The Incident at Badamya

by Dorothy Gilman

  "Yes, left," Lady Waring said softly, smiling at her. 'And I, too, was heartbroken for a while, Gen, and yet— it was enough, you see. I didn't understand it then but I'd been given something perfect and without flaw, and this isn't given to everyone. It was something beyond any reality we usually live in, and its price was its brevity, because it could never have been sustained. It took me a long time to see this—that it was a gift, a miracle."

  There was silence, all of them watching her face, and then Miss Thorald said, "But did you never see him again, never even hear from him?"

  Lady Waring hesitated, and then, "Not really, no."

  Seeing that soft and secret smile, hearing the subtle irony in her voice, Gen arrived suddenly at interesting conclusions of her own. In Theingyu nothing was private, a great deal of information was exchanged each morning at the village well, and doing sums in her head Gen not only guessed but knew, and dared speak. "Eric happened," she said.

  "Who's Eric?" asked Mr. Gunfer, finding himself diverted against his will.

  "Her son," Gen said eagerly. "Her son who was killed here in Burma in 1944, during the war. She said he was twenty-two but he'd be twenty-eight now, just exactly forty years younger than Lady Waring."

  "Impertinent child," said Lady Waring, but not without affection.

  "Is that true?" asked Miss Thorald. "You bore Matthew's son?"

  "Did your husband ever know?" asked Baharian.

  Lady Waring laughed. "Yes, I think he guessed—I'm sure he did—but he finally had his son.., and I," she said softly, "had Eric. For twenty-two years." And to her astonishment she heard herself say, "And for this I can be deeply grateful—that 1 knew him for twenty-two years." And with a feeling of awe she realized that what she'd heard herself say was true: there had been Eric for twenty-two years and she could be grateful.

  There was a long silence and then Mr. Ba Sein said in his mild voice, "How very strange that this man came from so far away—as you have said—to crash into your garden wall one day so that you could find each other and produce not only joy but a son."

  Lady Waring smiled. "Yes, as if a star crossed somewhere, rearranging and arranging life so that I would have something of my own after all."

  "Stars," murmured Gen. "Do they cross, U Ba Sein, to make kan?"

  "What's kan?" asked Miss Thorald.

  "Fate," Gen told her.

  Mr. Gunfer said, "Stars certainly didn't do any crossing when we ended up captives in this wretched temple!"

  U Ba Sein said with a chuckle, "Can you be sure of that, Mr. Gunfer?"

  Lady Waring eyed him warily. "You're a strange man, Mr. Ba Sein."

  "The fire is dying," pointed out Baharían.

  "Yes, it's nearly midnight," said Miss Thorald, "and if I'm to read Vampire Love next, does anyone mind if I burn a candle and begin it now?"

  "Ask Mr. Gunfer," said Lady Waring, turning to look at him with a faint smile.

  Mr. Gunfer was struggling with conflicting emotions. He said testily, "If you must, go ahead." Finding them all staring at him he glanced at Lady Waring, turned away and mumbled, "I daresay an apology is in order... Very well," he said, "I apologize." And with this he wrapped his blanket around him and lay down.

  Gen smiled across the dying fire at U Ba Sein, and then at Lady Waring, and reached for her own blanket.

  "Nevertheless," said Baharian thoughtfully, "one must consider whether meetings like Lady Waring's happen by accident or by design, and whether, perhaps, such a meeting was waiting for her all the time. An interesting philosophical thought, is it not? For if one insists that events take place only at random and by chance, then you have here a most interesting situation: a traveler from a distant country choosing England to visit at a certain time, strictly by chance, and turning by chance down a certain road in a certain Cornwall village, and to this one must add a defective brake or steering apparatus that snaps at the proper moment to send him crashing into a garden at the exact moment that Lady Waring, whose natural habitat is London, is staying in that cottage, and," he added humorously, "not even out shopping for bread or cheese. Then one must also consider their obvious compatibility and the magic between them—" He shrugged. "Yes, one must ask if the events that change lives are chance, or fate." With a nod he rose to his feet. "Now you must excuse me, for one of the privileges of there being no gate at the doorway now is the luxury of visiting the latrine at midnight. I bid you goodnight," he said with a bow, and went out.

  Gen wrapped her blanket close and lay down, satisfied; these people were not made of stone after all, they carried treasures and wounds inside of them and truly they were even like herself.

  11

  It was by happenstance if such existed, given Baharian's speculations of the night before, that they all became involved in puppet-making the next day. Until then Gen's conferences with U Ba Sein had taken place on the temple step, or in the farthest corner of the temple quite removed from the others; it had also been noted that Gen had spent a number of hours drawing squares in Mr. Ba Sein's notebook, inside of which, under his tutelage, she had blocked out the planes of a head, learning how to plan it in three dimensions. It had also been noted that she had a habit of pursing her lips and blowing through them when she concentrated and it was assumed that she was learning how to be a pabu shaya and how to carve a head under Mr. Ba Sein's guidance from the square of wood that he'd found on the shore. Presently, however, it was discovered to be impossible to carve the block of wood without a metal clamp to hold it still, and following this Gen began whittling the block with her knife, which was dull, and in underestimating the length of the nose she inadvertently cut if off. Her disappointment was profound, and her cry of indignation so loud that it captured attention. Miss Thorald and Baharían had been talking in the corner and looked up, startled. Lady Waring had begun reading Gen's teenage magazine a second time, carefully rereading each story, article and advertisement in order to calm her growing impatience, and Mrs. Caswell, after her first lesson in Burmese from Gen, had closed her eyes to whisper over and over, “Ti, fini, thoun, lei..." She opened them now.

  There were tears in Gen's eyes: this mattered, she had been feeling again that strange sense of happiness that implied a very different and unexpected genevieve inside of her, a Gen waiting to surprise her with all kinds of delights. She had looked forward to carefully following the grain of wood with her tool and slowly changing wood into personality, she had wanted to bring a puppet to life, she had wanted to create.

  U Ba Sein only shrugged. "Puppetmasters must be resourceful," he said. "We are denied wood, we are denied pâpier-maché, there is still cloth."

  "Cloth!" cried Gen in disappointment.

  "We can make heads of cloth, stuff them with grass and mount them on sticks to make rod puppets. From this comes learning, too."

  "Like Punch and Judy!" exclaimed Mrs. Caswell. "Oh but then you must give a show for us!"

  The thought of actually creating a show somewhat assuaged Gen's disappointment at not immediately becoming a pabu shaya. For Lady Waring the diversion was a welcome relief from dwelling on the fact that this was their fifth day of captivity and there were no signs as yet of response or rescue from Rangoon. "What puppets will you make?" she asked. "What stories do you know?"

  Gen turned to U Ba Sein. "There are the yokthe pwe stories, U Ba Sein, you must know them all. Could we do one of those?"

  He smiled. "Abbreviated, of course." To the others he explained, "Traditionally they continue all night and sometimes for days."

  "We have Zawgwi and there has to be—oh, there must be!—a prince and a princess, and if there's enough cloth there could be a balu."

  "I feel that I should contribute the cloth for that one," said Lady Waring dryly.

  "At least three puppets to create, then."

  "And more if there's enough cloth," finished Gen.

  By noontime Lady Waring had divested herself of her petticoat and Miss Thorald was unraveling her knitting to contribute
strands of wool for tying the puppets to the rods. Mr. Gunfer, with nothing else to do, had actually volunteered to strip the compound of its grass, while Gen and Mr. Ba Sein took turns with Miss Thorald's scissors in cutting up Lady Waring's petticoat and eventually Baharian's undershirt, followed in late afternoon by Mr. Gunfer's undershirt and then Mrs. Caswell's petticoat. Added materials would have to wait until morning, when Gen and Mr. Gunfer would take a turn at bringing up water and could gather stalks of bamboo for the rods, and as much grass as the guards would allow them time to collect.

  In the meantime there was Lady Waring's cane on which to mount their single nearly completed marionette head. It was featureless as yet, which precipitated a spirited argument as to whether it should be the princess, with some of Miss Thorald's dark wool attached as hair with their one safety pin, or whether the safety pin should be saved to make a turban for the prince with snippets of blue silk from Mr. Gunfer's shirt. When this was interrupted by the arrival of their evening rice there was surprise at how quickly the day had passed, at how few arguments had erupted, at how vivacious Miss Thorald had been and how compliant Mr. Gunfer had proven to be.

  As they ate their rice from the common kettle, no longer appalled at dipping into it with their fingers, Lady Waring found herself observing Miss Thorald, noting the radiance that lingered on her face, and she wondered.

  Curiosity won. "Miss Thorald," she said.

  Miss Thorald glanced up. "Yes, Lady Waring?"

  "I find myself very curious about your plans," she said, impaling her with a stern glance. "If we get out of this situation intact I find it more and more difficult to picture you living on Christian charity with a missionary brother. Do you truly want to join your missionary brother?"

  Miss Thorald said quickly, "Of course."

  "Oh you said that much too fast," Mrs. Caswell told her. "That was very automatic, I think Lady Waring means do you really!"

  Miss Thorald flushed.

  "Say it," demanded Lady Waring.

  "Say what, that there's nowhere else for me to go?" she asked angrily. "This is 1950, Lady Waring, nearly ten years after my trial, and yet all of you recognized and remembered my name, you knew it at once."

  "Change your name."

  "I tried," said Miss Thorald. "I tried that when I came out of prison, I used another name, not legally but to hide behind. I stayed in a rooming house where the landlady kept staring at me and saying she was sure she'd seen me somewhere, so I moved before she could remember where ... Then I applied for a job and had to give my legal name for Social Security, and—" She shivered. "That was terrible. The sudden coolness, the politeness, nothing available after all, they said, and clerks coming to stare at me because word had gotten around that Amo Lerina's murderess was applying for work. That's when I accepted my brother's offer—his kind offer," she added firmly, "because where he has his school and mission there'll be no other Americans or Europeans to identify me."

  "A pity that you're not one to brazen things out," Lady Waring told her. "You need anger, haven't you any anger in you, any defiance?"

  "At what? At whom? I killed my husband, Lady Waring, and that was anger—cold, blazing, furious anger, an emotion I can't afford."

  Mrs. Caswell said, "Would he have killed you if you hadn't killed him first?"

  She shrugged. "I didn't wait to find out, did I?"

  "Oh my dear," said Mrs. Caswell, "it's over and it's past, Lady Waring is right about that. To hide yourself in a small village in a foreign country—and forgive me but I cannot see you as a missionary's aide."

  Tight-lipped, Miss Thorald said, "1 have no choice."

  "Here in Burma," said Gen, wanting to be helpful, "when anyone does something they're sorry about they give money to the pongyi or they build a pagoda to gain merit."

  "More pagodas we do not need," Baharian said dryly. "I have a proposition to make to you, Miss Thorald."

  "Yes?"

  "I can be very charming, of course, but I am not attractive physically—oh, this I know," he said with a wave of a hand. "1 am scarcely a romantic object—this I say frankly and plainly—but me, I have a sense of adventure, of curiosity—and it would be of much interest how we might deal together, Miss Thorald. I could offer you a new name, a new beginning. Naturally love would not be expected, one might call it an arrangement of convenience or of inconvenience. "

  Miss Thorald stared at him in astonishment. "Marriage?"

  "This shocks you?" he inquired politely.

  She said, "I don't understand."

  They were all of them silent, looking from Baharian to Miss Thorald, Gen with eagerness.

  He said gently, "I offer you a life."

  "But—I have nothing to give to life," she stammered. "I died a long time ago."

  "Very true, and so you have told me privately," he said with a twinkle in his eye. "But not irrevocably, one may hope."

  She laughed. "How stubborn you are."

  "I might add that you have appeared remarkably alive today," he pointed out. "We Armenians understand suffering. Like the Jews we have been persecuted and massacred but to cherish suffering—deliver me!" he said with a shudder, and turned to Lady Waring. "Of course you were most suspicious of me on our first day here, and it is true, I am a man to be suspected and I say to you now—and to Miss Thorald, too—that I am not what you think I am." He flung out his arms dramatically. "I am very modest, a mere salesman of used cars in San Francisco. On the other hand, when I bought my garage it was a shack, a hovel, and now it is a fine and bustling business. And I have also a garden.

  "Because," he said ruefully, "I have a passion to watch things grow. I cannot offer much—a used car business— myself, a man of large proportions—and a garden that grows."

  She was staring at him, bewildered. "Are you mad?" "Oh quite," he said. "I told you, a mere proposition, a choice."

  "Just because I'm—because I'm pretty?" "Not at all," he responded. "Because of the life teeming inside of you .., also because I like you and because from suffering I see you growing like a garden." He shrugged. "Maybe also because you read Lao-tse . . , and maybe also because of what you are now, which is too much to waste on martyrdom."

  She cried indignantly, "Martyrdom!" "You do not see it? Of course martyrdom!" "Impossible," she said firmly. "I like you but it's absolutely impossible."

  "Because / am not pretty?"

  "Oh you don't understand," she flung at him, "I'd bring ruin to anyone!"

  "That would be for me to decide," he said gently. "Can you entertain the possibility that it would be kinder—even happier—than doing penance in a village up near the border of this country?"

  "I thought you were here to hunt for someone's gold."

  He shrugged. "That is what brought me here—or so I thought," he said with a smile at U Ba Sein.

  "You couldn't be sure I'd not kill you, too," she said bitterly.

  Baharían grinned. "But that would give such a charming fillip of uncertainty, would it not? Like Russian roulette, an element of adventure and risk. Such an interesting gamble— a gamble you have not refused," he pointed out.

  "I thought I had."

  "Did she?" asked Baharían, appealing to his audience.

  "Yes, but without conviction," said Lady Waring, amused.

  Mr. Gunfer said coldly, "You're nothing but a rank opportunist, Baharían, you'd wear her like a boutonnière to feed your ego. What a cheap ego you have!"

  "Or a large soul," mused Lady Waring.

  "Stop—stop!" cried Miss Thorald, putting her hands over her ears. "It's impossible, you mustn't keep talking about it, I thank you, Mr. Baharían, I've enjoyed talking with you—"

  "—and trust we may continue," he put in.

  "—but please don't speak of this again."

  "1 obey," he said with a bow. "I have not spoken, the words are erased." Turning to Gen he said, "Small one, your eyes are as big as saucers, I fear I have distracted us from the business at hand, shall we continue? Or s
hall we talk instead of what great entertainment you will take back to your village when you return to it from Rangoon?"

  Gen flushed, realizing the time had come when she must speak but the words stuck in her throat nevertheless. Straightening her shoulders and lifting her chin she told him, "I won't be going back to Theingyu, I'm to go on to America."

  Six pairs of eyes swerved to her, five of them in surprise. Mrs. Caswell said doubtfully, "Are you being sent to America for schooling, is that it?"

  But Lady Waring, watching Gen, shook her head. "No," she said quietly, "No, I don't believe that's it and I don't think we should pry further."

  This was so unlike Lady Waring that five pairs of eyes swerved to regard her with surprise, too.

  Gen said, "It's all right, you know. I mean, I have to practice saying it, that they're dead. My mother and father, I mean."

  "Oh my dear," said Mrs. Caswell. "Both parents?"

  "She doesn't need pity," said Lady Waring sharply. "She needs anger—it's anger that keeps people going."

  "I wasn't offering her pity," Mrs. Caswell said impatiently. "Tragedies don't interest me, tragedies and heartbreaks are all alike, what matters is how a person meets them, how they survive them. Given the inevitability of losses and disappointments in life, that's where the challenge is and the uniqueness. I was offering her sympathy."

  "Helen," said Lady Waring, startled, "you continue to surprise me."

  "When?" asked Mr. Gunfer, looking at Gen as if he saw her for the first time. "Both at once?"

  Gen shook her head. "No, my father killed—my father was killed a few days ago so now I'm to go to an aunt in New York City."

  Baharian, studying her face, said shrewdly, "And don't feel like talking about it yet, right?"

  "If you don't mind, no," she told him shyly.

  "So!" he said with a wry smile, "We have now collected two matters not to be spoken of, and me—I think it is time we return to our quarrels, don't you all agree?"

  Late that night, unable to sleep, Lady Waring rose in the darkness and picked her way over the sleeping forms around her and wandered out to the temple step. Finding it already occupied she said, "Oh!" and turned to go, but hearing her Mr. Ba Sein said, "No, please, Lady Waring."