Cale awoke at 5:00 a.m. to the sound of a military troop jogging in heavy boots and chanting loudly in unison through the neighborhoods, waking the locals wherever they went. Dogs barked riotous alarms, and roosters crowed. Cale got up and went to a common room and watched through the front window.
A young boy dusting the dining room before setting it for breakfast saw Cale looking at the troop and stated, “Soldier boys.”
“What are they doing?” asked Cale without turning around.
“They don’t know, and their guns are heavy.” The boy looked out the window briefly then asked, “Would you like to have breakfast soon?”
“Yes, but I have to put on more clothes. It’s freezing.” A cool mist filled the air outside, and Cale could see his breath inside the building.
At breakfast the boy gave Cale directions to a botanical garden that the British had put together and abandoned when they left in 1947. The locals continued to maintain the garden and spent a great deal of time within its peaceful borders.
Cale watched monks thoughtfully stroll around in red and orange robes, congregating around white celebratory pagodas as other students sat in meditation in the afternoon sun. Cale carried a numbered vegetation guide and map in a history brochure as he walked though a vast forest of indigenous and imported trees, all with Latin genus names and origin placards. Ponds and benches were thoughtfully designed and placed along the way. Cale settled down on the grass for a short nap near a large pond. The murder at the museum seemed removed from his cares except for the image of the victim lying on the museum floor with a mouth full of red stones pouring out like blood.
Cale ate an early dinner in town after noticing many restaurants had closed for the night at 5 p.m. On his walk back to the guest house, Cale stopped in a three-sided open bar and restaurant for a beer. There were two booths and four tables. Three boisterously drunken soldiers occupied one of the booths. Cale sat in the other booth with his back to the soldiers.
After more whiskey, one of the soldiers got up enough courage to introduce himself, “I am Chin soldier. I am sergeant. You are very clever. He reached for Cale’s hand, placed it between his, and touched his head and heart. He smiled toothlessly and let go. His comrades all said hello, stood up, and said good night before peeling the sergeant away out into the street.
A round woman, the proprietor, wearing a blue dress and her hair up in a bun, came over with some soup and finger foods and placed them in front of Cale, apologizing, “Please don’t let those men influence your stay in Mam myo. They are drunk. Have some soup. It will warm you up.” She sat at a table near Cale and asked, “Where are you from?”
“America.”
“You like it there?”
“Sometimes. How about you? Do you like it here?”
She smiled and replied, “Sometimes.”
“Why only sometimes?” asked Cale.
“You know why. We just try and get by. As a country, we are rich. As a people, it is hard.”
“Do the soldiers bother you and your family much?”
“These men just want to eat and drink for free. Sometimes I have to allow it; sometimes I don’t. There’s a fine line. As for my family, it’s just me and my son.” She pointed into the kitchen. “My husband is in Mandalay prison. I have not seen him or heard from him in five years.”
“Why is he in there?”
“He is what they call a political prisoner. My son and I joke about it sometimes. We say it’s because he wears glasses. It’s really not very funny because he does wear glasses, and they do put people in prison just for that, wearing glasses. It usually means that you use your eyes to see and read. He never did anything against anybody.”
“Are those men Tatmandaw?”
“No, they are Chin soldiers, like they said. But you may also know that I cannot talk freely about our political situation or our government. The saying, ‘The walls have ears and eyes,’ is real in Burma. Someone will be watching us now. My people, all over Burma, are scared to talk to Westerners because the next thing that happens is a family member is called to duty in some snake—and malaria—infested jungle far from home. Many do not come back.”
“I’m sorry I brought it up. We can change the subject if you like.”
“That would be nice, and you should eat your soup while it’s hot. Are you married?” she asked.
“No.”
“Do you have a girlfriend?”
“Not right now, but I’m working on it.” Cale began eating his soup.
The woman smiled, raised her eyebrows, and suggested, “Perhaps we should change subjects again.”
Cale smiled, “No. I don’t mind. It’s a short topic anyway. I have been having trouble with my work, and it has led me in many directions—none of them towards a lasting relationship”
“I’m sorry for you.”
“I’m not. There’s still hope. I met a woman here in your country that is very intriguing and beautiful, but I hardly know her. There’s another woman I work with to whom I’m attracted, but right now is not the right time.”
“Why not?”
“She’s my boss.”
The woman laughed, “You’re a regular playboy, and you cannot commit. I see that now,” she said jokingly.
Cale finished his soup and felt the chill of the night temporarily abate from his body. “The soup was very nice. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, my pleasure.” The woman got up and cleared Cale’s dishes. She returned to wipe down the table and asked, “What is it that you do at home?”
“I’m a police officer.”
The woman laughed again and replied, “Our conversation has been so short and yet we managed to make a circle. Maybe we should try this some other day.”
“I would like that, but I’ll be leaving tomorrow.”
“Some other time then. Good night.”
“Good night. Cale drained his glass and left ample money on her table to cover his food and the soldiers’ drinks. He walked out into the darkness between streetlamps before they sputtered and went out. He walked another mile in almost complete darkness. Cale got within a couple hundred yards of the guest house when he heard a great ruckus across the street. Many youths had gathered to listen to the latest pop rock or local rock band on a tape player with the volume up on maximum. The noise continued into the early hours of the morning and died down just before the soldiers began their morning routine.
The sun broke over a distant ridge beyond a town known as Hsipaw. Cale had put on all the clothes he had before leaving the guest house for the train station.
A weathered elderly man wearing an army-issue sweater vest over a cream-colored button-down shirt and a brown and green plaid loungyi introduced himself as Cale got out of a taxi at the train station, “Good morning, sir. Are you going towards Lashio this morning?”
Cale recognized a light Indian accent and replied, “Yes. Is there another train going somewhere else?”
“No. Let me help you get in the correct car. Do you have a ticket, or will you need to purchase one this morning?”
“I’ll be buying one.”
“Follow me, please, sir, and I will show you to the ticket counter. You look cold. There is a small pastry shop here with very hot tea. Perhaps you would like to sit there after you buy your ticket and have a light breakfast and some hot Shan tea while you wait for the train to arrive. I highly recommend it.”
After Cale bought his ticket, the man led him through the morning station bustle and into the small shop where they sat across from one another.
The man sat down where he could see past Cale and look out the window in case any other foreigners showed up. “I will help you get on the right car, first class. I help all the tourists at this station.”
“Is that your job?” Cale asked before biting into a slightly warm flake pastry.
“Yes. The government would like you all to stick together and not mix with the local people so much.”
Cale drank from his cup of tea. The tea burned his entire tongue, and the roof of his mouth blistered and peeled instantly. His taste buds went into shock.
Ignoring Cale’s pain, the man explained, “My father used to work at this station when I was young, when the British were here. He was the station master.” He pointed at the tracks, “Do you see the tracks? The gauge of the tracks is narrower than the track in America today. I believe America experimented with many gauges and decided bigger is better.” The man stretched his neck and raised his head to look at a taxi arriving.
Cale looked over his shoulder as the man across from him became distracted. The taxi drove into the parking area, and a pair of foreigners got out and began pulling on their bags when the man got up, “Excuse me, I need to help these people to get on the train. If you wait here, I will help all of you get on the right car when it arrives.”
“Thank you. I’m sure I can manage.” Cale tried another bite of pastry, but his mouth was highly sensitive, and the pastry took on the texture of sandpaper.
When the train pulled up the tracks, Cale only saw one car marked first class, and he got on it and picked a seat two rows from the door. The bench seats faced each other. While Cale was getting settled in, the Indian gentlemen carried a backpack onto the train from the other end of the car, followed by a young woman and a man carrying his own bag.
As the train picked up speed, the first class car began to sway, sliding Cale a foot in each direction on his bench, partially covered by torn foam and ripped green plastic. The trip was supposed to take five hours to get to Hsipaw town. At noon the train hadn’t gone a quarter of the way. The train stopped for a down-bound train running on the same tracks at one point. Cale’s train sat on a set of side tracks for two hours before the other train passed. When Cale saw the down-bound train, there was an engine, a train car hoist, a flatbed carrying a smashed first-class car on its side, and a caboose. The train car had been smashed in at one end, and leaves and dirt were stuffed in the rain gutters on the edge of the rounded, cream-colored roof rails. Cale noticed that the plants and leaves weren’t even limp yet. An hour later Cale’s train slowed to a crawl as it went over a military station at the edge of a vast gorge.
Cale asked one of the boys who worked on the train, “What’s going on?”
The boy responded, “Bridge. We must go slowly.”
“Why?”
“Old British bridge. Not strong.” The boy moved his hands and his knees in opposite directions, simulating balance and motion.
The train crawled over the bridge that was built by the British during their stay. Metal fatigue was apparent to Cale, and it produced a particular sway to the bridge itself.
Cale tried to take a picture of the gorge out his window, but one of the train boys put his hand in front of Cale’s camera and said, “No photo, sorry.”
“Why not?”
“Military station.” The boy pointed down under the south-west end of the bridge.
“So?”
“No photo!”
The train crossed, and went though a series of tunnels, then stopped again. A half hour passed before the train started going backwards all the way across the bridge. Another down-bound train pulled up and stopped adjacent to Cale’s train. People got off of both trains and stretched their legs between the parallel tracks. Vendors wandered through the growing crowd. Cale still couldn’t taste anything, so he stuck with bottled water and stood between the trains with everybody else.
An Englishman got out of the down-bound first-class car, walked up to Cale and asked, “Got a light?”
“Yeah.” Cale reached into his pocket, pulled out a lighter, handed it to the Englishman, and asked, “Where are you coming from?”
The Englishman lit his cigarette and said, “Lashio. I wanted to see the Chinese mafia in action, you know—smuggling, road blocks, and bribery. It was brilliant. The government in this country is so engrossed in making money for the military, and it doesn’t care how. The ‘lining of the pockets’ is a part of the Burmese way of compensating for the strict government policies set forth in Rangoon, or wherever they moved their headquarters this time. It’s really quite fascinating.” The Englishman was at the edge of nicotine withdrawal and pulled deeply on his Rothman blue.
Cale became aware of a crowd of Burmese, Indians, and hill tribesmen surrounding them, listening and watching them intently. “Can you tell me what you saw that was so fascinating?”
The Englishman drew long on his cigarette again and exhaled, “I went to one of these roadblocks, a few kilometers from the border, where goods are being checked through to China. One of many vehicles comes up the road—let’s say a truck. The driver of a truck pulls over and parks out of sight of the guards at the checkpoint and walks up to a roadblock guard to discuss what he’s carrying. If the driver can pay the fee, he can go through. If he can’t pay or doesn’t want to pay, the driver simply goes back to his truck, turns around, and goes home to try another day when the price might be more reasonable or there aren’t as many high-ranking military personnel about.” The Englishman powered down the rest of his cigarette and continued, “After the essential greetings, the conversation goes something like this, for example;
‘Would today be a good day to go through this check point?’
‘What are you carrying?’
‘Eight garden hoes, twenty thatch baskets, two barrels of Mobile petrol, seven new pairs of New Balance shoes, nine bricks of morphine, eight stuffed dolls, three Honda carburetors, two cases of Johnny Walker Black, and a rack of color jet ink for Compaq computer printers.’
‘Three hundred kyat.’
‘But sir, I have two more checkpoints to go through. At that price I will not be able to profit to feed my family and pay for the petrol. Is there a possibility we could bring your fee down to one hundred kyat, so I will have money for the next two checkpoints?’
‘One hundred kyat, okay.’
“The driver goes back to his truck, drives up to pay the guard, and drives through without actually being checked in many cases. No one knows what’s really on the trucks. I have watched the money change hands, and I’ve watched the drivers and their trucks, many trucks. Could I get another light?”
Cale reached for his lighter again and handed it to the Englishman, “Keep it. I’ve got another.”
A whistle blew somewhere. Cale and the Englishman shook hands and got back on their respective trains. As Cale found his seat and noticed different people sitting around him on the nearby benches. Before the train stopped, there was a man in a blue checkered loungyi sitting on the adjacent bench, but now there were three military men and a forth in a white shirt and black pants. The man in the blue loungyi was standing behind them, smoking a cheroot. They all knew each other. Cale realized they were Tatmandaw, both plainclothes and uniformed. The next thing Cale became aware of was a rope that he followed with his eyes. It was tightly tied to the bench. The rope went behind a soldier sitting in the isle seat to a leather collar around another man’s neck. From his neck, the rope ran down his back to tightly bound, discolored hands. The rope was fastened in such a way that it also restricted both biceps into chicken wings. Cale looked at the prisoners’ face. His face was discolored—not tan and not red, but a sickly shade of pale green. His eyes were wide open, and his sable pupils wavered unsteadily. His mouth was swollen and bleeding from both corners. He was drenched in anguish and despondent like a man about to die.
A soldier saw Cale looking but calmly sat and looked out the window. The man in the blue checkered loungyi spoke to the prisoner, who did not make any eye contact with his captors. Cale looked around the car and saw Tatmandaw sitting behind him and on the bench facing him. Even the boys working the train were in good with these men. For the next three hours Cale witnessed the soldiers and the plainclothes man taunt and threaten the prisoner in front of all the civilians on the train. The police slapped him, pulled his hair, tightened his bonds, and shoved cheroots in his mouth, trying to keep him awake. The man in the blue loungyi repeatedly lit the prisoner’s cheroot, but it went out in his mouth. The man relentlessly kept relighting the cheroot, and it kept going out. A fat man in green fatigues came down the isle from behind Cale. He brought with him a young soldier boy, no more than sixteen, who was ordered to guard the prisoner. The boy stood petrified in the aisle, pointing his gun at the prisoner. The muzzle of the gun was no more than a few inches from the side of the prisoner’s face. The soldier boy was scared and sweating as much as the prisoner. Some time passed while the officers all talked and laughed amongst themselves. Spontaneously, the cartridge of the boy’s gun fell out on the floor of the rail car and slid under the prisoner’s feet with the sway of the train. The boy panicked and quickly bent over to pick up the cartridge while another soldier kicked him in the back, launching him into the adjacent soldiers. The soldiers slapped the boy in the face and hit him on the head while pushing him upright. Cale’s end of the train car erupted into hysteria and confusion. The officers barked at the boy and at each other as the boy replaced his cartridge. The prisoner’s black eyes met Cale’s. His face contorted in pain as he twisted to show Cale his bonds. The prisoner arched his back away from the bench and his knots for a moment, searching in vain for relief. The prisoner’s eyes remained fixed on Cale while the soldiers continued to bicker and point fingers at each other. The train boys played up to the Tatmandaw, trying to diffuse the situation. A woman sitting with the train boys turned her head out the window in disgust, visibly upset with what was happening.
The whole car of passengers watched as the officers pushed the boy aside then began hitting the prisoner with their fists, and an older guard pressed the muzzle of the gun forcefully against the prisoner’s cheek. More officers came down from behind Cale. It was getting crowded. Cale watched as the prisoner was repeatedly hit and his hair pulled over the top of his head, stretching his neck; he was yelled at and kept awake for the next six hours. A weak confession followed. Everybody was asked to move to the far end of the car, including Cale. Cale was escorted to the far end of the car with everyone else. He could easily see over their heads as the guards untied the prisoner only to have his face smashed into the bench in front of him then retied chicken-wing fashion. The soldiers took off the majority of the prisoner’s clothes and knowingly searched what they could. Eventually, after the guards were satisfied with humiliating the prisoner and finding nothing in his clothing, they left him alone, and everybody was able to sit back down. Cale was brought back to his seat by one of the Tatmandaw as the train began to slow down. A plainclothes officer sat in front of Cale, pointed his gun at the prisoner, and pretended to pull the trigger. He looked at Cale and said, “These bullets are for him.”
The train stopped, and everybody got off to get something to eat and stretch their legs. It was dark with no moon. Cale could see no lights indicating a town. The only lights were those of the vendors scurrying around with flashlights, selling their pastries, nuts, and sweets. Cale had no idea where he was, but he was not going to get back on that train. He found a dirt road and followed it in absolute darkness. He walked away from the noise of the train and vendors until he couldn’t hear it anymore. He glanced over his shoulder only to see a penlight following him down the road. Cale quickened his pace for half a mile before he surrendered and stopped to wait. The penlight flashed at him momentarily and then back to the ground. In the dim light of the pen, Cale could see two sets of feet in sandals. Cale relaxed a bit, and his heart slowed to normal.
As the penlight approached, a man’s voice softly exclaimed, “Was that a trip or what?”
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Cale responded. He could see them more clearly now. It was the other two foreigners who got on the train in Mam myo. The young man was slim with a dishwater blonde crew cut. He had a silver staple in his eyebrow and wore multicolored striped pants and a grungy yellow t-shirt. Tattoos crept out from under his short sleeves. He was traveling with a short, brown, curly haired woman with dark eyes. She wore burgundy fisherman’s pants, an off-white blouse, and a gray cotton vest with a black inside liner. The side of her nose sparkled with a small diamond stud.
The woman said, “We were sitting mid-coach behind you on the opposite side. You were right in the thick of it.”
Cale responded, “Believe me, I wanted to move, but I think our presence was better for the prisoner than if we weren’t there. Where are we?”
“This should be Hsipaw,” said the young man.
“Are we headed in the right direction, towards town?” Cale asked.
“I hope so. We went the other way first, and it was a dead end within a hundred meters,” said the woman as she shifted her backpack with a lurch from one shoulder to the other. “There are supposed to be some really cheap accommodations between here and the center of town. That’s what I was told anyway, if you don’t mind something a little illegal.”
“Anything at this point.”
The three of them began walking down the middle of the deserted street.
“My name is Ian, and this is Sandra.”
“Hi. My name is Cale. Are you both Canadian?”
“Yep. And you?”
“U.S.”
“Which part?”
“West Coast. And you?”
“Whistler.”
“Nice place to ski. Hey, did either of you see any other foreigners on the train with us?” asked Cale.
Sandra explained, “Yeah, we met a guy named David Johnson, an Englishman. He said he was going to stay on at least as long as the prisoner did. We’re going to try and meet up with him in Mandalay in a week and find out what happened. I also want some of his photos from the bridge. While the train boy was telling you not to take photos, David zipped off a whole roll of the gorge and the military station below. When the train stopped and started going backwards, he thought he was busted. He was shooting pictures when we went by one of the guard towers on the bridge.”
Cale could barely make out Sandra’s raised eyebrows and devilish smile.
The three walked quietly until they met a man staggering around singing out to no one in particular. He escorted them a few blocks and began singing up to a second-floor window of a building with a drive-through entrance. A light went on, and the man brought Cale and the two Canadians to the front door where they were whisked inside quickly before the woman inside lit into the singer, scolding him for the foolish prospects of being drunk with love and brave with whiskey—all the while bringing attention to the quiet little neighborhood. The rooms were bare bones, two teak cots with no mattresses, surrounded with bug netting to help ward off the mosquitoes carrying malaria. Cale lay his clothes on the cot and was exhausted enough to fall asleep.
The following morning Cale got up stiff and sore. It was just light when he wandered a few blocks into town through a coating of mountain mist. As the fog began to burn off with the rising of the sun, he found a corner restaurant and walked in for some sweet tea and roti. He sat quietly at a window table, taking in the sights inside and out when Burma crashed in on him. Haunting visions of the train ride, the Tatmandaw, the chicken-winged prisoner with his dead black pupils staring a message into Cale’s eyes. Cale’s mind blossomed with a vivid picture of the Asian man lying on the floor of the museum with a mouth full of red stones spilling out. The prisoner’s black eyes were an abyss.
“Excuse me. Where you come from?”
Cale awoke from his daydream and looked up to saw a Burmese man standing at the end of his table. The man was wearing imitation Ray Bans with gold-colored rims, a military jacket, and a black loungyi with thin white bands. He was holding a pen and a notepad.
“USA.”
“Oh, America. Welcome to Myanmar. Are you on a tourist or working visa?”
“I’m on a tourist visa. Are there many Americans working here?”
“Canadians and Americans, yes. Many survey for the road.”
“What road?”
“Oh, many road. Are you looking for the Shan prince house?”
“I don’t know. I just arrived.”
“Oh, I see. Where from?”
“Mandalay.”
“Oh no, not possible. Maybe somewhere closer. Mandalay too far. How did you get here?”
Ian and Sandra stuck there heads in the window at the opposite end of the table, “Are you ready to go?” Ian asked.
Cale got up immediately, “Yeah. Excuse me, but my friends are here, and I must go.” Cale bowed his head slightly and moved towards his waiter to pay.
Ian and Sandra met Cale at the front door of the restaurant, and they moved off quickly.
“Everywhere we’ve gone this morning the secret police are asking for our names, passports, when we got here, where we are going, all that. The guy talking to you was secret police,” stated Ian.
Cale responded slowly, “Yeah, I kind of figured that out. Thanks for rescuing me.”
Sandra changed the subject, “I read a book about a Shan prince and his Austrian wife called My Life as a Shan Princess by Inga Sergeant. Her princely husband’s father went to school in England and brought back with him the knowledge and ability to build a colonial-style house complete with electricity and running water, as I recall. It was the first or one of the first houses in Burma with all that. We should walk there and see what it’s all about.”
“The man at my table back there mentioned it and asked me if I was going there,” said Cale.
“What did you say?” asked Ian.
“I told him I just got here.”
Sandra shrugged her shoulders and offered, “Let’s go check it out.”
They found the house rather quickly and were welcomed in for a cup of Shan tea. The owner of the house was a gray-haired, clean-cut man of small, slim stature. His polite wife made a brief appearance, wearing a colorful summer dress with her black hair rounded up on top of her head. The couple showed much of their history through photographs and stories of Ne Win’s military government taking the prince’s father prisoner and putting him in a wooden cell in the jungle, and eventually, they think, he was shot. In any case, he was never heard from again. The military took most of their lands, leaving a small portion and the house with a tax. After the history lesson, they all went outside on the patio, and the man outlined their old property lines to compare them with what they now had.
Sandra and Ian felt compelled to share the events on the train with this man. Cale remained consumed by what he had witnessed and by hearing Ian and Sandra’s account of what had happened.
Sitting in a chair on the patio, the man gave a shocking, to-the-point response, “Like what you saw on the train, the prisoner, this man,” he said, pointing at Cale, “your money, the government here does not care. You are a drop of piss in a great ocean. It means nothing, and you mean nothing. Squish the prisoner into dust like the political leaders of yesterday and the nobles during our futile times. Kill the royal families or imprison them, or both. It’s all very Machiavellian.” The man drank some tea and added, “Historically, we get what we need from the forest; food, products for our homes, products to sell, even opium and precious and semiprecious stones, if they surface. We are also supposed to collect these things for the military when it marches through town. If you are too old, you pay a tax. If you are young and strong, you are forced to work. If you do not work or choose not to work, the army will write down your name, and the next time fighting breaks out, you will be forced to be a porter. The army will dress you up in a uniform and march behind you. The insurgents do not use many field glasses, binoculars you call them, so the hill tribe armies don’t know the difference, and you are blown up. That’s it. You work next time, if you live. If you don’t live, your family will work out of fear of your disappearance.”
Cale snapped out of his quiet phase and saw an opportunity to change the subject, “I heard something about a ruby that comes from Burma, the Moguk stone.”
“Oh, yes, the Moguk ruby is one of the finest in the world. The stones are found along the banks of the Irrawaddy River and some secret spots on the Salween, where locals go to do their washing. Sometimes they find the stones after a big storm or flood during the rainy season. When the military find out, and they always do, the area is closed off to the local people, and the military will go in and force the locals to search for the stones. Then the military will take all the stones and go away with their bounty. It is the same with opium these days. If a field of opium is discovered that has not somehow been taxed, registered, or already under military control via bribes or Khun Sa’s leftover army, the field will usually be watched until harvest time then cleaned out. And if it’s a big field, then there is sure to be a small hut nearby where the opium is changed into morphine. It is much easier to transport as morphine, rather than as a sticky blob, much smaller as well. The military take everything.”
Ian asked, “I didn’t know they made morphine in Burma.”
“Yes, of course. It is a very simple process. For example; build a fire, set a clean oil drum over it, or maybe not so clean, and fill it with water. Heat it up. Put in the raw opium to dissolve. Once it reaches a certain temperature, it is poured through various fabric filters to get rid of the impurities, leftover wood fibers, and such. Then pour it back into another drum, heat it again, and add lyme fertilizer. Morphine is extracted and makes a layer close to the surface. Add concentrated ammonia, and morphine crystals form and fall to the bottom. Filter again and what’s left is white chalky morphine. Easy. It is formed into bricks, and good-bye morphine, hello money. Easy. If there is an established opium field and heroine is made out of the morphine here, it travels the old way, by beast, through northern Thailand and on to Laos, or Vietnam, or China, or some other country nearby. The United States has publicly been making it very difficult, but secretly not impossible. If the heroin was made in the golden triangle, it will be packaged in just under a kilo packages with a tiger and a globe picture label on it. It may change pictures, but the quality is still the same. What label goes on the heroin depends on where it was grown, plus purity differences. There is Double Uoglobe, with two lions on each side of a beach-ball size–globe, boasting one hundred percent pure. One hundred percent pure is almost impossible; ninety-seven percent, okay. Another label might be the curved dragon, a dragon circling back to its tail. This one is low quality, three to eight percent pure—street stuff, any street. Most of the labeled heroine means it’s for export to the West, mainly Europe and the United States. Europe traditionally received much of its supply from Turkey or the neighboring countries in the Middle East, Afghanistan, and so on. The story is an old one.” The man looked for a moment at Ian, then Sandra, and finally stared at Cale. He closed his afternoon conversation with what he took for common knowledge, “Your Central Intelligence Agency has been involved directly or indirectly for years over here, since the Vietnam War at least. You know that—right?”
Cale, Ian, and Sandra thanked the man and his wife and left very unsettled. Cale felt that the story was the same for everyone everywhere in Burma. The three didn’t talk much as they walked out the driveway and down the dirt road away from the house. Before they got to the edge of town, Cale watched Sandra poke Ian in the ribs. She was wearing that devilish smile again.
Ian nodded to her and asked, “Hey Cale, we’re gonna take off down this side road for a bit and have a smoke. Do you want to join us?”
Cale looked at them. Sandra’s smile was exploding with excitement. “What? Weed?”
“No, something stronger. We’ve got a small amount of opium that we thought we would share with you, if you’re interested?”
“I’m interested, but I have to decline. My head is so full of thoughts and mixed emotions that I think it would be a bad idea. I just want to get them straight first.”
“Well, smoke this, and they’ll go away altogether,” said Sandra.
“That sounds like bliss.”
“It is bliss. You should come.” Sandra was going to pop out of her skin; she was so anxious.
“Another time perhaps. I think it would make me feel uncomfortable right now. But thanks. I appreciate the offer. I’ll see you back at the guest house.”
“Suit yourself. See ya.”
Cale walked on in the late afternoon sun. Ian and Sandra walked hand in hand away from everything.
When Cale arrived at the guest house, he opened the front door and was confronted with nine men sitting in the front room, all wearing sunglasses and smoking. Cale left the front door open to let out the smoke, stepped in, and turned towards his room. Some of the men looked at their watches and began writing in small booklets. When they finished writing, they got up and walked out the front door. Cale pretended to fumble for his key. No one spoke. Cale opened his door, slipped inside, and closed the door with a quick glance around the common room. He sat quietly on his bench, listening to the Burmese whispers outside his door. He didn’t understand a word, but he didn’t have to. He knew that the men who had just left were now searching for the two Canadians. Cale packed his things and lay down with his pack as a pillow. He watched mosquitoes land on the net surrounding him, sticking their needle mouths through the mesh to chase his heat and breath.
Just before dark, Ian and Sandra walked in the front door. Cale sat up, straining to hear. Some more not-so-secret police left the building and closed the door behind them.
Ian came to Cale’s door and knocked, “Hey Cale. We brought some beers and some food back with us. Do you want to eat something and hang out for awhile?”
Cale opened the door and said hello to Ian. His eyes drifted over Ian’s shoulder and saw four men still sitting in the front room with overflowing ashtrays, reluctant to remove their sunglasses even though the room was dim and the sun was going down. Cale looked back at Ian and answered, “Yeah, sure. I’m just going to go outside for a minute, then I’ll be over.”
“Have you been in here since we left you?” asked Ian.
“Yeah, I took a nap.”
“Did these guys ask you any questions?”
“No. But four others got up and went out looking for you as soon as I showed up alone,” answered Cale.
Ian backed up with a nod at Cale and turned for his room.
When Cale came back inside from the verandah, two secret police remained in their chairs, smoking, and he watched two policemen go into the room to the left of Ian and Sandra’s room. Cale’s room was on the opposite side of the main room and in the corner of the building with no other rooms nearby. Cale knocked on his companions’ door and invited them to his room for more privacy. The three of them spoke softly of the pressures they experienced and the awareness of the plight of the simple village people. Oddly enough, they all agreed that the man at the prince’s house was only the son of a prince and considerably less than honorable, possibly Tatmandaw as well. Sandra complained of a bad feeling beginning to shadow their time in Burma.
Cale decided not to go to Lashio at that point, but back to Mandalay to finish his business there, and then back to Thailand for a real vacation, if there was any time left.
At 4:00 a.m., Cale crept passed the two police men sleeping in the front room, slipped out, and vanished in the fog. He walked to the main road and found an open tea shop where a man spoke a little English and directed Cale to the bus station. The man tapped on his watch, pointed down the street, and told Cale to hurry, which fit Cale’s plans perfectly.
Two Western women sat behind Cale on the bus to Mandalay, a bus he didn’t think existed, remembering what the policeman had said to him a day ago at the restaurant, “Not possible. Mandalay too far, somewhere closer.” The girls asked the driver of the bus to play a tape for them on the bus tape deck. He did so. Lou Reed. A song about heroin started to play, which made Cale squirm, hoping the locals didn’t get the lyrics. But they did, and they looked at the girls with a mix of bewildered looks.
On the way, the bus crossed the great plain of grasslands in the Irrawaddy valley. Cale saw eight men, without shirts wrapped only in loungyis, working on the side of the road. A military man with a gun watched over them as they worked. As the bus approached, Cale noticed their shackled ankles. The guard motioned to the men to pick up their tools and chains. They held their chains from behind and stood still watching the bus roll up and pass them. The bus driver waved at the guard through his open window, and one of the prisoners waved, dropping his chains on the ground with a clatter just as the bus passed by. Cale saw the chains plainly and heard them through the bus driver’s open window. The driver looked up at Cale through his rearview mirror and then at the girls who were still glazed and smiling, selfishly oblivious. The road remained empty except for other tourist vehicles and military trucks carrying soldiers to the mountainous regions along the borders, or wherever the insurgents happened to be exposed.
Further down the road, the bus slowed and stopped for a military guard in the middle of the street. A herd of women and young girls shuffled across the road, creating a cloud of dust. Cale estimated around one hundred females. The last few women were being whipped with a long bamboo reed by a woman in military fatigues. The ladies’ shirts were torn and stained with thin blood trails. Some of their tears mixed with the dirt and dust on their brown faces, streaking down to their chins under sun–bleached, weathered straw hats and tattered red and brown scarves.