by Rosanna Ley
Eva relaxed. She was seeing drama where there was none, she decided. Klaus had business in Myanmar with some of the people who lived here. Nothing more, nothing less. He had moved away to shield her from what might have held a hint of unpleasantness, that was all. It was nothing. He was a nice man, but she must remember, he was still almost a stranger.
They had dinner in a small but smartish local eatery nearby and Klaus proved to be an entertaining companion. She was tempted to ask him about the Burmese man at the Shwedagon, but something stopped her. After tonight she’d probably never see Klaus again. So, what did it matter?
But in the taxi on the way back to her hotel, he withdrew a leather diary from his jacket pocket. ‘I am staying at The Mandalay Royal. Are you?’ he asked her. ‘Most foreigners stay there so perhaps we can meet up again? I will see if one of those contacts I mentioned has something you might be interested in.’
‘I am, yes.’ Eva nodded. It would certainly be useful from a professional point of view.
He made a note. ‘Then I hope I will see you, Eva, in Mandalay.’
They had arrived at her hotel and he got out to open the car door for her.
‘Goodbye, Klaus.’
He dropped a platonic kiss on her cheek. ‘Auf Wiedersehen.’
She gave him a wave and watched as his blond head ducked back into the car and then disappeared out of sight. She’d had a lovely evening. But how well could you possibly know someone you’d just met?
At the desk, the receptionist handed her the room key. ‘There is a telephone message,’ she said. ‘From England.’
‘From England?’ Eva felt a dip of panic.
‘It is from the Bristol Antiques Emporium.’ The girl read slowly from a notebook. ‘Please telephone. Urgent.’
Urgent? Eva checked her watch. It would be around 6.30 p.m. in the UK. She’d switched off her mobile phone. Global roaming didn’t work here in Myanmar and it wasn’t easy for a tourist to buy a local SIM card, or so she had heard. Internet connections were awfully slow too. Jacqui had told her to call from a hotel if she needed to, but at over five US dollars a minute she’d be mostly on her own.
‘Here is the number.’ The girl handed her a slip of paper. It wasn’t the office number though, it was one she didn’t recognise. ‘I dial, yes?’
‘Yes, please.’ Eva waited. It was painstakingly slow.
At last the girl spoke and handed the receiver to Eva. ‘Hello?’
‘It’s Leon.’
Eva was surprised. Leon had never had much to do with her side of the business, she’d always dealt with Jacqui. ‘Is Jacqui alright?’
‘She’s fine,’ Leon said. ‘She asked me to call because she’s a bit tied up tonight. Anyway, it’s about the shipment that’s due to go out. The one you wanted to check over.’
‘Oh, I see.’ Leon dealt with that side of things, deliveries, shipping and so on. ‘What’s the problem?’
‘No problem,’ Leon said. ‘Not really. I just wanted to let you know that you don’t need to check it. We only intended you to have a word with the people over there. We don’t want to upset them, make them feel they’re not doing their job properly. Do you see what I mean?’
‘I suppose so. I just thought that as I’m here and it’s about to go out … That it would be a good opportunity to check that packaging.’
‘Best not to.’ Leon sounded breezy. Clearly, he’d got over whatever had upset him before Eva left Bristol. ‘There’s too much red tape, to be honest with you, Eva. The shipment’s already packed and ready to go. We can’t afford any delays at this stage.’
‘Oh, alright then. If you’re sure …’ It wasn’t up to her, was it?
‘We’re sure.’ Leon hesitated. ‘And, like I said, it’s a delicate matter, dealing with these people. OK?’
‘Alright.’ Though Eva felt snubbed. Didn’t Leon and Jacqui realise that she could be tactful and diplomatic? She was hardly likely to go in there all guns blazing.
‘And you can call me on this number if you have any more queries.’
‘Fine.’
‘Happy hunting.’ And he rang off.
Eva stared at the phone. No enquiries about how she was getting on alone here in Burma, if everything was alright, if she had any problems …
‘Thank you, madam.’ The girl took the receiver back and made a note. Counting up the dollars, no doubt.
Had she misunderstood her role here? Eva didn’t think so. Leon had always been difficult and she didn’t envy Jacqui one bit. But she was faintly relieved that her duties in Yangon appeared to be over. She was thoughtful as she went up to her room. She draped her silk wrap on the chair and slipped off her leather sandals. She padded over to the window and looked out at the lights and night life that were Yangon, the golden stupa of the Shwedagon still glimmering in the distance against the night sky. Why should she bother about Leon? Tomorrow she’d be in Mandalay and there’d be more artefacts to examine. And lots of other things to keep her occupied too. Such as her grandfather’s story and her promise to return the chinthe still nestling in her cabin bag at the bottom of her wardrobe, safe from the prying eyes of any chambermaids. Such as her mother’s disapproval. And such as the elusive Maya who could, her grandfather had promised, tell her much more and who she might or might not find in Mandalay.
CHAPTER 10
Quite often, Lawrence found that he’d fallen asleep during the day. He’d be sitting quietly, watching the sparrows and blue tits on the bird feeder, a cup of tea on the side table. And then he’d let his mind drift. Next thing, he’d wake up with the sound of Mrs Briggs or the postman at the front door, the tea stone cold and his head full of the place. Couldn’t think where the hell he was for a minute or two. Old age, he supposed. Not that he’d ever stopped thinking about Maya entirely. But his life had been full enough. For many years there had been his work and Helen, then later Rosemary and Eva … But now. Well, his darling granddaughter, Eva, was in Burma and it was as if Lawrence had gone back there too, at least in his mind.
Mandalay, 1937
Back at the club, Lawrence couldn’t stop thinking about her.
After meeting in the market, they had walked one quarter of the way around the still and calm waters of the moat, which was one mile, she told him, along a cool and wide walkway shaded by trees. The city within its confines, where the club was also located, had once housed the famous Royal Palace and Lawrence felt a swamp of shame when he remembered what Scottie had told him – how the British had ousted the last of the Burmese dynasty at this very place. Why had they done this? Was it purely a matter of greed?
They walked side by side, Lawrence conscious of her small body gently swaying with the rhythm of her steps and as they walked Moe Mya told him what there was to see in the city, the stone carvers and furniture makers, the Shwenandaw Kyaung gilded teak monastery, the Mahamuni, a golden Buddha on which men laid gold leaf in homage to the Great One and the U Bein teak footbridge across the River Irrawaddy.
‘I want to see it all,’ he told her.
She smiled at his enthusiasm. ‘Then perhaps you will,’ she said.
*
After their walk, Lawrence didn’t want to let her go, so he took her to a tearoom where green tea was served in tall pots painted with flowers and bamboo and she talked of her family. Of her father who had commercial interests as a broker in the rice business, of her aunt, her mother’s sister, who lived near Myitkyina and of her grandmother, Suu Kyi, who had been a servant-girl to Queen Supayalat back in 1885 when the King and Queen had been ousted from their thrones in the Palace and taken into exile.
‘Where were they taken?’ he asked her, trying not to be distracted by the rich purple of the high-necked blouse she wore, elegantly draped over her longyi. It wasn’t so much the blouse, it was the metallic sheen of the purple against her burnished skin.
‘Madras in India,’ she said. ‘It was considered to be a place of safety.’
‘So far away?’ Lawrence was surp
rised. He knew little of Burmese history, he realised. He had come to this land knowing it was different, but all the differences he had experienced to date concerned the countryside, the people and the culture. Scottie had told him stories, but they were always told by the voice of imperialism rather than the voice of the people. He realised that now. ‘Were the King and Queen in so much danger then, to need a place of safety?’ He was confused.
‘The safety the British were thinking of was their own,’ Moe Mya pointed out dryly. ‘More tea?’
‘Please.’ He pushed his cup closer and she lifted the tall and decorative teapot once again. ‘What were the British so worried about?’ Though he could guess. And he realised that at this moment there was nothing he wanted more than to separate himself from those whom he called the British. He had always been a patriot, but it had been unthinking. Now, he was beginning to wonder.
‘An uprising,’ she said. ‘Even peaceful people like the Burmese have such moments.’
He frowned. ‘But the King and Queen were not harmed?’
She shook her head. ‘No, they were not,’ she said. ‘There was a British Protectorate, to ensure that they were well looked after.’ She passed him back his cup, now filled with the hot green liquid.
‘And to ensure that they stayed put and didn’t try to get back to Burma,’ he added. It wasn’t hard to work this out. How much support had the royal couple had among the Burmese people? It might have been possible for them to regain power. But the British clearly weren’t going to take that chance.
‘Precisely.’
Out of sight, out of mind. And now Lawrence felt more than shame, he felt guilt, for being British, for being part of imperialism, for the rout which must have affected so many, including Moe Mya’s family.
‘And what happened to your mother?’ he asked her gently, for so far she had only talked of the aunt in Myitkyina and of her father and the close bond between them.
She bowed her head, but not before he had seen the tears fill her dark eyes. ‘She died when I was a child.’
Moved, Lawrence reached for her hand, which was still resting on the handle of the teapot. It seemed so small next to his own and he marvelled at the tiny fingernails. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
She acknowledged this. She looked at his hand too although she did not attempt to take hers away. ‘My father is a good man,’ she said. ‘If you like, you can meet him.’
‘Of course.’ Lawrence spoke automatically, though he was a bit surprised. After all she and he had only just met themselves. But he must see it as an honour and naturally he could not object. Damn it, he didn’t want to object. He wanted to know all there was to know about her. ‘I’d be delighted,’ he added.
She smiled then and extracted her hand from his. ‘It will not be easy,’ she warned. She lifted her cup to her lips and he followed suit, watching her over the rim.
‘Because he’s very protective of you?’ Lawrence would be protective of her too if he had the chance.
‘Because you are British.’
Ah. Another reminder of the unpleasant fact that not all the Burmese were friendly and hospitable to their imperial masters. That some indeed would rather be free. ‘I see.’ He nodded. But he would still meet him. There was a lot, he realised, that he would do, for a chance to spend more time with this woman.
‘Tell me about your work,’ she said to him.
‘Well …’ The teak camp had not prepared Lawrence for any such notion of Burmese freedom. Every man who worked for him seemed loyal and accepting of his place. They had to be, otherwise the logging could not run smoothly. ‘We are a team,’ he said simply. And it was tough, demanding work. ‘We have to be resilient.’ It meant living for long periods in the teak camps away from civilisation and spending a lot of time in the jungle, along with the leeches, mosquitoes and the rest. And in a heat and humidity that could sap every ounce of energy from a man. But she would know all that, he realised.
‘Why did you choose such a job?’ Her eyes were wide. To her, such a choice must seem very strange for an Englishman.
‘I often wonder.’ Especially when the rains didn’t come to take the logs off down the river, or when they lost an elephant to disease or accident. It was such bloody hard work. ‘I like to be close to the earth, to the soil, to nature,’ he told her, and perhaps this was what had first attracted him. He relished the rasping sound of the saw as the timber was felled, the creak of the complaining tree and the explosion as it fell, crushing everything in the forest within reach. He loved the sweet scent of the wood that could fill the hot, heavy air, and he had nothing but admiration for the elephant handlers who guided the great beasts, tied chains and fastened harnesses, so that the logs could be dragged to the banks of the chaungs, the wild and rushing mountain streams.
‘You have taught us how to use the power of the river,’ said Moe Mya. ‘And to harness the power of the elephants too.’ Although even as she acknowledged this, her small smile seemed to suggest that it was, after all, an insignificant thing.
What was not insignificant, thought Lawrence, was the way that with a boom and a crash, the logs would tumble downstream. And those logs could move. They’d hurtle singly or in packs, colliding into each other and everything in their path with a reverberation that could be felt all along the river bank. Or a log could get caught in rapids or heavy debris and in the blink of an eye there’d be a massive dam of the things until the force and weight of them made the obstacle give and a tidal wave of water carrying logs like missiles would pour down the mountainside. If you got in the way, you’d be a dead man.
‘It’s not all hard work, though,’ he acknowledged. There were terrific cold-weather days too in Upper Burma when you could go on a jungle-shoot for fowl, geese or even bison. And there were the Forest Headquarter hill-stations like Maymyo where you could take leave to play tennis and enjoy a whisky in the club and plain home-cooked food and British camaraderie in the chummery or simply rest and recuperate before returning to camp. Even in camp, there were compensations; there were men who specialised in ferrying supplies and luxuries out there. You could more or less order anything you wanted: cigars, whisky, cans of meat or sardines. You just didn’t know when it would arrive. ‘You never know what will happen next,’ he told her. ‘That’s what’s so exciting. You’re at the mercy of the elements. And you’re living – do you see? Really living.’ It was about as far from a desk job in the UK, working in the family stock-broking firm, as you could get.
‘You have great passion,’ she said, ‘for your work.’
And he supposed this was true. He’d come to Burma to escape duty and the desk and he’d discovered the world of nature, the world of wood and a landscape and people that had already crept into his heart. It was indeed a different life.
Forestry was an old trade. Teak had been shipped from Burma to India as far back as the early eighteenth century though Lawrence’s company had only acquired the forest leases, the elephant herds and the logging staff at the turn of this century when others had looked to the railways for their living. And the legislation was strict. Every teak tree in Burma belonged to the government and the Forest Department supervised which trees were chosen for felling. They must be mature, they must be dried out for at least three years and seasoned so that they could float. There was a hell of a lot of forest in Burma, but the amount of trees in any given area that were allowed to be felled was inconsistent and the terrain was tough. This made Lawrence’s job still harder.
He quickly learnt to recognise unsound trees, to take into account irregularities of shape. The trees were felled by saw at ground level and that’s when Lawrence and his crew would visit each one, to measure and hammer-mark it to indicate the points at which it would later be made into logs. It was indeed a trade dependant on nature: on the earth, on the trees, on animals and on the seasons. They needed the rainy season to move the logs down the rivers and they needed the elephants to haul them there. It was quite a spectacle. And the t
errain was far too hilly and broken by chaungs, the spread of the extractable trees far too random to use mechanical haulage means. He explained some of this to Moe Mya.
She seemed interested, watching his face as he spoke, occasionally nodding or pouring more tea. ‘And you like our elephants?’ she teased. ‘They work well for you, yes?’
‘Oh, yes. Without them we couldn’t do what we do,’ he said. He worked closely with the forest assistant to look after these sagacious beasts and he got to know them individually, you couldn’t help but. They were quirky and they had their likes and dislikes – which side they were approached from, for example (if you got it wrong, you’d get swiped from the swishing tail and that was no joke, as Lawrence had found out to his cost) and the spot from which they liked to feed. They were sensitive too and had to be protected from sores and disease. Anthrax was the worst; you could lose an entire working herd of a hundred in a matter of days. And they needed lots of food, sleep and baths in order to perform at their best.
Their working day might be only six hours – by noon they’d had enough – but by God did they put the work in. Lawrence was in awe. Between May and October during the rains, unharnessed elephants would follow the logs downstream, breaking up the jams of wood that tended to occur in the feeder streams and tributaries until they reached the main swollen river and the point where villagers could retrieve the logs (not a job Lawrence would care to undertake himself) and make up the raft. It was a bloody long and hazardous journey.
‘I have seen the rafts many times,’ Moe Mya told him. ‘They are so big, yes?’
‘They are. They need to be. They even have grass huts to accommodate the raftsmen, their families and possessions.’ The whole family were involved with the retrieval of the logs, they would move location according to where was the best position to be stationed, children would keep lookout for the timber, skilled retrievers would bring in the logs which must be anchored, moored and then bound to make a raft of the size decreed by the timber company. But it was dangerous work. Men could die.