Return to Mandalay (32 page)

She did something right then.

Rosemary rearranged the things on the bedside table. ‘What used to be on here, Dad?’ She had the sense of something missing. Like that old memory game with a tray and a tea-towel. It was elusive though.

He ate his porridge from the more solid edge, moving inwards. Tiny spoonfuls. Hardly enough to keep a bird alive, she thought.

‘It was the chinthe.’

Of course it was. It had always been there. Rosemary’s mother had hated it.
Evil little creature
, she used to say, and refuse to dust it. It was a small rebellion, but somehow Rosemary had come to think of it as malevolent too. When she was little and went into her parents’ bedroom, she even used to snarl at it sometimes.

‘How on earth did you persuade Mother to let you keep it there?’ she asked lightly. All the rest of his Burmese souvenirs were relegated to the downstairs hallway where the light was dim and visitors might pass by the shelf, hardly noticing them. But the chinthe was the most iconic Burmese souvenir of them all. And Rosemary’s mother must have seen it every night when she was about to go to sleep. No wonder she’d loathed it.

Her father put down his spoon. He’d only eaten about a quarter of the small bowl. But he exhaled with pleasure and she knew he’d enjoyed it. ‘I didn’t insist on very much,’ he said.

She nodded. She understood. ‘And where is it now?’ But even as she asked, she knew the answer to the question.

‘Eva took it to Burma.’

‘I see.’ Rosemary recalled what Eva had said in her email. Something that she was doing for her grandfather, wasn’t it? But she
didn’t
see. And suddenly, she couldn’t bear it; he had confided in Eva and yet told her nothing. All these years. That she knew nothing of his Burmese days, apart from what she’d found out in those letters, apart from what she had imagined …

Rosemary took the tray off his lap and replaced it carefully on the bedside table. She passed him his tea. What if things had been different, she wondered. What if her mother hadn’t deeply resented Burma and passed her own resentment on to her daughter? What if it had been Rosemary who had listened, enthralled to all those tales of a far-off place and far-off people, an exotic life that most people could only dream of? Instead of Eva?

She watched her father as he carefully sipped his tea. But that could never have been. Because … Rosemary realised that he was watching her.

‘There was a woman,’ he said. ‘In Burma.’ He reached for her hand. ‘I’m sorry, love.’

‘Before you met Mother?’

‘No, not before that. There was always your mother.’ He chuckled. ‘I miss her, you know.’

‘Me too.’

‘You grew up together, didn’t you?’ she asked. ‘You and Mother?’

‘As good as.’

Rosemary listened to him talk. His voice was dry and thin, but the words rang true and she could fill in most of the spaces. She could imagine exactly how her mother had been, as a child, as a young woman. Demanding what was hers by right, refusing to take no for an answer, blindly believing that she could control everything and make him change. Make him love her …

It was part of her own childhood.
Of course you’ll come to the shops with me … Of course your bedroom will be painted yellow …
Some people controlled by physical strength, some by mental domination. Her mother had controlled by her expectations, by her assumptions that there was a wrong way and then there was
her
way.

‘I knew there was someone,’ she told him when at last his voice faltered. ‘But I didn’t realise.’

‘I had choices.’ He nodded. ‘I don’t blame your mother at all. She did what she had to do. I was weak.’

‘We can all be weak.’ Rosemary squeezed his hand. She hated him talking like that. She wanted him to be as strong as the father she remembered.

‘And Eva …’ He stared out of the window as if he could see her there.

Rosemary waited. What exactly was Eva doing for him in Burma?

‘She’s given her back the chinthe,’ he said. His eyes were
bright. ‘It belongs with her family. It had so much history bound up in it, you see, Rosie.’

Rosemary nodded as if she understood, though she didn’t, not really. She only understood that she’d wasted a lot of years without her father, blaming him for something that she should never have blamed him for. What had he done that was so different from what she had done – with Alec? Her father had not been able to give her mother one hundred per cent of his love, his life. But at least he had tried his best. Had Rosemary?

‘Will you tell me about Maya?’ she whispered.

He didn’t seem surprised that she knew her name.

‘If you want me to,’ he said.

‘Have you told Eva?’

‘Some of it, yes.’ He sighed. ‘Some of it I don’t even know myself. Not yet.’

Rosemary patted his hand.

‘I’m waiting for Eva to get back,’ he said.

And for an awful moment, she thought he meant
before I die
.

Eva’s head was still spinning when the taxi arrived back at her hotel. And she had to meet Myint Maw in less than half an hour. ‘Can you wait for me, please?’ she asked the driver. She would go up to her room, quickly get changed, collect her paperwork and the eyeglass she used to examine close detail and come straight back. And try not to think about what had just happened, she told herself, as she collected her key and took the lift to the seventh floor. Of Ramon and what she had discovered. Would he guess that she had seen what was in the truck? Probably. He must have thought she’d acted a little strangely. No wonder that warehouse manager had yelled at her like that. And yet … What
was
in that crate? And why in heaven’s name was it being sent to the Emporium?

By 3 p.m. she was once again sitting in Myint Maw’s stuffy little office. Thankfully, he had provided green tea.

‘Miss Gatsby,’ he was saying. ‘I see this, I think to myself. I must show her. She must see it. She will not believe.’ He shook his dark head, his entire scrawny body joining in the movement.

‘What is it exactly?’ Eva sipped her tea and wished she could summon up some enthusiasm. But it seemed her enthusiasm
waned in direct proportion to Maw’s sense of melodrama. Unless the events of a very long day were getting to her at last.

Myint Maw made a big pretence of looking first to the left then to the right although the office door was shut and they were alone in the room. ‘Doors,’ he said.

‘Doors?’

‘Not just doors. No, no, no.’ He waved a long finger in front of him. Leaned closer so that Eva could smell his slightly rancid breath and see the hairy mole once again at close quarters. ‘Special doors,’ he said. ‘Intricate carving, yes, yes. Big doors. Old doors. Monastery doors.’

‘Monastery doors?’ She was sure they were very interesting, but … ‘Where did they come from?’ she asked. ‘What happened to the monastery?’

Maw gave his usual expansive shrug. ‘Restoration?’ But he seemed to be guessing.

And here we go again, she thought. Temples that were no longer prayed in, monasteries with no monks or novices living inside. Didn’t they care that the ancient treasures of Burma were being pillaged by the West? And then her shoulders sagged. What was happening to her? She was beginning to sound like Ramon. And yet now she knew that Ramon …

‘You will see, yes, I will take you in my car.’ Maw was nodding energetically.

And Eva knew that she had to be professional. She was here to do a job. She must at least see the doors.

They were in the back of another shop a few blocks away. And they were stunning.

‘Solid teak, yes, yes,’ said Myint Maw. ‘Two hundred centimetre high.’ His eyes widened and he nodded even more frantically. She couldn’t imagine the cost of the shipping.

She took her time examining them. Burmese woodcarvers were so skilled even from an early period, and the carving was both intricate and flamboyant. The doors featured two guardians,
devas
, holding sprays of foliage, and had been created in the mid-nineteenth century, she estimated.

‘Built by King Mindon, yes, yes,’ Maw was telling her, circling the doors like a terrier, flinging nuggets of information at her over his shoulder. ‘From Amarapura, yes, yes.’

Although not built by him personally, one would assume. Eva moved closer to examine the carving more carefully. The pilasters and pediments were rosettes, horn shaped projections known as
saing-baung
and the flames of
nat-saw
. These monastery doors were indeed, exquisite specimens.

‘You interested, yes?’ Maw nodded as though this could not be in doubt.

Which it couldn’t, Eva thought. Because even if she didn’t buy them, how long before some other Western dealer snapped them up? They didn’t belong on a monastery any more. They were for sale, in a shop. It wasn’t her responsibility where they had come from.
Damn Ramon
.

‘How much?’ And Eva began the difficult process of negotiating a price. It was hard to haggle about pieces such as these and impossible to even estimate how much they were worth
to the Emporium. But that was part of Eva’s job, and her responsibility. And Jacqui would, she knew, be so impressed.

*

An hour later, Eva was back at her hotel. She put a call through to the Emporium and when Jacqui answered, Eva told her about the monastery doors.

‘They sound magnificent,’ her boss said. ‘Can you email me a photo?’

‘Will do.’

‘And the contact?’ Jacqui’s voice changed.

‘Myint Maw?’

‘How does he seem on second meeting? Reliable, would you say?’

Eva remembered how edgy he had been the other day when she had talked about provenance. How he had seemed surprised that she even cared. ‘He never knows where anything’s come from,’ she admitted to Jacqui. ‘Like these doors, for example.’

‘But if they’re for sale …’ Jacqui’s voice was crisp and confident. ‘They can’t be stolen goods, can they? And if they’re genuine …?’

‘Oh, yes, they are genuine.’ Eva wished she could express what was bothering her. It was that feeling that something else was happening that she knew nothing about. Only now, perhaps, she might be closer to finding out what it was. ‘And, Jacqui, do we have dealings with a company called Handmade in Mandalay?’

‘I don’t think so. Why?’

‘It’s just that I saw a crate …’ Eva wasn’t sure how much to say. She wasn’t sure how much she knew either. And she certainly wasn’t sure about the Emporium.

‘What sort of a crate? Is something going on, Eva? Look …’ And her voice seemed to change. ‘You will take care, won’t you?’

‘Yes, of course.’ Eva was surprised.

‘And email me – if there are any problems that is.’

*

She hadn’t asked Jacqui about Li’s. And Eva wasn’t quite sure why not. She took her time over coffee in the hotel bar but there were still three hours before Ramon was picking her up for dinner and she didn’t think she could stay here alone with her thoughts for all that time. She needed to go out somewhere, anywhere.

Seeing that crate in the truck had shaken her up and she needed to make sense of it all. What should she do? What could she do? The Emporium weren’t doing business with Ramon’s company. Why would they? They dealt in antiques. She thought of the blue-and-gold peacock insignia that had not been entirely obliterated by the stamp of Handmade in Mandalay. Which meant that the Emporium must be doing business with Li’s.

Eva didn’t want to think about that. She stepped outside the hotel lobby and was promptly accosted by a friendly trishaw driver.

‘You want to go on a trip, lady?’ he asked hopefully. ‘I take
you to Mahamuni temple. A good place. I very strong.’ And he pounded his chest to demonstrate.

Despite everything, Eva had to smile. He was slight in build, but these trishaw drivers were sinewy and physically powerful. She’d often seen quite small men carrying two hefty tourists on their trishaws, one facing forward, the other back, their pedal–power truly impressive. ‘I’ve been to the Mahamuni Temple,’ she said. ‘So, no, thank you.’ It had been the same day Ramon had taken her to Inwa and Sagaing. Something she didn’t want to dwell on. And yet he had pretended it was all so important, hadn’t he? That she experienced the spirituality and the history. That she allowed Myanmar to touch something deep inside of her. And she had. She really had.

‘The Royal Palace?’ he persevered. ‘You go there? It is close by.’

Eva considered. She had said she’d go to the Royal Palace with Ramon, and it was so connected with his family, to his grandmother’s story … But now, everything had changed. Sooner or later, she’d have to confront him with what she’d seen. No wonder he hadn’t wanted her to approach the Li family. He must know, mustn’t he, exactly what they were? No wonder there was a back room in his factory that he hadn’t wanted her to go in. It was unlikely that she’d be going anywhere with him in the future.

Eva glanced at the busy road. She couldn’t walk anywhere, and it might be fun. ‘Alright,’ she told the driver. ‘You’re on.’

He frowned and shook his head. What now?

‘You must ask me how much,’ he told her.

Eva shrugged. ‘OK. How much?’

‘Five thousand kyatts there and back,’ he said. ‘This is good price.’

‘Fine.’

Another frown. ‘OK, lady, you drive a hard bargain. Four thousand it is.’ And he grinned, revealing gappy teeth stained blood red and black from betel.

It was a ghastly sight, but Eva was getting used to it. Many of the Burmese didn’t drink because it was against their religion. But Buddha had never said anything about betel. She climbed on board. Thought of her grandfather as she so often did.
Royal Palace, here we come
.

As Ramon had told her, the building was a replica since the original had been razed to the ground, and when they got there, after a nerve-jangling trishaw ride through the busy streets of Mandalay, Eva was disappointed. It was so different from what she’d imagined. Inside the city walls, it was a bit like being in the country, very green, with dirt roads and fields, which seemed bizarre after the griminess of the built up city outside. It felt peaceful but bare, with only the odd barrack-type building and a café shack breaking up the landscape and army personnel wandering around where once there must have been vibrancy, splendour, royalty and hangers-on. The palace was surrounded by lots of other tiered, red-roofed buildings. It was a maze. But what really dismayed Eva was that everything about the red pagoda
palace looked so modern. It seemed to be such a cheap replica. And she’d seen more than enough of those at Li’s.