The Last Day of Tokjai (8)

 "Tokjaaaaiii… Why do you sleep so much, my boy! With all the noise I'm making, how can you keep sleeping! If my eye hadn't caught you while I was tidying up, I wouldn't even know you were here."

I don't answer Tossapol. He's just talking nonsense anyway — chattering. What can I say? Should I bark and tire myself out? I'm exhausted as it is — like a dried-out, frayed coconut or a wrinkled apple rotten inside. He's the opposite of me — he has time, energy; strength in his muscles, brightness in his eyes, countless options before him. Life is a forest of dense trees for him — not a single path. Whichever two trees he passes between, both he and those who follow will say, "Look, there's a path here too." So, he uses his freedom to the fullest to make pointless remarks. What about me? Old age on one hand, illnesses on another, blindness on another — add the predatory claws of memories to all these afflictions… Walking from one end of the garden to the other, sniffing as I go, tires me out. The wound on my rump aches badly. As if I'm being constantly beaten, as if needles are pricking my back and butt every second. Despite all the medicine and Father's ceaseless efforts, the wound grows and deepens, literally conquering my body from the inside. I've always said, you can't repair a structure from the outside if it is rotting from within — living or dead doesn't matter. A day will come when Tossapol too will grow old, and the wounds he received in his youth will spread inside his body. His cheeks will resemble a mango that rolled under the table and was forgotten there; the area around his eyes will look like dried plums. The small troubles he ignores now will grow larger, festering wounds will cover his body and mind, and microbes will feed on his life while slowly hollowing it out. Maybe then Tossapol will understand my state — my silence, my defeat, my reluctance to fight. But by then, I'll have long been mixed with the soil — neither my flesh nor my bones will remain.

"You must be hungry, Tokjai. Let's go behind the house."

Yes, I must be hungry. I say "must be" because I usually get hungry around this time. When the household speeds up dinner preparations, hunger so occupies my mind that I can't focus on anything else. But now, I don't feel like eating at all. My stomach feels strange; whenever I open my mouth, I smell a disgusting odor — not a rotten tooth, not a sour stomach. A smell from inside, from damp depths, from inflammations I wasn't even aware existed. Maybe I'll skip dinner this time. I won't die from missing one meal. I'll go and lie on the rags in front of the shoe rack. Father will light mosquito coils near me. Before going to bed, he'll come and check; if it's finished, he'll light a new one. If I cry, if I moan, he'll say, "Hold on, Tokjai, hold on — morning is near." Then he'll return to the house with a bitter heart. That pain in his chest will spread to me, of course, soiling me like pungent black water running through the streets. I continue with memories from where I left off — those dilapidated joys that no longer hurt me, my heart tired of being loved, my ever-more-hated existence like a harsh-voiced magpie, the millions of wild possibilities evoked by a falling leaf.

"Come on, get out of there. Look — while you were sleeping, I mowed the whole garden. And you're still sleeping…"

My feet are numb from sitting; as if I've touched a live wire and all my nerve endings have shortened out. To avoid the seat of the swing hitting my head when I try to get up, I attempt to crawl out. In doing so, the dirt my back paw kicks up gets into my wound. A sharp pain — as if a hot iron is touching my flesh — envelopes my body. I moan with all my breath — I'm crying, really — complaining silently to the world I can no longer see but know is beautiful.

"What's wrong, Tokjai? Can't get out of where you went in?"

Tossapol's hands touch my front paws. He strokes my weak feet with his fingers. Then he grasps the upper part of my legs — where there's no fur left. He's trying to decide where to grab and pull — perhaps trying to map out the spots that don't hurt. Do I have any spots that don't hurt, Tossapol? Any spots that haven't sagged or rotted? Contrary to what you might think, there is no such thing as getting used to pain. There's only reaching an age where you're ashamed to complain about pain. Those who don't make a sound don't have high pain thresholds — they just don't want to ruin their image.

"Come on, Tokjai my dear — don't hit your head on the swing, come out slowly…"

He puts one hand on my head so I won't hit the nails under the swing. With the other, he pulls me gently. Look at me — I don't even have the strength to get out from under a swing. What good am I? Let them sell me now — send me away like they did ten years ago, to the other side of the Mekong. Let them sell me, get rid of me, celebrate for seven days and seven nights. It'll be easier for them and for me. The pain will stop when I die anyway, won't it? And my consciousness will be shut off too. Oh, how nice — I'll live on in memories, wander the minds of those who know me. Tossapol will remember me now and then, get melancholy at the most random times. He'll remember that time when, after they surgically removed my testicles that got infected and swelled like tennis balls, I slept like dead for almost twenty-four hours from the anesthesia, and how he checked my breath with his hand, thinking I'd died, and realizing I wasn't dead, he dragged the cloth under me to the sun so I could sunbathe. Mother will smile, thinking of my clumsiness, my innocence. Sometimes she'll burst out laughing, remembering my antics, and start sentences with "If Tokjai were here…" Father, coming from the fields, will no longer lament, as he opens the garden gate, that Tokjai might find an opportunity and slip out. And this lack of lamentation, this ease, this carefreeness — like the sweet memory of a worry that no longer exists, like the momentary dizziness and anxiety of a step that suddenly disappears from under your foot, like the emptiness you feel when you visit a house and realize no one's home — will hurt Father's heart. It will blow a cold wind over his heat-drowsy mind, his eyes will drift for a few seconds, and he'll imagine me where he looks and cannot see — limping, half-furless, tongue out. "Should we put up a statue of Tokjai in front of the house? We shouldn’t let the villagers forget him!" he'll say in the evenings, after finishing his second beer, when his mood lifts. Even though I won't be here to see it, these things will happen — I know it quite well.

"Almost there, Tokjai my dear — one more step. Come on, my lion! Like in the old days — how you used to hop and jump…"

I wish I had long arms so I could jump and hug Tossapol, put my head on his shoulder and let him feel my breath on his neck, lick the back of his neck, our body heat mingling like fire and smoke, make him feel that my friendship and gratitude will never end until I die. When I was little — small enough to fit in his arms — he'd carry me on his shoulder. My white, hairless belly would rest against his shoulder bone, and I'd stay there like a  little folded pillow. "Look, Tokjai," he'd say, showing me interesting things. "See this model? It's a project for our electronics class. If I don't get above 70 on it, I won't pass the course." Sometimes he'd open his wallet and complain, "Out of money again, Tokjai my dear — no movies with the girls for a while." At times like that, I'd be sad that he could never truly understand me — the frustration of not being able to teach him or any human my language properly would sit in my stomach like a heavy iron ball — just like the day I was taken back home, leaving my friends behind, and was devastated that I couldn't tell Mother, "Save everyone in the truck, not just me."

"There — you're out. Don't go back in there — you can't get out. Come, let's go behind the house."

I limp toward the back of the house. I sense Tossapol has stopped. He's waiting for me to pass him, probably looking at me from behind.

"Motherrrr — Tokjai doesn't look good at all. He's so weak, so tired!"

Mother's voice is faint — she's either cooking in the kitchen or peeling vegetables on the long bench in front of the rice barn.

"What can we do, son? We took him to the vet — he said, 'There's nothing more to do.' What's gotten into you all of a sudden? At lunch, you were saying, 'Let's kill him and put him out of his misery.' Did your conscience prick you after spending a little time with the poor boy? It's just as I said — from now on, every day he lives is a profit."

That last sentence echoes in my ear. It's being engraved in my mind like an unchangeable law of nature — as true as the sun rising in the east and setting in the west, as rice fields needing a lot of rain, as stray dogs always going hungry, as mangoes ripening and splitting their skin in May. Every day Tokjai lives from now on is clear profit. If he lives three more days, we'll rejoice that he lived three more days; if he lives three more weeks, we'll rejoice that he lived three more weeks. No, I'm not offended, not hurt. I lived a happy life and I'll die happily. Why should I worry about death? Let those who died without ever living — without ever being truly happy even once — worry about that. I didn't live like a tree — a slave to stone, soil, and water — I lived my days fully as a dog. I loved, was loved, protected, was protected. When and where necessary, I fought; when and where necessary, I made peace. How does a tree live? It lives long, lives strong, is dignified and wise — but it is not free. It spends a whole life rooted to the same spot. If you'll watch the sunrise from the same place every morning, watch the world sink into darkness from the same angle every evening, if you can't even move one step from where you were born, let alone see other lands — what good is that kind of life to me? Whether you live five hundred years or a thousand— the butterfly's one day of freedom stands against the tree's centuries of bondage. All that beauty, that splendor, that elegance in the fluttering of its wings — all for one day. You spend your long life crawling as a caterpillar, dreaming of the day you'll fly. When you grow wings and become light, you die! Is that life? The truest thing is to reconcile the contrast between bondage and freedom through communication and self-confidence. That's what we dogs do. I've struck a balance throughout my life between responsible freedom and conscious bondage. I've neither chased a freedom that would crush me nor become a slave to my food and water bowls. I've lived a balanced life satisfying both sides. I never allowed a collar around my neck, but I never betrayed my owners — I even quickly forgave them, surprising myself, when they stabbed me in the back.

"Leave Tokjai alone now. Look, it's getting dark — aren't you going to pick the custard apples? So, you've gotten out of work again. You're just like your father."

"I'll pick them, Mother. The dark won't stop me. Besides, I have that cap with a light — I bought it when I went to the caves in Petchaburi. I wonder where it is — probably in one of the drawers."

Plastic bags left on the ground catch my feet. They must have gone shopping. I must be under the table. The smell of a wet rag comes to my nose, then others follow: the thick plastic from the shoe rack, the indifferent odors of red onions and garlic by the wall, the rotting flesh from a dead frog — probably on the bottom shelf covered with oilcloth — the lingering varnish from Father's bamboo chair, the sea breeze from Tossapol's bag. I move toward Mother. No — she's not peeling vegetables; she's mashing boiled eggplants with a knife. The steam from the eggplants comes to my nose, the dull sound of the knife hitting the cutting board, the chirping of sparrows eating fallen grains of rice, the gurgle of water from under the lemon tree by the sink, and Mother's complaining.

"It's dark, son — you can't do it at this hour. You'll do it tomorrow."

Tossapol doesn't hear his mother. He's gone behind the rice barn — probably dumping the cut grass at the base of the garden wall. They used to spread it in the garden for fertilizer; he's likely doing the same. A few months ago, when I went out to pee, Mother and Father appeared beside me, and I overheard their conversation. "Look, these are the most untouched spots in the garden. When Tokjai dies, we'll bury him in this corner. In the other corner, I burn the trash." Mother, annoyed by Father's matter-of-fact attitude, scolded him: "You foul mouth! Why do you keep bringing up dark subjects?" Then she added, "Even though stating what everyone knows doesn't add anything to anyone…" She didn't finish.

"When will dinner be ready, Mother? I'm very hungry."

"Dinner is ready, son. Your father went to get grilled chicken from the shop. When he comes back, we'll sit down to eat."

"Good — I'll give the chicken bones to Tokjai. Bones have protein and calcium — he'll get stronger, won't you, Tok?"

"You don't understand how to feed Tokjai— your father handles that."

"What don't I understand, Mother? I'll mix two bones with boiled rice and put it in Tokjai's bowl. You've treated me like a child! I've grown up — I'm a working man."

"No, son — your father breaks the bones into small pieces, removes the sharp parts. Does Tokjai have teeth to chew hard bones? His mouth gets sore, and then he can't eat anything."

"Oh, I didn't know that. Poor Tokjai. You used to grind even stones in your mouth. So now you can't even break chicken bones… Hah, Father's back."

I hear the creak of the garden gate. An insect chirps nearby, like a cheerful child. The scuff of Tossapol's sandals is drowned out by Father's anxious voice. I can't make out his first words because of the rustle of plastic bags. Then the words become clear.

"I just saw Jiep. Big Uncle is sick. They've taken him to the hospital in Bantaen — he'll spend the night there. Jiep says it's nothing serious, but still, after dinner, let's go and pay our respects. And if the children are there, we'll see them too. I haven't seen the little ones for a long time."

Big Uncle — the old man who designed this house and many others in the village, Mother's older brother. After losing his wife, he married a young nurse named Jiep. They had two children. When the children were still in elementary school, Big Uncle had an accident. From that day on, he can't walk — he's paralyzed from the waist down. He has a three-wheeled motorcycle; he goes around the village, chats with neighbors, and makes small purchases from the village shops. He likes me — when he sees me, he leans over from where he's sitting and pats my head. If he has any nearby, he gives me biscuits or potato chips. He gets sick like this occasionally — gets an IV at the hospital and goes home the next day. Mother is a little angry with him — especially the gossip his young wife spreads is often discussed after dinner at our house. Since Na Jiep demanded two shares of the inheritance — because her husband has two families — their relationship has been strained. Not only with Mother — the other siblings' situations seem the same, I sense with my dog's mind. Of course, knowing the details is impossible for me!

"It's probably nothing — Jiep is exaggerating. Did you ask what's wrong?"

"The usual — his blood pressure is up. If you don't come, Tossapol and I will go alone."

Mother doesn't seem interested — she neither wants to hear nor say anything on the subject.

"Bring the chicken here — since my hands are already greasy, I'll cut it up. The eggplant is done."

"We're going, right, Tos? Father and son…"

"I'm not going, Father. You and Mother go. Mother didn't say she wouldn't go!"

Father takes plates from the dish basin by the kitchen wall. The clatter of forks and spoons is as cheerful as ever. Mother gets up, scuffing her sandals — clearly annoyed — and goes to the table.

"I'll go, I'll go. If I don't, there will be a bitter talk — they'll say behind my back, say things like the sister didn't go to see her sick brother. Her jaw -she means Na Jiep- never stops, ever since that land case. Anyway — these things shouldn't be discussed before a meal — don't spoil our mood. Come on, let's eat; I'll rinse the dishes, then we'll leave."

"I'm not going, Mother. You two go. After dinner, I'll pick the custard apples."

Chapter 9 (End): Yer Üstünden Notlar: The Last Day of Tokjai (9)