Mischa Berlinski: Fieldwork

"And then I was sick. I ran to the bathroom as fast as I could, a dirty little bathroom in a dirty little bar, and I threw everything up — and is it strange if I say it felt wonderful? I threw up until I felt empty inside. I stood up from the toilet, I must have been in there ten minutes, twenty minutes, and I looked in the mirror, and this old woman stared back at me. I wondered who she was, and of course she was me. I was an old woman. I knew at that moment that I was no longer a beautiful woman, not even a pretty woman anymore.

"That's when I noticed the bathroom attendant. She was standing behind me. If I was an old woman, she was ancient. She must have heard me vomiting. She must have thought I was disgusting. But she looked so peaceful and serene and contented — and that's amazing, if you think about it. This woman lives in a toilet, that's her life, from morning until night she lives in the toilet and gives out hot towels and rubs the necks of rich women and listens to them pee and shit and vomit, and I've never seen in all my life such a simple, contented, happy face. She had a cross around her neck. And that cross — I stared and stared.

"At that moment, I knew that I could have everything I wanted. And I can't tell you how much I wanted to take a bath. I hadn't taken a real bath in years, only showers in the village. I wanted to wash myself in clean water — to begin again, just to start over. I wanted to find David right away. I wanted to tell him that he was right. It wasn't a rational decision, I hadn't thought it all through, I just wanted it.

"I went to the Walkers' house. It was only a twenty-minute walk or so, and it felt glorious. But the closer I got to that house, I started to hear this very small voice in my head. This voice said, ‘Is this how you treat Rice?'

"Then I saw that house, with that huge fence around it, at the end of the block, and it was black. I went through the gate and up to the door, and I rang the bell and nobody came for a very long time.

"Then the door opened. It was Norma Walker, and I didn't know what to say. I had only thought about David, about meeting David, and explaining to him what happened in the bathroom. I asked if David was there.

"Norma looked confused. She must have been asleep. She's a big woman, like her son, and I felt so small.

"Norma stared me up and down, then finally she asked if I knew what time it was.

"And I didn't, I really didn't, so I said no. She sighed and said it was four-thirty in the morning. I told her that I was looking for David, and she shook her head and she said that David was in the field. I felt like an idiot, because of course David wouldn't be here the first night of dyal . Then I thought of Thomas. But she shook her again and said, ‘No, my husband is with my son tonight.' I didn't know what to say, so I asked if she remembered me, and she said that she knew just who I was, and she stared at me with those dark eyes, like I was a wild animal. She had never liked me, I knew that. Then she asked what she could do for me, and suddenly I was so thirsty that I thought I would die. I couldn't think of anything but a cold glass of water. So I asked if I could have a glass of water.

"She didn't say one word. She just backed away from the door and disappeared into that black, empty house. Then she came back and gave me the glass and said that I should come in for a minute. I didn't want to go in, but I did anyway. And we sat down in that living room, with those poor goldfish going back and forth. I drank my water, and I started to wonder what I was doing there.

"Then she asked me again what she could do for me. And I wanted just to tell the truth. So I told her that I came to be baptized, and I started to cry. She didn't say anything at all. She just sat, and I looked at her face. I saw David's face in hers, just heavier. The same dark eyes, the same long nose, those same thin lips; those two were cut from the same cloth. She said, ‘Now?' and I said, ‘Yes,' and she said, ‘You want me to baptize you? Me? '

"And I didn't say anything. I was still crying. I wanted to tell her about Rice.

"Norma looked at my face. She looked at me slowly. I hadn't seen her in a long time, not since before I went back home to California. Then she asked if I had anything I wanted to tell her, if I wanted to get square with the Lord.

"And I told her that I had made dyal , and that I was frightened of Rice. And she nodded, and she said that baptism meant I was square with the Lord, but she didn't think I was square with the Lord at all. And I stopped crying, and I said that I needed to be baptized, that's why I had come. I wanted to tell her that whatever she was thinking, it didn't matter now, but she cut me off. She said that she loved her husband, that from the first moment she saw him she'd loved him, he was the most handsome man she'd ever seen. Norma told me that she'd never loved another man, and she never would. And I said, ‘He's a wonderful man, Norma,' but Norma wasn't listening to me. She said she'd made her peace with the kind of man he was, an imperfect man, and she didn't want me back in their life, that those days were over. She asked me to leave her alone, please leave her and her family alone. And I said, ‘Norma,' but she was already out of the room.

"I walked out of that house perfectly sober. I walked away from that house thinking that I had to do something. I walked away from that house thinking how close I had come to angering Rice."

"You see, I told you I didn't have a choice. Even now, I know it was the only thing I could have done. I knew that without David they would worship Rice again.

"He was headed up to Wild Pig village, and I went up the path ahead of him, and I got to that first bridge. I was able to untie one of the ropes and although the thing looked solid enough, I knew that when a big man walked on it, the bridge wouldn't hold. Then I waited. As it happens, that bridge overlooks a very beautiful rice field, and it must have been toward the end of rainy season. So the rice was high, and I was very calm and peaceful. It was a windy day, and the rice was blowing back and forth, like waves of silver and green. There is nothing so beautiful as a rice field. Then David came, and it was silent. He didn't shout, and I looked, and he had fallen, fallen, fallen, down below. I went home.

"I went to bed that evening and I slept, and I woke up the next morning, and I felt like sleeping again, and I slept most of the next day as well. It was the next night when I had a very strange dream. I dreamed about David. He came to me, and he sang again at my door.

"I woke up the next morning and I didn't know what to do. Because I did not want to be cruel, not at all. He was a nice boy, just dangerous, very dangerous. So I took my hunting rifle, which I'd used exactly once since the blacksmith made it for me, and I went out to the bridge and I looked down, and I took very careful aim. I shot him twice, just to make sure.

"Then I walked home through the rice fields."

I WENT UPto Dan Loi village with Khun Vinai.

We drove as far as we could and then we walked. We had nearly arrived when a mechanical buzzing startled us, and we stood aside to allow a young man on a motorcycle to pass us on the narrow path, bouncing over rocks and swerving to avoid a fallen log. This was the first suggestion I had of how much the village had changed in the years since Martiya left it. The village still straddled the same ridge, fringed in every direction by the rice fields, then fields of purple taro, sunflowers, yellow sorghum, and tall corn. But tin roofs instead of thatch now covered about half the huts. A number of them sprouted antennas.