The Delightful Life of a Suicide Pilot

by Colin Cotterill

  “Is a helicopter ride to Thakhek,” said Daeng.

  “And back,” said Siri.

  “I . . .” said Roper.

  Chapter Six

  How Does She Smell?

  6/21/1943

  It was a fine evening and I was watching the sun set beyond the river. I’d had a busy but fruitful day of planting tomatoes. I was about to return to the camp and resume my Lao language studies when I smelled something awful. I turned to see Warrant Officer Ukabane Orimimi standing close behind me. It was hardly surprising that he had trouble making friends. Apart from the state of his face, which was like that of an unsuccessful boxer, he had the most horrible breath. Honestly, it was as if a rat had crawled into his mouth and died there. I’d recommended mouthwashes and pineapple juice and fennel seeds but nothing seemed to make a difference.

  “Major Toshi,” he said. “I am so very lonely. Sometimes I think I’ll never find a woman to love me.”

  “I believe there is someone for everyone,” I said, although I doubted he’d find his ideal woman in a war zone surrounded only by male soldiers. But he needed a boost to his morale and I decided it was worth being just a tad dishonest in order to achieve that aim. At the market there was one plain Lao woman who had no nose. A feral dog had bitten it off when she was a child. What remained of the nostrils had scarred over. Consequently, she had no sense of smell. This, I decided, would be a good start for anyone getting to know Ukabane. For the next stage I trusted my instinct and the power of translation.

  “This is Warrant Officer Ukabane,” I said to the market woman. Her name was Moot.

  Lao market women can be very direct and rude in a charming way so I anticipated her response.

  “Did the bus come off as badly as him?” she asked.

  “She says she’s noticed you around,” I translated for Ukabane.

  “She has a very unpleasant face,” said Ukabane, who was also cursed with the affliction of honesty.

  “Warrant Officer Ukabane says you remind him of a famous actress who is very popular in Japan,” I told her. “He thinks you have a very nice smile.”

  Her cheeks became rosy.

  “He must be blind as well as ugly,” she said.

  “She says you look very muscular,” I translated. “The type of man who would protect his woman.”

  Ukabane pulled in his stomach and looked away. I assumed this gesture was to afford the woman a view of his good side although neither profile would win a prize.

  “She’s in bad shape,” he said. “Obviously never done any physical labor in her life.”

  “Ukabane says your figure would inflame the desire in any red-blooded man,” I told her. “He can’t keep his eyes off your divine bosom.”

  “You tell him to take his beady eyes off my chest right this minute,” she said. But her expression was more of flattery than offense.

  “She says she loves listening to your voice,” I lied. “So masculine and forceful. She could listen to you speak all night.”

  “All that in such a short sentence?” asked Ukabane.

  “Lao is a very economical language,” I said.

  “What are you two talking about?” asked Moot.

  “He . . . No, never mind.”

  “Tell me.”

  “No,” I said. “It’s out of the question.”

  She glared at me.

  “All right,” I said. “He was asking what chance there might be of you accompanying him to a coffee shop one morning. Perhaps somewhere with a view of the river?”

  “All that in one short sentence?”

  “Japanese is an economical language,” I said.

  “Tell him I’d sooner get rabies and be burned alive,” she said. But she said it with a smile and an eyelash flutter. I turned to Ukabane.

  “What’s she saying?” he asked.

  “No. It’s impossible.”

  “What?”

  “She said she’d like to get to know you better.”

  “She didn’t.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Did she?”

  “She was wondering whether you might care to join her in a coffee shop one morning.”

  “I don’t know,” he said, a glimmer of a smile at the corner of his mouth. “Really? I don’t know.”

  “I’ll tell her no.”

  “Wait, I . . . you know? I do feel a little bit sorry for her, looking the way she does. Perhaps one small coffee wouldn’t do much harm.”

  “He’s so excited at the prospect,” I told Moot. “It seems he’s really fond of you. He said it’s a dream come true.”

  “Or, in my case, a nightmare,” she said. “What time?”

  And that was it. I’d never seen a couple try so hard to repress their happiness. I agreed to act as a chaperone for their coffee liaison even though it really didn’t matter how well things went. I wasn’t about to go on dates with them into the future. The important thing was that they’d both experienced the pleasure of being desired, however briefly. There was just one more thing left for me to do. I knew Moot would never be able to smell Ukabane’s nasty breath but I was sure her colleagues at the market would be only too pleased to pass on the bad news. So I felt it was my duty to investigate the source of his toxic output.

  “Warrant Officer Ukabane,” I said one day. “I would like to discuss your dental hygiene.”

  “All right, Major Toshi,” he said with a slightly baffled expression.

  “I would like you to go back to your tent and bring me your toothbrush. I wish to see whether you are brushing your teeth correctly.”

  He seemed lost.

  “My what?” he said.

  “Your toothbrush,” I replied. “You do have one, I assume?”

  “I’m not sure,” he said. “What does one look like?”

  The Mi-26 helicopter traced a route along the milk-tea-brown Mekong. Dark clouds still lurked on the horizon but Siri and Daeng were blessed with a fine day overhead. Word had reached Vientiane that insurgents based in the refugee camps on the Thai side had again raided Thakhek and attacked a government office. Some soldiers had been killed and valuables pilfered from private homes. But that news only made it to the Lao community, not the UN. So Roper had no cause to cancel the trip.

  On board were three Bru male adults, a Lao Loum couple from a village just outside Mahaxai, and two girls whose mother had died of malaria in the camp at Ban Vinai. The girls’ father had refused to travel with them to the camp. He was unable to walk long distances due to a war wound of some description. The UN had contacted him and he had requested his daughters be returned to him. They were eerily silent children, unresponsive to questions. Neither did they appear to speak to each other. They were clearly terrified.

  Siri and Daeng sat on the rusty fold-down seats of the noisy chopper yelling a conversation.

  “I get the feeling we’re off in search of a lunatic,” shouted Daeng.

  “He’s just a bit stir-crazy,” yelled Siri. “He’s using his diary as therapy. If you live in an environment where the same things happen day after day your reality cuts out and your imagination takes over.”

  “That wasn’t a snide reference to life in our noodle restaurant with me, was it?”

  “Oh, Daeng. How could you even suggest such a thing?”

  “I don’t want your imagination seeing me as a twenty-six-year-old beauty queen with a rum franchise.”

  “I have a seventy-year-old beauty queen with a rice whisky still in the back garden. Who needs a dream? I can’t imagine anything better than that.”

  “Nicely stated.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “So, what’s our plan?” asked Daeng.

  “I’m about thirty pages from the end of the diary,” he said. “By then, I hope we’ll know who it is that needs
help and why. We make contact with locals who were in Thakhek in the forties and we trace Toshi. Then we find a nice spot on the Mekong, take a cold drink, and sit watching the sun set for a few nights.”

  “When’s our flight back?”

  “Our new friend Mr. Roper has to travel to the villages with his returnees. With a helicopter that shouldn’t take him so long. Three days at the most.”

  “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Roper’s a UN official. He earns more in a week than we take in a year. Does he really need to hand-deliver refugees himself? Doesn’t he have staff?”

  “It’s a new program, Daeng. The UN is sending refugee camp people back to their villages. People who abandoned their country. There are those who see them as traitors. The insurgent groups based overseas would like nothing better than for them to be lined up and shot by the wicked commies. Good anti-regime propaganda. Guilt by the bucketload for those who fled successfully. Massive donations to the cause. Nice homes in the Midwest for retired royalist generals. So Mr. Roper takes photos and videos of the happy reunions, teary-eyed relatives, thankful, not-assassinated returnees, and he announces that he or other UN officials will come by every three months to monitor the situation. He makes sure the local cadre hears that, takes his photo too just to confirm he gets the idea, and there’s the safety package, living proof that repatriation works. Word gets around in the refugee camps and everyone decides to go home.”

  His voice was croaking from all that shouting so they gave up and enjoyed the scenery. There’d be plenty of time to talk when they landed. Daeng smiled at the girls, who looked away, embarrassed or afraid. Daeng could not imagine what they’d been through. While they were all together she was determined to make friends with them and learn something about them.

  1/11/1944

  The river has become my companion. In the rainy season, once a body of water had built up on its way from China, it was a ferocious ally, thundering past impatiently, too busy to stop and chat. But in the dry season it is a trickle that seems not to be moving at all. Now it’s a lake of smoked glass with sand mounds here and there spelling out some kind of Morse code. I was at the boat port one day to receive a shipment of toys and sweets I’d ordered for children’s day.

  “Oh, give me a break,” said Daeng.

  “Shh,” said Siri and continued to read.

  I was concerned about the effect of too much sugar on their teeth but who could resist the expressions on their little faces as they opened their parcels?

  Daeng stuck a finger down her throat and made gagging sounds. They were on the balcony of a rickety wooden guesthouse with a view (if you strained your neck around the building in front) of the river. There was one rocking chair claimed by the doctor and a short wooden stool upon which his wife perched. Siri looked down at her and raised one bushy eyebrow. She pressed her palms together in a short, polite nop. He continued.

  Along the dirt track I saw Corporal Yatsusuki Hokobei in extra-large sports fatigues jogging, or rather shuffling, at a moderate pace in my direction. He seemed even more enormous than usual. It took him forever to reach the spot where I was standing. He stopped, leaned forward, and seemed about to die. I’d only ever taken the beginner first-aid course so I wasn’t qualified to save his life. Finally, he caught his breath and let loose a cough that dislodged an avalanche of phlegm. He reached into the pocket of his shorts and took out an old-fashioned fob watch. He looked at it with disappointment.

  “Damn,” he said.

  “Too slow?” I asked.

  “I seem to get slower every day. It just makes me sad.”

  “Huh,” said Daeng.

  Siri put down the diary.

  “We’ll never get to the end if you keep it up with the sound effects,” he said.

  “You know if we do meet Toshi we’re going to be deeply disappointed with him.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Because he’s written himself into the role of Mother Teresa. He can solve everyone’s problems. Nobody’s that wonderful.”

  “Then if we meet him we’ll respect him as a great writer who was able to convince us of that,” said Siri. “Whether it’s fact or fiction doesn’t matter. He has the power to entertain, which is a skill in itself. May I continue?”

  Daeng held out her hand. Siri returned to the diary.

  “Do you jog every day?” I asked.

  “Rain or shine,” said Yatsusuki.

  “And the objective is to get fit?”

  “To get thin, Major Toshi.”

  I looked at him. There are those who are born into thinness and, through poor judgment in the food and drink categories, acquire fat later in life. And there are those, like Yatsusuki, who are born huge, grow up huge, and remain huge all their lives no matter how hard they torture themselves with diet and exercise. Yatsusuki was an armored truck and jogging would not remove one single layer of paint. Once again, the problem was in his mind.

  I wear eyeglasses. They are very fashionable and I’m proud of them. Some people attempt to make fun of me because I wear them but I do not respond to their jokes because I don’t consider my eyeglasses to be shameful in any way. I was sure that I could find a way to stop Yatsusuki from jogging himself to death. My mission was aided by the arrival of Colonel Konko Asatsuba.

  One evening, our team, all but Corporal Yatsusuki, was enjoying the company of Colonel Konko in the mess hut. Colonel Konko was a Tokyo man who ate only meat and could never get used to all the lizards and the abundance of rats everywhere. He was based in Vientiane and was a master of telling stories about his experiences in the army. He was a born comedian. He’d just told one hilarious anecdote about an adventure in Nanjing and we were in tears. Captain Jame confessed he was about to pee himself.

  “Tell us another one,” said Hokofugu.

  “I’ll have to start charging you,” said Colonel Konko. “But you’re a good audience so I’ll give you one last story for free. It was something that happened in Korea. We Japanese were very popular over there for obvious reasons. I was stationed in Seoul and I was about to—”

  He stopped talking and was looking toward the door through which Yatsusuki had just arrived.

  “My god,” said Colonel Konko.

  We followed his gaze but none of us was surprised to see Yatsusuki standing there. He was on guard duty that evening and had stopped by to fill his canteen. He waved at us and made for the water jar.

  “I don’t believe it,” said Colonel Konko.

  “What?” said Major General Dorari.

  “He’s here,” said Colonel Konko. “I’ve found him.”

  “Yatsusuki?” said the major general.

  “That’s what he’s calling himself?” said Colonel Konko.

  “That’s his name,” I said.

  “No, it’s not,” said Colonel Konko. “His name is Erai Ko-oji.”

  He pronounced the name as if each syllable was molten gold. We looked across the table at each other then looked to the door where Yatsusuki was just about to return to his duties outside. Colonel Konko sighed.

  “Ko-oji,” he repeated.

  “What are you talking about?” asked Jame.

  “Do none of you follow sumo?” Colonel Konko asked.

  There were some of us who checked the honbasho results from time to time. But we’d been overseas for so long we’d lost touch with sports back home. We all shrugged.

  “When did he join your unit?” Colonel Konko asked.

  “December 1940,” said the major general.

  “Yes,” said Colonel Konko. “That would be exactly right. Ko-oji was the brightest young sumo wrestler anyone in the profession had ever seen. He had the build and the technique. Even when he was in his teens he was beating fighters with many years more experience in regional competitions. His stable held him bac
k from the national circuit because of his age. But in July ’40 the military government decided it was time to introduce new blood into the competition to build up pride in our youth and encourage the young men to fight for the homeland. Ko-oji was one of them. He was put on the program for a big basho in Tokyo. It was supposed to be a warm-up for the young men. Nothing too heroic was expected from them, just their willingness to take on the grand champions. Of course they’d lose.

  “But Ko-oji won all of his preliminary bouts; won them easily. There was no luck involved. He beat the champion ozekis in seconds and inflicted a humiliating defeat on the yokozuna grand champion in the final bout. The sumo world was in shock. Never had a new fighter been so dominant. He was destined for greatness . . . immortality. But sumo is a ferociously political beast. The elders resented this upstart who’d swept through the rankings like a typhoon and shown the country the inadequacies of men considered national heroes. A true champion fought his way up the table, learning from his mistakes, honing his skill until he became the best. Crowds paid good money to watch their heroes, never completely certain of the results, never one hundred percent confident of a victory. They had, after all, followed their favorite fighters for many years through successes and failures. Who would give up their hard-earned salary to watch a tournament where there was no doubt of the victor? The whole business would collapse. But there was a role that he could fulfill that would provide a morale boost to the nation.

  “It was decided that Ko-oji, after a battle with his conscience, would enlist in the great army of the empire and fight for glory, not in the dojo, but on the battlefield. And it was the same elders who pushed him into national service who decided it would be better for all concerned if Ko-oji were to fall heroically in battle: a great warrior dying for the emperor. We heard that assassins were dispatched to make sure the young wrestler never returned to Japan. But there were those in the military who had seen the young Ko-oji fight and they admired his ability. They gave him a new identity with false documents and sent him to a safe posting in the hope that he might return someday to claim the honor of which he had been deprived. And that was the last anyone ever heard of him, until now.”