Colin Cotterill - Disco for the Departed

“The girl had many suitors but had met nobody like this boy. He was handsome and intelligent and very kind. She was so confident that this was the man she wanted to spend her life with she even told her mother. That, as it turned out, was the biggest mistake she could have made. A foreigner-and a black foreigner at that-whatever could she have been thinking? Her mother was devastated; her father incensed. Word could never get out about their daughter’s insanity. They transferred the girl to another hospital, but the humiliation wouldn’t go away. The blacks had to go. Our friend Dr. Santiago was entrusted with that duty.”

When he heard this translation, the Cuban twirled his hand arrogantly in the air like a musketeer. Siri smiled, shook his head, and continued.

“Fortunately for him, the doctor had experienced his own small disaster around the same time. Some children playing in the tunnels, ones they’d been specifically forbidden to enter, came across a peculiar altar. They told their parents, who reported the matter to the authorities.

“This, Comrade Lit, was the altar I told you about at the Sheraton de Laos. It had been the scene of small sacrifices and the casting of evil spells. It was Dr. Santiago’s personal temple, the shrine at which he practiced his magic, where he put together his potions and curses. Dr. Santiago doesn’t wear his amulets to protect himself from other exponents. He is a devotee. They are his chain of office. The altar had nothing to do with the interns, but, by accusing them of using black magic, showing people the so-called evidence, making up stories about their activities, he was able to turn everyone against them. The Vietnamese were only too happy to accept the possibility that Isandro had bewitched their daughter with his spells.

“To the boys, Santiago was a sympathetic countryman, a kindly old uncle. He told them he believed they were innocent of the accusations, but public opinion had left him no choice but to have them return to Cuba. It was all very neat. The colonel came one day with soldiers to arrest them and transport them by force to Hanoi. Up to that point, everything had gone very well for everyone except the boys. They could have left Vietnam then and that would have been the end of it. Only Isandro’s love for Hong Lan and Odon’s friendship with Isandro were stronger than their will to survive.

“They escaped before they could be put on a plane, and somehow worked their way back to Huaphan. It must have been a journey riddled with difficulties, fraught with danger. No help from anyone-soldiers everywhere who would probably have mistaken them for American servicemen. But they beat the odds. When they got back, they hid where they knew they’d least be expected to, in the old cave of the president. And they brought Lan to stay with them. It was no kidnap. Once she got word from Isandro that he’d returned, the girl had happily conspired with them to arrange her own rescue.

“Isandro and Hong Lan knew by then that her cancer was incurable, that she had no more than two months to live. She didn’t want to spend the last of her days with a mother who taunted her daily, reminded her how she’d dirtied her family name. No, Hong Lan wanted to be with the man she’d fallen in love with. She wanted the last weeks of her life to be the happiest.”

Dtui’s translation flagged as she fought back tears.

“Apart from foraging for food,” Siri continued, “hunting game, and keeping his lover free from pain, Isandro was also gathering his thoughts. There must have been many conversations, the three of them holed up in the cave with nothing much else to do. They knew the altar at the Sheraton had to belong to someone. There weren’t that many Cubans to choose from. Perhaps they heard from Hong Lan that it was Santiago who had made the accusation to her father about the boys. Or perhaps they remembered the rumor about a pretty young nurse, with a fiancй back in her home village, who seemed to have fallen for Santiago. Nobody could understand why she was so eager to fall into the old doctor’s bed.”

Santiago laughed when he heard the translation and asked why Siri was so jealous. Was it inconceivable the old Cuban was attractive to young women?

Siri ignored the comment. “Perhaps they remembered the Cuban accountant who had suffered from an infection of the throat. How they’d questioned the need for a tracheotomy for such a small ailment, then recalled that he had been forced to return to Havana before completing a full audit of the doctor’s books.”

Unseen behind his desk, Santiago had worked open a drawer. At the front was a small wooden box with a colorful Hunan Tea emblem on its top. But the gray powder it contained had taken many months to blend and infuse with magic.

“Or perhaps they’d heard of your own unfortunate run-in with the doctor, Comrade Lit,” Siri continued.

“I don’t think…,” the security head mumbled nervously.

“Come, comrade,” Siri told him. “You have nothing to fear here today. Trust me.”

Lit did draw confidence from Siri’s words. He was angered by the constant grin the old Cuban wore on his face. He sighed and told a story he’d avoided relating to anybody.

“We’d had one of our many disagreements,” Lit began. “They’d told me Dr. Santiago was to be the overall supervisor of the project, but the Vietnamese soldiers were annoyed because he knew nothing about engineering. Some of the decisions he made they considered to be downright dangerous. I remember…”

“Go on.”

“I remember pointing my finger into his face and telling him he was wrong about an important issue. He stared at me and told me that was the last time I’d ever use this finger. He said I was wrong to underestimate his ability. I laughed at him and left, but when I woke the next morning, this finger was already bloodless. In a few days it had begun to wither. I know he did it. I don’t know how, but from that day on I stayed clear of him. I, too, have heard stories of his wizardry.”

“Well, now you know,” Siri said. “And so did Isandro. I imagine he was quite upset when he realized the doctor had set them up and caused them all this hardship.”

“So, if you’re saying the two boys had no connection to black magic, why did Odon have the scratches on his chest?” Lit asked.

“Yes, I admit it took me a while to work that one out. It especially threw me that Odon had the marks and Isandro didn’t. Then I got to wondering what benefit the boys could gain from their knowledge of Santiago’s little hobby. If, for example, they threatened to expose him, write to the project directors in Havana, and tell them what their resident representative was getting up to out here, what did Santiago have to offer them in return? And that’s how we come to the deaths. They all knew Hong Lan would soon die. But Isandro couldn’t bear the thought of losing her. They wanted their souls to be reunited for eternity. Odon told Isandro about an old Palo practice. An elderly couple in a town near his own had taken poison. A shaman had been recruited to unite their souls in death.”

Santiago asked Dtui how her doctor could know such a thing.

“I spent a very pleasant time with Odon last evening,” Siri smiled. “Tell him he’d be surprised at the information two men without a common language can share with the aid of a little mime and a pointed stick.”

Dtui enjoyed translating these words.

The coroner continued. “The Cubans decided if Santiago here was such a great priest, he would know of the ceremony and agree to perform it in return for their silence. But Santiago refused to perform it himself. He did, however, agree to teach Odon. The scratches were a part of the ritual preparation, I imagine. My technical knowledge is lacking from here on. I wonder if the good doctor would be kind enough to talk us through the ceremony so we may better understand what happened that night.”