The Lizard Cage Read online

  PRAISE FOR THE LIZARD CAGE

  BY KAREN CONNELLY

  “When the world becomes thus inured to the ghastly crimes of faraway regimes, it is left to artists, writers and filmmakers to re-engage our attention. [Karen Connelly] does exactly this with The Lizard Cage, a thrilling, depressing, vital excoriation of the military junta that has ruled Burma for decades. Ms. Connelly’s novel is grounded in the accounts of those who survived Burma’s jails and escaped to the Thai border. She spent two years on the border living among exiles. Her language and imagery evoke the short stories and poems that trickle out of Burma, by turns fearful and violent, beautiful and rancid. They speak equally of spiritual and physical escape, the one always possible even when the other is forcibly denied.”

  —Wall Street Journal

  “In this hymn to ‘raw paper’ and ink, language is endowed with the power and agency of a living creature … Connelly shows in unflinching detail how pain becomes a prison in itself … A chilling and powerful story.”

  —Times Literary Supplement

  “Lyrical … a heartfelt humanitarian plea.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Such a page-turner.”

  —Marie Claire

  “Among the saddest and most beautiful novels you might ever read … Some books inspire us with the beauty of words and words’ rhythm. Some move us to action with their political observations. This book does that and more; it shows us how to be good.”

  —The State (South Carolina)

  “Connelly’s novel combines a thrillerlike pace with finely etched portraits that show how each character takes control of his own freedom.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Brave … Jealousy and self-interest are pitched against justice and human decency as [protagonist] Teza unwittingly becomes the subject of a struggle between his allies and his enemies … an expertly constructed, often harrowing thriller.”

  —Tash Aw, Guardian (UK)

  “In this novel, there is a restless search for truth in a complex and sometimes tarnished world … Perhaps this book, by shedding some light on the brutality and abuses in Burma, by giving voices and faces to those who silently suffer, can stir the conscience of the wider world more effectively than all the dry reports and statistics and polemical tracts. In this sense, Connelly reminds me of Latin American writers and poets like Pablo Neruda, who wrote so eloquently about the ills of their homelands. Like these writers, too, Connelly finds beauty and kindness and the potential for redemption in the most unexpected places.”

  —Globe and Mail

  “The Lizard Cage explores the agonizing saga of ordinary people resolutely seeking freedom and democracy in a long-forgotten corner of the world.”

  —Washington City Post

  “The Lizard Cage is an elegy to a country being strangled by a vicious regime … The Buddhist doctrine that runs through the novel is played lightly and with humour to provide a story of tragedy and hope.”

  —Big Issue

  “Connelly’s astonishing characters, her carefully-constructed plot, and her poetic language combine to produce a flawless, if heartbreaking, novel that is hard to put down and impossible to forget … As disturbing as much of the novel necessarily is, faith in humanity becomes its overarching message.”

  —Canadian Literature

  “A tale that by turns delights, surprises, and shocks. But even when writing of some of the darkest depths to which humanity can sink, her poet’s heart shines through … The resiliency of the human spirit is the beacon that informs this work.”

  —National Post

  “The Lizard Cage is ridiculously and beautifully cinematic … Connelly is an exacting writer.”

  —Quill & Quire

  “A courageous book.”

  —Toronto Star

  “Not only heart-stirring but epic.”

  —M.A.C. Farrant, Vancouver Sun

  “Offering a graphic account of prison life: its violence, betrayals, surprising kindnesses—and how it’s possible to survive it—this absorbing novel explores different paths of resistance whilst explaining and illustrating the practices and principles of Theravadan Buddhism.”

  —Lisa Gee

  PUBLISHED BY SPIEGEL & GRAU

  Copyright © 2005 by Karen Connelly

  Afterword copyright © 2008 by Karen Connelly

  All Rights Reserved

  Published in the United States by Spiegel & Grau, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  www.spiegelandgrau.com

  A hardcover edition of this book was published in 2007 by Nan A. Talese, an imprint of The Doubleday Broadway Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. It is here reprinted by arrangement with Nan A. Talese. Originally published, in different form, in Canada by Random House Canada, Toronto, in 2005.

  SPIEGEL & GRAU is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Connelly, Karen, 1969–

  The lizard cage : a novel / Karen Connelly.

  p. cm.

  1. Political prisoners—Burma—Fiction. 2. Burma—Fiction. 3. Friendship—Fiction. I. Title.

  PR9199.3.C6376L59 2007

  813’.54—dc22

  2006044565

  eISBN: 978-0-307-48761-2

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Author’s Note

  Part One: The Songbird

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Part Two: Free El Salvador

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Afterword

  A Note on Burmese Pronunciation and Terms

  Readers’ Guide

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Other Books by This Author

  About the Author

  The possessor of this stone can fly in the air, and dive not only under water, but underground. He cannot be wounded as long as he has this stone on his body, that is, in his mouth, under his hairknot, in his hands, or under his armpits. He will be free from fatigue and disease … [These] powers do not really belong to him, but only to the
stone, which by mere touch can turn lead into silver and brass into gold … Thus, when an alchemist has discovered the “stone of live metal” he exposes himself to the danger of being robbed of it by evil spirits or jealous rivals … Evil spirits will be on the lookout for him out of sheer malice, but the jealous rivals wish to eat his body, because by eating it, they will come to possess superhuman strength.

  —DR. MAUNG HTIN AUNG,

  FOLK ELEMENTS IN BURMESE BUDDHISM

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  When the historical events described in this novel took place, the military dictatorship—which still controls Burma today—had a different name. The ruling generals called themselves the SLORC: the State Law and Order Restoration Council. In 1989, after they had arrested and killed thousands of protesting citizens nationwide, the SLORC arranged public elections. The leader of the National League for Democracy, Aung San Suu Kyi, won by a landslide. But there was no victory party; the regime refused to hand over power. Months earlier, Aung San Suu Kyi had been placed under house arrest. Six years later, in 1995, she was released for a time, but she has spent much of the past decade under increasingly brutal surveillance and house arrest.

  Because of more than four decades of authoritarian rule, hundreds of thousands of refugees live in precarious conditions on the Thai-Burma border; political dissidents there and abroad continue fighting against the dictatorship from the outside, as do various ethnic armies. Burmese people remain prisoners in their own country.

  In the meantime, the dictatorship illegally changed the name of that country to Myanmar and renamed itself the SPDC: the State Peace and Development Council.

  The boy was twelve years old when he entered the Hsayadaw’s monastery school. As the newest novice, he soon possessed the smoothest bare head; he was given dark ochre robes and taught how to wear them. With his scavenger’s eye for opportunity, he saw how lucky he was. The men here gave him food, and a mat to sleep on beneath a wooden roof. He saw also that the school was a poor place, but the monks who ran it were generous with what little they had.

  This didn’t stop him from jealously guarding his own possessions. He even refused to be parted from his filthy blanket. The monks said it should be thrown away, but he insisted on washing the thick swath of Chinese felt himself. When it was dry, he folded it with haughty care and placed it on his sleeping mat. The old Hsayadaw—abbot of the monastery school—observed this patiently, accustomed to children who clung to the relics of their old lives.

  Because the boy had never been to school, he received lessons from his very own tutor, but sometimes the Hsayadaw excused the tutoring monk and sat down to teach the child himself. This seemed like a favor to the tutor, but the truth was that the abbot enjoyed teaching the boy. He had run the monastery school for more than forty years, and this was the first time he’d ever seen an illiterate child dedicate himself so passionately to the alphabet. Learning his letters made the boy shine, and the old man liked to sit in that clean, honest light. They were both happy during these lessons, and their happiness made them laugh at almost nothing, a bird shooting through the leaves beyond the glassless window or the voice of the papaya seller in the street, calling out the sweetness of her fruit. More than half a dozen times, in the middle of the night, the Hsayadaw caught the boy with a candle burning and a notebook open in his lap, his grubby hand drawing the thirty-three consonants and fifteen vowels of the Burmese alphabet over and over, and he had to force himself to be stern when he sent the child back to bed.

  The boy’s name as a Buddhist novice was too long and tricky for him to write, so he insisted on learning how to spell his birth name. When he wrote it from memory for the first time, such was his jubilation that the tutoring monk whispered to the Hsayadaw, “He acts like he’s discovered the formula for turning lead into gold.” To which the abbot only smiled.

  When he was not learning to read or trying to write, he was quiet, sometimes sullen. He was a secretive, ever-hungry boy, uninterested in playing with the other children—though he often watched them as if they were animals he was afraid to approach. The abbot endeavored not to pick favorites, but he adored this peculiar child. If only all of them were so interested in reading, and so dedicated to their Buddhist studies. It was apparent to everyone, even the more recalcitrant monks, that the boy had embraced the rituals of worship with surprising devotion. He sometimes spent hours in the temple, just sitting and watching the image of the Buddha. There hadn’t been a child like that for more than a decade.

  The monastery was full of boys—large boys, small boys, boys with harelips and boys with flippered limbs, boys from poor families or with no families to speak of. The Hsayadaw adopted them all. The old proverb says that ten thousand birds can perch on one good tree; the Hsayadaw was such a tree. His children found refuge in him, and he taught them to seek a greater refuge in the Buddha’s Dhamma of Theravada, the teachings of the Middle Way. He did not cane his children or send them off, even if they misbehaved, because the state orphanages and reform schools were dangerous places.

  The boy came to love the abbot with the same anxious tenderness he’d felt for the Songbird. This love declared itself through the laughter they shared during their lessons, through the tears the boy blinked away as he struggled with all the letters and their complex combinations. Once when he was wrestling with frustration, the Hsayadaw told him, “It’s all right to cry. It’s just a little water that needs to get out. We could put it in a cup if you’re worried about losing it.” The boy laughed, and his work became easier.

  For just over three months he lived this way, making his path through hard terrain as quickly and gracefully as water. But one morning trouser-wearers appeared, two military intelligence agents who asked about him.

  The Hsayadaw was calm with a lifetime of meditation, but he was afraid for his favorite son, so afraid that he broke the Fourth Precept: to abstain from telling lies. He knew it was wrong, but he lied to the military intelligence agents. He told the men that the boy was very wild, and had run away. “What did you expect, with the way the child has been raised?”

  “Did he take his belongings with him?” one of the men asked.

  “Belongings? He was the poorest among the poor—he had nothing but a bag of scraps and an old blanket. Of course he took them away.”

  The morning meal was just beginning, and the military intelligence agents insisted upon walking slowly among all the children as they sat eating on the floor. But who was to know one particular novice among sixty-seven shaven-headed, hungry little monks? The boy they were searching for was also calm, calm with a short lifetime of surviving by his rat stick and his wits. He went on eating with the other children. All of them kept their heads angled to the floor. The agents called out his name, demanding that he speak up if he was in the room. The boy didn’t even blink; he would never answer to the voices of the cage again. The men came back that night and performed the same theater, but all they succeeded in doing was making a few boys burst into tears.

  Two days later, petulant and angry, they returned at the hour of the morning meal. This time someone else accompanied them, a jailer who knew the boy’s face. The trouser-wearers demanded that each novice lift up his head and look at this man.

  Some of the boys could not hold back their tears as the big man approached them. He limped from child to child, asking questions to frighten them, to make them talk. But they had nothing to tell him. His eyes scanned the room. He barked at the other trouser-wearers to make sure they found every flea-bitten brat in the monastery compound. Then, turning to the Hsayadaw, he asked more questions. Were some children out collecting alms? Were others washing clothes or running errands at the market? The Hsayadaw replied with great patience and a serene expression. All the young novices were present, here, in this very room. Only older boys were sent to do errands. Every child under fourteen was having breakfast. Except for the boy who had run away, days ago, the one they were looking for.

  The jailer lowered his voic
e. “If you are lying to me, old man, you will live to regret it.”

  The Hsayadaw smiled his generous, open smile, all large white teeth except for the missing ones; his eyes nearly disappeared into many wrinkles. He replied, “Sir, how many men have told you the truth and lived to regret it?” He lowered his voice, so the novices wouldn’t hear him. “Leave this place now, you who hunt a child like an animal. This is a monastery school. It is not your prison.”

  Then the Hsayadaw turned away, walked barefoot over the creaky floor, and sat down among his children. That day the abbot was so happy he had to restrain himself from dancing. He had outwitted the authorities. The day after the military men had visited the first time, the Hsayadaw had sent his favorite son to a safer place.

  Wrapped in his novice robes, the boy left his first sanctuary in Rangoon and went to a small monastery in Pegu, then to a much larger one near Inle Lake and a different place after that, farther and farther north, eluding a force he equated with the men in the cage who had hurt him. Sometimes ordained monks took him in hand. Sometimes trusted novices became his guides, though they were barely older than he was, perhaps fifteen or sixteen. It was a slow, mindful, meandering escape, for it was unclear where the boy should go. He and his caretakers often walked or caught rides in the backs of open trucks.

  The young monks aroused no suspicion. Even government army officers and soldiers came out to give them alms at dawn. The boy was like any other poor novice, brother to the little nuns they sometimes passed on their journey, orphan girls dressed in the dark brown or pale pink robes of their abbeys. When they arrived at a beautiful, bird-filled monastery in the hills near Mandalay, the boy thought perhaps this place was his new home, because it was very peaceful, and very far away from Rangoon.

  But it wasn’t far enough. The Hsayadaw sent word that the authorities were still looking for the child. They left again, traveled down into the mad bustle of the market streets of Taungyi, then Loikaw, then from village to village, through the mountains and valleys of Shan State, where the people spoke a language that recalled the sinuous chatter of birds. In a village whose name he never knew, the novice was given into the care of other, older monks, Shan men.