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He gave me a look "You make a joke," he said, "to hide the fact that you are squeamish"

"Who says I’m squeamish?"

"Here comes our dinner," he said "Let’s see how squeamish you are You speak like a Thai, but can you eat like a Thai?"

The plates arrived, little cubes of meat broiled satay-style on sside and a smaller mound of curried carrots This once ran around and barked, I thought, and nuzzled people coht, howwooly lamb, or a bunny rabbit, or even a baby chick? All the ani, like the dog and the sheep and the hare, or disgusting, like the snake and rat and the lizard I’d eaten soe places, and I’d had my share of mystery meat More dishes have been called lamb than ever ool In the present instance, I was fairly sure that what they served in this klong-side outdoor café was in fact dog and nothing else And they brought it on a clean plate

I unskewered my meat, picked up my fork, and took a bite Chewed, considered, chewed soa it was on the sweet side

"Not bad," I said

"I should take another look at your passport," Suk said "I never thought I would live to see an A two hundred years ago," I told him "Lewis and Clark would have starved to death otherwise They kept trading with the Indians, taking dogs in exchange for blankets and meal and such And thethat turned up in their traps Beaver and muskrat, of course, but also weasel and otter and skunk"

He looked a little queasy himself, I was pleased to note

"Some of those h they may not have felt wholly committed to the relationship, no doubt for lack of a proper church wedding In any case, there weretheir wives and roasting them a piece at a tih you could argue that once was enough"

He was fairly dark-co to look a little green around the gills

"I s Except in Africa, that is"

"In Africa…"

"In a place called Modonoland," I said "There’s never been any cannibalism there, so far as I know, but there was this one le, a white girl, as a matter of fact, and when her men massacred people they cut off certain portions of the male anatomy Now I can’t swear they went into the stew pot, but I can’t think what else they did with them"

"And you…"

"I spent a few days with her ht say it was eat or be eaten, and don’t ask me what it tasted like because it’s hard to re "As a matter of fact…"

He held up a hand "Please," he said

"I was just going to say this isn’t very spicy," I said innocently "Do you suppose we could get some hot sauce?"

I’d told the truth about Lewis and Clark, and about the Rocky Mountain trappers, too And Sheena, née Jane, and her version of missionary stew The only time I’d stretched the truth hen I asked for hot sauce Our satay aux chien was spicy enough the way they served it So I was showboating, but what the hell A little hot sauce never hurts

And Suk was impressed That’s what he’d told me to call him, shortly after I asked for the hot sauce I told hi with Tanner Between the plate of dog I put away and the stories I told, he evidently decided my macho credentials were authentic I won more points when they put a bottle of Johnny Walker Black on the table between us By the tiot up it was empty, and I’d knocked back my fair share of it

In return, Suk told me what he could about Bur of rubies and antiquities and Buddha i lord in the Shan state controlled the opiuenerals seeovernment controlled the ruby trade, and forbade the export of anything more than a hundred years old You couldn’t take Buddha statues out of the country, either, new or old, but unless they were old there was no reason to sle them Unless you were a tourist anted one for a souvenir, in which case hted to sell you one, and the custohted to confiscate it on your way out of the country

Why? I wondered

"They are afraid," he said "What use could a non-Buddhist possibly have for a statue of the Buddha? They ious purpose"

"Like what? A ring-toss ga," he said "Remember, they were afraid to have tourists, afraid to allow foreign investment Now they see the money coure out that they can levy an export tax on antiques and Buddha ihtened One? Very good, it will no doubt make a splendid ornament in your fish pond That will be twenty dollars tax, please, payable in hard currency, not in kyat Thank you very much’"

"‘And have a nice day’"