The Merry Misogynist

asked.
    “Wat Si Saket,” repeated Geung.
    “The little Buddhas.” Phosy nodded his head. “There are certainly a lot of them.”
    “It isn’t out of the question,” Dtui agreed.
    “But what’s the ‘made in Thailand’ connection?” Phosy asked.
    Siri clicked his fingers so loudly the others were afraid he’d broken a bone.
    “Of course,” he said and added another handprint to his forehead. “Shame on me. They taught us all this stuff at the temple in Savanaketh. Why is it I can remember verbatim French radio jingles for chocolate biscuits and not the history of my own country?”
    “Probably because – ” Dtui started.
    “It was a rhetorical question, Dtui.”
    “Sorry.”
    “Wat Si Saket,” Siri began, “is the oldest surviving temple in Vientiane, and that’s probably because, when the Thais flooded in to rape and sack and pillage in eighteen something or other, they didn’t want to destroy anything that reminded them of home. The temple was one of Prince Chao Anou’s creations. He was educated in Bangkok and was probably more Thai than Lao. The Thais set him up as a puppet king here, and he built old Si Saket in the Thai style. Made in Thailand. Voila .”
    He walked to Geung and planted a large kiss on his forehead. Geung wiped the kiss away violently but grinned with pleasure.
    “I don’t know why we just don’t hand all our mysteries directly to you, Geung,” Phosy said with very little sarcasm in his voice.
    “Any thoughts on the lady in the freezer, Inspector Geung?” Dtui asked.
    “Sh…she’s very pretty,” Geung decided.
    “So who’s the brainless one?” Phosy asked. He shouldered his bag for the trip to the airport.
    “It could refer to us,” Siri conceded. “But I think I shall take Madame Daeng for a cultural soiree at the temple this evening.”
    “Well, I’m husbandless tonight, so I’m coming too,” said Dtui.
    “I’m husbless t…too, so so am I,” said Geung.
    “That’s settled then.” Siri laughed. “It looks like Si Saket Temple will be doubling its annual quota of visitors in one evening.”
 
    Siri had been speaking only partly in jest. The residents of Vientiane had become very self-conscious about being seen in temples. People had begun to worship discreetly. Their faith had not been dented by the constant notices and the loudspeaker broadcasts decrying the curse of religion, but they found it prudent not to advertise their beliefs. The government interpreted the empty temple grounds as evidence that socialism was a more powerful dogma than Buddhism.
    This perhaps explains why, on that warm evening in March, the visitors arriving at Si Saket had to find the keeper of the keys in the nearby compound and convince him it was vitally important to the security of the nation that they gain access to the inner sanctum of the temple immediately. As there were no lights, they were forced to buy sanctified orange candles from the abbot and place them at intervals around the rectangular cloister. This created a splendid, albeit rather creepy, atmosphere. The walls on all four sides contained small alcoves from floor to beam, and each nook had its own Buddha image in bronze or silver or stone: three-dimensional dharmic wallpaper.
    “How many eyes would you say?” Siri asked Daeng.
    “At least four thousand. Do you suppose he counted them?”
    “Nothing about Rajid would surprise me. It does make me think we’re in the right place. All we need now is to decide which is the brainless one.”
    “We could ask them all twenty general-knowledge questions.”
    “By my calculations that would take longer than I have left on this earth,” he said. He smiled uneasily and Daeng glared at him. “What? Why are you giving me that look?”
    “Has something happened to you this week that I should know about?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I mean has the spectre of death landed in your morgue and handed you an invitation?”
    Daeng’s comment was intended as a joke but, like a hammer thrown from the far side of the room, it had somehow managed to hit the nail on the head. Siri felt a now familiar clenching at his heart. Every day the harbingers had visited him. Worms travelled the extremities of his desk, and the scent of damp earth filled his lungs. Saloop was everywhere – beside the road, beneath the table in the cutting room, outside the shop in the undergrowth opposite. Tonight, as they walked to the temple, the dog’s yellow eyes had glared