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  She jammed the cards into her money belt but didn’t stop to zip it before taking off at a jog-trot between vendors who were hanging bags of chopped pineapple, stacking sandals into pyramids, spreading jewelry over velvet in anticipation of another working day. Remaining in Thailand was imperative. That much was clear to her. She kept her hand pressed over her open belt as if to hold her guts in. By the time she reached the international phones on the second floor of the post office, she was breathing hard.

  Two hours later, Robin was sitting on a low curb outside the P.O., her head level with the knees of pedestrians who stepped off the sidewalk and onto the street to avoid her. When a pair of eyes dropped into her line of vision, she flinched, surprised.

  “Robin? What are you doing down here?” It was Zella, her roommate, with frizzed ringlets forming a triangle frame around her little nut of a face. The smattering of gray hairs along her part flew up higher than the chestnut rest.

  “Resting, I guess.” Robin smiled crookedly. I owe her for the room, she thought. At least two or three hundred baht. That leaves me only five hundred.

  “Come on. You can’t sit here. Let’s get you something to eat.”

  Zella bustled Robin down the street, deposited her in a chair, got up to place their order. The kindness was soothing. Even the fact that they were eating in the Hello Guest House restaurant, where Robin could get comfort food like a banana milkshake and toast, spoke to Zella’s solicitude. Robin knew she preferred cozier places with interesting decor or local haunts that didn’t pander to Western tastes, that she liked to escape the backpacker throng. And there was no other way to describe the patrons who sat within the three grubby yellow walls here. They all wore more or less faded flaps of colored cotton. Their floppy day packs hung from the backs of chairs, and Lonely Planet guide books and plates of half-eaten pancakes dotted the tables. Everyone’s age seemed all wrong. The limbs of men poked out of boys who otherwise looked so young that they gave the place a freshman dorm feel, their pink ankles and wrists like puttied elastic, while impish patchwork caps sat atop faces creased into middle age by years of sun and drugs. This is where I want to stay? Robin thought, seeing the place through Zella’s eyes. But even as she tried to scoff, she knew that the tourist flim-flam was a harbinger of better, deeper, richer things.

  Zella herself was well out of her twenties, perhaps out of her thirties, but she wore it magnificently. She dressed neither like a hippie kid nor a sightseer on a two-week holiday. Her black Italian sandals were both hearty and elegant. Her thick rings sparkled with well-set chunks of ruby, amber, tourmaline—not stuff you could pick up on any street corner. She was an old Thailand hand, could even speak a little Thai, but she wasn’t here for the drugs. She was a buyer for design teams back in the States, picking up unusual jewelry and old silk tapestries from all over Asia. These would be cut and pieced on clothing photographed for the editorial pages of thick fashion glossies, or they would be tacked onto idea boards in design studios to inspire mass-produced knockoffs. Robin had admired Zella as soon as she’d glimpsed her on the beach at Ko Tao. She’d been flattered when Zella struck up conversation on the ferry back to the mainland—couldn’t believe she was American and not Dutch or Belgian, couldn’t believe she invited Robin to share a room when they got to Bangkok. But to the extent that Zella’s attention had gratified her, Robin was ashamed now. She didn’t want to admit that she’d been living on credit-not to someone who actually got paid to travel, who had a life. The answer to “What’s wrong?” had to be pried out of her.

  “I forgot to make minimum payments on both my cards for two months. Have you ever heard anything so stupid?” She pulled the sand-colored tip of her braid over her shoulder and twirled it around her finger.

  “A nice clean little credit card snafu?” Zella looked up from the ginger root she was peeling with a bone-handled knife. She smiled. “That’s nothing. As long as you’re legal, someone can always help you out, right on up to the American embassy.”

  “I know, but ...” Her crisis was mundane. Robin’s nose dropped toward her milkshake. She felt Zella waiting for more. And not only Zella. She felt Bangkok, the canals and alleys beyond Khao San Road. She felt the great bulk of the countryside north of this city, solid and substantial compared to the thin beachy strip of it she’d spent time on thus far. If she’d known she’d have to leave, she would have forgone the beaches, started instead with Ayuthaya and Sukhothai, the old capitals. “I definitely need it, but I don’t want help if it means going home.”

  “Hey, when I was younger than you are I found myself in Varanasi with fifteen dollars to my name. And they weren’t handing out credit cards to kids back then, okay? But it was another year plus before I turned up in the States.” Zella snorted. She quit peeling ginger and rested her hands on top of the root and the knife. Her shell pink nails were clean, rounded into Thai points by a local manicurist. “Now that was stupid,” Zella finally said. She laughed. “But here I am. Lived to tell.”

  “Tell what?”

  She gave a fluttery shake of her head. “Your cards will be reactivated once you make your payments, right? Then you’re on your way.”

  “I have eight hundred baht. Not enough to send a payment to even one card.”

  “You really want to stay?”

  Robin nodded.

  “Tell me why. A hundred words or less.”

  “Well, this might sound ...”

  “You’re going to waste words like that?”

  Robin paused. At the front of the restaurant, up toward the lattice that topped the cinder block wall, sun hit the business’s spirit house. The purple tips of fresh orchids glowed. Blunt pink joss sticks rose from a sand-filled porcelain cup and formed a bouquet, their burned ends like velvet stamens. The scene was picturesque. Quintessential. But the gloss of a tangerine was what made the assemblage perfect. Robin’s lungs filled. The orange contrasting with the violet, complementing the fuchsia, and all for a purpose that was by definition spiritual-that was the key. How to explain this without sounding stupid to someone whose job was beauty, who had a real reason for being here?

  “When I started traveling half a year ago I was mostly running away from what my life was like at home. But since I’ve been in Thailand, being gone feels like something positive. Maybe there’s something for me here. A career path, a life...”

  “Okay. Stop.” Zella held up her hand. “Let’s spare ourselves. You won the essay contest.”

  The interruption smarted. Robin made her voice flat. “What’s the prize? A new Visa?”

  Zella ran her finger along the blade of her knife, wiped the ginger pulp onto the edge of her mug. “You win a fairy godmother.”

  Robin’s breath caught. The sting of the insult dissolved. “You’d loan me?” she said. “But you’re going to India day after tomorrow.” She continued on in a rush. “I’ll FedEx you the money. The minute my cards are activated. Just tell me where.”

  “Slow down. You’d mean to, I’m sure, but let’s face it, you’re coming into this with a pretty bad track record.” Robin reddened. Zella nudged her elbow. “Hey,” she said, “no big deal. Why do I do this work if I’m tied to a schedule? I’ll change my ticket; we’ll hang out in Bangkok until you’re sorted; you’ll pay me back. Then you go your way, and I’ll go mine. How’s that?”

  Robin smiled with every part of her face. She wanted to tell Zella that she loved her, that she was beautiful, that she was an inspiration-that having a life like hers, that even being helped by someone who had a life like hers ... she saw doors open, one after another. She’d been standing in front of them for years, waiting, and now all was revealed: jewel-toned glows reflecting in the marble corridor of her mind; silvery leaves the size of thumbprints rustling overhead; long-tailed birds darting and swooping.

  “I’ve always needed a fairy godmother,” she said. She couldn’t mean it more sincerely.

  Zella gave her a wink. “They say you can find anything on Khao San Road.”
>
  Robin smiled until her mouth froze into position. Until it hurt.

  Chapter 3

  Old Sukhothai has many wats—very old ones, maybe seven hundred years old, something like that-built by the first kings of Thailand. When they build those—wat, chedi, big Buddha, monastery-they cover them with gold color. Today, you see gray brick and stone. Maybe you see some green moss. The burned wax at big Buddha’s feet is the only gold color. When I go there, I buy one candle and light some incense and pray at the foot of big Buddha. Then I visit another wat, Wat Trapang Thong, but I don’t go inside. I sit near the pool surrounding it. Many lotus grow there. Small insects fly above the flowers, and they fly around my ears. I have one American book with me, Through a Dark Mirror, to practice my English, and I read that book while I wait. Something tells me—I’m not superstitious, but something tells me—what I look for will come to me here.

  She comes alone. Alone, she pushes her bike up the path to this wat. She’s one farang girl, pretty one, sure, I can tell that already. She’s not too big, like some farang women. She’s narrow, not too wide, and she has light hair. Her bike knocks her ankles—ouch!—but for her it’s no problem, she doesn’t notice. She looks around, one way at the lotus in the pool, another way at the chedi against the green hills, and she likes to see this; her face gets soft. She carries one small striped backpack on her shoulder, and the bag is heavy, big on her side. I smile at her, one very nice smile, I know. I hold my book open. “Sa-wat-dee krup,” I say. “Schwaba dee-ka,” she says. She tries to speak Thai. She holds her bicycle. I think she wonders: Should she lock her bicycle? Will I steal her bicycle or will I guard that one? Her sandals are ugly, with too many straps. She wears silver jewelry made in Thailand, not Indonesia. I think some tuk tuk driver takes her to the silver factory, tells her she gets very good price there, and so she buys; she likes to get the special price. She puts her bicycle down in the grass. The front tire keeps spinning until she stops it with her hand. With one thin chain, made in China, she locks that wheel to the bicycle’s body. She smiles at me before she steps onto the bridge that goes to the wat. She stops halfway over the bridge and looks at the pool. Now I know something about this farang: she likes the adventure, but she has fear, too. And most important: she likes pretty things, and she wants to know Thailand.

  At this time, Bangkok, Khao San Road, is not exciting to me. For some years I have been living there, and now I don’t say wow, look at these farang, look at these Thai people, dressed like farang. Wow, look at this. No. Now, I see many people looking like this. Now, Bangkok is too much noise, too much pollution, smelling bad. Everyone is trying to make some business with some drugs, some false ruby, some bad credit card, something. No one is believing anything-some farangs think maybe I try to cheat them. When that happens, when one person looks at me like that, and then another one does, I leave Banglamphu. I go to see Chit play with Fallow band at the Trombone Club. If my African friends are at Star Hotel, I sit with them there. On the occasion, I leave Bangkok and visit my home.

  Or sometimes I leave Bangkok to go with one farang woman somewhere-to Ko Samet, Ayuthaya, Ko Phangan, sure. One month ago, the nurse from Australia takes me to Ko Samui. She’s on holiday, and one holiday ends fast—phsst, done. But she leaves me some money, sure, so I can use that to go to another place; not Bangkok, not beach resort, someplace I choose myself, where I can meet different kind of people. I choose Sukhothai, old capital of Thailand, where King Ramkhamhaeng ruled and made the golden period of my country.

  So now here I sit and wait in front of Wat Trapang Thong for the farang girl to return over the bridge. No other tourists come during that time, not even to the museum next to the wat. It’s very peaceful. When the girl walks out, I smile at her again. She’s not stopping now to look at the water. She goes straight to her bicycle, bends over that. She puts one hand on the Chinese lock that she could break with one pull, and she takes out tin key. “Do you like the wats of Sukhothai?” I ask her.

  “You speak English?” She’s bent over the bicycle, but she looks up at me to smile. Her face is red from bending. Her hair is falling. Her shirt’s neck hangs down, dark inside there.

  “Of course,” I say.

  “This is a very nice wat. I like it here very much. It’s very peaceful here.” She says this slowly. I can hear that she’s American.

  “I think so, too. While you were inside there, I think exactly that: peaceful. Have you seen Wat Si Chum?” I ask her. “The home of the big Buddha?” She stands up, her lock open now but her bicycle still on the ground. From her bag she takes the paper map and looks at that. I tell her big Buddha is very special to Thai people, and tourists like to see it, too. I tell her since the time I was one monk, I want to see the big Buddha of old Sukhothai. I tell her in Bangkok I have many farang friends, and I show them Bangkok, but here I am the tourist. I laugh when I say this. I stay in Ratanasiri Guest House. Which guesthouse does she stay? I smile and laugh. I tell her this very fast while she picks up her bicycle, because I want her to know that I am one international Thai man, one backpacker like her. She says she stays in Sukhothai Guest House. I tell her that one seems not very peaceful, and I ask her which guesthouse does she prefer in Bangkok. She says she doesn’t remember the name, and then she asks me something.

  “Is that an English book you’re reading?”

  I tell her yes, I like to read English books. “I’m always studying English,” I say, “but some words I don’t understand.” I pick up my book from the ground. “Can you tell me the meaning of this?” I am standing now, and I go near her, pointing to some words: incipient conspiracy.

  “Hmm. Incipient conspiracy.” She says this soft, then talks louder. “A conspiracy is a plan to betray, or trick or harm or get away with. You understand?” She looks at my eyes. Her eyes are not brown, not like Thai people. Not blue like the sea at Ko Samui and the eyes of the nurse there. “Or maybe it means the group who tries to do that.” She looks away and wrinkles her face. “Let me see the sentence.” I stand closer to her, and she stands with her bicycle. My thumb is underneath the sentence, and my hair touches with some of her hairs, the small ones floating away from her pink-brown face. I think I can feel this—I want to-but how can I feel two hairs touching?

  She reads to me one sentence from the book: Standing across the room, she watched Michael lean over Leta, and she sensed an incipient conspiracy. She wrinkles her face again. “Well, I guess here it means a plan. She thinks these people are going to make a plan against her, maybe. Incipient means, I don’t know, maybe something like a new one. I think it means a new one. Something just starting. You understand?” She moves her head. Her hair is gone. I laugh.

  “Now I understand. This one is exciting. Inipent conspircy,” I say to her. “Do I say this right?”

  “In-sip-e-ent con-spir-a-cy,” she says. She smiles. Some small lines on her skin are white from wrinkling her face too much in the sun.

  “Incipient conspiracy,” I say. We’re both smiling now, and we say it together, at one time: “Incipient conspiracy.” It makes us laugh.

  “Thank you, miss, for one English lesson,” I say. I put my hands together and wai her, like to one teacher, my lips closed but smiling, like one funny joke. When I rise I tell her that if she likes, we can go together to Wat Si Chum.

  We go together to Wat Si Chum, Wat Phra Pai Luang, Wat Sang Khawat. After, we walk on one buffalo path to the river and we talk. Her name is Robin. She tells me Robin is one kind of bird in America.

  “Robin is one bird, so in Thailand I call you Nok, Thai nickname for you meaning one bird.” She says she likes to have one Thai nickname. I teach her more Thai words. I teach her how to say beginning one plan in Thai.

  “How long you travel?” I ask her. Near the river it’s cool. We sit on the cool ground, under some bamboo.

  “Six months. I’m going to run out of credit, I think, if I don’t start being more careful. But I wish I could keep traveling forever, just keep goin
g and going.”

  “Why not? I think it’s cheap for you in Thailand.”

  “Oh, yeah, in Thailand. That’s one of the great things about it. But cheap’s not enough. Someday you have to earn money, right?” NokRobin picks one flower, looks very hard at this one. It’s some weed flower, not beautiful. She sticks her finger in the hair of its white scrub head, pulls it to pieces. Then she turns to me, smiling. Her eyes are something like the river-not brown, not green, but pretty, sure, that’s what she wants me to think, and I do. “I want the world to be my oyster. You understand that?” Her eyebrows fly like one small bird, lifting. “The world is my oyster. It’s an American expression. Understand?”

  Certain kind of farang, certain kind of backpacker, they don’t want to go home; they stay away too long and they get afraid. Maybe they don’t remember how to work, how to make money. Maybe they don’t remember their friends, how to sleep in one clean bed, same one every night, and get up from that to do the same thing every day. I know. I know this is how they’re feeling, because now I’m living like one backpacker, and I’m afraid to do something else, I forget how. But I’m not like these farang, because I don’t forget how to make money. The reason I’m moving is to remember about that.

  “Yes, even when you’re moving, it’s very important to remember how to make money.”

  She smiles at me and says making money is not the only important thing, and that’s why she doesn’t want to go home—that’s what she is afraid of, life at home where everyone only cares about making money. She says she was like that when she worked selling cars. She made too much money, but she wasn’t happy.

  “Believe me, I know money’s important,” she says. “Before the cars I worked in an art gallery. I was around art all day. Should be great, right? But being broke was no fun at all, which I should have known from when I was a kid. You have to somehow combine it. Money and the thing you love and the kind of person you are.” She pulls apart another scrub flower when she says this. Around her legs, on the grass, the pieces from the other one turn brown already. Then she stops pulling. “What do you love?” she asks me. “What are you planning to do?”