Colin Cotterill - Anarchy and the Old Dogs

“Invisible ink? Heavens no. Why should I do such a thing?”

“Because this note was originally unreadable. It was written with a special solution that needed to be treated to make it legible.”

“Oh, my. That sounds like another of my husband’s friend’s little tricks. He often played games like that to amuse the doctor. I remember one time he wrote all the characters in reverse. Another time he wrote in Chinese. I was up all night with the Chinese dictionary trying to work it out.”

“He sounds like a real card.”

“I think perhaps he was just trying to cheer up Buagaew after he lost his sight.”

“But usually they wrote in Roman script?”

“Yes.”

“Any idea why?”

“My husband and his friend both learned the game- chess, that is-from a British Quaker missionary when they were teenagers. So it was the natural medium in which to exchange information when they played.”

Phosy’s interrogation seemed to have dried up. He appeared satisfied with the woman’s explanations, but Siri had one more question of his own.

“Why did he insist on making the arduous trip into the city by himself? I mean, it would have been easier for you to go and pick up the letters.”

“Doctor, in your career you must have come across numerous men who have become disabled as a result of the wars. It’s a question of pride for them to remain independent in spite of their afflictions. To the end, my husband insisted he could do everything without my help. Perhaps what happened yesterday finally proved him wrong.”

Back at the bus shelter, Siri’s motorcycle had attracted a

coating of red ants. Phosy slapped away at them absent mindedly with his cap.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“Well, I’d say we can be certain of two things,” Siri told him. “One, that Dr. Buagaew’s wife didn’t love her husband, and two, that the dentist was lying to her through his teeth.”

His thoughts were interrupted by an agonizing scream from his friend. While Phosy had been launching his frontal attack on the ants, a rear-guard unit had worked its way up his trouser leg and its troops were devouring him from the thigh up. It’s hard to hold a serious debriefing with a man who’s ripping off his pants in the middle of a town’s main street.

It was somewhere between 2 and 3 a.m., and only Dtui, Siri, and Phosy still remained beneath the canopy of dark leaves in the temple yard. Twice, the abbot had risen, bleary-eyed, to remind them that his monks had to be up at five to collect alms, so could they keep the noise down? Twice, the mourners had apologized and continued their anecdotes in respectful whispers. But large quantities of rice whisky tend to play havoc with a body’s volume control. It didn’t take long before they were laughing and singing and shouting messages to Manoluk, who lay shrouded in cloves and tobacco leaves in the prayer chamber just behind them. You’re only dead once, and the guests wanted this to be a good send-off for their old friend.

The last of the other mourners had staggered home before 1 a.m. and, although they were exhausted, the three comrades felt obliged to maintain a vigil. They were huddled together around the last inch of an orange candle. There was no breeze to disturb the flame or cool the sticky night.

“You’d tell me, wouldn’t you, Doc?” Dtui said through lips she couldn’t quite feel. Rice whisky doesn’t numb, it anesthetizes.

“Tell you what?”

“If she comes to see you.”

“Manoluk? Don’t be silly. The spirits only contact me if they’re restless. What’s your ma got to be unhappy about?”

“Well, the fact that she’s dead,” Phosy suggested.

When you’re drinking with a corpse, there’s no such thing as irreverence. Comments like that had them all rocking with laughter. They heard a loud cough from the abbot’s hut.

“All right,” Siri whispered. “I concede she might not be too delighted about being dead, but she certainly has no grievances about the way Dtui looked after her all those years. No mother could ask for more love and dedication from a daughter.”

They toasted to Dtui.

“Well, just in case she does,” Dtui said, “even if it’s to say hello and tell you what her new teak house in Nirvana’s like. You’d let me know, eh?”

“I promise.”

Phosy staggered off to water the gooseberry bush beyond the temple gates. There was a blissful silence, which in Laos can incorporate a lot of noise. There’s the humming and buzzing of insects and the distant howling of dogs. Somewhere a wind chime is disturbed by a lizard. House timbers stretch and groan. Water drips from a leaky tap into the huge stone temple pot. But, as any Lao would tell you, these are just musical accompaniments to make silence more interesting.

“I knew, you know?” Dtui confessed.

“Knew what?”

“That she was going.”

“Of course, we all had an idea.”

“No. I mean, I knew exactly when. Last night. I hurried home to spend the last few hours with her. That’s why I wasn’t at the vegetable co-op.”

“Auntie Bpoo told you?”

Dtui smiled at her boss. “You went to see her, didn’t you? Didn’t I tell you?”

“There was something disconcerting about her. I have to admit she may have certain… gifts.”

“She told me not to waste my time sitting there with her.”

“Just like that? She didn’t force you to sit through a poem?”

“Oh, there’s always a poem first. Nobody has the foggiest idea what they’re all about. Yesterday was something about magic tinderboxes you can speak into and hear voices from faraway lands. Still, it makes her happy. She only asks that you listen. What did she tell you?”

“Me? Just a lot of bunkum.”

Dtui giggled. “Really? So why do you suddenly think she’s legitimate?”

“I didn’t say that exactly. I just…”

Phosy had returned from his garden adventure and decided now was as good a time as any to fall across one of the trestle tables. It collapsed beneath his weight and its empty glasses and bottles crashed to the ground. If the rolling of eyes had a sound, it would certainly have been heard from the abbot’s hut at that moment. Siri and Dtui helped Phosy back to his seat even though they were no more coordinated than he. They all agreed they needed a drink to calm their nerves after the excitement.

“It’s a resounding pity Civilai couldn’t be here tonight,” Phosy said. He sounded remarkably sober for somebody who’d just broken a dozen rented glasses and a previously untouched bottle of Vietnamese snake hooch. Civilai was their only friend on the politburo and a kindred spirit. The fictitious date of birth Siri had conjured up for his official documents was May 21, 1904. It coincidentally turned out to be two days after Civilai’s actual birthday, so Civilai took delight in calling him “younger brother.” They’d studied socialist doctrine together in Vietnam, had been there at the founding of the Pathet Lao, and each had alienated about the same number of senior Party members. They were undiplomatic old coots who were too stubborn to play the political game by the rules. For Civilai, who was on the Central Committee, this was a major disability. Nobody in any position of authority bothered to listen to him anymore. He only had Siri to vent his frustrations on. That-and their love of food and a good stiff drink-was what made the two men so close.

“Where is he anyway?”

Phosy’s question had already been answered several times throughout the course of the evening.

“He’s back in the USSR,” Dtui reminded him. “Like the Beatles.”

“Who?”

“He’ll be back tomorrow or whenever the Soviets let him go. I’m not telling you again.”