Colin Cotterill - Curse of the Pogo Stick

“I… I… I told them about the cashew cakes… m… making me fart,” Geung boasted.

“There were no end of witnesses shipped in from all over. They connected the Lizard to this and that act of terrorism,” Civilai said. “They filmed the whole thing. They wouldn’t let us go till the tribunal was over, and we were in the middle of nowhere so we couldn’t contact anyone.”

“Which reminds me,” Siri interrupted. “Speaking of wives and forgiveness…”

“Fear not, Siri,” said Civilai. “I sent a message to Madame Nong as soon as they released us from security this afternoon. She’s probably packing for her next Women’s Union excursion as we speak.”

“So you stayed for the verdict?”

“The four of them had kept silent,” Phosy said. “They knew there was no point in putting up a defense. They were found guilty of treason.”

“And the punishment?”

“A firing squad in the morning,” Daeng told him. “They asked if we’d like to stay and watch but we were keen to get home to our loved ones. The driver had us back here by seven. We went directly to the Russian Club. We’d been at the stockade for three days. We needed to unwind and eat some decent food.”

“And the bill?”

“I was leaving the courtroom,” Dtui said. “Actually, it was a tent, and the Lizard asked permission to give me something. She told me how impressed she was with us. She said perhaps her country wasn’t in such bad hands after all with people like us around. And she gave me her ring off her finger. She said it wasn’t that valuable but it should be worth enough to get us a good night out on her. She said the manageress at the Russian Club had taken jewelry from her before when she didn’t have any cash, no questions asked. She was right. The whole bill was covered.”

“So the ring was probably worth four times that,” said cynical old Civilai.

They all sipped at their coffee now and drank water to sober up. One of the whisky bottles hadn’t been touched at all. A mellow, satisfied feeling melted over them like honey. Two jobs well done.

“And there I was thinking I’d had an interesting few days,” Siri said.

Hmong New Year passed virtually unnoticed in Vientiane and, as December held no other significant dates for celebration, January arrived unannounced. The weather, for once, gave nobody cause for complaint. The sky was blue and cloudless and the city was fanned day and night by cooling breezes. Locals had taken to wearing mufflers round their necks and socks inside their flip-flops. Walkers everywhere crunched through unswept leaves. The pool at the Lan Xang Hotel was off-limits because the water was cold and the lifeguard refused to jump in if anyone got into trouble. Although the Lao wouldn’t have their own new year for another three months, the West was calling this 1978 and hailing it as the dawning of the age of computers. Half a million were already in use around the world and predictions were that this number might double by the end of the century. Like the news of Charlie Chaplin’s death and the decision by Sweden to ban aerosol cans, the revelation passed Vientiane by without even staring in the window.

For reasons best known to himself, Judge Haeng had taken to using a cane following the trauma of his ordeal in the northeast. There was nothing at all wrong with his leg but Siri assumed that once the cast was off his arm he had no cause to tell strangers of his bravery otherwise.

“There must have been thirty of them,” he’d declare, gazing out into the misty beyond of his memory. “Tough, mountain warriors, trained to kill. They picked off Siri straightaway but I was able to evade them for four days, living wild in the jungle. Surviving off the land. Hampered by life-threatening injuries, I relied on training from my days in the underground to get through it all. A good socialist must be ambidextrous: able to chop down a mighty teak tree with his left hand and darn a shirt with his right. You have to understand the jungle, to love and respect it like a wife.

“After a while I felt concerned about Dr. Siri. He isn’t a young man and we must have compassion for our senior citizens. I went in search of him. I feared not for my own life but ultimately I succumbed to my injuries and to the dreaded malaria. See this bruising on my hands? Further evidence of the ravages of the disease.”

Siri had smiled when the story made it back to him. Only Haeng could have caught malaria at that altitude. It wasn’t till the Hmong were forced down to lower elevations that the mosquito joined the list of their enemies. Siri waited for the day when he’d be summoned to the Department of justice to find Haeng with a nose so long he couldn’t get out of his office. Siri, meanwhile, had one or two cases a week to keep himself and his team moderately busy.

Nothing more was heard of the Lizard and her cohorts but a nasty thought had crossed Siri’s mind. These were the days when people could vanish without a physical trace and, over time, be deleted completely from memory. But one matter still lingered and made the old doctor shake his head from time to time. Why, he wondered, would a woman about to be executed make a gift of a valuable ring to the very people who had condemned her to death? Was it merely a final act of bravado from an arrogant woman or had there been one spell left in her cauldron? According to the Security Division, the firing squad had done its duty on the morn, but would they admit to losing the Lizard a second time? The manageress still presided over her clients at the Russian Club and nothing untoward had happened to suggest anything had gone wrong. Siri had nothing but a creeping tingle at the back of his neck to keep him company.

Fortunately, he had something else to occupy his mind. Following his return from Xiang Khouang, Siri had taken up a cause. He had canvassed both the Lao and Vietnamese military in an effort to make them accountable for their handling of Hmong refugees. He wanted a commitment that they would have safe passage when fleeing to Thailand. It was Civilai’s opinion that if Siri hadn’t been friendly with certain influential members of the military he too would have vanished without a trace for such foolishness. Siri countered that he was just reminding them of their own policy.

“According to your politburo, the Hmong are Lao citizens,” he told Civilai. “The official line is, ‘All Lao citizens are equal before the law irrespective of ethnic origin.’ They have the same rights as we do.” “And we have rights?”

“By comparison.”

“Keep on pushing the army, you stubborn old fart, and we’ll see how strong your rights are.”

So Siri, being Siri, kept on pushing. He ran into the same rehashed diatribe about national security and the US-led insurgency but not one sensible argument as to why unarmed women and children and old people posed a threat to the nation. If they were dangerous then surely the army ought to be glad they were leaving. It soon became clear that the issue was not a centrally agreed upon policy but rather left up to the whim of the regional army commander in each of the provinces. He heard that some units coming across caravans of Hmong escorted them back home and sent the seniors for reeducation, where they learned that this was a multicultural society and even the most impoverished and ignorant had an opportunity for advancement. But the officers he spoke to also conceded there might be the odd patrol leader with a well-founded grudge who would execute first and consider the moral implications later over a drink.

He heard more disturbing rumors that the new Soviet planes were being used to drop liquid chemicals on caravans of refugees although that wasn’t a policy anyone he spoke to cared to discuss. Whatever the truth, an alarming number of refugees fleeing their homes weren’t reaching the camps in Thailand and Siri didn’t like that fact. But, as Civilai said, he was getting closer to that ‘Has anyone seen Siri lately?’ moment. For a month he had attempted to beg a brief interview with Commander