Dr Siri Paiboun 01; The Coroner’s Lunch

trolley had become a customised 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.”

“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 a 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 humour, 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 riverbank. Comrade Civilai was already sitting there on their log, sawing at his own homemade 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 metres from their log. But it was now some thirty metres to the river’s edge, and every bit 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, and had 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 pedalling 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 specialise in postmortem 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?”