Anarchy and Old Dogs (Dr. Siri Paiboun) (13 page)

That'll teach her, he thought.

The camp was a lively place. Thai vendors plied their wares in an attempt to relieve the refugees of the last of their savings or the few dollars they earned by working part-time for the aid agencies. Bored Lao with nothing else to do strolled here and there, chatting, staring, puffing out their cheeks. The International Refugee Committee sanitation trucks kicked up the dust and panicked chickens. Ubon residents with children at their sides wandered up and down the regimented lanes of wooden shacks whispering warnings. "These people are from Laos, darling. This is what communism does to you. Never forget it."

Westerners with lists and large sweat stains under their armpits hurried somewhere, always flustered and muttering. The churches and the nongovernment organizations had coordinated their efforts to some extent and created a semblance of order in the Ubon camp. The latrines were sanitary for most of the year, there was always plenty of rice, and a hierarchy of order--from camp liaison officers down to area and street representatives--kept lawlessness to a minimum.

Money arrived from time to time from relatives who'd already made it to Australia or Europe or the United States, where they were working three shifts cleaning offices or scrubbing grease from Italian casserole dishes through the night to earn enough to restart their lives. For some camp dwellers this pocket money meant a splash of luxury: a bottle of whisky every now and then, an ice cream for the kids, an incentive to the evening guards to allow a visit to the nightspots of Ubon. There were certainly worse places than this old U.S. Army weapons dump in which to be displaced. But even though you could get used to being there, you could never belong. And it was belonging that the refugees at the Ubon camp desperately craved.

Phosy stretched out his well-fed body in front of the open-air meeting shelter of Section 36. He liked his neighbors. The men had warmed to him. The most difficult part--settling in, being accepted--had been taken care of on this, the first day.

All he needed now was to keep his ear to the ground and discover how he might get an introduction to the inner core. He already had an idea. He sidled over to Bunteuk and stood beside him, looking up at the ripe clouds.

"More rain?" he asked.

"Looks like it," said Bunteuk. "You'll hate it when the rainy season sets in proper. This place turns into chocolate mousse, mud up to your knees. All your bedding turns to mildew."

"You sound like you've been here a while."

"Eighteen months next week."

"You don't say? How come you didn't get on the bus with the last batch of refugees to the U.S.? I hear they took most of the old-timers."

"Yeah, they did. Not that easy, though. They did offer us a place but we have to get things settled over there: jobs, community, place to stay. You see, we haven't got family in America to take us in. I've heard of new arrivals starving to death on the street, getting killed by gangs--horrible stuff. I don't want that for my children. I'm waiting for a placement to Australia. It should come this year. I know people there; it's safer."

"I see. Can't say I blame you."

"Anyway, welcome, Phosy. It's nice to have you in our section."

"Thanks for lunch."

"No problem."

They shook hands and Phosy watched him walk away. A confident gait; tall, muscular frame: a soldier. A soldier who'd refused the opportunity to get himself and his family out of Thailand and on a plane to freedom. A soldier who wanted to stay close to his homeland.

It was a long drive to Khong on a dirt road apparently engineered by rodents. It was a disaster fittingly numbered Route 13. The drizzle of the previous night had made it slick, so much of the journey was spent traveling sideways. Fortunately, it didn't have much in the way of hills, so the missing brakes were only an issue on the ferry crossing to Wat Phu. The ferry pilot had apparently lost a few vehicles in the past, so he had two blocks of four by four ready to chuck under the front wheels just before the Willys vanished off the end and into the muddy water. Siri and Civilai shook his hand with relief.

It was lunchtime when the old black jeep rolled into Khong, where the name of the Mekhong River had originated. The Mother--the "Me" of Khong--dwarfed the little town. It rolled past triumphantly, making its last stand as a watercourse before being shredded by the four thousand islands of Sri Pun Don. From there, twisted and confused, it was sent tumbling over the Khone Falls. Not even the intrepid French explorers had found a way to blast the river through an obstacle course such as that.

So here it was, the end of the shipping route. It had once been an impressive city where cargo boats would unload and transfer their wares onto elephants or donkeys to continue down to Cambodia. The colonists had even gone to the trouble of building a short railway line to bypass the falls. But there was little evidence of development now. The train lines lay rusted and overgrown. Modern-day Khong was a huddle of wooden shacks, of fishermen and boat pilots and the odd depressed shopkeeper. Civilai found a good stack of bamboo fish traps in which to park.

"Do we really need to stop here?" he asked. "I thought we were heading for the falls. Don't forget I have to drive this thing back."

"I could drive if you want a rest," Siri said, showing remarkable patience at his friend's constant grumbling.

"You can't be serious. I've seen how much damage you can cause with two wheels. I dread to think what devastation you could create with two more."

"It doesn't work like that. Cars are safer. You can be lizard-faced drunk in a car and still not fall over."

"I rest my case. So, remind me. We're here because ...?"

"Because we're just briefly going to find out where they fished young Sing out of the river."

"I knew you had another motive. I should never have believed all that Southern Lao historical heritage bull. I thought we were just here to see the ancient Khmer ruins and the mud-covered capital of the old kingdom, and all the time there you were rushing me through my sightseeing so you could come and show off your do-goodism."

"Come on. You enjoyed it."

"I would have, under other circumstances." He killed the engine and climbed down from the jeep. "Come on, let's get this over with."

They found the man who'd recovered the body. As was often the case, pulling a drowning victim from his nets had plunged the fisherman into a deep depression. It was a curse that could only be lifted by several days of shouting at one's children and being unreasonable to one's wife. Mr. Keuk was into the fourth day of his penance. His chocolate leather skin was baggy from inactivity. For some reason, he took a visit by two old men from Vientiane as a good omen. He rose from his bamboo litter for the first time since his gory discovery and sat at the back of the jeep all the way to his allotment.

It was a simple setup. The deep nylon nets were strung from bamboo posts sunk into the riverbed. The principle was that the fish would come hurtling toward the net and score themselves like soccer goals. They'd be too traumatized to swim against the current to get free and would tangle themselves in the netting. With so many traps dotted around the islands, a fish would have to have the luck of the Lord Buddha himself to make it through.

Keuk took them to the net that had trapped the body of Sing. It still hung wrapped around the post and split, not catching a thing. Siri, Civilai, and Keuk squatted on the bank, looking at it.

"You come to collect the fish every evening?" Siri asked.

"Used to," Keuk answered with a long face.

"And on that particular evening, you found the body tangled in your net?"

"That's right."

"What state was it in?"

"You want me to describe it?"

"Yes, please."

Keuk slowly and deliberately described the body exactly as Siri had seen it in the house in Pakse.

"Where's this line of inquiry leading?" Civilai asked.

"I've just lost another theory. I wondered if the splinters came from the back of the truck they shipped him home in. It appears they didn't. I can't figure it out." He looked at Keuk. "Has this ever happened to you before?"

"Not to me personal. It's not uncommon, though. The old-timers tell me there was times when there was more bodies than fish. Like when the French was getting their own back on the Lao Issara. They say they fished a mountain of patriots out then." Siri and Civilai looked at each other. "But not recent, no. I did have a catfish once--it broke the net-- and a
pa kha."

"You don't say."

Something sparked in Siri's mind.
Pa kha
was the Lao name for the river dolphins that once played in the Mekhong from China all the way to the delta. There were well-worn tales of
pa kha
saving the lives of drowning boatmen and guiding longboats through rapids. But overfishing and pollution had since wiped out the dolphins from most of their old habitats. The myth that killing the
pa kha
would bring catastrophe to a family had never been as strong as a villager's need to feed his children. She had become a menu item, the
pa kha:
the mermaid of the Mekhong.

"What did you do with the dolphin?" Siri asked.

"Rescued her, of course," Keuk said. "You could bring a curse on the whole town if you let one die. There's them don't believe it no more, but I do. I took her downriver to the depths beyond the islands. That's where they like to be. It's safe there."

"Before the falls?"

"Want to see?"

The path down to the river had been too narrow to drive so, ever grumbling, Civilai had parked in a patch of tall lemon grass and the three men made their way to the riverbank. It was quite a trek and they stirred up nests of hungry insects on the way. At one point they disturbed a small flock of black-hooded river terns.

"Them's
sida
birds," said Keuk. "They go where the dolphins go. The
pa kha
are here for certain."

Finally, they reached the broad, slow-moving expanse of river at the end of the trail. The sight was oddly cathartic to the old doctor. He seemed to recognize it from a different life. It was one of the Mekhong's few secret places. It made him feel slightly stoned: a few-good-puffs-of-ganja buzz.

"So," said Civilai, sitting on a smooth rock, watching the hornets hover above the silver-gray surface of the river. "We're here to visit the river dolphins?"

"Yes."

"And that's going to help you solve the mystery of the young boy's death?"

"No. Yes. Look, I don't know, all right? Don't ask me things like that. I had a dream."

"Oh, marvelous. You can't dream up how to save the country but you can make a few fishermen feel a little better about their clumsy son."

Siri looked at Civilai in surprise. "That wasn't very nice."

"I know." He sighed and looked to the heavens. "I'm just feeling ... all these detours are making me a bit irritable. Oh, Siri." That was the moment Siri understood. Several heavy realities fell on him one after the other like thick leather-covered tomes from a shelf. He could tell from his friend's expression that he was more lost than Siri could ever have imagined. The world he'd built was, like the palace, being taken apart by looters, and there was nothing he could do about it. Siri knew this diversion was doing him more harm than good.

He went to sit beside Civilai. "Brother, I'm sorry," he said.

"Now what have you done?" Civilai didn't look up. His watery eyes stared at his hands. Siri had never seen him looking so old.

"Sirs!" Keuk was standing beneath a hairy mistletoe tree, his arm extended toward the river, his eyes as round as Indian roti.

The gray-green sheen of some large creature had become visible just above the surface of the river at the far bank and was moving now directly to where the old men sat. The dolphin's head emerged not far from their feet. Its mouth was curved into a smile. It looked up and blew a spout of water from its long pointed snout that hit Civilai square in the chest. The politburo man looked with amazement, first at the animal, then at Siri, and burst into laughter. Siri joined in. The
pa kha,
sensing a receptive audience, belly flopped back and forth in front of them. Siri put his arm around his friend's shoulder and enjoyed the show.

"I've never seen nothing like that," Keuk said, stepping out from the shade of his tree. "That's something. That's really something."

"You know what?" Siri said. "I think she wants us to join her." He walked to the water, kicked off his sandals, and rolled up the legs of his trousers. The clay bank dropped suddenly downward and he sat on its edge with his feet dangling in the passing Mekhong.

"You won't forget you can't swim, will you, Siri?" Civilai shouted.

The
pa kha
came immediately to the bank and rubbed herself against Siri's knees. Then she floated on her back in front of him, looking expectantly.

"I've never in all my days ...," said Keuk.

Siri threw caution to the current and leaned over to stroke the dolphin's belly. It was like running a hand over a large wet pickle, but not altogether unpleasant. The dolphin tossed back her head, meowed, and rolled onto her front.

"I think she likes me," Siri said with a big smile on his face. Hooking one arm over the animal's back, he slid slowly into the water.

"Siri?" Civilai shouted and walked hurriedly down to the bank, where his friend lay embracing a large waterborne mammal. "You do understand what you're doing, don't you?"

Siri looked up at Civilai and his smile turned to astonishment as the dolphin set off into the river with him on her back.

"Siri!" Civilai was more anxious now. "Remember the Sirens. Get back here. Your life is in the hands of a fish."

Siri gave an uneasy smile in response. He was almost at the deepest point of the river. "It's all right, old brother. I've never felt safer in my life. This is--"

And at that moment the dolphin dived, taking Siri down into the water with her. So swift was their descent that within a second or two, the surface of the Mekhong had erased all evidence that the national coroner and his mount had ever existed.

The rain beat so heavily on the tin roof of their single-room home that Phosy and Dtui had given up trying to speak. Odd scents tangled together in the pitch-blackness and made Dtui's head swim: the musty chemical smell of the creosoted plank walls, the bitterness of the banana-leaf matting that covered the raised-earth floor, the wholesome rain, and the sweet smoke of the mosquito coil. She lay, fully dressed, atop the inch-thick foam mattress. The hammering rain made her shudder but her side of the one double blanket remained beneath her. Although she was temporarily blinded and deafened by Mother Nature, she knew that Phosy lay covered in that same blanket just six inches from her side. Like most men, he wore only a gingham sleeping cloth knotted at his waist.

They couldn't have slept separately. There were no locks on the doors and windows, and the cracks between the wooden slats were wide enough to poke a finger through. They were a married couple. They had to fit in, play their parts. She'd done well enough, convincing the other women she was just one more faithful wife following her older husband to a new life. She'd even made Phosy believe she was strong and courageous. Made him think she didn't need his protection, she could do just fine without him. But on their first night alone in a camp on foreign soil, all her doubts found their way to her stomach. She wasn't trembling from the cold.

There were many reasons she'd been unable to escape into sleep that night. She was hopelessly awake and alert.

The timpani on the roof contributed, the strangeness of the camp, the potential dangers. But even if these factors could be wished away by a well-placed prayer, she knew she'd still hear the morning cockerel with her eyelids wide open. She felt a tenseness she'd never be able to explain to anyone, a tenseness that only a twenty-five-year-old woman who had never spent the night in bed beside a man can feel.