by Andrew Hicks
His back was beginning to ache when his reverie in the rice fields was broken by Fon calling loudly to him. The tractor was about to run back to the road and they would have to go if they did not want to face a long walk home in the heat of the day. Bumping along the track, he longed for a shower and a cold drink and dreamed of the air-conditioned luxury of the Regal in Bangkok.
As they arrived home, an elderly neighbour from the next house was just beginning the long task of threshing his rice crop by hand. Ben watched as the old man pounded the bunches of rice stalks against a board, the grains falling off and collecting in what looked like blue mosquito netting. Gripping the bunch of rice stalks with two sticks joined together by a short length of rope, he beat them again and again to dislodge all the grains. His wife then winnowed the rice by pouring it into a basket from above her head while their daughter fanned hard with hand-held fans. From where he was now sitting in the house, Ben could see the dust and straw mixed in with the rice being blown away on the breeze. Finally the women spread a small quantity of rice on round bamboo trays and repeatedly tossed it in the air, teasing out the remaining stones and bits of stalk.
After some time the old farmer seemed to tire of his labour and wandered into the house where Ben and Fon were in front of the television lazily watching the heavyweight fight between Lennox Lewis and Hashim Rahman in Las Vegas. The old man sat down on the floor, leaned against the wall, his head in his hands and gazed impassively at the screen. He was just in time to see Lewis get his revenge, knocking out Rahman with a single blow to the jaw. As the camera lovingly replayed the final punch in slow-motion and Rahman again crashed to the canvas, he clicked his tongue, slowly got up and went back to his work without a word.
‘God, if only he could see Las Vegas,’ said Ben.
‘Las Vegas good?’ asked Fon. ‘He like?’
‘Well, it’s kind of different! People are better paid for a start … and for getting knocked out, that boxer’s just netted more than a rice farmer earns in a lifetime.’
‘Good life better than money,’ said Fon quietly.
‘True, but today’s taught me a bit about being poor, Fon. Rice farming’s so tough.’
‘Yes Ben, but today not so bad … cutting rice easy.’
‘So what’s the hard part then?’ asked Ben.
‘First we have to plough … big big job, too hard. Then planting … standing in the water bending down, pushing every plant into the mud by hand, one, one, one, in rows. Your back break, blood come out fingers … pain everywhere. We mend the walls to keep water in the fields, and kill the weeds and bugs. Then cut the rice, carry home, beat and clean it in machine or do like old man today. Dry the rice, go rice mill, then take rice to sell.’
‘It’s so labour intensive … just so much work.’
‘Yes, rice farming too hard … so farmer eat yaa bah, amphetamine. This work terrible, Ben, it kill you. Now have machines like rice mill, but have to pay, pay, pay … make small money.’
‘What’s a rice mill like then?’ he casually asked her.
‘Rice mill? You want look?’
Fon jumped up, grabbed him by the hand and dragged him out of the door. On the other side of the road was a tin-roofed building emitting a steady throbbing sound and a cloud of black smoke from a tall exhaust pipe. She took him inside and showed him a bizarre wooden structure with ladders and walkways connected by a series of drive-belts to a watercooled engine which was thumping away loudly in the background. Brown rice in a vat at the top of the machine was flowing slowly downwards in an elaborate process of shaking and polishing that Ben could not begin to fathom out. The contraption was producing a shower of husks at the back of the shed and a precious trickle of white grains which slowly filled a sack at its base.
‘Old time, the women do rice by hand in a wooden bowl,’ said Fon. ‘One hour, three kilos maybe. Now rice mill very quick but expensive.’
‘And do they still thresh the rice by hand like your neighbour was doing just now?’
‘No, old man like to do it that way. Now have big blue machine come on tractor … but have to pay.’
Ben was beginning to wonder whether with all these new costs, rice production could still be profitable.
‘So after all this work, how much do they get for the rice?’ he asked.
‘Ordinary rice, about four baht a kilo.’
‘Four baht only pays for a piss in the bus station! But after what they’ve spent, do they make any money? Is any of it profit?’ he asked as they wandered back to the house.
‘Today, grow more rice but make small money. New seeds expensive and need insecticide and fertiliser … no buffalo, no have buffalo shit! Borrow money buy tractor … so pay bank, pay petrol. Pay men to cut rice, pay to bring rice home, pay machine for beating rice, pay rice mill, pay to go market. Work all year but pay too much, so maybe sell rice but make no money. Sometimes no rain or rain come wrong time … then rice spoil, farmer lose.’
‘Sounds like hell. And I suppose that as the farmers only sell at the end of the season, they’re desperate for credit to pay for everything first?’
‘Yes, borrow, borrow … then bad year, cannot turn back the money. Borrow money from mill owner … send him brown rice for milling and he keep most of it for himself. Borrow from bank … big big problem.’
‘So what if a farmer can’t pay off his bank loan?’
‘Bank take farm,’ she said solemnly.
‘Then the family loses everything? Home, income, the lot?’
‘Yes, lose everything … even their daughters. Two year ago, my uncle borrow to buy tractor for ploughing. But rain no good, small rice … so cannot pay bank every month. Now he work all year, only pay percent.’
‘You mean he can only pay the interest? There’s not enough to pay off the loan?’
‘Yes, he work for the bank … to stop them take the farm.’
‘What a hole to be in. Is there any way out for him?’
‘Uncle have pretty daughter, only eighteen. So she go work Pattaya, sell sex … boom-boom with farang every night. Maybe she save farm, save family.’
‘God, what a price to pay.’
‘And she very shy. To talk with farang in bar, go room with farang, she drink too much. She mao lao … drunk every night. Now cannot stop drinking, have big problem with drink.’
‘Poor kid,’ said Ben with feeling.
‘Yes, and maybe she get HIV … then she finished.’
24
As soon as they got home from the rice mill, Fon took a shower in the washroom at the back of the house, leaving Ben sitting outside pondering the pressures that drive farmers’ daughters to become bar girls. How would it feel, he wondered, to be a father who through ill-fortune had so failed his family that his favourite daughter was now a feast for any foreign sex tourist.
His thoughts were interrupted when, after an eternity of splashing sounds, Fon reappeared glowing and wet, her sarong tucked in above the bust, her hair dripping and shiny black. As always, he could not take his eyes off her; the figure-hugging sarong, the bare arms and shoulders and her bewitching smile.
‘Okay Ben, you not smell but you go shower,’ she commanded him.
The washroom was a dark space under a lean-to behind the house, the only facilities a squat toilet and a plastic scoop floating in a murky concrete water tank. Ben could not close the door as there was no proper catch and there was nowhere dry to hang his clothes. But the shower was a relief, the cold water from the scoop exploding onto his hot skin in an exquisite agony. It was only a pity that he had to climb back into his sweaty shorts and tee shirt as he had not had a chance to settle in and pull fresh ones out of his rucksack. Hopping around on one foot, trying to juggle towel and clothes in the sodden space, it was impossible to get dry. In the heat and humidity of the afternoon, the benefit of showering was undone almost as soon as he emerged.
Coming back into the kitchen, he watched the kittens playing among the pots and pans just as a
puppy launched an attack, chasing them into the front room and out onto the veranda. He followed them through and found Fon sitting on a bench in front of the house, irresistible in her green sarong.
‘Come sit with me, Ben,’ she said. Ben willingly obeyed.
‘Fon, it’s great to see where you were brought up,’ he said. ‘This is a wonderful place to be a child.’
‘Is it? Maybe. We were happy here, all of us.’
‘How many were you? You did tell me.’
‘Me number one, then brother Somchai, Jinda and little sister, Nok. Mama always busy with babies so I have to work too.’
‘Sounds a hard life.’
‘Good life before Papa die.’
‘How old was he?’
‘He thirty … die on the road over there.’ She pointed to the place a few hundred yards away where a moment’s chance had changed her life.
‘Before, in old house, we all sleep in one room. As I go bed Papa tell me about Cinderella, pretty girl who work, work, not go to party … then fall asleep in his arms. Not forget his smell, good smell. Morning wake up, he not there … already go farm before too hot.’
‘Cinderella. That’s you, isn’t it?’
Fon did not answer but gave free rein to her thoughts.
‘Then I get up, go school,’ she went on. ‘Not have money … but every day we eat rice, not thinking strong, always happy. Now want family again … to be together.’
‘But I’m sure it wasn’t always fun. You said you were very ill once.’
‘Ill many times, very thin. But when I go school, get strong.’
‘I’ll bet you were naughty too.’
‘Yes, ride buffalo, boxing with Somchai, climb mango tree. One day go swimming, muddy pond. Take boat and fall in … boat sink. Man come, say, “Where my boat?” He angry, we run, run.’
‘Sounds a perfect childhood.’
‘Finish too soon when Papa die.’
There was a brief silence while Ben turned everything over in his mind; the near destitution of a family, Fon being sent away from home, a village child working in a distant adult world. He wanted to know more about it.
‘You were only a child when you were in Bangkok. Did they really make you work?’
‘Yes, all the time. Big, big Chinese family, big, big house. Grandmother, grandbrother, uncles, aunts, children. Many, many servants to clean house, cook, go market, take care baby, wash clothes,’ she said with a wan smile.
‘But lots of servants means less work?’
‘No, too much work … they angry if they see me not working. Wake five o’clock, work all day … last to bed, eleven at night. Always last to eat.’
‘Unbelievable. And no day off?’
‘No holiday, no problem … but have to look down, be nobody, be nothing. Small boy throw food in my face … cannot angry, have to smile.’
‘That’s disgusting. Why didn’t you leave?’
‘Work always like that … cannot leave. I lucky, have food, help Mama.’
‘But that’s no life for a kid, living with people who don’t value you.’
‘Not so bad. I work good and big boss give me more money. And did it kill me? No, it make me strong.’
As they sat talking in front of the house, a little girl of three or four came and squatted on the ground in front of them. She had a tiny face with clear, steady eyes that focused not on Ben but on Fon. She gazed and gazed, listening to the strange language, adoring the stylish lady returned home from afar.
‘I think she like me,’ said Fon, smiling back.
‘She certainly does. I’m sure you were exactly the same only a few years ago and just as pretty. She must wonder about the world outside the village.’
‘Yes, same me long ago. But many things happen to me since I leave home … go Bangkok, work massage, meet farang. Before, not see farang … never. We scared! And when we naughty Mama say farang eat us.’
‘But they didn’t, did they … though this farang wouldn’t mind a nibble.’
‘Okay, Ben, you like?’
Hitching up her sarong, Fon flashed him a radiant smile and an extra inch or three of bare thigh.
Fon’s recollection of an idyllic Asian childhood reminded Ben of the destructive wars that had swept through the region at the time. Ever since university, he had wanted to visit Thailand because his final year dissertation had been about the intractable problem of Cambodian refugees held in camps at the Thai border. After all that book learning, it was now tantalising to be so near to Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam where the Indochinese wars had raged for so many decades.
He guessed that the road in front of the house where he was now sitting had been built with American money as a strategic route for getting troops to the Cambodian border. Or it had perhaps been a small part of the lavish foreign aid given to prevent Thailand falling to communism. A car speeding along that road had killed Fon’s father.
Then his thoughts turned to the more recent events that had devastated Cambodia so close by, a tragic history that he had immersed himself in when writing the dissertation. In the seventies the Khmer Rouge had seized power and in an obscene social experiment caused the deaths of a third of the population, spreading instability and displacing floods of refugees into neighbouring Thailand. Even after the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia, there had been fighting and civil disorder until so very recently. He asked Fon what she remembered of the conflict.
‘Hear bombs in Cambodia, old house shaking. Sometimes people come Thailand to be safe … Khmer Rouge follow with guns. We hear police car go by, wee-wa, wee-wa, wee-wa … hide under table, afraid we die. Many bad dreams … never know who kill us. Then one day Papa cross road to farm. Big car come too fast … all finish.’
That evening Fon’s mother quietly produced a big meal from the things they had bought in the market early that morning. They all sat round on the floor, taking the sticky rice in their fingers and dipping it in the sauces. There was pork rib in a salty sauce, tiny fish caught in nearby ponds fried to a crisp and eaten whole and a green soup with a fungus which had a distinctive earthy flavour. When Ben dipped his rice into a bowl of soup which was thick and dark, almost black, he noticed Fon looking at him intently.
‘You like?’ she asked, smiling broadly.
Ben tasted it.
‘Why? What is it?’
‘Rok kwai.’
‘Whatever’s that?’
‘Kwai means buffalo … rok I not know in English. When buffalo born, rok come out, understand?’
Ben was afraid he understood all too well and the dictionary confirmed his fears. This was buffalo placenta soup.
‘Fon, how could you?!’
‘Buffalo eat it, so must be good,’ she said with a wicked grin.
Fon’s mother said very little as they ate but clearly enjoyed seeing her daughters and their exotic friend enjoying her cooking. During the meal a couple of women came into the house and casually sampled the dishes before drifting off again. Six half-grown ducklings wandered in and as Jinda shooed them out, like cartoon characters they ran on the spot on the slippery floor without moving, before shooting out of the door. Then when everyone was full to bursting, Fon and Jinda cleared up, rinsing the dishes outside the back of the house.
Jinda went off to see a friend and Ben was left alone in the house with Fon who at last raised the subject he had been waiting for, the sleeping plans for the night.
‘Cannot sleep here tonight,’ she said. ‘Too many people, too many cats. Mama not let me clean house, boxing little bit, so better we go Nang Rong, stay hotel.’
‘We?’ he asked in surprise.
‘Yes, you and me.’
Ben’s pulse raced, he could hardly believe it. Him, her, a hotel room … tonight? In his dreams! He wanted to ask more but he did not dare; he would just have to contain himself and wait.
They collected their things together, Fon her bag and Ben his rucksack and went out to the road to wait for a bus back to the town. They coul
d see down the road for at least a mile and so had several minutes warning that it was coming.
Then without explanation Fon took Ben’s hand and led him fifty yards along the road where she stopped and pointed to a spot near the verge.
‘This is where Papa die,’ she said.
Ben stared at a mark on the tarmac, a dark stain almost like a pool of blood, blood spilled a decade ago. He shuddered at the thought of a violent death right here, so very close to home. Surely that could not be her father’s blood.
They went silently back to where they had been waiting. Fon squatted down on her haunches while Ben stood and stared down the road for the bus. After some time he thought he saw one coming.
‘Is that it?’ he asked.
Fon got up and looked.
‘Bus come,’ she said, giving Ben her bag and running back to the house.
‘Where are you going?’ he called after her.
‘To get Jinda,’ she shouted as she ran.
Ben’s heart sank.
‘So Jinda’s coming to the hotel too?’ he asked when she rejoined him at the roadside.
‘Of course Jinda’s coming. Go hotel together.’ She paused for a moment and eyed him with a quizzical look.
‘Ben? Ben? What you thinking?’ Seeing Ben’s embarrassment, she shrieked with laughter. ‘What you think I am? Bar lady, Pattaya?’
The hotel in Nang Rong had a smart air-conditioned lobby but the fan rooms they checked into were very basic. Fon and Jinda shared a room, with Ben in the next one along. After the overnight journey they were all ready to sleep early. Ben’s double bed felt very empty but he slept well until he was woken all too soon by a loud knocking. He stuck a bleary face round the door; it was Fon looking infuriatingly fresh and breezy.
‘Morning, lazy farang, we go breakfast.’ It was almost light.
‘Christ, what time is it?’
‘You not hungry?’
‘No, it’s sleep I need.’