‘Twenty-six!’ she cried, her eyes sparkling with joy. ‘You’re making me think back to how I felt nine years ago. I remember my feelings vividly. At the time, life seemed full of hope. I had not the slightest inkling, nor fear, that I would have to marry a gentleman who was on the verge of old age. It is part of my nature to dislike things falling into decay. Sometimes I might even say that I fear it. But that was nine years ago.’
‘And what’s happened to you now?’ I enquired with growing curiosity.
‘What’s happened?’ she asked, repeating my words and gazing ahead with a distant look in her eyes. ‘My youth and beautiful dreams took their leave. Whether I should have let them go or not wasn’t in question. I had to. Besides, as you can see, I married Chao Khun.’
I nearly asked whether she meant she was not happy in her marriage, but common sense managed to prevail over curiosity. I knew it would have been impolite and perhaps a liberty to ask such a direct question.
‘No matter how much I dislike decay and how much I love beauty, nine years have gone by. I wish I were as young as youguessed,’ Mom Ratchawong Kirati continued, ‘but we can’t deny the truth.’
‘And what is the truth?’
‘The truth is, I’m not the young woman of twenty-six or twenty-seven that you thought I was.’ She smiled calmly. ‘I wasn’t fibbing or pulling your leg when I said I was thirty-five. I’ve passed what people call the “halfway mark”. So I don’t think I have any right to call myself a young woman.’
‘But shouldn’t I believe my eyes rather than your words?’ I said in all seriousness.
‘You really are persistent today, Nopporn,’ she said, glancing at me with a lovely smile.
‘In all honesty, I beg your pardon for being persistent. Hundreds and hundreds of people would refuse to believe you if you were to tell them you were thirty-five. Your youth and radiance would be apparent even to someone with one eye closed.’
‘As long, of course, as the remaining eye wasn’t blind,’ she added mischievously.
‘I really mean it.’
‘All right, Nopporn. But just so that you won’t go around guessing people’s ages wrongly, I’ll tell you something. Women who know how to take regular care of themselves can always look five years younger than they really are.’
‘But you must have been blessed by Indra, or bathed in sacred fire, like Phranang Acha, to have been able to preserve your youth so amazingly well. I’ve never met a woman about whom I’ve been so wrong. Tell me, what’s your special secret?’
‘That’s enough, Nopporn, quite enough,’ she said, waving her hand to prevent me from saying anything further. ‘I’m not going to talk to you about it any more. You’re just trying to flatter me, you know, Nopporn, all the time, and that kind of behaviour spoils you.’
She looked serious and walked on in silence. If she had spokento me like that during the first few days, with such an expression on her face, I would have felt really alarmed. But since we were close enough for me to understand what she meant when she spoke like this, I merely smiled faintly.
We arrived home at dusk. Chao Khun had not yet returned, so I stayed to keep Mom Ratchawong Kirati company for a while. When she had bathed and changed her clothes, she invited me to take a bath before dinner. She would not countenance me looking grubby or less than spotlessly clean, so my protests met with no success. But why it was that I felt strangely pleased by her concern for my welfare, I could not say.
The pleasure I had experienced talking to Mom Ratchawong Kirati that evening lingered in my mind as I walked home. I had only just learned her age, and it had come as a complete surprise, although I believed she was speaking the truth. If I had known from the outset that she was thirty-five, which meant that she was thirteen years older than me, I would surely have felt she was very much my elder and I wouldn’t have been able to become close to her in the way I had. But when we ended up becoming close friends, her age was a mere shadow of the truth, so I felt that Mom Ratchawong Kirati was only three or four years older than me. When she told me her real age, it did not create a barrier, nor make the close friendship I felt for her in the slightest bit more distant. Even so, some things she had said I had been unable to understand – in particular, what she had said about marrying Chao Khun. Something she had said in passing had greatly aroused my curiosity. As I interpreted it, she had not married of her own free will. But I could not be certain whether my interpretation was correct. The more I thought about her marriage, the more puzzling it seemed.
Eventually, after I got home and had gone to bed, I asked myself why it was that I kept thinking about Mom RatchawongKirati’s private affairs. What business was it of mine to go sorting through such problems? True, I might well regard myself as one of her friends. But why was I worrying about her personal affairs when she herself gave no indication of any concern, nor had even called on me for any help whatsoever? Having asked myself such questions, I was unable to find any answers, so I tried to banish such futile thoughts – something I felt would require considerable effort on my part.
5
Relations between myself, Chao Khun and Mom Ratchawong Kirati continued as normal. One evening, three or four days later, Chao Khun received an invitation to a party. Mom Ratchawong Kirati said she was not feeling very well and so did not relish the thought of mingling with lots of people, preferring instead to stay at home. Chao Khun therefore asked me to stay and keep her company.
That night there was a full moon. After dinner, we both had the same thought – that it would be utterly foolish not to go out and enjoy the moonlight for a while. I suggested that we ought to take out a rowing boat in the public park, which was only about ten minutes’ walk from where we lived. Mom Ratchawong Kirati agreed.
It was still dusk when we got there. There were crowds of local people out strolling in the park. Some just sat there on benches, watching others rowing on the large boating lake. We walked around the park two or three times until we felt tired and then decided to take a boat out. There were already four or five boats on the water, which was about the right number so that the lake was not too crowded and noisy. I took the oars and Mom Ratchawong Kirati sat back. As we lost ourselves in conversation, I let the boat drift along on its own.
The moon was shining brightly. It was a wonderful sight, whether we watched its reflection on the surface of the water orcast our eyes around at the many different kinds of plants lit up in the park. Mom Ratchawong Kirati was enjoying herself. At times such as this, she talked endlessly of the beauty of nature. I agreed with everything she said, but it was not something I took particular pleasure in. In my lifetime I had experienced the beauty of moonlit nights hundreds of times, but my eyes had never before beheld, by the light of the moon, any living creature as lovely as the woman sitting before me at that moment.
To add a little to the pleasure of the outing to the park that evening, Mom Ratchawong Kirati was wearing a silk kimono with a bold red pattern set against a white background, like a large bunch of chrysanthemums I had seen at Takarazuka Park the previous autumn. The full moon parted the clouds and shone down on the chrysanthemums all over her body, bringing them to life. When she looked upwards towards the moon, a gentle breeze blew through her hair so that it danced in the moonlight. The sparkle in her eyes was like a ray of light, calling all my attention to them. She sat with her feet stretched out towards me, her pale, slender ankles tapering into firm, well-fleshed feet. She leaned back a little and abandoned herself happily to the beauty of nature.
‘Don’t you feel so happy, Nopporn, on a lovely night like this?’ she asked softly, her eyes shining as she gazed straight at me. I was quite taken aback as I marvelled at her beautiful face.
‘I’m indescribably happy,’ I replied with enthusiasm. ‘More so than I can put into words.’
‘Doesn’t it make you miss home a little?’
‘I left home three years ago. I’ve missed it from time to time, but after a while the feeling diminishes.’
‘You don’t miss it at all?’
