The Merry Misogynist

military vehicles carried their own spare petrol so the diesel stand was largely for decoration. When Phan had filled up there twice he doubled the owner’s monthly revenue.
    Wei was about to follow the children but Phan touched her arm. “Wei, could I talk to you?”
    “It isn’t – ”
    “Appropriate, I know.” He smiled. “We’re in the middle of town. There are eyes everywhere. We have a hundred chaperones. How dangerous can it be?”
    “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