I noticed a lot of young men in white T-shirts who stood in front of the telephone, and several motorcycles driving very quickly down the road. Young men in black T-shirts were riding them. They went around a couple of times. A strange intangible suspense was in the air.
Suddenly a woman shouted several words. I understood “Mee buen duey.” Has a pistol, too.
The black shirts went across the road to confront the white shirts next to the telephone booth. One of the black shirts drew a pistol, aimed and shot. The people yelled and ran into their houses. Som as well. Her daughter wanted to defend the motorcycle of the family which was parked next to the terrace, but I pulled her away from the bike and took her inside the house. I commanded her to lie down on the floor because I was worried about ricocheting shots which could fly through one of the windows. All this happened in a few seconds. This wasn’t a movie, this was reality. I was so nervous that I could feel my heart pounding in my throat. I kneeled in the house, held Boo down so she couldn’t get up, and peeked out of the window. The gunman’s shot didn’t hit his target. He then drew a machete and with the other two armed black-shirted men, attacked the men wearing white shirts. One of the white shirts slipped and went down. Two others ran away. Another tried to escape with a motorcycle. But he was trembling so much that he couldn’t start the bike. He gave up and ran away as well. One of the black shirts ran to the white shirt youth who lay on the ground. He swung the machete a couple of times, striking him across the chest. Blood splashed all over, and the white shirt became a red shirt. Despite his injuries the boy could still get up and run away. The black shirts chased him for quite a while, but quickly came back to take care of their real prey–the two motorcycles. They moved the bikes into the middle of the crossroad and started to destroy them. With their bare hands, they pulled off mirrors and bent the hand breaks. Then they used the machete and flailed at the machines like madmen. A handlebar of one of the bikes broke. The glass of a tachometer was destroyed and they ripped it off with their hands. They threw the parts on the road and stomped on them. The tires were slashed, the seats as well. But it wasn’t enough. They opened the tanks, pushed the motorcycles on their sides and set them on fire. The tanks exploded in a darting flame. In the meantime the police came but the black shirts couldn’t care less. They flailed at the machines of the much hated white shirts even they couldn’t destroy anything more. No matter of how you looked at it, a total loss was a total loss. The black shirts ran away, but not until the two police officers called for reinforcements and a pick up with about fifteen police men showed up.
* * *
When we left for Pattaya a few days later there was another little farewell present I was asked to provide. Som’s mother wanted to buy three more cows and I had to pay. One cow was 10,000 baht and the mother wanted 30,000 baht.
I wondered what the villagers did with their cows and what kind of goals they had set with their cattle. The cows didn’t give milk and they didn’t eat them as far as I understood. The cattle stay in the stable or on the field and you have nothing but work. Sometimes they bought cows and sometimes they were sold.
We went to Phu Khieo and Som and her mother went to the bus station to buy tickets to Khorat while I went to 7-Eleven to eat a hamburger. After many uncountable days with sticky rice and somtam I had to have something real between my teeth.
“Don’t forget to go to the bank!” Som shouted after me.
* * *
In the meantime a lot had happened in Pattaya. The next day, I accompanied Som to Dao’s Star Massage. Several women whom I didn’t know sat in front of the parlour and tried to attract punters. The new personnel. Rung had left the parlour and Joy and Bee went with him. Dao sat in one of the armchairs alone, without Mr. Hong Kong. Along Dao’s forehead I noticed a wound about seven centimetres long. It looked like the skin was slashed with a razor blade. One thing was already sure: an ugly scar would show and the beautiful Dao would be disfigured for the rest of her life.
She noticed of course that I looked at her forehead, touched her head and said, “I will grow a pony. Then you will hardly see it.”
She complained that her business didn’t run very well, the profit was down and she had to pay the rent. Mr. Hong Kong had to cover up financially. Richard had announced his visit. He wanted not only to come to Thailand to visit Dao, but also see how his investment was going. Of all things Tommy, Dao’s Australian husband, wanted to come to Pattaya as well, to visit his wife. Dao didn’t know what to do. She had to convince one of the two men to postpone their visit. I knew already that Dao wanted me to talk to Richard to tell him that he had to come to Thailand later for one reason or another. Which of her three men would Dao prefer? Her husband, Tommy? Richard, the English, or Mr. Hong Kong? She had married in Australia but didn’t register the marriage with the Thai registration office. She asked me whether the British agencies knew she was already married. Dao wanted to keep all of her options open. One of these options was to marry Richard and to go with him to England.
“You have your parlour? What do you want?” I asked surprised.
It was difficult for Dao to come up with the truth and she hesitated. Finally she told me the whole story. She had a fourth boyfriend, a Thai.
“He did this,” she said and tipped to her forehead. “Until now everything was fine. I gave him the money the farang had given me when I spent time with them. But when I told him Richard is coming to Thailand he went berserk. He grabbed an iron and beat me with it. I think he wanted to kill me.”
Dao put the sleeve up of her blouse. She was hurt there as well. Deeper and larger than the wound on her forehead. “I don’t know what happened to my boyfriend. Why did he become jealous so suddenly? I don’t know what to do about him.” Dao pointed to one of the new masseuses a very burly and dark-skinned woman. “She’s Lak, the wife of my older brother. She is here to keep an eye on me.”
“Your bodyguard?”
Dao nodded.
Mr. Hong Kong made himself scarce and didn’t risk entering the parlour. He could see the signs of danger. In Thailand, a country with one of the highest murders per capita in the world with killings over love and for revenge that can't be denied.
Som sat down next to her new colleagues in front of the parlour. One of them, Yupa, gave me her mobile phone. She wanted me to translate a text message from her farang-boyfriend and sponsor and answer it. I figured Dao told her I was the right chap to handle this kind of job. Later Yupa rummaged around her handbag and produced the print out of an email. I read the email to her in English and translated it afterwards into Thai. I should answer this email as well and Yupa gave me a pen and a piece of paper. She asked me to write in capital letters so she could easily copy them when she sat in front of a keyboard in an internet café. Yupa dictated in Thai what I should write in English but left me a wide scope. I had some ideas to add to create a letter more touching to the reader. An artless “I miss you” transformed into “I miss you every day and every night.” This phrasing aroused enthusiasm and all masseuses cheered.
We were interrupted by a call from my son. When he realized that I didn’t react to his suggestions to come home to his mother he started to argue with me and finally I didn’t say much at all. I just said “No” or “I don’t know” which didn’t satisfy him.
“You know what?” he said finishing. “I took some time off and will come to Thailand. Eventually we can talk about everything after my arrival.”
“You did what?”
“I am not saying I’m coming to get you. But I want to talk to you calmly. It's difficult over the telephone. It means a lot to me.”
“All right,” I said slowly. “And when will that be?”
* * *
After my ghost-writing and the conversation with John, I went to see Peter. Bad news was there waiting for me as well.
Peter sat in a rattan armchair and showing a very depressed expression. When I sat down next to him he hardly smiled.
“And
, were you bored to death in bloody Chaiyaphum?”
“I survived it,” I answered dryly.
“Hey Mai, go and fetch some beer! In Fiji it’s already after four!”
Mai, a masseuse, jumped up and went to the next supermarket. She came back with four large bottles of Chang beer, and Peter and I started shortly after eleven o’clock with our morning pint.
“Yai is gone,” he started. “This damn bitch tried to rip me off.”
Yai had used Peter’s cards for several days and withdrew money. Three days from three different accounts 20,000 baht at a time. On the fourth day Peter suspected something and confronted her. After that she vanished. He figured she went to her home town, Chaiyaphum. She slept with several punters during the massages in the parlour. She hated the parlour, Pattaya and Peter, too. All this she screamed at him, when they had argued about the money.
“You can't trust these fucking Thai sluts,” Peter said. “Sooner or later they pull you over the barrel. And they can wait years to do it. Like Yai. We were married a rather long time. Thais are long-term strategists.”
Without the female boss as supervisor, the employees started to “screw” Peter as he put it. They invoiced oil massages as Thai massages or wrote down one hour when they definitely massaged for two hours.
“They must think I have less than a half brain! They must think I can't read a watch or an account book!”
The masseuses got a share from the profits and tried to sell oil massages to their customers as often as possible. After Yai disappeared the oil massages went down almost to zero and the masseuses argued all the customers wanted to have Thai massages. They pocketed the difference.
“I just closed the parlour,” Peter said. “Only Mai stays with me. She's the only one who didn’t screw me.”
“And what happens with the parlour?”
“Sale.”
“But it's not yours. It belongs to Yai.”
“That’s the problem. The damn bitch will sell it behind my back.”
Peter had signed the rental contract together with Yai, but couldn’t manage his own business in Thailand because he was a foreigner. That was the end for the massage parlour. Peter owned a condominium in England which was rented out. If he limited his spending he could live from the rent. In addition he received a small disability pension.
“I will make it, somehow. But I don’t want to stay here. I think I will go to Phuket and live in a hut on the beach and let the sun shine on my belly. Pattaya is totally fucked up!” He got up and went to the door. Before he entered the parlour he turned around, “But the furniture I will take with me. I am not dumb and will not give the slut my parlour like that, even if I have to pull out everything with my bare hands and make mincemeat out of it.” Peter wobbled with his index finger. “Not with me, my friend, not with me!”
I nipped on my bottle and took my mobile phone to call Som. She was Yai’s friend, and maybe she had already spoken with Yai and knew more. After it rang four times, a female voice answered. I shouted a couple of times hello and said I wanted to talk to Som.
“Som is not here,” the voice said. “My daughter is in Pattaya.”
* * *
“Had been nice to talk to your mother,” I said when I arrived at Dao’s Star Massage.
Som changed into the silent mode and didn’t talk to me for a while. Not only had she made a mistake but it was me who pointed out her mistake.
Thais hate it if you rub their noses in the mistakes they made, especially if it is pointed out in an ironic or sarcastic way.
Som didn’t even try to tell me she had forgotten her mobile phone because she knew I would never ever believe that.
To bridge over the time of her silence I went to a travel agency. I had stayed 28 days in Thailand and had to go to Cambodia the following day to renew my visa. For 2,000 baht visa-runs with a van were offered to the Cambodian border of Poi Pet, the nearest border crossing to Pattaya. I would be picked up the next morning at six o’clock and be back in Pattaya the same day in the late afternoon.
I didn’t want to leave Som on her own to stew any longer and went back to the parlour.
She smiled at me. “I am sorry,” she said quietly. “But she really wanted to have it.”
“Never mind,” I said and told her about Peter and Yai to change the topic. Som nodded. She already heard the news because she had called Yai with Dao’s mobile phone to tell her that she was back in Pattaya.
“Don’t tell Peter anything,” she said secretly. “I know he is your friend. But Yai isn’t in Chaiyaphum at all. She is in Pattaya and wants to sell the parlour before she heads home.”
“I won’t tell him,” I said and wondered if I could square it with my conscience. “I have to go to Cambodia tomorrow,” I said because I wanted to change the topic again. “Visa-run.”
Suddenly Som became very lively. “There is something else I want to talk about with you. There are many interested parties and we have to act tomorrow at the latest.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The parlour. She wants to sell it.”
I nodded because I anticipated what Som was aiming for. She wanted to buy the parlour from Yai. And what should I tell Peter? He would be devastated and would call me a treacherous arsehole. And I would be one. I couldn’t betray him like that.
I shook my head. “I fear it doesn’t work.”
“Sure, of course it works. Think about it but quickly. There are many interested parties who want to buy the parlour. But Yai is my friend and she would prefer me. She needs the money badly because she wants to go home. She can’t wait forever. She wants to have the money by tomorrow.”
Thais seem to have, in all situations, all the time in the world, but when money is involved they haven’t a moment to waste.
“How much does she want?” I asked.
“350,000 baht.”
I laughed. “That’s ridiculous.”
“The saeng is already included. We would take over her hiring contract. And the furniture.”
“Yeah, sure. The furniture.” I imagined how Peter was possibly in this very moment sawing at the bamboo wooden cabins. “I don’t know, I don’t know,” I said doubtfully.
“You love me, right?” Som looked at me sadly with her brown eyes. “Then help me, please.”
“Peter should get a share from the profit. I don’t see any other way. That would have impact on the sales price of course. Talk to Yai. She has to understand it. She can't completely rip off Peter. He has to tell me what sum he invested and he gets his monthly share until this sum is amortized. We can talk about details later. Yai has to reduce the price. Start with 200,000 but don’t get higher than 250,000 baht. That’s your margin.
Som smiled at me. “I will call Yai at once.”
She took the mobile phone from Dao and entered the parlour to call her. In the meantime I considered how I could gently break this news to Peter.
After a long while Som left the parlour. “Yai agrees but under one condition: You are not allowed to tell Peter anything today. Only after the contracts are signed. That’s why Peter can't attend the meeting between Yai and the landlord.”
“You forgot the most important thing. How much does she want to have?”
“250,000. Yai will leave. The meeting will be tomorrow morning.”
“I am on my visa-run tomorrow.”
“I know. But there is no other way.”
I thought about postponing my visa-run for one day. But overstay stamps didn’t look too good in a passport.
“You trust me, don’t you?” Som asked.
“Sure. But if you sign the contract with the landlord alone we have to do a contract between us as well.”
I decided on a variation which obligated Som to give me a certain percentage from the profits. In this way I could make sure that she didn’t pull the wool over my eyes and just claimed that the parlour was hers and hers alone. After the incident with Peter I became careful.
“As you like,” she said. “But I still need the money by tomorrow.”
I got up. “Let’s go.”
With our new motorcycle we went to our apartment, I fetched my passport and then we went to the bank. I withdrew 250,000 baht. In the meantime Som waited in front of the bank.
“You must really love me,” she said when I left the bank.
I wanted to go back to the parlour but Som wasn’t fond of giving any massage on that day. She was much to restless with the view of owning her own massage parlour the next day. She took my mobile phone and called Dao to take off the rest of the day. She wanted to talk with Dao the next day personally and quit.
Before we went home we stopped at Big C. Som bought some shampoo bottles, soap and wash powder. I bought her a pair of shoes and a handbag.
At home I sketched the text for a contract, which gave me a share of 50 percent of the profit of the parlour. “Actually we should go to see a lawyer, we have to translate the contract in Thai and have it notarized.” I looked at my watch. “I hope we will make it.”
“We can do it next week,” Som said. “We have time.” She signed the provisional contract without a second look and pulled me to the bed after I placed the money in an envelope on top of the contract. “I don’t want to waste my time with silly lawyers, but to have sex with you.” She switched to English, “I love you too much.”
Before we went to bed she took two tablets. She often complained about heavy headaches and took painkillers on an almost daily basis. Sometimes I wondered if she was a pill popper.
* * *
At five o’clock the next morning my alarm clock rang. I took a shower, got dressed and kissed Som carefully on her cheek so she wouldn’t wake up. I opened the door and looked at her for a last time. She had kicked away the bed covers and lay naked on the bed, her long hairs played with her face. I would never ever love this much. I was sure about it in this moment. Quietly I closed the door behind me.
A Farang Strikes Back Page 9