by John Shors
“Hmm. I didn’t know that. Thanks for making me smarter. Your mother would be proud.”
Niran scratched at a mosquito bite. “Some whales can hold their breath for more than an hour.”
“Really?”
“They dive down so deep, and look for squid to eat. And they sing to each other while they hunt.”
“How wonderful. What kind of songs do they sing?”
“Long, moaning songs,” Niran answered, still scratching. “I want to hear one someday.”
“Keep studying, so that when you hear one, you’ll know just what it means.”
“I will.”
Lek pointed to the approaching ferry. “It’s about ready to dock. And we need to fill up those seven bungalows. What do you think, should we drop our price?”
“To four hundred baht a night?”
“Let’s try three seventy-five.”
“All right.”
“Will you give it your best, my son? Let’s really try to reel them in.”
Niran nodded, watching the ferry pull alongside an almost identical vessel at the end of the row. A few minutes passed before tourists started crossing from boat to boat, drawing nearer to the pier. Most of the newcomers spoke excitedly and eyed their surroundings. All carried large backpacks. As the foreigners approached, the Thais began to hold up their signs and, in broken English, encourage people to come to their guesthouses. Since Niran’s English was much better than his father’s, when he wasn’t in school he often visited the pier and tried to entice people to come to Rainbow Resort. Sometimes Suchin joined them as well.
Lek realized that the boat was less full than he had hoped—which was unfortunate, because the nicer resorts would continue to have vacancies. He listened to his competitors, aware that many were also dropping their prices. After whispering to Niran to offer three hundred and fifty baht for a room, he gripped his fists tight as his son exchanged words with a group of blond-haired women. He thought that they were going to agree to Niran’s offer, but in the end, one of the women thanked him, patted him on the head, and turned away. Lek closed his eyes, angry that the woman had touched Niran’s head, that she didn’t know Thais considered heads to be sacred and therefore practically untouchable.
Niran knew that his father was watching him, that his family depended on him. And so he smiled wide and used his best English. He told tourists about the beauty of Rainbow Resort, about how his mother was the number one cook on the island, and about how their bungalows were on the prettiest part of the beach. But many tourists already had reservations at nicer places, and Niran didn’t have brochures like some of the other people offering places to stay. All he had was his voice, which he used as a poet uses words. He made people slow with his voice; he made them stop and smile. But even when he dropped the price to three hundred baht, people kept shaking their heads. And soon only a smattering of Thais remained on the pier.
Having failed his father, Niran turned and walked toward shore, watching his bare feet rise and fall. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, switching to Thai.
Lek paused and, despite the pain in his hip, bent down to look into his son’s eyes. “Don’t be sorry. You tried your best. And you spoke so well. I’ve never heard you speak so well.”
“Why didn’t anyone come?”
“Because there are too many of us and too few of them.”
“I wasn’t good enough. Suchin would have been better.”
Lek smiled. “You were perfect. Just perfect. Now let’s go get the spear gun and catch a tuna. So many of these foreigners like sushi. Let’s hit a tuna and fill their bellies with it.”
“Tuna are hard to hit. They can swim up to almost a hundred kilometers an hour. Faster than cars.”
“So that’s why we usually miss them? Because they’re faster than cars?”
“That’s right. That’s why it’s so hard to bring one home.”
Pursing his lips, Lek pretended to ponder Niran’s words. “Well . . . don’t you think it’s hard for air to find the hole in the head of a giant whale?”
“That would be hard.”
“But the air finds the hole. Every day. And so maybe today we’ll find a tuna. Such a big tuna that we can eat some after the foreigners are full.”
Niran scratched at his bare, bony shoulder. “Let’s go.”
After slowly straightening, Lek turned to look at the ferry, wishing that it had been full. Sarai would be disappointed once again. “Let’s surprise your mother with the biggest tuna she’s ever seen,” Lek said, increasing his pace, grimacing at a sudden bout of pain.
“Does your hip hurt?”
“No. Not today. So let’s hurry, my little scientist. Let’s hurry and make her happy.”
SEVERAL HOURS LATER, ON THE sandy area behind Rainbow Resort, a group of about fifteen Thai children played soccer. Only two girls competed, each on opposite teams, wearing shorts and T-shirts, while the boys wore only shorts. The field, about forty feet wide and seventy feet long, had been cleared of palm trees by Lek a decade earlier, before he hurt his hip. He’d wanted his future children to be able to run, as he had fond memories of doing so as a boy. And though he’d been tempted to build bungalows on the field, he’d been able to resist this notion, convincing himself that foreigners wouldn’t want to be so far from the beach. His neighbors had encouraged him as well, glad that their children had a place dedicated to the game they loved. So much of the island was devoted to tourists. Foreigners stayed on the nicest stretches of sand, scuba dived above untouched reefs, and enjoyed the best of everything. Most of the locals lived far from the beaches and worked all hours of the day.
Lek might have been able to earn a bit more money by destroying the soccer field, but he chose not to. And his wife, who was practical in many ways, and who deftly managed what little money they possessed, wanted the field to remain as it was. Sarai liked hearing the children laugh after school as she diced vegetables with her mother and prepared to feed ten or twenty people.
Now, as Lek leaned against the back of the restaurant and watched his daughter and son with pride, he wondered what would happen to the field if they were forced to leave for Bangkok. Surely it would be developed—guesthouses or a hotel put in its place. Suchin’s and Niran’s friends would have to find another place to play. And while several such fields existed in the middle of the island, they were closer to piles of discarded water bottles and old engines than to any beach.
Suchin had always been much better at soccer than Niran. She could defend, pass, and dribble as if she’d learned such skills in the womb. Niran often looked as if he’d just started to play. To his friends’ surprise, he didn’t seem to mind being one of the worst players. Though no one else knew why, the reason was simple—Niran saw his father hobble every day and he felt no need to be the fastest or strongest. His being so fast might make his father sad.
From inside the restaurant, Lek heard Sarai announce that dinner was ready. He started to call out to his children but saw that Niran had the ball and was dribbling toward the goal. “Hurry,” Lek whispered, clenching his fists, releasing the tension when another boy kicked the ball away from Niran as other defenders cheered.
“Mother’s waiting,” Lek interjected, stepping toward the game. Suchin passed the ball to one of her teammates, waved good-bye, and turned toward her father. Niran started to do the same but saw that a small hermit crab had wandered onto the field. He bent down, picked it up, and hurried toward the restaurant, placing the crab near the corner of the structure.
Lek complimented his children on the game, smiling as he followed them toward the kitchen. Set in the back of the restaurant, the kitchen was a cinder-block room about five paces long and three paces wide. Much of the room was dominated by full-length, stainless-steel countertops. Piles of diced onions, tomatoes, garlic cloves, lemongrass, mushrooms, and baby corn occupied one area, as did a mound of fresh shrimp, and a large barracuda that Lek and Niran had killed with their spear gun. In the back of the roo
m, a four-burner gas stove held a wok and a large pot.
Sitting in the corner of the room was the children’s grandmother, whom they called Yai. Achara, naked and wide-eyed, lay between Yai’s thighs. Yai seemed as large as Achara appeared small. Dressed in a loose-fitting purple sarong and a white cotton blouse, Yai leaned back in her chair and smiled at the sight of Suchin and Niran. “Did you brush yourselves off?” she asked. “Your mother can’t have two specks of sand in her kitchen. One might be fine, but definitely not two.”
Suchin glanced at her grandmother’s wide and full face, surprised that her gray hair was peeking from beneath the red cloth that she liked to wrap around the top of her head. “I shook myself clean; I promise.”
“Like a dog after a bath?”
“I did.”
“And you, Niran?”
“What?”
“Did you do some good shaking?”
Niran had been thinking of a shark he’d seen when they were trying to find a tuna and, without answering his grandmother, stepped back outside and brushed the sand from his feet, knees, and elbows. He reentered the kitchen and saw that his mother was adding noodles, vegetables, and slices of pineapple to a longhandled wok, which sizzled above a strong fire. As he often did when in the kitchen with the women, Niran leaned against the far wall, watching. He would have been happy to slice up the barracuda or to help in some way, but no one cooked except his mother, which was how she liked it.
Bending over, Suchin picked up her baby sister, holding her casually, burping her without thought. Suchin’s hands pressed against Achara’s naked bottom and back, keeping Achara firmly positioned against her own belly and chest. She wished her father and brother had caught a tuna or a lobster, knowing that her mother would flavor their meal with pieces of the bony and bland barracuda.
“How was your day?” her mother asked, holding the handle of the sizzling wok, flipping the ingredients with a toss of her wrist.
“We sold fourteen drinks,” Suchin answered, continuing to pat her sister’s back.
“I know. A very impressive number.”
Yai rose slowly from her chair, moving to a cutting board. “You’ve done well, Suchin. But I’ll tell you what’s even more impressive.”
“What?”
“Try watching your mother run around like a headless chicken all day. Now, that’s impressive.”
Turning down the heat beneath the wok, Sarai rolled her eyes. “Impressive is how that body of yours continues to get bigger. Day after day after day.”
“I like being fat,” Yai replied. “It’s my excuse for not working.”
“What was your excuse ten years ago?”
“You.”
“Me?”
“That’s right. Watching you move so fast made me tired. Just like it does today.”
Sarai began to dish up plates of steaming food for her children. “I didn’t know that someone could sit for so long. Doesn’t your bottom hurt?”
“Oh, it’s nothing that—”
“Or maybe that’s why you like all that padding. So you can sit in comfort, no matter where you go.”
“Padding is good. Nothing wrong with having a built-in cushion.”
Suchin grinned as her mother and grandmother continued to tease each other, as they often did. She followed her mother out into the restaurant and sat down at a table in the corner. Niran sat across from her, the small hermit crab in his hands once again. He set the crab on the floor, aiming it toward the nearby railing and beach.
Dinner was vegetables, pineapple, and barracuda flavored with a sweet-and-sour sauce. A mound of steamed white rice also rose on the children’s plates. Niran began to eat, pleased to see Patch in the opposite corner, waiting patiently for his food. Patch ate whatever the children ate—rarely shrimp or tuna, but plenty of delicious food. Niran smiled when Patch waved, then turned back to his food, wanting to finish it before the hermit crab escaped.
A few minutes passed and then a group of four Italian tourists walked to one of the low outdoor tables on the beach, dropping down on the colorful tapestry spread under the table, stretching out and talking loudly. Patch watched the young men with interest, as they had been renting two bungalows for several days now, and often were noisy and borderline obnoxious. He was amazed at how many Singha beers they could consume in a night, bottles gathering around them like spent artillery shells.
Sarai placed Patch’s dinner in front of him, and he put his hands together, bowing slightly. He thanked her in Thai, adding in English that her meal looked delicious.
“I so excited for your path,” she answered, grinning, her English less refined than her children’s.
“Thanks. I think it will be nice.”
“You are nice, Patch. Nicer than my food.”
“No way. Impossible.”
She laughed, stepping away from him and toward the Italians, who were calling out for more beer. Patch watched her hurry toward them, as if their order might disappear if her feet didn’t move fast enough. He wondered what Niran and Suchin thought of their mother so quickly rushing to meet the needs of foreigners—probably nothing, having witnessed such scenes since birth.
Sarai took the order, then walked behind the bar and removed four oversize Singha bottles from an old-fashioned, tablelike refrigerator. Patch watched her, then picked up his spoon and began to eat. As usual, the food was fresh, light, and delicious. He’d smashed his thumb laying a brick, so using the spoon required patience. Eating slowly, he thought about what his brother might be doing in Bangkok. He had been surprised to learn that Ryan was planning to bring his girlfriend, Brooke, whom Patch didn’t know. She’d met their parents only once.
Though Patch was a year younger than Ryan, he had more experience with women, was more interested in them. Sports and academics had always come first for Ryan, while women often seemed an afterthought. Patch saw the world from the opposite perspective. To him, relationships were his prize possessions, and forming them was his chief aim in life. Good grades, career success, and other such achievements were of secondary importance.
One of the Italians belched, and Patch glanced in the group’s direction. The sand near their table was already littered with beer bottles. To the west, the setting sun illuminated the bay with the colors of a campfire. The bay was almost empty. Most travelers had left the beach, though a few still swam and tossed a Frisbee.
The beauty surrounding him made Patch think about the inside of a jail cell. He’d waste away in such a place. Though Ryan would certainly be able to endure a year in a Thai prison, Patch knew that he couldn’t. The loneliness of such an existence would suffocate him, as would the knowledge of the humiliation that he’d brought upon his family. Better to roll the dice and gamble on a voyage to India, as outlandish as it seemed. It would be far better for his parents if he stowed away on a ship for a few weeks than if the local newspaper wrote stories about his imprisonment in Thailand.
The Italians called again to Sarai, who appeared in less than a minute. Patch saw her quickly assess the mess that her guests had created. The turquoise tapestry, which he knew she had carefully washed and ironed, was covered with sand. The flowers she’d set in a small vase had been dumped out so that the vase could accommodate cigarette butts.
Patch saw Sarai smile and nod, and he was suddenly aware of her predicament, of how she wouldn’t want her children to see drunk tourists or her efforts to set a pretty table defiled. Yet she had to please her guests, regardless of her dignity.
After finishing his meal, Patch said good night to Suchin and Niran. He left the indoor part of the restaurant and walked toward the beach, kneeling on the sand when he arrived at the Italians’ table. “Hi,” he said, his hands on his thighs.
The smallest of the foursome, who had curly, shoulder-length black hair, nodded. “Hello.”
“Do you mind if I have a smoke?”
The Italian pulled a cigarette from a pack, passing it and a lighter to Patch. “Enjoy.”
Patch lit the cigarette, pretending to smoke. “Thanks a lot.”
“Okay.”
After starting to rise, Patch paused. “Would you do me a favor?”
“What?”
“The woman who keeps bringing you beer. Her name is Sarai. Could you thank her next time? She works really hard. And it would be nice if you thanked her.”
The Italians looked at one another. Their smiles faded, and their bottles remained on the table. Patch thought that they might stand to argue with him. His heartbeat quickened. His cigarette trembled. But instead of rising, a large, bearded Italian nodded. “You are the one who was working on . . . the path?” he asked, his English slow and tentative.
“Yeah. That’s me.”
“You work for her?”
“Just a few odd jobs.”
The stranger took a deep drag on his cigarette. “We will thank her.”
Patch nodded. “Enjoy your night.”
Grunting, the Italian turned away. Still pretending to smoke, Patch started to walk to the beach but remembered the children. Glancing at his cigarette, he headed back into the restaurant and approached their table. He smiled, leaning toward them. “I don’t smoke,” he whispered. “But I had to pretend for a bit. Okay?”
Suchin moved closer to him. “Why are you pretending?”
“I . . . I had to make some friends.”
“With those boys?”
“That’s right. So don’t ever smoke, all right?”
Niran pushed his empty plate aside. “Can you swim with us tomorrow?”
“Sure. Maybe before my brother gets here.”
“Will you introduce us to him?” Suchin asked.
“Of course.”
“Good. We want to meet your big brother.”
Patch smiled. “You do? Why?”
“Because he’s part of your family,” she replied, toying with one of her earrings. “He’s part of you.”
“And we like you,” Niran added.
Suchin let go of her earring. “Want to hear a joke?”
