Colin Cotterill - Slash and Burn

“So you were in the foreign service?” Civilai asked. “I knew it. I just knew it.”

“How?”

“Your confidence. Your way with words. The way that the common people just naturally relate to you.”

Peach’s eyes had rolled so many times they should technically have been on the other side of the room by now. But Civilai urged her onward.

“It’s true,” said the senator. “I do feel a great deal of love from the little people. I guess that’s what spurred me forward when times were hard.”

“We could have used skills like yours in this region.”

“Oh, I was here, of course.”

“You were?”

“Didn’t you know?”

“No.”

“Goodness me, yes. I was in Vietnam during the war. If I hadn’t been so valuable at the embassy I would have enlisted. As it turned out I took over the role of my Uncle Edwin. I was in Saigon for two years. Just a small administrative position.”

“He was in Saigon for two years,” said Dtui, reading her notes about Major Potter. “He was the military attache there. It seems he did a lot of the hiring and firing of advisors. Pretty powerful. But it appears his drinking habit started over there too. Looks like he couldn’t handle the pressure.”

“Wasn’t Sergeant Johnson in Saigon?” Daeng asked.

Dtui went back over her notes on the original CVs.

“He was there from sixty-five to sixty-eight.”

“And Major Potter?”

“Sixty-six to sixty-eight.”

“If they knew each other they didn’t say,” said Daeng.

“I imagine the place was overcrowded with men in uniform,” said Siri. “It’s possible they didn’t run into each other.”

“Another coincidence, though,” said Phosy.

“And if Potter was doing all the hiring and firing, and Johnson was applying for a pilot position, you’d think they’d at least have heard of each other,” Siri added.

Auntie Bpoo emerged from the bathroom at last and Siri noticed Dr. Yamaguchi squeeze her hand as she passed. No accounting for taste.

“That’s it for Potter,” said Dtui. “We just have a few words about Senator Bowry. It seems the war was good to him, too. He’d been struggling with a little family import business, teak furniture from Asia mostly. A lot from Thailand. Then in the late sixties I guess the teak business took off. Made a lot of money. He invested his profits in real estate and the next thing you know he’s stinking rich. He used his money to get into politics.”

“That was certainly a meteoric rise from embassy clerk to senator in the space of ten years,” said Civilai. “How did you achieve that?”

“Not a clerk, exactly-senior administrator, more like. I admit I had some pull. And those were war years. Crazy times.”

“ He means all the good guys were dead ,” Peach added outside the confines of her translation. She’d learned a thing or two from Auntie Bpoo. Civilai didn’t react.

“A man of a certain … stature could rise through the ranks back then,” Vogal continued. “It’s not so easy now. I had an excellent track record, clearly defined political goals and a respected family name.”

“ And shit loads of money and a pretty wife ,” Peach contributed. She was losing control. It was time for Civilai to go on the offensive.

“So, you were a senior administrator at the embassy…?”

“I was dealing mostly with the movement of personnel.” The senator remembered his watch. It was barely eight.

“Of course, Saigon.” Civilai nodded knowingly. “I imagine everything was open and above board there. No shady dealings whatsoever.”

“We did our best to maintain a certain transparency, it’s true.”

“Not like in Laos then.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m afraid you Americans weren’t quite as transparent over here. In fact, I’m tempted to say your money was responsible for buying and selling several coalition governments that didn’t suit your fancy.”

A US Republican senator in a locked room. Civilai felt a warm glow. The senator’s smile was as fake as a Giaconda with blonde highlights. He took up a tone of syrupy condescension.

“Oh, Mr. Civilai,” he said. “You have to remember that you were in an information cocoon here in the wilds of Laos. You couldn’t possibly know just how much good the US was doing for your country. It’s common knowledge to anyone outside of Red Indochina that the vast majority of our budget for Laos was spent on aid.”

Civilai laughed, which caused the senator’s brow to rise and his wispy comb-over to flop across his field of vision.

“The vast majority of your budget went on B-52s and ordnance,” said Civilai.

“A common misapprehension,” said Vogal without missing a beat. “But with all due respect, Mr. Civilai, you can’t honestly believe your own propaganda machine.”

“Then let’s look at the statistics. Perhaps we can believe the US embassy budget release for the fiscal year 1970, just as an example. I have a copy in my room if you’d care to see it.”

“How could…?”

“Your total expenditure in Laos for that year was $284 million….”

“It-”

“… $162 million of which was tagged as military assistance. Only $50 million-which a cursory calculation tells me is around eighteen per cent of your total budget-was assigned to aid.”

The senator cast a desultory gaze at Ethel Chin who returned to her novel.

“That’s still a considerable humanitarian effort in anybody’s book, sir,” he said.

“Except in your book,” Civilai continued. “Humanitarian aid included feeding the Royal Lao Army and several thousand irregulars. What little remained was pumped into a refugee program that wouldn’t have been necessary if you hadn’t bombed a third of the population out of their homes.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. The refugees in Laos were fleeing communism. They were escaping the atrocities that you people inflicted upon them.”

“There are members of the US senate who’d disagree with that view.”

“What are you talking about?”

“In 1969, the findings of a US subcommittee headed by Senator Edward Kennedy were that some four-hundred-thousand refugees in Laos were dispossessed as a direct result of US bombing.”

“Sir, Kennedy is a Democrat with undisguised communist leanings. He couldn’t … and besides….” The senator had found himself backed into a broom closet of an argument but he didn’t get where he was today by conceding defeat. “Look, my wound is causing me some concern here,” he said with a wince. “I need to take my medication and get some sleep. I do honestly hope we have an opportunity to continue this fascinating discussion at some future date. It’s been a delight, sir, an absolute delight.”

“You were amazing,” said Peach.

“Yes, I get that a lot,” Civilai replied. They were walking along the corridor in the direction of the dining room. One of the new guards from in front of Vogal’s door was marching along behind them.

“How do you remember all those facts and figures?”

“I don’t.”

“But you … you made them up?”

“I think I hit the general ballpark, as you folks say. But the nice thing about facts is that you can toss them in here and there merely to win arguments. It doesn’t matter if they’re accurate. Just look confident and hope your opponent doesn’t have a photographic memory for figures. I didn’t lie exactly. The Kennedy thing was true.”

“See why I want to be on your side?”

“Even in our information cocoon?”

“Sure. It feels a lot warmer in here.”

You could taste the soot. It was so thick in the air it was like waking up in a house fire-a bitterly cold house fire. Siri sat on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands, wheezing for breath. The room was blacker than the soot it contained, as black as the inside of a sarcophagus. And all felt odd. His instincts told him that everything was in the wrong place-a mirror image of his actual room. The window was open but he was certain they’d shut it before retiring. There was no breeze or light through the loosely pulled curtains, just a mellower shade of black that showed the general shape of the window and drew very faint outlines here and there around the room. He kicked something with his heel. Between his legs an object protruded from beneath the bed. He reached down. A crate.