pointed out, squatting by our side, was of considerable thickness. It might link us more vitally than his colleague assumed. A clean incision was therefore of the utmost importance, and while the idea of burning had some merit, the operation would have to be performed as swiftly as possible. A hot wire applied here and here, he believed, running a long fingernail down the twin bases of our bridge where it attached to our fist-sized chests, would have the greatest chance of success. The monks in their yellow robes had said nothing. The rain had increased.
Nonsense, interrupted the one with the pointy beard. To do as his colleagues suggested they might as well put us in a sack with a good-sized stone and throw us in the river. We were much too young to survivesuch extreme measures. No, to have any hope of success the thing would have to be done by degrees. He paused strategically, then pointed at us, still wailing on the mat. Notice how they are of approximately the same size and weight. Hang them over a fine gut cord, one on either side. Take them off only to bathe and feed them. Within a few weeks their weight will force the cord up through the ligament, successfully separating them, but the process will have been so slow that the wound will have had time to …
They turned as one toward the strange, almost inhuman sound coming from the other side of the room. Our mother stood with her back to the fire. In her left hand, hanging by her side, was the blackened stick with which she had been prodding the flames. In her right she held my father’s cleaning knife, its point at her throat. The steel, they could see, had already pierced the skin; a thin, dark stream was winding its way down her throat and into her shirt. She seemed unaware of the sound that came from her—a perfect joining of rage and despair, a monotonous internal whine like the sound one might hear from a child tormented by bullies in some empty schoolyard, tormented beyond fear, beyond tears, past caring for its own preservation. It didn’t stop.
One of the men began to say something, then stopped. Instinctively, faced with this thing, the group began to back away. The sound still coming from her throat, her lips pressed so unnaturally tight she appeared to be straining to keep something from escaping her mouth, my mother began to move toward them. By the time she had passed the mat on which we still lay screaming, her head had tilted back involuntarily and the point of the knife had gone deeper into the soft skin of her throat. The stream had thickened into a dark stem. On her soiled blouse, over her left breast, a dark blossom was opening.
They backed out of our house into the rain, forgetting, in their haste, the vermilion umbrellas they had left inside the door. When, two years later, no one had returned to claim them, my father quietly sold them for a hundred baht each in the marketplace.
In some ways, hardly a heroic tale.
And yet, nothing if not that. Shy by nature, incapable of even speakingto these men from the capital who suddenly appeared in her houseboat like divine beings, carrying with them the air of the royal court, my mother could not even begin to conceive of resisting them. They were like gods. We were nothing. They spoke daily with King Rama II, who took his meals and listened to music on an island in the Garden of Night in the Royal Compound. We were a bit of dirt under the fingernails, a scattering of fish scales on the edge of a rack.
His power was unlimited. His blood could not be shed. For the funeral of his father, he had commissioned a golden coach forty feet high and weighing over ten tons. One hundred and sixty men had been required to move it, another one hundred and thirty-five had been needed to act as brakes. No one outside the immediate royal family and his own inner circle was allowed to look at him. His own councillors were not allowed to touch him. His every whim had the gravity of law. Within three days of his
Nonsense, interrupted the one with the pointy beard. To do as his colleagues suggested they might as well put us in a sack with a good-sized stone and throw us in the river. We were much too young to survivesuch extreme measures. No, to have any hope of success the thing would have to be done by degrees. He paused strategically, then pointed at us, still wailing on the mat. Notice how they are of approximately the same size and weight. Hang them over a fine gut cord, one on either side. Take them off only to bathe and feed them. Within a few weeks their weight will force the cord up through the ligament, successfully separating them, but the process will have been so slow that the wound will have had time to …
They turned as one toward the strange, almost inhuman sound coming from the other side of the room. Our mother stood with her back to the fire. In her left hand, hanging by her side, was the blackened stick with which she had been prodding the flames. In her right she held my father’s cleaning knife, its point at her throat. The steel, they could see, had already pierced the skin; a thin, dark stream was winding its way down her throat and into her shirt. She seemed unaware of the sound that came from her—a perfect joining of rage and despair, a monotonous internal whine like the sound one might hear from a child tormented by bullies in some empty schoolyard, tormented beyond fear, beyond tears, past caring for its own preservation. It didn’t stop.
One of the men began to say something, then stopped. Instinctively, faced with this thing, the group began to back away. The sound still coming from her throat, her lips pressed so unnaturally tight she appeared to be straining to keep something from escaping her mouth, my mother began to move toward them. By the time she had passed the mat on which we still lay screaming, her head had tilted back involuntarily and the point of the knife had gone deeper into the soft skin of her throat. The stream had thickened into a dark stem. On her soiled blouse, over her left breast, a dark blossom was opening.
They backed out of our house into the rain, forgetting, in their haste, the vermilion umbrellas they had left inside the door. When, two years later, no one had returned to claim them, my father quietly sold them for a hundred baht each in the marketplace.
In some ways, hardly a heroic tale.
And yet, nothing if not that. Shy by nature, incapable of even speakingto these men from the capital who suddenly appeared in her houseboat like divine beings, carrying with them the air of the royal court, my mother could not even begin to conceive of resisting them. They were like gods. We were nothing. They spoke daily with King Rama II, who took his meals and listened to music on an island in the Garden of Night in the Royal Compound. We were a bit of dirt under the fingernails, a scattering of fish scales on the edge of a rack.
His power was unlimited. His blood could not be shed. For the funeral of his father, he had commissioned a golden coach forty feet high and weighing over ten tons. One hundred and sixty men had been required to move it, another one hundred and thirty-five had been needed to act as brakes. No one outside the immediate royal family and his own inner circle was allowed to look at him. His own councillors were not allowed to touch him. His every whim had the gravity of law. Within three days of his
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