Timothy Hallinan - The Queen of Patpong

Kwan slumps forward and rests her face in her hands. With her eyes closed, with the pressure of her fingers on her face, she can almost pretend that she has a choice. Then, suddenly, one presents itself. She sits up and says to the mama-san, "I can go to a different bar."

"Kwan." The mama-san uses her name for the first time. "Just do it for us. Don't force me to-"

"Well?" The gruff voice is not asking a question. It's making a demand. Kwan looks around to see Captain Yodsuwan standing in the doorway. His tiny eyes study her as though he's trying to see through her skin, and he's sweating so heavily that Kwan wouldn't be surprised to see steam rise off him.

"We're just talking about it," the mama-san says.

"What is there to talk about? She's a whore, whether she's done it yet or not."

Kwan feels the words like a slap. She knows that her face must be as white as paper.

"There's no problem," the mama-san says with a smile. The stiff spine is gone; she's leaning forward, tilting her face up to him submissively. "It's her first time, that's all. I'm just telling her a few things, trying to make sure you both have a good time."

"You're a farm girl, right?" The captain's hard little eyes skitter up and down her body. "Nothing you haven't seen before."

"She's… shy," the mama-san says, with an edge of desperation in her voice.

"Five minutes," the captain says. "And then you can keep her and the deal will be off." He goes back into the bar.

Kwan gets up. She says, "Never."

The mama-san says again, "Don't force me."

"Me? Force you?"

"I didn't want to have to say this, but you're not giving me any choice. I know who your father was selling you to. If you don't do this, if you don't go with Captain Yodsuwan tonight, I'll have two of the waiters hold you here until those people come and get you." She lets her eyes drop to the floor and then looks out through the door, at the crowded bar. "If I call, they'll be here in ten minutes."

Kwan feels like she couldn't move if someone lit her on fire. She's staring at the mama-san, but the face she sees is Nana's.

The mama-san says, "Well?"

Kwan can barely hear her own voice. "I'll go." ON THE WAY out of the bar, fighting for breath as she edges through the crowd of customers with Captain Yodsuwan's fat, wet hand on the back of her neck, Kwan hears a long shriek, high enough to leave a scratch on the ceiling, and she sees Oom charge out of the women's bathroom. Oom vaults onto the stage and runs its full length, girls jumping out of her way at every step, until she reaches the far end of the stage, near the door, and she leaps off it, sailing over the women serving at the bar, clears the bar itself-two customers diving sideways off their stools-and lands in the arms of one of the tallest, best-looking men Kwan has ever seen. Oom throws her arms around his neck, both legs bent at the knees so he's supporting her full weight, and she kisses his neck and cheeks over and over again as he slowly turns in a circle, his eyes wide open, looking past Oom. Looking at Kwan.

The door is open, which is a surprise. Everyone should be asleep.

Kwan had found her way home through the bright morning, resolutely dry-eyed, without thinking about anything at all, without even feeling the rawness between her legs. She had looked at faces, at shop windows, at cars in the street, at the occasional scraggly bush clinging to life in a square of dry dirt on the sidewalk, giving her full attention to everything she saw. When she finally reached the building, after a lifetime of walking, she had hauled herself up three flights of stairs, leaning against the wall as she climbed, expecting to have to cope with the lock on the door, which sometimes sticks. She was steeling herself against the lock, knowing that if it did stick, she'd burst into tears.

But the door is standing open.

She starts to go on tiptoe and then thinks, Why? What can anyone do to me now? And drags herself the rest of the way down the hall and stops in the doorway and stares in, her heart swelling inside her until she feels as if it will push its way right out of her chest, and then the tears do come.

Sitting on some folded squares of cloth on the cold cement floor, her chin resting on her chest, is Fon. She's obviously waited all night and into the morning for Kwan to come home. In front of her is a cup on a saucer, the only matching cup and saucer in the apartment, and the cup has something dark in it. Steam rises from the cup, so Fon fell asleep only a few minutes ago.

Kwan's second sniffle brings Fon's head up, her eyes instantly on Kwan. Fon gets up and runs to her and wraps her arms around her, hugging her so tightly Kwan can hardly breathe. Kwan looks down at the top of Fon's head, and then she rests her chin on it and cries out loud, Fon patting her back like someone burping a baby.

The face she makes when she takes the first sip from the steaming cup sends Fon into a seizure of laughter. The two of them have been sitting on the floor, with the folded cloths-clean towels, Kwan sees-between them. Fon falls sideways, onto one elbow, laughing and pointing at Kwan's face.

"It's awful," Kwan says, but she can't help smiling, feeling the stiffness of the skin on her cheeks, salty with dried tears. "What is it?"

"It's Nescafe," Fon says. "You mean you've never drunk coffee?"

"Why would I?" Kwan puts the cup down. "Why would anyone?"

"You drink that," Fon commands. "I worked hours to make it."

"Really?" Kwan reluctantly picks up the cup and sips it again, trying not to betray how bitter it is. She gets the first sip down and then takes a bigger one, hoping to drain the cup quickly.

"You don't know anything, do you? It's instant. You just boil water and put the powder in."

Kwan stares down at the cup. "Is there any way to get it out?"

"Yes. You drink it."

Kwan holds the cup out. "I'll share it with you."

"Smell it first," Fon says. "Smell it and then drink it."

Kwan sniffs the cup. "It smells better than it tastes."

"Well, then smell it every time before you drink. Get the smell in your nose first. But drink it."

"Why?"

"Because you need two things." Fon picks up the towels, and beneath them is a new, still-wrapped cake of hotel soap. "You need to get cleaner than you've ever been in your life, and then you need to talk. And that stuff"-she nods toward the Nescafe-"will help you talk." "HE COULDN'T DO anything at first," Kwan says. She is on her back on the couch, with her knees drawn up because the sofa is too short for her, with her head resting on Fon's lap. Beneath her hair, wet from the cold-water shower down the hall, is a folded towel. She wears clean, fresh-smelling pajamas that belong to Fon, bright primary-school yellow, with happy teddy bears and birthday cakes all over them. It seems to be the teddy bears' birthday. The pants come to a premature halt just below her knees, although they reach the tops of Fon's feet.

"I could have told you that," Fon says. She lifts a strand of wet hair and lets it fall. "Your hair is so nice. He usually can't. He drinks too much."

"Oom said the same thing."

Fon's eyebrows go up. It makes her look even more like a child's toy. "Oom? Oom actually bothered to talk to you?"

"She asked why I was saving my hymen. Whether anyone was paying me interest."

Fon laughs, just a short syllable. "Our bar's little nun. Talking you into going to work."

"She's in love-"

"With that big guy," Fon says. "Too handsome for me. But for a while now, he's the only one she'll go with. He buys her out and we don't see her for three or four weeks, and when she comes back, she might as well have stayed away. She just hangs on to that pole all night and doesn't go with anybody."