Slash and Burn

lucky night. Sometimes good fortune just dropped into your lap. Madame Daeng, the spirits bless her, had a whole room full of illegal books. Five to ten years for possession. He knew the Ministry of Culture would be very interested to learn about this. Oh, yes. Eg the burglar was about to embark along a brand new career path.
    Cross-cultural integration had become an art form by dinner time at the Friendship Hotel. Almost everybody had a new buddy. Even couples had split up in the cause of socialization. Each table had its own 750 mls of Johnny Walker Red and a battalion of soda bottles. As the Friendship had only three hours of electricity there was no ice but after the third glass it was of no importance. The mood needed elevating. The teams had reached the end of the second day but had come up with not a single molar. Not a rotor or a seat spring. There was one empty table. The men who had traveled to Phonsavan to report the day’s finding were presumably still stuck in the queue at the post office. They’d been there for six hours so their patience would have been wearing a little thin by the time they returned. A smiling Johnny Red awaited them.
    Auntie Bpoo had brought a lit candle to the dining room. She had sought out Dr. Yamaguchi and attempted to use her physical presence to hustle him away from the others to a table in the corner—just the two of them. From her wardrobe she had selected a splendid crimson silk gown with noodle-thin shoulder straps.
    She was a good five centimeters taller than the pathologist, thanks to a pair of matte-black stiletto heels. Phosy had witnessed this attempted kidnapping and, feeling sorry for the old man, he and Geung went to sit with them. Bpoo was clearly not amused. It took a while to get her to agree to translate. But once she did, Phosy enjoyed his evening with the American. In a still photograph, even though he wore no glasses and his hair was ungreased, Yamaguchi would have looked as Japanese as Emperor Hirohito. He had that same strained expression that comes from carrying the weight of a three-thousand-year-old dynasty. But Yamaguchi was as American as bubblegum. It was evident from the very first moment he swaggered into a room. His posture was good from years of being the nail that wouldn’t be hammered down. But the feature that made him stand out was volume. It was Civilai’s theory that the Americans, like the Chinese, placed their elementary school teachers too far from the students’ desks. As a result they were trained to shout at one another from an early age. Most Lao schools had no furniture so the pupils could sit around the teacher and communicate at a civilized volume. Yamaguchi’s meal banter had a decibel level above that of a foghorn.
    At five minutes to nine, the wheezy generator rattled and clunked its intention to retire so Siri, Ugly and Civilai took half a bottle of Johnny to the hotel veranda. The post office gang and their helicopter had still not returned. Siri, locked in an excruciatingly dull evening with General Suvan and his confused reminiscences, had noticed two odd things. One was the distinctive smell of smoke. It had been present earlier but he’d merely assumed it was the cook burning the evening meal. By eight it had become so pervasive that he’d excused himself to walk around the hotel to make sure the place wasn’t on fire. Toua the manager assured him it was probably just villagers nearby burning off the top growth to prepare the fields for planting. Siri was well acquainted with slash and burn agriculture. For centuries, nomadic tribes had burned off stretches of thick undergrowth and allowed the ash to fertilize the soil. The earth would offer up good harvests for three or four seasons until the soil was degraded, then the tribes would move on. In ten years the land would have replenished itself and be ready for the next migrating farmers. The three main crops for the surrounding Hmong were rice, maize and opium, and each required this shifting cultivation. But the manager’s answer didn’t sit right on Siri’s mind.
    Then there was the air activity. Shortly after eight the flights had begun, fifteen or so, all told. Siri was certain he recognized a number of different craft. They were all heading west. It was remarkable, given the inexperience of its pilots, that the air force would choose to fly at night. The manager hadn’t been able to give an explanation for that particular mystery.
    Siri and Civilai sat