Slash and Burn

24

Everyone agreed that being black had not distracted John Johnson from being a very fine helicopter pilot. He’d ignored the ban on flying during heavy smoke cover, hotwired one of the helicopters in the yard, and had so far made two trips to Muang Kham beyond the smoke zone. Siri and Auntie Bpoo sat on the broken steps of the Friendship Hotel waiting for the third shuttle.

“So. Mission accomplished,” Siri said.

“I’d been hoping for something more exciting,” Bpoo confessed, rethreading a necklace that had been broken during the troubles. “Thought I might have to drag you from beneath the wheels of a rapid locomotive.”

“In a country without a railway?”

“It was a fantasy, old man. In a fantasy you can construct whatever damned engineering infrastructure you please.”

“Ear-fingering was no less dramatic. And for that I thank you.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Now, is there any way I can return the favor?”

“No.”

“Not even if you told me what’s wrong with your health?”

She glared at the doctor with eyes wide as melon slices.

“What makes you think there’s something wrong with my health?”

“I can see the future.”

“Don’t make me laugh. You can barely see the present.”

“Conceded. But I am rather good with the past, and I recall seeing you together with Dr. Yamaguchi at every opportunity.”

“He’s a passionate man drawn to glamor. What can I say?”

“He’s also a very fine researcher.”

“The helicopter’s late.”

“I’ve been through his CV. Oncology.”

“I think I’ll complain to the airline. Get my money back.”

“You’ve been asking him how long you have left.”

“Do you ever stop being annoying-and wrong?”

“So, tell me.”

Auntie Bpoo searched the sky for the return of Sergeant Johnson.

“I’m a fortune-teller,” she said. “I don’t need to ask when. I can give you a date and an exact time. I could sell admission tickets.”

“So?”

“So annoying.”

“Bpoo?”

“So, I want to know-”

“If it’s preventable.”

“Stop it, will you? I detest it when people finish sentences for you. It’s very-”

“Frustrating.”

Siri was smiling. Bpoo had to laugh.

“If I thought there were any way it could be cured I’d talk to a surgeon,” Bpoo said softly. “Not a coroner. Yamaguchi’s a pathologist. A doctor of the dead bits. I wanted to understand what it looked like. I mean, after it kills you. After it’s done its evil work. Does it gloat? Does it swell up and boast of its ominous power, ‘Look what I’ve done’? Or is it exhausted, embarrassed, full of remorse?”

“I doubt Yamaguchi’s ever had to face questions like that before.”

“I don’t have the technical vocabulary. I could only ask in emotional, human terms like that. You see? I can live these last few months better if I don’t hate it. If I don’t take it personally. I want to love my tumor. I want us to go together, each playing his or her part. Partners walking hand in hand over a steep cliff.”

“Hm. What did he say?”

“He ignored the question and counseled.”

“Good for him. Was coming up here to save my life part of all this?”

“In a way.”

“Do you want to explain why?”

“You’re the only person I know who sees the dead.”

“And?”

“If you were dead too you’d be completely useless to me.”

“If I…? Oh, my word.”

“See?”

“Please tell me you aren’t planning to haunt me.”

“Guide, Siri. Ghosts haunt. Spirits guide. I’ll never be forgotten in your mind. We’ll be together always.”

She started to sing. It was the Thai version of “Auld Lang Syne.” Siri put his fingers in his ears and hummed.

“That won’t help you any more,” she shouted.

Siri removed his fingers and took her hand. She let him.

“I could really use a poem right now,” he told her.

“No. Not in the mood.”