“Where are you going?” shouted the girl with the flashlight.
“Confrontation,” he said, and strode manfully forward. He had a theory. This show of force by the phibob was to demonstrate their power. How better to do that than to humiliate and destroy a great Buddhist general? The only reason the Sangharaj hadn’t stepped off the tower so far was that His Sublimeness, strengthened from a lifetime of purity and devotion, was waging his own battle with the spirits. He was outnumbered, but his will was holding. He needed reinforcements.
Siri wasn’t even slightly intimidated by the swordsmen who came at him like wild beasts, drooling and cursing, slashing at him with weapons they didn’t have. They were incensed that he could brush past them with such nonchalance. He even dared punch one stocky man on the nose. He yelped like a puppy.
Siri had made one error. He had dismissed the role of the monkey women. They were bold and approached him without fear. It was one slim, attractive monkey who made the first lunge. She came screaming, not for his throat but for his amulet. Siri stepped back and pushed her off. She snarled and prowled away. He cursed himself for his lack of foresight. Of course. All the phibob had to do was remove his amulet and his cloak of invulnerability would be stripped from him. Then he’d be bouncing and brandishing with the rest of them.
Siri was completely surrounded by monkey women. If they attacked en masse he’d be lost. He continued to walk forward, but the pack was circling, drawing closer. A second monkey woman lunged. She was in her sixties, but she flew through the air with amazing agility and wrapped her arms and legs around his middle. He didn’t have the strength to peel her off. She reached up inside his shirt and yanked on the string that held his talisman. He grabbed her wrist, but she was improbably strong. All he could do was prize her arm away from the package and hold it.
That was when the monkey previously known as Daeng attacked him from the rear. She yanked the cord over his head, snatched the package from his shirt and held it aloft in victory. The other monkey women screeched with delight and danced. Siri was still locked in a simian embrace with the old ape woman. All he could do was watch his monkey wife walk away on her knuckles through the crowd. Almost immediately he felt the crush as the phibob moved in on him. It was as if the portcullis was open, and the invaders could enter the castle at their leisure. There were millions of them. Tens of millions. He couldn’t see them, but he sensed that there would never be an end to the invaders. Already he was losing his sense of self. He had no willpower. Sights and sounds around him were becoming fainter. But he recognized a voice. It wasn’t a human voice. It was the bark and snarl of a dog. It was the familiar sound of Ugly’s growl.
Siri opened his eyes in time to see his dog bury his fangs in Madam Daeng’s arm. The mongrel was suspended in midair, but shaking and rolling his head until Daeng had no choice but to drop her package. Other monkey women went for it, but Ugly was faster. He snatched it up in his jaws and ran it back to his drowsy master. Siri was disoriented and could not take hold of the talisman, but Ugly held it against the doctor’s head and growled when the monkey women came close. Its power was like an injection of cocaine. Siri felt the surge. He fought off the old lady ape and took the amulet package in both hands. The monkey women came at him again. There was a wall of monkeys and swordsmen between him and the ladder. He adopted his rugby stance, amulet cradled in right arm, left arm out in front, palm forward, and he charged them. Ugly was at his side.
He pushed through one then another, but the monkey women were unbreakable. They’d fall to the ground then be on their feet in seconds. And Madam Daeng was back in the scrimmage. But then something unexpected happened. It was as if his opponents had been inflicted with terrible migraines. They held their heads and whined and staggered. Siri understood. They were receiving interference from the circle of shamans. The unification was working.
Siri reached the ladder with no further obstacles. He patted Ugly on the head, removed the amulet from its pack, replaced it around his neck and began to climb. His cloudy old lungs told him to rest after only a few steps. Who was this old invalid? What happened to the school wrestling champion? The boxer? The only boy in his college to win the annual cross-country race barefoot? Why did old age delete the abilities but highlight the memories? By the time he reached the top of the second ladder he was wheezing so loudly the hawks in the surrounding trees called back in reply.
The Sangharaj was walking unsteady laps just two meters above Siri’s head. The footsteps gonged on the zinc roof. It was like being beside a kettle drum. Siri couldn’t hear his own thoughts. He called out.
“Sangharaj, can you stop walking for a while, so we can talk this through? Ignore those voices in your head. Put aside any suggestions you would never naturally make.”
But the phibob had transported the mind of the old monk somewhere far from that water tower. Siri would have to antagonize them to break down the barrier they’d put up. He began to recite an old Hmong text he’d learned from a village of women in Xiang Khouang. It was a warning mothers gave their children about the ugly and foul-smelling phibob who crept into their bedrooms late at night and ripped off the children’s fingers and toes to make necklaces of them. The warning went on for ten verses, growing more and more insulting and disgusting as they progressed.
It was unlikely the Sangharaj would have heard or understood the words, but his body stopped pacing for the first time.
“You’re late,” he said, or at least the words came from his mouth, but the lips didn’t move.
“May I join you up there?” Siri asked.
“I insist,” said the mouth of the monk.
Siri climbed the last section of scaffold and stood on the tank, breathing heavily. His introduction caused a loud clunk, as if the tank might cave in at any second. He took a deep breath and looked around. All he could see was a glow from the village lamps and the distant lights of Nam Som reflected against the clouds. He’d expected to be picked out in the beam of a flashlight, but that was not to be. He remembered their arrival when the torch had refused to work.
“Nice place you have here,” said Siri.
“You are Yeh Ming,” said the voice.
The Sangharaj stood in the center of the tank as immobile as stone. Only his outline was visible against the glow.
“And this is your last night on earth,” added the voice. “You’ll be with us soon.”
“You can’t win this,” said Siri.
“We have already won,” said the voice.
It was then Siri noticed the silence. It was as quiet as the night they’d first arrived. There were no birds, or whispering leaves, or toads or night insects. There was no fighting from below and no singing of “The Person Who Rides the Buffalo.”
“We have seven centuries of experience here in Sawan and the best you can do is monkeys?” said Siri.
“Experience of what?” came the voice. Much closer now and no longer from the mouth of the monk. “Of jingling bottle-top tambourines? Of riding wooden benches? Of calling on spirits of entities that never existed? Your little army was a sham, Yeh Ming. Your soldiers were charlatans. It’s to no avail, Yeh Ming. Can you hear it? The silence? Your circle of old magicians is quiet. They’re all dead, you see? When they saw what we did to their elders, the young ones fled like mice. Too much blood for their tastes perhaps. Do you see the flashlight, Yeh Ming?”
Siri, from principle, had never admitted to anything in his life. He’d never yielded, never confessed, never begged for mercy. But he had to agree things were looking grim up there on the water tower.
“Then what do you suggest?” Siri asked.
“Nothing. You’re already lost.”
“There is one thing I can do to please you.”
“What is that?”
“The super shaman here and I fight to the death. If I win I give you my amulet and you let me go. If I lose you may tak
e the talisman from my dead body. Either way you win plus you get a little blood sport on the way.”
There followed an interminable silence.
“Agreed,” said the voice at last.
“Splendid,” said Siri. “Then let’s get it over with.”
The knuckles of the Sangharaj cracked as he clenched and unclenched his fists. His torso stood upright and seemed to have shed a decade or two. He really did appear to be invincible. Siri’s only hope was to trust. He had to believe the silence only existed in his own head, that the beam of light had been masked only from his eyes. He had to believe the phibob were incapable of telling the truth just as Auntie Bpoo—dear, absent Auntie Bpoo—had told him in her poem: Never trust the ghosts. They have no scruples. He had to believe that nothing was as it appeared.
The monk raised his fists and seemed to swell with confidence. Siri, still wheezing loudly and exhausted from his earlier battle, crouched with one hand on the metal like a sumo wrestler. He tensed every muscle in his body. He shouted a wordless battle cry, sprang forward and ran at the Sangharaj. The monk was ready for him, and, as Siri’s guard was down, he cracked a fist into the doctor’s chin. Siri’s head rebounded from the blow as if it might come loose from his shoulders. But Siri had expected as much. He had to keep his hands low, so he might get in below the next punches and round his opponent’s waist. By the time the second blow came, Siri had already reached his target, and the punch merely glanced his eye. His forward momentum pushed the monk onto his back foot, and his grip prevented the Sangharaj from stepping out of the hold.
Siri didn’t stand his ground, he continued to push. The monk flailed at the head against his chest, but Siri didn’t let go.
“Siri, what are you doing?” came the familiar voice of the Sangharaj. “It’s me. For heaven’s sake, you’ll kill us both. Please, Siri.”
Siri forged ahead until they were at the edge of the tank. Only the monk’s toes remained on the metal.
“Help me, Siri,” said the monk. “Save me.”
But one more shove, and they were both in midair. There it was. The leap of faith.
14
And Now . . . Live at the Morgue
Dtui and her team were awoken by a ferocious banging on the morgue doors.
“We-we-we’ve been busted,” said Mr. Geung.
“Sounds like it,” said Nurse Dtui.
She hurried from her sleeping mat to check her patient. Mr. Geung, with the aid of a penknife, had requisitioned the necessary drugs and five liters of blood from the locked supply room. Dtui had removed the blade, repaired a few tears in the stomach wall, cleaned the wound, administered the blood and crossed her fingers. Once the operation was over and the blade lay on its steel tray in a plastic bag, they’d sat beside Phosy, willing him to fight for life. But his vital signs did not normalize. It wasn’t until about 3 a.m. that her husband’s breathing had become more steady, and she’d chanced a short nap.
Five minutes later came the banging on the door.
“We can fight them off,” said Tukta. “We’ve got knives.”
“I think we just keep quiet and pretend we’re not here,” said Dtui. “If we let them in they’ll insist on moving Phosy to a recovery room. That might be more than he can take.”
She did wonder why the hospital security man or the administrator didn’t open the door with their master keys. And there were no orders to open up, no threats. She walked barefoot to the main door and listened.
It was then she heard a faint, “Siri, Siri, is that you in there?”
The voice was familiar but weak.
“It’s Civilai,” she said, unlocking the door. She opened it in time to see their old friend keel over and collapse on the steps. Geung carried him effortlessly into the cutting room and laid him on an empty mat.
“Oh, my,” said Dtui. “What’s happened to you, Uncle?”
“I’m beaten, bruised and bedraggled and my arm’s broken in two places,” he told her.
A trail of dried blood led from the corner of his mouth and blood stained his shirt and trousers. If possible, he looked more exhausted than Dtui felt. Having reached the morgue, his strength left him. He lifted his good hand, which held a small bunch of car keys. And before he lost consciousness, he said:
“In the car. The Buddha . . . I shot him.”
•••
For the first time in his later life the Sangharaj woke long after the sun had risen. He was a poor sleeper. He’d come to believe he would witness every hour of daylight until his death. But here he had slept wonderfully and woken with such a clear mind he might have been meditating for a week. His breath had never been so vivid. He felt as if he’d been reborn, launched anew into the world.
But, sadly, not with a fresh body. When he tried to rise from the wooden flooring, every joint and muscle screamed for him to desist. He was in pain from his feet to his neck. He considered what jungle disease he might have contracted overnight. He’d lived through malaria and dengue and a dozen other ailments that hadn’t yet been named. But none had left his head so new and his body so old.
He knew it was a test. To a man who had reached enlightenment, pain should not have been allowed to dominate his feelings. The agony had not asked to be drawn into his body. He was embarrassed to have abducted it and knew he should treat it like a damaged friend who needed his help rather than a vindictive enemy. So he ignored the pleas from his parts and re-taught himself to stand and hobble around the room. It all took some ten minutes. He escorted his vivid breath and his lucid mind into the garden. There, he saw the back of Abbot Rayron meditating on a rock. He was holding a yellow umbrella as he contemplated the carp.
The sun was high in the sky. It was almost midday, but the Sangharaj felt no hunger. He wondered where the old Lao couple might be, perhaps off on one of their adventures. They were a blessing, those two. If anyone could clear the name of Abbot Rayron it was Siri and Daeng. He passed their hut. The door was open. He could see two pairs of feet. It was a peculiar day. Even the Lao had been unable to rouse themselves. He walked on with barely a thought of his pain.
Madam Daeng was next to rise. She too had a clear head and a pained body. She lay awake recalling the water tower and the monk at its summit. She knew the elders of Sawan had joined forces to combat the evil spirits, but . . . from there everything was blank. The pain in her body confused her. She’d fought the demons of rheumatism for long enough, but this was different. It was as if she’d pushed her old body to limits it had forgotten. She wore a neat bandage on her arm, but the wound beneath it stung. Even turning her neck to look at her sleeping husband was an effort.
And what a state he was in. A dry trickle of blood ran from his ear. One eye was black. He lay with his mouth open, and he’d lost another tooth. Was he dead? Her heart held back a beat as she observed his chest. There was no movement. Second heartbeat. Third heartbeat . . . then it rose.
“You idiot!” she shouted and slapped his already battered face.
Despite the rude awakening, Siri’s one able eye opened and his mouth curled into a smile.
“Good morning, sweetness,” he said.
“I’ll give you sweetness,” she growled. “I swear, if you do that one more time I’ll leave you for a younger man.”
“Do what, dear?”
“Pretend you’re dead.”
“I would never,” he said. “I’d either be really dead or not in a position to deny it.”
He sat up and she noticed what she’d taken to be a shadow across his chest was, in fact, dried blood.
“Oh,” she said.
“Don’t panic,” he told her, “it’s not my blood. I’m sorry. Once I got you and the Sangharaj cleaned up and dressed and into bed I didn’t have the strength to take a shower. I lay down for a second to rest and here I still am. I’m not nearly as bad as I probably look.”
“A resounding victory for our team,” he said. “Let’s get up and find something to eat, and I’ll tell you all about it.”
“I can’t,” she said.
“Can’t what?”
“Get up.”
Siri helped his wife to her feet and slowly to the kitchen. He left her there while he took a long shower. While they ate he walked her through the events of that morning. He’d debated whether to go into detail about her role, but he never lied to his wife. He’d been creative with the facts now and then but never an outright lie.
“You were a monkey,” he told her.
She looked into his eyes to see if that was a Siri joke, but his face was straight.
“You know?” she said. “We really do need a camera. These things happen and we don’t have any record. What a family album it would be.”
“I’m not sure I would have had time to take snaps,” he said.
“Was I a good monkey?” she asked.
“One of the best.”
“So tell me.”
“Well,” he said, “always remember there’s a very thin membrane between reality, supernature and dreams. So it’s never easy to recount what actually happened with any conviction.”
“I didn’t dream these bruises,” she said.
“Perhaps,” he said. “But the psychosomatic can be very powerful, so don’t dismiss any possibility.”
“Is this bandage covering something psychosomatic?”
“No. Ugly bit you.”
He told her of his recollection of events up to the duel to the death with the Sangharaj.
“My problem,” he said, “was that I was being fed a lot of false information in one form or another. I had to trust that the villagers would not desert Yeh Ming, so I threw us both off the tower. On the way down, all my senses came back to me: the shouts of the rescuers, the flashlight beam, the shaman’s song. They had been there all the time, but the phibob had blocked them. I can’t tell you how satisfying it is to land in a nylon parachute.”
I Shot the Buddha Page 22
