The Burma Legacy

by Geoffrey Archer

  For the next year her income had been restored. His demands upon her had not been excessive. Nor had they been as physically unpleasant as she’d expected. Once or twice a month he would come to see her late in the evening and leave before dawn. But the money he brought began to decrease. Exchange rates, he’d explained. Weeks later he’d told her the remittances from her husband had actually stopped some time ago and that he, Myint Aung, had been paying her out of his own pocket. True or not, she’d had no way of telling. But the money he offered no longer fed and clothed her children or paid for their lessons.

  Myint Aung had been sympathetic to her plight. He’d mentioned other ‘gentlemen’ who would happily give her money for her favours. He’d brought them to visit one at a time, taking care to ensure their arrival would not be observed by neighbours. There’d been nothing unpleasant about them. Like Myint Aung himself, they were middle-ranking officials. One had never been married. The other had a wife who he claimed was cold.

  And so she’d sunk into a discreet form of prostitution. Myint Aung had become her ‘manager’, vetting clients and handling the financial arrangements. He’d taken a percentage for himself, but she told herself he deserved it for making sure the clients he sent weren’t types who would do her harm. Over time she’d even grown fond of him.

  For ten years she’d lived like that. And she’d even managed to retain her self-respect, telling herself she was only doing it in order to bring up her fatherless sons. Then gradually the customers had stopped coming. Age had caught up with her. Eventually Myint Aung himself had found some younger woman. Tin Su’s career and her income had petered out. By then her sons had been nineteen and twenty-one, both studying law. As a parting gift, one of her clients arranged a job in the government department where he was a manager. One that would suit her and provide a small income. Working with books again – in the censor’s office.

  And so, for the next decade, she’d helped stifle her countrymen’s faint cries for freedom, in the interests of helping her own sons become lawyers, a profession that might one day help restore liberty to the country. The job had lasted until that dreadful day in 1988, when her younger boy had disappeared. For weeks afterwards she’d not felt strong enough to return to work. And as soon as she had she’d been sacked for being the mother of a man who’d dared defy the regime.

  Now, today, as she rode that rattling truck back to the place where she lived, her whole life seemed so pointless. She’d lost everything. Her home, her children, her standing and her happiness.

  And all because of an Englishman she’d met when she was very, very young.

  Market Street

  Perry Harrison sat very still. It wasn’t just the story of what had happened to Tin Su that had shaken him. It was the realisation that he felt no responsibility for what had come to pass. Regret, yes. But no blame.

  ‘I have never loved another woman as much as I loved Tin Su,’ he confessed, mystified that after such a love he could have given so little thought to her fate.

  ‘Did you not ask yourself what happened to her?’ Than Swe pressed, peering at him as he would a creature that was not quite human. ‘When you stopped sending the money, what were you thinking? A wife and two children …’

  Perry felt his face burning.

  ‘At the time I needed every penny I had for setting up the Bordhill Community.’ It was the excuse he’d given himself then. And at the time it had seemed justified – using his limited resources to help hundreds of people with problems rather than to support one small family in a faraway place, whose needs were very simple anyway.

  ‘I suppose I thought she would find someone else,’ he explained lamely.

  As indeed she had. And the non-emotionally-engaging sex which circumstances had forced her into shouldn’t really have done her any harm, he told himself. It was, after all, precisely what he’d coached his Bordhill disciples in for the past thirty-five years.

  He could see the disappointment in Than Swe’s eyes, but he’d come here for a purpose and was determined to fulfil it.

  ‘Look. They’ve been on my conscience recently, she and Khin Thein. I know it’s late, but it matters to me that I do something about it. So … tell me. Do you know where Tin Su is?’

  ‘Yes. But may I know what exactly it is you want from her?’

  ‘Forgiveness I suppose,’ he answered eventually.

  ‘Then I think you will be disappointed. She has tried very hard to forget you after so many years, but to forgive is a lot to ask. She told me once that everything she does not have in life is because of you, and all that she has – her fine man of a son – is in spite of you.’

  Harrison dropped his gaze.

  ‘You’ve seen Tin Su recently?’ he asked humbly.

  ‘About six months ago. She came here to talk about Khin Thein. There is very little of you in him, you know,’ Than told him quickly. ‘His looks and his gentle character come from his mother. It was your other son who resembled you more. Mo Win was a wilder, less balanced person than Khin Thein, but he disappeared in 1988. The military killed him when the people rose up. Did you know this? I wrote you a letter about it. Gave it to an Englishwoman who was here and asked her to try to find your address.’

  ‘I got your letter.’ It had troubled him so much he’d had to shut it from his mind. ‘You think they’d let me visit Khin Thein in the prison?’

  ‘Why do you want to see him?’

  ‘Because he’s my son.’

  ‘He’s been your son for forty-five years.’ Than Swe ruminated for a few moments, then made up his mind. ‘You can ask Tin Su about going to the prison. She will know the procedure.’

  ‘How will I find Tin Su?’

  ‘My grandson can take you to her. It’s an hour’s drive from Yangon. He will use his father’s car. You must pay him. He is a student, but since the SLORC closed the universities he has to do his study by correspondence. And that costs much money. So he drives tourists around. The few that come here. Twenty dollars a day.’

  ‘I’ll willingly pay double that.’

  ‘No. Twenty dollars is enough. It will spoil him if you give more. He will expect it from others.’

  ‘Whatever you say. When? When can he take me?’

  ‘This evening, maybe. I will call him on the telephone.’

  ‘Thank you. Thank you so very much.’

  The road north of Yangon

  The sun was getting low in the sky as the pick-up neared its next stop. Tin Su could smell the smoke of cooking fires. She saw a man walking in the dust beside the road, broken-necked chickens dangling from his hands.

  The town where she lived sprawled along the main road. Two other passengers got down with her, gingerly easing the stiffness from their legs. Then with a cloud of blue exhaust the pick-up continued on its way.

  Tin Su was taller than the local women, despite the bend to her back that had come with age. Many Shan people were that way. Her mother used to tell her it was the mountain air that made them grow more.

  She walked along the main road for a minute or two, tempted by smells from a curry shop but knowing she couldn’t afford to buy anything. The line-bus had taken all she’d been able to save in the last month.

  She turned into a side street, past a covered market and walked on towards a small temple with a zedi from which the gold leaf was peeling. Finally she reached the alley that led to the little house where she’d lived for nearly ten years. She stopped outside, slipped her feet from her sandals, and turned the handle. Nobody locked doors around here. Theft was unknown in the town, and in truth she had little for anybody to steal. Inside it was dark. The light didn’t work because the power was off. Cuts happened all the time. She moved towards the little cupboard at the back of the room, groping for the matches she kept there. Then by the light of the spluttering flame, she lifted the glass of an oil lamp and touched the match to the wick.

  She preferred its light to the electric. A kinder glow that revealed less of the shabbi
ness of where she lived. With a sigh she lowered herself onto one of the two rush-seated chairs that together with a small table were the only furnishings of the room.

  Holding her hands to her stomach, the bones of her pelvis pressed hard against her wrists. She knew she should eat something but she had little inclination.

  For more than an hour she sat there in the gloom, preoccupied with her thoughts. Then she stirred, telling herself this wouldn’t do. She liked to read, the same old books over and over again, but her eyes couldn’t see the print anymore in the feeble light from the oil lamp.

  She decided to go to bed, taking off her clothes and carrying the lamp into the bathing room. She squatted over the toilet, before washing all over with cold water scooped from a cistern. Then she dried herself on a towel, extinguished the light and settled onto her sleeping mat. She checked there were no gaps in the mosquito net then lay down and covered herself with a thin cotton sheet.

  Her hands went up to her breasts, remembering how those flat pouches had once been filled with milk. She remembered too how Per-grin had kissed them on that first night in Rangoon after the long journey south. Kissed them and the rest of her firm innocent body until all of her fear and shyness had been blown aside by her overwhelming need for him to make her his own.

  It was good she could still remember those tender moments, because they softened her anger and made it easier to bear. There was something else about him she would never forget – his body twisting and shuddering beside her every night, in the grip of the evil dreams he would never explain.

  For some time, Tin Su lay there, unable to sleep. Her body was exhausted but her mind wouldn’t let her rest.

  Suddenly she heard a noise. Footsteps outside. But instead of passing on to one of the other homes further up the alley, they’d stopped outside her door.

  She pulled up the sheet, holding her breath. The footsteps moved on, but hesitantly. She breathed again.

  Moonlight filtered through the sackcloth curtains covering the one small window at the front of her room. The footsteps returned. More determined this time. Soft padding on the earthy ground right in front of her door. A shadow moved in the window. Someone trying to see inside.

  Tin Su was afraid all of a sudden. She imagined dacoits – armed bandits. The knob rattled. She heard the creak of latch springs as it turned.

  The door slowly opened, letting in a faint quadrant of light, just bright enough to show that her visitor was large. Shan people were tall. Someone from her past? The brother she hadn’t seen for fifty years? Her younger son?

  A thin beam of light shone from the visitor’s hand, swinging round the room until it found the white veil of the mosquito net.

  ‘Tin Su?’

  Her heart quivered as if it were about to stop. This couldn’t be. Not that voice.

  Then the visitor turned the torch on himself. The face was deeply lined. Haggard even. The hair that had once flowed like a mane was cropped short, its colour like snow.

  ‘Per-grin,’ she croaked. ‘You have come to kill me?’

  Eighteen

  Harrison hardly recognised her. She’d become skin and bone. Seeing her there in the flesh, cowering on the sleeping mat, stirred up emotions he’d spent most of his life suppressing.

  He closed his eyes, feeling he was about to unravel.

  ‘You have come to kill me?’ she repeated, her voice thin and tremulous. She clutched the sheet to her chest.

  ‘How can you say such a thing?’ he croaked.

  ‘Because you must hate me,’ she told him.

  ‘How can you think that?’

  He swung the torch beam until he found a chair, then sat on it, hunching forward in the vain hope it would ease the pain in his back. He’d put on a new patch before leaving Yangon but it had not yet reached its full effect.

  ‘Why you have come here? How do you find me?’

  ‘Than Swe.’ He indicated the young man standing in the doorway. ‘This is his grandson Saw Lwin.’

  She was still clutching the sheet to her chest. ‘Please … you turn away so I put clothes on.’

  The youth went outside and Harrison swung the chair round, happy not to see how emaciated her once fine body had become.

  ‘You want I find place to stay for tonight?’ Than’s grandson called out.

  ‘Yes please.’

  There was no room in Tin Su’s tiny abode and he was in no physical condition to sleep on the ground. He heard the boy scuttle off down the alley.

  Harrison took measured breaths, switching on his defence mechanisms to choke off his feelings of guilt and shame. He made himself visualise the vile men who’d paid Tin Su to have sex with them, so he could feel disgusted by her.

  Tin Su’s shaking hands made it hard for her to tie the knot in her longyi. Once dressed, she lit a small oil stove to heat some water for tea. Then she just stared at him, her arms limp at her sides.

  ‘I did something wrong?’ she asked. The question had tormented her for nearly forty years. ‘Why you don’t write to me and don’t want to see me again.’

  ‘No, Tin Su. It was I who did something wrong. I’ve come to say sorry.’

  Her face creased in a frown. She didn’t understand.

  ‘Please,’ said Perry, beckoning her towards the table. ‘Let us sit together.’

  Still not certain this wasn’t a bad dream, Tin Su complied, sitting upright on the rush-seated chair with her hands clasped tightly on her lap.

  ‘How are you, Tin Su?’ It was a stupid question but the only way he could think of beginning.

  She didn’t answer. He didn’t expect her to. She wouldn’t know where to start.

  ‘Tell me about our sons. I … I never really knew them.’

  For a while she didn’t reply, fearing her voice would betray her feelings.

  ‘They were beautiful children,’ she whispered eventually. ‘Not often fighting. Khin Thein put up with very much from Mo Win who was like you, Per-grin. Always worries in his head. Could never say what. Very like you …’

  She talked of the hardships of bringing them up alone. The difficulty of earning money. Then she looked away, wondering how much Than Swe had told him.

  ‘I know what you had to do,’ Perry said. ‘The shame is mine, Tin Su, not yours.’

  She got up from the chair to make the tea.

  ‘Tell me about 8.8.88. The last time you saw Mo Win.’ It was the first time he’d called him by his Burmese name. ‘Michael,’ he murmured.

  As she poured water into the pot, she began to tell him about the people’s anger at their incompetent military rulers in the sweltering summer of 1988. The eighth day of the eighth month of that year had been chosen as an auspicious date for the masses to take to the streets in protest.

  ‘Khin Thein suspecting the military only sleeping. He stay at back of crowd,’ she whispered, carrying a tray back to the table. ‘But Mo Win won’t listen. Always in front, close to people who speaking. And when the tanks come, when the soldiers start shooting, he can’t get away. We don’t know what happen to him. Ask at hospitals. Then I ask the army. Where is he? Have they taken him? They question me. All day. Wanting to know name of his friends.’ She sniffed back tears. ‘Our son want to change Myanmar, Per-grin. To make it better after long sickness. Like doctor – that’s what he say last time I see him.’

  She searched her former husband’s face for some sign that he felt what she felt, but all she saw in his eyes was the confusion and mania of an old man.

  ‘And Khin Thein?’ Harrison asked. It was his surviving son he had to be concerned about. The only one he could help.

  ‘I see him in the prison. Insein. Today. He very thin. Food no good. I take fruit for him.’

  ‘Tin Su, I want to go and see him.’

  His bald statement knocked the breath from her.

  ‘Not possible,’ she whispered, full of fear.

  ‘We must make it possible, Tin Su.’

  The intensity of his insistence t
ook her back to the first time they’d met. His refusal to take no for an answer.

  Reluctantly she told him of the mechanics of visiting the prison. Two visits per month for members of the family. Next visit not due for another couple of weeks.

  ‘I can’t wait two weeks.’ There was another way. There always was. And in Myanmar the bribe wouldn’t need to be large. ‘To whom do I give a present?’

  Tin Su told him that 100 kyat slipped quietly to the officer in charge of the prison guards might be sufficient for a Burmese to secure an extra visit. The equivalent of twenty pence, he calculated.

  ‘You’ve done that?’

  ‘No. But I hear people talk.’

  Harrison saw her lips flicker. Some little story had occurred to her. She liked stories, he remembered. Used to garner them from her friends to amuse him when he returned from work.

  ‘This officer – the bell to his house is at the back door, not the front. And down low. Close to ground. Because visitors always come on their knees. And they carrying heavy presents.’

  He smiled condescendingly. ‘We will go there tomorrow, you and me.’

  The protest in her eyes died quickly, as he knew it would.

  Than’s grandson returned. He’d found two rooms in a small guest house. Ten dollars a night for Harrison because he was a foreigner and one dollar for himself. The rooms were simple but clean, he said.

  Harrison stayed on with Tin Su long enough to make arrangements for the morning, then, feeling utterly drained, he hobbled down the alley to where they’d left the car.

  Five minutes later he lay in a narrow bed with a lumpy mattress, longing for sleep to deaden the pain. In his mind as well as his body.

  Nineteen

  Myanmar

  The next day, Tuesday, 11 January

  It was dawn when they began the drive back to Yangon. Against her will, Tin Su guided them to the township on the outskirts of the capital where the prison officer lived. Then, quivering with embarrassment at being seen with a European, she led her one-time husband to the door – it was at the rear of the house – and explained on his behalf what they wanted.