Colin Cotterill - Love Songs from a Shallow Grave

"And they caught you."

"All monks are dead, brother. All. All die because they don't worship Brother Number One."

The monk was still holding my hand as he spoke. His soft voice was calming.

"Why didn't they kill you?" I asked.

"They will. They kill everyone here. They will kill you. Nobody come out of this place, S21, alive. But they think we know something. If we speak they kill us fast. Don't speak, they kill us slow."

"And do you know something?"

There was a silence that seemed to stretch out into the darkness.

"No," he said.

"Where did you learn your French?"

"Marseille. I was on the scholarship. Four year, but poor French even so, no?"

"You're an unusual monk."

The monk laughed and as he did so the lights came on. They blinded me. I threw my hands in front of my eyes to cut out the dazzle. I remember I opened my fingers slowly until I could focus in the glare. The monk slowly appeared to me. Dark veins stood out on his shaven head. He was solid, almost without a neck, the type of man you could tell had heavy bones even without weighing him. He wasn't dressed in saffron but wore black pyjamas like the guards, like the military, like everybody in the damned country. They were too small on him. The shirt pulled tight across his chest.

"Where are your robes, comrade?" I asked.

"They stripped me and burned them. Burned them in the same fire as the books, same fire as all the palm leaf manuscript."

There was no expression on the monk's face but I knew what he felt. I have…had my own cache of valuable old books and the thought of watching them burn fills me with sadness. The monk reached for the shackles at his ankle. He pulled at them angrily like a wild chained dog.

"I tried that," I told him. "No hope unless you've got an oxyacetylene torch there under your shirt."

"I would like to have met you under better circumstances," said the big monk. "What's your name, brother?"

"Siri."

"I'm Yin Keo."

We talked for an hour and the guards had come. They brought gruel for the monk and fetid water for me.

"This is all they give you?" Yin Keo asked when the guards left.

"I'm watching my weight."

"No, then take this," the big monk held out his bowl.

"I can't."

"Serious. Look at me. I have some layers of muscle to burn before I am hungry."

I took the bowl and handed Yin Keo the water.

"I won't say no, then. I'm a little short of nutrients. I'll pay this back in a future life, assuming we both make it through Nirvana."?

But now the monk sleeps and I wish I'd stuck with the water. I chip another corner off the charred blackboard and chew on it. I wonder how it got burnt. I imagine the pupils sneaking into their school in the dead of night and setting fire to it. I imagine how my teeth look. I imagine them to be as black as a cave in an impoverished limestone monument. See how poetic I'm becoming? Give me another month of this and I shall be a posthumous poet laureate. Then they'll honour me. Nothing like death for elevating a man to fame.

They sat in Madame Daeng's noodle shop like ragtag generals in a sweet-smelling war room. Not many of the shops in Vientiane had electricity, even though the hydroelectric dam just sixty kilometres away was pumping out six megawatts of the stuff every day. Most stores and restaurants closed before nightfall so they hadn't bothered to petition their local cadres. But Daeng's noodle establishment was on the same grid as the Banque Pour le Commerce Exterior Lao as well as the Women's Association, so burning brightly above the generals was one very new strip light, not at all dissimilar to the two in Siri's cutting room at the morgue.

Around the table were Siri and Daeng, Sergeant Sihot, Civilai, and Phosy who sat opposite Dtui and the baby. In many ways this group was a small army. They'd fought battles, defeated guileful enemies and suffered wounds. It was Tuesday evening and each of the generals had been too busy in one way or another to get together before this. Spread across the table was a large sheet of sugar paper upon which the names of the three victims had been written like locations on a map. They were labelled with their nicknames and the order in which they'd been dispatched; Dew 1, Kiang 2, Jim, 3. The generals had all sent a discrete and silent prayer to Buddha for not sending them a number four or five over the past two days. The State frowned on soliciting favours from heaven but it seemed to have worked.

Supper over, it was Sihot with his famous frittering notepad who was the first to speak. He had three loose pages laid side by side in front of him on the table.

"Victim number three," he said, flipping up the third sheet. "Sunisa Simmarit, nickname, Jim. Twenty-four. Single. Was trained as a medic in Laos by the Americans. End of seventy-five she was sent to East Germany with the intention of being there six years to be trained as a doctor. Apparently didn't pass her second-year exams and was sent home. Still a medic."

"But a German-speaking medic with two years of medical training," said Civilai.

"More like one, comrade," Sihot corrected him. "First year was mostly language training. Came back in March this year. Was assigned to Settha Hospital, basic nursing duties plus translating for the East German personnel. Three half-days out at K6 looking after the minor ailments of the domestic staff."

"And how did she get that posting?" Siri asked.

Sihot flipped over two of his note sheets like a shell-game hustler looking for the pea. He found the answer under the third sheet.

"Here," he said. "Jim was a Vietnamese speaker. Father Lao. Mother Vietnamese. The old medic broke her leg and they needed someone to fill in for her. With all the Vietnamese out at K6 these days she was the obvious choice."

"So she was a second woman who could communicate with the bodyguards," Phosy reminded them.

"Specifically Major Dung," said Siri who had selected his favourite suspect. "Single woman. Not bad looking. Lao. Just his type."

"And a fencer, to boot," said Phosy.

Somebody let forth a long whistle.

"You don't say?" said Siri.

"And a very good one by all accounts," Sihot went on. "So good, in fact, she won a couple of local competitions in Germany. There was talk of her going on to bigger tournaments."

"All right," said Daeng. She stood up and refilled everyone's after-supper teacups. "We're getting close. We have two fencers and three women in Europe. We have almost enough connections. There's only one that doesn't fit. Any more news about Kiang?"

"Right. That's where the connection gets disconnected," said Sihot. "Kiang was something of a non-sporting type. She didn't take any physical education classes in Bulgaria at all. No self-defence. Nothing."

"That surprises me," said Civilai, "considering the number of life-threatening situations librarians find themselves in. (Daeng crinkled her brow but he pretended not to see.) I mean, overdue book, customer reaches for a machete in her handbag, quick karate chop to the solar plexus, thwack, down goes the rule-breaker, money retrieved. One more victory for Library Woman. Potential rendezvous with Socialist Man. I think I need a drink."

"We get the point, old brother," said Siri. "She does run against the rhythm. Three fencers and the case would be solved. Midnight duels. To the victor, the spoils."

Everyone looked at the two old men as if they were speaking a foreign language. They occasionally forgot where they were and brought one too many European delicacy to the noodle table.

"Odd, though," Dtui said, back at the noodles of the matter. "Two fit girls, both fencers, and one dorky but good-looking librarian." Malee munched obliviously on her mother's nipple and had nothing to add.