Curse of the Pogo Stick Read online

  The only building visible from the road was a French-built two-story off-white construction with an impressive roof that had probably made the locals go “ooh” when it was being built, but that didn’t hold a candle to even the most provincial college in France. It was the administration block whose offices let onto an open-air balcony, like a seaside hotel. Goats chomped unenthusiastically at the thick grass around its base. Phosy paused to ask directions from the guard in the little concrete booth at the gate. The drowsy man apologized and said he didn’t know because he was a postman just taking a nap there in the empty box. A passing student overheard their question and pointed them straight ahead.

  It was such a silent place that the roar of their small motor embarrassed them. They could imagine lectures in the modest huts coming to a halt until they’d passed. More goats looked up and chickens tested their chicken skills by scurrying in front of the Vespa at the last second. They passed whole shanties of student dormitory shacks made of rattan and tin and finally came to the back gate. The building beside it had a handwritten wooden sign attached that announced English Department.

  They were climbing off the bike when a rather distinguished-looking man with curly hair dyed black walked past them. He had a stack of books under his arm. He ignored the visitors at first but curiosity seemed to pull him back.

  “May I help you?” he asked. His voice was deep and syrupy.

  “Yes, we were hoping to find Ajan Ming,” Phosy said.

  “Is that so? Then you must have consumed your lucky medicine this morning.”

  “Because?”

  “Because I am he.”

  Phosy and Dtui introduced themselves and briefly explained why they were there. Ajan Ming told them he was on his break and invited them to a slightly leaning building just beyond the back gate where coffee was sold. They sat at a table by a large rectangular hole in the bamboo wall. As they spoke, Dtui’s gaze returned from time to time to an elderly lady in rags who swept and reswept the dirt path opposite. She wore a conical hat that left her face in shadow.

  “Don’t you think?”

  Ajan Ming’s question had been directed at Dtui. She turned away from the window.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “I said it would be unfortunate if we were held responsible for every student we teach once they leave our institution. It wouldn’t make any more sense than your being taken to task for your former patients getting into trouble.”

  “You’re quite right,” she said. She turned back to the window but the woman was gone.

  “You do your best for them, then they’re on their own. And she was just a teacher in a refresher course. It’s not as if we’d received them fresh from the lycée.”

  “But it was your first course.”

  “My first here at Dong Dok but I’d been teaching at the Normal School in Vang Vieng beforehand.”

  “But you do remember this Phonhong?”

  “I have an excellent memory. I remember all my old students, no matter how short the course. And in this case I have good cause to remember her.”

  The ajan’s spectacles seemed to be giving him a headache so he took them off and put them in the top pocket of his shirt. Three hot gooey coffees with condensed milk foundations arrived in unholdable glasses.

  “Why is that, Ajan?”

  “Well, it was soon quite apparent that she was a fanatical Royalist. I imagine her family had some royal connections although she didn’t boast about it. As you know, in the old days, if a family had money they’d send their children to study in France or one of the English-speaking countries. But it appeared Phonhong had done all of her studies here so the highest level she could achieve was teaching in a regional school. I asked her why that was and she told me she had devoted herself to the betterment of her people. She wanted to show the Lao that one didn’t have to go abroad to get an education, which wasn’t completely true. But I admired her resolve.”

  “Did you have any trouble with her when she was here?” Dtui asked, churning the coffee and milk together with a weightless tin spoon.

  “Not trouble exactly,” Ming told her. “She started a club for undergraduate students. It was an anticommunist club. I can’t recall precisely what they called it. She spread the word that the Red plague would one day engulf our country and destroy all the good work the Royalists had done. Much as I love our great socialist state, there are those who would describe that as something of a prophecy a decade ago.”

  “Did the group do any agitating?” Phosy asked.

  “Not really. They just put up posters warning of the Red threat and held rallies.”

  “Can you recall who else was in that club?” Phosy asked.

  “Not offhand. I could put together a list for you as it comes to me, I suppose.”

  “We’d be grateful. Did you have any contact with her after she graduated?”

  “Nothing personal,” Ming confessed, “but this is a small country. I was kept in touch with her activities by others. As you know, everybody knows someone who knows someone here.”

  “What did you hear?”

  “They had a son, she and her soldier husband. She’d raised him as a patriot. As he was going through his teens the war against the communists was heating up. He too enlisted in the military and by fate or influence he found his way into his father’s regiment. Rumor has it that they were on a mission together in Huaphan in the northeast and that both father and son were slaughtered in a PL ambush.”

  Dtui’s gaze flicked back from the window.

  “Now that would be enough to make a woman nuts,” she said.

  Ajan Ming seemed a little taken aback by her insensitivity.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Please go on.”

  “That was the end of the story. We heard no more of her.”

  “And you don’t recall the family name of the soldier?” Phosy asked.

  “Not at all.” The coffee was barely cool enough to sip but he held the glass in a paper napkin and threw back the entire contents in one gulp. “That doesn’t help you, does it?”

  “No.”

  “I wish there were some way I could make a connection for—Ah, now there’s a possibility.”

  “What is?” Dtui asked.

  “They were Christian. The whole family. Catholic if my memory serves me right. Phonhong had converted when she married the officer. If the husband and son had a Christian funeral—”

  “They’d be buried in the Catholic cemetery. Brilliant,” said Phosy.

  “If only we knew their names.” Dtui shook her head.

  “But we do,” said Ming, glowing with that righteous radiance intellectuals exhibit when they solve problems. “Their first names, at least. Both the husband and son had been named after the great king Fa Ngum. That shouldn’t be too hard to find on a headstone.”

  “Excellent.” Dtui smiled. “I should spend some time out here. Maybe some of this brilliance would rub off on me.” She wrote down the name and one or two notes to herself on a napkin.

  “Let’s go take a look,” Phosy suggested.

  “What now?”

  “No time like the present. It isn’t the biggest cemetery in the world.”

  “Not the biggest at all,” Ming agreed. “I confess you two have me worked up into such a lather I’d even consider going with you to conduct the search. Unfortunately, I have to proctor an examination in the next hour.”

  “Ajan Ming, you’ve done more than enough already,” Phosy told him. “We can handle it from here. Thank you.”

  Dtui looked anxious. “Shouldn’t we get in touch with the others?”

  “Come on, Dtui,” Phosy laughed. “To look around a cemetery? What trouble can we get into there?” He shook his head at Ming. “I’m afraid my wife’s getting a little paranoid in her old age.”

  “Paranoia isn’t always a bad thing,” Ming responded. “But I am assured the residents of the Catholic cemetery are harmless.”

  “Then at least let’
s stop for lunch on the way,” Dtui pleaded. “I’m not sure I can go rooting through a cemetery on an empty stomach.”

  Nonpracticing Atheists

  According to official work application forms and Party records of affiliation with organizations, Phosy and Dtui were atheists. Not surprisingly, anyone who filled in a form in the People’s Democratic Republic checked “atheist” in the religion box. It was circumspect to do so: “opium of the people” and all that. But the Lord Buddha isn’t a deity who just goes away when you fill in a form. There were very few Lao who didn’t offer Him their thanks on the rare occasion when things went right. His was a good old-fashioned religion that didn’t cause wars or advocate hatred of the beliefs of others. And, at the end of the eightfold path, a Buddhist could expect his remains to be barbequed to the size of a pillbox and placed on the family altar.

  So, for two latent Buddhists like Phosy and Dtui to be strolling around a Christian graveyard in the heat of the midday sun was a little overwhelming. Only a few feet below them lay the complete and nicely dressed remains of hundreds of God worshippers, any one of whom could break through the earth and wrap his or her bony fingers around the trespassers’ necks, just like in the movies.

  “I’m not sure I can do this,” Dtui confessed.

  “Take a deep breath.”

  The Vientiane Catholic Cemetery was out on route 13 at kilometer 9. It was a walled field and most of the graves and stones were squashed to one end as if for warmth or companionship. The occupants were a peculiar mix of European, Chinese, and Lao. The planners had given the bodies very little space to stretch out and relax in the afterlife. Phosy had never learned Western script so Dtui led them from stone to stone translating as she went. Fortunately, the headstone they were looking for was in the first corner of the cemetery they searched. They’d headed for the newest-looking stones and the best-kept graves. The wide plot had one headstone for both father and son. It was inscribed in English: “Here lie two Warriors named Fa Ngum. May their Souls rest in Peace.”

  “Well, that’s marvelous,” said Dtui in her loud huffy voice. “Now what are we supposed to do, interview them?”

  She kept the thought to herself that this was exactly the situation in which you could use a Dr. Siri, communicator with the dead. She knew her husband wasn’t a great fan of superstitious mumbo jumbo. They gazed around. There appeared to be no office. One elderly gentleman with long unkempt hair stood glaring at a headstone. He held a small bouquet of lifeless flowers in front of his crotch. In the next row, a worker with a long-handled rake removed leaves from the walkway. He was a short man with sunburned skin and unkempt whiskers growing in thickets here and there across his chin. His smile was no more than a single drawn line on a cartoon face but it made him look like a man who enjoyed his work. Phosy called over to him. “I was wondering … ?” “Good health,” the man said, his smile opening to show a full set of white teeth.

  “Good health. I wanted to know if there might be an administration office somewhere where we could inquire about a grave here.”

  “Used to be, sir. Shut down when the French left.

  There’s just me now.” “For the whole place?” “Yes, sir. They don’t cause me a lot of trouble.” Phosy walked between the graves to join the worker.

  Dtui held back and looked discreetly at the mourner. The old man hadn’t put down his flowers. He was standing there either mouthing a prayer or inflicting a curse.

  “Have you been here long?” Phosy asked the worker. “Twenty-seven years, sir.” “Really? So who pays your salary now that there are no French?”

  “There’s a fund. The bereaved pay into it for the upkeep. No graves to dig these days, just trimming grass and cleaning up.”

  “Then you’d know a thing or two about the graves?” “Yes, sir. More than a thing or two no doubt. What one was you interested in?” “The two Fa Ngums.” “Oh, yes, sir. Tragic! Just tragic. Father and son mas sacred on the same day.”

  “Does the boy’s mother, the wife of the officer, does she come to pay her respects?”

  “Yes.” He nodded at Dtui, who’d joined them. “Good health, ma’am.”

  “When was the last time you saw her?” she asked.

  “Ooh, let me see. Must have been a few weeks ago. Yes, that’d be right. She travels a lot, I believe. Lovely woman.”

  “So she’s here often?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Could turn up at any time.”

  Dtui felt the whisper of premonition shudder through her bones.

  “Would you happen to know whether there’s a record of who pays for the stones and contributes to the upkeep?” Phosy asked.

  “Ooh, that would have been with the French curate, sir. Long gone, I’m afraid. No idea where that’d be now.”

  “So there’s no way we could contact Fa Ngum’s wife?” Dtui said.

  “Tell the truth, ma’am, the ledger wouldn’t have helped anyway in such a case.”

  “It didn’t have names and addresses?”

  “Oh, indeed it did, but she wasn’t the one what paid. It was the older lady. The soldier’s mother who took it upon herself. She’s getting on a bit now.”

  “You know her?”

  “Yes, sir. Had to go by her place once or twice to pick up wreaths.”

  “Then you know where she lives?”

  “Oh, yes. It’s that big old mansion down by Wat Tai on the river. She lives there by herself now.”

  “Excellent.” Phosy smiled. “We’re very much obliged to you, comrade.”

  “You’re welcome, sir, ma’am.”

  The worker bowed politely and returned to his raking.

  “What do you say?” Phosy asked Dtui. “One more stop for the day? It’s on the way home.”

  “Look, I don’t feel comfortable wandering around with”—she lowered her voice—“that maniac on the loose.”

  “Nothing’s happened to us.”

  “No! But we’ve had armed guards all week.”

  “She’d have no idea where we are. Where’s your sense of adventure?”

  “Sometimes you just don’t think like a policeman.”

  “And sometimes you think too much like one.”

  “You can be very annoying, Phosy. This is positively the last stop, but only if little Malee here and her big ma can get a glass of iced tea on the way. My throat’s as dry as the crypt. No offense,” she said, looking along the ordered rows of passé Frenchmen. Apart from the worker, they were alone now in this eerie place. Above ground, anyway.

  The large metal gate was ajar and so clogged with weeds and vines it had apparently been open for a very long time. Phosy drove through the gap into the broad dirt yard. When he cut the motor no sounds emanated from inside the old two-story French mansion. It was the color of a neglected tooth. Several rows of red clay pots stood guard around it. At some stage they’d contained pretty bougainvillea and mimosa and magnolia but now their dark skeletons poked from the cracked earth in crippled poses. The wooden shutters at the front of the house were closed. At one time blue, they’d been lashed the color of a shipwreck by the monsoons.

  It was a mansion barely in the mood for visitors. If the front door hadn’t been open and the front step littered with shoes paired off like parentheses, Phosy and Dtui might have given up on the place. Instead, they walked up the two large steps and peered inside.

  “Good health,” Phosy called. “Anyone home?”

  They heard the distant voice of a woman.

  “We’re out back,” she shouted. “Come on through.”

  In a Lao house, before the days of suspicion and paranoia, this had been a normal thing. No chain locks or spy holes. A visitor received a friendly welcome no matter how dirty his feet or empty his belly.

  “Just two new friends,” Dtui called as they walked through the large open-plan front room that smelled to Phosy like muddy football boots left to dry in the sun. There was dust in the air.

  “Out here! Just follow my voice,” the woman c
alled.

  Dtui and Phosy arrived at a large well-lighted kitchen. Three unshuttered windows opened onto a jungle of a backyard. An old lady was bent over a stone sink with her back to the guests. She wore a ridiculously long phasin and a head scarf of the type favored by the queen of England on hunting trips.

  “We’re sorry to disturb you,” Dtui said.

  “Oh, my dears. No problem at all,” replied the woman. As she turned she seemed to uncurl and become a lot taller than she’d first appeared. In her right hand she held an M-1911 pistol. With her left she undid the scarf and let her long gray hair fall past her shoulders. Phosy reached for Dtui’s hand.

  The Lizard walked confidently toward them. “I think I’m supposed to say something like, ‘Aha so we meet again, Inspector Phosy.’ At least that’s the type of thing Moriarty would have said.”

  She unfastened the phasin and it dropped to the floor. Underneath she was wearing chic European trousers.

  “But, of course, what would a Red know of literature and culture? I could say in English, ‘Welcome to my parlor’ and even if I bothered to translate it, you still wouldn’t have a clue what I’m talking about. I’m afraid this trap for common flies might appear a little overelaborate but what terrible fun. You see, we’ve had little to do but twiddle our thumbs since you spoiled our nice coup d’état.”

  “How could you know we’d be here?” Phosy asked, his arm around Dtui.

  “Well, that’s the splendor of the chase, my silly policeman. Every move you made today has been orchestrated. We challenged ourselves, you see. We wondered whether we’d be clever enough to persuade the fish to leave the sanctity of their pool and come in search of the hook. But there I go mixing my metaphors horribly—flies and fish—shame on me. Never mind.”

  “Who’s ‘we’?” Dtui asked.

  “Cue the curtain call.” The woman beamed. “The gentleman behind you—No, you may look, it isn’t a trick—”