Bar Girl (3 page)

Now it was different. Now she knew it was all wrong. Her mother’s words had stung. Hurt her deep down. She couldn’t walk through the village, or go to the temple to pray, without feeling eyes upon her. Without feeling the stares. Hearing the whispers. Everyone knows, her mother had told her. Everyone knows.

She took to looking at the ground directly in front of her. She averted her gaze whenever a neighbour glanced at her. She felt ashamed. Her whole demeanour changed and, as if in confirmation of the gossip, she walked with the heavy burden of guilt pressing on her shoulders. At thirteen years of age, Siswan walked through the village as a fallen woman. Her mother had called her a whore.

Bak noticed the change in his sister. He felt the change in her personality. The cheerful and happy little girl was gone. In her place stood a broken young woman. A woman who, he knew, would gladly watch him die. He didn’t care. As long as the money kept coming in, he would never care.

‘You have to work, Siswan,’ he told her one evening. He had been drinking again. His words were slurred. He was sitting in his father’s place at the head of the table under the house.

‘I work in the fields,’ she answered, not looking at him. She continued cutting the stems off the bunches of sage she had prepared. The small knife was sharp and she took care not to cut her fingers.

‘That’s not work,’ he shouted. ‘You earn nothing!’

‘But with the money you earn,’ she had started.

He reached across the table and slapped her hard across the side of her head.

‘Don’t be stupid,’ he smiled. ‘Where do you think I get the money to pay for everything?’

‘I don’t know,’ she was holding the side of her face.

His hand had stung her. She felt the jolt of his blow run through the bones of her face. Her ear rang with pain. Her cheek felt as though it were glowing red under her hand.

‘The boys pay, Siswan. They pay to do what they do to you,’ his voice was cold.

He was enjoying this, she thought to herself. He was enjoying telling her.

She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. He didn’t work. He did nothing.

The boys in the village had been giving him money! The household bills, the food, clothes, even the motorbike he took so much time cleaning, it all came from what she did in the fields. Everything. The small knife lay on the table beside her.

She looked at him. Saw the laughter in his eyes. Saw the grin spreading across his face. He found it funny. He was watching her. Laughing at her shock, her horror. He laughed aloud.

‘And, my little sister, you have to keep doing it. Mama and Papa need us now. We have to take care of them,’ he told her.

Their father lay upstairs in bed. Too ill even to come downstairs anymore. Their mother sat with him and was past caring. The last coherent words she had spoken were to condemn her daughter.

Bak was right. She had to take care of them. What else could she do? The tears began to fill her eyes. She wiped them away angrily. She wouldn’t cry in front of him. Not again. Not ever. She clutched the handle of the knife.

‘How much do they pay?’

The question caught him off guard. Bak had expected her to cry. Had expected the sobs. In a way he had been looking forward to them. He liked to see his sister cry. Something about a girl crying in front of him gave him a feeling of power. He was more like his father than he knew.

The question she asked was unexpected. He took another drink of whiskey before replying. She was looking at him. Her face was red from where he had hit her. He wanted to hit her again but he didn’t want to spoil her looks.

‘Why?’ he asked.

She had caught the fleeting look in her brother’s eyes. He had looked shocked for a moment. She fought down the urge to cry. Something inside her hardened. A cold tremor ran down her spine. Her mother had condemned her.

‘I want to know,’ she said, calmly.

‘Not a lot. More later,’ he answered.

‘Why more later?’

‘You have something that men will pay for, Siswan,’ he sneered. ‘They will pay a lot.’

‘What?’ her voice was cold. ‘I want to know everything, Bak.’

‘All in good time,’ he said.

She looked at the arrogant young man sat cross legged in front of her. He was reaching for the whiskey bottle. There was a knowing smile on his face. He knew something that she didn’t know and it annoyed her.

From somewhere deep inside her an anger grew. A slow and purposeful anger. Something that she had never felt before. She wouldn’t allow it to explode into a sudden burst of temper. That would be a waste. She had to control this feeling. Control the anger. Use it. Her mother had condemned her.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Now. I want to know now.’

He looked unsure. A hesitation as he poured more whiskey into his glass. A fleeting look of something. Worry? Fear? She didn’t know.

As she watched him she remembered the young boy who had chased the fish in the pond. How she had laughed and how he had smiled in the sun. A young boy who had held her at night when their parents fought. A young boy who had been so scared of the scorpions in the field.

She didn’t see that boy now. What she saw was her father. A spiteful, mean man whose only kindness had been to give her the silver chain and Buddha that still hung around her neck.

She concentrated on the fear she saw within him. A young boy who had been so afraid of scorpions. So afraid of their sting. She had learned to be quick when dealing with the scorpions. Her mother had condemned her.

‘And what if I tell you? What will you do?’

Although the smug grin spread across his face once more, the uncertainty she heard in his voice was all she needed. She controlled the anger.

‘You will tell me everything, Bak. Tell me what it is that men will pay for.’

He leaned forward across the table. His hand flat on the surface ready to reach out and hit her. She needed a lesson again. He smiled. He wouldn’t ruin her looks. A small slap to startle her then he’d give her a beating she wouldn’t soon forget. He’d leave her face alone but there were other places he could hurt her. The whiskey made him feel confident. Arrogant. He wanted to see her cry.

‘You are so much like her,’ he spat. ‘No wonder Papa had to deal with her.’ As soon as she saw the tension in his arm, she struck. Before his muscles had a chance to lift his hand, she moved. The anger was controlled. The speed of the knife a blur in the glow of the single light bulb. She knew exactly what she was doing. She had seen the look in his eyes. She had seen the young boy who was scared of the scorpions.

Long ago she had learned to deal with their venom. Now it was her with a sting. She didn’t stop looking into his eyes as she brought the knife down. How dare her mother condemn her.

He screamed out in pain. The voice of a young boy. A scared boy. He stared in disbelief at his hand. The pain raced up his arm. Siswan had brought the knife down so hard and so fast that it went straight through his flesh and imbedded itself in the wood of the table.

Even as she had struck, his arm had been lifting to hit her. The sharp edge of the knife had ripped back towards the knuckles. Blood flowed dark and hot over the back of his hand.

He clutched at the handle with his other hand but couldn’t bring himself to pull the blade free. The pain coursed through his body. The blood. So much of it! Siswan looked into his face. Into his eyes. She saw the fear now. Not just a fleeting glance but outright fear. Wide and open. She had no right to condemn her. None.

‘Tell me everything, Bak,’ she said, when his sobs had subsided enough for her to be heard. ‘Tell me everything.’

Three days later Siswan left the village. Bak had told her everything she needed to know. He had been saving her virginity to get the best price. He had told her how he was negotiating with three of the men in the village. One of them was the policeman she and her friends had been so scared of when they had played near his house.

In a way it had been good to learn. Some of the things he told her had horrified her but the most important piece of information had stuck in her mind. She had listened to everything.

‘Women have power, Siswan,’ he had said, through his tears. ‘Men will pay anything for the right woman. Anything.’

She collected her few small belongings together. Parcelled them in one of the sheets from her bed. It wasn’t a large bundle.

‘Where are you going?’ he asked her.

‘Away,’ she replied. ‘Away from you. Away from this village.’

In truth she hadn’t known where she was going. Her need to leave was not brought about from fear or the looks from the other villagers. She didn’t care about them. She didn’t care about anyone anymore. She needed to leave to feel clean.

‘But what about Mama and Papa!’ Bak had cried. ‘What about me?’

She had stopped folding her clothes onto the sheet and looked at him. The bloody bandage on his hand, the frightened look in his eyes, the open- mouthed look of disbelief.

The memories of what she had done to him, for him and because of him flooded into her mind. The nights she had endured his touch. The times spent in the cane fields. She despised him for what he had become.

‘I don’t care what happens to you, Bak,’ she had answered, coldly and truthfully.

She had removed his sting. He was nothing to be afraid of anymore. No venom.

She walked along the road that led away from her home. She walked with her head held up. Her shoulders were straight. Tears threatened the corners of her eyes but she hardened her heart against them.

There was an air of confidence surrounding her. Her body was that of a woman and she knew far more than a young girl should know. She walked past the small dirt track that led to their allotment and the cane fields beyond. She wouldn’t go there again. Not ever.

She had informed Ped that she was leaving and had told her cousin to look after her mother.

‘I’ll send you money, Ped,’ she had said. ‘But never give any to Bak. Never.’

Her cousin had hugged her. Ped was the only person in the village that was sad to see her leave.

‘I’ll take care of them,’ Ped told her. The young girl had heard all the gossip. All the stories. ‘Where will you go?’

‘I’ll head to the town first,’ Siswan answered.

The look of determination in her cousin’s voice, the look in her eyes, stopped Ped from asking anymore.

‘Remember, Ped. Nothing for Bak.’

‘I’ll remember,’ Ped answered.

As she approached the pond at the edge of the village she stopped. This was a place filled with memories. Where she had played as a child. Where she and Bak had played. Even as she looked out across the still and stagnant water she thought she could hear his laughter. See him running through the mud to catch the fish he had thrown to the banks before they could wriggle their way back down the slippery slopes.

It felt as though she was remembering someone else’s life. Not her own. She had never been there. Never laughed or smiled in the sunshine. Never splashed in the water with her brother. She closed her mind and shut off her thoughts.

She put down her small bundle of clothes and reached up to the clasp of her necklace. Taking it off she looked into the smiling face of the silver Buddha. Her twelfth birthday present. A birthday that she would remember for the rest of her life. A birthday that had marked an ending. And a beginning.

She balled the chain into her palm and, without further thought, threw the necklace far out into the pond. It hardly made a ripple as it sank beneath the muddy water.

Picking up her bundle of clothes, Siswan walked along the road. Away from the village. Away from her home. Away from the memories and away from her childhood.

She told herself that she would never again subject herself to the attentions of men. Never again would she allow them to touch her. Never again would she administer to their desires and passions.

‘Never again,’ she told herself, aloud.