I’d been there before, and more recently than I’d been to Seoul. Late sixties, say. Thirty years ago, according to the calendar. Less than a fifth as long by the clock in my head.

Overhead, the sun burned in the afternoon sky. I welcomed it. A breeze off the water had a cooling effect, and of course I had the deep internal chill that was always with me. The sun might give me a burn – I really should have put on sunscreen – but in the meantime it felt good.

Other boats kept pulling up alongside my water taxi, full of people who wanted to sell me something. They all spoke some sort of English, though not one of them was ready to hire on as an announcer for the BBC. I got tired of saying no – to opium weights and ivory carvings, to pictures on rice paper, to rubies that were probably cut glass and lapis that was probably dyed, to bright-eyed offers of male and female companionship. “Very young,” I was assured. “Very clean.”

“No,” I kept saying, in English. “No, thank you. I am not interested. No, thanks all the same, but no.”

“Maybe you like better to watch,” one thoughtful young man suggested, leaning forward and gripping the side of my water taxi. “Two girls together? Boy and girl? Two boys?”

“No, thank you, but-”

“Girl and a dog together. Very popular show, all the tourists like very much. Japanese businessmen, very wealthy, they all love this show.”

“Good for them,” I said.

“Oh, yes,” he said. “Is very good for them. Is good for you, too. Girl is seven, eight years old, has never been with a man.”

“Just with dogs.”

“You like, after show is over, you can have the girl.”

“Suppose I’d rather have the dog?”

“Girl, dog, whatever you want. Both, if you want.”

In Thai I said, “All I want is for you to fuck off and leave me alone.”

His eyes widened. My Thai is reasonably fluent, although I have a little trouble with the written language, which comes with an alphabet that makes my eyes cross.