The Midnight Sister by Marvin H. Albert

Author:Marvin H. Albert
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: detective, mystery, sleuth, investigator, private eye
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Published: 2017-03-02T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 20

“In Thailand we are ninety-five percent Buddhists but our Buddhism digests without conflict large portions of Hinduism, tantra, animism, and any other faith, cult, or superstition that cares to contribute.” Kukrit Chaudee picked a frite off his plate and sprinkled salt on it. “Each Thai blends these various beliefs as suits him personally. Heresy is a concept alien to our mixed culture. Any and all gifts gratefully accepted.”

He popped the frite into his mouth, chewing and smiling.

The place we were in was on the corner of Rue Soufflot and Boul’ Mich, two blocks from the Sorbonne. It had been there on my first visit to Paris at the age of four—a big, seedy, comfortable brasserie-tabac, crowded with people resting their feet and moistening their throats after strolling the Luxembourg Gardens across the street. And that it had remained—your typical, flavorful big-city sanctuary—until two years ago. Now it was a big, shiny, popular McDonald’s. Sic transit the French way of life.

“In the Hindu pantheon,” Kukrit Chaudee said, “the most feared and worshipped deity is Kali. Do you know of her?”

“A little,” I said, and remembered the statue in the main room on Huang’s barge. “She’s a goddess of life and death.”

Kukrit nodded and took a big bite out of his burger. He was a tall, merry-eyed man in his late sixties. His broad shoulders strained the seams of his scuffed leather flight jacket. He wore his battered, wide-brimmed black felt hat even inside. Probably bought in a flea market, it looked like it had belonged to some turn-of-the-century musician. Kukrit’s thick gray hair curled out from under it in graceful disarray.

It was difficult to picture Kukrit Chaudee as an austere Buddhist monk with a shaved skull and an orange robe. But that was what he’d been through one period of his life. Before that he’d been a history professor at Chulalongkom University in Bangkok. At the age of forty-seven he had decided to cleanse mind and soul by spending a year in a monastery. The year had stretched to ten, during which he’d acquired a reputation as a soothsayer, advising people on everything from love to business problems. Then he’d returned to the university.

“In broad terms,” he said, “that is what Kali represents. Life and death. In detail she has as many aspects as she has arms. She is at the same time an embracing mother and the bringer of pestilence. Two of her hands offer a cup of nourishment and a flower of pure delight. Another two wield the sword of slaughter and scissors to cut off existence.”

“Giver and taker,” I said. “No wonder she’s feared and worshipped. Sounds close to real life.”

“Indeed. Benevolence and malevolence intertwined. Which accounts for the variety of names by which Kali is known. The Divine Mother and the Drinker of Blood. The Protectress and the Destroyer. The Gift-Bestowing Tree and the Dark Goddess of Fear.”

Kukrit salted another frite and ate it delicately. “Some also call her the Midnight Sister—dividing night and day, yesterday from tomorrow, belonging to neither yet both.

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