By Bjorn Turmann
(First of Two Excerpts)
The following comes from The Last Tobacco Shop in the World (2010, Konstrukt Books, 333 pages), a new novel by Canadian author Bjorn Turmann, a resident of Bangkok, Thailand. Set in the year 2040, the story opens at a Cambodian casino and then trails protagonist Anton Brick to Jarangwa, a tiny island created by the seismic activity that led to the 2004 Asian tsunami. It’s one of the world’s last places where smokers find refuge. Reprinted with permission © Bjorn Turmann 2010
“Natural disasters are a more powerful aphrodisiac than money, Anton. There’s a company out there that can create earthquakes on demand. They’re marketing it exclusively to couples as a new age natural aphrodisiac. That’s the kind of world we’re living in today.”
I was conceived on December 26, 2004, the same day the huge Asian tsunami killed over a hundred thousand people from Indonesia to India. My younger brother, Julian, was conceived as the Great Fire tore through the forest near our home in the Pacific Free Zone. We’re eight years apart, Julian and I. My parents didn’t have the money to pay for an earthquake -- their hopes for a third child rested on another free natural aphrodisiac.
The island of Jarangwa also was conceived on 12/26/04. A stillborn piece of geological apocalyptica in a remote section of the Andaman Sea. Jarangwa was established as the world’s freest smoking section by Lawrence Prescott Jr., a silver-haired visionary in his mid-fifties with intimidating steel blue eyes -- his large left pupil a monocle that magnified your every expression, movement and thought.
I first met Lawrence on Rabbit Island, Cambodia, a casino sanctuary 30 minutes by slow boat from the southern town of Kep. The only reason people went to Rabbit Island was to gamble. The only reason I went was to negotiate back some coastal land for a wealthy French family who’d neglected to tell me that the casino owner -- an ex-government minister and self-made billionaire named Mr. Khieu -- would sooner order my fingernails pulled out than negotiate anything beyond the bar bill after we’d completed our “nice, cordial chat”.
“The former Valmont family land is now mine, Anton,” he said, cleaning his diamond encrusted jade ring on his potbelly with a toothpick as we sat in the back of his casino with two bicep-loving personal assistants. “But out of respect for its French Cambodge past, I have named the estate that I (hand faithfully on heart) built on Grandpa Valmont’s land 'Chateau d’Henri'. Those Valmonts should be proud of what I have done for them.”
I didn’t have the requisite iron testicles to tell Mr. Khieu that Grandpa Valmont’s name was Jean-Paul.
Lawrence saw me shaking hands with the new owner of Chateau d’Henri, later finding me at the blackjack tables betting hands far beyond my means. “You’re a guy with some courage,” said Lawrence, playing the next square. “Do you smoke?”
“No.” Was that a test? Nobody openly discussed cigarettes anymore. Contemporary smoking zones were reserved for underground smoking dens run by “stickmen”, machine-gun-toting nicotine addicts. NUSAC’s WORLD moles were everywhere -- sociopaths plucked from prisons, singularly trained to identify smokers and attack. Casually they would roam, asking for the time or directions, judging the speed of your reply, looking for nicotine traces on your fingers. Smokers were impulsive, they gave directions without thinking. No one could be trusted. This was tobacco’s new world order.
“Gone are the good old days inside smoky casinos,” said Lawrence, asking for another card -- a ten, bust. “NUSAC incarcerated my best friend a few months ago for turning his backyard bomb shelter into a smoking bunker. A woman pushing a stroller asked him what bus went downtown. She saw his yellow fingernails and that was it. Nobody knows where he is. He just disappeared,” circling one hand above the other, the magician preparing to reveal his missing dove.
“You’re speaking too openly.” I glanced at the others at our table: the bald Russian dealer with the ace of spades tattooed to his forehead and the green-haired Japanese lady doing sake shots.
“We can’t let them control us. It’s just tobacco.”
My cards and cash were taken from me by the dealer’s fourth 21 in a row. I stood up from the table. What if I’d been more inconspicuous with my cards... my courage? Maybe I wouldn’t have heard from Lawrence Prescott Jr. again -- only his last words at a rigged game: “Hey! Where you going? I never asked you for directions. I couldn’t give a shit if your fingers are yellow or not!”
Guest Relations Manager, Jarangwa -- the job he later offered me.
Was I courageous for taking it?
I don’t know.
I’m speaking too openly now.
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