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were limitless.
    “Look at him,” Sammy said, nodding towards the old man on the bed. He had drifted off into a reverie, eyes half open, his body utterly still. “Does no harm. Is okay when you are old man.”
    The baby crawled across the floor and hoisted himself to his feet, clinging to Chen's trousers. His hands left dirty fingermarks but Chen did not scold him. They rarely raised their voices to their children, Bonaventure had noticed.
    “Number two son,” Sammy said, and he picked him up and sat him on his knee. “Very good have many children. Children are the future. Take care of us in wrinkle time, clean our bones when we are dead, make prayers for us so we are honoured in heaven.”
    Bonaventure thought about Noelle. I don't see her cleaning my bones and keeping them in a jar, he thought.
    “Man should have many sons,” Chen said.
    Bonaventure did not venture a comment.
    Chen bounced the child on his knee. “Daughter is good. Son is better.” He put the child back on the floor and the conversation returned to business. But as they discussed price and quantities Bonaventure found his mind wandering. He kept thinking about what Sammy had said about sons and daughters, and he wondered what Noelle was doing right now.
     
    Vientiane
     
    The ruins of the ancient wat appeared in the splash of the headlights. They picked out the demons and heroes of the Ramayana as they clambered along the eaves, clawing at the invading creepers of the jungle. When Baptiste switched off the beam they returned to the jungle shadows. He lit a paraffin lantern and they climbed out. He came around the car and she felt his hand on her shoulder. “You know this place?' he whispered.
    “I came here once with my father, years ago. He told me it was abandoned last century.”
    “Do you know why?'
    “Bad phi perhaps?'
    The Lao believed that spirits called phi governed the material world. They lived in everything - in mountains, in rivers, in animals, in people, even in the sky. Rainbows were the sky spirits bending to drink, thunder and lightning was the sound they made when they were angry. A great deal of a Lao's time was spent consoling and cajoling these spirits with sacrifices of rice and elaborate rituals. But it was a daily task that could not be ignored, for a provoked phi could sprain ankles or break limbs, even bring sickness and tragedy.
    Their footsteps echoed on the stone flags of the courtyard as Baptiste led her into the ruins. The swinging yellow light of the lantern illuminated the dragons that snaked along the curlicues of the roof, the stone lions standing guard at the doorways, the serpents on the balustrades. Two putty coloured lizards froze in the light of the lamp. Noelle thought they, too, were stone until they scampered away into the darkness.
    They sat on the cool stone inside the sala and Baptiste put the lantern at their feet. “You're quiet tonight,” he said to her.
    “I'm nervous.”
    “About what?'
    “About my father.”
    “Let me handle him.”
    “Nobody "handles" my father, Baptiste. He "handles" them.”
    He picked up her hand, held it in his lap, stroked the soft skin inside her arm with his fingers. He found the dark blue string tied around her left wrist. “What's this?'
    “Last year I got very sick. The local doctors did not know what was wrong. Tao Koo, our houseboy, fetched his uncle. He's a sort of shaman. He performed this little ritual over the bed. He said I had a bad phi trying to lure my souls out of my body, and he called on some friendly spirits to summon them back to my body. The string is meant to bind them there so they cannot wander anymore.”
    “You believe all this?'
    “Perhaps.”
    His fingers followed the contour of her arm to her shoulder, his touch feathery.
    '“How can a person have more than one soul?'
    “I don't know, it's what they believe. They say that when we die all our souls fly away to different places to be re-incarnated in different