Thirty-Three Teeth (19 page)

“Not the creepy guy from Oudom Xay?”

“No. Dear Mr. Soth moved out under mysterious circumstances. I came home one evening to find him and his family and all their furniture gone. I mean the other neighbor, my own Miss Vong.”

“Vong and Inthanet? You must be joking.”

“Not at all. They appear to be getting along very nicely, and it does keep her out of my hair.”

“Are they, you know, performing together?”

“Dtui. No. It’s all very proper. They go for motorbike rides down to the river, hold hands listening to her traditional tapes in the back garden.”

“How sweet.”

“I think it was all a bit too sickening for my dog.”

“Saloop?”

“He’s left home.”

“I thought you two were inseparable.”

“Obviously not. I think he’s found himself a—”

“Siri.”

“What is it?”

He hurried across to check her pipes and wires.

“I saw him. I saw Saloop.”

“Where?”

“That day. That day in the tunnel when I came around. It completely went out of my head till you mentioned him. He was just sitting, watching Seua run amok.”

“You sure you didn’t add him later, in your dreams?”

“No. ’Cause when I saw him, I remember wondering whether you were around, too. I guessed you’d come looking and brought Saloop with you.”

“He wasn’t with me.”

“And you didn’t see him?”

“No. When I got the flashlight working, I saw the aftermath of the scene you just described, but with one addition. There was an old lady—I mean the spirit of the same old lady that came to our office often when you two had gone home.”

“You forgot to mention that.”

“Didn’t want to spook anyone. Well, she was there, or it was there, standing over Seua’s body. I went to do what I could for you, and she vanished. But Saloop; I have no idea how he found his way into the tunnels. I’ve been seeing him in some odd places lately, but he’s definitely gone back to his old street life. He doesn’t even have the manners to come and visit from time to time.”

“Perhaps he’s afraid of all those house guests, Siri, and he’ll come home when they’ve gone. Doc?”

“Yes?”

“Thanks.”

“For?”

“Everything. Thanks for coming to look for me that day. Thanks for taking care of Mom. Thanks for being here now. I owe you big-time.”

“You can pay me back by passing those exams.”

“Just as well you don’t want it in cash. What was the secret about paying the bills here you couldn’t tell me?”

“Dtui, sweetheart, it’s three-thirty in the morning and I have a kidney to dissect at eight. You don’t suppose I could have a little sleep before then, do you? Even if you aren’t tired, I’m exhausted.”

“Sorry. You’re right. Go get some sleep.”

“You need anything?”

She thought about spending the rest of her life with a triangular face.

“A new perspective? You couldn’t flip my face, could you?”

“I don’t see why not.”

He took her chin in one hand and her forehead in the other and gently dragged her nose across the pillow to face the other wall. It gave her a brief preview of the pain she’d be enjoying over the next week. Siri sighed and creaked back into his chair.

“G’night, Dtui.”

“G’night, Doc.”

“Oh, Doc?”

“Yeah?”

“Is it still hot outside?”

“Damned hot.”

Vientiane was preparing for New Year on the 14th with its usual verve. Houses had to be cleaned, repairs made, old scores forgiven. It was customary to begin the new year in a state of physical and moral cleanliness.

March and early April had been the hottest on record, and a lot of people had forgotten what rain felt like. Excluding the Government, everyone was looking forward to a few days of water tossing, and hosing down, and walking around in shorts and rubber sandals. Songkran was Laos’s most joyous and uninhibited calendar event.

All the splashing generally got Mother Nature in the mood too, and she’d join in with some generous pre-season rainstorms to begin the long process of slaking the thirst of the land. But if old Mother Nature had been in the meeting at the Interior Ministry on the eleventh, she’d probably have become as hotheaded as Civilai.

He stormed out after the final vote with his glasses steamed up and his two aides scuttling along after him.

“Fools,” was all he had to say.

It was Sunday. Inthanet, with the invaluable aid of his lovely assistant, Miss Vong, was making the final preparations for his big show. From his vantage point on the hammock in the back yard, Siri couldn’t help noticing the red flushes on their collective cheeks. Either sewing hems on Royal capes was hot work, or they’d been up to something. Siri didn’t relish getting a mental picture of what that may have been, but he was pleased that Miss Vong finally had a little romance in her life.

Manoluk lay sleeping on the cot on the veranda. One overworked fan whirled at her feet at the end of a daisy chain of extension cords that brought it out to the garden. Another chain led to the living room, where a second fan swept back and forth drying the new paint faces of a lineup of delighted puppets. A third fan puffed at the ruddy cheeks of the lovers in the back room. The radio played northern flute music live from the army studio. The refrigerator made ice for the lemon tea. The rice cooker prepared lunch.

The drain on the national electric grid from Siri’s house alone was enormous. He expected a raid at any second. So when the bell rang from the front gate—a bell that only strangers used—he knew the jig was up.

“Visitor,” Miss Vong called out.

“So I gathered,” Siri agreed. “I don’t suppose you’d like to go and see who it is, would you?”

“I’m threading.”

“Of course you are.”

The old Miss Vong would have been at the fence with her binoculars and notepad at the first footfall on the front path. Now she didn’t care. Siri reluctantly climbed down from the hammock and shuffled stiffly through the house. The bell had rung with great urgency twice more before he reached the front.

“Patience, patience,” he said, and creaked open the gate that was neither locked nor latched.

To his amazement, Mrs. Fah, the wife of his old neighbor, Soth, stood a few paces back from the gate. She’d been crying and was shaking violently.

“Mrs. Fah. What’s wrong?”

“Dr. Siri, can you come with me, please?”

These were more words than they’d exchanged in all the time they’d lived next door to one another.

“What is it?”

“My husband is dying, and he says it’s your fault.”

Siri rode his motorcycle with Mrs. Fah on the back, holding his bag. She gave directions, and he was interested to see that the neighbors had moved about a mile from their old house to a similar suburb. The woman insisted on getting off the bike long before the house came into view and walking ahead, lest her husband see her. In fact, the new house was almost identical to the one they’d left in such a hurry. It was all most peculiar.

Mrs. Fah hadn’t given Siri any details of her husband’s ailment, so he didn’t know what to expect. He parked in the street and followed the wife through the opulent house to the bedroom. The huge king-size bed contained a remarkably shriveled Mr. Soth at its center. His skin was gray, and his cheekbones stood out on his face.

“Mr. Soth, what’s happened to you?”

The man opened his eyes slowly and glared at Siri.

“As you see, Doctor, I’ve been struck down.”

“By what?”

He reached out for Soth’s wrist but the man pulled away.

“I don’t need your medicine. I can afford a dozen real doctors. None of them have helped.”

“I don’t understand. What caused this?”

Soth looked beyond Siri.

“That.”

Siri turned his head and was stunned to see a trim version of Saloop lying in the corner of the room with his head on one paw.

“Saloop? Well, I’ll be. So this is where you got to. How are you, boy?”

Soth’s eyes grew wide. “So you can see it.”

“Of course I can.”

“Of course? My wife can’t. The kids can’t. Nobody else can see the damned thing but me. I’ve had three fortune-tellers here telling me it doesn’t exist.”

Siri stared at Saloop, who showed no sign of recognizing his old master. His eyes were glazed and red like cocktail cherries. His fur was dull. His left ear seemed to sit lower on his head than his right. There was no movement but for the irregular rise and fall of its breath. Siri was overcome with a sudden pang of sadness.

What he saw there was not his dog; it was the malevolent spirit of an animal that had suffered an unnatural death.

“It’s dead,” Soth said, and a tear appeared in the corner of his eye.

“Why’s he here?”

“It’s here to haunt me. It won’t rest till it sees me on my pyre. It won’t let me eat or sleep. It plans to stay here until I rot away.”

“But why?”

“Why? Why? Because I killed it, that’s why.”

“You killed my dog?”

“Yes, but because of you. Because you tried to make a fool of me. You didn’t leave me with any choice. I lured it into my yard and brained it with a shovel. It was to get back at you. This is all your fault.”

“The dog didn’t have anything to do with you or me.”

“It was your dog. I knew you liked it. It was just revenge.”

“But of course he’s not going to see a connection. Only man would hurt a third party to get revenge on someone who’d wronged him. It’s against nature. If your grievance was with me, you should have settled your debt with me directly. The dog’s spirit doesn’t know why you hate it.”

“It’s you I hate. This was all your fault. The bloody dog drove me out of my house, then followed me here. I can’t shake it off. You make it go away.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Can’t? Look at me, Siri. Look what state I’m in. You want my death on your conscience forever? Call off your dog.”

“No. I mean it isn’t for me to do. You have to beg forgiveness from the spirit of the dog for what you did.”

“Huh? I’m not asking a damned dog for forgiveness. What do you think I am?”

Siri looked at the man, still arrogant even at the threshold of death. He showed no remorse. The only person who could remove this curse was Soth himself, but to do that he had to accept responsibility.

“Mr. Soth, I’m going to be perfectly frank with you. There’s only one way for you to save yourself, but it is possible. You need to stop shifting the blame for all this onto me. You have to perform a basee ceremony and truly believe that you and you alone have caused this. You have to ask the spirit of the dog to forgive you. No one else can remove this burden.”

“So you’re refusing?”

“No. I’m telling you what to do. I’m giving you a way out.”

“I curse you for this, Siri. I curse you a hundred times.”

Siri closed his bag and walked to the door. He looked down at Soth.

“You’re in exalted company on that front, Mr. Soth. Don’t forget what I said. It’s all up to you.”

Soth spat in the doctor’s direction.

In the living room, he reported his warning to Mrs. Fah and gave her the same instructions.

“He’ll never do it,” she said.

“If he doesn’t, he won’t survive this.”

“No? Good riddance.”

Her honesty shocked but didn’t actually surprise him. He’d heard how the husband talked to the wife. He’d seen her kept as a slave in his house. She was glad this was happening, and once Siri confirmed that her husband wouldn’t make it, she’d finally had the courage to speak her mind.

“If you need any help,” Siri said, “you know where I live. I’m serious.”

On the short ride home, Siri tried to put his emotions into some kind of order. He didn’t feel guilt at this haunting. He was sad his dog had died, but proud the animal had gone after the bastard. It’s what he would have done. As for Soth, this was the backlash of Yin to punish him for his years of Yang. He couldn’t fight that. It comes to everyone, either in this life or in the next. He was glad to see that even in times of confusion such as these, the laws of I Ching were still in order.

The sign at the back of the stage was written in stylish letters on a white banner.

BENEFIT SHOW FOR THE NURSES’ MEDICAL FUND

For everyone on the Medical School football field that evening, this was the undisputed highlight of the
Songkran
celebrations. There had been so few events to cheer.

Politburo Directive 873 had basically put an end to spontaneous celebrations. New Year water throwing had only been allowed at designated spots under the watchful eye of PL representatives. There had been arrests of those who ignored the directive, and in places where anarchy reigned in large numbers, long lists of names were submitted to the authorities.

Due to the prolonged drought, water was throwable only from 2 P.M. to 5 P.M. and had to be taken from natural sources such as ponds and rivers. Water from the public supply was off limits under threat of a nine-thousand-kip fine. Most musician and comedian concerts had been cancelled, and the giving of alms to monks in the morning had been kept very low key. There were to be no outward signs of extravagance.

So, for people living in and near the downtown area, this show was pretty much it, and if it hadn’t been for Siri, they wouldn’t even have had this. In the late afternoon, the Medical School football team had won the annual grudge match against the Law School, 13–8. They then started to set the field up for the entertainment.

Chairs for VIPs were laid out in twenty rows in front of a stage. These were cordoned off from the standing public by lengths of pink nylon string tied to bamboo posts. The team’s supporters were all made to leave the field and re-enter, this time paying their fifty kip. All proceeds were to go to the Nurses’ Fund.

By 6:30, most of the VIP chairs were full and the field was crammed with onlookers mumbling with excitement. Children and particularly short people were hustled good-naturedly to the front of the standing gallery, and people at the back stood on boxes and bricks.

In the sixth row of the VIP chairs sat Civilai, Mr. Geung, and Siri, in that order. They watched as the most “T” of the VIPs arrived fashionably late. The same people who had banned festivals and public gatherings were excitedly taking their seats in front of them, nodding and waving as if they’d organized this show themselves.

Civilai had maintained a foul mood for three days now. He’d spent much of his life as a frustrated Nostradamus. He knew what benefits or consequences there would be from decisions made or policy introduced at any given time. He really knew. But he’d rarely been able to convince the majority. No matter how often he’d been proven right, they still saw him as a noisy reactionary cog in the revolutionary machine.

The festival directive, he knew would be a disaster. The people were suffering. They’d tightened their belts at the behest of the new regime. They’d pooled their scant resources and given up their humble luxuries. And what reward did they get for their unselfishness? Zilch. They needed festivals and concerts and happy days now and then in order to forget their frustrations.

But the Party saw these gatherings as potential boiling pots of political unrest. They were afraid of young people, with the same fire that had once burned in their own breasts, raging through the village festivals and leading to a popular uprising. After eighteen months in power, paranoia had become a national symptom.

The first test would come in May. The popular rocket festival had been banned completely. “Too many people; too much gunpowder,” they’d said at the meeting. Civilai argued until he was no longer red in the face that you couldn’t just erase a festival that had been part of the culture for hundreds of years. The rocket festival was a fertility rite. It appeased the gods of the harvest and begged them to bring the rainy season. What would happen if the festival were banned and the rains didn’t start on time? What would the people think of their new regime then?

They scolded Civilai for his superstitious ways and voted him down—again.

“They’ll be sorry,” Civilai mumbled as the prime minister took his seat. “Look at those old fogies.”

“They’re all younger than you,” Siri reminded him.

“Only in years, Siri. In mentality they’ve all got one foot in the grave.”

“T…too…too bad Dtui can’t be here t…to…to see this,” Mr. Geung said, appropriately changing the subject. He sucked happily on his corn ice pole, a rare treat in those hard times. Civilai agreed.

“She’ll be up and about in a week or so. She should be here, considering that all her medical bills are going to be covered by this little performance.”

“And…and all the o…o…other nurses that get sick,” Geung reminded him.

“It’s a service the government should be offering, not you, Siri. We should—”

“Come on, Older Brother. Let’s enjoy this, can we?” Siri urged. “Take off your grumpy hat and relax.”

“Ha, grumpy hat.” Geung found that a hilarious concept and laughed contagiously. Civilai and Siri and a dozen people around them caught it.

“All right,” Civilai conceded. “I’ll enjoy myself.”

“Good.”

“On the condition that you tell me how you swung this little con.”

“Swung? Con? Civilai, this is a joint Ministry of Sport and Culture–Russian Embassy event. No swinging was involved. What do you mean?”

“Getting them both to agree to support your Nurses’ Fund, for one thing. That had to involve some very sharp political maneuvering, Dr. Siri.”

“Not really.”

A Ukrainian man with a guitar climbed up on the stage, sat on a rickety stool, and proceeded to warm up the audience with American folk songs translated into Russian.

“Come on.” Civilai leaned across Geung and spoke in a low voice. “How did you do it?”

Siri leaned over as well, but Geung found it all too funny, so he and Siri changed seats.

“You have to promise not to tell anyone.”

“Who’d listen to me?”

“Okay. I blackmailed them.”

“Who?”

“All of them. The ministry people, the Russians.”

“Oh, come on.”

“Really. The head of the archive department at DSIC was moonlighting at Tong Kankum market, selling fish during office hours. That, you have to agree, is against regulations. So he thought it would be a very socially aware thing to offer the proceeds of a concert to the sick nurses.”

“In exchange for….”

“My silence.”

“Okay. That I can believe. But the Russians? What have you got that they want?”

“Well, it was Dtui, actually, who sparked my interest. When she went to see Ivanic, she said she saw this nocturnal panda they’d just smuggled in through customs. I’d never heard of an animal changing its sleep habits to suit the weather, so it got me suspicious. I checked with my spy at Wattay. There hadn’t been any flights, direct or indirect, from China during the period they claimed the panda had arrived.

“So I tried a little bluff. You remember the bear at the Lan Xang that started all this fuss?”

“Yes.”

“Everyone had believed it was too infirm to have made it out of the hotel compound without help. So I wondered what type of person might love animals enough, and have the resources, to rescue the poor old girl. The name of Ivanic popped up in my suspicious mind. What if he and his secret police friends did a raid to spring the bear and take her to the circus compound?”

“He didn’t?”

“He would have needed a good cover story to explain the sudden appearance of a bear, especially as most of the armed forces were out hunting for it. That’s when he came up with the Chinese panda alibi.”

“How do you turn a Malay black into a panda?”

“Bleach, and enough shadows to make sure nobody gets too close. Once I’d come up with that little theory, it seemed more and more plausible. So I approached the Russian with it.”

“Well done.”

“Being a good Soviet Communist, he came straight to the point and asked me what I’d want to keep my mouth shut. So, here we are: circus day.”

“Siri, apart from myself, you have to be the most devious old bastard I know.”

He threw back his head and laughed, put his arm around his friend’s neck and kissed him on the cheek.

“Get off.”

“That’s wonderful, really. It makes up for everything else. It honestly does. God, I love you.”

He kissed him again.

Civilai giggled through the entire show. The big Lao girls in their underwear tumbled bravely and climbed into swaying towers of bodies. Three jugglers kept a lovely bunch of coconuts in the air for the longest time. A clown in ever-falling trousers brought excited howls and hoots from the huge crowd.

At halftime, a Lao orchestra came on the stage, and in front of them a smartly attired Mr. Inthanet and some Fine Arts students presented a play with the Royal Puppets. It was a magical moment, and when it was over the crowd truly believed they’d been honored to see it. The puppets got the loudest cheer of the night. They would return to their teak chest pumped with pride from a magnificent performance that would be talked about forever.

For the final act, a wagon covered in a black cloth was wheeled in front of the VIPs. Ivanic, in his leather thigh-high boots and a frilled pink shirt open to the navel, pranced down from the apron of the stage like the ham showman he was. He shouted some indecipherable words to the audience and grandly pulled back the cloth.

The glistening black puma, elegant and frightening under the glare of the spotlights, prowled back and forth in the small cage, growling at the huge audience. They first gasped at the sight of the magnificent creature, then applauded. With his arm twirling through the air and his deep incomprehensible voice enthralling the onlookers, Ivanic walked to one side of the cage. The puma charged at him. He charged back and the two stood eyeballing one another through the bars. Ivanic reached up and pulled a large metal pin from the side of the cage and the entire front flap dropped to the ground.

The sudden intake of breath almost sucked the performers into the audience. The creature looked to one side and tensed with excited apprehension. There was nothing now between it and the front row of the VIP seats but warm air and a sudden charge of anxiety. The old men tensed. Some stood and prepared to run. The bodyguards on either side reached for their pistols and took a step forward.

The puma froze. The audience froze.

“Eat ’em,” shouted Civilai.

But before any eating could take place, Ivanic stepped bravely forward into the void ’twixt the drooling animal and the perspiring VIPs. With his back to the puma, he raised his right hand. There came a growl from behind him and the animal seemed to half squat, ready to spring. Some women screamed, but they were the ones too far to see the calm on Ivanic’s face.

Slowly and reluctantly, the puma sat.

“Damn,” Civilai said.

Ivanic raised his other hand, and the puma rose up in slow motion and paddled its claws through the air. There came a nervous round of applause from an audience afraid that a sudden noise might snap the animal out of its passivity.

The Russian coolly folded his arms and put down his head. The puma lay down and, still snarling, rolled onto its back. Then, calm as you like, Ivanic strolled over to the platform of the cage where the puma lay and sat beside it. He reached out his hand with its fake crowd-pleasing shake and patted the beast on the belly.

There was a huge cheer from the throng. The VIPs clapped politely but not with any confidence. The cage was, after all, still open. Ivanic spotted Siri in the sixth row and nodded. Siri, as delighted as everyone else, nodded back. It was, they all agreed, the most magnificent New Year show they’d ever seen.