‘Why?’
‘Because I imagine that was exactly what he wanted. Why else would he burn down Daeng’s shop if not to have us hurry back to salvage our lives from the ruins?’
‘You’d fly straight into his web.’
‘Quite so.’
‘Gad, I’m stupid.’
‘Only moderately. My guess is that being here is the safest place for Daeng.’
‘I … I think I have to throw up,’ said Civilai.
‘Downstairs,’ said Siri. ‘Second door on …’ But the old boy was gone and probably wouldn’t make it.
Siri picked his way through the atolls of empty beer bottles and the corpses of a million fire ants lured by the nirvana of lamplight the night before only to be denied enlightenment. He went to the balcony and breathed in the fresh sunrise. It was the day of the finals. The previous day’s losers were already working on their oarsmanship so they might grab a wild card entry to the final round. Even at this early hour they were laughing and exchanging insults.
Some twenty elephants on the far bank were knee-deep in the river, providing hosing services to one another. They’d been there since Siri first arrived, their mahout drowsing beneath a Laundry-Fruit tree with no particular hurry to move on.
And, upstream, he caught sight of the tail end of the naval cruiser before it made that long, sweeping turn east. And something inside him gave way like floors in a dynamited building. Daeng. Daeng would befriend the crew of that boat. Daeng would drink with them and get their information. With Civilai and a hundred revellers in Siri’s room, she would curl up on the deck of the boat and sleep off the booze. That was what they’d planned. But the boat had left and there was no sign of Daeng. He thought of Guittard and the twenty-year fixation. And he considered how a little money could secure the services of a pilot and pay off police checkpoints. And a sudden panic flooded over him. All the faith and admiration he had for his wife’s survival skills were suddenly hanging by a thread. She wouldn’t have been prepared. She’s out of practice. She’s not the woman she used to be. All these thoughts and the fear of spending the rest of his life without her coursed like a flash flood through his veins as he ran out of the room. He pushed past Civilai in the doorway and made for the stairs. Already his ailing lungs squeezed in on themselves. His breath came in short wheezy puffs. On the second floor landing he ran into Mr Geung coming out of his room. He too was in a panic. He hadn’t even stopped to dress. His neat pot belly hung over his Minnie Mouse undershorts. He looked petrified.
‘Geung,’ said Siri, taking his friend by the shoulders. ‘What is it?’
‘Co … co … co … co …’
‘Slow down.’
‘Comrade Mad … Mad … Madame Daeng.’
‘Yes, what about her?’
Civilai had caught up with them.
‘She … she …’ Geung was trying his hardest. Siri massaged his shoulders.
‘That’s all right, Geung. Take your time. What about Madame Daeng?’
‘She … she slept with me.’
My spoken French and listening skills were a lot better than I let on. I could read well enough. I was working at the ferry noodle stand breakfast and lunchtime. It meant I got to see a lot of the French administrators and military as they waited in the short queue to cross on the car ferry. I’d go from jeep to truck selling little plastic bags of noodles or iced drinks. I’d sell little. Most of the foreigners thought our food was unhealthy and tasteless. But that wasn’t why I walked the queue. The point was to get noticed. My faltering French was better than most and the French housewives were always looking for staff. My selling point was that I was slow, borderline retarded — an act I worked on. They knew they could get me cheap. ‘Poor mental girl would just be so grateful for the opportunity.’
My looks were my Achilles heel. The frumpy foreign women didn’t hire anyone too good looking to tempt their husbands. So I made myself look as dowdy as possible. I dressed to appear fat. Wouldn’t wash my hair for weeks at a time. Blacked out a couple of teeth. But that wasn’t necessarily enough to stop the randy Frenchmen from having a go at me. The older military types were the worst. I had one or two tricks up my sleeve for them. My favourite was a letter I carried with me all the time. It was typed in French and signed — so it claimed — by a doctor. It said that this woman, Saifon (I had many names back then), was suffering from a highly contagious and incurable cocktail of vaginal herpes and syphilis. If any of my suitors doubted the veracity of this document, I had discovered a wild pomegranate that, when smeared on the skin, dried to a repugnant, pus-like finish. It was quite harmless but the looks on the faces often made me wish I carried a camera.
Only twice did I have, to resort to the razorblade trick. In my lunchbox I carried a blood orange, two plums, and a sweet local turnip. When working as a domestic servant in the French houses I was searched every day by the Vietnamese security guards. It was often no more than an excuse for the sleazy little men to have a feel. My fruit and vegetable lunch pack never caused alarm. They never looked closely enough at the sweet turnip to notice the fine slit into which I had inserted the razorblade. I always kept my bag close when I knew my master was on heat.
The early afternoon following too many glasses of Bordeaux at lunch is often the time their penises become larger than their brains — although neither would achieve record dimensions at the best of times. The moment arrives when he comes at you like a wild boar. He would prefer you begging and screaming, ‘Non, monsieur, je suis vierge.’ But if you share his enthusiasm it stops being rape in his mind and becomes passion. The French love that transition. His ego then readjusts his modus operandi. Your satisfaction becomes part of the show, a chance to let you see what a real man can do for a girl. And that, invariably, gives you a moment. As he removes his boots you reach for your lunch pack. He dives, panting, on top of you. His stinky sweat like a putrid bog. You reach for his testicles. He feels a warm flood of dampness … down there.
‘Oh, monsieur,’ you say.
‘Oui?’ he grunts.
‘Did you know that in a passionate state, pain inflicted in the area of the groin does not reach the brain for a full minute?’ (Of course my speech isn’t quite as eloquent as that but men rarely give thought to syntax at such a moment.)
‘What are you …?’
You hold up the blade in front of his eyes until he can focus. In your other hand the orange-bloody plums can only be two things. There is a moment of horror frozen on his face. He rolls to one side and looks down to where the crushed orange looks like the after-effects of a machete attack. He staggers bow-legged to the bathroom giving you time to adjust your clothing and leave the room, your dignity intact.
Of course, you are then looking for another job but it’s worth it.
They sat under one of the recycled parachute tents by the river; Siri, Daeng, Mr Geung, Comrade Civilai and Ugly, drinking truly horrible coffee.
‘All right,’ said Civilai. ‘Forget the fact that your boat has gone without you. Let’s look at the positives.’
‘All right,’ said Siri. ‘I’m looking. No, it’s dark. What are they?’
‘For one, we have time to strategize.’
On the walk from the guest house — a walk during which Daeng apologized numerous times to Geung for curling up in his bed that morning — they had briefed her on the horrors that had occurred in Vientiane. Like Siri, she’d taken the news quite calmly. In fact she seemed more interested in the drama unfolding upstream than in her lost livelihood.