Chapter 9 : The Mountaineer Heart

The old motorbike, which had been in use for many years, was parked under a big tree in front of Tian's dormitory. Phupha dragged it out and stepped onto it and started the engine expertly. When he saw that the people who wanted to go out were still not on board, he slapped the back seat and urged Tian to get on.

"Come on up, what are you doing?"

Tian had a disgusted look on his face, the tall officer alone is taking up all the space on the bike and he's adding himself to it. I hope you don't have to squeeze from the front, I'm sure I'll fall off the back seat onto the floor.

"Will I make it to the marketplace alive?" he mumbled but it didn't escape Phupha's ears.

"Don't complain, there are no limousines for you in these mountains.... So, get on or go home!"

"Getting on, yes!"

Tian really can't imagine what Phupha's future wife will be like, so vicious, what kind of woman would like him. Tian suspected that he would have to marry a conscript from his own army, Tian cursed in his mind and then reluctantly lifted his feet onto the back of the motorbike.

Phupha deliberately twists the throttle, causing the car to lurch forward, Tian, sitting in the back seat, is shocked when he doesn't react, he cried out and quickly ducks his head around Phupha's waist, he doesn't know if he hears himself but he vaguely heard laughter coming from the wind.

Tian felt humiliated, so he angrily lifted his ten fingers against Phupha's hard muscles, in retaliation.

"Ouch--" the Captain Phupha frowned, as he spilled a hand from the handlebars to deal with the man squeezing his abdomen. The two of them kept their palms entwined until the bike nearly went into the overgrown grass several times, which made Phupha yell thunderous again.

"Don't know what you're playing at, would love to be the Ghost in the Woods, wouldn't you? I can give you a hand!"

Tian bristled, then stretched his head and shouted into the ear of the man sitting in front of him, "Are you scared, Captain!"

Phupha sighed heavily until the air in his lungs was almost exhausted. If the young master really stayed here for the full three months, he might lose twenty or thirty years of his life.

"Don't move!" Phupha commanded in a steady voice, while locking his other hand around the other's slender two hands on his stomach.

The rough road ahead exhausted Tian, Phupha's fine, dark brown hair and the broad back he leans on and the heat that surrounds Phupha makes Tian feel inexplicably warm and secure.

Tian's long, thin eyes look out over the lush green landscape, his eyes follow the speed of the motorbike.

The fields of winter flowers in a remote area stretch on endlessly, planted in terraces on complex hills, staggered and beautiful, as if they were a priceless painting. As the villagers work in the fields, they hear the familiar sound of an engine accelerating and then they all look up and wave to the tall officer.

Tian's beautiful thin lips smile gently, when thinking of a line from Torfan's teacher's diary, "We are not relatives, we are considered one family."

The land of happiness is everywhere, whether we are part of it or not. The two-lane asphalt trunk road that links many areas together, contains the wishes of His Majesty the King, who wanted the tribes far from prosperity to be self-sufficient. So, His Majesty initiated the "Royal Project", by setting up a Royal Agricultural Station to experiment with various types of winter crops and sent experts to pass on the knowledge to the hill tribes, teaching them to grow cash crops for a living, rather than drug plants.

And directing government agencies to take a sustained interest in supporting this.

Ahead is a crossroads, there is a wooden sign with "Kad Huai Nam Yen." in white and an arrow as a signpost. After driving the motorbike around the corner for about three kilometres, you finally reach your destination.

This market is similar to the flea markets that are common in other provinces, there are proper table top shops and shops with plastic sheeting and stalls. A slight novelty is that there are various tribal hill people carrying baskets of fresh vegetables and fruit on their backs, selling them on foot.

Tian was walking with Captain Phupha, when he saw a tall, familiar figure waving at them from a distance, Tian immediately stopped in his tracks. Wearing a dark green uniform, his shirt collar adorned with a three-star logo, Captain Xiao Shui jumped out of a government jeep he had been using for his morning work in downtown Chiangrai.

Tian looks askance at the man next to him, you have an appointment with Dr.Nam, why did you bring me here?"

Phupha's eyes meet Tian's, shining like a fierce tiger and he retorts helplessly.

"I didn't invite him, he came with me, I was going to bring you here today."

"What's wrong with my ears? Tian deliberately dug his ears in, looking totally unconvinced "A man like you, who wants to invite me."

"Yes, you should buy something easy to cook for yourself, instead of just waiting to live off the lunchboxes from Bianglae's." This answer made the good feelings that arose disappear quickly along with the air.

"I don't know how to cook."

"If you don't know how to do it, try to do it, there's nothing to do but wait for people to come and serve--" Captain Phupha shut his mouth in time and changed the subject "Keep doing it, soon you'll get used to it yourself "

Dr Wasan came over with a smile on his face and greeted the two dark-faced men arguing in the distance." What? Are you going to cook together? Tonight? I'm free, I'll be waiting to taste your work."

"No...", before he could say anything else Tian was strangled by a large arm, then Phupha reached out and clamped her hand firmly over Tian's mouth "We're going to Teacher Tian's house for dinner." Phupha emphasized, while dragging the struggling man into the marketplace, leaving the young water doctor alone with a surprised raised eyebrow, it looked as if the two were more intimate than expected Finally, Tian finally broke free from the strong arm around him, he gave Phupha a look of hatred and said, "Are you crazy? I can boil an egg and it still cracks, let alone cook. Do you want me to starve to death in here?!"

"You'll do it today." The captain grabbed Tian's slender wrist to keep it from slipping away and pulled him along with him, not caring about the shouting.

Bottles of fish sauce, vegetable oil and bags of salt and sugar are taken out of the back of the small pick-up truck with the roof, which has been converted into a small grocery shop. Phupha points his hand at the dishes and forks and spoons and asks the seller to fill up two or three packets.

Tian taps his flattened wallet, thinking, do the shops in this area accept credit card payments? The lady vendor tells him that the price of the goods is higher than in town, because it includes the cost of fuel for the car. As soon as Tian saw Captain Phupha paying with his money, he shouted.

"Hey! You, you don't have to pay, I'll pay myself." If he had heard the next words of the tall officer, he would have shut up.

"You still have to ask your parents for money, just take what the adults give you." Tian shrugged unconcernedly, he wanted to buy himself something so he was welcome but three seconds later he was on fire again.

"What do adults do when they give things away?" asked Phupha in a low voice.

"Then I'll pay for it myself." Tian dug into his wallet and took out five hundred notes. "It's just a soft bow, is it really that hard?"

It wasn't just Tian who was suddenly confused, even those who had known Phupha for a long time, like Dr Wasan, had to be stunned. His friend was usually the stern, high-strung type, even the standard manly type who didn't care about such trivialities. Wasan's sharp eyes jumped up contemplatively, quietly trying to piece together some plot in his brilliant mind.

Tian clasped and unclasped and clasped his two hands for a few moments, then made up his mind to give in and made a pleading salute, "Are you satisfied? Captain!" he asked aloud, forcibly.

Phupha smiled slightly at the corners of his mouth, handed out the plastic bags to Tian, then grabbed Tian's hand in his hand, forcing him to continue. They stopped to buy a variety of rice to keep for a long time, eggs, both fresh and salted and dried salted meat. This time, Dr Nam was not to be outdone and rushed to pay for them, because he too wanted to get some of Nong Tian's hokey-pokey cooking.

"You can buy that too." said Tian, pointing to the various flavours of instant noodles.

"If you eat only food with lots of MSG, you'll soon get brain shrinkage."

"Hey, you probably don't want me to eat. Every meal is served with eggs and rice."

"Buy vegetables and cook them first today. Later we'll go and get some vegetables from the vegetable patch in the village headman's back room in Bianglae to stir-fry and cook."

"Captain Phupha, seriously, are you not an officer of the Ministry of Health? Huh!? Hey, he's really pissed off."

Neither here nor there, my father or my brother? Neither, Dr. Nam, who was watching the show, rushed over to stop their argument." I believe that a doctor like me, even if Mr. Tian ate ten packs of instant noodles right now, would still have a brain problem."

"Okay then--" finally Phupha agreed to buy two packs of pork-filled instant noodles. But as soon as he handed them to Tian, Tian's face looked even more tense than before, a look of dissatisfaction, a frown on his face, how unpleasant, oh!

"What's wrong again?"

"Nothing. Tian replied briefly, whatever the water doctor said, the big guy believed it, it was annoying "Have you bought everything? I'd like to go back."

As soon as Dr Wasan saw Phupha nod, he grabbed the bag in Tian's hand and brought it over." Then Nong Tian and I will go back together, so you can sit comfortably without having to squeeze in with the tall guy."

Tian quickly agreed, for fear of embarrassing the two of them later and fled, leaving Phupha to ride his motorbike back up the hill by himself. Phupha looks on with a bitter face as the young master is busy taking Dr. Nam by the arm and pulling him away.

We came together, why not go back together?

Although Dr Wasan was a man of good humour, Tian felt oppressed by the fact that the two of them were sitting so close together in the private car, because he wasn't sure if the relationship could be more than a friendship between the two? And the driver hummed happily along with the radio broadcast that was turned on.

"By the way, I haven't asked you. How many days has Nong Tian been here, has he had any difficulties?"

"Nothing, it's going well."

Dr Wasan slapped his knee, as if thinking of something, "That's right! Captain Phupha has taken such personal care of you, ordering water to be fetched into the watering can and bringing you here to buy things. Usually he doesn't care about the other male teachers, he leaves them to their own devices until they can't take the pain and run away and pack up and go home."

Tian turned to look at the bright face of the man next to him and whispered: "Phii Phupha and you seem to be very close."

"Hey! It's not surprising that we are close. We've known each other since we first came out of the military training and as soon as he moved to the border, I came along, afraid he wouldn't have any drinking friends to keep him company." Wasan laughed and asked subtly, "By the way, do you, did you know Phupha before? I remember the night you arrived, we were boxing and as soon as a call came into the camp, he rushed out on his motorbike."

Tian got goosebumps, his premonitions and thoughts were jumbled together in his mind. If his family in Bangkok really knew where he was, why wouldn't they let him go back?

"Do you know where that call came from?"

"Phupha called the person on the phone, but as far as I know, his father has been dead for a long time."

Tian smiled awkwardly, he was really scared that the father one the phone was his father. "I didn't know Phupha before, just heard about him from a sister I knew."

Wasan frowned, looking suspicious and asked, "Who is it?"

"Torfan...", the name that came out of Tian's mouth silenced the atmosphere in the car.

"What! Ms. Torfan.... I heard she passed away, Phupha and I hadn't had time to attend the prayers for her, when we saw the news from the Foundation that her relatives had hastily cremated her."

Tian, who claimed to be an acquaintance of the female teacher, nodded, "Yes, her relatives are not well." He remembers the encounter with the older woman, what a mind explosion that was.

"Hey! Don't tell me, you've come with Mr Torfan as a volunteer teacher." Dr Wasan teased Tian, if she was still here, it would be called a 'love triangle', you'd be crying."

Either way, it's a love triangle between the doctor, Mr Torfan and Captain Phupha, Tian wants to shout at each other.

"It's definitely not me!"

Wasan glanced at Tian's handsome face, white skin, high nose and diamond-shaped lips and smiled wickedly, as if he had understood something very important.

"Don't worry, someone like Ms Torfan is not Phupha's type."

"That would have to be Dr. Nam's goal?" Tian almost wanted to punch himself in the mouth, for saying what was on his mind, which made Dr. Nam's eyes widen in horror. Then after about 5 seconds, he suddenly burst out laughing.

Tian vaguely hears the laughter saying something and calms himself down before doing anything.

Dr Wasan laughed brazenly and said "In that case, Nong Tian you should ask Captain Phupha yourself.

"I don't want to know about that!"

"OK, OK, don't want to know, don't want to know, let's change the subject." Wasan rushed into other topics, for fear of really pissing Tian off and later jumping on his neck and making an ugly corpse out of him.

The jeep was parked in front of the narrow path where Yod had stopped to drop Tian off. Dr. Nam helped carry the bags of stuff from the market to the dormitory, then he said he had to go to the base of operations to change into civilian clothes and hurried back.

Tian sat on the stairs below the house waiting for Captain Phupha, looking at the downed cooking utensils and thinking in frustration that he would have to eat instant noodles for every meal.

After the roar of the engine starts in the distance, the motorbike appears. Phupha got off the motorbike and walked towards Tian with a bag in her hand, the bag was probably bought later.

"What is it?" Phupha frowned as she met the sharp gaze on her.

"Just wanted to look, is that a problem?" Tian asked in a sullen voice, overbearingly.

Phupha shook his head and muttered softly: looking for trouble, he pretended to be indifferent, put the bag aside and dragged the charcoal stove out, when it was finished, he beckoned Tian to come closer to "See how to light the fire, so you can boil water for your bath later."

At the mention of hot water, Tian sprang to his feet, he was not angry at being asked to carry something and hurried to find it.

The equipment that must now be used is ready. He picked up the items and placed them in the cooker as instructed, then the officer picked up an antique torch made from a mixture of oil, rubber tree and bark of the salmon-tree, wrapped in betel bracts and lit the end of the stick with a lighter.

Phupha saw the fire burning and asked Tian, who is standing there to help find something to make the fire more intense. The crimson flames intensified, turning the wood to white ash. Tian's eyes widened with excitement, when he entered the scout camp, the school also made them use gas stoves for picnics, no one in town used such antiques.

"Have you ever cooked rice in a polished pot?" Phupha asked. But the answer came quickly, Tian shook his head. Phupha let out a long sigh and ordered "Go and fetch water."

Tian took a plastic bucket to the earthen pot in the backyard to fetch water, then Phupha, who was not supposed to be cooking, began to teach the rice how to wash it, so as to wash away any adulterated impurities.

Phupha showed Tian, who is standing by, how to do it, he puts the rice he bought into an aluminium pot, pours in the water, then stirs it gently with his hands for two or three weeks, then pours out the cloudy water, he repeats this several times until the water starts to clear, he slowly adds more water until the pot is about full, then puts the lid on, Then he took the pot up and put it on the hot charcoal stove.

"Why is it called a polished pot for cooking rice? Then cook it like this, doesn't it turn out? Tian asked in all sincerity.

Phupha went and picked up the bamboo split in half about two feet long and just leaned against the pot and showed it, "It's called polished wood. When cooking rice, we insert it into the lid and ears of the pot, leave it there so it doesn't fall and pour the water completely out of the pot before the grains are soft and the porridge is cooked."

After fifteen minutes, he tried to get Tian to open the lid and then used a small spatula to pick up the rice and look at it. If the grain is white and transparent but not hard, it is cooked. Captain Phupha demonstrated how to use the wooden pot again, he inserted the wood into the lid and slowly lifted it up, pouring out the boiling water.

As the lid opened, hot steam rose, revealing the delicious rice. Tian smiled smugly, proud of himself for doing this.

It wasn't that hard."

Phupha snorted at his words, "Leave it to me, you don't even have a fire going and then you start blabbering."

"Look down on me."

"Better than looking at the wrong person! Ready to continue cooking, the doctor will be here soon."

"The first sentence is fine but the last sentence is really fucked up, Tim almost wants to smash his head in with a heavy bag of rice.

Doctor on the lips, Doctor off the lips, Torfan, so kind and so sweet, can't get what she wants in love, because she has eyes to see that she can't get into Gay's heart no matter what!

"You bought too little candy!"

Phupha turned to the separate bags of sugar, then looked at the speaker with a black question mark on her face, Tian smiled coolly and said, "I thought you were going to make fried vegetables and sweet curry with winter melon soup."

"What a mess, you can bring the pot to the fire now, Mr. Crayon." Phupha raised her hand and in a low voice she ordered loudly with disgust.

Fearing a war in the kitchen, Dr Wasan arrived at the teacher's house within half an hour. He arrived quickly on a motorbike in a polo-necked T-shirt and trousers but the scene looked more like a couple in a fight.

Wasan laughs wryly and scratches the back of his head helplessly with his hand, wondering whether to interrupt them now or to go and greet the people in the village first.

"I'm not here at the right time, Wasan muttered to himself.

But unfortunately, Captain Phupha saw him as he turned to get his plate and Phupha shouted, "Dr. Death, come and sit down!"

Wasan heard the call and had to go in, when he got in there he saw a wooden rack with a rice pot, blackened fried cabbage, winter melon soup and a burnt fried egg that his good buddy had just brought in to put down, Wasan even sweated at the sight of it... "It all looks so good."

Phupha glanced at Wasan who is clearly being sarcastic, "Just in time for you to yell about coming to try Nong Tian's see how it goes."

"La! If I die, don't regret it later." Wasan stared into the sharp eyes that were dodging to the other side.

Tian looked at them both in confusion, not understanding what they were arguing back and forth about. He looked down at the dishes on his plate, his own cooking didn't look very good, he shrugged his shoulders calmly, there was nothing he could do, he really didn't know how to cook, it was good enough to be shaped like this.

"Are you hungry, Dr ?"

"Yes, let's start eating." Wasan turned to Tian and hurriedly helped to put the food on the plate, not noticing his taller friend standing there emitting low pressure.

The rice in the pot is a little hard but still hot enough to eat. Masan starts to fork the fried cabbage into his mouth but then chokes and coughs. He tried to smile at the expectant new chef, "Arrrgh. it's okay, Nong Tian. but I think it's a bit too salty, I wonder if you accidentally put a bottle of fish sauce in it?"

"Not accidentally, I dumped the whole bottle on purpose."

Phupha's voice got in the middle of things and then moved the freshly made omelette plate to his friend. "Until it's full, I'll stop it in time."

What a love for each other Tian looked at the faces of the two officers and giggled.

"I'm just afraid you'll get diabetes.

Wasan laughed loudly: "I can't choose between diabetes and kidney disease, brother.

"The cook must also be responsible for eating all these stir-fries." Phupha turned around and looked at Tian with resentment.

"Fine!" Sarcastically, Tian picked up the stir-fried cabbage and chewed it immediately. The taste of fish sauce and saltiness permeates the entire mouth, making it difficult to swallow. Phupha saw the arrogant boy's contorted face and let out a long, dark breath.

His sentence collides with another one before Tian resists the urge to eat the rest of the vegetables. Tian's slender eyes watched as Captain Phupha swept the raindrops of fried cabbage onto his own plate, eating it with an expression of stoicism over a batch of rice and then remained silent, watching Dr Wasan even whistled.

Nice guy, man, friend! thin lips open, wanting to say something but shutting his mouth tight. Tian ducked his head, felt his cheeks heat up and then his first meal overflowed with a pale pink embarrassment, the happy-go-lucky doctor is trying to make him laugh but is still nervous.

As the invited guests help themselves to the dishes and place them in the zinc tray, they say goodbye and go back.

Tian went out and stood in front of the hut and saw that both motorbikes had disappeared, he suddenly felt empty inside, as if someone had lifted the whole mountain out of his heart.

Tian lights the charcoal stove, still feeling unbelievable. The fire was soon started, after adding the burning material and filling the pot with water. Then he went back up the stairs to the hut, in order to prepare his clothes and toiletries. Suddenly he saw a plastic bag on the doorstep.

Tian quickly grabbed it and opened it, for fear that the violent captain might deliberately throw a bomb but as Tian took it out, he suddenly paused.

It was a new, clean, white mosquito net.

Tian slowly looked down at his wrist and saw the red bumps of the mosquito bites and suddenly, warmth flooded his chest until his heart trembled.

Tian hugged himself and sat down in a crouch, rubbing his face back and forth with his hands, as if he didn't know how to deal with this sensitive emotion.

It's 7.45am, he was groggy in the morning but so happy to be bathing in his own hot water, that he has completely lost track of time. Tian ran halfway up the hill to the school on the cliff to prevent being late for teaching the next day and then the students were already lined up for the flag-raising. He counts the students by eye and thinks at least five are not there.

He knew there was something wrong with his teaching, the parents might think the new teacher was bad, so it was possible that they wouldn't let their children come to school. Tian smiled back and greeted them, even though he was feeling very uncomfortable.

He looked around and saw two scouts walking in a circle patrolling the same place but they seemed different from the two from yesterday.

As the hands of the large round clock hanging on the classroom wall point to 8am, two student representatives stand in front of the flagpole.

There is no music, no orchestra, just the natural melody of the wind blowing through the leaves, something that not everyone has the opportunity to hear.

Tian stood beside a flagpole made of bamboo poles, looking out over the children of the remote area, who were singing the Thai national anthem in unison. But he stood motionless, swallowing the slimy saliva in his throat, his lips slightly parted and only a heavy breathing sound came out.

I don't know when modern values have taught the children of the country to be ashamed to show respect for their country but no one here is ashamed. Suddenly, the low voice of the man who had been standing in line to salute the flag joined the voices of his pupils. The old white flag was raised by a rusty pulley to the top, flying over the country's borders.

At this moment he could not describe how he felt after singing the national anthem. But he knew he had been released from his chains, so much so that he wanted to laugh. Tian immediately took a deep breath, as if he had made a decision and stepped closer to the children and another step closer, before announcing in a clear voice.

"From today onwards, I want you to call the teacher "Phii Tian".

Tian looked around at the quiet Akha children, who were staring at him with confused faces and was distracted.

"Phii means sibling, do you understand this word?"

"Why is a teacher not a teacher?"

Mize and her brother weren't here today but a friend who was also curious about what was going on asked.

Because the teacher lacks qualifications, he wasn't prepared to teach, he doesn't know how to approach children, the more he hears someone call him a teacher, the more it seems to emphasise his incompetence, a bluff after all and indeed because of his own prejudices.

Tian smiled awkwardly and said subtly: "The teacher wants to treat you all like brothers and sisters, may I be your brother, please?"

The boy craned his neck, confused again but finally nodded his head.

"Yes (Ka Krub), Phii Crayon."

Tian, who has asked to be demoted from teacher to brother, took a deep breath and led the student into the classroom.

He took the time to open the old exercise books he had asked the children to bring in yesterday and discovered that the previous teacher had focused mainly on Thai spelling and taught them English, only A to Z.

Tian lay awake for most of the night thinking and finally figured it out at 2am. Even though he couldn't teach like a real teacher, he would try to teach in his own way, as best he could, starting with the subjects he was good at.

Tian turned his back and wrote Arabic numbers in chalk until the words were marked in Thai and then asked the question in return.

"Can you read these numbers to your brother?"

Even if they made some errors in the reading but this showed him that the children had some basic knowledge, so he tried to write some simple addition and subtraction problems for them to try to solve and the results showed that almost all of them were wrong.

They could read it but didn't know how to calculate it.

Tian scratched the back of his head and after a while thought of a solution and called the group together. He sat cross-legged at the podium, then raised his hands.

"Both hands add up to ten fingers." He then counts all the way from 1 to 10 and holds his hand up with only one index finger.

"This one finger--" he said and then held out the index finger of his other hand and put it together "plus one more finger?"

When the hill tribe children saw the two index fingers, they jumped to answer "Two!"

Now Tian tried to hold out the same three fingers of his right hand and two fingers of his left hand together and continued to ask.

"What does that equal?"

"Five!" The children's voices become more confident, allowing him to start to relax.

"Putting them together like this is called 'plus'--" Tian points to the cross on the board and then asks a new question." If there are five fingers like this, he stretches all the fingers of his right hand out and raises them and then subtracts two.

"How many fingers are left?"

"Three!" Tian smiled happily, while trying to make it more difficult, he stretches out all ten fingers, "Now brother has ten fingers. Then bend the little finger and the ring finger, how many are left after two are missing?

was answered correctly in a much quicker time and Tian couldn't help but applaud the unexpected speed of these underprivileged children. He stood up and went back to the board and then modified the equation above to make it easier.

"All right... If you can get all these maths questions right this afternoon, I'll give you a reward."

Loud cheers went up, attracting the scouts who were out on patrol to turn and watch with interest, they saw the children start counting the big numbers on their fingers, some of them using their toes to save the day if they didn't have enough fingers, it was so much fun.

The fair skin, clean face, slender body and bright clothes, from every angle, are a far cry from the people here, they look like freaks. Although Yod and others who met the volunteer teacher had heard about him, they had not seen him in person.

The rich generation was so obvious, that they wondered what he was doing here in this remote and barren land. So much so that the army made bets with each other about how long the teachers would stay.

But all these striking features blend in with the simple atmosphere in less than three hours. The two scouts looked at each other and laughed out loud and thought they would go back and bet that the new teacher would stay for three months until the end of the term, the teaching might go well!

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