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“Thong Muan!”

The little girl started. She let the ashes fall back into the bucket.

“It’s the bus, isn’t it?”

“Yes, that’s it,” she answered, raising her dirty hands to ward off the rays of the sun, and turning her body to watch the small gray-and-orange bus, as it chugged sluggishly along the dike-top track overgrown with a mat of brown love-grass. The little girl felt surprised that she had not been the first to hear it coming—especially since she’d been thinking about it since early afternoon. The bus’s engine groaned slowly, now louder, now softer, according to the rhythm of its swaying, teetering movement. Her eyes strained after it until it turned the corner into the village.

“Hold on a minute!” Her father’s voice filtered up from the other side of the shelter.

“Why? What’s the matter?”

“Pick them! Pick the cucumbers!” Her father’s reply died away when he heard the sound of the bus rolling into the village. He fell silent for a few moments before continuing:

“Pick the best-looking ones! Tomorrow morning, I want you to go and sell them in town.”

Her father’s last sentence was uttered so softly that it was hard to catch.

“Yes … yes!” she answered, as she tipped the ash-bucket over onto the ground, wiped her hands hastily on her dark sarong, and hurried off to the row of cucumber-plants that stretched their clinging vines up and along the dry-branch stakes. Her gaze swept down the row, checking the cucumbers hanging there for a moment or two before she started picking. Once in a long while she would lift her head and stare in the direction of the village: the image that caught her eye so clearly was of galvanized-iron roofs that had begun to turn grey. And, as usual, the sight gently led her to stray into an unknown dream world. She thought back to all those Elder Brothers and Sisters who had been so smiling and cheerful, so handsome and beautiful, and who spoke so nicely and sang so sweetly. The little girl’s face flushed once more as she recalled the lily-white hands that had stretched out to chuck her under the chin.

“Look how nicely curved her eyebrows are! And her eyelashes curl up just beautifully! What’s your name, little one?”

How long she had stood there, shy and embarrassed, before she was able to utter the words of her name!

“Thong Muan!”

“Ye-es, Father?”

“Are you picking or not?”

“Yes!”

“Yes, yes! Are you picking or not? You’re just standing around clumsily in a daydream! If you mother had come along, you’d be getting a good scolding for sure.”

Her father spoke without turning round towards her. The little girl smiled wryly to herself, then stuck out her tongue at her father’s brown back, partly visible from her side of the cucumber-trellis. “He’s right,” Thong Muan thought, “if Mother’d come along, there’d be no way out of a scolding.” Nagging and the picture of her mother always loomed up together in her mind. Then the little girl’s thoughts turned back once again to that day. She still remembered how on that day school had been let out earlier than usual; and in fact almost no one had taken in any of the lessons that whole afternoon, for every child was feverishly excited about the appearance of the strangers. The minute Teacher had let them out of the classroom, she and her friends had run in a throng to the courtyard of the temple. And there she’d seen them. The Elder Brothers and Sisters were standing there in a group. They’d come “in a big red bus of a kind that Thong Muan had never seen before. Came with the sound of singing which rose and fell, of a kind she had never heard before. But she felt it was a kind of song that was somehow familiar, and an instinctive feeling stirred in her heart that it would probably bring with it more good cheer and friendliness than anything else in the world. Thong Muan had circled around, watching them stealthily, until it got dark. Then she went home. And her mother had nagged her, on and on and on. Worse still, even though the Elder Brothers and Sisters had all oohed and aahed at how pretty she looked, the minute she’d showed up at home her mother had stared at her disapprovingly and said: “What’s that you’ve got on your face? It’s as dirty as a baby monkey’s.” Acting as if she has not heard, the little girl had walked off in another direction. The next morning she had woken while it was still dark, got up, washed her face, given a good scrub to the area round her eyes, and rubbed her round cheeks until they stung. But her mother had followed her, holding her baby sister in her arms, and gone on nagging: “All you do is wash your face! I’ve heard you using up several bowls of water already! When school’s out, come back here at once, and go get the water instead of me.” Her mother’s nagging had droned on and on. She’d nag about anything and anyone. On and on, over and over she’d nag, to the point that no one in the house took it seriously any more. And it seemed as if Mother herself couldn’t remember from day to day what she had been nagging about. Her face was round, flat and wan. By the time she’d finished her nagging, it looked like a circle cut out of yellow paper. Mother was so thin and frail that Thong Muan sometimes felt puzzled as to where in that tiny body she kept so much nagging stored away, and how she could possibly have given birth to eight children? It was because Mother had had so many children, born one right after the next, that, as far back as she could remember, the little girl had never seen her take one step anywhere outside the village. In any event, everyone in the family—from her father down to the younger children, who were already old enough to know what was going on—everyone seemed to have learned for themselves that quacking away like a duck was simply Mother’s nature. She just quack-quacked away, and that was that. She nagged without hoping, without even thinking that anything would come of it. In fact, no one really knew whether Mother nagged because she suffered, or whether nagging gave her a kind of happiness. Even though she’d become used to it, still Thong Muan sometimes felt upset. Each time she’d creep out of sight and linger somewhere outside the house for a long while. Or she’d put her hands to her two ears to shut out the noise and let Mother quack away to herself. And every time that she got this kind of response from Thong Muan, the movement of Mother’s lips would gradually get slower, the tears would trickle down, smudging the wrinkles on her withered, brown cheeks, and then she’d turn away to bawl out Father or any of Thong Muan’s younger brothers and sisters who happened to walk in. “If I’d known you’d be born so pig-headed and tongue-tied, I’d have pinched your noses and smothered you when you were still babies!” Over and over Mother would repeat this unpleasant sentence. Come to think of it, if she turned round and gave it to Father once in a while, that was only fair, for it was Father himself who had taught Thong Muan to act this way to begin with.

*  *  *  *  *

Thong Muan still remembered very well the last day—actually the last night—when the first group of Elder Brothers and Sisters were getting ready to go home, after completing the construction of that huge, wall-less hall. They had had great fun holding a celebration party. There were all kinds of games and singing. The moment that school was let out Thong Muan had dropped by, watching raptly until dark, when one of the Elder Brothers had come up and led her out by the hand to join him dancing the ramwong. Even though her body trembled and her thoughts were in a whirl, she’d gritted her teeth and danced along with him until the round was over. Meanwhile, one of her younger sisters had sneaked off to tell her mother all about it. When Thong Muan got home, Mother had kicked up a huge screaming fuss till her voice gave out. For a while it looked as if things would end in a big scene that night, with she and her mother outdoing each other in sobs and tears—till her father had had to get up and put a stop to it. Then he’d turned to her and scolded:

“You know how your mother is! So why do you talk back to her? You were in the wrong too! Just act as if you don’t hear a word—then that’s the end of it.” Father wasn’t a man of many words, so it was easy enough to remember what he said. More than that, though, it seemed as if he firmly believed in his own words—that playing deaf and dumb would calm down Mother’s chronic nagging. Thong Muan had tried it several times, but she could only keep it up for a moment or two. She felt it was because Father was a grown-up that he could make his ears not listen to things he didn’t want to hear—without even having to cover them. The little girl couldn’t imagine what her life would be like if Father wasn’t here with her in this world. As she thought about all of this, she stretched out her hand to pick another cucumber…. One thing was certain, she’d probably never have the chance to go into town, as her father had told her just a few moments ago. When she thought about the word “town,” Thang Muan’s heart thumped more violently than ever.

*  *  *  *  *

It was the cool season, and the sun dropped slowly towards the earth. That evening, Thomg Muan and her younger brothers and sisters ate dinner first. Even though the main dish amounted to no more than watery pepper-sauce and an oddly-shaped cucumber Father had removed from the basket, she and her little brothers and sisters stuffed themselves with great enjoyment. For it was not only she who was thrilled at the idea of her going into town to sell cucumbers; the other children, who sat in a circle around her, vied with each other in making comments and laying in orders. The littlest one asked her to buy some khai jingjok. The next one up wanted her to bring back rubber bands. As for her baby brother, who was still too young to go to school, he asked for red paper to make a kite. The children’s shrill chattering and laughter made Mother, who was busy helping Father sift the cucumbers for quality on the outside porch, turn round and scold them once again: “Go on! Stuff yourselves! And tonight you’ll get the runs!” Her mother’s nagging stopped the little girl short. Though it seemed from her tone that she simply meant to restrain the younger children, still, Thong Muan thought, if what Mother had just mentioned should happen to her, she probably wouldn’t be able to go into town. So she quickly finished eating. Then—even though she still could not shake off a feeling of unease—her father told her to take her little brothers and sisters in with her to bed, so that she’d be ready to get up before it was light.

But however much the little girl struggled to control her excitement, she couldn’t drop off to sleep. She had only to close her eyes for images of multi-colored clothes and throngs of people to jostle each other here and there in her mind—making it drift back and forth between her village and the town. For one fleeting moment the little girl hoped that she’d get to meet Them again at the Market. They’d surely remember her, just as she never stopped thinking about and longing for Them. Some of Them would surely come and hug her, just as They had done the morning They’d got ready to leave the village. Some of Them would surely ask to buy watermelons from her. At the thought of this, Thong Muan felt confused, uneasy at the idea of taking any money. Part of her would have liked to give the melons away free. But the other part kept thinking of Mother’s wan face and the swollen knuckles on her hands as she helped Father pick through the cucumbers on the porch. The sound of Mother’s coughing from outside made the little girl feel moody and irritated. All the same, Thong Muan was quite certain that this was going to be one day when she’d be really happy. Several times she got up and then lay down again, peering out into the darkness through a chink in the door. Beside the dim glow of the lamp the blurred shadows of her mother and father were still selecting cucumbers in silence. The little girl eased her body down onto the reed mat. Once again her thoughts drifted to the building standing there beside the ricefield. She remembered that at first she hadn’t been excited about it at all. It had struck her simply as a rather large, funny-looking building, bigger than the house of Headman Mi, bigger than any other building in the village. But when everyone oohed and aahed about it, she began to share their feeling of excitement. And that last night before They left, when one of the Elder Brothers had stood up and made such a beautiful-sounding speech, conferring the building on the village as its very own property, and everyone else there, including Headman Mi, Teacher, and the Masters from the District Office who’d come to join the celebration, all made speeches of their own to the effect that the building was a good thing and would bring progress to the village and the nation, she had kept her own delight to the silence of her heart. Yet not so long afterward, by the time the planting season came round, it seemed as if everyone had forgotten that this funny-looking building existed in their village. Nonetheless, because the building stood by the edge of the path along which she had to herd the water-buffalo mornings and evenings, Thong Muan felt somehow attached to it, and would often drop by there to rest. And every time she passed under its eaves, she felt a warmth in her heart and thought of Them. But still she had no real idea of how the hall would bring progress to the village and the nation. It was only the following year that the little girl began to understand, when another group of Elder Brothers and Sisters came to stay in her village. This time they came in an even bigger vehicle than before. But because the rains and the flood-waters from the hills had completely eaten away the dikes that controlled the stream outside the village, their vehicle couldn’t make the crossing, so it stopped to let them off by the edge of the ricefields. They had had to carry all their belongings over by themselves, but each and every one of them had done so with broad and happy smiles. This time they hadn’t camped at the temple but had moved straight into that hall of theirs. They didn’t make any additions to it at all. Instead, they all went off the next day to cut wood in the jungle to build a bridge. At the same time they dug out termite-hills and filled in the mudholes on the dikes over which the oxcarts used to pass. Headman Mi himself led some of the villagers out to give them a hand. Her own father too had gone off to help them dig. They’d worked for a whole month, till the job was done. On the last day the big vehicle which had brought them there originally came to pick them up. This time it didn’t stop by the edge of the ricefields, but moved slowly across into the village and came to a sudden but stately halt in front of the hall. When night fell, they held a celebration ceremony at which the bridge and the road into the village were donated to the villagers, just like the year before. Thong Muan too had gone out to watch. But this time she felt very shy. She didn’t dare look anyone in the eye, and especially not the Elder Brothers. She stared at them dancing the ramwong, thought of her own shabby clothes, then quietly withdrew and stood watching from a distance. She’d begun to understand what they meant when they’d said that this hall would bring progress. For by now the little girl understood very well that her village was no hill or jungle settlement, and that the town was not far, far away over the horizon, as she’d often heard her father and mother say.

Townspeople and cars were no longer something strange. Headman Mi had now to welcome Masters more and more often. Some of them dropped in for only a short while, but others came and stayed a long time. Sometimes they brought medicines and clothing to distribute in the village. As her thoughts drifted to the subject of clothing, Thong Muan stretched out her hand for the flower-patterned blouse folded up by the top of her pillow. It too had been part of the clothing they’d handed out. Actually, they’d given it to her mother, but since it was a bit small, had short sleeves, and the neck was too big, Mother had turned it over to her. Even though it was rather old, and there were tears around the edge of the neck and at the armpits, the flowers on it were still bright and gay.

When she heard her mother’s cough and call, coming in over the huddled bodies of her little brothers and sisters, Thong Muan was still half asleep. Her mother had to call her a second time before Thong Muan rubbed her eyes and sat up. Rummaging for her clothes and drawing them on, she peered out through the wide-open doorway, and saw hundreds of stars scattered across the surface of the sky. The little girl then jumped up and walked straight out to the end of the porch, where she hastily washed her face. The motor of the bus was humming under the umbrella of the tamarind tree in front of the house. Her mother lifted the lamp up high to light her way. Thong Muan looked around for her carrying-pole and baskets. But her mother gestured with the lamp towards the front of the house and said that Father had carried them out for her already. And when Thong Muan reached the front, she saw Father handing up the two bushel-baskets to someone on the roof of the bus. Not knowing what to do, the little girl wandered about for a while, till her father turned and saw her. He handed her the carrying-pole and gave her a gentle push from behind in the direction of the back door of the bus, remarking slowly, “When you’ve got the money from the sales, don’t forget to give the men the fare.”

Inside the bus, Thong Muan noticed, beside a heap of sacks, seven or eight other passengers. But it was still much too dark for her to make out who was who. A moment later the sound of voices died away. The engine revved up and idled several times before the bus pulled out of the village. Sluggishly at first, and then with a gathering speed. The little girl peered out through the darkness. The stars scattered along the horizon glittered brightly. A chilly breeze came pouring in. The swaying and shaking of the bus and the smell of gasoline made Thong Muan, who was still drowsy from lack of sleep, begin to feel sick and dizzy. She lost all interest in the darkness outside and rested her head on one of the sacks. Every time the bus came to a stop she was startled awake. But each stop, each time, it turned out not to be the Market—just another village along the way. And with each stop the number of passengers steadily grew. The sound of people exchanging greetings would flare up loudly, only to fade away into silence as the engine of the bus revved up once again. It went on like this, village after village, over and over again, till finally the little girl’s sense of excitement vanished and she fell fast asleep. She only woke up again when she felt someone shake her, heard people shouting, and saw flashes of light.

“Whose are these? Who do these baskets belong to?” From the roof of the bus came the questions in the blackness of the night.

Thong Muan shifted her body and stared out into the dark. She felt puzzled, since they weren’t at a village and yet she sensed that it wasn’t the Market either. As she sat there, still in a daze, she heard a whisper close to her ears: “It’s the Masters, it’s them—the Masters!” All the little girl could do was sit quite still. But the voice from the roof of the bus repeated the questions.

“Most likely they belong to the little girl, the one whose father put her on the bus …” The answer came from the driver’s seat.

The voices, questioning and answering, fell silent for a moment. Then came the sound of someone standing below ordering all the bushel-baskets, round baskets, and sacks to be lowered off the roof, and all the passengers to alight. The voice giving the orders was brusque, harsh, and hoarse. It sent a shiver into the heart of the little girl like no voice she had ever heard in her village. But the order for all the passengers to get out of the bus dragged her up from her seat in spite of herself. The icy cold on her skin pierced deeper and deeper inside her, till her whole body trembled. But her dazzled eyes began to get accustomed to the dark. And the people she’d seen only as indistinct shapes a moment ago now loomed up more clearly. Slowly Thong Muan moved along, down, and out of the bus in the wake of the others.

“All right! Everyone check their things! See what belongs to who!”

The voice was now gentler than before. But it still held enough authority to make the villagers disperse in the direction of the bushel-baskets, round baskets, and sacks scattered along both sides of the bus. With nervous haste they opened up their various bundles and picked through the marrows, gourds and cucumbers, turning them up and around as a flashlight cast its beams here and there, from one person’s things to another’s.

Watching the other passengers, Thong Muan immediately grasped what she had to do. Quickly she knelt beside her bushel-baskets, took off the banana-leaves laid on top, and set them down to one side.

“Cucumbers, huh?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Anything underneath?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Huuuuh? What did you say? Is there or isn’t there?”

”Yes, sir! Yes, Master!”

Since her answers were not clear, the man lifted up one of the bushel-baskets and shook it, while the torch-beams flashed back and forth several times from the face of the little girl to the basket full of cucumbers.

“These look pretty good. Let me have a bunch, little one, O.K.?”

The voice now sounded rather different, even a bit self-conscious.

“Yes, sir. It’s one baht for three bunches.”

Thong Muan’s naive answer, which completely missed the real point of the request, seemed to relax the tension in the darkness. The sound of laughter wafted up, along with words of explanation and apology.

“We’ve been getting some pretty bad reports, so we have to check everything closely. Sorry, O.K.?”

The Masters moved off in silence, and the passengers proceeded to help each other lift their things back onto the bus. No one said a word. There was no teasing and joking like before, when the bus stopped at the villages. And the bus moved on once again.

Even though she didn’t have much of an idea of what was going on, what she had just experienced made Thong Muan feel both astonished and wide awake. She looked out of the window. The stars fading on a horizon now greying towards the east, and the bus roaring on full speed ahead, brought the little girl’s thoughts back to the images of her mother, of the poles with cucumbers hanging from them, and of her father awkwardly standing there watching the bus enter the village late the previous afternoon.

The bus passed another two or three of the Masters’ check-points. But there was no close inspection, just a few well-understood words of enquiry to the driver. And the bus sped on. Not long afterwards, cream-colored streaks became visible on the grey horizon. The sun cast its orange-yellow rays up onto patches of cloud. Crows and other birds began to fly about, swooping down over the rice-fields. Shortly afterwards, a big road began to take shape in the far distance. The bewilderment and alarm which had unsettled her spirit a long moment ago now died down. Her excitement returned as the images that entered her vision grew gradually sharper. A huge orange bus blared its horn loudly as it hurtled by.

“Whoopee, folks! This is the last check-point!” shouted the bus-boy, trying to be funny, as he scrambled down from the roof, while the bus slowed down and finally came to an abrupt standstill by the edge of the big road. No one answered. Not a glimmer of laughter. By now the sun had risen high over the horizon and shone with a warm, bright radiance. The driver climbed down from his seat and strolled nonchalantly over to a lean-to by the side of the road, while two Masters followed one another over and into the bus. They didn’t say a word—just casually scanned the faces of the passengers, greeted those they recognized, and then stepped down.

*  *  *  *  *

Rather a long time passed. Small buses from other villages moved in one after another and parked behind Thong Muan’s. Passengers in the buses which had just come in could be heard shouting questions. The sunlight grew steadily stronger till it felt quite sultry. Still the driver did not reappear. Inside her bus, the waiting passengers, packed tightly together, began to grumble and spread the word that something must be up. A few moments later, the bus-boy climbed down and went off after the driver. He vanished briefly from sight and then reappeared with a frown on his face, but tried to make a joke of the situation by announcing loudly in the rhythm of a country song:

“The veg’tables will rot for sure … ay-de-ay … o-de-o …”

His words and manner—both inviting annoyed amusement—momentarily made the grumbling die away. But then it boiled up again into an angry clamor, mixed with curses and obscenities. Under the passengers’ insistent questioning the bus-boy bellowed in reply:

“They won’t let our bus onto the road! That’s all!”

“Why? Why?” came the sound of several passengers shouting the same question almost simultaneously.

“The police say the owner of the road won’t allow it.”

The grumbling and swearing, which had momentarily died down, welled up loudly once again. On the road in front of them cars roared by at shorter and shorter intervals. Passengers in some of these cars stuck their faces out of the window and waved. Thong Muan, who’d been sitting fidgeting for a long time now, and who had gathered from the back-and-forth between the adults that the bus she was riding would go no further, stuttered:

“So what do we do now?”

“How should I know?” answered the bus-boy. And when the driver reappeared…

“Who the hell is it who won’t let us go?” came a deep voice from the rear.

“The owner of the road who else?” This time it was the driver who replied.

“Who?”

“I don’t know. The police just say it’s the concessionaire.”

“What?” the little girl broke in.

“The concessionaire, of course!”

“Concessionaire what’s tha-a-a-a-at?” in a shrill voice choked with sobs.

The driver turned round to stare at the face of his questioner.

He took out a cigarette, lit up, and inhaled deeply before forcing himself to answer:

“The concessionaire … well … you’ll learn soon enough!”

The din of voices, which had died away for a moment, buzzed up loudly once again, far harsher than before.