The Lizard Cage (44 page)

But he suspects they’re very close to their destination, because Than Thaik has slowed down for the first time since they began their journey. Past a boarded-up market empty of wares, the cabbie turns to him and asks, “You do know the number, don’t you, sir, the number of the building?”

Chit Naing responds, “It’s best if you just let me know where to go from here, Ko Than Thaik.”

“Oh, but this is it, sir. This is the street.” He smiles. “Don’t you trust
me? Not to worry, my friend. I’m just a taxi driver now. I have no nasty work on the side.” He smacks the steering wheel with the heel of his hand. “Those military creeps—I wouldn’t give them the fucking time of day.”

Chit Naing thinks to himself that the time of day is the last thing MI agents would be interested in. “I do trust you, Ko Than Thaik. But it’s best if I just get out here. How much do I owe you?”

“Suit yourself, sir, but keep in mind that if I leave you here now, it’s going to take you half an hour to get back to the boulevard, if you can find your way at all, and then maybe, just maybe, if you’re lucky, another cab will pass by at this time of night. But maybe not.” Than Thaik rubs his nose and turns to look directly at Chit Naing, though he can’t see much of him but streaks of light sliding over his glasses.

“U Chit Naing, you can trust me. Let me do you a favor, okay? If I’d been sent out as a porter with the other men, I would have died. You saved my life.” He laughs again, to take the edge off his seriousness. “It’s not much of an exchange, my life for a cab ride! But it is something. Let me help you. That’s why you turned up at that noodle stand. So Than Thaik could repay you, even if it’s just a fraction of what he owes.”

“Ko Than Thaik, I am not a moneylender. You don’t owe me anything.” To trust or not to trust? The question is pointless. He has already trusted the man too much. “Let me off here and please wait for me around the first corner.”

“Excellent, sir. I’ll catch a nap while you’re doing your business. Unless …” He lowers his voice. “Unless this really is about a woman. I can’t wait around all night, sir. If you know what I mean.”

Chit Naing lightly punches his shoulder. “I’ll be finished quickly enough. She won’t want anything more than a little chat and a kiss.”

“Ah-ha! So it
is
about a woman! I knew it.”

Shutting the door as quietly as possible, Chit Naing waits for the cab to drive off, then begins to walk along the unlit street. There’s no sidewalk, and twice he detours around small, stinky hills of garbage. Because the electricity has been cut in this area, he sees candles in the interiors of some houses. In others, flashlights beam and flare against the walls. For once he’s relieved that the SLORC is useless when it comes to public utilities. The darkness makes him feel safe. He startles, though, when he unexpectedly crosses paths with a large rat.

Near the end of the dirty little street, a crumbling brick wall surrounds a two-story building that reminds Chit Naing of an old colonial school. The high gate is closed, but when he pushes on it, the hinges creak loudly under his hand. A dog barks inside. The jailer squints into the courtyard, trying to see where the animal is. Beside a small temple stands a much larger building, which he realizes must be a residence for the orphans. Wooden huts, monks’ cells, flank the temple.

When the dog barks again, he turns his head to the sound. On his right, almost invisible in the darkness, a makeshift shack three times the size of a sentry box is built against the monastery wall. Seconds after his eyes distinguish the lines of this little building, a creature like a large white rabbit comes hopping toward him at an alarming speed, yipping and growling ferociously. The suddenness of the attack sends the jailer tripping back into the street. An old man’s voice bawls a series of very unreligious expletives. Poised and growling at the threshold of the gate, the small dog drops to its belly for a moment, stands again, barks once in Chit Naing’s direction, then walk-hops slowly back to the shed, anticipating punishment.

The jailer is embarrassed; his mouth has gone dry with fear. He laughs nervously.
I was attacked by a three-legged dog but survived to tell the tale!
He looks up the narrow lane, where other mutts, hidden from view, have joined in the barking, aware that it’s their duty to alert the entire neighborhood to a stranger’s late-night visit. Chit Naing hears the voice again: “What’s this all about, now?” Then he makes out a small man, growling like the dog. “Who’s in the street? What’s going on out there?”

“I am looking for the Hsayadaw U Sobana. Are you the custodian of the monastery school?” The old man mishears him and announces vigorously, “No, I am not the venerable Hsayadaw, I am not his venerable self.” His voice trails off into a forgiving chuckle. “I am the cook. And, on occasions such as these, the night watchman.”

“I apologize for coming so very late, but I need to speak to him.”

“Yes, it is very late.” The old man wags his head slowly from side to side, cogitating, as far as Chit Naing can tell, on the lateness of the hour. The jailer sees that he has no front teeth.

“I am very sorry for appearing like this, but I need to speak to the Hsayadaw on urgent business.”

“Yes, well, it’s rather late for urgent business. Don’t you think, young
man?” Chit Naing is amused to hear the slight swagger of power in the old fellow’s voice. “Everyone is sleeping, you see. The boys and the novices too. Even their teachers, the monks, they are sleeping. This is a monastery school—we all get up at four in the morning. Some of us get up even earlier. Myself, for example, despite my great age, and I go to bed the latest too, because I have so much work to do. It’s hard for me, especially with the rains, as I’ve got terrible rheumatism. What a blessing that the monsoon is almost over!”

Chit Naing clasps his hands together. “I’m very sorry for your rheumatism, Grandfather, and for coming so late, but I must speak to someone tonight. Could you please wake the Hsayadaw for me? It’s very important. I need to talk to him about a boy.”

“One of our boys?” The cook wrinkles his nose and takes a step forward.

“No, Grandfather, another boy. An orphaned child who wants very much to come and live here.”

“Oh, we’re full up with boys. There’s not a mat in the place for another body, no matter how skinny. They’re almost sleeping on top of each other already. As for me, I sleep in that little shed there, and the roof leaks, which is terrible for my rheumatism. Look at that box—they don’t even have a proper room for an old gardener.”

“I thought you said you were the cook.”

“I’m also the gardener, sir.” His voice sharpens with pride. “I have many titles.”

“Could you please wake the Hsayadaw? I need to speak to him.”

“The Hsayadaw? Oh, he’s not here. He’s in Sagaing for three more days, and we miss his venerable self a great deal.” The old man sucks his upper lip into his toothless mouth. “I’m afraid you’ll have to come back later if you want to talk to the venerable Hsayadaw.”

Chit Naing rubs the middle of his forehead, where a small invisible drill is making an invisible hole. “I see,” he says very politely. “Is there anyone else here in a position of authority—the Hsayadaw’s assistant perhaps, one of the other monks? Someone I can speak to about this child?” He hears the frustration in his own voice.

“There’s not a spare mat in the place.” The old man clears his throat. “And the kid can’t sleep with me. There’s no room in that shed, as you can
see. It’s very small, too small for an old man who’s lived a life of dedicated service. It’s like a box, as you can see, that’s how they treat old men these days; even venerable monks treat me poorly. It’s pitiful, don’t you agree?”

“I agree completely.” Chit Naing doesn’t want to do it. He shouldn’t do it. He knows it’s the wrong thing. But it’s like being locked out of a house with a glass door. It’s not the safest thing to do, it lacks wisdom and patience, but he draws himself up, pushes back his shoulders to assume a military bearing, and, with a strikingly officious voice, smashes the glass. “Grandfather, I am the senior jailer at the prison and I’m here on the business of the prison authorities. I cannot and will not come back later, Grandfather. I must speak to someone in a position of responsibility right
now.
” He utters the last sentence in a low barking tone. The dog lying near the shed yips back, noticeably braver than the poor old man, who has shrunk visibly under the weight of the jailer’s announcement. He opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again.

Chit Naing is ashamed of himself, but pleased when the old man finally manages to find his tongue. “I … I … I will go and wake up U Rewata, sir, he’ll be able to help you directly. Yes, one moment, please, I will be back, he’ll be down in a moment, he sleeps upstairs, I need to go get my flashlight, one moment, sir.” Despite his terrible rheumatism, the old man nimbly backs away, glancing over his shoulder with a gaping mouth as he disappears into his shed. Chit Naing hears him whispering to himself or to the dog. He quickly reappears with a flashlight and bows as he moves past Chit Naing, then speedily mounts the outdoor staircase to the second floor.

As the wood creaks under the old man’s feet, Chit Naing relaxes his military stance and sticks his fingers under his glasses to rub his eyes. The brave dog growls again. Will it race out of the shed and attack him? That would be too much.

He watches the old custodian rush along the outside corridor, one hand on the sagging wooden railing, the other holding the flashlight in front of him, its beam cast in a steady yellow line through the air to the floor. He raps hard on the door at the end of the hall and quickly disappears inside.

Chit Naing’s eyes linger there for a moment, then rise to the gracefully peaked roof of the building. For a moment he thinks
fire
, but then he realizes the bright glow comes from the rising moon. Daw Sanda. Her name is the Pali word for moon. Suddenly self-conscious, he is aware that he stands
in a place where she has stood also. She’s visited the monastery to give alms and new robes to the boys.

He looks nervously into the dark courtyard, as though someone might be there, reading his mind. But it’s just him, alone, realizing that he’s come to the monastery school not only for the boy and not only for Teza. He is here for her too, Sanda, the intelligent, elegant woman he loves, a widow (though the term seems so wrong for her, at odds with the long black hair, the beautifully tailored clothes, her smile). She appears at that tea shop, this biryani shop. Sometimes they meet “accidentally” at a crowded pagoda. She walks slowly, searching through the crowd with an open face until she finds him. Then, very naturally, as though greeting her cousin or her brother or her husband, she smiles and begins to speak, fearless and discreet in equal proportion. The last time they were together—she gave him more money for Teza’s morphine—he asked her, “Aren’t you afraid of what will happen if they find us out?” She smiled. “I have nothing to be afraid of. My conscience is clear. I act out of compassion for my son. Any mother would do the same. It is you, Chit Naing, who risks everything by helping us. That’s what I worry about.”

When Teza makes his hunger strike public, there will be an uproar, not only in the prison but in the government too. Chit Naing will have to stop meeting her then. The thought of not seeing Sanda, of never again being close enough to touch her, upsets him as much as the prospect of getting in trouble.

He thinks of her remarkable son, leaning toward him and whispering the name of the street and the Hsayadaw’s name, as if the urgency of his voice would ensure their existence, make the place and its querulous old keeper be here still. And here they are.

A door opens and closes. The flashlight beam flashes into the second-story corridor, lighting the faded burgundy robes of a monk who walks on the other side of the gardening cook. As they descend the stairs, Chit Naing goes forward to greet the senior monk, bowing low. Now that he’s before the robed man, he’s mortified by his earlier behavior—bossing around the old custodian, forcing him to wake the monk at this late hour. Head down, he quietly offers his respects and his apologies.

“Yes, yes, I accept both. This is a very unusual visit. Come with me, please. There is a little office next to the schoolroom where we can talk.”

T
his is a different vision.

He dreams of himself from the outside, and high above. Has he become the cell, his body a wall of bricks, his eyes inside that wall? At the rim of his dreaming mind is the conscious one, asking questions, wandering around, trying to understand what’s happened. Has he returned to the teak coffin and become the spider who watches the man in the cage? No. He knows he is still Teza. He sees himself stretched out on the floor, naked, quiet in the dark. Not shivering. Sleeping perhaps—his eyes are closed.

Then how can I see myself?

Am I dead?

No, wait. It’s not the teak coffin, not the white house. Look at the floor. Instead of cement, it’s stone, old and hewn stone. His eye travels around the outline of the sleeper, following the surface and the lines of separation between enormous flagstones. Excitement flushes through him, almost happiness.

Neither cell nor cage, this place, but temple.

One temple on a plain of two thousand temples and pagodas. His mind struggles to wrest itself from dreaming, to wake up and remember the ancient
city of Pagan, where he visited the holy sites with his family. His mother fed them rice in the shade of the walls of Lemyethna, Temple of the Four Faces, under the trees dwarfed by Thatbyinnyu, Omniscience of the Buddha. Could he have come at last to the long ordination hall of the beloved monk Upali Thein? Or found a resting place half hidden in the face of a cliff, the rock-tunnel temple of Kyaukgu Umin? A weary man might find refuge in any of these places, in all of them. Kandawgyi. Apeyadana. Dhammayangyi, rising like the Dhamma itself, the great mountain of the Lord’s teachings.

He might be dreaming of the Temple Nagayon, Protected by the Naga, where nine centuries ago a young serpent-dragon took care of the future king Kyansittha, who was so exhausted by his flight from an enemy that he fell into deep slumber right there, on the spot where the temple now stands.