I

Your name isn’t Lai.  But that’s what they call you.  The white men who come across the seas with their pockets of baht and bulging pants.  The other girls, who grow old in front of you while you don’t.  Even Tek, your only friend, calls you Lai because that’s what you told him to call you, when you met him that day behind the restaurant’s bins near the Nam Ruak River.

Only Mama Sin doesn’t call you Lai, even though that’s what she named you when she found you.  Even though that’s what she tells the men to call you.  No.  You’re not Lai to Mama Sin.  Mama Sin calls you dead girl.

You can’t remember your real name.  You can remember a village but you wouldn’t even call it a village now you’re in Mae Sai.  Mama Sin says Mae Sai is a village compared to Bangkok.  Whenever Mama Sin talks of Bangkok, her voice goes soft, as if just by saying the name, she is somehow soft, somewhere inside.  You don’t know where Bangkok is.  But from what Mama Sins says, it sounds like the world.  Sometimes you catch her looking at the golden stupas of the temple to the south.  She has that longing in her eyes then.  Maybe Bangkok is south of you.  Maybe you’ll see it.  Someday.

Tek said he would take you away from Mae Sai someday.  But he is young.  You look young because you don’t age anymore.  But he is a boy, and Mama Sin says boys are full of dreams, and when the boys come to Mama Sin’s, they empty the dreams into the girls.  She’s right.  Tek’s dreams fill you at night when the men come to you.  Tek’s dreams make you wish.

Mama Sin says wishing never got nobody, nothing.

Sometimes you wish for that village, the one you remember.  It is (was? you don’t know if it’s still there or not) in the jungle mountains, wild land.  You remember working in rice fields, your mother’s bony back, your father’s tight laugh, hai, hai, when you splashed the knee deep water at him.  You thought, back then, that just the sight of you was enough to make your father laugh like that.  You remember him laughing, and laughing, and laughing a lot.

But not the day you died.

You don’t want to think about that day, so it’s almost a relief when you hear Mama Sin call you.  Dead girl, come here.

You’re the only one who’s not allowed to come out until called.  The others, a dozen girls, all living, can sit in front of the bar and watch television when they’re not working.  They don’t want you with them and San, the barman, doesn’t like the look of you, thinks you’ll put his customers off their beer.  So Mama Sin makes you stay in the back room, all day, all night.  Mama Sin says you don’t need anything, no food, no drink, no light.  Like a mushroom, Mama Sin says, and laughs.  But her laugh is mean.  You may have died young but you know when someone is mean.

Come here, Mama Sin says.  She is standing with two men, white men.  You haven’t seen them before but they look familiar.  Mama Sin says all white men look the same when they’re on top of you.

That her? one of the white men says.

God, look at her.  You really want to do this, Paul? the other says.  I came for the boys, not for this.

Hell yes.  How much?

I think I’m going to be sick.

Well, fuck off outside then.  This is what I came to Thailand for.

But…but what about the diseases?  AIDS?  Huh?

Don’t you read?  Neccers don’t carry diseases.  There’s nothing for a virus to latch onto.  It’s fucking heaven, man.

But what about the smell?  How can you stand the smell?

Smells like fish, tastes like chicken.  Oi, Mummy whateveryourname – how much?

Mama Sin looks you over, as if she’s appraising you.  You’ve seen her do this before, many times.  Mama Sin says you should never be too eager, too desperate, as it scares the buyer off.

Mama Sin says, 40,000.  You wouldn’t get a dead girl for less in this town.

You’re crazy, the white man says.  He looks feverish, the way Tek does when he smells food.  But the white man’s even more weird than Tek.  You think he looks crazy.

The guy down the road was charging 35,000.

I don’t think they honour competitor vouchers in Thailand, Paul.

Shut up.  Well?

Mama Sin looks away.  You can see that glint in her eye.  Mama Sin says buyers are like fish.  You have to wiggle the hook.

There’s the clothes, the makeup, the preservatives.  The perfume, do you know how much perfume it takes to keep dead girls fresh?  All of this costs money, Mama Sin says.  Do you know how much it costs to keep a dead girl?  I can’t go lower than 38,000.

Bullshit, it costs nothing to keep a neccer.  Fuck all.  They don’t eat.  Fuck, they don’t even breathe.  What about 36,500?

Mama Sin holds out her hand.  Done.

The white man gives a wad of baht to Mama Sin’s, so much money.  Tek says you only need a little money in the world.  Tek says he could get to Bangkok if he had a little money.

You never get the money the men pay for you.  Mama Sin says you don’t need it.

Then the white man looks at you.  He’s grinning.  You got a room for me, out back?

Mama Sin nods.  She knows the way, Mama Sin says, not looking up as she counts the money.  Dead girl – take him.

The white man puts his hand on your shoulder.  You can’t feel any more, not since you died.  Tek says he wishes he was you, when it’s cold at night or hot in the day, because you can’t feel it either way.

But you envy him for his feelings.  It’s been so long since you felt cold or hot.  You don’t know what you’d give to feel, because you have nothing to give.

You coming?  the white man asks his friend.  She can do us both.

You glance at the friend.  His white face looks green.  No…no way.  I’ll…just wait at the bar.  The friend looks away.  Fuck, he says quietly.  What the fuck am I doing here?

Your choice.  What’s you name, darling?

Lai.

Show me the way to heaven, Lai, the white man says.

The hallway is dark but you know the way.  The white man is breathing hard already and you hope that means he’ll finish quick.  Sometimes they beat you, and it goes on longer when they do.

Sometimes they do other, darker things when they realise you can’t feel the pain.  Things you don’t tell Tek.  And sometimes, because you can’t feel their fists, it makes them mad, makes them worse, makes Mama Sin demand more baht from them before they leave, to replace the fingers, the arm, the leg they ripped off.  You think Mama Sin likes it when that happens.  Mama Sin likes money.  She always wants more.

You push open the door to your room.  It’s not really your room, none of the rooms are, but the other girls don’t like sharing with you or being in this room after or before you.  They say it’s because of the smell, but Mama Sin covers you with perfume.  Tek says you smell good sometimes, like poppy blossoms.  But you can’t smell any more, so you don’t know either way.

You go to sit on the bed but the white man stops you.  No, no, the white man says.  I paid damn near eight hundred bucks for this and I get what I want for my money.  On your knees, you little dead bitch.

You drop to your knees.  It’s always better when you do what they say.

Open your mouth.

You do, and the white man fumbles with his pants.  He’s breathing harder, and when he puts himself in your mouth, ramming his hips against your chin, you’re glad you can’t breathe any more.  You don’t know how you would, if you had to.

Good…good… the white man is saying.  Good …Lai…good.

Lai’s not your name, but you can’t remember your real name any more.  So Lai’s as good a name as any.

The man grunts and heaves.  You feel pressure on you but nothing else.  Nothing.  Nothingness.
You think about Tek.  He was in a good mood today.  Sometimes when you meet him by the restaurant on the river he’s surly like he just woke up or mad like he didn’t have anything to eat last night.  He doesn’t tell you stories then.  Sometimes he’s sad, too, which you don’t like either.  Tek is the only happy you have.  You hate when he’s sad.

But he was good today.  He couldn’t stop talking, telling stories, talking so much more than you’ve ever heard anyone else talk.  He talks about watching the sun rising over Thailand and setting in Myanmar, which everyone in Mai Sai does, but he talks like it’s beauty aching to be seen.  He tells stories about dancing to the spluttering motors of the tuk-tuks in Bangkok, about bargaining for fish from the Burmese that he sells to the Thais, of watching boxing at Sanam Muay Lumphini.

He talks of things you only dream about, of places you never see.  What you feel must be showing.
Tek playfully taps your forehead.  Hai!  Why you think them thoughts?  They don’t do no good, Tek know, Tek know.

You shrug.  Crinkle a smile.

Tek grabs your hand.  Think about other things.  Think about…Tek!

You laugh, you can’t help yourself.  You try to hide it behind your hand, because Mama Sin is right inside the restaurant and she says she doesn’t want to hear a sound.  She only brought you to carry her parcels, always does, always makes you wait at the back of the restaurant, where you first met Tek years ago, where Tek is most days.

The thought makes you ask, Where were you, Tek, yesterday?

Ooh, Tek says, eyes as wide as the sun.  A venture.  Tek was on a venture.

What’s that?

You don’t know a venture?  Damn, girl, you ain’t lived…

You turn away, his words biting.  Mama Sin says you can’t be hurt anymore, that you’re safe now, nothing can hurt you.  But the men who pay hurt you.  Words hurt you.

Tek looks confused.  What Tek say, Lai?  You know Tek don’t mean nothing, right, right, Lai?  Ah, Lai, Tek don’t mean nothing.

I know, you say.  And you do.  It’s just hard to hear.  You don’t think you’ve lived, either.

What…what have you eaten, Tek, today?  I got some chocolate given to me.

Chocolate!  Who gave you that?  Gimme, gimme!

You hand him the bar, glad to be rid of it.  You wouldn’t have eaten the sweet even if you could have.  Another gift from another man, one who’d given you the chocolate and asked you to call him daddy.  Tek gobbles the chocolate down, smears it across his lips and smiles when he’s done.  Tek is your happy.

But you want to talk serious with Tek today.  You want to ask him something.  Tek – remember you said, Tek, about Bangkok?

Hai.  There’s a golden Buddha outside Wat Intharawihan as tall as the clouds and there’s a dim sum on Khao San Road that always gives food to little children and the dried chillies in the market look like red and green worms and-

You cut in: Have you been to Bangkok, Tek?

Hai.

You can take me?

Tek stops.  He’d been licking his fingers and now he held one aloft, like he was making a point.  Huh?  No, no, Lai, no, no.

You said you been there, that means you know where it is, which means you can take me.  I have to go to Bangkok.  Bangkok’s heaven, Tek.  You can take me to Bangkok, Tek?

Tek shakes his head.  N-n-no, can’t, no.

Why not?

We’d need money, Lai…to go to Bangkok, much baht, it’s long way.

You’d been waiting for this.  I can get money.  I know where Mama Sin hides her baht, she thinks I don’t but I do, I saw her one night when she didn’t see me.  I can get it, Tek, I can get it.

Tek pulls back.  Why, Lai, why you want Tek to take you to Bangkok?  Why now?

You turn away.  Remember what you told me? you ask.  Not before, not about the big Buddha and the chilies…what you told me Bangkok looks like?  You said this, long time ago now, the first time I saw you here in the bins.  You said Bangkok shone like heaven.  A cockroach scuttles along a bin top.  I want to see heaven, Tek.

Then there’s a noise, the same noise you hear every week just before Mama Sin comes out, the crack of the screen door.  You know she can’t see you here, near the bins.  Not yet.

Dead girl! Mama Sin says.

Please, Tek, you whisper, you hiss, take me to Bangkok.  Tek, tonight, Tek, I can’t take another night, another man.  She says I can’t feel it but I can, I can.  Come get me at dawn.  Please.

DEAD girl!

Tek is wide eyed, gaping, haunted.  You’re backing away but you can still hear him say, Lai…Bangkok is so far, too far for Tek…

Tek…please.

There!  Mama Sin’s hand is a vise on your shoulder, wrenching you backwards.  She pulls you out into glaring sunlight.  The man who owns the restaurant is at the door, doing up his belt.  He smirks at you.  Where were you, hmm? Mama Sin asks.  You should stay away from the bins, dead girl, before you’re mistaken for trash, huh.  Pick up those parcels!  Now!

You walked home, laden with bags, Mama Sin keeping a close eye.  But she can’t see your dreams, your thoughts.  Can she?

You think about Tek.  The white man hasn’t finished with you yet but he’s close, you’ve done it so many times you can tell by their voices, the words they don’t say, how tight their hands are on you.
Tek said he can’t go back to Bangkok.  But you can’t stay here.  You can’t live like this anymore.  Not even if you are dead.

You told Tek you couldn’t take another night.

But you told him dawn, so you give one more night.

Later, in the dark, you wipe the last man’s sweat off your back and you think about the spot where Mama Sin hides the money.  There’s a grate in her room, near the bedpost.  You’ve seen her stuff many baht in there.  Hard to get to, you heard the grate screech when she opened and closed it.  Hard but not impossible.  You just have to pick the right time.  And you just need Tek’s help.

Mama Sin is calling for you and you hurry to her room.

Your eyes stray to the grate as you walk in but you quickly look away.  She mustn’t know what you dream.

Mama Sin is sitting up in bed, wrapped in a silk dressing gown that shimmers like goldfish, her hair up in a towel.  A cigarette smolders in a glass beside her and a fan of magazines covers the bed.  She raises an eyebrow, blows a smoke ring.

Dead girl, why are you the one who comes when I call?  Huh?

You shrug, avert your eyes.  Mama gets in moods like Tek.  Sometimes Mama asks questions she doesn’t want answers to.  This is one of those times.

Mama Sin proffers a jug.  Fill this with water.

You go to the bathroom, fill it, come back and place the jug on the dresser.  You don’t look at the grate, dare not think about how much money might be there, how much money has been paid for you over the years.  On your way out, you make sure you turn the latch tightly, so it won’t lock when you shut the door.  But Mama Sin isn’t finished with you yet.

Do you like your life, dead girl?

Another question, one you’ve never heard Mama ask before.  You think maybe she does want you to answer, this time, but when you glance at her she’s not looking at you.  She’s looking out the window.

Of course you don’t.  I see it in your eyes, dead girl, when you think I’m not looking.  I see what you want, what you really think of old Mama Sin.  She laughs, a constricted, painful sound.  I see it, dead girl.

She turns her hawk eyes on you.

And I’ve seen your trash man, too.

Your own eyes betray you.  She’s not lying.  Mama Sin says she can see what you think.  Mama Sin can see your dreams.

His name’s Tek, isn’t it?  Trash man Tek?  Stay away from crazy old men, dead girl.  They don’t have the baht to afford you.  Now, fsst!  Go.  Go now, dead girl, Mama Sin sighs, snapping the pages of a magazine.  I can’t stand your smell.

You walk away, stunned.  You don’t think about the grate, about Bangkok, about Tek, about a life paid for by something other than your body.  Mama Sin will hear you if you think that.

You don’t let yourself dream tonight.  Just lie there in the darkness, trying not to think, or dream, or wish.  And when you hear a cock call, hours later, you hope you’ve kept your thoughts down.

The bar’s quiet now, deserted.  San has gone off to wherever he goes and the other, living girls are upstairs, sleeping off the nip of Saeng Som whiskey Mama Sin gives them at the end of every night.  You think the stuff smells like the nail polish remover Mama Sin uses.  But you still wish you could have some.

You tiptoe across the floor.  The dark is giving way to grey and you know it won’t be long until the sun is up.  Another hour and San will be back, and another hour and Mama Sin would be awake.  Then you’ll be cleaning the rooms while she does the other girl’s makeup.

The front doors are locked so you slide the bolt slowly, so slowly.  A whiff of fresh air outside.  A motorbike turns a corner at the end of the road.  Two dogs snuffle at scraps.  No sign of Tek.

You ease the door shut, fear making you bite your lip.  Without Tek, you can’t do this.  Without Tek, you don’t know where to go, how to get there, what to do.  Without Tek, you don’t know who you are and you may as well stay here until you rot away and Mama Sin puts you out with the trash because no one wants to be with you anymore.

You bite your lip hard and a ragged piece of skin flops onto your tongue.  You spit it out.

Knock.

The sound is so light you think you misheard.

Knock.

But there again – the door.  You turn the knob, make a crack.

Tek’s worried eyes.

Tek!  you squeal.

Hai, sh, sh, Lai.  He slips in, so thin you barely have to open the door.  But you know he’ll be strong enough.  He’s your Tek.  Lai, you got the money?

You came for me, you say, hugging him.  He feels good.

But he wriggles out of your arms, dances two steps towards the stairs.  Hai, came for you, came for the money to take you away.  You got it, Lai?  The baht?

You shake your head and Tek gapes.  You said you could get it!

I can, we can, Tek, I know where the grate where it is but I need help.  We can get it together.

No, you said!

Shh, you’re the one shushing him now, his words too loudly spoken in the bar.  The light outside the door is clearer.  Dawn.  The money’s upstairs.  In Mama Sin’s room and w-

Mama Sin!  You crazy, girl, you one crazy dead girl.  Tek ain’t going, no way, no how!  Not, not for all the baht in the world is Tek going.

Quiet!  Tek, be quiet.  She sleeping, Mama sleeping.  You want to hold him, to settle him, but he’s so jumpy you think if you touch him he’ll run.  We can get it.  Come on.  I’ll show you.

Lai…

Come on.  You say this firm and take to the stairs, relieved to hear Tek falling in behind you.  You wonder if it’s the thought of you or the money that makes him follow.  Tek’s your happy.  But baht makes Mama Sin happy and the white men are happy to give their baht away.  Tek wants baht, so baht would make Tek happy.

You pad upstairs, across the hallway.  Soft snores behind doors.  The other girls will sleep until Mama Sin wakes.  They won’t hear you.  But Mama will if you’re not careful.

You reach back.  Tek takes your hand.  Good.

The door isn’t locked, the latch held.  The door opens on silent hinges.

The magazines she’d been reading earlier are a mess on the floor and Mama Sin is a lump under twisted sheets.  The room is stale with cigarette smoke and the sickly moisturizer Mama rubs on her legs.  Through the window you can see the rising sun touching rooftops across the street.

You wait a beat.

Two.

Mama snores, and you grasp Tek’s hand tighter and pull him towards the grate in the wall.  His bare feet slip on the floor and he trips on a pair of jeans.  You grab his wrist, matchstick thin, and hold him.  His brown eyes are as big as stars.  He shakes his head.  He wants to run.  You shake your head.

You point at the grate.  He’s shivering but he nods.

You kneel down, put your hands around the bedpost.  The grate is too close to the bed.  Together you and Tek will have to lift the bed, Mama Sin and all, and make a space.  You think of his skinny arms.  He has to be strong enough.  You mime lifting the bed and for a second Tek doesn’t understand.  Then he sees the grate, sees the pinkish corner of a 500 baht note sticking out.  He knows.

You clench your fingers, put your shoulder under the bed edge, strain, lift-

-but the bed doesn’t move.  Surprised, you raise your head and Tek’s not beside you.  He’s on his knees, fingers pulling baht notes from between the grate.  He’s feverish, ranting under his breath.  Tek got money, Tek got money, Tek got money, he says, he chants.

You try to pull him away but he’s entranced, shakes you off like an uncomfortable coat.  You’ve never seen him like this.  Never seen him so happy.

Look, Lai – Tek got money!

And I got you!

There’s a sickening wet crunch as Tek’s head hits the wall.

Mama Sin is awake, Mama Sin is there, and in Mama Sin’s manicured hand is a clump of Tek’s pepper grey hair.

She screams, I got you! I got you! As she slams Tek’s forehead against the grate over and over, so many times that you scream at her,

Stop, Mama, no!

But she’s not listening, she’s saying That what you wanted, huh?  Steal my money!  Steal from Mama Sin! and every time Tek hits the wall his blood, his blood, his blood falls on you, and you grab at his hand but his nails scratch gouges in your arm and he pulls at you and you have to pull away.

Tek goes limp.  She lets him slide, a red smear down the wall.

W-w-w, is all you can say but Mama knows, remember, Mama knows what you’re thinking.

Mama Sin says, I learnt long time ago not to let anyone steal from me, dead girl.  Learnt I had to stand up for what was mine, huh.  Don’t let no one steal from you, huh.  Always lessons from Mama Sin.

She looms over you, a darkness that has been chasing you into a corner as far back as you can remember. She smiles, wicked, evil.  That’s what my mother learn me.

Tek moans.  His breathing sounds like someone stepping in mud.  His legs are twitching.  Mama Sin kicks him in the stomach.  Now I learn him.

She forces you to sit on the bed as she makes phone calls.  The first is to San, you can understand her during that one, and you know he’s on his way to take out the trash, as Mama Sin says.  But the second is in a language you don’t understand.  The only thing you hear is tok keow, the green harvest, and Mama smiles at you when she says it.

You whisper to Tek but he doesn’t answer.

She’s still on the phone when San turns up.  Take this outside and leave it for the dogs, Mama Sin says.  And hurry up, huh.  Sompop is coming.

San takes Tek by the ankles, drags him to the door.  You want to go with Tek but Mama’s watching you.

Sompop’s on his way, huh?  With new girls, huh? San asks.

No, she purrs.  For an old one.

Ten minutes later you’re standing on the street outside the bar.  Mama Sin is beside you, a strong hand on the back of your neck.  Rain falls lightly and you wish you could smell the river.  Across the road, San has dumped Tek on the divider.  He is leaning against a potted plant, beneath a yellow flag.

His own golden Buddha.  His face is a mass of red.  You can’t see his brown eyes.

You forget him, huh, Mama Sin says.  No good thief.  Thief and dirty, huh.  She bends down, comes close enough that you see her nose wrinkle at your smell.  He tried to have you without paying, you know.  Offered me stories for you.  Stories, huh!  I say baht, he say story.  Stories of Bangkok, he say.
Mama Sin grips your cheek.  Squeezes.  How could he know about Bangkok and me?  Huh?  You smart, dead girl, smarter than the others.  Too smart.  You told him my dreams and he tried to tell them back to me, tried to get what they all want for the price they all want to pay.  Nothing.

I didn’t-

She slaps you.  Don’t talk back to me, dead girl!  You’re the only one who doesn’t…talk back to me.  That’s why I’m doing this, huh, that’s why!  You made me do this, dead girl.  You…you were the only one out of all of them…

You don’t know how good you have it, huh, with me.  Where you’re going, they don’t pay as much as I do to preserve you, to keep you.  They work you, huh.  They work you all day, every day, huh.  They never stop selling you.  Ungrateful…why you steal from me, huh?  You steal!  You thief!

I find you, I keep you.  You walking in rice field, huh, I find you.  Find you coughing up water.  You so stupid you drown!  Drown, huh!  Stupid, stupid dead girl.  Real mama don’t want you, she leave you.  I find you, I take you in, I give you everything.  Everything!  You’re nothing without your mama!

You’re NOTHING!

Mama Sin slaps you again.  Then she stands rigid, fingernails digging into your hair.  Sompop be here soon, huh.  Then you see.  Then you wish you had kept yourself about you.

The rain falls harder and for once you’re glad you can’t feel it.  Mama Sin opens her umbrella, shoves you aside so you’re not underneath it.

Tek.  It sounds like Tek’s crying.  You can just see him through the thickening morning traffic.

L-L-Lai…

Mama Sin waves up the street.  Her other hand’s on your forearm.  You can’t go to Tek.

L-Lai…Tek…Lai…

A pickup pulls to the gutter.  That’s what Mama had been waving at.

You see Tek for the last time before the pickup blocks your view.  Tek.  Tek with all his stories, all his dreams.  Your Tek.  You’ll never know if Mama Sin was lying about him wanting to buy you.  You’ll never see either of them again.

The back of the pickup is covered and the window creaks down, a moon face, cheery.

Hai, Sin!  The sight of you takes me to heaven, huh.

Save your flattery, Sompop.

Huh, there is no time for love anymore.  Sompop looks you up and down.  His face is similar to the Buddha painted on the yellow flag above Tek.  Round, peaceful.  What have we here?  He glances at Mama.  You sure, Sin?  She in good condition, must make you some cash out here on the fringes, huh.  Course, she could get a lot more over the sea, huh.  I know a man, just like you do, huh.  The American.  He always after girls to ship over, especially well kept little ones, huh.  Why don’t you sell to him?  I just got a fresh load of greens to unload this time.

No.  Mama Sin looks away.  I…I don’t need the hassle, huh.  You do what you want with her.  I wash my hands.  Take her.  I…I can’t use her anymore.

Sompop shrugs.  Hai.  I’ll take her to him myself.  Come, then – in the back.

He levers the door open and steps out of the pickup.  He’s huge.  The biggest man you’ve ever seen, and you shrink away when he comes towards you.

He bellows a laugh.  Don’t worry, huh.  I know what you’re thinking and I don’t want that from you.  I’m just the procurer.  Do you know a procurer is?  No?  That’s okay, that’s okay.  I’m like…a farmer.  Huh, yeah, a farmer.

He ushers you around the pickup, lifts you onto the tray.  Beneath the tarp cover is darkness, a rustling sound, shadows of arms and legs.

Sompop turns your cheek with his hand.  Looks you right in the eye.

Do you know where we’re going?  Can you guess?

He’s the strangest person you’ve ever met and you realise it’s because he’s the kindest.  No one else talks to you like he does.

No, you say.

Huh.  Well, this truck’s going to Bangkok…if you want to come?

You’re stunned.  You nod, vigorously, you can’t believe that after all your dreams, after all your thoughts, that this man and his truck are going to Bangkok and you’re going with him.

Don’t tease her, Sompop, Mama Sin says, behind you.  Get…get her in the truck.  Why do you do that, Sompop?  Play games like that, huh?

Sompop raises the flap.  A man can’t enjoy his work?

Depends.

On the man, huh?

Mama Sin sighs.  On the work.

Sompop laughs and pushes you inside the pickup.  You sprawl, tripping on something soft.  Hai, watch it!  someone says, and you stumble until you’re touching metal and not skin.

All around you are girls, sitting, lying down, most of them younger than you were when you died.  They watch you fearfully, dirty faces and scraggly hair.  Ripped clothes.  There’s a dozen girls in the truck.

From the opening Mama Sin says, You remember what I say, dead girl, huh.  When you get to Bangkok, you see how good your life was here.

The truck shakes as Sompop guns the engine.  You scramble to your feet, try to get to the back of the pickup, but there’s too many girls in the way, and with the pickup moving you can’t get your balance.

Mama!  you cry.  Mama, no!

You’re calling for her, calling for Mama Sin but the truck isn’t stopping.  The gears grind and the world lurches.  You hear a tuk-tuk’s tinny protest as Sompop veers and your feet are taken from under you when a girl beside you rolls.

Mama!  you scream, screaming for her, she who you hate, she who you love, she who told you how to live this dead, dead life.

But by the time you get to the back, she’s not there.  Mama Sin.  Tek.  The hotel.  The bar.  The life you had for so long you can’t remember anything else.

You cry, but no tears come out.  You can’t cry anymore, not really.  All you can do is make the sounds.

II

You remember the preservation.  It still makes you shiver.

The day after she found you in the rice field, Mama Sin hired a tuk-tuk and took you south along the road to Bangkok and stopped at a long, ruddy shack.  The shack was a ramshackle of tin and pilfered wood, one wall leaning crazily against a rak tree.  Mama Sin said criminals wear rak tree flowers around their necks on their way to be executed, or mourners make bouquets from them for cremations.  That scared you, for you didn’t know what she was taking you to the shack for.  But then she said brides wear a garland of rak tree flowers, for the name of rak means love in Thai, and you felt better.  A home against a tree made of love flowers couldn’t be that bad.

But as you drew closer, Mama Sin hurrying you along on your little legs, you saw there were no flowers on the tree, hardly any leaves.  The rak was bare and twisted like an old man’s back.
Mama Sin knocked on the door and you were surprised when a white man answered.  He was the first one you’d ever seen but you had heard of them.  You remember your mother telling you that white men lived in houses like temples far away, flew through the sky in metal, ate until they were as fat as hogs.  This white man looked pale, sickly, his face pockmarked, stubby with beard.  He didn’t look like he flew anywhere and his once colorful shirt was yellowed at the underarms, frayed at the collar and splattered with white dust.  He was missing two buttons and wisps of grey-white hair stuck out.

Mama Sin and the white man talked, you couldn’t understand the words.  You looked past the man.  Inside, the shack was dim but you could see dust motes falling on furry shapes.  A record played crackly music, a light, soulless tune.  You wished the rak tree had flowers.

The white man cupped your chin, looked into your eyes.  His fingers were flecked with chips of white, like dried paint.  His eyes were bloodshot, rheumy.  What is your name? he asked, his Thai strong yet tinged with a mysterious accentuation, as if he were from a region far from yours.  He was white – maybe he learnt his Thai over the seas, which is why he spoke that way.  You didn’t know your name, couldn’t remember.

Mama Sin spoke for you: Her name Lai.  She sounded like a child compared to the white man.  You fix, huh.

The white man held your chin tight.  He guided you slowly in a circle on the spot, looking you up and down as you twirled.  She has no wounds?  Mama Sin shook her head.   Good, good.  Wounds don’t make it harder, just ruins the finish.  Too much stitching.  I’d say she drowned by the look.  Mama Sin nodded.  I’ll have to add something to take the shine off the blue.  Can’t have her looking like a smurf for eternity.

He spoke a few words in another language to Mama Sin without taking his eyes off you, and when she answered he let you go and walked back into the shack, waving you in.  Mama Sin pushed your back, ushered you inside.

The shack was filled with animals.  For a moment the curtain over the only window sent stripes of daylight into the shack just like the curtain of trees in the jungle near your father’s rice field, the piece of green your mother worried about you playing near.  The jungle’s full of beasts, she used to say as if you must think of such things often, to protect yourself.  She said it so much that the few times you would sneak under the canopy of leaves, to cool yourself in the shadows on a hot afternoon, you could feel many eyes on you, beast eyes, and you wouldn’t be able to stay for long.

You didn’t want to go into the shack, not with all the animals looking at you, but Mama had her hand on your neck.  She must have noticed your fear, though, for she said: They dead, huh.  Not going to hurt you.  In, in.

She was right.  As you walked, none of the eyes followed, no animal made a movement nor sound.

There were birds, some perched on shiny wood, others with wings spread as if about to fly.  You saw parrots, peacocks, even a black-headed ibis, bent as if it were dipping its hooked bill in a pool of water. A purple swamphen – they used to pick at the edge of the rice fields – was balanced beside a kingfisher with a white crested chest, and another tiny, multicolored bird whose name you didn’t know.  The white man said, A coppersmith barbet, when he saw you looking.  Caught right out the door.  There was a gibbon, its arms long and thin, hanging from a pole – He’s a hoolock, from India.  Very rare, they pay a lot for one back in London nowadays, especially since they’re quite illegal unless you have the right paperwork.  Those damn WWF fanatics, you understand? the white man said, and you thought he liked your interest even as it made Mama Sin’s face harden – and near the gibbon was what the white man called a golden headed langur.  He said she was one of the last.  He’d found her on Cat Ba Island off Vietnam, a place you’d never heard of.  The langur had a pointed crown of hair tufting from its head.  This langur will pay for my trip here, the white man said.  I got him from a jungle man, god knows where he got him from.

A little Tonkin monkey, you remember your father pointing them out to you once by their snub noses, sat on a rickety dresser, its baby face set in a scowl as if in pain.  You wanted to touch its fur but Mama Sin was pushing you on.  There were the heads of animals, too, set in wooden boards, and you saw leopards, the bovine indifference of gaurs and what looked like a baby black bear.  The white man even had a full body tiger hunched in a corner, forepaws up and mouth wide with teeth.

Although it was dead, the tiger was rippled with muscle and you thought you’d never seen anything so fearsome.

The white man led you through the dead animals and went to a curtain, threw it aside.  You saw a table lit by a yellow light bulb, strange metal instruments, a large pot frosted with a white substance he called plaster of paris.  We won’t be using that on you though, Lai.  Come on – hop up.  The white man picked you up under your arms, plopped you on the table.  I only use that for fleshing and mounting, like the animals outside.  I use this, and he picked up a long, thin knife with a bulbous handle, and I take off the skin, but I have to go slow so the skin doesn’t rip.  Then I take the gibbon or the bird carcass or whatever and I dip it in the plaster of paris, see, to make a mold…like a, a copy, made out of plaster.  I have to put the carcass in the pose I want but I find the animal always tells you the position it should be in.  When the plaster dries, I cover the mould with liquid wax, then throw on some of that special resin there – he pointed at some tins with the knife – before I put the fiberglass matting on and stipple the layers into the resin.  I have to do that many times and I have to let it dry for a day, or two if the animal’s a big one, like my tiger, you saw my tiger?  Once it’s dry, I can smooth the edges.  And then it’s time to put the skin back on, you understand?

When he saw your blank expression, he laughed and in his other language said something to Mama Sin, who shrugged.

Your mother doesn’t know much about you, the white man whispered close to your ear.  Makes me think she’s not your mother at all.  Then louder:  Off.  Take off your clothes.

When you didn’t do anything, he glanced over at Mama, who cuffed you behind the ear.  Do as he says, huh.  I pay much baht, too much for this.  Her hands hooked the straps of your dress, wrenched the material off your shoulders.

The white man said something else and Mama Sin nodded and forced you to lie back.  She slipped your dress off and you were naked on the table.

The white man wiped a rag over your skin that left an oily smear.  Get you clean, he said to your stare.  He swabbed your chest, ran the rag over your legs and arms.  Disinfectant.  Not that you can smell it, right?  Good.  Because the formalin is strong stuff when it first goes on.  Good thing you have no sense of smell anymore.  Her wrists, please.

Mama Sin grabbed your hands, one in each claw, and pulled your arms back.  I usually use these straps to hold my animals in place, the man said, lifting some long pieces of leather attached beneath the table.  Tie her off.  This won’t hurt her but she’ll move under the strain, and if she’s scared.  Mama said, You don’t move now, dead girl, huh, and she lashed the straps to your wrists.  No move.  The white man did the same with your ankles.  You looked at a hole in the ceiling.  You could see a little piece of blue sky through the crack, a fluffy edge of cloud.

He said, Now, I’m just going to find an artery.  This is the hard part.  Without your blood flowing, they’re slippery buggers.  No, don’t lift your head – there’s nothing to see.  For a moment there’s a pressure on your thigh.  From the corner of your eye you could see Mama.  She looked green.  Then there was weight on your chest and you looked back to see the white man leaning over you, a gun-thing in his hand.  He plunged it into your chest and you didn’t feel anything but just the sight of it made you squirm, whimper.

Okay, Lai, it’s okay.  You’re okay, it doesn’t hurt.

The gun-thing was silver, wicked, and a hose trailed from the back of the gun away out of sight.

Now – I need you to do something for me.  You have to keep your mouth shut, you understand?  I’m going to plug the other holes but your mouth is the most important.  If you can’t do keep it shut, I’m going to have to sew your lips shut.  You understand?

Mama…

Quiet!  Keep your mouth shut, he said, huh.

The white man was wadding pieces of an old sheet, turning them into various sized lumps.  You kept your mouth shut tight – no sew, no sew, you thought – and you flinched as he wadded cotton into your ears and your nose.  And you lay back, trying to remember how you came to be this way, trying not to cry while the white man plugged the other two holes.

Even with your ears blocked, you hear the machine start up.  The tubes trailing from the gun-things stuck in you fill with red liquid and the pressure on your chest increases.  Something’s pumping into you from the other gun – it looks clear running through the tube – and you don’t know what it could be but by the way Mama Sin wrinkles her nose and steps back, the smell must be bad.  The white man doesn’t seem to notice; he fusses with the tubes, leans under the table and adjusts something you can’t see, keeps putting his face close to yours.  Mouth still shut?  he asks, though obviously he doesn’t want you to answer.  Little bit of seepage from the ears, that’s normal.  Used to be a hell of a lot easier doing this when dead people couldn’t move.  Lit them on the slab, sew them up, pump them out and fill them up with formaldehyde.  ‘Course, in those days the dead body was only supposed to look good for a few days, a fortnight tops.  We want you to last a lot longer, Lai.

Mama Sin looks like she’s going to throw up.  You can feel liquid bubbling in your mouth and you’re glad you can’t taste it.  The man dabs at the side of your mouth with a cloth.  You look at the sky through the hole.  You wish you were a cloud.

How long, huh? Mama asks.  She’s scowling and you hope she’s not mad with you.

Emptying and filling’s the easiest part, the white man said.  But for the formalin to take hold, we need to leave her for a couple of hours.

You moan.  Already the pressure on your thigh and chest are itches you can’t scratch, the liquid in your mouth feels like vomit.

III

Bangkok.

Nothing could have prepared you for this.  Tek told you stories of golden Buddhas and streets scented with a thousand spices and holy men walking beside whores and lights so bright the stars no longer existed and people, so many people that it felt as if the world would tip over if just one more person came along.  But his stories were nothing of what Bangkok really is.

Only Mama Sin was close.  She called Bangkok heaven.

It felt like years getting there, Sompop’s truck bouncing along earthen roads, through villages smaller than Mai Sai, alongside fields tended by shrunken men and women.  Most didn’t look up when the truck trundled past but you caught sight of one through a rip in the canvas, an old, old woman bent like an arch.  Her hands were claws as she ripped into the soil with a hoe, and her face was spider webbed with wrinkles, as if she were cracked in many places.  The old woman had locked eyes with you for just a moment, long enough for you to wonder what she had been thinking.  Was that longing in her old, grey eyes?  Or did she know Sompop’s truck, had she seen many tok keows go through this way?  Or (and this thought makes you shiver even though you can’t feel the cold anymore) had the old woman been a part of a green harvest of her own, had she been taken on this road to Bangkok once, long ago, this road that leads to heaven?  You can’t be sure.  And when the truck had passed, the old, cracked woman had put her head down and returned to her work, digging listlessly at the field of rice.

Sompop stopped the truck a few times.  Once he refueled.  You could see him through the slash in the canvas, and he must have seen you because he played a game with you, dodging to the side so you couldn’t see him then springing back so his face was right up close.  His laughter is like bells and you don’t know why the other girls are so quiet, so fearful.  You think maybe it’s you, the dead girl, that’s making them scared.  They shouldn’t be sad, you think.  At least they’re alive.  They’ll be dead soon enough.  Then there’s time to be sad.

But Sompop stopped another time and you think you know why the girls are quiet.  Just before dawn, the brakes screeched, not loud enough to wake the other girls who just moaned, rolled over, yawned.  You hadn’t been sleeping, no need to, and even if you could have you were too nervous about seeing heaven.  The truck was rumbling slightly, the engine still on.  Sompop hadn’t stopped for fuel.  Then the flap at the back was wrenched aside and a man stepped into the truck.

He was a small man dressed in grey, the uniform of the Royal Thai Police.  You knew because Tek had pointed them out to you at Mai Sai once, when they’d driven past in a brown and white pickup.  Tek said you should stay away from police, that they are no help to someone like you, so when this one climbed into the truck you shrunk away, tried to hide against the canvas.  He frowned when he saw you, the same look some people had given you in Mai Sai when they realised you were dead.  His eyes swept away until they fell on one of the older girls, Wien was her name.

The police stood over Wien, arms behind his back.  He had a pot belly that stuck out when he stood like that but you didn’t laugh.  You could see a gun on his belt.  You know you shouldn’t laugh at people with guns.

Sompop’s cheery face appeared at the back flap.  See anything you like, huh?

The police said, Hai.

Free for you, huh, Sompop said in his cracked Thai.  Gift.  From me to you.

The talking had woken the other girls up, and Wien too was blinking, looking up at the police and just blinking.  He knelt in front of her and she backed away.  But there was nowhere to go in the truck.

No…no… Wien was saying but the police laughed, he enjoyed her pleading.  You had seen men like this before, who enjoyed the confusion, the pain, the fear they inflicted.  You wanted to tell Wien that it’s better if she keeps her mouth shut and her legs open.  You don’t know why you didn’t.

The other girls huddled away.  One tried to jump out the back but Sompop caught her – Hai, hai!  Got you, little fish! – and threw her back in.  Some of the littler girls were crying, not even knowing what was happening but sensing deep down, somehow, that what they were a witness to was wrong.

You looked out the slash in the canvas, dreaming of heaven and watching dawn break as the truck shook gently behind you.  The light washed over the other police outside, who looked like he was sleeping against the side of their pickup.

When the police was finished with Wien, he wiped himself across her leg, did up his belt and stood up.  Wien was crying.  The police looked down at her.  Pretty, pretty, he said, before spitting at her.

You heard his laughter echoing outside the truck when he stepped out.  Good, huh?  Good, Sompop’s voice carried over Wien’s crying.  You have baht, you have fun.  You let me through, huh?

There was a whistle and the truck was off again, on its way to heaven.

But it would be another day and half the night before you saw it.  Bangkok.

You see the light first.  You’d always suspected the light of heaven would be bright.  But seeing it, now, it’s like a second sun, another moon growing on the horizon.  Mama Sin said Bangkok was so bright you could wear sunglasses at night and still make your way around, still see all that heaven has to offer.

The road is less bumpy now and through the cut in the canvas you see houses, streets, tuk-tuks and scooters.  They all seem to be heading towards the light, like moths chasing a flame.  Sompop toots the horn, you hear him laughing, see his chubby arm out the window waving to some girls standing at a light pole.  They’re so beautiful, those girls, with their silky hair.  They’re an age you will never reach, at least not in body.  You’re probably ten, fifteen years older than them but when you’re dead it doesn’t count.  You still look like a little girl.  That’s still how you’re treated.  Like a child.

The road turns into four lanes and fills with cars, all heading towards the light.  You can see ziggurats and towers, pyramids and temples, temples is what they look like, they must be temples, must be built for a god they’re so big and made of so much light.  There’s so stars, just like Tek said.  No stars in heaven.

Sompop pulls the truck over, honks and yells.  The truck hitches as he shifts his considerable bulk out of the front seat, slams the door.  He’s talking to someone.

…the best, Chiang Xin, nothing but the best for you, huh.  I always give you first pick, best pick, huh.  Look, look.

The flap is wreathed aside and the girls shrink back.  Wien whimpers, cowers.  You see Sompop with a prune faced woman.  She looks like she just ate a lemon.

You said that last time, she says, and the fruit you left was spoilt.

No, no, no, just plucked at the wrong time.  Her uncle.  I thought that would have broken her in…

Broken her, more like.  Chiang Xin stalks into the truck.  She’s like an insect, thin legs and arms, snapping forward to look closer at a girl like a praying mantis would its prey.  Like this lot.  Where are you farming now, Sompop?  I swear these country girls are as rough as the boys.  I need softness.  They pay for girls who are girls, and if they want boys they ask for boys.  What can I do with these?

Sompop’s moon face splits with a grin.  They just need a wash, huh, a wash and you can serve them today, Chiang Xin.

Hmm.  The woman purses her lips.  Her eyes fall on you.  She gags.  What are you doing with that?
Sompop hustles forward, drags you up by the hair.  You like?  She’s in good condition, huh.

She’s…preserved fruit.  I was taking her to the American but I can let you have her, he doesn’t have to know, huh.  You want her?

No, I don’t.  I don’t peddle the dead.  Take her to him, I don’t care.  Chiang Xin puts a handkerchief over her nose.  Abominations.

Oh, don’t be so mean, huh.  One day you be dead too, see how you feel then.

Yes, and when that day comes, Sompop, I would rather burn in the Hell of Nine Fires than live like her.  She steps out of the truck.  Nothing for me today, Sompop.  Thank you.

Sompop rushes after her.  But, Chiang Xin!  You my best customer!  I only have the best for you…

You see Chiang Xin through the cut in the canvas, shutting the door to the street.  Sompop is pleading with her but she slams the door in his face.  You look up, at a light in the top window.  A small, pale face, hands cupped against the glass.  Then a hand grabs the child’s shoulder, and the face is no longer at the window.

Sompop glares at you through the cut.

When the truck starts up, you’re sitting in the front seat.  Sompop says, You ride up with me, huh.  Keep you special for the American.

See.  Even Sompop thinks you’re a little child, thinks you can’t understand the real reason he wants you in the front, so you don’t scare his customers.  But it doesn’t matter.  Not now you can see more of Bangkok.

You see the source of all the light now.  Signs, signs everywhere, lit up and glowing, filling the world with yellows and reds and pinks and blues.  The street is thick with cars but the sides of the streets are thicker with people, all sorts of people, all kinds, alive and dead.  You wouldn’t stand out here.

Except you can’t see any dead children, like you.

Sompop talks.  Sompop never stops talking.

You a Buddhist?  No?  Shame, shame.  Everyone should be Buddhist, huh, I think.  Course, everyone has Buddha essence, even little dead girls like you.  But you must have no delusions, no falseness of self, to attain a pure mind, huh.  You must suffer to attain the first of the four noble truths.  You should be a Buddhist, huh.  Buddha says there is no beginning and no end to life.  Samsara, huh, the perpetual cycles of existence, huh.  We are all endlessly reborn across the six realms until we reach Nirvana, where there is no karma, no defilements, no delusions.

You think Sompop looks like Buddha, the pictures you used to see back in Mae Sai.  Round and cheerful.  Enlightenment.  It’s just happiness, isn’t it?  That’s what you think because Buddha always looks so happy.

The streets are denser, Sompop is braking more.  He stops every so often, tells you to stay in the truck, and opens the back up for another customer.  Most of them look like Chiang Xin, bitter old women hoping to scrape enough baht together to pay the rent each month.  The girls in the back are shuffled out one by one, handed over for a handful of money.  Sompop looks pleased.  But then again, Sompop always looks pleased.  You see Wien go.  She’s mute, dumb, numb.  He sells her to an obese man out front of a tobacco store, who takes her down an alley beside the shop.  You’ll never see her again.

Sompop drives and heaven’s not so bright.  The people are grim, their laughter desperate.  Mongrel dogs gnaw at rubbish in the gutters while girls in tight skirts barter with white men walking past.  You see children in the streets.  Children dressed like adults.

Sompop’s talking: Prajna, wisdom, must be a balance, huh, a balance between compassion and logic.  Sakyamuni Buddha said that.  You think what I do is wrong, huh.  I see, I see.  But I must balance my heart with my head.  That is what Buddha tells us.

He stops at a street, tells you this is Soi Cowboy.  Most famous street in Bangkok.  You see signs for bars, ripples of neon and chains of fairy lights.  Sompop toots to clear the way and parks.  We walk, one more stop before you, huh.  Come on.

Sompop leads, you follow.  He’s holding the hands of the last two girls, a pair of twins.  He told you they were special, he was keeping them for someone special.

A little girl sells flowers beside a man offering tourists his baby elephant to be photographed.  White, old, fat men leer at girls, at boys, at women, at men.  There’s an angel in a sign, Suzie Wong is her name, and she looks so beautiful to you.  A Thai man talking on a phone stares at you as you walk past.  A bar named Midnite’s doors swing open, three men spill out.  Briefly you see blue light, writhing bodies, booming music shaking the glass inside.  Then the doors shut and the men are walking away arm in arm, laughing, laughing, laughing.

Sompop takes you to a place called The Dollhouse.  He stops at the door, a burly man in a black shirt looks him up and down.  No Thai, the doorman says.

Hai, I know, I know, Sompop says.  Tell Tong that Sompop is here with the harvest.  Sompop, Tong knows me.

The doorman talks into a phone and nods.  Go in, he says, pushing the door open.  Sompop bustles you and the twins inside.

Music hits you hard, grating.  The bar is dim, low lighting making shadows of every corner.  The stage is a beacon in the centre and two Thai girls jiggle against one another.  The girls kiss and some of the shadows chuckle where they sit at tables around the room.  Sompop is heading for the bar.  An old Japanese man reaches for you, mumbling something, but he doesn’t catch you.  You stay at Sompop’s back.

Tong is skinny, bald, seated at the bar with a cigarette dangling from his lips.  He has black horn rimmed glasses and with his shirt off you see his chest criss crossed with tattoos in greens and reds.

On his neck is a picture of a set of eyes staring out of a rip in his skin.  He has a video camera.  He’s filming the stage, doesn’t even look up.  Sompop, Tong says.  He puffs out some smoke.  What you got for me?

Straight to business, huh, very well, very well.  These two, fresh, never been touched, clean.  You like twins, huh.  You can use them, huh.

Tong snorts.  I got more girls then customers now the Apache’s cutting its prices and Suzie Wong’s letting Thais in.  He looks away from the camera, checks out the two Sompop’s holding.  The smoke makes him blink.  Still…twins.  Okay, okay.  How much you want?

The two men talk and you want to go, want to see the golden temples Tek told you about, want to take a boat up the canal to the markets like Mama Sin said she used to, want to see the sun rise over the skyscrapers.  But if you left Sompop, you don’t know what would happen to you, don’t know where you are, or where you’d be.  What do you do in heaven, if you’re alone?

What about her?  You turn and there’s Tong, right up close, his camera in your face.  He’s not looking at you but at the little screen.  The blue light of the screen makes his glasses look like a mask, makes the tattoos on his face dance and whirl.  I didn’t know you picked them rotten, Sompop.

No, no, no, a favour, huh, doing a favour.  You want her?

Tong snaps his camera shut.  He takes the cigarette from his mouth and stubs it out, picks another from the pack, lights it.  Nah.  Got no call for necros.  Once you start that shit, there’s no way back.  And I like to sample my own merchandise, you know.  He shivers.  I don’t do dead kids.  You taking her to the cowboy?

Sompop nods.  I know he likes them, huh.

He does.  Should get you some baht, this one.  Tong fingers your hair.  She’s been kept well, huh.  I seen me one who looked like pounded shit before.  Holes in her, like someone wanted to fuck her in all different places as well as her arse.  Creepy shit.  She was nowhere as clean as this one, though.  What they preserve her with?

Don’t know, good but, huh, good.

Sure you don’t want her? Sompop says.  I give you a deal.

Tong laughs.  You still scared of the American, Sompop?  Is that why you’re trying to fob her off?

Shit, I wouldn’t buy her even if I could use her now.  It’s priceless seeing you squirm.

Sompop, for the first time, doesn’t say anything.  You wonder why.

Tong puts out his cigarette, opens his camera.  He’s back looking at the stage, where the two girls have been replaced by a dark skinned woman with massive breasts.  She dances in a sequined g-string, light dazzling off her body.  Tong says, Better hope the American cowboy thinks she’s as worthy as you do.  Otherwise the next time the harvest comes, it won’t be Sompop in the truck.  Go on, then.  I’m busy.

Sompop grabs your hand, drags you to the front door.  You see Tong has turned his camera on the twins.  Their faces are beautiful in the camera’s light.  Like angels.

- Luke Keioskie