Above and to the left, a whip of buffalo hide was
raised as high as it would go, and at the count of five, came down
lashing the back of the culprit. Thirty seconds later, a similar whip was
raised on the right side and came whooshing down in the same way, and this went
on at a steady rhythm, from left to right, under the command of one man, who
stood arms akimbo, shouting unremittingly: ‘Left… Right… Right hardah… Left’s gooood!’
The punishment proceeded without mercy or the slightest attention to the
groans and moans of distress that betrayed the culprit’s excruciating pain. A
group of men and women stood by, exchanging comments in low voices. Some
gritted their teeth, and tears welled up in their eyes; others whispered to one
another that had the haulage equipment manager not stood there issuing instructions,
the officials would probably have lowered the punishment to fifty or sixty
lashes out of compassion.
The slim, tall man who stood leaning against a tree behind a group of
workers at some distance from the crowd of local people clearly heard their compassionate
whispers and the scene he saw made him wince inside at every crack of the
whips, until he felt he could not stand watching that heartbreaking sight any
longer – but then, he was not quite sure whether what was happening wasn’t a
dream.
He did remember that early the night before, the captain had invited him
over to his cabin for a nightcap, and he had stayed there until – until when?
He had no idea. On the way back, it seemed that he had stopped and stood
clutching the railing of the deck, looking at the water the ship parted into
waves big and small. He had seen the crests of white foam crash into each other
and disappear into the dense darkness ahead. He
vaguely recalled that the ship had veered to anchor at a port he did not know,
nor did he know whether it had been right or wrong for him to leave the
railing, take a few staggering steps and stumble clumsily down some stairs to
find himself sitting among a few passengers in a row boat which had come
alongside the ship. A little after that, he had hauled himself up onto a kind
of bridge the row boat had come to, and then walked aimlessly until a roomy
container of sorts had stood in his way. He remembered clearly that he had
eased himself onto it to take some rest because the thought had crossed his
mind that he shouldn’t wander too far away from the ship, though he understood
the row boat would return soon and stop by to take him back to her, as he was
certain she would never leave any passenger behind on the long and cluttered
bridge.
So how was it then that at dawn the water had turned into land and the
white-crested waves into a thick forest of trees? The men and women standing
around seemed ready to go about their daily work, and the most amazing thing
was that he could see in front of him a white elephant, whose legs were tied to
big poles, and who was being lashed left and right. Had he become raving mad
because the alcohol had gone to his head, as several doctors and many friends
and relatives had warned him about time after time? Had his destiny finally
caught up with him now that his latest attempt at giving up alcohol had once
again failed, and he had been far from any bottle this morning? He knew himself
and was aware that shunning alcohol by going on a cruise aboard the Phanurangsee had been a grave mistake and, even
worse, that his own obduracy would never again allow him to try and accommodate
the pleas of Orraphin and other members of the family, because he hated to be
such dismal failure in circumstances that would make him an object of pity,
even if it was failure in trying to turn his useless self into a worthy person.
His rambling thoughts were brought back to the scene at hand by
trumpeting that resounded all over the forest, as the elephant who was being
punished called to other animals at liberty somewhere in the deep jungle. He
wondered again about his sanity. He definitely wasn’t mad. All of his organs
were performing normally. Each shriek made him feel as if the threaded
dry-leather laces with which the officials lashed the raw hide of the elephant
were inflicting sharp pains to his own chest. Therefore, instead of forcing
himself to witness the torture of the animal and share the excitement of a few
of the men there, he made up his mind that he had better find a way out of the
area and return to the ship, so that he wouldn’t show his compassion for the
pitiful creature. This would be tantamount to meddling in other people’s
affairs, the sort of behaviour which had taught him a painful lesson in the
not-so-distant past.
As he stood there thinking carefully of a way to extricate himself,
another kind of doubt arose in his mind. In this thick forest, all the workers
were dressed in the same way, with dark-blue shorts and shirts of the same
colour. Both shirts and shorts looked like they had never been washed and
showed streaks of dry sweat and grime at the edges. They gave out a foul body
odour every time their owners gesticulated as they enjoyed watching the animal
being tortured. These men, when they turned to look at him, did not seem to
have any curiosity as to who he was or where he had come from, though they did
whisper among themselves as they looked at the way he was dressed before
turning back to watch the whipping. Therefore, if he hoped to find an answer to
his puzzlement by asking for answers from these workers, who spoke Thai with an
accent so strange and words so weird that at times he could not understand
them, he was bound to be disappointed.
As he stood thinking, unable to make up his mind whether he should tell
his story to these people and risk being laughed at, all of a sudden another
amazing picture materialized before him. It was the figure of a young man with
a tall, well built if slightly stout body formally dressed in brown shorts, a
neatly pressed white shirt, thick long socks and brown leather shoes. The man
came to a stop at some distance to the right of the gathering, took off his
pith helmet and stroked his hair to tidy it, out of habit, it seemed, rather
than foppishness.
‘How come it isn’t over yet? I’ve got work waiting. This is no time for
merriment,’ he said in a loud voice which had none of the unfamiliar accent of
the local people.
‘Sarry, bass, we begon
late this morn’, sah,’ the man who presided over the
punishment reported.
The ‘bass’ looked unhappy as he turned to walk away, but then he caught
a glance of a stranger stepping out of the group of workers to intercept him.
This time it was the local man who was amazed. The stranger was tall and slim
and had an elongated face with fine skin. Though he had a fair complexion, his
face looked rather seasoned by wind and sun. He wore western-style trousers and
a dark-blue flannel vest over a lapelled shirt. His heelless canvas shoes were
of the same white colour as his trousers and shirt, but all of his garments,
though they looked well cut and expensive, were passably rumpled. There were
dark smudges on his sleeves, and stains on his trousers and shoes. A shock of
unkempt hair fell over his forehead. His ease of movement and confident bearing
didn’t agree with his clothes, which were spotted with soot from head to foot.
The young local man turned round to look for the rest of the tour group, but
saw no one similarly dressed or remotely comparable to him. Besides, it was too
early in the morning for tourists. Could it be that this man had come to seek
his fortune by gambling with the workers, as inveterate gamesters were wont to
do?
When the two men stood face to face, they looked one another in the eye
with suspicion, each trying to fathom out the other.
‘I do beg your pardon.’ The stranger was the first to speak. ‘You must
be the man in charge here?’ His question was rather terse, but his voice was
even and had the proper and sonorous timbre and clarity of elocution that
denoted upper-class breeding. This alerted and worried the other man, unable as
he was to decide what to make of the stranger. What he could do, though, was
answer the man’s question without delay.
‘Yes, I’m the superintendent in charge of this forestry concession,’ he
replied, then took his pipe out of his mouth. The way they spoke as well as the
civil manner in which they deferred to each other seemed to be imposed to each
by the subtle power of the other’s fine presence, something which only instinct
could perceive and no spoken or written language could ever explain.
As for the stranger, when he moved closer and noticed the genial
disposition shown in the other man’s face and the perspicacity of his large,
round eyes, he made up his mind there and then to ask for his help in
explaining his presence here.
‘Then perhaps you can help me puzzle out how it is that last night I was
on board a ship and now I find myself in the jungle?’
The superintendent of the forestry concession stopped entertaining the
notion that the stranger might be a fortune seeker. He looked at the questioner
in puzzlement, and then it was as though he could see right through the
stranger’s imposing presence and personality to his very self, so he asked:
‘Do you remember which ship you were on?’
‘The Phanurangsee.’
‘Oh!’ The superintendent bowed his head, his whole body almost doubled
over. ‘What a strange way to travel! The Phanurangsee
only stopped to deliver the mailbag and take passengers on back to Bangkok. I
guess it was about three in the morning when she anchored at Siracha, only for
a short call, mind you, sir, but you are now standing in a forestry concession
of the Siracha Company, fifty kilometres from town.’
‘I sat on a big box and saw with my own eyes the ship was still there,
so how could she leave her passengers behind?’ The man stopped speaking and bit
his lips as if deep in thought. A haze of alcohol still numbed his brain. ‘It
seems I jumped into a small boat and then climbed up at the end of a long
bridge, a very long bridge indeed. I took several steps and still couldn’t get
to the end of it. When I saw a carriage or a box – or was it a carriage shaped
like a box? – I sat down on it to rest. So by what kind of miracle do I find
myself into your forestry concession?’
The expression on the local man’s face showed that he was doing his best
to hold back his laughter.
‘No miracle, actually, sir. I think I can guess what happened. Begging
your pardon, wasn’t there a big party on board last night?’
The stranger’s face broke into a smile. ‘Yes, indeed. Since we went on
board in Bangkok, there’s never been a free moment till this morning and as we
were to leave today, the captain, the engineer and the passengers – me and two
foreigners – celebrated and had a swell time.’
To show he had similar inclinations, the superintendent opined: ‘Indeed,
a sea trip is a perfect occasion for celebration. I understand.’
‘Wait. Tipsy as I was, I still could see that water was water, but this
is uncanny: when I opened my eyes again, the sea had turned into a forest.’
‘That’s not difficult to explain. You went to sleep on a railroad car.
You see, in the evening, we use a train to take the logs to port and once
they’ve been loaded on the lighters, some time before daybreak the train starts
back to the forest, occasionally bringing supplies with it. The box you said
you slept on must have been the last car, the one that carries firewood from
the forest. As it happened, there was nothing to be taken from port last night,
so nobody checked the cars on the return trip.
‘The ship you saw must have been the steamer the company uses to pull
the lighters taking the logs to Bangkok. She docks at the head of the pier. As
for the Phanurangsee you came with, she
anchors beyond the pier and rather far from it. Your ship was probably partly
obscured by our company ship. When she left, since you saw her from a distance,
and unless you observed her carefully, you would hardly notice that she was
sailing. I think you didn’t notice because you still had our company ship right
in front of you. She was also scheduled to leave for Bangkok this morning, by
the way. You probably slept soundly on the empty car even while the train
pulled it here. What a frightful prospect!’ The superintendent twisted his
mouth, which was another of his habits when he felt at once amused and alarmed.
‘If you had fallen off the train in your sleep, that
would have been the end.’
The listener raised his hand to push back his hair and looked abashed.
‘I must admit I had taken a drop too much.’
‘Anyway, if you want to return to Bangkok, you can take a bus from
Siracha,’ the superintendent explained, but it seemed that his listener was not
so much interested in road connections with Bangkok as in finding out more
about the present location.
‘Where did you say this part of the woods was?’
‘This concession belongs to the Siracha Lumber Company. We call it the Muenjit site, and it’s fifty
kilometres from company headquarters.’
‘I say! How weird indeed this trip of mine is turning out to be,
especially…’ He didn’t speak any further.
Right then, the place resounded with loud groans and moans, more
high-pitched than the previous ones, compelling both men to turn round to look
at the author of such pitiful lament still under castigation. The
superintendent pressed his lips together while the other man grimaced.
‘There’s something else I’d like to know. What’s the fun about? What are
they beating the elephant for?’ he asked the superintendent with a strained
voice. ‘I find it so beastly I can’t stand watching it any more.’
‘They aren’t doing it for fun at all. It’s a real punishment ordered by
the company’s manager. The reason is, he killed his
own mahout yesterday. I reported the matter to headquarters and received the
order last night to have him punished with one hundred lashes and have his mother
brought over to give him a further beating. This Maliwan is extremely useful at
work, but he is also extremely mischievous and stubborn.’ The superintendent
stopped speaking and turned to the four-legged culprit, then proceeded to say: ‘Please
stay around for the time being. I must attend to my work. If you go straight
over there and then turn right, sir, you can buy something to eat, though it’s
very much potluck. When the train goes back in late afternoon, I’ll come back
for you and tell them to take you to Siracha.’
The stranger thanked the local man, then had no choice but to turn round
and walk back in the direction of the group of people who stood watching the
punishment of the culprit Maliwan, whose moaning and groaning was getting
louder than ever.
After the prescribed number of lashes had been administered to the
elephant as his punishment, the officials further tormented him by ordering him
to kneel down, trumpet and bow and by prodding him until he complied. Then they
removed the ropes fastened around his legs and hobbled his front legs anew. A
while later, a mahout led an old elephant in and made her come to a stop next
to Maliwan. What happened after that generated great mirth among the local
crowd, as the old elephant raised her trunk and slapped Maliwan’s back with it
time and again.
‘Tha’s right, Ol’
Ma! Beat ’im! Teach ’im a less’n! Won mawr, Ma! Won mawr! Hardah!’ The onlookers
yelled and cheered deafeningly, none of them paying attention to the warnings
of the superintendent, who was shouting out of concern for his workers. He was
afraid that Maliwan would feel slighted and turn vindictive, which could pose a
danger to them all.
An elephant who had been punished by the hand of man only to be further
chastised by the trunk of its mother would feel hurt and sad. Even though his
cries gradually died down, the way in which Maliwan now expressed his grief was
much more impressive than his moans had been. He stood with tears rolling down;
he stood motionless, not even trying to avoid the trunk of Old Ma, his mother.
He did not writhe or fret and fume as when he had been beaten by men a moment
ago. Finally, Old Ma thought that she had punished her son sufficiently and,
gasping for air and feeling utterly exhausted, in the manner of the old, she stopped
her trunk lashing and stood shifting her weight from side to side as if to say,
‘Phew! I’m so tired, m’lords. This should be enough.
He’s been taught a lesson. And don’t you forget it, you wayward son! I’ve never
seen such mischievous behaviour. Next time I’m told you misbehaved, I’ll tear
open that thick hide of yours with my bare trunk, you hear!’
Maliwan’s punishment by his masters and by his mother now over, the
mahout led plodding Old Ma back to her pen. The assistant mahout brought rice
and other foods and placed them before Maliwan, then loudly invited him to eat
as if nothing grievous had happened to him, but instead of eating to satiate
his hunger, Maliwan stood still, tears streaming down, not touching the food,
not even showing any desire to eat.
‘Come on, Mali dear, don’t be like this. He tol’ ya ta
eat, so ya eat. Or before long ya’ll go hungry with nothin’ to munch on. Or is it booze ya
wanna, big boy?’ the haulage equipment manager, who
had presided over the punishment, shouted in jest. Hardly had he finished
speaking when the whole place burst into laughter as everybody there was
reminded that Maliwan had furtively drunk as many as ten jugs of moonshine
alcohol which the villagers had left to ferment.
‘Oh! Does this elephant like to drink rice wine, uncle?’ the stranger
asked the man standing next to him.
‘Yep, ’e just begun ta,’ the senior worker
turned to answer. ‘Been two days, the villagers boiled ten jags o’ rice wine
and left ’em to farment.
Maliwan managed to raid ’em all off and nobody know’d ’bout it. When ’is ma’out found ’im, ’e saw ’e couldna do a bit o’ work cuz ’e
just stood there with eyes narrow like slits. The bass ’e said ’e wuz sick in the stomach and hadda
rest in ’is pen. And then de villagers they come complain Maliwan stole all
their hooch. They said they’d lost one rai warth o’ paddy, and de bass hadda
make it up to ’em. Oh, ’e’s
smart, this fella Maliwan, ’e knows ’is work awright,
’e can do as mooch as t’ree ’phunts.
The day ’e got stinko, they hadda
use t’ree ov ’em to do ’is work. And let me warn them who be prancin’ ’bout watchin’ this: they’d betta be
careful cuz Maliwan, he’ll na
fergit. When we’s ordered ta t’rash ’im,
none of us’re too keen ta
do it. If Mas’ah Win hadna
been ’round, he wouldna been punished so.’
‘Hold it, uncle. This liquor the villagers boil and ferment, is it on
sale anywhere? How about going there for a chat?’
The old worker adjusted the piece of thick red cloth round his waist,
then pointed his finger straight ahead, and, walking
intently, took his guest to the intended destination.
Finally, the setting of the sun in late afternoon
signalled to all workers that the period of their daily toil was coming to an
end. The official responsible for the traffic of the log freight train reported
to his supervisor that the train was now ready to return to Siracha. The report
instantly reminded the young man in charge that the stranger was still around
and it was his responsibility to help him leave the place, for his own safety.
He thus ordered a coolie to go and bring the strange man back, because it was
almost time for the train to leave.
The coolie returned within ten minutes.
‘Guess he won’t leave now, sah. I t’ink ya’d betta
go see for yerself.’ The
message puzzled the man in charge, so he decided to leave his work to go and
see what the matter was.
The scene that confronted the young man could have
brought tears to the eyes of the softhearted. On the
large landing in front of him, he saw a kneeled Maliwan stroking with his trunk
the body of a man who lied sound asleep next to him. When he was in a good
mood, Maliwan knew how to be friendly and watch over whoever showed a
disposition he took a fancy to. How was it, then, that
a mere stranger had been able to melt Maliwan’s heart so quickly that the
elephant had forsaken his recalcitrance to willingly kneel and fondly caress
his newly found friend?
The local man took hurried steps towards them, because he wouldn’t trust
Maliwan to have truly given up his obduracy. Were he for any reason to flow
into a rage, his irrepressibly quick temper would probably kill the hapless man
in the twinkling of an eye. But when he got closer, the first thing he saw was
the object that had cemented the friendship between man and beast: a can of
liquor locally known as phueak. Some of it was
still left at the bottom. Maliwan would no doubt need more than one can of this
clear rice wine to fall into a drunken stupor, but it would probably take no
more than half a can of phueak for an ordinary man,
even an inveterate drinker like this stranger who had strayed into this forest
totally unawares, to collapse and lie unconscious next to the elephant’s fodder
as this man did.
2
MC
Suriya-Yiemsakol Disappears at Sea
Mom Chao Suriya-Yiemsakol,
a passenger on board the Phanurangsri, has
disappeared from the ship between Koh Si Chang Island
and Bangkok during the return leg of a cruise, according to a telephone call
from the East Asiatic Co received by our office about one o’clock today. After
an investigation, it was assumed that he accidentally fell into the sea late at
night, as he was usually seen sitting on the railing every night until late.
‘It may be recalled that the prince was the first Thai ever to have had the honour of graduating from a military college of engineering in the United States…
The newspaper in which the sad news was reported
was spread in front of Orraphin. She looked at the large headline before her
eyes as if the letters were written in fire. Yet, she was not interested in
reading the report to the end, not even the several lines of comments that
followed. She used a pair of scissors to cut out the article, which she folded
neatly, and placed the clipping among a few objects in a large wooden trunk
which was used instead of a chair and was placed by the window of her bedroom.
This was the last memento she had of the man who had been her husband.
It was confirmation that the prince known by this name, which meant ‘universal
sun’, no longer existed in this world, and indeed she felt that the sun of the
universe had ceased shining the moment a representative of the shipping company
had informed her of the sorrowful news and handed over to her the various
personal items which the staff on board the Phanurangsee
had found in Prince Suriya’s cabin. Thus, it was not
surprising that Orraphin did not burst into tears when she saw the news of her
husband’s disappearance as reported in the newspaper. She had felt all the
nerves in her body go numb with cold as soon as she had heard the verbal report
the day before. No, Orraphin did not weep, nor had she on the day she had
received the news. She had moved about energetically as she collected the
prince’s personal belongings and placed them in the trunk so that not a single
item would remain in sight. And today, she had decided that, once she had put
the clipping away, she would lock the trunk forever. But when it was time for
her to close the lid for good, Orraphin let out a sob and her body quivered.
Her emotions, usually well under control, now surrendered to long-suppressed,
overwhelming grief. This was because she had been startled when the lid had
slipped from her hand and fallen onto the trunk with a thud, and her memory had
gone back to another sound in a scene whose emotional charge had made her burst
into tears in front of all the guests and go on crying as if she would never
stop. The scene was of a few men helping one another push the coffin containing
the body of her mother to the mortuary. The scraping of the coffin against the
planks had ended with a loud thump, the same sound as the lid had made when it
dropped tightly shut over the trunk a moment ago – final, but with a deep
resonance in her heart, as if this ultimate sound imprinted forever the
memories of loved ones. Orraphin’s energy was gone by now and so were her
attempts to concentrate on the teachings of the Lord Buddha. She buried her
head in her arms, which rested on the lid of the trunk, and tried to suppress
the pain in her eye sockets, as she felt tepid liquid welling up in her eyes.
She had to stop crying like a baby. She must not show signs of distress now
that her beloved had departed for the bliss of heaven.
But Orraphin was an ordinary woman, and to prevent herself from mourning
for a person who had been intimately involved in her life was beyond her power.
During the last three years, Prince Suriya had led his life like someone under
a curse. Although he was an aristocrat and had received an excellent education
as befitted his noble birth and high rank, the prince was widely known for being
devoid of arrogance and for refusing to think of himself as a reincarnated
deity, unlike some other aristocrats of the same rank. He had enjoyed a wide
reputation as an engineer whose special training gave him outstanding ability
in all the tasks under his purview. Orraphin was well aware that the prince’s
real nature was to uphold the manly ideals of behaving like a gentleman and
doing everything a full-bloodied man could do for his fatherland. It was these
two qualities of his which had won her love and inspired her confidence in the
bright future awaiting her as the companion of a man who was full of gentle
tenderness in speech as well as in manner. This is how he really had been, and
to make her forget the bliss she had known during the first year of her life
with her husband would be very difficult indeed.
But then, totally unexpectedly, a calamity had befallen Orraphin’s
family. Prince Suriya had had such a severe difference of opinion with his
superiors that he had had to tender his resignation. The prince was extremely
impulsive, especially as he was devoted to his work much beyond the common
calling. This was because his father, who was renowned in the same field, had
spent much time and effort preparing him for the same career even before he was
born, so to speak. So, deprived of the work that was the most meaningful part
of his existence, he became like a boat without a rudder. The loss of his work
removed his reason to live.
That same night, Prince Suriya took his shattered body back to his
residence virtually on all fours. The stench of alcohol emanating from him was
so strong that it seemed liquor had been poured all over the room. Seeing her
husband in such a state, Orraphin almost lost her mind and did not know what to
do. She dragged Prince Suriya’s battered body to the
bedroom and onto the bed and changed his clothes. Orraphin knew that the
prince’s father was a heavy drinker. Prince Suriya was also aware of the fact,
but he was determined to control himself, and had once made a promise that he would
never drink more than four glasses of liquor in a single sitting, because he
knew that whenever he drank five glasses in succession he could not stop
himself drinking. Assuredly, the blood boiling in his veins would demand that
he, as the heir, went the way of his father and carry on the family line. That
night, he must have partaken of liquor beyond his own limit. But on the
following night again Prince Suriya crawled back to her in the same state as
the night before.
After she learned the truth from her husband’s own mouth, Orraphin
decided to forgive him. She had to entirely suppress the resentment and
loathing that come naturally to women and make herself
willing to comfort and help her husband in everything that would ensure the
triumph of good over evil, as the latter was welcoming her husband with open
arms to the ruination of his life. But as already mentioned,
Prince Suriya was a man under a curse, so that the efforts she deployed and the
forbearance and loyalty she demonstrated towards her husband, without the least
happiness to reward her in return, proved fruitless. Prince Suriya became an
inveterate drinker and took to travelling upcountry. Even though he was
conscious of Orraphin’s goodness in those moments when he came to his senses,
he would forget about it as soon as he was drunk and be totally deaf to her
pleas and warnings. Whenever he tired of travelling upcountry and returned to
her as in the past, she had to begin worrying anew every time. She slept in a
state of alert, ready to answer the telephone and leave home at a moment’s
notice to retrieve her husband from a hospital or from a police station or from
one of a variety of places of entertainment, depending on the arrangements she
had just made with the person in charge in each establishment. It was then that
the whole of Bangkok gave her husband the prestigious title of ‘Number-One City
Drunkard’.
However dissolute the prince’s behaviour proved to be, Orraphin was
still firmly convinced that one day her husband would free himself from the
shackles of evil of all kinds. She still adored him and was ready to suffer
torments on her own in order to worship the genuine love she felt for this
pitiful man. Her respect for the real, original prince she had known was still secure enough for her to sacrifice everything that
a woman could wish for. The only thing that she
asked for was for the prince to return to her embrace once again. But now, her
prayer had proved to be in vain. Prince Suriya’s
travels, which he had resumed at the beginning of the year, had come to an end,
and it was the sort of ending that many astrologers had warned her about when
they told her: ‘This man will not die in his bed.’
Orraphin let her mind drift through the various events that had taken place in
her life, and she would have continued sitting there had not the noise of a
child broken the silence. She turned in the direction from where the sound
originated and heaved a long sigh. Then she lifted a cushion and placed it over
the lid of the trunk. She adjusted the frills so that the wooden trunk was
completely out of sight under the pinkish, plaited covering.
She hurried over to a cot, lifted its mosquito net and examined the face
of a little boy who was about two years old. She saw that he was sleeping
soundly, his arms stretched out across the whole width of the mattress. Kamon-Suriya!
‘You look like you are going to fly,’ she said in a loud voice. ‘You are
the only possession of Daddy’s that I can’t keep with the others. Oh, my
sweetheart, please don’t act as if you were going to fly away from me.’
3
As soon as his body awoke from its deep sleep, the
cold asserted itself over all his nerves. Suriya felt chilled and shivered on
contact with the cold wind, which blew through one of the openings. He had to
bring his legs up against his torso so that they could seek warmth from each
other. His mental faculties, however, were not alert enough for him to
immediately understand what he saw as he opened his eyes. The picture that
presented itself had finely serrated, ragged edges set against an empty
background – a long parallelogram of misty grey. It did not move under his
gaze, neither changing nor fading away, but became clearer as the light in the
framed background gradually increased.
His eyes, fascinated by the picture, adjusted to it little by little,
and when both his body and his mind were fully awake, he was able to tell
himself with confidence that what he had been looking at while half asleep was
a spread of palm roofs seen through a window frame, dark against the natural
colour of the sky at daybreak. This was the first time in his life that he had
woken up in a palm-roofed shack in an unfamiliar setting. As was in the nature
of someone accustomed to the grandeur of mansions, he couldn’t prevent himself
from recalling the joy and happiness he had become familiar with in the past,
before turning to the present to reflect on his current status.
He was very much aware that, throughout his married life with Orraphin,
no matter how drunk he had been the previous night, he had always woken up on a
soft mattress and seen Orraphin sitting by his side ready to wait on him as was
the duty of a good wife. He had never had to listen to a stern rebuke from her,
which might have led to endless trouble, nor had he ever seen her react in an
offensive manner. Orraphin’s one weapon, the value of which she was not even
aware of, was the disturbingly sorrowful look in her eyes. Such a look made him
profoundly ill at ease, scared him even, and whenever possible, he would do his
utmost to avoid eye contact with her. He had every reason to believe that
Orraphin loved him as much as or more than other women loved their husbands.
How about him? He was equally certain that he loved her no less than other
husbands in this world loved their wives. If so, by what twist of fate did he
find himself stretched out flat on a worn-out mat in a row of wooden shacks
crowned with palm roofs, instead of lying beside Orraphin on a soft mattress
and a soft pillow in his grand mansion as he was used to? Ah, yes! Liquor! He
had deliberately left Orraphin in order to try to stop drinking. But did the
fact that he found himself sleeping shabbily in a stranger’s home attest to his
victory over liquor? Not at all. The opposite was true. This made his heart
ache. Whenever he thought about it, the only thing he wanted to do was take a
drink in order to erase the thought from his mind. He fondly remembered that,
when the ship was about to set off, Orraphin had whispered to him as a last
entreaty, ‘I wish you’ll come back to Jiu and me as a
winner.’
Listen! Listen to the great woman! Even though her husband was a
drunkard, she still tried to pick her words so that they would not hurt his
feelings. Indeed, to return to Orraphin’s embrace and love was a prospect he
brooded over with equal measures of bitterness and bliss.
The young man rested his face on his arms as though he were unable to
compete with the silver and golden rays shining forth over the horizon ahead.
You must make it! Alas, only the night before he had been defeated for good.
How could he have the cheek to go back to her?
Engrossed in his thoughts, he must have drifted into sleep again. He
woke up with a start. Sunlight now filled the sky. He heard the shouts of
people waking one another up, the imprecations of a woman next door berating
her man who was unwilling to get up, the sporadic cries of children and
trumpeting of elephants, all noises combining into a din which indicated that
the life of a new day had begun in these parts and it was time for everyone to
go about earning their keep once again.
Mr. Mui, the owner of the shack, appeared and
stood hesitantly at the door, a large, brand-new aluminium water scoop in his
hand.
‘So, you’s awake.’ He
crouched and crept inside and getting closer saw that his guest lay with his
eyes wide open. ‘I brought you some watah. I thought
you was asleep, so I was gonna
leave it next ta ya.’
‘I woke up once, then fell asleep again. Thanks
very much, Mr. Mui. Place it down here.’ Suriya
responded to the homeowner’s kindness, then rose slowly to his feet, shook his
head, made a puzzled face for a while and finally stretched his limbs, which
had pressed against Mr. Mui’s mat all night long.
As for Mr. Mui, when he saw there was no
longer any obstacle in his path, he went to pick up the dark-blue shirt and
shorts which hung on a rail fixed to the wall and put them on over his
close-fitting briefs, which once upon a time had been whiter than white, and
then turned to address the stranger, the guest whom heaven seemed to have sent
for his own blessing, and said, ‘Take yer time, sah. Ya can call any kid around
here to serve ya. There’s a big shop behind the
barracks sellin’ tea and coffee. Now, I must ’urry ta work.’ He pointed at the
large shed next to the workers’ quarters, then turned to take dry tobacco
shreds from a woven bamboo container and rolled himself three cigarettes: one
which he proceeded to smoke and two which he placed behind his ears, a sure
sign that he was feeling thoroughly pleased with himself.
The young man stared at the owner of the place. When he had heard him
refer to ‘barracks’ in English, the familiarity of the word had given him an
odd thrill, but before he could ask how it was that the workers’ quarters were
thus called, Mr. Mui went on: ‘Here’s the key to the
room, in case after ya go over there, you wanna come back take a rest.’
‘No need, Mr. Mui. Just lock up the room and
take the key with you. What you could do before you leave, though, is ask some
boy to get me two cups of coffee.’
As he sat alone on a log in front of the shack, sipping coffee and
puffing on his cigarette in turn, he learned something new: the power of phueak or moonshine was different from that of
whiskey in that the former took effect immediately without your knowledge, so
much so that you finally lost consciousness. Of the previous night’s events, he
only remembered that, after he and Mr. Mui had gone
to cement their friendship in what the villagers called the bar at the back of
the workers’ quarters and, after a whole day’s binge, had found themselves in
total communion, on the way back each had bought a can of clear liquor and
given it to Maliwan. How it had come about that he had gone to spend the night
at Mr. Mui’s place while Mr. Mui
slept some place else, he hadn’t the faintest idea. It was apparent that the
after-effects of local moonshine were also different from those of whiskey and
foreign liquor in general. The latter, which led to drunkenness only gradually,
had a lingering intoxication when it had reached its peak and wouldn’t allow
you to sober up easily, so that the next day you had a headache and felt
groggy, giddy and exhausted, and you had to adopt the strategy of picking a
hair of the dog that bit you to alleviate these symptoms. As he reflected about
this, he saw a way to achieve victory in his battle to stop drinking. He
thought he should put the stratagem to work right away; that is, he would
remain in the forest for a few more days to check again that, in this
out-of-the- way place very much beyond the influence of whiskey, his master, he
probably would not turn into a slave of phueak
instead, since moonshine did not require him to resort to the endless
hair-of-the-dog strategy as foreign liquor did. Thus, he stood a good chance of
gaining the upper hand in this battle.
Mr. Suwan Sirichai, the superintendent of Muenjit, was on his way to the workers’ quarters, and
turning towards them, saw the stranger, who was sipping his second cup of
coffee. The visitor quickly put the cup down, got up from the log and smiled at
the local man to show him the respect demanded by custom.
‘I waited for you for quite a long time yesterday.’ Mr. Suwan spoke
first, seeing from the expression on the guest’s face that he was quite
embarrassed by his obnoxious behaviour of the day before. ‘The main office
needed the train urgently, so I had to let it go. I couldn’t wait for you any
longer.’ Having said this, the superintendent stared silently at the other
party, to give him a chance to reply freely. Suriya, who was no less versed in
manly manners than Mr. Suwan, answered frankly, ‘I
thank you, sir, and I do apologize for being such a nuisance to you and your
work. The truth is, I had drunk more than I should.
You see, it was my first encounter with rice wine.’
‘No wonder! Rice wine is rather fierce for those who aren’t used to it.’
‘Indeed. I remember I brought back two cans of it for your Maliwan, but
I haven’t the foggiest what happened to the elephant after that.’
Mr. Suwan laughed and answered: ‘You’re very lucky to have established a
rapport with that elephant, because he fears no one around here except Mr. Bun-hai, who is an elephant driver. Even with me – the way he
looks at me is none too friendly, I must say.’
Suriya answered slowly, as if deep in thought: ‘I’ve always liked
elephants. I think they’re clever and there’s much to be learned from their
ways.’
‘Yes, most city people find it strange that elephants can work like men,
so they get the wrong idea that elephants can distinguish between good and evil
as men can. But the fact is, no matter how clever elephants are, they’re still
animals. You can’t trust them very much, especially Maliwan.’
‘I find it strange as well, from what Mr. Mui
told me yesterday of Maliwan’s record.’
Mr. Suwan took this opportunity to broach the subject that had been
weighing on his mind since the night before. ‘Talking about Old Mui, I’d like to invite you to have a rest at my house
instead. When it’s time for the train to leave this evening, I’ll send someone
to pick you up. I’ve told my wife to prepare a room for you and it’s ready now.’
‘Thank you very much, sir, but there’s no need to trouble yourself on my
behalf,’ Suriya declined the invitation promptly and courteously. ‘Mr. Mui has already taken me to the restaurant in the forest
over there.’
Surprised, Mr. Suwan asked at once: ‘Where did he take you to? Oh,
yesterday morning, I forgot to ask someone to take you to the main shop. I was
very busy. I didn’t have time to explain anything much, so I only told you the essentials. I thought you’d find the
place by yourself. But Old Mui hardly goes there these days.’
The younger man smiled but did not say anything.
Mr. Suwan turned round swiftly. ‘Let’s go and talk at the shop. I’ll
take you there myself.’ While they were on their way, Mr. Suwan explained: ‘The
shop I’m taking you to belongs to the company. It only sells goods to company
workers and local villagers, in order to prevent foreigners from taking
advantage of those villagers who live deeper into the forest by selling them at
grossly inflated prices the goods they buy here. Old Mui
wouldn’t dare take you to that shop, because he has taken goods on credit way
beyond his limit, so we’ve had to forbid the shop to serve him until he clears
his old debts. I guess that’s why he took you to eat rice and curry at the
villagers’ shop behind the barracks instead.’
Mr. Suwan’s guest could have replied that he
had stayed at the shack from dawn to dusk and his three meals yesterday had
consisted of two plates of rice and spicy curry for breakfast and again for
lunch but dinner had been rice wine and a few pods of fresh tamarind dipped in
salt.
‘Upon my word! Who would have thought there’d be Libby’s canned food for
sale in this part of the woods?’ an exceedingly surprised Suriya exclaimed upon
setting foot into the company shop. He immediately set out to survey the
various consumer products on sale. They ranged from silver earrings and silver
rings set with coloured gems for the wives and daughters of the workers to
brightly coloured silk trousers, canned food and miscellaneous kitchenware.
‘Compared to the shops in Bangkok, we’d be on a par with those in Bang
Lamphoo*,
I reckon,’ Mr. Suwan went on with a rather smug tone. ‘The company has set up a
shop of this kind at every site. Each site must be responsible for supplying
various grades of consumer goods, from good to mediocre, to cater to some five
hundred households. We sell eight to ten thousand baht worth of goods a month.
And since the shop’s opened all day, you can’t prevent it from being a meeting
place for workers and villagers till late at night. Please come this way.’
Mr. Suwan invited his guest to sit down at a special table reserved for
the shop’s personnel. He ordered an employee of the food section to prepare
coffee, fried eggs and fried Chinese sausages for two, as well as open a box of
cream crackers, and bring it all to the table, and if his guest had not stopped
him, the big- hearted superintendent would have ordered either Vienna sausages
or Libby’s corned beef as a further offering.
‘I’d really like you to stay at my house. These men are so crude,’ Mr.
Suwan said as he skewered a Chinese sausage and put it in his mouth. ‘They speak
noisily and you can hardly make head or tail of what they’re saying.’
‘No need really, sir. It would be too much of an imposition. You’ve done
more than enough for me as it is, and I’m most grateful.’ Suriya smoothly
declined the offer, but his heart was in turmoil for the very reason that he
could not tell Mr. Suwan that he had just made the decision not to leave the
forest and that he intended to learn more about the local way of life. He did
not want someone of more or less the same moral standard as he, like Mr. Suwan,
to pry into his reasons or behaviour, which may have caused the superintendent
to look down on him. Moreover, he was convinced that Mr. Suwan’s
family must have learned all that had happened the day before from Mr. Suwan
himself or from other people, as was customary in small communities. He did not
wish to become a laughing stock to more people than was necessary, and if it
was inevitable, he would rather be held in contempt or considered a bit of a
clown by lowly working class people than by individuals of his own social
standing or just below.
‘Then, please meet me at four o’clock at the intersection by the piles
of lumber.’ The superintendent must have misinterpreted the stranger’s
hesitation to cut the conversation short like this. ‘I remain entirely at your
disposal,’ he went on. ‘My name is Suwan Sirichai.
You can mention it as a password everywhere you go around here to get whatever
service you wish for.’
Just as though he had not heard the other party introduce himself in
order to learn his name in exchange, the guest answered: ‘Actually, I may not
be leaving today. I feel that the weather here is so fine I’d like to stay a
few more days. But please don’t trouble yourself. I can stay with Mr. Mui, and I’ll have my meals here.’
Upon hearing this, Mr. Suwan was bewildered, almost to the point of
forgetting his manners. He remained open-mouthed for a long moment before he
could come up with a reply.
‘Er – that’s perfectly all right. Now that you’ve made your intentions
quite clear, everything’s fine.’ And to cover up his puzzlement over the man’s
request to stay in the forest with Mr. Mui for no
apparent reason, Mr. Suwan said, while producing a cigarette case and
presenting it open: ‘Won’t you try a Muenjit Sphinx?’
Suriya almost started when he saw Red Lion cigarettes, with their
distinctive lion rampant, next to Gold Flake
cigarettes in the superintendent’s big wooden case.
‘They’re selling like hot cakes. Red Lions are very popular among
foreigners here.’
Suriya took three puffs on his Red Lion and felt as if needles pricked
his throat. His temples throbbed and his head swelled. For the sake of good
manners, he went on sitting and making a show of inhaling and exhaling smoke.
Before long, however, he laughed sheepishly as he threw the cigarette away. He
took a Gold Flake from the case and drew on it instead to soothe his throat.
‘This smells like the celestial smoke drifting out of Siva’s pipe. As a
matter of fact, I just ran out of cigarettes this morning. How could I possibly
believe there’d be Gold Flakes for sale in this neck of the woods?’
Mr. Suwan laughed. ‘Actually, they are sold to management only. But for
heavy smokers like us, they are too strong, so we have to smoke Red Lions as
well. If you want, I’ll have one of my workers go over to my house and bring
you back a tin.’ Then Mr. Suwan went back to the question of accommodation. ‘Please
think carefully again. If you decide to stay at my house, you should go there
now. I’d be happy to welcome you any time.
But if you’d rather not, then it’s entirely up to you.’
Suriya declined the invitation firmly, yet politely enough. Right then,
a thought flashed across his mind and forced him to ask yet again for an
explanation from the superintendent, as to why the workers here called their
quarters ‘barracks’.
‘We’ve been using this name since the time the Borneo Company was hired
to run the company on behalf of its Thai executive committee. The management
has been in Thai hands for more than ten years now, but the workers still call
their quarters and many things they use by their foreign names. Calling them by
their Thai names would only confuse them. The longer you stay here, the more
foreign words you’ll notice.’
Suriya laughed, amused. He felt there were indeed many factors which helped
make life here really enjoyable.
‘Before I take my leave, I’d like to tell you more about Maliwan.’ Mr. Suwan lit a Red Lion and drew on it with an impassive face, then went on speaking. ‘I am very worried about your friend Maliwan. Please take good care of yourself. I have a feeling he’s going to put you into big trouble because of his temper that I told you about yesterday. What I didn’t tell you is that he’s jealous and vengeful. This is an important point. When Maliwan is fond of a mahout, that mahout can’t get close to anyone el