She signalled for a samlor, and five hurled themselves at her. She sized them up in her usual lightning style, selecting the best combination of man and vehicle just as at the Bolero she would select the best combination of man and money. The vehicle she got was sound enough though short on chromium and coloured lights. The man was rather old but he looked the hard-pedalling type and fairly tidy.
She asked the price and gasped at it and suggested an amendment and of course the man knew the amendment was correct and accepted it at once without rancour. She got in and arranged her legs to one side as if she’d got skirts on and they set off.
It was quite a long way to the fortune-teller’s she’d chosen. The samlor-boy was fast, daringly dodging in and out of danger, and continuously ringing his bell, as if trying to draw attention to himself with this dazzling cargo behind him. She assisted all she could with the navigation but he took no notice of anything she said. She also kept a bright eye on the shops, pedestrians, cars, and passengers in other samlors, for she was eternally vigilant, eternally on the hunt; you never knew when a chance to do yourself a bit of good would present itself.
Yet all the time she couldn’t keep the memory of that thin bawling baby from troubling her. And all the time it reminded her of another little golden-brown baby she had loved.
Mam would have been twelve or thirteen by now. That is the age when a mother really has to take her daughter in hand. Up till now she would have been a child, sexless, hardly distinguishable from a boy, always in mischief, like Udom, unconscious of herself, climbing trees to get her own green mangoes and blossoms and cicadas, never thinking of inducing the boys to fetch them for her. But at thirteen a girl starts to look at herself in the glass. By then she has learned all the useful stuff that a schoolteacher can impart, how to read and write and add up baht and satang. By then she is ready for the real education which only an experienced woman can give her. The Leopard was certain that no one could train a daughter better than she would have done. No daughter of hers would ever have suffered want. She’d have taught her how to make money and be happy. If she’d fancied marriage (and most girls did, for a start) she’d have made the right sort of marriages, to men who could have given her cars and prestige and set her up in businesses; and later, when they left her, she’d have known how to fix things so that her future needs were looked after. Mam wouldn’t have got married to men like Keo and Pichar, her own second and third husbands, the one already married to a bad woman and the other a drunkard. Nor would she ever have become a dancing-girl. She’d have lived an easy life and at forty—which was to say almost another thirty years on—she’d still have been miraculously beautiful. She might even have married a millionaire by that time. And then her Mama could have lived with her in comfort during the last days.
Udom was wonderful of course but a son was not like a daughter. A son never seemed to belong to his mother, to be part of her, in the same intimate, inalienable way that a daughter did. He was male and therefore he was apt to do incomprehensible things, and the bigger he got the further away he moved into a sort of fog. He went fishing all day for eels with very low naughty boys and his highest desire was to drive a motor-samlor. ‘Mama, I know where you can buy one for me, only three thousand tics.’ What sort of future was there in that? A man had to be born rich, it seemed, or the chances were he’d die poor. He even seemed to prefer it that way. But the most penniless girl could always better herself if she’d been taught by her mother how. All that was required was beauty, plus, if possible, a predilection for a life of pleasure, wit, charm, and brains—or at least hardheadedness. All these Mam would have had without a doubt. And throughout a splendid career she would have done credit to her Mama.
The samlor-boy screwed round on his saddle, still pedalling. ‘Is this the road Madame wants?’
‘Yes. Stop here.’
The prophet was snoring on a bench at the back of his office. Even the stars hadn’t been able to foresee a client on such a hot afternoon and he awoke with great reluctance. Then he was hawking and spitting for five minutes behind the curtain and between spits he cursed and grumbled a great deal. She waited tranquilly. At least it was cool in the darkened office. A small boy brought her a glass of iced tea. And the charts and globes and wheels of fortune were fascinating.
Finally the seer shuffled in. His spirits visibly rose when he saw what his client was like.
‘You were sleeping, doctor?’
‘Never mind. It is always a delight to be awakened by a beauteous woman.’
‘But not such a delight as to go to sleep with one, eh?’
They both laughed. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. Then he spat juicily on the floor, and seated himself opposite her across a loose-jointed table.
He was a fat dwarf of a man with close-cropped skull and a face, that was more shrewd than mystical. His ears were enormous, and of course it was primarily they that inspired her confidence, for everyone knows that big ears with fat jutting lobes to them denote infinite wisdom—the Buddha has ears like that too, as you can see in every temple. Moreover, this man had a wart on his chin, and out of it were growing a few whiskers which had never been shaved; they were now about four inches long, and they denoted wisdom too, also good luck. In fact the man, in spite of his short fat body and soiled singlet and shorts, was plainly endowed with supernatural gifts, and she ought to come to see him more often. But he lived rather far from her house—at least five tics by a samlor. And since you had to pay him at least ten tics if you wanted a reliable forecast …
She extracted that much from her bag and laid it on the table.
The seer joined his palms under his chin and did a moderate obeisance to her, but he didn’t deign to pick the money up—not yet. ‘What does Madame wish to know?’
‘The future.’
She stretched her hand across the table and he got hold of it with his, which was hot and rather grimy. He pored over it for a considerable time. Eventually he heaved a sigh. ‘Madame has suffered greatly.’ His voice was deep with sympathy.
She thought his fingers had stiffened on hers until she realized it was hers in his. She relaxed them but remained moved. Practically all the doctors began by telling her this, and it never failed to impress her. For she was absolutely certain that her fundamental unhappiness did not show in her appearance. A tragic-looking dancing-girl would get nowhere. The truth could only be written in her palm, and there, apparently, it was written as clearly as the sentences in a confession—for those who could read the script.
He went on, his voice still deep, in measured cadences, rather priest-like, ‘There have been periods of distressing poverty. There have been periods of terrifying sickness. There have been periods of friction with relatives. There has been the infidelity of loved ones. There has been a most unhappy marriage—’
‘Two.’
He turned her palm towards the door and examined it closely, ‘Yes, two,’ he concurred. He emitted another sigh, this one tremendous. ‘Truly the sufferings of some women—’
But this was just wasting time. ‘I know you can read my past, Doctor,’ she said; ‘you’ve read it before. But I have given you these ten tics’—she picked up the note and put it down again—‘to tell me about the future. And please will you make haste, as I want to go to the movie at four o’clock.’
‘At Chalerm Krung?’
‘Yes.’
‘It is only a minute’s walk away.’ He returned to his studies for a time, then looked up at her. ‘Much is revealed here to such a man as myself. What in particular does Madame wish to know?’
She could hardly control her exasperation. He shouldn’t be hedging like this. For ten tics—
He must have sensed her impatience, for he went on rather hastily, ‘Many are the women who come to me asking what joys and afflictions will be theirs in the days to come, and I tell them the truth as I see it. But Madame is not like those women. They are poor, but Madame can afford jewels and fine clothes. They are
sick, but Madame is in the best of health. They are tormented by faithless husbands, or jealous husbands, or cruel husbands, or impotent ones, or they are temporarily husbandless and anxious; but Madame (I see from her hand) is indifferent to husbands, jealous, faithful, past or to come. There is much in this hand which is of consuming interest, but I am at a loss to understand why Madame desires to have time’s secrets divulged. She has so much—what more can she possibly desire? Or if she fears—what can she possibly fear?’
She kept silent. He must know the answer to his own questions. If he didn’t, she’d wasted her ten tics.
He sighed again, but differently: this time it was less over her unhappy past than over his unhappy present. When he resumed prognosticating it was in a grumpy tone. ‘Take the question of health. Many women worry about their health, most of them needlessly. Madame does not worry, and that shows how wise she is. Her health will be perfect for years. Not until she is about forty years of age will she have any worries on that score. Then she will be sick. In fact she will be very sick—’
‘Will I die?’
He deliberated before replying. Then he said, ‘No. You will be dreadfully sick but you will not die.’ She sighed with relief. At forty she would still be beautiful, with luck. ‘You could live to be exceedingly old—’
‘But I don’t want—’
‘And you won’t. Your body is not destined to outlast its beauty entirely. At some point before the sunset glory finally fades—but this is not pleasant to talk about—’
‘I shall kill myself?’
He seemed surprised at her foreknowledge. He bowed his head without speaking.
‘And when will this be?’
‘The palm is not a calendar—’
‘I shall be fifty when I do it.’ She spoke in a matter-of-fact tone that had a hint of satisfaction in it. It was common knowledge amongst fortune-tellers that this was how and when she would end up. And it suited her perfectly. At fifty she would have ceased to be attractive to men. What would be the use of living after that? She wouldn’t be able to make any more money, would just have to sit around chewing betel-nut and occasionally getting drunk on fermented rice-water which was cheap, watching the young girls have the time of their lives and make their fortunes while she herself got uglier and poorer by the hour. Death would be infinitely preferable to that hell—that death in life which would be devoid of the one great advantage of death, peace, the utter cessation of all desires …
The doctor was saying, ‘There is something here about love which may be of interest to you.’
‘I am not interested in love. I am only interest in money.’
‘That is exactly what is written in your palm. Even now there is a man who loves you to distraction, but he is not rich—’
‘Then I don’t want to hear about him.’
‘And that is where you are making your big mistake. In this poor man lies your one chance of happiness on earth. If only—’
‘A man without money is incapable of giving happiness.’
‘That is untrue. A poor man is no less capable of giving and inciting love—’
She snorted ‘Love! All the time men talk about love. Even a wise man like yourself—I think you understand about the stars and cards and hands, but in this other matter you are a child. Once perhaps I believed in love myself, but then I was a young silly girl. Now I have my head screwed on right, and I know—’
‘All this is shown in your hand. Your heart is hardened. Love will come, happiness will knock at your door, but you will turn it away. And you will never know—’
She said firmly, ‘I am an experienced woman now, I am not a young girl. Everything that can happen to a woman has happened to me: there is nothing that I do not know about life. And one thing I have learned very clearly. Sometimes perhaps money can create love. But love cannot create money. And without money, happiness is impossible. Money is happiness. If you have money you can do anything. Without it—’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Tell me something more interesting. What about my son?’
‘Your son?’ The question seemed to startle him.
‘My son is more important to me than any lover, rich or poor. Sometimes I think he is even more important to me than money.’
The doctor raised his eyebrows. He turned her palm this way and that, obviously scrutinizing minute details. Once he started to speak but stopped. At a second attempt, after a quick look at her face, he blurted it out. ‘It is the darkest thing in your hand. Your son is in danger.’
Her blood ran cold. She couldn’t believe her ears. She snatched her hand out of his grip and stared at it with furious eyes, trying to make out where such blasphemy was written. Finally she said in a low tense voice, ‘You are lying.’
He lifted his shoulders but said nothing. His eyes fell on the ten-tic note and he absentmindedly picked it up and put it in his shirt pocket.
She burst out fiercely, ‘What is the danger?’ She thought of the Black Leopard. ‘Does somebody want to kill him—to hurt me?’ But the Black Leopard was likely to be more direct in her methods than that. Bochang—poisoning his food? But Bochang loved him most of the time. She was getting hysterical. She calmed herself with an effort. ‘Or is he going to be sick?’
‘It is difficult to tell. All I can see is danger, serious danger.’ He leaned back on his stool, picking his teeth with a toothpick he’d found in his pocket when he put the money in it.
She snatched up her bag and slapped down a five-tic note on the table, ‘Will he die?’
‘It is probable. But those who love him can save him. If you strive to avert danger—’
‘All the time you talk danger, danger. Tell me what the danger is, then I will save my son.’
‘You must be vigilant, Madame. Danger comes in many forms. Tainted crab. The atom bomb. Communists—’
Suddenly she guessed the truth and laughed in relief. ‘It’s his tonsils, that’s what it is! I’ve known for months that he ought to have them out. As soon as the warm weather comes, as soon as it’s the school holidays—’ But then another fear smote her. ‘But perhaps that is where the danger lies—in the hospital. Perhaps I will send him to the hospital to make him better, and they will make him worse. Perhaps the doctor or the nurse will be careless. Why should they be otherwise? My boy does not belong to them. If he died they would shed no tears.’ She drummed on the table with her long crimson nails. ‘Tell me, doctor, what must I do? Shall I send him to hospital for the operation? If he doesn’t go, he may die. And if he does go, still—’
The doctor said, ‘I have warned you of the danger your son is in. It is up to you now to circumvent that danger. I feel sure that since you have been fortunate enough to receive my warning—’
She flashed him a brilliant smile. He was being deliberately unhelpful, but there were plenty of other doctors in Bangkok, and they could all read hands as well as he could, and surely one of them would be more willing to talk out straight. Certainly she was not going to go down on her knees to this one after giving him fifteen tics. She said, ‘Well, thank you, Doctor, for your warning. I shall be very careful to protect my son from danger. And now I must be going, or I shall be late for the movie.’
He said, ‘It is an excellent movie. Elissabees Taylor. And many horses, big like elephants. And much much fighting. I saw it last night, and if I had money enough … But the prophet is a poorly paid man, and it is hard enough for me to get sufficient rice to eat, let alone go to the movies more than once a week …’
Outside the sunlight dazzled her. She stood blinded on the brink of life which went roaring down the roadway between the high walls like a mountain torrent through a cleft in the rocks. She hung over it like a blossom on a branch, knowing that in a few moments she must drop onto the surface of the water and be swept helplessly along again, forever downstream …
It was, as the palmist had said, only a minute’s walk to the cinema. There was plenty of time and she walked slowly, swinging her bag by its st
rap.
Udom in danger? That man had frightened her terribly. In there, in the gloom full of shadows, it had been easy to believe in horrors.
But now she was out in the sun again. And the light banished fears just as it banished ghosts. Udom might be in danger, but out here in the brightness and realism of the afternoon you knew he could be protected. The world was thundering down this street as it had thundered down it yesterday and as it would still be thundering down it this time tomorrow; dreadful things happened to other people and you yourself sometimes suffered knocks it was hard to bear; but the catastrophic—the end of the world—and Udom’s death would amount to that … She almost laughed. It couldn’t happen to her. The Buddha wouldn’t let it happen. He knew that she tried to be good and that whenever she was awake in the early mornings she gave food to the priests. Such virtues were her safeguard against disaster.
She turned a corner and there, on the opposite one, beyond the traffic lights, was the cinema.
To her it was a magnificent building, loftier than a temple, strangely beautiful in the austere western style with its angles and parallelograms of bare white wall lifting the eyes, and the heart with them, up towards the heavens into which the oblong tower thrust like a white stone jetty into a blue sea. Over the porch this week was a tremendous gaudy portrait of Lobber Taylor looking sterner and more noble even than usual in rather odd clothes; not quite so odd as what he’d worn in Ko Wadis but still odd. Below him were smaller pictures of the other stars in the film and she recognized them all at once—Yoan Fontaine, a lady, but blonde; Elissabess Taylor, whom all the men were crazy about; and tall handsome Shorch Shander … In the porch itself was a big cardboard figure of a rearing horse and, straddling it, Lobber Taylor again; this time he was completely encased in steel except for his lean and handsome face; there was fury in his eyes and she knew with a thrill that here was a man who would kill for her, if only she could make him love her enough. Ah, if only Lobber Taylor would come to Bangkok!
A Woman of Bangkok Page 20