Colin Cotterill - Disco for the Departed

But Dtui stood open-mouthed at the sight before her, amazed that in wartime, under a barrage of bombing, such an incredible feat of construction had been achieved. Conduits in the cement floor allowed natural water from the surrounding mountains to pass through the cavern. There were operating rooms and offices off the main chamber and cleverly designed latrines that allowed effluent to flow away from the ward. Then the beam of her lamp caught a shape in the center of the vast concrete floor. It was a body. Its limbs were bent at impossible angles. As they walked toward it, they could see that she had been a woman in her early twenties. From her state they could tell she’d been dead more than twenty-four hours.

Directly above her, weeds dangled from one of the ventilation shafts, a perfectly round hole some two meters across. Siri knew the vent angled upward to a spot on the mountain slope, invisible from the sky, where fresh air would be drawn into the hospital by means of a pump. The pump was long gone, and all that remained was a hole, an almost invisible hole into which some unsuspecting woman collecting berries might drop.

Santiago bent over the body and looked at the dead woman. Dtui translated the words he spoke.

“The doctor’s very impressed. He really wants to know how you were able to find her. But he’s sorry that you were too late to help Miss Panoy.”

“No,” Siri said, strafing his beam across the cavern. “This isn’t Panoy. The spirit of this woman spoke to us through the old Hmong, but she wasn’t talking about herself. She had to be dead already to communicate in that way. There must be someone else here.”

Dtui passed on the message to Santiago, who joined them in a continued search. The water in the old aqueduct had been diverted to the village at the foot of the mountain but the open drains still remained. Water still trickled through them. In some spots they were a meter deep, and that was where Santiago found Panoy. He called her name and dropped down into the channel beside her. She was about four years old. She was seriously injured and weak from hunger, but miraculously she was still alive.

Santiago called up to the others that he believed she could be saved. He climbed from the trench with the girl in his arms and walked quickly through the blue door. Dtui and Siri couldn’t keep up with him. They stood at the entrance and watched the energetic old Cuban scurry down the slope to the new hospital. Dtui put her arm around Siri’s shoulder and smiled at him.

“Nice one, Dr. Siri. How do we explain all this to Santiago?”

“Much as I appreciate the benefits of a good lie, I fear we may have to tell him the truth.”

“You sure? Lying might be easier.”

“Oh, I don’t think that skinny old lion will have a problem with this. I get the feeling he’s seen it all before.”

She turned her head and her light beam drilled into the metal door beside them. “Tell me something. What color is this, Doc?”

“Green.”

“You’re color-blind, aren’t you?”

“If this isn’t green I suppose I must be. I dread to think what else Mrs. Nuts might have passed on to me.”

Panoy was remarkably resilient. There wasn’t much they could do about her cracked ribs but they reset both of her arms and an ankle, stitched a couple of large gashes, and put her on an intravenous drip that would slowly replenish her lost energy. Meej stayed with her to check her vital signs through the night.

Siri, Santiago, and Dtui sat beneath the night sky. It was cold enough for jackets but not so uncomfortable they needed to light a fire. The rice whisky worked well enough to keep the blood flowing. Siri was a bystander while Dtui, with her hard-worked dictionary and a flashlight, attempted to explain Siri’s connection to the spirit world. She told Santiago about the thousand-year-old shaman called Yeh Ming he unwittingly hosted. She told him this spirit was patiently waiting for Siri’s peaceful and natural death so he could retire from the shaman business. She told him about the teeth and the dreams and the white talisman he wore to keep away the evil spirits. During this explanation, Siri watched the reaction of his old friend. It was difficult to read, as if Santiago was organizing the information into compartments. At the end, the Cuban looked at Siri for a few seconds with an expression of pity. He pulled the perennial cigarette from between his lips and surrounded his head with a halo of smoke. Then there was a glint, perhaps of admiration, and finally, Santiago began to laugh. He refilled their glasses and patted his colleagues on the back as if this was the best news he’d heard in a long time.

Siri was once again sidelined while Santiago took his turn to tell another story. Dtui interrupted often to clarify points, looked shocked here, fascinated there, and at the end she sighed and raised her eyebrows. Then there was silence.

“What? What is it?” Siri said, flustered at being left in the dark.

“Oh, hello, Doc. You still there?” she smiled. “Look, I tell you what. I’m a bit tired…”

“Nurse Chundee Vongheuan, if you don’t tell me right this minute…”

She giggled. “Only joking, Doc. Keep your toupee on.” She took a sip of her whisky and settled back to begin Santiago’s story. “Now that the old fellow knows how weird you are, he seems to feel confident enough to tell you what really happened here. It seems there was more to the two interns than met the eye. He was afraid if he told you everything you’d think he was out of his mind, so he’s happy we can all be nuts together now.”

Santiago smiled and looked at Dtui as if he was enjoying the story he had told her anew. He threw back another mouthful of whisky like a fire-eater about to blow forth a torrent of flames.

Dtui began, “In Cuba, it seems, they have their own shamans and strong connections to the spirit world. There are big cults and little cults. Many of the priests of these cults are phony. But there are some that really communicate with the spirits.”

“Does Dr. Santiago actually believe this?” Siri asked.

Santiago laughed again when he understood the question.

“So he says. He strongly believes in the spirit world. He says he’s seen too much in his life that has no scientific explanation. He says if you like, he could spend the next two weeks describing the rites of Palo and-what was it, Santeria?” She looked at Santiago, who nodded. “We don’t want him to do that, do we?”

“I think not.”

“Good. Then I’ll just keep to the point: the reason that he sent the two Cuban orderlies home. It wasn’t because Isandro was fooling around with the local girls. That was a good excuse, something he could write in a report to Havana. But there were other reasons. He was happy with the work they did, so obviously the things he found out about them had to be serious for him to sacrifice two valuable assistants.”

She stopped.

“Well, what were they, these reasons?”

“He didn’t tell me.”

“What?”

“He says he’ll take us to their cave in the morning so we can see for ourselves. Frustrating, isn’t it?”

“Painfully so.”

No amount of pleading and sulking would force the Cuban to change his plan.

They finished their nightcaps and retired to their allotted sleeping spaces in the nearby middle-school classrooms.

Earlier, Siri had been shown his spot, where several nylon quilts were laid out for him at the front of a year-two classroom. Someone had chalked WELCOME VISITOR on the blackboard. But as he approached the room now, he noticed that the door was open and he heard peculiar sounds from inside. Desks were being shifted. Something dropped to the floor and broke. Breaths, deep inhuman snorts. He considered going for help but realized he didn’t know what he needed help for-or from. He grasped his amulet through his shirt and strode to the doorway.