Slash and Burn (3 page)
“I don’t think I meant all of it. Couple of hours in the evening would be nice.”
“I shall be yours twenty-four hours a day to do with as you wish. Your love slave around the clock.”
Daeng laughed and scooped noodles into a bowl of broth. As there were no more stools, the customer collected the dish and sat with it on the bottom step of the staircase.
“Siri, you could no more stay put for twenty-four hours than I could. You’ll be poking your nose in here, gallivanting there. And to tell you the truth, if I wanted a love slave I’d find myself a much much younger man. A body builder. I get plenty of offers, you know.”
“Ha! He’d have to go through me first to get to you. You hear that, you lot?” he shouted. “Anyone here tempted to run off with my wife will have to fight me first.”
“No problem,” said Pop, a wizened old bean stick whose weight more than doubled after one of Daeng’s spicy number 2s. He was probably the only customer in the shop older than Siri and he looked it. “Look at the state of you,” he said to Siri. “Barely a fortnight out of your sick bed, broken hand, scars and bruises all over. Huh. I reckon I could take you with one hand, especially if Daeng was the prize. One blow with this teaspoon and you’d be on your back.”
“Is that right, Comrade?” Siri replied. “Then let’s see about that.”
He grabbed a chopstick from the jar with his functioning hand and went at Pop with a fencing parry. Pop got to his feet and held out his teaspoon. A utensil duel ensued, egged on by the clatter of chopsticks against tin water mugs from all around them.
A teenager in a white shirt stepped in off the dusty sidewalk and sidled nervously across to the noodle seller, bemused by the mêlée.
“Comrade,” he said, “I have an urgent note for Dr. Siri Paiboun. They said I’d find him here.”
“That’s him,” she said. “Over there. The little boy with the white hair and messy eyebrows brandishing a chopstick. They’re fighting over me, you know?”
The boy wasn’t together at all.
“Go ahead. Give it to him,” she told him. He reluctantly walked up behind Siri and tapped him on the shoulder. Siri turned and Pop, not one to miss an opportunity, whacked Siri on his lobeless left ear with his spoon. Siri cried in mock pain and sank to his knees. The percussion of sticks on mugs heralded Pop their champion. In the throes of an ignominious teaspoon death, Siri seized the note from the lad’s outstretched hand and died on the noodle shop floor. It was just another day at Daeng’s noodle shop.
Nino Sebastian had done very nicely for himself out of his stint with Air America. He’d lived frugally, made a little extra here and there by selling things that weren’t exactly his to sell, and unlike the Romeos at the Udon base, he didn’t pump his salary into the bars and massage parlours. When it was all over he’d come back to Manila, built a house and a service station, and married a girl who’d never have looked at him twice without the forty thousand dollars in his pocket. His mother and father pumped gas, his sister looked after the canteen, and he and his brother Oscar ran the garage. It was all sweet. Life. Love. Grease. There wasn’t the excitement but that wasn’t a bad thing. Excitement just meant there was a chance you’d get your testicles blown off. He could do without that kind of excitement. Here he had boxing and
jai
alai
to get his pulse racing.
There was a match tonight. Jets vs. Redemption. He had money on the reds. He’d take the truck over there. Pick up his cousin Poco on the way. It was a sticky night. He’d already taken a shower and put on his lucky turquoise shirt but he was sweating so bad he was thinking of taking another. He looked out the kitchen window and was pissed off to see the light on in the garage. Oscar was away in Samal so he guessed some customer had come in hoping for a rush job, had the nerve to turn on the light. Some people had more balls than manners. But no matter how much the guy offered, he wasn’t going to get service on
pelota
night.
When Nino walked in the back door of the service area, a darkskinned man was standing looking under the hood at the 1961 Cadillac engine Nino and Oscar had been sweating over for a month.
“Sorry, guy,” Nino said. “Nobody working tonight.”
“That’s OK,” said the man. “I was just passing through, wondering if you might have a job opening.”
Nino looked the stranger up and down. He wasn’t dressed like the type of man who enjoyed getting grime under his fingernails. He was too … finicky looking. He had a comb stuck in his hair at the back like he’d been grooming that morning and forgotten it was there. Some of the kids today thought that was a statement. Nino thought it was stupid. And, of all things, in spite of the heat, the guy was wearing a jacket and showed no sign of sweating.
“We do all our own repairs here, pal. Me and my brother. We only take on work the two of us can handle. Sorry.”
The stranger shrugged.
“No problem. Thought I’d ask anyway.” He took one more look at the engine. “Excuse me saying so, but you do realize you’ve screwed up the carburetor assembly?”
“What are you talking about?” Nino had never screwed up anything to do with an engine.
“Here,” said the guy. “You’ve put the throttle lever in upside down.”
Nino hurried over to the car and looked under the hood.
“Are you crazy?” he said. “That is a perf—”
He barely felt the pin prick of the needle in his neck and, in a breath, it was all over for Nino Sebastian.
The rainy season, which usually fell between April and August in the north of Laos, had begun in March this year and run out of juice by June. Although the Mekhong was still bloated with floodwaters from China, and storms were lashing the south, rain hadn’t hit Vientiane for a month. Lao meteorologists, recently trained in East Germany, were saying that industrialization in the West—but most likely in North America—was altering the environment. They were calling for a symposium of Communist states to discuss the role of capitalism on climate change. There was very little the Americans couldn’t be blamed for in the People’s Democratic Republic of Laos and, to be fair, most of the accusations were warranted.
Vientiane was a city of red-dirt side streets and paved main roads laid by the same Americans who were now screwing up the weather. The continuous early rains of 1978 had flushed the dirt out of the lanes and onto the main roads. Gardens and rice paddies and empty dirt plots had spread to all points of the compass. The entire city had been reclaimed by dirt. The gutters were clogged. The potholes were concealed. The footpaths, where they existed, were no higher than the roadways. This massive mud pie was baked beneath a scorching July sun and inevitably the dust arrived. A cat passing in front of your house could kick up more dust than a herd of wildebeests galloping across the Kalahari. There was too much to sweep away. Hot though it was, people shuttered their windows and closed their doors. Those with hoses and who were connected to the main supply were out front every sunrise washing down the street. But by midday the red mist was back. The official dust season was several months away so there was a real threat that Vientiane might just vanish completely; unrecognizable as a city in satellite images.
Siri had his spare sarong wrapped round his face to keep the dust out of his mouth. He wore his old dark-lens goggles and a Castro hat and looked like a very suspicious character when he pulled up in front of the Ministry of Justice. He’d had a choice, of course. The note from his nemesis, Judge Haeng, had simply told him to be at the judicial office by one. He could have torn it up. He was retiring. What could they do to him? But Siri had a mischievous streak and he enjoyed nothing more than rubbing his boss the wrong way. He wouldn’t have many more opportunities. The guard at the gate saluted. The boy had no weapon and his uniform was three non-matching shades of green. Siri, still disguised as a terrorist, climbed from his bike and walked up to the booth.
“Do you know who I am?” he asked the boy.
“No, Comrade,” came the reply accompanied by another salute.
“So, for all you know I could be here to assassinate the judge and the minister. I might have dynamite strapped inside my jacket.”
The boy looked doubtful.
“It … it’s possible, I suppose.”
“And I still get a salute?”
“It’s what they told me to do, uncle.”
“Just that?”
“Yes.”
“Heaven help us,” Siri grumbled, walking away from the guard and up to the steps of the ministry. “What a system,” he said aloud to nobody. “All cock-a-doodle and no do. The place is falling down around us and all we get are salutes.”
He kicked the dust from his sandals at the top of the steps and walked through to the reception area. The place was deserted. There were eight typewriters without typists and one large administrator’s desk without Manivon, the ministry secretary. Siri was certain that if an enterprising burglar were to have stumbled into the ministry that day, he could elicit the aid of the guard out front to carry the machines to a waiting
samlor
bicycle taxi. The place was going to the dogs. He’d be well off away from it.
His mood no better, he strutted along the open air corridor and pushed open the door to Judge Haeng’s office without knocking. The door slammed into something large and soft, then gave way. Siri stepped inside the small room which was lit only by one window with a bank of cracked louvres. Amongst his illicit books, Siri had a thick pictorial travelogue of the world’s wonders and he noticed how the sunlight squeezing through that little window cast Stonehenge-like shadows in a room filled to bursting with enormous Westerners. Some were seated, some standing, some wore uniforms, others merely sweated in clothes inappropriate for a July room with one ceiling fan. There were men, all oily white, and two women. One of the latter reminded Siri of a bewigged Sumo wrestler in a sundress.
This thought notwithstanding, he didn’t want to forget his manners. He walked from person to person shaking hands and saying,
sabai dee
—good health. All returned his handshake—not a dry palm in the house. Some repeated the greeting. Others made remarks in what he recognized as English, which was one of the many languages he didn’t speak. As he circled the room he felt like a tourist amongst the giants of Easter Island. At the far side of the room he encountered Judge Haeng sitting at his desk holding on to a tired smile. His greasy hair hung over one puffy, acned cheek. This was a condition Siri knew to be exacerbated by heat and stress. He guessed the little judge was feeling both.
“Siri? Is that you?” he asked.
At first it seemed like a bizarre question, as if the man had become sightless overnight. But then Siri remembered he was still disguised. The room became a little lighter when he removed his tinted goggles, and cooler when he took off his hat and scarf. The guests in the room also seemed somewhat more at ease with him unwrapped.
“What’s all this then?” Siri asked the judge.
“Americans.”
“They’re back? Did they forget something?”
“It’s a delegation, Siri.”
“What do they want?”
“I … I’m not … I….”
“You don’t know.”
“Of course I do. I’m just….”
“You don’t speak English, do you?”
“I know a good number of phrases. I’m just a little rusty, that’s all. What about you?”
“Can’t speak a damned word of any importance.”
“I thought you were in western Europe?”
“France. Different language entirely. The only English I know I picked up from sailors in dockside bars.” He said loudly, “Rule Britannia,” and held up a thumb. All he received were stares of incomprehension. “See? No use at all. None of them speaks Lao?”
“No.”
“What type of delegation travels without an interpreter?”
“There seems to have been a bit of a hold up. The minister ushered them all in here and told me to entertain them till the interpreters arrive.”
“Have you shown them your impersonation of Richard Nixon yet?”
It was a line wasted on a man bereft of a sense of humor.
“I don’t do—”
“So, how have you been entertaining them, Judge?”
“We didn’t have any fizzy drinks. I sent Manivon off to get some. I wasn’t expecting them, you see? The rest of the staff are preparing lunch. These have been here for fifteen minutes, just standing around.”
Siri laughed again.
“But you, Siri,” Haeng changed his tone, “you’re late. I told you to be here at one. It’s now one-fifteen.”
“They took my clock away. I had to estimate the time by the position of the sun and it was too dusty to see it. Judge, you do realize it honks in here with all this meat stewing? Any chance of turning on the old A/C?”
“It’s been out of order since last Wednesday.”
“Can’t we put them outside under a tree?”
“They aren’t sheep, Siri.”
Siri smiled at the wilting guests.
“I bet they’d be grateful for some air.”
“The minister said—”
And at that moment the office door was thrust into the backside of the same man accosted at Siri’s arrival. He hadn’t changed his position so it appeared he enjoyed being hit with doors. A blonde girl burst into the room all laughs and fluster. The space was suddenly filled with her language; brief introductions, shared comments, and an overall atmosphere of relief offering hope that the delegation might be allowed out. After one cursory circuit of the room she turned at last to Siri and Haeng and performed a most splendid
nop
, palms together at the chin, her nose just a fraction above her fingernails, upper torso angled toward them.
“Respected gentlemen,” she said in beautiful Lao. “Good health. I’m extremely sorry for my tardiness.”
Siri and Haeng, in spite of their ages and status, found themselves returning the
nop
. Siri did so with a smile. Haeng blushed with embarrassment. The Politburo had condemned the gesture as a bourgeois throwback to the days of royalist-instigated servitude. But here was a white imperialist using his language and gestures in
his
country so this intrusion had really left him no choice but to retaliate. His unease was compounded by the fact that she was uncomfortably attractive.
“I have a class at the
lycée
,” she continued with a smile. “It should have only taken me ten minutes to get over here but my bicycle had a flat tire which I had to repair, hence the dust on my skirt and the sweat smudges on my face. I’m usually a lot neater. Really.”
If Siri had shut his eyes he might have been listening to the musical lilt of a young lass from the north of Luang Prabang. It was by far his favorite accent. Even the largest women in Luang Prabang with the hairiest toes could turn a man’s heart with such an accent.
“Where did you learn Lao?” he asked her, fascinated.
“My parents were missionaries in Ban Le on the Luang Prabang border. I was born there,” she said.
“You’re a Lao,” he laughed, without a hint of con descension.
“My heart is, yes,” she said. “But my passport has an eagle on the cover and I have to live in this big awkward
farang
body. Officially I’m one of them.”
She looked around at the damp delegation. They spoke. She replied. There was suddenly an impressive display of fine dentistry. She’d obviously said something to please them. She was as inspiring politically as she was physically. There really was nothing awkward about her body. She was long-boned like a young racehorse, and fresh-faced. She would undoubtedly break many men’s hearts if she hadn’t done so already. Although it was hard to tell the age of Westerners, Siri put her down as no more than sixteen or seventeen. She told them her name was Peach, which only served to make her appear even more delicious.
Judge Haeng, whose penchant for young women was legendary in the few surviving nightclubs of Vientiane, seemed to have arrived at the same conclusion. He’d renovated his flagging smile and was sitting with his chin leaning on his palm like some vain author’s publicity photograph.
“You’re very beautiful,” he said. An old lecher’s remark.
“Thank you,” she said. “But it’s merely a temporary bonus of youth. I’ll probably find myself eating and drinking too much and turning into a Chinese doughnut before I reach thirty.”
She smiled and the room became brighter. Siri was fascinated. A mythical creature from whatever the Americans called their version of the Ramayana had landed in his midst and could speak his language. And it was true, despite her fluency in Lao she was alien. Perhaps it could be attributed to her youth but she had none of the modest charm of his countrywomen. She didn’t defer to the male of the species. She was rough-hearted like a soldier and Siri suspected she’d happily bite off the head of a mate when she was done with him. Judge Haeng would be sorely out of his depth if he thought he could use his standard courting rituals on such a creature.
