The Merry Misogynist

12

Madame Daeng always slept as if there were no cares in the world. She smiled in her sleep and chewed the corners of her mouth. At times her eyes would roll inside their lids and the lashes would twitch. Siri thought he wouldn't mind if he never slept again in his life as long as he had her to watch.

When the Saturday night noodle rush had subsided, Daeng had gone to the hospital to sit with Dtui and the baby. She'd stayed there until past ten. When she returned to the shop she'd found her husband going through the items from Rajid's box. Mr Tickoo had stopped by earlier to see whether there had been any progress in the search for his son. He confessed that he'd been having very negative feelings that day. He looked through the box of treasures but they meant nothing to him either. He and Siri parted with a sense of hopelessness. Neither man had the heart to say what he believed: that Rajid was probably no longer of this world.

Siri told Daeng that he would come to bed soon, but he remained at his desk, running his fingers over the dry bones, waiting for a message that didn't come. He was still wide awake when he finally climbed into bed. Although he had no inclination to sleep, he closed his eyes and visualized Si Muang Temple. He pictured Rajid hanging around there, making a nuisance of himself, perhaps flashing at unsuspecting ladies as they made offerings. He could imagine the Indian annoying the abbot by climbing the walls of the prayer chamber and hanging upside down from the eaves. In the wet season he'd…

Siri's body became rigid. He opened his eyes. His heart was pounding. He shook Daeng and was surprised at how quickly she came to life, sitting up alert. Siri was already out of bed pulling on his trousers.

"Are we going somewhere?" she asked.

"Do we still have the sledgehammer out back?"

"Unless it walked somewhere."

"Good. Are you coming?"

"Wouldn't miss it for the world." She began to throw on her clothes with the same urgency as her husband. "Where are we going?"

"I'll tell you on the way."

They stopped first at Mahosot, where Siri retrieved the bamboo stepladder from behind the morgue. He alerted two night orderlies and told them to follow him on their bicycles. It was just as well the police were all tucked up soundly in bed because they might have seen something suspicious in a couple on a motorcycle speeding through Vientiane at two in the morning with a stepladder and a sledgehammer. Siri skidded to a noisy halt on the gravel in front of Si Muang Temple. He hoped he wouldn't find the gate locked. In the old days it was unthinkable that the temple might not be available for troubled souls twenty-four hours a day. But the country had entered a period of suspicion and fear, and even monks slept behind locked gates.

They were in luck. There was a chain wrapped around the two gates giving the impression they were padlocked, but they were not. Siri unwrapped the chain noisily, not caring whom he woke up. The more the merrier. He and Daeng carried the ladder between them while Siri hoisted the hammer, and Daeng held a torch. They went directly to the stupa and set up the ladder against the structure. It barely reached the renovation work.

"You steady me and I'll go up," Siri said. He knew if this had been anything but a temple stupa, Daeng would have wanted to elephant-mouse-ant him about it, but there were deep-rooted Buddhist taboos against women climbing religious structures. He was on his own and there was no time to lose — perhaps none at all. Daeng tucked the torch into his belt and squeezed his hand.

"There's just a hint of sacrilege in what we're about to do," she told him as he climbed up the steps with his sledgehammer slung over one shoulder. "There'd be a lot of explaining to do if we've — heaven forbid — got this wrong."

Siri wasn't in a talking mood. He saved what little breath he had for the job at hand. He couldn't get into a position to use both hands on the hammer, so he grabbed the ladder top with his left hand and grasped the heavy sledgehammer in his right.

Only four monks and the abbot remained at Si Muang, and they'd all been roused by the sound of the chain being removed. By the time they reached the stupa, Siri had already made an impression on the new brickwork.

"What in the name of all that is sacred are you doing?" shouted the abbot.

Daeng called up to Siri, "My love, I might be forced to kill a monk or two tonight. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me if I'm sent to hell."

The abbot stopped in his tracks.

"My goodness. They're both mad. Stop them!" he told his acolytes.

He stepped back and let the monks make the advance. They prowled forward. Daeng reached into her shoulder bag and produced an extremely long knife. She brandished it halfheartedly, and the monks froze.

"Look, I'm really sorry about this," she said. "I personally have nothing against the temple. In fact, I've been a fairly good Buddhist all my life. But I will be forced to use this if you come any closer."

She looked up at Siri, who was flagging. He wheezed in counterpoint to the thumps of his hammer on the brickwork. She turned back to the stunned monks and smiled.

"Perhaps I could ask," Daeng continued, "exactly when was the renovation here completed?"

"If he has a problem with renovations we could always discuss it like sensible adults," the abbot said. "There's really no need to — "

"If you could just answer the question," Daeng said.

"About three weeks ago," said the soccer monk.

Daeng heaved a sigh. "Thank goodness for that. We might be on the right track then. If you'd said three months it would have been one of those embarrassing moments you see in the comics."

She laughed but nobody joined her.

"Does anyone know what in hell she's talking about?" asked the abbot.

When the two orderlies arrived from Mahosot, wheeling their bicycles, the scene that confronted them defied common sense. Dr Siri was up a ladder battering a hole in one of the city's oldest stupas with a sledgehammer. His wife was holding back five monks with a carving knife.

They looked at each other to be sure they were both seeing the same thing.

Dr Siri had only one last swing left in him. He defied gravity, gripped the hammer in both hands, lifted it above his head, and sent it crashing down onto the seriously wounded brickwork. The sledgehammer bounced out of Siri's hands and passed not four centimetres from his wife's head. Siri clung to the ladder in time to prevent his backward tumble. Seen from the ground, his mission appeared to have failed. The doctor prostrated himself against the stupa, desperately searching for breath.

"Siri, this would be an embarrassing moment to die," Daeng called up to him.

Siri recovered, put his hands out in front of him, and pushed. What was left of the renovated brickwork caved inward, leaving a jagged triangular window some sixty centimetres by thirty.

"My Thor," cheered Daeng.

"Oh, my heaven!" said the abbot.

Siri reached to the back of his belt and took out the torch. He pressed the switch and climbed the last step in order to see inside the stupa. The original walls were eighty centimetres thick, which explained why the new brickwork had been so hard to dislodge. He'd put all his effort into weakening the old masonry around the new cement. As he'd hoped, the workers had been too lazy to make the patch any thicker than the eye could see. He pulled himself through the narrow gap and edged forward. There was a narrow chimney of space at the core of the stupa, and he leaned over the precipice so he could look down into the bowels. The ancient bricks crumbled as he progressed. He recognized the earthy, wormy smell that rose to greet him.

"Rajid?" he called. "Rajid?" Siri's lungs ached, and the mustiness of the air caused him to struggle for breath. He heard his own voice as a whisper. There was a rustle from below, barely audible, perhaps caused by insects. Siri pulled himself forward until he was looking directly down. He shone his light, and there below him on the dirt floor was the crumpled body of Rajid in a space no wider than the inside of a mail box.

"Are you dead, Rajid?"

Siri could see crusted blood on the Indian's head and, from his perch, he couldn't make out any breathing. There was no movement, no sound. Siri grabbed a chunk of brick and tossed it down into the hole. It hit Rajid on the shoulder. There was still no reaction.

"Wake up, damn you," Siri shouted. He wanted desperately to climb down into the hole but had no more energy. His head was growing woozy. He grabbed another brick and threw it into the pit. This time he hit Rajid on the side of the head. The effort dislodged a shower of brick dust. There were one or two seconds when Rajid vanished in the cloud, then, when the thin air cleared, Siri saw that one of the Indian's eyes was open slightly. The light of the flashlight caught its secret. It was an eye one blink away from death.

Not for the first time, Siri awoke in one of the private patient rooms at Mahosot. An oxygen mask covered his lower face. He wondered what had happened to him this time. His mind travelled back over some of the other disasters he'd awoken from over the past two years: the house that had fallen on him, the maniac's attack, the possession, the electrocution, and of course the drowning. It was a wonder he woke up at all any more. But he was glad he did.

Life really was something to hang on to for as long as possible. It wasn't until you were on the verge of losing it that you appreciated its worth.

Whether it was as a result of the oxygen or the sleep he couldn't say, but he'd honestly never felt better. He took off the mask and looked around the room. The two-year-old Royal Thai Ploughing Ceremony calendar still hung on the wall, and the paint was still Wattay blue like the airport. But the buffaloes looked happier than they had a year earlier and the walls jollier. He gazed down at his own body and he was Johnny Weissmuller, alias Tarzan from the movies. Everything was perfect with the world, and he knew in his heart that Crazy Rajid had survived his ordeal and that it was all due to him.

For a couple of days there was nothing but sunshine and joy. Siri was a hero, albeit with a very small following. Dtui was a mother, albeit with a surprisingly small baby. Rajid was alive, and Civilai had won a prize for his pumpkin pie at the kilometre 6 Lao Patriotic Women's Association cake-making fair.

There had been answers to basic questions. It appeared that while there was still a crack in the side of the Si Muang stupa, Rajid had used his climbing acumen to sneak inside from time to time and dig up relics buried there. Some nights he might have slept inside. The bump on his head suggested he had fallen and knocked himself out at some stage. This was all conjecture, of course, as Rajid was still unconscious and would probably maintain his vow of silence when he came around. But, for whatever reason, he had been bricked inside the Si Muang stupa for three weeks. How he'd survived would remain a mystery. Some of the smaller cracks in the spire must have allowed air to enter. And Rajid was a creature of the earth, a brother to frogs. If there had been water for him to drink it had to have been deep and unpleasant. The only explanation that made any sense was that he'd found nutrients in the insects that abounded inside the old stupa. The spiders and cockroaches and worms had kept Rajid alive.?

Siri's overnight stay in the hospital had been just a precaution. His friend Dr Davone informed him that a man with his lung condition probably shouldn't be knocking down stupas with a sledgehammer. She also suggested Siri might find himself blacking out more often in confined spaces or at high altitudes without sufficient oxygen. She forbade him from engaging in scuba diving or mountain climbing in the Himalayas. Siri promised he would avoid both. But there was certainly nothing wrong with him on the day he was released from Mahosot, as Madame Daeng would gladly have testified.?

Monday rolled around and the feelings of goodwill and happiness were slowly eroded by memories of the evil that still gripped Laos. Perhaps those involved in the strangled woman case had deliberately blocked the thoughts from their minds and been grateful for a distraction. Perhaps they all needed to believe that the earth was still a safe place on which to live. But it soon became apparent that it was not.

There hadn't been much news from the police investigation. Sergeant Sihot had interviewed everyone in Ban Xon who'd had dealings with Phan. The village headman still had the original letter of introduction from the highways division. It looked very official and had Phan down as Thongphan Ratsakoun. It said that he was surveying for an upcoming road project in the surrounding area and it would be greatly appreciated if the esteemed official at Ban Xon could assist Comrade Thongphan with accommodation during his stay. He had a small budget for food and any cooperation would be 'remembered by the Central Committee'. The letter was authenticated with a circular red stamp and co-signed by the head of the Highways Department, who had his own, even more splendid red stamp.

In this age of mimeograph machines and typewriters with carbon paper, official documents like those in circulation in Laos were not terribly difficult to forge if a man had access to such equipment. Nobody was surprised to learn that there was no Thongphan Ratsakoun at the Highways Department or anywhere else on public file. It would take several months to go through the disparate police record data banks, but there was no point in looking up an obviously fake name.

The villagers who'd mixed socially with Phan at dinners and on the takraw court agreed that he was a top fellow: a very friendly and likable person. Nobody had any idea where he went during the day. They had the impression he'd have liked to have told them about his work but wasn't allowed to. He had a truck but no driver, which was interesting. It suggested that he was independent, perhaps a section head. He was clearly someone with the ability to do everything for himself. He had class, some women said. Perhaps he'd come from a well-to-do family. He'd obviously travelled widely. He knew the country very well.

Where did he come from? Nobody knew. He'd moved around a lot when he was young. Army family perhaps? Somewhere in the north, although he had a central accent. He'd given everyone a life history so vague they could barely remember what he'd said. He'd answered most questions with a joke, and they were too awed by his position to embarrass him with an interrogation. Sergeant Sihot had come to the conclusion that this was a very cautious and cunning villain. He'd left no real trace.

Siri, Civilai, and Phosy were seated on the log overlooking the dwindling Mekhong. Civilai had catered all three lunches. It was a new recipe for homemade baguettes with genuine corned beef.

"How do you get hold of all this exotic fair?" Siri asked. He was actually enjoying his lunch. Civilai had hit on the formula. They were washing down the bread rolls with home-squeezed guava juice, courtesy of Mrs Noy. Civilai's wife was slowly coming to terms with the fact that her previously absentee husband had become attached to the house. The kitchen was a place she was allowed to visit but which was no longer hers. Although Civilai still had the general bone structure of a grasshopper, he now had a more substantial body for her to cuddle on a cold night, so she didn't complain.

"I still have friends in high places," he told his fellow diners. "You'd be surprised what our American colonists left behind. If you slip me a few bucks I can probably lay my hands on some Spam, canned soup, sardines in tomato sauce, franks and beans, you name it. There's a larder full of the stuff."

"All that old tin should be rusty by now," Phosy decided.

"Ah, Inspector" — Civilai wagged his finger — "they say you can never have too much iron in your diet. And if iron is so beneficial, tin can only be one step below it."

Siri laughed. "Just think, Phosy. Before he retired, only the politburo had access to his brilliance. Now we all get to share."

"Good, I could use some brilliance," Phosy admitted and became immediately glum.

"The strangler?" Civilai asked.

"We're not getting anywhere. We're just not cut out to do a nationwide investigation. I don't suppose you've heard anything from your embroidery circle, Doctor?"

"Don't mock the Lao Patriotic Women's Association, Inspector. They'll come up with something. You mark my words."

"Meanwhile, we've come to a dead end with Phan. Not even anything on the truck. It was a Chinese Jiefang. The road builders in the north are bringing them in and selling them secondhand, cheap. Most government projects have one. Nobody thought to write down the licence number. One Chinese truck is pretty much the same as the next."

"It looks like the Chinese are invading us one street at a time," Civilai bemoaned. "They're doing whatever they want up north in the border provinces. I warned the old fogies on the committee, but nobody listened. It's only because we don't have any money that they're not flooding us with cheap, shoddy goods."

"To replace the cheap, shoddy goods from Vietnam?" Siri asked.

"Exactly. Some of those Chinese engineers have special dispensation to hop around the country without the inconvenience of applying for a laissez-passer."

"Like you and me, Siri," said Phosy.

"Yes, but you two are Lao. It's your country…at least for a while."

"That's it." Phosy tried to click his fingers, but they were slick with mayonnaise. "Travel. We know Phan travelled across prefectural borders. Even if he was attached to a government project he'd need a laissez-passer. Private citizens can't just pop into the Interior Ministry and say, "I fancy a bit of a drive up to Luang Prabang; could you give me a travel pass?"

"Even if he had a valid and urgent need, the bureaucracy would delay him for a month or so," Civilai added.

"So how did Boonhee get down here so fast to claim his daughter's body?" Siri asked.

"Sihot got him a pass," Phosy said. "We claimed he was a witness. But for Phan to go to Vang Vieng and then return there two weeks later, he had to be attached to some official project."

"So you're assuming he was in the region for another purpose but changed his identity and project description in order to fool the people in Ban Xon?"

"What do you think?" Phosy asked.

"It's a stretch, but it's as good as anything else you've got," Siri agreed.

"So, let's make a list," said Civilai. He reached into his pack, pulled out three slices of his prize-winning pie, and hunted around for a pen and paper.

"I have a notepad," said Phosy. "I'll exchange it for a piece of pie."

"You'll finish your baguettes, give yourself a few minutes for the first course to digest, then I'll think about letting you have dessert."

"You're a tough nut." Phosy laughed. He found his pencil and held it poised to write.

"Number one, 'military'," said Civilai.

"I don't know." Phosy shook his head. "This fellow doesn't read like army to me. I get the feeling he's a few pegs above soldier. He seems too polished, too charming. Plus the witnesses said his hair was longish, just over his collar. I know we don't insist on five millimetres like the Thais, but if our Phan's an officer he'd lead by example."

"I see him as someone who has, or used to have, influence." Siri thought out loud. "He knows how to talk. Has some breeding. Now if you'd told me he was a Royalist officer I'd believe that. There were a lot of smooth tin soldiers in that outfit. But not the National People's Liberation Army. They're too country. Too simple."

"How about the police?" Civilai asked.

Phosy shook his head. "The only unit that does any travelling is the one I'm in charge of."

"All right, then let's start the list with politburo members and their aides, members of the Central Committee." Civilai smiled, happy to finger his old colleagues. "They get travel passes at the drop of a hat."

"I don't know about that either," said Siri, dusting the last of his breadcrumbs from his lap. "They're too high profile. If anyone with a name was in the region all the local cadres would know."

"But it's worth a shot," Phosy said and began the list. "I'll get Sihot to check whether there were any political meetings in the district at the time Phan was there."

"But don't forget he had to be there twice," Siri reminded him. "Once for the seduction and once for the wedding. There had to be some kind of flexibility in his schedule."

"Or he picked a location he knew he'd be going back to in a few weeks," Phosy said.

"All right," said Siri. "Let's include all the departments — I'm sorry, I mean ministries — that are likely to have projects up in the Vang Vieng?Ban Xon area. Let's start with forestry. We know it's not roads."

"Fishery, health, agriculture," Civilai reeled off.

"Rural development, culture," Siri added, "and I'm thinking specifically of the people who go out to hill-tribe villages and convince them they'd be better off as Lao citizens."

"Slow down," said Phosy.

"Come on, you know which they are," Civilai told him. "Virtually every department has a division that goes out into the countryside. You'd have to contact all of them and find out whether they had any projects up there on the dates we've got."

"And you might want to cross-reference with old projects conducted in Luang Nam Tha in the late sixties," Siri offered. "If there are any old-timers who haven't managed to swim across the river, they might recall what was going on up there. Wait, isn't there an office that coordinates all the projects?"

"The National Coordination Directorate: three men and one woman and so much paperwork you need snowshoes to walk from one side of the office to the other," Civilai told him. "Forget it. This is going to take legwork, Phosy. Good old-fashioned policing."