I Shot the Buddha

by Colin Cotterill

  He had no doubt there was heavy supernatural activity all around them. He could see the spirit shadows in the forest. They looked up nervously like deer when he passed. They were merely ghosts with no ill intentions, but his talisman told him of a deeper presence, one that couldn’t be seen. The stone had ceased to be a chunk of rock and had taken on animate qualities. It squeezed his chest like a hand. It squirmed like a warm rattlesnake beneath his shirt. It was alive.

  “Why was the temple built so far outside the village?” Daeng asked.

  “Neutral ground,” said Siri. “It was the only plot left unoccupied.”

  “By whom?” Daeng asked.

  “The bad ghosts. The phibob.”

  “I see,” she said. “So we’re heading off into another Siri moment. Marvelous.”

  Before she was reunited with Siri a few years earlier, Daeng had paid homage to her ancestors and shown respect to the spirits of the land. She’d had no personal dealings with any of them, but it was what her parents and grandparents had done. Just as a Muslim child has no doubt there is Allah, so little Daeng never questioned there were spirits. It hadn’t been necessary to touch or be touched by them. But then came Siri with his entourage. Whether it was magic or hypnosis, it mattered not. She had a tail, and the tail had rid her of a debilitating infliction. Her husband saw ghosts. It was merely a confirmation that millions of spirit worshippers in the world were as sane as anyone else.

  The trail opened onto the type of village they’d seen thousands of times in their travels. Bamboo and wood houses on stilts with grass roofs, large concrete water pots, pigs, antique-looking farm implements, dirt, fenced-in vegetables, neat gardens and a well-kept village center with a court for rattan ball. Daeng saw nothing immediately threatening about the place, but she turned to Siri, and his face was as white as coconut meat.

  “Siri, are you all right?” she asked.

  “I feel like an outlaw who’s just ridden into town and seen his face on a hundred wanted posters,” he told her.

  She had no idea what he meant.

  Sawan’s headman was standing by the rattan ball net with a toothless smile. He was about fifty, muscular and had a face abused, perhaps, in Muay Thai tournaments. Time had healed over the beatings like an ancient ruin covered in moss.

  “Welcome,” he said, putting his hands together in a nop the Thais called a wai. Siri and Daeng responded in kind. The Sangharaj did not respond because, well, he was supreme. Daeng wondered how the headman had known to expect them.

  “I’m Tham,” said the headman.

  “This is my wife, Daeng,” said Siri. “And I am . . .”

  “You are Yeh Ming,” said Tham. “Of course. We’ve been expecting you.”

  It happened often. Yeh Ming was the name of Siri’s resident shaman who had hopped from body to body for a thousand years. Siri had told few living beings about his possession, yet he often ran into those who felt the presence of the old Hmong before they saw the doctor. The Sangharaj raised what used to be eyebrows and smiled in admiration.

  “He’s mistaken me for someone else,” said Siri.

  “I don’t think so,” said the monk.

  “Let me show you our dear Sawan,” said Tham like a proud parent introducing a new baby.

  It was only when they came close to the houses that they could see just how bizarre the village was. Every hut was adorned with some kind of supernatural paraphernalia. But there was no cultural uniformity. It was as if each resident had decided which spirit to worship and which to be afraid of. It was like an open-air museum of paranormal paranoia. There were Hmong gates and bridges for the lost souls to find their ways home, and glass ornaments and mirrors to ward off unwanted spirits. There were smelly portals of dried garlic and gardens of straw or taro root dolls like regiments of tiny terracotta warriors. There were white cotton strings looping down beside the entryways and stuffed animals with looks of horror on their faces. Some huts displayed old coconuts made up to look like shrunken heads, and even though they were five hundred kilometers from the sea there were garlands of seashells strung out on posts.

  And, in front of every hut there was a hand-painted board with a menu of services and their costs:

  FINDING LOST OBJECTS/PEOPLE—30 baht

  FAMILY SÉANCE—50 baht

  CURSES AND GOOD WISHES—20 baht

  Villagers sat on rocking chairs or on their front steps waving at the visitors, announcing their skills and calling out special offers. Siri couldn’t believe his eyes. This was a tourist town: the Disneyland of animism. But it wasn’t a scam. He could feel the power. He was certain country folk would travel here to solve their problems. Yet he remembered how the taxi driver had been afraid to bring them. Only the desperate would come. There was something sad about the services they offered. It was as if the true potential of the village was being constrained. Something was holding these folk back.

  All around, he could see or sense the limbo people. They leaned against trees, sat on the branches, sunbathed on the grass waiting for assistance that never came. And permeating all of this was a dark fog, a stratum of malevolence where the phibob lurked. He could feel their anticipation, the excitement of some impending disaster. He knew his arrival had created a murmur that would change everything in Sawan.

  The Sangharaj called a halt to the tour. “Tham,” he said, “I believe you have morning tea arranged for your guests.”

  “Indeed I do,” said Tham.

  Tea was in the gazebo where, normally, the bodies were laid out before the pyre. As it was impossible for everyone in the village to meet Yeh Ming, they whittled the reception down to nine. They lined up like actors being introduced to royalty. Tham introduced them by specialty followed by name. Tham himself was the senior exorcist, quick to point out that he was retired.

  The diviner, Song, was a tall woman with teary eyes and hair streaked white like Frankenstein’s bride. The intermediary, Cham, had a shaved head and was fey bordering on effeminate. His superior, a full-fledged medium, was Tian. She was an older woman not unlike Daeng in appearance, with the same unruly mop of short white hair and a wicked smile. Then there were the shaman brothers, Phi and Lek, who were responsible for making bargains with the spirits. They were both missing their left legs, although Tham didn’t bother to explain why. The village priestess was Thewa, who had probably been cherubic in her youth but now looked like a potato. The herbalist, Ya, was perhaps the youngest of the group and resembled one of the handsome stars of a Thai television drama. This left only the fortune-teller, Doo. He was stocky and unpleasant both in looks and in nature. His hair was in clumps as if he’d cut it with blunt scissors, and he had a goiter the size of a ripe papaya on his neck. He refused to join the queue to shake the visitors’ hands and grumbled continuously under his breath.

  Siri and Daeng would have no problem remembering them, as they were named in Thai language after their roles and most of them looked the part. They were dressed in their respective costumes and were a colorful bunch. Tea was served along with a tasteless doughy cake that had no purpose other than to soak up the tea. All but Doo clamored around Siri with the adoration usually reserved for rock stars. The Sangharaj and Daeng were largely ignored.

  “I have to begin by asking how you all came to be in this village,” said Siri. “I can tell from your ethnicity and accents that you’ve traveled from far and wide. Why did you settle here?”

  He’d planned to avoid mentioning the claustrophobic presence of the phibob, but in company such as this, where everyone communicated on non-verbal levels, it was a foolish plan.

  “The thing we have in common,” said Priestess Thewa, “is that we were all banished from our own villages.”

  “Because we were possessed by phibob,” said Intermediary Cham.

  “All of you?” said Siri, dumbfounded.

  “The first two generations,” said Head
man Tham. “They haven’t got to our grandchildren yet.”

  “And never will,” grumbled Doo.

  “We were like lepers,” said Medium Tian. “It didn’t even have to be proven. You know what it’s like in the countryside, Yeh Ming. There’s a suspicion that turns into a rumor that overnight becomes a fact.”

  “Then you weren’t all possessed?” said Siri.

  “Not completely,” said Shaman Phi.

  “Perhaps a little,” said Shaman Lek. “From time to time. We were all in the spirit trade, you see? There were a lot of currents and waves passing through us. It’s likely we’d pick up a phibob or two.”

  “But it’s more like the flu than cancer,” said Headman Tham. “You get over it.”

  “Some get it like cancer,” grumbled Doo.

  Siri had learned his lessons in phibobery very quickly. They were not the spirits of the deceased. Neither were they, strictly speaking, the spirits of the forest. They were the ghosts that existed as a result of the destruction of nature. In a previous incarnation they may have been placid tree-dwellers. Then, one day, their home was gone, their roots lost. And they began to wander aimlessly and became more and more volatile. And as more forests were destroyed, so the phibob joined forces and became powerful. They did their evil by possessing a living being like a hand inside a sock puppet. The demoniacs rarely knew they were possessed unless they had their own channel to the spirit world.

  Madam Daeng had never attended a meeting such as this, and she was quite plainly thrilled by the ridiculousness of it all. She smiled at the Sangharaj, who replied with a slight tilt of his brow. She noticed how Medium Tian, the oldest woman in the group, would strain her neck from time to time to get a better look at Daeng’s backside. The woman would give her a knowing smile before returning her attention to the meeting. The thought that her tail might be visible to this crowd made Daeng feel oddly self-conscious.

  “Look, let’s get to the point,” said Doo.

  “And what might the point be?” asked Priestess Thewa.

  “The point,” said Doo, “is not to discuss our origins. These outsiders are here because one of theirs is about to be executed for murder.”

  “Oh, do shut up,” said Diviner Song.

  Doo ignored her. “They’re here to find a scapegoat,” he said. “His high and mightiness there thinks we’re expendable because we’re clay doll worshippers. He thinks he can dangle one of our names in front of the judge, and they’ll do a deal. Free the monk; shoot the village idiot.”

  “Then that would have to be you,” said Headman Tham.

  “Why else would they be here lording over us?” asked Doo. “Looking down at us like all those fancy abbots in Bangkok.”

  “Sorry,” said Headman Tham to the Sangharaj. “He can see the future, so I suppose he doesn’t have much to be positive about.”

  “But he does have a point,” said Shaman Lek. “Given the Sangha’s views on the occult, how can the Sangharaj be here with an open mind?”

  “We really don’t want to insult our guests,” said Headman Tham.

  “No, actually I don’t mind at all,” said the Sangharaj. “I’d like a chance to clear my name.”

  “It’s not nec—”

  “Really,” said the Sangharaj. “I wonder if our learned fortune-teller realizes that there are as many members of the Thai Sangha Council who condemn our Lao version of Buddhism as those who make fun of your pagan rituals.”

  “I’m no pagan,” said Doo.

  “Nor am I,” said the monk. “Animism had existed for centuries in my country long before Buddhism arrived. We are a fragmented nation of hundreds of different ethnic groups, each with its own beliefs. All of them were convinced of the existence of a spirit or a soul. Buddhism in other places denied the existence of a self—said that a soul is the source of suffering—but we didn’t want to alienate those tribes, did we now? Didn’t want to steamroll through centuries of culture. So we conceded that there is such a thing as a soul. That immediately pitted us against the mainstream. There were other contentious differences. Gods, for example. Our deities reside in their own heaven, whereas world Buddhism emphasizes impermanence. There was no room for compromise. We had defied our own order. So you see, in the Sangha’s eyes I’m no less a heathen than you.”

  That was the moment when Siri and Daeng became aware that the Sangharaj had no intention of defecting to Bangkok.

  “In conclusion,” said the monk, “I am here because my friend is in trouble. I like and trust the abbot, so I have traveled far to be here in order to help prove him innocent. Does anybody here honestly believe a dedicated man such as Abbot Rayron would suddenly go rogue for no reason?”

  This sparked a general discussion on both the good works of the abbot and a good-natured free-for-all examining the facts and putting forward new theories. There was nothing insightful nor particularly brilliant about the comments. Siri was always surprised by the day-to-day simplicity of the men and women who, with the right stimulus, tackled demons and rode on the back of stallions to the otherworld. But this was not a philosophical gathering. It was a collection of facts. They agreed that the girl who claimed to have seen a monk at night had no reason to lie. In fact, her future depended on her honesty. Her ambition was to join an order. In Thailand, a woman wishing to become a nun was like a man dreaming of becoming a street sweeper. There was nothing in the way of respect or financial gain to be had by joining a nunnery. Buddhism was an unashamedly misogynistic religion. Women were told that to become enlightened they would first have to be reborn a man. But she didn’t seem to care. As lying was sinful she admitted that although she had seen a monk walk away from the village, she could not be certain it was Abbot Rayron.

  The boy who had seen two monks walk to the shortcut on the night of the first murder was also unlikely to have lied. It was the abbot himself who had persuaded him to step forward with his eyewitness account. The lad studied at the temple and was one of the abbot’s brightest. The village was too far from the nearest government school, so the children in Sawan studied in the temple. All the abbot’s students adored him. The parents were pleased he didn’t proselytize but instead encouraged the children to form their own view of the world by listening to all sides of a debate, religion included.

  “So the abbot incriminated himself,” said Daeng. “That hardly sounds like the action of a guilty man.”

  “Murderers can be devious,” said Doo.

  “Oh, shut up,” said almost everyone.

  “But that brings us to the night when your eldest villager was killed,” said Siri.

  “Nobody mourned that man,” said Diviner Song.

  “Evil piece of shit,” said Shaman Phi.

  “That doesn’t excuse drowning him in his own paddy and gutting him,” said Headman Tham.

  “Who was he drinking with?” Siri asked.

  Headman Tham, the shaman brothers and Doo put up their hands.

  “I liked him,” said Doo.

  “It’s a small village,” said Shaman Lek. “If you like a drink you either indulge at home alone and get nagged at by the wife, or you come here to the gazebo.”

  “This is your pub?” said Daeng.

  “We have a communal still out back,” said Headman Tham, glancing at the Sangharaj hoping for forgiveness and not receiving it.

  “So Loong Gan staggered out of here the way we came in,” said Siri. He stood and went to the entrance, retrieving his sandals on the way out. The others followed.

  “He went that way,” said Shaman Phi, pointing across the clearing beyond the rattan ball court. “We all followed him out.”

  “And where was he when the monk came to help him?”

  “Just at the tree line.”

  “Even with a full moon it’s quite a distance to make a clear identification,” said Siri. “And I assume you were all dru
nk.”

  Daeng stood scratching her head. “Was it closing time?” she asked.

  “What?” said the headman.

  “You all left at the same time,” she said. “Did they close the bar?”

  They laughed.

  “It’s not the type of bar that closes,” said the headman. “You come and you go as you please.”

  “Then why did you all leave together?” she asked.

  They all looked at each other but nobody had an answer.

  Then, one of the shamans said, “The whistle.”

  “That’s right,” said Doo. “There was a whistle. I’d completely forgotten about that.”

  “What whistle?” asked Siri.

  “It was like a police whistle,” said the headman. “Loong Gan left and we heard this whistle, and the first thing we thought was that he’d been arrested. Now, thinking back, that doesn’t make any sense because who’s going to arrest him late at night for being drunk in his own village? And we have no local policeman. But, well, we were all in our cups. So we ran out.”

  “And that’s when you saw him meet the monk?” said Siri.

  “That’s right.”

  “Interesting.”

  Before he retired for the night, Siri decided now was a good time to have a chat with the quiet abbot. He found him in the prayer hall reading by candlelight.

  “Are you busy?” Siri asked, sitting opposite the monk without waiting for an invitation.

  The abbot put down his book and removed his glasses. “Please,” he said.

  “Did you kill those people?” Siri asked.

  “That’s your first question?” said the abbot.

  “Always good to get that one out of the way first,” said Siri.

  The abbot took some time to reply. “What do you think?” he asked.

  Siri smiled. “Well, son, that really was the wrong answer. I hope for your sake the judge doesn’t ask you that question. I don’t know you. I don’t know anything about you. So if you ask me what I think, looking at the evidence, I’d say you’re as guilty as sin.”