Cavalier woke with a start when his phone alarm went off at 9 a.m. Memories flooded his consciousness, causing him to check his camera and phone. All the footage and conversations were intact.
He phoned Rose, who was relieved he had made it back safely. ‘There is talk about a Thai-speaking farang beating up smugglers and driving their truck full of drugs into the river,’ she said.
‘Now, that’s an interesting story.’
‘This farang emptied the truck of pumpkins before he ditched it. There was a lot of activity at dawn, when they were found and taken away by local villagers. Pumpkins are not cheap!’
‘Then that’s a good thing.’ He hesitated and added, ‘Rose, it’d be better if you didn’t mention my little visit to your country.’
‘I understand.’
He dressed in a hat, T-shirt, jeans and runners, wandered to the local village at 10 a.m., as planned, and found a cafe serving local fare. The sun was behind thick cloud that hovered low over the mountains. This curtailed the heat but increased the humidity and he was sweating, with just one weak electric fan blowing from the cafe’s rear. The eatery was near tourist shops that were just opening up, and the three small cement–plaster pagodas in the centre of a grass square from which the village took its name. Cavalier, scribbling notes on the night’s activity, could see Natt striding down the road towards him. He flicked over a few pages in his notepad and started writing about the location. Her perfunctory kiss on the cheek forewarned him that something was disturbing her.
‘I’m reporting on the area,’ he said and, pointing to a stall, asked, ‘What are they doing with those steer heads?’
‘They’re not making food,’ she said with distaste at the strong smell. ‘They put the liquid in bottles and sell it as a muscle liniment, for a hundred and twenty baht.’
As Natt sat down, Rose rode past on her bike. Cavalier called to her and she stopped to greet them, going through a charade of asking him about his back. He claimed honestly that it was terrific, and she rode off with a smile and a wave. Natt’s phone rang and she left the table to talk in private. Cavalier watched her pace up and down agitatedly. After she returned to the table, a waiter approached.
Cavalier examined the menu as if oblivious of the conversation she’d been having. He took off his sunglasses.
‘What do you fancy?’
‘What?’ Natt said. ‘Nothing!’
‘We’ll have two coffees,’ he said, ignoring her mood, ‘and some rice noodles, and the mushrooms and pork.’
After the waiter had gone, Cavalier asked, ‘Your boss is riding you?’
Natt glared at him.
‘She is one helluva tough bird,’ Cavalier said.
‘Who?’
‘C’mon, Natt! Jacinta.’
‘She’s not my boss.’
‘But you’re reporting back to her on me . . .’
Natt looked away. Cavalier could see her struggling with how to wriggle out of her half-admission of involvement with a senior operative of the Thai police special investigative unit.
‘I like her,’ Cavalier said.
‘Oh, do you?!’ Natt snapped. ‘Have you fucked her, too?’
He ignored the remark. The food arrived. He asked for a second plate and placed it in front of her. She shoved it away.
‘She’s a bitch!’ Natt announced and then began to light a cigarette.
‘No smoking while I’m eating, please,’ Cavalier said.
‘Fuck you, farang!’ she said, putting away her cigarettes and lighter.
‘Didn’t know you smoked,’ he said.
‘That bitch has driven me to it!’
‘She’s unpredictable,’ he mused.
‘She still has balls!’ Natt growled. ‘And you can’t read her because you’re a farang! Just because you married a Thai, doesn’t mean you know us.’
She had some coffee and seemed to be trying to settle down.
‘Why don’t you walk down there a bit and have a fag,’ Cavalier said. ‘It’ll do you good.’
Natt hesitated, then stalked away to smoke. When she returned a few minutes later, her mood had changed. ‘I am sorry,’ she said, ‘but you are part of the problem.’
‘Tell me why.’
She shook her head.
‘I know you’re reporting on me,’ he said. ‘Perhaps I can help.’
‘I doubt it.’
He called for a second coffee. When it arrived, he asked, ‘What did you mean when you said she still has balls?’
‘You mean to tell me you don’t know?!’
‘Know what?’
‘Jacinta is a ladyboy.’
Cavalier, stunned, did a double-take.
‘You really didn’t know this?’ she asked. ‘Jacinta was a man—a very powerful one too.’
Cavalier pushed his food away. ‘Tell me about her,’ he said.
‘I’ve said enough,’ Natt replied, pulling the plate of food to her and picking at it.
‘I know she has some boxing match coming up in Bangkok,’ he prompted.
‘You must know she was a superstar Muay Thai boxer?’
He looked blank.
‘She was the biggest drawcard in the sport in Thailand—as a man, Moon Tuong.’
‘I recall the name. That was more than a decade ago. Christ! That was her!’
‘She was a pre-op ladyboy then. She wore exotic clothes in the ring and sexy make-up. She had a ritual at the end of fights of kissing the opponents she’d beaten up.’
‘I vaguely remember reading about that,’ Cavalier said with a frown. ‘When did she have the sex change?’
‘Maybe eight years ago. She’s had an annual fight for about five years now. It’s a marketing bonanza for the Bangkok promoters. Each year they sell it very well and choose opponents she has a chance of defeating. She has won each fight. They have been sell-outs and had big ratings on TV.’
‘But her next opponent is a world champion. He’s a huge Russian.’
‘That will be interesting,’ Natt said. ‘I see the junta has this morning reopened a TV sports channel for the event.’
After a pause, Cavalier removed his sunglasses. ‘We’ll have to part ways here,’ he said.
Natt looked shocked. ‘Why?’
‘I really can’t do my job as a journalist with you spying.’
‘I’m not spying on you! I’m here to assist you on this trip!’
‘Okay,’ he said, ‘but you are reporting on me to the police. Under the circumstances of the coup, that’s restricting.’
‘So, what will you do? You don’t have a car. I can drive you back to Bangkok . . .’
‘The coup’s changed things. I’m due to play cricket in Chiang Mai. I’ll have to fly there.’
‘There are no airports here. You’d have to go back to Kanchanaburi.’
Cavalier motioned for the bill and pulled out his wallet. ‘Can you give me an invoice?’ he asked.
‘You agreed to five days at least. This is only day three.’
‘I’ll pay for the whole time,’ he said, putting on his glasses again. ‘And your fee for the other night.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘C’mon, Natt. We’ve established what you are. We just need to decide on the price, don’t we?’
Natt’s expression shifted between annoyance and opportunism. ‘I’ll need compensation for losing my job.’
‘I’ll make sure the travel company is told you did very good work.’
‘You must not tell them about Jacinta. They don’t know . . .’
‘That you’re moonlighting as a police informer? Of course not.’
They returned to the hotel and, alone in his room, Cavalier discovered more about Moon Tuong, alias Jacinta. He found articles on the internet that were more than a decade old, and reproached himself for not recalling her. He and his wife had even been to a Muay Thai contest in Jacinta’s adopted home city, Chiang Mai.
In one interview he found on YouTube, she spoke of when she had first thought of herself as female. ‘I would have been four or five,’ she said. ‘I loved flowers, particularly orchids, which my parents farmed, along with rice. I loved putting them in my hair, and I was starstruck by women with long hair. I wanted to be like them. I dreamed of this. I adored putting on women’s clothes. My mother caught me doing it, but she was so lovely about it. She just smiled and encouraged me, out of sight of my brothers and father. Remember, ladyboys are treated with contempt in rural society. As I got older, I would often be called tua pralat, freak. I cried to my mother about it, but toughened up eventually.
‘In soccer and swimming I worked harder to win than anyone,’ she recalled. ‘Once, when I was twelve, the school bully picked on me. Finally, I snapped and challenged him to a Muay Thai fight in the gymnasium. I didn’t really know any moves but everyone knew the fight form from TV and live fights.
‘There must have been fifty boys watching. I had never been in a fight before. But I quickly discovered I had the heart for it, and that I was not afraid of being hit or hurt. I became aware that I had very long arms. I had exceptional reach and could strike hard with my elbows, the most lethal part of the body. Within a few minutes, I moved in for the kill and had him screaming for me to stop. It was the most exhilarating experience in my life up to that moment. Here I was, secretly wanting to be a gentle, beautiful woman, even dreaming about it. Yet I realised I had a gift for controlled physical violence!’
‘Were you ever picked on again?’ the Thai female interviewer asked.
‘No, never!’ Jacinta laughed. ‘Word spreads fast in schools and everyone was most respectful after that.’
‘You entered a monastery . . .?’
‘Yes, at fourteen. I spent just two years in the monkhood. I felt protected by the Buddha.’
‘Then you began boxing professionally . . .’
‘Well, I joined a Muay Thai camp, along with nine other hand-picked boys from the Chiang Mai province. Here I was keener than ever on becoming a woman and yet I was in a camp with nine high-testosterone lads!’
‘Then why did you do it?’
‘I thought I would try to earn money from it to support my family. My father had been injured at work. My mother was ill. The other boys thrived on the fighting.’
‘Did you dominate the camp fights?’
‘Not at first, but there was a superb instructor who gave me all the moves and kept telling me I had the Buddha’s gift. And, you know, when someone says that to a young Thai, it leaves an impression. After six weeks at the camp, none of the other boys would get in the ring with me. That was when I realised I could make a living from Muay Thai. I never worried about being hit, mainly because I could finish a fight quickly.’
‘Did you have a role model?’
‘Yes,’ Jacinta laughed. ‘Madonna. She was lean but with strength and muscles. Again, I wanted to put on dresses and lipstick, but desired to become a real fighter, for the money.’
‘And the fame and prestige?’
‘They were a distant second. Remember, I’m from a poor background. I admit I did not dislike the attention. But I always kept my head.’
Cavalier wanted to learn more but knew it would have to wait until later—he had to see Natt off. He had tipped her well, but was aware the money had not really appeased her. He checked his book of maps, and found seventeen farms and properties in the region that had airstrips and private planes. He spent nearly two hours phoning them but couldn’t find anyone willing to fly him anywhere out of the area. He was just about to give up and hire a car when he found a doctor who would be flying to Chiang Mai that afternoon. The doctor was willing to take him for three thousand baht, especially when Cavalier informed him he had a pilot’s licence.
‘My name is Na, pronounced “Nar”,’ the doctor informed him.
‘Okay, Doctor.’
‘You have no jokes about my name?’
‘No, why?’
‘I trained and practised in Australia. People made jokes about the James Bond movie Dr No because some Australians say “nar” for “no.”’
‘Do you have a steel hook for a hand?’
‘No.’
‘Then I trust you are nothing like Dr No.’
Dr Na, who spoke good English, picked up Cavalier from Three Pagodas Pass. During the return drive to his private airstrip, the doctor explained that there was no Thai flying doctor service, as there was in Australia. Instead, several medicos in the provinces had formed a private network that serviced much of the country’s west and north, especially in medical emergencies.
They took off as bad weather was coming in over the mountains. A rush of air wobbled the single-engine Cessna as it gained altitude. Within half an hour, very poor flying conditions confronted them. The clouds were black. Lightning flashed close by.
‘This is going to be rough,’ Dr Na said. He seemed uncertain about whether to navigate by reading the instruments or watching the oncoming weather. A continuous rumble of thunder made it difficult to be heard. A flash close to them rocked the plane so violently that Dr Na had to fight the controls to keep it upright.
‘Fly under it!’ Cavalier yelled. ‘We won’t make it through!’
‘Mountains are too close!’ the doctor shouted as sweat ran from his brow.
‘Let me take it,’ Cavalier said. Dr Na hesitated just as the plane was struck by lightning and the engine went dead. He struggled to start it again. With the plane at a forty-five-degree tilt, and after several nervous coughs, the engine kicked in. Cavalier gestured for them to change seats. The plane now resembled a feather buffeted in all directions. Visibility was down to zero.
‘Got to drop down,’ Cavalier called. ‘What height are the mountains?’
‘Seven hundred metres here!’
‘Shit! We must be skimming them!’
‘That’s what I told you!’
Cavalier manoeuvred the plane east for about twenty minutes until they were in less turbulent conditions, but visibility was still near zero. He asked Dr Na to unfold a map of the region, glanced at it and read the instrument panel. ‘We may be just east of the mountains,’ he said, ‘what do you think?’
‘Maybe. If we go too far east, we’ll have a fuel problem.’
‘Let’s concentrate on staying alive!’
Cavalier dropped altitude as cautiously as possible. The engine revved alarmingly but the weather cleared enough for them to see the terrain. The mountains were fifty metres away to the west. He directed the plane due north for Chiang Mai, and half an hour later, it was buffeted less, although the conditions remained poor.
Dr Na took over the controls again, admitting in several apologetic outbursts that he would never have made it on his own.
‘We managed it together,’ Cavalier said. ‘That’s all that matters.’
The flight, of about four hundred kilometres, in low cloud and close to mountains, took nearly three hours. Thunder kept rumbling and lightning flashed close for the remainder of the trip.
‘You stayed very calm,’ Dr Na said to Cavalier as they left the plane.
‘I’ve had plenty of bad flights. That was the worst.’
‘You are an exceptional pilot! Have you worked with an airline?’
‘Learned to fly in the air force, on light planes and choppers. After that, I flew for pleasure.’
‘I am a very bad pilot.’
‘That makes you a very brave one, then!’
Dr Na glanced at Cavalier and then laughed. ‘You remind me of my study days in Australia,’ he said. ‘The cynical, grey rather than black, Aussie humour!’
Cavalier followed him across the tarmac towards the domestic terminal. A contingent of soldiers was checking every male passenger as they entered the terminal. It crossed his mind that they were looking for him.
‘I’m not going through that,’ Dr Na said, with a dismissive wave. ‘I’ve patients to see. Come with me.’
He led Cavalier round the side of the terminal to a gate that he used an electronic card to pass through. When an airport guard challenged Cavalier going through, the doctor flashed a card he took from his wallet and, with a casual gesture at Cavalier said, ‘He’s my co-pilot.’
The guard stepped aside and made a deep wai.
‘Where are you staying?’ Dr Na asked as he strode to a BMW he had hired.
‘The Centara Hotel, near the night bazaar.’
‘It’s on my way to the hospital. I’ll take you there. What brings you, one of two million farang, to our most, as they say, culturally significant city of the north?’
‘Playing cricket.’
‘Oh, so it’s not the culture, the mountains, or our three hundred temples? Not even the Muay Thai boxing?’
‘All of the above too. I always wai the Buddha at your most famous wat, on the hill to the north-west . . .’
‘Ah, the Phrathat Doi Suthep! Our oldest temple. I’ve been to most of them. I am an amateur student of wat history.’ Dr Na paused as they reached his hire car. ‘Don’t get me wrong. I watched cricket at Sydney University, when there was nothing else to do. I like the game.’
‘You’d be one Thai in ten million!’
‘How come you know Chiang Mai?’
‘I used to be married to a local who’s now a doctor here,’ Cavalier said, placing his bags in the car. ‘We often flew over the mountains to, as you say, enjoy the cultural events.’
‘Name?’
‘Pin Patea Cavalier.’
‘Ah! I met her once. If I may say, an exceptional beauty!’
Cavalier had mixed feelings hearing this. He didn’t react.
‘So, you lived in Thailand?’ Dr Na asked as they drove off.
‘No, but I visited often, to see my wife’s family and so on. I’m based in Melbourne.’
‘Do you like Thailand?’
‘I love a lot of things about it.’
‘Are you one of those foreigners who thinks we would have been better off being colonised? After all, we’ve had the Malays come from the south, Chinese from the north, the Khmers from the east and the Burmese from the west. The British colonialists pressed us for a time on one side, and the French imperialists had a good look from the other side.’ Dr Na paused to chortle before adding, ‘The Japanese invaded, and when the Americans defeated them, they took one look at our lack of natural resources and didn’t bother with us.’
‘I think you’ve kept an identity different from other countries that’ve been colonised. You have your food, your dance, your Buddha, your music . . .’
‘Don’t forget the women!’ Dr Na said with a laugh.
Cavalier smiled but did not respond.
‘Forgive me,’ the doctor said, ‘but you did marry a Thai woman. A most beautiful one.’
‘In every way!’
Dr Na laughed again. ‘You see,’ he said, ‘instead of fighting fire with fire, we have wisely fought fire with water. Nothing is more yielding than water. Nothing, no matter how hard or resistant, can prevail against its movement. The yielding conquers the resistant and the soft overcomes the hard.’
‘I like this philosophy.’
‘We are creative and have the capacity to evolve, while respecting the past. We believe in the old and the new coexisting in harmony.’
‘The harmony sought by the junta?’
‘To a point. Their stated aim hits home with the average Thai. Happiness and harmony are life and national goals.’
‘The generals are smarter than Western observers think.’
‘They have had plenty of experience at ruling here!’
They drove on in silence for a minute. Cavalier took in the passing parade of cars, tuk-tuks, motorbikes and bicycles.
‘How long are you here this time?’ Dr Na asked.
‘A few days.’
‘Where do you go after that?’
‘Bangkok.’
‘I am flying there in four days’ time, to a conference on our provincial doctor network. I would appreciate you joining me. Especially if the weather is bad!’