The Blue-Eyed Shan

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The Blue-Eyed Shan

Stephen Becker

For Ron Myers

1

Ranga

The tame Wa are like pye-dogs, they will slink and snarl and grin for a bone. But the Wild Wa dwell high upon the mountain and smile for no man. Their villages are set in swales and dingles, tiny valleys off the ridges, and the entrances at either end are planted with dense thorny hedge, and the way in or out is crooked and winding. It was not always so. When the rifle came to these hills, men with swords, knives and even crossbows had to change their ways. No rifle can see through a Wild Wa hedge, and no bullet can wend the mazy way.

The Wild Wa are a small people and dark, and so feared by their neighbors. Their villages are scattered for two hundred miles along the China-Burma border, and they have no name for either country. Ancient legend call them sons and daughters of the southern islands. They are a religious people, and observe both rites of passage and planting ritual. A young man becomes a warrior by lopping an enemy head from an enemy body. An enemy is anyone who is not a Wild Wa, and it is customary to do this lopping after the monsoon, at the sowing of new seed. The heads do not immediately become skulls. The flesh is treated with preservatives known only to the elders of the tribe, the secret of which is passed along only when an elder dies and only to a mature male who has distinguished himself in headhunting. Upon treatment with these preservatives, a head will last many years.

After the entrance has been negotiated, the visitor or captive will notice the axis of the village, a long line or double line of trees. These trees are usually oak, which grows profusely above the line of occasional frost, and drinks less rain than the teak and pyinkado of the lower slopes and valleys. Into these trees niches have been cut; if the avenue is a double line of trees, the niches will face inward, and in these niches the heads are placed, so that a stroller along the avenue will walk between two rows of impassive faces, the flesh contracted, the eyes dulled. At the village of Ramoang, and also at Hsan Htung, there are avenues of two hundred heads.

At Ranga, which is not far from Pawlu, there are only fifty heads in a single row. Some are precious, and inspire greater awe than the others. The hair of one is yellow, its eyes blue. It has been embalmed and lacquered, and will last a while. At dusk the children of the village gather to contemplate it, and the headman explains that this was a wise man, who came from a far place, and whose virtues have passed to the village. It was Thuan-yi the warrior who took this head, in the War of the Bones, and many evenings he comes to stand idly by as the headman preaches, and the headman feigns not to see him, but finally does see him, and starts, and says, Ah yes, and here is Thuan-yi, who in single combat vanquished this blue-eyed Shan.

And then the headman turns to another precious relic.

2

The Lashio Road In

Four and a half years after World War II, Greenwood remarked that he might never have entered China, there was no way to be sure, but that he had spent much of his life banging at the back door, along the Burma border.

“I could set you down on the spot,” Gordon-Cumming said. “All I need is that half-mile of straight road.”

“No, I won't go in blind,” Greenwood said. He had encountered a few like this one, former proprietors of the world, lanky, sandy-haired, eyes like a loch in winter, and half the globe blushing pink with their conquests.

“Just as well, I suppose. The whole country's one great skirmish. The Union of Burma! Like the bloody Irish Free State. Irishmen of Asia, they say the Burmese are.”

“The Kachin want their own nation. Shan sawbwas bow to no man.”

“At least the Kachin were loyal. These Shan—” The Englishman shook his head. “We need more gin. Boy!”

The houseboy materialized.

“More gimlets. You make 'em fresh. No pitchers, mind.”

Greenwood murmured in South Shan, “They're very good. They suit this sort of day.”

The houseboy glanced up in surprise, and found light eyes smiling into his own.

“What was that all about?”

“Oiling the tongue,” Greenwood said. “Got to warm up, you know. Even calling hogs. Had an uncle who did that. Used to warm up five, ten minutes.”

“Strange folk, Americans. You're from one of those barbarous states, I suppose.”

“Missouri,” Greenwood said. “Pellagra, ringworm and fornication.”

“Yet you speak Shan.”

“We like to make friends.”

“You won't make many here. The Karen are on the warpath too, you know.”

“Down south.”

“All the Burmese feeling their oats. Shoot a white man as soon as look at him. Shooting each other too. A hundred thousand bandits in those hills, and a half million weapons left over from the war, and every village a fortress. The bigger towns aren't so bad.”

“You seem safe and comfortable.”

“It's this little airport,” Gordon-Cumming said. “Airport's like a foreign country. Pilot's like an ambassador.”

From the verandah they contemplated the graveled runway, low shed, wind sock; the Fairchild Argus; and the forlorn, decrepit, cannibalized P-40, an old Flying Tiger fighter, the shark's teeth still sharp. In the shade of the shed two Burmese squatted, smoking. Beyond the airstrip the plain simmered, gently now in the cooler dry season, and mountains rose hazy green in the distance.

“Burmese who work around airports would fight to the death for them,” Gordon-Cumming said. “Elite group, esprit de corps and all that. Well, I'll find you some sort of lorry, but you're wasting time. Have you there in ninety minutes by air. Damn good ship, that Argus. Seven-cylinder Jacobs. Damn good engine.”

“Seven cylinders? I used to fool around with cars. Cylinders came in pairs.”

“Radial,” Gordon-Cumming said.

“Just so it flies, and just so you fetch me,” Greenwood said. “The money's enough?”

“The money's delightful.” Gordon-Cumming grinned like a horse. “What the devil are you up to, anyway?”

“Just a tourist.”

“Not likely.”

“Visiting old friends.”

“More than that. Bloody spy.”

Greenwood was amused. “Want the truth?”

“Nothing against it in principle.”

“I'm chasing some old bones.”

“Old bones? Nonsense. Fossils? That sort of thing?”

“Ever hear of Peking Man?”

Gordon-Cumming frowned. “Some Chinese fellow, I suppose.”

“Some Chinese fellow.”

“You one of these paleo-wallahs?”

“Not quite. An anthropologist.”

“Nonsense. You're a soldier. Sticks out a mile.”

Greenwood said, “You're sure we're talking about the same stretch of road?”

“Must be. The only straight stretch for fifty miles. Eerie sort of place, Pawlu, if it
is
Pawlu. Not on the RAF chart, you know, but it's on mine. Nice valley, but those Wa in the hills …” Gordon-Cumming shuddered elaborately. “Barbarous. Everything out here's barbarous. Do you know in parts of Pakistan if a woman's raped she's cast out by her husband? Now, what's a marriage for if not times like that? And there's others slit a nostril for adultery! Wouldn't be a nose left in London! And on the other side, the Kachin won't marry a virgin! Muslims cutting off thieves' hands! Cambodia-side they keep slaves, d'you know that? Tibet too.”

Greenwood asked, “Why do you stay?”

“Oh well. Where's the boy? Where the hell are those gimlets? Ah!”

Soundlessly the houseboy set out their refreshment, bowing fractionally to Greenwood.

“Fact is,” Gordon-Cumming confided, “left an awful wife in London. You?”

“No wife.”

“Wise man. No need, out here. Besides, I'm a flyer. And the weather's so good. Even the bad weather's good. Rest up in the monsoon, that's all.”

“I had a fine little woman in Pawlu.” Greenwood could not repress a proud smile. “I have a daughter, too. She'll be close to ten now. Brought her a present, I have.”

“Ten? Almost a woman, out here.” Gordon-Cumming gargled absently. “Tell you what, soldier. I wouldn't go in there at all if I were you, bones or no bones, daughter or no daughter. Burma's not what she used to be.”

“Neither am I,” said Greenwood. “This is good gin.”

“Going to seed in the colonies.” Gordon-Cumming suddenly sounded cheerful. “Family's a bit stuffy, you know. Wouldn't want me back, really.”

“No colony now.”

“That's right. Sun sets on Gordon-Cumming. Last a few years yet. Unless—Tell me, those Chinese Communists won't cross the border, will they?”

“Won't have to,” Greenwood said. “Burma has fourteen political parties and they're all Marxist.”

“Let's just drink,” Gordon-Cumming decided. “No religion or politics in the mess, all right?”

“That's half of life,” Greenwood objected. “Religion and politics, love and money, what else is there?”

“Well, there's war.”

“That's right,” Greenwood said. “I was forgetting.”

And now the Lashio Road again, Hsipaw, Lashio, familiar but subdued, dustier, flattened, worn, the roadside too, wood and bamboo huts, all used, trafficked, weathered, and if the road held firm and they were not blown up by guerrillas—

The jeep bucked and sprang off a large rock. Greenwood hung on. His driver said, “Huu. Damn bad road.” Greenwood removed the sunglasses and glanced warily at the jerricans behind him. He was happier on foot, or aboard a pony, than jouncing along a public highway with rebels in the hills and inflammables in the back seat. He imagined a sheet of flame, the jeep incinerated. He resigned himself, and admired the morning. The January air was invigorating, and the mountains welcomed him like liveried servants, green and brown and humble, nothing like the Rockies or the Himalayas, and he had already spotted a blue-red-and-yellow parakeet and a pair of gyi, the tiny graceful barking deer that swarmed over Burma.