Cale and Paula hadn’t slept, and before the break of dawn, they were swapping stories of life, eating roti, and drinking sweet tea together near the center of Rangoon. Paula had filled most of the evening conversation with her observations of the Burmese military government’s actions, depicting eye-witness rapes, whole villages being robbed of food, tools and equipment, and people being murdered. The two watched each other as they wandered through the morning markets and open shops, admiring the tapestries, blankets, silverware, sculptures, paintings, and jewelry. When they returned to the hotel, they made some loose plans to cross paths in Mandalay, and they parted company.
Cale walked into his room, packed what little he brought with him, and headed out into the streets of Rangoon to the tourist information center. A bus was leaving that afternoon, and Cale got on board. During the evening lowdown from Paula, she had mentioned some of the easily recognizable differences between locals and the military. The military and government vehicles used mobile gas and the locals got gas smuggled in from India. The local gas had a fair bit of dirt in it, which Cale noticed while watching it get siphoned out of the bus through a coffee filter a few times before being put back in the tank. Throughout the late afternoon and into the night, the bus shuttered through jarring potholes. Villagers flashed in the headlights as they ran out of the road. Periodic bonfires blazed near the road. Gas delays forced the bus to be more than five hours late, which gave Cale some daylight the following day, which he knew the government didn’t really want you to have as a tourist. The plains stretched across the valley floor only to be interrupted by the broad brown and languid Irrawaddy River to the east. Cale could see just below the rim of the Shan Plateau to the northeast sloping even higher to the north into the clouds. By midmorning Cale could see the sparsely planted villages along the roadside, remembering that these were mostly hill tribes, burned out of their homes, uprooted from their lands and livelihood, and brought down into the sphere of the government control in the form of reestablished villages. The hill tribes had been separated from the forest where their customs and language were born, which they were now not permitted to practice or speak. Ultimately they were forced to relocate by the military to work on the new roads going in throughout the government-controlled areas and those areas that will make money. Cale thought the breakdowns of the bus were worth the views of the Irrawaddy basin and the state of destitution into which some of the villages have fallen.
Just after noon, the bus arrived in Mandalay, stirring up a parched cloud of dust and a troop of young boys, some with trishaws and some on foot wishing very badly to lead a tourist passenger anywhere their money was going. Cale got out of the bus and made the mistake of asking for directions to his hotel. He acquired an unwanted escort of three boys for his simple question.
His hotel room overlooked one of the small market and transportation centers in town. After he dropped off his bag in his room, he wandered down to a nearby tea shop and sat in the shade, overlooking the Irrawaddy River. From where he sat, he could overhear conversations of other foreigners either trying to get into the mountains or searching for alternative means of getting into the mountains. The stories began taking on new color: mild stories of ripped-off tourists, peepholes in couples’ hotel walls, and tourist blockades. There were stories of secret police always watching and paying attention to who you speak with during your stay. It made the locals uncomfortable and nervous. Cale drank his tea and listened to the world around him. He thought of the dramatic changes in Mandalay since the day when it was a trading center for the Indians, Chinese, hill tribes, and all the other groups who occupied the valley. Cale ordered some Shan food dishes and sat out the afternoon looking at the map that Yongyot, the Thai jeweler, had given him in Bangkok. There was no reference point. Cale turned the map periodically.
A small boy with a shaved head and bare feet, wearing an orange robe, walked up to Cale’s table and extended his bowl toward Cale. Cale tried to hand the boy a small plate of chicken and rice, but the boy backed up, moving his bowl around Cale’s offering then stepping closer and raising his bowl in front of Cale. Cale smiled at the boy’s creative begging tactics and said, “If you were a true Buddhist, you would not ask for money or food. I would give it to you gladly, but you are not Buddhist. Shin thwa 'ba.”
The boy looked into his bowl, shook what few kyat he had, and extended his arms again.
Cale noticed a man sitting up the street watching the boy. He was smoking a local, Tiparillo-style cheroot in the shade of a tree near the bank of the river. Cale turned to look at the other tourists; they were preoccupied with conversation. Cale looked into the shop. A Burmese man wearing a bleach–white, long-sleeve shirt and a dark purple, wraparound loungyi came out of the shade slowly, wiping his hands on a towel, and asked, “Yes?”
Cale pointed at the boy, “This is not a student of the lord Buddha, is he?”
The man smiled. “You are very smart. No, he is not a student. His father,” he replied, pointing with a nod at the man under the tree, “has a gambling problem. It’s amazing how many people give this one money. Is he bothering you?”
“Not really. I just wanted to be sure,” replied Cale.
The man looked down at Cale’s table and noticed the small map with Thai and Burmese writing and a few words of English on it, “What is this you have, a map?”
“Yes. I’m looking for a shop, but I haven’t figured out where it is yet.” Cale picked it up and displayed the map.
The man pulled a pair of glasses out of his breast pocket, read Cale’s map, and explained, “You are looking for a shop called The Eye of the Elephant. It’s a jewelry shop run by a man from this area who deals in stones. I know this man and his brothers. His shop is not far from here. “
Cale looked at the map and asked, “How do you know that?”
“Whoever gave you this map wrote the name of the shop in both Burmese and in Thai.” The man smiled at his own swiftness and said quietly, “As a boy I had to live in Thailand for some years and learned the language.”
“Did you run from the military?”
“Yes. I had to learn to speak and write in Thai in order to work and make money for my mother and sisters. Many times, before we escaped over the mountains to Thailand, my father told me to learn English when I was old enough to go to school.”
“Didn’t your father go with you?”
The man looked around to see who could hear. There was no one nearby. In a very soft but firm tone the man answered, “The S.L.O.R.C., The State, Law, and Order Restoration Council, sent the military to our house and imprisoned my father for having an education; my older brothers marched in front of the military, clearing mine fields with their lives. We never heard another word from my brothers or my father.”
“I didn’t mean to pry into your personal life. I’m sorry.”
“I’m not. We Burmese need to tell our stories to people who can relate them to the rest of the world. This government does not care about us, only about lining their pockets with money and gems. We hope someone out there does care about us.” The man nodded his head at Cale, “Maybe it’s you. Maybe it’s not. But we have to try.” He stared at Cale long enough for Cale to turn his attention to the map. The man continued, “Now, to get to this shop, you go to the closest palace wall from here and follow the moat to the right. When the moat turns left, you turn right again. Go two hundred meters, and the jeweler’s shop is very close on the left side of the street. You will see a carved elephant head and trunk on a building over a door. It used to have ivory tusks and ivory eyes, but the government took the tusks and the eyes. Now the tusks are made of whitewashed high-mountain pine, and the eyes are the same with a painted center. I knew the jeweler there when we were young and again when we both returned.”
“Is the palace this big square?” Cale pointed at the map.
“Yes, with a moat.”
“Thank you.”
“My pleasure, can I get you anything else?”
“No, thank you. How much do I owe you for the food?”
“It will cost you one hundred and fifty kyat. But please, relax. I like it when people come here to relax. There is no hurry, and the sun is still too hot, and the roads are very dusty. Have more tea.” The man poured more tea into Cale’s cup and walked back into the shade of his restaurant.
Cale finished eating and paid at the counter. He walked out into the sun-baked street, passing and ignoring the robed boy with outstretched arms holding his bowl.
The boy turned back towards the restaurant to try his luck with another table of Westerners.
As Cale turned the corner, an elderly Burmese man sitting on a rust-red trishaw asked, “Hello, Mister. Where you go? You want trishaw?”
Cale looked over the tanned old man; short white hair, khaki button-down shirt, blue shorts, and dust-caked sandals. “How much to the palace?”
“Fifty kyat.”
Cale knew he could bargain, but in the heat he didn’t feel like it and hopped in the double seat behind the driver.
The driver turned his front wheel out into the road and stood up, trying to pack all his weight on the high pedal in order to dislodge his three-wheeled trishaw from the thick dust at the edge of the road. The trishaw began to crawl forward, gaining momentum out into the street.
Cale was a little embarrassed hiring the oldest man in the fleet, but the man had what looked like a pair of avocados for calf muscles in each leg.
The driver asked over his shoulder, “Where you come from?”
“America.”
“Oh, very nice. How long are you here for in Mandalay?”
“I don’t know, a few days maybe.”
“I am also a tour guide. If you want, I can give you a tour of the palace, our markets, or anything you want to see. I was born here, and I have seen lots of changes happen to Mandalay. It used to be a major trading center.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Oh, have you been here before?”
“Yes.”
The driver drove straight down the main street, dodging dogs that lay in the road in shade of overhanging trees and avoiding people who crossed the road aimlessly.
A group of children played on the sidewalk, and one of them saw Cale in the back the trishaw and yelled out, “Hello Misses, where you go?”
The other children gathered together, and talked amongst themselves briefly, then laughed out loud, and turned to Cale, yelling, “Hello, Mister. Where you go?”
The street was lined with small shops and massive pod-bearing trees most likely planted during the British rule.
“Do you come to Mandalay often?” asked the driver.
Cale thought it was a ridiculous question and smiled before saying, “No. It’s kind of out of my way.”
“I see.”
The palace wall approached, “Please take a right at the palace wall, and I will get out at the corner.”
“But the entrance is on the left.”
“I’m not going in the palace.”
“I see.” The driver seemed suspiciously confused.
“Will you be long? Would you like me to wait?”
“No. You don’t have to wait. I don’t know how long I will be,” responded Cale.
“After you are done, I can take you on a short tour of the city if you would like. I have many stories about Mandalay. I will be on the corner.”
“It’s not necessary.” Cale got out on the corner, pulled fifty kyat out of his front pocket, and handed it to the driver. “Thanks again. See ya later.”
“Of course, I will be waiting here on the corner.”
“No. You don’t have to wait. Go get another fare. I told you I don’t know how long I’ll be.”
“I see.”
Cale turned, saw the elephant head, and walked down the street towards the shop entrance below. He turned into the front room of the jeweler’s shop. The room was cool and dark. The only light came through the front window overlooking the road and a partially open backdoor. The cabinets and display tables were all made of teak wood with carved figurines for legs and feet and inlays of simple stone designs. Once Cale’s eyes adjusted to the dark, he realized there was nothing in the room except empty cabinets and display cases. He could smell something burning out back and heard someone pounding, followed by a great hissing sound and then some more pounding. Cale began to walk quietly through the front room. He stopped briefly, remembering to remove his shoes and carry them through the remainder of the building. He pushed the backdoor open to see a silversmith break a mold with a hammer and drop the piece into a bucket of water. Four elderly men sat at a table with small work lights at each of their stations. Large round magnifying glasses were attached to their heads by leather straps. They mumbled amongst themselves, but Cale couldn’t hear anything due to the sputtering generator powering their lights and grinding wheels. Two boys filed jewelry pieces over wash-bin-sized buckets. A girl worked on moldings. A bamboo structure laced with red and light pink bougainvillea covered most of the backyard. Two foreigners sat at a table off to the right side with a pot of tea watching the masters perform their magic out of fire, rocks, water, and metal. Cale sat down on the back step of the shop and watched the jewelers work, but soon dozed off in the peaceful stillness of the afternoon.
Cale awoke to the prod of one of the young boys. The four men were staring at Cale with their magnifying glasses, each enlarging one eye.
One man remarked, “We were hoping you came here to die.”
Cale shook his head, smiling, and answered curiously, “Oh, why’s that?”
The jeweler looked to his partners and explained, “He says, no. That’s too bad because my brother here really likes your watch.” The two foreigners and the children all laughed softly and smiled at Cale as he sat upright. The jeweler asked, “Can we help you?”
“I hope so. My name is Cale Dixon. I arrived today by bus. Yongyot, in Bangkok, sent me to see you or someone you work for to help me with some questions about the Moguk stones.
The couple sitting to the side smirked at Cale knowingly, and the man with a Dutch accent related, “That’s what we said four months ago.”
The jeweler’s wife came out, smiling, from the shop behind Cale. The jeweler waved Cale off his stoop, “Here, come here. These two Dutch people found some beautiful Moguk stones at a great danger to their lives. They are two crazy Dutch people who I am very happy to see alive and with all their body parts still intact. Come see what they asked us to make for them.”
Cale got up, and so did the Dutch couple. Everyone converged around the four men working on the Dutch couple’s jewelry designs. Cale saw a set of earrings, a necklace, and a man’s ring. The stones were as big as Cale’s thumbnail. Two boys stopped filing their pieces, and a young girl cleaned up her moldings and put them away. The three children joined the circle.
The jeweler spoke as he picked up an earring mold, “The metal is imported platinum. I think you call it white gold where you come from,” he said, looking at Cale. The jeweler picked up a stone and rotated it under his work lamp so Cale and the Dutch couple could see the quality craftsmanship. “This stone will sit in the earring.” He put the stone down and picked up the earring again. “The stem of the earring is three inches long, exactly, and tapers to the post. On the back of the post is a platinum hook, which attaches to the stem so the earring will not fall out or be easily taken. The stone will float behind the jaw and away from the neck.” He held the earring up to the Dutch woman’s ear as she bent down. “The stone will be visible in front, in back, and from the side. A thin strand of metal around the waist of the stone will firmly hold it in place. It is better for the stone if it is exposed to lots of light.” The jeweler looked across the table at the two men.
The man across from the jeweler smiled and said nothing, keeping his hands in his lap. He shook his head slightly and nudged the man at his side. The next man picked up a stone with a pair of tweezers and began, “Each of the earring stones has the length of a traditionally long cut stone, similar lines to the Ashoka diamond cut of Goldberg’s, but the ends are more similar to a more rounded stone, like Schachter’s, Leo cut. The faces have forty-two facets at each end, then a centered transition to sharing twelve facets on each side of the waist band.”
The forth man, sitting next to the main jeweler and in front of Cale and the Dutch couple, picked up a raw stone and turned on a blinding penlight in a stand. He moved the stone slowly over the light and explained, “These stones look best during the day when they get excited. In the rich red color there is the slightest natural inclusion, giving these stones a unique, one-of-a-kind, luster, almost a fluorescent glow—like a soul.” He continued to move and turn the stone. Cale watched the stone’s deep red color come to life in the light. The woman next to Cale took a deep breath and purred. The man continued talking, “Each stone is different, depending on the inclusions; much like people, it depends on what’s inside. The Burma ruby has become very rare over the years due to hoarding collectors, national and personal stockpiles. The inclusions usually depend on the region where the stone was harvested. These are comparable to some of the highest quality Moguk stones in the world.”
Everyone watched silently as the man put the stone down, picked up one of the cut stones, and put it over the penlight. Cale felt a chill start at the base of his back and run the distance of his arms as the stone heated up, twinkling over the light. The woman next to Cale raised her arm to show her lover her goose bumps.
The jeweler noticed and showed his goose bumps to Cale, “I cannot fake these. These stones can drain the life out of you—unless you have hot tea or cold beer.” The jeweler smiled, got up to put some logs on the red hot coals in a melting pit, and spoke with his wife in Burmese.
The wife and daughter pulled out away from the table and went into the shop. In their absence the two boys pulled in closer and stared, mesmerized by the stone’s brilliance a bit longer.
The jeweler announced, “Come bring your benches to the fire, my friends, or the boys will find you some chairs. Please, sit. It’s getting too late for working, but it’s a good time for conversation and stories.”
The men removed their magnifying glasses and completely wrapped the lenses in silk cloth. They placed them in individual teak boxes, and one of the men took the boxes inside the dark shop.
Cale looked at the Dutch couple and asked, “You found these stones?”
“Yes. But it was these men who told us when and where and how to get them. It was the most dangerous thing I have ever done in my life and would not recommend it to anyone,” said the Dutch man.
“Certainly not,” said the Dutch woman looking at her lover, “and the danger is not exactly over either.”
Cale responded, “I was under the impression that the mining had somewhat dried up in the early sixties.”
The jeweler explained as he handed out cheroots to anybody who wanted one, “The mining has not exactly dried up. That is a pour choice of words, Mr. Dixon. When the rains come, the river swells up and carves new riverbanks out of old ones. Some of the stones migrate downriver to the next bank, or eddy, or further downstream.” The Dutch woman and the two boys refused cheroots. One of the men brought out a box of iced Mandalay beers. The daughter arrived with glasses and handed them out. The wife came out of the shop with a bowl of small dried semisweet plantains sprinkled with raw cane sugar. One of the boys lit some mosquito coils and placed one under the first windward chair and another under the first windward bench. Cale watched as the flames in the fire grew in the melting pit. The glow exposed the men’s weathered faces and pronounced some otherwise hidden scars.
The jeweler drew on his cheroot and thanked his wife and daughter in Burmese for being so kind. The four men raised their glasses to the jeweler’s wife and daughter. Half a step behind, Cale and the Dutch couple did the same.
The jeweler looked at Cale, “Mr. Dixon, Yongyot sent word to me that you were headed in our direction. He also told me the nature of your business here, which, if you don’t mind, you and I will go into another day. But for now, I want to tell you three a story. What I am going to tell you must remain in your ears and minds and never reach your lips while you are in Burma.”
Cale nodded. Everyone was silent.
“When we were little boys, we went to school together, north of here in the Moguk region. Our fathers were jewelers and miners, as were their fathers. My grandfather was here when the British overran and ruled our country. Our family was hired by the British because of my grandfather’s skill and knowledge. He used to tell us stories about the funny ways of the foreigners. Many stories had to do with greed and the want of our natural resources. In the surrounding hills and mountains, there are teak, evergreen, and tropical evergreen trees. On the eastern mountainside of the Shan plateau, opium is grown and has been growing there for a long time. In the Irrawaddy valley, we can grow cotton, ground nuts, jute, rubber trees, coconut, tobacco, tea, citrus fruits, sugarcane, wheat, and dry rice. We used to grow wet rice in exportable amounts much greater than today. Below the surface of our country, we can mine for lead, zinc, tin, iron, nickel, copper, coal, oil, natural gas, and, my favorite, precious and semiprecious stones. We have tigers-eyes, zircons, sapphires, spinrels, tourmalines, and rubies, among others. From generation to generation we have been working the stones.”
“When the British came, we mined for them. The British came in three waves, taking our lands and changing our way of life. My grandfather was a very smart man and learned English very quickly. But he did not let the officers and the businessmen know how much English. He also understood their greed, for he shared in their desire for the stones. While working and cutting stones for the British, he would take a few rough stones every day. For twenty years he took stones from the British businessmen. And what would you expect; he was a jeweler. With his humble treasure, he insured our futures, at least as far as he could see. My father learned from my grandfather and became one of the finest freehand stonecutters in Burma. The queen of England has some of his works, as have the king of Thailand and many other royal families around the world. These are the stones with pigeon-blood color. To our family, it is not pigeon blood. It is our blood and our country’s blood and sweat that helped make the stones come to life. My father went to the University of Rangoon for a short time. He met with Thakin Aung San, a hero of his time. He also met Thakin Nu, who later became our prime minister. Many of the Thakin party leaders were in university at that time, some older, all with eyes wide open. My father wanted to join with them and fight for our country’s independence. My grandfather wouldn’t have it. For fear of his son’s life, my grandfather took him out of university and brought him home, back to the jewelry shop, where he remained and started a family. This is my younger brother, and these two are my adopted cousins. Their father died of malaria, and my father and mother brought them and their mother into our house to stay forever.”
“All four of us went to university as well. But the political situation had gotten worse after our independence in 1948. Some insurgent groups in the hills didn’t want to live under the same constitution or religion. Some wanted their own independent state. Fighting was everywhere. In July 1947 General Aung San and seven of his ministers were killed by U Saw and his gunmen. Many believe Thakin Shu Maung was the mastermind. You may know him as Ne Win. He ran the military and our prime minister, U Nu, from puppet strings when he was alive, very powerful. The fight against what he put in political motion goes on today through Aung San’s daughter, Aung San Suu Kyi. Our father did as his father did and brought us home.”
“When U Nu became the prime minister, he ran the country until 1962, when Ne Win organized a coup of the government for a second time and quickly replaced most of the civil leaders with devoted military officers. The military dug into every aspect of our lives. Many innocent people were killed. Many people went to prison; many died there, and some were put in jail back then and are still in there today. All communications were cut off to those in prison. Ne Win began rounding up the princes of our country, plus the educated people of the country as a whole; all people who wore glasses were considered educated. It was ridiculous. Anyway, this severed our country and shattered our dreams of a unified, true democracy. Some of the hill tribes remained autonomous and outside the circle of influence of the Tatmandaw and the military in Rangoon. But the military pursued villagers into the jungles, killing, raping, and destroying our ways of life with every step they took. This has not stopped today.”
“Foreign powers turn a blind eye because we have nothing they want. The military are using civilians to build roads through our pristine jungles, disrupting all life in their path. If we had lots of oil in the ground, democracy would have been supported by the outside world, and we would not have had to live in what seems an eternal life of slavery and terror. The only countries that pay any attention to us today are those that utilize and profit from our bountiful black market. Through our black market you can get anything; women, children, opium, marijuana, stones, and much, much more. Products that are supposedly boycotted by your country, I can go down the street and get right now. The boycotts only change the direction of the smuggling and, of course, the price, but it’s still available. If you want it, you can get it.”
The jeweler took a drag from his cheroot, which was smoldering between his fingers, then continued, “As the roundups continued, my father was told that his name and his sons’ were on one of the military lists to be picked up. And so he tried to secure passage to Thailand for all of us. It was a total disaster. We went to the airport in two cars. Our father drove with our mothers in the first car. We four young men were in the trunk of the second car, stuffed behind our belongings. There were some cars between our parents’ car and ours. Our father and mothers were stopped, dragged out of their car, and arrested. We never saw or heard from them again. Our driver, a neighbor friend in the military, turned off the main street. We were stopped at a roadblock, but our driver was in military uniform and talked his way out of the situation. He drove for many hours with us suffocating in the boot of the car. He drove us to the edge of the jungle where he found a mass grave of people not yet buried because the military was not done killing. We pulled four young men’s bodies out of the pile that were our size and one other man’s body. We put them on top of the car and drove to a ravine, where we changed clothes with the dead. We put all our papers, our glasses, our watches, everything we had on them. Everything we owned we gave to the dead and prayed with tears we never knew we had. Our driver lit the car on fire and pushed it over the edge of the cliff. We watched it burn and explode at the bottom of the ravine. We covered our tracks and ran with the ghosts of the dead into the darkness of the jungle, never to be heard from again. The only thing we kept from our past was the stones.”
“After some years of hiding and running, we arranged for new identities through the black market in Thailand. We went to Thailand and worked hard but continued to look over our shoulders. Eventually we thought it would be safe to come back, and we did. We bought our grandfather’s shop from a family of Chinese and quietly went back to work. My silent brother here was in Rangoon, picking up a shipment of tools and equipment we had ordered when the military began shooting on the far side of town. The year was 1988. The streets again ran red with the blood of my countrymen, and women, and children. And the ghosts swarmed in my brother’s head. He doesn’t talk too much anymore, and he’s very shy of loud noises, but he loves his stones. On that subject, it’s hard to keep him quiet sometimes.”
Cale smiled politely as the old scars on their faces began to shade with new meaning. The silent brother looked at Cale. Cale reached into his pocket and handed the silent brother his remaining Moguk stone, “Yongyot has a stone just like this one. Maybe you all could tell me about this stone,” Cale looked at each of the brothers and added politely, “another day perhaps.”
The silent brother took the stone, looked at it over the firelight, and nodded to the jeweler.
“Another day. When you return. We will need some time, a few days at least. Do you have plans for your stay in Burma?” asked the jeweler.
“I was planning to go to Lashio and then meet a friend back here in Mandalay,” answered Cale.
“An American friend?”
“Yes.”
“A woman?”
“Yes.”
“Good plan. You should see our country for yourself. See what has happened to our people. Recognize that almost everyone you see has lost someone in their family, one way or another, but usually through the butchers of Burma, the Tatmandaw. There are wailing spirits searching for answers in every heart and mind in our country.”
Cale realized it was time to go when the jeweler stood and said, “While you are here, be careful who you talk to and what you say. It’s very important.”
Cale shook hands with the four brothers and the Dutch couple. He thanked the wife and children before being led by hand through the dark shop by the silent brother. They stopped at the window, and the silent brother looked out for a minute, spying the road.
“Did that man on the trishaw bring you here?”
Cale looked with surprise at the brother then down the street at the trishaw driver. “Yes.”
“Then, since he’s still here, you should go back with him. He’s secret police. They’re everywhere. Have him take you to your hotel. Leave tomorrow at seven o’clock in a blue taxi truck from the same place you arrived by tour bus. They will expect you to take the train, so don’t. Get up on the Shan plateau, and go to Mam myo. It’s an old British colonial hill station. It is a very peaceful place. They call it Pin Oo Lwin now. From there you can go by train to Lashio if you wish. Enjoy a few days of holiday, and do not pursue the stones. We will take care of the stones. One more thing, how many stones are like this one in my pocket?”
“A bag of them the size of a small papaya.” Cale touched his fingertips together and formed an empty sphere with his palms.
The man smiled and remarked, “Here in Burma, that is a very small papaya.”
Cale smiled and nodded. “Besides knowledge of the stones themselves, I am interested in any names of foreigners who might have bought such a bag of stones recently. I would like to offer a donation to the four of you for your labors on my return.”
The brother smiled, dipped his head, and said, “Have a good journey.”
“Chee jew tim ba day.” Cale walked out into the quiet street. A dog barked in the distance. In the heat of the night, male cicadas screamed a deafening noise with their wings and legs, and crickets and frogs sang at the edge of the moat. There were very few lights in the windows overlooking the road, but the stars were bright and seemed very close.
Across the road the trishaw driver rang his bicycle bell to get Cale’s attention, “Hello. Where you go? You want trishaw?”
“Yeah, to my hotel near where you picked me up.”
“Did the jeweler help you with your questions?”
“No, not really, I have to try somewhere else.”
“Okay, I will take you there. Where would you like to go?”
Cale recognized the language gap and explained, “Uh, not now. My hotel is fine for now.”
“I see. I told you I grew up here. I could possibly help you with your questions.” The driver stood and slowly worked the pedals under Cale’s weight.
“Maybe tomorrow.”
“What time tomorrow? I can give you a tour of the city while we talk.”
“I’m sorry. I think you misunderstand me. I don’t know what I’m doing tomorrow, so I don’t wish to make any plans.” Cale realized the less he said, the better.
“I see.” The driver pedaled silently down the main road towards Cale’s hotel.
There were few cars on the road. Small groups of people sat in the dark, smoking cheroots and enjoying the evening. All eyes seemed to watch as the trishaw passed in slow motion. Cale was preoccupied, attempting to visualize the traumatic events of the brothers’ saga. Again his mind focused on some of the deeply rooted scars on their faces.
The driver broke the tranquility of the evening, “How long will you be in Mandalay?”
“I don’t know. I just arrived by bus today, and I’m very tired from the bus ride. I’ll look at a map tomorrow and think about it.”
“There is a lot to see in Mandalay. Historically, Mandalay has been an important city for cultural trading, for war, and for many other forms of commerce. The river is the easiest way to travel. There are boats that will take you down the river towards Pagan. Of course you need to drive some at the other end. I can help you get a ticket on one of the boats after you have seen all the sites here.” The driver pulled to the curb and said, “That will be seventy kyat, please.”
Cale got out of the trishaw, handed the driver fifty kyat, and explained, “This is what we agreed on this afternoon.” Cale turned and walked towards the hotel stairs.
The persistent Trishaw driver tried one last time, “I’ll be waiting for you across the market square tomorrow morning if you need a trishaw.”
Cale raised his hand over his head to say good night as he passed through the hotel entrance.
The morning heat had already begun when Cale woke. He looked out his balcony to the square below. Two blue trucks sat side by side heading in opposite directions. All was quiet. Early risers sleepily converged on the tea shops for morning roti or began unpacking their wares for the morning market. Cale left his key in the door and exited down a concrete, side stairwell near his room rather than through the front lobby where he would surely be seen and reported. Both trucks were now running and almost full when Cale got in the back. There were two hardwood benches over the wheel wells and a rebar-framed shell overhead with a blue canvass cover. The side canvasses could be tied up for a breeze on pavement or down for bad weather or dust. Most of the travelers’ luggage went on top. The back bumper supported another plank. Some young men hopped on the bumper and stood holding on to the rebar frame as the truck taxi pulled out of town.
Cale put his small bag between his feet and knees. There was no way to see out of the curtain of bodies until a couple of people got off at the outskirts of the city. Each time the truck came to a designated stop, venders would approach with wraps of roasted peanuts, sunflower seeds, or small ripe oranges. The road followed a valley depression up to switchbacks ascending onto the Shan plateau. Cale noticed that some of the hardwood forests had been clear-cut and replanted with eucalyptus tree saplings. Near the top of the climb, a small roadside community specialized in car and truck brakes and maintenance. The truck stopped, and everyone got out for a more substantial meal or a cup of sweet tea, a cheroot, and a stretch. Cale was sore from sitting on the hardwood bench for so long, and his back had bruises from the combination of potholes and rebar. As he walked off his cramps, he watched some teenage boys turn a mountainside waterfall into a public shower with their loungyis on. The younger children played in a shallow pool at the base of the waterfall, and the parents ate, laughed, and relaxed together on blankets in the shade of a nearby grove of trees.
The passengers re-boarded in the heat of the day. The road had been newly paved, and the driver tied up the canvass flaps. It was hot, and the breeze was welcome. The travelers eyed Cale at a glance, never making direct eye contact. He was bigger than the rest of the passengers. Many smiled politely but dared not speak. A few hours went by in silence before Cale caught sight of a black horse-drawn carriage from another era heading in the opposite direction. A Burmese woman sitting knee to knee across from Cale waved her hand in his face and announced, “Pin Oo Lwin.”
“Mam Myo?” Cale affirmed.
The woman smiled brightly as if to say, “Good for you. You don’t use the military titles.” She nodded deliberately and pointed down a road bordered by mature eucalyptus trees, all shedding sheets of bark and branches of seed pods into the street, saying, “Guest house down that road, maybe one mile. Very quiet.”
“Che jew tim ba day,” Cale said, bowing his head slightly.
Everyone in the back of the truck smiled and physically loosened up.
Old white colonial buildings lined a small portion of a main street where the truck slowed down to let some of the young boys jump off the bumper. Dark water stains had formed down the faces of the buildings, giving the town the aged presence it deserved. The truck taxi pulled to the side of the road where Cale and half the people paid their fares before drifting off in various directions.
There were many Indian faces in the tea shops and only a handful of Westerners. Shop owners came out to welcome Cale into their shops of antiques and artifacts as he walked by their doors and windows. The town had only two main streets, and the rest of Mam myo was built on dirt side streets. Many of the old colonial homes were in disrepair and built away from the dusty roads, well within rock walls and buried in thick vines of honeysuckle. Cale felt weary from his travels so far and planned to call it an early night. He walked two miles before he found the guest house the woman on the truck taxi had mentioned. The main building sat out on a cleared point with a waist-high hedge wrapping the perimeter of a fruitful vegetable garden and a lush green lawn with tables and chairs, all overlooking a stream, which drained into a large pond at the base of a vast field of golden grass. Cale put his things in a large room with a private bath and fell asleep.