Love Songs from a Shallow Grave

have any thoughts of my own .
    At some time when I was asleep or unconscious, they took out the corpse. I’m alone now. I mean, in body. As you know, in spirit it’s getting a bit crowded in here. Look at you; old, far too young, pregnant, bedraggled, innocent, pleading, but all of you unmistakably confused. You sit cross-legged staring at me, you spirits of the dead, as if expecting me to entertain you, expecting me to have answers. But forgive me, I’m not on top of things enough to know what the questions are. I don’t yet understand why I’m here or what’s expected of me .
    The smiley man came this afternoon…or evening, whichever it was. He was so polite I was certain this was all some terrible mix-up .
    “ You must be in pain,” he said in basic high school French. “Never mind. You’ll feel better soon. I’m so sorry for all this inconvenience .”
    The words dribbled with insincerity but that brief sharing of language buoyed me. It allowed me to step briefly back inside. He left me a pencil, not sharpened to a point, and a sheet of lined paper torn from a school exercise book. I fired questions at the man’s back: his name, where he’d learned French, what he did, where we all were. But, once the smiley man had given his oh-so-polite speech, his duty was done and he clicked the door latch quietly behind him. I remember you smiled then, you spirits – ironic smiles, every one of you .
    They’re still here, the pencil and paper, untouched on the chequered tiles by my right hand .
    “ Your story,” the smiley man said. “Just tell us your story and you’ll be free to go .”
    I sit with my back against the wall, staring at the door. I sigh. I reach for the pencil, angle the paper towards me and begin to write ,
    “ Once upon a time there were three little pigs… ”
∗
    Dr Siri sat beneath the blazing white strip lights in the morgue at Mahosot. Soviet funding had led to the rewiring of a number of the old French buildings and the three technical advisors who’d come to install the lights insisted that it was vital in a hospital to have a minimum of 73 RNO or BZF, or some such twaddle, of visibility. He had no idea what that meant apart from the fact that if the Great Wall of China was visible from space in daylight, the Mahosot morgue would be a glittering beacon at night, visible from even the most distant solar system. He wore his old sunglasses to reduce the glare and decided that, on Monday, he’d borrow the hospital stepladder and remove two of the parallel tubes before everyone received third-degree burns.
    Fortunately, he wasn’t called upon that often to work at night. Even for the living, nothing was that urgent in Vientiane. The dead could always keep for another day. But this had been an exceptional day, and an exceptional case. The poor lady who lay on her side on the cutting table in front of him had been the centre of a political storm for much of the afternoon and evening. Siri had, of course, called Inspector Phosy from the nearest telephone he could find in K6. The inspector was the man responsible for all police matters concerning government officials. Phosy and two of his colleagues had jumped into the department jeep and sped to the scene of the crime.
    There followed an unpleasant stand-off during which both the Vietnamese security personnel and the Lao National Police Force had stood toe to toe insisting that they had jurisdiction over the crime. Until it was sorted out, Sri wasn’t allowed to remove the body to the morgue and the victim voiced her discontent by smelling violently. The Vietnamese called in reinforcements from their embassy. The police called in the military. It was starting to look as though 6 th Street would be the scene of a new Indochinese war were it not for one simple fact. The movie ended and the polit-buro members, strolling off their stiff legs, came upon the stand-off.
    “Don’t be ridiculous,” they said. “Of course this is a Lao matter. Enough of this nonsense.”
    Broken Vietnamese faces notwithstanding, the matter was finally resolved. On their way back in the jeep, police inspector Phosy had appeared to be as annoyed with Siri as he was with the entire nation of Vietnam.
    “Did I do something wrong?” Siri had asked.
    “No.”
    “Come on, Phosy. Something’s eating you with a fork.”
    “You didn’t get my message last night?”
    “The ‘need to see you urgently’ message?”
    “Yes, that one.”
    “Not until early