‘Preferably from the point-of-view of Siri,’ he added. ‘I can’t say I have any great desire to know what the little doctor looks like in the buff.’
His comment was greeted with a round of laughter. As was now the custom, the group had met at Madame Daeng’s noodle shop after closing time on Wednesday evening. It was the rare appointment all of them made the effort to keep and was often the only opportunity they had to catch up on one another’s news. Recently there had been absences. Civilai off chairing cooperative meetings in the provinces. Inspector Phosy burning the midnight beeswax poring over some crime or other. And Dr Siri Paiboun, now into the third week of retirement from his post of national and only coroner, off getting, as he put it, ‘cleansed’. He’d been invited to attend fourteen sessions of ‘debriefing and reaffirmation of political stance’ seminars. These were purportedly compulsory for senior government officials heading into retirement. To keep everyone happy he’d haggled the number down to three. The official running the seminars had had enough of him after the first session and didn’t invite him back after the second. Siri was thus officially disencumbered of Party obligations.
‘Exactly where did you hide everyone?’ Nurse Dtui asked. Her baby, Malee, was gurgling happily on her lap.
‘Huh. Hi … hi … hiding people. That’s a good joke,’ grinned Mr Geung.
‘And it’s information that will only be released on a need-to-know basis,’ said Siri.
‘So much for the one-for-all, all-for-one policy,’ said Civilai. ‘I thought we shared everything.’
He raised his glass of rice whisky which was joined in the air by four more. Mr Geung and baby Malee had yet to develop the habit.
‘To sharing,’ he said.
‘Good luck,’ said Madame Daeng.
‘Good luck,’ repeated them all.
They downed their drinks and Daeng set about refilling the glasses.
‘It’s true, older brother,’ Siri agreed. ‘We do share everything. And this knowledge will also be broadcast. But not just yet. As it stands, disclosing the location would cause a conflict of interest to one of our number.’
‘Meaning me,’ said Inspector Phosy, surreptitiously holding Nurse Dtui’s hand beneath the table, an uncommon gesture between a man and his wife in those parts. It was a habit he had picked up from Siri and Daeng who displayed their affection openly.
‘And meaning you’ve done something illegal … again,’ he added.
‘I’m shocked and stunned,’ said Siri. ‘But if that were indeed the case, you should be grateful I’m keeping my mouth shut. Though tell me, how serious a crime could a frail old man commit?’
This comment was met with a chorus of groans for they all knew that Dr Siri and the law were old adversaries. And, technically, they were all breaking the regulations just by being there that night. All told, assuming a two-year-old counted as a whole person, there were seven of them present. Any meeting of a non-familial group consisting of more than five members was obliged to be accompanied by a certificate of assembly which could be obtained after a long wait at the department of Meetings and Appointments. This was one of the many red ribbons wound around the population of socialist Laos. If the group hadn’t carried the weight it did they would surely have been reported by one of the neighbourhood spies, perhaps a member of the youth movement. But carry some weight it did. Siri and Civilai had accumulated over eighty years of membership of the Communist party between them. Madame Daeng was also owed a great deal by the old men in power. She had been in Vientiane only one year. In that time she had pursued and wed Dr Siri, established the most popular noodle shop in the capital, and helped to solve a number of mysteries that had baffled many. The sixty-seven-year-old had skills far more reaching than the perfect combining of spices and herbs. Hers was a secret past that few in the capital knew of.
Also in the restaurant was Mr Geung, a proud flag-bearer for the ranks of Down’s syndrome. Until recently he had worked as the most able morgue assistant. But, upon Siri’s retirement, and the official closure of that establishment, Mr Geung had been bound for the red tag bag room — the hospital laundry where all the unspeakable body parts and waste were separated from the linens. In a daring last-minute rescue, Siri had brought Mr Geung to Daeng’s shop where he served noodles and made delicious coffee with a full three centimetres of condensed milk in each glass.
Inspector Phosy, as he had done many times before, pretended not to have heard of Dr Siri and his illegal activities. In a country without a constitution or a body of laws, the term ‘illegal’ was debatable anyway. He had to admit he could thank this group for some of the fluffiest feathers in his cap. Their victories in the field of crime suppression had propelled him to the rank of Senior Head of Crime Division — Political Branch. This was a promotion accompanied by a monthly rise in salary of 400 kip — about a dollar fifty — a metal filing cabinet and his own garden rake.
His wife, Nurse Dtui, also left in limbo by the closure of the Mahosot Hospital morgue, had finally been transferred to the old Lido Hotel which now housed the National School of Nursing. She was teaching basic physiology and Russian language. The former because she had seen and handled more internal organs than anyone else on the staff. The latter because, until her untimely pregnancy, she had been on her way to the Eastern bloc to become qualified in a field in which she already excelled — forensic pathology. With Malee rocking back and forth in a small hammock at the front of the classroom, she would attempt to explain Russian grammar to young hill-tribe girls who barely understood Lao.
‘Just to put our minds at ease, little brother,’ said Civilai, ‘you haven’t done away with them all, have you? Sacrificed them so the Housing Department wouldn’t get its greasy hands on them?’
‘They’re all alive and well,’ said Siri.
‘All eleven of them,’ said Daeng.
‘Eleven? Ah, I knew it.’ Civilai nodded his head. ‘You’ve been putting together a football team. Secretly training them at your house.’
‘Just providing a home for the homeless,’ said Siri. ‘Taking in waifs and strays.’
‘I’ve warned you about this,’ said Inspector Phosy. ‘How many times have I warned you? Our Party can handle it. There’s a policy to-’
‘There’s a policy to clear people off the streets by whatever means is available.’ Siri raised his voice. ‘Cram them into crowded little rooms with no services just to make the place look neater. The temples are full of such people. I have a perfectly good house over there in That Luang provided by the committee. It has running water and electricity — once they’ve worked out how to connect it. What’s so wrong with allowing my fellow human beings to share in my good fortune?’
‘The fact that you don’t live there, for one,’ said Phosy. ‘You live here above the shop. The truth is you shouldn’t even have been allocated an official residence.’
‘I’m a senior Party member,’ said Siri.
He stood and put his hand on his heart. Madame Daeng and Civilai laughed and followed suit. Civilai began to hum ‘La Marseillaise’.
‘I am a seasoned field surgeon having survived some five hundred campaigns,’ said Siri. ‘I was educated in France and I speak three languages.’
‘Four if you include double-Dutch,’ said Civilai.
Siri ignored him. ‘I am an advisor to prime ministers and presidents — a man loved and admired by the masses. I deserve my house and, damn it, I should be allowed to decide what I do with it. If I so wish to cover it in ice cream and lick it, that is my prerogative.’
Mr Geung clapped loudly.
‘They’ll find them you know,’ said Phosy. ‘You can’t get away with hiding eleven people in this day and age.’
‘I bet you I can,’ Siri said.
3