Silpa: the Art of Love

Chapter 11
More than a Metaphor

I’m in the lobby ten minutes before eight, waiting eagerly. In the
afternoon with the women, I had to fight not to let my anticipation of
tonight’s dinner with Silpa distract me from outlining to them everything
that is needed to be done from right now to prepare the exhibition in just
the next two and a half weeks. A dinner for two is a date and a date has
connotations, the first direct sign he might feel the same way as I do
about him and not just my wildly overactive imagination playing tricks on
me. In any case, I’d spent two hours taking every care to get ready, both
to hide each pore and imperfection as well as to fill the interval between
returning to the hotel and his arrival.

The seconds tick by like minutes and the minutes like hours, time spent
staring at the lobby clock, watching the minute arm so intently I’m
actually able to see it winding its way around the dial. At the stroke of
the hour the clock chimes eight times and I look to the door – no sign of
Silpa – and from this point onward I glance back and forth from the clock
to the door becoming more restless with every passing moment measured
in the fractions I’m able to dissect with such minute accuracy.

I’m a teenager going on my first date and being stood-up. All sorts of
irrational thoughts rush through my brain until after five minutes or five
hours I start thinking he isn’t going to show. After eight minutes or eight
hours I begin reproaching him. And after nine minutes or nine hours I turn
the blame on myself. When, after ten minutes or ten hours into the
arduous ordeal he steps through the doorway, all is forgiven and forgotten
the instant I view his elegant characteristics and startling eyes.

I go to greet him, wanting to embrace him in love and friendship, but
instead return the wai he offers me. I wish he would touch me as he did
when we met, or just a simple handshake, but I restrain myself in this
more conservative culture than the free for all back in Australia. I must be
satisfied for now with what I can see, and I am, simply because what I
see is so pleasing; Silpa appears in the same light as he did at Ming Lee
yesterday, and I realise his glow is internal and not restricted to the reach
of the sun’s rays.

“You look simply beautiful, Anna,” he says, stepping back to draw me into
the watery wells of his bottomless black pupils that dilate and constrict
again around me. His eyes are two windows open for me to climb through,
only they don’t lead into some room with four walls like a prison cell, rather
they offer me an escape from solitude, the freedom of a serene blue sky
resting upon a wide open sea.

“Where are we going?” I reply, hardly knowing what else to say.

“I know a place by the Chao Phraya River.”

“I’ve heard about this river, but I haven’t actually seen it yet.”

“Chao Phraya is the lifeblood of the city and at night, well, you will see.”

Silpa’s car is a 1970s Saab, almost as old as my Beetle. The car a person
drives says much about its owner’s personality, the same as people think
about dogs and their owners. Silpa’s Saab doesn’t try to impress with
expensive showiness and the latest mod cons like Debra with her ‘Beemer’
or Mal with his, rather it outclasses its pretentious rivals simply by not
needing to make a statement, like it’s owner doesn’t need to. It already
has all the personality and individuality money can’t buy, a bit like my
Beetle and me; I like to think so anyway.

The palace is lit up like fairyland, and we glide between it on the left and
Silpakorn on the right, round the corner and pull into a parking lot. We’re
practically across the road from the university, about a minute’s walk from
a main gate.

“This is it?”

“My favourite restaurant, I mean besides Ming Lee.”

“I never walked over this way. I can’t believe I had no idea the river was
this close.”

Up some stairs there’s an open-air deck and I look up at the sky for the
first time since arriving in Bangkok. It’s a full moon, with a corona
streaming out into space as a milky cloud, dispersing the darkness. There
are a few stars out, and Mars burns red like a distant sun in the night. A
waiter escorts us to a table by the railing, and I take-in the broad, still
river. There’s a bridge to the right and a pagoda lit up like a candle to the
left. The river’s opaqueness reflects the lights that line each bank, an
impressionist mirror image of the city brushed in watercolours upon an
aquatic canvas. Its gentle, rippling calmness is disrupted by a tourist boat,
causing the surface to undulate in its wake, transforming the reflection
into a rolling, glinting abstract expression of the city as the lights are
tossed around and about like a fleet of small river boats caught in an
ocean storm, gliding and colliding with each other, before settling to
smooth again.

“It’s magic.”

“Yes, it is. This river means so much to me,” says Silpa. “It means so
much to more than just Bangkok, it has a deep meaning for the entire
country and Thai people.”

We order dinner, fish as the main with vegetarian and seafood dishes on
the side. Silpa asks if this is all right with me, explaining that except for
seafood he doesn’t eat meat. Being a big fan of seafood and not a big
eater of other meat myself either, I don’t have a problem. He also says
he doesn’t drink alcohol and orders plain water, which I’m happy to go
with as well.

After the waiter is gone I ask, “Tell me about the river, Silpa.”

Silpa looks over the rail, watching the city lights churning in the
turbulence of another passing boat. “The Chao Phraya is the major river
in Thailand, sure, but it runs not just as you see it: it courses through
the heart of every Thai. From the beginning our people settled along
these banks and all the capitals of Thailand have been founded beside it,
yet it means so much more than that.”

His eyes become slightly misty as he goes on. “The river is us. I mean, I
think of the Chao Phraya as being Thailand and the water that flows
along it as the Thai people.” He pauses again, resting an elbow on the
table, touching the corner of an eye with the tip of his finger and
pressing his thumb lightly against his jawbone. “Still, much more than
that. Where does the river lead? To the ocean, and the ocean goes all
the way around the world to all the other countries and all the other
people, linking us together as one. That ocean unites us, the entire
world, in a universal bond. We are water and water is life...” he trails
off.

“Don’t stop, please Silpa.”

“It’s meant to be more than a metaphor. I’ve had a long while to think
about it. You see, I grew up fishing in it, swimming in it, bathing in it,
drinking it, only not here in Bangkok, but not far away in Ayuttaya. It was
the capital of Thailand before being burned by the Burmese in 1767, after
that Bangkok was founded as the capital.”

“So it’s a ruin?”

“The old city is in ruins but a new one has grown around it, or at least a
new town has.”

“The ruins must be good for tourism.”

“Yes, and it’s still good for Buddhists too as many old Buddha statues are
there, though damaged.”

“Tell me about yourself Silpa.”

Characteristically he shies away. “There’s not much to tell.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“There are many things I could tell you that you wouldn’t believe.”

“Yeah? And that’s one of them. Try me, Silpa, you’d be surprised by what
I believe.”

Silpa chuckles. “So then, you begin. Perhaps you can tell me something
about yourself you think I wouldn’t believe?”

As dinner is served and we begin relishing the seafood, I tell him the
rudiments of my growing up in Adelaide, moving to Sydney, and to the
present point. As I finish, Silpa levels his eyes, and we both know that he
has crossed the personal boundary that normally separates people, and
he climbs inside me, as I had with him when we met at the hotel an hour
ago. My one question is whether I open up for him to seaside expanses,
as it had been for me with him, or if the entrance leads only to the
confines of my cell.

“That’s interesting,” he continues, “but it’s not what I asked you. I asked
you to tell me something about yourself you think I wouldn’t believe. The
answer to that question would be much more informing as to who you
really are.”

We’re playing a word game where there are no scores, winners, or losers,
and there are no competing egos. The stakes are nebulous, but the aim is
to gain as many results for each player as possible as we’re both playing
for the same team.

“You want to hear something you wouldn’t believe?” I answer by repeating
his question and asking a question of my own, laughing. “Is that a trick
question?”

“No tricks,” he says plainly. “I don’t know any tricks. Just the truth.”

“The truth can be tricky enough,” I jest and, seeing he is more sincere
than me, continue more earnestly. “Okay, I’ll give it a try. How about
this—” I don’t know how far I should go. If I had ever lain my heart bare
for any of my ‘dates’ back home, most would have torn it out or
manipulated and betrayed me without hesitation. Intuitively though, I
know I can trust this man.

“What’s holding you back, Anna? Such a generous soul must have been
crushed like a can by the experiences of your life to make you so
distrustful. What haven’t you told me in the summary of your life that you
feel you should?”

I’ve never met anyone like Silpa before, yet now when I want to let out
the feelings dammed up inside me, I can’t. The pressure of everything I
haven’t said increases, raising the level until threatening to spill over the
rim of the barrier I’ve been building for years. I’m afraid that the wall will
collapse and the emotions stored behind it will be unleashed as tears and
unpainted words. Disarmed by the presence of this man, I find the
strength in his presence to channel my emotions in a controlled discharge
rather than a breach, allowing me to deconstruct the dam, brick by brick,
word by word.

“You know, Silpa, before you say anything, there’s so much I want to tell
you. My life hasn’t been as I may have made it sound. My father was
anything but a great dad and growing up in a poor family on Adelaide’s
suburban fringes wasn’t all fun. Everything I have now came from hard
work, talent, and determination but, still, that’s not what I want to say to
you. I know what you’re asking. Yes, I do. You know that I know.”

“Just say it.”

My tight lips open first as a fissure, then as a floodgate. The weight of
the words shut behind them is suddenly released through the sluice, and
with the escape a great burden pours out from inside me. “I’ve never had
a deep bond with a man before. Not my father, my brothers, nor from any
of my past boyfriends. And it’s made me what I am – incomplete. I need
to love and be loved. Just to experience it for one day would be enough
for my whole lifetime, if the power of that love was as deep and as real
as my own. Would you believe that?”

Silpa rests his palm on my bare forearm. The flesh on flesh contact is
electric, jolting. “That’s so sad, Anna, to have such an important part of
life missing. You deserve to be loved, it provides completeness for both
men and women. Women and men are like two mirrors who need each
other to appreciate and truly understand each other as well as ourselves.”

Tears leak from the corners of my eyes. “Again, about yourself, perhaps
this time you could tell me something you think I would believe before
telling me something I wouldn’t. Maybe we can save the latter for later.”

He takes a moment to gather his thoughts. “I too was born into a poor
family, probably poorer than yours. My father was a village fisherman. He
drowned in the river during a flood when I was five. His body washed
away and was never found. My mother died giving me birth. I was her
first and last child.”

“That’s so tragic.”

He looks over the railing to the river and whispers a silent prayer of
remembrance; and now I know there’s another reason for his passionate
connection to the Chao Phraya. “Then, the local monastery became my
home, apprenticing me to an old master of traditional temple painting and
sculpture. I learned from him for nearly fifteen years before coming to
Silpakorn, where I’ve mostly been ever since, first as a student, later as
an ajarn. I’ve only left Silpakorn to study in Paris, and to teach in Chiang
Mai for a few years too.”

“Wow, that’s a fascinating life’s story, but you must have missed
something?”

Silpa’s fingers tighten on my forearm and he winces, shutting his eyes
tensely and taking a long breath. The pain on his face speaks louder than
any words, yet he opens his mouth and releases the breath as he says
slowly, “I was married for eight years. She passed away from lung cancer
two and a half years ago.”

“I’m so sorry, Silpa.”

“No need to be, she planted many seeds in this lifetime that will germinate,
take root, and bare fruit in the next.”

“And what about you?”

“Life is suffering, but on the whole I must say this has been a good life.
Perhaps the first years of it were the hardest, with no mother, then losing
my father, and these last few.” He suddenly opens his eyelids and smiles
at me, continuing cheerfully, “Fortunately the monks took me in. I was
happy in the monastery, but being with my wife was best of all.”

“As the great poet once said: Better to have loved and lost than never
to have loved at all. You, having loved and lost; and I, never having loved.
Both are so sad.”

“Our situations are the same, craving and desire leading to suffering, as
the Lord Buddha taught. It’s getting late, Anna. Perhaps I should take
you home.”

My first hope, especially as my home is ten thousand kilometres away from
here, is that he means he’s going to take me back to his place with him
tonight. However, as I know full well that’s not what he means, I retrain
myself from making the suggestion, and remark more philosophically, “That
would depend on what you mean by ‘home?’”

“Yes, I see what you mean, like the expression ‘Home is where the heart is.’”

“If it’s true then I’m homeless.”

“Then, for now, I shall have to take you to your hotel.”

“And I shall have to settle for that, for now.”

Silpa pays the bill and we drive back the short distance to the hotel,
where he escorts me to the door.

“Would you like to come up to my room for coffee?” I ask, wishing I hadn’t
made the proposition quite like that because of the coffee invitation’s
obvious and cliched sexual connotations.

“It’s getting late.”

I peep inside the door at the lobby clock and see it’s midnight, already. In
Silpa’s company the hours flew. “Thank you so much for dinner, Silpa. Will
I see you tomorrow?”

“Won’t you be busy working with your new students?” he rejoins playfully.
“I’ll be in the workshop all day. I’ll need a break sometime. Please come
and visit. I’m not in Thailand for long.”

“Yes, of course I will, sorry. Until tomorrow.”