Hiding in Holes

Mama is watching the hole for red ants, chewing on a betel nut. She bends down to try and lift the upright log buried deep in the hole's centre, gripping lightly in case of ant bites. She is 67, worn to the colour of mahogany, and the log is an old buffalo yoke.

She and Papa first worked their rice fields with water buffalo forty years ago; half of their equipment is still scattered around the farm in the small Thai village of Nong Weang, waiting for harvest to begin.

Their only daughter, Nong, has five brothers; two older, two younger, and one more boy, lost to the army in his twenties. His photo is framed on the cement wall, next to the obligatory images of the Thai king and queen. Papa named his daughter after their village. Now in her thirties, Nong laughs as she remembers that he almost gave her up for dead.

“I was always sick as a baby – born, then sick. One time my daddy buried me because I wasn’t moving – then two days and my heart goes, ‘jump!’ And he feel the rhythm in the earth, and dig me up!”

We sit like mermaids on the tiled patio, toes pointing daintily away from our bodies, as Nong tidies up the last of the fragrant curries and sticky rice, waiting for her father to finish eating. Papa, sitting cross legged like all Thai men are allowed to do, chews absent-mindedly, stopping occasionally to spoon another mouthful from his bowl.

I am rearranging my aching feet when Nong begins to speak about the time the Khmer Rouge invaded Thailand. Their village, only half an hour from the Cambodian border, was first in line for attack, but Papa didn't leave when his neighbours fled, pleading with him to follow.

Instead, he dug a hole.

Nong gestures to where Mama stands, surveying the upright log. The hole is broad and deep.

"There. We were hidden in there, lying under branches."

Papa never hid in the hole. Instead, he stayed on the patio with a machete, guarding his family, his land and his livelihood against an unseen enemy, while the children lay buried in the dark, wet earth. Nong doesn't remember how long she stayed hidden.

The air is close and thick. Despite an earlier soaking in the rain, the earth still radiates heat. It is the middle of the Thai summer; almost time for the impending monsoon. My palms are clammy with sweat.

We listen to damp leaves fall loudly onto the patio's tin roof. As I watch, Mama spits, and a red stream hits a column of red ants emerging from the centre of the hole. Dead straight.