Corpus of a Siam Mosquito | Page 8

know common. Common is having a treat of eating fried
insects on the dirt road, Nawin. Common is sleeping on a rug because
you don't have a bed. Common is praying for the opportunity of having
one's sandals fall apart or getting them trapped deep into the soil of the
rice field so as to have an excuse to get out of the hamlet. Occasionally
we paid an arm and a leg to the owner of a truck who came once a day
ten miles down a muddy road to pick people up. Common, Nawin, is
collecting rain water in those big ceramic tubs that sit in front of the
house, being stingy with every drop of water when you wash your body,
and then go to bed exhausted without even eating dinner. Common is
getting up at 5 a.m. to feed the water buffalo so that at 6 a.m. your
father can use it to plow the field. You don't know anything about the
word."
He did know. He bled from knowledge but he frowned and for a
moment he was taciturn fighting back anger and memories. "Well, do
whatever you damn well please. I need out of this car and that is what
I'm doing. You can feast on what remains of the breath fresheners. I for
one am dining out. I'll be back in ten minutes."
"When do we need to get on the plane?"
"There's plenty of time," he said. "Plenty of time to eat another meal in
the airport before departing. You'll get a high price western meal at the
airport. I guarantee it." He left the taxi and sat down meditating on the
river flowing at a distance. Soon the anger dissolved and his memories
were imprisoned.
The idea of paying on a taxi where the meter continued to rise without
his presence enthralled him. Having lots of money was a novelty and
flaunting this novelty to patrician and plebian, proletariat and CEO
alike still engrossed him. Thais were culturally programmed to give the
"wai" to the Buddha and the monk but in their hearts that steamed with

greed as they cooked their food on the streets, sold their trinkets from
their sheets, worked in office jobs, were government officers, part of an
educated middle class, and a million other activities, classifications,
and identities, this traditional greeting with the folded hands in front of
the face was deeply given in the secret regions of subconscious ideas
for those whom they thought of as rich. And as he ate his pork laden
noodle soup while the meter ticked on he picked out the pork to feed
the dogs; but in so doing he glimpsed someone. Past the gravel were
sidewalks and stores and further was a department store. Next to it,
beyond the gaunt old woman on the sheet selling and squeezing rubber
duckeys in the hope of selling a few and having money to eat, a man
clanging bells with handless hooks above his cup, shoe repairmen
fixing souls, a kiosk of a key maker, and a blind mendicant with a
speaker and a microphone singing a strident folk tune, was someone. It
was a person who turned him to stone, froze him like an iceberg,
mortified him, and pulled out his wounded child. It was a strange
composite: at one moment appearing a bit like his brother, Kazem, and
at one moment like the youngest of his elder brothers, Suthep. For a
second or two as he saw this cook at a distance, he couldn't remember
the name of Suthep-he who had been so innocuous but in his apathy
had harmed him the most. Ten or eleven years had gone by. He
wondered how he was supposed to know anymore: was this man one or
the other or neither of them. Another blind beggar began to sing a song
in a microphone linked to a portable speaker. He was being lead by his
wife. They came to his table singing a louder song more stridently than
the one he heard at a distance. The sun was feeling hot and it made him
dizzy and mad as Akhenaten in Ancient Egypt. Nawin, the legal alias
of Jatupon, was feeling a weight death. His whole ideas and feelings
were discombobulated. He took out twenty baht wedging it under the
canister containing vinegar and peppers. He walked quickly to the car
and cowered himself in the back seat in movement toward the airport.
Book II: Many Lifetimes Ago

Chapter 3

Their parents were dead; the cremation ceremony was over, and life
went on: he internally recited, swallowed his whispered whit of air, and
regurgitated the aphorism. Its cold, laconic and impersonal meaning
was assumed an efficacy to change on this propelling Earth like the
odious taste of