Her father declined into an almost full time drunken stupor. He was always angry. Always shouting. Most nights, if he wasn’t so drunk that he just collapsed, he would beat her mother. She could hear her cries. Hear the thuds of her father’s fists.
Some nights, when the cries were at their loudest and the thuds could be felt through the thin wooden walls of the house, Bak would come to her bed and touch her. He told her he would take care of her, comfort her whilst their father ranted and their mother cried.
It wasn’t the same as when they were young. He didn’t comfort her as he had then. Now he just took; never gave. There was no comfort or warmth in his touch.
During the day, Bak treated her no better, and no worse, than he treated his mother or any other female in the village. He behaved with complete indifference. It was as though he saw nothing wrong in what he did. She was just there to clean, cook, work and give him pleasure when he wanted it.
Siswan didn’t tell anyone what was happening. She saw no reason to ask for help. Who could help? Perhaps this was normal? Perhaps all women lived the same way? She didn’t know.
She worked hard and tried to take care of her mother as best she could. The woman was taking beatings from her father so often she could hardly work. Her face was swollen and her stomach a mass of blue and black bruises that never had a chance to fade away.
The rest of the villagers never spoke to her about her mother’s plight. They could see and hear what was happening, but they never said a word. It was unfortunate, they said to each other. Maybe, in her next life, she would meet a kinder man, they said. Maybe, in her previous life, she had not had a good heart.
Her mother increasingly hid within herself. She spent her time bundling the small crops that Siswan harvested from their fields and withdrew more and more from the world around her. As time went on, and the fists continued to land, she would seldom cry out. Just accept the punishment as just and well deserved. She declined in health.
Bak had introduced Siswan to some of his friends and, on occasions, she would be made to give pleasure to them in the fields away from the village. The first time, when she had refused, Bak had beaten her so hard and so fast, she was stunned.
He had never beaten her before and, even though he threatened her often enough, she had only ever felt his hand hit her once before. This time it had been different. No longer a boy, he hit her hard again and again and again.
‘You make me lose face, Siswan,’ he had told her. ‘You must not make me lose face.’ And he punched her so hard in the stomach that she had been sick in the field.
Bak had stood over her, waiting. He still wasn’t finished. Grabbing her by the hair, he pulled her head back and spat into her face. His saliva ran down her cheek.
‘I told my friends you would be a good girl,’ he shouted at her. ‘You will do as I say. Mama and Papa can’t help you now. Only me.’
She did as she was told. She pleasured his friends with her hands and her mouth and Bak left her alone. He no longer touched her or came to her bed in the night. He had passed her on.
‘Don’t let any of them enter you, Siswan,’ he told her. ‘You can do anything else for them but don’t let them enter you.’
She hadn’t understood exactly what he meant but, as time went on, she learned. She learned a lot. It was very seldom when a day went by without her having to leave the field where she tended the sage, and walk into the cane with some boy or another. It became just another job. Another chore she had to perform.
Over the course of the next year her father lapsed into a continuous drunken stupor. He became bloated and indolent. He lost his job and sat around the home mumbling incoherently. Her mother washed him and tried to feed him but all he wanted was the whiskey. The foul smelling local brew that was slowly, but surely, killing him. Siswan’s thirteenth birthday came and went without notice. The only good thing that came from her father’s increasing ill health was that he no longer had the strength, or inclination, to beat her mother. He became like a truculent child that needed constant attention. Too lazy even to use the hole in the ground that passed as a toilet.
The family became more and more reliant upon the money Bak earned. Siswan didn’t know what he did but without him they wouldn’t be able to live. What he told her to do for his friends seemed a small price to pay in return.
Bak provided just about everything the family needed. The few coins Siswan earned from the allotment were pitiful in comparison. He paid the household bills and even bought the whiskey his father craved. When he turned up one afternoon on a brand new motorbike he seemed, for a moment anyway, like the brother she had known so many years ago.
‘Where did you get it?’ she asked him.
‘From the garage in the town,’ he replied, with a grin. ‘It’s the latest model. It even has an electric starter.’
‘It must have been expensive,’ she said.
Siswan was careful to keep the tone of her voice light. She didn’t want to upset Bak. It was good to see him looking cheerful again.
‘I bought it on credit,’ he looked at her. ‘It wasn’t much.’
‘Well, I’m pleased for you. Maybe you could take me for a ride?’ she smiled.
‘Maybe later,’ he said. ‘I’m going out with my friends tonight. Make sure you give Papa his whiskey.’
She did as she was told. Sometimes Bak would go out all night and she would help her mother take care of her father. Washing him was the worst.
‘Where does Bak work, Mama?’ she asked, as she rinsed the cloth they used to wipe away her father’s waste.
‘I don’t know,’ her mother replied, quietly.
Siswan looked at her mother closely. The woman was old. Older than her years. She never smiled and her eyes seemed far away. She no longer taught Siswan anything new and seemed reluctant even to talk to her. Without the beatings from her father her mother’s previously swollen face had become loose. The skin sagged under her eyes and chin. She looked like a woman that had lost. Whatever it was that she had been fighting had won.
‘Are you alright, Mama?’ Siswan asked her.
Her mother looked at her and, for a second, there was recognition in her eyes. A look that scared Siswan. A look of condemnation.
‘Everyone knows what you do,’ she spat the words at her daughter.
‘Everyone!’
Siswan looked at her in shock. The words cut through her. Each one left a welt in her mind much worse than the swishing sticks on her skin. For a moment she didn’t know what to do or to say. She felt stunned. What was it? What had she been doing that would make her mother speak so cruelly?
‘What, Mama?’ she cried.
‘You are a whore, Siswan. A dirty whore!’
The sound of her mother’s voice cut into her. What she did with the boys had made her into something bad. Something worse than all the foul names she had heard her father call her mother over the years.
It must be what she did in the cane fields. There was nothing else she had done that would make her mother speak to her in this way. Suddenly, she felt dirty. Sordid. Feelings that she had never experienced before, welled up inside her.
‘I only do what Bak tells me to do,’ she shouted back.
‘What you do is wrong.’
Her mother was drifting away again. Her voice became tired and frail once more. Siswan wanted to shake her mother. She wanted her to stay with her. To talk to her. To tell her what she should do.
‘Mama!’ she cried.
The woman who was too old, too tired, turned back to dress her husband. The eyes withdrew, leaving Siswan alone once more.
‘Oh, Mama,’ she cried, quietly. ‘Oh my poor Mama.’
It was all her fault. What she had allowed Bak to do, what she did to the boys, was wrong. She felt dirty. Alone. Scared. She had made her mothe
r ill. Made her father ill. She didn’t know what to do. The enormity of her realisation threatened to overpower her. She felt sick. Powerless to do anything. She cried into her hands.
*****
Once she had accepted her role in the life Bak had chosen for her, Siswan had learned to switch off her mind to what she did. It had been very easy after all. She had quickly learned what it was that they wanted and she had performed the tasks easily enough. The young men wouldn’t take very long most of the time.
When they had finished most of them quickly pulled their trousers back up and walked away. On those occasions she would just go back to the fields and work. Sometimes the boys would want more. They would want to touch her, or even kiss her. She let them. It didn’t matter to her what they wanted as long as they didn’t enter her.
Once she had learned what it was that some of the boys wanted to do, especially the older ones, she had found it easy to convince them not to get carried away.
‘I’m having a period,’ she would tell them.
If that didn’t work, she would struggle just enough to stop them from pushing into her and, after squirming away, would be able to control their passions with her mouth. Most of them seemed to prefer that anyway. She had been surprised at how quickly their passions had died once they had shuddered and trembled under her caress.
One or two had wanted to talk. Mostly afterwards. It seemed as though they wanted to offer some kind of explanation. A reason for having done what they had, up until a few minutes before, insisted upon. They acted like guilty young children trying to explain their reasons to an angry parent.
She hadn’t understood why they needed to talk. Why they had wanted to explain. She just listened and smiled. She hadn’t cared, or minded, that much. A smile, or a word or two in the right places, and they seemed satisfied until the next time. She had just accepted her life. Got on with it as best as she could.
Now it was different. Now she knew it was all wrong. Her mother’s words had stung. Hurt her deep down. She couldn’t walk through the village, or go to the temple to pray, without feeling eyes upon her. Without feeling the stares. Hearing the whispers. Everyone knows, her mother had told her. Everyone knows.
She took to looking at the ground directly in front of her. She averted her gaze whenever a neighbour glanced at her. She felt ashamed. Her whole demeanour changed and, as if in confirmation of the gossip, she walked with the heavy burden of guilt pressing on her shoulders. At thirteen years of age, Siswan walked through the village as a fallen woman. Her mother had called her a whore.
Bak noticed the change in his sister. He felt the change in her personality. The cheerful and happy little girl was gone. In her place stood a broken young woman. A woman who, he knew, would gladly watch him die. He didn’t care. As long as the money kept coming in, he would never care.
‘You have to work, Siswan,’ he told her one evening. He had been drinking again. His words were slurred. He was sitting in his father’s place at the head of the table under the house.
‘I work in the fields,’ she answered, not looking at him. She continued cutting the stems off the bunches of sage she had prepared. The small knife was sharp and she took care not to cut her fingers.
‘That’s not work,’ he shouted. ‘You earn nothing!’
‘But with the money you earn,’ she had started.
He reached across the table and slapped her hard across the side of her head.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ he smiled. ‘Where do you think I get the money to pay for everything?’
‘I don’t know,’ she was holding the side of her face.
His hand had stung her. She felt the jolt of his blow run through the bones of her face. Her ear rang with pain. Her cheek felt as though it were glowing red under her hand.
‘The boys pay, Siswan. They pay to do what they do to you,’ his voice was cold.
He was enjoying this, she thought to herself. He was enjoying telling her.
She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. He didn’t work. He did nothing.
The boys in the village had been giving him money! The household bills, the food, clothes, even the motorbike he took so much time cleaning, it all came from what she did in the fields. Everything. The small knife lay on the table beside her.
She looked at him. Saw the laughter in his eyes. Saw the grin spreading across his face. He found it funny. He was watching her. Laughing at her shock, her horror. He laughed aloud.
‘And, my little sister, you have to keep doing it. Mama and Papa need us now. We have to take care of them,’ he told her.
Their father lay upstairs in bed. Too ill even to come downstairs anymore. Their mother sat with him and was past caring. The last coherent words she had spoken were to condemn her daughter.
Bak was right. She had to take care of them. What else could she do? The tears began to fill her eyes. She wiped them away angrily. She wouldn’t cry in front of him. Not again. Not ever. She clutched the handle of the knife.
‘How much do they pay?’
The question caught him off guard. Bak had expected her to cry. Had expected the sobs. In a way he had been looking forward to them. He liked to see his sister cry. Something about a girl crying in front of him gave him a feeling of power. He was more like his father than he knew.
The question she asked was unexpected. He took another drink of whiskey before replying. She was looking at him. Her face was red from where he had hit her. He wanted to hit her again but he didn’t want to spoil her looks.
‘Why?’ he asked.
She had caught the fleeting look in her brother’s eyes. He had looked shocked for a moment. She fought down the urge to cry. Something inside her hardened. A cold tremor ran down her spine. Her mother had condemned her.
‘I want to know,’ she said, calmly.
‘Not a lot. More later,’ he answered.
‘Why more later?’
‘You have something that men will pay for, Siswan,’ he sneered. ‘They will pay a lot.’
‘What?’ her voice was cold. ‘I want to know everything, Bak.’
‘All in good time,’ he said.
She looked at the arrogant young man sat cross legged in front of her. He was reaching for the whiskey bottle. There was a knowing smile on his face. He knew something that she didn’t know and it annoyed her.
From somewhere deep inside her an anger grew. A slow and purposeful anger. Something that she had never felt before. She wouldn’t allow it to explode into a sudden burst of temper. That would be a waste. She had to control this feeling. Control the anger. Use it. Her mother had condemned her.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Now. I want to know now.’
He looked unsure. A hesitation as he poured more whiskey into his glass. A fleeting look of something. Worry? Fear? She didn’t know.
As she watched him she remembered the young boy who had chased the fish in the pond. How she had laughed and how he had smiled in the sun. A young boy who had held her at night when their parents fought. A young boy who had been so scared of the scorpions in the field.
She didn’t see that boy now. What she saw was her father. A spiteful, mean man whose only kindness had been to give her the silver chain and Buddha that still hung around her neck.
She concentrated on the fear she saw within him. A young boy who had been so afraid of scorpions. So afraid of their sting. She had learned to be quick when dealing with the scorpions. Her mother had condemned her.
‘And what if I tell you? What will you do?’
Although the smug grin spread across his face once more, the uncertainty she heard in his voice was all she needed. She controlled the anger.
‘You will tell me everything, Bak. Tell me what it is that men will pay for.’
He leaned forward across the
table. His hand flat on the surface ready to reach out and hit her. She needed a lesson again. He smiled. He wouldn’t ruin her looks. A small slap to startle her then he’d give her a beating she wouldn’t soon forget. He’d leave her face alone but there were other places he could hurt her. The whiskey made him feel confident. Arrogant. He wanted to see her cry.
‘You are so much like her,’ he spat. ‘No wonder Papa had to deal with her.’ As soon as she saw the tension in his arm, she struck. Before his muscles had a chance to lift his hand, she moved. The anger was controlled. The speed of the knife a blur in the glow of the single light bulb. She knew exactly what she was doing. She had seen the look in his eyes. She had seen the young boy who was scared of the scorpions.
Long ago she had learned to deal with their venom. Now it was her with a sting. She didn’t stop looking into his eyes as she brought the knife down. How dare her mother condemn her.
He screamed out in pain. The voice of a young boy. A scared boy. He stared in disbelief at his hand. The pain raced up his arm. Siswan had brought the knife down so hard and so fast that it went straight through his flesh and imbedded itself in the wood of the table.
Even as she had struck, his arm had been lifting to hit her. The sharp edge of the knife had ripped back towards the knuckles. Blood flowed dark and hot over the back of his hand.
He clutched at the handle with his other hand but couldn’t bring himself to pull the blade free. The pain coursed through his body. The blood. So much of it! Siswan looked into his face. Into his eyes. She saw the fear now. Not just a fleeting glance but outright fear. Wide and open. She had no right to condemn her. None.
‘Tell me everything, Bak,’ she said, when his sobs had subsided enough for her to be heard. ‘Tell me everything.’
Three days later Siswan left the village. Bak had told her everything she needed to know. He had been saving her virginity to get the best price. He had told her how he was negotiating with three of the men in the village. One of them was the policeman she and her friends had been so scared of when they had played near his house.
Bar Girl Page 2