Irene lived nearby, in a mountainous area – a cozy house on a high hill overlooking the bay, a swimming pool, and a well-kept green garden. Maneki Neko, a money cat revered by Thais, stood on a console table at the entrance, greeting guests with a friendly paw wave.

The air conditioner hummed quietly, filling the room with coolness.

There wasn’t much furniture – two armchairs and a sofa made of thick bamboo, a closet with sliding mirrored doors, and a double bed. The walls were decorated with copies of Hokusai’s engravings of “Red Fuji” and “The dream of the Fisherman’s Wife.” An interesting choice, though perhaps unsurprising for such a hostess.

There was a laptop open on the low table, the bed unmade. I tried not to think about who Goldilocks had spent the night with, but I was still desperately jealous as I watched her serenely flutter about the room.

“Why are you so interested in my love life?” she turned around, laughing.

“Irene, stop rooting around in my head!” I lost my temper. “I already have the feeling that you are always spying on me, I don’t know what you have in mind, why you need me...”

She didn’t let me finish, wrapped her arms around my neck and covered my mouth with a kiss.

“There are never any guests here,” she whispered. “You’re the first – the one and only.”

“Yeah?” I realized I was blushing. “Okay, I’ll pretend to believe you.”

“What do you mean – ‘pretend’?” She pinched me. “Don’t you believe me?”

“What if you’re making it up,” I bit her lip lightly, “about the only one.”

“Aw!” she yelped. “What are you doing? I said I never bring anyone here.”

“But you brought me here for some reason.”

“So what? I just want that asshole Randy to know that I’m with you.”

“Was there something between you and him?” I raised an eyebrow threateningly.

“Nothing. He’s just been stalking me lately.”

“Oh, really? What does he want from you?”

“The same as everyone else,” she said with a twitch of her shoulder. “He sticks to me like glue, follows me around, promises some golden mountains.”

“And you?”

“Oh, you think I don’t know Randy? He clings to every penny. He’s a miser!”

“But if he were generous, would you go with him?”

“Randy? Generous? Ha!”

“Don’t shirk, answer me.”

“Okay, let me think about it,” she wrinkled her nose funny, as if trying to figure out if the game was worth the candle. “No, not with him. He’s kind of shady, I don’t like men like him.”

“What kind of men do you like?”

“Why do you want to know that?”

“I want to know everything about you,” I insisted.

“You know, Vik,” she looked up at me, “you unbearable. You definitely need a recharge.”

This time I didn’t mind, I picked her up and put her on the bed. But later, when we were lying on the sunny terrace, hugging each other, pushing the deck chairs together to make a kind of bed, I asked her what kind of recharging she meant – wasn’t it the one we had just done? If so, I am really better, I am fresh, full of energy, even ready to move mountains, like the other day, in the salon, after “massage”.

“I’m happy for you,” she said. “You will succeed.”

“How do you know?”

“Some women inspire men, make them stronger.”

“Like a muses?” I got up on my elbow. “And you must be one of them.”

“Don’t be ironic, please,” she asked. “Remember I told you that when I got to the Island I thought I was better than other girls – more decent and honest, but it was more complicated than that. Yes, I could chose my partners, but, as you noticed, it didn’t make much difference, except for one thing: when I felt good with a person, you know what I mean, his or her energy would flow into me, bypassing the mediator, which didn’t take it into account. Until one day I realize that I could read other people’s minds. You don’t think I was always able to do that, do you? Although, when I was a kid, I vaguely felt something like that because my grandma is a healer.”

“Hmm... So you can see through people?”

“Not exactly,” she said. “I can just see the world through their eyes at certain moments.”

“Is recharging men your superpower, too?”

“I think so,” she sat up and hugged her knees. “Although it took me a while to discover this ability in myself, but Gee didn’t become a monk right away either...”

“What was he before?”

“He served in US military intelligence.” “Wow!” I whistled. “What a twist. How did he end up on Samchang?”

“Thanks to his military service. After World War II he came to Bangkok, where he met a local police general, rumored to be a drug lord, and fell in love with him.”

“Are you kidding me?” I stared at her.

“Honey, this is Asia, and things like this have always been easier here” she continued, as if was nothing unusual. “Gee had a boyfriend back in the States, but here it was true love, and it was mutual. The general was powerful and rich, he even had his own newspaper, and to keep the handsome Gee around, he offered him a job as a journalist and soon the position of editor.”

“So he and I are colleagues, huh?”

“Yeah,” Irene said with a smile.

The affairs of the former intelligence officer were brilliant – he became a talented reporter.

One day he heard about a fabulous Island in a distant province and decided to visit it.

The voyage took a week. At the pier Gee was met by crowd of islanders who had never seen white people before. Among them was a Thai named Kuhn, a dead man who had been one of the first exiled to the Island. Few in the Big World knew of Samchang then, but the Dark Ones had already set their eyes on it.

Kuhn had been a businessman in the past, so he was able to trade here as well. He started a coconut farm, then a hevea plantation, where workers extracted rubber sap. Work was scarce on the Island at that time, and local labor cost nothing. That’s how Kuhn made a living and paid off his debts to the Dark Ones.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

She interrupted herself to get some fruit from the kitchen. Sometimes, like me, she wanted to indulge in something sweet, to eat a ripe mango, or a juicy pineapple – to savor the forgotten taste of food we didn’t need but missed. Here I realized why my grandmother used to leave candy on graves – souls long remember earthly habits and have the illusion that eating food somehow brings them back to life.

“Would you like a piece?” Irene held out a plate with half an amber mango.

“Yes, with pleasure,” I sunk my lips into the fragrant flesh. “Mm, I’ve love mango juice since I was a child!”

I don’t know where it came from in USSR, but the shelves of stores in our town were filled with exotic nectar in green bottles. Maybe it was because Chernobyl happened in those years, and mango pulp, as I later learned, is a perfect radiation absorber. Or was the juice brought to us because the local factory processed uranium ore? Or maybe it was simpler, and some banana-mango republic was paying with fruit for the Kalashnikovs they needed to build socialism in their country…

Anyway, the sweet fruits on the Island turned out to be almost my main consolation. They always remained me of the taste of wild strawberries that grew in the meadows across the river in my homeland – in hot summers, the ripe red berries smelled like the best tropical fruits.

“I used to think mango were too sweet,” Irene said. “But here I’ve learned to love it. What was I talking about? In those years there was not much to do on Samchang, it was in the middle of nowhere – no roads, no electricity, no telephone service. But Gee liked that wildness. He rode his bicycle around the Island, swam and sunbathed naked, and had love affairs with Kuhn in the company of handsome young men.”

“What?” I squinted at her. “What about the Big Shot?”

“The Big Shot,” Irene stifled a laugh, “was far away. Besides, the general was officially married to the daughter of a Thai military chief. As for Gee, he was young, hot, human nature came into its own, plus the romantic setting.”

“Oh, yes,” I couldn’t resist. “The call of nature. He couldn’t resist the temptation…”

“Don’t interrupt me,” she said.

“I’ll try,” I replied, taking another bite of the cool mango.

“Kuhn had once complained to his lover that such opportunities were being missed – the Island was full of young people who didn’t know what to do with themselves, while somewhere rich farangs were languishing in boredom. Wouldn’t it be great if they were here? Too bad no one had ever heard of this paradise and the money was flowing away, even though it could have been in his, Kuhn’s, and not gust his pockets. Gee took the hint and in the States, using his connections and talent, he published a dozen articles describing the exotic Island, and tourists flocked there.”

“Gee thought he was just helping a friend,” Irene dabbed at her lips with a napkin. “Not selflessly, of course… But he didn’t know the most important thing – that Kuhn was dead and this idea with tourists was just an excuse to create an energy funnel. Kuhn was counting his profits and rubbing his hands, while Gee was growing more and more depressed every day, seeing what the once quiet fishing village was turning into. He realized that it was also his own fault. Many times he wanted to leave, especially since the general began to suspect something and demanded that the “prodigal” Gee return to Bangkok. But Kuhn would not want let him go, swearing his love and threatening that if he left, both Gee and the general would be dead.”

“This is crazy! It’s like a love triangle,” I laughed.

“Yeah,” she agreed. “Asians in general are very jealous – they will stop at nothing when it comes to their feelings. But Kuhn thought the reason for the breakup was that his lover wanted more money, and if he made Gee an equal partner, their alliance would be saved. But Gee left anyway. And soon the general was in big trouble. Rumor had it that the opium tycoon had crossed the path of the Special Services and fled abroad, but his enemies got to him there as well.”

“Was he killed?”

“The official version is that he committed suicide.”

“What about Gee?”

“When he was left without a patron, he wanted to go home, but then Kuhn reminded him of himself. He called him on Samchang, said he missed him, that he was opening a rubber factory, where he needed a smart assistant, and that he trusted only Gee…”

“Did Gee really believe that?”

“Well, he thought it was a legitimate business. But in reality, it turned out to be nothing like that. Kuhn wanted to process more than just the milky sap of the hevea tree… When Gee found out who his “partner” really was, what he was doing, and who was behind him, he flatly refused to join him. And he paid with his life. It was unlikely that Kuhn really wanted to kill him, but he could not let him escape again... No one ever found out how Gee died. However, Kuhn was able to beg the Dark Ones to leave his stroppy lover on the Island, believing that he was now in his hands and that the guy would have no other choice. But he failed; Gee, not listening to The Shadow, immediately locked himself in the White Room, where he spent many years in thought.”

“And who let him out?”

“What do you mean?” Irene looked at me in surprise. “He came out on his own.”

“I don’t understand. Is it really possible to leave the White room of one’s own free will?”

“Why not? Anyone who hasn’t taken energy from ‘them’ is free to leave at any time – anywhere, no one keeps you on a leash. Gee returned to the Island, but not because ‘they’ or Kuhn wanted him to. He became a Wanderlord.”

“Bandarlog?”

“No,” she laughed. “Bandarlogs climb trees, while Wanderlords are eternal wanderers. Gee choose to be a monk to guide lost souls.”

“The lost souls, I suppose, are us?”

“Including us.”

“And how can he help them?”

“Any one of us can ask him a question and get an answer.”

“How does he know everything about us?” I insisted. “From the Dark Ones?”

“Yes. Kuhn gets a dossier on all newcomer from ‘them’, but Gee has the right to read it, too,” she explained patiently. “That is why the Council is meeting on the Island.”

“Wait, is Kun still on Samchang?”

“Where would he go from here?” Irene giggled. “He’s the representative of the Dark Side, just like Gee is representative of the Light Side now. Here, as everywhere else, everything is in balance.”

“Then why have I never seen him?”

“Because he has Randy to communicate with you.”

To be continued