“How does the bone look in the cold light of day?”
“None of them is complete but I’d say this one is part of a humerus.”
“How can you be sure it’s not a goat’s hind leg?”
“Please, madam. I’m a professional.”
In fact, Siri wasn’t at all certain. His experience was exclusively with human bones in human bodies. The context rather gave it away. He’d never studied the difference between human and animal bones and never performed surgery on anything with four legs. There might have been a course entitled ‘Etudes Ancienne Comparee et Methodique des Squelettes de Caprines et Vertebres Humains, 101’, but, if so, he had long forgotten it. For all he knew, the human humerus might have been identical to the hind leg of a goat.
He rubbed his eyes to get them to focus. He’d slept poorly. Another nightmare had awakened him at two a.m. It was her: the ugly pregnant woman with the worms and the dead dog. He woke with such a heavy weight on his chest it was as if she had been sleeping on top of him. He could almost smell her sweat. His lungs wheezed. Daeng had awakened too and asked him if he was all right. He’d considered telling her the truth but there were times when the truth didn’t help anybody.
He looked up as a man in a postal worker’s uniform pedalled up on a bicycle whose parts were clearly held together by string and wishes.
“You’re open then?” the man said, stepping from the precarious machine.
He arrived at the shop at the same time every morning and said the selfsame thing every time. Normally he’d settle on a table near the entrance without waiting for a response, but today he surprised Siri by handing him an envelope.
“What’s this?” Siri asked.
In most places, a postman handing over a letter would not prompt such a question. But Lao postmen had recently ceased their habit of delivering letters. As the populace and the government cultivated their respective paranoias, fewer people were prepared to hand over their secrets to anyone in a uniform. Notes would be delivered by bus drivers or friends allowed to travel up-country or relatives going off to ‘re-education’ camps.
Almost everything from outside the country passed through a Bureau de Poste department known as the Sensitive Issues Section. There mail was opened, read, censored with black ink, and put in large wooden crates for collection. Anything in a foreign language was deemed too sensitive for the Sensitive Issues Section largely because there was nobody on staff who could read it. These letters were filed and never seen again.
“It’s a letter,” said the postman. “I recognized your name so I thought I’d bring it along. Sorry it’s open.”
Siri took it. “Thank you, Comrade. Has it been…?”
“I think they looked at it and realized it was from a child so there aren’t any marks on it.”
The postman went into the shop where he was greeted warmly by Madame Daeng. Other customers were arriving on foot. The aroma must have worked its way around the downtown area already. Siri took a moment to appreciate the large Lao farm implement dedication stamp that took up a quarter of the envelope then pulled out the single sheet of lined notepaper. At first glance, it did appear to be written in a child’s hand, but he noted that it was just a little too careful and too deliberate.
Dear Uncle Siri,
How are you? We went to the Buddha Park on the weekend. It was such Fun. There were big animals and a giant pumpkin. I think your little twins would really like it. We’re going again on March 30.
If you take them I can show them around.
With love,
Your niece,
Bao
Siri smiled, looked up at the blue sky, and said a thank you to the various gods he’d recruited to make this message possible. Bao was a Hmong girl Siri had met a few months earlier when he was in the north-east. The villagers had been about to join the long march to Thailand. Many were escaping repercussions from the Pathet Lao administration and their Vietnamese allies for siding with the Americans during the war. One of the girls in the village had just given birth to twins, and they had asked Siri to transport them to Vientiane with him and take care of them. Travelling with babies was a danger. Many Hmong had been exposed to the enemy by the crying of young children. This letter meant they had survived the journey and were ready to reclaim their young ones.
It changed his mood completely. He walked through the shop with his letter and his cardboard box and greeted the early diners. He walked over to Daeng and kissed her cheek. The gesture drew jeers and snickers from the men in the room who probably wished they had that kind of relationship with a woman.
“What?” Siri asked them. “You’ve never seen a man kiss his lovely wife before?”
“I didn’t even kiss mine when she was eighteen and beautiful,” called one middle-aged man.
“More fool you, brother.”
“Thank you,” said Daeng. “But what specifically was that for?”
He whispered in her ear, “The twins will be leaving us at the end of the month.”
She squealed her delight. “Your Hmong friends?”
“It looks like they made it. Some of them at least.”
“Your little general?”
He held up the letter and smiled.
“Bao wrote.”
“Siri, I’m so happy for you. See what a little faith can do? Go get yourself ready for work, and I’ll bring you up a number two. Oh, what a good start to the morning.”
Naturally, that had been the high point of Siri’s day. The boulder of happiness began to roll down the hill of inevitable disappointment almost as soon as he reached the morgue. Ngam’s father, Boonhee, was waiting for him in the office. The man had come to claim his daughter’s remains and take her home. He hadn’t yet worked out how he was going to achieve that feat given that he had no money and no vehicle. After some deliberation, Siri sent Dtui to the clerk’s office to make a phone call to the Cooperative Development Works.
She asked to speak to the driver who worked the Vang Vieng to Ban Xon route. They were in luck. He was still at the yard and scheduled to leave with an empty truck after breakfast. Dtui reminded him about his behaviour at the morgue the previous day. Sober, he was a humble and sensible man who was happy to accept this opportunity to put back the pieces of his ‘broken’ face in the eyes of Dr Siri and his nurse. He agreed to take Mr Boonhee and the body of the invisible woman home.
Boonhee thanked everyone at the morgue for their help. While they wrapped and loaded the body, Siri sat with him in the office.
“How is Mongaew taking it?” he asked.
“Don’t think she’ll ever get over it,” the farmer said. “This was all her doing. She thinks that because of her, Ngam never had a normal life. And just when it finally starts to go right…”
“I know.” Siri was tempted to say she shouldn’t blame herself, but deep down he knew she should. What she had put her daughter through was inexcusable. So, instead, he nodded.
“Comrade Boonhee, we, I mean the police, have been in touch with the Highways Department. They do have a Phan or two but not one who was away in your district on the dates you gave me. In fact, they don’t have any projects in progress or planned for Ban Xon.”
“Well, that don’t make sense.” Boonhee was still trying to work it all out. “Phan stayed at the headman’s place. He had a letter and everything.”
“Comrade Boonhee, I took a detour via Vang Vieng on my way back yesterday and I talked to a police sergeant who’s investigating this case. He’ll be travelling up to talk to your headman very soon. If there was a letter of introduction there should be a name and position on it. That might help us locate him.”
“You think he done it, don’t you?”
“It’s too early to say, Comrade. But as far as we know he was the last person to see your daughter alive. When I left your farm I stopped by the regional registry office. There was no record of a marriage on March the seventh.”
“No, he…Phan said it was better to register h
ere in Vientiane. He brought all the papers signed and stamped when he turned up for the ceremony. He said Ngam would have more rights here, easier to get a passport, he said. But the ceremony was all proper, brother. We had the local official tie the wrists, and they made their vows. We even had a monk there. In the eyes of heaven it was decent.”
Phosy arrived back from Luang Nam Tha just as the rice truck was pulling out of the hospital grounds. He went straight to the morgue and directly into Siri’s office. He was obviously worked up about something.
“Siri, I did it. I met the – ”
“Good health, Inspector Phosy.”
“What? Yeah, anyway, I – ”
“I’d imagine, as you’ve been away for a few days, you’d probably want to go directly into the cutting room and say hello to your very pregnant wife.”
Phosy smiled and put his pack on the chair.
“Exactly what I was planning to do,” he said.
It was a brief reunion because three minutes later he was back.
“Now,” said Siri.
“Did I just see a body in the truck going out?”
“You did.”
“Was it…?”
“It was.”
Siri spent the next fifteen minutes going over the details of his trip north. Phosy was scribbling as fast as he could in his already full notepad, stopping Siri now and then to clarify and expand.
“I need to get back to headquarters as soon as I can to find out what’s happening,” Phosy decided. “You know? Most of this country’s in an information black hole. People up in Luang Nam Tha get more news from Beijing than they do from Vientiane. Only the military seem to have any operable communication equipment and that’s for authorized personnel only. When I was military intelligence I outranked all those stuffed shirts up there. But out of uniform they treated me like I was a pig farmer. I have a good mind – what are you laughing at?”
Siri swung back onto his favourite two legs of the chair and put his hands behind his head.
“Phosy, I never begrudge a man a good grumble, but I was rather hoping to hear what transpired in the deep north.”
“You’re right.” Phosy flipped back through his notes but started to speak without referring to them. “I didn’t have any trouble finding the lycee student’s sister. But I did have a problem getting her to speak. She denied she’d ever heard the story. It wasn’t till I told her I’d travelled half the country just to talk to her and I’d arrest her little sister for lying that her memory started to come back. It turns out she’d picked up the story from her boyfriend. He’d heard it from a fellow who used to be in the army. He was the horse’s mouth.”
“He’d seen it for himself?”
“And tried to forget. It was early in ‘69. Chaos everywhere. Most of the fighting was concentrated around Huaphan and the east. But it spilled over into the northernmost provinces from time to time. The Royalists were recruiting younger and younger conscripts to defend key installations. Nobody up there really wanted to fight against their own people, but the RLA was one of the few employers that offered a living wage. The young fellow who told the story was called Sida. He’d only been stationed in Luang Nam Tha town for two months. The local police had already fled the scene for fear they’d be shot in their beds by PL sympathizers. The regional army commander had to do something to convince the locals somebody was keeping the peace. He didn’t want all-out anarchy. So, as a token gesture, he sent half a dozen of his young boys to man the police box in town. They weren’t qualified to do anything but walk around the streets and look official. Heaven forbid they’d have a crime to investigate.
“Sida’s on duty one afternoon when a hunter comes down from the hills and reports he’s seen a body. The boy’s very first case, not even a drunk and disorderly or littering offence before that. So Sida and his pal follow the hunter up the hill road. They don’t expect much of a shock. There’s a civil war on. People are getting killed all the time. All they have to do is identify which uniform the victim is wearing and file a report. But twenty metres off the main road they see her.”
“Tied to a tree.”
“Exactly like our girl in Vang Vieng. But this one had been there a little longer. There was significant animal damage so you can imagine the scene. Two young conscripts without any battleground experience…”
“I’d guess not even war could have prepared them for a sight like that.”
“After they throw up their lunch, they decide they should tell someone. Our boy Sida stays with the body while his pal runs off to find the army commander. And our boy gets bold. He unties the ribbons that bind her hands, and she falls backwards, and that’s when he sees the pestle. If he’d had any more lunch…”
“Did anyone report it?”
“It all seemed to vanish. The commander told them he’d handle it and that they shouldn’t mention a word of it to anyone. I imagine he didn’t want a panic on his hands. While Sida was still on duty in the town, not one person came forward to report a missing girl. Case closed.”
“Did you get this directly from Sida?”
“No. For obvious reasons, he didn’t stick around once the PL took over. It appears he was pretty close to the nurse’s boyfriend, though. But you’re right, it’s all hearsay. Nothing we could use in court. There were one or two little details that make it obvious this was the same perpetrator.”
“Like the ribbon?”
“And candles…little temple candles. And the pestle was black stone.”
“That’s him all right. Did Sida remember any physical signs? Did he notice whether the girl had been strangled?”
Phosy went through his notes. “No. I get the impression she was pretty far gone as animal feed by the time they found her. I was surprised what a detailed description Sida was able to give his friend. I’d be surprised if he doesn’t still have nightmares about it. He talked about her face being gone and one of her fingers hanging off. There was gore every – ”
“Did he say which one?”
“Which one what?”
“Which finger was hanging off?”
“I don’t think so. Why?”
“Ngam, our girl from Vang Vieng, had a broken finger.”
“You think it might be significant?”
“Just a thought I’ve been playing with. If it was the ring finger it could mean he was desperate to retrieve the ring. If the fingers had swollen he’d have to break the joint to get it off. It could be an issue he has about marriage.”
“Dr Siri, this lunatic could be killing women all over the country and we’d be none the wiser.”
“Could you contact all the police stations and get them to check their files?”
“I wish it were that easy, Doctor. Most of the files from the old regime were destroyed before they left. It’s taken us this long just to get our own filing system in order. And for the first eighteen months it was a lot like the Royalists in Luang Nam Tha: foot soldiers substituting as policemen. Not all of them could read or write. And even if we did have a system, the thing that scares me is this: in both of these cases the bodies were found quite by chance before they were completely consumed by the forest. If there were other murders we might never learn of them.”
Siri dropped onto all four legs of his chair and pulled out a sheet of blank paper and a pencil from his desk drawer. He made a rough sketch on it. Phosy leaned over the desk to take a look.
“A panda?” he guessed.
“It’s supposed to be Laos, inspector. And look! Here is Ban Xon, where Ngam met Phan. Here is Vang Vieng, where her body was found. They’re forty kilometres apart. Let’s assume that he woos and weds them in place A then removes them to place B, just far enough away so that nobody will recognize the body, and nobody will come forward there to report a missing relative. If we apply the same distance rule to your soldier’s corpse in Luang Nam Tha, we should assume she was from Muang Sing or perhaps Na Mo. You’re quite right, we may never find other corpses. So what we
should be looking for isn’t bodies, but reports of country girls who were swept off their feet by smooth city boys and never seen again.”
“Siri, you aren’t paying attention. I’ve just explained that we don’t even have a murder data bank. How do you suppose we can get information about missing daughters?”
“By using a network that cares about such things – a network far more efficient than the police force.”
“Oh really? And what would that be exactly?”
Dr Siri arrived at the humble tree-bordered office of the Lao Patriotic Women’s Association a little after ten. The group had been established in 1955 to mobilize the untapped resource known as women for the Lao People’s Revolutionary Party. Lao women were accorded the right to vote three years later in the first coalition elections. Socialism had re-evaluated the status of females and encouraged them to take an active role in the creation of the new socialist state. That encouragement obviously had its limits, as by 1978 there were still no women on the politburo or holding power in the Central Committee. But the network was vast and the benefits to females at both ends of the economic scale were impressive.
The ladies in their spotless white blouses and carefully folded phasins were filing out of a meeting room with their neatly penned notes and their empty teacups. They looked content, every one of them. Perhaps, Siri thought, it was because they didn’t have to work with men. But even when they saw the small smiling doctor standing in the entrance hall they nodded and said, ‘Good health’ as if his presence hadn’t spoiled their day at all. The lady he’d come to meet was one of the last to emerge from the room. She carried a bulky slide projector piled high with study materials.
“Dr Pornsawan?”
“Dr Siri. Well, my word. What a sight for sore eyes.”
Despite the danger of being seen to be a chauvinist, he relieved the doctor of most of her papers and left her with the projector. He walked at her side. She was a tidy, compact woman with no bodily excesses, no unnecessary height, and no eyebrows.
“Still no facial hair, I see.” Siri laughed.
“It seems so silly to draw them on, don’t you think? Once the damned things refused to grow back after the nunnery I decided to let them have it their way. Men find it attractive, I’m told.”
Dr Siri Paiboun 06 (2009) - The Merry Misogynist Page 12