That Savage Water (16 page)

Thailand.
Thailand
.

She repeated the word over and over to herself, her hands gripping into the beach – a billion tiny fragments of this new country.

The larger boat had approached in total darkness about five hundred metres from the shore. Suddenly to their port side, there had been nearly a dozen soldiers shouting with weapons aimed. The Thai had been too quick and ferocious to understand, but everyone in her wooden rowboat knew how to translate
gun
. Half of them had leapt over the side when the light from the patrol craft switched on. The older ones crouched against the bottom ribs of the boat, ducking their heads beneath the seat planks as if the beam itself could wound them. Then the soldiers began to fire.

Myaing dove as deep as she could. Thrashing sounds sank down from the surface as others jumped in after her. Bullets whizzed mechanically through the water and shattered the coral in sharp but muted detonations. Reaching a depth where she had to depressurize her ears, she began swimming forward with the push of the waves. When her chest began to burn, she pulled herself up to the dark surface. From somewhere in the black, she heard Nu's voice scream out for her –
Myaing! Myaing!
– but she gulped another lungful of air and then plunged again. There was something about diving away from the sound of her sister's cries that made the nerves in her skin vibrate their cold, as if the water had deliberately wanted to come between them, to drive them apart like the wedge of teakwood their father had used to split bamboo.
Promise we won't wait for each other
, Nu had whispered, her thin arms tight around her sister's waist.
We'll meet up on shore. Just keep swimming. Promise me, Myaing
. She had to command her body to continue towards land; it hurt like a cramp in her heart.

Eventually, her outstretched hands contacted sand. She crawled from the surf up the beach and ran into the darkened jungle hoping the light from the full moon hadn't given her away. The sound of Nu's cries roared in her head against the insect noise:
Myaing!

Change your name immediately – her father had advised – And you must know, my precious goose, there will be no point mourning for us. The moment you feel Thailand beneath your feet, send us a prayer, change your name and forget Burma – Then he looked at Nu, furrowing his brow into creases that reminded her of freshly planted rows of rice. In the wet of his eyes, minnows reached their lips towards the surface, breaking it into ripples.

Past the breakers, the lights of the army boat crested with the waves and then vanished. She scanned the surf for any sign that Nu or anyone else from her boat had made it to shore. She waited motionless as bark in the lanky shadows of the coconut trees that bisected the sand down to the water. When a distant succession of gunshots cracked in Mali's ears, their shaggy caps didn't flinch; the moon didn't bother to blink.

The wooden porch of the palm hut was littered with empty bottles and cigarette butts. Mali knocked on the door before entering. She set down her bucket of cleaning supplies in the corner of the room like a full vase of plastic flowers. She stripped the foam mattress of its sheets and pillowcases, tied the mosquito net in a knot and then set about tidying the hut. Except for gathering the garbage and sweeping the sand back out to the beach, the only job left was to empty the pail of used paper from beside the toilet. Farang, she had come to learn, were disgusting and they didn't know how to contain their own shit.
All a human needs to use is water
– Mali thought, emptying the putrid pail –
What about the process could be simpler? Why leave so much paper behind like a prize to be found?
Monkeys they were, at play with their own excrement.

The backpackers would sleep until the sun had already begun its downward curve, reflecting in the stale puddles of vomit pocking the sand outside their beach bars from the previous evening. Into the mornings, their music would thump through the woven siding of her hut and she'd lay awake under the blur of her mosquito net wondering how long it would take before she could begin to work in the kitchen with Luang and the rest of the Burmese women. She would listen to them chattering softly in her native language about the husbands and children they'd left behind in Yangon or Mandalay or the smaller vil ages along the coast that nobody in the world, besides them, even knew existed.

Every few weeks a new Burmese girl arrived on the beach looking for work. It was as though Phram could smell her foreign scent of desperation as she crawled from the sea. For now, it was Mali's turn to choose. If she did what he wanted, maybe then Phram would say –
Mali, from today you work in the kitchen
– as he led the newest sea-washed girl into his hut and latched the door.

What a price to pay
– she thought –
cancelling out the last private part of yourself
. She wondered if it could possibly be worth it and what her sister and brother and father would say.

Phram gets what he wants – Luang spat on the ground into the mango peels – He'll make you take it up your ass, that dirty pecker. I should poison his
khao soi
, but the trouble is he's too clever.

He'll smell it.

He has a nose like a tapir. Hand me that plate – Luang said – He's too ugly to get a girlfriend so he's bitter. But if you sleep with him, he'll move you in here. Think of that! You could cook with me in the kitchen.

I don't mind cleaning.

Phram says Burmese girls give the best head. Do you even know what that is?

Yes – Mali lied – I know.

Believe me, it isn't fair, but you make twice as much here in the kitchen. During high season, you won't even be thinking of Burma. And just think, if you met a handsome foreigner. Would you fall in love with someone carrying a cleaning bucket?

Mali peered over the counter to where the
farang
were. Hammocks criss-crossed the wooden deck, coils of mosquito repellant lit beneath the sagging crescents. They ashed joints in large beer bottles and wore black market T-shirts sewn in Bangkok. Phram was standing at one of the hammocks cooing in English with a red-haired
farang
girl. All Mali could see were knots of the girl's dreadlocks tangled like a lump of brain coral.

I think they're horrible, Luang. Where could they possibly come from that they're so happy to turn their skin brown anyway?

Luang's knife slid through the yellow flesh of the mango, dissecting off cubes with the blade – Do you know Kulap from down the beach? Paradise Bungalows? She makes her own cream that whitens your skin in only one day. You'd need two days, Mali, because you're so black. But I'm sure she would give you a discount.

I'm not so black.

You're the darkest girl here. But don't worry.
Farang
like black skin – Luang's laugh looked like the chopped up mango. She hiked up her shorts made from pink cotton printed with penguins and then took the plate over to the counter.

Phram! – she groaned – Take this to the boys at the pool table.

Go fuck yourself – he said in Thai, not even looking over from the girl's hammock. His hands rested on the fabric sides like the gunwales of a boat – Can't you see I'm busy?

Sure – she grumble to Mali – As busy as the asshole of a pig.

Luang slid out from behind the bar, crossed the deck and set the plate beside the three boys playing pool. They stood like awkward roosters, their bellies out and shirtless, scratching at the sweaty nooks beneath their swim shorts. Mali's brother Than was what she considered a handsome man, not these sun-rashed
farang
patched with tattoos.


Dis is Mary Kissmas mango
– Luang said, giving a light bow, her English deeply accented.

You order that, Miles? – one of them said.

No – the one named Miles said.

Hey, Carl. You order a fucking Merry Kiss-my-ass mango?

Yeah, I did. Screw off, why don't you.

Think I can get her to feed it to me?

Try it.

Fuck off, Bosh. Leave her be.

Yeah, well – he snapped up a piece with his fingers – you can take her. She's got a fat nose anyway.

Hey. Can I get a beer? – the one named Miles said – A large one? Chang's alright.


One large Chang
– Luang said.

Yeah.
Kap koon krup
.

Clap poon crap – the one named Bosh laughed – What the hell, man. You speaking Thai now?

Fuck off – Miles said, and then leaned over the pool table to take his shot – You're a jerk sometimes.

Mali didn't want to deal with
farang
directly like Luang had to. She had never seen so much white skin before coming to Ko Yao. Their bodies were shaped like octagons that turned crimson in the sun. Between cleaning each hut, she'd watch them slam themselves against the towering waves, their arms and legs emerging from the froth as they frolicked like albino horses. There was something hypnotic about watching them scan the horizon for the largest crests then turn towards the shore, paddling furiously until their bodies lifted atop the curling swells and then rode like planks nearly to the shore. For hours they played this game with the sea. To her envy, they had no fear of the water, no fear of the sun, of drugs. No fear of anything that might hurt them. Mali opened the door of the last empty hut, the gecko lizards darting across the beams of the porch.

As she stepped inside the hut, the smell hit her hard. She covered her nose with her arm, set the cleaning bucket down and moved cautiously around the room as though not to startle the culprit into releasing any more of its reek. At the far corner of the bed a crumpled-up top sheet lay near the window. Something about its colour, its position was already strange – like it had been rolled and placed there deliberately, as far away from the doorway as possible.


Farang…
– she said to herself –
How can the universe work this way?

Don't expect it to be fair – her brother Than had said, his chin freshly shaven, his black hair still dripping from his bath in the stream – Life will be harder for you. Women mean different things here. It's not fair, Myaing, but it's your turn. Then maybe in the next life it will be mine.

Mali imagined herself in a previous life as an oyster slowly churning out pearls. And then a mother whale drifting over the coral with a calf at her belly.

The sheet unrolled like a giant ball of orange grease. On the mattress, the vomit stain bloomed outward, an aureole of wetness surrounding a heavy nucleus of textured rust.

Mali…there you are – a voice cooed at the doorway. It was Phram.

I didn't know you were there. Look. What a mess those ones made in here.

Show me. I don't see anything – Phram stepped inside and closed the door. She could see something dark and unfiltered in his eyes. Coffee grounds. Poison dirt. A raven's beak puncturing snake eggs.

Look. Here – she said – What a mess.

Where, Mali?

Coming from behind, Phram's palms covered her bony shoulders, gripped and then pushed her forward onto the bed. The wet of the mattress stain soaked through her hair against her face. That gag of foreign excrement, utter acid, the way Phram pinned her down with all his weight and fumbled with her shorts like he didn't know if he should take them off completely. Then with his hand on the back of her skull pushing her face farther into the mattress, the tip of his cock pressed up against her anus like Luang had warned.

Mali screamed into the sheets. She struggled a hand free, reached behind her and grabbed at the meat of his dick. She moved it down against her vagina and without pause he thrust its full length inside. If the body had a fault line, a place where it was prone to split in two, Phram had found it, then set about cleaving it open.

…but you Burmese girls are so good at taking it up the ass – his lips panted at the crest of her ear – What makes you so special…You immigrant girls pretend you don't know how business works…You want to stay in the kitchen, huh?…How do you think the other bitches got to work there?

Outside on the beach, some
farang
boys were singing about Christmas. Their voices were sharp and off-key, more bellowing than song. She'd heard the holiday had something to do with trees in cold weather, coloured strings of lights and bells, an unwanted baby who claimed to be king. She remembered the missionaries in her small town of Myeik painting a cardboard baby and propping it in a plastic washtub outside the neighbourhood monastery.
Saviour of the world
– they'd called it triumphantly. Why the coming of this king was so exciting for these farang, she didn't know. Just a cardboard baby adrift in a bucket.

…probably full of shit anyways – Phram shuddered as he withdrew – And you reek like a rotten durian. Clean up your pants then finish what you were doing. That was the worst fuck of my life.

Her breath had caught in her windpipe like a shell. She waited until Phram had left before trying to dislodge it. It was the shape of a sob coated in coral. She sat upright on the edge of the bed and bit into the flesh of her arm as the sound, minutes too late, forced its way up from her throat. The two halves of her body felt as though they would fly apart and open up a giant cavern filled with deadly gas. The hair on her vagina was slick with Phram's cum. Red, her fingertips touched the tack of her blood. She slowly peeled the hair from her cheek, pulled up her shorts and crossed the room, descended the stairs to the shore, then padded across the boiling sand into the turquoise sea fully clothed. When the warm wave came, she ducked beneath the surface, held her breath and listened to the clack of shells as the sea wore them down into grains of sand.

I'll chop his dick off and feed it to his mother – Luang said, slamming her cleaver down, halving a papaya – That son of a bitch. What did I tell you?