Authors: Kishore Modak
Third, I am a corporate man, having got
educated and settled in sky-scraping business corridors. I run audits, finding
and piecing together what falls through the cracks of accounting and its
demands of reporting standards. More importantly, I search out human failure
which is driven by the business of ambitions and the accumulation of deceit,
like the one that led to the crash of 2008. I am a good auditor; my only
frailties are human, too. Georgy and I run the Asia operations for the Audit
firm, which mostly adds up the accounts from across the globe for our clients,
before signing off what gets reported on Wall Street as quarterly results. I
run the IT practice, and managing BMI in Asia is my largest contribution to the
firm. BMI, Business Machines International, was where I worked as a manager of
marketing, before shifting to auditing full time only recently. BMI is easy,
mostly straight, but then that makes auditors look bad, because if you look
hard enough, numbers never add up, only human motivations do, like billed
revenue in the absence of firm purchase orders that my work found, or the
revenues that linger as receivables before being accounted into oblivion.
On the following week, after we went back
to Singapore, I was to receive papers relating to a billing of over a few
million dollars from the Reserve bank of Manila, RBM, receivables turned sour
and bubbling up, having crossed the six-month mark before they got escalated to
me, a desk where my pride had ensured such escalations got tackled and
smothered, which is why I remained the partner of operations that me and Georgy
managed. My success at business had been attributable to travel, yes, the will
to go in physically and meet the people who release and seek business contracts
that become the bones we contend over. Understanding people motivations has
been the bedrock of my success; like, the sales rookie whose eyes I read,
getting assured that the money will be received in the weeks to come, while I
sign the audit off; or, the finance executive whom I reject, just because he
thought a night of drink and Chinese silk was enough for me to sign him away.
The drinks and the honey are all good, but the eyes of dismay as I reject them
on the following day were far more joyous, because they could not fathom how a
man could handle all that the night had offered before he suits up on the
following morning, putting up slides of reason that these financial, deskbound,
official bastards think they can avoid.
My experience in audit helped make Thuy
Binh one of the richest women in South East Asia. That’s one achievement,
however perverted, that I can boast of in the years of steady decline that lay
ahead of me.
In the hotel’s lobby I grew nervous and
anxious as the drug wore down towards evening. I reached for the phone and
called SriJaya, who asked me to meet him at the beach, the same one across
which we had lost Li Ya. He remained sympathetic and kind, consoling me, giving
me the support of simple words along with the cocaine, before I felt calmer and
within myself again.
“You must sleep sir. You said you were
flying back tomorrow; if you are, then rest tonight, before you head back,” he
said, doing the best he could to help me, with the things in his bag of
pleasures.
“I don’t think we will be flying back so
soon, we will stay on till we find her. Sleep, I don’t know where to sleep, my
wife has thrown me out of the room,” I looked down at the sand and drank some
more water from his bottle.
“Come with me, I will show you a place to
rest,” he got up and walked across the street leaving me to follow him into the
world of prostitution that lay ahead.
In what may have been a few minutes, I
stood facing a bank of Asian girls. They were dressed to attract tourists and
all of them were smiling at us, invitingly. I was put off, but followed
SriJaya, who insisted “Come sir, just get a good rest,” as he led me into the
den of pleasures.
“No, no, SriJaya, I am not up to partying,
thanks, maybe I should just sit around in the hotel’s lobby, just creep into bed
late at night after my wife has slept.”
He barked in Thai, what were instructions
for me to be left alone. One of the girls took me by the hand “Rest only, come
with me, rest only, come,” her eyes were kind and bright, watery damp with
youth and the offer of peace and quiet.
She led me up, me disarmed by her warmth.
We entered a room with a bed and a view of the whoring streets of Pattaya
below. She shut the window, obliterating the melee from the streets before
switching on the air-con, high and effective. SriJaya drew three lines of white
powder on the glass table in the middle of the room. We knelt, taking turns,
snorting from three short pipes cut from a bubble-tea straw. Then he left me
with confusing instructions “She will help you rest, just pay a hundred dollars
when you think you are ready to leave. Any problems, call my phone.”
The extent of a person’s addiction can be
told by the strength of insufflation. Feeble wind belongs to the wasted and the
dying, unable to suck in what is killing them.
After I turned away from the door that shut
SriJaya out, she was kneeling in front of me, slowly undoing the laces that had
imprisoned my feet, removing my shoes, massaging as she gently peeled the socks
off my feet. She rubbed on the parts that get imprinted by the stubborn elastic
of new socks, before producing a small tub of hot water for me to dip my feet
in. I moaned pleasurably in sorrow, as she rubbed the natural protrusions of
feet, sending satisfaction-ripples to my weary, stoned brain.
“Relax, I let you have good rest,” she
said, as she sat on the floor beneath me, not cross legged, but feminine with
both her knees pointing rightwards, away from her. The wiping of feet was
followed by my immersion in a warm bath, where I lay naked as she bathed me, taking
time and kneading each and every part of my body that demanded the force of
palms and elbows. On the tender parts like the lobes of ears, she was gentle
and lingering. When I was dry again, she offered me hot noodles and tea, then
she took me to bed, where I slept, for the first time after I had lost Li Ya.
She cleansed me off my loss, at least tried
to; a nameless whore, she soothed me.
At what may have been the middle of life, I
woke up, sweating and disorientated. She too stirred, holding me as I wept, the
sober tears of loss finally flowing as I realised that I was here, well and
grounded after the coke had loosened its grip, while my little baby was out
there. The prostitute, she held me, letting me cry into her arms for many
minutes, then she went to the glass table and the two waiting lines of cocaine,
one of which I snorted, feeling the relief of anxiety that rid my nerves, and,
with that the grieving ceased as she joined me back in bed, where we lay,
eventually naked, both of us, measured, as she stroked me through pleasure,
tidying up before we slept again till just about dawn. I awoke to the
acid-batik robe that she had put on me and the sweaty beads of coke-less
anxiety on my body. That second bit she had a remedy for as she knelt by the glass
table. She arranged two cups of tea with buns for us, in the few minutes that
it took for me to join her.
“Take some tea, eat something, before we
ready for the day,” she said, lighting incense sticks up in front of the
peaceful one, who was just a little clay figurine on the glass table, looking
over the tea cups. It was she, kneeling in front of him that became reverent,
kneeling in front of her diminutive and unmoving God, it was she who became my
Goddess, as she prayed unashamed in naked piety, for me to see, and I hope
accept her reverence; because up till now, I thought I was her God. She had
cared for me all night, almost like a priestess venerating her beloved, and,
the sight of her praying to another was just misplaced in my silly mind.
We ate and we drank the tea for a few
minutes before the lines of white disappeared inside us, again. Insufflations
had left my sinuses dripping into my throat, something I did not mind since I
knew, what cannot be absorbed by the nasal lining will be taken in by the
stomach. She offered me spiced tobacco, cinnamon and cardamom flavoured, from a
smoking pipe, that being her weakness for mornings. I was glad we had eaten,
since a hit in the morning usually suppresses appetite for the rest of the day.
We shared and smoked, even though I am a non-smoker of tobacco. By the time the
sun was up I was back on the streets, having redeemed each of the pennies in
the dollars I had given for that night at the brothel, well beyond the hundred
that I was advised. It was I who was in the brothel’s debt, having slept a
first sleep in my life without Li Ya, a sleep which was not possible in the
swanky hotel that I was paying for, at the ‘family’ end of the beach.
Fang Wei had left without informing me. She
had simply left a note in the room, packed her bags and gone away. When I
called her, she replied with a message
‘SMS only please, I am heading back’
.
I couldn’t reply since the time it took for me to sort out a suitable response,
the phone was ringing. It was Georgy.
“Hey, the police are doing everything
possible, I am going to receive Fang Wei from the airport,” his voice cracked
over the phone.
“OK,” I said.
“Man, are you high?” we were buddies, and
had done things together, making inhibitions flimsy when it came to the sharing
of most acts.
“Yes, a bit,” I replied.
“I can imagine this is going to be tough
for you and Fang Wei, I can take over the BMI audit and get it tied up, if that
is what you want,” I knew, we had to deliver our assessment by the end of the
month which was a week away.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Look, there is only that much we can do
for Li Ya. I think you should head up to the bank and tie the quarter up for
them, it will help you divert. There is nothing much we can do now, I know it
is crazy but please try and busy your mind, work can be a useful diversion,” he
said. It made certain sense.
“Georgy, you are right, give me the day to
sort myself out. Then, maybe I head to the bank directly from here and figure
them out,” he could probably sense that I wanted to hang up.
“Ok bud, you take care I will ask the agent
to send you the tickets by email, I assume you will spend the day at the bank
before returning to Singapore,” we spoke a bit more, before we hung up.
Sort
myself
out
, that meant sobering down before I could fly out, since I was in no
state to pass through any immigration of any country in my state of disarray.
But before I did that, I took one last hit off the table of the hotel room,
flushing the remaining stuff down the toilet, an act I would want to undo in
the desperation I knew I would reach by that evening. I sent for a DVD of
‘Apocalypse Now’, mostly because it was long enough to last an entire
afternoon, and had enough audio-visual arrest that my stoned mind could succumb
to.
In the evening I ran on the beach, wanting
to flush the drug out of my system. Wouldn’t a normal couple stand by each
other in the moment of their largest loss, supporting one another, easing each
other through the years that lay ahead? We were not normal as a couple,
obviously, since she had gone back and I was running on the beach, contending
with myself the possible diversions that could help lead me away from the loss,
a loss we could not do much about now. It was a bit like death, or such
realities; they simply are, and there is nothing that can be done about them,
except worry and be tormented by them, be haunted in moments where we cannot
think other thoughts nor do other deeds. Best to find diversions, like changing
the course of my run to the ‘tourist’ end of the beach, which I was certain was
being patrolled by SriJaya with his bag of delights.
In about half an hour, I was at the score
point, dripping, having run all the way but SriJaya was not there. Not having
my phone I sat in the Buddhist temple by the beach, meditating to the best of
my abilities, it being a routine that I followed often in Singapore after my
runs. People milled about, holding sweet fuming incense sticks pointed upwards,
bowing before moving around the sanctum, trying to send the scented fumes towards
their Lord. The circular motion of their palms urged the smoke upwards in
reverent circles. Children played in the temple courtyard, none of them looked
despondent or dull from prolonged crying, which is what I searched for in any
kid I saw, hoping to accidentally stumble upon my baby, with only the mending
required from the damage that two nights can inflict upon a child. I would heal
her if I found her, and then rebuild my family. I too, bought incense sticks,
mimicking the pious, praying the only two prayers that I prayed in the years
ahead, the prayer of a reunion in the first few years and then the simple
prayer of peace for all, including Li Ya, wherever it is that she was.
Since I was sober, I made the futile visit
to the police station before returning to the hotel, confirming and printing
tickets that were waiting in my Inbox. I let Fang Wei know my travel plans by
email, and then I dialled SriJaya’s number, which went unanswered all evening,
leaving me wanting to mine the sewers in desperation, down which I had flushed
the coke in my silly act of rehabilitation earlier that afternoon. I felt
anxious, knowing that I could not fall asleep that night; my mind was too
charged up, and the absence of drug would keep sleep from me, simply because my
thoughts would criss-cross in contrition. Drinking and sleeping was an option
but the vast quantity of alcohol required for that would defeat the purpose of
being reasonable before I flew out of Pattaya on the following morning. I could
head back to the brothel, where I had spent the previous night; the coke, the
grass and the gentle caress of the prostitute would do the trick, and the
flight too would be left manageable in the morning. But, I forced myself to
remain in the room, not even opening and checking the contents of the mini bar
because I knew if I imbibed, I would hesitate in taking the sleeping pills that
I always carried on me, prescription pills from Singapore, strong ones, for
nights that involved no intoxication. I had been advised not to take those with
alcohol, using them only after I was unable to fall asleep, after a few hours
of trying. Yet, that night, like all nights when I used them, I popped one
straight away, just before midnight, along with half a tablet of an
anti-anxiety drug that I carried, from another doctor in Singapore. Those two
pills worked well together and both had prescriptions which made them safe for
me to carry in moderation. I also took an anti-inflammatory for my stomach,
which I could feel flaring with all of the alcohol drunk recently and the acid
accumulation from the deprivation of food, which the coke had thrown my abdomen
into. I was glad the medication worked out, it helps immensely when you suspect
a mild bout of cold-turkey; and I decided to head to the gym in the morning
before I flew to Manila. Of course, I would I make the useless visit to the
Thai police, before I flew out.