The Lizard Cage Read online

  An hour passes. He eats another fish and drops the bones into his latrine pail. Then he paces with the food in his arms again, to confound the ants. He listens to his stomach. He waits this way all day, until the time when he begins to expect the sound of Sein Yun’s footsteps. He wonders about the warders who will be on duty. Will Handsome appear again? Many things must fit into place in order for the letters to get out safely. What if a particular guard’s shift changes unexpectedly? What if there is a random search that no one predicted?

  He stops pacing, drops his head to the side like a puzzled dog.

  Out loud, he whispers, “What is it?”

  He doesn’t know. He goes still, trying to hear with his body. Only his eyes move back and forth, from the air vent and the spider’s web to the door, from one corner to another, crossing, going forward, sweeping back. Sudden wind howls through the tunnel between two buildings. A cry reaches him, as though across an enormous field, from another part of the prison. He listens for another cry but hears nothing.

  Now and then the thunder booms in low tones, like explosions in a rock quarry. A vision flashes into his mind from last night’s dream: living black eyes gaze up at him from inside the ant-filled box.

  Teza crosses to his pile of clothes, takes the letter out, unfolds it. The fine hairs on his arms and neck stand on end.

  He folds the letter over, once. Holding his breath, holding the edges of the folded papers, he slowly and carefully rips them in half. At first it is easy. The thin layers of paper offer no resistance, though the sound of tearing is like the world leaving him behind. He keeps at it, putting the torn halves back together between his thumbs and index fingers, tearing them again in half, in quarters, eighths, until the muscles in his hands and forearms cramp with effort. He tears the letter into fragments just slightly larger than the cheroot filters.

  The smallest pieces escape, slip and flutter from between his fingers or lift off the neat piles he has set down in front of him. He carefully gathers them up. Salt sting in his eyes now, he blinks, blinks, squints. What would make you cry? He shakes his head slowly, back and forth, not knowing why he is doing this. But it does not feel like cowardice. He is not a coward.

  The iron-beater begins to beat out five o’clock.

  The scraps of paper go soft on his tongue, absorbing saliva easily. When he chews them, they become hard nuggets and hurt his teeth, so he tries to keep them small enough just to swallow them down.

  ry harsh but I have becom

  ounger I had to force myself

  ison provides discipline beyo

  mind myself of the sacrifice

  your father. So history is m

  complish true change is not

  willing to give that up.

  is belief continues to be

  solace in the tenets of Bu

  e all wish to tell you how

  courage and metta for al

  re deserving of dignity, b

  strong in our commitmen

  our struggle to make our coun

  deserve. The long night of Bur

  said, “All they have are guns.”

  also have the people’s fear. Thi

  strange but I am no longer afra

  have dared so much, we must w

  Ladling a cup of water, he keeps balling the words up on his tongue, swallowing them down. He wonders if he will be disappointing his comrades, but feels sure he is not. He feels no guilt as the letter slowly disappears back into his body. Near the far right edge of his web, comrade spider sits patiently, waiting for his dinner. Teza stops chewing as he stretches his neck to look up at the spider, the air vent. He smells the coming rain. All the warm muscles and tendons in his neck and upper shoulders are taut. The singer feels the pounding in his throat before he hears it with his ears. It’s not the sound of thunder or heaving rain but the footsteps of men in the corridor.

  Half the paper is already in his mouth as he pours the cup of water over the rest of the scraps in his hands, jumps back to the water pot, sloshes more water up to his mouth, swallows, gags, swallows. Coughing now, trying to cough quietly, fearing he will start choking and not be able to swallow, he pushes the rest of the wet paper into his mouth and holds his breath as he chews, willing the reflexive muscles in his throat to be calm. He has to chew to get the paper down more quickly, and he flinches at the stabbing pain deep in the roots of his bad teeth, but it doesn’t matter. He moves rapidly in the small space, gracefully, as though he is a dancer and has practiced it many times, the leap back to his blanket where the pen is wrapped up.

  As he uncovers the pen and crosses the coffin, he is listening hard, counting. There are at least three men. Or four. Not Sein Yun, no flip-flops. They are all wearing boots. Voices now.

  The men are halfway down the corridor. The keys jangle and the long chain that holds the key ring rattles and clanks. Is it Jailer Handsome? Teza cannot tell, but he knows the meaning of the sounds. He has experienced this before, the jailer and the others coming, that chain.

  The pen in his right hand is poised to the right of his right temple, pointing upward like a dart. He takes aim at the air vent, but he has never played this game with anything bigger than the bits of gravel and the uncooked peas.

  The sweat gathered on his forehead trickles in rivulets onto his eyelids, into his eyes. He feels sweat on the fingers holding the pen.

  They are near the door now. The singer holds his tongue between his teeth as he takes aim again.

  The pen shoots from his fingers, flying upward, but too high. It falls down, narrowly missing the web. He snatches it up again and throws while he is still moving backward.

  How long is a second? A minute? Ten extra years? The pen seems to float; he thinks it will go through, his shoulders have already relaxed in relief. But it hits the bottom edge of the air vent and drops into the spider’s web, tearing through the silk strands and falling to the floor. The small plastic clatter causes a cramp to twist his stomach.

  What would make you cry?

  The heavy bolt cracks back hard, that smack of metal against metal, not unlike the smack of bamboo against human bone.

  Teza! Teza!

  It’s his brother’s voice, not his father’s, not his mother’s. Aung Min always had the better aim with a slingshot.

  Stand still. Don’t back up any more. And please, stop moving. This is your last chance; they will crash through the door in four, at the most six seconds. Close your left eye and aim a little higher. You’ve always aimed too low. Stop shaking. Now!

  Teza exhales a small cry as he lets the pen go. His is not the spear-throw of a warrior. It is a full surrender to the realm of absurdity where he lives in the teak coffin and men break into it, where his teeth fall out and the spider’s web tears away and his brother whispers to him from a country he’s never seen.

  The key turns in the lock a moment after the pen flies from Teza’s sweating hand.

  . 20 .

  The small cell fills with an invasion as uncontainable as floodwater. The men crash in, brown-clothed limbs to every bare corner. Three warders and the junior jailer surround him. Each one wears boots, though he recognizes only Handsome. Teza stands, head down. There is no way to contain the flood; no matter what he says, no matter how he replies to the questions, it will not stop. The story is already written, the scene set in this cramped theater. The ending is always the same. As the voices break the air in the cell, Teza prepares himself.

  We have a report of contraband now a search yes sir no sir no it’s not the case Lying will not be tolerated you singing pig I do not know sir there is nothing here Your comrades from Hall Three we know them they’re in the dog cells already we have reports they told us your name How do you like that your own friends betrayed you I don’t know what you’re talking about Where are the contraband items where are they Sir there is nothing here I swear to you sir.

  Teza feels the thunder in his teeth, but the storm is inside. Four men search for something they canno
t find. The prisoner is their center and they cut around him, kick apart the old sleeping mat, tear through his clothes, swearing all the while, making ugly jokes about the latrine pail. Handsome sticks his finger into the seam of the singer’s single collared shirt and rips the collar off. Nothing is curled up and hidden there. A ball of clothing hits the wall, falls into the water pot. One warder, his face still soft, curved with youth, lifts up and dumps out the food parcel. Handsome begins to tear open each of the remaining seven fish. He glances repeatedly at Teza, who, head down, watches the show through the fringe of hair hanging in his eyes. The smell of salty, dried fish fills each man’s nose. Inside the fish there are only delicate bones. Handsome drops the ruined pieces one by one on the floor.

  “You can’t hide anything from us, Songbird.”

  “That’s because I don’t have anything to hide from you, sir.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I said I don’t have anything to hide from you, sir.”

  The jailer approaches. “Lift your head. Lift your ugly head!” With only one word in his mind, Teza raises his chin. Breathe, breathe, breathe. On the exhalation, eyes closed, the hammer of knuckles lifts and falls, striking his cheekbone. The skin does not split, but the singer knows humans are different from animals. There doesn’t have to be the smell of blood to incite bloodlust. With the first act of physical violence, the close air of the cell immediately changes, assuming a higher charge of danger. The men move more quickly. Fingers probe the corners, flat-palmed hands run over the bricks, search for the dug-out fissures, hiding places. Behind Teza’s back, one of the men kicks over the water pot. Water sloshes against the wall and the singer imagines his stomach being kicked. From the corner of his eye he sees another officer upend the latrine pail over the mutilated fish. The officer spills gingerly, slowly, careful of his trousers. The smell of shit and urine mixes with that of fish.

  While the warders perform the search, Handsome cleans his hands on one of Teza’s shirts. He watches his men and keeps his eye on the prisoner; he scans the cell, its floor, the walls, the ceiling-without-lizards, Teza’s hands hanging at his sides. Walls again, brick by brick. Back wall. Air vent.

  Teza feels Handsome looking at the air vent, measuring the distance and the height with his eye. The staccato of rain is a many-layered sound the singer would like to crawl into, disappear inside.

  Handsome begins to laugh, long on the exhalation, hiccuping on the inhalation. The smile on his face is that of discovery, the pleasure of sudden comprehension. The warders stop their work to look at the jailer. They’re not in on the joke yet. Teza keeps staring at his feet; he understands only too well.

  “That’s good, Songbird. Why didn’t I think of it right away? I’m surprised at myself.” Handsome approaches Teza, nodding, but addresses one of the warders. “Come with me. We’re going on a treasure hunt.”

  Two minutes later Teza and the two warders inside the coffin hear Handsome and his helper outside in the rain. The warders stare at the air vent. Teza stares at his feet, filled with regret for their nakedness. They’re like twin children he cannot save. Handsome’s voice splices into the drumming rain. The other man’s voice is not loud enough to hear.

  “You forgot the fucking umbrella.”

  “… through this puddle.”

  “No, it wouldn’t … far. Here. Here.” The squelch and slide of the boots is lost to the listeners inside the coffin. “Is that …? No, there, in the mud!”

  “Stupid bastard …” and then some more words the men inside the cell cannot make out. Teza’s gut turns over inside him like a jellyfish. He should have told them at the beginning. They have license to beat him more savagely now, for lying.

  The boots return, at a faster clip, almost running. Teza glances at the warder closest to him. Their eyes meet for an instant. He is the young one. The simple beauty of his youth is jarring, dissonant. He doesn’t yell at Teza for lifting his head but immediately looks away, to the still-open door of the coffin.

  There is no pause at the threshold. Handsome is suddenly back in the coffin, his fists bunched under Teza’s chin, gripping the threadbare cotton shirt. “Where is it? Where did it go?”

  Teza begins to cough violently. He puts on the show as well as he can, stealing a few seconds to decide whether the question is a trick, to make him lie again, to implicate him further. Handsome found the pen, didn’t he? Didn’t he? How could he not have found it? Teza closes his eyes to reply. “I … I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir.” The hammer again, in his face, against his nose, which begins to bleed before the jailer has lowered his arm.

  “Don’t lie to me, you little fucker. Don’t you lie to me! Remember, we can kill you. We can kill you just like that.” A glistening lock of pomaded hair spills onto Handsome’s forehead as he yanks the wooden truncheon from his belt, brandishes it threateningly. He hits the wall beside him, leaving a pink mark where the brick skin chips off. The jailer spins away from the singer, looks wildly around the cell, and screams, “Tear these open,” to the young warder. He rams the truncheon back into his belt, then kicks the packets of peanuts and deep-fried beans to the young man’s feet. The two other warders, halting their fruitless search to watch, form an audience.

  The singer realizes the young man is being trained. Perhaps he has never done a search before. Teza recognizes the mouth clenched against its own inarticulate protest. He speaks quietly, not to Handsome but to the young warder. “If the bags are sealed, how can anything be hidden in them?”

  Handsome shouts, “What the fuck did you say?”

  Ignoring the junior jailer, Teza holds the young officer’s frozen gaze. “I said, how can anything be hidden in the packets? They are machine-sealed. Why do you have to tear them open?”

  Handsome gives the order. “Hit him.”

  Rain drums the roof.

  “Ko Tint Lwin, hit the prisoner! I command you to hit him! Now!” Handsome turns away from Teza to face the younger man. “Tint Lwin, fucking hit him! Hit him!” In a single motion, Handsome grabs the truncheon from his belt, takes a step backward, and strikes the wall again.

  “Ko Tint Lwin, you don’t have to hit me. You could refuse him. You are not a dog, and he is not your master. You are free to make your own—”

  “You stupid cunt!” The blow from the truncheon knocks Teza against the back wall of the coffin. His knees buckle, but his fingers grip the bricks behind him. He does not fall.

  “But sir, you know I’m right. Even you don’t have to do this, you are a Buddhist, it is the First Precept, we must not harm another living—”

  “You fucking political prick, you are not a living being, you are just a mouthpiece for that colonialist bitch, shut the fuck up or we will kick your guts out your mouth!”

  Terror has been loosened now, the tether slipped from its leg, and frantic wings beat around the cell. Handsome screams at the two other officers, who add their fists to the blows of his truncheon.

  After a few well-placed hits on Teza’s head and back, the jailer stands away and yells, “Ko Tint Lwin, get in there! Now! Or you will be court-martialed, you will be sent up north as a sympathizer!”

  Teza is on the floor now, his eyes hidden. The young man begins to kick him. Tint Lwin, twenty-two, feels the tears coming and keeps them from his eyes by kicking. He will never again eat dried fish of any kind. The slightest whiff of it will tighten his throat to retching and remind him of this terror that is not Teza’s. The singer has already retreated deep into his writhing body, though somehow he throws his voice up like a rope, and each of them, Buddhists all, hears his words, twisting as his back twists: “You will remember. You will remember breaking the First Precept. What merit can you make for this?” Now the terror in the cell belongs to the four men, whose transgressions have been witnessed by their victim and given back to them whole. When the question comes again—“What merit, what merit for your crimes?”—Handsome kicks harder.

  Teza cannot tell which
direction the blows will come from. He twists away from one boot and another cracks against his ribs. He does not try to shield his body, only his head, his face, his mouth. A nail of pain shoots behind his eyes, pounded deep into his ear with one stroke. Everything rings, rings, as though the iron-beater were close by, counting out the hours. Three minutes swell into four, five. Teza whimpers, groans.

  “Stand up! STAND UP!” Handsome’s voice. The men back away from the body at their feet, whose breath scratches the floor like an insect.

  “Stand up.”

  In Teza’s ears, Handsome’s yelling reverberates as an insulated, high-pitched ringing. When he moves his head to try to turn off the ringing, a pain stabs so deep in his ear that he wonders if someone has kicked him again. He manages to push himself up onto his hands and knees, but he knows he won’t be able to stand. There are other pains in other places—a jaw mauls his lower back, the teeth driven deep into the muscles at the base of his spine. His legs have begun to swell already. His longyi has come undone and fallen down his legs. He rests more of his weight on his knees, to free one of his hands. Very slowly, he pulls the bloodied white sarong back over his buttocks and legs. When his weight settles into his feet, he realizes that something has happened to his toes. He pushes himself up onto his knees and drags one leg forward, bends it as though to launch himself into a standing position. But the pain is literally breathtaking. He cannot flatten his foot; several toes are broken. A dark liquid drips on the floor.