"Could I see it?"
"I am delighted to show you, sir. Unfortunately, you cannot read his words for yourself as they are in Hindi, and he writes in old verse. But there are several stanzas dedicated to you, Doctor."
Siri was astounded. Crazy Rajid, aka Jogendranath, had always been a character on the fringes of Siri and Civilai's lunches, swinging in trees, bathing naked in the Mekhong, occasionally masturbating. The thought that he might, like a coma patient, have been aware of everything that was being said, while unable to express himself, made Siri feel a sudden pang of guilt. The two old men could be unkind at times.
"What did he write?" Siri asked.
"Yes, sir. He mentions your kindness, and the kindness of your friends. You brought him clothes, fed him, included him in your celebrations. I know that others treated him well — it is the Lao way to be kind to those less fortunate — but I feel that you did not look down on him."
Siri was touched.
"I'd like to hear about your tragedy," Siri said.
"If you insist, sir. In a nutshell, we — my wife and two daughters and two sons — were travelling to Burma by boat. For a better life, it was. I had been offered work in a factory there. Alas, the boat was not as strong as our resolve. There was a storm. Only myself and Jogendranath survived. We were adrift for four days. By the time we were rescued, my son had lost hold of his sanity."
"So, you and he…?"
"Some work in Burma, sir, until the junta put a crackdown on us illegals. Then to Thailand and casual work. Then a kind Punjabi invited us here. I had cooked for him in Rangoon. He was coming to open this restaurant in Vientiane. He sadly is demised now. It is his son who runs it today."
His life story had been told in five minutes, and there was sorrow in his large puffy eyes.
"And Rajid?"
"He has periods when he remembers me. At other times I am absent from his mind, sir. We have not spoken since the final day on the boat."
Siri knew the Indian could speak. He'd heard him. He wondered what blockage there was between son and father. What was Rajid thinking that made him ignore the man who had carried the boy's infirmity like a boulder on his back across a continent? Siri looked at big, soft, smiling Bhiku and wondered what wicked fate had dragged his life into the bogs.
"Bhiku," he said. "You strike me as an intelligent man. You read Hindi, and you speak my language quite beautifully…"
"You are too kind, sir. I also have smatterings of Thai and Burmese…not to mention English."
"That's what I thought. So why — and there's no offence intended here — why are you grovelling about in this depressing restaurant earning…what do they pay you?"
"Food and board, sir."
"Then that's even worse. Why are you here earning nothing at all when you could hold down a decent job?"
Bhiku smiled. "It is my fate, sir."
"What does that mean?"
"My wife and I…and my children, we were born untouchables. Our caste dictates that we were destined to suffer — and life has certainly proven that to be true, sir."
"Oh, Mr Tickoo." Siri shook his head and sighed. Not for the first time, a very strong urge came over him. If this wasn't a needy case he didn't know what was. Before he was taken by the wormy woman, Siri was determined to rescue Rajid's father from servitude and set him free. He just had no idea how to go about it.
"All right." Siri came back to the here and now. "Let's talk about where your son might be."
"Yes, sir. I have no awareness of this. I too am most worried. I have spent all my free time scouring the streets and the river. I even reported it to the police but they laughed at me."
"That doesn't surprise me. When was the last time you saw him?"
"Twelve days ago."
"Well, I met someone who saw him ten days ago, on the Thursday."
"I expected to see him on the Friday. He always used to go to the old French mansion on Fridays and stop off here first with a verse."
"Any idea why he went there?"
"Oh yes, sir. My old employer bought that house from its French owner. He lived there during the heydays of Vientiane. So much life and vitality in the city then. Those were the days when the Americans still painted the town green. The restaurant was terribly popular. We had a singer, and we made as much on drink as we did on food. I had three co-workers. We only closed on Friday. And every Friday evening, our employer would invite the workers to eat at his house. It was a tradition. For Jogendranath it was the only time he sat down with what could be called a family and ate a civilized meal.
"It didn't occur to me at the time, but I imagine it brought back memories of our own family. When our old owner passed away and his boy took over, the tradition was stopped. But my son continued to go to the house. There was no explaining to him. That's when I realized how important the Friday meals must have been. He knocks on the door every week at 5:30."
"But for the past two weeks he hasn't knocked," Siri said. "Do you think something might have happened to him?"
"He is my son. I have worried about him every day of his life. I used to go to him and try to convince him to come home, but I have to admit that I lost him some time ago. Now he is a child of the streets and all the dangers it contains."
"But his writing?"
"Sometimes he drops it off here. At others he leaves it at the door of the old house. I believe that is the location of the first riddle."
"Riddle?"
"Yes, sir. He is very classical, my son. I believe that but for the tragedy, he would have been a scholar in the classics. A university lecturer. Of course our caste would have prevented this but I believe in my heart he had the ability. In his odes he writes that he is a prince. In order to find his palace of the One Hundred and Eleven Eyes, the common man must solve three riddles. The first riddle talks of the lace beneath the old French lady's skirt. I wonder if he sees the colonial building as an old French lady."
"Do you have all three riddles?"
"Solving the first will lead to the second, and so on."
"Have you looked under the old lady's skirt?"
"Sadly, sir, I don't have my son's head for literature, or yours for science. I am a humble cook."
"Right. We can discuss that later. Do you have the full riddle somewhere?"
"It is upstairs."
"Do you have time to translate it for me?"
"It would be my pleasure, sir."
5
When Siri got back to the morgue there were three messages waiting for him. Unfortunately, their waiting area was between the ears of Mr Geung. Nurse Dtui was off at a nursing lecture at the new Ministry of Health so the messages had been given orally to the morgue assistant. It took a while to extract them. The easiest to understand was that a small man and two taller men had been by asking where Dr Siri was. The doctor knew exactly who they were and was pleased he'd been out of the office when they came. But he knew he had to go on the attack against the thugs from Housing. The second message was that Inspector Phosy would call, although the time had become lost in the muddle of juggling three pieces of information at the same time. The third message was impossible to decipher.
"A…she w…wasn't her. But the other h…her was was on…on dragging."
Siri knew his friend had reached his 'full' mark and didn't press him. He left Geung in the cutting room and went into his office to see if Dtui had left a note. Halfway across his room he stopped. There were a dozen worms squirming on his desk and they didn't hurry away when they saw him. The same ominous feeling came over him, the vague scent of damp earth, the sense of time running out. He heard a step behind him.
"Dr Siri?"