Colin Cotterill - Disco for the Departed

Vieng Xai was an odd place for the capital of the new regime. The streets were laid out in a wide grid, enclosed by the crags beneath which the old soldiers had spent ten years of their lives. This was the view they had seen every day from their caves and to them it represented freedom. Four years earlier it had been a vast, empty expanse of rice fields. For fear of daylight raids, the locals hid until the sun went down and came out to tend the fields at night. But with the cease-fire, the comrades emerged from their mountains and began to build their dream. They’d imagined constructing a grand city as a fitting monument to their years of struggle.

But Laos was more than Huaphan province. It was a country of some three and a half million people. There were no available current figures, and as many as five hundred thousand might have fled to Thailand, but the bulk of the population remained in and around the capital. Once the Pathet Lao had marched triumphantly into Vientiane to claim the country for communism, Vieng Xai suddenly seemed remote and inaccessible. To run a country, you had to be where the people were. They weren’t in Huaphan, and they didn’t appear to be in Vieng Xai. Two more guesthouses and a market were under construction here but the bamboo scaffold was green with moss. There was a feeling that this was a project on hold, a dream that had been half forgotten at sunrise.

Beside the market site stood a single shop that sold feu rice noodles in bowls deep enough to bathe a small baby. Siri and Dtui ate heartily with their left hands and fought off flies the size of coat buttons with their right. Lit had already eaten so he watched his guests conducting their breakfasts as he told them why they were there.

“We probably wouldn’t have found it at all,” he began. “Every now and then, rocks at the top of the karsts come loose. Some that were hit by rockets take their time before falling. We think that’s what happened in this case. A big hunk of rock came crashing down onto the concrete path we’d laid from the cave to the new house. You’ll notice, Doctor, most of the senior comrades have built houses in front of their old caves.”

“Hm. Not wanting to leave the womb. It’s common in primates,” Siri said. “And whose cave are we talking about here?”

“The president’s. He’s due back here in a little over a week so the Party really needs to work out what happened before he arrives.”

“Right,” Siri said. “So the rock struck the concrete path…?”

“And there it was, sticking out of the broken section.”

“What was?”

“The arm.”

“And is there a body attached to it?” Dtui asked. She wiped her mouth with a napkin and abandoned the last of the broth to the flies.

“We don’t know.”

“Why not?” asked Siri.

“Well, the arm’s sticking out of the concrete so if there’s a body in there, we’d have to break up the rest of the path to get to it.”

“And you can’t do that because…?”

“Because there are very strict regulations about making alterations to government-initiated structures. We had to submit the request forms to Vientiane to ask for permission. They said we had to wait for you.”

“I see. I hope you’ve covered the arm. The flies up here have quite an appetite.”

“We tied a plastic bag over it. I’ll take you up there when you’re ready. We can stop off and pick up a couple of laborers and tools on the way.”

“Then, let us not keep our cement person waiting. Finished, Nurse Dtui?”

“Ready when you are, Dr. Siri.”

You didn’t have to travel very far out of Vientiane before the road turned to pebbles and potholes. Traveling in a truck was like falling down an endless flight of uneven steps in a coffin. They’d passed the turnoff at kilometer 6 where the old U.S. compound had been recycled into a resort for communist politicians. They’d just reached the intersection that led to the National Pedagogical Institute at Dong Dok when Mr. Geung came around. He was thumped out of his stupor when the front wheel dropped into a deep rut. Although his mind was still back at the morgue, he found his body lying on a blanket on the wooden boards of an old truck. Above him were the open sky, a vicious June sun, and two rows of knees. He lay in an aisle of black boots that stank of polish. The toe caps penned him in so tightly he could do nothing but lie still stiffly and wonder where he was and whose were these legs that ended at the knees? He lifted one arm and waved, which produced an immediate response.

“Sergeant, the Mongoloid’s awake.”

There was a loud cheer and laughter, and a gruff voice yelled above the sound of the motor, “Get him up.” Bodies leaned over him, and hands reached down to pull him into a sitting position. From there he found himself staring at two rows of smiling soldiers. He smiled back. The sergeant was at the end of one row.

“Your name’s Geung, right?”

Mr. Geung had had little contact with the military but he’d been to parades and played soldiers when he was young, so he knew what he should do. He saluted. There was another loud cheer and half the men saluted back. Two of them shifted sideways to make a space on the bench for him, then pulled him up. He could see unfamiliar fields bouncing past the truck, buffalo with no mud to wallow in, many different shades of brown everywhere.

“Damn, boy, I thought you were dead,” the sergeant shouted to him. “Never seen a man dropped by an empty gun before.”

“You f… frightened me.”

“Just messing with you, son. Just a little joke.”

“I fainted.”

“You sure did.”

“Wh… wh… where are we going?”

“Nam Bak.”

The name meant nothing to Geung. “Why?”

“Top-secret mission.” The sergeant put his finger to his lips to show there was a need to keep quiet about it. Geung felt very important to be going on a top-secret mission, but he’d made a promise. He got clumsily to his feet and walked to the tailgate, using the chests and knees of the seated soldiers for support. The sergeant caught hold of him before he vanished off the end of the truck. “Now what do you think you’re up to?” the old soldier asked.

“I… I… I… I have to g… guard the morgue.”

“No you don’t, son.”

“Yes. Yes I d… do. I promised Comrade Dr. Siri a… a… and Comrade Nurse Dtui.”

“You don’t work at the morgue anymore.”

This was a serious revelation to Geung. “No?”

“No.”

“Where d… d… do I work?”

“You’ll find out.”

“B… b… but I… I pr… pro…” The words began to collide again and Geung’s head spun.

“Geung, younger brother, I don’t want any trouble from you. You understand?”

“I… I…”

“Just go back to your seat and enjoy the journey. You’ll like-” But before the sergeant could say another word, Geung passed out again, this time across the laps of the Third Division of the Lao People’s Liberation Army Infantry on its way to the north to hunt out insurgents.

The jeep pulled up in front of the president’s compound, and Siri looked up the slope at the pretty pink-and-green villa that nestled in among the towering cliffs. Carved out of the rock opposite was a one-and-a-half-car garage, and where the steps began to wind upward, an ornamental heart-shaped pool had been lovingly fashioned from a bomb crater. It was all so creepily quaint.

“You know, Doc?” Dtui said as they started up the concrete steps. “All this time I had visions of you lot living up here like cavemen, wrapped in bearskins. I didn’t dream it would be so-civilized.”

“Surely you didn’t expect the president of the republic to have had to hunt for his breakfast with a bow and arrow?”