A Woman of Bangkok (41 page)

I think you are the most despicable man I ever met
.

It is not merely that you revel in your own depravity, but you constantly try to corrupt others as well. I shall not soon forget how you constantly enticed me to drink, ridiculed my ideals, and, on one occasion, suggested in the most shameless manner that I should sleep with your mistress
.

But all that is superfluous. The unforgivable part is your treatment of Miss V. The very first night you were in Chiengmai, before we had met, you had a drunken quarrel with her in your room; during which I heard her cry out that you had struck her. I was just on the point of intervening when the manager did so; otherwise I would have dealt with you then and there
.

Last night you again assaulted her shortly after I left you. It is true that on this occasion I did not hear her cry out—I only heard your drunken shouts—but this morning, after you had left the hotel, she awakened me, in obvious agitation, and told me the whole story. She also showed me her bruises, which spoke for themselves
.

She tried to defend you by pretending her wounds were received in other circumstances, but I knew she was lying out of fear of you. I advised her to leave you, and it is on my advice that she has done so. I wanted to wait at the hotel until you returned, to punch your head, but she was terrified of seeing you again. I consequently conducted her to another hotel, and at her request stood guard until we were sure you had left Chiengmai
.

I cannot state too plainly my belief that Miss V. is a very fine character who has been temporarily led astray by evil-doers such as yourself. I am anxious that she should have a chance to redeem herself, and in fact I am helping her to start a new life. I write this letter as a warning to you—KEEP OFF. If I find you have been molesting her again, I shall have no hesitation in giving you the thrashing you already deserve
.

In conclusion, I would like to give you a bit of advice. Pull up before it is too late! You seem to have had a respectable upbringing and I am sure there is still some good in you. That you will take this advice in the spirit in which it is given, forego your present evil ways and strive to be a power for good in the world, is the earnest prayer of

Your sincere friend

D. Birkfield

c/o US Consulate (approx. 2 more wks.)

Chiengmai

Vilai re-appeared at my hotel the next Saturday afternoon.

‘What, broke again already?’ I sneered.

She ignored that. ‘Can I haff ice-coffee? I cannot stay long.’

‘Dan waiting?’

She ignored that too.

I bawled to the boy to bring iced-coffee and another beer.

‘Why you want beer more?’ she asked. ‘You d’unk now. I not like you d’ink beer so mutss. You good boy. I not want you go bad like all the usser men.’

‘Why hast thou appeared unto me, Saint Vilai? To preach?’

‘I not unnerstand p’each.’ Arun shuffled in with the drinks. His face broke into an ear-to-ear grin and as soon as he’d set down the tray he saluted her Thai style, which pleased her. ‘He good boy, I sink,’ she said when he’d gone. ‘He haff good manner.’

I got up to shut the door but she stopped me. ‘Not want. You d’unk again. I fright very mutss.’

‘How did Dan turn out?’ I asked, leaving the door ajar and coming back to my chair. ‘Rich, like I said? Or penniless, like
you
said?’

She looked at me steadily. ‘I not want you spick bad about Dan. He very good boy. Before I sink you number one good boy in the uni-worse, but now I sink maybe Dan good more batter than you.’

‘Of course he is. He’s more recent.’ I grabbed her knee. ‘Has he given you five thousand eight hundred this week, like I gave you last week? Tell me that.’

She sighed, ‘Oh Wretch, only sing you sink about your money’—and I laughed until the tears came into my eyes.

She finished her coffee and got up to powder her nose at my mirror. As she worked at it, she talked. ‘Wretch, I leaf you in Chiengmai ’cause all the time you d’unk and I fright you very mutss. I sink no good you, me, make luff any more—only make you mad, and one day maybe you hurt me. But I still want you for my frand. Not want to finiss wiss you angly me, darling, that no good. Now Vilai not haff good life. No haff shob. No haff son to help me. And now polissman very bad. This week must go to polissman house, get—oh, what you call? wiss pickser—’

‘Identity card?’

‘Yes, yes, ident cart. I sink maybe the polissman make too mutss trouble to me. Girl no haff shob, polissman always very bad to she. Want money
mark mark—’

‘Sure, sure.’

‘And now, you know, bad girl can not liff in Bangkok any more. Poliss go she house, and she not haff huss-band, not haff shob, they take her away. Before I at Bolero, I dancing-girl, haff shob, OK. But now, not safe for me come hotel any more, darling. If polissman come this room now, find me here—’ She turned to me helplessly. ‘Why everyone want to make so mutss trouble for girl who bad?’ she asked. ‘I not understand.’

‘It’s the end for you, kid. You’ll either have to marry Dan or jump in the river—’

‘I neffer marry wiss Dan.’ She slumped onto the bed, returning her compact to her handbag. ‘Dan good too mutss, darling. Only sing he sink, how can he halp pipple who sick. I fray if he marry wiss girl like Vilai, his Mama very unhappy. He ask me she old now—fifty-t’ree and sick all the time. I sink if he marry me, she die—’

‘And I’m not in the market any more.’

She said, ‘Vilai neffer marry again. But you, me, long time good frand, Wretch. Maybe you want finiss now—you not want me any more—but I still sink you best frand I effer haff—’

‘Better than Dan?’

‘Ah, you not understand. He too good. He not know how bad I. And I not want he know—’

‘You in love with him?’

She was silent.

I repeated the question.

‘What mean luff?’ she said in the end. ‘All the time pipple talk luff, luff, luff, but I sink no pipple know what luff is. It just—talk.’ She draped her handbag from her shoulder, a sign that she was about to leave. ‘Wretch, I know you not like me like before. I not good to you. But I want to ask you one sing. If I in very big trouble—you help me, darling? I not ask for littun trouble, I plomiss. But if big?’ She put her hand on my arm and gazed into my eyes. ‘I sink you not say no, ’cause before you luff me very mutss.’

‘But you’ve just said love is all talk,’ I snapped. Then I softened slightly—because after all she was still Vilai—the girl I’d tried to make my wife. ‘OK, Saint Vilai, I never want to see you again. You’ve dragged me though hell, but you gave me glimpses of heaven too, and I won’t forget them either. If you’re ever really in the soup, I’ll help. But you’ll have to convince me you’re really up against it. If you try any of your tricks, I’ll spit in your face, Vilai—I’m telling you now …’

The summons came two months later. Once again Windmill and I were in the Northeast. That day we’d travelled, separately, from Khon Kaen to Korat. Windmill, not fancying subjecting his plump person to the potholes and water-splashes between Muang-phol and Dalarttsai, had taken the train, while I’d done the two hundred kilometres by jeep alone. We nearly always split up like this now, if Windmill could find alternative transport to the jeep; and the arrangement suited us both fine.

Going to our usual Korat hotel, I found that Windmill had already checked in, but his room was locked on the outside, signifying he was out. I had a beer and a cold splash, put on clean clothes and went in search of food.

Night had fallen and the town centre was a blaze of lights. I walked to Ahan-tou, Windmill’s favourite foodshop, but again he wasn’t in evidence. I sat at one of the small round-topped marble tables and ordered One-Eye to produce horse piss eggs, Chinese sausage garnished with sugar and spices, and boiled duck; also beer, of course. I expected to enjoy my meal none the less because I would be eating it alone. I was now quite used to being solitary.

However, before One-Eye had produced anything more than a bowl and a pair of chopsticks, I heard my name mispronounced and looked up to find myself confronted with one of Broderick Peers’ biggest customers. He was a stout round-jowled Chinese with a pock-marked face and a loud, rough voice; he was accompanied by three or four other men, all slighter and tamer, whom he proceeded to introduce. He wouldn’t hear of my eating alone and I had to shift to a larger table. Then the evening began to develop along familiar lines. These led through too many rich dishes and too many
pecks
of mekong to another café at the end of Chakri Road where we all swallowed raw eggs to get our strength up. I was tired out and an hour before had believed I would be faithful to the memory of Vilai for the rest of my life, but this was business, and besides I was quite enjoying myself. I always felt a bit above par after completing a difficult journey singlehanded; and moreover mekong has aphrodisiacal properties, especially when mixed with beer. So when we finally turned into the pitch-black tunnel through which Boswell and all that gang had first ushered me so many eons ago, I was not bringing up the rear of the procession, I was pretty drunk, and I was craving to see Ratom, whom I hadn’t seen for months.

‘Oh, Letchee, you come back, Letchee, Letchee, you come back!’ Ratom cried, throwing herself into my arms; and I could detect nothing spurious in her joy. She dragged me to her room, sat me on the bed, pulled out my shirt at the waist, and gave me a Siamese kiss. This consists of a strong ecstatic sniff and a simultaneous backward toss of the head and it leaves the recipient with a fine sense of being adored. I replied with a European kiss and my fidelity to Vilai, which I had preserved intact since Chiengmai, crumbled into powder—scented powder—there and then.

I’d been with her for about an hour, I suppose, and she’d brought me drinking water in a handsome silver bowl with sweet-scented white petals floating in it, and I’d helped her to choose the lottery ticket she would buy in the morning by shaking numbered sticks out of a bamboo container, and I’d greatly overpaid her, stuffing a hundred-tic note into her chemise, and she’d just brought up the months-old subject of Singers again, when there came a knock at the door, and Windmill’s voice called, ‘Hey, Reggie, you dead? Or you going to stay with that girl all night?’

‘Why, Windmill! Don’t tell me you’ve reached Korat at last!’

Out in the corridor he gave me a scolding. ‘Why you so long with that girl? Mr. Chu tired of waiting. You must not be so unconsiderate, he important customer.’ He handed me the telegram then. ‘Prosit give me this. I think for you.’

It was too dark to read it in the corridor, and in the inner sanctuary I got involved in apologies and badinage for several minutes. Then Chu and the two friends that remained with him got up to go, but Windmill was waiting for Prosit, who was up the ladder, and I told them that Broderick Peers men always stuck together, so I’d say goodnight and see them in the morning. Windmill shook his head at me and to make amends for my lack of courtesy accompanied them to the door.

Ratom was sitting on my knee when he came back. ‘You should have gone with them for one more drink,’ he said. ‘They wait for you long time … Have you read your telegram yet?’

‘No. I’d forgotten it.’ I took it out of my shirt pocket and unfolded it (they don’t bother to put telegrams in envelopes in Thailand). It was in Siamese: a solid line of squarish characters with wild free loops and hooks above and below odd ones here and there. ‘It’s in double Dutch,’ I said, handing it to Windmill. Already I was feeling slightly apprehensive. The firm always communicated with me in English. To only one other person had I ever given our Korat address …

‘Who’s it from? What does it say?’ I asked nervously.

‘I think not for you.’

I took it back. ‘It might be. Who does it say it’s from?’

‘It not signed.’

That made me practically certain. ‘I think I know. I gave her—I mean him—I mean I only gave Prosit’s address to one person. Is it addressed to me?’

‘It not clear—’

‘But what does it say here?’—pointing at the first letters.

‘The spelling hope-less. It say ‘Lecher Joy’ or something like that—’

‘That’s me! Of course that’s me! You must have realized that means me, just as Prosit did! What—what does the rest say?’

‘It from that Bolero girl?’

‘Never mind who it’s from. Tell me what it says.’

‘The Siamese is very bad—uneducated—’

Ratom took the form from my hand and scrutinized it. Then, ‘I think this must be important, Letchee,’ she said in Siamese. ‘It says, “Return Bangkok immediately. Serious trouble. Relying on you. Don’t forget your promise.”’ She handed the form back to me. ‘Who speaks to you in that way, Letchee? Have you a wife in Bangkok?’

I’d lifted her out of my lap while she was still talking and stood up.

‘Where you go?’

Windmill was looking troubled and annoyed.

‘I’m going to Bangkok.’

‘What—now? But you have work to do, here, Buriram, Pimai, Sraburi—’

‘You can do all that, by train, except for Pimai. And you can go by bus to Pimai. I’ll take the jeep—’

‘But you’ve been driving all day—’

‘And I’m going to drive all night.’

‘Look, Reggie, you can’t do this. Samjohn will be mad like hell—’

‘I’ll phone him tomorrow, when I reach Bangkok. Tell him I’m taking leave—’

‘You can’t do it.’ Windmill had never before spoken to me so emphatically and I looked at him in surprise. ‘Now listen,’ he went on, ‘Two, three month ago Mr. Samjohn tell me he very browned up with you. He say you like naughty little boy, and I must look after you like
amah
. He tell me he rely on me to keep you out of—what the word he use?—miss-chife, that’s it. He tell me I responsible for you. You do something wrong, I must get in hot water too—hot like boiling, he said. Most important thing, he said, I must see you not get in hot water with woman. Especially White Leopard—’

‘What? He knows about her?’