I Shot the Buddha

by Colin Cotterill

  •••

  The Mahosot morgue wasn’t what you might call sanitary. But then again neither were the operating theaters. Nurse Dtui, scrubbed up and masked, looked down at the blade sticking out of her husband’s gut. The blood was oozing now rather than gushing, but Phosy had lost a lot of it.

  “I can’t do this,” she said.

  “You or nobody,” said Mr. Geung.

  The last straw had been drawn when the wife of the surgeon on call told the Mahosot telephonist her husband was at a wedding party and wouldn’t be back till midnight. So the x-rays wouldn’t have been much help anyway. By that time Phosy would have been dead.

  Dtui was a fine pathologist. Over the last year of their tenure in the morgue Siri had invariably handed over the autopsies to his bright nurse. Had it not been for one of those surprise pregnancies that sneak up on a woman she would now be in her second year in the soviet bloc, set to return as Siri’s replacement. She was nimble-fingered and observant, and she would often spot tiny clues the doctor hadn’t yet seen. But if she made a mistake, her clients wouldn’t be any more dead. She’d never practiced surgery on a live body.

  “He’s going to die,” said Tukta from her seat way at the back. She had no tolerance for the sight of blood. “If you don’t do it, you don’t love him.”

  It was a horribly cruel thing to say. Dtui glared at her angrily, had an urge to slap the girl’s face. But Tukta raised her eyebrows as if to say, “Tell me I’m wrong.” And, of course, she wasn’t.

  •••

  At one point, Civilai was forced to pull off the road to throw up, and collapsed across the seat. When he came to, the Mara was still unconscious on the backseat. They were only ten minutes out of Ban Toop. Civilai wrapped the man’s wounds tightly with some old rags he found in the boot. It would be useful to keep him alive, but Civilai wouldn’t lose any sleep if he didn’t make it.

  Everything in his escape had depended on timing and bluff. The automatic he’d borrowed from the monk had only ever contained two bullets. And Civilai was only a few minutes away from succumbing to his own injuries. He could already see the black moths of the unconscious flapping around his eyes. But the followers’ respect for their leader and fear for his life had expedited the move to the car. Some of the men had insisted they travel with the high priest, but they stood down when the gun was raised to their faces.

  And now the car sat beside a silent road. No fear of being followed, as beside the painfully slow motorcycle, there were no other vehicles in the village. He knew he had to drive the hundred kilometers to Vientiane because he could not trust any local officials in Pak Xan. He knew he was unlikely to make it. But he smiled at his coup. Nobody ever looked that closely at a urostomy bag. He’d taken the largest one they had at the pharmacy, slit open the top, put the gun inside and filled it with watered-down orange juice. He re-fastened the bag and taped it to his stomach. If only he’d had a video camera. What a hit that would have been.

  Satan groaned in the rear seat and opened his eyes.

  “Good morning,” said Civilai. “Ready for some grapefruit and warm toast?”

  “What . . . happened to me?” he asked.

  “I shot you,” said Civilai. “No offense.”

  “It hurts.”

  “I know. Bullets do that. Just in case you don’t make it, I was wondering whether you might answer a few questions that have been annoying me.”

  “I’m not saying anything, you bastard. You’re a dead man. You wait and see.”

  “No, you haven’t quite grasped the situation. We’re just outside Vientiane. You’re out of your comfort zone. Nobody’s afraid of you down here. You’re going to prison, and if you don’t cooperate you’ll be put in front of a firing squad. So would you mind terribly if I asked you one or two questions?”

  “It hurts.”

  “I know. Look. How about this? You answer my question and I’ll give you a shot of this morphine.”

  Civilai held up a paper bag. The man was too weak to argue.

  “Ask,” he said.

  “There’s a good Satan. Now, first the virgin mother. She really was your mother, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And she hated your father so much she pruned him out of the family tree. Went around telling everyone you were an immaculate birth.”

  Mara nodded.

  “But what was it about your dad that she hated so much?”

  “He was . . . he was the Mara before me. Thirty years. As many wives. Twice as many mistresses.”

  “So she felt neglected.”

  “She turned to drink. He kicked her out. He could have any woman he wanted. Had power over every man in the district. He had command over life and death. Anyone came to pry, and he’d arrange for their disappearance, Lao and foreign alike. He was afraid of nobody. I inherited his greatness. He started as a common mechanic like me. But that’s the secret. Greatness comes from humble origins. He was a great leader, but the minor devils got into his head. It happens. The Buddha has an army of demons that screw with people’s minds. When he got older he got confused. Got it into his mind he wasn’t Mara at all, that he was Maitreya. Started telling everyone Buddha was the real savior, and when he was reincarnated he’d bring all his lost souls back together.”

  “So it was your father who put in the claim.”

  “He wrote to the Sangharaj. Told him he used to be the devil, but he’d been reborn as the Buddha.”

  “And he described in detail what was going on in Ban Toop,” said Civilai. Not a question.

  He could see the moths again. Knew he was on his way out. But he had to put the last link together.

  “And the first thing you knew about this was the communiqué from Vientiane telling you a representative—i.e. me—would come here to assess the situation,” he said.

  “Morphine,” said the Mara.

  “Nearly time,” said Civilai. “Finish the story.”

  “My father had been ousted by then,” said Mara. “I’d been the headman for a year in his stead, and the assembly elected me unanimously to be high priest. We were Marche’s bloodline. Then we got the letter. And we couldn’t let you meet my father. Not the way he was.”

  “The Buddha I was sent to meet wasn’t you. It was your father.”

  “He would have told you everything.”

  “You killed him.”

  Mara shrugged.

  “You killed him and you killed your mother because either of them would have blown your silly operation here.”

  “It was for the greater good.”

  “It was for the greater evil.”

  “Morphine.”

  “You mean this?” He held up the bag. “Sorry, found it in the glove box. I think it contains lemon drops. Really old ones.”

  “We had an agreement.”

  “I don’t do deals with the devil.”

  13

  The Leap of Faith

  Compared to the Eiffel Tower, the water tower in Sawan should have hardly rated as a tower at all. It was thirty meters high and was basically a zinc box resting on a precarious bamboo platform. Two bamboo ladders, one atop the other, were attached to the wooden tower with rope. It had been built five years earlier by two keen but inexpert members of the American Peace Corps, and the villagers were frankly amazed it was still standing. Although the odds of dying as a result of a leap from the Eiffel Tower were greater, the base of the Sawan tower and its vicinity was solid concrete. A jumper might survive, but it would be awfully messy.

  The Sangharaj, naked as the day he was born, was pacing the top of the tank. He had his hands behind his back and, to Siri, looked like a submarine commander in a low-budget film. They’d found him not from reports of a naked man running through the village but from the din. Walking on a half-empty zinc water tank makes a lot of noise at one in th
e morning. He was illuminated in the beam of Daeng’s flashlight. It was cloudy, and the night was as dark as pitch, so it was a wonder the old monk had found the tower at all. But Siri knew from experience that every move the man made was not of his own volition. Everything that passed through his mind was manipulated. Everything he believed he saw or heard was a lie. There was no tangible difference between reality and the world the phibob created in a man’s head.

  “Do you think he’ll jump?” asked Daeng.

  “He won’t need to,” said Siri. “They’ll convince him there’s a bridge to the next tower or a helicopter waiting to take him for a ride. They have a hell of an imagination.”

  Siri’s amulet had been so hot when they set out that he had Daeng wrap it in her shawl and tie it with string so his skin wouldn’t sizzle. Yet her fingers could feel nothing but a cool chunk of stone. Siri knew the ultimate showdown was on its way.

  “What should we do?” asked Daeng.

  The entire village had left their houses to witness this peculiarity. This was the ambush the phibob had planned. Already some of the children had begun to growl and salivate, a sure sign the malevolent spirits were recruiting in numbers. Soon they would have control of everyone. In the village, if a person was inhabited by demons, and the spirit doctors were unable to exorcise those evil spirits the victim would, of course, become insane. But the mad person would be allowed to remain in the village to remind the elders of their failure. They were obliged by the rules of exorcism to provide care. In Sawan, possession was nine-tenths of the law.

  But what would happen if nobody was spared? What if the spirits spread like a plague through the region and took over? How far could their influence reach? These were the fears that ran through Siri’s mind. Although Daeng could feel none of this, Siri insisted she hold his hand. He called for all the villagers wearing amulets to step forward.

  “We have to act fast to avert a disaster,” he said. “Anyone here not wearing an amulet should return to their huts immediately. You may have to escort them, even drag them if necessary. Get them blessed and under the protection of the house spirits. The families are going to need a lot of support tonight.”

  One of the young men who’d left his hut without protection had already been taken. He stood beneath the water tower snarling and brandishing an imaginary sword. In the crowd a woman began screeching like a monkey, bouncing up and down. The elders, each of whom wore a lei of amulets day and night, hurried everyone back to the village. Parents held their children close, whispering healing chants into their ears. Two other males had broken away from their loved ones and joined the crazed swordsman at the tower ladder. They shouted obscenities, although the voices were clearly not their own. And all the while the naked monk strutted and stared downward at the escalating chaos. He edged ever closer to the sheer drop.

  It was like two armies gathering for battle. As the possessions took hold, more and more swordsmen and monkeys joined the expanding phibob army around the tower. At the same time, the returning elders and newly arrived shaman warriors gathered around Siri with their talismans strung around their necks.

  “What do we do, Yeh Ming?” asked Headman Tham.

  Siri had no idea, but he was obviously the general, so he figured things out logically one step at a time.

  “We need a parachute,” he said.

  “A parachute, like a metaphysical symbol of safety?” asked Priestess Thewa.

  “Like a big nylon sheet that drops out of airplanes,” said Siri.

  They looked at him blankly.

  “Come on,” he said. “This is Udon. You had more American planes landing and taking off here during the secret war than dogs have fleas. Someone must have one.”

  “I do,” said Shaman Lek. “We use it for—”

  “Doesn’t matter. Go and get it,” said Siri. “Fast as you can.”

  “That’s it?” said Headman Tham.

  “For now,” said Siri.

  Villagers whose evil-spirit home security systems were apparently bogus or not up to the task came running back to the clearing and joined their evil colleagues at the tower.

  “We have to engage them,” said Fortune-teller Doo.

  “Patience,” said Siri.

  “We need an all-out exorcism,” said Intermediary Cham.

  “Difficult,” said Siri, “given that the chief host is thirty meters above the ground. But we could use a distraction. If we set up a little séance right here, how many of you think you’d be able to get in the mood to call on your spirit guides?”

  “I don’t have my equipment with me,” said Medium Tian.

  “Me neither,” said Shaman Phi. “I can’t just turn it on like a water tap.”

  “I understand,” said Siri.

  “I’m feeling a bit odd,” Daeng whispered in his ear. Her hand had briefly slipped from his grasp in the confusion. He took hold of it again, but she was already starting to bounce. Siri was concerned, but there were priorities. He addressed the shamans.

  “Individually,” he said, “you will never be prepared or well-enough equipped for a battle of this magnitude. But consider the know-how you have as shamans. Think of all the contacts you’ve made on the other side. As a team you are frightening. Even Yeh Ming trembles in the presence of such power.”

  “Siri, I . . .” said Daeng.

  Daeng dropped the flashlight and ran off. Siri had no choice but to let her go. She made a good monkey. She already had the tail for it. Siri formed the elders into a simple circle, holding hands, cross-legged on the ground, no props, no costumes, no show. Just seven hundred combined years of experience.

  “Just think of the power you hold in those hands,” he said.

  He knew that since they’d come from their own villages to live in Sawan they’d practiced as individuals. There was no common ground. Most of them had little idea what was happening in the next hut. His instinct told him they needed some simple unifier to bring them together.

  “Do you think there’s a chant you all know?” he asked.

  They offered their favorites, but none were known to all.

  “Songs?” asked Siri.

  “You mean religious songs?” asked Priestess Thewa.

  The number of enraged swordsmen had swollen to fifty. The monkeys, who now included Madam Daeng in their ranks, were starting to advance on the shamans.

  “No,” said Siri. “Just any song you all know and like.”

  “I’m very fond of ‘The Person Who Rides the Buffalo,’” said Herbalist Ya.

  “Yes, by Caravan. I like that,” said Diviner Song.

  “It’s all right,” said Fortune-teller Doo. “But I haven’t wasted my life memorizing the words to pop songs at my age.”

  “You don’t need the words,” Siri told them. “Do you all know the tune?”

  They nodded.

  “Then that’s it,” said Siri. “Forget everything that’s happening here at the water tower. At the count of three I want you to hum or whistle or ‘la la la’ the tune of ‘The Person Who Rides the Buffalo.’ Slow it down a bit. Just focus on the beat and the circle and the camaraderie.”

  “You have to join us,” said Shaman Lek.

  “Of course,” said Siri. “I’ll be with you. Yeh Ming will be with you throughout. First you have to gel.”

  “But what do we do then?” asked Headman Tham. “When we’ve gelled?”

  “You’ll know,” Siri told him, and left them to it.

  The parachute had arrived, still in its pack. The younger shamans and the assistants were awaiting instructions. They had one eye on the approaching monkeys, who appeared to be collecting rocks. The shamans unpacked the pale-blue chute and stretched it out. Siri spaced the strongest members around its perimeter, and they experimented with gathering the folds so that nothing was touching the ground. To test it, Siri had one of
the younger men take a running leap into the canopy. He landed with a thump on the earth.

  “Right,” said Siri. “Now you’ll understand how tightly you’ll have to hold it to prevent that man on the tower from ending his life on the concrete.”

  The young shaman looked surprised.

  “You want us to stand over there?” he said.

  Siri nodded.

  “But . . . they’re over there,” he said, nodding toward the mad swordsmen.

  “‘They’ are your comrades and your relatives,” said Siri. “Do you see swords? No. Why? Because they have none. They believe they can slice off your limbs with their weapons but they cannot. The worst you’ll experience is a whoosh of air. They might try to convince you to remove your amulets and join them, but they cannot harm you. And look there at your seniors. They are launching an attack on the right flank. You will slide around to the left with your parachute and take up a position beneath the tower. You won’t be able to see what’s happening on top of the tower so, you . . .”

  He pointed to an enthusiastic girl with a life belt of amulets and posies around her waist. He picked up Daeng’s flashlight and handed it to her.

  “. . . you will be the beacon,” he said. “I want you to stand back here with the light trained on the Sangharaj and call to your allies to let them know where he’s located and what he’s doing. You others will all follow her instructions. Be prepared for sudden movements and the unexpected. Always remember if he falls and you fail to catch him, you will be responsible for the demise of a great and powerful monk.”

  It wasn’t the most positive pre-match team talk, but there was no time for pleasantness. A rock flew a meter past his ear. The monkeys were on the offensive.

  “Off you go,” he said and they carried their parachute around the left flank. Meanwhile, the strains of “The Person Who Rides the Buffalo” with the odd lyric thrown in were emanating strong and soulful from the elders. They didn’t exactly look confident, but the song was more recognizable now. So Siri decided then was as good a time as any for a full-frontal attack. He walked directly toward the tower.