∗
“Sh…sh…she didn’t come back today.”
“Who’s that, Geung?”
Dtui was sitting on a stool facing the freezer controls with the Russian-Lao dictionary open on her lap. Mr Geung was using a long-handled broom to sweep cobwebs from the ceiling.
“The Down’s Syndrome. She didn’t come b…back.”
“Must have been a mirage, hon.”
“No…no…no. What’s a marge?”
“A mirage is something you think you see but it isn’t really there.”
“I saw her.”
“Ah, but did you? What if you wanted to see her so much that you made her up?”
“Eh?”
“You made magic and she came.”
“I…I…I can’t make magic.”
“If you want something badly enough, you can.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Look at Malee. I really wanted Malee in my life and there she was.”
“No. You had s…sex and you made a baby.”
“OK, right. That helped too. But it all started with a dream. And then I wished.”
“I wouldn’t w…w…wish for a Down’s Syndrome to come.”
“Why not?”
He put on a deep voice.
“That lot are f…feeble minded.”
“Yeah? Who said that?”
“Judge Haeng.”
“Oh, yeah? Is that the same Judge Haeng who had you sent way up north?”
“Yes.”
“And you found your way back to the morgue all by yourself?”
“Yes.”
“Then, you tell me which one of you is feeble minded. Look, Geung, you’ve been giving this woman a hard time since she started here. And, as far as I can see, she hasn’t done anything wrong. I’ll tell you how to look at this. There are times when you feel…out of it, right? When people make you feel like an outsider.”
“Yes. Lots.”
“But you have me and Dr Siri, and Civilai and now you have Malee. And we all make you feel better at those times. Right?”
“Yes.”
“Well, maybe, this woman, if she exists, maybe she feels like you do sometimes. But she hasn’t got a morgue full of family to make her feel better. People who love her. Maybe she’d appreciate just a friendly ‘hello’ sometimes and she wouldn’t feel like an outsider.”
“Just a hello.”
“That’s all. Then she’ll start to feel like you do.”
“That’s all?”
“Right. But I still don’t believe there is a Down’s Syndrome girl. Nobody else has seen her. I think she’s a joke you’re playing on us.”
“No. Sh…sh…she’s real. Her name’s Tukta.”
∗
On the eve of Siri’s departure for Phnom Penh via Peking, he had a bit of trouble getting home from the morgue. As was often the way, he’d sat around for most of the day fine-tuning his report on the épée murders, scratching about for something to keep himself busy, a case, a phone call, a body, a visit, some splattering of bureaucratic foolishness for him to complain about. But there had been nothing until four in the afternoon. Then everything happened. At one stage, Mr Geung came running into the office and spent several minutes catching his breath, attempting to filter out a word or two. Siri had rubbed his friend’s shoulders and calmed him down, and finally he was able to say…
“She…she’s back.”
“Who’s that, Geung?”
“The Down’s Syndrome. Sh…she…she’s a part-time staff in the can…the can…in the canteen.”
He’d left again, this time realising by himself that he hadn’t brought back the coffee he’d been sent for. Siri wondered whether the excitement was hostile territorialism or passion. He suspected the former. In fact, it occurred to him that even though he’d been acquainted with Geung for two years, he knew very little of the psychology that made him who he was. Did he have the same emotions as others? How many of his feelings were instincts? Where did his heart settle along the parameters between human and beast? Siri was disappointed that he could work alongside a man and not understand him. Perhaps his library could shed some light on what went on in Mr Geung’s mind.
It occurred to Siri that he himself had recently emerged from a long hibernation of ignorance. Suddenly he’d become aware of the deep feelings of those around him. He’d always focused on physical well-being and danced lightly around emotions. He wondered whether this awakening might be just one more stop on his journey through the senses. Was the spirit world leading him on a guided tour through the various rooms of the other world, or had he arrived at the garden of love all by himself like some long-haired hippy ganja smoker? Was he closer to heaven? After all the years of war and killing he’d suffered, with his heart as heavy as mud, was this the natural conclusion? After so many years of hate, there could only be –
Hospital director Suk had interrupted his transcendental train of thought. Siri caught him out of the corner of his eye striding past the office door towards the cutting room. He had a tall foreigner beside him. Siri counted on his fingers, one…two…three…
“Siri, come here!” the director yelled.
Siri smiled, and put on his white coat. It always seemed easier to lie in a white coat for some reason. He strolled casually into the cutting room with his hands in his pockets.
“Siri, can you explain this?” said Suk, pointing at the single strip light overhead and the two vacant fittings. Dtui came out of the storeroom and looked at the doctor, hoping he had an excuse at hand.
“Can you, Comrade?” Siri asked.
“Can I what?” Suk replied.
“Can you explain why those Chinese engineers came to take away our perfectly good lights?”
Dtui smiled and returned to the stores. All was in order.
“Chinese? What Chinese?” Suk asked.
“How should I know?” Siri replied. “They had a work order written in Chinese and the interpreter said something about the wattage of the lamps being inappropriate for the size of the room. She said you’d sent them.”
Director Suk spent several minutes in stunted dialogue with the Russian engineer who was clearly upset. Siri stood there, indignant, with his arms folded. He knew the hospital administration had no idea who was donating what and which experts were due when. He was sure this small matter would be lost in the war of dominance between the superpowers. Suk and the Russian walked out of the morgue without another word to Siri.
The doctor thought that incident would be the grand total of excitement for the day. Geung returned again without the coffee and too grumpy to talk to anyone. Dtui left at five to pick up Malee from the creche. Siri did his rounds, closing the louvres in the cutting room and checking the water level in the ornamental flood overflow pond which now sported two attractive lotus flowers. He stacked the papers on his desk and began to write a list of duties to keep his morgue team occupied for the next four days. Halfway through the list he looked up and saw his angel mother in the doorway. He smiled, as was his habit. She chewed betel and frowned, as was hers.
“Hello, darling,” he said. “Enough rain for you these days?” He wondered whether spirits felt rain. Did it just pass through them? He’d never seen one with an umbrella. He knew that, apart from mermaids, folk from the beyond couldn’t travel on water. That probably explained why so many royalists had crossed the Mekhong, leaving their evil spirits behind on the Lao bank. Beginning a new life on the Thai side. Not realising there was an entire army of equally evil spirits waiting for them over there. Siri’s mother didn’t reply. She had never spoken. She was a vision without a soundtrack. Siri had become used to his one-sided conversations. He was concentrating on his list.
6. Make inventory of all the body parts we have in formaldehyde in the storeroom.
7. Write justification as to why they’re there.
8. If you can’t think of any, dig a hole behind the morgue and bury them deep away from dogs (with a few kind wo
rds of spiritual praise to the body parts).
9. …
“Don’t go, Siri.”
“What?” Siri looked up, expecting to find a visitor in the doorway but there was nobody there but his mother. The voice had been clear. A woman’s voice. An old woman, crackly but clear and loud. He stared at the old lady who sat cross-legged staring back at him, chewing her betel.
“Did you speak?” he asked.
If only she could. It was his dream to talk with them. Enough of these guessing games. Had she spoken? Had the words, ‘Don’t go, Siri’ come from her?
“Don’t go where, mother?” he asked.
But she sat and chewed and into her body stepped a large chocolate-skinned man in a nightshirt. He didn’t seem aware of the mess he’d made of Siri’s mother.
“Good evening, Dr Siri,” said Bhiku. “I hope you are talking to yourself because, as you clearly see, I am not your mother.”
Mr David Bhiku, the father of crazy Rajid, weighed some 100 kilograms. With his chocolaty gleam and gum-bubble of a nose it was evident he could never be a relative of the doctor, mother or otherwise. Siri rose from his seat to greet his friend but old habits died hard and the Indian buried his head deep into Siri’s gut and pressed his palms together in greeting.
“Krishna save us, Bhiku,” smiled Siri. “I look forward to the day when we can just shake hands and dispense with all this bowing and scraping. You outweigh me by several sacks of rice. It looks silly.”
“Yes, sir. Worth is not decided by weight, Doctor. If that were so I should be kowtowing to every buffalo I meet.”
“Come and sit…and not on the floor.”
“I am an honoree.”
Siri forced him onto the chair and glanced at the doorway to satisfy himself that his mother hadn’t been crushed back to life by the big Indian. There was no trace of her.
“I have some tepid tea,” said Siri, reaching for the thermos.
“I have already indulged, thank you.”
“I haven’t seen your son, Jogendranath, for several days. My wife and I are worried. With all this rain and nowhere to sleep…”
“Ah, yes. My son has found a dry place to sleep. Thank you. That’s what I’have come to tell you.”
“You’ve seen him?”
“I see him every night,” Bhiku smiled. “He curls up like a civet cat beneath the canvas which covers my cooking area at the rear of the restaurant.”
Siri raised his eyebrows.
“He sleeps at your restaurant? That’s marvellous.”
“Most nights, now. Yes. He is reminiscent of a small animal sheltering from the rain. Life to a street son like mine must be very unpleasant if there is no star-filled sky to pull over you when you go to bed. He has not yet built up the confidence to eat the food I leave out for him or to come inside out of the wind, but he’s there often. I like to sit on the back step watching him sleep.”
“Has he spoken?”
“Sadly, Doctor, my poor son is still mute. But in his dreams the spirits speak through him. I hear them sometimes. In his dreams there are words.”
Siri smiled, delighted.
“With just a little more faith, friend, I wouldn’t be surprised if you could reach in and pull out those words, bring him back his voice,” he said.
“Would that it were so.”
“One rung at a time, Bhiku. One rung at a time.”
The Indian hadn’t been gone more than five minutes. Siri had begun to pack his cloth shoulder bag. The words from his mother still hung at his neck. “Don’t go, Siri.” He was walking absently towards the door when a third unexpected visitor appeared there. Colonel Phat was tall and gaunt. He smiled warmly with the few teeth he had. He was the Vietnamese advisor at the Ministry of Justice. He and Siri had become close since his arrival in Vientiane. Their opinions of Judge Haeng’s suitability for his position had dragged them together.
“Brother Siri,” Phat said as he walked into the office.
“Phat, did you lose your way? I’ve never seen you near the morgue before.”
“Just pacing out those final steps.”
“And they lead you here? Are you expecting a violent death, brother?”
“A knife in the back. It’s a feeling I’ve held since I first arrived at Justice.”
Phat walked past Siri and sat on a chair, ignoring the fact that the doctor was clearly on his way home.
“I only have cold tea to offer,” Siri said, returning to his desk.
“I come as a harbinger of doom,” said Phat.
“That’s a pity. I was planning on having a good-news-only day. Are you sure it can’t wait till I come back from Cambodia?”
“That’s the point, brother Siri. I am here to strongly recommend that you don’t go there.”
“I think the trip’s all booked and paid for.”
“Then, come down with something that makes it impossible for you to travel. And tell your friend Civilai to do the same.”
“What on earth for?”
“Dr Siri, what exactly do you know about what’s happening in the swamp they call Kampuchea?”
“Not much. The orientation only took half an hour. Most of it was read from some sort of travel brochure. Then they gave us an itinerary and a summary of the Red Khmer manifesto. It looked a lot like ours.”
He didn’t bother to mention the warning he and Civilai had been given that they might get some subtle pressure from the Vietnamese not to go. Hanoi had mentored the fledgling Khmer Rouge and encouraged its overthrow of the corrupt Khmer royalists. But its plan to have Laos and Cambodia sit at its feet like tame naga dragons had been thwarted by the new revolutionary leaders in Phnom Penh. It was no secret that the Khmer and the Vietnamese had long since separated on ideological grounds, but, since the beginning of the year, the war drums had been beating on both sides of the border. Once an ally, Cambodia, now Kampuchea, had become a threat. Phnom Penh was drifting closer to China, just as Vietnam drifted further away from the big Red mother ship.
“We are hearing terrible things from Khmer refugees at our borders,” Phat said. “I am seriously concerned for your safety, Comrade.”
“Refugees have a habit of saying what they think their saviours want to hear. I wouldn’t worry about it.”
Phat rose. He seemed to be offended by Siri’s attitude.
“I came here on my own time and against the wishes of my embassy. I came out of friendship with a sincere warning.”
Siri wondered whether Civilai was encountering his own delegation of Vietnamese friendship ambassadors.
“I appreciate it,” Siri said. “But, I think it’s too late to get out of it, Comrade.” He stood and held out his hand to Phat. “But thank you for the warning. It was good to see you again.”
Phat didn’t return the handshake.
“It’s far more than a warning, Siri. Putting a man with your character in Phnom Penh at this time is like dropping petroleum on a bush fire. If you go to Kampuchea you will burn, Siri Paiboun. Trust me.”
He turned and walked out.
Siri had never seen him like this. It had been an impressive and – he had to admit – an unnerving visit. The Vietnamese certainly knew how to squeeze. The colonel’s words were still on his mind as he put the welcome mat inside and locked the front door. And the old woman’s voice telling him not to go. He liked his omens in threes. One more and he’d call in sick and let Civilai go by himself. All by himself to sample the fine wines and tasty Khmer food. The beautiful Khmer women. The charm of Phnom Penh. The memory of walking along Boulevard Noradom with Boua. The smiles of the locals. The music. What was a little prophecy of doom against all that?
A voice from across the flooded hospital grounds reached him through the drizzle.
“Feel like a drink?”
Cast in silhouette against the gaudy strip lights of oncology, Phosy stood astride his Vespa in a foot of water. Siri took off his sandals, rolled up his trouser legs, and waded to the inspector.
“Just saving myself for Lao new year and very special occasions,” Phosy smiled. Siri hadn’t seen him in such a good mood for a very long time.
“Well, new year came and went without anyone noticing,” Siri said. “So what’s the occasion?”
“Another solved case.”
“You haven’t…?”
“We have. Not only do we have our fencer, we have irrefutable connections to each of the victims and to the three crime scenes. It’s all over.” He shook the doctor’s hand. “Congratulations.”
There were fewer and fewer places to drink of a night in a city whose sense of muan – of innocent pleasure – had been slowly wrung from it by two and a half years of socialism. The logical hot spots were roofless snack and drink stalls along the riverbank and, as long as that one unstoppable April shower persisted, they would remain closed. There was the Russian club, a bustling, beery night-eatery populated by Eastern European experts. But that was beyond the budget of a Lao policeman and a Lao doctor. So Siri and Phosy took their drinks under an umbrella at Two Thumb’s humble establishment behind the evening market. They drank rice whisky and worked through a plate of steamed peanuts in soft shells. Siri knew he should have been packing, spending the night with Madame Daeng, but she’d always understood the power of celebration, particularly when victory was the prize.
“If we’d only checked sooner,” Phosy said. “Or if one of us had remembered the names on the lists. But, why would we? We were only interested in the team leader on the rewiring project. I doubt we gave the other names on the Electricite du Laos work roster more than a cursory glance. But I’d arrived at the name Somdy Borachit on the subscriptions list and I read it out loud. And Sihot had just worked out his schedule to interview all the electricians on his list and he asked me how it was spelt. And, sure enough, it was the same name. We had him: Somdy Borachit, who everyone knew by the nickname of Neung. We drove over to Electricite du Laos and he was there, calm as you like. Confident. And I asked him if he had an acquaintanceship with the three victims and he admitted he did. No pretence at all. He came straight out with it.”
Dr Siri Paiboun: Love Songs from a Shallow Grave (2010) Page 16
