Book : Thai Ghosts

Ghosts
Seinee Saowaphong


Translation from the Thai and postscript
by Marcel Barang


Fist published in Thai as Pheesart, 1957
First publication in English, here, 2006

Source : http://www.thaifiction.com/


1

Her lover was an ordinary man. He had no especially attractive feature or noticeable deformity that would have immediately singled him out among other ordinary people. He was neither taller nor shorter than the average Thai man at large, and he came from a family of simple folk who had — to use her own parents’ expression — no blue blood in their veins, whereas she, in the opinion of most, did not stand in the back rows of feminine beauty, and was born into an aristocratic family whose ancestors could be traced as far back as the Ayutthaya kingdom. Yet when these dissimilar man and woman came to meet, befriend and love each other, her father blamed this unforgivable mistake on the modern way of life, which granted women too much freedom. Part of the problem was that women were allowed to study at the university together with male students. Even though access to the various university levels was restricted through high tuition fees and expensive books and services, it was not enough to ensure that only children of families of suitable or at least almost suitable social standing could attend. True enough, as a rule the children of the poor did not get past the gates of academe, but it happened all too often that some of them did manage to sneak their way in, and by mixing and socializing with this lowly lot, the other children developed preposterous ideas and were led astray from accepted behavior, forgetting themselves, their rank and their dignity.
And another reason was that women were given the opportunity to leave the house to work in offices, venturing out of safe and orderly homes into a wide, wild world full of trickery and deceit.
Her father thought that because she had entered university and studied together with other girls and boys of the same age, some friends of the same sex who were never brought up in good families had put improper ideas into her head. As for the young fellows there who came from lowly families, he thought with contempt that they had no other purpose than to shed their skin and pass themselves off as gentlemen with these girls of good breeding and high standing through all kinds of artifice and fraud.
Ratchanee’s grandmother had opposed sending her to senior high school because she could not bear the shame of having to meet and listen to these people and she knew that her granddaughter, who was now a fully grown woman, would have to wear shorts and raise her legs and thrust her bosom and wag her behind and squat and jump in public in what was now an adjunct to education they called “physical exercise” or “sport”. She had successfully opposed Ratchanee’s elder sisters from doing the same, which explains why they only graduated at secondary-school level and stayed at their grandmother’s beck and call for years on end doing nothing but waiting until a bride’s settlement took place and they passed from her custody to someone else’s. It was Ratchanee’s good fortune that she grew up much later than her sisters, and to her grandmother’s ill fortune that she had aged so much that she no longer had the strength and stamina to prod and poke until her opinion prevailed and became the supreme law enforced over the whole family as was the case in the past. Ratchanee was thus able to escape from her frighteningly strong embrace.
Her mother, who held slightly more advanced opinions than her grandmother because she was born a generation later, just kept her misgivings to herself, maybe because she was too weak to oppose her little daughter whom she loved and had always allowed to have her way, and because she could see that times had changed during her own lifetime.
These were no longer the days of powder and turmeric but of all kinds of goods with foreign-sounding names that those overseas creatures made and sent over to sell, names so odd that a sheltered woman in her fifties could neither catch nor remember them. Her childhood was all topknots and anklets, and her adolescence had meant a belt of splendid brass. She still remembered the ceremony of cutting the topknot, a magnificent and protracted affair which had left her sore and exhausted to the point of collapse. But these days such rites were all gone. Only Ratchanee’s two elder sisters had worn topknots, but the cutting ceremony had been so simplified as to be hardly a ceremony at all. Ratchanee was the only one who had not worn a topknot as a child, and when she came of age she did not show any interest in a copper or brass belt. She was satisfied with a mere leather belt that cost nothing much at all, and simply asked for different colors — red, green, brown, blue — to match the shirts and skirts she wore. Gone were the days of silk robes and chintzes and loose bodices and simple cloth wrapped around the waist or tied at the back; now it was all trousers for men and skirts for women. Gone also were the days of powder and turmeric and beeswax, replaced by creams and lipsticks and hair lotions. Ratchanee’s elder sisters were both married and had households of their own, which was extremely fortunate because it left only this youngest daughter to fuss about, and her mother looked at Ratchanee with constant worry in her heart, silently praying for her, hoping for some kind of miracle which would turn her again into the good girl she used to be, amid all the changes that were going on everywhere...
When they first met, Ratchanee became interested in the young man for only one reason, which is that he did not show any kind of interest in her at all. When one of her friends introduced him, he did not utter a word, not even that he was pleased to meet her, as everybody says upon being introduced. Even though she was old enough to know that the sentence usually carried no meaning and was blurted out automatically for the sake of politeness, she still would have liked to hear it, and she thought with contempt that that fellow had no manners at all. As he sat in front of her, he spoke very little and in a halfhearted manner. She believed it was for the man to strike up a conversation and that the woman should wait before pitching in. So she waited but he showed no inclination to talk, and both remained silent. She looked at him repeatedly from the corner of her eye and sensed that he felt no less oppressed than she did.
As she went to leave, her friend, who was the owner of the house, and who was busy chatting with the other guests, saw that he was sitting idly by, so she asked him to do her the favor of accompanying Ratchanee to her car, which was waiting at the entrance of the lane.
“Thank you, that won’t be necessary, I can take care of myself,” Ratchanee said with a sarcastic undertone when she saw him standing up. He did not say anything and looked as if he had not noticed her tone but he followed her to the door, so she turned around and looked him in the face in a way which meant “Didn’t you understand what I said?”
His impassive face seemed to show some sort of concern. “—Unless it bothers you,” he muttered.
The fierce glitter in her eyes abated and he must have understood from her expression that she would not object because he went on following her quietly. She was not going to keep her feelings to herself any longer, so she turned to him and asked bluntly: “Why are you following me?”
He looked at a loss. “Well, I’m seeing you to your car, aren’t I?”
“You don’t want to know me or even talk to me, isn’t that so?”
“I never said that, or if you think I did, then tell me where and when it happened.”
“Your behavior is more telling than anything you say.”
“What!” he exclaimed, then fell silent. Ratchanee thought that his remark, indeed his whole attitude, was a deliberate and outrageous provocation and she felt utterly offended.
“You misunderstand my reserve and restraint,” he said forcefully.
“Restraint?” Ratchanee repeated in a loud voice and thought that he was lamely trying to excuse himself.
He nodded. “I’m restraining myself in front of you for two reasons. The first is that I know who you are, and the second is that you’re a beautiful woman and you’re well aware of it. You’ve seen enough men fall over themselves in their eagerness to approach you. Indeed you’re beautiful and I don’t deny it, but I’m not one of those men and, as for the first reason, you and I are as different as the sky and the earth.”
Ratchanee blushed deeply, seething inside. She had never heard such infuriating probing.
“You only know that my name is Citizen Sai and my surname Seema,” he went on. “You still don’t know who I am. Therefore you can’t understand my own restraint. People with different stations in life see everything differently. But this isn’t your fault, and anyway there’s one thing I appreciate in you, and that’s your frankness. When you’re upset, you say so without beating around the bush. That’s something that’s hard to find — I think that once you know me better, you’ll understand me better.”
Ratchanee shook her head brusquely, entered the car, slammed the door and drove away without a goodbye.
That night, Ratchanee could not sleep. She kept thinking of the man called Citizen Sai Seema with a feeling of hurt. He had said he and she were as different as sky and earth. Who was the sky? And who the earth? ‘Am I the sky? If I am the sky, does it mean that I may socialize and talk only with the other denizens of the sky? that I may not talk with the common folk? Or is there something objectionable in me?’ Ratchanee, too, was aware of belonging to the aristocracy, an awareness derived from her domestic environment since childhood. She used to hear her senior relatives refer to some people as “commoners” or as “the rabble”. At first, she could not understand what this meant, but when memory took her back to the time when she had been old enough to think for herself, she found that much of what had happened to her since then gave the words a concrete meaning. She remembered that, as a child, she had been strictly forbidden to play with the children of the servants or of the distant relatives who stayed in the house as half servants and half relatives, but she had always managed to do so anyway, because she had no other friends to play with. Her sisters were too old to enjoy playing with a little girl like her. There were times when well-groomed children came to her house in a car with their parents, and her own parents told her to play with those children while the adults talked. But this rarely happened and besides, the children would bully her and lay claim to her toys every time. Ratchanee thus could not help but sneak out to play with the children in the house. Were it not for them, her life as a child would have been very lonely and forlorn. She was aware that she dressed more beautifully and cleanly and had more toys, but these children never bullied her and never tried to take her toys, even though they had practically none of their own. She had a nanny who looked after her day in, day out. Whenever Ratchanee was caught playing downstairs, she would be taken away and given a good scrub and then confined to the house. The more she grew up, the more fed up she grew with her nanny. After she had sneaked out many times, she found that the children were trying to stay away from her as much as possible and looked scared when she invited them to play with her: the master of the house had ordered their parents to forbid them to play with her. This edict proved more effective than trying to keep her confined in the house.
‘I’m now old enough to talk or socialize with anyone,’ Ratchanee thought, and she could not see how someone like her could be objectionable to anyone.
‘If there is any repugnance in social contacts, it’s only from upper class people toward the lower classes,’ Ratchanee thought further. ‘There is none from the lower classes toward the upper class. But I don’t mind socializing with people of a lower social condition so long as they are good people. Isn’t goodness, rather than wealth, rank or lineage, the only yardstick to measure human worth? I have many friends whom I can call dear friends and who are much inferior to me in social standing, and yet I hold them dear because of their goodness. But this man is so conceited!’ Memories of her childhood flashed across her mind. The apprehension of the children in her house who had not dared to play around and be on familiar terms with her made her feel uncomfortable.
‘But then, actually, he looked straightforward and courteous enough, and I have a feeling that he spoke from the bottom of his heart. Perhaps he has been scorned by some arrogant people in the past. There are plenty of conceited grandees always ready to look down on others, but I’m not one of them,” Ratchanee told herself firmly. “I’m educated and modern enough to know what the true value of a person is. Status and money aren’t important to me at all. It is goodness that I respect and use as a yardstick in dealing with people at large.’
‘He looked so straightforward, though. He said I was beautiful and men were falling over themselves in their eagerness to approach me. How dare he make such a sarcastic remark! I’m no movie or stage star, you know. “I’m not one of those men.” Who are “those men”? And then, who are you?’ Ratchanee asked resentfully in her mind and felt sorry to have let anger get the better of her before she could wrangle with him to the end. ‘Wait and see! When I meet you again, I’ll deal with you once and for all.’
‘Oh, what an infuriating man!’

2

Although she received comfort and convenience in life and was at an advantage over her friends at the university in many ways, Ratchanee could not help but feel choked up by the obstacles that she encountered constantly and that prevented her from acting as freely as she would have liked. Comfort and convenience had come to her as a birth right, along with the feeling of constraint resulting from the old-fashioned thoughts and tradition-bound ways of her family. No one at home had heartily agreed to her entering the university and, as long as she studied there, no one had ever cared enough to ask how she was doing. Disapproval and displeasure were shown through indifference. Thanks to her cleverness in finding ways to outwit her softhearted mother and circumvent her stern father, Ratchanee was sometimes able to obtain what she wanted, but her parents’ indifference almost discouraged her several times from going on with her studies. The moral support of some of her dear friends and her own fear of finding herself shut away in the emptiness and loneliness of home prompted her to persevere and see her studies through. As graduation time approached, her friends began to talk enthusiastically about finding jobs and planning to do this and that, which sounded both amusing and interesting. But Ratchanee had no such plan in mind, as she was not sure she would be able to leave home and venture into the world of labor, even though, with the faith and sincerity of young men and women everywhere, she was eager to work so that she could make use of all that she had learned.
“What are you going to do after you graduate?” one of her friends asked.
“I’m not sure,” Ratchanee replied, sounding dejected. “Maybe my parents won’t allow me to work outside.”
“Uh-huh,” Kingthian uttered in sympathy. Kingthian was Ratchanee’s closest friend. Both were well aware of each other’s respective background. “Your parents are so con­servative!”
Kingthian was the daughter of a minor civil servant who had passed away while she was still in secondary school. Her mother had to work hard to supplement her modest pension so that Kingthian could study up to university level. “I don’t want you to have a hard life like me,” her mother had told her, as Kingthian had later confided to Ratchanee. Kingthian did well in her studies. Although she was not brilliant and had never come top, she always received high marks in some subjects. She was interested in all kinds of knowledge and had an analytical and logical mind, so that her friends had taken to calling her “the adviser”. If one of them had a problem, she would come to her and always receive useful practical advice from her.
Ratchanee had much sympathy for her friend for having to struggle hard in order to be able to study, which was the exact opposite of her own case: even though her parents had another dozen children, they had had no problem at all supporting them until they graduated from the university, yet no one in her family thought highly of a good education. Ratchanee had gone to Kingthian’s house and had received a warm welcome devoid of any social pretence. She had witnessed love and warmth passing between mother and daughter, and it had made her feel a little sad when she thought about herself. Kingthian studied with dedication and spared no effort to help her mother whenever she had some free time. Formerly, helping her mother had never entered her mind, because she thought that her only duty was to study well. “Seek knowledge for yourself so you won’t have a life of hardship like me,” her mother used to tell her. But one day, after she was already a student at the university, before she went to bed that night, her mother had stroked her small hands gently and said, “Your hands are much softer than mine”. That single sentence had changed Kingthian’s attitude toward work. Even though her mother had probably spoken out of gratification as is in the nature of mothers who love their children dearly and are willing to do everything for their comfort, those words had made Kingthian aware of the duty she had to her mother — not the assistance she would provide once her studies were over and she had an income of her own, but the help she could extend there and then whenever she was free: hardship had to be shared in common. From then on, Kingthian, besides studying, had given her mother a helping hand willingly and proudly.
But when Kingthian in turn went to visit Ratchanee at her house, she came out with a long face. “I won’t go to your house again,” she said bluntly as was her habit. Ratchanee shared this habit too. This was one of the reasons why they were close friends and candid with each other.
“Why not?”
“I can’t stand it.” Kingthian shook her head. “How can one ask ‘Whose child are you?’ like His Lordship greeted me? It’s too much, really!”
“Forget it. That’s the way he is. Don’t mind him. Let’s be ourselves and remain friends forever.”
“Sure!” Kingthian replied firmly. “But I won’t go to your house again. It scares me.”
“If you won’t come to see me, I’ll go to see you instead.”
“I’d rather. This way, we can still see each other after we graduate.”
Both young women walked out of the university building, one thinking about entering the world of labor with resolve and trepidation, the other feeling depressed, hesitant and uncertain.
“If you stay home for a few years and do nothing, your knowledge will turn to rust,” Kingthian went on. “Then what you’ve learned will be of no use to anyone, not even to yourself, as you’ll become some sort of picture in a frame, or an elephant tusk or an ancient weapon used as household decoration, and later still you’ll be only slightly better than a ladle or a strainer in the kitchen just because you can talk and walk.”
Ratchanee was silent because she did not know how to answer.
“Anyway, you can’t be blamed for this, because you do mean to make yourself useful, you do want to work, but it’s the power of your environment that forces you down.”
“Then what do you want me to do?”
“If you don’t work and have no income of your own, you’ll never be independent and free. You’ll remain a child forever because you’ll have to go on asking money from your parents and you won’t be able to do anything they don’t approve of. Of course, working is less pleasant than staying at home and using your parents’ money. But you’re grownup, you have knowledge, and staying idly at home doesn’t make sense. I think the only path is to give yourself a chance to be yourself.”
“I agree with you, but I doubt if I’ll ever succeed.”
“I don’t think there’s a third path for you to choose. If you don’t force yourself to become independent, then you’ll remain weak and submit to your parents’ every command.”
Ratchanee remained silent.
“But maybe it isn’t as difficult as you think. Have you talked to your parents about it?”
“Not yet. I’ve sounded them out several times, but it seems no one agrees.”
“You must try again, seriously and cleverly,” Kingthian suggested. “But there’s still time. Let’s think of the best way you should do it, okay?”
Ratchanee nodded. Kingthian’s voice was full of encouragement and hope.
“Let’s go to the movies. I don’t want to go home right now. I’d rather watch a matinee movie.”
“No, thanks,” Kingthian replied.
“Please! My treat.”
Kingthian shook her head. “You treat me too often. I feel bad about it. Besides, I can’t afford to treat you in return.”
“How can you say things like that!” Ratchanee chided. “You talk as if we weren’t friends. How can you think about petty matters like these?”
“No, no,” Kingthian hastened to reply. “I’m not free today. I have to hurry home to help Mom bake cakes. Her cakes sell very well. The customers at the coffee shop keep asking for more, and we can hardly keep up with the demand. Some other day, okay?”
Ratchanee knew that Kingthian was careful not to rely on anyone else in any matter and was proud and very forbearing about this. Ratchanee wanted to help her friend out of genuine generosity, but Kingthian never talked about her troubles, never asked for help, never received help from anyone either. Unlike other people, she didn’t like to see movies often, and thus set herself the rule that she would not see more than two movies a month. If she had some time to spare, she would read in the library. As for Ratchanee, if she found herself free in the afternoon, she would usually go and see a movie. She was in no hurry to go back home because she had more freedom outside of the house, and so she ended up inviting Kingthian to the cinema every time.
“I’ll bring you a baked cake tomorrow. The way Mom cooks them, they’re delicious.”
Ratchanee looked a bit disappointed. As they were about to walk past the university’s main gate, they met Saengsoam and Danai, who were standing there.
“Where are you going?” Saengsoam asked.
“Nowhere in particular,” Ratchanee replied.
“Then let’s go to the movies,” Saengsoam offered. “We were looking for company.”
“I invited Kingthian, but she won’t go.”
“I have to hurry home today,” Kingthian replied.
“Then how about you, Ratchanee?”
“Miss Ratchanee won’t go with us if Miss Kingthian isn’t going,” Danai said as he saw Ratchanee hesitating. It was known among friends that Kingthian and Ratchanee were each other’s shadow: you never saw the one without seeing the other.
“Do come with us,” Saengsoam pressed. “Kingthian is always a goody-goody.”
“I don’t want to be in the way,” Ratchanee teased.
“Bah!” Saengsoam blushed.
Ratchanee turned to look questioningly at Kingthian.
“You go, Ratchanee. You’ve nothing to do.”
“Miss Kingthian will never go with us,” Danai said.
“Right! She once berated us for being loafers,” Saengsoam added sarcastically. “She keeps burying herself in books. If she doesn’t let her hair down, I’m afraid she’ll go mad.”
“I’m going, okay?” Ratchanee told Kingthian, because she felt bad about leaving one friend in order to go with another and because she still did not want to go home, more than because she agreed with Saengsoam.
Kingthian nodded.
“Let’s grab the chance while we can, because before long we’ll be dead anyway,” Saengsoam said before the three of them started to walk away.
Kingthian returned home by bus. Tomorrow, on the balconies of the lecture hall, her friends would chat about the movies they had seen the day before — the same story or others that were being shown in Bangkok movie houses at the time. Movies had become the students’ daily topic of conversation. Those who had not seen them had to hurry to do so in order to have something to chat about with their friends, so much so that the feeling grew that those who did not go to see movies were not with it, unlike those who attended every movie program. Saengsoam was of the latter breed.
‘We have different interests,’ Kingthian thought. ‘We all have twenty-four hours a day at our disposal, and each of us has the right to spend those hours as he pleases, but for all that, the environment has a powerful influence over our perceptions.’ Many friends who did not like watching movies often now had become dedicated movie buffs.
When Kingthian arrived home, her mother said, “You’re back early today.”
Kingthian smiled at her mother, who was kneading cake dough next to Aunt Maen, a middle-aged distant relative who had lived in the house for years. After she placed her books down and changed clothes, Kingthian walked over to the earthen jar and washed her hands. She looked at her own hands as she soaped them. She did not keep her nails long like young women did these days, as it prevented her from helping her mother kneading dough and doing other household chores. ‘Those who grow long nails probably want to show they have no need to work,’ Kingthian thought. But that may not always be the case. She knew a young office typist who often got on the same bus as she did. That young woman kept her nails long and had them painted too. Although they were not so long that they curved downward like a cat’s claws, she probably took pains to type with the fleshy underside of her fingertips, which was more tricky than typing with the nail-lined tips as was the correct method. Women kept their nails long because they believed long nails looked beautiful, and they thought them beautiful because it showed their owners had no need to work hard!
‘I have to do well with my studies and my hands must be as coarse as Mom’s,’ Kingthian resolved. She raised her hands, which she had already rinsed and wiped clean, and stroked her cheeks gently as if to test their texture. They were not as soft as before, and the realization made her happy and proud as she walked over and sat down beside her mother to help her knead dough.
That night, Kingthian stroked her mother’s hands for a long time. She would have liked her mother to comment on her hands once again, as years had gone by since her first remark. But her mother had probably forgotten her passing observation, which had been so significant to her, so she didn’t say anything, even though she endeavored to massage her mother’s hand for a long time.

3

As far back as he could remember, he had always lived on a lowland bordering a canal whose stagnant water was unaffected by the tide of the river, which, his father had told him, used to make its level rise and fall daily, but now that gates had been built at both ends of the canal the water in it had ceased to flow freely. The edge of the canal was overgrown with atap palm, sea holly, thickets of giant reeds and clumps of pampas grass, chakhrarm bushes and cajaput and firewood trees, which seemed to have taken over the land everywhere, with knotgrass, lalang grass, nutgrass and garlic growing so thick in between that they left no gap for the earth to be seen. The place was infested with mosquitoes which came out at dusk in such numbers that more bit you than you could swat. The few farmers scattered along the bank had to light smoky fires to keep them at bay. He remembered that he liked neither mosquitoes nor smoke, because mosquito bites hurt and smoke irritates the eyes and makes one retch and suffocate, but he had no other choice than the one or the other. Thus he, or rather, the farmers in general chose smoke over mosquitoes. At night, the place was dark and felt utterly forlorn. There was only darkness and stillness, and the only thing visible was the dim lights from the torch or coconut oil lamp of neighboring houses, the nearest of which was just within shouting distance. They flickered feebly like the pulse of a newborn.
The firewood forest, besides being a breeding ground for mosquitoes, was the dwelling place of cobras, vipers and kraits, and there were monkeys and crabs in it as well. The latter species was, it seemed, the only useful animal: crabs were edible — indeed delicious when preserved in salt. They were plentiful in the forest, in which the farmers went and cut firewood for use and for sale. The pungent smell of preserved crabs made your mouth water when you were hungry. Rice and salt crab had been his staple diet as he grew up.
Most of the dwellers were not native to the area but settlers from other places who had cleared the forest and laid claim to the land many, many years ago, and there was still a steady trickle of migrants moving in, while some of the first settlers opted to move out to new pastures, forsaking their hope of ever settling down on this land because of its impenetrability, intractability and isolation, but for all the wilderness of the surrounding lowlands and highlands, there was no dearth of men who believed in the power of their muscles to make the place their home and who, with the faith of pioneers, set out to clear paths through the wild and to level the ground for cultivation, all thanks to the sweat of their own exertions.
He hated crab-eating monkeys very much. They played no small part in his childhood recollections. He had always seen them when he rowed his boat in the canal. They lived in troops in the trees and always squalled. They disappeared a few years ago, along with the forest, which was cleared and replaced by a sea of paddy fields that left them with no place to live. He used to encounter them time and time again when he went with his father and elder brother into the forest to cut firewood. The forest gradually receded from the edge of the canal and of the village, as the villagers kept chopping down trees for firewood for their own use and for sale to boatmen who sold it in turn in distant places. No one gave a thought to keeping or preserving the forest: everyone needed land to grow rice. Chopping firewood for sale was an important occupation for all the settlers in the area while they waited for the first crop on the land they had tilled. As the forest receded, they had to row or punt further and further away to find wood for chopping. Going back home for lunch would have been a waste of time, so they took with them bowls of rice and jars of water, and troops of monkeys would always sneak in and pilfer the food while the owners were busy cutting wood at some distance from their boats. The monkeys were a nuisance for woodcutters, who had to go without lunch and never managed to catch or circumvent any of the smart and naughty animals, until one day—
He remembered that at the time, his mother had just given birth, and his father, his big brother and himself had gone to cut wood in the forest. He was still very young and could not do anything much besides help to drag small pieces of wood, one by one, and pile them up to make it easy to carry them back to the boat. That day, they forgot to close the lid of the water jar. It was one of those preserved garlic jars brought from China that the villagers used to keep water in. When they went back to the boat, they found a gang of the little devils in a state of agitation as one of them had dunked its head into the jar and could not get it out. Other monkeys big and small, no doubt the victim’s relatives and friends who had conspired to steal the food, were making an awful racket in the nearest tree. It was a funny scene he remembered well. For all its cleverness, the little fellow had been foolish. He tried to keep it as a pet for a while, taking good care of it at first like a child who has found something new, but eventually he tired of it, because the two of them could hardly get along. He had teased it by giving it shrimp paste, which made it even madder at him, so his father had released the poor creature and let it go back to its former haunt in the forest.
Cutting firewood contributed not a little to the history of the local dwellers, as it led to disputes between them and villagers from other areas who entered the forest to cut wood as well. In truth, nobody owned the forest, but the local settlers held that they had been the first to stake their claim. Though they had not put out boundary markers, they took it for granted that the forest was divided among themselves. They would only cut wood in their own patch. When all the trees were felled, they would move deeper into the forest and apportion it anew. The bounty of the forest and the profits to be drawn from it lured villagers from other places to move in in numbers to cut wood also, leading to perennial quarrels which finally degenerated into a confrontation. He did not witness it himself but was told about it by his brother, and it was this very event which earned Mr. Chom the love and respect of the locals so that he was later appointed kamnan. His own brother was very much taken by the courage Mr. Chom, whom the boys of his age called Uncle Chom, displayed during the confrontation.
It seems that Uncle Chom had been a fearless fellow and a bit of a hoodlum when he was in his teens. He had migrated from Khlong Song and settled down to a quiet life of toil, so that no one was aware of his former streak until the dispute over woodcutting grew serious and he thought it was time to stop outsiders from forcing their way into the forest once and for all in order to discourage future intrusions. So he called on all the local dwellers who went regularly to cut wood in the forest to join forces to repel the invaders. That day, the villagers gathered at the mouth of the canal leading into the firewood forest. Each of them carried machetes and whatever other weapons they owned — mostly the choppers they used to cut wood. Some had swords and some, fishing spears. As for Uncle Chom, he had a shotgun.
Uncle Chom laid a bamboo pole across the canal, which was so narrow that only punting boats could slip past, and the villagers gathered and waited behind the bamboo pole. When a boat of outside woodcutters arrived, Uncle Chom announced, “Whoever removes this bamboo pole must die. Nobody can cut wood in this canal, except the villagers here”.
A sturdy, energetic man got out of the boat and stood on the ground, then the other men followed suit, each holding either a chopper or a sword. “Can’t we share the cutting with you, Chom?”
Uncle Chom looked the speaker in the face. “It’s good that you know me. You must know I’m true to my word.”
“Wood in this forest has no owners. Anybody can cut it.”
“Who told you this forest has no owners? Here are the owners.” He held out his hand toward the villagers standing behind him.
The man walked closer to the end of the bamboo pole on the ground. “Suppose we want to get it for our use—” He left the sentence unfinished.
“You can’t. If you want one, buy it from what’s been cut, or from what hasn’t been cut yet.”
“Suppose we go cut it ourselves. This wood has no owner.” The man stepped forward and trod on the end of the pole.
Uncle Chom cocked his gun. “Cross over the bamboo and I shoot you,” he said with obvious determination. The villagers moved a step closer to him as if in support of his words. “I had given up behaving like a hoodlum, but now everyone wants me to be one again, so I will. Whoever thinks he’s smart, let him cross over.”
The others equivocated for a while, seemingly to appraise the weaponry of the other side and its manpower against theirs. They had not a single gun between them.
“Can’t we share with you at all?” The tone was more conciliatory.
“The wood is reserved by the villagers here. If you want wood, go get it from somewhere else.”
One by one, the outsiders turned round and went back to their boat reluctantly and looking none too friendly.
“This is my ultimatum: from now on, no one can come here and cut wood at all,” Uncle Chom added for good measure as the boat was leaving.
From then on, it seems that there were no more large groups of intruders coming in to cut wood, although there were surreptitious forays at night by some for the same purpose now and then.

He loved his big brother very much, because they were playmates. His brother often took him to catch fighting fish with scoop baskets in a small swamp whose torpid water was hairy with grass and which their mother kept forbidding them to go to because she was afraid they might be bitten by cobras. Their mother’s fears were well-founded, because death from cobra bites was a regular occurrence. In those days, the various marsh plants, mostly wild and useless, had been cleared over a wide area, some stretches of land had been leveled, and his father had bought a water buffalo, called Kang* because of the unusual spread of its horns. His brother and him went along and helped cut grass for Kang and took the opportunity to catch fighting fish. They shared the fish they caught and put them in bottles or basins, and his brother always let him choose first. When they had raised them long enough, they got them to fight, and his fish mostly won. “That’s because you always get to pick the best,” his brother would say while throwing his defeated champion back into the water.
Across the canal from his house at an angle, another house came to be built by people who had migrated from Rangsit. It was a small family — father, mother and daughter. The girl seemed to be about his own age. The two brothers watched the construction of the house with interest. It was a thatch-roofed farm shack merely squatting on a mound erected as a precaution against flooding. Inside, a small platform of rubber wood over raised ground formed the sleeping area, and the sitting platform was made of bamboo as in farm shacks everywhere. The house had several roosters, which crowed melodiously before dawn. As the houses were only separated by the canal, it was not long before the two families came to know each other. One evening, a tiger cat stole a rooster from the neighbor’s coop. The whole house was in uproar. The little girl cried louder than anyone, out of fear or out of sorrow for the rooster nobody knew. He was startled: it wasn’t just a cat, it was a tiger cat! His father and his brother went over to help, but nothing could be done, they could not catch the tiger cat that time. However, to prevent further raids (several farmers in the area had also been attacked), they put the roosters in a cage as a lure and kept watch together over several nights, and eventually the tiger cat was caught, which pleased both households very much. On that crucial night, he had been sound asleep since early evening, unable to stand further sleep deprivation after staying awake for most of the previous nights, but he too had shared in the happiness as if he had triumphed over a major danger in his life all by himself. From then on, the two households had close relations. The parents would visit each other regularly and the children would cross over to play with one another, which meant he had a new playmate.

The forest was cleared. The uneven ground was leveled and turned into fertile paddy fields bristling with verdant sprouts, but he could see that such changes took a long time — year after year of toil as the settlers used the strength of their bodies and shed their sweat, many hundreds of millions of drops of sweat, with endurance and diligence. He liked the rainy season when the lowlands were inundated and he was able to row his small boat to fish in the fields. The water was so clear he could see the fish with his naked eye. During the rainy season there was an abundance of fish and water plants. He set fish traps in the ditches and visited them every morning. They yielded gourami, barb, climbing perch and catfish without fail. Taptao, water mimosa and water primrose were at their crunchy best. The lotuses in the ditches bloomed. The loofah climber which covered the whole roof of the house with a profusion of leaves broke into yellow flowers which took on a breathtaking glow in the morning sunshine. But as soon as the gourds were kept, his father cut the loofah and threw it away and wouldn’t let it creep up all over the roof again. His father told him that it made the nipa and bamboo strips of the roof rot quickly, because when the rains fell, it prevented the sunshine from seeping through and the roof was never dry. His father replanted the loofah on the knoll near the house, which already had clumps of lemon grass, kaffir, chili and basil, and provided it with a bamboo grid to creep over. But when it flowered he felt it didn’t look as beautiful as it had when it had spread all over the roof.
The rice ripening season was another harrowing time, as he was busy chasing weaverbirds, which came down to eat the grain in large numbers. He saw some weavers make theirs nests by the canal, nests that were more beautiful and intricate than those of other birds. He often went and stole the eggs, so that in later years there would be less birds and those that were left made their nests high up in bamboo groves out of reach, but there were few such weavers. It was the jungle weavers that came to eat the rice. They flew in in droves and did quite a lot of damage. You had to pack mud at one end of a clump of lalang grass to use as a projectile, then sit idly in the paddy field from dawn to dusk ready to throw it to scatter the birds whenever they came to eat.
Harvest time was another period of heavy work. There, as everywhere, the farmers relied on one another to harvest. Many people came to help harvest the paddy field of one household then went to another house’s, depending on whose rice was ripe first. Even though their hands had been roughed and calloused by years of heavy labor, they still managed to get them hurt with the scythes, which drew blood. The rice stalks bound in sheaves bore traces of the farmers’ dry blood. Women and men and even children old enough to work helped one another toil away and paid no attention to the blood seeping from their hands, and the scars would still be visible when the time came to grab the ladle to make an offering of rice to the monks on New Year’s Day.
When the threshing was over and the grain stored away, Chinaman Heng’s fast dugout would turn up at the bottom of the stairs in front of the house. He remembered that in the old days, Chinaman Heng had been the first to set up shop in the neighborhood, selling dry foodstuffs and odds and ends. Every day Chinaman Heng would row his small sampan full of all kinds of petty goods he bought in town — from coconut oil, kerosene, betel, tobacco, condiments, onions and garlic to such delicacies as popped-rice cakes, slabs of jujube, palm sugar biscuits and small sugar dolls in green, white and pink. Chinaman Heng’s status changed fairly quickly. His small shop expanded and had more goods to sell. Besides selling goods as before, Chinaman Heng became a moneylender, advancing money against future paddy, as well as a middleman buying rice from the farmers and selling it to the rice mill. Before long, he gave up rowing his trading boat and left that duty to one of his helpers. When rice growing in the area expanded and proved rewarding, Chinaman Heng would only row his rice boat to collect paddy from the farmers who were in his debt and to buy rice from others as well, which he kept in his barn before selling it to the rice mill. And it was not long either before he left the duty of rowing to someone else and was content to sit in his big-bellied boat supervising the collection of rice from the farmers.
He still remembered the fun of the Thai New Year celebration each April, when the villagers in their best clothes assembled at the temple and made merit with food offerings to the monks for three days running, and finally a Buddha image was bathed with fragrant water, then more scented water was poured on the hands of the elders while the young men and women doused themselves by the bucketful and the children joined in the fun as well. The nights resounded with Mae See and Phee Ling songs. In the neighborhood, there were four or five families who had migrated from Park Lat and they had several young women. They had brought over the game of saba and made it popular among the local folk. Around their houses, the night was brightened by pressure lanterns, and the young men had gone and assembled there. In the first few years when saba was played, the young men always lost because they were still unfamiliar with the game, so they had to dance for the young women instead of the other way around. Besides saba, there was the Mae See spirit game. The medium was a young woman. Blindfolded, holding an incense stick between her palms joined in front of her chest, she sat on a mortar for pounding rice, her feet placed upon pestles lined up in a double row, the heads of the pestles turned toward her heels. She lit up the incense stick and stuck it into the ground. Then there was a merry clapping of hands and clatter of bamboo sticks as everybody sang.
‘O Mae See Mae See bonny lass in bud
Raise your hands and to the Lord bow
That your beauty be hailed
In the curve of your brow
And the round of your neck
Do cover your ravishing breast O bonny Mae See O”
The song was sung again and again until half of the incense stick was consumed. The medium sat still. The song being sung changed to an invitation to the spirit.
Come down O Lords of the Four Directions
Let the most powerful take form
Into the body of your slave the medium
Do come down, O white-green Lord
Ride the one-tusk elephant and take the maid with the black eyes
Tonight come and play Mae See O
The singing of this song went on for a while. When the incense stick was burnt entirely and the medium was seen swaying to and fro with slightly trembling hands, it meant that the spirit had entered her. The singers sang louder to a fiercer and faster clapping of hands and bamboo beat.
The spirit has entered ho! the spirit has entered ha!
He didn’t crawl under the branch as he entered
The jujube thorns scratched his face and he ouched
The betel nuts are in the box the betel leaves are in the box
Raise the box and the golden bowl up to his face to clean it
The spirit has entered ho! the spirit has entered ha!
Now that she was possessed, the blindfold was taken off her, then men and women sang courtship songs in alternance, Mae See dancing all the while until it was over.
As for him, when he was still very young, he was not really interested in Mae See, but what he liked was Phee Ling. It was real fun and had the thrill of danger, but before you could play you had to sing the invitation to the phee ling, the monkey spirit till you got yourself hoarse.
Hey little loris come munch a crunchy rice cake
The two kiddies have come to pluck the ace of club
Marquess Dove and Marquess Watercock
Mouth a cowrie chew some rice O Lord Loris
A round coconut a jambu sweet
Mouse-faced Glass has a lover in the palace
Tiddledy-dum tiddledy-do and a rope round her neck
At the morgue rat-a-tat-tat boom-boom

Phook was the first to be entered by the monkey spirit. He crouched on a couple of pestles, blindfolded, a stick of incense between his raised hands. He had a piece of checkered cloth around his waist for his minders to grab so that nobody would get hurt when he went after someone and he would not just dart away, as the rumor had it that some of the men possessed by the monkey spirit had run away into the jungle and some had even turned into monkeys; sometimes they disappeared for days before the spirit left them and they returned home, and some disappeared for good. But those were only rumors; nothing of the sort had happened yet around here. After the song had been going on for some time, Phook began to tremble more and more. When his minders saw that he was possessed, they took off his blindfold. Phook pounced after people at once like a vicious monkey, prompting the circle around him to break in fright. In the commotion, someone threw him down belly up. His head banged on the ground. The shock was so sudden he did not feel the pain. He scrambled off to below the house, because he had heard the advice that when he was cornered he should take refuge under the house since the monkey spirit would never follow him there. He sat looking at the monkey spirit that had entered Phook chasing people in an uproar, his two sturdy minders hardly able to keep up with him. When he felt himself again and ceased to be afraid, he came out from under the house to tease the monkey for fun. That’s when Phook ran headlong into a huge pole. The spirit left there and then, with Phook holding his swelling forehead and groaning in pain and panting in exhaustion.
The curious went to ask him what it had been like. Phook answered that he had felt as if he had been sleeping. At first he heard the singing but that had gone away, then he thought he saw something dark like a cloud of smoke suddenly whooshing into him and then he felt nothing any more until he had this pain in the head. “I don’t know why I’m so tired,” he grumbled. “Get me some water.”
“Chasing people all over, of course you’re tired,” someone told him.
Phook looked perplexed as if he did not believe it was true.
Many agreed the monkey spirit had really entered him, yet some were still unconvinced and wanted to have it done all over again and asked for volunteers. Fatso, Old On’s son, readily agreed.
The old ceremonial began again. The monkey spirit entered Fatso before long. Fatso’s behavior was almost exactly that of Phook. He went after people for a long time, mostly in the direction of the group of women who fled shrieking. At one point, as Fatso chased people, his minders just lost their hold on him. Many people exclaimed in fear that he would disappear into the forest. Yet, Fatso went on chasing people, his minders behind him. The man Fatso ran after, seeing himself cornered, went up a haystack to its very top. Fatso climbed after him, but somehow as he was scaling up, he lost his grip and he fell tumbling down. Yelling in fright, people ran to him at once, afraid he’d broken his skull or his ribs or his arms or something. But no. Fatso was having a good laugh. His trick was up. The women protested weakly that he had been cheating and he almost got kicked by the older men for chasing people around without being possessed.
He was especially interested, wanting to know if the spirit had really entered the medium, so he whispered to Fatso, who was still panting: “Hey, Fatso, were you possessed or not?”
Fatso took him by the hand and went to sit on a log away from the others. “I’m telling you: don’t say a word about this,” Fatso enjoined. “I just faked it. No goddamn spirit entered me. I just pretended, okay? Thought it was fun.”
“Then how come you were shaking?”
“Koz I was tired, damnit. I thought I’d wait him out and let him in to make it look good, but I couldn’t stand it, I got so goddamn tired, so I had to pretend to get possessed a bit too soon.”
“Why did you fall off the haystack?”
“I was tired to death. If I didn’t chase ’m and stayed put, I’d break my teeth laughing. That’s when I got afraid I’d be found out. So I had to keep on the chase. Couldn’t stop. I was so tired, you know, and the minders, they kept pulling on the cloth so I could hardly breathe. If I fell, it’s because I didn’t quite grasp the straw: I just didn’t have any strength left, and when I fell I couldn’t help laughing.”
“Do you believe Phook was really possessed?” he asked further.
Fatso shook his head. “He used the same trick as I did, I reckon.”

He had three brothers and one sister. His elder brother had gone to the temple school three years before him, then his father had sent him there to learn as well, and the two brothers rowed the boat to the school together. His father told the neighbors, “Let ’m learn their ABCs so they ain’t as stupid as we folks. Primary school’s enough: we’ll need them at home after that.”
He was too young to know the importance of learning. His father had sent him to study, so he went on with his studies. If he enjoyed going to school, it was not because he wanted to learn but because there were many more friends to play with. In the daytime, they were only able to play a few children’s games as so many enticements, but whether by fate or whatever, something happened that was to result in a complete change in his life.
The monk who taught him and the other children at the temple told his father one day, “I’m going to Bangkok. You have several children. I’d like one to go with me. He’ll be able to study in Bangkok as well”.
His father thought for a long time and, after consulting his mother, agreed to let him go. “Chao is old enough for us to rely on his labor. Let his younger brother go.” This was his parents’ joint decision.
His little brother Bai was only four years old then and quite innocent. His sister Yen was only two, and the last boy, Khuen, had yet to learn to walk. It was agreed that he was the one his parents would allow to be at the monk’s service in Bangkok.
He cried on the day he left home, his parents, brothers and sister, the windy, sun-drenched paddy fields and everything he loved and was used to. He did not know how far Bangkok was but suspected it was way, way away.
His mother, holding the last-born in her arms, looked at him with empty eyes as he held the monk’s shoulder bag and boarded the boat to Bangkok. His father and the other two younger siblings stood together at the top of the stairs at the landing.
“You go now, son. We’ll meet again in the next dry season,” his mother said softly and, turning to the monk, insisted: “You must let him come back for the New Year celebrations next year.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll have him back home every year. The school holidays last for more than a month. He’ll come and see you every year.”
“Maybe I’ll come to see you at the beginning of Lent,” his father offered as a consolation.
Such had been the childhood, up until the switch to urban life, of the young boy Sai Seema, son of Mr. Thiang Seema, rice farmer.

4

Ratchanee sat reading a weekly newspaper in the small pavilion raised above the water of the garden ditch. In the shade of the vines that crept all over the wooden laths of the roof, Ratchanee felt unspeakably lonely. University life had already come to an end and she had a sense of loss over what had been her routine — over the lack of activity, of meetings with friends, and, worst of all, of any expectation about life and the future.
Ratchanee looked at the blue-and-white porcelain pots and at the plants in the pots, which were placed at regular intervals around the lawn and were kept properly trimmed by Father, who spent hours each evening taking care of them. ‘My life is the same as those plants,’ Ratchanee thought.
A large sedan glided into the compound. A glance told Ratchanee that it belonged to Darunee, her second eldest sister. As the car drove past the pavilion at the bend of the lane leading to the main house, Darunee looked through the window and waved at Ratchanee, then instructed the driver to stop the car at once before it reached the front of the house.
Darunee opened the door and stepped out at the same time as Ratchanee got to her feet and walked toward her.
“Lek, is Mother home?”
Ratchanee nodded for an answer.
“How about Father?”
“He’s here too. Inside.”
“I dropped by to visit them,” Darunee explained.
“How are you?”
“Fine. Lek, wait for me. I’ll go and see them first, then I’ll be right back.” Before turning her back, she said, “I’ve many things to talk to you about. You must wait for me, okay?” she reiterated.
Ratchanee went back to the arbor and seated herself on the bench as before. Darunee had been married for years and had two children. Her husband was a very wealthy trader. Actually, he used to be a mere clerk in a Western firm in Bang Rak but he had prospered very quickly during the war and even more so afterward.
After Darunee got married, Ratchanee did not see her often, as her sister seldom had time to come for a visit and when she did come, Ratchanee usually was not at home. Ratchanee had no idea what her sister wanted to talk to her about.
Darunee’s marriage, from what Ratchanee could remember, had taken place because her suitor was well-off. If truth be told, neither was in love with the other beforehand; they had met only a few times, but the decision to get married had been easily taken. One reason was that Darunee, like most women of her time, had no opinion of her own regarding love and marriage. If there were other reasons, Ratchanee did not know and did not want to venture a guess.
Ratchanee had overheard part of the consultation Father, Mother and Grandmother had had about the marriage of Darunee and Mr. Somboon, whose family lineage and status they had thoroughly examined. Grandmother had pointed out that Mr. Somboon had no blue blood whatsoever, but Father and Mother had agreed that he had a sound financial status and a good reputation in high circles. Even though he did not belong to the aristocracy, he was well thought of by many aristocrats and senior officials, which somewhat made up for his lack of pedigree. Besides, the matchmaker who had come to ask for Darunee’s hand on behalf of the bridegroom was a senior member of exalted aristocratic stock and one of Father’s acquaintances. The final outcome of the consultation had been that, wealth outweighing pedigree, Mr. Somboon, the rich trader, was granted the honor of becoming a son-in-law of this household.
The newlyweds had often called on the house, at least initially. Mr. Somboon tended to flaunt his wealth and behave as the nouveau riche are wont to do, which prompted Grandmother to lash out behind his back, “Rich indeed, but the man has no manners”. But that was a very long time ago.
Darunee walked down from the house, entered the pavilion and sat down.
“Has Yai come to visit Father and Mother?” Darunee asked, referring to their eldest sister.
“Not lately. The last time must have been at the beginning of last month.”
“How was she? I hardly see her.”
“Fine, I think,” Ratchanee replied.
Darunee sighed. Ratchanee had the impression that her sister was thinner than before. Although she wore a well-tailored dress and was impeccably made up, there was something in her bearing which led her sister to guess that Darunee was not very happy. Outsiders may not notice — how could a woman so obviously wealthy be anything but happy? — but from her own experience, Ratchanee understood well enough that wealth did not always mean happiness.
“Have you had anything to eat since lunchtime?” Ratchanee asked.
“Not yet. But I’m not hungry.”
“You should eat something. I haven’t had anything either. Let’s have tea brought over here, shall we?” She ordered her personal servant to bring some tea and sweets over to the pavilion. “How are my nephew and my niece?” she asked.
Darunee nodded. “At first, I planned to bring them along, but when I was about to leave, Noi hadn’t woken up yet.”
“You look unwell,” Ratchanee observed. “You look thinner. Maybe you’re overworked or the children are tiring you out.”
“The children are no problem, really. They’re quite naughty of course, but they have a nanny to look after them. And I don’t have that much to do either.” Darunee sighed again. “But I feel very depressed.”
“About what?”
“So many things. My heart is loaded with tons of worries,” Darunee said, shaking her head. A female servant brought in tea and sweets on a tray she placed on the bench.
“Do have some,” Ratchanee pressed as she stirred the tea with a spoon.
“If I could be young again, I’d never get married,” Darunee said and sighed like one who has made a mistake but does not know how to correct it and thus finds herself in a bitter dilemma that keeps pressing down on her chest.
Ratchanee almost asked her why, but checked herself at the thought that if she did, Darunee might think that she herself was considering marriage.
“Being born a female is such a calamity,” Darunee went on with a sad voice. “When we live with our parents, we have to obey them and the other senior relatives. When we get married, we are under the power of our husband. As you know, Lek, I didn’t marry out of love. Whatever our parents arranged, as an obedient child I had to go along with them. At the time, I only thought marriage would be good because I was fed up living here, I thought I’d be considered as an adult and have more freedom. But actually, it was like freeing myself from a chain only to burden myself with a new, heavier one.”
Ratchanee sat listening in silence without giving any opinion.
“True, I didn’t love him before, but as soon as I knew I was going to marry him, I prepared myself to love, respect and serve him as is the duty of a good wife. We’ve been taught by tradition and custom that a husband is a god we must worship over and above everyone else. I had never thought men could be so crooked, immoral and dishonest.” Plain disgust showed on Darunee’s face. “The lady-bird So-mika of the Weitarn tale was right*.”
Ratchanee remembered that her sister had once read the book, which came from the house library, but she would never have thought that Darunee could remember it up until now.
“I tried to endure everything, thinking it was my fate and there was nothing I could do about it, but all my efforts were useless and brought me nothing in return but endless heartburns and headaches because he keeps mistresses all over town.”
When she saw Ratchanee’s dubious expression as if what she heard was impossible, Darunee insisted: “It’s true, Lek. I’m not maligning him at all. He spends the night at home once or twice a week — two nights at most. I’ve no idea where he spends the other nights. He handles all of his money himself. Each month, he flings an allowance over at me. He pays the driver and the servants himself, though it’s supposed to be the wife’s duty. He keeps track of every baht. I don’t mind that. It’s his money, he earns it himself, he has the right to spend it the way he wants, but what I can’t tolerate is his womanizing. I’ve tried to, because I think men can’t get by with a single dish of chili. The only thing I’m asking is that he doesn’t make me lose face, which I just cannot stand. Would you believe I have to support one of his former paramours who comes and upsets me every month? She claims she used to be his mistress and he has now discarded her without any financial support. She says she’s sick and it’s probably true: she looks very thin and sickly indeed. I pitied her, so I gave her some money, but she keeps coming back for more! Apart from this, I keep receiving letters of such foul insinuation — oh, they wear me down so! But then, it’s nothing compared to what happened one day when I went to do some shopping by myself at Sapharn Han, and there were these two women following me since I don’t know when. I noticed them when they came level to me, both scantily dressed and looking like termagants. One said, ‘Oh, is this the Number One Madam, would you say, Toi?’ The one named Toi answered, ‘The very one, me dear, a lady of the bluest blood for you.’ ‘What kinda lydy would that be?’ her friend said, putting on airs. ‘A lydy in the hole, no doubt, to net herself a moneybag before she croaked.’ I listened in complete shock, so ashamed in front of the fruit seller I wanted the ground to swallow me alive. I just didn’t know what to do. I felt myself trembling all over. ‘Take a good look at her. She doesn’t look so proud now, does she!’ ‘How ’bout slappin’ ’er in the face right ’ere in the market, so she can complain to her moneybag?’ And then they started to cackle. I was so ashamed and afraid I couldn’t think straight. I just ran away, without a thought to the oranges I wanted to buy. One of them shouted as a parting shot: ‘Oh my good lydy — so you think your hole’s big enough for your hubby? Pshaw!’”
Ratchanee sat listening dumbfounded, hardly able to believe that such a scene could have taken place.
Darunee shook her head wearily. “Some women these days, they are just too much for me. I haven’t dared to go to Sapharn Han since that day. Even now, every time I think about it, I feel hot in the face.” She stirred the tea in her cup, which had gone quite cold, then put the cup down without taking a sip. “All of his close friends are fiendish — liquor, women, gambling, you name it. He once took me to his business club. There were only close friends of his around the table, and the closest friend of all kept prodding my thigh with his knee all the time. The first time, I was shocked and almost let out a shout. When he saw I kept quiet, he took heart— ‘You lucky bastard, Boon, to have such a beautiful wife!’ he exclaimed, then turned to me and said, ‘I beg your pardon, ma’am, for using such a word. Boon and I have been buddies for so long, ever since we were out of a job together, and we’re used to using rough language with each other but you may find it offensive.’ ‘Never mind, sir,’ I said. ‘Old habits die hard.’ I realized then what being ‘buddies’ meant. A buddy was a friend who shamelessly played footsy with his friend’s wife under the table in the presence of her husband. Such a lady-killer! As soon as he saw a woman, his eyes sparkled and he went for her, as if women were playthings. ‘Won’t you dance?’ He leaned so close I could smell the liquor on his breath. I told him, ‘Sorry, I don’t’. ‘Too bad,’ he said, ‘that’s your only shortcoming, given that that bastard Boon here is such an accomplished dancer.’ ‘I’ve never forbidden Somboon to dance,’ I replied. ‘Ah, but you can’t let him dance on his own for long. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. He’s got fire in his belly.’ ‘And you’re scratching the match for him,’ someone interjected and they all laughed as if it were funny. I thought their talk was crude and foolish, but I forced myself to laugh along. When they all went out dancing and only the two of us were left behind, the great buddy wasn’t slow in showing his true colors. ‘I sympathize with you,’ he said, in such a contrived, phoney voice I knew at once what he was up to. ‘You must be feeling very lonely, because I know my Boon, he’s a regular tomcat.’ I was thoroughly incensed and snapped, ‘I’m perfectly all right and very happy.’ ‘Come now, don’t fool yourself. I know. I really sympathize, you know.’ ‘I thank you, sir,’ I said, ‘but perhaps you’d better keep your sympathy for your wife.’ Do you think he felt hurt? Not a bit. He just laughed! This is the new society I never even suspected existed all the time I was here and thought the outside world must be such a wonderful and lovely and happy place to live in. In truth, it’s the exact opposite, like darkness and light, like black and white, as it were.”
Darunee sat still, her gaunt face growing even more pallid. “I’m very unlucky not to have learned anything much, unlike you. If I knew enough to find a job, I wouldn’t have to kowtow to anyone. That’s why I meant to warn you also: you’ve got the knowledge, you mustn’t kowtow to anyone. Find yourself a job and stand on your own, and don’t think of getting married right away.” She heaved a long sigh, as though she felt relieved at having vented her spleen and gotten her thoughts off her chest.
Ratchanee sat subdued as well, feeling stunned by what she had just heard.
Darunee looked at her wristwatch. “Good grief! Five o’clock already! I must be gone.” Then she was up and away.
Ratchanee’s eyes followed the disheartened egress of her sister with deep compassion. The two cups of tea and the sweets were left there, untasted. Ratchanee took a single sip of tea. She had picked up the cup absent-mindedly, but then she put it down, feeling her throat too constricted to swallow anything.
A young woman walked in from the road. She wore a neat white hemp shirt and dark indigo skirt: Nitaya, or “Nit” for short, the daughter of Old Phoon the driver, was back from teaching at school. Nitaya had completed her secondary education and then gone on to teach in a private school. Ratchanee watched her till she went out of sight, her mind a jumble of thoughts.

5

Ratchanee walked into the building of Boorapha Bank feeling at once happy and excited. This was her first day as an employee of the bank. She was thrilled because it was her first employment ever and the place was new to her. She had obtained her job at Boorapha Bank thanks to Jittin, her friend Jitra’s elder brother. She had once told Jitra that she was looking for work, and out of the blue Jitra had told her that, only a few days earlier, her brother had mentioned that there was a vacancy at the bank’s foreign relations division. Jitra had taken her to see her brother at the bank on the spur of the moment. Jittin already knew Ratchanee; they had met at Jitra’s birthday party. As head of the foreign division, he was willing to propose Ratchanee for the vacant position and there and then had her fill in an application form which was to be forwarded to the manager and to the managing director. A few days later, Jitra was the bearer of good tidings: the managing director had agreed to take Ratchanee on.
She walked over to her desk without daring to meet anybody’s gaze, merely shooting sideways glances as she went. She felt everyone’s eyes were on her. ‘It’s only natural; I’m new, so everybody must be looking at me,’ she thought, yet she could not but feel a little nervous.
Jittin was already there, reading an English newspaper at his desk. When Ratchanee walked over to her own desk, which was next to his, Jittin put his newspaper down. “Good morning, Miss Ratchanee,” he greeted her and smiled, then glanced at the clock on the wall. “You’re in early, too.”
“Good morning, sir,” she answered him with a smile. The fact that she knew him, together with his easy manners, made her feel a lot less embarrassed.
A young woman brought a wad of daily newspapers and put them on Jittin’s desk.
“Miss Chertchawee, let me introduce Miss Ratchanee,” Jittin said. The two women bowed to each other simul­taneously.
“Miss Chertchawee is our typist,” he told Ratchanee. “You can give her everything that needs to be typed. Oh, Miss Chert, get all the current files for Miss Ratchanee, will you.”
Miss Chertchawee went to get four or five files and gave them to Ratchanee with a smile.
“Thank you.”
“Study these files first and try to understand the various English commercial idioms,” Jittin told her. “Actually, it’s no big deal, except that they’re different from ordinary language.”
Ratchanee opened a file and leafed through it. Her first hour of work had begun, amidst the buzz of business — customers came in, phones rang, typewriters clattered, fans whirred, automatic calculators clicked and clanged, and over the drone of people and machines, cigarette smoke dissolved in the fan-battered air. Ratchanee’s heart still beat hard, because she was not used to the place and the press of people. She noticed that the employees of the accounting department, women as well as men, looked in her direction often. Two office boys went about shuttling documents from one desk to the next, where the sheets of paper were initialed with a couple of squiggles then rubber-stamped, then walked on and stood by another desk, where something was written down in a huge register, and then on to another desk and yet another... Someone at the front counters was calling out numbers. From another quarter, a woman’s voice on the phone was saying, “Hello, this is Boorapha Bank—”
Ratchanee began to familiarize herself with the atmosphere of the workplace, which she had tried to picture in her mind the night before, wondering what it would be like. Everything was new to her.
Only three days earlier, she still did not know if she would be allowed out of the house to go to work. Meeting her sister Darunee that day had been an important factor in her decision to find herself a job. Although she did not believe every argument Darunee had put forward, she was afraid of meeting the same fate as her sister. Nothing could guarantee that she would not. Work would make her independent and allow her to know more people and broaden her understanding of the world, which was a necessity in today’s fast-changing world.
Ratchanee made a special effort to humor her parents in order to pave her own way ahead, yet she could not but feel apprehensive when she confided to them that she had gotten herself a job. She expected to have a hard time winning Father over and to be thoroughly upbraided, but in the event things turned out different from what she had feared.
“Lek, what are your reasons for wanting to work?” Father inquired.
“I’ve studied and I’d like to put what I’ve learned to good use.”
“I don’t agree that women should work outside of the home,” Mother asserted.
“Nobody thinks like this any more, Mother. Many women do work. In some professions, there are more women than men, actually — doctors, nurses, teachers, for instance. Women have long done it.”
“I do not see the need to trouble yourself with work. There is everything at home,” Father said.
“Indeed,” Mother interjected. “Everybody is going to say, are they so hard up they have to send their daughter to work.”
“That’s not the point, Mother, but I think that, since you both were kind enough to put me through university, I should work for my own benefit and for the benefit of all as well.”
“Ha!” Father exclaimed contemptuously. “Before long you shall be wanting to stand for elections and enter the govern­ment.”
Ratchanee was well aware that her father was an aristocrat of the old mould who approved of no change whatsoever. “It’s okay, isn’t it?” she said, to cut the matter short.
“I don’t agree at all,” Mother mumbled much more weakly. As for Father, he sat quietly. Ratchanee could feel that he was not happy, but the fact that he had not refused pointblank was, she believed, to her advantage.
“I’ll give it a try for a while.” Ratchanee tried to make it sound like something not so important to prevent her father from opposing her outright. “All my friends of my age work. I’d like to try too, and I’ve already told them that I would.”
“What will you do? And where?” Father asked.
Ratchanee felt relieved as if a mountain had been removed from her chest. She told him. He knew Jittin and Jitra’s father and was familiar with Jitra, who had come visiting often. Jitra was her only friend her father accepted without reservation.
After some time had elapsed, when she saw that her father was not going to add anything, Ratchanee hurried out of the room, afraid that he would abruptly change his mind. She felt light-headed. She let out a long sigh of relief and felt happy as though she had won an important battle in life. ‘Lucky for me,’ she thought, ‘that Grandmother is senile, otherwise I wouldn’t stand a chance of getting past her.’
“Why are you smiling to yourself like this?” Jittin’s voice was asking. Ratchanee started. ‘I was so happy I must have been smiling without realizing it,’ she thought and was so embarrassed she felt herself blushing.
Jittin laughed. “You’ll have lunch with me, all right?”
“Thank you, sir. But never mind, I—”
“No, no,” Jittin hastened to interrupt her. “This is your first day at work. You don’t know anyone yet and you don’t know where to go for lunch either. So, you must go with me. One of my friends will be there as well. You know him, you met him at Jitra’s birthday party.”
Ratchanee could not guess who Jittin’s friend was. Was it a man or a woman? But she dared not ask, so she kept silent, mentally thanking him for the friendliness he was showing her.
“Well, here he comes actually—” Jittin said as a man pushed the wooden revolving door and entered. “Talking of the devil—”
‘Oh, that one!’ Ratchanee thought at once and pretended not to see him.
“Good morning, Miss Ratchanee,” he greeted her first cheerfully. “I didn’t know you worked here.”
Ratchanee answered him with a curt “Good morning”. Jittin was the one who added, “She just started today”.
“Oh,” he exclaimed.
Throughout the lunch, she tried to speak as little as possible, but, as it turned out, he did most of the talking. ‘He knows how to talk after all,’ she thought and remembered with a trace of resentment his behavior the last time. ‘He won’t get off lightly when I get hold of him. Just let me find the right opportunity. I’m not one to forget easily,’ she thought to herself.
Sai left them after the lunch was over.
“My friend Sai is a good man,” Jittin claimed once Sai was gone. “You don’t know him well yet. I’ve known him since we were at school together. He went on to study law and became a lawyer. I chose commerce, then came to work to the bank, but we still meet often. I admire him for being able to establish himself through his own ability. Actually, poverty often crushes people, but sometimes it brings out the best in them.”
“But good people do not always remain good, wouldn’t you say?” Ratchanee objected.
“Right.” Jittin nodded. “To know how good a man is you need to look at his whole life. Some people who are good kids turn bad in their teens and some who are good in their teens turn bad late in life. Nothing is certain, and when I say he is a good man, it’s only from looking at him up until now.”
He stopped speaking for a moment as if he was deep in thought, then went on, “But the teenage years are very important because it’s a turning point in life. That’s when people tend to get themselves a bad name.”
Ratchanee went back home that afternoon with a heart swelling with pride. She was excited about her work, which made her feel responsible and confident in her ability. But she had hardly arrived home and changed her clothes when her servant came to tell her that His Lordship wanted to see her.
When Ratchanee entered the room, she found Father sitting with a sullen face. She knew instantly that something out of the ordinary had happened.
“Who did you have lunch with?”
“With my supervisor,” Ratchanee answered candidly, “Mr. Jittin, and a friend of his.”
“Don’t you know it is not proper to go out for lunch with men on your own?” Father said ominously.
Ratchanee was about to protest, but then thought it wiser to keep quiet.
“From now on, I absolutely forbid you to go out for a meal with any man, unless accompanied by some of your lady friends.”
“Y-yes Father,” Ratchanee answered hesitantly, her mood, so buoyant a moment ago, yielding to sudden fright.
She went downstairs and walked straight to the garage. Mr. Phoon, the driver, was busy washing the car.
“Mr. Phoon,” she uttered angrily, “it was you, was it not, who reported to Father whom I went out to lunch with?”
“Yes, Miss,” Mr. Phoon answered unabashed. “His Lordship asked me to keep an eye on you and report where you went and what you did.”
“What!” Ratchanee shook her head fiercely. “I see! A fine job you’re doing, spying to tell tales on others!”
Mr. Phoon held out his hands to show he could not help it. “Whatever His Lordship asks me to do I must do. If I don’t, I’ll be blamed, and then His Lordship will use someone else in the house instead, like Chuay or Nueang. It’d be the same, perhaps even worse. I told His Lordship directly that you went for lunch near your place of work with Mr. Jittin and a friend of his. I know this man, but I didn’t tell His Lordship that I do.”
“You know him? How come?”
“Actually, I couldn’t remember him at all. It was he who remembered me. He saw me the day I took you to Miss Jitra’s birthday party. He met me only once and yet, he still remembered me very well. At the time, my wife was down with typhoid. I went to buy drugs at the drugstore, and the man wanted two hundred baht for each bottle. I only had one hundred and sixty baht on me, and not a satang more. No matter how I bargained, he wouldn’t lower the price. That’s when that man entered the shop to buy something for a cold. He remembered me. He greeted me and even asked how you were. I answered you were fine, and I’m sorry, Miss Lek, I forgot to tell you because I was too busy then with my wife being unwell. He asked me what kind of drug I was buying, so I answered him truthfully. He took out his own money and gave it me. He’s a generous man, Miss.” Mr. Phoon raised his hands to his forehead and bowed. “I thanked him a lot, he said ‘Never mind, it’s nothing much at all really. If I help you it’s not because you are His Lordship’s driver, it’s because I can see you’re really short of money.’”
Ratchanee was quiet for a while. “Why didn’t you ask Father?”
“I had already informed His Lordship, who gave me some Thai medicine. The doctor wouldn’t have my wife take it, and when she did it didn’t help. So I went back to His Lordship and got cursed for my pains.”
“You should have told me.”
“I didn’t want to bother you. I know you’re very kind, but at the time you had no income at all, and besides, I never thought the foreign drug ’d be so expensive.” Mr. Phoon marked a pause then went on. “Why wouldn’t I know you didn’t do anything wrong or shameful? I’ve known you since you were a child. I know what a good person you are. Maybe I know it better than His Lordship, for that matter. You’re old enough to know good from evil, but what you don’t know is that today I had to take His Lordship past the Boorapha Bank twice. His Lordship wanted to know where the bank was or what it looked like or whatever. This is why I say His Lordship doesn’t know you, doesn’t know how things are in this time and age. Maybe His Lordship still thinks he’s as important as in the old days.”
“I’ve been with His Lordship from childhood to old age,” Mr. Phoon went on as though he were talking to himself rather than to Ratchanee. “I’ve always been like I am now. I’ve got a place to sleep, enough to eat, and that’s all. His Lordship thinks his benevolence is sufficient. I’m not being ungrateful, I’m well aware of His Lordship’s benevolence, but life these days isn’t at all what it was before, forty, fifty years ago. I’m old now, with nowhere else to go, but as for my child, Nit, I won’t let her be a slave’s daughter. Enough’s enough.”




6

When the bell announcing the end of the classes rang, the calm that had prevailed over the school for hours was gone. An instant later, girls in white shirts and navy-blue skirts poured out of the classrooms almost at the same time, swarming the porch and the courtyard in front of the school. When all of the children had left, Kingthian gathered her books. The big purple orchid which one of the children had offered her that morning was still on her desk next to her handbag. It was actually very pretty and Kingthian loved flowers, but today she felt it would look a bit awkward if she took it back with her. If she left it behind, she was afraid the girl who had brought it would be disappointed, thinking that the teacher did not like it. The girl, who had left the room last, was still loitering on the porch, as if she wanted to know whether the teacher would take it back home or not. Kingthian felt that, only days after she had come to teach here, there were at least three or four girls who had a crush on her. This was not hard to notice: she had been a child once and had had a crush on her young female teacher as well, and she still could remember how she had behaved with that teacher, and now she found herself the object of the same behavior.
One of the star-struck girls was Waeota, the one who had given her the orchid this morning as she was walking into the school. “This is for you, Miss,” she had said, proffering the orchid with a beaming face. Kingthian had had a slight hesitation. “Oh, thanks so much, Waeota.” She had taken the flower and asked, “Where did you get it from?” “From home. My father’s got plenty.” “In future you mustn’t, you know. A beautiful flower like this, I’m sure your father or your mother must mind a lot.” “They don’t. I asked Father and I told him it was for you.” “Thank you, but you mustn’t bother him again.” When she saw Waeota pulling a long face, she added: “It’s very pretty. I like it, but I don’t want to be an imposition on your father.”
Kingthian walked out of the room holding the orchid and saw Waeota still standing in the courtyard with two of her friends. She pretended not to see her, walked through the gate and went to wait for the bus. A short while later, Waeota and her friends came out. ‘They’ll probably notice I’m not taking the usual bus,’ Kingthian thought and it reminded her of the time when she was a little pupil who was interested in whatever her favorite teacher did and who tried to imitate her in every way. ‘They’re like we were at their age,’ she went on thinking. ‘Children will be children.’
The bus was as packed as usual. Her heart beat faster as she thought of her destination, while she stood strap hanging inside the bus.
When she got out of the vehicle, she found him already waiting.
He smiled broadly and she smiled back. He looked at his wrist-watch. “You’re right on time.”
Kingthian didn’t answer, and showed him the orchid. The petals were a little frayed at the rim because of the crush in the bus. “Isn’t it pretty?”
“It is, very pretty indeed. Who gave it to you?”
“An admirer,” Kingthian answered with a smile.
“Is that so?” He made a funny face but did not ask anything further and she did not explain.
“Let’s stop here for a drink,” he suggested as they reached a coffee-shop. Kingthian nodded in agreement.
When they had ordered drinks and fruit, she asked him, “Was there something important you wanted to see me about?”
“Meeting you is always important to me.”
Kingthian laughed. “No, I thought that when you called me up this morning you had something urgent to discuss.”
“Meeting you is always urgent for me,” he repeated and laughed.
Kingthian reckoned he was just trying to be funny. She and Nikhom had met at the university. He was in the political science faculty, as hardworking and eager and bright as he could be playful.
“Let’s have some sweets first and then we can talk shop,” he said. “You’re in no hurry to go back, are you?”
She shook her head, cut out a chunk of papaya and popped it into her mouth.
“I’m going upcountry the day after tomorrow,” he said more soberly.
“Huh! Where to?”
“The ministry has appointed me assistant district officer in the Northeast with immediate effect.”
“How come it’s so sudden?”
“Yes, it’s rather rushed. I was just informed this morning and instructed to take up my new post as soon as possible.” He marked a pause, then went on: “That’s what I wanted to tell you. I wanted you to know and celebrate my going away niggardly with some ice cream and papaya.”
Kingthian was silent for a while, then asked, “Are you pleased?”
He nodded. “I am. That’s what I’ve been studying for. The task ahead is to go and work with upcountry people, something I’ve always known, except that I didn’t know in which area, which province, or which district. Some places are better than others in one way or another, but this shouldn’t be taken into account if it undermines the determination to work, wouldn’t you say?”
“Certainly,” she answered. “But aren’t you afraid of roughing it? They say the Northeast is barren.”
He shook his head. “I’m an upcountry boy myself. I was born and grew up in the sticks. The five or six years I’ve spent in Bangkok haven’t been enough to turn my dark skin into the soft skin of a city dweller.” He raised his hand when he saw her open her mouth to speak. “No, I’m not disparaging city people. I merely mean to say that a country boy like me should be able to bear conditions in the countryside better than any city kid, it’s only natural. For me, the deeper in the country, the less developed the area, the better.”
“How is that?”
“Because in places that are already developed, such as Bangkok, there are plenty of smart people, all with foreign degrees, almost tripping all over each other, but in the countryside, the farther you are from development the more educated people are needed. But by saying this, I don’t mean that I am smart, merely that I want to go and work in the country, which only needs ordinary educated people to do the work the local populace is unable to do. When people form into a society, into a country, they tend not to be able to engage in work of general interest, such as carrying out a census or ensuring security, because they have to make a living. So this kind of work is left to a small number of people who do it for them.”
Kingthian nodded as if she agreed, but she expressed no opinion.
“I’m glad to go and work for upcountry people and I intend to do my very best. Wild places need more pioneers than places that have been already cleared.”
“That’s right,” Kingthian added. “If you strike a match in a very dark place, you can see the light most brightly. I’ve often thought that, if I could go and teach upcountry, setting up a school for the children of farmers who have no place to study would be much more rewarding than teaching in town, but I’ve only been thinking about it. I can’t do it, because everything needs money to get started.”
“When a problem has to be solved with money, people like us are hopeless,” Nikhom said. “But then, if we’re determined to make ourselves useful, wherever we are, we always manage to in the end. One day you may have the opportunity to do as you hope, but at least, right now, I know of your good intentions, for which I must thank you in the name of upcountry children as well.”
“I’m serious, you know,” he said soberly when he saw Kingthian smile, which showed that she thought the last part of his sentence was said in jest. “If all of us university graduates thought like us, we wouldn’t be as backward as we are now. Take some more, please,” he reminded her when he saw the ice cream in front of her dripping down the cup into the saucer, “or the ice cream will melt entirely.”
“I was too interested in the conversation to pay attention.” Kingthian attacked the ice cream with her spoon and took a bite while he bent over to suck on his iced coffee through a paper straw.
“I’ll only miss Bangkok a little—” he said, adding nothing further, but it seemed that Kingthian could guess what he would have said next, so she did not ask anything, which made him finish his own sentence: “—for not being able to meet you as often as when I’m here.”
Kingthian’s expression did not change, as if she had not heard what he had just said. “I trust you’ll write to me to let me know how you’re doing.”
“Of course I will. I’m sure I’ll have plenty to tell you.”
“The more the better. I’d like to know about life upcountry. It’s probably not as chaotic as life in Bangkok.”
“It isn’t the same. Upcountry isn’t as hectic as Bangkok, but it’s quiet and lonely and isolated. In town, no matter how crowded the buses are, they take you everywhere quickly. Upcountry you have to walk or go by bull cart. If you get sick, it’s hard to find a doctor.”
“Even in town, if you happen to have no money, it’s hard to find a doctor as well.”
Nikhom nodded and sighed. “For the poor, wherever they are it’s always the same.” He called for the bill. “You’d better go back or it’ll be too dark. I think tomorrow I’ll go and say goodbye to your mother.”
“Thank you for treating me today.”
“Not at all. I should be the one to thank you for taking the trouble of coming over.”
‘You’re such a clever talker,’ Kingthian thought to herself. ‘You’re going to break lots of hearts upcountry.’
“What time does the bus leave the day after tomorrow?” she asked as they went to wait for the bus.
“Early morning,” he answered. “You don’t have to see me off or you’d miss your classes for nothing.” A bus came to a stop in front of them. “I’m not saying goodbye yet. I’ll do that tomorrow, after I’ve taken leave of your mother.”
Kingthian stepped into the bus and she turned to smile at him once again as the bus left. He watched the bus until it went out of sight. He took a deep breath, then turned round and walked away, his mind a jumble of thoughts.
He walked past a cinema whose early evening show was just over and which released a crowd of movie-goers in streams of stale air. He had wanted to tell Kingthian about some feelings stirring in his heart, but in the end he had not been able to bring himself to speak. It was a most serious matter for him, so serious he did not dare to mention it. Young men like him had two aims in life: do good and have someone to love.
She was an exceedingly good person in his eyes. Having known her over a long time, he felt that she had a beautiful soul and views on life which often matched his own. Sometimes he thought she was too good for him, as he still had nothing to show for himself. He believed he was a good person as well, but there was nothing to weigh the evidence of his goodness, since it was a mere opinion. It was thoughts like these that had held him back. It wasn’t time yet...
But within a couple of days he would be gone.
Love is something we can’t force to happen at will when its time hasn’t come, or so Nikhom thought, but he did not believe in the words of whoever it was who had said that love is born of itself or just comes floating by as though by happenstance, a free agent unrelated to life.
As a young man, his aim in life of having someone to love did not mean that he could love anyone. He only asked that it be a woman worthy of a man’s love, someone who had an ideal and definite views on life. He was ready to love a woman who matched his ideal and had the characteristics he expected from his own outlook on life. He thought that Kingthian was a woman after his own ideal. True, women came a dime a dozen, but one that matched the ideal of one particular person was very difficult to find in the turmoil of modern life. Thus, when he thought he had met a real woman in his life, the struggle of his soul to obtain what he craved resulted in much restlessness.
At this point, he merely wanted to tell her of the feelings he had for her and of his hope that his feelings be returned. This much was enough, because the problem of sharing a life together was something too far away still.
But even this little he dared not do — for one thing because he still was not sure whether he was the man for her. Women are no different from men: they, too, have opinions, dreams and ideals of their own. He was not able to decide to his own satisfaction whether the friendship and closeness Kingthian had shown him throughout the years that had gone by were actual tokens of love. Friendship and love were not the same thing. They were closely related and shared common characteristics, yet they were essentially different.
Love did not happen by itself, but resulted from relations in life, from an evolution of life informed by age and experience. Everything had its own rules. Before a hen laid an egg , before a tree bore fruit, some time had to elapse. What he had seen of life in the countryside had taught him to account with time, had taught him to know how to wait. If he wished to harvest now that the time was not ripe, suppose she were to say no, he was not willing to risk disappointment and to have to ask for her love a second time around.
‘The time will come, one day, once I’ve proved I’m worthy of a woman’s love,’ he thought. A large sedan car whisked past him. The man who sat to the left of the driver put his head out and shouted, “You wanna die or what?” Then speed took car and man away. He vaguely heard what was shouted further but could not make sense of it as he had of the first sentence. He looked at the ground he trod and saw that indeed he was walking on the road. He shrugged and went on his way.

7

That evening, Kingthian returned home later than usual. “You’re late,” her mother said in greeting.
“Yes, I met a friend, so we talked for a while,” Kingthian answered and felt guilty that she was not telling her mother the whole truth. Kingthian never lied to her mother, but this time even though it was not a lie, she felt that not telling the whole truth was as good as lying.
“This afternoon, Miss Ratchanee came by,” her mother told her.
Kingthian was surprised. “Did she?”
Her mother nodded.
“Did she leave any message?”
“She said she’s now working in a bank I can’t remember the name of. She left a note, I put it on the table.”
Kingthian walked over and picked up the message. Ratchanee was asking her to call her up at Boorapha Bank and provided her with phone numbers. “Did she wait for me long?”
“Not long. She sat down and talked with me for about ten minutes I’d say. She asked what time you usually came back. I told her you were usually back by now, except today you were late for some reason.”
“I’ll call her up tomorrow. One of my pupils at school gave it to me,” she added when she saw her mother looking at the flower in her hand.
The next morning, Kingthian telephoned Ratchanee.
“You’re really working there?” Kingthian asked.
“Uh-huh!”
“Since when?”
“Three days ago. I went to see you yesterday afternoon.”
“I know. What’s your work like?”
“Say, are you free for lunch?” her friend asked without paying attention to her question. “Come to see me here and we’ll go and have lunch together. I very much want to talk to you.”
“All right,” Kingthian answered as she turned to have a look around to see if there was anyone close enough to hear, and lowered her voice further. “The school wants me to go to the ministry this afternoon. I’ll just have the time to come over, and I’ll be a little late at the ministry, that’s all.”
“Do come, I’ll be waiting.”
When Kingthian reached the bank, almost all of its employees had already gone out for lunch. Ratchanee had come down to wait for her and sat on a seat for customers in front of the tellers.
“Very posh,” Kingthian exclaimed as she looked around. “Too bad I don’t have any money, otherwise I’d deposit it here.”
Ratchanee cut her short by pulling her toward the exit. “Let’s find something to eat. I’m hungry.”
“How did you find this job?” Kingthian asked as soon as the two of them sat down in the restaurant.
“That’s what I wanted to tell you so badly about. That’s why I went to see you yesterday,” Ratchanee said, then told her the whole story in detail as if she had rehearsed it beforehand.
“How lucky for you,” Kingthian sighed as if in relief. “I mean, to have surmounted the obstacle at home.”
“It’s not sure yet, King. They keep watching my every move all the time.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Kingthian shrugged. “You aren’t doing anything wrong.”
“I feel uneasy. What we feel is right and normal, my parents believe is wrong and abnormal.”
“They are behind the times. There’s no way they can understand you,” Kingthian said. “These days everybody works, and when you work, you have to know your fellow workers and make friends. We aren’t alone in this world, but we are with other people, both good and bad. It’s impossible not to trust some people and it’s impossible as well to trust everybody. That’s what life is all about. Learning and working help us to live our lives correctly — what about your work? Is it interesting?”
“Rather,” Ratchanee answered. “At first, I didn’t intend to work in a bank. I just wanted to find a job of some kind, anything, just to get out of the house, but now that I’ve started to work, I find it rather interesting. At least, my life is no longer empty and working helps me know myself better and be more confident.”
“This is a place for rich people,” Kingthian remarked as she looked around.
Ratchanee nodded. “It’s a business district.”
“There are so many cars parked around a hopping chick couldn’t find a place to land.”
Three young women walked into the restaurant, all beautifully dressed in matching shirts and skirts of pink, yellow and light blue fastened with large stretch belts, and wearing glittering jewels and gold ornaments. Everybody in the restaurant turned to look at them.
“Foreign graduates, you know,” Ratchanee turned to whisper to Kingthian, who was looking at the three women like everyone else.
“Where from?”
“England. They each went to England for three or four years. That one is very wealthy.”
“Which one? The one with the big round earrings who looks like a Gypsy?”
“That’s the one. I saw her withdraw cash at the bank.”
“How many millions does she have?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t check her account, you know.”
“I’m rich, too. I have more than a thousand,” Kingthian said earnestly.
“What! A salary of a thousand plus?”
“No, I mean students. The school where I teach has one thousand two hundred students, but I only teach two years, six classes, two hundred and forty-seven children.”
“What do you teach?”
“Thai composition, grammar, literature, history, geography, English—”
“All of that?”
Kingthian nodded. “They’re smartly dressed, aren’t they? As if they were going out.”
“I don’t think they do any work. They have so much money.”
“There’s modern woman for you!”
“What about us then? Aren’t we modern?”
“Us?” Kingthian laughed. “Half modern, half passé, I’d say.”
The two friends chatted on happily. When the bill came, Kingthian insisted on paying.
“I’m the one who invited you over, so it’s only fair that I treat you,” Ratchanee protested.
“That’s not important.” Kingthian managed to hand out a bank note first. “You’ve only started to work. You don’t have a salary yet. I do.”

When she had parted with Kingthian, Ratchanee went back to the bank. As she walked past her desk, Chertchawee, who was typing, looked up and told her, “Mr. Jittin was asking about you a moment ago”.
She looked inside and saw Jittin working at his desk. She walked over to him. “Were you looking for me, sir?”
“No, I just asked Miss Chert idly, as you weren’t back yet. Not that you are late, because it’s only one o’clock.”
“I had lunch with a friend. We were at the same university.”
Ratchanee felt that Jittin took much interest in her and lavished attention upon her, which made her feel very much at ease in her work and grateful to him. Yesterday she had gone out for lunch with Chertchawee and she had noticed that Chertchawee spoke of Jittin often. She thought this was only natural for people working in the same unit, and also given that Jittin was the head of the unit. She could see Chertchawee going over to Jittin’s desk often and waiting on him, making sure for instance that the teacup on his desk was always replenished by the office boy. But whenever Jittin asked Chertchawee to type or do some other task, he did so through her.
Ratchanee felt a little embarrassed at having to turn down Jittin’s offers to go out for lunch together, because he was always inviting her out and she had to refuse without being at liberty to state the real reason.
“Yesterday you had lunch with Miss Chert, today with an old friend from the university. What about tomorrow, then?”
Ratchanee didn’t answer, merely smiled blandly.
“Tomorrow, I’ve invited Hopkins, the manager of the Far East Export company, one of our biggest clients, for lunch at the Oriental. You must come with me to keep me company. I can’t keep up with him on my own, he’s such a fantastic talker — that is, if you can spare the time.”
“Is this an order?”
“It’s an order,” he answered, “but only if you’re free.”
“If it’s an order, then there’s no but,” Ratchanee answered.
“No,” he said, dropping his voice. “It’s an order all right, because it’s bank business, but I don’t want to force you. If it isn’t convenient for you, let’s wait until next time.”
“I’m free to go,” Ratchanee said evenly.
“Thank you very much.”
“Is there anything else, sir?”
“No, that’s all. Oh, have Miss Chert type out this draft letter as well, will you?” He handed over a sheet of paper. Ratchanee took it and walked over to Chertchawee’s desk.

8

That evening the air was unusually still and the fronds of the coconut trees did not stir. Ratchanee walked along the beach on a ribbon of sand. The sea was slack. The sky over Bangsaen was clear but there were dark clouds on the distant horizon. Despite the absence of wind, the air by the sea was as breathy as usual and since this was neither the tourist season nor a Sunday, the beach at Bangsaen was deserted and looked empty and trouble free.
Ratchanee had arrived in Bangsaen in the early afternoon, together with Darunee and her two children, a maid and the driver. Darunee, who could no longer stand staying home in Bangkok, had decided to take her children away for a few days, but she had been unable to find anyone to accompany her, so she had invited her younger sister. Ratchanee seldom had the opportunity to go out anywhere, and she had agreed to keep her company if her sister could get their parents’ consent, which had been readily granted. Ratchanee had once gone to Hua Hin with her parents several years ago and still felt very much taken by the atmosphere of the seaside.
Ratchanee made for the rocky outcrop at the end of the beach and looked out toward the sea. A couple of young Westerners were bathing near the shore.
“Hello, Miss.” A man’s greeting came from her right just as the caller appeared only meters away, as if he had materialized out of the sand.
“Hello,” Ratchanee answered, marking a slight pause as she turned to look at the man who greeted her, then resumed her walk.
“I never thought we’d meet here,” he said, falling into step with her. “Have you been here long?”
“I just arrived this afternoon.”
“Me too,” he added without waiting to be asked. “I arrived at three thirty.”
She went on walking at the same pace and he kept apace with her. “There’s no breeze today. If there was a little breeze, it’d be so much cooler,” he said as if talking to himself. “But the sea is mostly like this; the breeze stops blowing before dusk. Are you here for long?”
“Only a few days.” Ratchanee tried to speak as little as possible, but it was not long before he knew with whom she had come, where she was staying and much more, even though she did not mean to tell him. She felt that there was something in him that invited confidence and made it easy to be on familiar terms with him.
After they had talked about other matters, Ratchanee broached the old topic of what he had told her when they first met. “I’d like to ask you something. Do you remember what you once told me?”
He looked puzzled. “I must have said hundreds of different things.”
“Meaning you can’t remember what you said?” she let fly.
“I can’t guarantee that I can remember every single word I uttered, but I can assure you that I do remember the gist and substance of whatever it is I said. But when you refer to something I said, it’s far too encompassing. If you could be more specific about me talking with whom, where and when, I’ll tell you if I can remember or not.”
“What you said to me in the alley in Jitra’s compound when you walked out to see me to my car.” Ratchanee stressed every word. “Do you remember?”
He smiled and looked her in the eye, lowering his head a little. “I do.”
“What did you mean when you said that?”
“Which sentence?” he asked. “We spoke quite a few words and I’m not sure which are the ones you mean.”
“When you said you were not that kind of man.”
“I thought that was obvious,” he answered. “In regard to women, there are two types of men. Men of the first type can’t see a bit of a skirt without longing for the chance to be introduced, and they’ll go to the extent of walking over and chatting up a total stranger, and so far as I’ve been able to ascertain, I’m not of this type, although I may be flattering myself unduly.” He kept quiet for a while, then proceeded. “Men of the other type are the opposite: they don’t talk to strange women with the intent of courting them, a behavior which, if I were a woman, I’d consider offensive, as it has nothing to do with trying to be friendly. Friendship doesn’t come out of the blue within a single hour or a single day.”
He stopped speaking, as if to allow her to express an opinion, but when she remained silent, he added as an afterthought, “If I were a woman, I’d prefer to meet friends of the latter type.”
“Then when you said you and I were as different as the sky and the earth? Are we that different, really? I think people are people and only differ in good and evil. Other differences would prevent us from getting along at all, wouldn’t you say?”
“I feel I’m very lucky my friends convinced me of making the trip to Bang Saen this time, because this has allowed me to meet you again and clear up some problems in your mind. Without such an opportunity, you’d think of me in a not very positive way I’m afraid, and I must thank you very much for broaching the topic, otherwise I’d have had no opportunity to make myself clear.”
‘It must be a gift lawyers have,’ Ratchanee thought. ‘He has detailed explanations for everything and he knows how to present valid arguments to his best advantage.’ She was not quite ready to believe that what he said was true, but she thought that he certainly knew how to find good arguments to support what he had said.
“We’re not just different in terms of good and evil,” he went on, “but more so in our stations in life. This has been the case since the beginning of history and it’s still valid today. You’ve studied classical literature, so you must be aware that Hindu tradition distinguishes between four castes — Kshatriya the rulers and soldiers; Brahmans the priests, Vaisya the merchants and farmers, and Sudras the menials. We’re different: this much is indisputable. There are bondmen and noblemen, slaves and lords, servants and masters. It has always been like this. The only contention is about what makes for such differences. There are two schools of thought: one believes in predestination, that is, that merit and demerit determine our fate before we’re even born and thus nothing can be changed, but another, more recent, school of thought holds that these differences are created by man himself, and therefore can be changed. But this latter point isn’t what we’re talking about. As for the first point, you can see that you and I differ in our respective stations in life like sky and earth: you’re the sky and I’m the earth.”
“Your comparison is somewhat far-fetched. I’ve never thought of myself as a celestial being of some kind but as a person with her feet firmly on the ground like everyone else. Besides, everyone has the right to meet and socialize and be genuinely friendly. This has nothing to do with status, lineage, rank or wealth, and I look at people’s worth in terms of goodness only.”
“In this case I feel much more at ease, but I still wonder whether someone like me can be your friend or not.”
“Are you a good person or not?” she asked with a smile.
“If I answer like I actually feel, definitely not.”
“Maybe you’re being too hard on yourself.”
“I don’t think so, because I know myself well, I know how much evil I have in me. I can only assure you that my intentions are good and pure.”
Ratchanee turned back when she felt she had walked far enough and he turned back accordingly, while the sun was absconding behind the dark clouds on the horizon.
The air was beginning to stir faintly. He took a deep breath. “There’s a little breeze at last. That’s more like it!”
He talked on with her about nature and the weather. When they walked back along the beach to the stretch in front of the bungalows, Ratchanee met Darunee, who was taking her two children out for a walk. When they came close, she introduced Sai to her sister. “Darunee, this is Mr. Sai, a friend of mine — Darunee is my second eldest sister.”
Sai raised his joined hands and bowed. Darunee returned the bow and exchanged a few sentences with him. Nit walked up to him and he took the little boy in his arms. Darunee watched in wonder at seeing Nit, who was always shy of strangers, oddly cuddling up to Sai. He joked with Nit as if they were close friends. The three adults and the two children played on the sand until dusk, when Darunee took the children back and Sai took the opportunity to leave.
“Who is this friend of yours, Lek?”
“He’s a lawyer,” Ratchanee answered.
“Have you known him for long?” Darunee asked further.
“Yes, but we seldom meet.” Ratchanee wondered if her sister’s questions had some ulterior motive besides normal curiosity. “He’s a friend of Mr. Jittin’s.”
“He looks well behaved,” Darunee remarked. “Nit never lets strangers hold him, and yet he did, right away.”
Noi started kicking up a fuss. She would not walk and demanded to be carried.
“Come, I’ll carry you.” Ratchanee scooped her niece up. Noi stopped her tantrum.
“You’re lucky to be free, Lek. In my days and even more so in Yai’s days, we never could go out by ourselves, we had no opportunity to know how big the world was.
“Well, if I could come out here, it’s because I was coming with you. It’s out of consideration for you that our parents let me out.”
“You have many more opportunities than I — have you found someone you like yet?”
Ratchanee felt herself blushing at such a direct question from her sister. “What do you mean by ‘like’?” she retorted in a low voice.
“Like — well, love.”
Ratchanee shook her head in the growing darkness. “Not yet.”
“What kind of situation does he have?” Darunee asked further.
“Who?”
“Your friend, who else?”
“I don’t know. I only know he’s a lawyer. I think he comes from upcountry. His parents grow rice.” Ratchanee felt that her sister was thinking too far ahead. “I never thought of asking. We’re just friends.” Her sister probably did not understand that in the world of learning and in the world of work, men and women had to know each other and could be friends, Ratchanee thought, because Darunee had never known such a life.
“I don’t think status is as important as goodness,” Darunee asserted with a sincerity born out of the realities of her own life. ‘But what if she comes to really like this man?’ she thought ahead, as this fast-thinking woman always did. She could see that the two of them would be faced with obstacles that could prove intractable. Darunee kept the thought to herself. “But goodness is seldom taken into account,” she said coldly. “I hope for your sake that your life isn’t as sad as mine.”
That night, Ratchanee sat by a window in the bungalow, her eyes wide open in the dark. Darunee, who had lulled her children to sleep, was probably asleep as well. Her sister’s words resounded in her heart. “I hope for your sake that your life isn’t as sad as mine.” They were both the expression of a generous wish and an exceedingly sad confession, which made Ratchanee think earnestly about the problems in her own life. Several kinds of thoughts competed in her mind while her eyes gazed into the darkness. The coconut trees stood still in the starlight. A bicycle tore a shining path along the road. She thought of her sister, who lay just behind the partition wall. Could she be fast asleep in the quiet and trouble-free environment of this seaside district, to which she had fled to find some peace and quiet after quarreling at home only yesterday? What is happiness in life for us? What is goodness? And what is love? These three form the equation of life, for which there is no ready-made answer anybody can pick up at will.
A car bringing in late-arriving tourists passed in a trail of light along the beach road, then was out of sight.
The next day, Ratchanee woke up at dawn and went out for a walk along the beach. She met a group of tourists, perhaps the very tourists who had arrived last night. There were three women and three men, one of whom was her brother-in-law. As soon as she caught sight of him, Ratchanee slipped off. It was not long before she met Sai, who had come out for a stroll as well. They spoke for a while, then Ratchanee left him to walk back to the bungalow. As she reached it, she was deliberating whether or not to say anything to her sister and it was only when she went up the stairs that she decided she should not, because it would only hurt her feelings further.
But when she stepped into the room, Ratchanee almost cried out in surprise at the sight of Somboon sitting in the room. She could not help but raise her hands and bow to him.
“I’ve come after Darunee,” he said with a straight face. “She was feeling a bit unhappy so she came here with the kids and I had a hard time finding her.”
Ratchanee guessed that he must have seen her when she was walking along the beach, wondered how she happened to be here, checked the bungalows to find out which one was hers and who she was with, and when he had seen his own car he had known that Darunee was here too. So, though he had come to have fun with his friends and those women, he had decided to switch to the role of the husband who loved his wife so much that he had decided to follow her at the drop of a hat. He probably did not know that she had seen him with his friends, and she had to keep the truth to herself and let him get on with his clever theatrics.

9

Sai Seema finally had the opportunity to meet his old teacher Maha Juan for the first time in nearly ten years, counting from the moment he had left the monkhood after he passed the fifth grade of theology to lead the life of a layman, and had married Madam Mali, a widow in her thirties, who was one of the well-to-do persons in the province whose income derived from loan-making and who was well-known to the farmers in his native district. The villagers had never expected Maha Juan to disrobe. Only those who were on close call to the monk had known that this could happen, as the laywoman’s frequent visits to the temple had given them advance knowledge of how the situation might evolve.
The villagers all over the province were full of respect and admiration for Maha Juan while he was still in the orders, as he went on studying and progressing steadily in his celibate life. They were pleased that at least one of their own ilk was prospering in the ascetic life and thus was an inspiration to practice virtue, and they all hoped to see Maha Juan attain further heights in due time. But there is nothing certain in the course of a man’s life. Maha Juan had decided to take his life onto a new path by leaving the monkhood to become an ordinary person again, and it was not long before he was a homeowner and took care of the interests of his spouse, Madam Mali.
Madam Mali had many paddy fields by the canal, and she rented them to farmers. She had come by those fields through her practice of lending money with land as collateral: when an owner was unable to pay the interest and redeem the principal, his field became the property of Madam Mali, who let him rent and till it and who further extended loans against such guarantees as gold ornaments or farm land or anything that could be used as collateral. Madam Mali never lent money without a guarantee.
Maha Juan came to see him at his office. Sai had the impression that his old teacher, though now in his forties, looked younger than his years, and fatter and healthier than when he was a monk.
“How are you, Master?” He still used the old form of address. “I haven’t had the opportunity to visit you even once,” he apologized. “I haven’t been home for years.”
The teacher nodded. “I have some business for you.”
“Certainly,” he answered. “If it’s something I can do.”
“Of course you can. There’s nothing difficult about it.”
“What is it?”
“Madam Mali’s business.” Maha Juan still called his wife “Madam” out of habit. “We’d like you to conduct legal proceedings against two or three parties to recover bad loans. Madam Mali doesn’t quite trust lawyers. She says it’s hard to find any that are reliable and they’re all so greedy, even though loan recovery cases like these aren’t difficult at all.”
Maha Juan looked his former disciple in the eye as if to assess his feelings, then went on saying, “She said to give the cases to you, because you’re trustworthy, and I agree with her”.
Sai, taken aback, kept quiet, then he asked softly, “You want me to sue, is that it?”
Maha Juan nodded.
“Have you brought the documents with you? Let me have a look at them.”
Maha Juan took a stack of paper and handed it over. They were IOUs and title deeds in triplicate. “We have all the necessary documents.”
“Yes, you certainly can sue.” He spoke with a voice which had a strange ring to it, as he leafed idly through the IOUs. One of the borrowers was someone he knew. He looked for the signature. There were thumb prints on the three copies.
He sat dumbfounded. The three fingerprints floated clear in his thoughts. The whorls of the thick thumb seemed to spread in circles whirling in front of him. “Wouldn’t it be better to call for payment first?” he said softly.
“Oh, we’ve done that many times already! Always postponing time and time again. As per contract, he has to pay back capital and interest within two years at the latest. He only paid the interest the first year. We’ve called for payment every year and he’s kept saying next year, next year, till we’re into the fifth year already and he hasn’t even paid the interest. If only he did so, of course we’d let him go on.”
“Even though I’m a lawyer, I’m not in favor of going to court if there’s any way an agreement can be found. It’s wasting money for nothing.”
“There’s no way we can come to an agreement, none. He simply refuses to pay. Our money isn’t earning us anything. When we sue and win the case, the land will become ours and we can still rent it out to get some income. And there’s the other two cases as well: if we don’t get the interest in this coming crop season, it’ll be three years and we must sue as well. It’s the defendant who pays the charges and lawyers’ fees once the case is won, isn’t it?”
“Yes — but it seems to me that the farmers don’t want to lose their land if they can afford to pay the interest, because it’s their only means of income.”
“I’m not heartless, and neither is Madam Mali,” Maha Juan said, raising his voice slightly. “When we see they are in trouble we try almost everything we can to help them, but when we say something we have to act on it. If we let them get away with it, where will I find enough to eat?”
“Yes, you’re right—” he said reluctantly, “absolutely right.”
“I only came to put some business your way, hoping you can help.” Maha Juan still sounded like an adult talking to a child, as when he was still his disciple.
Maha Juan stared at his old student as if waiting for a definite answer right away.
Sai sat quietly on, deeply immersed in thought. The man sitting in front of him was the teacher who had taught him the alphabet and given him the initial patronage which had allowed him to study in Bangkok until he completed secondary schooling, and was coming to ask him to do some work for him for the first time — work which he would be most willing and happy to do if it was about anything else than this. Some inner feeling made him most reluctant to take farmers to court. He could not say when such a feeling had come to him, but it had surged abruptly, as if, unknown to him in normal times, it had been buried in his blood and in the inmost depths of himself.
“I’ve been away from home for many years. I don’t know how things are down there, but I believe nothing much must have changed,” he said casually, “except perhaps that the villagers are poorer than before.”
“Two years ago, rice fetched a good price,” his former teacher said. “I myself sold rice at a hefty profit. Why couldn’t they pay the interest? But they don’t want to pay, that’s all, always pleading poverty. If we didn’t have these documents, we’d lose everything. People these days are inconsistent.”
Sai gave out a dry smile. A good price for rice did not necessarily mean that the farmers would prosper. Those who would definitely enrich themselves were the rice traders, the moneylenders and the paddy field owners who determined interest rates and land rent in terms of so many thang* of paddy for so much money or for so many rai of land.
“In our parts, what’s the current rental rate per rai?”
“In my case I stick to the legal rate, nothing more. If on a given year there’s more than forty thang the rent is ten thang per rai. If the harvest is less than thirty thang, I keep six thang, and three thang for twenty or more. If less than twenty, then I keep only one thang.”
“Yes, that’s what the law says, but in reality I doubt that’s the way it is.”
“Well, in some cases. Those who are short of money or don’t have land to till must be prepared to give more to the landowner.”
“Let’s do it this way,” Sai said after thinking long and hard. “You keep the documents for the time being. Let me talk to your debtors first. I reckon it’ll take me about a week or at most less than two weeks. I’ll take the opportunity to visit my relatives as well. I think we can come to some kind of understanding, so neither side wastes money and time on a trial.”
“I don’t see how you could succeed.” Maha Juan shook his head slowly. “Threats, entreaties, I’ve tried everything, and nothing works.”
“Leave it to me, sir. Let me see what the situation is like and try to negotiate with them first, and then we can decide on where to go from there. I think that’s the best solution.”
Finally and somewhat reluctantly, Maha Juan agreed to abide by his suggestion. Sai took a deep breath when Maha Juan took back his IOUs and title deeds and walked out of the office. At least, he had bought time for two weeks in order to think of the best way to proceed.
His partner in the law office pushed the blind and popped his head in. “Hey, why didn’t you accept? Cases like these are sure winners.”
Sai did not answer, merely shrugged. ‘Someone like Chert will never understand,’ he thought.
“How come you don’t take easy cases like these that make easy money? Or is it you think they are too small to bother?” Chert asked sarcastically. He stepped into the room. “Besides, cases are difficult to come by these days, why didn’t you take them on? Perhaps the fellow is too tight-fisted, is that it?”
“Him? Not really, but his missus seems to be a bit of a tightwad,” Sai answered. “But if I haven’t taken them up yet, it’s for other reasons, it’s not because of the money factor at all.”
Chert stared at his partner in wonder. Even though they had known each other for a long time, this guy Sai was always doing things in queer ways Chert never quite understood.
“If you don’t want them, let me handle them. At least, that way we’ll keep the client in the family.”
“Er — maybe,” he said, feeling fed up. “If the client’s willing.”
“You don’t want the money — then, what is it you want?” Chert grumbled.
Sai stared at his friend. “I bet you got drunk last night,” he said, to change the subject. “Your eyes are still red.”
“As usual,” Chert answered cheerfully. “Last night I played billiards until late. So this morning I had to tipple myself back in shape.”
“You’ll drink yourself into a heart attack or cirrhosis of the liver.”
Chert shrugged. “What else is there in life? We only live once. Once work is over, it’s time to play. Everybody drinks. Do you know the Western tale about the man who dies of old age? An angel takes him to the guardian of the underworld. I think it was St Peter or whoever, I can’t remember. Well, let’s say it was St Peter. St Peter asks, ‘Were you married?’ The man says, no. St Peter asks again, ‘Did you drink?’ The man answers, never. St Peter asks, ‘Did you ever smoke?’ The man again answers, never. St Peter asks again, ‘Did you ever play cards?’ Again the man answers, never. St Peter tells the angel, ‘Take him back, take him back. Why did you bring him? He hasn’t had a life yet.’” And Chert burst out laughing merrily. “Beware, my friend: when you’re dead, you’ll get the same treatment.”
Our attitude toward the world and toward life has a great influence over the way we live. Those who think that money is everything set out to make money without giving a thought to how they get it. As for Chert, his partner in the law office, he was a capable young man and worked diligently only for the sake of making money which he proceeded to spend extravagantly on booze, billiards, horses and card games — all things that he felt were what life was about, that he felt were his happiness. Chert was of the opinion that everything is simply a matter of pretence. Even if you aren’t important, act important, take poses, dress smartly, talk with big words and you’ll end up big in the eyes of everyone these days. Chert was of the view that those who succeed in life do so only because they know how to deceive better than everyone else. Chert thus used bold, provocative, biting and browbeating expressions in his speeches in court, even to the judge, whenever he could. He dressed smartly, used only the best and priciest items, deported himself with dignity, and it worked, inasmuch as his reputation spread fast, but Sai still wondered how Chert’s life would turn out in the end.
“I’m not coming to work as of tomorrow, okay? I’m going back home for a week or two,” Sai told him. “We don’t have any cases due in court.”
“You’re going there for those cases, right?”
Sai nodded.
“You’ll be wasting your time.” Chert shook his head slowly. His fingers yellowed by nicotine drummed on the desk. “You’ll get nowhere with these farmers. You can’t squeeze blood out of crabs.”
“If that’s the case, what would you do then?”
“Arrange things as our man wants them.” Chert stared at his friend as if to tell him, Why are you being so stupid?
“Maybe there’ll be something that’ll prevent us from always acting the way the client wants us to.”
“Wasn’t he the one who taught you how to read and write?” Chert asked.
“He was,” Sai answered.
“Well then, the more you should agree to take on his cases, because you owe him.”
Owe him? True, he owed Maha Juan much. He had never denied this, and it made him feel all choked up and unable to decide what he should do.

10

All the time that the boat raced along the canal, the scenery on both sides appeared new, yet seemed oddly familiar. For sure, many new dwellings had been built, but their condition was what made them look familiar to him. The banyan and Manila tamarind trees, the Madre de Cocoa and atap palms were probably old trees which stood where they had grown for untold years, but the clumps of reeds and shrubs of palm-like plants were recent growths which had sprouted handsomely since the last rainy season. Actually, to him, everything looked at once old and new.
He sat listening to the rhythm of the diesel engine which ran on crude oil and puttered loudly with a pulsating throb his ears knew well. Way back, he used to hear it four or five times a day, both at dawn and close to dusk. This boat was new, it was not one of the old motor crafts he used to take in those days. In it were several passengers. An old woman sat beside him, next to a big bamboo basket and another big bundle wrapped in a piece of checkered cloth. She chewed betel in a show of blackened, protruding teeth — that is, the few that were left in her mouth. Her face was withered all the way down to her arms and hands. Her cropped hair was a blend of gray and chestnut. Ahead of her sat a middle-aged man who puffed on a roll of atap palm filled with coarse tobacco and wore an old, dark-blue outfit with a strip of faded checkered cloth round his waist. A younger man sat next to the engine in the middle of the boat, smoking a cigarette and wearing black-silk trousers and a shirt which must have been white once but was now a faded yellow from its washings in canal water and all crumpled for never having been ironed. To the front, there were more people, including some children. The rear of the boat was where the baskets of vegetables and all other bulky items were kept, including ice kept in sawdust and old baskets full of rice. These goods came from Bangkok and from the main provincial town and were on their way to the various markets that dotted the canal.
The complexions of the people, their burnished skins, even the wrinkles on their faces — they were archetypal. They were like the one face of all of the people he had ever seen, met, talked and shared a moment in life with. They had nothing to differentiate them.
He looked through the shimmering heat. The wind making waves in the paddy fields was sweeping through the boat, bringing with it the blazing midday heat in relentless slaps that seared the skin, as well as the smell of the paddy fields, a heady mixture of the fragrance of the newly formed ears of rice and of the evaporation rising from the water and the earth. The smell was nothing new to him. It was something he was used to, and even though he was conscious of having estranged himself from it for many, many years, it was still well acquainted to the front of his nose. It had not disappeared, and to return to smell it anew made him feel spry, as though he was breathing in life from the very blasts of the wind.
The engine went on put-putting.
The middle-aged man who sat puffing on his roll of atap palm mumbled softly as if talking to himself, “Paddy ’round here looks mighty fine.”
He had looked at the faces of each of the passengers in the boat, trying to guess what these people were thinking about, but then he had given up trying, until he heard the man mumbling. It made him suddenly realize that our thoughts depend on the kind of life we lead. Farmers think of land and rice, as these are basic to their livelihood. Why wasn’t he thinking in the same way? His perceptions were not the same as that farmer’s, and Maha Juan’s perceptions were probably not the same as his or the farmer’s. He considered the idea further, as a man used to thinking things through. What is it that determines our perceptions and imagination? Do such things exist or are they merely expressions of the creative powers of the mind? He found the answer in his own summation: our mind and our imagination are not free and self-created; they are conditioned by the outside factors of our own environment. Thus there are really things that determine our perceptions and these things are the status and conditions in which we conduct our lives.
He went on sitting, thinking about his relatives close and distant. They must have all changed with the passing of time in the nearly ten years he had been away. His mother had died before he left, and so had his father about a year later. That was during the war. The day of the cremation of his father had been the last time he had set foot in his birthplace, and since then he had never gone down there again. Thus he had met none of his relatives, except for his eldest brother, who often shuttled between home and Bangkok because he worked for a rice mill and it was his job to pilot a rice barge. Every month or every other month, Chao would come and visit him and his own son, also named Chao, whom he had left to stay with his uncle in Bangkok so that he could carry on his studies. Every year when the school closed down for the hot season, Young Chao went back home, like Sai had done when he was a student under Maha Juan. When he came back on his father’s barge close to the time the new school year would start, Young Chao would always bring back to his uncle some presents from his mother such as dry fish and fresh gourami and spawn, which came from emptying the fishponds at home during the dry season. But Sai had not met his younger brothers and sister for a long time. Their father had two plots of paddy fields. One covered thirty-five rai, the other forty rai. The smaller plot was where the house stood, but the bigger one was two bends away, deep down the canal. When his father died, the bigger piece of land was sold to redeem the debts his father had contracted while he was still alive, and the little cash that was left was used up in the funeral ceremonies. Their father had bequeathed the thirty-five-rai plot to his five children collectively, but Sai’s younger brothers, Bai and Khuen, were left in possession of it and cultivated one half each, because the other siblings had their own means of livelihood already. Chao, the eldest brother, had gotten himself a wife and moved across the canal. His wife, Sai’s sister-in-law, was none other than the girl who had cried her heart out the day the tiger cat had filched a rooster. She helped her father work the family’s paddy field, which covered more than twenty rai. Chao ran the rice barge as a way to supplement their income, so he did not help them till the field all that often. As for Yen, Sai’s sister, she had married a man who hailed from Lam Lookka and had moved over to stay with her husband. Coming back this time, Sai did not expect to meet her, but he might meet his eldest brother and sister-in-law, his younger brothers, their wives and their children.
Chao was not interested in the paddy field their father had left his children, and as for himself, he thought he would never go back to farming. He had told his brothers and sister that he did not want any share in the paddy field under any circumstances and only asked that the land not be sold unless all five of them agreed to. That was because he still loved it; it was still very dear to his heart. Yen was the only one who had not made her opinions known. The thirty-five-rai plot thus was still the property of all five of them, and Bai and Khuen had been tilling half of it each during all these years.
Sai could not help feeling excited when he stepped out of the boat and set foot on the landing in front of his house. The landing was made of two logs of milk wood jutting out from the bank where it had always been. A dark-skinned, naked child of maybe five or six came out and stood in front of the house out of curiosity when he heard the boat stop at the landing. Sai, who had started walking away from the landing, froze as a brown dog ran to him barking threateningly.
This kid must be one of his nephews, Sai thought. “Where’s your dad? Tell the dog off, will you.”
“Dad’s not here,” the child answered. “Daeng, go away!”
Sai stepped forward when Daeng stopped barking and went back to keep a wary watch by the door of the house. A woman’s voice rose from inside the house. “Who is it, Puet?”
“It’s me,” Sai answered instead, but then he thought his answer wasn’t of any help to the listener until Waeo, his younger sister-in-law, appeared at the door.
“You!” she shouted as a smile of welcome stretched her lips. “Puet, bow to your uncle. Do come in. Dropping in like this, without a word of warning—”
He smiled good-humoredly, put his arm around his nephew’s shoulders and they walked inside together.
Waeo dusted off the sitting platform. “The kid’s always making a mess of it,” she said by way of an apology, then tugged ineffectually at her thick black underwear as if to try to look more decent.
He looked around. Everything was still as it had always been. The sitting and sleeping platforms were like before, except that the boards had been changed. The rice granary was still at the same place and the empty space at the back was still empty. That was where his mother used to sit cooking. In the center of the room a hammock would be hung, in which his elder brother, he and his younger siblings had all slept, and his mother would sit resting her back against the central pole, sewing for days on end, and on this platform his father would sit darning his small fishnet or splitting bamboo into fine strips for weaving. He felt sad all of a sudden thinking of the past.
Right where the hammock in which he used to sleep would be hung, there was now another hammock, but it did not hang from the roof beam and it was not made of plaited hemp. It was a piece of checkered cloth tied between two poles, and in that hammock a child slept. Young Puet left his uncle to walk over to the hammock, which hung still. There had been some change, but at the same time everything was as it was before.
“How’s the paddy this year?” he asked.
“Well, as usual, I guess.”
“How many kwian* a year?”
“Eight on good years,” his sister-in-law answered. “On bad, maybe six. No matter how well we do, we’re still dirt poor anyway.”
He listened to her in silence. Waeo went on venting her feelings with alacrity. She spoke of a life of poverty and hardship, of heavy work, privation and illness—
He looked at Puet, his nephew, the very picture of himself when he was a child. ‘Five years old and he’s never known clothes.’ He felt that his sister-in-law looked at him as someone who was well-off, as unlike her husband as sky and earth. When she had unburdened herself long and forcefully enough, she concluded by saying that he had been born lucky, that he was fortunate, so he didn’t have to work as hard in life as his siblings.
Her outspokenness had the effect of making him feel itchy inside, as if a caterpillar had managed to climb into his heart. His good fortune made him stand out against the background of the ordinary lives led by his relatives, neighbors and other villagers, and in the following days, when he went to meet old acquaintances, everyone admired him openly for being happy and doing well for himself, which made him feel even more bitter, though those words were offered in all sincerity and always in good part.
He talked with Bai and Khuen, his younger brothers, until evening. Khuen had just gotten married. Youthful and industrious, he still knew little of the fears and troubles of life. He had no children yet. He and his wife worked very hard, with the energy of young people who looked at everything with bright eyes.
He found it difficult talking with Bai, because his youngest brother was not given to talking much. He was reserved and did not like to socialize. He had always been like this. Two years of military service in the Navy had taught him what living with others was like. Right after his demobilization, he was talkative and liked to chat with people all right, but in due time his real character had reinstated itself.
Sai went across to visit his elder brother and sister-in-law, whom he knew from the old days and so was especially close to. Prang was very excited the moment she saw him.
“Wow! What kind of whirlwind brings you to us today?” she said. “How is Chao?”
“He’s fine. He’s taking his mid-year exam right now,” he answered.
“How is he doing in his studies?” Chao asked.
“As well as usual. He’s never scored less than seventy-five out of a hundred.”
Hearing that he was here, Uncle Preim, his sister-in-law’s father, came over to chat with him.
“You’ll eat with us, okay?” Prang said.
“Thanks a lot, but I’ve promised Waeo to have dinner with her.”
“Well then, you must come and sleep here.”
Again he refused, because he wanted to stay overnight under the roof of the house he was born in once more, even though he felt that if he stayed in his elder brother’s house it would be more convenient and satisfactory in terms of personal rapport.
“Then tomorrow you must come here for lunch,” his sister-in-law stated as an order. He said he would.
“How many days do you intend to stay?” his brother asked.
“Seven, I think.”
“Are you here on business?”
“Well, yes, some,” he stammered, then told them straight, “Master wants me to sue three of our villagers over their mortgages. I don’t want to do it yet, so I got him to let me talk with his debtors first.”
“Who’s that?” Uncle Preim asked. “Maha Juan, you mean?”
“That’s right, Uncle.”
“Who are his debtors? Old Mee, Luea and Phook, isn’t it?”
Sai nodded and wondered how his brother knew.
Chao and Uncle Preim were silent and he felt their silence strangely oppressive. After a while, Uncle Preim groaned “Uh huh” in his throat, the meaning of which escaped him. He recalled that his brother had studied under Maha Juan as well. When he was a monk, Sai used to call the elder monk “Luang Phee”*. When he had disrobed, he could no longer call him this, so he called him “Master” because it was more appropriate, but his brother called him Maha Juan like everybody else.
“Maha Juan used to stay in our temple,” Uncle Preim said softly. “When he went to Bangkok, he was still close to us villagers, but these days Maha Juan is not just close to us: he’s all over us.” There was an odd undertone to Uncle Preim’s voice.
“Mrs. Mali’s hard as nails, you know,” Prang butted in. “She’s never heard of the milk of human kindness, that one.”
“Maha Juan is taking care of Madam Mali’s interests, and that’s only natural because he’s her husband,” Chao said then looked at his brother’s face searchingly. Sai felt that those eyes were staring at him as if to ask what was in it for him.
“If it goes to court, is there any chance of winning?” Uncle Preim asked.
Sai shook his head. “As far as the law is concerned, there’s no way. At best, the penalty will be light.”
Everyone was quiet for a long time.
Finally, his brother said, “Since you’re here, you might as well meet them, right?”
And his sister-in-law complained, “I reckon you’d never had come here if it wasn’t for this.”

11

When he moored his small towing boat at the landing in front of Mr. Mee’s house, a black dog darted out and barked at him deafeningly.
“Uncle, tell your dog off,” he shouted, strengthening his grip on the paddle and holding it at the ready if that black dog, which threatened to jump into the boat, in a sudden rush actually did.
“Go away, Nin!” was yelled from inside as the owner appeared at the door of the thatched shed.
He raised his hands and bowed to the owner of the place, tied up the boat, climbed onto the landing, which was made of bamboo sticks tied together, then followed the man into the shed. He had to bend low to go through the door opening, which seemed to have been built for a child and only reached a man’s chest. He was wondering how to begin the conversation.
“I’m paying a visit to my relatives,” he said once he had seated himself on the platform, “so I’m coming by to see how things are with you, Uncle.”
“So-so,” Mr. Mee answered slowly, then moved the tobacco tray toward him. “Make yourself a cigarette, young man. How many years has it been since you last came? Nearly ten years, in’it?”
“Yes, about ten,” he answered, looking sideways at an almost middle-aged man who was already sitting on the platform when he entered. He did not know who the man was. At the back of the house, Uncle Mee’s wife was busy cooking in the kitchen, which was at ground level.
“How are you doing, Auntie?”
“Fine,” Aunt Eim answered.
“Where are the children?”
“Out in the field. They ain’t back yet.”
“You come on Maha Juan’s business, don’t you?” the man sitting there asked in a normal tone of voice. He was startled: he did not expect to be asked such a question. He felt like he had been caught off guard and could not help but wonder how it was the villagers knew. Was there some spirit whispering in the wind? Could it be that by now, the whole district knew he had come on Maha Juan’s business, which was bound to affect several villagers?
“I know you arrived yesterday,” the man went on, “and thought you might visit Mee’s house today, so I came to wait here.”
His explanation was not exactly enlightening. “But how is it you know I come on Maha Juan’s business?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” the man answered. “It’s the talk of the market. Madam Mali’s people are the ones doing the talking.”
“Oh,” he groaned.
“In the tenth month, Maha Juan sent us someone once,” Uncle Mee added, “and his ultimatum was that in the first month — that is, now — he’d take us to court.”
“Then what did you tell him?”
Uncle Mee went on puffing on his cigarette placidly. “Luea and me asked him to wait until the next crop.”
Sai thus knew that the man sitting there was Mr. Luea, another debtor of Madam Mali and Maha Juan.
“Once we sell the rice, maybe we’ll have enough money to pay the interest for the year,” Uncle Mee went on. “Reimbursing the capital on top of the interest, that’s totally beyond my means. If the crop’s good like this year, if the price of rice doesn’t go down, if things don’t cost more and if nobody falls sick, then maybe in four or five years’ time we’ll be able to clear the mortgage.”
“It’s getting to be touch and go, young man, lemme tell you,” Aunt Em interjected from the kitchen. “We’ve sold all of our cattle. The only thing that’s left is the field, which ain’t got room to swing a monkey in, and then there’s us.”
Uncle Mee chuckled, not at his wife’s words but at his own fate.
“You know, the longer we work the poorer we get,” Aunt Em went on venting her spleen with a voice that he found appalling. “We don’t know what to do, young man.”
Luea took a strip of atap palm and calmly rolled himself a cigarette. “When the poor talk, nobody believes us. When we say the truth we’re accused of lying.” He spoke without looking at Sai. “Last year I thought I’d get enough to pay the interest, but then Daeng got so ill he almost died. You can’t let a child of yours die on you. No matter how poor you are, you do everything you can to save him. Daeng made it in the end, but all the money for Madam Mali was gone. This year we’ve had to buy on credit at the market to feed ourselves. As soon as the crop’s in, we’ll just sit back and watch our creditors take our rice away, and then we’ll borrow some more and buy foodstuffs on credit to be able to keep on eating.” Luea was speaking slowly like someone so used to his oppressive condition that he no longer cared one way or the other, or else like someone in total control of his temper, which only the most determined and earnest of men can be.
“You and me, our parents must have been laughing at themselves when they gave us our names.” Uncle Mee laughed bitterly. “Mee — to have? I’ve never had anything! Luea — to remain? There’s never anything left!”
“No need to look very far: nobody wanna lose his land. I cleared the place myself during my father’s time, when it was still all chakhrarm and firewood trees. Ask around find how many people these days work their own paddy fields and aren’t in debt. Those who have land have mortgaged it, and there are many who don’t even have land to work, and then some of us are being sued over ownership rights, like those at the end of the canal over there.”
“I haven’t come here to press you as the representative of Madam Mali or Maha Juan.” Sai finally expressed his inner feelings as he was unable to keep them to himself any longer.
Aunt Eim, who was busy reheating the boiled rice she had just drained of its water, had to turn round to listen.
“Maha Juan came to see me in my capacity as a lawyer and asked me to take the cases to court, which means to sue you to force you to act according to the agreement, but I am from this village. I didn’t want to take up the cases, because it’d be like suing my own relatives. My father also came here to clear the land just like the two of you. My brothers still earn their living here, but Maha Juan was my teacher and I owe him a lot as well. To refuse outright would have offended him, so I made a request. I asked him to give me time to figure out what the situation was like.” He swallowed his saliva.
Uncle Mee sat still. Luea looked up and glanced at Sai, then went on drawing on his cigarette. Aunt Eim turned round to turn the rice in the pot.
“At least, it was a way of buying time,” he added, then was quiet.
“No matter what, they’ll sue,” Uncle Mee said.
“Let them,” Luea said firmly. “At most, we’ll be hard up, there’s nothing more to it than that.”
“Then where will we find rice to put in the pot?” Aunt Eim asked tremulously. “We’ll just die of hunger.”
“So long as there’s life, we’ll find a way to rebound.”
Sai came out of Uncle Mee’s house impressed in several ways. Luea was a man who refused to be defeated by life and fate, he thought — and that was the spirit of those who had turned the jungle into paddy fields, who had turned a no man’s land into a prosperous area and who were always ready to start all over again when they failed the first time or any time after that. “Figure out for yourself what it is you must do, but don’t worry about us” had been Luea’s last sentence before he left, a sentence whose various meanings it was for him to figure out.
Before going back, he went over to Mr. Phook’s house, his last call, and the situation he found there was several times worse than Uncle Mee’s. Phook had fifty rai of paddy land. He was being sued by a big landowner who claimed that he owned thirty of the fifty rai. Way back, Phook’s father had staked a claim to over twenty rai of jungle, which he had turned into a paddy field. That much was covered by a title deed, but for the other thirty rai which his father had claimed and taken over, cleared and cultivated openly for years, Phook only had a land-usage certificate, not a title deed. When he had gone to ask for one, it had turned out that the land was in someone else’s name. The case had gone to court, and he had had to mortgage his land to have money to fight the case.
“Win or lose, there’s no way it can ever be mine,” Phook told him, “because the lawyer in town made me sign an agreement to transfer the land to him if we win as fee for his services. If we lose, he doesn’t want anything. If we win, he asked for that plot of land. The twenty rai left should be enough to live on, but in my case it won’t: the case is eating everything outa me.”
Sai was stunned, unable to think of anything to say. Phook was of about his own age or a few years older. Mrs. Klin, his wife, had received him with a scowling face when he had entered the house, then she had disappeared, refusing to talk to him at all.
Something like a clatter of broken dishes came from the back of the house. Klin’s exceedingly cranky voice upbraided her child harshly. “Your fucking parents are about to die, but you never stop making things worse, damn you. I don’t know how much more wreckage we can stand.”
He felt that Mrs. Klin was yelling at him through her child. The last sentence showed plainly that she wanted him to feel that she was cursing him, not her child.
He came out of Phook’s house with a heavy heart. He wasn’t angry at Klin for cursing him, but he was irritated deep inside. When he told the whole story to his brother, Chao chuckled.
“She’s a good woman, Klin is. And Phook’s a good man too, but lately they’ve changed a lot. When we get poorer and poorer, our feelings change. It’s been five or six years that the case’s been hanging in court, and it costs them dearly, and they’ll have nothing left in the end. When you’re at the receiving end like that, how can you remain good-tempered?”
He still remembered the splendid colors of Songkrarn, the Thai New Year, the jolly good fun of the local games — the erection of a sand stupa and the bathing of the Buddha image with fragrant water, the games of Saba, Chuang Ram, Mae See and Phee Ling — in which he joined every year as he returned home during the school recess of the hot season. When he was a teenager, Klin and Jan were the preferred Mae See mediums because they were good dancers. Klin was then a bright and cheerful young woman, and so was Jan. He still remembered that Klin wore her hair loose, cut shoulder-length and that Jan had hers swept back in a bun. Some young men would sing in alternation:
“—Things change with time. Before, there was pan-yee
Now pan-yee is out, the curly look is in
There’s still another, wavy style of these modern times
It’s called shingle. Shingle women carry their heads high
The change to shingle is now number one
Girls with shoulder-length hair look cheaper by the day—”
Sai still remembered this old antiphonic song. No matter whether you called it art or not, the lyric presented a picture of change over time, allowing you a glimpse of a certain era, of a given period before the invasion of the permanent wave turned the heads of women everywhere.
Sai remembered that Prang, his elder sister-in-law, also rolled her hair into a bun when she was a young woman. Chao used to sing a love song to her at a time when they were still courting, and Sai still remembered it well. So he asked teasingly, “You still remember the song, don’t you, Prang?”
“Which song?”
“The song that says—” then he started to sing:
“—Looking at all the flowers people find so pretty
I can’t seem to agree with them
Even pure white jasmine in bud
Can’t compete in beauty with your bun—”
Prang smiled shyly. “I don’t know who it was he was wooing. Lots of girls wore their hair in a bun. It wasn’t just me.”
Chao chuckled as usual. “You sang it in front of the house of the chosen one, that’s how she got the message.”
The atmosphere in the thatch-roofed house seemed to be warmer and more lively when everyone recalled the old days of childhood and adolescence.
“The festive season nowadays is no longer what it used to be,” Chao said. “Since the end of the war, farmers have become much poorer.” Then he turned to Sai: “So what did you find out?”
“Think of what you can do, anyway,” Chao went on when he saw his brother keeping quiet. Actually, if Sai was silent, it was because he would rather listen to Chao’s opinion, but everyone was leaving it to him to think things through.
“By the way, what’s become of Jan?” Sai, who was still thinking of the old days, asked about the other Mae See medium.
“She’s still around,” Prang answered. “She hasn’t gone anywhere. Still there at her old place by the bend.”
“She must have lots of children by now.”
“Only one. She’s a widow.”
“A widow?” he echoed in surprise.
“Fatso, her husband, died during the war. Didn’t you know?”
Fatso, his friend, who had played Phee Ling? He was curious about what had happened and asked many questions. His brother told him the story. It was part of the history of the farmers in this and the neighboring districts, at once a sad story and an act of heroism to be proud of.

12

When a war starts, no one knows how and when it will end. War makes some individuals very rich, but for many people war means the loss of everything, from property and means of livelihood to limb and life. Some talk of peace because they want war, but others talk of peace because they genuinely want peace.
The so-called Great East Asian War brought in the Japanese soldiers — or rather, more correctly, the Japanese army expanded the war in East Asia to Southeast Asia and to the Pacific Ocean islands and archipelagos and was fiercer and swifter than any epidemic in causing damage and destruction because war was not born out of disease but out of men who had at their disposal all the machinery they needed and who had refined the science of annihilation to a high art.
A few small districts of absolutely no importance, which had never found their names on Siamese maps because they were so small and had never had any historical significance, became the location of a small unit of the Japanese Army. This did not add to their importance in any way, for if one holds that importance is due to the presence of a contingent of foreign soldiers, then many other places all over the country were also important and quite a few were in fact more important, but it had an impact on the lives of the local residents, who had been born and were working in peace and freedom until they were caught in a total upheaval.
Dozens of farming families had to leave the land they used to possess, plow, plant or sow and otherwise expend their strength over for a living. Poor as they might be, they still had a land to work and call their own, they still had a place on which to live as they wished without outside interference, on which to grow up as freemen, as owners of fertile delta land. It was an area of over five hundred rai, nothing much when compared to the superficies of the country as a whole, indeed too tiny for a pinhead to point out accurately on any map of Thailand of the size used in schools. But for all of the lives that had to move against their will out of the little bit of land that they owned, it was a shock as deep and as violent as if they had had their hands and feet amputated. Even though they took refuge with other relatives or neighbors just beyond the requisitioned area, theirs was a provisional settlement. Their feet did not tread upon the ground with confidence and dignity. Their hands did not have the opportunity to use the full strength of their powerful muscles with pride. Those who were poor would grow poorer still; those who could make ends meet would be increasingly needy. In conformity with the wonderfully hospitable ethic of the countryside, their neighbors, who addressed one another by kinship names according to seniority and respect, as if they were one and the same very extensive family, most willingly welcomed and helped them as much as they were able. Even so, they could not help thinking about their changed circumstances. Not that there had never been generous help and mutual dependence and that none were to be found: actually, dependence and cooperation have existed since the beginning of time and for untold generations. This precious solidarity has always been practiced, as much here as in every other part of the country. But deep down inside, they knew that they were not able to return help and assistance as they would have in their former station. The principle of reliance on one another had been maintained up until now because everyone considered it his duty to reciprocate the help received with equity and fairness, without taking advantage of the system by being selfish and one-sided, and this could only be done when the status of all concerned did not differ greatly. But then, these days, they could only rely on their friends unilaterally — friends who, for the most part, were not well-off at all either, but similarly poor and who, at best, had just enough to eat, and in a situation like this, they were an added burden which could prove unbearable.
The area of over five hundred rai of rice-growing fields was turned into a smattering of sheds of nipa palm slightly bigger than ordinary farmhouses, set out in well-spaced rows within a grid of small moats. When the former owners passed by, they saw the dull gaze of the soldiers on duty and the glint of their bayonets, which was just as sharp as the glint of the tempered-steel swords they kept in top condition, scraping them free of rust and oiling them to make sure that, once out of their scabbards and thrust into something, they would achieve the purpose for which they had been built and maintained. Such a sight cut a gaping wound in their chests, tormenting them forever more cruelly than the edges of the real bayonets would have. Ah!
“Who would be willing to hand over the ever cherished land of the Thai?
Myriad foes can wipe it out if they so mean.
Foes can oppress a land once happily ruled.
But how can one abandon one’s home?
Who would allow willfully hoarded palace riches
To be plundered? No one, nay—”
Even though everything outwardly appeared to be as quiet as before — weaverbirds still built their bridal nests in the banyan trees and bamboo groves along the canal and unremittingly chirped their mating songs as before; starlings still squatted buffalo backs, letting the land wind spread out their tails; white herons still walked demurely in search of prey like criminals in pious garb as always; luffa and sola plants still flowered a saffron yellow; white khae and dark-red tiger’s claw trees still blossomed in season; eagles swooped and glided in mid-air as freely as ever; people went out farming, bird hunting, or fishing with rods or bamboo coops; young men and women whose hearts were bound to each other exchanged looks wet with intent every time they faced or were near each other; and the children still ran noisily and happily about, laughing, crying, quarreling and making up as children are wont to do — deep inside many things had changed. In the eyes of scorched-skinned young men, the glitter of quiet contentment had veered to a glimmer of dismay and shame. Their fun-loving disposition had turned into sadness. Men had avoided looking into each other’s eyes and had even been crestfallen and evasive in the presence of women, but now they looked everyone in the eye. All faces were held up. The glint in men’s eyes had undertones of rebuke, toughness, forbearance and refusal to yield, like the eyes of the Chinese refugees who had come down from the heights of Yunnan, Sichuan and Guangxi to a southern wilderness of lofty mountain ridges, like the eyes of those men who had cleared the jungle and turned the Jao Phraya basin into a cornucopia of paddy fields, orchards, villages and towns, or like the eyes of those who had marched out to battlefields to defend the land they cherished and everything they loved so that their children and future generations had a land of their own to live on as freemen.
These were changes that accrued little by little, like time and the heat of the sun, which by their very nature made rice ears sprout and baked them dry so they would not decay. The displaced farmers and their neighbors got together without being told, merely out of their own sense of awareness. Time and events created such an awareness, which grew to the point that the blood in these men’s veins was thick with the dignity and pride of patriots upholding their country above all else. Though they were few in number and confined within bounds, they were, once thrown into the struggle, a force stronger than steel.
When the Japanese Army decided to build the quarters it needed here, it sought to hire a large number of workers to erect the sheds and dig a grid of moats over the whole area now cleared of its previous dwellers. No matter how hard-pressed they were by poverty, none of the displaced farmers came forward, and the farmers in the vicinity stayed put in sympathy. The Japanese soldiers thus contacted the owners of a few rice mills which provisioned the Japanese Army and traders in the marketplace, and managed to find enough workers. Most of them were people with no steady means of income. Some had a past and a behavior so unsavory that none of the villagers wanted to have anything to do with them because they were hoodlums, for instance a man called Rort and five or six others in his gang who were drug addicts and petty thieves. Besides, there were also coolies from the rice mills whom the owners had sent over, because having the Japanese Army for custom meant easy and quick profits. Among these rice mill employees was Chao Seema, the first man in the village to work for the Japanese.
The villagers looked at him and did not understand, because his own house sheltered a couple of married refugees, but Chao did not talk to anyone and Prang, his wife, never talked about this with anyone either. She had sewn together her own lips as though she were a mute. Chao went out to work at dawn and was back home at dusk. If he came across someone either in his row boat or on foot, he did not try to look that person in the eye or to engage in conversation. The villagers looked at him in surprise and thought ill of him, but nobody said anything.
It was not long before the gang of petty thieves were arrested and tortured by the Japanese because they had taken their light-fingered habits into the camp as well. Three of them fled and were never seen again. Two were heavily tortured: one disappeared without a trace and the other was released in terrible condition. The news spread fast from the workers who had witnessed his release and was further embellished from mouth to mouth. The reports that spread at large did not agree in their detail, but they did agree on one point, which was that whoever was caught stealing property from the Japanese would be severely tortured, with or without a confession, and although the villagers did not like the people who had been arrested and tortured, because of their record of evil and because they believed these people had indeed done something wrong, they were revolted by the cruel torture the two had been put to.
Rort was still there and in an important position as well, as he had been chosen to supervise the workers. He earned high wages without having much to do, because he had proved his honesty to the Japanese by denouncing the thieves that had been caught, but the villagers knew that he had betrayed his own friends because he was unhappy with his share of the loot. Rort had thought of setting up the gang of thieves, letting his underlings do the work while he merely planned and told them what to do, but then he had bullied them to get a bigger share than that of the five of them put together. All five had refused. He had simply told the soldiers to arrest them.
At the same time as these rumors were doing the rounds, the villagers received another shock when several among them went to work into the Japanese camp, first Fatso, then Phook, then Suk, then Khong, and on top of that a few of the refugees also went to work there. The dissatisfaction of the villagers greatly increased and they were unable to keep their feelings to themselves any longer.
When Fatso returned home after his first day in the Japanese camp, he found Jan, his wife, sitting sullen-faced in front of the stove. Since he had decided to work for the Japanese, he had hardly talked to his wife, but Jan was a woman who trusted her husband in everything, because she had appraised him long before they got married less than a year ago, and when she had made up her mind that her husband was really a good man, she did not waste any time on being suspicious or plying him with questions. She was certain that her husband would never do a bad deed, so she did not question whatever he did, because what he did was nothing wicked. That was the way Jan thought, the same Jan who had been surrounded by young men singing wittily when she was the Mae See medium.
Fatso stared briefly at his wife, then eased his tired self down onto the platform. He lay down on his back, his head on an old blanket, and smoked a cigarette, his eyes on the thatch of the roof. It had gaps through which he could see the light of the sky. It was almost four years old. He recalled he had told his wife he would rethatch the roof this year some time, because it leaked a lot when it rained, but he had not done so up until now.
He heard his wife sigh before he heard her question. “Why do you have to go to work in the Japanese camp?”
If Jan had stood nearby, she would have seen Fatso’s face change instantly. It went livid and then darker than before, then returned to normal. “Just for the fun of it,” he answered evenly. “There’s nothing to do right now.”
“You know, don’t you, that our neighbors don’t like the Japanese soldiers.”
“Is that so?” Fatso said, but his tone did intimate surprise. “I don’t see what’s wrong with them. They’re just ordinary people like us.” His right hand moved to rest across his forehead.
“Well, it makes me feel like a rabid dog, you know. Nobody wants to talk to me. They look the other way when they see me. Today I went to the market. Old Khleum told me to my face, ‘Now then, my dear woman! Are you so hard up that your man has to go work for them Japanese soldiers?’”
“And what did you answer?”
“I could say nothing. Old Khleum then said, ‘If you’re really hard up, take soup from us, don’t go eating the soup of outsiders.’”
“We aren’t begging for food, we work for them in exchange. It’s the same as being hired to transplant rice.”
“But these are Japanese soldiers!” Jan said. Fatso had the impression that her wife was sobbing as she spoke.
“Why do the people here hate the Japanese soldiers?” he asked idly.
“They’ve come to chase away the farmers over there, who’re in such dire straits. And they’re so cruel—”
Fatso groaned. He kept his eyes on the thatch of the roof like before, but drew harder on his cigarette. “Never mind what they say. Let them talk.” This was not much of an explanation, but it was the best he could come up with to console her. He heard his wife’s muffled sobbing.

13

It was not long before the digging of moats and building of the Japanese camp was over and the hired workforce had nothing more to do. The camp area became off limits to anyone. Those who entered, for whatever purpose, did so at the risk of their lives. The Japanese soldiers had hired the workers only to dig the earth and erect the rows of thatch-roofed barracks within the area, but nobody knew how these barracks were to be used, because the Japanese did the installation themselves and would not allow local workers in, in order to ensure their own secrecy.
Life seemed to be going on as usual. The boats the villagers paddled up and down the canal past the front of the camp went on floating by, the people in them hardly looking toward the camp any longer, either because it had become an ordinary sight or else as a response of the villagers who were forced to receive uninvited guests.
But then one day, the owners of two rice mills on the canal which provisioned the Japanese military camp were invited to the camp. When Mr. Mongkhon and Thaokae* Heng, the rice mill owners, came back, the news spread that they had been called over to be questioned about the rice sent to the Japanese soldiers. It turned out that dozens of bags of rice lying at the bottom of the barges were soaking wet and had to be dried in the sun, which resulted in a waste of time and a loss of quality for the rice. The two mill owners thus had to hire guards to supervise the loading of the rice and watch the moored barges until they were taken to the camp. But the situation did not improve. The lowest layer of rice bags was as soaked as before, and some bags smelled of what seemed to be urine.
The mill owners called a meeting of their workers, asked for their cooperation and offered a reward for the arrest of those who were damaging the rice, but things did not get better. Mr. Mongkhon’s and Thaokae Heng’s barges went back and forth between the rice mills and the Japanese camp more frequently. The people affected consulted one another on ways of preventing the losses in their common income.
“Mr” Rort, the hoodlum who had supervised the workers during the construction of the Japanese camp and who was trusted by the Japanese soldiers, appeared at Thaokae Heng’s rice mill and because he was an influential person, he was hired as supervisor whose duty was to prevent any further damage to the rice. But his close working relationship with the Japanese and special treatment from his employer were not wasted. They made him use his head and improve his cunning.
He mixed freely with all of the workers in the rice mill, from the coolies who transported the rice to the mechanics and the coolies on the barges, and even the villagers who routinely brought their rice for milling at the mill, but the eyes of all were like tightly shut doors. He was unable to reach into the hearts and minds of these people to find out how they felt and what they thought, and no one paid attention to him. Each went on with his job, and when it was time to have lunch, each spooned his rice gruel without showing any interest in the fact that Rort had come to sit at the same table.
Rort wandered down to the barge. Khong was lying alone at the aft because it was not yet time for him to resume work. Rort eased himself down and sat nearby. Khong gave him a quiet look and did not say anything.
“I’ll be working here,” Rort began the conversation. “The boss hired me to help look after things, but actually I’m not with the Japanese or with the boss’s people either. I’m one of us.”
“Who’s us?” Khong asked at once without changing his pose.
“Well, us, our people,” Rort answered. “Those of us who oppose the Japanese.”
“I don’t see people like that anywhere,” Khong said louder. “Don’t come and talk to me about things like that. I know nothing. Whoever wants to oppose whoever, let them. It’s none of my business.”
Rort glanced at Khong sideways but he could see nothing unusual in his eyes or his face. Many people of his age, and even more than a few who were older than him, did him the honor of calling him “Elder brother”, but this guy didn’t. Whoever did not acknowledge his power like that must have what it takes somehow, but Rort was not from this district. He came from elsewhere, and in his behavior as a hoodlum, his method for maintaining his power had two basic tenets: in his own territory, nobody could become bigger than he was; he took care of whoever showed signs of rebellion by showing right away that he was bigger and in control before the other could build up his own power. As for hoodlums outside of his own territory, he would be friendly on the basis of equality, each respecting the other’s sphere of influence, which was the general way of hoodlums everywhere. In these parts, he had never heard of anyone being big, and this guy seemed to be hefty enough, but his face looked too boyish, like that of a babe in the woods.
“I know how you feel,” Rort went on, “but if you ask me, the way to damage the rice isn’t good enough.”
Khong turned his head away as if he was not interested.
“Why is that?” Rort asked rhetorically and answered his own question. “Because it’s a loss to the Japanese and to the rice mill owners, but it doesn’t profit the likes of us in any way. I think the best way is to steal the rice. To steal rice bags like these is a breeze. Taking rice to eat or sell is better than making it go to waste for nothing.”
Khong did not answer. After a pause, he suggested, “If that’s what you think, then go ahead and do it.”
“And you won’t interfere?” Rort asked.
Khong took the hint at once. “But don’t do it when I’m here, and don’t let me see you,” he answered firmly. “If you’re really hungry, you can always ask me for something to eat.”
The last sentence annoyed Rort no end. “I say, Khong, don’t try to teach a monkey new tricks,” Rort said as his parting words, then stood up and left.
In the evening, Khong went to tell the story to his friends. There were five or six of them discussing the situation in low voices and without a light on, not even the tip of a burning cigarette, apart from the starlight in the sky.
“It’s good you didn’t fall for it,” someone said. “People like that bastard Rort have only one master they respect. It isn’t Thaokae Heng and it isn’t the Japanese — it’s money. If they can make a bundle with the Japanese soldiers, they’ll work for them. If they can swindle them, they’ll do it. Like he betrayed his friends that time, because he wanted the money.”
“He acts like a bandit,” someone else added. “Whether he means to do it or not, we’ll see. But we can’t behave like this. Besides, it might have been a trick for him to suggest thieving, because it’d make it easy to be caught red-handed. If they’re fast enough, they can catch us with the stuff.”
Everyone agreed with the latter point.
Finally, when they were unable to improve the situation, the Japanese soldiers changed their way of protecting themselves by having the barges transport the rice only during the daytime, and then have them moor at the military camp overnight, no longer allowing them to spend the night at the rice mills or anywhere else.
After he had tried to stir up trouble for a long time, one night Rort was dragged out of his quarters at the back of the rice mill where he had been soundly asleep in the company of one of his underlings, and was kicked black and blue by several feet whose owners disappeared into the dark without leaving a trace and without making a sound. The beating was only meant as a warning to that riffraff. Those who had done it did not overdo it, even though they could easily have done so. Rort the hoodlum did not dare go out for several days. The workers at the rice mill said among themselves that his former underlings who had escaped from the Japanese had showed up at the market the next day, after that important night in his life. The physical pain he suffered? Heck, that was nothing compared to the hurt in his heart! Rort almost coughed up blood. ‘Wait until I can do you,’ Rort growled in his heart. He didn’t believe his former accomplices had done it, because the three of them used to be so much in awe of him that they shook and anyway they didn’t have the guts, they were just petty thieves, and drug addicts to boot. They weren’t up to doing a big job like this.
When he was back in shape, Rort showed up at the rice mill again and kept a close eye on the people he suspected, but nobody behaved in such a way as to suggest any awareness of what had happened. He bumped into Khong, who gave him a brief sideways glance and walked on, with nothing suspicious about him. One thing Rort was glad about was that people at large did not know what had happened, which allowed him to keep his ‘honor’ intact.
Jan quietly observed the change in her husband’s behavior. After the work at the Japanese military camp was over, Fatso was not often at home. He would go and talk with neighbors here and there all the time. Some days he returned at dusk, some days even later, but she did not say a word and felt better that her husband no longer worked for the Japanese soldiers whom the villagers hated.
One day, Fatso came back home in the early afternoon.
“Eh, what have you been doing that your eyes are so red?”
“Hm!” Fatso was startled by her wife’s remark.
“Where have you been?” Jan scrutinized her husband’s face. “And your hair’s wet, too.”
“Er — it isn’t dry yet.” He excused himself awkwardly. “I went to see Old Plang. His net got stuck on a stump, so I thought I’d help him to get it unstuck. It got stuck on a big sakae branch. It took me a long time to get it free, and it tore in many places.”
Listening to his explanation, Jan was silent, maybe because she was not inquisitive, or maybe because she believed her husband.
In the morning, she went out to wash the rice at the head of the landing. As she was emptying the water, a human head popped up from under the water.
She cried out in fright. “What’s the idea? You scared me.”
Fatso laughed sheepishly. “I didn’t mean to. I had no idea you’d be down to wash the rice.”
“What’s the idea anyway, diving underwater in the morning? I’ve never seen you do it before.”
And that was the truth. Fatso never bathed like that. He did bathe in the morning, but doused himself with a dipping bowl.
“The bowl fell, so I had to grope for it. Still haven’t got it.” Having said this, Fatso dived again and disappeared into the water.
Jan watched the phosphorescence rising to the surface of the water, only half believing his story. Fatso was gone a long time. He finally broke to the surface.
“Found it?”
Fatso shook the water dripping down his face from his hair. “I did,” he said as he brandished the brass bowl for his wife to see. “I thought I’d lost it for good. It’s so round, it shouldn’t have drifted so far.” He scooped up water and threw it at her.
“Don’t! I’ll be all wet.”
Fatso laughed good-humoredly and splashed her even harder.
“If you get me wet, I’ll hit you with the rice pot,” Jan threatened, throwing him a dirty look and raising the pot at arm’s length.
He looked at his wife with happiness. She reminded him of those days when he had fallen in love with her and their houses were next to each other. He had come up floating quietly while Jan was taking a shower at the top of the landing in the evening. He had looked against the sunshine at the chubby body in a black wrap-around and her skin looked like it was overlaid with the gold of the sunbeams. Jan was not just pretty, she was strong and hardworking as well. She danced as beautifully as she was efficient in planting rice and harvesting. Quietly, he had glided closer and splashed her gently. Jan had started, her bowl had slipped, she had caught it just in time, blushing with bashfulness. As for him, he had laughed cheerfully, but in an instant she had run back into the house.
‘The only difference,’ Fatso thought, ‘is that in the past she acted coy, but now she’s no longer embarrassed like a young girl.’ She finished washing the rice, then lifted the rice pot and went back into the house.
He sang the old song he had sung whenever he met her at the landing.
“The clear water in the canal runs real cold
But without a beloved I feel no relief
O precious one, why do you in haste flee from me?—”
Jan heard the song as she lifted the rice pot onto the stove, and she smiled at the stove. Sparks of love sizzled in the glow of the firewood.

14

When a situation changes, the need arises to change the way it is handled. Damaging the rice provision by the old method was no longer feasible. Those individuals who did not want the Japanese Army to stay in the area had to come up with a new way of carrying on the struggle, since the Japanese no longer allowed the barges to stay overnight at the rice mill but had them moored at the camp under the permanent and close surveillance of military guards.
Someone suggested sinking the rice barges by drilling holes in their hulls and the others agreed that it was the only way possible and the most appropriate method, even though it would not be easy to achieve. Therefore, in order to avoid mistakes and to ensure that the operation went on with maximum efficiency and a minimum of risk, it was agreed to train beforehand and to select only those who were suitable to perform the tasks involved, that is those who could dive the longest and swim underwater without making ripples on the surface.
The first step in the training began by having volunteers to dive for as long as possible. It turned out that there were four people who could stay underwater longer than most. Two more were able to last long enough to be of service, but the rest could not yet, and among those who could not was Fatso. Fatso was unhappy with himself for not being able to dive as long as the others, even though he tried again and again. Underwater, he had the impression that he was immersed for an eternity and when, out of breath, he surfaced again, thinking that he would be the last, or among the last, to emerge, he was almost always the first, and it was the same every time, until he had to admit defeat at least for the duration. Next time he would try to do better, because to be among those who would help sink the rice barges was a distinction to be really proud of.
Fatso thus undertook to train himself at home with a mission, starting from the moment he took his bath in the morning, which made his wife wonder a great deal. He would train again after lunch, to his wife’s increased bafflement, but he tried to find various excuses to alleviate her suspicions, although he did not entirely succeed. And when he was certain that he could dive longer than before, Fatso went to test himself against the other divers. It turned out that even though he did dive longer than before, during the same period his friends had also progressed, so that he could never defeat them or even equal them, to his mortification.
When the divers had been selected, the training went through the various steps of the operation as it would take place, that is training to swim underwater back and forth over a distance of about eighty meters, then drilling holes underwater in a piece of wood of the thickness of a barge’s hull. It took several days before the training bore fruit, and it was carried out in earnest because everyone knew that the least mistake might jeopardize the operation and put the lives of the performers at risk. Carelessness and half-heartedness just could not be tolerated.
There was only one way which everybody knew. The sooner the Japanese Army closed down their camp and left, the sooner the villagers who had been evicted out of the area would get their land back and could resume their livelihood. However insignificant their endeavors were in terms of numbers and scope, they would be a challenge to the awesome power of the Japanese Army, which would be denied security because the farmers were unwilling to part with their lands.
And then one day the news spread across neighboring districts that two rice barges in front of the Japanese military camp had sunk, with only their tarpaulin roofs sticking out of the water.
Nobody knew who had done it, but most people were pleased. An old man went as far as declaring right in the marketplace, “If I knew who did it, I’d prostrate myself at their feet.”
“Not so loud, uncle,” someone warned him in a low voice, “or the Japs will take you away.”
The old man wised up and calmed down, yet could not help smacking the palm of his hand with his fist. “That’s the way to go for our boys!”
“The fish in the canal will have plenty to eat this once,” someone whispered.
Although the loss was not very substantial, it showed the defiance of the villagers, which made the Japanese Army even more wary, and a special unit of soldiers was sent in in reinforcement, together with a first lieutenant who was an expert in the suppression of popular resistance of this kind.
The villagers did not dare paddle their boats past the camp at night, because they were afraid of being held in suspicion, arrested and tortured for nothing, or else shot before they could give any explanation. The Japanese military guards would not allow anything to get close to the barges and the camp. Searchlights would sweep the area intermittently. Even the clumps of floating weeds which the wind pushed too close would be shot at indiscriminately.
But sometimes the rotting carcass of a dog would float by and on those days yet another barge would sink. At night, clumps of weeds would float to the barge, even though the water was not running, the watergates being closed and the wind still. The Japanese soldiers would fire at them and blow them to pieces. Every night, the villagers heard volleys of gunshots. At first they were startled a little, but soon they got used to them. On some nights, there were dark things bobbing along in mid-stream. The Japanese soldiers focused their searchlights on them. The things were black like human heads, so they fired away. Sometimes they sank, but sometimes they kept afloat. The guards would hook them out of the water. They would turn out to be ripe coconuts blackened with soot with a thin piece of string of several meters in length attached round the stem, which showed that it was a ruse of someone who had tied the coconut and gently pulled it past the camp from a distance to prompt the guards to shoot. Thousands of rounds of ammunition were thus wasted on errant weeds and ripe coconuts.
The Japanese first lieutenant reported to his superiors in the following terms:
“—It is true that our contingent here is being disturbed by a small number of thieving ghosts of no significance at all. They are part of the scenery, like mosquitoes and flies, which are everywhere. They are the acts of ordinary thieves and robbers, that’s all there is to it.”
Thieving ghosts? The first lieutenant did not report the fact that these ghosts did not take away a single grain of rice. They sank it in the water. The behavior of these ghosts scared the living daylights out of them all. It must be the ghosts of the guardian spirits protecting the area who would not allow uninvited guests to stay.

Shortly after dusk, by candlelight, Fatso was staring at his wife. Tonight, she looked unusually beautiful. Her face was radiant and looked blissful as if it was flushed with blood. She was more cheerful than on other days. He squeezed his wife’s hand and kissed her softly on the cheek. Such a rapturous happiness! She took him in her arms and held him tight as if she did not want to let him go.
Long after the crescent of moon had sunk beyond the horizon and erratic cockcrows were heard faintly in the night, he got out of bed quietly. ‘It’d be better if she didn’t wake up,’ he thought, looking at her lovely face with delight. ‘I must go, because there’s something I must do—’
His friends had rejected his proposal but he was still determined. After the Japanese had established a strong line of defense along the canal in front of the camp, the old modus operandi could no longer be used. His group looked for another line of action. Someone suggested that they should try sabotage from another side, especially from the back. Many agreed, but some objected that it would be too dangerous, so they decided to put the area under observation first. Fatso was among those who agreed with the idea, and he was anxious to do something by himself, because he was one of those who had once worked in the camp and knew his way about. After several days of observation, Fatso remarked to his friends that the western side was less well guarded than the others because beyond the camp was a flat stretch of paddy fields with nothing to obstruct the view. So the Japanese trusted that thieves would approach from any of the other sides, whose ground was more suited to covert penetration. Fatso volunteered to do the operation all by himself.
“Maybe it’s a trap,” someone ventured. “Maybe they’re expecting us to do something new, so they leave that side undermanned to fool us.”
“And what about the stuff they keep in the sheds? Is it worth our taking the risk?” someone else added.
“Lots of small crates are in there. I don’t know what’s in those crates, perhaps ammo, because I noticed they were very heavy. If we can burn them, we’ll do a lot of damage, no doubt about it,” Fatso said earnestly, “and this is the best time to do it.”
Finally, Fatso decided to do the job himself, even though many people showed misgivings and concern.
Late at night, the dew fell and moistened the earth. He walked along the small paddy-field dikes, carrying nothing on him except a single box of matches, enough to set the thatch ablaze.
He met two like-minded friends who sat waiting in the dark, then the three of them set off without a sound or a light. They walked for more than half an hour. When they got near the Japanese military camp, they took even greater care of their steps. Closer still, Fatso told his two friends to stop. One stood where he was, the other walked away to the east. If anything happened, they would start diversionary moves to catch the attention of the soldiers, so that Fatso could get away southward.
Fatso felt the hand his friend laid on his shoulder giving it a strong squeeze — and without a word, he lowered himself close to the ground and, all crouched up, ran out into the dark.
His eyes were used to the darkness by now. He ran half-crouched, then stopped, then ran some more, keeping alert at all times for any sign of movement. When he reached the perimeter of the camp, which was lined with barbed wire, he went on all fours and slowly crept ahead. His elbows, chest, legs and knees scraped against the cracked earth. Some places were rutted with buffalo hoof prints, but he did not feel any pain, not even a little. He stopped briefly in front of the barbed wire, then ducked under it like it was the easiest thing on earth.
Inside, the ground was smoother than outside. He crept along the moat embankments. In the moats, the water had gone down a lot, but there was still enough for him to keep out of view if he had to. He did not want to use that method yet, because crawling alongside was just as good. On the way back he would use the water in the moats to cover his retreat.
He saw the dark mass of a shed in front of him. Everything was absolutely quiet. Even the crickets and other small insects were fast asleep deep in the earth and in the clumps of grass. He looked up at the bright spread of stars across the sky. He was almost there. His heart was beating more strongly with excitement.
Goddess of the Earth, this land is ours!
Finally, he had reached the shed he meant to. He moved right against it and pulled his legs up to. His hand grabbed the matches. Right then, as if some special insight told him that the quiet that surrounded the camp was only an illusion, he felt as if some shadow was fleeting by. In the brief instant he waited to ascertain whether what he felt was real or not, it was already too late.
The very moment he knew he had not been mistaken, there were movements in the camp. He crawled down to the moat and let himself slither into the water like a snake as quietly as he could, keeping his panic under control. As soon as he was in the water, he kicked the ground below with all his strength to spring himself as far away as he could. But damnit! Instead of following the watercourse, his head thudded into the opposite bank so hard that he felt dazed and he saw the reflection of the stars in the water. When he sprang forward again, this time on the right course, he gave a kick into the mud below, which gave in under the force of his push, and he only managed to move forward by a few inches.
He heard nothing, but saw that the surface of the water was being lit up, then he heard water splashing and, at that very instant, something heavy fell on his body, dragging him deeper into the ditch, deeper and deeper. He tried to resist with all his strength. Muddy water entered his mouth and nose, but he could not shake loose what was holding him down. It was as heavy as a mountain.
Again he struggled. More mud entered his mouth and his nose and with the last shreds of consciousness he still knew that again there was something hard and heavy pressing his head down, but before the last nerve in his body stopped performing its duty, he saw Jan’s face and her sweetly captivating smile spreading in front of him and he lowered his head and kissed her.

15

Returning home upcountry this time gave Sai plenty of food for thought. The old notion he had entertained that he was a son of the paddy fields and understood life in the countryside well was very remote from reality.
When, on his way back, he had stopped by Madam Mali’s house in town to meet his old teacher Maha Juan, he sat waiting on the outside balcony, because his hosts had guests right then. He killed time quietly by observing the state of the home of provincial well-to-dos. Almost half an hour later, he saw the guests, four farmers, leave. ‘It must be about credit or mortgage or debt or something like that,’ he thought to himself.
The couple welcomed him in a surfeit of good manners. After the customary small talk, Madam Mali stood up and went inside the house, leaving the two men to talk by themselves.
“I’m just back from home. I’ve met all of your debtors,” Sai said in a low voice.
“Good — so?” Maha Juan asked in a hurry.
Madam Mali came out of the back room. “You’ll have lunch with us here, won’t you?”
“I’m sorry, Madam,” he answered. “Thank you, but don’t trouble yourself — I’d rather be on my way.”
“Do stay. I’ve already ordered.” Upon which, she walked out.
“I think,” he went on with the subject in hand, “I think these people have no intention whatever to default on the interest, but it’s poverty only that prevents them from doing so.”
“And so?”
“I think you should give them some more time, at least a year or two.”
“That’s what I’ve been doing for far too long.” Maha Juan shook his head. “More time, ha! What will I live on in the meantime?”
Sai stole a glance at the silver saucer and at the gold-rimmed glass full of water in front of him. Their shapes and motifs were old-fashioned but took the fancy of the wealthy who liked the glint of gold. It was the same kind of cup his mentor had when he was a monk, but whether it was the same or not Sai was not sure.
“I am no Phra Weitsandorn* that I can afford to do good deeds indefinitely.”
“Yes. True. No one in this world can be Phra Weitsandorn these days.”
“You go ahead with the cases.”
“Can’t you wait until the next harvest? I think you should give them time until the next crop is in, because now they haven’t got the rice yet, and so they have no money to pay.”
“Sue first,” Maha Juan insisted. “When they’re called to appear in court, we can still compromise and extend the deadline to the next harvest. These people are stubborn. If you don’t use power, there’s no way they’ll ever understand.”
Sai was silent for a while. “I am sorry, sir. I don’t think I can take on the cases for you.”
Maha Juan stared at his former disciple in utter amazement. He had never thought he’d hear such a sentence from him.
“I feel that if I did, it would be like suing my own relatives, my own parents,” Sai went on in a normal tone of voice. “True, these people aren’t my real parents or relatives, but they’ve been clearing the jungle since the days of my father. I bathed in the same canal as they do, ate the rice that grew in the same land, made merit at the same temple. The things I’ve grown up on in body and soul are the same things their bodies and their souls have grown up on. I owe you much, Master. I do not deny this, and I still feel it always. If I had the possibility to repay my debt to you, I wouldn’t hesitate, but we must know how to draw the line between the personal and the collective.” He felt that there was no way Maha Juan would ever understand what he was saying, although it was self-evident.
Maha Juan was silent for a long time. “If you don’t want to do it, you don’t have to. I’ll just find another lawyer.” Having said this, he stood up and went inside.
Sai sighed. It was over. Just as well that he did not have to say more. He went on sitting looking at the walls and at the ceiling and at the emptiness of the room.
Maha Juan had gone to report to Madam Mali at the back of the house. Madam Mali sat listening and throwing many dirty looks at the wall of the reception room in which Sai sat.
“Such an ungrateful ghost! I raised him myself, and this is how he thanks me!”
Sai went on sitting in the empty room for almost half an hour. When he saw that no one came to him, he figured that the owners of the house did not intend to welcome him any more. He stood up and temporized some more — not to wait for lunch, but to have the opportunity to take his leave. After a while, and because nobody showed up, he walked out of the house. He walked past the provincial government office and the land office and the courthouse, all prominent landmarks along the road, all the way to the market, and he had lunch there.

16

Kingthian’s heart was beating fast as she stood strap-hanging in the bus when she thought of her destination. It was the old route and the old place where she had gone to meet Nikhom before he had traveled to take up his official functions upcountry. And when she got off the bus she saw him standing there waiting as he had before, even though almost half a year had gone by.
He smiled at her in welcome with a cheerful smile exactly like in the old days. Kingthian had the impression that his face had grown much swarthier, probably because of exposure to the elements. She wanted to talk to him and ask him about many things, but she found that she could not say a word.
“There are many things I want to talk to you about because I think about you all the time, but now that you’re here I can’t say anything,” he said, exactly as he felt, which was exactly as she felt as well.
“Are you down here on personal or official business?”
“I came down here on official business, to get our wireless repaired. I just arrived today and you’re the first person I’ve met.” He invited her to have a drink at the old coffee shop. “Have I changed a lot?” he asked. “As far as you’re concerned, I can’t see any change. You look just like you did when I left you.”
“What kind of change?” she asked. “If you mean a change of mind, I have no way of knowing. As for outward changes, there are some. You’ve grown a little darker.”
He looked at his own arms. “We’re always in the sun over there, so the skin gets darker, but my heart hasn’t, you know,” he said and laughed. “As for my mind, nothing has changed, but my feelings and thoughts have changed all the same.”
“Wouldn’t your mind follow your feelings and thoughts?” she asked. “I thought they were related.”
“I forget I’m talking to a teacher who has studied psychology. Of course, what you’re saying is correct, but what I meant was only that all the various feelings and thoughts I used to have have changed in the face of the realities of life, and for sure, my mind’s been changed to some extent as well, but when I said it hasn’t, I meant that I’ve been missing you constantly all this time.”
Kingthian frowned. “Constantly only? Not more?” she said teasingly.
He realized that he had gotten carried away. “I speak truthfully and you take it as a joke,” he complained.
“All right: now out with the truth,” Kingthian said in a no-nonsense way when she had broken through the ring of his words.
“I truly missed you a lot.”
She put on a scolding expression. “You’re kidding again. I won’t have it. I’m serious.”
“Well, so am I.”
“Oh, come off it. Don’t be like a stubborn child.”
“If what he says is true, I think you’d better praise the child for his stubbornness.”
“When you say many of your feelings and thoughts have changed, what exactly do you mean?” Kingthian changed the subject when she was not able to win over his obduracy. “You wrote me several letters, but they said nothing about changes. You only wrote about people, nature and the weather.”
“And about missing you always as well,” he added. “You forget something in your summary of the contents of my letters and it might lead to some misunderstanding for the listener,” he said with mocked severity.
Kingthian took a bite of ice cream. “When I received your call this afternoon, I was startled. I never thought you’d turn up just like this. I thought if you’d come, you’d write beforehand.”
“I never knew ahead of time I was to come down. I was asked to unexpectedly, but I was happy to do so all the same. How is your mother?”
“Fine. I read out all of your letters to her. She was very interested.”
“Were they good enough to stand comparison with her Chinese soaps?” he asked with a smile.
“Oh, there’s no comparison. Why do you keep confusing the issues?”
“Over there I don’t have much occasion to relax with anybody like now,” he said deprecatingly. “So here, I sort of forget myself.”
“Meaning that all you’ve said so far was just forgetting yourself?”
“You’re always trying to find faults with me,” he protested and shook his head from side to side. “I have a little present for your mother. I must go and give it to her soon.”
“Oh yes, thank you for the hand-woven shawl you sent. It’s so beautiful. I really liked the craftsmanship.”
“It’s a cottage industry which is on the way out.”
“Why is that?”
“Think about how many foreign goods are imported, all produced by giant manufactures in large quantities, at a cheap price and with modern designs. They flood the local markets with them. Local products can only die out. If they still sell a little, it’s because they have become unusual and rare. When people can’t sell their products, they can’t expand and improve, it’s only natural.”
Nikhom lowered his head to suck the iced coffee at the bottom of his glass, which was more melted ice than coffee. “Actually, as I’ve already told you, many of my thoughts and feelings have changed since I went out to work. The thoughts we used to have when we were studying at the university change a great deal when confronted with reality. When we were at the university, we used to think we’d go and work with the people with sincerity and dedication, honestly and enthusiastically, but once we’re out there, the reality is something different, which makes it impossible for us to do what we intended. It’s as if we hoped that, once we step out of the university gates, we’ll find a smooth, obstacle-free course in our working life, giving everyone the opportunity to work freely and eagerly. But no, it turns out that the path is full of intractable obstacles and we just bounce from one to the next endlessly. I met a friend who was my senior by two promotions. He works at the provincial office. When he first came out he had the same spirit and hopes as the rest of us, but now he drinks like a fish because he has no other way of venting his frustration. He just goes through the motions, one day at a time.”
“That work creates problems is only natural,” he went on. “But the problems don’t stem from the nature of the work. We changed to a democratic system of administration twenty years ago, but in the way we operate there are many modes of thinking that are behind the times. Our brains are full of the old concepts. Some still believe that they are superior to the people, that they are the people’s bosses. When I was a child, I followed my father to the district. My father was a farmer. He had to sit on the floor with his legs tugged back to one side to address the officials. I think things like that should no longer exist in this time and age, now that we’re all equal in the sight of the law, now that democracy teaches us to respect everyone equally. But I was disappointed. These things are still around, and won’t ever change either. At first, when people came to see me, I had them sit on chairs like me. It was difficult to get them to do that because they had been so oppressed they were unused to it. I told them, ‘Sit up here, Uncles. As citizens, we have the same rights and the same importance, and as a civil servant, I am just your servant, Uncles.’ They listened as if they didn’t understand, or rather as if they weren’t sure it was true, and when they were gone, I was warned, ‘I say, Assistant Officer, this is no way to behave. You’ll make them insubordinate, and more difficult to administer. Don’t talk so much about their rights. Better chuck what you’ve learned into a drawer. The country has been administered peacefully in this way for hundreds of years—’”
Kingthian cast a glance at her interlocutor. He had lowered his eyes. His fingers were wrapped tight around the straw of his coffee drink. The cheerful, joking side of his playful self had given way to an attitude of eagerness and seriousness in tune with the conversation in progress. Kingthian remembered that he had always been like this.
“At the university, we look at the world with sincerity, we think this world is wide and clean and there are lots of opportunities for us to work for our fellow men unimpeded, according to our knowledge and capabilities and with love for one another, but the reality that we see is the very opposite of what we thought, and this is why I told you that my thoughts and feelings have changed.”
Kingthian still sat listening quietly, expressing no opinion at all.
“This is a big disappointment for our generation, for you, for me and for all the men and women our age who find themselves heartbroken.”
She smiled at his comparison.
“I mean it, you know,” Nikhom said soberly. “We usually talk of heartbreak only when our hopes in love are not returned, but you can also suffer heartbreak in your working life, and it’s no less important than heartbreak in love. Sometimes even more so, actually, because people like us can’t live without working.”
Nikhom kept quiet for a while, obviously lost in deep thought. “But how will we handle the disappointment?” he asked musingly.
“I think we shouldn’t get discouraged or give up easily. Don’t you think?” Kingthian said.
He nodded in agreement. “You’re right. Come hell or high water, when we’re determined to do good and believe that what we’re doing is right, we must struggle for that good and for that right to the utmost. Only, we must give up our foolish dreams of yesterday and look at reality and tackle life as it is to make it better yet.”
He looked through the front window. Pale sunshine bathed the street. He glanced at his wristwatch. “Good heavens, we’ve been chatting so long it’s getting late. Because of me, you’ll be home much later than usual. Your mother’ll be getting very worried.”
“Never mind,” she answered. “I’ve often gone back home late, because there’s often work at the school that must be done until late.”
Actually, she had been constantly aware of the time passing by during their conversation, but she was inclined to let time elapse by talking with him, not out of courtesy, but because she wanted to hear him talk, given that she seldom had the opportunity to meet him.
“Let’s go back, shall we?”
She nodded. He called for the bill, and the two of them walked out of the coffee shop. He walked her to the bus stop. When she got on the bus and sat down, she noticed that his eyes were still following her until the bus disappeared round the corner.

17

When Ratchanee looked up from the letter in English Chertchawee had typed for her and she was checking before having it signed, she saw him standing in front of her desk.
“Good morning, Miss,” he greeted her. “How are you?”
“Good morning. I’m fine, thank you.”
“Where’s Jittin?” he asked when he looked at Jittin’s desk and saw it unattended.
“He has gone over to the Central Bank on business.”
“Too bad!” he exclaimed.
“Anything urgent?” she asked.
“I was called over by the manager. I don’t know what for. I thought Jittin would be here. I’d like to ask him. Maybe he knows what’s up.”
“I don’t know what it’s about, but I heard Mr. Jittin say a few days ago that he’d like to see you. He said you weren’t at your office and didn’t know where you had gone.”
“That’s right, I went upcountry for a couple of weeks. I just came back yesterday.”
“Won’t you take a seat first?” she said when she saw him still standing.
“I don’t think I can right now,” he answered with a smile. “I have to see the manager first, because I too am an employee of the bank.”
When he saw Ratchanee’s puzzled expression, he explained: “I am the bank’s permanent lawyer.”
“Is that so?” she exclaimed. “I didn’t know.”
“Well, with your permission, I’ll go and see the manager first,” he excused himself politely then walked over to the manager’s office.
Ratchanee went on with her work.
About half an hour later, Sai walked out of the manager’s office. He went over to her desk again.
“Jittin isn’t back yet, is he?”
“Not yet. Won’t you wait for him?”
“If I wait for him here, will I disturb you in your work or not?”
“It doesn’t matter. I have nothing urgent to do. Please do.”
“Thank you.” He eased himself onto a chair in front of her desk.
Ratchanee moved a newspaper toward him. Sai glanced at it and said, “I’ve read it already.”
“I didn’t know you were the lawyer attached here,” Ratchanee remarked.
“That must be because I don’t come here very often. Jittin was the one who sponsored me. Actually, my work is very easy. When there’s nothing to do, I don’t have to come in and perhaps a month will go by without a case, so much so that sometimes I feel embarrassed about getting paid for doing nothing. It seems to me like I’m taking advantage of the bank very much, especially when I see the other employees working themselves to a frazzle all day long and most of them having to work overtime in the evening as well. When you compare the two, I have it really easy. Some months, I don’t earn my keep at all.”
“But this is no fault of yours, is it?” she objected. “It’s the bank’s for having no work for you to do.”
“Nonetheless, I’m not very happy about getting paid without having to work, because if you think about it, it’s like profiting from others indirectly.”
Ratchanee thought that what he said was right in a way. She was satisfied and happy when she received her monthly salary in exchange for her own labor, more than when she used to receive money from her parents. It made her feel the value of work and it made her more confident in herself.
“That’s the nature of the work,” Ratchanee objected doggedly. “Your work isn’t on a daily basis like handling money or keeping accounts, and besides, if the bank had cases for you every day you’d find yourself in a pickle.”
He laughed softly in his throat and did not answer.
“Would you like to drink something?” she asked when she saw an office boy walking by.
“No thank you, Miss.” He looked at his wristwatch. “If he isn’t back before midday, I’m afraid I’ll have to leave.”
“Do you have an appointment somewhere?”
“Not at all, but I don’t want to disturb you any further by preventing you from working.”
And he finally took his leave. ‘He’s polite and proper,’ Ratchanee thought, ‘unlike when we first met—’
Ratchanee walked over to the typewriter’s desk, sat down and began typing the letter in English. She had gone over a few lines when Chertchawee returned.
“What are you typing? I’ll do it for you.”
“Never mind.” She turned and smiled. “I’d like to improve my typing skills.”
“If you do everything yourself, I’ll have nothing left to do.”
The smile lingered on Ratchanee’s face, then gradually disappeared. Chertchawee had probably spoken sincerely, but it made her wonder. Actually, if she wanted to become a proficient typist, it was so that she could still work even when Chertchawee was not around. Thus, when a document was not urgent, she would try to type it herself in order to improve her skills. She had no intention of taking work away from anyone, but she wanted to train herself at various tasks, so that she could eventually help Chertchawee more, because on some days Chertchawee had to type for hours on end, which made her complain often that she was not feeling too well. Ratchanee’s intention was to help reduce Chertchawee’s workload and, in her absence, replace her so that the work was not delayed or done as a favor by another department.
‘But why did Chertchawee speak like this?’ Ratchanee could not help thinking. She did not know how far the relationship between Chertchawee and Jittin had gone, but, at least according to her observations, she felt that Chertchawee must have special feelings for Jittin. She believed that she was not wrong about this, but she did not know and could not tell how Jittin felt. When Ratchanee had begun to work here, Chertchawee had talked to her quite a lot and spoken of Jittin most of all, enough for Ratchanee to fathom Chertchawee’s inner feelings. And later, when Jittin had become increasingly close to her, giving out his instructions through her almost every time, when she walked away from Jittin’s desk, she sometimes would catch a look in Chertchawee’s eyes. Even though Chertchawee covered up at once, Ratchanee understood, and she felt unhappy whenever Jittin talked to her with seeming familiarity. Chertchawee was a nice young woman in her eyes, but what she had said made her wonder.
Jittin returned in the early afternoon. At first, Ratchanee meant to tell him about Sai’s visit as soon as he was back, but she changed her mind and kept quiet. Jittin went to talk to the manager. When he came back, he asked her: “Sai came this morning, didn’t he, Ratchanee? Did he come to see me and wait?”
“He did,” she answered tersely.
He stared at her in wonder and was still for a while, as if he was about to demand an explanation about why she had not told him he had had a visitor, as she did every time as soon as he returned from outside and a guest had come in his absence.
“Did he wait long?” he finally asked.
“He waited almost until midday and then left.”
Jittin eased himself down and sat across from her. “What did you talk about?” he asked and smiled good-humoredly.
“I told him you had been wanting to see him for several days and had been told he wasn’t in his office. Mr. Sai said he had gone upcountry and was just back.” She only said this much, then was silent.
“And then what?”
She had to give up her intention not to say any more. She reported in detail the conversation that had taken place that morning.
Jittin shook his head when Ratchanee was through. “He has always been strange like that. He thinks in ways other people usually don’t, but in truth, you can’t say that what he thinks is wrong or bad. Isn’t that right, Ratchanee? True, I was the one to suggest that the bank hire him as a lawyer, because the previous lawyer, who had been hired because he had a good reputation and commanded high retainers, had turned out to have a high reputation indeed but no capability. He made many errors that resulted in losses for the bank, which dismissed him. So I suggested that Sai be hired instead, with a retainer only half that of the previous lawyer. This works out to the advantage of the bank, since the amount of work is the same but the outlay is much less. And yet he still thinks he isn’t working fairly for the money he earns. Think about it: who else would think like that? People only think of taking advantage of one another as much as they can. That’s why I say he doesn’t think like the others, but at the same time you can’t say he’s wrong, if you think deep enough.”
Ratchanee agreed with Jittin’s opinion. Sai thought differently from anyone else, and she recalled the first time they had met and how she had misunderstood what he had said and how he had behaved, but now she understood his singularity. If someone thinks strangely like that they must have something good in them, and she thought that that something was nothing else but an understanding of the truth of life, an understanding of people and of work, and the faith he had in life and people and work. Somehow she saw him as a big question mark as interesting as the riddle that was in him. If we were able to understand everything, the world would be short of interesting things and terribly boring.
Ratchanee had brains, and the work which enlarged her circle of acquaintances also widened her views proportionately. She liked to reflect on the various things she had seen and heard and to work out their meaning by herself. Working in a bank made her see the mechanisms involved in a trade of a kind, see how money generates money, both tangible and invisible, how profit accrues in the form of interest, commissions, insurance premiums and the like, in amounts and at speeds commensurate with monetary and credit flows, both domestic and international, more clearly than she had ever visualized the interests and rents which her father received from lending money and renting movable and immovable property, which she had thought to be so very much then. She saw the tricks and wiles of trade and moneymaking, saw millions changing hands in next to no time, and profits distributed among the parties involved.
She thought of Kingthian whom she had not met for a long time. Kingthian would probably stand at the front of the classroom and impart her knowledge to children in her sweet voice day after day before dozens of pairs of black eyes under black locks looking expectantly at her. Ratchanee compared her work with that of Kingthian, her best friend, and thought that by now Kingthian had something on her mind. At least, she was convinced that she was satisfied with her modest work as a teacher, because she had once told her that she, too, was rich: she had more than a thousand students.

18

That Sunday, like on most Sundays, Ratchanee was at home. In late morning, her servant came to tell her that she had a visitor. Ratchanee wondered who could have come to see her and asked the servant, who said she didn’t know his name but it was the man who had come last week. Ratchanee remembered that Madam Sanphet, accompanied by her son, who was just back from abroad, had come to visit Father and Mother as long-time acquaintances who held each other in high regard, and Mother had called her over to be introduced.
“My goodness, Lek, you’ve grown so much I can hardly recognize you,” Madam Sanphet had greeted her, then had turned to introduce her son. Ratchanee only remembered that his name was Kraisee. That day, she had not said anything much and had exchanged only a few words with him. She had listened to the older people talking and to Kraisee telling her parents about his experiences abroad when he was asked to, and she had noticed that Madam Sanphet was extremely proud of her son. When mother and son had left, Father and Mother had gone on discussing their impressions of the visitors. “Samlee is such a good person, you know.” Mother still called Madam Sanphet by her former name. “She has managed to have her son graduate abroad, but what a shame that the count passed away before he could witness his son’s achievement.” “In the old days, returning from studies abroad, he would be a viscount by now,” Father had pointed out. “Looking at him I was reminded of old Sang. He looks so much like his father.” She had left the room as she had felt it was not proper for her to listen in any further.
Ratchanee did not expect Kraisee to come today, because he had called the week before, but when she went out to welcome her guest, it turned out that it was Kraisee.
“Are you here to see my parents?” she asked as she raised her joined hands and bowed to him.
“Yes — er — is His Lordship in?” He returned her bow.
“Yes. Usually, Father doesn’t go anywhere.”
“But never mind, Miss,” he said when he saw she was about to turn round. “Don’t disturb His Lordship right now. Actually, I was more intent on calling on you. You don’t mind, do you, that I come to visit you by myself without calling on your parents first?”
Ratchanee did not answer him.
“I’ve come to see you in order to make your acquaintance,” he said glibly.
“But we know each other already, don’t we?” she countered.
He smiled without a trace of embarrassment. “Certainly. We already know each other. If we didn’t, I wouldn’t dare come to see you, but that’s knowing each other formally, so to speak, rather than knowing each other in earnest, and I don’t think that to know someone’s name and bow to her just once is enough to say you really know that person.” Kraisee took a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket and pulled one out. “Do you mind if I smoke, Miss?”
“Go ahead, please.”
“I’ve been away from Thailand for a long time, so I may be a bit awkward at times. If I make blunders, please excuse me. My mother and my sister are always kidding me about my foreign ways.”
“How long were you abroad?” Ratchanee asked out of curiosity.
“Five years all told,” he answered. “Actually, five years is not such a long time, but it’s long enough to get used to many things. I stayed with a local family all the time in order to practice the language, learn their customs and study their way of life at close range. I met few Thais, on rare occasions. They were a relief and they were fun, but they were no good for learning. As I said, I’ve taken Western habits — for example, I still can’t take cold showers because in the past five years I’ve gotten used to having hot baths. Cold water makes me shiver. Actually, it shouldn’t be like that, because I used cold water for more than twenty years before that, but old habits die hard, as they say, and it takes time to adjust to a new situation — like at first when I was there, I couldn’t seem to get used to hot baths, I had the impression my skin was too dry or something, and now that I’m back I can’t take cold showers without feeling cold.”
The servant brought glasses of iced water.
“Can you drink cold water at all?”
“Yes indeed,” he answered and stared at her, as if to find out whether she was talking in jest or being sarcastic.
“I thought maybe it’s so cold abroad they don’t drink cold water.”
“It doesn’t come to that, Miss. The water they drink is ordinary water, it’s not put in the fridge or drunk with ice cubes, but it’s cold enough at the local temperature, and in the hot season they do drink cooled water all the same.” Then he sat silent for a while, crushing the stub of his cigarette in the ashtray.
“Tell me more about foreign places,” Ratchanee uttered in a tone of voice that did not betray whether she was asking for the sake of conversation or because she was truly interested.
“What do you want me to tell you? There’s so much to say. I don’t know what you’re interested in.”
“Er — I can’t think of anything in particular but I’m interested in general. I’m prepared to listen to anything.”
“That’s too wide a scope still.” He smiled, pleased at this opportunity to talk about what he wanted to a keen listener. “But it’s odd you know, when someone presses me to say anything, I can’t quite think of anything and I can’t speak either, but then after we talk for a while, it comes out by itself.”
“Are Western women pretty?”
Kraisee laughed. “Okay, this time you’ve narrowed down the field. There are lots of pretty women, but then there are also many who aren’t, like among every people.”
“On average, which people has the prettiest women?” Ratchanee asked further.
“Hard to say, really. I feel that all the peoples have women who are pretty according to their own criteria. As for me, I think the prettiest are none other than our Thai women.”
“But I think that Thai women can’t compete with Western women in many things.”
“Western women know how to use make-up, how to get science to help. Few Thai women do. They are pretty in a natural kind of way. Western women’s beauty is more artificial, but our women tend to neglect themselves — for instance once they’re married or have children, they stop caring about their looks.”
“No, I wasn’t referring to that. What I meant was, we still can’t compete with them in terms of general knowledge and work ability.”
“Yes, that may be true. Western women are more independent, they can go anywhere and do almost everything that men do, but our Thai women are well-mannered and gentle. If only they could be a little less passive, I think they’d be perfect. When I was abroad, I felt that Thai women were a little too retiring, too easily scared or ashamed. I saw Western women as more assertive, more active and stronger, but now I’ve come to feel that they’re indeed too rugged, they can’t compete with our women, who are so much gentler and more graceful.”
Ratchanee did not express her opinions any further. Kraisee sat for a while, as if to assess his listener’s interest, but then he changed the subject: “You don’t go out and about on Sundays, do you?”
“No.”
“In future, if you’re free, how about going out together? I’ll come and fetch you.”
Ratchanee did not give an answer to this proposal.
“Abroad,” he went on, “people don’t stay in town on weekends. They go on excursions out of town for a change of scenery and atmosphere. Getting away from their crowded and boring life in town for a few days makes them more energetic and fresh and healthy when they go back to work, but here there doesn’t seem to be that many places of interest, wouldn’t you say?”
“There are many places worth visiting, such as Park Narm, Bangpoo, Bangsaen and Seerarcha, or else Nakhorn Pathom, Rartburee, Pheitburee or Hua Hin. You can go to all of these places if you have a car and these days many people go there every weekend.”
“Before I went abroad I only went to Bangpoo and Hua Hin. I haven’t been elsewhere yet. Don’t you think of going anywhere on weekends?”
“I prefer to stay at home,” Ratchanee answered. “On weekdays I work all day, so on Sundays I like to rest at home. If I went somewhere, it’d be way out in the country, where there’s not even a shadow of city people.”
“Precisely, that’s what I like too. Take the car, prepare everything for a picnic, stop the car anywhere where there’s no crowd to disturb us, roll out the mats to eat under tree shade, listen to music on the radio — I have a small portable radio which can be taken anywhere. That’s good fun. Let’s do it some time, shall we?”
“I’m not sure I can go,” Ratchanee said noncommittally.
“Why not?”
“Because Sunday is the only day I have to myself.”
Kraisee sat quietly for a while, then said, “I hope my visit isn’t taking up too much of your time”.
“Not at all,” Ratchanee protested. “What I mean is, I don’t want to go anywhere on Sundays, I prefer to do my own little chores and get some rest, by being on my own, reading a book, answering my friends’ letters or talking with friends and relatives at home.”
“You’re the homely type,” he noted in praise. “In that case, perhaps you won’t object if I come again in future.”
“You’re always welcome,” Ratchanee answered.
Kraisee went on talking until nearly midday, then took his leave. When Ratchanee, having gone down to see him out, was walking through the reception room again, her mother was coming down the stairs. “Lek,” she called, “wasn’t that Kraisee?”
“Yes,” Ratchanee answered. “He just left.”
“How come? Why was he in such a hurry to leave?”
Ratchanee did not answer, because she did not know why he had left and felt that there had been no “hurry”, as her mother had it, since he had sat there talking for two solid hours, and she thought further that the question should have been directed to him rather than to her.
“I was about to invite him to have lunch with us,” Mother said. “The servants just told me. Has he been here long?”
“He came and talked for two hours,” Ratchanee said, stressing each word.
Mother stared at her daughter as if to find out the gist and mood of the conversation from her face, but no one knows if she did divine anything. Ratchanee’s eyes followed her mother as she went back up the stairs.
She walked back to her room. The intuition and sensitivity to the slightest change in behavior that are peculiar to women made her aware that the door to this house was being kept open for Kraisee, allowing him to come and go readily. He was free to enter and leave at will. Her parents’ bias was obvious, but the door to the house and the door to her heart were two different doors.

Kraisee returned home at almost five o’clock. Madam Sanphet greeted her son with fondness rather than in rebuke: “Where have you been, young man, that you were out all day?”
“In the morning, I went to see Miss Ratchanee at home, in the afternoon I went to visit Miss Anong-nart and then Miss Thipsuda.”
“It’s too much, young stud, three house calls in a single day.”
Her son laughed complacently. He knew that his mother wanted him to get married and had taken him to visit those households that had eligible young women in order to give him the opportunity to take his pick.
“If there’s anyone you fancy, you’d better stick with her. If you keep gallivanting like this, when they find out they’ll come and tear out my hair.”
“I haven’t made a choice yet. How can I, just by looking at their faces? I don’t know what they’re like, what they think, how knowledgeable they are. How can I fancy them just like that, Mother?”
“Yes, but be discreet about it,” Madam Sanphet said, “don’t think you can just go sniffing around, or you’ll lose them all in no time.”
“I promise,” her son answered. “Next Sunday I’ll go to Bangsaen with Anong-nart. I invited Ratchanee first, but she wouldn’t go, but Anong-nart was the one to make the invitation. As for Thipsuda, she isn’t free next week, so the coast is clear.”
“So which is the winning digit, Krai?” his sister chimed in. “R, A or T?”
“It’s no kid’s business,” he said facetiously, but his sister gave him a dirty look that made her squint. “You’ve got plenty of friends, why don’t you introduce some of them to me?”
“You said it: it’s no kid’s business,” his sister replied.
He walked to his room, his car key in his hand. “The winning digit, you said?” he said from inside his room. “None of the above.” Then he chuckled oddly to himself, so low that he could not be heard outside, but what he had said made her mother and sister give each other mystified looks, but then they thought he was merely joking like any young man unable to make up his mind about love and marriage.

19

After they had not seen each other for a long time, the two young women met once again, in the same restaurant as before, because it was convenient to meet there. By now both were busy with their own work and had no time to meet except over lunch once in a long while.
“I haven’t seen you for ages,” Ratchanee exclaimed as soon as she saw her friend. “I bet if I hadn’t phoned, we’d never even meet.”
“It isn’t that,” Kingthian answered. “I think about you all the time, but I’m terribly busy right now.”
“So am I, but I’m free at lunchtime, enough to meet and talk. I’ve lots of things to tell you.”
“If I’m so busy, it’s because the kids are about to take their exams,” Kingthian explained further. “I’d like them all to pass to the next grade, so I have to give special tuition in the evening to those who are weak. I remember what it was like for us when we were students, and I can sympathize, because to fail and start all over the following year is a great loss, not just in terms of time, so I don’t want any on them to fail. We have a rule that it’s better that all of the students pass than for one of them to come out the best in the country and have others fail.”
“That’s good,” Ratchanee agreed and thought to herself that Kingthian was very interested in her work, and interest in one’s work is essential to work well.
“Actually all children are born with mental capabilities which are not that different, but it is personal effort, and opportunities in life as well, which make for great disparities later in life, and because it takes so long for a child to turn into an adult, these disparities can never be overcome.”
“Motivated as you are, your students must end up as the best in Thailand.”
Kingthian shook her head. “That’s not what I want. My aim is for all of them to pass. In the school where I teach, the students are mostly from lower middle-class families, unlike the better-off students in the various foreign schools. I think that, on average, our students are not less intelligent and able than others elsewhere, and they are diligent enough in their studies, but what they suffer from is a lack of opportunity, which means a good environment in life. Some of them have a good enough background and they do well at school. I’ve come to the conclusion that if children don’t learn well, it’s mostly because of their home environment. Their families have little income or don’t live normally because of the shortcomings of one or both of the parents. The most important factor, I feel, is the status of the family, and I’m merely talking of middle-class children. What about the much greater number of children from families that are even poorer? They have almost no opportunity to improve themselves as they should in order to be able to cope in life once they’ve become adults—”
The waitress bringing in the food they had ordered interrupted Kingthian’s explanations.
“I’m getting carried away,” Kingthian said self-consciously. “I meant to listen to you instead, and here I am giving you a lecture.”
“Fascinating, actually,” Ratchanee said. “Do go on, I’d like to hear more.”
“I’m through,” Kingthian answered. “I just wanted to say I’m not free right now and then I rambled on. But how about you? You said you had plenty to tell me.”
“I have a young man always in and out of my house these days.”
Kingthian stared wide-eyed. “Who is he?”
“His name is Kraisee. He’s a foreign graduate.”
Kingthian shrugged. “Never heard the name, but there’s nothing strange about that: these days, there are as many foreign graduates as flies during the durian season.”
“You comparison is less than flattering,” Ratchanee said with a smile, then told her friend in detail about Mr. Kraisee’s visits to her house.
“Who is this guy?” Kingthian said when Ratchanee was through. “One of these days, I must have a peek at his face.”
“Don’t bother: he doesn’t count.”
“Give him his chance. Just to improve your knowledge of human nature,” Kingthian suggested.
“That doesn’t seem difficult,” Ratchanee said thoughtfully. “Actually, you know, some people are easy to decipher, and some are not. He belongs to the first type, and if I’ve told you all this, it’s because I’d like you to be my witness.”
“What if he asks for your hand?” Kingthian asked thoughtlessly.
Ratchanee blushed. “You don’t know what you’re saying. It won’t reach that stage any time soon.”
“You never can tell,” she said playfully. “These days, they can be fast like lightning.”
Ratchanee shook her head confidently. “I don’t think so, because it shouldn’t be like this and — er — let’s talk about something else.”
Kingthian thought to herself that she, too, had something she wanted to tell her friend, but then she thought she had better keep it to herself, because she did not know how to start, there were only a few minutes left before each of them had to go back to work and her story would have taken too long to tell.
Ratchanee looked at the clock. “It’s almost one o’clock. You have to hurry back.”
She called over the waitress to bring her the bill. “Last time you treated me, so it’s my turn this time,” she ruled. “When will we see each other again?”
“Any time, but for me to be really free, let it be after the exams are over.”
“Well then, give me a call.”
Kingthian nodded, then the two friends parted.

That day, Kingthian returned home from school in the evening later than usual, because of the special tuition she gave the students. As she stepped into the house, her mother told her, “There’s a letter for you, I put it on your desk.”
She hurried into her room, picked up the letter, looked at the handwriting on the envelope and knew at once who had sent the letter.

Most beloved,

That was how the letter started. Kingthian’s heart beat hard as she went on reading.

This letter may not be absolutely necessary if considered from the point of view of time, because I left you only two days ago, but writing a letter need not be concerned with timing but instead depends on the feelings of the writer and on his willingness to impart those feelings to the addressee. I have been meaning to write this letter to you as of the moment we parted the other day, because I still have many feelings I would like to reveal, express and discuss, even though that day we did talk very much and I felt that I had told you absolutely everything that was in my heart. But after we had each gone our way, I felt like seeing your face again, meeting and talking to you again — not that I had not already told you everything, but various new feelings emerged after we talked that day, and this is what makes me write to you upon my arrival here.
I am very impressed by our discussion that day — it will be deeply etched in my memory for the rest of my life — because it was the day we came to an understanding about matters of the heart. I do not intend to say that you showed compassion for me, because that would be excessively modest on my part, however moving and heartfelt the phrase might be, because in the love a person may feel for a person there is no question of compassion. Love and compassion are two different things. I am proud that my life does not depend on anyone’s loving kindness, and if I do not take pride in my own worth, then how can you be proud of my love? I am overjoyed by our love. It is too sublime to be measured by the yardstick of our puny bodies, yet not so lofty that our hearts would not reach out for it, and it is of such feelings that I would like to talk to you about, but then I find it excessively difficult to turn them into words, and when I do, they come out as trite expressions of bliss from the owner of a priceless love.
The moment I held your hand in mine, fleeting as it was, was a precious moment in life. The warmth of your hand is still in the hand that pens this letter. It almost makes me want not to wash that hand any longer for fear that the warmth disappear, but actually the hand has received and transmitted the warmth for storage in the heart, so the warmth will not wash away and I will feel it every time, no matter what my hand is doing.
It may be a long time before we meet again. The ties of our hearts are matters for the heart. Our respective work life is something else, which we must pursue in our own ways. Our love has a vital role in giving us the strength to work toward generating goodness for other lives and other things. Love and life are independent, and at the same time they are related.
I miss you. I would like to be near you and see you. I also miss Bangkok, miss our university, the streets we walked, the coffee-shops we sat in, the buses we rode. But no, I am not missing the physical Bangkok, missing the university, streets, buses and coffee-shops in a material way. I miss these things because they have someone — they have you whom I love and think of constantly in the same way that I miss and love home: it is not because I love a house which has a room with walls, a desk, a chair, a dresser and a bathroom, but I love and miss it because the house has someone in it, the chair someone who sits on it, the mirror someone who looks into it and the comb someone who uses it. These days, everybody talks about concrete things in the abstract, the more’s the pity, talks about the nation, about the university, without giving a thought to their substance, which is individual people and students. I miss Bangkok because I miss you. It may be narrow-minded, but I am talking strictly of personal feelings.
When I started to write this letter to you, I felt I had so much to tell you, yet I can only write this much. In the midst of the happiness that fills my whole chest, there is a throbbing pain whenever I think of the fact that, for now, we are separated by hundreds of kilometers, unable to see each other’s face as our hearts desire, unable to talk to each other when our hearts yearn to — pain and happiness at odds with each other, like the conflicts of life in the present conditions.
Allow me to kiss your hand — your so valuable little hand which now holds a chalk to write on the blackboard and now a red pen to grade students’ papers — the hand that I was blessed enough to hold in mine with determination and with pride—”
Kingthian pressed the letter to her chest. Her excited heart would not be quiet, but instead beat into a deep ecstasy which spread to all the nerves in her body. She thought of that important day. She did not recall how he had looked, perhaps because she had been too excited to notice anything, and she thought that he must have been pretty much in the same state.
She thought of him and of that vast stretch of flat, open land, which was not as beautiful as the land in her dreams or in her imagination. It must be dry, poor, distressed and needy. She thought of little children with candid eyes like other children all over Thailand. Their looks and manners would be different from those of the children in her classrooms, and so would their opportunities in life, but they would be the same in that they were also Thai children.
That evening after dinner, when Kingthian found herself alone with her mother, she asked her: “Mother, what do you think of Mr. Nikhom?”
Her mother gave her daughter a quick look before she answered her question. “I think he’s a good man. He has gone back again, hasn’t he?”
“Yes, he went back two days ago,” Kingthian merely answered, then was silent. She wanted to tell her mother about her relationship with him but felt it difficult to talk, out of bashfulness more than fear.
“Mother?” She couldn’t go any further as if something obstructed her throat. Her mother looked at her in surprise, but it was surprise in the sense that today her daughter must have something important to ask or tell her. The mother that she was had seen enough of the world and of life to be aware of how the relationship between the two young ones had been developing.
“Mother—” Kingthian lowered her gaze. “Will you say anything, Mother, if he likes me—”
Her mother was quiet for a while before she answered. “Of course not.” Her voice was loud and clear as if coming from afar and it made the tension in her daughter disappear as if by magic. “It’s your own decision. You’re old enough and it’s not for me to force you in any way, even regarding whom to like, whom to love.”
Kingthian bent down and placed her forehead on her mother’s lap. Her mother took her in her arms. “Think carefully, that’s all. You’re a woman now and you must be responsible for what you do. I think this young fellow Nikhom is a good man, but I only know him superficially. You know him better. Do you like him?”
“I do.” Kingthian’s whisper was almost inaudible. She felt that she was a woman with a sense of responsibility when she was in front of her students, but with her mother and in a case like this, she only felt like a little child.


20

Sai was pacing back and forth in front of a row of wooden houses built near a main road on the outskirts of the capital. It was a fairly old row of houses, which must have been built many years ago. There were ten units altogether. Beneath the roof of corrugated iron sheets, the planks of the façade were ridden with cracks and gashes of rotting wood. The railing of the balcony running the whole width of the building had collapsed in parts and never been repaired, and it was feared that children would fall and break their limbs or their necks. He looked past the wide open doorframes of some of the units to survey the conditions inside. A woman lay with her back to him rocking the hammock in which her baby was. In another room, an old woman sat pounding betel. In the next, he could not see anyone, only a pile of old rags on the floor. There was a low glass cabinet across the room with a jumble of things in it as if the owner had dumped them in without looking. The door of the next house was only slightly ajar. In front of it, two children of about four or five, both naked, sat playing a game.
He went into the coffee-shop across the road. This Chinese shop was like most roadside coffee-shops of the outskirts of the capital in that it was conveniently sited at a road intersection, and besides coffee and soft drinks had many dry goods, foodstuffs and utensils, from rice, coal, sugar and fish sauce to matches, soap, and copy books and pencils for students. He sat down on a stool and ordered iced black coffee, his eyes still on the row houses.
The blacktopped road glistened under the afternoon sunshine. Once in a while a bus, a car or a tuktuk* would pass by. Heat waves from the road washed over his skin, as did the wind from the speeding vehicles.
Everything seemed to be self-evident regarding the condition of the people living in the old row houses. A woman from one of the houses walked across the road toward the coffee-shop. Sai guessed that she could not be more than twenty-five years old. She wore a wraparound of rather frayed colors and a singlet. Her skin was fairly dark and the absence of makeup on her face made her look years older.
“Gimme a boxa matches and half-a-kil ’a sugar,” she told the Chinese shop owner.
The Chinese shop owner, who sat behind the display of biscuits, his eyes on the drawer, did not look up. His wife sat at a table inside without a tremor. After a while, he did look up, as if the wave sound made by what the woman had said had finally reached his eardrums, and inquired if she was to pay cash or not.
“Lemme have credit, awright? I’ll pay you enda month. I won’t let you down,” she said with a blandish smile.
“Last time you alleady owed dirty-sit bark, you orny paid back a litter, you still owe twenny-eik bark,” the shop owner protested.
“Please, when my man gets his pay, I’ll make good,” she insisted. “Enda month’s only a few days away.”
The Chinese shop owner muttered under his breath, then reluctantly went to get a box of matches and measured out the sugar.
She left with her goods. Sai still heard the owner griping in Chinese and took the opportunity to ask, “How are sales around here, old man?”
“Ayya! Velly bad, mistel! Dem ones dey only buy on kledit.” He pointed with his chin to the row houses across the road. “Dey all owe, some neally eighty, some neally a hunnerd a munt. If I don’t gib dem kledit, dey t’leaten to tear down my chop.” Then he shook his head, looking discouraged and fed up.
Sai crushed the ice with the straw and took some in his mouth. The Chinese shop owner went on complaining at length. He had to buy the goods he sold, but since he had little capital because of all the credit he was due, he had to buy on credit as well. When he could not get money from his creditors, he had no way to pay for what he bought on credit, so deliveries stopped and he had nothing to sell. If it went on like this, he said, he hadn’t got much of a future. The only certainty was that he’d go burst.
‘Poverty doesn’t allow us to be free,’ Sai thought. The Chinese shop owner was a small businessman, the last link in the trade chain ending with the consumer. When the prices of goods went up, buyers complained to him for raising his prices, even though he had no say at all in setting them. As poor customers had little purchasing power, he found it difficult to sell otherwise than on credit, and found himself in debt in turn to the next link up the chain.
An old woman, holding a boy of four or five by the hand, walked across the road to the shop. “What will you have, little one?” she asked the child she had brought in. The boy pointed at the biscuit display. “Okay, give ’im one,” she told the shop owner, then handed over the half-baht coin she held in the hollow of her hand. As the child, who Sai guessed must be her grandson, bit on the biscuit, she looked at him with the satisfaction of having given him what he wanted, then she plonked herself down on a wooden bench. The boy stood beside her, one hand holding the biscuit, the other resting on her knee.
When she looked around and met his eyes, Sai took the opportunity to ask politely, “You rent one of these row houses, don’t you, Grandma? How much is the rent there?”
“Sixty baht per month,” she said, drawing out the words.
“Sixty baht! That’s quite a lot, wouldn’t you say?” Sai said, meaning it.
“Indeed it is, Mister. But if I wasn’t there I don’t know where I’d go. Cheaper than this there ain’t, you know. Actually, I don’t know how much longer I can stay. The owner wanna raise rent again. He’s come several times, but nobody’s got the money. He’s threatened to clear the place and build a new building.”
“Have you been here long?” he asked further.
“Sure have, since just after the war was over. The rent was twen’y baht then, and it’s gone up and up ever since to sixty. And now he wants a hundred, but we folks just can’t afford that much.”
Sai was silent.
“And yet I don’t think I’ll be able to stay much longer,” she went on wearily. “They say the place’s gonna be cleared this month or the next. If we’ve been able to stay, it’s because we just refuse to leave. So there. The owner can’t fight us. So he said he’ll sell the land to someone else who’ll kick us out. The new owner, he said, will raze the place and build townhouses. There must be tens and hundreds of thousands in commissions.”
“If you’re evicted, where will you people go?”
She did not answer the question, because she had no answer to it. “I’m old and I’ll be dead before long, but I pity my grandson, who’s still little. His father earns only just over three hundred a month.”
He felt as though something stuck in his throat. Her words showed such a goodwill for a child, for the rising generation! She knew that her life would never escape distress, never escape hardship, but she still worried about the well-being of her children and grandchildren who would go on living after she was gone.
When her grandson had eaten his biscuit, she took him by the hand and crossed the road back to her home in the row of houses. He looked at her frail, hunchbacked body and its crown of white hair and at the bare body of the child whose dark skin was caked with mud, as they walked barefoot across the piping hot tarmac under the blazing sun.
He took a bus back into town. It was getting late in the afternoon, so he did not stop by his office but went straight home.
Chao, his nephew, was already back from school. Sai took off his shoes, walked into the room and reclined on the canvas deckchair without changing his clothes. He felt a little tired physically and, oddly enough, mentally worn out. He wanted to take a nap, but the confusion of his thoughts would not allow him to do so easily. When he felt that he was about to doze, Chao appeared and told him, “Uncle, there’s someone to see you.”
When he stood up and went out, he saw Jittin walking through the door.
“I was wondering who it was,” he said, and it was then, as Jittin stepped in past the door, that he saw someone else walking behind him — a woman. “Miss Ratchanee, too!” he exclaimed, a little surprised. “Do sit down.”
“There’s something we have to discuss, so I suggested Miss Ratchanee came as well. I thought we’d find you at your office. We went there and were told you’d gone out after lunch, so I had to take Miss Ratchanee on a journey to your house,” Jittin explained.
“Sorry,” he answered, meaning to address Ratchanee rather than Jittin, “I was out until late in the afternoon, so I didn’t stop by the office. What brings you here?”
When they were all seated, Jittin asked, “The manager says you intend to resign as the bank’s lawyer. Is this true?”
“I think that’s correct,” Sai answered. When he realized that his answer was not clear enough, he added, “It’s true that I’ve decided to resign and I’ve informed the manager about it.”
“Why? Did something happen?” Jittin asked.
“Nothing, apart from the reason I’ve already given Miss Ratchanee—” He turned to Ratchanee for confirmation. “—which is that I feel I don’t do any work for the bank which has hired me and so isn’t getting its money’s worth, and it embarrasses me to be paid to do nothing.”
“You’re talking through your hat as usual,” Jittin said with the bluntness of friendship. “That’s for the bank to decide. If they don’t give you any work, then it isn’t your problem.”
“That’s the very point Miss Ratchanee made. Actually, I must apologize to you, Jittin, for not telling you about this before, because you’re the one who sponsored me for the job.”
“That’s not important. The manager wants to know if you really intend to resign as you told him. If it isn’t the case, no problem. If it’s true, then he asks you to reconsider and he asks you to stay on.”
“I mean it. I’ve decided to offer my letter of resignation tomorrow, as a matter of fact.”
“Don’t be stupid.” Jittin shook his head as if he could not figure him out, then stared at Ratchanee.
Ratchanee smiled a little. “Maybe Mr. Sai has a more important reason than this—” She broke off, then added, “but he may not want to tell us about it.”
Ratchanee had guessed right. ‘She must have something special for being bang on target like this,’ he thought. ‘Maybe it’s the power of observation women have.’ He chuckled. “Did the manager say anything else?”
“No, I don’t think he did,” Jittin answered. “That’s all he said, but it got me worried, so I hurried over to find out what it was all about.”
“Excuse me for being unwittingly a source of trouble for the two of you,” Sai said earnestly out of the feeling that he had made Jittin come to see him at home, and this mark of friendship from Jittin pleased him. Jittin was one of his best friends, even though Jittin was not able to understand everything about him.
“Tomorrow I’ll go and see the manager,” Sai said, “together with the letter of resignation.”
“You’ve got to hand it to him, he certainly is stubborn,” Jittin told Ratchanee. She did not express any opinion, merely smiled a little, as if to say that she understood more than Jittin did, except that she did not know exactly what motivated Sai.
Chao brought in glasses of iced water. Sai looked at his nephew with approval. Chao was a clever child, very observant and resourceful. Only once had there been visitors here and Sai had ordered him to go and buy some ice to welcome them. That was a long time ago, because there were seldom visitors in the house, and yet now, the second time around, Chao was doing his duty without being told.
“This is my nephew, my elder brother’s son,” he introduced him.
Chao raised his joined hands to his forehead and bowed to his uncle’s guests in turn, then withdrew.
“Do you still have your old cook?” Jittin asked.
“Auntie Choi? She’s still here.”
Ratchanee looked around the room, which did not have much decoration besides two sets of bookshelves and a smaller bookcase, all crammed with books. His house was a wooden house within a cramped compound. “It’s nice here,” she said, making the kind of remark a guest makes to the owner of the house.
“I rent the place. It’s not my house at all. The rent is going to increase by another fifty baht a month,” he said and laughed. She felt that there was a special meaning in his laughter.
A while later, Jittin and Ratchanee left. Sai walked them to the top of the alley.

21

When he stepped out of the manager’s office it was almost twelve o’clock. She observed him as soon as he pushed the frosted glass door and came out. He walked over to where she sat working. Ratchanee searched his face as if to find out the result of the discussion that had taken place in there, but his expression was normal and gave nothing away.
“Isn’t Jittin back yet?” he asked.
“Not yet. So how did it go?”
He smiled a little. “I’ve resigned,” he said with a flat and reserved voice, and it made her feel that he was trying to dismiss the whole affair as a trifling matter.
“Would you mind telling me your motives?” she asked out of interest and curiosity.
“It’s as I told you yesterday.”
“But I think this is too flimsy a justification. Maybe it’s part of the answer, but it isn’t the whole of it, and just this much doesn’t seem fitting for a man like you who always has good reasons for what he does.”
He was still for a while. “Me, a man who always has good reasons? I think that sometimes I have very few reasons for what I do.”
She shook her head. “You are a rational man, except that sometimes your reasons are different from those of everyone else, because you have your own way of looking at things, which is only natural, since it would be impossible for everyone to share the same viewpoint. But how can we understand someone’s point of view if he doesn’t express it, if he doesn’t explain?”
“There’s nothing much to it,” he answered in a low voice. He noticed that the noise within the bank had stopped. The employees at the counter had stopped calling out customer numbers and the clatter of typewriters and calculators had also stopped. People were filing out and almost all the desks were deserted. He looked at his wristwatch. “Oh ho, look at the time. Are you going out for lunch or do you have the food sent in?”
“I normally go out to a nearby restaurant.”
“Let’s go then, I’ll keep you company.” He stood up. “Jittin won’t probably be back for lunch.”
“If he isn’t back by now, he won’t be back for lunch. Whenever he goes to the Central Bank, he comes back in the afternoon.”
Ratchanee took her black handbag from her desk, then walked out with him. They went to the place where she usually had lunch. Several of the customers already eating there were employees of the bank, and one of them made as if to greet her but checked himself when he saw she had company. They sat down at an empty table at the back of the room. Several pairs of eyes watched them, among them Chertchawee’s.
Sai ordered the same dishes as Ratchanee. “They say the food here’s good,” he said to resume the conversation, “and it’s conveniently close to your place of work.”
“Well, aren’t you going to tell me your reasons?” Ratchanee returned to the topic she was interested in.
He looked down at the watch on his wrist, which laid flat on the table. “We have enough time to talk at length and be done with the matter.”
“Never mind. If we don’t finish now, we can always resume the explanation later.”
“No way, Miss. It’s not that long that it would fill up dozens of scrolls. So far as I’m concerned, it’s actually very short and can be told in a few words, but we must spare some time for the counter-interrogation.”
He was silent for a moment. Right then, the waitress brought the first dishes.
“Are you aware of the kind of legal work I do for the bank?” he asked.
Ratchanee shook her head. “Not really, apart from the few things Mr. Jittin has told me.”
“Actually, it’s nothing very important or exceptional,” he went on, “and it can even be said that there’s hardly anything to do, as I’ve already told you, but lately there has been one case, actually a very ordinary legal matter, which makes me think that I’m not in a position to work to the full satisfaction of my employer, and in a situation like this the only solution is to resign.”
Sai said only this then stopped. Ratchanee let him begin to eat, which he had not done since the food had been served. After several mouthfuls, she asked, “Which case is it? If I ask, it’s because I get the impression that your reasons have to do with the nature of the case.”
He nodded. “Don’t you know?”
“I don’t, really, and actually there’s very little I know besides the work it is my duty to do. What I know I learn from what people tell me, mostly Mr. Jittin, and perhaps he doesn’t know about this case, because I’ve heard him wonder and say he didn’t understand why you had to resign.”
“But then, everyone has his own reasons. What you said is right: we don’t have to have the same reasons always. One likes what someone else hates. One sees something as fine that someone else finds evil. But this doesn’t mean that we can’t find what’s right. There is such a thing as rightness. What’s right is right and what’s wrong is wrong. That right is wrong and wrong is right just cannot be, because reasons are not reality. Only reality is correct. Therefore correct reasons must be reasons that agree with reality. Besides, not only does our rational thinking differ in practice, but also rational thinking in the form of logic or mathematics doesn’t always correspond to reality. Mathematicians tell us that numbers don’t cheat, but we may cheat numbers to avoid taxes or embezzle funds through double accounting practices. Granted, these are matters of men cheating numbers, not of numbers cheating men, but thinking with numbers isn’t always the right method. For example, suppose that someone fills a jar with water in one hour; four people will fill the same jar within fifteen minutes: this is correct because it’s possible in reality. But then, if an airplane goes from Thailand to England in thirty hours, going by numbers ten airplanes should be able to fly from Thailand to England in three hours, which is wrong, because it isn’t possible in reality.” He took another mouthful. “Sorry, I seem to be rambling without much point.”
Ratchanee did not answer. She was interested in what he was saying, but she wanted him to have the opportunity to eat as well. She slowed down eating to wait for him and did not try to ask questions.
“Reality is our only measurement of what’s wrong,” he went on. “But sometimes it’s hard to know what reality is and where the truth is, and I must accept that even though I see things like this, it doesn’t mean that my reasons are always correct and correspond to reality, because some problems are really complicated and make us argue valid points in a wrong way.”
Ratchanee let him get on with his meal until he was done.
“What would you like for dessert?” he asked.
“An ice cream.”
Sai turned to order an ice cream for her and a coffee for himself. “All right, it’s time to get into the story. I’ve been beating about the bush long enough. The story is that the bank extended credit to a customer against a plot of land as guarantee. Later, as the customer was unable to repay the capital and the interest, or for whatever other reason, the piece of land became the property of the bank, but the bank doesn’t want to keep the land because it’s worth a great deal of money, so it’ll sell it at a profitable price and extend credit to the buyer, from which it’ll earn interest as well. This is standard practice, because in an agricultural country like ours, a bank is not in a position to make profitable investments in manufacturing as they do in industrial countries. To make a profit, the bank thus must rely on extending credit and on selling and buying goods and land, in that order. But because the land in question has ten wooden row houses built on it, and these have practically no value, the buyer, besides trying to speculate on the price of land, which keeps increasing by the day, is thinking of investing by having townhouses built instead, or something like that, so that he has imposed the condition that the bank must get the people who rent the row houses to leave that plot of land.” Having related the origins of the problem, he waited a while, raised the cup of coffee to his lips and took a sip.
“Then what?” Ratchanee asked impatiently, eager to have him come to the point.
“That’s all there is to it. Actually, it’s a very ordinary story.” There was an undertone of sarcasm in his voice. “Fifty percent of the cases that go to the Civil Court these days are eviction cases.”
Ratchanee tried to guess his reasons. Maybe he wasn’t happy about running such an ordinary case. Maybe—
“Eviction cases,” he repeated. “It’s an ordinary expression and it has absolutely no meaning for those who aren’t involved, wouldn’t you say?”
Ratchanee did not answer when she saw the tense expression on his face. She stared right at him.
“For the landowner, it’s a damn nuisance because of the time-wasting procedures of the court and of the trying obstinacy of the tenants who thwart his profit-making plans, but for the tenants it has a similar meaning, the only difference being a matter of degrees, that is to say, it’s not too heavy a burden to bear for those who have status, but it’s crushing for the poor. For people like these, it means eventually finding themselves without a roof over their heads.”
She nodded as if she agreed.
“When the manager told me that the buyer had put as a condition for the purchase of that piece of land that the bank evict the people renting the row houses, I told him we shouldn’t accept such a condition but leave it to the buyer to make his own arrangements, but the manager told me that, in that case, the price of the land would go down. When you figured out the difference in price and the cost of going to court, going to court was cheaper, so the manager had accepted the condition and left it to me, in my capacity as the bank’s lawyer, to take the legal steps—” The sarcasm in his tone was more pronounced. “—in conformity with a lawyer’s professional oath to uphold justice and the legitimate rights of the individual.”
“I went to see the row houses and the people living in them,” he went on. “They’re old buildings built many years ago. The people who live there are poor people. Most of them live from one day to the next. Some even have to make do with just one meal a day. Their lives are too insignificant for people driving by to even notice them, and those who’ve been abroad feel that such row houses are a disgrace to our City of Angels, only good to advertise the backwardness of our country and make us lose face in front of foreigners. They feel dismayed and deplore the loss of prestige of the Thai people just as much as they bask in glory in the name of the Thai people when they spend fortunes on drinks in nightclubs and cabarets and on stunning rewards to prostitutes.” He shrugged. A smile of contempt appeared at the corner of his mouth. “By saying all this, I don’t mean that poverty is something we must live with for all eternity. People’s poverty is the very first thing that must be solved, but not through deceit and hypocrisy like that. I offered my resignation to the manager because I don’t want to undertake a legal case which will make life even more miserable for people already overwhelmed with suffering. But this is not the reason I gave the manager. I only stuck by my initial suggestion not to accept the buyer’s condition, and told him that these days I have other things to do which may involve my going upcountry often, so I wouldn’t be in a position to work fully for the bank, because there was no point in trying to make him understand something I already know he’ll never understand.”
“But actually, you haven’t solved any problem at all, have you?” Ratchanee remarked. “When you say that you don’t want to create further problems for these people, if you don’t do it, there will be other lawyers who’ll do it instead. You’re merely being sympathetic and refusing to do what you think you shouldn’t do by yourself.”
“Absolutely right!” he stated firmly and stared at her in approbation. “What you’ve just said shows you fully understand my reasons, and besides, you think of the next step correctly as well, as I never thought you would. You’re right: the problem won’t be solved just because by not doing it myself everything will be fine and dandy and the case will stop there. You’re correct, Miss Ratchanee,” he emphasized, “sympathy and good intentions by themselves aren’t enough to solve problems.” He took out a cigarette and lit it without ceremony.
“But sympathy these days is as hard to find as a needle in a haystack,” she said as if to comfort him. “If we all had but sympathy, the world would be a better place to live in than it is.”
He nodded. “That’s how it should be, but that’s not how it has worked out, even though all religions have taught this for a couple of thousand years.” He reclined on his seat wearily. “How much longer will it take before the world becomes the lovely beautiful place it should be and could be?” He drank his coffee to the last drop, then looked at his wristwatch. “Past one o’clock already.” He showed himself alarmed. “You’ll be late at work.”
He pressed the waitress for the bill, then the two of them walked out of the restaurant, Ratchanee heading straight back for the bank.
“Let’s meet again,” he said before they parted.
“Let’s,” Ratchanee answered.

22

Chertchawee smiled sadly at the mirror on the dresser. She was just back from work and had not even taken the time to change her clothes. She was exhausted and dejected to the point that she did not feel like doing anything at all, not even change her clothes. She looked at her reflection in the mirror and sat looking at that picture for a long time, until she felt it beginning to blur and tremble like a reflection on water and thus realized that she was crying. Chertchawee tried to control herself. She pulled a small handkerchief out of her pocket to dry the tears oozing beneath her eyelids. She tried to swallow back the sobs that were welling up in her chest, yet two or three of them managed to force their way out.
Her hopes had been like a white sailing boat gliding to shore that she had come within walking distance of, but then the land wind had powered the unfurled sail and taken the beautiful boat away, back to the open sea, faster and faster and farther and farther away until the white sail was a tiny triangle moving across the vacant expanse of water to where sea and sky were one.
She looked at her reflection in the mirror and smiled derisively at herself. It served her right for being unable to compete. She thought she was young and pretty enough, but of course she lacked many advantages, for instance in terms of social status and education. Chertchawee was rather poor and she had only studied up to secondary level and her only expertise was in typing. This, according to her, was her shortcoming and weak point.
She liked him, or to put it plainly, she loved him, and she thought that Jittin liked her too. He used to be very close to her. He would come and see her at home and they would go out together. All this was evidence which showed that he liked her well enough, even though he had not yet said anything of the feelings in his heart. She thought that she liked him because he had a friendly disposition and was a gentleman, and there had been occasions when she had hoped that her life would escape from hardship, privation and social inferiority and acquire a new status of ease, affluence and social recognition if the love between him and her came to be. This thought was somewhat selfish, but she knew that she would love him, be faithful and loyal to him in every way she could, to reciprocate what she would receive from him, which was only justice, was it not?
There were also occasions when she thought that, even if he lost everything and was no longer in the situation that was his now, she would love him just the same, but nevertheless she could not help thinking as well that it would be better altogether that this did not happen. She hated poverty, her cramped wooden house and its muddy lane, the buses packed like pig trucks, her neighbors who dressed so sloppily. She only liked beautiful things, things with pretty bright colors, perfume, and sweet movie music.
Jittin had been close to her both at work and in private. He had taken her out to the movies, to have meals together, had bought her gifts on some occasions, until another woman had stepped onto the path of their life: Ratchanee — Ratchanee who was like the land wind which had blown the white sail boat of her hopes away toward the open sea and day after day was taking it further away from her.
When Ratchanee began to work, she put an end to their closeness at work, and later to their personal closeness as well. Jittin no longer invited her to see movies or share meals as he used to. Of course, she could not compare to Ratchanee in terms of lineage and education, but she could not help taking her own side by reflecting that status and education were not always the standards by which to measure someone’s goodness. For a woman to be a good wife to a man, superior education and status were not always necessary, and she thought that in Jittin’s case, she was more suitable than anyone else.
But then, all men were selfish. Few would think of a woman’s goodness. When they loved one, they looked at external factors rather than at her inner worth. She thought that she knew Jittin and understood his character and temperament well enough to enable her, although she was no match to others in terms of status or education, to provide him with happiness and warmth better than anyone else at all.
Chertchawee got up from the dresser, went over to the bed and lay with her face buried into the pillow, wanting to cry her heart out. ‘Why does my life know nothing but obstacles? If only there was no woman named Ratchanee around, everything wouldn’t have changed the way it has up until now.’
Three years earlier, when she was learning to type, a man had been taken with her. He was a young dreamer, and perhaps it was her own inexperience of life and of the world at that age that had made her give in to her mood for a while. It was like facing a little danger as most of us experience at the onset of adulthood. The young man waited for her and walked her home after her typing class every day. The way he talked, it sounded as though he had read all of the romantic novels, and it was a sort of nice life experience at that point. For more than a year, the two of them were close and went everywhere together. She could not remember how many dozen letters he had written to her. He dreamed and talked of the future. His candid gaze spoke of ambition and he seemed to believe that love was something serious, indeed the most important thing in life. Such had been the situation before she started working at Boorapha Bank. She used to think that he was a lovable man and a good boy, but later, as she grew wiser and more rational, she realized that he was not suitable for her. He complained and rebuked her when he saw her going out with Jittin, but she merely shrugged. Everyone has his own reasons. Until finally he stepped aside and went his own way and she went hers, and they never met again. “Forget what’s happened,” she told him. “We were asleep and it was just a dream. When you wake up to reason, you’ll know it was only a passing weakness in our lives.” “You’ve never talked like this before,” he said, looking tense. “That’s because I wasn’t thinking straight enough, I had yet to understand life and the world at large like I do now,” she said, waggling her head somewhat arrogantly. “Uh huh,” he grunted. “You’re mistaken, Chert, if you think you understand life and the world at large well enough already. That’s not at all the case. There’s still plenty for us to learn. In understanding life and the world, there’s no such thing as coming of age overnight like when a child becomes an adult the day he turns twenty. There’s still a lot to be learned. Your hair will have turned all white before you can say you know the world and life.” She laughed in his face. “No need to preach to me. Just go and take care of yourself all the way.” “I admit I’ve lost,” he said firmly yet without spite, “but I feel for you and worry about you more than I do about myself. I want you to take good care of yourself.” “Thanks. I can take care of myself. You may kiss me for the last time, to thank you for your concern.” She closed her eyes and waited. “Never mind,” she heard him say, and when she opened her eyes she saw him walking intently away.
Today, Jittin had called her over to scold her for being so slow in her work that the document she was typing would probably miss the collection for airmail. It was indeed her fault for not checking it for misprints. She had placed it on Ratchanee’s desk. Ratchanee had found misprints and had her type it again. Once she had done so, she had dropped it onto Ratchanee’s desk again and again Ratchanee had returned it because there still were misprints. She thus had to type the document a third time, wasting a lot of time. Feeling angry by then, Chertchawee had thought that Ratchanee had been reporting on her, so she had complained: “Why did you have to report me? I’ve so much work to do that mistakes are bound to happen.” Ratchanee had stared at her in astonishment. “I didn’t report you. Mr. Jittin must have noticed by himself that you were taking too long over the letter.” “You did report me,” Chertchawee said angrily. “You’re angry at me, aren’t you, that I told him you went out for lunch with that man who’s a lawyer.” “Good grief, Miss Chertchawee,” Ratchanee had exclaimed, “you misunderstand completely. I never pay attention to such things. The man who is a lawyer is a friend of Mr. Jittin’s and he came on an errand. I told Mr. Jittin about it even before he asked anything, and in any case I see nothing wrong in your telling Mr. Jittin.” Chertchawee had blushed as if she was on the verge of tears. “I’m sorry you misunderstood,” Ratchanee had gone on. “I’ve done nothing and have never thought of doing anything that would harm you.” She had walked back to her desk feeling disheartened. She had let her anger get the better of her, which had allowed Ratchanee to see right through her. But maybe it was just as well. Now that she knew, she wouldn’t come and interfere in future. Chertchawee kept her face sunk into the pillow for a long time.

Ratchanee felt a little irritated when she left work that day. She tried to tell herself that it was normal, that there were always some falling-outs at work, but then Chertchawee had made it something personal as well. She thought that, to tell the truth, Chertchawee was bound to have some suspicion given the position she was in. She tried to examine herself to see if there was something in her personal attitude that could make Chertchawee suspicious of her on reasonable grounds, and she was able to tell herself that there was not. Her relationship with Jittin was that of people who worked together and there was nothing at a personal level beyond ordinary friendliness and familiarity. She thought that, as far as she was concerned, she felt nothing more than that, but it left her not a little dissatisfied all the same.
When she came back home, before she could change her clothes, her servant told her that Mr. Kraisee was there to see her. Ratchanee heaved a sigh, then went out to meet him.
“I’d like to invite you to go to the Sports Club with me. Shall we go?” he said cheerfully.
“I’m sorry, I’ve just come back home, I haven’t even had time to change.”
“It doesn’t matter. I can wait for you to slip into new clothes,” he answered as if she had agreed to go out with him.
“I’m very sorry, I’m just back from work, I’d like to rest for a while.”
“Actually, I’m inviting you because I want you to rest. You can’t rest anywhere better than at the club.”
“Thank you, but I’ve never been there and I know no one either.”
“Then all the more reason to go, at least to see what it’s like. Not knowing anyone isn’t important, because you soon will. That’s what the club is for. At first you only know one or two people, and then you enlarge the circle of your acquaintances, moving only among the best people instead of being forced to mess around with people of all ilk. You can play sports in the open or in the shade or just sit with a drink and relax quietly making small talk. I think it’s a very useful way of getting some rest.”
Ratchanee was silent.
“Let’s go, then,” he insisted.
She shook her head. “Thank you but I’ll pass.”
Disappointment registered on his face. “I always go there, because I like to play tennis, but today I’d like to sit and chat with a friend of my liking—”
‘Oh, that’s how much I rate for you — a substitute for tennis!’ Ratchanee thought to herself, but she merely said, “You must know many people there, mustn’t you?”
He lowered his head in agreement. “Lots, indeed, but not that many who are of my liking. Some other time, then, shall we?”
“We’ll talk about it,” she answered, “because you may give up trying first.”
He smiled. “That won’t be. I don’t change my mind easily.”
“If you want to talk here, I have no objection.”
“What I want is for you to move to a different place with a different atmosphere, which will help you feel more carefree and happier.”
“I’ve been here since I was born and I feel this place and its atmosphere are good enough as they are. Won’t you sit down for a while?” Ratchanee invited him for the sake of politeness rather than because she wanted him to.
“Thank you,” he answered.
“But if it makes you uncomfortable, don’t consider it as an obligation.”
“No, no obligation at all. In a case like this, the person is more important than the place.”
“What do you mean?” Ratchanee asked unsuspectingly.
“I mean that when I’m with you, it is doesn’t matter where I am. If I don’t see you, even being in the royal palace won’t help.”
Mother came walking down the stairs. Kraisee bowed to her.
“Ah, so it’s you! Have you been here long?”
“I just arrived, Madam,” Kraisee said deferentially. “How are you?”
“Fine, thank you.” Mother walked over to a seat. Ratchanee took advantage of this to slip out. Half an hour later, Mother called her. “Lek!”
She acknowledged the call then went into the reception room.
“Kraisee is leaving.”
She raised her hands to her face and bowed him goodbye, then walked him to the staircase. Kraisee made a weepy face as if to show that he was disappointed for not having been able to converse with her, but Ratchanee pretended not to notice.

23

As time went on, Ratchanee and Sai became gradually closer to each other and when they met and talked frequently, their first impression of each other changed. Ratchanee felt that he was not devoid of good manners as she had thought initially, but that he was a man who was manly, thoughtful, self-confident and impartial, and who acted without hesitation according to what he thought was right. Sometimes when she was alone, she reviewed in her mind everything that had to do with him, and sometimes when she felt lonely, she would have liked him to come and talk with her. Ratchanee admitted to herself that he was on her mind more than anyone else.
Sai had once said, “We have many differences, but—”
“Why do you like to mention differences so much?” she said, feeling slighted, which he himself could feel.
“Because that’s the truth,” he answered, “and we can’t deny it, and I didn’t finish what I was saying. We are different in terms of status and way of life, but we can still know each other and be good friends.”
“Why is that?” she asked.
“You can answer your own question just as well as I can.”
“You tell me first, to see if it’s the same answer as mine.”
He laughed. “You’re using with me the trick Angkata used with Kumbhakaran* to solve his own problem, but never mind. I can tell you, because there’s no question of exploitation between us, because we have a good understanding of each other — I mean, you understand me well.”
“And you understand me well also,” Ratchanee added sincerely. “And in future don’t mention differences between us any more. I’m really angry.” Ratchanee truly never thought about the differences between him and her. She thought everybody could be friends, regardless of status, rank and lineage. In friendship, goodness was paramount.
“I won’t mention them again,” he promised, “but allow me to emphasize for your further consideration that they are a reality which will directly affect the friendship between us one of these days.”
“In this world, we can be friends, can’t we,” she objected, “if we only think of the other’s goodness and forget everything else?”
“But goodness isn’t a free agent, you know. We can’t take goodness at face value. We can only evaluate it in relation to people, animals or things, and its meaning is never fixed. For instance, what’s goodness in man? What do we mean by a good animal, for example a good dog? or a good table? a good chair? It depends on who determines the value and the meaning of the word ‘goodness’. A good man in the general sense is one thing, but a good man for a hoodlum is something else. A good man in the common sense of the word can’t be a hoodlum, and for a hoodlum a good man is someone who tends to behave like a hoodlum. Thus when we talk about goodness, the meaning depends on who is talking. It’s the same with animals or things. Someone will see the goodness of a dog in its lovely fur and in that it knows how to please by licking you all over, but someone else will see its goodness in its readiness to bark, yap or snarl and in its efficiency in keeping watch over the premises, whether or not it looks fine and is well-behaved. And as far as things are concerned, someone will see necklaces and bracelets and earrings as good things, but many others will see a hoe as a far greater blessing than such trinkets.”
“In that case, we aren’t able to know what goodness is,” Ratchanee retorted, “and whether there is any goodness at all, given that there are so many differences of opinion.”
“We still can,” he answered emphatically. “I believe goodness does exist, or else there would be no such word in the language, except that its meaning differs in the eyes of people in different stations in life. We’ll know what goodness is by assessing whether it is something that most people respect or recognize or not. In this way, we take the majority of the people as the standard. The goodness that most people recognize is the right kind of goodness.”
Ratchanee followed attentively what he was saying and was inclined to think that his arguments carried a lot of weight, but she felt that she should go over them again before she acknowledged that he was correct. “I’m getting confused. I must think about it again. Anyway, I feel that what you’re saying is more correct than what I understood before.”
He laughed. “Good enough. Don’t believe anything blindly. Don’t allow yourself to be prejudiced. We’re in the age of reason. We should exercise our judgment and consider everything carefully. Don’t believe anything just because some people have been saying it is so since ancient times like antique peddlers, even though doing so is easier and safer.”
“I don’t believe anything or anyone easily, not even you,” Ratchanee said laughingly. “Don’t be angry with me.”
He nodded and smiled. “You’re absolutely correct. I’m not always right. Sometimes I get it all wrong. No, not sometimes — often actually. And for us to understand each other, it isn’t necessary that we agree on everything, or even keep quiet about our disagreements. I like your frankness and it’s on this that our friendship is based.”

A week earlier, Sai had visited her at home. She had invited him to do so when he found himself free.
“I’d like to, but what about your parents?” he answered.
“Never mind. My parents are rather conservative, but if you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.”
“I don’t, but they might.”
“Might what?”
“They might hold that I’m not suitable to be welcomed in their house.”
“It wouldn’t come to that,” Ratchanee answered, although she was aware of how status-conscious her parents were.
“In that case, I’ll go,” he said.
And then he had actually come. She was happy to see him, yet could not but feel oppressed at the thought of how Father and Mother would react when they came down. She felt that in this house she had no freedom and was considered not as an adult but still as a little girl who needed to be watched over and should not be let out of sight. There was no harm in friends coming for a visit, she thought to comfort herself, and since the others can come, why shouldn’t he? As she was the one who wanted him to visit, she would be more than a little relieved if it was left to her to receive him.
They had only exchanged a few words when Father entered the room. He lowered his head and looked over his spectacles in the direction of Sai.
“Father,” Ratchanee said, “this is my friend Mr. Sai.”
Sai stood up, raised his joined hands and bowed politely. Her father walked to a chair. Sai kept standing, thinking that he would let the older man sit down first before taking a seat, but presently her father said in what was more a command than an invitation: “Sit down.”
He did so and adopted as formal and proper a posture as he could.
“Whose child are you?”
Ratchanee’s throat tightened upon hearing this. This was the very question which Kingthian had been asked when Ratchanee had brought her over and which had made Kingthian feel like she did not want to set foot in her house ever again. Father always used this form of address with young visitors whom he had not met before. She stole a glance at Sai. He sat in the same pose. He did not turn to look at her but faced Father in an ordinary way.
“Er — my father is a farmer, sir,” he answered. He had had a slight hesitation at first, like someone taken by surprise, but then he went on in a firm yet polite manner: “His name wouldn’t tell Your Lordship anything, because he is not a person of note or of any significance whatsoever.”
“From which province?”
Sai told him the name of the province where he was born.
“Oh, there are many prominent people from that province, such as my good friends Lord Rarchaneithisart, who used to be a supreme court judge, and Lord Rarchanarwik of the Navy. Do you know them? They are from the same province as you.”
“I do not know them personally,” he answered. “I’ve only heard of them.”
“How extensive are your paddy fields?”
“I don’t have any.”
“Then what do you do for a living?”
“I earn my living as a lawyer—” he said, then, after a slight pause, added forcefully: “At your service, Your Lordship.”
“What happened to your fields?”
“They were divided between my brothers. I was the only one to come to Bangkok so I gave them my share.”
“I see — a lawyer, hey? Are you making enough to live on?”
“Enough to take care of myself, Your Lordship.”
“What kind of lawyer? A court tout?” asked His Lordship, scrutinizing him over his spectacles.
“Er — I just passed as first-class lawyer, Your Lordship.”
“Going through law is so easy these days; the town is full of lawyers.”
“Indeed, Your Lordship, but aristocrats of all ranks will soon be past history,” Sai countered levelly.
His Lordship looked shocked and astounded by such an arrogant rejoinder. Sai went on in a way in which it was hard to tell whether he was expressing his opinion or talking sarcastically: “If aristocratic tenure was hereditary like in some countries, it would be a good thing, Your Lordship, then it would never disappear.”
He is probably thinking, ‘Cheeky bastard!’, Sai thought, but old people are like that, they like others to show respect and kowtow to them, and force them to when they don’t, but for people like himself, Sai knew that even if he kowtowed and worshipped the old man there was no way he would ever win his approval, therefore when he was aggressed verbally he just answered in kind.
Ratchanee’s father sat still for a long time, perhaps because he thoroughly despised this upstart friend of his daughter’s or because he was no longer disposed to converse with the son of a peasant, a fellow without a drop of blue blood who did not even know a single family of note. He sat impassively smoking a fat and fragrant cigar, looking right over Sai’s head, and remained seated like that as if he were alone in the room.
Ratchanee’s heart beat wildly as she sat listening to the exchange between the two men. She had never heard anybody answering back to her father in this manner. The awe in which she had always held her father made her feel at times that Sai should give in and humor him instead of answering back unremittingly, but even so she could not but admire his boldness.
“If I didn’t already know that Your Lordship is a court official, I might have thought that Your Lordship worked at the Ministry of the Interior.”
His Lordship remained impassive, but he lowered his vision to the level of Sai’s forehead. “Why?”
Sai said with laughter in his voice, as if talking more in jest than in earnest: “Your Lordship has been questioning me rather like a district official investigating family records, which would have made me wonder whether Your Lordship was not at least a lord lieutenant if I didn’t know better.”
His Lordship raised his eyes to their former position and went on drawing on his cigar at regular intervals with the characteristic deportment of the master of the house, sitting motionless and silent.
The prolonged silence oppressed Ratchanee. She looked at her father, then stole a glance in Sai’s direction just as he turned to look at her. Their eyes met briefly and he resumed his previous pose.
They all remained frozen. Ratchanee felt that if the situation kept on like this for another five minutes, she would have to do something even though she had no idea what, but a short moment later her father put down his cigar on the ashtray, stood up, turned his back and walked out without showing interest in anyone and not even looking at his daughter.
After he had left, Sai kept sitting in the same pose until Ratchanee moved. He then turned to her. “He seems very angry,” he said wearily.
“He is,” Ratchanee answered with a forced smile.
“I’m sorry that I made him so.”
“It doesn’t matter really,” she replied as though to comfort him. She knew it was not his fault, even though his remarks were rather infuriating, as Father, who sized up everyone according to their lineage, would never have been satisfied, whatever Sai’s manners, given the young man’s origins.
A very long time it was that Ratchanee sat alone in her room after Sai went back. She thought of him, of their relations from their first encounter to their subsequent meetings, of the many turns of phrase and opinions he had uttered that she could remember up until his coming to the house and confronting Father, which had begun and ended with nothing at all to make her feel relieved and at peace. It made her feel uneasy to have to face her parents at the dinner table that evening. It took her some time to realize that she had done nothing reprehensible and to determine to uphold this truth everywhere and in every circumstance. We cannot just dismiss events that have taken place by merely closing our eyes and thinking that they never happened or had no consequences.
At the dinner table that evening, Ratchanee observed the behavior of her parents. Father hardly looked at her at all. He sat eating in silence with a sternness of manners that was chilling, which, as Ratchanee knew well, was Father’s usual behavior when he was unhappy with someone. As for Mother, she kept watching her all the time. Her expression and bearing showed that she had already been informed by Father, but did not dare to say anything so long as Father was in such a mood, which made the atmosphere heavy like overcast weather that might break out into a storm or be blown away by the wind from one second to the next.
But then the big storm over the dinner table failed to break out. Father ate less than usual, then stood up and walked out without saying a single word.
The atmospheric pressure inside the room lowered as soon as Father walked out. Ratchanee moved and changed posture. She realized then that she had sat in the same pose for ages out of some kind of instinct which had made her afraid of moving all the time that Father was here. The expression on Mother’s face also showed that the tension had eased.
When the servants had cleared the table, Mother asked, “Lek, who is that man?”
She knew instantly who her mother was referring to, but in order to be sure or for some other reason, she asked back, “Which man?”
“The man who came this afternoon,” Mother said testily.
Ratchanee was still for a moment. The question about who the man was was far too encompassing, so she merely answered, “A friend of mine.”
Mother stared at her with an expression that hovered between alarm and wonder. “A friend of yours! That man is a friend of yours?”
“Yes, he is.”
Mother was taken aback, probably because she never expected to receive such a strong confirmation. After a moment of hesitation, she asked further, “How did you get to know him?”
“We met at work,” she answered.
“There are many people where you work—”
“Yes, many,” Ratchanee answered and added before her mother could finish, “I know everybody, from the manager to the Indian doorman.”
“Every place of work has promiscuous people,” Mother said. “One has to be careful about whom one chooses to keep company with.”
“Yes, I think that all the people I know and consider my friends are good people in my opinion.”
“I do not approve of your knowing all sorts of people. Especially where company is concerned, one should look for people who are really good, people of birth and some status, otherwise one can easily fall prey to gossip.”
“Only people of birth and status are good people, is that what you are saying, Mother?”
“How can people without lineage be good people, without the proper tuition? Nobility is in the blood, you know. If you are born a commoner, no matter what, you remain a commoner.”
Ratchanee kept quiet. She did not argue with her mother any further, and sat quietly listening to her propounding at length on the proper code of conduct, which came down to the simple point that an individual such as Sai was not welcome in the house, even in his capacity as an acquaintance of hers.
Ratchanee went back to her room for some further thinking on her own. Much of what Sai had said and which she had not quite believed at first, upon analysis proved to be in accordance with reality, for instance what he had said about goodness, which she had believed to be a universal value applicable to everything without limitation. The present situation proved that what he had said was true: goodness was not universal, but particular, and meant different things to different people. Goodness in her eyes and goodness in the eyes of her parents were different and incompatible.
‘The world and life are always evolving,’ she thought, ‘and time brings change to everything — feelings and thoughts, customs and traditions, art and culture, down to fashions in clothing and hair-style.’ Ratchanee looked back at her childhood and could not but feel scared at the thought of what her life and thoughts would have been like if, like her elder sisters, she had been denied the possibility to study. She would have had no opportunity to be free and independent, and by now would be like some sort of home decoration, like a nice picture in a frame or a trained ebony or garden croton in a pot.
‘I must preserve my independence and my freedom,’ Ratchanee determined. ‘I will always respect Father and Mother, but my sisters’ lives are lessons teaching by the force of example that the well-intentioned decisions of parents are not always correct, and who is at the receiving end if not the individuals concerned, who by then no one, neither parents nor deities of any kind, is able to help in the least? Therefore, if one must suffer from misfortune for a wrong decision, let that decision be one’s own rather than someone else’s.’

24

When Sai stepped into his law office, he found a middle-aged woman waiting. “I’ve come to see Mr. Chert. Is he in, sir?”
“I don’t think he’ll come in today. He wasn’t in yesterday either,” he answered. “I’m told he isn’t feeling well.”
The woman’s attitude showed that she was distressed. Her mouth chewed betel compulsively. Her appearance showed that she was someone who had money. She wore a necklace with a locket holding the picture of a man wearing decorations on his chest. She had two rings on her fingers, one with a diamond, the other with an emerald, and she wore thick gold bracelets round her wrists. When she stood up, he also saw a gold belt round her waist.
“I’m very bitter about Mr. Chert,” she said, speaking loudly. “I really resent what he has done to me.”
“What about, madam?” Sai looked alarmed. “Do sit down.” He let himself down on the table.
The woman sat down on a chair in front of him. “Mr. Chert wronged me. He made me lose the case,” she said, then sighed as if she was feeling hurt and disappointed.
“What was the case about?” he asked. “I’m his partner here, but I know nothing about this.”
“An inheritance case, that’s what. I’ll tell you about it. I’m not sorry about losing the case, but I feel hurt to have been taken in by him. Did you ever see anyone drop a case by letting the deadline for appeal expire? I went to the court today. They said it was too late to appeal. Those court people, they also said, Why didn’t your lawyer appeal? They said I had a one-hundred-percent chance of winning. All he had to do was say, I lost in the court of first instance on a technicality, so I’ll get the verdict reversed in the court of appeal, but actually he double-crossed me. There’s nothing much to the case, you know. It’s about my land and my stepson. Goodness! I raised him since he was little like my own son. I even gave him a share of the land. Look at this deed.” She took out a title deed sheet out of her big black handbag and spread it out on the table for him to examine. “See, this part up to here I gave him. I already deeded it to him, but then he sued me to get one half of all my land, right up to here. Mr. Chert made me lose the case, so I have to move the house pillars back, because my house’s right in the middle. If he gets half, I have to move back. That’s what makes me mad: Mr. Chert swindled me. He took my money, then he went to make a deal on the sly with my stepson, taking his money, and then he dropped my case, he let the deadline for appeal go by. How can one behave like this, my dear sir? That’s what I’d like to know.” She chattered away in his face. “All the people at court sympathized with me. Me, you know, I don’t want to shame him publicly, but doing this to me is too much. He’s taken me in so badly I cry silently to myself.” The voice which had spoken loudly out of resentment changed to a milder tone, and her face saddened as if she was about to weep. “That stepson of mine is an ungrateful cur. I give it to him and he wants more. Raising him was like raising a cobra—”
Sai sat listening, saying nothing. He never knew about stories like these. He had merely noticed that lately Chert did not come to the office very often and did not keep his appointments. With some clients, he took their money but failed to conduct legal proceedings for them, so he had to avoid them and he left it to Sai to confront them instead.
“Is there a way to solve the problem?” he asked.
“How can there be? The deadline for appeal is past. That’s why I feel hurt. He took me in.”
He tried half-heartedly to comfort her, but she went on venting her spleen for another twenty minutes.
Lately, Chert’s behavior had become increasingly erratic, especially over matters of money. It seemed that he had fallen for the daughter of a Chinese tycoon around Yaowarart*. He tried to further enhance his prestige, notably by buying himself a brand-new American car, and thus had to knock himself out to make money.
As he was seeing the wealthy woman out, Chao walked in. Sai raised his joined hands and bowed to his elder brother. Chao was carrying a basket covered with a newspaper sheet. Behind him were several other persons dressed in black or dark-blue trousers and shirts. These people must be with him, Sai thought. “Come in, please,” he said in welcome.
“I’ve just arrived,” Chao said. “Since you haven’t gone back home, I came here instead. These people live close to our place. There’s something they’d like to consult you about regarding land.”
“Do sit down.” Sai busied himself lining up chairs for the other four visitors.
“This is only a delegation. Actually, the whole district’s in trouble, but they couldn’t all come, so these four are their representatives.” His brother talked business right away, paying no attention to personal matters and not even asking about his son, who was staying with Sai.
Sai sat and listened to what the villagers had to say about their land cases. Mr. Run, Mr. In and Mr. Sorn were men of a certain age. As for Mr. Kert, he was about the same age as his brother. The first three men owned land they had cleared themselves. Mr. Kert had inherited a piece of land his own father had claimed and cleared. These four people, together with many other farmers, were being sued by the local tycoon who claimed ownership of the land they tilled for a living. The documentation of the farmers varied. A majority of them had no title deed, because they had cleared and worked the land for a living openly for a long time and thus considered themselves as the de facto owners. Some only had a certificate of possessory rights to land or a land-usage certificate. When they went to request a title deed, it turned out that the paddy fields they tilled, which they had cleared with their own hands out of a jungle of chakhrarm bushes and firewood trees, belonged to someone else. As for some of those who had title deeds, it turned out that there were other deeds overlapping part or the whole of their fields. Sai had heard about the tycoon reserving land through his intermediaries a long time ago, but the story had just come to bursting point now that the tycoon sought to sell his land, which overlapped with that of some old farmers, and which the buyer wanted to possess or else let the tycoon’s intermediaries possess in his name. Thus the affair had been taken to court and the farmers had come to consult him on what they should do from a legal point of view. The cases were at various stages: some had just begun, others had run all the way to the Supreme Court. An almost equally pressing trouble for all of the farmers was that they were having a hard time earning a living. Some cases had been dragging on for years, meaning much time wasted and heavy expenses, a yoke added to the burden of existing poverty that the farmers could hardly bear on their shoulders and which now forced some of them to compromise with the tycoon by giving away half of the land they had. Some even accepted to transfer ownership over the whole in exchange for some money because they were afraid that they would lose their case and thus lose their land for good.
It was not difficult for Sai to understand who was right and who was wrong, where truth and untruth lay, since he was a child of the paddy field who had been born and had grown up in the neighborhood. He had been witness to the labor and dogged industry of a group of people who had come to turn wild or fallow land into paddy fields, and he had seen the slow accretion of isolated huts and shacks as the fields expanded and the lalang grass, cajaput and firewood trees and chakhrarm bushes were hacked away little by little, inch by inch, yard by yard, slowly but surely. At the same time, a small market and a modest temple had been born and had expanded in step with the growing wealth and number of houses, which had turned into hamlets, into villages, into a subdistrict. This was the truth he knew. He had seen it with his own eyes and known it in his own heart, but then these days it was no longer a question of truth or untruth, but a matter of law, a matter of craftiness, of fighting over spoils with money and power both dark and stark naked, with blackmail, coaxing, deceit and betrayal.
By the main irrigation canal there was a stately home which stood prominent over the surrounding thatched-roofed huts. It was a two-storey building with board walls and a tiled roof, and there were several thatched outbuildings attached to it. This was the house of Mr. Muan, the man who looked after the interests of the big landowner who claimed ownership over most of the subdistrict. Initially, Mr. Muan was a migrant who had come to claim a plot of fallow land like everybody else and had the same status as everybody else, but his circumstances had changed radically within a few years when he started to receive financial and other assistance from the landowner which he returned manifold by taking care of his interests.
“Our family has never been well off,” Mr. Kert said. “It’s only when we sell our rice that we come into some money, say four, five hundred baht. It’s gone within days, but heck, with our own land, we can still make a living, and perhaps one day we’ll be doing well. But then the land I’ve been working since my father’s time turns out to belong to someone else, or so they say. On the waning moon of the third month it was, sir, that Mr. Muan took five or six people to my paddy field, two of them with shotguns in their hands. Mr. Muan told me, ‘Hey, Kert, Kamnan Sin here’s come to talk to you about this field’. At first I thought he wanted to consult me about the field or something. But that wasn’t it. He told me he had bought this field from the tycoon we’re fighting in court with now, the very same man. He told me he had already surveyed it, set the boundaries and established the title deed at the land office since the Year of the Rabbit. That year for sure I’d seen district and provincial officials come with the headman to survey the land. I asked them why they were there and I was told they had come to figure how much land everyone had. I even took them to show them the limits of my field. But anyway, I’ve no idea how it came to be someone else’s. Kamnan Sin from Paet-riu told me, ‘I bought the whole land. If you want to till it this year, you’ll have to go over to my house to sign the lease.’ My wife and I were stunned. I shouted, ‘What’s this, sir? This field’s mine. My parents came and claimed it over forty years ago, even before I was born. I’ve been playing in this field since I was only that tall, so how can it possibly belong to someone else? I won’t have it. Lease it? No way. Who’s ever heard of having to pay rent over one’s own land? It doesn’t make sense.’ ‘You’d better not argue, Kert,’ Mr. Muan said. ‘How long you’ve been working on it doesn’t matter. What matters is the land title deed, and the land title deed doesn’t bear your name. If the land was yours, why didn’t you get a title deed, ha? Believe me. The kamnan is generous to offer to lease it to you so you can keep on making a living: you won’t have to uproot your house and go some place else.’ ‘Alright,’ the kamnan said, ‘if you don’t have the money, I can sympathize. I’m willing to let you pay in installments against future crops. And for the interest, I’ll give you a friendly rate, one percent a year only.’ ‘I ain’t gonna spend a single cent on rent,’ I said. ‘Think it over carefully, Kert,’ Mr. Muan said. ‘What with the kamnan willing to go easy on you, you’ll never get such a good deal anywhere, and with such a low interest as well. There’s plenty of people who’d be happy to lease the land. If you don’t, where are you gonna find another field?’ ‘You’d better believe the kamnan,’ one of the men with a shotgun added. ‘If you don’t sign the lease, you’ll have to move from this land.’ ‘I won’t sign no lease and I won’t move,’ I protested. ‘If you don’t, I’ll get you evicted by court order,’ the kamnan said. ‘Think carefully,’ Mr. Muan said, ‘I’m asking the kamnan to give you one month to think things over.’ I didn’t answer, but thought in my heart, one month or one year I ain’t leaving. As soon as they had gone into the boat and left, my wife burst into tears. ‘Come what may, I won’t leave here,’ I told her. And then during this dry season, there were five or six people who came over to see my three fishponds — Mr. Muan and his people, who else. He asked me, ‘Have you paid the water bill yet?’ I told him I just had done so at the district office day before yesterday because I intended to empty the ponds and sell the fish the day after tomorrow. He told me it was good I paid for the water, that tomorrow he’d come and empty the ponds. ‘You can’t do that, these ponds aren’t yours.’ No sir, it wasn’t me saying this. It was him telling me! ‘If you do, we’ll prosecute you for theft.’ Think about it, sir. Isn’t that funny? The owner stealing his own property! I should be the one telling him that. I had already paid for the water and I was being accused of theft. ‘You can’t do anything with these ponds, you hear. Catch a single fish to eat and you’re a thief. Keep it in mind,’ he threatened me. ‘I’ll come empty them tomorrow.’ ‘Just try and see what happens,’ I said. ‘Kamnan Sin has authorized me to do so already,’ he told me. ‘Why couldn’t I do it, since the owner has allowed me to?’ ‘Who told you this place here belongs to Kamnan Sin?’ I was getting hot under the collar. They went into peals of laugher, and then they left. For sure, I didn’t want them to come and empty my ponds, but if they came in a group what was I gonna do? I immediately jumped into my boat to consult with Run and Sorn here. Run went to tell four or five other villagers and they came to my house early in the morning. Them bastards also came, together with a motorized treadmill. Six of them there were. I saw that one of them was Young Joi. ‘Hey, Joi, how come you’re with them?’ ‘I’m not. They came to rent my motor to empty ponds, so I came along. I didn’t know they were coming to the ponds at your house. What’s going on? You told me you’d empty your ponds tomorrow, didn’t you?’ ‘They said this place doesn’t belong to me, so I couldn’t empty the ponds, I couldn’t even catch a fish, it’d be theft. You can figure out by yourself who’s stealing who.’ I had a sword in my hand and our people stood waiting at the door of the house. If they did try to empty the ponds, we were ready to slash them to shreds. They hoisted the treadmill from the boat to the ground, pretending not to notice us, then set out to lift Joi’s motor to power the treadmill with. Young Joi and I know each other well. He has this motor which he hires out to empty ponds during the dry season. During the rainy season, he installs it on a fast dugout and hires himself out transporting rice or seedlings. ‘Leave the motor where it is,’ Young Joi said, ‘I’m not emptying the ponds.’ Without Young Joi’s motor, they could do nothing. ‘Here, take your deposit back.’ Young Joi flung ten baht at them, then walked over to my people. ‘Tomorrow I’ll come to empty the ponds for you,’ he said loudly. Them bastards were getting ready to leave in the boat, maybe to get a new motor and come back, for all I knew. I shouted, ‘Take the treadmill back too. If you leave it here, I may be tempted to smash it to pieces.’ They put the treadmill back into the boat. I shouted as a parting shot, ‘Tomorrow I’ll empty my ponds. If you want to prosecute me for theft, go ahead.’”
“So, did you empty them? Did anything happen?” Sai asked when Kert stopped telling his story and was silent for a long time.
“I did, and lots of our people came to help — Run, Sorn, Young Joi, Chao. Even King, who lives far away, came over when he heard the news. Well, nothing happened. Chao told me later that Mr. Muan did go to the district that day to have me arrested for stealing, but as it happened, the district officer refused to intervene. He said that the matter of land ownership wasn’t even settled, and since I had paid the water bill, he couldn’t have me arrested, which shows that the man has a sense of justice, but I think he won’t be around for long, he’ll probably get transferred. The landowner’s men are trying to get rid of him, claiming that he’s siding with the local people. He has been here for less than a year, but if he keeps behaving like this, he won’t last, because those who hold power and have money are in cahoots.”
“This landowner is a big fish. He has his people even in our district,” Chao told Sai. “Mrs. Jan had a brush with them as well. Even the land where the Japanese camp used to be is in the same case. When the farmers returned to till their land, there was a big-wig to claim that the place was his as well. When the Japanese were still there, I never saw anyone who had the guts to make such a claim against them.”
“Mrs. Jan is almost in the same predicament as Kert here,” Chao went on. “The place she grew rice on for a living with Fatso, her husband, covers thirty rai, and it turns out it belongs to someone else — well, the same man we’re talking about. He has hundreds of title deeds. At the beginning of the farming season, he sent his people over to plant rice. Maybe he thought Mrs. Jan’s only a woman, and a widow as well, and her child’s still very young. He must have reckoned she’d be easy to browbeat, but if anything Mrs. Jan is strong-willed. Mind you, at the time, the other farmers knew nothing about it. I don’t know where she found herself a shotgun. As soon as those people entered her field to work it, she shot at them and they ran for cover. Fortunately, nobody was killed. The district people heard about this and the police came over to investigate. That’s when we all found out about it. The bullet hadn’t hit anyone. There was one guy whose skin was a bit scorched, but the police didn’t think it was a gun wound. The day they came to investigate we were also there watching and keeping Mrs. Jan company, because she was all alone. When the officials had left, Mrs. Jan said, crying all the while, ‘Oh I’m so mad at myself! I missed ’m! I really meant to kill ’m!’ But she was clever as well in that she gave a different story to the officials. She told them she had seen people trespassing, they wouldn’t listen to her warnings, and then she was a woman all by herself against three men, so she took her gun and fired while she was still in the house to scare them, but the truth is, she went out and stood taking aim like she meant business. When we can’t take it any more, we’re ready to do anything rash. She told us she was very sorry not to have trained herself to shoot before and this was the first and only bullet she had fired in her life and she had missed, but she said that from now on she intended not to miss if she could help it. As long-time friends of her and her husband Fatso, we did our best to console her, by pointing out that to take a gun and shoot at someone was wrong legally and morally and it didn’t help solve anything in any way, and besides it’d lead her to jail as well. We also felt guilty for having left her on her own like that, helping her only when there was work to be done in the field, plowing, planting and harvesting, because we knew she had no one to rely on like before. At other times of the year, we didn’t go and see her, even though she’s one of us and we’ve been through thick and thin together and she’s in even bigger trouble than anyone else, because she’s on her own and she’s being bullied, but now she’s probably feeling better, because we keep visiting her to keep her company and to prevent her from doing anything foolish again.”
Having listened to the whole story, it was not hard for Sai to have a clear and comprehensive picture of what had happened. Distress, oppression and hardship made the farmers who faced common trouble come together massively to struggle against all kinds of evils. Real-life incidents were the best lessons, as could be seen when they fought against the Japanese military and as was the case now, without anyone having to teach or preach or talk them into it. Reality taught them the value of pulling their forces together in peaceful times, for instance in rice planting and harvesting. The biggest tasks could be accomplished when a great number of people got together to work as one. Out of such lessons they had gotten together to try to cut off the roots of the evil that oppressed them.
But the struggle for their legitimate rights was not only a matter of resistance and refusal to give in to intrusion and intimidation, it also involved a fight through the body of laws of the land, and this was the problem that the embattled farmers had come to consult Sai about.
“As far as the law is concerned, that is, as a lawyer, I am ready to help you as much as I can,” Sai said with feeling. His tone was firm and assured as of someone who speaks in the awareness of the rightness of his decision.
He noticed that all of the faces present lit up. It was as though the morning light had suddenly flooded through to his inner self with an energy which made him feel strong and strangely happy.
Kert raised his joined hands above his head. “I’m a complete innocent in matters of law, sir. With you helping us like this, I feel relieved.”
Mr. Run, whose land case was now before a third court, which left him almost destitute, expressed his feelings by saying, “I’ve been sued for so long that almost the last option I have is to sell myself. My lawyer at first was all gung-ho, sir, but lately, maybe because I have no more money, it seems he’s lost his pep. Worse, he’s even trying to convince me to accept to split my land in half with the plaintiff. It might well be that he’s on the man’s payroll as the rumor has it. Think that you’ll be helping poor people, sir. None of us ever forgets a favor.”
“It’s not a question of favor at all,” Sai answered. “I’m pleased to accept the legal work because I consider myself as one of you. My brothers and my sister are still farmers. My neighbors are like my relatives when they are in trouble. Besides, it’s the duty of a lawyer to help maintain justice, but then, legal justice is a matter of documents and regulations as prescribed by the law. It often happens that legal justice differs from social justice, and I think that to fight with legal means only is still not enough, but we must fight in order to stretch the time so we can keep earning a living for a while longer, until we have a better option.”

25

Sai and Ratchanee went on meeting frequently, sometimes in town and sometimes Sai came to see her at home. He told her about the various things happening in his life, the struggle of the farmers, poor and deep in debt, and the court cases related to land, and she told him about the events in her life openly and sincerely as she had never told anyone besides a few friends of her sex.
Their closeness and Sai’s visits were matters that created growing vexation in the house. His Lordship and his wife peered from an upper-floor window down to the water pavilion where the two of them sat talking.
“This confounded ghost prevents me from sleeping. I do not like to see his face at all. Why don’t you forbid her to see him?”
“Oh, I have done so hundreds of times. She just does not listen,” his wife answered. “She has always been so stubborn. You know how she is. On my own, she does not fear me.”
“If this man keeps coming here like this what are we to do?” His Lordship said as if seeking advice.
“I am at my wits’ end as well, since she insists on seeing him. I have a strange feeling about the two of them. I am afraid she likes him too. I have noticed that when this man comes, she is all smiles, unlike when Kraisee or others are around.”
His Lordship paced the upper-floor room, his hands behind his back, as if deep in thought. “You do not know how to raise your children.”
His wife went on staring out the window without a change. Nearly fifty years of common life did not make her take the least exception of her husband’s remark. Every time that something untoward happened, it was always her fault. His Lordship never did any anything wrong and certainly never admitted that he did.
“This child of ours is stupid,” His Lordship went on. “Do you see now? I told you a high education would not make her more intelligent.”
“Lek is not stupid. Maybe she is still too much of a child to be aware of people’s cunning. He must be fawning on her to make her feel so pleased. Men like him, as you know, are past masters of deceit,” his wife said, making excuses for her daughter.
“It only shows how ungrateful she is. Good people she does not like. She takes maces for lotuses. One of these days, she will be crying her heart out.”
His Lordship dropped into an armchair and closed his eyes wearily. “I cannot sleep. This ghost is haunting me day and night.”
The wind made the white window curtains flap and they flailed the two big, cool, blue and china vases set against the wall on one side of the room.
The lady sighed discreetly. Her eldest daughters were both respectably married. There was only Lek left for her parents to worry about. Would she turn out to be the one to bring the good name of the family into disrepute?

At the water pavilion.
“Your parents must be very unhappy to see me visiting you here,” Sai said evenly.
“Yes, rather,” Ratchanee answered truthfully. “It isn’t just that they don’t like you to come here: they don’t want us to meet at all.”
“I’m sorry to make things difficult for you like this,” he went on.
Ratchanee shook her head. “Not at all, I think it’s only natural. I often have disagreements with my parents. It’s normal between people of different generations. They were born in one era, they have their own ideas they keep insisting upon, they refuse to change with the times. We who are born in a later period have different ideas, which happen to often clash with theirs. I think that’s the reason.”
He nodded in agreement. “We belong to a new generation which looks at the world and everything with candor. We look at everything that has been critically and rationally. I think that with the question ‘Why?’, with a single word, we can turn the whole world and everything in it upside down and examine the reasons for it.” Sai looked up at the upper floor of the house. Ratchanee did the same. “Actually, your parents mean well, you know,” he asserted further, “from their own point of view.”
“Yes, but meaning well and compelling are two different things which should not be confused. I’m not old enough to have an all-round understanding of life, but on some things I have my own ideas.”
He looked at her longer than usual. Ratchanee returned his stare. What each was feeling poured out of their gazes and entered the other’s heart.
“In a few days I’ll go home upcountry.”
“How long will you be gone?”
“Ten days to two weeks at the very least. We won’t be meeting for some time. These days I feel that not meeting you for a long time is a kind of torture.”
Ratchanee lowered her gaze to the two needle fish swimming at the surface of the clear water of the ditch.
“How long have you been feeling like this?” she asked in a low voice without turning to look at him.
“I can’t say when it began, because it didn’t happen all of a sudden, but it came about gradually, a little at a time, without my realizing it, like our knowledge and understanding of each other.”
“I’d like you to go and see the way of life upcountry,” he went on when he saw her keeping quiet, “so that you know the real living conditions of the majority of the people. But then, to go there as an observer for a limited period of time isn’t enough to really understand the life they lead. This can only come about when we share their existence, their happiness and trouble — that’s when we’ll know them, understand them and love them.”
“I think like you that if we don’t find ourselves in a given situation, it’s hard for us to understand those who do.”
“Yes, that’s one thing, but a lasting condition is more important. A rich man may say that he has been hungry before and knows how bad it feels to go hungry, but it may be that he missed a meal because he was too busy with his accounting, or strolling or chatting, but he can have food any time he wants and as good as he wants it, but if a poor man starves because he has nothing to eat and no idea where his next meal is going to come from, we can say it is hunger also, but his situation is fundamentally different, and it’s the same for the city people who tour the countryside for a short while and see life upcountry as so happy and free, far from the bustle and hustle of the city, with only silence, the warmth of the sunshine and the coolness of the wind. That’s because they are still city people. They are not bound to country land, which has never known piped water or electricity and has no doctors or hospitals. If they did stay, they’d know at once that the advantages of country life are almost nothing compared to the disadvantages, and we can’t go on deceiving ourselves for ever.”
“When you are back, tell me about it.”
He nodded. “Yes, but being told about something can’t compare with seeing it with one’s own eyes. But then you’re not in a position to do so.”
“Maybe one day,” Ratchanee said with a firm voice, “maybe one day I shall.”
A car came through the gate of the compound. Its driver was quick to notice Ratchanee sitting in the pavilion and braked to a halt instead of going straight to the main house. “Hello there, Miss Ratchanee, how are you?” he greeted her from his car seat, making as if to get out of the car, but when he saw her sitting with a man he froze.
Ratchanee stood up and bowed to him. “I’m fine, thank you. Do join us.”
The young man in a yellow sports shirt and light gray woolen trousers stepped out of the car and walked over to the pavilion. “If I leave my car like this, will it be in the way?”
“It won’t. I don’t think there will be any other car coming or leaving.” Ratchanee introduced the two men to each other by merely saying, “Mr. Kraisee, this is Mr. Sai”.
Kraisee looked Sai in the eyes briefly as he nodded. “Glad to meet you, sir.”
“So am I,” Sai answered.
“How are your parents?” Kraisee asked after he sat himself down across from Ratchanee. “I haven’t been here for days.”
“They are fine, thank you.”
“How are things these days? What are you doing? Still going to work and coming back home every day as usual?” he said, then laughed.
“Yes,” Ratchanee answered pithily.
Sai made as if to get up. “I think I must leave.”
“Not yet, let’s talk for a while longer,” Ratchanee protested, and the way she looked at him made him remain seated as before.
“I’ve been reading in the paper that you’ve entered the tennis competition. How are you doing?” Ratchanee asked Kraisee.
“I kept winning. I licked a foreigner in two sets, six-o, six-o, but I lost in the semi-finals yesterday. Actually, he wasn’t that good and I could have beaten him easily, but I grew a bit careless, and then the night before I had little sleep because I attended a party at a friend’s house, so I lost.” He stroked his arm and flexed his muscles without realizing it.
“Never mind, you’ll do better next year,” she said as if to console him.
“Sure. I’m really sorry I lost in the singles, but at the club I’m still the best.” He turned toward Sai. “Do you like tennis, sir?”
“I like to watch,” Sai answered, “but I can’t play.”
“Too bad.” He shook his head. “Tennis is a very exciting game. When I was abroad, I played tennis throughout the summer period. Skating in winter, tennis in summer. What about you, Ratchanee, do you play tennis?”
“I’m also one of those who like to watch but can’t play.”
“You must go some day. The day after tomorrow, I’ll be competing at the club,” Kraisee invited her, but perhaps because of the presence of Sai, he did not dare insist, because if she refused, as she usually did, in front of a third party, especially another man, he would be shown up.
Kraisee stayed talking for a while longer, then stood up. “I must go and see your parents. Mother asked me to do so in her name as well.” He walked back to his car, started the engine and drove to the main house.
Ratchanee and Sai sat in silence for a while, and Ratchanee was the one to break it. “He is the son of an old friend of my parents’. He came back from abroad five or six months ago. He is now scouring the Bangkok high society.” Her last sentence was pronounced with a touch of mockery.
“It figures,” Sai answered.
“Sometimes he comes and talks so much I get bored. If you weren’t here, I’m sure he’d still be talking.”
“I think I must go back.” He stood up. “When I’m back from upcountry, we’ll meet again.”
“Yes,” she said in a low voice. “Don’t forget to tell me about it.”
Her eyes followed his back until he disappeared past the gate. She felt as though he was taking with him a part of what was her happiness.
She turned round to look at the house and sighed softly. Kraisee was clever, she thought to herself, to ingratiate himself with her parents while she was trying to erect a barrier around herself to foil his attempts at getting through to her, and he did know how to get through to his elders, naturally enough for someone of his social background. Ratchanee thought of these two men, one to whom the door of the house was wide open in welcome but the door of her heart was closed forever, and the other whom the door of the house let through most grudgingly but for whose sole welcome the door of her heart had been built.
Ratchanee stepped back slowly from the pavilion to the main house, deep in thought. The huge building in front of her was like an existential obstacle barring her way ahead. ‘Maybe I’ll have to rebel against the family one day—”

26

Jittin looked at the body that moved in front of him, looked at its shapely proportions and at the way it walked and sat and deported and expressed itself, all things he was familiar with since he had seen them day after day over a long period of time. Familiarity and closeness had lasted long enough to generate a new feeling in his heart, of which he was only now becoming aware.
He lit a cigarette. With his gaze on the curls of smoke coming out of his mouth, he sat pensively, trying to figure out that special feeling and find out how it had come about — what had caused it and when exactly it had come to be. It was impossible that it had happened without him being aware of it, or that it had just broken out like a bout of malaria. But then, he gave up his attempt. Matters of the heart were intangible, and searching among them for origins was much harder than seeking the source of the Jao Phraya river. Never mind. Knowing when the feeling had come about was not important. He was now certain of what his heart felt, and that was sufficient.
Right then, it dawned on him that Jitra, his sister, had been right. “Men are stupid,” she had said to his face when their conversation had turned to his female friends. “How is that, Noi? You can’t say things like that without evidence.” “There’s plenty of evidence, plenty of proof. One day wouldn’t be enough to go through it.” He had laughed. “You always exaggerate. Just give me one example.” “Well, when they look at women, men only look at beauty and aren’t interested in goodness. Take you, for example, you like women like Chertchawee, like Amarawadee.” “I don’t see what’s wrong with that,” he had objected. “Maybe nothing’s wrong with that if you think that chasing after men like children running after butterflies or crickets is appropriate. I don’t know what you see in these two: they’re only good at dressing up and going out. Real socialites.” “So what?” he had said provocatively. “Well, it proves my point: men who go for looks only are stupid, and there’s always plenty of stupid people like this around.” His sister had spoken sharply. “If I were you,” she had added eagerly, “I’d go for Ratchanee.” He had been still for a while, then had said in a low voice, “She’s your friend. No wonder you’re rooting for her.” “Sure, I must always side with good people,” his sister had argued, “but you overlook her because she’s not trying to cling to you like the others do. I think she’s better than all of them put together.”
Jitra was right, Jittin thought, and his gaze went back to the woman in front of him, who sat at her desk so absorbed in her work that she did not notice she was being observed. Ratchanee was not the flashy type. She always dressed neatly and properly when she came to work. He felt that she had an oddly enticing charm which worked through him in ineffable ways the longer he looked at her.
Jittin’s social status was an advantage for him in women’s eyes. Several women had been involved in his life in the past, and some still were. They had come and gone one after the other, in a succession of superficial encounters which he had never taken seriously. Now that he was nearing thirty, it was about time he got serious about life at last.
Jitra was right indeed. Ratchanee was unlike the other women who had entered his life. She behaved with just the right amount of reserve. Unlike them, she regarded him as nothing more than a colleague at work and did not make herself easily available. Maybe this was one of the reasons why he, who had always had everything easily, was striving for something more difficult to obtain.
He would long have been married had he been serious about starting a family, and he could still tie the knot now or whenever, because he knew many women and several of them were close enough to him not to turn him down were he to declare his love, but he was satisfied with keeping them as friends, as modern minds were wont to do, which made some people think that he kept his options open as far as women were concerned, but the heart of the matter was that Jittin was satisfied with their friendship. He had never thought of love and marriage and had been too fond of his bachelor life to think of giving it up.
But now, a new feeling, steadfast and earnest, had taken hold of him and its power of attraction was too strong and mysterious for him to resist. Married life would be not a little wonderful all the same, he thought and started to dream — a plot of land in the suburbs, a small house, modern and painted in gay colors, decorated by a good decorator, with flower beds and a run of clear water, and a beloved housewife: those were worthy aims and achievements in life, were they not?
His train of thought, which was racing far ahead, came to an abrupt halt when Ratchanee took a batch of documents to his desk. He smiled a little sheepishly, like a child caught doing something naughty behind a grownup’s back. Ratchanee’s expression was normal, except that her interest in her work showed itself in an ease of manners which translated into a slight smile at the corners of her mouth. She turned round and walked back to her desk. He opened his mouth to call her, but checked himself in time.
She was still an enigma to him. He was not able to read how she felt as clearly as he did his other female friends, but it made him all the more interested, all the more eager to know. She was both a puzzle and an attraction. He had spoken to her on occasion in fairly obvious courting ways, but she had not responded. She knew how to avoid problems that would tie her down, how to keep her own feelings under wraps, and she always kept the proper distance in her closeness to him.
Jittin waited a long time for the right occasion to reveal his feelings to Ratchanee, and his opportunity came one day when he found himself alone with her.
“There’s something I’d like to discuss with you,” Jittin said with a voice he tried to keep normal. “It’s a personal matter and it has to do with important sentimental matters.”
Ratchanee was still.
He stole a glance at her, then asked, “How do you feel about this?”
“I thank you for the honor you’re giving me by consulting me about a personal matter close to your heart,” she answered. “If I can be of any help, I’ll be delighted.”
“Thank you,” he said in a low voice. “What do you think? Do you think it’d be proper for a man like me to get married or not yet?”
“Of course it would,” Ratchanee answered without hesitation.
“Why?”
“Because you’re old and mature enough to.”
He sat thinking for a while, then asked, “I’ve never thought about love and marriage until very recently.”
“I’m delighted for you,” Ratchanee said enthusiastically.
“Not yet — don’t be delighted yet.” He raised his hand to stop her. “Not until I finish saying what I have to say, because I myself don’t know if I’ll get married or not.”
“How come!” Ratchanee exclaimed. “Why is that?”
“Because I don’t know yet if the person I love loves me or not. For the time being, I only have someone to love, and I’m not sure if I’ll have someone to love me.”
“Why don’t you let her know, then?”
“You think I should tell the one I love so she knows I love her?”
“I don’t see anything wrong with that.”
“But maybe she’ll laugh at me.”
“It’s unlikely, if she’s a good person,” she answered.
“Suppose you were that lady. How would you feel?”
“Oh, come now, I can suppose no such thing.” Ratchanee laughed diffidently and blushed a little. “You can’t make suppositions in a matter like this, because it all depends on individual feelings.”
“Well then, don’t suppose, and think it’s true. I’d like to ask you how you feel—” His voice trailed away. He extended his hand to cover hers, which was resting on the desk, but she withdrew it swiftly.
He went on speaking in a fairly low voice but full of feeling. “I love you, Miss Ratchanee.”
Ratchanee’s face turned a deeper red. “Are you trying to shock me for fun?”
“Not at all. I’m not kidding. It’s true. I love you,” he stressed.
“I’ve never thought of anything like that,” Ratchanee said, her voice trembling with stage fright. “And I feel startled — very much so indeed.” She tried to control her nerves by biting her lips.
“Maybe you don’t like me,” he said weakly.
She shook her head. “You’re a good man, Mr. Jittin, in my opinion, and I have the greatest respect for you.”
“This is not what I want.” He shook his head slowly. “What I want is love.”
“I think there’s someone else who loves you.”
“Who is that?” he asked.
“You should know. Someone in this office.”
“Chertchawee?”
Ratchanee nodded.
Jittin shook his head. “I’ve never felt anything for Chertchawee, except as a friend, just like my other women friends. It’s true I do have several friends who are women. We get along as true friends.”
“But I’m certain that she loves you.”
Jittin shrugged. “There’s nothing I can do about that. She must have misunderstood and let her imagination run wild.” Jittin sighed. “Life is strange. The one I don’t love loves me and the one I love doesn’t.”
Ratchanee looked him in the eye for the briefest instant. When she saw the glint of dismay in his eyes, she dared not meet his gaze again. Not a word escaped her lips right then.
“Would you mind telling me to what extent I may entertain the hope that you might love me?”
“I do wish you happiness in life with all my heart, but as far as loving you is concerned, I’m sorry, I have no such feeling as yet.”
He let out a long sigh. The brightly lit paradise of his dream had crumbled down in a mere instant. “I’m an unlucky man,” he groaned as a man without hope would exclaim.
“Actually I think I’m not worthy of being loved by you. Sometimes one must refuse something of the utmost value that one is being offered, out of awareness that one isn’t worth that much, and that’s the case for me.”
“You’re only saying this because you don’t want me to feel slighted, but the truth is, your love is something too valuable for someone like me to reach out to, or maybe your heart is no longer available.”
Ratchanee shook her head but said nothing.
“Nonetheless, whether there is already or will be in future, I congratulate that most lucky gentleman — the gentleman who will love you and will be loved by you.”
Ratchanee smiled sadly. She felt for the spirit of this man, forthright, gentlemanly and fair. ‘You’re one of the best men I know, Mr. Jittin,’ her heart told her, but she did not say so. ‘I love and respect you like a younger sister would an elder brother, or a friend would a friend, if that were possible, but it isn’t love.’
“I shall always respect you, Mr. Jittin,” she said with a voice that trembled with feeling.
He took a deep breath. “I’ll try to suppress my feelings so that I don’t love you any more. Let’s be friends from now on, shall we?” He stretched his hand and covered hers as it lay on the desk and squeezed it tightly as if in commitment.
“Yes, Mr. Jittin. Just love me like your own little sister,” Ratchanee said, choked up with emotion.


27

He stood in the middle of a wide esplanade which served as a paddy threshing floor, while the sun slipped behind the tree tops of the spread of jungle rising against the sky to the west far away. The air around him was moist with the fragrance of grass and earth and the vapor from the still waters of the canal and of the fish pond. From the line of tiger’s claw trees along the dike of the pond about forty meters away from the house came the sound of a dog barking. The wind of the early evening began to gather strength and with the wind, clouds of mosquitoes came out in their nightly search for food. His nephew carried armfuls of grass to a pile next to the buffalo pen, preparing to burn the grass to keep the mosquitoes at bay. When it grew a little darker, the cloud of mosquitoes would thicken. It was exactly like in the old days. Nothing had changed. ‘How long will we have to keep fighting these things?’ he thought to himself — the mosquitoes, gnats, ants, termites, caterpillars and all the other insects, and even the snakes.
Only the day before yesterday, Young Waen, Old Wang’s son, had been bitten by a cobra while he was cutting grass to feed his buffalo. Relatives had taken him to the public dispensary at the district. It turned out that the male nurse was not there and could not be located. Before Young Waen’s relatives found this out from the man on duty, many precious minutes had been lost. They had taken Young Waen in a fast dugout with two rowers to the water gate, and from there on a bus to the provincial town. A couple of hours later, they had taken him back, and everything was exactly as before, except for one thing: Young Waen had died on the way to the provincial dispensary. He was a young man of conscription age. In the next dry season, if he was not called up as a soldier, his parents intended to have him enter the monkhood. They so much hoped to see their only son in saffron robes. Young Waen did enter the monastery, though not as a monk, but as a corpse to be cremated.
He walked on along the dike of the pond, which was fairly flat. His sister-in-law came out and stood looking by the door, perhaps wondering what kind of pleasure he found in walking about at dusk like that, then she disappeared inside the house as before. Bai, his younger brother, was as dull as a log. He had gone back down to the house, then had not come out again, and if there was no work outside, he would not leave the house for the whole day. He did not like to mix with anybody. His wife must like his being such a homebody, but he thought that it was a bit too much for country people like them not to mix with anyone, not to care about what happened outside the house, and behave in an every-man-for-himself kind of way as his brother did. When there was something to be done, you could not ask for anybody’s assistance, even though there were so many occasions in rural life when you had to help one another out. He was as different from Chao, his elder brother, who seemed to be involved in other people’s businesses from dawn to dusk, as heaven and earth. When Bai found out that he had come over for the matter of the land cases, he had said, “Why do you get involved with these people? Don’t you like your nice life in Bangkok?” There were the only words he had said, then he had sat down with his back against the rainwater jar placed near the wall inside the house, had rolled himself a strip of atap palm and had smoked it grimly, his eyes on the roof as if he was counting the pieces of atap thatching. This was how he behaved day in, day out.
He had not replied. His sister-in-law was the one who was excited and interested about what happened to others everywhere, but maybe because she deferred to her husband, she behaved pretty much like him. Nonetheless, she was much more lively than Bai, who was as dull as a log.
Bai’s situation was not so bad, because he owned and worked his own paddy field, which he had inherited from their father, and, to his credit, he was diligent, neither gambled nor fooled around and was thrifty, so he was not as hard-pressed as the others, and this kind of existence made him unwilling to get involved with anyone, afraid as he was to waste precious working hours on other people’s business or to have to part with some of his hard-earned gains at a time when he was not yet feeling materially secure enough.
After he had asserted the veracity of the facts by himself once again, he saw that what he had believed from the first was correct and was truly just. The farmers who grew rice by the sweat of their brows were the true owners of the paddy fields. One side struggled for their lives, to be safe from total ruin, whereas the other side fought to grab everything they could lay their hands on, and in order to achieve this, used all kinds of tricks, both legal and illegal, resorting to coercion and extortion to set people against one another and turn neighbors into brother enemies, in hundreds and thousands of ways.
He walked absorbed in his thoughts until he came to the dike which had a line of tiger’s claw trees and wild grass. At the end of the pond, there was a large swathe of reeds which had not been cleared since last year. He suddenly realized it was getting dark. He took a deep breath, inhaling the wind. Dang, his younger brother’s dog, which had in no time become his close friend, had barked fiercely around here a moment ago and was now back and stood beside him. Its eyes were on the reeds, as if it was aware of something. He stopped walking and followed the dog’s gaze and in that very instant saw some movement out there and even before his nerves could react, some instinct made him rush for shelter behind the nearest tree, and in the twinkling of an eye there was a double detonation. Bang! Bang! Dang yelped, then turned round and darted out without looking back. He stood still as if stunned by what had just happened, with a ringing in his ears and feeling numb all over. He kept standing still against the tiger’s claw tree trunk and tried to use his brain to figure out what was what, and his hair stood on end all over his body when he realized what had happened.
He listened intently. Everything was quiet. There was only the whine of mosquitoes swarming about and the sound of the wind in the swaying branches. He moved away from the tiger’s claw tree, then looked at himself to see if there was any blood flowing out, but it was too dark by now to see anything clearly. He moved his head, moved one hand, then the other. He felt better that they moved and he felt no pain. His legs were not hurting either. He fingered himself all over to make sure. Maybe he was still too numb to feel anything. But his hands met nothing liquid. There was nothing wrong with him, he hastened to reassure himself. ‘At least, no vital organ has been struck, because I can stand,’ but even so his hair stood on end every time he thought about it.
He started to walk, fairly confident that he would not be shot at for the second time in succession, because no criminal was up to acting like this: since he had used such a cowardly way of hiding himself to commit his dastardly deed, he would just take flight, but he still was not entirely confident that he would be safe from a steel, lead or copper bullet, depending on which sort of gun it would come racing out of.
The land wind chilled his face and his body, as if nature meant to console him. The darkness of the night might be secretive and full of danger, but it was only at night that the wind grew colder, and it was especially cold for him as he was coated in sweat.
When he was half way back, he bumped into his brother and sister-in-law who had come out in search of him. They were brandishing a sword, a three-pronged fishing spear and a torch. Bai directed the torch at him, inspecting him from head to toe. “Are you all right?”
He looked at himself in the torchlight. “I think he missed. Let’s go back. Don’t go after him. By now, he must be far away.”
When they reached the house, he checked himself all over in the light of an extra candle, then felt three or four times better than he would under normal circumstances. His sister-in-law looked excited and startled, and his brother looked worried.
A boat clunked against the landing, then a voice asked, “What were these gunshots, Bai? Was is near your house or where?”
He recognized Chao’s voice.
“Someone taking pot shots,” Bai answered.
“On whom? Anyone hit?” the voice asked worriedly as its owner appeared at the door. Chao had come with his son, who was back home for the hot-season school holiday.
“It’s nothing, Chao,” Sai answered. “Luckily, I hid behind a tiger’s claw in the nick of time. Missed me by a whisker,” he added, trying to make it sound funny.
“Dang had been barking loudly from thereabouts,” his sister-in-law said, “but I never thought you’d go over there, and then I thought Dang was barking at the wind or something, as usual.”
“I told you already,” Bai said without conviction. “You shouldna get involved.”
Chao glared at his brother. Bai turned his eyes away and was quiet.
“Did you see the guy?”
Sai shook his head. “Not at all. He was in the reeds. Actually, Dang helped save my life.” He glanced at the dog, which was now back and crouched hobbing nearby. He stroke its head softly. Dang wagged his tail and his eyes looked pleased as if he knew what was being said about him. “I got suspicious when I saw it kept looking at the reeds. By then, it was getting dark. I couldn’t see anything clearly, just something moving in the reeds, so I jumped behind the nearest tree. That’s when he fired.”
His sister-in-law raised her joined hands above her head and bowed without saying anything.
“If I had seen him, I probably wouldn’t be able to tell you about it, because I’d be dead before I could tell anyone,” he said with laughter in his voice as if to make light of the whole affair. “I didn’t see him but I’m safe, and I reckon that’s better.” He thought that he was feeling okay again, because when he spoke and thought of the event, his hair no longer stood on end like it had a moment ago.
“Even though we don’t know who did it,” Chao said in earnest, “we can tell from which quarters it comes.”
“That’s easy enough to figure out, but never mind, it’s better if we stay put,” he answered.
“You must be careful, especially at dusk,” his elder brother warned him.
Sai realized that he had been a little too complacent thinking that this land was vast and free like when he was just coming of age, at a time when these parts where still a wilderness which crocodiles, giant lizards, tiger fish, monkeys and venomous snakes of all types and sizes roamed at will. But no, he did not mean that the days of wild animals were better than the days of man, that the era of impenetrable jungle was better than the era of flat and airy paddy fields with their assorted villages, shops, markets and Buddhist temples. The difference was that in the days when the jungle was beginning to be cleared, man only faced wild animals and nature, from which he was able to know when and how danger would come, but in the era of oppression and use of power to grab profits, he seldom knows where danger comes from and how, now that people are being impelled to hate one another through bribes, wages and other evils.
When he had gone to talk to a group of four or five people to examine the relevant facts and legal documents, some of them had looked at him with suspicion and one had asked him pointblank, “What’s your purpose in doing what you’re doing? That’s what I’d like to know.” Sai had felt instantly that the work he had undertaken was not as straightforward a matter as it should be. He had felt that there must be lots of complicated things involved, all kinds of tricks and underhand practices. “If I came here,” he had answered slowly and firmly, his eyes in the eyes of the man who had asked the question, “first of all it’s because people in trouble came to consult me about their legal cases, so I came down to examine the facts, and when I found the situation to be like this, I felt sorry that I, who was born in this village, never paid attention to it before. I’m a lawyer and in my line of work, I look for two things: I look for justice, and I look for a source of income. Therefore, what I want is fairness. You may wonder why I’ve put myself at the service of the villagers without requiring a fee like other lawyers do. Well, that’s because I can see what the situation of the farmers here is like. You and everyone else are well aware of it. But sure, since I work for them, what I ask is that they feed me and give me a roof to sleep under, and that’s enough for me to live, like everyone here.” Mr. Bunchuay, the primary school teacher, who had asked the question, had been silent. Sai had stared at everyone present in turn. Two men had avoided his gaze and looked down. The other three had met his gaze in a way that told of their confidence and faith. One of the latter had whispered to him after Mr. Bunchuay and two others had left the house, “They sent people to spread the idea that you came to deceive the villagers. What kind of a lawyer would help with a case without accepting a fee or something in exchange? There must be some trick.” He had nodded thoughtfully. He would be faced with terrible tricks and falsifications, outside of court as well as inside, which he would have to win over in both cases. In the first instance, he had to fight lies at all times with the truth. “I don’t want to say much,” he said in a low voice. “Just watch what happens.” “I believe you.” It was an answer which thrilled him as if he had taken a long draught of fresh, pure rainwater when his throat was parched from the slander and from the violence of backstabbing and then of frontal assault.
He had decided to return to Bangkok the next day, because he had to plead a case in court. Calumnies against him would happen again. ‘Never mind, let them talk. Lies don’t last; they are like soap bubbles kids blow up in the air but which burst with the least breeze.’ “Tomorrow I have to go to Bangkok, because I have an appointment in court.” He looked his elder brother in the eye. “But I’ll be back.”
Chao did not say anything, but his expression showed that he believed what his brother was saying.
The news of his return to Bangkok together with the news that he had been shot at soon reached Chinaman Hua’s liquor and noodles shop at the market, where the local hoodlums gathered regularly.
“What did I tell ya? I was right. A softy like him, the first scratch he gets he runs back crying to his mom.” Then the speaker laughed gleefully.
“He was so scared his liver burst, I’m sorry to say. People saw him when he took the boat back. He was as yellow as a boiled chicken,” a crony added.
“Believe me, he won’t be back. He knows that if he returns, he’ll lose his life for nothing. Actually, we should feel for him. Everyone care about his own life, wouldn’t you say?” the first speaker went on.
Many villagers tended to agree with the market talk, but many others still kept their faith in him.

28

When he walked down the steps of the court of justice, it was almost midday. The deliberation of the case of one of his clients was over. The only thing left was wait to be called to hear the verdict. These days he did not take on new cases, but merely cleared up the cases he had accepted before, to free as much time as he could for the cases of the villagers, which he held to be matters of special importance.
He had almost reached the last flight of stairs when he heard someone calling him from behind. “Sai!” He stopped and turned round and saw Chert, his partner at the office, with Ko-wit, another lawyer, coming down the steps.
“Where are you off to in such a hurry?” Chert asked.
Sai smiled a little and did not answer his question.
“How are you, sir?” Ko-wit greeted him as he came up to him. They knew each other as lawyers but were not close, though they exchanged a few casual words whenever they bumped into each other in court or elsewhere.
“You’re free for lunch, aren’t you?” Chert asked. “Let’s have lunch together.”
“There’s nothing special, is there?” Sai answered.
“No, but be my guest,” Ko-wit explained instead. “I’d like you to come along. There’s nothing, sir. Just the three of us, to have a jolly good chat, that’s all.”
“Can’t it wait until some other time?” Sai equivocated. He already knew that Ko-wit was the lawyer handling the land cases on behalf of the landowner. He saw no point in having lunch with him that day. He guessed that Ko-wit would somehow try to take advantage of him on that occasion, which was something he could not allow, and he himself did not expect anything from Ko-wit at all. Therefore he thought it would be nothing but a waste of time.
“Come on, Sai, come with us,” Chert urged.
“If there’s something you want to discuss, it’d be better for you to come over to our office,” Sai turned to tell Ko-wit. “It’d be more private and businesslike that way.”
“No, there’s nothing important, really. Just chatting along.” He looked at his wristwatch. “It’s almost twelve already. Let’s go to the Chinese restaurant, so we don’t waste time.”
Finally Sai had to go along reluctantly. Ko-wit took them to his car, which was parked nearby. It was a fairly new Austin sedan.
“What was it like upcountry? Did you have a good time?” Chert asked as the car ran. Ko-wit did the driving.
Sai chuckled. “I did — I had a great time, and a brush with danger too.”
“I know that you are the farmers’ lawyer,” Ko-wit said, his eyes on the road ahead.
“That’s right,” he answered.
“I—” Ko-wit checked himself. “It so happens that I am the lawyer of the landowner. I’ve been his lawyer for a long time, sir, a few years already, since the first cases started, actually.”
“I too am aware of this.”
“You’re smart,” Chert told Ko-wit. “As gamblers say in horse racing, you certainly know how to pick a winner. You got this car free, didn’t you?”
“I wouldn’t put it like this,” Ko-wit said, trying to justify himself. “It came with the job. A lawyer provides a service of a kind by finding ways and means of winning the case for his client. How this is rewarded is up to the client. I didn’t ask for anything, but he saw that I didn’t have a car and going anywhere wasn’t convenient, so he bought one for me, that’s all.”
“But there’s something else which is important in a lawyer’s work, and that’s justice. Such is my opinion anyway. Maybe I’m wrong, because if I’m not, a lawyer is nothing but a hired hand.”
“I won’t argue with that, but the meaning of justice, you know, isn’t as clear-cut as two plus two makes four. Justice, I think, is at best an ambiguous concept. Therefore, let’s say that justice is done when a case is won, and leave it at that.”
Ko-wit stopped speaking when the car entered a crowded area. He parked near a well-known Chinese restaurant.
“You went down to see how things were. So, what do you think?” Ko-wit asked after they had ordered their food.
“I too am trying to seek justice for my clients to the best of my abilities,” Sai said as he lifted his cup of Chinese tea and took a sip.
“Actually, these cases are rather complex,” Ko-wit went on after taking a big gulp of beer. “I’ve looked at the documentary evidence, I’ve studied the facts from the very beginning, and I feel that both sides have a case. I’m talking in general, you understand, not about any particular case, but looking at it strictly from a legal point of view, I feel that my client has the advantage. But then, as you know, conducting legal proceedings is in nobody’s interest. The longer a trial lasts, the more both plaintiff and defendant suffer. I personally feel much sympathy for the farmers, because they must be the side that suffers more. They have to waste money and resources and working hours. What I’m saying here is taking into consideration the interests of both sides. For my part, I’ve nothing to lose. It doesn’t matter to me how many years the cases will last. The longer they go on, the better off I am. Isn’t that right, sir? But to think like this is too selfish, without any concern for the poor. Have you thought, in the present situation, of what can be done in the interest of the two sides?”
“I haven’t thought about it yet,” Sai answered. “But listening to you talk, I get the impression you already have something in mind.”
“That’s right, I’ve been doing some thinking. I feel that if we can come to some sort of compromise without antagonizing either side, it’d be in the interests of everybody concerned.”
“What would be the basis of a compromise?” Sai asked.
“I think the fairest thing to do is split the land under contention and give one half to each party. This way, I think each side wouldn’t lose everything, and in some cases the farmers have thirty to forty rai of land that are not in dispute. What’s in dispute is only twenty to fifty rai. Splitting the contested plots in half would leave the farmers with more land. I think this way is the most just, and believe me, it’s better to settle the cases out of court, they’re only a waste of time—”
Chert nodded as if he agreed.
“But I think there are still problems—”
“There might be something else that bothers you,” Ko-wit interrupted. “For instance, er — excuse me, sir, don’t think I’m going too far. Think of this as a talk between friends who should come to the point rather than beat about the bush. It’s only normal that, when we perform a task, we’re properly remunerated. I’ve been thinking about this as well, as I see it as a matter of paramount interest, and I feel you should be compensated for having the cases discontinued, and my side is willing to give you such compensation instead of your clients the farmers, because we consider that, even though each side will benefit, we should take on most of the burden.”
Sai was silent, letting him finish, and when Ko-wit stopped speaking, he did not answer at once.
“Fair enough,” Chert said. “The one who has got much can afford to give out much; the ones who have got little don’t have to pay. Very fair indeed.”
“In all fairness, each side will benefit and thus should shoulder the expenses equally, but out of compassion, my side’s willing to take on the whole burden.”
“All right, sir. I’ve listened to you long enough and I think I understand the matter well enough,” Sai finally said. “But I don’t think you understand the problem correctly altogether. To begin with, I’m merely the lawyer of the litigants, I am not the litigants. I have neither the duty nor the right to do anything behind their backs, and my clients certainly didn’t allow me to.”
“That point is not important,” Ko-wit said. “Those farmers, they believe you blindly. If you show them the validity of what I’ve said, they’ll agree to a man.”
“Don’t be so sure, my dear sir,” Sai answered. “You talk of fairness, of compassion, you’ve invoked such notions. I’d like to talk about them as well. Maybe fairness and compassion as you and I understand them aren’t the same. When you offer to compromise, you offer to split the land in dispute half and half between your side and the people’s side. You see this as fair, but I think fairness should not be six of this and half a dozen of the other. In fairness, the whole land in litigation should belong to one side only. If all of it is not for your side, then all of it should be for the people’s side. The problem is who is the real and lawful owner. In ancient times, when that land was still a jungle, there was never any litigation. It was only when the people went in and cleared the land and turned it into paddy fields which they worked for a living that the value of the land increased and legal disputes arose. True, I accept that there are some parts which your side claimed and sent its people to work on — plots of land which the farmers have never entered or claimed as their own — but for those other parts which your side claims to have reserved since the land was still a jungle but has not occupied or worked for dozens of years, during which time people occupied them and worked them for a living openly without any objection, I don’t agree that your suggestion of compromising by splitting land in half is fair to these people, because it’d be like your side getting what it isn’t entitled to, no matter how big or small the share. It isn’t that each side benefits, as you claim. It is as if the people had ten chickens and you claimed eight of them were yours, out of whatever right only heaven or hell might know about but ordinary people certainly don’t, and then agreed to compromise with half each, each side ending up with four chickens. Those four chickens you’d get, would that be fair?”
Ko-wit kept drinking his beer quietly, while Chert showed signs of nervousness.
“You talk about being ready to take on the burden of expenses out of compassion. In that case, you should consider instead compensating the people for the losses they must suffer in having to go to court to protect their legitimate rights against the demands of your side. If their losses are compensated in full, then we can talk about fairness, but when you offer a compensation to me, that’s a bribe, a straightforward case of corruption of a lawyer in the course of his duties, so that I use the faith people have in me along the lines that your side favors, which means, speaking plainly and to the point without beating about the bush, that you buy me off with your money in order for me to serve the interests of your side. Isn’t that so, sir?”
“You don’t understand what I said at all. I didn’t mean it like that,” Ko-wit protested.
“I think I understand well enough and, whether you accept it or not, that’s the truth, and I’m sorry to say that I cannot accept.”
“You aren’t being cooperative enough with us,” Ko-wit said, his face flushed either from the beer or from his own feelings. “I thought we could come to an understanding between us, so I wanted to talk things over with you, but to no avail. This being the case, we’ll go our own way.”
“Yes, that’s how it must be. You’ll go the way you think is correct, and I’ll go the way I think is correct as well, with no problem at the personal level either.”
Ko-wit went his own way when they left the restaurant. Chert and Sai went back to their office. All along the way, Chert looked very unhappy. When they reached the office, he followed Sai to his desk and sat himself down across from him, his face a picture of gloom. “I feel awful,” he said and sighed. “There’s something I want you to help me with, my friend.”
“What is it now?” Sai asked.
“But maybe it’s asking for too much, because it’s about the same thing we discussed with Ko-wit just now.”
Sai raised his eyebrow in puzzlement.
“Well, the story is like this,” Chert said hesitantly and turned his eyes away. “A few days ago, I found myself short of money for something I wanted urgently, so I went to borrow money—”
Sai shrugged. “This isn’t the first time, is it?”
“No, but this time is different, because the person I borrowed money from is the same landowner who is suing the farmers. We talked about a compromise along the lines Ko-wit told you. He said he gave that money free of charge to our law office.”
“To our office?” Sai repeated. “How much?”
“Not much, five thousand only,” Chert answered in an aggrieved tone of voice. “I didn’t know what the background to the story was then, so I accepted. It was an emergency, and I really needed the money.”
Sai sighed wearily. “The only solution is to return the money to him at once.”
Chert spread out his hands in hopelessness. “I don’t know where I can find any right now.”
“In that case, it means our law office must close down.”
“If you would just help me a little, as a friend—” Chert beseeched.
“You mean accept to compromise, is that it?” Sai asked harshly.
Chert nodded.
“You damn fool!” Sai exclaimed irritably. “You should know how to distinguish Mr. Sai your friend from Mr. Sai the lawyer. You can’t mix them up because they’re separate, and in this case I really can’t help you because in my capacity as a lawyer I’m not allowed to betray the interests of my clients in order to help a friend.”
Chert shook his head slowly. “I know — I’ve known as soon as I heard you talking with Ko-wit, but I don’t know what to do. I’m really stuck.”
Sai heaved a long sigh. “I’m sorry, Chert. I’m really sorry.”

29

He had to postpone his return to the countryside for four days. In fact, he had meant to stay in Bangkok for only three days, and hurry back once his client’s case was over, and he had already told some close friends that he would return within three days. He did not want to delay his return because it would give the opportunity to the opposite side to besmirch his reputation. But it was necessary for him to stay over, because Ratchanee told him that her father had arranged for a dinner party at home and was inviting him to attend, so he had to stay put.
When they met after he came back to Bangkok, Sai told her everything he had been through while he was upcountry as well as his conversation with Ko-wit. She was excited and fascinated by his stories as if they were strange and amazing tales that she had never thought could happen in this world.
“I think you did the right thing,” she opined. “You’re absolutely right.” That was all she said, without mentioning the trust and belief in his goodness that she felt in her heart.
“I intend to go back there tomorrow, as I’ve told some people already. I feel that if I don’t keep to the deadline, nothing good will come of it.”
“I wouldn’t want you to wait either.” There was concern in her voice. “But then, I don’t know what has come over Father, but he has set up a dinner party and expressly instructed me today to invite you. You’ll come, won’t you?”
“Yes.” He nodded. “I will come. What’s the occasion anyway, do you know?”
Ratchanee shook her head. “I’ve no idea, and it doesn’t seem to be an important date either. I did ask Father what the occasion was. He told me he wanted our relatives and close acquaintances to have some fun for once.”
He stroked his chin pensively. “But why should I be invited? I’m not a close acquaintance and His Lordship doesn’t seem to like me very much.”
“You never know, maybe he has had a change of heart,” Ratchanee said with a smile.
Sai laughed. “I accept with all my heart and my most grateful thanks,” he said in jest. “No matter how, I’ll be glad to come.”
He tried to figure out the reason why Ratchanee’s father would invite him. He could not think of any that made sense. Maybe His Lordship wanted to test whether someone like him would dare to attend such a function. Being such a lowly person, he would be expected to have a sense of inferiority. But if His Lordship thought like that, His Lordship misunderstood. He was self-confident enough to face anyone, like one faces everyone everywhere, and for this reason he decided to postpone his trip upcountry, because he felt that to stay on to attend a dinner party for the entertainment of an old man was a valid enough reason, even though it was of a rather personal nature.
When the day of the reception arrived, Sai went there at the appointed time. He was ushered into the reception room. There were already several people present. He tried to find His Lordship to pay his respects to the host, but His Lordship sat on an upholstered chair with its side to him, conversing with someone, and did not look like he would turn round at all. So he was left hanging like that under the gaze of everyone in the room. After a long time, His Lordship turned round. Sai lowered his head, his joined hands raised to his forehead. His Lordship nodded slightly — the slightest nod, so that one almost felt he had not returned the greeting — then turned his back again.
He took a few steps, looking at the people in the room. Ratchanee was not there yet, and the only person that he knew was Darunee, Ratchanee’s elder sister. He had met her in Bangsaen. He raised his hands and bowed to her. She walked over to him. “How are you?” she greeted him familiarly.
“I’m fine,” he answered. “How about you?”
“I’m fine too. Won’t you sit down?” she invited and let herself down onto a nearby chair. He sat down too, feeling a little better to have someone to talk with, but the behavior of the house owner was a danger signal warning him to be careful.
“I think Lek is still busy in the kitchen,” Darunee told him. “She’ll be here in a minute.”
Sai did not answer.
“We haven’t met in a long time,” Darunee said, trying to find something to talk about.
“I’m not often in Bangkok these days. I go upcountry often.”
But before he could tell her more, a man came over and told Darunee that she was needed elsewhere. “Please excuse me,” Darunee said as she stood up and went over to an old woman who had just come in.
He surmised that the man must be Darunee’s husband and that the other couple over there must be the eldest sister, Yuphadee, and her husband. He noticed that nearly all the guests in the room were old men. Two of them wore silk panungs like the host, including Yuphadee’s husband. Darunee’s husband wore a tuxedo. As for himself, he only wore a white suit. Another guest in the room that he knew was Kraisee, who also wore a tuxedo. Kraisee did not greet him, although he kept glancing at him and yet pretended not to see him.
After a while, Ratchanee came in. She wore an orange dress which made her white complexion paler than usual, especially around the face. She smiled at him, but it was a smile that looked terribly distraught. Before she could greet him, someone called her over in another direction, but as she left, she cast a sideways glance at him with eyes that expressed both apology and worry.
He kept watching her and saw her bow to a couple of a certain age, who looked like old aristocrats, then Kraisee walked up to her and talked to her all the time.
He looked at the crowd moving before him feeling an utter stranger, and the others probably felt the same toward him, but while he kept his eyes on the scene inside the room, on occasion his thoughts drifted from what he was seeing to other, far away visions — a swarm of sunburned faces; expanses of cracked paddy fields; swathes of reeds and grass in agony under the sun of the hot season; dark-skinned children under lampshade-shaped hats of palm who sat fishing on the canal dikes in the sweltering heat... Sometimes, someone would graze past him and a whiff of perfume would prompt him to return to the reality around him, but only an instant later, the refined cigarette smoke wafting through the air in the room would blur into the smoke of rice husk burnt at the rice mill, as lines of coolies trotted under bags of grain down the boats’ walk planks like an army of ants stashing food away in uninterrupted, endless lines, and then the complaints of the flutes drifted in with the evening breeze, which pushed gentle ripples against the gunwales of the barges loaded to the brim...
When it was time to eat, the host led the guests into the dining room, which was next to the reception room. Everyone else followed the host en masse. He noticed that Ratchanee was trying to lag behind but a middle-aged woman pulled her along with the crowd. He was the last one to walk into the room.
On the dinner table there were nameplates in front of each seat. There was only one long table. The host sat in the middle. Sai’s seat was at the very end to the left down the length of the table, and at the other end, across from him, was Kraisee’s seat. To Sai’s left was a woman and to his right a man, both fairly old and unknown to him. Ratchanee sat next to Kraisee at the other end of the table. He counted a total of sixteen people. Fourteen sat facing each other on either side of the table; the other two faced each other across the whole length of the table, and that was him and Kraisee, who were the youngest men in the room.
He tried to strike a conversation with his neighbors but had to desist, because the man next to him would not speak to him, as if he did not hear him, and the woman to his left would not see him, as though he was as transparent as a pane of glass. So he had to sit in silence. Some instinct told him that these attitudes were deliberate and had been agreed upon beforehand in a way that would no doubt result in no good for him.
The two women to his left whispered something, then looked toward him, then whispered some more, without trying to be discreet about it. Some people at the table leaned out and glared at him — and glared — and glared.
Sai felt oppressed as if he was caught in a vise which was slowly tightening, slowly firming up its grip, little by little increasing its pressure and its torture. He noticed that Ratchanee was glancing in his direction often, her eyes full of worry and concern. He did not try to hold on to her gaze because in such a situation, when he was the focus of attention by one and all, any reaction by him would be easily noticed, so he did not try to show any feeling other than a total absence of feeling.
It was a form of art to be able to stay in front of everyone without saying a word like a total stranger and without feeling gauche.
The meal went on and on. The food was a mixture of Western and Thai dishes, with the rice and side dishes at the end. Many pairs of eyes were waiting to see whether he knew how to use knife and fork, but when they saw he did without being clumsy, he was eyed with distaste. If he had not known how to use them, he would have been laughed out of the place.
His nerves were tense as he had to be constantly on the lookout for anything that might happen to him.
Then finally the meal came to an end. It had taken two full hours. When the servants put down bowls of fruit on the table, His Lordship spoke up in a rather loud voice. “Some of you may be wondering what the occasion for this party is.” He spoke slowly like an old man but with full authority, and Sai’s nerves tensed up like the strings of a fiddle strung to breaking point. “Actually, this is no special occasion at all. The gathering today is for the entertainment of our relatives and close relations.” He sat motionless yet relaxed, his eyes roving around the table. “But there is just one person who is an outsider, a stranger — there!” His voice was loud and he pointed his finger straight at Sai, like a schoolteacher designating the culprit to the attention of his classmates. Everyone glared at Sai.
Ratchanee’s heart beat faster; she had never imagined that the situation would take a turn like this. She wished Sai would look at her so that she could let him know how she felt, but he was looking straight ahead, a little above everybody’s heads. He held himself as still as a lifeless statue.
“I organized this gathering for us to have the opportunity to know that person,” His Lordship went on. “Nothing would be further from the truth than to state that this party was called in his honor. Do meet that person.” He pointed at Sai again and said in a voice full of scorn, “Let me introduce Citizen Sai, family name Seema, a farmer’s son from the district of—”
Giggles and laughs broke out around the table. An old woman with the demeanor of an aristocrat of the bluest blood brought her hand, which sported an enormous sparkling diamond ring, up to cover her mouth as she laughed. Those whose fingers were adorned with jewels moved their hands more than the others. Someone whispered, loud enough for Sai to hear, “No wonder I sniffed a rank smell from somewhere”.
“That’s right. I’ve noticed his complexion has no distinction whatsoever,” hissed someone else.
Sai’s immediate neighbors — dames or persons of a higher rank he had no way to know — pulled their chair further away from him, with an expression of disgust as if they had seen a worm or a millipede.
Ratchanee would have liked to shout “He is my friend!” but she could not do so as her throat was constricted. She glanced at Darunee who looked at her with a stunned expression.
“He came to know our Lek here,” His Lordship went on, “and since then he has been a regular visitor to this house, therefore it has become necessary to introduce him to you all so that there is no misunderstanding or gossip of any kind regarding his reasons for meeting our daughter and his purpose in visiting this house.” He paused for a while. His audience fidgeted, some were immersed in their own thoughts but nobody dared speak up. “Lek here is my own daughter. They say this is the age of freedom, that these days anyone can do whatever they please without regard for tradition or proper behavior, and that nobodies popping right out of the jungle can become powerful people. I hold that this kind of thinking degrades people instead of improving them, makes them forget their place, forget the order of the land. We are surrounded by crooks who are only good for tricking their way to the top. People like this do not look at themselves as others would see them. They hanker after status without realizing that nobility comes from the blood. Crows must be crows and swans will always be swans.” His Lordship marked another brief pause. “Let them have their freedom wherever they please but it will not be in my house. Our Lek is the daughter of a lord, not some strumpet on the pavement, and those who are trying to raise themselves by their bootstraps and pass themselves off as gentlemen should give up any hope that this would ever be so. The door of this house is always open, but to some people only.”
His Lordship stopped and remained still for a long time, as if he had nothing more to say.
“I think,” his elder son-in-law said, “it would be proper to ask that gentleman to leave this house forthwith.”
Everyone around the table including Ratchanee turned to look at Sai and saw him sitting stock still as if he did not breathe at all, his gaze fixed on the window frame, his face blunt as though sculpted out of wood, clay or stone.
The room was frozen in a strangely oppressive silence which lasted and lasted. A lady swept a glass with her hand and it broke on the table, startling everyone.
Ratchanee felt dizzy as if she was about to faint. Sai kept the same pose, as though a spell had turned him into an unmovable block of granite devoid of life.
More time elapsed. His Lordship sat reclining on his chair, looking straight ahead at the dinner table where no one moved. Nobody had touched the fruit since they had been served. Someone raised a hand to pick up a piece of fruit and disrupt the stifling atmosphere but the hand froze in midair when there was the noise of a chair being pushed back and Sai stirred.
He stood up ever so slowly. “Does anyone want to add anything?” he asked, then looked around the table. A few old women who had been watching him closely shook their heads as one.
“If no one has anything more to say, I’ll take my leave.” He marked a pause then went on. “But before I go, I’d like to waste a little of your precious time in order to state a few facts — only a little, because when someone like me speaks, nobody indeed cares to listen. But for once, whether you want to listen or not, you will have to.
“I’m delighted that you’ve all had the opportunity to know me, thanks to the kindness of our host, who invited me. Indeed, I’m one of the invited guests, the only crow among swans. His Lordship invited me for a certain purpose. Therefore it isn’t the fault of this particular brazen crow that it finds itself among a flock of swans tonight, because it did not impose itself on the present company but was duly invited.
“I ’m extremely proud today that I was born the son of a farmer. I don’t know why my father was not an aristocrat, but there are many more farmers than aristocrats, and my father belongs to the majority. I therefore have no reason to feel ashamed that I didn’t happen to be born in some aristocratic family of ancient lineage, because aristocracy is a condition that we ourselves created and chose to uphold. That situation won’t last, as time, which never stands still, will change it irresistibly.
“Indeed, differences in eras and times give us conflicting views. I’m not an intruder on those of you who live in lofty ivory towers, but when you spit your mucus to the ground from your towers, I have to wipe it off because it’s something filthy. There’s no need to harm you, however, because no matter what, you must disappear in time. You won’t be able to resist the changes brought about by time. Sooner or later, all the old things will be confined to museums, one after the other.
“You misunderstand if you think I’m trying to pass myself off as an aristocrat, because that would be going backward. Much time has elapsed already, and your world and mine are getting further apart. I’m the ghost that time has fashioned to scare those who live in the old world, to give nightmares to those who hold to the old ways of thinking, and nothing can comfort you, just as nothing can stop the march of time, which will produce more and more ghosts like me. You thought you could destroy this particular ghost tonight amid such exalted company, but there’s no way this can happen, because this ghost is even more invulnerable than Achilles or Siegfried as he is protected by the shield of time. You may hold on to a few scraps for a while but you won’t be able to control everything forever. We’re worlds apart. Mine is the world of ordinary people.”
He slightly bowed his head when he had finished talking and left the dinner table, stepped outside and down the stairs, walked along the driveway, through the main gate and out in the street — out of a world in which he had no inclination to linger and which had no wish to see him stay.
The cold wind from the main road blew in his face. It was dark already, but he still preferred to walk rather than take a cab, so he went on trampling the streets under blotches of poor light from widely spaced lampposts. He thought of the events that had just taken place. He had never thought things would take such a course; it all looked more like a play on stage than a real event, but unbelievable as it was, it had already taken place.
His heart sank as he thought of Ratchanee. He had not paid attention to her toward the end. He felt certain that she had known nothing of the ploy and had had nothing to do with it, but then in such an environment, it would be hard for her to do anything at all. This meant that the curtain had fallen on a close relationship bound by the deepest understanding of each other’s souls. It was over and done with without any possibility of ever resuming again.
He sighed. Some things in life happen totally unexpectedly. The people and events that play important parts in our lives and our own reactions to these people and to these events constitute the complex intercourse of life. Some relationships are carried on unwillingly, but others are cut off that we want to keep... Oh, for sure, that’s what the struggle of life is about. We can’t have everything we want without losing something. Victory comes at a price we must always pay in full.
He walked along many streets. The lights in the lanes and row houses had gone out one by one. The tall buildings, even though their doors and windows were already shut, were still lit upfront. The face of the capital at night differed from the daytime in that the darkness swallowed the dirty lanes and derelict row houses and kept them in the background, leaving only proud, brightly lit buildings on display. He walked past two women who stood in wait at a street corner for the opportunity to sell their bodies for some money that would keep them going for yet another meal. The driver of an empty three-wheeler was on his way back home, then a woman and a man walked up holding each other affectionately — the drama of life was not over but still went on round the clock. Some people were still eating in restaurants, some still crowded movie houses and theaters, and others were still at work. Reporters of morning newspapers were still doing the rounds of hospitals and police stations, lovers still exchanging sweet nothings and felons still committing crimes.
He was not aware of how long he walked but it must have been a long time, because Ratchanee’s house was very distant from his own, but he would walk all the way as he would never think of doing normally. When he crossed a canal, he stood against the railing of the bridge for a while. In the old days, there were thick rows of boats moored along the canal. Now they were gone, leaving the banks deserted and spiritless, looking lonely and forlorn. The cold wind flailed his skin as if there was rain falling in the distance. He took himself away and walked on.
Tomorrow he would go home and stay there as long as he had to, because he had no more business to tie him down in Bangkok.
From the main road, he entered the street where his house was, feeling a little weak in the legs. He inhaled deeply. The end of this night was the end of many things in his life.
He plodded on and turned to go through the gate of his house. He had almost reached the door of his house when he stopped in his tracks. There was someone standing in the darkness. He could not see clearly, merely perceive a shadowy body in a short-sleeved white shirt.
He took another step forward. It seemed to be a woman. He walked up to her and groped for the light switch by the door. In the surge of light, he started from top to toe. “Ratchanee!”
She stood still to one side of the door. From the light, he saw that she no longer wore the orange dress he had seen that evening, but a neat white shirt and a dark-blue skirt, her usual office attire. She looked very pale and exhausted. “I’ve been waiting for you for almost an hour,” she said, her voice shaking with emotion.
And in a sudden rush of feeling, he grabbed her hand and held it, dumbfounded. “I walked all the way from your house—” His voice also shook with an emotion he could not control. “I never thought—” He gasped. “—that you’d come here.”
Her eyes filled with tears. She turned away from his gaze. “I decided to leave the house after last night’s events.” Her voice was still shaking and hoarse. “To start a new life and enter a new world. Does this surprise you?”
He pressed her hand more strongly. “I am surprised at how amazingly determined you are,” he answered sincerely. “Why did you do it?”
“You still need reasons, do you?” She turned away like one who feels slighted.
It dawned on him that he should understand all of her reasons well enough and that he should not have talked in a way that hurt her feelings. “No, I understand perfectly.” He stroked the back of her hand to comfort her.
“May I sit down? I’m very tired.” She sank down and sat at the top of the stairs, her back and the back of her head pressed against the doorjamb. He eased himself down near her.
“I’ve thought for a long time since I’ve known you well that one day I’d have to rebel against my family, and that day is today.”
“I understand,” he answered.
“Actually, it’s nothing exceptional, is it?” she asked coldly.
“It is, given the circumstances,” he answered firmly. “In your case, it’s a matter of understanding. Your decision to act according to what you believe in required much courage and determination.”
Ratchanee let her head lean onto his. It seemed that no more words were needed since they both understood each other well in their deepest feelings.
“I’m certain you took the right decision when you chose to lead a life of freedom by tearing yourself away from your former environment, to start a new life that is worthwhile and useful.”
Ratchanee smiled, looking sad and calm. “That’s how I hope it’ll be, by taking hold of my own fate and by believing in myself.”
“I’m so glad.” Sai, choked with happiness, could say no more.
“I’ll stay here until dawn. Then I’ll go and see Kingthian, one of my best friends. She’ll leave for the Northeast in a couple of days, to teach children there, and I’ll go there with her.”
The two of them, head leaning on head, talked about life and about the future. Time went by. The later it was, the more dew fell and the colder the air grew, but the blood in their veins was warm with faith and hope.
A rooster next door crowed, then there were five metallic beats from an Indian watchman marking the hour somewhere near the main road. The two of them still sat nestled close to each other, each telling the other of their innermost feelings exactly the way they wanted to tell and hear them from each other.
And finally the sky began to clear. Workers who had to start early walked past the house. Various lives began to move. Ratchanee brushed off the hair that hung down her face. She felt a little exhausted for not having slept for the whole night, yet sprightly and full of life. She inhaled the clean air of dawn deep into her lungs, then slowly stood up.
“There’s light now,” she said.
He stood up as well and looked around. She did not seem to have brought anything with her apart from the clothes she was wearing. There was no traveling bag, and even the diamond ring which she usually wore was no longer around her finger.
“Didn’t you bring anything along at all?” he asked in wonder.
Ratchanee held up her head. “What’s the point?” she asked with a voice as cool as the morning wind. “I am starting from scratch,” she said firmly, and smiled slightly as if to mock her life in the past.
He walked by her side to the main gate.
“We are parting now. Our bodies will be farther away from each other than they’ve ever been, but our hearts will be closer to each other than they’ve ever been.”
He squeezed her hand hard. “And my heart will follow you everywhere always — darling.”
Ratchanee smiled as brightly as the sky then.
“Goodbye—”
“Goodbye.”
She stepped out into the bright yellow light of dawn as the golden rays of the sun set the Bangkok sky ablaze.


Postscript

Written immediately after, Ghosts (Peesart) was meant as a follow-up to Wanlaya’s love (Khwarmrak Khong Wanlaya). Unlike the first novel, the second is set entirely in Thailand among Thai characters, and contrasts three different worlds: the world of the past elite (the old aristocrat’s house); the world of modernity peopled by a new middle-class elite (bank and law offices); and the world of the rice farmers (complete with their moneyed exploiters) — the idea being that the second must forsake the first and ally itself with the third. Wanlaya’s love is teaming with brilliant conversations but little else; Ghosts is packed with action and motion, and still much talk. But the story is equally inconclusive, like many things in life. The fate of Ratchanee in the provinces is left untold, and we do not know for sure whether Sai’s defense of the farmers will be successful — although Sai does make clear to the farmers in at least one case that their cause is hopeless (“‘If it goes to court, is there any chance of winning?’ Uncle Preim asked. Sai shook his head. ‘As far as the law is concerned, there’s no way. At best, the penalty will be light.’”). What is important in both novels is the protagonists’ decision to side with the people. What siding with the people actually implies is another story altogether, which history (and his own career) never allowed the author to write.
Wanlaya has a very broad scope and carries plenty of new ideas on society, art, education and politics. Ghosts does offer views on education as a factor of progress, on education and work as a means to women’s independence, on the effective­ness of solidarity in the fight against oppression, etc, but the novel is narrowed down to one main theme — the conflict between the old world of aristocrats* and the new world of ghosts, the new counter elite of ordinary people that Sai personifies — and one main message — the need for the educated with a social conscience to put themselves, their knowledge and their talents at the service of the exploited. The ghosts are symbols of ongoing or impending change, scary new forces endangering established powers and traditional notions — the thieving ghosts harassing the occupying Japanese, the “ungrateful ghost” (Sai) who rejects the old sacred duty of reciprocating good deeds for the new value of commitment to class solidarity, and the ghosts of time, change and progress (Sai, Nikhom, their women, and their likes) who are giving the old aristocrats nightmares by heralding their imminent demise, and who are siding with the downtrodden to fight for justice. The implied message (here as in Wanlaya) is that history has meaning, direction and finality. The book ends on a double note of social commitment and hope for the future. The message is clear, even corny in its final vision of a walk into the light of dawn. Yet the novel itself offers its own antidote to its voluntarist, optimistic finale in Nikhom’s confidences to Kingthian: reality out there is full of insuperable obstacles, and well-meaning idealists will soon find themselves “heartbroken in their work life”. The bottom line is modest enough: “...we must [discard our illusions]...look at reality and tackle life as it is to make it better yet”.
The story is peopled with ghosts in more ways than one: some characters are mentioned but have little or no presence — Ratchanee’s grandmother (so powerful in her days, and so conspicuously absent as the story unfolds); Auntie Choi, the cook at Sai’s house; Aunt Maen at Kingthian’s house; Chuay and Nueang, domestics at Ratchanee’s house... Nit[taya], Old Phoon’s daughter, is a mere silhouette entering the compound, and then is briefly mentioned by her father — yet, she is an important fleeting apparition, as yet another example of independence through education and work, and a tantalizing model for Ratchanee. For all the hustle and bustle of the bank, there are only three people in it — Ratchanee, Jittin and Chertchawee — plus an errand boy or two and an out-of-sight manager, the true ghost of modern power.
The configuration of main and secondary characters is similar to — if more coherent than — that of Wanlaya, and the same cinematographic technique of storytelling (via Tolstoy, via Dostoevsky) is at work. Mutatis mutandis, Sai Seema is a Yong Yoobang-yang that makes sense, Ratchanee a compound of early Tueanta blossoming into a Wanlaya, Kingthian a late Tuenta, Darunee an unrealized Tuenta, Kraisee any of the rich Thai students back from Paris, etc. (The sense of déjà lu is compounded by some of the author’s pet notions — for instance, how both Yong and Sai must be good men because they spontaneously attract the confidence of young children, or how both René in Wanlaya and Nikhom here perceive that “before a tree bore fruit some time had to elapse”.) On the other hand, the author innovates with Chertchawee especially, with Jittin, with Fatso and Rort and a dozen or so representatives of the lower classes, farmers, urban workers and even with “enough-is-enough” Mr. Phoon, His Lordship’s chauffeur, another pointer to changing times.
For all that, beautiful Ratchanee and plain-looking Sai steal the show, each present in more than half of the 29 chapters. (In a neat act of balancing, Kingthian and Jittin appear in five chapters, and Nikhom and Chertchawee in only three, all evenly spaced throughout the novel.) Both intellectuals, they evolve psychologically (if somewhat schematically) from beginning to end, especially well-born Ratchanee, the typically sheltered daughter of a good family who, thanks to her education, sense of justice and personal integrity, makes a courageous break with her past to face an uncertain fate upcountry but on her own terms. At the same time, she graduates from annoyance with Sai to trust and finally love (minus the sex — these were the 1950s). Her intellectual and emotional growth parallels to some extent that of Wanlaya and Tueanta in the previous novel. Ratchanee puts herself at the service of the people, and so does Sai. Her transformation is much more radical than Sai’s, however, inasmuch as the young lawyer is “an ordinary man” siding with his own people.
At first, Sai pulls out from case after case rather than compromise his principles, leaving it to others to do the dirty work — a passive attitude, as both he and Ratchanee realize. “Sympathy and good intentions by themselves aren’t enough to solve problems.” Finally, he takes the positive step of siding with the downtrodden. Yet, even in his impassioned denun­ciation of the old elite, he is not a revolutionary: he tells a tableful of aristocrats that because they are doomed he does not have to fight or even hassle them. He is not out to change the system: he will only contribute whatever he can to the struggle for social justice and help the farmers fight their cases in court.
Of course, this is the result of obvious self-censorship from the author, who betrays himself, though, when he has Sai telling visiting villagers, “...I think that to fight with legal means only is still not enough, but we must fight in order to stretch the time so we can keep earning a living for a while longer, until we have a better option”. A better option? Obviously, much is left unsaid. A later generation of radicals understood this readily.
Ghosts was serialized in a weekly magazine (Sayarm Samai) in 1953-54 at a time of relaxed, fairly paternalistic military rule. The story found no publisher until 1957, when it was printed in book form thanks to the writer Khamsing Seenork (better known by his pen name, Lao Kham Horm) and an American scholar of Thai, Robert Goldenkopf*. The timing could not have been worse: that year, and more so the next, the Sarit Thanarat military dictatorship clamped down on intellectual life and all but smothered dissent for the best part of a decade. Only fourteen years later would the ghosts of time catch up with the novel: the “student revolution” of 1973 opened up a three-year democratic interlude, during which no fewer than four editions of the book were printed.** By then, thousands of “ghosts” recognized themselves in Sai Seema. Thousands of plainly dressed Ratchanees walked out into the radiant light of the democratic dawn. And all of these well-meaning radicals were eager, not just to “fight with legal means”, but to exercise the “better option” of mass struggle in its various guises, which cost them dearly for the rest of the decade. Because the novel focuses on the old elite-new elite conflict in Thailand and gives uplifting examples of conversion to social commitment, it is more popular among Thai readers than the more intellectual, more scattered Wanlaya’s love. Yet it lacks its general ebullience and international scope. For the post-1973 generation of progressive Thai readers even now, Ghosts is the quintessential Thai novel, just as Four reigns, by Khuekrit Prarmoat [Kukrit Pramoj], is it for the conservatives.
When he began writing Ghosts at the age of 35, the author wanted to expose the land problems of the rice farmers in his native Bang Bor, a seaside district of Samut Prarkarn Province southeast of Bangkok, in connection with the feelings and thoughts of the post-World War II generations of students. Newspapers reported at the time that one woman had shot at intruders on her land, an incident that inspired Fatso’s wife Jan’s strong-willed antics in Chapter 24. Two other novels, written during the war, had focused on the problems of rice growers, but Ghosts was the first to concentrate on the land issue. The novel does so in a detailed and convincing way, except when it dramatizes excessively the plight of the farmers: it is not true that a court case automatically entails expenses for the defendants; expenses only start when they lose their case (whether they appeal or not). Be that as it may, the land problems of farmers nationwide haven’t gone away. In 1995, the illegal granting of land rights to wealthy local figures led to the downfall of Democrat Chuan Leekphai’s government, and the issue has yet to die down. Thus, the novel is still very topical.
On the other hand, the author got carried away when he tried to tie the current strife of the local farmers to the Japanese occupation of Khlong Samrong in Bang Bor during World War II*. The lengthy flashback about the daredevil stunts performed by Thai farmers to harass the occupation force during the war (Chapters 12, 13 and 14) is well written and funny, its end is moving, and it scores an intellectual point, by presenting the forefathers of the ghosts Sai embodies, and an ideological point, by suggesting that in unity is strength, but its introduction (through Sai’s remembrance of past Thai New Year festivals and of Fatso and Jan) is contrived, this chunk of copy breaks the narrative flow, and the episode is largely irrelevant to the farmers’ current troubles.
The other big drawback of the book is its style — at least in Thai, as a few Thai critics have had the candor to deplore. More than in Wanlaya’s love, the writing is uneven, as if it had been rushed. The book has its moments, some happy turns of phrase, and the dialogue is on the whole less stolid than in Wanlaya, give or take a couple of pontifications by Sai. The author is having fun with names and nicknames. Apart from the play on words about Mr. Have (Mee) and Mr. Remain (Luea), he gives the children in the Seema family the names of times of day: Chao (early morning)*, Sai (late morning), Bai (early afternoon), Yen (late afternoon) and Khuen (night). Their father is, of course, Thiang (midday). Their mother is unnamed, presumably because Thiangkhuen (midnight) would be a bit much... As for His Lordship’s family, the nicknames of the three daughters are quite simply Big (Yai — Yuphadee), Middle (Klang — Darunee) and Small (Lek — Ratchanee). Ratchanee itself means ‘night’, ‘darkness’.
Yet, the author has a fondness for such expressions as “it was not long before” or “it turned out that”, which recur all too often, as you may have noticed. There is more than a smattering of hideous repetitions and pleonasms I just could not inflict on the reader — the likes of “he felt in his feelings that”**. When he launches into period sentences, the author doesn’t always pull them off, because he takes liberties with grammar, strings subordinates with usually unstated and changing subjects, and his favorite catchall words are arai (something, anything, what), man (it), and sing (thing, something, that which, it) and its variations sing lao nee (these things, things like these) and thuk sing thuk yang (everything) — which aren’t exactly conducive to crisp prose. Lapses into a kind of loose spoken language are all the more noticeable as they tend to happen in passages of painstakingly nuanced psychological or narrative discourse which would seem to call for more formal expression. On the other hand, attempts at sophisticated writing occasionally lead to unnecessarily complicated phrasing. Although I have endeavored to preserve the flavor and flow of the original, light editing at times has been necessary.
The following profile of the author is, with the exception of one factual error pointed out by the author, who read both translations and made welcome corrections and useful clarifications to both, the same as that published in the postscript to Wanlaya’s love.

History has played a hide-and-seek game with novelist-diplomat Sakchai Bamrungphong, better known as “Seinee Saowaphong”. It started by depriving him of his first name, Bunsong. Twenty years after his birth in 1918, the West-aping policies of Field Marshal Plaek Phiboonsongkhrarm decreed that Bunsong was a woman’s name and he had to rename himself Sakchai in order to stay in the civil service he had just joined. When in 1939 he received a grant to study economics in Germany, he resigned from the civil service but only traveled as far as Harbin in Manchuria, where he waited for three months for a visa to cross the Soviet Union. The visa, of course, never came, but the experience proved useful: Harbin provides the backdrop of his first novel, The loser’s victory (Chaichana Khong Khon Phae), published in 1943. In the early 1950s, he wrote two socially committed novels that flopped and as the diplomat prospered the novelist fell into oblivion. Two decades later, however, the “student revolution” of 1973 resurrected these generous, prophetic works and their author was given a second literary life and pride of place as Thailand’s foremost progressive writer. Sakchai Bamrung­phong was proclaimed National Artist in 1990.
The diplomat who ended his public career as ambassador to Burma (1976-78) after 37 years in the foreign service that had him posted successively to Moscow (1947-51), Buenos Aires (1955-60), Delhi (1961-65), Vienna (1968-72), London (1972-75) and Addis Ababa (1975) was born in July 1918 the last of six children in a thatch hut in a hamlet of Bang Bor District of Samut Prarkarn, a distant suburb of sprawling Bangkok by the Gulf of Thailand. His parents, Hong and Phae, hailed from Ayutthaya. After eking out a living in the capital for a while, they took care of a fruit plantation, then turned to growing rice, and Hong was elected village chief in Bang Bor. The Bamrungphongs were exceptional in that they made sure all of their children received the highest possible education. (Sakchai’s elder brother Gen Bunchai ended his career as Army chief and deputy prime minister in the mid-1980s.) Bunsong’s mother, Phae, had an unusually extensive knowledge of classical literature and her songs and recitations instilled a love of language in the little boy. He also inherited from her a sense of fairness and an inquisitive mind which, together with his gentle manners and tongue-in-cheek sense of humor, have contributed to his reputation as a gentleman both in the foreign service and in the world of letters.
There was no school in Bang Bor, so at 7, Bunsong went to stay in Bangkok with his eldest brother, Thawin, to study in a temple school, before his secondary studies at Borphitphimuk School, where he learned English and German. Because of his father’s death, he had to interrupt his studies at Jularlongkorn University in 1936 after only one month, and went to work for newspaper while studying law at Thammasart University. He received his BL degree in 1941. By 1939, he had become a translator of economic news in the international trade department of the Ministry of the Economy (now Commerce). After his abortive trip to Germany, he returned to newspaper work until he entered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in November 1942.
In 1952-53, between his assignments in Moscow and Buenos Aires, he met, betrothed and married Khruephan Pathumrot. (They have two sons and two daughters.) At the time of his marriage, the first of his two most famous novels had just been serialized and he was writing the second in the evening after work.
One of his favorite achievements as a diplomat was that, as first secretary in Argentina, he arranged for boxing world champion Pascal Perez to defend his title in Bangkok. Perez lost to Phoan Kingphet, who became the first “national hero” in a long line of Thai boxing champions. As a teenager, Bunsong had wanted to be a boxer, though he never stepped into a ring and soon turned to drawing and painting before finding his real vocation in literature.
He started writing short stories at school and had his first published just before the war. In the course of half a century, Sakchai has penned some seventy short stories, as well as numerous travel pieces, columns, translations and ten novels.* As a rule, he would collect material for his writings and read extensively while abroad and write in Bangkok between postings. Because most of his novels and short stories have foreign backgrounds, “Seinee Saowaphong” is considered an “exotic” writer, which does him little justice. He started as a romantic novelist — The loser’s victory; No news from Tokyo (Mai Mee Khao Jark To-kio), 1945. His next two novels — The Manchu sky (Fa Maenjoo), 1945, and Life over death (Cheewit Bon Khwarmtai), 1946 — were inspired by his activities as a Free Thai during the war, like his latest novel, Earth, water and flowers (Din Narm Lae Dorkmai), 1990. He came into his own with his two “art-for-life” masterpieces, the intellectual novel Wanlaya’s love (Khwarmrak Khong Wanlaya), 1952, and Ghosts (Peesart), 1953-54, which both found their public twenty years later. Because of political repression at home, his later works gave up shoot-from-the-hip social criticism for subtle symbolism, but suffered from weak and contrived plots — Cold fire (Fai Ien), 1961, another romantic novel; The Amazon lotus (Bua Barn Nai Amarsorn), 1961, a lame and pedestrian adventure story; The good citizens of Ayutthaya (Khon Dee See Ayutthaya), 1981, a simplistic historical novel; and Under the star of death (Tai Dao Maruetayoo), 1983.

Primary sources: personal communications with the author; 72 Pee Sakchai Bamrungphong Nak Khian Sarmanchon, 72-year-old Sachai Bamrungphong, The people’s writer, Sathian Janthima-thorn ed, Samnakphim Matichon, 1990; Cheewit Lae Ngarn Khong Nak Praphan, Writers’ lives and works, Dork Ya, 1988; Phatthana-karn Ngarnkhian Nawaniyai Khong Seinee Saowaphong, The development of Seinee Saowaphong’s novel writing, Preecha Paniarwachiro-phart, Prasarnmit, 1984.

Marcel Barang


* In substance, what So-mika says is that men cannot be trusted. Nitharn Weitarn is by a noted writer during the Rama V reign (1868-1910), HRH Krommuen Phitthayarlongkorn, better known under his pen name, Nor Mor Sor.

* Capacity measure for paddy; a cartload
* Chinese business owner, usually rich and influential
* Absolute monarchy in Siam was replaced by constitutional monarchy in 1932, but twenty years later, the aristocracy was still very much clinging to its privileges, and the conflict between elites was a main theme in serious Thai literature and remained so until the end of the 1960s. See the 20 best novels of thailand, Marcel Barang, TMC A1, Bangkok, 1994.

* Better known by his Thai name of Damnern Karndein (Domnern Garden as he spells it), this noted translator of Khamsing Seenork’s short stories is the author, with Sathianphong Wannapok, of the best if frustratingly selective Thai-English Dictionary (Amarin Printing & Publishing, 1994) now on the market.
** A second edition had been printed in 1971; despite the 1976-77 extreme-rightist backlash, as the political climate has progressively returned to moderation, there have been a total of fourteen editions so far [1996], the latest in 1991; we worked out of that one, which was a definite, if still faulty, improvement on preceding ones.
* Japanese forces invited themselves into Thailand in December 1941, first with 50,000 and then 150,000 soldiers.
* Chao’s son is also named Chao, with a different spelling, meaning ‘flair, quick wit’. Because the transliteration does not take into account the length of the diphthong (the first ‘ao’ is long, the second short), I have had to pretend they were the same name.
** Khao roosuek khan rakhai yoo nai khwarmroosuek, p66 of the 14th edition; tae khwarmroosuek nai jai thee roosuek sattha, p187 of the same.
* Sakchai has used his real name for some short stories as well as an array of pen names for specific works: “Sujarit Phromjania” also for short stories, “Kratsanai Pro-chart” for short stories and translations, “Bo Bang Bor” for columns, “Kamonsarnti” for literary features, “Thaen Nararthorn” and “Wanlaya Sinlapawanlop” for some poems. “Seinee Saowaphong” allegedly comes from the real family name of a girl he loved and it is also the name of the narrator-protagonist in his first novel, The loser’s victory.