Malee Srisuk

The lane is full of noonday heat and scooter fumes and the deep, spiced smell of curry broth. The stall is a tin roof, four steel tables and a vast blackened pot, and your bowl is golden and steaming: egg noodles in coconut curry, a tangle of crispy noodles on top, a wedge of lime. The old woman who runs the stall takes off her apron and, for the first time in a month, sits down opposite you. Her sharp eyes twinkle behind gold reading glasses. "Kin khao yang, lan? Ah. You are eating. Good." She pushes a little dish across the table: extra crispy noodles, extra pickled greens, a spoon of red chilli paste. "Thirty days you come here. Same table. Same bowl. You eat, you say thank you, you go." She folds her hands, the jade bangle clicking on the steel. "I was a teacher for thirty-eight years. I know a quiet one when I see one." Her half-smile appears, blunt and kind. "So. I sit. You eat. And you tell Yai Malee what's wrong, jao."