Bright

by Duanwad Pimwana

  Bright

  Bright

  Duanwad Pimwana

  Translated from Thai by Mui Poopoksakul

  Originally published as: Changsamran

  © 2002 by Pimjai Juklin

  Translation © 2019 by Mui Poopoksakul

  Two Lines Press

  582 Market Street, Suite 700, San Francisco, CA 94104

  www.twolinespress.com

  ISBN 978-1-931883-80-1

  Cover design by Gabriele Wilson

  Cover photo © Jessica Sevey

  Typeset by Jessica Sevey

  Printed in the United States of America

  Poem (“Toy on Target”) from 100 Poems without a Country by Erich Fried. New York: Red Dust, Inc., 2007.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Duanwad Pimwana, author. | Poopoksakul, Mui, translator. | Translation of: Duanwad Pimwana. Changsamran.

  Title: Bright / Duanwad Pimwana ; translated by Mui Poopoksakul.

  Other titles: Changsamran. English

  Description: San Francisco, CA : Two Lines Press, 2019.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018039546 | ISBN 9781931883801 (pbk.)

  Classification: LCC PL4209.D84 C4713 2019 | DDC 895.9/134--dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018039546

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  This book was published with support from the National Endowment for the Arts.

  Contents

  Mrs. Tongjan’s Community

  Primary Characters

  Prologue

  Monopoly

  Masseur

  Hunger Might Make a Person…

  Winning Numbers

  Hiding Place

  Fair Game

  …Make a Person Want to Eat

  A New Home

  Pony Express

  The Funeral

  The Pine Trees

  The Flea Markets

  Lucky Kid

  The Rice Giveaway

  Dear Moon

  War and Peace

  The Expired Pills

  A Detective Story: Kids’ Edition

  Our House

  Liberty Beach

  Crickets

  Birthday Parties

  Fads

  Backup Strategy

  The Wedding

  Mama’s Back

  Kampol, His Mama, His Papa, and That Man

  The Dignity of a Dog Named Tiger

  Quiet, Please!

  Meant to Be

  I’m Not Just Me

  The Likay Troupe

  Philosophical Differences

  The Hairdressers

  Phra Soh

  Boats Are Bigger Than Trucks

  Kampol Goes to Heaven

  Mrs. Tongjan’s Community

  Primary Characters

  Bangkerd: sometimes called Kerd for short, mortician, neighbor

  Chong: grocer, called Hia Chong by the neighbors, implying he’s of Chinese descent

  Dang: tire patcher and bicycle repairman who likes to drink

  Jua: the nickname of Thongchai, one of Kampol’s best friends and grandson of Old Jai

  Kamjon Changsamran: often called Jon, Kampol’s baby brother

  Kampol Changsamran: also known as Boy

  Namfon Changsamran: also called Fon for short, Kampol’s mother

  Noi: an older boy, neighborhood troublemaker, Kan’s son and Gib’s younger brother

  Oan: the nickname of Prasit Gaewton, one of Kampol’s best friends and son of Mon Gaewton

  Od: an older neighborhood boy, friends with Rah and Chai

  Old Jai: father of Berm, grandfather of Jua, Bow, and twins Gae and Gay

  Old Noi: mother of Puang and grandmother of Ampan, Ploy, and Penporn

  Phra Soh: monk; the unofficial title Phra means “monk”

  Somdej: Kampol’s deskmate at school

  Tia: fisherman who lives in the old housing development

  Tongbai: neighbor, married to Gaew

  Mrs. Tongjan: landlady; her dog’s name is Momo

  Wasu Changsamran: Kampol’s father, also known by his former name, Ratom; water-truck driver, formerly married to Lim, and now living with her

  Bright

  Prologue

  The mundane has a hard time showing off its quiet allure.

  Mrs. Tongjan’s cluster of tenement houses is like a lot of other small communities—an image of an era that is just waiting for its time to pass, and to be forgotten. The rows of apartments, built by the small-time landlady, crouch behind an arrogantly large property with vacation bungalows. At the top of the road that runs through the community, a sign—clearly visible during the day and brightly lit at night—grabs the attention of passersby. But it doesn’t bear the name of the housing project; it’s a sign for the bungalows.

  Sometimes empty roads, completely unremarkable, still manage to make people wonder where they might lead. But Mrs. Tongjan’s housing development doesn’t get even that benefit of the doubt, since the sign at the entrance shuts down further speculation. So, the community is completely cut off from curiosity.

  It does happen occasionally that outsiders come along and find the little housing project that hides itself behind the bungalows. As a matter of fact, it happens often, since a number of cars headed for the resort get confused; instead of taking a second turn, to the left this time, they go past the entrance.

  It may be the guard’s fault, or it could be that the direction arrows are dim compared to the big glowing sign at the entrance from the street, but confused drivers keep following the wall, solid and imposing. They get the hunch that they have gone astray once they find themselves beyond the end of the wall—suddenly on both sides are only thickets of reeds—but the alleyway is too narrow to turn around in. So they have to keep going, unaware that they are about to venture into Mrs. Tongjan’s tenement community… First a big house appears on the left, followed by a grocery on the right. Across from the store stands a shady poinciana tree, and next to that an open lot that’s perfect for turning around without having to reverse—the driver merely has to rotate as if going around a traffic circle. That nook of an empty lot is framed along two sides with rowhouses that form a right angle. Across the way, next to the store, several more units are lined up along the road. That’s all there is to see. It is so unextraordinary that memory can hardly be bothered to register it.

  Just once, a little something happened that might be called someone showing “an interest” in this community. Along the shared road, the hotel’s wall is not the only one too high to see over on tiptoes. The other side of the street has an even taller one, built on a dirt ridge. Apart from the treetops that peek over the top, passersby can’t see any clues as to what the staggering walls keep safe or captive. And from inside Mrs. Tongjan’s housing development the only thing visible above the walls is the second floor of a grand house, appearing as if floating in heaven. But the view is of the back of the house; the front faces the main road. One evening, people spotted something on top of the soaring roof of that house. Even from a distance, the figure could be discerned as that of a woman. Some of the children waved to her—it was the first time they had seen a person from that ethereal house. The woman waved back. She was watching them, too. Three days in a row, she climbed up onto the roof and watched the little community in the light of dusk. The children waved to her each day, and she waved back each day. There: a signal that at least one person cared to look at this community, even if from afar.

  The woman sat on the roof, under the colors and light of the evening hours. No one ever saw her leave because she stayed perched there until she was swallowed by the dark. No one knows if she slipped off the roof or if she jumped.

  She was too far away for anyone to be able to infer anything ab
out the cause of her death, but, it was thought, the last thing she saw before darkness spread a shroud over her life was Mrs. Tongjan’s neighborhood. What had she hoped to see over the towering wall? What made her decide to climb onto the roof? Was she trying to see some different view of the world and some people unlike her? And what drew her eye, looking down from up there? In the twilight, the world down below her—as common as it is—probably thrilled her immensely. Perhaps she heard the sounds of children laughing or crying sometimes, of people fighting, of pickup trucks and motorcycles accelerating along the road or in the dirt lot; perhaps she noticed the white roofs—slapped together—of the tenement houses, five rows altogether; a big, handsome home at the front of the development; and another large house, so rundown as to seem abandoned, all the way at the rear.

  In a moment of twilit contemplation, she probably found that the ordinary scene before her eyes concealed something of interest beneath its surface, and so she yearned to see it, to touch it, to reach out her hand and feel it, to lean her ear to its heart and listen.… To discover what kind of beings made those faraway noises.

  Monopoly

  Kampol Changsamran, a five-year-old boy, was hanging out in front of Mrs. Tongjan’s tenement houses. His father had told him to wait: “You stay here. I’m taking your brother over to Grandma’s. I’ll be back in a bit.” Hearing these last three words, Kampol didn’t dare wander, worried that his father wouldn’t spot him when he got back, so he just paced back and forth, keeping an eye on the curve where the road came into the neighborhood.

  Something went down at his house a few days ago. His parents had gotten into a nasty fight, and all the neighbors knew it from all the yelling. His mother hurled the fan, breaking its neck. His father flung the kettle over her head, launching it out the window. His mom had left, but later, when night had fallen, she rolled up in a pickup truck, parked in front of the house, and loaded it with stuff until the house was nearly bare. She left on a motorbike, riding ahead as a driver in the pickup truck crawled along behind her. His father watched, arms akimbo, head nodding slightly. Kampol’s brother, two months shy of his first birthday, was screaming inside the house.

  Kampol waited for his father in front of their unit, the keys to which they had already surrendered to the landlady. He stood there, sulking, two bags full of his clothing lying next to him on the ground. At midday the neighbor from next door—her name was Aoi, she was the wife of a motorbike cabbie—called him over, scooped some rice onto a plate, and fed him, questioning him nonstop.

  Grown-ups tend to assume that kids live in a different world. In Mrs. Tongjan’s neighborhood, there were plenty of people with spare time. The rowhouses formed a little square, with a good shady spot to sit under the poinciana tree—and the vantage point from there was perfect for observing all kinds of things. Importantly, the customers from the grocery situated at a slight diagonal across the way, routinely stopped to exchange a few words with the people gathered under the poinciana. Kampol was grilled about his parents. He recounted the incident over and over again. Some people walked up to him; some waved him over. Another neighbor, On, had given him money to buy a treat and he was called over to the poinciana by six or seven adults as he walked back from the store.

  “Where’d your papa go, Boy?” Kampol didn’t have a nickname. Everyone just called him “Boy,” like his father did.

  “He took my brother to Grandma’s,” he answered.

  “What about you? Why didn’t he take you?”

  “He’s coming back to get me soon, to go stay with him at the plant,” he replied, as he had when others had asked him the same question.

  And where’d your mama go? What were they fighting about, do you know? Did your mama say who she was going to stay with? Do they fight a lot? Is your brother breastfed? Why didn’t your mama take you with her? You poor thing, with parents like those… This one isn’t his dad’s fault, his mama had an affair. But that’s karma—his father abandoned two or three wives already.

  Kampol held his snack woodenly, eyes glazed over as he stood listening to one person here and another person there discuss his family. He got fed up and hung his head. He missed his father, and he couldn’t help daydreaming about having a new home; he was exhausted. In truth, Kampol didn’t know much—he just told the people what he’d seen. The more questions he answered, the more he came to know about his parents in the process. He grew irritated and indignant when some of the adults suggested his father might have abandoned him and taken his brother, Jon, or Kamjon, to go live somewhere else. Some of them thought his mother should come to bring him to live with her. “With two kids, you have to split the burden. Since his father took the younger one, he probably meant to leave the older one for the mother.” Kampol’s feelings were hurt, but he refused to believe them. He resented them. He quit paying attention and craned his neck to check the road instead, keeping his eyes firmly on it.

  The group under the poinciana began to disperse once they’d had their fill of the discussion. But one woman reignited it. She had been going to buy fish sauce and stopped by. “I felt bad seeing him like this, so at lunchtime I called him over and gave him something to eat.” She shot the kid a look of compassion, her remark putting the other adults on the spot. It was his neighbor Aoi.

  “Well…I saw him sitting there staring at his bags so sadly, and I gave him money to get a snack…look there, he hasn’t even eaten it yet,” On, the wife of a department-store security guard, said.

  Everyone fell silent. Nobody had ever thought of acting so generously before. The wave of pity had created an intense wind that stirred a number of people.

  Dum, who patched tires, said loudly: “Yeah, I feel really sorry for him.” He called out, “Boy, you can stay at my place tonight if your papa still hasn’t come back.” Then he turned to the person next to him and said, “He’s just a little kid—there’s plenty of room to sleep at my place.”

  Kampol declined without a word, his eyes still stuck on Dum. He wasn’t going to have to spend the night at anybody else’s house because his father was going to come for him. Tongbai got up and went over to grab the child’s hand. “C’mon, Boy…come eat dinner first. Your papa isn’t going to show up anytime soon.” In a daze, Kampol was tugged along. He wasn’t hungry and didn’t want to go anywhere with anyone. He worried that his father wouldn’t be able to find him when he got back. As the others watched them go, the consensus among the crowd was that Tongbai’s behavior was in poor taste. “She’s showing off,” they said.

  At five o’clock that evening, Tongbai was in the kitchen, and the rice in the pot wasn’t cooked. Kampol, who was sitting in a funk by his pile of bags, was led into a house of another neighbor. She stuck a plate of rice topped with an omelet in front of his face. It smelled amazing. When the neighbor wasn’t paying attention, though, Kampol took his plate outside, back to the spot where he had left his bags. He kept an eye on the bend in the road, where he would first see his father when he returned. Tears welled up and his lips began to quiver. A moment later, Tongbai poked her head out of her door, calling to him. When she saw the plate in his hand, she came over to inspect it.

  “Where’d you get the food?”

  “Aunt Keow.”

  Tongbai went back to her house and slammed the door.

  At the end of the workday, the road into the housing development started to fill with people and vehicles. Children came back from school; workers made their way home. In the past half hour, Kampol had managed to take only two bites of food. His eyes were moist, he sniffled and whimpered. As people passed by, asking, he would reply that his father hadn’t come yet, but would soon. The more he repeated it, the harder he cried. A lot of people came over to console him. “Your grandma’s is a long way away. He’ll probably be back really late.” “If he can’t get a ride back, he’ll probably have to spend the night.” “Don’t cry. If he doesn’t come back tonight you can stay at my place.” “Hey, I already said he could stay with me…”<
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  The sky grew darker. Kampol was taken to the grocery, where treats were put before him to get him to stop crying. His bags were next to him. He continued to sob. Sympathetic adults stood around, forming a crowd in the front of the store, as if he were a problem they had to help resolve. Most of them had something to say about what had put the child in this predicament. His mother shouldn’t have had an affair. His father shouldn’t have hit her. His mother shouldn’t have run off just to save her own skin. Why would his father leave with just the baby? Kampol was bleary-eyed. His sniffling turned into hiccups and he fell asleep like that, hiccupping, in somebody’s arms. Dum carried Kampol’s bags to his place, but when he returned, the child was gone. An older woman named Rampeuy, who had comforted Kampol until he fell asleep, had carried him to her place. With more than ten pairs of eyes looking on, she proudly went to look after the child’s sleeping arrangements.

  Late that night, Kampol began screeching. It jolted the neighborhood awake. Kampol got up from the mattress and felt his way in the dark. When the people in the house who had gotten up switched on the lights, Kampol made a dash for the door, flinging it wide and running outside. He called out to his father, his voice echoing down the street. Neighbors turned their lights on and opened their windows. Some cracked their doors and stuck their faces out, trying to see what was going on. Kampol ran down the street, heading for the front of the housing development. Rampeuy caught up to him, grabbed him by the arms, and sat him down. She consoled him for a long time, and then shepherded him back to her home. In the calm of the night, his whimpering cry could be heard throughout the neighborhood.

  Early in the morning, Kampol left the house where he had spent the night. He staggered over to the grocery store, looking for his bags. He then just stood there quietly until the shopkeeper turned and saw him.

  “Have you seen my papa yet, Hia Chong?” Kampol asked.

  “I haven’t seen him,” Chong said, hands on his hips, looking at Kampol.

  “My bags are gone. They were right here yesterday.” Kampol pointed to the spot.