A long time ago, back when Thailand was known as the Kingdom of Siam, Ayutthaya, not Bangkok, was its capital city. There were luxurious palaces and beautiful temples and ornate houses. There were many kings. The kings had many visitors. People came from Europe, from China and from Portugal. The people looked at Ayutthaya and said, “This is good.” The kings looked at the people and said, “Isn't it, now?”
Then the Burmese saw the palaces and the kings and the people and wanted it for themselves. There was a war. The Burmese lost. This made them very upset. They decided to have another war. This time, the Burmese succeeded in burning the palaces, the temples, and the houses. The visitors said “uh oh,” and went back to their lands. The reigning prince said “uh oh,” and was taken back to Burma as a slave.
Less than a year later, the men and women of Thailand drove the Burmese back to Burma. The Thai were very upset. Their capital was in ruins. The people took what they could and moved eighty kilometers south to build a new capital. Ayutthaya sat like a footprint in the dirt that slowly fills with rain. Ghosts roamed the streets. The jungle moved in. Years and years and years and someone finally remembered that there was something grand and glorious there. He took hold of a shovel and began to dig. What he found underneath the dust and vines was the skeleton of a once great city, beautiful in the way tragedy is sometimes beautiful.
End of history lesson.
Monty and I arrived in Ayutthaya late in the day. Monty had kept his mouth shut for most of the afternoon but the despair in his eyes and lips and cookie dough cheeks made me feel like a jerk for threatening him. Not only that, but the lack of words flowing from his mouth seemed to be causing a physical reaction. I imagined all his nonsense trapped inside like blind worms in his lower depths. He squirmed uncomfortably. He belched uncontrollably and whispered “Okay, okay,” and belched again. Other times, he emitted a low hum. When he started to hiccup, I gave in.
“Look, Monty, I apologize.”
“Apologize? Hoo-OOK! Apologize for what?”
“For threatening to beat you over the head with my shoe.”
“Okay, okay, Hoo-OOK!” That's what Monty's hiccups sounded like. “Hoo-OOK!”
We crossed a set of railroad tracks, then moved into a single file line of people. The line continued onto a walkway made of thin wooden planks. The planks rested on sandbags, about six inches above the river, one after another.
“What's this?” I asked.
“This is the flood.”
“What flood?”
“The flood I told you about. If you'll try to remember, I explained that most of the city was underwater a., in our hotel room the night you arrived, b., over breakfast just before you excused yourself to go to the bathroom, and c., in the back of the taxi as we were —”
“Go! Go!”
The wooden planks groaned beneath the weight of my pack. Off to the side, brown-chested men stood waist deep in the water, smoking cigarettes and looking around. Some of the men carried fishing poles. Nearby, a group of teenage boys floated on inner tubes. They weren't going anywhere; they were just floating. Down below, a dog passed by at my feet. It was a dirty gray thing with a hind leg that didn't quite work as it should. The dog didn't seem to be in a hurry. No one seemed to be in a hurry. The entire set up was terribly unstable, yet no one panicked, and no one fell in. I caught the eye of a Thai girl moving in the opposite direction. The girl smiled. She had a very lovely smile.
“Say, that girl smiled at me.”
Monty let out a yell. I thought he had a stroke. I asked him, “Did you have a stroke?” “No,” he said. “I stepped in dog poop.” The planks continued around a corner. Then there was a sidewalk, then a dock. An old woman sitting in a dirty lawn chair said something to Monty. “Okay, okay.” Monty didn't understand. He became nervous, too nervous to function. For a moment, I thought he might fall in the water. The woman yelled at him. Monty yelled back. “OKAY! OKAY!”
“I think she's telling us to get onto the boat. Let's get onto the boat and see what happens.”
There was a young boy, twelve? thirteen? manning the outboard motor. He set one bare foot on the engine and yanked the starter with both hands. He then plugged it into the water. The boat began to move.
“I was right,” I said. “She wanted us to get onto the boat.”
The kid was good. Just like the motorcycle drivers. He took us through the flood as if it were some kind of carnival ride. We saw trucks and cars, doors open, hoods popped, submerged and abandoned. We saw signposts twisted like pretzels, phone booths turned on their sides. We saw the floating remains of furniture, missing sandals, and the occasional dead fish. Houses stood half in, half out of the water. Upon one house sat a family of four camped out on the roof, watching television from an extension cord run through an open window. A string of makeshift tents had been set up on the narrow island that separated northbound traffic from southbound traffic, with soiled sheets acting as walls and outdoor grills smoking with dinner. The boat came to a stop at a gas station with only the white tops of the pumps visible above the water. End of the line.
“Okay, I suggest you either take your pants off or roll them up so that you're not completely soaked.”
“Shit.” I rolled my pantlegs up as far as they would go and held my shoes over my head. The water was black. It was difficult to see where the sidewalk ended and a sudden drop occurred. I devised a system of keeping my feet close to the ground and testing my steps before putting any weight on them. I thought I was doing all right until a couple of kids came laughing and running and splashing all hell past me.
“Don't worry about falling,” said Monty. “But if you have any open sores, particularly on your genitals, you may want to wash them right away.”
“Thanks, Monty, I'll keep that in mind,” I said. “You goddam screwhead.”
We took a left turn at a golden Buddha sitting safely above the muck. Monty placed his hands together and bowed three times. I suddenly remembered the word for us, for foreigners, listed in all the guidebooks I had thumbed through: farang. We were the farangs, Monty and I. It was originally coined for use on the French but nowadays referred to any non-Thai. There was something cartoonish about the word, hardly insulting, but spoken with the same inflection as an old man yelling at the damn kids to quit playing in his front lawn. “Farang! Farang!” The blind fish comedy, the farang-ness was obvious in Monty, and it was obvious in me, maybe more so. My skin was much paler. I had a gut. I needed a shave.
“Farang! Farang!”
I climbed out of the dirty water, onto another bridge of wooden planks. My pants were filthy, my shirt transparent with sweat. I watched a mosquito land on my arm and stick its needle into my flesh. I got him before he could milk me. It was as good of a baptism as any.
“This is it, huh?”
We were in some sort of complex. Monty led me into the first small building on our right. No one noticed us at first, then someone did, and a great commotion followed. A meeting was called. A row of six women, teachers I assumed, stood looking at me and smiling. One of the women pointed to herself and said “Gaew.” There was a ripple of laughter, until the girl standing next to her spoke up and said:
“She name Gaew. She no have husband.”
Forget the ripple. This girl's remark caused everyone present to break into uncontrollable giggles. Even poor Gaew was smiling, though her constant repetition of “Arai-na?” gave me the impression that she hadn't a clue as to what had been said about her.
Then another, better-dressed woman appeared. Madam Gamonwan. Madam Gamonwan was the head of it all. She was an older woman who wore her hair pulled back tight and kept her face intact through various cosmetics. She was very happy to see me. She pinched the skin on my arms and asked me to turn around so that everyone could get a good look at me.
“Tall,” she said. “Very tall.”
The six teachers standing in front of us agreed wholeheartedly. “Yes, yes, very tall!”
“You're not a Canadian?” said Madam Gamonwan.
“No, I'm not Canadian.”
“I have a friend who married a Canadian man. He drinks whiskey everyday.”
“I'm not Canadian.”
“Drinks whiskey and smokes. Tells my friend that she is no good wife!” Madam Gamonwan shook her hands before her. She was really upset about this Canadian. Then she laughed and took hold of Monty's arm. “Monty's not a Canadian!”
That made everyone happy. Madam Gamonwan told me to go to San Juan. I thought I was being transferred. “I'm really not Canadian,” I said. One of the teachers placed her hands together and bowed. “Sawadee ka.” I returned the gesture. The other teachers looked very proud. The teacher who had bowed pointed to her nametag. “Sangwan,” she said. It all made sense. I wasn't being transferred. I had just been given an escort.
Sangwan led Monty and I through the flooded school grounds. The school used wooden planks too. At the far end was a slightly elevated section the waters had not gotten to. A row of four houses sat behind the main buildings. The houses had white stone walls and white stone porches. There was a garden in front. The garden was full of flowers. Orange flowers, violet flowers, flowers with prickly stems and flowers without. There was a stone table and four stone benches in the midst of all those flowers.
“All my life I've wanted a garden,” I said. “I've just never stayed in one spot long enough to watch anything grow.”
I looked at the pretty trees and the pretty flowers and then I looked at Sangwan and even she, with her turned up nose and dark brown eyes, was pretty. I followed her into the second house.
“Your roommate is traveling in India right now,” said Monty. “He'll be back next week.”
“Roommate?”
“I'm going inside to take a shower. If you need anything, feel free to give a yell.”
“Roommate?”
Monty went inside. Sangwan said something to me in Thai and hurried off. A pair of eyes was watching me from behind the next-door neighbor's screen door. They disappeared when I gave a little wave.
I picked up my bag and went on in.
§
I slept.
I slept through the rest of the day and most of the night. Small lizards ran across the walls of my room and chirped the song of two balloons being rubbed together. Cockroaches ran across my plastic coated floor like little buffaloes stampeding across the plains. When the sun rose the next morning, I found myself in the gray area between sleeping and waking, sheets kicked onto the floor, pillow wet with sweat, tongue like a dried-up condom in my mouth. It wasn't until I heard my name being spoken and felt a gentle hand on my shoulder that my brain waves kicked into gear.
“Mis-tah John no sleep!”
It was Sangwan, my escort, now dressed in a dark blue polyester coat and skirt. The coat was buttoned at the bottom, and a blouse of white ruffles stuck out from the opening. The outfit made her look as though she had been slit open from naval to neckline and stuffed with cauliflower.
She picked out a badly wrinkled shirt and tie from my clothes and laid them across the foot of my bed. “Now,” she said, and scurried out.
So I got into my shirt and got into my tie and followed my nose to an assembly hall at the top of a school building. There were maybe two hundred women up there, all dressed in blue polyester with white ruffles, all sitting with their hands folded in their laps, eyes forward. Madam Gamonwan stood at a podium, with more teachers seated to the left and right of her. Above and behind, pink Styrofoam letters pinned to a blue curtain, spelled WELCOME JOHN in the shape of a rainbow or a sad face depending on one's mood.
They were waiting for me. All of them. I wondered if there was a way out. Just then, Monty, sitting alongside Madam Gamonwan, spotted me. He had that ear to ear smile on his face that screamed for an irate construction worker to wipe off. Monty raised a hand and waved me to the stage. He was getting his revenge. Then another teacher spotted me and o hell, the spotlight had spotted me too.
I walked though the middle of the nicely arranged crowd. A little voice in my mind kept saying, “You're going to trip. You're going to trip and fall and make a fool out of yourself!” Somehow, the voice was mistaken. I made it to the front and climbed the steps and stood next to Madam G., right beneath the WELCOME JOHN sign. The Madam had to wait for everyone to stop clapping before she could speak.
“They tell me you are handsome,” she said.
“Thank you.”
Madam Gamonwan laughed and applauded. When Madam Gamonwan applauded, everyone applauded. We had to wait another two minutes before we could speak.
“When is your birthday?”
“Last month.”
“Can you sing a song Happy Birthday?”
“Ha ha ha,” I said. “No.”
“We sing it for you.”
And they did. Every one of the blue polyester teachers, young and old. I smiled and tried to look surprised. I mostly just felt like a jerk. When they finished, it was my turn at the mike. The teachers had questions for me.
“Where you come from?”
“I've lived in Chicago most of my life.”
“Do you like Thai food?”
“Yes. Very much.”
“Do you like Thai ladies?”
“Is that a trick question?”
At the end of it all, the teachers sang another song, then broke up into groups. Many of the teachers strolled by to get a better look at the new farang. One of them came close and waiied me by placing her folded hands in front of her nose and lips and bowing delicately. I did the same, though much less gracefully. The teacher smiled. She had crooked teeth. She had stars in her eyes. She had an angel's halo above her head. And I thought; the world is wonderful and life is good and love between two people from completely different cultures is not only possible, but real and standing right here in front of me, crooked teeth and all. She told me her name. Lek. Lek? Oh, yes, it means small. Ha ha ha. There was no doubt left in my mind. Lek. Lek. I loved only Lek. Lek with her mysterious dark eyes and funny bone teeth. I would sing her name from the tops of tall buildings. I would write a book of poems and call it “Poems for Lek.” Nothing would tear us apart. Not the difference in language, religion, or height. Nothing.
Madam Gamonwan interrupted our romance. She wanted photos taken of Monty and me. We stood and smiled and tried to look real. The photo session ended. I looked around for Lek. Another teacher waiied and introduced herself. Yai. Yai? Oh, yes, it means big. Yai wasn't any bigger than Lek. She had a round face and thin eyebrows and a real live Ode to Joy playing from her white ruffles.
There was no doubt left in my mind. Yai! Yai! I loved only Yai!
There it was not even nine o'clock and I was already goofy with love.
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