“When they aren’t of this world, the Hmong believe they go to the other earth. It is a landscape not unlike the mountains they live their mortal lives on.”
“How do they get there?”
“You enter the other earth through holes in the ground or networks of caves. These lead you to a great body of water where spirits and humans can converse. It’s there that the supreme God, Nyut Vaj, decides whether you are eligible to enter the eternal Kingdom or whether you will have to float in purgatory.”
“I see. So all I have to do is find the other earth and I’ll have our friend, Mr. Seua.”
Siri climbed down from the incinerator and reached out a hand to the nameless monk, who ignored the gesture.
“Yeh Ming…?”
“Yes?”
“There’s no doubt these people were killed by a tiger?”
“Or some other large cat.”
“Then have you considered the possibility it was a real tiger?”
“We thought about it. But how could a wild cat run free in Vientiane without somebody seeing it?”
“What if it isn’t free?”
“You mean if it’s captive? It belongs to someone?”
“Do you know anyone who keeps wild animals?”
Siri’s mind raced to Dtui’s report of her visit to the circus school. He thought of the Russian and his puma. He had a mental image of the trainer late at night walking his big cat at the end of a leash. It was far-fetched but perhaps the only logical explanation, unless the monk was wrong about weretigers and werewolves. Surely Hollywood hadn’t made it all up.
“I may. And that reminds me. If there’s no such thing as a coincidence, I have one more for you to explain. I believe a bear might have sought me out and paid me a visit last Tuesday morning. Is there any connection between Yeh Ming and wild animals?”
“There’s an inseparable connection between Yeh Ming and all nature. Animals sense that.”
As he walked from the temple, one thought nagged at him. At Silver City, the interpreter had told him Dtui hadn’t been there long. He had said it was a flying visit. What if he’d been lying? But why would he? And what could Siri do if he had? The
compound was a fortress, and he had no pretext to get inside. He was flustered and anxious and in such a state he couldn’t think as clearly as he’d like.
As it was close, he stopped again at Dtui’s room. He was disappointed but not surprised to learn that she hadn’t come home. So as not to worry Manoluk, he told her they had a case that might go on all night. He brought her a meal from the night stalls on Koonboulom and administered her medication. He did his best to appear calm; but all the while, his thoughts were on Dtui and what could have become of her.
He was in the back, searching for a glass into which to transfer the guava juice from its plastic bag. He pulled back a cloth on a low shelf and was surprised to find a row of textbooks. He squatted down and looked at the titles. They were in English but the words were similar enough to French to get the drift: Fundamentals of Surgery, Chemical Toxicology, Oncology, Urology, Basics of Nursing. Then there were dictionaries: English–Lao–English, English–Russian. And every book was twice as fat as it should have been because the pages were crammed with notepaper.
He selected the Surgery text. In Dtui’s tiny handwriting, on every page there was a detailed description in Lao, and presumably a translation in Russian. There must have been thousands of such sheets. Siri was overwhelmed for a number of reasons. He walked across to Manoluk with the textbook in his hand.
“Manoluk, does Dtui understand English?”
“She didn’t in the beginning. I think she’s got the hang of it now. She only reads and writes it. Can’t speak much. The problem’s going to be the Russian. She has to learn the whole thing again in a new language.”
“You think she actually knows what it all means?”
She gave him a look reserved for mothers whose daughters have been insulted.
“No, I didn’t mean it to sound like that. She’s an intelligent
girl. But this stuff is hard enough in our native language. Learning it in two others is unbelievable. How long’s she been doing this?”
“Since before she graduated as a nurse. She originally planned to try for a scholarship to America. That was in the old regime and there were a lot of dollars around. So she started going through her old nursing textbooks, translating line by line. Then you folks came and took over, and all the American funds went out the window. So she started all over again with Russian.”
“I think she might have told me.”
“Well, she—”
“What?”
“She was afraid that if anyone knew she had other languages, they’d move her from the morgue.”
“And what’s wrong with that?”
“Well, one, she got to like the work you do there. I think she’d like to be a, what do you call it?”
“Forensic surgeon.”
“That’s it. And two, you don’t actually have a lot of work in the morgue. Nothing’s so urgent that it can’t wait till morning. It’s a sort of eight-to-five job. She knows if she worked in the wards, they’d put her on shifts and get her translating and stuff. She wouldn’t have time for her study. She’s at it every night. She writes out little test sheets in Lao so I can test her, though I don’t really have any idea what it’s all about. She’s the one with the brains in this family.”
“So it seems.”
Dtui never failed to amaze him. All this time, she’d been preparing herself for further study, even before he recommended her for a scholarship. What he’d thought was an act of kindness on his part was actually the inevitable fulfillment of her plan. She was studying overseas with or without his help.
“Manoluk, we should talk about this again, but right now I have something urgent that needs taking care of. I’m going to have to run.”
He returned the textbook, gave Dtui’s mother her juice, and headed for the door.
“Thanks for coming in. Tell Dtui not to worry about me.”
“I will.”
He felt overwhelmed. As he shut the clunky door that didn’t fit its frame, tears came to his eyes. They were tears for Dtui and her dreams, and for her mother and her lifetime investment in her daughter. And they were tears of helplessness. Where on earth could he look next?
That’s when he remembered something Civilai had said.
Despite constant prodding and poking from the Party, Civilai had still managed to avoid installing a telephone in his house.
“If they want me that urgently, let them get out of bed and come and get me,” he said.
Siri and the bike trailing his pulled up in front of the wooden bungalow in the sprawling compound that had once housed the American community. If it weren’t for the vegetation, you’d swear you were in a suburb in South Dakota. The LPRP had been only too delighted to take over this little piece of Americana and thumb their noses at the CIA who were now confined to a couple of rooms at the embassy.
Six Clicks, as the Americans christened their home away from home, was six kilometers from town. It had a pool and a gymnasium and restaurants and was surrounded by a large wall that could make the expats forget they were in a nasty Southeast Asian country far from home.
As always, one of the armed guards from the main gate had accompanied Siri, just in case he had an urge to detour and assassinate the prime minister. He’d been here hundreds of times, and they still didn’t trust him. Siri beeped his horn.
Civilai appeared at the window and gestured for his friend to come in. His sweet wife appeared beside him and waved. Siri waved back but made no effort to get down from his bike. He pointed to his watch. Civilai had no choice but to come out to the street.
“We’re both over the hoof-and-mouth disease. You could come in, you know.”
“Sorry. I can’t stop. In fact, if you had a phone, I would have preferred to do this without the Six K’s.”
“Good, that.
Coming from a man who only learned how to use a telephone last year. What’s so urgent?”
Siri looked at the guard and raised his eyebrows at Civilai, who dismissed the man. “It’s all right. He’s safe. You can go.”
The guard roared away, and Civilai came over to sit on his white front fence.
“You said at lunch you had a call from Dtui this morning.”
“And I thought you never listen to me.”
“It’s important, brother. She’s been missing all day.”
“Shit.”
“What was the call about?”
“Like I said, it was quite peculiar. She wanted to know whether there were any underground caverns or caves around the city.”
“You’re joking. How did she…? What did you tell her?”
“Well, do you recall the PL had its headquarters not far from the Black Stupa? It was just down from the U.S. compound. We used it as a base here till we took over.”
“Yeah.”
“We were always expecting to get attacked or kicked out. So we took a leaf out of the Viet Cong’s survival manual. We gave ourselves a number of escape options.”
“Tunnels?”
“That’s it. There’s quite a network down there.”
“Damn.”
“What is it?”
“Do any of those tunnels go in the direction of the river?”
“Of course. The water was the best way to get away at night. One of them actually passes directly under the French embassy.”
“How do you get access?”
“What are you hatching?”
“Just tell me.”
“Behind the main building, there’s an area covered with large paving stones. One of those stones has a small hole in one corner. You need a hook or some kind of jemmy. It lifts up.”
“Did you tell Dtui that?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Listen. Go find someone with a phone.”
“What is it?”
“I think Dtui found those tunnels and something happened to her down there. The best we can hope for is that she got herself lost. But I’m afraid she might have found our weretiger.”
“Our weret…?”
“Tell Phosy to get some men there, armed, as soon as he can. If he’s not around, call in the bloody army. I don’t care what it takes.”
He kicked the starter of his old bike.
“Where are you going?”
“Where do you think?”
“Siri, you do realize if she is down there with some animal or lunatic, she could already be….”
“I know. I’m putting my money on Dtui.”
He left eight inches of rubber on the road.
Blind Panic
The creature that Seua had become sat on the riverbank watching the moon rise. He scratched at the blood-caked fur that covered him in patches and dipped his face into the muddy water to quench his thirst.
It would soon be over for another month. The nurse would be the last. With the moon at its zenith, he would make his fourth sacrifice on the steps of the Black Stupa. He would dedicate it to Nyut Vaj. It couldn’t be long, with all this love he showed, all this dedication, before his God would accept him into the eternal Kingdom. Then he would be at peace and cease to walk the earth in animal form.
He looked up again. It was time. Bent almost double, he prowled to the spot where the roots of the sadness tree tangled down the bank. He parted the thick reeds and crawled deep between the roots and into the earth.
Siri was in such a state when he arrived at the old PL headquarters compound that he almost drove into a pole out front. He skidded to avoid it and only righted himself at the last second. He killed the engine and ran to the gate. It was chained shut, and even with all the extra adrenaline pumping through his veins, too high to climb over.
He reached inside and felt around the chain for a padlock. There was none. The chain had been draped around the bars and tied like a rope. He wrestled it loose, opened the gate wide enough to get inside, and barged through. His heart was already beating fast when he started to run down the side of the main building and around to the back.
There he found himself on a grid of large rectangular concrete slabs. The moon was high and bright, and it didn’t take him long to find the secret entrance to the tunnel. He didn’t even need to use a tool to raise it; someone had been there before him and left the slab lying beside a gaping hole in the ground.
He hurried to it and looked down into a pit. A ladder of steep wooden steps led down into inky blackness. He had no hesitation: He lowered himself into the hole and, with his feet, felt his way down the rungs. The thought of sinking down into the earth reminded him of his being dragged below the stupa by the Phibob and without thinking, he stopped, undid the top buttons of his shirt, and re-hung the white talisman so that it was on the outside.
When the top of his snowy head was at the level of the ground, he reached into his shoulder bag for the flashlight. It was always there, so he hadn’t bothered to check before he left home. He never took it out, except on days when he got his teeth counted. His heart dropped. He’d forgotten to return the damned thing. It was missing.
It was a terrible moment. He was about to go down into the earth to find Dtui. He instinctively knew that every second could be vital, but he had no light. What help would he be if that thing were down there? At least the beam of a flashlight might have made it wary of him. How could he help if he couldn’t see? Suddenly a difficult project had entered the realm of the impossible. But there was no time and no choice.
After two more steps, his feet landed on packed earth and he glanced upward at the moon one more time before turning away from the ladder. It was hopeless. Only a yard from where he stood, there was nothing to be made out with the naked eye. There were no shadows or shapes. The channel of moonlight ended at a wall of black.
Again he fumbled in the bag, this time to retrieve the motorcycle tire iron he’d brought to lift up the concrete. It was a small weapon that could have little effect against the power he’d seen evidenced on his morgue slab. But it was something to hold on to, like a stick to a blind person: a cattle prod between himself and the unseen.
He walked forward. The walls curved over and above him to become a ceiling just above his head. A man of average height would have had to stoop through this narrow passage, but Siri could stand to his full height. He dragged his left hand along one wall and could tap the opposite wall with the iron: such was the width.
After ten slow, cautious paces, the tunnel curved to the left and any evidence of light from the outside was erased. Behind him now lay the same tarry blackness as ahead. He was blind. It was at this point that an anxiety of sorts began to infect him. It arose from his foolishness in abandoning logic and safety. He could make neither head nor tail of what he was doing. In the jungle, he wouldn’t have survived if he had showed such flagrant disregard for common sense.
He walked on. His dragging hand picked up a load of passengers that bit him and crawled up into his sleeve: probably red ants defending a nest. He slapped them off quietly against his side but didn’t slow his pace. The air was becoming staler. The dry earth and musty root smells mixed with other less natural, less healthy scents. He had no doubt that something had died down there in those tunnels, and he hoped beyond hope it was an animal.
On he went, slowly, nervously.
The tip of the iron struck only air. Siri stopped and felt the far wall with his hand. A second tunnel. It cut to the right. How far had he already veered left? Which route would take him in the direction of the river? He waited for a sign. Surely with all the bodies he’d put in the ground, one grateful spirit could come along and prod him in the right direction. But there was just him, and the blackness, and silence. Nothing more.
He went right, increasing his pace as his instincts warned him about time. He knew he had to get to the river. He was no longer careful about what his hand might touch or what might lie under his feet. He
visualized a long, well-lit passage and marched along it, barely tapping with his iron.
When it hit him, it was so sudden and overwhelming that he panicked. It had quickly wrapped itself around him, covered his face. He flailed around, hit out with the iron bar, and fell back against the wall, kicking into space.
He clawed at the cold, thick accumulation around his mouth and neck and cleared space enough for an unrestricted breath. Still he swung his iron back and forth like a child in an imaginary sword fight, but he hit nothing, heard nothing, and soon understood that he was expending all his energy against himself.
He held up a hand and stepped forward. He had come to a thick barrier of spiderwebs that blocked the tunnel ahead.
If this was a test, it was a failed one. He waited for his breath and his heartbeat to cease their rantings, and de-webbed himself. He wondered whether he’d made too much noise fighting off his fictitious attacker—whether he’d been heard. He couldn’t be sure.
He quickly retraced his path to the main tunnel, turned right and proceeded somewhat more cautiously into it. Time hadn’t allowed his eyes to grow accustomed to the darkness, so he knew there was absolutely no light filtering into the tunnels. He had completely lost his sense of direction. In a straight line, a brisk walk from the compound to the river would take no more than five minutes. To an old man in a pitch-black tunnel, a minute can stretch to a significant portion of the remainder of your life. The tunnel seemed endless.
Suddenly, the ground wasn’t there anymore. Siri stepped into empty space, and only his guiding left hand against the wall prevented him falling arse over apex. He pulled himself back, got to his knees and reached down into the void with his iron. It was no bottomless chasm, just a deep step. The metal clunked against something solid but not heavy, then once more. The smells around him were overly familiar, but he had no choice but to step down into whatever was there.
He waded ankle-deep through a well of what he was sure were bones. They crunched beneath his feet, so they were small and not all fresh. Yet with every step he dreaded treading on a larger corpse. Because of this threat, he trod respectfully, with his breath held.
Thirty-Three Teeth Page 18
