Chapter 1
When Chao Khun Atthikanbodi took his wife, Mom Ratchawong Kirati, to Japan for their honeymoon, I was a student at Rikkyo University and, at the time, just twenty-two years old.
I had known Chao Khun in Thailand because he and my father were friends, and he had always been kindly disposed towards me.
I had also met Khunying Atthikanbodi, his first wife, and got to know her as well as Chao Khun.
About a year after I had gone to study in Japan, I was saddened to hear that Khunying Atthikanbodi had died of influenza.
After that I had no further news of Chao Khun for two years, until just recently, when I heard from him once again.
Chao Khun Atthikanbodi wrote saying that he was coming to Japan with his new wife, Mom Ratchawong Kirati, and asked me to find accommodation for him and make other necessary arrangements.
He intended to stay in Tokyo for two months.
When I say he was taking his wife to Japan for their honeymoon, these are my own words.
In his letter, he said he needed a change of scenery and wanted to take a long trip to relax and enjoy himself for a while.
His main reason for wanting to come to Japan was to give his wife a treat she would enjoy.
Referring to Mom Ratchawong Kirati, he had written, ‘I both love her and feel sorry for her. She is not very familiar with the outside world, despite her age. I want to give Kirati some experience of the world beyond Thailand, and I want to make her happy and feel that marrying someone of my age is at least not completely meaningless. I think, Nopporn, that you will like Kirati, just as you liked my poor deceased wife. For people who don’t know her, Kirati is rather on the quiet side.
But she is kind-hearted. There’s no need for you to worry, though.
I think Kirati will like you very much. I’ve told her that, too. ’
I had never met Mom Ratchawong Kirati before, and the little that Chao Khun Atthikanbodi had said about her in his letter did not tell me very much.
I guessed that she was probably about forty, or possibly a little younger.
She was probably rather aloof, or at least somewhat reserved, in keeping with her aristocratic background; and she would certainly not like young people who were loud and boisterous, not that that was part of my nature.
She was probably a rather serious person, who took little pleasure in the things most people enjoy, and probably rather rigid in some of her ways, which meant I would have to be careful about how I talked to her.
I hired an attractive servant girl to look after the house, in the Japanese manner.
In choosing an attractive girl, I do not mean that she was to look after Chao Khun in any sense other than her normal duties.
I just thought that if there was a choice between a servant who looked like an ogress and a beautiful one, then the latter was preferable, since living in proximity to beauty, whether in a person or an object, helps to lift our spirits.
I was well aware that Chao Khun was in a position to be choosy.
I had to pay the servant more than the normal rate, the added expense being not for her looks, but because I had to find a Japanese girl who could speak adequate English.
Otherwise, both Chao Khun and his wife would have found it difficult.
The first day I met Chao Khun Atthikanbodi and his entourage at Tokyo Station was also the first great shock I was to experience in my acquaintance with his wife.
When I first caught sight of the two women accompanying Chao Khun, I guessed that the one who was about thirty-eight, neatly dressed, and looked somewhat old-fashioned and a little nervous, was probably Mom Ratchawong Kirati.
My assumption was based on the letter Chao Khun had sent me.
The other was the complete opposite. She looked young and radiant and was elegantly dressed.
Even at that first brief glance her dignified demeanour was quite apparent to me.
I could not imagine who she was. Chao Khun’s eldest daughter, who had married several years earlier, I had already met in Bangkok.
My speculations, however, lasted less than a minute, because after I had exchanged a few words of greeting with Chao Khun, he turned to the young woman, who at that moment was standing beside him, and said, ‘This is my wife, Khunying Kirati.’ His introduction almost startled me.
As a result of my stupid mistake, I nearly forgot my manners and stared straight into her face, in order to dispel any doubt that she was Mom Ratchawong Kirati, Chao Khun Atthikanbodi’s new wife.
She received my greetings with a gentle, graceful smile.
The other woman meanwhile respectfully retired a couple of paces behind Chao Khun.
As I glanced at her once more, I suddenly remembered that in his letter, Chao Khun had said that he would bring his cook out from Bangkok, too.
I had completely forgotten. In the end, there could be no doubt as to who was who.
Yet I still could not help feeling surprised that I had been so wrong in my expectations about Mom Ratchawong Kirati’s age and appearance.
That day I was wearing my university student’s uniform, and that was the first thing about me that Mom Ratchawong Kirati took an interest in.
She said it was nice and neat and that she especially liked the colour, navy blue.
As it happened, she was wearing the same navy-blue colour, with a white floral pattern on both her skirt and blouse.
There was nothing showy about the colour, yet it conveyed a pride and dignity which is hard to put into words.
As I ordered the car to slow down to pass through the gates of the house, Chao Khun Atthikanbodi leaned over and patted me gently on the shoulder, congratulating me on finding such a lovely house.
It was true that in the neighbourhoods we had driven through, there was not a house to compare with ours.
Dressed in a kimono, the servant girl stood waiting at the steps at the front of the house.
She bowed in greeting when the car passed through the gates, and then bowed again two or three times, in accordance with the Japanese way of showing great respect, as Chao Khun and his wife got out of the car.
He spoke a few words to her, and she was able to respond in adequate English, which prompted a further expression of satisfaction on his part.
Finally, when he had looked over the rooms and household furnishings, he expressed his delight and thanked me profoundly once more.
I must confess I felt very pleased to have arranged everything to his approval, without missing anything, because it was these organizing skills that later prompted Chao Khun to sing my praises to others as ‘a clever fellow, more thorough than most other young men’.
There was hot water prepared for baths, and not a single detail had been overlooked.
They were both delighted from the moment they set foot in the house, and there had been no disappointments to spoil the mood.
In the evening I took them for a Chinese meal at Kaco Eng, one of the most famous and sumptuous restaurants in Tokyo.
Both the setting and the food that evening occasioned Chao Khun to remark more than once that it reminded him of Hoi Tian Lao Restaurant in Bangkok.
When we got back to the house, their beds had already been neatly prepared.
I returned home that night, delighted that things had gone more successfully than I had anticipated.