What Could Be Saved

by Liese O'Halloran Schwarz

  Chapter Twenty

  MAKE THE sheets tighter, Daeng barked at Noi and Choy, ripping the covers away from Beatrice’s freshly made bed. Do it over. Just a few days before, Noi would have scrambled to obey, fearful of Daeng’s displeasure. But now, thinking of the new Number Two job and the millet seed, Noi calmly gathered the linens from the floor under Daeng’s glowering eye and she and Choy remade the bed together, lifting the sheet high between them, letting it billow and settle before pulling it tight and smoothing it flat, folding the top over the way Madame liked. Daeng made a tch sound with her tongue against her teeth and stalked from the room; they heard her feet slapping down the stairs.

  “Make it tighter,” mimicked Noi, smiling at Choy, who did not smile back.

  “Disrespectful,” Choy said as they each took up a pillowslip and a pillow.

  “She is so harsh lately,” Noi said, finding the inside corner of the pillowslip with her fingers and snuggling a pillow ear into it. But she felt chastened; rudeness to an elder was indefensible. “She was nicer to me for a while. I don’t know what changed.”

  “Somchit is married to Daeng’s daughter,” Choy said.

  She placed her pillow at the head of Beatrice’s bed, gathered up the pale stack of folded sheets, and went out the door, leaving Noi in the middle of the room holding a half-sheathed pillow in her arms.

  Married. How could Somchit already be married? How had Noi not known? She had never asked; she had never even considered it. How could they have the grocery store or the dress shop with the baby kicking its legs in the basket in the corner? No wonder Daeng was angry. She was boxed in: she couldn’t report the dalliance to get the Number Three fired without having the driver, her own daughter’s husband, fired also. It was clear why Daeng had been working Noi so hard again: she was provoking her to fail and supply a separate excuse for her dismissal.

  Noi finished forcing the pillow into its case, placed it at the head of Laura’s bed, and then joined Choy in the parents’ bedroom at the end of the hall. They went silently about the work there, making the bed, wiping the windowsills, cleaning the floor. While Choy swept a line of dust into a pan, Noi polished Madame’s mirror, keeping her eyes on her work, avoiding her own reflection.

  * * *

  That night, when Somchit whistled and Noi went down, she found him already straddling his bicycle; when she came through the gate he made a wordless head-jerk toward the space behind him: Get on. She ignored that, stood a few feet away.

  “You’re married.” Her voice did not come out purely angry as she had intended; a tremor of sadness warbled through it.

  His face tightened with annoyance. He got off the bicycle and leaned it against the wall. When he turned around again, his expression was calm.

  “My wife knows about us,” he said. “She approves.”

  “I don’t believe that,” said Noi.

  “It’s a customary arrangement,” said Somchit. He took a step toward her, his voice coaxing. “One wife for babies, another for fun. It’s the way modern people live.” Another step; he put out his hand.

  Babies? “Her mother doesn’t approve.” Noi leaned back from his outstretched hand, put her arms across her chest with her fingers tucked into her armpits.

  “Daeng is a peasant,” he said, dropping his hand, the softness fled from his face and voice.

  “I am a peasant,” said Noi. He knew that. He had made an endearment of it: my country rabbit. The memory of that made the tears start.

  “You are not a peasant,” he said, sweet again. “You are my beautiful lotus blossom.” He stepped closer. “I married too young. Our parents wanted it.” Another step. “She is ugly. I don’t love her.”

  He must have seen something in Noi’s face that would permit it, for he closed the last bit of distance between them and took her in his arms.

  “You are the wife of my heart,” he said.

  She didn’t embrace him back but she also didn’t resist. She was like a rabbit frozen in the grass. His arms went tight around her; she stood feeling his heart beating against hers and imagining the third, secret heartbeat below. She could have stayed like that forever, but after only a minute he pushed her away gently, with hands on her shoulders.

  “Why aren’t you wearing the red dress?” he demanded.

  It was disorienting how quickly he could go from affectionate to businesslike. Noi looked down at her uniform, confused: Why would she wear that dress to interview for a Number Two position?

  “Let’s go,” Somchit said. “He’s waiting.” He pulled his bicycle away from the wall, got on, and waited for her to get on behind him.

  She didn’t want to go to a job interview now. But she might not have another chance—as Somchit had made clear, the man was doing Noi a favor by scheduling the interview so late in the evening, after her workday ended. Three times the pay. Noi felt the millet seed stir in her womb. Three times the pay would buy the basket, and the corner, and the shop. It would pay the taxes for her parents, pay for Sao to visit Bangkok.

  She climbed onto the back of the bicycle, pulling her skirt forward and tucking it under her legs so it wouldn’t catch in the chain. Somchit pedaled fast, weaving around cars and turning recklessly across traffic, and in a quarter of an hour they were on a long dark street, the branches of flowering trees reaching above them from either side, making a fragrant tunnel with a far light at its end. That light turned out to be a noisy, busy neighborhood, blinking tubes of light everywhere and sidewalks crowded with farang. Somchit stopped and waited for her to get off the bike.

  “What are we doing here?” Noi asked.

  The front door of the nearest building swung open, music blaring out behind a man and girl, muting again as the door fell closed and they stood entwined, kissing on the sidewalk. Noi averted her eyes.

  “This is where he works,” said Somchit.

  Maybe Somchit didn’t want her to see how big the man’s house was, how much work would be required to keep it clean. She got down from the bicycle and spanked road-dust from her skirt, telling herself that she would not agree to the job until she saw the house itself.

  Somchit hurried her through a crowded, sticky-floored room filled with beery smoke and loud Western music, at its center a group of girls in bikinis dancing. Noi wasn’t sure she wanted to work for someone who worked in this kind of place. Who knew what his home would be like? Still, that voice inside her said, three times the pay. She watched as a flashlight beam cut through the crowd and lit on a small square of paper pinned to a bikini bottom, with 14 written on it. The beam moved up to the face of the girl wearing the number; squinting in the strong light, the girl began making her way toward its source.

  Somchit pulled Noi out of the room before she could see what prize the girl had won, down a corridor to a closed door. Before knocking, he put both of his hands on Noi’s shoulders and looked into her eyes.

  “Smile. Be friendly,” he said. “Make a good impression.”

  She stretched her lips into a smile that must have satisfied him, for he knocked at the door. A voice shouted for them to enter.

  “Here she is,” Somchit said, pushing Noi in and stepping in behind her, closing the door. He made a wai to a man who sat in a chair behind a cluttered desk.

  The man didn’t wai back. He was Thai, perhaps forty, wearing a purple patterned shirt, the collar open in a wide V, its points splayed nearly to his armpits. He was smoking; the air of the room was hazy.

  “Fresh from the rice paddies?” he said, looking at Noi but talking to Somchit.

  “No, I told you,” said Somchit. “She works for farang.” He put a hand against Noi’s cheek. “See how fair. She hasn’t been in the fields for a long time.”

  “Turn around,” the man told Noi, who did so, puzzled. He grunted. “How old?”

  Somchit looked at Noi.

  “Fifteen,” she said, and then remembered she had to give a good impression. She smiled hard. “But very strong.” She was beginning to suspect s
he was being hired to clean this building—clearly no one else was doing it. This room was filthy, every surface cluttered with stacks of paper and filled ashtrays and half-empty glasses and soft drink bottles. The ashtray on the desk was a stupa of cigarette butts; a few had rolled off the mound onto some papers underneath and lay like bent elbows in a gray nimbus of ash.

  “Very strong,” echoed the man, with a wheezy gust of laughter. He tapped his cigarette onto the heaped ashtray. “Any babies?”

  “No babies, no scars,” said Somchit.

  “I do have a scar,” said Noi, showing her forearm, the shiny place where she had been burned by a stove. The man sat forward to look, then sat back again.

  “Okay, let’s go,” he said in English, waving the hand that was holding his cigarette. When she stared uncomprehendingly, he said in coarse Thai, “Take your clothes off.”

  She couldn’t believe her ears. She looked at Somchit, certain that he would share her outrage. He himself had never seen Noi completely naked. And now this man—this stranger—was expecting her to undress? She had heard of employers trying to take advantage of servants, but usually it happened after they had started working in the house, not before.

  Noi backed away from the desk. Somchit, standing behind her, put his hands on her upper arms and held her in place.

  “Go ahead,” he said into her ear. “He won’t touch you.”

  She shook her head and closed her eyes, tears slipping down her cheeks.

  “She’s shy,” Somchit told the man. “Innocent.”

  “Innocent.” The man sucked on his cigarette and narrowed his eyes, looking at Somchit. “I bet not completely.” Noi bowed her head, tears dropping onto the dirty floor. “Okay. But she had better not be shy by Friday at eight o’clock.”

  “She won’t be,” said Somchit. He opened the door and Noi went through it gratefully. He didn’t follow. “Wait here.”

  She stood in the hallway just outside the closed door, facing it so she wouldn’t have to look toward the big room. The music made her feet vibrate; the strong smells were nauseating.

  When Somchit came out a few minutes later, he looked jubilant.

  “What did I say,” he told her. “Twice as much as you make now.”

  “You said three times,” said Noi, following him with relief through the big room, keeping her eyes down. “I won’t work for that man,” she said as they went out the front door. “I would never clean this disgusting place.”

  “Silly girl,” said Somchit, hugging her with one arm, inadvertently trapping her braid and jerking her head back. “You won’t have to clean anything.” He let her go, taking the bicycle from where it leaned against the wall. “I’ll buy you an outfit for Friday. You can pay me back.” He straddled the bicycle, still talking, motioning to her to get on. “Maybe pink,” he said. She usually loved it when he was this way, enthusiastic and happy. “Pink would make you look like a little girl. Some men like that.”

  All of a sudden she understood. And felt like an idiot for not understanding sooner. Somchit had never been talking about a Number Two position. He wanted her to be one of those bikini girls.

  “I’m not doing that,” she said. “Are you crazy?”

  “Are you crazy?” he said. “This is easy work! You can be a Number Two in five years, when you’re old and ugly. Plenty of time for cleaning toilets then.”

  She felt the tears rising again. She had been so stupid. She began walking; he followed her on the bike, walking it along with his legs on either side.

  “It’s just dancing,” he said. “Talking to the men, getting them to buy drinks.”

  She shook her head. She knew it was not just dancing and talking. Her cousin had told her about the unfortunate girls who came to Krung Thep on the promise of domestic work but ended up in bars like these.

  “Popular girls make a lot of money,” said Somchit. “You would be the most popular, Number One.”

  “I would rather be Number Three in a house than Number One in a bar,” retorted Noi.

  “This is the best opportunity for you,” said Somchit, still walking the bike in that awkward waddle. He kept beside her for a block or two, kept up the wheedling patter, but when she didn’t stop or reply or even turn to look at him, he finally yelled, “Stupid peasant,” and cycled away.

  She had to walk all the way back to Soi Nine in her thin shoes; she was footsore and miserable by the time she reached the gate, lifted the hasp, and slipped inside. She undressed quickly and lay down on her mat. Only a few hours to sleep before the workday began.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  THE GIRLS didn’t bother Robert by this point. They didn’t try to sell him drinks or nag him to dance or harass him to buy their bar. When he came in, they’d wave at him from their cabstand seats, tittering behind their hands, and call Root. Within a few minutes Ruth would appear from somewhere, saying Hello, Master, smiling enormously as if it were a spectacular reunion and she hadn’t seen him just a day or two before.

  He liked to go at lunchtime, when the bar was relatively empty. Nothing improper took place. He taught the girls to play gin rummy; sometimes five or six would try to play at a time, which made for giggling chaos. He was also teaching Ruth to foxtrot, and in turn she was teaching him to rockanro dance. They’d alternate choosing songs on the jukebox. Her choices were ridiculous: the Monkey, the Pony, the Funky Chicken. He felt an idiot as he made wings of his arms and flapped them about, but somehow it was all right to laugh and be laughed at here, no sting in the light rippling laughter of these women. When his turn came to choose, he punched up one of the three Frank Sinatra numbers in the jukebox and they danced slow-slow quick-quick, stepping and turning, Ruth keeping her head down to watch her feet, with an adorable frown of concentration. Those fingers in my hair. She was much shorter than Genevieve.

  He hadn’t seen Bardin since the night he’d caught him rummaging through his office; perhaps he was in the field again. Robert had decided not to report the incident to the Boss. It had been poor judgment on Bardin’s part but not blatantly criminal, and if the materials Robert had created for the photograph were to be implemented, that would have already happened. What was done was done.

  When the Sinatra song finished and another fast number began, Robert went to sit at a table and Ruth brought him another beer.

  “I think my mother die soon,” she said, sipping her Fanta.

  “My God,” he said. “I’m very sorry.”

  “I want visit but,” she said, “too much money.”

  He reached for his wallet, opened it. Only two hundred baht and twenty U.S. dollars left inside. He pulled out the baht. “You go see your mother,” he said. “Get her a good doctor.”

  “Thank you, Master.” She took the money from his hand. “I buy many flower.”

  “Not flowers,” he said severely. “Doctor. Medicine.” She nodded.

  He felt protective toward her, as if she were one of his daughters. It wouldn’t be so terrible if his girls were more like her, sweet and kind and always laughing, although he’d fight until his last breath to keep them from living her life, so dependent on a thin river of generosity from men. They’d have their own money, he vowed then and there, watching Ruth tuck the bills away. From now on, the family would live only on his salary; he’d put the family trust that was currently earmarked for his heir, Philip, into all of the children’s names, divide it equally between the three of them. His girls would never have to depend on a man.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  IN MIDMORNING, Noi stood on the side terrace beating dust from one of the front hall rugs, keeping an eye out for Somchit. Just the night before he had called her a stupid peasant, had left her standing on the street, yet while she was sweeping the front step at dawn he’d whistled to her from the driveway and squeezed his face up into a wink, as if none of it had happened. She’d gone inside and stayed away from the front of the house since then, to avoid him.

  She saw something moving in the garden,
low to the ground, just at the edge of her vision, and leaned far over to look. Was it Somchit, weaseling his way along the wall toward her with a present in his hand, hoping to win her back?

  No, it was Philip. He was in the space behind the swing set where the dirt was bare and grassless; he was on his knees leaning forward and back, over and over, in a floor-scrubbing movement. She left the rug hanging over the side rail, went down the terrace steps. She saw what he was pushing back and forth along the ground: his judo robe.

  “What wrong,” she said, kneeling beside him, putting her hands onto his. “What wrong?”

  “I hate this, I hate it,” said Philip. He sounded frenzied, near tears. “It’s too white, it’s too—clean.”

  “Not clean now,” said Noi, smiling, looking at the garment bunched under their hands.

  “I’ve asked Choy over and over but she doesn’t understand.” There was a despairing gravel in his voice. “Every week it looks brand-new.”

  “The other boys not so clean,” said Noi, understanding.

  Philip nodded.

  “Okay,” said Noi, getting to her feet, taking Philip’s hands and making him stand too. She jumped on the robe, stamped on it, ground it under her heels. She stepped back, beckoned to him to do the same. They took turns for a while; then Noi gathered the defeated robe from the earth.