The Electricity Rate

He came to buy a life. She came to check the electricity rate.

The Grab pulls up at 10:40, which in Cherngtalay counts as early. I'm already at the gate with my clipboard and the key to number 7, the one on the wooden tag the owner's mother carved because she doesn't trust plastic.

He gets out first. Linen shirt, still creased from the shop. Sunglasses pushed up on his head, the sticker still on one lens. He shakes my hand like we're closing something.

"Dieter," he says. "We are not tourists."

Behind him the girl climbs out with her phone in one hand and a 7-Eleven iced coffee in the other. She gives me a small wai. "Sawasdee kha, Phi Ploy." Her name is Nam. She looks at the electricity meter on the wall before she looks at the pool.

At the door I take off my sandals and put them side by side. Nam puts hers next to mine. Dieter steps out of his loafers in two movements and leaves one upside down on the step, the way men do when they're already thinking about the view.

It's a good villa. Three bedrooms, a pool, frangipani dropping flowers on the deck for the gardener to argue with. Dieter walks straight through the living room to the glass doors and stands there with his hands on his hips.

"How much to buy?"

I explain what I explain four times a week. A foreigner can't own the land. He can lease it, usually for thirty years, sometimes with a renewal option that is beautifully written and means very little. And this one isn't for sale anyway. This one is twelve months, or six at a higher rate.

"Thirty years," he says, and nods slowly, as if I've said something about him. "In thirty years I'm dead. So it's the same as buying."

Nam asks me in Thai, without changing her face, "Phi, is the electricity the owner's rate or the government rate?"

"Owner's rate. Own meter."

She types something into the calculator on her phone. Dieter turns around.

"What are you girls talking about?"

"She says the pool is very clean," Nam tells him in English.

"You see?" he says to me. "Clean pool. That's what I like here. People notice things."

He tells me he's on day eleven of three weeks. He tells me he has the long-stay visa now, the one "for Muay Thai," that he has trained twice, and that the third time is Thursday. He tells me Bielefeld is grey from October to April, and that in Germany nobody smiles at you unless you've paid for something. I let that one sit on the kitchen counter between us.

"When you know, you know," he says, and puts his arm around Nam.

I've heard that sentence in English, German, Russian and once in Swedish, always in this kitchen. The kitchen has a very good echo.

Nam, in Thai, while he's still holding her: "Deposit?"

"Two months, plus the first month in advance."

"And if he goes home early, who gets the deposit back?"

"Whoever signs."

She thinks about that for exactly as long as it takes to finish her coffee.

Dieter goes outside to film the pool for his friends at home. He walks its length slowly, narrating in German, phone held sideways, which tells me it's going to be watched on a television somewhere.

In the kitchen Nam opens the fridge, looks at the compressor, closes it again.

"Phi," she says, "does this owner have anything smaller?"

"A one-bedroom. The condo behind the 7-Eleven on the main road. Pool on the roof."

"Twelve months?"

"Twelve months."

She nods. "Show us that one on Friday. He'll sign that one."

"He likes this one."

"He likes telling people about this one." She watches him through the glass. He's filming the outdoor shower now. "If he goes home in March, I can pay the condo myself. I can't pay this."

She doesn't say it coldly. She says it the way you check the sky before you hang out the laundry. Through the glass Dieter gives us a thumbs-up. She gives him one back, and both of them mean it.

On the way out he takes the key from me, the wooden tag with the 7 on it, and holds it up for a photo with the villa behind him.

"For the group chat," he says. "My brother won't believe it."

I take the photo. He looks very happy. Nam, at the edge of the frame, is putting her sandals back on.

"This price is only until November," I tell him, because I'm supposed to, and because it's true.

On Friday they sign for the one-bedroom behind the 7-Eleven. Twelve months. Dieter pays the deposit and tells me it was his idea.

"Start small, then scale," he says. "That's investing."

The lease is in Nam's name. Somebody still has to file a TM30 for Dieter with immigration. With the lease in Nam's name, that somebody is Nam.

"What's a TM30?" Dieter asks.

"Paperwork," I say. "Mai pen rai."

Nam signs every page without reading it, because she read it on Wednesday, when I sent it to her on LINE.

That evening I hang the key back on the board in the office. Number 7, wooden tag. On Saturday I'm showing the villa to a Dane on day six of a two-week trip.

He has already messaged me. He's not a tourist either.

---

Split Decision: He wanted the villa. She chose the condo, in her name. Who made the smarter move?

*Illustrations are AI-generated.*