The Merry Misogynist

shining their torches. They arrived back at the front door with nettles attached to their trousers but no hint of lace undergarments.
    “I suppose we should go inside,” Siri suggested.
    “After me,” said Daeng, scooting up the step.
    The front door was solid teak, obviously very old. When they pushed, there was a defiant creak from the hinges. Three rooms led off the long passageway that stretched before them. The hallway itself was covered in once stylish – now sadly worn – linoleum. A staircase on their left rose darkly to the second floor. Two rooms on the right were residences. Hasps had been attached to the outsides of their doors and one had a name on a small rectangle of card taped beside it. It was too dark to read it. The only light in the hallway came from the third room, a bathroom on the left beyond the stairs.
    Attracted like moths to the light, Siri and Daeng went in. It was spotlessly clean. Different coloured plastic bowls and scoops seemed to demarcate each family’s spot.
    “See a trapdoor anywhere?” Daeng asked. She exhibited none of the characteristics of an interloper sneaking around someone else’s house. She had been a spy for the Lao underground so a stranger’s bathroom presented no threat to her.
    She sat on one of the tiny plastic stools. “Come on, Siri, use your imagination. He came here every Friday as a child. He would have had a chance to explore. All the adults are sitting at the table drinking wine, having a good time. Young Rajid wanders through the house by himself. Think like Rajid.”
    “Perhaps I should take off my clothes and play with myself.”
    “That’s the spirit.”
    Siri stopped pacing. “No, that’s it. Think like Rajid. He may be a scholar deep down, but on the surface he’s a randy beast. What if we’re thinking too deeply?”
    “The old French lady’s really an old lady? One of the neighbours?”
    “And the lace…”
    “Is her underwear. And there’s too much pink under there. Brilliant! All right. How does he get to see her undies?”
    “Well, assuming she didn’t strip off at the dinner table I’d say we’re in the most likely place.”
    “Nowhere to hide in here, really, and the window’s too high.”
    Siri sat on the Western toilet and looked around.
    “There,” he said, pointing at the baseboard in which there was a small rectangular grate no bigger than a business envelope.
    “He must have been a lot smaller when he was young.” Daeng laughed, getting on her knees to take a look.
    “The stairs,” Siri said. “This grate is directly under the staircase.” He was hurrying towards the door when he bumped into a muscular man in a towel. “Good health,” he said.
    “Good health,” said the man, obviously surprised to have collided with a strange old gentleman in his own bathroom. He looked at the old lady on her hands and knees on the bare concrete.
    “We’re just about to move in,” said Siri, “so we’ve come to…to…”
    “To measure for curtains,” Daeng helped him out. She climbed to her feet and followed Siri into the hall, taking more time than necessary to study the man’s torso. He blushed and hurried to close the door.
    “Curtains?” muttered Siri as they walked to the stairs.
    “Yes.”
    “In the bathroom?”
    “Why not? You would have said something like toilet inspector.”
    “What’s wrong with that?”
    They stood at the foot of the stairs, wondering how anyone could get inside the staircase. A Peeping Tom would have to be directly beneath it. Siri tapped at the front of the wooden steps with his toe. The first and second emitted resounding thuds. The third plonked and seemed to give way a little. Although the panel had been stained the same colour as the others, it was obviously a plywood substitute for the original. Siri knelt on the first stair and carefully pushed one side of the loose panel. It was held in place only by its snug fit between the steps. It gave way easily and he was able to wrest it free without its falling into the gap beneath.
    “See anything?” Daeng asked, hunkering down beside him. They heard the scampering of cockroaches, perhaps the patter of a mouse.
    “The gap’s too narrow to crawl through,” Siri decided.
    “Well, thank goodness for that.”
    “But I can see a skinny little Indian getting in here easily enough.”
    “What’s that over there?”
    They both leaned into the gap. The bathroom light shone yellow through the grill three metres ahead