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she could reach everything she
needed: cooler, cooker, vid-screen, the spirit-house in the corner
and the shelves that held her clothes, the knick-knacks and ornaments
her customers had bought her over the years. She’d rented the
room six months ago, paying a thousand baht for the year’s
lease. Before that she’d lived with three other girls in a damp
room over the Siren Bar, but every other night she’d fallen out
with the girls and sometimes they’d put things in her bed: a
live toad, a dead rat, a mirror, and, once—this was what had
finally driven her out—a small, perfectly curled human turd,
which Sukara had nearly poked with her toes as she was climbing into
bed. She’d hurried downstairs to Fat Cheng, the Chinese owner
of the bar, and yelled at him in pain and frustration.
    Fat Cheng had heard her out, then said in English,
"You good girl, little Monkey. I tell other girls they no good.
Any more, they go." He shook his head. "First this, then
that."
    "Other girls, they no like little Monkey! It
no good you just tell them. I go, find own place!"
    And she’d taken her belongings and tramped
the streets for two days before she found a room for rent on the
other side of the city. Its size, when she had finally dragged all
her possessions up the five flights of stairs, had almost made her
weep. But she’d made shelves and stacked things on top of other
things and covered the walls with graphics of alien worlds, and in a
couple of days the room was comfortable and cosy and somewhere she
could call home.
    No more bitchiness from the other girls, no more
unpleasant things in her bed, no whispers from the other side of the
room when she undressed and they saw the strange, sucker-shaped
markings on her torso.
    Not that this room was a palace. The electricity
stopped just when she needed it, and the noise from the traffic in
the street below at dusk and dawn was deafening, and it took her two
hours to get across the city to the Siren Bar, and that was
travelling on the metro. But it was her own place she could come back
to in the morning after a hard night, and fall asleep watching films
on the vid-screen.
    All in all, for a working girl just turned
twenty-two, she had done well for herself.
    She pulled a basin of water from under the bunk
and splashed her face, took off her T-shirt, and washed beneath her
arms. She turned on the vid and listened to the news while she dried
her legs and feet—just to get the grime off her body. She’d
get a proper shower when she got to work.
    The news report turned to politics and she turned
off the screen. A politician’s fat face was replaced by her own
reflection, and she turned her head away and closed her eyes,
gasping. There were no mirrors in her room. She had thrown out her
mirror three years ago, after the madman had attacked her with a
knife. He had shouted he wanted to cut her open from the top of her
head right down to her crotch, like a mango, but he had only got part
of the way. She had been so close to being dead. She wondered if her
picture would have been on the vid-news. "Working girl
Sukarapatam sliced from top to bottom like a ripe fruit!"
    Fat Cheng had been good about it. He’d had
her rushed to a people’s hospital, and had paid half the
bills—the other half he’d taken from Sukara’s
wages. He’d even come to see her in the hospital. He’d
grabbed her chin, turning her face this way and that. "Damage
goods, little Monkey. Who pay for you now? Always in trouble, this
and that."
    "You pay top surgeon, he mend face. Make
beautiful."
    And Fat Cheng had roared with laughter.
"Beautiful! Wise man says, ‘Can’t turn frog into
songbird.’ You too dark, have monkey face, little Monkey. Now
you scarred good."
    "You throw me out, Fat Cheng?"
    He’d turned her head painfully, right and
left, scowling. "You do, little Monkey. Some men, they