I thought of a semiautobiographical George Orwell essay I’d read back in college about the time he spent as a policeman in Burma during the waning years of the British Empire.
“Lower Burma, I was hated by large numbers of people—the only time in my life that I have been important enough for this to happen to me,” Orwell wrote. He was just Eric Blair back then. He wouldn’t acquire the pen name of George Orwell for a few more years. He was a scared kid looking for adventure in a place that should have killed him. In the essay, the narrator, probably Orwell himself, or at least a close facsimile, is required to kill a formerly tame elephant that went on a spontaneous rampage and killed a villager. The elephant’s suffering at the narrator’s hands is meant to symbolize the long and drawn-out suffering of the native people at the hands of the colonial government. Orwell wants the destitute villagers to like him, to see him as a sympathizer rather than as an invader, but his position and his white skin branded him a hated outsider. I recalled Orwell’s quote often when I backpacked in poor countries in my twenties. I felt like a cheap voyeur, collecting mental images of poverty.
Now, here I was, trying to help Htet as an outsider thinking my privilege could save her. I wondered whether I was on a quest to shoot a proverbial elephant.
Naw snapped me out of my reverie. “I’m getting you a snack here in the city. We have another five hours or so to Bagan. We could also take a ferry, but that’s double the time and the river’s low right now and you can’t afford to get stuck. But it’s pretty when you have the time for it. You’ll do it next time you come.”
I didn’t tell her there probably wouldn’t be a next time. She expertly eased our car into a parking space between two rusty bike rickshaws.
We dined in a building that had the look of an old colonial ballroom with massive French doors that opened onto a stunning orchid garden. We shared platters of giant dumplings, sticky rice, and a paste of fermented fish. Naw ate the way the locals did by rolling the rice and paste into a small ball with her right hand and popping it straight into her mouth. I tried to imitate her, but the rice kept coming apart in my fingers. I surrendered to using a knife and fork.
The drive to Bagan was largely unremarkable. Ever the tour guide, Naw asked politely if we wanted to pull off to inspect a temple or two, but I declined. We were determined to meet Htet’s brother-in-law before dark.
“I get it,” she said as she waved her hand in the air. “You’ve seen one giant gold Buddha, you’ve seen them all.”
I must have dozed because the next thing I remember the car was stopped on the side of empty road.
I rubbed my eyes. “What’s going on?”
“Get out of the car. You’ve got to see this,” Derek said.
I gazed through the windshield at a sweeping green plain dotted by squat leafy trees. Ornate red spires thrust through the low scrubby canopy. There had to be at least one hundred temples, inflamed by the late-afternoon sun. A herd of skinny white cows meandered in front of our car, urged along by a woman wearing loose clothes and a large straw hat to protect her from the sun.
Derek scrambled onto the roof of the vehicle to take at least seventy pictures.
“This place is un-fucking-believable,” he said. “I’ve got to bring Zoe back here.”
Talking about the girl the night before had loosened something in him. It’s as if he had brought their relationship back to life by recounting their past. I would have liked to do the same with my marriage.
We had to stay focused on our mission. I grabbed Derek by the elbow and pulled him back into the car. “Come on, we’ve got to hurry if we’re going to find Htet’s brother-in-law before dark.”
Twenty minues later we arrived at a dilapidated two-story apartment building about four kilometers outside of the ancient city, in an alley behind a low-priced hostel. The building appeared abandoned with its broken windows and graffiti-covered walls. It’s peeling exterior may have once been a bright blue, but now it was closer to a dishwater gray. The only sign of life was a washing line strung from a second-story window hung with child-size T-shirts, jeans, and a stained white nightgown.
Inside, a heavy stench of decay and cigarette smoke soaked into the cement block walls and ragged wall-to-wall carpet. I tried to breathe through my mouth, which let the smells linger only on my tongue instead of inside my nostrils. A single fluorescent beam flickered like a strobe, sending ominous shadows across the walls and ceiling.
The stillness in the apartment building sent shivers up my spine. I heard a clanging at the end of the long dark hallway. My eyes traveled the length to see a hunched-over creature covered in rags dragging a metal cart that had lost a wheel. On closer inspection I saw the long face of an old man. He cursed and spat at his wretched cart and disappeared into a door at the start of the corridor.
“Let’s ask that man if he knows the guy who lives in apartment 202,” I said to Naw. I didn’t want to stay in that hallway a second longer.
Naw’s left eyebrow lifted in a skeptical arc that seemed to say, I don’t think the natives are going to be friendly, even as she made her way toward the old man’s door. She knocked once and received no answer. She knocked a second time and whispered something in Burmese to the closed door. As Naw raised her hand to bang a third time the man answered. From my place behind Naw’s back I could see that the old man was probably completely blind. His cloudy eyes stared straight into Naw’s ample middle and didn’t blink. She grabbed his small wrinkled hand in her meaty palm and I saw her slip him some local currency as she continued to ask questions I couldn’t understand.
After a quick back-and-forth their conversation came to an end. Naw bowed her head gently to the man who could not see her and let him shut his own door. She beckoned us to follow her back out into the street.
“He told me his neighbor isn’t the kind of man we want to meet late at night. I took that to mean he’s a nasty drunk. He is a taxi driver, like Htet said. So I think I know where we can find him. If we go there now we have a decent shot of catching him sober on the job.”
I hugged Naw then. “We couldn’t have done this without you.”
She flashed a toothy smile. “No. It would have been a bad idea.”
We got back into the rental car to make the drive into the ancient part of the city. From previous visits with tourists Naw knew that the taxi drivers hustled for their fares outside the Ananda Temple, a grand structure from the eleventh century.
“They need to hustle for fares. Since electric bikes came to town everyone gets around on their own. No one takes a car when they can pretend to ride a bike,” Naw said.
We parked our own rental car just outside of Old Bagan and walked to the temple. I was unprepared for the sheer magnificence of the massive ancient structure topped by a glowing gold spire.
“My god,” I whispered.
“Nothing else like it in the world. Enjoy it now before all these temples get overrun like the ones in Thailand. The ancient legend about this place is that a group of monks came here from what would today be called India and showed the king a vision of the most grand Himalayan temple that had ever been built. The king re-created the temple he saw in the vision. When it was finished he supposedly had all the architects killed so they could never make anything as beautiful ever again,” Naw said. “Men are stupid like that. Greedy bastards, most of them.”
She pulled a plastic container of sweet tamarind flakes from her pocket and offered them to me. I pinched a handful of the flakes between my thumb and index finger and let them dissolve on my tongue as I batted at the mosquitoes whirring peevishly around our heads.
“These mozzie bastards are worse here than in the swamps back home.” Derek smacked the back of his neck with a dull thwack. “And it’s way hotter than I thought here.”
“You need water too.” Naw bent at the waist to purchase a plastic bag of water from a boy who couldn’t have been more than ten years old. He had three dozen of the Baggies, all tied with a tight knot
in a dirty red cooler, the same kind my dad used to fill with Hamm’s to drink at the beach. I know I looked helpless cradling the bag in my hands, like a little girl who had just won a goldfish at a carnival. Naw showed us how to drink, lifting it above her head and poking a hole in it with her car key so that the water dribbled into her mouth.
The three of us walked in a horizontal line to the temple. An agitated scrum of taxi drivers gathered just outside the entrance, pouncing on tourists as they exited the temple.
“Driver, driver.”
“Tours for you.”
“Lowest price in town.”
“Those bikes aren’t safe. You need driver.”
“Do you see him?” Derek asked me as I squinted to look at each of them.
I tried to recall Nanda’s features from his Facebook photos. He’d been wearing dark aviator glasses and a baseball cap. He could have been any of these men. I shook my head.
Naw approached the group with her swaying hips and air of authority and chatted up a tall reedy man with a mustache that dripped toward his lips. After a few moments she turned back to us.
“Nanda was here. We missed him. He just took a German couple back to their hotel in New Bagan. They think he’ll be back in about fifteen minutes.” She shrugged. “Do you want to see the temple?”
Derek could hardly contain his excitement. I paid the small entry fee for the three of us. I tried to conjure some enthusiasm as I flicked through a pamphlet written in English that explained the history of the temple. If I were here on any other day, I would have spent hours examining the intricate frescoes depicting the life of the Buddha and inspecting the ancient glazed terra-cotta tiles. Now I was too distracted to take it all in. For a minute or two I found myself absorbed by the beauty of the ancient place before remembering we were there to learn whether a man was alive or dead, news that would change my friend’s life forever. Before fifteen minutes had passed I ushered our small group back out to the entrance. I didn’t want to risk missing Nanda a second time.
Htet’s brother-in-law hung on the edge of the scrum and chewed on the end of a fat cigar. His long greasy hair hung to his chin and a scar across his upper lip gave his mouth the impression of a perpetual sneer. “That’s him,” I whispered to Naw. Our rudimentary plan was to separate him from the group of men, to behave like a typical taxi fare, and ask him our questions once we were in his car. Naw negotiated with him for a minute before he separated from the pack and silently took the lead to his parked car.
The second I was in the back of Nanda’s unmarked white car I felt the same unease that jangled my nerves in the man’s apartment building. He took out a lighter in the shape of a naked woman mounting a hand grenade and relit his cigar. Once we were on the road for a few minutes Naw asked him a question from the front seat. He glared at her. I could see his eyes smolder in the rearview mirror. Without warning he slammed on the brakes so hard my head crashed into the back of his seat and ricocheted off the window.
“Get out,” Nanda screamed in English. “Now.” He spun around in his seat, his entire torso now in the backseat, and thrust the glowing cherry of the cigar just an inch from my eye. “Who are you?”
His body buzzed with fury and perhaps humiliation, shame that these tourists would have the gall to get into his car and interrogate him. “I’m no one,” I whispered, choking on the cigar smoke rushing into my nostrils. “I’m no one.”
“Calm down, man,” Derek said; his normally calm drawl was frantic.
In the hot glow of the cigar I could see Nanda’s other hand held a blade, a short fat piece of metal with a jagged edge.
Derek smacked the hand holding the knife away from my face. My fingers trembled as I tried to undo my seat belt and unlock the door. Nanda’s foot must have hit the gas pedal then because we shot forward.
I was blinded by a flash of hot white light from headlights belonging to an oncoming car.
Time slowed. In my spotty vision I saw my girls’ faces. Isabel, Matilda. They were just babies. Izzy, Tilly, I saw them turn into toddlers and then little girls. And then Karl. His mouth was set in a grim line, staring into the distance. His eyes flickered to meet mine. “What are you doing?” he mouthed. What was I doing? I’d finally crossed the line between adventurous and reckless. I could be killed. I might never see my girls again.
I heard the sick crunch of crumpling metal and the screech of shattered glass. Our vehicle spun like a top into the center of the road. My head slammed into the window again. I heard Naw screaming before everything faded to black.
Chapter Twelve
* * *
Karl. He was right there in front of me when I blinked my eyes open. He looked younger than I remembered, happier, well rested. His gray eyes twinkled as he gazed down at me. I smiled up at him, but the harsh fluorescent lights hurt my eyes. I tried to reach to touch his face, but I couldn’t move my hand more than a few inches. An IV was buried in the soft flesh above my right wrist joint. My left arm was too heavy to lift.
“You’re OK, baby,” I heard my husband whisper as he reached down to touch my cheek. I turned slightly to rest the weight of my face in his palm. “You’re going to be OK. You need to rest.”
Everything, including my eyeballs, throbbed. My pulse quickened. How did I get here? Where exactly was here?
I could hear an angry monitor beeping and buzzing next to me, the sound fading in and out, along with voices that sounded far away. My eyelids felt so heavy, I couldn’t keep them open. Stay awake, Kate, my own voice screamed in my head. I tried to conjure my most recent memory, but the pain in my head was too intense.
I wanted to see Karl’s face again, but I couldn’t bear the bright lights.
I tried to speak, but no sound came out. What I wanted to say, but couldn’t, was “Forgive me.”
I needed to sleep. We’d talk when I woke up. Everything was going to be OK. Karl was here and everything was going to be OK.
• • •
There was no sign of my husband the next time I opened my eyes. Instead I saw Derek, asleep on a blue plastic chair next to my small hospital bed. His snores were loud and gruff. Stiff white sheets were tucked tightly around my hips and abdomen. The rickety metal bars on the sides of the bed shook each time I shifted my weight and I worried the entire thing might collapse. Mercifully, someone had turned off the overhead light. From the soft yellow glow from the hallway lights I saw I was in a simple, but clean, hospital room.
I craned my sore neck to see if Karl was out in the corridor, but there was only a nurse talking in hushed tones to a short, solid man in army fatigues. His jacket was decorated with patches and badges and flags that signaled he was important. He carried a large gun and had the bearing and authority of military personnel. Slowly, the details came back to me. We were in a car crash. A man threatened me with a knife.
I remembered the girls’ faces flashing before me in the car, that moment of sheer terror when I was sure I’d never see them again. The monitor next to my bed beeped louder as my breathing and heart rate grew more and more agitated.
I could feel rough bandages wrapped around my skull. I remembered seeing Karl’s face. If he was here then I must have been here awhile, at least two days, maybe more. That’s how long it would have taken him to fly from New York. I had no idea how long I’d been asleep or how injured I was. I gasped as I noticed my left arm was covered in a plaster cast from the wrist to the elbow. I checked the range of motion in my right wrist and arm. It seemed normal except for the twinge of pain from the fat IV. I wiggled my left foot, then my right. Thankfully, both legs seemed to be in working order.
“Derek.” My voice came out in a raspy whisper.
“Derek,” I said louder and more insistently, but not so loud as to bother the nurse and the man outside my door.
His whole body jerked when he opened his eyes. It seemed to take him a moment to remember where he was.
“You’re awake!” He pulled his chair closer to the bed and grasped my un
injured hand. A low cry escaped my lips as his fingers jostled the IV needle. He pulled back and clasped his hands in front of him, clearly nervous he’d hurt me if he touched me again. “Thank god, you’re awake. We’ve been so worried.”
“What happened? Where are we? Where’s Karl?”
“Karl?” He blinked once and shook his head, then glanced nervously at my angry heart rate monitor. “Karl, your husband?”
“Yeah. Karl my husband.”
Derek fussed with my sheets, making sure they were tucked around me. “He’s probably still in New York. I wanted to call him for you, but I didn’t have a number. Your phone is dead. I couldn’t go through it.”
“No. He’s here,” I said. “I saw him. He was standing right where you’re standing. It wasn’t that long ago. He was right there.” I sounded as desperate as I felt.
“He’s definitely not here, Kate.” Derek was certain. “You banged your head hard. The doctor says you have a concussion. Maybe you dreamed about him. I’m sorry. I know you want your husband to be here.”
“No.” My voice shook on the single syllable. “He was here.” Even as the words came out of my mouth, I knew Derek was right. A wave of disappointment washed over me. I’d imagined Karl. I’d imagined his kind eyes, happy eyes, his gentle hands.
“He seemed so real.” I let my skull sink back into the hard hospital pillow. Karl didn’t even know I was in Myanmar.
Derek’s brow furrowed with concern. I noticed for the first time that his left eye was black and purple. It was the only injury I could see.
“Is that a police officer in the hallway?”
“Yeah,” Derek said, folding his hands in his lap like a schoolboy. “He’s going to want to talk to you. We told him he couldn’t until the doctor gave the OK.”
“We?”
“Naw and I.”
Of course. Naw. She’d been in the front seat of the car when we crashed. “Is she OK?”
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