Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I fear no bad spirits: because You are with me.
Your ka-beh† comforts me.
You give too much food to me, even if my enemy comes.
You rub coconut oil on my head; my cup is too full.
So every day of my life I will always have good things of Wu-pa-sha
and I will live in the well-built house of Wu-pa-sha forever."
People asked David Walker to sing another farang song, and he said no. Then one by one, some still murmuring the songs of Sings Soft,
*bi'na-ma: water buffalo used for work and milk (but not for food or sacrifice).
†ka-beh: long wooden pole used by the Dyalo to drive water buffalo.
others too tired to recall another verse, the drunken villagers fell asleep.
The next day, a number of the guests asked David about the beautiful farang song, and he spent the day preaching not far from Sings Soft's grave, with the result that three villagers asked to be baptized.
The Opium Man handed me the pipe, and I smoked again. The smoke was sweet, with a taste a little like caramel toffee. With every pipe, I felt as if I were gradually rising higher in the air. My breathing was slow and steady. The Walkers had told me that the Dyalo, upon accepting Christianity, were required to stop growing poppies and smoking opium. If Christianity could convince a man to do that, I thought to myself, well then! That's some religion indeed.
Khun Vinai told me that he didn't see Martiya again for almost a year after Sings Soft's funeral. That was the year that Kiss-My-Lips was sick. One night Sang-Duan woke to hear Kiss-My-Lips groaning and thrashing about, trembling and bleeding from the mouth. This was the first of her seizures. Khun Vinai had a modern outlook on things, and he took her to Chiang Mai for treatment at the hospital, and while the doctors ran their tests, Sang-Duan insisted on pursuing traditional Dyalo remedies — medicinal herbs and shamanic intervention. Whether it was these or the doctors' prescriptions, the seizures stopped, and life settled into its normal rhythms: banana pancakes in the mornings; box lunches for trekkers; and at night, the Happiest Words in All the World.
Then Martiya came to visit Khun Vinai.
It was just as Gilles had said: there was something about her eyes. They were wild and unfocused, then distracted and staring. Yet Vinai also said that he had never seen her so beautiful. Her cheeks were pale with a hint of bright pink, and her lips were scarlet like the flame tree.
Sang-Duan looked at her husband.
"I cannot turn her away," Khun Vinai whispered to his wife in the kitchen.
That evening, Sang-Duan served Martiya, and the family ate together from common dishes.
Khun Vinai had never seen Martiya more charming. She told stories from her childhood which made the children howl with laughter, and her imitations of the villagers were so spot-on that Khun Vinai would have sworn that Farts-a-Lot or the shaman George Washington was right in front of him. Only Sang-Duan was not amused by Martiya, looking at her all night long with the same distrustful stare.
That night, Kiss-My-Lips suffered another seizure. In the past, her seizures, although terrifying to watch, had passed quickly, after only five minutes or so. But this seizure, it was clear, brought the young girl to the edge of death before she came to. When finally the worst was over, and the girl was sleeping calmly, Sang-Duan turned to her husband.
"Vinai, you must," she said.
"How can I?" he asked.
"You must. I will not live with Rice. Do not bring the anger of Rice into the hut of our children. For I fear Rice, as I fear Lightning, and I fear Death."
Khun Vinai did not sleep the rest of the night. He watched the sun rise over the hills, then went to Martiya's hut. He found her awake, sitting cross-legged on the terrace, staring out over the fields.
Martiya saw the look on his face, and said, "And you too, Vinai?"
"I can't," he said.
Martiya gathered her bags and went back to Dan Loi village.
Khun Vinai stood up, and the Opium Man, seeing that his work for the evening was done, followed him. Khun Vinai did not linger at the door. He said, "Goodbye, my friend. We'll talk more tomorrow." Then he and the Opium Man were gone.
My bed was not particularly comfortable, but I think even on a down mattress with silk sheets I would have lain awake for a long time: insomnia is another of the effects of the drug. I found myself thinking about Martiya alone in that Dyalo village. How must she have occupied her days? How can an anthropologist do fieldwork if she can no longer talk with the people she intends to study? What else was there for Martiya to do in that village?
Her life, I imagined, had been reduced to her gin-kai. She was alone in the mornings, then she carried water back to her solitary hut. She ate alone. She read all day. Then, on those nights when she wasn't with Hupasha, she must have lowered the wick on her hurricane lamp and climbed into bed not having spoken to a soul since the morning. I thought about Martiya's letter to Tim Blair. She had met a man, she wrote, and was madly in love. Having no one with whom she might share her thoughts, she had decided to write to Tim himself. What she didn't tell Tim Blair was that her lover was all she had.
I finally fell asleep that night, and I dreamed of Martiya. Opium produces dreams of unusual vividness, and this dream was as real as any event of the daytime. I was in the kitchen of my house in Chiang Mai, making coffee, and Martiya was there also. I have never seen a photograph of the woman, but I knew that it was Martiya. I was excited to talk to her. "You must be Martiya van der Leun," I babbled. "I'm so happy to finally meet you. I've been looking for you everywhere, you have no idea how hard it's been to find you. Would you like a cup of coffee?" Martiya didn't say anything, and I stared at her. Her face was pale, and she was trembling. She was terrified. "It's okay," I said. "Have some coffee and you'll be fine." Then she began to whimper, but I couldn't make out what she was saying. "Just speak up a little," I said. "Please." But she wouldn't speak louder, and when I woke up, the only word that I was sure that I had understood was "Rice."
THREE. FAR OFF FROM THE GATES OF GOLD
THE NEXT DAY, Khun Vinai went back to Chiang Rai, still looking for roofing tiles. I spent the rest of the day in the hammock. I had nothing to do but wait — and watch the hills. By dusk the mountains were gray and the far mountains were indigo, and the farthest mountains just silhouettes. Sunset was a reddish-yellow spectacle, dramatic and fast. Then the night was moonless and almost perfectly dark. I heard bullfrogs in the paddies, and vast choruses of crickets, and the kiss-me birds croaked their mechanical whoo-tuk-tuk, whoo-tuk-tuk. It was dinnertime, but I wasn't hungry. Khun Vinai's truck drove up, and later, from the lodge, I heard voices, and a television. Then I saw a yellow light swinging back and forth. The light wandered from the porch of the lodge toward the car shed, then arced back up the side of the hill. Then the light came closer and I realized it was Khun Vinai, carrying a flashlight. When he got to the hammock, he sat down on a small chair just behind my head. He turned off the flashlight, and we sat for a long time in darkness.
After her arrest but before trial, Khun Vinai said, Martiya's visitors were limited exclusively to her lawyer, her family, and representatives of the American consulate. The pretrial detention lasted for almost two years. Then, after her conviction, Martiya, like all new prisoners, was forbidden guests for another year. So it was almost three years before Khun Vinai was allowed to see her.