The Second Biggest Nothing

by Colin Cotterill

“Harness the power of redaction,” said Civilai.

  “You’d get two minutes into the speech and they’d drag you from the podium,” said Phosy.

  “But what a glorious two minutes they would be,” said Civilai.

  “Except the simultaneous interpreters will be reading the original script,” said Daeng. “The old king tried to change his abdication speech, and the radio station brought in an actor to read the Party version.”

  “An actor we could sorely use right now,” said Siri, anxious to change the subject.

  “I still have the floor,” said Civilai.

  “Oh, right,” said Nurse Dtui, ignoring him, “your movie. I was going to ask about that. Don’t you have a cast yet?”

  “I feel nobody takes me seriously anymore,” Civilai grumbled.

  “The Women’s Union has brought together a vast gaggle of would-be performers,” said Siri.

  “All we’re missing is a functioning camera,” said Daeng.

  “The camera is functioning,” said Siri, “and we are on the verge of acquiring a world-class cinematographer to operate it.”

  “Here I am about to re-educate the planet,” said Civilai, “and you dismiss my plan out of hand.”

  “Perhaps we aren’t yet drunk enough to take you seriously,” said Daeng. “Another bottle might persuade us.”

  Civilai huffed and the hairs in his nostrils flapped. He walked off to the bar with a heavy smattering of umbrage and a noticeable stagger.

  “He’s not really going to sabotage the speech, is he?” Nurse Dtui asked.

  “He’s a politician,” said Siri.

  He’d planned to say more but realized that short phrase said it all.

  “And the camera story?” asked Phosy.

  The camera in question was a very expensive Panavision Panaflex Gold which had become ‘lost’ during the shooting of a film called The Deer Hunter in Thailand. Through the rice-growing underground it found its way to Laos and into the spare room on the upper floor of Madam Daeng’s restaurant. Until then, all it lacked was someone with the ability to turn it on. But that small setback to the filming of Dr. Siri’s ambitious Lao spectacular was apparently resolved.

  “Our cinematographer has arrived and will begin his duties this weekend,” said Siri with a smile. “Daeng and I and various relatives went to the airport to greet him and make sure he didn’t change his mind and get on the return flight.”

  “And by ‘cinematographer,’” said Daeng, “what Siri means is a young boy with a certificate in film production and no experience.”

  “Yet more experience than all of us in the operation of a camera,” said Siri. “I was born into a generation of candles and beeswax lamps. Electricity entered my life late. It wasn’t until I arrived in Paris that I discovered the magic of volts and ampères. But by then I had decided to dedicate my life to medicine. If I had not, who’s to say by now I wouldn’t have been the one to invent the cassette player and the Xerox machine?”

  “Is he legal, this camera person of yours?” the chief inspector asked.

  “He’s Lao,” said Siri, “the cousin of Seksak who runs the Fuji Photo Lab. He’s harking the call of the Party for its lost sons to come home to the motherland to share their new skills and savings.”

  “He left in the ’75 exodus?” Dtui asked.

  “Before,” said Siri. “He made an orderly exit about ten years before with his father. Dad had a scholarship from the Colombo Plan. His wife died in childbirth, so it was just the two of them. They moved to Sydney. Bruce went to—”

  “His name’s Bruce?” said Dtui.

  “His father renamed him when they got there,” said Siri, “perhaps in an attempt to hide him amidst all the other Bruces. The boy had studied with the Australians here and become proficient in English. He sailed through high school and entered college.”

  “Why would he ever want to come back?” Phosy asked.

  “His cousin believes he was disillusioned with the decadent West. His father had been killed in a car accident in Australia and Bruce was homesick. Missed his distant family. When our government announced we’d welcome expatriate Lao with no hard feelings, he was only too keen. His cousin told him about our film. He read my script and was delighted to join us.”

  “Can you afford him?” asked Dtui.

  “Said he was happy to do it for nothing.”

  “Must be mad,” said Civilai, returning with another half bottle of whisky, which he plonked down on the table like a memento of war.

  “You could talk the crutches off a legless man,” said Daeng. “How do you do it?”

  “Those young fellows just need to know who’s boss,” said Civilai. “Look important. Don’t say anything. Walk behind the bar. Pick up the bottle. Simple.”

  He sat at the table, his revolutionary fire apparently doused.

  “And speaking of who’s boss,” said Daeng, “where’s Madam Nong this evening?”

  “My wife does not enjoy watching me drink,” said Civilai. “She seems to think I devalue myself when I allow alcohol to make decisions for me.”

  “Whereas Madam Daeng here knows only too well that I am at my brightest and most perceptive with the Hundred Pipers playing the background music,” said Siri.

  “Sadly, as the music grows louder and the perception reaches a crescendo, the passion is known to wane,” said Daeng.

  There was a long silence at the table.

  “We all know this is Daeng making a joke, right?” said Siri.

  “I’m not so sure,” said Dtui.

  “Daeng, tell them,” said Siri.

  Daeng looked around the room.

  “Daeng?”

  The embarrassment was blurred by the voice of somebody leaning too closely into a badly wired microphone. Like announcements at the national airport, nobody knew exactly what had been said. But it was the signal for Siri’s crew to down their drinks and head to the exit. It was speech time and their finely tuned instincts naturally sent them in the opposite direction.

  It was only a short walk to the noodle shop, but Siri must have told them a dozen times that his wife was joking about his waning ardor. Still she kept mum and they were all shedding tears of laughter by the time they reached the closed shutter. High in a tree opposite perched Crazy Rajhid, the Indian. They could only see his silhouette against the moon, but it was obvious he was as naked as on the day he was born. They waved. He ignored them. He still believed that if he kept perfectly still he was invisible.

  It was the time of the evening when the dusty streets were usually deserted and no other sound could be heard: no television, no radio, no hum of air-conditioning. But on that evening their drunken voices were carried across the river to Thailand to show the enemy that socialist Laos could still have a good time once in a while. In an hour, when the curfew took hold, their voices would be silenced too, but right now was as good a time as any to stand on the riverbank and yell abuse. It was nothing personal, just a friendly diatribe against a nation with an ongoing animosity toward their inferior northern neighbors. It was therapy.

  Once in the restaurant, Madam Daeng made a batch of noodles to soak up the whisky and put something in everyone’s stomach for the ride home. Only Civilai, still blaming the snails, forwent the meal.

  “I think we need to approach the girl,” he said.

  “What girl’s that?” Phosy asked.

  “The blonde,” said Civilai. “Acting second secretary at the American embassy. Looks gorgeous. Speaks fluent Lao. She was standing at the bar. I’ve met her at a few functions recently.”

  “He has these hallucinations,” said Siri.

  “In a room with two hundred men you really didn’t notice one attractive woman?” Civilai asked.

  “Even in a room with two hundred women I’d only notice Daeng,” said Siri.

 
Daeng smiled and squeezed his hand.

  “I was making all that up about his ardor,” she said.

  “At last,” said Siri. “Why do you feel the need to approach the blonde, Civilai?”

  “She has acting experience,” said Civilai. “We need her for the film.”

  “In what role?” Siri asked. “Ours is the story of the nation through the eyes of two young revolutionaries not unlike ourselves. How many pretty blonde Americans featured in the birth of the republic?”

  “We could write in a part for her,” said Civlilai.

  “As what?”

  “I don’t know. She could be the CIA.”

  “All by herself?” asked Siri.

  “Why not?”

  “I think you’ll find most women in the CIA back then were making coffee and typing,” said Madam Daeng.

  “Look, it doesn’t matter what she does,” said Civilai. “How many commercially successful movies have you seen that didn’t have a glamour interest?”

  “I believe we have one or two beautiful Lao women in major roles,” said Dtui.

  “That is admirable,” said Civilai. “But if we’re aiming at the international market . . .”

  “Lao women aren’t attractive enough?” said Daeng.

  “They . . . you are lovely in the domestic sense,” said Civilai, “but we need sexy. We need . . . we need a Barbarella.”

  Only Siri and Civilai knew who Barbarella was, and Siri wasn’t about to disagree with his friend’s choice. There followed a testy five minutes as the old boys tried to define sexy and explain why even the most attractive Lao in her finest blouse and ankle-length phasin skirt would not qualify. They dug themselves deeper into the muck with every comment. The discomfort was only eased when Civilai felt the need for one more visit to the toilet.

  “Time for us to go pick up Malee,” said Dtui. She stood to leave. “She’s with a neighbor and they’ll want to get to bed.”

  Despite his lofty position, Chief Inspector Phosy and his wife were still billeted at the police dormitory until their modest government house was completed. To his wife’s mixed disappointment and admiration, he’d refused to move into the palatial two-story abode of his predecessor.

  “Come husband,” she said.

  “I’m fine to drive the Vespa,” said Phosy.

  Dtui twiddled her fingers and he handed her the key. She knew that if he felt the need to tell her he was fine there had to be some doubt. Even in the carless streets of the capital there were potholes and sleeping dogs, and her husband had worked thirteen hours that day. He’d be safer on the pillion seat. They’d started toward the street when Siri remembered his letter.

  “Oh, wait,” he said, and pulled the folded paper from his top pocket. “A quick translation and you can be on your way.”

  He explained how the note had been attached to Ugly’s tail sometime that morning. Nurse Dtui, hoping for a study placement in America, had put in many hours to learn English. In’75, armed with a scholarship and high hopes, she’d watched the Americans flee, and, like their Hmong allies, Dtui was stranded. She looked up from the words with an expression of horror on her face. Her English was competent enough to read Siri’s letter and good enough for her to realize the menace it contained. She called Phosy back from the street and had the team sit once more around the table beneath the buzzing fluorescent lamp while she translated. Siri and Daeng appeared to be unmoved by the content.

  “You don’t seem that concerned,” Phosy told them.

  “It wouldn’t be the first threat we’ve received,” said Siri.

  “Almost a weekly event,” said Civilai.

  “Well, I’m your friendly local policeman,” said the chief inspector, “and I’m not going to let you laugh this one off. It isn’t just a threat to you, Siri. The writer is promising to hurt your loved ones and that includes everyone at this table.”

  “I don’t love him,” said Civilai. “I’m not even that fond of him. That should let me off the hook.”

  “Ignore him,” said Daeng. “He’s having one of his difficult years. Go ahead Phosy. What do you suggest?”

  “First, I suggest we look at the letter for what it does, not just for what it says.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” said Civilai.

  “Well,” said Phosy, “the fact that it’s in English sends a message in itself. As Siri doesn’t speak the language I doubt he’s antagonized too many English speakers in his life. And, even if the writer knows more than one language, why would he choose English for this particular threat?”

  “I’m assuming you’ll just be asking a batch of questions and have us fill in the answers later,” said Civilai.

  “I think that’s a splendid system,” said Madam Daeng. “Continue, Phosy.”

  “Secondly,” said Phosy, “why does he only have two weeks to complete his mission? If he lived here there’d be no restriction.”

  “So, he’s a visitor,” said Nurse Dtui.

  “On a visa,” said Siri. “We aren’t that generous in the immigration field.”

  “And we just left a room full of foreign journalists who are in town for exactly two weeks with nice fresh correspondent visas in their passports,” said Phosy. “Any one of them could be our writer. Even the Eastern bloc boys would have a grounding in English.”

  “We can’t interrogate all sixty-four of them,” said Daeng. “We need to eliminate some.”

  “Well, he’s certainly not Vietnamese,” said Dtui.

  “How do you know?” Siri asked.

  “He gave Ugly a break,” she said. “They still eat dogs over there. No Vietnamese is going to balk at slicing up a flea bitten mongrel if it serves a purpose.”

  They heard a low howl from the street. It might have been a coincidence but Siri doubted that.

  “Okay, there are four Vietnamese journalists,” said Daeng. “That takes us to sixty.”

  “Not much of a help,” said Civilai.

  “We need to start with the threat itself,” said Phosy. “Siri, the writer made a promise that he would have his revenge. That his lust for vengeance is still burning inside him. I’m guessing that when he made that threat initially you would have sensed that it was more than just words. You would have seen him as capable of following through with it. It would have frightened you. For some time you would have been looking over your shoulder. On how many occasions have you experienced that type of fear in your life?”

  All eyes turned to Siri. He looked up at the lamp and seemed to be fast-rewinding through his seventy-six years. He sniffed when he reached the end.

  “Twice,” he said.

  “Then, that’s—” Phosy began.

  “Better make it three times,” said Siri. “Just to be sure. Three times when I truly believed the nasty bastard meant what he said and had the resources to keep his promise. I’m not given to panic, but I confess to missing a few heartbeats on those occasions.”

  “Then that’s where we start,” said Phosy. “Who’s first?”

  Chapter Three

  Paris, 1932

  I was sitting at an outdoor table in front of the Café de la Paix. I was alone, but I told the waiter in his long white apron that I was expecting someone. He was surprised to hear French from my lips. They usually were. He was unnecessarily polite. All the other tables were occupied by French sophisticates. White people as far as the eye could see. Dapper men with pencil mustaches and straw boaters. Vogue magazine women with bangs that restricted their vision to lap level. White silk dresses billowed in the wind. Champagne bubbled. You’d never have guessed France was in the middle of the Great Depression.

  There was a sort of upside down racism in Paris those days. The French military had recruited thousands of Chinese for the war effort, and most of them had been killed in battle: ravaged by Spanish flu or just left to
die slowly from neglect and hunger. They were expendable and soon forgotten. Their story would never have been released by the government but the bolshie French press got wind of it and exposed the disgrace in its national newspapers. The government had no choice but to apologize and thank the Chinese for their contribution to the Allies’ victory over the Germans.

  As I had an Asian face I got a lot of looks of remorse during that period. Those “we’re sorry for what we did to you” looks. The looks never became words or actions, but I did get the odd smiles from pretty ladies in white. It was May and la mode of spring was the tennis look. The temperature was taking its time to catch up to the season. Hundreds of inappropriately dressed people sat shivering at their tables or walking briskly along the boulevard. Three ladies at the table beside me were cradling their coffee cups to keep their fingers warm. I smiled at them. They looked at one another before smiling back. As I was no slave to fashion, I wore mittens and a muffler.

  I’d arrived in Paris on a steamer in 1924 at the age of twenty. Unlike the other Asians on board, I didn’t have to shovel coal or stagger from the galley to the state rooms with trays of canapés and champagne buckets. I had a ticket. My cabin was small but comfortable. I was in the enviable position of having a sponsor who had taken it upon herself to turn me from a shoeless waif into a young man of letters. Madam Le Saux, more commonly known as Loulou, had first met me at a temple in Savanaketh. I had been dumped there at the age of ten by an uncaring relative who instructed me to learn all I could, then disappeared from my life. I learned everything the monks had to teach and read the French books in the small library over and over again. By the age of twelve I was bored.

  Madam Loulou arrived one day in a yellow Peugot with a driver in a cap. She was tall and slim but for her midriff, where fat had gathered unkindly. She reminded me of a python I’d once seen digesting a pig. Hers was the first French I’d heard spoken by a native speaker. My initial reaction was amazement at how clever she was to have mastered such a difficult language. Her face was so heavily cased in makeup it took some time for her expressions to match her words.

  “Does anybody here speak French?” she called out. Her voice was manly, crumbly at the edges.