by Rosanna Ley
‘The road to Mandalay,’ Rosemary said. ‘What happened when you got there?’
Over the past days, weeks, months, they had marched on their own particular road to Mandalay. The war in Europe was long over and yet still their war went on. ‘The Japanese were fanatics,’ he told her. ‘They never knew when they were beaten, would never accept defeat.’ Lawrence and the Gurkhas had passed so many of their dead bodies, the jungle and mangrove swamps were full of them. Men who would not be taken prisoner, who would rather die in the jaws of a marsh crocodile. Men who would not give up. Tough in training and brutal, even to their own.
‘Was the war in Europe still going on?’ Rosemary asked.
‘No, love.’ Lawrence pushed his bowl away. Not that a little thing like that mattered to the Japanese.
He remembered VE day.
‘We were in the jungle when we heard,’ he told her. ‘I’m not sure exactly where, but I bet you I could still find the coordinates on a map.’ It was about 5 a.m. ‘There was a signaller up a tree with an aerial wire picking up the BBC News no less, being relayed through All India Radio, Delhi.’
Rosemary smiled. ‘Incredible.’
It was. All of a sudden the man let out a whoop.
‘Jesus, soldier!’ Lawrence was about to tear him off a strip but he didn’t have a chance.
‘The bloody war’s over,’ the signalman yelled down to them. ‘We’ve done it. It’s only bloody over.’
And then they were all whooping, even Lawrence, and the men went wild, shooting off their rifles towards the direction of the enemy, at random really. Rifles, Brens, mortars, the air was thick with the sound and smoke of gunfire.
Lawrence let it go on for a minute before he realised. ‘Hold up!’ he yelled. ‘Enough!’ They might have won the war in Europe, but this war was still going and they needed the ammo for more important targets.
Even so. It gave them hope and they marched bloody hard that day. They were winning this war too. The welcome drone of the big Dakotas circling in was becoming more frequent, the sight of those planes glittering in the sun as they banked and unleashed their canvas bundles of rations and ammunition into the drop zone, to hit the ground with a resounding thud, bouncing and careering over the paddy field, a few more delicate items fluttering down with the aid of small white parachutes billowing in the breeze. Confidence was returning. They might be weary and mere shadows of their former selves. But the enemy was on the run.
‘And then you reached Mandalay.’ Rosemary took the tray from the bed. She sat down again and held his hand. ‘At last. You got back there.’
‘The outskirts of the city were easy to occupy,’ he said. ‘But Mandalay Hill was built up with brick and concrete buildings and honeycombed by tunnels and passages like you wouldn’t believe.’ He took a thin and rasping breath. His lungs seemed so weak these days. ‘The area outside was open with no cover and the town was surrounded by a moat.’ How big was the enemy’s force in the city? They had little idea.
‘So what did you do?’ She was a quiet listener. She didn’t listen like Eva did, wide-eyed and wondering. She listened calmly; she was taking it all in, as if she wanted to absorb his history.
‘I took a few men and climbed up the city walls by ladder at dusk.’
‘Dad!’
‘I was careful. We did a quick recce of the straight grid of the main streets. Then we saw what had happened.’
‘What was it?’
‘The Japanese had left.’ He patted her hand. ‘They’d deserted Mandalay. In secret.’ But much of the fort was already in ruins; the palace was half-destroyed by artillery fire and the old pavilions had been razed to the ground. The railway station was no more than a charred shell, the lines trailed with the mangled remains of coaches and engines. The streets that had once been full of Burmese people going about their business, market traders, bullock carts, saffron-robed monks begging for food and alms were almost deserted and the shops were empty too. Or bombed.
But despite the devastation, Lawrence had felt something leap inside him. Was it possible? No. She wouldn’t be here. She couldn’t possibly be here, not after so long. She wouldn’t have stayed through it all, she must have set out like so many others for India. She could be a pilgrim, she could be a refugee, she could be dead. Nevertheless, he looked for her everywhere he went.
Some Burmese had remained in the city. And where did their loyalties now lie? It was a complex situation, Lawrence was aware. Some of them had given allegiance when it was demanded, whether to British or Japanese, it hardly mattered; they simply wanted to survive. Others had remained loyal to their British thakins whom they had served for perhaps as long as three generations and whom, Lawrence liked to think, had been fair masters. The hill tribes especially and those living in remote villages near the jungle had helped the Chindits and others hide from the Japanese, given them food and even guided them so that they could accomplish their missions of attacking the enemy routes of communication. Some, indeed, had died for it.
Then again he knew what Maya’s father had believed, that Burma had a right to be independent, that the Japanese effort could justifiably claim Burmese support if it were to rid them of the yoke of imperialism. Perhaps Maya now thought the same. Perhaps she had even nursed Lawrence’s enemy at one of the hospitals the Japanese had set up. Perhaps she’d been forced to. He’d heard that some women had been shot rather than allowed to nurse a British soldier. But he wouldn’t think of that now.
Of course, things hadn’t gone quite the way the new Burmese Independent Army and their supporters had expected. Anybody could see that the Burmese government installed by the Japanese were mere puppets and that the country had exchanged one master for another. Worse, this was a more brutal master, so much so that many Burmese had reverted to their previous loyalties, taking the side of the British once again, helping them finally expel the Japanese from Burmese soil.
Some of those who had stayed had been employed by the Japanese, as stenographers in their civilian offices running trades such as saki and ice-cream making. Lawrence talked to a few people. They’d been treated fairly, they said. The pay was low but had been supplemented by luxuries such as soap. The worst thing by far had been the surprise police raids. Always they were looking for hidden documents and for spies. Had that happened to Maya, Lawrence wondered.
He asked after her. But even those who knew her didn’t know where she had gone.
And they couldn’t hang around. Once Mandalay was taken, it was a race to retake Rangoon before the monsoons started up again. They couldn’t give the Japanese the chance to re-group, they needed to keep up the impetus with the full force of aircraft, trucks and infantry, not risk getting stuck in a swamp in the middle of nowhere with the mozzies and the leeches and no help to hand. So … 300 miles, one road and the Japanese on either side. Afterwards, they called it the mopping up of Southern Burma. They knew they were beaten, but the enemy didn’t recognise the word surrender.
And we made it.
‘Are you tired, Dad?’ she asked him. ‘How about a little nap?’
‘Good idea, love.’ He could hardly keep his eyes open. He’d get up later. No harm done. Because that was just about the end of it. The war, his war, was over.
*
Lawrence returned to Mandalay as soon as he was able, though the post-war demobbing took longer than he’d expected. He hadn’t weighed much more than seven stone when the war ended, but he was getting stronger with every day. He was released from military service and now he could return to his previous employer. Or could he? What was he looking for? Maya? His future?
Two letters had arrived for him c/o the company. One was from Helen.
She couldn’t wait to see him, she wrote. When will you be back? She would count the days, she promised. Every day I think of you. Every night I relive the last time we were together … Lawrence threw the letter to one side. She wanted to remember. He longed to forget. Coward. He had been through this war and never though
t himself that, and yet that was what he was.
How had things changed so little? How come everything – after this war – was exactly the bloody same? He might not wish to remember, but he had made a commitment to her, and wasn’t he supposed to be a man of honour?
Lawrence paced to the other side of the dusty wooden verandah. Had he put down roots here in Burma or had he not? Did he want to return to Dorset? Or could he see himself permanently living here? He looked out over the hot and dusty ground. He was staying with a family he had befriended when he first returned to Mandalay. They had not known Maya and her father, but they were sympathetic to his cause and he had confided in them in part about her. And as for returning to his previous employer … Things were different now, he learned. The company Lawrence had worked for were finished, at least as far as logging in Burma was concerned. There was talk about re-establishment in the forests of Tanganyika and British Guiana, but it wouldn’t be for him. One thing he knew, his work with timber was over. But was his life here over too?
It was dusk and nothing more could be achieved today. He should eat, try to relax, leave his decision till the morning. But … A man of honour. Did a man of honour leave the woman he loved and let himself be seduced by another, a woman who trusted him, whom he thought of more like a sister, for God’s sake? Did a man of honour then marry that woman, a woman he did not love?
‘When you are home,’ Helen had written. ‘Then our life together will truly begin.’
Truly. Truly, it filled him with dread. She had not said how she felt about her father dying, she did not really say what she felt about him. But she had waited for six long years. He owed her.
Even so, today, like every other day, Lawrence walked the streets and looked for Maya. Every day more refugees were returning. And what would he do if she came? He could not answer that question.
The second letter was from his mother.
‘How I have survived this terrible war, I shall never know,’ she wrote. And Lawrence had to smile, for he could hear her voice saying it. ‘But I have and now you must come home.’
Lawrence sighed. Typical black and white. Typical Mother.
‘We need you. The company needs you to rescue it.’
She seemed to have considerable expectations of his skills. How would he rescue the family firm? Lawrence knew nothing about stock broking. He had never cared to know.
And then came the emotional twist she’d always been so good at. ‘You owe it to your father to do this. He and Helen’s father spent their whole lives working for the company’s success.’
Which was true. But did that mean the son had to follow the father? What about the son’s pathway? The son’s destiny? Could he not choose his own?
‘I need you,’ she wrote. ‘I need to see my son again, to see with my own eyes that he is alive and well, before I can believe it.’ On the other hand, how could Lawrence deny her that? It had been seven years.
‘And Helen needs you too. You made a commitment to that girl, Lawrence. I know it. Her father is dead now and you must take his place and look after her. It’s the right thing to do. If you do not return, her heart will be broken.’
Because of course, his mother knew. Lawrence had never been able to hide anything from her. She had known about Maya, or at least that there was someone, on his last leave before the war. She knew her son. She always had, and that was why she had first let him go.
Days went by and Maya did not come. He delayed his return. Weeks passed and still he stayed. He asked after her and her father; no one knew where they were or what had happened to them. So many had got to India and might never return. So many had died in the trying.
He went to the house in Maymyo. It was a depressing visit. The house was still there, but shut up. Perhaps it had been requisitioned during the war, perhaps others had lived there, Lawrence had no idea and no one seemed able or willing to help him. Or perhaps there was no information to pass on. Much of the town had disappeared though, destroyed by bombs, and only a skeleton community remained. How long would it take them to recover, Lawrence wondered. To restore even half of the town’s lush beauty and architectural grandeur? Nature would recover in time, but most of those buildings were lost and now would be lost forever.
He stayed for three days at Pine Rise, his old place of refuge, which had also survived the bombings, bar some damage to one side of the house and shattered windows and doors. And he remembered that last time he’d been there in March 1942, just before he was called up for action. He remembered a perfect day with Maya when she had given him the gift of the little chinthe, he remembered the photograph that one of the lads had taken. He remembered that last evening in the club, it was crowded because you could still get whisky there, when you couldn’t in the shops. It was rationed though, they filled a glass barrel early every evening to limit the supply. Otherwise you’d hardly know there was a war on: there was still dancing at the club and even strawberries and cream for tea. And he remembered saying goodbye to the woman he loved.
But now he could stay no longer. If Maya were still alive and still in Burma, she would have come to Maymyo if not to Mandalay as they had agreed. He had to face it. He had lost her. And perhaps it was for the best.
Lawrence booked his passage. Another three weeks passed and still she had not returned to Mandalay. He tucked the little chinthe in his travelling bag. He’d keep a part of her though. He’d always keep a part of her.
He wrote to his mother and he wrote to Helen. He had no choice.
‘I’m coming home.’
CHAPTER 47
They had lunch with Cho Suu Kyi, a clear soup with herbs and leaves followed by Pa Zun Thoke, salad with prawns. Maya was resting, Suu told them.
Eva made the most of her time with her, encouraging Suu to talk about her childhood and her life in Myanmar. Maya was linked to her grandfather by their love. But Cho Suu Kyi was actually related to Eva. She was her Auntie, well, half-Auntie, if such a thing existed.
She was just a baby and so did not remember the war, she said, though her mother had told her some stories. ‘But after the war, I was happy.’ Her expression was serene. ‘Before my mother’s marriage, we lived with my grandfather.’ And it was clear that this arrangement had suited everyone. The family were not as well off as they had been before the war, but Maya’s father had resumed his business interests as a broker in the rice industry and Maya brought in some money by doing fine embroidery work, a skill she had developed before she even met Lawrence and which she was able to pick up again after the war. They managed well enough to keep both a modest house in Mandalay and retain the one in Maymyo, which Eva, and her grandfather before her, had visited.
‘We have some pieces of my mother’s work here in the house.’ They had finished lunch and Cho Suu Kyi got up to show Eva a vibrant embroidered silk tapestry in silver, gold and red threaded silk on a background of black velvet, which had been framed and hung on the wall. It was of a golden temple with two silver chinthes guarding the gate, their eyes red as rubies. And it was the work of the same skilled needlewoman who had embroidered the dragon tapestry in Ramon’s quarters, Eva realised.
‘And there is the quilt. You must see the quilt.’ Cho Suu Kyi went to fetch it. It was sewn from multi-coloured patchwork squares, each one having an image from Myanmar embroidered within: there was a ruby of course, a golden temple, an orchid and a chinthe, to name but a few.
Eva fingered the delicate material. ‘It’s very fine,’ she said. And it must have taken a long time to finish. But she wasn’t surprised. Maya’s patience was etched on her face and Suu, her daughter, had the same look about her. Not for the first time, Eva wondered if it was their religion, their upbringing or their character that gave them such a sense of acceptance and peace. She thought of her own life back in the UK, of her grandfather, who was becoming so old and frail, and of the Emporium. Whatever was going on there, did she want to spend the rest of her working life following other people’s rules? Or did she
want to work for herself, find her own pathway? Eva thought of Sagaing and the enlightenment people sought by going there. She needed to recapture her dream, the dream that had inspired her to do her degree in the first place, the dream that was about the scent of teak wood and the history of past lives.
Suu nodded with enthusiasm. ‘Even now, my mother works most days for an hour or two,’ she said. ‘She says that her work gives her purpose and pleasure. She would not like that to end.’ She smiled. ‘But she often asks one of the young ones to thread the needle.’
Eva smiled too. How different would Maya’s life have been if she had remained with Eva’s grandfather? She didn’t know. She just couldn’t imagine it. But the fact that Maya could still undertake such work was a testament to her health, as well as her ability. She was not the kind of woman who would ever give up. So why had she given up on Eva’s grandfather? Or had he given up on her? Eva was determined to find out.
‘And then my mother met Ramon’s grandfather.’ Cho Suu Kyi put a hand on Ramon’s arm. ‘And he made her happy, I know.’
Ramon’s Burmese grandfather, Eva discovered, had a small but successful business managing a tobacco factory, and it was clear that he had been more than willing to take on Cho Suu Kyi as his own.
Eva couldn’t help thinking that perhaps Maya had enjoyed a more fulfilled personal life than her grandfather had had in England. He had never said a word against her grandmother to Eva, but there had always seemed to be something missing. Maya might have married primarily for the security of herself and her daughter, but she had married a good man and it had clearly developed into a rewarding kind of love. Eva was glad. And she was sure that her grandfather would be glad too.
‘And they had a daughter,’ Suu continued. ‘Ramon’s mother.’ One of the younger girls had brought tea and now she poured the stream of green-gold liquid into the tiny porcelain cups with no handles.
