In the end we knew we must go. She stood on a rock and I handed her a towel and she dropped her suit to her loins and began drying herself carefully. Soon she was dressed and had put on the ring with the thirty-seven diamonds, and the other ring with its huge translucent yellow stone, and the watch with its bracelet of golden hearts, and a thin necklace with a small heart-shaped gold pendant, and pearls in her ears. Then with many backward glances we walked down to the car. We knew we’d never go back again.
Back in the hotel we bathed, and I dined on the verandah and she dozed until Dan came to talk. Then she appeared and she liked the look of the fish and had some and then she liked the smell of the coffee and had some of that too, and then she knocked some coffee all over her slacks but showed no signs of annoyance—just as when I’d knocked the beer over her skirts at the Bolero. We’d decided to go to see City Lights. She had no enthusiasm for Mr. Chaplin, a silly man and not hansum, but she agreed to go as a concession—a gesture of gratitude, all the more valuable as coming from such a (usually) self-centred person. We took pity on Dan and invited him to accompany us. He was pathetically pleased: the watercolour had turned out ‘a mess’ and he’d torn it up. She only took about ten minutes to get ready. I forget what she wore but I know it was pretty. She had put big gold loops in her ears instead of the usual stones. But there was nothing flashy about her appearance although every woman eyed her critically, plainly recognizing a lady from the big city. The men eyed her too of course—to the last male eye, as always.
We were too early for the show so we went, to Dan’s consternation, to a coffee-shop. He was eventually persuaded to drink an orange-crush, swarming with germs though it undoubtedly was. The germs had caught up with me (or perhaps it was all the chilli I’d been eating) and I had to leave them together for ten minutes. The trend of their conversation could be judged from the remarks Vilai made when we went to bed. ‘What Dan mean when he say he “look me up”, when he go Bangkok?’
‘He meant he’d call at your house to see you.’
‘I sink so too. He like me very mutss. He ask me he want to make luff wiss me, but he good boy, will not do ’cause now I here wiss you.’
‘Good God. Don’t mind me. Go ahead. He’s good for five hundred any day.’
‘I sink not. I sink he very poor. He say he twenty-sick, he neffer haff slip wiss girl. If he haff plenty money like you say, he must slip wiss differnunt girl every night.’
‘I know more about men than you do, darling, in spite of all your experience, and I’m telling you that guy is rolling in the stuff—yet when he tells you he’s never had a woman it’s God’s truth. You want to land him if you can.’
‘Pah. I care nussink for him. He tell me lie. Vilai neffer trust any man.’
‘I know, dear. You’re daft. You think all men are like those you make your living off. You don’t recognize good ones when you see ’em. You’ll never learn, it seems …’
That was my honest opinion at that time—that she had two exceedingly good upright young men dancing attendance on her. Dan’s infatuation was now almost painfully obvious. During dinner he’d told me a bit more about himself. It was all mixed up with The Moon and Sixpence. He’d convinced himself that he had nothing to say to the world in his painting. Yet he was yearning to martyr himself in some romantic way. He was currently considering devoting the rest of his life to work among the lepers. He’d been to give them a look over in half a dozen countries in Africa and Asia. He liked the Siamese type best, but he was fearful that it might be less on their account than on account of the fact that theirs was the most agreeable country to live in. He’d learned, too (and it was a sad disillusionment), that lepers could easily be taught to inject each other, and furthermore that far from being highly contagious, leprosy was quite a difficult disease for a healthy man to contract—in fact, no particular heroism was demanded of the worker among them these days. But masochism was inextricably mixed up with his idealism; although he was as Protestant as they come, he had to mortify his flesh as vigorously as any monk. The non-drinking, non-swearing, and non-smoking were all part, too, of his burning desire to crucify himself on the most splintery cross he could find. And then things like Vilai happened to him … Over my fish and soup, before Vilai had joined us, I’d waxed quite eloquent with him. I’d said that he’d started off just as I’d started off years before, observing the tablets of an outmoded Law and damaging my brain and body and spirit thereby, imposing on myself abnegations which were advocated by all my mentors and strengthened by my personal timidity, but false. ‘Such self-denial never gets a man anywhere unless he’s got religion and can turn himself into a monk,’ I’d said. ‘Like Crashaw and his “sweetly-killing dart.” It was a bloody sword going into the chest of an under-teenage girl, that’s what that “sweetly-killing dart” was. A few good nights out with something like that’—I’d jerked my head in the direction of our room—‘would have turned poor old Crashaw into a master-poet, instead of a trunkful of conceits. But you’re no poet; you’re trying to sublimate your glandular urges in good works, which is even more futile than poetry. Good works won’t unbind you, chum. You need a female chest with bubs on it, and half a bottle of mekong inside you—’
‘You mean you’re happy?’ he’d asked, in a tone which suggested he was damn’ sure I wasn’t; and then Vilai had appeared and we’d dropped the discussion, temporarily …
All Chiengmai seemed to have gone to see Chaplin, but at last the torrent of colours and eyes and mouths stopped pouring down the stairs, and she and Dan and I went up them. There was a long Thai propaganda film first. Photos of Korean atrocities were hardly a suitable apéritif for comedy. But it is amazing how quickly horror can be erased from the memory, especially if you have a magician waving the wand, instead of a bumbling psychiatrist … I’d never seen City Lights before. I revelled in it. Dan, who had seen it before, revelled in it. Vilai, between us, with one hand in mine, and, as I suspected but couldn’t quite make out in the darkness, her other in Dan’s, revelled in it too, much to her surprise. As fast as we translated the English captions to her she translated the Thai ones to us. The beauty of the blind girl moved her, Charlie’s hapless efforts to raise funds broke her heart, and time after time she squeezed my hand and cried, ‘Oh, I like this movie too, too mutss.’ Only at one point did her nationality assert itself: when Charlie called on the girl when her grandma was out. ‘Now he slip wiss her?’—‘No, no, of course not. He loves her with a pure flame.’—‘Of course he slip wiss her. Her Mama go out. He giff her money and she ride in his car. She must let him slip wiss her.’—‘No, sweetheart, no.’
Back in the hotel she said, ‘Not want you slip wiss me tonight. I tired. Tomollow night slip all night togesser.’
‘That’s a promise,’ I said.
I was supposed to wake her at five-thirty next morning so that I could go to the station to book our seats for the return journey while she got ready to go to market; but at six it was she who woke me. I spent an hour kicking my heels in the station-master’s office before he showed up. Grudgingly he granted us berths fifteen and sixteen—next door to the toilet, which I knew Vilai would be angry about, for that department really stinks on Thai trains. I hurried back through the morning mists. She was just about ready to go out. She peered through Dan’s verandah window as we passed. ‘Lacy boy. He still slip.’ I wished she wouldn’t show so much interest in him. But she was off to the market with me.
It was six years, she alleged, since she’d last gone to early morning market. She made up for lost time. She first bought a glass jar to put one of the more obscene-looking messes in, and then a big hamper which she gradually filled and I carried. She darted from stall to stall, bargaining and laughing and happy. A Thai market is certainly one of the sights of this world. In few places are so many varieties of meat, fruit, fish, vegetable, and amalgams thereof, brought together in joyous juxtaposition. In few countries do such gay, handsome, brightly-clad people do the buying and se
lling. The smells also are intoxicating in number and variety. I was intoxicated with Vilai too. I enjoyed myself as much as she did. Everybody stared at us, the tall fair foreigner and his Thai wife with her expensive tastes in jewellery and her very Thai tastes in grub. We were there for more than an hour. I had seldom seen her so animated, except professionally.
The truth was that she was feeling and looking a lot better than when we’d come to Chiengmai. Much of the strain had gone out of her face. She seemed younger and happier. Her knee was still bothering her, also her wrist and scalp; and her legs were stiff from so much walking. But her spirit was not disabled by these injuries. Back in the hotel she gave herself to me with an abandon that took my breath away. There was something desperate about her passion, as if she sensed the end was at hand, that we’d reached the peak of experience together and from now on must slide downhill, and finally lose each other … There was something of the same painful urgency in my own emotions too …
We breakfasted in the room, she lying on the bed. ‘Now you go bank?’
‘Yes.’
‘How long you go?’
‘I don’t know. Got to find a bank that’ll cash my cheque. I may be two hours, may be only twenty minutes. I can’t say.’ I kissed her—on the lips, a salute she usually refused. ‘What will you do while I’m gone, darling?’
‘I slip.’
I was gone longer than I expected. When I got downtown the banks still weren’t open. Then I had to find one that would cash my cheque. I wandered about, worrying. More than once—that infernal jealousy of mine—I thought of dashing back to the hotel to see if I’d catch her with Dan. Of course, I disdained to do so, but the suspicion, an ignoble one I felt, was in my mind. It was a relief when my business was finished. I drew four thousand—two thousand for her, two thousand for the hotel, fares, and my own tiny expenses. The bank manager accepted a Broderick Peers card with respect. Of course the cheque would bounce, but by that time I’d be back in Bangkok with another payday behind me. Surely I’d be able to attribute everything to a mistake …
I tore back to the hotel. She was lying as I’d left her, covered with a sarong, dopey-eyed. Dan’s room was shut up. ‘The expense of spirit in a waste of shame.’ That was said of lust, but it applied even more to jealousy, I thought. Lust at any rate pays some dividends to the non-spiritual but jealousy is just a drain on any man’s strength, it is entirely evil, it does no good either to the one that is jealous or to the object of jealousy. I put the two thousand into her hand.
I lay on my own bed until she got over her drowsiness. That day she wore an off-the-shoulder dress with a tight waist and a full skirt: it suited her to perfection. The design was complex but could be resolved at last into green discs as big as oranges on a white background with a barbaric script in black scribbled all all over. Of all her dresses this was the one I liked the most. She seemed amused to hear this.
We went to the riverside café again, but she had been sampling delicacies bought at the market and was less hungry than usual. She then went to buy a shampoo powder, and became interested in a set of silk panties, seven pairs, one for each day of the week. She ordered them. ‘Giff the girl the money, darling.’—‘Not me. I’ve given you the last penny I’m giving you in Chiengmai. You’re nothing but a damn’ mercenary bitch.’—‘But you tell me they nice, darling. Don’t you want to giff me pless-ent?’—‘No.’—She laughed and cancelled the order, bought only the shampoo.
I took her to a hairdresser’s recommended by the chemist and left her there. Went to the station and bought our tickets. Called in at the hotel for a beer and had three while I was about it. Returned to the hairdresser’s to pick her up. She was still perfectly happy but I wasn’t. I’d brooded too long over the beers. Nobody, I was damn’ sure, had ever taken her any further than Hua Hin for a weekend. Nobody else had ever, in spite of her boasts, paid her five thousand eight hundred in one week, plus hotel, food, fares, and incidental purchases. At least, nobody as poor as I was. Yet there were no limits to her greed, it seemed. Nor would there have been any limits to my generosity, I thought, if she’d once acted satisfied—if she’d once shown love (as opposed to mere lust). But I was convinced she was indifferent to me. The first quarrel we’d had had really been the end. For what I was seeking was blessed accord with one woman. I was not just seeking carnal delights intermingled with strife …
Nevertheless wandering along the roads to Doi Suket and Sang-kon-peng, looking at houses and farms—stopping at wayside shops to eat noodles or drink iced coffee—we were in holiday mood. When we got back to the hotel she borrowed a push-bike from one of the boys, changed her frock for a blouse and scarlet slacks, and went for a ride around the flowerbeds and out to the station and back. She returned with her face glowing: ‘I not do since I luttun girl. Giff boy ten tic, darling, ’cause he let me do wiss he—’ A gesture sketched the bike.
Dan appeared at his door as soon as he heard the gold bell tinkling on her wrist and the rest of the evening passed in talk. She curdled our blood with tales of the American she liked best—‘I sink maybe I luff him littun bit’—and before she’d told us half, Dan and I were ready to murder the man. He sounded such a bastard, and she so naive. It was he who’d taught her to drink whisky, ‘and now I not want peppermint any more: it too slow. When I d’ink whisky, very quick I d’unk, I happy; ’cause you know dancing-girl must be very unhappy sometimes. She know she neffer can haff what she haff if she good girl …’
Dan and I both gave her lots of good advice and lurid warnings, especially about the demoralizing influence of unprincipled Americans (Dan got very worked up on this point) and I described how the demon whisky creeps up on a girl and one morning she wakes to find that overnight she’s turned into an old harridan. But she was supremely confident. ‘Whisky neffer bad for Vilai. Well, only one time.’ She turned round and showed Dan the back of her head, parting her hair. ‘You see? You see where I hurt?’ She caught hold of his hand and placed it on her scalp. ‘You can feel?’
I exclaimed, ‘What d’you mean? I thought your samlor—’ She barely noticed the interruption—all evening she’d been showing more interest in Dan than in me—she only said, ‘Why you sink samlor? Dick—that my frand—he come my house, I get d’unk. I go pee-pee—fall down stair …’ She showed Dan her wrist and tried to show him her knee but the slacks wouldn’t pull up far enough. I sat sulking; lied to again. Dick …
There was one other fragment of conversation that disturbed me. Dan was making sure what time our train left in the morning. ‘Why you ask?’ Vilai asked. ‘You want go Bangkok wiss me?’
‘No, no.’ He flushed slightly. ‘I was just thinking, if I got up early, maybe I could finish—’
She made an almost imperceptible movement and he stopped.
Jealousy sharpened my wits. ‘What, have you been painting her portrait—while I was out this morning?’ I asked Dan.
She said, ‘I sink you cannot get up early. You very lacy boy. I sink when train go tomollow, you still slip. Every day Wretch, I, go out, I look you window, I see you on you bad. Like you d’ad …’ She looked at her watch. ‘And tonight you stay up very late. I sink tomollow you not get up at all, you slip all day …’
She’d chattered on so long, I couldn’t put my question to Dan again, without making it quite clear that I suspected she’d kept me in the dark about something.
At midnight the party broke up. She lingered at our door for a private farewell with Dan. Coming into our room she said, ‘He do this to me,’ making the gesture of blowing a kiss.
‘He’s loopy about you.’
‘I know. But no use. Not haff money.’
‘Then why do you encourage him?’
She didn’t hear. Got into bed. I got in with her.
‘No. Not here. Slip your own bed.’
‘Last night you said—’
‘But I tired. Later maybe. Now—oh, go away.’
Then it happened. The sudden frantic uncontro
llable rage. I poured out obscenities. I hurled myself around the room. She lay on her bed, rigid with fear. I tucked in her net. I put out the light. Then I threw myself on my own bed, sobbing and twitching and swearing. The fit passed off in a few minutes, and I just lay sobbing, occasionally shuddering violently. She lay very still, frightened out of her wits. She fell asleep and snored a little and scared herself awake again. She listened a long time. And I stifled my weeping. It was all spoiled now. Even for five days I couldn’t live with a woman. I remembered the fear in Annette’s eyes, and, years later, Sheila crying and crying like a beaten child …
At last I fell asleep. Soon after, as it seemed, I was awakened: Vilai had switched the light on and was going to the bathroom. Coming back she switched the light off and got into my bed, not hers. I turned my back on her without a word. With her, too, I had failed.
Next morning I got up first. She joined me on the verandah while I was finishing my bacon and eggs. She watched me silently out of the corner of her eyes for several minutes. At last, realizing I was at fault, I began, ‘I’m sorry about—
‘What matter wiss you last night?’ she pounced. ‘You d’unk? I fright very mutss. I fray you kill me.’
‘I’d never kill you, Vilai. Myself more like. I never get angry with the girl. Only with myself.’
‘But why you—?’
‘I don’t know. Every time I love a girl too much this happens. That’s why I’m not married.’
‘Ah, I not want talk marry. All the time you tell lie. No man want to marry wiss dancing-girl.’
A Woman of Bangkok Page 31