Silk Umbrellas (5 page)

But Kriamas’s father had his own land and still farmed. The family had money to send Kriamas to teacher school. Because Kriamas didn’t have to think about the factory, she might not understand.

Kriamas moved and it was Noi’s turn.

Noi lifted her own piece just when Kun Kru rang her brass bell, announcing the beginning of afternoon studies.

“Let’s go to market,” Kun Pa announced one morning when the rain had broken. He had loaded the
samlaw
with a tall stack of fishing baskets. The fishing baskets would bring more money at the tourist market than if he sold them to the men of the village. The baskets would never catch fish, but would hold tourist trinkets instead.

There were no umbrellas to load, because Kun Ya hadn’t been painting. Noi thought of the umbrellas she’d decorated with lily pads. But Mr. Poonsub wouldn’t buy
those.

She climbed onto the back step of the tricycle.

Before Ting had gone to the factory, Noi would have held on to Kun Pa’s shoulders as he pedaled. She’d have leaned over, the side of her head against his, laughing as he took the turns too fast.

When Noi was little, Kun Pa had carried her high on his shoulders through the jungle. They’d made a game of spotting the bright-colored birds that were now calling their morning greeting. “There’s one!” she’d cry at seeing a flash of feathers against the green. When Kun Pa grew tired of carrying her, they walked with her small hand in his big one.

Sometimes she’d asked him to tell the story of the poisonous king cobras. When Kun Pa was her age, he’d spotted two shiny black snakes slithering through the grass outside his house. Fascinated, little Kun Pa had laughed brightly and chased after them.

Just as the snakes turned and opened the hoods around their heads, Kun Pa’s mother had scooped him up in her arms and hoisted him above the snakes. “Those might have killed you, Chang-noi!” She always called him “Little Elephant.”

At that point in his story, Kun Pa had always lifted Noi high, provoking a shower of giggles.

But Kun Pa had played with Ting as well. He’d called Ting his precious little daughter, had stroked her hair as she fell asleep with her head against his shoulder, had told her, too, about the snakes. And he’d still let Kun Mere send her to the factory.

Now, instead of leaning close to Kun Pa as she rode on the back step of the
samlaw
, Noi held him at the waist with only her hands touching his shirt.

On the way to the booth that bought and sold fishing baskets, they passed Mr. Poonsub’s booth.

“Where are your grandmother’s umbrellas?” he asked. “People have been wanting them, and they’re all gone.” He spread his hands, indicating the lack of umbrellas, his rings flashing.

“Kun Ya has been feeling tired because of the rains.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Please take her this.” He folded up a square of white silk and wrapped it in paper.

“Thank you, Mr. Poonsub,” said Noi, taking the package.

“She’s not painting, but
you
could paint, no?” Mr. Poonsub laughed.

“I’m not sure, Mr. Poonsub,” Noi said very quietly. How did he know about the little things Kun Ya had asked her to paint? Was he only joking, or did he think she could paint umbrellas so beautifully that he would buy them?

If he bought them, she would earn money for the household. . . .

Just then, Noi saw a booth selling radios in rows, all exactly alike, smooth and cold-looking. She wondered if they were the radios that Ting made.

The sight of the radios made Noi slow down. They seemed out of place in the market. The other goods — Kun Ya’s umbrellas, the wooden carvings, the embroidered cloths — were all made by people. The radios looked as if they were made by machines.

But the radios
were
made by people, part of her argued. Hadn’t she seen Ting and the others putting them together?

Noi turned her eyes away. She’d walk in the other direction next time.

Kun Ya slept for three whole days.

Noi opened the mosquito net and searched for insects that might disturb her sleep. Gently, she massaged the beautiful wrinkles on the backs of Kun Ya’s hands. She thought over and over about what Mr. Poonsub had said. He must have been joking, of course. But his joke made her consider: Hadn’t Kun Ya asked her to paint the butterfly and then the lily pads?

She wished that Kun Ya would wake up and help her.

On the third day, Noi took an umbrella of a soft brown color. She closed her eyes and listened for the scene as Kun Ya had taught her. She saw Kun Ya holding a stick of sugar cane out to an elephant. The elephant reached with its trunk.

Oh, but an elephant! How could the umbrella have asked her to paint something so difficult!

Slowly, Noi mixed different shades of gray in the bowls. The vision of the elephant had come to her, but she was afraid of spoiling the umbrella.

She closed her eyes again and looked inside until she could see the elephant in the jungle, could hear its thick feet in the long grass, the small snorts it made with its trunk.

Noi painted, forgetting about being afraid, keeping the image of the elephant steady within her.

When Kun Ya woke up, Noi showed her the brown umbrella, twirling it slowly in the gloom of the rainy afternoon. Kun Ya reached out, her hand hovering over the elephant, never touching the silk, but tracing the shapes that Noi had painted. “Someday soon, Noi, you’ll be selling these umbrellas.”

Noi’s heart beat faster, as though it would strike its way out of her chest. She couldn’t speak a word.

“It may look as though I’m just sleeping, Noi, but I’m thinking, too.” Kun Ya pressed her hand against her temple. “Paint whenever you can, while you can.”

How could Kun Ya have known about the conversation with Mr. Poonsub, about Noi’s new hopes, about how the elephant had appeared in her heart, inviting her to paint him?

“I will, Kun Ya. I’ll paint after school, and when it rains, I will paint all day.”

So every afternoon, and on rainy mornings, Noi painted. Often, she practiced on pieces of paper before painting on the umbrellas themselves.

One morning when the rain fell as though the sky was made of water, and lightning had knocked out the power so they had to light the lanterns, Kun Ya lifted a mangosteen in her palm and held it out to Noi. Noi moved as though to take the round, purple fruit, but Kun Ya said, “No, I just want you to see it.”

Noi sat back and studied the mangosteen. Then, when she no longer heard the rain crashing on the roof or felt her own body or saw Kun Ya’s thin hand, when only the round fruit existed, she reached for the paintbrush.

Kun Ya held the mangosteen steadily while Noi mixed paint to capture the exact purple of the skin. She combined red and more and more blue, red again, then black. She held the brush full of color close to the mangosteen to compare the purples.

Kun Ya nodded and Noi moved the brush toward the paper.

But Kun Ya said, “Wait, Noi. To make the fruit round, watch how the light falls on it. The purple here”— she touched the side closer to the lantern —“has a touch of white.” She ran her finger along the other side of the mangosteen. “And here it casts a shadow, and the shadow runs up onto the skin.”

Noi made two more puddles of color and added white to one, more black to the other.

As she began to paint on the rough white paper, Noi noticed that there were more shades of purple in the skin than she had first seen. She added a touch of yellow, and even green.

When at last Noi laid down her brush, Kun Ya relaxed her arm and let the mangosteen drop to her lap.

Noi sighed and stretched her fingers, becoming aware once more that she was in Kun Ya’s room and that it was still raining outside. She glanced back and forth at what she’d painted and at the purple globe in Kun Ya’s lap. “My painting doesn’t look like the fruit at all,” she said. How could that be? She’d felt so close to the mangosteen as she’d worked, almost as though she’d become it.

“Of course they don’t look alike, Noi. This”— Kun Ya touched the mangosteen —“is only a mangosteen. While this”— she laid a finger on Noi’s paper —“is the mangosteen plus you.”

Noi hadn’t thought of that. She smiled a little.

“And now.” Kun Ya split open the tough violet skin to reveal the startling white segments within.

Although the fruit appeared completely white, Noi saw that the white contained touches of yellow and gray.

“Just notice for now,” said Kun Ya. “You’re tired already.” She split the sections apart and handed one to Noi.

Noi took a bite of the sweet fruit.

When Ting came home that night, Noi took her into Kun Ya’s room and closed the door. Noi unfurled her painted umbrellas one by one.

“Oh,” Ting said at the sight of a bird swooping down from a flowering tree. Her face looked dreamy, as though she recalled her years of helping Kun Ya with the umbrellas.

“You could have done the same,” said Noi.

“I don’t think so, Noi. Show them to Kun Mere. Then she’ll know how good you are and she may not send you to the factory. You can make money with these.”

Again, Noi’s heart beat faster. How had Ting guessed? Noi put her finger to her lips. “Not yet. She mustn’t know yet.” She worried that Ting, like Kun Ya, was perhaps too eager to like the umbrellas.

As the jungle began to dry out, Kun Pa went to work again laying bricks. At night he played his wooden flute, the notes slipping like water running through the house. Kun Mere’s sewing machine no longer lost power.

Kun Ya still complained that her hands hurt and stayed in her room, but Noi began to paint outside, going off by herself to the clearing.

“You should sell the umbrellas,” Ting kept insisting. “They’re pretty. Make some money.”

One night she added, “Please hurry, Noi. Another girl, only twelve years old, came today. She didn’t cry, though. If you cry, your eyes get sore and you can’t see the parts well.”

Ting switched off the light, and the darkness leaped close. She laid a hand on Noi’s forearm. “Please think about it.”

“I think of nothing else,” Noi said. “How can you bear the factory? Isn’t the work hard for you, Ting?”

“Sometimes. But not always. Kun Mere lets me keep a little of the money I earn. I may buy you something soon.”

Noi stayed silent. She couldn’t tell Ting that no present could make her forget the sight of her at work in the factory.

“Ting is getting too tired,” Kun Ya said gently from time to time.

“She’ll become used to it,” Kun Mere always responded.

Each time Kun Ya protested, Kun Mere frowned. Her wrinkled forehead looked like a pool of water disturbed by a breeze.

The harvest got under way. On the walk home from school, Noi saw men and women cutting the rice with scythes and beating the long stems to release the grains. With harvest, preparations for the festival of Loy Krathong were beginning.

She began to walk faster, as though by hurrying, she could make the festival arrive sooner.

“Loy Krathong is coming, Ting,” Noi reminded her one night.

“I’ll have to work, you know.”

“On Loy Krathong?” Noi couldn’t believe that anyone would work on a festival day.

“Even on Loy Krathong. It’s not so bad, Noi. I’m sure they’ll let us play a radio.”