Dr Siri Paiboun 05 (2008) - The Curse of the Pogo Stick by Colin Cotterill

Author:Colin Cotterill
Format: epub
Published: 2008-06-07T16:00:00+00:00

Dr Siri had become very fond of his captors as they sang and joked and prepared for the burial of Mrs Zhong. Given the amount of preparation involved and the serious absence of men who normally bore the brunt of the heavy work, it was reluctantly decided that the search for weak-minded Assistant Haeng would have to wait till late afternoon, perhaps even the following day. Siri was concerned for the life of his boss but there was nothing he could do. He knew his own lab assistant, Mr Geung, had survived several nights alone in the jungle, but Mr Geung was only mentally handicapped. He wasn’t a high-court judge, a man trained to interpret and assess and deliberate. Haeng had nothing practical in his arsenal. Every dictum in the world lined up one after the next wouldn’t stop a man from being eaten by a tiger. Geung would climb a tree.

Even down to the last gulp, Haeng would be citing how unconstitutional it was to consume a government official. Heavens, the man had even managed to run away from his own soldiers. If he’d survived these last few days, Siri would be astonished. But death? That’s life.

And death was the business of the morning. Much of that business was dedicated to shaking off the evil spirits that, given free access, would have made off with Auntie Zhong’s soul as soon as look at it. With the dark forces milling around the front door of the house like annoying press photographers, the girls surreptitiously cut a hole in the side wall and sneaked her out on a stretcher. The four bearers were dressed as men in hopes the gods wouldn’t notice the digression from tradition. They bore down the hill at a cracking pace, Siri hot on their heels, hard-pressed to keep up.

The transvestite stretcher bearers would jog off in one direction, giving the impression they were heading directly for the grave. Then, Nhia, the head pall-bearer, would shout, ‘Left’ or ‘Right’ in a basso voice and the team would suddenly change direction. In rugby, this tactic was known as ‘throwing a dummy’. Any pursuing spirit not fooled back at the house would be going so fast that the change of tack would hopefully send it careening on down the hillside like a puppy on waxed parquet. Just to make sure, the tactic was repeated six or seven times before they finally headed west – the ultimate direction of every burial.

By the time he’d worked out this ruse, Siri was so out of breath he sat on the hillside and watched the entourage zigzag down the hill. With a little common sense he was able to work out their final destination and arrived there at roughly the same time as Auntie Zhong. Dia was there playing the departing dirge on a geng. She performed with such skill her manly face assumed an air of divine beauty. The other women stood around in their finest costumes, each wearing a tiara of silver coins.

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