The Woman Who Wouldn't Die Read online

  ‘You don’t sound that enthusiastic,’ said Siri. They were passing the elephant hills of Ban Chang. Civilai sat between Siri and Daeng on his deckchair slurping coconut water directly from the shell.

  ‘It’s doomed,’ he said. ‘We’re all doomed. The end of the world is nigh.’

  ‘Well,’ said Daeng. ‘I must say they couldn’t have chosen a better diplomat to enthuse the masses.’

  ‘Doomed,’ said Civilai.

  Siri and Civilai had a lot in common. They had both studied in France and returned to fight the revolution against the oppressors. They had both joined the Pathet Lao and lived in harsh conditions in the fields of battle. And now they shared another badge of courage. Both were missing their left earlobe. Siri’s had been bitten off in a fistfight. Civilai had recently made the mistake of putting his ear in the path of a speeding bullet. The doctor believed it was a deliberate act on the part of the politician, who envied Siri’s deformity of valour. But the old men were once again a matching set.

  ‘Are you going to have time to stop over in Pak Lai on your way upriver?’ Daeng asked.

  ‘No. They want me there at the weekend. But if you’re still around on Monday I’ll abandon ship and celebrate the end of the world with you.’

  ‘How sweet of you,’ Daeng laughed.

  ‘I’d rather hoped I might meet your witch on board,’ said Civilai.

  ‘Not a good sailor, evidently,’ said Siri. ‘The Ministry of Agriculture flew her up in a helicopter yesterday.’

  ‘She didn’t have her broomstick?’

  Madame Daeng looked baffled.

  ‘Just the two of us, older brother,’ said Siri. ‘Just the two of us.’

  Mr Geung joined them on the upper deck clutching a whole cleavage of coconuts.

  ‘More,’ he said and sat on the deck with his sharp machete lobotomizing them one by one. Ugly chewed on a half shell that was his alone. Siri had entrusted the dog to the care of Mr Bhiku David Tickoo, the father of Crazy Rajid and the head cook at the Happy Dine Indian restaurant. Crazy Rajid spent his mute days wandering the streets of Vientiane or bathing naked in the river but many nights he would sleep behind the restaurant. Siri’d had a little business to discuss with him the night before their departure and he took the opportunity to chain the dog to the restaurant’s back fence. After a plate of beef curry, Ugly seemed perfectly content to spend a few days there. When Siri and Daeng arrived at the ferry that morning, Ugly had been there waiting for them, tail wagging, a big smile on his deformed face. How he knew about the ferry trip nobody could say.

  ‘And what news of your handsome paramour, Madame Daeng?’ Civilai asked.

  ‘I’m starting to wish I hadn’t told you about him,’ said Daeng. ‘Nobody else knows.’

  ‘You had no choice,’ said Civilai. ‘I am a man of influence. I can open doors. My minions at the ministries of Foreign Affairs and Interior are hunting out his arrival documents as we speak. Any chance he’s just here to shake hands with old foe? Love across the Atlantic? World peace?’

  ‘We can hope,’ said Siri. ‘Goodness knows the French spread so much goodwill and happiness while they were here.’

  ‘Nuts?’ said Geung.

  As our working men had been disposed of horribly and publicly to end the rebellion, our village soon started to break up. My mother and sister and I travelled to Pakse in the south where Ma and me found laundry work. I was eleven. My sister, Gulap, was sixteen but she couldn’t help us. She was a victim of what I later learned was called cerebral palsy. At the time they called her a spastic. She could neither speak nor walk but she was easily the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. She smiled continuously. An irresistible smile. I was a daisy to Gulap’s rose. I talked to her all the time. I told her stories. I know she understood me.

  Our laundry was behind a large auberge. We did the wash for the guest house and took in laundry from the resident foreigners around the town. It was there that I learned to read and write and cook. I was a curious girl and I was always pestering people to teach me something I didn’t know. I was tired of being an ignoramus. Gulap would spend her days smiling at the world from a chair beneath the Buddha tree in the back yard. I always believed there was a magic word you could say to her and the mistake that distorted my sister would be rectified. I began by learning my own language and tried every word on her. When that didn’t work I decided it had to be a foreign magic word. I started to collect French from the guests in the auberge. Every day I’d gather half a dozen new words, run back to our room and attempt to free my sister from her demon.

  And that was how I met Claude. He was a doctor from Paris. He was kind and patient and so unlike the other French men. I hardly noticed how unpleasant he looked: fat and ginger-haired, his teeth stained grey from wine and cigarettes. None of that mattered because Claude offered to save Gulap. The doctor travelled with a Vietnamese, a shifty man with a paunch and hair greased flat to his skull. They would come to stay at our auberge every twenty days or so. They’d stay two nights. The Vietnamese spoke Lao. He told me that Claude would treat my sister free of charge because he liked me. When I told this to my mother she was so happy she cried all over the newly ironed pillow cases. We dreamed of the day that Gulap would be able to talk to us. Tell us how she felt.

  Dr Claude kept his word. He treated her twice. When his work at the hospital was over, he and the Vietnamese carried Gulap to our room and for half an hour or so they did whatever it took to remove the evil spirit from my sister’s soul. They didn’t let me see, of course. It was dangerous for somebody unqualified to be present, they told me. I even believed I was seeing an improvement in my sister. She was trying so hard to speak. She became so excited the second time she saw Dr Claude arrive. She clapped her curled hands and …

  ‘I can’t do this. All it does is remind me of how stupid I was.’

  ‘You were thirteen.’

  ‘Surely common sense comes long before that.’

  ‘Some people never get it. Write!’

  … and seemed so excited.

  Dr Claude and the Vietnamese hadn’t come for two months. I was anxious that they might not return. I asked at the auberge when the doctor was due back. The owner told me she knew nothing of a doctor. ‘Dr Claude and the tall Vietnamese,’ I said. ‘Claude?’ she laughed. ‘Claude is no more a doctor than I am a cabaret singer. Those two deal in bathroom attachments. They’re travelling salesmen, young Daeng.’

  My sister, Gulap, the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen, died giving birth. My mother had considered terminating the pregnancy but they wouldn’t let us in the hospital. Only the village shaman with potions you wouldn’t give a rabid dog, and midwives with rusty knives were available for people like us. So my mother put her trust in nature. And nature let her down. With medicine and the hands of a surgeon, Gulap might have survived. But she was in the hands of fate and it took my sister and her baby from us.

  *

  The Voyage of Harmony reached Pak Lai exactly eleven hours after leaving Vientiane. It didn’t feel that long. Siri had always marvelled at the timelessness of river travel. For hours they hadn’t seen anything the early French explorers wouldn’t have experienced a hundred years before. All right, perhaps they wouldn’t have seen so many 333 Beer bottles floating nearer the towns or Che Guevara T-shirts on fishermen. No odd TOA paint cans lined up for shooting practice. But, basically, the cruise could have been before history. Before the ridiculousness of war. Before the greed of generals and the land lust of politicians. This river had defied it all and survived. Still her willowed banks bowed to the passing pirogues. Still the grey terns surfed the cool current above the water.

  The pilot switched off his engine some hundred metres before the modest bamboo dock and waited for it to lure the boat home against the gentle current. There was barely a creak as the ferry kissed the old tyres that hung from the posts. Siri and Daeng had never been to Sanyaburi. It was a province that had often found itself changing nationality in th
e political lotteries. Civilai argued that the place was a victim of its spelling. On French and American maps there were no fewer than seventeen attempts at its transcription. More worryingly, there were three different versions on Lao maps. He argued that if it were easier to spell, a country might be more inclined to hang on to it. It was currently one of two Lao provinces with real estate on the west bank of the Mekhong, but that could change at any time. The players still sat around the board.

  Siri, Daeng and Mr Geung were met at the dock by a smiling man in a grey safari suit and plastic flip-flops. He had a shaved head that rose gently to a cone like the sharp end of a coconut. Two twiggy men in football shorts and once-white singlets stood behind him. He had a booming voice.

  ‘Comrades. Comrades,’ he said. ‘Welcome to Sanyaburi.’

  Ugly was the first to step ashore and the man kicked at the dog and missed. His flip-flop flipped and flopped into the river but he ignored it. Siri saw him as the type who would only wear flip-flops on formal occasions. He kicked off the other sandal, stepped across the gangplank and shook the hands of Siri and Daeng with great enthusiasm. He took one look at Geung and ignored him completely.

  ‘I’m the inspector of river traffic, the imports tariffs collection director general and I also have the honour of being the governor of this great province. My name is Siri Vignaket,’ he said.

  Dr Siri was immediately resentful to have this man share his name.

  ‘It’s nice to be here,’ said Daeng who knew her Siri wouldn’t be saying anything. ‘This is Dr Siri Paiboun. My name is Daeng; I’m his wife.’

  ‘No need to tell me that,’ said Siri II. ‘I can see you’re a bit over the hill to be his mistress.’

  His laugh shook leaves from the trees and frightened birds from the branches. Some people take days, even weeks to make a bad impression. Governor Siri had managed to alienate everyone in under three minutes. A remarkable feat.

  ‘Can’t have too many Siris, that’s what I say,’ bellowed the governor. ‘Right, old man?’

  Daeng squeezed her husband’s hand. The sound of a titter could be heard from the other passenger on the boat who hadn’t bothered to get up from his seat and introduce himself.

  ‘His hearing’s all right, is it?’ asked Siri II. ‘Never mind. I’ve brought my men. They’ll carry your luggage up to the Peace Hotel. That’s where you’ll be staying. Top floor all to yourselves. Good view of the river. Double bed but I doubt you’ll be making full use of that.’

  Again the laugh. Again the trembling trees.

  ‘This is all we have,’ said Daeng with admirable restraint.

  In his clenched fist, Siri held a canvas BOAC airline bag he’d once won in a tombola. It contained his travelling mortuary kit and a few clothes. His was a wash-and-re-wear philosophy. Daeng had her small backpack over one shoulder and three light deckchairs at her feet.

  ‘Travel light, do you?’ said the governor.

  ‘Weren’t you ever in the military?’ Daeng asked.

  ‘Me? Hell no. Mug’s game.’

  ‘How could you avoid it?’

  ‘By using this old fella,’ he said, tapping his index finger against his forehead and leaving the visitors in doubt as to whether he’d avoided military service by using his head or his finger.

  ‘I was very proud of you,’ said Daeng.

  They sat on the edge of the double bed in the Peace Hotel penthouse suite. At least that was how the landlady had described it. It was indeed the entire top floor of a three-storey building but there was masonry evidence to suggest they’d intended to turn it into four separate rooms but had run out of money. The bedhead leaned against the north wall. There was a brisk twenty metre walk to the wardrobe at the south. A heavy wooden coffee table with a hot thermos of tea and a full-sized chair occupied the west wall and four doorways opened on to the balcony to the east. Only one of them had a door attached.

  ‘I wanted to …’

  ‘I know you did,’ said Daeng. ‘But we’re on holiday. No point in starting a vacation under lock and key.’

  ‘He’s …’

  ‘I know he is. Let’s take a look at the view.’

  They walked out through the second doorway.

  ‘At least it won’t get stuffy,’ said Siri.

  ‘And there is a mosquito net.’

  The view made up for almost everything. It was splendid. The weather continued to be ideal. From their eyrie they could see the tail end of Civilai’s ferry chugging its way around the bend upriver. Pak Lai was nicely laid out. There was something English about its large village green. You’d expect cricketers to walk out on to it after tea. Of course they’d need machetes rather than cricket bats as the grass had been left to its own devices for too long. The two unemployed porters were in the grounds below thrashing at the overgrown weeds with ancient scythes. A woman across the river propelled her coracle with an old frying pan. The dogs of Pak Lai had obviously been waiting for the coming of the alpha messiah because a dozen of them were following Ugly, up to their elbows in the river, rooting for crabs.

  ‘We should bring Geung up,’ said Daeng. ‘He’d enjoy the view.’

  The landlady had taken one look at Mr Geung and suggested he’d probably be more comfortable on the bunk in the back of the chicken coup. Siri told her that, as tempting as that sounded, his assistant would rough it in one of the guest house rooms.

  ‘It’s the boat races,’ she’d said. She was a large woman whose eyebrows were very close to her hairline. In moments of surprise they merged.

  ‘And that means what?’ Siri had asked.

  ‘All the rooms will be full,’ she’d said. ‘There’ll be a crowd down from Sanyaburi municipality. People from Vientiane. The races have been cancelled the last three years. There’s a lot of interest.’

  ‘Then it’s just as well we arrived before them,’ said Siri. ‘And as a show of good spirit, Mr Geung will give up his chronological right to the bunk in the chicken house.’

  So, now, Mr Geung had a room to himself in the guest house. Beside the bed he’d put his Thai plastic chicken alarm clock that awoke him with a ‘cock-a-doodle-doo’ and his framed photograph of his beloved, Tukda, the prettiest Down Syndrome canteen worker at Mahosot Hospital. Everything was poised for an enjoyable few days. All they were missing was the witch. According to Siri the governor, she had refused first option on the Peace penthouse in preference for a private room at the old French colonial building at the back. Apparently, she wanted a room with a door. There was no accounting for taste.

  Siri and Daeng were on their deckchairs with an early evening cocktail. Thai brandy and more Thai brandy without ice, courtesy of the horrible governor. The sky to the west was crimson but the sunset was wasted way back behind the jungle and the hills. But, when it arrived, they knew they’d have front seats for the moon-rise. And that, as everyone knew, was the time when spirit energy was at its most potent.

  ‘Any sightings?’ Daeng asked.

  ‘Anybody specific in mind?’

  ‘I suppose I was wondering about the minister’s brother, Ly,’ said Daeng. ‘I mean, if his body really is here and his spirit’s in limbo, I imagine he’d be getting, you know, worked up.’

  ‘It sounds like he’s already found his own direct line through the witch. He wouldn’t waste his time banging his head against my locked front door when he’s got an ever-open spirit-flap to her.’

  ‘So you’re not getting any vibrations?’

  ‘You know, Daeng, it’s not so much an energy – more like visions. I see them all the time. It’s just another dimension laid on top of this one like cartoon cells. You draw Daffy Duck on one layer and superimpose it on to another. I see both dimensions.’

  ‘How can you tell them apart?’

  ‘The living and the dead?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The living are better dressers. The dead have this permanent “too long in the washing machine” look. Their colours are all washed out. Their lines are
a little smudged.’

  ‘I don’t know why I’m always putting myself up for this, the hairs are already standing up on the back of my neck. But … can you see them now?’

  Siri gazed across the river.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘It’s not that scary, Daeng. Most of them are just lying around waiting. You know how you try to make a booking through Aeroflot and they ask you to come back to the office again and again to see how your application has progressed? Well, it’s like that. Most of them seem resigned to the fact that they’re on their way to the next incarnation, or the promised land or hell, whichever travel agent they’ve booked with.’

  Daeng poured them two fresh glasses.

  ‘So how do you think it works?’ she asked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Religion.’

  Siri laughed.

  ‘That’s a bit heavy for six p.m. after just the one glass, don’t you think?’

  ‘I’ve asked you before when you were halfway down a bottle but you always make a joke of it.’

  ‘Why is it important?’

  ‘Oh, you know. If something happens to me I’d like to be prepared.’

  ‘You’re in your sixties. If you haven’t settled on a tour company yet you probably never will. You’ll be travelling solo. And, besides, I won’t let anything happen to you.’

  ‘Oh, Sir Siri. My hero. But tell me anyway.’

  ‘There isn’t one answer, Daeng. I know from experience that the spirits of the dead often hang around. This knowledge is a heavy weight to bear. It makes you want to have your brain laundered. I’m nothing special so it’s quite obvious that legions of similarly haunted people throughout history have borne this weight too. So, throughout time, I’m convinced all these confused spirit-seers got so freaked out they needed to find a way to explain it to themselves. Form logical parameters to make sense of it.