Slash and Burn

10

The best part about being the only living burglar in Vientiane was the fact that the population had become so certain they’d never be robbed that they’d stopped locking their doors. Admittedly, very few had anything worth risking your neck for. These were frugal times and valuables had long since been exchanged for foodstuffs. Eg missed those nights when he’d have to pick a tricky lock or climb into a precariously situated window. He was built for burglary, was Eg. Forty-something with a face so bland nobody could ever identify him. Not even people who’d known him most of his life. He was slim and knotty with muscles, quick and light on his plimsolled feet. His eyes became used to the dark rapidly so he didn’t use a torch, the downfall of many a burglar. Testament to his skill was the fact he’d never been caught. Whereas all the villains with records languished in the prison islands on the Nam Ngum reservoir, Eg had been left to ply his trade in peace. He had to be careful, of course. The PL patrolled with guns and shot at anyone out after curfew.

Some householders made life so easy for him he wanted to chuckle. Take this morning, for example. A padlock on the shop’s metal grille a four-year-old could open and an advertisement, “Madame Daeng will be away until August 31^st. Apologies to our regular customers.” Shops on both sides closed. Nothing but the bloated Mekhong opposite. It was 2:40 A.M. and the street patrols, if they could be bothered, were on the hour. A piece of cake. Eg walked to the side street, hopped over a low wall and crossed the yard abutting that of Madame Daeng. He peeked over the wall. There were a dozen chickens and some big peculiar-looking bird that he imagined would look good on a spit. Obviously somebody came in during the day to feed them all. No dog. No alarm. No problems. And, would you credit it? Leaning against the back wall was a ladder. They wanted him to rob them. It was a community service he’d be providing.

The birds barely squawked when he dropped silently into the yard and edged the ladder across to a window. In seconds he was up and sliding a chisel between the wood and the frame and the window popped open like an old clam. Seconds more and he was inside. There was a musty, schoolroom smell to the place. He closed his eyes tight, counted to five, then opened them. And there they were, all around him-books. More books than they had in the national library. And not just books these, but foreign books with raised lettering he couldn’t read. He sat cross-legged in the middle of the room and grinned. It was his lucky night. Sometimes good fortune just dropped into your lap. Madame Daeng, the spirits bless her, had a whole room full of illegal books. Five to ten years for possession. He knew the Ministry of Culture would be very interested to learn about this. Oh, yes. Eg the burglar was about to embark along a brand new career path.

Cross-cultural integration had become an art form by dinner time at the Friendship Hotel. Almost everybody had a new buddy. Even couples had split up in the cause of socialization. Each table had its own 750 mls of Johnny Walker Red and a battalion of soda bottles. As the Friendship had only three hours of electricity there was no ice but after the third glass it was of no importance. The mood needed elevating. The teams had reached the end of the second day but had come up with not a single molar. Not a rotor or a seat spring. There was one empty table. The men who had traveled to Phonsavan to report the day’s finding were presumably still stuck in the queue at the post office. They’d been there for six hours so their patience would have been wearing a little thin by the time they returned. A smiling Johnny Red awaited them.

Auntie Bpoo had brought a lit candle to the dining room. She had sought out Dr. Yamaguchi and attempted to use her physical presence to hustle him away from the others to a table in the corner-just the two of them. From her wardrobe she had selected a splendid crimson silk gown with noodle-thin shoulder straps.

She was a good five centimeters taller than the pathologist, thanks to a pair of matte-black stiletto heels. Phosy had witnessed this attempted kidnapping and, feeling sorry for the old man, he and Geung went to sit with them. Bpoo was clearly not amused. It took a while to get her to agree to translate. But once she did, Phosy enjoyed his evening with the American. In a still photograph, even though he wore no glasses and his hair was ungreased, Yamaguchi would have looked as Japanese as Emperor Hirohito. He had that same strained expression that comes from carrying the weight of a three-thousand-year-old dynasty. But Yamaguchi was as American as bubblegum. It was evident from the very first moment he swaggered into a room. His posture was good from years of being the nail that wouldn’t be hammered down. But the feature that made him stand out was volume. It was Civilai’s theory that the Americans, like the Chinese, placed their elementary school teachers too far from the students’ desks. As a result they were trained to shout at one another from an early age. Most Lao schools had no furniture so the pupils could sit around the teacher and communicate at a civilized volume. Yamaguchi’s meal banter had a decibel level above that of a foghorn.

At five minutes to nine, the wheezy generator rattled and clunked its intention to retire so Siri, Ugly and Civilai took half a bottle of Johnny to the hotel veranda. The post office gang and their helicopter had still not returned. Siri, locked in an excruciatingly dull evening with General Suvan and his confused reminiscences, had noticed two odd things. One was the distinctive smell of smoke. It had been present earlier but he’d merely assumed it was the cook burning the evening meal. By eight it had become so pervasive that he’d excused himself to walk around the hotel to make sure the place wasn’t on fire. Toua the manager assured him it was probably just villagers nearby burning off the top growth to prepare the fields for planting. Siri was well acquainted with slash and burn agriculture. For centuries, nomadic tribes had burned off stretches of thick undergrowth and allowed the ash to fertilize the soil. The earth would offer up good harvests for three or four seasons until the soil was degraded, then the tribes would move on. In ten years the land would have replenished itself and be ready for the next migrating farmers. The three main crops for the surrounding Hmong were rice, maize and opium, and each required this shifting cultivation. But the manager’s answer didn’t sit right on Siri’s mind.

Then there was the air activity. Shortly after eight the flights had begun, fifteen or so, all told. Siri was certain he recognized a number of different craft. They were all heading west. It was remarkable, given the inexperience of its pilots, that the air force would choose to fly at night. The manager hadn’t been able to give an explanation for that particular mystery.

Siri and Civilai sat on two creaking rattan lounge chairs by the hotel entrance staring out over the Plain of Jars. Except there was nothing to see. To either side of them were the room-bound flashes of lamps and the shadows of candles, but directly ahead was nothing. It was the blackest black they could remember. Civilai commented that it was like staring out at the edge of time. He was remarkably poetic on Scotch whisky. The low clouds had obliterated the moon and stars and, as people retired for the night, one by one the rooms vanished. Soon, there was a perfect quantum state where Siri and Civilai and Ugly were just a part of the universe, blended together in one big black porridge of nature and meta-nature. It was a moving moment spoiled only by one of the ever-attentive maids who brought them a candle in a glass globe. She placed it on the table between them and fumbled her way back inside. The light barely reached the fence posts with their swirling mist foundations. But the two old boys could see each other quite well. It was cold and they wore jackets, but their feet were bare. They watched their toes wiggle, listened to the coughs and yawns of people priming themselves for sleep, and to the slobbering sounds of Ugly cleaning his equipment. They sniffed in the smoky night air and the nectar of the neat whisky.

“Daeng not joining us?” Civilai asked at last.

“Today was a bit much for her arthritis,” Siri told him. “She thought we’d be sitting behind a table taking notes all day so she didn’t wear her boots. Ugly’s standing in for her.”

“How are you holding up?”

“A bit tired but I’ll survive.”

They enjoyed the quiet some more.

“They’re out there, you know,” Siri said.

“Who’s that?”

“The jars.”

“Right. If we had tourism I’d put fluorescent lamps on each one so you could sit here and look at them; those lights that change colours, you know? Pinks and lime greens. Perhaps fireworks; those little sparkly ones.”

“Tasteful.”

“And none of that nonsense about burial urns. Guaranteed to kill off tourism at the first mention.”

“You don’t believe they are?”

“Siri, who in their right mind would allow their dead relatives to be folded up and squashed into a jar?”

“Some of those jars are two meters across.”

“Even so. Complete waste of labor when you have a wake to attend.”

“So, what’s the Civilai theory?”

“Well, it seems obvious. This region was famous for its dog racing. Traders came from all around to watch the heats. Gamble their life savings away on the nose of a mongrel.”

Ugly looked up, probably coincidentally.

“So, seeing all this potential from the new tourist trade,” Civilai continued, “the locals set up stalls. They made themselves jars, the bigger the better, and brewed rice whiskey.”

“So they’re stills?”

“Absolutely.”

“Le plain des alambics. The plain of stills. Hmm, I like it.”

“Except rice whiskey ferments naturally so it doesn’t need heat. Once you’ve built your jar everything takes care of itself.”

“You have heard of the famous French lady archaeologist who made an extensive study and concluded they could only be burial urns?”

“Of course she did. She was a well-known prohibitionist. She wasn’t going to go home and tell everyone how she’d discovered an ancient civilization of debauchers and fornicators, was she? She had to make something up.”

“Good point. Except she found human remains in the jars.”

“Siri, those jars are enormous. The strongest whiskey is always at the bottom. The vendor just keeps topping it up with water. So your serious drinker isn’t going to be satisfied with scooping weak whiskey off the top, is he now? He puts his reed pipe all the way down and sucks up the sediment. But it’s heady stuff. Of course there’s going be collateral damage.”

“Have you run all this by UNESCO?”

“Oh, they know. Trust me, they know.”

They paid another short homage to the silence but keeping quiet was always a challenge to a man like Civilai.

“I didn’t notice Judge Pimples and Cousin Monolingual come back,” he said.

“Me neither. They’re probably sampling the nightlife of Phonsavan.”

“That should keep them occupied for a good fifteen minutes.”

“You never can tell. Sin is all around.”

“That’s one of the topics the major and I were talking about tonight. It looks like we arrived in Vientiane a few years too late. We missed the Gomorrah period.”

“I thought the point was to engage a retired US army major in a debate about the breakdown of American culture. To explain to him your theories of why they lost in Vietnam and go into great detail about how most of the millions of dollars they pumped into Laos went straight into the pockets of the fat royalists.”

“I did all that.”

“And?”

“He agreed.”

“With everything?”

“Pretty well.”

“What a spoilsport.”

“Exactly. So we had nothing left to talk about other than booze and sex.”

“Was that the moment that you called over Auntie Bpoo and dismissed Peach?”

“She’s only seventeen, Siri. There’s probably a law against two old men talking dirty in front of a minor. Auntie Bpoo was certainly a safer choice, and knowledgeable. Honestly, little brother. I had no idea. Potter used to fly into Vientiane from Saigon to witness perversions unknown in the western world. Freak shows that-were there a section for it-would have made their way into the Guinness Book of Records. Honestly, I doubt I could smoke twenty cigarettes at the same time … in my mouth.”

“All this time together and I had no idea you were interested in sex.”

“It’s contagious, Siri. Major Potter is obsessed. He went into great detail. I even caught Bpoo blushing once or twice.”

“I don’t recall seeing either of you walk away in disgust.”

“It was an education, Siri. Seventy-four and I’m still learning. I can’t wait to go home and tell Madame Noy.”

Siri laughed.

“I’m sure she’ll be delighted. What does Potter’s wife say about all this?”

“Currently between wives. He’s had three at last count.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

“And he puts away the drink, my word he does. He had his own personal bottle. He has a few swigs of whiskey then a cup of coffee to keep himself coherent. Never seen anything like it. I thought you and I could knock it back, little brother, but he makes us look like amateurs.”

“Practice, Civilai. That’s all it takes.”

Siri refilled their glasses.

“So, apart from the hotspots of Vientiane, you didn’t learn anything from him?” Siri asked.

“I almost got a secret or two out of him. He hinted he’d found out some dirt about this mission. Said it wasn’t all as clear cut as it seemed. Said we Lao should keep our eyes open for a traitor. By then Johnny was doing most of the talking. But the manager came in and told us we had ten minutes before the generator went off and that shut the major up. I plan to have another go at him tomorrow. There’s nothing I like better than a dollop of scandal. I’ve found there are very few people on the planet who don’t have skeletons in their closet.”

“I certainly do.”

“Goes with the job, I supp-”

The distant sound of chopper blades churned through the silence of the night. It seemed to bounce off the darkness all around, disorienting them. They didn’t know where to look.

“Sounds like Judge Haeng and the boys coming home after a night of raging at the post office,” Civilai said.

“It’s a dangerous night to be flying,” Siri decided. “Surely they could have parked the helicopter behind the bar and taken a donkey home. They could even have walked it in half an hour.”

The sound became deafening and the chopper loomed over the roof behind them, kicking off concrete slates and sending a shower of rubble onto the two drinkers. They covered their glasses with their hands. The pilot had obviously not seen the building until the last second. The craft’s spotlight was angled down at the ground and as it rocked it splashed white light clumsily all around like water from a bucket. At one stage, Siri and Civilai were highlighted cabaret performers. They waved. The chopper angled in to the dirt yard, kicking up dust and landing on one wheel. For a second they thought it might crash onto its side but instead it flipped onto the other wheel, rocked, then settled. The engine growled, the rotors began to slow, and the dust churned in the air in the bright light until the beam was extinguished. The only light now was from the lamp on the rattan table which had miraculously stayed lit.

“Do you suppose it’s friendly?” Civilai shouted.

One, then two, then three flashlight beams came to life inside the chopper. Heads appeared as the hatch slid open and the metal steps were unfolded to the dirt. Two figures stepped down, lit occasionally as they moved in front of the beams. Siri recognized the shapes of Sergeant Johnson and Second Secretary Gordon bowed against the downdraft. They reached their hands toward the hatch and an arm appeared. They both took hold of it and guided a man in white down the steps. All of the flashlights were now directed upon this character, the star of the spectacle. He was a physically irrelevant man in his late fifties with long but thinning blond hair combed over a round pate. He wore white shoes to complement the crisp white double-breasted suit, buttoned to hold back a rampant red tie. The trousers were flared. When he reached the ground, his long wispy hair rose and danced in the draft like deepsea anemones. With Johnson and Gordon propping him up on either side he was rushed toward the hotel entrance. Seeing Siri and Civilai seated there on the veranda, the new guest shrugged off his escorts, approached the two old men and said something with feeling. He then grabbed for their hands which he shook enthusiastically, turning slightly toward a short Chinese-looking woman. In the dim light all they could see of her was crimson lips inside a black pageboy frame. She had no eyes or nose that they could make out but she did possess a splendid-looking camera. There was a flash and before the dots had cleared from their eyes, the stranger had vanished inside the building. In his wake they saw Judge Haeng, Vinai, and Rhyme from Time. It was a colorful but very brief carnival which left Siri and Civilai breathless.

The helicopter engine huffed a last breath. Then all was calm again save the ticking of a tired old Mi8 and the slowing whirr of its blades.

“Who was that white-suited stranger?” Civilai asked.

“L’Empereur est arrive,” Siri told him.

They walked over to the helicopter where the two young pilots were doing what had to be done to put the beast to bed. They held small penlights between their teeth as they fiddled with the engine.

“What happened here?” Siri asked.

The youngest one answered. To Siri he looked barely old enough to ride a two-wheeled bicycle.

“The senator was supposed to stay overnight in Vientiane, Comrade,” he said. “They were going to fly him up tomorrow. But the flight control people said, given the conditions, it might be better if he flew directly up here. The military met his flight at Wattai and transferred him up to the landing strip in Phonsavan. We picked him up there.”

“What conditions?” Civilai asked.

“The smoke, Comrade. There’s a blanket of smoke all across the Special Zone.”

“Slash and burn?”

“We lose two or three months a year of flying time to it up here. The smoke just hangs around the mountains. Combined with the mist it’s like flying through soup. You can’t even make out the landmarks and, to tell the truth, none of us are that good at instrument flying. Tonight you’ve got the smoke and the mist and no moon. All we had to do was hop over from town, a couple of minutes. Even so, we almost ran into the hotel. We didn’t want to take off at all but the judge insisted. It was hairy, I don’t mind telling you, Comrade. And they’ve only just started burning. In a day or two you won’t see a hand in front of your face. I doubt we’ll be flying anywhere else for a while.”

Siri and Civilai returned to their seats.

“Don’t you think that’s odd?” Siri asked.

“What?”

“It’s August.”

“And?”

“Who’s slashing and burning in August? The point of it is to wait for the dry season and burn off the top growth in time to plant. I know the wet season seems to have finished early this year but the vegetation’s still damp. All they’d get now is a lot of smoke.”

“And you believe…?”

“I just wonder whether it might not have anything to do with agriculture. We’re surrounded by territory still occupied by antigovernment guerrilla forces. They could be burning the land for any number of reasons.”

“Perhaps they were getting nervous about the PL air force with its new fighters. I heard a lot of air activity this evening. I’d wager they’ve evacuated the airfield so they wouldn’t be stranded here. That’s probably worth setting light to a few mountains for.”

“You’re right.”

“I’m always right. If we had television I’d be the one who wins all the quiz shows. I’d have a new washing machine every week.”

They drank for a while, considering.

“Where do you suppose they’ll put him?” Civilai asked.

“Who? L’Empereur? Wherever he goes it won’t take him long to realize he’s not at the Oriental any more. I hear the Thais have running water without streptococci.”

“Beds without crabs and creaks and odd smells? Sounds like heaven.”

“He’ll be miserable. He’ll stay awake all night, get his photo shoot done at dawn’s crack, and be out of here before the smoke gets so bad he’s trapped. We might not even get a chance to sit down with him over a few beers and have a laugh together about the domino theory.”

“Shame.”