"Don't even think about swimming to freedom," it snarled.
Crazy Rajid was back. She could see him in the shadows. He sat on his Crazy Rajid stool under his Crazy Rajid umbrella. She wondered if he was the only sensible one of the lot of them. He hadn't found anyone. And what you don't find you don't lose. He'd slept behind his father's house when the rains were at their worst but, as far as she knew, he still hadn't spoken to Bhiku. And she understood. She knew exactly why he held his tongue. Rajid had loved his mother and his siblings and they'd drowned. In his head it was quite obvious that his love had killed them. So how could he continue to love his father? Hadn't he killed enough people? He had to hate his father because he loved him so much. Just as Daeng hated Siri.
She waved but wasn't surprised at all when he didn't wave back.
"Good man," she said. "Keep your distance. Love stinks."
She walked to the bed and, fully dressed, curled herself onto the top cover.?
He sat on his stool and looked up at the window. His thoughts were slow and his memory affected but he couldn't forget that sweet woman, Daeng, who was admiring her river. He could understand what she saw in it. It was different every day. The water that passed you this minute would never come back. One chance to see the fallen tree. One shot at the bloated buffalo carcass. Everything was new. It didn't have or need a memory. He loved the river too but today it had almost taken his life. It wasn't a valuable life but he'd decided it was worth hanging on to. He was wet through and exhausted. And he was crying. Not many people had seen him cry. Some thought he had no real emotions. Thought he was cold. But that wasn't true. He was nothing but emotions. His body was just a skin to hold all the emotions in. That's why he was such a weakling. Why he had to pretend to be what he wasn't.
He stood, lowered the umbrella, tied the drawstring and walked towards the shop. He'd started to feel the cold and he knew the chill was coming from inside him. It wouldn't be long before a fever took hold. He needed to eat. He needed dry clothes. But, most of all, he needed to be wanted. He stopped on the pavement beneath her window. A bin for rubbish — half an oil drum — stood there. In it were the broken remnants of a spirit house and an altar. Someone had tried to set light to them but nothing burned in this weather. He stepped up to the grey shutters and a massive sigh shuddered in his throat.
"What if she hates me? What will I do then?" But it was too late to consider the negatives. He raised his fist and banged on the metal. Not one or two polite knocks but thunder, banging so hard that if she didn't come down he would pummel his fist-prints into the steel. He'd hammer a hole in the metal and step inside.?
Daeng might have found rest but she hadn't expected to find sleep. And when the hammering began she gave up on both. Why didn't they leave her alone? She put the pillow over her head. It was musty from the stains of tears. If she couldn't hear the noise perhaps it would eventually stop. But it went on, gnawing through the kapok, 'thump, thump'. And she might have let it continue but for the memory of Rajid on his stool. The possibility that he might be hungry, or ill.
She went to the window. He wasn't there. She leaned over the sill.
"Rajid, is that you?"
The banging continued.
"Rajid?"
The sound stopped.
"Rajid! I'm up here."
Because the view was blocked by the awning, a visitor had to step back into the road to talk to someone at the upstairs window. But he didn't step back.
"It's all right, Rajid. It's me, Daeng. Can I help you?"
A figure stepped from beneath the awning and stood in the deserted roadway, and the breath was sucked from Daeng in one single gust, stolen from her. She fell to the floor fighting to breathe. She bloodied her elbow against the table leg. She felt the tingling of her nerves at her fingertips and in her toes. Her stomach cramped. She was angry, no, furious.
"How dare you?" she called, and climbed to her feet. "I mean, just how dare you?" She staggered to the window. The figure was still there, brazenly haunting her. "I'm not one of you," she cried. "You can't do this to me. Go do your scary stuff somewhere else. It won't work here. I'm past you now."
"Daeng?" the figure said.
"Stop it!"
Her tears had come despite all her efforts to hold them back.
"Stop it and leave me alone."
"Daeng, it's me."
She glared at him through her tears, expecting him to ignite, at least dissolve, something dramatic and ghostly.
Something worthy. But he stood in his inappropriate T-shirt and Bermuda shorts and dripped onto the roadway. "I could really use a spicy number two," he said.
21
How word got around so fast, nobody knew. But even before the first cock crowed, before the first hornbill cooed, the visitors started to arrive. Some suggested the actual crazy Rajid had seen Dr Siri emerge from the river and had sounded the alarm. Others cited dreams, or instinct, or just an urge to stop by Daeng's noodle shop to see how things were going. They were all shocked but nobody was disappointed with what they found. The loss of weight didn't hurt the doctor's looks any, they agreed. The women said he was even more irresistible. Gaunt was in this year and the scars on his shaved head gave him a rugged demeanour. His timing and coordination might have been off just a tad. He took a moment to consider before answering questions, if he understood them at all. Perhaps he stuttered here and there and gave more inappropriate responses than he used to. He'd only had four hours of sleep before they started arriving.
In fact, he found all the excitement bewildering. Faces jumped in and out of his vision like camera flashes. Some he recalled but most were faded photographs in a forgotten album. Dtui was in focus and clear, as were Phosy and Geung. But when Judge Haeng turned up at nine, Siri was respectful and didn't make any sarcastic comments, which perhaps frightened everybody most. They all agreed that Dr Siri must have walked through the burning peat fields of Satan. They were glad to have him back even if he was…a bit odd. Odd was better than dead. But when they pushed him on what had happened there in hell, Madame Daeng was always around to deflect the questions.
"He'll tell you when he's ready," she said.
The only private conversation she allowed her husband was a brief interlude with Civilai. The old friends stood together in the backyard, staring at the chicken droppings.
"I have something to say, but you're a bit of a moron right now," Civilai said.
"Yes," Siri agreed.
"A bit like taking advantage of a…well, anyway. I suppose 'I'm sorry's as good a place to start as any. I'm sorry I deserted you. Sorry I didn't do more to find you. Sorry I acted like a…Are you laughing?"
"Yes."
"At me?"
"N'yes."
"Why? May I ask?"
"Cause yours an…you're an arse."
"That's probably the medication talking. I'll let it pass."
"It's me talking, you arse. You don't if. I mean. If, the Rouge nabbed you, do you thought I'd have done something else? Something different?"
"Yes, you're a hero. You'd have strolled into the hotel dining room with an AK47 and poked it in Big Brother's belly and insisted they release me."
"Then we…we both be dead. Dumb idea. Doing nothing's not worse than doing something stupid, isn't it? You used your brain. I didn't. I de…deserve to be…you know."
"I just feel — "
"You did everything that was humanly poss…possible."
They stood for a few more seconds studying the droppings. Civilai coughed and turned back towards the shop.
"Nice cliche," he said.
"I'm b…brain damaged. It's the bes…bes…best I can do."?