The Coroner's Lunch Read online

  “You say ‘you’ as if you don’t plan to be helping us with our problems.”

  Siri laughed. “Comrade Kham, I’m almost as old as the century. I’m tired. I think I’ve earned my small garden and my slow coffee mornings, afternoons of reading for pleasure, and early nights with a sweet cognac to ease me into sleep.” Kham raised his glass to the Prime Minister who sat red-faced and blissfully happy in a far circle. They both drained their glasses and called for another.

  “That’s odd. As I recall, you don’t have any family living. How exactly were you planning to support this decadent lifestyle?”

  “I assumed that forty-six years of membership of the party would entitle me….”

  “To a pension?” Kham laughed rudely.

  “Why not?”

  Siri always believed, always assumed, that if ever the struggle was won, he would retire. It had been his dream on damp nights in the forests of the north. It was his prayer over the body of every young boy or girl he’d failed to pull back from death. He’d believed for so long that it would happen, he took it for granted that everyone else knew it too.

  Kham continued to ridicule his plan. “My old friend, I would have expected you to know better after forty-six years. Socialism means contributing for as long as you still have something to give. When you start to forget where your mouth is and dribble egg down your shirt, when you need to pack towels into your underpants to keep yourself dry, that’s when the State will show its gratitude. Communism looks after its infirm.

  “But look at you. You’re still in sparkling health. You have a sharp mind. ‘From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.’ How selfish it would be to deny your services to the country you’ve striven to free from tyranny.”

  Siri looked across to the high circle. The President, a reformed member of the royal family, had a sweet, mascara’d soldier on either side of him and had begun to sing them a revolutionary Vietnamese song. He became the focus of attention and conversations hushed around the room. The song finished half way through the second verse when he forgot the words and the comrades erupted into cheers and applause. A small orchestra of bamboo and wood instruments started up on the stage and the conversations continued in a more dignified manner. Siri hadn’t yet been able to shed his disappointment. He waited for Kham to finish a heated conversation to his right and engaged him with more force than the man was used to.

  “I take it my situation has already been discussed by the politburo.”

  “It has. You’ve impressed us all with your quiet dedication over the years.”

  “Quiet,” Siri took to mean “passive.” Over the past ten years, he’d ceased to display the revolutionary passion expected of him and had been shunted off to Party Guest House Number Three, away from all the policy-making and decision-taking in Sam Neua. There he tended to damaged cadres returning from the battlefields and lost touch with the zealous comrades and their politics.

  Kham eased his haunches against Siri’s and put his arm around him. The doctor was himself a very tactile character but this gesture, in this situation, he considered disrespectful.

  “We have allotted you a role of great responsibility.”

  The words left Kham as a reward but hit Siri like a splintery wooden club across the face. He needed responsibility like he needed another head.

  “Why?”

  “Because you are the best man we have for the job.”

  “I’ve never been the best man for any job, ever.”

  “Don’t be so modest. You’re an experienced surgeon. You have an inquisitive mind and you don’t take things at face value. We’ve decided to make you the Republic’s chief police coroner.” He looked into Siri’s green eyes for a hint of pride, but saw only bewilderment. He might as well have told him he was to be the Republic’s new balloon bender or unicyclist.

  “I’ve never done an autopsy in my life.”

  “Ah. It’s all the same. Putting them together: taking them apart.”

  “It certainly is not.”

  He didn’t say this with any aggression but Kham was still taken aback to be contradicted so brazenly. The senior party members had become used to a level of respect. Siri, although always calm and soft-spoken, had a habit of telling them when they were wrong. That was another reason for his removal to the jungle.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I wouldn’t even know where to start. Of course I can’t do it. It’s a huge job. What do you think I am?”

  Even with the glow of whisky still shining from his snake eyes, Comrade Kham was obviously disturbed by Siri’s lack of gratitude. He tightened his grip around the old man’s shoulders and barked into his ear.

  “I think you are a cog in this great revisionist machine which now powers our beloved country. You are a cog just as I am a cog and The President is a cog. Each cog can help our machine run smoothly. But by the same token, one broken cog can jam and stop the works completely. At this important time in our creation, we need all our cogs meshing and coordinated. Don’t let us down. Don’t stop the machine, Siri.”

  He gave one last painful squeeze, nodded, and went off to insert himself into another circle. Siri, in a daze, looked around him at the revisionist mechanics. Lubricated by the alcohol, the wheels had already become misshapen. At one point, two wheels had buckled together into a figure-of-eight. There were big important cogs and little insignificant ones, some of whom had gone off to the toilet and not returned. This left large gaps in their wheels. Others were huddled together in small sub-wheels ignoring the big machine altogether.

  Siri, suddenly depressed, explained to his wheel that he had to go pee. He staggered in that direction, but walked past the toilet and through the town hall entrance. Guards on either side of the door raised their rifles in salute. He saluted back and yanked his black necktie off. He walked to one of the boy guards and hooked it over the shiny bayonet, where it swung back and forth.

  With a grin and thanks, he waved away the drivers of the black second-hand Russian Zil limousines that were waiting to ferry the comrades to their temporary barracks. It was a chilly December morning and there were no stars in the sky, but the way back was a straight line. He walked unsteadily along a deserted Lan Xang Avenue. Ahead of him was the Presidential Palace and a future he didn’t much want.

  Comrade Kham’s Wife

  Even when times were at their hardest in Vientiane, the old stone kiln near the mosque still fired up at three every morning to produce the best bread to be had in the country. Three bare-chested men stoked the wood fire and kneaded the dough into long fingers and laid them out in rows on rusting black metal trays. There was nothing hygienic about it. But there were those who argued it was the dust, soot, sweat, and rust that made Auntie Lah’s baguettes the sweetest in Vientiane. Her three sons pulled the sizzling loaves from the kiln with their hands wrapped in old grey towels and put them directly onto her cart.

  At six every morning, Auntie Lah wheeled her sweet-smelling bread to the corner by the black stupa. By seven-thirty she’d usually sold the lot and returned to the shop for a new batch. These she carted to the corner of Sethathirat and Nong Bon streets, where most of the government departments were. By this time, the baguette trolley had become a customized sandwich deli. Government officials on their way to work could order from the menu of “condensed milk, sardine, or salted buffalo meat,” which she lovingly prepared and garnished for them while they waited.

  But there was always one sandwich with extras, wrapped in greaseproof paper, waiting for her very special customer to collect every day. Siri never had to order his fancy. He just ate whatever Auntie Lah felt like making for him. It was always different and always delicious. He paid her at the end of each week, and she never asked for more than her standard rate.

  When Siri was too busy to come out himself, he sent Dtui, who swore she could feel the old lady’s disappointment even before she crossed the road.

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”<
br />
  “I can. She’s got a crush on you.” At least seven of Siri’s eight pints of blood rushed to his face. Dtui chuckled and handed him his lunch.

  “People our age don’t…well, we just don’t.”

  “Fall in love?”

  “Certainly not.”

  “Rot.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Somchai Asanajinda says as long as your heart can still beat for one, it can always beat for two.”

  “Then Somchai Asanajinda obviously isn’t a doctor.”

  “Didn’t they let you people watch any films up there in the caves? He’s probably the most famous Thai film star there is.”

  “Oh yes? How does a country without any famous films get to have its own famous film star?”

  “They have famous films. At least they’re famous in Thailand. They make some lovely films.”

  “All shoot-’em-up violence and cheap romance.”

  “There. I knew you secretly watched them. Somchai’s like this really old person, but he still talks about love and romance.”

  “What is he, forty?”

  “Over fifty.”

  “Goodness. How do they keep them alive over there?”

  “And there’s nothing cheap about romance. There isn’t enough money in the world to buy love.”

  Siri looked up from his misspelled report. Dtui was standing with her back to him, looking up through the two remaining slats of the window. Although it was hard to judge from her back, she seemed upset. As far as he knew, she’d never been with a man. Her high standards pretty much eliminated her from the market.

  The romance she sought wasn’t to be had here in the morgue. It wasn’t to be found in the single room she shared with her sick mother, and probably it wasn’t in Laos at all. Men were two-dimensional creatures with specific three-dimensional tastes.

  There had been eras when large torsos were in high fashion, a symbol of wealth and plenty. Physiology went through cycles. But in the twentieth century, malnutrition was à la mode. Dtui with her laundry-bin build was off the scale. There were no suitors queuing at her door. They wouldn’t have to dig deep to find her kindness and humor, but they didn’t even bring a spade.

  When his report was redone, Siri took his sandwich, some bananas, and a flask of tea down to the river bank. Comrade Civilai was already sitting there on their log, sawing at his own home-made baguette with a blunt penknife. Siri laughed and sat beside him. Civilai sniffed at the air.

  “Hmm. What do I smell here? Rotting pancreas? Gangrenous kidney?”

  “If you do, they’re your own, you old fool. I haven’t so much as unbuttoned a cadaverous jacket all morning.”

  “Ah, what a life.” Civilai was still hacking at the stale bread. “Is that what the People’s Revolutionary Party pays you for? Sitting around? Flirting with your nurse? Teaching Igor to clap with both hands at the same time? Shit.” A chunk of sandwich sprang off his lap and rolled down the dusty bank. He re-wrapped the rest of his meal in its newspaper and gave chase.

  When the rains returned in the new year, the water would rise to just a few meters from their log. But it was now some thirty meters to the river’s edge, and every foot of dry riverbed had been reclaimed as garden allotments. This was good vegetable-growing dirt.

  Civilai began the climb back to their perch, rescuing his crust as he came. He had several lettuce leafs in his top pocket. He was dusty and sweating and hard-pressed for breath.

  “I don’t know why you don’t just eat it in one lump like normal people,” Siri said.

  Civilai grunted back. “Because,” he huffed, “I am a man of breeding.” He blew the red clay from his sandwich. “Because I don’t want to be caught biting chunks off a log of bread like some caveman. And because my mouth isn’t nearly as large as yours.” Having made his point, he nibbled politely at the bread.

  Civilai was Siri’s closest friend in the politburo, and that was probably due to the fact that he, too, was a little mad. But whereas Siri was passively-rebellious mad, Civilai was downright-brilliant mad. He was inspired and eccentric. He’d been the architect of most of the Party’s more adventurous ideas.

  He was, however, just a little too fast for the plodding socialist system around him. He reminded Siri of a lively dog he’d seen being taken for a walk by a French lady with the gout. The dog ran back and forth panting and drooling, skipping and tugging at the leash, but nothing it did could make that lady walk faster or change direction. Civilai bore more than his fair share of frustration.

  He was a bony little man who wouldn’t have looked out of place pedaling a samlor bicycle taxi. His head had dispensed with the need for hair long ago, and he wore large rimmed glasses that made him look like a big-eyed cricket. He had been born two days before Siri, and thus was barely deserving of the title ai, older brother.

  “Your mouth could be every bit as big as mine, Ai, if you just used it a little more often.”

  “Oh, god. Here he goes again.”

  “I’m ill. I don’t think I’ve got long.” He ripped off the end of his baguette with his teeth and spoke through the bread. “I mean, it’s only common sense. When the old papaya tree stops bearing tasty fruit, you plant new shoots. You don’t wait for it to die first. The party sends off six students to Eastern Europe every three months for medical training. All you need is for one, just one, of those to specialize in post-mortem work.”

  “I’m not the representative for medical services,” Civilai shot back.

  “No, but you’re a big nob. All you have to do is say so, and they’ll do it.” He took a swig of his tea and handed the flask to Civilai. “I don’t want to be cutting up bodies till the day I become one of them. I need this. I need to know when I can expect a replacement. When I can stop. God knows, I could keel over any second. What would you do then?”

  “Eat the rest of your sandwich.”

  “What’s the point of pretending to be friendly with a politburo member if I can’t expect a little help from time to time?”

  “Can’t you just start, you know, making mistakes?”

  “What?”

  “As long as they’re happy with you, they’ll keep you on. If you started to—I don’t know—confuse body parts, they might see a more urgent need to replace you.”

  “Confuse body parts?”

  “Yes. Send your judge friend a photograph of a brain and tell him it’s a liver.”

  “He wouldn’t know. He’s got a liver where his brain should be.” They laughed.

  “I hope you aren’t insulting the judiciary. I could report you for that.”

  “I’ve got nothing against the judiciary.”

  “Good.”

  “Just the arse that’s representing it. How was your weekend?”

  “Sensational. Spent both days up in Van Viang at a political seminar. You?”

  “Dug a ditch.”

  “How was it?”

  “Sensational. My block won first prize in the ‘Uplifting Work Songs’ competition.”

  “Well done. What did you win?”

  “A hoe.”

  “Just the one?”

  “We get it for a week each, alphabetically. What’s the big news of the month up on the roundabout?”

  “Big news? We made it to the top of a world list last week.”

  “Lowest crime?”

  “Highest inflation.”

  “In the world? Wow. We should have a party or something.”

  “Then there’s the ongoing puppet scandal.”

  “Tell me.”

  “The Party ordered the puppets at Xiang Thong temple in Luang Prabang to stop using royal language, and said they had to start calling each other ‘comrade’.”

  “Quite right, too. We have to show those puppets who’s pulling the strings.” Civilai hit him with a lettuce leaf. “What happened?”

  “Puppets refused.”

  “Subversive bastards.”

  “The local party members locked them up in t
heir box, and they aren’t allowed out till they succumb.”

  “That’ll teach ’em.”

  They stretched out their lunch for as long as possible before walking across to the hospital with their arms locked together like drunks. At the concrete gate posts, Civilai reminded Siri he was off to the south for a week and he should reserve the log for the following Monday. They said their farewells, and Siri turned up the driveway.

  Before he’d gone five meters, he saw Geung loping toward him. The morgue assistant put on his brakes barely two centimeters from Siri’s face. He was excited, and excitement tended to back up his words inside his mouth. He opened it to speak, but nothing came out. He turned blue.

  Siri took a step back, put his hands on Geung’s shoulders, and massaged them strongly. “Take a few breaths, Mr. Geung. Nothing is important enough to suffocate for.” Geung did as he was told.

  “Now, what earth-moving event took place while I was at lunch?”

  “Comrade Kha…Kha…Kha…”

  “Kham?”

  “Comrade Kham’s…”

  “Is here?”

  “…’s wife.”

  “His wife is here.” Geung was delighted communication had taken place. He snorted, clapped his palms together, and stamped a foot on the ground. Two country bumpkins were walking past. They stopped to watch Geung’s little display. Lao country folk were never too embarrassed to embarrass someone else. One of them turned to the other and said loudly, “A moron.”

  Geung turned to them sharply. “It takes one to…to know one.”

  Siri was as pleased as the visitors were stunned. He laughed at them, put his arm around Geung, and led him off. “Good for you, Mr. Geung. Who taught you to speak to rude people like that?”

  Geung laughed. “You.”

  They walked on past the administration building with Geung apparently deep in thought. At last he spoke. “But, really I am a…a moron.”