‘What it all basically comes down to,’ she said. ‘What every major decision, every career move, every stupid mistake made since the beginning of time comes down to. L’amour. You need to know whether it was real. Whether your role in the destruction of your national pride had an acceptable foundation. Was it really love we had?’
Neither spoke. Daeng looked up at the old man and wondered whether the last words she spoke on this earth would be true or false. She didn’t really know. Could she have loved him despite their polarity? Could she have followed him to France and entertained him at weekends in their love cottage? Would her life have been happier? She stared up at him.
‘Look at you,’ she said. ‘You are a hateful person. And, you’re mad. You have to admit that. Do you think I wouldn’t have recognized these faults back then? You fell so easily in love with me because nobody else had made the effort to love you before. My amour was the best, perhaps the only, love you’d ever had and you so desperately wanted it to be real that you closed your eyes to the illogic of it all. A daughter of the oppressed kneeling before the oppressor. Every minute spent with you was a minute in hell. I detested you and your kind. No, my captain. I never-’
The metal bar rose and fell in a split second. It came crashing down with a sickening crack. Blood gushed from the wound. It was a marvellous moment. Barnard smiled, gave a deep sigh that gurgled in his throat, dropped the metal bar and headed towards the jungle. It was all over.
Siri returned to their room in the administrator’s building only to find his wife missing. He washed his hands in the attached bathroom and wondered what had become of the small mirror above the sink. He returned to the guest room. In Daeng’s place on the bed was a notebook. He sat and turned up the bedside oil lamp. He flipped to the last page of writing and there in large print were the words THE END. He smiled. Madame Daeng, once given a challenge, was not one to back down. She had set about documenting her life with relish. She had included chapters that would most certainly never clear the censors at the Ministry of Information, but would take Hollywood by storm. She’d asked him from time to time whether this or that passage was appropriate. He’d told her that suitability was irrelevant. This was a life and a life was not to be reworked. In many ways, the book that he held in his hands was worth every bit as much as his lost library because this one had a pulse. It had been marvellous to read the wisdom of the philosophers but what purpose did they have with no warm body to apply their theories to? This book was Daeng. He knew he would read it time and time again with as much joy as he had derived from Sartre and Camus.
He glanced at the final paragraph above THE END and read her hurried note there.
I feel his presence. He is here to kill me and he, has arrived with a lifetime of hatred as his weapon.
Until that moment, Siri had felt secure in his decision to bring Madame Daeng to Pak Lai. But something in those words sent a chill across his shoulder blades. The words ‘The End’ suddenly took on a more ominous note. He left the room and ran across the lawn to the guest house with Ugly at his heels. He climbed the outside staircase to his old room and looked around. The space was crowded with partygoers but neither Civilai nor Daeng was there. He went back down a floor and banged on Mr Geung’s door. The guest house had no locks but something was wedged against the door handle from the inside.
‘I … I … I’ve gotta gun,’ came Geung’s voice from inside.
‘Geung,’ called Siri. ‘It’s me.’
Mr Geung freed the door.
‘Have you seen Madame Daeng?’ Siri asked.
Geung turned the colour of a Mekhong sunset. He stepped back.
‘You can … can … can search,’ he said.
‘It’s not an accusation, Geung. Just a question. Have you seen Madame Daeng?’
‘Come in and look,’ said Geung.
There was no time to repair Geung’s feelings this time. Something had happened to his wife. Of that he was certain. Siri hurried back down the stairs and walked double time around the guest house. Ugly fell in beside him with the same urgency. A full moon was rising gently beyond the river. It picked out the smiling faces of the boat crews walking aimlessly, just as they had rowed. Siri and the dog completed a circuit of the guest house grounds and were met by Mr Geung who had put his trousers on back to front in his hurry to follow the doctor.
‘Comrade Civilai is at the te … mmmple,’ he said.
‘Of course, that’s where Daeng will be,’ said Siri.
Siri’s lungs no longer filled completely and he had to stop several times on his way to the temple. But he felt that every missed second was condemning his wife to some unavoidable disaster. The last night of the races had produced a desperate surge of fun before normal life resumed the following day. Siri, Geung and Ugly waded through the thick crowd, blocked here and there by villagers who’d stopped to look at the sideshows or try their hands at throwing hoops and shying at coconuts. Siri could no longer hear the music nor sense the gaiety. It wasn’t a vast temple, but one complete circuit took fifteen minutes. At the end of it he sat on the stupa steps, his chest wheezing, his eyes red with tears.
‘Where is she, Geung?’ he asked. ‘What’s he done with her?’
Mr Geung sat on the step beside the doctor.
‘Com … Comrade Daeng won’t come to a party without her doctor,’ he said.
‘You’re right,’ Siri agreed. ‘This would be too much for her. She’d look for somewhere quiet. Somewhere she could …’
Siri got to his feet and stumbled down the old stone steps.
‘I know,’ he said as they exited the temple grounds. ‘I know where she’ll be.’
He stole one of the lighted torches that stood beside the gate and broke into a trot across the green, back in the direction from which he’d first come. He ignored the pain in his old lungs. There was a buzz now that ran through his nerves. This was more than concern. This was fear. His body was on alert. He ran along the side of the French residence building and into the garden at the rear. He could see the wooden swing by the grey light of the moon. It still rocked slightly as if caught in a strong breeze, of which there was none. Ugly reached it first but braked suddenly as if he’d run into a wall. His ears tucked back. His tail drooped. He turned and slouched behind Dr Siri. The moon passed behind a cloud and the only light now came from Siri’s torch.
‘Oh, no,’ he said. ‘No, please.’
He held the torch forward and approached the swing. At night, lit by fire, blood tended to stand out like oil. The swing and its supports and the sand beneath it were as black as charcoal. As black as murder. There were shards of broken glass all around. Siri couldn’t find enough oxygen to fill his chest. He felt faint. He knew someone had died in this place not a few minutes before. At any second he expected the spirit of his wife to come to him, caress his cheek before heading to the waiting room. Perhaps she would speak to him. He was empty of hope.
Ugly, whose sense of smell was deficient in many ways, had picked up a scent. He stood at the point where the lawned garden abutted the jungle and he barked. It was the first time Siri had heard him do so. The doctor had no strength to follow him. No will.
‘Geung, go and look,’ he said.
Without questioning, Mr Geung took the torch from the doctor and followed the dog into the bushes. Siri lowered himself to the ground where he sat cross-legged, eyes closed, searching desperately through the lost souls for one he might recognize. He could not continue in the world without Daeng. She had become everything to him. She was his raison d’etre.
‘Com … Comrade Doctor,’ came Geung’s voice. ‘Not dead yet.’
Siri was across in a blur. He ignored the branches that thrashed at his face as he made his way to the flame.