“Do you think we should call out, ‘Be careful,’ or something?” Daeng asked.
“I think they knew the dangers when they took off,” said Siri. “They think their chances out there are better than the alternative.”
The silence continued. Siri wanted to capture the moment somehow. The tension. The expectation. It would have made a remarkable cinematic image. He wondered whether it might be seen as inappropriate to discuss his screenplay concept with Civilai at such an occasion. He could see Kurosawa milking this scene. Two desperate men in their underwear lost in the mist on a landscape sown with explosives. Black and white. The only way to go. He looked around. Men and women holding their smoky breaths. Doubts fluttering. What if the endless blitz stories were all a myth composed by the propagandists? What if there were no-
It was less a bang, more a … a thunk. Like a punch. Loud, it was, and final. But not the boom you’d expect. There was no scream because bombies were renowned for their suddenness. By the time the shock had washed over you, screaming was the last thing on your mind. If your mind was still attached to your skull. Everyone wondered which of the escapees had been taken, but the thought was fleeting, because the second thunk seemed to leave a whistle in the air like a high-pitched ricochet.
24
Everyone agreed that being black had not distracted John Johnson from being a very fine helicopter pilot. He’d ignored the ban on flying during heavy smoke cover, hotwired one of the helicopters in the yard, and had so far made two trips to Muang Kham beyond the smoke zone. Siri and Auntie Bpoo sat on the broken steps of the Friendship Hotel waiting for the third shuttle.
“So. Mission accomplished,” Siri said.
“I’d been hoping for something more exciting,” Bpoo confessed, rethreading a necklace that had been broken during the troubles. “Thought I might have to drag you from beneath the wheels of a rapid locomotive.”
“In a country without a railway?”
“It was a fantasy, old man. In a fantasy you can construct whatever damned engineering infrastructure you please.”
“Ear-fingering was no less dramatic. And for that I thank you.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Now, is there any way I can return the favor?”
“No.”
“Not even if you told me what’s wrong with your health?”
She glared at the doctor with eyes wide as melon slices.
“What makes you think there’s something wrong with my health?”
“I can see the future.”
“Don’t make me laugh. You can barely see the present.”
“Conceded. But I am rather good with the past, and I recall seeing you together with Dr. Yamaguchi at every opportunity.”
“He’s a passionate man drawn to glamor. What can I say?”
“He’s also a very fine researcher.”
“The helicopter’s late.”
“I’ve been through his CV. Oncology.”
“I think I’ll complain to the airline. Get my money back.”
“You’ve been asking him how long you have left.”
“Do you ever stop being annoying-and wrong?”
“So, tell me.”
Auntie Bpoo searched the sky for the return of Sergeant Johnson.
“I’m a fortune-teller,” she said. “I don’t need to ask
“So?”
“So annoying.”
“Bpoo?”
“So, I want to know-”
“If it’s preventable.”
“Stop it, will you? I detest it when people finish sentences for you. It’s very-”
“Frustrating.”
Siri was smiling. Bpoo had to laugh.
“If I thought there were any way it could be cured I’d talk to a surgeon,” Bpoo said softly. “Not a coroner. Yamaguchi’s a pathologist. A doctor of the dead bits. I wanted to understand what it looked like. I mean, after it kills you. After it’s done its evil work. Does it gloat? Does it swell up and boast of its ominous power, ‘Look what I’ve done’? Or is it exhausted, embarrassed, full of remorse?”
“I doubt Yamaguchi’s ever had to face questions like that before.”
“I don’t have the technical vocabulary. I could only ask in emotional, human terms like that. You see? I can live these last few months better if I don’t hate it. If I don’t take it personally. I want to love my tumor. I want us to go together, each playing his or her part. Partners walking hand in hand over a steep cliff.”
“Hm. What did he say?”
“He ignored the question and counseled.”
“Good for him. Was coming up here to save my life part of all this?”
“In a way.”
“Do you want to explain why?”
“You’re the only person I know who sees the dead.”
“And?”
“If you were dead too you’d be completely useless to me.”
“If I…? Oh, my word.”
“See?”
“Please tell me you aren’t planning to haunt me.”
“Guide, Siri. Ghosts haunt. Spirits guide. I’ll never be forgotten in your mind. We’ll be together always.”
She started to sing. It was the Thai version of “Auld Lang Syne.” Siri put his fingers in his ears and hummed.
“That won’t help you any more,” she shouted.
Siri removed his fingers and took her hand. She let him.
“I could really use a poem right now,” he told her.
“No. Not in the mood.”
25
The ceremony was scheduled to commence at 2:00 P.M. It was three fifteen. According to the Americans present, the minister was late. According to the Lao, if he got the day right it was a good sign. Apart from Major Potter and Ethel Chin, back in the States now and probably in the ground, and Senator Vogal who was still a little scattered, all the guests from the Friendship Hotel were in attendance. Gordon had spent a week in Bangkok writing
