big shot from America, this jeweler, who I never met until much later, but who would come to Krung Thep once a month on business and he and Bill would go somewhere-to this guy's hotel I guess-to talk business all night."

"All night?"

"That's right. I had my suspicions. I mean, it's pretty standard that someone comes from the West or j.a.pan on a business trip and expects to be entertained in the Bangkok tradition when the talking's over. I didn't really mind. I even thought it might be healthy in a way. I mean, from what he said this jeweler seemed to like women and I thought if Bill is doing a little p.u.s.s.y-chasing just for form, it's probably what he needs. He was still pretty freaked out about having a serious affair with a man. Maybe he needed the balance. Anyway, the jeweler had become our number one man and anything he wanted he had to have. At the same time, all kinds of stuff started appearing in our house. Silverware, ceramics, local craft products, things which I thought were priceless in my ignorance of those days, but which turned out to be just leftover junk from the jeweler's warehouse."

"They went to the bars together?"

"I don't know about that. This guy was so big, so rich, I got the feeling they would party with some hired flesh, you know, the most expensive kind, right there in his hotel suite. Bill mentioned a Russian pimp and some Siberian women."

"How did Bill seem after those sessions?"

"At first he was kind of amused. He would say that this guy, who was so respectable, who met presidents, who knew senators and members of Parliament, was really quite a swinger. He didn't say more than that to save my feelings. Quite a swinger. Then one time he stayed away three days and when he came back he was a different man."

"Different?"

Silence.

"Totally different. He'd lost his soul. He even admitted it. He got drunk, smoked some ganja and started tearing up his Bible. He says: 'I prayed for grace and salvation, but they sent me the devil. So now we work for the devil. Maybe there's only the devil, maybe all the other nonsense is kid stuff. That's what the man told me. Kid stuff.' He looked at me when he said that. He looked at me and carried on tearing up the Bible."

"And that's when you started on the estradiol?"

"That's when my transformation went high tech. Estradiol. Computer programs, medical dictionaries, specialist news groups on the Web."

"And Dr. Surichai?"

"And after a few months, yes, Dr. Surichai. I'm watching Bill every day playing with this computer stuff with-you know-diagrams, color pictures of the anatomy of a man and a woman, and he can move the bits around, cut off this, add this, and I'm standing behind him adoring him with my arms around his neck saying: 'Yes, darling, let's give me t.i.ts like that, anything you like. You can have three t.i.ts and two p.u.s.s.ies if you want, anything, anything.' "

"You were being designed?"

"That's right, I was being designed. What did I care? I was just so flattered, you know, that my man is obsessing about me. Who wouldn't be? I didn't care if he'd turned into the devil. What did G.o.d ever do for me?" A quick flash of those large black eyes. "What you have to appreciate, darling, is the change in me. It was as if I was born and brought up in h.e.l.l, then suddenly transported to heaven. I found love, a home, a sense of belonging, for the first time ever. Somehow I think I see in your eyes you know what I'm talking about, no?"

"Yes."

"And when you experience that kind of transformation, you're walking on air. You really can't believe your luck."

"But you knew you didn't fit the usual profile of a transs.e.xual? You didn't believe yourself to be a woman trapped in a man's body?"

"That c.r.a.p? That's what farangs farangs get all hung up on. Here in Krung Thep we already have designer bodies-the boys on the street will cut anything off, add anything on, take any kind of drugs. We are the future, darling. The get all hung up on. Here in Krung Thep we already have designer bodies-the boys on the street will cut anything off, add anything on, take any kind of drugs. We are the future, darling. The farangs farangs will catch up. You'll see, they'll soon drop all that psychological caring stuff once they see how much money is in it." will catch up. You'll see, they'll soon drop all that psychological caring stuff once they see how much money is in it."

"But you must have thought about it, that at a crucial moment the man with the knife was going to cut everything off?"

A shrug. "Not really. I was doing it for love, darling. You're a child of the street, you must know what it means to have nothing to lose? And it wasn't really a loss. He turned me into a G.o.ddess."

I switch the recorder off. In my mind echoes Dr. Surichai's question: What is a transs.e.xual? A medieval eunuch pumped full of estrogen? What is a transs.e.xual? A medieval eunuch pumped full of estrogen? Did Fatima ask herself that very question now and then, in her down moments? I switch the recorder back on. Did Fatima ask herself that very question now and then, in her down moments? I switch the recorder back on.

"But you didn't make any connection with the jeweler?"

"No, except that that was where the money was coming from at first. Then Bill used the jeweler's contacts to get into the yaa baa yaa baa trade, and that was where the money was supposed to be coming from after that. But you know, there wasn't much time, suddenly, to worry about anything. I'm taking the drugs, going to see the doctor, Bill's obsessing about my throat, the Adam's apple thing and what my voice is going to be like-even the whole devil thing just faded into the background after a while. I think Bill just put it into the back of his mind what he'd agreed with the jeweler." trade, and that was where the money was supposed to be coming from after that. But you know, there wasn't much time, suddenly, to worry about anything. I'm taking the drugs, going to see the doctor, Bill's obsessing about my throat, the Adam's apple thing and what my voice is going to be like-even the whole devil thing just faded into the background after a while. I think Bill just put it into the back of his mind what he'd agreed with the jeweler."

"When did you find out?"