Six and a Half Deadly Sins

by Colin Cotterill

  “Then why couldn’t you refuse this posting?”

  “I knew you two were up here. I thought we might meet up and have an adventure like in the old days. You both look absolutely awful, by the way. I hope it’s nothing contagious.”

  “Flu,” said Siri, blowing the word into his friend’s face.

  “I doubt a little cold will prevent Civilai from single-handedly beating back a Chinese invasion of Laos,” said Daeng.

  “They assured me in Vientiane I wouldn’t need a weapon,” Civilai replied. “Once the official order for the Chinese to leave is announced, I’m here to supervise the orderly withdrawal of the rest of the road crews.”

  “We’re kicking them all out?” Siri asked.

  “I imagine it will be a temporary measure. Just a wee show to keep Hanoi happy. Once the Chinese pull out of Vietnam, we’ll have them all back in a heartbeat.”

  “All this responsibility and they don’t give you transportation?” said Daeng.

  “I have a chit for unlimited petrol,” Civilai told her. “But I was supposed to be using the military jeep. I went to look at it when I arrived. Army wages haven’t made it up here for the past two months, so they took off the wheels and sold them to buy rations.”

  “I like to see initiative in the armed forces,” said Siri. “Let’s hope they don’t have to retreat in a hurry.”

  “And what wheels do you have, brother?”

  “A Willys. Prime condition. Name of Agnes. Only lacking petrol.”

  “Perfect,” said Civilai. “Then there’s nothing stopping us.”

  These were the days of what Civilai liked to call “bedroom farce” politics. Countries were frantically jumping in and out of bed with other countries who had once been mortal enemies. In the USA, TIME magazine had named Deng Xiao Ping their man of the year. The Chinese Premier traveled to Washington, where amnesia had apparently set in over the insults they’d lavished upon him just a year before.

  The Soviet Union, sensing a Chinaless void to flood with its style-less domestic appliances, had hurriedly thrown together a peace delegation to visit the region. They had agreed to several educational and cultural projects in the spirit of socialist harmony. The Soviets were currently airlifting Vietnamese troops out of Cambodia to shore up Vietnam’s northern borders. On the southern front, capitalist Thailand had put together its own love team led by a Prime Minister who had suggested just a year earlier that Laos was a backwater run by idiots. The Mekhong had been reclassified from a volatile border to a waterway of opportunity. The Morning Market was stocking up on Thai-made junk. Thai bottled soft drinks were already on sale in the south. One advertising campaign from a company never shy to overplay its potential featured the motto COCA-COLA IS LOVE. Inspector Phosy had brought a crate for his journey north. That’s why the little girl’s Coca-Cola reference had clicked for him.

  Phosy had called a meeting of elders from both villages. For effect it was to be held in the clearing where the deaths had occurred. Sergeant Teyp and Officer Buri were there, and an invitation had been extended to toothless Foreman Goi, whom Phosy was certain wouldn’t show. All the talk in Luang Nam Tha was about the Chinese invasion and the expulsion of anyone with links to that country. Goi would surely be too busy to take time out to attend a dénouement.

  Phosy waited until the forum was full before appearing from the village track. Despite an impending war, there was a good turnout. The two concerned villages had sent their elders, who apparently had arranged interpreters of their own. Both the military and the town hall were represented as well as someone from education and the Woman’s Union. Other tribespeople had put in an appearance, including some of the women he’d seen on the track the previous day—minus the young temptress. But, then he saw him: Foreman Goi. He was seated on a folding chair beside his junior concubine and the neckless henchman. The latter had selected a saber as a belt accessory for the event.

  Phosy clenched his right fist behind his back. What were they doing there? Didn’t they know there was a war on? But all being well, the results of the inspector’s investigation would please the Lu foreman, and everything would be jasmine and hollyhocks between them.

  Phosy had once taken his family to see the Russian Circus—or a stunted Lao version of it—in Vientiane. Here he felt like the ringmaster as he stepped into the circle. Except the ringmaster with his fine top hat had exuded confidence, and Phosy had stage fright. None of the lines he’d rehearsed on the way down the path now seemed to make any sense. He nodded to the audience. There was a respectful silence rather than a round of applause, and Phosy cleared his throat.

  “Comrades, brothers and sisters,” he began. “We are gathered here today to determine the cause of death of Headman Mao and Headman Panpan, although I believe many of you present already know what happened.” He looked into the eyes of the village elders, but not one was able to hold his gaze. “I offer that the cause of death was good, old-fashioned love.”

  He’d been hoping for an audible intake of breath at that moment, but the silence continued.

  “Or,” he continued, “perhaps I should say ‘desire’? Both men, you see, had fallen for the charms of a beautiful young woman from a nearby village. The girl had inflamed such desire in the hearts of the two men that they began to hate each other, and a terrible feud had arisen. The only way for the two men to decide who would marry the girl was to fight a duel to the death. Winner take all. And so they met that morning. The weapon of choice was the sharpened bamboo spears we found here at the site. The fight began, each man scoring points as the spikes pierced the skin of the combatants. But the two were evenly matched, and blood was shed and the men grew weak. At last, neither had the strength to strike at the other. Blood leaked from the open wounds, and first one, then the other, died. Bled to death.”

  Phosy had been proud of his explanation, but still there was no applause. The lack of response left him with no idea what to say next. He supposed that many in his audience had already heard the story. “I’m now open for comments and opinions from the floor,” he said in desperation.

  To his surprise, the elders of both camps huddled and engaged in intense discussions amongst themselves. The Akha group was first to respond. Their interpreter put up his hand. Phosy nodded. “Is there anything illegal about what happened?” the man asked.

  The question of legality was always a contentious one, as the old royalist constitution and its rules had been thrown out along with the French texts. Until a new law book was drafted, the term “legal” would remain a matter of conjecture.

  “As it stands, no,” said Phosy. “If one of the headmen had lived, he would be arrested for murder. But as they died together …”

  Up went another hand.

  “Right,” said the Yao representative. “That’s what we need to know.”

  “What?” Phosy asked.

  “Which one died first.”

  “We didn’t send anyone to observe,” said the Akha. “That wouldn’t have been respectful. The arrangement was that they’d be left to fight it out. The winner would be the one who came out of it alive. When neither of them showed up, we walked down here and found the two bodies.”

  “That didn’t work for any of us,” said the Yao.

  “Why not?” asked Phosy.

  “There was a sort of contract. The prize would be the property of the village whose headman won the duel.”

  “That’s why we needed the police here,” said the Akha. “To decide who’d died first. We didn’t know it was going to cause so much trouble with the road workers and Foreman Goi and Vientiane.”

  A throaty laugh rose from a toothless mouth.

  “Once we found out they’d be sending an inspector from the capital, we decided it was best to say nothing,” said the Yao.

  There was a long silence. “So?” said the Akha finally.

  “Who died first?” asked the Yao.

  Phosy realized the question was directed at him. “I don’t know,” he
said.

  There was a disappointed groan from the audience.

  “What?” said Phosy. “How can I know?”

  “You’re a police inspector,” said the Yao. “You’re supposed to deduce these things. Science has come a long way.”

  “Not in Laos, it hasn’t.”

  There was another groan.

  “I’m not a coroner,” said Phosy. “We have professionals to do that job.”

  “Shame you didn’t bring them,” said the Akha.

  Phosy agreed. He also realized the situation had lost its true focus. He’d slipped from brilliantly intuitive to professionally incompetent. He wasn’t able to answer the question that everyone had come to hear. Only a small group of women off to his left showed any positive reaction at all. They slapped palms like successful basketballers and bled betel juice smiles at one another. It seemed so out of place Phosy assumed this was a private joke that had nothing to do with him.

  “I suppose I could take another look at the bodies,” he said, eager now to get away from the meeting.

  “Well, hurry up,” said the Yao.

  Late that afternoon, Phosy returned to the smelly room behind the hospital with little hope of learning anything new from the bodies, short of cutting them open. And there was a frog’s chance in a French restaurant of that happening. But he had failed to impress the country folk in Luang Nam Tha, and his pride was at stake. Surely he could turn his logical mind to the time of death. He had learned one or two things from the doctor. First, he knew that rigor mortis set in three hours after death and took twelve hours to affect the whole body. These bodies were soft as crème caramel, so that was no help at all. He knew that body temperature dropped one degree per hour if you happened to be anywhere but the tropics. On this steamy afternoon, he knew a thermometer would tell him nothing.

  With a thick towel spread with Tiger Balm wrapped around his face, he leaned over the bodies. There were no marked differences between the lividity or the hypostasis of the two men, not that he really understood all that technical stuff. He wasn’t about to examine the rate of digestion of their last meals. He rolled them both onto their stomachs and stood back. “Tell me, Siri,” he said. “What am I looking for?”

  The room remained silent but for the buzzing of flies. With no great objective in mind, Phosy counted the number of wounds to see who had received more. He wondered whether that might have some bearing on the speed of death. There were around twenty on each man. No help. He rolled them back and counted the wounds on their fronts. On their … fronts. Their fronts bore the same number of wounds. About twenty each. And of course, there was the answer.

  He turned with a satified smile on his face just as the crank handle crashed into the side of his head, dropping him to the ground like a ripe coconut. He remained conscious for long enough to see toothless Goi lean over him. And even though the inspector was unable to respond, Goi continued to strike him with the metal.

  The jeep crossed the last bridge and rounded the last turn at Chiang Kok, where the mighty Mekhong spread before them all the way to the blue-grey mountains of Burma. Siri and Daeng had seen it in all its guises—churning and violent at Khong Falls, slow and shallow as a puddle in Vientiane, deep as a great lake in Xayaburi—but they never failed to show the mother of rivers the respect she deserved. Siri came to a halt just down from the lonely customs shed high on the bank, and the couple afforded the river a courteous nop, hands in prayer.

  “Closet royalists,” said Civilai, climbing down from the rear box seat.

  “Closet heathen,” Siri responded.

  Civilai trudged up the hill and knocked on the door of the hut. He heard the rustles and grunts of someone waking and hurriedly dressing. The door was opened by a dormouse of a policeman in a wrongly buttoned tunic. “Yes?” said the man.

  Some people look intelligent but are not. Others look stupid but are not. Every now and then you come across a stupid person who looks the part. Civilai held up his government laisser-passer, but he doubted this fellow could read it.

  “I’m government,” said Civilai. “All you have to do is answer one or two quick questions. Understand?”

  “Umm, yes.”

  “Have you seen any signs of a Chinese invasion?”

  “What?”

  “Signs. Invasion. Chinese. Gunboats sailing down the river on their way to blow up the capital. That sort of thing.”

  “I … err …”

  “No? Very good. Dismissed.”

  “Wait, hold fast,” said Daeng, hobbling up the hill. “Perhaps you’d have an idea where we could find Madame Peu Jin.”

  “Madame Peu Jin?” said the man.

  “Yes. She lives here near the river. She’s a weaver.”

  “Oh, you mean Peu Jin,” said the man.

  “Perhaps I do,” agreed Daeng.

  “Oh, wait. It’s you,” he said, and disappeared back into the hut.

  “I fear we’ve overtaxed him,” said Civilai.

  But the river guard returned almost immediately with a plastic bag stapled at the top. “You’re the old man,” he said. “She told me to give you this.”

  “I most certainly am not the old man,” said Civilai. “That’s him down there.”

  He pointed at Siri leaning against the jeep, admiring the river. The guard stepped out of his hut and into his sandals, even though the floor inside was dirt. He felt obliged to wave at the doctor, who waved politely back.

  “But I’m the old man’s wife,” said Daeng, and she took the bag from him. She removed the staples with her strong fingers and removed the latest pha sin. She held it up and whistled to Siri, who summoned all his strength to jog up the hill. He was a quarter dead by the time he reached the others, spluttering and wheezing.

  “Steady there, old fellow,” said Civilai.

  “I’m fine,” said Siri.

  The doctor took the skirt from his wife and held it up. It was similar to the previous two but had a single band of tapestry woven between the plain colors. As with the first sins, the hem was green. There was some type of figure represented in the band.

  “We need someone to tell us about this,” said Siri. “Where’s Madame Whatever-Her-Name-Is?”

  “Peu Jin? She took a boat up river yesterday,” said the river guard. “She’s lived here for years, but she’s Thai Lu. All her papers are Chinese. A few others have left too. There are rumors being spread on Chinese radio about what the PL will do to ethnic Chinese who refuse to go back.”

  “Any other weavers in town?” Daeng asked.

  “No, Granny. She was the only one.”

  “Then we’re stuck,” said Daeng. “No expert to direct us to the next weaver. Dead end.”

  Siri was feeling along the hem of the skirt. “There’s something in here,” he said, and started to pick at the threading with his penknife.

  “What about the motif?” asked Civilai. He held it up to the sunlight and ran a finger over the raised embroidery. “Perhaps that’s a clue. What is it, a cat?”

  “No, Grandpa,” said the guard, and laughed. “It’s an elephant.”

  “A what?” said Civilai. “I’ve seen many an elephant, young fellow. Never in sobriety have they looked like this.”

  “It’s two-headed.”

  “Oh, well, that explains it. How would you know that?”

  “It used to be the symbol of Muang Long, Grandpa,” said the man. “That’s where I’m from.”

  Siri had produced the next clue from the hem of the skirt.

  “What is that?” Daeng asked.

  “It’s a pipe stem,” said Civilai. “The bowl’s been unscrewed. My father used to smoke one just like it.”

  “And what do you take it to mean?” Daeng asked. “A finger, a bullet and a pipe stem?”

  “I don’t have the foggiest idea,” Civilai confessed. “You, Siri?”

  “No idea. But my brain is being dulled by the cough medicine. I’m sure it’ll come to me.”

  “Then it l
ooks like next stop is Muang Long,” said Daeng. “Driver!”

  Muang Long was one more dusty village along the straight dusty road back to Muang Sing. It was the district capital, but not one a district might take a pride in. The ramshackle township sat in a picturesque valley amid gently rising hills on each side. A new road had been recently cut beyond the bridge to give access to villages that had been lost in time since their establishment.

  The director of Muang Long’s education department was from the northeast and had no interest in local history or culture. But the woman who made Siri’s tea recognized the tapestry right away. She sent the visitors up the new road to the village of Bak Haeng. Finding the house with its old loom beneath was not a problem. At the loom sat a neat, compact woman who was totally engrossed in her weaving to the point that she hadn’t even heard the noisy jeep pull up at the bottom of the hill or the annoying hacking of Dr. Siri. She could see nothing but the complex inlaying of multiple colors. The visitors were fascinated by the length of time and the amount of skill that had been invested into the beautiful work in front of her. At the end of her row of weft, she looked up to see three strangers sitting on the fence and watching her.

  “Hello.” She smiled.

  “Hello,” said the visitors.

  “How can I help you?” asked the woman.

  “Just come to admire your work,” said Daeng. “It’s very beautiful.”

  Daeng noticed bruises on the weaver’s arms and neck. Some were fresh. Siri saw them too, but something more peculiar happened at that moment. Auntie Bpoo, his resident transvestite, stepped in front of him as if she’d been projected onto a screen before his eyes. She was clearly attempting to get his attention, but there was no sound. She was not a particularly skillful mime, so all her gesturing and prancing meant nothing to him. With a shake of his head, she was gone and the message was left undelivered.

  “That’s very kind of you,” said the woman who had been oblivious to this manifestation.

  Siri made a rapid recovery of his senses. “And we were hoping you’d have something for us,” he said.