Colin Cotterill - Thirty-Three Teeth

“You know you’re welcome to stay as long as you like. Just let me know when you’ve had enough, and I’ll put you on the flight home.”

“That’s a deal.”

Siri stared at his roommate and seemed to be weighing up just how close their friendship had become.

“Inthanet.”

“Yes, brother.”

“Could I ask a favor of you?”

“Certainly.”

“It’s quite an unusual one.”

“As if this isn’t wholly an unusual trip.”

“Okay. Don’t go away.”

Siri went into the room where he had piled his clothes and fished his flashlight out of his pack. He came back to the cot where Inthanet now sat and plonked himself beside him.

“I want you to count my teeth.”

Inthanet rolled back with laughter. When it eventually subsided and he realized this was no joke, he took the light and shined it into the doctor’s open mouth.

“Wah, you certainly have a healthy looking set there, brother. I’ve lost most of mine, but this is quite a plantation. Do you mind if I use a finger? I don’t want to lose count.”

Siri could only gargle an okay, as the finger was already on the back molar and sliding around to the incisors on the bottom deck.

“But I suppose that’s one of the benefits of living with nature all those years. No sweets to rot your teeth away. I’m a sucker for candy, I am. We used to give sweets to the kiddies who came to the puppet shows, but I ended up eating more than they did.”

Siri wanted him to stop talking and concentrate on the counting. He didn’t know anyone who could do both at the same time with any accuracy. The finger continued to trip along the row.

“I was going to get some of those false ones, but I thought better of it. I mean, you never really knew whose mouth they’d been in before yours or what they’d been chewing on. So I make do with the dozen I’m left with. Yours are beautiful, though. Just gorgeous. Better than a lot of young fellows.”

He pulled out the finger and wiped it on his loincloth. “Sorry, I suppose I really should have washed this before I put it in your mouth. Still, no harm done.”

“Did you count them?”

“Not much point being in there if I didn’t, brother.”

“How many have I got?”

“Thirty-three, brother. Thirty-three.”

“You don’t s … ”

“Cooee.” The sound of a woman calling them came not from outside the house, but from the back room a few feet away from where they sat on the porch.

“Anyone home?”

The men looked around to see the annoying Miss Vong in the back doorway.

“Yes, I thought I heard voices.”

“Miss Vong, come in, why don’t you?” Siri mumbled.

“Good morning, Mr. Inthanet.”

“Good morning to you, Miss Vong.”

They exchanged a warm smile that surprised Siri.

“You two are acquainted?”

“Of course,” she said. “You abandoned the poor man on his first night here. He was all alone. He would have starved to death if it hadn’t been for me.”

“It’s true, Siri. Miss Vong brought me a super home-cooked dinner, and she even cleaned up the place a bit.”

“I’m sure she did.”

“I’ve brought you two lonely bachelors another little treat. I just fixed up a batch of spicy minced fish.”

As she went into painful detail of how she had prepared this unspectacular dish, Siri lamented the ground that had been lost. Over the previous month, he’d triumphantly reduced the number of charity housework invasions to a trickle. Now,

Inthanet’s arrival had given her new incentive. Inthanet would have to go.

Her arrival also poured soapy water over his revelation. He had thirty-three teeth: him, Prince Phetsarath, and the Lord Buddha. He wanted to shout it. He wanted to celebrate without Miss Vong.

“Vong, this isn’t the weekend, is it? Shouldn’t you be at work?”

“Not this morning, Comrade. We’re off on a fact-finding mission to the southern provinces. We’ll be traveling overnight, so we’ve got the morning off to pack.”

His spirits rose.

“Will you be gone for many months?”

“Only four days. I’ll be back before you know it. I’ll take this into the kitchen and cover it.” She walked inside with the bowl of fish lahp . In the distance they heard her say “Whoo, this kitchen could do with a good dusting.”

“Not necessary, Miss Vong.”

Siri and Inthanet smiled at each other and made faces as they probably had behind the teacher’s back in primary school. Siri lowered his voice to ask: “What did you do with the dinner she brought you?”

“Not even your dog could get through it. I thought she might check the garbage can, so I gave it a decent burial over there under the papaya tree.”

“Then I should abandon hope of papayas growing any time soon.”

It reminded Siri he should dig up the machete before it started to rust. They laughed again and listened to the swish of the duster and the humming of a happy woman, born to clean.

It was as Siri was riding off on his motorcycle and Inthanet was closing the gate behind him that Mr. Soth, the neighbor, realized how cruelly he’d been cheated. He stood on a chair on his veranda and could see over the wall. There was a pair of them. He was mortified. How dare they? How dare anyone make fun of him?

Of course, it hadn’t just been a case of mistaken identity. Inthanet had had to go to some effort to look like Siri. There was the walk of course, that tumbling forward walk that moved Siri around as fast as it did. But Inthanet had been a very fine actor in his day. There were some minor kapok additions to his eyebrows and the donning of Siri’s favorite blue peasant suit, and Inthanet didn’t even recognize himself. How could the neighbor know it wasn’t Siri?

The doctor had seen Soth on the morning of the felling of the speaker pole. After all the secrecy and planning, it was infuriating to be caught red-handed in a suburb where not a soul wandered after midnight. He’d honed his machete to an edge so fine, it could slice through communist red tape. He’d figured on no more than ten swings to bring down the nasty speaker and he’d be back in his cot before the world was any the wiser.

How could he have taken account of mysterious Mr. Soth? How was he to know the man’s habits? What right did he have to be awake at such an unhealthy hour? There was nothing to do in that place before dawn. But there he was, awake and brimming with vigilance.

On the flight from Luang Prabang, Siri and Inthanet had hatched this plot, along with several other contingencies. Dtui had told her boss on the phone about the visiting policemen and Tik, the old shaman, had been overwhelmed with a premonition of Siri rotting in jail. So Mr. Soth’s initiative and Siri’s arrest were both inevitable. The play was written and the action followed the script. But there was to be an unexpected last act.

Apart from being a creep, Mr. Soth was also a bad loser. He hadn’t reached the economic heights and moral depths he occupied today by accepting humiliation. Revenge didn’t have to be too complicated. A simple killing would do.

It was lunchtime, so Siri drove directly to the river, parked beneath a golden shower tree, and walked over to Civilai and Phosy on their regular log. Both men were eating with their right hands and fanning themselves, geisha-like, with their left. The cheap Singha Beer logo fans from Thailand barely managed to slide the sweat across their foreheads. There was no natural movement in the air, and the river edged along so slowly it threatened to stop completely.

“Got anything to eat?” Siri asked.

“Will you listen to that.” Civilai looked at Phosy without bothering to greet the newcomer. “The man makes over fifteen dollars a month, and he still has the gall to mooch off poor folk like us.”