Love Songs from a Shallow Grave

and speak to each other in Bulgarian just to maintain a language. It isn’t natural. And it’s far too active for us. There’s a less stressful, passive outlet.”
    “Books.”
    “Exactly. And where would Russian, German and Bulgarian speakers go to keep up with the news and the latest technical advances in their adopted countries?”
    Daeng clicked her fingers.
    “The government bookshop on Sethathirat.”
    “It’s the only place. Lao translations of Marx, Lenin, and Engels. Socialist newsletters and magazines in foreign languages. Poster-sized photographs of politburo members. All those perfect gifts for birthdays and weddings.”
    “The victims could have met there, browsing, shared their experiences and become friends. And…”
    “And that’s where they met him.”
    “The sword coach. Bravo. At three a.m. it all sounds perfectly plausible. But now you have to put in some sleeping hours so you’re alive enough to follow up on this train of thought in the morning.” She stood up and stretched her aching legs. “Does your author have a parting comment for us before we retire?”
    “You know, I think he does,” Siri said. He heaved back the pages to a strip of paper that poked forlornly upwards and ran his finger down the page until he found the quotation he’d discovered earlier.
    “ I know of only one duty ,” he read. “ And that is to love .”
    “I think I’m going to like Mr Camay,” Daeng smiled.

11
THE PATRON SAINT OF FRENCH FIREMEN
    T he male clerk at the government bookshop was ugly enough to draw tears from a lime. It was as if he had breathed in too heavily one day, perhaps in shock, and his skin and all his features had been sucked inward, stopping only when they hit solid bone. But his teeth, the only camel teeth in the whole of the PDR Laos, stood out proudly from his jaw like a prehistoric jetty. He was tall and gaunt and ungainly, and more than a few prospective customers had taken one step into the store, seen him standing there behind the counter like Hell’s own gatekeeper, and withdrawn in terror. Even Siri baulked momentarily when he saw him through the window. When the doctor pushed open the door, a brass bell tinkled above hjs head like a small idea.
    “Comrade,” the clerk sang. “Welcome.”
    It was a peculiar bookshop, dark, in spite of the large windows, and unfriendly. There weren’t walls of book spines to walk along and browse. What scant reading material they had was displayed flat on boards like beef or fish at a country market. One or two selected tomes were held captive in glass cabinets. In two minutes a customer could perform one perfunctory circuit of the room – feigning interest in this or that – then be on his way. But Siri had cause to stay longer after his circuit, during which he identified Russian, German and – although he wasn’t certain – what looked like Bulgarian magazines. The clerk, with nothing else to do, had observed Siri’s every move.
    “We have the latest Your Country – Your Livestock from Romania just in,” he said with an imperfectly straight face. “Hot off the press.”
    “I think I’ll wait for the translation,” Siri decided.
    “Very well,” said the clerk. He was either smiling or suffering some inward agony.
    “Have you worked here long?” Siri asked.
    “Worked and managed since we opened,” the clerk said proudly. “I do all the bookwork and conceive of and execute the displays. Every month or so, as new books arrive, I change the theme to stimulate consumer interest. It’s one of the skills I learned overseas.”
    Siri looked around in search of a theme.
    “This month is…?” he asked.
    “Red,” said the man, without a hint of sarcasm.
    “Red?”
    “Naturally, there aren’t always enough pure red covers to do the display justice. But, as you can see, there’s pink and mauve and purple, all within the same segment of the spectrum, to accentuate the mood. Last month was – ”
    “No, don’t tell me. Blue?”
    The clerk laughed. It was a horrid sight.
    “Good guess,” he said. “But that was February. March was black and white. As you can imagine, we don’t have too many covers in black and white in this modern age, but, by opening each book at its title page…”
    “It must have been a sight to see. I wish I’d been here.” Siri shook his head in amazement as he looked around. It was true, the red book covers were inside the display cabinet like gallery exhibits. “Tell me,