“What?”
“You were very very very bad.”
“What did I do?” He felt curiously nervous.
“She isn’t…isn’t…isn’t a bubblehead. She’s a nice girl.”
“I – ”
“It was very bad to say th…th…those things to her.”
Siri thought back to what he’d said. It hadn’t occurred to him anything he said could offend her. He didn’t think she was offendable. “Did you say she’d gone home?”
“Yes.”
“But she never goes home for lunch. And I had her bicycle.”
“She’s gone home because she’s sad. You made her sad.”
“I – ”
But Geung was finished. He turned and walked back to the hospital.
“Mr Geung?”
He didn’t look back.
¦
Siri had never been to Dtui’s place. It was tucked behind the national stadium in a row of shanties that housed people who’d come down from the north to help rebuild the country. The huts were supposed to be temporary, but no one had yet been rehoused after almost a year. The senior cadres had priority for the new housing that was being built out in the suburbs. The little cogs would have to wait.
As he had no numbers or names to go by, it took him a while to find Dtui’s shed. It was made from latticed banana leaf, with gaps at the corners and between the sheets. Lao workmen had a knack for making the temporary look temporary. There was a shared bathroom at one end of the row.
On the floor in the centre of the hut’s only room, there were two unrolled mattresses with a large woman on each. Dtui was one of them. She was reading a Thai magazine.
“I hope I’m not disturbing you.”
Dtui and her mother looked up in surprise to see the doctor at the door, but it was only Dtui who sprang to her feet. She appeared to be devastated that Siri was seeing the conditions she lived in. She didn’t say anything at first, perhaps waiting for her boss to complain about her absence from work. But he didn’t speak.
“Ma, this is Doctor Siri.”
The old lady was lethargic and slow to focus on him. She obviously couldn’t move from where she lay. “Good health, Doctor. Sorry I can’t get up.”
“Ma’s got cirrhosis. I told you about it.”
“Yes. Good health, Mrs Vongheuan.” It seemed peculiar to be wishing good health to a woman who was clearly not healthy at all. But such was the national greeting. The woman had been ill for years from a liver fluke she had picked up in the north.
Dtui took hold of the doctor’s arm and led him outside.
Knickerless toddlers ran amok and rolled in the dust. A dog growled instinctively when Siri passed it. Dtui led him up towards the stadium wall where there were no neighbours to overhear. Siri had an apology prepared, but she beat him to it.
“I’m sorry, Doc. I was up all night with Ma. I didn’t mean to lose it. I was…”
“I just came by to ask you if you’d do me the honour of being my apprentice at the morgue.”
“Ah, no. You’re just saying that because I went nutty. You don’t have to do – ”
“I’m serious. I was thinking about it just before I rode your bicycle into the wall of the Presidential Palace.”
“You…?”
“I think you need to get those brakes looked at.”
“I never go fast enough to need brakes. Did you really…?”
“It’s downhill all the way from That Luang, and it didn’t occur to me to check the brakes before I set off. I shot through the centre of the Anusawari Arch, and I was travelling at about 120 kilometres an hour by the time I passed the post office. It was a bit of a blur.”
“Doctor.”
“I confess I didn’t actually crash into the palace. But that was only thanks to the poor man selling brooms and brushes beside the road. I decided he’d be much softer than the wall. We both came out of it quite well: I didn’t break anything, and he sold three brooms to the morgue.”
“And the bike?”
“The Chinese aren’t very good at making shoes, but they put together bicycles you couldn’t destroy with mortar fire. So will you?”
“Will I what?”
“Be my apprentice.”
“You’re damn right I will.”
“Good. Before I leave, I may as well take a look at your mother.”
“You fancy her?”
“The cirrhosis, girl. The cirrhosis.”
¦
On Wednesday, Siri was the first one at work again. As if Geung weren’t confused enough already, he walked out back to the furnace to find his boss on his hands and knees in the concrete trough, putting dead cockroaches into a jar.
“Morning, Mr Geung. Any new customers today?”
“No new customers today, Dr Comrade.” Geung laughed but stood watching Siri. “That…that’s dirty. You shouldn’t play there.”
“Mr Geung, you’re quite right. This is where you put the bags before they get thrown in the furnace, right?”
“Yes.”
“The janitor doesn’t seem to be around. Do you know if he burned our waste yesterday?”
“He must. He must. It’s the rules. He must destroy all hospital waste no more than twelve hours from when it arrives. He must.”
“Twelve hours. So what we threw out on Monday evening would have been sitting here overnight?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Please put our little friends here in the refrigerator while I go and get cleaned up.”
“Ha. Little friends.” Geung laughed and ran off inside with the jar.
¦
Siri showered, changed, and again left at about ten without telling them where he was going.
He crossed the road in front of the hospital and picked up his lunch from Auntie Lah. Following Dtui’s comments on Monday, he took the trouble to notice a blush in the lady’s cheeks. For a second, he believed there may have been some truth in it. They exchanged polite conversation for a few minutes, and then he said ‘Good health’ and walked on.
“The hospital’s that way, brother Siri,” she reminded him.
“I’m playing hooky. Don’t tell the director.”
“You should play hooky with me sometime.”
He laughed.
She laughed.
There
¦
He walked along the river and turned onto one of the small dirt lanes. The Lao Women’s Union was housed in a two-storey building whose frontage was overgrown with flowering shrubs. They’d been tended to look natural but were kept under total control. The Union sign had been freshly repainted. A slight dribble of white descended from one letter.
He walked into a bustling foyer where everyone seemed to have urgent business, and he wasn’t part of it. He
