The Ink Readers of Doi Saket by Thomas Olde Heuvelt Read online

  But on that first night of Loi Krathong he could not sleep. Silently, he padded outside. Farther down, by the river, the night shift and the Ink Readers continued their work, but here in the village only the chichaks[13] were awake.

  Tangmoo looked up. Thousands upon thousands of khom loi floated like swarms of fluorescent jellyfish against the nocturnal canopy. The sky was laden with wishes. The closest ones seemed to be moving more quickly, drifting southward. When they reached higher altitudes they veered west, toward the mountains. Where are they going? Tangmoo wondered. They all drifted past steadily, purposely, aiming for an unknown destination. They flew toward the edge of the universe and then beyond.

  Next morning, Tangmoo set out at dawn. He walked all day, for miles and miles, and when evening fell he reached the golden temple of Doi Suthep, situated on a hilltop with a view of Chiang Mai. The Gentle Abbot gave him a small bowl of rice to eat and sat beside him on the steps.

  “Why have you come here, my son?” the wise man asked.

  Tangmoo nodded at the purple sky above the city and said, “The wishes. I want to know where they’re going.”

  The Gentle Abbot had an exceptional talent for invoking Buddha’s teachings on all relevant and irrelevant matters people came to him for advice on. Even when a dilemma seemed nigh on impossible to solve, he would astound his audience with the only correct and always uniform answer: that the question was confusing and therefore by definition irrelevant, as the purpose of any spiritual life is to avoid confusion. And this was why the Abbot of Doi Suthep was the most beloved man in northern Thailand: he made everything seem so conveniently simple.

  “Oh, no one knows,” the Abbot enlightened in this case. He smoothed the wrinkles from his robe and smiled politely.

  Is that it? anyone else might have thought, affronted. Is that what I trudged up this bloody mountain for? Barefoot? But not Tangmoo. Tangmoo looked at the confusion of fireworks over Chiang Mai and the procession of lights in the Night Bazaar, reflecting on the surface of the river that was or was not to take his life the very next day. The burning water, the whistles and bangs, the partying people, they all created a disorder so consistent that it reverted back into order. And everywhere, everywhere khom loi rose up into the air, as if the city were weeping inverted tears of fire.

  “Chiang Mai consists of three worlds,” the Abbot explained. “The first world is the one you see before you. A world that is vibrant; living and partying and wishing. Then there’s the world above it, a world of serenity where people can rise above the mundane. By releasing their wishes, people try to reach that higher world, to become a part of it. They are two layers, sliding across each other.”

  Tangmoo gazed at the khom loi, steadily drifting past above the chaos.

  “But then there’s another world below,” the monk continued. “A world of alleys, of darkness, of backstreets and corruption. The world of the blind. You see? The surface, wild and light; the dark side below; and finally, above, the serene, the transcendent, wishing to do good. Looking at it like that, it’s very much like a human being. Chiang Mai, the Rose of the North, is a living, breathing person.”

  “But what does that tell me about where the wishes go?” Tangmoo asked.

  “Maybe it doesn’t matter where our wishes go,” the Abbot said. “Maybe the question should be how we ourselves can get there. Look over there.”

  He pointed toward two khom loi rising up into the air with incredible speed, overtaking all the rest. Suddenly one of them started glowing more brightly and veering sharply to the west, while the other flickered, fluttered down, and fizzled out. “What do you think was the matter with those two wishes? Why did they ascend more rapidly than the others?”

  “Maybe they were really burning wishes,” Tangmoo guessed.

  “Love? Happiness? Money? What could be worth going so fast for?”

  “The wish to desire something . . .”

  “Or maybe the wish to release all desire.”

  But . . . Tangmoo thought. But . . .

  “And why is one wish so strong and sure, while the other extinguished like a candle?”

  “Maybe it was a bad wish, a wish for revenge, a death wish . . .”

  “Or maybe it was simply a matter of sloppy fuel distribution,” the monk said, shrugging, and then he smiled. “It’s time for you to go home now, my son. Your parents must be worried.”

  The boy has a good heart, the Gentle Abbot thought benevolently after they had said goodbye. He ordered a tuk-tuk to be waiting for the boy to take him home as soon as he reached the last of the three hundred steps leading down. When the wise man entered the temple, carrying Tangmoo’s empty rice bowl in his right hand, he tripped on his robes and landed flat on his face. The rice bowl shattered on the floor. Miraculously, the Abbot himself was unharmed. However, while sweeping up the shards he was soon overcome by a long-nourished but diligently repressed desire to express his creativity, like fashioning pretty little mosaics. All night long, the monk worked with the shards and felt happier than he had in a long time. And so the Gentle Abbot, not nearly as far along on his path toward Enlightenment as young Tangmoo himself, saw his fondest wish fulfilled, smashing all of his china in the process.

  But this, in all probability, had nothing to do with the boy’s coming.

  The next day all the dirt roads of Doi Saket had been strung with lanterns. In every color and size they dangled from branches, electric wires, and scurrying chickens. More had been placed on walls, in gardens, and around the temple square. The well-bellied weed exterminator Uan busied himself with the table setting at the west end of the square, making sure that everyone he disliked would be seated far, far away from him, directly beneath the booming speakers of the karaoke set. All the villagers were busy preparing delicacies or setting up the thousands of khom loi so they could all be lit simultaneously that night—a logistical nightmare of incredible proportions.

  When evening finally fell, after the exhausted Ink Readers had returned from the river with dripping robes and a last handful of wishes and the Exalted Abbot had fallen asleep on his meditation rug . . . that’s when the party started in Doi Saket. People sang and stuffed themselves like there was no tomorrow. Boys caught lizards and bet on which one would run fastest. Girls tied strings to brightly colored atlas butterflies and led them around like kites. Men and women lasciviously tore at one another’s clothes and limbs beneath the bewitched phallus.

  “ALL RIGHT, FOLKS. THAT’S ENOUGH,” the Puu Yaybaan broadcasted around ten o’clock that night. “LET THE CEREMONY BEGIN!”

  The Exalted Abbot (still asleep and therefore perfectly resigned to his role) was carried outside in his seat to lead the villagers in meditation. The silence that descended on the crowd was so deafening that even the crabs in the rice field looked up in surprise; this was the only time of the year when all the villagers collectively kept their mouths shut (because even at night most of them never stopped talking in their sleep).

  Only Tangmoo was no part of this communal introspection, just like he had been no part of the communal festivities. After shoring the dead branch on the teng-rang tree with a fresh piece of wood, he had retreated to a quiet place behind the temple. He had been sitting there for hours, his back resting against a wheel of the giant mechanical replica of river goddess Phra Mae Khongkha, which would be rolled out into the temple square during the ceremony. By releasing their wishes, people try to reach that world. Tangmoo felt like a drowning person, flailing. If releasing desire was the pinnacle of achievement, how then was he supposed to justify his own existence?

  A portentous shrew taking a nap on the wooden axle of the river goddess suddenly pricked up its ears. A second later it scurried off, squeaking. It seemed spooked, Tangmoo thought, as if it had spotted a tiger. Then he heard approaching voices. Suddenly, Tangmoo felt afraid, as he was not supposed to be here. On an impulse, he dove into the same bushes the shrew had disappeared into and hunkered there silently, unaware of his right foot ba
lancing on a dry twig on the verge of snapping. (Ironically, the confounded twig came from a teng-rang tree; a much smaller specimen than the one threatening his father’s house, but with much more far-reaching consequences.)

  From his hiding place, Tangmoo watched as the generally respected Puu Yaybaan and the monks Sûa and Mongkut appeared. The threesome stopped beside the wooden construction of the river goddess, not two feet from where Tangmoo was concealed. He was afraid to breathe. The men were engrossed in a heated argument, of which only snippets reached Tangmoo’s ears: “. . . mustn’t raise suspicion . . .” and “. . . didn’t dive myself silly for nothing, dammit . . .” and “. . . six wishes granted, that’s more than . . .” and “Fine! But it’s going to come out of your share . . .”

  Is the twig to blame for the fact that it chose to snap at that precise moment and play such a pivotal role in the destruction and creation of so many lives in northern Thailand? Be that as it may, it happened, and the echo reverberated in Tangmoo’s ringing ears.

  “What was that!” the Puu Yaybaan cried.

  “Here!” Sûa said, triumphant. Two strong hands, quick as snakes, darted into the bushes and grabbed Tangmoo by the scruff of his neck, dragging him out. “An eavesdropper! What’re you doing here, you little fraud?”

  “I . . . nothing,” Tangmoo stammered. “I was just . . . thinking.”

  “In the bushes?” the Puu Yaybaan said dubiously.

  Mongkut glanced around nervously. “How long has he been here?”

  “He heard everything,” the village chief hissed.

  “I . . . no, really, I have no idea what you were talking about,” Tangmoo said. He tried to free his arm. “I think I should go back to the temple square now, or my mom will . . .”

  “He’s going to tell them everything,” Sûa said, tightening his hold on the boy’s arm. “We need to do something.”

  “No, I truly don’t know what you . . .”

  “Liar! Traitor!” Sûa fumed suddenly, spraying Tangmoo’s face with foul strings of saliva.

  “We can’t give him a chance to ruin everything,” the Puu Yaybaan decided in a whisper. Even more than Sûa’s uncontrolled outburst, this was a signal for Tangmoo to yank himself free with a rip and a twist, and to start running like mad.

  “Hey!” Sûa shouted.

  “After him!” Mongkut yelled.

  “Take care of this,” the Puu Yaybaan barked at Sûa. “Am I making myself clear? Mongkut and I will begin the ceremony, before people start wondering what’s keeping us.”

  Fumbling blind, Tangmoo ran through the darkness. Sûa ran after him. They sped across the winding path away from the temple, through the woods, across the thickets. Sûa was right behind him, growling like a feral cat, while not four hundred yards away from them in the temple square all the wish balloons had been lit and were starting to fill up with hot air. Loud cheers rose up as the wooden Phra Mae Khongkha was rolled out into the square, and no one heard Sûa’s insane roars: “GET BACK HERE, YOU MISERABLE LIAR! HAVEN’T YOU DONE ENOUGH?”

  Finally, the moonlit path opened out. Feet splashed through water. Dismayed, Tangmoo realized he had reached the river. He turned to his assailant at the same time that his little sister Noi turned around on the podium outside the temple. She had been chosen to play the role of Neng Tanapong this year, beaming proudly in her beautiful costume. Undoubtedly Noi was thinking of her big brother, somewhere out there in the frenzied crowd.

  “Now I’ve got you.” Sûa grinned, wading into the shallow riverbed.

  “Listen,” Tangmoo wept, stumbling backward, up to his thighs in the water now. “I have no idea what you were talking about. How could I talk about something I don’t know?”

  “Little boy,” the tiger said, “it doesn’t matter what you know.”

  Snarling, he threw himself at Tangmoo, his saffron robes billowing on the water like a cloud of blood: no, no, no, no, the gigantic wooden arm of the river goddess descended on little Noi and she looked up with a gasp, the crowd cheered with so much excitement and so little restraint that they seemed to be going mad; yes, yes, yes, yes, the river foamed over Tangmoo, flashes lit up the night, fireworks crackled, spattered, whirled, feet kicked desperately, dislodging starfish from the riverbed, smothered cries rose in bubbles to the surface, popping soundlessly; help, help, help, help, little Neng Tanapong drowned in satin fabric as thousands of khom loi all rose up simultaneously, the crowd fell to their knees, looking up in tears toward the fiery miracle, wishes filled the night, the stone phallus shrank in shame, and Tangmoo drowned in the river.

  But not without a witness.

  Because from the shadows by the riverbank one shade extricated itself, bigger than all the others. This was, of course, Phra Mae Khongkha who, after bestowing life on the river a long time ago, had stopped for a breather in the riverbed. And so it happened that Sûa the monk, dripping wet and flushed with exertion, glanced over his shoulder and saw his fondest wish fulfilled, even though he did not believe what he was seeing. His body was found downstream the next day, but not his ripped-off hands. They were never found.

  And Tangmoo?

  I’m sure that if you had looked closely, you could have seen a tiny speck of light rise from the river. It fluttered up into the night sky, hastily climbing past a swarm of surprised purple swamp hens, and then joined the khom loi. That’s where the little light found peace. In Tangmoo’s dead eyes on the bottom of the river you could see a starry sky full of wishes reflected. Around him whirled running tendrils of ink, and he read them all.

  Next day around noon there was a crack when the dead branch on the teng-rang tree sagged, but there was no one to prop it back up. Two days later it finally snapped off and destroyed besides the house also the part of Tangmoo’s father’s brain that was responsible for redirecting grief. From then on Gaew, who had been inconsolable after the death of his son, devoted his deliriously happy life to his remaining children, aided by his wife who admitted to herself sadly: Thinking that life is good is better than not living at all.

  The collapse of the damnable branch had the added consequence that now, every morning, a particularly bothersome ray of sunlight tormented the eye of the philosophical and always death-wishing irrigator Daeng, causing uncontrollable screaming fits and severe sleep deprivation. It was not long, therefore, before Daeng nodded off behind the wheel while driving along the main road. He rammed a truck full of pigs on their way to the slaughterhouse, rolled fourteen times, and found new joy in life when he realized he had survived the crash without a scratch. Contrary to the pigs. So lugubrious was the scene of the accident—chunks of bloody pork all over the place—that it made the news broadcasts all over Southeast Asia. Even in Singapore, where Om had been working at a Thai restaurant for six years and sending a monthly email to his mourning grandmother Isra, who had no email address. Om then wrote her a letter, saying: I’m doing fine, Grandmother. I have a PhD in computer and I’m making lots of money now. Here, have some—and added his tips to the envelope. When Isra found the letter in her mailbox a week later, she died of happiness.

  Wishes, wishes, wishes everywhere. The well-mannered crab huntress Kulap found some scrap metal from Daeng’s wrecked truck in the rice field and used it to forge a gong. When she sounded it one night, she touched such a probing frequency that every man in Doi Saket was enchanted and lured toward her little house. As soon as the well-bellied weed exterminator Uan saw her, he fell head over heels in love. Kulap, not a bad sort, gave him a cursory embrace, and at least the idea of love.

  Wishes, like pearls on a string of cause and effect. Kulap’s gong kept chiming across the rice fields for nights on end, finally resonating in the blood supply to Somchai’s husband’s failing manhood and dislodging something in the veins. He immediately ravaged her with all the lust that had been denied him all these years, and Somchai was engulfed in waves of coital energy that were tangible for miles around—even as far as Chiang Mai, where legs were spread, thighs were kneaded,
and orgasms were shrieked out. All over northern Thailand wishes came true. Bonds of love were forged. Children were being born. Kemkhaeng broke his leg.

  And maybe this was all coincidence, like so much in life.

  But let me tell you that, somewhere, a tiny little light had found its swarm. It let itself drift along on the winds toward the west. All the while, it wished and wished and wished. And so, wishing, the light and its wishes flew toward the edge of the universe and beyond.

  * * *

  [1]Uan means “hugely fat” in Thai—not necessarily an insult

  [2]“Turtle”

  [3]“Real woman”

  [4]“Red”

  [5]“Wild goat”

  [6]“Beanpole”

  [7]The Thai custom of addressing one another by nicknames is meant to remember oneself better and to fool the spirits into forgetting people’s real names. As do the Thai themselves, for that matter. Irrespective of how unflattering the nickname may be, it is freely used in everyday life and no longer necessarily has a traditional origin. The wayward harvester driver Sungkaew, for instance, named his daughter Loli, after Marlboro Lights, and the unemployed mushroom picker Pakpao named her son Ham, after David Beckham. (Until his classmates discovered that in the mountain dialect “Ham” means “sack full of testicles,” causing his well-meaning mother, unable to resist his ceaseless badgering, to rename him Porn.)

  [8]“Tiger”

  [9]“Watermelon”

  [10]Wish lanterns made of rice paper with a burning firelighter underneath

  [11]About 650 dollars

  [12]“Mighty warrior;” the Abbot is the head monk of the temple