Private Dancer

by Stephen Leather

  Inside half a dozen young men were sprawled on plastic sofas watching a flickering portable television. They didn't seem in the least bit interested in our arrival. The ground floor consisted of one large room with an old dresser against one wall and wooden chairs scattered along the length of another. There was a poster of the King and Queen of Thailand on the wall behind the television, and hanging next to it a garland of yellow and red flowers.

  ‘This is typical of this part of Thailand,’ said Bruno. ‘The girls are the wage-earners, the men spend most of their time watching television and drinking. The girls are brought up in this environment and assume that it is normal behaviour.’ He nodded over at Sunan and Mon. ‘Mon is the oldest so she presumably started work first. Then she'll have encouraged Sunan to join her, and then Joy. The men live off the girls' money, the girls in turn get a feeling of worth by providing for their families.’

  Joy came out of the house and sat down next to me. ‘What you think about my house?’ she asked.

  ‘It's nice.’

  ‘You want see my bedroom?’

  ‘Sure.’

  She took me inside. It was gloomy and smelled damp. To the left of the living room was a door that led to a small kitchen. Plastic bags of foodstuffs were hanging from nails, presumably to keep them away from insects. There was an old stove connected to a gas cylinder. It was caked with dirt and grease, as were the two woks that lay on the floor next to it.

  Joy led me up a flight of wooden stairs. Leading off a short hallway were three rooms. Joy's contained a three-drawer cupboard and a rack of clothes which was covered with a sheet of polythene. In the corner were two rolled-up sleeping mats. There were two posters on the wall, one of the present King of Thailand and one of King Rama IV. Joy stood in the middle of the room, watching to see how I'd react.

  ‘It's pretty,’ I said, and she beamed.

  ‘Really? You like?’

  ‘Sure.’ I nodded at the sleeping mats. ‘Who sleeps here with you?’

  ‘Mon.’

  ‘And no mosquito nets? Don't you get bitten?’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  I couldn't believe how primitive the place was. The floorboards were warped with big gaps between them, and bare lightbulbs hung from the ceiling. What little furniture there was in the house was as shabby as the building itself. Home repairs and decoration clearly didn't rate very highly on the family's list of priorities. It was as if they didn't care about their surroundings. It certainly wasn't a matter of not having the time or manpower - there were six men downstairs watching television at four o'clock in the afternoon.

  Joy took a step forward and kissed me softly on the cheek. ‘Thank you for coming to my house, Pete,’ she said. ‘Chan rak khun.’ I love you. ‘I sorry my father not here to see you. He want see you very much.’ Joy explained that her father was away working and wouldn't be back until later that night. Mon disappeared into the kitchen and after half an hour reappeared with bowls of Thai noodles which we ate outside. One of Joy's brothers brought out a bottle of Thai whisky and a large bottle of Coke.

  We still had a long drive back to Bangkok so we didn't stay long. Before we left I saw Joy slip Mon a handful of banknotes. It was the money I'd given her, pretty much all of it. I took lots of photographs of Joy and her sisters and her house.

  I did all the driving on the way home because Pam's eye had got worse. Joy sat behind me, stroking the back of my neck as she talked to Pam. It was a good trip. I learnt a lot about Isarn, and I learnt a lot about Joy, too.

  From COOKING ACROSS SOUTH-EAST ASIA Edited by PETE RAYMOND

  THAI FRIED NOODLES

  10 ounces of rice vermicelli, soaked in water for fifteen minutes

  4 ounces peeled uncooked prawns, chopped

  4 ounces tofu, cubed

  2 eggs, beaten

  4 ounces beansprouts

  2 tablespoons vegetable oil

  3 cloves of garlic, chopped

  2 tablespoons fish sauce

  2 tablespoons lemon juice

  4 shallots, sliced

  1 teaspoon brown sugar

  1 ounce chopped peanuts

  2 tablespoons chopped fresh coriander

  Heat the vegetable oil in a wok, add the garlic and shallots and cook until golden. Add the fish sauce, lemon juice and sugar and stir until the sugar has dissolved. Add the eggs and cook for a few seconds, then stir in the noodles and coat with the egg and garlic mixture.

  Add the prawns, tofu and beansprouts and cook until the noodles are tender. Add the peanuts and cook for one more minute, then transfer to a warm serving dish and garnish with coriander and chopped peanuts.

  BRUNO

  I enjoyed Pete's company during our drive around Isarn. He was a good listener and an intelligent conversationalist, something one doesn't often come across in Thailand. Joy was a pretty enough girl, a bit coarse I thought, but she had lovely hair and a nice figure. As soon as she opened her mouth I could tell she was from Isarn. She was polite enough, but there was a roughness about the way she spoke. In many ways she reminded me of Pam when I first met her some twenty years ago. Pam has put on a lot of weight since then, of course, but she's still a good-looking woman. They got on very well together, Pam and Joy, chatting away as if they'd known each other for years. That's often the way it is with Thais, especially when they come from the same part of the country.

  Pete obviously likes the girl, and I can understand why. She was very attentive, very affectionate, but it was interesting to hear what she was saying to Pam. Joy kept on talking about all the things Pete had given her, the clothes, the jewellery, the presents. She said he appeared to have a lot of money and that he was very generous. And she said ‘khao long rak chan’, he fancies me, several times. It was the typical attitude of a bargirl, seeing the customer as a source of financial rather than emotional support, but I really think that Pete believed the relationship involves more than that.

  When I got back to Bangkok I sent Pete several papers I'd written, including one that I thought might be helpful to him – ‘Cross-Cultural Complications of Prostitution in Thailand.’ He never mentioned it so maybe he didn't read it, but if he had I think it might have set alarm bells ringing.

  It's virtually impossible to have a true Western-style relationship with these girls. Take Pam, for instance. She doesn't love me, not in the Western sense, and I'm reasonably sure that she has a Thai husband or boyfriend who stays away while I'm in Thailand. After all, I'm only here for three months a year, six if I can arrange a sabbatical, I can hardly expect her to be celibate for the rest of the time. She'd had three children by the time I met her. Pam's husband had gone off with another woman and she worked in the bars to support her family. Now I take care of her, and she's a great help to me in my work, but the relationship is not love. It's more like a friendship with sex.

  Do I love her? Of course not. I love my wife in Germany. She's the mother of my children, and family is very important to us Germans. Thai women can be great fun if they are handled properly, but I fear that Pete will have a problem if he tries to make Joy conform to his Western ideal of a relationship.

  I must say I found the three sisters a fascinating case study and I wished that I could have spent more time with them. I'd like to do a paper analysing the Western perception of the morality of the situation. An initial perspective from an outsider would be that the three sisters were somehow morally deficient, selling their bodies to foreigners, dancing naked in a go-go bar, surrounded by all the worst vices, smoking, alcohol, drugs. One might be surprised that they could behave in such a manner without attracting the scorn and derision of the rest of the family. And yet, a closer examination would show that the male members of the family were more than happy to take advantage of the situation. The money provided by the girls allows them to live a life of relative luxury. So who is in the morally superior position? The prostitutes or the family members who live off them? I think it would be a fascinating study. It would also be interesting t
o contrast the Western perspective of morality with that of the Thais. From a Western point of view, the girls would appear to be morally deficient, but so far as the sisters are concerned, by helping their families they are storing up merit which will lead to them gaining status in a future life. Far from doing anything wrong, they see themselves as occupying the moral high ground when compared with the farangs to whom they sell themselves. Once I have the time, I intend to do more research on the subject.

  PETE

  There was a definite change in Joy after the Isarn trip. She began telephoning me at the hotel, sometimes two or three times a day, and she became more protective whenever I was in Zombie. I'd offer to buy her drinks but she'd refuse and tell me to save my money. I still had to pay her bar fine, and I still gave her money whenever we slept together, but she seemed reluctant to take it, as if it were a reminder that we still had a bargirl-customer relationship. The crazy thing was, I was actually faithful to her. I hadn't bar fined anyone else for months and it wasn't because I was frightened of Joy finding out. It was because I didn't want to. Nana Plaza was full of gorgeous, available girls, but I honestly wasn't interested in any of them. Joy was the only one I wanted. Whenever I went out shopping, I was always looking for things to buy her. A handbag. Shirts. I always wore a Mickey Mouse watch and I found a lady's version that looked similar, and she wore it all the time. ‘You and me same Mickey and Minnie,’ she'd say, and giggle.

  So why didn't I just go the whole hog and ask her to move in with me? Because there were still nagging doubts. Small things, sure, but I never had the feeling that she was being one hundred per cent honest with me. She still wouldn't let me see her room, kept insisting that it was dangerous, even though I'd said that I'd go during the day. And a couple of times she hadn't been in Zombie when I'd popped in. Her friends had said it was her day off. I asked her why she didn't tell me when she had a day off because then we could go out without me having to bar fine her, and she said that she never knew in advance when her day off was. That didn't make sense to me. I asked her to call me next time she knew she was taking the day off but she never did. And sometimes, when we were with a group of girls, I got the feeling she was talking about me. My Thai was getting better, but most of Joy's friends were from Isarn and they spoke a dialect that I couldn't follow, sort of a cross between Lao and Thai. The girls would laugh and look at me and I'd ask Joy what they were saying and she'd say something innocuous but it never sounded convincing. Like I said, it was just a feeling.

  There was one incident that really worried me, though. She had a red wallet in which she kept her money and her ID card. There were also a couple of photographs of the two of us. I was always proud of the fact that she had the pictures, I guess because it showed that I was special. Once, when I picked up the wallet, she went crazy, trying to get it away from me. When I opened it, the photographs weren't there. There was a photograph of a Thai man instead, in his twenties and wearing a baseball cap. I was annoyed and stormed out of the bar. I calmed down after an hour or so and went back. Joy wasn't there. Her friend Apple came over and said that Joy had started crying and had gone home.

  Joy telephoned me the following day and said that she'd switched the pictures to see how I'd react. I asked her who the guy in the picture was and she said it was the brother of one of the dancers and that he was a lady boy. A lady boy isn't the same as a katoey - a lady boy hasn't had a sex change and doesn't dress like a girl - but they talk and act girlishly and sometimes wear make up. The guy in the picture hadn't looked like a lady boy to me. I asked her where she'd got the picture from and she said her friend gave it to her before I went to the bar.

  You see, I know that was a lie. A definite, undeniable, lie. Quite often, when Joy and I went to a short-time hotel, I'd go through her bag while she was in the shower. I'm not particularly proud of it, but I told myself I was doing it because I loved her, because I wanted to know if she really loved me. What was I looking for? Money, partly. I knew that if I found a thousand baht note that she'd been short time. Business cards that other farangs had given her. If I found any, I'd throw them away. Once, during the first few weeks when I'd been seeing her, I found a fifty dollar bill in her purse. I felt like shit when I found it, but at least I knew what she was up to. Sometimes there'd be a condom in the bag and that made me feel even worse, but at least I knew that she was taking precautions and in a crazy way that made me feel better. Usually though, all I'd find would be a small amount of money, her ID card and cards I'd given her with my address in London and the hotel in Soi 4.

  Anyway, the week before we went to Isarn, I found two photographs in her wallet, tucked in behind her money. They were both the same, the guy in the baseball cap. So when she said she'd only just been given the picture, I knew she was lying. I confronted her, too. And she denied it, right down the line, until in the end I was almost convinced that I'd imagined it. Almost, but not quite. It was the same photograph. I couldn't understand why she'd lie. I mean, she was a bargirl, if she wanted someone else, all she had to do was to tell me. Why lie?

  Anyway, about a week after we got back, I took her to the karaoke bar with two of her friends. I had to pay bar fines for all three, but I knew that Joy enjoyed herself more if we went as a group and they could take it in turns to sing. I ordered food and we all drank beer. When one of the other girls was singing, Joy leaned over and kissed me on the neck.

  ‘Pete, I love you too much,’ she said. ‘I not go with farang any more. Only you, Pete.’

  I asked her what she meant. She told me that she'd decided that she wasn't going to allow anyone else to pay her bar fine. ‘If anyone ask, I tell them I have you,’ she said solemnly.

  I was surprised. Really surprised. I'd never asked her to stop working, I didn't think I had the right.

  ‘I serious, Pete,’ she said. ‘Now I have you, only one.’

  ALISTAIR

  Pete's appointment was one of the best I've made. He was working hard, much harder than Lawrence even before Lawrence had gone native. The stuff he did on Isarn was brilliant. He's got a real flair for writing but what really impressed me was his insight into Thai culture and customs. Considering he'd only been in Thailand for a couple of months, I think he'd developed an amazing understanding of what made the people tick. His copy was peppered with tidbits of information that was totally new to me, and I've been in South East Asia for the best part of ten years. He was prolific, too, and had totally revised the section on the Isarn region. I sent him a congratulatory memo and suggested to head office that we increase his Christmas bonus.

  He was so far ahead of schedule on the Thailand book that I asked him to spend a month with me in Hong Kong to help me update the regional backpacker’s guide. The information I had on Macau, South Korea and Taiwan had come from stringers the company uses and frankly it wasn't up to the standard of the rest of the book. I figured that Pete could work his magic on the copy, plus he could help me with the selection of pictures and maps. When I asked him he was reluctant at first, saying that he still had a lot of work to do on his own book, but I offered him a business class ticket and told him about the bonus I was pressing for and after a bit of arm twisting he agreed to come out for three weeks.

  PETE

  I really didn't want to go to Hong Kong. I actually felt that Alistair was taking advantage of me. I guess I was a victim of my own success: if I hadn't worked so hard on the Thailand book, he wouldn't have asked me to bail him out. It wasn't my fault his stringers had let him down, but I was going to suffer for it. He practically blackmailed me into agreeing to go, telling me that he was sending a memo to head office recommending a big bonus. The unspoken threat was that if I didn't do what he wanted, a second memo could be winging its way to Australia. He wanted me to go for a month but I managed to get him down to three weeks. And he said that I could stay with him but that he'd sign off a daily hotel rate so I'd make a stack of money on the job.

  Joy was really unhappy that I was going. She gri
pped my arm when I told her as if she were scared that I was going there and then. ‘You sure you come back, Pete?’ she said.

  Her anxiety was so cute. I assured her that I'd be back and told her that I'd phone and write as often as I could.

  ‘I write to you too, Pete. Every day. I miss you too much.’ I gave her Alistair's address and telephone number.

  That night I paid bar fine and we went to our favourite German restaurant in Soi 4. Afterwards I took her back to the Dynasty Hotel. It was the first time I'd taken her back to my hotel, and I could see she was pleased. She stayed all night and in the morning I gave her five thousand baht and told her I'd see her in three weeks and that I wanted her to be a good girl.

  ‘Of course, Pete,’ she said, looking shocked. ‘What you think? I have you, only one.’

  On the day I left, she went to the airport with me, and there were tears in her eyes when I kissed her goodbye. I gave her five thousand baht and she promised to write every day.

  JOY

  Five thousand baht? How was I supposed to live for three weeks on five thousand baht? I didn't say anything to Pete but I didn't wai him. Five thousand baht? I couldn't understand why he was being so stingy. He asked me to write to him every day and to phone him. Phone him? He's no idea how expensive it is to phone abroad. And I had to pay another monthly installment on my motorcycle, so that was five thousand baht right there. I'd promised him not to go with any other farangs, didn't he understand that he'd have to take care of me? Sometimes farangs can be so stupid. But Pete should know better, he's lived in Bangkok for months and he's writing a book about Thailand so he must know the way things are. What does he think? That I should stop going with farangs and live on rice and water?