The Incident at Badamya

by Dorothy Gilman

  Without speaking Hamlin rummaged in the knapsack and drew out his precious flask of water and a pot. Borrowing her knife he began digging a hole in the earth, scooping out soil with his hands. Breaking silence Gen said, "What's that for?"

  "A fire. Old American Indian trick, build the fire in the ground so no flames can be seen. See if you can find some dry twigs."

  As the fire ignited she held out her hands to its warmth and Hamlin again saw how they trembled, as if she repressed much more than grief. She watched Hamlin pour water in the pot and place it over the hole; opening the knapsack she dropped in a handful of rice, the muted glow from the flames barely illuminating their faces as they warmed themselves, waiting, silent.

  It was several minutes before they realized they were not alone.

  There were three of them standing in the shadows, three men wearing torn remnants of uniform, each holding a rifle pointed at them. Gen said, "Oh!" in a small voice and jumped to her feet.

  Hamlin rose more slowly, saying, "Who are you? What do you want?"

  “Hei—Ingalei, “ said the eldest, and explained this to his companions, regarding Gen and Hamlin benevolently but edging closer and closer as he spoke until he reached the knapsack and knelt beside it. Opening it he exclaimed, "Cizan!—Shan!"

  Hamlin looked to Gen for translation but she refused his glance, remaining stubbornly silent, her face shuttered. Only when they picked up her shoulder bag and brought out the puppet Zawgwi did she cry out, "No—oh, no!"

  They gave her a startled glance and then returned to spilling out the bags' contents. At sight of the roll of kyat they turned gleeful, counting it. When everything lay spread out on the ground—the sack of rice, the tea and milk, peanuts, Zawgwi, Gen's papers, passport and money—the eldest began issuing orders. Food, papers, money and puppet were stuffed back into the two bags and handed to the youngest with fresh orders. He nodded and vanished soundlessly into the darkness.

  "Pyanjazou," the leader said, and with a mocking salute to Gen and Hamlin, he and his companion disappeared into the woods, too.

  "Damn," exploded Hamlin when they'd gone. "If only we'd had a gun! Damn it, they've taken everything!"

  "Yes," she said in a tight voice.

  "I didn't enjoy feeling so helpless. Damn it, if only we'd had a gun."

  She nodded. "We have to get it back."

  "Back how?" he said angrily. "They've gone!"

  "They have my steamer money," she said, "and they have the passport and the bank book and they have Zawgwi." She looked dazed. "They've taken everything."

  "I've already said that," he told her irritably. "Why the hell didn't you speak to them in their language? You could at least have explained that your papers are of no value to them!"

  "They would still have taken my money for the boat, I have to get it back," she repeated.

  "Great," he said sarcastically. "How?"

  She said slowly, "It is good the dacoits didn't know I understood them because they talked freely. They've been out all night, they have no food and they're hungry. They sent the young one, the boy, back to the pagoda—his name is Chi Ti—to cook rice for them while they meet a friend two miles away and return with him."

  "So they're hungry, fine, I'm hungry too, but—" He stopped. "You said pagoda?"

  In the light of the dying fire her eyes gleamed like cat's eyes. She nodded. "I am no longer stunned, U Hamlin, we will get back the rice and my money—we must!"

  He nodded. "I'm hungry enough to try anything for that rice but what pagoda? There seem to be pagodas everywhere."

  “I know a little of the road here because I went sometimes to Mandalay with U San Ya before it was captured by the Karens," she said. "At the bend of the road ahead there is a pagoda on a hilltop, and there is also the pagoda we passed half a mile ago. Do you know Christian prayers, U Hamlin?"

  "Why?"

  "You should pray they will be hiding in one of those two."

  He said grimly, "We've not much time to find the right pagoda before the others get back." He tossed earth over the fire. "Let's go."

  "No—wait! Have you a coin, U Hamlin?"

  He groped in the pocket of his trousers and brought up a Chinese fen. "What for?"

  "If the thamma deva that Ma Nu says watches over me will speak, it will tell us at which pagoda they've camped."

  "Thamma deva!"

  "Oh yes." Grasping the coin she closed her eyes, her lips moving without sound; opening them she said, "If the side of the coin with the 2 on it comes up we will go to the pagoda ahead of us, if not to the pagoda already passed." She tossed it in the air, caught it and showed it to him. "We will find them camped at the pagoda on the hilltop up ahead."

  "You believe this stuff?" he said incredulously. "What's a thamma deva?"

  "A spirit who helps."

  He gave her a wary glance. "Well, I suppose without a gun we can use any help we can get."

  They hurried out of the wood into the moonlight again, crossed the road and began making their way toward the wooded hill in the distance on which the silhouette of a pagoda could be seen. Ascending the hill through the woods they moved silently, not stopping until they reached its crest and came out on cleared ground near the pagoda.

  Hamlin grabbed her arm. "Look!" he whispered. "You were right."

  It was an ancient pagoda, neglected and crumbling, shaped like a bell with two broad terraces surrounding it. Under one of the terraces a hole had been cut, making an entrance to the small relic chamber inside. From this cave-like hole a faint glow could be seen; someone had built a fire in the crevice under the pagoda.

  "Let me find a stick," whispered Hamlin. "I need a weapon."

  "But he has a rifle," she whispered back, "and he will hear us. Let me see if I can make him come out."

  "He won't come out," Hamlin said flatly. "Why should he?"

  "Wait," she said, and from deep in her throat there began a curious sound that moved higher and higher in pitch and volume. "Oooooooooooooo," she wailed. "Oooooooo .. . Chi Ti, Chi Ti..." Her voice rose like a dirge, sank, turned into a piercing moan that sent chills down Hamlin's spine. He looked at her with respect and then at the cavelike opening where a head had appeared, etched black against the fire's red glow.

  Chi Ti called nervously, "Badu—Maung Anu?"

  From Gen's throat there now came words, sad and mournful. "Meisha-meisha! Kuthokan makaumbri. . . Chi Ti, Chi Ti—ooooooo."

  "Hto hamin aohla! Htohaminaloa!" cried Chi Ti and stumbled from the cave with his rifle, looking frantically around him.

  Gen's voice sank and rose again, haunting, insistent, merciless.

  Hamlin nudged her: in the moonlight a gauzy, misty shape was moving across the ground, swirling in strange eddies as if sucked by a wind—but there was no wind—and slowly gathering speed until as it approached the cave it gathered itself into a towering shape, a wraith, a huge shadow of a being with lifted arms and hunched shoulders. Hamlin, watching, put his hands to his eyes and rubbed them but when he looked again the shape was still there, swirling closer and closer to the boy at the cave.

  Chi Ti, gaping at it, gave a terrified scream and fled.

  "Good," said Gen matter-of-factly as he vanished into the woods. "Let's get my money."

  Hamlin stood paralyzed. The mist had thinned and was floating gently a few feet above the earth now, slowly dispersing. "Ground mist," he muttered. "Not a ghost, not a shape—but I saw a shape," he told himself. "1 did, didn't I?"

  He was still rooted there when Gen raced out of the cave with knapsack and shoulder bag. "I have all but the rice he was cooking on the fire," she cried. "Come, we must run now." With a look at the sky, "It's nearing dawn, U Hamlin, we need a hiding place where we can see but not be seen. See the river. Watch for the steamer." She tugged at his arm. "Hurry, we must go!"

  "Yes—yes of course," he said, feeling like a fool, and ran with her down the hill, leaving the pagoda behind.

  In the light that precedes dawn they
found what they needed: a small hill surrounded by fields on which stood a copse of trees to hide in, with the road not far below. "Oh that was fun," she said as she sank, down on the

  ground, and opening the knapsack she began sorting out the peanuts. "This is a good place to rest, we can even see a slice of river beyond those rice paddies."

  He chose to seat himself with his back against a tree. Looking at her he said cautiously, "About that thamma de va."

  She looked at him attentively. "Yes."

  "Did you happen to notice anything unusual back at the cave while you were making noises like—like whatever?"

  "Like a ghost. There are ghosts, you know, as well as nats and demons and devas in this country."

  Amused, he said, "Only in this country, only in Burma?"

  "I can't tell about other countries," she said politely, "I've only lived in this one."

  Neatly blocked by this remark he backtracked. "Did your father know about this thamma deva that somebody says looks after you?"

  "My father?" She looked surprised. "No, of course not, he was here to tell the Burmese what he believed and what he thought they should believe."

  That frankness again; he chuckled. "I see. . , so he missed knowing about thamma devas. But you've not answered my question: did you notice anything unusual back at the cave?"

  "Such as what?" she asked earnestly.

  "The cloud of mist, for instance?"

  "Ground mist," she said, nodding. "Yes there's often mist when the cold air meets the warm earth."

  "You didn't see it—well, take on any shape?"

  "Shape? The mist? My eyes were closed to concentrate on scaring Chi Ti out of the cave."

  "And a remarkable job you did," he told her.

  "What did you see?" she asked courteously.

  “Never mind. " He continued to eye her uneasily. “Look, can't you take that blasted hat off for a few minutes? Are you going to sleep in it? I can't see your eyes."

  She removed the hat and he saw that she had straight brown hair cut raggedly with scissors just below the ears. He saw too that her eyes were gray-green. Plain as a broomstick, he thought, except for the eyes, which were bright and curious with a feather-stroke of eyebrow over each, yet even as he studied her face it changed, becoming older, tense and lived, and then he blinked and on second glance it was a child's face again, features delicately arranged on an oval that was waiting to be written on. A chameleon!

  He said, "Now that I can see your eyes tell me again what a thamma deva is."

  "Oh, devas are gods," she told him in her crisp little voice. "Once they were human beings who lived very good lives, such good lives they've been reborn as gods to help people. The king of them all—because there are many devas—is Thagyamin."

  "Ever see one?" he asked casually.

  She decided that she didn't care to talk about this, she knew very well what he had seen at the cave but a person didn't speak of these matters without offending the devas or courting the ill will of the nats. In an offhand voice she said, "My father used to say how different time is here, it used to make him angry, it moves so slowly here, you see. But I think when time moves slowly—" She hesitated. "I think when time moves very slowly it leaves spaces in between the moments for more things to happen. I've finished eating, 1 think I'll sleep for a few minutes," and having said this she abruptly lay down with her head on the knapsack and closed her eyes.

  Hamlin remained upright, having done a fair amount of sleeping during his two days of hiding by the pagoda, and in any case he felt that one of them had to guard against dacoits creeping up to surprise them again. From where he sat with his back against the tree he could see the mist-shrouded river half a mile away, separated from him by the dusty road and by neat squares of paddies along the river-bank. Beyond the river the earth stretched flat to the hills where the tip of a hot orange sun was rising, brightening the sky but not the land as yet, so that the valley mist shrouding the base of the hills turned them into islands floating in the sky. He watched the sun clear the ridge of hills, trailing fronds of pink behind it and suffusing the sky with gold, watched it send out exploratory fingers of light until it reached the river and swept away the mist to reflect every blazing sunrise color in its calm surface.

  To hell with devas and nats, he thought, this was dazzling. Off to his right his eye caught movement and he saw an ox cart take shape on the road below, raising clouds of dust. It turned into one of the checkered fields along the river, the farmer dismounted and presently—very small—he could be seen walking up and down the rows of stubble. The farmer was the only human to be seen in this vast sweep of landscape.

  And what a landscape, mused Hamlin, as sunlight reached the fields below to restore their delicate shades of green and rich brown. The air was clear and cool and without heat as yet, and the birds were chattering. For a moment he reflected on the long way he'd traveled: from Xiagan in China across the mountains into Burma, through the jungles of the Shan country to Lashio, always hiding and never safe. He had skirted Mandalay—that had been tricky, he'd been seen, called by name and shot at there—and now he was here, briefly at rest on this endless journey and in hope of a river steamer if this girl was right, this strange girl with her felt hat and her devas. Of course the boat had not been sighted yet but he guessed they'd walked fewer than ten miles during the night; the dacoit attack had occupied them for too long a time.

  Gen stirred and opened her eyes, awakened by a dream: in her dream she'd been standing on the shore again with Mi-Mi as the steamer passed, searching for European faces, her attention caught by the gaze of the plump little brown-faced man at the rail. In the dream his face had slowly moved toward her until it filled her vision and she had felt that in another minute she might drown in those huge, searching brown eyes. It was this that had awakened her; brushing away the dream she sat up. "Any sign of the steamer?"

  He shook his head.

  She said, "I can't sleep anymore, would you be afraid of being seen if we walk in daylight?"

  "Yes," he said, making a face, "but I think it has to be done, we need that boat!"

  "U Hamlin," she said sternly, looking into his face, "there is a proverb Ma Nu speaks of, that you can see a man carrying a spear on his shoulder and walking, but you cannot see the fate the man carries on his shoulders. What is your fate, U Hamlin?"

  Amused, he shrugged. "How can I know, does anyone? I suppose if I make it back to the United States I'll try again for a job teaching Chinese history."

  "You are not always a spy, then?"

  "That's a leftover from the war, when I was in China under General Stilwell."

  "How do you know they have a description of you, are you that important?"

  He shrugged. "I suspect it's mostly a matter of face— their losing it, I mean. They found out about me in Xiagan, they know I got away and I'm a 'foreign devil,' a 'round-eyes.' They'd like very much to stash me away in one of their prisons or better still shoot me. " He added in a startled voice, "Of course 1 do know things." He laughed. "My God, I've been on the run for so long I forget. On the other hand they can't know for sure what I know."

  Gen grinned. "That's a mixed-up sentence. What "is it you know?"

  "I've learned they plan to send an army into Korea in the spring or summer, which—considering all the tangles of treaties and pacts—could mean a real war." He sighed. "And at the moment—I must be tired—I couldn't care less."

  "You are tired?"

  "Of course I'm tired," he said impatiently, "I've been walking for weeks."

  "How many weeks?"

  "Good God, you want me to count? I left Xiagan in late autumn and now it's turned January. Have you ever walked for days?"

  "Oh I don't know," she said vaguely.

  "What does that mean?"

  Her eyes were on the farmer in the fields below. "We walked for quite a few days to get away from the Japanese: from Maymyo—that's a hill town north of Mandalay— down to Rangoon, where the Japane
se caught us. Of course, once in a while we were given a ride in an ox cart."

  "Japanese," he repeated, staring at her. "My God, you were here during the war? I didn't stop to think you might have been here, I supposed you fled the country like most foreigners. What happened after the Japanese found you?"

  "Oh, we were interned—in Rangoon for three years, in a compound."

  "When was this?"

  Under her hat he watched her eyebrows draw together in a frown. "I was eight so that would have been 1942."

  "How were you treated?"

  She said cautiously, "There wasn't much to eat and there was no medicine but they didn't beat anyone, and some were friendly, we were in a compound with other missionaries." She smiled suddenly. "My father called us a gaggle of missionaries but—" Her smile faded. "But that was when he was funny and cheerful, before my mother died."

  Jarred by this casual statement Hamlin said, "She died in camp?”

  "Yes, of typhoid."

  Hamlin was appalled; he also realized that he was experiencing a rush of outrage at this man who had been her father. "Then can you tell me why the hell—after all that— your father didn't take the both of you back to the United States the minute the war ended?"

  Gen explained it calmly. "He was in the hospital in Rangoon at first—with malaria, you see—and then he decided we should go back to the missionary station in May-myo where we lived before the Japanese came, so we started out for Maymyo." She shrugged. "We got as far as Thein-gyu when he was sick with malaria again, and after that ha stopped talking about May my o and said we'd go back to America as soon as he felt well enough."

  He said skeptically, "And he never felt well enough?"