Slash and Burn

the guard and up to the steps of the ministry. “What a system,” he said aloud to nobody. “All cock-a-doodle and no do. The place is falling down around us and all we get are salutes.”
    He kicked the dust from his sandals at the top of the steps and walked through to the reception area. The place was deserted. There were eight typewriters without typists and one large administrator’s desk without Manivon, the ministry secretary. Siri was certain that if an enterprising burglar were to have stumbled into the ministry that day, he could elicit the aid of the guard out front to carry the machines to a waiting samlor bicycle taxi. The place was going to the dogs. He’d be well off away from it.
    His mood no better, he strutted along the open air corridor and pushed open the door to Judge Haeng’s office without knocking. The door slammed into something large and soft, then gave way. Siri stepped inside the small room which was lit only by one window with a bank of cracked louvres. Amongst his illicit books, Siri had a thick pictorial travelogue of the world’s wonders and he noticed how the sunlight squeezing through that little window cast Stonehenge-like shadows in a room filled to bursting with enormous Westerners. Some were seated, some standing, some wore uniforms, others merely sweated in clothes inappropriate for a July room with one ceiling fan. There were men, all oily white, and two women. One of the latter reminded Siri of a bewigged Sumo wrestler in a sundress.
    This thought notwithstanding, he didn’t want to forget his manners. He walked from person to person shaking hands and saying, sabai dee —good health. All returned his handshake—not a dry palm in the house. Some repeated the greeting. Others made remarks in what he recognized as English, which was one of the many languages he didn’t speak. As he circled the room he felt like a tourist amongst the giants of Easter Island. At the far side of the room he encountered Judge Haeng sitting at his desk holding on to a tired smile. His greasy hair hung over one puffy, acned cheek. This was a condition Siri knew to be exacerbated by heat and stress. He guessed the little judge was feeling both.
    “Siri? Is that you?” he asked.
    At first it seemed like a bizarre question, as if the man had become sightless overnight. But then Siri remembered he was still disguised. The room became a little lighter when he removed his tinted goggles, and cooler when he took off his hat and scarf. The guests in the room also seemed somewhat more at ease with him unwrapped.
    “What’s all this then?” Siri asked the judge.
    “Americans.”
    “They’re back? Did they forget something?”
    “It’s a delegation, Siri.”
    “What do they want?”
    “I … I’m not … I….”
    “You don’t know.”
    “Of course I do. I’m just….”
    “You don’t speak English, do you?”
    “I know a good number of phrases. I’m just a little rusty, that’s all. What about you?”
    “Can’t speak a damned word of any importance.”
    “I thought you were in western Europe?”
    “France. Different language entirely. The only English I know I picked up from sailors in dockside bars.” He said loudly, “Rule Britannia,” and held up a thumb. All he received were stares of incomprehension. “See? No use at all. None of them speaks Lao?”
    “No.”
    “What type of delegation travels without an interpreter?”
    “There seems to have been a bit of a hold up. The minister ushered them all in here and told me to entertain them till the interpreters arrive.”
    “Have you shown them your impersonation of Richard Nixon yet?”
    It was a line wasted on a man bereft of a sense of humor.
    “I don’t do—”
    “So, how have you been entertaining them, Judge?”
    “We didn’t have any fizzy drinks. I sent Manivon off to get some. I wasn’t expecting them, you see? The rest of the staff are preparing lunch. These have been here for fifteen minutes, just standing around.”
    Siri laughed again.
    “But you, Siri,” Haeng changed his tone, “you’re late. I told you to be here at one. It’s now one-fifteen.”
    “They took my clock away. I had to estimate the time by the position of the sun and it was too dusty to see it. Judge, you do realize it honks in here with all this meat stewing? Any chance of turning on the old A/C?”
    “It’s been out of order since last Wednesday.”
    “Can’t we put them outside under a tree?”
    “They aren’t sheep,