Colin Cotterill - Slash and Burn

“You take it, little sister,” he said. “This is the first chance I’ve had to eat.”

So, once again, Peach assumed the mantle of interpreter. She explained that Major Potter had planned a small activity as an icebreaker for the two sides to get to know each other. It was an adaptation of the game charades, of which none of the Lao apart from Siri and Civilai had heard. Siri gritted his teeth. For charades to be fun-if it ever truly was-you had to be three sheets to the wind, not hungover and stone-cold sober at breakfast. But there was no fighting it. Sergeant Johnson, perhaps the blackest live man Siri had seen in Laos, handed out cards apologetically. He was a marine based at the US Consulate in Vientiane. He had a booming sugary voice. He leaned into his walk like a meatless Nebraska Man in a hurry to catch up with evolution. But his gait put his smile out in front of him and it was a marvelous smile. It fitted on that handsome face with its gleaming eyes that took in everything around them.

The names of all those in attendance had been written in both Lao and English and the cards had strings attached so they could be hung around the neck.

“Oh, heaven help us,” said Civilai. “Didn’t the Chinese do something like this during the cultural revolution? What humiliation.”

“Get into the spirit, brother,” Siri said.

“If only I could.”

But to make matters worse, the Americans all stood and pushed their tables and chairs back to the wall. The Lao assumed they were supposed to do the same so the moment arrived when both teams were standing facing each other with no barriers between them. The symbolism was poignant. Whether this was his idea or a directive from Washington nobody would know, but Major Potter stepped forward and said, “ Kwoi soo Harold.”

The Lao looked on in amazement. Had the major actually announced in Thai that he had a fighting penis? It was a bold statement if true. But they racked their brains for another possible meaning. It was Dtui who found it.

“Ah, koi seu Harold,” she said. “My name is Harold.”

The Lao echoed the utterance in relief and the ice began to break quite accidentally and all by itself. You couldn’t go downhill from there. The point of the game was to give your name in English and Lao and then mime what you did for a living for the other team to guess. The major launched into a gala performance of marching and shooting and saluting and the Lao kept silent. Everyone knew he was a retired major but they wanted to draw out the embarrassment. Oddly, the more he mimed the happier he appeared to be and the more the US contingent laughed. They were an amusing bunch with apparently no shame at all. It was Judge Haeng who finally called out enthusiastically, “He’s a soldier.”

This was translated and the Americans and Mr. Geung applauded and whooped.

“He’s a soldier,” laughed Mr. Geung.

This delighted the Lao who were now officially into the spirit of the moment. Even General Suvan came to for the event. His mime of a soldier was remarkably similar to that of the major, albeit slower, but he was delighted when somebody guessed correctly and he slumped back into a chair from the exertion. The game continued and was a success at many levels. Civilai had several lewd suggestions, none of them translated by Peach. All on the American side knew that Daeng was having a joke with them when she mimed that she was just a noodle seller and Mr. Geung could not resist adding sound effects as he sawed through the rib cage of an imaginary corpse. Peach was the last to go. Her hand gestures of two people talking led to Mr. Geung’s guess that she was a duck farmer and that heralded the biggest laugh of the morning.

By the time they were due to file out of the dining room, despite the odds and the temperature, there was no ice left to break. The two groups merged and mingled and attempted their few words of the others’ language. They shook hands and smiled and laughed at nothing in particular. If only the war had been conducted under similar rules.

Only one man, it seemed, was not humming the melody of peace and love. To date, Judge Haeng had not engaged Siri in conversation. In fact they hadn’t spoken since before the doctor made changes to the team list. But here, with everyone in a milling mood, he made a beeline to the old coroner and grasped his left hand like a claw crane engaging a sack of rice. He smiled, but not for Siri’s benefit.

“I haven’t had a chance to thank you for adulterating the personnel list that I’d spent a month finalizing,” he snarled behind his teeth. “I don’t know how you did it, Siri, how you forced the minister’s hand on this, but I promise you I will not forget it. Never. I’m the wrong man to get on the wrong side of and you are firmly on that side, Siri Paiboun. You have tossed able men and women from this work detail, respectable cadres with status and influence and you have replaced them with morons and housewives and senile sociopaths.” (Siri took the latter to mean Civilai rather than himself.) “And you embarrass me further by including my name in your circus ring. It’s all too too bad. A good communist does not shake his comrade by the hand and stab him in the back at the same time.”

Siri matched the man’s smile.

“I imagine I’d need a very long knife with a curve on it to achieve such a feat,” Siri said. “Or perhaps a scythe. Yes, that might work. Otherwise I’d have to let go of the hand then run round the back. But, by then you’d know what my intention was, wouldn’t you.”

“What are you…?

“Dear Judge Haeng, I don’t need to do anything behind your back. If you ever threaten me again with your menacing handshake, or insult my friends and family, you’ll have me to deal with face to face. What you’ve experienced of me so far is nothing compared to what you’ll get if you don’t back off. You aren’t my boss any more. You’re just another annoying civil servant.”

He removed his hand from its clammy nest, and left a fuming judge smiling at himself.

Before heading off to the helicopters, Major Potter singled out Cousin Vinai from the herd and put his arm around the interpreter’s shoulder as if they’d been friends for years. The major yelled to get everyone’s attention, pointed at Vinai and said a few words. There was something in Vinai’s eyes that Siri recalled witnessing in the expression of a deer they’d cornered in a deadend gorge during the fighting. It was that “on a spit by supper time” look. He gazed around desperately for Peach but she was nowhere to be seen. He was on his own.

“The … er, major would like to say how impressed he is with the record of the Pathet Lao over the first three years of their administration,” said Vinai.

Judge Haeng and General Suvan clapped but a worm of suspicion had already crawled through the minds of the other onlookers. Siri looked at Dtui who shook her head. Major Potter spoke again. Vinai, still scanning the room for Peach, said, ‘The major is saddened when … he sees so much destruction in this area … caused by the bombing.”

Haeng and Suvan clapped again. Siri sighed.

“Vinai, please tell the major we’re interested to know whether he’s been to Laos before,” Civilai shouted.

“No, this is his first trip,” said Vinai, without translating.

“Ask him,” said Civilai.

“I…?”

“Ask him.”

Vinai turned to the major, looked up into his puffy face and spoke very quietly. Potter listened attentively then seemed to ask for clarification. Vinai spoke again. The major removed his arm from Vinai’s shoulder and looked around, presumably for Peach. The American spoke once more, slower, enunciating every word with such precision that Mr. Geung could have understood it. Vinai, aware now that his grasp on credibility was slipping, said, “The major was here … on holiday.”