Rattawant Lapcharoensap - Sightseeing - Stories

“Is there something you want to talk about?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Something. Anything. Everything. For God’s sakes, we’re on vacation, luk. Smile a little.”

“Fine, let’s talk.”

“Okay, let’s talk.”

“Okay.” She chews off the head of a prawn, smiling, twirling the translucent husk between her fingers. “Why don’t you tell me about the school up north, luk. What do you think you’ll study? I don’t think we’ve ever talked about that before.”

“I haven’t given it much thought, actually.”

“No?”

“No, Ma.”

“But you were so excited a few months ago.”

“That was a few months ago, Ma.”

“What did you tell me you were going to study? What was it, luk? Libraries? That was it, wasn’t it? Oh, I think you’d make a great librarian. You’d be so handsome with all those books.”

“Let’s talk about something else, Ma.”

There’s an awkward silence. Ma puts down her chopsticks. She takes off her sunglasses, folds the thick plastic earpieces, lays them neatly on the table. I can see the faint outline of rings already forming around her eyes. I bend to sip my broth.

“Look at me, luk. No. Look at me.”

I put the bowl down, lean back in my seat.

“I didn’t bring you along so you could brood. I would’ve come myself, luk, if I knew you were going to act this way. What’s wrong with a little conversation with your mother? I’m not asking for much here, luk. I’m just asking you to be courteous. I’m just asking you to be kind.”

“Sorry, Ma. I just didn’t—”

“Don’t ‘sorry’ me, luk. I don’t need your apologies. I just need you to act like you’re my son, that’s all — not some cranky client I’m taking out to dinner. Be decent, luk. Be nice. Is that too much to ask?”

“Ma—”

“You think it’s easy for me to sit here knowing I’m going blind, that there’s nothing I can do about it? I could wake up blind tomorrow morning. I might never see you again. And you’ll be sorry then, luk. Real sorry. You’ll probably be sorrier than you’ve ever been in your life, knowing that the last time your mother saw you, you were being dreadful.”

We finish our meals silently. On our way back to the hotel, there’s a blind man playing an accordion on the corner across from the hotel. He sings a southern worksong, his contralto lilting across the street. Pedestrians drop change in the tin cup at his feet and he smiles at the sound of each brightly clinking coin. For a moment, as we walk past, I wonder where his children are. Then Ma and I look away. From our room three stories up, we can hear him singing all through the night. We sleep to the sounds of his beggar’s elegies.

Every Saturday morning, Ma battles the vendors at Chatuchak. Even the most stubborn of vendors have submitted to her entreaties. It is not only charm she exerts upon them, for charm will get you only so far; Ma slashes their prices through an inimitable combination of wit, commonsense economics, high theatrics, and old-fashioned psychological manipulation. That Saturday at the bazaar, a few days before our trip, Ma was at the height of her powers.

The vendor was a young, homely-looking girl. Throngs of people filed past her booth. I stood at a distance as Ma scanned the hundreds of frames neatly laid out on the table. “What do you think?” she asked, putting on the Armanis.

“They look good, Ma.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. You look like Jackie Kennedy.”

This pleased her. She raised her hand in a fluttering half-gesture, smiling, bending to look at her reflection in the small mirror. “How much?” she finally asked, taking off the glasses with a swift, dramatic gesture. The vendor said twelve hundred. Ma yelped. “They’re real, ma’am,” the vendor said. “Real Armanis.”

“Real or not, that’s an awful lot of money.”

The girl laughed — a shrill, sheepish sound. A middleaged Chinese couple walked into the booth, the husband with a vacant look in his eyes. Ma asked for a discount. “I can’t, ma’am. Profit margin’s small as it is.”

“C’mon. Give an old woman a break.”

The girl smiled. She said eleven hundred. Ma yelped again.

“I’m not a farang, na? We’re all Thai here. Give me the Thai price.” The vendor asked Ma to name one. Not eleven hundred, Ma said. The vendor counteroffered: ten-fifty. Ma put the glasses back on the table. “That’s ridiculous,” she said, shaking her head, though I could hear that hint of mischief in her voice. Only now, I knew, would the bargaining begin in earnest. “Let’s go,” Ma said curtly, feigning disappointment. The Chinese couple glanced at us, smiled, and I tried to return the courtesy. The wife went back to browsing and the husband to looking as if he would rather be elsewhere. “Can you believe that?” Ma asked as we made our way toward the aisle, her voice loud enough for the girl to hear. “Twelve hundred for a pair of fake Armanis.”

“Ma—”

“Don’t ‘Ma’ me. You don’t think it’s a little expensive?”

“Well—”

“It’s outrageous.”

There is faith in the way Ma bargains, in the way we started to walk away from the girl. Her faith was substantiated that day. The girl called us back.

“Ma’am! Ma’am!” Ma let go of my arm, turned to face the vendor.

“How’s a thousand, ma’am?” the girl said, getting up from her seat.

“Oh no.” Ma laughed, grabbing my arm again. “Why would I spend that kind of money on a pair of fake Armanis?” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the Chinese husband snickering softly to himself.

“They’re not fake, ma’am.”

“Oh?”

“No, ma’am. My boyfriend got them from the factory.”

“So they’re stolen?”

“Ma’am!”

“Pirated, then. They’re pirated. You know I could—”

“Ma’am!”

“I’m just teasing. What’s a little teasing?” Ma said. “Don’t take an old woman like me so seriously. Here. Let me look at them again.”

Ma tried them on once more. The girl told her she looked stunning. “I like them,” Ma said, taking off the glasses. “But a thousand? I don’t like them that much.” Again, the girl asked Ma to name a price. Ma took out her wallet, handed me the sunglasses, fished out a few bills. “Tell you what. I’ll leave six hundred baht on this table. Then I’ll walk away with those sunglasses.”

“Oi! I can’t do that, ma’am.”

“Of course you can.”

“No, ma’am, that’s impossible.” The girl looked at me. I shrugged. “Okay,” Ma said. “Let me ask you this then: How much did you pay for these glasses?”

“I don’t know, ma’am. My boyfriend was the one—”

“Oh, just tell me. What’s an old woman like me going to do with that kind of information? Your boyfriend’s not here now, is he? How else am I supposed to give you a fair offer?”

“I can’t do that. I’d lose money if I gave it to you for six hundred, though.”

“So six hundred it is then,” Ma said emphatically, laying the money down. The Chinese husband let out a bellowing laugh this time and the girl shot him a look that suggested, suddenly, that she was much older than I had originally assumed. “I can’t let you do that.” The vendor’s voice was strong and curt now, a new pallor on her face.

“Now you’re talking,” Ma teased, smiling. “No need to ‘ma’am’ me all the time. Now we can talk like adults. How much did you pay for these?” The girl shook her head. Six-fifty, Ma offered. The girl shook her head again. Ma took another hundred-baht note from her wallet. Seven-fifty.

“No.”

Ma held the note in her hand, and for a moment they just stood there — the vendor and my mother — locked in a mute battle. I’d seen this type of standoff many times before. I pitied the girl.