To her right is a long line of brilliantly lighted booths, rich with the saturated dyes of new clothing that's never faded, never even been washed; paintings on black cloth of impossibly clean villages, full of colors where, in a real village, there would be only the leached-out, sun-bled browns and grays of old wood; big wooden frames surrounding enormous scorpions and spiders pressed into white cotton beneath glass (for whom?); and then-gleaming directly at her, as though they've seen her coming-wristwatches, dozens of them, enough wristwatches for her whole village, with a handful left over. Kwan lags, drawn by the glitter, but Nana reaches back and grabs her arm, zigging left at the same time to avoid three men walking side by side yet towing Kwan directly into their path.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," says one of them, a distinguished-looking man with gray hair, maybe as old as Mr. Pattison. "Fresh fruit. And a big one."
"Virgin girl," Nana says without slowing. "Five hundred dollar."
"I'll go second," the distinguished-looking man says. Seen up close, he's not so distinguished; his lower eyelids have sagged to reveal strips of wet pink flesh, and his nose is a web of spidery red veins. "Get a discount." He reaches for Kwan's hand, but she snatches it away and grabs Nana, practically jumping into her arms, and the man laughs. "Bunny rabbit," he says to one of the other men. "Look at her, scared as shit." To Kwan he says, "Hey, Basketball, which bar?"
"Candy Cane," Nana says, not even turning her head. "Come two day, three day more."
"What's her name?" the man calls after them.
"Not have name yet," Nana says. "Maybe Basketball." And she drags Kwan away from the men, threading through the crowd as though it were a dance she's practiced a thousand times.
Above them are big colored signs like the ones Kwan had seen from the train, but she sounds out the words and reads QUEEN'S CASTLE, KING'S CASTLE, SUPERGIRLS, LAP BAR. Neon silhouettes of naked girls blink hot pink and blue.
"Nana," she says.
"Not now. Just come on."
"But look. They're naked."
"That's upstairs. Don't worry, you're not going to be upstairs."
"Really naked?"
"Don't think about it. You'll never have to do it, unless you want to."
"Want to?"
"More money. But not enough more. Okay, we're here. Come on." And beneath a red-and-white sign that says CANDY CANE BAR, she turns in. Two girls in Santa hats and schoolgirl outfits, but with very short skirts that barely cover the bottoms of their panties, squeal at Nana and hug her as though they haven't seen her in a year, and then they turn to Kwan and their eyes go flat, like someone looking at an abacus and thinking about a number.
"New?" one of them says.
"We'll see," Nana says, and one of the overage schoolgirls does a final appraisal of Kwan that makes her feel like she's being checked for dents and scratches, then pulls aside a cloth hanging over the door. A wall of cold air rolls over Kwan, and then there's a shove in the center of her back, and she's inside.
The music is so loud she wants to put her fingers in her ears, but she almost stops hearing it as she looks around the room. It's long and narrow, with colored lights flashing on and off all over the ceiling. Men are packed onto benches along the walls, and more men perch on uncomfortable-looking stools at a bar that goes around the stage. In the narrow space between the bar and the edge of the stage, women busily mix and pour drinks, but Kwan barely sees them.
What she sees are the dancing girls.
There are twenty or more, two lines of them, back-to-back so that one line faces each wall. They wear knee-high boots in red-and-white, diagonally striped leather or plastic and very, very short red pants that are cut so far below the navel that Kwan thinks some of them must be shaving down there. Above the shorts is a red-and-white-striped halter top, just big enough to cover the breasts, with a single big button in the center. Some of the girls have their tops unbuttoned, but there's a string or a little chain connecting the two halves so the top doesn't fall all the way open. Eight or ten metal poles, evenly spaced, sprout at intervals around the stage, and the girls tend to congregate around these, hanging on to one or wrapping a lazy elbow around it as they do whatever dance steps come to them, although mostly they just shuffle from foot to foot. Only one pole is the exclusive property of a single dancer, and that's the pole closest to the door. Most of the women look beautiful to Kwan, but the girl dancing all alone there is the single most beautiful human being Kwan has ever seen in her life: hair to midback, perfect legs, a plump and sullen mouth, skin that shines as though it's been dusted with pearl, and enormous, slightly tilted eyes of a peculiar, dark-golden color.
Some of the women are checking out the men, picking one here and there from the crowd and smiling at him, moving on if there's no response. A few watch themselves in the mirrored walls as though they've never seen their reflections before. Others stare at their own feet or carry on conversations with the girls nearest them.
Partway down the line, one of the dancers spots Kwan and does a double take, then grabs the arm of the girl next to her and twists her toward Kwan. That girl nudges the girl next to her, and gradually the ripple works its way the full length of the stage, and all the girls are staring at Kwan, and then one of them starts to laugh. She lets go of the pole and lifts one hand way above her head, going on tiptoe and even jumping a few inches, then bends forward, laughing, and then most of them are laughing as Kwan stands there, her face burning. But the girl alone at the front pole doesn't laugh, doesn't even look at Kwan.
She just keeps her eyes on the cloth hanging over the door. THE REST of the evening is a series of disconnected moments. A severe-looking, slump-shouldered woman in her fifties, aggressively plain-faced, her hair pulled back so tightly it looks like it must hurt, bustles up, people stepping out of her way as she comes, and leans back to look at Kwan. She does something with her mouth that looks as if she's sucking her teeth and says a few words that Kwan can't hear over the music. Nana shakes her head and then circles Kwan's face with her hand, brushing fingertips over her cheekbones and jawline as though she has a powder puff in her hand, then uses her index and middle fingers to make snipping motions around Kwan's hair.
A couple of the girls on the stage imitate the snipping, and one of them pretends she's got an ax and is chopping Kwan down. Girls clap their hands once or twice and laugh. The beautiful girl in front pays no attention to any of it.
The severe-looking woman stares up at Kwan for a long minute or two and then shrugs some sort of acceptance. Nana taps Kwan's arm as though to say, Stay here, and she and the severe-looking woman disappear into the rear of the bar. Kwan stands there, using every fiber of her will to keep from bursting into tears. She presses her back against the wall, holding her arms tightly at her sides, taking up as little space as possible, trying to be invisible. But she can feel eyes on her, and not just the girls'. Around the room men have turned to regard her. Some of them have girls sitting beside them, and those girls tug at the men's arms and toss sharp-edged glances at Kwan, not the glances of people who are eager to be friends. Kwan looks down at the floor.
A chubby girl in the stage uniform of boots and shorts goes out of her way to bang into Kwan, hard, with her shoulder and says, "Oh, excuse me," and some of the girls on the stage start laughing again.
The room seems to shimmer and lose its focus, and Kwan is back at school, facing yet another bully eager to humiliate the tall girl. She knows she has to bring this to an immediate stop, no matter what Nana would say. She steps away from the wall and says, "You did that on purpose."
The chubby girl puts her hands on her hips and says, "Really?"
Kwan brings up one hand, fingers curled and nails pointing directly at the girl's eyes. "Do it again and you'll have bandages all over your fat face."
The girl in the boots backs up a quick step, and the laughter on the stage stops. Kwan looks up and sees every woman onstage staring at her. Some look surprised, some look amused. A few seem angry. The beautif
ul girl, the one dancing alone right in front of her, turns the enormous golden eyes to Kwan and gives her the smallest smile Kwan has ever seen, more the idea of a smile than the thing itself. Then she returns her attention to the cloth hanging over the door.
A moment later Nana and the mama-san are back. Nana has an envelope in her hand, which she tucks behind her when she sees Kwan looking at it. Trailing after them is a short, cute girl dressed for the stage. "You're set," Nana says. "You'll start serving drinks tonight. Fon here"-she indicates the cute girl, who has a face like a child's doll, with plump cheeks and a tiny nose-"Fon will take care of you. Just do what she tells you to."
"But you- I mean, where are you going?"
"My bar." She glances at her wrist and remembers she's no longer wearing the watch, so she lifts Kwan's wrist and peers at it. "I've got to get to work."
"You said I'd be in your bar. When we were talking, you told me-"
"I don't think so," Nana says. "I'm at the King's Castle. Nobody starts out at the King's Castle. Only the best girls work there."
"But you said-"
"We're on the same street, that's what I said. Got to go. Listen to Fon, okay? Glad you're here." She reaches up and pats Kwan on the cheek. "We'll eat dinner together sometime." Nana turns away from Kwan and obviously remembers the envelope she's hiding behind her, because she shoves it into the waistband of her skirt. She pushes aside the curtain over the doorway and is taken by the current of the sidewalk. A second later she has disappeared. The curtain flaps closed.
"What are you waiting for?" Fon says, and Kwan turns, but Fon is talking to the plump girl who bumped her. "Go find a lap. Drool on somebody. Do whatever you want, but do it somewhere else."
The plump girl glares at Kwan for a second, as though Kwan is the one who's spoken, then lifts her chin abruptly, an angry, jerky motion, and whirls to go. Fon reaches out, index finger extended, and jams it between the plump girl's buttocks. The girl jumps and squeals but keeps moving.
Then Fon turns to Kwan and smiles. "Good," she says. "You've made the right enemy."
Chapter 13
The Best-Looking Cut of Meat
For a week or ten days, the city pushes at her. It ambushes her, surrounds her, presses in on her everywhere she goes, not just people but smells and sounds, the never-ending clamor of engines and horns and brakes and voices, the smells of exhaust and food vendors, the pressure of heat reflecting from the buildings, the brush of people passing too closely in the street, and the eyes of people-thousands of them each day, it seems-looking at her. If they're Thai, there's always the moment of surprise and then the amused smile and the turning head as Kwan passes. If they're men-farang men, that is-the eyes are speculative, the eyes of someone considering a purchase.
When she thinks about her village, what she sees is the barren, abandoned patch where she dug up her treasure, the one spot where she could be alone. She's literally never alone here. The only time she doesn't feel surrounded is in the mornings, and even then she's not really alone, because there are women sleeping nearby.
And they sleep most of the day, which isn't surprising, considering what time they go to bed. Nobody heads straight home after the bar closes. The women who haven't been chosen by a man, or who went for an early short-time and came back, cluster together at 2:00 A.M. and escape to the late-night clubs, discos, and bars. They're known, often by name, and they seem to be welcome everywhere.
This might, Kwan thinks, have something to do with the enormous amounts of money they spend-enough in a single night to keep a village family alive for a month. The endless stream of talk, rising and falling across the long nighttime hours, is fueled by alcohol, since some of the girls drink too much. Everybody seems to smoke all the time. They drink and smoke and chatter, and although they've just spent eight hours at the Candy Cane, they gossip endlessly about the bar, about who's got a farang boyfriend who gives her money all the time, and who's got a Thai boyfriend who takes her money all the time, and who got slapped around by a customer, and who got slapped around by her boyfriend, and who's a bitch and who's a prude and who would go to a hotel room with a dog if dogs could rent hotel rooms, and how the mama-san plays favorites, and how the bar cheats on drink commissions. In between talking to one another, they shout into their cell phones with other people who seem to be up all night.
It's immediately apparent to Kwan that the girls have turned the bar into a village, with groups that dislike each other. They've separated into two main camps, as wary of each other as the two packs of dogs that roamed opposite sides of the street in front of her house. Fon's group is the smaller but more tightly knit of the two. The members of the other gang, which includes the plump girl who bumped Kwan, are generally less attractive than Fon's bunch, although that doesn't seem to mean they get taken out of the bar less often. In fact, the plump girl, who isn't pretty even by the standards of Kwan's village, goes with more men than almost anyone. When Kwan asks Fon about that, Fon says, with uncharacteristic sourness, "If you'll do absolutely anything, there will always be someone who wants it."
Then there are the remaining girls-three or four of them-who aren't members of either group, who keep to themselves or go back and forth, crossing the invisible divide as though it didn't exist. One of the women who seems to be close to no one is Oom, the beautiful girl who's always at the pole nearest the door when her shift is on the stage. The dancers are split into two shifts that alternate all evening, each dancing for about twenty minutes until the disc jockey calls for the change, when the women in the idle shift get up off the laps of the men they've been working on and shuffle back to the stage to replace the women who are climbing down to try to snare the same men. The most beautiful girl in each shift takes the pole nearest the door. Fon calls those two girls "chicken feed," like the line of seed you lay down in a village to lure the poultry into the coop.
Oom doesn't seem to be friends with any of the girls, and she barely notices the customers. When she's not dancing, she sits alone in the back room where the girls change into their show clothes. Ten minutes after Kwan began serving drinks on her first night, a customer waved her over and pointed to Oom and said he wanted to buy her a drink. Kwan stood in front of Oom at the foot of the stage, but Oom kept her eyes on the curtain over the doorway until Fon raised her arms and waved them back and forth. When Oom's shift left the stage, she went and sat with the customer just long enough to drink one Coke, quickly, and then she got up and went into the back room. Kwan has seen her do it a dozen times.
"She's waiting for someone," Fon says. "He comes back every three or four months, and he's a little late. She's crazy. Any girl who waits for anyone is crazy, but especially a girl who looks like her. For all she knows, he's been in Bangkok for weeks and he's with a girl from the bar next door."
After the Candy Cane closed on Kwan's third night in Bangkok, she and Fon and half a dozen others went to a bar full of handsome waiters, and, to her amazement, one of the girls paid one of the waiters to go home with her. The next night they chose a dim, tiny place where women who were dressed like men waited on them and flirted with them. Two of the women in male clothing, whom the Candy Cane girls referred to as "tom-toms," made a special fuss over Kwan, and when one of them brushed her fingers lightly down the side of Kwan's neck, Kwan was so startled that she knocked over the drink of the girl sitting next to her. Everyone laughed, but some of the girls didn't look happy about the amount of attention Kwan was getting. However they felt about her, though, Kwan had no choice but to tag along. No one had yet given her a key to the rooms Fon shared with two other girls, where Fon assigned her a sagging, too-short couch on the first night and gave her a blanket and pillow from her own bed. So Kwan goes where she's led, trying to remain unnoticed, lagging behind the group. By the time she follows them through the door into their rooms, she's so tired she feels like a ghost, and it's usually almost dawn.
Everyone except Kwan sleeps until 2:00 or 3:00 in the afternoon, but in these firs
t weeks Kwan still pops awake on village-girl time, at 7:00 or 8:00 A.M. Each morning she wiggles a little deeper into the cushions of the couch, which is much softer than the rag mat she slept on at home, and tries to sort out everything that's happening to her. In front of the couch, where she barks her shins on it occasionally, is a three-legged table with a stack of beauty and fashion magazines holding up the legless corner. After a few minutes, when she knows that sleep will not reclaim her, she gets up, taking her blanket, and opens the curtains over the room's one window-the other girls grumbling at the light and then dropping back into sleep-and then she sits in the patch of sunlight on the floor. Some mornings she eases out one of the beauty magazines from the stack holding up the table and looks at the wonderful girls, but most of the time she leaves the magazines where they are. As the patch of sunlight moves, she moves with it, the blanket draped loosely over her shoulders, bathing herself in the warmth and the silence. In her hand she holds the stone she picked up the day she left the village. It takes a long time, but eventually it becomes as warm as her hand. "OLD ONES," FON is saying, sounding like a schoolteacher. "Not too old, but old. In their fifties or so. Not handsome. Stay away from handsome men." She makes the face of someone who's bitten her tongue. "Let the other girls have them."
"Why? Nana said-"
Fon shakes her head. "Nana's not as smart as she thinks she is. Nobody's as smart as Nana thinks she is. Because the old ones have money. They're more grateful. They're easy to please, like little dogs. Treat them nicely and they'll come back and come back. That's good, because there's always some risk-not much, but some-when you go with a new one, and if you're extra sweet, the old guys will usually give you a present when they leave. One guy named Martin, from Switzerland, or maybe Sweden or Brazil, gave me ten thousand baht the night before he went home."
"Ten thousand?"
Fon shrugs as though it were snack money. "I made him feel young. I told him he was handsome. The problem with the handsome ones is that they really are handsome." She puts a cigarette between her lips. It looks so out of place in her baby-doll's face that Kwan laughed the first time she saw Fon light up. "They feel like you should pay them," Fon says around the cigarette. "They're cheap. And they're young, too, which means they can go for longer, maybe two or three times. Thanks anyway, once is fine with me. But the big reason is the money. The money's with the old guys. But not too old, because they take a long time, too." She laughs. "Different reason, though."
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