"What is it, Doctor?" Phosy asked with an almost irritated tone.
"There doesn't always need to be something, son," Siri smiled. "With all the nastiness we've been dealing with, we sometimes forget to find a minute or two to pass the time of day, take an interest in each other."
Phosy stopped. "What do you want, Siri?"
"Ah, well. If you insist. Are you having an affair behind Dtui's back, Phosy?"
Phosy's smile was as drab as the day.
"Anything else?" he asked.
"That's all."
"Then I'll see you tomorrow."
Phosy turned and started to walk away.
"Are you just going to leave me standing here in the rain without an answer?"
Phosy ran up the wooden steps and into his office, swerving to avoid a jet of water arcing from the broken roof tiles.
"It certainly would seem so," Siri answered himself.?
"So, what do you think it meant?" Madame Daeng asked later that evening. She and Siri were putting up shelves in the room they were now whimsically calling The Dr Siri Memorial Library. Daeng was the carpenter in the family. Siri just handed her nails when told to. He was impressed at how well her late-afternoon sawing was fitting neatly together.
"I thought perhaps you'd know," he replied.
"I wasn't there, was I? Nail! I'd need to have been there. Was it an embarrassed smile? A 'don't be ridiculous' smile? An ironic 'wouldn't you like to know?' smile? Nail!"
"It was just a…you know? A smile."
"Then you have to ask him again. And next time, read the smile."
"Why doesn't Dtui ask him herself?"
"She's already made her mind up. Nail!"
"I don't — "
"Siri, concentrate. That was a toothpick."
"Sorry. I don't feel comfortable interfering. They haven't exactly asked for our help, you know."
"Neither did any of the strays and orphans you're putting up at your house free of charge. Neither did Mr Geung or Crazy Rajid who you've probably frightened clear across the river. These are our friends. Nail! They don't always have to ask for help."
"You're right," he said. "I'll invite him out for a few drinks, loosen him up, tell him about the myriad extramarital affairs I'm involved in and he'll feel an instant camaraderie and come out with his story all by himself."
"Now you're thinking. Nail!"?
It was mid-morning and Siri was in the morgue office sitting at his desk with a magnifying glass trying to match the fingerprints on Jim's epee with the very smudged print he'd found on the bottom of the vitamin bottle. All three swords lay parked across his desk. Nurse Dtui was at her own desk studying Russian. She hadn't entirely given up hope that, one day in the future, she might continue her studies overseas. This epee case — three women given scholarships — had caused her to wonder how her own course in the Soviet Union might have been progressing if only…
She'd been on her way, tickets booked, woollen hats crocheted, when, 'wham', hit head-on by events. A little bit of lust induced by a powerful but foolish crush, a determined sperm, rampant biology, and there she was: with child but without mate. Her sperm donor had felt obliged to do the right thing and she'd said 'Yes'. Clearly her mistake. Beautiful baby, womanising husband. One out of two wasn't bad. She was feeling resentment towards the three women who'd studied overseas. It was as if they'd taken her place but not taken full advantage of their good fortune. Wrong and irrational, Dtui, but better to channel your disappointment into three dead people than one live one who, let's be honest, hadn't really promised her that much.
"What are you doing, Dtui?"
"Trying to understand the instructions on all this equipment the Soviets keep throwing at us. The freezer's been here since last year and we still don't know how to turn it down."
"Good. That can wait. Come and take a look at this."
She walked across to his desk and leaned over the magnifying glass Siri held over the vitamin bottle.
"In your opinion," he asked, "is this a thumb-print or a smudged fingerprint?"
"It looks a little…"
"Yes?"
"A little bit like the face of Ho Chi Minh."
"Dtui, I'm being serious."
"It's a miracle. Uncle Ho has returned — "
She was interrupted by the sound of the door banging against the filing cabinet. Mr Geung walked into the office drenched as a water rat, obviously in a poor mood.
"What's wrong, hon?" Dtui asked.
"Nothing," he replied, and slumped down at his little desk in the corner. He shook the rain from his head. His perm looked like a crepe.
"If nothing's wrong," Dtui said, "where are the two cups of coffee you went to the canteen to buy?"
Geung looked at his hands to confirm they weren't holding a tray.
"Oh," he said. He stood, started for the door, then had second thoughts and returned to his seat. He was obviously being pulled in two different directions by the oxen of conscience.
"Mr Geung, did something happen?" Siri asked.
"No!"
"Geung?" Dtui pushed.
"A…a…a…a woman," he said, agitated and animated.
"Yes?"
"In the can, the can…the canteen. She…she…"
"She what, hon?"
"She…she's feeble-minded like me."
"Mr Geung, how many times do we have to tell you? There's nothing feeble about your mind. You have — "
"A condition," Geung cut in. "Called Down's Syndrome. And…and…and she does, too."
"Really?" said Siri. "I wonder what she's doing here."
"Probably a patient," Dtui suggested.
"No, no, no," said Geung. He was rocking so drastically back and forth in his seat he was making the room feel like an ocean liner in a squall. "She's…she's in…in a uniform."
"Well, that explains it," Siri nodded. "She's come to work here."
"I…I…no, no good."
"What are you so mad about, Geung?" Dtui asked.
"It's my hospital," he said. He stood, tapped the desktop four times, and headed off out the door.
Dtui looked at Siri. "He seems upset."
"Who'd have thought Down's Syndrome sufferers could be territorial? You know, it is really condescending of us to think he'd get along with a girl just because she has the same condition."
"Dr Pornsawan said she's got a lovely personality."
"Even so…"
"Doc, we aren't locking them in a room together. It's a big hospital. They don't have to talk. We just arranged a part-time job for a girl, that's all."
"All right, but I don't want you pushing him."
"I wouldn't dream — "
"Who aren't we pushing?" came a voice.
They looked up to see Civilai in the doorway fanning himself with several loose sheets of damp paper.
"Hello, brother," Siri smiled. "What did you bring me?"
"Travel documents."
"Travel…? Oh, shit. Cambodia. I'd forgotten completely."
"It's all official. We leave on Friday."
"This Friday? Oh, look. I'm not sure I can. We're in the middle of this case, and — "
"Afraid you have no choice, old man." He turned back to shake his umbrella in the vestibule and left it standing open there before walking into the office.
Civilai put the papers on Siri's desk. The doctor detected a faint odour of neglect about his friend.
"What do you mean I have no choice?" Siri asked.
"Your boss, Judge Haeng, got wind of our little trip. He was delighted. Said a high-profile visit like this would do wonders for your chances for you-know-what. He's given you four days off."
"I don't want four days off. Not now. Surely, solving this case should take priority."
"He did mention that your role in the epee murder investigation was over, that you are merely a coroner, and that it's all in the hands of the police now."
"He did, did he?"
"We're just humble servant
s, Siri. Bite the bullet. We pop over for the May Day reception, tour a couple of farms, eat and drink ourselves silly and we're back before anyone's noticed we've gone. I doubt Phosy will close the case in the interim. It'll still be there for us to solve when we come back."
"I thought you said they only had one flight in and out a fortnight?"
"Normally, yes. But this is a special occasion. They've laid on an extra flight from Peking. We'll be going with the Chinese delegation."
"Really? That should be fun," said Siri. "You'll have a chance to tell them what you think of them. When's the orientation?"
"Nothing scheduled yet. Why the panic on getting briefed?"
"I haven't been out of the country for seven years. I'm interested to know what's happening out there in the real world."?
Despite my obstinacy, they continue to bring me my fetid water every couple of hours. Somebody wants to keep me alive — barely. The lights burn on. Time's dragging like a heavy body over rocks. The whole story is crawling along too slowly to be film. In the cinema I would have made my daring escape hours ago. Certainly, for my sanity it helps to see it all as theatre; the screams broadcast from a tape recorder in the wings. The insect bites merely carefully applied stage make-up. A theatrical slap to the face. It's only acting. Don't hide your eyes, son.
The charcoal has helped. I am back in control, if not of the consistency, at least of the timing. I can now wait for the bucket they bring. The boys. The boys with three watches rattling around their wrists like bracelets. The boys not old enough to shave. The clone boys, identical to the one in my dark dream. Playing soldier with live ammunition. A real gun pointed at my forehead. Night after night. That finger, twitching, deciding whether to squeeze the trigger and take this old man out. And some nights he doesn't. And some nights he does. And on those nights when the gun blasts, I find myself walking through what's left of my nightmare with nothing above my frayed neck. But, even on those headless nights I can hear the eerily beautiful singing. It's a dream. Who needs ears? All right. All right. Perhaps I sense the sounds. Would that work? The honey dew voice of a man. The words mean nothing to me but I can tell he's singing to his lover. And each night I wake in a humid inside-the-house sweat and I tell my wife, "Something bad is going to happen." And Madame Daeng brushes back my hair and says, "It's only a dream."
But it isn't.
The key clicks in the lock of the unpainted door. Why lock the door? I'm not going anywhere chained by the ankle to eight metres of lead pipe, am I now? And sure as hell there wouldn't be a queue to get in. Why lock the door? Why lock the door? And they don't need to worry about you folks any more: you dead ones, you ghosties. You can come and go as you like, lock or no lock. And you came, didn't you? But you stayed. And you sit, bored out of your minds. Dr Siri on the stage, forgetting his lines, forgetting his mind, edging on delirium, bordering on insanity. And I understand. Really I do. You aren't just watching. You're waiting, aren't you? Waiting like Vultures for me to leave my body and join you on your quest to find a better place. Oh, that's easy. Anywhere is a better place than this.
The smiley man is in the doorway. A silent 'boo' and 'hiss' from the stalls. The boys unfasten me, force me to get dressed. Wrap a scarf around my eyes. Poke me with their bamboo canes. Whip my legs. It's only acting, son. You can open your eyes. But then it comes to me, when I should be concentrating on the pain, when I should be fearing what torture I am being led to, it is now I solve the mystery of the three epees. And I know that a man will walk into a concrete yard somewhere, a yard stained with the blood of others, and be shot for something he didn't do. Riddled with mistaken bullets. Perhaps it has already happened. How long have I been here? The future and the past all hang here in the glow of the overhead lamps, hypnotised by the light, not knowing where to fly.
Only I can save him, this wrongly convicted man. The proof has been there all the time and I've ignored it. "Stop the torture. Somebody hand me a phone. Hey, boy, run this note across the street to Vientiane. Here's fifty kip. Lassie, girl, go find judge Haeng. Tell him he's got the wrong man. I'm sorry, I'm a little tied up or I'd go myself. Tied up, whipped, burnt, electrocuted…bits removed and mutilated."
I let out a manic laugh in the face of death.
"I see you're in good spirits still," the smiley man says as I'm dragged out like the garbage — stage right. "We'll see what we can do about that."
'Boo' and 'hiss,' cries the silent audience.?
There was no sound of footsteps, only the hushed click of the latch and the door opened.
"You should be a spy," Siri said.
"Can't sleep?" Daeng asked.
Siri was sitting cross-legged on the floor of the home library, a desk lamp leaning over his shoulder like a curious, light-headed stork. Sunrise wasn't that far off. A book, heavy as a temple lintel, pinned the old doctor to the ground.
"Camus," he said.
"The soap people?"
"Distant relative."
"Does he have a cure for insomnia?"
"Who has insomnia? Just a peculiar dream. I wasn't in a hurry to get back into it."
She sat on the cot.
"Do you want to tell me about it?"
"It involved children and guns."
"Then, perhaps you shouldn't…"
"I've had a thought."
"Good. Then all this was worthwhile."
"Your question about eastern European alumni and clubs and reunions."
"Civilai squashed me flat as a postage stamp on that one."
"He did, but he shouldn't have. There is something. Imagine you've spent four years in Bulgaria and you've just come back to Laos. What is it you need?"
"Food that isn't dripping with fat?"
"No! I mean, yes. But something else. You've spent four years learning and speaking a foreign language. You have knowledge. Skills that you learned in that language. Do you just switch that all off when you come home?"
"You find someone who speaks the same language to keep your hand in."
"You could do, but I can't imagine a day when we Lao would sit down and speak to each other in Bulgarian just to maintain a language. It isn't natural. And it's far too active for us. There's a less stressful, passive outlet."
"Books."
"Exactly. And where would Russian, German and Bulgarian speakers go to keep up with the news and the latest technical advances in their adopted countries?"
Daeng clicked her fingers.
"The government bookshop on Sethathirat."
"It's the only place. Lao translations of Marx, Lenin, and Engels. Socialist newsletters and magazines in foreign languages. Poster-sized photographs of politburo members. All those perfect gifts for birthdays and weddings."
"The victims could have met there, browsing, shared their experiences and become friends. And…"
"And that's where they met him."
"The sword coach. Bravo. At three a.m. it all sounds perfectly plausible. But now you have to put in some sleeping hours so you're alive enough to follow up on this train of thought in the morning." She stood up and stretched her aching legs. "Does your author have a parting comment for us before we retire?"
"You know, I think he does," Siri said. He heaved back the pages to a strip of paper that poked forlornly upwards and ran his finger down the page until he found the quotation he'd discovered earlier.
"I know of only one duty," he read. "And that is to love."
"I think I'm going to like Mr Camay," Daeng smiled.
11
THE PATRON SAINT OF FRENCH FIREMEN
The male clerk at the government bookshop was ugly enough to draw tears from a lime. It was as if he had breathed in too heavily one day, perhaps in shock, and his skin and all his features had been sucked inward, stopping only when they hit solid bone. But his teeth, the only camel teeth in the whole of the PDR Laos, stood out proudly from his jaw like a prehistoric jetty. He was tall and gaunt and ungainly, and more than a few prospective customers had taken one
step into the store, seen him standing there behind the counter like Hell's own gatekeeper, and withdrawn in terror. Even Siri baulked momentarily when he saw him through the window. When the doctor pushed open the door, a brass bell tinkled above hjs head like a small idea.
"Comrade," the clerk sang. "Welcome."
It was a peculiar bookshop, dark, in spite of the large windows, and unfriendly. There weren't walls of book spines to walk along and browse. What scant reading material they had was displayed flat on boards like beef or fish at a country market. One or two selected tomes were held captive in glass cabinets. In two minutes a customer could perform one perfunctory circuit of the room — feigning interest in this or that — then be on his way. But Siri had cause to stay longer after his circuit, during which he identified Russian, German and — although he wasn't certain — what looked like Bulgarian magazines. The clerk, with nothing else to do, had observed Siri's every move.
"We have the latest Your Country — Your Livestock from Romania just in," he said with an imperfectly straight face. "Hot off the press."
"I think I'll wait for the translation," Siri decided.
"Very well," said the clerk. He was either smiling or suffering some inward agony.
"Have you worked here long?" Siri asked.
"Worked and managed since we opened," the clerk said proudly. "I do all the bookwork and conceive of and execute the displays. Every month or so, as new books arrive, I change the theme to stimulate consumer interest. It's one of the skills I learned overseas."
Siri looked around in search of a theme.
"This month is…?" he asked.
"Red," said the man, without a hint of sarcasm.
"Red?"
"Naturally, there aren't always enough pure red covers to do the display justice. But, as you can see, there's pink and mauve and purple, all within the same segment of the spectrum, to accentuate the mood. Last month was — "
"No, don't tell me. Blue?"
The clerk laughed. It was a horrid sight.
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