The Queen of Patpong (15 page)

The doors open at the end of the car, and the young man Kwan almost fell on walks through them, carrying a cloth traveling bag. As he comes toward them, his eyes find her and then slide past to Nana. The smile on his face loses its energy. He looks straight ahead and passes them without slowing.

“Mr. Nowhere,” Nana says when he’s gone.

Kwan looks at Nana, seeing her blouse the way the young man had seen it, high on one shoulder and low above the opposite breast. Then she closes her eyes, places a hand over the stone in her pocket, and waits for the train to start again.

Chapter 12
Candy Cane

S
he smells Bangkok long before she sees it. The train is slicing through the night, and Nana’s watch—
her
watch—says it’s almost nine. By now her family would normally be asleep, but her father is probably stalking the village in a rage, his pockets empty again, while the children stay out of sight. During the past hour, the dark expanses between villages have grown shorter, until now there are always lights on both sides of the train and she’s surrounded by a brownish back-of-the-nose smell, like standing behind a bus, and she thinks,
This must be Bangkok,
but the train keeps going and keeps going, and the lighted windows get higher and higher, and there are more roads, and then the roads have cars on them. At one point cars pass above them on a bridge, and Kwan cranes up to stare at them.

“Getting there,” Nana says. She yawns comfortably. Her nails are now a kind of tangerine color with red underneath it, like a juice mix. Kwan thinks the polish is as garish as some of the colored electric signs they’ve been passing for the last half hour.

Looking back out the window, Kwan says, “It’s too big.”

“It’s still a village, once you know it. It’s just that it’s a
big
village.” The train begins to slow, and Nana is up, yanking her bag from the overhead shelf while the world is still sliding sickeningly by. “Come on,” she says. “We’ve missed most of the night.” And she’s halfway down the car, moving toward the rear of the train, before Kwan has even gotten her arms around her book bag.

Outside the train Kwan sees a rice paddy of people, a solid field of people, pressed shoulder to shoulder, too close together for light to shine between them, stretching back four or five meters from the train, where it thins into individual shapes, blurs to Kwan’s nearsighted eyes. She is seeing, she realizes, more people in one moment than she has seen in her entire life. She hesitates, one foot still on the step leading up to the train, but Nana reaches back without even looking, snags Kwan’s T-shirt, and drags her behind. Kwan has to dodge the wheels of Nana’s pink suitcase.

Outside, in a haze of heat and fumes, Nana stops and sizes up a long, long line of taxis, all new-looking, painted every color Kwan has ever seen, plus some she hasn’t. Nana opens the door of the cab at the front of the line, leans in, and says, “Patpong 1. Forty baht.”

The driver says, “The meter.”

Nana says, “Fuck the meter. Forty baht. With the air-con on.”

The driver glances up at the rearview mirror, sees the number of taxis behind him, and does something under the dashboard. Kwan hears the trunk pop open. Without a word Nana goes to the back of the cab, raises the trunk all the way up, slides the bag inside, and slams the trunk. To Kwan she says, “What are you waiting for? Get in.” She hip-shoves Kwan across the seat and, even before she closes the door, says to the driver, “Go, go, go.”

Kwan has to fight the urge to press her nose against the window. Lights, cars, people, more people, more cars, buildings high enough to lose their tops in mist. No stars at all. The taxi is freezing, and goose bumps have popped up all over her arms. She glances at Nana, who is sitting there gazing at the back of the driver’s seat as though a movie were being projected on it. Just as Kwan is about to speak, Nana says, “Listen. Are you listening?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Here’s what’s going to happen. He’ll drop us at the end of Patpong. There’s a market set up in the middle of the street, and the sidewalk is crowded. I don’t want to have to keep looking for you, so you grab the back of my blouse and don’t let go. If anybody gets in the way, just shove.”

“Shove someone?”

“That’s what I said, isn’t it? If we get separated, I could waste half an hour looking for you, and I want to get to work. Don’t look at any of the men.”

“Oh,” Kwan says, thinking,
She
wants
to get to work?
“I won’t.”

“Well, don’t. One of them might try to stop you, and I haven’t got time for that. When we get to the bar, you just keep your mouth shut. I’ll introduce you to the mama-san, and then she and I will go away to talk some business for a couple of minutes. You stay wherever she puts you.
Exactly
where she puts you. Don’t talk to the customers.” The taxi passes a big, brightly lighted shrine, and Nana dips her head and makes a
wai
in its direction. Kwan follows suit, and Nana begins talking as though she’d never stopped. “It’s important that you
do not
look at, or talk to, any customers. You don’t want to make enemies of the other girls before you even start to work.”

“Enemies?”

“Think about it. They’ve been up there all night, dancing their feet off, trying to get one of those fatsos to buy them a drink, take them out, whatever will put some money in their pocket. Then you come in, with dew still on you, and the customer one of them has her eye on suddenly decides you’re the angel of the evening. That girl is not going to be your friend. And neither are
her
friends.”

“I’m not going to be anybody’s . . . angel.”

“See that you’re not.”

“Why can’t I go with you and the mama-san?”

“Because I say so.”

“Oh.”

Nana pats her hand. “I know this is confusing, but just do what I say and stay out of trouble. A week from now, you’ll feel right at home.” She smiles at Kwan and then leans forward, slaps a hand on the back of the front seat, and says to the driver, “Could you move this thing? I’d like to get there in this lifetime.”

THE SIDEWALK IS
solid with people, almost all of them
farang.
They seem to be suffering in the heat; their shirts are as wet as second skins, their hair is matted, and their necks and faces are red and dripping. Maybe they sweat so much, Kwan thinks, sneaking quick looks at them, because so many of them are fat. They smell different from Thais, too. Some of them smell so bad that Kwan breathes through her mouth, thinking it would be rude to hold her nose. For a sliver of a moment, she tries to imagine being close to one of these men, being alone with him. Could she do it? Would it be rude to ask him to shower first? Maybe she could wash him, like a baby, to make sure he was really clean.

What amazes her is how
tall
they are. Most of them are only a little shorter than she is, and some are actually taller. For the first time in her life, Kwan doesn’t feel like the one nail that’s sticking up from the board. She doesn’t feel like a freak. She has a brief sensation that she’s walking in a trench.

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.