Fieldwork

by Mischa Berlinski

  When Martiya was ready to go home, she took Khun Vinai aside. She said, "Vinai, you did half of the work up here, I think you should take half of the leftover grant money." At first he refused. But Martiya insisted. "She takes a fifty-baht bill, lights a match, and burns the money," he said. "She is about to burn another bill, when I say okay. I take the money. It is almost twenty-five hundred dollars. That's how I start Hiker Hut."

  Khun Vinai took the pipe from the Opium Man, inhaled, and passed the pipe back. "I owe Martiya everything," he said. "I always tell people that without Martiya, I probably am dead."

  Martiya went home to California, then came back to Thailand. Over the next decade, Martiya and Khun Vinai saw each other frequently. They developed a friendship. When Khun Vinai married, Martiya was present at the wedding feast. Khun Vinai recalled Martiya dancing all night around the bonfire, and then in the morning, because Khun Vinai had no close female relatives in Thailand, he had invited Martiya to participate in the ritual kidnapping of the bride from her family's hut. This Martiya had done with great style, shrieking like a real Dyalo woman as she grabbed Sang-Duan from her bed. Then, when Sang-Duan gave birth to Khun Vinai's first child, a lovely girl, Martiya had been present also at the soul-gathering ceremony, where the child's souls were bound up in her body on the twelfth day of life. It was Martiya who accidentally gave the girl her nickname, when she remarked, innocent of yet another Dyalo taboo, that the girl had kissable lips. Sang-Duan's mother had been horrified by the remark, but Vinai thought Martiya's gaffe hysterical, and the name stuck: the girl was Kiss-My-Lips. A few years later, Khun Vinai's first son was born, and a few years after that, another girl, and Martiya helped gather up the souls of those children as well.

  Khun Vinai paused as we exchanged places. I took up his place in front of the Opium Man, and he took mine, on the floor. The Opium Man set to work preparing my pipe, kneading the black bead of opium between his fingers, melting it over the open flame, then kneading it again. He was a perfectionist. The door of the hut was open, and by the bright light of a full moon I could see the valley in the distance, and silhouettes of palms. I heard the wind passing lightly over the rice fields.

  Khun Vinai first met David Walker at the funeral of Sings Soft, the great poet and singer. People came from every village in northern Thailand and even beyond: nobody seemed to organize anything, but within three days of his death the village was flooded with newcomers, most of whom made camp on the far side of the village, not far from the Old Grandfather shrine. Even David was there. Only Martiya was missing, and Khun Vinai wondered where she might be: Martiya loved Sings Soft as much as anyone.

  The funeral went on all day and all night, Khun Vinai said.

  "We take a water buffalo, and we put a spear in his heart like this. And when he is dead, we pour water down his throat like this, so he make no sound. Because Sings Soft hates ugly sounds. And we say, ‘This is so our friend Sings Soft can eat in the Land of the Dead.' We say, ‘Sings Soft, you are dead. We don't want you anymore. Go to the Land of the Dead.'"

  The villagers washed the water buffalo and covered it with rice from Sings Soft's fields. They made a feast, and all day long they ate and drank rice whiskey. Then, just as dusk was falling, they took a hawk which a young boy had caught in the forest, and released the bird. The bird flew away. The villagers said, "This is so all nine souls of our friend Sings Soft head straight to the Land of the Dead. Bird, take the souls of our friend Sings Soft with you."

  All night long, the villagers drank and sang. Sings Soft had written marriage songs, death songs, funny songs, songs for boys who wanted girls, songs for girls who wanted boys, songs to accompany the hunt for wild pigs in the forest, songs for the harvest of rice—and after each song, someone would sigh softly and say something like, "I remember that song. It was when my youngest sister was married. She's gone to the spirits now, poor thing, but what a lovely song that was!" Then somebody else would sing another.

  Then one man shouted, "David Walker, do you know any of the songs of Sings Soft?"

  David stood up. He said, "My friends, I know no songs from Sings Soft."

  "Then sit down," shouted one drunk man from Big Rock Village. Everyone laughed. "I know a song from Sings Soft," the drunk man said, and proceeded to sing one of Sings Soft's bawdier songs, the story of a young boy who fell in love with a pig.

  Now a Dyalo funeral involves large quantities of rice whiskey and beer, and sometime after moonrise but well before the end of the party, Khun Vinai sat for a minute on one of the big rocks near Old Grandfather's shrine. He wondered just where Sings Soft's souls were at that very moment, whether they had already gone to the place where souls go, or whether they had lingered on to hear the beautiful things the people had to say. Khun Vinai had settled into his thoughts when he heard a rustling in the bush. When he looked up, Martiya was there.

  "Martiya, my friend," he said. "Why aren't you at the soul-saying-goodbye ceremony of our friend?"

  "I have been listening from behind Old Grandfather's shrine," Martiya said.

  "But why haven't you come out into the open and sung a song for Old Grandfather?"

  "Vinai, my friend, you don't know? I am not at the funeral because I have been seeing my gin-kai, and the villagers think that I am unclean."

  Khun Vinai was shocked. "You have been seeing your gin-kai?"

  "Yes."

  "Why?"

  "I couldn't stay away from him."

  "Where did you see him?"

  "In his fields. In his hut."

  "But don't you know that—"

  "Of course I know, Vinai. Lai-Ma told me that if my shadow falls on her fields, the harvest would fail. They're quite scared of me. Some of them wanted to kick me out of the village."

  Khun Vinai didn't know what to say. He had heard stories of other women who had seen their gin-kai, but had never met one. He was frightened now to be on a lonely rock with Martiya. She saw the fear in his eyes and said, "Go back to the funeral."

  Khun Vinai stood up to go. Then he did a very brave thing. He said, "Come to Hiker Hut soon," and Martiya promised that she would.

  When Khun Vinai had returned to the funeral, the villagers were again demanding that David sing a song of Sings Soft, and David was saying all over again that he didn't know any. Then the shaman said, "Our friend Sings Soft was too happy to listen to a song, same as to sing one song himself. Sing a song now for his spirits, before he leaves us."

  And the people said, "Yes, sing."

  And David said, "This is a song of my ancestors for the dead." He sang:

  "I am Wu-pa-sha's bi'na-ma*; there is nothing I want.

  He brings me to sleep in the soft grass of the green rice fields;

  He leds me to the clean water drinking spot.

  He brings me back my lost souls;

  He shows me good customs for his honor.

  Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

  I fear no bad spirits: because You are with me.

  Your ka-beh† comforts me.

  You give too much food to me, even if my enemy comes.

  You rub coconut oil on my head; my cup is too full.

  So every day of my life I will always have good things of Wu-pa-sha

  and I will live in the well-built house of Wu-pa-sha forever."

  People asked David Walker to sing another farang song, and he said no. Then one by one, some still murmuring the songs of Sings Soft,

  *bi'na-ma: water buffalo used for work and milk (but not for food or sacrifice).

  †ka-beh: long wooden pole used by the Dyalo to drive water buffalo.

  others too tired to recall another verse, the drunken villagers fell asleep.

  The next day, a number of the guests asked David about the beautiful farang song, and he spent the day preaching not far from Sings Soft's grave, with the result that three villagers asked to be baptized.

  The Opium Man handed me the pipe, and I smoked again. The smoke was
sweet, with a taste a little like caramel toffee. With every pipe, I felt as if I were gradually rising higher in the air. My breathing was slow and steady. The Walkers had told me that the Dyalo, upon accepting Christianity, were required to stop growing poppies and smoking opium. If Christianity could convince a man to do that, I thought to myself, well then! That's some religion indeed.

  Khun Vinai told me that he didn't see Martiya again for almost a year after Sings Soft's funeral. That was the year that Kiss-My-Lips was sick. One night Sang-Duan woke to hear Kiss-My-Lips groaning and thrashing about, trembling and bleeding from the mouth. This was the first of her seizures. Khun Vinai had a modern outlook on things, and he took her to Chiang Mai for treatment at the hospital, and while the doctors ran their tests, Sang-Duan insisted on pursuing traditional Dyalo remedies—medicinal herbs and shamanic intervention. Whether it was these or the doctors' prescriptions, the seizures stopped, and life settled into its normal rhythms: banana pancakes in the mornings; box lunches for trekkers; and at night, the Happiest Words in All the World.

  Then Martiya came to visit Khun Vinai.

  It was just as Gilles had said: there was something about her eyes. They were wild and unfocused, then distracted and staring. Yet Vinai also said that he had never seen her so beautiful. Her cheeks were pale with a hint of bright pink, and her lips were scarlet like the flame tree.

  Sang-Duan looked at her husband.

  "I cannot turn her away," Khun Vinai whispered to his wife in the kitchen.

  That evening, Sang-Duan served Martiya, and the family ate together from common dishes.

  Khun Vinai had never seen Martiya more charming. She told stories from her childhood which made the children howl with laughter, and her imitations of the villagers were so spot-on that Khun Vinai would have sworn that Farts-a-Lot or the shaman George Washington was right in front of him. Only Sang-Duan was not amused by Martiya, looking at her all night long with the same distrustful stare.

  That night, Kiss-My-Lips suffered another seizure. In the past, her seizures, although terrifying to watch, had passed quickly, after only five minutes or so. But this seizure, it was clear, brought the young girl to the edge of death before she came to. When finally the worst was over, and the girl was sleeping calmly, Sang-Duan turned to her husband.

  "Vinai, you must," she said.

  "How can I?" he asked.

  "You must. I will not live with Rice. Do not bring the anger of Rice into the hut of our children. For I fear Rice, as I fear Lightning, and I fear Death."

  Khun Vinai did not sleep the rest of the night. He watched the sun rise over the hills, then went to Martiya's hut. He found her awake, sitting cross-legged on the terrace, staring out over the fields.

  Martiya saw the look on his face, and said, "And you too, Vinai?"

  "I can't," he said.

  Martiya gathered her bags and went back to Dan Loi village.

  Khun Vinai stood up, and the Opium Man, seeing that his work for the evening was done, followed him. Khun Vinai did not linger at the door. He said, "Goodbye, my friend. We'll talk more tomorrow." Then he and the Opium Man were gone.

  My bed was not particularly comfortable, but I think even on a down mattress with silk sheets I would have lain awake for a long time: insomnia is another of the effects of the drug. I found myself thinking about Martiya alone in that Dyalo village. How must she have occupied her days? How can an anthropologist do fieldwork if she can no longer talk with the people she intends to study? What else was there for Martiya to do in that village?

  Her life, I imagined, had been reduced to her gin-kai. She was alone in the mornings, then she carried water back to her solitary hut. She ate alone. She read all day. Then, on those nights when she wasn't with Hupasha, she must have lowered the wick on her hurricane lamp and climbed into bed not having spoken to a soul since the morning. I thought about Martiya's letter to Tim Blair. She had met a man, she wrote, and was madly in love. Having no one with whom she might share her thoughts, she had decided to write to Tim himself. What she didn't tell Tim Blair was that her lover was all she had.

  I finally fell asleep that night, and I dreamed of Martiya. Opium produces dreams of unusual vividness, and this dream was as real as any event of the daytime. I was in the kitchen of my house in Chiang Mai, making coffee, and Martiya was there also. I have never seen a photograph of the woman, but I knew that it was Martiya. I was excited to talk to her. "You must be Martiya van der Leun," I babbled. "I'm so happy to finally meet you. I've been looking for you everywhere, you have no idea how hard it's been to find you. Would you like a cup of coffee?" Martiya didn't say anything, and I stared at her. Her face was pale, and she was trembling. She was terrified. "It's okay," I said. "Have some coffee and you'll be fine." Then she began to whimper, but I couldn't make out what she was saying. "Just speak up a little," I said. "Please." But she wouldn't speak louder, and when I woke up, the only word that I was sure that I had understood was "Rice."

  THREE

  FAR OFF FROM THE GATES OF GOLD

  THE NEXT DAY, Khun Vinai went back to Chiang Rai, still looking for roofing tiles. I spent the rest of the day in the hammock. I had nothing to do but wait—and watch the hills. By dusk the mountains were gray and the far mountains were indigo, and the farthest mountains just silhouettes. Sunset was a reddish-yellow spectacle, dramatic and fast. Then the night was moonless and almost perfectly dark. I heard bullfrogs in the paddies, and vast choruses of crickets, and the kiss-me birds croaked their mechanical whoo-tuk-tuk, whoo-tuk-tuk. It was dinnertime, but I wasn't hungry. Khun Vinai's truck drove up, and later, from the lodge, I heard voices, and a television. Then I saw a yellow light swinging back and forth. The light wandered from the porch of the lodge toward the car shed, then arced back up the side of the hill. Then the light came closer and I realized it was Khun Vinai, carrying a flashlight. When he got to the hammock, he sat down on a small chair just behind my head. He turned off the flashlight, and we sat for a long time in darkness.

  After her arrest but before trial, Khun Vinai said, Martiya's visitors were limited exclusively to her lawyer, her family, and representatives of the American consulate. The pretrial detention lasted for almost two years. Then, after her conviction, Martiya, like all new prisoners, was forbidden guests for another year. So it was almost three years before Khun Vinai was allowed to see her.

  Josh O'Connor would visit Martiya a decade later at the new prison just past the ring road. But the old prison, where Khun Vinai saw Martiya, was an altogether tougher place: Khun Vinai had never been in prison himself, but he knew women who had, and they talked about crowded cells, sometimes filled with upwards of fifty or sixty women, cells so small that the inmates were forced to sleep on the floor in shifts. The toilet was just an open trough along the far wall. The women cooked for themselves over a kerosene stove in the corner, and daily life was a constant battle against fleas, cockroaches, lice, and rats.

  On the first day that he was allowed to see her, Khun Vinai went down to Chiang Mai. The prisoners entered the visiting room on their knees. It took Vinai a second to recognize Martiya, although she was the only farang: the prison authorities required that the women shave their heads for the first five years of their incarceration. She was "thin as a snake," Khun Vinai said, and her face was lined. She had very large ears. She recognized Khun Vinai, however, and her face flushed. She crawled in his direction, and as she crawled, she began to cry. Then she arrived at the table and lifted herself up on the stool, carefully keeping her head below his.

  "Vinai," she said, after a moment. "Oh, Vinai."

  Khun Vinai forced himself to smile. He had no idea at all what to say.

  "Vinai, it's not your fault."

  "No," he agreed.

  "It's just that when they said there was a Dyalo man, I thought you were … I thought he had come."

  Vinai didn't understand. "Who?" he said.

  "Hupasha."

  Vinai let her cry. He wasn't offended. The Dyalo ha
ve no taboo on staring, and he examined her strange, bony skull; her pale, thin face; her ruined hands. Only her eyes were familiar: when Martiya eventually wiped aside the last of her tears, her light blue eyes met Vinai's. No Dyalo woman in a Thai prison would have met Khun Vinai's gaze so fully.

  Sang-Duan had prepared a box of food for Martiya, and Vinai was glad for the distraction. "This is for you," he said.

  Martiya accepted the gift gravely. She examined the fresh mangoes, the bananas, the bag of mountain rice, and the six-pack of Coca-Cola. "These will be wonderful," she said. "Thank you."

  Martiya was no longer crying. She even smiled, and there was something protective about her smile, as if Khun Vinai had just come out of the prison cell on his knees. The two sat without talking, neither knowing just where to begin.

  "How are your kids?" Martiya finally asked.

  Khun Vinai seized on the topic gratefully. "They're fine," he said. "My little son, he loves elephants too much. The other day …"—and as Khun Vinai talked, Martiya grew increasingly agitated. She began to shift her weight from side to side and to nod her shaven head. The corners of her eyes narrowed. Then she interrupted him. She leaned forward and laid her pale hands on his forearm.

  "Vinai, tell me—is Rice happy in Dan Loi village?" she said.

  "Rice is happy in Dan Loi village," he said.

  "And the people still make dyal?"

  "Yes," he said. "They still make dyal."

  She closed her eyes and exhaled. Her shoulders slumped. "Good," she said. She relaxed. She sat without moving. She didn't look at Vinai. They sat in silence for a few minutes. More than once, Khun Vinai started to speak—and then checked himself. Martiya didn't move.

  Twice in my life I have seen a ghost.

  The first time was in South India, in the holy city of Gokarna. Every morning I took my chai at a stall near the temple, where I exchanged smiles with the same gentleman, a gray-haired man in a loincloth. Once I mentioned this elderly figure to the chai-wallah. He asked me to describe him, and when I was done he roared with laughter. That man had been dead some twenty years. I thought that perhaps the chai-wallah was only teasing me, but others in the village confirmed what he had said.