Chapter Text
"The victory of politics and money is written on the graves of the young."
Naran placed the final period on his work, at last, after six years of insomnia and ashtrays buried under cigarettes butts.
His eyes rested on the red rays of sunlight peeking out behind the brick buildings.
He had always found New York so quiet at dawn.
The writer was exausted but finally, everything was finished.
-Victor...
His voice, broken by his sleepless night, whispered his name in the echo of his living-room.
The room finally warmed up by the new day awakened, he was able to loosen his muscles and his joints without difficulties.
The journalist arised to stretch, his eyes still fixed on the awakening city.
Victor would have loved the view.
He suddently remembered a conversation they had a long time ago about the color of the sky.
Him who had never left Bangkok, and who dreamed of seeing the dawn on the other side of the world, to witness the infinity shades of pink and orange that could paint the horizon and compare them to the colors of the sky back home.
He would have wake up everyday to see the sunrise tirelessly, his eyes simply drown to this magnificent spectacle.
His palm against the cold window, Naran finally pulled the handle to air out the room and clear away the abundant smell of stale tobacco smoke that filled the living room.
He then turned on his record player and let the blues and the city noises wake him up.
Victor would have loved New York.
He would have felt like home surrounded by intellectuals and youth fueled by the city's vibrancy.
The day before his end, the student had told him his heaviest secret.
He had confessed to him the night before the riot and told him about his dreams, his projects and Trim, his university teacher who broke his heart.
So young, and already a witness to so much violence, Naran had said to himself that day.
His mentor had listened, Victore cheek's on his shoulder, a cigarette between his fingers.
He had spoken to him with an open heart and the journalist had not dared to interrupt, by fear he might clam up for good.
Naran usually found him so charismatic when he spoke in public that seeing him here, so frail by his side, had left the journalist completely speechless.
Victor had dared to show him a side of himself so fragile and vulnerable that Naran had had no choice but to simply let him speak withtout interrupting, until the dawn of that fateful day.
He remembered the rain during the sunrise.
The two compagnions had thus watched the dew fall in the garden in a pleasant silence, broken only by the sound of the rain and the occasional passerby.
He had ventured to pay his regards on his grave only once before his departure to the States.
In front of the white tombstone, his eyes fixed on his smiling picture, he when quiet. No word could come out of his mouth.
What could he have said ?
That they won ?
That Pratcha was finally behind bars ?
That Trin went back to Paris ?
He hadn't even been able to talk to him about Krailert.
Victor never knew Naran was like him.
Bitten by the same evil who tirelessly gnawed the journalist's empty heart.
Krailert.
Where was he now ?
Still in Bangkok, surrounded by his wife and kids, surely.
Six years.
Six years had passed since their last goodbyes.
Sarasawadee and Klai Rung had been separated at the very moment their love was about to become immortal.
Naran had written his last words in a letter without any response.
His plane had taken off the next day, and he had landed in New York with an heavy stomach, certain to have left behind the other half of his heart.
The journalist remembered that Aristophanes wrote that all soulmates had been separated in ancient times, deprived of the happiness of sharing the same body and heart.
The purpose of being human was to find their other half, drowned between desires and frivolous passions.
Naran found his and he had been torn apart from him.
The record was still playing and its echo resounded in the living as he filled up his cup one more time.
He had a long day ahead of him, and the idea of a good nap, however tempting, did not even cross his mind.
He needed to work to forget.
The Village Voice had hired him during the year 1970, a few month after his arrival, for the publishing of his lastest book : Enigma and Power : the truth behind Huai Kam Saeng.
He remembered again his entrance in the chief editor's office, his briefcase crushed between his sweaty hands, his tongue slowly becoming pasty because of the stress.
A work of art, as he said, a journalism gem.
They hired him on the spot, not even bothered by the fact that the young thai man couldn't even speak english or that he just landed in New York a few months prior.
The man in commands then ordered a translation of his book, about the riots happening in Thailand, the violence the youth were subjected to and what he witnessed.
Did he mention Victor ?
Obviously.
He was the hero in his fresh from this morning manuscript , the central figure of his writing. Naran was merely the narrator, the chronicler of his exploits.
Did he mention Krailert ?
Any good sense were leaving him the moment he tried to type his name on the typewriter.
He had certainly tried to turn the page, but his face would come to his mind whenever he tried to approached someone to flirt.
His eyes, which told a sad melody and seemed to read right through him. His skin which the simple touch used to burn his. His hands, perfectly connected to his. His arms wrapped around his waist and his breath in the back of his neck.
He remembered everything.
The first few months were synonymous with hell. He was in another country who sounded nothing like his, and where he was completely alone.
Ivan and Num were visiting him sometimes but Naran always felt like they, too, had an heavy heart.
They missed Victor.
He wasn't there to celebrate their victory, his father's first publishing, Nuch's adoption, the next spring...
Naran turned the record on the other side and went into his bedroom to put on a shirt that wasn't totally musty or smelling like tobacco and in the middle of his buttoning, he caught sight, by the window, of a cuddling couple on the side walk.
Hand in hand, nothing seemed to stop their love from existing.
He began to think about the reason why he came here six years ago. To run away with Krailert and start over.
The author saw them again, dreaming of the american dream, entwined on his shabby couch, in the middle of the construction site that served as his office.
Skin against skin, he recalled his closed eyes, illuminated by the moonlight and his cheek pressed against his bare chest.
That night, he had whispered his love in his ear, after a foray into the movie theaters still open past midnight and the silent streets of Bangkok.
No riot that night to trouble their peacefulness ; Naran wasn't a journalist and Krailert a military.
They simply looked like two lovers, like the ones down below his window, unstoppable.
The only thought of their nightly adventures and their night of passion tightened Naran's throat.
No matter how hard he tried to forget him, everything reminded him of his absence.
An innocent piano melody stirred memories of a familiar music, images of agile fingers traversing the keys of a dusty instrument and of a library that, today, seemed more like a dream than a distant memory.
Naran had heared his song on the radio when he finally succeeded to pick up thai radio waves in his shabby apartment in Greenwich.
Shivering with regrets, He recognised the last goodbye of Klai Rung in the notes and the lyrics who composed it.
More than once, he had hesistated to catch the first plane to come back and to beg him to run away again, but he resisted every time by thinking of the family of his former lover.
She didn't deserve to suffer and to see him leave her for someone else. Not like Dao went trough so long ago.
He therefore preffered to hole up in his apartement to write, in the hope to find inspiration in the accumulating cups of coffee and cigarettes.
His writings related to Krailert were read by no one but himself, locked away in a drawer like a source of shame, a past one hopes to erase.
But he wasn't writing about his past lover to forget him, on the contrary, Naran wanted to keep his memory clear, like they were never separated and once the night came, he still hoped to see Krailert knock at the door to kiss him after a hard day.
After a quick glance in the bathroom mirror, he noticed how much he had let himself go over the last few days, and as he trimmed his mustache, he found himself looking old.
These six years in the dark, far away from the sun of Thailand and fresh air, had veiled his eyes and his smile with an almost agonizing weariness and melancholic sadness.
Despite the hours of intense reflexions that would often consume him, he could never recall a memory of profound joy from less than six months ago.
He had not forgotten the warmth of Krailert's lips, yet he seemed to have forgotten how to smile.
It had snowed overnight, so Naran grabbed a coat and his briefcase, containing his freshly completed manuscript, before heading out into the streets already teeming with men in suits and children on their way to school.
The Village Voice offices were a few dozen minutes away from his home by bus, so he used this time to watch the shops opening and life resuming its rhythm in a city that, despite his seasonal depression, finally felt somewhat familiar.
His sixth winter here would mark a new beginning, and an awakening of conciousness - a promise he had made to himself while blowing out his birthday candle months earlier, alone in a living room lit only by its flame.
The bustling streets gave hime yet another reason to let his gaze wander and to clear his mind of the useless overnight accumulated thoughts.
As soon as he stepped into the vast lobby of the press offices, Naran was instantly soothed by the pervasive scent of cigarettes and hot coffee.
The building was in effervescence ; the journalists, writers and other literary were running everywhere, holding piles of documents and burning cups of coffee.
The new paper was supposed to be published in two days and it was no time for idleness.
The door of the chief editor's office opened before he even thought of knocking and the familiar pot-bellied old man geeted him with a hearty slap on the shoulder.
"- Naran ! I tried to call you but You must have been already on the road. What brings you here ? A manuscript I hope ?" he joked, inviting him to sit in the armchair at the opposite of his desk. The journalist immediately lit a cigarette after taking the work out of his briefcase.
- " I finished it this morning, the ink is still fresh"
After glancing briefly at the manuscript, the chief editor set it down on his desk and leaned back against the edge of it, a cigar clamped between his teeth.
He looked the man up and down and let a silence hang in the air before speaking again to his quiet employee.
-" You know Naran, I think it's time I offered you a column in the weekly. I heard about the one you used to write in your old paper - A music review column right ? I called your former boss at the Siam Daily Mail yesterday and he told me that column quickly became an epistolary romance. I tought it was innovating, it's fresh, and it keeps the readers on their toes. So I'll keep it brief : Are you up for doing it again ? "
This offer brought him back six years prior.
After having already bid farewell to Klai Rung and Sarasawadee, he was now being asked to write again under his old pen name.
And no one at the newspaper where he worked had ever known who was hiding behind those famouse names.
Those columns had been written by two people, and Naran did not feel up to recounting - on his own - the love story he and Krailert had once lived out in those weekly pieces.
What more could he possibly say, all by himself ?
"-Let me think Carl"
"-I'm giving you a month - no more- after that, the job goes to someone else. I want to start 1976 with some good news, so don't let me down, Naran ; you know I can't stand people who are late. But since you brought you manuscript in early, I'm going to be generous. Go see Catherine outside ; she'll cut you a you a check with a bonus included. It's Chritsmas after all, so take the opportunity to go home. "
He hadn't been back in six years.
Nothing was waiting for him in Bangkok.
Except for Krailert.
His heart tightened to the possibility of seeing him again, and he felt instantly his rib cage closing itself around his organs.
He had held out for six years, partly due to a lack of money but now, that check strucked him as a sign from the universe.
After collecting his hard earned money, he headed as usual, for the subway toward Greenwich again but this time, his purpose wasn't to climb back to his apartment. He went directly to the bar that brought a ray of sunshine to his rainy days.
_______________________________________________________________
Stonewall Inn went through events similar to the riots he had taken part in over the last few years.
Queers finally fought autorities for their rights, at the same time as the student Naran accompagnied six years ago.
He had heard about the place when at his arrival, and the usuals began his brothers and sisters, compagnions, night saviors and loyal friends.
As he entered the bar, Berny, a man in his fifties with an inscrutable air, greeted him and invited him to sit on a high stool at the counter.
-"Naran ! Coffee ?"
The cup was already waiting for him, fuming on the bar in front of the chair he was sitting on everyday for six years.
The thai man put down his case and took off his coat to be more comfortable.
The bar was almost empty, except for a few young people playing pool in a corner and a woman with long black hair sipping the last of a soda.
Fantine, that was her name, was the first friend Naran made when he arrived in New York City.
She had grabbed his arm in the middle of the street, on a night where Naran was home sick, and had dragged him into the same bar to indrotuce him to New York's entire queer community in a single night.
Her piercings and tattoos might have been intimidating at first glance but he quickly realized, the moment she spoke to him, that the young woman possessed a sensitivity and vulnerability he had previously seen only in Victor.
She was reminding him of his former friend in a way.
Fearless and proud of the simple fact of being alive.
Although still tipsy from her wild night, his friend slipped from stool to stool until she reached him, to tenderly kiss his cheek.
-"I missed you last night, where were you
- He was finishing his book, Fantine. He's working, you know" Berny retorted, wiping a glass with a sarcastic smile.
He knew just how to needle the young woman about her weak spots, yet she refused to back down.
-"I'm working actually, I found a job.
-I wonder where. Down some back alley ?"
Watching them bicker, Naran began to smile. He had already grown accustomed to this environment and this incredibly warm community.
Was he ready to live it all behind and go home, in the hope of seeing him again ?
-"I got a bonus, he declared" his voice almost trembling. "The chief director adviced me to go home for New Year."
-"Are you ready ? To potentially run into him, I mean. " Asked Fantine while turning her head towards him.
He had told her everything the night he arrived, desinhibited by liquor and homesickness.
With his poor vocabulary and his numerous grammar mistakes, he tried to describe their story the best he could, their passion and their breakup that broke him so much he had to flew at the other side of the world.
She knew he was missing him so her question was therefore purely a matter of concern.
Naran sighted while lighting a cigarette to clear his thoughts.
He didn't know what to respond.
Was he afraid of running into him ? Yes.
Would it stir up painful memories ? Certainly.
But he was ready to built a raft and brave the oceans to return to him.
-"I don't know. Maybe ? Maybe I want to run into him...
-Naran you're hopeless !" The young woman sighed and swiped the poor journalist's cigarette after kissing him on the cheek a second time.
The thai man pushed his empty cup away with his fingertips, watching the smoke from his cigarette dift from Fantine's mouth and rise towards the ceiling in abstract shapes, all while Berny replaced his cup with a glass of whisky.
He drowned the liquid in one gulp, as if he hoped to find the answer to his problems at the bottom of the glass, but all that remained were two ice cubes and a burning sensation in the back of his throat.
He took his cigarette back from his friend's fingers and smoked the rest of it, while Fantine and Berny resumed their childish bickering.
The sound of the nearly empty bar and the cars outside passing by soothed him for a few seconds, and he used that time to weigh the pros and cons of his situation.
He wanted to see Krailert again, but he was afraid.
Afraid of his reaction, of hearing his voice, and above all afraid his life hadn't been defined by his absence the way his life had been.
He dreaded, above all else, that his former lover had already forgotten him.
Naran dismissed the idea of getting on the plane yet again and stepped outside after kissing Fantine.
He needed to take his mind off things.