translated by Tippavut Rakmaew

 

I SWEAR by the Emerald Buddha and all things sacred to testify to the court in complete honesty. If I make any false allegation, even a minor one, may calamity strike me and my family forthwith, and if I report the truth to the court, may I and my family be blessed with happiness and progress …’

It was the first time I’d met Arnan. He was the defendant in a not very serious case; I was the lawyer appointed by the court for his defence. All things considered, the case was rather laughable. To say that he had done wrong wouldn’t be right, but to say that he wasn’t in the wrong wouldn’t be right either. This is what happened:

Last March, about mid-month, Arnan had quarrelled with a taxi driver, which led to a complaint, and the pair ended up at the police station. There, in front of the forces of law and order, blows were exchanged; blood was shed, so charges were laid. The taxi driver alleged Arnan had wilfully thrown a fist-sized rock at his vehicle after being dropped at his destination.

‘At my destination? Rubbish! We weren’t even halfway there when the bastard threw me out of the taxi, as if I was a turd or something.’

‘Why did he throw you out?’ I asked. ‘What did you do to him?’

‘I did nothing to him. I swear – may the Lord Buddha be my witness. If I’d meant to do something to him, I would have, and there’d be no “alleged” about it. Please believe me. Who likes to be thrown out of a taxi halfway to where you need to go? And twice in a row, too! Is that fair?’

‘What? Do you mean to say it was the second time you were thrown out of a taxi?’

‘Damn right it was!’ said Arnan, and slapped his palm hard on the table.

‘What happened?’

‘Usually, when I’m in a good mood, I like to chit-chat with the driver during the ride. But that day, I had a toothache, so I just sat quietly, keeping my mouth shut, nursing my pain, so to speak. Maybe the silence – it must have been a full ten minutes – made him uneasy, so out of the blue he asks, “What do you think of Prime Minister Thaksin?”’

‘That’s when my phone beeped, telling me I had a message, so I had a look and it turned out to be from my little sister. She likes to send me strange ring tones, you know. I don’t know anything about technology. Just managing to answer a call or make one is a blessing. That’s all I can do, even though my sister said my mobile was the latest model and was good this way and that and you could do this and you could do that and she even offered to exchange it with her own. I didn’t really listen because I didn’t understand anyway. That day, I pushed some button I’d learned to push, not realising I was resetting the tune for incoming calls, worse luck.’

‘And then what?’

‘When I was through with the phone, I turned to the driver and say, “Excuse me, what was it you were saying?” So he says, “Ha, ha, nothing much, sir. I was just asking what you thought about Prime Minister Thaksin”. So I say, “He’s okay, I guess. I don’t know. What is it exactly you want to know?” “Well,” says the driver, “the latest is that he sold all the shares of his Shin Corp to Temasek in Singapore”.

‘“Oh, yeah, right,” I say. “Seventy-three billion without paying a single baht in taxes?” I say.’

Arnan stopped talking. He looked around him, at the bare and grubby walls of the interview room, at the scarred and scratched tabletop between us.

‘It was stupid of me, you know, because I didn’t notice that his face had begun to change. When he didn’t say anything, I went on talking, even though I wasn’t being serious beyond the need to chat to pass the time. “I think it isn’t quite right to sell national assets. Besides, he didn’t pay taxes, not even one baht, would you believe it? It looks fishy, doesn’t it, when people like you and me who are scraping to make ends meet, when we get our monthly slip, the state helps itself to this and that, income tax, social welfare and what not, quite a lot each month, right? And for someone like the prime minister to do something like that, it’s not fair, I say.” And then it’s slam, bam, the bastard slammed on ’em.’

‘Slammed on what?’

‘The brakes; wheeled to the left and braked so hard I almost flew through the windscreen. “Find yourself another taxi,” the bastard barks, leaving me with nothing but astonishment.’

‘Then what did you do?’

‘What could I do, except to get out of the taxi. I was pretty bewildered, I can tell you, just kept asking myself over and over what I’d done wrong.’

‘So after that you called another taxi, the one involved in your case?’

‘Yes. But I didn’t start anything. He did.’

‘So what happened this time? Come, tell me.’ I had been watching Arnan’s body language, and he gave the appearance of being truly bewildered about why he was here.

‘I swear to you, on my honour as a former village scout leader at the Catfish Pond temple school, that you won’t find a man more middle-of-theroad in politics than me in this time and age. I’ve never given a hoot who’s to be prime minister, which party is to form the government, who’s to reform politics, who’s to rewrite the constitution. Hell, I don’t give two hoots! And whether they’ll have elections this year or the next, there’s no way they’ll catch me out, because in this life I’ve never voted, not once. Why should I? No matter how you vote, all you get every single time is a bunch of cheats wallowing in the trough under the guise of administering the country. It’s just a waste of time. Better just stay put. I can’t see why there should be a government anyway. It’s the same as it’s always been for a million years. Isn’t that right?’

‘Then what happened,’ I asked. ‘Try to tell me in a few words. I have things to do.’

‘Nothing happened. Not really,’ he said. After a moment, he continued, slowly at first then faster, and louder: ‘I just sat there, nodding at whatever he said, that’s all. You see, he was doing all the talking, like a madman, while I was trying to sit still in my corner by the door. I didn’t encourage him to speak, which showed plainly I wanted to be left in peace, but the bastard kept trying to get me to talk about this, that and the rest, but in the end it all led back to the same topic, the story he was itching to talk about.

‘Mr Thaksin was so good in this way and that, the mob leaders were no good; they saw he was rich so they were jealous, their followers were just as stupid; they didn’t know how to respect the rules of democracy, there were laws in this land, damn it.

‘And the bugger always ended his sentences with, “Isn’t that right, mister, isn’t that right, mister”. The bloody fool! It got so I’d had it up to here!

‘But everything was going fine, considering. In a few minutes I’d be where I needed to be and he and I would part and maybe we’d meet again in the next life sometime in the afternoon, right? If only. If only …’

‘If only, what?’

‘If only my mobile phone hadn’t started ringing.’

‘What’s so bad about the phone ringing? I don’t understand.’

‘If only it had rung something else, it’d have been all right. But it didn’t ring – it shouted.’

‘It shouted what?’

‘“Thaaaaaaaksin get out! Thaaaaaaaksin get out! Thaaaaaaaksin get out! Hey!”’