EVA FEJOS

BANGKOK TRANSIT

Translated from the Hungarian by Ildikó Naomi Nagy

Copyright© 2008, 2013 by Éva Fejős

English translation© 2013 by Ildikó Naomi Nagy

© Erawan Publishing House, Budapest 2013

ISBN 978-963-89827-9-7

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced without written permission. For information please write to eva.fejos@erawan.hu

Cover design by Cantinart Ltd, Budapest

Cover photo by Shutterstock

Author photography by András Hajdu, Budapest, 2013

Author’s website: www.evafejos.com

Author’s Facebook page: www.facebook.com/evafejos1

Erawan Publishing, Budapest: www.erawan.hu

All characters appearing in the following book are fictitious. The locations, however, are authentic.

1.

Paul Marshall knew this was his last summer. Or rather, his last winter. If he was lucky, he’d live to see another summer. But another summer vacation…?

Perhaps his friends might be thinking that he was already dead. Or that he’d gone crazy. For Paul Marshall had unexpectedly sold his graphic design company and even his flat in one of London’s suburbs. Now, he lived in a rented apartment in Soho and was set on spending all his money as soon as possible. It wasn’t as easy as he thought it would be.

Even the plane ticket to Bangkok had only cost six-hundred pounds. True, he booked an economy seat, though maybe this once Paul could have afforded to fly first class. Still, he didn’t have the heart to squander the sum that a first class ticket would have cost… though you can even sleep in those seats, comfortably. But Paul wasn’t tired. Actually, from this moment forward, he wanted to spend the least amount of time sleeping.

He flew from London to Amsterdam. He had to wait a few hours in transit for the flight to Bangkok. He didn’t care about the cheese, the brand-name sunglasses, or the designer clothes the airport shops had to offer. He wandered into a newspaper shop, perused the daily papers, the glossy magazines, and then stepped over to the books. A woman around thirty stood next to him, browsing. Her red hair brushed her shoulders and when she turned her head to look up at Paul, he saw how interesting her pupils were. Her eyes were mysterious… and provocative. Under different circumstances, Paul might have tried to flirt with her, and maybe, finally, this woman might end up being the love of his life, a companion, someone who would make him whole; at the moment he was a half, or actually, only a quarter, and would soon be a tenth, and gradually even less.

No, Paul didn’t reciprocate the allure that glittered in the woman’s eyes. He no longer searched for love.

The woman stared at him for a few seconds, then turned back to the books. She seemed to shrug, almost indiscernibly. Paul noticed the glint of a wedding ring on her finger. The red-haired woman finally chose a book from the shelf and headed towards the register. Paul unconsciously followed her example. He picked the same novel from the shelf and paid.

Maybe I should have gone through Frankfurt instead, he thought. That would have been a more favorable connecting flight from London. But Paul wasn’t too crazy about Germans. He was afraid he’d have to spend the ten or twelve-hour flight with a crowd of loud and obnoxious German men, tanked up on beer and eager to pick up girls. He could have taken a British airline, but then he might have had to talk to the fellow countryman sitting next to him, and he didn’t feel like it. His reasons for traveling to Bangkok were nobody’s business. Not even his parents’, who couldn’t understand why he had given up his successful, profitable firm.

“Leave him alone,” his mother finally said to his father, who, from the moment he’d found out his son had sold off the firm, had tried to sway him back on track. His father managed his own accounting office, had bought a beachfront apartment in Cyprus, and his parents planned to move there once his father retired.

Paul was averse to his parents’ stuffy, middle-class lives, and the apartment in Cyprus was a perfect example of it. Why didn’t they buy real estate in a more exciting place? A flat in Barcelona, for instance, by the sea. Paul had seen a film about the city and had been planning to go there ever since… for ten years now. Why didn’t he ever go? He always seemed reluctant to sacrifice the time, or the money. Often he didn’t have the right travel companion, or if he did, he felt it was just as enjoyable to stay with that person in London.

His parents might have bought an apartment in northern Italy, near Venice, or close to Verona. Paul had visited Venice with his parents when he was a child. Back then, the city smelled horrible, but he’d heard that it had been cleaned up, and the smell of rotting sewage no longer hung in the air. When he thought of Venice, the first thing that came to mind was how the buildings and pavement radiated heat, even after sundown, and how he’d felt nauseous during the several hours they’d spent on a vaporetto.

He should have revisited Venice too. And so many other places besides!

“I’ll bet you’re happy to get away from London’s bitter weather, right?”

Paul jolted back to reality upon hearing the question. He was sitting in the boarding area, absentmindedly flicking his plane ticket. The man must have glanced at the ticket and seen that Paul had come from London.

“Actually, it wasn’t cold. And not raining either,” he answered. “Everyone thinks January is rainy in London. The sun was even out today,” he explained. “But sure, I hate the rain just like everybody else.”

“I was in London a few days ago too. And you’re right, it wasn’t raining. All the same, I don’t like the climate in London. The rainy season isn’t over yet in Thailand. You still get downpours every so often, and the rain floods the city. One time I couldn’t leave the hotel because of the river rushing down the street,” said the man, shaking his head.

The man was around sixty, tall and gray-haired, his skin tan. His eyes were quite strange; brown eyes would have suited him more, but instead, his irises were pale blue or pale gray. Paul couldn’t decide which. He shook his head too. But if it rained, it rained. After all, he wasn’t going to Bangkok to lie in the sun.

“Business?” he asked the man finally, after a long silence.

“That too,” the man chuckled.

Right. So he was going whoring, thought Paul.

“This is the hotel where I’ll be staying in Bangkok. If you’d like to know more about the city, give me a ring. And I didn’t mean anything naughty by the invitation!” laughed the man.

He had a strange accent. Paul couldn’t figure out where he was from originally. Maybe Holland? No, he was too tan for that. Germany perhaps.

“Are you staying in Bangkok? Or are you going on to Pattaya?” the man asked with possibly of hint of contempt in his tone.

“I haven’t decided yet. I’ll be in Bangkok for a little while first,” he answered.

“Good choice,” agreed the man. “It’s a place that’ll make you feel rejuvenated.”

Paul smiled wryly, then wrapped himself back in silence.

“But why Bangkok?” asked his mother in alarm. “Every other person has AIDS there. And every third person has leprosy.”

“Mum, you’re exaggerating again!” scolded Paul playfully, wagging his finger at his mother. “I never asked why you chose Cyprus, of all places, when there are so many great destinations in the world.”

“What do you have against Cyprus?” his mother retorted.

“What do you have against Bangkok?”

“It’s dangerous. It’s far away. You want to spend months in a place that is distant, infested with AIDS, leprosy, malaria, and other deadly diseases? Not to mention that you liquidated everything here at home! There’s nothing the matter with you, is there, son? I could talk to Dr. Mosh and have them do a routine checkup. Just to make sure you haven’t got a brain tumor.”

“Mother, please!”

“Okay, okay. It’s just that I recently saw a documentary that explained how if someone’s behavior suddenly changes, it might be caused by a brain tumor,” she said frowning, ready to burst into tears.

Paul hugged her.

“Don’t worry, I don’t have a brain tumor,” he reassured his mother, adding in thought to himself: the tumor isn’t in my brain, so I didn’t lie. “Mum, I’m just curious to visit Bangkok. To see places I’ve never been before. That’s all.”

“But what if all your money runs out? You might have learned from your father how to save money…”

“If my money runs out, I’ll move in with the two of you in your Cyprus flat,” he smiled.

Paul had always had a knack for handling money (or maybe not, he now thought to himself). It seemed strange to him that his mother had overlooked this fact. And he had learned to save. He never spent his money on anything special. Sometimes he bought a new pair of jeans, and every once in a while, he bought a suit on sale. He’d spent the most amount of money on CDs and his car. It was a comfortable, dependable car, and rather boring to look at.

He’d sold his car too. He thought he might rent a sports car if he ever returned to London. Or he’d buy a motorcycle built for speed. So what if he hadn’t ridden a motorcycle since his teens (a buddy from high school sometimes lent him a cross motor in exchange for a few records); it didn’t matter. He’d get back into the feel of it quickly enough. They say it’s like riding a bike: you can’t forget.

David Rosenberg scanned the other passengers on the plane. He saw families headed for a restful holiday; single men, who were quite obviously flying more than ten hours for the Thai girls; a few couples, who were determined to discover Thailand in two weeks (this made him smile, though he admired their resolve); and then there were a few seekers. That’s what he called them. He was surprised, as he quickly glanced around, to see several such passengers. It wasn’t always like this. Sometimes he had to walk up and down the aisles – just as if for a little exercise – in order to spot one or two seekers. A few of them might only have been out for adventure, but there were those who were looking for something else, something that would help their lives function normally again. David recognized them: they were tense, pale, almost despondent, but there was a special glint in their eyes. For the seekers, Thailand was a final destination. If in Thailand they couldn’t find that something they so desperately needed, then probably they wouldn’t find it at all.

For instance, there was this English bloke sitting here. He was clearly a seeker, though an uncertain one, and David was sure that he didn’t quite know yet what he was looking for. Perhaps he’d find out in Thailand.

David knew that only few people would be able to tell that he too was a seeker, and for how many years now…? Maybe ten, or even more. He spent every winter in Bangkok. He wasn’t able to get away any sooner this year, and by the time he finally boarded this plane, his soul was frozen over. Each morning in Bangkok, he woke up hoping that maybe today he would find that which brought him back here year after year, the reason he couldn’t imagine living apart from this sultry, mysterious, and literally embracing city.

The gray-haired man he’d met at the airport sat in the row right in front of him and was explaining something enthusiastically to the person sitting next to him. The word Bangkok leapt from the jumble of words several times. He probably visits often. Perhaps he’s spent his whole life traveling. Perhaps he always did whatever he felt like doing.

Paul had never paid attention to his feelings before. The reason he had established his business twelve years ago was because he was fired from his job as a computer technician, and though he didn’t mind his job, he didn’t like his colleagues much, so he wasn’t too dismayed about never having to set foot in the office ever again. His father had helped him with market research and finally, upon his suggestion, Paul began focusing on designing and printing posters. His father’s nose for good business had paid off, but in all honesty, Paul didn’t really enjoy his work. His clients hadn’t the slightest idea about visual art, and the small printing companies who worked for Paul’s firm were terrible about keeping deadlines. They were constantly late, and this was the source of perpetual headache for Paul.

But even then, he’d never asked himself: what would make me happy? The problem was, thought Paul, that even at this moment, he had no answer. He knew what he’d had enough of, but what other choices were out there?

The plane accelerated on the runway. Paul gazed at the lights outside as they lifted off; the luminous specks disappeared one after the other, and Paul wondered if maybe he should have chosen a career in aviation. He could be a flight attendant. No, scrap that idea. But what if he’d become a pilot? Yes, much better. He imagined himself seated in the pilot’s cabin wearing a captain’s uniform, steering this colossus of a machine. Perhaps that would have been a better career choice. All the same, his life would probably have run into the same dead end it was at now.

The plane headed higher into the sky. Outside it was dark; Paul saw his reflection in the window. He was a regular guy, his hair a nondescript color, eyes just the same (or maybe blue). His face was narrow, and he had a mole – like Cindy Crawford – just above his lips. His teeth were healthy and white. He only had two fillings; he didn’t know if filled teeth might exclude someone from being a pilot. But Paul wasn’t a pilot. He was just one of many men who were headed to Bangkok. Even he didn’t know why he had chosen this city. Perhaps it was the book titled Bangkok People that one of his ex-girlfriends had brought him as a souvenir from Thailand? The author was a foreign writer who’d spent a vacation in Thailand… and then never returned home. He wrote about both Thai and foreign individuals who’d made a career for themselves in Bangkok. One of them was an Australian woman who went on holiday to Thailand and was so captivated by the city that she relocated her life there. Today, she is the host of an English-language morning show on a Bangkok television channel.

Of course, Paul wasn’t flying to Asia to make a career for himself. For once in his life, he simply wanted to do whatever he felt like doing.

The lights down on the ground were no longer visible. Paul pulled the in-flight magazine from the pocket and leafed through it. The woman sitting beside him was reading a book printed in foreign characters. She was young and attractive. She wore sandals – which seemed inane at the start of January – jeans and a sweater. Her long, shiny, silky black hair tumbled onto her shoulders. Paul only saw her profile: a button nose, jutting cheekbones, tiny, painted lips, tastefully made-up eyes. She was thin and huddling like a small bird. Paul couldn’t decide how old she might be. Maybe twenty? Perhaps thirty? Her face would have looked pretty on a billboard. Strangely enough, she made him think of his grandmother. Paul had felt closer to her than anyone else in his life. She had passed away, but Paul hadn’t really lost her: he continued to cherish her in his heart and felt that she had somehow helped him decide to pack up his former life and get going… to a place he never thought of going before.

Dinner was served. One might say that the Dutch hadn’t made a big effort to serve up a great meal. The hot meal was terrible; in contrast, the cheese was excellent. The woman beside him had not touched the cheese at all, but she had devoured the mush consisting of mystery meat – chicken, the stewardess claimed – and tasteless rice. Paul couldn’t comprehend how such a slender woman could eat so much, especially food so awful.

“You want?” said the woman in broken English, extending the wrapped camembert towards him.

Paul accepted it with a smile.

Only eight more hours to go, he thought, looking at his watch. Eight hours pass quickly if a person can sleep on a plane. Though he’d never flown more than an hour and a half or two hours at the most, including his business trip to Finland, Paul was sure he could never fall asleep on a plane. But then how would he pass the next eight hours?

After the stewardesses collected the trays, they instructed the passengers to pull down the window-shades. So sleep is the order of the day, Paul thought. He had never understood why flights to Bangkok always departed late in the evening – he first noticed this when he was searching for tickets online – but now he realized that this was a good idea. When they’d arrive late afternoon tomorrow, those who’d slept well on the plane would be well rested.

Paul sighed. He could watch a Hollywood movie, or he could pass the time listening to music. He put his headphones on and chose the Classics channel. He had never liked classical music much, but now was the perfect opportunity to become fond of it. Or develop abhorrence for it forever. He placed his pillow against the window and laid his head on it.

He expected not to sleep a wink, but he was wrong. His Thai neighbor woke him from a deep dream, poking him gently when breakfast was served. A different stewardess distributed the morning meal. She was a Thai young lady modestly made-up, with skin like china and a little-girl smile. She extended the tray towards Paul. He glanced at his watch: he had slept seven hours. On a plane! While the classics channel had probably looped at least seven times!

He picked at his food: scrambled eggs, probably from egg powder, and some sort of Thai sweets. He opted for a buttered roll instead, but his neighbor, the delicate Thai woman leaned close to him and said slowly, in English:

“If you travel to Thailand, you must open your soul. Be curious and receive. Don’t say no without trying first.”

The woman smiled, but her gaze was serious. So Paul dug into his food. The eggs were indeed from powder, but the sweets he rather enjoyed.

“Tastes good,” Paul nodded towards her.

“You see? You never know,” said the woman, falling back into silence and pulling out her book.

As soon as the plane touched ground, the windows fogged up from the sweltering heat outside. They were still taxiing on the runway when Captain Aaron Vanderniels bid them farewell in the name of the captain and flight crew, and wished them an enjoyable holiday.

Paul peered curiously out the window. He had never been to the tropics before. Here, even the airport was surrounded by lofty palm trees. The plane turned and a golf course appeared, directly adjacent to the runway. Diminutive Thai men held beach umbrellas over the heads of well-dressed golfers.

It was January third and Paul Marshall had arrived to Bangkok to begin the last adventure of his life.

2.

BUDAPEST, 1980

“I’ll be here to pick you up for dance class. You have English in the afternoon and rhythmic gymnastics in the evening, don’t forget,” said the woman with the teased, reddish-blond hair as she parted from the little girl; she was attractively dressed, though slightly provocative. “Then, afterwards, we’ll celebrate your Dad’s birthday. There’s a snack in your book bag,” she called.

The girl nodded, waved to her from the gate, and entered the three-story elementary school in the Óbuda district of Budapest. She had math first period. She hated mathematics; this semester they were learning sets and numeral systems, and she wouldn’t have understood a word of it if weren’t for Rose, her private teacher, who helped her with math assignments twice a week. She started yawning halfway through the period.

“Don’t fall asleep or she’ll pick on you again,” whispered Enikő, her deskmate, nudging her.

Enikő always dressed like a tomboy and had made it clear several times that she would have rather been born a boy.

Teri heeded the warning. She decided to prop her eyelids open with her fingers. Maybe that way she wouldn’t fall asleep.

Last night’s training had lasted longer than usual, and though she had changed back into her street clothes quickly, her mother had spent a long time discussing something with her coach. In the meantime, Teri sat on the bench waiting for them. She hadn’t gotten enough sleep because they’d stayed so long.

Next period was true horror: Russian class. Teri mostly hated this class because of the teacher. Otherwise, she had a good ear for languages and didn’t need extracurricular help with her homework.

“Zrastvuytye,” said the teacher, as she stepped into classroom 5B, and the kids chimed their greeting in unison:

“Ztrastvuytye, tovarish uchityelnitsa!”

Teri forgot to join in the greeting, and the teacher noticed immediately, turning to her jeeringly:

“Guten morgen, Fräulein Schmidt. I suppose German comes easier to you than Russian.”

Teri blushed. She was sick of Mrs. Piros constantly encouraging certain boys to taunt her by calling German shepherd, Heike, and Fräulein Schmidt. When she told her mother about what went on in school, she just waved it away dismissively and said:

“Just ignore them, honey. You can already speak German and soon you’ll be fluent in Russian and English too. Just think how jealous they’ll be when they see you on TV and in the papers!”

Teri had recently found an article in her mother’s favorite weekly magazine about the lives of female factory workers in Csepel. She’d read it and didn’t understand why her mother wanted someone to write such things about her. She didn’t want to be in the papers or on TV. All she wanted was for Mrs. Piros to leave her alone, along with the idiot boys led by Zoli Kiss, whose front tooth still hadn’t grown in, even though he’d lost all of his baby teeth last year.

“You should eat more. Your growth spurt has made you incredibly thin,” said her gym teacher, patting Teri’s head during recess. “And you’re pale. Are you getting enough rest?”

Teri didn’t answer. She looked at herself in the locker room mirror before gym class. Her mother had braided her flaxen-colored hair into a ponytail, and she saw dark circles under her blue eyes. She wasn’t hungry, but she thought that maybe her gym teacher was right. She took out her snack. It consisted of two crackers, a slice of ham, and thinly cut peppers. She ate a few bites, and then started changing. She liked gym class because she felt successful. She was always asked to demonstrate exercises which seemed too complex for the others.

That afternoon, before training, when her mother drove off in their yellow Wartburg car and Teri had finished waving her goodbye, the coach called the girl into her office.

“One day you will grow up to be a very beautiful girl. The boys will go nuts over you,” she began.

Teri looked at her, puzzled. Why was Mrs. Varga telling her this? The same Mrs. Varga whom the others called “Killer” behind her back.

“I’m sure you know that boys are especially keen on tall girls. You’ve got a pretty face: pouty lips, big, blue eyes, long lashes… And you’ll be tall. You’ve grown a lot over the past year. Did you notice how much taller you are than the others?” she said, gesturing towards the locker room.

Teri nodded. This was the second time in one day that someone had pointed out her height. She didn’t understand why. Her coach fell silent, arranged some training supplies on the shelf, and then continued:

“Well. You can excel in several branches of sports and in many things. You are among the best of your age group in rhythmic gymnastics. You won the Budapest Cup last year. But it won’t always be this way. You’re too tall, and this will hinder you from staying among the best,” the coach finally blurted out, without meeting the girl’s gaze. “I told the same thing to your mother, who asked me to give you time to prove yourself again. And I would gladly give you all the time in the world, but I don’t see the point in deluding you. You know too that you’re still growing, and in a few years you won’t be able to join the top ranks in rhythmic gymnastics anymore. The reason I’m telling you this is because I know you and your parents have your hearts set on you joining the national team, and I don’t want you to be disappointed. Right now, you’re free to choose another activity, like athletics, maybe high-jumping. Or ball sports. Anything. You’re only ten; you can still be part of the best. But not in rhythmic gymnastics. Or artistic gymnastics either. I find it pointless to torment you at training, or to see you suffering by constantly dieting and calorie-counting. Choose something else instead. Or take a little break,” she said, looking into the girl’s eyes now. “In a few years, you’ll be happy things turned out this way, happy to be a grown up, willowy girl not hurting so much from sports injuries.”

Teri dashed into the locker room. She didn’t know what to do; she struggled to hold back her tears. But a powerful feeling of responsibility triumphed. She changed into her leotard along with the others. That day, she performed better than ever during training.

The birthday celebration that evening didn’t go too well. Teri was tired and in a bad mood. After she helped her father blow out the candles on the cake, she burst into tears. Her father lifted her onto his lap.

“Let’s eat the cake together!” he said in German.

Teri turned her head away when her father jabbed the fork into a piece of cake and offered her the morsel.

“I told you not to force sweets on her. She has to maintain her weight.”

“But I’ll never be a champion!” the little girl exclaimed. “Coach said so. I grew too much.”

Her mother’s eyes flashed angrily.

“Just ignore what your coach says. You’re the best, and that’s how it always will be!”

“We can talk later, sweetheart, and you can tell me all about what’s making you sad,” her father said, hugging her. “But now you have to go to bed. You’ve got school tomorrow.”

It can’t possibly hurt more than this, thought Anne. There’s no way it can be even more painful. But she knew that it would go on hurting, even more intensely than before, the anguish splintering her bones. The worst part was that she wouldn’t even feel the pain, because the suffering tearing her soul apart would be much worse. She had to remember, to re-live that which was unbelievable and heart-wrenching the first time around, a fact incomprehensible and senseless.

Everyone around her was filled with happy expectation. Already on the plane, she was annoyed by the smiles of all the exhilarated passengers ready for adventure. The reason she’d bought a business class ticket was because she felt averse to the proximity of others. She wanted to hide, to be alone… with her thoughts. But here on the flight to Bangkok, the memories overwhelmed her even more. Why did she even come back? What was it that had drawn her, chased her, and propelled her for long months until she arrived here? Why would she want to intensify the suffering when it was already unbearable?

She got into a taxi and didn’t haggle, though she knew that he would disapprove. She didn’t take off her dark sunglasses when she gave the driver the address of The Ambassador Hotel. The driver, of course, didn’t understand where she wanted to go. It was incomprehensible to her how Thai taxi drivers could handle all these foreign passengers if they couldn’t even understand what was being said to them. She pulled out the hotel’s card and shoved it under the driver’s nose. She leaned back and closed her eyes.

Back then… yes, he had haggled, argued, gotten in and out of the taxi five times, unloaded and then reloaded the suitcases, until finally he and the driver had reached an agreement; he knew that the man would give in eventually. He had sat down next to the driver with a satisfied smile while the two of them arranged themselves in the back. Their first vacation together! Wintering in the tropics!

She started from her reverie when they arrived in front of the Ambassador. She paid the cabby and allowed the bellboy to carry her suitcase into the hotel lobby. As she headed towards the hotel entrance, she heard the screeching sounds. Birds. Parrots, she knew. One of the unique features of the Ambassador was the enormous bird house and the indoor tropical garden. How amused they had been by the parrots! Everything was so different then. So very different. Now, the cackling of the birds only seemed like an unbearable noise, and she felt nauseous from the upsurge of memories. Why did she even come here? What was the force that had summoned her?

“Are you nuts?” asked her husband, when she last spoke to him on the phone a few days earlier. “Why are you going back? Instead of starting a new life, you’re living in the past?”

His voice was angry, impassioned. Her husband – more like her ex-husband nowadays – didn’t understand her anymore, even though they used to have such an amazing relationship… before. But Anne knew that there was no longer anything binding them together.

“I have to go back so I can… end this and move on,” she said, and she hoped he didn’t notice her voice choking up. She didn’t want him upset too. “You can’t possibly understand this,” she added.

“No, I can’t. You’re just torturing yourself. Anne, I beg you, please come back to the present!”

“I can’t. Not right now. I have to go there. For months I’ve felt that I can’t take it anymore and that this is the only thing that can help me.”

“Do you want… do you feel like spending New Year’s Eve with me?” he asked after a long silence.

“No. It’s really nice of you, but there’s nothing to celebrate.”

“I didn’t want to celebrate. I just wanted to see you, to be together, and talk… whatever you’d like,” he said softly. Then, after a long, blaring silence, he added, “You know it’s not easy for me either. That I…”

“No!” her voice was tense. “Please don’t continue. Please… I’m going. I’m not doing New Year’s Eve. I’m packing up and flying away.”

“When are you coming back?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Where will you be staying?”

“The same place. The Ambassador. Then… later… I don’t know. Somewhere around there. You know…”

“Anne, instead of letting your wound to heal, you keep ripping open the scab. I honestly don’t understand you.”

“Happy New Year,” she said, and hung up.

She felt nothing more than cold, painful emptiness. But she didn’t cry then. Only when she pulled out her brand new, lightweight suitcase and started packing her clothes did the tears begin to fall.

Yes, she knew how the elevator worked. Yes, she knows which floor it’s on. Yes, she also knows what time breakfast ends and that there is a buffet dinner in the restaurant each evening. Yes, she’s familiar with the bar. She could hardly wait to get away from the receptionist. So she could finally be alone. There was a different story whirling in her head already.

Last time (last time? no, that was a different person living a different life) they had listened with interest to all the pampering options the hotel had to offer. They had barely dropped their luggage before they headed down for a swim. The sun was still shining, and there were only a few others by the pool. Her husband dove in while they waved to him from the deck. Her husband splashed them playfully, and they giggled loudly.

Now, she stood there in the room, ready to face her memories. She put on her bathing suit and headed down to the pool.

“Sir, book your excursions now!”

“Taxi? Sir?”

“Limousine, mister?”

“Cheap tours to the River Kwai!”

“Sir, explore Bangkok with us!”

“Change money, sir?”

Paul exchanged two hundred pounds, and from that moment on he felt dizzy from the commotion. The arrival terminal of the airport seemed to be full of representatives from every single travel agency and taxi enterprise in Thailand. He almost gave in to the coaxing of the first taxi company, but someone took hold of his arm. It was the gray-haired man from the plane, the man who had given him his business card back in Amsterdam.

“Don’t do it,” he growled. “Over there…” he nodded towards the exit.

Paul followed him mutely. As soon as they stepped out of the building, he was overcome with the muggy, incredibly hot – or rather, scorching – air. Paul had never felt anything like it before. A drop of perspiration slid down his forehead and soon other drops followed in close succession. Suddenly, the jeans and T-shirt he was wearing proved to be way too hot. He already had his sweater slung over his arm.

“Haggle until you get to three-hundred bahts!” the man ordered.

“But the driver doesn’t even know where I’m going!” Paul said, bewildered, clearing his throat.

That blasted hoarseness again. The gray-haired man smiled.

“It doesn’t matter, my friend. Three hundred bahts, remember. Unless you’re headed to the River Kwai. And come find me. I’ll show you what’s worth visiting, what’s not in the guide books. Call me beforehand,” he added, extending his hand.

He should have also told Paul how to haggle. Over the course of his forty years of life, Paul had never done it before. He was turned down by quite a few drivers before he got the hang of it; finally, he got the fare down to three-hundred for a trip into the city. He sat in an air-conditioned, red-and-blue, Bangkok taxi; excluding numbers, the driver seemingly understood not a single word of English. Paul sat on the back seat, his suitcase lying on the passenger seat beside the driver, secured with a seat belt.

Why did I come here, wondered Paul, as they inched their way forward through the insane traffic. Several traffic policemen wearing surgical masks blew their whistles constantly, but their efforts were completely futile. This was a paradise for the insolent: only those who pressed on with the required aggression could move forward or change lanes. There were many brand new cars on the road mingled among old, rumbling busses emitting foul-smelling smoke. The motorcyclists held Paul’s attention with their death-defying feats. The “buffet cars” inching along in the outer lane slowed the traffic, and to top it off, the motor-powered, three-wheeled taxis, the tuk-tuks, cut in front of every vehicle. In Paul’s ordered world. The chaos of Bangkok traffic tumbled like an avalanche onto Paul’s ordered world.

BUDAPEST, 1982

“Wolfgang, you have to invite them here! Invite your cousins down to Lake Balaton. I’ll see if Judit’s family can lend us their summer cottage in Földvár. And then we’ll call Kurt to see when the whole family can get together. They’re sure to come then. Kurt has to see Teri! You can show her the pictures of Berlin.”

From her room, Teri overheard her mother talking to her father on their newly installed phone. Her father was in East Berlin at the moment. He worked as a translator and interpreter at an East German screw and bearing factory; he was responsible for maintaining connections with the Hungarian partner. He divided his time between Budapest and Berlin. Despite the fact that his parents – Teri’s grandparents – lived in East Berlin, her father’s true home was by now in Budapest, on the ninth floor of a pre-fab building in the projects of Óbuda district. Teri had her own room, while her parents’ bedroom was arranged in the smaller room; they also had a living room with a view of the Danube. The walls were so thin that Teri didn’t have to make any special effort to clearly hear her mother – by way of her father – organize an East meets West-Berlin family reunion by Lake Balaton.

After her mother hung up, she entered Teri’s room.

“Come and have breakfast.”

“I’m not hungry.

“You have to eat. You need some meat on your bones, some feminine shape. You’re too skinny, too lanky. By the time Kurt and his family arrive, you need to gain a few kilos.”

Teri had spent nearly seven of her twelve years dieting. But during the past few months, after her mother had finally given up on the project of transforming her daughter into a world champion gymnast, the door to jams, ice cream, and cakes had been thrown open. Now, it was obligatory for her to eat. According to her mother, the only way people would learn Teri’s name was if she became more shapely, not by staying as bony and lean as she was now.

She hadn’t gotten her period yet, and her chest was almost completely flat; she became increasingly uptight about the bulge that, according to her mother, would become the “symbol of her femininity.”

She continued to train conscientiously even after her mother no longer required Mrs. Varga’s services. From then on, Teri attended training in the district of Angyalföld. Getting there took longer, so she had less time for sleep and homework. When Angyalföld no longer sufficed, Teri’s mother took her to another coach at another athletics organization located in the Kispest district. This place was truly very far from both home and school, and if her mom wouldn’t have driven her there and back, she would have had to travel nearly an hour and a half, one-way, to get there.

Her final coach, Ildi, allowed the kids to call her by her first name, since she had only recently stopped competing. Ildi didn’t say that Teri had grown too much, even though Teri was more than a head taller than the age group she competed with, but shook her head sadly when she heard Teri’s mother encouraging her daughter in parting:

“You’ll be the best no matter what! You’ll be a champion if you push yourself as hard as you can!”

Her mother’s dreams were shattered by a torn tendon. Teri’s Achilles tendon snapped at one of the junior championships. She was rushed into surgery immediately and had to wear a boot cast for weeks. The surgeon advised that she should quit competitive sports.

But Teri’s mother wasn’t idle for long. She found an advertisement in one of the East German magazines that her father had brought home with him; they were looking for girls aged twelve to fourteen for young people’s fashion shows. Since the audition dates were at the same time as spring break, the whole family traveled to East Berlin. Teri was soon attempting to make her way down the catwalk in the crossfire of spotlights without limping.

Several photographs were taken of her. At the end of the day, the agency told her mother that Teri was very pretty and that she might have a bright future ahead of her in the world of fashion, but at the moment she was still too much like a little girl and quite bony. Her mother should wait until Teri became a bit more feminine.

Thus, Teri’s mother’s hope that she might see her daughter on the cover of magazines was rekindled. Not to mention that those covers might be on foreign magazines like Bunte, not just Hungarian ones. It was a daring dream: an Eastern European girl with a Western European career… But this was the goal that her mother had imagined.

Teri’s only goal was to get Zoli Kiss to leave her alone. His front tooth had still not emerged, and Teri suspected that this was his punishment for bothering her endlessly since first grade. Perhaps the tooth would never sprout, if such a thing was even possible. All she wanted was for him to stop clinging, to stop walking her home after school every day. In all honesty, she thought he was a sweet boy, but she didn’t want her mother to see them.

“Your husband won’t just be an average Joe,” her mother sometimes said. “Make sure you remember that, always. That’s why you shouldn’t get bogged down with boys for now. They only want to use you.”

Zoli Kiss only wanted to carry her books, which, to Teri, wasn’t equal to being used. But she didn’t want her mother to find out about Zoli. She didn’t want to argue.

Sometimes she didn’t understand why her classmates never had so many extracurricular activities. Teri had math, English, and dance classes after school, though she was exempt from dance for a while after her foot was injured. In addition, a young woman had recently begun to instruct her in walking like the models at fashion shows.

Her mother – who had worked in a beauty salon before Teri began school and who now made it her full-time job to drive her daughter to activities – taught Teri how to apply makeup to her eyes and lips. She had picked up these fashion industry techniques from a friend of hers who was a beautician in the same salon where she had been a hairdresser.

Teri was surprised that her friends didn’t practice any sports and didn’t have extra classes, and she was envious that they were able to sleep so much. She had gotten so used to this hectic way of life that it was natural to her.

She was barely five when she began rhythmic gymnastics, and just like her mother, she too believed that all the hard work and training would pay off and that someday she would be awarded the Olympic gold medal.

Mrs. Varga had shaken her resolve when she expressed concern about Teri’s sudden growth spurt, but her mother had reinstated her determination.

In the end, she didn’t mind that she had suffered that ugly injury and that she would never become a world champion. She wanted a carefree life – at least for a little while – like her classmate Enikő, who was astonished that Teri attended competitions every Saturday and Sunday.

“I usually sleep till noon,” Enikő told her. “Sometimes my parents and I go out for a hike, or we visit my cousins and play soccer with them all day.”

Teri didn’t know what this summer had in store for her, but she did know that this would be the first summer since school started when she didn’t have to go to training or extra classes. They had a new car, a Lada, which her father had finally saved up for, while an acquaintance of her mother’s helped speed up the paperwork so they wouldn’t have to wait months before it was delivered. Teri could hardly wait to climb in and head down to Lake Balaton. She didn’t even mind spending her vacation with her father’s German family and friends.

About Eva Fejos

Eva Fejos worked in one of the largest Hungarian women’s magazines, Nők Lapja (Women’s Journal), as a journalist from 2001 until 2012. She was the recipient of both the Award for Quality Journalism and the Award for Excellence. She is tremendously fond of traveling. Her many experiences give a personal touch to her exciting, propelling, and exotic novels.

Fejos's first Hungarian best-seller book, Bangkok transit, reached the top of the best-seller list within one month of its publication.

Following the initial publication of this novel in 2008, she has gone on to write twelve other best-sellers, making her a publishing phenomena in Hungary. According to the many accounts given by her readers, the author's books are "therapeutic journeys," full of flesh and blood characters who never give up on their dreams. Many readers have been inspired to change the course of their own lives after reading her books. "Take your life into your own hands" is one of the important messages the author wishes to convey.