Colin Cotterill - Disco for the Departed

“I thought you weren’t coming,” Siri said, not bothering to keep his voice down. Most people in the commoners’ section were chatting and having a good time. Socialist microphones had an extra notch to cope with Lao audiences.

“I was busy having two traumatic events,” she told him.

“You saw Lit?”

“That was the first. It wasn’t exactly like breaking his heart. More like disturbing his life schedule. You know what I mean. Actually, I had the feeling our little show this morning might have already put a few doubts in the comrade’s mind about my suitability as a mate.”

“He knows you weren’t involved in any of the shenanigans.”

“Yes, but he must have noticed I wasn’t particularly surprised either. I didn’t scream or fall about in panic. Perhaps that’s what he expects from a woman. He still seemed a little shell-shocked by the whole affair. He didn’t beg me to reconsider.”

“Just as well. You’d already made your decision.”

“Yeah. But it would have been nice to have had a suitor for a couple of months. I might have taken him to a dance or two and shown him off to the girls. I could have introduced him to Ma.”

A blade of accidental static from the microphone cut through the audience. The people hushed guiltily.

“And you spoke to your mother?” Siri whispered.

“Yeah. That was the second trauma.”

“Goodness me. Why?”

“She read me a letter.”

“Bad news?”

“I’m not sure.”

“But it traumatized you?”

“It shocked me out of my bloomers.”

“Are you going to tell me what it said?”

A procession of pink-and-yellow-clad musicians filed down into the orchestra pit with their instruments. It seemed a terrible shame that such pretty costumes should vanish from sight so soon. The sound of music rose from the pit almost immediately, and the elaborate speaker system sent it rolling around the dome of the roof. The chamber vibrated. Natural acoustics, without electronic supplementation, would have filled the cave with a much friendlier sound. Siri felt Dtui’s warm breath as she shouted into his ear.

“It was from the examination board.”

“What did they say?”

“I have to be ready to leave for the USSR in December.”

“You passed?” The overture came to a sudden halt just as Siri whooped with joy into the silence. Some of the senior cadres looked over their shoulders but the commoners laughed as they put their hands together for the unseen musicians. Siri felt no embarrassment whatsoever. He was so delighted he would happily have run up onto the stage to make the announcement public. He kissed Dtui on the cheek and then held on to her hand throughout the concert smiling the whole time.

The proceedings went on into the night. Beautiful Vietnamese ballerinas in army uniforms pirouetted in plimsolls. Acrobats did unthinkable things with chairs. A girl balanced upside down on a donkey, which ran in circles on the stage and pissed on the electric wiring, which smoked briefly. A small choir of angels in red scarves and berets sang Party songs, the ballerinas returned for a rousing dance with rifles, and a North Vietnamese pop star sang a romantic ballad that brought tears to the old men’s eyes.

The final performance of the night was a Lao ramwong dance that snaked down from the stage and collected members of the audience. Civilai was one of the first out of his seat. He waved when he caught sight of Siri, who hoped his friend had left his feathers in Vientiane. Those behind the army cordon were not allowed to join the main snake so they stood where they were and danced in place. Dtui and Siri faced one another, bobbed to the music, and gestured like mismatched reflections in a mirror.

Behind her head, in the shadows of the side caves, in the nooks and crevices, Siri could see the departed assembling. They waited patiently for their turn. Once the old men had gone back to their houses, there was to be an official shindig for the young and the young at heart. As a special dispensation, the young Lao would be able to dance till the early hours. Although the partygoers would suspect nothing, Siri knew the spirits wouldn’t want to miss anything as fantastic as a chance to strut their stuff with the living.

Civilai had no place in his heart for modern music, so he’d flown back to Vientiane directly after the show with the other party poopers. There was room on the helicopter, so he wangled spots for Siri and Dtui. The journey was made all the more pleasant for Civilai by having Siri yelling the events of the previous ten days in his ear above the chop of the rotors. His own life had become so predictable and pointless, it was a tonic to hear Siri’s marvelous tale.

“How come the Vietnamese didn’t find Isandro when they discovered the body of the girl?” Civilai asked; he never let Siri get away with any gaps in his reasoning.

“I have to assume Odon buried his friend first and disguised the grave so it wouldn’t be discovered before the process was complete. He was just about to do the same to Hong Lan when he was disturbed by the arrival of the soldiers.”

“You don’t want to make this a police matter? You have enough evidence against the Vietnamese militia and the guide for murdering Odon?”

“I get the feeling the army will take care of this in its own way.”

“As they seem to take care of everything else.” Civilai almost had all the facts straight in his mind. Only one question remained and he knew the reply would be conjectural. “Any idea how the couple died?”

“The bodies were too far gone to tell. The girl may have died from her disease. If she was still alive, I imagine the lovers drank some poison together once they got to the cave. It was a love pact, after all.”

“And do you honestly believe the hocus-pocus worked and the lovers’ souls were reunited in the afterlife?”

Siri thought again of the locked cupboard and the unseen creature that had escaped from it. “I can’t be sure. But I’d like to think so.”

“After all these years, you’re still a romantic.”

“When you get to our age, older brother, you start to wish you’d devoted more time to romance when you still had the chance.”

“You’re right.” Civilai leaned across to Mrs. Nong and whispered something in his wife’s ear. Whatever it was, it caused her eyebrows to rise and a blush to suffuse her cheeks. She looked out of the far window and smiled uncontrollably.

“I hope you didn’t just make a promise an old fellow like you won’t be able to keep,” Siri said.

Dtui and the doctor had arrived in their crowded suburban shelter for the homeless at 3:00 A.M. The mongrel bitch was still asleep on her nest and a company of geckos were gathered around the porch lamp like three-dimensional wallpaper. The human guests were sleeping, too. Siri did a quick head count and found he’d inherited one new housemate since they’d been away. Apart from Monoluk, Dtui’s mother, there had been Mr. Inthanet from Luang Prabang; Mrs. Fah, whose husband had passed away; and her two children. And now there was a monk, of all things, asleep on Siri’s hammock in the back yard. None of these people stirred.

Siri and Dtui ate and slept a little, but by six they were both as wide awake as the early-rising cockerels on the roof. Then they had to face an inquisition from their housemates. “Who died? How? Who did it?”

Apparently, dull radio dramas weren’t stimulating enough for them. The doctor did as good a job as he could of summarizing their adventures in the northeast, but was glad when the time came for them to leave for work. Halfway into the city, he realized he’d forgotten to ask about the monk, or perhaps he hadn’t been ready to get the reply “What monk?”