The Delightful Life of a Suicide Pilot

by Colin Cotterill

  “But do you know whether he joined the Free Lao before the Japanese surrender? Was he cooperating with the anti-French underground when still a major in the army? That might explain why he’d want to rip out the pages.”

  “This are questions I too want to ask,” said Yuki-san.

  “Then, at least, I should buy you a few drinks so I can hear about your visits here during the war. I have a lot to learn about your time with Hiro.”

  “This I want very much,” said Yuki-san. “But cannot be today. I come back soon. We talk.”

  “My time’s limited here,” said Siri. “Are you free tomorrow?”

  “Yes. I come back tomorrow.”

  Siri walked him to the door.

  “Yuki-san,” he said. “At least leave me something to help me find your friend. I’m running out of ideas. I need a clue to follow up on.”

  Yuki-san stopped in the doorway and did his goatee grab. Siri found himself mirroring the gesture.

  “Might be something,” said Yuki-san. “Hiro had a place. Secret place. He talk often. He call it ‘tunnel of love.’ He like to go there in his leave time.”

  “Where is it?” Siri asked.

  “I don’t know,” said Yuki-san.

  Siri looked at Beer, who shrugged.

  “Did he describe it?” Siri asked.

  “One time,” said Yuki-san. “One time he say this place is like enlightenment. He say sometime you are in dark for long time, then one moment everything is clear. You come out the end. You see light.”

  “He said the place is like that?”

  “That’s all he tell me.”

  Siri hadn’t really learned anything new about Toshi other than that he’d stepped out of fantasy and become real. It should have made research easier. Now Siri was certain the name at the beginning of the diary was genuine. It was likely he used his actual name as a Japanese officer and called himself Toshi only in the diary entries: his Lao secret identity. If the records Siri had retrieved from the council office were compiled by Toshi and his team, that explained why they didn’t mention themselves. It meant he could be more certain that Toshi had indeed come from the railhead in Lang Son as Kyoko said, and had been involved in salvage operations. It even reignited the likelihood that he was responsible in some way for transporting the treasure mentioned in the loose page. Everything and anything had become possible as a result of Yuki-san’s visit. Perhaps Major Hiro had handpicked his team for Thakhek, choosing only those with disabilities and problems because . . . because he was kind. But why would a kind man find such pleasure in the bloodbaths of Manchuria? Siri was getting there, but there were still too many questions.

  He had sufficient confidence now to send what he knew to Cindy at the US embassy. Her Lao was good enough that he’d have no need to put together a translation. He sent Beer back across the river that afternoon with the message. The Thais had state-of-the-art communications systems and ran daily pouches between embassies in the region. Siri considered accompanying Beer, perhaps dropping in to see if Kyoko had learned anything new from the diary and the files. But an item in a Thai radio broadcast that morning had described a Thai wife who had sliced off her husband’s penis because she smelled another woman on his collar. She’d attached the organ to a helium balloon and set it free, knowing it would never be found in time to reattach it. Siri’s eyes had watered at the thought of it. It was too soon for another visit to Kyoko.

  Daeng returned to her room at about 5 p.m. She woke her husband.

  “It’s happy hour,” she said.

  “I never understood why happiness should be restricted to just an hour,” said Siri, pulling himself from sleep.

  She gave him a kiss. He gave it back.

  “It’s because normal people in normal jobs work hard all day and then worry all night,” she said. “They can only squeeze an hour of happiness between the two.”

  “Thank heavens we aren’t normal,” said Siri, getting creakily into a sitting position. “What news of the linguist?”

  “Astounding,” said Daeng. “He’s young.”

  “Attractive?”

  She knocked him onto his back with a pillow and held it to his face.

  “Roper speaks a mere seven languages,” said Daeng. “Young Malcolm is fluent . . .”

  “Does he have firm biceps?” Siri asked, but his words were muffled in kapok.

  “. . . fluent in twenty regional languages and dialects.”

  She removed the pillow before it was too late.

  “Twenty,” she said. “Can you believe it? He didn’t even need the cassette. He started speaking to one of the girls in her own language just from the way she looked. The shape of her face. She answered straightaway. Seemed so pleased. It turns out her name is Mim and she’s Khua. Not a lot of Khua in the world. Some two thousand in Laos, he estimates.”

  “And the other one?” he asked.

  “Her name’s Uwa and she’s Jeh. Far more common. Roper could speak it but she’d been warned not to trust anyone who knew her language. There were probably a lot of Jeh speakers at the camp. But the minder had told her if she spoke to anyone she’d be shot.”

  “Do you know where they’re from?”

  “They’re so very rural, Siri. Isolated villages. The only world they knew was bordered by mountains. If their homes had names they’d never been told. And Siri . . . ?”

  “I’m listening.”

  “They weren’t kidnapped.”

  “I was afraid of that.”

  “They were sold. The girls remember Big Daddy arriving in a helicopter, shaking hands with their parents, and being herded aboard. The village I went to with Roper was the depot. All their acquisitions passed through there on their way to the border and the camps. It’s like when Phosy shut down the traffickers on the Thai border, except this was legitimized at the camps with UN paperwork. They hire someone to be the mother, she and the kids are registered at the camp, the NGOs push for single mothers to be fast-tracked, and whoosh, there they are in Wisconsin. They’re met by American agents who sell them to the highest bidders. The women who acted as the mothers are probably sold into some sort of bonded labor.”

  “You’re angry.”

  “I am not. I am thoroughly pissed.”

  “And when you’re angry you have a habit of making unilateral decisions.”

  “Nonsense,” said Daeng, searching the wardrobe for something to drink.

  “So you haven’t done anything outrageous?” he asked.

  “Of course not.”

  She went to the bathroom and ladled cool water from the tank onto her feet. This confirmed it for him. Her feet never lied.

  “I’m going to be a father, aren’t I?” he said.

  She came back and sat beside him on the bed. She put a hand on his thigh.

  “Just for a little while,” she said.

  Siri hadn’t needed a lot of persuading. He’d been taking in strays for some time. And his conscience would never have allowed those two scared girls to be returned to the families that had sold them. After a day that seemed to rid the two of their devils, they slept now without fear of what the future might bring. Siri and Daeng sat on the balcony in front of their room.

  “So now you can tell me about Toshi’s revival,” said Daeng.

  It was an annoying night. The heavens were tossing rain here and there. The balcony was covered but the occasional splash on the wind would water down their drinks then slap their faces. But they weren’t about to give in to it. Siri told her about Yuki-san and his relationship with Major Hiro. He said that if she was free from mothering responsibilities the next day, Daeng should join him at the only functioning restaurant in town. She could meet the Japanese and see what she thought of him.

  “Where did he go?” she asked.

  “When?”

  “W
hen he left you,” said Daeng. “He said he had to go and he’d see you for lunch tomorrow. So where did he go?”

  “I don’t know,” said Siri. “He probably has influential friends here from the old days. A lot of ex–freedom fighters are somebodies now.”

  “Like us?”

  “Exactly. Why are you always so suspicious?”

  “Because it keeps us alive,” said Daeng. “Because your mind needs quality control sometimes. You’re a book reader. You’re easily fooled by a clever phrase or a deep thought. It diverts your instincts. You should always be expecting an attack.”

  “Can I expect an attack tonight?”

  She laughed.

  “It might wake the children,” she said.

  “I doubt it,” said Siri. “I put two teaspoonfuls of rum in their rice porridge.”

  “If I thought that was true I’d leave you for Malcolm. He has an aquarium.”

  “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

  Chapter Fifteen

  The Tunnel of Love

  Siri, Daeng, and Beer waited for Yuki-san for an hour at the roadside restaurant, but he didn’t show. In that hour one other customer arrived on a bicycle, ordered something to go, and went.

  So there were only three of them for lunch. Roper was with the governor putting in an official complaint about Big Daddy’s clan. The girls were with Malcolm. Siri and his party were the only seated customers. Having learned from their previous noodle experience, they did not order noodles. They ate sticky rice with a few assorted dips, most of which were so spicy they couldn’t tell a carrot from a chicken liver. But the owner had a few bottles of beer from across the river and the current Singha Beer ad campaign was “We put out your fire.” Which was appropriate.

  Their own Beer was busy mopping up the dips with the leftover rice.

  “Do you think anything will happen to Big Daddy and his gang?” Siri asked him.

  “No,” said Beer. “You’ll all go home and that official report will be lining the bottom of a parrot cage in the governor’s garden. If they’ve got access to a helicopter there have to be at least some military bigwigs in on the racket. And there’d be sufficient volume to make it worth everyone’s while. There are still family groups headed on foot toward the border. They’ll be easy pickings for someone like Daddy and his team.”

  “No worries,” said Siri. “We’ll get the chief inspector of police on it when we get back.”

  “Right,” said Beer with a distinct lack of belief.

  “And getting back might come sooner than we expected,” said Daeng. “Roper’s talking about heading off tomorrow morning.”

  “And leaving the Toshi case dangling?” said Siri.

  “It’s not a case, Siri,” said Daeng. “Right now it’s still a story. And without your Japanese witness there’s nothing else you can do.”

  “We still have clues,” said Siri.

  “Like what?” said Daeng.

  “Like the Tunnel of Love, for one. Where do you think that might be, Comrade Beer?”

  “Difficult to say, Doctor,” said Beer. “Khammouane Province has more tunnels and caves than people.”

  “But are any of them notably loveable?” asked Siri.

  “I’m not a fan of confined spaces myself,” said Beer.

  “But if it’s a tunnel it must lead somewhere,” said Siri. “To enlightenment, if we’re to believe Toshi’s description. So we’d be looking for a tunnel that leads to Nirvana. If he went there on his days off it’s unlikely to be too far away. Easy access.”

  “Well, it doesn’t exactly go to Nirvana,” said Beer, “but there’s one very long tunnel that leads to a quaint little village that doesn’t get visited that often. And the name’s right. It’s called Thum Huk.”

  “The cave of love,” said Daeng. “How appropriate.”

  “There are other more famous caves and tunnels,” said Beer. “But they’re far. Thum Huk you can get to in half a day.”

  “How do we go?” Siri asked.

  “By river.”

  “How about it, wife?” said Siri. “Are you in the mood for an adventure?”

  “Ah, you know me, Siri,” said Daeng. “Always up for a wasted day on the trail of someone unimportant.”

  “Let’s go, then,” said Siri.

  The longboat arrived at the entrance to Thum Huk, which gaped not with wonder but with foreboding. The tunnel mouth seemed to say, “Enter if you dare.”

  “How long a walk is it?” Daeng asked the skeletal boatman, who must have been well into a second century.

  “Eight kilometers,” he said. “But no need to walk. The river goes right through to the other end. That’s where you’ll find the village of Sawan.”

  He reached in front of him and produced an old helmet with a flashlight attachment. He put it on his head and switched it on. It was much too big for him. Only his chin was visible beneath the brim, but that didn’t seem to stop him from navigating. The engine howl became a growl once they were inside. The headlamp was the only illumination and it gave out a dreary halo of light just far enough ahead to know what it was you were about to hit. Yet the boatman did not reduce his speed. In fact he was so self-assured he’d turn his headlamp from time to time to give the glimpse of a stalactite or a tower of crystal. The passengers screamed, “Look ahead!” but Siri was confident the boatman had done the trip so many times he could forfeit his eyesight and still negotiate the caves safely. Some caverns were palatial, the flutter of bats far overhead. Some were mere passageways with sharp turns.

  In Paris, Siri had gone to the fair with his first love, Boua. They’d queued for the actual Tunnel of Love where you traveled in a teacup along claustrophobic passages and around sharp U-turns at four kilometers an hour. And if his lips had not been clamped to hers and his eyes not closed, he would have noticed the occasional illuminated display of stuffed mice dressed as people acting out the natural stages of love; the high school crush, the meeting with the parents, the country walk, the wedding, and, in true French style, the crime of passion with the cuckold mouse lying in a pool of blood, his unfaithful wife leaning over him with a bread knife. This was not that type of tunnel of love, but Siri remembered that Toshi had also made mention of it. In the loose sheet from the diary he’d said, “I have found a way to transport it to you through the Tunnel of Love.” Siri was sure this was the place.

  They all squinted when they once again hit sunlight. The jungle beyond the tunnel was lush and there were fruit trees growing naturally on the banks of the river. Very soon they reached a landing. The boatman moored his vessel and his passengers walked into a happy-looking village. The wood, bamboo, and rattan houses were standard but solidly built. Each one was surrounded with multicolored flowering shrubs and fresh vegetables. Fat chickens pecked at the dirt and dogs and cats lazed beneath the bushes, too content to care about the new arrivals.

  Siri had no idea where they were going or what they’d do when they got there. But when they passed the first house, they saw a large woman seated at a loom in the shade. She was smoking a cheroot. She showed no surprise.

  “Welcome,” she said. “The school’s that way. You’ll see it on the hill at the end of the dirt track.”

  They thanked her even though nobody had made mention of a school. On the way they passed some twenty or thirty houses, all of them displaying the same attention to detail, all brightly flowered and clean. If somebody was home, they’d smile and wave and ask after the visitors’ health.

  “Have you noticed?” said Daeng to her husband.

  “The houses?” said Siri. “They’re all new. There isn’t one old structure in the village.”

  Even the village pavilion in the square was pristine. The grass roof was neat and not yet grey with age. The beams were white and had seen no intrusion from insects. The grass around it was freshly mown and the tr
ees were pruned. The tall concrete village pillar, six hands around, stood facing the pavilion. It had been carved with amateurish elephant motifs. It reached a little under four meters. There was a jumble of offerings at its base that suggested spirit worship was alive and well in Sawan.

  “If it wasn’t so difficult to get here I’d say this was a government show village to impress foreign visitors,” said Siri.

  They marched on past the square and found the school exactly where the woman had said it would be. It was a large single room with a neat straw roof. They could hear the musical chant of times tables. The walls didn’t go all the way to the roof so they could see the head and shoulders of the teacher, a handsome man of about sixty, tall and lean. Clean white shirt. Crew cut. No glasses. He looked over the screen wall and saw the visitors. He waved and Daeng waved back. The teacher said something to his class, they stood, chorused the words “Thank you, teacher, for your lessons. See you tomorrow.”

  And some twenty children of different ages and sizes left the building in an orderly fashion and nodded and said “Sabai dee” as they passed the visitors. The teacher called for them to join him in the schoolroom.

  “How are you?” he asked and shook their hands.

  “We didn’t mean to disrupt your school day,” said Daeng.

  “It was almost time to stop,” said the teacher. “I am Satsai. Can I have your names?”

  They handed them over gladly.

  “And how can I be of service to you?” said Satsai.

  Siri knew that rural villages near the towns received their fair share of public officials from the various departments responsible for education, health, and infrastructure as well as the odd request for donations for nothing in particular. Then there’d be village seminars explaining the intricacies of Marxist-Leninist philosophy. Given the absence of telephones, the village wouldn’t be unused to surprise visits. As he still wasn’t sure why he was there, Siri didn’t know what approach to make.

  “We’re not with the government,” said Siri. “I’m a doctor, or at least I used to be. I’m now retired and working harder than ever in my wife’s noodle shop. They are, incidentally, the best noodles in Vientiane. And Comrade Beer here is our guide and cultural attaché.”