The shimmering, tintinnabulating clang of a huge brass gong silenced Naung.
“By the gods,” Mong said, “a wedding!”
Kwin the drummer tapped, tam-tam, tam-tam, slower than the blood’s pulse and with never a break: tam-tam, tam-tam. On the women’s side the field seemed iridescent, streaked and shot with grass-green, sky-blue, sun-gold; the men’s side too was peacocky but more moderately so, blue shirts mainly, a touch of yellow or white, the sun glittering off silver cones and ornaments. Tam-tam, tam-tam.
The women whispered. The tinier children toddled and tumbled. Ko-yang, all in white but blue-sashed, stood beside Cha, also in white. Loi-mae dimpled toward the men’s side at Naung, who tried to assume a haughty and bored air as a joke but could not repress a smile. Lola was nowhere to be seen. The Sawbwa stood in his scarlet-trimmed turban and silken gray gown, and Za-kho stood shiny bald, puny within his voluminous saffron robe. Za-kho was not truly a priest but had once been a novice. He was all they had of the Lord. The Sawbwa’s head trembled, his lips twitched; he announced: “Za-kho!”
The calm was profound. Somewhere afar, a hawk whistled. Naung’s heart opened to his people. He wanted to reach out and touch them all. The breeze died, as if in respect. Tam-tam, tam-tam.
“The Lesser Cold is ended,” Za-kho informed them. From the grove behind the Sawbwa’s canopied chair Lola glided, naked but for a white longyi. She danced toward Za-kho, long steps and short. Slowly her arms rose, like the smooth branches of the willow after the monsoon: the villagers could almost see tiny leaves burgeon. “The Greater cold is to come, yet already the heavens are prepared for spring as Ko-yang and Cha are prepared for seedtime. The gold planet blesses the evening. The fire planet hides at dawn.” Tam-tam. “The wood planet is rich with sap. There will be heavy rains and rich crops and a fruitful marriage. Now as the hour of the horse, for strength, merges with the hour of the sheep, for fecundity, let these two be joined.”
“Let these two be joined,” repeated the Sawbwa, “in loyalty to each other, to Pawlu and to their sawbwa.” There was yet majesty to this ancient wreck. Ko-yang bowed his head; so did Cha; the Sawbwa blessed them, both hands high.
Lola danced nearer, twirled, offered her body to the sun. A baby squalled; quickly its mother gave suck.
Za-kho cried, “Ko-yang!” and chanted incomprehensible verses. He cried, “Cha!” and chanted more.
He made solemn pause, and when he knew that the silent village was listening with its heart he went on in words that all could comprehend: “And Ko-yang’s house is Cha’s house; and his rice her rice; and his cloth her cloth; and hers his; and they shall share love and pain and good and evil; and when one’s body is sick the other’s heart shall be sick; and their children will be a gift of the Lord, and the spirit of the Lord will dwell with them.”
From the Sawbwa he accepted a leather bag; from the bag he drew rice. He sprinkled the happy pair who stood meekly before him. Lola darted close, dipped a hand into the pouch and flung grains high; rice fell on the couple’s bare heads. Lola danced away, leapt, twirled, dashed to the grove; benevolent nats would stay to glean the rice, and evil nats would scramble after her in jealous fury, grow confused in the shadowed grove, and be lost. Tam-tam, tam-tam.
Za-kho took Cha’s hands and placed them between Ko-yang’s. He touched their brows with his fingertips and withdrew. Ko-yang released Cha’s hands and placed them on his shoulders, and he set his on her shoulders, and they leaned to press their foreheads together. For some seconds they stood brow to brow.
Ko-yang then slipped the gold sash from Cha’s shoulders and placed it in her hands. And then the blue sash and green, and, last of all, the red sash from her waist. Patiently he unknotted the leather thong about her neck. He knotted it about her own neck. He slipped a hoop of silver from his neck to hers.
The village cheered and shouted.
Cha rushed to the women’s side and flung her sashes this way and that. Lola dashed back from the grove to scuffle for the gold; she lost, and pouted. Cha returned to Ko-yang’s side and they embraced before all.
Then as the Sawbwa and Za-kho stood blessing their people—tam-tam, tam-tam—the couple’s parents, all four still alive, a good omen, came forth with bowls of meat and wine, and Ko-yang placed a morsel in Cha’s mouth, and Cha placed a morsel in Ko-yang’s mouth, and they drank from the same silver bowl.
At that a roar went up, and the village came to its feet, milled, cried out, smacked it lips in hunger and thirst, and formed a line to whack Cha’s bottom or slap Ko-yang on the back of the head, and with a flourish and a rataplan the drumming ended the Kwin shouted, “Beer!” and flexed his aching fingers. “Long life!” cried the Sawbwa, and even before his voice had faded, Lola’s piping soprano echoed him: “Long life! And many sons! And many daughters!” A little laughing swell of plain good humor arose from those who heard her, and even Za-kho laughed aloud, so that Lola too had to laugh, a quick embarrassed trill, and buried her head in Loi-mae’s breast.
“Eh, white women!” Naung said. “Sharp-smelling and flabby, with no music and no art, only the rush to the pallet with the legs spread and that coarse hair!”
Naung was pleasantly drunk. They were all flying a bit, as the Shan phrase put it, on good homemade rum. Their bellies were full, their hands and faces greasy. Heaps of bones dotted the grass, and every man clutched a bowl. A few warbled old tunes softly, each addled songster oblivious of the others. Again the boys surrounded them, all eyes and ears. “They cared only for piasters,” Naung said.
But he said nothing of his first European whore, Naung the great village fornicator timid, almost terrified before this huge pink creature, and spilling his seed early, so that she made a loud joke in a foreign language and there was laughter from the other cribs. Nor did he mention the second visit, payday and his pride, scorn, resolution melting even as his hand closed on the piasters; nor admit that he had requested a very young one, so that she would not make fun of him. And she did not make fun of him, but performed like a monkey, and took all his piasters, and again and again he returned to her, the little belly, the hard white bottom, the curly hair, and he dreamed of her.
“There was an officer’s wife interested in me,” he confessed. He did not say that he had been gardening for a capitaine and through a crevice in the louver had seen the wife washing her parts. “Is there more of this rum?”
Bowls and jugs were plied and passed. Men and boys seized the moment to drift into the woods to relieve nature. When they were reassembled, Naung said, “It was all boring. The life those people lead is inhuman. Drunk half the time—”
“Unlike us,” Mong sang out. “I cannot speak for Naung, but old Mong is drunk as a lowlander.”
“Well, I am flying fairly high,” Naung admitted. “Anyway, to come to the point.”
“Truly a day of miracles,” said Wan. “Naung comes to the point!”
Naung allowed himself an obscenity of the first rank. “I had no business there. I had just spent six years of my life in slavery, and in slavery mainly to myself. True, I was a soldat de première classe and I had earned a raise in pay, which is important, and I knew weapons. How I knew weapons! If I had an ounce of silver for every stripping and reassembly I performed, I would buy Mandalay.”
He swigged at his rum. “Well, I went down to Hué on furlough and I heard a man speak, a great orator and his picture on the outer walls of many houses. He was an Annamite who had traveled much and learned much. I remember he had changed his name from Nguyen Ai Quoc to Ho Chi Minh. And he made me ashamed to work for the French, so I knew it was time to leave. I considered: Of what use was my knowledge without the weapons themselves? What gift could I bring to my people? Well, this is a world in which people kill one another with persistence and for insufficient reason; self-defense is therefore no sin and no crime. I could bring arms to my people. I could make Pawlu—are you young fellows listening?—a fortress to stand forever.
“I chose carefully—m
y weapons, my moment and my companions. To return with one rifle and one pistol to show for six years of service was to shame myself. My companions were therefore Koko and Foch, two mules of which Foch, after honorable service, was eaten.”
On the women’s side Chung was saying, “This is the tedious part.”
“It is quickly over,” Loi-mae said, “with all of us pitching in. Lola, those bowls, scrub them out and polish them with paddy mud.”
“They ate everything,” Chung said with satisfaction, “and now they will drink all day and all night.”
“Lucky Cha. No cleaning up.”
“Lucky Cha is right. If I know Ko-yang, she’ll be gone for days.”
“O, men,” Loi-mae sighed.
“O, Men,” Lola sighed.
“You be quiet.”
“A beauty,” Chung said. “Listen, Loi-mae, I always wanted to ask.”
“Then ask. About Green Wood, I suppose.”
“Not at all. I liked Green Wood and would never pry. I only wondered …”
“Go on, go on.”
“The foreign women. Are they as we are? Did Green Wood say? Have they breasts like ours, or little bumps, or nipples only?”
“Breasts like ours,” Loi-mae said. “Some small, some large, some divine like Chung’s.”
“You make fun,” Chung said. “But what you say is good news. Green Wood was a stout fellow—many a time I watched him bathe in the stream—so the women of his line are healthy, and if Lola grows a good pair of breasts, she will be a real goddess and worth her weight in silver.”
“And if not? She will still be a good wife to a good man and worth her weight in gold.”
“I never said no. But she is a rare beauty even now.”
Loi-mae saw Lola’s gaze slide toward them. “You’re listening!” she called. “Never mind what Chung says. Or that Weng-aw either.”
Chung scoffed. “Weng-aw! A jokester!”
“It is no joke. Already he caresses her. I want her to wait till her moon cycles.”
“Absolutely right. Would he force her?”
“Never!” Loi-mae said. “Long before it came to that she would force him.”
“O Lord,” said Chung.
“I chose two husky mules,” Naung was saying, “and lashed down balanced loads of ammunition, in both sizes, and two of those crates are still in the Sawbwa’s house, the eight millimeter because all the old rifles use it and the seven six five for the mitraillette and the pistols. Those mules complained! I had rifles and binoculars and rations, everything but mortars and machine guns. And we all marched down the trail, and the French army turned south, and I, Naung of Pawlu, stopped to make water and then turned north.”
“And well done,” the men murmured. Hazily Naung glimpsed Taw-bi loping over the crest of West Slope. “Well, that eighty-day trip was as nothing. With the caravan I had women, food, even wine.” Why would Taw-bi leave his post? Naung squeezed some of the drunkenness out of his eyes. “But now I was alone, skulking through the jungle, traveling by night and hiding by day, this day in Laos and that day in China; and always seeking fodder and water for my brace of mulish companions.” If Taw-bi was after beer or rum, Naung would disgrace him in public. “The hunting was poor—this was during the first Lesser Cold after the war. So I had to trade a weapon here and there. It went against the wish of my soul, but there was no choice. Then Second Mule, old Foch, died of overwork, so I sold what I could, butchered the beast, and pushed on. Before the rains, you see—Pawlu before the rains, or all was lost.”
Taw-bi was not loping. He was running hard. The men stretched and some came to their feet. Belches rang out. “Always at the best part of the story,” Naung complained. “Anyway, it took me three months and when Koko and I shuffled into East Poppy Field Kin-tan almost killed me. If I had not lost so much weight on the long haul, the bullet would have had me. I was skinnier than Mong.”
“Never regretted it,” Kin-tan said absently. The men had ceased to follow Naung’s tale. No one said, “Something has happened,” because it was so clearly true.
Taw-bi waved. “Strangers,” he shouted. “Travelers. From the west.”
“Go arm yourselves,” Naung told the men. “And sober up. You boys, join the women and be of use.” To Taw-bi he called, “How many?”
“Two. Mounted. Armed. Half an hour off and in no hurry.”
“Oh well, two,” Naung said.
“More cages to carpenter,” Mong sighed.
As they dispersed Ko-yang came trotting up. “Do we muster?”
“Two strangers,” Naung said, “and no you do not muster. You have other duties to discharge.”
“Go fight with Cha,” Wan called. A little laughter rippled across the field, a little nervous laughter.
“That can wait,” Ko-yang said. “Where do we gather?”
“At the Sawbwa’s house,” Naung said. “Taw-bi, who is on West Trail?”
“Shwe and Tang, with the twins in support. Shall I bring everybody in from East Poppy Field?”
“And leave us open there? Think, man, think.”
Taw-bi blinked sheepishly.
“Is Shwe awake, at least?”
“Shwe is all right,” Taw-bi said firmly. “He dozes, but he has never shown a pale heart.”
“True,” Naung said. They were trotting toward Naung’s house, where his beloved mitraillette lay ready. “O Lord, I drank too much.”
At the Sawbwa’s they assembled quickly and in good order. Naung deployed one squad south of West Trail; with another he would straddle the trail. Unless they were directly attacked, there would be no firing of weapons until Naung had opened up.
“Today we must not kill,” the Sawbwa said, “for Ko-yang’s sake and Cha’s.”
Za-kho, still in his saffron folds, said, “There will be no firing of weapons at all.”
“Cure the soul,” Naung said. “Leave the body to me.”
“It is a wedding day,” Za-kho insisted. “We have called upon the gods, and they have taken notice of us.”
The men made no answer.
“On a wedding day in Pawlu the stranger must be made welcome,” Za-kho said.
Naung deferred to Ko-yang.
Ko-yang said, “It is my wedding and Cha’s, and I will take the bad luck on myself. Cha has agreed that I should do my part, and if we must kill, we must. The Lord has made this day, and this wedding, but he has also sent these strangers.”
Naung said to Za-kho, “You and your planets. You and your favorable hours.”
“The Lord is my master,” Za-kho said, “and not easy to know.”
The Lord is my master too, Naung decided, but the mitraillette is my servant.
8
Greenwood’s Return
Since the war Greenwood had not come awake so fast. He took in the rifles, swords, daggers, pistols, turbans and jewelry. Shan, four of these were Shan, one perhaps Chinese, the little one he supposed a lowland Burman.
His hands conspicuously empty, he played the host: “Blessings and greetings.” Yunnan ponies, large saddlebags, no women—that was bad—marauders living off targets of opportunity, namely Greenwood.
One of them said, “Greetings and blessings.” He was a swarthy man with a droopy black mustache and cunning eyes. Greenwood was afraid now. He and fear were old acquaintances but had not met for some time; he fought to dispel it, to sharpen his wits and see through this shameful fog. “A rare thing,” the man said. “Lonely travelers in these hills.”
With enormous effort Greenwood rubbed his eyes and yawned casually. He saw that Jum-aw was terrified, eyes huge, mouth trembling.
The swarthy man said, “And with a tamigan.” There was also a large stout man whose presence was for some reason comforting; perhaps it was the old prejudice, fat men are slow and easygoing and even-tempered. This particular slow, easygoing and even-tempered fat man carried a machine pistol, of what nationality or make Greenwood could not distinguish.
“The tommy gun is an
old companion,” Greenwood said. He stretched and groaned, adding suitable morning sounds, and opened his shirt to scratch his hairy chest.
Swarthy shot a glance at Fat Man. Greenwood noted this with hope, and removed the shirt altogether, flapping it as if to free it of the night’s effuvia, or of any stray nats that might have taken shelter in a sleeve.
They were openly curious about his tattoo; yet good manners prevailed. “Doubtless the traveler has a destination,” Swarthy said.
“Perhaps Motai. Perhaps Fang-shih. I am only seeing a bit of the world.”
“And the young one?”
“My hired guide and porter.”
None of these men seemed to blink. They stared like falcons. Greenwood could not sort them out, this one friendly, this one a coward, this one cruel, but he recognized their hostile solidarity. He remembered himself and a small squad of Kachin with two Japanese prisoners. Greenwood had sat even as Swarthy sat now, calm, inscrutable, God, weighing, judging, dispensing life and death. That day he had dispersed death and the memory assailed him now.
One of the Shan, a strapping fellow of about thirty, said, “Ask him what he carries.”
“I will ask him when I am ready to ask him,” Swarthy said, with another quick glance at Fat Man. “First I will ask if there is news or gossip.”
Greenwood said, “Light me a cheroot, Jum-aw.” The boy needed help, attention, a function. This was a cool dawn in the mountains, but sweat glistened on the smooth lip. “Come on, boy!” To Swarthy Greenwood said, “He may reach into his pack?”
“Slowly,” Swarthy said, and smiled a perfect villain’s smile.
“Come now, Jum-aw. These are only Shan brothers.”
Jum-aw seemed to breathe for the first time; he fumbled for a cheroot, groped for matches, lit up and passed it to Greenwood, who was nauseated by smoke before breakfast but said “Thank you” in the most amiable tone possible, and to the Shan as a group, “Who will join me?”
Strapping said, “This one thinks he is a sawbwa.”
Swarthy said, “What is the gossip?”
“Well, all is calm up around Sumprabum, Myitkyina and Bhamo. Probably the end has come China-side. This we had from a Tibetan peddler, and it is all I can tell you.”
The Blue-Eyed Shan Page 16