The Woman Who Wouldn't Die

by Colin Cotterill

  ‘He told you all that?’

  ‘We dogs have an innate understanding. How was lunch?’

  ‘Crowded. I’m not sure what we’ll do with all this money I’m making.’

  ‘Madame Daeng, you charge so little and add so many exotic but expensive ingredients, we average one kip profit on each bowl of noodles. In another five years we’ll be able to buy a teapot.’

  ‘People have to eat.’

  ‘That’s the UN’s job. Feeding the hungry. We are a business. They’re all hooked now. It’s time to cash in on the addiction and double the price. Start raking in those kip. Put in a pool. Drive German cars.’

  ‘You’ve been listening to Thai radio again.’

  ‘They all have spin driers over there, Daeng.’

  ‘We could always sell your Triumph. A lot of Soviet advisors come by to look at it.’

  ‘They will not touch my motorcycle. It’s a classic, as are you. Could you see me signing you over to a Soviet advisor and watch him ride you off into the distance?’

  ‘You never use it.’

  ‘I do. I shall. It’s there for emergencies. This flightless Pigeon is just my back-up. Exercise. It helps me be a cog that runs in time to this city’s clock. When we need speed we’ll have my Triumph.’

  ‘We can’t afford the petrol.’

  ‘That is exactly why you need to double the price of your noodles. It’s time for us New Socialist Mankind to embrace old Capitalist thoughts. I know. Let’s fire Mr Geung. He uses up far too much of our profits. He even has the nerve to eat free. That’s the ticket. Retrenchment. Where is he?’

  ‘Out the back,’ she laughed. ‘Naming the chickens.’

  ‘Again? How are we supposed to chop their heads off and pluck ’em if they have personalities?’

  ‘He likes them.’

  ‘That’s it. He’s got to go.’

  Siri, attempting to wipe the grin off his face, marched through the restaurant and into the small back yard. Mr Geung was squatting on the ground cuddling a chicken.

  ‘Geung!’

  ‘Yes, C … Comrade Doctor?’

  ‘What are you doing with that chicken?’

  ‘Talking.’

  ‘Mr Geung. You do know tomorrow that chicken is going to be redistributed into the stomachs of a lot of hungry people?’

  ‘I … kn … know.’

  ‘And?’

  Geung looked up at the one small cloud that travelled slowly over the yard.

  ‘Her life is … is … is not so long like ours,’ he said. ‘I give her a name and a … a cuddle and she’ll have ssssomething nice to remember from this life to … to … to take to the next.’

  He had a tear in his eye. Siri sat on the dirt beside his friend. The concept of dignity was beyond Mr Geung but that was exactly what he was bestowing upon these temporary visitors. Mr Geung was giving the chickens status. Siri squeezed his hand.

  ‘What’s this one called?’ he asked.

  ‘Lenin.’

  ‘All right. You win. I won’t fire you.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Geung still hadn’t turned away from the cloud.

  ‘Is there something interesting up there?’

  ‘An old man.’

  Siri looked up, half expecting to see a basket hanging from the cloud with a man in it.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In the market. This ar … ar … afternoon. A farang.’

  ‘Probably Soviet, Geung.’

  ‘No. Farang.’

  The Lao had divided the sparse Western community into two categories. On the one hand were the Soviets, which included every eastern European national. These were foreigners ill-suited to hot climates who were surprisingly easy to detect from their scent. On the other hand were the farang which incorporated everyone else with white skin. And they weren’t always the sweetest either.

  ‘He smelled like ointment,’ said Geung.

  ‘You got close enough to smell him?’

  ‘Yes. Yes … no. The market lady tol … told me. I was far. And he spoke French. The market lady can unnnnderstand French.’

  ‘And was there something special about this farang?’ Siri asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  The cloud continued to fascinate.

  ‘And are you going to tell me?’ Siri asked.

  ‘He’s got … got a star. On his hhhead. Here.’

  He pointed to his forehead above his right eye.

  ‘A tattoo?’ Siri asked, even though he considered his own question ridiculous.

  ‘No. A scar. He … I saw it when he passed me. Not so easy to see. Bbbut I could see.’

  ‘So you went to talk to the market lady.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And she told you about the French.’

  ‘Yes. And about Comrade Madame Daeng.’

  Siri looked away from the cloud and into Geung’s eyes.

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘That’s why th … the … the Frenchman was in the market. He was asking where was Comrade Madame Daeng from the sssssouth.’

  ‘It’s a common name, Geung.’

  ‘He wanted my Comrade Madame Daeng.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I know. Her ol … ol … old name, Keopakam. That’s what he said. And it’s not good news, Comrade Doctor. Nnnot good at all.’

  There were as many Daengs in Laos as there were tea leaves in China. As there were spin driers in Thailand. But Siri was a believer in fate and instinct. If Geung had sensed something, there had to be a negative current that passed into him from the Frenchman. Judge Haeng’s offer of a few days away, specifically mentioning Daeng, had to fit somehow into this karmic jigsaw puzzle. Siri had learned to his detriment that ignoring the fates was a terrible mistake.

  ‘Fancy a holiday?’ he asked his wife.

  Daeng was sweaty and pink in the evening noodle rush. She leaned into the steam from the broth pot to swat away a persistent beetle.

  ‘OK. Madrid,’ she said.

  ‘I wasn’t actually offering you a choice of location.’

  He held out the bowls as she gently scooped the noodles into the broth. Mr Geung took them from Siri and scurried off between the tables. It was as crowded as Paris St Germain in the rush hour but with no soundtrack. Great noodles left no room for conversation.

  ‘So, where?’ Daeng asked.

  ‘How do you fancy Pak Lai?’

  ‘Pak Lai, Sanyaburi?’

  ‘The same.’

  ‘What’s there to do?’

  ‘Boat races, beer, views, elephants, holding hands on a slow ferry upriver.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Thursday.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. We’ll have to take Geung.’

  ‘We will?’

  ‘Of course. If we close the shop he’ll be bored and miserable. And we invariably need back-up.’

  ‘Why would we need back-up on a romantic cruise up the Mekhong?’

  ‘Because we wouldn’t be going if you hadn’t been handed some impossible task that will toss us higgledy-piggledy into the slow-burning furnaces of the devils.’

  ‘That was very poetic.’

  ‘Bowls.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Hold up the bowls.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  At the end of the early evening noodle shift Siri and Daeng partook of their late evening constitutional with Ugly trotting along behind. Siri was always aware of his wife’s condition but Daeng invariably insisted they take their sundown stroll. They admired the shimmering reflections of Thai street lights that reached across the river like beggars. They passed the locked confectioners where they paused and pretended to buy strawberry ice-cream cones. Then, as if by chance, they walked two circuits of the French embassy compound which took up an entire block. The couple’s instincts had different origins. Daeng’s the gut feeling of a fighter. Siri’s the subliminal screams and yelps from the beyond. But between
them they were confident by the second lap that they had not been followed. They stopped beside the metal side gate on Rue Gallieni and Siri banged three times. For effect, he pretended to be tying his bootlaces as they waited. Daeng reminded him he was wearing sandals but he told her that from a spy blimp they’d not be able to see that clearly. The gate creaked open a slice and the couple slid inside the empty embassy.

  France and Laos, you see, were having a ladies’ tiff. It was the ultimate porte-monnaie slap fest. The French embassy in Vientiane had apparently been urging the upper classes to leave the country. Visas had been as easy to come by as tropical ulcers. In France, a Lao government in exile was being encouraged – if not openly supported – by the anti-communists. To the Pathet Lao administration this was starting to look a lot like the tacit support of a coup d’état. All the staff at the Vientiane embassy, including diplomats, had been banned from travelling further than three kilometres from the embassy compound. The French retaliated by restricting the Lao staff of their embassy in Paris to a three kilometre perimeter. This troubled the Lao more than the French as three kilometres from the Vientiane embassy was little more than rice fields, whereas the ban left the Lao diplomats as prisoners in the extortionately expensive inner suburbs of Paris. The Pathet Lao refused to accept any new diplomatic postings so the French closed their embassy and took their tricolour home. Thus the embassy compound, the zero kilometre mark for all road distances from Vientiane, became a ghost town.

  Monsieur Seksan, the embassy caretaker, beamed and shook the hands of his visitors. He was a solid Lao with a fine paunch nurtured over thirty years of employment with the French civil service in Paris. He’d arrived in Europe aged two and naturally didn’t have too many memories of his homeland, fond or otherwise. He’d spoken Lao at home with his nurse but was raised and educated a Frenchman. Despite claiming a first-class degree in law and having French citizenship, the man had been overlooked for promotion so many times he’d come to believe that nothing short of plastic surgery would put him on the diplomatic fast track. At first, when the foreign service had called him aside and offered him a posting at the embassy in Vientiane, he’d had ambassadorial flutterings. When he found out all the French embassy staff had been recalled in protest and that he’d be bouncing around like a single pea in a pod, he was not amused. In fact, he was pissed off.

  Dr Siri was an acquaintance of Monsieur Seksan’s father. They’d studied at the temple together. The young man had made contact as soon as he’d arrived in his alien homeland. His Lao was raw and his knowledge of Laos was fundamental, but Siri had welcomed the boy warmly. They drank together often. And in Siri, Monsieur Seksan found a man he could trust and he told him all his frustrations. So, it was only to be expected that when Siri sought refuge for Lao citizens who were being persecuted by the socialist doctrinaires, Seksan said he would be delighted to help. They’d arrived late one night, eleven of them. They were no trouble and had even brought their own instant noodles. In fact Seksan enjoyed the company. One of the refugees, a young lady recently returned from a failed venture in Thailand, had become particularly close. The embassy compound had turned into a village and Seksan was the headman. He had a real Lao family and was, day by day, strand by strand, discovering his roots.

  ‘How’s the team?’ Siri asked.

  ‘They’re keeping me sane,’ said Seksan.

  He gave a respectful nop to Daeng who patted his cheek in response.

  Technically, Siri’s eleven refugees could have had a residence each in the sprawling compound. There were some twenty buildings including staff cottages and administration offices. In many of them the furniture was shrouded in dust covers dotted with mouse and lizard droppings like huge lumps of chocolate-chip vanilla ice cream. But the team preferred to bunk together in the visitors’ dormitory rooms, a bungalow which had at one time housed the French horses. Mrs Fah’s children, Mee and Nounou, were the first to spot Uncle Siri and Auntie Daeng. They sounded the alarm with their screams. Their mother followed with her two nieces recently returned from an unsuccessful spell across the river working as karaoke hostesses. Both Gongjai and Tong were adamant that the Japanese craze would never catch on. The blind beggar, Pao, and his granddaughter, Lia, were there as was Comrade Noo the ostracized Thai forest monk. Uncle Inthanet, a man of Siri’s age, had not yet appeared but he’d found himself a girlfriend half his age and they spent a good deal of their time ‘discussing’ behind a closed door. Then there was the latest inmate, a tall, skinny middle-aged woman who could not remember her name. She had been walking aimlessly around the town for a week before Daeng confronted her and asked her where she was going. She could not remember that either. She carried no identification so Siri had taken her in and was waiting for the fog to clear.

  After a round of cheek sniffs and handshakes and present giving, Siri and Daeng sat with Monsieur Seksan at a large wooden table in the chef’s residence. A solid teak door at the far side of the room with several broken padlocks lying beside it opened on to a staircase which in turn led down to the cellar. The sign, Passage Interdit, had been ripped in half. Siri, Daeng and Monsieur Seksan were sampling the ambassador’s personal 1958 Latour Pauillac. Siri found it rather amusing. Daeng said it was piss weak. Seksan could only laugh.

  ‘What exactly do you plan to do when the embassy staff return and find the cellar empty?’ Siri asked.

  ‘Blame you bastards,’ said the caretaker with a chuckle. ‘Here I was, sitting down having my petit déjeuner one day when a gang of soldiers marched in and cleaned out the cellar. I’ll show them the powder burns on my upturned palms where I tried to protest. “Take me but spare the wine of my ambassador,” I had shouted. But to no avail.’

  ‘We’d better set about clearing that cellar before the bastards get here,’ said Siri.

  ‘Avec plaisir,’ said Seksan.

  Perhaps unwisely, Siri had decided not to tell his wife anything he knew, or thought he knew, about the Frenchman at the market. He wanted to introduce the subject gently and observe her reaction. After all, there might have been nothing sinister about the visit at all. What if he was an old boyfriend who wanted to get in touch? Nothing wrong with that, he thought, although his teeth may have clenched at the idea.

  ‘So, there aren’t that many French tourists around town for you to look after,’ he said.

  ‘One or two might sneak in,’ said Seksan. ‘But we soon sniff them out and send them packing.’

  ‘Oh, some survive,’ said Siri. ‘In fact our restaurant’s maître d’ spied one at the market today.’

  ‘Geung didn’t tell me that,’ said Daeng.

  ‘You work the poor man so hard I’m surprised he has a chance to speak at all,’ said Siri. ‘He told me during his down time while I was applying balm to the lash marks on his back. He’d seen a man about your age, he said. Tall. Good looking.’

  ‘We’re obviously starved of entertainment if the sight of a Frenchman at the market is the highlight of the day,’ said Daeng.

  ‘Ah, but Geung wasn’t so impressed with his nationality as he was with the star over the man’s right eye.’

  There it was. Slight but you could make it out if you knew what you were looking for. Daeng had what they called in the West a poker face. Unless you studied that face the way Siri had every morning as he lay beside her, memorizing her tics and twitches when she spoke, you would never have noticed it. A shadow passed over her at pace and in under a second it was gone. But in that fraction of time, his wife had clearly travelled three hundred kilometres and thirty years.

  ‘A star? What, you mean like a tattoo?’ asked Seksan.

  ‘No. Geung said it was more like a scar. I’ve seen a number of smallpox scars that resemble stars. I think that’s what impressed Mr Geung.’

  ‘What made him believe the man was French?’ Daeng asked.

  ‘Some of the market women told him,’ said Siri. ‘Why?’

  ‘I might know him,’ she said.

  Siri felt a
pang of jealousy as he watched the blood fill in his wife’s cheeks.

  ‘Perhaps he’s come looking for you,’ said Seksan.

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Daeng.

  ‘I wonder if we can get in touch with him somehow?’ Siri asked.

  ‘I wonder,’ said Daeng.

  ‘Well,’ said Seksan, ‘we have nothing to do with the visas they hand out in France. In the days when there were people here to read them, the Lao embassy in Paris used to wire a list of the names of successful applicants and the projects they’d been invited to consult on. They’d get the odd tourist here but the visa process in Paris took so long it left everyone feeling Laos didn’t want them. Which, in fact, is true. The Lao have put up a lot of red tape to make life hard for French entrepreneurs and opportunists to get in. The casual visitor would have fallen at the first hurdle.’

  ‘So my friend at the market …?’ said Daeng.

  ‘Would have come in some official capacity or paid baksheesh to sneak in.’

  ‘Who handles consular matters for the French now the embassy’s closed?’ Daeng asked.

  ‘The Germans.’

  ‘Do you know anyone at the German embassy?’ Siri asked.

  ‘Everyone,’ said Seksan. ‘They’re big party animals.

  When they found out I spoke German, they—’

  ‘You speak German, too?’ Siri asked.

  ‘I have an ear.’

  ‘I have two ears, but … Well, technically I have one and a half, but my language bank was full after Vietnamese.’

  ‘The Germans?’ said Daeng with some urgency.

  ‘They’re all as depressed to be here as I was,’ said Seksan. ‘I consoled them with a few bottles of Beaujolais.’

  ‘So if we wanted to get hold of our mysterious Frenchman’s visa details …?’ Siri asked.

  Seksan smiled, reached for the telephone and dialled. After a baffling gabble of German language he put down the phone and said, ‘We’ll need another glass.’

  Twenty minutes later, Stephan Bartels, the First Secretary of the Federal Republic of Germany’s embassy, was banging on the side gate. He arrived with a large grey envelope and a bottle of Korn Schnapps for later. He was so frightfully handsome Siri edged closer to his wife. Seksan went through some sort of German greeting ritual and, in no time, a glass of white appeared in front of the visitor. Stephan gave them a brief introduction to himself through Seksan. He spoke fluent Spanish, he said, for which he’d expected a posting to South America. And he was fluent in English, and quite competent in Kiswahili which they agreed was as useful in Laos as a can opener in a coconut grove. This was why they were speaking through an interpreter.