The Delightful Life of a Suicide Pilot

by Colin Cotterill

  “Every word.”

  “What did they look like?”

  “They were soldiers. They all dressed alike apart from the commander.”

  “Do you remember anything odd about them? Size? Shape? Missing limbs?”

  “You know, Brother Siri, in Europe they used to say all Asians looked alike. I didn’t understand that sentiment until that day. It was as if they’d selected a family of octuplets to take over Thakhek. Every one of them was sunburned and robust.”

  “But not young.”

  “In their twenties. Even the major general was thirtyish. But he acted like someone much older. He treated Thakhek like it was deserted. He ignored us completely. He took out a map and pointed in the direction of the French administration building. A couple of the men went over there to present their papers, which of course we couldn’t read. A couple of others took the map to a clearing behind the old airstrip and started hammering in marker posts. It was like a cabaret and we locals were the audience. There was no interaction that day or for many days after. It was like they were operating in a different dimension and couldn’t see us. We largely ignored them until the day in ’45 when the occupation turned into an invasion. Well, Siri, I tell you, the wall came crashing down between our respective dimensions that day. That’s when the previous years of patience were replaced by unrestricted mayhem.”

  “But until then?” Siri asked.

  “Life went on pretty much as normal. The French and Vietnamese administered, the laborers toiled, the children studied in the temples, and the market was busy. And in the background the Japanese forces expanded. Troops came and went but we ignored them. It wasn’t our war then.”

  “Does the name Kangen Toshimado mean anything to you?” Siri asked.

  “Not from memory.”

  “What about a major general named Dorari Momoyotsu?”

  “Dr. Siri, I tell you. We weren’t on speaking terms with anyone but Miura. Once they’d all settled in he was the one running back and forth between the French and Japanese administrators passing on messages and requests from his bosses. He was the true hero of the occupation.”

  “And you fell in love.”

  “He wasn’t much to look at. In fact he looked like one of those naked cats they breed in Egypt. But I was no Madonna. I was the French-to-Vietnamese-to-Lao translator. He was Japanese-to-French. We sort of filled in each other’s gaps.”

  “I’m sure you did,” said Siri with a smile.

  An blushed.

  “I’d like to talk to him,” said Siri.

  “So would I,” said An. “When that particular war ended and the next threatened to drag on even longer, he went back to Japan. We exchanged a few letters but . . . you know. We had what we had.”

  She reset her wig at a coquettish angle over one ear and winked at Siri.

  Madam Daeng had assessed the situation. The bulldog they’d been introduced to as the headman probably wasn’t. If he had been, he wouldn’t be waiting for Big Daddy to come back before executing the visitors. He’d faded back into the scenery following his performance at the opening ceremony. It was a younger man who ordered the captives to quit their chattering. Daeng had no idea how long they’d have before the real leader’s return, so she needed to act fast. She regretted the fact she’d brained the man with the musket. It meant she couldn’t play the “little old lady surprise attack.” Then again, if she hadn’t hit the man, the hoodlums in the village wouldn’t have shown their true colors. She needed another angle.

  She looked at the pilot. He seemed remarkably calm despite their dire situation. She wondered what, if anything, he was thinking. He sat by himself chewing on a blade of grass. The fact that she’d threatened to break all his fingers that morning if he didn’t allow her on board probably hadn’t created a lasting bond between them. Then she’d gone and scuttled his helicopter. She knew nothing about his background but she hoped it was military because she needed a soldier on her team. As they were no longer allowed to speak, she started to sing. She couldn’t be certain there were no Lao speakers among her captors but, just in case, she kept her voice low.

  “Dear Comrade Pilot,” she sang.

  One or two of the men around the pavilion looked up but nobody complained about her singing. She had a good voice. She continued.

  I’m sorry I scuttled your helicopter.

  You can fix it by loosening the screw

  At the base of the rotor shaft

  And flicking the switch.

  It’s a safety component

  To stop the mechanics getting

  Accidently chopped up.

  Nobody ever uses it anymore.

  She added a few lines of “lalala” before,

  If I can get you a weapon,

  Scratch your nose

  If you’d know how to use it.

  He looked at her with his head tilted to one side. And he scratched his nose. Roper had a look of horror on his face.

  “Relax, Mr. Roper,” she sang.

  In five minutes I will need you

  To overpower the guard behind you.

  You don’t have to kill him.

  Just stop him from firing.

  And we can go home.

  If you think you can do that

  Please nod.

  Roper could have wilted at such a notion but he clenched both fists and nodded. Daeng had her army, but she still needed a ruse. She got to her feet, the three guns trained on her.

  “Please tell these gentlemen that I would like to excrete,” she said to Roper.

  He blushed but translated. There was laughter but no action. So Madam Daeng stood in front of the most sympathetic-looking of the guards and started to undo her belt. She lowered the zip in her khakis and began to squat. The men all yelled and the gathering was thrown into pandemonium until one of the armed guards was ordered to take the old woman to the latrine. She readjusted her clothing, slouched from the effort, and held on to his arm. To all of them she seemed much older now and more frail than she had been only seconds before. Roper watched her disappear behind the hut with her escort. He looked to his left, where the pilot continued to eat grass with no expression whatsoever. Roper half-turned to look at the guard behind him. He had left his AK-47 leaning against a wooden post because he needed both hands free to squeeze blackheads.

  The seconds continued to drawl past and bloat into minutes. Then the soothing musical sounds of the jungle all around them seemed to become more intense in his mind, like an orchestra upping its tempo, rising to a crescendo. Roper was all adrenaline. His fingers twitched. His instincts told him it was all over, this lifestyle he’d worked so hard to earn, the career he’d forged. But if it was truly to be his last swan song, he would belt it out. Yes, damn it. He was an Englishman and his countrymen had a long tradition of dying famously. He would not go quietly.

  Daeng was taking her sweet time. The guard had learned from his colleague’s mistake and he sat back far enough to keep his weapon out of the reach of the old woman. She was grumbling although he had no idea what she said. He could see the top of her head above the latticed fence that served as the village latrine. The others had told him to shoot her if she tried anything. But she was staring down the barrel of an AK-47 and he knew she wouldn’t be that stupid. She was old, probably older than his mother. He hated old people. He’d have no hesitation in . . .

  Her head dipped below the top of the fence. First, he assumed it was all part of the natural process of doing her business but the seconds rolled by and he became anxious. What if she’d fallen down the pit? What if she’d had a heart attack? He got to his feet, hurried to the latrine, and peered over the fence.

  “Shit!”

  One segment of the rear fence was flat on the ground. The bitch had escaped. But how far could she get at her age? He ran into the smelly compound and throu
gh the gap. He stopped for a brief moment to guess which route she might have taken into the jungle. But that moment was his downfall. Daeng was crouching behind the next segment of fencing. He only had time to get a glimpse of her before she was on him. Not even a second to turn his gun on her. He felt her hands like metal clamps around his neck and heard the snap. And that was the last thing he’d ever hear.

  While planning his attack on his captors, Roper had lost control of his bladder. Only the pilot seemed to have noticed, smiling rudely at the Englishman. But Roper had gone beyond the need for decency. He was about to launch himself at several armed guards. He’d overpower the zit-picker, take his gun, and then . . .

  At that moment, two women came walking toward the pavilion. One of the guards gestured for them to go back, but they kept coming. And then there was another woman, then two more. They emerged from the huts like sleepwalkers. The guards shouted again, and again they were ignored. It was as if every woman in the village had come to the pavilion. There was dialogue too fast and too intense for Roper to pick up but the sentiment was clear. One elderly woman took the gun from one of the men, perhaps her son. Another group gathered around a second man. Roper looked behind him. The guard had gone to reason with the women and left his weapon where it was. Roper stepped backward in its direction but the pilot beat him to it.

  Last to arrive at the village center was Daeng, holding the hands of the unmatching sisters, all three of them in tears.

  Chapter Twelve

  Empirical Evidence

  It was late afternoon in Vientiane. One of those fully loaded black clouds from Vietnam had just squatted over the city and dumped a thousand tons of water in five minutes. The dirt roads were mudslides rushing down to the river, diverting through shop fronts, carrying litter and flowerpots and cats too slow to get out of their way. But safe, one story up in the old Lido Hotel building, was Dtui, teaching another of her frustrating nursing classes. She’d had to take a break during the deluge while the rain hammered on the roof. Her class admired a waterfall beyond the open windows. She’d brought along an embryo in formaldehyde from the morgue, mainly to judge the reaction. Half of the country girls laughed with embarrassment. The other half said, “Eeuooh.” Dtui sighed. It was like teaching chickens to fly long distances.

  The only enthusiasm she saw all morning was when every girl in the room looked toward the doorway with eyes wide and tongues hanging loose. There, still dirty from the concrete factory, boots muddy from the flood, stood Chief Inspector Phosy. In her mind, Dtui ran to him, threw her arms around his neck, and kissed the living daylights out of him. In real time, she smiled and said, “Chief Inspector Phosy, can I help you?”

  “Nurse Dtui,” he said. “I was wondering if you could assist me. I appear to have been shot seven times.”

  The students gasped. She looked him up and down and saw no sign of blood.

  “Only seven times?” she said.

  “I was lucky,” he said. “He ran out of bullets. As you are the most competent operating theater nurse in the country, I was hoping you might spare me a few minutes to remove the bullets for me.”

  She looked at her indestructible Soviet wristwatch.

  “Class,” she said. “Do you mind?”

  “Go, go,” they said.

  In the stairwell between floors, Dtui kissed the living daylights out of her husband, then she punched him hard in the ribs.

  “Where do you think you’ve been?” she asked.

  “Vang Vieng. Nice place.”

  “Why do you look so messy?”

  “I was drugged, kidnapped, dragged through the dust, and chained to a metal girder for thirty-six hours.”

  “Oh, right,” said Dtui. “You go off and have a good time and leave me and Malee all alone.”

  “Sorry. Next time I’m abused I’ll take you along.”

  “Is Sihot okay? And the boy?”

  “Fine. I gave them the day off to get clean.”

  “And the girl?”

  “We found her. She’s willing to back up Siri’s theory about the owl. She was there with the Vietnamese. She saw the whole thing. She’s in the jeep downstairs.”

  “Why?”

  “I sort of promised her father we’d take care of her.”

  “Which means?”

  “Perhaps we could take her in for a couple of nights?”

  “Phosy. We live in one small room in a dormitory.”

  “I could sleep in my office.”

  “It’s like Civilai always said. My husband’s the type of man who’ll bring his work home with him.”

  “We have a big bed,” he said. “If it worries you to be away from me we could always nuzzle down together and . . .”

  “I’ll have a blanket sent to your office,” she said.

  The powerful headlights of the helicopter illuminated the football field as if the World Cup was about to begin there. It was late but they’d made one or two unscheduled stops before returning to the field. Siri’s bushy eyebrows were fluttering from the downdraft. Daeng leaned out and shouted something he couldn’t hear. He nodded anyway and smiled. His instincts had been telling him most of the day that something had gone wrong. He was delighted to see his wife and even a little pleased that the Englishman was behind her. To be honest, he’d been alarmed that Daeng would volunteer so readily to take a scenic flight with a philanderer. Love puts a strain on trust no matter how old you are. But there she was, smiling and waving, and apparently as pleased to see him as ever. She jumped down and took his hands in hers. He could feel her stress and knew she would have a hell of a tale to tell him that night.

  Roper stepped down onto the football pitch with the two girls. Their empty eyes had come alive. They both smiled at Siri and they gave off the radiance of the reborn. They were holding hands.

  “They sent them back?” said Siri.

  “It’s a long story.”

  “Then we need a drink. We still have the hooch from Woophi.”

  “Have you been waiting for us all day?” Daeng asked.

  “Most of it,” said Siri. “But I would have waited on and on, taking root, growing skyward without joy, producing no fruit, not so much as a blossom until you arrived.”

  “It sounds like you’ve been reading Toshi’s diary.”

  “To the end. But your story comes first. We can drink and talk through the night and watch the sunrise locked in each other’s arms.”

  “Siri, the girls have been through a lot today. I really need to—”

  “No,” said Siri. “I need you more than they do.”

  “Don’t panic,” said Daeng. “We can tell our respective stories outside their room. They just need to know I’m there.”

  “Then they wouldn’t miss you for half an hour or so.”

  “Siri?”

  “All right. But I want this sacrifice to go on record.”

  “That’s fair.”

  Their voices were the only sounds from either side of the river that night. Everything seemed to be cushioned in the type of humidity that invited extreme weather. Lightning was dancing silently across the horizon on three fronts but there were still stars overhead. Nature was playing her cards close to her bosom. The home brew from Woophi didn’t last long but Siri had smuggled a bottle of Saeng Thip rum across from Thailand. He conceded that her story trumped his own and Daeng went into great detail in describing her day.

  “Then how did you know the women would be on your side?” he asked.

  “I didn’t, not really. When I was walking around the village I’d noticed the odd apologetic look here and there. Something close to shame. And when I overpowered the guard who’d escorted me to the latrine, there were one or two women standing back and watching. Nobody had tried to help him. I imagined it was like in the days of the occupation with the locals watching the Japanese takeover—t
hey saw Asians with power and it occurred to them that they weren’t inferior. So it was with the women today. They see an old lady kick arse and they realize they aren’t powerless. They could have a say in what’s going on around them.”

  “I take it your original plan involved bloodshed,” said Siri.

  “Buckets of the stuff,” said Daeng. “But I’m not averse to the Gandhi approach. Things would have been a lot different if Big Daddy had come home early. As it was, with the guns in our hands, we loaded the girls onto the helicopter, the pilot reactivated the mechanism, and we took off. Not a word was spoken.”

  “What do we do with the girls?”

  “We get them talking. Find out what tribes they’re from. Hunt out the families who had daughters kidnapped and send them home. If it turns out they were sold, the UN will find them more appropriate homes. Roper’s embarrassed about the way things went. He’s handling it all. He says he’ll set the dogs on Big Daddy.”

  “So you’re free to return to the Toshi mystery?”

  “Honestly, Siri, I’d sooner sit on the balcony with my feet up, pigging out on red bean sweets, thumbing through Thai fashion magazines.”

  “You’d regret it. We’ve reached an exciting juncture.”

  “Really? You’ve found the mummified remains of Toshi’s turnip garden?”

  “Don’t mock, wife. I think this will turn out to be one of our most intriguing cases.”

  The next day, Siri and Beer rowed past the Thai river police launch on their way to Nakhon Phanom. They glared and the police glared back. A lot of refugees made the mistake of smiling or, worse, waving: a flaming neon sign that said, Here we are, arrest us. Those with nothing to hide had no reason to be polite. They heard shots from downriver but often the river guards on the Thai side were just shooting at birds. It was a minor disincentive to smugglers and refugees but it guaranteed roast fowl for dinner.

  They met Kyoko at a comparatively upmarket roadside restaurant. She welcomed them with her smile and a polite nop, which on the Thai side was called a wai. The only difference between the two was that the Lao had yet to disguise its insincerity.