Excerpts from an Unpublished Novel

Gai Petchebam sits in a quiet beer bar reading a book on popular English sayings. The book is a small volume with a blue and white cover. Like the Chinese proverbs, these sayings are apparently used in everyday fa-rang situations. But for all his years, living and working on a tourist island in Thailand, he can still not fathom the fa-rang way of thinking. One saying, however, does make sense.

Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today

And with that he drives to a small house in a desolate area of the island where his paternal grandmother sits with a doctor by her side. His grandmother has outlived both his parents. She is ninety two years of age and still has most of her mental faculties. When she does slip into lapses of verbalising random past memories, this is seen as a display of an almost magical insight into the mysteries of the world. She will sometimes stop half sentence and the listeners will gather round, concentrating on picking up the thread, and wonder why the monologue had suddenly changed direction. Some say she is capable of reading into the future, but this is probably just fruit born from a front row seat at the theatre of humanity for almost one hundred years, rather than anything magical. Her hair is a short shock of grey on an oblong, heavily lined, tanned face. She had been a good-looking girl and woman and entered middle, and then, old age with a plodding perseverance of character. A young girl in the wake of King Rama IV’s reign, and pubescent in the second world war, fully grown by the Vietnam conflict and already an old lady by the time of democratic reform. She has seen many conflicts, but today she faces the conflict that is ultimately self consuming. Today she is ill. She sits in a squat position and coughs and splutters as she tries to speak. Her body is thin, like that of frail bird, and her eyes are heavy and tired.

Gai waais his grandmother as he enters the house, and places some documents on a side table. The documents are land ownership deeds that upon her signature will give Gai a nice slice of beachfront land. He nods to the Doctor and asks how she is doing.

“Tuberculosis,” says the Doctor “It’s quite serious.”

"Then move her to the hospital. But first I would like a moment alone with my grandmother.

The doctor leaves the room and Gai sits down in front of her so that they are face to face.

“I have some documents grandmother. I just need you to sign and then the doctor will take care of you.” 

“What documents?” The old lady barks. She looks at him suspiciously. In almost a hundred years she has not found time to learn to read or write. Born in an age where schooling was just becoming compulsory, she had somehow, kept putting it off. But family, she must trust. 

Gai reassures her, “For the hospital. The doctor says you should stay a couple of nights and you have to sign the documents for insurance.” 

“Insurance? What is insurance?” She coughs. 

“Same as a guarantee, to make sure the doctor or the hospital doesn’t make a mistake.” 

“Okay give it here.”

The old lady signs away, by way of a thumbprint, all her land and possessions to be left to her grandson. There will be, according to the deeds, no payment for the land. She is led out of the house. The old lady has to be lifted into the back of the doctor’s car. She sits in the back seat confused and coughing, talking to herself, between splutters. 

“Send the invoice to my address and I will pay for everything.” Gai tells the doctor and smiles at the man long and cold as he walks away from the house and into his jeep. The doctor Waais the man who stands before him. A man who owns half the island and intends on squeezing his way into obtaining the other half. The doctor despises the man before him, yet he stands there with his hand pressed together in respect. It is all he can do. As a doctor, he realises that it is better for his health, to show respect for this man, who he has disliked, yet respected since childhood.

© Sisterray. All rights reserved by the author.