Colin Cotterill - Disco for the Departed

As they neared the caves, Santiago told Dtui about the locals’ resilience in the face of massive military offensives. The natives always seemed to have smiles on their faces during the air raids. He laughed as he told her how, early in the conflict, the American secretary of state had described Vietnam as a hog and Laos as no more than a wart on that hog. “But look how much trouble that little wart made for the great Americanos.”

When they arrived at the front of the cave, Santiago introduced them to the Sheraton. It was even chalked there on the overhang: SHERATON DE LAOS. They’d brought their headlamps with them and they switched them on as they walked through Reception, a large, high-ceilinged cavern where most of the locals had stayed. Santiago led them to a smaller room that had once housed the Cuban contingent. It was empty now and there were no posters or mementos or signs of life other than a few scratched calendars here and there.

Santiago had stayed here when the work was going on at the hospital, he told them. It was a joint Vietnamese-Cuban project but the Viets had their own cave and they didn’t mix much with the Cubans. It was on this project he’d first met and locked horns with Comrade Lit. Before he was promoted to head of security for the region, Lit had been the overseer of the Vietnamese engineers. The Cubans had skills and a good deal of knowledge, but from the beginning, Lit seemed to treat them like country bumpkins, no better than assistants. When his superiors informed Lit he was supposed to take orders from Dr. Santiago, that the doctor was to run the hospital project, Lit lost face. Santiago believed that Lit had never been able to forgive him for that.

Dtui was having trouble keeping up with him, so Santiago agreed to simplify both his language and his explanations. He told them that in the beginning, he’d considered the negritos to be friendly men, always in a happy mood. They worked hard and were good at their jobs. But Santiago had started to hear rumors, bad rumors from his staff. His country, as well as Haiti, had a tradition of black magic going all the way back to Africa. In Haiti it was known as Voudoun; in Cuba, Palo Mayombe. Cubans believed that Palo remedies could cure all ills. They could charm a lover and even change the ugly into the beautiful. Dr. Santiago joked that he obviously hadn’t sampled that particular remedy.

In general the remedies did no harm. Many Cubans tried them just as the average person in Laos might read a horoscope. Some visited their shaman for counseling and a chance to have a chat. Some famous Palo Mayombe shamans were known to perform miracles. Most did only good for their communities. But there was a small cult, a branch of Palo, which was very dark. It was known as Endoke, a word derived from the name of the darkest spirit, which utilized sacrifices and bloodletting to invoke the spirits. Santiago had known patients who had suffered as a result of Endoke.

They were standing in an eerie cave where the only light came from the lamps on their own foreheads. With the sound of water dripping echoing around them, Santiago’s words were beginning to give Dtui the creeps.

“So,” Siri summarized, “the rumors were that the two men, Odon and Isandro, were practicing this Endoke.”

Dr. Santiago nodded. At first he’d done nothing; he knew that Cubans liked to make up stories, just like the Lao or the Vietnamese, to entertain their friends around a campfire or to scare the children to keep them from wandering off. But one day, a nurse came to Santiago and led him deep into the mountain in which they now stood. Asking Siri and Dtui to follow him, he walked off into the darkness.

The caves tunneled into the karst, narrowing as they proceeded. Dtui looked forlornly at Siri. Only a few months earlier, the pair had been involved in a horrific case that had taken them into tunnels such as these. Few sane people would knowingly set off down such dark passages again before that trauma had worked its way out of their systems. Siri paused and looked back at Dtui. “Are you up for this?”

“You know me, Doc. Anything for a laugh,” she answered without convincing either of them. They scurried after Santiago’s retreating light beam, Siri bringing up the rear. Fortunately, they didn’t have to venture too deeply into the mountain. Santiago seemed to know his way around the caves and they soon found themselves at their destination.

The Cuban stopped and stood back, letting the light beam do the explaining for him. They were at a dead end that formed a natural altar with a ledge. Unreadable symbols were chalked on the wall, and mud had been fashioned into an ornate frame around them. Siri took a step forward and shone his light onto the ledge. He leaned over and sniffed at the dark stain that began on the shelf and dribbled down, in parallel lines, from its edge.

Santiago confirmed that it was blood: this was a sacrificial altar. When he’d first seen it, there had been other objects around it including a cauldron, he said, but someone had removed everything.

Dtui scrunched up her nose. “Well, at least this ledge isn’t wide enough to sacrifice people on.”

Santiago explained that most basic Endoke spells only required the blood of chickens and pigs.

“So, apart from cruelty to animals and depletion of food stocks,” Dtui suggested, “Isandro and Odon weren’t really dangerous.”

But when she translated her comment for the Cuban, he became irate. He took Dtui’s hand in his as he explained just how dangerous they had been. The blood from the animals they sacrificed was intended to call down spells of heavy black magic to satisfy the desire for revenge. Endoke was a magic of vengeance. If you stole a man’s wife, he would curse you. If you killed a man’s brother, he would damn you to sufferings even worse than death. One should never dare to cross an Endoke priest.

Dtui had just asked whether Santiago believed these two men actually had such powers when, from the corner of her eye, she noticed Siri’s hand reach for the amulet beneath his shirt as he stared back into the darkness. Santiago, however, was looking at the altar as he told her that he believed the markings she’d found on their mummy were known as “The Scratches,” the symbol identifying those who practiced the dark arts. Once he’d discovered their altar, he had confronted the two men in his office one day, forced them to take off their shirts, and had discovered their ritual scars. That was when he had-

“How many?” Siri asked. He’d removed his flashlight headband and was squinting back in the direction from which they’d walked.

Dtui didn’t even bother to translate the question. “Three on each side, Doc. Come on. Keep up. I’ve told…” She suddenly realized the question wasn’t directed to her. Siri wasn’t involved in their conversation at all. She shone her flashlight beam into the empty tunnel. The light seemed to snap Siri out of a trance.

“One of them is coming,” he said to Dtui.

“One of whom?”

“The spirits of the negritos.”

She was reluctant to translate this but she owed it to Santiago. The old doctor seemed to take the news even worse than she did. He backed up against the altar, his black-olive colored eyes flitting back and forth across the darkness.

“Should we do anything?” Dtui whispered.

“No,” Siri told her, still looking down the empty tunnel. “She says there’s nothing for us to worry about.”

Dtui didn’t want to know who “she” was. She took hold of Siri’s arm and held her breath. Behind her she could hear the Cuban muttering. She moved her head from side to side but her flashlight was useless. Only Siri could see the visitor.

He was naked and black as pitch. His face was a gathering of ill-matched features. He came loping urgently toward Siri and stood in front of him. Although Siri assumed this was the smaller of the two men, he still had to tilt his head upward to look into the man’s empty eyes. And there they stood, neither seeming to know what to do next. The black man became frustrated and grew angry. He seemed to look over Siri’s shoulder at Dtui with unconcealed fury. He raised his fist as if to strike her and bared his teeth.