Drunken Love by Que Son (to read list TXT) 📖

with the journey. She took the folded sheet of paper out of the envelope and suddenly was disappointed because at first glance it appeared that it was a very brief letter. Then she read, and as she read, each word stabbed her heart like a dagger. "Eve. I have received letters from you and your father. I did not know what to do in response to your and your father’s requests. I don't think there is a chance we will see one another again. This time our separation may be for good because of the immense physical distance between us and because I don’t think I can ever go home again. I want you to forget about me and whatever had happened between us and I want you to get married and settle down like your sisters. After this letter, I will move to another state and I will not write to you again. Good luck. Adam." Eve was dumb-struck. She did not believe what she was reading was true, so she read it over and over and over and slower and slower each time and each time it was still the same words, and at last she had no doubt what she was reading was really the words, and she was not delusional. Adam had rejected her. What did her father write to him that upset him so much? But anyhow, he had turned his back on her with those cold and brutal words. He had stopped loving her and forgotten her and perhaps was loving someone new. The pain was immediate and complete. She felt as if she had suddenly died and she felt cold all over. She sat very still, holding the sheet of paper in her hand and her mind went blank. That was it. That was the end, all her hope and longing and faith and love for him had been crushed. How could he, she thought. I refused to believe that he had stopped loving me. But what if it was true? What he had written was so clear, he meant every word he said. He did not want to have anything to do with me anymore. He had rejected me and my desire to be with him. He did not love me anymore. He must have had another girl. What am I going to do? Do I beg him to continue loving me? No, I cannot do that because once he had stopped loving me, that was it, there is nothing I can do to bring him back to me. The love I had for him and my waiting for him all these years had meant nothing to him. How cruel! All the memories between us that are so valuable to me meant nothing to him. My hope and wish of becoming his wife was rejected. If that is what he wants, there is nothing I can do. I will let him be. I will try to forget about him, about my love for him. He doesn't love me anymore. He loves someone else. He has betrayed me. That is it. This love, this relationship is over. No, I still love him, I always love him. But my pride is hurt--bad. I will not forgive him for this. If he rejects me, I will reject him. Eve sat for hours as if she had turned into stone.

 

That night, after people were asleep, she took all of his letters and gifts--including a weather-beaten little book of poetry by Tagore--that she had saved as her personal treasure, and brought them out to a corner of the garden and built a fire. And as the little flames danced and as each letter was fed into the fire, tears rolled down her face. She watched as the wind scattered the ashes into the night air. That was the end of the affair. That night she stayed up and cried.

 

Days after that, she became mute, and her face hardened. She was thinking about what she was going to do. She still wanted to leave the country, but now it would not be to look for Adam, but to make a life for herself; and besides, she could not languish here being haunted by memories about Adam everyday, and she thought that wherever Adam had settled, that was where she was going to settle to. They would be under the same sky, but they would not see one another. Because she still loved him and knew that she would love him to the end of her life, the thought of being under the same sky with him gave her some comfort, even though she now had a strong feeling that fate had not meant for them to be together. They had crossed path, and now each were going into different directions, or in the same direction but on parallel paths perhaps, which mean they would never meet. At the same time, however, a small voice from the bottom of her heart whispered that not all had been lost, that maybe something could be savaged, that Adam would think again and leave whoever he was with and come back to her. After all, she did not believe there was anyone in the world who loved him like she did, and besides, she tried to convince herself that he still loved her, despite what he had written and despite whatever that was going on with him. There might still be a chance they would find one another and all would be forgiven and they would be together again. These thoughts, even though flickering like candles in the wind, made the pain less intense, and Eve said to herself that she would take to the sea, whatever the price, come what might.

 

Eve started asking her mother for help arrange an escape. Seeing the state Eve was in, the mother secretly made contacts with snakeheads. She found a man who was planning an escape and after much pleading from her, the man agreed to let Eve on board for nothing-- only on the condition that once she reached the other shore she would make money to pay off the debt of passage. So one moonless night Eve with a few others from the village sneaked out on to the beach and boarded a small boat. There were men, women, children on the little vessel. They headed out to the ocean. The wooden boat, with a small engine that was intended for river and coastal sailing only, sailed northwest across the Gulf. People knew that if they kept going in the that direction, they would arrive in Thailand where they would be accepted as refugees, given temporary shelters and eventually settle permanently in a third country. That was the hope. The boat held out against the big waves; and on the second day of the journey Eve had become used to the violent movements of the vessel and she stopped vomiting. In fact, there was nothing in the stomach to throw up any more, and even though there was food on the boat, she could not eat. She helped the young men throwing the water out of the boat. And she was alone, while traveling with her were families with husbands and wives and children.

 

On the third day, after eating some of what was left of the food supplies, she regained some strength. Then over the horizon they saw a big boat and all were excited because that was the first human sighting after three days floating on the open sea. They thought they could batter for food, water, and fuel with the gold some were carrying with them. They even hoped they might be picked up and saved from the rough sea by the people on the big boat. So they sailed in the direction of the other boat and realized that it was heading toward them too. When the two boats came closer, they realized that it was a fishing boat at least ten times bigger than theirs and made of steel, not wood. Fishermen on the big boat came out to look at the small boat. They were all men with dark skins and they made gestures and seemed wild with excitement. Then as the boats touched, one of the fishermen jumped onto Eve’s boat with such a violent landing that he almost threw some people overboard. He had a cleaver in his hands. And after quickly regaining his balance he shouted in the language of Eve's people that they all must lied down; and as he was screaming, he pumped the cleaver repeatedly in the air as if he was going to chop someone, and his face contorted with savagery. People lied down and made no attempt to resist, they did not have any weapons and beside, after three days exposing to the elements on the sea, they had little strength left. Then another fisherman on the big boat threw down a rope and the man below tied the two boats together. Then more men jumped onto the small boat and all carried some kind of weapons even if it was only a wooden stick. And they started to rip people of their neck chains, rings, gold. And when they started to grab the women, people screamed. One man jumped up and lunged to defend his wife when she was grabbed by a fisherman/pirate but was held back by two others and stabbed in the stomach. He collapsed, blood gushing out of his wounds. The woman yelled and kicked and punched wildly and her two small children cried hysterically and it took three pirates to hold her down and one of them hit her repeatedly in the head with the handle of a hatchet, and she fell. They lift her up and carried her to the big boat and some of them stayed on the small boat to guard the people while the rest of them were raping the woman. After they were done with her and two other young women--including Eve, and all happened in the same manner--they threw them back to the small boat and sailed away. The same thing happened the next day and the next day and the next day with other groups of fishermen/pirates. Out of food and water and fuel, all on board passed out and let the boat drifted in the intense heat of the sun during the day and in the cold of the night. Eve and the other young women were raped and brutalized repeatedly over many days and now all were dying of hunger and thirst. They looked dead.

 

On the thirteenth day, they were picked up by an ocean liner, nursed back to consciousness, and transferred into the custody of the Thai authority. Two people died.

 

On land, Eve became a mad woman. The local Thai authority kept the people in a camp near the beach and everyday Eve wandered along the water looking into the distant horizon and nightmares of the days at sea made her scream out. She was a bundle of cuts and bruises inside and out. She had lost grip on things around her and people had to force her to eat, consoled her, trying to bring her back. With a cloudy mind and a confused heart, Eve felt that she had lost the most valuable thing she had: integrity and dignity. She had no courage to face the light of day, to look at people in the face, she felt like a piece of rag, dirty and unwanted. Since a very young age, her mother had drilled into her head that for a woman, the integrity of the body was the most sacred thing to be protected at all cost. She believed her husband was the only person allowed to take off her shirt, to touch her body, to see her naked and what she had as a gift to her him was her own virgin body. But she had no such thing anymore. During the