Jane Vejjajiva Read online

  Kati thought she looked funny almost completely bald. Mother had obviously been worried about her daughter’s appearance as she’d fastened a little bow on a wisp of hair on top of her head, and after that Kati sported the same little bow in every photo. Kati found it very entertaining.

  Mother paused at intervals to draw in a breath from a tube that was connected to her BiPAP machine. ALS made her muscles so weak that in the end they became useless. Not only her leg and arm muscles but, far more dangerously, the muscles in her lungs had stopped working, including the muscles that inflated her chest to take in air. Now the BiPAP machine pumped air into Mother’s lungs so she could get all the oxygen she needed. When she was asleep she wore a mask but in the daytime she could just draw on the tube whenever she had difficulty breathing.

  ‘This snap was taken when we were all on holiday in Singapore. You were about three years old. I went there to work, so Uncle Dong dragged Kunn along too. Uncle Kunn didn’t study law like me but we were in the same tennis club at college. I was in my third year when Kunn came in his first year. No, Uncle Dong was never a tennis player but he liked to mix with the tennis crowd and watch the young guys play.’ Mother laughed. ‘Some day I’ll find you the photo of Uncle Dong and Uncle Kunn and me when we were all students together. Aunt Da saw it – and nearly died laughing!’

  Mother had been so happy with life and her friends, and Kati had clearly been loved by all as the old photos showed.

  Kati turned the pages till she came to the middle of the album and was puzzled to find it had only been half filled. What was even stranger was that the last two photos were of Kati alone in a pose that wasn’t funny at all.

  ‘Grandma and Grandpa had moved to the house by the canal by then. I encouraged them to go because Grandpa had already put off going for long enough – it was nearly a year since their house had been renovated. I knew it was your Grandpa’s dream to return to the simple village life after he retired. I wasn’t able to visit them as often as I wanted. I was busy with my work, which was really more than I could handle. Everyone was into e-commerce – you know, selling goods over the internet. I’d been on to it ever since I was stationed in Hong Kong and there was no one I could really hand it over to. I had to solve all these problems that came up and advise the foreign companies setting up in Thailand on the legal side of things.

  ‘Then I began to get sick. At first I thought I’d been working too hard, not resting enough. I kept dropping things. I’d miss a step and fall downstairs.

  I did that both at work and at home. This picture was taken after I dropped you coming down from a pedestrian bridge – we were both a mess, covered with grazes and cuts.’

  There were grazes on Kati’s chubby cheeks, painted red with antiseptic. It didn’t seem to have bothered little Kati much because she was smiling away at the camera, but the photographer must have been mightily shaken by the episode. Even now Mother’s voice sounded wobbly.

  ‘You were hurt because of me so many times – you got lumps on your head, a split lip. You used to cry so loudly when you were hurt too. But the next minute you would be playing happily as if nothing had ever happened. It was just as I had prayed when I was pregnant with you, that you would always have joy in your heart, whatever happened in your life.

  ‘But at this stage I became more and more certain that something was wrong with me. When I was finally diagnosed, I just couldn’t think how I was going to manage my life at all. I took leave from work and went to live with Grandpa and Grandma. It was then that it happened.’

  Kati wasn’t sure whether she should stay on her own with her mother or go and get the nurse. Mother had said that she wanted to spend as much time as possible with Kati alone and that if she wanted anything she could ask Kati to go and get it, but now her face looked so pale and she was using the BiPAP more and more frequently.

  ‘At some level I guess I was denying to myself that anything had changed. I took you for a ride in the boat to see the sights. Grandpa and Grandma didn’t see me go. I’m sure they would have forbidden me to go if they had. ’Course maybe I wouldn’t have listened to them anyway. I wanted to take you to see the big East Indian walnut tree that grows on the edge of the paddy fields. We got to the little shelter there safely enough. You loved the water, the boat, the shelter, the morning glories. We were having such fun playing together that I didn’t notice the clouds gathering on the horizon.

  ‘I made my second bad decision. We could have waited out the rain in the shelter and then headed home. But I could see the roof was in pretty bad shape and I was worried it wouldn’t keep the rain out. When I looked again the rain clouds still seemed a long way off so I thought I had time to row us back out of the fields. And if we didn’t make it home before the rain we could stop and take cover in the first house we came to on the canal.’

  Mother lay still for a while. She drew air from the tube again and again.

  ‘I hastily packed up our basket and put on your hat, took your hand and led you down the steps. The wind was getting stronger and stronger. The boat wouldn’t stay still. It was rocking back and forth, knocking against the step. I put you in the boat and turned to undo the rope that moored us to the pier. But my hands…the more I tried to hurry, the clumsier I became. I climbed back out of the boat to undo the rope more easily. Finally free from its mooring, the rope slipped from my hands too. I grabbed the oar, hoping to catch hold of the boat with it. My timing was totally wrong. Even easy things I could no longer do. And the boat just floated away from the pier, bobbing up and down on the waves, the boat in which you were still sitting, completely alone.’

  Kati could picture the vast expanse of the flooded fields, churned to a wild sea by the storm winds. The sky would not have been bright and clear as it was when she and Grandpa went for their picnic. The heavy clouds would have darkened the whole sky. Thunder would have rumbled over the water, mingling with the roar of the wind and Mother’s cries.

  ‘I tried to control my anguish – I called for you to sit still. I was worried you would take fright and try to come to me and the boat would capsize. I knew that I was no longer capable of doing many things. I could not jump into the water and pick you up. I had tried so hard to catch the boat with the oar, but had only managed to tap the side of the boat. My arms did not have the strength to drag a boat against the wind and the water. And the oar now fell from my grasp into the water as well.

  ‘I was like a madwoman. The rain was pouring from the heavens as though the sky had sprung a leak. My voice had to compete with the thunder as I shouted at you to sit still. I really did not know what to do. I cried harder than the sky. I was furious with myself and furious at the rain. But more than anything I was so terrified that it seemed as if my heart had stopped. In utter desperation I cried, “Please someone help me. Please help my child.” I screamed at the top of my voice even though I knew no one could hear me amid the noise of the storm.

  ‘And in my heart I prayed every prayer that Grandma had ever taught me, all the ones I could think of. I recited the mantras and I added prayers of my own. You could say I made a promise to all things sacred that if there were such things as miracles, please keep my daughter safe and I would give up everything I owned, everything. Most people would say they’d give their lives in exchange but I, of course, had very little life left to give. The sky split with lightning as if acknowledging my promise: if my child was safe, then I would never so much as touch her again. I would go far away from my child and never bring her into danger again.’

  Tears streaming down her cheeks, Mother sobbed until she collapsed in a heap. Kati took Mother’s hand and kissed it, held it against her cheek. She lifted her mother’s arm so that she was embracing Kati. Kati hugged her mother tight. Mother’s face pressed against Kati. Her flesh felt cold as ice. Kati whispered that she was here, here with Mother, that they would never be separated again.

  The frangipani blossom had fallen on the ground below the window as if it could no longer bea
r the suffering of these two hearts.

  Sandflies

  At journey’s end.

  Kati liked to sit at the edge of the water, making sandcastles with Uncle Kunn. What she didn’t like were the horrible sandflies that bit you when you weren’t aware of them. These tiny creatures had a powerful bite. They would hide in the sand waiting for their prey, and you wouldn’t even know you’d been bitten till you saw the angry red spots at bath time. The more you scratched them the itchier they became. Uncle Dong said the bites of the sandflies were like love, an itch you couldn’t scratch away, couldn’t forget and of which you were constantly aware.

  Kati used both hands to dig a hole in the sand. When the waves came in it became a pool, but sand came tumbling in with the water. Soon her deep pool became a shallow pool and she had to dig it out all over again. But this was satisfying too, keeping Kati’s hands busy while her mind kept returning to the story Mother had told her that afternoon.

  So the knight in shining armour who had saved little Kati’s life was none other than Tong of the Siamese smile. Mother said that Tong had been quite excited over the arrival of the four-year-old ‘city girl’. He would paddle his boat over to play with her often. That day he had come over to the house in search of his playmate and had followed them to the old walnut tree. His boat appeared just after an enormous lightning strike. Tong was as strong a rower as any of the children whose homes were by the water. So it was no great task for him to steer the boat in which Kati sat back to the pier and safety. He had picked Kati out of the boat and placed her right in Mother’s lap.

  ‘Like a mother cat with a kitten,’ said Mother, smiling through her tears at the picture they’d made – Tong, skinny and small for his age, bearing Kati who was round and chubby. Mother had hugged Kati close, and Tong too. She had been crying and laughing at the same time, there in the middle of the pouring rain, before they climbed the steps to take cover in the little shelter.

  Before long Grandpa and other men from the community had braved the storm in their boats to come looking for them, calling for Mother and Kati. They brought blankets and umbrellas, but Mother, Tong and Kati were already soaked to the bone. That night Kati took ill with a fever. The family had to sit up with her all night, bathing her with damp cloths. It was nearly dawn before her fever abated. As the morning light broke, Mother packed her bags and left the little house on the water without saying goodbye, never to return.

  Kati could imagine Grandma’s reaction – how distressed she must have been. Kati could also imagine Grandpa’s face as he said through set lips that Pat must’ve had her reasons to act in this way, and that some day she would tell them why. From that time on Grandpa had taken responsibility for caring for Kati.

  Kati felt something now biting away at her heart. She stopped digging her hole in the sand and turned to Uncle Kunn.

  ‘Can I use your mobile phone?’ she asked.

  The morning they had left the house on the water, Tong had handed Kati a scrap of paper and said with a smile that it was the mobile phone number of his uncle, the abbot, in case Kati needed to talk to him about anything. Tong said to ring anytime because he was the one who took the calls.

  Tong’s voice, so familiar and so very pleased to hear from her, soothed the ache in Kati’s heart in an instant. Kati saw Uncle Kunn suppress a laugh when he heard Kati’s question. ‘Tong, it’s Kati here. Hey, do you want to hear the sound of the sea?’

  Sea Pines

  It was hard to believe that tomorrow the sun would rise as usual.

  Mother had been running a temperature for a number of days now. Dr Pradit’s face was always serious when he left Sea-view Villa. Aunt Da said that the doctor wanted Mother to rest up in the hospital, whether the local one in Hua Hin or one of the big city hospitals back in Bangkok.

  ‘Even an elephant from Chopstick Mountain couldn’t drag her away from Kati,’ said Uncle Dong and his voice was shrill.

  The day before, Uncle Dong had taken Kati to Chopstick Mountain. They’d admired the view from the top, where you could look down and see the little white house off in the distance. At the foot of the

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  mountain you could have a ride on an elephant. Uncle Dong had complained high and low that having elephants at the seaside was totally inappropriate and out of place. There were only a few customers lining up for rides. They were all foreign tourists.

  ‘The mahouts are probably planning to drag them off to the forest and rob them, I shouldn’t wonder,’ said Uncle Dong.

  Uncle Kunn whispered to Kati that it was just as well Uncle Dong didn’t work in the tourist industry or he’d have lost the country billions with his mistrust of small business. Uncle Dong must have caught something of this because he went on for some time about how they could hardly be called small businesses when elephants were involved.

  The thing Mother most wanted to avoid was being on a respirator, a machine which would do her breathing for her. Her gaze was strong and determined when she said this and those who loved her could only agree. Mother said she was lucky that she could choose for herself the way in which she would die. People couldn’t choose to be born and couldn’t choose to die, but she asked for the right to make the most of the last opportunities life afforded her. She asked them not to obstruct her in this wish.

  Kati had seen them all clustered together many times, discussing the ways and means to grant Mother’s wish. This time they organised a mobile meeting, using the excuse that they had to take Kati out for a drive. Grandma said she’d stay and watch over Mother herself. Grandpa said that was just as well as he was bound to disagree with whatever she might suggest. Grandma flicked him a glance and said that it was a waste of time to argue with a hot-shot lawyer anyway.

  The drive ended in a grove of sea pines. The trees stood tall and sturdy, their straight trunks and growth giving deep shade. Grandpa said they were a good windbreak because they bent with the wind instead of resisting it. Even the mightiest storm could not

  break them.

  group therapy for the grieving. The future was blazingly clear. Mother was like a candle whose light had begun to flicker and fade.

  That night Kati woke in the middle of the night. She felt something peculiar in her heart, and thought of Mother’s words to her when they were sitting watching the sunset together. Mother had said she didn’t want the sky to grow dark.

  Kati tiptoed down the stairs to the little house. Uncle Kunn was sitting beside Mother’s bed. He was the one person Kati had never seen expressing grief or shedding tears, but in the dim light of the sick room Kati could see his shoulders shaking with sobs. Finally Kati saw Uncle Kunn throw himself down beside Mother and stay like that for a long time.

  There was no movement or flicker of recognition from the face on which the BiPAP mask rested.

  Only the thinnest crescent of a moon was left in

  the sky. The shadows of the sea pines along the fence

  swayed with the breeze. Time seemed to stand still.

  It stayed that way till the sun rose in the sky once

  more, bright and beautiful above the rim of the sea,

  awakening all creatures on earth. All except

  for Mother, who would never waken again.

  Cicadas

  Grief beyond tears.

  Mother was in a coma for three days before she left them, peacefully. Aunt Da was the first to emerge from the room. She held Kati in a tight embrace. There was no need to speak. She shed no tears that you could see. Her eyes were dry and she looked as if she had changed overnight.

  Mother donated her body to the hospital, so the funeral rites were only three days long. Grandpa chose a temple on the mountain that had a spacious worship hall. It was an open structure with overhanging eaves, a polished wooden floor, and no walls or furniture. At one end was the main Buddha image and chairs were set out in rows for guests. Uncle Dong was the host for the funeral ceremonies. In the evening, guests arrived one after the other to pay their res
pects: colleagues, student friends, and even clients. Grandpa was concerned for the guests who’d had to travel such a long way to get there. But they were glad to come and make their last farewells to Mother.

  The steps from the hall stretched away down the hill. Uncle Dong had set up white poles at intervals decorated with colourful bouquets of flowers, and had placed little candle-lit lamps on each step. The scent of the flowers, the night breeze and the candlelight created an atmosphere far from sorrowful. Uncle Dong said Mother had left instructions to do all this, for she wanted them to come together and remember past times together in peace and quiet.

  The worship hall was decorated with swathes of ivory-coloured cloth and bright flowers. Kati liked the framed photo on the stand the most: Mother looked so lively, as if she was enjoying being there to look after her guests. She must have escaped the prison that her body had become, and now her spirit was free to go anywhere she liked, wherever her heart desired. Kati was quite certain that one place Mother’s spirit would want to be was right beside her.

  Aunt Da had gathered her hair into a tiny bun; the bangles that always covered her lower arm disappeared and all that was left were her tiny pearl earrings. Aunt Da’s clothes were usually an entertainment in themselves. She was fond of draping herself with scarves and pieces of cloth and whatever she put on looked attractive. The black clothes she now wore made her look unusually thin and pale. Kati saw Uncle Kunn’s gaze rest on her with concern as he looked over to where she was greeting the funeral guests and taking care of their drinks and snacks, as well as the offerings they had brought for the monks.

  Uncle Kunn had been sticking to Kati like her own shadow. The two of them had no particular tasks in organising the funeral ceremonies, so, hand in hand, they slipped away to sit outside on the stone benches under a trellis arch of bougainvillea. They listened to the symphony of sounds around them. It seemed the lead part was taken by cicadas, and their constant chorus managed to achieve a certain harmony with the heavy night air, creating an atmosphere that Kati felt privileged to be part of. Normally she would never have been allowed to sit out so late.