Disco for the Departed (15 page)

In July 1977, the average yearly income in Laos was a little over eighty dollars. In Laos, some things people in the West considered necessities were unattainable luxuries one might read about in foreign magazines. Gasoline was one of these. Most people who owned a car and hadn't been quick enough to flee to Thailand considered their vehicles to be permanently immobile; now they were small wheeled sheds or outside cupboards. On the roads, the majority of transport had some government connection or was owned by foreigners. Anyone who could afford to run a private car and claimed not to fit in one or the other of these categories had to be viewed with some suspicion.

Mr. Geung had made every effort to leave the road whenever he heard an engine approach. He was exhausted. His feet were blistered and the muscles in his legs were screaming for him to stop and rest. But he had to get to the morgue. Dtui had helped him fashion a hat from banana leaves that kept off the sun and made him look quite decorative. She was with him most of the time now, giving advice, urging him on. He couldn't have made it this far without her, however far this far might be.

As his hearing slowly faded, he found he was catching the sounds of approaching trucks later and later. But for the last hour or so, nothing at all had passed him on the highway.

It was almost as if the road were running out of strength, along with Geung. The asphalt had gradually turned to gravel, which had now become sand. The sun was on his shoulder so he knew he was still heading in the right direction, but the road beneath him seemed to have lost faith that it could make it to Vientiane.

A car--a small blue Peugeot--suddenly darted out of a side track a hundred yards ahead of him. Mr. Geung was in the center of the road and there was nothing but open clearing on either side. There was nowhere to run, so he continued walking. There was nothing to worry about. Only army trucks had to be avoided. One thing he was sure of was that the army didn't drive little blue cars. He expected the driver to ignore him and go past but the car stopped beside him. The driver obviously expected Geung to stop also and talk to him, but Geung continued on his journey. After a few seconds of silence, the car dropped into reverse and rolled backward till it was traveling parallel to him.

The driver was a middle-aged man with dyed black hair and a cigarette hanging from his mouth. "Good afternoon, comrade," he shouted above the sound of the whiny engine.

"I ... I'm walking," Geung told him.

"That, brother, I can see. Are you walking because you like to or because you have no choice?"

"Yes."

"Yes, which?"

"I ... I'm w ... walking to the morgue."

"Oho. Don't be so negative, brother. Nobody died from walking. Where you headed?"

Mr. Geung thought it was funny that the car could go backward along the road. It made him laugh. It was the first time he'd laughed all week. "Vientiane," he said.

"Well, then, maybe it
will
kill you. Especially seeing as you're on the wrong road. Route 13 took a left turn some ten miles back. You missed it."

"I have to go ... go straight."

"You'll end up in Thailand if you do that. Listen, comrade, I'm on my way to Vang Vieng. That's halfway to Vientiane. It'll take a big chunk out of your journey."

Vang Vieng. Geung had heard of that place. He didn't know where it was but people in his village used to talk about it a lot. If it was near his village, it couldn't be that far from Vientiane.

"All right," he said, and stopped walking. The driver opened the passenger door. Geung noticed a pistol on the spare seat; the man hurriedly put it into the glove compartment.

"Nothing to worry about," the man told him. He watched Geung climb painfully into the front seat. When he was in, the driver leaned over and slammed the door shut. His passenger smelt like a latrine. The man introduced himself as Woot. Geung introduced himself as Comrade Geung, and they shook hands. Woot's fingers were sticky, as if he'd just eaten glutinous rice and had not bothered to wash them. That thought reminded Geung that his supplies were gone and he was hungry.

The little blue Peugeot went back along the old road, then--just as Woot had promised--they turned right onto Route 13. Geung had seen the sign earlier but ignored it because the sun had wanted him to go straight. A few miles farther on, there was a tall signpost listing the names of the places the road would take them. The driver slowed down as they approached it.

"See, brother?" he said. "That there, halfway down. That says Vang Vieng. Can you read that?"

But Geung was more excited about the final name on the list. He recognized the characters for that one. He smiled at Woot, then looked back at the sign.

"Vvvv ... ien-tiane," he said. "Vvvvientiane."

It was the happiest word he'd ever spelled. He couldn't get the smile off his face. When the car sped up, he looked out at the passing rice fields and bared his teeth to the warm air that blew in through the window. He was joyful. He thought how great it would be if Comrade Woot could go all the way to Vientiane. But what he didn't know was that Comrade Woot didn't even plan to go to Vang Vieng.

Siri sat alone in the guesthouse restaurant and stared into a mug of coffee so thick you could lose an anchor in it. It was his second mug. He missed Vientiane baguettes and omelets and fresh-caught river fish. In this part of the country there was no drought. Things grew readily in the northeast. Civilai had once said you could drop a lemon-flavored lozenge up here and within a week you'd find a lemon tree. So Siri couldn't understand why the only dish on the Guesthouse Number One menu was
feu
rice noodles and cabbage.

The coffee was intended to take away the taste of the cabbage and stimulate his leaden mind. He had lots of little clues but he couldn't seem to put them together in an appropriate order. The previous night, the disco had kept him awake till two. Some infernal bongo drum had tried to lure him back there, but he'd fought off the temptation. He'd been hoping for a dream, but when sleep finally came, there had been nothing to see. At least, there was nothing he could remember.

He'd awakened again later when it was still dark. He had an urge to go to the bathroom. It was an annoying urge because the bathroom was downstairs and dark. But he'd arrived at the age when a man's bladder has risen through the hierarchy of bodily organs to become all-powerful. It made the rules. He slipped on his sandals and walked down to the communal lavatory. The air was still and cold. Smelly water squelched under his feet. He left the flashlight on top of the partition wall. His memory was good enough to have no need for a spotlight on his business. The beam was directed into the shower booths.

The sound of water dripping behind him gradually became a spurt, as if someone had turned on a shower. He lowered his sarong and turned. The water beneath his feet had risen drastically. The shower opposite was gushing, throwing forth impossible torrents of water--far more than could ever logically pass through a lead pipe. Siri had learned how to overcome fear during moments such as this. It was his reverse twilight, the time before sunrise when he was neither awake nor asleep. It was a time to observe and learn. There was no need to panic.

The water poured now from the ceiling of the shower stall like a mountain waterfall. It continued to rise past his knees. It had no temperature, no substance. He was vaguely able to make out a shape beneath the surface two yards away. He took up his light and directed the beam down into the water. There, lying flat on the bathroom tiles, was Isandro. He reclined like a cadaver prepared for burial with his large hands spread, one on top of the other on his chest. He looked serene, peaceful--complete.

The next thing Siri knew, he was being roused from sleep by a banging on his door. It was an angry banging. His door didn't have a lock but he'd wedged the chair under the handle, and it appeared the maid, who walked in ten times a day without warning, was taking it personally.

"Who is it?" he asked sweetly, knowing the answer full well.

"Your breakfast," she snapped, "is in the bowl. If you aren't down in five minutes it'll be cold."

"You are an angel in brown burlap dungarees, comrade," he shouted through the door. "The Party extends its gratitude for your keeping me in sustenance."

He'd learned from experience, if he took five or fifty-five minutes, breakfast would still be cold. So he took his time going down, picked at the tepid noodles, and continued considering the mystery. And still, an hour later, here he sat with his second mug of sea mud, still contemplating the vision he'd had in the bathroom. If Isandro had died peacefully, why was Odon's spirit this restless? What was the connection with water? Had he drowned? Why couldn't Siri's spirit colleagues just put up a blackboard with all the answers chalked on it? Why did it all have to be so cryptic?

"Good morning, Doc."

Siri looked up in surprise to see Dtui walking into the dining room. Her once-white uniform looked like she'd offered it up as a canvas to an abstract painter from an Eastern Bloc country. In her arms she carried litde Panoy who, despite her splints and bandages, was looking quite rosy. The sight of them erased the puzzles from the doctor's mind.

"Morning, Panoy. Morning, Nurse Dtui. What are you doing here?"

"The Cubans have landed. They got in last night. I've been relieved."

"How did you get here?"

"The truck that brought the new doctors gave me a ride back."

"And should I assume you've become a foster parent?"

"I found out what village her mother was from. As soon as she's back to normal I'd like to take her there."

"That's nice of you. I doubt the fractures will take long to heal. I imagine we could take her anytime."

"Er ..."

"Yes?"

"It isn't really the fractures we need to worry about."

He felt the child's forehead and looked into her eyes. "Has there been some complication?"

"You could say that. The truck ride quietened her down a bit, but I reckon she could start up any time now."

"Start up what?"

The spirit of Mrs. Nuts had a marvelous sense of timing. Even as Siri stared at the girl, she seemed to change to a different gear. She smiled and giggled once as a four-year-old, then continued where she'd left off in the voice of a grandmother.

"Oh, I say." Siri raised his bushy old eyebrows and watched in surprise. "We seem to have a few wires crossed here."

"Tell me about it."

"I'm not sure I can. If she were a radio we could just twiddle with the antenna a bit. But this isn't going to be easy. Not easy at all."

Mr. Woot--the spy, the bounty hunter, the chicken counting Khon Khouay representative for the region--was sitting in the office of the local Insurgency Intelligence Unit five miles from Vang Vieng. He still had that Darkie toothpaste smile on his face, just like the minstrel on the tube, but it was beginning to fade. Woot's capture of the day was safely in his cell, and all Woot wanted now was his bounty money. Once he was paid, he could return to the streets to hunt down insurgents, discover double agents, and weed out Royalist sympathizers. But the unit director still hadn't handed over the reward.

"Woot," he said. "You know? I don't think I can sell this tale to Vientiane."

"What are you talking about?" Woot said indignantly. "I caught him red-handed taking notes at the airfield."

"You didn't bring me any evidence."

"Ooy, I told you. Before I could get to him, he'd swallowed the paper. I wasn't about to reach down his throat and fish it out, was I now?"

Captain Bounyasith was an old drinking buddy of Woot's and he got a percentage of all the bounty money he handed out to his field agents. He was trying very hard to make the story fly, but it was still too heavy to get off the ground. "Plus," he said, "there's the fact that the airfield down there hasn't been used since Air America left."

"Reconnaissance, comrade. Reconnaissance. The insurgents have obviously got it earmarked as a future invasion site. Come on. Work with me on this, brother."

"I'm just telling you what Vientiane's going to say to me. That's all." The tired old captain sighed and dipped his Vietnamese biscuit into his tea. All but the pinch between his fingers broke off and sank beneath the surface. He swore under his breath. It was a crumbly, soggy type of day all around.

"Okay," Woot conceded. "But we do have the actual insurgent locked up."

The captain fished around in the tea with his pen. He could find no evidence at all that the biscuit ever existed. "Have you not noticed what he is?" he asked. "Don't you think they'll notice that at the interrogation?"

"It's a front."

"A front? You mean he's pretending to look the way he does? You mean he doesn't actually have speech and hearing problems? You mean he doesn't have flaky skin and flat feet and stink like a field latrine?"

There were a few seconds of silence.

"He's good, I'll give him that."

Captain Bounyasith leaned back and emptied his tea out of the open window into the yard. They heard the

chickens cluck toward it in a frenzy. "No, Woot. It isn't going to work. Nobody's going to believe it."

"Shit!" The spy, who everyone in the province knew without any doubt was a spy, stood up and cursed his luck. "What are you going to do with him?"