Bright

by Duanwad Pimwana

  At the lunch reception, the kids brightened up when they saw that they had been allocated an entire table just for them. Kampol, Jua, and Oan were just starting to meet their new friends, and had put only a few bites of food in their mouths, when the bride, in her white dress with her belly slightly protruding, came over to their table. She whispered something to one of the boys. The kid shook his head.

  “I don’t want to get yelled at. I’m not going over there. Have Tee do it.”

  The bride looked over at the boy named Tee, who also immediately shook his head. The others all followed suit at once, swinging their heads from side to side.

  “One of you, anyone, just go and grab it. Otherwise you won’t get to eat,” she threatened.

  The kids went quiet for a bit, and then one of them stood up. “In that case, I’ll go eat in the kitchen.” The others stood up after him. Kampol, Jua, and Oan were the only ones left sitting at the table.

  “How about you, can you help me, please?” The bride’s finger was aimed at Jua. “Just go over to that table and grab the bottle of whiskey for me.” She pointed at a table where every seat was occupied, and an untouched bottle of whiskey stood prominently in the middle—she wasn’t going to let anyone leave the party with whiskey she’d paid for.

  Jua, though dumbstruck, complied. He returned empty-handed, however.

  “They told me to come back over here and ask who wants it and what they are going to do with it.”

  “Tell them Uncle Berm sent you for it,” she said.

  Jua went again but returned empty-handed again. The bride scowled. She had been watching the entire time and saw how the guests at that table denied the kid the bottle, even though not one of them cared to open it for a drink. The three boys sat in total silence, none of them brave enough to be the first to touch the food. The bride was huffing. She started to turn, looking as if she were about to leave them alone, but then, out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a new target, so she spun back toward them. “Will you try that table, sweetie?” Jua shook his head manically. Kampol and Oan kept their eyes down. “Help me out, please, sweetie. You can sit down and eat right after.” The bride came over to Kampol and made him stand up by grabbing his arm. “But go get the whiskey first. Hurry!”

  Kampol grudgingly walked over. Once at the table, he reached for the bottle, nabbing it without meeting anyone’s eye. Then he quickly turned around and retreated. But he wasn’t quite quick enough. “Hey! A thief!” he heard someone say, and then a hand seized him.

  “It wasn’t me!” Kampol screamed, terrified. “The bride sent me.”

  The bottle in his hand was confiscated. After that, he was released from his duties. It became a matter between the adults. The newlyweds were standing side by side. The bride’s mother came over to back them up, and Old Jai was also there to support the young couple. The groom’s guests had the bride’s guests as their witnesses, attesting to the fact that they, too, nearly had the whiskey from their table taken by the bride. The bride claimed that she was only collecting bottles from the tables that were all women, when she saw that no one was drinking from them. The guests countered that what she did showed a complete lack of respect.

  “That’s right. You invited us for food and drink and yet you want to take it back. If you didn’t want us here, then why did you invite us?”

  “Of course we’re giving you food and drink. But why should people who aren’t drinking hold onto a bottle of whiskey?”

  “Still, you should have waited until we left the table before you rounded them up.”

  “Some people were eyeing them to take them home for their husbands, that’s why…”

  The children waited to see how the drama was going to unfold, braced for something gruesome to go down right before their eyes.

  Old Gan, with his shirt tied around his head, flung his flip-flops to the ground, took a couple of guarded steps over to the problematic bottle of whiskey, snatched it, unscrewed the cap, and raised it over his head.

  “Everybody, listen here,” he said, projecting his voice, which was shaky but full of courage, capturing the attention of every guest at the reception. “Today is an auspicious day. Let’s keep calm. Don’t let your tempers get the better of you. We came together today to help celebrate this couple, so please let’s keep the spirit going. Let’s not argue in the middle of this happy occasion. As for this troublemaker of a bottle, I’ll deal with it myself!”

  With his stance wide and firm, Old Gan tipped the bottle of whiskey over his mouth. All around him, people were slack-jawed. And he held the bottle steady that way, the whiskey pouring into his mouth. Old Jai, snapping to attention, grabbed another bottle of whiskey and took his place beside his buddy.

  “Like my friend said, keep the spirit of solidarity going, my brothers and sisters, for the sake of this auspicious occasion.” Then he, too, tilted his bottle.

  Later that evening, Old Jai and some of his family members arrived back in the neighborhood from the wedding. The young men among them carried the father of the groom and his best friend from the pickup truck into Old Jai’s house. There they lay, side by side, completely zonked out. In his hands, Old Gan was still clutching his new pair of flip-flops. Old Jai had lost his, no one remembered where.

  Kampol, Oan, and Jua, about to drop, dragged themselves home. People called out to them from every direction as they walked, wanting to know if the wedding had been fun.

  Mama’s Back

  On a sunny Saturday morning, Kampol and Oan were shaking out their school uniforms and hanging them up in front of the house. The clothesline was too high for them to reach, so they were using a chair. The two of them took turns climbing up and then jumping down, hanging the clothes one by one.

  “Hey, isn’t that your mama?” Oan said from atop the chair, peering up the road.

  “Where?” Kampol asked, yanking him down from the chair and taking his place. Elevated, Kampol stared with such intensity that his eyes practically popped out. It was indeed his mother, still a ways away, on the road. She turned and disappeared into Mrs. Tongjan’s house. Kampol’s heart was racing but he didn’t say a word. He kept his eyes fixed on where she’d been, even though she was out of sight.

  “Hey, why don’t you go see her?” Oan asked, but Kampol shook his head and began hanging the laundry again.

  Namfon Changsamran was back. Kampol needed time to adapt to the idea. His mother had come back to see him, just like he’d been hoping and dreaming. But something had changed. Kampol couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was. All he was able to think of was that something essential, whatever it was, still existed between him and his father, but between him and his mother it had vanished. And since he couldn’t explain it properly, he didn’t know how to bring it back.

  Because it was missing, Kampol didn’t feel like running to her or calling out to her. Even when she came over to hug him, he didn’t lift his arms to embrace her back.

  Mrs. Tongjan showed Namfon to a vacant unit; the last tenant had just recently moved out. Suddenly, all the household things that had been taken away from him were back. The neighbors all around told Kampol how thrilled they were for him, but he mostly felt thrown off by the new situation, and he would have to adjust to it. As for Namfon, she was constantly weeping, as if racked by guilt all the time, even though she kept up an endless list of tasks to take care of.

  Kampol kept close to his mother, eating with her and sleeping by her side. In the middle of her first night back, he was startled awake.

  “Fon! Fon! Hurry up and open the door!” a man said, knocking loudly.

  Namfon, sitting up on the mattress and crying, answered, “You should leave. I’m not opening the door for you.” Her voice was shaking.

  “I want to talk to you.”

  “You should go.”

  “How can I just leave? I had to go around knocking on random doors until I finally found you. Just open the door, Fon, so we can talk. I just want to have two or three word
s with you.”

  “I don’t have anything to say. You know how I feel already.”

  “I know. About that, I know. I admitted it, didn’t I? So why can’t we work it out?”

  “I told you ages ago that I have to look after my son.”

  “Your son’s not the problem. Just open the door first so we can talk.”

  “I said for you to go. We’re over. I want to be with my son.”

  “I just want to know why you had to run off.”

  “You already know why. You already know full well.”

  “No, I don’t. I just want to talk about it.”

  “You admitted that you know.”

  “What did I admit?… No, that was something else.”

  “It’s the same thing. You know it’s the same thing.”

  “Open the door, Fon. I really, really don’t know.”

  “You know. I know you know.”

  In the dark, Kampol’s eyes were wide and his heart was pounding. He kept still, listening. He listened to every word. An hour later, nothing had changed: they continued talking, on and on, in circles like that. Kampol didn’t understand a thing. He couldn’t decipher the conversation, so he finally quit paying attention and closed his eyes. But he couldn’t fall back asleep because his mother was still sobbing, and her argument with the man continued like an echo in his ears:

  “Why did you have to run off? Why?”

  “I told you, I want to be with my son.”

  “Your son isn’t the problem. You can be with your son if you want, but why did you run off?”

  “Why are you asking when you already know?”

  “I really don’t. Just open the door, please. It’s late. I have an early shift.”

  “Just go. We’re over, and you already know it.”

  “I don’t know that. That’s why I’m asking you.”

  Kampol kept listening for a long time, all the while thinking about how morning was approaching, that the sun was about to rise and it would be light out. He lay waiting, but the dark of the night lingered, with the words and the weeping. Then, very quietly, sleepiness tiptoed in; it appeared unnoticed, even by him. It crawled onto the mattress, held him to its chest, and sang a silent lullaby that drowned out every other sound in the world. Kampol fell asleep waiting for the first light of dawn.

  The next day was Sunday, and Kampol woke up very late, with the sun’s glare coming through the window. He lay with his eyes open, trying to sort between his dreams and reality. Then he heard a noise from the back of the house and got up to have a look.

  Namfon turned her face toward him. He saw how red her nose was, and her eyes were puffy. She smiled and then turned back to the fish she was frying.

  Kampol watched her for a long time.

  Kampol, His Mama, His Papa, and That Man

  That Sunday, Kampol brought his homework over to the grocery store to do it there. He wasn’t as cheery as would have been expected.

  “How’s it going, Boy? Where’d you sleep last night?” Chong’s customers all asked with a smile when they came by to do their shopping.

  “With my mother,” Kampol muttered, not looking up from his school books. The adults, assuming all was well now that Namfon was back, didn’t notice the sadness in his voice and eyes.

  Once Kampol had finished his homework, he checked in with his friends who were playing under the poinciana tree. Then he felt like having a snack but didn’t have the money for it, so he walked over to Dang’s.

  He brightened up when he saw that Dang was home. “You feeling tight? You need a massage?”

  “Lately, it hasn’t been so bad,” Dang said. “You want to get a snack, don’t you? Why don’t you ask your mama for some money? She’s back, isn’t she?”

  Kampol nodded, quietly turned around, and walked away. He had thought about asking his mother but was afraid to, so he wandered from house to house, in case somebody might have a chore for him. But all the grown-ups had the same suggestion as Dang, so he strolled back over to the grocery and watched the game his friends were playing.

  Then something made his face light up: his father’s water truck was roaring into the neighborhood.

  Kampol wasted no time telling him everything: “Mama’s back, Papa. She brought all our stuff back, but we’re not in our old apartment. We’re in a new one over there.”

  Wasu’s eyes went wide—from happiness or sheer surprise, it was impossible to say. “Really?”

  “Really. Last night, I spent the night with her.”

  “Did she bring someone with her?”

  Kampol shook his head. “She came back alone, but late last night a man showed up, knocking on the door. She told him to go away, that she wasn’t going to open the door for him.”

  “And then?”

  “I don’t know. I fell asleep.”

  Wasu paused for a moment to process. “So…when you woke up this morning, was the man there?” When Kampol shook his head, Wasu again didn’t show an immediate reaction.

  “Papa, come back and live with us,” Kampol said. “And bring Jon, too. We can all be together like we used to be.”

  His father sighed. But seeing Kampol’s sorry face and his pleading eyes, he said, “How about this? Go get Mama. Tell her I want to talk to her.”

  “Okay,” Kampol said, and immediately took off sprinting. Within a breath’s time, he was back with his report: “Mama said to tell you to come to the house to talk.”

  Wasu, perched on the footboard of his truck, realized as he looked up that he’d become the focus of attention, which made it all the more difficult for him to be the one to cave in and make the long walk over to talk to Kampol’s mother.

  “Boy, tell your mama…um, if she wants my help with anything, I’m here to talk.”

  Kampol ran back over to the apartment. When he came back, he said, “Mama said there’s nothing.”

  Wasu sighed. He needed a new plan. “Ask her if she wants help paying the rent.”

  Kampol wiped the sweat from his forehead, ran over, and then walked back. “Mama says there’s no need.”

  Wasu frowned, eyes narrow. He stood up, hands on his hips. “I better get out of here. If I stick around any longer, your mama might get a few bruises.”

  Kampol’s eyes clung to the sky-blue water truck as it zoomed away. When it was finally out of sight, he started to make his way back home. But he turned around before he reached the house and went through the open lot, past the poinciana and the store. Behind Mrs. Tongjan’s house, Kampol crawled under his usual shrub and curled up; he stayed there almost until sundown.

  That night, Kampol slept beside his mother again, and, as the night before, he was startled awake in the dark.

  “Fon, are you asleep? Will you open the door?”

  Kampol recognized the voice. His mother sat up, and the same sequence of events replayed all over again. Kampol pulled the blanket over his head and plugged his ears with his fingers, but their voices resounded in the dark room, still sharp. Both the man and Kampol’s mother just repeated the same words over and over again.

  Monday night, Kampol slept beside his mother for the third night in a row and was startled awake for the third time.

  He had begun to get used to the routine, and it no longer frightened him. He lay listening, unperturbed, and fell back asleep before long.

  Tuesday night, Kampol slept beside his mother for the fourth night. Again, he woke up in the dark, but tonight was different from the ones that came before. The man’s voice didn’t come from outside the door, there wasn’t the same back and forth. All that was left was the sound of his mother’s sobbing, which was louder than it had been on any of the previous nights.

  On Wednesday, Kampol came home from school to an empty house.

  His mother had gone.

  The sun was about to set, and Kampol didn’t know where to spend the night. As he stood adrift in the middle of the vacant lot, he heard Chong’s voice calling him from the grocery.

 
; “Boy, why don’t you sleep here tonight?”

  And then: “Or you could come sleep over at my house!” Oan was saying.

  “Boy,” Jua said, limping over to him. “My grandpa just bought a new mosquito net. It’s pink and even has a door for getting in and out.”

  And that was how, on Wednesday night, Kampol wound up under a new mosquito net with Jua. As they got into bed Oan showed up, asking to have a sleepover with them, too.

  The Dignity of a Dog Named Tiger

  Every afternoon, on their way home from school, Kampol and Oan passed a wooden house on stilts. It was about head-high from the ground and surrounded by a wooden fence, solid and secure. If you peeked through one of the slits in the fence, you saw a large dark-brown dog with short hair, sitting on the terrace with his head held high. If the boys happened to make too much noise, the dog would immediately make his presence known with a menacing bark. Kampol and Oan liked to peep in at him, and then when he woofed they would dash away.

  Once, the two of them were heading home later than usual, and happened to see the owner of the house. She was a short middle-aged woman with fair skin, curly hair, and a lazy eye. As soon as she opened the gate wide enough to let herself through, the dog bounded right up to her, making noises like a babbling child, and jumped up, licking her face, her lips. He ran in circles and jumped on her some more. His short mistress laughed as she hugged him. The homely, middle-aged lady and her large handsome dog were the only inhabitants of the house.

  Shortly thereafter, something changed. Kampol and Oan would walk by with trepidation because the gate was left open. The large dog, his ears erect, stared at them from the terrace. The two boys were scared that he would charge them. Every day, the gate stayed open. Grass began to grow on the walkway that ran to the foot of the stairs leading up to the house. And no matter how late they were going home, they never saw the short lady again.

  Weeds began to grow wild under the house. The big brown dog, meanwhile, continued keeping watch from the terrace.