2 The days passed.
Fak continued to struggle in a web of suffering. Like a fish caught in a net, it
seemed that the harder he tried to free himself, the more entangled he became. Search as he would, he could find no way out.
As time went by, he became thinner and thinner. His face was drawn, his complexion had lost its glow and even though he was far from old age, white patches had begun to appear in his hair.
Now came the hot season of the following year –
During the school vacation, there was no work for Fak to do, apart from watering the plants and weeding the ground around them to make sure they didn’t die; so, he was free all day long. Two days after the school had closed, the headmaster came to see him and asked him to help extend the kitchen at the back of his house. The work lasted almost a week, but he received no payment for his labour, because the headmaster considered that, holidays or not, Fak belonged to the school. This was no big deal for Fak. The mere fact that the headmaster had given him something to do and had taken the trouble of talking and joking with him was all the gratification he needed. Considering the sweat and energy he had put into the work, what else could he have asked for in return, when even his close friends no longer bothered to speak to him or even greet him? But this was the headmaster, someone respected by everyone in the village, and he had lowered himself to come and use his services. Fak thought that it was really the headmaster who had put him in his debt.
When that job was done, Fak was sent for to help at Miss Nipha’s house. Again, when the chicken coop was finished, he didn’t ask for anything in exchange for his labour. However, Miss Nipha gave him two blouses that she no longer used for Mrs Somsong. (One of them had a red floral motif; Somsong liked that one a lot and wore it often.)
From time to time, both parties would come to Fak and have him do odd jobs for them. Besides, there was always work weeding plantations. When he was free for the day, he’d hire himself wherever work of that kind was required. Since all the villagers had their own plantations, no one was available to clear the grass, and most owners would do the job themselves. If some of them hired Fak, perhaps it was because they wanted to take some rest or had something more important to do. (Most people in the area had coconut or sugar-palm plantations; a few grew jujube palm trees.)
Even though people no longer wanted to associate with Fak, a few were still willing to hire him, probably because there was no denying that, when they did, they got their money’s worth. When Fak did the weeding, he’d pull out all of the grass as though every blade were to be accounted for; he didn’t just cut it so that within a few days it would grow up again. A weeding job done by Fak would last a long time and be to the owner’s satisfaction.
The plantation owners would defend themselves to their peers by arguing that “I don’t fraternise with the likes of him; it’s casual labour, nothing more; once the job’s done and the money’s paid, we go our separate ways.”
One afternoon at the beginning of April –
The fiery rays of the blazing sun shone down with such intensity that it seemed that the sun was less than a couple of meters overhead. The sun-baked foliage was still and quiet, even the birds were silent, and the only sound to be heard was that of folk songs belched out by the radio in the house of the plantation owner, Old Paen.