The Coroner's Lunch

Time to Kill

Siri went to bed late, woke up early, and had no dreams at all. As he was leaving the house, he used his old chisel to gouge out the two shells from their holes in the front door. It left two ugly scars that he knew Miss Vong would complain about for a month. Saloop sat at his feet as he worked and looked up at him faithfully.

Eager to see the results of Nguyen Hong’s investigation, Siri was at the morgue by six, too early even for roadside noodles. If he’d expected to find something at the morgue, he was disappointed. His desk was empty of messages, notes, or completed reports. Hok and Tran had vacated the freezer, which stood gaping and unplugged. The last notes in Dtui’s exercise book were about his autopsy of Tran 1, not surprising as she couldn’t possibly have taken notes from the Vietnamese coroner.

There was little point in being there at all. He had a lot of time on his hands, so he penciled a note and walked it down to the offices behind the Parliament building. Joggers and cyclists still owned four-lane Lan Xang Avenue at that hour. A small group of tai chi uncles did combat with invisible slow-motion enemies in the shadow of the great Anusawari Arch.

Parliament was still in bed, but the guard promised to hand the note to Comrade Civilai when he got in. The noodle man was setting up when Siri got back to the hospital. He was given the first batch of noodles, in broth that had been freshly made, but it still tasted the same as ever: stale.

He ate slowly and dawdled his way into the hospital grounds, but he still had half an hour to kill. So he strolled around to the back of the morgue to the khon khouay office. He wasn’t at all surprised to see Comrade Ketkaew sitting at his metal desk, writing some urgent expose of this or that traitor.

“Morning, Comrade Ketkaew.” The man looked shocked to see him. The small earphone on a wire that he had been wearing vanished into his desk drawer.

“I hope you aren’t secretly listening to Thai radio.”

Siri walked in and sat on the spare chair the chicken counter reserved for interrogations. Ketkaew nodded but didn’t bother to speak. He eyed Siri suspiciously.

“I hope your wife gives you a good breakfast to build up your strength, working as hard as you do.”

“I cook for myself,” Ketkaew shouted, even though Siri was not a foot from him.

“Don’t tell me you aren’t married.”

“Who has time for all that? In case you hadn’t noticed, I have a very responsible job. Now, what is it you…?”

“That’s very interesting.”

“What is?”

“That a good-looking chap like you doesn’t have a wife.”

“Hey, listen. I like women, you know. I’m not….”

“Of course you do. And it’s quite clear women like you, too.”

“I could have my pick.”

“Naturally. Responsible job and all.”

“Anyone I want, really. If I could be bothered.”

“Exactly. That’s just what I told her.”

“Her?”

“That’s why she didn’t think she had a chance, not with all the competition, and you having so little time.” He stood to leave. “I’ll pass on the message.”

“You. Is this, er, someone I might know?”

“Probably not. ’Bye.”

“I know a lot of people, you know. What’s her name?”

“Vong.”

“Vong what? I’ve got several Vongs in my district. Where does she work?” Siri noticed a pearl of saliva at the corner of the man’s mouth.

“Department of Education. Right in the middle of your domain of responsibility, if I’m not mistaken. She was here the other day, noticed you diligently performing your revolutionary duties, and I swear I saw the poor lady blush. She asked me about you.”

Ten minutes later, Siri was back in his office with a big naughty smile on his chops.

“Oh, to be a lizard on the wall of Vong’s office when the chicken counter comes a-wooing.”

Eight o’clock arrived and he stood under the MORGUE sign, waiting to welcome his staff. He’d missed them. At 8:15 he was still standing there; no sign of Dtui or Mr. Geung. He went back inside to check the calendar, but there was no mention of a national holiday. He paced anxiously up and down in the carpark. He wasn’t worried about their being late. He was more concerned about their being dead. The shells in his pocket rattled together as he walked.

At 9:30, Siri was sitting outside the office of Suk, the hospital director. Suk had ignored Siri on the way to a staff meeting, then ignored him again on his way back. Right now there was a North Korean pharmaceutical company rep in with him. Communism matched up some strange bedfellows.

When the Korean left, Siri slipped onto the warmed seat he’d vacated.

“Well, Dr. Siri. You finally ran out of holiday money.”

“It was a case. I was sent by the Justice Department.”

“For an autopsy that took a week.”

“For two autopsies that took two days. The rest of the time, I was getting over malaria.”

Before becoming a paper-shuffler, the director had been a doctor. He looked Siri up and down for some sign of a man who’d just gotten over a disease that killed twelve thousand Lao a year.

“I’m delighted you survived.”

“Thanks. Where is my staff?”

“They were reassigned.”

Siri felt a tremendous relief. “They can’t be reassigned without my agreement.”

“Really? Well, as you weren’t here, nobody objected. We’re very understaffed, as you know. I wasn’t about to let a qualified nurse sit around reading comic books on the off chance you might come back.”

“Where is she?”

“Urology.”

Siri chuckled. “That’ll teach her. What about Geung?”

“He’s digging a sewage trench.”

“He’s an experienced morgue technician.”

“His absence of written qualifications makes him a sewage trench digger.”

“I want them back.”

“You have nothing for them to do.”

“I’ll have a body by 1:30.”

“How can you be so sure? You planning on killing someone yourself?” Suk laughed at his own wit until he noticed the macabre way Siri was eyeing him.

“Hello, Doctor.”

“How you doing? You got my nurse, Dtui, in here?”

“Sure do. She’s out back. Go on through.”

An elderly lady was up on a couch naked from the waist down. Dtui in plastic gloves crouched between her legs. She looked up and seemed truly delighted to see Siri.

“Doc? Thank God. Rescue me. Take me back to the morgue. If I have to insert my fingers in one more grumpy old lady, I’ll scream.”

The lady tried to cover herself up.

“It’s okay. I’m a doctor.”

“Actually, he’s a coroner. But live ones, dead ones, they’re pretty much the same to him.”

It was too much for the lady, who wrapped her phasin around herself and fled.

“I can see why you prefer to work with corpses. But fear not, nurse Dtui. You’ll both be back in the morgue this afternoon. Anything unusual happen while I was away?”

“Nothing much. Your Vietnamese mate’s gone back to Hanoi.”

“Did he say anything?”

“Probably. But we had no idea what it was.”

“Did he leave anything for me?”

“His report and a letter or something.”

“Good.”

“Given there’s a lot of secret stuff I don’t know about, I hid ’em.”

“Good girl. Where are they?”

“In the hospital library. Under ‘V’. You know nobody ever goes up there.”

He decided to leave the Vietnamese report where it was. He was certain somebody would like to get their hands on it. He spent a few minutes breaking the law back in his office, then set off on Dtui’s bicycle toward Dongmieng.

The temple at Sri Bounheuan was just as well cared for as Hay Sok behind his house, but the atmosphere there was more frenetic. The Departments of Culture and Education had set up a pilot literacy project. All the monks, regardless of educational backgrounds, had been recruited to teach.

The current philosophy was that Buddha was a communist. He’d given up his status and wealth as a protest against capitalism, and had striven to break down class barriers. As a reflection of these socio-politico-economic roots, monks were being yoked to blackboards up and down the country.

The number of liberated Lao citizens attending school had risen 75 percent since the Pathet Lao takeover. Lao radio never let anyone forget that. It didn’t mention what they did in the schools they attended, or the near-absence of qualified teachers. And it didn’t say that the burden of this new education system fell broadly on the shoulders of the monkhood.

They’d built rows of banana-leaf classrooms and filled them with logs split down the center for benches. The students ranged from five-year-old orphans to sixty-five-year-old grandmothers. They didn’t have any books or pencils, and the blackboards were the backs of old Royalist billboards. They may not have been learning a lot, but they all seemed to be having a good time.

The abbot was up a crooked bamboo ladder painting a stupa. His robe was tied up between his legs like an orange diaper. He was turning the dirty grey tope into a light blue birthday cake.

“Shouldn’t that be white?” Siri asked.

For some reason, the only paint to be had for the previous few months had been swimming-pool blue, a color that was slowly becoming synonymous with the new regime. The airport already blended nicely with the sky. Civilai argued it was the committee’s long-term plan to paint everything Wattay blue so astronauts would be able to recognize Laos from space.

“I don’t care if it’s black, as long as we can keep the elements off it for another year.” The abbot hooked the paint can over a cement elephant’s trunk and came down. He looked over the top edge of his glasses at his visitor. “I seem to remember you.”

“So you should, Abbot. We were in Pakse together about two hundred years ago.”

“Well, I’ll be…Siri, isn’t it?” Siri smiled and started to make an obeisance, but the old abbot grabbed his hand and pumped away at it. “You don’t look any different.”

“Really? You mean I was a wrinkled old codger with a stoop, even then?”

“Neither of us was really sure what we were then. You had to decide whether to follow your pretty wife to Vietnam, if I recall. I had a choice between riding a pushbike for the national team in the Asia Games, or following the love of my life to Australia.”

“Which one did you go for, in the end?”

“Neither. Look at me. I was so confused, I went on a retreat at Wat Sokpaluang and they never let me leave.”

They laughed.

“How on earth did you find me?”

“Oh, I heard a while ago you were here. One of the other teachers from the youth camp told me.”

“And how’s that pretty wife, Siri?”

“I’m afraid she died a few years back.”

“Ah. I’m not surprised. It can be tough for a woman in the jungle.”

“It’s even tougher if someone throws a grenade at you.”

“You aren’t wrong. Still, no shame in being brought down in battle.”

“She wasn’t in battle. She was in bed. She was sleeping. I was off on some campaign. It seems someone tossed a grenade into her tent. We never found out who.”

Siri was surprised at how easy it was to talk about. He’d kept this story inside himself for eleven years; now here he was blurting it out to a monk he hardly knew. The Catholics had it right. It was very therapeutic to share a burden with a man of the cloth. Except the Catholics probably handled it more delicately than the Lao.

“I bet it was meant for you.”

They walked to a bench and shared memories from their year at the youth camp. But Siri had to get to the point.

“A few days ago, they brought you a girl who’d slashed her wrists.”

“Yes, they did. How did you know that?”

“I’m currently the state coroner.”

“My! Congratulations.”

“And I’m afraid I need to dig her up again.”

“Oh, but you can’t.”

Siri pulled a sheet of paper from his shirt pocket that he’d written, stamped, and signed on Judge Haeng’s behalf. “I have here a warrant signed by….”

“No. I don’t mean I doubt your right to do it. What I mean is you can’t dig her up, because we haven’t buried her yet.”

“It’s been four days.”

“I know. Normally we’d have her in the ground right away. But this was a bit difficult.”

“How?”

“She has a sister.”

“She has?”

“They came down from the north together. She refused to let her sister be buried here. She’s trying to get the money together to take her body back to the family in Sam Neua.”

“Where is she?”

“The sister?”

“Both of them.”

“The body is in an old kiln we have here. We used to make pots. It’s dry and quite airtight. With all the kids here I couldn’t have her lying around.”

“I understand. What about the sister?”

“She’s living with a fellow who fixes bicycles, just down from the Thai Embassy.”

Siri wheeled Dtui’s bicycle under the straw canopy of the repair shop. It seemed to be deserted. He coughed and heard a rustling from out back. A taut-bodied young man wearing nothing but soccer shorts came out through a gap in the wall.

“Hello, boss. What’s wrong?”

“Can you fix the brakes? They only work when you’re going uphill.”

“No trouble.” He flipped the heavy bike over onto its handlebars as if it were made of balsa wood.

“Is there somewhere I can take a pee?”

“Sure, boss. There’s a latrine out back, if you don’t mind the flies.”

Siri walked through the gap, where he found a tall, slim girl in a phasin, shelling tamarind. There was a five-month swelling beneath the cloth of her skirt. He didn’t bother with the latrine. He knelt down beside her; she didn’t seem to care very much. Her mind was elsewhere.

“Hello. I’m Dr. Siri. I just came from Sri Bounheuan temple.” Her eyes grew wide and in some way afraid. “That’s your sister there?” She nodded slowly.

“I’m a coroner. Do you know what that is?”

“Yeah.”

“I need your permission to look at your sister’s body.”

She emptied the seeds from one more tamarind pod before she responded. “Can you tell? If you look at her, can you tell if she killed herself?”

“I think I can. But I need to operate on her.”

“You mean cut her open?”

“Yes. Is that all right?” She didn’t seem to like the thought of her sister’s body being defiled. “If it becomes my case, I can arrange for the body to be shipped back to Sam Neua.”

“Free?”

“We’ll pay.”

“She won’t be a mess, will she?”

“I can get the embalmer to make her look nice.”

“She didn’t, you know?”

“Kill herself?”

“Yeah. She didn’t kill herself.”

“How sure are you?”

“I know her.”

“Do you know where Mahosot Hospital is?”

“Yeah.”

“If you come and see me there this evening about six, I should have some answers for you. I’d like to talk to you, too.”

She nodded again. “Thanks.”

The morning had passed him by. He didn’t even have time to put the bicycle back in the carpark. He pulled up alongside Auntie Lah’s stand to get some lunch.

“You? Dr. Siri?” She lit up like a brand-new traffic light. She was so pleased to see him, she used the illegal royal “you,” and bowed her head in a very polite nop.

“Now, Mrs. Lah, didn’t they teach you anything at your political seminars? You don’t want to let our chicken counter see you do that.”

“Ah, Doctor. That little twerp doesn’t scare me. Where’ve you been?”

“Khamuan.”

“I made your sandwich every day last week.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot to cancel. I’ll pay you for them.”

“Not to worry. I ate them myself. I was just worried you wouldn’t be coming back. It’s lovely to see you.”

She fixed him a very special baguette and gave him the opportunity to look at her. She was a fine-looking woman. He couldn’t imagine why old men would chase new-hatched chicks when there were pretty hens in the yard. Something in him stirred, and he wondered what it would be like to be with her. He hadn’t been with a woman since he lost Boua.

“How’s your husband?”

She didn’t look up, but he noticed her blush. “Oh, he’s fine. At least he doesn’t give me so much trouble any more.”

“I see.”

“Just have to dust the urn now and then.”

Siri smiled, climbed back on the bike, and ferried his lunch down to the river. She stood, watching him go.

Civilai was sitting alone on the log. Crazy Rajid was lying naked on the bank a few meters from him.

“Am I disturbing anything?”

“No, you’re right on time. I was just starting to get envious.”

“He certainly has something to be envious of. Nothing compared to me, of course.” He sat down beside his friend.

“Really? I assumed it must have dropped off from lack of use by now.”

“No, still there. I felt a little bit of activity just now, to tell the truth.”

“Not one of the bodies? Don’t tell me you’ve stooped so low.”

“You know Mrs. Lah? The one who makes my sandwiches?”

“Her on the corner? She’s old enough to be your…daughter. Nice pair of hooters, though. I’d give her a run around the paddock.”

“Dream on, you old fogy.”

“How was Khamuan?”

“Interesting. Cut up two bodies that died of unknown causes, got malaria, and became fluent in Hmong.”

“Of course you did. Let’s hear it then.”

“You don’t speak Hmong.”

“Probably more than you. If you want to talk about chasing girls round paddocks, I’ve done a few laps with those lasses. Come on.”

Siri opened his mouth to speak but nothing came to his mind. He thought of a simple Lao sentence but he couldn’t even translate that. The language he’d been speaking naturally a day before had vanished.

“That’s odd. I’ve forgotten it.”

“Ah, yes. Languages are like that. Here one minute, gone the next. I was fluent in Japanese last Thursday.”

“No. I really could speak it.” Civilai grinned and chewed on his roll, and Siri knew it would be useless to argue the point.

“Do you know what the army is doing up there?”

“Crop replacement, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. Replacing trees with fresh air. The province will be a parade ground if nobody stops them. Is there anything you can do about it?”

“Who do you suggest we send in to stop them? Prince Boun Oum on his elephant? No. The generals fought for the revolution for decades. This is the little pat on the back they’re giving themselves.”

“I must have missed that page in the manifesto. I thought corruption was the reason for the fight, not the reward. How much is the military giving you lot for forestry rights?”

“Is this what you called me here urgently to badger me about?”

“No. Well, partly. But I was wondering how diplomatic relations are going with Vietnam.”

“Fine.”

“Good.”

“Except there aren’t any.”

“What happened?”

“Hanoi recalled the ambassador and most of the diplomats. All their aid projects are on hold. We brought back our fellow from Hanoi to show them we could be every bit as tough as they could. Now, nobody’s talking.”

“Damn. Not all over this torture accusation?”

“They aren’t satisfied. You didn’t come up with anything to suggest we didn’t work their men over?”

While Crazy Rajid waded into the water and started swimming across to Thailand, Siri went over the details of the case. He told of the visit to Nam Ngum even though he was sure his older brother had seen the district chief’s report already. But then he added something he was sure Civilai wouldn’t have read.

“Somebody tried to kill me.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The day we got back from the reservoir. Nguyen Hong and I decided there were still too many questions unanswered.” He produced the two deformed shells from his pocket. “I got home late. I bent down at the front door, and these came flying into the wood over my shoulder.”

Civilai took them from him. “Siri. You…you don’t think this has to do with the Vietnamese?”

“It was a bit of a coincidence otherwise.”

“But why? Did you find something that could incriminate anyone?”

“No. But I bet you the rest of your roll, somebody thought we did.”

“Whew.”

“My problem is, I don’t know which side it was.”

“Oh, come on. You don’t think our people would try to do away with you.”

Siri laughed. “You’re quite naive for a genius, aren’t you, brother? Of course they would. If I had evidence we had ‘interrogated’ those boys, we’d have a lot more than just diplomatic detente; there’d be a damned war.”

“All right. For the first time in fifty years, you have my undivided attention. What do you want me to do?”

“Do you know what that Vietnamese delegation came here for?”

“No.”

“Civilai?”

“No, really, I don’t.”

“Can you find out?”

“I can try.”

“Good. I’ll go through Nguyen Hong’s report and see if I can contact him in Hanoi somehow. We still have a lot of unfinished business.”

“Have you told your judge all this?”

“No. You know, I’m starting to think what a coincidence it was that the Justice Department would send me away in the middle of this investigation.”

“You have to start trusting people. You need allies.”

“You’re them, Comrade.”

“Oh, the pressure.”

“Do the words ‘Black Boar’ mean anything to you?”

“Not apart from the obvious.”

“Can you ask around? Something to do with the delegation. Perhaps the war. Vietnam.”

“Where did you get that?”

“From…I’m afraid I can’t disclose my sources.”

“Anything else?”

“There was something, but I can’t rem-oh, right. You speak French pretty well, don’t you?”

“Like Napoleon.”

“Dead?”

“Elegantly. Don’t tell me your French went the way of your Hmong.”

“Shut up. What does precipitation mean?”

“Well, it could be when you separate a solid from a solution in chemistry.”

“Or?”

“Falling from a height.”

“Falling from a height? Of course. Of course! They weren’t water-skiing at all. Felicitations, mon brave empereur.” He kissed Civilai on both cheeks and saluted him.