INTERNATIONAL

A BANGKOK INTERLUDE

by Harry Otis

In the land of the white elephant, where pagodas rear their gilded spires to the cloudless sky, and myriads of fireflies light the shrubs and trees at night, one would expect nature to be consistent in her dispensation of beauty, and she is, for Siamese boys are unusually handsome, nor do the years that lengthen them into men lessen their fluid grace or defile the clean beauty of their warm brown bodies with hair.

A tourist like Horace Dobbs finds it painfully difficult to keep his eyes off them, especially when he's accompanied by his wife, which Horace was.

"It's outrageous the way those boys run around naked," Bertha snapped between her loose dentures. "But what can you expect when their fathers go around in those sleazy outfits that don't hide anything. Believe me, in Kansas they wouldn't get away with it."

Horace said nothing. He was reminiscing happily over the hotel clerk's remark after he finished signing the register: "Should Mr. Dobbs ever desire a boy or a girl, a room will be available." Horace thanked him and wondered how long it would be before Bertha got her usual dysentery. At the moment, she was absorbed in a guide book's description of the famed emerald Buddha and his three changes of clothing for which the King himself did the honors. The first of very thin gold served for hot weather, for the monsoon season the gold was a trifle thicker, for the winter it was very thick,

"There's so much to see I think we better get a guide. I'll call Cooks," she suggested.

"I already have one, a young chap with a car. He's quite handsome, speaks excellent English, I'm sure you will like him. His name is Burana,"

And Bertha did, principally because something about him reminded her of Nick, the young secretary Horace always took with him on his long business trips.

Burana called after breakfast and took them to the ancient temple grounds. In Siam, broken china is never consigned to the dumps. It sparkles in jewelled mosaics on the roofs and in the brilliant coatings of steeples. An eyedazzling array of gigantic prisms Bertha found fascinating, and hopeful of finding a familiar pattern on a fragment of china she avidly examined each mosaic. Horace sighed and looked for a place to sit down. There was none. Finally, catching Burana's eye, he shrugged and spread his hands. Burana, smiling, nodded. He turned to Bertha, "We'll have to spend less time at one place if you're to see everything. I don't want Madam to miss anything." Nor was it by accident he led them behind the temple to a large phallus of rosecolored marble mounted on a stone platform. "It's the most ancient of all our religious symbols," he explained, his sultry black eyes on Horace's strong, heavily veined neck,

Horace smiled but Bertha shook her head. The guide books hadn't mentioned it, nor were there any carvings on it to explain what it was. She was about to turn away when she saw five young women approach, then surround it. Horrified, she watched them lift their robes and rub their naked pelvises against it. They closed their eyes, their hands together in an attitude of prayer, they bowed their heads. Bertha's thin nose wrinkled with disgust. She wanted to explode, but Burana's gentle manner stopped her. "What's all that nonsense about?" she asked.

"Nonsense?" Burana shrugged. "They wish to be fertile when they marry." As the girls were leaving, a group of young men came out of a pagoda and, like the girls, arranged themselves around the marble.

Burana took Bertha by the arm and turned her toward the temple, "Perhaps it would be better if Madam saw the emerald Buddha now," he suggested,

Alone, Horace watched the youths strip and one by one hug the phallus, their brown nakedness alive and sensuous against the cold stone. Horace