Talk eighteen.
Bangkok, 14th December
- We really liked a lot of things in Myanmar but coming back to Bangkok meant coming back to much comfortable life.
- We could talk about Myanmar for hours. We’ve met fascinating people, we’ve seen many extraordinary things. But there’re two problems which make a stay in the country a real nuisance.
- Basically, there’s no Internet, which one can do with- out, but the lack of cash machines and any possibilities of paying with credit cards, make it all very complicated.
- I was really tired having to think all the time how much cash I had on me, how many dollars I had left to be exchanged to kyats. Moreover, those dollars bills had to be brand new without any crease or folding, produced after 2006!
- Hundred dollars bills are highly appreciated.
- In the States, however, they are not preferred as they might be false.
- So many countries, so many customs, one can say.
- We’ve relaxed in Bangkok after an intensive tour in Myanmar, and now it’s time to set out for the following trip.
- Before we go on, let’s worthily take a good-bye with Bangkok, the city where we feel at home.
- Our Asian home.
- We can’t leave Bangkok without visiting the Balcony.
- Before that we had to see a neighbourhood named after its main street - Khao San. On our way there we went along the avenue where annual parades celebrating King’s Rama IX birthdays, every 5th December take place. The avenue was illuminated making it look Christmas time. This year the king asked not to celebrate his birthday since there was so much poverty in the country after the tragic flood. The Thai have a good reason to love his ruler – a great democrat. But it’s not he who rules the country.
- Practically, we hadn’t known anything about the neighbourhood. My surprise was complete. It’s where young people from all over the world gather. They are not tourists with money, so they found their paradise just there. The area is often called “The backpackers country.”.
- Guesthouses are from 40 zl, good food from 5zl. Fried crickets, other grasshoppers or insects 2 zl for a 100 g.
- Finally, what is most important – cheap alcohol and water pipes. You don’t have to suffer drinking from glasses. You can now drink from buckets!
- From plastic buckets. Like the ones we keep fermented cucumbers in.
- The alcohol strength of such a drink is made to order.
- As it usually happens to young tourists, they don’t always behave well (whatever it means) and in the end you can hear international noise, drunken yelling, and you can see unsteadiness in some individuals’ feet. Up to now we haven’t seen a drunken Thai in the streets, though.
- Everything is very colourful there and carries an atmosphere of easiness. Not only of conduct.
We, too, submitted to the atmosphere saying good-bye to Bangkok with buckets of mojito and margarita.
- We begged Seth to drink up to his abilities, so he was drinking from glasses.
- He wasn't with us when that good-looking waiter – Ying - from the Balcony left a note on our table for you. It said in clumsy English: “Not know. You like me? I like you. Finish work 2 at night. Wait for your call. My number…”
- Was I supposed to call him?
- Not know. You do what want.
- I want nothing. However, it’s always nice to find out that someone likes you.
- When someone likes me. Not you.
- I hope it wasn’t for money.
- One should always hope. From the stories of the others’ we know that not everybody there is for sale. Some would like to meet a man of their life.
- Did you meet your man in the Galery?
- Easy, easy. We are talking now about the year 1993! First, there was an important change in my life. My coming back home from Sweden I’d already described in Taming the West, as well as the foundation of my private school - Foreign Language Centre PROGRESS. I was working intensly from morning till evening. At the same time I was a leader of a Swedish sponsoured project retraining teachers of Russian into teachers of English who were badly needed in the Polish educational system. The project was very successful. It became popular in the local media. Against my will I became a short lasted Szczecin celebrity. There was a lot of noise around me in the so called English environment in town. I mean the academic environment. To make things clear, so that you have no doubt about it: I didn’t exist in the gay environment in Szczecin then.
- Did it all have anything to do with your private life?
- A lot. I must’ve neglected my relationship with Andrzej. I must’ve missed the moment in which alcohol became for him the only and indispensable way to survive a day. Coming back home in the evening, meant great uncertainty for me in what state I would find Andrzej. Stimulated by alcohol he would see in me the whole evil of the world. But above all, he would see me killing his personality and overwhelming him with my „expansion for life”, as he would put it.
- Why didn’t you split earlier?
- After fifteen years of the relationship I considered myself bound to the obligations as to those in a regular marriage. I didn’t think I could leave him. I didn’t want it, either. I loved him. We were a family. Unfortunately, hostility towards me was growing in him, regardless how much he would love me.
- How was that possible?
- He couldn’t cope with that love, because I must’ve failed his expectations.
- What expectations?
- Being with him on his conditions. Being with him exclusively. Being with him without all that noise from the outside world. Being with him on conditions which he himself wasn’t able to univocally establish.
- He wouldn’t accept your conditions?
- No, he wouldn’t. He wasn’t able to accept the hardship of everyday life. He wasn’t programmed to the joy of life. His programme were melancholy and sadness. He was the best human being I’ve ever met in my life. He loved me immensely. The power of the love defeated him. He hated me for my enthusiasm in life. The smallest life challenge was above the strength of his nervous system.
- And that’s why the drinking, right?
- An inclination to drinking had been always in him. Then vodka became a remedy for any daily problem. My attempts for any change were futile. His love for me lost against the addiction. My love for him wasn’t weak but my physical fatigue caused by my long-hour work day and my psychical situation after the death of my parents (all the described events happened within five months) caused a growing tension between me and Andrzej.
- How did it come to parting?
- It was a traumatic experience for both of us. He would deafen down his trauma with alcohol, but mine sat in me for many months and its consequences for many years.
- Who decided about…?
- There wasn’t anybody’s decision. It was a cry of despair to which I wasn’t able to respond. Unexpectedly, some evening when, as usual, I found him at home in his state of alcoholic aggression, I decided not to stay there for the night. He said that he was just about to tell me to go away from his life for good. And NEVER come back.
- Did you go away?
- It was not that easy. During most of that night I was trying to break through the alcohol and tell him that it wasn’t the best moment for such solutions. He didn’t change his mind despite my repeating the question whether he was aware of the consequences of such a decision. To no avail. Repeatedly, I’d ask him whether he understood the word NEVER. Whether he knew me well enough to understand what the word meant for me. Repeatedly, I’d tell him that if he threw me out telling me I should NEVER come back, it would be so. No appeal. I said I’d come the following day for his final sentence.
- Did you go?
- Of course. With a hope that the shock after our night conversation would change something in him. It didn’t. He was calmer, didn’t seem to be besotted by alcohol. He repeated what we had been talking about the night before and confirmed he understood the word NEVER.
- And it was „your” end?
- We must stop here now, as I’ve got a headache. Those memories don’t leave me in a good mood. If you wish we might come back to this later on.
