Colin Cotterill - Disco for the Departed

“That would be nice,” Dtui countered with a typical Lao Band-Aid smile that covered no end of emotional cuts and bruises. “But it’s work, I’m afraid.”

“Work, eh? That’s what I always told my missus when I was going off for a little weekend R and R,” Officer One confessed proudly. “What work is it you do exactly?” Dtui frowned but didn’t snap. Siri was impressed by her composure.

“I’m a nurse. My boss is a surgeon.” She decided nothing would be gained by telling them she was Siri’s trainee at the morgue, and that he was the national coroner of Laos.

“So they’re here playing doctors and nurses,” said Officer Two, producing even more exaggerated laughter from his mates.

It occurred to Siri that these men were trying too hard, being too blokey, and the reason was obvious to him. They were afraid. Despite their bravado and their unreasonable expectations, they were in enemy territory, and all they had as a weapon was this false camaraderie.

Siri was concerned about their families. He wondered how their wives and children would survive with their breadwinners breaking rocks on a road gang. “Is the Justice

Department taking care of your kin while you’re up here?” he asked.

Officer Two thought that was a very funny question. “They haven’t paid us a brass kip since they took over.” There were no coins in Laos, so a brass kip would have been worth even less than a paper one. That, in turn, presently stood at six to the U.S. cent. On the occasions there was money available, a policeman under the new system would have received seven thousand kip a month plus a small rice ration.

“Then how do you live?”

“Oh, we have resources. Some of us managed to put small nest eggs together under the old regime. We sent money out of the country. We anticipated the damned Reds coming in and messing things up.”

“Look, I don’t want to throw you gentlemen into some hysterical panic here but I’m one of those nasty Reds who spoiled your party,” Siri said.

Officer Two blushed. “Really? Sorry. You didn’t look like… Then, what are you doing here? I mean…”

To undo the damage, Officer One hurriedly asked Dtui where she and the doctor were based.

“Mahosot Hospital.”

“Then you’re a long way from home, too.”

“You aren’t kidding,” Dtui said. “I haven’t been outside Vientiane for twenty years. It’s so exotic up here.” She cast a sideways glance at Siri. “I’m looking forward to seeing my first pog.”

“Your first what?”

“Pog. My ma used to tell me about them when I was little.” Siri looked away so the policemen wouldn’t notice his smile.

“Can’t say I’ve ever heard of them,” the officer confessed. “What are they?”

“You can’t be serious. You haven’t heard of a pog? I admit they’re rare, but up here in the northeast the animals are never penned up. They all roam around together- the chickens, the dogs, the goats, the pigs. With animals being the way they are, there’s a fair amount of experimentation that goes on, if you know what I mean.”

Siri could control his face no longer. He got to his feet and walked over to the front steps to look at the full moon reflected hazily on the surface of the pond. He chuckled under his breath but made it sound like a cough.

Dtui continued at her most convincing best. “And here in Huaphan, probably due to the altitude, or, some say, the sulfur in the water, on occasions, the union of a randy male dog and a sow produces…”

“You cannot be serious.”

“I swear on my brother’s life. I’ve seen the photos. They have the face of a pig and the paws and tail of a dog. I can’t believe you don’t know about them.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard of ‘em,” said Officer Four.

“You haven’t,” said Officer Two.

“Now you mention it, I might have seen one on a farm just outside Tha Reua. Didn’t know what it was, though. Odd-looking thing,” recalled Officer One.

“That’s right,” said Dtui, “and up here they’re everywhere. If you see one around perhaps you could grab it for me. I’d love to take one back for my ma.”

“No problem,” said Officer Four, “I imagine they’re really easy to catch.”

“Well, I’m afraid we have to get up early,” said Officer Two, who obviously knew his curly tail was being tweaked. He stood and stretched painfully like a first-time jogger. The others stood also. “We have an hour of tilling to do starting at six in the morning.”

He still sounded like a tourist on an adventure holiday. Siri walked back to the group. “You be careful where you dig. There are unexploded bombs all over this area.”

The officer chuckled. “I very much doubt they’d send us into a minefield, Doctor.”

“You just be careful. I don’t want to spend tomorrow sewing legs back onto foolhardy policemen.” Although he said nothing more, Siri could think of few more effective mine-clearance techniques than sending a chorus line of corrupt Royalist policemen across a field with shovels.

“Have a good night’s sleep, you two,” said Officer One with a wink. The others laughed and walked off to their dorm room, leaving Siri and Dtui alone on the patio. Dtui poked out her tongue when they were out of sight.

“Creeps,” she said.

“Just victims of the money culture,” Siri said. “They’ll change. Taking away a man’s comfort strips him down to basics, lets him see what he really is. Suddenly finding oneself with nothing can add a dimension. If they survive the cold and the hunger and diseases up here, they’ll be more real than they are now, more humble.”

“Ah, you’d find primroses in a pile of poop, Dr. Siri. I’m sure you would. But they won’t change.”

“Have a little faith, Dtui.”

“Once a pig, always a pig.”

Siri raised his bushy eyebrows. “Unless it’s a pog.”

Once their laughter had died down, they sat looking up at the crags that blended into the night sky.

“Do you think we’ll get a chance to do some sightseeing?” Dtui asked.

“Who knows? We don’t even know why we’re here. They might have us bumbling around all over the northeast. Why, where do you want to go?”

“Ma says there’s a temple up near Xieng Khaw with a relic of the Lord Buddha.” Siri gave a wry smile. “What?”

“Which particular relic is it this time, Nurse Dtui? A tooth? A severed toe? An eyeball?”

“You’re an old cynic,” she huffed. “I’m not telling you.”

“Cynicism has nothing to do with it, dear. It all comes down to mathematics and physiology. Just count the temples around Asia that claim to have an actual bit of the Lord Buddha or his footprint. If all their boasts were true, his holiness would indeed have been a sight to behold. There he’d be, plodding around the countryside with feet the size of water-urn covers, a couple of thousand teeth crammed into his mouth, and toe- and fingernails shedding like the hair off a rabid dog. It doesn’t bear thinking about. No wonder people followed him.”

Dtui shifted to the far side of the table. “Where are you off to?” he asked.

“Nowhere. Just don’t want to be sitting beside you when the lightning hits you.”

Siri laughed. “You obviously haven’t been paying attention at your political briefings, comrade. Unless you count the politburo, there are no gods. Even if a real one were able to sneak under the Party barbed wire, he’d be a grounded god. They’ve decommissioned fire and brimstone.”

“No God? I bet your old Karl Marx didn’t make this scenery.”

“Heretic.”

“It is lovely up here though, Doc.”

“It certainly is, when you have time to enjoy it.”