Colin Cotterill - The Coroner's lunch

Siri continued back along his own lane until he came to the house. It seemed impossible. It stood there still dark and silent, ostensibly untroubled by any disaster. But he knew that could only be an illusion. He knew something horrible lay beyond the front wall. He ran along the path and pushed open the heavy door. It opened more easily than ever because the rest of the house had shifted, so it now sat evenly in its frame. The damage done to the back of the house was unbelievable. Although pictures and ornaments had been shaken from the walls, the front two rooms up and down had only been rattled by the chaos. But when he looked up the staircase, he could see the sky. His room, and the roof above it, were gone. The room beneath his seemed warped somehow. Miss Vong was at its door trying to push it open. She was calling out to the children and to Mrs. Som. The woman’s husband was away training in Europe, so she was there alone with her three girls.

Siri hurried over and helped Vong to open the door. The young couple from the upstairs front room could only look down at them helpless, as there was now no way for them to descend. Half the staircase, and the balcony, were gone. The door shifted enough to squeeze through, but it was dark as a grave inside. They could hear the whimpering of the youngest child, and coughing. Siri told Vong to go for a flashlight, and she ran back to her apartment.

He put his head into the room and called out:

“Mrs. Som? Manoly? Are you in here? Can you hear me?”

Manoly’s voice came back to him. “Mommy’s still asleep. I can’t wake her up.”

“How are your sisters?”

“They’re frightened.”

“It’s all right. There’s nothing to be frightened about. That was the last big bang. I’ll tell you what to do. I want all three of you to follow my voice and walk carefully this way. Hold hands now. Manoly, you lead.”

“What about Mommy?”

“I’ll go and wake her up after you three are out.” He sang a song to comfort them and give them a destination. All three were coughing by the time they reached the door. They had their pillows against their faces. The room was cloudy with dust.

“Good girls.”

Vong arrived with the flashlight just as the girls emerged. “Oh, goodness. Thank heaven you’re all okay.” She shined the light toward the room, but Siri stood in front of it.

“Put that out for now.” She did as she was told. “Take the girls into the street. I think they’ve swallowed a lot of dust. Find them plenty of clean water to drink. Then get them down to the hospital as quickly as you can.”

By now there was a small group of people gathered around the front door. They collected the girls and asked what they should do. Siri told them the building wasn’t safe and said they should stay back. If anyone had a ladder, they could run it up the front of the house and bring down the couple upstairs through the window. But other than that, they should stay out.

Once he was alone, he turned the flashlight back on. He hadn’t wanted to shine it into the room while the children were there to see, just in case. Before going inside, he unbuttoned his shirt and pulled up his undershirt to cover his mouth and nose.

The room was devastated. Large chunks of masonry had fallen. Although much of the ceiling was still in place, it had dropped toward one end of the room, and might cave in at any second. The dust was blinding.

At the point where the back wall had once stood, the ceiling was no more than a meter from the ground, and he had to get on his hands and knees to reach the place where the family had slept. The flashlight reflected from the dust like headlights on a fog bank. He could feel his lungs getting heavy.

“Dr. Siri?”

His heart leaped, and he swung the flashlight beam to his left from where the voice had come. “Mrs. Som?” He crawled across the debris until he could make out the shape of the girls’ mother kneeling, facing the bedrolls where the children had slept below the open window. Despite the dust, she seemed very neat. She was dressed in her best phasin and her hair was pulled tightly back from her face into a bun. She turned her head to him and smiled. He smiled back to show his relief.

“You’ve been lucky. Come. We have to get out of here before this ceiling comes down completely.” She didn’t move.

“Dr. Siri. I’m worried about my girls.”

“No. They’re fine. Come now.” He reached out a hand for her.

“I’m afraid they’ll be lonely.”

His hand dropped. He knew right away what she meant. He understood, and his stomach turned.

“Oh, no, Mrs.-”

“I was often cross with them. I shouted at them a lot. Perhaps they won’t understand that was a mother’s way to show how she feels. Can you be sure to tell them I love them?”

He lowered his head. “I’m so sorry.”

The large crowd gathered at the front of the house gasped and muttered when Siri appeared at the front door. He’d carried Mrs. Som’s crushed body as far as Vong’s room and left it there. He didn’t want the girls to see it or to raise their hopes she might be alive. He wheezed a few orders here and there to the neighbors, made sure the couple upstairs had been brought down, then collapsed inelegantly in the vegetable patch.

He awoke in one of the few private rooms available at the hospital. His eyes were so sore, it was like looking through greasy windows. The walls and ceiling were Wattay blue. There was one unshaded strip light on the ceiling. A Thai plowing calendar was the only decoration. It was a room devoid of therapy.

“Welcome back.” Dtui was beside the bed, fussing around with several trays of roots and powders. The hospital budget could no longer stretch to foreign-made pharmaceuticals, and they had fallen back on natural remedies. In most cases, the patients could be thankful.

“What am I doing here?”

“Sleeping, mostly. You breathed in about a kilo of dust last night while you were being a hero. You passed out. They had to give you oxygen.”

“Last night? Right. It’s getting so I don’t know what’s real and what’s a dream these days. I was hoping that was one of the imaginary disasters.”

“No. Your house really blew up. It fell down completely after you got here.”

“How are the little girls?”

“Sorry. Don’t know. I just came to work this morning and they told me you were here. I didn’t get a lot of information from your bodyguard.”

“I have a bodyguard?” He coughed up phlegm into a cloth Dtui had waiting.

“Two at the moment. I believe they’re from the Security Section. One’s got a nice smile. He wants to talk to you when you come around. Have you come around?”

“I’m a bit weak, but we should get this over with.”

“I’ll tell him. I’ll bring you some breakfast when he’s done with you. I’ll have to get it from outside. There was a fire in the kitchen last night. The food’s so bad, it was probably started by the patients.” She went over to the door.

“Oh, Dtui. Has Phosy been by the office yet?”

“The policeman? Not while I was there. Why?”

“He’s coming to pick up the original of the report and the autopsy photos. You’ll have to show him where they are.”

“I’ll tell Geung. He’ll have to wait for the pictures, though: they aren’t back from the photograph shop yet.”

“And tell him,” he started another coughing fit. “Tell him I’m in here.”

“Yes, my leader.”

The young man from the Security Section was very polite and very thorough. He’d already been briefed on the information Siri had given Civilai, but he wanted it all again, in Siri’s own words.