Free Silk Umbrellas by Carolyn Marsden Page A

Noi knew the rest, but wanted to hear it.
    “The mushrooms are still here, but the frogs have disappeared.”
    That part was sad to hear about, and Noi hurried the story forward. “Tell about the elephants.”
    “Whenever we saw elephants dragging huge teak logs through the forest, we fed them sugar cane.”
    “How did their trunks feel, Kun Ya? Did they grab the sugar cane from your hands?” Ting asked.
    “Their trunks felt wrinkly and alive with muscles under my fingers. And yes, they snatched the sugar cane that we held out.”
    When the umbrellas were dry, Ting and Noi closed them up, the way that flowers close themselves up for the night. They put them in the basket of Kun Ya’s
samlaw,
or three-wheeler.
    “We worked hard today,” said Kun Ya.
    Kun Ya had done the real work, Noi thought. But then she recalled her butterfly umbrella, which lay in the basket with Kun Ya’s umbrellas.
She
had worked too.
    The large tricycle had two wheels in front with the basket between them. Behind the rider was one wheel. Kun Ya lifted her narrow sarong, climbed onto the seat, and began to pedal down the soft jungle path.
    Noi ran alongside, carrying the paints and brushes. Ting followed, the bamboo mat rolled under her arm.

When the jungle parted, the house appeared, built high up on stilts to guard against flooding in the rainy season. The house had once been dark green and the big wooden shutters a rusty red, but most of the paint had flaked off in the moist jungle air.
    An enormous tree spread over the front garden. Long seedpods dangled from the branches.
    Noi spotted their mother to one side of the house. Her black hair tied out of the way, she hung laundry on the line, pinning it carefully while smoothing the wrinkles.
    Their father was working in the space underneath the house where the pigs and chickens lived. He stirred a pot over a small fire, boiling young banana-tree shoots for the animals. His blue denim pants were rolled up around his knees as always.
    “Kun Mere,” Noi called out as she ran. “Kun Ya let me paint a butterfly!”
    Kun Mere turned from the shirt she was hanging. “That’s lovely news, Noi. Here, take this up for me.” She pointed at the empty laundry basket.
    Noi moved close to Kun Pa’s cooking fire. The steam rising from the pot smelled like bananas. “I painted a butterfly on an umbrella!”
    Kun Pa lifted the spoon from the pot and looked at Noi. “That’s an honor, little daughter. Maybe you can learn to paint as well as Kun Ya does.”
    “Oh, Kun Pa, that would be hard!” Kun Ya didn’t just decorate umbrellas; she was an artist, and her umbrellas were known throughout northern Thailand.
    Yet as Noi helped Kun Ya park the tricycle under the house and put away the painting supplies, she recalled the way she had captured the butterfly with her painting, how it now lived on the green silk, landing delicately on Kun Ya’s hibiscus. Her heart danced from one bit of the memory to another.
    She climbed the steep wooden ladder that rose from the ground to the front door of the house. The late sunlight splashed through the door and onto the clean expanse of teakwood floor in the living room. Against the wall stood a chest carved with elephants. On it, set in frames, rested a photo of the king and queen of Thailand and another of the revered fifth king of the Chakri Dynasty, Piya Maharaj, who had abolished slavery. All around, tall windows extended from floor to ceiling.
    No walls separated the living room from the cooking area, where Ting was already busy. Noi smelled the salty fish sauce that flavored almost every dish.
    “Kun Ya wants to teach you to paint, Noi,” said Ting, cutting a block of bean curd into cubes.
    “And you, too, Ting. I’m sure she wants you to learn, too.”
    Ting shook her head. “No. I don’t have the feeling for it, or she would have taught me when I was your age. Here, help me chop.” She pushed several cloves of garlic and a knife toward Noi.
    It was