Love Songs from a Shallow Grave

mainstream of royalist society, spreading their beliefs subtly from the inside, passing on intelligence, preparing for the day revolution would come. They became known as the mosquitoes inside the net, these sleeper agents, ready to sting when the time was right.
    But, while he was waiting, something occurred that Phosy hadn’t prepared for. He fell in love. There was probably a whole chapter in the Indochinese Communist Party spy handbook detailing the dangers of falling in love whilst engaged in subversive activities. But Phosy was emotionally lost and in need of confirmation that someone might want him. He married and they produced first a boy, then a girl, and that old feeling of family returned to him. That warm comforting glow of belonging took over Phosy’s life. At times it seemed more important than nationhood. The revolution took a back seat to Phosy’s family.
    But the revolution came anyway. It came swiftly on the heels of the Vietminh victory in Saigon and without the wholesale bloodshed that had been envisaged. And the Pathet Lao moles in their burrows in Vientiane celebrated quietly. The status quo had changed but there were still enemies. The new socialist government couldn’t decide what to do with its spies. Under the guise of re-education, Phosy and his colleagues were recalled to the north-east and new roles were allocated. He was away for three months and when he returned to the capital, his wife and children were gone. Gone, the neighbours said, to a refugee camp on the Thai side. They’d paid a fisherman for a night passage to Nong Kai. Gone because his wife was afraid of the communists. Afraid of what they might do to her. Gone because Phosy hadn’t been able to tell her he was the enemy.
    Phosy left Vientiane and rejoined his unit in the northeast. Three families had deserted him. Phosy was a serial orphan. Love crumbled in his hands like hearts moulded from fine sand. Why invest? Why waste all that emotion? He’d met nurse Dtui. He’d liked her. He’d made her pregnant. He’d offered to marry her. She’d asked him if he could love her and he’d told her no, but he was prepared to marry her anyway. That had been good enough for Dtui and for him, companionship without fear of heartbreak. Then Malee had come along, the sweetest button of a babe. She had smiled and he’d remembered all the other smiles that had trapped him. He watched them together, Dtui and her baby, and he’d seen treachery in their eyes. He watched how she controlled the mind of the little girl. How would they break him, these two? Every day he was afraid he’d come home and find them gone. And the conflict was killing him, splitting him apart. On one side was the feeling that there was nothing on the earth so full of wonder as the love of a family. And on the other was the certainty that they would desert him. Either in death or in deceit they would go away and leave him without hope. How dare he tell them he loved them?
∗
    Siri tapped on Civilai’s door at eighteen thirty Mexico City time. Civilai’s voice carried dully from the bathroom.
    “Come in if you’re carrying food.”
    Siri walked into the room. From the crumpled sheet and deformedly dented pillow, it appeared his friend hadn’t slept any better than he had. He walked to the window. The view was similar to that from his own. Grounds that had once been landscaped were now jungle. A giant lucky hair tree craved attention not two metres from the glass. The city wasn’t visible. Civilai walked from the bathroom wearing only shorts. He looked like a medical school skeleton with a paunch.
    “I bet with a couple of chopsticks we could get a decent tune out of those ribs, brother,” Siri laughed.
    Civilai ignored the taunt.
    “Did you get your early-morning call?” he asked.
    “I thought it was my imagination. It was a gunshot, wasn’t it?”
    “Pretty close too, by the sounds of it. Perhaps they were killing something for breakfast.”
    “Good. I prefer my breakfast dead. I’m starving. Do you suppose the restaurant’s open?”
    “It’s on the itinerary.” Civilai picked up the single sheet of paper they’d given him in Vientiane. “‘Seven a.m. morning meal at House Number Two.’”
    “Good, hurry up and put on a shirt so we don’t frighten anyone.”
∗
    Breakfast in the spacious dining room was uncomplicated but tasty. Other delegates sat at other tables minding their own business with great deliberation. The only noise was