The Lizard Cage (53 page)

He settles down on his rags again and pats the bulky blue pouch of his sling bag. Everything’s all right. His treasures are safe.

S
sst. Hey, Little Brother. Come’ere.”

The boy whips his head around. It’s Tiger. He crawls over to the tan-see’s bunk.

Tiger has raised himself up on one elbow. He sniffs a couple times and looks over at the boy’s blanket. But he just says, “You okay, kid?”

“Yeah.”

“Crazy place, isn’t it? You did the right thing. In the kitchen, I mean. Though the guys were making fun, they’re proud that you took care of yourself.” He whispers more softly, “But I have to tell you a few things, kid. It’s not gonna get any easier in here. I’m gonna do what I said, get in touch with those folks of mine in the city.” He puts his big, heavy paw on the boy’s arm. “It’s hard to believe, but that fuckin’ cook has friends. You can’t stay in the cage. You know, ‘once blood is spilled’ and all that. Believe it or not, kid, we’ve tried to watch out for you. We warned the cook years ago, when your dad first died—Eggplant knew he wasn’t supposed to lay a hand on you, the dirty pig. That’s why Sammy went into the kitchen, Little Brother. He’s always kept an eye on you. And you know what?”

The boy’s voice is a tiny sliver. “What?”

“Sammy wanted to cut off Eggplant’s head. But you … well, let’s just say you’d already done the job.” The tan-see ruins his whispering by laughing too loudly at his joke. “Get it?” The boy stares at him; he does not get it. Tiger clears his throat.

“Sammy feels real bad that he was too late to help you. We let you down, Nyi Lay. First that bullshit with Handsome, then the cook, who’s more of a creep than the jailer, believe it or not. He’ll get somebody to hurt you. If he lives, that is. They can’t do more than sew a few crooked stitches around here, so they took him to Rangoon General. But the word is they never have enough blood for transfusions. And when they do it’s full of malaria! Or HIV!” More laughter rumbles from Tiger’s throat. The boy has no idea what a blood transfusion is, but he keeps quiet and the tan-see
keeps talking. “So maybe that creep will die. But if he lives, he’ll come back to work. And then you’ll really have to watch out, Nyi Lay. You know what I mean?”

The boy nods gravely. “I know, Saya Gyi. Saya Chit Naing wants me to go too. To a pongyi-kyaung.”

“Aha! That’s what he was up to! Sneaky jailer. He said he was trying to arrange something, but he wouldn’t tell me what. Hey, this is good news. A monastery school is much better than a tea shop.” Tiger puts his free hand on the boy’s shoulder. “You’ll go to the treehouses in the People’s Park. You’ll eat biryani and fried noodles instead of the shit they give us in here. And you’ll go to all the temples and pagodas! When you first walk up the stairs to the Shwedagon, your head will spin like a top, it’s so beautiful, like nothing you’ve ever seen in your life.” Tiger knows that orphans in monastery schools have little chance of eating biryani or going on tours of the city—from what he remembers from his own childhood, the monasteries are desperately poor—but what the hell, the kid has to have something to dream on. Even a lie. The smallest and the grandest of lies, he muses, can keep you going your whole life.

“Saya Gyi?”

“What’s up?”

“Will the monks really teach me how to read?”

“That’s what they do in those monastic schools—they teach boys their letters and then they teach ’em the scriptures. I learned to read in a monastery school in a little village near Mandalay. Then I ran off to Rangoon and got all mixed up with some rough fellows. Don’t you go and hang out with pickpockets and black-market boys. They’ll just lead you into trouble. Then you’ll end up right back in here.” He peers into the boy’s eyes, wanting to believe that there’s still time for the child; his life might be different. Better. That’s probably bullshit, of course, but he tries to be encouraging. “You’re meant for something else, Little Brother. Just stay put with the monks and do as you’re told. They’ll take care of you.”

The boy drops his head, chin to chest, and glances timidly at Tan-see Tiger’s extravagant white grin. Then both of them look up and listen. The iron-beater is striking
one two three
.

“Do you know when you’re leaving?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Hmm. It’s three in the morning, Little Brother. That means it’s already tomorrow.”

Nyi Lay’s stomach lurches and cramps.
Oh no, not again
. But the lurch rises out of his belly and wraps around his chest like a rope. How can he be leaving, and so soon? He won’t give Tiger his massages anymore, or watch the purple cats roaring on his skin. He won’t see Jailer Chit Naing anymore, or the Songbird. It’s unfair that tomorrow is already today. Soon someone will come from the monastery to pick him up. In a taxi. The boy will have to ride in the taxi, which Chit Naing says is the same as a car. The boy has never been inside a car before. All motorized vehicles remind him of the truck that killed his father. A great sigh empties him out.

Tan-see Tiger whispers, “Oh, I know. It’s hard to be out there at first. I’ve been through it a couple times. Just like it sucks to be in here when you first arrive. But you get used to it. So don’t worry about being scared shitless. It happens to all of us.”

Incredulous, Nyi Lay asks, “Even to you, Saya Gyi?”

The feared criminal laughs again, more loudly this time. The man in the bunk above him mutters in his sleep. Tiger reaches out and punches the boy lightly on the shoulder. “Yeah, Nyi Lay, me
especially
. I’m the biggest chickenshit around here. Why do you think I have to be so tough?”

The boy laughs too, not believing him. “Saya Gyi, you’re joking!”

“No, I’m not.”

Tiger smiles with his strong white teeth.
Saya Gyi
, he thinks to himself. Not very many people would use this respectful title for a smuggler convicted of murder. Funny kid, he thinks, a good kid, so damn sharp. He regrets not feeding the boy better. Not getting him out of here sooner. He regrets … Oh, fuck it, the list is too long, and involves a lot more than the orphaned rat-killer. Tiger’s smile falters, then closes into a tight line.

“Now go back to sleep,” he whispers. “You have lots to dream about, Nyi Lay.”

S
enior Jailer Chit Naing’s businesslike walk is slower than usual. He’s not used to carrying a tray loaded with a double portion of boiled rice. To do so is a glaring breach of protocol, but he doesn’t care. He slipped some money to the new cook—brought in on emergency from a military barracks—to throw in a boiled egg. An egg! As if a fucking egg is going to put flesh on a skeleton. As he passes the shrine and the hospital, Chit Naing repeatedly checks the congealing mush of rice, wondering how much of it the singer will eat. He has the distinct impression that Teza has started his hunger strike without making a formal announcement.

When he comes around the outer wall, he finds the gaunt man sitting in half-lotus position, right leg folded on top of the left. His eyes are closed. The jailer stands perhaps eight paces away, watching him through the bars. Chit Naing hasn’t seen him for two days. In that short time, Teza’s face has changed. The skin is slightly loose and wrinkled under his sharp right cheekbone, but tight where his left jaw juts out in its brokenness. Because he’s thinner, the deformity of his face is more pronounced. His neck is all ropy tendon and muscles around the rungs of esophagus. If his blanket were not wrapped around his shoulders and chest, Chit Naing would see collarbones pushing like tent pegs against his white prison shirt.

It’s peculiar to see how calm he is, his face serene in its unmaking. As his physical body becomes more worn down, worn away, something else becomes evident, glimmering, like the sheen in old silk just before it tears.

What a life, Chit Naing thinks. What a life this is. Not far from the meditating, starving prisoner, the inmates and warders of the cage discuss the latest gossip insatiably, like feral dogs around a dead goat. Just how badly did the boy bite Eggplant? Will the cook survive the blood loss? Most inmates know that Eggplant was in critical condition because it took a long time to find enough blood of his type. Most of them don’t yet know that the Chief Warden requested blood from the military hospital, which is always better supplied than Rangoon General. Alas, the cook is not going to croak after all. But will he survive not being able to screw boys for however long it takes his dick to heal? Here is the question that elicits the most raucous laughter and the most extravagant betting: What if they’ve had to
amputate
? And has the cook already paid someone to kill the sneaky little kala-lay who bit him? The rumors are flying.

Undoubtedly the palm-reader has set up a betting racket regarding the exact number of stitches. Chit Naing exhales his disgust. Weary of holding the tray, he slouches against the dirty white wall and sighs again, louder, hoping to rouse the singer from his meditation.

Eyes still closed, Teza asks in his warped but resonant voice, “What happened last night? A man was screaming bloody murder, but not because of a beating.”

Chit Naing pushes himself off the wall, spilling some of the rice gruel on his trouser leg. He swears under his breath, then says out loud, “I thought you were going deaf in one ear.”

“In one ear only.” Teza opens his eyes. He looks up at his slice of sky: blue, blue, blue. It’s such a relief to see it, almost every day now, this sea bath for the eyes. Only after tasting the blue does he look at Chit Naing. He sees the tray in the jailer’s hands and immediately asks, “Where’s the boy?”

Chit Naing kneels down. The aluminum scrapes through the metal trap.

“Where is Nyi Lay?”

The jailer stares at the wet slop of rice as he tells the singer about the screams he heard last night. Teza listens in silence, eyes cast down to the hands in his lap, right upturned palm resting on the left one. When Chit Naing finishes speaking, Teza asks, “But is he all right?”

“I don’t know. He seemed to be fine. Who knows what’s going on up here?” The jailer taps his forehead with three fingers. “Or in his heart. I did what I could. I’m not sure … exactly what happened to him.”

“Maybe a doctor …”

“No doctors. I asked him if he was hurt physically. He said no. I think he was telling the truth. It would be more frightening for him to see a doctor than just to do what he’s always done.”

“Which is?”

“Look after himself.”

“But he’s a child. I don’t even know how old he is. Ten, eleven?”

“Twelve, maybe close to thirteen. He’s small because of malnourishment. I hope the food will be better at the monastery.” Until now the jailer has been talking to the tray, pushed through into Teza’s cell. Now his eyes meet the singer’s. “That’s the only good thing to come from this mess. After last night, the Chief Warden
wants
to send the boy out.” He pauses, knowing he shouldn’t tell Teza more than he needs to know. But Chit Naing wants to tell him. He wets his lips and whispers, “I finally met him last night. Your Hsayadaw. He was just back from Sagaing, very tired from traveling, but he listened to what I had to say. He’s agreed to take the boy. The monastery is badly overcrowded, but he said there has to be a way to fit in one more sleeping mat. He really is a generous man.”

“My father loved him very much. My mother loves him still.”

“I can understand why. It was after midnight when I left. He’s the sort of person you can talk with for hours.”

Daw Sanda’s face flashes into the jailer’s mind and leaves him speechless. Teza is quiet too. Both men listen to the sounds of the cage beyond the white house, past the outer wall: the shuffle of feet and the clank of manacles as new prisoners are escorted to their assigned hall, the jeers of their warder, the low murmured talk of three guards hurrying across the compound. And from somewhere nearby comes the argumentative chatter of sparrows. Soon, when Chit Naing is gone, they will swoop over the wall and wait to receive their daily portion of rice.

Teza asks, “When will the boy leave?”

“The Hsayadaw will come for him early this evening.”

Teza has been waiting for this. He wants it. But he turns away from the news and stares dumbly at the back wall of his cell. He has longed for the
child’s departure, imagined and helped to engineer this feat of escape while sitting right here. Yet his voice sounds shaky in his own ears. “Will I see the boy before he goes?”

“For a quick visit. I’ll let him bring over your dinner tray.”

“Yes,” whispers the singer.

“I know it’s sudden, Ko Teza, but with all that’s happened, it’s the best way. And Handsome is supposed to be coming back to work. He hasn’t shown up yet, but when he does, he’ll make trouble for Nyi Lay. It’s better to get the boy out of here as quickly as possible.”

“Yes, I know. I agree.”

Chit Naing knocks the metal frame around the food trap. “Have you already started your strike without telling me?”

“It’s always hard to eat. Very painful.”

Chit Naing gives him a level look. “You can’t live on talking.” He gives Teza a grim smile. “I brought you an egg.”

“Thank you. I will eat it.” He returns Chit Naing’s look. “Yes, sir, I
am
eating. A little every morning. I’ll begin the strike when the boy is gone. Tomorrow, I guess. Tomorrow.”

Chit Naing still cannot understand. His voice is foolishly loud. “Ko Teza, what about everyone else? The ones you’re choosing to leave behind?” It’s not possible for him to say,
What about me
? In the silence after his questions, he realizes that a warder passing in the compound could have heard every word he’s said. Called back to himself, he quickly pulls away from the bars and straightens up. “I’m sorry,” he whispers.

“Ya-ba-deh. It’s all right.” Teza has been watching him intently. “You’re exhausted, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I barely slept last night.” He rubs his forehead for a few seconds, surprised by how his skin aches, not just the muscles beneath it. He looks down at Teza and sees him clearly: a man he loves but cannot comprehend. That must be why I’m so angry, he thinks. Like a child worrying a scab, he continues, “Ko Teza, wouldn’t it be the ultimate failure, to protest with your death? Isn’t that what the generals want of you?”