Thai Die (2 page)

“She?” said Bershada.

“These are done by women. Thai girls used to announce they were ready to marry by weaving where men could see how skilled they were at it.”

The pieces were handed around, and everyone murmured words of pleasure about the soft fabric and subtle textures of the patterns.

Then Doris brought out a much larger piece that looked like a brocade. There was a lot of gold in its patterns, which gleamed and shone under the shop’s ceiling lights. The base color was again that deep indigo, and the patterns this time went diagonally, except for a broad row of highly stylized—“Chickens?” asked Alice, with a laugh.

“Yes,” said Doris. “Well, I’m not sure they’re chickens. But they’re a symbol of . . . something. I can’t remember. But they’ve been doing it for a long time, centuries.”

The other patterns on the brocade were mostly diamonds, though one repeating row looked a bit like the fingers of a closed hand, and another resembled pictographs or hieroglyphics. The fabric was heavy, the designs definitely raised—and deliciously smooth under the women’s fingers. The photographer took a picture of Betsy running her fingers across it.

“What are you going to do with these?” the reporter asked Doris, his notebook at the ready.

“I don’t know,” confessed Doris, embarrassed. “Over there they lay these cloths diagonally across their beds as decoration, but I’d just die if my cat, Waldo, sank his claws into this. I guess I’ll hang it on my living-room wall and maybe use the others as table runners. I never thought about using them—I saw them and just couldn’t resist buying them, they are so gorgeous.”

“And inexpensive, too, I suppose,” said Emily.

“Well . . . not terribly cheap, not these hand woven pieces. Now
these
were inexpensive.” Doris lifted two big rectangles of thin fabric, about forty by sixty inches. “These are saris, imported from India. I bought them on Coral Island off the town of Pattaya. Open-front stores, white sand, blue and green water . . .” She smiled, remembering. “Women were using these as swimsuit wraps. This little old man came down the beach with a huge armload of fabric—he even had a couple of shirts, but they weren’t my size. We were bargaining to set the price when this other man, much younger, who’d been by earlier, came storming back and threw his stuff down at my feet and yelled, ‘I more handsome than him! Why you buy him, not me?’ He pretended he couldn’t understand why I wanted an imitation silk scarf but not a purse made out of fake manta ray hide. He was so indignant that I started to laugh, and then he laughed, too, and gathered up his stuff and went on down the beach.”

Doris picked up one of the scarves. It was sea green, printed with soft white lines crossed into wavy diamond shapes and even softer red splotches. She lofted it to show its lightness, then handed it around the table. “You
have
to bargain in Thailand. I was actually scolded by our guide when I bought some nuts from a street vendor and paid the asking price. But I didn’t bargain very hard for these—they were so beautiful and the price was low. I think I paid about three dollars apiece.”

The other scarf had a broad border in marine blues. Its center was yellow and printed with soft black outlines of tropical fish, printed in melted purples and blurred greens and tangerine.

The women held each scarf up in turn, admiring its patterns and colors. Betsy blew on the blue fabric draped across her hand, and it floated away from her in gentle waves. All of a sudden she could imagine herself standing on white sand, looking out over the Gulf of Thailand, its water the colors of this scarf, while an onshore breeze toyed with the fabric around her legs and shoulders.

Then Doris brought out a small bronze statue of a man with four arms and the head of an elephant. The photographer came close to the figure, his camera flashing and flashing. The members of the Monday Bunch turned their heads aside to avoid being dazzled.

The elephant-headed man had a fat belly and bare feet and a very amiable expression. He wore a skirt with a diamond pattern engraved on it, fastened with a big button. One of his tusks was broken off—but it was part of the design, not an accident, because he was holding the piece in one hand. “This is Ganesha, the god of beginnings,” Doris said. “Thailand is a Buddhist country, but the Buddha is not a god, so they can mix other religions in. And they do. I don’t know why I like Ganesha. I think it’s because he looks so friendly. People call on him to bless the building of a house or the start of a business. He’s also the god of writers—he broke off his tusk to use as a pen, in order to write down a story he was hearing so he wouldn’t forget it.”

“Hey,” said the reporter, “I wish I had a statue of him myself!” He was scribbling as fast as his fingers could go. “How do you spell his name?”

Doris spelled out “Ganesha” while the statue made its way around the table. “He’s heavy!” exclaimed Emily, nearly dropping the figure when Bershada handed it over. She turned it upside down to see if it was solid bronze. “What’s this inside him?” she asked.

“Concrete,” Doris replied. “They fill a lot of their brass and bronze pieces with concrete.” She smiled. “I think it’s so the post office makes extra money when they’re sent home. Or maybe it’s just to make them feel solid.”

She went into the suitcase again and came up with what looked like a folded fan, bent into a gentle S shape. But she unfolded it into a circle and it turned into a hat with a ruffled brim: a bright red, bell-shaped sun hat patterned with golden elephants, held open with a dab of Velcro. “I bought this from a tiny old woman who came into a little restaurant with a bag of them in different colors. No English at all, she had to hold up fingers to tell me how many baht it cost. I liked that restaurant—the food was delicious—but it didn’t have a menu, so you ate whatever the owner felt like cooking that day. It was right across the street from the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. Oh, that temple! I never saw so much gold in my life!” And again, all the women sighed, hearing about the exotica of little old street vendors, menuless restaurants, and a golden temple housing a Buddha statue made of emerald.

“Is it made of one huge emerald, or lots of littler ones?” asked Alice.

“Neither. It’s called the Emerald Buddha because it’s a deep green color—but it’s actually made of jade. It’s little, only about eighteen inches tall, but it’s very old, and the holiest object in Thailand. Only the king can touch it, and he comes three times a year to change its robes. Right now it’s wearing cloth of gold decorated with emeralds and rubies and diamonds. There is a constant stream of people who offer it lotus buds and incense sticks. The temple is big, and very tall. The Buddha sits way up high, on a golden throne. Outside, the eaves are lined with thousands of bells and wind chimes to scare away demons, and everywhere there are golden statues of odd-looking creatures to protect it. Women with legs like birds—their knees go the wrong way and they have claw feet—and huge, bug-eyed giants from China. Everything’s coated with gold, except what’s covered with tiny pieces of glass in all different colors, very strange, but beautiful. The temple is part of a big complex that also includes the old royal palace. In the palace you can see the boat-shaped throne on a set of pedestals. King Rama the Fifth sat on it to welcome European visitors. Remember
The King and I
? That king. They made it high because Europeans wouldn’t fall on their faces in his presence like the Thai had to do, and that way it seemed as if they did. The current king doesn’t live there anymore, but in a new palace.”

Alice had the hat in her hands during Doris’s recitation. She surreptitously held it to her nose, inhaling gently the remaining molecules of air brought home from a place so exotic as to have golden monsters guarding a little jade statue that only the king could dress.

The reporter asked, “Why did you go to Thailand?”

“Because I wanted some surgery that my medical insurance wouldn’t cover, and it was cheaper to go to Thailand than to pay for it here, even including air fare. And their hospitals are the equal of any I’ve seen here.”

“How did you learn about going to Thailand for surgery?”

“A friend told me, and then I did some research on the Internet.”

“Did your friend go there for an operation, too?” he asked.

“No, she just went there on vacation with two other women. She loved it so much that she wanted to see it again.”

“That was Carmen, wasn’t it?” asked Shelly.

Doris nodded. “She was supposed to come with me, but her husband got an assignment in Santa Fe for six weeks, starting a week before we were supposed to leave, and her son goes to college in Albuquerque, so she decided to go with him.”

Doris went back into the suitcase and brought out a white paper bag sealed shut with gold tape. She pulled the strips of tape away, opened the bag, and pulled out a big fistful of skeins of floss in shimmering gold. The skeins were about the size and shape of a skein of DMC cotton, but the single band around each was white paper with printing in an exotic, curvy alphabet on it, except for two words: THAI SILK. She tumbled them with shy carelessness onto the table. “These are for you. Each of you may have one.”

“Oh, they do needlework in Thailand, too!” exclaimed Emily, reaching for one. The photographer took her picture as she laid the silk across her palm and studied the writing on the band.

“Well, only sort of,” said Doris. “Over there it’s more of an occupation than a hobby. And these are . . . kind of special.”

“How so?” asked Betsy, running a finger along one end of the skein. It wasn’t smooth like the silk floss she sold. This had a faintly rough grain.

“Well, I got these from a silk factory just outside of Bangkok. It’s an interesting story. I wanted to see silk made, and I didn’t realize that most Thai silk comes from the north. I found out about this factory, but there wasn’t a tour, so I had to go there by myself.”

“Brave of you,” said Alice.

“Thank you, I thought so, too. Anyway, this factory, it was called Bright Works, was a small place, and it was kind of rickety and noisy.
Hot
, too. The spinning and weaving machines put out heat and there’s no air-conditioning. They make fabric to sell to tailors who can make a suit or a skirt or a shirt to your measure in five days.”

“Oh, I’ve heard of them!” said Betsy. “Did you get one?”

“Yes, I did, and it’s beautiful, but it’s a summer dress, so I can’t wear it for a few months. Anyway, a man there spoke enough English to translate for me. I talked with the man in charge of making solid-color fabrics, and he showed me the whole process, from spinning raw silk off the cocoons, to dying it, to weaving it. And when I asked for a sample of spun, dyed silk, I had to show him the piece of counted cross-stitch I carry in my purse to explain what it was for. He told me I had to talk to his supervisor—who turned out to be an American! He came to Bangkok on leave from the Marine Corps, back during the war in Vietnam, and decided to live there after he got out. He looked like an ex-marine, too, big and tough and kind of battered, but charming—you know?”

Betsy, who had spent a few years in the navy long ago, smiled and nodded. She knew.

“Do you remember his name?” asked the reporter, pen poised.

“Yes, David Corvis.”

“Can you spell that? Corvis, I mean. With a
C
or a
K
?”

Doris thought. “I can’t remember—I think I’ve got jet lag. I can find out, if you like. Anyway, he told me to come back the next day, and when I did, he had these all made up for me. Isn’t that just the nicest thing? I cried, I literally broke down and cried, and told him I’d send him something from America, anything he wanted.”

“Oh Doris!” exclaimed Betsy. “What if he’d said he wanted a car?”

“He couldn’t use an American car,” replied Doris, “because they drive English-style, so our steering wheels are on the wrong side for them.”

“Well, what did he want?” asked Shelly.

“Would you believe a Minnesota quarter!” said Doris, laughing. “He collects state quarters, and he has about thirty of them, but not a Minnesota one. I’m going to the bank tomorrow to get a nice new one for him.”

“How will you send it if you don’t know how to spell his name?” asked Emily.

“I’ve got it written down somewhere. But it wouldn’t matter, I’m sure he’s the only David at the factory, and I have its address.” She looked around the table. “But there’s more. I want you to let me know how good or bad Thai silk is for stitching. I haven’t tried it myself. They don’t make floss, so it may snag or pull apart or just not look as good. But if it is good, he will let me buy silk floss from him to sell over here.” She leaned back and began to smile. “I may go into the silk import business!” She raised both hands. “In a small way, of course. Kreinik has nothing to fear!”

The women laughed as each selected a skein. There were more than a dozen of them, and Doris said the rest should be saved for members of the Bunch who weren’t present, and anyone else Betsy chose to try out the silk.

“Thank you very much!” said Betsy. She picked up a second skein, saying, “I want Bitsy Busby to try this. If it doesn’t disintegrate under her lickety-split stitching, then we’ll know something good about it.”

The show was over. Doris began to fold up her silk pieces. Bershada, sitting on her left, said, “Wait, there’s something else.” She pointed to a cardboard box in a corner of the suitcase.

“Oh, that,” said Doris. “That isn’t mine.”

“Whose is it?” asked Betsy. “And what is it doing in your suitcase?”

“David asked me to bring it home to Minnesota and deliver it to an antiques store, which will sell it to a customer already waiting for it. David has a little business on the side, exporting Thai art.”

“Hold on, Doris, isn’t that illegal?” asked Bershada. “Bringing something home for somebody else?”

“No, he didn’t sneak it into my luggage. Besides, I declared it.
And
he didn’t pay me to carry it.”