Colin Cotterill - Thirty-Three Teeth

Siri and his friend skirted around the riot and walked past the man on the barrier with the confidence of travelers whose documentation was in order. It helped to be met by a nurse in uniform and a driver. You had to be someone for such a reception.

“Dtui, this is Mr. Inthanet. He’s-”

Before Siri could complete the introduction, two policemen in non-matching uniforms strode up to the group. One of them held a small passport-sized photograph. Dtui recognized the men.

“Dr. Siri Paiboun?” one policeman asked, although he apparently knew already.

“Yes.”

“You are under arrest, Comrade. Please come with us.”

Everyone but Siri seemed surprised.

“May I ask you what the charges are?”

“They’ll tell you at the police station, Doctor.”

The other policeman took Siri’s arm lightly and gestured for him to head outside with them. The prisoner looked back at the amazed faces of Inthanet, Dtui, and the songtaew driver. He held up four fingers to his traveling companion and winked.

“Don’t panic,” he said, smiling. “Please take Mr. Inthanet to my house and make him comfortable. I’ll be there shortly.”

But the last they saw of Siri that day was the back of his head in the police truck being driven out of the airport carpark. Dtui looked at the mysterious visitor, smiled, shrugged her shoulders, and said:

“Hot, isn’t it?”

“Damned hot,” he replied.

“So, how do you know Dr. Siri?”

On the Saturday morning, the three observers watched the condemned man eat three hearty breakfasts. There were metal bars between Siri and his friends. Dtui, Phosy, and Civilai watched him chewing happily on glutinous rice, and raw fish in a sauce spicy enough to self-combust. None of them spoke because they were still too dumbfounded.

It was Phosy who first learned of the heinous crime Siri was accused of. He called Civilai and told him. Dtui only found out about it when she turned up at the jail. She couldn’t believe her ears. They were all too shocked to discuss it. So they merely watched Siri eat the breakfasts each of them had brought for him.

“Aren’t you going to say anything?” Siri asked at last looking up from his food. “It is hard to eat in front of a committee … Hot, isn’t it?”

Still there was silence. Even though the door to the cell was open and the guard had gone for coffee, the guests had preferred to sit outside. This made Siri feel like one of the animal exhibits at the Lan Xang Hotel. Eventually, Civilai gave in. He shook his head and said “Siri, you’re the national coroner.”

“That’s not my fault. I didn’t ask to be.”

Civilai found this response to be amazingly flippant, even for Siri.

“Fault or no fault, you are it. You represent the Party. Whatever entered your head to do such a thing?”

Siri wiped chili sauce from his chin.

“Now there you go. What happened to ‘innocent until proven guilty’? Thank goodness I’m not being judged by a jury of my peers. You’d all see me to the gallows.”

“Then tell us you didn’t do it.”

“I’m not making any statements until my lawyer gets here.” “You haven’t got a lawyer. In fact, I doubt whether there are any left in Laos. They’re damned fine swimmers, I hear.”

“What about you? You studied law.”

“I’m not representing you. I think you’re as guilty as Nixon himself.”

Dtui couldn’t hold back a little laugh. Siri didn’t notice.

“It shouldn’t make any difference what you believe,” he said. “You just have to convince them.”

“Siri, in two hours you have to go up in front of Haeng. You may recall that you haven’t exactly endeared yourself to the judge over the past six months. In fact, it could be said that you’ve crawled under his skin at every opportunity. And you have to defend yourself against charges that could very well result in your incarceration on Don Thao for the remainder of your sorry life. Personally, I think it’s time you started to take this seriously.”

“Hear, hear,” Dtui agreed.

Siri put out the spice fires burning in his chest with a swig of Dtui’s home-squeezed juice.

“Ah, Dtui. Your mom squeezes a grand guava.”

“Siri!”

“Relax, brother. They won’t get me. Even if they try, all I have to do is point them in the direction of January 1976.”

“And what’s that?”

“That’s the day your revolutionary council set a match to all the books. And one of those books happened to have the national constitution written in it. And once that had gone up in smoke, all the laws went up with it. Remember?”

Phosy felt obliged to enlighten the good doctor. He was a policeman, after all, and he knew about abuse of the system only too well.

“Comrade, let’s for a second forget about laws. Let’s imagine instead that you’ve pissed off the people that run the country. Let’s suppose that they can make up a fitting punishment off the top of their heads. What if they decide that letting you off will be a signal to all the other citizens to do anything they like and get away with it? Not having laws goes in their favor. They can do what they like with you.”

“You’re still all assuming I’m guilty.”

“I’m not,” Dtui said faithfully.

“Thank you.”

Trials were a rarity in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic in those days. The hearing of Siri’s case was closed to the public to avoid hysteria. In fact, beyond the police and the Department of Justice, nobody knew about it. Not much negative publicity for Party members made it into the Siang Pasason newspaper.

As this was merely a hearing, it was conducted in the Justice canteen. The tables had been rearranged to give it the feeling of a real courtroom. Judge Haeng, in a nice pink shirt with collar buttons, sat at the front table by himself.

Young Mr. Sounieng, arguing for the State, sat at another table with the chief witness to Haeng’s left. Siri, arguing for himself, had his own table to the right. The small official group of onlookers sat on chairs facing them all. Civilai and Phosy were amongst them.

The accuser, and the insistent pursuer of action on the matter, was Siri’s silent neighbor, Soth, the crooked official from Oudom Xay. He glared across at the accused with a half toothpick protruding from his snarling gray teeth.

Credit had to be given to Judge Haeng. He was certainly out of his depth, still having presided over nothing more taxing than divorces and domestic disputes. But he had all the formal language down and he kept order quite nicely.

Everything sank or floated on the evidence of the only witness. Haeng called him to describe in his own words what he’d seen on the night of the ninth. Soth was obviously a man who considered the outcome of the trial a formality.

“It was about four of the morning,” he said. “I’m a light sleeper, so when I heard the sound it woke me up straight off. I forgot where I was for a minute and thought someone was chopping down trees in the forest. Then I remembered we was in the suburbs. So I grabbed me handgun and walked out into the-”

“Did anyone else hear this supposed sound?” Siri interrupted.

“He can’t ask me questions,” Soth protested.

“In fact he can,” said Haeng. “Dr. Siri is representing himself at this hearing, so he has a right to cross-examine.”

“Good on you, son,” Siri mumbled.

The man glared at them both.

“Don’t seem fair, if he’s the accused.”

“Just answer,” Haeng said. “We’d all appreciate it.”

“I sleep at the front. Me wife and the kids sleep at the back.”

“So in fact they didn’t hear?” the judge asked.