The Amok Runners

by Colin Cotterill

  ‘Perhaps you’re right,’ Khin conceded and finished her drink. She was already starting to slur.

  We sat back in our seats and contemplated the ridiculousness of our predicament. The neighbours opposite gazed out of their window from time to time and made fun of the rednecks in the bomb shelter. There came the sound of a car engine meandering through the labyrinth of tiny lanes. Initially it gave us hope that there would be something to look at other than the uninspiring neighbourhood. But then the thought of a passing car – Major Ketthai and a drive-by shooting - occurred to each of us. Nobody wanted to own up to the fact that we were afraid of the major so we sat in silence as the vehicle got closer. How could he know where we were anyway?

  This was a small quiet community with little space to park a car and no cause to go gallivanting around at night. We heard the car stop a block away, the distant sound of voices, of laughter, the slam of a car door, first gear, second. Headlights on full beam rounded the corner at the end of Khin’s narrow street. My brothers and I tensed and prepared to run amok. The lights blinded us but they were low to the ground, not the headlights of an SUV. The vehicle crawled up to a front gate along the street and the driver killed the lights. Immediately we were able to make out the logo of an old taxi. The driver was a neighbour. We quenched our dry throats in unison.

  Time passed as slowly as an ice floe. The mosquito coil emitted a pall of smoke so white and thick that the mosquitoes held back and waited for it to pass before settling on fresh meat.

  ‘Damn it,’ Arny screamed at one more mosquito. ‘How come I’m the only one that gets bitten?’

  ‘Cause you’re tasty,’ I told him. ‘The rest of us are just old meat and bone.

  I looked sideways at Khin and studied the downturn of her mouth.

  ‘Why so glum, Khin?’

  ‘She’s still sulking ’cause she’s lost a temple,’ said Sissy.

  ‘It’s true,’ said Khin. ‘I am a little down in the dumps. I had been very much hoping we would be able to begin excavation work tomorrow. The signs had been favourable.’

  ‘You really think they’d just let us walk in and dig up their ruins?’ I asked.

  ‘You have seen the official map,’ she said. ‘They believe that they have discovered all there is to discover. The temple we are seeking does not officially exist. We would in fact be doing them a favour.’

  ‘Except we can’t find it either,’ Sissy reminded him.

  ‘Do you think it could be under one of these houses?’ Arny asked.

  ‘That regrettably, is the only conclusion I have been able to reach. Short of knocking them all down and digging through the rubble, I’m afraid that would be the end of our search.’

  ‘I reckon you’ve been holding the map upside down, Khin,’ I said.

  ‘There, the rational sound of reason,’ said Khin. ‘Such wisdom inspires me to …’

  She put down her glass and staggered to her feet.

  ‘… go to the toilet.’

  They watched her weave her way into the house.

  ‘Come on guys,’ Arny said. ‘She needs help, not ridicule.’

  ‘Yeah, counselling,’ I suggested.

  ‘A psychiatrist even,’ added Sissy.

  ‘She’s your friend,’ said Arny.

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ I said. ‘This is how we show our love. We keep her excitement levels down so she doesn’t get too disappointed.’

  ‘You’ve been through this before?’

  ‘A dozen or so times.’

  ‘Poor woman,’ said Arny. ‘Hey, I couldn’t help noticing there isn’t any bedding, inside.’

  ‘Right,’ I agreed. ‘It’s like camping.’

  ‘I’m all into that,’ he said, ‘but the floor’s like concrete.’

  ‘It is concrete. I thought you were here for the adventure,’ Sissy smiled.

  ‘I am. I am, but …’

  ‘Sissy,’ I said, ‘don’t give the boy a hard time. We aren’t going to sleep here, my prince. It’s only twenty minutes drive home. We’ll come back tomorrow morning.’

  ‘And Khin?’

  ‘There’s a wafer thin mattress out the back,’ I told him. ‘She’s Burmese. This is luxury. And I’d say now’s as good a time as any to leave her to her thoughts.’

  While Sissy and Arny put the seats back in the jeep, I went through to the outside facility to tell Khin we were off. The garden latrine was a five feet high bamboo affair with no roof. Khin’s head was not visible above the fence line so I had to assume she’d thrown herself into the pit.

  ‘Hey, Khin,’ I shouted. ‘Don’t get up, girl … Khin?’

  There was no answer. Against my better judgment, I leaned over the bamboo and glanced inside. It wasn’t a pretty sight but there was no sign of the Burmese. The back yard was bordered by a high brick wall on two sides which formed the perimeter of yet another temple. On the third side was another chicken-wire fence. It separated the yard from one of the few remaining rice paddies in Wieng Kum Kam. At some stage, the fence had been trampled to the ground. The paddy field was dry and it was too dark to see beyond it.

  ‘Khin?’

  I scratched my head and walked back through the house, looking to either side but not really expecting to find her wedged in a corner. My brothers were working on the rear seat.

  ‘What time’s the general want us back?’ Sissy asked.

  ‘She’s not there,’ I said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean she’s vanished.’

  ‘She went to the toilet,’ said Arny.

  ‘I know she did, but she’s not there now.’

  ‘Did you check?’ he asked.

  ‘Did I check what?’

  ‘The pit in there’s pretty deep.’

  ‘Arny, it’s an eighteen inch hole. Khin’s skinny enough but it’d take a pile driver …’

  ‘She’s clumsy, Jimm.’

  ‘Arny, she didn’t fall down the latrine.’

  ‘Well, she didn’t come through this way,’ he said. ‘Let’s have a look.’

  We went out to the back yard and surveyed the scene. We agreed the walls were too high to climb which only left the fence and the rice field beyond.

  ‘Anyone recall the fence being beaten down when we first got here?’ Sissy asked.

  Nobody did.

  ‘Did she have a flashlight?’ asked Arny.

  I went inside and found Khin’s flashlight in her pack. Beyond the light from the house, there was no way to see your way through the field and the ruins beyond without one. The masked March moon didn’t shed any light.

  ‘So, either Khin has gone running off into the pitch darkness without a light …,’ I began, then realized the second alternative wasn’t as far fetched as I might have intended.’

  ‘Or?’ Arny urged.

  ‘Or she’s been kidnapped,’ said Sissy.

  We were at a loss as to what to do next. If she were a five-year-old or a granny with Alzheimer’s we’d have rushed off into the surrounding neighbourhood banging on doors, calling out in desperation, organizing a search. But she was Khin and she’d survived the Burmese junta and the history department at CMU.

  We closed her front door and rode leisurely around all the sites in the order that Khin had first introduced them. We drove on high beam on the off chance we might catch her sparkly-eyed and frozen in the middle of the trail, but no luck. We returned to the earthen rampart where we’d stood for the better part of the day prodding and spooning. No Khin. We returned to the house – still dark and Khinless.

  It was midnight. We sat in the car and decided to give up till morning. If anyone had wanted her dead they would have done her in right there in the garden rather than drag her over a field. If she’d been kidnapped we could expect a ransom note, although Sissy suggested anyone foolish enough to kidnap Khin would be illiterate. The mystery of Khin’s disappearance had to be put on pause till the sun came up. By the time we reached the family shop we’d all settled into a comf
ortable denial.

  Chapter 32

  “Water can carve its way even through stone ... and when trapped, water makes a new path.”

  Memoires of a Geisha (2005)

  It was seven or thereabouts when we arrived back at Khin’s. None of us had slept. Going home had been a mistake. We pulled up in front of the house and the first thing we noticed was the open front door. We went inside and found Khin sitting cross-legged on the concrete floor of the kitchen area eating rice porridge from the plastic bags it was sold in. She looked as if she’d cut herself shaving thirty or forty times. I walked over to her and pinched her earlobe hard enough to elicit an ‘Ow!’

  ‘Khin, you scrawny coat hanger,’ I raised my voice. ‘Don’t you give a shit what you put your friends through?’

  She blushed a little and smiled but didn’t offer up an apology. We sat on the floor in a circle.

  ‘Go ahead, Khin,’ I said. ‘What happened?’

  Khin wiped her mouth before answering.

  ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘I was in the toilet doing…what one does when one is in the toilet. I completed my mission and I scooped the receptacle into the water bucket behind me.’

  I interrupted her.

  ‘This isn’t going to be a play by play of you wiping your ass?’

  She ignored the question.

  ‘At the back of my mind,’ she continued, ‘was your facetious parting comment that I may have been looking at the map upside down.’

  ‘Oh, man, you weren’t?’ said Arny.

  ‘I was sloshing the water and thinking and sloshing and thinking,’ she said. ‘And I looked into the hole and I saw …’

  ‘Khin!’

  ‘… I saw the layers of earth and silt. This was the silt that has encased many of the edifices in Wieng Kum Kam. In a number of situations it was what protected them from natural erosion and preserved them. The silt came from the river. So, as I sloshed, I began to ask myself why the city was so given to flooding. The river passes to the southwest of the town and the land there is notably lower. I wondered why Mangrai would build a city on land that was known to flood each year.’

  ‘And?’ Arny asked.

  ‘And he didn’t,’ she replied. ‘According to the chronicles, he diverted the flow of the Ping river to fill the moat around the city. It was this diversion that caused the flooding and he had no way of readjusting its course.’

  ‘Your grandpa Mangrai screwed up the ecology,’ I grinned at Sissy.

  ‘So, what’s this got to do with the price of prawns?’ Sissy asked.

  Khin went on.

  ‘Sissy, water flows downhill. As the Ping passes to the southwest of Wieng Kum Kam, it can only mean one thing.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The river’s changed its course,’ she said with a smile.

  ‘I hope someone’s following this,’ I said, shaking my head.

  Khin beamed, ‘In the thirteenth century the river did not pass the city to the southwest. It originally traversed the northeast corner. When it was diverted into the moat it found its own level.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So we have been searching for an unknown temple that was described as being farthest from the river. In fact, what was farthest from the river to Mangrai, is nearest to the river in modern times. We have been looking in the wrong place.’

  I rolled my eyes, not for the first time, ‘You surprise me.’

  ‘What now?’ Arny asked.

  ‘We change flanks,’ she said. ‘We regroup and recommence our search on the opposite side of the old city. I assure you all, the adventure has just begun.’

  Arny clapped his hands and whooped.

  ‘This is so exciting,’ he said.

  ‘I’m all aquiver,’ hummed Sissy.

  ‘Me too,’ I yawned.

  Khin redrew the map. She pencilled in the Ping river passing the city to the northeast. It made a lot more sense. They’d built Wieng Kum Kam near the river and dug a trench to feed the moat. Rivers don’t take too kindly to coercion and throughout history there were common accounts of the ancient city being flooded.

  ‘If this theory holds water, if you’ll excuse my pun,’ Khin told us, ‘the original river passed here.’

  She pointed to the grey line on her map.

  ‘The furthest point from it within the original city confines would be around here.’

  She marked the potential site with a large circle and at least half of that circle fell upon the present Ping River.

  ‘The department of Fine Arts has no thirteenth century temples listed in this area. Given their thorough investigation of the site I was perplexed that they had found nothing at all. But then again, temples and stupas were added to the site right up until the beginning of the seventeenth century when Wieng Kum Kam vanished from historical sight. It was logical that they would avoid building too close to the temperamental Ping. We need to turn a blind eye to any later constructions and visualize the city as it looked at the turn of the fourteenth century. King Mangrai approaching Nirvana decides to build a chedi and bury the dynasty’s treasure. I can almost sense it. Feel it.’

  Sissy ran his fingers through his hair samurai fashion and hissed.

  ‘So, Khin. All this came to you while you were taking a dump?’

  ‘In the aftermath.’

  ‘And it inspired you to abandon your guests without a word, tear down your garden fence, and go groping your way through the dark to the river.’

  ‘Oh, no. All I had to do was climb the wall. We are comparatively close to the river. I used the ladder to go over the wall to the compound.’

  ‘We didn’t see a ladder,’ I said.

  ‘Of course not. I had to use the same ladder to climb down the other side of the wall. When I realized what had happened yesterday evening, I was so excited I went immediately to the riverbank to survey possibilities. Sadly it was too dark to do a thorough search. I got a little scratched by the bushes. But I have a very strong intuition about this. I believe I know why the department of Fine Arts found nothing in their search.’

  ‘Yeah, okay, Khin,’ I said. ‘So what’s our chore for the day?’

  ‘Goodness me, Jimm,’ she said. ‘Please display some enthusiasm. We are on the cusp.’

  I didn’t know what a cusp was and it didn’t cheer my mood at all that we might be on one. I didn’t even have the enthusiasm to ask.

  ‘Professor Khin,’ Sissy said. He stood, saluted and clicked his heels together. ‘Your wish is our command. We serve at your pleasure. Direct us.’

  I rose languidly to my feet and joined the line up. Only two more days. Only two more days.

  Chapter 33

  “To the last, I will grapple with thee … from Hell’s heart, I stab at thee! For hate’s sake, I spit my last breath at thee!”

  Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan (1982)

  Khin posited that the current course of the river might have been directed by an irrigation ditch or trench running at the back of the old city. Fortifications were famous for moats and deep gullies filled with frightful wooden stakes. Such a trench would act as a natural conduit for flood water and eventually define a new course for the river. If the Pa Tan Temple had been built flush with the rear fortifications it could well have been overwhelmed by the new river at the same time as the missing rear wall.

  The day’s objective was to walk the length of the river to the west of Wieng Kum Kam and take a note of the topography. Any mounds in unexpected places or sudden dips, or islands mid river had to be noted. The way Khin told it, the mission was an enjoyable stroll on a river bank. But time and neglect had left the riverside overgrown and wild. Even getting close to the bank was a safari. There was one vague trail that led to a fenced-off area with a metal gate.

  ‘What do they want to keep us out of?’ Arny asked.

  ‘I think it’s the other way round,’ Khin said, squeezing through a gap at the side of the gate. ‘My local shop owner tells me there were people arriving in boats in
the dead of night and sailing away with bricks for their patios and garden walls. I believe a lot went missing before the department invested in this gate.’

  ‘Well, it really is a deterrent,’ I agreed and hopped over the top of it. Sissy threw over the equipment bags and the packed lunch then he and Arny joined us on the other side. It was starting to feel like an adventure at last. We arrived at the water’s edge on a small sandy landing, and stared up and down stream. The unruly vegetation lurched out into the water in either direction and thick reeds clogged the shoreline.

  ‘You expect us to fight through all that?’ I asked. ‘I mean, shit, Khin.’

  ‘I did manage to get a fair way into the jungle last night,’ she boasted.

  ‘Which explains the whip marks,’ I said. ‘We’d need native scouts and machetes to get through this.’

  ‘I can think of a faster and a much more fun way to do this,’ said Arny as he slowly unbuckled his belt and lowered his jeans.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s okay. I’m wearing undies.’

  He kicked off his shoes and stepped out of his jeans. It was true. He was wearing underwear but not the type Sister Denise at Saint Martin’s would have let pass the inspection. He pulled his T-shirt over his head and posed briefly for the audience.

  ‘Goodness,’ said Khin. ‘You should be in movies.’

  Arny laughed and walked into the water.

  The Ping was flowing slowly and was a lot cleaner in March than in the rainy season when all the mud ran off the denuded mountains and turned it into cocoa.

  ‘It’s great,’ he shouted and launched off into an elegant front crawl.

  ‘I guess that’s the answer,’ said Sissy, wrestling himself out of his clothes. Externally, he was kitted out bisexually but wore a pretty yellow bra and panties beneath. He went crashing down the bank and headfirst into the Ping.

  ‘Yes, well … it would undoubtedly save us some time,’ Khin conceded. ‘It’s just that …’

  ‘What is it Khin?’