Colin Cotterill - Curse of the Pogo Stick

Although not, as they say, in the flesh, the old lady was back. She sat in a most unladylike pose, with her phasin skirt above her knees, her arms folded across her chest, and her head nodding from side to side. Her mouth was a clot of unspat betel nut. She was with Siri often these days. She neither spoke nor gestured nor came nor went. She was there and then she wasn’t. The monk at Hay Sok Temple had suggested she could have been Siri’s mother-or could still be. Tenses were annoyingly unhelpful when it came to the afterlife. As Siri had been separated from his parents at an early age, there was no way to tell one way or the other, and she certainly wasn’t giving anything away.

He fluttered his fingers at her. “Goodnight, Ma,” he said, and closed his eyes.

Dtui sat in the cutting room with nothing to do but admire the smiles of the seven happy nurses and the scowl of the one malcontent in the Mahosot photographs. The auditors in the office had been buoyed by the news that Dr. Siri wouldn’t be back for another few days. They’d been warned of his reputation and doubted he would welcome their intrusion. It was hard to believe the little morgue had enough paperwork to keep them engrossed but Dtui noted that their snouts were still dipped into the filing cabinets. Mr. Geung was using a long-handled broom to sweep away the ceiling cobwebs and the spiders seemed to appreciate his lack of coordination.

“I doubt those spiders have recovered from the laugh you gave them yesterday, brother Geung,” Dtui said.

“A… a morgue c… can’t be too clean,” he told her, quoting Dr. Siri.

“You’re sweeping all the paint off the walls.”

Geung, with his very personal sense of humor, found that comment hilarious. He almost choked behind his surgical mask. Dtui heard a loud cough from the office that presumably suggested that menial staff shouldn’t be having fun on the job. Geung leaned against the table while his friend slapped him between the shoulder blades. When his voice returned, he said, “I know who sh… she is.”

He was looking at the photographs.

“Yes, you do. They’re our new nurses,” Dtui reminded him.

“No.” He picked up the photo of the nurses walking across the hospital compound. He pointed-not to the girls but to the patients who sat watching them pass. In particular he singled out one old lady in pajamas sitting in a wheelchair.

“You know her, do you, pal?” Dtui took a closer look: thin as a noodle strand, white haired, certainly ill.

“No, Dtui. I don’t kn… know her. I just kn… know who she is. And you know t… too.”

“Do I?” She looked again. “Give me a clue.”

“On the the wall of the Bureau de P… Poste.”

“The wall of the…? Oh you aren’t thinking it’s-what’s her face?”

“The Lizard.”

“No way!”

Dtui looked again, shaking her head. The Lizard? Her wanted poster had been on the wall of the post office for several months as a result of the last case Dtui, her husband, Phosy, and Dr. Siri had worked on together. She had established a network of agents operating against the socialist government and had cleverly avoided caprure. According to Security, not only had the Lizard been involved in the coup attempt, she’d been wanted for ongoing acts of terrorism against the Republic since it came into being. Customers at the Bureau de Poste probably believed the old lady’s photo had been attached to the wanted poster as some kind of joke. How could such a sweet old thing be wanted for crimes against the state? But there was nothing funny about the Lizard. She had a chip on her shoulder against the communists and now it seemed that grudge had extended to revenge. But this couldn’t be…

Dtui brought over a petri dish and looked through it at the old lady in the wheelchair. Old women tended to look a lot alike to Dtui but there was something about the expression in the woman’s eyes that made her think Geung had a point. And as that thought took root in her head, a second idea occurred to her. If she was after revenge, what if Siri wasn’t the intended victim? Dtui and Phosy had played a key part in putting down the coup. What if the lizard lady knew Siri was away, or didn’t care? The ends of Dtui’s fingers tingled and a shudder ran down her spine. She looked once more at the old girl in the wheelchair. Geung was right. This was the woman who glared from the shadows of the post office wall.

Their evening meeting couldn’t come soon enough.

“Because they’re basically heathens,” spat Judge Haeng.

Their journey had been painfully slow and the judge’s lack of sleep made him more opinionated than ever. The convoy was negotiating one obstacle after another: a river with no bridge, a temporarily filled bomb crater that had reopened, a tree the breadth of a man’s height sprawling across the road. They were currently on a track that clung along the edge of a steep incline. The valley below dropped drastically to their left. Luang Prabang seemed half a planet away. As there was no pocket chess or solitaire to while away the nonmoving hours, Siri had removed the plugs from his ears and was having sport with his judge. The driver and the bodyguard were both listening so Haeng was obliged to fight every point.

“Simplicity doesn’t necessarily mean barbarianism,” Siri countered.

“Simplicity, Siri? They allow their youth to fornicate before marriage. That isn’t simplicity. The Hmong are completely without morals.”

“I think you’ll find they have some of the strongest morality taboos of all the ethnic groups.”

“Premarital sex not being among them?”

“I suppose it depends on whether you classify sex as a sin. There are worse things. I’ve heard some of our public officials take nightclub singers from such places as the Anou Hotel and have their way with them for money. Is that morality, Judge?”

Siri enjoyed the blush on the young man’s cheeks. He knew the Anou was one of the judge’s favorite fishing holes.

“Unsubstantiated rumors, Siri… about whoever it is. I’m surprised at you, taking notice of market tittle-tattle.” Siri smiled but held back. “And besides, we’re discussing hill tribes. I’m trying to explain how some savage races still have a way to go, not only educationally, but morally and socially.”

“Really? I’ve heard the Hmong social order is the most disciplined and traditionally ordered of all the minorities. A Hmong’s family is his life.”

“Not much of a life to give, is it?”

“Now, now, Judge Haeng. If I didn’t know you better I’d say you were talking like a bigot.”

Haeng laughed. “Doctor, you couldn’t be further from the truth. Some of my closest friends are from the backwoods. You do realize how much effort the Party directs at fringe groups?”

“By fringe, I take it you mean the forty percent of our citizens who aren’t native Lao?”

“Exactly. I take it you’ve read the new draft constitution?”

“I was waiting for the movie version. But I take it you’ve had a hand in writing it.”

“More like an entire arm, Siri. I’m particularly proud of the passage that reads, ‘Our pluri-ethnic people will have to intensify their patriotism, become closely knit, eradicate all prejudice and discrimination inherited from the former society, be mutually supportive, and help the disabled so that all efforts may be devoted to the construction of our beloved country.’’’

“Hmm, you’re right. That wasn’t at all racist.”

“Did it occur to you we have ethnic schools in every province?”

“Where you teach…?”

“Standards, Siri. We teach standards and discipline and Lao language and history.”