Colin Cotterill - The Woman Who Wouldn't die

‘But we didn’t know anything about her,’ said the lei-threader. ‘There weren’t any papers or identifications in the house. Not so much as a photograph album. So we had to do it all ourselves. We had her laid out for three days in case anyone wanted to pay their respects …’

‘There wasn’t exactly a rush,’ said the skinny girl.

‘Then the boys carried her down to the pyre and up she went,’ said the headman. ‘It was all over. Or so we thought.’

‘It was the next morning we hear another scream,’ said the lei-threader. ‘The live-in girl had stayed on in the maid’s room up there and she comes running down the hill again. “She’s not dead,” she screams. “Madame Peung isn’t dead.” We assumed she’d been hitting the turnip wine early and went about our business. But then, what do we see but this figure walking down the hill. And the closer it gets, the more certainly it looks like the widow.’

‘We all pissed off inside our houses and barred the doors,’ said the skinny girl.

‘I didn’t,’ said the headman.

‘I was so scared my tongue curled back on itself and came out my rear end,’ said the lei-threader. ‘She walked right up here on the balcony. I could see her through that crack there as clear as I’m seeing you.’

‘You’re sure it was her?’ Phosy asked.

‘Not a doubt in my mind,’ she told him.

‘She came to me, of course,’ said the headman. ‘Which was only proper. But I was indisposed.’

‘You were hiding in your outhouse,’ said the lei-threader. ‘I could see you from the back window.’

‘Just taking care of my ablutions, is all.’

‘So, what did she do?’ Dtui asked.

‘She came to me,’ said a wrinkled old woman who had been camouflaged thus far by the grain of the wood. ‘She got her oven charcoal from me. I didn’t mind her, not like this lot. She’d give me a bonus at Lao new year. Nothing wrong with her. And she says, “Bung,” she says. “What’s going on here? Why’s everybody screaming and hiding from me?” Well, I told her, didn’t I? I told her, “Of course they’re scared,” I said. “The men folk carried your body down to the pyre yesterday and we watched you go up in smoke. You were killed by an intruder three days ago. You’re dead, madam.” And, you know? She turned as white as … well, she was really white. Can’t say I’ve been that close to a ghost before but she was so shocked she was dead I even felt sorry for her. She went from door to door calling out people’s names. Insisting there’d been some mistake. That she wasn’t dead at all. She tried for a few days. She was polite about it. Friendly even. But nobody dared come out to greet her.’

‘I would have done,’ said the headman.

‘She seemed really confused,’ said the lei-threader. ‘Like she wasn’t prepared to admit she was dead. And I must say there was a lot about her that didn’t seem dead at all. She could ride a bicycle, for one. I mean, how many spirits do you know that can ride a bicycle? And she could write. She’d pin a note on the central pillar at the market with her grocery list on it. One of the cabbage women would take it halfway to the house and leave it under a tree on a chair. The money would be there waiting.’

‘So, is there no chance it could have been a mistake?’ Dtui asked.

‘Well, that’s what we were starting to think,’ said the headman. ‘That perhaps the woman who was shot wasn’t Madame Peung at all.’

‘It was,’ said the skinny girl. ‘We all saw her.’

‘And something like that,’ said the lei-threader, ‘and word gets around. People from the neighbouring villages came by to get a look at the used-to-be woman: Madame Keui. That’s what we all started calling her. And I suppose it was about a week after she was reborn that this drugged, crazy man staggers into the village holding a pistol. Dirty runt, he was. He stank to high heaven and must have been completely off his head. “Where is she?” he shouts. “Where is the woman who can’t be killed? I didn’t miss, you know? Never miss.” He was a serious gunman, that one. He had another pistol in the back of his belt. He meant business. We reckoned he had to be Hmong with that accent. Lot of Hmong round here.’

‘You see?’ said the skinny girl. ‘Word had reached the bandit who’d shot her in the first place. He’d been haunted ever since he first killed her and he was back to finish the job. Is that creepy or what?’

‘He runs up the hill to the house and we’re all milling about wondering what we should do,’ said the lei-threader. ‘We probably didn’t do as much as we could have to overpower him. We’d seen enough maniacs with guns over the years. But we found the security rifle and some of the younger ones grabbed machetes and we all marched up there. We were about twenty metres from the house when the front door bursts open and there he is with the widow. He has hold of her by the hair and he’s dragging her out to the veranda. She doesn’t scream, though. Very calm, I’d say. “Does this look like a spirit to you lot?” shouts the lunatic. “Do I not have hold of real hair? Is this not a real bruise on her eye? Do you not smell the stench of sweat and fear on her? Why would anyone think I was afraid of this?”

‘We all stood back and watched, not knowing which of them to feel sorry for. “And if she was a spirit, could I do this?” he shouts and laughs like some imbecile and points the pistol barrel to the side of her head. He lets go of her hair and she just kneels there, calm as you like. We knew he was going to do it. We all stepped back at the sound. Bang! Most of us turned away.’

‘I didn’t,’ said the headman.

‘When we turned back we all expected to see her head all over the front step,’ said the old woman. ‘But nothing had happened. She just turned to him and smiled. He tried to scream but nothing came out. Then he was gone. I’ve never seen anyone run that fast in all my days.’

‘Are you sure he didn’t just miss?’ Dtui asked.

‘I saw the bullet hole where it went in her head,’ said the skinny girl. ‘Blood trickling down.’

‘We all did,’ said the headman.

‘How did the widow react when she was shot this second time?’ Phosy asked. Baby Malee had done a complete lap of laps and was happy to suck her thumb against her father’s chest.

‘She just rubbed her temples like she had a migraine or something,’ said the skinny girl. ‘She went to have a lie down. When we saw her next day there were no wounds. It was a miracle.’

‘It didn’t actually bring us closer to her,’ said the lei-threader, ‘but getting killed twice left her with this … this gift. She stands there in the middle of the village and starts telling us about dead relatives who want to get in touch with us.’

‘Claims she saw my wife who still hadn’t forgiven me for a little purported rendezvous I had with a ladyboy down in the capital when I was a lad,’ said the headman. ‘Complete rubbish, of course. But she yells it out to everyone.’

‘But she knew stuff only our dead kin could know,’ said the skinny girl.

‘We couldn’t shut her up,’ said the headman. ‘She went on about a lot of personal things and said if we wanted to talk to our relatives we could go up to the house. I didn’t talk to my wife that much when she was alive so I wasn’t about to go up there and talk to her spirit. I don’t know anyone who’d be brave enough to go up there talking to ghosts. Not that I was afraid, of course. Just not interested.’

‘I went up there,’ said the skinny girl.

They looked at her with shocked expressions.

‘You never did?’ said the headman.

‘Yeah, I did. I wanted to know about my dad.’