The Merry Misogynist

evening news.”
    “Failing that?”
    “Failing that I think we’ve come to the end of our leads for the day. Let’s mark it down as ongoing and move on to the next impossible situation.”
    “Your house?”
    “Are you up for it?”
    “If you are.”
 
    They pulled up in front of Siri’s old bungalow and conducted a quick surveillance of the property. There were some six children frozen like statues in the front yard. Daeng turned to Siri, who could only shrug. On the roof was what looked like a handleless red-and-white-polka-dot umbrella forming a dome in the centre of the tiles. A makeshift clothesline had been strung up between a tree and a very ornate spirit house, one that hadn’t been there on Siri’s last visit. An assortment of brightly coloured ladies’ undergarments hung from the rope like distress flags on a ship. Thai religious music filled the street in front of the house, and one of the front windows bore brown tape in the shape of a cross.
    “I don’t know,” Daeng said. “Fighting the French in the jungles is one thing…”
    “Be brave, ma Pasionaria. A warning, though: I may have to feign anger. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t burst out laughing.”
    “I’ll do my best.”
    Siri’s habit of collecting strays had begun when his original lodging was blown up and he was relocated to the suburbs. It hadn’t seemed logical for a single man to live alone in such a mansion. Several down-and-outs had passed through over the previous year. Some had stayed. On the current roster, as far as he knew, were: Mr Inthanet, the puppet master from Luang Prabang; Mrs Fah, whose husband had been haunted to death, and her two children, Mee and Nounou; the two hopefully inactive prostitutes, Tong and Gongjai; Comrade Noo, the renegade monk fleeing the Thai junta; and a blind Hmong beggar, Pao, and his granddaughter, Lia, who had been swept from the road in front of Daeng’s shop before the police could tidy them away. Then there were the baby twins, temporarily named Athit and Jun, awaiting collection, and that was a story in itself.
    Siri and Daeng walked toward the front door and paused to look at the frozen children.
    “I think they’re dead,” said Daeng.
    “Stuffed probably,” Siri added.
    “You could do anything to them and they wouldn’t feel it.”
    “You mean if I stick my finger up one of their nostrils…?”
    Nounou, beneath the young lumyai tree, burst into laughter, and the others came to life giggling and pointing at their playmate.
    “You lost,” they shouted.
    “That’s not fair,” Nounou pouted. “Grandfather’s not in the game. He’s not allowed.”
    Siri laughed, put his hands together in a polite nop of apology, and escorted Daeng inside. The source of the music was a large cassette recorder in the front room. It was so loud the machine was dancing back and forth on the concrete floor. Siri bent down and turned it off. Halfway down the hall, the handle of the roof umbrella hung down from a hole in the ceiling with a bucket attached to it. Through the open bedroom door to their left, they saw Pao and his granddaughter lying on a mattress. The old man’s eyes stared wide at Siri even though the sound of snoring suggested he was in a deep sleep. Lia smiled and waved.
    It wasn’t until they hit the backyard that they found other signs of life. Comrade Noo was lying in Siri’s old hammock like a Roman emperor. Ten people, some of whom Siri recognized as neighbours, others as the official residents of the house, were seated cross-legged at his feet in some kind of trance. Siri had no qualms about disturbing them.
    “Tell me you aren’t conducting a Buddhist ceremony in the back garden of my house,” he barked.
    The acolytes came out of their reverie as one and greeted Siri with nops and ‘Good healths’. Comrade Noo lifted his head and smiled broadly at his benefactor.
    “It’s merely a meditation session,” said the Thai. “A cleansing. Some of the neighbours asked if they could join us. They miss their religion. I hope you don’t mind.”
    By 1978 the opium of the people had been powdered down to fine mist. Fewer than three thousand monks remained in the entire country, and they were growing their own alms and making a living teaching. An illegal Thai monk performing a service in the garden of a government worker might just be construed as treason. It would very likely warrant a prolonged stay for all of them in the reeducation camps in the north.