However much he was badgered, he remained impassive, until his tormentors gave up of their own accord. Sometimes his daughter came out to receive them instead, revolted to see him oppressed to such an extent. She talked back in the lightning rude terms that are the lingua franca of market people. News about him spread throughout town. In such a small town it was impossible for anyone not to hear rumours about him; as to how many did, or how much one was interested, that was another story. Criticisms were getting increasingly strong, mixed with pity and nausea, as it was known that when he was a teacher he had the upper hand in his relations with gamblers and hoodlums and this was no longer the case, as his status as a music teacher belonged to the past and in fact he found himself even lower, he had to wait on them, to go and buy them cigarettes, booze and other drinks in order to receive a share, or run errands or do odd jobs, which he did most willingly just to earn someone’s favour or in exchange of a compliment or two. His body was a wreck and he looked increasingly old. His clothes stank and his hovel was a crummy mess. It was a rented room whose door was almost always ajar, as its occupants were seldom home and there was nothing worth stealing, so that the neighbourhood’s cats and dogs went to dwell in it or roam in quest of food scraps. His daughter often had to rely on a couple of foul-mouthed but kind-hearted market women to feed herself. She used to have a regular work at night, being hired at the shop selling cooked food and by the carts of roadside noodle vendors to gather dirty dishes or hand out food or pour out drinks to customers, which meant that she not only had enough to nourish herself without missing a meal but also could save a little pocket money. But her scruffy appearance, her dirty face and hands disgusted some customers when she brought them a glass of water or a dish. The hardy, loud-voiced old Chinese who owned the stands thus ceased to employ her. Both she and her father had vacant and depressed expressions, though for different reasons. They could be seen sitting dejected on the threshold of their room so often that for many it was a familiar scene. When a little money was available, whether shamelessly caged from some acquaintance or obtained in one way or another, the father went to buy cheap hooch he drank until sleep overtook him, falling asleep sometimes right by the room door and sleeping there until dawn, unbothered by the ambient hubbub of the market or racket of the ice delivery van or of the big lorries that came to deliver seafood or by the company of people milling about in thickening crowds, and without even taking heed of the swarms of big ferocious river mosquitoes which were terribly famished and sucked blood off his face, arms and legs until their black bodies were full to bursting point, and he woke up once again, disappeared for a while and came back to sit by the door again until he had booze to drink or until someone called him to go and buy a little something worth no more than twenty baht, because if he was given more he was likely to gamble it away or buy himself some booze, although in fact he had never cheated anyone, or else he was asked to go and fetch someone, most of the time some gambler who hadn’t kept his appointment. Another way for him to earn a living was to sell lottery tickets he got from a small vendor, and he went to mix with the invalids around the temple with the sacred Buddha image that was said to have come floating on water from downstream and before which he had perjured himself in the past. But the profit margin was so small and for some unknown reason he had very few buyers, so that when he ran out of patience he started to yell as if to ask the whole world if he had to be blind or what, to be paralysed or what, for them to buy them fucking tickets. Fed up to hear him yell like that, the invalids agreed on treating him as an enemy. Finally, helping each other out, they managed to chase him away by hurling stones at him in a concert of obscenities. As for the little girl, she paced up and down the market, thieving and rude by nature. Sometimes she quarrelled with the other children that hung around the market but, being puny, she was often roughed up to the point of crying non-stop. She cried so much and so loud it was said it was in her nature. She put up a struggle and fought with all her might like a hungry dog. Most of the time, she kept snivelling until she grew quiet by herself or until some exasperated bastard came and gave her a mighty shove on the back or a mighty slap on the face that really hurt her. Everybody knew that if she was really hurt, she didn’t cry but kept quiet and glared resentfully. What the future of this little girl and of the other grimy little urchins of uncertain origins that hung around the market would turn into would’ve been hard to say. One day your mother met the girl, who sat playing with a scrawny kitten next to a municipal tank overflowing with garbage, and she recollected having seen her somewhere before, so she greeted and smiled at her. The little girl didn’t seem to recognise her, but when your mother resumed her walk, she followed her, torn between fear and daring. She followed her to your house and when she saw you her fear disappeared. That was about two months after he had been expelled from his teacher’s lodging, two months after you had given up learning the violin. Five or six days later, the little girl was eating and sleeping at your house. One morning, her father came to stand awkwardly under the yellow flame tree in front of the house to get his daughter back. He looked alarmed and it seemed he hadn’t quite slept it off, which, incidentally, was to be his appearance for the rest of his days. He didn’t dare ring the bell and merely called out your mother in a respectful tone. The market people said he had cried his eyes out and thumped his chest like a madman when he learned the little girl had disappeared and, when someone came to tell him she was at your house, he looked absolutely stunned and he bawled like a beast, as they said. He screamed, tumbled about, challenged the sun and all sacred things. Some of the hoodlums he mixed with came to ask him what the matter with him was, cheered him up, pointing out to him it wasn’t difficult, given that he knew where the child was, he just had to go and get her back and that’d do the trick. He didn’t pay attention to what those fellows were saying but let out a steam of rude insults and told them to get lost, so that they ended up laying into him with fists and feet. And that was the reason why he stood in front of your house with his shirt and trousers torn and covered in mud and blood, his face black and blue, standing still like a statue of insanity. But, in your resentment and suffering, you were no longer able to feel pity for him, so that, even if fate was to deal with him even worse, you remained indifferent and passive regarding him. Deep down in your heart, you were telling yourself that he only got what he deserved. You almost did not take any note when the little girl came to say goodbye and added that she’d come back to see you one of these days. You had no premonition or any inkling that it would be the last time you saw her, as only three days later her mother came back but, instead of the situation taking a turn for the better, it got worse. Her return was like the arrival of the eye of a cyclone that destroys everything in its path. The couple quarrelled fiercely, exchanging dire and vulgar insults without restraint. And when the mercury of the festival of obscenities reached boiling point, they pounced on each other round after round with yells and curses galore so that eventually, as they socked and pinched and punched and smashed each other, a master hoodlum who flattered himself he was the neighbourhood peacekeeper stalked to the landing stage behind the market, pulled up a bucket full of river water and threw its contents over the two bodies as you do with dogs that bite and won’t let go and told them to cool off, for fuck’s sake. They separated and kept quiet for a while, each heaving in his or her corner, each too whacked to go on quarrelling on rather than having learned their lesson. And then he started anew to try to reach an understanding with her. She showed herself ready to talk as well. But very soon the verbal escalation resumed, neither one of them being willing to make concessions, and turned into a fistfight yet again. He ran his fist into a room partition, broke table and chairs, sent dishes flying everywhere, took out his shirt and went out to walk into the maddening midday heat, raised his arms to the sky and looked up, gazed at the sun and yelled like a madman Full moon! Full moon! and then turned round and had another go at her, shouting abuse at her, calling her a harl
ot, an abject and depraved strumpet. She snapped back he wasn’t any better than her; he was just a good-for-nothing except for getting pissed to the gills. What woman would stand for that? To tell the truth, she didn’t want to come back to see him, but if she did, wasn’t it because he had prostrated himself at her feet begging her to come back? Then she uttered another three or four sentences so obscene a prostitute would’ve blushed. He was ashamed that she’d reveal his behaviour in such a way. This kind of retort had the unexpected result of shutting him up. No matter how much she provoked him, he wouldn’t answer. After taking malicious pleasure in cutting him to pieces for quite some time, his silence making her think she had achieved victory, she proclaimed in a stentorian voice that resounded throughout the entire row of shophouses that, if she had come back, it was only to get her daughter back. She hadn’t come back to live with him as on previous occasions, as in any case that child wasn’t his daughter. If someone wanted to know the truth about this, she insisted on stating unambiguously that that child wasn’t his daughter but her daughter only. It’s me brought her to the world all by myself, in her own words. But that stupid fool wasn’t her father. He was just a dumb buffalo who had never been anything else. And her proclamation was a notice of complete break-off of all relations with him. You wondered what the little child must have felt as she sat hugging the kitten and saw them slugging at each other and insulting each other and finally heard the proclamation of the woman who was her mother. It was said she merely sat motionless and gazing into space in front of the door of the room.
The White Shadow Page 29
