Under the Dragon (14 page)

Early 1988 was a period of new hope in Burma. In the spring of that year the first wave of pro-democracy demonstrations, though ending in bloodshed, unleashed a sequence of events which seemed to promise an easing of repression. The spirit of optimism was reinforced by the government’s grudging admission that students had died in police custody. As a result of the confession both the Home Minister and the Rangoon Chief of Police resigned. A civilian lawyer, Dr Maung Maung, was appointed President. The government reopened the universities, which had been closed after the first demonstrations to disperse the students, and lifted the curfew.

At the Press Scrutiny Board the changes were reflected in a measure of leniency. The censors began to permit the publication of controversial articles. Writers found the courage to be bolder as the likelihood of arrest receded. Their allegories became less veiled. In addition licences began to be issued to publishers wishing to start up the popular new monthly magazines. By the middle of the year over ninety different titles had appeared, printed on poor-quality paper, offering the public a bounty of original stories, foreign news reports, scientific articles and gossip columns. The periodicals became the most animated forum for literary activity, because of both their topical nature and the economic circumstances. A complete novel, or, when available, foreign news magazines such as
Time
or
Newsweek
, were beyond the reach of most Burmese. They also took a long time to read. So neighbourhood lending shops sprang up, fulfilling the role of local libraries, loaning well-thumbed reading material to the public for a few kyat a day. Magazines were popular because they could be hired, read and returned within an economical twenty-four hours. It was with the intention of starting up a new monthly that the publisher-photographer Ko Lin asked to meet the Board’s Head of Licensing, and offered to take her to lunch.

Ma Swe stepped with care aboard the Karaweik, a gaudy, ostentatious replica of a traditional Burmese floating palace, feeling apprehensive both of the meeting and of sailing on central Kandawgyi Lake. She needn’t have worried. The floating restaurant was cast in concrete around reinforced pillars, and Ko Lin was too fond of the sound of his own voice to let her speak a word. He sat at a table beside the water, drinking a bottle of ABC Stout, looking as though he would rather be in a toddy shop.

Ko Lin was not a young man, nor particularly old, and like many Burmese there was an agelessness in his features. A fondness for alcohol had left him puffy-eyed and overweight. His ruffled, inky hair was unwashed. The tail of a faded tennis shirt hung out from his
longyi
. As an overdressed singer buzzed around his table like a bejewelled mosquito, crooning an unidentified pop song into his ear, Ma Swe felt an inexplicable pang of irritation.

Ko Lin looked up to meet her eye. ‘I’m sorry,’ he apologised, struggling to his feet to greet her, ‘I didn’t see you come in.’ He shouted for the menu and asked if she would like beer or whisky. She quietly requested a glass of Sparkling Lemon. The singer withdrew and Ko Lin began to talk. He was not, like Ma Swe, a listener.

‘There is complicity in silence,’ he said, sitting down sharply, wasting no time on pleasantries, not even asking her name. ‘Words are useless fancies unless they lead to action. Don’t you agree?’ Her soft drink arrived and saved her from having to answer him. She looked at the menu, at a loss for anything else to do. He leaned forward and glared at her over the top of it. ‘You see, I believe that our actions can improve the present situation. That’s why it is important to publish a new monthly, to give today’s events a voice. Don’t have the fish. The seafood here isn’t fresh.’

Ma Swe took an immediate dislike to Ko Lin. His directness made her uneasy, and he tended towards self-aggrandisement. He was also no gentleman, as the supervisor had led her to believe. ‘There are guidelines,’ she said simply.

‘Things can be changed. Things
are
changing, within the parameters of the Eleven Principles, of course.’

‘I don’t know if it is possible,’ she answered in all honesty.

‘If I didn’t believe that it could be done, we wouldn’t be talking. Time is too precious to fritter away on matters of no consequence. What will you eat?’ They ordered a few dishes and, so that a single minute wasn’t lost while waiting, he told her about himself.

Ko Lin’s life had been distinguished by frustrated expression. He had squandered years training as a film-maker, cajoling his friends and neighbours into helping him make a movie, only to have it refused distribution by the video parlours. So he had turned to writing, churning out in a year a dozen short stories and two novellas, but his work was rejected by every publisher in Burma, whether for reasons of politics or quality Ma Swe chose not to ask. He had then dabbled in painting, but decided instead to become a photographer, although he owned no equipment. With a borrowed camera he had travelled around the country taking pictures of ‘the true Burma’. Ma Swe looked startled, and as he ordered another stout he explained, ‘Whenever the authorities challenged me my defence was simply to say that I was recording events. If they found fault in that then they were admitting their own responsibility and failure.’ His high principles had earned him five years in prison. The friend who had loaned him the camera was also jailed. ‘That is why I value time, why I never sleep for more than four or five hours a night. They kept me locked up for so long that I don’t want to waste another minute of my life.’

On his release Ko Lin had tried to sell the photographs and his accompanying text, but without success. The PSB always blocked their publication. It was then that he began to see himself in another role, as one who documented facts, rather than interpreted them. He accepted that his role was to publish the work of others. ‘I’m a late bloomer,’ he said, digging in his breast pocket to look at his watch. Its strap was broken. ‘It’s another reason for me to get a move on.’

Throughout his monologue, from the chicken satay to the fried bananas, Ma Swe did not speak at all. But as she listened she began to sense that for all his haste Ko Lin was a man who never finished what he had started. She also felt that she had eaten too much.

At the end of the meal Ko Lin presented her with a list of writers and, in triplicate, a handful of stories. He proposed that the first issue of the magazine would run news items about the March demonstrations and an article about how democratic elections are conducted in the West. ‘For the general education of the public,’ he explained. ‘You do understand,’ he stressed, ‘that without your licence the Paper and Printing Corporation will not release me an allocation of paper.’ There was urgency in his voice. ‘Without your approval I cannot proceed.’

Ma Swe’s head spun. She had not yet been a day with the Board, had not corrected a single spelling mistake, and now a difficult, assertive man, who knew nothing about her, was depending on her support. Ko Lin on the other hand was satisfied with the meeting. He cared little about the personal life of the censor who had to be bribed. She had spared him the bother of making small talk. He suggested that they meet the following week to discuss her decision.

‘This is a terrible place,’ he said when the singer came back. ‘I think your colleagues only suggested it because of the expense. Next time let’s meet somewhere else.’ It was the one point on which they could both agree.

They did meet the following week, and the week after that too. The supervisor issued Ko Lin with a temporary licence, which required him to report to Ma Swe every Wednesday at noon. Ostensibly the arrangement was to enable the PSB to rein back improprieties, to ensure that restrictions still bound the press at a time when all rules seemed to be unravelling. For her part Ma Swe assumed that the supervisor only wished to prolong her entertainment. But in truth there was evil intent in the Board’s game, and Ma Swe was its pawn. Leniency was being used to flush out free-thinkers like Ko Lin. Their meetings were not isolated incidents. All around the country people were losing their fear, following their hearts, speaking their minds, while in secret their names were being added to long, detailed lists.

Ma Swe, unaware of the broader game, continued to listen to Ko Lin, letting her silence draw him out. The public optimism convinced her that her gentle efforts and softly-spoken reports could never be used against him. She had also begun to enjoy their lunches together.

Over Peking duck at the Bamboo House Restaurant, Ko Lin updated Ma Swe on the commissioning of new writers. As he spoke of investing the last of his savings to buy ink and paper, she considered his sagging, scruffy features and ironic smile. She recalled that her mother had once advised her, on meeting a person, to discover their face, and to like it. Ma Swe looked at Ko Lin’s knotted brow, watched him drain another glass and detected hope in his heavy eyes. Then, her mother had advised her, imagine the person as a child. In her mind’s eye Ma Swe wanted to picture Ko Lin as a boy, his skin taut and unblemished, his breath sweet not bitter, standing up against a bully, demanding that some small injustice be put right. Finally, her mother had said, see the spirit within the person. Ma Swe stared and tried, and the thought made her suddenly smile.

The smile, which was beautiful, surprised Ko Lin, for it made him notice the quiet young woman who ate with him, listened to him, week after week. He asked her where she was from, and when she told him he recalled the Ananda Temple, which he had photographed years earlier, and the two statues of courtly dancers which flanked the golden south-facing Buddha. Ma Swe knew them well, having chased lizards over their painted toes and dozed against their plinths. She had stared at them the evening after listening to the lovers in the hidden cave, hoping that their arrested beauty might help her to understand the overheard intimacy. Ko Lin spoke of the frozen grace of the temple dancers, one arm stretched down to accentuate their slender figures and the long fine fingers of the other hand lifted up in the traditional movement. The gesture pulled the spectator’s gaze across their narrow waists, over the small breasts, up to the downcast eyes, humble in expression yet with the confidence of women who fit well in their bodies. Ma Swe listened to Ko Lin and heard the animation in his voice. She saw his eyes glint, as they often did after a third can of stout. The beads of sweat stuck to his face like seed pearls.

‘I am a poor dancer,’ she told him, ‘but I like to listen to poetry.’

He proposed including verse in the magazine – as well as an article on King Kyanzittha, whose devotion to Buddha and whose lithe, nubile dancers had been perpetuated in the Ananda – and asked Ma Swe if she had a favourite poem.

‘I know a story,’ she said, clasping her hands in her lap.

‘Tell me,’ said Ko Lin, listening.

‘It is about the
kinnayas
,’ she said, her words all but lost in the clamour of the restaurant, and he nodded. His description of the dancers had reminded her of the graceful creatures, half-bird, half-human, who inhabited the green forests of Burmese legend. As a child Ma Swe had imagined them dipping in the shallows of the Irrawaddy like elegant, long-limbed egrets.

‘Long ago there lived a prince named Bhanlatiya who was fond of hunting,’ Ma Swe began, then added, ‘But excuse me, you know the story.’

‘I would like to hear it again,’ he replied, ‘from you.’

‘One day while wandering far from home Bhanlatiya came upon two
kinnayas
, weeping by a shallow stream.’ Her manner shed something of its hesitance, her voice warmed like polished teak. ‘You know that
kinnayas
are always seen in pairs?’ she asked with a tilt of the head. Ko Lin nodded, sipping on his beer. ‘Well, the prince thought it wrong that such fine, beautiful lovers should be crying, and asked them what had happened.

‘“We were dancing together here in the shallows,” explained the young male, pointing at the water’s rippled mirror, crystal blue and polished bright, “when the skies suddenly turned dark and a great storm blew up out of nowhere.”

‘“The stream swelled into rapids,” said the female, “and we were cast onto opposite banks. We could hardly see through the rain.”

‘“It was only when lightning flashed that we spotted each other.”

‘“The storm lasted all night long,” said the female, “and we were apart the whole time. We were only reunited in the morning when the river reverted to a stream.”

‘“But when did this happen?” asked Bhanlatiya. “I have been hunting in these woods for over a week and have seen no rain at all.”

‘“It happened seven hundred years ago” – more than half the lifespan of a
kinnaya
– “and we have been crying every day since the storm,” they replied, and started again to weep.’

Ko Lin laughed, and Ma Swe explained, ‘Their story brought Bhanlatiya to his senses. It helped him to realise that he should not be wandering so far away from home and his family.’ It was hot at the Bamboo House, and for a moment she wished that they had taken a table away from the window, in one of the restaurant’s darker rooms. ‘I love the rains,’ she said.

Ko Lin accepted Ma Swe’s story for publication, even though Buddhist legends were not to his taste, in the hope that the gesture would help to sustain official approval, or at least to stave off a ban. He was not suspicious that the PSB had demanded no concessions, and as public opinion forced the government to admit more and more of its mistakes, he was encouraged to take an even bolder editorial line.

To deepen Ma Swe’s involvement he invited her to visit his office. In a tiny alcove behind a bookshop on 32
^nd
Street she was introduced to the typesetter, a cheery Indian with good teeth and toffee-coloured skin, and the student illustrator. Ko Lin was determined to enhance both the magazine’s appearance and its contents. His professional attention to detail impressed Ma Swe, even though so many matters remained undone that it was difficult to imagine that the magazine’s first issue would be ready on time. She took pleasure in hearing him read his editorial aloud, especially its candid sincerity. He asked for her opinion, and to her surprise incorporated her comments. She decided not to ask him for a copy for the Board.