Identification

The heat hits me when I get off the bus. Public transport is infrequent in this remote area, so I arrive more than two hours early. The air is saturated with the chirping noise of grasshoppers. Grey-green lizards slither over the parched ground. I have to close one eye against the glaring sun. The morgue, on the other side of the dirt road, is a small white building, glaring even more ferociously. I could hang around in the shade of some olive trees, maybe try a nap, but curiosity gets the better part of me and I walk towards the door.
     When my eyes are adjusted to the gloom inside, I see a man in white overalls, in his hand a pair of pliers clasping a little yellow lump that looks like a gold nugget. He glares at me uncertainly, but when I greet him, it is as if he recognises me and at once he is at ease. With a clattering noise he drops the lump in a bowl and points at the body lying on a rough wooden table.
     "Quite some crowns and inlays there," he says. He opens the mouth to show a wide gap in the denture. He inserts the pliers and starts wriggling and pulling. The head sadly nods and the lips slide greedily over the steel. There is a cracking sound and with a triumphant look he extracts a gold bridgework partly covered with porcelain. The pointed roots of the molars stick out like Dracula's teeth. He reaches in his pocket and inserts some plastic crowns in the dumb open mouth. Then he starts talking.
     "I get those plastic teeth from a friend of mine who is a dental technician. I glue them in and nobody ever notices the difference. Except, of course, if someone would ask for a second autopsy, but that hardly ever happens. And this one is going to be cremated anyway."
     He closes the mouth after putting some more glue on the teeth.
     "Better stick the jaws together before the mouth falls open again," he says. "Usually, after pulling the teeth, they still bleed a little, but this one didn't have a drop left. Bled to death. Got a knife in her carotid artery."
     He points at the long gash on the side of the throat. The edges have dried up a purple colour, the pink inside resembles an orchid.
     "Haven't you heard?" he asks. "Happened last night on a camping site down the coast. Some pervert stabbed her in the bathroom. They say her husband was with her when she died. Came too late, but just in time to see her bleed to death. Poor sucker."
     "Almost ready," he says, "just this towel around her head to keep the jaws together till the glue has dried."
     He wraps a towel under her chin and binds the tips in a huge knot on top of her head. It is such an odd sight that I almost shout with insane laughter. I wonder why I have stood by and watched all this happen, as if mesmerised, without vomiting or screaming or banging my fists. But somewhere deep inside me sits a clawed creature holding me still and forcing me to look on, fascinated.
     The door opens with a bang and a young man comes in.
     "Sorry I'm late," he gasps. "Where is the gold?"
     The man in the white overalls looks surprised, first at him, then at me.
     "But... Who are you?" he asks.
     "Sorry, I was early," I say. "I came for the identification."
     "Then you are...?"
     "Yes," I say. "That is my wife."