The Unblinking I

Faisal sat alone, surrounded by wrought iron tables and chairs. All were filled with groups, or couples, or the passengers of tour buses. Faisal got up and went inside to use the bathroom. The huge Bangkok bar was crowded with pool tables. An international mix of men stood holding snooker sticks as they looked over the rows of women. Many were young girls, barely thirteen; all wore thick makeup and few articles of clothing.

Faisal waddled past. Bouncers stood outside the doors to the bathrooms. The lights were bright to discourage illicit sex in them. Or perhaps the bouncers were the flesh peddlers, there to prevent their prostitutes from turning tricks on the side in the johns.

The Western world uses strange descriptive terms, Faisal thought. Bathrooms are johns. The men buying women for sex are johns. Sometimes, John is the given name of those men.

A trio of young women ignored the bouncers and headed towards Faisal. He knew they’d spotted the logo on his shirt pocket and the solid gold necklace he wore. His nylon shorts and flip-flops were the ubiquitous male uniform here, but the shirt’s designer name and the thickness of his gold jewelry signaled, money.

Lights glinted off the links of the fat gold chain around his neck. A rich man as overweight as Faisal had to be hungry for sex. A man as fat as Faisal was surely ready to pay any price for a woman to bed him and pretend she was enjoying it. He’d be generous with cash to show his gratitude.

His features weren’t unattractive. Good looks nestled, hiding shyly in all the extra pounds. And he wasn’t dark-skinned. The women’s glances started at his weight and then moved to his face to check how hooked his nose was, how hooded his brown eyes. What was his nationality, what country was he from, what potential for patronage could he provide?

The females moved in.

**

He returned from the bathroom and headed back to his table. Two young Americans (Faisal could always spot the Americans) had been seated two tables over. Was one of them his contact? He stumbled in sudden fear and the globe candle on his table flickered and almost went out. The flame caught and burned brighter, but with less warmth.

His terror spread a chill in the air around the table where he waited. When a cocktail waitress came over, he requested another glass of red wine. He lit a cigarette and stared at the splashing fountain in the middle of the courtyard. When the cocktail waitress returned with his drink, he grimaced. Faisal didn’t want to appear anxious. He smoked his cigarette down to the end of the filter and with one hard grind stubbed it out in the ashtray.

Immediately he lit another. He smoked this cigarette more slowly and forced himself to sip the wine. Faisal couldn’t take the risk of getting drunk. Terror rendered him indifferent to the happy chatter and sexual energies swirling all around him. He was locked inside the heavy weight of punishment that waited if he got caught. He was about to betray state secrets. No; he was about to save the world.

The louder of the American girls spoke. "I guess it takes all kinds." Faisal knew the comment was about him. His eyes passed over the other girl. Lisa, her name was. She was watching him. He looked back at the fountain.

Where in the name of Allah was his contact? How much longer should he wait? Faisal lit another cigarette. He jumped when something vibrated against his hip. The cell phone buzzed, insistent. He retrieved the fanny pack under his shirt. “Faisal here,” he said, sweating harder.

“I’m trapped in a traffic jam,” a voice told him. “There was an accident on the highway. I’m about twenty minutes out. Go ahead and order us food. If I can’t make it in time to The Watering Hole, I’ll meet you outside the lobby to your hotel.”

The line went dead.

Faisal clutched his glass of wine and stared at the water plashing in the fountain. “Send over a food waiter,” he requested. Aside from talking with the restaurant help and the glance he'd exchanged with the girl named Lisa, he hadn't met the eyes of a single other person.

Lisa’s companion snickered loudly. "Man, I bet he won't be getting lucky this evening!"

“Babs, shut up! What if he hears you?”

His contact was stuck in traffic. Ah, traffic indeed. Bangkok bustled with all sorts of illegal traffic. A Hmong woman peddled traditional caps and jewelry out on the sidewalk in front of the bistro, careful not to enter the grounds but hovering just at the edge of the property, lifting the goods in her arms for tourists to see each time someone glanced in her direction. Men with long coats, incongruous in the sticky Bangkok heat, presented pockets filled with bootlegged, hardcore pornography. And always, always, the flesh peddlers proffered female bodies.

He was getting tipsy. Faisal needed something to eat; he couldn’t wait any longer for a contact he wouldn’t even recognize. The male waiter came over to the table and Faisal ordered food.

The men took the food orders; the cocktail waitresss were there to serve. In all senses, most likely: beer and whatever else he might wish. In Bangkok, no matter how sordid and against nature, everyone and everything was for sale.

He sweated an eternity of twenty minutes before the waiter returned and placed two plates on the table, another glass of wine, and a glass of water.

“You think maybe he’s paid for a bar girl to join him?” Babs inquired.

What would those two innocent young girls say if they knew who he was? Not here to buy a woman, or a man, or a child, but something much more frightening. He was here to sell out his family.

Faisal pulled the first plate to him. When the plate was bare he drained the water glass. There was still no sign of his contact, and he was scared to draw attention to the uneaten meal on the table. He reached across the table, placed the second plate on top of his and ate an exact duplicate of the meal he just consumed. The hamburger, the fries, even the garnish of fresh tropical fruit all disappeared. What was he doing? He was too frightened to pause or look up from his plates while he ate.

When Faisal finished, he pushed the plates to the side and lit a final cigarette. The waiter was at his elbow and accepted the handful of bills Faisal held out. Still avoiding looking at anyone, he drank the last of the wine and left.

He was out of breath in the sticky night. Faisal hated Bangkok. He hated this dense city, the urban desperation of a city with millions of people on the make. He passed sidewalk stands hawking grilled skewers, booths selling sexual aides, and goods that looked Thai but were all produced in factories in China.

Faisal had missed the rendezvous with his contact from The Unblinking I.

**

His studies at the private schools in London had taught Faisal that the world is all tribal all the time. He’d made an extracurricular four-year study of British prejudices. English distaste was disguised in stiff polished manners or openly expressed in slurs and hooligan violence.

His uncles had warned him. “Pay attention to the way they treat you with respect and politeness and welcome your money, but the real judgment will be the color of your skin.” Faisal was fortunate, because with an olive skin tone he could be from Lebanon, or Egypt, or Türkiye, or Italy or Greece or Spain. Faisal wanted to move through the larger world regardless of his bloodlines and skin tone, his wealth and his obesity.

How he had come to hate his small world. Although he belonged to the ruling class he wasn’t free to speak his mind in his own family’s home. He returned from the university and smothered in the huge separate but equal rooms of his grandfather’s palace. One section for men, another for women. It was exactly like America’s history of white versus black divisions. How could Faisal feel comfortable in the country of his birth? When his uncles reminded him of the passages in the Quran insisting women cover themselves and submit to their husbands, Faisal read them passages from the Bible that slave owners had used to justify the oppression of an entire race.

Faisal got away with it, that time. Later his favorite uncle pulled him aside and suggested it was smarter to keep his opinions to himself.

He was employed in his grandfather’s vast palace as the final person to handle financial documents. Faisal enjoyed the authority that came from having his signature required for their release to be put in courier pouches and mailed.

After he returned with his college degree in international finance, he idly began checking columns of numbers. Titles and corporations repeated in odd combinations. Faisal recognized names of politicians and businessmen. He discovered documents that were unsavory even for a kingdom as byzantine as his grandfather’s. It was a magical sleight of hand, now you see the deals, now you don’t.

Faisal signed to send a renewal contract for an arms deal with an American corporation and made copies of everything. Then he went falcon hunting for a week, needing the distances of the desert landscape to clear his head. Away from the palace, he tried to look dispassionately at what he was considering doing, knowing he’d already decided.

When he returned from his week in the desert, he contacted a friend in London. In secret, Faisal followed a blog named The Unblinking I. He was fascinated by the anonymous network working to expose injustice. His friend in London informed the website that Faisal was in possession of documents implicating his grandfather in the production of chemical weapons and illegal arms trading. Faisal wanted The Unblinking I to break the story, but only if they could do so without exposing him as the source. And to expiate the dynastic shame he was going to hand the copies of the damning documents over in person.

The network responded from an untraceable location. “Once we confirm authenticity, we post the story ourselves and deliver all the information to news outlets and authorities for further action. We’ll send a contact to meet you and take possession of the papers.”

Faisal was dizzy, overwhelmed with a mixed tsunami of relief and awe. He had no practice in cloak and dagger activity. He was just an office functionary, a cog in the machinery. He shuddered nonetheless. It was his signature releasing the documents. Any trail of illegal transactions led back to Faisal the Flunky. He was so far down the chain of command that no one would suspect him. But his family implicated everyone, a scheme in which everyone so richly benefited or shared the consequences.

His betrayal made Faisal a temporary operative for The Unblinking I. Operative: the most terrible English word of all. Spies, moles, secret agents. Or, uglier, much uglier, the monsters his family dealt with. Faisal reminded himself, operatives can claim the power of acting, of exerting a righteous moral force.

**

He plodded towards his hotel at the end of the block. Faisal was gasping for air, beyond terrified as he approached. He still had a chance to change his mind. He could return to his room and forget the entire insane mission. He could remain loyal to his family and try to forget the implications of the documents he’d mailed, weapons underway to all corners of the world. Thirty-seven pages of documents, each one as corrosive as the chemicals they listed in detail.

A woman in a black niqab stepped up out of the street onto the sidewalk. Kohl-outlined eyes identified him. “Faisal? I’m your contact,” she said softly. “I spotted you at the restaurant, but you looked agitated. I decided it was safer to wait. I was so late already, and I’m deeply sorry for causing you to worry. What we’re doing tonight will save lives. What you are doing is right in the eyes of God.” She held his gaze, willing him courage.

“My cousin! There you are!” she exclaimed loudly. “Did you do the shopping for me?” She touched Faisal’s sweaty arm and the physical contact steadied his resolve.

“Fatima, I did.” Faisal opened his fanny pack and pulled out a plastic bag with the logo and address from the 7-11 shop a few blocks away. “Here’s your prescription. May your illness heal.”

“Inshallah.” The stranger gripped his hand and then swiftly walked away.

**

Goa’s beach bar stopped three meters from the ocean. Rune and Greg ordered drinks. The waitress brought them glasses that were already sweating moisture. They took the drinks and went looking for lounge chairs.

Five minutes later two young women in bikinis under loose gauze shirts claimed the free chairs next to Greg. Their eyes moved from the chairs and wandered over to Greg. Both women’s gazes lingered on him, but once they looked at Rune the gazes stopped.

Rune Jordahl resembled a young Karl Ove Knausgaard. He was a muscular 6’2” with a beard and thick, sun-streaked blond hair. He wore it in a man bun. His bathing trunks were decorated with the British flag. Rune also owned pairs depicting Canada and New Zealand flags, hoping people would think he was from a country other than the USA.

His eyes were the cool clear sapphire of a fjord lake at its deepest point. Rune’s smile seldom looked carefree. When he smiled, lines appeared on either side of his mouth. Rune’s name and fatalism all traced back to his paternal grandparents. He couldn’t speak a word of Norwegian.

Taken separately, his features were exaggerated, a caricature of a Norwegian. Taken together, he was masculine and undeniably beautiful. Rune’s looks always drew female attention. Male attention too. He was mellow, if sardonic about it. Rune would accept the compliments from other men and politely decline their offers.

They waited as the women looked them over. One would put a claim on Rune as the more handsome. The women exchanged a glance and deciding, approached them. “Hi, I’m Amelia and this is my best friend, Olivia. Are these chairs free?”

As a consolation prize, Rune’s best friend Greg Hendricks was no disgrace. Greg wouldn’t end the evening alone, and that was how the night progressed.

**

“Is it time for a new round?”

Olivia had claimed Rune, but he didn’t answer.

“Isn’t it always?” Greg countered, and laughed. Thirty-three years old and easy-going, Greg was from New Mexico. He’d taken to travel and partying like a fish set into real water after spending years of its existence in a fishbowl. He certainly drank like a fish.

Olivia waited for Rune to say something and looked disappointed. She was realizing that Greg would have been more fun. And she’s right, Rune mused as he watched her. Greg was more fun.

Greg was telling Olivia and her friend Amelia about their travels. “The full moon rave here in Goa is like beaches we visited in Australia and Bali. The only thing I need is a good long stretch of beach.”

They protested. “You just said you both live in California. All those years in northern California and you never went to the ocean? Are you crazy?”

“I’m an all or nothing kind of guy. When I work, I work. When I play, I play.”

Olivia began to pepper Greg with questions as she realized Rune still wasn’t responding. “Where are you guys going next?”

“Depends. We have open tickets.”

Amelia, Greg’s companion for the evening, asked, “You mean the one way, around-the-globe-in-a-year deal?”

“Something like that. Ours don’t have expiration dates.”

“You don’t have to go back to work? We do, back in Australia. Our jobs start in three months.”

“We retired five months ago.”

The women burst out laughing.

Greg and Rune exchanged a proud look. “We’re retired. Seriously.”

Amelia and Olivia laughed louder. “Sure, whatever you say.”

Rune dreaded where the conversation might be heading. He set down the sparkling water he’d ordered and waded out into the ocean. From the waves he turned and looked back at the beach. It was crowded with restaurants that could easily be taken down in the rainy season. Now, though, throngs of tourists in bathing suits filled them, eating seafood and thalis and crepes all advertised on boards stuck in the sand in front of each shack.

The waves lapped against his shoulders; the tide was coming in. He turned and dived into the oncoming wave. Greg and Amelia were preparing to head back to Amelia’s room. Rune knew Olivia would join him that night, and he wanted to have a clear head.

**

The next morning, the four reunited on the beach and headed for a breakfast shack.

“I need a sloe gin fizz!” Olivia made a face at Amelia across the table. “When I went back to the room to change, Amelia told me something? Is it true? Are you guys like, Jeff Bezos?” She stared at Rune.

His face gave nothing away.

She poked him in the ribs. “Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about! Amelia spotted Greg’s plane tickets for the next leg of your trip? Open tickets? They’re open all right: you guys have first class tickets, all the way?”

“I wasn’t snooping,” Amelia defended herself. “Greg offered to pass along some books he’s done with and told me to just get them out of his bag.” She flushed. Amelia hadn’t accidently found those documents; she’d worked hard to discover them. Greg’s belongings spread would fill any room he inhabited, even a pension for a few nights, but he kept all his pertinent papers tucked in a money belt.

“I told you.” Rune knew from Greg’s tone that he’d revealed the truth to Amelia. “Last year we sold a company for enough money that we never have to work another day in our lives.”

Olivia quivered with excitement. “So you weren’t joking about being retired? What are you doing staying in a youth hostel? If I was rich, we’d be poolside in one the resorts up the beach!”

“We want to meet normal people.”

“Why? Travel on the cheap in India is the shits. And then it gives you them? I had Delhi belly on and off for two months. And, my God, our rooms are a lot nicer than yours!” Considering the knowledge that the men were überwealthy, Olivia’s words were an accusation.

Rune recalled her naked body the night before. Her breasts had proved to be fake. Who cared if they were silicone? They were breasts.

Olivia had epic tits and a flat belly. In the morning when she got up to shower, he had wondered if she was anorexic, or just incredibly fit. Now he knew: Olivia had been battling one of the notorious food-borne or water-borne illnesses travelers always pick up in India.

He hadn’t contemplated anything other than the pleasure of placing his hands on her. Six, he’d thought when he woke up beside her that morning. Rune smiled as he drank his bloody mary. Six. Rune mentally recounted. A girlfriend in high school and one during his single year at college. Partners three, four and five had come to his bed in the four months that he and Greg had been traveling. One a month. June, July, August, and now September. At this rate, Rune thought with self-mocking humor, if this keeps up, I’ll need to find Miss October soon.

Travel sex was a strange phenomenon. Women approached everywhere he and Greg went, flirting or making open overtures to hook up. Rune knew in part it was loneliness. Being in a foreign culture with no reference points brought a strange sense of alienation: one was detached from life’s normal morals and rules. Being out on the road and open for adventures proved a natural aphrodisiac for almost everyone.