In March there was no water in the paddies; so the farmer's work was to repair damaged levees and clear land for new fields. Siri passed the little altar that held offerings to the spirits of the land. With the kind cooperation of Lady Kosob, the rice goddess, there would be early rains, and they would not fall in torrents that destroyed the earth embankments that separated the rice troughs. It was clear the offerings had been too paltry to raise this family from poverty. There were only two small paddies attached to the farm but they appeared to be deserted. After a long, circuitous walk, Siri finally found a sunburned man and two teenaged boys sheltering in a flimsy grass-roofed lean-to. There wasn't an ounce of fat between the three of them. The youths seemed drugged with ennui.
"Good health," Siri said with a big smile on his face. They returned his greeting, apparently unfazed to find a stranger in their midst. "I'm looking for Comrades Boonhee and Mongaew."
"Well you've found Boonhee," said the man, returning Siri's smile. "What can I do for you, brother?"
Siri sat beneath a short chicken-guts tree and fanned himself with the manila envelope he carried.
"I'm too old for this," he said. "All this travelling will have me in my grave."
"Long time before that happens I'd bet," said Boonhee. He brought over a plastic ice bucket with a screw top. Inside was a small tin cup floating in water. Siri forwent his aversion to unidentified liquids and helped himself to a cupful. The water was hot but deliciously sweet, probably due to a high concentration of streptococcus.
"I'm Siri Paiboun from Mahosot Hospital in Vientiane," he said.
"I reckon I've been there once," said Boonhee. "You lost?"
"No, I'm in the right place. I wanted to talk to you about your daughter."
"Ngam?" The man seemed pleased. "You've met her, have you? How's she doing?"
"Comrade Boonhee, has she been in touch with you since she left?"
The farmer laughed. "Look around you, brother. It's not the easiest place to contact."
"I can see."
"So, what did she say? Are they off to overseas yet?"
"Is that what she told you? That they'd be leaving the country?"
"It's what the young man told us: Phan. Said he was getting posted to…I don't know, some country over in Europe somewhere. Her mother'd remember the name of it."
"When was the last time you saw Ngam?"
"The party. The night of the ceremony. It was the seventh."
"Comrade Boonhee," Siri sighed, "does Ngam have a small mole, here?" He touched his temple above his ear.
"A small one, nothing a bit of make-up wouldn't — wait, what are you doing here talking about our Ngam's mole?"
Siri sighed again and removed the photograph from the envelope. "Mr Boonhee, can you come and sit over here with me, please."
"I can stand well enough."
Siri held up the photograph to the farmer who, despite his courageous words, was rocking unsteadily.
"What? Where'd you get that? That…that's not a normal picture. Why's her eyes closed?"
Siri often wondered how wealthy he would be if he'd received a franc for every time he'd said, "I'm sorry."
"What you sorry about? What is this?"
"Ngam's dead, Comrade."
The two lethargic boys stood and ambled over to look at the photo. Boonhee couldn't find words.
"I'm from the morgue," Siri said. "I've been waiting for her family to get in touch. She needs a ceremony."
Boonhee's face twisted into a confused, working-out-a-puzzle type of expression. He looked up at Siri as if the answer might be somewhere on the doctor's face.
"Her mother's going to be…I don't know. What happened?"
"She was murdered, strangled to death."
There was the longest pause before Boonhee asked, "Do you know who did it?"
"No."
Another gap.
"Does Phan know?"
"I don't know."
"Someone should tell him."
Siri left the obvious conclusion to find its own way into the farmer's mind.
"Do you know how we can get in touch with him?" the doctor asked.
"He's with roads."
"The Highways Department?"
"Something like that. The people that build the roads."
"So you don't have an address, papers, any way to contact him?"
"Ngam had all that. She took it all with her." Siri could see that the man was forcing himself to stay on his feet so as not to lose face in front of the boys.
"Do you remember his family name?" Siri kept pushing.
"Ngam would know all that."
"You didn't sign the marriage documents?"
"We don't write nor read. Not me or her mother."
"Where is your wife? Perhaps she'd remember something about him."
"She's over at Nit's place helping out."
"Comrade, I'm sorry to keep asking questions. I know this has to be hard for you."
"You can ask."
Unless it surpassed all physical means, grief wasn't something you shared with strangers in Laos.
"Do you have any pictures of the wedding?"
"Why do you want them?"
"Well, if we don't have an address for Phan it might be the only way to find him."
"Nit had a camera. The film was in it for a year or more. When he went into town to get it printed there wasn't nothing but white."
"I see. Is there any way we can get your wife back here to talk to? I think she should hear this."
"You're right." Boonhee nodded at one of the silent youths and the boy set off across the fields at the speed of light. It had seemed hardly possible he could move so fast.
Boonhee's wife was frozen into a fit by the news. Her husband had told her himself and shown her the photograph. She'd fainted. When she came around it astounded Siri just how many tears her dehydrated little body could produce. Still she couldn't speak. Boonhee and Siri led her into the shanty and watched her lie on the thin mattress. Her body was curled in a knot of misery. Boonhee left her and walked with Siri to his bike.
"What else do you need?" he asked the doctor.
"Why was she covered? I mean when she worked in the fields."
"Ngam? She was allergic to sunlight."
"No she wasn't."
"Eh?" Boonhee stared at Siri.
"I'm a doctor."
8
As he rode back towards Vientiane, Siri considered every astonishing fact he'd learned. He couldn't bring himself to believe it. Ngam had been a pretty baby. The parents had been astounded they could ever have produced such a prize. They changed her name to Ngam, which meant beautiful, to reflect her looks. They knew she'd grow up to be as pretty as a picture. But Mongaew, her mother, understood that to be truly beautiful in Asia, a girl had to be white. In all the advertisements, in the magazines, in the travelling film shows before the takeover, all the classic beauties had skin as white as china.
When she herself was little, Mongaew had fantasized about her own life. If only she were white, she might grow up to be Miss Sangkhan at the provincial festival parade. She'd get to carry the four-faced head of Phanya Kabilaphon on the decorated chariot. It was all an unreachable dream. She was neither white nor particularly attractive. But now she had been blessed with a miracle: a girl child who might truly grow up to win the competition. If only — if only they could keep her skin from the sun. So Mongaew and Boonhee invented an illness for her, an allergy that prevented her from exposing her skin to sunlight. She'd seen a specialist in Thailand, she'd told the neighbours. The girl might die if she were to go outside in the daytime.