Wedlocked
On the fifteenth of January, 1978, Siri and Madame Daeng were married. It was a two-part affair. In the morning, the bride and groom arrived at the registry office on That Luang and sat on one of three long benches. As motorcycles, marriages, and intentions to transfer cattle ownership or open a small holding were all registered at the same place, it was necessarily a busy scene. Oil-smudged mechanics sat alongside men and women ripe with the scent of manure, who in turn sat beside couples in their Sunday best. Siri wore a navy blue Mao shirt and sandals. The shirt was freshly laundered but not ironed. Daeng had come straight from the shop but had had the decency to remove her apron before heading out. They had the required paperwork with them. It was several inches thick and in triplicate.
When their turn came they were shown not into a chapel or a private room but to the third desk from the end of a long busy row. Their officiant was in his thirties with the pallor of hepatitis on his skin and a drape of greasy hair that fell across one eye. He didn’t bother to look up as they sat on the nonmatching chairs in front of him.
“Documents!” he said, tapping his forefinger on the desktop.
It was probably the liver spots on the hand proffering said documents that brought him out of his clerical trance. He looked from Siri’s face to Daeng’s, then back at Siri’s, and grimaced unkindly. He obviously didn’t take well to complications.
“Look,” he said. He spoke very carefully and at a volume he hoped the elderly people in front of him would be able to hear. “The system has changed.”
Daeng grasped Siri’s hand and suppressed a laugh.
The man pressed on. “These days we don’t need the parents”—he looked more closely—“or the grandparents of the betrothed to attend a ceremony. Everything’s done through documentation.” He held up a sheet of foolscap. “That means papers. If the couple is adequately matched and share a philosophy to further the cause of the Republic, then—”
“We aren’t—,” Siri began.
“If you wish to take photographs with your relatives you can do so outside, granddad. There’s an attractive hermaphrodite oak in bloom in front of the building, grandma, that’ll look nice in your album. Now, why don’t you both—”
“Son, slow down there,” Siri said in a strong, loud voice that caused other officials to look up.
The clerk sighed, “What?”
Daeng knew what she could expect from her beau in circumstances such as these but this was her day, too. She squeezed Siri’s hand and smiled at him before rising from her seat. She walked around the desk and sat on the smallest pile of paperwork at the front corner. The clerk scraped his chair away from her. She leaned into his very personal space and brushed some imaginary lint from his shoulder. Her large black eyes bore into the average brown button ones of her victim. They apparently left him paralyzed.
“Yours,” Daeng said very calmly, “is a job that does not involve a great deal of thought. You receive the pile of documents. You thumb through them to see if they’re all in order and copy the names of the couple onto your list. You read out one or two spurious legal lines from the handbook and pepper them with quotes from Mr. Marx or Mr. Lenin that have nothing to do with love or happiness. You tell us we must be good servants of the socialist state, get us to sign a certificate, and hand us the smudged back carbon copy to take home.”
She looked back at her smiling bridegroom, then stood and looked down at the clerk.
“Just do your job,” she said. “Don’t make it any more embarrassing than it already is.”
In six minutes it was all done. They didn’t fall into one another’s arms and kiss and express their joy because what they’d endured was nothing but a bureaucratic exercise to feed the state’s hunger for paperwork. Siri returned to the morgue, Daeng to her shop to meet the busy lunch crowd. There would be no evening shift that day as the shop was booked for a very special private function.
***
Siri and Civilai sat like one creature on the rattan sofa at the back of Madame Daeng’s café. Their wrists were encased in thick wads of ceremonial strings like suicide survivors. They had their arms around each other’s shoulders and their heads abutted: Siamese twins joined at the brain. They wore matching leis of jasmine and held mugs of actual Western whisky in their free hands. Scotch hits drinkers trained on rice alcohol hard.
“Good show, wasn’t it?” slurred Siri.
“The best, little brother.”
“What was your favorite part?”
“Oh, I liked the bit where you dropped the bowl of ornamental flowers on the abbot’s foot.”
“I made that part up myself.”
“Well done.”
“It wasn’t that heavy.”
“He swore as if it was.”
“Well, he should have been wearing shoes. His fault.”
“How do you feel?”
“About breaking his toe?”
“About being married again.”
“Happy as a loon. I’m the type who needs a woman in his life, old brother. So are you. We’re hopeless on our own. The ten years since Boua died have been much longer than the thirty-five we were together. I’ve been an elephant with only two front legs. I need my rear end with her tail swishing away the flies.”
“I’m sure Daeng will appreciate the analogy.”
“It’s a compliment. I find elephant rear ends very attractive. I’m lucky to have her.”
“I agree. But don’t forget Xieng Noi.”
“Why do you only quote literature when you’re drunk?”
“It’s the only time I can remember it. Whisky stimulates the attic of my mind, where all the books are stored.”
“So, what about him?”
“Who?”
“Xieng Noi. I can’t begin to not forget him till I know how he’s connected to my marriage.”
“Xieng Noi spent the greater part of his early life in the monastery. Then, out of the blue, he was taken by a great desire to have a wife. The passion overwhelmed him until one day it occurred to him he didn’t have the wherewithal to hang on to the type of woman he desired. So he gave up his quest and went to work on the land instead.”
“That’s it?”
“Yes.”
“So … what’s it got to do with me?”
“Do you have the wherewithal to keep Madame Daeng?”
“I can’t think why not. I’m something of a catch, you know.”
“You won’t do her much good in a reeducation camp.”
“Why should I … ?”
“That one-man demonstration last week. People have been shot for less.”
“How sweet of you to worry about me after all these years.”
“A few more tricks like that and she’ll realize what she’s let herself in for. She’ll get on her bike.”
“I’ll let the air out of her tires.”
“There’s no hope. I’m sorry to tell you, senility has finally caught up with you.”
“And you, of all people, should know what that’s like.”
“I think those Hmong have bewitched you.”
Siri looked away and Civilai knew there would be no more discussion of the topic that night. Something was troubling his friend but this wasn’t the right place to talk of sad things. This was a time for celebration. They stared out at the vaudeville that surrounded them. It was like an Italian film they’d once seen: so many bodies and movement and color, but no real plot. People from Siri’s house were there zooming in and out of focus, and the morgue folk, and Phosy. And there were certainly two little fat babies being handed around like hors d’oeuvres. And, yes, there were monks and a guitar player and a dog or two that had wandered in off the street.
Auntie Bpoo, the transvestite fortune-teller, was dressed in a gold lamé ball gown and army boots. Crazy Rajid, the Indian, had kindly consented to wear clothes for the evening. And of course there was the beautiful Madame Daeng, splendid in her pink costume and her oh-so-subtle makeu
p. Every time she drifted into view Siri sighed and remembered what a lucky old soul he was.
“You do realize,” Civilai slurred, “this is all illegal. A religious ceremony and music and fun. Fun is certainly against the constitution.”
“You’re right. I shall turn myself in to Judge Haeng first thing in the morning.”
“And where is your savior tonight? I was sure you’d invite him in thanks for rescuing you from the jungle.”
“I did, but he had an appointment with his publisher. Something about his memoirs: how he single-handedly turned back a thousand Hmong warriors and carried one frail old doctor on his back for a week.”
“I’d buy a copy.”
“Me too.”
“And talking about rescues—”
“You’re good at that.”
“What?”
“Linking unrelated topics.”
“Thank you.”
“So … ?”
“Eh?”
“Talking about rescues …”
“Oh, yes. Your American friends: the dead ones. I keep meaning to ask. Whatever happened to them?”
“Danny and Eric.” Siri recalled the Air America pilots fondly.
They clinked glasses.
“They should be home by now. I took them to the American consulate.”
“It’s still there?”
“It’s a little more subdued than it used to be but the officials seemed suspiciously glad to see me. I imagine I was the first bone hunter they’d seen who didn’t ask for money.”
“Did they give you anything?”
“A ballpoint pen.”
“Life just gets better.”
“Amen.”
Madame Daeng, temporarily freed from the shackles of arthritis by Dr. Johnnie Walker, danced a sort of hula in front of her blushing husband.
“I think that woman’s making advances toward you,” Civilai said.
“Huh, I’m not that easy.”
“Yes, you are. And talking about loose women …” He squinted to make out the familiar shape of his wife through the throng.
“She’s over there playing with the twins. You know, we’re looking for a wet nurse. I don’t suppose …”
“Hoo, brother. The contents of those churns evaporated many years ago. But I volunteer to help you conduct the interviews.”
“Is that orange juice in her glass?”
“She doesn’t drink when she’s driving. Best move I ever made, teaching her the basics of the internal combustion engine. Saved my life on a number of occasions.”
“She obviously prefers a live husband.”
“Yes, I am live, aren’t I?”
He seemed to ponder that point for a few seconds before reaching over to kiss Siri on the nose.
“If that was a come-on you’ve chosen entirely the wrong night.”
“It was a thank-you.”
There was no reason for Siri to ask what for. The events surrounding the thwarted August coup had affected them both.
“Are you really OK about it?”
“Your bride and I have been talking it through.”
“And it helps?”
“I’m down to four bottles a night.”
“Counseling’s a marvelous thing.”
They drank and smiled and tried to make sense of the colorful blur around them.
“And what about your Hmong?” Civilai asked.
Coitus Interruptus
“And what about your Hmong?” Daeng asked.
Siri was lying on the honeymoon bed watching Daeng slowly unwrap herself from her clothes.
“I don’t think this is the appropriate occasion,” Siri decided.
She stopped her striptease.
“Then I’m not showing you any more.”
“Oh, come on. This is our wedding night.”
“Then I want you with me. All of you, mind and body.” She sat on the end of the bed and looked at him. “Since you came back from the commander’s party you’ve been sad and I want to know why.”
“Oh, Daeng. We’re three-quarters drunk. How on earth can we have a serious talk about anything?”
She stood and gathered her wrap from the chair.
“I’ll be sleeping in the other room.”
“No! Don’t. I’ve earned this. How many other men do you know of my age who’d agree to abstain before the wedding?”
“I’m serious.”
“All right. All right.” He lay back on the pillow. “I saw something.”
“What?”
“It won’t mean anything to you.”
“Try me.”
He puffed air from his lungs.
“At the house, there was an area for the kids of the guests to play. Something was attracting the attention of most of them. I couldn’t see at first what it was but they were fighting over it. I was talking to the commander and I looked over and realized what they were doing. Do you know what a pogo stick is?”
“No.”
“It’s a stick with a spring. Kids use it for jumping about like a kangaroo. It’s a toy. Until the day the Hmong left, it had been sitting on the shaman’s altar in the village in Xiang Khouang.”
“Why?”
“They believed it had brought a curse to their village. They couldn’t beat it so they worshipped it. They took it with them when they left. The fact that it was at the commander’s house told me the Hmong had been caught. Some arse-licking captain had brought it back from the massacre as a gift for his boss’s kids.”
“You’re sure it was the same toy?”
“How many pogo sticks can there be in Laos? But, yes, I’m sure. I went to get a closer look. There was still wax on it and traces of spirit money stuck to the stem. There’s no doubt in my mind.”
Daeng stretched along the bed and stroked her husband’s face.
“Siri, you remember the day you proposed?”
“Of course.”
“You told me about your little spirit problem.”
“Yes?”
“You said you see them, the ghosts of the departed.”
“I didn’t think you believed me.”
“It’s hardly something you’d make up on the day you most want to impress a girl. No, I believed you.”
“Thank you.”
“So, have you seen them?”
“The Hmong?”
“Yes! Wouldn’t they let you know if something had happened to them?”
“It’s unpredictable. I never know who’ll show up or when. But, no, I haven’t seen them.”
“Given what happened there, I’m sure they’d make the effort to contact you, especially that girl of yours.”
Siri blushed. “What girl?”
“The one you avoid mentioning. The one who gave you the tapestry.”
“Well, why … ? There’s no reason why she …”
“It’s all right, my husband. She only stole a little part of your heart. There’s plenty left for me. More than I deserve. All I’m saying is that if something did happen to your friends, if they were killed, I believe you’d have some confirmation of it by now.”
“But what about the pogo stick?”
“I think you should assume they discarded it on the journey. I can’t imagine why they’d want to take a curse with them in the first place. It wouldn’t surprise me if they deliberately left it where the PL soldiers would find it. I bet they wanted to pass on the curse to the other side.”
Siri thought about the commander and the trappings of his new corrupt life. Of all the people who deserved a curse …
“You might be right,” he said.
Madame Daeng got to her feet and undid another button.
“I’m always right. Now, where were we?”
Siri smiled. “I’m not sure I’m in the mood anymore.”
“Oh, Dr. Siri Paiboun, sweet, sexy Dr. Siri. We’ll see about that.”
And one more button eased its way from its slit.
Colin Cotterill, Curse of the Pogo Stick
Curse of the Pogo Stick Page 18