Colin Cotterill - Thirty-Three Teeth

It was about this time, probably as Siri was passing through the village on his way to Wilaiwan’s house, that primary school teacher Chanmee was riding her bicycle along Khouvieng. The old bull testicle trees arched over the lane and blocked the moonlight. Without lamps, it was only her white blouse that gave her any substance on that dark stretch of road.

She hated traveling in the dark, but Wednesday was the meeting of her branch of the Lao Women’s Union. She had to attend. This was always a scary journey for her. At times, a car’s headlights would illuminate her way briefly, then plunge everything back into darkness.

She was straining her tired eyes for tree roots and potholes. No cars had passed for several minutes, and the street was so black that she decided to climb down from the bike and walk beside it. It was eerily quiet on that stretch, and the squeak from her front wheel was her only comfort.

Then there was the other sound. It came from behind her, somewhere off in the frangipani bushes. She stopped for a second to listen. It was a deep, steady growl like a painful snore. She assumed it to be a dog and wondered if it was injured. She’d never experienced any hostility from dogs, yet there was something sinister about this sound. It worried her enough to make her climb back on the bike.

The bushes rustled and a twig snapped, and she pushed down hard and too hastily on the pedal to try to build up some speed. The tightness of her phasin skirt restricted her movement, and her shoe slid from the pedal. The bicycle veered to the right and dipped into a deep rut. She overbalanced sideways.

Too slow to right herself, she tumbled onto the hard earth verge, the bicycle with her. She held her breath to listen for the growl. She looked around at the shadows. Nothing moved. Nothing made a sound. She laughed out loud at her foolishness.

She untangled herself from the bike and was about to get to her feet when the creature was on her. The huge first bite muted her scream. Blood soaked quickly into the white blouse. In less than thirty seconds she was dead.

Two hours later, Siri was back at the orchard. His hosts were early sleepers, unused to company. In his sack he had two bottles of earthy rice whiskey, the remains of the river fish, and a container of sticky rice. This would be a fitting last meal for a man who loved his vocation.

The moon had lit his path from, and back to, the orchard, like a lighthouse beacon guiding a foreign ship. He walked the aisles of fruit trees, breathing in their sweet nighttime scents. A blind man could have identified each tree.

The gardener had abandoned his futile task and was sitting between Siri and a blazing fire. A good pile of lopped branches was at his side, and the smoke carried the scent of the trees they came from. The man was stockier than he’d appeared earlier, and he hunched forward slightly as he stared at the flames.

Siri announced his arrival. “Good health, friend.”

“Welcome back.”

Siri put his aid package on the ground in front of the old man and the bottles clinked together as he pulled them from the sack.

“This should soften the pain of saying goodbye to your friends here, eh?”

He chuckled and turned to the old man. It was his intention to shake his hand to re-launch their friendship. But as he moved out of the line of the fire, the flames lit up the hooded eyes of the gardener. Siri froze. His own face must have reflected his shocked disbelief at what he was seeing.

The firelight shone directly onto the man’s wide round features. The mouth spread slowly into a broad smile of neat teeth. It wasn’t a face Siri had seen in the flesh, but it was one he knew only too well. It was a face he’d seen on 8mm film in the caves of Houaphan, accompanied by the jeers and laughter of the cadres. It was a face he’d carried to the market, folded in his shoulder bag. It was a face on propaganda posters they’d used in hate sessions at endless political seminars.

The man spoke through his smile. “I hope this doesn’t disqualify me from having a drink.”

“It isn’t Dom Perignon.”

“Thank goodness for that.”

The king, into his second year of unemployment, leaned forward to shake the hand Siri had misplaced somewhere between them. “My name’s-”

“Yeah. I know. Bugger me. This is one for the books. I’m Siri, Siri Paiboun. Am I supposed to … I don’t know … curtsy or something?”

“I doubt that would do either of us any good. For heaven’s sake, sit down and open a bottle.”

Siri did as he was decreed, but he couldn’t help laughing at the weirdness of the moment. He poured the whiskey into two half-coconut shells and handed one to the old man.

“What exactly are you doing here?” Siri asked.

“Bidding, as you rightly say, farewell to my trees. This is the place I’ll miss most. Good health.”

He gestured the coconut shell toward his guest, then took a swig. Siri was already aware of just how awful the homemade brew was, but the king showed no reaction to it.

“Good health.” Siri drank and winced. “Yecch. I reckon we could piss this out as weed killer by the end of the night.”

They both laughed.

“What brings you here, Comrade Siri?”

“Some mysterious emergency. I’m the national coroner, for want of a better one. They asked me to identify a couple of crispy fliers. The local Party head expected me to tell him their names and addresses. In return, he wasn’t prepared to tell me a damn thing.”

“I think you’ll find they’re both Lao royalists.”

“What do you know?”

“There was an attempt, the day before yesterday, to take my family and me out of the country. One of the helicopters was shot down. I imagine that’s where your fliers are from. I’m sure your lpla people would like to confirm that they had connections to the old Royal Lao Government. The helicopter crashed in the grounds of That Luang temple. You should go and take a look there.”

“Is that why you’re leaving?”

“They want me somewhere less accessible from Thailand.”

“You seem to be taking it all remarkably calmly.”

“I’m resigned to it. It’s been coming for some time.”

“Since the abdication?”

“Long before that, I’m afraid. Our royal line has lost its kwun.”

Even born-again-agnostic Siri was shocked to hear such a statement. Lao tradition had it that all living beings were in possession of a kwun: something between a soul and a spirit. Humans were said to have thirty-two kwun. In times of bad fortune, some of the kwun may flee, and shamans are called in to invite them to return. Only in serious illness or death does the kwun desert its host completely.

Siri looked at the man’s wrists, heavy with loops of unspun white thread. When begging the kwun to return, it was usual to circle the wrists of the unlucky one with strings and knot them. Somebody close to the king had been doing some serious negotiating with the spirit world.

“You really believe that?”

“There’s no doubt.”

“When did it happen?” He refilled the coconut shells.

“When I came along.”

“Now, you’re just being hard on yourself.”

“It’s a fact. Indisputable. In my father’s time, he and my uncle, Phetsarath, were in harmony with the spirits. This orchard was theirs. Are you sensitive to necromancy, Dr. Siri?”

“I’m afraid I am.”

“Then you can probably feel the spirits of the trees here and the hold they have over this region. I’m told it’s very strong. I cannot feel it myself. The whole of Luang Prabang is evidently bristling with the ghosts of previous kings and queens and their offspring. There’s been a magical connection between the Royal Capital and the occult since the days of my great ancestor, King Fa Ngum. It was he who brought the first spirits to this place. He had thirty-three teeth, you know?”