on the streets of Montreal and he yearned for his wife, Noppawan. He
got the taxi driver to turn right and park on the side of a street.
His eyes were fixed on a barren serenity of gravel and weeds that was
in the vicinity of a pier. The sun was now rising fully and aided by a
golden roofed temple on the other side of the river, there was a
silvery and golden glaze in the waters camouflaging the sooty sediments
that were diluted within. He wanted to go to the gravel and eat along
the side of begging dogs of which the bodies were deflating like tires.
He wanted to sit at one of the red metallic tables on a plastic stool
among a group of saffron robed monks, with the scents of rice or
noodles penetrating his nostrils. He had to smile that such an
aversion as twenty baht meals still called to him pleasantly because
they were the foundation of memories that constituted his verdant
youth.
"What are we doing?" she asked
"We're eating," he said. "Come on, it will be fun to act like
common people," he chuckled.
"Common. I know common. Common is having a treat of eating fried
insects on the dirt road, Nawin. Common is sleeping on a rug because
you don't have a bed. Common is praying for the opportunity of having
one's sandals fall apart or getting them trapped deep into the soil of
the rice field so as to have an excuse to get out of the hamlet.
Occasionally we paid an arm and a leg to the owner of a truck who came
once a day ten miles down a muddy road to pick people up. Common,
Nawin, is collecting rain water in those big ceramic tubs that sit in
front of the house, being stingy with every drop of water when you wash
your body, and then go to bed exhausted without even eating dinner.
Common is getting up at 5 a.m. to feed the water buffalo so that at 6
a.m. your father can use it to plow the field. You don't know anything
about the word."