Marla spits her rejoinder. “She did, actually, earlier that week.” She and Anita are friends.
“But she didn’t change hotels once those intense days began. There just wasn’t time. We were running around all day long.”
“And look what happened to her.”
“Do you mean that the arrest and interrogation were her own fault? Because she stayed in the same hotel for a few days? If the military intelligence agents in Rangoon decide to pick up a tall blond foreign woman who’s been meeting with Burmese people, obviously they will find a way to do it, no matter where she’s staying.”
Her eyes narrow. “Do you know what else they do?” Her voice cuts loud and sharp through the coffee shop. Several Thai patrons look up. “Do you have any idea?”
I don’t reply. Marla’s fury doesn’t make sense. Is she angry that she wasn’t in Rangoon when the protests took place? After years of filming in Burma and on the Thai-Burma border, she missed recording some of the most significant political events of the past decade.
“Well, do you? I’ll tell you. The MI agents also intimidate and extort guesthouse owners when the ‘wrong’ sorts of foreigners are staying there. That’s what they did to the owners of the guesthouse where you stayed. Personal friends of mine! Who knows how much money they lost.”
I am shocked. “How do you know this?”
“I was told.”
“Who told you?”
“A contact. I think you already know more than you should.”
That comment hits its mark. I don’t reply.
“If you had changed guesthouses like I’d told you to, they would have been safe.”
“But … if I’d been staying elsewhere those guesthouse owners might have been harassed. The MI harasses whoever it wants to. The way you’ve explained this makes it sound as if I’m the enemy.”
She crosses her arms. “I didn’t say you were the enemy. I just said you were indiscreet.” She fixes me with a hard blue stare. “Not everything, not every experience, is for the artist’s palette. You are not allowed to use everything.”
My mouth dries up; there’s no debating juice left. She wins. I am not allowed to use everything. What does that mean? She knew that I went to Burma to gather material—at least for a few articles.
In order to part, we have to speak to each other. Which means that I need to get my voice past the rock in my throat. How do I respond to Marla the avenger?
I bow my head and mumble, “I don’t intend to use everything. I won’t.” I stop myself from adding the obsequious phrase “I promise,” but it’s burning my mouth like acid.
After a week of self-loathing, I give up and begin to feel less guilty. I make a few phone calls to people in Bangkok and Chiang Mai, lightly fishing, trying to find out who in the NGO-activist community recently stayed at the guesthouse. No one. Who could have given Marla that information? She didn’t just call the guesthouse owner. By her own account, she hasn’t taken the risk of phoning Rangoon.
Not knowing why I’m asking about who’s been in Burma, someone gives me the number of a young American woman who will be going. Next week. She has spent a year working in a Karen refugee camp and plans to visit the relatives of some of the people she worked with, to deliver photographs and a small sum of money. Which gives me an idea. I ask her if she’ll take two hundred U.S. dollars to the guesthouse. It’s a significant sum of money for me and a large one for a Burmese family. Hopefully, it will cover the money they lost through the MI extortion.*
But I’m still smarting from Marla’s reprimand. I call Charlie, a Kiwi filmmaker who lives in Chiang Mai. Charlie is famous in Burmese circles for her films about the revolutionary student-led army, the SLORC’s campaign against ethnic people, the tragedy of the child soldiers who work on both sides of the civil war. We met at a party in Bangkok and laughed a lot. I asked if I could call her with questions about border life. She’s been everywhere, met the ethnic leaders, lived in the camps.
Though I’m embarrassed to ring her just because my ego is smarting, she responds with a clear-water accent and a raucous cry: “Welcome to the snake pit!” Her voice through the phone makes me see her: the striking sun-lined face and the sharp blue eyes, thick blond hair pulled back in a ponytail, the slash of lipstick on a mouth that is often open. She is a force.
“We whiteys are very territorial. You’d better get used to it. It’s a touchy thing, because we know the Burmese struggle isn’t our own, but for those of us who’ve been part of it for a long time it feels like it is. So people are very protective. But sometimes we take political events too personally. Hazard of the job. The thing to remember is that we are all on the same side, you know? We can’t let the SLORC make us into enemies. That would give them too much satisfaction.”
I want to crow self-righteously that that is exactly what I said to Marla, but I continue doodling on my notepad.
“Listen, to take the sting out you should come to the Christmas party. A bunch of the guys’ll be in from Mae Sot and Mae Sarieng—they’ll be people from the camps. You’ll get to meet everybody—ABSDF, DPNS, NCGUB, some NGOs. We’ll sing and get drunk and feel like utter shit the next day. It’ll be lovely.”
*In 2001, on a return trip to Burma, I found out directly from the guesthouse owner that he hadn’t been extorted by the MI after my stay. He kept some of the money I’d sent and donated the rest to a charity.
CHAPTER 16
THE STRING BREAKS
I surrender. I give up on the Chiang Mai Christmas party.
After an hour of wandering around in a dark, dog-infested maze, I can’t find the damn house. Twice I’ve gone back down the hill to Huay Kaeo Road and started out again—up, right, past a row of shops, two lefts. But the directions don’t work. They only bring me closer to the temple and monastery at the top of the hill, with the lights of the inhabited houses winking derisively below me.
Under a lone streetlight, I pick up broken chunks of brick—ammunition against the nastier stray dogs—and start back down the hill. A street over, a pack of mutts begins to yip, “Thai-Thai-Thai-Thai-land!” and howl “has-a-very-hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh-incidence-of-rabieeeeeeees!” People tell me that it is because of Buddhism that there are so many stray dogs in Thailand: no one wants to kill an innocent animal. The dogs, however, eschew the Buddhist precepts. Tonight several of them have growled and raised their hackles at me. I wish I had a big stick.
The numbers on the gates make beyond-quantum leaps—32/121, then 47/223, followed by 64/3. It’s like obscure wartime code: 54/125. None of these puzzling numbers are the same as the one on the piece of paper below the chunks of brick in my pocket.
Forget it. I’ll return to my hotel and have a few screwdrivers in the lounge, where a heavily made-up Thai lady sings to loud synthesized music, crooning for the benefit of Thai and foreign men who lovingly nurse glasses of whiskey. I’ll make some notes on Culture.
All at once, the dogs cease their menacing chorus.
And I hear, distantly, the strumming of an out-of-tune guitar.
The guitar is old, its varnish worn away to raw wood. In my hand is a large glass of atrocious wine. My second, or third. Which I am drinking quickly, surrounded by perhaps one hundred other fast drinkers, mostly Burmese men, some Burmese women, and a handful of white people, the majority of whom I’ve never met, though Marla is here, and back to normal.
When I first walked through the gate an hour ago, she greeted me warmly, led me to a table laden with alcohol and scoured of food, and introduced me to a dozen people: “Here’s the Canadian writer I’ve been telling you about.” Not a word about my vampire palette.
Smiling, drunken faces turned to me. One man made a small bow. “Oh, a writer,” he said. “What a pleasure to meet you.” Then his comrades elbowed him out of the way and started interviewing me about my work. People asked about my time in Burma, the recent protests, my favorite writers, and my goal.
“My goal?”
The one who asked the
question clarified, “Is your goal to write a book about our country?”
“Well. Yes. Yes, it is.”
“Then we will help you in any way we can. I promise, we will. But please, not tonight. Tonight is a rare occasion. We are having a party!”
At that, we laughed and crushed our plastic glasses together.
“The A string on this guitar,” the strummer announces to his swilling, milling audience, “has broken twelve times.” A dozen people stand around, waiting for him to fix the problem, tune up, and play. I recognize their desire from other places, other countries: the collective tension of those who want to sing.
I have my suspicions about the guitar. It called me here with its dreamy burr but has not yet produced any real music. Soon after I arrived, the A string broke. Someone jumped on a motorcycle and rumbled off to find another one, which has been presented to the dapper man who’s holding the instrument in his arms.
I stand in the small crowd, trying to sort out the names I’ve heard in the past hour. The names of individuals are a challenge; the names of political parties and organizations are easier because they’re in English. I get out my notebook and scribble them down:
ABSDF: All Burma Students’ Democratic Front
DPNS: Democratic Party for a New Society
NCGUB: National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma
NLD-LA: National League for Democracy—Liberated Area
DAB: Democratic Alliance of Burma
That’s just a few. The friendly young men of these and other organizations have placed their cards in my hands. The more I drink, the more difficult the names get. Back at the booze table, I think about prudently switching to soda water but fill my glass with liquid the color of oxblood; the nose is armpit and putrid cherry. Why stop now?
• • •
There is something inherently pathetic about writing in a notebook at a party. But the scuffed book is my protection, my loyal companion. I talk with some of the partygoers, jotting facts as I learn them. The Democratic Party for a New Society was formed by students in Burma during the nationwide protests against the SLORC in 1988. While the DPNS is important, it’s not as big as the All Burma Students Democratic Front, which split into two groups a couple of years ago, though both groups use the same name. The ABSDF, both sections, is the most militant group of former university students. After the SLORC violently crushed the ’88 demonstrations, these brave young men and women left Burma to become revolutionaries. Both the DPNS and the ABSDF are closely allied with, and were trained in the jungle by, the Karen, the Karenni, and other ethnic armies that have been fighting different incarnations of the Burmese central government for fifty years. Some of these ethnic groups, and the student organizations, have military camps in the jungle up and down the border.
Though I have to do more research to establish the accuracy of the following claim, my observations suggest that the men of the ABSDF, both factions, are the best-looking. The most beautiful man here—aquiline features, an elegant mustache, a gracefully erect bearing—has just introduced himself, unsurprisingly, as a member of the ABSDF. Through one of those little genetic twists that connect strangers half a world away, he bears a striking resemblance to a Mexican composer I once knew; they could be brothers.
When he sees me glance at his cane, he answers my unasked question. “I was injured during the Manerplaw offensive. Now”—he smiles, thereby exponentially increasing his handsomeness—“I am a retired guerrilla.” He offers a practiced laugh; this is what he says to all the curious white people.
The 1995 fall of Manerplaw was a decisive, disastrous loss for the revolutionary and ethnic forces fighting against the SLORC. The fortress-like headquarters of the Karen National Union, which were also the headquarters of the ABSDF, were attacked and destroyed by the Burmese military. “A mine exploded,” the retired guerrilla continues. “But I did not die. Obviously.” He takes a contemplative drag of his cheroot. We listen to more dissonant twanging. The guitar player has finally pulled the new string up over the frets and threaded it through the tuning peg.
When I tell the ex-guerrilla my name, he nods. “Yes, I know. It’s like the ethnic group. You are the writer. I am happy to meet you. I hope we will talk later, but now, I’m sorry, I will sit down for a few minutes.” Leaning heavily on his cane, he calls out to some friends, joins them at a table, cups his hands around a candle.
The warm glow reminds me how chilled I am. I stuff my stiff hands into pockets full of political name cards and brick dust. I’ll wait five more minutes. If there’s still no music, I’m going into the house.
A man behind me says to the guitarist, “We are getting old, waiting for you.” The guitarist responds by putting down the guitar and lighting a cheroot. He mutters something in Burmese.
Looking over my shoulder, I ask, “What did he say?”
“He said I’m getting old anyway, whether I wait for him or not.” The man takes a step forward to stand beside me. He turns himself in my direction. Full lips offer me a wet, sexual smile.
I ask, “Are you a member of ABSDF?”
The smile doesn’t change as he steps closer and answers, “Yes, I am.”
“I am not surprised.”
“No? Why not?”
We’ve been staring at each other gamely throughout this exchange. Finally I have to look away—I never win staring contests—but I do manage a straight-faced response. “Because the members of ABSDF tend to be quite handsome.”
He doesn’t miss a beat. “That was part of the recruiting process.”
“Really?”
He nods. “No ugly men allowed. Like Canadian writers. All very beautiful.”
I try to keep a huge grin from opening my face. I fail. I cannot believe that the news of my presence has traveled so fast through such a big party. It’s a disconcerting form of flattery.
“I am pleased to meet you,” says the ABSDF man.
He puts out his hand and I shake it, surprised by how warm he is.
“You are very cold,” he exclaims, and puts his other hot hand over mine. This is too forward a gesture for me, and for most Burmese men, at least in my limited experience. Maybe he is the revolutionary movement’s number-one bad boy. I slide my hand out of his with impeccable timing.
Because the guitar player has begun to play.
Song rises up like sparks from a fire. People come carrying candles, shoulders shrugging off the cold. Many of them are not as young as I thought but well into their thirties, early forties—a group of men and women growing older near the border, as the guitarist said. What an exile they’ve had, these onetime university students who walked into the jungle to become revolutionaries. In the early years, dozens of them died of malaria, snakebite, battle wounds. But these ones survived.
I don’t know what the words of the song mean, but I know the people sing them to go home. Music is a vehicle that traverses every terrain, carries over oceans, through air, across time. This is a song they have sung for years. The guitar is not that bad; the new A string holds. The player’s fingers spider easily from one chord to another, accomplishing the slow rise and sudden drop of the melody, then the bridge when the chorus becomes something new, the place where most voices would drift off, unsure of the key change. But these singers know every word and how it rests in the music.
When the first song is finished, the guitarist noodles around until he works his way into another tune, and the voices move again. The next song is familiar, though I can’t remember the American band that sings it. Sounds like the Eagles, but not quite.
The flirtatious man beside me has been singing, bass voice thick with alcohol but serious. Now he cants his head close to mine and whispers, “Do you know the song?”
“‘Dust in the Wind.’”
“This is a different song using the same music. A revolutionary song.” People sing it with growing intensity. He translates the song haltingly:
Oh brothers, our people’s blood on the asph
alt road has not yet dried
Don’t be shocked, honor the martyrs who died for democracy
Keep fighting for our true revolution.
I watch the faces. Everyone is either singing or listening quietly.
I wonder if this means the party’s over, literally on a sad note, but I underestimate the partygoers and their appetites. The guitar player lets a moment of silence settle between his last song and his next, which is, my translator explains, “a touching love song.” People sing their hearts out again, but with ease and some mock crooning. After another song, someone makes an announcement in Burmese and everyone begins to walk toward the house. My translator stands directly behind me, and walks close to me as I follow the group up the terrace steps into the living room, where perhaps fifty people are crammed together on the parquet floor. When I sit down, he sits next to me. We’re both cross-legged; our knees touch. When he lets his hand rest on his knee, his knuckle brushes my leg.
Candles flicker on the staircase, lighting the room. Someone turns on traditional Burmese music and a man descends the stairs. He wears a stunning Burmese dancing dress, with a tight bodice and flowing bits of material and sequins sewn along the seams and hem. After he gives a graceful bow, a young woman approaches him and lights the candles he holds in his palms. He begins with elegant, highly stylized movements.
The man sitting close to me whispers into my ear, “In the traditional dance, the woman holds small oil lamps.”
“Why is a man dancing?”
“Because there are not so many women here, and they are shy. This man dances because he loves the music. As you see, he knows the steps.”
Burmese mandolin sweeps beneath xylophone and drums, finger cymbals open and close. The dancer cups the candles in his hands while weaving his arms around his torso. He goes down on one knee, the other. Then, birdlike, he lifts his arms and rises again. His upper arms extend straight from the shoulder and the elbows bend downward like a marionette’s. Wrists swivel toward his body then away, toward the audience. The lights flare out toward us. His body plummets again, but never once do the candles gutter, proving his expertise. He ignores the spill and splash of hot wax. The flames light his face and glow through the skin of his fingertips.
Burmese Lessons Page 11
