Why is this happening? The boy does not think the question. His body becomes it, demanding an answer as his muscles twist and writhe a mute, fierce protest against the fat cook. He’s big as a battalion, a whole army bearing down on a small country. A moment later there is no question, no answer, only a rare child, dwarf-king of many names, whose flesh decides this is the end, not knowing what is ending, his life or this violation, he’s so old though still too young and terrified to know and he cannot scream but he can bite, he can bite, as he has seen a rat turn at the last possible instant and leap toward the stick, mouth open, teeth closing upon the wood that lifts him up like lightning and shakes him loose and strikes him until he’s dead.
• • •
Time stops. Only because Sammy the iron-beater, timekeeper, does not care about striking the next hour, six o’clock. If he could talk, he would tell the story later and it would become a prison myth. Unfortunately, his tongue has not grown back yet. His ears have grown keen, though, and his eyes. With his giant’s slow but fast amble, he’s already heading for the kitchen, wondering about the boy. Because Sammy’s a timekeeper, friendly with the right warders, he has compound privileges and is allowed to move at will in certain areas of the prison. When he’s more than halfway to the kitchen, a high-pitched scream careens like a flock of bats out the open doors. The giant Indian walks only slightly faster. Compound privileges or not, he would never run in the cage.
A bellow follows the scream. The timekeeper recognizes this as the unrestrained cry of great pain, extremely loud and unself-conscious. This cry joins the human to the animal world like no other sound but birdsong. In the briefest flash, Sammy recalls a scene from the village where he grew up: the buffalo that turned craftily against the knife, outwitting the slaughterer but then suffering much more as a result.
Bloody warders, lazy bastards, he’s beat them to it, though he sees Soe Thein jogging over from Hall Five; he’ll be here in less than a minute. Sammy walks into the kitchen just as the keening begins, repeated howls in a low register. That’s shock, he knows, sinking into the body by way of the throat. Safe inside the building, the tall man moves faster, one wide step, two, three. He’s half loping alongside the chopping counters when the boy, eyes huge with fear, mouth and chin slathered in blood, bursts out from behind a pile of rice sacks and crashes right into his long legs. Sammy grunts his sound for Stop and reaches out to grab him, but the boy screams and twists away from his hand, slipping on the wet floor with a slap of bone. A split second later he’s up again, scrambling into a full-out sprint. Sammy grunts as articulately as he can, knowing exactly what he’s saying: Nyi Lay, don’t run! The warders are coming. Don’t run! But the boy does not stop. The big man makes a wolfish sound for the word Fuck and stands there, long, muscular arms spread in hesitation—should he go after him or not? He stays put, watching the boy’s dirty bare feet wink back at him. The kid’s so fast, already clearing the doors now, turning to the right, at least—away from the open compound. The iron-beater snorts toward the sound of wailing behind the rice sacks. Shut up already! He looks back toward the open double doors, hoping the warders won’t do anything stupid when they see the poor kid making a dash for it. You can never tell with those assholes.
A few steps closer to the keening, he finds the fat cook fallen against the rice sacks, clutching the length of his cock in one bloody hand and what must be the bitten head of it in the other. The red gush is unstoppable, dripping rapidly into a pool between his massive legs. His legs are spread, knees up, oddly like those of a woman in labor. The timekeeper stares at the small crimson handprint splayed on one of the white sacks. He knows this is where the boy, choking on semen or blood or both, wiped his mouth before pushing himself back and up, vaulting away.
When Eggplant sees Sammy looming over him, he cries out, “Help me, help me!”
The timekeeper shakes his head in disgust. He glances over the cook’s head to the famous little shelf high above the gas burners. The glint of the well-guarded cleaver catches his eye. If the boy had been tall enough to see that shining blade, he would have known the cook was around, because Eggplant never leaves it out unless he’s nearby. Soe Thein, entering the kitchen, shouts, “What’s going on in here?” as if Sammy might call back an intelligible answer. He looks down at Eggplant again and spits on him, then glances back at the cleaver. There is still plenty of time to kill him. That would be the best way to shut down the whining siren of his voice. It would be nothing, absolutely nothing, to cut his throat. If the cleaver were really sharp, Sammy could lop off his head with a few solid hacks. He knows how to do this, from his time on the boats.
But then he would never get out of this shithole, and the warders might think he had something to do with the mess of Eggplant’s dick too. Now there’s a really stomach-turning thought. Besides, if they don’t hurry and sew him up, the cook just might bless the world and die from blood loss. Sammy grits the teeth in his spacious mouth and puts his hands on his hips. It’s a feat of discipline to keep his hands off that cleaver. Never mind cutting the cook—the blade would be worth a great deal of money.
But time is short, and there’s something he wants even more than the cleaver. He steps forward, bending slightly at the waist, as if to take a concerned look at the carnage of the cook’s dick. Soe Thein is walking toward them now, and another warder is close behind. Leaning in quickly, Sammy slaps the cook’s face, open-handed but very hard. Then he straightens up, following the motion through with thigh, bent leg, raised heel, which delivers a deep jab to Eggplant’s stomach. The keening abruptly becomes wheezing as the cook doubles over with new pain.
Sammy takes two steps into the aisle that leads to the back door, one hand pointing at the mess. Soe Thein strides past him, turns in at the rice-sack wall, and swears when he sees the blood pouring through the cook’s fingers.
Eggplant cries as he gasps for breath. He looks up at Soe Thein and whispers, “Help me. The little fucker bit me.”
The warder leans down, just as Sammy did, and asks, “The kid bit you, did he?”
The cook nods his head tearfully.
“It’s about time somebody did.” Soe Thein turns to the timekeeper with the order, “Go find the doctor.” Sammy gives him a look of friendly insolence, eyelids drooping, mouth a mixture of pout and smile. “What the fuck are you looking at me like that for? You heard me! Get the doctor. Hurry up!” Sammy shrugs his shoulders. For a man with such long, strong legs, he walks away very slowly.
. 57 .
They’ve cut down the monsoon grass that grew on the banks of the stream. His feet notice immediately. It’s like walking on the bristles of a shorn head.
No matter how many times he works his tongue around his mouth and spits, and spits again, the taste remains, soaked through like oil in a rag. He smells it all over his face, a stink with a rhythm to it, the same pulse as his inhalations. Semenblood, semen-blood. Breathing through his mouth doesn’t help; it’s up his nose. Dried around his lips, on his chin, the blood smell’s stronger, but that juice of metal and stone from the male body sticks at the back of his throat.
The warders will kill him now. First they will make him stay in one of the dog cells because he ate the Chief Warden’s food. They won’t give him back to Eggplant—the warders hate the cook, because he’s fat and rich—but maybe the Chief Warden will give him to Handsome and Handsome will take him to a trough in one of the shower rooms and drown him. The junior jailer won’t do it in the stream—it’s too shallow today.
The boy leaps over the water to the side where the tree grows, and he spits again, in a manly way, just like Tan-see Tiger, making a big noise. Then he bursts into tears. If the men leave flowers and ribbons and water and food, where is the good nat of the tree? Believing in that spirit, he brought morning glories and whispers like prayers. But his faith and his gifts were no protection, not from Handsome or the cook or Sein Yun. That jaundiced face with its slashed red grin flashes into the boy’s mind. In their
different ways, all three of them want to drown him.
And so they will. That’s how it is with big people. They can do whatever they want. He will die, like his father and his mother and Nyi Lay his lizard. He hits his sling bag, the heavy pouch hanging at his thigh; he pounds it once as hard as he can, feels the blow against his leg. The possessions hidden in there are useless. No one would call them treasure but him. During the past two days, the crimes against him have wrought another crime: they’ve made him old enough to recognize his poverty.
Who among the men of the cage hears the sound that rises now, that old ever-new cadence from a child’s throat, the crying that comes before language and carries beyond it? Warders stationed around the hospital hear it. Men doing guard duty at the watchtower hear it and come across the compound, curious about all the commotion. As they get closer to the kitchen, the boy’s cries are drowned out by Eggplant, who moans and begs for his penis to be saved. The medic adds his droning voice to the cacophony. Judging from his glazed eyes, he’s probably stoned; he is definitely unfazed by the growing red lake, one shore soaking the bottom rice sacks, the other shore coagulating on and into the concrete. Tossing the black mop of hair out of his eyes, he explains to the Chief Warden that the doctor left over an hour ago and there are no empty beds in the hospital. If Eggplant is to receive care, one of the inmates who has paid for a bed will have to be dragged out of it, but the medic certainly can’t do that on his own. A high-ranking warder or the senior jailer will have to be sent. Someone goes to find Chit Naing, and ten minutes later, four men and a stretcher carry the bloody cook to the hospital. Chit Naing watches the men carry the moaning cook away and then takes stock of the mess behind the rice sacks. Standing still, looking at the blood on the floor, the jailer hears it too, the rising wails that break and stutter as they fall. He knows the boy is crying, but he can’t leave the kitchen until he receives orders from the Chief, who approaches him now.
Rather than looking down at the mess, the chief very pointedly looks up at the shelf above the burners. “Make sure to take that cleaver out of here tonight, would you?” More quietly, he asks, “What about the monastery? Will the Hsayadaw take the boy or not?”
Lying with admirable self-possession, Chit Naing assures him, “Yes, there’s a place for him. The abbot would be happy to take another child.” In fact the jailer still hasn’t met the Hsayadaw, who returned to Rangoon only this afternoon. Chit Naing has an appointment tonight, to meet him for the first time.
“I’m glad the monastery will take him. It’s either that or a state-run house for delinquents. Get him out of here as soon as you can. This is ridiculous.” The bald man waves his hand over the rice sacks, still not looking down. “We can’t have him running around here if he’s getting violent. Who knows what he’ll do next? I’m just glad that the cook didn’t say anything about pressing assault charges.”
Chit Naing opens his mouth and closes it. Then opens it again. “Sir, you don’t mean to say that … The boy was … He was protecting himself, sir. Against the cook. We all know—”
The Chief cuts in. “We all know that what the cook does is his business. You can’t tell me that the boy doesn’t have his own business too, if you know what I mean. Usually he’s a good boy, I grant you that, but he’s hardly an innocent child. What the hell was he doing in here so late, on his own? This looks like a very ugly, and very messy, lover-boys’ quarrel. Disgusting pigs, all of them.” With the sneer still twisting his face, the Chief turns to go, then abruptly stops. “Oh, I forgot to tell you. I expect the junior jailer to report for work quite soon. In the next couple days. Perhaps even tomorrow. You won’t have to work so hard anymore. His knee seems to be much better.”
Two warders follow the Chief Warden out of the kitchen at a safe distance. Unlike him, they take a quick turn behind the building, knowing the kid’s gone back there. In the falling light, they see a little human crouched down under the tree. The high-pitched cries catch in their ears, but they know it’s not the crows come back to roost on the prison walls. A minute later the crying changes rhythm. Comforting themselves with the thought that he must be calming down now, they return to their duties.
They are wrong. The boy isn’t calming down. He’s hyperventilating. There are words in every tongue for grief fear terror broken but none so eloquent, so precise as this, the sound of a child who cannot breathe for weeping. And there is no cowardice so profound as the adult’s who cannot bear to hear it.
The boy knows he has to stop this breathless sobbing. He crab-walks to the edge of the stream and feels himself sinking slightly, his toes involuntarily clutching mud. He touches the water. His fingers stretch down into it and squeeze up a handful of gravel. He wills himself to take a breath, then another. And another. He doesn’t dare rinse his mouth out with the dirty stream water, but he washes the blood and semen from his hands and face.
He puts his skinny arms around himself and rocks back and forth. Then he turns from the stream and crawls up the bare mound of earth where the tree grows. When he looks at the small canopy of leaves still glowing in the last light of dusk, he wants to cry again. The tree could be cut down any day, by the same men who scythed the grass.
In its solitariness, the tree also seems to know this, and stands there astonished, astonishing, like an early memory of the human, limbs stretching toward the sky. There are no clouds now, only dark blue opening into mauve above the first brick wall and the second brick wall, those borders between two worlds that are the same world.
The crows are coming home to roost in the ramparts. Half a dozen of them turn, wheel against the sky like dark fan blades before they flap back to the outer wall. Caw-caw caw-caw come their raspy voices; they are as short-tempered as old prisoners, the fathers who lived here before and lost some shining thing in the prison. That’s why the crows always come back; they’re looking for whatever it is they lost. The boy watches them carefully, as he often did in the evenings, when he lived in his little shack. He hears the throaty warbles and clicks the birds make, talking to each other as they settle in for the night.
The floodlights crack on, changing all the colors to chalk, making him squint in the harsh light. He blows his nose like a cannon, finger to nostril. Then he looks up at the shadow of the tree immense against the brick wall, big enough to climb. He cannot remember ever climbing a tree, though he would like to. Not this one, of course. Even if the nat doesn’t protect him, he must live here still, invisible among the branches, admiring the colored ribbons of cloth and the flowers. The nat must be waiting for the boy to leave. Then he will swing down and collect the offerings left for him.
The boy stands up, steps closer to the sand-colored bark. Wedged in the crook of the lower branches rests the upright box, the simple altar. Inside it are two strings of jasmine, a small plate of rice, and a glass of water. The boy swallows, coughs. He smells and tastes the cook in his throat.
And he hears boots. Not Handsome’s gait, and thinner than Soe Thein’s. It’s a measured walk, slowing down now. It has to be Chit Naing. The boy lets go of his held breath.
“Nyi Lay?”
“Yes?” He doesn’t turn around but keeps staring at the altar box, the glass of water.
“Are you all right?”
That’s a funny question. Nyi Lay blinks hard, several times—no more crying—then focuses his eyes on the glass. “Sir, I am very thirsty.”
The senior jailer, standing in the mud on the other side of the stream, doesn’t know how to respond. When he jumps across the water, the boy startles away from him. He takes two slow steps toward Nyi Lay, who still faces the little tree. Chit Naing would like to touch the child, lay a hand on his shoulder, comfort him, but something keeps him from making the gesture. He follows the boy’s thirsty gaze. “There’s water in that glass, isn’t there?”
“That water is for the nat of the tree.”
Nyi Lay, Chit Naing thinks, nats do not exist. He pulls an open hand down over his mouth and chin. Wh
o knows how the boy has come by his nat worship? His mother probably believed in spirits. After all that’s happened, Chit Naing doesn’t want to take anything else from him, even a superstition. He says gently, “I think the nat would not mind, this once, if you drank his water. The nat of this tree is very generous.”
The boy gives him a peculiar look, as though appraising Chit Naing’s qualifications for making such claims. Then fear crosses his face. “Will I get in trouble?”
“No, you won’t. It’s all right, Nyi Lay. You can drink the water.”
The boy extends his arm, puts his fingers around the glass, which is not glass at all, but clear plastic, cooler than his palm. He pulls it out of the box without disturbing the jasmine or the small plate of rice.
Sweet without sweetness, the clear liquid slides into him, its own element, and he swallows it down without choking, which seems a feat unto itself. He drinks slowly at first, then gulps, his head angling back until the glass is empty. He puts it back into the box. Then he turns around.
The Lizard Cage Page 40
