Return to Mandalay (12 page)

Deep breath. Eva lifted the brass door knocker and let it fall. The sound seemed to reverberate around the walls of the house, shattering the air of tranquillity. In more ways than one, she thought ruefully.

A man opened the door. He was in his mid-thirties, with the dark hair of the Burmese, but with the features and height – he must be six feet tall – of a Westerner. Anglo-Burmese perhaps; Myanmar was a country of mixed races and influences: Japan, China, Thailand, India and Britain, for starters. He was clean-shaven, his skin a shade of dark olive.

Eva licked her dry lips. ‘Hello.’ She smiled. ‘Do you speak English?’

‘Of course.’ He smiled back at her and his rather sharpboned features were transformed. His accent was European, his tone soft and low.

She straightened her shoulders. ‘I’m looking for the family of Daw Moe Mya,’ she said. ‘Do they live here, by any chance?’

He eyed her curiously, with just a hint of suspicion now. ‘Why are you looking for them?’

A question for a question. Fair enough, she supposed. ‘I have a message,’ she said. ‘For Daw Moe Mya, if she is still alive.’ It still seemed so unlikely, but somehow Eva couldn’t help trusting her grandfather’s intuition; he had rarely been proved wrong.

The man frowned, calmly scrutinising her from hat to toe.
He seemed relaxed, she found herself thinking, but ready to pounce if necessary.

Eva fidgeted uncomfortably under his gaze. ‘Does she live here?’ she repeated. ‘May I speak with her?’

He bowed his head slightly. ‘My grandmother is old,’ he said.

So she was alive! Grandpa, bless him, had been right. Eva wished she could tell him this instant. See the expression on his face when he heard the news … ‘That’s wonderful!’ She beamed at the man in the doorway.

He raised dark eyebrows at her, a threat of a smile now touching the corners of his full mouth. ‘It is?’

‘Yes, it is. Not that she’s old, of course, but that she’s still …’ She trailed off under his stare. ‘I’ve come a long way,’ she explained. ‘From England.’

‘England?’ He blinked at her as if he expected her to break into a song-and-dance routine. He was wearing a short-sleeved, dove-grey shirt, and the traditional male
longyi
in a sage green and black check knotted at the front. And it was funny, but, as she’d already observed since she’d arrived in Myanmar, the effect was surprisingly macho.

‘Yes. And I’ve come especially to see her.’ Eva stood her ground.

‘And who …’ he said, ‘are you?’

Ah. Here we go, she thought. Another deep breath. ‘I’m the granddaughter of Lawrence Fox,’ she said.

His eyes flickered. She realised that he had heard the name. Unlike most of the Burmese whose eyes were dark brown,
sometimes almost black, his eyes were green, and with his dark hair and skin the effect was quite dramatic. But if he was surprised at her disclosure, he hid it well. He hesitated but then seemed to come to a decision. ‘You may come in,’ he said, his tone more guarded. ‘I will see if my grandmother wishes to speak with you. But you must not stay long. Please,’ and his eyes met hers, ‘she is very frail.’

Alleluia, she thought. She was in and, ‘I won’t tire her,’ she promised. But she wondered, was he just being protective? Or did he know their grandparents’ story and resent what had happened between them all those years ago? What was more important, and rather scary, was that she was about to meet her, at last. Maya, the woman her grandfather had always loved.

The white entrance hall was open and airy and according to the custom, Eva slipped off her black Burmese slippers before following him into the next room. In the centre was a magnificent polished teak table. Eva couldn’t help but reach out to touch its smooth and glossy surface, though as she did so, she caught him casting a probing glance her way. Around the table were several ladder-backed chairs, also beautifully made. On the far side of the room was a platform with bluetiled walls and a shrine, placed high on the far wall. On it, looking down on the room below, was a small intricately carved Buddha and a vase of fresh flowers, their scent drifting through the air.

‘Wait here,’ he said. ‘Please sit.’ He gave her another assessing glance and in one fluid movement, turned and was gone from the room.

Eva sat. On the side wall were some photographs and she strained to see. A couple – presumably a King and Queen – seated on royal thrones. They looked very grand.

A few moments later, she heard the lightest of footsteps. She looked up. An old Burmese lady stood framed in the doorway. She was very tiny and her hair was white, but still, she held herself erect.

Maya.

Eva jumped to her feet. How would she be received? She hesitated for a moment, but Maya was already moving towards her, arms outstretched, her brown milky eyes filled with an expression of excitement and disbelief.

‘Lawrence’s granddaughter?’ she breathed. ‘But, yes. Look at you. You must be.’ She seemed quite overcome.

‘Yes. My name is Eva.’

Her grandson materialised from behind his grandmother and offered his arm, but the old lady grasped Eva’s arms instead and pulled her into a close embrace. ‘Eva …’ she murmured. ‘Eva.’

She smelt of oil and coconut and her grip was intense for such an old lady.
My grandfather’s lover
, Eva thought, closing her eyes for a second. His Burmese lover. She didn’t know why, but she was surprised that Maya spoke such fluent English. She’d known that the family were well-educated, cultured and well-off by Burmese standards. Even so …

Maya drew away and looked into her face, deep into her eyes as if she could look much further. With dry fingertips
she traced a pattern over Eva’s cheekbones. ‘The shape of your face,’ she murmured. ‘It makes me remember …’

My grandfather
. Eva had never thought they looked alike, but the family resemblance must be there, reminding Maya of what she had lost. But had she lost him? Or had she chosen to give him up? That, among other things, was what Eva intended to discover.

At last, Maya released her. ‘Bring tea.’ She clapped her hands. ‘We must sit.’

Her grandson called out to someone in the far reaches of the house and Maya indicated to Eva that she should sit down again. The old lady was still smiling. There was no doubt that she was pleased to see her. Eva felt the relief wash over her. She wouldn’t think about her mother and her grandmother, Helen, and whatever loyalties she should feel towards them, not now. First, she wanted to understand.

‘You have come from England to see us?’ Maya asked, her old eyes incredulous in her creased face. ‘After all these years?’

‘Yes. My grandfather asked me to bring something here for you.’ Eva fumbled in her bag.

‘He is still alive?’ Maya’s face lit up and for a moment she looked as eager as a girl. ‘Lawrence is still alive?’ She was holding on tight to the sides of her chair, her tiny body tense as a coiled spring. Slowly, she relaxed. ‘I thought so,’ she murmured. ‘But I could not be sure.’

Just like Grandpa, Eva thought. They were as intuitive as each other. ‘He certainly is.’ With a flourish, Eva produced the decorative teak chinthe from her bag. She had wrapped
him in tissue paper but his head and mane had escaped its confines. ‘And he thought it was about time this little one came home.’ Gently, she unwrapped the rest of him. Placed him on the table in front of her.

Maya and her grandson gasped simultaneously as they stared at the chinthe. The sight of it seemed to have an extraordinary effect on them both.

‘Ah!’ Maya’s eyes filled with tears and she murmured something in Burmese. ‘Lawrence,’ she said softly. ‘I knew, I knew.’

Eva was moved. She wasn’t sure precisely what it was that Maya knew, but it was blindingly obvious that this woman had felt the same about her grandfather as he had felt about her. But if so … It seemed so wrong that they hadn’t stayed together. What could be the reason? Eva glanced at Maya’s grandson but he continued to stare at the chinthe as if still in shock. Had he known of its existence? She assumed so. Was he simply surprised that she had brought it back?

Maya must have married after Eva’s grandfather had left Burma, Eva realised. She’d had a child, the mother or father of this man, her grandson. And that child must have married a Westerner for him to look as he did. Tall, green-eyed … A wing of his dark hair kept flopping on to his forehead, and he swept it away in an irritated gesture with the back of his hand. Did he know how Lawrence and Maya had felt about one another? How could anyone not know when the emotions were written so clearly on his grandmother’s face?

He reached forwards, scooped up the chinthe in one brown
hand and frowned, turning it from left to right to examine it. She noticed his long fingers and short square nails. ‘It seems undamaged,’ he said. ‘I do not think it has been tampered with.’ With a swift glance at his grandmother, he got to his feet and took the chinthe to the other side of the room, where he got something out of a drawer.

He had his back to her, so Eva couldn’t see. But … Tampered with? She bridled. ‘My grandfather has looked after it.’ She addressed Maya. ‘He cherished your gift,’ she assured her.

‘Of course.’ Maya bowed her head. ‘Thank you, my dear child. Ramon …’ she remonstrated.

With a nod, he came back, replaced the chinthe on the table. But he didn’t sit down.

‘So now he can be reunited with his twin.’ Eva looked around the room. Where did they keep the other one? She would have expected it to be guarding the shrine. ‘To restore harmony.’ That was what her grandfather had wanted. That was how he had said it must be.

Maya and her grandson exchanged a look.

‘Isn’t that the belief?’ Eva asked.

‘Yes, it is.’ Maya laid a gentle hand on her arm. Her skin was thin and papery but her hand was warm. ‘But you see, Eva, it is not so simple.’

Her grandson muttered what sounded like a curse in his native language. He paced over to the other side of the room and then turned back to her. ‘You brought this in your luggage from England?’ he demanded.

‘Yes. In my cabin bag.’

He shook his head. ‘Incredible,’ he muttered. ‘Impossible.’

Eva was confused. ‘Why isn’t it so simple?’ she asked Maya.

Maya sighed. Tenderly, she took the chinthe from the table, gazed into its red glass eyes. She shook her head sadly, running her fingertips over the carving of the face and mane Eva had always admired so much. ‘Because,’ she said, ‘I no longer have the other.’

‘Oh.’ Eva hadn’t even considered that possibility, and she suspected her grandfather hadn’t either. ‘Where is it?’ she asked. ‘Do you know?’ But it had been a long time. Perhaps it had been naive of them to imagine that the chinthe’s twin would have survived the war and its turbulent aftermath.

‘It was stolen,’ Maya’s grandson said. He shot her another look. He still seemed angry. Perhaps that was his default emotion, Eva found herself thinking.

‘Really?’ She looked again at the little chinthe. It was a beautiful piece of carving, but, although old, she didn’t think it would mean much to anyone other than the family who owned it. Why would it be stolen? ‘Who by?’

‘It is a long story.’ Maya nodded and laid her hand again on Eva’s arm. ‘Do you know anything about the origin of Burmese chinthes, Eva?’

‘A bit.’

‘It is linked to our Buddhist philosophy,’ she said.

‘In what way?’ Eva was intrigued.

‘It is said that once, many moons ago, a princess was married to a lion and had a son by him,’ Maya said, her voice slow, almost hypnotic. ‘But later she abandoned this lion. He was
enraged and set out on a pathway of terror through the lands.’ She paused. ‘The son went out to slay the terrorising lion. Three times he shot an arrow at him. But so great was the lion’s love for his son that three times the arrow rebounded from his brow.’ Maya sighed. ‘But the fourth time the lion grew angry and the arrow killed him. Thus the lion lost his life because he had lost his self-possession and allowed wrath to invade his heart.’

‘And what happened to the son?’ Eva asked.

‘He returned home to his mother who told him that he had killed his father. The son then constructed a statue of the lion as a guardian of a temple to atone for his sin.’

And the lion was the chinthe. Eva reached out to touch it as she had done so often in her childhood. This was like listening to her grandfather’s stories all over again. Burma must be a land full of them. Myths, perhaps, but myths that had a way of resonating and revealing some inner truth.

A young girl appeared with a tray of tea things and laid them on the table next to Maya. The old lady picked up the teapot, lifting it high and accurately pouring the stream of green-gold liquid into three tiny cups.

‘So, can you tell me what happened to your chinthe?’ Eva asked. She had come all this way. She wanted to know the whole story and so, of course, would her grandfather.

Maya’s grandson spoke swiftly to his grandmother in Burmese. It didn’t take much imagination to guess that he was warning Maya not to tell.

Maya nodded. ‘What you say is true, Ramon,’ she told
him. ‘But she is Lawrence’s granddaughter and she deserves to know.’

‘We have a tradition in our country to pass stories from generation to generation.’ She turned to Eva. ‘Drink your tea, my dear,’ she said. ‘And I will tell you what happened.’

Mandalay, 1885
.

For Suu Kyi, the Royal Palace in Mandalay in the centre of the walled city, a spread-eagled complex of red-roofed pavilions, towers and lush Royal Gardens, had always been the safest place in her world. She was an orphan, from the Shan states, and had been rescued and brought here to serve the Queen, purchased by the Queen’s agents and brought up at the Palace, as was Nanda Li, another young maidservant of her own age. She could barely remember living anywhere else. The Royal Palace itself had been transported here and rebuilt thirty years ago, long before Suu Kyi was born. Four walls surrounded the citadel, and a moat deep and still. Their position seemed impenetrable.

Many were afraid of Queen Supayalat; she was small but had a fierce temper and there were those who said she had only become Queen because she had seen to it that all the rivals to her husband, King Thibaw’s throne, seventy-nine princes all told, were wrapped in carpets to prevent the spillage of royal blood, bludgeoned to death and thrown in the nearest river. Perhaps this was true. But she loved the King, Suu Kyi could see that, and this impressed her greatly. She herself was
slightly afraid of him; he looked very handsome in his royal sash and golden slippers, though she was aware that he was half-Shan which accounted for his high cheekbones and fine eyes. Mostly though, she kept her eyes downcast when he entered the room. Suu Kyi was humble and she was happy simply to serve. Most especially she loved to serve the two princesses aged one year and three. Suu Kyi was proud that no one else – and especially not Nanda Li – could deal with the Second Princess’s paroxysms of rage as well as she could. And now the Queen was in her eighth month of pregnancy and there would be a third child. No one could be more delighted than she.