Lost in Pattaya (5 page)

If I pushed, BMI would be forced to find a
scapegoat. A sacrifice that would absolve the tarnished-stature of the larger
organisational entity, before the press is briefed on the inexplicable slide in
results.

The other option was for me to look the
other way, ignore what I had found, and simply clear the audit, which my client
would desperately seek off us. In return, we could sign a long term services
renewal with BMI, a big win since these circumstances would mean an easy
enhancement of fees and services, implying assured long-term revenues for the
audit firm, at least from the Asia operations. As regards the losses at BMI, they
would dwindle with time; some would be recovered from the bank, after
protracted contract negotiations, while others could be written down each
quarter, in small un-noticeable amounts. The people at BMI who were responsible
for this situation, some would continue at BMI, being experienced in managing
premature billings, while others would attrition naturally, finding positions
in other organisations. Even those who continued would change roles, distancing
themselves from the situation that others would be forced to face. Of course,
there would be heated calls and meetings, but, the situation could be handled
if it was made to stretch over a period of time. All our knots are eventually
undone by time, and the solutions that the future holds, no matter how cruel.

* *
*

When I landed in Singapore, my phone was
choc-a-full of missed calls and messages from Georgy. I ignored them, calling
instead the police in Pattaya and Singapore, who expressed futility, remorse,
and their will to do the utmost to re-unite us with our daughter. They had not
found her while I was mid-flight, these last few hours.

“Georgy, did you hear anything. Have they
found her?” I returned his call, from the travellators of Changi airport.

“No, they have not. I was trying to reach
you about something else; you visited the bank and I saw your assessment,” he
said.

“What about it? And, how did you get my
mail, I did not send it to you?” I asked.

“The HQ forwarded it to me and asked me to
speak to you. How on earth can you recommend a write down of four million
dollars, and threaten our client with an
audit
fail
if they don’t
do so?” he was shouting into the phone, with a discernible change of tone,
indicating the perceived elevation of position that the HQ’s directions may
have indicated to him. After all, he was being asked to manage my situation,
which was almost like being asked to manage me.

“Because, they are not going to get paid by
the Bank of Manila, so they have to reverse the sale and face the music, that
is why,” I said, surprised by the intensity with which Georgy attacked. My
voice remained calm, ignoring for the moment his assumed sense of authority
over me.

He would have told the HQ about Li Ya and
the obvious impact she was having on my performance and judgement of business
situations. Maybe he had even promised them his solutions for situations before
hanging the phone up and jumping into the frenzy of calls and messages I
received after I landed in Singapore.

“Listen, you know this, we get paid to
clear audits and pass business statements, not to block them. Just give them
some time and they will sort their problems out with the bank. The business is
theirs, for them to run, we are here only to support them, please, listen to
me,” he was pleading.

“Hello, hello, you are breaking up. I will
call you once I get home, or, maybe we can talk tomorrow at work, Hello…
Hel…bye for now,” I could hear him well but I was in no state to talk business
since my mind was completely focussed upon reaching home and seeing Fang Wei,
hoping to spend time with her and maybe discuss what we needed to discuss, the
building back or the breaking down of our life together.

Our apartment in Singapore is perched high
in a stack of flats, overlooking the sea on which a constant fleet of
industrial vessels float gently in and out of the harbour beyond. It is small
but adequate, since we get no visitors who stay over. She has her family in
Singapore, but they are sensitive enough not to stay over, given it is a tiny
flat. It has an open kitchen expanding into a living space, and two bedrooms,
one for Li Ya and the other for us. At the doorway, our shoe stand was waiting
for me, her footwear arranged neatly in it while mine were left in a haphazard
pile outside the stand. Clearly, she had thrown all my shoes and slippers in
the untidy pile, clarifying without words what she wanted: my removal from her
life.

She didn’t seem to be home and I simply
sidestepped the pile of footwear, reaching for the keys to the front door,
which I dreaded would not unlock my own house, a remote part of me anticipating
the changing of locks that Fang Wei may have planned as another tasteless
attempt at conveying messages, without the need for conversation. They still
worked- the keys.

From the living room windows I could see
the flotilla of trading vessels on the water, the whole seascape was a-glow in
the orange of the setting sun. It was a great view, one which helped this tiny
apartment carry worth a couple of million dollars in valuation.

Even before I had pulled my luggage through
the doorway, I saw a bottle of whiskey on the table with a large sad faced
emoticon on its label, drawn with a marker in bold strong black lines. There
was a glass set next to it. What was I supposed to conclude, that the alcohol
inside me was the cause of Li Ya’s loss in Pattaya?

In the bedroom, our wardrobe had been
rearranged, my side of which was neat with my stuff but Fang Wei’s clothes were
missing; there was simply an empty shell where her clothes and useless
accoutrements had hung before we had left for Pattaya. She could not have left
me, not like this, not without conversations, no matter how futile they might
be at this fag end of our relationship. I had been trying to reach her but she
never replied and when she did, it was always in frigid single word sms’s.

What could I do? Somehow, try and move on,
hopefully with Fang Wei, with whom I was even ready to accept the misplaced
blame of losing Li Ya if it meant we could build back our family life. I needed
someone to grieve with and I had no one. That was the reason my grieving was
never complete. Family and society are structured for us to grapple with the
grief of loss, sometimes with ceremonies like wakes and burial services, or in
visitor groups, they release the loss that one may feel, letting one cry
legitimately on another’s shoulder. None of that happened with me, since I, in
a singular yet plural way, was the society that I lived with all alone. It was
also the reason that I had embarrassed myself in front of Ortega, a complete
stranger, who became the pillar on which I had released the building pressure,
from my autoclave of grief.

Many years on, I cried a few more times
when I related my loss to Miho and to Thuy Binh, but in the intervening period
there was little or no grieving, just a steady building up of sorrow inside me,
a grief responsible in large part for the failure of my health, from the point
of Li Ya’s loss. The doctors and surgeons would blame it on the drugs and the
drinks and the lack of sleep from the sleeping pills, but I knew the loss of Li
Ya had a large part to play in the hardening of my heart and the shrivelling of
my liver before I lay irretrievably diseased.

I reached for my shorts and T-shirt,
dressing quickly, hoping a few of the guys would be at the Squash Club, where I
was hoping to have a hit. At first, my getting dressed for squash seemed
commonplace, but when I turned on the lights, I noticed a neat snip on the side
of my T-shirt and another one at the bottom of my shorts. Both the cuts were
tidy, as if done with a pair of scissors, not hurriedly, just haphazardly,
making useless the articles of clothing attacked by the hands of wrath. Back in
my wardrobe, I realised all my clothes had a snip on them at various locations,
but all were cut and left neatly for me to find as I picked them out to wear.

Was it still reasonable for me to harbour a
hope of a reunion with Fang Wei?

At the Squash Club, I got a T-shirt and a
pair of shorts, which I changed into before joining the guys, courtside.

“Hey, where have you been, missed whipping
your arse,” one of them quipped, seeing me come in.

“Ya, we will see,” I simply said, smiling
and hi-fiving, like when one is happy to be in the company of squash friends.

The games were good, though I did not hit
too well, given that my stamina had depleted in the strain of the weekend
behind me, but the abstinence for at least the last couple of days and the runs
and weights in the gym ensured that I saved some face. It also reaffirmed my
belief that with discipline, I would rise to play again at peak form.

The squash had one major downside, it made
one want to sin, to compensate for what we squash players believe is physical
worship in the squash room. Prayer to us is the motion of running and hitting
the ball inside of the squash room.

It is a ritual, like all prayers are.

Outside, we settled for beers, me sliding
continuously for messages and updates on my phone from people who could salvage
my life. People like the policemen, who may have made a breakthrough; people
like my wife, who may soften into dialling my number for conversation; people
like Georgy, who may agree with my reason of logic that a business must be run
with. There were none and I simply slid and slipped on the phone, for others to
imagine that I was busy with matters.

“You Ok man?” my buds asked, sweating in
the after-glow of a game, though they did not miss the droop my face assumed.

“Yes, fine,” I said, begging leave, making
dates for another game on the following evening, before moving back to the flat
with a parcel of food in my hand. Nothing fancy, just a bed of rice with
succulent chicken, sliced and laid on top, a little accompaniment of
vinegar-chilli on the side.

To play and to eat well, without Li Ya, was
I wrong, you judge?

At home, I poured myself a drink from the
same bottle with the rough drawn sad emoticon, settling in front of the TV,
which refused stubbornly to come on despite the knocks and prods that I coaxed
its remote with. The remote was light with no batteries in it, just the same
thick lined emoticon at the base of the empty battery cavity. I ate and drank a
bit more without any TV. Then I drank a bit more, hoping the squash would
compensate for what the alcohol was draining away. I messaged Fang Wei, asking
for her to meet me, so we could talk. She never replied. I went to bed awake,
pictures of Li Ya kept flashing across my mind. Images from her short life with
me, and more disturbingly, images from the three long days that she had now
spent on her own, without me. The alcohol helped, at least temporarily, since I
finally fell asleep.

When I awoke, I could hear sounds from what
had been Li Ya’s room. It was Fang Wei, all dressed and ready for work, as if
it was just another day. She was standing in front of Li Ya’s cabinet, inside
which were all of Fang Wei’s clothes; she had simply moved out of our room and
into Li Ya’s.

“When did you get home? I tried reaching
you?” I said, rubbing my eyes, clearly in the aftermath of the night’s drinking
and the deprived sleep, which she may have noticed, given the smirk that
appeared on her face.

“That is not a matter that you need to
concern yourself with,” she replied without looking at me.

“Fang Wei, we have to sit and talk about
this,” I moved closer to her, wanting to touch her, wanting to set things right
between us.

“You are a wasted screw-up, nothing can set
right what you have lost,” she began to cry softly, her face crumpling in
crevices of grief and sorrow. Still, she did not allow me to touch her or to
comfort her in any way.

“Do you want some coffee?” I asked,
disarmed.

“No,” she said, but I made an extra cup all
the same, leaving it on the table for her to drink if she still wanted to.

When she emerged from Li Ya’s room, I was
feeling better, with the coffee. “We have to work this out,” I looked at her, almost
pleading for room, at least for conversations.

“Work what out? You know it; we have been
together for the last few years only for the sake of Li Ya. You have ruined my
entire life. You are just a wasted drunk, who has lost my daughter, now there
is nothing left for me to work out with you,” her eyes were tinged red from the
weeping.

“Please,” I said, not sure what exactly I
meant. My face had assumed a tremble, particularly my lips, in anticipation of
the impending loss of Fang Wei, which I had begun to perceive that morning.

She banged the door behind her and left me.

A dull pain arose at the base of my neck,
slowly spreading across my shoulders. It must be the alcohol from last night. I
simply lay on the couch staring at the low ceiling. Uncharacteristically, a
ship bellowed its horn from the sea, the only ripple in the snooze that I fell
into after Fang Wei left.

Later, in the shower, my entire neck ached
and I decided to head for a shoulder massage rather than to work, from where
Georgy had practically burnt my phone down with messages, mails and calls. For
now, I simply silenced my phone, expecting the massage to leave me refreshed.
It did not, making the train ride in to work arduous since I had to stop and
buy a few shirts and trousers as I slowly rid myself of my snipped wardrobe.