Love Songs from a Shallow Grave

19

Time has lost its meaning. Misery has lost its edge. The sounds I hear no longer bear any human elements. They are ornaments. They are jingles. They are pleasant, almost enjoyable bursts of spontaneous birdsong. My clarity has become a giddy drunken clarity. I see everything as a joke. A funny thing happened to me on my way to the cemetery clarity. As Civilai liked to point out, my smart-arse thyroid is playing up again. Somewhere inside I'm aware this is a symptom, the result of endless light and lack of sleep and poor nutrition. But there's really nothing I can do about it. I'm experiencing madness and it's funny. Move over Rajid.

What good has all this conservation of energy done me? I mean, honestly. What can I do? When they nabbed me leaving Civilai's room at the hotel, that was my chance. I had stashed my evidence and was on my way down to join the party when the black-suited monkeys were on me. I didn't see them coming. But I was fit then, still burning calories from Peking. I could have done a James Bond. There were only two of them. Thugs, perhaps, but I could have felled them with well-placed karate chops. A sprint and a dive headlong through the window at the end of the corridor. Parallel-bar routine through the branches of the strangler fig tree and head for the border. Blew that one.

Very weak now. Perhaps they'll do me the favour of killing me quickly. Perhaps they'll tire of the toenail-plucking and eye-gouging and just put a bullet in me. That would be nice.

And where have you lot gone to? One by one you lost souls drifted away, off through the walls, east, west, north or south. No direction. No leadership. See if I don't desert you some day, you traitors. But, dear ma, you're still with me, my sweetheart. Too bad mothers have no choice. Even if they can't see a hope in hell for their offspring they have to sit it out till the bitter end. Isn't that right, my mother angel? Yes, chew your betels. Spit your blood. Perhaps we could chat about the old days when I come acr -

A key in the lock. Why do they…? Never mind. And there you are, the dungeon keeper. Thirty-six, thirty-seven? Either way, half my age but skinny. Skinny as the Chinese ideogram for tree…written in biro. I could take you, you poorly written character. How dare they toss a twig into the lion's den? No, Siri. Badly mangled metaphor. What would a lion care of a twig? I'll work on that. But meanwhile you walk into my lair with your pail and your tin mug. It's quiet beyond the door, and black. Are you the night watchman? What are your orders, twiggy? Keep him alive till morning. We'll kill him properly then. How hard can that be? Feed me and keep me away from sharp objects. But you don't look that bright, do you?

So I lie still and I stare. I stare into the hypnotic glare of the strip light. My tongue lolls from my mouth like that of a sleeping sloth. My breathing stops. I am clearly dead. Call me a liar. Yes, you dare speak to me. Your words sound like 'Is a saucepan under a yellow?' in my language. You dare. You dare come near enough to look into my cloudy eyes. You dare lean close to my face to hold the back of your hand against my nose. And I have you. Snap. I grab hold of your head and I pull it into my stomach. No pain from my broken wrist, just a disorganised out-of-order feeling. I grip you with my arms and legs and I use what strength I have to hold you there. I am a vice. You writhe. You kick and punch. But you're in no position to do me any damage because — you seem to forget — I am dead.

It feels like a lifetime that I hold you to me. Two weak men in a macabre horizontal tango of death. I imagine the music. I think of fresh baguettes. And at some stage during these reveries, you have withdrawn from the dance. You are a bolster in my grasp. But I hug on. I hug until every last memory is squeezed from you because I know one day you will seek the man who took your life. With luck you'll understand I had to…I had to. But I lose consciousness and the bats and the moths come flocking.

I come round some time later. I feel like death but, presumably, I'm still alive. But not you, twiggy. You lie across me in a show of post-mortem affection. You seem heavier without life as I push you off. I apologise to your mother. She probably had something better in mind for you. I search you and realise you have no pockets. What type of fashion would leave a man nowhere to put his handkerchief, his pen, his keys? I look around to see if you dropped them in our little tug of death. And then I see them. They are three metres away, dangling in the lock of the open door. Where is a plan B when I need one?

It's been ten minutes and nobody has come so perhaps there is nobody. I have been brooding over the dilemma of keys out of my reach. Even by extending my chains to their fullest and my joints to beyond their limit, I am still two metres from the door. It's the funniest thing. I wipe sardonic tears of mirth from my eyes. Why do I never have a long pole with a hook on the end when I need one? I shall make a point of including one in my travel kit on my next journey. You have no belt, my jail keeper, but you have a standard issue black and white checked scarf. It's almost as poor quality as you. I rip it into strips and tie them together all the while trying to recall the movie that taught me the skill of lassoing. It doesn't come to me. I am amazed at how complicated it is to tie knots with one hand. I attach your tractor-tyre sandal to the end of my rope and I toss. Half a dozen times I toss and my aim gets more wayward and my laughter becomes more manic. If anyone were outside the-room they would have heard me by now.

Then I catch me a key. The cloth snags on the bunch and I have a victory of sorts. Except the key is at right angles to me and no end of tugging will remove it from the keyhole. So I work up a rhythm and swing the whole kit and caboodle — door, keys, sandal — left and right, left and right until I'm certain the lasso will slip its mooring. But the keys drop to the tiles with a mighty clang they could hear half a kilometre away. I sit and wait once more for the invasion of guards. And again it doesn't happen. So I cast my line towards the floor-bound keys and I drag them to me. A bunch worthy of a Dumas dungeon. Door keys, cupboard keys, keys to some ancient vehicle, but nothing small enough to unlock me. Then I see it. A little black hex key. Annoyingly simple. I could have fashioned one myself out of my own shin bone after a year or so. If only I can keep my hand still enough to…and it clicks open. And the same key unfastens the chain at my ankle. I could probably open every door and safe and heart in the world with this cunning metal L.?

Twenty minutes have passed. I couldn't stand. My knees had become welded lumps. I had to massage the life back into my legs. I had the option of crawling out on my hands and knees but that lacked…dignity. I wanted to make my escape attempt at least look like that of a biped rather than a tortoise. The feeling slowly came back to me and I staggered through the door and onto an open balcony. The night air was like a blast of freedom. Below was an overgrown stretch of grass that had perhaps hosted football matches in better times. It was illuminated by the odd electric bulb strung along a wall. But, beyond that was a sea of black. My school was the only lit building. I might have been at the end of the world.

I am in the stairwell now, sitting on a step among other debris like myself. I feel like I have been dragged across broken masonry by a team of drunken asses. Indeed I have. My dance with the twig took more out of me than I have to spare. My journey thus far has taken me past three classrooms whose bright lights chiselled out the shape of the doors. From one I heard sobs. The others were silent. Then I passed the room with Teachers' Common Room written in French in grand letters above the door. That was the room they'd taken me to. The business room. It was dark now. Torment is obviously a nine-to-five job. The torturers had hung up their claw hammers and headed off home to play with the kids. Stroke the dog. Kiss the wife.

"How was your day, dear?"

"You know. The usual."

They don't need night sentries at a place like this. One old twig should do the job. The guests are either dead or broken. My feet appear to be bleeding. I should have taken the jailer's sandals. Smashed glass everywhere. My jungle-hardened feet have become soft after two years in Vientiane. Soft, like my old head. I bleed and I sit and I breathe and another burst of energy arrives. Perhaps I can make it to the ground floor.

As I work my way down I wonder what they'll ask me at my interview as I pass through the other world.

"So, Yeh Ming, we see you almost got out of S21."

"Yeah. I killed a man."

"Just the one?"

What kind of a question is that? Of course just one. Surely they don't count death by omission? Damn it. I bet they do. They're tough, these overlords. And they're right, of course.?

I brought the keys with me in case there's a gate or another locked door but it takes me another ten minutes to get back to my corridor and to the burning lights. I know I'll regret this decision but it wouldn't be the first time. I'm mad, don't forget. Irrational. They'll smudge over this in my obituary. I open the first door like Alice, not knowing what world I'll find there. There are three men inside. One is awake and alert. He looks at me with surprise. Another is only half-conscious. He seems to come round as I walk into the room. A third looks dead.

I smile but I'm unable to answer their questions. I hand the hex key to the first prisoner and I check the pulse of the third. Prisoner one unlocks himself and his colleague but there is no point in freeing the third man. I recognised his spirit amongst my classmates. I believe the only chance we have of escape is for us to stick together but I can't convey this thought to these men. The second prisoner, now conscious, ignores me and limps from the room. I personally think this is a bad option but look where my decisionmaking has led me. That leaves me and prisoner one, whom I shall call Thursday. I have no idea what day it is but Thursday was my birthday. It's also the day Madame Daeng puts special number 2 noodles on the menu. It's a good day.

Thursday and I go together to the second room. Adrenalin has recharged me and my hands are steady now. I can unlock the door without dropping the keys. Inside is a pitiful sight. A woman in her late twenties. Beside her, chained to the same pipe is a child of around three. Both mother and child are bruised. Thursday unlocks them, whispering words of encouragement as he does so. He helps her stand and carries the child out the door.

The stench from the third room tells me that it probably isn't a good idea to go in. I gesture for my fellow escapees to stand back and I open the door. I'm a hard man to astonish, really I am. But the sight I see there takes away what final breath I have. Chained to a floor pipe at the centre of the room is my heavy monk friend. He looks up at me with those same pitiful eyes. But I can tell you, this isn't one of his staged dramas. This is as real as it can be. Filed around the room like stacks of tapped rubber are twenty, perhaps thirty bodies in various states of decomposition. Two are attached on short chains to the big man's ankles. He has been beaten. His fingers are bloody.

He speaks first in Khmer, then in French;

"Help me?"

I glare down at him. I hate the man with all my heart but I am not given to revenge. I remove the key from the chain and place it several metres beyond his reach. I tell him how to retrieve it and walk to the door. Nobody deserves to be punished without humanity in this life. He will meet his demons in a future incarnation. I turn back and look at the bodies and I am embarrassed to think of Voltaire at such a moment. I'm afraid that by evoking the words of the writer I might condemn him to the same fate as the books from the library, and the Catholic cathedral and the dove that was just feathers on a rib cage. But he was right.

"One owes respect to the living but to the dead, one owes nothing but the truth."

I wonder how long these dead souls might have to search for that truth or whether they will understand it when it's found. I don't ask the monk what he's doing there because, in my mind, I know. The gaolers are turning on their own kind. The monster has already started to consume its tail. It's only a question of time before there is nothing left.

We are at the bottom of the staircase now, me, my man Thursday and mother and child. The effort of reaching the ground floor has drained me dry. My breath sounds like waves hitting a pebble beach. I don't think I can go on. I need a nice glass of port and eight hours on a soft bed. But the omens bode well. We haven't heard the sound of our desperate prisoner friend being cut down in his escape. In fact we haven't heard anything. I'm starting to believe my skinny guard was the only man on duty this night. There are no lights on this level. We pause at the rear exit. Thursday seems to be in charge now. I'm glad. He listens then gestures for us to follow across the muddy yard of the school. The grass is up to our knees. I can't feel my feet but I have a rhythm now. And we are making good time when Thursday suddenly stops and looks down. I catch up and I look down also. Lying in the thick grass in front of us is a body with a bayonet wedged between its shoulder blades. The blood is still fresh.

Thursday looks at me and sighs. We both know who it is. His cellmate hadn't made it to the fence. I hear a laugh from the shadows of the building behind us and a very slow, drawn-out 'tut, tut, tut' like a disappointed clock. I turn to see the smiley man illuminated only by the lights from above. He is swaying like a boatman. He is shirtless and my talisman hangs around his neck and swings from side to side. He walks slowly towards me, uncoordinated, drunk, and I stagger forward to intercept him. Perhaps I can give my comrades a chance to get away. In silhouette against the dimly lit school, the smiley man would make a remarkable cover for a French noir comic book. The pistol solid in his hand. Black blood specks across his chest. No features visible on his head save a grey smile. Yes, sir, he's a natural.

"You are a terrible disappointment, Dr Siri Paiboun," he slurs.

I laugh. Perfect. What an epitaph. What a way to go.

The smiley man takes one more step, so close now I can smell booze on his breath. He hooks one arm around my neck and pulls my head to him. He lifts his gun and shoots. The last thing I hear is the explosion. It thumps into my temple but I feel nothing. It's all over. One second you are, and then you aren't. Is this the way it's supposed to be, my spirit fellows?