The Windup Girl (22 page)

As a young inductee Jaidee had been astounded at the hive of activity that was the Environment Ministry. White shirts rushing from office to street as they tried to maintain tabs on thousands of hazards. In no other ministry was the sense of urgency so acute. Plagues waited for no one. A single genehack weevil found in an outlying district meant a response time counted in hours, white shirts on a kink-spring train rushing across the countryside to the epicenter.

And at every turn the Ministry's purview was expanding. The plagues were but the latest insult to the Kingdom's survival. First came the rising sea levels, the need to construct the dikes and levees. And then came the oversight of power contracts and trading in pollution credits and climate infractions. The white shirts took over the licensing of methane capture and production. Then there was the monitoring of fishery health and toxin accumulations in the Kingdom's final bastion of calorie support (a blessing that the
farang
calorie companies thought as land-locked people and had only desultorily attacked fishing stocks). And there was the tracking of human health and viruses and bacteria: H7V9; cibiscoscosis111.b, c, d;
fa' gan
fringe; bitter water mussels, and their viral mutations that jumped so easily from saltwater to dry land; blister rust. . . There was no end to the duties of the Ministry.

Jaidee passes a woman selling bananas. He can't resist hopping off his bike to buy one. It's a new varietal from the Ministry's rapid prototyping unit. Fast growing, resistant to
makmak
mites with their tiny black eggs that sicken banana flowers before they can hope to grow. He peels the banana and eats it greedily as he pushes his bike along, wishing he could take the time to have a real snack. He discards the peel beside the bulk of a rain tree.

All life produces waste. The act of living produces costs, hazards and disposal questions, and so the Ministry has found itself in the center of all life, mitigating, guiding and policing the detritus of the average person along with investigating the infractions of the greedy and short-sighted, the ones who wish to make quick profits and trade on others' lives for it.

The symbol for the Environment Ministry is the eye of a tortoise, for the long view—the understanding that nothing comes cheap or quickly without a hidden cost. And if others call them the Turtle Ministry, and if the Chaozhou Chinese now curse white shirts as turtle's eggs because they are not allowed to manufacture as many kink-spring scooters as they would like, so be it. If the
farang
make fun of the tortoise for its slow pace, so be it. The Environment Ministry has ensured that the Kingdom endures, and Jaidee can only stand in awe of its past glories.

And yet, when Jaidee climbs off his bicycle outside the Ministry gate, a man glares at him and a woman turns away. Even just outside their own compound—or perhaps particularly there—the people he protects turn away from him.

Jaidee grimaces and wheels his cycle past the guards.

The compound is still a hive of activity, and yet it is so different from when he first joined. There is mold on the walls and chunks of the edifice are cracking under the pressure of vines. An old
bo
tree leans against a wall, rotting, underlining their failures. It has lain so for ten years, rotting. Unremarked amongst the other things that have also died. There is an air of wreckage to the place, of jungle attempting to reclaim what was carved from it. If the vines were not cleared from the paths, the Ministry would disappear entirely. In a different time, when the the Ministry was a hero of the people, it was different. Then, people genuflected before Ministry officers, three times
khrabbed
to the ground as though they were monks themselves, their white uniforms inspiring respect and adoration. Now Jaidee watches civilians flinch as he walks past. Flinch and run.

He is a bully, he thinks sourly. Nothing but a bully walking amongst water buffalo, and though he tries to herd them with kindness, again and again, he finds himself using the whip of fear. The whole Ministry is the same—at least, those who still understand the dangers that they face, who still believe in the bright white line of protection that must be maintained.

I am a bully.

He sighs and parks the cycle in front of the administrative offices, which are desperately in need of a whitewashing that the shrinking budget cannot finance. Jaidee eyes the building, wondering if the Ministry has come to crisis thanks to overreaching, or because of its phenomenal success. People have lost their fear of the outside world. Environment's budget shrinks yearly while that of Trade increases.

Jaidee finds a seat outside the general's office. White shirt officers walk past, carefully ignoring him. That he is waiting in front of Pracha's office should fill him with some satisfaction. It isn't often that he is called before a man of rank. He's done something right, for once. A young man approaches hesitantly.
Wais.

"Khun
Jaidee?"

At Jaidee's nod, the young man breaks into a grin. His hair is cropped close and his eyebrows are only slight shadows; he has just come out of the monastery.

"
Khun
, I hoped it was you." He hesitates, then holds out a small card. It is painted in the old Sukhothai-style and depicts a young man in combat, blood on his face, driving an opponent down into the ring. His features are stylized, but Jaidee can't help smiling at the sight of it.

"Where did you get this?"

"I was at the fight,
Khun
. In the village. I was only this big—" he holds his hand up to his waist "—only like this, perhaps. Maybe smaller." He laughs self-consciously. "You made me want to be a fighter. When Dithakar knocked you down and your blood was everywhere, I thought you were finished. I didn't think you were big enough to take him. He had muscles. . ." he trails off.

"I remember. It was a good fight."

The youth grins. "Yes,
Khun
. Fabulous. I thought I wanted to be a fighter, too."

"And now look at you."

The boy runs his hand over his close-cropped hair. "Ah. Well. Fighting is harder than I thought. . . but. . ." He pauses. "Would you sign it? The card? Please. I would like to give it to my father. He still speaks highly of your fights."

Jaidee smiles and signs. "Dithakar was not the most clever fighter I ever faced, but he was strong. I wish all my fights were so clear-cut."

"Captain Jaidee," a voice interrupts. "If you are quite finished with your fans."

The young man
wais
and flees. Jaidee watches him run and thinks that perhaps not all of the younger generation is a waste. Perhaps. . . Jaidee turns to face the general. "He is just a boy."

Pracha glowers at Jaidee. Jaidee grins. "And it's hardly my fault that I was a good fighter. The Ministry was my sponsor for those years. I think you won quite a lot of money and recruits because of me,
Khun
General, sir."

"Don't give me your 'General' nonsense. We've known each other too long for that. Get in here."

"Yes, sir."

Pracha grimaces and waves Jaidee into the office. "In!"

Pracha closes the door and goes to sit behind the expanse of his mahogany desk. Overhead, a crank fan beats desultorily at the air. The room is large, with shuttered windows open to allow light but little direct sun. The slits of the windows look out onto the Ministry's ragged grounds. On one wall are various paintings and photographs, including one with Pracha's graduating class of ministry cadets along with another of Chaiyanuchit, founder of their modern ministry. Another of Her Royal Majesty the Child Queen, looking tiny and terrifyingly vulnerable seated on her throne, and in a corner, a small shrine to Buddha, Phra Pikanet and Seub Nakhasathien. Incense and marigolds drape the shrine.

Jaidee
wais
the shrine then finds himself a seat in a rattan chair across from Pracha. "Where did you get that class photo?"

"What?" Pracha looks back. "Ah. We were young, then, weren't we? I found it in my mother's belongings. She had it all these years, tucked away in a closet. Who would have guessed the old lady was so sentimental?"

"It's a nice thing to see."

"You overstepped yourself at the anchor pads."

Jaidee returns his attention to Pracha. Whisper sheets lie scattered on the desk, rustling under the breeze of the crank fan:
Thai Rath. Kom Chad Luek. Phuchatkan Rai Wan.
Many of them with photos of Jaidee on the cover. "The newspapers don't think so."

Pracha scowls. He shoves the papers into a bin for composting. "The papers love a hero. It sells copies. Don't believe these people who call you a tiger for fighting the
farang
. The
farang
are the key to our future."

Jaidee nods at the portrait of his mentor Chaiyanuchit hanging below the Queen's image. "I am not certain that he would agree."

"Times change, old friend. People are hunting for your head."

"And you'll give it to them?"

Pracha sighs. "Jaidee, I've known you too long for this. I know you're a fighter. And I know you have a hot heart." He holds up a hand as Jaidee stirs to protest. "Yes, a good heart, also, just like your name, but still,
jai rawn
. Not a bit of
jai yen
in you. You relish the conflict." He purses his lips. "So I know that if I rein you in, you will fight. And if I punish you, you will fight."

"Then let me go about my business. The Ministry benefits from a loose cannon like me."

"People were offended by your action. And not just stupid
farang
. Not everyone who ships air cargo is
farang,
these days. Our interests reach far and wide. Thai interests."

Jaidee studies the general's desk. "I wasn't aware that the Environment Ministry only inspected cargo at others' convenience."

"I am trying to reason with you. My hands are full with tigers: blister rust, weevil, the coal war, Trade Ministry infiltrators, yellow cards, greenhouse quotas,
fa' gan
outbreaks. . . And yet you choose to add another."

Jaidee looks up. "Who is it?"

"What do you mean?"

"Who is so angry that you're pissing your pants this way? Coming to ask me not to fight? It's Trade, yes? Someone in the Trade Ministry has you by the balls."

Pracha doesn't say anything for a moment. "I don't know who it is. Better that you don't know, either. What you do not know, you cannot fight." He slides a card across the desk. "This arrived today, under my door." His eyes lock on Jaidee so that Jaidee cannot look away. "Right here in the office. Inside the compound, you understand? We are completely infiltrated."

Jaidee turns over the card.

* * *

Niwat and Surat are good boys. Four and Six. Young men. Fighters already. Niwat once came home with a bloody nose and bright eyes and told Jaidee that he had fought honorably and been horribly beaten, but that he was going to train and he would take the
heeya
next time.

Chaya despairs over this. She accuses Jaidee of filling their heads with impossible ideas. Surat follows Niwat and encourages him, tells Niwat he can't be beat. Tells him he is a tiger. The best of the best. That he will reign in Krung Thep, and bring honor to them all. Surat calls himself trainer and tells Niwat to hit harder next time. Niwat is not afraid of beatings. He is not afraid of anything. He is four.

It is at times like these that Jaidee's heart breaks. Only once when he was in the
muay thai
ring was he afraid. But many times when he has worked, he has been terrified. Fear is part of him. Fear is part of the Ministry. What else but fear could close borders, burn towns, slaughter fifty thousand chickens and inter them wholesale under clean dirt and a thick powdering of lye? When the Thonburi virus hit, he and his men wore little rice paper masks that were no protection and they shoveled avian corpses into mass graves, while their fears swirled around them like
phii
. Could the virus really have come so far in such little time? Would it spread further? Would it continue to accelerate? Was this the virus that would finally finish them? He and his men were quarantined for thirty days while they waited to die, and fear was their only companion. Jaidee works for a ministry that cannot hold against all the threats it faces; he is afraid all the time.

It is not fighting that he fears; it is not death; it is the waiting and uncertainty, and it breaks Jaidee's heart that Niwat knows nothing of the waiting terrors, and that the waiting terrors are all around them now. So many things can only be fought by waiting. Jaidee is a man of action. He fought in the ring. He wore his Seub luck amulets blessed by Ajahn Nopadon himself in the White Temple, and went forth. He carried only his black baton and quelled the
nam
riots of Katchanaburi single-handed by striding into the crowd.

And yet the only battles that matter are the waiting battles: when his father and mother succumbed to cibiscosis and coughed the meat of their lungs out between their teeth; when his sister and Chaya's sister both saw their hands thicken and crack with the cauliflower growths of
fa' gan
before the ministry stole the genetic map from the Chinese and manufactured a partial cure. They prayed every day to Buddha and practiced non-attachment and hoped that their two sisters would find a better rebirth than this one that turned their fingers to clubs and chewed away at their joints. They prayed. And waited.

It breaks Jaidee's heart that Niwat knows no fear, and that Surat trains him so. It breaks his heart that he cannot make himself intervene, and he curses himself for it. Why must he destroy childhood illusions of invincibility? Why him? He resents this role.

Instead, he lets his children tackle him and roars, "Ahh, you are a tiger's sons! Too fierce! Too fierce by half!" And they are pleased and laugh and tackle him again, and he lets them win, and shows them tricks that he has learned since the ring, the tricks a fighter in the streets must know, where no combat is ritualized and where even a champion has things to learn. He teaches them how to fight, because it is all he knows. And the other thing—the waiting thing—is something he could never prepare them for, anyway.