‘The five volunteers who have been kidnapped?’ the monk asked, as he bent over the sticks to examine them. ‘It was I who taught them about the writings of Lord Buddha, here at the temple. I spent two days with them. They were willing students.’ He looked up and smiled. ‘I learned a lot from them also. I pray for them every day.’

Mann walked over to the monk and sat on the mat beneath the bench. It was customary to keep your head below that of the monk’s out of respect. The old monk was looking at the sticks, lifting them each individually.

‘Did anything happen here that could explain why they were taken from the refugee camp?’ asked Mann.

‘Even before they came here, their fate was decided. Where there is cause there is effect. It is the Buddhist belief. Some bad deeds have been done in the past. Now these young people must pay.’

‘What do you mean?’

The monk opened his palm and showed Mann the sticks. ‘I read it in their fortune. I saw it in their fortune sticks. Bad deeds were done, not in their life but in another’s. Those deeds have come back to be paid now.’

‘What were the deeds?’

He shook his head slowly, deliberately. ‘I know only that they are joined on a path that has no end and it was not of their construction. I knew you were coming, the sticks spoke of it. And now I see them again.’ He looked at the sticks and nodded his head as if he had seen something crystal clear. ‘I see that your death is joined to theirs.’ He looked at Mann and his eyes seemed to stare into Mann’s soul. ‘Where is your faith?’

‘I lost it a long time ago. I trust no man or god. I believe in people and their power to do good if they choose. There is no heaven and no hell, only the mark we choose to leave on others.’

‘Neither fire, nor wind, birth or death can erase our good deeds.’

‘What about bad ones?’

‘Do not dwell on the past; do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment. Where the circle begins, so shall it end in the place where all life and death is represented. In the place where men buy and sell each other’s souls. I see you standing in the centre of your circle, surrounded by Death. I see you surrounded by the five young people. If they die, so will you.’

31

‘Johnny Mann?’

Mann turned at the sound of a New York accent and saw a tall, curly-haired man entering the temple. He was wearing a faded sarong around his lower half and a bleached-out cotton shirt on the top. He greeted the monk with a low bow.

‘Louis?’ The man came over to shake Mann’s hand.

Louis had a strong handshake and the frame of a man once large and muscled, now devoid of all fat. But still the outline of the strength could be seen under his summer clothes. Mann looked at his arms. Where his sleeves were rolled up there were the faded scars of blue tattoos that had been removed.

‘I thought you might get here early so I’ve been looking out for you.’ His hair was a frizzy mass of curls that moved as if on springs as he talked. His blue-grey eyes, rimmed with dark blond lashes, held Mann’s gaze. His face was tanned and handsome, but weathered.

‘Please follow me.’

Louis seemed anxious to leave the temple. But Thailand was not a country that encouraged haste of any kind. It was too hot to hurry, and Buddha’s teachings did not allow for impatience.

When Mann stopped to bow his head towards the altar and pay his respects to the old monk, the monk raised his eyes from his notebook and held up his palms towards Mann, as if to communicate a message via his hands.

‘When you lose your way, go back to the beginning. Go to where all men are equal and there is no one religion. The circle is not yet complete. You can break it. But you must hurry; you are very near to death. You will be faced with a mirror and you will not know yourself in it.’

Then he picked up his notebook and continued with his writing.

Mann followed Louis out of the temple. An orangerobed monk was sweeping up outside the temple as they left. In the shade of the golden obelisk a dog lay panting on its side. Louis walked purposefully as he strode in front of Mann and they crossed the open courtyard and passed the two smaller temples. A tan-coloured feral dog roamed hungrily. All the dogs had the same look about them here, Mann thought, like short-haired, short-legged dingos.

Louis gestured back towards the temple and the monk.

‘Crazy, huh? It’s a crazy world. Are you a Buddhist?’

‘I’ve had a taster of most religions. I tend to take the bits I like and leave the rest. I haven’t found one that offered me the whole package yet.’

‘I converted to Buddhism but I don’t go for the fortune-telling side of it. I try and live by the code of respect for others.’

They walked back towards the rear of the courtyard, past the sweeping monk and two young monks who were playing tag amongst a washing line full of sheets. They reached the Enlightenment Centre’s doorway at the far end of the courtyard. Just outside the doorway a small altar sat, at eye level, and a sumo-sized Buddha smiled out from a garland of pink plastic flowers.

‘Buddhism is the main religion here?’

‘Not amongst the hill tribes. They are mainly animists. They make noises about being Christians or Buddhists but they sprinkle it with a liberal dose of their animist beliefs.’

‘Animists believe in what—nature?’

‘Yes. Everything has a spirit: the river, the mountain, men, and animals. All spirits must be appeased. It is a religion based on fear. They make blood sacrifices, go in for taboos, charms, that kind of thing. The dead worry them more than the living.’

Louis stopped at the entrance and was about to step back to allow Mann to enter first when he held up his arm to stop him.

‘Like this mirror here…’ In the entrance to the centre was a circular mirror. ‘It has been left by an animist who is worried about the dead returning to this place. It is supposed to shock the spirit when it sees its own reflection and make him go away.’

‘Was it left here because someone thinks the five volunteers are dead?’

Louis snatched the mirror away from the door.

‘Maybe.’ They entered the cool shade and musty darkness.

‘Do you know why they were taken?’

‘Wrong place, wrong time. That’s the only explanation.’

‘The old monk seemed to think someone else caused the trouble.’ Mann followed Louis into a gloomy corridor with that unmistakable smell of the tropics and no aircon—a mildly fizzing, sweetly unpleasant smell of things rotting in the heat.

‘He would say that. It’s what all Buddhism is founded on—cause and effect.’ Louis stopped in his tracks and looked across at Mann. ‘What are you getting at?’

‘You met them here that first day?’

‘Yes, I did.’

‘It was your job to look after them for their first week, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes. It was my job to shepherd them to the various people and places needed. That was all. My role was to give them an understanding of what the situation is with the hill tribes and their refugee status. I briefed them on what their specific job here would be at the camps—they were going to be helping to build a school. On a practical level, they needed to learn how to use the materials and what skills were involved in the actual building.’

‘Where did you go to teach them that?’

‘I took them up into the hills north of here. There is a centre for the tribes up there. We stayed there for three nights and they learned how to thatch, learned how to build. We had some fun. We trekked through the jungle and stayed with a remote tribe. They saw the problems, met the people, that kind of thing. The rest of the time they were here, they met monks and social workers and other non-government organisations—NGOs. I’ll show you their classroom.’