March 1954

In the Year of the Horse, Boonliang Surin gave birth to her sixth child. It was a baby boy. Then, following the delivery of this son, the monsoonal rains began to give life back to the village of Napo. Summer had ended. The rainy season had commenced. The rains poured down day and night, promising and bountiful. Like most village inhabitants, the Surins looked hopefully and gladly upon the surrounding rice fields, which were now inundated and workable. Another rice planting season had come.

The birth of the baby was associated with a good season, so the parents named him 'Prem', which means joy.

When the time was suitable, Kum Surin went to the house of the village headman and after meekly sitting down on the wooden floor, he said:

"I've just had another offspring whom we've called Prem."

The august headman reclining on the floor,. halfnaked because it was a hot day, coughed spasmodically. Time seemed to stand still while he rearranged his loincloth. Whether he minded very much being disturbed during his nap, it was difficult to see from his wrinkled face, but lye sat up now, cross-legged, and spat into the spittoon nearby. To compose himself he ran his trembling gnarled fingers several times over his face and through his grey hair.

Because the headman represented the officialdom of the world of masters, his authority commanded respect and awe. "The other day my wife..." Kum faltered, fearing that it was not time for him to speak.

He checked himself and decided to remain silent until the old man was ready to listen.

"Bring a tobacco tray and my shirt," the old headman demanded.

This sudden order with its tone of authority startled the visitor. Someone in the inner part of the house stirred, and the wood squeaked with the movement.

"You're indeed fortunate to have another son," said the headman.

The father of the new-born child sensed that the headman's voice was tinged with personal disappointment. The headman needed a son; all he had were daughters, and now his wife had passed the child-bearing age. This was why Kum had carefully worded his message. He had thoughtfully chosen the word 'offspring' so as to avoid reminding the influential man of his misfortune. Not to have a son to carry on the family name was considered a retribution for some misdeed done in the past. For this reason Kum, who was just another impoverished peasant of Napo, feared to put himself above the man who had been made a master.

The headman's wife, who had been kindling the charcoal fire in the kitchen, shook herself free of ash. Then, the old man gravely donned the black cotton shirt which smelled of age and dust. Changing his sitting position, the headman took hold of the enormous census book that had been serving him as a head rest. The huge book also smelled of age. And the wizened hands trembled because of its size and weight. Now he began to thumb through it carefully, page by page. With great concentration, he bent his head towards the book so that he could see.

"Ah, my eyes begin to fail me," he mumbled.

But his official duty strengthened him. His grim countenance expressed solemnity.

"The name is Prem," Kum said doggedly, thinking. that it was not yet time for him to speak further.

When the headman finally reached the page on which the name, the date of birth and the sex of the child could be recorded, Kum repeated the name and the day of birth with some confidence. He had spent days trying to commit the facts to memory. He could not read or write.

But the headman could record only a few letters at a time, writing them down slowly and laboriously. Kum had to repeat the information, and restrain himself not to lean too far forward. At all times he had to check himself and remain respectful, regardless of how much he would have liked to see his child's name being written.

The headman's wife returned then, gently sat down at a suitable distance and waited. Her husband's official capacity always demanded her silence.

Time stood still. Finally the old headman spoke.

"It's a good name."

The two witnesses seemed drained.

"Being born in the Year of the Horse, in the morning, this boy will be very easy to teach and he will have a good brain, like a horse," the old man predicted.

The father accepted the prediction with a murmur as he fumbled for coins in his shirt pocket to give to the headman. Because Kum had always been a poor man, he was afraid that the sum he had to give would be insufficient, so he had brought with him a basket of cucumbers and a large gourd to compensate.

"How are Liang and the baby?" the headman's wife asked.

Her voice broke and rose, as if she had just returned to life.

"She's getting much better, and the baby is well," said Kum.

He was grateful that she had asked. Now there was no doubt of his son's existence in the eye of the law. But after leaving the headman's house, he felt anxious. He had been rather concerned because since birth the frail little boy had not opened his eyes and hardly made any movement or sound. Liang Surin, his wife, who had been confined to the fireside and to drinking hot herbal potions in order to heal herself, knew instinctively that there was nothing wrong with her baby. She had been giving him milk and warmth from her own body. He would survive and grow, she believed. Kiang, the oldest boy, crouching next to the baby said:

"I'll call him Tadpole."

Kiang, who attended the village primary school, had read in a spelling book about a tadpole. The mother said nothing about the name until Kiang had gone away. While she was sipping the herbal tea, she saw the tiny hands stirring the air. A tadpole, a wriggling little tadpole, she murmured, as if to taste the name with her own lips. She smiled.

A few years later, when the Tadpole had become an extremely quiet and timid boy, the people of Napo began to refer to him as the Mute. Liang neither protested nor showed any objection to the new identity her little boy had acquired. She thought that such a deficiency, if it was one, could be due to the boy's own retribution or karma. But sometimes when she was annoyed with his silence or when there was no response from him, she would say: "You must really be a mute." How her words echoed and pierced her heart. But soon both the mother and child had learned to accept such a name.

There was only Piang, the older sister, who put up a fight. She knew that her little brother was not dumb or mute.

"Don't you call him mute, for he isn't."

"Why, Piang, he's as dumb as a tree," one girl retorted.

"Or a water buffalo," another added.

"He talks to me sometimes," Piang said, raising her voice

For she was proud of the fact that although he did not talk to her, she understood him.

"Make him speak then," said a girl who was covered with heat rash.

Piang turned to her brother who was standing timidly nearby and asked him to say a few words.

But there was not a peep out of him.

"He's mute, mute, mute."

"As mute as a paddy field. That's what he is. Ta la la la," the girls sang and danced. Smouldering with rage, Piang waited for them to tire of their mockery. Then she aimed for the eyes of one girl; her nails dug into flesh, and then she went at the others, sending them crying to their mothers.

Having watched the scene from her own hut, Liang tightened her sarong and came over to render justice. She grabbed her daughter and beat her.

"If you can't play nicely with others, stay away from them," she said hoarsely.

Piang did not cry, but she became sullen. Taking her brother by the hand, she led him to sit under a mango tree. Here it was cool and the ground was sandy. Piang began to scratch the sand with her index finger, making a pattern which fascinated the little boy. He followed her example and drew lines. Piang did not want to speak for tears had welled up in her eyes. All the while she was trying desperately to remain calm. What were the sounds that she had heard the Tadpole make the other day? Was it his way of trying to tell her that he had seen spirits passing by, or something about having been an old buffalo in his previous life?

But then words did not come easily to her either. Her throat contracted and tears ran down her face. Thus it seemed that the sister was the one who needed consolation. Bruises on her arms had to be gently rubbed to take away the pain The mocking 'ta la la la' had to be forgotten.

Kiang thought himself rather lucky to have a brother at last because three others had died in their infancy. Now he saw the little one as a future partner in strength. Kiang could not have cared less if the brother remained a mute all his life, so long as he did not grow up to be a weakling. He did not care what people said, for now he had a brother. As young men, they would be working side by side in the fields, helping one another. Each would take on a great deal of responsibility and accept hard labour, toiling on their land and looking after their parents.

There were times when Kiang looked anxiously at the silent boy, fearing that an illness or the evil spirits which had claimed the three others not long ago would take the Tadpole as well. The mute would survive, Kiang thought.
When they were alone together in a rice field, Kiang said to his brother.

"I'll teach you how to ride a water buffalo."

Prem stood close to the animal, ready for action.

By then he had learned to listen and to obey.

"Watch me first," Kiang said and jumped swiftly from the hind legs of the animal onto its back.

The docile brute showed no annoyance or rebellion. It went on grazing.

"See, you keep your legs apart and press them on the flanks, so you can urge it to walk or gallop by nudging it with your knees or toes. Like this."

Kiang's legs moved as he tried to master the buffalo. The animal pulled another mouthful of grass and snorted knowingly. Kiang slapped it gently with a rope. The buffalo jerked its head and walked. Kiang also made certain sounds to talk to the animal, which eventually stopped in front of the boy.

Kiang slid to the ground and said:

"You see, I can jump from here right onto its back." Kiang, agile and lean, paused to see whether his brother was listening. "But you'll have to hold onto its tail. Put your toes on its hind leg and pull yourself up. Try now."

The boy looked at the beast's long, sharp horns, at its great size.

"Come on, try." Kiang said decisively. "With your right foot on its knee joint, hold on to the tail and push yourself up."

Kiang stood aside, watching.

The buffalo grazed on, unperturbed. Its black skin and coarse hair smelled of mud. The boy hung on to its tail, unsure of his own strength. Then the buffalo moved and he fell off. Kiang patted the brute and asked it to be still, helping the Tadpole to climb up at the same time.

"There you are. It's easy."

The buffalo turned its head as if to question the boy's presence; its large, protruding eyes rolled. When Kiang patted, it walked, shaking its thick head and flapping its hairy ears. Then it stopped, waiting for further instructions.

"Make it move," Kiang directed. Because he had already surrendered, the Tadpole became powerless. How could one dare to be the master of so huge an animal? He had handed himself over to it; being now at its mercy, he could not act.

"Go on, make him walk," Kiang repeated.

He sounded disappointed. The animal went back to grazing, ignoring its burden. Kiang became angry at his brother's silence, at the face that bore no expression, at the mouth that knew no language. So he angrily slapped the buffalo's haunch. The surprised beast ran, and a second later the boy fell.

No one else was present to pass judgement on Kiang. His boyish masculinity prevented him from going to find out whether his brother was hurt or not. Instead he went after the buffalo as it fled from the scene.

"Let's go home now!" Kiang called from a distance, sounding as if no accident had occurred.

When anger and disappointment had gone, Kiang again helped the Tadpole onto the buffalo's back. Then he himself nimbly jumped up and sat behind the boy so that he had his arms around him

Together the two brothers rode the buffalo homeward towards Napo.

June 1958

"We're going to have a good monsoon season this year," Piang said.

The herd of water buffaloes stirred, lifting up their heads, passing on the message, confirming Piang's prediction. Prem, who had also been close to the herd, looked for signs of the animals' understanding and sensed their elation. He looked up at the skies and knew that the rainy season was approaching.

"Tell-tell me how-how you know-know," he stammered, squinting his eyes against the sun.

He wanted to say more but words did not come easily to his lips. It was an effort to speak, opening one's lips to make sounds for others to understand.

Piang still gazed at the clouds as if she did not hear what he had tried to say. She decided not to be disturbed while reading the auguries from the formation and shapes of clouds. She prided herself for being much older than he, and last year she had won first place in her class.

"See that cloud there." Piang said at last, "Doesn't it look like a good healthy woman? I say she's the Goddess of Rains. Over there is the Spirit of Drought who looks mean but is now weakening."

Among the grotesque forms of clouds and shadows, the Tadpole saw indescribable beauty. Could Piang read also the poetry of the skies? There was an immense electrifying power in such beauty, passing from form to form, from shadow to shadow, filling the air with its intensity. He held out his hand.

"Dooo," he made a sound which Piang thought to be 'look'. So she became silent, believing that her brother had committed an act against a taboo. For now the wind became forceful. At the edge of the forest, near a neglected melon patch which had become bare and dry, a whirlwind appeared, whirling and furling, carrying leaves and dust.

"Razor wind, please go away," Piang prayed.

For you must not dare, must not see, hear or go against evil, the Power of Darkness. So then she told him not to make remarks on such things, not to point at rainbows either, or his index finger would drop off. She became rather serious then, and expected her brother to do the same. Do not disturb evil, the supernatural, the spirits in all things; just get out of their way. Eyes were not to see, ears not to hear, and mouths not to speak against them.

Somewhere lightning struck and thunder rumbled.

"Oh, Lords and Masters, the true rulers of the earth," Piang continued praying.

Then her voice trailed off, subdued by the deafening skies. For a while she became silent. As if in a trance she closed her eyes. And when she opened them again, she began scanning the fields and shouting to other boys and girls. Then the answers came, echoing from all directions. Now it was time to get together.

The wind rose into a storm. How nice Piang looked with her thick, long, black hair flying about her comely face and head, as she waited for the rain to fall. The electrifying turbulent air woke up the whole plain now. The buffaloes began to run about, chasing one another. Many fronds on tall palm trees broke off and bats dispersed, screeching and fluttering into the darkening skies. Clouds hung low, melting into grey veils.

The boys rushed about, gathering fallen fronds to make a rough shelter so that the young ones could huddle together when it rained.

"I lost all my frogs and crabs," one little girl lamented.

"If you boys don't round up the herds now, they will run off too far." Piang seemed burdened with worries and care. Meanwhile she tugged her little brother along and tied his palm hat tightly for him.

Then the great storm came like a million hooves stampeding over saplings and the rice fields of the open country. The rain swept and lashed at the fronds under which the children crouched. Soon, as if by magic, the boys, overpowered by the rain, took off their clothes and ran wildly, laughing, calling and singing:

Rain! Here comes a monsoonal rain, And I've only a handful of grain!

The little girl who had lost all her frogs and crabs giggled at the sight of those naked boys.

"Lightning may strike them," she laughed.

"Are you afraid of lightning, Tadpole?" another girl asked after a flash of lightning had blazed.

The Tadpole opened his mouth, but with difficulty, to utter a word which resembled the sound of "Wooo."

"Yes, you are," Piang quickly said to emphasize the taboo: One must not dare. "And keep your mouth shut," she added. "It makes you look like a dum-dum when your mouth stays open."

"Are you scared of me?" Boon Srima pushed herself forward with one truncated arm outstretched like a blunt spear. Boon had been born deformed. Her hands had no fingers. Silly girl, why should you be afraid of a fingerless lass when you were not afraid of the dead?

Yes, when the old headman died, the boy went to his house to see the corpse. There was no mystery to death at all. The body was deserted, like an old nest after the birds had flown away. But he was curious though, because the headman's wife wailed so loudly that the whole village could hear.

"Nooo. No-noo afraid," he managed to raise his voice against the sound of rain and thunder.

Then he broke away from their hold on him, running off to join the other boys. The girls ran after him, shouting:

"How dare you!" Then the boys came to his rescue, chasing the girls away. Their screams and laughter mingled with the sound of the echoing plain. How happy they were then, and their happiness marked the beginning of a rainy season.

Now that the planting season had started, the herds were broken up. The boys and the girls went to help their parents, ploughing and harrowing. As for the Tadpole, too young yet to take on hard labour, he looked after the animals when they were not at work. He was to stay close to them, taking charge so that they would not trample on seedlings or eat newly planted rice.

When one got close to a buffalo, one noticed how the big innocent eyes rolled, how they looked at things.

He had become very fond of one particular buffalo. It had long curvy horns and a wise look. He rode on this one every morning when he took the herd out from the village to graze in fallow fields, and when the afternoon sun became too hot, together they sought a tree under which they could lie for hours. The boy would rest with his buffalo, finding some comfort in silence. With an animal one did not have to speak. Words sounded crude, like rough blocks of brick which had to be put into certain places to make sense. Many a time Piang had tried unsuccessfully to drum into his skull how to arrange words so that people could understand him. But after a great deal of effort, she lost her patience.

"You're hopeless at language. People will believe that you're stupid. They'll laugh at you if you keep talking nonsense.They will. And I can't stand it," she had said moodily.

He tried so hard to please her, but without success. Words would not come easily to his lips in their proper order. They fluttered in his mind like butterflies, some of which could escape through his mouth. He could speak more and faster after he had fallen from the hut and lost consciousness. Then the sooth-sayer had to be called and they built a pit filled with burning charcoal above which a rough bamboo rack was made for his body to be laid on. They had covered him with wet clothes and they prayed for his life. When he came to, they wept again and prepared food for the Spirit.

But he still stammered when he was obliged to say something to awesome people, such as the village headman or patrolling policemen or strangers who asked for directions. He would rather avoid having to speak altogether by spending more time in the company of the buffaloes on the plain.

Then one day he fell into a lotus pond outside the village. He would have drowned, if it were not for a passer-by who noticed that the boy had been down in the deep water far too long. Once more they filled the pit with burning charcoal and put the boy on the bamboo rack 'and covered him with damp clothes. Once again the sooth-sayer led the people who gathered there to pray for the boy's life. They believed that a Spirit wanted his life to make him one of its sons. So they begged the Spirit not to take this boy from his poor, ageing parents who needed him to work in the fields. During this ritual of bartering for a life with the Spirit, many votive offerings were made. The Surins promised that they would make 'merit' at the temple and transfer the merit gained to the Spirit, that they would prepare food for monks and donate funds and yellow robes to the temple. However, after a night had passed, the boy was still in danger and there was no sign that he would ever come back to life. The sooth-sayer said that there was only one thing left to do, and that was to give the boy up and offer him to the Spirit. Hearing this, the mother wept, for she knew that she had to comply with what the sooth-sayer told her to do. So then the old man, renowned for having grappled all his life with various kinds of Spirits and ghosts and wandering souls, chanted the preamble to offer a life. The smoke from the charcoal fire rose, while the chanting, rich with sentiment and pathos, brought tears to many eyes. In the process, the boy became the Spirit's son.

When the Tadpole recovered and could speak as if he had never been a mute, people believed that he had been truly adopted by the Spirit who had endowed its son with supernatural qualities and who, from then on, would look after its offspring. Somewhere near the adopted one, the Spirit would be hovering, keeping an eye on him Some people, especially children, became afraid of th^l Tadpole when they heard a rumour that dogs howler whenever he walked by.

"Watch out for that boy. He can speak, has a goof memory, can make predictions and bring omens. Why' Mark my words and be careful," one woman warned he children.

The poor boy became lonelier than before, knowing that the others were afraid of him, and so he spent most of his waking hours on the plain with his buffaloes, and at nights he stayed in the hut. Buffaloes alone remained his source of comfort. At times, Kiang would play with him, trying to teach him how to defend himself by using fists and feet to hurt his attackers. Sometimes Kiang would teach him how to set bird traps and fish traps and how to imitate the cooing of doves. At such times, when Kiang came close, he would say:

"You smell like a buffalo. Go and jump in a pond after this."

But the boy did not mind the smell of the buffaloes, nor the mud which had dried on their skins. He was too fond of them, particularly of the wise old one with whom he had often lain skin to skin, resting in the shade of a tree in the hot afternoon, far away from human cries and company. Sometimes, with his head on the flank of the buffalo, he would softly All ha had done was merely to look at the man with ho head slightly tilted to the right. That was sufficient to provoke cruelty.

When Piang saw the blood that had not yet dried on ho face, she asked what had happened, but he said not a word. He had done nothing to deserve the blood that had been shed. If he had said to the headman that paying peasants to raise their hands to elect him was evil, it would have been a different matter because thus he would have dared to challenge the Power of Darkness. He would have been proud of the pain and of the blood that had flowed; but all he had done was to look with the eyes of a buffalo. If he told Piang the truth, she would never have believed that for merely looking at the head man, a stone had been thrown.

He had seen how men raised their hands to vote and got paid for it. Their dumb faces shone with joy for doing something for something, without knowing what they were doing. To stretch their hands upward was such an easy feat to do, for ten baht, when one would have had to work the whole day as a labourer to earn a similar amount. The hand raising was done in the open, of course, at the temple ground, and on-lookers including children could witness this election of the headman of Napo. Now the Tadpole wondered whether those who had raised their hands for money knew that they would have to pay a high price for it later. For when the man was installed in a position which bestowed on him the Master's Power, with policemen and the law on his side, he would use it for his own gain. He was known to have asked several men to play dice with him, and they had to play to lose. Some wives would never know why their husbands suddenly had to sell one or two of their buffaloes or pigs to raise money. Some had to sell a piece of their land. Some even had to borrow money from loan sharks and thus fell victim to another evil.

The Tadpole had seen how it happened. One day Kiang asked him to come along on one of his bird trapping trips in the woods. When Kiang had set a trap, he asked his brother to stay quietly in a nearby thicket to keep guard so that no one would steal the trap and the decoy. The boy enjoyed sitting silently in the bushes, hidlng himself from all eyes, deep in the forest.

While hiding in the bushes, he heard human voices coming from afar; and the sound of footfalls on dry leaves told him that a group of men was approaching. A minute later they came into view choosing to sit down under the very tree in which Kiang had set a trap. From where he was hiding, the boy could see that the men formed a circle and began to play dice.

As they gambled, the boy could see a few faces. Their sad eyes followed the accursed dice as if hypnotized. The tragedy weighed on them, but once in a while the boy heard curses. At one point the headman got up to relieve himself. Unfortunately he made his way towards the thicket in which the Tadpole was hiding. The leaves and branches and tall grass could not conceal him from the man. This sudden encounter made the man change his mind. He turned back and stopped the game. The men left soon after, leaving to the boy the tranquility of the forest.