The brain was beginning to function again. That was how he knew he had been given merely a postponement of the inevitable. In his blood the oxygen was converted to carbon dioxide, the body’s exhaust fumes, and the pole was too long for him to be able to expel the nitrogen completely. So he was inhaling recycled air, again and again, a mixture of ever-decreasing oxygen and increasingly fatal CO2. This excess of carbon dioxide is called hypercapnia, and he would soon die from it. In fact, because he was breathing so fast, it accelerated the process. After a while he would become sleepy, his brain would lose interest in drawing air, he would breathe less and less and ultimately stop.
So lonely, Harry thought. Chained. Like the elephants on the riverboats. The elephants. He blew down the tube with all the power he could muster.
Anne Verk had lived in Bangkok for three years. Her husband was the CEO of Shell’s Thailand office; they were childless, medium unhappy and would stick out a few years together yet. After that she would move back to Holland, finish her studies and search for a new husband. Out of sheer boredom she had applied for a job as an unpaid teacher at Empire and, to her surprise, got it. Empire was an idealistic project whose aim was to offer schooling to the many girls on the game in Bangkok, mainly in English. Anne Verk taught them what they needed in bars; that was why they went. They sat behind their desks, shy, smiling young girls who giggled when she made them repeat after her: “Can I light your cigarette for you, sir?” Or “I’m a virgin. You’re very bold, sir. Would you like a drink?”
Today one of the girls was wearing a new red dress, which she was clearly proud of and which she had bought at Robinson’s department store, she explained to the class in hesitant English. Sometimes it was difficult to imagine that these girls worked as prostitutes in some of the toughest areas of Bangkok.
Like most Dutch people, Anne spoke excellent English and once a week she taught some of the other teachers as well. She got out of the lift on the fifth floor. It had been an especially wearing evening with a lot of arguing about teaching methods, and she was yearning to kick off her shoes in the 200-square-meter apartment when she heard some strange, hoarse trumpeting noises. At first she thought they came from the river, but then she realized they were coming from the swimming pool. She found the light switch and it took her several seconds to take on board and process the sight of a man underwater and the pool net upright in the water. Then she ran.
Harry saw the light come on and saw the figure by the pool. Then it went. It looked like a woman. Had she panicked? Harry had started noticing the first signs of hypercapnia. In theory, it should be bordering on a pleasant feeling, like drifting off under an anesthetic, but he just felt the terror running through his veins like glacier water. He forced himself to concentrate, breathe calmly, not too much, not too little, but thinking was becoming a challenge.
Accordingly, he didn’t notice that the water level was beginning to sink, and when the woman jumped into the pool and lifted him to the surface he was sure an angel had come for him.
27
Friday, January 17
The rest of the night was mostly about his headache. Harry sat in a chair in his flat, a doctor came, took a blood sample and said he had been lucky. As though he needed anyone to explain that. Later Liz sat beside him and noted down what had happened.
“What did he want in the apartment?” she asked.
“No idea. To frighten me maybe.”
“Did he take anything?”
He glanced around. “Not if my toothbrush is still in the bathroom.”
“Clown. How do you feel?”
“Hungover.”
“We’re launching an immediate investigation.”
“Forget it. Go home and get a few hours’ shut-eye.”
“You’re cheerful all of a sudden.”
“I’m a good actor, aren’t I.” He rubbed his face with his hands.
“This isn’t a joke, Harry. Do you realize you’ve been poisoned by CO2?”
“No more than the average Bangkok citizen, according to the doctor. I mean it, Liz. Go home, I haven’t got the energy to talk to you anymore. I’ll be fine by tomorrow.”
“Take tomorrow off.”
“As you wish. Just go.”
Harry had knocked back the pills the doctor had given him, slept without dreams and didn’t wake until late morning when Liz phoned to see how he was. He grunted by way of an answer.
“I don’t want to see you today,” she said.
“I love you too,” he said, rang off and got up to dress.
It was the hottest day of the year and at the police station everyone was groaning. Even in Liz’s office the air-conditioning system couldn’t keep up. Harry’s nose had started peeling and he was looking like a rival to Rudolph. He was halfway down his third liter bottle of water.