Under the Dragon (6 page)

‘It doesn’t hurt and it keeps him happy,’ said Way Way, shaking her head. She was not yet fifteen years old but already her hair had lost its youthful lustre. In six months it had become dull and brittle. ‘Then he gives me ten kyat. Can you imagine? A whole day’s pay earned in a few minutes. Sometimes a very few minutes.’

‘Ten kyat?’ said the new girl.

‘Life is so hard, how can we be anything but kind?’ said Way Way.

All afternoon Ni Ni considered running away. If she had a bicycle she could escape north, along the route which her father might have travelled, into the hills east of Inle Lake, to try to reach Mae Hong Son. Or she could try to find a fishing boat heading to Kawthaung and walk through the jungle to Thailand. Way Way knew a man who had promised to find any girl work in Bangkok, as a waitress or a chambermaid he had said, and earn enough to buy new clothes, maybe even a watch. She tried to organise her thoughts while carrying lime to the mixing barrels. The heavy work made it difficult to think. Her shoulders ached from the constant stirring, her hands were burnt by the caustic earth, and Law San’s cousin kept shouting at her, ordering her to perform her proper duties, until the tears began to roll down her dusted cheeks and drop into the wet plaster.

Towards the end of the day she was carrying bundles of hemp cord across the upper level when a sudden cough from the cement mixer distracted her. Ni Ni missed her footing, lost her balance and the bundles fell off her head. She managed to catch hold of the scaffolding but the cords unravelled down the face of the building, roping together some workers, lashing others apart. The accident enraged Law San’s cousin, who sprinted up the ladder and, standing above the girl, began to flog her with an end of rope. Ni Ni did not resist him. Instead she cried with the realisation that there was nothing she could do. There was no chance for her to run away alone, to flee to the border, even to hide in Wayba-gi. She had no resources to eat without wages, no chance of finding another job, no possibility of escape. She knew that she was trapped.

‘Stop,’ said the architect.

‘I beg your pardon, Mr Louis?’

‘Stop beating this girl.’ The commotion had flushed Louis out from his office. He too had mounted the ladder, climbing up faster than anyone had seen him move in any direction. He placed a hand on the cousin’s shoulder.

‘She is a lazy and disobedient worker. I know her type, and only harsh discipline will improve her behaviour.’

‘I don’t want to interfere,’ Louis stammered. ‘But she’s only a child.’

‘These women are my responsibility. They need not concern you. Please do not trouble yourself.’

‘No. You are being unkind,’ said Louis. He was not comfortable involving himself in the disagreements of others, yet he found himself stepping between the cousin and Ni Ni. He held out his broad hand to her. She hesitated, then pulled herself to her feet. ‘Please gather the rope,’ he said.

The men returned to the office. Their raised voices could be heard echoing across the site. At dusk as the workers laid down their tools Law San’s cousin appeared at his office door. ‘Ma Ni Ni,’ he called, loud enough for all to hear, ‘do not come back tomorrow. Your work here is finished.’

On the street Ni Ni counted out her meagre pay. Fifteen pyas per day had been deducted for rice. At least she had her dowry of foreign coins. They would pay to get her out of Rangoon. She tried to catch sight of Way Way. She had decided to find the man who could arrange work in Bangkok. She would go away for a few months, work hard, then return home with enough money saved for her and her father to make a new start. But instead of Way Way’s lacklustre hair, it was a blond head which she saw bobbing towards her above the departing crowd.

‘I’m sorry,’ Louis said. Ni Ni stared down at the ground. She didn’t know what to say. She worried that conversations with foreigners had to be reported to the police. ‘I’m full of good intentions,’ he continued. His poor Burmese made her want to smile but she resisted the temptation. ‘I never meant to get you fired.’

Ni Ni shuffled her feet then rubbed her nose, even though it didn’t itch. Law San’s cousin had gone back into the office. The new girl from Dagon Myothit had been called in to see him. The other labourers were gathered at the end of the street, pausing at the cigarette stall or waiting for buses. She saw no sign of Way Way. No one seemed to be watching them.

‘You were trying to help me,’ said Ni Ni. Louis had to lean closer to hear her voice above the dying gasp of Tin Oo’s cement mixer. ‘I must be grateful.’

‘Can you get work somewhere else?’

Ni Ni looked up into his eyes, as blue as the hot season sky. He seemed to be concerned for her. He seemed to want to help her. He understood nothing of her country. ‘I have a plan,’ she answered, looking away.

‘Good. Plans are good. Mine never came to much, so I admire someone who has confidence in their own. Look, I am sorry,’ he repeated, then added, ‘Here,’ and slipped an envelope into her hand. ‘I enjoyed our dance last night.’ Inside the smooth, clean white envelope Ni Ni found two hundred kyat.

The next day she planned to return to the site to find Way Way. She put on her favourite
longyi
and a borrowed muslin blouse, and took the time to gather her fine black hair into a knot around a comb at the back of her head. She pressed a thin coat of
thanakha
on her cheeks, then paused to consider her clear almond eyes in Ko Aye’s mirror. She turned this way and that, moving her slender figure with refinement and economy. She took a small piece of red crêpe paper, wet it with her tongue and rubbed it on her lips.

On the walk from the bus stop a car stopped beside her. She hurried on, fearing that it was Law San’s cousin. Then she heard its electric window slip open, and recognised the voice that said, ‘Ma Ni Ni?’ She hesitated. ‘What are you doing back here?’

‘I’ve come to look for my friend,’ she answered. ‘She promised to help me to find work.’

‘It’s too hot to even think about work,’ said Louis. ‘I’m taking the day off. I’ve been here for six months, and all I’ve seen is this damn building site.’ He stared at Ni Ni and she turned away, suddenly self-conscious. ‘Is your friend expecting you?’ he asked.

‘No.’

‘Then come with me to the Shwedagon. You can see her tomorrow.’

Ni Ni shook her head. ‘I can’t do that.’

‘No one need know,’ insisted Louis. ‘Please come. I’d enjoy your company.’

The world looked picturesque from inside the air-conditioned car: Rangoon’s decaying colonial buildings appeared charming, the passengers riding on the roofs of overcrowded buses seemed quaint. Her seat was so soft, and the ride so smooth, that Ni Ni felt as if the wheels had left the road the car was gliding up toward Shwedagon’s great gilded pagoda. She could not bring herself to speak. A guitar concerto played on the stereo. A traffic policeman saluted as they drove past the Deaf and Dumb School.

They didn’t climb up the slowly rising steps with the Burmese pilgrims. Instead Louis guided Ni Ni into the lift which was reserved for military officers and foreigners. She paused at the gate, expecting to be turned back by an indignant armed cadet, but no one asked her to explain herself. Being with Louis made her feel safe. At the top he tipped the operator ten kyat, less than twenty-five American cents.

Temple bells tinkled on the golden
hti
. The diamond orb at its tip flashed in the sunlight. The faithful strolled and murmured around the worn stone walkway, stopping to meditate, to offer flowers at the smaller shrines and to recite the Buddha’s teachings. Monks walked arm in arm and youngsters squatted on the cool marble slabs. Like St Peter’s in Rome and the Kaaba at Mecca, Shwedagon was a centre of pilgrimage. Yet for all its sanctity it ordained no severity. The atmosphere that prevailed was both intimate and communal, exhilarating and serene. Buddhism remained a constant solace, in spite of the recent turmoil.

They circled the platform twice in silence before Ni Ni stepped forward to pour water over a chalky Buddha image – one glassful for each of her years, plus an extra one to ensure long life – then lowered herself onto the stones to pray. As she tucked her legs beneath her Louis saw for an instant the pale soles of her tiny feet. Their nakedness stirred him, as might the touch of a stranger in a darkened room.

Six months earlier he had left England in search of the unfamiliar. He was young – twenty-six – and not long out of university. He had not taken a year out, so as to complete his degree sooner. His discipline had earned him a First. Nothing disrupted his rigid ambition. Every morning he laid his pens out on the desk in a neat row. When his practice offered him a promotion overseas he had leapt at the opportunity. He could advance his career, and unwind.

‘Burma is an economic tiger cub,’ the firm’s senior partner had told him. The Asian economic crisis was still far in the future. ‘Business there is going to take off like a skyrocket.’ Then he had added with a wink, ‘You’ll have fun, too.’

Louis had bought a mosquito net and a year’s supply of Paludrine. He had enrolled himself in an immersion language course and read Collis, Orwell and Maugham. He wanted to be part of that boom, to help to modernise the country brick by brick, but he hadn’t counted on the heat. From the moment of his arrival in Rangoon it had exhausted him. The dazzling white light had blinded him and the poor hygiene had made him ill. He had contracted bacillary dysentery and spent his second month in bed. His girlfriend had cancelled her visit. His methodical organisation had uncoiled.

Having reached this most extraordinary country, Louis began to pine for the familiar, to look for signposts which would help him to orient himself. He rarely strayed from the building site and his company villa. He ate Welsh rarebit in the British Club rather than ginger soup on Anawrahta Street. His weekends were spent in shady rooms reading other travellers’ tales. He lived apart from the city, until his urgent hunger, stoked by the scalding climate, drove him in search of company. The few women at the British Club were all attached or unavailable to a transient, so his eyes turned to the Burmese. It was all so easy, he told himself. His relative wealth, and their lack of liberty, gave him power. In them he found the reassurance of the familiar, yet grasped their gentle difference: taut breasts, slim hips, supple hands and a lightness of movement that reminded him of birds fluttering in a cage. No one, not his accommodating hosts or their irresponsible government, cared to stop him.

On her knees, her back towards him, Ni Ni bent forward in supplication, and touched her copper-brown forehead to the cool white marble. Louis was gripped by the desire to possess her.

The child returned to his side. ‘The Buddhist comes to the pagoda to rejoice in the good deeds of others,’ she ventured, trying in her way to thank him. ‘And in one’s own fortune to be able to do good deeds.’

‘Do you know Somerset Maugham?’ he asked. It did not occur to him that she might never have been able to afford a book. ‘He once wrote that Shwedagon was “a sudden hope in the dark night of the soul.” I just remembered that now.’

He took her out to dinner. Ni Ni had never before been to a restaurant, apart from Law San’s noodle stall, and she ate with caution. Louis explained each dish and ingredient to her, guessing at the translation of words that he didn’t know: prawn, mayonnaise, lemon meringue pie. She listened but was hesitant with her own words, speaking only once, and then about Buddhism. She didn’t mention her father. Louis filled the quiet with talk of university, London, central heating and his job. When she reminded him of her need to find work he interrupted her. ‘Please don’t go to Bangkok,’ he said. She leaned forward, willing him to talk, hiding her desperation. ‘Stay here. I will look after you.’ Her manner made her seem eager not to disappoint him.

After the meal, sitting in the dark in his car, he asked her where she lived. Ni Ni was unsure whether to tell him, so he took her home. It was that simple. They were both alone.

His eyesight was so poor that without his glasses he could not see the hand in front of his face. In bed he removed them and caressed her by memory, recalling the bodies of past lovers from Basingstoke and Bassein, hardly knowing the tender presence in his arms. Ni Ni too loved by touch alone, but her fingers trembled with new sensations: a rough graze of stubble, the tension in his thigh, his weight so heavy upon her. All her other senses were numbed. She was the unformed strand of desire, pliable and easy to mould, and Louis shaped her in his great white paws. He wove her slim legs around him, lifted her petite hips towards him and lashed her feather-light sex to his own. At first he took her with gentleness, handling her as another caged bird, whispering soft vows, until the heat and frustration swelled up inside him and he tore deeply into her flesh, making her bite her tongue so as not to cry out. She hid her face in the pillow, muffling her tears, afraid.

Louis knew that Ni Ni was young, very young, and wondered at himself for a moment. He was hard-working, loved by his parents from Berkshire. At home he bought flowers for his grandmother and made donations to Children in Need. His designs favoured open-plan architecture, not the hierarchical structures which set in stone the tentacles of power. He was not at home, but he reasoned that he could still do good. I can help this one, he told himself. I can give her a home, a bed and a start in life. It’s almost an act of charity, he lied, gripping at her pliant flesh. He slipped the pillow aside to kiss the damp eyes.

In all her life Ni Ni had never been praised, never been told that she had done well, yet now his lips were on her nipples, on her stomach, caressing her with charmed words. Louis’s loving overwhelmed her. Its ferment had brought pain, but now he was promising to look after her, to protect her. And though her voice remained stifled by the months of fear, she sensed that her hands should express her gratitude.

‘I think we will move to a cold county,’ he whispered later, his voice pulling her back from the edge of sleep. ‘In the far north, where it never does anything but snow.’

‘Snow?’ she breathed, soft, aching, uncertain.