Love Songs from a Shallow Grave

trip would be a chance to chat socially with the people in charge, visit some of the collectives, you know the thing.”
    “And you said yes?”
    “Of course I did. Free trip overseas, all expenses paid, luxury accommodation, the best food and wine in Indochina. Who wouldn’t?”
    “But – and there’s no offence intended here – why you?”
    “Because I’m witty and charming…”
    “I know. I know. But this sounds like something the PM or one of the politburo boys would jump at.”
    “I did ask that, trying very hard not to make myself sound unworthy, and he suggested there might be just a tad of political tension between the Khmer Rouge and Hanoi. Since I dropped off the edge of the Central Committee, they stopped showing me the high-end communiques. I have no more idea what’s going on over there than you do. But I do know the KR haven’t been sucking up to their old colleagues the way Hanoi would have liked. I imagine we’re under pressure from Vietnam not to send a top-level delegation. I’m the B team.”
    “They will brief you on all this before they put you on the plane?”
    “No doubt they’ll brief both of us.”
    “Us being…?”
    “He asked me to nominate a travelling companion. I nominated you.”
    “You what? Are you mad? No, of course you are. And he agreed?”
    “Without hesitation.”
    “Just how many bottles did you two get through?”
∗
    Malee slept on the cot in the spare room while her mother and Daeng unpacked books from hemp gunny sacks.
    “Are you sure you’re supposed to have these?” Dtui asked.
    “Absolutely not,” Daeng replied with gay candour.
    “Then you might get in trouble.”
    “I’m sure there’s a hit squad at the Ministry of Culture loading their weapons as we speak.”
    “What are you going to do with them all?”
    “Make shelves.”
    “Madame Daeng, you really can’t be planning to put them on display?”
    “Siri’s afraid they’ll get rain-damaged in the attic. Some of them are quite valuable. The doctor believes there’ll come a day when the paranoia dies down and owning foreign language books won’t guarantee you a four-year trip to a seminar camp. Oh, don’t look so worried. We aren’t planning to put them down in the shop. This door’s usually kept locked. Siri can come here after work and sit on the cot and indulge himself in one of his many vices in peace.”
    “Where did they all come from?”
    “It’s a long story.”
    “I’m not really in a hurry to go home.”
    Daeng smiled drily and filed that comment under D in her mind. “They’re from a temple,” she said.
    “A French temple?”
    “No. A good old-fashioned Lao temple that just happened to have a French language library. Some of the oldest were donated by missionaries many years ago. The novices studying at the temple were taught general subjects through the medium of French. The brighter ones were allowed to borrow books from the library. Siri went to that temple school before they accepted him into the southern lycee.”
    “Really? It must be ancient.”
    “I’ll tell him you said so.” Waking briefly, Malee gurgled and smiled before closing her eyes again. “I see she has her mother’s sense of humour.”
    “She’s already a lot funnier than me, Madame Daeng.”
    And, with perfect comic timing, Malee let out a little fart in her sleep. The two women broke up like giggly schoolgirls.
    “See what I mean?” said Dtui. “OK, tell me about the books from the temple.”
    “All right. In a nutshell, Siri was a very keen student. He’d been sponsored by a wealthy French spinster who paid for his further study in Paris. Once he arrived, he discovered they didn’t accept his lycee qualifications from Laos so they made him repeat high school there before he could go on to study medicine. Not difficult for Siri but a terrible waste of time. In the interim, his benefactor passed away so Siri was forced to work for a few years to save up the money for his studies. He went to university, married his lovely Boua, graduated and spent some time as an intern. None of which is relevant to the books other than to show you that it was a very long time before he could return to Laos.
    “He and Boua were working in the south and Siri returned to his temple school library often. The collection had expanded significantly since he’d been away. He borrowed books and taught the odd classes to the novices. The monks liked him. Respected him for what he’d achieved.