Colin Cotterill - Killed at the Whim of a Hat

“What is it, pee ?” It was nice to hear him call me ‘older sister’.

“Can you drive me somewhere?”

“OK.”

That’s the way it was with Arny. He’d always do what anyone asked whether he was busy or not. He’d never ask why. He’d always assume you had a good reason, otherwise you wouldn’t have asked. In fact I didn’t have a reason at all, not one I could explain. I just felt having Arny around on this trip might provide a distraction. Sometimes you have to follow your instincts. He was reversing the truck out of the carport when Mair came running out of the shop and stood directly behind us. Arny stamped on the brake.

“Now, what do you two think you’re up to?” she asked, her hands on her waist, John between her feet.

“Going for a drive,” I said. “Won’t be long.”

“I suppose you know how old you have to be before you can drive a vehicle on the main road,” she asked.

“Mair, I’m thirty-two,” Arny told her.

There was a pause, a brief awakening, then, “Well, then that’s all right, I suppose.”

She smiled and returned to the shop. We’d been on the road for five minutes when Arny turned to me.

“That wasn’t a joke, was it?”

“No.”

We turned our heads to admire a hedge of glaring yellow golden trumpet. It probably caused a lot of accidents.

“Do you think she’ll get worse?” he asked.

“No, not at all,” I lied. “All this fresh air and nature and healthy macrobiotic food and calcium. It’s big city pollution that eats away at people’s sanity. There are ninety-year-olds down here who can recall what they had for breakfast on their sixteenth birthday.”

Arny drove, focusing on the white lines.

“That’s because they’ve had the same breakfasts for the past ninety years,” he said.

I laughed. “You’re right.”

“We did the right thing.”

I knew he was talking about following Mair south.

“Yes, we did. She’ll get better. She just needs something to occupy her mind.”

“Yeah.”

We turned at an intersection where towering casuarina trees stood sentry on either side of us. I called it Christmas corner. I was always surprised that evergreen conifers could find it so easy to grow in the tropics. Didn’t they know where they were? I wondered if they had dreams of snow. They looked as out-of-place as us but they thrived. Perhaps we weren’t trying hard enough.

“We stopped being brother and sister,” Arny said.

“We’ve been angry.”

“I think it’s time to let it go.”

“You’re right.”

“It’s good here.”

“I know.”

I doubt whether a more unconvincing exchange had ever taken place on planet Earth. Both of us desperately wanted to believe it but didn’t have the acting skills to make it sound real. Before yesterday I doubt I would have even bothered to make the effort. But since then I’d been introduced to two dead hippies who were now giving up clues, and a dead abbot that nobody was allowed to talk about. I’d checked the wire services, the Web sites, even phoned the Thai Reporters’ Club information line. There was no news of a stabbed abbot. Either Major Mana had tossed out a red herring (a good source of vitamin D) or there really was a press blackout. But the only way to be certain was to go and see for myself. Nowhere in our electoral district was more than fifteen minutes away by truck when Arny was at the wheel.

“Do you think we’ll ever make any close friends down here?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I met some nice policemen today.” He looked sideways at me and laughed. “All right. I know that didn’t sound like me but it’s true.”

“Stop it, pee . I can’t drive and laugh at the same time.”

“Really, I…OK, never mind.”

It was nice to hear him laugh.

Feuang Fa temple was at the top of an incline with one of our rare hills as a backdrop. From the road it didn’t look like anything special but when you got to the top of the dirt track you could clearly see that it really was nothing special. There was a standard, rather dowdy prayer hall to the right, a cramped ordination hall, a gazebo and a stupa. None of these were worth investing adjectives on.

The highlight of the place was a spectacular bank of bougainvilleas on the crest of the hill to the left that followed a path toward the monks’ quarters at the rear. There had been little rain for several months and the plants were ablaze with color. Like Scotch whiskies, bougainvilleas were at their happiest without water.

We were only halfway up the hill when a middle-aged man in a slate gray safari suit and flip-flops stepped out from behind a large pregnant water urn with his hands up. He seemed to be some kind of low-budget sentry.

“Nothing for you here,” he shouted.

Arny braked and we stared at the scrawny man through the windscreen.

“Arny,” I said. “Remain calm. Don’t get into one of your flaps. If it helps, you can put your hands over your ears.”

I rolled down my window and gestured for the man to come to me. His footwear suggested he wasn’t police. I took a gamble.

“We’re hear to collect our father,” I said.

“There’s nobody here,” said the man. His voice and his teeth were great adverts for not smoking. “He’s probably left already.”

“Oh, I doubt that,” I said.

He squared his shoulders at me.

“If I tell you there’s nobody here, there’s nobody here. Just turn around and leave.”

Arny fumbled for reverse gear but I put my hand on his.

“I’m not leaving without my father,” I told him.

“I’ve told y — What does he look like?”

“About thirty centimeters high and silver.”

“What?”

“They cremated him yesterday. If we don’t take what’s left of him home, our Mair will give us no peace.”

The man hesitated. Fortunately he didn’t notice Arny’s look of shock. The sentry gazed once toward the temple, then back at us, then he stepped away and waved us through.

“Be quick,” he said as we passed.

“Thank you,” I replied, wai ’d and wound up the window. “That’s weird, don’t you think? Closing a temple?”

“That wasn’t nice, pee .”

“What wasn’t?”

“Saying our dad’s dead.”

“You mean he’s not? Damn. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Its just…”

“I know. Not respectful. Can’t help but respect a creep who dumps a wife with three little babes.”

“He probably had his reasons.”

“Can’t you hate anyone, little brother? Can’t you just find it in your heart to sprinkle a handful of animosity here and there? This is the first time in thirty-two years our father’s been of any value to you. I think he’d be pleased to hear he’d contributed something, don’t you? Stop right here!”

“I…where?”

“Here. By the handcart.”

Arny pulled over and I opened the door.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“Attacking from the rear.”

I climbed out.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Pull up noisily in front of the prayer hall, go inside…and pray.”

“What for?”

If this had been a Catholic church he could have asked for our normal service to be resumed: careers, social lives, respect, access to decent cheese, but Buddhist temples didn’t do wish lists.

“Just fake it.”

I closed the door quietly and ran behind a bush. From there I could see him pull away with a confused look on his face. I watched him drive over to the prayer hall and park the truck. Four laymen and two monks immediately stepped out of the side office and walked hurriedly toward him. They surrounded my brother like housecats round a rat. I have no idea what he said but I saw the truck door open, the men stand back, and Arny walk, shoulders hunched, into the prayer hall. A second later he reappeared, kicked off his sandals and went back in. Religion. It’s been a while.