The local bus to Nam Som was the type to make a Lao doubt the stories about Thai development. It was like being dragged over rocks on a tin tray. There were taxis—some of them forty years old—that ferried passengers to the ferry at Tardeua, but even those had suspension. This country bus was as stiff as a box cart. No longer able to tolerate the pummeling to her tail, Madam Daeng had resorted to standing. She held onto the seat in front and bent her knees like a charioteer. Siri had one arm around her waist, but he lost her a couple of times when the bus left the ground and landed nose first on the gravel road. Even Ugly growled in frustration at the quality of service.
It took three punishing hours in all. They’d never been so delighted to get off a bus. Nam Som had only recently been upgraded to a district. At first glance it appeared that the upgrading had been largely on paper. It was a sleepy, slow-moving place with nothing to distinguish it from the other small towns they’d passed. Once the knots had been shaken out of their joints, Siri and Daeng went directly to the motorcycle samlor stand at the bus stop. None of the three drivers seemed that interested in hustling for passengers or taxing their brains. When Daeng had finished explaining that they were looking for a comparatively new temple some twenty kilometers from Nam Som, perhaps with just the one abbot in residence who taught school, they all shook their heads. Something about the shaking suggested they knew of the place but had no intention of going there.
“My husband only has three days left to live,” said Daeng. “It’s his last wish to visit his son at the temple and beg forgiveness for casting him out of the house when he was just a child. He’s been searching for him for a year. Please help an old man fulfill his dying wish.”
Siri coughed and held his heart.
The drivers exchanged glances.
“I’ll take you as close as I dare,” said the most ragged of the three.
There were two short wooden benches behind the motorcycle with just enough space for Siri and Daeng with Ugly at their feet. The engine sounded like an ancient machine gun. They had to shout to be heard.
“Why is it always me who’s about to die?” said Siri.
“Look at you,” said Daeng. “Who’d ever believe a woman in my condition only had three days to live?”
“What do you suppose he meant by, ‘as close as I dare’?”
“No idea.”
They arrived, not exactly in the village, but at a signpost that said sawan. It was a metal sign peppered with small-bore bullet holes. The driver told them the road from there on was impassable by vehicle, but the village was only half a kilometer around the bend. They would come to the temple before that. So the three adventurers set off on foot. The dirt road didn’t appear to deteriorate at all after they rounded the first bend. In fact, with few ruts and tire tracks, it seemed to improve. They walked along what might one day be a dotted line at the center and enjoyed the cries of the birds and beasts. It was evening, and as they walked the other sounds were drowned beneath the late chorus of cicadas.
“You do realize,” said Siri, leaning into his wife’s ear, “that we’ll probably get to the temple and discover the abbot’s never heard of our Sangharaj and he was just visiting Laos for a little female companionship.”
“For a man who grew up in a temple, you aren’t very respectful, are you, Dr. Siri?” she replied.
“Grew up there?” said Siri. “I was dumped by some mysterious relative who didn’t want me.”
“But you were a novice. You learned the precepts.”
“The way a Catholic learns catechisms. It was rote. It was a school. I was a rebel. I concentrated on the skills that would get me out of the place as soon as possible rather than the ones that would leave me a prisoner there for life. I was a scientist long before I knew what science was. I’d heard that scientists debunked religion, so I wanted to sign up.”
Daeng smiled. “If I remember rightly, this is the point where you start talking about lotus flowers and onions,” she said.
“Too right I do,” said Siri. “In the lycée I charged through anything that could be proven and resented the time I’d wasted in the temple school dancing on lotus flowers. Then I’m in France, and they want me to juggle onions because they were paying the bill. They called it Catholicism, but I recognized it soon enough as their version of lotus dancing. Over in England they were juggling potatoes. The Arabs were jumping camels through hoops. In Israel they were climbing walls with their lips. Everyone had to have a cabaret act. So I’d juggle with my left hand and learn how to sew up bodies with my right. I did my tricks, Daeng, but they never got me in the circus.”
Daeng squeezed his hand. “Remind me where my tail and your inner-shaman come in the program of circus events,” she said, although she’d listened to his philosophy many times before.
“Now there’s a conundrum,” he said. “The religions, you see, they let you leave. They don’t even put up a fight. So when you realize they’re useless you can just move on. But the spirits? They really are annoying. They’re the clowns perhaps. The harder you laugh at them and tell them they aren’t real, the more times they trip you up and leave you flat on your face. My science can make a fool of any religion, but I can make no sense at all of the power the spirits have over me.”
The half-kilometer to the temple turned out to be a lot farther. They’d been walking for forty minutes, and they could see the distant sun quartered and diced as it sank behind the leafless forest ahead. The birds and animals had uttered their last chorus for the day, and, as one, the cicadas fell silent.
“I don’t see the road becoming impassable, do you?” said Daeng.
“Just endless,” said Siri. “Those Thais. Any excuse to save a liter of benzene.”
With night approaching, Siri wondered how much longer they’d have to walk but said nothing. Neither did he mention the reaction of the white talisman that hung from his neck. It had been selected for its sensitivity to the paranormal and blessed to ward off evil spirits. It was nonsensical but had, on occasions, saved his life: the scientist’s paradox. And here it was, hot against his chest, alert, vibrating a warning. Ugly, who had spent much of the walk far out in front, now dropped back to be with his master. His ears and his tail were down, and he growled quietly.
“What’s wrong with him?” Daeng asked.
“He’s a dog,” said Siri.
“You don’t say? And there I was thinking he’s a can of pickles.”
“It’s a phrase that explains itself,” said her husband. “It’s like saying, ‘That Dr. Siri, he’s a man.’ You see? And every woman for kilometers around understands the meaning.”
Siri was talking for talking’s sake. He could feel a nervous tingle in his wife’s fingers. He could sense that she too was on alert. Yet neither of them said anything about it.
Ugly stopped dead in his tracks. He refused to walk another step. Siri’s amulet was fluttering beneath his shirt like a warm bat. The sun had sunk and left a mauve hangover along the horizon. The road ahead bled into it and disappeared. At their backs the moon had not yet put in an appearance. Daeng stopped and reached into her shoulder bag. She produced a flashlight, flicked the switch and a long wormhole of white light reached off into the distance. And at its farthest point it briefly made out two pink eyes caught in its beam. At that second the light gave out and left them there in a moonless blot.
“Shit,” said Daeng, and she rattled the flashlight and turned the switch on and off with no result.
Ugly began to howl the way city dogs howled, collecting other voices one by one, until the neighborhood was awash in one pitiful chorus. But here, Ugly howled alone.
“All we need is a slither of lightning and a burst of thunder, and we’d have a Hammer film,” said Siri, his impenetrable funny lines all but exhausted.
“I just put new batteries in this thing in Nong Khai,” said Daeng, slapping the flashlight agains
t her thigh. Ugly’s howl turned to a bark, and he ran in front of them. Two silent pink lights were coming toward them along the road ahead. Ugly danced left and right, his bark more desperate.
“I don’t suppose you remembered to pack the shotgun?” said Daeng.
“Then I wouldn’t have had room for the whisky,” said Siri, who did however have a scalpel in his hand. Daeng held a penknife. Neither were much use if they were about to get shot.
•••
“They’re all raving mad,” said Civilai. “A deserted village. A reluctant would-be Buddha who may or may not have been lying about his father. And now the Virgin Mary joins the cast. What’s going on here?”
The guesthouse was a block away from the bank of the Xan River, but that’s where Civilai and Madam Nong decided to sit. Running water helped them concentrate and relax at the same time. The owner loaned Civilai an ice-cream vendor’s bicycle horn to beep whenever they needed another drink or a snack. His wife was glad to run back and forth with a tray.
“I don’t see why we can’t go home together tomorrow,” said Nong. “You write your report that you found no evidence of a reincarnation, and we forget all this nonsense.”
“You know why I can’t,” said Civilai.
“Because you’re meddlesome,” she said. “You picked it up from Siri.”
“I did not. I’ve always been meddlesome. He’s the cantankerous one.”
“Tell me, what’s so fascinating about this place you’d want to stay another night? Don’t tell me you’re still miffed that they didn’t have a reception for you.”
“That’s part of it,” said Civilai. “There’s a system, you see. The ministry contacts the provincial office to say a bigwig is coming to visit. The provincial office passes this on to the regional council. The regional council informs the village and provides a budget. The village prepares for the visit, not because they’re excited at the thought of seeing me, but because it’s what they are supposed to do.”
“I thought you didn’t approve of unnecessary pomp and ceremony?”
“I don’t. Complete waste of money and manpower. But the protocol exists, and tomorrow I’ll go to the regional office to see why it broke down. And, to be honest, in the light of our Mary’s story, I think I’d like to have another chat with Comrade Maitreya.”
“Surely you didn’t believe the word of a seventy-year-old virgin, Lai. Her hospital report was handwritten on a lined page torn from a school exercise book. It was in English, but the birth predated any American hospital aid projects. And if they had been here they would have made a song and dance about an immaculate conception in the third world. They would have sent reports to every medical journal, The Times.”
“And who would have believed it?”
They reverted to staring at the river. A bicycle ice-cream vendor rode past beeping his horn, and two minutes later the wife of the guesthouse owner arrived breathless with two new beers. Civilai and Nong were only halfway through the first round, but they accepted the fresh bottles and ordered more food.
“And the thing is we still have no idea who contacted the Supreme Sangha Council in Thailand to make this claim,” said Civilai. It wasn’t the Buddha himself because he isn’t the least bit interested. The headman was so lukewarm about it he didn’t even bother showing up. But they wouldn’t have counted anyway. The Supreme Sangha Council is a bit like the Vatican. The Italians wouldn’t rush off into the jungle to see whether Mother Theresa was worthy of a sainthood unless a credible source could vouch for the fact she hadn’t spent all her time with her feet up drinking gin and tonic. They’re not going to sanctify her because her auntie said she was a good girl. No, whoever contacted Bangkok wielded some influence, and I want to know who it was . . . and why.”
“Meddlesome,” said his wife.
“Aren’t you even a little bit curious?”
“I have to be back for my Women’s Union meeting on Tuesday.”
“But if you didn’t . . . ?”
“Then, no. Not in the least. There are far more important things in life to be curious about.”
7
Felonious Monk
Siri and Daeng had slept well in the guesthouse of the temple in Sawan, although the bags under Ugly’s eyes suggested he’d been up all night. They’d been met on the road by the Supreme Patriarch and his friend Abbot Rayron carrying mountain salt lamps. The Sangharaj was an entirely different character than the mellow lump of stone they’d traveled with from Nong Khai. Siri had passed the test and was granted access to the man inside the rank. Old Sangharaj was a lad. He was funny and had a keen intellect, and he announced he’d already heard Civilai’s jokes—perhaps even the dirtier versions. When asked what it was he’d said to the coach boy on the Udon-bound bus, he confessed that he might have threatened to punch the boy on the nose if he harmed the dog. They’d talked long into the night, although the topic had been mostly Siri and Daeng.
“I knew it,” said the Sangharaj. “I knew if I antagonized and tested you a little your curiosity would get the better of you. And here you are. Remarkable. All those stories are indeed true.”
“What stories?” asked Daeng.
“Do I really need to retell them?” said the monk. “Daeng, the famous fleur-de-lis of the Free Lao underground movement. Dr. Siri, who saved so many on the battlefront then solved impossible mysteries as the national coroner. And who knows what celestial contacts you two have amassed.”
“Wait,” said Siri, “haven’t you been in the stockade since ’75? Where do you hear all these rumors?”
“The legends existed long before I was decommissioned,” said the Sangharaj. “Temples have been the grapes on the vine for centuries. It’s a worldwide saffron network. We attract all sorts—or used to. Intellectuals who’ve given up on the material world, old soldiers, frustrated shamans, murderers. Can you imagine the stories we hear around the campfire? It’s destiny that you should be here with us now. I can think of no two people more qualified to address the chaos we have in Sawan.”
“My husband isn’t so big on destiny,” said Daeng.
“Then let’s call it something else. How about coincidence?”
“That’s even worse,” said Siri.
“Then let’s not call it anything at all. You’re here, and you’ll help us. And for that we thank you.”
“We’re here because we agreed to deliver you to the Thais,” said Daeng.
“Following your defection,” added Siri.
The Sangharaj laughed. “Ah, yes. My defection. What say we discuss that later this morning over breakfast? The Thais are very generous when it comes to alms. Goodness, Abbot Rayron even had a pot of fresh strawberry jam yesterday. Can you believe it? A monk could actually put on weight here.”
“All right,” said Siri, “if you’re sending us to bed early, how about a little story to lull us to sleep?”
“Which one would you like to hear, Brother Siri?”
“The one where the Supreme Patriarch flees Udon bus station on a motorcycle and heads for a temple in the middle of nowhere because there’s chaos he presumably knew of long before he got there.”
“It’s complicated.”
“Give us the simple version.”
“Very well,” said the monk. “At the root of the chaos there is a simple drama. A suspected murder. There sits the accused.”
They all turned around to look at the abbot who had posed as a life-sized ornament in the shadows since their arrival. He was slim and sinewy and looked as if he could account for himself in a fist fight. He was very quiet and seemed embarrassed by the sudden attention, but allowed himself a slither of a smile.
“This,” said the Sangharaj, “is Abbot Rayron. He has run this temple since it was erected ten years ago. He used to be well respected in the region, but over the last three months, he’s murdered three people
.”
The Sangharaj paused here for effect.
“And, according to one of our village shamans,” he continued, “the murderer will kill again before the new week begins. So I suggest you wedge a chair under your doorknob when you go to sleep . . . which will be right now.”
“A lapsed Catholic, a thousand-year-old shaman and a homicidal Buddhist monk walk into a bar. And the barman says, ‘We only serve spirits in here.’ So the Catholic says, ‘We have the biggest spirit of all. The Holy Spirit. So I should get a glass of your best scotch . . .’”
It was the beginning of a joke that wouldn’t have worked in Lao, so Auntie Bpoo was telling it in French. Siri had no idea she could speak French, and perhaps she couldn’t because this was a dream . . . possibly. In dreams, miracles happened. Miracles like when a man’s just about to give up attempting to speak on a long distance line, and suddenly the signal’s as clear as a bell.
“I’ve heard it,” said Siri, even though he hadn’t. He was back in the connecting door space and the gap between the doors was getting narrower.
“What?” said Auntie Bpoo.
“I said I’ve heard the joke before.”
“Alleluia,” said Bpoo in whatever language alleluia was supposed to be.
“Alleluia, what?” asked Siri.
“Don’t you notice anything different?”
“There’s a handle on the door behind me,” said Siri. “So presumably I can go back to bed anytime I like.”
“Old dog, you’re so hard to please. Can’t you hear we’re talking?”
“I’ve had these two-way dreams before,” said Siri. “I’ve had conversations. I once spent the night wining and dining Audrey Hepburn.”
“Siri, you absolute idiot,” said Bpoo, “that was you talking to yourself pretending to be someone else. That’s not a dialogue. That’s a monologue with you doing all the voices. This is real. This is your breakthrough.”
A huge sense of relief washed over Siri like a spicy nasal spray. “So I can only speak to spirits in French?” he said.
I Shot the Buddha Page 8
