The Lizard Cage (22 page)

“Who?”

“The singer.”

“Of course not, you ass. He’s lucky I just knocked him out. That’ll keep him from singing for a while.”

“The Chief will be pissed if he croaks.”

“What are you talking about? Nobody ever died of a whack to the face. It’s good for him—he’s a fucking troublemaker.”

Brick gravel crunches under four sets of boots. The officers pass the watchtower now; the central prison office, where Handsome has to report, is just beyond it. As if orchestrated, the four men look up at the lit windows of the Chief’s office. Handsome wonders if he has time to stop at the warders’ quarters and drink some tea.

The warder won’t shut up. “There were no orders to beat him like that.”

“Were you in charge of the search?” Handsome grabs the warder by the elbow. “You haven’t been promoted while I wasn’t looking, have you? No? Still just a low-ranking warder, right? So shut up!” Handsome smirks. “I know what the Chief said.
Exercise restraint
. But you should see me when I’m unrestrained. What are you going on about, anyway? We were engaged in a cell inspection; the inmate was being uncooperative. You sound like Tint Lwin, for fuck’s sake, first day out on a real job and weak in the knees.”

To Tint Lwin he growls, “I’m reporting what happened in there to the Chief Warden. It’ll go in your file.”

Keeping his head down, Tint Lwin replies, “Yes, sir.”

At the warders’ quarters, Handsome glances at his watch. “I have to go and make my report.”

“Should one of us come with you?” The big-mouth warder again. Tint Lwin slips behind the other men, trying to melt into the wet air.

“That’s all right, I’ll take care of the old fart. Go eat something. Miss Tint Lwin, where is that fucking umbrella?”

He would like to throttle the kid with the umbrella. He knows why he gets the new ones—he can be trusted to put some mettle in them—but it’s an aggravating job. After two minutes of cleaning up at the sink behind the warders’ quarters, he walks over to the central prison office. The Chief’s apartment occupies more than half the second floor. Handsome stares grimly at the wooden building as he approaches. A staircase leads up to the Chief’s door. The jailer spits at the bottom of the stairs, places his foot on the first step, pauses, looks around for witnesses, puts his foot back down. It’s not that late; the Chief can wait. A cheroot will calm his nerves. He still craves a cup of tea.

All this
crap
over a pen and a couple sheets of paper.

How to explain the situation? Where are the fucking pen and paper? He stubs out the half-smoked cheroot. The rain’s finally stopped. The twin demons of self-loathing and envy hover around him on his ascent. They knock at the Chief Warden’s door when he knocks, which is why his fist on the wood makes such a murderous sound.

When the Chief himself opens up the door, Handsome is disconcerted. He regrets pounding so hard; usually there’s a lackey. But the jailer has forgotten the time—it’s late; the servant must have left already, or gone for dinner. The Chief asks him, “Have you eaten rice yet?” the polite greeting. “Yes, sir, thank you, sir” comes the polite answer from the famished man. They exchange empty smiles as the heavy-jowled, balding Chief Warden steps back and lets Jailer Nyunt Wai Oo in. Handsome’s prison name disappears here.

The hallway opens into a spare room: wooden walls, simple but elegant also, the polished teak benches like sofas, covered with leather cushions the color of dried beef. A red-and-gold-trimmed Burmese harp is the centerpiece on the low table. It could be anywhere, a nice house, a fancy hotel lobby even, but there are files here too, a couple of pens, a sheaf of loose, closely printed papers, letters written in ink and turned facedown, and it’s not anywhere, it’s the Chief’s sitting room and private office, his living quarters. Rumor has it that he doesn’t go home to his place in Rangoon because his pretty young wife is screwing one of the SLORC generals’ cousins. Everything, from the parquet floor to the ornate shrine on the wall with its colored electric lights, to the framed pictures of lily ponds, is nicer than in Handsome’s house. That’s what decades of taking bribes will do for a man.

They’re still standing when the Chief lobs the grenade. “So things didn’t go well with the singer.”

How the fuck does he know already? Somebody must have been watching the cell during the raid. The place is full of spies. “That’s correct, sir. There was no contraband in the cell.”

The Chief smiles coolly. Handsome thinks,
I am fucked
. After motioning him to sit down on the opposite bench, the Chief sits down too and taps a cigarette out of a soft package. Marlboros from Thailand. Rich bastard. Then he leans forward and tamps the tobacco down by knocking the filter end on the table, just like any man does with a cheroot; it’s not so different.

“Cigarette?”

“No, thank you, sir.”

“Yes, you like our good old cheroots, don’t you?”

Fucking superior asshole with his stupid foreign cigarettes. “I just had a smoke, thank you, sir.”

“So what happened, Officer Nyunt Wai Oo?” His cigarette lighter is a gold rectangle.

“I haven’t had a chance to speak to inmate Sein Yun yet, who was our aide in the work, but there was nothing in the cell, sir. I mean, nothing illegal. Some cheroots, but nothing else.”

“You did a thorough search?”

“Yes, sir. We searched the area outside too, in case the inmate managed to dispose of the items in question. As you know, there is a small air vent in his cell.” He hates talking like this—
dispose of the items in question
—but the Chief approves of proper speech. He’s a major, and a military intelligence officer, and one of his many responsibilities is recommending prison employees for MI positions. When those employees talk like stupid peasants, the Chief tells them they will never get a job with military
intelligence
. This tired joke doubles as his favorite insult. Handsome has heard it several times and laughed politely, even mocked himself, or apologized. He courts the man’s favor because he must, and he is not above dignified groveling. The military recruits prison officers who show promise, gifted men like Handsome, but the only way his talents will become known is through the Chief, who sits in front of him smoking expensive cigarettes. He’s already said that in due time he will put Handsome’s name forward for MI work.
Junior Jailer Nyunt Wai Oo, son of Maung Maung Gyi
. Handsome has seen the paper, but when will the Chief send it up? If he had a family connection to the upper echelon of the army, things would be much easier; he might already be out of the cage. As it is, he is very much here, hungry and tired, drained from the adrenaline rush that fueled him less than an hour ago.

“We can’t prosecute Teza without evidence.”

“I realize that, sir. When I spoke to Sein Yun yesterday, he said he had delivered the pen and the paper to the prisoner, just as he had delivered the same to the politicals in Hall Three. The raids there were successful, sir. As you know, there are fourteen politicals in the dog cells now.”

“Yes, I know that, but we discussed the importance of inmate Teza, for
the sake of … How to put it?” He waves his cigarette, searching for the word. “Publicity. His brother is a student leader on the border. And Teza’s become an Amnesty International poster boy this year. It would be a good way of replying to all those bothersome letters and postcards—show them that we abide by rule of law in Burma, even in our prisons. If the prisoners break prison law, they face the legal consequences.” The smile warms almost to beneficence as the Chief reaches down and straightens some of the papers on the table. “You know, Officer Nyunt Wai Oo, that I retire in two years. I was hoping to leave inmate Teza with an extra seven to ten before I go.” The heavy cheeks and jaw quickly absorb the cordial smile. “The cell raid was very important. Obviously that didn’t prevent you from botching it. If you didn’t find any contraband, we’ll have to drop Teza from the list of defendants. The whole point of these raids was to prosecute legally. Talk to Sein Yun. Find out why he didn’t do his job.”

“If you permit me, sir, I believe he did do his job. But somehow the inmate changed his mind about giving over the letter, and he disposed of it before we got to him. Someone must have helped him. Perhaps Jailer Chit Naing.”

“Please, Officer Nyunt Wai Oo, keep your petty rivalries out of this office. Chit Naing has his faults, serious ones, but he’s not an idiot. He’s being watched and he knows it. Besides, I’ve already checked—he hasn’t been to see the singer for more than a week. Something else happened, and I would like to know what. This was
such
a simple job, Officer Nyunt Wai Oo. You will never get a job with military
intelligence
if you can’t find your ass with your hands.”

“Yes, sir.” His voice is genuinely apologetic, even repentant, though in his mind he has conjured up a vision of the Chief’s young wife. She’s on her back, and some young pig with a full head of hair is stuffing her. The thought gives him strength.

The Chief uncrosses his legs and leans over for his package of cigarettes, the gold lighter. “Now, tell me, what did inmate Teza have to say about all this?”

“He maintained that there was nothing in the cell.”

“You encouraged him to tell the truth?”

“We did, sir.” Handsome emphasizes
we
, trying to share the responsibility. He clears his throat.

“And he didn’t change his story?”

“No, sir.”

“That’s odd. He’s never been much of a liar, our earnest songbird. Did you consider that he could have been telling you the truth?”

“But Sein Yun said he delivered the paper and pen. In the morning, Teza told him the letter was ready. Sein Yun refused to take it, saying he would come back at five o’clock. He carried out his orders, sir.”

“I see.” He sounds so reasonable. But Handsome knows what’s coming. The Chief Warden’s nostrils flare as he speaks, “Then where the fuck is the letter and the pen he wrote it with? Just how much did you encourage him?”

There is simply no mercy in this world. “Well, sir, we beat him.”

“I know you beat him. How did you
leave
him? In what condition?”

Handsome clenches his teeth. It’s so infuriating that some little gofer ran up here right away to tell the Chief about the beating, some sneaky junior warder, picking up extra money or a big pat on the back for being a spy. “He was very uncooperative, sir. He was insulting.” The Chief chews the inside of his cheek and waits for the answer. Handsome’s neck suddenly feels sunburned; his face is hot. “I think we may have broken his jaw.”

The Chief butts out a half-smoked cigarette—a terrible sign. “Who broke his jaw?”

“Sir, I said I think it
may
be broken. I’m not a doctor, so I don’t know if it really is broken or not.”

“Officer Nyunt Wai Oo, I respect you. At least, I try to respect you, but you don’t make it easy. I’ll rephrase my question so you understand. Who do you
think
may have broken the inmate’s jaw?”

“I think I did, sir.”

The Chief clears his throat before speaking. “Officer Nyunt Wai Oo, I gave you instructions, a
command
, to exercise restraint. I suppose you know what happens when a man has a broken jaw.”

Handsome numbly examines the boatlike shape of the Burmese harp.

“When a man has a broken jaw, you fucking idiot, he cannot eat. All we need now is another bad cold to turn into bronchitis to turn into pneumonia. Remember? That’s what happened with your last important political. It was AIDS on the death certificate, but the old man didn’t have AIDS, did he? He died of simple pneumonia. That was a mistake we could
absorb, but the singer is more important. He has to last years, as an example from ’88, a living, breathing, imprisoned example to new students.” The Chief Warden considers his own lecture for a moment, pleased that his own son and daughter are so well behaved. His lovely girl attends the elite school attached to the Institute of Education; his boy is studying in Singapore. It’s useless to send them to regular Burmese schools, because the universities close down every time there’s trouble. Then the students complain that the government is impoverishing the country intellectually by closing down the universities, but what choice do the generals have, when the campuses are infested with anarchists and subversives? This train of thought returns him to the task at hand. “Was he at least conscious when you locked up?”

“No, sir.” Handsome is staring at the harp strings. They are just cotton thread; they are not real. The harp cannot make any music.

The silence lasts a long time. Finally the Chief exhales a long breath through pursed lips. “You contravened a direct order.” He stands up, crosses over to Handsome’s side of the table. The jailer is keenly aware of the other man’s height, his gold belt buckle, his head turned away to the wall as he speaks, sharply, clearly, as though to a servant, orders obviously composed before Handsome even walked into his office. “The doctor will see him the moment he gets in tomorrow. Tonight we’re doing a cell transfer. Inmate Teza will go to the white house. It will be done tonight, after lights-out. There are five new politicals in there now, NLD members. Take them to a holding cell until the teak coffin has been cleared. Open up the cell beside the coffin too, because four more men are expected tomorrow. Chit Naing will handle the singer. He’s already received his orders. You are not to have contact with inmate Teza again. He is no longer your responsibility.”

This is much worse than Handsome anticipated. He is scared to speak; his words tumble out in a small, gruff voice. “But sir, Chit Naing already has had close contact with the singer, we know he is sympathetic—”

The Chief interrupts. “I told you not worry about that, Officer Nyunt Wai Oo. Someone else is already keeping an eye on him. That’s another duty of which you are relieved. At least I know that Chit Naing won’t break any more of the prisoner’s bones. Or sell his food.” The Chief crosses to the office door before Handsome can defend himself against the
last accusation. “It’s late. That’s more than enough for now. You’re capable of letting yourself out, no? I’m sure that’s not beyond you.”