The Merry Misogynist dsp-6

by Colin Cotterill

  "I didn't say…" She was tongue-tied. She spoke all day for a living but here she was…couldn't put a sentence together.

  Phan leaned against his door, as far from her as he could be. He clutched the wheel like a shield and stared at the road ahead. "I had…I had no idea, no plan," he began. "I came only to work. I've been to a hundred, two hundred towns like this. I've done my surveys, made my calculations, and left. I've enjoyed meeting the people, sharing jokes and experiences. But I've never…"

  Wei was looking out of her own window so he couldn't see the crimson her face had become. "I don't think you should say any more." She pushed open her door a centimetre or two.

  "No, I have to say this or I would never forgive myself. I have never felt this way before. I have to leave soon and we will probably never see each other again. And, if we don't, I want to leave you with this…this overwhelming emotion I've had since I first saw you by the pond. It's not…I wish I were more…wish I were better with words. Because when I saw you something flooded into me and I don't know how to describe what it was. You've changed me."

  Never, never had she heard such words. In all her seventeen years she'd never heard a man truly express himself. This was Laos. Men held in their feelings. You could be around them all their lives and not know they had one emotion between them. So this was overwhelming. It was as if his large hand had reached inside her rib cage and squeezed her heart. She couldn't breathe. She threw open the door of the truck and walked unsteadily away.

  Phan watched her go, reached across, and closed her door. The woman who pumped the diesel was leaning on the counter in the tiny bamboo service hut. She smiled. He smiled back and shrugged. She held up her thumb.

  This was too, too easy.

  It was only four thirty of the same, incredibly long, Monday. Siri was sitting on a wooden bench at the new Ministry of Justice. He'd heard of their dilemma. Prior to the ministerization, Judge Haeng had been an appropriate department head in the eyes of the administration. He was a judge, albeit a fast-track, Soviet-trained judge, and he was from a wealthy family. So, as a department head, he fitted the bill. But as a minister, even though it was fundamentally the same job, he was found lacking. Being a minister had certain inherent expectations. How, for example, could anybody barely turned forty be a minister? A minister had to look experienced, with the lines of wisdom etched onto his countenance. Haeng had acne. What diplomat would want to shake hands with a spotty minister?

  So a room on the top floor of the Ministry of Justice was being refurbished for the arrival of the new minister. Siri watched agile old men climbing the bamboo scaffold like spiders on a web. They chipped away the clay hornets' nests and replaced broken louvres. Nobody yet knew who the new minister would be, so, temporarily, Judge Haeng remained in charge. It had been a very painful slap in the face for him and his mood reflected it. This was certainly a bad time to be asking him for favours.

  "He'll see you now, Doctor," said Manivone. She was the receptionist, the head of the typing pool, and the real brains behind the Ministry of Justice. Siri was sure that without her, Judge Haeng would be driving a motorcycle taxi.

  "What hat should I wear?" Siri asked.

  "My first choice would be something hard and shock proof," she said, walking beside him along the open-air corridor. "But as it's almost going-home time, I'd go with cap in hand. The Vietnamese adviser's in there so the judge has to keep hold of his temper and act humble. If you come across as pathetic he might take pity on you."

  "I don't do pathetic very well."

  "I know. But don't rile him. You know what he's like when you rile him. Play it by ear." Siri knocked and turned the doorknob, "…or earlobe," she added and laughed behind her hand.

  Siri was smiling when he entered the room. Haeng continued to do whatever it was he was doing at his desk and ignored the intrusion. Comrade Phat, a Vietnamese with few teeth but no shortage of charisma, looked up from his corner table and greeted Siri in Vietnamese. Siri replied in kind and Phat laughed. This was probably a bad start if Siri wanted to win over the judge. Judge Haeng's Vietnamese wasn't good enough to catch the joke. He would naturally assume the worst.

  Siri sat on the rickety chair in front of Haeng's desk and awaited his audience. The judge seemed to be composing a memorandum. He wrote like a child with his tongue poking slightly through his lips. Siri had always seen him as a boy although Haeng was clearly middle-aged. He didn't have any respect for the young fellow.

  "Siri?" said Haeng, as if he'd just noticed him. "What is it?"

  Obviously the judge was in a bad mood; Siri was in need of a clever tactic or two to win him over. He tried the most obvious first.

  "I just came by because I was astounded when I heard. After all you've done for the Justice Department, your impeccable record. How could you have been passed over?"

  Siri had lied to Manivone. Pathetic wasn't at all beyond him. But Daeng was right. The only way to get Housing off his back was to have Haeng on his side. Few men would have seen Siri's blatant pandering as anything other than what it was. But Haeng obviously wanted to hear it.

  "Why, thank you, Siri," he said. "It's always heartening to hear a hurrah from the soldiers in the ranks."

  "And you are an inspiration to the men, Judge." Siri was temporarily interrupted by the clearing of a Vietnamese throat. "I often find myself repeating your Party mottoes." He didn't bother to add, "At drinking sessions for a good laugh."

  "Well, I'm touched, Doctor."

  "Oh, yes. And one of my favourites, and I hope I've got this right, goes, "If a mother cries in Pakse we feel sorrow in Xam Neua. If a daughter is born in Bokeo, we burp her in Khamuan. It is the duty of a good socialist to consider every Lao a member of his family." That still brings a tear to my eye, that one."

  "I think you have the essence of it, Siri. Well done."

  "That motto changed my philosophy, Judge."

  "It did?"

  "After you uttered those words I went out and invited my new family into my home: the poor, the blind, the previously immoral, the widowed, and the dishonest."

  "Siri, you aren't referring to your present house, are you?"

  "Why, yes."

  "I've been there, remember?"

  "Wasn't it marvellous to see your dream turn into reality? I tell everybody, even the Department of Housing, that my living arrangements were inspired by Judge Haeng."

  "You do?"

  "Certainly."

  "Well, I suggest you un-tell them."

  "What?"

  "You are a senior Party member and the national coroner. You have to command respect. Yet your house is a zoo, Siri. I thought your marriage might settle you down, force you to kick that band of scavengers out onto the street and make you live like a respectable senior citizen. It's a government residence, not a guesthouse."

  "Oh, I get it. A Party motto is perfectly sound advice until it's put into practice. Say it after me by all means, but don't actually do it. We don't really want everyone in Khamuan wiping the snotty little Bokeo tyke's arse."

  "Siri, you always resort to vulgarity when you lose an argument."

  "How would you know? You're never around when I lose an argument."

  Judge Haeng stood and shuffled papers on his desk. He was in a black huff.

  "Dr Siri, these are working hours. I have neither the time nor the inclination to discuss your personal life. If you have technical or medical information for me I am happy to listen. Otherwise, please don't disturb me. And now I have a meeting."

  Siri was fuming inside, which caused the smile on his face to pucker his cheeks.

  "Oh, I completely forgot," he said calmly. "I do have some medical and scientific information to pass on to you."

  "Well, let's have it. I'm in a hurry."

  Siri coughed and recited, "A fart is fifty-nine per cent nitrogen, twenty-one per cent hydrogen…"

  Haeng pushed back his chair, grabbed his papers, and strode to the door.

  "…and n
ineteen per cent carbon…"

  The door slammed.

  "…dioxide."

  Siri pursed his lips and stared at the brown marks on the backs of his hands. He fancied he saw familiar country outlines from the atlas there.

  "What's the other one per cent?" asked Phat.

  "Depends what you had for dinner," Siri told him.

  There was a beat before both men burst into laughter.

  "Dr Siri," said Phat, drying his eyes on a torn-off rectangle of tissue paper. "How have you survived in the system this long?"

  "Actually, Comrade, they did away with me several years back. I've returned to haunt them."

  "So it would seem, Siri. So it would seem. Trouble with Housing?"

  "They aren't happy with the class of people I have living with me."

  "Are they paying rent?"

  "Not a brass kip."

  "I'll see what I can do."

  "Thank you."

  The door opened. Judge Haeng returned to his desk with a pronounced limp, and collected his forgotten walking stick. He ignored the two disrespectful old men and shuffled out. The laughter resumed.

  The morgue seemed to have frozen in time since Siri had left on his mission to the Ministry of Justice. Nothing had moved, not even Geung, who still stood with a toilet plunger hoisted above his head trying to coax a ceiling lizard to drop into it.

  "Are you training it?" Siri asked.

  "I…I want to take it ou…outside. It shits on th…the…the gurney. I don't want to kill it. It's Buddha's crea…creature."

  "Keep your voice down, Geung. The Ministry of Not Mentioning Religion might hear you." Geung was bemused. "Look, I'll give you a little hint. Spray it with water. I don't know how I know, but when you do that they can't hold on for some reason. Try it. But when you get it outside give it a stern talking-to so it doesn't come running back in. All right?"

  Geung's laugh clanged around the room. "Ha, who…who's mad enough to talk to a…a lizard?"

  Siri laughed and patted his friend on the back. "Sorry, my little comrade. Sometimes I forget who it is I'm addressing."

  "Oh…oh!" Geung hopped on one leg. "I remember."

  "What?"

  "The last message. Teacher Ou…Teacher Ou…Oum."

  "Wants me to get in touch?"

  "Something…drug."

  "All right. Thank you. Good job. If I'm not back by six, you can lock up."

  Geung saluted and turned again to the job at hand.

  "It's definitely Meprobamate," said Oum, her voice sounding like ice rattling in an empty glass over the telephone line. "It reacted with furfural."

  "I thought it might be something like that," Siri replied. "How heavy was the dose?"

  "The reaction was really strong. I'd say it was quite concentrated."

  "Enough to cause loss of consciousness?"

  "Not impossible."

  "Let's hope so. I'd hate for her to have been aware of what was going on. In a way I'm glad it was Meprobamate. The symptoms of an overdose are more like a coma — drowsiness, loss of muscle control, unresponsiveness.There are other drugs that paralyze the nervous system. You can see what's going on but can't lift a finger to stop it. I'd prefer that she was unconscious or at least numb."

  "Oh, and the contents of the stomach," Oum remembered. "Did you go through them before you brought them over here?"

  "I did take a look. Didn't recognize anything."

  "The little green fellows?"

  "Berries of some kind? Seeds?"

  "I wouldn't bet my life on it, but they looked a lot like capers to me."

  "And they are?"

  "They're used for seasoning. I had them once or twice in Australia. You get them in Italian food. Not the kind of thing you can find locally."

  "So they would be imported and expensive."

  "If I'm right."

  "Not the type of thing a farm girl would include in her diet."

  "Not at all."

  "I'll pass that little clue on to Phosy. Any luck with the ultraviolet light?"

  "I just got back from the gym. It isn't the type of place I hang out normally, but I did your test. I don't think we should read too much into this. The machine only has two settings, and neither might be the right one to reveal phosphates, but nothing made an appearance on the sample you gave me."

  "So either the perpetrator didn't ejaculate…"

  "Or the school has a crap piece of black light equipment. Can you come over and pick up all your evidence? My fridge is full."

  Siri did as he was told. On his way back along That Luang Road with both his shoulder bag and his mind full he switched off the engine, cruised, and contemplated on the long downward incline. If the lycee legend was true, if there really had been a similar murder, then how could they be sure there weren't others? This wasn't Europe. There was no network to cross-reference commonalities between crimes. In Laos, local police forces described their cases in two ledgers and when these were full, one would be placed on the shelf in the police station, and eventually the other would be sent to Vientiane and filed at police headquarters under the province from which it had come. If two similar crimes occurred in two different provinces, there would be no way of telling.

  His thoughts were disturbed by the aftermath of a small accident at the Victory Monument roundabout just in front of the bland court building. A black government limousine pulling out of the driveway had been hit by a motorcycle sidecar piled high with cartons of eggs on their way to an embassy reception. The front bonnet of the car was a giant omelette. Two young police officers were holding back onlookers brandishing spoons and plates. The chances of two motorized vehicles colliding in Vientiane were less than that of a bird of paradise defecating on your best hat. Poosu, the Hmong god of small accidents, must have been bored that evening.

  The limousine was empty and there was no motorcyclist apparent at the scene, so the police had obviously taken the suspects in for questioning. The Lao language had no shortage of bawdy egg jokes, so Siri was certain this story would be twice around the city before he got back home. His momentum had brought him this far, and he was about to switch on his engine when, among the legs of the crowd, he spied Saloop, his ex-dog. It was dark, and the onlookers were lit only by a single lamp at the front of the courthouse, but there was no mistaking the shape and piercing eyes of Saloop. He sat with his back to the accident staring directly at Siri. His head followed the doctor as he glided slowly past, and that same, hopeless, sands-of-time feeling came over Siri. It couldn't be ignored. Somebody was going to die, and Saloop was there to make the announcement.

  Although it was after six the morgue door was open. Siri assumed Geung was still attempting to coax his lizard outside. But when he walked in he found Inspector Phosy sitting at his desk.

  "Dr Siri, you look like you've seen a ghost," he said.

  Siri was getting sick of hearing this description.

  "It's road dust," he said. "It'll wash off. How did you get back so soon? I just talked to you on the phone."

  "The cadre representing Vang Vieng had a helicopter pick him up so he could make the cabinet meeting tomorrow. They're starting work on the three-year development programme. I hitched a ride."

  Siri sat at Dtui's desk and wiped his face with a cotton skullcap.

  "Any news?" he asked.

  "Nothing in Vang Vieng. I thought I could do more good here. I left Sergeant Sihot up there showing the photo around."

  "And the truck driver?"

  "That's why I'm here. He's based at the new Cooperative Development Works. He's due in from Pak Lai tomorrow. I'll catch him when he arrives."

  "And the nurse in Luang Nam Tha?"

  "I'm taking the regular flight up there tomorrow afternoon, the Lord willing. I'll talk to her and see if that leads anywhere."

  "You can't phone her?"

  "Doctor Siri, you surprise me. What happened to the man who just eighteen months ago didn't know which end of a telephone to talk into?"
/>   "The Senior Citizens' Union encourages us to embrace new technology."

  "Then they should encourage Luang Nam Tha to get a few telephone lines put in. It's like contacting Great-Uncle Lou at a seance, and that's an insult to seances. Not even the governor's got a phone yet. He has to drive down to the Chinese road project and use theirs."

  "You realize Dtui will blame me for your going away again."

  "Why should she?"

  "She blames me for everything. Everybody does."

  "Doctor, you seem a little down."

  "Oh, it's nothing. Just an old man contemplating the impermanence of life."

  "Has something happened?"

  "Seventy-three years have happened."

  "Have you had a medical examination I don't know about?"

  "No. It's…ah, bo ben nyang."

  Siri arrived at the shop at the end of the noodle rush hour. Daeng was dishing out supper as fast as the pot could boil. If the Thai secret service had trained their binoculars on her shop that evening, they would never have believed Laos was undergoing an economic crisis. They'd have considered the second devaluation of the kip to have been a ruse and rumours of financial ruin to be a dastardly communist plot. But they wouldn't have known the real reason everybody flocked to Daeng's shop. A bowl of the most delicious noodles north of the Singapore equator cost the equivalent of five pence and few could refuse such a temptation. There was nobody like her in the capital. Even travellers from outside the district had begun to turn up as word spread. Delicious food, low prices, minimal chances of contracting hepatitis.

  Siri sneaked in over the fence and through the back door. He whistled to Daeng, who turned around from her kettle.

  "Psst. Is the coast clear?" he asked.

  "Darling, you're alive," she shouted. A dozen diners looked up and Siri retreated behind the door frame. "I was sure Housing had assassinated you."

  Siri hurried to the staircase and held up two fingers, which signified Daeng's special Number Two, seasoned with tree frogs and jelly mushrooms. Then he vanished upstairs.

  By eight thirty the tables were wiped and the shutters pulled. Nobody stayed out late any more unless they were Eastern European experts or connected to somebody important. Daeng went up to see how her husband was doing. He was scooped over his desk. She kissed the lighter of his ears.