Venom
The White Shadow >> L'Ombre blanche
>> Une Histoire vieille comme la pluie
The afternoon was coming to an
end. The light was softening, and the dark-red sheen of the sun was fading. The
sky was a deep dome of crystal, clear and vast. Thin shreds of clouds on the
horizon to the west took on wondrous hues under the last sunrays. Their
ever-changing shapes enticed the imagination. He sat still, looking at those
clouds as if in a trance. He saw them as tangled mountains, as thick jungle, as
a solitary tree whose branches had been shorn bare by storms, as hillocks in
the shape of a woman lying on her side. He had never told the secrets in his
imagination to anyone, not even to the gang of close friends who were out
grazing their cows and busy playing with pinwheels made out of rushes. He
looked at his own cows grazing along with the cows of his friends. As his gaze
swept over them, he was counting. The eight of them were still there.
He it was who had given each
cow its name. His father and mother had left him at liberty to do so, and he
had chosen each name after much careful thought. The first four had names that
had to do with nature: Field and River and Forest and Mountain. It sounded like
a nursery rhyme, too. The next two had names of gems: Diamond and Pearl. And
when his father had bought another two calves last year, he hadn’t been long in
coming up with Silver and Gold. Diamond and Pearl and Silver and Gold: it
sounded like a nursery rhyme, too. Every time his father and mother were told
of the name of a cow, they smiled and approved without reservation, then set
about using the name. One evening his father said, Well
now, Field and River, it’s time for you two to stay in the cowshed, so you know
where you belong. One evening his mother said, Silver and Gold, it’s
time you behaved like mature cows; I’ll have you plough the rice field. His
father and mother were pleased that their cows had nice-sounding, well-matched
names, and he was happy to please his father and mother. He was very close to
his eight cows. If he hadn’t been the one to give them their names, then for
sure he wouldn’t feel as attached to them as he did. He was their friend and he
was their Lord of Life as well, and they acknowledged that much to him. He
loved all of his cows. He was extremely careful not to show prejudice or bias.
Come bedding season, his father used Field and River to harrow the rice field.
His mother used Forest and Mountain to harrow the rice field. He used Diamond
and Pearl to harrow the rice field, with Silver and Gold in reserve in case one
pair of cows got too tired, or was badly hurt by the yoke. But he tried his
utmost to love his cows equally; he didn’t pay attention to Silver and Gold
only. After the day’s harrowing was done, he bathed them all carefully and gave
each of them a sheaf of green grass. He’d like his father and mother to buy one
more cow or, even better, another two. He spent much of his spare time thinking
up suitable names for them.
He was ten years old last
February, just after he finished with primary school. His friends in the
village, boys and girls alike, called him the Cripple. When he was still going
to school, his classmates called him the Cripple. Some grownups in the village
also called him the Cripple. That was because his right arm, from the shoulder
down, was stiff and atrophied. He couldn’t fold his crooked elbow. All of his
fingers were rigid and useless; they stuck out like rods, couldn’t be splayed
out or bunched into a fist. His right shoulder looked caved in, shapeless and
thin. But his left arm rippled with muscles. His left fingers were long, thick,
tapered and deft. His left shoulder was strong and powerfully built. He was
always ready to fight with boys his own size or even slightly bigger than him. And he always fought to the finish, even though he had
the use of one arm only.
Song Wat
took great pleasure in calling him the Cripple, that damn Cripple, or that
fucking Cripple, with utmost hate and contempt. He was happy constantly
reminding himself and others in the village of the child’s impairment. Song
Wat was a medium. He was a man of about fifty, short,
brawny and very dark-skinned. Formerly, he was plain Wat
by name, but one day five years ago he had told everyone in the village that
the spirit of the Sacred Mother who protected the village intended to use him
as her medium and that he was the only person able to invite the spirit of the
Sacred Mother to enter his body at any time. Many people in the village and the
neighbouring villages believed him. And so it was that Master Wat became Song Wat, Wat the Anointed, just like that, and he grew steadily more
prosperous without having to break his back in the rice field or raise cows or
pigs any longer. When he was inhabited by the spirit, he wore a white,
old-fashioned loincloth tied round his legs, a white long-sleeved shirt, a white
shawl round his shoulder and a red flower over his ear. He spoke with the
smooth, mellifluous voice of a woman, using quaint, ancient turns of phrase
that were hard to figure out. His whole attitude too changed into that of a
woman, and he could even dance with a peculiar, dainty grace. It was an
impressive and credible act. Song Wat thus was
someone who had power and influence in the village, and power and influence he
was always ready to use. Around the village were strips of fallow land which
were open to all, but Song Wat had taken them
over on his own authority, fenced them off and planted them with trees, in the
hope of becoming their owner eventually. The child’s father said this was
selfish and objected publicly but Song Wat
stubbornly stayed on the land so that if the land officials ever issued title
deeds, he could claim the plots by right of use.
Being the medium of the
spirit protecting the village made the people respect and fear him, but the
crippled child’s father did not believe that Wat was
the medium of the Sacred Mother. His father always said, That
fellow Wat is only good to deceive fools. That
was the reason why Song Wat didn’t like his
father and mother and by the same token didn’t like him either. Furthermore, Song
Wat had taken to hating him the day he had given his
son a black eye (he had thrown a mighty punch heedless of the fact that the
fellow was much bigger than him – Heck, shouldn’t have
come ’n’ bullied him in the first place). Song Wat
always said that disparaging the medium of the Sacred Mother was like
disparaging the Sacred Mother herself, and them that did would be brought to
reckoning sooner or later. Song Wat said that
if the boy had fallen from that palm tree and broken his right arm and lost the
use of it year before last, it was because the invisible hand of the Sacred
Mother had pushed him.
Two years earlier, when he was
eight and still in the third form, he had gone with his cows in the fields and
found a sugar palm tree whose berries were just right for his mother to
preserve. It was a young tree about six metres high, without any bamboo steps
up its trunk. He decided to climb it. He took his knife out of his waist and
put it between his teeth, wiped the caked mud of the rainy season off his feet
on a clump of wet grass on the ground and shinnied up until he almost reached
the crown. He knew no fear; the notion of danger didn’t even enter his mind:
higher palm trees than this he had climbed. The top of the tree was a cluster
of dry palm midribs that still clung, blocking his ascent. He couldn’t climb
any higher to pick the berries unless he got those midribs out of the way. So,
he used his left hand to clasp the trunk, with both his feet taking the weight
of his body on either side of the trunk, and he used his right hand to pull at
the dry midrib right above his head. The whole trunk was covered with slippery
green mould. The midrib he pulled with all his strength came loose easier and
faster than he thought, and this made him lose his balance. He was telling
himself, Heck, this messy stuff’s coming off real easy. Even before he had
thought this through, he had slipped and was falling along with the midrib.
Fright made him yell. His knife fell out of his mouth. The right side of his
body slammed into the ground. There was the unmistakable sound of a bone in his
arm breaking, along with a searing pain and a gut-wrenching spasm. He lay prone
on the ground, jaws clenched, and remained lying thus until the sun had left
the land. His cows (he had only six then) wouldn’t go back to the cowshed even
though it was getting dark. They came and gathered round him and stood looking
at him, lowing, nudging him gently with their muzzles, licking his body and his
face with their raspy slobbering tongues, snorting in distress, until the evening
star shone and his father came and found him breathing feebly on the ground,
his body covered in mud, his right arm stiff and disjointed, but even so his
jaws still clenched tight and his eyes dry. The hospital was too far, as was
the monastery of Father Ring, the famed bonesetter. He had to drink a decoction
of buabok leaves for a whole month to nurse
his contusions, and from that day, his right arm was a dud. That was what made
everyone call him the Cripple. That was what made Song Wat always say that that accident had happened because his
father did not show respect to the medium of the Sacred Mother, and not a few
folk thought Song Wat’s opinion was correct,
and he was respected and feared all the more.
But his father and mother
never called him the Cripple, neither did Granny
Phlapphlueng, the midwife, nor Reverend Father Thian,
the abbot of the village monastery, and he always thought of all four of them
with gratitude. His parents had given him birth and were raising him. Granny
Phlapphlueng had delivered him and cut his umbilical cord. Reverend Father Thian had thought up a name for him. His father had said: Son, how would you like to ride a bicycle? I’ll
teach you. He had nodded in agreement and had trained himself on his
father’s big bike, which was so darn high, almost higher than his own head
even, and there was that iron bar in the middle, too. He had had to squeeze
himself under the bar, put his feet on the pedals and hold the handlebar with
his left hand and his worthless right arm. It was a very trying way of learning
to ride a bike, but he was able to cycle wherever he pleased eventually, though
he had learned to ride a bicycle for his father’s sake rather than his own.
When the rainy season came, his father told him as if he were a grownup: Which
plot do you think we should plough to begin with? His mother would always
consult him about all kinds of problems as well. His mother had said: My
Forest and my Mountain have just about had it. Tomorrow I’ll take Silver and
Gold to plough instead: what do you think? His mother had held his left
hand to teach him how to write all over again, putting up with his tantrums as
he struggled once more with his ABCs. His mother had said: Come on, you can
do it. Before long, you’ll write faster ’n’ better than the other kids. Granny Phlapphlueng had said: Come here, little
’un, and let me see your willy.
And she had grabbed him in her arms and taken off his trousers to look at
his willy and said: Some of you ain’t quite as should be, but your willy’s
got nothing wrong with it and I’m sure it’ll grow into a super-duper willy in due time. He had been embarrassed. He was
embarrassed every time Granny Phlapphlueng acted with him and spoke with him
like that, but he fully understood she wished him well and wanted to boost his
self-confidence. Reverend Father Thian took special
interest in him. Reverend Father Thian had said: So
you’re already helping your parents plough the fields, hey? Had said: Well,
well, young fellow, so you can ride a bicycle now, hey? Had said: So you
can write with your left hand now, hey? Come and show me how you copy this
magic spell for good health into this copybook for me.
His father and mother and
Granny Phlapphlueng and Reverend Father Thian never
called him the Cripple and were always kind to him and always tried to be
patient when he made blunders. So, he loved them very much. He did try to love
the others as well, but he found that he still loved the people who were nice
to him more than he did the others. He found that he hated Song Wat and found that Song Wat
hated him just as much. This made him unhappy. On the night of Loi Krathong, he went out to float his krathong
on the canal behind his house at the landing under the big tamarind tree. He
brought his krathong to his forehead,
hands joined in worship, and asked the Mother of the Waters for forgiveness and
even asked her for a few favours. He asked for his father and mother to have
plenty of rice to harvest and sell the rice at a good price, asked for Granny
Phlapphlueng who was about to leave the village to live with her grandchild in
a neighbouring hamlet not to move right away, asked for Reverend Father Thian who was rather poorly due to his old age to recover
his strength and good health and live for a long time to come, and finally
asked for himself not to feel any hate for Song Wat
any longer and for Song Wat not to hate him.
After that, he lit the stick of incense and the candle in the krathong and placed the krathong
on the water and watched it until it had disappeared in the flow of the
brimming canal. A few days after Loi Krathong, he
asked Reverend Father Thian when the latter came by
his house on his morning alms round, Rev’rend,
the other night, for Loi Krathong, I asked the Mother
of the Waters for a few favours. I was wondering: all those wishes we make, are they ever granted? Reverend Father Thian did not answer right away but instead asked: What
was it you wished for? When he had told him which
favours he had asked, Reverend Father Thian smiled
and said, All your wishes will come true.
All of them.
The light was dimming
steadily. Over the horizon to the west there was a glowering of purple tinged
with red. The clouds kept changing form. The wind still blew strongly. He
looked at the bare spread of golden brown fields that stretched as far as the
eye could reach, with bushy groves and palm trees of murky-looking green
scattered here and there. He looked at the cart track, at the monastery and the
village in the distance. All of it was a familiar sight to him. He looked at
his cows, counting them. All there, as usual. His friends had stopped running
about with pinwheels and instead had gathered in a circle to play sepak-takroh,
kicking around an old, much-battered rattan ball with much bawdy shouting.
Another day at the end of the barren hot season was about to end. He stretched
himself lazily, stood up, took four or five rice straws in his hand, and walked
to the pool nearby.
It was a stretch of water in
open country, very large and very long, deep and ancient. It had been dug since
time out of mind to hold water for the rice fields. It was a public utility but
these days Song Wat had taken it over as a
matter of course. All four sides were thickly planted with trees big and small
and garlanded with creepers. In the pool, the water level was way down and the
water was covered with morning glory and other aquatic plants. On the northern
side there was a shrine to the Sacred Mother of the village, built in wood,
looking like a minute traditional Thai house. In the shrine there was an image
carved in wood in the form of a young woman sitting with legs to one side and
wearing a wraparound skirt covering her down to her feet, with a shawl slung
across the shoulder. Even though the face of the image was beautiful, it looked
heartless and dour. In front of the image were an incense holder and a
candlestick and a flowerpot full of dry flowers. Actually there was already a
shrine to the Sacred Mother to the north of the village but Song Wat had claimed that the Sacred Mother had told him she
wanted a new shrine, so he had set one up by this pool, and he had taken the
opportunity to plant banana trees and coconut trees on one part of the eastern
bank to show that he was in charge.
The child with the crippled
arm turned towards the line of bamboo by the pool near the shrine. The cool air
coming from the water and from the trees along the rim of the pool was like an invitation, and the closer one got the more one
seemed to enter an abode of peace and quiet. There was but the rustle of leaves
in the wind, the rasping of bamboo stems against one another, the crackle of
bamboo leaves underfoot. The ground was thickly covered with dry bamboo leaves.
A dead tamarind tree, with a trunk it would take two men to girdle, lay bare
and rotting at full length on this spread of dry leaves. The crippled child sat
down on the trunk of that fallen tree and looked at the shrine for a while. In
the old days, he and his friends were always hanging around this pool, to fish,
catch shrimps, or pick wild mangoes they munched on the spot. But since Song
Wat had come and set up a shrine there, the pool had
become the property of the Sacred Mother, as had the animals in its water and
the trees around it – or so the medium claimed. The shrine itself was something
secretive, with a malevolent aura of danger. Neither he nor his friends nor
even the village people felt like venturing near it any longer unless it was
truly necessary.
With the rice stalks in his
left hand, the crippled child began to make puppets. He used his right arm to
prop one up, and his feet and his mouth to help on occasion. There were six
puppets altogether, crude approximations of human figures, yet each the epitome
of creativity. That one was a hermit, that one, a king, those two, princes, and
those two, clowns, Gabby and Oldie. The puppets of the hermit, the king and the
two princes were anything but realistic. But those of Gabby and Oldie he knew
he had done well. These two clowns were ordinary folk; they weren’t like
characters in a fairy tale. Gabby’s face and haircut made him look like a cow;
Oldie’s face made you think of a crocodile.
He was thinking he’d play
shadow puppet theatre. He took his games seriously, no matter what they were.
He always put all of his heart into them. He loved to watch shadow plays. When
a shadow-play company came by this or any of the surrounding villages, he never
missed a show. He’d climb to the back of the stage and watch the work of the
puppeteer and the musicians. He was always thrilled to see the puppet master as
he sat cross-legged in the dazzling light, skin oozing
sweat, both hands jerking the puppets, mouth singing lines of poetry or
speaking lines of dialogue. He remembered a great many lines and songs and gags
from a great many shows. He dreamt he’d be a master puppeteer of the shadow
theatre when he was a grown-up even though he only had the use of a single arm.
So now, he sat with his back
to the sun, whose lowered rim touched the horizon. The sun would be his storm
lantern. The emptiness in front of him would be his screen. He propped the
puppet of the hermit against the fork of a branch of the dead tamarind tree and
got ready to perform the ceremony of homage to the teacher. There was no one to
see him perform but that didn’t bother him. He knew well that his friends
listlessly kicking the takroh ball in a circle would eventually come over to
watch his performance. It was always like that every time he played shadow
puppets. They all watched him with admiration mixed with jealousy. In this
instance, none of them was a match to him, because one day he’d be the most
famous crippled master puppeteer whose performances full of magic would compel
thousands of spectators to stay rooted to the spot from dusk to dawn. Without
further ado, he broke into the song of homage to the teachers with a resounding
and clear voice.
With joined hands and a clear
mind
I bow to the learned masters
So full of cant they’ve lost
their marbles
I humbly bow to the Undertaker
A great pal of supernal
spirits
And to the Plagiarist—
After a couple dozen lines, he
looked up. His friends had come. Seven altogether. They all had swarthy skin,
wore shabby, darned dark clothes, went barefoot. They
all wore large-brimmed straw hats and held staffs. Sitting or standing in front
of him, they all listened eagerly. Some tried to remember every one of his
words and every one of his gestures. Some had once come to ask him to write
down the lines he had sung so that they too could memorize and sing them, but
he wouldn’t do it. These were things he’d have the use of for a long time to
come, things that had been hard for him to learn. Some had asked him to repeat
his performance, but he wouldn’t yield. In his friends’ eyes, he could see the
craving for entertainment. Kids always have a soft spot for silly limericks.
So, he went on with a few more lines. But this was only the homage to the
teachers and although it went on and on, that’d have to do. So, without further
ado he tackled the overture. He sang heartily in rhythm with the pipe and drum
he heard only in his imagination. He sang so loud his cows turned round to
watch.
He had yet to mention the two
princes who were the heroes of the story but the puppets of the two princes
were ready and eager to come out and strut their stuff. He had yet to mention
Gabby and Oldie but the puppets of the two clowns were ready and eager to come
out and strut their stuff. Both Gabby and Oldie were itching at the mouth to
spill out wisecracks, but soon after they came out and showed some fancy
footwork, the sun would have set. It was time to take the cows back to the
cowshed. He wouldn’t play any longer even if his friends pressed him to. No
way. Maybe he wouldn’t play tomorrow night either. He’d play only when he felt
like playing. Right now he could see himself in the future more clearly than
ever, a young man with brown skin and dark, sharp good looks sitting on the
stage of a shadow theatre, sweat streaming down under the glare of a storm
lantern, manipulating his puppets made out of leather cut from cowhide,
breathing life into them, and down there in the stalls thousands of people
ready to laugh and cry along with the scenes he would create, and high on the
screen would be his name, the famous master puppeteer. That was the future. He
cleared his throat a little and went on with the lines, which told of the
wonders of the great city where the story took place.
And it was then, from the
depths of her burrow hidden under the huge rotting dead tamarind tree lying
there, that an incensed female cobra thrust up her neck. Her body was as big as
a full-grown man’s thigh. Her back was pitch black, her belly white with breaks
of grey. Dusk was nigh by now. She had waited a long time to come out of her
burrow in order to look for food, but the various sounds above her nest – of
feet stomping the earth, of bodies moving, of laughter, of lines being sung –
wouldn’t ever die down. She had slyly raised her head for a look around several
times already, her forked tongue darting in and out. Those young of man, all of
them dangerous and craven, all with their hands clasped over bamboo staffs – as
luck had it, they hadn’t brought their dogs along –: those were the foes snakes
always tried to shun. But even in flight, she had to show dignity: she always
slithered slow and sassy, displaying the grace of evil in every inch of her
body through the fluid flow of her progress. She had absolute faith in her
fangs and in the venom in them. The parts around here were hers. Her burrow and
the area above her burrow she guarded with zealous care. On that rotting
tamarind tree trunk, she would climb and stretch to take a breath of air on
some nights. The intrusion of these young of man made her raving mad. The nine
eggs in her nest made her unafraid of anything at all and ready to risk her
very life. Showing herself thus was a proclamation of war in itself, and from
the very depths of her instinct, she was eager to wage total war. She was ready
to strike.
In the twinkling of an eye,
she raised her body to the utmost, displaying for all to see the full four metres
of her length. She swayed and spread her hood. The might of every particle of
her was boiling over, her threatening hiss loud as a
song of death. She heard the young of man scattering every which way in a
jumble of shouts. She heard the herd of cows scampering at breakneck speed,
ears pricked, tails upturned, eyes white. Of the young
of man now only one was left before her, the very one sitting on the tamarind
tree trunk above the entrance to her burrow, the very one who was responsible
for the din that had gone on until a moment ago. This was the target the snake
had chosen from the first. It was a misshapen human offspring with an atrophied
right arm, all the fingers of his right hand stretched out, his right shoulder
slumped and frail. Six straw puppets lay in a heap by his feet. When the snake
raised itself again, the young of man sprang erect too, staring wide-eyed,
mouth agape full of the din of deafening silence. He was too stupefied to
scream or scram. He had been totally taken by his game. The warning shouts of
the other young of man had come to him as if in a dream. Flee, Cripple,
flee! But the body of the little man in front of the big snake had frozen
stiff and wouldn’t budge. The snake was beside itself with fury. It raised its
body even higher. Its head pulled to the rear like a
bow tensed to the utmost. Its mouth opened, revealing shiny curved fangs. Gusts
of wind blew ceaselessly. The bottom part of the sun had sunk under the
horizon. Some lonely calf was calling its mother. A red kite glided high in the
air and uttered a shrill cry of hunger as it turned to wing back to its
secluded eyrie. The eagle’s cry wasn’t over when the snake struck with all its
might.
Merely at arm’s length, the
crippled child only saw something rushing at his face. He was only aware that
the snake was about to bite him. He shut his eyes tight as he threw himself
backward. His awareness was total. Then he thought pain, death, pain, death,
fear and it’s over. All of it was just words without sounds and he saw himself thrashing
about on the skin of the boundless fields under starlight, writhing in the
throes of the venom, and dead, a ghost guarding the fields in torment. The wind
would blow over him without him being aware of it any longer. And he thought
further, Father, Mother, Granny Phlapphlueng, Reverend Father Thian, our rice field, our cows, and he saw everything that
was in his thoughts. He remembered even in the second of death the name of each
of his cows and irrepressible sadness and longing rose in him. But without
realizing it, he had raised his left arm, fingers
spread out, and come into contact with the neck of the snake as it was striking
down. He felt as if his whole hand were being torn away. The arm on that side
shook and went numb all the way to the shoulder. He managed to grab a hold as
the snake’s fangs came within a hair’s breadth of his neck.
The collision was so violent
that he staggered and lost his balance, tripped on a dead branch of the
tamarind tree which snapped, and fell. He crashed headlong into a knot of the
fallen tree trunk. The snake, its target missed, its neck caught in a vice-like
grip, immediately uncoiled its body and in the twinkling of an eye wrapped
itself around his left arm, around his trunk and right arm as one, and around both
his legs. But his left arm was still free and he clutched the neck of the snake
tightly, pushing its head away from him. His fierce resistance made the snake
mad with wrath. It coiled itself even tighter. Its mouth was wide open in a
sneer of fangs, its neck shook fiercely to get free, but the crippled child
clenched his fist even harder. Despite its plight, the snake was still trying
to strike. It tried to bite his arm and almost managed to bury its fangs into
his shoulder. As the child increased the strength of his grip, the snake
increased the tightness of its coils. The bodies of the giant snake and of the
child with the crippled arm rolled every which way on the ground in a
scattering of dry leaves. Small bushes snapped and crackled, crushed under them.
The child with the crippled arm knew only that no matter what happened he would
never allow his left hand to let go of the neck of the snake. The snake too
knew only that it had to strike its foe just once or, if it failed to do so,
rally all of its strength to crush its prey to death.
During the tussle, the head of
the snake was inches away from his face, so close it must smell his breath, so
tightly entwined it must be hearing his heart pounding while he saw the cobra
at close quarters. Its fetid smell was overpowering, making him feel even more
scared and panicky. Its squeezing was starting to make it difficult for him to
breathe and gave rise to a dull ache that spread throughout his body. The weird
coldness of its neck and the slippery smoothness of its repulsive scales made
his heart beat strongly and erratically. He was fully aware that there was no
one to help him, so he didn’t think of calling out for help. He struggled,
trying to get up, because lying on the ground like this put him at a disadvantage.
Even though the snake increased its pressure, he managed to sit up on his
knees, and by pressing the neck of the snake against the trunk of the tamarind
tree he managed to push himself erect. Every pore of his body dripped with
sweat. He did not know yet that he was wounded above his right eyebrow and at
the mouth, which had happened when he had knocked against that knot in the tree
trunk. He only had a smell of blood in his nostrils. He spit. He couldn’t see
the colour of it, but the smell and taste told him it was blood. He blinked.
Sweat flooded his eyes, making them itchy and blurry.
The sky was boundless and
empty. The horizon to the west was still a dark red, though the sun had
disappeared. His eight cows weren’t willing yet to go back home to their
litter. They still stood hesitatingly, blurred shadows in the darkening fields.
The other little cow herders had tried to drive them back to their cowshed but
they weren’t willing, perhaps because of Field, the leader of the herd, who was
stubborn, so that the others proved stubborn too. They worried about him. They
knew something unusual had happened to him. Past sunset as it was, it was time
for him to lead them back to the cowshed and they were waiting for him. They
were all lowing moo moo moo.
He counted his cows out of habit. They were still all there. That gave him
heart. He set about walking with staggering steps towards his cattle. The giant
snake coiled around him made it impossible for him to walk normally. The sky
was getting darker by the minute. The gusts of wind were getting stronger. The
evening star was already out, a faint white blob in the sky to the west. All
eight cows pressed against one another in a tight cluster, still lowing moo moo moo, calling him who was
their Lord of Life. He walked towards them, getting closer, getting closer
still. All eight cows had their ears pricked up, their eyes wide open, their
tails upturned. He did not think his cows could help him. He thought only that
at this time of night his cows should be back in the cowshed. He thought he had
to take them back to the cowshed, even though the snake wouldn’t let him be.
Got a little closer. The eight cows were snorting nervously, turning their
heads this way and that, but when they could see him clearly, they couldn’t
remember him. That wasn’t the shape or smell of him they were used to and all
eight of them expected, so they took flight running for dear life away from
him, in the direction of the village.
He stood stock-still looking
at his cattle running away into the thickening darkness of dusk. He hesitated
for a while. He should go and see his father and mother. He was well aware that
now his father and mother were not at home, but at the monastery, sawing wood
for Reverend Father Thian who had undertaken to have
an old cell repaired next to the burial grounds. His father and mother had gone
to help saw wood for Reverend Father Thian for
several days now and would always go back home very late at night or sometimes
both stay the night in the temple hall. His father and mother may be able to
help him. Reverend Father Thian also may be able to
help him. He had not thought yet how they could help him. He worried about
home. He worried about his cows. But whom should he go to see first, his father
and mother or Reverend Father Thian? From where he
stood, the monastery was much nearer than his house. So, he started plodding
along the cart track, each step a lumbering, painful, slow process, in the
direction of the monastery.
When he entered the precincts
of the monastery, seven or eight temple dogs gathered in the grounds of the
chapel set out barking and rushed out in a pack, surrounded him, growling and
baring their fangs. He didn’t pay attention. He didn’t quicken or slow down his
pace. His eyes stared absently straight ahead. The dogs stopped barking as soon
as they had a good look at the mass of him and the giant snake, and started to
whimper instead, ears flapped, tails between their legs, each rooted to the
spot, eyeing the others. When he had walked past a few steps, one dog began to
howl non-stop and the others set about howling in turn as if they were seeing
ghosts. The pigeons cooing throatily under the eaves of the chapel and the
cornices below the roof of the temple hall suddenly broke into a ruckus and
took to flying helter-skelter, warning one another of the strange happening
that might mean danger. He looked at the row of cells in the darkness, looked
at the clusters of trees tall and small, looked at the bullet-wood trees lining
one side of the temple pool and looked at the shrines. There was no one at all.
He heard a murmur of prayers from afar. He decided to walk up to the temple
grounds. The whole place was pitch black. The only light came from the chapel.
There the faint glow of candles brought forth some radiance. Scented incense
smoke came floating by. There Reverend Father Thian,
four elder monks and two novices were reciting the evening prayers in a low
drone. He stopped to watch as if caught in a dream. Reverend Father Thian might be able to help him one way or another, but
since he was busy praying like that, to go and disturb him would be unseemly
behaviour. It’d be a sin. If the reverend and the other monks and the novices
saw him in this condition, what would happen? They’d yell, their hair would stand
on end, they’d lose their heads and take to their
heels every which way. If that did happen, the religious ceremonial would be
desecrated and he, who would be the cause of the desecration, would bear the
misfortune attached to it. So, he decided not to go and disturb Reverend Father
Thian and decided not to wait either.
He left the temple grounds,
walked past the bell tower, turned left before coming to the bridge over the
canal in front of the monastery and walked along the dried-out canal. Big trees
lined both sides of the canal. He walked on, turned to go and see his father
and mother who were sawing wood on an open space near the burial grounds. He
heard the sound of sawing from a long way off. He saw his father and mother
from a distance thanks to the light of a paraffin lamp hung on a branch of a
big banyan tree. His father and mother – a couple of villagers all taken up by
the tough task in front of them. His father wore ample black trousers knotted
tightly at the waist, but no shirt. His brown, sturdy body shone with sweat.
His mother wore a long black wraparound skirt and a long-sleeved black shirt.
She was as strong as a man in his prime. Her skirt and
shirt were drenched with sweat also. His father and mother stood on either side
of a big log and were helping each other saw that log, alternatively pulling
and pushing the saw. The barking of the pack of dogs on the landing of the
chapel could still be heard, plaintive and chilling. The light of the paraffin
lamp revealed the tortured shapes of roots of the banyan tree as fantastic
shadows and revealed the closest mortuaries and graves as well. The mortuaries
were brick-and-mortar structures standing in rows. Some had sealed lids up
front, which meant that there were coffins within. Some were empty; only a deep
shadow could be seen inside. Behind the rows of mortuaries at some distance
were old graves whose bodies had yet to be dug up for cremation; almost all
were bodies of poor people: the bodies of the wealthy were kept in the
mortuaries. Over each grave, there was a wooden stake with a small board across
bearing the name of the dead. There wasn’t one of these stakes over the graves
that wasn’t bent and twisted. Even though there was the grating of the saw
eating into the wood, the cooing of the pigeons under the eaves of the chapel,
the baying of the dogs coming from the chapel landing and the faint scansion of
the monks at prayer, what reigned over the area was a deep, thick, unnatural
silence. The unfortunate child walked towards his father and mother. He tried
to shout out, Dad! Mom! But the words wouldn’t come out. His father and mother
were still busy sawing the log. He walked a little closer still. His sweat was
still running down. The blood from his wounds was still running down. His eyes were
wide open to the point of popping out, his hair stood on end. The giant snake
was still coiled tightly around him and his left hand still clutched the neck
of the snake firmly. It was in this fashion that he appeared in the light of
the paraffin lamp in front of his father and mother. His mother was the one to
see him first. She didn’t say anything. She just started, her hand stopped at
once and pointed at him. This made his father stop too and look up in the
direction his mother was indicating. He jumped, raised both hands in the air in
a gesture he had never seen before, and when his mother scared out of her wits
took to her heels in the direction of the monastery, his father darted after
her. The big saw was still stuck into the log, its handles still swinging
slowly as if it too were terrified.
He walked through the burial
grounds and through the fields to rejoin the cart track, heading for the
village. He was amazed with himself for not being in the least afraid as he
went past the mortuaries and the graves. Ordinarily he would never set foot
anywhere near here, even in broad daylight. The dogs still barked and howled
confusedly. The cooing of the pigeons was still heard. But he plodded painfully
across the burial grounds without giving a damn. What he was facing at present
was much more frightening than all the ghosts and ghouls put together.
His father and mother must
have rushed panic-stricken to see Reverend Father Thian
in the chapel. By now they must be sitting gasping for air, with sweat all over
their bodies and faces and sawdust all over their limbs, telling what they had
just witnessed with stunned, halting voices, harming the sacred atmosphere of
the chapel for good. This was unseemly behaviour. That was sinful. The prayers
would be interrupted and tonight his father and mother would stay at the
monastery as they had before. His father and mother probably thought that by
now he was at home, going through his routine, putting the cows in the cowshed,
bringing them pails of water and armfuls of dry litter, and then cooking the
rice and making some simple dish. After dinner, he’d lie down and listen to the
radio or go out for a stroll in the village, have four or five rounds of
draughts with his friends, go back home, take a shower and go to bed. He
himself right now could see himself going through these motions. He went on
walking until he reached the cart track. Between the monastery and the village
there were but rice fields with copses and shaggy hillocks over a distance of
about three kilometres. It was a night without moon. The cart track was a
blurred white under starlight.
Blood still came out of the
wound in his mouth and he had to spit now and then, and blood still came out of
the wound above his right eyebrow. The wounds were more serious than he
thought. The blood would stop if his wounds were tended, but now a mixture of
sweat and blood entered into his eyes and ran down his face. The weight of the
snake seemed to increase. Its slipperiness seemed to increase. Above all, the
foul odour coming out of its body seemed to increase and made him feel giddy.
How old could it be? Fifty? Eighty? A hundred years old? Did it have a mate?
How old would its mate be? Fifty? Eighty? A hundred? How big would its mate be?
Bigger? Smaller? Or about the same size? What did it feed out of usually? Young
birds? Frogs? Toads? Mice? Fish? Hares? Other snakes? Had it already killed
people? How many? Would it eat him as well once it had bitten him? Or would it
just slither away? This wasn’t idle fear. He looked at its mouth, at its jaw.
If it opened it in full, it’d be able to swallow him slowly, starting with his
head and slowly grinding his body and swallowing it whole. One day close to
dusk in the cold season, when he was six years old, beside his henhouse, he had
seen with his own eyes, and had gone on watching in silence and in wonder as he
shook nervously, a cobra not much bigger than his index finger do something
almost impossible by opening his jaw to the utmost and trying to swallow an
egg. Therefore, this giant snake could well swallow him once it had bitten him.
How did it feel to be swallowed alive? How strong was its venom? How did it
really feel to be bitten by a snake? It must be terribly painful, the place
around the bite must swell and its venom must make you feel extremely drowsy.
How many minutes does it take to die? Is it true what they say, that the older
the cobra the less effective its venom? But even if its venom were not so
strong, he’d never ever allow the snake to bite him.
The darker it was, the farther
away from people, the more blood came out of him, the more the snake seemed to
be full of life and full of malice. For it, victory was within reach. His
irregular heartbeats, his irregular gasps for breath, the heady, tantalizing
smell of his blood made it even more excited, at once fierce and craving a
prompt victory. While fording a sandy torrent with water up to his ankle, it
constricted itself once again with all its strength, making him stagger almost
to the point of falling. He felt as though his bones were being crushed under
that tremendous pressure. He stiffened to resist it, trying to prize open his
legs, forced his body to stay still, taking deep
breaths. He wouldn’t allow himself to fall no matter what. He knew very well
that if he fell down, there was no way he would get up again. Before he could
take another step forward, the snake contracted the upper part of its body
again to free itself and be in a position to bite him. But he retaliated by
squeezing its neck even more strongly and by further pulling its head away. The
snake squeezed him mightily, more powerfully than ever before, and his heart
almost stopped beating and he almost couldn’t breathe any longer. A bone in his
back and his right elbow gave out a crushing sound almost at the same time. His
left arm was getting weaker by the minute. He clenched his teeth, staring
wide-eyed, and he swore without uttering a word, You
beast! You brute! You creature of hell! I’ll get you yet! But these
swearwords made him feel weaker, because in reality, without realizing it, he
was thinking of letting his left hand release the neck and accepting defeat. He
found that not swearing was much better than swearing. He resumed his progress.
His body was all crunched up and shrivelled under the weight and deadly grip of
the snake.
The giant snake squeezed him
fiercely once more as they passed by the shrine of the Sacred Mother by the
pool. It looked as though the cobra knew its nest was nearby, but he squeezed
its neck with all his remaining strength. He felt that for the first time he
had firmed up his grip to the point that his fingers could almost circle the
whole neck and that bones were being crushed in his hand. But maybe this was
mere wishful thinking. He was aware that the snake wasn’t dead yet because it
still squeezed him tightly. Its tail, which now was wrapped around his left leg
only, was still flailing about. He looked at its head, looked at the upper part
of its body wrapped around his left arm, through his left armpit around his
right shoulder, entrapping both his right shoulder and right arm against his
chest in a quadruple coil with a fifth one around his waist, but that wasn’t
the end of it: the lower part of its body passed between his legs to coil
itself around his left leg to the level of his calf. As most of the weight of
the snake was on his left side, when he walked he kept lurching to the left
along the cart track. He had to force himself to walk straight. The blood from
the wound above his right eyebrow was still coming out and the rusty, tart
taste of blood was in his mouth and in his nostrils. He spat. Even though he
could see nothing, he knew he was spitting out saliva mixed with blood.
The giant snake was very close
to him. He had never thought he’d ever find himself that close with one. He had
never had the least premonition, whether in reality or in a dream. Where was
its heart? How was it he couldn’t feel its heart beating at all? What was the
colour of its venom? White like milk or yellow like a topaz? What was his weight
like? Fifty kilos? Sixty? Seventy? He had no idea, but he was certain the snake
weighed more than he did. He had seen lots of snakes in his life of a country
child but he had never encountered a snake this big. What he did not dare to
ask himself was if this was an ordinary snake or the snake of the Sacred Mother
of the village. It had appeared in front of the shrine, had it not? The thought
made him feel weak at the knees, made him feel he was drowning into the sea of
nothingness. The snake squeezed him once more, not so strongly this time, and
that strength diminished, but for sure, it didn’t in any way let go of him. It
was obvious that it wasn’t thinking of sparing the life of its foe. It was
obvious that he acted by instinct and that if it could have spoken, it would
have talked back to him in his own words: You beast! You brute! You creature
of hell! I’ll get you yet!
And as he stepped forward once
again ever so slowly and ever so painfully, strange and terrifying stories
about snakes came to his mind (to tell the truth, he didn’t want to remember
such stories at all; yet the fact was, he couldn’t forget them). It was his
father who had told them to him, not to scare him, but so that he’d be careful
in the presence of snakes. His father had told him that once, when he was still
a youth of eighteen, one day during the cold season, while the water was
receding in the rice fields, leaving all over puddles large and small in which
huge fishes were trapped – one night of the cold season it was then that his father,
as he was walking back from a folk drama performance at the temple, had heard
an unusual sound, as if someone was scooping water out of his rice field, but
it was already past midnight then and who the hell would be that diligent? The
sound had come from one stretch of water in the copses near the old pool where Song
Wat would later build the shrine to the Sacred
Mother, that very one. His father had firmed up the curved-blade pike in his
hand and had walked towards the sound with silent footsteps. What he had seen
had made him hold his breath: a pitch-black cobra about four metres long had
its neck wrapped around an overhanging branch by the side of the puddle, had
its tail wrapped around another branch on the other side of the puddle, and was
swinging his body back and forth to scoop water out tirelessly in order to eat
the fish left out at the bottom. His father had merely retraced his steps
silently. The child with the crippled arm merely asked himself now if the big
snake his father had found wasn’t the same as was coiled around him.
His father had told him as
well that at one time when he was twenty-one and he was conscripted in the
military camp in town, he had to have a permission every Friday afternoon to go
back to visit his grandmother who lived alone in the village and he’d leave the
camp every Friday afternoon and cut across the fields through various villages
and districts until he reached home shortly before dawn. For such trips, his
father had no weapon other than a sharp curved-blade pike. One night among the
copses in open country, he found himself unexpectedly confronting a cobra about
two metres long. They were merely at the length of an arm from each other. The
cobra had sprung up, swung its neck, spread its hood, then had started back its
head a little and with the certainty of death, had struck. His father had swung
his pike wildly. The blood of the snake had squirted his face and he had seen
the headless snake twisting helplessly on the ground. He had stood watching the
writhing body for a long time, scared stiff. It had been a damn close call. Out
of curiosity, he had searched the area for the head of the snake, which had
gone missing in the bright moonlight. His hand still held the bloodied pike.
With the dauntlessness of his age, he had searched all over the area in the
moonlight. He wanted the head of the snake as a keepsake for that moment when
it had almost cost him his life. He had looked for it for a long time and
finally had had to change his mind and ruefully resume his travel. He had been
walking for a while when he had felt that something was wrong. Something was
stuck to the flap of the breast pocket of his military jacket, something cold
and slimy that stank. He had pulled it off. It was the head of the cobra, its
fangs dug inches from his throat.
His father had told him also
that, two years after he had got married, when he was only three months old,
one evening in the rainy season he had gone to drain the seed plot. As he was
returning home, he had found a cobra the size of his arm in an expanse of wild
grass. It wasn’t a particularly big snake but it was very swift. His father had
taken the first piece of wood he could lay his hand on and had given the snake
a good whack right across its back. The piece of wood had broken and the cobra
had slithered away and disappeared in the tall grass. His father had gone back
home, had made a fire for the cows to keep the mosquitoes at bay, had eaten,
taken a shower and gone to bed and forgotten about the snake entirely. In the
middle of the night that night, his father had been stirred awake by the sound
of something falling on the ground with a thud, and then silence, and then that
sound again. His father had looked at him who was fast asleep on his small
cushion, had looked at his wife who lay on the other side of the mattress and
was fast asleep as well, and had grabbed the torch and stealthily descended the
front ladder towards the sound. He had switched on the torch and had found on
the post supporting the corner of the house where the three of them slept a
cobra the size of his arm. Its back bore signs of a beating and the wound and
the scales were ample proofs that it was the very cobra he had whacked the
previous evening. The snake was intent on slithering up the stilt to get revenge.
It only had gone up a yard or so when it had fallen to the ground with that
heavy thud, but then it had tried anew, heedless of the torchlight dousing it.
That snake had slithered somehow from where it had been beaten and had followed
him in pain, seething to pay back with its fangs his father’s beating. His
father had said that what he had seen then had given him goose pimples all
over. His father had said that the snake didn’t only want his life but that of
his wife and that of his child too. His father had said that killing that cobra
hadn’t been particularly difficult but that the fearful respect he had always
held for snakes had become all the stronger.
His father had told him too
that cobras were at their most dangerous when they were mating. If he met
cobras mating, he should flee right away. The cobras would be incensed, they’d
stop mating at once and both of them would go after whoever had intruded into
their privacy. His father had added that once, when he was twenty-five, he had
killed a cobra in an unusual and cruel manner. He had killed it because it had
bitten a relative of his who was looking for bamboo shoots in a bamboo grove by
a canal in open country and had set out to cut a shoot near the burrow of the
snake, which had struck at his calf. The fellow had died instantly, the curved
spade he used to cut the shoots still in his hand. That snake was a female.
When his father had decided to kill it to avenge his relative, she had just
laid an egg. His father had told his friends to make a big fire on the
esplanade at the centre of the village and to make sure to keep it going. As
for him, he had gone to the bamboo grove by the canal in open country with a
spade in his hand. He had driven the snake out of its burrow by lighting a few
dry leaves next to it, which had alarmed and maddened the female snake. She had
fled from the nest yet had kept slithering nearby. His father had promptly used
his spade to dig the burrow open, had grabbed the egg, had thrown the spade
away and had started to run. It was robbery pure and simple. When she had seen
her egg stolen under her nose as it were, the female snake had started in hot
pursuit across the spread of freshly reaped fields in the shimmering haze of
fierce sunlight. His father, though he was in his prime, had been racing for
his life, the female cobra slithering, head raised, hot on his heels. The
distance between him and the cobra was getting shorter all the time. When he
had seen it was so short it could be dangerous and he was getting weaker, he
had taken off his hat and had thrown it away and had stopped for a rest. His
father could stop to rest because the female snake had ceased being concerned
with him for a short while and had turned aside to strike instead at the hat
time and again before going back to slithering after him. His father had told
him that that day he had had to get rid of things and stop to rest no less than
three times. The first time he had thrown away his hat, the second time he had
thrown away the long scarf he wore wrapped around his waist and the third time
he had thrown away his black peasant shirt. Each time, after striking at the
object fiercely, the female snake had resumed her chase. His father was out of
breath and almost out of strength when he had run up to the fire that was
roaring on the main village square and he had thrown the egg, which was glaring
white and a little smaller than a chicken egg, into the fire and had watched
with sweat-stung eyes the sight of the female cobra which had thrown itself
fearlessly after the egg into the flames and had struggled and twitched and
quivered until it had been turned into ashes.
These stories sapped his
strength and made him feel nervous. Both of his legs were weary, his left arm
was weary, as were the palm and all five fingers of his left hand. His body
seemed to have shortened and become stooped under the weight of the snake. What
would happen if he let go of his grip on the neck of the giant snake and let
things take their course? At present, he was all bitterness and loathing. He
wouldn’t be scared of that snake if he also had the use of his right arm. He’d
be quite willing to grapple with it and he’d be able to squash it to bits. It
wouldn’t be an easy victory perhaps, but he thought that if he had the full use
of his body he’d win eventually. He tried to move his right arm. In his
distress, he still had faith in a miracle. Nothing happened. His whole right
arm, which was tightly pressed against his body, was still as stiff and devoid
of strength as before.
He was getting close to the
village. He kept staggering along the cart track. It was a way he knew well.
What time could it be by now? Seven? Seven thirty? Surely not quite eight
o’clock. Any other day, by this time he’d have locked the cows in the cowshed,
fetched water for them to drink, found dry straw for them to lie down on; as
for him, he’d have eaten and showered and he’d be lying in bed listening idly
to the radio, waiting for eight thirty, when the Kaeo
Fa company would perform Jula-treekhoon
by Phanom Thian, which had come to an exciting
episode, actually, and he’d go out for a stroll and on to some friend’s house
for a few rounds of draughts— but tonight everything had changed.
His house was at the outskirts
of the village. He walked into its precincts and stopped and stood still under
the tamarind tree. His was an old Thai house with only one storey. The platform
up there was dark, quiet and looked forlorn. Why had he come back home? Because
he didn’t know where to go. Why had he returned to the village? Because he
didn’t know where to go. Actually, he had his reasons. He had come back home
because he worried about his cows. He had returned to the village because he
hoped one villager or another would be able to help him, though he hadn’t even
begun to think how. He walked straight to the cowshed, not trying to get too
close, not trying to show himself, but merely skulking by the haystack. He
counted. They were still all there. One of his friends must have led them back
and given them water and fresh litter. In the cowshed, all the cows were at
their usual place, each properly tethered. The door of the cowshed was closed.
That took a weight off his mind. He took the track leading into the village.
The whole village was dark and quiet. Some dogs barked when they saw him
walking by, then fell silent. The gusts of wind were
still strong. Hundreds of thousands of stars glittered in the sky. Blood was
still running down from the wound above his right eyebrow, down his brow, his
eye, the spread of his cheek, and found its way down his neck, but the fishy
smell and taste of blood in his nostrils and mouth was gone. He saw torchlight
and heard faint voices of people talking by the main pavilion in the village
square. So he walked towards it. His friends must have told everyone what had
happened to him, and it was like he had thought.
Almost the entire village was gathered there and people were consulting one
another. Some said they’d go to the monastery to tell his parents the sad news.
Some said they’d go out there in the fields and try to help him as much as they
could if it wasn’t too late. On the vast esplanade under the big mango tree
whose trunk it would take a man to girdle, near the large and very old
Thai-style pavilion, there were men as well as women, elders as well as
children, standing, sitting, squatting, gathered in haphazard groups. The
torchlight revealed their faces and their eyes and some looked panicky, some
worried, some gung-ho, some incredulous and some simply curious. In the hands
of the men were weapons, knives for some, pikes for others, or else bamboo
staffs. Some had pistols, some carbines. These people, as soon as they saw him
emerging from the darkness together with the giant snake, began to jostle each
other unwittingly. The din of chatter and shouts stopped all at once. When he
walked closer, all retreated with shouts of wonder and fear. One man crouched
and prostrated himself on the ground: Song Wat,
of course. And since Song Wat was acting like
this, many others did too. One of the people who crouched and prostrated
themselves on the ground was none other than Granny Phlapphlueng. And when Song
Wat said in a resounding and clear voice, Here it is, here is the sacred snake of the Sacred
Mother of the village! The Sacred Mother uses her snake to punish those who
hold her in contempt, the child with the crippled arm saw that the people
accepted that explanation and reacted accordingly. One of the people who
accepted Song Wat’s explanation and reacted
accordingly was Granny Phlapphlueng. His face full of sweat and blood, his
wild, wide-opened, hard-staring eyes, his dishevelled hair sticking out like a
crown of thorns, his body wrapped up in the coils of the giant snake made him
totally unrecognisable. He stood still, a little bent forward and to the left.
Above, the stars were glittering. From the southeast
came ceaseless gusts of wind. On his left leg at the level of the calf, the
tail end of the giant snake still swung slowly. A barn owl flew by with a long
shrill cry before disappearing into the darkness. He didn’t say anything. He
was unable to say he had come here to ask for help. He was unable to say he
wanted to thank whomever it was who had goaded his
cows back to the cowshed for him. The people there didn’t say anything either
for quite a while.
Finally, a middle-aged man,
holding a rifle in his hand, walked dubiously up to him. His rifle was cocked
and his finger was on the trigger. The man observed him and the snake at close
quarters, from the front, from the left, from the back, from the right,
inspecting them with dread. The other men did the same, but it was obvious that
the gigantic size of the snake left them in a funk, and they began to consult
one another once again (of course, with some expressions showing pity as well).
Can’t we possibly help each other grab the head of the snake and take hold of
its tail to uncoil it and ease the squeeze? Can’t we possibly kill the snake
outright by helping each other grab its head and cut off its neck with one
strike of a sharp knife? But this would make the snake contract even more and
the child could be stifled and die. Can’t we possibly kill the snake outright
by helping each other grab its head then blow it off with a single bullet? But
this would make the snake contract even more and the child could be stifled and
die. There’s no time to waste. We must decide which method to use, and who will
volunteer, who will try first. And most important, let’s not forget it’s a
venomous snake.
Then Song Wat stepped forward. He was in full control of himself. His
manner was daring and confident. His voice was cool. Since he had become a
medium, he knew very well that, whatever he did, what he did was always better
than what others did, and whatever he said, what he said was always better than
what others said. He knew very well that he was the spiritual leader of the
village. Everybody knew he had power, and he knew it better than anybody else. When he spoke, everyone must listen. And now he was
speaking, speaking slowly, speaking clearly, stressing
each word: This is the snake of the Sacred Mother of this village. The wise
and seasoned can see this at a glance. Something will happen to whoever lays
his hand on this snake. This damn child has always held the Sacred Mother in
contempt, secretly and overtly, so that the Sacred Mother can no longer forgive
him. The punishment he is receiving is nothing yet, you could say. Let the
Sacred Mother handle this matter as she sees fit. This is my opinion. Out of
respect for the Sacred Mother of our village, may no one hold contrary views.
Song Wat
walked up to him, closer than anyone else would dare. Song Wat looked deep into his eyes; he returned the look without
compunction. In the eyes of the medium, the child with the crippled arm saw the
grin of victory. He was the only one to know that it was the victory of a
master deceiver. He knew now that his wish to the Mother of the Waters on the
last Loi Krathong night that he might not hate Song
Wat and that Song Wat
might not hate him wasn’t going to be fulfilled as he had hoped, and in that
instant all the particles of his being were drained of all strength.
He turned his face the other
way, staggered away ever so slowly. People crowded around him at a safe
distance. Torchlight struck his stooped, twisted body and the pitch-black
scales of the snake. He felt so exhausted he couldn’t carry on any longer. He
knew there was no one left for him to rely on any longer. And in that very
second, after he had uttered a long shrill cry, he let the grip of his left
hand slip off the neck of the snake and heaved a sigh. He lowered his head as
if he admitted defeat.
The
head of the snake fell off. Its whole body was devoid of any strength: it was
dead. No one knew since when. When the people helped one another straighten it
and uncoil it from the child, they did so easily. They were still awed by its
gigantic size and their tongues were going nineteen to the dozen. But the child
with the crippled arm paid no attention to anyone or to anything. His eyes were
vacant. Sometimes he smiled, sometimes he cried, sometimes he uttered to
himself incomprehensible mumbles. He had irretrievably lost his mind as of the
moment he had decided to admit defeat.