How I (Maybe) Learned Thai in one Week (and Nearly Prevented an Intergalactic War) - PART 3

A Linguistic Thriller - Part 3 out of 3

On Sunday, November 26th, as soon as the kids left for school, I boarded the train to Tel Aviv. The Sheba hospital is only a 30-minute drive from my house, but since I don’t drive, it’s 1.5 hours on the train. 

I didn’t feel good. I had a stomach ache. I couldn’t remember if I brushed my teeth or had breakfast. I knew I got dressed but only because there was undisputable evidence of that.

READ PART 1 AND PART 2 OF THIS STORY

The night before I tried hard to come up with a list of Thai words and phrases I’ll most likely need. I tried to imagine the hospital room (bed… chair…. Breakfast… food…. help….) I gave up. I had no idea what we were going to talk about.

Instead, I just texted Koby again and asked if Somchai needed anything. He replied, “Money is what will help him the most at this point.” I put some money in an envelope, and I wrote in Thai “Get well soon.” I thought of adding “If you want to talk you can call me” but that seemed stupid because it’s not like it’s easy for me to have a casual conversation in Thai, so I wrote instead “If you need anything you can call me.” and my phone number. Which was possibly only mildly less stupid.

It occurred to me that the Sheba hospital was also where most of the released kidnapped people were brought to the previous three days. This would be the closest I’d get to October 7th. 

It felt very close already. My neighbor’s cousins were murdered. My friend’s relative hid in a garbage can for 12 hours. My son’s teacher had to hide in her safe rooms for 36 hours. Our dog trainer narrowly escaped the Nova party. A family with two little girls that used to live in my building until they moved south got kidnapped.

But I haven’t personally met someone who was injured. I haven’t been to a funeral (except for waving flags by the side of the road saying goodbye to fallen soldiers) or even a shiva. And now I was going to this hospital. To see a person who had been there on that day and miraculously survived.

I recognized the entrance to the hospital from the viral video where doctors and patients’ relatives yelled away our politicians who came to comfort them.

I don’t know about other countries, but Israeli hospitals have stores and coffee shops like malls because Israelis love to come visit with lots of presents and they’ll be annoyed if they don’t have the convenience to buy them at the last moment. I spent 1.5 hours in the mall part of the hospital because I was worried that I’d come too early. I ate breakfast at Aroma even though I wasn’t hungry. I bought a pack of mints because couldn’t remember if I’d brushed my teeth that morning.

It was almost 11 am when I finally gathered the courage to go to the information desk and ask for directions to the Burn Unit. I decided it didn’t matter what happened. If worse comes to worst, I can always pretend to be just a random generous person who came to visit him and then it will be a pleasant surprise that I can say a few phrases in Thai. I’ll have Google Translate with me so I’ll be fine. A nine-year-old boy from Kibbutz Nir Oz negotiated with the terrorists using Google Translate. I can do it too.

Even if I didn’t manage to say anything at all and it’s excruciatingly awkward, I will survive. If Somchai survived October 7^th, I can survive this.

I found the right elevator and I went up to the third floor. I found the Burn Unit. I entered. I found Room 11. The door was wide open.

Somchai was sleeping.

I went back outside. I decided to wait a little bit.

I sat on the stairs and sang quietly into my phone “Kobi said you were here” over and over again, but I forgot all the tones:

I felt like I was ten again and waiting for my turn outside the concert hall to play my piano recital.

Twenty minutes later I decided to try again. 

This time the glass door of his room was closed but behind it, I saw Somchai sitting on the bed, awake. On the glass door of the room, there were several large notices, in English, Thai, and Hebrew.

One of them said in large red letters, in English: NO MORE TAKE PHOTO WITH SOMCHAI and what must have been the same thing in Thai underneath. Another said something in Thai and had the numbers 12 and 15 (I can visit only from 12:00 to 15:00?) I tried to decipher the rest but I couldn’t read Thai this fast and also, a man approached me and asked if I needed help. 

I said I came to visit Somchai. 

He pointed to the front desk: “Talk to Sophie. She’s the woman in the white sweater.”

Sophie looked Thai but spoke fluent Hebrew. She was not wearing a nurse's uniform, so I thought maybe she was a person from the Thai embassy. 

“I came to visit Somchai, is now a good time?” I said.

“Sure, if he is awake you can just go in.”

I approached the door, knocked, and then pushed it. 

Somchai was sitting on his bed. Both his legs and one arm were still bandaged. Next to the bed was a three-layer cart bursting with snacks, fruit, chocolate bars, and gum. If it wasn’t a hospital room I’d think that he was about to open a snack bar.

I said Sà-wàt-dee ká ‘hello’ and didn’t forget to add the female politeness particle ká at the end and to put my palms together in front of my chest the way Thai learning videos taught me. He also put his hands in front of his chest and said Sà-wàt-dee khráp ‘hello’ back (adding the male politeness particle khráp). He was smiling a tired shy smile and didn’t seem at all surprised to see me.

I ‘sang’ Khun phûut phaa-sǎa ang-grìt mǎi? (“Do you speak English?”) even though I knew he didn’t. He shook his head and a wave of relief washed over me because oh my god he understood my Thai. I started Di-chǎn phûut phaa-sǎa-thai nít-nàawy… “I only speak a little bit of Thai…” but he was already dialing someone, smiling into his phone. I could see that he did it several times a day. He passed me the phone (on the screen I saw someone’s name in Thai) and I said into it Sà-wàt-dee-ká ‘Hello.’ A woman’s voice replied Sà-wàt-dee-ká and then continued in fluent Hebrew At yachola ledaber ivrit…. “You can speak Hebrew…”

I told her in Hebrew that my Thai wasn’t great but I saw Koby’s Facebook post and because I was in the area anyway I thought I’d drop by and visit Somchai. I said I brought him something small. She replied thank you thank you very much! I passed the phone back to Somchai and the woman translated to him what I said. Somchai nodded into his phone several times, smiling even more shyly, and then hung up.

There was not much else to say so I reached into my bag and took out the envelope with the card and the money and I passed it over to him. He bowed khàawp khoon khráp ‘thank you.’

I wanted to say ‘It was nice meeting you’ but I forgot how to say it. I wanted to say ‘I hope you will get better soon’ but I was nervous it would take me too long to ‘sing’ it. 

So I just put my hands in front of my chest again and said Sà-wàt-dee ká which is both ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye.’ And I left Room number eleven. 

And…. that’s the whole story.

It was not awkward. It felt normal.

But I didn’t have to spend the whole week learning Thai to do what I did. I could have just as easily memorized those two sentences.

So I wasn’t called upon to save the world from an intergalactic war, and if I had been, I don’t know if I’d be able to do it, not after a week anyway.

If anything, I was reminded, not for the first time, that language is kind of secondary to being human.