Borderlines: A Journey in Thailand and Burma by Charles Nicholl

Author:Charles Nicholl [Nicholl, Charles]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Travel, General
ISBN: 9780140095906
Google: YHasdY2LLl4C
Publisher: Penguin Books
Published: 1990-11-15T23:31:20.598183+00:00

We drifted in the poor man’s heaven. There were geckoes – the little grey-yellow house-lizard – on the walls and ceiling: watching and darting, patrolling their bland bits of territory. From time to time they called, a clucking two-part trill. The name gecko is Malay, imitative of the call. The Thais hear it slightly differently and call the animal ching chok.

Katai said it was lucky to have the ching chok in your house – or rather, it was unlucky not to have them. ‘The ching chok can tell if something is wrong. So if he is not in the house something is wrong. The ching chok, he is very sharp, very clever. He is pio, Charlie, like the girls from Nakhon, na?’ (I noticed it again: when she said something like that, something between her and me, I got the feeling of Harry’s nose twitching, his eyes sharpening.)

‘Also, if the ching chok calls when you are just leaving your house, it is a sign you must not go, a sign there is danger.’

I sat up. Something was troubling me. Of course, the gecko that had clucked at me on the morning of our bicycle ride to the Mekong. They were both looking at me, expecting me to say something, but I couldn’t, because for some reason Katai didn’t want to mention the Mekong trip, because already we were wrapped in duplicities.

I shook my head as if to clear it. ‘Damn strong weed,’ I said.

‘Farang get drunk on the ganja, na?’ She returned to her theme, told us another bit of gecko lore, how if you had a cut or sore on your body, the gecko would come and lick it while you slept.

Harry said, ‘Shit, come on, Katai.’

He did have a cut on his hand, a couple of inches where a knife he was using had slipped. It had a terracotta stain of iodine all round it. It was giving him trouble. He waved his fist at the ceiling. ‘You goddamn little villains, you keep off my hand tonight, you hear?’

Katai laughed. ‘Oh yes, Harry, you know, if you have the cut that the ching chok licks, it will never get better. In Thailand we say: the crocodile and the ching chok are very good friends. You see, they are the same animal really: one very big, one very small, but same-same. So when the crocodile bites you he makes the big cut to hurt you. And then his friend the ching chok licks the cut when you sleep, to keep it hurting you. It is like our lives, isn’t it, when the little bad things come after the big bad thing, so your life don’t get better.’

‘Teamwork,’ said Harry.

‘Bad teamwork,’ she said.

There was a silence. I sat back against the wall, closed my eyes. It was time to leave, but my limbs weren’t getting the message. The ceiling fan droned. Then I became aware of voices down below, at the street entrance to the guess how. Two men, possibly more.

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