The Lizard Cage

by Karen Connelly

  Sometime past three o’clock, Tan-see Tiger’s men begin returning. Knowing the cage routines, Nyi Lay can’t understand why the prisoners have come back so early; most of the other inmates are still out in the workshops or gardens. But he’s more surprised to smell them as they file back in, talking and teasing each other as always. They smell like food, and food is what they carry: la-phet in small bags and three kinds of curry in stacked bamboo bowls, fragrant rice in a dented aluminum dish, fresh tomatoes and shredded cabbage and new-fried garlic slices for the tea-leaf salad.

  The boy catches the scent of each man as he walks in. He looks from one criminal to another in contained confusion, his mouth flooding with saliva. Roused by the spices and the pungent scent of pickled tea and a salty whiff of dried fish, his guts immediately start churning and groaning again. He looks from the criminals—Kyaw Kyaw the truck thief is busy spreading a big cloth on the cell floor—to Tiger, who is rubbing his hands together like a giant about to devour an ox. The tan-see speaks in a booming voice, “Well done! I was starting to get unbearably hungry. I bet you’re hungry too, eh, Nyi Lay? I know you’ve had a good shower, but I want you to wash your hands again, with soap. That’s why we have the extra bucket, so we can eat with our hands instead of those damn metal spoons.” The boy jumps up and speedily scrubs his hands. The convicts follow suit.

  “Now you sit close beside me, otherwise these guys will elbow you right out, the pigs.” When Kyaw Kyaw and Hla Myat protest like scolded children, Tiger responds, “It’s true, you eat like animals. Remember, this is a meal for the boy, a feast of shin-byu. He’s going to be ordained as a novice!” He looks down at Nyi Lay, who is already sitting cross-legged beside him. “When a son enters the monastery for the first time, his family gives him a big ordination feast. Usually the shin-byu takes place at the monastery, so maybe when you get your robes, the monks will give you a big feed too. But who knows? There are lots of boys at the monastery schools, and lots of boys eat piles of food. It’s probably too expensive to have a party for every one of them, so we’re having one for you here. What do you think?”

  It’s hard for the boy to take his eyes off the food—all the dishes have been placed on the eating cloth—but he looks up at Tiger and answers solemnly, “Saya Gyi, I think it is a very good idea.”

  The tan-see laughs and squeezes Nyi Lay’s shoulder. Hla Myat hands the boy a bowl of rice, and Tiger says, “Go ahead, new novice, you begin.”

  The moment the boy picks up a deep-fried chicken foot, the men set to in a graceful frenzy, hands and tattooed forearms crossing over and under each other to scoop up chicken or bean-curd curry, another handful of rice. Fingers tear open a dried fish and more fingers rush in to pry the oily flesh away from the sharp skeleton. The scents of cumin and turmeric and crushed chili swim into the boy’s nose. The freshly steamed rice is still warm, a rare treat for him, and for once he doesn’t listen to the men, who talk as they eat, exchanging gossip about warders and each other and new arrivals.

  The boy picks up another chicken foot. They are one of his favorite things to eat, even though there’s hardly any meat on them. Something about all the gnawing satisfies his jaws. He cleans three toes, then returns to the curry, has more rice, eats another crunchy mouthful of tea-leaf salad. There’s not a single pebble or bit of chaff in the rice, which makes the boy wonder where Tiger got it.

  The tan-see is the first to sit back, away from the feast. He burps loudly and says to the boy, “Well, eat as much as you want, but there’s no need to stuff yourself. We’ll put some food in a plastic bag and you can take it with you on your big journey. Hey, now that’s a good smile!” Tiger looks at his fancy watch. “You’re a lucky fellow—you’ll be outside soon enough.”

  In a wistful voice, the little truck thief Kyaw Kyaw observes, “And there’ll be so many pretty girls to see.”

  Tiger grins at Kyaw Kyaw and sighs. “Ah, beautiful women are all over Rangoon.” He smacks his lips so appreciatively that the boy wonders if he’s put more food in his mouth.

  The basket-weaver shakes his head and turns to the boy, admonishing, “But there won’t be any girls in the monastery.”

  “You mean it’s like the prison?”

  Tiger interrupts the old man, “No! No, it’s not like the cage. There are girls all over the place, just not right in the monastery, not in the compound. But you go out a lot, into the streets, the markets, the temples. You’ll see lots of girls. The prettiest girls give the tastiest alms. Alms collecting was the beginning of my downfall as a novice. The girls were just too lovely. You know, the head monks will say that you shouldn’t have anything to do with them, but you should, Little Brother, oh, you definitely should. Girls are very important.” The boy is mystified. What are alms? Why does Tiger care so much about girls? Too embarrassed to ask, he just nods.

  Tiger looks at his watch again. “Are you ready, Nyi Lay? Chit Naing is coming soon, at five o’clock.” The boy gets up and pulls his flip-flops out of the side pocket of his sling bag. Lately he’s been going barefoot as much as he can to save the soles of his slippers, but he wants to wear them for his departure. It’s the done thing; even the very poorest convicts wear something on their feet when they leave.

  Before putting on his flip-flops, he gets down on his knees and pulls his dirty felt blanket and longyi out from their hiding place under Tiger’s bunk. Hla Myat whistles. “What the fuck are those things still doing in here?” He shoots an accusing glance at the tan-see. “Why didn’t he throw them away while we were out?” Then he growls, “Kala-lay, could you at least wait until we get the food cleared away?”

  The boy stares at Tiger and says matter-of-factly, “I want to take them with me.”

  “Nyi Lay, I think they’ll have nice clean blankets for you at the monastery.”

  “But this one is mine. And the longyi is a school longyi, and I’m going to school at the pongyi-kyaung, so I want to take it with me. I’ll wash everything when I get there. With my new soap.”

  “Come on, Little Brother, don’t be stubborn. At the monastery you’ll wear robes, orange or burgundy robes, you won’t need an old green longyi. Hla Myat is right, though as usual he expresses himself like a talking dog. That stuff doesn’t smell very good. And you’ve had a nice shower and everything, to be clean for your big trip.”

  The boy repeats, “I want to take them with me.” Like the treasures in his sling bag, these are the last vestiges of his little shack. He doesn’t care if they have a bad smell. They’re his, and the smell is his too, and he’s not leaving them behind.

  Tiger asks, “How are you going to carry them without getting dirty?”

  The boy looks down at his things. If the bundle were smaller, he’d be able to fit it in a plastic bag—he is taking half a dozen plastic bags with him—but the Chinese felt is bulky, and the bags are too small.

  “I don’t know.”

  As he gathers up the eating cloth, Hla Myat mutters, “It’s just disgusting! He’s like a barnyard animal. So much for a civilized shin-byu.”

  “Hla Myat, shut up before I stuff some of that blanket in your mouth! You’re insufferable. It’s a good thing you can cook and clean, you skinny prick, otherwise you’d be out of here.”

  The old weaver coughs politely. His blind eye is examining a secret point on the ceiling, his other eye is squinting after it, but his voice is aimed like an arrow at the boy. “Nyi Lay, you can put your blanket in the big basket I’ve just finished making. It’ll fit in there. It’s a tight weave, so the …” He pauses delicately.

  The boy finishes the old man’s sentence, “The smell won’t get through.”

  Hla Myat can’t restrain himself. “That was going to be my laundry basket!”

  Tiger throws a cheroot butt at him. “Didn’t I tell you to shut up?”

  The boy looks up at Tiger. “Is it all right?”

  “Of course it’s all right. Uncle is offering you a gift. That’s very kind of him.” He gently elbows Nyi Lay t
oward the old man.

  The boy gets up as the weaver retrieves the basket from among his things. The boy accepts the gift with a gesture both servile and courtly; his left hand cradles the elbow that extends the right hand to receive the basket. It’s like a carrying bag for the market, wide at the bottom, narrower at the top where the looped handles face each other and close together, two perfect circles. It’s made of blue, green, and pink plastic threads, which the color-hungry boy likes very much. He thanks the weaver with a slightly bowed head.

  “Ya-deh,” comes the old fellow’s gruff response. He’s examining the basket with his sighted, critical eye. “It’s not much of a suitcase, but it’s the best I could do on such short notice.” The boy glances from the weaver’s seeing eye to the white-scarred one, which is already looking somewhere else. Nyi Lay follows the direction of his gaze across the room. There, on the other side of the bars, stands Chit Naing.

  . 61 .

  They make an odd pair, the tall, bespectacled jailer carrying a dinner tray and the small boy with a large market basket knocking against his leg. For balance, he wears his sling bag over his opposite shoulder. They walk to the white house the long way, around the other side of the compound, so that the boy doesn’t have to pass the kitchen. He understands this. That’s why Chit Naing picked up the tray on his way over.

  “Saya Chit Naing?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Does the Songbird know I’m going away?”

  “Yes, he does. I told him that we’ve found a pongyi-kyaung for you. He’ll miss you, but he’s glad that you’re going.” The tray in Chit Naing’s hands wobbles slightly.

  “Saya Chit Naing?”

  “Yes?”

  “Why are you taking the Songbird his food?”

  Chit Naing dodges the question. “You are going to take it to him.”

  The boy is nervous about seeing the singer, and ashamed. Only yesterday he spilled the rice gruel on the cement and cursed Teza, though it feels like a long time ago. “Maybe I shouldn’t see the Songbird, Saya Chit Naing. Maybe he doesn’t want to see me.”

  “Nyi Lay, that’s not true. He wants very much to see you. He told me so himself.”

  “Did he?”

  Chit Naing hears the rawness in the child’s voice. “Yes, he did, this morning. You know how much he cares about you. Don’t you?”

  “Yes, I know.” He confesses, “Saya Chit Naing, Teza gives his food to me. Or to the birds.”

  The jailer doesn’t get upset. He just sighs. “Yes, I know. Ko Teza is not very hungry anymore.” The two walk past the sentencing halls.

  “Saya Chit Naing?”

  “Yes, Nyi Lay?” The jailer doesn’t let impatience sharpen his tone.

  “Teza doesn’t want to be in the cage anymore, does he?”

  “No, he does not.”

  The boy bites his lower lip and walks more quickly. He waits a whole minute before making his announcement. “After I leave the cage, Teza will also leave.”

  Chit Naing frowns and glances down at Nyi Lay’s head, wondering what’s going on in there. Soon that small skull will be bald, shaven clean, and the scrawny body will be wrapped in the robes of a novice. The jailer watches the narrow neck swivel; the boy is gazing toward the watchtower.

  Over two hundred feet away, Sammy leans against the iron timekeeping pole. He’s just finished beating out five o’clock. The boy doesn’t stop walking, but he slows his pace and tentatively raises his hand. Sammy smiles and waves back enthusiastically. The boy wants to run to him and say good-bye, but he does not; he’s carrying too many things, and he’s shy, with a thumping heart because they are getting closer to the white house. But he already regrets it, with the confused anxiety of a child, and he will regret it later too, with a deeper knowing, that he didn’t go to the man who came to help him, who was so much like him—silent, Indian brother, separate from the others, the timekeeper.

  When they are steps away from the white house and the wall that surrounds it, the boy thinks, After this, I am leaving! The thought tires him out. He yawns, infecting the jailer, who also yawns. The two of them smile at each other, but they are sad because Teza is there, on the other side of the wall. After the boy says good-bye to the singer, their lives will change. They themselves will change, like one animal turning into another or stone becoming flesh or a cascade of blue water bursting into flame.

  Look who’s come to see you,” says Chit Naing, but Teza, sitting close to the bars, already knows. The boy’s eyes dart from Teza’s broken jaw to the inner walls of the cell to his own clean feet, wearing his two differently colored slippers. Not far from his toes, a dark stain of moisture has settled into the concrete. The spilled rice gruel from yesterday.

  Chit Naing kneels awkwardly and starts to push the food tray through the metal trap. Nyi Lay reflexively squats and holds the trap fully open, lifting the tray so it slides through with ease.

  And there he is, in the same position he was in yesterday when he got so angry. But now Teza is sitting close to the bars. The boy lowers his head to speak. “Ko Teza, I am sorry. For yesterday.”

  “Ya-ba-deh, Nyi Lay.” It’s all right. “Geiq-sha ma shee ba boo.” No problem. “I had my servants come in and clean up the mess.”

  The boy takes up the joke, just to keep talking. “That’s not true.”

  “Yes, it is. The pigeons came first, but they make as much mess as they tidy, so I sent them away, and the sparrows came. Then the cockroaches, and after them the ants. Later the cockroaches returned to make sure the ants had done a proper job, because they’re real sticklers when it comes to a messy cell. See how clean the floor is?”

  The boy steals a glance at Teza’s face. There are many things he would like to tell the singer, but something as hard as iron is stuck in his throat. Words. Words are as hard as iron.

  Teza puts his fingers around one of the bars. “And you’re clean too. I can smell the soap.”

  The boy looks up, abashed. He is also grateful that Teza has spoken again, about something so easy. He responds with boyish enthusiasm, “I had a shower in Hall Four. In a proper shower room with as much water as I wanted. Tan-see Tiger gave me soap and then I put on some thanakha and he let me keep the whole tin of it too, and a real towel, and …” The boy, in his nervousness and longing, begins to talk.

  Teza closes his eyes to see what the boy speaks, water soap thanakha towel. The mention of these simple things sends a thin, sharp blade into his chest. Now that blade flicks out, further, right to his edges, flaying him from inside. He gasps and leans forward, his face almost touching the bars. There is no physical ailment, no real blade. Yet how this skinlessness hurts him, this loss of everything: bathing, clean water, the boy, shy and lively at once, talking about food now, tamin ne hin la-phet ayun gaund-ba-deh. The blade is the sound of the boy’s voice. It make a deep wound because Teza knows he’ll never hear it again.

  So the singer, who thought he knew all the reasons, learns another one for beginning the hunger strike that will end in his death. Without the boy, he doesn’t want to live here anymore. The hungry child has fed him too well.

  He opens his eyes. FREE EL SALVADOR—there is the faded slogan on his favorite shirt—is staring at the singer’s face. They look at each other intently.

  Teza makes a request. “U Chit Naing? Can you leave us for a few minutes?”

  The jailer has stood above and apart from them, awkwardly, trying not to watch their exchange but watching anyway, compelled and unsettled by what he sees. He’s almost relieved to leave them alone. “For five minutes. Maybe a bit more. The Hsayadaw will be here at five-thirty. We have to be as quick as we can.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  When Chit Naing is gone, Teza rises and walks over to his mat and blanket. He returns to the bars with the purple ledger in his hand. “I want you to have it,” he whispers. Then he reaches to the back of his longyi and pulls out the pen. “And this too. Take them with you. U Chit Naing will get in trouble if anyone
finds them in here.”

  The boy is staring at the water-stained ledger. “But Ko Teza, I … What can I do with the book?”

  “You’ll read it.”

  “But I don’t know how to …”

  “You will read. Some of the words are about you. Some are for my other little brother, the one on the border, but I don’t have his address, so I can’t send it to him, can I?” He smiles with his eyes. A pool of saliva forms in the corner of his mouth and begins to slide down his crooked chin. “Some of the writing is for my mother. And I wrote down some of our stories, yours and mine.” Teza taps the hard cover. “All these words are your words too, because you brought me the paper and the pen. Understand? You don’t know your letters yet, but you helped me to write this.”

  The boy swallows. “What if they search me and find it? What if they find the pen? Then we’ll both be in a lot of trouble.”

  “Jailer Chit Naing said no one’s going to search you.”

  The boy sucks in a sharp breath. He’ll take the ledger with him because he wants it. He used to have so many books in his shack, until Handsome stole them. He would like to have Teza’s book in his hands, to sit somewhere quiet and turn the pages slowly and follow the lines with his eyes. He can’t read, but when the old paperbacks were in his possession, he did read, all the time; he held the text right side up and sent his eyes through page after page of lines made of letters, letters that made words, and inside those words—he knew this—were human voices.

  If he gets caught with the ledger and the pen, he’ll have to stay in the cage. The Chief Warden will sentence and imprison him and he’ll go back and live with Tiger! The thought doesn’t disturb him in the least. On the contrary, it makes him feel calm and slyly hopeful. If he could live with Tiger in his cell, the tan-see would protect him and feed him, and he wouldn’t be alone. He stretches a thin arm toward the bars, and Teza meets him halfway with the ledger. The weight passing into his hand sends a shiver into his arm, over his shoulders.