Mischa Berlinski - Fieldwork

Khun Vinai paused as we exchanged places. I took up his place in front of the Opium Man, and he took mine, on the floor. The Opium Man set to work preparing my pipe, kneading the black bead of opium between his fingers, melting it over the open flame, then kneading it again. He was a perfectionist. The door of the hut was open, and by the bright light of a full moon I could see the valley in the distance, and silhouettes of palms. I heard the wind passing lightly over the rice fields.

Khun Vinai first met David Walker at the funeral of Sings Soft, the great poet and singer. People came from every village in northern Thailand and even beyond: nobody seemed to organize anything, but within three days of his death the village was flooded with newcomers, most of whom made camp on the far side of the village, not far from the Old Grandfather shrine. Even David was there. Only Martiya was missing, and Khun Vinai wondered where she might be: Martiya loved Sings Soft as much as anyone.

The funeral went on all day and all night, Khun Vinai said.

"We take a water buffalo, and we put a spear in his heart like this. And when he is dead, we pour water down his throat like this, so he make no sound. Because Sings Soft hates ugly sounds. And we say, ‘This is so our friend Sings Soft can eat in the Land of the Dead.' We say, ‘Sings Soft, you are dead. We don't want you anymore. Go to the Land of the Dead.'"

The villagers washed the water buffalo and covered it with rice from Sings Soft's fields. They made a feast, and all day long they ate and drank rice whiskey. Then, just as dusk was falling, they took a hawk which a young boy had caught in the forest, and released the bird. The bird flew away. The villagers said, "This is so all nine souls of our friend Sings Soft head straight to the Land of the Dead. Bird, take the souls of our friend Sings Soft with you."

All night long, the villagers drank and sang. Sings Soft had written marriage songs, death songs, funny songs, songs for boys who wanted girls, songs for girls who wanted boys, songs to accompany the hunt for wild pigs in the forest, songs for the harvest of rice — and after each song, someone would sigh softly and say something like, "I remember that song. It was when my youngest sister was married. She's gone to the spirits now, poor thing, but what a lovely song that was!" Then somebody else would sing another.

Then one man shouted, "David Walker, do you know any of the songs of Sings Soft?"

David stood up. He said, "My friends, I know no songs from Sings Soft."

"Then sit down," shouted one drunk man from Big Rock Village. Everyone laughed. " I know a song from Sings Soft," the drunk man said, and proceeded to sing one of Sings Soft's bawdier songs, the story of a young boy who fell in love with a pig.

Now a Dyalo funeral involves large quantities of rice whiskey and beer, and sometime after moonrise but well before the end of the party, Khun Vinai sat for a minute on one of the big rocks near Old Grandfather's shrine. He wondered just where Sings Soft's souls were at that very moment, whether they had already gone to the place where souls go, or whether they had lingered on to hear the beautiful things the people had to say. Khun Vinai had settled into his thoughts when he heard a rustling in the bush. When he looked up, Martiya was there.

"Martiya, my friend," he said. "Why aren't you at the soul-saying-goodbye ceremony of our friend?"

"I have been listening from behind Old Grandfather's shrine," Martiya said.

"But why haven't you come out into the open and sung a song for Old Grandfather?"

"Vinai, my friend, you don't know? I am not at the funeral because I have been seeing my gin-kai , and the villagers think that I am unclean."

Khun Vinai was shocked. "You have been seeing your gin-kai ?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I couldn't stay away from him."

"Where did you see him?"

"In his fields. In his hut."

"But don't you know that—"

"Of course I know, Vinai. Lai-Ma told me that if my shadow falls on her fields, the harvest would fail. They're quite scared of me. Some of them wanted to kick me out of the village."

Khun Vinai didn't know what to say. He had heard stories of other women who had seen their gin-kai , but had never met one. He was frightened now to be on a lonely rock with Martiya. She saw the fear in his eyes and said, "Go back to the funeral."

Khun Vinai stood up to go. Then he did a very brave thing. He said, "Come to Hiker Hut soon," and Martiya promised that she would.

When Khun Vinai had returned to the funeral, the villagers were again demanding that David sing a song of Sings Soft, and David was saying all over again that he didn't know any. Then the shaman said, "Our friend Sings Soft was too happy to listen to a song, same as to sing one song himself. Sing a song now for his spirits, before he leaves us."

And the people said, "Yes, sing."

And David said, "This is a song of my ancestors for the dead." He sang:

"I am Wu-pa-sha's bi'na-ma *; there is nothing I want.

He brings me to sleep in the soft grass of the green rice fields;

He leds me to the clean water drinking spot.

He brings me back my lost souls;

He shows me good customs for his honor.

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.