The Lizard Cage

by Karen Connelly

  Written on two sheets of paper, the letter is a document of convoluted fury. The Chief wonders if it’s possible that Junior Jailer Nyunt Wai Oo is going insane. The letter makes no mention of how he injured his knee, though the sentences are full of accusations, oaths against the boy and Chit Naing, and constant references to that ridiculous pen. It occurs to the Chief that if the bloody thing is ever found, he would like nothing better than to stick it down Nyunt Wai Oo’s throat.

  He glances up at Chit Naing, who is polishing his glasses. Without the wire rims, the jailer looks younger, almost vulnerable. Chit Naing meets his boss’s eye calmly. Then, longing for the thin protective veil between himself and the world, he quickly puts his glasses back on. The two men are in the downstairs office, with a long wooden desk and files lining the back wall. Chit Naing’s eyes flit from the Chief’s jowled face to the faded portrait of Bogyoke Aung San that hangs above the file cabinets. He takes it as a good sign, somehow; the Chief Warden still respects the general. In some government offices they’ve taken away the Bogyoke’s famous picture because it reminds people too much of his daughter.

  Just as quickly, Chit Naing redirects his gaze to the open window, which gives onto the compound and the first of the big halls. A group of inmates shackled in leg irons walks across his field of vision. Clank clank clank. For perhaps the thousandth time, Chit Naing thinks of rattling elephant chains and how the scrawniest mahouts control such powerful animals.

  What if the Chief won’t let the boy leave? Chit Naing looks down at the palm of his open hand, trying to affect disinterest.

  “Did he hurt the kid?”

  “Earlier in the evening he found the boy by the drainage stream and tried to drown him. You know what he does to the inmates in the shower rooms sometimes? He did that to the boy. He could have killed him. The boy didn’t want to tell me anything about it. I had to coax it out of him. Jailer Nyunt Wai Oo also hit him. There’s a big cut on his face. He came to find me and I accompanied him back to his hut, which the junior jailer and some warders had already destroyed. When we showed up, Jailer Nyunt Wai Oo wanted to get his hands on the boy, but I wouldn’t let him. He was acting like … well, like a lunatic, sir. All of us could see that. He wanted to interrogate the child.” He allows a weighted pause. “As he would a political prisoner.”

  The Chief Warden expels a short, sharp breath. “Seiq-nyit-deh! Bloody irritating. He wants to be an interrogator so badly that he’ll work on errand boys to prove it. I will need to speak with the boy myself, just to make sure there’s nothing to Nyunt Wai Oo’s claims, but before that happens, tell me about the helpful possibility you mentioned in your note.” Chit Naing can hear a twinge of irony in the Chief’s tone. Fortunately, he hadn’t dared to write solution.

  Lightly, lightly; it can’t seem too important to him. He leans back in the wooden chair. “Well, sir, I’m not really sure if this would work, but it’s something to consider. Until yesterday, when Officer Nyunt Wai Oo attacked him, the boy never wanted to leave the prison. Quite the opposite, in fact. But now he realizes that there are all kinds of dangers for him here. I can only imagine what he’s already experienced. The prison isn’t … it’s not … the right place for an orphan. Sometimes I think I should have gone ages ago to find him a placement in a monastery school. That’s my idea, you see, sir. I know a very good pongyi-kyaung in Rangoon, in Kyee Myin Daing. I think the Hsayadaw might agree to take the boy as a novice. With your permission, of course, sir.” Another pause, to give the Chief the space to speak if he wants to. But he doesn’t say a word. Chit Naing continues. “Shall I ask him?”

  The Chief Warden stands up, pushing his chair out behind him so it grates against the floor. Chit Naing, who has started to lean forward, sits up straight and gazes at the portrait of Bogyoke Aung San. The Chief paces to one side of the small room, turns, returns to his desk, and takes a package of cigarettes from his breast pocket. He rarely offers his pack to the senior jailer because he knows Chit Naing has never smoked, but there is something distinctly proprietorial about the way he flicks open the little box and turns away slightly, as if to say, These are mine.

  Ignoring Chit Naing’s question, he asks one of his own. “How do you know the monastery?”

  The jailer is disheartened, though the passive expression on his face doesn’t change. He feared this might happen—a little interrogation. The story he has prepared is the only possible story to tell, the only plausible lie, but taken together with other evidence, in the months to come, it will lead to his undoing.

  “My wife gives alms there sometimes. At the beginning of the rainy season, we try to donate a few new robes to the novices.” The Chief Warden would not believe for a second that Chit Naing, on his own, might give alms to a monastery school. Only his wife, with money from her family, would buy robes or food to give to hungry orphans. A senior jailer doesn’t make very much money, especially if he doesn’t take bribes.

  With the mention of Chit Naing’s wife, the Chief seems slightly mollified. He even smiles a little. Ah, the generosity of the weaker sex. Or perhaps he is thinking, How easy it will be to catch you out, liar. He takes an ashtray from a little side table and places it carefully on his desk but still does not sit down. He paces the length of the room again. Chit Naing is keenly aware of his bulk, the solid mass of him. The Chief is not a tall man, but he wears the power of his position like he wears his military rank. The silence is his to control. He lets Chit Naing sit in it like a cat in water.

  “Does this Hsayadaw have a history?”

  “A history, sir? Of political activity, you mean?”

  “Yes, Officer Chit Naing, of course that’s what I mean.”

  “Well, sir, I really don’t know. I haven’t checked. He runs a school. Most of his pupils are under fifteen, so they’re not … they’re not like the university students. It’s a rather poor orphanage, crumbling to the ground, really. I suspect they worry more about food than politics.”

  “That’s as it bloody well should be. But you know that some of the older monks get big ideas. They can be dangerous. Remember the one who hid the student rebels in his monastery?”

  “Yes, sir, of course I remember him.” Chit Naing couldn’t possibly forget that fearless old monk, his skin like holy parchment. My son, this body is a dirty shell. Do whatever you want with it. He died in his cell, still sitting in his meditation pose, his back against the brick wall.

  “We treated him with kid gloves and he went and croaked on us anyway, the old bugger.”

  The way the Chief speaks about the monk is repugnant, but Chit Naing nods his head. He’s ashamed to take part in this theater, but there’s nothing else he can do. Is the Chief trying to bait him? Belying his composed expression, Chit Naing feels a shiver across his shoulders.

  “You know what those people are like, don’t you, Officer Chit Naing? Always up to something, making demands they have no right to be making. It’s just like that colonialist collaborator Suu Kyi. You know they’re letting her speak to the people on the weekend? From behind her gate, if you can believe it. You heard about that, didn’t you?” His voice amplifies.

  “Yes, sir, I think I did hear something about it.”

  “She stands up there and says whatever she wants to say, talks to the people, answers their questions with lies, smiling and showing off for the foreigners who come to take her picture. What does she know? What could she possibly know about this country when she spent most of her life in England fucking white men? I don’t understand why the First Secretary allows it, I just don’t understand. Or why General Ne Win would allow it. They should have just killed her, you know. I’ve said that for years—they should have shot her and all her traitor friends a long time ago.”

  According to the part Chit Naing plays, he must say something, anything, to assure the Chief Warden of his position, his rightness in all things; that is how the balance of power holds. But Chit Naing sits in mute astonishment. He cannot do it. Right now, this moment,
he has to say something. Though the instant is passing, it’s not too late.

  It’s gone. His eyes are fixed on the portrait of Daw Suu Kyi’s father. The Bogyoke loved Burma so well; he worked tirelessly for his people. Some forty years later, with history still bearing witness to the magnitude of that love and work, it’s almost impossible to believe that anyone wanted to kill him. Yet a jealous rival did want him to die and did murder him, spilled his blood like that of a mere animal, less than an animal, whose dying might have served a purpose. If Chit Naing agrees with the idea of assassinating his daughter, if he nods his head and eats that lie with a smile, how would it be different from celebrating her father’s death? He cannot do it.

  While the jailer stares at the portrait of the dead hero, the Chief Warden frowns at the jailer. The ash on his cigarette has grown so long that it falls off; he jumps and brushes the live cinders from his shirt. Then he carefully sets the cigarette in the ashtray. His voice is very quiet. “Officer Chit Naing, she is not what he was.”

  “Excuse me, sir?”

  “The Bogyoke and his daughter. They are not the same people.”

  This is not so hard to manage. “No, sir, they certainly are not.” She is still alive.

  “You agree with me there?”

  “Absolutely.”

  The Chief stands up straight again, suddenly brusque and businesslike. “This Hsayadaw, then, he’s not full of big political ideas, is he? Hmm?”

  “The Hsayadaw has never spoken to me, sir, about politics.” Actually, he has never spoken to me at all, but he’ll be back from Sagaing in two days. “I don’t think he’s interested in politics, sir. If you would like, I’m sure we could arrange an interview.”

  “Oh, I’m sure we could. It’s not that I don’t trust you, Ko Chit Naing.” Though he has used Ko, the less formal manner of address, the words he has spoken hang testily among the blue nooses of cigarette smoke. “You know I’m fond of the boy. I just don’t want to hand him over to a bunch of troublemakers.”

  Chit Naing clenches his jaw. Only a devotee of the military government could have spawned such absurdity. A school run by monks is cause for concern while the prison is safe haven for a child. Chit Naing clears his throat. “I know exactly what you mean, sir. I feel the same way.”

  . 51 .

  They stare at each other through the bars without talking. Free El Salvador has pushed the rice gruel through the trap. His eyes move from the tray to Teza’s face to his blanket and sleeping mat. The singer says, “Little Brother, you brought me gifts last night.” But he sounds strange. And there is no smile around his eyes. Unsure of what to say, the boy looks down and rubs at a patch of rust low on the bars.

  “Why did you bring those things to me?”

  Free El Salvador’s voice is defensive. “But the pen is yours. You lost it. I brought it back.” He adds in the quietest whisper, “Now you can write.”

  “But where did you get the pen? How did you get it?”

  The boy sniffs. “Outside the coffin. The day of the beating.”

  As Teza stares at him, the distended jaw and open mouth become part of an expression of pure disbelief. His mind jumps and weaves, trying to grasp the many implications of what the boy has said.

  Free El Salvador abruptly stands, runs down the short corridor, and checks the compound. He waves at Teza and mouths the word warder. But the warder passes by. A few seconds later the boy returns to the cell. He whispers, “The pen is still good, Ko Teza. Really, there’s lots of ink inside. I only used it a few times, hardly at all. It’s yours. I brought it back to you.” The singer hears what he’s really saying: This is my gift to you. Aren’t you pleased? He’s longing for what comes after a gift is given: words of praise and gratitude. Teza forgets sometimes. He forgets that Free El Salvador is a child.

  “Nyi Lay, thank you. I thank you for the pen and the ledger. I’m just very surprised. This morning, when I woke up, I couldn’t believe they were here. It was like magic. But I still don’t understand. Chit Naing told me about the search. Handsome turned the cage upside down, looking for the pen. He said warders and inmates were hunting for it, poking around, bribing people. How did you do it?”

  The boy slyly narrows his eyes. “Handsome didn’t think of me. He knows I can’t write. He didn’t search my place.” Then his face changes. “Until yesterday.”

  “He figured it out?”

  “He broke apart my house and threw my things out into the compound. The warders dug a big hole, trying to find the pen. But they didn’t find it, Ko Teza. They tore up my shack and took all my stuff, but it was too late.” The full, boyish lips curve into a cautious smile. He whispers, “He didn’t get the pen!”

  Teza finds it hard to keep his jaw immobile and his voice still, not to whoop with the admiration he feels for the boy crouching in front of him.

  “He didn’t get the pen because you brought it to me. Along with that ledger.”

  “Ledger is the book of lines and numbers?”

  “That’s right. The clerks keep track of accounts, money spent, by writing down all the numbers, the dates. Where did you get that?”

  “I found it in the garbage outside one of the offices.”

  “The garbage?”

  “Ko Teza, you can find many good things in the garbage,” the boy explains earnestly. “Sometimes food, sometimes wires and plastic bags. Once I found a pencil and traded with an Indian for three chapatis. Sometimes I just get mango pits and bags of la-phet with a few peanuts or tea leaves still stuck inside. No one’s supposed to throw away papers or books or anything important in the garbage baskets, but sometimes they’re too lazy to take their garbage to the big office.”

  “But how did you leave the ledger here last night? Didn’t the warder on guard duty see you?”

  “Only Saya Chit Naing was here.”

  “U Chit Naing knows about this?”

  “Oh, no! He didn’t see anything. I said I wanted to pray with you. He stayed on the other side of the wall when I came in. You were sleeping. So I stuck the book under your blanket.”

  Free El Salvador and the singer stare at each other. Then, at precisely the same moment, they begin to laugh. Teza breathes out his ragged, syncopated Heh heh heh and the boy covers his mouth with his hands. After a few seconds he suddenly becomes serious and whispers, “I thought Handsome was going to kill me. But Chit Naing would not let him.”

  Teza is silent. What can he say? “Oh, Nyi Lay, please be careful.”

  “I’m always careful. But if somebody really wants to kill you, it doesn’t matter what you do. He’ll get you in the end.” The words are so brutal and true that Teza cannot respond.

  Nyi Lay briskly rises and reknots his longyi with sharp movements, then sinks again into a squat. “But you know what? On my way over here, I heard the news from a warder that Handsome didn’t come to work this morning. Everybody’s talking about it. So for today I’m safe.”

  Yet the boy is very nervous, Teza notices, constantly fidgeting and straining to hear what’s happening in the compound.

  “Maybe Handsome’s quit his job.”

  “Oh, no,” the boy replies. “He loves his job. Tint Lwin told me something’s wrong with his leg, so he can’t walk. But when he comes back, he’ll come after me again.”

  Teza watches the boy carefully. “Sabado, this is your invitation.”

  “My invitation?”

  “To go away from here. If you leave the cage altogether, Handsome won’t be able to hurt you.”

  The boy rubs the back of his hand across his nose. “I have other work to do now.”

  Without thinking or planning his words, Teza begins. “Sabado, you can rush off now, but take this idea with you. Think about it. Why did you bring me the pen, the ledger? Because you understand how important words are.” The boy turns his face away, stubbornly, but can’t pull himself out of the man’s orbit. “Nyi Lay, when I was really small and didn’t know how to read and write, I used to cry because I w
anted so badly to learn. Then I went to school, and I learned. You want to learn too, don’t you? Don’t you? Then you have to leave the prison. You’re already so brave, living on your own here. I admire you. But to get out of this place, you’ll have to be braver.”

  “I don’t want to talk anymore. I have to go now.” The boy clenches his fists.

  The singer cannot stop himself. “U Chit Naing will help you, Nyi Lay. Other people will help you. But you have to let them. You have to trust us. You have to trust me.”

  Teza has stretched out his hand in a pleading gesture, and the boy wants to knock it against the iron bars. Instead he scrambles backward, not losing his balance but springing to his feet, so angry he can’t breathe. Trust! Yon-kyi hmu, at the heart of love and betrayal both, a word he understands but has never lived. How would he live it here, who would have taught him to believe in its power? Yes, he might trust Chit Naing and Tan-see Tiger and Sammy the giant Indian. He might trust Teza, but one question keeps him separate, caged within the cage: Why? Why should I trust any of them?

  He chokes, not on water like last night but on tears. Drowning again, he stifles his cries, but the force of them makes him shudder. His arms lift away from his sides. It almost hurts to touch his own body. Abandoned, he stands in front of the white house and sobs.

  “Nyi Lay!” The voice comes across a chasm three feet wide and a universe distant, but it’s the same place, the same cage, because the boy can hear Teza. “Nyi Lay, come here.” Teza stretches his hands and voice through the bars. “Come here,” he whispers again. In the midst of the wave that carries him forward to take Teza’s hands, the boy might be safe, even beloved. But the wave rolls back. He draws his hands from Teza’s and twists away. Swallowing his tears, he spits out the furious words, “Why should I trust you?”