Disco for the Departed

The Amateur Interpreter of English

The old Pathet Lao driver was at Siri’s disposal for as long as he was needed. The jeep pulled up in front of the new regional hospital in Xam Neua at 8:00 A.M. Four years earlier, this capital of Huaphan province had been a pile of rubble and splinters. Not a house had remained standing after a dozen years of blitz. The noncombatant Air America forward air controllers had guided in the bombers and choreographed the destruction, but it was mostly Lao and Hmong pilots with their fingers on the buttons. It was a symbolic gesture. The civilian inhabitants had fled long before the city was flattened.

But now a new city was taking shape with pretentious boulevards as wide as the Champs-Elysйes and grand plans for another communist show town. The hospital was a temporary field of whitewashed barracks while the staff all waited for a move to a more splendid home. The front office housed the administrators, and Siri and Dtui found Dr. Santiago buried behind a rockery of files and books. He was a skinny man around Siri’s age with a hairstyle modeled on that of Albert Einstein. He wore porthole spectacles with glass as thick as the bottoms of gin bottles. A cigarette burned in an ashtray beside him and he seemed to hover there in its smoke. Obviously, he was used to people walking in and out of his office because he didn’t look up from his work when the visitors arrived.

“Dr. Santiago?” Siri said when he spotted him through the canyons of paper.

“Da?” The old Cuban still pored over his lists. Siri wasn’t surprised to hear him speak Russian. After almost ten years as head of foreign medical aid in Huaphan, Santiago still refused pointedly to learn Lao or Vietnamese. He spoke Spanish, English, and Russian fluently and had reached an age when he considered himself sufficiently full of languages. He hadn’t asked to come to Laos, or to work with the Vietnamese, whom he disliked. He certainly wasn’t about to make an attempt to cross the cultural divide. He was the expert, and everyone had to make the effort to communicate with him. All in all, not unlike Siri, he was a stubborn but engaging old coot.

“Dosvidanya,” Siri said. It was his only Russian word and he wasn’t actually sure what it meant.

Santiago finally looked up and squinted through his glasses. It seemed to take him a few moments either to focus or to place his old friend in his memory. “Dr. Siri? Is that you?” he asked in English. He jumped up from his chair and ran around the desk to embrace a respected colleague. They smiled and laughed a lot as they hugged, but Dtui noticed they weren’t actually conversing. On the journey, Siri had told her that he’d worked with Santiago, on and off, for five years without the benefit of a common language. Siri spoke French and Vietnamese quite fluently but he, too, had reached his linguistic quota. When there was no English/Lao interpreter available, the two had merely observed one another’s surgical skills and socialized with the aid of diagrams and mime. It had been such a peculiarly pleasant relationship, Siri wondered whether a common language might have spoiled it in some way.

Siri finally broke away and pointed to his assistant. “Nurse Dtui,” he said.

“Hello, Dr. Santiago. Pleased to meet you,” she said in English.

Both Siri and Santiago looked at her with astonishment for a few seconds before the Cuban went across to hug her also. It was a culturally inappropriate gesture that seemed to fit into the spirit of the moment. He told her she spoke English well.

“I read and write,” she said. “I don’t really speak it.” It was true. She’d never used the language to converse. It was just a medium for study. In fact, she was a little surprised to find it coming from her mouth so happily.

He assured her that whether she read it or spoke it, it was still the same language. And, from that moment, despite the fact that she’d never heard herself using it before, English became their language of communication and Dtui its novice interpreter. She knew her pronunciation was awful, but Santiago had no problem with that because his own accent was equally horrible. He, too, had learned English from American textbooks. Siri was full of admiration for his talented assistant.

Throughout the morning, the two old doctors caught up with each other’s lives since last they’d met. Santiago was spending more time on administering Cuban aid, he told them, and had less and less time available for the job he was actually trained for. Farmers continued to get blown up in their fields, and there were fewer and fewer qualified medical staff members to care for them. There were under a hundred qualified doctors in the entire country so the PL medical staff was spread thinly to fill the roles of the Royalist physicians who’d fled to Thailand. Santiago had funding but nobody to hire.

Through Dtui, whose confidence increased as time passed, Siri finally got around to the mystery of his cement man. The Cuban thought about it for a moment and asked whether he was certain the incident had taken place early that year.

“January 21, to be exact,” Siri told him.

“Dr. Santiago says that if it had been a few months earlier, he’d have had two very good candidates for us,” Dtui said. “At least that’s what I think he means. But he reckons that by last October, they’d already gone back to Cuba.”

“They completed their tours?”

“Not exactly. He says it’s a little complicated. They came in 1971 to help with the setting up of some project at kilometer 8.”

“Xieng Muang,” Siri said. “That’s the hospital. It was an amazing project. They had to drill out the centers of two mountains. They built two complete hospital wards that were invisible from the air but were able to accommodate a thousand patients. It was an impressive piece of engineering. The Vietnamese military took care of the labor; the Cubans provided nurses and orderlies.”

“He thinks you may remember the two men he means. Their names were Isandro and Udon.”

“Odon,” Santiago corrected her.

“Sorry, Odon. He says they were here from the beginning.”

Siri nodded his head. He’d only been invited to Xieng Muang from time to time to help with surgery, and on those occasions he’d always brought his Lao team with him, but he did recall the sight of black orderlies running around the wards. He’d had no opportunity to talk to them.

“While the work was going on,” Dtui continued, “Dr. Santiago says they took care of the wounded in temporary caves here and there. Isandro and Odon were part of that project. They were the head nursing orderlies. When the Kilometer 8 Hospital was ready, they moved everyone into the mountains. After the two of them finished one four-year tour, they volunteered for a second. It seems that was quite unusual. Most of the Cubans were in a hurry to return home. But these two were good workers and they had made friends with the locals. They’d studied the Lao language, even acquired a taste for the local food.” Dtui added, for Dr. Siri’s benefit, “Of course, I might be making half of this up.”

“So why were they sent back early?” Siri asked, ignoring her disclaimer.

There followed a long spell while Dtui clarified points with the old Cuban.

“Apparently,” Dtui said, “there were complaints.”

“Who from?”

“A senior Vietnam Army officer said one of the men, Isandro, was making advances to his daughter. He made it very clear: if he found the man anywhere near her again, he’d shoot him.”

“And Dr. Santiago passed this message on to Isandro and Odon?”

“He says he did but they defied him. They said they weren’t afraid of him or the colonel. He couldn’t believe it. The situation just got worse and worse. The doctor couldn’t have Cuban workers getting shot by a Vietnamese for messing around with his daughter, so he had no choice. He ordered them home.”

“And is he absolutely sure they went?”

“Absolutely.”

“And no other dark-skinned Cubans went missing from any other Cuban projects?”

“He says this was the only one in the region.”

“Could you ask Dr. Santiago to describe Isandro for me?”

Again Dtui and the Cuban doctor went into a huddle.

“As far as I can make out,” Dtui said, “he was built like a tree-tall and broad shouldered like an American basketball player-and strong.”

Siri shrugged. This wasn’t at all the description of their cement man. Dtui asked about Odon.

“This is more like it,” she told Dr. Siri. “Odon was smaller. Santiago says he was ugly as a goat but had a permanent smile that endeared him to everyone. He says it’s unusual for the natives-and I guess that includes you and me-to get along with dark-skinned foreigners, but Odon and Isandro really made an effort and people responded. Then he said something I couldn’t really get-something like ‘more fool the natives’ but don’t quote me on that.”

Siri considered Odon a more likely candidate than his bigger friend, but as they’d both left Laos, it appeared he’d either have to look elsewhere for their mummy’s identity or prove that for some reason one of the orderlies had stayed behind.

Although there was an enormous refrigerator in one comer of the office, upon inspection it was found to contain nothing but jar upon jar of culture specimens. It was a fascinating collection, they all agreed, but the contents were not likely to be particularly filling. So Santiago invited his guests to join him for lunch at the new Lao Houng Hotel. He gladly abandoned his paperwork and seemed rejuvenated by this unexpected visit. As they were leaving the building, the Cuban stopped to speak to a nurse who looked too young to have completed the nursing certificate. Siri noticed the old man take her hand in his and give her a rather unprofessional peck on the cheek. Although the girl blushed, she didn’t pull away as one would expect of a Lao girl receiving an unwanted kiss. It appeared there was still a Latin fire burning in Santiago’s grate.

They ate bland Vietnamese food beneath huge posters of unknown Chinese film stars and joked about the new Oz of Vieng Xai. Then, as they drank warm, lightly scented beer for dessert, Santiago turned his attention to Dtui. He asked if she was a qualified nurse. When she said she was, he asked whether she thought her “Papa Siri” would be able to spare her for a day or two. It appeared that after the cease-fire they had moved the Kilometer 8 Hospital outside the mountain and into some old French buildings that stood in front of it. It was still a hospital but nobody working there had more than six month’s basic medical training. Dr. Santiago was expecting two new Cuban doctors to arrive before the weekend but, as things stood, he was desperate for somebody who could make decisions. The doctor went there whenever he was able, but he believed they really needed a big sister on the site.

She put the proposal to Siri.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I’m just a nurse.”

“Dtui, you’ll never be just a nurse. I could probably play detective here on my own for a bit-but the decision’s yours. The living always take precedence over the dead in my book. Just don’t tell any spirits I said that.”

She turned back to Santiago and asked how certain he was the Cuban doctors would be there by the weekend. He told her he was positive. She told him she would help, and then translated her decision for Siri.

“Good for you,” he said. “I’ll come by and lend a hand whenever I can. But I’m sure you’ll have the place organized in no time. And Dtui…?”

“Yes?”

“You won’t forget these bodies are alive, will you? Don’t try to store anyone in the freezer overnight.”

“Dr. Siri!”

“Sorry.”

Mr. Geung wasn’t designed for walking. His ankles turned outward and his legs were short. But the notion had entered his mind that he should walk back to Vientiane. He knew it was far, but not that it was over three hundred kilometers by road. He knew he didn’t have any money in his pocket to pay for a bus ticket, nor did he have a concept of how else he could get to the morgue to keep his promise. So, when the soldiers stopped to take a pee, he walked to the last truck in the convoy and looked back at the road that snaked down through the mountains. He took a deep breath, as the doctor had taught him, and set off for home. Nobody noticed him go.

After only five minutes, he was alone on the deserted road. Mr. Geung wasn’t one for doing things alone. He was good at joining in with others or doing what he was told, but he had hardly a trace of initiative. The trucks were barely out of sight before he realized he wouldn’t be able to undertake such a journey by himself. He needed a friend. He needed a logical friend to keep him company. And, as if by magic, he looked back over his shoulder and saw Dtui just a few paces behind him. It was a relief. She was the most sensible woman he knew and he was sure she’d guide him back.

“I… I’m sorry, little sister,” he said and smiled at her.

She laughed and took his hand, and walked with him along the badly potholed road. At one point she whispered into his mind that the sun was directly overhead and they didn’t have hats. They decided to walk through the groves of peculiar trees, keeping the road within sight. Having her beside him gave him confidence. As they walked, he reminded her of all the jokes she’d told for the past year. She was impressed that they’d remained stored in his memory. He didn’t know where he’d be without Dtui and her common sense there to guide him.

The image of Mr. Geung appeared so clearly in Dtui’s mind it was as if he were there in the room with her. She opened her eyes and looked around. In the closetless room her clothes hung from the four posts of the bed like pallbearers. The darned holes in the mosquito netting gathered the mesh into fairy stars, adding to her feeling that Guesthouse Number One was mystical in some way. The klooee piper played the same dirge over and over in the distance and, even in late afternoon, the mist had begun to roll against the glass of the window. She realized she must have dozed and dreamed of her friend, but she felt uneasy for him.

She knew that but for the mystery guests in the far wing and the staff sitting around in the empty dining room, the guesthouse was deserted. Siri would be down on the veranda describing their visit with Dr. Santiago to the small-minded security head. What a letdown he’d turned out to be. Before he’d suddenly turned into a raging communist Nazi, Dtui had even considered him as a prospective mate. His cool smile and lean frame fitted her ever-shrinking list of requirements. Unfortunately, she held firmly to the belief that the man for her had to have a mind of his own, an increasingly difficult order to fill. Now that she had ruled him out, she thought it best to opt out of the evening’s briefing downstairs.

But her room was overwhelming her with bizarre thoughts and feelings, so she decided to get away from it. She had two tasks that would keep her occupied for an hour or so. First, she would try to get through to Vientiane on the single guesthouse telephone. About a month earlier, two men in old army uniforms with TELEPHONE COMPANY written across the backs in laundry ink had come to install a phone at Siri’s bungalow. It was another Party reward for Siri’s selfless contribution to the Cause. She knew if it hadn’t been for her mother and the need to keep in constant contact with her, he would have told them where to stick their telephone. “Another intrusion,” he would have called it.

Before the men had left, they wrote down the four-digit number, one that just happened to end in three nines, and assured them all there would be a connection the following day. In fact, it had been two weeks before they heard that distinctive Lao dial tone-a sparrow trying desperately to escape from a crinkly paper bag. Now Dtui was able to check on her mother every few days. It put her mind at ease. Of course, she had to yell her guts out to be heard. Siri was so impressed at the size of her lungs he’d wondered whether the telephone was actually necessary.

And there was something that had been worrying her about the autopsy. She took her sturdy Soviet flashlight downstairs and, after ten minutes of shouting over the phone, she walked out the back way and headed for the president’s house. There had been no reason to lock the door of the meeting room. The body still lay in segments on the plastic tablecloth. The story of the Cuban orderlies had stuck in her mind. There was no way the body in front of her could have belonged to the amorous basketball player, but what about his goat-faced friend? What if he hadn’t gone home? What if the smaller man had somehow been left behind and found himself in trouble?

As no logical alternatives occurred to her, she began to run the flashlight beam across the torso. She was used to Siri’s ongoing discussions with his subjects during autopsies, so she began her inspection with, “Excuse me, Mr. Odon, I was wondering whether perhaps you had a little more to tell us than you have so far.” She’d noticed something at the initial inspection, three marks-almost parallel lines-beneath the left armpit. At the time, she’d merely noted them as interesting. The contraction of the skin had left many such grooves, but there had been something strangely regimented about these three. Their oddity had lingered in her mind and she wanted to satisfy her curiosity.

She shone the beam onto the right side of the chest. It was more deteriorated there, harder to recognize, but after pushing at the leathery hide with her fingers, she had no doubt. Three furrows in an identical position to those on the left-symmetrical. Nothing biological could explain such marks. The body had been scarred in some type of ritual. It certainly did have more to tell.

Siri had arrived at the point where he was prepared to wake up the guesthouse supervisor and complain about the damned noise. Three nights he’d been there, and every night the foreign devil music had blasted out at midnight. Surely the youth of Vieng Xai had better ways to spend their time. Surely the senior cadres of the region ought to clamp down on such bourgeois Western decadence. He couldn’t work it out. Perhaps Huaphan had too few people left who really cared.

As sleep was hard to come by, he went over the points raised at his meeting with Comrade Lit. They’d drawn up a list. One: check the date of departure of Isandro and Odon. Two: locate the Vietnamese colonel who’d made the complaint to Santiago. Three: get information about any other projects in the region in which dark-skinned foreigners were involved. Siri broadened the search to include Vietnamese mountain tribesmen even though he was quite sure the dead man was not Asian.

Somewhere between numbers seven and eight on the list, order finally gave way to sleep. The crow and the sparrow returned for a dream sequel, still on their wire above the valley, still preening one another. But slowly, one by one, other sparrows came to rest alongside them. One settled beside the first and attempted to flirt with her. She rejected its advances and returned to her crow. This caused a terrible kafuffle in the sparrow community, and they flapped and fluttered and squawked and it seemed an assault on the crow was inevitable. But, before they could attack, the crow enfolded the sparrow in his broad black wing and the two of them dropped. There was no attempt to fly away. They merely dropped like stones into the valley below and deep into the soft mud of the fields.

Siri was awakened, not by the weak morning light through his window, but by the whimpering of a child. He thought of the girl he had seen in an earlier dream but the bunk opposite was empty. This child was more real, and seemed to be closer, so close he even raised his netting and peered under his bed. He went to the door and looked out into the empty corridor. But there was no doubt the sound came from inside his room. He touched the talisman at his neck. It could sense tricks from the malevolent spirits. They’d fooled him before. Their black magic had almost killed him on two occasions. But the white stone hung still and cool. This was no black magic. It was a sincere cry for help from some other troubled soul. But, with no clues and no way of responding, Siri could only lie back on his mattress and listen to the feeble cries. The sound gradually climbed to a higher pitch and became more hollow, and at some point it blended with the sound of the bamboo klooee that played its solitary morning tune.