A Well-tempered Heart (26 page)

Thar Thar took Ko Bo Bo by the hand and ran for the hedge. I followed them. We tripped over a dead body, stumbled, and kept going on all fours. Thar Thar threw himself with all his weight into the hedge and cleared a way for us into the neighboring farm. There, too, lay bodies, and the hut was ablaze. Gunfire on all sides. The soldiers had lost their minds. On the hunt for rebels, they were going from hut to hut shooting anything that moved. Chickens, cats, dogs, people.

We crept past the burning hut into the first farm, where we hid behind a haystack. The old man lay in front of us, his back full of holes and two dead kids beneath him. One of the young women lay bleeding against a palm tree, mouth and eyes open wide. Her baby floundered in her arms. Without hesitating, Ko Bo Bo left his cover and crawled over to her. Thar Thar tried to stop him, but he was too quick. He took the baby from its dead mother’s arms and came back to us.

The baby wailed in a raw voice, but then calmed down and eventually was quiet. From our hiding place we could hear kids calling for their mothers, loud bawling, screams for help, one blast, then several. I wondered if there was a chance to get away, but the settlement was too isolated. The army would find us before we could get anywhere.

At some point, a silence fell over the village that was more terrifying even than the gunfire had been.

The rebels had fled or been killed. We saw soldiers looking for their porters, and we crawled out of our hiding
place. Thar Thar tried to take the baby from Ko Bo Bo, but he held on as tightly as if it were his own.

We gathered in a group in front of the first farm, the surviving porters, soldiers, and a few villagers. One of the soldiers spotted the baby and commanded Ko Bo Bo to set it down immediately. He did not react.

The soldier cocked his pistol and screamed that he would shoot it on the spot if he didn’t put it down immediately. Ko Bo Bo still did not respond. Not out of disobedience. I could see in his face that he couldn’t do otherwise. The soldier raised his weapon and aimed. Thar Thar spoke softly to Ko Bo Bo until he loosened his grip. Then he took the baby from him, walked slowly over to a young woman, and put it into her arms.

AFTER THAT MISSION
the two were inseparable. Maybe Thar Thar saw in him a younger brother he needed to look after. Or maybe just someone who needed his protection. I don’t know what it was, but the two of them were always together. They washed their laundry together at the river, cooked, cleaned rifles, buried the corpses from the Death House. Somehow they always managed to get assigned to the same group. They slept next to each other, and I often fell asleep to the sound of their whispers. Thar Thar the Taciturn had suddenly started to talk again. His bad moods evaporated, as did his aggression. He had forgiven us porters for what we had done. Between him and Ko Bo Bo
something had developed for which there was no room in the world we occupied. I don’t know how I should describe it. They conversed with each other long after the rest of us had retreated into silence. They laughed together. During the whole time that I spent in the camp they were the only people I would see smiling occasionally. They helped each other. They watched out for each other in a world where everyone who lived past the first couple of weeks was only looking out for himself. I envied them. There was some secret that bound them and that kept them alive. I’m sorry to say that I never discovered what it was. Thar Thar and I were no longer close enough.

And there was some power that protected them. Six months passed, and Ko Bo Bo was still alive. Most of us figured it was destiny. The stars were smiling on them.

Months passed and turned into a year and then another. We were among only a dozen or so porters to live so long. Maybe it was luck, instinct, or intuition to do the right thing in dangerous situations. Or maybe it was just our karma, though I’d be hard-pressed to say whether it was a good karma or a bad that kept us alive for so long in that hell.

Most of us wondered what we had done in a previous life to deserve such torture. We suspected that we had been soldiers ourselves, and that we had killed people. Or drunkards. Murderers. Animal abusers.

Thar Thar and Ko Bo Bo never indulged in these speculations. I have no idea whether they followed the teaching
of the Buddha. I never heard them mention it. I never saw them meditating, and I don’t remember ever seeing them leave an offering at our little altar in the hut.

THE DAY OUR
luck turned started with an extra ration of rice. That was not a good sign. Any time we got something more to eat it meant that we were slated for a special mission. A colonel came into the hut and picked a dozen porters. Thar Thar and I were the first two. Ko Bo Bo volunteered.

We had to accompany ten soldiers who were chasing down a rumor that the rebels had built a bridge over a nearby river. They had retaken large stretches of our territory in recent months, and they had more than once managed to cut off our supplies for days at a time. The commandant was anticipating a major offensive against our camp. Anxiety was growing among the soldiers, and there were even plans to abandon the camp. We porters were hoping the rumors would prove true. A rebel victory over our camp, should we survive it, was our only chance of ever getting away.

As on many other missions, Thar Thar and Ko Bo Bo willingly took the lead. I was walking maybe ten yards behind them. A good omen, I thought. In this formation we had so far always come back alive. The march through the forest passed peacefully, and when we came out of the trees the river lay right in front of us. It had swollen with the seasonal rains to a mighty current.

And there was a bridge.

The soldiers ordered Ko Bo Bo to investigate whether there were any explosives underneath it or we could get safely across the river. He was our best climber. Gracefully and skillfully he climbed a few yards down the bank, balancing on stones and pieces of wood without holding fast. He had nearly gotten under the bridge when he suddenly straightened up, threw his arms into the air, swayed, lost his balance, and fell.

In the roar of the river I had not heard the gunshot.

He rolled down the steep slope. The other porters and soldiers took cover. I stood there unable to move. Thar Thar let out a cry and sprang down the embankment, tumbled over, slammed into a boulder, righted himself, took flying leaps over tree trunks and stones, fell again, struggled to his feet.

Ko Bo Bo slid toward the river. Curiously there was no second shot, as if both sides were engrossed in the drama that was unfolding before their eyes. Seconds before Thar Thar reached his friend his body slipped into the water and went under at the first eddy. Thar Thar dove headlong after him and likewise disappeared in the surge.

A few yards farther on I saw Ko Bo Bo’s head resurface briefly in the white froth, then Thar Thar’s. The water flung them into an outcropping of rock, they went under, Thar Thar’s arm jutted for one moment above the water and then disappeared again. I felt a dread come over me like none I had known since those first missions. I couldn’t take
my eyes off the waves and eddies. Fifteen, maybe twenty yards farther downstream the trunk of a fallen tree rose out of the water. It was their only hope. Beyond it the river became a raging sea of white. Seconds passed without any sign of them.

The colonel crawled through the tall grass to me and cast a wary eye down the embankment.

A hand. An arm. I could see them clearly on one of the branches. Thar Thar’s head. A second one, both above water. Underwater. Above. Under.

The colonel barked at me to rush to their aid. I finally overcame my paralysis and started to clamber my way down the slope, keeping a sharp eye on Thar Thar the whole time. I saw him making his way toward the bank. Where was Ko Bo Bo? Thar Thar had solid ground beneath his feet by now. He straightened up, and in his arms I saw a limp body emerge out of the waves. He dragged him ashore and collapsed in exhaustion beside him.

The second shot was meant for the colonel. I have only vague memories of what followed. I know that I turned immediately about face. Where Thar Thar and Ko Bo Bo lay there was no protection. I scrambled back up the bank and took cover behind a boulder. I lay there between the fronts. After a grenade exploded near me I passed out.

When I came to again I found two rebels squatting beside me. My ears were still ringing, I had a dreadful headache, and I could hardly understand what they were saying.
They helped me to my feet. I had abrasions on my head and arms, and I was so stunned that I was dizzy. They took me with them, and at the edge of the forest I could see the bodies of porters and soldiers, could not imagine that any of us had survived this battle, and lost consciousness a second time.

I came to in a rebel camp. They treated my wounds, gave me plenty of rice and water, asked me a few questions about our encampment’s weaponry, troop strength, and layout, but otherwise left me in peace. After two weeks it was for me to decide whether to fight with them or have them drop me off in the nearest city.

MAUNG TUN LIT
a cigarette and looked at me, sizing me up. A waiter set melon seeds and a thermos of fresh Chinese tea on the table.

I waited for my brother to pose the last, most important question, but he said nothing.

I was finding it difficult to think clearly. What I had just heard was too monstrous. At the same time I felt disappointment, fear, that Maung Tun would not be able to tell us who or what killed Thar Thar.

“Can you tell us,” I raised my voice, “where and how Thar Thar died?”

U Ba glanced at me, hesitated briefly, then leaned far over the table and translated.

“How Thar Thar died?” asked Maung Tun, as if trying to make sure he had understood correctly.

I nodded.

He shook his head. Said something.

My brother’s eyes opened wide. “He’s not dead. Thar Thar is alive.”

MY BROTHER HAD
fallen asleep next to me. His head lay lightly against my neck, his mouth half open, a quiet rattle in his throat with every exhalation. I took a towel and wiped the sweat from my face. I laid my hand carefully on his forehead to feel whether he had a fever. It was very warm. He had had a severe bout of coughing before falling asleep. I was worried. In Thazi, too, he had refused to go with me to a doctor, insisting that his cough was an allergic reaction that would soon pass. It affected him every year at this time, no reason for concern. I didn’t believe a word of it.

Now we were sitting on a train to Mandalay. The carriages rocked and rumbled. Reading was out of the question. Through the open windows a gentle draft provided a bit of refreshment, but it was too hot for that to make much difference. It smelled of food, sweat, and a pungent deodorant that a Chinese traveler in the row in front of us applied repeatedly.

U Ba had somehow managed to arrange seats for us in the “upper class.” We sat in two wide armchairs with adjustable footrests and seat backs that were nevertheless dreadfully uncomfortable. I could feel every spring, but I knew better than to complain: most of the passengers in the rear cars were sleeping on wooden benches between crates and boxes full of fruit, vegetables, and chickens. Or on the floor. Compared with the pickup truck, this was pure luxury.

Men and women kept passing up and down the aisle with buckets and baskets, hawking their wares. Boiled eggs. Peanuts, rice cakes, bananas, mangoes, betel nuts. Little plastic bags filled with a brown liquid. Hand-rolled cigarillos. Cigarettes. One merchant thrust a bowl under my nose. Deep-fried chicken legs swimming in a greasy sauce and surrounded by dozens of flies. I shook my head in disgust.

Outside, the sun set slowly. The train rolled through a town at walking pace. Two young boys drove a water buffalo along between the rails. Behind them a woman balanced a half dozen clay jugs in a tower on her head. There were fires burning in some of the yards. Naked children splashing in a pool.

I thought of Maung Tun.
He’s not dead. Thar Thar is alive.