“Well, there’s grounds for arrest right there,” said Siri. “Enjoying a seminar? The man couldn’t have been in his right mind. He’s the one who needs locking up.”
“As I see it,” said Civilai, a pork spring roll protruding cigar-like between his teeth, “you and Daeng were attending the meeting voluntarily. What does that say about your sanity?”
“I was there under duress,” said Siri.
“He was not,” said Daeng. “Since he retired, he’s been so desperate for entertainment he forces me to the most obscure public gatherings. No topic is too dull for him. He scours the cremation schedules for ceremonies to attend.”
“Only people I knew,” said Siri.
“He rides his bicycle around the streets hoping to encounter a skirmish,” she continued. “To rescue a cat from a tree. To step in on a domestic tiff. You’re bored, Siri.”
“You’re boh . . . boh . . . bored, Comrade Doctor,” Mr. Geung agreed.
Siri looked at him in dismay. “How can you say such a thing?” he asked. “Am I not your foreman? Do I not supervise your daily activities here at the restaurant? Do I not negotiate a fair salary for you from your employer?”
“Perhaps Madam Daeng could do without a shop steward stirring up her employees,” said Nurse Dtui.
The look between the two women told Siri they’d been discussing his role in the new restaurant behind his back. He’d reluctantly convinced himself he could be of service there. But if he were to be honest he had no love for the place. He had no skill for producing noodles, so it was just as well his wife was a genius in the kitchen. He had no patience with accounting, no creativity in marketing, no tolerance for spending long hours in one spot. After a lifetime of travel and excitement and near-death experiences, a noodle shop was heaven’s waiting room for someone like Siri. And everyone there knew it.
Ever diplomatic at the domestic level, Civilai changed the subject.
“What news of your zoo?” he asked.
“The Zoo” was the latest nickname for Siri’s official government residence, which he had illegally stacked with homeless people. As a government official, Siri had been forced to accept the cement box home out past the That Luang monument. As he was cohabiting with his wife above the restaurant he’d opted to fill his official residence with the needy. It was this blatant disregard of Party guidelines that had first introduced Siri to Comrade Koomki of Housing, the same Comrade Koomki currently haunting Judge Haeng and himself for no apparent reason. Even in such a claustrophobic bureaucracy it was unlikely a second-grade clerk would pursue revenge for regulation infringement from the grave.
“A bit of excitement from Noo,” said Siri.
“He’s the monk, right?” said Phosy.
“A Thai forest monk to be exact,” said Siri. “On the run from the Thai military.”
“What exactly did he do?” Dtui asked.
“A general decided he liked the look of a tract of land and felt it would make a pleasant holiday resort. Problem was, right up until the day the bulldozers arrived it had legally been national parkland. Overnight the paperwork rewrote itself, and General Disorder was the legal owner of said land. Enter Noo: Itinerant monk. The Lone Ranger. Sworn to protect virgin jungles. He riles up the locals, blesses a couple of two-thousand-year-old trees, wraps them in saffron, declares the area a holy ground and buries himself up to his neck in front of a backhoe. Impressive front-page news photo.”
“And, of course, the general’s arrested, the land reverts to national park and Noo gets the Magsaysay Award for community service,” said Civilai.
“Almost,” said Siri. “Most of the annoying trees had already been cleared to make log cabins, and the resort opened three months later. Up-and-coming teenage idol Pueng Duangjan cut the ribbon. The provincial governor gave a thank-you speech. Then Noo was arrested and charged with treason as a Communist insurgent.”
“And he’s not?” asked Phosy.
“A Communist? Yes. Of course he is. But nobody ever asked him. And none of his actions were politically motivated. But the timing was bad. They’d just started their mop-up operation of Thai Communists living in the northern jungles along the border. Since they lost Khmer Rouge support, the reds were surrendering in hordes. Big propaganda program in the media. Military telling everyone the evil Commies will sneak into their bedrooms at night and eat their children and stamp on their puppies.” Ugly the dog snarled from beneath Siri’s table. “Nobody’s safe until the bad guys are eliminated. That sort of thing. You just have to hint someone is a Communist and public opinion hones the guillotine.”
The two curfew officers had arrived and were waiting politely for a natural break in the conversation.
“What is it?” said the inspector.
“We’ll be off now,” said one, swaying gently at the open shutter.
“We’ll be back in an hour,” said the other. “And we’ll expect you to observe the curfew regulations.” He hiccupped. “Or there’ll be trouble.”
“Right,” said Madam Daeng. “Are you boys sure you’ll be all right on that motor scooter?”
“Yes, thank you, Auntie,” said the first. And the two walked across the street arm in arm in search of their vehicle.
“So,” said Dtui, “how did forest monk Noo escape?”
“They locked him up in the provincial jail instead of the military stockade,” said Daeng, who loved nothing more than hijacking her husband’s stories. “In Nan Province he was something of a folk hero. So security wasn’t that strict. They even let him go to collect alms in the mornings. Made him promise he’d return.”
“And not surprisingly one morning he didn’t come back,” said Siri, “reminding them all that monks are just men with very short haircuts.”
“And here he was on your doorstep,” said Civilai. “Giving free illegal sermons in your backyard.”
“How did he know where to come?” asked Phosy.
“Troublemakers have a sort of homing device,” Civilai told him.
“So what’s the excitement at the Zoo?” asked Dtui, her baby shifting happily in her sleep like a piglet scratching its back on short grass.
“I don’t really know what’s happened,” said Siri. “One of the housemates delivered this note today.”
He pulled a neatly folded paper from his top pocket.
“Dear Brother Siri,” he read, “I have been entrusted with a top-secret mission that I feel is safer not to discuss in this note. Should anything go wrong you can find further information in the place Imelda Marcos keeps her favorite shoes.”
“A bit melodramatic,” said Civilai.
“Shoes,” said Mr. Geung, laughing on a sugar high.
“Who’s Imelda Marcos?” asked Phosy.
“I haven’t got a clue,” said Siri.
3
The Sedentary Nomad
Siri didn’t know whether Noo’s failure to return home that night constituted something going wrong. It was the first time the forest monk had failed to unroll his sleeping mat on the back porch of the house. But as he was supposed to be an itinerant monk, perhaps that was nothing to worry about. Siri had mentioned often that, for a nomad, Noo was somewhat sedentary. In fact he hadn’t gone anywhere at all since he arrived from Thailand. So perhaps this was just a reaction. A coincidence admittedly that it should occur right after the note, but either way Siri chose to ignore the first night’s absence and wait to see what transpired.
It had been harder for Siri to ignore the memoranda from Judge Haeng’s office. There had been three all before coffee time. He rode his bicycle along an empty Samsenthai Boulevard with Ugly trotting along beside him. The doctor had grown up in the East and left for France in his teens. Upon his return he’d spent all his time as a field surgeon in the provinces. He’d first arrived in the capital with the revolutionary forces in ’75. Much of the populati
on had fled, and the businesses closed down. He’d only ever seen downtown as a ghostly, empty place. He couldn’t imagine the heady days of clubs and drugs and prostitution, of American dollars and tourists and shops with interesting items for sale. He turned onto Lan Xang. It was midmorning and he and Ugly were alone on the Champs-Élysées de Laos.
He found the judge cowering in the corner of his office at the Ministry of Justice. When Siri threw open the door Haeng squealed and dropped the file he’d been pretending to read.
“Siri,” he said, “what kept you?”
“Lack of interest,” said the doctor.
The judge rose stiffly from the bathroom stool. He walked like an elderly gentleman to his desk and collapsed onto his padded vinyl chair.
“Do not make light of this,” he said. “I haven’t slept for two nights. I’m considering visiting a psychologist I know in Hanoi.”
“That’s a long way to go to be told you’re a nutcase.”
“Am I, Siri? Am I mad?”
“Without question.”
“But you’ve seen him too.”
“And you think I’m sane?”
Siri looked at the young man and against his better judgment felt a little sorry for him. His crinkled white shirt was stained with sweat at the armpits. His black plastic belt had skipped one or two loops. He looked even more ratty than usual.
“I heard the rumors, Siri,” he said. “Your dealings with the afterlife. Of course I believed none of it.”
“Very wise.”
“But here . . . here I am seeing a man who is without question deceased.”
“What if it’s someone pretending to be Comrade Koomki?” said Siri. “Someone dressed up like him, made up?”
“So I first thought, Siri. That’s what I desperately wanted to believe.”
Siri sat on the edge of the judge’s desk waiting for a “but.”
“But he changes size, Siri,” said the judge. “Sometimes he’s a midget. As you remember that was his normal stature. Then next minute he’s as huge as a weather balloon. Then he fits in a toothbrush mug.”
“You appear to be seeing a lot of him.”
“He’s everywhere, Siri. Everywhere I go. What does he want? Why me?”
Siri could see the judge was in need of mystic logic.
“Very well,” he said. “I have learned from experience that there are two major reasons for a haunting. One is revenge. The other is unfinished business. Now, unless there’s something you haven’t told me about your relationship with Comrade Koomki, I don’t see he’d have reason to terrorize you.”
“I did think poorly of his height.”
“I don’t think that’s enough. In fact, if revenge is what he’s about, he’d have far more cause to make my life miserable than yours. But all I get is the occasional sighting.”
“So it’s not revenge?” said the judge, somewhat relieved. “Then you think there might be something he had no time to complete before . . .”
“It’s possible.”
“And how would we know what that is?”
Siri’s first reaction to that question should have been, “I’ll ask him.” But the doctor still lacked a number of fundamental shamanic skills. Basic communication with the afterlife was one of them.
“You handled his paperwork,” said the doctor, “and his personal effects. Nurse Dtui did the autopsy on what was left of him. Phosy wrote the crime sheet. I suggest we go through all the notes to see whether we did anything wrong. Whether we missed anything important. Something’s disturbing our Comrade Koomki. I get the feeling he won’t be able to move along until we discover what that was.”
•••
“What did you put for question five hundred and forty-one?” Civilai asked.
“Elvis Presley,” said Siri.
The old boys had finished their canned pilchard baguettes and were kneeling on the grass using their log as a desk. There were over six hundred questions in the Department of Religious Affairs’ affiliations questionnaire. As that was hard work, they’d decided to answer only the prime numbers.
“Do you think anyone’s going to answer this thing honestly?” Siri asked.
“No. It’s probably a trap. I mean, page one: ‘your religious convictions.’ Who’s going to answer that truthfully? The Party line is that everyone’s free to worship whoever or whatever they like. But there they are re-educating the novices to preach Marxist Buddhist theory: the Lord Buddha as a pioneer of socialist ideology. No religion in the elementary school curriculum. All mention of Buddha removed from the national anthem. Monks are told to teach the masses how to economize and increase productivity. They’ve become morals police, telling common folk to live virtuously within the system. In every other country the monks are chastised for engaging in politics. Here they give out gold stars for it. People have forgotten what Buddhism’s all about. And nobody’s sure whether to admit to being a believer.”
“What did you answer for that one?” Siri asked.
“Agnostic,” said Civilai. “What? Don’t look at me like that. I am.”
“I believe you,” said Siri.
“I don’t . . .”
“I know.”
“You are too.”
“That’s true.”
“Then stop making that lemony face,” Civilai said. “Your childhood in a temple. Your Christian college education. Your reawakening as the descendant of a shaman—a bone reader. All that but it’s still brought you to the same conclusion. There is nothing you can worship with any certainty. Nothing you can honestly believe in.”
Siri put his hand to his chest where the white amulet hung from his neck. It was nothing elaborate: a lump of roughly chiseled stone. But there was no question that, without it, he would have been long dead. Without the blessings and shamanistic hogwash that had somehow been sucked into it, the malevolent spirits of the forest, the phibob, would have tricked him out of his life. They had the power. Hollywood was misinformed about evil spirits. A ghost cannot attack a human being. It cannot hurl rocks or strangle a virgin in her sleep or reach into a man’s chest and pull out his heart. But, through trickery, it can convince a man his heart is being crushed by a giant naga, that he can jump from a tall building and swim through the clouds, that a cocktail of bleach and toilet cleanser tastes every bit as good as whisky soda with a pinch of lemon. That’s how real spirits operate, by taking over the mind. And of all the Lao and Thai demons that did mischief on a daily basis, none were as spiteful as the phibob. And for some reason probably tied to the deeds of Siri’s ancestor, Yeh Ming, the doctor was on their Most Wanted list.
“What did you answer for that one?” Civilai asked.
“Tree worship.”
“That’s the spirit.”
They had no intention of submitting their questionnaires. The exercise was just another way for two retirees to kill an afternoon in Vientiane. They’d be fined, of course. Their names would be submitted to the disciplinary council—again—but they’d had a couple of hours of fun. For two active minds rapidly going to seed, stimulation was vital. Siri was envious of his friend’s contacts in high places who sent the old man on missions. Siri was such a troublemaker nobody sent him anywhere. He’d never have been offered the post of ambassador to Kampuchea, as Civilai had. Siri wouldn’t have been sent to the Chinese border to avert an invasion, although he went anyway. As he often said, “Diplomacy, like Catherine Deneuve, has never found its way into my bed.” Civilai, although riddled with prejudice and racism, was a natural peacemaker. Siri could start a riot in an aquarium.
They folded their questionnaires into the shape of boats, stood shin deep in the coffee-esque Mekhong and launched them on their way to the Khong Falls. The water was cool, and the mud oozed delightfully between their toes.
“Are you really going tomorrow?” Siri asked.
&
nbsp; “Absolutely,” said Civilai.
“You don’t think it’s a bit . . . ridiculous?”
“Not at all. It fits. This is Buddhism theme week: you and your seminar, a lost monk, a religious affiliation questionnaire. It’s karma. I can’t believe there’s so much cosmic energy around.”
“But . . . ?”
“I know. Very silly, but it’s all expenses paid, and I can take Madam Nong for a change. And we have to ride this ‘be nice to Thailand’ wagon while it’s in the depot. We agreed to follow up on the claim. We haven’t been to Pak Xan for a while. And it’s not a big deal. Evidently, the Buddhist council in Bangkok investigates a dozen claims a month. They have a budget for it. Are you sure you don’t want to come? You could be my caddy.”
“Positive.”
“But what if it’s really Him? How exciting would that be? One of those classic ‘I was there when . . .’ moments.”
“So did this fellow actually write in to say he was the next Buddha?”
“No, evidently it was just ‘known’ instinctively. A bit like Jesus in the stable. Except this is a Buddha in a mechanic’s yard.”
“Will you be taking any precious metals as a gift?”
“No, but we’ll take a couple of nice bottles of red. They have spectacular river clams down there.”
“Why are they sending you?”
“All part of the recent Thai delegation’s cross border détente bill of fare. They’re doing favors for us. We’re doing favors for them. Our politburo doesn’t want to be seen supporting a Buddhist mission, but they want to keep the Thais happy. They don’t want Siamese wandering around the countryside of Laos, but they do not want to send a senior Lao official either, so they had to find someone decommissioned and neutral.”
“And you’re neutral?”
“I have splinters from all the fence sitting I do.”
“And you think two days will be enough to assess the veracity of the claim? In fairness, I don’t see you as even remotely qualified to decide.”
I Shot the Buddha Page 2