The hole his death had torn in her life had not closed and never would, though it seemed that it might with time become overgrown.
Nu Nu did not wish to be an ingrate. They had been spared from illness in recent years. They were not hungry. On the contrary, they had enough money at the end of every year to make improvements on the house. A new roof. New walls. A concrete latrine in a remote corner of the yard. Next year they were even planning to buy a water buffalo. Or a pig. She was proud of her sons, both of whom were industrious, modest, and obedient.
This is how happiness must look, she thought, when it does not have her husband’s mouth. When it does not smell like him. This is how happiness must look when it stands on its own two legs.
Chapter 17
THERE ARE MOMENTS, Nu Nu realized, that a person remembers as long as she lives. They burn themselves into your soul, leaving unseen scars on an unseen skin. So that when you touch them later, your body shudders with a pain that seeps into all of your pores. Even years later. Decades. Everything is present again: the stench of fear. The taste of it. The sound.
The moment Nu Nu heard the engines was such an occasion.
A late afternoon. A light drizzle came drifting across the hills and would soon reach the village. The air was warm and damp. It had rained often over the past few days; the muddy road oozed up between her bare toes with every step. Her feet and knees ached from the long day in the field. She and her sons and a few other women and their children were on their way back to the village.
Like the roar of an approaching predator the engines echoed through the valley where machines were otherwise absent.
The women and children froze, rooted to the spot. As if obeying all at once the same command. They all understood what these noises meant. She saw it in their eyes. She saw it in the contorted faces and the motionless bodies.
She gazed in the direction of the noise. In the distance she could make out two trucks and two Jeeps. Approaching quickly. Much too quickly.
There had been rumors they would come. Old U Thant had warned them repeatedly, though few in the village paid him any mind. He was always proclaiming the end of the world, and there had never been anything in it. Now he would be vindicated. The end of the world was nigh. It came in green uniforms and shiny black boots. It came in trucks big enough to cart off the whole village.
And it was coming right now.
Nu Nu looked around again. It was too late to flee. Where would they run, where would they hide? The next settlement was several miles away, and even there they would not be safe. There was no jungle whose brush could save them. Those caught trying to flee seldom survived their detention. So it was rumored at the markets.
None of the women moved. The smallest of the children sought shelter behind their mothers’ legs.
Nu Nu’s sons stood looking at her a few yards to the side.
Their faces, too, she would remember forever.
They knew what was coming. The soldiers would take them away. Hardly anyone ever returned. Their mother could not protect them.
The end of the world was now less than a hundred yards off and coming closer every moment. On one of the trucks stood soldiers armed with machine guns, their faces expressionless and empty. They were too young to look their victims in the eye. Behind them were several spools of barbed wire.
In the first Jeep sat an officer; she could tell by his uniform. Their eyes met, and Nu Nu understood that he was her chance.
Her only hope.
The little convoy rolled past them and stopped in the square in the middle of the village. The soldiers leapt out of the trucks. Some of them took up positions at the entrances to the square; others ran through the village commanding all residents to gather in front of the trucks as quickly as possible.
Half an hour later everyone was there.
The officer scrambled onto one of the trucks. He was tall and muscular, an ethnic Burmese towering a whole head above the villagers. He took up a megaphone and announced what everyone had already feared: that every unmarried male of the village between the ages of fourteen and twenty-two must be standing in front of his family’s home waiting for the soldiers within the hour. That his men would collect them and escort them to an improvised camp at the entrance to the village. After which they would thoroughly search each property. Any remaining young men discovered during this search would be summarily executed. There would be no mercy for anyone attempting to escape. Early tomorrow morning they would depart for a barracks in the state capital. The time had come for these young men to fulfill their obligation to serve the Union of Burma. The country was under constant threat from her enemies, and everyone must be prepared to make sacrifices in her defense.
She knew what he meant. Everyone knew what he meant. The army needed more than soldiers (whom they generally recruited in larger localities with the promise of a wage that would feed multiple families). More than anything they needed porters. Young men to lug the provisions and the heavy equipment, the munitions, the grenade launchers of the regiments over the mountains and through the jungle into the rebel territories. In the marketplace you would hear rumors about how dangerous this work was. Those areas were infested with malaria, and the porters’ treatment at the hands of the soldiers was bad. Anyone who got sick or wounded would be abandoned, left for dead. Several porters had reportedly been torn apart by land mines.
Who could say whether these things were true? Few who were taken by the military ever returned. Those who returned said nothing.
The officer lowered the megaphone and surveyed the crowd.
The small people before him were even smaller now.
No one said a word.
Nu Nu took her two boys and went home. Her mind was racing. Was there any chance for them to get away or hide? The latrine? The neighbor’s shed? The empty hut at the edge of the village? Ridiculous. The very places they would search first. Maybe the monastery on the fringe of the bamboo grove where four elderly monks lived with a dozen novices. Would the soldiers dare to violate its sanctity? Probably not. But what would the villagers say when they learned that she had spirited Ko Gyi and Thar Thar to safety? Most would hold their tongues, cover for her. She did not doubt it. But one voice of betrayal was all it would take. Should envy, resentment, or sorrow prevail in even a single heart, her children would be lost.
No, the risk was too great. No place was safe. Death would take whomever he wished.
Ko Gyi and Thar Thar followed their mother in silence. At home they stood motionless in the hut, watching her every move.
Nu Nu wondered what to pack for her sons. They had nothing but the rubber sandals on their feet. They each owned a second T-shirt, a spare longyi, a jacket, and a toothbrush.
That was everything.
A good-luck charm? They desperately needed some talisman to protect them. The bit of bark sprang to mind, the one her husband had broken off the pine tree beneath which they had kissed for the first time. He had given it to her and promised it would protect her. It was all that she had to remember him by. She had worn through his clothes long ago; she had never owned a photograph of him. In the weeks and months following his death she had often clung to that bit of bark as she fell asleep each night. She felt that it had protected her heart, which might otherwise have stopped from grief while she slept. Now it lay wrapped in a heavy cloth at the bottom of the chest where she kept her few possessions.
She unwrapped the bit of bark. It was thick and firm as ever, hardly broader than Nu Nu’s palm. One piece, two children. Would it lose its protective power if once divided?
For just a moment she thought of giving Thar Thar some other thing, but nothing occurred to her. She broke it in two pieces, one small and one large.
With a rusty nail she gouged a hole in each bit. Through each hole a length of string and then a knot. Nu Nu closed her eyes and kissed each charm, then hung them around their necks.
The big piece for the big brother.
The litt
le piece for the little brother.
Soon they heard the soldiers’ voices. Ko Gyi took the parcel with his belongings and went outside. Even now not a word had passed between them.
Nu Nu watched them go. They left without a backward glance. Her heart was racing. When she could stand it no longer, she started to follow them. A soldier barred her way, pushing her back through the gate onto her own property. She managed one last time to glimpse them through the hedge. The last she saw of her sons was their two green-and-black longyis.
Two grown children marching off to war.
With bits of bark about their necks.
But she did not despair.
She still had one chance.
Chapter 18
THEY MET IN the evening by the well. In a desolate village where mothers and fathers feared for their sons. Where Dread sat in the trees making faces and casting abhorrent shadows.
Where hearts turned to stone.
Nothing moved on road or path. Not a soul dared venture out. Even the livestock had made themselves scarce. The pigs lay silently in their slop. The chickens vanished behind sheds or piles of wood or into thickets. The rats and snakes took refuge in the latrines.
Over everything hung a reeking silence. Even the candles that otherwise illuminated homes and gardens had been extinguished. The moon alone was free of fear. Big and round in a cloudless sky, lighting up the night.
The commandant was waiting beneath a fig tree, smoking a cigarette and observing her. Nu Nu had put up her long black hair and was balancing a water jug on her head. She wore her best longyi and one of the two blouses she owned. Freshly laundered. She would leave nothing to chance. Her body was no longer that of a desirable young woman. Nor was it yet an old woman’s.
She would have to make her best effort.
They had arranged the encounter without a word. A few glances as the soldiers were arriving, a few gestures. Each knew what the other wanted.
Nor did they speak now. Nu Nu set down her jug and began with slow movements to scoop water out of the well. The commandant watched her. She felt his eyes on her body. She felt him sizing her up. Her slender neck, her muscular arms. She felt his eyes working their way down, testing the suggestion of her breasts inside her blouse. Her hips. The trim, shapely backside that had always aroused her husband.
She waited. He did not move.
As she was lifting the jug, he stepped over to her.
“Where?” He did not even bother to whisper.
With a nod of her head she indicated the direction. She raised the heavy jug and led the way. They walked past the empty house where only a few hours earlier her sons had waited for her.
The hut stood on the outskirts of the village, the last house before the fields. It had been empty for years. Old Aung had died there, lonesome and alone. His wife and three children had all predeceased him, and his ghost, full of grief, would return to mourn them at each new moon. But tonight was a full moon. And she had no alternative.
She climbed the few steps up onto the veranda. The door was ajar, as she had anticipated. Cold moonlight fell through a hole in the roof. In the middle of the room was a pile of straw.
They were not the first. They would not be the last.
Nu Nu set the jug on the floor. She saw the desire in his expression. The lust in his eyes. That was not going to be the problem.
He set his rifle down, took off his uniform, and left his shiny black boots beside the bed of straw. She examined his athletic body out of the corner of her eye. The army fed its soldiers well. At least its commandants.
She loosened the knot of her longyi and let it slip to the floor. With a deft motion she pulled her blouse over her head.
He could not stand to wait. She made an effort to draw things out. The hotter his passion, the better her chances, she thought.
Worst of all were the pictures in her head when he entered her. She saw her dead husband before her. She saw her sons. She saw her parents. To drive these images from her mind, she fixated on the boots standing next to her. There was neither forgiveness nor love in the world reflected in that shiny black leather. There was only fear and hatred.
There are moments that we simply cannot endure. They transform us into someone else.
She did not want to look, but it was too late.
Even still, Nu Nu was ready to take him again. She would have slept with every one of his superiors and with all his subordinates, too. With every soldier in his company.
Just to save her sons.
They were all she had left in life.
“What do you want from me?” A question. The question every moment of the evening had been leading up to. That first, brief glance. The coy looks that followed. And then the provocative ones.
All without a word. Only gestures whose intent was beyond all doubt. Each motion, each touch, each kiss, each thrust that she had tolerated culminated in this one simple, life-altering question.
“What do you want from me?” Snorted, expelled, not asked. As if he were driving a pesky fly from his upper lip.
She stroked his black hair. Examined the scars on his chest.
She could seduce him again. Perhaps it would leave him more favorably inclined. She kissed a nipple, teasing with her tongue.
“What do you want?”
He was not in the mood. And that was what everything depended on. Ko Gyi and Thar Thar. Their laughter. Their tears. Their deaths. His mood.
“My sons,” she whispered. “Nothing more. Just my sons.”
My life.
“Impossible.”
He crossed his arms behind his head and looked at the ceiling. Soon he would be wandering off in his thoughts. To the next village. The next battle. Or his chances at a transfer out of the damned rebel area to somewhere on the coast. He was already on his way; she was about to lose him. She sensed it.
“I need them.”
“So do we.”
“Without their help I can’t tend my field. Can’t bring the vegetables to the market.” Just don’t mention love. The way a mother feels watching her sons go off to their deaths. Nothing could interest him less. Emphasize the practical value of her sons. This was the language he understood.
No other.
“So what?”
“My husband is dead. I have no one else.” She added quickly: “Who can help me.” Explain. Don’t ask. Whatever you do, don’t plead. Save that for later.
She let her hand slip slowly down his chest and stomach, lower and lower. That’s where the fate of her sons would be determined. Nowhere else.
His breath quickened.
A swelling member does not lie.
She might still have a chance.
He was her first man since Maung Sein’s death.
She made every effort. Her hands and her mouth. Her tongue and her fingertips.
His skin was raw, his thrusts course and arrhythmic, the second time, too.
Her lean body quivered. Not with excitement.
He lay on top of her, arms tensed. Saliva ran out of his mouth, tinted red from the juice of betel nut. Drop by drop he drenched her features with the colors of death. And of life.
When he pulled away from her he was satisfied. She heard it in his quiet breathing. She sensed it in the way his body relaxed.
“Please.” Sometimes one word is sufficient. Six letters enough to depict a world.
He lit a cigarette. It glowed brighter with every drag.
Please.
Please.
Please.
“How many sons do you have?”
“Two.”
“Healthy?”
“Yes.”
“How old?”
“Sixteen and fifteen.”
He thought about it. Seconds with life and death in the balance.
“You keep one. We’ll take the other.”
“Which one?” It slipped out.
“I don’t care. You pick.”
And so he rent her in two.
/> On that clear, moonlit night. A small farmer’s wife. A big heart with surprisingly little room to spare. But it was the only one she had.
You keep one.
We’ll take the other.
Ko Gyi and Thar Thar. Fated to die. Or live.
She had given them life—now she would have to take it from them.
From one of them.
Chapter 19
KHIN KHIN HAD ceased talking a while ago. Now U Ba, too, fell silent. Softly he had spoken, ever softer all the while, until the final sentence was but a whisper, and his voice failed utterly.
I regarded Khin Khin out of the corner of my eye. The wrinkles on her cheeks and brow had deepened; her dark eyes had narrowed to small buttons. I noticed unusually thick veins in her neck through which her blood pulsed vigorously.
My brother crouched beside me, slumped over, head down. He glanced my way, tears in his eyes. I felt as if I might burst. A pressure had been building in me over the past few hours until I could hardly bear it. How long had we been listening? Three hours? Four? It was still light out. Hens cackled in the next yard. Somewhere a dog was barking.
The smell of a spent fire. Khin Khin poured cold tea, rose and fetched a plate of roasted melon seeds, rice cakes, and a packet of crackers. She opened the plastic wrapper and offered me one. In her eyes was such desperation that I could not even manage a “No, thanks.”
What had become of Nu Nu? Had she found a way to save both sons? Surely she hadn’t …? How had she lived through this nightmare? Although nothing interested me more than the answers to these questions, I did not dare to ask. We sat together in silence. I waited for U Ba or Khin Khin to say something. Minutes passed.
I needed to get outside. The confines of the hut had become unbearable to me. The suffering and sorrow that dwelt therein. The chasms that yawned all around me.
Before me I saw Nu Nu. For the first time I had a picture of her in my mind. Her lanky, quivering body beneath the lieutenant. The red juice of the betel nut on her face. The fear for her sons’ lives.