A woman's love, once devoted to he who has pierced into her-he who has
engendered in her that overpowering feeling of one inside her-- now
devotes herself to motherhood and seeing that the child is...
His ideas were erratic. They hopped and skipped over each other
and he held tightly onto parts of the clothing he lay on. Then with
photographic images, he dreamed of trees, waterfalls, and Thai islands
he had never seen before and his hands relaxed their grip on the
clothes. There was a panoramic view of Thailand-rural, Khmer and
Burmese individuals smiling in the northern regions and stolid Moslem
and Indians in the south. The rural views in sunrise and sunset were
more real than reality and then the aerial focus went down and down and
veered back up to the center. It was Bangkok again and there was
Lumpini Park.
An unknown girl was sitting on a mat in the gravel in a far
corner of the entrance to the park. Immediately behind her was the
gate and in front of her was a large statue of King Rama V. A car
entered the circular drive that went around the statue. She got up to
guide its driver where to park. She hoped that by helping to ensure
that he didn't crash into parked cars that he would pay her a few baht
as others had. She did not beg. She did not prostitute herself. She
only did that.
"I could do something like that. It's honest," thought Jatupon.
She continued to use hand gestures as the driver backed up according
to her directions. "This is a good girl. I want someone like that to
become my wife," he thought. No sooner had this idea come to him than
the car sped up and ran over her. Then it stopped and the driver
hurried out. The driver held her in his hands and Jatupon felt her
pulse. There was none and he dropped the arm. He walked through the
gate to a woman sitting within the park on a sheet on top of a grassy
knoll. He sat on the sheet in front of her and before the spread of