Black Tiger (6 page)

Still gasping and sobbing, Chee Laan brought the powdered inks and the bamboo brushes with their round covers, and set them carefully upon the glass top of the carved table. Beneath the glass, an inlaid wooden forest of fabulous leaves, flowers, and birds shimmered darkly.

They worked in silence. When at last some of the child’s brushstrokes began to lose their awkwardness, sweeping across the page fluent and graceful, a smile like a wintry sunbeam touched the older woman’s narrow lips.

‘You are pleased,
Tsu mu
?’ the child ventured timidly, glancing up.

‘It is not forbidden to allow pleasure to appear on the face,’ Sunii smiled. ‘Sorrow, distress, these are unseemly. These are for the private heart.’

The child bowed her head, acknowledging the righteous reproof of her vulgar display. But she continued to wonder, nonetheless, about what she had seen. Her grandmother’s disapproval had balked her investigation but not neutralised her curiosity, which was keener than ever.

The next day Chee Laan watched as Ah Lee rolled out her woven mat in the cool shade of the wattle tree and curled herself up with a grunt of satisfaction for her noontime nap. The wattle tree stood in the centre of the gated courtyard that was the heart of the Lee family compound, four pavilions separated by banks of bright flowers. Behind its tall walls and massive gate, guarded by dogs and watchmen, the atmosphere was secluded and serene. Bees hummed in the bougainvillea that spilled over the walls in a crimson cascade; twittering finches flitted in the large aviary along the far wall. Huge lazy koi circled endlessly in the pool, red and gold beneath the water, as a small fountain whispered a lullaby.

Chee Laan could easily have settled for a snooze herself. But she had something else on her mind. She waited until Ah Lee’s grunts settled into a rhythmical pattern of snores. Then stealthily she rose from the old
amah
’s side and trotted across the courtyard to her father’s pavilion, kicked off her shoes, and climbed up the wooden steps to the living area.

Her entrance awoke him. Her father had been slumped over a tabloid newspaper, a cigarette burning unheeded at his elbow, a glass of whisky tilting dangerously in his flaccid grasp. He bore little resemblance to his elegant mother. His father, Chee Laan’s grandfather, was never spoken of. He had gone to join his ancestors so long ago that nobody appeared to remember him. His blunt features fly-blown, his slack, large-pored skin the same unhealthy yellowish-grey as his gold-edged teeth, Chee Laan’s father yawned and belched. He reached out stubby fingers to pinch her, roaring with mirth and false bonhomie. A man who lusted after other people’s children, on his forays into the city’s seamy side, he was ill at ease with his own.

Squirming out of his reach, Chee Laan demanded straight out, brusque as a coolie, ‘
Khun Paw
, who was that lady in the car with you yesterday?’

With a roar of fury he snatched away his hand, which had strayed and was patting her bottom over the frilly knickers, in the lingering way she detested. He exploded: ‘Shall a girlchild question her father?’

Accustomed though she was to the pendulum of his moods, between maudlin sentimentality and apoplectic rage, the force of his fury terrified her. She scuttled down the wooden staircase into the sunlit garden, saying nothing more. Her brother Pao was practising with his new badminton racquet on the gardener’s blooming flower border. The severed heads of azaleas flew through the air like the bright feathers of dying birds.

These days Pao was more bloated than usual with notions of his own importance, having recently celebrated his fifteenth birthday with a visit to a brothel, sponsored by his father. Fuelled by his conquest of a couple of pathetic teenage addicts, Pao was now a man of the world in his own eyes.

‘Oh, little mouse! Did the mouse make
Khun Paw
cross? What did it do?’ he greeted his sister in mocking Thai, exaggerating the tones, slapping her with his racquet so her gold-lace skirt bunched around her bottom. A bee bumbled in a hibiscus near her face. The scent of the grass was sharp, hot as burning hay in her nostrils, and made her long for the cool of the evening, when the gardener would turn on the hose and the sprinklers.

‘I just asked him about the lady in his car. All painted, like a film star, with dragon eyes. He got mad.’

Pao hooted derisively. He straddled the flowerbed, careless feet crushing the blooms. His tennis shoes had cost a fortune. ‘So you thought that was a girl with
Khun Paw
!’

She stared. ‘Of course. What else?’

He tweaked her ear hard. It brought tears to her eyes. ‘What a flea-brained dim little mouse it is! That was Dad’s
catoy
—a boy dressed in girls’ clothes!’

She stared at him solemnly. ‘You mean like the boys who dress up in women’s clothes the day before they join the army, and run round the
soi
s drunk, banging gongs and yelling?’

He cackled, swaggering with lewd knowledge.

‘Why would a boy dress like a girl?’ Chee Laan persisted. ‘Confucius says being born a woman is the saddest fate in the world. You say women are cattle, only less valuable.’

‘True!’ he grinned. ‘If there’re too many girl babies, people put them out to die.’

She stared at her brother, horrified. ‘But they aren’t allowed to do that anymore! There’s a law!’

He giggled, laying a finger alongside his broad nose and squinting down it cunningly. ‘That’s what you think. Dumb little mouse! Course they do it! Pity they didn’t do it with you, pesky, chicken-brained
meimei
, little sister!’

‘All right.’ She swallowed hard. ‘If it’s so bad being a girl, why would a boy dress up and pretend to be a girl, then?’ She glared at him, daring his answer.

He gave her a shove with his racquet. ‘For kicks, stupid! Old guys like
Khun Paw
do it for kicks. The
catoys
—the lady-boys—do it for the money and the presents. You’ve the brain of a goldfish,
meimei
!’

She was unconvinced. ‘But what do they
do
?’

Her pouting baby mouth engorged him. On a sensuous impulse, he lunged, hauled her close, whipped up her lace skirt and plunged his hand down, round the smooth firm curve, into the depths of her gold-frilled briefs. Despite their stubby plumpness, his fingers were surprisingly agile and hard. It felt disgusting, like having a big, determined insect with suckerpad feet crawl upon her, bore into her. She screamed and beat at him. He pushed her down among the azaleas. She sprawled there, humiliated and furious, her face plunged in the hot earth. He jabbed at her painfully with the end of his racquet.

‘Up there! They shove it up there! One of these days I’ll have to undertake your education,
meimei
!’ he sniggered, eyes disappearing into his fat, round cheeks. He looked like a dimpled doughy bun, she thought. Brainless, flabby, and unappetising. Chee Laan scrambled to her feet and beat frantically at her clothes.

‘Pigs!’ she roared hoarsely. ‘It’s men that have no brains—pigs, all of you! I’m never going to have anything to do with any of you as long as I live!’

He laughed mockingly. ‘You wait, mouse! Just wait till I catch up with you! I’ll get you alone, and then…’

‘I’ll tell Ah Lee!’ she shrieked, flailing her round little arms at his grinning face. ‘I’ll tell
Tsu mu
! I hate you, Pao!’

He was helpless with mirth now, shaking like jelly. ‘Tell old Ah Lee, that old fleabag, that decrepit coolie! Ooh, I’m soooo scared! And if you go blabbing to
Tsu mu
about her First Grandson, she will not choose to believe you!’

‘I hope you die!’ she roared.

Suddenly serious, he thrust his face close to hers. ‘Before I die, I’ll pull you down, you spoilt little brat! I’ll make you eat dirt. I’ll pump you full of dirt, little rat’s shit. Just you wait!’

Pao’s vengeance was to be delayed five years. His sister, watched over vigilantly, was rarely alone. Her schedule was hectic, crammed with studies, dance lessons, badminton, languages, and music. She was chauffeured everywhere, and everywhere Ah Lee accompanied her, clucking, bustling, and complaining. Pao watched, his jealousy and hatred simmering, as Chee Laan changed from a chubby pampered brat to a sleek, self-assured eleven-year-old on the brink of womanhood. She had begun already to take more interest in the family business. Pao saw with growing irritation how she began to model herself more consciously on their grandmother Sunii, toning down her own naturally ebullient spirits, her loud, cheerful voice, even restraining her young girl’s inclination for exaggerated fashions in personal adornment. The more she came to resemble their clever, powerful grandmother, the more her poise and confidence stuck in his craw. Chee Laan, for her part, treated Pao with indifference bordering on contempt. She appeared to have forgotten his assault on her dignity and his furious threats, made so long ago.

He was twenty years old, already raddled and disillusioned by too much money and too little responsibility. She was only eleven, infuriatingly intelligent, prim and proper, an award-winning paragon, a model student. At last he found an opportunity for that vengeance he had plotted and drooled over in secret. He caught her alone and off her guard in the summer house. Ah Lee, her ferocious watchdog, had taken a samlor to Chinatown to consult her astrologer;
Khun Paw
was at the singsong dive he favoured for boozy, sexy business lunches.
Khun Mee
, Honourable Mother, who, although she was the First Wife, had never bothered to be a mother to her children but instead had embraced religion and recrimination, was sobbing and praying somewhere down among the other women. The grandmother sat high in her steel-and-glass tower, manipulating millions and drinking tea. None of them were looking out for Chee Laan.

Barefoot, he approached softly across the lawn. He watched for a while, his infuriating, provoking sister, and noted how relaxed and happy she looked, humming, engrossed in her book. Her soft lips were parted round the expensive ironmongery that had been recently installed to correct her sexy, slightly protruding teeth. He pounced, taking her by surprise, knocking her half-unconscious, finally riding her like a toy rocking horse, grunting with triumph and pleasure as he felt her tender flesh rip and tear. He snatched up a striped cushion to muffle her screams.

Chee Laan never told; instinctively, she knew who would come off worse if she did. Perhaps
Tsu mu
and Ah Lee, those she loved most in the world, would have been outraged at first, even sympathetic. They would have condemned Pao. But later, after the initial shock had worn off, she knew that it would have been toward herself that they would change, not toward her brother. After all, everyone knew that Pao was a chip off the old block—a hell-raising, self-indulgent, irresponsible Bangkok male. Such behaviour, reprehensible though it might be, was only to be expected of a man like Pao.

But she would have been tainted. In their eyes, she would have lost her freshness. She had seen Sunii order the maids to throw away offertory flowers no longer fresh enough to grace the shrine. Inevitably, the stigma of depravity would have attached itself to her, subtly, like a faint odour of corruption.

Indeed, she thought, Pao was probably right, when he had warned her five years ago.
Tsu mu
would resort to revisionism. An attack on one grandchild by the other would be decreed never to have happened. As for Ah Lee, she always took her cue from Sunii.

That afternoon in the summerhouse, when Pao triumphed over his haughty little sister, was his last victory over her, and even that was short-lived. He watched keenly to see whether his despoiling had brought her down. He had plunged her in filth and humiliation; he expected her to accept her disgrace, as any decent girl would. He hoped she would walk small, skitter out of his way with downcast eyes, shrunk with shame. But Chee Laan strutted about as insufferably as ever—indeed, matters were now far worse than before, for she bullied and mocked him with a casual, bitter scorn.

Pao raged inwardly, burying his anger and frustrations in the frenzied pursuit of pleasure and surrounding himself with friends of similar character. Chee Laan, for her part, increased the distance between them. She threw herself wholeheartedly into her studies. Her delighted tutors praised her to Sunii with unfeigned enthusiasm. ‘An old head on young shoulders, an old soul, the true granddaughter of Honourable Old Lady,’ they murmured with increasing deference.

Sunii Lee, meanwhile, continued to expand her empire and watched her grandchildren develop. There could only ever be one hand on the tiller, and she herself would not live forever. Her son’s First Wife, Pao and Chee Laan’s mother, fell into the grips of Christian missionaries, as a distraction to her brutish husband’s behaviour. Sunii Lee decided to turn the situation to her advantage.

‘One religious maniac in the family is enough,’ Sunii Lee decided. In matters of religion Chee Laan followed Sunii’s pious but restrained example, but young minds were volatile. Assurance was all.

When she learned that the Premsakul family had announced that their daughter, the Princess Pim, was to attend a convent in Normandy for a year in order to improve her French, Sunii decided that her own granddaughter should follow suit. Her devout daughter-in-law, unsuspecting of Sunii’s motives, sought a rare audience with her austere mother-in-law to offer her thanks. She greatly annoyed Sunii by clawing at her ankles and, to the older woman’s intense repugnance, attempting to kiss her feet, blurting out her thanks her with tears in her eyes.

Pao sneered that Sunii’s motives were political and calculated. He figured his grandmother wanted to show that Chinks were a match for Thai royalty any day. But Sunii reflected that a year with the religious would purge her granddaughter of any inherited fervour, and make her ready to respect her ancestors. She wanted Chee Laan to maintain that most desirable of attributes—the cool heart—and to undertake the task she had in mind for her. Besides, Sunii had learned that the Couvent de Ste Anne in Normandy was conveniently situated for a certain unorthodox training course.