Black Tiger (26 page)

‘How long do you intend to keep up this ridiculous charade?’ I demanded.

She stared at me, all wide-eyed and innocent. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Oh, yes, you do, Salikaa! Marrying Toom! Modelling in Paris—for Balmain! What made you say a thing like that?’

Salikaa threw her head back and laughed, no longer Salikaa the future princess, but the old, reckless Salikaa. Her hair, falling straight as a blue-black river from the upswept crown, cracked like a whip. ‘You don’t think the old toad would deny it, now I’m going to be a princess, and a potential customer. I’m going to buy a thousand gowns! That Philippine woman, Imelda Marcos, she’s got a thousand pairs of shoes. I’ll have ten thousand!’ She grinned, eyes gleaming with ambition. ‘I’m to be presented at court! Toom’s snotty old family will have to accept me; they must sponsor my presentation, whether they like it or not. Toom is the heir. And I’m going to be his princess.’ Her sensuous voice throbbed with excitement.

We’d reached the door. I paused in the doorway, looking hard at Salikaa, shielding my eyes from the white-hot sun with my Hermes document case. ‘Pride goes before a fall,
Princess
!’ I warned. There was something desperate about her triumphant attitude, as if she were seeking revenge for a lifetime of slights. I understood her, at that moment, better than ever before. Both of us had our catalogue of insults to avenge; both had experienced a peculiar upbringing, lacking no material comfort, but feeling ourselves outcasts. I shook my head. ‘You’re flying too near the sun, Salikaa, believe me!’

Salikaa gave her short, hard snort of derisive laughter. She was entranced by the glorious prospects before her. ‘Toom’s old man, old Prince Premsakul, thinks the Princess Regent might well appoint me to her entourage. They say she likes having pretty girls about her. Even,’ Salikaa beamed smugly, ‘ones prettier than herself.’

She clattered down the wooden steps on her high heels, and I followed her out into the dusty compound where our car waited. I felt helpless. I could not advise her about what went on at court. It’s not a circle in which our people have ever been welcome. ‘Take things calmly, just at first,’ I suggested. ‘Feel your way—ask Pim how to go about things. She knows how to behave in those circles, even if it goes against the grain.’

Without bothering to turn her head, Salikaa replied, ‘Now, Chee Laan, dear, you know caution has never been my way. Where I come from, life itself is a dangerous game. You have to grab it by the balls.’ She half turned, grasping my arm in a gesture apparently affectionate and spontaneous. ‘As Fleischer is going to discover,’ she hissed, ‘if he stands in my way.’

‘Fleischer?’ I was staggered. ‘What’s Fleischer got to do with anything?’

‘If I have my way, absolutely nothing,’ she said through gritted teeth. I looked at her in surprise and I saw she meant it. Salikaa’s stepfather probably knew many people who arranged unpleasant accidents for others, I reflected.

‘Have you seen Fleischer? I heard he was here, in Bangkok, but…’

She cut short my astonishment. ‘Now, Chee Laan, dear, those ghastly Americans are hosting an engagement party for us tonight. At the Baan Thai. Your family are invited. Also your long-nose round-eye friend, Raven. Toom’s old man has taken him up in a big way, probably sniffing after some favour. I’d as soon trust a crocodile as Toom’s darling dad.’

I was to attend the engagement dinner. The thought struck me that I could arrange to drive Raven there. I made up my mind to do that.

I suddenly became aware of the attention we were attracting. Soldiers, mechanics, and coolies, many clad in shorts and sandals, stood about in little groups, observing our every move, eyes gleaming, mouths open. ‘Get in the car, Salikaa—people are staring,’ I urged.

Tsu mu
’s Chinese chauffeur was looking tense, anxious at being at the centre of a crowd of Thais and burdened with responsibility for two young ladies and an expensive vehicle. Rigid with disapproval of Salikaa, whose presence appeared to make him instinctively uneasy, he saluted and flung the door wide. Salikaa swung round, blazing her smile at her audience.

‘Get in the car, Salikaa!’ I snapped with greater emphasis. I gave her a push in the small of the back. Not a gentle one.

Raven

Despite the powerful air conditioner in Chee Laan’s new sports car, I was sweating already—and unpleasantly conscious of the fact that beside me this girl, cool as a slice of lime and subtly fragrant as lilies, was not suffering as I was.

‘Aren’t we early?’ I tugged at my bow tie, silently cursing the Western man’s absurd dress code. How much happier I’d have felt in
burnous
or
pakomah
, so much more suitable for that brutal climate, so much more dignified than this penguin suit.

‘Early is good manners.’ Chee Laan swung the wheel smartly.

‘Arriving before the appointed hour would be counted as a discourtesy in Europe.’

Chee Laan wriggled her shoulders in the short-sleeved green
cheong sam
.

‘But we are not in Europe.’ She laughed coolly. ‘I am
over
Europe! Now it is as if I had never been away.’ The casual response was a challenge I intended to take up.

We unfolded ourselves from the low-slung Lotus and entered the enchanted garden. At first sight, the Baan Thai looked like any other theatre restaurant beloved of the package tour operators. But I knew there was a subtle difference, and not only in the price. The Baan Thai was discreet, coyly concealed deep in a side
soi
off the clogged and choking main residential thoroughfare, Sukhumvit. The food was sufficiently bland not to offend delicate aristocratic or unaccustomed Western palates. The lovely hostess was no turbocharged call-girl, but a titled, Western-educated aristocrat, competent to explain the mysteries of the traditional dances and dishes in impeccable French and English. The restaurant was a favourite neutral venue of the royal family’s for the entertainment of official guests. Small wonder that van Hooten had chosen it.

A scarlet-shirted stripling greeted us with a professional smiling
wai
. He raised his lantern to light our way through the flare-lit garden. From behind his ear a hibiscus blossom bloomed, its long stamens dancing like the feet of a red spider in tiny yellow shoes. The twin wooden houses, with their graceful sweeping roofs and the sharp, carved prows of their eaves, seemed to float like Viking longships at anchor, moored between the dark water of the lotus pool and the starless sky. I paused to survey the magical sight.

At my elbow, Chee Laan said: ‘Replicas. These are from the Sukothai Kingdom period, thirteenth to fourteenth century. They call it the Dawn of Happiness.’

‘How long did it last?’

‘About one hundred years.’

‘Not bad.’

‘For a dawn? Or for happiness?’

‘Either.’ Her coolness inflamed me. Devil knows what I thought I was doing as I grasped her hand and swung her round against me. I felt a surge of power, and immediately afterward, unmanned by the flower scent of her hair and the fragility of her bones, a protective tenderness.

‘You are right.’ She extricated herself gently, but I sensed she was not offended. ‘All is transient. Happiness is merely less pain. Change is the only permanence.’ She seemed to make up her mind about something. ‘Raven, Sya pretends to hate the Chinese. Yet I think he and my grandmother…’

‘Yes?’ I prompted, suddenly alert.

‘Oh, I don’t know. Just be careful, that’s all. Don’t believe all you hear. Shall we go?’ She slipped her arm through mine, forgiving my earlier temerity.

At the top of the carved wooden staircase, Salikaa, who had observed everything, posed, gowned in a shimmering rose-pink
barong pimarn
, the full-length, clinging garment combining regal refinement with spectacular glamour. Slashed diagonally across the neck, it left one smooth coppery arm and shoulder bare. A heavily decorated silver belt girdled her slender waist. She glided back into the lighted room, smiling secretively.

I sensed Chee Laan’s momentary reluctance to enter the lighted rooms, as if she shared my longing to linger in the shadow, canopied by the rain trees and the great spreading flame-of-the-forest, by night dark and anonymous as its less flamboyant fellows, with little shrines built in their trunks to the resident hamadryads. She let go my arm, and our two hands brushed by chance, trembled, clutched and held fast. I was conscious of her heavier breathing, as she must have been of mine. Pale lotuses starred the pool’s face, and from nesting huts on the rafts Chinese geese, disturbed by the activity and the lights, burbled softly. A breeze stirred the reeds. I gasped at the tremor of quickening consciousness. The longing to pull her again into my arms, to cover her upturned face with kisses, was overwhelming. I tightened my grip on her small hand.

‘Chee Laan,’ I murmured. She removed her hand from mine gracefully, without reproof, and moved away toward the patiently waiting usher, into the light. After a moment I recovered my wits and followed her up the wooden staircase.

Apart from the humming air conditioners, the decor inside was authentic upper-class Thai. Fragrant teak, worked slippery-soft as red-tinged sandalwood; triangular lotus-patterned silk cushions for elbow and back. The knee-high tables of carved teak were set for six with bronzeware cutlery,
dephanon
angels dancing on their horn handles. They’d thoughtfully cut wells under the tables for Westerners unaccustomed to reclining. I watched van Hooten, grunting, manoeuvre his bulk, swinging his bulging thighs beneath the table. He raised a welcoming hand, booming cordially: ‘Hi there, Raven! Glad you could make it!’

But we had unfinished business, he and I, despite his apparent frankness in the Golden Triangle. There was something more at stake. The opium had been a decoy, a blind, to distract my attention from some more important issue. But what?

The hostess began to explain culinary and artistic traditions. As I listened, I surreptitiously studied my fellow guests. ‘Celadon is the direct descendant of the opaque jade stoneware of Imperial China. The craft of high-fired stoneware died out seven generations ago in China, but was revived in Thailand.’ Pim and Salikaa had been standing with members of the royal family, and now broke away, fluttering over like beautiful butterflies to embrace Chee Laan with small cries, bumping cheeks, touching her hands, holding her arms. ‘When victorious kings divided the battle spoils, they bargained as fiercely for master potters as for young concubines, flawless rubies, and war elephants.’

I lifted a lotus-shaped bowl from the table and turned it in my hand. Its glaze, from the wood-ash of slender Northern trees, gleamed with a dark, soft lustre which owed nothing to synthetic dyes. It reminded me of Chee Laan. I looked at her now as I listened politely, all the while absently caressing the smooth, glossy celadon. The stoneware felt like the touch of her skin, cool, firm, slippery-smooth. It seemed to me incomprehensible that, moments ago, my own bony, callused hand had held hers prisoner.

‘Look!’ Salikaa squealed in triumph, thrusting her wrist under Chee Laan’s nose. ‘Look at my betrothal gift from Vichai, my adoptive father!’ She shook her arm, spinning the massive gold bracelet so its cabochon rubies and sapphires caught the candlelight. ‘You can’t begin to guess what it cost!’ She lowered her voice, drawing them close. ‘Vichai said if I was determined to marry some popinjay princeling, I should not go to his bed a beggar—he’d endow me richly as a queen, if he had to bleed his whole territory white to do it.’

Pim stared at her, pale with fury. ‘I would not boast so loudly, Salikaa.’

Chee Laan took Pim’s hand. ‘Come, Pim,’ she said. ‘Leave it! Salikaa, you’d do better to welcome your guests than brag about your baubles.’

Now it was Salikaa’s turn to glare. ‘You sing a different tune now from the one on the radio, Julie dear!’ she retorted. Assuming a high-pitched, breathless voice and an exaggerated simper, she mimicked savagely: ‘Ooh,
Khun
Salikaa, you’re the Thai Cinderella!’

Chee Laan said shortly, ‘That was business!’ She stalked over to our table and sat down without a word.

Salikaa turned her attention to Pim. ‘Why are you so angry, Pim?’ she said. ‘Is it because you are jealous?’

‘Of course not! I’m angry you should flaunt that—that disgusting monstrosity,’ she indicated Salikaa’s bracelet, ‘that has been paid for with the blood of innocent peasants! Vichai is nothing more than a terrorist who intimidates and exploits people!’

Salikaa blazed back. ‘Where do you think your royal family fortunes came from, if not terror and exploitation, Princess?’

The cheerful hum of well-bred voices ceased. All eyes were on the young women now. Prince Toom, intense and anxious, hurried over to lead his bride back to the family group. He was smiling determinedly, but sweat beaded his pale brow beneath the floppy fringe.

The silence was broken by a thunderous sound outside as heavy footsteps approached up the wooden staircase, followed by the scuffling of boots impatiently kicked off at the threshold. I saw Colonel Sya enter unceremoniously through the screened door like a whirlwind. At last I was in the presence of the Black Tiger, the most powerful man in the country. His hooded eyes swept the crowded room, reconnoitring the gathering. He made the essential reverences and slid into the empty seat at the high table, setting his radio against a carved table leg. Taking a hot towel from the pretty attendant, he mopped his face and neck, insolently taking his time about it. Meanwhile, everyone present—guests, restaurant staff, and dancers peeking round the carved screen—solemnly watched Colonel Sya wipe the sweat off his brow, as though witnessing a unique event. Finally, he dropped the used towel on the tray, gesturing indifferently in dismissal to the beautiful attendant.

‘How would a girl set about making an impression on the incorruptible colonel?’ I muttered, under cover of the murmured conversation that had resumed.

Chee Laan wriggled her shoulders impatiently, as if the question were beneath contempt. Her black eyes were unfriendly. ‘He is Akha. For Akha, women are less than pigs.’