Читать книгу Playing Lady Gaga, Being Nan Pau - Steve Tolbert - Страница 8

A year earlier. Yangon, Myanmar.

Mya Paw Wah and her brother – Thant first of course – stepped off the bus and looked down the road, black exhaust sticking like cobwebs to their skin. The slap of bare feet on the pavement turned their heads. Four monks passed carrying their begging bowls upside down. One limped, wore an eye patch and had a jagged scar running across his nose and cheek. He looked over at Thant and smiled, baring broken and missing teeth.

Damn, thought Mya. Why did monk whoever-he-was have to hobble past now? And if he had no choice, why couldn’t he at least have kept his face turned away?

‘Khoo Tone,’ Thant said in a low voice. ‘We used to play football together. Two years ago he scored three goals for us in our regional final, the winning one in the final minute.’

Mya glared at Thant, knowing exactly what he was thinking. ‘What happened, did he run into a goal post?’

He ignored her, continuing to watch the monks. ‘Do you know why they’re carrying their bowls that way?’

The topic of troubled monks was not what Mya wanted to talk about, especially now. ‘They’re not hungry, I guess. Come on, let’s go or I’ll be late for school.’

Thant stayed put, irked by his sister’s indifference. ‘To show they’ll accept nothing from the police or military. Khoo Tone didn’t get his face broken on the football pitch. It happened in a police interrogation cell. If monks aren’t safe in Myanmar, what chance do the rest of us have for better lives?’

There was another way to end this. ‘So was he in last year’s protest march too?’

Thant eyed the broken footpath like hearing her words was painful. ‘Go to school, Mya. You know you love it there.’ He strode off past fortune-teller stands and umbrella-shaded fry stalls towards the great mass of red-robed monks and their supporters gathering outside Sule Pagoda, from today the most dangerous place in Myanmar to be. Police trucks had come in the night, their mounted megaphones screeching out warnings about defying curfew restrictions, about joining the recent outbreak of protest marches. And just half an hour earlier their mother had repeated those warnings before waving them off to school and work.

Well Mya wasn’t going to school. Not until Thant was inside the Trader Hotel donning his doorman clothes. She chased after him, seized his arm and pulled him around. ‘Don’t be so stupid, Thant! If what happened to Khoo Tone and our own father aren’t enough to keep you from joining the protest, think of Hla Hla Win. Remember her? Sentenced to twenty years in prison just for interviewing protesting monks. And you’re planning to march with them. You know what’ll happen. You know, you know, you know!’

‘There are times,’ he replied, his voice dripping with insincerity, ‘when your perfect face takes on the serene beauty of a temple painting, and other times, like now, when it resembles the face of a naga serpent about to attack.’ His fake smile was meant to soothe her, his words to make her laugh.

No chance. She wasn’t his slavish little sister any more, auditioning for his approval, responding all wide-eyed and expectant to his every wish, believing every word he said. She knew his tactics now, how manipulative he could be. ‘Look at me, Thant.’ Mya spoke very slowly. ‘My face has nothing to do with what we’re talking about. This does. Only when you go to work do I go to school. Understand?’

He prised her hand from his arm without commenting on her long, delicate fingers. ‘I want to meet a friend at Sule Pagoda. It won’t take long.’

Finally, a straight answer out of him. She shook her head. ‘If you go down there you’ll get caught up in the protest march and probably be thrown in prison and we’ll never see you again.’

He glanced up the footpath. His eyes sharpened. ‘MI coming,’ he muttered, his face suddenly tense. ‘Talk to the footpath.’ He raised his voice to performance level. ‘You know what we forgot to buy at the market?’

Mya looked around. True, a Military Intelligence agent was coming, his mirror sunglasses turned their way. ‘What?’

‘Cooking oil.’

Mister MI slowed, lingering. Despite his closeness, this was better, the two of them working together instead of bickering.

‘You’re right. How could we have forgotten that?’ Mya considered putting on one of Thant’s fake smiles and waving to Mister MI, maybe even saying ‘Hello’ just to show she wasn’t intimidated by him, though she was. But when she turned his way he was staring down the road in the other direction.

‘So do we go back and get it?’

‘I think we’ll have to.’

As Mister MI moved on, Thant’s mood darkened. ‘Life’s good when you’re them.’

They watched Mister MI quicken his pace then slow again behind Khoo Tone and his monk friends, one with a mobile phone pressed to his ear.

‘Did I mention the words “cooking oil”?’ Thant asked.

Mya sighed, knowing what was coming next.

‘Not unless we steal it. “Welcome to Myanmar, the Golden Land” is how that big billboard near the airport greets international tourists. It’s easier to buy drugs in this golden land of ours than the essentials we need.’

He looked around for more agents before his eyes settled back on Mya. ‘Though it’s a golden land for our generals. What happens to people when they put on officers’ uniforms, self-awarded medals covering their puffed-out chests? What part of themselves do they turn off while the rest of the population goes hungry? So the question is, Mya, how much injustice are we, the other ninety per cent of the population, prepared to live with?’

‘Just go to work, Thant – please.’

‘Soon we won’t need to take bags to the market. Our pockets will be enough to carry what we have the money to buy. Sawdust and fish paste. “Believe nothing unless you hear it from us.” That’s what the generals tell the people, as if we’re too stupid to think for ourselves. Myanmar’s a prison, Mya, the police and military our guards.’

She glanced up the footpath, fearful of people listening. ‘Ssshhh.’

‘Yes, exactly. Ssshhh.’ He didn’t bother to lower his voice. ‘Ssshhh. Everyone is listening. Ssshhh. We’re all so dead-scared of going to prison we see informers and spies everywhere. Ssshhh. Like “In the Quiet Land of Burma”.’

‘I know you like to recite that poem as passionately as our father once did,’ Mya said, ‘but you always forget the lines about the soldiers coming. And the soldiers did come, didn’t they, Thant? And they did carry our father away. Why – why do you think that happened?’

Instead of answering, Thant turned in the direction of the pagoda. ‘Look at them down there. The city’s monks and students on strike, Khoo Tone included. They’re our courage. They’re our hope. All of Myanmar should follow their lead. Anger solves nothing on its own. It’s got to be channelled into mass protests that give us a voice – a voice that tells the world we’re still here; the generals are still raping the country. And the bigger the protests, the likelier the outside world will listen and the likelier things will improve.’ His voice quickened. ‘The power of the powerless, Mya: people realising they can change things simply by working together. Besides, I’m my father’s son. Given the choice, you know where he would be right now.’

And for a few moments, there she was – a little girl in the market place being hoisted up on her father’s shoulders, so high, so look-where-I-am-everybody excited, leaning forward, locking her arms around his face, using his eye sockets as finger-holds.

‘If he was out of prison, or a labour camp, or still alive, but we don’t know, do we? Not since you two last marched for the good of Myanmar. And we’ll probably never know what’s happened to him, unless one day he suddenly appears at the door, a toothless, stooped-over sack of bones. Can’t you see, Thant? We need you at home more than ever, and we always will.’

He kept his eyes on the pagoda, its golden spires gleaming in the morning sun. ‘Remember what he’d say to us whenever we got depressed about something? “Don’t let it defeat you, be strong, find a way to rise above it.” Doing that is what the march is all about.’

‘There are enough protestors down there to make the whole world take notice without you getting involved. If mother knew you were joining the march, she’d go crazy. You know that. Our first concern must be her. She’s suffered enough.’

‘I don’t have to be reminded of that.’

More students passed, chanting slogans and waving banners, like they were on their way to a football match.

‘Watching is not joining,’ Thant said. ‘I’ll just walk along on the edge of the march until it gets to here, then I’ll go to work. Promise.’ He turned and, before she could say anything, sprinted after the students.

‘Remember, I’m not going to school until you go to work!’ she shouted, her scowl meant to penetrate the back of his head. ‘I’m not! I’ll be waiting for you right here, Thant! Right here!’

A storm approached, wind stirring the trees, thunder rumbling, lightning cracking the sky. She could smell the rain before the first heavy drops sent her scurrying under a tarpaulin where child construction workers squatted and chewed betel or smoked cheroots, their faces turned towards the Sule Pagoda.

And there she stood fretting and waiting, the rain pouring down as though from a hole in the sky.

Minutes later the march came up the road, monks’ shaved heads bobbing above their red robes, their student supporters encircling them and everyone chanting:

‘Improve the lives of the people.

Our cause, our cause.

Reconciliation now.

Our cause, our cause.

We demand a dialogue.

Our cause, our cause.

Free all political prisoners.

Our cause, our cause. …’

Onlookers jammed the footpath, were up in trees, hung out of windows or perched on the rooftops. Some took up the chant or of­­fered umbrellas, snacks and bottles of water to the older monks and nuns.

The rain eased.

The protestors passed and kept on passing, far too many to examine closely. But still Mya searched for Thant, glancing around occasionally for the well-fed faces of MI agents with their biros, notepads and camcorders, fearful she’d be recorded and later taken away, interrogated, jailed.

By the time the last protesters straggled by, she’d grown frantic. She dashed across the road and caught up with the march just as it slowed and stopped.

Monks squatted on their haunches, pressed their palms together and began to pray in deep, murmuring chants, their wet heads and student-held umbrellas dripping little rivulets, the potholes filling with rain.

Finally she spotted Thant next to a girl with long braided hair. They were wrapping the feet of an old nun. Mya recognised the girl. Thant had introduced them the previous day at the market and talked to the girl the entire time they toured the food stalls. She was the friend Thant had mentioned earlier. He hadn’t lied after all.

With the marchers sitting or kneeling down, Mya now had a clear view of the intersection clogged with barbed-wire barricades, dark-green cage trucks, an armoured truck with a water cannon mounted on top, and rows of policemen in helmets and gas masks. Those in the first two rows held riot shields and truncheons. The others gripped rifles across their chests.

A megaphone blared, the words loud one moment, static-filled the next. ‘Residents of Yangon, gatherings of more than five people are prohibited. Disband now or you will be arrested.’ As if giving force to the words, thunder rumbled, lightning snapped in an arc over the city.

Many protestors lit candles, their faces luminous in the candle flames, while others joined in chanting prayers.

Dread filled Mya’s chest, took hold. A year earlier her father had chanted prayers here too.

A monk in the front row stood up, turned and shouted, ‘If you’re not afraid to die then come to the front!’

Dozens got to their feet, made their way up and locked arms to form a human chain.

Mya moved quickly. ‘This place is going to turn into a battleground,’ she called out as she neared her brother, still with the girl and the nun. ‘Come with me, Thant – now, please!’

Three sets of eyes met hers. The girl’s broke contact first, then Thant’s. But as Mya stood over her, the old nun continued to gaze up at Mya, her eyes milky with cataracts. ‘Is he your brother?’ she asked in a croaky voice.

Mya’s shouting had turned heads. ‘He is, but there are times I wish I didn’t know him, like now!’

‘I should tell you, dear,’ the old nun said, slipping flip-flops on her bandaged feet, ‘I could not have got this far without your brother’s help.’

The praying ended.

A hush fell over the road.

The old nun found her walking stick and, with Thant’s help, rose to her feet and took a few practice steps.

The other marchers rose too. Banners and flags went back up. Prompted by the front row monk, the chanting resumed:

‘May all living beings

Be free, be free.

May all living beings

Be free from harm.

May all living beings

Be free from poverty. …’

The megaphone blared, that same threatening voice having to scream to be heard, ‘Disband now!’

A voice at the front shouted back, ‘No! You disband! It’s time for the people to stop being afraid!’

The crowd surged forward, pushing the four of them along.

‘May all living beings

Be free, be free …’

The armoured truck shot forward, its water cannon sweeping back and forth, shooting out torrents of water, knocking protestors off their feet.

Tear gas canisters lobbed into the air, landed and skidded along the ground, turning the air ghostly white.

Policemen attacked, wielding truncheons, kicking, grabbing and dragging screaming protestors toward the cage trucks.

Gunshots smacked the air. Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop.

‘This way!’ Thant’s friend shouted, fleeing.

Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop.

Thant reached out for the old nun. Pop-pop-pop-pop. He staggered, blood spurting. He opened his mouth as if to scream, grabbed his neck and collapsed.

‘Thant?’ For seconds a sick silence, before a cry rose from Mya’s throat. ‘Thant!’ She dropped to her knees, lifted his head into her arms. ‘Look at me, look at me, please!’ He did, twitching and gurgling, his eyes going from shock to acceptance to glassy stillness. ‘NO!’ She wrapped herself around him, feeling her heart pounding, willing it to be Thant’s.

Two, five, ten minutes maybe, before Mya let go and leaned back; this the first time she had looked at death. She could never have ima­gined him so still. Never.

A strap hung loose from over her shoulder. How was it she was still carrying her school bag?

She raised her eyes to the fighting swirling in and out of focus through the gauzy, eye-stinging air.

A man ran past screaming. Others followed: the slap of flip-flops, sandals.

Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop. A monk in front of Mya, the old nun by his side, toppled to the ground, blood spreading through their robes. Before she could go to them, a voice cried out. A construction worker collapsed at her feet, a policeman beating him with a truncheon. In seconds blood streamed from the worker’s nose, down his lips and chin.

Still on her knees, blood pooling around Mya like the road itself was bleeding, she stretched forward, put her weight on her hands and vomited.

And still the policeman beat the worker.

Pop-pop-pop-pop.

Mya thought: If by chance you survive, remember all this. Remember every detail.

She took off her bag, rage filling every cell of her body, turning her into someone beyond her control. She stood, curling her hands into fists.

Just metres away lay a stack of bricks. Mya collected one and returned, preparing to die. But first, how hard was it to crush a policeman’s skull? She gripped the brick with both hands. ‘This is for Thant!’ she screamed, belting the policeman below the ear. His head snapped sideways. He fell onto the worker, his helmet, truncheon and shield hitting the ground, his gas mask askew. He looked up, stunned and groggy.

‘And this is for the monk and old nun!’ Mya hit him square across the face, his spittle and blood spattering.

He tried to crawl away, tried to get up, but she hit him again and again before someone with thick arms lifted Mya from behind, knocked the brick from her hands and carried her towards a gap between two buildings, her toes dragging along the ground.

Their pace slowed; her abductor was breathing hard. Mya saw Thant’s friend with the long braided hair and two men lying sprawled across the gap, their backs bleeding bullet wounds.

‘I’m about to join you,’ Mya muttered to the girl. Death and rebirth; death and no rebirth – it didn’t matter. Nothing did.