Colin Cotterill - Anarchy and the Old Dogs

“I see. Can’t say I blame you.”

“Anyway, welcome, Phosy. It’s nice to have you in our section.”

“Thanks for lunch.”

“No problem.”

They shook hands and Phosy watched him walk away. A confident gait; tall, muscular frame: a soldier. A soldier who’d refused the opportunity to get himself and his family out of Thailand and on a plane to freedom. A soldier who wanted to stay close to his homeland.

It was a long drive to Khong on a dirt road apparently engineered by rodents. It was a disaster fittingly numbered Route 13. The drizzle of the previous night had made it slick, so much of the journey was spent traveling sideways. Fortunately, it didn’t have much in the way of hills, so the missing brakes were only an issue on the ferry crossing to Wat Phu. The ferry pilot had apparently lost a few vehicles in the past, so he had two blocks of four by four ready to chuck under the front wheels just before the Willys vanished off the end and into the muddy water. Siri and Civilai shook his hand with relief.

It was lunchtime when the old black jeep rolled into Khong, where the name of the Mekhong River had originated. The Mother-the “Me” of Khong-dwarfed the little town. It rolled past triumphantly, making its last stand as a watercourse before being shredded by the four thousand islands of Sri Pun Don. From there, twisted and confused, it was sent tumbling over the Khone Falls. Not even the intrepid French explorers had found a way to blast the river through an obstacle course such as that.

So here it was, the end of the shipping route. It had once been an impressive city where cargo boats would unload and transfer their wares onto elephants or donkeys to continue down to Cambodia. The colonists had even gone to the trouble of building a short railway line to bypass the falls. But there was little evidence of development now. The train lines lay rusted and overgrown. Modern-day Khong was a huddle of wooden shacks, of fishermen and boat pilots and the odd depressed shopkeeper. Civilai found a good stack of bamboo fish traps in which to park.

“Do we really need to stop here?” he asked. “I thought we were heading for the falls. Don’t forget I have to drive this thing back.”

“I could drive if you want a rest,” Siri said, showing remarkable patience at his friend’s constant grumbling.

“You can’t be serious. I’ve seen how much damage you can cause with two wheels. I dread to think what devastation you could create with two more.”

“It doesn’t work like that. Cars are safer. You can be lizard-faced drunk in a car and still not fall over.”

“I rest my case. So, remind me. We’re here because…?”

“Because we’re just briefly going to find out where they fished young Sing out of the river.”

“I knew you had another motive. I should never have believed all that Southern Lao historical heritage bull. I thought we were just here to see the ancient Khmer ruins and the mud-covered capital of the old kingdom, and all the time there you were rushing me through my sightseeing so you could come and show off your do-goodism.”

“Come on. You enjoyed it.”

“I would have, under other circumstances.” He killed the engine and climbed down from the jeep. “Come on, let’s get this over with.”

They found the man who’d recovered the body. As was often the case, pulling a drowning victim from his nets had plunged the fisherman into a deep depression. It was a curse that could only be lifted by several days of shouting at one’s children and being unreasonable to one’s wife. Mr. Keuk was into the fourth day of his penance. His chocolate leather skin was baggy from inactivity. For some reason, he took a visit by two old men from Vientiane as a good omen. He rose from his bamboo litter for the first time since his gory discovery and sat at the back of the jeep all the way to his allotment.

It was a simple setup. The deep nylon nets were strung from bamboo posts sunk into the riverbed. The principle was that the fish would come hurtling toward the net and score themselves like soccer goals. They’d be too traumatized to swim against the current to get free and would tangle themselves in the netting. With so many traps dotted around the islands, a fish would have to have the luck of the Lord Buddha himself to make it through.

Keuk took them to the net that had trapped the body of Sing. It still hung wrapped around the post and split, not catching a thing. Siri, Civilai, and Keuk squatted on the bank, looking at it.

“You come to collect the fish every evening?” Siri asked.

“Used to,” Keuk answered with a long face.

“And on that particular evening, you found the body tangled in your net?”

“That’s right.”

“What state was it in?”

“You want me to describe it?”

“Yes, please.”

Keuk slowly and deliberately described the body exactly as Siri had seen it in the house in Pakse.

“Where’s this line of inquiry leading?” Civilai asked.

“I’ve just lost another theory. I wondered if the splinters came from the back of the truck they shipped him home in. It appears they didn’t. I can’t figure it out.” He looked at Keuk. “Has this ever happened to you before?”

“Not to me personal. It’s not uncommon, though. The old-timers tell me there was times when there was more bodies than fish. Like when the French was getting their own back on the Lao Issara. They say they fished a mountain of patriots out then.” Siri and Civilai looked at each other. “But not recent, no. I did have a catfish once-it broke the net- and a pa kha.”

“You don’t say.”

Something sparked in Siri’s mind. Pa kha was the Lao name for the river dolphins that once played in the Mekhong from China all the way to the delta. There were well-worn tales of pa kha saving the lives of drowning boatmen and guiding longboats through rapids. But overfishing and pollution had since wiped out the dolphins from most of their old habitats. The myth that killing the pa kha would bring catastrophe to a family had never been as strong as a villager’s need to feed his children. She had become a menu item, the pa kha: the mermaid of the Mekhong.

“What did you do with the dolphin?” Siri asked.

“Rescued her, of course,” Keuk said. “You could bring a curse on the whole town if you let one die. There’s them don’t believe it no more, but I do. I took her downriver to the depths beyond the islands. That’s where they like to be. It’s safe there.”

“Before the falls?”

“Want to see?”

The path down to the river had been too narrow to drive so, ever grumbling, Civilai had parked in a patch of tall lemon grass and the three men made their way to the riverbank. It was quite a trek and they stirred up nests of hungry insects on the way. At one point they disturbed a small flock of black-hooded river terns.

“Them’s sida birds,” said Keuk. “They go where the dolphins go. The pa kha are here for certain.”

Finally, they reached the broad, slow-moving expanse of river at the end of the trail. The sight was oddly cathartic to the old doctor. He seemed to recognize it from a different life. It was one of the Mekhong’s few secret places. It made him feel slightly stoned: a few-good-puffs-of-ganja buzz.

“So,” said Civilai, sitting on a smooth rock, watching the hornets hover above the silver-gray surface of the river. “We’re here to visit the river dolphins?”

“Yes.”

“And that’s going to help you solve the mystery of the young boy’s death?”

“No. Yes. Look, I don’t know, all right? Don’t ask me things like that. I had a dream.”