Colin Cotterill - The Woman Who Wouldn't die

He grabbed my tit with his free hand and squeezed hard. I let my hand gently slide beneath the fold of my skirt. That was when I first doubted my ability to be what was expected of me. My life was already sacrificed for the fight of our people, but how could I ever allow myself to succumb to this?

His hand gripped my chin tighter and his face came closer to mine. I could smell the garlic and wine of his lunch and the grease that encased his hair. For the first time, I looked at him. And I knew him. A flash-flood of awful memories whisked me away from that room. Rolled me over and over in the swirl. Back there somewhere in the room he pushed his lips on to mine and forced his tongue against my teeth. And I let him kiss me. I let him because my mind was elsewhere and it was the means to an end. I knew he wouldn’t hear another cockerel crow nor abuse another girl. Suddenly, I had the will .

I awoke next morning to the screams of the thin-haired cook. I ran to the yard with the flowery driver one pace behind me. We stood at the chicken coop crying and screaming intermittently. The driver’s horror seemed sincere as, I hoped, did mine. The French militia came and the administrator and the local Lao headman. And they carried away the body of the poor deputy requisitions director who had been so horribly mutilated — down there, as they say. They suspected the young wife who remained sitting impassive on the top step of the front porch the whole time. But for the French to arrest someone for a crime of passion, they had to sense some … passion. The little Madame showed none. Felt none. As neither the cook, the driver nor the chambermaid had a motive, everything was once again laid in the lap of the bastard insurgents who lurked in the night shadows .

That night I burned sixteen candles at the temple; one for each year of Gulap’s short life to let her know the last of her tormentors was off the streets. I lit one more as a general thank you to whichever god had put me in the house of the Vietnamese. I never did learn how he’d wangled his way into a government position but, I suppose, if a man like that can sell toilets, he can sell himself .

The sun was setting behind the buildings when the rubber dinghy floated into Pak Lai. With the Uphill Rowing Club continuing its journey to Luang Prabang transporting the Buddha images, Siri and his team had inflated the dinghy and made good time downriver. The current had apparently noticed its mistake and was flowing fast towards the south. They’d collected the body of Madame Peung and the two boatmen had taken over the rowing. Near the town, they’d passed the elephants heading upriver for their rendezvous with Tang and told the mahout he was out of luck. There would be no delivery to Thailand. Pak Lai was rocking with the euphoria of finals day. Music came from every direction and villagers were slowly stirring the air in front of them with fanned fingers as they danced in time to the beat from the invisible instruments. When the dinghy docked opposite the Lao navy cruiser, Governor Siri, drunk as a lord, was on the wonky jetty.

‘Have a nice day out, did you, Comrade Coroner?’ he slurred.

‘Yes, thanks,’ said Dr Siri, grabbing the governor’s arm to help himself out of the boat.

The governor yanked his elbow away indignantly.

‘You do realize there’s a unit of soldiers here waiting for your professional self to identify a body.’

‘Yes.’

‘And?’

‘They can leave. It’s not the man we were looking for.’

He helped Daeng and Geung out of the unstable craft leaving Civilai to sort it out for himself. The governor didn’t like being dismissed.

‘How can you be so sure? You haven’t even looked at the bodies.’

Siri walked away. Daeng was on the river bank picking out a large stone that seemed to have taken her fancy. She turned back and smiled at the governor.

‘It’s nothing you need to concern yourself with,’ she said. ‘You’re just the governor. But here’s a coup for you. Down there in the dinghy is the body of the woman, Madame Peung, who was invited here by the minister. About ten kilometres upstream is the air compressor she was tied to before she was thrown into the river. She was killed by somebody on that boat. So you have a murder inquiry to conduct. Good luck.’

‘I … I …’

‘Yes?’

‘We don’t have any police stationed here.’

‘Well, you’re going to have to find some,’ said Civilai, clambering out of the boat. ‘The minister’s going to want answers.’

‘It’s the last night of the races,’ said Governor Siri.

‘Then you’d better get some coffee inside you and get cracking.’

‘Oh, by the way,’ said Daeng. ‘The doctor and I will be changing our room. The one we’re in is crowded and smells of beer. We’ll take the room Madame Peung was in. She won’t be using it.’

‘What about the brother?’ asked the governor.

‘Oh, right. Forgot to tell you …’

With the rooms sorted out, the corpse billeted, and the Vietnamese engineers under a sort of open-air house arrest until someone could formally investigate the death of Madame Peung, Civilai and Mr Geung took a stroll to the temple which was the centre of the evening’s activities. The old politburo man still couldn’t quite get it. People were dancing and singing and joking without even the vaguest hint of alcohol. It didn’t seem natural. The crew on the boat had glowed with that same generic joy. The buzz of being together with friends. Freedom from an endless war. Freedom to work the land and earn enough to feed the family and put a little aside for these three days off a year when their village could drag its boat to the river, laugh, capsize, collide, win a prize for the slowest time or the fattest rower, throw the winners into the water, launch all the boats to pay homage to a great serpent. That’s what they were on: the euphoria of simplicity.

‘Geung,’ Civilai asked, ‘when do you suppose I first entered that state that convinced me I had to be drunk before I could enjoy life?’

‘You’re an ad … dict,’ said Geung.

‘Yes, indeed. Should I give it up, do you think?’

‘No.’

‘You were supposed to say “yes”.’

‘It’s too late. The drunk Comrade Civ … Civilai is the real Comrade Civilai now.’

Geung saw a dart stall with bright balloons on a board. He was a hot shot with a dart so he abandoned Civilai and jogged over to it. The old man, his mouth open just a fraction, watched him go. He wanted to defend himself somehow but had no idea how to do so. He wondered exactly when it was that the drunk Civilai had taken the alpha role in his personality. It was troubling. He decided he could really use a drink.

Dr Siri had supervised the overnight stowage of Madame Peung. Tobacco leaves were the wrapping of choice for a dead body but Pak Lai had none. Instead she was laid in a half section of concrete piping and garnished with hay and marijuana. After dinner, with Daeng’s blessing, he had returned to check on the body. He was a little disappointed to find her lying there still. He wondered whether reincarnation was a buy-one-get-one-free deal, that we were all allowed one return. He pulled over a ten-litre paint tin and sat beside the woman who twice used to be.

‘How is everything?’ he asked.

The gentle smile was still on her lips as if she were keeping a secret. There had been no contact at all since her death. Siri had been hoping she would come to him somehow — offer herself up as his spirit mentor. He needed her to continue the tutorials that had brought him to the edge of two-way communication. He’d been the thickness of a TV screen away from a conversation with a dead king. And now she was gone. Her eyes were closed but all the while he pictured the Wolf Man scene when everyone knew Lon Chaney was dead but his eyes had sprung open and given Siri a near-bowel-evacuation in the front row of the picture house.