The Merry Misogynist

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 nineteen per cent carbon…”
    The door slammed.
    “…dioxide.”
    Siri pursed his lips and stared at the brown marks on