The Incident at Badamya

by Dorothy Gilman

  He was leaving now, cutting off their protests, their demands that more time be given Rangoon, the deadline postponed, that they be allowed to send messages of their own to Rangoon. With a curt nod he beckoned to Ko Thein, who deposited the rice in their kettle, and with sadness Gen watched Ko Thein follow the colonel out of the temple without even a glance at her. Hopeless, she thought, absolutely hopeless, Ba Tu would bring help too late, they would all have been killed and she would never see America, or dress like the girls in the magazine. Or learn to dance or see a real motion picture or wear new shoes...

  There was silence and then Mr. Gunfer gasped, "But I don't want to die in forty-eight hours!"

  "We must remain calm," said Baharian.

  "Speak for yourself," Lady Waring told him crossly, "I may be sixty-eight but I'm not prepared to go yet, I've an appointment at a village in Upper Burma."

  "Of course this isn't unexpected," Mrs. Caswell said slowly, "I just didn't believe it could happen so soon."

  "You continue to surprise me," said Lady Waring, but her tone was sarcastic now.

  "I don't know why," replied Mrs. Caswell. "Harry and I have been in a good many tight spots. Angry natives who think we're desecrating ancestral graves, political coups that send us flying just ahead of screaming rebels—"

  Her voice was so prosaic that it had a soothing effect on anyone inclined to hysteria but it did not discourage Mr. Gunfer from saying bitterly, "Except that we can't fly away from here."

  Oh we must, thought Gen, we must escape, there has to be some way, and echoing her thought Baharian said, "We must escape, there has to be a way."

  "Our man of action," said Lady Waring tartly.

  "How?" cried Gen.

  Baharian shrugged. "This we must speak of, but it seems to me—" He frowned. "Surely if we are to be killed by them in forty-eight hours it would be kinder to die trying to escape."

  Mr. Gunfer made a face. "Horrible thought, but you're right, it gives us choice."

  Miss Thorald nodded. "Yes, a choice of how and when."

  "Thank you for agreeing, my dear," said Baharian, giving her a smile. "I told you we would have prospered together."

  "Mr. Baharian, Terry—"

  "We could rush the gate," broke in Mrs. Caswell. "That's the word for it, isn't it? After all, there are only two guards and seven of us."

  "Two guards with loaded rifles," put in Mr. Gunfer.

  "How about crawling past the guard hut in the middle of the night, does anyone know if they ever sleep on duty?"

  "At night," said Mr. Ba Sein quietly, "there are always two guards, and very late in the night, when we are quiet and if one of them wishes to sleep, he comes to the step of the temple and lies down there."

  Baharian said in surprise, "You've seen this?"

  Mr. Ba Sein nodded. "Yes, I need very little sleep and it is sometimes pleasant to sit outside and look at the stars."

  Mr. Gunfer said thoughtfully, "We have matches and live embers, what if we set fire to the fence outside and made a dash for it?"

  "I doubt it would burn fast enough for us to escape through it and certainly any fire would be noticed at once."

  "Nevertheless," began Baharian, and stopped, seeing that one of the guards was standing by the pillar, face impassive.

  Mrs. Caswell whispered, "Has he been listening? How much has he heard?"

  But Gen, trembling, stood up because it was Ko Thein; he had come back. She waited uncertainly for his eyes to find her, and when they did he curved a beckoning finger.

  Lady Waring, seeing this, cried harshly, "Don't go! You .., what do you want with her?"

  "It's all right," cried Gen, racing to his side. "Ko Thein?"

  In a low voice he said, "Ba Tu, la neide."

  "Bedo?" she asked.

  "Seinya."

  A dozen questions hammered at Gen but Ko Thein placed a finger to his lips, backed away and hurried out of the temple.

  "What is it?" asked Mr. Gunfer.

  Soberly, frowning over it, Gen said, "He has told me that Ba Tu is coming—before night."

  "What on earth are you talking about?" asked Lady Waring. In a kinder voice Baharían said, "Who or what is Ba Tu?"

  "My friend," she said simply, and told them of how Ba Tu had returned her father's gold watch to her, and of how he had come to the gate of the compound to speak to her four days ago.

  "But why didn't you tell us?" demanded Lady Waring.

  "I feared you would be heard talking of it, and there was also the fear he might not find boats."

  "A dacoit!" echoed Mr. Gunfer incredulously.

  "Do you think he's found boats now?" asked Miss Thorald. "Do you think he's heard about Colonel Wang's ultimatum?"

  "I don't know," Gen said helplessly. "I don't know if he's found boats, I don't know anything, not even when he will come, or if he'll get through to us. It will be dangerous for him to come by daylight. If he's caught—" She shivered. "You see how it is."

  "But still there begins to be a hope," said Mrs. Caswell.

  "Hope is a beautiful word," said Baharían, "but we must not hope too much or expect too much. What we must do— there was to be a marionette show, was there not? It is now—" He looked at his watch. "It is now ten o'clock in the morning, a long day ahead of us, and I think we must become extremely busy and complete the small one's puppets. You agree, Mr. Ba Sein?"

  Mr. Ba Sein smiled.

  "You joke, surely!" cried Mr. Gunfer. "Puppets, after mis?"

  "Puppets," Baharían told him firmly. "One thinks better when busy, and if this Ba Tu doesn't reach us by night we must have plans. In the meantime we have rods now for the puppets, and only one head left to complete, and dear God but we also have long hours ahead that can easily drive us mad. To be torn between hope and despair—I have been there, it is not a good territory."

  "When?" asked Miss Thorald curiously. "Where?"

  "The war."

  "I loathe suspense," complained Mr. Gunfer. "My God I loathe suspense, I just hope my heart is strong enough to sustain it."

  "I'm quite familiar with it," said Miss Thorald with asperity, "and I can assure you that you'll live through it."

  "Unless of course we die at the end of it," pointed out Lady Waring, and realized there were tears in her eyes. How humiliating, she thought, I've lived with death for so long and lost so many to death, why can't I accept that it will happen to me, too? She rose and walked unsteadily to the doorway and stood looking out into the sunbaked compound, furious at the ugly fence that prevented her from seeing the river. She needed a river: the sight of water had always calmed her, it was why she so dearly loved Cornwall. She thought, It's so undignified to be this stubborn about letting go, and she closed her eyes, imagining the river as life, moving from brook to ocean, birth to death, and herself at its edge, clinging desperately to a tree, a bush, a tuft of grass, struggling to hold back while the river flowed tranquilly past, mocking her.

  Gen had followed her. She said anxiously, "Are you all right?"

  The moment passed, the tears dried. Lady Waring said gruffly, "Watch out or I'll stop scolding you for your impertinence, Gen Ferris." To the others she called, "Well, where are you? You heard Mr. Baharian, we've work to do!"

  But there was not enough work for seven people and it was hot outside in the compound, and attention was spasmodic. Gen thought, Suddenly they're all actors, pretending to be interested, to be cheerful, and every hour that passes they can't help but give me accusing glances because nothing happens. But she was a captive of suspense too, wanting very much to speak with U Ba Sein, who appeared to go to unusual lengths to avoid speech with her. She would say anxiously, "U Ba Sein—"

  And he would interrupt to say, "The prince will sing the song from the Zawtagomma pyazat, I think . . , and I believe that much as it shatters all traditions we must give him a mustache like a European or he will look exactly like the princess." And with a piece of charcoal from the fire he would study the cloth head and make a t
entative line.

  "But U Ba Sein—"

  "Tomorrow we will practice hard," he said, as if not hearing her. "We must practice all day and present our performance before Colonel Wang returns so that we continue to live with intention."

  She could only turn back to the others, who spoke now of finding a way to scale the high fence, although Mrs. Caswell still clung to the idea of rushing the guards, rifles or not. By three o'clock in the afternoon, hot and tired, they drifted back into the temple's shaded coolness to hug their particular fears and to go over and over new ideas for escape. Only Gen remained outside, sitting on the step of the temple in a patch of shade.

  She was discouraged and she was depressed, for Ko Thein had been absent from the compound for several hours and he had been replaced by two new guards; she could only stare fixedly at the guard hut and will Ba Tu to find a way to get through to her, but no shadow appeared, the guards lazed in the shade of the fence without concern, the afternoon was on the wane and there was no Ba Tu.

  Ba Tu, la neide . . . When, she had asked . . . Before night, Ko Thein had said.

  Oh, Ba Tu, she prayed, you have seven lives in the palm of your hand, come to us, don't abandon us . . .

  It was not good to be abandoned; she separated the word from the others and considered it, and then she brought out her feelings about the word, recognizing them from her mother's death, and again from her father's death, and for a moment she experienced a death of her own as she sat on the step and saw and understood how alone she was in the world now. Alone, she thought, alone alone, testing the word, and then through her tears her eyes caught a flutter of movement off to the left. She saw that a butterfly had attached itself to one of the few sheaths of grass that Mr. Gunfer had overlooked; it lingered a moment and then with a twinkle of wings fluttered closer, brushed her arm and to her surprise settled fearlessly on her knee.

  She held her breath.

  Its wings were a vivid shade of blue like the sky at noon on a cloudless day, and each was outlined in brilliant shades of red with a slash of gold inside the scarlet. She marveled at it, for in all of her nearly seventeen years in this country she had never seen or heard of a butterfly such as this, and had certainly never met one so bold.

  She thought, It's a sign. . .

  Perhaps she had not been forgotten, after all. Or abandoned.

  The wings quivered, the butterfly rose and fluttered away, hovered over a stem of grass and then flew upward to vanish over the fence and melt into the blue of the sky, leaving Gen its butterfly image forever.

  Behind her Miss Thorald cleared her throat. "I realized you're still out here and 1 don't think you should be by yourself just now." Seating herself on the broad step next to Gen she said softly, "Have you faced death before, Gen? You were here during war, weren't you?"

  It needed a strenuous effort to shift her attention to Miss Thorald. "Yes—yes we were here," she said, blinking away the last of her tears, and then, realizing what Miss Thorald meant, "But I suppose it's different to know exactly when it can happen—like now, if Ba Tu doesn't come, or if he comes to say he can't help us." She added clumsily, "I daresay when we're born someone knows exactly when we'll die, but we don't."

  Miss Thorald reached for Gen's hand, squeezed it lightly and released it. "We're all a little crazy today, I think— like that bird shrieking at us from the woods."

  "It's a cuckoo," Gen told her, so impressed by Miss Thorald's quick warm gesture, a gesture that seemed to remove the years and the experience between them, that she said, "Will you have been sorry you said no to Mr. Baharian's proposal? Do you like him?"

  "He's certainly different from anyone I've ever known," said Miss Thorald. "Yes I like him—he's a very surprising person."

  Gen nodded. "Lady Waring keeps saying that about Mrs. Caswell, too."

  Miss Thorald smiled. "There seem to be many surprises, don't there ... I can't tell you how different everyone was on the steamer, in spite of being thrown together for seven days, and the only nonnatives aboard. Lady Waring had her secretary with her, and a man assigned her from the consulate named Culpepper, and she was very haughty and distant. Mrs. Caswell was nice but inseparable from her husband; Mr. Gunfer was condescending, and Mr. Baharian—well, his exuberance and his friendliness were considered brash, I think. Somehow it was all so polite and cool and formal."

  "So they were wearing masks," said Gen triumphantly, feeling that her point was proved.

  Miss Thorald nodded. "I think you're right, I wonder .. , yes, I wonder if we can ever really know a person until we know them under stress. Gen, that is a very noisy bird!"

  Gen had already tensed; it was not only an unusually noisy cuckoo but it had moved closer, repeating over and over again its wild insane cry. She whispered, "Oh Miss Thorald," and rose to her feet. "Miss Thorald, that has to be Ba Tu. Where is it coming from, it's a signal!"

  Miss Thorald said calmly, "From behind the latrine, I believe."

  "In broad daylight, too," whispered Gen.

  "I'll cover for you," said Miss Thorald. "One of the guards is watching, pretend you're using the latrine. Be careful!"

  "Yes," said Gen and walked to the hole in the ground and squatted over it, calling in a low voice, "Ba Tu?"

  It was Ba Tu.

  "Have you heard?" she whispered. "Ame, in forty-eight hours they will kill us if nothing's heard from Rangoon!"

  "Sssh, I've heard," he said, his mouth pressed to the fence. "It's what brought me back. Be very quiet and listen, Zen—it has to be tonight."

  "You found boats?"

  "No boats. . , boats yes, but not here, Zen, ten miles downstream. There wasn't time, there's been time for nothing, but Bo Gale and I, we have made a poun."

  "What plan?"

  "For tonight, after they've brought your evening rice and when the stars are out but not yet the moon."

  "Na male bu."

  "We have a digging tool," he explained. "We stole it, a shovel, it was all we could think of, we'll dig a twin— a hole in the ground—here, under this fence, in this place, Zen. And you will crawl under and run, all of you."

  "They'll hear you!" she protested.

  "Yes, so you must find a way to make noise, much noise, for about leize minutes—forty minutes—because we will have to creep on stomachs to this place and then dig a big hole. You must make large noises, Zen, pretend someone's sick. Scream, yell, cry. Go crazy."

  "Ssst, a guard's coming!" hissed Miss Thorald.

  'Yatte," Gen told Ba Tu, "a guard is coming."

  The guard was new and he was young and conscientious, and he took his assignment to guard the Europeans seriously. From across the compound he had heard mumbling from this thin girl with the hat but although he closely watched her companion, the older woman, he had not seen her lips move in reply; he wanted now to know to whom the thin one was speaking. "Hei," he demanded, "who do you talk with?"

  Gen was ready for him; she looked up and said crossly, "I'm practicing words for our puppet show, one does that even at the toilet. I'm going over and over the words I will say, to memorize them."

  "Puppet show? What puppet show?" he asked skeptically.

  "We're giving one tomorrow," she told him, and added carelessly, "You guards may watch if you'd like. Or maybe," she said, seized by inspiration, "maybe we'll give the show tonight—yes, tonight. Miss Thorald," she called to her, "we had really planned to give the show tonight, hadn't we?"

  "Of course," said Miss Thorald demurely.

  "You see? Now go away, it's not polite for you to stand there."

  He retreated, calling out to his fellow guard the news of prisoners crazy enough to give a show for them, and once he had distanced himself Gen giggled. “You heard, Ba Tu? We will give a show, a very noisy one, we'll ask to use their hut by the gate for the show, and make sure their backs are turned to the latrine. After the rice—you will see them bring the rice?"

  "We'll see, yes," Ba Tu said. "And we'll wait for noise."

&nbs
p; "Be careful, Ba Tu."

  "You too, Zen. Make it very loud!"

  She heard the rustle of palm leaves behind the fence and then silence. Gen stood up, beamed at Miss Thorald, and together they went in to tell the others what lay ahead for them in only a few hours.

  The butterfly had truly been a sign.

  13

  It was Mr. Ba Sein who undertook to discuss with the guards the borrowing of their hut, with its window looking out on the compound. With their permission, he explained courteously, he and Zen might stand behind the window and operate the puppets they'd made during the past few days, with the audience seated on the ground below the window, and if the guards wished to invite friends they would have a very merry yokthe pwe. A short tale, of course, and the puppets were primitive but he was a puppetmaster who knew all the stories and the songs, and he thought they might enjoy it, too. Very gently he insinuated that the colonel need not be told about this, since it would be a very modest show at which the colonel might sneer, coming from another country, and would a lantern and a few extra candles be possible? Mr. Gunfer, looking haggard, said, "This is even worse, there begins to feel something more comfortable about being shot to death. What if we're seen or heard escaping? And we'll have to run, won't we? What if one of us can't run fast enough?"

  "Or trips and falls—or has an appendicitis attack," said Baharían with humor. "Come, come, Gunfer, we're to be rescued by dacoits—brigands, bandits! Here is fat material for your next book."

  "How dare you," said Mr. Gunfer but he said it weakly, so that it could be seen from the narrowing of his eyes that he was considering this suspense from a new angle and had been neatly diverted after all.

  Gen and Mr. Ba Sein had taken over the corner next to the archway and were devising a plot for the show, elaborating on it and memorizing it. "We must stretch the story like a rubber band," he told her. "You can do this, Zen? We must fill time, say many words where one word might do."

  Gen nodded nervously; it was useless to say that she would try to do this, she must do it. "I could begin by telling a folk tale before the show starts," she said. "One of the Boatmen stories maybe?"