by David Dagley
“No.”
“Do you have a girlfriend?”
“Not right now, but I’m working on it.” Cale began eating his soup.
The woman smiled, raised her eyebrows, and suggested, “Perhaps we should change subjects again.”
Cale smiled, “No. I don’t mind. It’s a short topic anyway. I have been having trouble with my work, and it has led me in many directions—none of them towards a lasting relationship”
“I’m sorry for you.”
“I’m not. There’s still hope. I met a woman here in your country that is very intriguing and beautiful, but I hardly know her. There’s another woman I work with to whom I’m attracted, but right now is not the right time.”
“Why not?”
“She’s my boss.”
The woman laughed, “You’re a regular playboy, and you cannot commit. I see that now,” she said jokingly.
Cale finished his soup and felt the chill of the night temporarily abate from his body. “The soup was very nice. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, my pleasure.” The woman got up and cleared Cale’s dishes. She returned to wipe down the table and asked, “What is it that you do at home?”
“I’m a police officer.”
The woman laughed again and replied, “Our conversation has been so short and yet we managed to make a circle. Maybe we should try this some other day.”
“I would like that, but I’ll be leaving tomorrow.”
“Some other time then. Good night.”
“Good night. Cale drained his glass and left ample money on her table to cover his food and the soldiers’ drinks. He walked out into the darkness between streetlamps before they sputtered and went out. He walked another mile in almost complete darkness. Cale got within a couple hundred yards of the guest house when he heard a great ruckus across the street. Many youths had gathered to listen to the latest pop rock or local rock band on a tape player with the volume up on maximum. The noise continued into the early hours of the morning and died down just before the soldiers began their morning routine.
The sun broke over a distant ridge beyond a town known as Hsipaw. Cale had put on all the clothes he had before leaving the guest house for the train station.
A weathered elderly man wearing an army-issue sweater vest over a cream-colored button-down shirt and a brown and green plaid loungyi introduced himself as Cale got out of a taxi at the train station, “Good morning, sir. Are you going towards Lashio this morning?”
Cale recognized a light Indian accent and replied, “Yes. Is there another train going somewhere else?”
“No. Let me help you get in the correct car. Do you have a ticket, or will you need to purchase one this morning?”
“I’ll be buying one.”
“Follow me, please, sir, and I will show you to the ticket counter. You look cold. There is a small pastry shop here with very hot tea. Perhaps you would like to sit there after you buy your ticket and have a light breakfast and some hot Shan tea while you wait for the train to arrive. I highly recommend it.”
After Cale bought his ticket, the man led him through the morning station bustle and into the small shop where they sat across from one another.
The man sat down where he could see past Cale and look out the window in case any other foreigners showed up. “I will help you get on the right car, first class. I help all the tourists at this station.”
“Is that your job?” Cale asked before biting into a slightly warm flake pastry.
“Yes. The government would like you all to stick together and not mix with the local people so much.”
Cale drank from his cup of tea. The tea burned his entire tongue, and the roof of his mouth blistered and peeled instantly. His taste buds went into shock.
Ignoring Cale’s pain, the man explained, “My father used to work at this station when I was young, when the British were here. He was the station master.” He pointed at the tracks, “Do you see the tracks? The gauge of the tracks is narrower than the track in America today. I believe America experimented with many gauges and decided bigger is better.” The man stretched his neck and raised his head to look at a taxi arriving.
Cale looked over his shoulder as the man across from him became distracted. The taxi drove into the parking area, and a pair of foreigners got out and began pulling on their bags when the man got up, “Excuse me, I need to help these people to get on the train. If you wait here, I will help all of you get on the right car when it arrives.”
“Thank you. I’m sure I can manage.” Cale tried another bite of pastry, but his mouth was highly sensitive, and the pastry took on the texture of sandpaper.
When the train pulled up the tracks, Cale only saw one car marked first class, and he got on it and picked a seat two rows from the door. The bench seats faced each other. While Cale was getting settled in, the Indian gentlemen carried a backpack onto the train from the other end of the car, followed by a young woman and a man carrying his own bag.
As the train picked up speed, the first class car began to sway, sliding Cale a foot in each direction on his bench, partially covered by torn foam and ripped green plastic. The trip was supposed to take five hours to get to Hsipaw town. At noon the train hadn’t gone a quarter of the way. The train stopped for a down-bound train running on the same tracks at one point. Cale’s train sat on a set of side tracks for two hours before the other train passed. When Cale saw the down-bound train, there was an engine, a train car hoist, a flatbed carrying a smashed first-class car on its side, and a caboose. The train car had been smashed in at one end, and leaves and dirt were stuffed in the rain gutters on the edge of the rounded, cream-colored roof rails. Cale noticed that the plants and leaves weren’t even limp yet. An hour later Cale’s train slowed to a crawl as it went over a military station at the edge of a vast gorge.
Cale asked one of the boys who worked on the train, “What’s going on?”
The boy responded, “Bridge. We must go slowly.”
“Why?”
“Old British bridge. Not strong.” The boy moved his hands and his knees in opposite directions, simulating balance and motion.
The train crawled over the bridge that was built by the British during their stay. Metal fatigue was apparent to Cale, and it produced a particular sway to the bridge itself.
Cale tried to take a picture of the gorge out his window, but one of the train boys put his hand in front of Cale’s camera and said, “No photo, sorry.”
“Why not?”
“Military station.” The boy pointed down under the south-west end of the bridge.
“So?”
“No photo!”
The train crossed, and went though a series of tunnels, then stopped again. A half hour passed before the train started going backwards all the way across the bridge. Another down-bound train pulled up and stopped adjacent to Cale’s train. People got off of both trains and stretched their legs between the parallel tracks. Vendors wandered through the growing crowd. Cale still couldn’t taste anything, so he stuck with bottled water and stood between the trains with everybody else.
An Englishman got out of the down-bound first-class car, walked up to Cale and asked, “Got a light?”
“Yeah.” Cale reached into his pocket, pulled out a lighter, handed it to the Englishman, and asked, “Where are you coming from?”
The Englishman lit his cigarette and said, “Lashio. I wanted to see the Chinese mafia in action, you know—smuggling, road blocks, and bribery. It was brilliant. The government in this country is so engrossed in making money for the military, and it doesn’t care how. The ‘lining of the pockets’ is a part of the Burmese way of compensating for the strict government policies set forth in Rangoon, or wherever they moved their headquarters this time. It’s really quite fascinating.” The Englishman was at the edge of nicotine withdrawal and pulled deeply on his Rothman blue.
Cale became aware of a crowd of Burmese, Indians, and hill tribesmen surrounding them, listen
ing and watching them intently. “Can you tell me what you saw that was so fascinating?”
The Englishman drew long on his cigarette again and exhaled, “I went to one of these roadblocks, a few kilometers from the border, where goods are being checked through to China. One of many vehicles comes up the road—let’s say a truck. The driver of a truck pulls over and parks out of sight of the guards at the checkpoint and walks up to a roadblock guard to discuss what he’s carrying. If the driver can pay the fee, he can go through. If he can’t pay or doesn’t want to pay, the driver simply goes back to his truck, turns around, and goes home to try another day when the price might be more reasonable or there aren’t as many high-ranking military personnel about.” The Englishman powered down the rest of his cigarette and continued, “After the essential greetings, the conversation goes something like this, for example;
‘Would today be a good day to go through this check point?’
‘What are you carrying?’
‘Eight garden hoes, twenty thatch baskets, two barrels of Mobile petrol, seven new pairs of New Balance shoes, nine bricks of morphine, eight stuffed dolls, three Honda carburetors, two cases of Johnny Walker Black, and a rack of color jet ink for Compaq computer printers.’
‘Three hundred kyat.’
‘But sir, I have two more checkpoints to go through. At that price I will not be able to profit to feed my family and pay for the petrol. Is there a possibility we could bring your fee down to one hundred kyat, so I will have money for the next two checkpoints?’
‘One hundred kyat, okay.’
“The driver goes back to his truck, drives up to pay the guard, and drives through without actually being checked in many cases. No one knows what’s really on the trucks. I have watched the money change hands, and I’ve watched the drivers and their trucks, many trucks. Could I get another light?”
Cale reached for his lighter again and handed it to the Englishman, “Keep it. I’ve got another.”
A whistle blew somewhere. Cale and the Englishman shook hands and got back on their respective trains. As Cale found his seat and noticed different people sitting around him on the nearby benches. Before the train stopped, there was a man in a blue checkered loungyi sitting on the adjacent bench, but now there were three military men and a forth in a white shirt and black pants. The man in the blue loungyi was standing behind them, smoking a cheroot. They all knew each other. Cale realized they were Tatmandaw, both plainclothes and uniformed. The next thing Cale became aware of was a rope that he followed with his eyes. It was tightly tied to the bench. The rope went behind a soldier sitting in the isle seat to a leather collar around another man’s neck. From his neck, the rope ran down his back to tightly bound, discolored hands. The rope was fastened in such a way that it also restricted both biceps into chicken wings. Cale looked at the prisoners’ face. His face was discolored—not tan and not red, but a sickly shade of pale green. His eyes were wide open, and his sable pupils wavered unsteadily. His mouth was swollen and bleeding from both corners. He was drenched in anguish and despondent like a man about to die.
A soldier saw Cale looking but calmly sat and looked out the window. The man in the blue checkered loungyi spoke to the prisoner, who did not make any eye contact with his captors. Cale looked around the car and saw Tatmandaw sitting behind him and on the bench facing him. Even the boys working the train were in good with these men. For the next three hours Cale witnessed the soldiers and the plainclothes man taunt and threaten the prisoner in front of all the civilians on the train. The police slapped him, pulled his hair, tightened his bonds, and shoved cheroots in his mouth, trying to keep him awake. The man in the blue loungyi repeatedly lit the prisoner’s cheroot, but it went out in his mouth. The man relentlessly kept relighting the cheroot, and it kept going out. A fat man in green fatigues came down the isle from behind Cale. He brought with him a young soldier boy, no more than sixteen, who was ordered to guard the prisoner. The boy stood petrified in the aisle, pointing his gun at the prisoner. The muzzle of the gun was no more than a few inches from the side of the prisoner’s face. The soldier boy was scared and sweating as much as the prisoner. Some time passed while the officers all talked and laughed amongst themselves. Spontaneously, the cartridge of the boy’s gun fell out on the floor of the rail car and slid under the prisoner’s feet with the sway of the train. The boy panicked and quickly bent over to pick up the cartridge while another soldier kicked him in the back, launching him into the adjacent soldiers. The soldiers slapped the boy in the face and hit him on the head while pushing him upright. Cale’s end of the train car erupted into hysteria and confusion. The officers barked at the boy and at each other as the boy replaced his cartridge. The prisoner’s black eyes met Cale’s. His face contorted in pain as he twisted to show Cale his bonds. The prisoner arched his back away from the bench and his knots for a moment, searching in vain for relief. The prisoner’s eyes remained fixed on Cale while the soldiers continued to bicker and point fingers at each other. The train boys played up to the Tatmandaw, trying to diffuse the situation. A woman sitting with the train boys turned her head out the window in disgust, visibly upset with what was happening.
The whole car of passengers watched as the officers pushed the boy aside then began hitting the prisoner with their fists, and an older guard pressed the muzzle of the gun forcefully against the prisoner’s cheek. More officers came down from behind Cale. It was getting crowded. Cale watched as the prisoner was repeatedly hit and his hair pulled over the top of his head, stretching his neck; he was yelled at and kept awake for the next six hours. A weak confession followed. Everybody was asked to move to the far end of the car, including Cale. Cale was escorted to the far end of the car with everyone else. He could easily see over their heads as the guards untied the prisoner only to have his face smashed into the bench in front of him then retied chicken-wing fashion. The soldiers took off the majority of the prisoner’s clothes and knowingly searched what they could. Eventually, after the guards were satisfied with humiliating the prisoner and finding nothing in his clothing, they left him alone, and everybody was able to sit back down. Cale was brought back to his seat by one of the Tatmandaw as the train began to slow down. A plainclothes officer sat in front of Cale, pointed his gun at the prisoner, and pretended to pull the trigger. He looked at Cale and said, “These bullets are for him.”
The train stopped, and everybody got off to get something to eat and stretch their legs. It was dark with no moon. Cale could see no lights indicating a town. The only lights were those of the vendors scurrying around with flashlights, selling their pastries, nuts, and sweets. Cale had no idea where he was, but he was not going to get back on that train. He found a dirt road and followed it in absolute darkness. He walked away from the noise of the train and vendors until he couldn’t hear it anymore. He glanced over his shoulder only to see a penlight following him down the road. Cale quickened his pace for half a mile before he surrendered and stopped to wait. The penlight flashed at him momentarily and then back to the ground. In the dim light of the pen, Cale could see two sets of feet in sandals. Cale relaxed a bit, and his heart slowed to normal.
As the penlight approached, a man’s voice softly exclaimed, “Was that a trip or what?”
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Cale responded. He could see them more clearly now. It was the other two foreigners who got on the train in Mam myo. The young man was slim with a dishwater blonde crew cut. He had a silver staple in his eyebrow and wore multicolored striped pants and a grungy yellow t-shirt. Tattoos crept out from under his short sleeves. He was traveling with a short, brown, curly haired woman with dark eyes. She wore burgundy fisherman’s pants, an off-white blouse, and a gray cotton vest with a black inside liner. The side of her nose sparkled with a small diamond stud.
The woman said, “We were sitting mid-coach behind you on the opposite side. You were right in the thick of it.”
Cale responded, “Believe me, I wanted to move, but I th
ink our presence was better for the prisoner than if we weren’t there. Where are we?”
“This should be Hsipaw,” said the young man.
“Are we headed in the right direction, towards town?” Cale asked.
“I hope so. We went the other way first, and it was a dead end within a hundred meters,” said the woman as she shifted her backpack with a lurch from one shoulder to the other. “There are supposed to be some really cheap accommodations between here and the center of town. That’s what I was told anyway, if you don’t mind something a little illegal.”
“Anything at this point.”
The three of them began walking down the middle of the deserted street.
“My name is Ian, and this is Sandra.”
“Hi. My name is Cale. Are you both Canadian?”
“Yep. And you?”
“U.S.”
“Which part?”
“West Coast. And you?”
“Whistler.”
“Nice place to ski. Hey, did either of you see any other foreigners on the train with us?” asked Cale.
Sandra explained, “Yeah, we met a guy named David Johnson, an Englishman. He said he was going to stay on at least as long as the prisoner did. We’re going to try and meet up with him in Mandalay in a week and find out what happened. I also want some of his photos from the bridge. While the train boy was telling you not to take photos, David zipped off a whole roll of the gorge and the military station below. When the train stopped and started going backwards, he thought he was busted. He was shooting pictures when we went by one of the guard towers on the bridge.”
Cale could barely make out Sandra’s raised eyebrows and devilish smile.
The three walked quietly until they met a man staggering around singing out to no one in particular. He escorted them a few blocks and began singing up to a second-floor window of a building with a drive-through entrance. A light went on, and the man brought Cale and the two Canadians to the front door where they were whisked inside quickly before the woman inside lit into the singer, scolding him for the foolish prospects of being drunk with love and brave with whiskey—all the while bringing attention to the quiet little neighborhood. The rooms were bare bones, two teak cots with no mattresses, surrounded with bug netting to help ward off the mosquitoes carrying malaria. Cale lay his clothes on the cot and was exhausted enough to fall asleep.
