A breath fanned his hand and his fingers felt the outline of a mouth deep in the dirt. These were the lips that sang the love song. He raked away the debris with his fingers so the singer could breathe fresh ait He hurriedly brushed dirt from the nose, from the eyes. The voice was beginning to break. It slipped off key and fell, tumbling through octaves. It came to rest on a deep, bronchial B flat. Siri knew he had to save the tune. With increasing desperation he strove to free the singer from his tomb. He lifted the head and cradled it in his arms, willing the song not to die. And that was when his fingers knew. Beneath their touch the cheekbones rose, the eyebrows bristled. And as he swept back the thick hair, his thumb and forefinger traced the outline of a left ear, missing a lobe.
15
A MOSQUITO INSIDE THE NET
"I really don't know what he's getting at," Phosy said, not for the first time. Even though his desk was directly behind that of his superior, Sihot shook his head in response. Phosy held a note from Dr Siri. Daeng had dropped it off after Siri's departure, a last-minute memo scribbled in Siri's barely legible hand. Against his better judgement, Phosy had done what the doctor had suggested. He'd listened to Neung's story. It had been very slick. It explained everything apart from why three victims, all known to the suspect, had been killed. Phosy was disappointed that the doctor could have fallen for it. Of course Neung had it all worked out. It was easy enough to do when the evidence has been handed to him on a plate. Even Phosy could have done that. He was furious that Siri could have been so naive, presenting the accused with the police department's entire case.
But Phosy had listened patiently and asked the appropriate questions at the end. "Who would want to frame you? Do you have any enemies? Has anybody threatened you?"
And all the answers had been negative. If Neung was about to go to all the trouble of inventing innocent relationships with the victims, surely he could have come up with a scapegoat to divert attention from himself. But, no. And, if it were possible, he made it worse for himself. Phosy had thought to ask whether the initial Z meant anything. And rather than deny it, Neung had the impudence to boast that they'd called him Zorro in Berlin. Something about his style, evidently. He'd been christened by his coach and the name had stuck with his students. Neung hadn't even the common sense to withhold that juicy fact. So, Phosy had his watertight case and had no doubts in his own mind that he had the right man. No serious doubts. Of course, all criminal cases leave some gaps. But Siri's note rankled him. It wasn't a list of chores so much as unanswered questions. And of course he knew the questions. He had them on his own summary paper. He didn't need Siri to remind him. Did Chanti suspect his wife was having an affair with Neung? Did he care? Why were the Vietnamese so reluctant to hand over the case to us? Did Kiang see her affair with Neung the same way he did? Did they fight? What was the timing of Neung and Jim's respective arrival in?departure from Berlin? Who was taking painkillers and why? (Does Neung have an injury?) Does Neung still have the knife used to cut out the signature? Does his father think Neung is guilty? Do you?
Certainly, a lot of it was merely the tying up of loose ends. As a good policeman he would have done that anyway…if they hadn't been so understaffed. Just him and Sihot and so many reports to write. And what was the point? They had their man, didn't they?
It was the post script to the note that had most riled the inspector. Just who did this little doctor think he was? Not satisfied with playing detective and telling him how to do his job, he had to interfere in Phosy's personal matters, too. Phosy, I'm sorry. I meant to tell you this earlier this evening but I was distracted by the visit to Neung. It would have been better face to face but I've lost my chance. It's quite simple. If you aren't having an affair, tell your wife, immediately. If you are, stop it.
Phosy scratched out the entire postscript with his black biro, slashed at it till the paper tore. Still not satisfied, he took a pair of scissors from his pencil drawer and snipped off the bottom of the page. He scrunched it up and threw it into the wastepaper bin.
"Interfering little bastard. None of your business," he thought. "Who are you to tell me what I should or shouldn't do? You aren't even a relative, certainly not my father. Too late now, Siri. Where were you forty years ago when I needed you?"?
There weren't any orphans in Laos, not government-sponsored or otherwise. And that was due to the fact that folks didn't give children enough time to think they were unloved. If you lost your parents, a relative would step in and fill their sandals as quickly as blood clotting on a wound, barely a scab. If you had the misfortune of losing your whole family, a neighbour would take you in, or someone in the next village. A local headman, perhaps. But, either way, you'd wake up next day with a new family and nobody would harp on your loss. They'd tell you what happened without drama and, no matter how poor, they wouldn't complain about what a burden you were. At least, that's the way it had been in Laos. That's the way it had been for Phosy.
He'd been studying at his primary school one day in the little northern village of Ban Maknow, Lemon Town. His mother and father just happened to be working in the wrong field at the wrong time and were mowed down in crossfire between this or that faction. Someone had come by the school and whispered in the teacher's ear. As Phosy had no uncles or aunts, he went home that evening with his friend, Pow. Pow's mother and father already had three other children living with them who had lost their parents in a civil war nobody really understood. It was such a clinical transition that it was several days before Phosy fully realised that he'd never see his parents again. He'd cried, of course. He missed them. But he was already safe and happy before loneliness had a chance to take hold.
His new father was a carpenter. He carved temple doors and fine furniture and all seven of the children, five boys and two girls, learned to use woodworking tools at an early age. There was no secondary schooling in those parts so Phosy had hoped his new father would take him on as an apprentice as he had done with his eldest son. But when Phosy was ten, a young man had come to the village. He was educated and well-spoken. In the open-sided village meeting hut, he explained to all the parents how he had been plucked from a place very much like this when he was a boy. How he'd been given the opportunity to study in the liberated zones in the north-east. He'd graduated from high school there and gone on to further education in Vietnam. He told them that they'd recently opened a new school and that they could take eight hundred new students. All food and board would be taken care of.
A week later, Phosy, Pow, and their sister, Beybey, were in a covered truck heading across the country. Phosy felt something in his stomach that he would later come to recognise as betrayal. They'd given him away. The family he'd loved had handed him over to a stranger. He couldn't understand it but life was travelling too quickly to analyse. They taught him things in the liberated zones. He learned how the French colonists had stolen their land. He learned how the rich landowners had taken advantage of the common people. He learned how to be angry and to punch his fist into the air and shout, "Liberation!" He learned how to shoot guns and kill. And, by the time he reached seventeen, he and his false siblings were junior officers in the new Lao People's Liberation Army. All three of them were so entangled in the revolution they hadn't found time to go back to visit the family that had raised and cared for them…and given them away.
Phosy rose fastest through the ranks. He had an inquisitive mind and, once he reached the position of colonel, he was transferred to military intelligence and trained in the art of espionage just outside Hanoi. With a new identity, he arrived in Vientiane in 1965 and began work as a carpenter. Other LPLA men and women had been trickled into the mainstream of royalist society, spreading their beliefs subtly from the inside, passing on intelligence, preparing for the day revolution would come. They became known as the mosquitoes inside the net, these sleeper agents, ready to sting when the time was right.
But, while he was waiting, something occurred that Phosy hadn't prepared for. He fell in love. Th
ere was probably a whole chapter in the Indochinese Communist Party spy handbook detailing the dangers of falling in love whilst engaged in subversive activities. But Phosy was emotionally lost and in need of confirmation that someone might want him. He married and they produced first a boy, then a girl, and that old feeling of family returned to him. That warm comforting glow of belonging took over Phosy's life. At times it seemed more important than nationhood. The revolution took a back seat to Phosy's family.
But the revolution came anyway. It came swiftly on the heels of the Vietminh victory in Saigon and without the wholesale bloodshed that had been envisaged. And the Pathet Lao moles in their burrows in Vientiane celebrated quietly. The status quo had changed but there were still enemies. The new socialist government couldn't decide what to do with its spies. Under the guise of re-education, Phosy and his colleagues were recalled to the north-east and new roles were allocated. He was away for three months and when he returned to the capital, his wife and children were gone. Gone, the neighbours said, to a refugee camp on the Thai side. They'd paid a fisherman for a night passage to Nong Kai. Gone because his wife was afraid of the communists. Afraid of what they might do to her. Gone because Phosy hadn't been able to tell her he was the enemy.
Phosy left Vientiane and rejoined his unit in the northeast. Three families had deserted him. Phosy was a serial orphan. Love crumbled in his hands like hearts moulded from fine sand. Why invest? Why waste all that emotion? He'd met nurse Dtui. He'd liked her. He'd made her pregnant. He'd offered to marry her. She'd asked him if he could love her and he'd told her no, but he was prepared to marry her anyway. That had been good enough for Dtui and for him, companionship without fear of heartbreak. Then Malee had come along, the sweetest button of a babe. She had smiled and he'd remembered all the other smiles that had trapped him. He watched them together, Dtui and her baby, and he'd seen treachery in their eyes. He watched how she controlled the mind of the little girl. How would they break him, these two? Every day he was afraid he'd come home and find them gone. And the conflict was killing him, splitting him apart. On one side was the feeling that there was nothing on the earth so full of wonder as the love of a family. And on the other was the certainty that they would desert him. Either in death or in deceit they would go away and leave him without hope. How dare he tell them he loved them??
Siri tapped on Civilai's door at eighteen thirty Mexico City time. Civilai's voice carried dully from the bathroom.
"Come in if you're carrying food."
Siri walked into the room. From the crumpled sheet and deformedly dented pillow, it appeared his friend hadn't slept any better than he had. He walked to the window. The view was similar to that from his own. Grounds that had once been landscaped were now jungle. A giant lucky hair tree craved attention not two metres from the glass. The city wasn't visible. Civilai walked from the bathroom wearing only shorts. He looked like a medical school skeleton with a paunch.
"I bet with a couple of chopsticks we could get a decent tune out of those ribs, brother," Siri laughed.
Civilai ignored the taunt.
"Did you get your early-morning call?" he asked.
"I thought it was my imagination. It was a gunshot, wasn't it?"
"Pretty close too, by the sounds of it. Perhaps they were killing something for breakfast."
"Good. I prefer my breakfast dead. I'm starving. Do you suppose the restaurant's open?"
"It's on the itinerary." Civilai picked up the single sheet of paper they'd given him in Vientiane. "'Seven a.m. morning meal at House Number Two.'"
"Good, hurry up and put on a shirt so we don't frighten anyone."?
Breakfast in the spacious dining room was uncomplicated but tasty. Other delegates sat at other tables minding their own business with great deliberation. The only noise was coming from the three Chinese tables whose breakfast banter bounced around the dusty restaurant like early morning ping-pong balls. Mr Chenda, their guide, joined the Lao at their table but refused food. He had a copy of their itinerary and he proceeded to read through it, expanding politically in one or another direction from notes he'd made on the sheet.
"Before lunch," he said, staring towards the door, "you will have the opportunity to visit your embassy. There, your ambassador will brief you on your country's relationship with Democratic Kampuchea and the ongoing role we expect the People's Democratic Republic of Laos to play in our development. You will sample a lunchtime meal of fresh food supplied directly from one of our cooperatives and then you will join representatives from other legations to visit our model collective in District Seventeen. You will return in time to change, whence you are invited to attend our grand May Day reception where you will have the great honour of meeting our respected and glorious leaders.."
"Including number one brother?" Civilai dared ask, not really expecting a response. But the guide became enlivened at the mention of the great leader.
"Brother Number One will most certainly be in attendance," he beamed. "Our leader is excited at the prospect of exchanging views with our respected allies."
"Does Big Brother have a name?" Siri asked. He noticed indications of a short circuit deep in the guide's brain. His face shut down for a few seconds then rebooted.
"Tomorrow you will have the opportunity to visit a truly spectacular irrigation project where you will see what our peasants have been able to achieve, working hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder…"
"…heel to toe, thumb to nose," Siri mumbled. He was becoming frustrated by the boy's inability to answer questions.
"What?" The guide seemed angry.
"Nothing. Go on."
"As I was saying. The irrigation project is an example of what it's possible to achieve with nothing more than a love of Angkar, determination and hard work."
"And Chinese funding," Civilai added.
"They don't believe in money," Siri reminded him. "Isn't that right, little comrade? You see? I was paying attention. But I didn't catch Big Brother's name. What was it again?"
The guide put both his palms on the table and pushed himself stiffly to a standing position. He still hadn't looked either of the old Lao directly in the eye, but he glared menacingly at the condiment tray.
"You must be ready to leave from reception in ten minutes," he told the fish sauce.?
Considering the fact that Siri's old map showed Hotel le Phnom to be no more than five city blocks from the embassy section of Boulevard Manivon, the limousine drive was curiously circuitous. As they pulled out of the hotel grounds, the first landmark his map said they'd pass was the Catholic cathedral. He'd visited it with his wife. It was gone. All that remained was a pile of rubble. They proceeded past the railway station which stood like a deserted castle and cut through a number of streets, none of which had signs. At every corner stood a sentry in black pyjamas with an AK47. They were men and women, old and very young, but all of them slouched and glared at the passing car. The limousine swung around the gangly Olympic stadium, one more example of the royal family's nouveaux Khmer architecture of the sixties, and headed along an empty Sivutha Boulevard. Its old sandalwood trees pointed their dead or dying fingers as they passed. The streets and buildings they saw were all immaculately clean, windows smiled reflections of the early sun. The journey might have given a guest the feeling the roads had been closed off for their safety, the people told to remain in their homes, but Siri had goose pimples as he looked out of the window. Something was wrong here.
They eventually entered the diplomatic section of Boulevard Manivon from the south. The entire road had been partitioned off with a heavily guarded barrier blocking the entrance.
"We provide maximum security for our foreign representatives," the guide told them.
"Who from?" Siri asked.
"I'm sorry?" Every time the doctor interrupted, the guide became more impatient.
"Who are you protecting them from? Didn't you say you were at peace?"
"We are, indeed, a peace-loving nation, and the populat
ion has joined hands with us to form a unified democratic state. But there will always be insurgents out to embarrass us. We have enemies jealous of our successes. We need to remain vigilant."
The limousine drove into the newly created compound and pulled up in front of an old sand-coloured colonial house. It was surrounded by a white wall like a temple. For the first time that day they saw people walking along footpaths, sitting on benches, locked in conversation. All of them foreigners. But Siri noticed the others; the silent, unmoving ones. They stood in strategic positions in their black pyjamas watching, minding. They reminded him of the ghosts who hung around temple fairs. They never joined in, were never seen, were not really there.
Both Siri and Civilai knew the Lao ambassador, Kavinh. They had fought campaigns together. He was only slightly taller than Siri and he too had been a fearless warrior. Yet they noticed immediately, as he walked along the path to greet them, that time had sandpapered the ambassador down to a spindle of the man they remembered. He had no spring in his step, no truth in his smile. Beside him was his own black-suited minder, a short-haired peasant with a sun-blistered face.
"Comrades," said Ambassador Kavinh. "It's been a long time." They shook his unsteady hand and reminded each other of when and where they'd last met. But he was less than enthusiastic, not at all warm. He didn't introduce the man at his side. He turned and led them back inside. Siri caught Civilai's eye. Nothing was relaxed here. Nothing natural.
There followed a two-hour briefing, not from the ambassador or his diplomatic aides, but from the Khmer minder. He read from a prepared sheet. His Lao was heavily accented, comical at some points. But the old men found it prudent not to make comment. They sat on a circle of chairs in the front room of the embassy with their guide, the ambassador, two Lao aides and two more Khmer. Time became a heavy log towed by an ancient elephant. Siri could do no more than merely will it all to end. He took advantage of the opportunity by going over the case of the three epees in his mind. He had time to look at the circumstances through the eyes of each of the victims. And it was from the perspective of one of them that a completely different picture presented itself. He played a new hypothesis through to its gory conclusion and all the parts fitted. Only one question remained to be answered and, by the time they announced lunch, he was just a breath away from solving the mystery.
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