by Eric Brown
She would never forget the day a farm labourer rushed into the factory and told her that her father was dead—killed in the blades of a tractor’s plough. She remembered her reaction—a sadness, yes, but at the same time a stomach-churning apprehension about what would happen next.
Her father owed money to the landowner he had worked for, gambling debts he had never told his daughters about. Sukara sold their hut, but still they owed money. Her wages were taken from her every week, and her sister was forced to work in the fields all day. They lived in a communal hut on the farm, eating just two meagre meals a day. Pakara was often beaten for not working hard enough, and Sukara set off to work in the factory before dawn and did not get home until after dark. For years and years she hardly saw the sun.
It was Pakara’s idea to run away. One night, after watching a film on the communal vid-screen about a young boy who worked his way up from being a beggar to owning a factory in Bangkok, Pakara had said to Sukara, “We must leave here. Tomorrow night we take the train to Trat. Then we take another train to Bangkok. I know times, okay? Don’t worry.” Sukara had agreed, nodded her head in wordless wonder at her little sister’s audacity.
She was sixteen when she saw Bangkok for the first time, Pakara just ten. The films had not prepared her for the noise and the smell and the crowds of the city. Pakara had managed to steal fifty baht from the commune kitty, but even eating just one meal a day it soon ran out. They walked the streets in the tourist area of Patphong, begging for money and food. For two nights they slept in alleys, growing hungrier as the hours passed. There were other street kids begging too, and others who went with rich farangs. Her sister watched them, then dragged Sukara to the bar where the street kids worked. Her little sister talked to the owner, and then miraculously they were given a meal and a hot shower, and told to sit at a table in the bar. Men came and talked to them, bought them drinks, strange bitter tasting stuff that made Sukara laugh, and then be sick. Late that night an old Westerner took Pakara’s hand and led her from the bar. Pakara gestured for Sukara to follow, and whispered to the farang, who glanced at Sukara and didn’t seem pleased that she was coming too. He took them to a hotel room and, while Sukara watched, he undressed her sister and made her do things to him that Sukara could not believe that anyone would want done to them, or that her sister knew how to do.
Later, out on the street with a fat roll of baht between them, Sukara had stared from the money to Pakara. “How could you?” she asked.
“He was okay. He was gentle, like daddy.”
And Sukara had felt shocked, and then envious of the strange affection that their father had shown Pakara.
Sukara stood beneath the drier and combed her hair. She slipped back into her skirt and T-shirt and found her sandals. On her way to the room she used with the Ee-tees, she stopped at the bar and picked up a wrap of yahd from Fat Cheng. Hurrying down the corridor, feeling a tingle of anticipation at who the Ee-tee might be, she rubbed the yahd into her gums. The drug gave her a pleasant dislocated feeling and also helped her stay sober. Some of the Ee-tees could not drink Terran alcohol, and Sukara amazed them by drinking bottle after bottle of ice-cold beer and still being able to touch her nose with her fingertip.
She knocked on the door, then opened it and peeked through. Her heart was hammering with the effects of the drug. The Ee-tee was sitting on the chair near the window, looking out at the rippling play of lights on the water. From this angle she could not tell who it was—just that it was an alien, for which she was grateful. Sukara preferred going with aliens—they were kinder and more gentle than human men, never beat her up or treated her roughly—but some of them were disgusting, strange shapes and stranger textures, creatures she had to force herself to go with.
“Hi there!” she said with forced gaiety as she stepped into the room.
The Ee-tee turned. “Su, so pleased. Together after one Terran month. Much has happened. Let me tell you. So pleased.”
She hesitated. “Dervan? Is it... Dervan?”
“Of course. Dervan. So pleased.”
Sukara smiled. Dervan looked like a human being might look if they lived for three hundred years. His skin hung in pink wrinkled folds, and he was completely hairless; his nose was almost nonexistent, his mouth a mere slit, and his eyes pink like those of an albino. Sukara forgot where he came from—she was never any good at remembering details—but she did know that he was an important member of a voidship crew that landed at Bengal Station three or four times a year. Two years ago he had visited Bangkok on leave, and had found himself in the Siren Bar. None of the other girls had gone near him, and Sukara had felt sorry for the fat, ancient-looking alien. She had joined him and soon found herself in fascinating conversation with the weird Ee-tee. He had told her of far planets, distant suns, and Sukara had listened wide-eyed. “But there is another way I can show you these wonders.”
He had taken her back to the room and made love to her, but a love unlike any Sukara had experienced before. For the first time in years it had made her feel wanted and appreciated.
“Su... so little time, this time. Two hours. A flier waits to take me back to the Station.”
“Oh. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I was late.”
He arranged the folds of his robe across his lap, patting his knees with a pink hand more like a webbed claw. Sukara kicked off her sandals and climbed on to his soft, wide lap, leaning her head back against his chest. She felt herself sink in. His arms enfolded her. From beneath his robe, she felt the gentle movement of his ancillary arms, his pseudopods. She closed her eyes. She found the experience pleasurable now, but at first the ‘pods had made her a little queasy.
She felt something warm and soft slide across her belly, worm its way beneath the waistband of her skirt. She opened her legs to accommodate the tentacle and felt it squirm into her vagina. At the same time, others slipped beneath her T-shirt, wrapped themselves around her torso. Finally a pseudopod up between her shoulder blades and attached itself to the back of her neck. Sukara felt herself drifting off, but not actually losing consciousness. She had had dreams like this in the past, on the edge of sleep—lucid dreams, they were called—but never any as vivid as these. Dervan knew exactly what she wanted, and gave her fantasies to make her forget her circumstances.
She was free and walking through tall blue grass on an alien world, with multiple moons in the sky and structures like castles floating in the air. Someone was with her—Dervan in essence, but in human form—and Sukara trusted and felt affection for this someone, and the feeling was blissful.
And then she was swimming in the effervescent sea of a vast water world, nosed gently by creatures like dolphins who communicated by touch. Again, someone was with her, a Dervan-someone. Again, the experience was a delight.
Dervan had told her, after their first union two years ago, that this was how people on his planet made love. The male lulled the female with mind dreams that stimulated his mate’s egg-producing glands, which the male then inseminated with a thick, green substance like jelly. The jelly bit was the only part of the experience Sukara had not enjoyed, once she had overcome the shock of the pseudopods—but after the first few times she had become accustomed to wiping the goo from her thighs.
It had been one of her first experiences with an alien, and she had rushed out to tell the other girls how wonderful it had been. But their reaction had hurt and upset her. They did not listen, and turned their backs on her when she tried to explain. They told her they did not wish to associate with a girl who worked with monsters. And she had tried to explain that, although they might look like monsters, in fact they were gentle and caring. Only later did she come to understand the reason for the other girls’ reaction to her.
Now the dreams came to an end, leaving her feeling dozy and relaxed. She opened her eyes to find herself lying on the bed. Dervan was sitting by her feet, stroking her leg. Something like a smile crinkled his wrinkled features. “So pleased, Su. Until the next time...”
Later she got up and showered, scraping the jelly-stuff from between her legs and examining the strange, circular sucker marks, like painless blue and yellow bruises, that dotted her belly and chest.
She returned to the bar, hoisted herself onto a high stool, and sent a kid out to fetch her breakfast. She ate noodles and chicken with a refreshing cold beer. It was after midnight and the bar was filling up. Couples moved on the dance floor, jerking around beneath the multicoloured flashing lights. Girls drifted from table to table, chatting to customers; others sat at the bar, waiting for trade and ignoring Sukara, which suited her fine. She thought of Pakara, and wondered what she might be doing now.
She finished her meal and tossed the tray behind the bar. The yahd was making her feel as though only her body was in the here and now. Mentally she was somewhere else, viewing this reality as if on a vid-screen.
With luck, she would have only two or three more customers before dawn, when she could go home. If her luck was even better, those customers would be Ee-tees.
At times like this, having seen Dervan and experienced the dreams, and with the yahd performing its special magic, she told herself that she could do a lot worse for herself. For instance, she could still be working for the first bar owner Pakara had approached—or she could be dead.
They had lasted one year at the first bar.
There had been many times during that year when Sukara wished she were back in the village, working at the factory. From time to time she spoke to Pakara about going back, but her sister had looked at her with a wisdom beyond her years and told her that there was no going back. “We can’t go back. They’d punish us for running away. We’re okay here.”
Pakara might have been okay. She had regular customers attracted to her youth and beauty, men who treated her well. She even told Sukara that she loved one or two of them. Sukara didn’t know whether to believe her, didn’t know whether Pakara was putting a brave face on the situation she was responsible for getting them into. Also, she didn’t know how Pakara could bear what some of the men did to her. If, that was, they did the same things to Pakara that they did to her. Perhaps because Sukara was older and not pretty, she attracted the type of men who abused her, treated her badly. She desperately wanted to meet a man who would show her genuine affection, someone she could say that she loved.
Then five years ago, a year after arriving in Bangkok, Pakara told Sukara that she was leaving.
“I’ve had enough of work here, Su. We’ll go, okay?”
She had it all planned. Pakara would slip away from the bar at the end of her shift at three in the morning. Su, being older, worked until dawn. At six, Su would leave the bar and meet Pakara at the bus station across town. She told Su that she had been talking to someone who said that for two hundred baht they could buy a raft on the coast of the Indian Ocean and sail away to start a new life. They would do this. They had three hundred baht saved between them.
“But a raft on the ocean? You’ll drown, or a shark will get you!”
“You’d rather stay here?”
“No. But there must be better places to go.”
“I’ve decided! A bus leaves for the coast at seven. See you at the station, Su. Okay?”
That night, at three, Pakara had found Sukara and hugged her before leaving.
Later, as dawn was lightening the sky outside the bar, Sukara packed her belongings and slipped through the window of her bedroom, climbing down the fire escape and heading through the crowded streets to the bus station. She lost her way once, found herself in a square she didn’t recognise, and realised with panic that she had only ten minutes to reach the station before seven o’clock. She climbed aboard a taxi, waving baht in the driver’s face, but the traffic was so congested that she was quicker on foot. She jumped out and ran, following the driver’s directions, and didn’t stop until she arrived at the glass-covered terminus, the air blue with exhaust fumes, and looked up at the big clock to see that it was five minutes past seven. She tramped from bay to bay, hoping that Pakara had waited for her. But there was no sign of her sister, and Sukara sat on her pack, too devastated to cry, and wondered what to do now. Should she get the next bus to the coast? But the coast was long, and dozens of buses headed for the coast each day, and she knew that Pakara was lost.
Only slowly did it come to her that she might never see her sister again, and then she did begin to cry.
An old woman approached and spoke to Sukara, offered her a bed for the night. She looked like she could be trusted, and as Sukara had nowhere else to go she followed the old woman through the streets to the river. “Be good and trust in benevolent spirits,” the woman had counselled, “and you will be safe.”
They walked down a side alley, and into the storeroom of a building which Sukara guessed, from the stacked crates of Singha beer and the throbbing music, was a bar. Then a big, fat man waddled into the storeroom and smiled at Sukara.
Although she knew where she was and what the fat man was, she trusted his smile, and anyway she was too tired to start running again. He spoke with the old woman, and his big face folded into a mask of compassion. He reached out and took Sukara’s hand. “Come, little Monkey, you will be safe with Fat Cheng.”
And, for the past five years, she had been.
She often looked back at that fateful day and was overcome with many emotions, the worst one being sadness at the loss of her sister.
Then, just last week, a plastic-wrapped package had arrived at the Siren Bar, brought in by a girl who worked at a nearby club. The parcel was addressed to Chintara Sukarapatam, Working Girl, Bangkok, Thailand—and miraculously it had found her, though the postmark indicated that it had been mailed over a year ago.
She had torn away the plastic with trembling fingers. She knew only one person who could have sent the parcel. She had unrolled the scarf, wondering at such a present, and it was a minute before she saw the message stitched in Thai beneath the procession of red dragons:
Dear Sister, I am on Bengal Station, keeping well and working. I think of you every day. When you have money, come to the Station. I will be outside Nazruddin’s Restaurant, Chandi Road, Himachal sector. I am well and hope you are.
Love, Pakara.
And, stitched in smaller letters in the very corner of the scarf, was a P.S.
My friends now call me Tiger.
It had been the best present Sukara had ever received—proof, after so long, that her little sister was alive and well. She kept the scarf safe beneath her pillow and dreamed of one day meeting Pakara again outside Nazruddin’s.
* * * *
FIVE
THE GRIEF THAT CORRODES
Vaughan dosed himself on chora before setting out to meet Jimmy Chandra. The drug had its usual effect of dulling his mind to the emanations of the teeming millions around him, and the side effect of damping his melancholia. He found he could think about Tiger without wanting to lash out in rage— as he had done at midday when, unable to sleep despite the chora, he’d paced his apartment, kicking furniture and punching the wall.
He stepped from the upchute station into the light-spangled night of the upper-deck and forced his way through the oncoming tide of humanity. Chandi Road was packed with a solid flow of dark-faced, white-shirted Indians, less a collection of individuals than some great gestalt being, constantly shedding units of itself and gaining others on its snaking progression through the canyon-like streets.
Stalls and carts and kiosks lined each side of the street before the lighted shop-fronts, opportunist one-man enterprises selling cooked food, incense, fruit and vegetables, plaster-cast effigies of Hindu gods, juices, and cure-all elixirs. A warm wind carried a thousand fragrances, mixing the scent of hair oil, rose-water, joss sticks, and masala paste in a cloying perfume predominantly sweet but occasionally shot t
hrough with the pungent reek of air-car fumes and cow dung. The noise was constant, the jangling tinnitus of Indian pop music accompanied by a never-ending hubbub of chatter.
Vaughan had never before experienced crowds like those in the Himachal sector of Bengal Station. Overcrowding had inculcated into the Hindu psyche no concept of the inviolability of personal space. There was no taboo on physical contact. Flesh pressed flesh; bodies squirmed against bodies.
He had long since learned how to negotiate the crowds: you had to tread the fine line between being forceful and aggressive. Use of the hands was necessary to part reluctant bodies, as was the judicious employment of the shoulder. Retiring Westerners and colonists new to the dog-eat-dog etiquette of the Station were lost in the flow, like non-swimmers caught and carried off in a riptide. Most visitors chose to travel by exorbitant taxi-flier, or avoid the Indian sectors altogether. The Thai area of the Station, to the north, was a comparative haven of space and civilization, and, as far as Vaughan was concerned, lacked character.