The girl was about 13 when she died, and the baby about a year old.  The girl was wearing iron bands on her ankles and the infant had solid gold bracelets, so archeologists have deduced that she was not a relative but a slave, and most likely the baby’s nanny.  I have always wondered about what kind of devotion drove the chattel to sacrifice her last mortal moments in a futile effort to save her oppressor.
 

In the months to come, that devotion may become more apparent.  When my wife and I drove home from Ranong to Phuket last month, the car was sagging dangerously close to the pavement from the weight of two more passengers than it had carried on the way up.  Besides the original three passengers: myself, Mem and our son Andy, there was our new daughter Mandy, whose three kilograms probably had more effect on our little car’s cheap suspension than you might imagine, and Pui, a 13-year-old girl from a poor family who live on a farm next to Mem’s daddy’s plantation.

Pui was brought to the hospital the day before Mem checked out, dressed in a Harley Davidson T-shirt and carrying her one other outfit, plus a comb, toothbrush and three old comic books in a paper shopping bag.  Mem had whined to her family for a week that you just can’t find good help these days on Phuket, so the family decided that we needed help too young to complain, too young to steal and possibly a little too Burmese to run away.

Of course I immediately put my foot down.  “There’s no way we’re taking a 13-year-old girl into our house,” I said politely but firmly.

“It’s too late,” Mem answered.  “We’ve already given her family 1,000 baht and given my father 1,500 baht for finding her.”

When Mem checked into the hospital, she put all of her jewelry and money into my computer bag, and despite the fact that all of her gold made the bag so heavy that I had to avoid wooden floors, I carried that boat anchor around on my shoulder for the whole two weeks we were in Ranong.  Mem could not yet get out of bed unassisted; how she managed to sneak the money out of my bag and into her father’s fist was beyond me.  And I thought the finder’s fee a little high.  Mem’s Daddy is the palad amphur (deputy district chief) in Ranong; by rights 1,500 baht should have bought me the motorcycle taxi concession outside the post office.

And how much are we going to pay Pui?” I asked.

“Pay her?” answered my wife.  “She’s too young to work for money.  We can’t pay her; that would be illegal.  We’ll feed her and give her a place to sleep; if she’s good with the children, I’ll give her some of my old clothes.”