Colin Cotterill - Love Songs from a Shallow Grave

He'd left again, this time realising by himself that he hadn't brought back the coffee he'd been sent for. Siri wondered whether the excitement was hostile territorialism or passion. He suspected the former. In fact, it occurred to him that even though he'd been acquainted with Geung for two years, he knew very little of the psychology that made him who he was. Did he have the same emotions as others? How many of his feelings were instincts? Where did his heart settle along the parameters between human and beast? Siri was disappointed that he could work alongside a man and not understand him. Perhaps his library could shed some light on what went on in Mr Geung's mind.

It occurred to Siri that he himself had recently emerged from a long hibernation of ignorance. Suddenly he'd become aware of the deep feelings of those around him. He'd always focused on physical well-being and danced lightly around emotions. He wondered whether this awakening might be just one more stop on his journey through the senses. Was the spirit world leading him on a guided tour through the various rooms of the other world, or had he arrived at the garden of love all by himself like some long-haired hippy ganja smoker? Was he closer to heaven? After all the years of war and killing he'd suffered, with his heart as heavy as mud, was this the natural conclusion? After so many years of hate, there could only be -

Hospital director Suk had interrupted his transcendental train of thought. Siri caught him out of the corner of his eye striding past the office door towards the cutting room. He had a tall foreigner beside him. Siri counted on his fingers, one…two…three…

"Siri, come here!" the director yelled.

Siri smiled, and put on his white coat. It always seemed easier to lie in a white coat for some reason. He strolled casually into the cutting room with his hands in his pockets.

"Siri, can you explain this?" said Suk, pointing at the single strip light overhead and the two vacant fittings. Dtui came out of the storeroom and looked at the doctor, hoping he had an excuse at hand.

"Can you, Comrade?" Siri asked.

"Can I what?" Suk replied.

"Can you explain why those Chinese engineers came to take away our perfectly good lights?"

Dtui smiled and returned to the stores. All was in order.

"Chinese? What Chinese?" Suk asked.

"How should I know?" Siri replied. "They had a work order written in Chinese and the interpreter said something about the wattage of the lamps being inappropriate for the size of the room. She said you'd sent them."

Director Suk spent several minutes in stunted dialogue with the Russian engineer who was clearly upset. Siri stood there, indignant, with his arms folded. He knew the hospital administration had no idea who was donating what and which experts were due when. He was sure this small matter would be lost in the war of dominance between the superpowers. Suk and the Russian walked out of the morgue without another word to Siri.

The doctor thought that incident would be the grand total of excitement for the day. Geung returned again without the coffee and too grumpy to talk to anyone. Dtui left at five to pick up Malee from the creche. Siri did his rounds, closing the louvres in the cutting room and checking the water level in the ornamental flood overflow pond which now sported two attractive lotus flowers. He stacked the papers on his desk and began to write a list of duties to keep his morgue team occupied for the next four days. Halfway through the list he looked up and saw his angel mother in the doorway. He smiled, as was his habit. She chewed betel and frowned, as was hers.

"Hello, darling," he said. "Enough rain for you these days?" He wondered whether spirits felt rain. Did it just pass through them? He'd never seen one with an umbrella. He knew that, apart from mermaids, folk from the beyond couldn't travel on water. That probably explained why so many royalists had crossed the Mekhong, leaving their evil spirits behind on the Lao bank. Beginning a new life on the Thai side. Not realising there was an entire army of equally evil spirits waiting for them over there. Siri's mother didn't reply. She had never spoken. She was a vision without a soundtrack. Siri had become used to his one-sided conversations. He was concentrating on his list.

6. Make inventory of all the body parts we have in formaldehyde in the storeroom.

7. Write justification as to why they're there.

8. If you can't think of any, dig a hole behind the morgue and bury them deep away from dogs (with a few kind words of spiritual praise to the body parts).

9…

"Don't go, Siri."

"What?" Siri looked up, expecting to find a visitor in the doorway but there was nobody there but his mother. The voice had been clear. A woman's voice. An old woman, crackly but clear and loud. He stared at the old lady who sat cross-legged staring back at him, chewing her betel.

"Did you speak?" he asked.

If only she could. It was his dream to talk with them. Enough of these guessing games. Had she spoken? Had the words, 'Don't go, Siri' come from her?

"Don't go where, mother?" he asked.

But she sat and chewed and into her body stepped a large chocolate-skinned man in a nightshirt. He didn't seem aware of the mess he'd made of Siri's mother.

"Good evening, Dr Siri," said Bhiku. "I hope you are talking to yourself because, as you clearly see, I am not your mother."

Mr David Bhiku, the father of crazy Rajid, weighed some 100 kilograms. With his chocolaty gleam and gum-bubble of a nose it was evident he could never be a relative of the doctor, mother or otherwise. Siri rose from his seat to greet his friend but old habits died hard and the Indian buried his head deep into Siri's gut and pressed his palms together in greeting.

"Krishna save us, Bhiku," smiled Siri. "I look forward to the day when we can just shake hands and dispense with all this bowing and scraping. You outweigh me by several sacks of rice. It looks silly."

"Yes, sir. Worth is not decided by weight, Doctor. If that were so I should be kowtowing to every buffalo I meet."

"Come and sit…and not on the floor."

"I am an honoree."

Siri forced him onto the chair and glanced at the doorway to satisfy himself that his mother hadn't been crushed back to life by the big Indian. There was no trace of her.

"I have some tepid tea," said Siri, reaching for the thermos.

"I have already indulged, thank you."

"I haven't seen your son, Jogendranath, for several days. My wife and I are worried. With all this rain and nowhere to sleep…"

"Ah, yes. My son has found a dry place to sleep. Thank you. That's what I'have come to tell you."

"You've seen him?"

"I see him every night," Bhiku smiled. "He curls up like a civet cat beneath the canvas which covers my cooking area at the rear of the restaurant."

Siri raised his eyebrows.

"He sleeps at your restaurant? That's marvellous."

"Most nights, now. Yes. He is reminiscent of a small animal sheltering from the rain. Life to a street son like mine must be very unpleasant if there is no star-filled sky to pull over you when you go to bed. He has not yet built up the confidence to eat the food I leave out for him or to come inside out of the wind, but he's there often. I like to sit on the back step watching him sleep."

"Has he spoken?"

"Sadly, Doctor, my poor son is still mute. But in his dreams the spirits speak through him. I hear them sometimes. In his dreams there are words."

Siri smiled, delighted.

"With just a little more faith, friend, I wouldn't be surprised if you could reach in and pull out those words, bring him back his voice," he said.

"Would that it were so."

"One rung at a time, Bhiku. One rung at a time."

The Indian hadn't been gone more than five minutes. Siri had begun to pack his cloth shoulder bag. The words from his mother still hung at his neck. "Don't go, Siri." He was walking absently towards the door when a third unexpected visitor appeared there. Colonel Phat was tall and gaunt. He smiled warmly with the few teeth he had. He was the Vietnamese advisor at the Ministry of Justice. He and Siri had become close since his arrival in Vientiane. Their opinions of Judge Haeng's suitability for his position had dragged them together.