, the Clerk and the General
by Dictafone Danny
Copyright 2011 Dictafone Danny
The Clerk to the Ministry of Affairs washes a cup, to ensure a clean offering. He uses green tea bought on the way to work. Since the fuel prices went up it now takes almost an hour to cycle - a bus ticket is out of the question. It takes an hour not just because both he and his bike are old but also because the front wheel is buckled and minus most of its spokes. He is lucky, most of his friends have either lost their jobs or been told not to bother coming in again when they were unable to afford to get to work.
The Clerk decides that when he finishes making tea he will give the remainder of the packet to the Chief Monk as alms. The old woman who sold him the tea had bowed and smiled but stopped short of speaking to him. She was usually in the habit of enquiring after his ageing mother. Few people now talk to him on the street and he misses the interaction. He no longer meets friends in one of the many tea houses dotted around the city. The new rules mean they are likely to be dispersed or picked up if there are more than a handful of them gathering in one place. People go about there business, fearful to stop, fearful to talk and terrified to refer to the demonstrations. Furthermore the temples are empty and the army is still searching for protestors. The Clerk has not been involved in the protests ... he has his job to think about and so instead he has spent the past week fashioning arrows from the spokes of his bicycle in order to hurl at the soldiers as they pass his house. He has not yet plucked up the courage to use them, having hidden them under the floorboards without telling his family.
The Clerk knows he is relatively privileged for he has a secure job and can just about afford to feed his family. There is a pension and his three children get the pick of the local schools. He is also able to pull a few strings to ensure his mother gets medical attention for her high blood pressure.
The Clerk lived through the previous uprising back in '88, having watched it all as a junior officer from the window of the offices. He had minuted the meeting in 1990 after the elections when it was decided that, in spite of the landslide victory of The People's Movement for Democracy, the winning party would not be allowed to govern and its leader was to be placed under house arrest. Back in '88 he had urged on the protestors from high up on the third floor but eventually the old General had lost patience and sent in the troops who opened fire on the unarmed crowd. The Clerk had secretly hoped that the people would overwhelm the army. He knew the truth but was forbidden upon pain of death, from saying a word. The truth was that the military was little short of five thousand and that their weapons were ancient. In spite of appearances the soldiers were poorly trained. Most of the cannon fodder were from poor families and being in the army was one way of escaping the grinding poverty. The monks outnumbered the soldiers but the soldiers had the guns.
And so the Clerk presents the Monk with a freshly brewed cup of jasmine tea. The Monk removes the lid of the cup and drinks the tea, making a slurping noise. The Monk then looks up at the Clerk who is hovering.
“You should have stayed with us,” the Monk says.
“I couldn’t,” replies the Clerk.
“And why not?”
“Because I possessed neither the faith nor the dedication.”
“And that,” observes the Monk, “is precisely why you should have stayed. You know in my near fifty years in the monastery I have discovered something which I wish to share with you and it is this. Those who are not particularly dedicated, who claim they have received no earth shattering revelation, are those who make the best monks in the long run.”
“It is kind of you to say so,” says the Clerk, “but I didn’t think I could have lived up to the high expectations.”
“You took what you could from us and I can only hope that you have used it wisely.”
“I meditate every day and observe the holidays and I still try to practise loving kindness and acceptance but I am struggling. It is difficult to keep the faith with all this happening.”
“Recent events have proved to be a real test for all of us,” agrees the Monk.
“And I thought this time was going to be different … from before, I mean. I thought that this time there were enough of us but I was wrong. Nothing’s changed since ’88. No one’s listening. The world does not want to hear. We’re still crying in the dark, shouting at the traffic on the highway.”
“Rome was not built in a day and we should keep gently chipping away at the rock. Eventually, if we all work together, we will make a small indentation, more people will join in and before we know it there will be tens of thousands of us hammering at the wall.”
“Oh, for goodness sake Chief Monk … you don’t really believe all that allegorical nonsense do you?”
The Monk is about to reply when he becomes distracted by the arrival of the General. The Chief Monk and the Clerk stand and bow. The General gestures to them to sit. The General seems preoccupied. There are beads of sweat gathering on his forehead. Rumours of his illness are rife. He sits calm and erect, his demeanour tranquil – no mean feat considering the civil unrest and riots he has quelled over the past few weeks.
“And so …” says the General, “it is time to agree a way forward. The current situation is untenable for the government and for our revered monks who seem to have been unwittingly dragged into this protest. It is a few rotten, disgruntled citizens … the usual suspects I might add … who are hell bent on disrupting our great country. Most wish to abide by the state laws and it is the minority who are behaving in such an unpatriotic manner.”
The Clerk stands to leave but the General calls him back. ”You may as well stay Clerk. My colleagues will need a fully detailed account of our discussions.”
The Chief Monk averts his gaze whilst the Clerk remains too fearful to do anything other than obey his master by taking out his pencil and notepad, ready to record everything. Meanwhile, the Chief Monk delves into his saffron robes and pulls out sheets of paper upon which are written the names of the monks ‘arrested’ during the recent demonstrations. Alongside their names are listed the temples to which they belong. He pushes the papers towards the General.
“This is a list of all ..”
“I can see it’s a list!” snaps the General.
“Of every monk who is unaccounted for … there are some 2000 in total I believe.”
“It is more than likely that many of these monks are not within our prison system. It is probable that they have fled the country. Be in no doubt, Chief Monk, we will find them and when we do they will be punished and in due course returned to you.”
“That is not helpful,” observes the Chief Monk, trying to remain calm.
The General ignores the Chief Monk and glances away. “We, the government, wish to assist the temples in any way we can and would like to increase the amount of alms we provide in order to help you all during this challenging time.”
”That won’t be possible, I’m afraid. All the temples are in agreement that we must continue to refuse alms from the government.”
“But this is outrageous!”
“Indeed. It is also outrageous that hundreds of citizens were killed on the streets and that whilst we were all distracted with hunger and worry about how we could afford to get to work you built a new city for yourselves in the jungle.”
“If we cannot give alms then … do you know what this means?”
“I know exactly what this means.”
The General bangs the table with a fist, exhausting himself with the effort. The Clerk drops his pencil on the stone floor and watches it as it rolls towards the door.
“You must take alms!” shouts the General above the rolling penc
il.
“I have taken advice on this and we are not compelled to do so,” replies the Chief Monk above the rolling pencil.
The General turns to the Clerk, ordering him to delete the last comment from the minutes. The Clerk shrugs, gesturing towards the pencil on the floor. Three men stand observing a rolling pencil. All three wish to say things but remain silent. The Clerk, for example, would like to say things he cannot. He would like to say:
“I am, of course, thankful for my job and grateful I am able to feed my family. I am thankful I haven’t been forced to build the roads for the new capital. My paymasters dictate what I say and do. They tell me when to stop writing and when to leave the room. I am told when to be invisible and yet I am party to everything. If I recounted everything I knew, everything I have heard the world would weep. I know, for example, that the General is dying. I knew all about the new city before anyone else. I saw the plans. I know the generals sit in their mansions and live in luxury. They possess more money than can be spent in a lifetime. I am aware that the army arrive at peoples’ doors in the night to take them away and that while the Generals eat the finest food the people are without electricity and water. They are without human rights. They want democracy without understanding what is involved or what it means. For them it is no more than a way of having a better life with more food and money. They do not understand why the leader they elected into power is unable to govern and why she is still under house arrest. When they protested with the monks they assumed that the army would not dare touch their religious leaders but they were wrong. I wanted to join them on the streets but if I had done so my life would have been at an end. The monks in the temples control our spiritual lives in much the same way and in my darker moments I wonder whether they are in cahoots with the government. I used to resent my Buddhism in much the same way as I now resent the oppressive state. Now I wish to stand with the monks but cannot. I am alone. My friends avoid me after the protests, thinking I am a puppet of the system and that I will turn informer. They have no idea I am as tired and as afraid as they are. All they see is a dutiful clerk who minutes meeting and does what he is told. If only I could … if only I had the courage …”
The Chief Monk would like to say:
“My faith, my philosophy have been a source of both sadness and great joy to me. Sadness because we have been forced into the forefront of political life and also because I had no other choice but to become a monk. My family were, like many, poor and so sending me to the monastery as a boy was the only way of providing me with something like an education. My faith is stretched every which way and now I must find it in my heart to speak to the General with patience. I have lost a hundred friends and thousands of colleagues and I must remain stoic. There is no reason for all of this apart from greed. Buddhism teaches impermanence but nothing changes here. We are imprisoned within our own streets, houses and temples. I want to lash out, to tear down the roads built on the backs of our citizens. I want to flee.
The General wants the watching world to understand that:
“I have no more than a year of life left. I am fearful of dying and fearful of eternal suffering for all the things I have done and all the lives I have taken. When we seized power it was to stop the people mismanaging the country I love and leaving us vulnerable to attack from outside. We have been colonised in the past and I was determined that would never happen again. I could not permit some other nation walk in here and take all our wealth and resources. Those of us in power became distracted and attracted by the money and the notoriety. Now I am not in possession of a single friend in the world. There is no future life for me. I will suffer during and after my death, unable to accumulate sufficient merit. I’d like to give back every penny. Offer a man a diamond when he is about to die and it is worthless.
The Clerk picks up his pencil, realising nothing will change. The Monk watches the Clerk picking up the pencil knowing nothing has changed. The General observes the painkillers he took only one hour ago are wearing off and realises that nothing would ever be the same from now on.
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