The Lizard Cage

by Karen Connelly

  He gets out when the bus stops near Hledan Junction. Though he rarely takes cabs—they’re much too expensive—tonight he has no choice. He goes from one street corner to the next, asking one cabbie after another if he’s ever heard of Aung Ban Street in Kyee Myin Daing. He doesn’t want to mention the name of the monastery school. Taxi drivers are in an ideal position to work as paid informers, especially in this township, so close to the university and not so far from the prison. Their job combines a handy mobility with plenty of spare time for observation: who’s going into which building, for how long, who stays the night—spending the night in a house not your own is illegal—and, naturally, who’s going where.

  Chit Naing glances at his watch. It’s getting too late to go knocking on any doors, especially those of a monastery. He approaches the last cabbie in the row, a slick young fellow sitting on the hood of his car, showily engaged in pulling a cigarette out of a packet of Lucky Strikes. Upon hearing the name of the street, he asks, “What’s it close to?” Chit Naing replies that he doesn’t know. “Listen, Uncle, if you don’t have a landmark, how can I help you? There are many monasteries and pongyi-kyaung in Kyee Myin Daing, but I’ve never heard of Aung Ban Street.” He lights the cigarette and exhales a smoky suggestion. “If you go over there—see?—up that little road to the second noodle stand, there’s a short, chubby driver named Than Thaik. He just ordered his dinner. The guy’s a walking map—he’ll probably be able to help you. He’s finished for the night, though, so he might not want to take you there.” As Chit Naing begins to walk away, the young man adds, “But if he does, tell him he owes me one!”

  The jailer heads up the noodle stand street, which is very dark save for battery-powered light bulbs hanging over the great sizzling pans of fried noodles. The heady smell of garlic snapping in oil makes his mouth water, but he won’t even think of dinner until he’s either fulfilled or failed at the task before him. He trips on a chunk of cement and swears under his breath. Either there’s a blackout in this particular part of the grid or the entire street has no proper lamps. He curls and uncurls his stubbed toe while scanning the dark tables. A dozen of them are occupied. He approaches the only corpulent body he sees. “Ko Than Thaik?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  The sir throws him for a moment, but perhaps the man is very polite, or impolitely ironic. Chit Naing steps nearer the table and quietly explains himself, naming the township and the street.

  “I do know where it is, yes, indeed I do. There’s a little fabric and odds-and-ends market at one end and a football field at the other. A couple of apartment blocks with shops under ’em. That’s about all there is, sir. It’s a short street. You know what house you’re looking for?”

  Chit Naing smiles tightly. “I do, thank you.”

  “Well, I’d really like to help you, but unfortunately I’m finished working for the day. Been up since four in the morning with some very nice English people. We went to Inle Lake to see the jumping cats. Very interesting what those monks can get a cat to do. Amazing, really. Those cats kind of reminded me of a lot of people I know, jumping on command. Have you seen ’em?”

  “Ah, no. No, I haven’t.” Chit Naing frowns. “I … I would be willing to make it worth your while. I need to get there tonight.”

  “To Inle Lake to check out the jumping cats?” The chubby driver guffaws at his own joke.

  It’s the laugh that makes Chit Naing remember. Everything else about Than Thaik, including his name, has changed. “No, Ko Than Thaik. I need to get to Aung Ban Street. And you will help me, won’t you? In the name of an old friendship?”

  Than Thaik shifts away from the rickety little table, slaps his hands together, and laughs again, deeply, from the belly. “Took you a while to recognize me, didn’t it? No fucking wonder—I’ve gained thirty-five pounds since those vile days. Thirty-five! Just let me finish eating, okay, Jailer Chit Naing? I’m bloody hungry. I’m always bloody hungry. Since the cage, I’ve never worried about being fat, only about starving. Have you eaten yet?” Before Chit Naing can reply, Than Thaik shouts, “Another plate of khauk-swe, Daw Thida, we’re still hungry!” And to Chit Naing, “You didn’t know me at first, eh, but I pegged you right away, as soon as you turned up the street. You’re still thin as a rail and you got the same professor glasses. I recognized you even without your outfit.”

  Chit Naing is caught between feeling great relief at finding the right cabdriver and great consternation at finding the wrong one, a man who knows him well. But he sits down at the table. Two minutes later a plate of fragrant fried noodles is placed before him. Despite his worries, the scent of the steaming food overcomes him and he quickly begins to eat.

  During the drive into Kyee Myin Daing, Than Thaik talks nonstop. Normally this would irritate the tired jailer, but tonight it calms him. He’s relieved that the man isn’t nosy.

  “A couple years after I got out, I stayed on the straight and narrow and my brother got me this job, which isn’t bad. There are perks, you know, especially with the tourists. And I’m married now, to a good woman, and we have two little ones. I thought I was going to be a bachelor forever, but that woman just knocked me off my feet and that was that. I’m a family man, and if I get in trouble now, I’ll have to answer to my wife, which is a frightening thought.” He grins broadly and glances at Chit Naing. “I’m a very lucky man and I know it.

  “After that big fight on the grounds, the Chief Warden wanted to turn the whole lot of us over to the military. We would’ve been sent up as weapons porters to the front line. And everybody knows what happens to those poor fuckers. By now I’d just be a skeleton in the jungle if you hadn’t stepped up for me and talked to him.”

  “I believed you were innocent. Besides, if I remember correctly, you couldn’t have been involved in that fight because you had a bad case of dysentery.”

  “That’s true. I had nothing to do with that business. I really didn’t. But in the cage it doesn’t matter whether you’re innocent or guilty. All that matters is who you know.” He vigorously shakes his head, as if tossing away unhappy memories.

  They’ve pulled onto a quieter street. “We’ll be making a turn at the bottom of this long boulevard,” he says, then points out a few perfectly mundane sights, a habit he’s picked up from driving foreigners around. “And now we just go down here.” Bald tires screech as he brakes for a sharp turn. They cross a larger thoroughfare of shops and restaurants as well as houses and apartment buildings. A few corner tea shops and noodle stands are still serving, but it’s past ten o’clock now and very quiet. He turns onto another little road. It’s a residential district, poor and very old, with banyans and palms and neems shading the roadways. Than Thaik goes left, then right—Chit Naing is trying to keep track—down streets of confused architecture, one-story concrete bungalows mixed in with two- and three-story apartment buildings with shops underneath. Ten minutes away from the main road, Chit Naing has no idea where he is.

  But he suspects they’re very close to their destination, because Than Thaik has slowed down for the first time since they began their journey. Past a boarded-up market empty of wares, the cabbie turns to him and asks, “You do know the number, don’t you, sir, the number of the building?”

  Chit Naing responds, “It’s best if you just let me know where to go from here, Ko Than Thaik.”

  “Oh, but this is it, sir. This is the street.” He smiles. “Don’t you trust me? Not to worry, my friend. I’m just a taxi driver now. I have no nasty work on the side.” He smacks the steering wheel with the heel of his hand. “Those military creeps—I wouldn’t give them the fucking time of day.”

  Chit Naing thinks to himself that the time of day is the last thing MI agents would be interested in. “I do trust you, Ko Than Thaik. But it’s best if I just get out here. How much do I owe you?”

  “Suit yourself, sir, but keep in mind that if I leave you here now, it’s going to take you half an hour to get back to the boulevard, if you can find your way
at all, and then maybe, just maybe, if you’re lucky, another cab will pass by at this time of night. But maybe not.” Than Thaik rubs his nose and turns to look directly at Chit Naing, though he can’t see much of him but streaks of light sliding over his glasses.

  “U Chit Naing, you can trust me. Let me do you a favor, okay? If I’d been sent out as a porter with the other men, I would have died. You saved my life.” He laughs again, to take the edge off his seriousness. “It’s not much of an exchange, my life for a cab ride! But it is something. Let me help you. That’s why you turned up at that noodle stand. So Than Thaik could repay you, even if it’s just a fraction of what he owes.”

  “Ko Than Thaik, I am not a moneylender. You don’t owe me anything.” To trust or not to trust? The question is pointless. He has already trusted the man too much. “Let me off here and please wait for me around the first corner.”

  “Excellent, sir. I’ll catch a nap while you’re doing your business. Unless …” He lowers his voice. “Unless this really is about a woman. I can’t wait around all night, sir. If you know what I mean.”

  Chit Naing lightly punches his shoulder. “I’ll be finished quickly enough. She won’t want anything more than a little chat and a kiss.”

  “Ah-ha! So it is about a woman! I knew it.”

  Shutting the door as quietly as possible, Chit Naing waits for the cab to drive off, then begins to walk along the unlit street. There’s no sidewalk, and twice he detours around small, stinky hills of garbage. Because the electricity has been cut in this area, he sees candles in the interiors of some houses. In others, flashlights beam and flare against the walls. For once he’s relieved that the SLORC is useless when it comes to public utilities. The darkness makes him feel safe. He startles, though, when he unexpectedly crosses paths with a large rat.

  Near the end of the dirty little street, a crumbling brick wall surrounds a two-story building that reminds Chit Naing of an old colonial school. The high gate is closed, but when he pushes on it, the hinges creak loudly under his hand. A dog barks inside. The jailer squints into the courtyard, trying to see where the animal is. Beside a small temple stands a much larger building, which he realizes must be a residence for the orphans. Wooden huts, monks’ cells, flank the temple.

  When the dog barks again, he turns his head to the sound. On his right, almost invisible in the darkness, a makeshift shack three times the size of a sentry box is built against the monastery wall. Seconds after his eyes distinguish the lines of this little building, a creature like a large white rabbit comes hopping toward him at an alarming speed, yipping and growling ferociously. The suddenness of the attack sends the jailer tripping back into the street. An old man’s voice bawls a series of very unreligious expletives. Poised and growling at the threshold of the gate, the small dog drops to its belly for a moment, stands again, barks once in Chit Naing’s direction, then walk-hops slowly back to the shed, anticipating punishment.

  The jailer is embarrassed; his mouth has gone dry with fear. He laughs nervously. I was attacked by a three-legged dog but survived to tell the tale! He looks up the narrow lane, where other mutts, hidden from view, have joined in the barking, aware that it’s their duty to alert the entire neighborhood to a stranger’s late-night visit. Chit Naing hears the voice again: “What’s this all about, now?” Then he makes out a small man, growling like the dog. “Who’s in the street? What’s going on out there?”

  “I am looking for the Hsayadaw U Sobana. Are you the custodian of the monastery school?” The old man mishears him and announces vigorously, “No, I am not the venerable Hsayadaw, I am not his venerable self.” His voice trails off into a forgiving chuckle. “I am the cook. And, on occasions such as these, the night watchman.”

  “I apologize for coming so very late, but I need to speak to him.”

  “Yes, it is very late.” The old man wags his head slowly from side to side, cogitating, as far as Chit Naing can tell, on the lateness of the hour. The jailer sees that he has no front teeth.

  “I am very sorry for appearing like this, but I need to speak to the Hsayadaw on urgent business.”

  “Yes, well, it’s rather late for urgent business. Don’t you think, young man?” Chit Naing is amused to hear the slight swagger of power in the old fellow’s voice. “Everyone is sleeping, you see. The boys and the novices too. Even their teachers, the monks, they are sleeping. This is a monastery school—we all get up at four in the morning. Some of us get up even earlier. Myself, for example, despite my great age, and I go to bed the latest too, because I have so much work to do. It’s hard for me, especially with the rains, as I’ve got terrible rheumatism. What a blessing that the monsoon is almost over!”

  Chit Naing clasps his hands together. “I’m very sorry for your rheumatism, Grandfather, and for coming so late, but I must speak to someone tonight. Could you please wake the Hsayadaw for me? It’s very important. I need to talk to him about a boy.”

  “One of our boys?” The cook wrinkles his nose and takes a step forward.

  “No, Grandfather, another boy. An orphaned child who wants very much to come and live here.”

  “Oh, we’re full up with boys. There’s not a mat in the place for another body, no matter how skinny. They’re almost sleeping on top of each other already. As for me, I sleep in that little shed there, and the roof leaks, which is terrible for my rheumatism. Look at that box—they don’t even have a proper room for an old gardener.”

  “I thought you said you were the cook.”

  “I’m also the gardener, sir.” His voice sharpens with pride. “I have many titles.”

  “Could you please wake the Hsayadaw? I need to speak to him.”

  “The Hsayadaw? Oh, he’s not here. He’s in Sagaing for three more days, and we miss his venerable self a great deal.” The old man sucks his upper lip into his toothless mouth. “I’m afraid you’ll have to come back later if you want to talk to the venerable Hsayadaw.”

  Chit Naing rubs the middle of his forehead, where a small invisible drill is making an invisible hole. “I see,” he says very politely. “Is there anyone else here in a position of authority—the Hsayadaw’s assistant perhaps, one of the other monks? Someone I can speak to about this child?” He hears the frustration in his own voice.

  “There’s not a spare mat in the place.” The old man clears his throat. “And the kid can’t sleep with me. There’s no room in that shed, as you can see. It’s very small, too small for an old man who’s lived a life of dedicated service. It’s like a box, as you can see, that’s how they treat old men these days; even venerable monks treat me poorly. It’s pitiful, don’t you agree?”

  “I agree completely.” Chit Naing doesn’t want to do it. He shouldn’t do it. He knows it’s the wrong thing. But it’s like being locked out of a house with a glass door. It’s not the safest thing to do, it lacks wisdom and patience, but he draws himself up, pushes back his shoulders to assume a military bearing, and, with a strikingly officious voice, smashes the glass. “Grandfather, I am the senior jailer at the prison and I’m here on the business of the prison authorities. I cannot and will not come back later, Grandfather. I must speak to someone in a position of responsibility right now.” He utters the last sentence in a low barking tone. The dog lying near the shed yips back, noticeably braver than the poor old man, who has shrunk visibly under the weight of the jailer’s announcement. He opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again.

  Chit Naing is ashamed of himself, but pleased when the old man finally manages to find his tongue. “I … I … I will go and wake up U Rewata, sir, he’ll be able to help you directly. Yes, one moment, please, I will be back, he’ll be down in a moment, he sleeps upstairs, I need to go get my flashlight, one moment, sir.” Despite his terrible rheumatism, the old man nimbly backs away, glancing over his shoulder with a gaping mouth as he disappears into his shed. Chit Naing hears him whispering to himself or to the dog. He quickly reappears with a flashlight and bows as he moves past Chit Naing, then
speedily mounts the outdoor staircase to the second floor.

  As the wood creaks under the old man’s feet, Chit Naing relaxes his military stance and sticks his fingers under his glasses to rub his eyes. The brave dog growls again. Will it race out of the shed and attack him? That would be too much.

  He watches the old custodian rush along the outside corridor, one hand on the sagging wooden railing, the other holding the flashlight in front of him, its beam cast in a steady yellow line through the air to the floor. He raps hard on the door at the end of the hall and quickly disappears inside.

  Chit Naing’s eyes linger there for a moment, then rise to the gracefully peaked roof of the building. For a moment he thinks fire, but then he realizes the bright glow comes from the rising moon. Daw Sanda. Her name is the Pali word for moon. Suddenly self-conscious, he is aware that he stands in a place where she has stood also. She’s visited the monastery to give alms and new robes to the boys.

  He looks nervously into the dark courtyard, as though someone might be there, reading his mind. But it’s just him, alone, realizing that he’s come to the monastery school not only for the boy and not only for Teza. He is here for her too, Sanda, the intelligent, elegant woman he loves, a widow (though the term seems so wrong for her, at odds with the long black hair, the beautifully tailored clothes, her smile). She appears at that tea shop, this biryani shop. Sometimes they meet “accidentally” at a crowded pagoda. She walks slowly, searching through the crowd with an open face until she finds him. Then, very naturally, as though greeting her cousin or her brother or her husband, she smiles and begins to speak, fearless and discreet in equal proportion. The last time they were together—she gave him more money for Teza’s morphine—he asked her, “Aren’t you afraid of what will happen if they find us out?” She smiled. “I have nothing to be afraid of. My conscience is clear. I act out of compassion for my son. Any mother would do the same. It is you, Chit Naing, who risks everything by helping us. That’s what I worry about.”