A Woman of Bangkok

by Jack Reynolds

  She felt like spitting but you weren’t supposed to do that when there were foreigners around, even in a public place like this.

  Why didn’t Dick go?

  Did he think he was safer here, amongst his own kind, than he would be if he attempted to flee? Was he afraid she’d chase him? Her lip curled. He ought to know her better than that by now. She was the White Leopard: men ran after her, not she after them. He was free to beat it if he wanted to.

  Besides, trying to run away wouldn’t do him any good. He’d been silly enough to tell her the name of the airline he worked for. Somebody in the office would be bound to tell her where he was staying. They might not want to at first, but a tip would soon loosen their tongues. Afterwards Dick would have to refund the tip, besides paying up what he already owed, plus another thousand tics for having given her so much trouble.

  ‘Go,’ she whispered fiercely at his reflection. ‘You’re in my way. Wretch would give me a handbag.’

  She finished her second cream-puff and called to the waiter for tissue to wipe her mouth and fingers. She sought out Wretch’s reflection in the mirror. He couldn’t take his eyes off her, it seemed, was hungering for her to look round and recognize him. It was a pity not to be able to turn such devotion to account and she cursed Dick again.

  ‘Goddam you, Dick, Goddam.’

  It had already occurred to her that the Lounge might contain a better proposition than either Dick or Wretch—since they temporarily cancelled each other out—but that was something she couldn’t determine from the mirror; she’d have to turn sideways on the stool and give the place a careful survey, or maybe even go for an exploratory walk amongst the tables.

  She left half a cream-puff on her plate—only the poor cleaned their plates as if they couldn’t afford to waste a single crumb—shovelled ice into her mouth with the straw and still crunching, swivelled round.

  Her face wore a smile, one of her professional smiles. It was as discreet, and yet at the same time as indiscreet to those in the know, as the red lamp over a French doorway. It said, ‘I am a high-class girl enjoying my hours of leisure. I am certainly not looking for men in the streetwalker sense: I am not on duty now. But I thrive on the admiration of men, and if there is a really nice one in this assemblage who wishes to strike up an acquaintance with me and can do so in a gentlemanly manner that won’t make me look cheap and too easy in the sight of all these rich nice people …’

  But the survey was unpromising. There was a group of American naval ratings at one table—‘narvy’ she called them—but she had a low opinion of the American narvy; either they were genuinely short of cash or they were close-fisted; they seemed to have the idea that they were heroes and that girls should be honoured to lie with them for nothing, whereas in peace-time they were no braver than other sailors and ought to pay market prices as other sailors did. Only a few months ago when an American narvy boat had brought fifty new planes for the Thai air-force she’d had serious trouble with one officer, not at her home thank God but at the Cottages; the naval MPs had wanted the Thai police to lock her up, and all over a measly hundred tics she’d extracted from his pocket because he hadn’t given her enough seeing he was an officer … There was a little gibbon-faced man who was devouring her with his eyes whenever he got a chance; he looked vaguely familiar and she thought she might have slept with him sometime once; but he was with two large ugly superbly-well-got-up foreign women and anyway he didn’t look like a good spender … There were also a few bad eggs, regular Bolero-ites and Champagne Bucketeers; they recognized her and she them; but they only cracked smutty jokes about her amongst themselves and she hated them all; they would go with the Black Leopard or any of the other girls as soon as with her, they were too coarse to be able to appreciate the difference …

  She shrugged round again, called the barman and ordered another coffee. While it was on the way she took out her compact and examined her face with care, including her teeth. Everything was in order, though a gold locket would have gone well in the deep neck of this blouse. Gold lockets didn’t grow in the klongs like water lilies though …

  When her coffee came she slipped off the stool and carried it between the tables. At one point she deliberately paused looking from side to side with lowered eyes but nobody hailed her, and finally she sank onto a sofa in an alcove between two pillars. She was only twenty feet away from the table that interested her most and directly in front of Wretch. Playing with fire again. In a few minutes she would be at the table or they would be on her sofa. And she was so incensed with Dick that inevitably the topic of money would come up, and with it trouble. For Dick would resent being accused of welshing in front of his friend. As for Wretch, he seemed like an idealistic type: it was quite possible he would be nauseated by the idea of there being an understanding between her and Dick. They might even fight. Men were so stupid: they never seemed to realize that a girl was always willing to be as good to one man as to another as long as both were equally good to her. Well, if it came to blows, never mind: it was always reassuring to find men still thought you worth fighting over, and the Singsong was dull today; goddam, she’d been here more than a quarter of an hour and she hadn’t had any fun at all yet.

  Although she hadn’t once looked straight at him (naturally) she’d been well aware of Wretch’s mounting excitement as her meanderings between the tables brought her nearer. She could now see out of the corner of her eye that her proximity was so distracting to him that he couldn’t pay any attention to Dick’s drawl. He was shivering with anxiety to catch her eye. So young, she thought, and so poor at hiding his feelings: it was pathetic.

  She considered him as dispassionately as if he were a cream-puff. One more of the two thousand. No more important to her than the little gibbon-faced imp who had also had his hour with her and continued on his march into oblivion. He’d been a lot nicer than some, of course—uncommonly free with his money, humble and worshipful in her room, an earnest if uninspired performer in bed. To be honest, she would have welcomed further attentions from him, for she had been just pleasantly tipsy while he was young and clean and unvicious and good-looking, but when she’d hinted at more money he’d taken her seriously, got into a huff, got dressed, and had stupidly given Bochang ten tics though she’d done nothing for him and departed. It was only because these incidents were so recent that she recalled them; in a week he would be forgotten, for she deliberately erased from her memory those who paid only once; they weren’t worth remembering. There was little likelihood that he’d ever become A Friend, as Dick had been. His youth was against him. Young men seldom have much money—how can they? they are just setting out in the world; their pay is low and furthermore their appetites are insatiable. Ten to one next time he tried to get her he’d only want to give her a hundred tics, and that would be the end of him as far as she was concerned.

  But in the meantime she must give him the chance to make good …

  She lifted her eyes and recognized him with a start of surprise and pleasure and clung to his gaze for a moment and then looked meaningly from side to side and dropped her eyes. He understood perfectly: she was delighted to meet him again but she didn’t want any of his acquaintances who might be present to see him exchanging glances with her: he might go down in their estimation. Next time she looked at him she saw he was in a turmoil of pleasure at being recognized and deeply touched by her discretion. He was in fact as innocent as Udom’s pup and a predestined purchaser of handbags …

  She was just running her mind over the current shop displays and wondering how deep his hand would go into his pocket when Dick, who was getting to be a goddam nuisance, went and spoiled everything.

  Presumably he wondered what Wretch was goggling at and glanced over his shoulder to see. When he saw her he couldn’t prevent himself from starting slightly but he acted very well, there was nothing guilty-looking about him, his expression could easily have passed for honest surprise. He raised his hand in an informal salute and grinned. The
n he beckoned to her, in the crude western way, with his finger up, instead of with the hand turned tastefully downwards.

  She looked away stonily, her eyebrows depressed in a frown.

  Dick laughed and excused himself to Wretch and rose to his feet. He was really a most handsome man in his airline uniform, broad-shouldered, narrow-pelvised, long-legged; the crinkled brow, the bent nose, the smile that went further into his right cheek than into the left, were all very engaging; it was a naughty-boy face, full of self-confidence and good-humour. She couldn’t help feeling a little more forgiving as he came towards her, lounging along as unconcernedly as if there were only themselves in the whole place. He was a man that even a Miss Thailand would have felt proud to stand beside. Compared with him, Wretch, though even handsomer, was distressingly adolescent. But in spite of his looks this Dick was bad, like all men, and she steeled her heart against him.

  ‘Hi, Leopard, I didn’t know you prowled by daylight too. Why don’t you come on over to our part of the jungle, meet my friend?’

  ‘Give me my money.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I want one t’ou-sand tic.’

  ‘What!’ He stared at her incredulously, then broke into a laugh. ‘One—thousand—tics! You must be crazy, kid. Jesus, that’s more than sixty dollars!’

  ‘OK. Give me cheque for eighty dollar, enough.’ She shot him a dazzling smile, not because he deserved it, but because she’d noticed a few people watching them, and she didn’t want them to get the impression that the colloquy was anything but friendly and casual.

  He clapped his hand to his head in a helpless gesture that had often seemed captivating before. Then he said earnestly, in a low voice, ‘Look, honey, my friend’s waiting and I’ve gotta get back to him. But I’ll see you some place else and pay you something, honest I will. Maybe I’ll come to your house. Or maybe I’ll go to the Bolero tonight—’

  ‘I must go my home, wait you all day? And then maybe you not come?’ She almost choked with rage—now he was really beginning to treat her shabbily—but she forced another incongruous smile, and it was so enchanting that it deceived not only the people it was intended to deceive but him too. He jumped to the conclusion that she’d been joking and his relief showed in his face.

  ‘Did I ever double-cross you, honey? You ought to know me by now. I’m one of the best friends you ever had.’ He smiled down at her. ‘Come on, kid. Let me introduce you to my new buddy. He’s a good guy, did me a damn’ good turn this morning.’ He tried to catch her hand but she eluded him. ‘Come on. Come on.’ Half plea. Half command. The conjugal tone. It infuriated her. It made her look cheap in front of everyone, as if she were a dancing-girl even now, when off duty.

  ‘I sink your frand go,’ she said coldly.

  ‘Eh?’ He whipped round in consternation. ‘Hey, Reggie, what’s the big idea? You’re not walking out on me, are you, bud? I thought we were all set for a beery afternoon.’

  Wretch gave him a haggard grin and subsided into his seat. And as he settled himself he looked at her. Just like Udom’s pup again. After he’d been kicked.

  Now Dick would have to buy that handbag.

  Suddenly she was in a blind fury. She could have torn Dick’s cheeks to shreds with her Leopard’s claws, there in front of everybody. If she’d had a gun she’d have shot him and cheerfully done her ten years. Cheated. Brushed off. Made to look mean in this public place. And before a man who honoured her and might have turned out unexpectedly generous—

  She jumped up, knocking over the coffee.

  ‘That’s the stuff, kid. Come and meet—’

  But she swept past him like an empress. She was too incensed even to give Wretch a promising glance. She marched to the bar and demanded her bill. Nine tics fifty satang. She threw a ten-tic note at the barman and stalked out. Near the door she threw one look backwards. Dick had gone back to Wretch. His back was towards her but he appeared to be saying something about her and laughing. Wretch wasn’t paying any attention; he was craning his neck to watch her. She couldn’t make out whether it was from desire still, or just curiosity.

  Outside the revolving doors she stood undecided for a minute. For one thing it was always good policy to wait a little and see if anyone followed you out. For another she wasn’t sure what to do next. She’d intended to spend about an hour in the Singsong, then study handbags, then buy a magazine and go home and read. Well, that was one thing she was definitely not going to do now: supposing Dick went to her house he must not find her there meekly awaiting his appearance. Handbags would be depressing objects for contemplation too, since they’d only remind her of the miscarriage of her plans for Wretch. She’d have to think of something else to kill time, if she could.

  She stopped and looked up and down the street for inspiration but it only confused her further. It was choked with the usual traffic; overloaded, lopsided buses with battered tinwork and radiators pouring steam and water; wooden-wheeled rickshaws tugged by Chinese men in wheel-like hats, their black shirts plastered to their sweating shoulders and their black pants rolled up high on their knotted thighs; sleek luxurious private cars transporting the rich from homes that lacked nothing the heart could desire to resorts where they could throw away their inexhaustible wealth; samlors with strident bells; bicycles, trams, motor-scooters—everything except bullock-carts, it seemed … (Oh if only she could go back to the country once more where the bullock carts creaked through the forest—the ambling bullocks with their necks bowed under the massive beam, and the carter sprawled on top of his load, cattle and man alike in a heavenly dream, a million miles away from pain and racket and jealousies and unfulfilled desires!) … For here peace was impossible. The pavements were no less crowded than the road; the shops obtruded their wares upon them; in every shaded nook were stalls for the sale of mangoes, noodles, dried squid and lottery tickets; little naked urchins of both sexes went dodging and shrieking amongst the forest of legs. There were male legs in shorts or trousers or Indian dhotis; female legs sprouting naked from the hems of neat blue western skirts, or swathed in passin that made the road a rainbow, or merely hinted at in Chinese pyjamas of shimmering silk … And everywhere was a roar of voices that even the chorus of horns and grinding gears could not completely drown—everyone trying to make his own little individual voice heard above the universal thunder. Suddenly, the racket was overpowering and she turned giddy …

  She moved into the shade. She stood studying the lottery tickets on a folding table while she recovered. It was silly to have got so angry. It was bad for you when it was hot.

  She idly thumbed through the booklets. She couldn’t find anything attractive. 344193. 601995. 838371. None of them was particularly shapely. None of them struck her immediately as a number with a good chance.

  ‘How much?’ she asked the woman, for something to say.

  The woman told her, staring: surely everyone in the world knew the weekly state lottery tickets were ten tics! She was a country type, this woman, very brown, with a roughened face but permed hair. She had a baby girl in her lap. Her dirty white slip was pulled up, and she was absent-mindedly massaging one breast. When the baby kicked and cried, she automatically lifted it into position. It sucked briefly, then pulled its head away and bawled. A pearl formed on the nipple and clung there, trembling.

  The Leopard said, ‘It is a beautiful child.’ Actually she thought it was ugly. It was rather thin and completely bald. It was not half so beautiful as Mam, Udom’s sister, had been. ‘Why does it cry so much?’

  ‘The day is so hot.’

  ‘But not here. You sit in a cool place. There is a constant breeze.’

  ‘Babies always cry.’

  ‘But not without reason. Everyone likes to be happy. If one is without pain or trouble one laughs all the time. That is as true of babies as it is of adults. Or puppies.’ (Chokchai). ‘Or even birds, I imagine.’ (Had Chokchai come out from behind the water-vat yet?)

  ‘Does Madame know she has a stain
on her trousers?’

  The Leopard glanced down with annoyance. It was true. She must have done it when she knocked the coffee over. There was a string of brown blobs across the dazzling white. It looked dreadful. But there was nothing she could do about it now. It had already dried.

  The Leopard threw down the booklets and her lips tightened. What was the use of her buying lottery tickets? She never had any luck. She’d never had any since the day she left home.

  As she moved away, the woman was trying to make the baby suck again. That had been the first sign of fat little Mam’s decline, when she’d begun to refuse the breast.

  Luck is like money—to him who already has plenty, more is given. The Lord Buddha dispenses it, meting out much to those whom he thinks merit it, withholding it from those who by their acts displease him. But the trouble is that a mere woman cannot understand the workings of the divine mind. She herself for instance was a good woman, and the Buddha must know that; she never did anything wrong for the sake of doing it, but only to make money or because some evil spirit had temporarily taken control of her. Yet all her life her luck had been bad, as if the Buddha disliked her.

  Was there ever going to be a change in her fate? Most of the time she faced the future unflinchingly, knowing it would be grim, and increasingly grim. But once in a while she liked to amuse herself with happier dreams. And it occurred to her now that she hadn’t been to a fortune-teller for weeks …