Under the Dragon (5 page)

‘I must wait,’ Ni Ni repeated to herself. But the following week she was evicted from her home, along with most of her neighbours. The shady old trees that lined the sleepy road were cut down. Prome Road was to be widened into a four-lane highway to give the battalions of Mingaladon faster access to the city’s centre. Ni Ni gathered up the rice pot, betel box and
thin-byu
sleeping mats. The soldiers who turned her out stole her eucalyptus oil. She only just managed to hide her dowry of foreign coins in a purse under her
longyi
.

The regime, which had torn apart the ties of family, declared its main objective to be the non-disintegration of national solidarity. The
Tatmadaw
, which had used fear to divide neighbourhoods, pledged itself to community peace and tranquillity. The local Law and Order Restoration Council offered to support and protect the new orphans, if they condemned their dead parents in public. Ni Ni refused to co-operate, and so was denied the woven wall mats needed to build a shelter in Wayba-gi, the new ‘satellite zone’ on a barren plain under the airport flight path. Her home had already been seized, so it could not be taken away again, and she had no job to lose. Others were not so independent, and the
Working People’s Daily
carried their notices. Husbands denounced wives for singing freedom songs. Mothers disowned their children for being ‘absconding and misled students’. To uphold the ‘Noble Traditions’ of the new
Tatmadaw
government it became necessary to abandon those one loved.

Ni Ni borrowed two wall mats and built a lean-to at the side of Law San’s half-finished stall. She threw herself into the physical work, even though it stung her hands, assisting May May Gyi to make her tiny shack. Then she lashed Ko Aye’s mirror to a post. It had tended to fall down every time the delta-winged aircraft passed overhead, making his occasional clients even more wary of the wandering scissors.

She was good with her hands, Law San observed, watching her earn a few kyat by helping a couple to build a cooking-oil shop, and that evening over noodles he told her, ‘I have a cousin.’

Ni Ni looked unamused.

‘A
second
cousin who is employed by a construction company. He is always on the lookout for able-bodied workers, especially with the new projects about to start.’ At the height of the uprising, in a gesture at once callous and surreal, the government had announced a number of cooperative ventures with Western firms to build tourist hotels. ‘I could have a word with him.’

‘My father will come back soon,’ said Ni Ni.

‘Ma Ni Ni, even if he does return…’

‘
When
he returns,’ she insisted, raising her voice. ‘I know that he will. I can feel him.’ Ni Ni lifted her hands from her lap and showed Law San her palms. They were the colour of mohur blooms, flushed blood-red by a rash of worry and hope. ‘I can feel him riding his bicycle.’

‘I mean when he does return,’ Law San corrected himself with gentleness, ‘he won’t have a job. There will be no money.’

Ni Ni did not answer him, never having mentioned her dowry. She knew those savings needed to be preserved. But if she could make a little cash she might be able to reopen a beauty stall. Then she could help to support her father.

‘You need a benefactor,’ Law San told her.

The girls swarmed up the scaffolding, stacks of bricks and palettes of mortar balanced on their heads, bodies swaying under the weight, building the five-star hotel. They dropped their burdens on the upper floor, where tourists would one day dine in the skyline restaurant, stretched their stooped spines, then climbed back down to collect the next load. If they could afford them the older girls, who were aged up to eighteen, wore working gloves. The younger ones covered themselves in
thanakha
, and copper-skinned tracks of perspiration lined their slender arms. Ni Ni didn’t bother with either precaution. She let the cement dust dry her hands, her fingers become callused and her skin grow dark from the sun.

Law San’s second cousin had been kind to her, giving her work, favouring her above the other applicants. He appeared to be patient too. The first time she had held a brick she had dropped it, sensing the scorching heat that had baked it. Law San had warned him of her physical tenderness, so he waited, without shouts or complaint, as she steeled herself and picked up the coarse clay blocks one by one. She eased eight of them onto her improvised turban, balanced the load with her throbbing hands, then mounted the bamboo steps. Ni Ni taught herself to bear the splinters and sprains, to endure the chafe of masonry, and soon the rough labour began to scour the sensitivity off her fingertips. She did not allow pain to weaken her body. Her attitude won the respect of the other girls and even encouraged the younger labourers conscripted onto the site. Law San’s cousin tried to show his appreciation by giving her less arduous tasks – mixing cement or sorting timbers – yet she never took advantage of his kindness. She always carried and stacked more than her fair share. But at night in her room she blew cool air onto her hands and sobbed. She was frightened, and alone.

One hot morning when Ni Ni was emptying baskets of concrete into wooden frames, casting the pillars which would contain the hotel’s executive business suite, she felt his eyes upon her. The attention unnerved her but she was anxious to please him, so hurried her work. She tripped over a loose metal rod and dropped her basket. Its wet load slopped across the scaffolding, fell two storeys and almost hit the site supervisor, a starch-white English architect who managed the project for its overseas financers. In an instant all movement stopped. The ant column of children froze on the ladders. Carpenters held their hammers in mid-stroke. Shovels hovered above sand piles. It was as if the workers were machines that had been disconnected from the electricity supply. The surprised architect stared at the damp grey lump setting on his shoe and dabbed a spot of concrete off his thick spectacles. He raised a wary hand to shield himself from the glare and squinted at Ni Ni. He seemed about to speak, then instead retreated like a water-rat into the cool shadow of his air-conditioned office. Law San’s cousin, on the other hand, did not withdraw, but waited until Ni Ni found the courage to lift her eyes. ‘Come and see me at the end of the day,’ he said. It surprised her to detect a hint of satisfaction in his voice.

The afternoon dragged, weighing down on her like a double burden of gravel, and everyone avoided Ni Ni. She kept herself busy, pouring twice her daily quota into the frames, trying to regain Law San’s cousin’s approval. He did not speak to her, or even glance her way, and it was only long after the other girls had left to go home that he called her into the office. She waited, standing, while he completed the daily report.

‘This is an awkward situation,’ he pronounced, laying his leaky biro onto the blotter. ‘I gave my word to my cousin that I would help you…’ He sucked on a cup of stewed China tea. ‘…but this morning’s unfortunate incident has created difficulties for me.’

‘I am grateful to you for your kindness,’ said Ni Ni, her breath shallow and sharp. ‘I am truly sorry for my error today.’

‘The supervisor was furious,’ continued the cousin, ignoring her distress. ‘More angry even than he was the day the swimming pool cracked and would no longer contain water.’ He plucked a single green tea leaf from between his teeth. ‘I tried my best to pacify him.’

‘I thank you for your care,
Saya
.’

‘These foreign advisers are difficult devils,’ continued Law San’s cousin, warming to his theme. ‘They talk about high standards, but all they are really trying to do is to measure the East with a Western yardstick. It can’t be done, of course, and their frustration makes them ill-tempered.’ He shook his head. ‘He wanted to dismiss you on the spot.’

‘I apologise for the trouble that I have caused you. If you wish it then I shall leave.’

Law San’s cousin rose to his feet and slipped around the desk. He considered Ni Ni’s poor, dusty clothes. ‘Your figure would be flattered by a finer
longyi
, Ma Ni Ni.’ She found his manner immodest and lowered her eyes. ‘One made of silk, perhaps?’ He stepped closer, running his eyes over her. She turned her head away and for a moment he did not speak. ‘Your hands,’ he then asked in a tone at once both casual and calculated, ‘are they really so sensitive?’

‘Not now,’ lied Ni Ni, hardly breathing. ‘The work has hardened them.’

Law San’s cousin twisted around to reach for the tin tray on the desk. A second teacup, chipped but unused, rested on it. ‘Let’s see then,’ he said, holding the tray between them. ‘Who last drank from this cup? A man or a woman?’ When she did not respond he ordered, ‘Take it.’

Ni Ni took the cup and rested it in her palm. She ran an index finger around its rim and stroked its side with her thumb. ‘A man’ she answered.

‘Correct,’ laughed the cousin. ‘A man who drinks from two cups. This man.’ He stretched to take her hand but she pulled away from him. ‘You have a very sensitive touch.’

The door swung open and the architect fell into the room. ‘My God,’ he swore, stumbling over the rough threshold, ‘who the hell made that?’ Because his name was Louis the Burmese had nicknamed the Englishman U Lu Aye, which translates unsuitably as Mr Calm.

‘I thought you had left for the evening, Mr Louis,’ said Law San’s cousin in English, startled by the supervisor’s agitated entrance.

‘On my way out,’ he replied. Then, recognising Ni Ni, added, ‘Almost literally.’

‘I have told this girl of your anger, Mr Louis. Your great anger.’

‘Missed me by this much,’ said Louis to her in hesitant Burmese, holding his thumb and forefinger half an inch apart. ‘You’d better aim more carefully next time.’ He swayed a little and Ni Ni smelt alcohol on his breath. ‘Because I’d prefer a swift death.’ When he blundered out of the room, instinct made her follow him.

Dusk had tucked itself around the quarter, and single lightbulbs glowed like honey-pale stars in the surrounding tenements. Across the half-built ballroom the nightwatchman’s brazier cast golden shadows which danced to the rhythm of unheard music. Louis missed his step and plopped down in the dust, losing his glasses on the descent. ‘One day this will be the finest hotel in Rangoon,’ he announced to the world in general, then added to Ni Ni, ‘and you can come here to dance.’

‘I doubt Ma Ni Ni will be able to return,’ said Law San’s cousin, ‘once her work is completed.’

‘Can’t see why not. I’m sure she’s a very fine dancer,’ said Louis, regaining his feet. ‘So fine, in fact, that she shall be the first woman to dance in the hotel.’ He bowed deeply, almost toppled forward and slurred in drunken formality, ‘Daw Ni Ni, as a price for failing to murder me, I request the pleasure of this first dance.’

Before Ni Ni could react Louis took her into his arms. He swept her off the steps and across the rubble-strewn floor, humming a tuneless waltz. They took a turn round the ballroom and skirted the roofless dining hall. Ni Ni, who had once seen Western dancing in a travelling cinema show, did her best to hang on. She had matured early so had a lithe, graceful figure, though in his present state Louis would be hard pressed to say if she was thirteen or thirty. They swung through the hotel’s reception area, then collided with a cement mixer and fell into a pile of sand. Louis dropped her like a soiled handkerchief, then hiccoughed.

‘I wonder,’ he asked, lying with his feet in the air, ‘could you two help me find my specs? I can’t see a damn thing.’

They looked under the steps and around the tool store. As they searched behind the office Louis rolled onto his stomach and, with a sozzled groan, buried his head in the sand. The nightwatchman brought over a dim gas lamp, which spluttered and blew out. ‘I can’t find them without a torch,’ said Law San’s cousin. Then Ni Ni felt them in the dark.

‘Thank you,’ said Louis, blinking like a mole. His clothes were filthy. He seemed about to say something more, but turned instead and tripped away into the night.

‘U Lu Aye does not seem so very angry,’ said Ni Ni, her head spinning.

‘No. Not any more,’ said Law San’s cousin. ‘Because of my efforts. You are lucky, I hope you appreciate that.’

‘I am grateful,’ Ni Ni repeated.

He watched her for a moment then said, ‘I will drive you home.’

‘If you will forgive me, I prefer to take the bus,’ she said.

‘It’s late. It will take you over an hour to reach Wayba-gi now. I will have you there in ten minutes.’ When Ni Ni shook her head Law San’s cousin clamped his hand around hers. ‘Ma Ni Ni,’ he hissed, ‘I can do much to help you, but much more to hinder you. I wish you no harm. I ask only for you to attend to your duty.’

‘My duty?’

‘It is your duty to care for your benefactor.’

‘No,’ she answered, shaking her hand free. ‘No.’ And ran away into the night.

There was no sign of Louis the next morning, but Law San’s cousin was much in evidence. The care which he had appeared to feel for Ni Ni had drained away with his wounded pride. Rejection can twist the kindest heart, but when it also challenges tinpot authority the response can be spiteful. The cousin turned on Ni Ni with a wry vengeance, ordering her to dredge the sludge from the gully behind the site. He told her there were no spare tools, and she had to clear the filth with her bare hands. The other workers noticed the change in him and questioned Ni Ni until, over midday rice, she confessed to his approach. The older girls scoffed and turned back to their bowls, while her contemporaries laughed. ‘Your turn had to come around sooner or later, Ma Ni Ni,’ said Way Way, who had worked on the building for almost six months. ‘He had a go at me in my first week.’

‘But he doesn’t treat you so badly,’ said Ni Ni.

‘Not now,’ she shrugged, reaching for the fried garlic.

‘Do you remember Ma Thet?’ said another labourer. ‘She went with him just to get a ride in his saloon.’

‘Don’t look so surprised, Ni Ni,’ said Way Way. ‘It was a Toyota.’

‘I’ve never ridden in a saloon,’ said the new girl from Dagon Myothit.

‘But now Way Way spends her spare time with Tin Oo,’ observed one of the older girls. Tin Oo operated the site’s cement mixer. ‘I’ve noticed that his machine always needs to be serviced at the end of the week.’