The Lizard Cage

by Karen Connelly

  When Teza makes his hunger strike public, there will be an uproar, not only in the prison but in the government too. Chit Naing will have to stop meeting her then. The thought of not seeing Sanda, of never again being close enough to touch her, upsets him as much as the prospect of getting in trouble.

  He thinks of her remarkable son, leaning toward him and whispering the name of the street and the Hsayadaw’s name, as if the urgency of his voice would ensure their existence, make the place and its querulous old keeper be here still. And here they are.

  A door opens and closes. The flashlight beam flashes into the second-story corridor, lighting the faded burgundy robes of a monk who walks on the other side of the gardening cook. As they descend the stairs, Chit Naing goes forward to greet the senior monk, bowing low. Now that he’s before the robed man, he’s mortified by his earlier behavior—bossing around the old custodian, forcing him to wake the monk at this late hour. Head down, he quietly offers his respects and his apologies.

  “Yes, yes, I accept both. This is a very unusual visit. Come with me, please. There is a little office next to the schoolroom where we can talk.”

  . 49 .

  This is a different vision.

  He dreams of himself from the outside, and high above. Has he become the cell, his body a wall of bricks, his eyes inside that wall? At the rim of his dreaming mind is the conscious one, asking questions, wandering around, trying to understand what’s happened. Has he returned to the teak coffin and become the spider who watches the man in the cage? No. He knows he is still Teza. He sees himself stretched out on the floor, naked, quiet in the dark. Not shivering. Sleeping perhaps—his eyes are closed.

  Then how can I see myself?

  Am I dead?

  No, wait. It’s not the teak coffin, not the white house. Look at the floor. Instead of cement, it’s stone, old and hewn stone. His eye travels around the outline of the sleeper, following the surface and the lines of separation between enormous flagstones. Excitement flushes through him, almost happiness.

  Neither cell nor cage, this place, but temple.

  One temple on a plain of two thousand temples and pagodas. His mind struggles to wrest itself from dreaming, to wake up and remember the ancient city of Pagan, where he visited the holy sites with his family. His mother fed them rice in the shade of the walls of Lemyethna, Temple of the Four Faces, under the trees dwarfed by Thatbyinnyu, Omniscience of the Buddha. Could he have come at last to the long ordination hall of the beloved monk Upali Thein? Or found a resting place half hidden in the face of a cliff, the rock-tunnel temple of Kyaukgu Umin? A weary man might find refuge in any of these places, in all of them. Kandawgyi. Apeyadana. Dhammayangyi, rising like the Dhamma itself, the great mountain of the Lord’s teachings.

  He might be dreaming of the Temple Nagayon, Protected by the Naga, where nine centuries ago a young serpent-dragon took care of the future king Kyansittha, who was so exhausted by his flight from an enemy that he fell into deep slumber right there, on the spot where the temple now stands.

  Teza could be in any of these places. He could have fallen asleep in the cavernous halls of the great Ananda, white-tiered, four terraces gleaming like polished ivory. Anantapanna, Infinite Wisdom of the Buddha. It’s true, the four porticoes of the hall are as intricate as wisdom, honeycombed with alcoves of treasure, green-glazed plaques of clay, devas painted with marks of auspiciousness on their palms. In terra-cotta, the Jatakas tell the stories of the Virtuous One’s past lives, and the high windows rain light on the Buddha’s head.

  Then why such darkness, Teza?

  Because we’ve come to the end of night. But dawn has not yet broken.

  The dream pulls him back into itself.

  He sees through the high arched door. He feels stone-cool air on his skin and smells stone dust, akin to the scent of cold water. The vaulted room opens into archways, one in each of the world’s directions, east, west, south, north.

  How small he is! (Who am I?) The mind laughs, delighted by the discovery: he is clinging to the shoulder of the statue that faces the northern archway. He is the smallest man, his tiny hands scaled and clawed and four. (Who is that other one below, sleeping on the temple floor, he who loved his name?)

  There is (I am) a lizard on the shoulder of the Buddha, the Buddha made of plaster and brick, the brick made with riverbed clay eight hundred years ago and fired here, in Tattadesa, The Parched Land, Pagan, City of Temples. Gautama the Buddha’s left hand rests in his lap, palm up, and his right hand reaches down to touch the earth, to call upon the earth as a witness to the worthiness of his enlightenment. The Buddha stares toward a river still invisible in darkness.

  The lizard’s skull swivels toward another open stone archway. At the eastern edge, there is the beginning of light, the slow paling of the sky, as the earth, his witness, rolls to face the burning star of the sun. The light comes in a slow flood, washes of pale pink, dark rose, mauve, deep red. In that light he sees the silhouettes of two people. They come up the steps, a man and a child. He sees the khaki uniform, the green T-shirt and turquoise longyi. Both of them are barefoot; they’ve come to pray.

  The boy, Free El Salvador, and the man, Jailer Nyunt Wai Oo. Handsome. And he is handsome, beautiful, his face unlined, without the cutting mouth and angry eyes. How can this be, the two of them, coming into the vestibule, walking toward the sleeping man, the Buddha rising high above him? The boy is smiling shyly, as if he has something to say but is embarrassed. Handsome looks down at him and opens his mouth to speak. No sound comes but the harsh sigh of the vaulted ceiling. The first line of bricks buckles and begins to fall.

  It happens slowly and quickly both. The stone pediments give way; the bricks crash down like the mud they once were, flowing, sliding (there is no sound but the susurrus of water), the Buddha himself tumbles over, burying man and child and sleeper, not out of anger there is no place for anger here but out of love. How can this be? Am I the temple, embracing them, falling to keep them inside me, like the relics of the Holy One buried deep in the heart of a pagoda?

  The temple has fallen. (What am I now, my face against the stone?) He is outside as well as inside, watching. Before him lies rubble, a huge, uneven pile of bricks, out of which rise broken clay limbs, the dusty hands and rounded knees and elbows of the Buddha. His chipped face stares straight and blind into the bluing sky. Where is the lizard? Where is the boy, the jailer? (Where am I?) What have we become?

  The same hearts and bones, swallowed by ancient clay. We are the same life and death, the same fear, one flesh, our blood indistinguishable among these ruins. Suddenly a bird is startled out of a crevice among the shattered bricks. His body jerks into the air, then lifts, lifts lightly, quickly. I am the sparrow also, whose feathers once were scales, whose wings were feet, whose feet are still the lizard’s claws. I wake to fly and below I see the plains, dark gold and brown, the color of human skin, my skin when I was human. I see the river too, silver and twisting like a naga in the morning light, the immense Irrawaddy, one of the great rivers of his people, of my peoples, of the earth.

  There is water on the singer’s face, water on his fingers like a blessing as he touches his eyelids. But when he opens his eyes, the bare light hanging from the ceiling makes him shut them again. He knows the hardness under his head is cement, not stone. He stretches out his arms; it’s not the temple or the plain. Why did I have to wake? He strikes the floor and brushes his arm in a long arc over the cement, pulling his head back under the edge of his blanket. He wants to curl up, to fold into himself, but his elbow knocks the strange thing close. Hardness butts against his ribs. Teza has no idea what it is; the shape has become foreign to him. Panicked, he tosses off the corner of the blanket and picks up a tattered, damp ledger. With one stunned hand, he lifts the thing over him—a book!—upside down, askew. The stained cover swings open like a door. And a pen, the white pen, falls onto his chest.

  Teza begins to laugh. It hurts his mouth, but he cannot help himself. T
he laughter throbs right into the back of his skull, but he keeps laughing as he clicks the nib of the pen in and out, in and out. He props himself up on an elbow and inspects the ledger with his free hand. He moves slowly into a sitting position and shushes himself, trying to hold the weird mirth in. The laughter travels down into his shoulders and he finds himself shaking with silent giggles, which hurts more, so he lets the sound out again, and wipes the tears from his face, and wonders if this is still his dream.

  To express his gratitude for being allowed to sleep on a mat beside Tan-see Tiger’s bunk, Nyi Lay has been tidying the cell, washing longyis, and killing cockroaches since lights-on at six. For reasons no one can explain, the roach population of the hall has reached plaguelike proportions. The other inmates have left for workshop or cleaning duties, but Tiger is exempt from such menial labor. He sits cross-legged on his bunk while the boy brushes the small straw broom across the floor. Haltingly, by a route as meandering as the one he follows to sweep out the crushed roaches, the boy has told the tattooed convict what happened to his little house.

  “That guy’s the asshole among assholes. You gotta get the fuck outta here, kid.”

  The boy looks up with wide eyes.

  “Not outta my cell, boy—you can stay here as long as you want. I mean the cage, you know? It’d be better to work outside than get smacked around by these pricks. You know, my cousin’s husband has a tea shop. Maybe we could make an arrangement. You could go stay there and work. They’re straight folks too, not like me. You’d get a day off and some money every week, and they let their boys sleep on the tables at night. It’s not a bad life. You’d have a bit of cash, and there’d be boys your age all over the place, and pretty little girls selling cigarettes and betel. You know, Nyi Lay, girls! Pretty girls! We gotta get you the fuck outta here before you turn into a faggot. Really. I’ve seen it happen to a lotta guys. It’s time for you to fly the coop, kid.”

  The boy holds the broom off the floor and theatrically cocks his ear toward the sound of the iron-beater. One strike. “It’s ten-thirty, isn’t it?”

  The tan-see ostentatiously swivels the loose gold watch to the top of his wrist. “On the dot.”

  “I better go do my work. Can you call the warder to let me out?”

  Tiger raises an eyebrow. “Why don’t you just stay here until Jailer Chit Naing comes back to fetch you? He didn’t want you to be on the grounds, Nyi Lay.”

  But the boy is already lifting the long strap of his sling bag over his head, onto his right shoulder. He pushes its bulk from his opposite hip to his back, so it doesn’t swing against his legs when he walks.

  Tiger laughs. “You’re loaded up like a pony, kid. You can leave that stuff here, you know.”

  Nyi Lay doesn’t reply. He just adjusts the cloth strap protectively across his chest. Inside the sling bag are the only treasures he has left. He’s willing to leave his spare clothes and his blankets with Tiger, but he doesn’t trust the other men who live in the cell.

  “Why don’t you just hang around until old Chit Naing turns up? You know, it’s probably safer for you in here. No telling where Handsome is right now.”

  For a moment the boy thoughtfully chews his lip. “But we have to do our work, Saya Gyi, and who will feed the singer if I don’t? I know the warder won’t do it.” He lowers his voice. “Saya Gyi, the Songbird’s already so skinny, it’s very bad. I need to take him his food. It’s my job.”

  Tiger is impressed with this long speech; obviously the boy is keen to see his singer. He grins broadly, amused as always, and flattered to be called saya gyi, great teacher. Dressed only in a frayed ochre longyi, the tan-see stands and hails the warder. Then he whispers, “You just watch out now, Little Brother. If Handsome wrecked your house, he’ll be happy to wreck your head too, the prick. Go to Sammy if you need to—he’s beating time at the watchtower all through this week, double shift. Or run your ass straight to the Chief Warden. Even if you just get halfway to the office, they’ll hear you screaming.” The tan-see pauses, eyebrows knitted. “That’s what you do, Little Brother, if there’s trouble. Scream your fucking head off. After last night, the warders know Handsome’s in some kind of shit, so they’ll be more likely to help you now.”

  “Yes, Saya Gyi, tzey-zu-tin-ba-deh.” The boy looks at the roaring blue cat on the man’s chest. There’s another one, with bigger teeth, on his leg. He glances surreptitiously at the rows of numbers and letters tattooed into Tiger’s torso and upper arms. He knows they’re for luck, for warding off bullets and knife wounds, but he’s always been too shy to ask the tan-see what they say. If he ever grows big like Tiger, he will find some lucky words to write forever on his skin.

  Usually when the boy goes to pick up Teza’s food tray, Eggplant is busy cooking the Chief Warden’s lunch in the back kitchen. But today Eggplant is sitting outside the kitchen on a tea-shop stool, his feet planted wide apart to make room for his belly. The boy wonders why the stool hasn’t splintered into pieces under the man’s bulk. Eggplant’s red-checked longyi rides up high on his legs as he leans over and tamps his cheroot against a windowsill. Someone else sits on a stool across from him, his narrow back to the boy, but Nyi Lay recognizes the rusty scalp gleaming through the gray hair.

  A few steps away now, he averts his eyes from the cowled fat around Eggplant’s bare knees.

  “Look who’s coming—our little friend the rat-killer.”

  Sein Yun glances over his shoulder, then turns back to Eggplant and announces, “That’s not his name anymore, my friend. They call him Tiger Sucker now.” He turns to the boy again and leers, all pointy gold caps and betel teeth. “They call him Lover Boy. We hear you spent the night with your good uncle the tan-see. How nice!”

  The boy pulls his sling bag around to his front. He smells the dirt in the palm-reader’s words but can’t understand it.

  Sein Yun throws his head back and guffaws. “Come on, little Tiger Sucker, stop pretending. You know exactly what I’m talking about.” He reaches out and snatches the cheroot from Eggplant’s fat hand. Making a circle with his left thumb and index finger, he pokes the cheroot through quickly, half a dozen times. The cook slaps his bare knee, and the men erupt into unrestrained laughter. Sein Yun tosses the cheroot high in the air, back to the cook, who catches it with ease.

  The boy looks from one man to the other, still confused. The palm-reader knows Tiger isn’t like that. He doesn’t fuck boys, or men, or anyone in the cage—he pines for faraway girlfriends. But Nyi Lay isn’t sure how to refute the palm-reader’s insinuation. He opens his mouth, simply to say no, but Eggplant cuts in, “Lucky, lucky boy. Did you like it? Hmm?”

  In a menacing flash of comprehension, the boy realizes that Eggplant and Sein Yun have been waiting for him. That’s why they’re sitting out here, in the late morning, when there’s still so much work to do. Goose-flesh rises on his neck and arms.

  Eggplant leans forward on his opened knees, holding the cheroot in the curl of his fingers. “I bet you really liked it, little boy. Why don’t you come with me to the back kitchen and I’ll give you some nice oil to drink? Hmm? You’d like that too, wouldn’t you?”

  The boy has stopped at the threshold of the kitchen. He could go in and fetch the tray. It’s not that the two men block his passage; they’re sitting off to one side. But their voices hold him still. Ten seconds pass, twenty, half a minute. He knows that the cook doesn’t like to be stared in the face, so he stares him hard in the face. Eggplant ignores him by lighting his cheroot. His huge body is more unfathomable than usual, because the boy is standing so close to the thick flesh slabs of the upper arms, the breasts full and jiggling under the threadbare undershirt, the wrists packed tight with fat like a folded-over Chinese sausage. Sweat and cooking oil and charcoal smoke come like a vapor off Eggplant’s skin. The boy glances once more at the palm-reader, who grins so hard he resembles a half-decayed human head.

  Step by slow step, the boy backs up. When he’s over the threshold of the ki
tchen, he turns and marches across the big serving room to the inmate who prepares the food for solitaries. After the man loads up Teza’s tray, the boy walks back out into the fresh morning air.

  Without so much as glancing at the two men, he carries the tray with his head held high, his skinny shoulders thrown back. He doesn’t know the word to describe his steady stride, this new willingness to be visible, unhidden. Eggplant and Sein Yun see it. They know what it is. Dignity. And they laugh.

  . 50 .

  No, sir. I questioned the boy myself, and as far as I could tell, the charges against him were unfounded. Officer Nyunt Wai Oo was very angry, and he wasn’t thinking straight. I wondered if he was drunk.” It’s a talent, keeping the voice flat, disconnected from the words themselves and where they might lead. Chit Naing is managing quite well. From his calm face, no one would be able to guess the shredded state of his nerves, nor the acid twisting his guts. “The child had no idea what Jailer Nyunt Wai Oo was talking about. As you can imagine, sir, he was very frightened, and the loss of his house—”

  The Chief Warden snaps, “Yes, I know, you’ve already told me about that.” He thrums his fingers on the desk and stares down at the notes in front of him. One is a two-line memo from Senior Jailer Chit Naing, requesting this interview. The other is a long letter from Nyunt Wai Oo, delivered at dawn by a timid, stuttering young man who lives close to the jailer’s house.

  That little scene took place before the Chief had finished drinking his tea. What a way to start the day. The petrified, acne-bitten messenger, who on further investigation turned out to be the junior jailer’s nephew, explained that Junior Jailer Nyunt Wai Oo would not be able to come to work for several days, having been laid up with a seriously injured knee. The fellow, almost unable to talk for nervousness, then unable to stop his jabbering, went on to testify that he had s-s-seen it h-h-himself, the j-j-j-j-joint swollen to twice its normal size. Bowing deeply, he gave over Nyunt Wai Oo’s letter as though passing on a plague-laden envelope. He bowed repeatedly as he backed out of the office.