"Then he's gone?" said Mrs. Caswell in surprise.
Feathcrgale glanced down at the list of names that Colonel Wang had so happily teletyped to them nine days earlier. "I see that your Mr. Ba Sein lives in Rangoon, do you know his address?"
"Yes of course we know that," Gen told him impatiently.
"Then we'll find him there," said Lady Waring calmly, "for I want very much to see him myself. But we mustn't keep Mr. Feathergale waiting now, there's a great deal to be done before today ends." Seeing Gen's face she added gently, "It'll be all right, Gen."
"But without saying goodbye to us?"
"It'll be all right, we'll find him," repeated Lady Waring. "But now we must go .., come along!"
Reluctantly Gen obeyed.
On the drive from the airport to the Strand Hotel Gen found that very little had changed in the city since she had left it five years ago. The great Schwedagon still soared toward heaven, puncturing the blue sky with its stupas, but the roads had not been repaved and were full of holes, and glancing into side streets and alleys she saw piles of refuse still being quarreled over by dogs. Rangoon had not yet recovered from a war that had left it devastated.
Lady Waring, on the other hand, found its Britishness refreshing after nearly losing her life in a remote temple on the Irrawaddy. She did not overlook the signs of deterioration everywhere, and no human being could possibly ignore the glittering spires of the Schwedagon but it was restful to her to see the reassuringly familiar British colonial architecture that by its very solidity and lack of imagination was an anodyne to the uncertainties they had recently endured. If her energies had been dangerously sapped during their escape she felt herself reviving now; she was, after all, known at the Strand Hotel, where she had spent the weeks before her departure on the steamer north, and both a room and fresh clothes waited for her. Therefore when they reached the hotel she did not walk into the lobby, she swept into it with all the prestige of a Lady Waring, and even went so far as to firmly take charge of them all. To Feathergale she said loftily, "I shall pay a call on you in— shall we say three hours? I want first to find this child some clothes for her trip, after which I wish to speak with you alone."
"Lady Waring," he stammered, "surely you're not thinking—surely you must realize that it could be months before it will be safe to—to—"
"—return to Upper Burma?" She smiled at him. "I will not be attempting it again, Mr. Feathergale, I will be returning to England as soon as Mr. Moreland reaches Rangoon and passage aboard ship can be arranged. No, it's something else I wish to speak about, thank you."
With a look of infinite relief Mr. Feathergale said, "Shall we say four o'clock, then?" When she nodded he added in a kindly voice, "Your best choice for clothes would be the black market you'll find behind the bazaar at this address." He scribbled directions on a card. "Until four, then."
Puzzled, Gen said, "I don't understand, Lady Waring, you're not going back to look for Eric's grave?"
Lady Waring shook her head. "No, my dear, I've two daughters in England—if it's not too late, that is—but perhaps only Mr. Ba Sein would understand."
"How soon can we visit U Ba Sein?" asked Gen.
"The bazaar first," Lady Waring said firmly. "I hear the water supply in Rangoon was cut off yesterday by the insurgents but is now in sufficient supply, we can only hope it remains so for a few hours longer because it seems most improvident to bathe and dress again in clothes you've worn for a week. I cannot help but have noticed," she added pointedly, "that Mr. Feathergale tried not to sit too near us in the car that brought us from the airport."
But even the black market bazaar held limited possibilities for Gen. They all went, except for Mr. Gunfer, who had heard that a freighter was leaving in the morning for Ceylon and had high hopes of booking passage on it. Miss Thorald and Mrs. Caswell bought longyis to wear until the steamer brought their clothes, and Baharian found a shirt and silk trousers to wear while his own clothes were laundered. What they found for Gen was a school uniform: a green wool pleated skirt with a white middy blouse and green tie. This was disappointing but she found solace in a pair of black pumps, her first pair of silk stockings and a tube of actual Tangee lipstick ("for lips men love and love to kiss"), and before they returned to the hotel Lady Waring added to Gen's wardrobe a quilted coat from China to protect her against January in America.
They found Mr. Gunfer in the hotel's bar. "Leaving in the morning," he told them, brandishing a ticket. His glance moved to Miss Thorald and Baharían, who had returned holding hands, and he said peevishly, "Are they going to be married, do you think?"
"There have been stranger couples," pointed out Lady Waring, "and after being closeted in a Burmese temple for eight days they must certainly know each other's faults. Actually Baharían would make a splendid father, and I rather think Miss Thorald a good mother. Certainly she will make a crusade out of changing”—a faint smile played over Lady Waring's lips—"of changing her kan."
"Kan?" said Gunfer, with a sharp glance at her.
"I'm sure you heard me clearly. You continue staring at them, Mr. Gunfer, are you jealous of Baharian?"
Mr. Gunfer opened his mouth, closed it, was silent a moment and said curtly, "I might be."
Lady Waring smiled and patted him on the wrist. “Human after all. How old are you, Mr. Gunfer?"
"Thirty-eight," he said crossly.
Lady Waring shook her head. "For heaven's sake, Mr. Gunfer, you look and act fifty. Go back to your United States and act your age, you no longer have to eat beans and stale bread. Be a capitalist!"
"Never!" cried Mr. Gunfer.
"Then be a happy socialist."
"You are impertinent, Lady Waring!"
"They say we always see our faults in others," she told him blandly, and with a glance at the clock, "Oh dear, I shall be very late for Mr. Feathergale if I don't rush."
Gen, waiting in her hotel room for dinner, was drawn to the window to watch the sun slip behind the trees, leaving the sky suffused with changing shades of raspberry and lemon that slowly dimmed to a pale mauve. She was glad to be alone for these few minutes, and although she thought of many things she was most of all remembering a morning when she had asked U Ba Sein if there were thamma devas in America.
Very politely he had said no.
"But why, U Ba Sein?"
"Their ancient peoples know of thamma devas," he had told her, "although they may call them by other names. And their prophets know of them, too, but no one listens to prophets."
"Then it will be very strange in America, U Ba Sein."
"Ah, but you will carry your thamma deva inside of you, Zen," he had said, "and if you listen—if you learn to listen—it will always be there for you."
She was listening for it now but all she could hear was the chatter of a gecko in the wall, and she had turned her thoughts to other matters when she became aware that she was not alone.
"You didn't hear my knock," said Lady Waring.
They looked at each other uncertainly, as people do when seen in different clothes and different environments, for Gen was now scrubbed and groomed and Lady Waring wore a silk beige dress in which she looked elegant and expensive. "You're back from seeing Mr. Feathergale?"
Lady Waring nodded and said curiously, "What were you thinking of when I walked in, Gen?"
"Of all that I've loved here," Gen said softly. "Not the terrible war years but the others—how it was before the war in Maymyo, in the hills, with my mother and father alive and flowers everywhere .. . And I was thinking of Theingyu too, and the monastery just beyond the village with its teak walls and the glitter and gilt of the Buddha images, and the river flowing past, and how wherever one looks there's the glimpse of a pagoda. Suvannaphumi.., did you know that's what Burma was called in the ancient days? It means the Golden Land."
To hear the child talk so openly was a gift in itself, and Lady Waring smiled. "There are people who insist that we're made of bone and flesh and muscle but 1
say instead that we're made of memories. Cherish them but don't live in them, Gen, or they'll destroy all the bridges to your future."
Gen looked at her with interest. "Is that why you're going back to England?"
"I think," said Lady Waring, "that if there is such a thing as a spirit hovering over its burial place, then Eric must be very happy to find himself in your Suvannaphumi rather than in a cold stone crypt in England. Yes, I believe I've let go of my grief and pain, Gen. I discover—and I have U Ba Sein to thank for it—that it's time I live for the living. Which is why I want you to have these," she said, handing her a small chamois pouch.
Puzzled, Gen took the pouch, loosened its strings and opened it. "Your pearls? she gasped.
"I don't like worrying about people," Lady Waring told her crossly, "and I should worry a great deal about you going off to heaven knows what with no money. I know nothing of that aunt of yours or her situation—nor do you— but these ought to see you through college, four years of it, if that's what you want. They're certainly valuable enough to do something," she said firmly. "It's what I discussed with Mr. Feathergale, and we drew up papers for the Customs people, stating they're a gift from me to you."
Without a word Gen went to her and put her arms around her, incapable of expressing what she felt but knowing that Lady Waring, too, was incapable of this, which made words unnecessary. They stood like this for a long and deeply felt moment until Lady Waring released her, saying gently, "It's time we meet the others for dinner but there's one more thing I want to say."
Gen looked at her and waited.
"I will say it now," she told her, "because I plan to have a luxurious sleep in a real bed as soon as dinner is behind us, and in the morning we visit U Ba Sein. You have not had a mother lately to tell you this, Gen, but I want you to know that despite your concern you will have breasts. Believe me."
On this congenial note they went down to dinner.
17
In the morning, quite early, Gen and Lady Waring climbed into an ancient DeSoto taxi outside the hotel and after Gen had given the driver the address, and after Lady Waring had haggled over the price, which she had learned was a necessity during her long wait to go north, they set out with a shudder and a clanging of gears for the Jubaliho Theater at number 16 Jubaliho Street.
The air was cool and full of fragrant spicy smells with traces of wood smoke. The taxi threaded its way among trishaws and bicycles, past open-air cafés, shops, markets and a number of massive government buildings. They did not speak; the old car was noisy but it was also to be a day of partings, which gave Lady Waring a feeling of uncomfortable solemnity. One parting had already taken place: they had been the only two people breakfasting early enough to see Mr. Gunfer leave, and Lady Waring was still trying to forgive herself for her attack of sentiment at his departure: she had actually embraced and kissed him, which had startled them both.
Their taxi driver spoke. "Jubaliho Street," he said, pointing, as they turned off a broad avenue into a narrower road, and Gen leaned forward eagerly to watch.
On the corner stood a decaying mansion with pockmarked stucco and broken shutters, its yard crowded with squatter huts. A few tall palms lined the street with tops like ragged dust mops, and in every crevice between the buildings the basic jungle of the country erupted in greenery. At the next intersection the street changed into one of commerce, with layer upon layer of shops and signs and several British colonial buildings into which people and shops had poured. Only one vacant space could be seen on the street, like a tooth extraction that leaves a gap, and it was beside this that their taxi stopped. Gen looked out on a flat, rubble-filled square of land, empty except for a bookstall set up at the corner of the lot that was occupied by a man who sat behind its counter, hands folded patiently in his lap.
Puzzled, she said to the driver, "Why have you stopped? This can't be number 16."
He shrugged. Pointing a finger at the bookstall he announced that the printing shop beyond the bookstall was number seventeen, the lacquer factory behind them was number fifteen, and this was therefore number sixteen.
Gen said indignantly, "U Ba Sein wouldn't lie to us, there should be a theater here!"
"Wait for us," Lady Waring told the driver commandingly, and to Gen, "He's made a mistake, we'll ask."
They stepped out and approached the bookseller, who rose to greet them. "Two Ingalei! May I help?"
"Ameiyikan," Gen told him automatically. "We're looking for the marionette theater, the Jubaliho, at number 16."
Surprised, he said, "But there is no theater here, as you can see."
"Yes, one can see that," Gen said, "but it has to be somewhere here, we were given the address only a few days ago. Is it nearby?"
He thought about this. "I do not think so but Kau Reng will know—come," he said, and he led them across the road to a shop over which hung a sign announcing in both English and Burmese that it was the Pan Photo Studio. He shouted into a dark interior and his call produced a troop of small children, followed after an interval by a bent old man with a cane.
"Kau Reng, these two ladies look for a marionette theater called the Jubaliho."
The old man looked curiously at Lady Waring and Gen. "It's been a long time," he said. "The Jubaliho?" He thrust out his underlip and nodded. "Takhau, hou'ke."
"He says, 'once, yes,' " translated Gen, puzzled, and to Kau Reng, "What do you mean, once?"
He stretched out a thin arm to indicate the field of rubble across the street. He said in English, "It stood there, very tall, very grand, like a pagoda. Ame, so many people came to see, and the shows?" His eyes brightened. "I saw them myself when I was a child—so high!"
"But where is it now?" asked Gen.
"Nowhere." He shrugged. "The puppetmaster died, it was torn down."
"But that's impossible," protested Gen.
The bookseller, listening, said, "Wait—I think I have a book. In a certain year the King himself, and the Queen, attended a yokthe pwe and there is a program, a booklet, I know it is somewhere in my shop. Of much interest, surely!"
Gen would have preferred to leave, but an inertia born out of bewilderment and alarm was undermining her and so they followed the bookseller across the dusty road again to his bookstall, neither of them speaking or looking at each other, and patiently watched while the man thumbed through stacks of ragged magazines and then vanished among the shelves in the rear. When he returned he was triumphant.
"You wish for a souvenir? You can have it for ten kyat." He shoved aside a pile of books and placed his discovery on the counter in front of Gen and Lady Waring. It proved to be several bound sheets of yellowing newsprint with its first page displaying a tinted, fading rotogravure of a building. "There," he said, "this is your Jubaliho, it says so. And the story of it."
Reluctantly Gen feigned interest in the picture of a pagoda-shaped structure with a string of lights outlining it, but it was U Ba Sein she had come to find and her feelings of hurt and confusion were deepening. He had misled her, he'd lied to her, he had not been a puppetmaster after all, and the fact that he'd not even said goodbye sealed his betrayal.
"And here is the King and the Queen," said the bookseller proudly, turning to the second page.
"Yes, very attractive—thank you," murmured Lady Waring.
Gen said impatiently, "I can't read Burmese, there's no point in looking at this, I want to go, I want—"
She stopped in midsentence because Lady Waring had extended one finger to idly turn the page, and an eerie silence fell between them as they stared at the photograph of the man dominating the center of this last page.
Gen said in a small, frightened voice, "Who . . . Please, can you tell us what's written under this picture?"
The bookseller brought out a pair of glasses, placed them on his nose and peered at the photo. "Ah yes," he said warmly, "this was the man who began the theater, a very famous puppetmaster. “
Lady Waring said sharply, "And where is he now? Where
can we find him?"
The bookseller looked surprised. "It says—but of course you cannot read Burmese?—he died in 1920."
Gen closed her eyes, her heart beating very quickly, nearly suffocating her at his words, even as a part of her thought, Yes, it would be like this, it would have to be. She opened her eyes, which—to her astonishment—were filled with tears, and she said quietly, "And what was his name?"
"A most famous name," the bookseller told her. "He was U Ba Sein."
"Yes," she said, and drew a deep breath.
In a shaken voice Lady Waring said, "I think we will go now." And hastily dropping a ten-kyat note on the counter, and with a nod to the bookseller, she grasped Gen by the arm and led her away.
They climbed into the waiting taxi without speaking, and were driven back past the decaying mansion, the government buildings, the markets, the shops and open-air cafés, and of the two of them Gen was the happier for she felt at peace and touched by miracle.
Not until the taxi drew up to the hotel did Lady Waring turn and look at her. She said fiercely, "I do not think we will speak of this, we will tell the others that Mr. Ba Sein was not at home."
Gen looked at her with interest.
"It's too unsettling," she said. "What can I do but reject the impossible? It would be very pleasant, of course, to think that once in a while, once in a great while—" She shook her head. "I'm too much of the world to believe in such things."
"Yes," said Gen.
"Nevertheless, before we go inside, Gen Ferris, I will ask—" She bit her lip, hesitating.
"Yes?"
"Ask just once what you're thinking. Now. At this moment."
"I don't mind," Gen said softly. "I am thinking that U Ba Sein was everything he said he was, a puppetmaster, but a very strange and different sort of puppetmaster, because the puppets he guided and the strings he pulled—"
/ have come this way to meet someone, U Ba Sein had told Baharian, and to Lady Waring he had said, A puppetmaster is always busy—here and there.
"There is no need to finish," said Lady Waring sharply. "Let's leave it at that, shall we?" And they went inside to join the others.
The Incident at Badamya Page 17