The Grey Man (11 page)

‘Cheers.' I raised the glass to my mouth and reluctantly threw it back. Mekong is truly terrible stuff and it burned all the way down. The cop refilled the glass. It was one in the morning now and I soon realised I'd get little sense out of him. I was just about to say my goodbyes when a girl emerged from the darkness of the bar and sat down on the bench with the others.

She had the dead eyes – either bored or jaded or both – of the experienced working girl, but she couldn't have been more than thirteen. Despite the lifelessness of her stare, she was still physically pretty. She should have been at home in bed, getting her rest before a day at school, instead of sitting with a bunch of other sex workers in the small hours of the morning.

I couldn't leave now. I chatted with the drunken cop as much as possible, but missed most of what he was saying. I would laugh when he laughed and clap him on the back to maintain a sense of camaraderie, but I kept my eyes on the young girl. Another glass of Mekong might have killed me, so I beckoned to the girl I suspected of being underage and asked if she could organise me a soft drink.

Watching her walk inside, I saw they kept the drinks in a large icebox to the left of the door, rather than a refrigerator, which added to my impression that this was a shoestring, fly-by-night place that could disappear easily if it had to. When the girl brought the soft drink, I asked her name.

‘Mya.' Unsurprisingly, given the poverty across the border, Mya was Burmese and the only words of Thai or English she spoke were her price: 600 baht an hour, or about A$24.

I made a decision and called the mamasan over. ‘I want to take this girl to my hotel – tomorrow night. Okay?' I asked this question to make sure there was no problem with her leaving the premises. Sometimes young girls, such as Kem, the earlier rescue, were kept as prisoners in their rooms or in the confines of a brothel.

‘Yes, okay,' the mamasan said, to my surprise. ‘But now 900 baht.' I agreed to the increased price, relieved that I could so easily get the girl away from the place. It was too late to do anything that night, though, so I texted the boatman and told him I wouldn't need his services this evening. I stood up and said goodnight to my new friend, the policeman, but he was hammered by now and just waved me away. I'd been nursing my Mekong while he'd kept downing glass after glass, and he looked like he was about to pass out.

I went back to my car, drove to the hotel and climbed the steps to my fourth-floor room. As I passed the room next door I heard a faint
thump, thump, thump
, and adults' and children's voices. It sounded like a bored kid bouncing a ball against a wall with the consent of over-indulgent parents. I felt wrecked. Climbing into bed, I could hear the thumping even louder through the adjoining wall. I was in no mood for it, having just spent a few hours in scumbag heaven, drinking rotgut whisky. I picked up the bedside phone and rang the room number next door. They answered. ‘Stop it,' I yelled into the handset, then hung up. The noise stopped. I smiled and went to sleep.

I woke at ten and went down the street for breakfast, feeling a bit worse for wear. I stopped at a local café and had a Thai omelette and a latte. The Thais have good, home-grown coffee.

A month earlier a friend and I had gone out to a Vietnamese restaurant in Chiang Mai with a group of students. One was from Nepal, one from Laos and another was from an agricultural college in Burma. My friend explained to them over dinner what I was doing in Thailand, and they all offered help if I needed it and gave me their contact details. Now, over breakfast, I searched for the Burmese student's number in my mobile phone and called him, asking if he was prepared to deliver on the promise he'd made over dinner. He said he was. Next I called the boatman and told him that I would need him tonight or maybe tomorrow night, and I would pay him an extra 200 baht to keep him on standby. He agreed and I hung up.

I went to a local internet café to email Emma. While I was there I got talking to an American guy. The conversation drifted to women, as it often did when I was talking to expats.

‘Man, it's hard to guess the age of the bar girls here,' I said to him casually. ‘They all look so young . . .'

The American nodded his head, and told me I'd be able to find plenty of sixteen-year-olds in Mae Sai, but added that there were places in Burma where one could get thirteen-year-olds. He must have figured I was a fellow traveller with a liking for young girls, as he didn't hold back. We were the only ones in the internet café at the time and we weren't talking in hushed tones. It was bizarre – like we were discussing the best place to buy local handicrafts. He offered to show me around the best places in Burma for young girls and I told him I might see him again, but added I had no intention of going into Burma for girls as the place was not my preferred country for gaol time.

I had several hours to fill before meeting Mya that night, so I called a guy I'd met previously who was a gem dealer and who had seemed like a really nice guy. He had mentioned that he'd donated a water purifier to a local hill tribe school and offered to take me there. We met at a café and went in my car to the village, which was in the rugged country south-west of Mae Sai.

The school we visited was one of the King of Thailand's local benevolent projects and it reaffirmed to me what a great job the monarch was doing. On the day we arrived all the kids were getting free haircuts, donated by a local barber. There were certainly some good Thai people out there. I had become more and more cynical the longer I stayed in Thailand, confronted as I was by the depravity of paedophiles and traffickers, but every now and then I'd find myself pleasantly surprised by human generosity.

We met with the kids, talked to the teachers and spent an enjoyable hour at the school before heading back to Mae Sai. I spent the afternoon walking around the markets to kill some more time and was surprised at the quality of the replica weapons for sale. They looked like the real thing, some with metal parts and intricate attention to detail. There was a veritable armoury of weapons available, from pistols to M16 and AK-47 assault rifles. Some even fired their BB pellets on automatic. I later discovered from a police friend that the replicas were illegal but the police just overlooked the law, in the same way some turned a blind eye to child prostitution and trafficking.

I ate a quick dinner at a Chinese restaurant on the outskirts of town then went back to the hotel. I was feeling keyed up, but I needed to ensure I was well rested, so I put my phone on charge and lay down on the bed, falling asleep without much difficulty. I woke at 10 pm, and drove straight to the brothel, parking about 200 metres from it. Sitting in the car, I rang my Burmese student acquaintance in Chiang Mai to check he was awake and on call. He confirmed that he was good to go.

Tonight there were only two male customers seated at one of the cheap plastic tables outside the dingy bar and, thankfully, Mya was again sitting on the bench near the door. Not wasting time with pleasantries, I called the mamasan over and paid her the 900 baht she'd asked for. She spoke to Mya in what I assumed was Burmese and the girl nodded. Wanting to show I meant business, I put a hand on Mya's shoulder and steered her down the street towards my car. Mya didn't flinch. She simply walked in the direction I pointed, like she was on autopilot.

As I've mentioned, the girls I rescued rarely showed any emotion. Around the world, women are oppressed to varying degrees. In Thailand their acceptance of their fate and low status usually begins at an early age with the cultural programming that children have a duty to support their parents, whatever it takes. In the absence of social security and pensions, some would argue that this is necessary for the parents' survival. However, the traditional way of life also makes it easy for traffickers, in much the same way that it does in parts of Eastern Europe and the Middle East where trafficking is also prevalent. I often found that, at best, women in Thailand were treated as second-class citizens; at worst they were viewed as a necessary filth. As one Thai proverb says, ‘to have a daughter is like having a toilet in your front yard'. Theravada Buddhism holds sway in Thailand and Burma; in that belief system, being born female or being forced into slavery are viewed as obvious evidence of past misdeeds. Girls are taught that they must accept and endure their fate in order to accrue positive karma with the hope of a happier incarnation in the future. Since only monks can attain Nirvana (enlightenment), the best a woman can do in this life is to build up enough good karma to be reborn as a man. That way they, too, can become monks and climb the ladder towards liberation from all suffering. People traffickers in Asia must give thanks to Buddhism daily, although I doubt it was ever the Buddha's intent to oppress women. I could never figure out whether hill-tribe religions contributed to the problem or not.

So whether it was through some indoctrinated duty to her parents, or as a means of building up good karma, or both, Mya came willingly with me back to the car. We got in and I drove up the road and turned into the main street, pulling over near a convenience store. Mya didn't bat an eyelid. I took out my phone and called the Burmese student, then handed the phone to her.

Mya took it and listened, then seemed to visibly brighten at the sound of someone speaking the language of her homeland. A look of bewilderment, perhaps disbelief, crossed her face. Every now and then she said something to the student, no doubt asking him questions and probably trying to confirm that he was genuine. Occasionally her eyes darted to me.

I settled into the car seat and let them talk. After about fifteen minutes she looked at me and handed back the phone.

‘She will go, now,' the Burmese student said to me.

That surprised me. I had expected that I would have to see Mya a few times to build up her trust and to try to explain what I was offering her. Even if she did agree to escape the brothel I thought she would want money, or ask to go back to her room for her possessions, but that was not the case. As I would learn, no two rescues were ever the same. It reminded me of a Thai slogan I'd seen on plenty of T-shirts: ‘Same same but different'. I asked the student to tell me Mya's story, but he said she had not wanted to divulge too much about herself. He did say, however, that she wanted to go home.

Still, I wanted to make doubly sure that Mya was ready, willing and able to go home. ‘Ask her if she wants to stay as a
sawpennee,'
I said;
sawpennee
is Thai for sex worker. I handed Mya the phone again and the student relayed the question.

She looked at me. ‘No!' she said in English, and for the first time I read real emotion and sadness in her face, as though she was now almost pleading with me.

I took the phone back. ‘That's good enough for me.' I had a few more questions and with the student's patient help I discovered Mya had no ID or passport, and that while she was keen to go home, her village was ‘far' from the border. However, he said Mya knew someone she could stay with on the other side of the border before starting the journey north to her village.

Mya's lack of travel documents meant a legal crossing over the bridge was out of the question, so I thanked the student for his help and called the boatman. It was 11.15 pm and I told him I would come to him at midnight. I wanted to make it sooner, around 11.45 pm, but I was lousy at explaining times in Thai, so I settled for midnight to avoid confusion.

I gestured with my hand for Mya to stay in the car and went into the convenience store, where I bought some savoury buns, chocolates, water and chips. I had the cashier put them in a brown paper bag, as a white plastic one would stand out if we had to move covertly in the darkness later on.

We had an uncomfortable wait until our meeting with the boatman. I tried to explain that we were waiting for midnight and I attempted some small talk, but it was difficult and Mya was pretty unresponsive. I couldn't blame her. I had no idea what she had been through and her mind must have been in turmoil as she contemplated the offer of escape, agreed to it, and now found herself waiting in a car with a stranger. Deciding to just shut up, I took out a savoury bun and gave one to her as well. We ate in silence.

I thought of my own daughter, back home, and how fortunate we are in the west. Truly, to be born in Australia is to be born lucky. Even if you are on unemployment benefits in Australia you are in the top 10 per cent of income earners in the world. Sure, we have our problems, but our system generally works and creates less suffering than the majority of the world's inhabitants endure. When I studied anthropology my lecturers had tried to instil in me the concept of cultural relativism – the idea that no culture was better than another, and that they all had their worth. By the time I started my degree, though, I'd already had enough life experience to ensure that that idea didn't take with me. I have since developed my own version of cultural relativism – my theory is that all cultures are relatively stupid, including my own. Granted, my own country has done pretty well in delivering equality and minimising oppression, but much of the world has a long way to go, especially when it comes to trafficking.

The night was cool so I gave Mya my jacket and she shrugged her way into it while continuing to eat her bun. I also handed her the paper bag with the remaining snacks. Finally, I reached into my pocket and took out the equivalent of three hundred Australian dollars in Thai baht. A flicker of surprise lit her eyes as she looked at the wad of cash, then placed it in the pocket of the jacket, settling back in her seat.

I checked my watch for the umpteenth time, and saw it was 11.50 pm. I started the car and headed for the riverside rendezvous. I drove past the gateway to the vacant block and carried on further up the street, parking in the shadows. I rang the boatman, who told me he was sitting in the shed where I'd first seen the crossing guards. We walked to the empty plot and I pointed out the shed to Mya. I peeled off some extra money and pointed to the shed again, indicating this was for the man inside. I didn't want her flashing the bigger wad of cash in front of him.