Harry Nicolaides' Weekly Column

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The unholy trinity of Phuket

What do an American Senator, Nazi war criminal and a magician have in common? Phuket, of course. They have all been swept to the shores of this jewelled isle by the dark undercurrents of their intriguing lives. Here at four degrees north of the equator these men find redemption, absolution and the senator, Vodka Absolute. At first I thought the good senator was busily acclimatising, replacing vital body fluids to stave off dehydration. When he would get into my jeep with a full litre bottle of Singha beer I was oblivious to the fact that this was the 7th bottle in a drinking binge that started a few hours earlier. Our baroque conversation bellied in him a classical Ivy League education and a fine vaulting intellect. However, it was the quip about the human race being a plague on the earth and that only through a systematic program of racial purification would we survive as a species that made me realise he was not on a mercy mission in the Third World.

After a traditional Thai meal in the shifting angular shadows of the lights playing on the tarpaulins of the makeshift streetside restaurants we had a few more drinks. The icecubes in my glass prompted a conversation about Archimedes and his observation that a body immersed in fluid is subject to an upward force equal to the weight of the liquid it displaces. Well, I later discovered the good senator’s own political career had undergone some displacement. A powerful conservative senator who is being groomed for the oval office is repeatedly caught and convicted for drunk driving and beating his girlfriend – the newspaper report was scathing! White racists and militia members rallied at his demagogic speeches against minorities and welfare recipients but could not save him from the public trial the newspapers gave him. In a candid moment of levity with me he said the only housework he ever did was cunnilingus. Halved during his first divorce and quartered at the second divorce he is now a confirmed bachelor. Profligate and vainglorious he is living the life of a libertine to excess.

He was to his credit, responsible for pushing through the senate a highly controversial bill to introduce and maintain a public database of previously convicted sex offenders. This would allow the residents of a neighbourhood that a convicted sex offender was relocating into to be aware of his background. When I met him he was still doing research on the subject of sado-masochism and third world exploitation of go-go dancers. What I thought was a frivolous bum slap with a leather cat-o-nine tails whip was in fact an empirical observation – slap a girl on the buttocks while she erotically writhes up and down a stage pole and you get her to smile seductively. A form of Archimedes’ displacement theory I suppose – the harder you slap the more she smiles! The senator has since returned to the hustings in the states and has his eyes set on the White House. As it stands he has an impeccable background – Ivy League education, connections with big business, the support of white supremacists groups and a sex scandal involving a ladyboy at the Royal Paradise in Patong who sings the Star-Spangled Banner when he/she climaxes.

Phuket has a highly transient citizenship. The legions of wayfarers, vagabonds, itinerants litter the roads like windswept potpourri. Occasionally you meet an interesting beggar who has a fantastic tale only to discover it is a Billy Wilder screenplay. Well, at least he was a cultured beggar. A story told under the spell of a smuggler’s moon can be compelling. Like the one I heard about the language teacher who was a high ranking Nazi officer and confidante to Adolf Hitler’s personal radiologist. At 75 he is old enough to have been around during the Third Reich and he has an imperious gait resonant of high rank. His knowledge of 20th century political history is authoritative while his command of German, Greek, Italian, Thai, French, English, Russian, Polish, Egyptian and Swiss is impeccable. I was privy to a meeting he thought was private and observed him perform the customary Nazi military salute when he greeted a German friend. At first I thought it was moment of historical parody but then observed both men deliver the same Nazi salute to each other with triumphant, choreographed precision at their farewell.

A doppelganger of Gregory Peck in the role of a Nazi war criminal in the classic film ‘The Boys from Brazil’ the language teacher is tall, stately and walks with the imperial majesty of a young Caesar. His hair is jet black while his pot-marked, wrinkled skin sags with sin. His large forlorn eyes are cesspools. I have gazed into them to see the truth as terrifying as it might be. Only fragments of history appear like the flotsam swirling around the sinking hulk of a large ship. Dark, swirling eyes. Mesmerising. I have often thought about informing the many international bodies devoted to finding and bringing to justice the fugitive Nazi war criminals that are still around. The Third World is a safe and remote location to find sanctuary and anonymity. Evidently, we cannot hide from ourselves.

Curiously by some quirk of fate he is still peddling lies, manipulating the truth, contriving elaborate parallel lives and creating misery. He is an architect of evil, a malevolent force that has not been wearied with age nor dissipated with time. Evil is indivisible and inviolate. Evil is absolute. What does he do now? He writes letters for Patong bargirls embroidering a rich tapestry of lies and half-truths to beguile male Caucasian tourists out of their money. He is an expert at manipulating the feelings and sensibilities of white, middle class men. He has deep penetrating insights into the male psyche and recognises the desire in most men to rescue women from such a nefarious industry. He elicits sympathy, compassion and moral indignation. He creates a feeling of Noblesse Oblige that drives men to rescue young Thai women from third world debt and the politics of exploitation. With a deft turn of phrase he arouses patriarchal responsibility in men who have seen several tours of duty as seasoned sex tourists in Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia and Cambodia. His catalogue of lies is monumental. His stratagems of deceit are well tested. He is a master of persuasion and psychology. His intellectual descendants were all exemplars in their fields. He is now one of the last proponents of their legacy of evil.

The plots of these letters are prosaic. Usually someone in the girl’s family has had an accident or experienced an illness. Their indisposition has crippled the family’s financial health as they were a major source of income or their illness is a significant financial burden. Money is requested. Urgently! Alternatively, livestock illness and death or crop failure create an immediate and pressing need for financial relief. Sometimes an uncle was rescuing a stranded cat in a tree and inadvertently puts his head into a bee’s hive. The results are, well, more money is requested of course! And there is the request for money to facilitate a visa and passport application for the journey to the native country of the besmitten tourist. All of these work quite well without inducing fear or threat or the need for the application of more crude stratagems like blackmail and extortion. Vicarious responsibility is not a defence he can invoke for his literary skulduggery but equally we are far from Siberia. He acts with impunity because he can. That is, until a savvy tourist comes to see the sick buffalo with his own eyes, interrogates the girl and goes looking for Fritz. You can’t run very fast doing the goose step.

If he was a magician he would simply disappear. Vanish. Extemporaneously deconstruct into imperceptible particles. Well, at least that what King Robert the magician would do. After all what is life but a dance of sub-atomic atoms leading to annihilation. Illusionist, hypnotist, escape artist and prophet, King Robert is a whimsical waif who charms and chants audiences from Kata to Patong. If he had a halo over his head he would tip it like a bowler hat and bow with dramatic Shakespearian affect. A plumed handkerchief billows from his pocket while a silken scarf frames his rakish countenance with majesty and mirth. A sleight of hand and your keys are gone only to materialise again at the will of King Robert. When I met him recently he was auditioning for a stage assistant in Soi Easy. These girls are illusionists in their own right – they have the power of suggestion making you think that they are loyal only to you, they can make enormous amounts of hard currency vanish without trace, they can be in several places at the same time and lie about it convincingly and they can pull a rabbit out of their……. Lap. And with a little manipulation they can also make body parts disappear.

Harry Nicolaides

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