Thirty-Three Teeth

April New Year

Vientiane was preparing for New Year on the 14th with its usual verve. Houses had to be cleaned, repairs made, old scores forgiven. It was customary to begin the new year in a state of physical and moral cleanliness.

March and early April had been the hottest on record, and a lot of people had forgotten what rain felt like. Excluding the Government, everyone was looking forward to a few days of water tossing, and hosing down, and walking around in shorts and rubber sandals. Songkran was Laos’s most joyous and uninhibited calendar event.

All the splashing generally got Mother Nature in the mood too, and she’d join in with some generous pre-season rainstorms to begin the long process of slaking the thirst of the land. But if old Mother Nature had been in the meeting at the Interior Ministry on the eleventh, she’d probably have become as hotheaded as Civilai.

He stormed out after the final vote with his glasses steamed up and his two aides scuttling along after him.

“Fools,” was all he had to say.

It was Sunday. Inthanet, with the invaluable aid of his lovely assistant, Miss Vong, was making the final preparations for his big show. From his vantage point on the hammock in the back yard, Siri couldn’t help noticing the red flushes on their collective cheeks. Either sewing hems on Royal capes was hot work, or they’d been up to something. Siri didn’t relish getting a mental picture of what that may have been, but he was pleased that Miss Vong finally had a little romance in her life.

Manoluk lay sleeping on the cot on the veranda. One overworked fan whirled at her feet at the end of a daisy chain of extension cords that brought it out to the garden. Another chain led to the living room, where a second fan swept back and forth drying the new paint faces of a lineup of delighted puppets. A third fan puffed at the ruddy cheeks of the lovers in the back room. The radio played northern flute music live from the army studio. The refrigerator made ice for the lemon tea. The rice cooker prepared lunch.

The drain on the national electric grid from Siri’s house alone was enormous. He expected a raid at any second. So when the bell rang from the front gate-a bell that only strangers used-he knew the jig was up.

“Visitor,” Miss Vong called out.

“So I gathered,” Siri agreed. “I don’t suppose you’d like to go and see who it is, would you?”

“I’m threading.”

“Of course you are.”

The old Miss Vong would have been at the fence with her binoculars and notepad at the first footfall on the front path. Now she didn’t care. Siri reluctantly climbed down from the hammock and shuffled stiffly through the house. The bell had rung with great urgency twice more before he reached the front.

“Patience, patience,” he said, and creaked open the gate that was neither locked nor latched.

To his amazement, Mrs. Fah, the wife of his old neighbor, Soth, stood a few paces back from the gate. She’d been crying and was shaking violently.

“Mrs. Fah. What’s wrong?”

“Dr. Siri, can you come with me, please?”

These were more words than they’d exchanged in all the time they’d lived next door to one another.

“What is it?”

“My husband is dying, and he says it’s your fault.”

Siri rode his motorcycle with Mrs. Fah on the back, holding his bag. She gave directions, and he was interested to see that the neighbors had moved about a mile from their old house to a similar suburb. The woman insisted on getting off the bike long before the house came into view and walking ahead, lest her husband see her. In fact, the new house was almost identical to the one they’d left in such a hurry. It was all most peculiar.

Mrs. Fah hadn’t given Siri any details of her husband’s ailment, so he didn’t know what to expect. He parked in the street and followed the wife through the opulent house to the bedroom. The huge king-size bed contained a remarkably shriveled Mr. Soth at its center. His skin was gray, and his cheekbones stood out on his face.

“Mr. Soth, what’s happened to you?”

The man opened his eyes slowly and glared at Siri.

“As you see, Doctor, I’ve been struck down.”

“By what?”

He reached out for Soth’s wrist but the man pulled away.

“I don’t need your medicine. I can afford a dozen real doctors. None of them have helped.”

“I don’t understand. What caused this?”

Soth looked beyond Siri.

“That.”

Siri turned his head and was stunned to see a trim version of Saloop lying in the corner of the room with his head on one paw.

“Saloop? Well, I’ll be. So this is where you got to. How are you, boy?”

Soth’s eyes grew wide. “So you can see it.”

“Of course I can.”

“Of course? My wife can’t. The kids can’t. Nobody else can see the damned thing but me. I’ve had three fortune-tellers here telling me it doesn’t exist.”

Siri stared at Saloop, who showed no sign of recognizing his old master. His eyes were glazed and red like cocktail cherries. His fur was dull. His left ear seemed to sit lower on his head than his right. There was no movement but for the irregular rise and fall of its breath. Siri was overcome with a sudden pang of sadness.

What he saw there was not his dog; it was the malevolent spirit of an animal that had suffered an unnatural death.

“It’s dead,” Soth said, and a tear appeared in the corner of his eye.

“Why’s he here?”

“It’s here to haunt me. It won’t rest till it sees me on my pyre. It won’t let me eat or sleep. It plans to stay here until I rot away.”

“But why?”

“Why? Why? Because I killed it, that’s why.”

“You killed my dog?”

“Yes, but because of you. Because you tried to make a fool of me. You didn’t leave me with any choice. I lured it into my yard and brained it with a shovel. It was to get back at you. This is all your fault.”

“The dog didn’t have anything to do with you or me.”

“It was your dog. I knew you liked it. It was just revenge.”

“But of course he’s not going to see a connection. Only man would hurt a third party to get revenge on someone who’d wronged him. It’s against nature. If your grievance was with me, you should have settled your debt with me directly. The dog’s spirit doesn’t know why you hate it.”

“It’s you I hate. This was all your fault. The bloody dog drove me out of my house, then followed me here. I can’t shake it off. You make it go away.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Can’t? Look at me, Siri. Look what state I’m in. You want my death on your conscience forever? Call off your dog.”

“No. I mean it isn’t for me to do. You have to beg forgiveness from the spirit of the dog for what you did.”

“Huh? I’m not asking a damned dog for forgiveness. What do you think I am?”

Siri looked at the man, still arrogant even at the threshold of death. He showed no remorse. The only person who could remove this curse was Soth himself, but to do that he had to accept responsibility.

“Mr. Soth, I’m going to be perfectly frank with you. There’s only one way for you to save yourself, but it is possible. You need to stop shifting the blame for all this onto me. You have to perform a basee ceremony and truly believe that you and you alone have caused this. You have to ask the spirit of the dog to forgive you. No one else can remove this burden.”

“So you’re refusing?”

“No. I’m telling you what to do. I’m giving you a way out.”

“I curse you for this, Siri. I curse you a hundred times.”

Siri closed his bag and walked to the door. He looked down at Soth.

“You’re in exalted company on that front, Mr. Soth. Don’t forget what I said. It’s all up to you.”

Soth spat in the doctor’s direction.

In the living room, he reported his warning to Mrs. Fah and gave her the same instructions.

“He’ll never do it,” she said.

“If he doesn’t, he won’t survive this.”

“No? Good riddance.”

Her honesty shocked but didn’t actually surprise him. He’d heard how the husband talked to the wife. He’d seen her kept as a slave in his house. She was glad this was happening, and once Siri confirmed that her husband wouldn’t make it, she’d finally had the courage to speak her mind.

“If you need any help,” Siri said, “you know where I live. I’m serious.”

On the short ride home, Siri tried to put his emotions into some kind of order. He didn’t feel guilt at this haunting. He was sad his dog had died, but proud the animal had gone after the bastard. It’s what he would have done. As for Soth, this was the backlash of Yin to punish him for his years of Yang. He couldn’t fight that. It comes to everyone, either in this life or in the next. He was glad to see that even in times of confusion such as these, the laws of I Ching were still in order.