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Family matters.


chuckwoww

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You get back to the building unexpectedly and examine her door for portents. No padlock. A pair of unfamiliar flip-flops. You knock. She opens the door and over her shoulder you notice a figure on the bed. Duan notices you noticing.

 

?Brother me.? She says

 

You have asked Duan several times about her parents. She has told you that they ?die already? and that they were kon jon. You try to build a visual picture of them in their moo ban jon with a younger Duan and perhaps some siblings. You have tried to squeeze out more information. Up North somewhere? Chiang Rai area you think. One of those wooden houses with the grass roofs. You imagine smoke from burning charcoal. Dogs. Not the kind you want to pat. A pig or two rooting around. Duan hauling buckets from the well.

 

You know there are some brothers somewhere. At least a couple. And cousins. Cousins by the thousand. All male, riding motor bikes. You?ve even met some sister/friends in the same building. Precise relationships are hard to establish. They come round to make somtam and borrow things. They have lives of course. And names. There?s little Nok, who you quite like (she offered you her last chicken?s foot). Nok comes from a large family in a village near Udon Thani. She got bored with planting rice. Caught a bus south. She misses her mother. Dao, Nok?s cousin, had quit a good job in Bangkok assembling disk drives and moved to Pattaya... for the jet-skiing she said. Duan tells a different version. According to her Dao had left her baby with her mother and gone to Pattaya with a boyfriend who has recently been arrested for selling amphetamines.

 

And now this person sleeping on the bed. Exuding male hormones. What to do about him? There is nowhere to sit except on the edge of the bed but you don?t want to wake him. Nor to be honest do you want to let him sleep. Not there.

 

?Brother you.? You mumble.

 

?Yes. Nong chai. Come today.?

 

Hmm. No sign of any luggage. And those flip-flops do not suggest a long bus ride. But you never know. You never know. Something moves behind you.

 

He sits up. Longish tousled hair. Parted in the middle. He grins. Says nothing. You manage to smile but it?s hard to read his eyes. He follows Duan out into the hall and you hear them muttering. None of the words mean anything to you. She comes back in.

 

?Brother go stay friend me.? She says.

 

He shuffles off down the hall. Good. So why do you feel bad? Have you kicked him out of his sister?s place on his first day in the big city? Will he find a corner to curl up in somewhere?

 

Once Duan showed you a picture of her father. Maybe fortyish but old before his time. She never really knew him.

?Kitung paw.? She says. She misses him. ?Kin ya mak.?

Had she loved him? ?Was your father a good man Duan?? you ask.

?Dee, mai dee. D?chan mai ru. Pen paw Duan.?

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