52. Bia returns
Bia was in a dour mood. He sat on the bed in the room he shared with three other students. There was no other place to sit. His friends had agreed with Bia that those farangs were no good. They were unfair and Bia had to fight back.
The way Bia told the story to his friends Duff and Peter Hart had set a trap for him. They had conspired to find an excuse to kick Bia out and deny Bia what was rightfully his. Bia was not going to stand for this.
Bia tried to call Peter on the phone but Peter didn’t answer his mobile when he saw it was Bia’s number. Bia went to a pay phone but when Peter heard who it was he hang up. Bia called the house phone and Peter hang up on him again. Bia had to think of something better.
Peter was surfing the Internet when someone rang the doorbell. Bia stood outside with Bambi eyes.
- What do you want? asked Peter in an annoyed tone.
- I miss you, said Bia.
- Oh do you, said Peter sarcastically.
Bia wanted to enter the apartment but Peter kept a firm hold on the door, standing in Bia’s way.
- I miss you too much, said Bia. He was nearly crying now.
- It’s over, said Peter.
- But I love you! said Bia.
Peter was surprised. Bia had never said he loved him before.
- You should have thought of that earlier, said Peter.
- Is not fault me, said Bia. Is fault Duff. I angry him.
- Duff told me what happened. I don’t blame him. You never told him you were my boyfriend. Duff could not know that. I can’t trust you after this. You were fooling around with a friend of mine. How do you think that felt? You were fucking in the Malaysia hotel, that awful place. Have you no shame? You behaved like a moneyboy.
Tears were filling Bia’s eyes. He looked like someone who was in great pain but who had given up resisting his cruel fate. Bia looked down and turned slowly away.
- Ok. I go now. Nobody care me. Nobody love me. I no want live. Better I dead.
Peter closed the door and listened to Bia’s footsteps in the corridor outside. Peter looked in the peephole in the door. He could see Bia walking slowly, with his head and his shoulders low, towards the lift.
The nerve, thought Peter. He wants to come back just like that? And what with the melodramatic talk? He doesn’t want to live? Such nonsense. He is acting. I am sure he is pretending. But doubt and fear crept into Peter as he thought of what Bia had said. It grew stronger and Peter called Robert Miller to make a dinner appointment. Maybe Robert could make sense of this.
Robert was dining at Eat Me in soi Convent. It was an artistic and upscale place. If it wasn’t for meeting Robert Peter would have eaten somewhere more affordable.
- He is threatening suicide? asked Robert.
- Not directly, said Peter. But this talk of how he wants to die and how nobody will miss him is unsettling.
- It is designed to be unsettling, said Robert. He is playing martyr and he invokes the biggest martyr act of all, to kill himself.
- If this is emotional blackmail it works, said Peter. I feel upset.
- Thais are good at it, said Robert. There are only two things you can do. Either you can give in and take him back. But you have to think carefully about that.
- I don’t want him back, said Peter. I can’t trust him after this Duff affair. I thought Thais were concerned about people losing face. Bia made me lose face and it hurt me too.
- The other thing you can do is to call his bluff.
- How? To tell him he is welcome to go jump off a bridge?
- Exactly. But you have to be sure he is bluffing. If you have any insecurity in your voice he can detect that and then it won’t work.
- And if he really goes ahead and jumps after I said that I will feel terrible the rest of my life.
- That’s always a risk. Thais do commit suicide. The official talk of Buddhist calmness doesn’t stop them. The Thai suicide rate is probably higher than it is in the West.
- So what can I do? asked Peter, frustrated.
- There is nothing you can do, said Robert. You have to wait and see.
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