Where do you come from, sweetheart? asked the journalist, flossing his teeth.
Me Kambuja.
Cambodia?
Yes. Kambuja.
We go Kambuja, said the journalist. You come Kambuja?
* In 1991 a US dollar was worth about 25 Thai bhat, or 1,00 °Cambodian riels.
No.
Why?
She grimaced in terror. - Bang, bang! she whispered.
Outside, the tuk-tuks made puffs of smog. Men huddled over a newspaper by the Honey Hotel. - You want Thai food I wait for you, she said.
Oh, that's all right, said the photographer. You go on back to Soy Cowboy. We'll find our way around.
You come Soy Cowboy me tonight?
Sure. Sure, honey. You just go back to Soy Cowboy and sit there and hold your breath.
You like? You like me?
Sure. Now beat it.
You come tonight I have friend she go hotel with you, the girl said to the journalist.
OK, he said. He smiled at her. She smiled and darted into a tuk-tuk.
Well, I guess we go get her and her friend tonight, right? said the journalist.
Are you crazy? said the photographer. There are thousands like her, twice as nice for half the price. She had the nerve to ask me for a thousand bhat! I've never paid more than five hundred before. You don't have to give 'em anything after you buy 'em out. I remember one time this bitch kept pestering me for money; I sent her away with nothing, man. She was crying; it was GREAT!
So what did you pick her up for?
Her? She really stuck out — her long hair, her shorts up the crack of her ass; I really liked that. But next time I want a big girl, man. Not one of these fucking little babies that don't know what the hell they're doing.
But later he said: I felt sorry for her. Next time I pick up a girl, I won't screw her.
On the slightly tippy table visited by flies, there were four jars: one with salt, one with capers and vinegar and other things like aquarium plants, one with curry powder, and one with pickled peppers. The photographer and the journalist sat there having lunch, in the alley with colored striped sheets for awnings, and colored umbrellas over the tables. They had noodle soup with vegetables. Roof-water dripped slowly into pools on dirty glazed trestles. It was monsoon season. Motorcycles passed slowly between the tables. The young smooth-faced vendeuses turned and scraped the meat in their woks, looking patient behind their glass bulwarks stacked with eggs, tomatoes, bok choy, sprouts, noodles of all kinds. The vendeuse squirted new oil into the wok, then strolled to a grating, where she reached into her apron and gave someone money; then she made her easy way back, just in time for the oil to bubble. A policeman came by, took out his wallet and bought ice. Water dripped onto mossy benches.
The journalist kept thinking of the hurt look in the Cambodian girl's eyes. What to do? Nothing to do.
At half past four in the afternoon, the sticky feeling of sweat between his fingers felt like fungus growing. There was an American detective video on: gunfire and smashing glass and roaring cars at maximum volume. He sat reading the Bangkok Post: 'Big Five' see eye-to-eye on Khmer arms cuts. Two girls were sitting at the bar where it curved, playing a game like tic-tac-toe with poker chips in a wooden frame. Their cigarette smoke ascended the darkness of the long mirror. When a man was tortured on TV the girls looked up with interested smiles. Then they clicked the chips back into the board. More girls drifted in, filling out forms, making business calls. The whirling circles of light began to go around. A girl watched a fistfight on TV, her forefingers meeting in a steeple on her nose. A girl came in to refill the journalist's beer glass so that the bottle could be taken away and then she could sell him the next; the web of skin between his fingers continued to stick more with each passing moment. Another gunfight. The girls saw him grinning and grinned back. Bored with their game, they peered through the holes in the gameboard which stood on its end like a grating between them.
A white man came in, rubbing his mouth, checking his wallet, resting his arm on the table.
The smokers raised their hands to their mouths like buglers. One of the girls was playing the game of plastic counters with a white boy, and she smiled much more when she won or lost now than she had when playing the other girl. The boy put a cigarette in his mouth, and two girls' hands reached to light it for him.
Slowly, the beer receipts piled up in the journalist's ringed teakwood cup. When a girl refilled his beer, she exhibited the utmost concentration, holding it critically to eye level.
Straight-eyebrowed faces, arch-eyebrowed faces, all gold and oval and framed by straight black hair, watched the gameboard or the TV or themselves in the pink-bordered mirror. Whenever something violent happened on TV, they looked up with calm interest.
Traffic crept outside. A police whistle shrilled steadily, then there came a sound of faraway singing or screaming; a tuk-tuk passed slowly enough for the passengers to watch the TV. At a quarter to six, when the next white man came in, they switched on the music for a minute, and a girl started dancing, leaning on the bar, clapping her hands. Outside, the lights were turning red and the girls were standing everywhere in sexy skirts. A middle-aged midget in a double-breasted suit came down the alley, walked under one girl's dress, reached up to pull it over him like a roof, and began to suck. The girl stood looking at nothing. When the midget was finished, he slid her panties back up and spat onto the sidewalk. Then he reached into his wallet. The music was getting louder everywhere; girls grinned gently in every doorway as the businessmen passed, sometimes hand in hand; a girl leaned against a vegetable cart smoothing her long hair as the motorbikes passed.
The long-haired girl in the burgundy shirt looked up from her calculator and came to put ice in the journalist's beer.
There was a bar aching with loud American music, pulsing with phosphorescent bathing suits. He picked number fourteen in blue and asked her to come with him but she thought he wanted her to dance, so she got up laughing with the other girls and turned herself lazily, awkwardly, very sweetly; she was a little plump.
You come with me? he said when he'd tipped her.
She shook her head. - I have accident, she said, pointing to her crotch.
She sat with him, nursing the drink he'd bought her; she snuggled against him very attentively, holding his hand. Whenever he looked into her face, she ducked and giggled.
You choose friend for me? he said. Anyone you want.
When you go Kambuja?
Three days.
She hesitated, but finally called over another lady. - This my friend Oy. My name Toy.
You come to hotel with me? he said to Oy.
She looked him up and down. - You want all night or short time?
All night.
No all night me. Only short time.
OK.
In the back of the taxi he whispered in her ear that he was shy, and she snuggled against him just as Toy had done. She smelted like shampoo. She was very hot and gentle against him. Knowing already that if he ever glimpsed her soul it would be in just the same way that in the National Museum one can view the gold treasures only through a thick-barred cabinet, he tried to kiss her, and she turned away.
Please?
She smiled, embarrassed, and turned away.
No?
She shook her head quickly.