Once upon a time, Boonsong had been the right-hand man to the boss who controlled the eastern region of the country. Everyone in the inner circle knew he was the guy their kingpin trusted most. Boonsong’s dream of becoming editor of a local newspaper had been realized overnight, since it was in line with the boss’s own agenda to have a mouthpiece. And soon the voice put out by that mouthpiece received a countrywide boost when most of the local newspapers agreed to collaborate on the founding of the Thai Regional Press Association. Boonsong had served as the body’s president term after term. When he was thirty-two years old, he was elected for municipal council. Two years later, he ran for a seat in the provincial council and was elected without a hitch, given the boss’s support, financial and otherwise. In terms of their rapport, he and the boss were like partners in crime, and always knew what the other was thinking. Boonsong’s star had risen so high that he was above mingling with the other members in the boss’s entourage. He knew full well that many of them harbored resentment toward him. It hardly bore mentioning that a number of those people had been working for the boss a lot longer and were older than him. That was just how it was, and he felt no need to waste time thinking about such things. All his various responsibilities already kept him chained to his desk, and, more importantly, he knew he still had a lot to learn and needed to lay a stronger foundation in order to eventually run for parliament.
Burned into his memory was the day that foundation, which he had believed was as solid as could be, had disintegrated as if it had been made of sand: the boss was assassinated by an associate, who then put himself in charge. The abruptness of the event caught Boonsong by surprise. He found himself cut loose, adrift. The new boss’s power grew swiftly, and, improbably, his influence became even vaster than his predecessor’s.
Consequently, Boonsong was left a caged mouse, scowled at with disdain. Nonetheless, he refused to give up and remained determined to make it to parliament. If he succeeded, it would mean he could truly stand on his own two feet, or so he told himself.
Before the cutoff date for registering his candidacy, a young man with an arrogant air about him asked to run alongside Boonsong. He brought nothing to the table, hoping to receive Boonsong’s support and lean on whatever clout he had left. But Boonsong unceremoniously turned him away because he himself was in a place where he had to claw his own way to the shore. Not to mention his financial resources were too thin to support another candidate. And then the unimaginable happened, something that he would remember for the rest of his life: he suffered a humiliating loss in that election, while the young man pulled off a decisive victory. To this day, Boonsong could still clearly envision that rookie campaigning, how his rusted old pickup truck ran around town, clanking all the way. At one campaign event, the truck was parked under a tree, its owner standing on the roof with his feet planted in a wide stance, his hand holding a megaphone to his mouth, broadcasting his party platform. On the hood of the truck, there was a tin bucket with a paper sign that read: CAMPAIGN DONATIONS APPRECIATED. Boonsong remembered taking his wallet out and dropping in a hundred baht as a reward for the young man’s determination, without it occurring to him that the money could have had such unexpectedly far-reaching consequences.
Boonsong only continued to regress. He tried one more election cycle but lost, so he went back to running for provincial council. He won by the skin of his teeth, but in the reelection he fell completely out of orbit. In the end, he failed to gain a seat even on the municipal council. At the same time, someone else became the president of the regional press association, and the handful of positions he held to enhance his social standing began to slip away, until all that remained was an editorship at a small newspaper that barely provided any income. And then came his final attempt. Boonsong swallowed his pride and went to see the new boss to ask for his support in his bid for a parliament seat. Even though he had already mentally prepared himself to be ridiculed and sneered at, he still came out emotionally obliterated. The outcome made it abundantly clear to him that he should quit politics for good.
After this string of defeats, Boonsong lived every day of his life in a kind of stasis. He let his newest wife run the newspaper and support him. His days were eaten up by spiritless gardening, reading and sitting in silence, reminiscing about the good old days, going back to the time when the concept of a boss was meaningless to him, back to his childhood of both happiness and hardship. His family had been poor, his parents farmers. When school was in session, he would stay with his uncle at the house in the rice paddies, waiting for the rice-farming season to start; only then would his parents and older sister return from working the cassava farm in another province. Once the rice season was over, they would go back to work on the cassava farm, while he would wait, counting the days until he got to join his family. Sitting around like this, waiting for time to pass, made Boonsong feel as though he were a child once more. If it were school vacation now, he would probably be preparing to leave for the cassava farm. Memories of his youth reminded him of a dream he’d had back then, a dream that had fallen by the wayside. Later on, when he’d thought he was a grown-up, he had cast it aside, thinking it childish. His hopes and dreams had become those of an adult, and they were too big and important for him to concern himself with trivial matters.
The rickshaw pulled up to the sidewalk. Boonsong looked at the small wooden street sign, recognizing the name as his destination. The letters were painted white against a blue background, and bits were missing. He got out of the rickshaw, paid the driver, glanced at the brown paper bag in his hand, and then started down the street. He counted the houses on the left-hand side one by one, each an old-fashioned wooden house on stilts, all similar to one another; and surrounding each plot, large trees grew, dense and disarrayed. He stopped in front of the seventh house. The front gate was closed, the house dead silent, with no hint of movement from within. Boonsong stepped toward it, but then paused nervously. Ever since it had first crossed his mind to do this, he had been constantly wavering, going back and forth until he felt only ambivalence. He stood in place, deliberating for the last time. Ultimately, he reminded himself that this was hardly the time to dither. He had made a firm decision several days ago, and it had cost him a considerable amount of time and energy to find himself standing in front of this house, which belonged to someone he didn’t even know. But the other half of his one childhood dream, left unfulfilled, had been left behind with this person …
When Boonsong reached the stair landing, the front door opened. A middle-aged woman appeared wearing a dark blue sarong and a white blouse with red dots and puffy sleeves.
“Excuse me, did you use to own an old bookshop that was next door to a fertilizer store in the market?” Boonsong asked.
“A bookshop? No, not me … Or … Oh yes, my sister had a bookshop, but she leased the place to someone else ages ago.”
“That must be it. I’d like to see your sister, if possible.”
The woman eyed Boonsong. “What business do you have with her?”
“If your sister’s home, may I come in? It will take some time to explain.”
Still visibly skeptical, the woman nonetheless nodded and allowed him into the house. And at long last Boonsong came face-to-face with the person he’d been searching for. She wasn’t what he had expected: she looked like she could be twenty years older than him. He could vaguely recall that he had been about fourteen years old then, and he’d guessed that she hadn’t been over twenty. For the first time, it hit him how much faster women wither than men. He was fifty-two now, but the elderly woman before him appeared to be pushing seventy. Whether she would remember a minor encounter from a few decades back, he wasn’t sure.
“What brings you here?” she asked Boonsong with obvious curiosity.
He didn’t reply but instead took the object inside the brown paper bag out to show her. It was an old book. She barely gave it a second glance before she looked up at him, anticipating an explanation. The other
woman brought him a glass of water and then sat down next to her sister.
“You probably don’t remember,” Boonsong began, “but I bought this book from your shop … let’s see … almost forty years ago. The thing is, I bought just the one book—look.” He angled the book to show the two women the spine. “Volume one, you see? This book comes in two volumes, but I only bought the first. You probably understand now. I came because I’d like to buy the second volume. I—”
“Sir, you don’t have to explain further. You might as well go. The bookstore was rented out to someone else a long time ago, and we can’t help you. It’s best you leave,” the older of the two sisters said, looking as though she’d heard enough.
“Please let me explain. From what I’ve gathered, I’m positive that when I bought this book, you were still running the shop.”
“What do you want from us? I hate to be blunt, but do you have a screw loose? Or maybe this is some kind of scam? I just can’t believe you’d come here asking for a book after forty years have passed, and from an old woman like me—I can hardly be bothered to remember things that are a hundred times more important than this! You’re wasting your time. Even if it’s as you say, we don’t have that book or any other book for that matter. You really should go.”
“Please hear me out. I’m not crazy. I have my reasons, and I didn’t just show up here out of nowhere. I realize that too much time has passed, and that you don’t sell books anymore. But I came because I felt there was a fifty-fifty chance that you might still have the book. No bookstore would sell only half of a two-volume set to a customer—except you. You were kind. You sold it to a boy, knowing that he wasn’t a regular customer, as if you knew that that boy didn’t have enough money. You were confident that he would be back to buy the second book—‘Come back and get the second book soon,’ I remember you saying. But … I didn’t come back, and I know that no one besides myself would have bought the second volume, and the distributor wouldn’t have been willing to take it back, so you must have held on to it yourself, just kept it around, without anyone reading it or wanting it other than me. I’m begging for your understanding and for your help thinking back a little to see if you’re still in possession of that book, if you’ve lost it, or if you’ve sold it by the kilo. Try to remember—please.”
The older sister looked at Boonsong in such a way as to communicate the futility of his plea. The younger one had had her gaze fixed on him from the start, as if she were on her guard and listening intently.
“Your story might be true, but I swear I don’t know anything about it. Whether I sold only one book or two, it’s entirely possible that I’ve completely forgotten about it. What I do know is that I don’t have any more books. Now, will you be on your way?”
Boonsong’s head sank, but he remained seated, refusing to budge. “I know you don’t believe me. You think I’ve lost my mind. It’s all right. I’d assumed it would be this way. In my life, I’ve never succeeded at anything. How I pity myself, myself in the past, in the present, and in the future—they all deserve pity. Before I came here, I thought, even though my life has been a complete failure, there was still something I could do. I was going to carry out one boy’s dream that had never been realized. That boy is me. I’m trying to fix my own life so that I can continue to live. But already from the start, I—”
“What do I have to say to make you leave? Let me be frank, are you insane? Look out the window—it’s going to rain. The children are about to come home from school, and it won’t be long before the men are back from work. You have to leave before they get back. You have to go now.”
“Yes, I’ll be gone, definitely. You don’t have to worry about that. I’ll be gone from my own life even.” Boonsong put the book back inside the paper bag, got up, and left without saying goodbye. The two siblings stood in the doorway, watching him walk away into the first splatters of rain, getting lashed by the wind. The older sister breathed a sigh of relief and went back inside. The younger sister, who stayed by the door, inexplicably sprinted down the steps and started chasing after Boonsong, even as lightning struck and the rain grew heavier. She caught up with him at the top of their street.
Boonsong was astounded to see her. Blocking his way, the woman breathlessly told him, “The person who sold you the book was me. I was the one who sold that book. I need to talk to you, but not now. I’ve got to head back and make dinner for my family. If you take a right and keep walking, you’ll see a restaurant called Boonlom Pochana. Go and wait for me there. I’ll be there by seven.” Then she walked stiffly away. It took a moment before Boonsong had the wherewithal to turn around and look after her. In the haze of the pouring rain, he felt like the encounter hadn’t been real: in his eyes, she appeared as a blur.
The rain carried on until dark. Boonlom Pochana was an open-air restaurant with only a roof and tables canopied by flowering plants. The employees had distributed a coil of mosquito-repellent incense under each table, which they lit and placed inside a perforated metal container. Boonsong nudged the coil under his table away with his foot so that the smoke wouldn’t get in his face. There was faint background music coming out of a speaker hidden somewhere. On his table, Boonsong had a couple of plates of food, the brown paper bag, now wet and disintegrating, and a liquor bottle and three soda-water bottles, all empty. The tall glass sitting in his right hand was half-full of pale-yellow liquid. Boonsong had his left elbow on the table, his head resting in his hand. His legs were stretched out in front of him, and his eyes were closed, peeling partly open every once in a while. The next time they did so, his head jerked, and he looked at his watch. He got up to go to the bathroom, washed his face, fixed his hair, and straightened his clothes, which hadn’t quite dried. When he came back, he called the waiter over to clear the table and then ordered a coffee.
The middle-aged woman closed her umbrella and leaned it against the table. She placed something in front of Boonsong and slowly lowered herself into a chair.
“I brought you the second book.” The woman pushed an object wrapped in newspaper toward him. She ordered a lemon tea from the waiter and then watched Boonsong unwrap the package, studying his face in eager anticipation.
At long last, the second book was before his eyes. He stared at it in prolonged silence, then let out a deep sigh. “You really kept it. I can hardly believe it.”
“I did keep it. It was just like you said this afternoon. I sold the first book to a boy who didn’t come back for the second, so I had to keep it myself.”
“What I meant was, why did you keep it for almost forty years?” His tone was so earnest that he sounded upset.
The woman looked at him uncertainly. “I thought you’d be happy to get the book, but you seem displeased. Why are you questioning my motives? You said so yourself that nobody was going to read the second book, nobody was going to want it. It’s because no one wanted it that it’s still here—that’s not so strange, is it? You’re the one who’s strange. You failed to come back, and then after almost forty years, you show up looking for it. I’m the one who should wonder. In fact, I knew that the books had to be sold as a set. I sold you only the one because I was sure you’d be back. I knew that other shops certainly wouldn’t sell you the second book alone. But you didn’t come back—I should be the one to ask why.”
Boonsong slumped back in his chair, the epitome of someone exhausted. He waved a hand and said, “All right, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be difficult. I’m in a phase where I’ve lost my footing, so sometimes my emotions get the better of me. Okay.” He sat up straight, took a sip of coffee, and adjusted his expression. “To start, thank you for selling me the first book, even though you weren’t supposed to. As a boy, I loved reading, and I dreamed of someday having my own library, like the one we had at school. But I didn’t have any money; my family was poor. From my meager allowance, I skimped and saved, thinking that I’d buy a book of my own and bring it with me to the farmhouse to read during summer vacation.”
“Your family farmed?”
“Yes, cassava for income and rice for ourselves. We lived in Chonburi but had a cassava farm in Rayong. Before we’d head out to the farm, my father used to stop at the market here in town to pick up some things. He would buy fertilizers and farming supplies at the store right next to your sister’s bookshop.”
“Yes, I know it. That store’s still there. And so you bought the very first book for your dream library at my sister’s shop. But why didn’t you come back and buy the second?”
“I wanted to—I desperately wanted to buy the second book. After I finished reading the first, my plan was that, in two and half months, when school started again, I’d get some money to go toward school expenses, and when my father stopped in town, I’d use some of that money to buy the second book.”
“So what happened? Did your father not stop here then?”
“He did, but I didn’t have the money. That day he’d dropped me off at home before taking the cassava to the warehouse. You see, he’d only give me money after selling them the cassava. I did try to go find the book at the markets near our house. There was a bookstore that had the set on display, but, like you said, nobody was foolish enough to sell me the second book by itself, and I didn’t have enough money after tuition to buy both.”
“But you have the book now. You really didn’t even need to wait so long. I think you probably know, if you couldn’t find the book in stores, you could have ordered it directly from the publisher once you came up with the money, if they still had copies.”
“Yes, I know, I know about all that.” Boonsong looked around restlessly for the waiter and then ordered another small bottle of liquor. “That’s not the problem. The problem is, I don’t actually want the book.”
“What?” The woman stared at him, simultaneously about to scream and burst out laughing. “You don’t want it?”
“I’m sorry. I really don’t want to discuss it anymore. It’s pointless.” The waiter mixed a drink for Boonsong and handed it to him. The woman looked fed up, so Boonsong eventually cracked her a smile. “Don’t make that face. It’s nothing strange, and I’m not crazy. People’s desires shift all the time, you know. If at fourteen I dreamed of having a library, that doesn’t mean at twenty I still had that same dream, and at thirty, well, my dreams were far different from when I was twenty! If as a child, I had wanted desperately to read a book and didn’t get to read it, after some time, even if that book had appeared right in front of my face, I wouldn’t have wanted to read it anymore. I’d have wanted to read a new book that’s more age appropriate.” He sipped his drink and sighed. “To get right to the point, the older I got, the less attainable the things I reached for became.”
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