Germany, here we come!

I saw Mr Esan on the road ahead of me yesterday as I headed back to our condo.

I had actually spotted his frame from some distance away, and started taking bigger paces so I would catch up with him.

He was talking on his cordless phone to his girlfriend.

Until recently, he sat shirtless in the condo carpark most nights talking to the security guards, who are also from Esan in the Northeast.

However, this is the cool season, so he now wears a T-shirt.

I put my hand on his back and greeted him. 'Where have you been?' he asked.

'Walking.'

'Buy me something to eat?' he asked hopefully. 'Two boxes, including one for the security guard. We can go together.'

'Where?' I asked.

'I will take you.'

I had never been on an adventure with Mr Esan, whose real name is Ton.

We turned around, and he hooked my arm in his, the way couples do when out walking.

Excitedly, he told his girlfriend on the cordless phone: 'I am going out with the farang!'

Of course his girlfriend asked where. Was her man turning pink? Little chance. 'Just for something to eat.'

Ton took me to a foodcart on the other side of the market where boyfriend Maiyuu and I used to order lunch years ago.

We stopped going because we had to wait so long for orders. It was my first time back in years.

The same people were still there: a small woman who runs it, called Pee Book, and a stumpy-looking older woman whose name I cannot remember.

Stumpy has a gay son. He used to join his mother at the foodcart after he finished university, to help her run the place.

'She doesn't like the fact that her son is gay,' Maiyuu told me once.

Stumpy behaves just like a typical market trader: she is crass, noisy, insensitive.

Pee Book knows I live with Maiyuu. She also knows his gay and kathoey friends from the condo.

In years gone past, when I had a restless eye, I took a few young guys to her shop to order food. Sizing up my friends, Pee Book would always ask me if I was still with Maiyuu.

'Yes.'

She would say nothing more, silently making note of the fact that I had brought a new fling.

Pee Book was sensible enough to keep such thoughts to herself. However, Stumpy, who is anti-gay and stupid, would have to say something.

'Ha!' she would exclaim, as if she had caught me out being unfaithful.

Both women yesterday took their idle conversation with me to a new level of nosiness.

As we stood waiting for our order, Pee Book told Ton that I had been a customer for many years.

'We have known the farang for eight years or more. You can't pull one over him,' she said, looking at Ton.

'He's just offered to buy me a meal, as I have run out of money!' said Ton in his own defence.

Can't two guys order food together without these market women gossiping?

As I went to pay Stumpy, Pee Book asked me the usual:

'Are you still with Maiyuu?'

'Yes,' I said.

'Ha!' exclaimed Stumpy.

Ton felt obliged to defend himself again.

'As I said, I have no money,' he said.

'I'm not criticising,' said Stumpy.

Turning my back on the women, I chatted to Ton as we walked back to the condo.

'I learn German at home every day. My stepfather is German, and my sister and I are moving with him to Germany in six months,' he said.

'How's the German?' I asked.

'Hard.'

'Talk for me? I'd like to hear you speak.'

'I can't say anything yet.'

Ton offered to introduce me to his journalist stepfather, who had arrived at the condo from Pattaya the day before.

Stepdad must have been in Ton's life a while: under his influence, his younger sister was 'fluent' in German, he said.

Ton, who looks about 19, has been to Germany once before, to Berlin. I don't know how he intends to spend his days there, or even why he is going.

I am sure Mr Ton will miss us when he moves to his new home, which hopefully is only temporary.

He will miss his nightly chats with the security guards from Esan, and his lengthy conversations over his cordless with the seldom-present girlfriend.

He is unlikely to miss those nosy women from the foodstall, with their common market ways - but who would?

But at least he can communicate here. In Germany, if his stay is a long one, he could find himself getting lonely and longing for home.