The book waited until 8 p.m., when the customers had all returned to their overcrowded homes, the tables were cleared and clean, and Mr. Geung and Tukta were back in their room talking to the baby that wouldn’t be born for another six months. Everyone was aware that the odds were stacked against a woman with Down syndrome producing a healthy child. And when the father also had Down syndrome those odds tumbled into infinity. But, like Dr. Siri, Geung had friends in other dimensions and he’d been shown their daughter in a dream. Geung said she looked a little like Sarinthip Siriwan. Siri pointed out that it would be a most difficult birth considering the size of the Thai actress. The couple laughed at that for a week.

“So, are you going to open it?” Daeng asked.

“I was wondering what the chances are that it’s a bomb,” said Siri.

They were sitting on the riverbank sipping their after-noodle rice whisky cocktails. The lights of Sri Chiang Mai on the Thai side were all out; probably another power cut. The Thais were renowned for creative wiring. So, with the moon yet to make an appearance, the darkness was thick: like staring out over a landscape of tar. Daeng got to her feet.

“Where are you going?” Siri asked.

“You don’t expect me to sit beside you if it’s a bomb, do you?”

“I don’t know. It could be romantic, splattered across the Mekong together, our parts floating side by side to Cambodia.”

“There’s nothing romantic about dismemberment, Siri. I’m off to the ladies’ room. You can open it while I’m gone. I’ll listen for the bang.”

Guided by the single lamp in the shop behind her, she scampered up the bank. Not bad for a seventy-year-old. Siri took his penlight out of his top pocket and held it between his teeth—teeth that he could still proudly call his own, all thirty-three of them. From the same pocket he removed a Soviet army knife and flicked open a blade. He sliced through layers of thick masking tape and removed an inner skin of brown paper. Inside that was a plastic bag followed by several layers of Thai newspaper and another plastic bag, all taped securely.

When Daeng returned, Siri was sitting in a pile of assorted wrappings, holding a somewhat smaller parcel in his hands.

“We used to play that when we were children,” she said.

“Play what?”

“You give someone a gift and by the time they’ve unwrapped it there’s nothing inside.”

“How cruel you were,” said Siri. “No, I feel I’m almost down to the meat. Just one more layer of tissue paper and . . . there.”