Thirty-Three Teeth by Colin Cotterill

called a halt to the advance. They had to drag the stricken men back on bamboo travoises.
    “Their medics couldn’t fathom what ailment had struck them down or how to treat them. But the next day, they awoke, right as rain. So they came at us again. And the same thing happened.”
    “I admit, I didn’t hear that version. I would have remembered it if I had.”
    “You don’t believe it?”
    “Over the last six months, I’ve started to believe almost everything.”
    “In my uncle’s case, I saw it for myself. We would spend a day with him in Luang Prabang, then someone would arrive from Vientiane and tell you he’d spent the same day with him there. He could be at two or three places at once. On one occasion, I saw him rise from the ground. He just levitated.”
    “Ah, so this isn’t the first time you’ve tried my sister-in-law’s homemade rice whiskey?”
    They both laughed.
    “But, Dr. Siri, I don’t have any of these gifts. When I was born, the shamans predicted that the kwun would leave the royal line along with me, that I wouldn’t live out my reign. When my father died, I knew I didn’t have the power to hold on to the magic that had helped us survive for so many centuries.”
    Siri shook his head. “No. This is history, my friend. A revolution has nothing to do with appeasing the spirits. You’re a victim of politics, not destiny.”
    “I agree that there are semantics involved. Even from the practical point of view, I have little leverage. My supporters have all fled. I have two confidants that I would trust with my life, but most of the entourage gave us lip service until they knew our fate. If my father were here, the kwun would show him the way to overcome your politics. It hasn’t shown me. I’m told it’s getting weaker day by day. When they move us from Luang Prabang, the connection will be severed. Our will cannot survive a move.”
    “Ah. Don’t be so cheerful. They’ll just put you up in a camp for a few months, give you some Marxist propaganda to memorize, then bring you back a new improved born-again commie royal. They’ll hold you up as an example for the masses.”
    “There will be no coming back.”
    “Now, why do you have to talk like that?”
    “You’re right. I’m sorry. Let’s speak of more delightful things—to counteract the bitter agony of this paint thinner we’re drinking.”
    “Thank God for that. I was starting to think you were actually enjoying the stuff.”
    “May I ask how your revolution’s going?”
    “Revolutions always go more smoothly around a campfire in the jungle than they do in real life.”
    “You’ll forgive me if I say you don’t come across as a hardened socialist.”
    “It’s a bit of an anticlimax.”
    “I understand. I heard your prime minister’s inspirational speech on the radio. I think the expression he used was ‘no major achievements in the first year of office.’ I was sure he could have found one little thing to boast about.”
    “I think the takeover took us all by surprise. It happened so suddenly.”
    “Twenty years is hardly sudden,” remarked the king.
    “Ah, but that’s just it. All the sitting around tends to make you stodgy and lethargic. You get to wonder whether your revolutionary dream will ever come true. Then—poof—there you are running a country. The PL was swept into power in Laos on the back of the angry North Vietnamese dragon.”
    “You’ve always held on to its tail.”
    “That’s true. But I believe we’re a more gentle version.”
    “The hundred thousand people that fled across the river didn’t appear to think so.”
    “They were running away from the unknown rather than the reality. We’re quite sweet, really.”
    The king sipped at the whiskey and turned the natural grimace it produced into a wry smile. “So you haven’t been sending officials from the old regime to concentration camps?”
    “I think the Party refers to them as re-education camps. They’re like holiday camps