Silk Umbrellas (6 page)

One day Noi spotted a pickup truck inching down the jungle lane in front of the house. The bed was loaded with earthen lights to sell. “He’s here, Kun Mere!” she shouted.

Kun Mere descended the ladder with her small purse of coins, Noi climbing down after her.

The man counted out the one hundred and sixty-one lights, setting them two by two in rows on the soft ground.

“I want to pay for my own this year,” said Noi. From her pocket she drew eleven of the coins she’d earned with Kun Ya.

Another day the man returned with
kome
— paper lanterns that would hang in the trees and doorways.

“Which one?” Kun Mere asked Noi.

Noi touched the lanterns of translucent paper and the long streamers, the colors entering her body. Each color produced a different sensation: The yellow expanded inside her like a flower blooming, the pink fluttered, the dark green created a feeling of woody texture. The lanterns were all so beautiful that Noi had a hard time choosing.

The man began to fold the
kome
and wrap them back in the cellophane.

“Choose,” Kun Mere urged, moving so close that Noi could feel her breath on the back of her neck.

“It’s hard. . . .”

Kun Mere’s face suddenly softened with a smile. “I know you love colors, Noi,” she said. “Colors make you look so happy.” She slipped her arm around Noi’s shoulders, then lifted up a lantern shaped like a lotus, with long paper streamers of red, purple, and gold. “How about this?”

“Yes, that’s the one.” Noi put the lantern inside where it wouldn’t get wet. That night, she dreamed she heard the sounds of Loy Krathong music.

On the morning of Loy Krathong, Noi knelt next to Kun Mere in front of the charcoal stove. Ting had left early, as usual, for the factory.

“I feel so sad that Ting isn’t with us,” Noi said. Tears stung her eyes.

Kun Mere glanced at Noi, then looked back down at the blue-and-red flames licking the burning charcoal. “She’s not as unhappy about it as you are, Noi.”

What Kun Mere said was true, Noi had to admit. Somehow she just couldn’t understand her sister.

“Don’t be too sad for Ting,” added Kun Mere.

As Noi watched the bean curd cook in a sticky sauce, she dried her cheeks with the back of her hand. She reminded herself that on Loy Krathong, prayers were more powerful. Maybe the spirits of water would listen and send Ting home. Or not. Maybe Kun Mere was right. Maybe Ting wanted to stay and earn more money.

When the house was in order, Noi examined her face in the water in the tall black jar in the bathroom. Next Loy Krathong, who would she see inside the jar? A factory worker or a painter of umbrellas?

She broke the surface of the water with the dipper, shattering her face into fragments. When she’d finished bathing, she dressed herself in a sarong decorated with the same butterflies she loved to paint. The night before, she’d pressed her festival clothes using the iron full of charcoal from the stove. She’d pressed Ting’s, too, just in case.

On the kitchen table, she packed clumps of sticky rice with thin slices of mango for the temple monks. She poured coconut milk with ground peanuts on top.

Kun Mere placed a hibiscus in Noi’s hair. Noi felt the hard stem behind her ear. She knew the flower flared open, soft lavender with white streaks, but still she felt the bite of the stem.

Kun Mere and Kun Pa walked ahead down the path through the jungle. Kun Mere wore her festival sarong and Kun Pa his good shirt with the high collar and soft loops of fabric that fastened in front.

Kun Ya and Noi followed, Kun Ya pointing out the different shades of the green leaves. “A lot of blue in that green, a little more yellow in that,” she said.

On Loy Krathong the world seemed new and gleaming, as though anything could happen. Everyone moved quickly toward the pointed spire of the glittering temple emerging through the trees.

Boys and girls slid along the stone dragons that wound down each side of the temple steps. The tiger cat leaped down from one of the dragons to greet Noi.

Noi recalled how, when they were little, she and Ting had slid down the dragons, too, sometimes tearing their clothes on the rough stone. She still felt like sliding down those dragons, but probably Ting, now that she was grown up with a job, wouldn’t find it fun.

Kriamas arrived on a tiny motorcycle, riding behind her mother and father, blowing kisses to Noi and other friends.

Under the heavy shade of giant teak trees, villagers had set up tables and spread out silver earrings, miniature Buddhas, and embroidered silk cloths on tables to sell.

Noi carried two of her coins.

She handed the first coin to a man with cages of tiny birds he’d caught in the jungle. She chose a cage and undid the hook. With a flutter, the bird darted out. As Noi watched it disappear into the sky, she pictured Ting escaping her confinement.

But perhaps Ting didn’t
want
that, Noi reminded herself. Instead she imagined herself flying freely like the bird, free in the jungle instead of caged in a factory.

She gave a woman the other
baht
in exchange for a bit of soft gold paste.

With her fingers closed over the gold, Noi climbed the steps. She slipped off her sandals and entered the temple.

A golden Buddha towered so high that his head touched the roof. Like all Thai Buddhas, he had the eyes of a deer, a chin like a mango seed, hair like a scorpion’s stingers, and hands like lotus blossoms about to open.

Standing on tiptoe, Noi just reached the top of a giant foot. She rubbed the gold from her fingertips onto one of the toes while she pictured herself standing forever in the golden sunlight of the jungle.

Surrounded by sweet-smelling, white
kasalong
flowers, the monks chanted the wise words of the Buddha.

Noi stood in line behind the villagers carrying bowls of fat bananas, slippery white rambutan fruits, and thick curries. Everyone placed the food before the row of monks.

After Noi offered her own dish of sticky rice and mango, she bowed low three times, then pressed her forehead to the floor and closed her eyes.

After the monks had eaten, the villagers spread out the rest of the food on mats and gathered in small groups to eat together.

“May I sit with you?” Kriamas asked.

Noi smiled and motioned toward the mat.

Kriamas settled herself, placing her plate of food in front of her. Even though Kriamas had a year and a half left of elementary school, she was already making plans for her future. “My parents talked with my aunt and uncle in Bangkok. I’ll be staying with them while I go to school.”

Noi took a long drink of water.

“You’re so quiet, Noi. Aren’t you happy for me?”

“Of course I’m happy.” Noi felt quiet because she couldn’t bring herself to talk about her future with Kriamas. Kriamas was so sure of her own destiny and so satisfied with it, while worry tore away at Noi’s heart. Sometimes her heart felt like a seed stripped of its fruit.

To shield herself from Kriamas and her questioning, Noi began to tuck some of her food into a bowl to take to Ting. The curried fish and dish of small, round Thai eggplant had been blessed by the temple monks and was now holy food that would bring good luck to whoever ate it.

A green glow fell gently through the jungle canopy.

Kun Pa sliced fresh banana leaves off the tree with a knife. As his face moved in and out of the light and shade, Noi felt her heart shift. Probably Kun Pa missed Ting today, too.

Kun Pa finished cutting and tossed the leaves onto the table underneath the house. He sat down on a bench, his long knife across his knees.

While Noi tore the leaves into strips, Kun Mere and Kun Ya wove the strips with quick fingers, forming them into baskets.

Curious, the pigs and chickens came close. The rooster hopped up onto the worktable.

“Down,” said Kun Mere, knocking him back.

“But, Kun Mere, he just wants to look,” said Noi. “You’ve hurt his feelings.”

“He can look when we’re finished.”

“He wants you to paint him,” joked Kun Ya, brushing her forehead with the back of her hand. “He’d look nice on red silk.”

Noi giggled. “He does look as if he’s posing. But let me make Ting’s
krathong.
”

Kun Ya handed her a pile of strips, and Noi wove them into a tight basket that wouldn’t leak. She concentrated on making the basket strong and even enough to hold Ting’s candle without tipping.

If the candle stayed lit until the
krathong
floated out of sight on the river, wishes would come true. What would Ting wish for? Noi didn’t know anymore.

After Noi had tucked the last end of banana leaf into place, Kun Ya leaned over to put a white orchid with a yellow center inside the
krathong.
Noi added a stick of incense and a white candle.

As she worked, Noi felt constantly on the verge of turning to Ting to share a joke, to giggle, to show her the half-made
krathong.
Ting’s absence sunk into her as a stone falls slowly through water.

She set to work on her own
krathong.
One minute she felt herself wishing, as though what she wanted could never come true; the next minute dreaming, as though it already had.

Snip snip,
went the sewing scissors, and Kun Mere laid the bits of Noi’s black hair in her
krathong.

Then Kun Mere took Noi’s hand. She cut off a crescent of fingernail and placed that, too, in Noi’s basket.

Sending old, useless bits of hair and fingernail down the river symbolized letting go of old, useless things in life and making room for the new.
What would be the new?
Noi wondered.

Kun Pa dropped a tiny fifty-
stang
coin into each
krathong,
concluding the making of the baskets.

As the sunlight fell lower on the tree trunks, Noi suddenly heard the pad of footsteps. She turned to see Ting running through the jungle, the shadows of leaves splashing across her face.

“They let us go early today,” she announced, breathing as though she’d run all the way from the bus stop.

Kun Pa got up from the bench so quickly that the knife clattered to the ground.

Kun Mere set down the
krathong
she was weaving, and it fell apart into strips again.

Kun Ya held out her arms and Ting slowed her dash to move into the embrace.

Ting home after all! The Buddha had listened!

When Kun Ya released Ting, Noi stepped forward. “Here.” She placed Ting’s
krathong
into her hands, the banana smell fragrant between them. She felt as though she, too, had been running.

“Oh, thank you,” said Ting. Her chest rose and fell with her breath.

“I’m so happy,” whispered Noi.

“Yes. It was nice of them to close the factory early.”

They all sat on the bench in a row, saying nothing, Ting holding her
krathong
in her lap. Noi watched beams of light arcing pink and dusky onto the forest floor, feeling herself grow rose-colored inside.

“Why don’t you two light the
phang patit
?” asked Kun Mere finally, holding up a small box of matches.

Yes, it is time,
thought Noi. Every year she and Ting lit the lamps together.

“Let’s outline the path with the lights,” Ting suggested.

“And if there’s some left over, we can put them under the trees.”

They began to light the one hundred and sixty-one lamps, each a tiny flame of gratitude to the Buddha. For Noi, each strike of the match also represented a tiny request:
Let me be a painter!

The pigs followed, sniffing at the lamps.

Kun Mere hung the lotus-shaped lantern from a branch, the streamers rippling in the breeze.