Colin Cotterill - Love Songs from a Shallow Grave

"What if she hates me? What will I do then?" But it was too late to consider the negatives. He raised his fist and banged on the metal. Not one or two polite knocks but thunder, banging so hard that if she didn't come down he would pummel his fist-prints into the steel. He'd hammer a hole in the metal and step inside.?

Daeng might have found rest but she hadn't expected to find sleep. And when the hammering began she gave up on both. Why didn't they leave her alone? She put the pillow over her head. It was musty from the stains of tears. If she couldn't hear the noise perhaps it would eventually stop. But it went on, gnawing through the kapok, 'thump, thump'. And she might have let it continue but for the memory of Rajid on his stool. The possibility that he might be hungry, or ill.

She went to the window. He wasn't there. She leaned over the sill.

"Rajid, is that you?"

The banging continued.

"Rajid?"

The sound stopped.

"Rajid! I'm up here."

Because the view was blocked by the awning, a visitor had to step back into the road to talk to someone at the upstairs window. But he didn't step back.

"It's all right, Rajid. It's me, Daeng. Can I help you?"

A figure stepped from beneath the awning and stood in the deserted roadway, and the breath was sucked from Daeng in one single gust, stolen from her. She fell to the floor fighting to breathe. She bloodied her elbow against the table leg. She felt the tingling of her nerves at her fingertips and in her toes. Her stomach cramped. She was angry, no, furious.

"How dare you?" she called, and climbed to her feet. "I mean, just how dare you?" She staggered to the window. The figure was still there, brazenly haunting her. "I'm not one of you," she cried. "You can't do this to me. Go do your scary stuff somewhere else. It won't work here. I'm past you now."

"Daeng?" the figure said.

"Stop it!"

Her tears had come despite all her efforts to hold them back.

"Stop it and leave me alone."

"Daeng, it's me."

She glared at him through her tears, expecting him to ignite, at least dissolve, something dramatic and ghostly.

Something worthy. But he stood in his inappropriate T-shirt and Bermuda shorts and dripped onto the roadway. "I could really use a spicy number two," he said.

How word got around so fast, nobody knew. But even before the first cock crowed, before the first hornbill cooed, the visitors started to arrive. Some suggested the actual crazy Rajid had seen Dr Siri emerge from the river and had sounded the alarm. Others cited dreams, or instinct, or just an urge to stop by Daeng's noodle shop to see how things were going. They were all shocked but nobody was disappointed with what they found. The loss of weight didn't hurt the doctor's looks any, they agreed. The women said he was even more irresistible. Gaunt was in this year and the scars on his shaved head gave him a rugged demeanour. His timing and coordination might have been off just a tad. He took a moment to consider before answering questions, if he understood them at all. Perhaps he stuttered here and there and gave more inappropriate responses than he used to. He'd only had four hours of sleep before they started arriving.

In fact, he found all the excitement bewildering. Faces jumped in and out of his vision like camera flashes. Some he recalled but most were faded photographs in a forgotten album. Dtui was in focus and clear, as were Phosy and Geung. But when Judge Haeng turned up at nine, Siri was respectful and didn't make any sarcastic comments, which perhaps frightened everybody most. They all agreed that Dr Siri must have walked through the burning peat fields of Satan. They were glad to have him back even if he was…a bit odd. Odd was better than dead. But when they pushed him on what had happened there in hell, Madame Daeng was always around to deflect the questions.

"He'll tell you when he's ready," she said.

The only private conversation she allowed her husband was a brief interlude with Civilai. The old friends stood together in the backyard, staring at the chicken droppings.

"I have something to say, but you're a bit of a moron right now," Civilai said.

"Yes," Siri agreed.

"A bit like taking advantage of a…well, anyway. I suppose 'I'm sorry's as good a place to start as any. I'm sorry I deserted you. Sorry I didn't do more to find you. Sorry I acted like a…Are you laughing?"

"Yes."

"At me?"

"N'yes."

"Why? May I ask?"

"Cause yours an…you're an arse."

"That's probably the medication talking. I'll let it pass."

"It's me talking, you arse. You don't if. I mean. If, the Rouge nabbed you, do you thought I'd have done something else? Something different?"

"Yes, you're a hero. You'd have strolled into the hotel dining room with an AK47 and poked it in Big Brother's belly and insisted they release me."

"Then we…we both be dead. Dumb idea. Doing nothing's not worse than doing something stupid, isn't it? You used your brain. I didn't. I de…deserve to be…you know."

"I just feel — "

"You did everything that was humanly poss…possible."

They stood for a few more seconds studying the droppings. Civilai coughed and turned back towards the shop.

"Nice cliche," he said.

"I'm b…brain damaged. It's the bes…bes…best I can do."?

Before ten, to the vocal displeasure of a shop full of people, Daeng decided that the circus was over. The doctor needed his rest. When the last hanger-on was shoved into the street and the shutters were closed, she took Siri by the arm and led him up to the bedroom.

"I could tell them," he said.

"You aren't telling anyone anything until I hear it first," she told him. "I don't care if the president himself arrives by helicopter. I'm not letting him in. Come! To bed with you."

Siri laughed.

"I don't think — " he said.

"Oh, wipe that conceited smirk off your face, Siri Paiboun. Look at you, scrawny bruised old man that you are. You think I'd be interested in anything but watching you sleep?"

"I've had…I mean, I've slept enough."

"Four hours? That was barely long enough to get those puffy eyes closed. You've barely the energy to speak. You have a month to catch up with. And I want you rested so you can keep something down. I won't have a man throwing up my noodles in my own shop."

"I'm sorry."

"I forgive you."

"But I want, I mean…I want to talk about it."

"And you will, my hero. As soon as I'm ready to hear."

"I'm not treated."

"What?"

"No, tired, I mean. I'm not tired."

"Good. Then lie down here beside me and hold my hand."

He had barely tucked his fingers between those of his wife when sleep poured over him like liquid cement. He slept through the rest of that day and into the night. He missed the dog-howl chorus at ten and the midnight transformer explosion somewhere across the river. It was four a.m. when he finally stretched and groaned and rolled onto his side to see Daeng beside him. The night was bright but the light came from an open room along the hallway. His wife was smiling.

"I dreamed the world was an awful place," he said.

"It wasn't a dream," she told him. "How are you feeling?"

"I don't know. Heavy," he said.

"Do you want to eat?"

"No, Daeng. I want to talk."

And so he began. His speech was still slow but sleep had reorganised his mind. He told her how he'd discovered the letter clutched in the hand of the corpse of the young man from the Information ministry. How he'd decided to pass it on to Civilai because his friend hadn't broken the rules and had a chance to get away. But Siri himself was a marked man. His hours of freedom were numbered. He had been captured leaving his friend's room. He told her how he'd been dragged to the S21 torture camp and charged with spying and subversion. He left out a lot of details, facts he was sure she'd be able to insert herself, but even the abridged version frightened both of them. By the time he reached the night of his escape his whole body was shaking like an old water pump. Daeng had her arm over him to anchor him down.