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Watched over with care, with new kindling sticks placed carefully one by one, picked up from the woman’s side as she sat there and put them on top of the old sticks which were almost burnt out, the fire did not take long to burn up again, licking at the new tinder until its flames gradually came back to life in the half-light of dawn.

By the blaze, now burning bright under the three-legged iron stove on which sat a big steaming-pan, always standing there at this same spot in the space under the flooring of this woman wholesaler’s house, built high up on piles, a close cropped head of hair could be seen, the color of white weedflowers, bobbing up and down five or six paces away to the right of the stove. The head was bent down below the level of a flat, smooth bamboo pole, polished to a shade of shining yellow at the middle. The two ends of the pole were small and slightly bent up just at the right places where scoring marks had been made on both sides by four old rattan strings, plaited at the top and hanging down to form a kind of sling for two old crumbling baskets, black with age, one at each end. The baskets themselves each held a flat plaited bamboo tray, on which were placed, one on top of another, a few white enameled bowls with cracks and black chipped spots on them. There were also an old cigarette tin containing bamboo pins and a small piece of rag serving as a cloth for wiping the hands.

What else could all these represent but a mai-khan and saraek? The mai-khan itself, so long in service on human shoulders, shone in the middle a beautiful color of gold.

The sound of water boiling came from under the two-tier steamer. Steam was pushing its way through the seam where the cone-shaped cover met the steamer. Sitting by the side of the stove was a middle-aged woman. She was wearing an old creased pha-lai with several patches and a long-sleeved, gray-flannel blouse open in front. When the woman stretched out her hand to pour some water into the pan, the sound of boiling subsided while a heavy cloud of steam billowed out for the last time before it gradually disappeared. The woman then got up and took off the cover of the steamer, laid it on its back on the ground, lifted the steamer up and put it on a wooden stand where a girl was sitting adroitly rolling dough into dumplings and putting them into another empty steamer. The soft and well-kneaded tiny tapioca grains were flattened in her palm by the tips of her fingers, then wrapped around a sticky filling, which had been well fried and seasoned with both salty and sweet tastes. The white dough was then rounded off and pinched tight over dark brown pork-stuffing. When her hand was dry, the girl dipped it into a small bowl of water, then moulded more dumplings into a round and smooth shape before placing them in the steamer, ready-lined with banana leaves oiled with fat to prevent the tapioca paste from sticking to the iron of the steamer. The uncooked dumplings looked white and quite different from those already steamed. When she heard the noise made by the steamer being put there by her side, she took a quick look towards one of the thick posts forming the piles for the house above. There she saw the bending form of an old woman, huddled up against the cold. A pitiful sight indeed!

But this was only a daily scene, too familiar for any other feeling to be aroused in the girl but the usual sympathy. She lifted the steamer filled with dumplings which she had arranged in neat rows with her own hands and passed it on to her mother to set on the pan, before calling out to the old woman: “Oh, grandma. Bring your bowl over here. I’ll count the dumplings for you.”

Her whole body starting up from slumber, the old woman lifted up her wrinkled face marked with old age, to look at whoever had called. “Yes . . . what did you say, my dear girl? My hearing isn’t good any more.”

“I said . . . bring your bowl over here, grandma. I’ll put the tapioca dumplings in it for you.”

Once she had heard clearly, the old woman got up awkwardly, then clumsily poked about for the bowl in her basket. With her back bent she walked over, bringing it to the young girl. Fixing her gaze on the cooked and shining dumplings, still steaming hot, she opened her mouth, with the chew of betel still in it, to say: “Only fifty today, my dear. I want to come home early today, so I can have time to look around for something to offer to the monks. Tomorrow is a holy day.”

The daughter of the wholesale dumpling dealer did not answer. She had her work to do, and apparently it called for quite a lot of attention and patience. She dipped her hand into a bowl with chipped rim; the lard inside was hard because it was cold. She spread it on the dumplings to prevent the tapioca from sticking to her hand. Then, separating the dumplings from each other, she arranged them neatly in the bowl. When the heat was too much for her hand, she would blow hard on it. . . . But why worry about a little thing like that? She was not the one who was going to eat those dumplings. The bowl was soon filled. She patted the dumplings with her hand to make them look smooth and even, topped them with some golden fried garlic and red and green hot peppers, then handed the lot to the old woman.

Watching her all the time, the old one reached out for the bowl the minute it was handed to her, taking care that her grasp was firm enough so that the bowl would not slip from it. But before walking back to her baskets, she could not help turning around to ask in a voice tremulous because the teeth were not there any more to bar the way of the breath coming out: “Have you put in the three extra dumplings as usual, my child?”

“You needn’t worry about being cheated, grandma. If you don’t trust me, you can count them yourself!” The young girl was sensitive and a bit snappy. The tone of her voice showed that she was not in a very good mood.

“I didn’t mean that, bless you, dear. I’m just afraid that you might forget.” Her voice dragged on, while betel-juice trickled out from the wrinkled corners of her sagging lips. “If you haven’t forgotten, then it’s all right, bless you. Then they’re there all right.”

She shuffled back to her baskets, put the bowl of tapioca dumplings on the bamboo tray, mumbling something to herself the way old folks do, touched this and that for a moment, then lifted the pole on to her shoulder where patches could be seen on the creased old flannel jacket, stained all over with spots from the betel juice. Tottering a little, she trudged off from the house.

Lights of gold and silver were gleaming on the horizon, but mist was still covering the whole area. The cold penetrated into her very bones. Those bare feet, which had never worn shoes, stepped rather gingerly on the gravel road. Everything seemed to hurt in the cold season; even this fine gravel cut into the soles. The old woman took a short cut across a patch of grass growing under a row of trees by the roadside. A car’s horn sounded just behind and she faltered in her steps. Only when she felt the sensation of a car speeding past her in a commotion of noise did she feel relieved. She stopped then at another house to get more dumplings, put them in another basket, so that the weight of the two baskets would balance, then hastened on towards the village market, so as to get there in good time.

Once there, she put down her load next to a roadside grocery store, arranged the two baskets so that they would not be in the way, then sat down. Her knees stuck up over her drooping head and she kept lifting up her face, that face with signs of approaching death written all over it, to cry her wares to get the customers to buy from her.

“Sakoo-sai-moo . . . miang-lao! Buy hot sakoo-sai-moo, my ladies!”

The people came early to market. They bought vegetables and they bought fish and pork, until their baskets were all full, but not a soul bent down to ask for her hot tapioca dumplings or her newly wrapped miang-lao.

Some passed so close that their skirts even brushed against the rattan strings which supported the baskets. Instead of feeling sorry when they turned around and saw her, they would abruptly turn their faces away as if they had brushed against a log and not a human being. The old woman could only follow them with her eyes. Her mouth, which was just opening to cry her wares, slowly closed. She remained sitting there until the sun was high and the market stalls had nearly all packed up. Still she could not sell anything. Already, she had chewed three or four mouthfuls of pounded betel. With no more patience left, she was just getting up when a woman’s voice right in front of her said:

“Grandma, give me three satangs’ worth of sakoo.”

The hands trembled that were wrapping the dumplings in banana leaves. She was fastening the package with a bamboo pin when the buyer stopped her.

“Where’s the parsley, grandma?”

She looked around, but could not find any. She searched everywhere, even to the bottom of the baskets, but in vain. She must have forgotten to bring it along. Her lips trembling, she pleaded, “I forgot to bring it along. Please wait a moment, my good lady. I’ll buy some for you”.

“I can’t wait.” The customer was a woman of a little over twenty. On her waist was a small skinny child with a snotty nose that often ran down to his mouth. “Have you ever seen anything like it. Selling sakoo-sai-moo, and forgetting to bring any parsley along? If there’s no parsley, then I don’t want any!” she fairly croaked with displeasure.

“Well then, so you don’t want any, my dear.” The old hawk looked up downheartedly at the buyer. She was blaming herself for being so forgetful. She could have earned three satangs, but now . . . nothing!

The young mother had not moved more than three steps away when the child on her waist began to struggle and cry for the dumplings in a mixture of greed and temper. The mother had to turn back to the old peddler, who was putting the dumplings back into the bowl.

“All right, grandma, give ’em to me. Curse this greedy boy!” she said, “Don’t bother to wrap them up. I’ll give them to him right now.” She threw a five-satang piece on to the bamboo tray, took the dumplings, smelled them, bit and chewed half of the dumpling herself, and stuffed the other half into the mouth of the child.

The old woman lifted the tray up, put her band into the basket, and pulled out a piece of cloth which was once red, but which had now turned nearly black, untied the knot and counted the one-satang coins in it: one . . . two . . . not this one, it’s still new. Let me give her an old black one instead. Before giving the change, she looked at the coins well once more to make sure whether there were two or three. Once assured that they were only two, she handed them to the woman. Then she picked up the five-satang piece and dropped it on the cement floor. It sounded all right, not a counterfeit one, so she put it back into the old cloth and tied a new knot very tight and put it back into the bottom of the basket. As she was lifting the pole onto her shoulder, she stopped as if remembering something, and set it down again. Once more she lifted the tray up, pulled out the cloth, untied the knot, and took out a few copper coins; they could be used to buy some parsley!

Leaving the market, she then edged along in front of row-house shops and then dwelling-houses, stopping here and there to hawk her wares. She had been walking since early morning, when the air was still quite chilly, until it was noon, and then through the afternoon in the hot sun, all the time painfully making her way on hot gravel and asphalt roads. She kept looking at the dumplings still left in her bowls while she walked on. Little by little she sold them. Every time she stopped to rest, and to grind herself a mouthful of betel, she would untie the knot to count and recount the money, and repeat the performance again to make sure. In this knot was the money to be invested in sakoo-sai-moo, in the other that for miang-lao. Today’s profit would be put together with those of the previous days in a separate knot.

Once she had regained her strength, she put the load back on her shoulders, and continued hawking:

“Come buy my sakoo-sai-moo and miang-lao!”

“Master, would you like some saskoo-sai-moo? Here’s your hawker.”

“Where? Oh, no . . . better not. The hawker is an old woman. She’s dirty!”

“Mammy, I want to eat chakoo-chai-moo!” pleaded a child.

“Wait till I give you a good slap! Asking for this, asking for that when the evening meal is so near. You didn’t bring along any bags of gold or silver at your birth, you know! Old woman, go and hawk your goods somewhere else, or you’ll be making me spend my money.”

“Come buy my sakoo-sai-moo and miang-lao,” the hawking sounded more feeble now.

“Buy my sakoo-sai-moo! I’ve got miang-lao too!”

“Grandma, give me five satangs’ worth of sakoo. What? They’re all gone? Then why were you still hawking it?”

“Forgetful, master. Old folks are, you know.”

Putting the load (which was by then much lighter than in the morning) back onto her shoulder, she continued her painful steps. The sun had already gone down behind a row of trees. Only ten or more miang-lao were left. It would not matter even if they were not all sold since they would not spoil. She could keep them until tomorrow. Passing through the market, she stopped there to buy two salted eggs, one salted pla-too and five well-ripened freckled bananas, put them all in the empty basket and headed for home, which she could already glimpse a good way off ahead. But why . . . why was it that her legs felt so tired and without any strength?

As for those who were left behind at home, when the evening approached they would be waiting and expecting her return . . . not to welcome home this poor old soul as you would wait for a person who had brought you up, and for whom it is now your turn to care. As soon as the mother saw old grandma, tottering along in the distance, she hurried to tell her daughter and her three sons:

“Look, children, your grandmother is back. Go and ask her for some sweets.”

And the children would run out to surround their grandmother from all sides. The quick ones would snatch whatever was left in the baskets and put them into their mouths. Those who were slower would cry and fight for some. So, the minute the old woman reached home, with the load scarcely taken off her shoulder, the eldest boy, in one jump, driven by hunger and greed, reached for the bowl of left-over miang-lao. He was a boy of eight, wearing a shred of a pair of shorts with no shirt on, grubby from head to toe. His eyes were quick and cunning. When his sister and brothers protested, they fought noisily until the mother had to tell them sharply to share the food; the noise then subsided.

The old woman could only look forlornly at the disappearing miang-lao, but would not dare to interfere or stop the children from eating them. What a pity . . . what a great pity! After all, she had been hoping all the way home that she could keep them for tomorrow. Of course, she should not have forgotten that these grandchildren would come around and snatch whatever was left over from today’s sale, just the way they had been doing every day. She could only look at them putting the miang-lao into their mouths, chewing and swallowing them. Nothing was overlooked, not even the popped rice in the tin box.

She hurried to put the load away in its usual place, because only then did she remember the salted eggs and the freckled bananas that she had put in the basket. If one of the children happened to find them, they would also be gone. She did not mean to keep these two things for herself to eat; they were meant as offerings to the monks. It would not matter much if she would have to eat only one meal out of two. It would be like this only in this life. With all her good deeds and the offerings she had made, she might be born again a great king’s daughter in her next life.

The mother looked as if she could hardly wait for the old grandmother to get home. She pretended to scold the children: “What children, snatching grandma’s things? Leave them alone so she can sell them tomorrow. Get away, get away from here, go and eat them somewhere else.”

The old one could understand only too well that her daughter was scolding the children in the “mouth-scolding, eye-winking” fashion. She often pitied herself for all the troubles and all the hardships that she had to endure, for having a grown-up daughter who had married and had children of her own, on whom she could not depend for anything, not mentioning the fact that she had to strive and labor so hard to earn her own living, even at her ripe old age.

The old woman did not utter a word, for she felt too hungry to bother about anything. Furtively she reached for the red rag holding the money and put it in the pocket of her one-sleeve tunic, then tiptoed into the kitchen, opened the earthen rice pot with a broken edge, only to see some burnt rice left over at the bottom of it. The few dishes of food scattered around the rice-bin bore the look of something waiting to be taken away and washed up more than something that could be eaten. Anyway, taking out a wide bowl, filling it with rice, she sat down and reached over for the dish with a few legs of salted crab left in it. She mixed together whatever left-overs there were; it would be enough for subsistence.

As she was lifting the mouthful of it to her mouth with her hand, the daughter came into the kitchen.

“Mother, have you got some money? Lend me about thirty, will you? There’s no more kerosene for the lamp.” Those were her words.

The hand that was lifting the rice to her mouth was weakly lowered. In order to avoid looking at her daughter’s face, she looked down at the grains of rice in the bowl instead, and remained silent for quite a while. With whatever small profit she had made today she had bought food that was intended as an offering to the monks. What was left was only the money she would have to hand over to the dealer as the cost of the dumplings, so that she could get a new lot for tomorrow’s sale. It was a long while before she was able to utter a halting answer: “No, I haven’t got any. I only have enough for the cost of the dumplings.”

“Why, didn’t you make anything at all selling things today?” asked the daughter, the tone in her voice showing displeasure.

“I did not sell them all. Didn’t you see the ten left-over miang-lao that your kids have eaten up?” This was the only answer the old woman could make, feeling hurt to the point of tears by her daughter’s words.

Already put in a bad mood by the thought of not being able to screw any money out of her mother, the daughter was now touched on the raw by her mother’s mentioning the miang-lao that her own children had eaten. Taking it as reproof for ingratitude that her old mother was directing at the children, she raised her voice and retorted:

“If I had known it, I would not have let them eat them!” Then abruptly she left the kitchen, went straight to one of the girls who was enjoying herself playing a game, slapped her once on the cheek and spat out: “Here, you wicked brat. Why did you have to eat your grandmother’s things? There . . . there . . . for being so greedy, not knowing what you should eat and what you shouldn’t. Didn’t you know that they were not for you, you little devil?”

The little girl howled because she was quite hurt and unprepared for the punishment. She was absorbed in her game and did not know what it was all about when her mother rained blows on her.

“I did not eat them. Phi Choi did,” she cried and struggled. “Please mother, don’t hurt me.”

“You’re all alike. Come here, Ai Choi! Come here, you villain, or I’ll have your blood, I will!”

With her hands on the hips she yelled at the boy, pointing her finger at him. A few bamboo sticks were stuck between the slats of the wall. The sight of Choi, trying to hide in fear behind the water jar, made her temper still worse. She ran for a stick and rained blows on him without mercy. She called him names while beating him: a child who was born to ruin his parents, born to waste all the money, born to make her bankrupt, etc. But Choi, though the blows hurt, was not the only one to howl. His other two small sisters also joined in this chorus of caterwauling.

The grandmother saw everything and heard every sarcastic word directed at her by the daughter whom she had borne and brought up with all due care until she should get married and raise a few children of her own, and who, even then, still had to depend on her old mother. Old as she was, instead of being cared for by her children like other mothers, she had to go out to peddle in order to earn a bit here and there to support herself. She could not hold back her tears thinking of this. She bent down to dry her eyes on the lap of her skirt.

The rice she was trying to swallow seemed to get stuck there in her throat. Every word that passed through her ears hurt her so. She would not blame her daughter, but thought instead that all this must be the result of the bad deeds she had committed in a former life. Joining her two hands and putting them above her head, she murmured: “I’m doing only good deeds in this life. Do not let me come across such a heartless child in my next life . . . please!”

What was left over was all eaten up, but the poor woman still had not eaten her fill. Only a lump of rice remained at the bottom of the pot, yellow because it was burnt. She poured some fish sauce on it, then mixed it up and ate it the way poor people did in times of hardship. She could not help thinking back to the time when she was still raising her own children: never would she let any of her little ones eat plain rice with fish sauce. There had to be at least rice mashed with bananas or with soup. In better days they would have rice with meat-curry, or sweet-and-salted pork stew. But now that the time had come for her to ask the children to take care of her, all she got in return for the kindness she had bestowed upon them was some rice left at the bottom of a pot mixed with fish sauce, which tasted more like salt water than something that was supposed to be made of small shrimps and fishes.

Well . . . at least with this daughter she could still find a roof to sleep under and something to eat. From the other four daughters and sons she had got nothing except signs of disdain. Her eldest son was now the abbot of a monastery in the country. Since he was a monk and not an ordinary person, if she went to visit him often, the temple boys would insinuate that old grandma went there to be fed with whatever food was left over in the begging bowl, which by rights should belong to the serving boys. So now she had to force herself to feel that her eldest boy had no more place in her life.

As for her second daughter, she was married to an orchard owner with two big wooden houses. The old mother once dragged herself over to stay with them, but found it impossible to remain after a few days, because that daughter, Piam, would keep nagging at her: “Do help Phi Boon to cut down those weeds in the ditches of the orchards, mother, or he will say that I brought you into this house only to treat you like a princess. Near the bamboo clump over there. The hired men have done it so many times already, but they just don’t seem to get rid of them fast enough.”

So, not long afterwards, she had to bring her old frail self back across the river from the orchards in Klong Mon, to come and stay with her third child. Nearly every night she did not get to sleep; this son would come home nearly every evening drunk and start beating his wife and children. If she intervened, he would push her so hard that she would be sent reeling.

The fourth child was the most wretched of them all. When the mother went to her asking to stay with her for a certain length of time, she burst out crying and complained: “How can you stay with me, mother, when I myself can’t stand the harsh treatment of my mother-in-law yet? They are all people of blue blood. I’m so afraid that you’ll come here and do something awkward and funny, then I’ll have to be ashamed of you. Please don’t stay here; go and stay with Nang Phew!”

Phew was her fifth child and the youngest, the one she was now staying with. She was poorer than the others, because she was married to a lazy man who did not like to work. He could never stay long at one job, giving as reason that the work was too hard, or that he was not strong enough for the work. Things being like this, the old woman could not sit still; she had to get herself a pole and a pair of baskets, and go out peddling whatever she could.

When the son-in-law and her own daughter were able to make some money, they would quietly spend it themselves without letting her in on it. But if she ever earned any, the daughter would always be there pressing her for a share. This she did not mind so much; she realized that she was living with them, so it was only natural for her to help out. But showing their displeasure toward her by beating their own children! Often she cried, pitying her poor own self and wishing for death to come soon as a means of escape from all this misery.

Phew kept it up for a long time, scolding her children with the intention of directing her spite at her mother, until she was so tired that she had to stop. Dusk came, but she pretended not to notice and let the whole house remain in darkness. There was no light; her small children stumbled over uneven planks in the floor and cried.

The old grandmother could not stand it any longer. In the dark she had to look for the bottle and then went down the steps to go out and buy some kerosene for the lamp.

Around half past seven her son-in-law came home with a few packages of sweets for his wife and children. They got around together to enjoy the sweets, but who would expect them to have enough heart to hand some over to the poor old soul? The good smell of the food came wafting past her nose and she could only swallow betel-juice and choke over her hurt feelings.

That night, before the poor creature could fall asleep, she had to get up several times to get a drink of water to quiet the pangs of hunger and to quench the thirst caused by eating salted food that evening. She thought of the freckled bananas which she had hidden in the basket . . . but they were intended as offerings to the monks. It would not matter if she had to starve herself, but let the holy ones have them, so she could have merit in the next life. Little did she realize it, but the one monk who came around to receive the offerings, the minute he saw her coming down those rickety steps, would say to himself words that would have shocked her: “Here comes this old wretched woman again! Hasn’t she got anything else except salted eggs and freckled bananas? I’m so sick of the stuff!”

What would she get in return, this poor creature who so deprived herself in order to give to another? Heaven!

It is nature’s law that ripe fruits will finally fall off the branch, and this old creature was thus like a ripe fruit . . . so old, so ripe! How many more days could she last? Every night before going to sleep she would repeat in her prayers her wish for the god of death to come soon to take her, and she prayed she would go in such a way that it would cause neither grief nor trouble to anyone. Little did she know that these wishes were soon to come true, on this very day, without her being the least conscious of their fulfilment.

That morning, she woke up before her daughter. In the kitchen she cooked rice and then went to make merit with her offerings of a salted egg and a package of cake wrapped in dried banana leaves. After breakfast, she went as usual to get the dumplings for her daily round of peddling. She still felt strong, both in body and mind. Then came midday when she felt faint; she had been walking in the heat of the sun without any rest. But she forced herself to keep on hawking along the street. She took a different route today. On the left side of the street there was a small canal with water about one meter deep. She intended to turn and cross over to the left bank of the canal by a little bridge made of a single plank with a rail of bamboo to hold on to. A small lane led from this bridge to the house of a man who was a good customer for her dumplings.

The minute she stepped on to the bridge, her sense of hearing became dull and thousands of little lights danced before her eyes. Her heart felt funny, but she thought it was nothing serious, for she could still see her way. With her hand she grasped tightly the bamboo rail and thus supporting herself, continued until reaching the middle of the bridge. Then everything suddenly became dark; her step missed the plank and she tumbled down on one side. Her hand let go of the rail and she fell down into the water below.

Five minutes later, only the banana leaves, which were used to wrap the parsley, could be seen floating in the water. Bubbles came up all around the spot and gradually disappeared. The flow of water carried away the banana leaves and other light objects which came up from under the water later. Some of them floated along and then got stuck in the bushes of tall grass or the Java weeds with pale purple flowers growing on the side of the canal. None of the people who crossed the bridge would ever suspect that deep down below them was the deathbed of a poor old woman!

The people in the neighborhood of Samsen Nai, Bangsue, will no more hear her voice. The familiar hawking of “Sakoo-sai-moo . . . miang-lao” will no more reach their ears. Those she left behind will feel sad, will miss her or mourn her death only when they begin to miss her helping hand and the good deeds she once rendered them. But what good would mourning do, when the person herself has gone and never will return . . . never!