Colin Cotterill - Disco for the Departed

“She doesn’t need a room,” he tried.

“She isn’t registered. She can’t come in.”

“This is a guesthouse.”

“Not that kind of guesthouse, it isn’t.”

“You mean, the kind that admits guests?”

“Only guests that are on the list.” She was an immovable object. “Rules are rules. Where would we be if we all went around bending them?”

“Quite right. And what is your stance with regard to evidence?” said the irresistible force known as Dr. Siri.

“I… you what?”

“Evidence, comrade. I’m the national coroner. I’ve come north to collect evidence for the president.”

“Evidence is things.”

“It certainly can be things, as you rightly say. It could be photographs or even the spoken word. Or it could be a person who bears evidence.”

“I’m not sure I understand what you’re getting at.”

“This little girl”-he dragged Dtui forward with Panoy in her arms-”is covered in fingerprints.”

“She…? There aren’t fingerprints on people.”

“Obviously you haven’t been keeping abreast of world developments in forensics. Why do you think we didn’t let her shower last evening? According to the law-and I’m also an attorney, so I know what I’m talking about-this little girl is not technically a person. She’s a corpus delicti. In short, she’s my evidence. Naturally, if there were some way to remove the fingerprints from her and take those to the Justice Department, I would do so. But I’m sure you realize how nasty that would be. She is the evidence that carries the prints. So you don’t have to worry about her being registered, do you?”

“I… I don’t?”

“No. Because by the letter of the law, as she isn’t a person, she can’t be a guest.” He winked at her and smiled. He doubted she was silly enough to believe such rubbish but he had given her a way around her rules.

“I… I suppose.”

“I’m sure Comrade Lit of the Security Division will confirm this when he gets here.”

The woman’s left eye looked first at Siri, then at the child. The right eye did so a split second later. Both eyes eventually settled on Dtui. “Why didn’t you tell me this?”

Dtui shrugged. “I’m in medicine. Law’s way above my head. I wouldn’t have known where to start. I was sure, as legal adviser to the president, Comrade Siri here would be able to clear things up for you.”

“Well, yes. I mean. If only I’d known.”

Panoy slept soundly on the spare bed in Dtui’s room. Siri and Dtui sat out front with their feet up on the balcony wall. Dtui had just finished explaining her dilemma. Siri grunted.

“I mean, it is a marvelous compliment,” she said, looking up at the cliff that towered over them like a purgatorial mother-in-law. “I mean to say, it isn’t as if he doesn’t have choices. He’s somebody. He’ll probably keep climbing till he’s-what?-prime minister or something. Women like men with power. But if he got that far, I doubt he’d want me gabbling on about his politics. It would be sure to annoy him. Perhaps I’d be able to tone it down a little. I could run the house and leave the country to him.”

Siri took a sip of his tea and smiled.

“I mean,” she went on, “he’d have to make changes, too. That’s what a good marriage is-compromise. Right? I’m sure you and Boua had to make compromises. And look, you were together for a hundred and some years. It just takes a little work.” She sipped her tea also.

They watched an egret, caught in the light from the balcony, swoop down from a ledge and perform an almost perfect loop-de-loop before continuing its gliding descent. It was worth a comment but Dtui was preoccupied. “I mean, how many offers like this is someone like me going to get? Perhaps I should think about that. If I pass this up, there I’ll be, an old maid with varicose veins and a moustache, always ruing this lost opportunity.”

A little girlish sigh escaped from Panoy, dreaming in the room. Dtui let it fade away then continued. “I suppose the question is which would I regret more, marrying him or not marrying him? My ma says a man is never going to be sweeter than he was on the day he proposed to you. She said that’s the best you get. Once you’re deposited in the wife bank, he never has to make that effort again. He really knocked me flat with his speech, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he got a subcommittee to write it for him. I didn’t see any emotion. He recited it like he was making a presentation to the grand assembly.”

She swung her feet down from the wall and stood with her hands on the balcony railing as if she were about to address a large gathering. “And the damned permission form.” She almost spat out the words. “What arrogance. What spinelessness. Would he have to get Party permission before every decision he made? Everyone at the regional office knew he was going to propose before I did. Is that how he’d run his personal life? ‘Dtui, darling. I think it would be nice if we made love tonight. I’ll just pop down to the Social Relations Committee suboffice and fill out an F27b.’” She blushed. “Ooh, sorry, Doc.” He raised his eyebrows in forgiveness.

“I mean”-she appeared to be on the last lap now- “what kind of creep wouldn’t have the backbone to stand up to a room full of bureaucrats? And who does he think he is-negotiating me into a marriage without any flirting or wooing? Surely a girl deserves that? Perhaps he knew I wouldn’t have any of it. I’d have knocked him back at the first glimmer of a come-on. The shock marriage card was the only one he had to play.

“But this is all academic, Doc.” She looked over her shoulder to see if he was still there. “You know why? Because when I get married, it’s not going to be to somebody who’s suitable or well-off or looks good in a uniform. I’m going to marry someone who turns my insides to soy paste. I’m going to marry someone I hate to leave when I go to work in the morning: someone I miss all day. I’m going to marry someone I love and I’m not going to settle for anything less. I could no sooner love Comrade Lit than I could learn to like this horrible creepy building. No, you self-assured Party machine-go find yourself another ‘suitable’ woman to appoint to the wife position. I’m out.”

She heaved a sigh of relief and sat heavily back onto her chair. Siri put his hand on hers.

“Thanks, Doc,” she said. “I knew you’d sort it all out for me.”

“Glad to have been of service,” he told her.

Mr. Geung had followed the coastline of the Num Ngum reservoir for twelve miles. He’d spent the night in an abandoned fishing hut on the bank. The first thing he noticed when he woke was his own smell. He could hardly remember why he was coated in this dark brown gunk that had hardened to a shell, and the clear water was right there in front of his door. He walked, fully dressed, apart from his boots, into the reservoir. It was a wonderful feeling. Not till he was in up to his neck did he undress. His shoulder stung a little but the cool water soothed his aching muscles, soaked his flaky skin, and washed away his only protection against insects.

What makes the dengue mosquito so deadly is its dishonest use of time. Once the sun dips below the horizon, people know that it’s mosquito frenzy time. They wear long sleeves, put on repellent, and light their coils. At night they sleep under nets. It’s a type of unspoken contract between man and his bloodsucking foe. But the dengue mosquito is a contract breaker. She strikes in broad daylight when you’re sweating in the fields, when you’re swinging on your hammock in the shade, even when you’re sitting stark naked beside Num Ngum reservoir, waiting for your clothes to dry.