He was there at a shadowy rear table when she arrived. He was wearing sunglasses so she was sure he couldn’t see much. He certainly couldn’t recognize her against the glare from the street.
“May I sit here?” she asked.
“No . . . it’s f-f-f . . .” he began, then lowered his shades to the end of his nose.
“Dtui?” he said.
“That’s me.”
The rusty metal stool squeaked when she sat on it. The vinyl covered tabletop was a map of decades of coffee rings, and there were daddy longlegs dangling above them like paratroopers ready to drop. Dtui raised a finger to the girl at the coffee trolley. The girl knew her. Most people knew most people in Vientiane.
“You bring me to the loveliest places,” said Dtui.
“It’s pr-private,” he said.
They waited for her chewy brown coffee to arrive and for Dtui to churn the condensed milk around in it. She had a taste for it, but she agreed it was like drinking sweet sump oil.
“Go!” she said.
His stammer was more pronounced than usual.
“I . . .” He couldn’t get out a second word.
“I have to go to work in half an hour,” she said.
“I’m . . .”
“Yes?”
“I’m going to b-b-b-be a . . . a . . . a daddy.”
Despite the heat of the coffee, the glass froze against Dtui’s bottom lip. Her eyebrows clambered up her forehead.
“What?” she said.
“I . . . Mr. Geung . . . am g-g-going to be a daddy.”
He looked so proud of himself Dtui didn’t know how to begin with her many questions and observations. She knew she should take it all slowly.
“Why do you think so?” she asked.
“Eh?”
“Why do you think you’re going to be a daddy?”
“I . . . I . . . I put my penis in—”
“That much I guessed,” said the nurse.
Her coffee was too hot, but she drank it anyway and put up her finger for a second cup.
“My first question is . . .” she searched for something simple to begin with, “when did you start?”
“Start what?”
“Start to put . . . to have sex with Tukta?”
“The second,” he said.
“The second? Of this month?”
“Yes.”
Dtui smiled. “Then you can’t possibly know,” she said.
“I . . . I know,” said Geung.
“Darling, we’ve talked about this before, remember? With your condition you both have much less of a chance to . . . to make babies than other couples. The odds are really against you. You have more chance of being selected to play in goal for the Lao national football team. Sorry to say this, but I don’t want you to build up too much hope.”
He laughed at her football joke. He laughed at all of Dtui’s jokes, even if they weren’t funny. She looked into his watery eyes and felt a stomach churning sadness for Geung she’d never experienced before. In Laos, even if by some miracle Tukta fell pregnant, the baby would have a thirty percent chance of survival and if it did, a seventy-percent likelihood of having Down syndrome like her parents. As Dr. Siri said, somewhere back in history these Down syndrome people must have really pissed off the gods.
“I don’t want you to expect too much,” she said.
“I ex-expect to be like Nurse Dtui and Com-Comrade Chief Inspector Phosy and and and Malee,” he said.
A chunk of melancholy lodged in Dtui’s chest. “Now that’s exactly what I mean when I say you shouldn’t expect too much,” she said. “Geung, you’ve both been given a lousy deal in life.”
“I . . . I know.”
“It’s very possible you won’t have a baby.”
“We will.”
“Geung, I—”
“Pornsawan.”
“What?”
“That . . . that’s her name,” said Geung with a smile. “Pornsawan—a g-g-gift from heaven.”
“My friend, it’s a lovely idea. I really wish it could happen. But you have to—”
“I’ve m-m-met her.”
“Who?”
“Our Pornsawan.”
“Where did you meet her, Geung?”
“In In Mahosot. In n-n-n-nine months.”
“It was a dream?”
“No. It was . . . it was real.”
“Oh, Geung.”
Chapter Five
Culture Shock
“All right,” said Civilai, “this is what we do. We take notes. They’ll go through the screenplay and suggest alterations here and there. We’ll nod, write things down, and generally agree with them. Where possible, without lessening the thrust of our project, we’ll incorporate their suggestions.”
“Over my dead body,” mumbled Siri.
“If necessary,” said Madam Daeng.
“Siri, listen,” said Civilai, “all we have to do is convince the Culture people that we agree with their opinions. They won’t be with us the whole time checking on what we do. Once they think we’re all on the same page we can jump off the page and write our own book. All I hope, and I need the Lord Buddha’s back up on this, is that you can keep your mouth shut. With your cooperation we’ll get that rubber stamp at the bottom of our script, provided by a content, unoffended Minister of Sport, Culture and Information. We’ll all laugh together, wish each other luck, and we’ll walk out of there after forty minutes with a document giving us unrestricted permission to produce a work. That work will put our nation on the world cinematic map and us up there with Bergman and Truffaut.”
“And it all depends on you minding your temper,” said Madam Daeng.
They were sitting in Civilai’s car at 1:40 in the afternoon. Their appointment with the minister was at two and even though they were all Lao they intended to show respect and enthusiasm by being there directly on time.
“We need you to promise,” said Civilai.
“Promise to let those mor—?”
“Yes,” said Daeng.
She held out her pinky and Siri stared at it as if it were a grenade pin. She glared at him and smiled so sweetly his heart retook control of his mind. He linked his little finger with hers and they shook. It was a contract more binding than the Warsaw Convention.
“He’s probably at lunch,” said an untidy man who sat at the receptionist’s counter. He was plucking hairs from his nostrils with tweezers.
“What do you do here?” asked Madam Daeng.
“Oh, I’m not here,” said the man, looking up from his mirror, “I’m a football referee. We have a meeting sometime this afternoon.”
“Shouldn’t you be at the other end of the building?” asked Civilai.
“Yes, Comrade,” said the referee, “but there’s nobody over there either. This isn’t one of your most . . . urgent ministries. You know what I mean? Not like Interior or Foreign Affairs.”
Civilai and Daeng looked at Siri, whose face was more waxen than old Lenin’s in his tomb. The three of them sat on a bench and waited. It was 2:45 before the first ministry officials arrived. They were sweaty and had towels around their necks. Madam Daeng left the bench to talk to a woman who seemed quite at home behind the reception counter. The first thing the woman asked was whether Daeng had seen her mirror.
“Do you actually work here?” asked Daeng.
“Yes,” said the woman.
“We had an appointment for two.”
“The petong tournament ran a bit over,” said the sweaty receptionist.
Daeng smiled in the manner of all affronted Lao.
“You must be fighting a deep urge to apologize,” she said.
“I don’t understand,” said the woman.
“And I doubt you ever will,” said Daeng.
“Where might we find the office of Comrade Many?”
The office door of Comrade Many was closed with a padlock. But the familiar form of Comrade Phooi came trotting along the corridor. He was no longer in uniform but had a towel around his neck and looked flustered.
“My friends,” he said, “thank you for coming. Dr. Siri, I can’t tell you how enjoyable we all found your screenplay.”
Siri nodded.
“And so professional,” Phooi continued, “scenes and dialogues and all that stuff. Really well done. A rare talent.”
He rattled the padlock on Many’s door and agreed it was locked.
“Big petong tournament today,” he said, trying keys from his own bunch one by one in the lock. “We didn’t win. Never do. You’d think as we share a building with Sport that something would rub off. But no.”
“Why then did you make an appointment with us for two p.m.?” asked Civilai.
“They probably forgot the tournament,” said Phooi. “Never mind, eh? We’re all here now.”
The visitors sighed and watched the man work his way around the key ring.
“Your manuscript is in here,” he said. “The version with Comrade Many’s corrections.”
Siri looked at Daeng.
“Corrections?” she said.
“Just a few, you know, historical errors,” he replied. “Wrong places, wrong names, wrong dates. It’s to be expected. A writer can’t possibly be accurate all the time. The mind of an artist can be a little cloudy sometimes. But don’t worry; we’ve sorted it all out without spoiling the story. It’s still a wonderful thing.”
The last key on the ring opened the padlock. The room smelled of old paper.
“Is there a reason why Comrade Many—your expert in Lao literature—isn’t in his office?” Civilai asked.
“He can’t make the meeting today,” said Phooi. “He’s writing a Lao-Ethiopian lexicon. But he did give your script a thorough going over before he left.”
Phooi found Siri’s screenplay amid towers of documents and waved it triumphantly.
“Will anyone be meeting us?” Daeng asked.
“That’s what’s so exciting,” said Phooi. “The vice minister has taken a very strong interest in our project. We’ll be meeting him personally.”
“After his rattan ball competition?” said Civilai.
“He doesn’t play rattan ball,” said Phooi, mystified. “But he should be back from the petong tournament by now.”
Indeed, the Vice Minister of Culture, a tall happy man in his fifties, was sitting at his desk doing nothing. He too was wearing a towel around his neck. He stood when the visitors arrived.
“Brothers and sister,” he said. “I’m so pleased to see you. I can’t tell you how excited I am to embark on this project with you.”
The drawer of his desk took some persuading but eventually it yielded to his tugs, and the vice minister took out an unusually fat wad of papers.
“This will be our working script although I haven’t added Many’s corrections yet,” he said. “Phooi, we’ll need another two chairs here.”
The room had barely enough space for the two guest chairs crammed up against the desk. It was stuffy and the shutters were closed. The overhead fan rotated at the speed of limestone erosion.
“Don’t you have a meeting room?” Daeng asked.
“Yes,” said the vice minister, “but it’s Thursday and Sport gets it on Thursdays.”
So Phooi squashed in two more chairs and they sat in a very intimate circle with their knees touching. The vice minister addressed the gathering.
“My name, as you probably know, is Vice Minister Kinim. The minister would have liked to have been here himself to meet you but he’s on a cultural tour of Havana. But I’ve included his comments and corrections into our almost-finished document here.”
He lifted the wad with a smile as if the weight of it were a triumph in itself.
“Our mimeograph girl is making copies for all of you, but I’m afraid they won’t be ready in time for this meeting,” said Kinim. “But I’m sure, as this is our first editorial meeting, as they say, I can just talk you through the more important changes.”
At this point, Dr. Siri, who had said nothing thus far, reached into his shoulder bag and produced pencils and notepads. He handed them to Daeng and Civilai and kept a set for himself.
“That’s the spirit,” said Kinim. He peeled off the first dozen pages of the manuscript and lay them to one side.
“You didn’t like the beginning?” Civilai asked.
“Haven’t got there yet,” said the vice minister. “Those were just the credits pages.”
“Credits for what?” asked Daeng.
“Personnel of the ministry who have been or will be involved in the production,” said Kinim. “Of course, the minister will be the executive producer with myself as deputy and so on down through the ranks.”
“In short, everyone who works here,” said Daeng.
“Not everyone, of course,” said Kinim. “We didn’t include the canteen staff.”
Kinim and Phooi laughed at the joke but the visitors wouldn’t have been at all surprised if everyone down to the gate guard had made it into the credits.
“Of course, we’ll be adding the names of dignitaries from other ministries as a courtesy, but you don’t need to concern yourselves with those matters,” said Phooi.
“But let’s get down to the story,” said Kinim. “I must say we were very impressed with Dr. Siri’s opening. It was most imaginative. The son of rich merchants goes to school in Vietnam and the poor village boy studies at a temple in Laos. Wonderful contrast. And then they meet in Paris and establish a lifelong friendship. Very clever.”
“Brilliant,” said Phooi.
“Thank you,” said Civilai on Siri’s behalf.
“But, I’m afraid, after careful consultations, we decided to cut it,” said the vice minister.
“Cut which part exactly?” said Civilai.
“All of it,” said Kinim.
Siri was busily taking notes.
“Comrade Many and the minister decided it was unrealistic,” said Phooi, “and it detracted from the whole point of the film.”
“What do you mean?” asked Civilai, whose shirt was already soaked through with sweat.
“We decided it was more beneficial to follow the lives of the men whose philosophy gripped the consciousness of the world,” said the vice minister. “We’ll be looking at the boyhood and youth of Comrades Marx and Lenin.”
“Don’t you think the Soviets might be better equipped to make a movie about their own heroes?” asked Madam Daeng.
“Oh, goodness me, yes, most certainly,” said Kinim. “Once we’ve introduced the founders of our doctrine we turn to the rise of socialism and the struggle of the peasants and how our own beloved leaders led the charge to independence and freedom from Western tyranny.”
“Just out of interest,” said Madam Daeng, “do the main characters from the original script make an appearance at all?”
“Oh, yes,” said Phooi. “But they’re no longer the unlikeable, unruly youths who see life as a joke, drinking and carousing through their formative years. What example would that set for our own new generation?”
“We have refashioned them as role models,” said Kinim. “Ideal socialist man and his comrade. In fact, the lives of our two heroes would more closely parallel those of our prime minister and our president.”
“So, I doubt there’ll be a great deal of romance,” said Civilai.
“Comrade Many has suggested, and quite rightly, that your script leaned rather heavily into the romantic comedy genre,” said Phooi. “That, the minister decided, detracted from the reality of our struggles. We want our film to be an accurate record of the revolution and the men who brought us to the utopia we h
ave today.”
“And women,” said Daeng.
“What?”
“We can live without romance but we cannot live without recognition,” she said.
“Naturally there will be women in our film,” said Kinim. “Our leaders benefited a good deal from the efforts of our girls. But I don’t see any of them in a . . . major role. Oh, I wish I could give you copies of the completed screenplay right now. You’ll see how magnificently it all comes together. But we’ll have to wait for our next meeting.”
The visitors completed their note-taking, shut their books and smiled.
“Well, that was a most enlightening meeting,” said Civilai. “We can’t wait to get cracking. So, may I say, while we’re waiting for the copies of the screenplay I suggest we do a few location shots around the city. Background stuff, I’m sure you understand.”
“Splendid idea,” said Kinim. “Splendid.”
“Then perhaps you’d be kind enough to issue an official note to that effect,” said Daeng.
“A what?”
“A note. A chit. An indication that we are filming on behalf of the Ministry of Culture,” said Daeng. “We don’t want to get arrested, do we now?”
“No, of course not,” said Kinim, “but I . . . I can’t sign anything without the minister’s consent.”
“But you have an official ministry stamp, don’t you?” said Daeng.
“Well, yes . . . but . . .”
“Then there’s no problem,” said Civilai. “I took the liberty of typing up a short notice of our intent. It reads, “The barer of this note is doing preliminary filming for a Ministry of Culture project.”
“Right . . . well, that seems . . .”
The vice minister was clearly flustered. The room was hot as a bakery.
“No signature needed,” said Daeng. “A nice, noncommittal permission slip. Nobody needs to take direct responsibility.”
“Yes, right,” said Kinim, and he wrestled open his drawer and took out a stamp and an ink pad. He smiled unsurely, stamped the paper and handed it back to Civilai.
Meanwhile, Dr. Siri had stepped over to the closed shutters and was prodding at the frame.
“Those things have been stuck since I moved in here,” said the vice minister. “The builders say it can’t—”
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