Disco for the Departed by Colin Cotterill Read Free Book Online Page A

the ill-matching furniture and not even the hand he held out before him. An invisible beetle was fluttering against the mosquito netting and he focused his attention on the buzzing of its wings. By imagining he could see it, by listening only to the buzz, he believed he could hypnotize himself asleep. And he was almost right. The voices had stopped, he was dipping in and out of consciousness, and at exactly the moment he was about to fall, the infernal discotheque started up again. Even though it seemed to come from afar, the tremor of the bass worked its way across the ground like an earthquake, reaching the second floor of the guesthouse. It vibrated through the bedposts, through Siri.
    What had happened to his country's youth, he wondered, that they had developed such awful taste in music?
    This wailing of tortured Americans, could it be deemed music at all? He lost count of the number of grating tunes he had to endure before he finally found the sleep he craved.
    In the sleep world it was quiet, a rare quiet for his dream. A crow sat high on a wire beside a sparrow. They were a long way above the ground. This was a wire that could only have existed in a dream, because a T-28 fighter passed beneath it, strafing the fields with its guns. Bombs plunged into the paddies and sank into the mud, none exploding. It was a silent dream without even the accompaniment of music. The crow preened the sparrow as if both were unaware of their positions in the caste of birds or their proximity to a battle. They were engrossed in one another. Nothing else seemed to matter. It was a peaceful scene: the birds preening, the T-28 strafing, the nonexploding bombs tumbling.
    Siri was suddenly shocked to find himself standing outside his mosquito net. He was shuddering, clad only in his undershorts: a slightly chewy smorgasbord for carnivorous insects. He had no idea why he'd left the sanctuary of the mesh or why he was standing there. Now light from a full moon oozed through the curtains, and he saw that in the vacant bed on the far side of his room, a child lay. She was about four years old and malnourished. When Siri walked over to her she looked up at him.
    "When did you get here, darling?" he asked. "Why don't you have a mosquito net?"
    She smiled. When she spoke, her voice seemed older than her apparent age. "I don't have much time, uncle."
    "What can I do?"
    "Take notice of what you see," she said.
    There was a rumbling sound and the ceiling came crashing down on their heads. The floor beneath them gave way and they tumbled slowly downward like leaves falling from a tree. A cockerel joined them in their descent. It looked into Siri's eyes and crowed hoarsely.

    A pale light was seeping in through the nylon curtain. Above Siri's head, the corpses of a dozen flying beetles lay bottoms up on the top of the netting. Although the spirits had been known to spring trick endings on him, this second awakening had a feel of reality about it. The falling chicken crowed again and was joined by a howling dog. From somewhere close, the sound of a klooee, a green bamboo flute, began. It was a simple tune, executed with technical accuracy but with little heart. As he listened, he squirmed around under the quilt to discover which of his bones and muscles would ache that day. He had no say in this. He often overexerted himself in his dreams and suffered for it the next morning. But today, even as he stood, everything seemed to work fine.
    He walked over to the spare bed and looked at the unruffled quilt that covered it. For no logical reason he could think of, he pulled it back. There was nothing there. Of course. This was real life. What did he expect? He was in the process of putting it back when he squashed something beneath his bare foot. He heard the squelch and wondered whether he might have put the nonsticking lizard out of its misery, but it was just a berry. It had fallen from the dish of fruit on the table. It was a small red currant. He'd seen its