Six and a Half Deadly Sins

by Colin Cotterill

  “Don’t you … don’t you dare deprive me of this moment of pain-free bliss. We’re going dancing. We’re going to the market.”

  “For what?”

  “For men. Young men to dance with. Here I go.” She turned and skipped down the path.

  “Wait!” said Mae. “Wait, I’ll …” She turned back into the house, found her bag and put on her hat. But by the time she returned to the door, Daeng was nowhere to be found. Mae shook her head and started off to the market. She’d seen this too many times in her years as a nurse. The old lady was high—and she’d taken a lot.

  Agnes the jeep pulled up in front of the post office in Muang Xai. The town was a short main street with old trees that offered shade to the few businesses there. Nothing new had been built for a very long time, which gave the town some grubby historical charm but also made it look in need of a good wash. Like in several other provincial capitals, there was one long-distance phone line and a vast number of locals waiting to use it. Civilai wasn’t one to stand in line, not that the principle of queuing had made it this far north. He called for the manager. The middle-aged paunchy man at the desk hesitated before saying, “That’s me, comrade.”

  Civilai took out his letter of recommendation and held it out for the man to see.

  “I’m from the government,” said Civilai. “I need a line to Vientiane now. It’s a priority.”

  The manager pulled his reading glasses down from the top of his head and read the government document … very slowly.

  “That means ‘immediately,’ ” said Civilai.

  “You have to fill out a form,” said the manager. He opened a drawer and began to fumble through papers.

  “I’ll fill it out later,” said Civilai.

  The manager opened a second drawer, which stuck a little, before pulling out a handmade pistol with a hollow handle and placing it on the counter in front of him.

  “Forms were designed for people like you,” said the man.

  Civilai had never been threatened at gunpoint in a post office before, but then again, he hadn’t spent much time in the wild north. He took the form the man handed him. “I’d ask to borrow a pen, but I’m afraid you’d toss a hand grenade at me.”

  The manager produced a pen from the top pocket of his navy blue shirt. Civilai squinted as he tried to read the fading print. “I don’t suppose …?”

  The manager took off his glasses and handed them to the old man without complaint. For an armed gunman, he was most accommodating.

  Meanwhile, across town, Siri had located the market and was making enquiries about the latest sin in the treasure trail. As usual, the market was all but deserted by afternoon, but there were one or two small stalls that sold cheap Chinese clothes as well as a few local pha sins.

  “I’m looking for the woman who made this,” he said, holding up the skirt to a small gaggle of sellers.

  “She’s not the type of doctor you’d be looking for,” said one stall holder.

  “What makes you think I’m looking for a doctor?” Siri asked.

  “Look at the state of you,” said the woman at the next stall. “You’re on your last legs. You need a hospital.”

  There’s nothing more effective for making a man feel ill than to be told he looks like death. Siri became aware of just how bad his condition looked to others. The cough medicine top-up from Bobby was having no effect at all. “Then what kind of doctor is the weaver?” he asked.

  “She’s a voodoo woman,” said the first stall holder. “Crazy as a loon. You don’t want to go over there. Buy one of mine instead. Much better quality.”

  “What kind of crazy?” Siri asked.

  “She thinks she’s a witch, a shape-shifter, a medium … you name it.”

  “But she’s not,” said the other. “She’s just nuts. You’d best stay away in your condition. The excitement might kill you.”

  “And if I chose not to stay away,” said Siri. “Where might I find her?”

  Siri was back in front of the post office hacking his guts up when Civilai emerged. The old politician climbed into the passenger seat and slapped the dashboard two or three times. He hurt himself far more than he hurt the jeep. He was fuming.

  “You took your time,” said Siri, wiping his mouth.

  “I was mugged,” Civilai told him. “Not only did I have to stand in a disorganized scrum with the riffraff, I had to pay for the call.”

  “It’s a post office. Isn’t that normal?”

  “I’m a special envoy of the politburo.”

  “This is a socialist state. You aren’t supposed to have privileges.”

  “That’s just in the pamphlets. It’s theoretical. It doesn’t apply to the real world.”

  “Someone obviously convinced you otherwise.”

  “He pulled a gun on me.”

  Siri laughed hoarsely and stamped on the gas pedal a few times before engaging a gear. The roar caused the few pedestrians on the main street to turn their heads. A hundred meters later, the jeep was already on the outskirts of town.

  “I reckon that’s the only way we’re going to spread Communism around the globe. At gunpoint. Did you get through?”

  “To a clerk. She said she’d pass on my message as soon as the minister gets back from his herbal spa.”

  “I see they’re all on edge worrying about the Chinese invasion. You do realize you’d get more respect and better service if you did all your research through military bases?”

  “I don’t want a unit of soldiers following me around. I’m incognito. The invisible spy. Civilai the ghost agent who sees enemy occupations.”

  “I still get the feeling you aren’t taking any of this seriously.”

  “Basically, who cares? If they don’t invade us militarily now, they’ll invade us commercially at a later date. We’re too ripe for plunder to be ignored, and none of the hill tribes up here have any great love for the Lao or the distant administration in Vientiane that does nothing for them. They’d switch allegiances tomorrow if they thought they’d be better off.”

  “I can’t think why they didn’t keep you on the politburo with such a positive outlook.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “To see a crazy woman.”

  “That’s all of them, isn’t it?”

  “Would you like me to run over the next elderly cripple with a puppy that I see?”

  “With your driving skills, you’d miss.”

  “You do remember I’m your only friend, don’t you?”

  “Friendship is highly overrated.”

  Siri abandoned all hope of drawing love and caring from the old diplomat and set his sights on locating the green-and-pink house of Madame Voodoo. In fact, it found them before they found it. They’d just crossed a small bridge and were on a downward slope traveling at some fifty kilometers per hour when a woman darted across the road in front of them. Siri braked and swerved, narrowly avoiding a catastrophe. As it was, his left headlight thumped the woman’s ample rear end. She stopped, looked back, cursed and ran on.

  The house she disappeared into was green and pink. It was apparently the only painted house in the province.

  The old talisman that hung at Siri’s neck began to vibrate. That was always a bad sign. It invariably announced that he had arrived at a sight with dense paranormal activity. He decided not to announce this fact to Civilai.

  Still a little shaken from the near miss, the old boys parked in front of the house and walked up the ladder that led to the large front deck. A very pretty girl of about eight was rocking there on a rattan chair. “Hello, uncles,” she said.

  “Hello, young miss,” said Siri. He kicked off his sandals at the top of the ladder and creaked across the bamboo floor. “Was that your mother we almost hit?”

  “My aunt,” said the girl. “She does that all the time.”

  “Why?” asked Civilai, joining them on the deck.

  “The shadow spirit,” said the girl, quite matter-of-factly. “He follow
s her whenever she’s out of the house. It’s really annoying.”

  “So she runs in front of cars?” said Siri.

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she’s hoping that the shadow spirit will be hit by the car, of course. It’ll break his leg, and he won’t be able to keep up when she goes shopping.”

  “That makes sense,” said Siri.

  Civilai glared at him.

  “But wouldn’t your aunt be hoping that the shadow spirit is killed by the car?” Siri continued.

  The girl laughed. “Don’t be silly,” she said. “It’s a spirit.”

  “Right,” said Siri, smiling. “Can we see your aunt, do you think?”

  “She’s at the loom.”

  “I didn’t notice it under the house.”

  “It’s in the bedroom. We’re afraid they’ll steal it.”

  “The spirits?”

  “No, the Chinese. They steal everything. This way.”

  The girl left the chair, which continued to rock even without her in it. She took a key from her pocket and unlocked a huge padlock that held shut the door to the only room in the house. She walked inside before them. Siri and Civilai paused and looked at each other, perhaps wondering how the aunt had managed to enter the house and lock herself in from the outside.

  “We’ve been waiting for you,” said the girl. The creepy moments just piled up one on top of the other. The loom sat auntless in the center of the room. There were some mattresses rolled on one side and a cardboard case, but no other signs of habitation.

  “She’s not here,” said Civilai. “Perhaps we should …”

  “She’ll be back,” said the girl.

  Siri looked around. There were no other rooms. No doors. His cough had let up for the first time in a week.

  “Back from where?” he asked.

  “Phi bung bot,” said the girl. “The door to other dimensions. She steps in and out often.”

  Siri was fascinated. Civilai rolled his eyes. “Can we expect her back in this lifetime?” he asked.

  “Never can tell,” said the girl. “Sometimes she vanishes for weeks.”

  “Marvelous,” said Siri. “Does she tell you about the places she visits?”

  “Look, we have to get back before dark,” said Civilai. “You said you were expecting us. Do you perhaps have something for us? A pha sin, maybe?”

  “Yes, of course,” said the girl. “It’s over there in the corner.”

  Civilai located the latest plastic bag and started to remove the staples.

  “I should do that,” said Siri.

  The girl watched, fascinated, as Siri removed the latest sin from its bag. He held it by two corners. It was not remarkably different from its predecessors. The hem was black, and there were two pale green bands in the brocade. It did feel considerably older than the others, however. There was something musty about its smell. It was perhaps antique but in remarkably good condition.

  Siri was distracted by some slight movement at the loom. The treadle began to pump. The harness lifted. And like some cinematographic sleight of hand, a woman appeared on the bench, weaving. She was round like a watermelon and belted her skirt almost beneath her armpits. Her cheeks were pink, and she wheezed as if she’d been in a hundred-meter dash.

  Siri clapped his hands. “Bravo,” he shouted. “Good show.”

  Civilai put his head in his palms. “It’s the monosodium glutamate,” he said. “They told me to lay off.”

  But it was as if Madame Voodoo had always been in the room, always been weaving at the loom. Siri turned to show the girl how delighted he was, but she’d vanished. Odd, as she’d been nowhere near the open door. But marvelous. Madame Voodoo made one last toss of the shuttle and sighed as she beat her last weft threads. It was not until she’d placed her shuttle on top of the fabric that she noticed her guests for the first time.

  “Good day,” she cooed. “What brings two such handsome men here to my modest home?” She smiled at Siri and looked at the pha sin he clutched to his chest.

  “Now that’s a pretty piece,” she said, climbing down from the bench and walking toward him. Suddenly she stopped as if hitting an invisible wall. “Oh,” she said. “Oh, dear.”

  “What?” Siri asked.

  “You are terribly congested,” she said.

  “I think it was the sticky rice and pork we had on the road,” Siri joked, knowing full well what she was actually talking about. His talisman was biting into his chest. He became instantly aware that this was a junction. Spirits traveled, of course they did, and Madame Voodoo’s house was the Paris St. Germain of mystic travel. He could feel it. “Any suggestions as to how I might clear the blockage?” he asked.

  “Hah,” she laughed. “No.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  Civilai sat with his fingers in his ears, whistling the Lao national anthem. He’d always been averse to the psychic art, preferring to shut it out than to believe in it.

  “I make potions,” said Madame Voodoo. “The ingredients come to me in dreams. Some say they help with minor spiritual problems. But you? You need a complete paranormal enema.”

  “That sounds rather erotic. Would it help?”

  “It might, but these things find a way to cancel each other out.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Well, you might be cured of dipsomania, but you’d grow a tail. Do you know what I mean? You could be rid of a demon but lose the ability to speak your native language. That sort of thing.”

  If Siri hadn’t seen her materialize out of thin air, he would have put her down as a freak just as the women at the market had done. But rematerialization was a tough act. He had no choice but to follow through. “Do you have any remedies for arthritis?” he asked.

  “Easy,” she said.

  “How bad could the side effects be?”

  “Siri!” said Civilai. “Stop it.”

  “I’m only asking,” said Siri.

  “I never can tell until the course is complete,” said the woman. “But it wouldn’t be worse … physically.”

  “How much do you charge for these remedies of yours?”

  “Siri, enough!” said Civilai.

  “I can’t charge,” said Madame Voodoo. “They wouldn’t let me back in my own dreams if I did.”

  “I’ll take a jar.”

  “Don’t, Siri.”

  “Civilai, do you believe in any of this?”

  “Of course I don’t.”

  “Then what’s the harm?”

  “It’s just … it’s that you’re bartering in an area that you don’t understand. You don’t know what poisons this witch puts in her brews.”

  “I have something you can take for unpleasantness too,” said the woman, looking at Civilai.

  “I’ll take it to Teacher Ou at the lycée and have her analyze the contents,” said Siri. And all at once, an image of the teacher walked across his mind, paused there and smiled before fading away. For that to have happened, of course, Teacher Ou had to be dead. But it was such an unlikely event and so unexpected that Siri put it down as one more technical fault in his already faulty extra sense.

  “I’d like some,” he told Madame Voodoo. “Please.”

  She swayed her enormous backside toward the door. “I have some in the backyard,” she said. “Won’t be long.”

  Once she’d left, Siri inspected the hem of the latest sin, and Civilai went into detail about his bad instincts around this whole affair. One part of the hem was thicker than the rest. The thread was brittle and easy to pick open. What he found was a document rolled into a sausage shape and flattened.

  Civilai came to watch as Siri unrolled it and ironed it with his palm. “It’s Chinese,” said Civilai.

  “Brilliant,” said Siri. “It’s some sort of list. Handwritten. The page is ripped as if it was torn from a pad or a notebook. Where can we get it translated?”

  “The way things are going, we just sit here and wai
t for the first wave of Chinese troops to wash over us. I’m sure we’ll find a literate one—if they don’t shoot us first.”

  They were interrupted by the return of Madame Voodoo.

  “Sorry to have kept you waiting,” she said. She carried a vial in each hand. She went to Siri and held up the first vial. “This,” she said, “is for Madame Daeng. One milliliter each morning until it’s all gone.” Siri hadn’t mentioned his wife’s name. “This …” she held up the second vial, “is for you.”

  “I don’t need—”

  “It’s for your blockage. It will help you deal with your other visitors.”

  “I’m not sure …”

  “I know. You’re worried that once you let one in, you’ll be swamped. That might well happen. But you know you have to find out before you’re on the pyre yourself.”

  She’d touched several nerves. The most frustrating element in his life was that he carried around so many souls, but despite the odd outburst or dream, he couldn’t talk to them. He had at least two spirit mediums, and neither had been able to break through. But he didn’t totally blame himself. With so many competent shamans around, how dense would a ghost have to be to settle in him?

  “Thank you, sister,” he said, not totally convinced she wasn’t insane. “I’m afraid we have to go now. But perhaps you’d be able to tell us where we might find the weaver of this fine sin?”

  Again he held it up against his chest for her to see.

  “If times were different,” she began, “if art and culture had a value, this would be kept in a museum. It’s a piece of Thai Lu history.”

  “Where might we find the weaver?” asked Civilai.

  “Grandmother Amphone? In the afterlife. I could ask around.”

  “She’s dead?”

  “At least a hundred years already.”

  “Splendid. So the hunt ends in a cul-de-sac in the hereafter.”

  “When she was still alive, where do you suppose she might have lived?” Siri asked.

  “I believe there’s a small shrine in her honor in Un Mai,” she said. “That would be the logical place to look. She probably has relatives there.”

  They paraded out of the room and onto the bamboo deck. Siri noticed there was no longer a padlock on the door … or a hasp. The little girl must have just left because the chair was still rocking. “Your niece seems to have abandoned us,” said Siri.