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Chapter One: Ma May. London, 1931

When you knocked on my door that day, you caught me off

guard. I had dozed off while resting, my cat Mawkish curled up
alongside me. I heard the knocking but the pull of sleep was greater,
and I sank deeper into the chaise longue. I told myself it was the milkman or the coal-man, or a schoolboy playing a prank. On your third
knock the mantelpiece clock chimed two and I knew you could be none
of those things. For a moment as I pulled myself up and pushed
Mawkish off my lap, present and past collided.
I was back in Saigon, when the French property inspector and his
Vietnamese clerk had called to go through Myinguns things. How they
had pounded on the door that day. After I had let them in and they
began their tour, I took some small satisfaction in discovering that the
doorknocker, shaped like a peacock, was nowhere on their inventory.
Later that evening, assisted by the princes secretary, U Maung Lwin, I
had gouged out the rusted screws that held its bronze molding to the
door, and by the flicker of our small candle had savoured the splintered
mess wed made. The doorknocker was the only thing of Mynguns
that I had brought with me to England. It was not exactly theft; more
an act of salvation. His wife, not being one for sentimental
attachments, would have sold it for scrap metal.

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But then you rattled the letterbox and called out in a womans
voice, and I was back in Hackney. The impertinence of it, I thought, as I
moved to the front window. When I peered through the lace curtain to
get a glimpse of you and saw your flushed cheekbones, set high in
your face, and the gold wisps escaping from your bonnet and your
delicate features, I wondered whether you were an actress. Then, as
you raised your head from the letter box I noticed first your slight
stoop, and then the briefcase at your feet, and took you for a
Missionary. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, which was
most active in Burma, had once had their sights on me. But then I saw
the way you studied the knocker, as if looking for a clue. And I knew
you to be a scholar and the writer of the letter I had received, asking
for information about the Myngun Prince.
For months the letter had lain there. I had lost count of the times
I had opened it, read it, studied the slope of your hand, considered
inviting you to visit, composed a response in my head, reached for a
pen, and then returned it to the envelope and slid it out of sight under
the blotter of my walnut, roll-top writing bureau.
I let the curtain drop and watched with satisfaction as you turned
to leave. But half-way down the driveway you paused and turned, as if
you knew I was there. You were almost at the kerb, where a cab
waited, when you turned again and folded your arms across your

3
chest, as if willing me to come out. In your wilfulness I saw something
of what I had once been.
Cant be short of a few pence then, I thought, eyeing the cab.
And I realized then that you had probably dressed down for the day,
and that you felt ill at ease in these East End streets. I felt inhospitable
then, and I pushed the door open and leaned out into the brisk day and
called out:
Did you just knock on my door?
As you approached I noticed the black armband and I wondered
who you were mourning and forgave you the urgency of your intrusion.
My change of temperament must have shown on my face, for you
smiled. I ushered you in, apologizing for the mess. Your eyes were a
startling blue. You sneezed repeatedly, and I shooed the cat outdoors.
I offered you the seat opposite the salmon-coloured chaiselongue and, knees together, hands clasped on your lap as if you were
auditioning for some coveted part, you told me why you were here,
and what you were setting out to do. You took my silence for
encouragement, and reached for your briefcase, and from it withdrew a
list that you brandished at me as if it were you, and not I, who were the
keeper of his past.
You are here to ask me about the Myngun prince, are you not? I
said. I received your letter. But I never expected you to come.
Cambridge University, was it? It was rude of me not to respond. You

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see I searched for a way of putting it. I can be of no help to you.
It was all so long ago. I remember very little. I am sorry to be such a
disappointment to you.
But if you will allow me it may be, you said. Perhaps, one of
these dates will jog your memory?
You began to read from the list.
Too much seclusion had eaten away at my manners. I was blunt.
My dear, I cannot possibly help you. The dates are quite well,
quite wrong.
You frowned, and gave me a look with which I had become
familiar in my old age. But for all my wrinkles I knew my mind was as
sharp as the knife-blade that I had once whetted for Myingun.
I took the dates from the records, you said, and you held the
list out before you on your lap. From the government records. And I
was once again reminded of the French government inspector in
Saigon and his long inventory.
I see, I said, and thought of the inspectors magisterial paw on
the door knocker, banging loud that day, with Mynguns body scarcely
washed and prepared for cremation.
I was hoping you could help me verify some facts, you said. I
am trying to get his story straight. I thought -
Straight? I said. Straight? But whatever for?

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At this your lower lip trembled and I guessed your age to be
some sixty years younger than my own. I softened.
I am in the History department, you said. I am writing the
history of the Myngun prince.
This I understand, I said. But the dates will not help you. It is
the places that matter, and the people he met in those places, you
see. That is what made his life.
You mean to say, you - expect me to write a history without
dates? You cast around, in part to avert my gaze, and looked over my
shoulders through the open hatch into my modest kitchen.
And would you prepare a meal without seasonings? you said,
speaking with the deliberate slowness and loudness that the English
reserved for the foreign, the deaf, and the elderly. But your comment
had me wondering how much you knew of my history.
You miss my point, I said, fighting back a sigh. The dates are
only labels. Like those on Cooks spice jars, I thought. How those
labels amused me when I first began my employ in Curzons kitchen.
At this you perked up.
Curzon, you say?
I nodded, irritated that I had spoken aloud. I had now lost my
thread.
Lord Curzon, you mean? Governor of India?
I shook my head.

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You were talking about spice jars, you said, and sat there, pen
poised, as if I were about to dictate a recipe. And Curzon, you
repeated.
Spice jars? You must be mistaken, I said. But I could see the
jars, set out in racks, neatly labelled. Glass with glass stoppers. The
English and their labels. What cook worth her trade would not be able
to distinguish one spice from another, from its shape and colour and
scent? But what would you understand of any of that? I could
somehow not imagine you in a kitchen other than as spectator.
I once worked in Curzons household, I said. As I spoke, my
fingers began to trace a pattern on the small table between us, and I
realized that I was sketching out the floor-plan of Curzons residence.
But how could that be of any interest to whatever study it is you are
writing? I said, pulling my shoulders up and straightening my back.
Your lips parted, and then you decided against posing whatever
question you had been about to ask.
You were writing a doctoral dissertation, you had said in your
letter. And I noticed how your writing grew neater when you wrote that
word, as if you wanted to convince both the addressee and yourself of
the importance of such an enterprise. But no orthography could
disguise the raw curiosity that had you sniffing at the edges of his
story and had brought you to my door.

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We will need a cup of tea, I said. Come, help me make it,
and I led you into the kitchen. It was there, as I filled the kettle from
the kitchen sink, looking out onto the magpies lording it over my small
patch of garden, that I found myself wanting to start the story, before
we had even put the water onto boil.
For a second I had the oddest sensation that he was watching,
and I cast around the room for a sign of him, and felt so short of breath
that I all but collapsed into the small wooden chair in the corner. As I
did so you scurried back into the living room to retrieve your notebook.
Before long I heard the kettle whistling.
I made the motions of a good host, assembled teacups, saucers
and a strainer on a tray, measured tea from the caddy into the teapot.
My hands were no longer as steady as I pretended, and the leaves
scattered around the tray. I let you pour.
As you did so I chewed on the loose leaves that had escaped my
strainer, imagining them to be pickled tea. U Maung Lwin never
stopped sending it to me. It arrived every month, in packets neatly
wrapped. These continued even after the princes death. And I ate it
with relish, knowing that I had outlived him, and wondering as I
savoured it, what I dare not ask U Maung Lwin: if this delivery were
part of the princes will and testament, or if U Maung Lwin had kept my
existence and whereabouts fully secret from the prince.

8
Since you are a historian, I said, as we settled back into the
living room, the tray on the table between us. It is his secretary you
should see. The only one of his court who remained loyal to the end.
U Maung Lwin.
My mention of a name you recognized lit a spark in your eyes.
And did he did Myingun, I mean did he appreciate U Maung
Lwin? you asked.
Appreciate? I could taste the change in my voice then,
although I did my best to hide it. Myingun was - blind to the merits of
his inferiors. At least by the end of his life. He used to be able to
compute the calibre of men in a glance. To size them up much like
Curzons cook would size up a new knife, or a brace of partridge, I
thought. But his ability to read people, so finely honed in his last years
at the court and in his first years of exile, grew flabby. It was as if he
had grown confused by all the new signs he had to master as his
places of exile changed. Flattery counted for much in Burma, too.
Without it one could not rise far through palace ranks. But after he
fled Burma - in exile with no kingdom to run, no means of putting
talent to the test, he began to lose this ability. How it had irritated me
to see the people who he took in trust. Flattery counted for more.
After a while, maybe even for everything.
I found myself wanting to tell the story more than ever. Why now,
when it had lain undisturbed for years, I did not know.

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From outside my window came the clamour of school children on
their way home, and I was struck by how much time had passed.
Rarely did I have visitors, and it was only in your presence that I
realized how I now let time wash over me. Grasping the table edge as
if to steady my thoughts I looked upon you with a new sense of
urgency.
Theres not much I remember, I said.
You leaned into me then, the way Mynguns pony used to lean
into me on our march through Karenni territory, whenever it scented
the palm sugar.
And thats when I knew that you would not leave, could not. That
you would stay in that chair for however long it would take to coax the
beginnings of my story from me. For I had something you did not. No
amount of papers can compensate for memory. And at that moment
you became my hostage, just as I had once been his.
Your face tensed and your fingers tightened around your pen.
But your name does not appear in the records, you said.
Anywhere. The only reason I wrote to you was and stopped, midsentence.
Why? I asked. Why did you write?
There was a letter in his papers, from a Burmese actress. To her
grandmother.

10
I see, I said. So you have his papers. In that case, I very much
doubt that you need my help.
There is only a very small bundle of papers, you said. Not
enough to write the full history. I was curious as to why the letter was
there at all. It took me months to track down your address, you said,
and then looked at me with great petulance as if you expected some
reward for having found me. I wondered why your letter was in his
papers at all?
No doubt an error of record-keeping, I replied.
The letter was stamped received by his secretary, you said.
That may be so, I remarked, trying to steady my voice. I had
learned not to trust the prince long ago, but had always counted the
secretary my closest friend. But I have nothing to tell.

And again I saw you cringe and withdraw into yourself, as if I was
some thief of history, some counterfeiter. The exasperation in your
voice had me wondering how much it had cost you to travel by train
from Cambridge, and whether you now regretted the expense as well
as the journey.
Somewhere outside a dog barked. You flipped open your
stenographers notebook. When I saw how small it was, and how much
of it had already been filled, I found myself looking away as one looks

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away out of kindness or politeness from an unsightly birthmark or
other deformity.
Very well, I thought to myself. I will give you only enough to fill
that notebook. No more.
You will let me read it, when you are done? I asked, and then
smiled at my foolery. My eyes were failing in my ninth decade. I had
read your letter, in several sittings, but I did not tell you that it had
taken me hours to decipher it.
I mean, you will read it to me? and you nodded.
Before we start, I asked. You must tell me more about the
letter, and how you found my name?
The letter, you said. Was among the records I found. But I
saw you pat the black mourning band on your arm and I knew you to
be lying. From a Burmese actress in Liverpool complaining that she
had been swindled out of her return journey to Mandalay by Messrs
Little and Lyme. Her name was Ma May. It was addressed to her
grandmother. It had me wondering how he knew you, and why his
secretary had chosen to keep it. It was dated 1898.
Of all the things you chose to tell me, I wish you had left that
unsaid.
I wanted to scold you for your bad manners, for reading mail
addressed to another. I wanted to reach back through time and wring

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the neck of the man I had trusted to deliver it. I wanted to ask you how
you had tracked me down from a name.
More than anything, I wanted to see that letter, to hold it to my
face and inhale the scent of the ink and the journeys it had and had
not taken. I wanted to tear the letter into strips, to burn or swallow it
and devour the dried tears on the page, so that no other eyes could
read words I had written to a woman who had never read them.
I had written the letter by candlelight on stolen stationery in
Curzons study, when my fingers were young and strong and smooth. I
thought of sharing this with you but in hugging this knowledge to
myself a warmth crept across my chest and I felt a satisfaction not
dissimilar to that which I had felt at court, as privy to those secrets that
I heard, and later, as Mynguns spy. Thats when I decided that I would
never give you the whole story. I felt my heart move spritely in my
chest then, and smiled inwardly. Some glimmer of my humour must
have coloured my lips, for you returned my smile as if it were meant
for you.
You were saying? you said, and I worried that I might have
been speaking aloud.
I am sorry, I said. But the excitement of this afternoon has
left me rather tired. If you dont mind, let us postpone our
conversation until a later date.

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You looked at me then as if you were worried that the exertion of
the day might cause me to expire before the week was out. Absently
you adjusted your arm-band, and so crestfallen did you look that I felt
ill of myself for turfing you out when you had made such a journey to
see me.
The sky was beginning to blush darker and without pausing to
wonder whether you had purchased a day return or a period return
from Cambridge, I invited you to stay for one night so that we might
continue talking the next day.
I am too old to be of much use in making you up a bed, I said. I
have a spare bedroom, but it has not been aired for a very long time.
And I ushered you up the steps and showed you the bathroom and you
wondered at my steadiness as I moved up the steep staircase.
You never forget what you danced, I told you. I was trained as
a dancer, and I will die as one. And before I could catch myself, I said,
You should watch your posture, my dear. Straighten yourself up, then
turned away before I could see the scowl that I heard on your breath.
I need to rest, I said. But I will tell you the little I know
tomorrow. After breakfast.
And when I made my way downstairs the next morning, I was
pleased to see that you had set out the breakfast and brought in the
milk from the doorstep and poached two eggs and had made the tea, if
much too strong, and that you were making a great effort to sit with

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your back and shoulders straight. The notebook was there before you,
to the right. Although I found it ill-mannered of you to bring a book to
table, I said nothing.
My mind wondered through the shadowplay of memory. But there
are places - like those niches that a shadow can't quite reach - those
corners of Curzon's bookshelves that escaped my duster - that had
closed their doors to me. Places whose hinges were rusted shut so
stubborn by grief, guilt, shame or regret, that no amount of coaxing
would force them open. And gladly did I skirt past them, as if my own
past could thereby be remade.
There was the door onto the Kinwun Mingyi's garden when I was
no older than thirteen. And the door that opened onto the tent where
Lu Pye, my groom of three sweet moons, grew chill, his lips a swollen
blue. It is his body that lies across the door of that memory, like the
saints whose stiff marble bodies guard the catacombs of Westminster
abbey. But the door that was most stubbornly closed was the one that
I knew I needed most to open before I could go in peace to my grave.
And suddenly I wanted to get the story done with so that we
could say our goodbyes and I could resume the uninterrupted silence
of my life. My egg-spoon clanged so on the plate as I put it down and
said, The dishes can wait, let us move next door now, and we moved
into the living room, and I settled onto the chaise longue, you in the
armchair.
Very well then, I said. I will tell you what I know. But it will be
on one condition.

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Condition? you asked, and then pressed your lips tight together
and made no attempt to disguise your frown.
It will be my story, I said.
You looked at me then as if there could be no story that joined
this elderly Burmese spinster in her London rooms, to a man of history
whose very name you seemed to hug to you as if his life were your
own discovery.
Your story? you asked.
With my cane propped up beside me I began my story. Later I
wondered if I could have gone to that place of darkness where I chose
to start had it not been for the warm weight of Mawkish curled up
against me, purring softly.

Chapter .: The Prince and the Secretary Saigon, September

1920

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The prince grips his fingers tight around the gold band as if to weld
its glint into his palm. He has been saving it, this ring set with the ruby
from Pailin that flashes all shades of crimson. He has been saving it
until last, because he had once heard a womans heart beat deep
inside its circlet. Blood red is the ring-stone. In years more limber,
Myngun had held it to his lips and wished. That rhythm had continued
long after Ma May had grown tired of his cause and left him without a
word. Sunk without trace, in England of all places.
Maung, he calls. It worries him that he can no longer summon his
secetarys full name. Names have shrunk with his world; lost like
teeth.
The words clutter and roll on his tongue, but not off it: Burmese,
Vietnamese, Hindi, Parsee, English. French, too. The ceiling reels
above him, increasing the sensation that he is back at sea. He
searches its yellow span for a landmark. No pivot, nothing to spin.
Nothing to train his compass on. His eyes wont stay open long now,
this he knows. Hoods of flesh weigh them down.
Maung he calls again, his hands clasping the rattan. His tongue
feels slack but lizard thick. Saliva tickles the back of his throat, the
soreness in his gums throbs harder, bringing with it a faint metallic
taste. Blood. His eyes fasten on a spot on the ceiling, whose blistered
paintwork has taken on the appearance of a map. What war was that?

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The yellow ceiling that is his daily vista stifles him and the bed
beneath him feels too solid. If only he could cut the anchor loose, trade
that blistered paintwork for the open skies, and finish his journey. Port
or starboard, he murmurs, and his mind climbs aboard a Burmese
steamer but the words come to him in English.
He had saved the ring in the hope of passing it to one of his sons,
as if with it he could pass on the spirit that still hums, however feebly,
in his pulse. But his sons are all gone. One, two three: quicker than
drumbeats or horses hooves. Their last gasps haunt this house. His
throne is now a sickbed, his courtiers scattered, his sons just
memories, his wifes mind unraveling daily. He should leave this world
with one grand gesture.
But who is left to pass this ring to? To give it to his wife would be
a betrayal.

The ring is his only mooring to all that has gone before,

and until it is gone he cannot make the final crossing. It is his witness:
was with him at the murder, then kept hidden but close in prison, then
reunited with him after his stint in the Andamans.
It is time.
Maung, he calls again. The shuffle of slippers, one slightly
softer than the other, reassures him. He can barely see his secretary
now. Each new day, week, in this small room with its scents of herbs
and lye, with the sun filtering in through shafts that barely catch on the
ruby, his eyes are curtaining over. His hands fret the rattan,

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rummaging for his secretarys full name.
This is how his days pass. In search of one memory he finds
another. He remembers Thaitingle, midwifed by exile, the warmth that
had spread through his own chest as he had held his first heir, and
hoisted his newborn son up to face the glimmer of the ocean. A cry
like a gull had ripped from the babys throat and he had kicked his legs
out with the strength of an ox and although his feet were thrusting in
Mynguns chest and his whole body arching and wrenching away from
his father, Myngun had pinned to him all his hopes. That was
Pondicherry, 1889. He can still inhale the day-old freshness of
Thaitingle, the same son that was taken from him here in this house,
here in Saigon where he swung from the rafters. They said, in whispers
just loud enough for Myngun to hear, that the debt, the gambling, the
opium had worn away his will to live. But Myngun knew better. It was
the weight of his own hopes dashed that had led Thaitingle to take the
rope. He squeezes the ring harder in his palm.
Myingun wants to wipe his face clean of all the memories, but
they come in pairs. Grief clings to joy, pain to love, death to birth.
Below him, cold and heavy, is the bedpan. He fights against it,
but he relieves himself there in front of U Maung Lwin, barely conscious
of the act, feeling only a warm relief, a sticky wetness.
He would like to make a magnanimous exit. But there are the
creditors to think of. Chandipatty was here again yesterday. Madame

19
Chu of the pharmacy on Rue de la Grandire has also been calling in
her growing debt, he heard her name whispered by the servant girl,
and his wifes shriek of contempt. She can wait, his wife had said: Her
business has grown fat enough on our misfortune.
He will give no woman the satisfaction of deciding the last rites
of the ring. Not his wife, not his daughters, not Madame Chu. He trusts
no one but his secretary, and once he is gone, his secretarys status
will die with him.
Your highness? U Maung Lwin says, his voice faltering,
unsteady.
Take this ring. Myingun can barely squeeze the words out.
Ring, your highness? says his secretary, and moves in closer.
Myngun rams his fist in frustration on the rattan, then opens his
fingers.
But -,
I have been saving it, says Myingun. Take it to the pawn shop,
wherever it is you do your business. Take it there yourself. Do not
dawdle. I have one more letter to dictate to you.
He is unsure where it comes from, his urge to write the letter, but
perhaps from the tightness pincering his chest. As if words unsaid had
lodged there too long, blocking his airways.

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The Secretary: U Maung Lwin

U Maung Lwins feet barely touch the ground as he leaves the

house. He has no time for the usual niceties for the doormen. Not
even for his ritual spit at the corner where the plain-clothes sret lurk
in shifts. He had never told the prince about that habit. Should he tell
him now? Would he approve?
He must get this mission over with so that he can hear the letter.
It has been months since the prince has felt well enough to assemble
his thoughts into words. U Maung Lwin has become a male nurse. He
has stopped writing poetry. He has not touched his typewriter for
weeks.
Something in the princes voice has put wings on his feet. He
reaches the pawnshop in less time than it would take to smoke half a
cheroot. Above the door-way hangs a red lantern flanked by two signs,
one in French, one in Chinese, Mont de Piete, DangDian. He stops and
feels a dizziness in his limbs, his stomach, as if his sense of purpose is
deserting him, drifting back to the prince alone in his room, or is he
alone? Is his wife searching again for proof, the slightest semblance, of
a will? He is about to turn away, walk on, when the doorman swings
the door out, and beckons him in. He is always surprised to find it so
brightly lit inside. The room smells of old velvet, sweat and money in
the making. The sweat is his own, he realizes, and he holds himself

21
quite still, to steady the tremor in his hands. On one counter is an
array of objects waiting to be valued, and an assortment of weighing
pans and scales and bronze weights, not the bronze weights in the
shape of animals he had known as a child in Burma, but cylinders.
Beneath the counter stood a balding man from whose headband
protruded a metal antenna culminating in a single thick lens on a
hinge, the kind of thick lens that U Maung Lwin has come to associate
with the western doctors who the Baron sends to see the prince, and
the prince sends back. Through the thick lens he was inspecting not
eyes or flesh but the jewellery laid out on a tray lined with the richest
red satin. Beneath the tray, and between U Maung Lwin and the
inspector, was a glass vitrine that rose up from the floor until U Maung
Lwins elbows. In its mildly sparkling gloom he saw cigarette holders,
and brooches, and hat pins. Behind the counter, off in a corner, sits a
woman with no teeth, sucking her gums, her face soft as putty and her
skin sagging in folds like the bloodhound that Mackertoon had once
brought with him on one of his visits to the Prince. All it had done was
whimper in the heat and drool while Mackertoon and the prince plotted
escapes and returns and laughed and swore and filled and emptied
snifters.
He feels the creeping flush of guilt: he could have brought his
typewriter in, hocked that, he has not written a poem for weeks,
perhaps he never will, and the princes memoir is not his to write.

22
Instead he has labored over columns of figures, until the debts seemed
to mount, to spiral out of the keyboard, threatening to swallow him up.
Nothing ever added up to anything, only ever to something less than
the prince already was, or had been.
In front of him at the counter is a woman whose belly is swollen
with a baby. A young child clutches on to her hand.
As if she has sniffed out the princes ring, the toothless woman
who was perched parrot-like on a high stool behind the counter,
shuffles over, supported by a cane. There is nothing wrong with her
eyes, under that carapace they gleam shrewd and bright.
What have you got? asks the man behind the counter, looking
out past the pregnant womans shoulder and gesturing with a nod of
his head, U Maung Lwin to come forward.
He is embarrassed to be making the pregnant woman wait, but
more than that he wonders at her whiteness, at her auburn hair, at her
solitude, and wonders what paths she had taken or been forced down
to get here.
As for the bloodhound woman, it is as if she has sniffed it out
already, she is already staring at his right sleeve. How could she have
known he was left handed, or that this is where hed kept it? He takes
it out with thick, trembling fingers.
When he places it on the counter, all its lustre has gone, as if a
layer of dust had seeped into his pocket and rubbed away its past. His

23
heart sinks. Then like a finger of Indra a stream of light spears through
the window, and the stone is suddenly fulgent, dark as snakes-blood
but shimmering too, against the band of gold that suddenly has
assumed the weight and worn feel of a noose, and the old pawnbroker
womans eyes light up, as if she is suddenly no longer interested in the
carats she is measuring through the thick eyeglass stuck to her eye, or
in its weight, but is struck instead by its beauty. She holds the ring up
to the light and squints.
This stone is cut like they used to be. Now the gem-cutters hurry
too fast not worry with quality. No more like this ever. It is from Burma?
Mogok?
She squints deeper into the eyeglass and turns the ring. Her
hands are the hands of a woman twenty years younger as if all the
gold she has handled has bought her a youth that has stopped at her
wrists.
What are these?
Burmese letters. Engravings.
Customer no like engravings, devalue it.
At these words he wants to reach across and snatch it back,
although her talons are so fast around it now he doubts he would be
able to wrest it from her. His fingers grip the edge of the counter. Will
they erase the motto? he wonders. No, that will wear away the gold,
wear away its value even more. Fill the engraving in? No, that will use

24
more gold, weaken their margin.
Ma says the pawnbroker who has been standing there quietly
all this time like an apprentice. Now he takes the ring from his mother.
He feels it in his hand. When he traces his finely manicured little finger
inside the gold band, U Maung Lwin feels how he did when the French
customs officer at Saigon had fingerprinted him, then measured his
cranium. He feels as if that finger is running around his mouth.
Good gold, says the man. Solid.
A thin trickle of saliva runs out the corner of the old womans
slack mouth, and Maungs thoughts return to the prince, dying on his
soiled sheets, his last rites a bedpan. What more can the ageing
Chinese pawnbroker really want for, here in her jeweled kingdom?.
What difference will it make to her, what more can she extract from
him, from this ring, here where she reigns, cushioned by this business,
her son plump and rich? He wants to leave the prince with one fine
bargain, but he cannot stay much longer. The letter will not wait, may
even now be dissolving into gibberish on the princes tongue.
What language is this? her son asks him.
Burmese, says U Maung Lwin,
You can read it?
U Maung Lwin nods.
What does it say?
How to translate the end of a dynasty, the ruin of a kingdom?

25
The body dies, the plumage never fades, the engraving reads. But he
cannot tell them that. Not here, not now, not in this shop where lives
are stripped bare and polished down and hocked. He knows that this is
not the worst of it. Other fingers will inspect the ring, grope the motto.
Once it leaves his possession, there is nothing and no-one to stop the
ring being melted down, remade.
The princes plumage is past faded. His body is gutted by
poverty. His feathers will be plucked and sorted, distributed.
It is as if U Maung Lwins whole life has found its purpose in that
single moment. But he can find nothing to say.
Better it has no meaning, better no-one knows, better still that
one day a wealthy Burmese merchant buys it, treasures it, passes it
down through his family.
Nothing, he says, the worst betrayal of all. It is the previous
owners name.
He has said it, Previous owner.
He has named the rings new place, before even negotiating its
price. He feels trapped, cheated, and yet it was he who came in
through these doors, carrying out last orders.
The old woman makes a sound like a hen about to lay, then
turns, moves down the counter and beckons to the European with the
fractious child and the dull eyes and dirty complexion.
Then her son leans across the counter to U Maung Lwin, drops

26
his voice, and says:
The princes creditors are pressing the Governor to bring
charges against you, to lift your immunity, to take their cases to court,
they are joining forces, yesterday at the tea shop I heard them, they
are worried he will die intestate, unable to meet their debts. If you sell
me this ring, I can promise you I will keep our trade secret. But I will
need to move this ring fast, out of my door, and I will need to remove
that inscription, if that is his name, noone will buy it, even for the ruby,
except maybe a European, maybe a European. Everyone else in town
knows, knows how the prince breathes nothing but bad luck - his sons!
A father who lives to what, seventy, to bury his own sons, all
three of them? In the space of two years? That last son of his, the one
who - . Every other week he was in here with a piece of his jewelry, or
his mothers, or who knows what, or whose?
My ma says its his sons that broke him. They were our regular
visitors. I am surprised they left their father this ring. My mother does
not recognize you, does not know you are the princes man. But me? I
watch. I spend much time outdoors, in cafes, observing, I need to
know, who will ply me wares, what is their background. I never trusted
his sons.
U Maung Lwin wonders why the pawnbroker is speaking to him in
this broken English. At first he feels insuIted. His languages of trade,
here in the pawnshop, are Chinese, Vietnamese, and French. English is

27
least likely to be understood.
I will give you a good price, says the pawnbroker. But tell the
prince please, tell him from me, this last trade, le dernier, absolument,
no more, tell him we cannot take any more.
Then his tone softens. He looks across the room, to his own
mother, who is nestled back on the high stool, wheezing, her chest
concertinaing.
I hear he is very sick. If you cant bear to tell him bad news, tell
his wife. We help her out a lot already. Tell her to stop the servants and
her granddaughters coming in to my shop. She will understand. She
has a hard enough nose for business.
U Maung Lwin nods, sighs. Stares numbly as the pawnbroker
makes out the chit. He feels as if all the words he wants to say are
buried forever, gone, unreachable.
The son has said what he needed to say, the deal is done. It is
his assistant, a young man who makes no eye contact with him who
writes it down, tallies it up.
***

Well? says Myingun, his voice crepe-thin, hanging like the folds
of skin around his neck, a frail whisper. Well? Did you find it? Did they
take it?
U Maung Lwin feels something rising in his throat, something

28
clawing its way out, scratching; a word.
No, he lies. Not at first. They said they could not take it,
would not, they said it belongs in the museum, that it is a symbol of
kings. They said they would not take it.
But you persuaded them? Myingun asks, and U Maung Lwin
wonders how many more breaths there are in that body. Each
conversation feels like robbery.
Yes. And then he adds, They said they knew a buyer, a British
buyer, he comes every month, he is coming again on Sunday, the
French dont like him coming here, he buys things up and puts them in
their museums.
The British Museum? asks Myingun. In London?
Maybe, says U Maung Lwin. Or maybe Calcutta.
On this last point he has to leave some leeway for the truth. Myingun
has grown, in these last years, suspicious of perfect clauses, of finished
business, of good outcomes.
The letter, says Myngun. I must write one last letter. But first,
first read me back the last one.
The last one?
Yes before.
U Maung Lwin knows what this marker means. Before his sons
died.
But your highness

29
U Maung Lwin wishes he could refuse to read it. He does not
want to revisit that last plea, the plea that failed. A letter in the
subjunctive, read two years later, after the deaths of his three sons, is
no longer a possibility, only an insult to his dignity.
I insist. Read it.
Not once has Myingun thanked him, or praised him. He has only
ever needed him, still needs him. Perhaps that is enough. Sometimes
U Maung Lwin wonders, would things have been different, if Id done
my job better? If I had picked some words instead of others? Did the
princes destiny hinge on a single phrase?
U Maung Lwin walks over to the desk, dislodges from it one of
the boxes, groans inwardly at the silverfish that scuttle out, and leafs
through a bundle. Finds the letter, but puzzles at his date, has so
much, so much in the way of life and death, so little in the way of
politics, happened 17 November 1919. He goes back to Myinguns
bedside. This is no way for a prince to die, he thinks, listening to a
ledger, to this dreary drum-beat of requests, petitions, pleas for
favours.
Read it, he says, and his voice is so faint now U Maung Lwin can
only obey, but he hopes Myingun is hallucinating at least, that he hears
nothing but the murmur of horses hooves or an ocean crossing, that
what he is hearing in his last days and nights is the distant murmur of
a life with purpose.

30

Chapater Three Ma May

RANGOON, LOWER BURMA -

1852

The clouds swung low, jaundicing the sky. A wind whistled out of
nowhere, kicking the dust up off the streets, then disappeared. I
hugged my arms tight around me. Buffaloes, elephants, even the
scabby-furred dogs that ran wild on the edge of the forest, all had been
acting strange.

31
Yesterday, when grandma and I had stopped under the banyan
tree on the way back from the temple, I had heard the old folks trading
news and opinions.
You mark my words, there will be an eclipse, said grandma.
Of the sun or of the king? asked the second-oldest man in the
village. I wondered how a king could float and rise and blot out the
sun. Mandalay, the royal capital, was so far away from our village, his
question made no sense to me.
The mangoes ripened early this year, said another.
Until I heard the elders gossiping I thought that my cousins and I
had been alone in that last discovery. The previous afternoon we had
shaken the limbs off U Pye Thaws tree, knowing he was too long in the
tooth to hear us, and too lame to run if he did hear, then running to
hide our stolen fruit.
Its a sign of no good when the waters of the Irrawaddy are too
low for the mango rains, my grandmother said.
This much I knew. That morning I had spent longer than usual
working at the laundry in the river bank, hoping to wash the fruit stains
and the sweet smell out of my clothes and skin. In some years grown
men had drowned in those rapids. That morning, the water barely
reached my knees.
I kept my quiet, preparing the betel quid for grandma, scraping
the chalky lime paste onto the green leaf. What is an eclipse, I wanted

32
to ask, but I dare not. Later when we were headed home, grandma
squeezed my hand so tight her bony fingers hurt me. It was as if she
was trying to squeeze all her worry into me. I wanted to pull my hand
away. Instead I pulled a frown. But what I felt inside was something
different. My pulse was racing, but only partly from fear. Mixed in with
that quick beat was the promise of something new.
The next morning I woke to a sky the color of pomelo. For a
moment I hoped that everything would stay just as it was, that the
yellow was nothing more than the first sign of a storm on the horizon.
Then I strained my ears and heard a fragile beating that fast became a
hum. I felt the blurriness of a light kiss on my eyelids. The yellow
clouds began to separate; cupping my hands over my eyes. I looked
up to see a sky swarming with butterflies.
Beneath them, carried on the quick slap of feet, came loud glee.
Look, look!
I wanted to follow the shrieking children as they ran past our
cottage, headed for the river. Instead, I hung back, the quiet croak of
my grandma spoiling my mood the way a crack forms in lacquer.
Grandma did not allow me to rough and tumble with the other kids. It
was our secret, but she kept me inside for an hour each morning to pull
and train my hands and feet and legs and toes the way she had been
trained in her youth, as a royal dancer. I obliged her in her fantasy.
But that morning there was no time for our lesson. She sucked away at

33
her toothless gums, her cheeks drawn in, betel-stained lips puffed out.
Then she spoke. Her voice was strained with worry and it pressed on
me as hard as her fingers had the day before.
Not in your lifetime I thought she said. In my lifetime yes, but
not in yours. Not again. Your ba and I once saw a storm of butterflies.
Way down south, down in your grandpas hometown. Back then the
elders said it was the souls of past soldiers fallen, warning of war. That
was in Tenasserim. Ba and I had been married a month. The harvest
had just been taken in and with the blessings of our parents we headed
north. Days later, the British gunships rolled in, unloading soldiers.
Everyone said theyd never come as far as the golden pagoda, the
Shwedagon.
Grandma had still not taken me to see the golden pagoda. She
had been saving that for my twelfth birthday. But she had told me
many times of its beauty, and of the gold and the Buddha shrines and
the Nats powerful spirits - who circled it.
The sky shuddered with a distant thunder. The first butterflies
began to fall.
I kneaded the ground with my toes, then stooped down to look
more closely. In among the broken creatures I found a perfect
specimen, wings rigid as if joined in prayer. I lifted it up and cradled it
in my hands.
Quick, said grandma. Get your things. Last time the

34
butterflies came like this, the British were two sunrises behind. We
must leave
I squatted down on my haunches and dug my toes in deeper.
Leave? I thought. For where? For a second, the butterfly between
my fingers stirred. But it was only my own fast pulse. The creature was
dead.
Wings littered the rungs of the wooden ladder that led down from
our house to the cracked earth where I stood. I set my butterfly down
on the bottom rung and watched it topple down to join the others. All
the while, fluttering yellow petals were falling, catching in my hair. I
brushed them off, suddenly irritated. Why couldnt they have landed
somewhere else? Why couldnt we stay and watch the ferenghi come?
No-one called them In-ge-leik, the English, then. They were just
ferenghi. Foreigners.
I looked up at grandma and, trying to make my voice quiver as
gently as that silken herd aloft, I asked,
Why should we run, Grandma?
But grandma was too busy to listen or to talk. The skin on her
forehead drawn tight in concentration, she was already grabbing our
few possessions, muttering to herself as she stuffed them in to her
cloth bag. She threw me a length of hemp twine and a square of cloth
and told me to fetch up the pans and kitchen things. The kitchen was
out the back and as I walked into it and looked around, wondering what

35
to take, I found myself staring into the Burmese writing lessons. Next
to my rounded, confident letters and the more recent signs of my
struggle with hanging vowels traced into the charcoal blackened walls,
were the imprints of grandmas fingers around my own sooty
fingerprints. I felt a tear run down the side of my nose and blinked it
away. Who were these ferenghi? Was my grandfathers soul up there
among the saffron swarms? Where would we run?
I turned my back to the alphabet wall and grabbed the blackened
pot and the stirrer, our three bowls, two blackened with use, one clean
(we must always have an extra, lest a guest grace our premises,
grandma said), and the wooden rice-spoon. Then I reached up for the
string of chillis that I had sewn onto a thread, and for the small pack of
pickled tea that settled grandmas stomach after meals, and I bundled
them up with the cloth.
Outside was strangely quiet.
Grandma had promised me that before she died she would teach
me to write. Now I wondered if I would ever learn.
Now we would run, and I didnt dare ask it again, ask: Why? I
hoped it would not be to my cousins. I hated how my aunt always
pinched my cheek and winked at grandma and said Youll never have
to worry about your old age with this beauty, at which grandma
always made the sound she made when she thought my cooking had
too much salt or too much garlic.

36

At first grandma told me: take them for another kind of people.
They are not like us. Armenian, Portuguese, Italian, Tagalog,
priest, trader. But the British would not let themselves be taken
that way. They dressed as if always in armour. Layers and layers,
from head to toe, buttoned up to their neck, every inch of them
hidden away, trussed. Even the women, the few that there were.
But my first reaction to the ferenghi was in my gut and words
could not bend it: Fear. On the other side of which was
fascination. I would peek out from behind the loom, from behind
my grandmother: stare, and stare. And know - I did not have to
be told - that these were the grisliest of demons, their skin
parchment pale like the decrees of hell, their flesh - I had heard
whispers traded between my aunt and the fancy girls she kept
around her - bare, but whiskered.
Not tattooed. Not inked. But shot through with the hair of
demons.
Men of weak flesh, unmarked. No pedigree.
I heard my aunt say how some would only lay with women fully
clothed, as if fearful of getting too close to the skin of us.
Part of our journey was by boat. Up the Irrawadddy. The waters
calmed me. My grandmother kept a lump of palm sugar and
would let me suck on it whenever she caught sadness on my
face.

What I didnt dare tell her was that I wanted to stay. I had spent
long moments, on the outskirts of the Rangoon market where my
cousins kept a weaving stall, studying the few ferenghi who visited the

37
market.
My cousins and I had decided that the ferenghi woman were
made of some magic substance; how otherwise could they survive
under those thick layers of cloth, and the collars tight around their
necks, and their skin so ghostly pale. I didnt dare tell grandma that I
had heard a Chinese trader talking to my aunt at the market, and
saying in hushed whispers that they would all be richer if the King let
the British in, and that her girls could dress much prettier with all their
new goods. I hadnt understood what hed said about taxes and trade,
or the word hed used to describe their cottons, Mun-chi-ster
(Manchester! you uttered then, after a pause, as if you had unlocked
the Rosetta stone).
But Id understood well enough how my aunts eyes had lit up
when the merchant ran his tongue around his lips, the way the stray
dogs did sometimes, and I heard how the wrinkled old tea trader at
the next stall had cried shame on you and spat out a red arc of saliva
that missed my aunt by the width of a thumb. After that, I carried his
words around in silence, playing with them as I might have played with
the scraps of cloth that my cousins and I sometimes collected and
fashioned into dolls.
I could not imagine grandma running. I went back under the
house, stepping around the birds as they scratched in the dirt,
wondering whether we should leave the hens or take them, and up the

38
stairs.

When you asked me what year it was I shrugged.

I dont know when we reached Mandalay, I said.
But I did. I had seen the numbers on the tracts that littered the
city streets, and on the decrees tacked to the city pillars. 1852. I had
already decided I would never learn to read. But the numbers stuck.
They were passed around like a bad luck charm that no-one dared to
say and everybody knew. It was the year the British came back for
more.
The numbers made no sense to us, ours was a Buddhist calendar
and we kept time from his death onward and forward to the birth of the
Maitreya, the Buddha to be.
On the way to Mandalay, we would stop at the banks of the
Irrawaddy where Grandma would work the muddied water through my
hair. To keep it soft, she told me, her voice soothing. But I knew it was
to make me ugly.
I sometimes dreamed of the ferenghi, how they would look en
masse, and imagined that grandma had mis-read the butterflies
message, for what lovelier messengers could have announced their
coming? Later, in Mandalay, hiding out at my aunts stall in the market
place, and the loud marching of the troops as they entered the city
fear fastened like a clasp around my throat. At first I did not dare to

39
look at their faces. They were imps, monkeys, of another race than us.
But my cousin dared me to come out of my stall and look at them.
Thats when I caught one of them looking at me.
I felt nothing but the sound of my own feet slapping the ground
as I fled. Run, my grandma had told me, if they ever come too close.
And so I ran to the only place I knew where I was sure they could not
find me, to the place where meats, live and dead, were traded, where
the Chinese kept animals in their cages and snakes coiled in sacks and
where the stench of fish-sauce would work like lustral water to protect
me.
The cumin and cardamom and coriander and turmeric were laid
out in sacks, their scents spiced the dank air, and I followed my sense
to them. I could hear the cadence of Chinese and the lilt of Tamil and
followed those sounds too, deep into the heart of the market place, the
part of the market where ferenghis never strayed. To my cousin it was
all a game. She followed me, grabbed my hand, and pulled me back to
the meat market, daring me to reach into one of the hessian sacks and
touch a snakes neck. I had reached out my hand to do so and then
screamed in fright thinking a snake had closed its jaw around my wrist
so tight was the pain. But it was a hand that gripped me so and a
voice as sibilant as a snakes told me Save your courage for a
different path while another hand slapped me clean across the face. I
had shrunk back in fright and the toothless old woman leaned forward,

40
her bony fingers kneading my cousins shoulder and asked my cousin:
Jealous are we?
Something opened up between me and my cousin then, a
distance that would never now close. But my cousin was gone, darted
back into the bustle of the market. The fish eyes gleaming, the slap of
the wet skin, the slide of the knife scraping off their scales, the salted
odors of fermented fish had my head reeling.

And now that I was telling you this, from the comfort of my
chaise-longue drowsy with the last fingers of the sun and the air
scented with sherry I felt myself drawing back, retreating from the
place I most feared my memories might take me, and I played to that
look youd given me on your first visit and tried to mime confusion.
Im sorry, where was I?
Fermented fish, you said.
Have you ever had it?
You shook your head. How I had missed that pungent familiar, in
England. Sometimes in Curzons kitchen I would scrape out with my
finger the discarded jars of gentlemens relish and the fish paste that
the servants would eat spread thin on their bread, but neither came
close.
You were in the market, you prompted, and I moved my hand
to my mouth to cover a yawn. We really must stop now, I said. It is

41
growing dark already. And you will be late for your train.

CHAPTER THREE

MYNGUN, AVA, UPPER BURMA September,

1855

Myingun crouched down low. Servants he had not seen before were
draping the table in a sheet. They were Indian, wore turbans. He willed
them to work faster, to bring the eating hour nearer. Plate by plate
their quick, steady hands set the table with pan, crystallized ginger,
pickled tea, and sweet custards. There were delicate, moon-white
strands of coconut and red beans, and trays of lychee and rambutan,
star fruit and custard apple. Raised high like a stupa at the tables
center was a tiered silver tray of steamed walnuts. Their pale flesh
reminded Myingun of the innards of a fish he and his brother Daine had

42
once speared and filleted. Baskets of bright silver clanged, giving the
table the look of battledress.
Myingun glanced back at his brother Daine to check he was
watching. Then he crept between the table legs and imagined he was a
stowaway on a royal barge, freighted with loot. He began counting.
He was in the 330s, his head lightening, although he had been
cheating and drawing in quick breaths on the count of each 100, when
he saw, on the other side of the white drapes whose hems were
weighted down with coin, four feet in two pairs of silken slippers, toes
pointed at him. He forgot to count, moved out towards them so that
the tablecloth brushed his cheek, tilted his head slightly and cupped
one hand over his ear, determined to take in everything said so that he
could make a full report to Daine.
But all the owner of the first pair of slippers said was: Enough of
their English food. We will treat them with Burmese fare. It was the
voice of his uncle, his fathers brother - although he was never allowed
to address him as uncle, but only by his full title, the Einshameen, or
Crown Prince.
The owner of the other slippers murmured something too soft to
hear and Myinguns Uncle gave a malicious little grunt. Myingun
couldnt hear what he said but he didnt have to. Although the voice
was harder to place, Myingun knew from his tone that this was the
Pakhan Woongyi, who had been here at court only months but already

43
had been gifted an entire garden by his father, the King.
Myinguns nose tickled. He dragged all the air he could into his
lungs and counted in his head, holding his breath as long as he knew
how. If he pulled this dare off without being seen by their uncle, his
brother had promised to come into the gardens with him one day and
climb the tallest tree to spy on the Pakhan Woongyi. But only if he
stayed there until he had counted back all the years until the last day
of Buddha, whose death marked the beginning of the Buddhist era.
Myingun waited as unknown hands battened down the cloth,
then retreated under the center of the table, and aligned his feet with
the table legs, and began counting again. When he reached eleven
hundred and ten he darted out back through the tables hindlegs,
ignored the shriek of a servant, and ran panting to the alcove at the
back of the eating hall, where his brother Daine waited for him.
Myingun was smirking and his mind was already half way up the ladder
in the ministers garden. His brothers face was pinched with worry.
Scared? asked Myingun with a smirk.
At the other end of the room, the boys uncle was stretched out
on a long wooden couch. Fine silks and Benares brocade sashed his
belly, and red and gold thread glistened on the hat on his head.
Pretty as a baboons bottom, Myingun wanted to whisper to his
brother. But even though they were out of earshot of his uncle, he dare
not put his thought in words. He fought back the giggle bursting up

44
through him and sucked his lips tight together. The two brothers
locked hands and moved together across the room to where their uncle
the Einshameen, temporarily at least, commanded the full attention of
all the palace staff without attracting a single glance from any one of
them.
The Einshameen was lying on his side, propped up on one elbow,
on a polished teak recliner cushioned with silk bolsters. His back
faced the room. The soles of his feet were as pale and soft as lard.
The boys peered over the Einshameens shoulder into the circle
of glass cradled in his palm. His slack mouth and shrimp-pink lips
reflected back at them from the pocket mirror. Then his uncle moved it
to the right and held it out, his jewelled fingers squeezed tight around
Myinguns reflection. Myingun ducked.
When the boys moved around to face him, their uncle put on a
smile, sat up slightly, and beckoned them to sit next to him.
Look, he said. He passed the mirror to Myingun who held it up
and panned it around until he captured a view of the audience hall. As
he did so, his father the king came into view. Myingun passed the
mirror back to his uncle and went to take his place to the right side of
his fathers throne. The princesses were already fluttering in a hushed
crowd on the opposite side of the dais, waiting for the queens
entrance, their hair oiled and coiled tight around their heads, jasmine
bracelets on their wrists and frangipani behind their ears.

45
Myingun stared at his fathers clothing but could make no sense
of it. He was dressed in a bright silk putso wraparound, and a white
cotton jacket. The kind of clothes hed wear to greet distant kin or men
of low rank.
At last came the bugles that Myingun had been listening out for
all morning, announcing the arrival of the people whose knees, it was
rumoured, had some strange deformity. When his father spoke of
them his mouth puckered as it did when he tasted pomelo.
He and his brother drew closer together. Once they had seen the
ferenghi, the foreigners, in the distance, and he had felt cheated by
their ordinariness. But these ones, he knew, would be different. They
came from the Queen.
The one who entered first and seemed to matter most was called
Fitch. He wore a red jacket and gold braid epaulettes and tightwaisted pants. He had protruding ears and a long, mango-shaped
face. Myingun found it hard to stop looking at his complexion. It was
not ghost white, as he had heard these people would be, but more like
the skin of a pale but spoiled fruit. A moustache as thick and woody as
coconut hair sprouted across it. There were other people around him,
note takers and some men dressed like soldiers but without guns.
None of the ferenghi made any sign of kneeling before his father.
Myingun felt new knots in his stomach grow as each passing minute
prolonged their insolence.

46
The guards were lined up in full regalia outside, the sun glinting
on their halberds. Myingun wondered if they would go to war. The
ferenghis drab clothes were no match for the riches of Ava.
Instead of kneeling down before the king, the ferenghis bowed
forward, as if the muscles that should have been behind their knees
had shifted to their stomachs. The king and queen sat through all of
this, expressionless. Myingun sealed his mouth tight and inhaled deep,
searching for some animal scent to their rudeness. But the smell of
tobacco and the jasmine perfume carried in the princess hair must
have eclipsed it.
He wondered if the ferenghi were born that way, or if it was
something that came with practice. Myingun contracted the muscles
in his own stomach, imagined them moving to his knees. He did not
dare look at the ferenghis feet, as if the very sight of their shoes would
make him an accomplice in their crime. He had heard that ferenghis
even wore shoes inside monasteries. He wondered if their feet had
some hideous deformity that their boots were designed to hide. He
wished his father would say something. They were not even armed.
Surely the King and his courtiers could make them take off their shoes?
Daine jabbed him with his elbow, and nodded across to the king,
in whose hand a cheroot was burning down. It was Myinguns duty on
this day to tend to the kings cheroot. A fresh batch had been rolled
for the occasion by the girl from the south. She was a mute of rare and

47
delicate grace. Myingun had once seen her cross the outer courtyard
and had tried to catch her eyes but she held her head low to the
ground. He knew little of her other than that she was rumored to be
the most skilled cheroot-roller in Mandalay, and that is how she had
gained entry to the palace.
Myingun moved across to his father, crouched down on his
knees, his head raised higher than the prostrate servants but lower
than the kings. He looked sideways at the Pakhan Woongyi, the
minister who had been trading whispers with his uncle earlier. The
Pakhan Woongyi sat out of rank for a man of his youth, too close to the
King for Myinguns liking. Almost close enough to touch him. Closer
than the older and wiser ministers. The King looked on the Pakhan
Woongyi with the doting gaze Myingun and his brother only earned
from their father on special occasions. Myingun eyed his fathers
cheroot with new focus. As he passed the Pakhan Woongyi, Myingun
made sure to straighten his back so that his head was raised higher
than his, and lingered a little. Myingun was, after all, royalty, even if
the Pakhan Woongyi outranked his tender age by a score or more
years. Myingun had just turned eleven. He moved on past the Pakhan
Woongyi, over to the silver casket at his fathers side, selected a finelyshaped cheroot, and placed it between his own lips to light it from the
tapered brazier that a servant held out to him. Once they had left the
cheroot-makers hands, and entered the silver casket, these dark,

48
fragrant cigars could only be handled by royalty. That was his fathers
rule.
Myingun had rehearsed his task all week. But now, as his small
lungs labored at the bitter cheroot, it refused to catch. He stared in
horror at the cheroot in his fathers hand. The ash trail was as long as a
scribes fingernails, and it was burning dangerously close to the Kings
ringed fingers. Myinguns cheroot lit, but when he removed the old
one, he pulled too hard, and the ash shook over his fathers
shimmering putsoe. As Myingun fumbled to replace it, he felt the heat
of his fathers displeasure. For the rest of the audience, he stayed at
his fathers feet.
It took thirteen cheroots for the meeting to finish, before he and
Daine were free to wonder into the courtyard gardens and inspect the
preparations for the firework display. Outside, he bent over double and
exhaled as long as he could, trying to expel every last taste of the
cheroots. Theyd made his tongue numb, and spoiled the taste of the
coconut jellies. In the center of the palace courtyard, three servants
were ramming hooks into the ground to fix a tall pole. This would form
the trunk of the purple Kachnar tree that was the center of the
evenings fireworks celebrations. Myingun began to count the
fireworks strung from its branches, tiny paper cartridges, miniature
gifts of gunpowder, ready to spark and fizz.
A cramp had settled in Myinguns right side by the time the

49
fireworks began. He had fallen asleep on the pile of pillows arranged in
the garden pavilion. Across the night sky, in quick flashes of blue
flame, Burmese letters that Myingun had barely learned, formed a
salutation to the King, in all his titles. They flared and hissed and
disappeared too fast for him to trace their meaning. The smoke pricked
his eyes and they began to tear.
Why so mournful? teased Daine. One day, that will be your
name, written in fireworks across the night. You are the oldest brother,
after all. Who else coluld claim the throne
Why are you whispering? Mygnun asked.
His brother turned and nodded at Myngun, but his eyes did not settle
there, they slid back to the Einshameen, who was claiming his place,
surrounded by courtiers in the pavilion.

Mister Fetch and his men stayed in Ava for a month. They made
visits to ministers and once to his uncle the Einshameen. Twice they
returned to see Myinguns father the King. His name changed
depending on who introduced him. FITCH, FISH, FETCH, FYFE.
On both visits Myingun looked for changes in the dimensions of
Fetchs moustache, or the flex of his knees. There were none.
Myingun listened to their strange talk. For a new game he and his
brother imitated the ferenghis pouts and fish-like lips. He wished he

50
could understand them. But he dared not plead with his father for
lessons in their language.
Instead he listened more closely to the Burmese that was spoken
by their interpreter, who wore a look of pale fear as he delivered each
trembling sentence. Fetch also knew some Burmese, but he spoke it
with such a stiff mouth that the words sounded like Fetchs own
language, Ingeleik.
Many of the Burmese words that passed between them were
beyond Myinguns grasp. Myingun did what he had learned to do over
his years in court. He tried to read the meanings of those words he did
not understand, from peoples faces. He heard his father asking for the
return of the part of Burma that Fetchs Queen had taken, and
complement Fetch on his good Burmese. But to this the King added
that in Burma parrots had been known to recognize Burmese words,
not just speak them. At this, Fetch had feigned a smile, but his face
had the taro-pink tinge of distemper.
His fathers face was the hardest to read. When he appeared
before the ferenghi his face appeared benign and his bearing
generous. Only his hands gave him away, and the speed with which he
smoked. But when the foreign visitors were gone the tremor in his
hands would travel the length of his body, his lips would pucker and his
grace give way to a caged, angry stride.
A month after the firework night, Myingun and Myingdaine

51
pleaded with their father to let them join the procession that would see
Fetch and the other Ferenghis back out on board their steamers. The
four ministers were there to see them off. It was October 21, 1855.
Leading the procession was the Einshameen, his howdah the
most elaborate of all in its silver finish, and a gold parasol perched
above him to upstage the ferenghi; a parasol usually reserved for the
King. The four ministers rode behind him. And then the boys. It was
hot in the howdah, and the elephants stride rolled up and down,
turning Myngun stomach. Crowds of well-wishers had gathered along
the river banks, and barely discernible above their clamour an
orchestra played auspicious music on the shore. But as the ferenghis
drew close a hush fell across the crowd and the music rose aloft, and
Myngun noticed some mothers held their hands over their childrens
eyes as the procession passed, as if to protect them from possession
by evil spirits.

The pavilion in which they sat had been decked with

flags. Along the riverbank, elegant canoes plied the muddy waters.
Silver-rimmed flags, white squares with a peacock embroidered at their
center, hung from the wooden poles that curved up from their prows.
Glass bottles had been inverted on the end of each pole, their slender
necks fastened to the wood with resin and wax and tied thick with
silver twine. The sun caught in these makeshift finials, and as the
boats coursed up and down the water, propelled by the kingdoms
best boatsmen, the glass bottles seemed to fill with all the hues of a

52
peacocks plumage.
His brother Daine sat facing him, sad and quiet. As if he shared
Myinguns sense that things were about to change for them. Watching
the boatsmen work the waters, turning their craft in artful circles,
Myingun wondered if the ferenghi Fytches visit had set these changes
in motion, or whether their father had put off telling them his new
plans until Fytche and his men left.
Last week Myingun and his brother Daine had played a game
that scared Daine because the spirit world, the paths of nats, held him
in constant thrall. If Daine misbehaved his grandmother would simply
mention in passing the name of a particularly malicious nat, or even
one of the Taungbyon brothers, the ancestral spirits of two pretender
kings whose job it was to monitor princely conduct, and punish those of
royal blood who fell short in their duties.
Myingun had convinced Daine that they could make themselves
invisible even from the Taungbyon princes, by climbing high up into the
tamarind tree which towered up in the corner of the garden which their
father the king had gifted to U Gaung. It was November. The pods were
bursting and full, and the fern-like leaves stirred softly in the breeze.
Into the private garden walked U Gaung, and not far behind him, a
woman.
At first they were glad of the wind that whistled through the
leaves, and the crickets who screened them, but as the leaves stirred

53
and lifted they clung on tighter to the branches, fearful of their
exposure and discovery. Someone had stifled a scream. Was it U
Gaung? Or her?
She was lain out on the grass, below the uncle, looking up at
them, into the branches, her head tilted back, in an expression at first
they thought was pain, her hair spread out on the grass. Myingun had
glanced at Daine but Daine was staring down at the scene as if in a
trance. He was no longer watching her face. His eyes stared unblinking
on the shunting, greedy rhythm of his haunches upon her, her longyi
rolled up. The scents rustled thick and rich around them, in the treetop
and down below, bugs in her hair, leaves beneath U Guangs hands, as
they pressed down beneath her armpits, pinning her in place. The
cicadas screeched louder. And Myingun looked behind him and Daine
them to the exit, the wall over which they had climbed up into this
hideout that now threatened to expose them both, and saw the tips of
a guards halberd outside the garden walls. He saw then why U Gaung
had brought her here. This was the only part of the palace he could call
his own. It was the garden that his father had given him to reward and
seal his appointment as Minister
He sensed too that what grew here was not only U Gaungs
indebtedness to the King, but also, eating away at him like the
silkworms at the leaves of his mulberry trees, his greed. As these

54
thoughts circled his head Myinguns hand began to loosen its hold on
the branch. A paralysis had set in. He tried to steady his grip but his
fingers had gone numb. As he rolled down one branch, caught just in
time and helped back up by Daine, leaves and tamarind pods rained
down, but the grunting and shunting carried on. Myngin was fastened
onto the tree now with only one arm, his legs crooked around the fork
of a branch. It was the glare of his brother, more than anything, that
pinioned him in place and held him there until U Gaung had finished
his business.
Below them was suddenly a stillness somehow terrifying and with
them the fear that their slightest movement may now be heard. U
Gaung lay spreadeagled on the grass like a spilt drink. As for the
woman, her eyes were dark and empty, and her lips, swollen from his
kissing and biting, were somehow void of expression, too. She rolled
away from the minister, her neck skewed slightly, like a birds, and her
back straight and arched and perfect, and buttoned up her jacket, but
not before Myingun and Daine had seen the sculpted, soft darkness of
her form, and the delicate marbling of her veins around her wrists. It
seemed impossible that he had seen all of this detail from up here,
from in the tree, and he began to wonder if she were not a spirit of
some sort.
It was then that U Gaung rolled onto his back and looked up,

55
through the branches. Myingun knew that he could not see him, he
and his brother had experimented for days on end with this tree. They
knew its hiding places and the clever, secret folds in its canopy, had
studied each curve of its limbs and how to conceal themselves from
each other. But he felt sure that he was looking straight at him.
As he looked upon his brother now, Myingun could scarcely
believe that only a year ago, he had wished Daine dead. Not out of any
rivalry for the throne, which was assuredly Myinguns, as the elder
brother. But out of irritation at Daines constant shadowing of his every
move. For years his young brothers imitation had flattered him, but
when he turned ten it became a source of intense irritation, close
beneath the surface of which was a fearful admiration of his brothers
ability to mimic Myinguns voices and gesture. To counter this,
Myingun mocked Daines obedience and the unquestioning respect he
fawned on all his superiors. Since the fever, when death had nearly
claimed Daine, his body shivering and grey, eyes glassy with the
failure to recognize anything or anyone, Myingun had begun to blame
himself, to wonder if the Taungbyon princes were coming for his
brother in lieu of him, if this were a case of mistaken identity. The fever
had aged Daine in ways that Myingun still did not fully understand. It
had given him a new daring, a new willingness to trespass.

Although

he could not bring himself to admit it, it was now Myingun who found
himself anxious to please and impress Daine.

56
Dust clouds scuffed up along the bank. The cornac was sat up in
front of them, whispering things to the elephant and occasionally
tapping him with a rod of supple wood. The princes palanquin was
raised up high, so that their royal heads were lifted above those of the
elephant handler, who now commanded their elephant to a halt.
The sign of Fytche leaving confused him. Fytche was going back,
but to where, Myngun was not sure. His was not a royal send off. The
King had refused to leave the palace. Fytches face, shaded under a
hat, was too far away for Myingun to read. But he held himself erect
and as he turned to wave back from the boat that carried him and his
men to the steamer, his pose was one of triumph.
There were whispers that the King had succeeded in impressing
Fytche with his might; that Fytche was returning to ask his Queen to
return to Myinguns father the land that she had stolen from him. Not
having seen the land, Myingun found it hard to imagine what it was
like. But he knew that Fytches queen had taken the temple of
Shwedagon even though she was not Buddhist and this, he knew, was
wrong. His father and the ministers had talked at length about why
she had taken all this land, and apart from their muttering about trade
and other things, he had understood that the Queen had sent her men
to Burma to take the gold and silver images of Buddha that were
embedded in the layers of gold that encased the Shwedagon pagoda.
They would be taken back to England and melted down and recast in

57
her crown. He knew that the British had also stolen the rubies from the
pagodas hti its sacred spire. When his father spoke of these things
he wore his anger on his face and in his voice.
Myingun was worried. He thought that if the Queen with the big
crown had wanted Shwedagon, she would certainly want Mahamuni,
the Buddha so clothed in gold by generations of merit-makers who
visited his shrine, that his curves had disappeared under layers of gold
leaf. He had heard his grandmother say that the Queen was no
woman, she was a man in ladies dress too scared to do her own mens
business who sent out Fetch and others to do her dirty work. The
Mahamuni pagoda was in Mandalay. He wondered if Fetch had seen it,
if that was why he was really here, looking for more gold.
***
As the steamer drew out, the British Envoy Colonel Fytche
prepared his notes, and quickly sketched an entry in his diary,
describing the send off by the four ministers. The last was the Pakhan
Woongyi, the youngest and the least pleasing of the four pillars of
state, a bilious-looking personage with large dark eyes and cold
awkward manners. He was a priest, till summoned by the present King
to take his place at court.
***
It was another two years before the Pakhan Woongyi suggested
to the King that His Majesty should return to seek the wisdom of the

58
Buddhas teachings, that he would draw new strength from the
sanctum of a monastery, strength better to face the next visit of the
British. It was all arranged.
The princes would be entrusted to the care of the Einshameen,
the Crown Prince, the Kings brother, the bejeweled, soft-soled uncle.
The court would move to Mandalay. An Italian architect was contracted
to build a new palace. As the sacred heartland of Burma, Mandalay was
better suited to the royal capital. It was the home of the Mahamuni
Buddha, the most divine image in all of Burma.
The King was easily persuaded.

CHAPTER FIVE

MANDALAY - 1866 - The Mahamuni Pagoda

Myngun stifled a cough. Although this was the end of monsoon

season, three cycles of rains should have quenched him. But his thirst
ran deeper than water. His throat itched. He flexed his ankle against
the cramp in his leg, pointing his feet back, arching his soles against
the world, retreating these the lowest points of his body away from the
statue of Buddha that rose before them, dominating the temple hall,
the sacred face and torso glistening with gold leaf.
The chief abbots voice meandered through the humid air.
Myngun focused on his blessing. His brother Daine knelt beside him.

59
Three times they touched their head to the ground, and the
palms of their hands pressed flat on the silver floor that his Uncle the
Einshameen had insisted on installing. The silver tiles were laid out
there glimmering with all the beauty of fish before scaling, the light
playing on them, bountiful in their aspect, stamped with auspicious
symbols. The tiles were laid there as an act of magnanimity designed
to strengthen his uncles merit, against Myingun and his brother
Daines wishes. Infallible proof of the Einshameens magnaminity.
Feeling the suns heat on his hands Myingun moved back slightly,
seeking out the coolness of the remaining shade.
The voice of the Venerable Ottama carried up through his
fingertips, resonating through the silver, a voice of calm and truth.
A feeling of deep quiet stole over Myngun, so strong that he had
to fight against it.
Myingun nodded. The monk took up three of the wooden sticks
and held them in his hand and delivered his blessings, his voice
growing more supple with each incantation. The pali syllables echoed
in the temple hall. Beside the monk was a bowl of lustral water.
Mynguns eyes strayed to the lotus petals floating in it, to the beads of
perfumed oil on its surface. A breeze entered through the window and
the small lacquer dipping cup began to bob in the ritual silver bowl,
reminding Myngun of a raft at sea.
Concentrate, said the monk, his voice stern. Concentrate

60
your mind on one thought, that which is most important to you.
Myingun focused on the question that crawled at the back of his mind
daily but which he never gave enough air to breathe. It was a
question whose answers now came to him in a dream, a dream that
wrenched him out of sleep and had him sitting up in a sweat-drenched
longyi, always with the feeling that there was a presence in the corner
of his room, a presence he could not lift his head to see, but that left a
lingering perfume, a scent he did not recognize, but which bore the
smell of grease. The dream that smelled and the sensation of halfwaking troubled him almost as much as the new and furtive buoyancy
in his uncles gait. But today the question had surfaced in the full light
of day and it now clung to the crumpled note that Myingun held in his
hand, passed to him that morning by his cousin, Ko Thet.
His mind closed in on the message written on the note.
Everything else dropped away, until the question burned in his mind
with all the intensity and fullness of a moon at its peak, as regnant and
confident, as his uncles face this past week.
Beware of taking comfort in the moon at its fullest, his
grandma had once cautioned him when he was gazing up in boyish
wonder at a bright new moon on the night they had moved from Ava to
the new royal capital of Mandalay. A moon at its fullest is a moon on
the brink of a new death.
Does my uncle the Einshameen mean me harm? Is how he

61
fashions the question. And then he pushes the underlying question out,
as if he were nudging a cockroach into the daylight. Does he mean to
kill me? Only when he hears his brother clear his throat does the
question that he must ask emerge. Does the Einshamen plan to kill
Daine and I both? The question has made it to his mouth but not out.
He cannot speak it. Scrunched up in his palm, as if he were trying to
strain its inky juices into his body and through his veins, is the note
that his friend Ko Thet passed him that morning as they left the eating
hall. Myngun relaxes his grip from around the note and slips it into the
sleeve of his tunic.
The monk holds up the three wooden slats and passes them to
Myingun. The monk dare not knock even the most sacred of materials
on a royal head, but he transfers his power from his palms to
Myinguns. And then he chants. Myingun raises up the wooden slats
and raps his head lightly with them, three times, so that they touch the
seat of his soul, where his hpon - his inner strength and courage resides. All this time his mind is coiled tight as a spring around that
question. He wont let any other thoughts in, especially not of her.
He focuses his mind on the note tucked into his sleeve and the
words that had seeped out of the note into inkblots on his palm. Your
Uncle, the Einshameen plans to assassinate you and your brother. We
must act now.
He passes the three long slats of polished wood back to the

62
monk. The monk dips his fingers in the water and splashes the
charmed water lightly on Myingun, three times. Next, as if he has only
just remembered the presence of the princes younger brother, he
motions at Daine, who shuffles forward on his knees, head bowed
reverent still before the monk whom they have known since their
earliest years, and the monk sprinkles the lustral water on him.
Venerable Ottama lets the sticks drop, picks up the one that falls
nearest to Myingun, and reaches for the sacred almanac. His knuckles
crack as he moves his hands over the scripture. He taps the stick upon
the almanac, as if playing a wooden instrument. He is knocking on the
door of fate, thinks Myingun; it is good that his fingers tread lightly.
The hardened palm leaf slats of the manuscript fall open with a
soft click. Myingun eyes the dark crevice between the pages that he
has tapped, feels Daines eyes on him. Myngun looks at the frail
thread that holds the manuscript together, the gilt edges of the
scripture. The room grows cold. But the sun is streaming its morning
light through the temple window, stamping the triangular penants
across the window onto the silver tiled floor in bright silhouette. The
breeze picks up again, and the shadow banner begins to flutter, the
dipping cup to move more strongly in the charmed waters. Venerable
Ottama scans the prophesy written out before him on the sacred
manuscript, parts his lips as if to speak, then gives the barest hint of a
sigh, and closes them. The breeze stills, but despite the heat Myngun

63
feels an icy calm in his stomach.
When the monk speaks again, the softness has gone from his
voice, and his words are as dry as tobacco leaves.
Perhaps your highness would like to try again?
Myingun is only 23, and although of princely title, the monks
holiness outranks him. He cannot contradict the monk, to do so would
be to lose merit, and yet he knows he must find out the true answer.
He deflects the choice to Buddha, before whom the monk is also small.
Venerable one, if the Lord Buddha chooses to speak through
you, then who am I to ask him to speak again, or more clearly? he
asks, his voice so low he worries the monks aged ears will not hear
him.
The monk attempts to compose his features but fails to mask the
displeasure he feels. So be it, he says, and then falls into a long and
laboured exhalation, his breath forming a chant, as he prepares to
channel the sacred words.
The auspicious days are long and bright and they are closing,
he reads. A time of darkness lies ahead. Beware of those who share
your fathers blood but not his heart.
Myingun sees that the monk is only pretending to read, that he is
defying the book, that what he read in the sacred manuscript was
perhaps too intricately veiled, too obtuse. U Ottama has deciphered
the ancient text into a message as clear and as dark as the shadows

64
on the floor.
Myingun had come to see U Ottama, the monk who had trained
him and Daine and their father the King before them, in their novice
vows, for an affirmation of a different sort.
Myingun knew that human darkness had its seasons. He knew
that in the sticky wet heat of this particular August, when the monsoon
had dragged on longer than any summer in the living memory of
Mandalay, conspiracies fomented faster than sweet rice, and clouded
peoples vision just as soon. He had not believed the note that Ko Thet
had passed him.
He had come seeking a path of quiescence, an affirmation that
life would go on as it always had. Instead, he had been handed a
choice, and with his brother as witness, a choice that was not a choice,
for the scriptures had spoken. The Einshameen was bound to kill them
both.
He had brought Daine along because Myingun had believed this
visit would turn out like all the others, that it would turn up good
omens, good news, no matter where the book opened, no matter what
question pressed against his temples. But on those past visits, he
reflects now, his uncle the Einshameen or one of his ministers, was
always with them, in the room or in earshot. Today the boys were
alone with fate: alone with U Ottama, Upper Burmas most feared and
revered astrologer monk, alone with him and his book and his

65
unfiltered thoughts. U Ottama, the monk who had first couched his
father in Pali, and whose mouth was now almost empty save for five
betel-stained teeth, whose eyes were ringed blue with age, but who
could still cast his voice clear and golden and glean meanings from the
scriptures like no other.
Myingun had barely had time to put away Ko Thets note that
morning when the Einshameens messengers had announced
themselves at he and his brothers quarters with an urgent
communiqu. Under order of their Uncle, the Crown Prince, the princes
must report to the Council of Chambers that afternoon at three. Still
Myingun had discounted Ko Thets warning. Now he could not.
Not a word passed between Myingun and his brother as they left
the monastery. A group of temple boys who were planting a tree in the
yard looked across at them, curious. As they moved through the
temple archway and into the shade outside, they heard Ko Thet calling,
muffled, a whisper almost, from beneath a large tamarind tree.
What did you learn? Did he read your destiny?
Ko Thet, answered Myingun. I had already read my destiny. It
was there, in your note. I merely came to seek the monks blessing for
the actions we now have to take.
The monk had risked his life for him, and he could not now
betray his confidence, not even to his closest ally. As his cousin, Ko
Thet was an ally with a motive. Myingun wished he could speak to his

66
most trusted friend Lu Pye, a friend who had no stakes in this or that
dynasty, this or that political future. But Lu Pye was on the other side
of Mandalay. There was no time.
Ko Thets face lit with a brief conceit. Doubt pumped Myinguns
heart.
We have no choice, Myingun said. We must act today.
He looked back to the temple and there, beneath the main hall in
which he had consulted the head monk, propped up against a pillar, he
sensed a shadow. Had the Eishamein sent his spies?
No, he said. Now. We have no time to lose.

[cut to next scene in palace]

New draft:
Myngun looked down to the blood trail, the spattered floor, the winesplashed feet, and felt the weight of the dah hilt in his hand grow light,
heavy, light, heavy, like a failing heart beat. He clasped his hand tight
around it and the clamour hurt his head. What he needed was quiet,
calm. Not these shouts. The sound the Einshameen had made was not
what hed expected: it was animal, desperate but not a howl or a yelp,
some stifled cry from some place unspeakably deep and then the
wound, gaping like a starved mouth, the flesh quivering as if it were
gasping for breath, as if words were bleeding from it in dark drops. He

67
needed to run his fingers along the dah, to share in some measure of
pain, of courage, he had not a single scar to show. Ma May had
sharpened up the blade, she had insisted. And now he would run, and
she could not join him.
In the time it took for all these thoughts to crowd and jabber
another thought or was it fear with the force of a club pounded his
temple and he could not admit to what he was feeling: could never
admit to it. He had done something unspeakably wrong, and worse
still, for the wrong reasons. He had killed his fathers brother, his uncle,
so as not to look a fool to his own men, so as to look like a man who
could keep his word, to a low-down cheroot-roller of all things, who had
no place in his life, so as to meet the expectations of others, because
his father had no expectations of him.
A chance dah had set him on this path; but Ma May had left
nothing to chance. She had whetted that blade so fine he could have
cut his way through the palace doors with it. But always it would feel
as if chance had planted that hungry blade in his hand, that the plans
that had set it there were the plans of others, and what had sprung the
blade to action was the gaze of others. And yet he could not blame
anyone but himself - could give no one but himself credit, is how he
tried to think of it for the way he had plunged it so deep into his uncle
then twisted it on pulling it out and heard the rip of sinew felt the knife

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stop at bone then the bone give and flesh tear, heard the scream that
never moved beyond a dark gurgle, smelt the blood, and all of this
rolled into a sliver of time before the sun had even blinked.
As he stared down at the purpled face and stiffening limbs,
Myinguns stomach clenched with the urge to vomit. His legs shook.
The holt was wet and warm, and a dark smear spread across the blade.
His hands shook. Lacquer dark drops splashed on his slippers.
He was staring at the wrong body.
The corpse at his feet, hugging the floor, face yanked open in
surprise, his tidy mustaches dead moss, was the Minister who had
leaped to the Einshameens protection.
His uncle the Einshameen was some ten feet away. His ornate hat
had rolled off and the sight of his pate, newly bald and vulnerable,
filled Myingun with rage at his uncle for making him do this thing. He
wanted to go over and put the hat back on the head, as if he could
mask his crime that way, as if his father would think better of him for
it.
A hand tugged at his sleeve. He thought he heard Ko Thets voice
and he allowed himself to be pulled along with relief. The guards were
pulling him now, out of the hall, hositing him up. His brother Daine was
looking around him as if he had lost all sense of time and place. As
they left the council chamber, horses hooves sounded somewhere

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distant. There were a crowd of supporters around him now and they
lifted him high, their cheeks a light scratch against him. Bugles from
the kings cavalry rode on the drumbeat of the horses, came closer.
Emerging from the darkness of the council chambers, the suns
glare turned him blind. Hoisted up by stronger arms than his, he sunk
into the saddle and let the horse lead.
What he took for the bodies of animals were the guards they had
cut down on their way in.
Word was already out that the King had been their target.
Myinguns hands smelt of rust and sweat, He could not stay his lips.
He did not think of her until much too late. And then wondered how his
rapid exit had looked to her, how Ma May, the delicate beauty who had
won his affection first from afar, and then from far too close, would
judge him.

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CHAPTER SIX 1866, Rangoon

They came with gold and bags of silver ticals, with a single glittering
diamond or a set of gold arm bracelets fit for a dowry. They journeyed
up from the South, paying obeisance to nostalgia, to the old order, to
the promise of something other than Manchester cottons and the reign
of trade.
Some came bearing gifts for his womenfolk, at these he would
grieve, thinking of his mother, his daughter, still behind bars in the
miserable prison in Mandalay. His wife, here with him in Rangoon, soon
asserted her position as keeper of the royal treasure, custodian and
distributor. She was learning fast that everything has its price.
The Einshameen was dead. Their followers put up a fight for
three months. They are here to hold court, to channel funds, to shape
plans.
***
Copper wire?

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Yes, Your Highness.
Myingun picked it up and rubbed it between his fingers, then held it
up close to his mouth, one hand on either end, and blew on it.
Copper wire? He repeated, looking for vibrations.
Here, speak to me. Myingun held the length of wire up to his
ear.
What shall I say?
Anything - what does it matter?
U Maung Lwin recited the princes full title.
The prince was on a couch. The wire ran down from his ear
towards his mouth, so that U Maung Lwin, crouched at one end of the
Chaise longue could still perform the duty without holding his head
higher than the prince.
Is it twisting? Asked the Prince, as if it were a divining rod.
It is not, said U Maung Lwin. Can Your Highness hear me?
Of course I can hear you, said the prince. You are kneeling four
hands away from me.
Of course Your Highness, of course. I shall fetch a longer wire.
Fetch a longer wire, U Maung Lwin ordered, and clapped his hands at
the servants waiting by the door.

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The servants looked right through him.
The prince clapped his hands. You heard him. Fetch a longer wire,
he said, and the servants scurried out, each vying to be first through
the door.

The telegraph lines will be our first point of attack, said Daine.
Myingun was less sure. How are we to rebuild them, when we
regain the throne?
Your kingdom will have no need for such new things, advised
Daine, and he glanced at U Maung Lwin.
Messages will be traded by other means. Our father the king has no
other means of sending out his command. But you and I? You have
heard the latest report. Consider how much territory our supporters
now control.
The princes adjourned to the courtyard, where a new delivery of
sand awaited the attentions of a monk. It was the season for building
sand mandalas, impermanent stupas for the veneration of Buddha.
The ceremony would start in a few days time, when the moon was at
its fullest. At Daines request, the servants had set aside a portion of
sand for his amusement. From it he had sculpted a range of small sand
hills. On each of these he had placed a pebble.

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He ordered U Maung Lwin to fetch a large rock and moved it two
paces west of his sandscape.
There, Daine, said, there is Mandalay.
And this he gestured towards a thick band of sand that snaked
around the mountains - imagine it is the southeastern coast.
These hills will be our bases.
He then reached for a bundle of incense sticks, and divided them up
between the sandhills. These, the telegraph wires that connect to the
palace
But Myingun was not paying attention.
These details bored him. His eyes kept sliding back, to the rocky
promontory that was Rangoon, the rock that held the coast of Upper
Burma. The home of the Shwedagon, the pagoda looted by the British.
Let us eat, he said, and rose, dusting the sand from his longyi. Let
us eat. The monks will soon be here, and it is past their hour of eating.
Let us finish with our victuals before it is too late to eat without eating
before them.
His entourage moved with him, as if echoing his motions.
Lately, Myinguns movements had grown quick, rash, and uncertain.
When he glanced in the mirror, he saw with fear a change he dared not
name. Something in his face fell short of what it took to be King. Since

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they had left the royal capital, his chin lacked gumption.
He rarely walked, most often was transported in his palanquin, on
the shoulders of men or elephants. But when he did, he had to take
especial care to walk straight, he secretly feared that his gait sloped
like a goats. He felt an uncertainty in his footwork, as if he were
unsure where his next step might take him.
The possibility of greatness lay in his brow, his high forehead, and
his wide open gaze. Commoners would lift their eyes to meet him, but
dare not lock eyes with him, turning their head sideways as if to avoid
the glare of the sun.
He had inherited his fathers clearsightedness, but not his calm.
That had gone to his brother, Daine.
His mouth, his upper lip, were still those of an adolescent.
He had no moustaches to speak of. For two years he had tried to
cultivate whiskers , and after that humiliation, had developed an
elaborate ritual to keep his face clean shaven.
Myingun moved his hand across his upper lip, in search of new
growth, and wrestled against the image of U Gaung. The new
ministers mustaches were the envy of the court. They curled up at the
ends with the elegant carpentry of the prows of Burmese boats. They
signaled discipline, craft, virility and sophistication.

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Myinguns prowess lay elsewhere. He had been cultivating his
strength quietly since his brothers life was nearly taken from him by
the fever. His pain threshold was unusually high for one pampered at
court, soft skinned. No-one knew from where this quality grew. His
stamina was tattooed upon him, beneath his long robes, in elaborate,
magical signs ordinarily reserved for prisoners and shamens, but which
a monk had persuaded him to have stitched upon his son as a form of
armour. With the blessing of U Ottama, unbeknownst to the
Einshameen his uncle, and much less to his father, he had breached
the taboo against the tattooing of princely flesh. In their intricate
designs, the unspoken knowledge of his inked flesh, lay his potency.
***
Myingun knows Phayres weakness, knows that he has a porosity
of the spirit, that his soul is thin-edged, like butterflies. Phayre sees
ghosts. Bigandet of France does not believe in ghosts; his heaven
cannot be seen. But Arthur Phayre from Scotland has seen his friend,
come into his quarters, ask for a cup of tea. Others dismiss it as jungle
fever, a touch of the tropics. But Arthur Phayre has seen his oldest
schoolfriend walk into his room with light stubble on his cheeks, brow
smeared with sweat from the heat of the tropics, and sit down by his
bedside. Lean forward even, and clasp his hands together, elbows on
his knees, I say old chap, awfully hot out here. Im ashamed to say I
cannot stay. Weeks after his apparition, Phayre had learned that his

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friend had died in England on the very same day he had visited him.
For this Myingun admires Phayre, feels a soulful kinship. He knows
from this confidence or thinks he knows - that he can trust Phayre.
Phayre, he tells himself, is unlike the other ferenghi in the Queen of
Englands pay. Phayre will never lie to him, not outright.
The British merchants were calling out for annexation, the louder
their cries grow, the more often Phayre calls on Myingun. The colonial
officer and the Burmese prince speak in hushed tones. The princes
house is a nest of eavesdroppers.
Fytche visits them weekly, and less frequently, they are called
upon by their fathers friend, the French Bishop Bigandet. It is the
Bishop who educates him. Not in spiritual affairs; Bigandet is too wise
to press his Catholicism on these young, hotheaded Buddhists. Instead
he speaks to them of other sacraments, of trade and duties, of
monopolies, of that gritty skein of profit and loss from which wars and
frontiers are forged. Every article in Upper Burma is a royal monopoly.
Grain, timber, cutch, and other such everyday stuff, can only be traded
by royal brokers. At the winding frontier, duties are still collected by
Burmese customs officials whose revenue is passed up to King
Mindons ministers and then, after each has taken his commission, to
the palace treasury.
The merchants in Rangoon, the backers of this new and growing

77
city with its rows of neat shophouses and its grandiose brick buildings,
outfitted, with wrought iron gates imported from Sheffield, are drooling
faster than the yellow dogs on the streets for a sight of that trade.
Sometimes, though, as if the Bishop wishes he could lure the
princes into a confessional,he asks them the simple question: who?
Who put you up to this?
Rumours with the fat heads of vultures circle the streets, feast on
gobbets of news, none of it reliable. The Princes were on their way to
kill their father when it happened; or their uncles murder was just a
practice run, a rehearsal, or the Einshameen, the uncle

who went

down, was a man of great virtue, or he was a great reformer, who

had the ear of the ministers.
Bigandet is too well versed in human weakness to believe any of
it. All on this earth bear avarice in equal measure, he believes, and all
must wrestle with the wicked pull of pride. He has seen the glint of
greed in U Gaungs eyes. The princes, to him, are biblical figures, not
prodigal sons nor fallen angels. There is a quality in them, some fibre,
some moral sinew, is moral the right word? They would not bow to
another God: this he respects. Someone put the princes up to this
murderous deed, but who? The palace is somewhere between a
spiders web and a honeycomb, a labrynth of webs, latticed with
predators and supplicants, with brokers. At the root of all evil, the

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bishop thinks, is not greed, but its negative, its outcome: debt, the
results of wanting more than one can achieve through ones own skill
or wallet.
But the princes are proud, loyal, they will not talk to him, not of
such things. Their father is a pious man, but much of the time he has
his head in the skies, hes shuttled around in a palanquin, sequestered
away in the summer palace.
The princes story is this:
The Einshameen was plotting to take the Kings life, but first he
was going to take theirs.
Padine, they say?
Oh, the Einshameens son: yes, he was in on it, oh yes. The
King was off at the Summer palace, the Einshameen had called them
to Council, yes it was August, yes they had got the letter, a tip off from
Ko Thet, his cousin, but still Myingun did not believe it. It was his
brother who had mulled over it and said there was something odd in
the Einshameens voice when he had greeted him that morning.
But where did these followers come from. They cannot have
sprung out of the woodwork?
Some were from among the palace guards, he wants to say. Two
others were stable hands, they were my best riders.

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So who was it who persuaded you to take up arms against the
Einshameen? Did he know about the dahs, hidden in their sleeves?
Who supplied the weapons? Every operation needs a planner, a
bankroller?
But the princes say little.
He lives the moment over, daily, always just after he has eaten,
always the same tearing at his bowels.
He scarcely recognized the others, cannot name them, yet he
rode on their anger, on the knife-lined sleeves of their robes, into the
council chambers, into this new time, a time he had never planned, a
time from which he will never emerge.

Chapter Seven 1866 Ma May Voice:

CHAPTER SEVEN, 1866, KARENNI STATES

80

As Mynguns movement grew and strengthened he expanded his

travels, still having to move in disguise. In Upper Burma he had feared
and fought off the Kings own army. In lower Burma, the British troops
had their eye out for us, but they were easily duped, and the kings
informants were thinly spread. We traveled without a full escort. Our
only protection other than the weapons we carried was two guards;
any more would draw suspicion.
When they began talk of the trip to the Kengtung, which would
require moving back up across British terrain and into the Kings
territory, a feeling kindled in my stomach that warned me not to be a
part of it, even though Lu Pye and I had only been married three
months. But Myingun insisted. He said I brought him luck, and I could
not refuse.
Where once display was his art, the prince now thrived at
concealment. He and Lu Pye had stashed gold leaf around their bodies.
The two of them rode up front, and I at the rear, flanked by two guards,
their allegiance to the cause tattooed along their forearms in a
peacock crest. Myingun told me that he would present me as his
translator, but that my job was to spy.
We were exhausted from long days on horseback, disoriented in
new terrain. In the Shan states, from Mandalay to Inle lake and beyond,
we were safe. Myingun had bought protection from Ya Hmen, the

81
bandit chief whose men spread a tracery of gunpowder and silver
pieces around the rebel camps dotted throughout the hills and plains of
upper Burma. Here, in the southern hills and valleys that stretched in a
thin ridge of mountains down to Burmas border with Siam, Myinguns
temper was at its worst. He detested uncertainty.

But what I most objected to was his accolyte, a novice from the
Mahamuni monastery, who claimed to be a devout disciple of the
astrologer monk. Sometimes he would peel away from the trail and
split off before us then reappear behind us. At others we would find
that he had reached our destination first. He hailed from Prome, that
much I knew.
I hid the silver pieces wound up tight in a coil of silk plaited into
my hair. In my saddlebag, rolled up, was a cloth chess-board. It was a
gift from Bigandet, the bishop. Each night at camp, Myingun and Lu
Pye would play. Sometimes a gust of wind would blow into the tent and
topple a piece.
The night before the spider bit, Myngun and Lu Pye had played
so late that they had fallen asleep, the pieces still out. A red pawn had
gone missing. We delayed leaving camp that morning to find it. At
daybreak I rolled up the chess cloth as usual, but Myingun insisted on
collecting up the pieces and on having them packed with his things.
Neither Myingun nor Lu Pye talked about the outcome of the game.

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By the time we were on the road, the sun had climbed high into
the sky, and I was nervous that we might not reach our destination
until after dark. We had wasted a day. My mood was low. I was angry
with them both for allowing a single chess piece to poison the air so.
I grabbed some red clay soil from the trail and shaped it onto a
base of clay and straw which I melded onto the knob of my saddle. I
rode with the utmost care, marvelling at its precarious survival across
the most difficult terrain.
We were on a wide open trail, skirting the hills that led away from
the thinning forests and down towards the sea, when my horse
startled, rearing up and flailing its forelegs as if it had seen a ghost. I
clung on, cleaving my upper body to her neck and pressing my knees
tight against its flanks. I did not think about the chess piece again until
we stopped to set up camp by which time the sky was already
darkening. We were still ten miles short of our final destination,
Xiengtung. All that was left of the chesspiece were a few matted flakes
of straw and clay. Lu Pye scolded me for not taking better care of my
saddle. He had bought it for me from the Muslim traders who plied the
trade routes leading down from southern China.
That night the camp was sullen. There was no chess-game. We
ate in silence.

INSERT HERE??: EDIT

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I stood in the doorway to the tent. The guards were on the other side, around the
smouldering embers of their campfire. The forest was dark and still, as if every living
creature had bored their way down beneath the earths surface from where it climbed in
this or past lives and had turned their back on the night.
My breath seemed to shout out loud and I pressed my lips together and stilled my
chest to make myself as silent as the night, but my fingers were trembling as they held the
cloth doorway back and I could not move. I summoned all the coaching grandma and
then my aunt had given me, that muteness. Mynguns back was to me. His shoulders
sloped rounded in their usual way but there was something different, defiant about his
posture.
Lu Pye was lain out on one side, an arm thrown back.
I had gone back to the tent to plant there the missing chess piece I had found
tossed aside. I thought I had imagined Myngun snatching it up and throwing it; that the
setting sun, as it glanced off the plants in the glade, was playing tricks with my vision.
But after their sullen quarrel had ended not with words or reconciliation, but with the
declaration that the game was over, as each withdrew stiffly from the cushioned floor, Lu
Pye to the tent, to rest, Myngun to seek the company of his guards, claiming that he
needed a short horseride to clear his mind, I packed away the chess pieces, rolled them in
the mat, and went to the edge of the clearing towards which Myngun had stretched his
hand out, as if to snatch or slap a mosquito, half way through the game.
The piece was there, nestled in a clump of wild grass. I picked it up, polished it.
wondering why I was not returning it to the set, and yet at the same time knowing that
possession of this piece gave me some power, some hold, some shared knowledge. I
slipped it into the waistband of my skirt As I turned to go back to my tent, I saw Lu Pye,
arms folded across his chest, staring at me, and I lowered my gaze as if to wipe clean the
guilt I felt at hiding this from him, and then lifted my head, fashioned a smile, and walked
towards him. We had been on the road for weeks, and rarely had we had the chance to be
alone, to take the pleasure in each other that was every newly-weds right. Sometimes I
wondered if the princes guards were not there to watch over me and Lu Pye. Man and

84
wife that we were it still felt shameless to slip my hand in his and follow him through the
screen to his tent where he pulled me to him, and my caresses felt like a betrayal but soon
there was no space to think and I wanted nothing other than the hot wet breath and the
hands and hips that worked to the rhythm of his want and the feel of his lips on my breast
as his teeth bit into me and the way his body quivered and spilt in and against me and the
smell of him and my cheek on his and his hands clasped firm around my shoulders were I
then told myself all I needed and as we lay there the newness of our lovemaking shielding
us from everything in its warm haze I felt a piercing loneliness deep within my chest and
dug my fingers deeper into his but still I could not rid myself of the feeling that it was
Myngun I wanted and I turned and buried my face against Lu Pyes chest as if to empty
my head of such thoughts but they only grew stronger and I was glad when his clasp
turned to a gentle caress and he eased himself away from me and still not a word did we
exchange as if we had committed an act of trespass.
The hills rise steep and thick and different trees grow here on the
trail through the Shan states. We fed the ponies bamboo leaves and,
once every other morning, jaggery - brown lumps of palm sugar. The
next morning, as we leave camp for Xiengtung, I slip an extra piece of
jaggery between my dry lips. I worked at it slowly, but by the time we
reach Xiengtung its sweet taste is gone. And the same tension
pervades the air between Myingun and my husband, Lu Pye.

A frail bamboo and thatch archway announced Xiengtung.

Beneath it stood a sullen guard who told us to wait. The horseback
monk had passed us that dawn, moving against the sun as we moved
into it. He had described the archway to us and he had also told us that
the Sawbwa of Xiengtung was elderly, cruel, fiercely jealous of his land.

85
The sentry men eyed us. Myingun produced a letter, written in
his own hand, stamped with his seal, of the highest order. On this
paper the seal is embossed with gold leaf. Lu Pye murmured to me
and I took the letter from Myingun and turned to the guards. I spoke
their language so fluently that the sentinels eyes widen.
I tell the guards that that we are messengers for the prince who
has risen up against the ferenghi, the foreigners. When the guard asks
if the prince is with them I tell him only that we are merchant friends of
the prince and that on his instructions we come bearing friendship and
tribute for the chief of Xiengtung, the sawbwa. It is too early to reveal
Myinguns identity. Perhaps we never will. Much depends on the
princes mood, on whether we are admitted.
I knew that Myinguns name travelled, but not that he would be
known this wide. It was as if his stories are carried through birdsong
and in the rustle of the leaves. The guard said he had heard tell of a
prince of who promised a new time, who wanted friendship with his
people, and he picked up his pace very slightly, and grunted over at a
sentry sleeping in the shade of a tree, and told him to take his place.
He told us to take shelter from the sun in a zayat, a resting station, a
platform with four poles and a roof, just inside the gate, but that their
horses may not enter, nor their arms.
I directed the guards to the shaded fringe of the forest that skirts
the trail. I peel some longans and rambutans, and offer them to Lu Pye

86
and Myingun, keeping a few back for the ponies. I tossed the red and
brown fruitskins into the forest, and wipe my hands in my horses
mane. The replacement gatekeeper has a sunken eye. His good eye
lingers on the horses, then their saddlebags.
I lead the horses deeper into the forest and remove from Lu Pyes
saddle the single small plate of gold buried there. There are four
plates in all, wrapped in hemp, pressed deep into the saddlery. For
days now their weight has slowed down their journey and sprouted
sores in horseflesh. I take out one only. These plates are all that we
have to insure our safe passage home. Each is wrapped in fine paper
made from lotus leaves. Inside the wrappings, on the plate, rests a
gift. A tube of red wax, a signal of future treaties, in an ornate gold
container. This was Lu Pyes idea, but somewhere along the journey,
perhaps in retaliation for the lost chess game, Myingun has begun to
talk of it as his own.
I transfer the gift from a plain cloth bag that I always carry, slung
across my left shoulder. Its strap crosses with the barrel of the musket
slung across my back.
The sun is fading by the time the first sentinel is back. He is not
running, but walking. Behind him is a man with a gold umbrella.
Behind the parasol-bearer come four men on whose shoulders is
hoisted a sedan. It is small and ornate and curtained, with room
enough for one.

87
The sentinel draws up close and looks uncertainly at the two
men.
I give the slightest nod of my head, towards Myingun.
The messenger prostrates himself before him. Myingun rises
from the bamboo mat and moves forward into the shade of the
umbrella and from there, allows himself to be assisted into the sedan.
I hand my gun to the guards, move through the rickety bamboo
gate and into the kingdom of Xiengtung, where she joins Lu Pye.
The gatekeeper moves over to the perimeter of the forest and
gathers the reins of the horses, his eyes closely trained on their faces
and hooves. He leads them to a murky dugout pond back inside the
gate, and lets them drink. Ma May hopes of all things that he will not
take the chess set. She signals to the guards to keep a close watch.
Lu Pye and I walk behind the sedan. We pass rubbish-fires, points
of light that bracelet the town. Border stones push out of the earth at
odd angles, marking the sawbwas domain. Ahead of us travels
Myingun, hoisted high. Here to make a pact in this land without ever
having set foot on Xiengtung soil. Just thinking of it has me pushing my
feet deeper into the tracks. I will make the connection for him, I think,
but part of me also dreams of rubbing my foot over his burial mound.
This feeling is going stronger and I wonder at its source.
Not a word is said as they walk to the Sawbwas palace, a
wooden building of grace and fine roofing and old wood, raised on

88
stilts, but in its quintessential form, in the height of the walls that rise
from the raised floor to the eaves, squat and elongated. It is set into
the side of a hilltop, high enough to command the area, low enough
into the summit to be protected by the gentle slopes against the harsh
wind that has crippled the trees that grow along the pathways leading
to the palace, leaning into the hillside as if in homage to their king.
The palace smells of damp and leaf-smoke. It is dark inside, but I
make out a rattan mat stretched out on the floor and in front of this
hangs a curtain.
As we enter the room the curtain is pulled back to reveal a huge
chair. It is this she sees first, dimly red and warm. Gilt inlay marks its
joinery in points of glitter that map out the silhouette of the throne and
its occupant like a constellation in the gloom. On the chair sits a man
with long jowls, his head sunk into his body. Rolls of flesh necklace his
throat as if they too were sealing wax, binding him together. Under his
eyes are dark patches, and the lines in his face run deep, pulling his
eyes down. He is wearing a gown embroidered through with gold and
silver thread. I can pick out each and every detail because as the
curtain is raised a torch is lit, it is planted there before him in a
bejeweled clay pot, the jewels are glass sequins, and the clay is
soldered together with panes of coloured glass, or vice versa.
I study his face, but his features are passive, as if someone has
pulled a layer of fine cloth across them. Like the veil Phayres wife

89
wears under her hat, to screen her from the sun, and to keep off flies.
Flies buzz here and there around the room. They are kept off the
Sawbwas face, away from his body, by two fans woven from palmleaf.
The fan-bearers have more muscle in their upper arms than the
sentries who guard the rickety gates of his kingdom.
Here in the Sawbwas kingdom, Myingun Mintha, prince of
Burma, kneels.

SPIDER SCENE
The spider pushed its way across the camp ground, a soft shadow on the night dirt. Legs
shivering and furred. Tracks thin wires of air. Myingun stared and retreated, soft soled,
not breathing, back to his mat. The spider felt the floor vibrate, stopped. Its thorax
throbbed. Myingun stopped, inches from his mat, watched as it moved, stopped, rested,
restarted. Half way across the tent floor, as if guided by Myinguns instinct, it changed
direction. Began to make its way towards Lu Pye. Myingun pulled back further onto his
mat. A small oil lamp burned in one corner of the tent.
The horseback monk had supplied the spider, nestled in a rattan box. He had held
up the box close to Myinguns ear and given it the gentlest of shakes, and Myingun had
guessed a cricket. He motioned to open the door, to honor the monks blessing, the
opportunity to free a trapped creature. Freeing the trapped insect would bring him merit.
The monk shook his head.
This was no cricket, but a spider, he explained. Nor was it any ordinary spider. It
looked like a tarantula but carried the deadliest venom in Burma. The monk was giving it

90
to Myingun for his protection, to be used against his captors, if the British were to trap
him again. Myinguns fingers had stiffened as he took possession of it. He searched for
somewhere to hide it. He had settled on his saddlebag. Even Myingun had not understood
why he had hidden it from Lu Pye and his new bride, the one whose name he could still
only barely form, and then through clenched teeth.
When Ma May crept up behind him the following day and caught him whispering
to the box, he told her it was a gift from the monastery, a powerful amulet. For three
days he had fed it: roaches, flies, mosquitoes, all delivered through a tiny door in the
wicker cage. Nursing it had fed some predator in his own heart, too.
For a long second, the spider swayed on its legs, then rotated its body around and
stared Myinguns way with eye-like fangs. As he stood and watched, eyes honing on the
shape in the gloom, Myingun felt himself breathing in time to the spiders fat pulsing rear
as it stopped, started, moved to some inner spring coiled down back through myth and
time to a place where murder was first dreamed among men. He needed to watch this
crime unfold, a game of chance that stopped just short of sin. This time there would be
no dah to wipe, no metallic scent to shun, no hands to rinse. Lu Pye turned in his sleep.
Myingun had plied him with extra cognac. His head was cocked back and a light snore
curled out of him.
***
The spider stopped and turned and felt the heat, the smell. Did not see clearly,
worked blind. Started up again. Felt some movement through the floor. Stopped. Needed
blood. So cold in that box, rattled, on horseback, tied tight, human flesh close enough to
smell but no way out. Forcefed tasteless things, things that were pushed at it. Skinny
mosquito with a fresh belly of blood making only a pinprick on his hunger, then nothing
but a scabrous bluebottle. Needed movement. Locked in. Needed air. Jostled up against
tea and cloth. Nowhere the sounds it had grown used to: no tinkling of bells, no chanting
of monks, no barking, no dogs and their rank odor as they scavenged the walls. Missed
the villagers who in search of a special magic offered it live baby mice, when the abotts
head was turned. For days now hungry, cramped, its needs whetted.
Lifted up high, the faint whistle of air, rattled, then put down somewhere dark,
grounded. More movement. A noise, air and light coming in. Same human flesh scent.

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Felt its way cautiously towards that exit, quivered at the threshold, then moved with
giddy speed. Needed to feed. Some fang-deep instinct propelled it in a certain direction.
Needed to sink its teeth deep into the softness of flesh. Lost all sense of its bodily
compass. Resisted the pull of the lure, uncertain. For a thin moment only. Wanted to turn
back, to move back to the shadow that had freed it, to the thing that had opened the box.
+++
Myingun watched and waited. The spider stood its ground. Showed no sign of its
fur-legged smallness in front of Lu Pyes warm and supine hulk. Studied its prey on bent
squat legs with an air of gravitas, as if wise to foul-play, knew that its liberation was no
act of merit. How many times had it been freed then caught by expert hands? As if it
knew the creature before it was no Branch Officer, but the closest thing to a friend that
Myingun would ever have. Myingun wanted to reach out and snatch up the spider, put it
back in its box. He had seen the monks handle it. But he stood there, watching. Waiting.
He told himself that it was too late. That the wrong move could kill him. That if he
chased it away, it might be drawn to Ma May. He imagined the fangs, the black puncture
marks they would leave in her flesh. On her bosom. Or on her lips. A poison kiss.
++++
The shadow moved towards the spider, foot-printing the earthy floor the way a
sudden wind presses into field of paddy, then stopped just as suddenly, as if the wind had
dropped. The spider stiffened at the warm shadow there by the wall, hairs bristled. A
different vibration drew it on, away, toward the prone figure, throbbing with the rhythm
of an easy heart. Pushed on by the pang of its own belly, the spider scuttled now, raced
towards it. The hulk stirred, changed position. Then a sharp squeeze of pain that was all
noise before a dark nothing.
----Ma May stood at the entrance to the tent. Myingun feigned a look of surprise,
moved over to the place where the rock had landed.
He was still holding the rattan box in his left hand, his fingers locked in paralysis.
So this is your amulet? She asked.

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That is what the monk told me. But when I opened it to make a strong wish for
the outcome of battle tomorrow, there was this I could not stop it my only thought
was to save Lu Pye.
The lies came easier each day. But that was not what worried him. However
finely crafted his lies became, they reached her the same way they had started. As raw
deceit.
At least she had seen him throw the rock. That, she knew, was true.
Lu Pye lay sleeping, hed only turned. He lay on his back now, one hand flung
out, hair long and uncoiled down his side, strands plastered to his brow in sweat. Ma May
went over to him, crouched low, put her hand to his bare chest to check his breathing,
then splayed her fingers across his throat.
No-one moved to lift the rock beneath which blood pooled in a small dark circle.
Go and rest, said Myingun. We have a long day ahead of us tomorrow.
Ma May showed no sign of leaving. She lay down out beside Lu Pye, on the bare
floor, as if to protect him.
The night was warm and smelled of resin. Myinguns cotton sarong stuck to his
thighs. He moved back to his mat. His hands were shaking. He realised he was still
holding the small rattan box.
He put the lid on it and closed it as if to capture some powerful darkness that
rested there under that rock, doubled in its venom now that it was dead.

MA MAY voice/spider scene where?:

Had I lingered any longer at the opening of the tent as the

spider made its way towards Lu Pye, I would have become an
accomplice to the crime Myingun was surely planning; if he had
not hurled the rock when he died, the action that had me running
in - Lu Pye would be dead. I loved Lu Pye with the same fondness
I might have had for a brother. Since that day in the jasmine
gardens, I had buried in silence and in the deepest shame, the
passion that I had nurtured for Myingun in my first year of service
in the palace, when I would steal glances across the audience hall

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floor. But it was a calculation - trading my image for his future,

for sure enough the Eishameen would have had him killed (- PE
note: too harsh a punishment) had he known he was up there, a
witness to the scene.
But Myingun had not seen me lingering for a little too long at the
entrance to the tent. I emerged the righteous warrior-maiden,
and aggrieved bride. What had me transfixed, wacthing the
venomous spider dart and stop, was that I had seen for the first
time a passion that Myingun had kept hidden so deep that the
power of it dismayed me. What shadow-games we played after
that: I the innocent, bereaved bride, he plundered of his soulmate and greatest friend.

Myngun: where?:

MYINGUN _ Spider scene freewrite - After:

It was a foolish thing to do but now he had done it

everything else came undone. Lu Pye turning bluer, a tight
retching pain that flew up out of his throat like a hyena bite,
Ma May so pale she was almost see-through, as if she'd
walked away off out of herself and become her own night
shadow.

Both of them looking only at each other, as if he was not

there, the dying new groom through glassy eyes, Ma May
through tears that hung like a curtain between what was
then and what was now, grey and unseeing. Then the prince
and Ma May both turned their gaze on him, Lu Pye's lips

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curling now, part grimace, part plea. His leg was twisted
and his ankle swollen thickly and his mouth the purple of a
painted lady. Myingun knowing it could not be undone but
wishing someone else had done it, that someone else was
receiving their stares.
-

He'd hurled a rock at the spider, smashed it. Its body was
now a wet bruise, hairy legs thick as telegraph wires
pincering up from under the rock as if in mock salute at the
man several times its weight, whose life it had taken.

Ma May knew him now for what he was.

All along she'd believed the story that hed fed her, about
the uncles' murder being an act of self defence, Myingun
softly asserting, cooing in her ear, that he could never kill
another. He will feed the same story to his attorney, Mr.
Leslie, in Calcutta.

The rock on the spider, its crushed life, all that he had
staged to make a hero of him in her eyes.

But her eyes were the pale milky unseeing stuff of jade. It
was her hands that saw, saw Myngun's guilt as they
kneaded the flesh of Lu Pye, out there on his mat, in a death
coil, drained of spirits. Her fingers tried to summon back the
parts of his soul that had fled.

Her silence frightened him most. No sigh or scream or cry.

Just grief stoppered tight, in a place where his own guilt
might have grown. But he told himself he should feel no
guilt, that Lu Pye had brought it on himself, for wanting Ma
May and for getting her.

Now he had lost both of them.

It was for that, for his own loss, that he hung his head in
hands that shook and rummaged his hair, and began to
sob . Outside the tent the night sounds of a strange land
shrank in his ears. The guards had lit a small fire to keep

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the mosquitos away. Through the silk of the tent walls their
silhouettes flickered like puppetry cut from buffalo hide,
demonic in outline, pot-bellied, jousting chins.
-

He had told her that they would never retreat, that their
force would win, but how he faced the worst retreat of all:
into himself. A place beyond reach, from which he will
never climb free. And how slipfisted, skidfingered were
those slopes.

Even on the edge of death, ugly, stiff and shrouded, Lu Pye

eclipses him.

Myingun's hair begins to pull at his scalp, as if its coiled

weight, the strands making his scalp tingle. Outside, the
news he scraped from under the tent has begun to walk its
spider's walk He will shave his head in mourning he tells
his secretary the next day.

A prince shave his head for a commoner?

Even though three of them have not left the tent and there
dim and half-burned out tallow candle and a copper and
glass lantern, barely enough to illuminate the tent but still
he wonders, loudly through the tent to the shape of guards
pacing up and down, shadows rippling, how the prince and
his loyal follower must look to them.
[Sketch of scene wher Lu Pye - Ma May when dawn rose an

the light upon his face woke him Myingun still willing it all to
have been a dream - with Lu Pye to be there, pouting about
the chess game, refusing to yield victory, or humming
lightly. There was no hum. No victory banter. No talk of
chess spoils. She gone from his forces, the Armenian doctor
had arrived with the leather suitcase too late to matter.

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Together they had carried his body wrapped in Myingun's

banner, deep into the woords.
CHAPTER EIGHT - 1867, Rangoon - CHURCH SCENE

It could have been a warehouse or a store or any other kind of

building. The walls were teak and looked solid enough to keep out the
rain. He wondered if this was the right address. Two willows hung
across the entrance obscuring the doorway from the street. A fence
lurched sideways on its postings. The ground had been whipped to
mud in the monsoon. A few large Chinese urns held their ground here
and there. Way out back, another row of railings. Behind them were a
few slabs of stone, posted upright like boundary markers.
The rain lashed down. Myingun took shelter under one of the
willows. He tried pressing his body against the knotted bark but that
only made him colder.
Although the inclement weather upset the logic of his behaviour never run while on the run - habit slowed his legs and he walked with
slow deliberate paces, the mud sucking at the soles of his boots. He
approached the wooden door and saw the green metal latch that the
Scottish banker Mackertoon had described to him in detail. He lifted
the latch and pushed the door open.
His gasp came in a long shudder and he wondered for how long he

97
had been holding his breath. Inside was a dim mess of rafters. Red
tatters of cloth hung from them and what sounded like rats feet
scampered below. Rows of wooden benches ran across the middle.
Between them, a walkway. The walls were lined inside with another
kind of wood, not teak. It was flaking and damp in patches.
Myingun took his shoes off in the doorway, but then worried they
would be bait for idle eyes. He picked them up and carried them in
with him.
On the way back from Xiengtung, when the fighting had slowed his
return to Rangoon, he and Lu Pye and Ma May had once set up camp
in a Buddhist temple, not to fight from, but to shelter in. The very next
day had come his greatest loss.
Now he wondered if his instincts were all wrong, if Mackertoon was
to be trusted. What he did know was that he was only safe here for as
long as no-one with a memory for faces spied him crossing the
grounds, and then he would have to run. But inside he was protected in
some way; he was in what Bigandet called a house of God.
In Mandalay, Marks had told his father that the ferenghis churches
were just as sacred as Buddhas temples and it was because they
lacked the gold and glitter that you could trust them.
We Christians wear that gilded lining in our hearts, he had said. In
a church youll come to no harm, neither your soul nor your body, in a

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house of worship. His boys ears had heard a house of warship, and
hed imagined harm kept at bay by guns as big as the cannons that
weighed down the British steamers.
The building seemed empty except for the faint hymnal of the rats
and what sounded like birds nesting and scuffling. Above he heard a
squelch and looked up to see two plump geckos coupling on the
ceiling. Pinned up against the far wall on two pieces of wood, oblivious
to this rude orgy, a gentle face stared down at him with curling hair
and a neat beard, his torso flexed as if in torture, three crimson
teardrops painted on his chest.
Myingun went up to the figure on the cross and remembered Fetch
and his men and how they had never kneeled even before his father.
He remembered how Lu Pye was taken from them the day after they
took refuge in a Buddhist temple. He got down and kneeled as he
would have done before a Buddha, his unshod feet pointed away from
the statue. He stopped short of touching his head on the ground three
times. But he placed his hands in the Burmese greeting that Christians
often mistook for prayer, uncertain of what to wish for.
He wasnt even sure if he was doing this for cover or because he felt
something sacred there in that dank hall, something bigger than
Bigandet and Marks.
There was no incense, no flowers. Nothing to offer save his worn

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thoughts. He focused on the smile and began to wonder if a Burmese
sculptor had carved those lips. Beneath it, his eyes traveled to the
raised ribs. And they spoke of the same suffering, of the same dukkha,
that ran like a vein through Buddhas teachings.
His own ribs felt hewn tight not with hunger but from fear, he waited
like this, shivering slightly, his jacket clinging to him, his headcloth
leaking muddy rivulets down into his eyes, hoping he was not brewing
a fever.
His gaze was trained straight ahead, on the statue, when he heard
the footsteps. They rang and clipped across the floor. They sounded
like a captains boots, and he hoped that they were Mackertoons.
Do not turn to face me, said a voice he did not recognize.
When I have closed the door behind me, and only when you have
heard me close the key, then turn and pick up the note that I will leave
on the table by the exit. You must leave through the side door. No-one
will see you. You will walk south for around one thousand paces until
you come to the banyan tree. Once you have reached it, and only then,
follow the directions and seek the house that is in the note.

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CHAPTER NINE, 1867

- Outskirts of Rangoon (Chau Yats

House)

The rain has abated now but not his fever. The heat of it presses into
him, chafes his bones.
The house is too close to the foreign houses. After the banyan
tree comes the edge of the British cantonment, avenues that lead
away into the white quarter, glimpses of red brick mansions and rolling
driveways.
Then the driveway with the stone garudas, the teeth-beaked lionbirds, wings outstretched to catch intruders. Between them stretch
two high gates, joined by an oval lock at once heavy and intricate
enough to keep any danger out. Or in, Myingun thinks. The two halves

101
of the lock are shut clam-shell tight. Myingun has already destroyed
the note, on reading it had committed the directions and dimensions of
his next destination to memory. But still he hesitates. And then he
sees it. Wrought into the iron gates, one on each side, are Chau Yats
initials.
His feet act begin to swivel on the still muddied grit, turning him
back to elsewhere, to other safe-houses. Once visited, he knows, safehouses are no longer safe. But they may still be a safer place than this.
But even as his feet turn away, he is leaning into the gate, his
hands sliding on the rain-damp rails, wondering if she will be here, too.
What do you want? A voice that could have come from the
garudas, coarse as stone, teeth jutting out from a birdlike mouth. The
gatekeeper is tall and sullen with skin the colour of fish-sauce. Keys
clank in a chain around his neck, and his face is drawn lean.
Im here to see Chau Yat.
He expecting you?
Yes. Tell him I have a message for him.
Then Ill call him. But tradesman come round the back.

Will Chau Yat recognize him? This is how I travel now, he will
explain to him: incognito. A word he and Chau Yats brother had both
learned from Dr. Marks on those long afternoons when suffering had

102
meant nothing more or less to him than Latin grammar.
Myingun made his way around the outer walls of the house to the
servants quarters and stood at the back entrance, trying to get the
attention of a group of servants at the water pump. Their eyes
skimmed over him as if he were just another beggar. It was the cook
with the lazy eye who took notice of him, came over. At the look she
gives him when he tells her that Chau Yat is expecting him, he begins
to doubt it himself. The mosquitoes flicker around his shins as he waits.
His father had warned him about what happens to royal blood when
mosquitoes bite and suck and taint it.
Chao Yat appears. Looks him over. His expression is impossible to
read.
You have a message for me? Why did you not give it to my
guard?
I was told to commit it to memory, and to only tell you within the
walls.
When he walks through the back door a guard comes over to
search him Chau Yat raises his palm, wards him off, and addresses the
yard.
Fetch him fresh clothes. Bring refreshments, he commands noone in particular. He is about to address the gatekeeper, but instead
turns to cook. Keep watch, he says, his voice lowered. Keep watch
for the police.

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From the front of the yard, the gatekeeper looks back at Myingun
as he might have eyed a piece of jewelry lying around for the taking.
Myingun felt a coldness in his stomach, and lowered his head.
Are your staff to be trusted? He asks when they are inside.
Chau Yat flicks out his generous hands at Minguns doubts, as if
to shoo off insects. My staff, and their families before them, have
served my family for generations, he said.
Myingun does not tell Chau Yat that he has left twenty-five
followers from Mandalay in Keemindyne, in the village near the
Rangoon garrison. He tells him only that he needs rest. When he asks
Chau Yat how he knew to find him at the church, and how he knew
Mackertoon, Chau Yat looks at him as if he had lost his mind. What
church? he asks.
How is your brother? Myingun asks.
Chau Yat shook his head with sadness. You did not hear?
No, Myingun lies.
Lu Pye went north to join your movement. He worshipped you,
you knew that, did you not? He who was so good, so quiet, so eager to
please. You were everything he could never have, or be. Our father you see - we never wanted, not for anything. But royalty, that cannot
be bought. And when you rose up against the Einshameen, you, only

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23, and your brother - what?
Twenty.
To Lu Pye that was what marked you both off as his heroes. And
me, I thought - the rumours were - that you and your brother would be
the next Nat pair, spirit princes, circling the mountains of Burma. I
gave you weeks, months. I tried to talk him out of it. Lu Pye, he had
your will but not your luck. Courage, yes, more thanHe thought that
courage alone was enough. Courage, and - and
He did not need to speak her name. They observed a moment of
silence, and then Chau Yats voice fluted up.
What were you thinking, leading him down that path? Father
would have none of it. Thought she was a gold-digger, only after our
wealth. Lu Pye, he said again, and shook his head.
Myingun blinked. When he was younger, much younger, his father
had taken him to a healer, to cure him of this weakness. But no cures,
no chants, no enticements or punishments, would work against it. To
silence his brothers teasing, Myingun risked dares and death. He
could lead an army, dig a knife into his own flesh to insert a gemstone,
and not flinch a muscle in his face when the most artful tattooer in the
Shan States worked his painful magic on his back. But that was a
different form of discipline. Tears remained beyond his control.

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How did he die? He needs to hear it again.
Chau Yat looked Myingun over carefully, as if he were reviewing
one of the ledgers laid out on the rosewood desk in his office. The
rolltop clatters now as Chau Yat gives it a gentle push, then lets it fall.
The room smells of linseed oil.
The messenger who brought the news said it was quick, said he
had seen it with his own eyes.
And Ma May? What became of her?
You who have been away from us so long that you forget your
own. The voice traveled on a soft footfall. Myingun turned to find her,
as delicate as ever, but with a harder, steely look. A scar ran across
her forearm. As she set the teacup down on the tabletop he heard
within its rattle the sound of a spirit, breaking.
Welcome she said. Her smile was as flat as a brushstroke of
lacquer on a wooden cup.
He looked down at his feet, then back up at her.
In-Cog-Neato she intones, as if uttering a chant. Her voice is flat,
hollow, bereft of music. She turns and leaves the room.
I promised him, if anything happened to him, I would take her in
says Chau Yat. But you knew that. You were one of the last to see my
brother alive.
Mingun gets up. His clothes are sticking to him, he wants to
change, to wash off this dirt, this feeling. He moves across the room

106
and studies the long wooden and glass contraption on the wall.
My latest acquisition from England, says Chau Yat, and walks
across the room to join him.
STORMY RAIN FINE WARM HUMID DAMP. Myingun reads them
aloud, as if they were words from his old Latin primer, unsure of their
meaning. The words are etched in brass, along notches on a line that
stretches up and down like a rail track sundered through the middle by
a slender glass tube in which is trapped a silvery green liquid.
A new device, to predict the weather. They call it a barometer.
You were always the first to get things, said Myingun. Even
before the king. The first with possessions. The first with gossip. The
first with news. Do you have any?
Their eyes meet, for a second, and then Chau Yat looks away.
Forgive me, you must be tired. Let me show me your room.
But Myingun does not move. He will not follow him any deeper
into this house. He will show his host that he can handle as much
discomfort as his followers. He knows it is no substitute for Lu Pyes
loss. But the more his doubt tickles, the more he needs to make this
show of trust. Those who shout loudest have the least faith in their
words, his grandmother had once taught him. They shout loud
because they hope, somewhere, someone, will catch on to what they
say and find truth in it. He will share his bed with ticks, and gnats, in
the outdoor house. He insists upon it. It is his penance.

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What could be safer? he asks. Who would ever think of
looking for a prince in an outhouse?
With this open invitation to betrayal, he vouches his trust in his
host.

Myingun stretched out on the cool rattan mat, and fanned his hands
out at either side, pressing his palms firm against the hard wood floor.
From a life of retainers and escorts, a life at court, he has learned to
move alone. When his father the king gone off to the monastery and
entrusted Myingun and Daine to their uncle, he had learned how not to
rely on others. Envy was a slow and artful master, and it spread across
his uncle the Einshameens face in almost invisible increments. In Dr.
Marks class there was a faded book, with line drawings of different
faces of British and French Kings, each with a different date under
them.
At court, Myingun made his own book of faces. It was a book he
kept in his head. There was the minister with the razor-thin lips, the
counsellor with a winestain birthmark across his forehead, and the
court physician whose blandness was his most distinctive feature.
Ministers, advisors, merchants, visitors. He would shuffle them around
in his head. From their traffic in words, their trade in looks, the way
they held themselves, he learned what his absentee father could not

108
impart, and what his uncle would not.
Watch him, his grandma had said of U Gaung, U Gaung who
was always watching them, U Gaung whom his father trusted more
than his own brother, more than his sons. U Gaung, their fathers new
advisor, who had cast off his monks robes, who became the Pakhan
Wungyi. The Pakhan Wungyi upon whom Myingun and Daine spied
from high up in the tree. U Gaung, the Pakhan Wungyi, who was still his
fathers favorite, and who has won three new promotions, who casts off
old titles quicker than snakeskin. Who has now gained a new title, one
that cannot be shed, because it is the highest honor possible. Kinwun
Mingyi.
Watch him, he had heard his mother counsel his father one
day, when he was only ten. Watch U Gaung. Myingun was not
supposed to be listening. Not even supposed to be in the room. He had
gone back in to collect a toy he had left, a small clockwork drummer
boy that was among the gifts from Fytche. It had a key in the back.
And when he heard his fathers tone, his insistence that this was no
womens business, that he needed no watching, that she would do
better to watch the household and focus on the marriage prospects of
her sons, Myingun had taken on a new mission. He would watch the
new minister.
But ever since that day, he had felt the minister watching him.

109
The floor was thick with grime. Down below, through the wooden
boards, he could hear the chickens scratching in the dirt. Someone,
probably cook, was moving to the water urn to scoop up water. His
wound was itching and he wondered if that meant rain would come
today. He thought of Chau Yats new contraption, the weather
measure. He thought about how the gatekeeper had looked him over
when he turned that lock. His shoulders gew tense.
He would stay two nights here at Chau Yats place, or maybe
three. Hed hear the story from her, about what had really happened to
Chau Yats brother, the day Myingun went on ahead and left he and Ma
May behind, without the armed escort. The day after they had bid
farewell to the Sawbwa of Xiengtung. It was Lu Pye who had insisted
the guards should follow Myingun. Before he left, Myingun had made
sure that Ma May carried the musket on her, and checked himself to
see that it was loaded. He still remembers the smell of jaggery on her
breath as he leaned in closer than he should have, to hand the musket
back to her. Before he crosses the border again, he tells himself, he
will journey to that distant place and pay his respects, even if nothing
more marks Lu Pyes grave than a patch of scrub and rock.
He runs his right hand across his forearm and lets it rest a while
on the scarred line beneath which the Buddha image sits, smaller than
his little finger nail, carved from a single sapphire, blessed by the most
powerful spirit medium in the Karenni states, his protection.

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He tries not to think about the one that was probably gouged out
of Lu Pyes body when they found him. Maybe the spirit medium had
not been focusing when he made his blessing, or maybe the craftsman
was impious, or the sapphire impure. Myinguns talisman had seen
him through.
He was drifting between sleep and wakefulness when the dogs
started barking. He heard horse hooves drumming, and the clanking
and pushing of metal. And then in Burmese and English, almost
simultaneously: POLICE! Open up. It wasnt yet first cock crow. He
looked around him for an out. Cursed himself for not thinking through
all this last night. Cursed himself again for succumbing to sleep, to the
sweet feeling of trust. There was one window, with metal bars down it,
and one flight of wooden stairs that led down to where the animals
were kept.
But a circle of light is moving down below, through the
floorboards, and behind it the clip of heels and the rough murmur of
authority. He glimpses through the slats the turban of one of the Sikh
sepoys. There is no out this time. He must leave, but he will not leave
the way he came. He will not be caught rushing for the sevants exit,
with his back to them. He will rise to greet his captors.
He has grown used to moving in the dark. He picks his way
across the room, and down the steps, in nothing but his longyi,
unarmed but for the Buddha talisman buried deep.

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Greetings Officer! It is my pleasure to receive you.
Raise your hands now! Shouts the police officer, as if Myingun
had a gun tucked in his longyi, or poison arrows.
Whats going on Chau Yats voice slices the dawn. In the sky is
a pale disc of a moon. Myingun looks over at his host and notices that
he has had time to put on his robe and slippers. But he knows from
Chau Yats look of bewilderment that he, too, has been caught by
surprise. He has taken the time to dress because he will try and defend
Myingun before the police.
The policeman looks uneasy, as if unsure of his next move. If he
manhandles the prince, the natives might get restless, that has always
been Myinguns strength. Not what he can do, but their anxiety about
what might happen if they rough him up.
The cook and the other staff are all awake now, moving
imperceptibly closer, as if they cant quite believe that this is the
Myingun Prince. He knows from their faces that they were not the ones
to tip off the police.
He sees the cook put her hands together and bow down low, she
is directly behind the police, who are (stupidly, Myingun cant help
thinking) now fanned out in a semi circle. The two Sikh mounted police
are on either side, and the whey-faced captain, holstered up, gun at
the ready, in the middle. On one side of him, a Burmese interpreter
and on the other, an auxiliary officer.

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Since Myingun has been on the run, time has taken on new
dimensions. Sometimes it stretches out elastic in a moment that might
be no longer than it takes a cock to crow. Then days and weeks can
pass until hes lost count of where in the year he is.
Everyone is looking at him, even the dogs, restrained now by
long leashes.
He wonders what piece of clothing the garuda-teethed
gatekeeper had pilfered to help them track his scent, and wonders too
at the price of his dishonour. Did they pay in cash or prizes, ticals or
the promise of a job with the colonial guard? He hopes it was not his
Karenni longyi. This was his only physical souvenir of Ma May.
He knows that Chau Yat will have sent a message out already to
his network. He hopes that the messenger is Ma May, weaving her
way through the streets now, putting out word. Imagines that this new
mission will have returned some colour to her cheeks.
HALT! Yells the police man again.
Myingun says nothing. He wonders how they will get him. He is
half way down the wooden stairway. If he obeys their command, then
the policeman must come up to meet him halfway.
Myingun halts. His hands, raised at either side, give him balance.
The policeman is looking more nervous now. Myingun can see
the tremor in his hand, the hand holding the gun, and at this moment
he thinks of Ma May, and of the first night he and Lu Pye saw her, at

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the street theater, the phwe in Mandalay that night he struck out alone
from the palace, not as a murderer on the run, but a boy fulfilling a
dare. He remembers how Ma May handled herself on the stage, all
eyes on her, and for no other reason than to draw that moment out
until the sun moves just one hairs breadth higher up into the morning
sky, he begins to sing.
Quiet! yells the policeman.
The policeman nods to the Sikh sepoys to move in. They walk
their horses over until Myingun can smell the faint trace of manure. He
wonders at their stability and assurance. The captain puts his foot on
the first step. He raises his gun. Myingun raises his voice.
The interpreter looks nervous, ashamed even. Myingun wonders
if he can even remember how to address royalty.
Myingun takes a step back up the stairs.
Halt there says the policeman.
Someone, somehow, has called for reinforcements. He hears
more horses pulling up, and a scurrying, whinnying, dogs barking and
further away, voices spreading out across the street. He knows that Ma
May is out there, going house to house, whispering, telling them to go
visit Chau Yats house, hoping to build enough distraction to give him
his chance to flee.
For the past eighteen months he has done nothing but run. But
he knows if he runs now, he will lose all his dignity, and that even if he

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only loses it before an ageing woman with a lazy eye, that will be
enough to foreswear his future, because it is in these people that his
future lies.
Myingun lifts his hands in the air, high, and he tries to bring
grace to that gesture, and to his limbs, as he moves down the stairs.
The policemans gun is trained on him, on his mouth, his singing
mouth. But Myingun knows that he will not shoot. The world outside,
the murmur on the streets, the threat of another uprising, the
policemans ambition: these are his safety catch.
Cuff him, snaps the policeman.
I said cuff him. Handcuffs.
A struggle is playing out on the interpreters face. Myingun looks
at him and says softly, in Burmese, It is alright.
The interpreter looks at the policeman. We cannot handcuff
him, he says. He is a prince, after all. The people will be angry.
Sweat fans out from the crease in the policemans forehead, and
there is a new jitteriness to his movements. At least twice he has had
to wipe his left palm on his coat sleeve. The gun is slipping in his grip.
Outside the gates, the monks have gathered now, seeking alms.
Something has startled the horses.
The policeman looks around.
In that fraction of time sits Minguns future. But he is too tired,
too tired of running. He extends his hands out.

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Cuff me, he says to the interpreter.
The interpreter cannot disobey.
The policeman is rocking back on his feet. Hes wondering where
the reinforcements are, thinks Myingun.
Chau Yat has gone out to the front to disperse the crowds.
And him! The policeman yells. The house owner. He is under
arrest too.
No, says Myingun. He has done nothing wrong. He did not
know. If you take me, you take me alone. Otherwise, you will have to
shoot me.
The monks have pushed past Chau Yat. They move through the
gates and form a silent line around the scene, a saffron cordon.
Younger brother, Myingun addresses the interpreter. I suggest
you turn your attention to your supervisors leg.
The interpreter glances and a tiny crack, a skinny vein, works his
way up through his expression with the same speed that the scorpion
is now scuttling across the yard, its ridged tail curled back up over its
shiny black armour. It stops just as suddenly, at the policemans heel.
Is that Lu Pyes doing, Myingun cant help but wonder. Is the
emperor scorpion a sign?
The policeman has noticed nothing. His eyes are trained squarely
on Myingun, his two hands squeezing his pistol tight.
Sir, says the intepreter. SIR he says, louder.

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Ill do the speaking, you do the translating, the policeman says
from the side of his mouth. Something in the air reminds Myingun of
crickets, the sounds they make by just rubbing their wings together,
and he begins to lower his hands.
Keep your hands raised above your head, yells the policeman.
The Burmese translation comes as an echo, and then the gun goes off.
But its not a bang at all, its a sound like a thousand sailors whistles
squeezed through an hourglass. The policeman is yelping now,
squealing, as he tugs at his boot, flat on his back, the dust riffing up
from the seam the bullet has sown in the ground. The monks watch in
silence. And then they begin to chant.
Order, comes another cry, and a sound like ten gates opening.
But its not gates, its guns, clicking open.
A man with a face shaped like a mango and a wiry moustache is
approaching him now. His safari hat reminds Myingun of an upturned
alms-bowl, there is egg caught in his moustache, and a faint whiff of
fish, kedgeree, thinks Myingun. The man walks up to him draws his
hands together in a gesture of respect, makes a slight body bow, and
parts his lips.
MIngalaba he says.
Good morning, Mr Fitche, says Myingun.

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ANDAMANS
Indian dacoits and thuggees are being sent out by the boatload,
to Singapore, to work on tin-mines, to help build the British colony, and
in the Andamans, too, he will never forget the subtle body bows of
rows and rows of Burmese from Moulmein, shipped there to work like
cattle, tattooed. When he had landed in the Andamans, the penal
colony, en route to Chunar, he had looked among them for familiar
faces. Seeing no-one knew, he was only faintly relieved that none of
his travelling companions were there, among the thin-ribbed, sickly
rows of prisoners, shackled up, growing crops for others, coffee, tea,
arrowroot, for European palates, and the cruelest labor of all: building
boats to ship the goods, while their own life was reefed here. But at
least they were making something that would last beyond their sweatdoused life in chains. What could he build? Alliances, makeshift courts,
but nothing permanent, no monument.

[Burial]
DIfferent freewrite/section: Andamans The rage he had felt at his father's decision to entrust his
kingdom to the Einshameen was nothing to this. Excluded from
his own kingdom by foreigners who had known him for all of months. Excluded by intruders into his world. Who had closed
ranks against him. Declared him a murderer before he'd had a
chance to mount his own defence.
By those egg-headed ferenghis. Who had not even the
courage for tattoos.

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In captivity, he grew back his moustache. But there was no

mirror, no one to clip it.
He ran his fingers over the moustache. Tugged at its lack of
form. His gaolers were staring at him, talking. He looked past
them. His groin itched, he feared lice. His mother and sister, in
Mandalay jail, how were they faring? He tugged at his
moustache.
There were others in the boat. He had no need to know them;
they are inferior, he tells himself. There are no women. Only the
scent of men. The dark is unrepentant. The smell of rust eats
away at him. Rotting sail cloth, mildewed rope. Faeces and
urine: vomit. No taste of sky, only this cabin air hugging him too
close.
He fingers the sapphire under his skin. Blue veined. Bule
blood, the British said - what made royal blood blue? He had no
answer for that. His blood was crimson as a whetted knife testing
a flesh-wound. He knew because he had seen it.
A match would do. A flint. Anything to relieve the dark.
Jasmine flowers, fish sauce, pickled tea, anything but this stench
of them. His nails are broken, ragged. His knees sag. The cage
is made of bamboo cut too short, even for him. Is it a child's
cage? His breathing comes uneasy at nights. He fights sleep,
makes himself stay awake until the others are sleep. Cannot let
them see him in this indignity.
His mother will be cursing him now. He feels a worm inside,
roping its way through his gut. Squeezing him from within. He
breaks out in a sweat, shudders, his throat prickles. At least the
guard let him keep the slippers. Soft silk and embroidered by
her a design only he can understand.
His bones ache. When he reaches his hand to his head, his
hair comes out in clumps. He can push his tongue through his
teeth and feel their loose decay. He works at one tooth out of
boredom, squat on his haunches. Imagines the roof of his mouth,

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the sour furze of his tongue, a kingdom for the taking; the teeth
his battlements. He sits back down, curls up again the cell wall,
dozes off. In his dreams the sole of his feet become horse shoes,
the shoes the British brought and tried to nail to an elephant.
Myngun turned his back to the warden. Mr X always did his rounds at the same time
each morning. He seemed taller then; by four pm each day, when he left his office for his
home, he had shrunk into himself, walked with a slight stoop, as if carrying some newly
discovered weight upon him. Myngun would watch from a distance, through the opera
glass the Baron had given him for his amusement. The warden had inspected it and
declared it harmless.
His was not an unkind face. His eyes, somewhat large for their hoods, blinked
uncertain but not exactly startled. His moustache was the colour of galangan. His stride
was stiff and his shoulders even when stooping as the dusk drew nearer, seemed tense
with the expectation of disorder. It was a body deeply suspicious of the world, a body
that relaxed only when in the company of Englishmen.
He kept order where he could.
He purchased, for Myngun, a new statue of Buddha to replace the careworn icon his
father had sent him from Sri Lanka. It was mis-shapen, the wood splintered, the gold
worn thin as moth-wing. But it had an aura that Mr. X could neither see nor sense.
Myngun thanked him for the new Buddha image, stretched his lips to form a smile.

CHAPTER TEN

BENARES, 1867

Benares is a city of ashes and blossoms, of pale marigold wreaths, and

jasmine; a city of coastal cliffs suffused with spirits, thick scents and
thin tempers; a city that consumes its own dead and breathes out holy
smoke from their pyres. Myingun had known nothing like its twisting
brick and cobblestone. Mandalay, Prome, Yangon, the cities of his other
life, were laid out flat, crafted in neat grids. Benares rose up and out of
the Ganges as if sculpted in the image of some divinity.

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When the monsoon came, the waters rose up the ribcage of the
citys steps, hewn out of the Ganges, and higher still, up through its
clavicle. Storm waters swallowed up the pyres. The smoke dampens
everything, feeds on incense, licks its way through the streets. Still the
roses come in boatloads; from Cairo, from Alexandria, from Damascus,
their petals littering the brown water. Blood-red hibiscus, whose papery
petals are steeped into a tea, is for sale in the alleys, raised up high
away from the monsoon swell, and the bel-tree leaves, shaped like
Shivas trident.
Myinguns supporters come in droves, in those first weeks. They
come with the rustle of intrigue, bearing the crackle of papers. Among
them, at last, is a mapmaker.
Not that Myingun had needed a map to orient himself on the
boat from Fort Chunar to Benares, or even through this holy city with
its pretty Ghats and pulsing rivers, narrow streets and pastel walls,
cobbled paths and minarets. There were shrines everywhere you
turned, and running around it, the pilgrimage route, a broad avenue
lined with banyan and fig trees. His father, King Mindon, had put
pressure on the British; had raised his objection to his offspring, his
own two sons, however rebellious, being treated like criminals, and
locked up like commoners.

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Here in Benares, the houses are tiered up, higgledy piggledy, like
the zayats and shrines that clustered the walkway to Mount Popa north
of Mandalay. Here in Benares, in the red and earthy brick, from the
ornate balconies and turrets, washing flies, cats leap. Spiced soups
spread tendrils in the air, alongside saffron and henna. There are other
smells too, bitter, decadent, pungent: the work of the untouchables,
whose slop buckets shift waste around the city. Amid the strains of
music and voices, plying across the siren-like call of the port, the slap
of the water on the banks, funereal traffic plies the river; cremated
barges, ghostly cargo.
Myingun sees all this from his window as he and his secretary, U
Maung Lwin, play their favourite guessing game of watching the
watchers. Their eyes are directed to two British agents on the street
corner to the west of their house. In each new port, Myingun learns
again the lesson of exile: trust no-one. Since his betrayal by one of his
household in Rangoon, he handpicks his domestics. His wife gives
them a second screening, his secretary, a third. What tin-pot court
would uphold the evidence of a disgruntled maid, a maid who was
fired for thievery, no less?
Behind the drapes, Myingun trains his spyglass on the two men
below.
Look at him today. Those downcast eyes? Must have argued

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with his mistress.
Let me see - No, he was out drinking. See his red and puffy
cheeks?.
As for old tamarind-whiskers, hes worried about something
bigger than my movements. See that new jacket? Isnt the expression
plain clothes - do the British pay for that?
His spy glass falls on someone else, a figure of stealth and grace,
dressed like a hermit, his left hand wrapped around a glossy, knotted
staff. What wood is that: tamarind? Ebony?
Is that him? Myingun asks, his voice fluting up. The mapmaker
- Is that him? Hes early.
Wait - Yes, thats him, says U Maung Lwin.
Remind me again of his name.
U Yit, Your Highness. U Yit.
U Yit has been sent by the Shans from Chiangmai, in Siam.
It is 28 January, 1871.
Since Myingun moved here from Fort Chunar, replacing a locked
cell with this bibelot, open jail, his well-wishers come in threes and
fives and sevens. They come bearing messages, some from chieftains,
some from financiers, some from monks. Always he sifts through the

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messages for news of his mother and his infant daughter, even as they
become stilled with the patina of forgetting.
There are others with whom he can discuss such sorrows, others
like him. Thakur Singh, cousin of Duleep Singh, the Maharajah, a
puppet of Queen Victoria.
In Chunar, his first place of captivity, when his Sikh gaolers had
finished their rounds, they would speak in fearful, hushed tones to
Myingun of what had happened to the men on duty who had let the
Maharajahs mother escape. She had disguised herself as a poorwoman, had walked out slow and sure in a dress unfit to walk on.
In Chunar, during those long weeks of waiting to know his next
destination, he had laid out the seeds of an escape plan, but they were
stymied by his fear of discovery, of betrayal. Since Mandalay, and
then Rangoon, his trust in others has been whittled down from his
broad, boyhood ease to the width of the moonlit bar on his cell window.
At first he had spat on the ground in front of them, and told them
they were worse than dogs, thieves, that their fathers were the sons of
the whores of dacoits, they had no honor, that they were shackled to
their English masters, slaves, paid bandits, and still they thieved,
ransacked the tombs, yes he knew, it was the Sikhs alright, their
spotless turbans, bandages tightly coiled around their bad karma, hed
spat.

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His Sikh gaolers face had turned crimson but still he had stood,
upright as a sword, and said without a quiver in his voice, I know well
the honor of your Burmese brethren, my father died defending those
British soldiers, trim in their red and gold jackets, oh so proud, fodder
we were for them. Then he dropped his voice low, so low that Mingun
scarcely knew if he was hearing or imagining the words, Our day will
come, they say, in the prophecy, our day will come.
As soon as he was out of Fort Chunar, Myingun had sent word
through his clandestine networks, for a map. It was not just that the
British maps stopped at the borders of British India, as if hemmed in by
the limits of British merchant and seamen, by the vision of its officials.
The English maps were no good. Ladies finery he scoffed, pushing
away the maps U Lwin had brought him, maps that had been bought,
traded, smuggled out of Special Branch, out of Government House,
rough copies. Garlands of rouge, their pink and red squares and lines,
they dont even know what lies beneath. Where are the tracks
through the forests and mountain paths? Myingun had asked. These
papers were worthless. Send for a Burmese map-maker; one who
cannot only wriggle a brush, but who has also walked the land.
Drawn on the 8thth day of waxing of the eleventh month 1232 of
the Burmese era. He has only this sepia ink to hand; Myingun sends his
servant to the market for watercolours, but he comes back

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emptyhanded, quivering with fear at his failure, Myingun has never
asked for such things before. Myingun shrieks at him, sends him to
make inquiries at the bookmakers, surely he would have thought of
this? But by the time he has returned, U Yit has revealed, folded in a
worn cloth, his own small arsenal of tints and brushes, pens. What he
needs is paper. First, he sketches it out on the back of a cloth. He is
carrying a letter, but the rest of what he carries is in his head. He is
more traveler than artist, but he can render these tracks that he has
travelled, these dents and grooves, the musculature of boundaries,
onto paper.
He prepares the map in four pieces, so that it can travel
separately, on four persons, and be reassembled at the required
moment. For now, his hardest task is to unfold it, clean and accurate,
from his memory. Myingun calls for a small glass of date wine to revive
U Yits senses. The mapmaker declines. He has drunk nothing but tea
for days. Betel, on the other hand, sharpens his mind, refines his
draughtsmanship. Tiny parcels of betelnut wrapped in leaf smeared
with lime paste are prepared, stacked up, positioned on a silver platter
at the map-makers elbow.
Over U Yits shoulder, Myingun stares at the four blank
rectangles of paper, his heart tightening with the same excitement
hed felt as a boy, sitting before a silk screen, waiting for the puppet

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master to bring the marionettes to life.
When U Yit speaks, his voice has none of a narrators command,
nor the catch phrases that signal the beginning of a story. His voice is
reedy thin. Fine as the hairs on his brush, and in rhythm with the tools
of his trade, it traces lines in the air.
There are three routes, he begins, softening the ink-block.
From Zimme to Phnom Penh. From Phnom Penh to Saigon. From
Saigon to Hue. He sketches in trees with lines that rustle, discovers
lakes with strokes that stay liquid on the page long after the ink has
dried.
There are river routes and land routes. I will paint the river
routes in blue. The land- routes in brown.
For all the steadiness of his brush, the map-makers lips tremble
slightly with the thrill of discharging his mission and the fear that he
might get something wrong.
Take your time, coaxes Myingun. He is squat low on the floor,
his head bowed over the table he has chosen, the lowest table they
could find, he prefers to work close to the ground. Around him,
bisecting the air like telegraph wires, glances are traded, exchanged by
Myingun, his secretary U Maung Lwin, by his eldest son, by Ma May.
At first, everyone averts their eyes from the artists large

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birthmark, just left of center of his eyebrows, from which a long hair
sprouts delicately. But soon enough, their eyes slide back to it, until
the map-makers mole becomes a nodal point for their crossing
glances.
Looks of hope and doubt, carried on the quiver of a brush,
through the places it creates as it meets these coarse scraps of paper.
Myinguns breathing becomes more shallow. As the brush moves, he
fingers his pulse point. On his face is only ambition, pure and simple.
U Yit draws three routes. They converge in Siam, in the Mae Ping
valley. With this territory at least, Myingun is familiar; he corrects the
map-maker, adds a flourish, rounds out a bend in the road. As for
Phnom Penh and Saigon - these are still only signs on paper, ideas of
refuge, notions of a place to hide.

The Ganges swells and grows, a river in turmoil, gulping, hungry. The
sheer force of its waters swallows up the Ghats, submerges their steps,
half drowns the holy stones and icons carved into and onto the body of
the city. It washes them out, cleans the citys orifices, flooding the
basements of the huge palaces that line its banks. But still the Ganges
is nothing compared to the Irrawaddy, Myingun tells his friends in

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Benares. That is a real river. And he thinks back to the wood piles, the
steamers refueling, along the banks of the Irrawaddy on their flight
from Mandalay, and the peacock flag, how it dimpled in the wind, its
ragged breath marking time to the thrill of that first part of their
journey.
In Benares, he requisitions not rifles, arms or gunpowder, but
information. His followers bring him newspapers from Burma, supple,
flimsy manuscripts, fresh from the new printing presses. The ink leaves
purple fingerprints on his clothes.
In the monsoon, the newspapers arrive wrapped in plantain
leaves, dressed up like morning bazaar shopping, and streaked with
rain. Once or twice, he has caught his secretary, U Maung Lwin,
inhaling them. Left alone, he has imitated this gesture, and found that
they give up a particular scent, the smell of news. But after a while he
tires of its fickleness. Each day they smell the same, giving him no
indication of whether the news will be good, or bad. In time he
discovers that U Maung Lwins expression is a better judge than the
scent of the papers. Like a poison-taster, he reads them before
Myingun, then offers him up choice tidbits, column by column
Myingun follows every detail of the Kinwun Mingyis mission to
London, in 1872. His wife scolds him, says it is not good for his health,
that it is putting all his spirit-parts out of balance, that his blood will

129
turn black as the ink the story is written on. From then on, he orders U
Maung Lwin to buy and trade any Burmese paper he can find. He reads
the papers on a rattan chair, out on his verandah. Their house is close
to the Benares cantonment.
Looking up over the papers, over the escarpment, at the
cantonment, Myingun wonders if this is the future of Mandalay, should
it ever fall to the British. Will a similar plot of clubhouses and post
office, residences and barracks and gaol-house follow and grow up in
their trail, on and around the palace gardens. Will the British fill in the
moat that runs around the palace?
His father King Mindon still writes to him and his brother Daine.
He sends them letters implying, but never quite articulating, his
forgiveness. Once, he sends a Buddha image. Another time, a Burmese
manuscript. This last is carried by a monk, who has journeyed to Sri
Lanka. Myingun opens it over and over, searching for a clue, a key, for
anything his father might have inserted, a hidden message. There is
nothing, only a formal, polysyllabic greeting, royal titles that snake on
and on across the page, and the powdery gold dust that rubs off the
edges.
These letters, which follow a decade of silence, corroborate word
from his informants that his fathers health is in steep decline.

News

of his death comes riddled with announcements of other births and

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burials of court alliances. The Kinwun Mingyi is thick in the middle of
the intrigue, has gone against his fathers wishes in announcing the
new heir, an imposter whose mother Myingun claims to all who will
listen, is no better than a prosititute. He calls the new king, Theebaw,
a whores heir, and can think of no words bad enough for Supayalat,
his vixen queen. For his father, Myingun feels only a numbness where
he should feel sorrow, but for the court and the throne, his grief is
sharp. He feigns a period of mourning, allows Daine to bear the burden
of what seems to be a real grief.
When the rains abate, he takes his walks. When the ache in his
bones grows sharp from longing and his memory grows fickle, he visits
the Golden Temple, gazes on its elaborate, gold spires and the
repouss dome, and imagines himself back in Rangoon, at the
Shwedagon pagoda. Europeans are forbidden entry to the Gold Temple
in Benares. There is no such ruling at the Shwedagon, where
Europeans trample up the steps and circumambulate the golden stupa
in the wrong direction, with their shoes on. More than once, pagoda
trustees had ended their blessing of Myingun with whispered
remonstrations about this booted plunder of their sacred space, their
eyes measuring him up as to what action he might take, were they to
support his cause.
His Sikh friends in Benares boast that the Golden Temple is their

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heritage. They tell him that this is their town, that this temple might be
dedicated to Shiva, a god shared by many, but that their ancestor,
Ranjit Singh of Lahore, is the real avatar of Benares. It was Ranjit
Singh who gifted the gold. Myingun tells them with quiet pride how
King Mindon, his father, regilded Shwedagon, in 1872, and how, when
he takes the throne of Burma, he will call for diamonds and rubies from
his followers and have them embedded in a new finial, a new gold spire
that will reach higher than any that have gone before.
He does not tell them that each year he sends a small portion of
his supporters gifts of gold leaf back home, with instructions that it
must be divided equally between the Shwedagon and the Mahamuni
pagoda, in Mandalay, and applied in his name. He feels a quiet guilt at
this theft of merit.
Myingun has visited the Palace of the Maharajah of Benares, and
gazed on its murals in wonderment at the stories shared by Burma and
India. He has marveled at the richly illustrated pages of the Ramayana,
at the nimble features and deftness of its characters as they leap
through the pages, leading their story on a dance from one culture to
another. And yet, for all that is shared, in Benares, he is gripped by
the thick sensation that he is moving in the borrowed garb of another
religion. As if his disguise is no longer his to put on and shed.

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CHAPTER TWELVE

The Pilgrimage Benares, 1873

In 1873, Myingun and his brother make their first pilgrimage together,
along the Panch-kos road, the sacred vein of the city, the road that
loops around Benares, hugging the land. His Hindu friends scold him
for his lack of discipline. His brother urges him to do this properly, to
walk barefoot, with only the barest of essentials to eat and drink. Not
to quarrel or speak ill of others? this for him is the hardest thing. His
soles were once hardened through his long escapades in Burma, his

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stint in the Andamans. But still he cannot bring himself to walk this
whole pilgrimage barefoot. He has his servants pack a pair of slippers
in his bag, and puts them on betwen the shrines. They stop frequently,
usually at Myinguns insistence.
This is your one chance to cleanse your soul of all the wrongs of
the last year, says his brother, glancing at Mynguns jaw, must we
walk so far only to waste this opportunity?
What wrongs have I committed in this city? Myingun asks.
Pilgrimages have always put him in bad humour. And if that is so,
then why do we see no Britishers here, no Anglos, or their Anglo-Indian
lackeys?
You are committing a wrong here and now, replies his brother.
Luxuries are forbidden. As is eating.
Since when has betel been a luxury for royalty? Myingun
replies. And since when does chewing count as eating?.
How can you expect to cleanse your sins when you are
breaching two rules of pilgrimage?
Before them, walking at a slow, even pace, is a spry, whitehaired man in a flowing robe. His brother Daine seems to move more
effortlessly with each change in gradient. Whenever Myingun begins to
close the gap between them, it widens again. Spurred by curiosity, he

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catches up with his brother and grabs on his sleeve.
Who is that?
He points at the old man, who lurches forward on alternate steps,
throwing his weight on his stick, shaking off the attentions of the two
younger men who flank him.
Thakur Singh Sandanwalliah. Prince of the Punjab.
Cousin of Maharaja Duleep Singh.

Myingun wants to overtake this older man, but he cant manage

it without quickening his pace to a degree that would be unseemly. His
gut feels bloated, and not just with bad feeling. Myingun quickens his
pace, but the exertion quickens his breath and cramps his stomach.
Each time he is close to gaining on the old man he has to stop for
breath.
But then the old man has stopped to rest. They find an adjacent
spot, a ledge of rock in the shade. The old man moves to one side,
opens the way for them to sit beside them with a gesture of his longfingered hand. Something in his manner dissolves Myinguns malice.
They are never formally introduced. They begin to talk.
When he and his son rise to resume the walk, Myingun and Daine
rise with them, and fall in place beside him. They exchange addresses.

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The next week, Myingun and Thakur dine together, make plans,
take turns. Thakur consumes the fish sauce in tight, polite mouthfuls.
He will not eat the pickled tea, the phelaukye. But he gorges himself on
the duck curry and the pumpkin stewed with lotus roots. He is
surprised at Mynguns knowledge of cooking.
To succeed in my disguise as a merchant, Myingun confesses,
boasts, I needed to know, the shape of the roots, the touch of the
cloth, the operation of a scales -

it was not just the garb.

And gems? Did you trade in gems?

Gems, no. It was not safe to carry precious goods. Besides, the
ruby mines at Mogyok were too dangerous. Any ripple in the palace
revenue would have triggered a heavy response.
But you receive gems as gifts, no?
Gems, yes, and jade too, carved into Buddhas, worked into
jewelry. Small fragments of gem-dust, scooped up in bare fistfuls.
I have a goldsmith man in Benares, a family to be exact, a
family business. Parsis. Very reliable. Good prices. My sons, the
princes, I will send them to Paris one day, to learn the trade there.
There they will join my cousin, Duleep. He has made me Prime
Minister. And the Russians, he drops his voice to a whisper, surveying
the board. He has the Generals eating out of his hand.

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They speak in English. It is Mynguns new hobby: learning the
language of his keepers. Thakurs son, the one with the blue
spectacles, helps Myinguns sons, to master the vocabulary of his
former gaolers. He is greedy for books, he is making reliable progress,
he wishes he had learned the language when he was younger. Thakur
tells him of his uncle Duleep Singhs mansions in England, rolling
estates, and the Golden Temples that await his return, dotted across
the landscape of the Punjab. Myingun extemporizes, speaks of Pagan,
of Mandalay, of the palaces, those who await him.
Did you know that Lord Dalhousie confided in my uncle that he
could not stand the sea, says Thakur. He suffered badly from
seasickness, hated the voyages.
Is that why your uncles men enlisted in his army, helped him
take Burma? Out of pity?
Thakurs son is a clerk in the employ of the British. He supplies
them with new tracts and news clippings. He offers to help Myingun
learn English. Myingun slowly manages to work his way through texts,
to read the tracts, the passages in the newspapers. Thakur tells him
about his contact at the Beaver, the editor, and how much his uncle
pays in commission to plant a story.
In instalments, over weeks, Thakur and his son unfold their own
story, page by page, as if guiding Myingun through a copy of his paper,

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column by column. At one point he describes his uncles departure for
London, how their final destination was kept from both his wive and the
servants, who were shepherded onto the ship to cross an ocean in the
belief they were simply moving South.
They never knew? Myinguns eyes widen.
Not a soul. Not one. Only my brother and I.
And yet they stayed
They stayed for a raise. And then they complained they had not
been paid. And that made them greedy. Not all of them, he added. As
for my great uncle, Duleeps father, they called him the lion of the
Punjab. He had his portrait painted. He sat for hours, so still. That is the
old ways me, I could never sit so still, not before a British painter.
But my uncle learned these ways, developed a vanity for his reflection
on canvas. And now that the British have mastered his portraiture,
they ridicule him in their magazines.
Myingun pretends not to have seen the caricature in Punch that
has found its way into the backstreets of Benares. U Maung Lwin got
hold of it somehow and had dutifully delivered it with the assembled
morning news that he brought up each morning for summary and
discussion. It was a crude drawing, ridicule by art; Thakurs uncle, the
Maharajah Duleep Singh dressed in a broad cummerbund, protruding

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eyes, heavy lips, his belly ballooning out, like a small globe.
He has threatened to sue, you know? My cousin, yes. He has
found a good lawyer. He does not jest. He will sue the editor.
But the Russians? Myingun is curious. You mentioned the
Russians?
Oh, they are interested, very interested, in my uncle. And in me,
of course; my uncle the Maharajah has made me Prime Minister elect.
When he is back in power I will run his kingdom for him. He has
promised to rip out the railways and the telegraph lines. And the
Russians, they will come, they are already talking to us, talking
treaties. They will come and together we will reclaim Afghanistan.
The Russians, Myingun says, and then gives a high-pitched
giggle. Let us raise a toast to the Russians.
Myinguns vocabulary grows slowly. It is disjointed, anachronistic,
rich with the ecclesiastical trappings he picked up from Father
Bigandet, these still in a French accent, and from Phayre, his thin reedy
voice, words of diplomacy. There are legal terms and Latin terms too,
and odd snippets of botany Ficus Religiosa. Most of all he is intrigued
by stories.
Thakur Singh has invited Myingun out once or twice to see the
new stage-plays, performances, but the business of translating humour

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is beyond him or his son. Myingun sits in glum-faced oblivion, lips
contorted against the bawdy humour that ripples through the crowd.
The gyrations of dancers, of the bejeweled women with shimmering
veils, turn his thoughts to Ma May.
For all his labours, he still finds English ugly and choppy, a
tongue for traders, harsh as the language of the bazaar. Here in
Benares, in his house, he swaddles himself in the soft banter of
Burmese, in the inner chambers of its vowels. Other words creep in:
Hindi and Urdu, Shan and Thai, English and French. The domestics
speak pidgin. They never talk before him, but the staccato tenor of
their gossip climbs up through the floor jousts, from the courtyard.
He has given himself a year to learn English. His eyes strain and
work at the letters. At dusk, and as the oil wick lamp fades, the words
swarm on the page like insects. He imagines a shuttle weaving them
together, making sense of them, which letters with which.
If it were a cloth, Ma May had once said to him, her tapered
fingers hovering lightly on her Burmese skirt, her thamein, with its
rolling patterns, and soft, diaphanous strands of silk, If it were a
fabric, English would not be silk. It is too coarse, made from a thicker
weave. Like their hats made from the hair of sheep.
He could not have found a better teacher. For the price of his
eyes and ears, two or three hours daily, for the cost of his company,

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Thakurs son teaches him English and Thakur teaches him chess.
Myingun is unsure what they gain in return, other than company and
homage, and his appetite for their stories. The chess, he learns at first
for pleasure, and English as a martial art, so that he can defend
himself with their words, so that he is no longer duped by their spies,
so that he can understand the Judge, the Prosecutor, the Witnesses,
when and if he is next in court. So he can hold his own with all the
exiles in this town, and so that he can read what they have to say. At
first he shuns the chess, recoils from the reminders of Lu Pye, claims
ignorance. Is scared, also, of being beaten. Although this is a different
game, played with more elaborate pieces. But over the weeks, things
shift. The chess, its mastery, becomes the focus of his labour.
One day, he thinks, I will challenge Phayre to chess, and I will
win.
Phayre or Sladen. Colonel Sladen. As he contemplates the red
minister, the piece that the British have made the Queen, his mind
wonders to Phayres wife with her watery eyes, her tissue skin, so
loose around her face it seemed a second skin, and her hair the colour
of straw, and her stiff, awkward movements. His father had offered
them, Phayre and his wife, two golden umbrellas, to meet them off the
boat at Mandalay. Even though these were ordinarily only ever offered
to sons. Whose idea was this? Was this a veiled slight from the Kinwun

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Mingyi? Yes surely, it must have been the Kinwun Mingyi who had
advised his father in this matter. Leaving the Kings two sons not in
the shade, where princes should be, in the shelter of admirers and
protectors, but exposed to the merciless heat of the sun.
He is tired of playing host, of receiving, of holding court. He
wishes he could walk, ride, move. He misses the ebb and flow, the thrill
and fear. But what he misses most of all is risk. Here in Benares
everyday unfolds the same. Even his wife, who had once strived so
hard to make things different, ordering up different foods, has begun to
resign herself to the slow repetitions. U Maung Lwin, who has joined
his court in exile, a young scholar, is doing his best to find him
interesting fodder for his English lessons.
When they first moved to Benares, he and Daine would scold his
wife for letting their supporters, fresh off the boats and trails from
Burma, come into his quarters, to seek audience with him, before they
had washed and rested, claiming urgent business. The role of prince
was still theirs to play; there were audiences for their showmanship.
Now, his court collapsed to the span of a street, he finds himself
detaining them on their way to the guest quarters. It is not just that his
supporters have thinned to a trickle. What he lusts after is the scent of
their journey, the stench of movement that they carry on their clothes
and in their stiff, tired limbs.

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Myingun ponders the chessboard. It is Thakurs move.
Do you think that this game could be played without a king and
queen? asks Thakur, moving his knight. Check.
Can you imagine a kingdom run by pawns? Thakur continues.
That is where some of my countrymen are headed. And the English,
they have made their queen a King. And the red Minister, the chesspiece that we call a red minister - they have made him into a Queen.
Myingun hesitates, looks from his castle to Thakurs queen.
You were never trained in chess as a boy? asks Thakur.
In Burma, we play a different way. The pieces are round and
flat. We have chariots, too, and generals. But why do you ask? Am I not
a good enough student? Am I not learning all I should?
You will have learned all you should when you manage not to
give away your next move, or the one after. See how openly you look
at my pieces! Plotting your next step.
Thakur paused, exhaled, as if the business of sitting their had
exhausted him. He shifted his weight, spread his thickly ringed fingers
on his knees. Now the English want our games, too. Polo. They want
to take everything from us and beat us at it. Polo, that was a game for
princes. If only you had traveled with me to London, I would have
invited you to the Maharajahs estate at Elvedon, you could have

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joined us at Ascot, seen the racetrack, his private stables. The beauty
of those steeds - you can only imagine.
From the drift in conversation, Myingun knows that Thakur has
already lost intrest in the game, a state of mind Myingun has identified
as his opponents greatest weakness. He loses interest too easily,
reaches conclusions too redily. Already sure of his impending victory,
Thakur is impatient for the game to end quickly. His sighs grow longer
and deeper at this stage in their game, and his draws on the Sheesha
become more shallow and hurried.
But Myingun is in no hurry to win or to be beaten. He savours
these moments. When he is at Thakurs house, it is precisely at this
point in their game that he takes most care not to draw too strongly on
the hookah, lest the charcoal burn down too quickly, lest the tobacco
need replenishing too early, lest their conversation, their time
together, die with the coals, with the last bittersweet inhalation.
Today they are at Myinguns residence. Myngun has instructed
his servant to pay special attention to the pipe. With Ma Mays help, his
servants have arrived at a deeply aromatic preparation of tobacco. His
servant is positioned behind the curtains, peering in, studying Thakurs
features, looking for a sign from Myingun that the taste is thinning,
that the new hookah should be brought in to replace the old. With the
servant, sat at his desk, recording the conversation, is U Maung Lwin.

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Myingun holds out the pipe towards his guest. Something regal in
Thakurs posture as he accepts it, sends him spinning back to the court
in Mandalay, when he would prepare cigars for his father.
And you? If there was one thing you could gamble this game of
chess on, if there was one thing I could give you, you my certain victor,
what would it be?
Thakur gives a gentle sigh. Ask me those questions after the
game. This is not some ladies tea-party, as they call them. He moves
in his seat impatiently, victory in his hand and yet, as long as Myingun
stalls, still out of reach.
But what, what would it be?
Myingun is baiting him with time. He moves his castle, places it
down, with a small, triumphant click of his tongue.
Thakur raids the board. Myinguns castle is uprooted.
Checkmate.
But what did you take it with?
If you need ask me that question, then there is no hope for you
as a chess player. There is no secret to my success. I simply keep my
mind on the game. Without publicizing my intentions.
Do you know what I would wish for?

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Thakur places his head in his hands and stares hard at the board.
Is it not funny this perspective, looking top down? In polo you are in
the game, you are part of it. You must play with us. My sons are very
good.
The game over, Thakur sits back against the cushions,
luxuriating in his win.
Now you can ask me. Now you can ask me what I would trade, if
I had one thing to gamble on a game, one thing to play for, and only
one - that is an easy question. Can you not guess?
To return to the Punjab? At Thakurs residence, Myingun has
studied the tiny vistas onto that world, the miniature paintings with
their serene figures, and was amazed that scenes so flat and small
could contain such movement. He knows from the way that Thakur
gazes at those pictures that he sees them as locked windows, locked
and bolted.
To return to the Punjab? Thakur repeats. Then he roars, slaps
the table, until the chess pieces tremble. Myingun has done it again,
spoken too quickly, he has burned his only chance, his one go at a
guess. Thakurs shoulders are shaking with merriment, but Myingun
knows that those are bitter tears, they run down his puffy cheeks,
rheumy as tree sap.

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To return to the Punjab? When the Punjab I knew is no more?
Do you know why Britain is so powerful? Their Queen snatched a gem
the size of a heart from my Maharajahs throat.

That is what I want.

To get the diamond back. It is not just its value. Who knows how many
lakhs. The Maharajah Duleep Singh he had converted to Christianity.
As a boy, you understand. Then, in England, he kept company with
Queen Victoria, she found him so - amusing. The Queen, she tricked
him out of the rarest and largest diamond in the world, Thakur says,
his voice so low. The Kau-i-noor. There are some who say that the only
way to regain our sovereignty is to take that diamond back, that she is
a sorceress, who took it from him to drain his essence.
Do you believe so?
Myingun is setting up the board for a new game.
Thakur nodded energetically. Of course, he says. What else is
there to believe? And then he shrugged, and mopped his brow. But
now, the gods be thanked, the Maharajah is returning to our religion,
he said. When he came out to India, to take the Sikh vows, his mother
was shocked, so shocked, to see him, head shorn like a non-believer,
like a common low-caste European. She has passed away now. Duleep
still grieves for her, he blames her death on himself. All the comfort of
his estates could not make up for that, for what she had lost.
Tell me about the diamond? Have you seen it?

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Myingun suspects that Thakur has mastered the game of chess
from the Maharajah, because the Maharajah himself is a pawn, moved
around obligingly, from square to square, Pawn to Queen 2, take a bow,
Pawn to Bishop 2, convert to Christianity, Pawn to Rook two, invest
your diamond fortunes in Everton estate. But still Myingun studies the
game, he studies chess and English. He enjoys them most in the
twilight hours, when his mouth is sweet with the hookah tobacco that
the Maharajah sends him as a gift, once a month, a pledge from the
one time he beat him at chess, he is a man of his word.
Myingun is glad that their chatter has moved on. He does not
even know what he would answer to his own question. What would he
wish for? The throne of Burma? He might as well wish for the Kao-inoor diamond, or a piece of the moon. The throne does not seem real
any more. Even if he were to regain it, at any time, the British could
snatch it away.
But he will not roll as freely as these pieces on the board. He has
roots, and places to hide, places the British do not even know.

As Myingun and Thakur play, U Maung Lwin sits and records their
conversation. He sits at a desk in the bottom draw of which, concealed
under a false-bottomed drawer, he has hoarded fragments of the
diarized account, printed in Burmese newspapers, of the Kin Wun

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Mingyis journey to London. U Maung Lwin soon learned that the prince
banned any of the Kinwun Mingyis writings from his house. The
Treatise on Kingship, Myingun sees as an attack on the foundation of
the monarchy.
He had learned in his first months in the princes service that mere
mention of the Kinwun Mingyi was enough to send Myingun into a fit.
This was just as well, because he had been on the cusp of boasting
about his relationship to the Kin Wun Mingyi, a kinship that mattered to
him most on account of the palace ministers poetic talent. U Maung
Lwin knew from stories hed heard as a boy that his fathers second
cousin, the Kinwun Mingyi had ben picked out by Mindon and groomed
for high office. That the King himself was more interested in perfecting
the divine intentions, through long sojourns in monasteries and with his
counsellor, than in the daily ministrations of court life.
But since his friendship with Thakur Singh, Myingun has relaxed
this ban, in part because he is hungry for new information to trade.
Once, when U Maung Lwin is listening through the curtains that
partition his cubicle from the room where they play chess, where he
has been instructed to sit and take notes, his heart swells with pride to
hear Myingun share with Thakur Singh a piece of news that U Maung
Lwin had uncovered for him from the newspaper reports of the Kinwun
Mingyis visit to London. King Mindons ministers had taken with them
gold and silver gifts worth more than 80 thousand British pounds,

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necklaces and bracelets and salwe chords and decorations and
ornaments, had traveled with them by the crateload. In return for this
largesse, Queen Victoria had presented his fathers emissaries with a
picture album, a souvenir of their visit.
The part of his diary that U Maung Lwin loved most, and which he
has yet to share with Myingun, is his report of an encounter with a
magical machine called the Mechanical Turk. He dreamed of saving
enough from the commissioning of his poetry - at a future date, when
he had gained sufficient fame - to purchase a model for Myingu, so he
could perfect his chess game, and would no longer have to cheat.
U Maung Lwin had only once caught Myingun cheating. It had taken
him a year to work out the game and its rules from sitting in his
bureau, partitioned from the chess-room by a bamboo screen.
Myingun had instructed him to keep a record of his and Thakur Singhs
conversations, lest there were any important detail he might forget
later due to his concentration on the game. Once, when Thakur Singh
had excused himself in the course of a very long game, after excessive
consumption of tea. U Maung Lwin had later sipped the dregs in the
teapot and had detected a faint taste of (? Herb?), known in Burma but
not in India, for its diuretic properties.
U Maung Lwin had put his pen down and had crept up to the
partition and, squat low on his haunches so that his body, shielded by

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the lacquered screen, would throw no shadow, peeked through the
hinged partition and into the room to get a measure of the state of the
game from the layout of the board. The servant

had just exited the

room to change the tobacco and to refresh the water in the bowl of the
sheesha. Myingun, with a look of quiet delirium, was studying his own
white pieces. Then he moved one. U Maung Lwin watched, mouth
open, and saw with relief that the prince hesitated, then returned the
piece to its original position. His mouth fell open further as Myingun
then cocked his head slightly, turning his ear to the doorway, as if
listening out for signs of Thakurs return, and reached out across the
board and closed his hand on a red piece. As he did so, a look of
infinite sadness enveloped him, but Myingun shrugged it off just as
quickly as he had moved the piece.

Ma May

The night we discovered each other for the first time was the
night he hid out at Chau Yat's. I went in daylight to the outhouse,
rather than wait for the dark; for the dark sometimes has eyes
that the raw sun does not. I had learned from experience that
the most spiteful gossip is sparked by that which is not seen; for
then jealous minds can run wild, feasting their fancy on that
which might have happened.
So I walked, head held upright, carrying two sets of fresh
longyi, and tucked behind my ear a single slow-rolled cheroot, to

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the outhouse where Myngun had chosen to sleep. I cared not for
my reputation. Cook gave me a knowing look, and the guard a
blank stare, as I passed before them.
Not a word passed between Myingun and I as I lay down next
to him, my shoulder to his, our hands touching. There was
nothing to be said. We did not kiss or embrace. And the sky
seemed to hold all that was and could not be said in its dark
quivering ceiling, so tense was the feeling of a storm about to
break. I slid my finger through my hair and loosed it, and drew
him to me. Side by side we lay. There was no question of sleep.
Then I offered him the cheroot. It could not be lit, lest the smoke
attract attention. But I forced it gently upon his lips and held it
there until I made him moan.
It was I who lay astride him, looking down, as he had once
looked down at me from the tamarind tree. His skin tasted of
cardamon and cloves, and I could not sate myself of the taste of
his flesh, so long had I starved myself of even the thought of him.
His boyish face, so vulnerable, was how I would always see him.
But that face was no longer.
I let my fingers lead me to the talisman buried in his skin, and
guided his damp fingers to my own charmed gem, a lump so
small and perfect, the skin healed over it in a teardrop scar. This
was a sapphire blessed for the protection of Lu Pye. Like a grave
robber I had plundered it from his flesh and later, the day I made
my vow, I took it to a preacher to be inserted it into my own.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Escape from Benares to Chandernagore

1876

Myingun carried the Parsee goldsmiths tradebag and his weights.

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Rolled up under his arm is the small carpet his master will sit on at less
salubrious houses. Myingun walks beside him, shrinking further into
the ground with each step. His friend has instructed him not to
acknowledge him, not to talk to him unless spoken to, not to start a
conversation. His skin is prickling and he resists the urge to scratch his
coarse tunic, still warm from the body of the Parsee merchant]s
regular coolie with whom he had traded clothes and places this
morning. The coolie was to stay at his house, a virtual prisoner.
Myinguns servants would watch him, until his master returned.
You are a Coolie, remember? he had told him as they rehearsed
this journey in the quiet of his home a week ago. Your only job is to
take my orders and, if lucky, take any food or drink I offer you.
I hope you will offer your humble servant at least the odd drink,
or two, Myingun had joked as he was being dressed behind the
screen.
But now there was no time or room for joking. The streets were
narrow. Steam was rising from the backstreets, sewage was spilling out
into the gutters, the untouchables were out with their buckets,
collecting the citys filth, mopping up after the higher castes.
The houses rose up on all sides, their faces glowing in the fresh
morning light, the colours of frangipani and mango and saffron. As
they drew nearer the port, people seemed to get busier, more hurried

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in their steps.
Myingun kept his eyes to the ground.
This way snapped [the Parsee merchant] in a voice that
Myingun barely recognized. He kept his chin tucked into his neck and
lifted his eyes slightly to see a row of armed police at the crossroads
ahead of them. His friend pulled him into a shallow alley between two
houses. He was breathing fast, and Myingun wondered if hed lost his
nerve. He knew better than to plead with him. He waited while his
friend relieved himself, then caught his breath.
They both heard the mosque calling to prayer, and then the
church bells pealing unusually early, as if in competition. Myingun
knew they did not have long before the ships horn would sound,too.
We cant turn back, said his friend. We must continue. This
could be your only chance.
His back was up against the wall. When he moved back out into
the street Myingun tugged gently at his sleeve and brushed the dust
and cobwebs of his friends fine white muslin tunic. He did not fuss
over his own. He could feel a rash growing on his chest.
They kept walking, toward the policemen.
Papers barked one. He was Indian, but in colonial uniform.

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Myinguns throat grew so hoarse he needed to cough but
couldnt, he couldnt draw attention to himself, his heart was pounding
so loud he was sure they could hear it.
When Daine and he had played those tricks on the Kinwun
Mingyi, the day they spied on him, in the garden, Myingun had never
imagined that as an adult he would continue such games, that he
would need to relearn the magic of invisibility. As a merchant, as a
renegade, in Burma, he was somebody disguised as a nobody. But here
in Benares, disguise threatened to vanish him altogether. In front of the
policeman, he was only a coolie, too dumb to be addressed or even to
remember his own name. Next to his goldsmith friend, he was
invisible. The success of his masquerade filled him with fear.
Myingun kept his head turned down towards the glimpses of
cobblestones. Between a world of feet in motion, their stillness was
comforting. He glanced sidways and out of the corner of his eye, saw a
rupee note peek out from between his friends papers. When the
policemen waved them on Myingun moved too, as natural as his
shadow, careful not to raise his head again. Glancing sideways, he saw
that the rupee notes were gone.
Not so fast said the second policeman. Was he greedy for
more, or had they not split the take evenly, wondered Myingun. What
is he carrying?

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Show him! said [Parsee goldsmith friend]. And quick about it!
Dont waste their time - these officers have more important work. His
voice, instead it was thick with respect, a tone lubricated further by the
subtle bowing of his head and shoulders. Yet Myingun knew from their
conversations that the Parsee loathed these minions more than
anyone, their insidious bullying, the way they creamed money from
everyone - street-taxes, port-taxes, and then the official taxes on top of
that.
Myingun knelt down and fumbled with the ties on the mat, then
rolled it out, set out the scales carefully as if he were about to do a
trade. He hoped they would not start fingering the small bags, in which
the gems were concealed. But there was no glitter, nothing to draw
their attention to them.
The bags, too, open them up! Snapped the third policemen.
Myingun felt his fingers trembling, and the dryness in his throat
spreading, as if he were swallowing twigs.
He never knew if his Parsee friend had passed a sign, or if it was
the Taungbyon Nats on their travels back up to Mount Popa, taking a
detour, who set things in motion.
A rock whizzed past his right ear and hit the third policeman on
the lapel, and bounced to the ground. Around it was folded paper
criss-crossed with words.

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On the way theyd passed a printing press, its heavy dark
machinery going clatter clatter. Myingun had stopped to breathe in the
inky air and to poke his head around the door, but he had noted his
friend growing uneasy and peeled himself away back toward their
destination. The room smelled hot and of something else too. Later, on
the ship, he would pick up a paper, carry it for his master, and rub off
the ink and discover the smell of news, silent news, news that travelled
in print.
The ink had left a smudge on the policemans white jacket. The
policeman whod been hit, pulled his gun and fired into the air, the
rage on his face fuelled further by the sound of a distant jeering. Had
it come from that balcony? Myingun was unsure. The three were jittery
now, and then, above them, came a clear peal of laughter. The
policeman who had been struck spun around on his heels. Myingun
was still crouched down, spreading out his wares on the mat, following
orders. The officers heels crunched around on the mat, scuffing it.
Then he looked upward. Myingun followed his eyes as if this too was an
order but saw only a young mother, wealthy from the look of her sari
and her jewels, emerging through the doors of a fourth floor balcony on
the opposite street. Music drifted from the room and Myingun
wondered if she had even heard the shot, or perhaps thought it was a
firecracker. She was lifting up her child and kissing its belly. The child,
who could have been no more than two, was clapping its arms at the

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birds that the gunshot had sent reeling. Then she saw the policeman
waving, yelling at her, his gun trained vaguely on her, she screamed
and clutched the toddler to her and shrank back against the wall and
vanished inside, the small flailing fists catching at a curtain as she
went.
This all happened in seconds. Myingun averted his eyes from the
mayhem and remembered who he was; a coolie, only interested in his
next meal.
The policemen were already rushing down the street in the
direction from which the rock had been thrown, loud shouts and
carryings on, Myingun rolled up his wares as slowly as he could and
stood up to leave.
Wait! One of the policeman turned and put out a hand.
Forget it, said another, No time, and together they raced
down the street, melting into the crowd.
With deliberate slowness, Myingun and the gold merchant
resumed their journey. By the time they had walked to the dock the
horn was already sounding ships warning that it was about to leave.
Myingun picked up speed.
Dont hurry now. Act as if the last thing in the world you wanted
was to board this ship. Dont worry, I know these policemen well. Those

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last three - I had never seen them on that stretch before. Perhaps they
were expecting trouble.
The merchant picked up pace. Myingun followed close, not quite
level with him, sometimes breaching a coolies distance for fear of
losing him in the throng. He strained to hear what was going on
behind him, but the mayhem grew more muffled. He listened out for
more gunfire, but heard none. Soon they were lost in the twists and
turns, walled in by the steep housefronts and the slender, almost
tubular streets. He was unsure why his friend had chosen to walk, he
had money plenty for a horse-and-cart, but perhaps he thought a
carriage would only attract more attention. The hum of the ocean
began to sing in his veins as the port moved into view. He fought
against this new levity, hung his head, slackened his jaw, chewed his
inner lip. By the time they reached the docks, street dirt was caking
the corner of his eyes. The Parsee merchant looked unruffled, his
bearing majestic as he greeted an Indian steward in white and gold
uniform who stood at the entrance of the jetty that led to the ship.
Conditions?
Fine Sir, steady tide, should be a smooth voyage for you Sir
On time?
Fully punctual Sir, all in order, mail on early today, no reason for

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delay. Hurry aboard now Sir, and you may find yourself a good seat in
1st. Standing conditions in third class maybe a squeeze today sir.
Rumours going around about some trouble, many more than usual
aboard. Captain very eager to leave on time.
For this information, the man in uniform received a tip that
passed from the Parsee merchants pocket to his hand unseen, but
registered with glee on his neatly groomed face. They moved onto the
boat, the Parsee merchant up to the top deck, Myingun down below,
where he would be lost among the throng, his lips parched and wishing
he had had the temerity to ask for a drink, when his merchant friend
yelled Coolie number three and Myingun looked up and saw him toss
a coin down at him which he was too slow to catch. It slipped through
his fingers onto the steps, bouncing down, forcing him to scrabble in
the dirt for it and closed his fingers on air. The coin had been snatched
from beneath him by an urchins grasp.
Dont forget eat and drink, you have much work once we set
shore and no time to eat then, his master yelled down at him.
Myingun nodded sullenly and moved downstairs to the lower
deck.
The ploy had only drawn more attention to him. Several coolies
stared at him. A man selling tea, hearing the exchange, yelled over to
him to spend his coins before his master had a change of heart. An old

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woman, hunched, clinging to a stick, asked him if his master was soft
in the head. At this he mumbled some reply and rolled his eyes. A
glass of tea was slammed down before him and he reached in his
pocket for his last coin. The water swirled with particles of dirt and
sand. A few re-used leaves unfurled at the bottom. Myingun waited for
his change, but none came. Since his arrival in Benares, his secretary
and staff had screened him from the petty deals and transactions that
kept his court afloat. He sipped the tea as slowly as he could, but
despite the care with which he held the small, chipped glass its murky
contents slopped back and forth as the vessel moved out to sea. The
journey had barely begun when the tea-seller was doing the rounds,
reclaiming emptied glasses.
The motion of the boat, the coal fumes that seeped into their
third-class compartment somehow, the clamour of excitement as they
cast off, all made him think of the first step on his journey, when he
and Daine had hijacked one of the Kings steamers on their way out of
Mandalay, and he wondered what she was doing now, where she was,
each time a new group of supporters came to visit him in Benares, he
scanned them for a gesture, the cast of the head, the motion of a wrist,
for a sign of her. Always, he was disappointed.
He pushed his way to the side of the vast communal cabin and
pressed himself towards the glimmer of a porthole. He yearned for the

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softness of his bed and drapes, and then scolded himself for this
ageing. If only he could see her again. He knew he could be young
again for her. His joints ached, and his legs were cramping up no
matter which way he sat. His stomach felt taut as a drum, but the
thought of food, here in this spit-smeared compartment, made him
yearn even more for the ocean breeze that would be cooling his
companion on the upper decks. He imagined himself leaning his head
right over the railings, and tried to retch but could only muster the sour
taste of his own saliva.
They would be hours at sea, and then the same rigmarole, on the
other side, papers, searches. He wondered if they had sounded the
alert yet, whether the British agents on their beat would be looking out
for him already.
He had written to Chau Yat for news of her. But Chau Yat claimed
ignorance, said he had never seen her again, not since the dawn that
Myingun was captured. He had heard she had followed her calling, that
she had seen Myinguns arrest as a sign, he had heard that she had
gone off to be a nun, but then another letter would come, within weeks
of this pious revelation, with the news that she had been seen in a
travelling dance troupe, somewhere in the Karenni hills. He did not
know who else to ask, they had no other friends in common.
These thoughts must have soothed him to sleep, but when he

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woke up, his neck was stiff and saliva was drooling out of his mouth
and instead of the smooth silk of her hair, her thighs, his roving fingers
tugged at his dirty clothes until he was caught in a dream. He was
snapped out of sleep by a movement en masse, the motion of his
passengers moving en masse to the exit. Myingun pushed through
them, standing on tiptoe to see over their shoulders, to catch a
glimpse of the shore. Chandernagore? He said aloud. Of course, said
someone close up in his ear. Where you from? But Myingoon was
already pressing forward, anxious lest his Parsee friend moved ashore
without him.
If there was one thing he could wish back that he had lost, one
quality, then it would be that trust.

Was it his own actions and

wants that had destroyed it, he wondered, was it the ease with which
he now disguised his feeling, wove lies with ease, was it this that led
him to view everyone else with suspicion, to judge or misjudge them?
Or was it the Einshameen, or the man in his own ranks who had sold
him out, or the spiteful maid, or going further back still, was it the
Kinwun Mingyi. Again he was back there with his brother Daine,
pressed up against the branches of the tamarind tree, biting his cheeks
as if he could eat his laughter before it made its way out of his mouth,
his saliva shot through with the metallic tang of fear.
LANDING PAPERS! Snapped a voice.

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CHAPTER THIRTEEN Ma May at Court in Mandalay, 1876

Ko Theth, the xylophone player, was getting old, and his fingers had
thick knots from making music. The younger members of the orchestra
were waiting for him to announce who would replace him. But Ma May
knew early on that talent would feature little in that selection.
The most skilled player was Min Zyaw, whose little finger was
crooked and blunted at the tip from an accident threshing rice with his
parents as a boy of seven. His middle finger had been sewn back on,
but the tip of his little finger had been lost. It was only when
convalescing that his talent for making music had grown together with
his suture. As the digit healed, strange phenomena followed his
musical creations. The rains came early.
The abbott, who had been suffering delirium from a crippling bout of
dengue, grew suddenly lucid. The monastery cats became more
proficient at catching rats, and the rice yield grew, each stalk of paddy
reaching up an extra inch.
Some said Min Zyaw had been maimed deliberately on the

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threshing field, by his jealous older brother. Others that miraculous
luck had had him dodging back before the threshing blade swung
down, saving his hand which might otherwise have been severed. His
music grew more powerful and his body strengthened. The muscles in
his arms gained new tone, but his right hand retained its withered look.
He had a deep port wine stain around his ear, which King Mindons
astrologer had interpreted as the fingerprints of Indra, pressing his
music to his ear. But the queens new counsellor had advised that it
was inauspicious, and that he must go. This pleased the queen, who
considered his ugliness a stain on her court, and who was so
preoccupied with the outer surface of things that music seldom
reached her inner ear.
Ma May knew from attending the outer corridors, mute but listening,
that the queen was too deeply superstitious to have the gamelan
player executed outright. But she feared for him, and for the orchestra,
fears that their music will suffer, and that their sweet melodies will give
way to something subtly discordant, for the gods to pick it up.
She likes to watch him practice.
When she was much younger her grandmother had presented her
performance as a game, and nothing more. But it is no longer a game,
rather a gamble on life itself. If the queen discovers that she can hear,
she will be dead. It is that simple.

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But the queen has one reason to keep Ma May alive. Ma May is the
queens conspicuous act of danna, of giving.
Your generosity knows no bounds, the Kamala say, especially the
God-ladies. They congratulate the queen for her compassion, touching
their crosses as they study the mute and lovely Ma May.
Come here, says one.
You have to speak with your hands, says another. Else she wont
understand.
Servants should be seen and not heard, like children, says another.
One of them beckons Ma May to come closer. She has a mouth like
a sour damson soaked in brine, and a slight wheeze.
Let me touch you, she says.
Out from her broad black sleeve comes the nuns leathery hand.
The fingers linger on Ma Mays cheek like a fly on fresh meat. Ma May
holds firm, looks down at the ground, steels herself against the
insistent tickle. Inside, she thrashes like a fish out of water. She
reaches her inner self away from the probing fingers. They move to her
mouth, draw a crude line around her lips.
The old womans breath is quickening. Such beauty wasted on a
mouth that is dumb.
Silence is a virtue, says another.

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The queen never looked people head on. Her eyes worked like a
cobras.
Assessing people and situations from an angle that no other could
duplicate.
But jealousy worked on her like lime on areca nut, sharpening her
senses, her ears especially.
My servant has other duties, she says.
Ma May withdraws in silence.

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CHAPTER FOURTEEN Chandernagore, 1882

He arrives triumphant in Chandernagore, the taste of fear gone.

Nothing and yet everything is different. The air is delicious, fragrant
with disloyalty to British Empire. They are in French territory, guarded
from the warrants of British agents by a simple symmetry, three stripes
on a flag they call the Tricoleur.
His supporters trickle down from British Benares. First his
secretary, then the staff, then his wife and sons, then the monks. Last
of all, the painter. His retinue reassembles itself, piece by piece, and
then grows some. From these shards of their past life, his wife fashions
a shrine in his honor. Each remnant in its place. In this new home, this
piece of overseas France they live a mockery of a court life. It was his
wifes idea to recruit the painter, to commission these grandiose
portraits that filled the cloth with gilt and brocade and opulence.
He is still a pensioned prince. If only he had a reliable treasurer.
Finances remain beyond his ken. His trusted secretary, U Maung Lwin,

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can only traffic in words. On paper, in the air, he can weigh, measure
and value the intent and import of a sentence; but not money.
Myingun lives comfortably enough, but comfort is less and less
his object. He is stifled here. There are days when he wakes from a
dream rich with strategic possibility, only to have his ideas filed away,
discarded, mulled over, declared impossible by his brother Daine, the
realist. Under his rules of residence here in Chandarnagore, as a
recipient of Frances protection and sanctuary, he can travel nowhere
without the permission of the French authorities. But outside this small
corner of French India, with its curiously unstable boundaries, the
world is changing. He can feel its pulse. Through the excerpts that U
Maung Lwin reads him from the paper, he senses a vibrancy, a
possibility, a tension here in India.
Court gossip travels. In 1883, in Mandalay, the Kinwun Mingyi
falls out of the new Queens favour for being soft on traders. Queen Suhpaya-lat says he should wear womens clothing.
The days pass. Myingun grows indolent, apathetic, the more his
appetite for the world beyond these borders grows, the faster his world
turns inwards. He takes to dictating long and fanciful letters.

Myingun Prince
Prince Heritier de Birmanie
Chandernagore

169
25 January 1883

Colonel Sladen, My dear friend,

After making my escape from Benares I arrived in the protection of
the French government in Chandernagore. The object of my coming
from there is to have communications from HE the Viceroy, on whose
kind assistance I am anxiously awaiting. I hope you will write very
often as you are my longstanding acquaintance. I am doing well here.
Elder Prince of Burma

His letters go unanswered, but this does not dissuade him. In

that vacuum of daily waiting for a reply from his British confidantes, his
thoughts gravitate to France. On 21 May 1883, he writes to Jules
Grvy, President of the French Republic.

A Monsieur le Prsident de la Republique.

Monsieur le President:
S. A. R.Prince Myingoon natif de Birmanie actuellement resident
a Chandernagore establissement francais au Bengal vient tres
respectueusement vous exposer.
Quil est le prince ain et heritier legitime du trone de la
Birmanie superieure (Royaume dAva); que par suite dun venement
dont lhistoire est rapporte dans une petite brochure ci-jointe, il avait

170
ete oblige de quitter le Royaume de son pere alors roi regnant et
daller se mettre sous la protection du Gouvernement Anglais a
Rangoon; mais pour comble de son malheur cette nation aupres de
laquelle il sattendant a trouver un asile, loin de lui accorder
lhospitalit quil reclamait le fit mettre en tat darrestation au mpris
du droit de gens et sans quil se fut rend coupable daucun delit ni
daucun acte hostile le detint comme prisonnier dEtat dabord a
Andaman, plus tard a Chunar et ensuite a Benares ou il a t lobjet de
toute sorte de persecution et doppression de la part des
fonctionnaires qui avaient horreure de le surveiller.
Que lors de sa detention pendant plus de 14 ans a Benares il a
eu loccasion dapprendre par la lecture des journaux que la nation
francsie et la plus liberale et la plus genereuse de toutes les nations de
lEurope, quelle est tourjours lamie de linfortune et de la justince et
quelle nest jamais une dangereuse ni perfidie voisine.
Que fatigue de la vie quil menait il forma en lui meme la
resolution de regagner sa libert dont il tait si longtemps priv ou de
prire degus [???] partit pour le point le plus proche et arriva a
Chandernagor ou il ??? v??? tranquillement sous le drapeau de vore
genereuse nation.
Que des son arrive en cette ville il crivit une letter priv e a
Lord Ripon viceroi et gouverneur General de lInde Anglaise qui par son
Secretaire lui repondit de se livrer sans conditions aux autorites

171
Anglaises; Que plus tard il presenta par lintermediaire de les avocats
et Conseillers legaux un memoire quil soumet aussi a votre graceieus
lecture; mais le Gouvernement de lInde a prete une sourde Oreille a
ses representations et lui a repondu de la meme maniere.
Quayant epuise tous ses efforts pour reconcilier et
apitoyer le gouvernement de lInde Anglaise a quil na fait le moindre
mal qui la traite dune maniere injuste et ?derui?ueller sans aucun
motif ni aucune ??? plausible il na pour le moment dautre ressources
qua implorer le bienveillanct appui et la proection de votre
gouvernement genereux et liberal qui est connu Universellement pour
son amour de la justice.
Que le people de Birmanie ainsi des autres etat
dependants tells que Shans et Kareen veulent le petitionnaire pour leur
Roi et Gouverneur; que le roi Theebaw st un usurpateur vis a vis de lui
qui est le prince aine et heritier legitime et qui le dit Theebaw est
lobject de la haine de la population a cause de sa cruaute et de son
despotisme.
Dans ces circonstances S. A. R. le Prince Myingoon fils aine
du Roi Mindoon de Birmanie et heretier legitime du trone dAva, ose
vous prier, Monsieur l e President de la Republique, de vouloir bien lui
accorder lintervention de votre gouvernement et demander au
Gouvernement Britannique la cause de sa detention et si aucun fait ne
peut lui etre impute a sa charge, il sollicite que votre bienveillant

172
gouvernement la favorise dun sauf-conduit jusqua Saigon. Il a toute
confiance que la liberalite de la nation francaise dont vous etes,
Monsieur la President, la plus haute personne, .>>> ne fera pas
defaut a un infortun tranger et rfugi.
Le petitionnaire na pas besoin dajouter quil se souviendra
toujours que cest a la France quil aura du de revoir le pays de ses
peres.
Chandernagor le 21 Mai 1883
Myingoon
Elder Prince of Burmah

Your Highness, there is someone to see you.

The voice thudded up again the velvet curtains that hung from
his four poster bed. Then louder, a second time. A throat cleared.
Myingun startled awake. His right hand tingled with cramp. With
the other he fumbled for the drape, and pulled it back. Sun scalped
the room. He let the drape fall back in place. It was his wifes idea, this
legged idiocy of a bed. Each morning he felt more marooned.
His lips were thick with the cognac. Its bittersweet taint clung to
the furniture, to the curtains, to his fingers.
He sat up, slowly swung his legs over the side of the mattress.

173
He swallowed, then planted his feet on firm ground. A servant
eased him into his slippers.
He moved across the room to the washstand, and straightened
his face in the mirror, then opened his lips carefully.
Who is it? he asked. But the voice didnt come out careful, it
croaked. Who is it? he asked again.
He let his fingers swim a little, then rinsed his face with the
jasmine water.
Masseur Dill Uncle, Your Highness. From the Governor.
Make him wait. Tell him I am busy with important business. Tell
him I will be down shortly. Give him tea.
He has drunk his tea, Your Higness. And has waited a long long
time.
Did you not think to send him away?
He has already been away and now he has come back, Your
Highness . We tried before but could not rouse you.
The face in the mirror puffed back at him, cheeks like gills.
He says he must see you today, he leaves for Paris tomorrow.
Dill Uncle? Where is his card?

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Here Your Highness.
Myngun snatched the card from the silver platter. A piercing pain
shot up through his right foot. He looked over at the brandy, but the
last glint of yellow was drained from the decanter.
He looked down at his feet, the toes of his velveteen slippers
with seed pearls. He straightened his lungyi.
She was there with his jacket, holding it out. It was still warm
from the pressing iron. He felt himself shrinking from it, contracting his
sweated armpits, away from the cleanliness of it. The roof of his
mouth felt thick with rime.
When he made it downstairs, he found six servants lining an
otherwise empty room, positioned like temple guardians in wait at
each corner. Two flanked the door. The barons parrot hopped onto its
swing, cocked its head, and screamed.
Cover that bird.
The two wenches traded glances and a pout. Myingun told
himself he would scold them next time. Now he had more important
objects of anger.
U Maung Lwin entered the room, rustling a sheaf of papers.
Myingun outscreamed the parrot, expelled the worst words he

175
could find. The older servants stared straight ahead, the newer
recruits pulled their chins in and sagged slightly at the knees. As if in
shame, Myingun thought. They are ashamed of me.
And you?, he turned to face U Maung Lwin. You let him go?
He had urgent business in the Governors Hall. He said he had
waited long enough.
Deloncle, you say? Are you sure?
That is what is written here, Your Highness.
U Maung Lwin glanced down at the carte de visite on the table
between them.
The pain in his foot flowered, spread up to his ankle, short
jabbing bursts of it.
He eased himself down onto the chair.
U Maung Lwin stepped sideways.
What was his business?
He said he was visiting from Paris, on a mission to assess the
colonies, here and in Indochina. He was interested in your
predicament.
The servants regrouped. The ropes creaked. Up above,

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suspended from the ceiling, the pankawallah swung its faded pink
crinoline skirts, emitting faint sighs.
He will return, said U Maung Lwin.
Let him come back, said Myingun.
The doctor had assured him it was not gout. He was too young
for gout. But the pain climbed up his shins in brisk, relentless pangs.
He eased himself further back in the couch.
Close the curtains, he said.
Iqbals face was one of quiet resignation.
He could not bear to look at that view one more time. The same,
same view. Set with a new light. But the same ocean The same
shadows, silverfish quick, slipping in and out of the frame. But closing
the curtains shrunk the room. Mynguns breath tightened.
Open the curtains, he said.
The servants moved with a new sullen-ness to their movements.
Myingun watched the hands of the clock, their slow wheel
through time. His breath moved with the pendulum. He would have
another brandy.
There is someone outside, it is him, U Maung Lwins voice
tailed off.

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Then show him in, said Myingun. What are you waiting for?
He fidgeted with the cushions, threw a withering look at the
servants.
Iqbal was already kneeling at his elbow, setting down a tray on which
wobbled two brandy balloons.
The man who walked through the doorway stood tall, his height
accentuated by the squat torso of U Maung Lwin, who moved just
behind him , heading a long train of others. His princesses at the front.
Servants trailed behind .
Myingun drew himself up slightly in his seat then rose to greet
his guest.
As his guest drew nearer, his body settled into a slouch, his
shoulders pincering slightly forward. Myingun studied the monacle in
his right eye. It was rimmed in gold and next to its sparkling clean
glass, the crystal brand balloons looked dingy. Myingun glared at Iqbal.
The guest drew up close to the prince and extended his hand.
Votre Altesse, he said. Enchante.
The monacle magnified his eyeball, each red vein, the rheumy
surface, the blue-ringed iris.
Myingun glanced down, took the mans hand, apprised the gold

178
ring, a stone of little value, letters embossed. Jet, perhaps.
He let the words swim over him. They worked with the brandy to
lift his mood.
His guest declined the brandy.
In this heat, it does not suit me, he says.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
1884)

Stowaway (Chandernagore - Pondicherry,

179
Myinguns back is pressed up tight against the chest. He is crouched
over, foetal position, his feet tucked under. He had insisted on the
slippers. He wants more than anything to shed them. But he can barely
wriggle his toes. The dark massages his eyelids, conjures forth
hallucinations. Sounds creep in, curious, alien sounds. Beyond them,
as if gnawing at his ribcage, at the underbelly of the boat, he senses
fish feeding. He knows that darkness is supposed to dissipate as his
eyes grow accustomed to it. Instead, here in this padlocked chest, it
grew denser, damper, knit into a thick weave of fear.
On the shore, he hears slaps and squeals. Mr. Lhermitte was
beating them with his stick. And then he heard Monglous, the police
clerk, saying that it was getting late and then, plaintive and light,
canine almost, a voice hungry for attention. Lhermittes neighbour, in
his thick Provencal accent, What am I doing on board this was not part
of the plan and then, too far to hear precisely, a derisive, verbal blow
from Hermitte. Silence. The mosquitoes were biting but he couldnt use
the tiger balm. He would be invisible, like a spirit medium channeling,
like a phantom not yet dead, just there, a whisper of breath, and he
had to breathe so quietly. Now he remembered that was part of
Hermittes plan and why he was making so much noise and beating the
coolies now. And then he heard another voice, soft, obsequious. That
was the clerk from the court, asking for money. Myinguns throat grew
dry, if he was asking for a bribe, then he knew. Would Hermitte know

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the market rate for silence? He remembered a time when no human
could even ever raise their head or body above his own royal body.
Now hes trussed up like a bird for the grilling. If only he had thought to
bring the packet of pickled tea. At least she had packed a small betel
quid in the pocket sewn into his sleeve. But when he looks for it his
forearm seizes up, and his fingers were too numb to grasp it.
The boat started moving. There were two boats, he had figured that
much out, the other one had got the other three cases on it, theyd
split up the luggage. Lhermitte is on board with him, he can hear his
voice. How long do they have until the colonial police realized he has
gone missing?
Myinguns damp palms slip as he pushes out at the walls, one on
each side of him. His neck is cramped, wrists fit to break. Still her
voice haunts him: Dont go. Stay. He takes her voice by the neck and
drowns it, then wrings it dry. But still she bleats on.

That is no place

for you. Are you out of your mind? The trunk is hot, dank, rough with
rust and grit. The judge has had a hole cut in each end.
So you can breathe, hed said with a wry grin.
But he cant see out; cant crane his neck that far port or starboad.
The holes are two slits, dogs eyes, dim gashes of night. What if the
guards can see in?
The judge warned him that they can stop the boat at any time,

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come on board, search first class to no class, strip it bare if they so
wish, as long as they are in reach of port. Once they move out pat that
stretch of sea ruled by Queen Victorias flag, he can breathe free.
Where are they now?
His pulse is too quick, his tongue clings to the roof of his mouth. He
yearns for tea, for a drink. His toes curl up like apes feet. He must not
speak, nor sigh. If he could reach out and scratch the smile off the
judges face, wipe out his pout, he would. His mind clenched tight, inkdark, he crafts a curse, damns the judge and all his kin to and through
seven lines of kin, may they all be born and die as slaves. But what
good is this curse on a white man? How can it stick? He could yell it
from the roof top once they are on shore, but still the judge could slap
it dead with the flick of his wrist, shrug it off, sail off home to France,
free as he came.
How can you trust him? Damn her voice, its back. What do you
know? Hed said, a jeer, a tight taunt.
What he would not give now for the taste of her skin, her kiss on
his, her sweet bite, their flesh. He presses his lips tight, tries to feel his
legs. Tries to shut out the doubt.
But it plucks at him, plucks each breath from out deep as if it were
his last.
The judge had made him a spare key, had asked him if he could

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swim. Of course he can trust him. But the key is stuffed deep in the
sole of his shoe, his arms are too bent to reach it, and his feet are half
numb. Swim? Mais bien sur. Of course I can swim. What was one
more lie?
In through the hole closest to his head leaks the judges small talk.
Comme il fait froid ce soir. How cold it is? On deck, in the breeze,
maybe. He clings to those words, they are a rope to that world out
there, they are all he has left; the judges talk, and a key he cannot
reach.
But what else had he had? What else, there in that life from which
hes fled? The long, dull wait. Day on day. Their men on him. His life
shrunk to the span of their spy-glass. Not free to move. His house a
cell, a prison with a sea-view.
Now at least he is on the move. Shut up, locked in, but on the move.
A bit part in a strange game, afloat on the skin of the sea. His son sits
in his place, out on the balcony, back there, dressed in Myinguns
clothes. Tomorrow, when they do the rounds and see him out on the
porch, the agents of the sret will write in their log book: All well.
Prince still here. No change.
He craves light, turns his head to the keyhole, the ache in his neck
knife-sharp. Sees a scrap of moon, silvery yellow, button-holed by the
lock.

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His lips are dry, his mouth full of sand, his heart rings loud in his
eardrum. Or is that the churn of the waves? He needs to scratch his
right ear. Cant.
Noise. A voice: two. Footsteps. Up close. His throat swells. The boat
jerks, groans, rocks to a halt. A flock of gulls screeches, or is that a
bug, trapped in his eary, out for his blood?
Care for a drink? The judge speaks stage loud, for the prince to
hear.
The clink of glass, the pour of wet stuff - rum? - And then the soft
thud of glasses set down on the trunk. He can almost see the wet rings
form on top of the trunk, just inches from the tip of his nose. Fear
seeps out of him, he cant hold it, his thighs wet and hot. What if they
smell it? More clinks, toasts, footsteps that grow far, a laugh. The chug
of a boat, the sharp rap of the judges fist on the chest: one, two three:
You are safe. That was the coast guards, he thinks, their seach cut
sort by that sweet brown bribe, by a glass of rum, now they have gone,
their boat has moved on.
The pain in his ribs sticks fast as a leech. His mind floats. He sees a
flag, his flag, that proud bird, tail of blue and green and mauve and
gold, fanned out wide by the sea breeze, high up on the mast. His
sign. His mind has lured him to some place far gone, some lost shore
on a mud-rich coast, years back. Their boat had pulled in for coal, piled

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on the coal, then pulled down the white mans flag and hoisted up his
own. The sign of the Prince. Rolled that red white and blue flag tight as
a wad, dipped it in grease and made it their torch for the night. War
was no time to waste good cloth.
The boat lurches, jolts him back to this place where hes trussed up
stiff as a bird, soaked in his own piss. No room to spit. On this no-mans
stretch of the globe, out at sea, out past the coast guards now, in this
place that is not Queen Vics. Nor French. He tries to free his mind, like
the monk taught him, but the flags grow all mixed up, close in on him
like a shroud.
He breathes in once more, real deep, this was what the monk had
taught him, when he was still on the run, and had his own band of
men, and had what is his no more: a place to run to.
He breathes out.
And this time its his soul that stretches out taut, a silk veil. He rides
it to some place else, to a place that is too far to ache, to feel, to see,
to hear. A place where the wounds of his heart can no more form than
heal.
In his past: this rift.
His life hangs in the shape of a key from the neck of a man he has
known for less than a month.

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He fights off the coarse feel of these clothes that are not his. Oily
rags. A poor mans garb, one he will shed quicker than a snakeskin as
soon as they reach shore. He says it once more, hushed: When we
reach shore. His heart lists, his head throbs, his mind is back in this
trunk, bruised blue-green with fear.
In the space of a few hours, the sea has claimed him. Its dark
churning eats up his thoughts, robs him of his sense of self. His princes
blood will taste no different to this ocean and its wild finned beasts
than that of the slaves at the oar. If the boat capsizes, if they offload
luggage in a storm, toss him overboard, if they all drown at sea, his
flesh will rot at the same pace as that of the British and the French who
have bisected this ocean and called it theirs. Can the judge swim? He
had not thought to ask him.
His tongue is lame, but he can still smell. Close up: salt, oil, sweat,
lice. Do lice smell? Rat shit. His itch, the bites. Can an itch smell? He
does not name the stench of his own piss. Screws up his nose to track
far off scents: tar, rum. Rope, rum. Gull, rum. Fish, mould, rum. Back
close now. Tin. Rust. Oil on the lock. Gold - at this last his breath comes
more free. He trains his nose, his mind, on that thin loop of who he
once was, who he will be again. The warm gold tang of his ring. Tied
tight in his sash.
And then his thumb finds it. There in his left wrist. Still the same to

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his touch. His thumb rubs the scar, pressing down on the knotted flesh
till he can feel it. His twin pulse. The luck stone. It sits perfectly quiet,
not a tremor. A good sign. He thinks back to the day in Prome. The
gem a dense glint of blue, held out on her flat palm. Dirt in her nails.
Shed yanked it out from some deep vein of the earth, her hair a caul
of dust from the mine shaft. A seer in white had washed it, blessed it,
and cut it crude in the shape of a third eye, and led them to a temple
full of cats where a monk had poured him three cups of palm wine that
slid down his throat like liquid fish. The monk had unwrapped a thin
blade from a bundle of cloth and held it to the light to check for dirt.
Then he had blown on it and asked the prince to inspect it too and had
motioned to her to leave the room, and when she had made her exit
without a single glance back, the monk had taken the princes right
wrist in his left hand. He gripped it tight and twisted it slightly so that
the princes forearm faced up, and slashed the blade across him in an x
that drew two bright seams of blood. He had cut him deep but not too
deep. Then the monk had set the stone in him and stitched him up
tight with a hot needle and some thin twine. All this time Myingun set
his jaw tight and trained his mind on the colour of the stone.
Somewhere in all of this was the sound of cats purring. The monk had
blessed him thrice and painted over the stitches with a liquid that
smelled like lacquer. Then he had set him on his way. She was waiting
for him outside with the last gold plate, and this she took up to the

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monk and knelt down before him, touching her head to the ground
three times before offering it up. He had blessed her then, too, but with
words, not water.
That stone had once been as blue as the edge of a flame. Bright as
sky light. Now stitched deep in him, his flesh its throne. Spoilt with the
hue of his own bad luck blood, Myingun thinks, and then chases this
last thought away and thinks instead of its deep blue heart. Pure as the
boy hed lost, there on that last march. He presses his thumb to it, as if
feeling for a pulse. If he lifts his mind to that cloud of light, he can hear
it: faint, sure, frail, but there.
The boat lurches, the tide shifts, the walls of the trunk close in on
him. For a heartbeat, fear rips through him. But the stones soft hum
quells it.
A gem found by her, by Ma May. Cut like a star, in the shape of an
eye, by a seer in Prome, and blesssed by a monk whose name is gone.
Lost. Lost? Did he know his name, back then? Did he know the monks
name? Did he ask? He names the stone, at least. Names it now, here
in this trunk. Su -ri -ya. Three sounds that spell the sun. Three sounds
for the three jewels of Buddha, for the right path.
He presses his thumb up close to the scar, traces its thick knots.
The warmth spreads through his hand now, up into his limbs. He
knows he should reach for the key now, but all he can grope for is

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dreams. The judge snores. He can hear the thick click of the judges
tongue. Sleep closes in on him.
He wakes with a lurch. Drool leaks from his mouth. His nostrils are
crusted, his mouth parched, head groggy with slipped dreams. Oars
beat the water. A rope is thrown. The oarsmen sing to themselves, low.
Were here Bayatabadi. All this time he knew that Lhermitte was
sitting up close to him and yet he could not say a word.
It takes every muscle in his upper body not to vomit, not to retch
out all his fear and anger. He presses his hands, palmwise, to the sides
of the trunk, to steady him. The next thing he knows he is being
offloaded, the movement brings whispers of air and light into the trunk,
there must be one carrier at every corner, hoisting him up higher now,
and yet he can barely lift his head. He cranes his neck far enough to
see a flash of canvas, linen, something white, through one hole. The
judges melon a cloche. His pith helmet. He is humming a tune
Myingun has heard somewhere before, but cant place.
He hears an engine running and over it, someone crying for a
carriage, a gharry. His stomach lurches. and he longed again for the
smell of her skin, the taste of her.
They must be on the Tibre now, the big mail boat, and there was
the Captain, Captain Fouet, he had met him only once before, but he
would recognize that voice anywhere. It was a voice hammered by the

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ocean, thick with rime and free of regrets.
He heard the sailors whistling for the wind. He would trade
anything, his amulet even, to be out there on deck at that moment,
breathing the sea breeze.
Then he thinks he hears the police clerk saying to someone I saw
the prince. He speaks with an air of bravado, of boastfulness, that
leaves Myingun feeling a little giddy, a little proud.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Inquest at Chandernagore, 1884

The courtroom was sparsely furnished. The timing of the tribunal was

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particularly unfortunate. June was sweltering hot. There was never
sufficient funding for the pankawallahs, who did their morning shift
over at Government house, then shuttled over here after their siesta,
with the result that morning sessions left one drenched in sweat, and in
the afternoon, only partially revived from their siesta, and still tired
from their mornings work, the fans barely shifted air around the room.
Let the hearing begin, boomed the Judge. I pronounce on this
day 24 June 1884, the commencement of an admnistrative inquiry into
the escape from Chandernagore of Prince Myn-Goon Mintha.
First in the stand was Monglou, the Bengali (? Speaks in Bengali)
clerk of the Tribunal de premiere instance, and the judge suspected,
LHermittes right hand man in this affair.
You are the pion of the Tribunal du Premier instance?
Yes, Monsieur
Were you not also the household servant of M. Lhermitte?
Yes, I was his only servant
Were you in the vehicle that carried M. Lhermitte from
Chanernagor to Calcutta on Monday evening?
No, I left Chandernagore by the twooclock train; M. Lhermitte sent
me to take his livret (passport/departure papers) to the Consul. The
Consul refused to help. So I followed Monsieur Lhermittes advice and

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went on to the house of M. Fouet, the Chancellor at the Consulate, and
Fouet signed it. [ [FOUET? See my other note from Pondi/Tibre] signed
it.
And after that?
After that, I stayed the night in Calcutta and I met up with M.
Lhermitte at Garden-Reach the following morning, as he had
instructed.
Did you not also see Chacour at Garden-Reach?
Yes, I saw Chacour, and he and I then took the same train back to
Chandernagor
Before you set out from Chandernagore, did you happen to notice a
large chest among Monsieur Lhermittes luggage?
Yes, that chest had been there for a long time.
When you left, was the chest full or empty?
It was empty.
Did you not notice holes at either end of the chest?
I noticed the holes in the chest at Calcutta, when we were carrying
it aboard the Tibre. Rats must have made these holes in the chest, I
said to myself.
Do you know Prince Myin-Goon?

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Yes, I have seen him two or three times in Chandernagore.
Did you ever see him at M. Lhermittes residence?
No. But I did see the Prince at seven in the morning, walking beside
M. Lhermitte. They were coming out of a walled garden.
Did you recognize the prince?
Yes, perfectly.
What was he wearing?
He was dressed like a pauper.
And the big chest that youd seen, the one with the rat holes, what
had become of that?
It had been carried by coolies, at my direction, into M. Lhermittes
cabin.
Where was this cabin situated?
At the front, near the Captains berth.
After delivering the chest to the cabin, what did you do?
I went to look for Chacour, who arrived with two suitcases. He was
chatting to Monsieur Lhermitte. And then I got off the boat.
Did you not receive a tip from Monsieur Lhermitte?
Yes. He gave me five rupees.

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With whom did you return to Chandernagor?
WIth Chacour and the police clerk (le pion de police).
During the journey, didnt you tell Chacour and [le pion]: If I wanted
to talk, it would take more than 5 rupees to stop me.
Yes, I said: If I told the English what I know, I could make myself a
couple of hundred rupees.
What did Chacour and the police clerk (pion) say to that?
Chacour said nothing.
And the police clerk (pion)?
The police clerk said: Dont speak about that. This is not our
business/no concern of ours.
Hearing closed. All adjourn. The inquiry will resume this
afternoon, two thirty sharp.
Next in the witness stand was Chacour chorone Chattapadhia. A
scribe from the Secretariat and the interpreter of the Tribunal of the
first instance. In the judges brief experience of his posting, Chacour
was an excellent interpreter. But what exactly he was interpreting, and
precisely how the Judges messages and the chatter of witnesses were
being relayed back into Bengali or Hindustani, was something that
remained irritatingly out of the French judges reach.

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Chacours eyes, slightly protuberant, were downcast. His hooked
nose was echoed in two scimitar-creases at either side of his mouth. ,
and his moustache had been carefully waxed for the occasion, a sign of
respect that was not lost on the judge Its a curious thing, the chief
investigating office and chief of police in Pondicherry, had told the
judge the previous afternoon. M. Chacour, when called up for the
inquest, threw himself at my feet and declared Monsieur Chief of
Police, if I tell you the whole truth, do you promise to save me? He
repeated himself three times, and only when I assured him that if he
told us the whole truth and nothing but, Id do everything in my power
to beg the Governor to treat him with due consideration, did he decide
to come clean and make a full confession. Recalling this story, the
judge softened his voice slightly, and modulated the ring of the gavel.
Chacour had served long enough in court to understand such
acoustics. He relaxed his grip on the witness stand, puffed his chest
out in an air of heroic sacrifice, and cleared his throat.
Were you on the boat that took M. Lhmeritte and his luggage to
Calcutta?
Yes.
Who was with you?
Lhermitte, a pion de police and four boatmen/oarsmen.
When you arrived at Baidyabali station, did you not change boats?

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Yes
Why?
Because the boat was not going very quickly. So we had to take
another dinghy (dingue), and carry the baggage on the dinghy.
Was there much baggage on board?
No, only four cases.
Did you see the prince on board, among the passengers?
No.
Did you not see a large chest among the luggage?
Yes.
Did you know what was in it?
I knew that the prince must be in the chest, but I did not see him.
How did you know that?
Two months ago, M. Lhermitte went to visit the Prince and
proposed to get him out in a chest.
What did the Prince say?
The Prince agreed. As M. Lhermittes departure date drew closer, he
told the Prince: Everything is ready. Have you made up your mind?
The prince replied, Yes, I have decided [to leave with you].

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Do you know how the operation took place?
I did not see it.
Why were you in the boat?
At the insistence of M. Lhermitte.
When did he tell you to come?
He told me to be there at quarter of nine.
And what did you do when you got there?
He had me call a carriage (une charette) for the luggage.
Did you not notice at this moment that the Prince was in the chest
destined for him?
No, I just supposed that the Prince must be in it, on account of what
I knew.
Did you notice whether the chest swung when they carried it?
No. It was tightly closed. I didnt worry myself with that. I knew that
he was in it.
Did M. Lhermitte appear agitated, shaken?
No, not at this moment.
At what moment did he begin to look troubled?
In Calcutta, he was all impatient about getting porterage for the

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luggage.
During the journey, did anything happen?
No
During the entire journey, the Prince, who you supposed to be in the
chest, according to all you knew, did he not appear?
No.
Where did you disembark?
At Ninmetolla-Gath.
What did you notice at the disembarcation?
I noticed that M. Lhermitte was getting quite impatient to get the
large chest carried.
How did they move the chest?
I saw it in a car.
Inside it or on top?
Inside it. By chance, the car door (?la portiere? Or is this a
pully/car) was wide, and the case stuck out a little at either side.

3. DE SOZA - Procureur de la Republique.

What do you know about the escape of Prince Myin-Goon?

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Nothing. Although I am Monsieur Lhermittes neighbour, yet last
night, when you told me about it, I was in shock.
Did you not travel to Calcutta with M. Lhermitte a few days before
the escape?
Yes, on the previous Thursday, 12 June.
Who did you see in Calcutta?
Noone. Monsieur Lhermitte wanted to buy some Indian arms for his
collection, and I just went along for the ride. We visited two large
stores/dealers (maisons des Babous) and then came back.
Did you notice M. Lhermitte go off alone to talk to anyone?
I did not see him talk to anyone, except for the merchants.
Did he never mention his plans to you?
Never, I had absolutely no idea.
And yet you were very close to M. Lhermitte? You were constantly
at his house? And you were there at the time of his departure?
That is correct. But he never told me a thing.
On the evening of his departure, on Monday 16 June, did you not
see Monsieur Lhermitte to the boat?
Yes, he asked me to. I live in the house opposite, and Monsieur
Lhermitte came across to see me at 9 oclock. You see, I had called

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out to him, How come you are already back at home, when you were
going to dine in town? He replied Im in a terrible bind, I just learned
that the Tibre is leaving tomorrow morning at 6 oclock. There arent
any trains that can get me there in time. I must leave by boat. And
then he said: Come with me. Well go see Checkchidou gemedar and
tell him that well get a dinghy(dingue). So I did. Chidou said, You
should have taken this precaution in advance. It will be really difficult
to find a boat now. To which M. Lhermitte said: Lets go take the
luggage and come back to the gath (jetty). I offered to find a boat, and
he left me to it. I was in my house-clothes? Jetais en masque?
I quickly went to fetch my uniform (?get un vetement) and then met
up with M. Lhermitte at the Gath. He was already in conversation about
finding a boat. Finally, with Chacours help, and Gemedars, he found a
boat without much trouble at all, but there were only three oarsmen
(rameurs). They got the baggage up onto the boat. Chacour was there
to receive the luggage, and M. Lhermitte was the last on board. The
pion du police, who had also come across in the dinghy (lit
transbordement), was there in the boat with Chacour. I suggested to
M. Lhermitte that I come too. He replied, Since you are not used to
traveling by boat I see no point in your coming (lit: je crois que cest
inutile). So I said my goodbyes. I told the pion de police to come down
off the boat and to return to land. M. Lhermitte said, no, No, I need
the pion. And they set off.

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Didnt you notice a large chest among the luggage?
Yes, I noticed a large chest.
Hadnt you already seen that chest at M. Lhermittes house?
Yes, I saw it there a month or so ago.
Did this chest, with its exaggerated dimensions, never come up in
conversation? And did the presence of this chest in M. Lhermittes
house, not astonish you?
Yes, I asked him once what use it could be to him, since he had so
few things. He replied that he would need it when he left Pondicherry
for France.
Did you not notice that this large chest was still empty on that
Monday evening, a few hours before his departure, while the other
ones were full?
I did not see M. Lhermitte between Sunday 15 June, at 9 oclock,
when he dined at my house, and 3 oclock the following afternoon when
he came back to my house. After that, I did not see him until 9 oclock
that Monday evening, under the circumstances just related to you.
On Mr. De Sozas request, he added the following to his deposition:
When M. Lhermitte said to me, I need a pion I replied that I could
not take it upon myself to give him a pion without the authorization of
M. Le Chef de Service, and that it was too late to disturb him. M.

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Lhermitte replied Tell the Chef de Service from me, that I have taken
this pion.
4. Checkbanou: The Boatman [lit: one of the Boatmen
(bateliers)]
You were on the boat that took M. Lhermitte to Calcutta?
Yes.
Who contracted (arrete) you?
Le Gemedar.
How many rowers /bateliers were there?
Three, and a timonier. The Gemedar found the three, and a
batelier came from the house, with M. Lhermitte.
Did you notice anything unusual on the boat?
Nothing. It was very dark.
Did you take care of the bags?
All four of us carried on the luggage.
Among the luggage, did you notice a large chest?
Yes, there wre two small chests, and one that was larger and
another that was even bigger.
Where did you go on this boat?

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To Baidyabati.
Why no further?
The boat was not running very well, it was too large. They asked
for another boat.
Then what did you do?
We got off the boat, except for the timonier who M. Lhermitte had
brought along. He continued on to the new boat.

5. Pinot: Commissaire de police

How is it that your reports, written over the period of the morning
of Tuesday 17 June, the day after the escape which had occurred the
previous evening, until Sunday 22 June, inclusive, note that Prince
Myin-goon was present in Chandenagore?
Because, having no access to the Princes house, and not being
able to force the doors, and having no-one in the household in our pay
as a spy to report on what had happened, the only resource at my
disposal was to place the Prince under my own surveillance, and that
of my two discreet agents. The Prince never goes out. I often call at
his house on the pretext of seeking news of his health. Only once did
he receive me. The other times, it was members of his entourage. I

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tried to make them speak. Judging from their replies, I never stirred the
least cause for suspicion. Following the departure of the Tibre, the
household routine was the same as usual. The bedrooms were lit as
usual. The comings and goings were the same. Nothing gave myself or
others reason to believe that the Prince had left.
Unable to verify my agents reports with my own eyes, I have had
to place faith in their affirmations.
Each morning, before finalizing my report, I ask the adjutant de
1ere etape or 2eme etape, or, failing that, other agents, if the Prince is
there. It was only after the affirmation of one of them that I placed it on
record that Myin-Goon is here.
Q: But in what terms did your agents provide this confirmation?
I said to them each morning: Is the Prince present? Are you
completely sure? On their affirmation, I repeat, I made my mention.
Q. Did you never, even vaguely, get wind of the Princes
departure?
I beg your pardon, on Friday 20 June, this rumour did reach my
ears, but it was so vague, that nobody could confirm it.
Q. It was your duty to warn me even of this vague rumour. Why did
you not do so?
This is what happened: It was Galopin, the adjutant de premier

204
etape, who told me he had heard a rumour doing the rounds, but that
he did not believe it. When I wanted to make you a written report, M.
Galopin told me Dont do it, because I dont believe there is any basis
for this rumour. I sent the adjutant of the 2eme etage to see if the
Prince was there. He replied in the affirmative: yes, he is there. Faced
with this categorical affirmation, I paid no more attention to the matter,
and made note/placed it on record that Myn-Goon is here. The
following morning, Sunday, it was even confirmed to me that the Prince
had been seen on the verandah, in his usual place.
Q: Who confirmed that to you?
Check-Chidaw, the adjutant of the 2eme etape. I insisted with him,
and he confirmed that he had seen him and recognized him. It was
only after all these precautions that I made mention of his presence.
Q. Do you have anythig else to say/further to add?
No.

6. Mouliramebiara, Police guard

Q. How exactly did you come to be on board the boat that took M.
Lhermitte from Chandernagore to Calcutta, on Monday evening 16
June?
A. After finishing work at 9 on Monday evening, I heard some noise

205
on the Gath. So I went down there and asked, Whats going on The
bateliers replied that the President and the Procurer were beating them
to force them to leave for Calcutta in a boat that was not theirs, and
whose bateliers had fled, because they did not want to leave for
Calcutta, and were afraid of the President who was threatening them. I
did not have my police uniform on [CHECK CONTRADICTION IN HIS
NEXT STATEMENT]. Then the President and the Procureur asked
Who is this man? The Gemedar replied It is our police guard. So the
president said to me, Round up/Get me some bateliers and I got
them.
Q: On what authority (Lit: De quel droit) did you leave in this
boat?
A. M. Lhermitte took me by the hand. And the Procureur ordered
me to leave. And so I was forced into leaving, in my uniform.
Q. Who was in the boat, beside the bateliers?
A. M. Lhermitte, Chacour, and me.
Q. Where was M. Lhermitte sitting?
A. He was in the front (lit. Couche)
Q. Was there a lot of luggage on board?
A. Four trunks.
Q. Large or small?

206
A. One large trunk, one smaller, and two small ones.
Q. Where was the large trunk?
A. In front.
Q. Was it far from or close to, M. Lhermitte?
A. Right next to him.
Q. And where were you and Chacour?
A. We were both at the back.
Q. Was the large case strapped on (lit: attache) to the boat?
A. No, it was just locked with a key.
Q. Did you notice that the big chest had holes in it?
A. No.
Q. Now tell me what happened.
A. We arrived at Baidyabati. There, we changed boats, and then we
got to Nimetolla shortly before the Horvrah bridge.
Q. Why did you get off at Nimetolla?
A. Because the tide was rising, and we would not have reached
Garden-Reach in time.
Q. What happened at Nimetolla?
A. At first we called for a car, and then we put the large trunk in it

207
and M. Lhermitte also got in. Chacour, the batelier, Kedour Dache and
m, we all got in a second car with the three other pieces of baggage.
We got to Garden-Reach. Chacour said to Monglou, M. Lhermittes
servant, Here is your luggage. And then they all stepped aboard the
Tibre, helped by coolies.
Q. Where was M. Lhermitte at that moment?
A. M. Lhermitte had left Nimetolla half-an-hour before us. When we
arrived, he was already aboard the Tibre.
Q. Did you see the large trunk again?
A. No.
Q. Go on.
A. Chacour asked a servant where M. Lhermitte was. Just at that
moment, M. Lhermitte got off the Tibre. He came over to talk to him for
about five minutes. M. Lhermitte went back on board and Chacour
followed him, then Chacour came back to see me and gave me a one
rupee tip. Then we all went back to Chandernagor: Chacour, Monglou,
and me.
Q. When did you get back to Chandernagor?
A. At eleven oclock.
Q. What did Monglou say to you during the journey?

208
A. Nothing.
Q. Did he not tell you that he had received a 5 rupee tip, and that
he wanted to speak, and that if he did he would earn himself 100
rupees, not just 5?
A. I knew that he had 5 rupees. As for the other, I did not hear it.
Q. Do you know anything else?
A. No.

7. Check Chidou. Adjutant de Deuxieme classe de Police.

Q. How was it that on Friday, 20 June, when the Commissaire de
police told you that a rumour was circulating about the flight of the
Prince, and asked you for information, you told him that the Prince was
there?
A. I did not say: The prince is there. I saw someone like the Prince
seated on the armchair (fauteuil) in the verandah, his head covered,
and his face uncovered. And so I told the Commissaire de Police: The
prince cant have gone, because I just saw him.
Q. Please be precise. Were you really quite sure that it was MynGoon? Did you recognize him fully? Did you have any doubts? And why
did you confirm to the Police Commissaire that you were sure it was
him [lit: that you did recognize him fully (lit: que vous avez bien

209
reconnu)]?
A. I had already asked at the door if the Prince was there (MISSING
NEXT PAGE!)
.
NEW INQUIRY:
A. The bateliers refused to come to Calcutta. So Chacour said to
me: Take a gharry (literally, charrette). Chacour went straight to M.
Lhermittes house. And I went off to find a gharry (charette) which I
drove straight to M. Lhermittes. There, I found M. Lhermitte, De Soza,
the Gemedar, Chacour and a police man. Then we took the luggage.
Q: Did you personally assist with loading the luggage?
A. Yes.
Q. How many pieces were there?
A. Four
Q. Small or large?
A: Two small, a large trunk of light iron/white metal, and another
even larger one made of wood.
Q. Was the largest, wooden trunk very heavy?
A. It weighed one mand and a quarter, or around 100 lbs.

210
Q. Were the trunks all tied up?
A. Three of them were tied up, but the large wooden one had no
ropes or string (natte).
Q. Didnt you notice that there were holes at both ends of this
trunk?
A. No, it was night-time.
Q. After loading the baggage, where did you go?
A. Straight to the Gath. Nobody wanted to give their boat. We spent
a long time discussing it.
Q. What did M. Lhermitte say about this delay?
A. He was furious. He hit the bateliers with his cane, then he
ordered Gemedar and a policeman to put the bateliers into the boat by
force. So the police man grabbed two bateliers, and forced them onto
the boat where another batelier, who had agreed to go, was already
waiting. When all four bateliers were on board, we left.
Q. Where were you on the boat?
A. I was right at the back, down below/on the lower deck(?) (a la
basse derriere)
Q. Where was the large trunk?
A. Up front, among the the others.

211
Q. Aside from the bateliers, who was on the boat?
A. M. Lhermitte, Chacour and the policeman Molisamebiara.
Q. Where was M. Lhermitte?
A. Right next to the big turn, in the front.
Q. And the other passengers?
A. Chacour and the pion were behind next to the barre.
Q. And so you left? Where did you go?
A. To Baidyabati. There, M. Lhermitte told us to take an other boat
and other bateliers, cecause ours was not working.
Q. Why didnt you go back to Chandernagore with your friends in
the first boat?
A. Because Chacour told me to come to Calcutta with him.
Q. At what time did you arrive in Calcutta?
A. At 6 in the morning, at Nimetolla. There we took two cars. We put
the big trunk in one car. M. Lhermitte climbed inside. And the car set
off.
Q. Was the big trunk in the trunk, or on top (dessus)?
A. Inside. It stuck out sligthly from each side.
Q. ANd M. Lhermite.

212
A. Also inside.
Q. Who climbed inside the 2nd car?
A. Chaocour, the police man, and me.
Q. Where did you go?
A. Straight to Garden Reach.
Q. Where did you next see M. Lhermitte?
A. I saw him coming down off the Tibre when I arrived with
Chacours and the guard in the second car.
Q. Was the Tibre far from the quay?
A. At the quay. They had stepped aboard from the shore.
Q. And the large trunk, what had become of it?
A. I dont know anything about that.
Q. What did you do at that moment?
A. We carried the bags that were in our car, up into the Tibre with
some coolies.
Q. Did you see the bags go down to the cabin (?cale)
A. Yes, I saw the three trunks which we had carried in our car, in the
cab
Q. And did you see the large trunk go down into the cab?

213
A. No, I did not se it again after Nimetollas.
Q. So you left?
A. Chacour caem to chat with M. Lhermitte and me, and I stayed
down on the shore, and then I left for Calcutta.
Q. Did you return alone to Chandernagore?
A. Yes, all alone.
Q Did you hear nothing out of the ordinary from your friends?
A. I heard someone say to Mongou, M. Lhermittes servant, I saw
the Prince.
Q. You must have been very astonished by this news?
A. Yes, very.
Q. What did you reply.
A. I asked him where he had seen the Prince. Monglou tod me: I saw
him go onto the Tibre.
Q. Did you tell anyone else this news?
A. No, noone. Since I live in Chandernago and it was the President
of the Tribunal, I did not dare to repeat the news. I was afraid.
Q. After your arrival in Chandernagor, did you hear anyone else talk
about Myin-Goons departure>

214
A. Noone said anything to me.
Q. Do you have anything else to say
A> No.
The witness declared that he did not know how to sign.
This was signed by CLEMENT THOMAS, the Chef de Service.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

MANDALAY AND PONDICHERRY

1884

September 1884

When the comet chased across the night in Mandalay, Ma May kept her
eyes off its red arc and searched for other signs. For months, Myinguns
supporters had put out word that when a comet crossed the sky, his
return to the throne would follow hot upon its tail. She felt the heat of
a people waiting for change in its scarlet plume.

215
Sotto voce, the princes supporters congratulated each other on the
success of their cause, eyes bright with the prospect of the favours and
offices they would gain in the princes cabinet upon his return. But
when Ma May checked to see which stars had been nudged from the
constellations, she saw no change. Even the smallest star still glittered
in the same old place in the firmament. Myinguns destiny, she
reasoned, grasping for threads of how her grandma would have read
the dense night sky, was no different than it had ever been. He would
not return. Not now, not then, not ever. While the rest of his
clandestine circle celebrated their auspicious futures, Ma May kept her
disappointment to herself.
The next morning, Queen Supayalat instructed her scribes not to
report the comet, and then instructed them that its travel was a
rumour put about by the supporters of the Myingun prince, and that
they should rather report that it had not occurred.

For years, Ma

May had only ever been on the fringes of the court, but her position
was secure. Her grandmother had seen to that from their first, fugitive
weeks in Mandalay. She had first warned Ma May to play mute, and to
act silent if anyone asked her where they were from. When quiet had
become a habit, her grandmother had coached her in the arts of
silence, while at the same time completing the training she had begun
when Ma May had reached her tenth birthday: how to roll a perfect
cigar. At first her grandmother had hummed softly in rhythm to the

216
motions, and Ma May had joined her. Then her grandmother had
reached into her mouth with betel and lime-stained fingers that gave a
soft, aneasthetizing buzz, and tamed her tongue. Ma May soon
learned that silence and its industry had a range of melodies. She
could work to them all.
Her grandma combed her hair and shined it bright with coconut
oil and daubed her cheekbones with thanaka powder, and took her to
the market, to the monastery, walked the streets, in part to get her
noticed, in part to test how well she had learned her lesson. She
taught her to bow low before a monk and to show her respect before
an elder through the dip of her brow and the curvature of her neck.
After a while, words began to seem as meaningless as the quick
chatter of birds. But she refused to go along with her grandmas game
without first finishing her reading lessons. She would roll words in her
mind in time to the fluid assemblage of the cigars. Her grandmother
swore her to secrecy, not to pass the knack on to any other. It was a
question of how you crushed the tobacco between your fingers as you
packed the leaf, and of a perfume
The cigars would be her entrance to the court. Her muteness
would be protection against jealousy. The queen and her princesses
would have less cause for envy of a beauty whose karma was so
permanently flawed. Men would shun her like a bad luck charm.
In time, her muteness came to magnify an inner beauty. She

217
grew in serenity. The hardest thing for her was not to sing. She know
her voice would be lost if she could not nurture it. She would take the
long route from one chore to another, and learned to time her travels
through the palace so that she could gravitate towards the orchestra
and listened in silence to their practice sessions, tuning her inner ear.
Being mute, often people assumed she could not hear. Even
minutes after shed faithfully executed the most precise instructions,
the palace orderlies would trade secrets and confidences well within
her earshot.
Court affairs trickled down to Ma May third or fourth hand,
refashioned several times the way rice was reworked from a stiff
translucent grain to a soft, glutinous sweetmeat. But instead of bean
paste or coconut jelly in a lotus leaf, these grains were seasoned with
spite and malice and wrapped in sugar. Court gossip was traded with
all the calculation that applied to trade. And it was always enveloped
in graces and favours. Seconds after handing down a death sentence,
instructions to interrogate, capture, or torture, the queen could spread
a veneer of piety on as thick as paint.
There was something not right with the Queen, some warped
filament. Ma May imagined her umbilical cord twisted up around her
inside. Something warped and out of shape grew in there, she knew, a
knot in her soul. No one dared even form the thought that it was this
canker on her inner being that prevented the faintest breath of hpon,

218
of male glory, from taking root in her womb.

On gossip, the Queen had a firm monopoly. To purchase her

favor, there was no length to which her courtiers would not go. The
rumor-merchants came both from within the palace walls and from
without. There were the foreign ladies, the kalama, the powdery-faced
nuns from France with their black tents of dresses, and the Armenians
and Russians and Italians, with their strangled waists and flouncing,
stale-smelling skirts.
Ma May had seen the Queen beat one servant to a pulp for
nothing more than a vision, a facial crime. Because the Queen had
thought shed seen an expression of doubt on the servants face when
a visiting doctor announced that the Queen was with child, a male heir.
The doctor never returned. What doctor would dare deliver a
child that could not deliver on this promise?
Ma May thought different. She thought the Queen had too much
of her own hpon. Too much maleness. The one time she had had cause
to pass close to the Queen, the Queen had sweated hpon with a stench
as true as a deer in musk. And then Ma May would wonder whether
the Queen had somehow been born as a man deformed, without the
physical equipment; with no beard to pluck nor heavy genitals to rub,
but instead this vile deformity of spirit. The Queens utter lack of inner
grace still startled her.

219
Ma May knew from the way the Queen carried herself, knew from
the first time she had set eyes on her, that she would never have a
son. Shed assisted at enough births in her village to know the signs.
Even though she could still not put any single sign in words.
It was the shape of a belly, the cast of a face, the force of a
groan, the tastes and sicknesses, how they fluctuated, what appetites
came and went these, she knew, determined an infants sex. Her
grandma had been a midwife, threw herself into it with an unstinting
energy after Ma Mays own mother had died in labour.
But Ma May had heard enough, too much. Sometimes she
wanted to stuff her ears up, she felt shed crack open with the force of
all these things that came to her and that she could not speak.
Each day a new rumour grew about the Myingun prince. Each
day a new acidity set in the Queens features.
Shed had the messengers and Taingda and Taungwin captured
and tortured. Shed shrieked and ranted about their betrayal, how the
treasury minister, the Taungan, had new bands of dacoits and bandits
around Mandalay, in his pay.
Yan min was the most famous bandit of Upper Burma. If the
Queen could extract a drop of his seed, shed deliver a succession of
male heirs as sure as trees bear fruit in season. Even shackled in
cangues and branded with the palace gaolers tattoo, Yan Min held
himself erect. He could command a room, lead a posse, an army,

220
without raising his voice.

The Tsawbwas of Mengnang in Kengtung, all supported the

Myingun Prince.
They supported him because he promised a return to the old
order. A return to the order that the British and the Queen were eating
from under the peoples feet. They supported him, too, because he
would not turn up his nose at their daughters. The Queen had banned
the old practice of the Shan rulers sending up their daughters in
marital alliances.

221

Pondicherry: 1884 - Portent in a pickle jar

On September 16, 1884, a comet sliced across the night, sowing
murmurs in Mandalay. The next day, a second miracle grew in a pickle
jar in the princes kitchen in Pondicherry.
U Maung Lwin was taking his morning walk in the small rose
garden that formed the central courtyard of the house when he heard
the commotion. Far off, it had sounded like the whining of a mosquito
trapped in his ear, or the croaking of frogs. But as he moved closer to
the kitchen quarters, the words flew out of the open windows as fast
as blades on a block or the slap of hand-stretched noodles on the air.
He hovered outside, held at bay by the knowledge that this kitchen
gossip was beneath his status and goaded on by his curiosity as to the
cause of the fray.
It is not possible.
The Tayinthi fruit has spoken.
U Maung Lwin moved closer to the window, and made a show of

222
admiring a rather forlorn looking jasmine plant that straggled up
against the wall, tethered to a bamboo grid.
How can a pickle speak?
Its sprouted, are you too blind to see?
Then whose fault is that?
The vinegar-merchant, must have watered it down.
Its been in salt water for months, it cant have sprouted.
Then whats this?
If a drowning man cant learn to swim, how can a drowned fruit
flower?
Fools the lot of you, didnt the princess tell us to look out for
special signs?
U Maung Lwin entered through the doorway. On any other
morning, cook would have rushed over to foist a new sweetmeat on
him, nestled on a silver platter, asking him for his opionion as to
whether the Prince would like it. But this morning, no-one so much as
noticed him.
On the trestle table where cook ordinarily laid out her delicacy of
the day for his enjoyment, flies buzzed around half eaten bowls of
monhingya noodles. The Tamil sentries had abandoned their rothi

223
breads. Glancing at the sauce smears on the crusts, U Maung Lwin
fought the growl in his stomach and moved on to the center of the
kitchen, where a crowd had formed. At its center, he could see by
lifting himself up on his toes, two women tussled over a ceramic urn.
I found it first.
I pickled it.
I bought the vinegar, said a third, joining the fray.
Found it? Whats the use of finding it when you dont know what
youre seeing.
I saw it first, yelled a fourth, elbowing her way to the fore.
U Maung Lwin was craning his neck to see over the shoulders of
the gatekeepers who had left their post to watch the sport, when the
urn slipped and fell to the ground.
In a pool of brine, nested in crockery shards, lay the pickle.
It was small and freckled. From its crippled stem, impossibly,
curled a tiny green leaf. A silvery bud curled at one side of the leaf.
U Maung Lwin cleared his throat. The gatekeepers turned to look
at him. Without a word they slouched back to their posts, snatching up
their half-eaten rothis on their way.
It was not clear who had dropped the urn, and out of the bitter

224
wrangling of seconds ago sprang a new accord.
Did you see that? That urn has a mind of its own.
Sprung straight out of your hands it did.
My hands? You were the one holding it.
If those flowers werent so pretty Id say it was haunted.
Is that so, said U Maung Lwin. And what makes you think
that?
The squabbling servants widened their circle and turned to look
at him. He moved forward and squatted down slightly on his
haunches, squinting at the pickle.
A Tayinthi fruit. Most auspicious, he muttered to himself. Most
auspicious.
The servant girls eyed him suspiciously.
A new note of envy crept into their voices.
But I was the first to see it.
See it? Whats the use of seeing.
And so it began again.
U Maung Lwin might be the princes secretary, but it was the
housekeeper who brought the argument to a close with the heel of her

225
hand, and sent the girls back to the days chores, a mound of
vegetables that needed peeling.
I need a glass jar, U Maung Lwin instructed the cook.
Cook eyed the shelf and lifted down two glass jars, one of pale
pink and one of thick blue glass with a fine crack running through it.
The gossamer fissure caught the dawn light as cook lifted it down.
U Maung Lwin held the fruit in his hand. It felt slimy, amphibian.
He nodded to the blue jar.
There was something magical in that leaf that would be
magnified by the imperfection in the glass, and confirm Myinguns
confidences in him. He left the kitchen, holding the glass jar in his
hands with great care. Intent on its contents, and on placing his feet
carefully one before the other, he walked across the courtyard.
I will take that, said a voice, and Myingun looked up from the
jar to see Myinguns wife.
The servants must have tipped her off. He surrendered it with
outward grace, but returned to his desk with a scowl.

226

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN - PONDICHERRY - 1884 -

The paper was crumpled and stained with sweat. The messenger
who brought it here was out back, in the kitchen, being treated to naan
bread and curry. U Maung Lwin can almost hear him smack his lips as
he mops up the sauces on his plate. Gone is the delicate sprawl of the
palace. In Mandalay, the intricately carpentered geography of kingship
had kept such things abstract, distant. In this small house, bodily
functions are too tightly interlaced. Princely decrees jostle up with
cooking odours, street noise permeates the small front room that
doubles up as an audience hall, and the sound of servants bickering
drones on and off like the distant hum of bees.
U Maung Lwin squinted at the report again.

227
Myingun takes it from him, adjusts his glasses, holds it out at arms
length, and reads it, slowly.
I believe that the scheme originated with some of the ministers
who have been coquetting with the Mengoon Prince.
Myin-Goon, Mengoon, Mingun, Myingon - can they not settle, with
their 26 letters in the alphabet, on one name for him?
Myingun contemplates the charge, checks the source. Mandalay
Massacres: Upper Burma. John E. Marks, St. Johns College, Upper
Burma, 3 October 1884. Some of their followers, who were in their
confidence, had been unfortunate enough to get into prison, and their
patrons became afraid that they would purchase their freedom by
disclosing inconvenient secrets. These Ministers, therefore, went to the
King and told him that they believed a number of the desparate
characters in the jail had been conspiring against him; and although
they were in custody their departure to Neikban was desirable in case
a rising occurred which might lead to their escape and their joining the
standard of the Mengoon Prince. Combined with the reports of the
Mengoons escape from Pondicherry, this naturally incensed as well as
alarmed King Theebaw, who was anxious for the immediate and
wholesale execution of the rebels against his authority.
The prisoners were released in a calculated gesture, Dr. Marks
continues. Then the jail was locked, shut, and the slaughter began,

228
Burmese, Hindus, Chinese, princes, bandits, moneylenders, prostitutes,
women, children, the dead in the hundreds, their remains carpeting the
cemetery, breakfasted on by pigs, by pariahs, Dr. Marks writes.
How do you separate fancy from history? Feeling the course paper
between his thumb and finger, U Maung Lwin squints again at the flat
print. Gone are the parabaiks, the palace manuscripts laboured over by
scribes. Their careful recording, folding, handling. Contracts,
monopolies, alliances: stored away, rarely read, never opened.
Thakur Singh had told him, History is written by the victors.
Myingun had explained to him that in Burmese, tha-meing, the word
for history, means the story of pagodas, of temples, pillars and halls,
stupas and statues, punctuating the landscape, a monumental
grammar. This is where his kingdoms history is writ, not in the
musings of a missionary teacher. Can Dr. Marks know all this? What is
he to make of it?
After the prison massacre came the nightly phwes: dramatic
cleansing rituals, the music, dance and beauty offered to the gods.
Telegraphic communication above Thayetmo was interrupted,
but even if it had been in working order it is needless to say that no
information regarding the dreadful crimes which had been committed
would have been allowed to pass along a telegraph line owned by the
British government. The British must rely on telegraphs, and captured

229
bandits, and interrogations. Those who will not let their stories out, are
beheaded. He has more willing avenues of news.
In Rangoon, the Chamber has made specific mention of the
Nyaungyan Prince, believing him to be the one most generally
recognizable to those who know best the requirements of the country.
He was also one of the successors named by the late King, and as such
has the best claim.
Imposter! says Myingun.
The trade figures are swirling, there in the print, they take up a
good portion of the report on the massacre. Grey goods, white goods,
coloured cottons, printed cotton, grey yarn, coloured yarn. East India,
China and Japan, Shipping registers. Exports from Liverpool, from
Lonond, from Southampton and Clyde to Rangoon and Moulmein.
If the Government be unwilling to annex Upper Burma,
continues the report by Dr. Marks (check author of this section): I am
directed to say that the Chamber considers the next best course would
be to put the Nyaung Yan prince on the throne instead of Thebaw, that
he should be a tributary Prince, and should be compelled to govern the
country in accordance with the methods of civilized nations.

Call her in, he says. Draw up a summons

Ma May?

230
Myingun nods.
Give the messenger one night to rest. Then send him back with an
order for cheroots.
She is still his most able spy. Who else can gain access, masked
always, a scripted part. The night after the massacre, she had
performed in the inner courtyard. While the King and his ministers
were freshly distracted by the Parsee Theatrical Company, she had felt
her way, in the dark, through the palace whose architecture he had
described to her, mapped out on her bare body, in those nights long
ago when she had risked death and more,. What had changed? Still the
same
Still no-one can move across a room with that measure of grace,
still it has not left her. He could pick her out from across a crowded
bazaar, or street. At some point, he senses, this gift of hers will be
their mutual undoing.
There are strands of grey in her hair now, and the thanaka powder
cannot hide the faint tracery of crows-feet. How many more years can
she have, maybe one, he puzzles, before she moves on, becomes the
troupes teacher. At least then she will be beyond jealousy, the rivalry
of stardom, the vying for the roles.

231

CHAPTER NINETEEN PONDICHERRY Nov 1884

French government building early morning.

Monsieur, there is the Chief of Police waiting to see you.

What are you waiting for? Show him in. And bring me another
coffee while youre at it. Make sure you offer him one too
Mathivet wished his predecessor had trained his staff better.
Still, he was glad of the time to compose himself. The police-chief was
his inferior in education, rank and standing. But as Governor of
Pondicherr, Mathivet was utterly reliant on him for news of our little
exiles, as he called them; those washed up princes that France
seemed to lure to its shores if for no better reason, Mathivet had come
to think in his three years here, than to boast its superior hospitality
and goad its rival colonies. He took up his position behind his desk,
ruffled some papers, and drew his chair slightly to one side, then
polished his pince-nex and perched them on his nose. Remembering
the police chiefs robust health, he reconsidered this last gesture, and
removed them.

Your Excellency,

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Delighted, come in, come in, Mathivet waved vaguely in the
direction of the man now entering his room with all the zeal of a man
turning in for a good nights sleep. How might I assist you? he asked.
I would like to believe that today provides yet another
opportunity when I, as the highest ranking representative of the police
in Pondicherry, can put myself at your disposal.
And what precisely is the nature of these opportunities,
Captain?
New developments, your honor. I came here as quickly as I
could.
Not once had Mathivet succeeded in getting him to take a seat.
The servant returned with two cups of coffee on a silver tray.
Still the police chief refused to sit.
Well, said Mathivet, with a curt nod at the servant who poured
his coffee. What are they?
Prince Myngoun, he said. New visitors.
Being?
Fourteen Burmese and two Europeans, since identified as
English, landed this morning on the Goalpara steamboat. Went
straight to Myngouns house. Got there very quickly. Almost as if the

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gharries had been tipped off before their arrival.
Thank you, Captain..
My pleasure your Excellency.
Nothing further to report?
Only that I will of course be delighted to put my services and
those of my guard, at your full disposal.
I will let you know if I require any further assistance. But I
believe my own offices are adequately staffed to deal with this
interesting situation. I will of course expect to receive reports from you
at least weekly. Naturally, I will take all due precaution.
It is always my pleasure to be actively serving my country. Ah,
Coffee? Is this for me?
Mathivet nodded, and rang the bell for his translator. He then
sent a message out to the adjourning offices. Captain Lefebvre, his
commanding officer, arrived minutes later his usual dour, slightly
dishevelled self, his cap awry.
Ive received interesting information and need you to follow up.

He sent Lefebvre off to the princes house.

Mathivet dozed off in his chair, a second cup of coffee untouched

234
before him, when Lefebvre returns with a report.
I had expected that the Prince would not make himself
available, that I would have to rely only on his interpreter. But the
Prince insisted on seeing me. He was most direct, indeed he appeared
livelier than I had seen him for some time, and practically threw the
information at me. He confided in me that these supporters, whom he
assures me represent as he put it the slimmest tip of a mountain of
support pushing for him to return to Burma, had come to charter a ship
to take him to Bangkok or Saigon. I advised the Prince that it would be
a very good idea, very strategic, if his supporters, at least the English
ones, stopped by with Your Excellency to check with you.
Very well, Captain, very well.
I believe you will find them here any minute Your Excellency, I
had barely left the house when the Prince was organizing a carriage for
his new guests.
Very well. I shall call you back should I need you -
The clerk entered just after Lefebvre had left.
Your Excellency, another visitor has requested to see you.
Who is it now?
Please, Your Excellency, his card.

235
Mathivet picked it up and read: MACKERTOON, Banker,
RANGOON, At your service, Small and large loans, Lines of credit. By
appointment only. He turned it over, felt the quality of the card, ran his
finger along its gold-leaf rim. He looked up to see the clerk watching
him.
Show him in, he said, and noted with irritation that Lefebvre
was showing no sign of leaving.
Mackertoon had the sort of girth and stature that kept textile
mills in business. He had broad, freckled hands, and took off his hat to
reveal a high forehead crowded with freckles and a thinning wave of
ginger hair. His complexion had the florid taint of too much alcohol in
the tropics. His lips were hemmed in by an impressive moustache, and
when he smiled he was careful not to reveal any teeth, leaving
Mathivet guessing whether they were bad, broken, or tarred with
smoke and opium. As Mathivet took his hand in his, he felt the
beginnings of a fidget or the shiver of a tremor. The banker towered
over him, and on releasing his grip, Mathivet stepped back two paces
to reclaim some measure of territory. He gestured to a chair,
wondering if it would be sufficient to hold his weight.
Mackertoon introduced himself as the foremost and most
experienced foreign banker in Rangoon. He was here on business,
representing a number of wealthy and powerful clients who had raised

236
sufficient backing to bring the Prince to Rangoon, where a powerful
lobby would like to see him on the throne.
This prince of yours, Mathivet said.
Prince of Burmas, Mackertoon corrected.
This prince, Myingoon - he arrived here seeking the hospitality
of France. He may not however have told you that, in exchange for
this generous hospitality, he made a pledge not to leave French
territory without our consent. As Frances representative in
Pondicherry, not only do I consider it my duty to oppose any attempt
by Myngoun to leave our territory, by force if necessary. I have made it
my absolute priority.
Well then, the Prince is a prisoner of Pondicherry!
He is free within our state. But it is not for me to discuss with
you the projects of my government. Are you a British subject?
Yes.
Is your Government aware of the purpose of your visit to
Pondicherry?
My government is fully informed, and I have their full support.
Now, Monsieur, if you will be so kind, I will thank you for your time and
take my leave.

237
He had rushed to see the Prince. He can barely lose track of
things. First Lefebrvre, then Mackertoon, now the Prince, his
corroboration, as it were, and a warning. [WHERE IS THE VISIT BY
MATHIVET TO THE PRINCE?]

His morning coffee barely touched on his desk. All this, before
8.00 am. He is back at his office, his hands trembling slightly with the
weight of anxiety, of choices, of the nagging thought that he has put a
foot wrong, left a base uncovered.
Mathivet looked anxiously at the clock. Regal in aspect, it had
adapted poorly to the climate, and of late had come to function more
as a barometer than a timepiece. Creaking and swollen when the rains
came in. No reliable watchman to care for it. But he did not dare fully
disable it; the slow tick of the pendulum was, he sometimes thought,
the only thing still connecting him to Europe. He sets his pen to paper,
but has taken so long to compose his thoughts that the nib leaves only
a dry scratch. He dips his pen in the inkpot, refreshes the nib.
Outside the door stands his fastest and most trusted courier. The
last mailboat will leave at 8.30 am. But from its mast flies a British flag.
Could he trust his message to tavel secure, and timely?
Should I believe that this man is telling the truth, or is this a

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trap set up by the British to lure Myngoon over to them, chez eux? he
writes. I shared my doubts on this matter with the Prince; the Prince
told me that he has every confidence in M. Mackertoon and the
Burmans in his escort, and he begged me to let him go. I have
redoubled surveillance of the Prince, he writes. He puts down his pen,
a thirsty look spreading across his face as he dips it in the ink.
I await your instructions. Whatever they may be, you may rest
assured that they will be carried out faithfully. I am finishing this letter
at the last minute (8. 30 in the morning), and am sending it by the
British courier which is due to depart this morning. When he inspects
his work, he finds he has omitted the address and the date, and
hurriedly backtracks: Minister of Marins and colonies, South Direction,
First Department, Paris, 18 November 1884.
The envelope is barely sealed, which is done with a great amount
of sealing wax, before he begins the telegram:
MACKERTOON ENGLISH BANKER, FROM RANGOON, SENT HE SAYS BY
SUPPORTERS BURMAN PRINCE, CARRYING MONEY TO COMMISSION
VESSEL CARRY PRINCE TO BANGKOK. HE ASSURES US ENGLISH GOVT.
KNOWS OF HIS MISSION AND IS NOT OPPOSED. HAVING NO CODE WITH
RANGOON CONSUL IMPOSSIBLE TO GET INFORMATION ON THIS
MACKERTOON. I DECLARED CANT CONSENT TO DEPARTURE PRINCE, IF
NECESSARY WILL PREVENT BY FORCE. SEND INSTRUCTIONS URGENTLY

239
BY RETURN.
Picquets concerns travel to Paris, and from there are routed back
out to Southeast Asia, to the French Consul in Rangoon. Within days
the French consul visits Charles Bernard, Governor of Rangoon, in
Government House. On 28 November 1884, Charles Bernard writes to
H. M. Durand, Secretary to the Government of India, Foreign
Department. He writes of the lack of security, on land and on the
waterways, where merchant ships, British vessels carrying British
goods, are threatened by Dacoits. He goes on:
This week the French consul here came to me, saying that a certain
English merchant from Rangoon had gone to Pondicherry, had asked
the Governor there to let the Myingoon Prince go to Bangkok, and had
stated that the British government desired he should be let go. The
French Consul asked me if any autority had been given to this
emissary, in order that he might inform the Governor of Pondicherry. I
replied that no authority had been given to anyone that I had heard
of certain Rangoon people desiring to get the Myngoon prince away;
and that I informed them he would be arrested if he came to British
Burma. I explained that I had noting to do with the fugitives treatment
at Bangkok.
He attaches to his letter a letter from Mr. Gould of Zemm
(Chiangmai). I am writing to him that, so far as I know, the Government

240
have no intention of helping the candidature of the Myingun Prince for
the Mandalay throne.
Goulds letter is written from Chiengmai (Chiangmai), and dated
29 October 1884:
He alludes to rumour s in the paper that the Myingon prince has left
Pondicherry for Bangkok. It is probably that this is a false rumour, he
writes, but, if the Myingun prince could be got into British keeping,
and could then be allowed to go to Bangkok under British asupices, the
following arrangements could be made:
The Myingoon Prince might be sent up through Siam to Chiengtung
(Kengtung) where, by all accounts, he would be gladly welcomed. He
should be supplied with war material by the Siamese, who have plenty
of it. With the goodwill of the Shans and most of the Burmans and, if
necessary, with the support of the British at Rangoon, the Prince would
very soon be Master of Mandalay.
Mr. Gould sees this as paving the way to an Indo-Chinese Railway
system under English influence, which would, he writes checkmate
the French. He continues: In this isolated spot I have no opportunity
of discussing such questions with anyone, and know nothing of what
responsible people think on the subject. Without some prearrangment, he concludes, I think it very unlikely that the Myngoon
prince would trust himself in Bangkok.

241
Mr. Gould is wary of the appointment of Dr. Harmand as the
French Minister Resident in Bangkok. He has met Monsieur Harmand in
his previous capacity in Siam, as French Consul and Commissaire. Mr.
Gould is of the opinion that Monsieur Harmand worried the Siamese
greatly by his restless and aggressive policy. He would be just the
man to get hold of and run the Myingun prince, if he got the chance,
writes Mr. Gould.
He left Siam for a Tonquin appointment, but quarreled with the
Military and Naval authorities who were not forward enough for him.
He is the man who presented the Siamese with a French staff of
telegraph employees, whom they are likely to have to keep longer than
they like. I know from personal conversations with Monsieur Harmand
in Bangkok that the man is full of exciting ideas from Tonquin, or the
valley of the Mekong, towards Burma.
[British Library, IORC Mss Eur E 290/16]

242

CHAPTER TWENTY

1884 - MANDALAY

(YA

HMEN)

There were dealers in teak, and dealers in gems, in Manchester piece

goods, and Bianco pith helmet polish, and there were dealers in pickled
tea, gold leaf, opium carried down from Yunnan, from Dali, from the
landscape of prayer towers and mosques and across through the
rugged mountain passes. The caravan was over three hundred pack
mules long, and the muleteers were armed with some fifty
breechloaders, and the broad-bladed knives called dahs that they
concealed in the sleeves of their tunic.
Dawn was not even on the horizon when they broke across the
last vein of hills, down from Maymyo, the hill station with its Indian
horse-drawn gharries. Their hands were still chill with the pine-soaked
air of the hills, and their roadside camp had barely been rolled away.

243
No-one could explain the nervous tread of the mules, or why the headmans mount stood square in the center of the track for a good several
minutes whipping without budging from his spot. The head-man
sensed bandits, and sent a murmur backward through the posse to
keep their dahs concealed but at the ready. Any trouble that could
manifest itself in these dumbest of beasts was trouble best avoided,
but there was only one path to Mandalay, and there could be no trade
without that final destination.
The bloody bracelets left by his shackles marked him out for a
prisoner on the run. He was cowering under a banyan tree, back
pressed up against the ropey trunk as if seeking protection from its
leaf-shrouded spirits, lungs working like a fish out of water, shoulders a
quiver. The headman, flanked by four armed men, drew up close to
him, his own fingers closed tight upon his dah. When the runaway
turned to look them head on, his chin thrust forward, his arms flexed
back against the tree trunk, fingers splayed against the bark as proof
he was unarmed, the headman relaxed his grip and gave a sigh of
puzzled awe.
Down those guns and help him, he yelled at his guards, dont
you know who this is?
Ya Hmen, the bandit whod gone over to the British, and then
been jailed by King Theebaws men.
The women of the camp had rolled cigars and rationed out the

244
rice noodles. Ya Hmen was fresh out of the gaol, minutes before the
killing spree began, down to every last man and child, he said, theyd
locked them in and shown no mercy, theyd staged a jailbreak. And he
said with some shame that hed found another to take his place, that
hed hastily tattooed his shoulder with a needle and a piece of indigo
the week before when hed been planning his own gaol break out. His
replacement was a man of the same height and build and with the
same protuberant teeth, who was in there on some trumped up
charges of not having paid off his debts. When they did the body count
theyd check him off their list, but he had never planned it this way, for
him to die. Hed meant only to trade places, to buy some extra time
because his wife was expecting and due anyday now, and because he
had to do right by his fathers spirit and tend to his grave.

Ya Hmen had slaughtered whole villages and had once owned a

twenty mile stretch of the Irrawaddy. His men had worked the
refuelling stations and charged the kings counsellors a fee for raising
the royal flag along the river banks so the barges could land. But they
also raised the rebel Prince Myinguns flag as long as the price was
right. His undoing was when hed got in too deep. Hed struck a deal
with the monopolist of arms licenses, that same ministers man who
should have been waiting for the caravan this morning, with the prestamped piece of paper, the royal seal, giving them passage through

245
the city and onward. It was the first time hed stitched up a deal of this
size.
Theres more, said Ya Hmen. He rolled up his shirt sleeves and
pushed them up over his shoulder and there across his arm, stippled
with sinew, was the sign of the Myingun prince, the peacock.
It was as if his scared soul was eating his way through those
huge cheroots, his hand shaking and his betel-stained teeth sucking
vigorously like a calf on the teet. Only on his third smoke, and after
talking them out of a keg of rice-wine that the muleteers had stashed
away, did he tell the story. How the kings ministers, cowards to the
last, had sold out Myinguns supporters, and with them the chance of a
kingdom where they could all grow rich. The warden - who knew for
what sum? - had released a few prisoners, hed said plain as day to
their faces that they were free to go. And then theyd been shot, clean
in the back, and the bugles had sounded and the reinforcements been
called, elephants and horses, the ground was still shaking when the
remaining prisoners, huddled in their damp cells, had heard the orders
to shoot.
Ya Hmen was long gone by then. For this he credited his amulet,
it had sent up an almighty itch and when he woke in the early hours,
stretched out on his bunk, hed seen the moon clear as a silver bullet
and there raised on its surface, he would swear over the lives of all his
wives, over the spirits of his ancestors, there was the sign of the

246
Myingun prince, the peacock.
Hed planned his escape for weeks now, hed only been looking
for the sign, and now that it had come hed wondered, looking around
him at the other inmates, should he share it? Would his luck stretch
that far?The rice toddy had loosened his tongue now. The porters
stopped when he got to that point in the story, and looked up at the
moon, but it was almost faded from the sky.
When they called the prisoners and told them they were being
let out early, hed seen a look on the wardens face, a look hed seen
too many times. He may not have ever learned to read more than
money and an abacus, and to recognize the numbers that hed etch in
the mud and sand with sticks when he and his men tallied up their loot
or struck new deals. He could read faces, too, better than any, some
said, he could tell a lie before it made it through teeth, and more often
than hed care to say, hed read desire writ plain as day on the faces of
the women he traded with in the bazaar. Once hed read death on a
mans face three weeks before hed succumbed forever to an illness
no-one knew he had.
Hed kept his best diamond, hid in his worst tooth, the right
molar with the cavity that ran down to his nerve ends. When he was
out on regular jobs, living rough but still a free man, hed kept the pain
at bay with a paste of cloves and turmeric, but still he carried it there,
just in case. In gaol all hed had to keep it hidden were the balls of rice

247
gruel hed pinch up with his fingers and pack in with his little finger,
and if anyone asked him what was up hed tell them he thought it
might be leprosy and theyd back away and ask no more.
The diamond was his last card, his jeweled key, and without
batting an eyelid he reached into his mouth with his long little finger
nail and the ivory toothpick he always wore sewn into the hem of his
sarong, and pulled it out, wincing but not squealing. Hed rehearsed
this moment for weeks. He waited to the count of one hundred after
the chief warden had gone and when all was quiet except for the sound
of a child sniveling somewhere on the other side of the cell, he sidled
over to the main entrance and whistled long and low.
He and the gaoler kid, a kid no more than fifteen, had traded
cigarettes and betel quids through that barred window. Each time hed
had to go off into that curtained corner, that pit of a latrine, deep in the
night when the other prisoners were sleeping, and reach up deep in to
that other cavity, dislodge the empty bullet casing in which he cached
his bribes. He never traveled without it, this trick hed learned from a
French mercenary and ex-con whod joined up with them for the thrill
of the raids. But here there was no where to wipe it clean, no privacy
beyond that flimsy curtain, always damp with piss.
When he whistled for the gaoler kid a new guard showed, face
whizzened as a sour plum, a feeble guy with shrunken gums, the keys
clanked around his neck in a bunch. Ya Hmen eyed him idly, sauntered

248
back, slower than a tortoise as if he had all the time in the world, back
into the latrine. The moon was still bright, it made no sense theyd
called the prisoners out at that time, and he made his way back to the
latrine, Diarrhoea again? quipped the Indian fraud artist. Ya Hmen
grunted and then lowered himself deep down in the pit and latched on
to the stone trough and pushed, pushed with both feet until he found
the soft spot in the rusted bars. For weeks hed been aiming his piss at
this spot, as if taking aim at whatever fat contractor had grown rich on
this flawed design. Hed learned years ago, out at sea, how urine
corrodes and softens.
Outside he can hear the dogs breathing, slobbering, pressed up
against the wall. He has been waiting for this moment for weeks,
forever, since before he was jailed. With the moonlight his fuel, his
loose-toothed diamond at the ready should he need it, and a single
rusty bar for a weapon, he waits until their footsteps fade. The dogs
are round the other side now, and he launches himself forward and is
on the run again.
Pelts barefoot, where to? Is it the moon that draws him there, to
the racetrack circled out next to the river, he can hear them snorting in
the shed. Queen Suppayalats latest vanity: thoroughbred horses,
imported from Italy. White horses, she had wanted. Here, they had
grown dusty. Snow-white horses, she had insisted, and then paced and
fumed, wringing her hands: They have tricked me. She raged not at

249
the Venetian groom who had traveled with them at much extra cost,
but at the Shan horse handlers, one of whom had shared Ya Hmens
gaol cell, together with a hundred other minor sinners, good men and
bad, all taken for tricksters by a fraudulent queen.
For a pink sapphire the size of a cardamom pod, the Shan
prisoner had mapped out the race course for him, told him where the
spare key was hid. By sunrise, although neither of them knows it now,
his informant will be dead. They had planned this escape together but
Ya Hmen has no time, no time to wake him. To shake him awake will
rouse the others. By the time the sun has started its climb, the guards
will have begun stripping the corpses and will have slipped the pink
sapphire and every other splinter of wealth they find, into the pockets
their wives have sewn into their sleeves for such things. He hopes at
least that the kid gaoler will find the gem. That thought is the only
thing to slow him down. He stops, for a long minute, to catch his
breath, and wonders where they took him.
He has skirted the main road, the edge of the race track. There
is an ornate gate, with no fences either side, an arch carved in the air,
a mad queens vanity: who would dare trespass?
A single rose is growing up against the arch, his thirsty bandit
eyes drink in these details always, a rose stunted and blunted, like the
horses. An Italian rose. He registers these points on his path.
Sometimes these coordinates will visit him in his dreams, scramble

250
together, rose vines and business, looting and beauty.
His chest squeezes tight. Hes behind the nearest stall now. He stops,
quiets his breathing, lowers himself, crouches and shuffles, crab-style,
to the well.
Theres a loose brick in the well, his Shan cell-mate had told
him, Thats where I keep the key, no-one else knows. I once found it, a
gift, it had slipped down from the hand of the Venetian, had fallen in
the straw,.I knew hed be too drunk to remember, I knew he had a
spare, I knew someday Id need it.
Now Ya Hmen wriggles out the loose stone, feels with his fingers,
finds the key.
Seven paces to the left; youll see four stalls, look for the third
one, dont confuse the stalls with the hay barn. The stalls are marked
with some foreign sign, he tried to describe it to Ya Hmen. Like a
letter, he thought, but it is too dark to make out more than the
hatches. He has to make a gamble, there is no time. The lock is old
and heavy on the outside, rusted already, one two three he tries the
key. The Shan stablehand deserved his gem. The lock was well oiled.
The key turns, soundless, and the gate opens just as soundlessly on its
hinges.

Inside the dark stall, the heat of the horse draws him near. He
says a blessing to his ancestors, who came long ago from Yunnan by

251
mule, by horse, and who gave him this gift, this way with beasts. The
horse comes to him, nuzzles him, he whispers in her ear, he has
nothing to offer her, only the beat of his heart. She nuzzles his chest.
His hand feels her ribs. Neglected, he thinks and the stall-gate creaks
as he opens it. Theres a groom in the corner. Dont worry about him,
they drink themselves silly every night, his cell-mate had said. The air
drones with mosquitoes. The horse whinnies. The groom stirs. He
means the groom no harm, bears him no grudge, but there is nothing
else for it. He cant stab him or blood will flow on his clothes. Nor is
there time to truss, gag and persuade him. He pushes his hands, thick
as stirrups, in around the grooms neck and down on the fateful point,
until his neck goes flimsy, as if he had just wrung a chickens neck. But
instead of plucking feathers hes picking off his clothes, slipping out of
his.
Around his waist he wraps the grooms sarong, ties it. Over his
shoulders he pulls his tunic which looks too small for his large frame,
but still just fits his prison-thinned torso.
Next door, he hears a shout, but they are off, off before anyone
has time to reach for a gun or knife. All he has is his bare hands, and a
sleeve full of hay that he has grabbed on the way, and his way with
horses, his ancestral gift.
What Queen would not know it does not snow here, that their
pelts have dimmed to the colour of thawed ice, of sludge, that the oils

252
with which they groom them have tainted their coats. Do you have a
name, he whispers in one horses ear. She whinnies softly. He names
her, Tamarind.
The caravan traders who are listening to this story have clothed
him and fed him and they are waiting now, waiting to hear what
happened to the diamond. Ya Hmen is alone, vulnerable, they could
overpower him in an instant, but his roots spread out wide and deep
through the mountain passes. His rescue is worth more than any gem.
A word from Ya Hmen can buy them safe passage through the most
treacherous terrain.
He gallops out of the city by the East entrance, the way the
groom exercises the horse daily. Then he slipped into met them ten
miles out of Mandalay
When he gets to the part of the story about the peacock, the
woman who has been rolling his cigars for him looks up at the sky,
searching for that faded moon, and he knows from something in her
gaze, that she is one of Myinguns people.
What does it mean for us? Asks the headman. This prison
slaughter. What does it mean for our trade?
The city is shut down, dead says Ya Hmen. Give it a day, noone dares show.
The kings men. He spat on the ground. Those gutless men do you think they care about honoring your trade? Theyve done a

253
bigger deal, theyve traded places with the dead. But who knows how
long theyll last before the King or his queen tire of them?
It makes no sense for him to stay with them, they are headed
back from where he just came, headed back into the city. But maybe
thats the last place the Ministers will be looking for him. Ya Hmens
tracks led off up this same route, then split away into the forest. If he
mixes his new tracks in with the traders, if he loops back down to the
city, he can journey on down closer to Rangoon, make himself useful to
Myngun, and pay his respects to his fathers grave on the way. His
wife and the newborn will have to wait.
No, says the headman. We will change our route. We will meet
the ministers outside the city gates, and take the eastern trail, back
out around the city, on down to Rangoon.
He gestured with his hand towards the traces of smoke on the
horizon. His eyes narrowed, and the mules brayed in eery unison.
At the city gates there was nothing but piles of refuse,
smoldering. Far away the head man thought he could see vultures.
Wheeling, circling, over the part of town, the edge of the palace
grounds, where the cemetery lay.
As they drew closer to the city they felt a singular quietness. No
chatter on the streets, no playing chinlon. Even the lotus pink ripple
of monks robes was absent. When they stopped to speak to those few
who clung close to their house-fronts, they were met with closed,

254
scared lips.
They continued onto the palace, that city contained in upon
itself.
The ministers man was not there.

The caravan was getting

restless. The mules were stomping and . Their sweat was rubbing off
on him. And still the ministers man did not come.
Hours passed. The women lit a cooking fire off by the
roadside,and boiled up a meagre soup of noodles and dried fish.

And then he emerges the Minister with the monopoly on trade

revenues from the Shan quarter, the man who profits from their
coming and going, toing and froing, arming and disarming, of caravan
trade. And they know that he has not fallen from grace, at least not
from that kind of grace that can be won by favours and betrayals. Four
coolies have carried him to the gate in a palanquin, there are two
armed guards in front and two behind.
The headman dismounts and steps forward, but one of the
guards raised his hand, signals him to stop. The minister steps down
from his palanquin, is aided down. He looks the chief of the caravan
over, wonders how much hes seen or heard or guessed.
Down your arms! orders the guard.
Over in the corner there.
Nobody moves, only the chief, he removes a dah from his sash

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and discards it, drops it at his feet.
The rest of them, orders the guard. All of them - guns, knives,
the works.
The chief hesitates, takes a small step backward.
We come in peace, in trade, we come as we have always come.
Without the ministers certificate, without the permission to leave
again with our arms, we will not enter the city, says the chieftain.
Ya Hmen tilts his head down so his headdress shades his face
and continues squatting on his haunches, one hand holding the bowl of
noodles, the other steering them to his mouth, the steam rising. The
ministers man is walking slowly around the caravan. Ya Hmens made
sure the queens horse is well hidden enough for them not to see it but
close enough for him to leap on it and take his chances if they can.
Hes still not sure of the caravan headman, how much he can
trust him. If they get through this, if they pass the city and he peels off
later, then Ya Hmens safe passage will have bought the Headman the
right to do business in any tract of forest that he pleases, from Mrauk
U to Pyinmanya. Ya Hmen will see to that, and hes never gone back
on his word or not repaid a favour; for this hes as well known as for
the wrathful judgements he visits on those who have gone back on
their words or not repaid his favors.
The Kinwun Mingyi owns these logging and forest rights, and

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more besides. If theres one man Ya Hmen has always admired at
court, its him. When he first started out, Ya Hmen always felt that he
and the Kinwun Mingyi were circling each other. For years they never
actually met, but each moved in the light and shade of the rumour of
the other.
In the first months of his apprenticeship, Ya Hmen had stood still
and sucked in his cheeks as he listened to his father hold up U Gaung,
the future Kinwun Mingyi, as an example of a man who overcame his
birth. You watch him, said his father. And learn. I remember when he
was the clown of the court with his wizened, widowed wife-twice-over an old sap, forty years his senior - the Judges hand-me-down, what
kind of gift was that? They even say when the king gifted him those
tracts, he asked for different ones. Thats the kind of man he is, his dad
had told him. And yet hes won the kings favour like no other; now he
owns half the country, his father said. When he was thrown in to the
palace gaol he had felt sure that he would meet him again. But it has
been ten year now, and still Ya Hmen can only imagine how his face,
his gait, his voice, might have changed.
The trades his father teaches him are not the kind that take
place at the palace gates. There are no headmen and ministers, at
least not in sight. Only the go-betweens, the brokers.
There are two kinds of lives you can lead in this trade of ours,

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his ba had told him. You can run around for others and feed off their
profits and loss, honor or shame. Or you can lead and fashion your
own. It was not so much a choice his father put before him, as a
challenge.
Ya Hmen knows hes thinking all these thoughts now because its
three days from the date on which each year he returns to his village
to honor his fathers grave. He wonders if hell make it, or if hell be
joining the others in the grave thats being dug for his cell-mates now.
He wonders if that -eyed minister is even thinking of
recquisitioning their packhorses to help carry their amingala cargo, the
fresh kill in the gaol, to whatever makeshift charnel grounds the kings
astrologer divines. These thoughts crowd in on him. Even when he
tries to think of the beauty of the last steal, of riding her horse out into
the dawn, all he can think of is the snapped neck of the groom. He
cant have been older than one of his sons.
The sun suddenly goes in. No, its a shadow. The ministers man
has stopped just in front of him. Ya Hmen keeps his head bent down
over the noodle bowl still. The steams no longer rising, hes taking too
long over them. Beads of meat fat are already congealing on the
broth. He hopes hes not the only one, that there are others in the
pack still eating. The ministers guards are shod in neat leather shoes.
Ya Hmen sizes them up, bets they cant run fast in those. Sees how

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they are holding their muskets more for show than for use. Poor
handling, he bets.
Look up when youre spoken to.
The ministers guard is eyeing him up, as if trying to calculate his
worth. Ya Hmen makes his face a blank, drained of expression. A horse
startles. He hopes its not his.
Come here, yells the other guard.
The mules are getting restless, they are not used to standing still
for so long.
Ya Hmen turns his head just enough for no-one to notice and
sees that one of the girls has her hands on the rope around the
queens horse. Shes saddling him up with bags, thats why the horse
startled. But thats why his mount doesnt stand out too much any
more, either. His ride is taller than the rest, but the clay hes smeared
over her when they were passing through the forest has done the job.
Shes no longer Italian white but tamarind, dusted brown like the other
steeds. He cant hear the exchange between the girl and the ministers
guards, but they are peering into the sacks. The girl glances in his
direction, but is careful not to look straight at him.
Hes not sure what business is taking place but he knows its a
good sign shes included him, even if it was with a single secret glance.

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The sun glints on the gold leaf. The ministers clerks have helped
themselves to the bags, are passing it up to the minister for inspection
- as if his hooded eyes could tell its weight and carat. The minister
picks up a sheet, holds it to the light. Gilt flakes crumble off, are lost to
the dirt.
Ya Hmen knows the rules as well as the headman, perhaps
better than the minister himself. But it is the minister who makes the
rules, and who can unmake them just as easily.
The palace cant tax offerings for Buddha any more. The Queen
and her counselor have overhauled the monopolies, the trading
concessions. Of everything that is in their pack-bags, it is the gold the
Kings ministers and men, most crave. Before - before King Mindon
had changed things - monopolists had levied duty on the gold leaf, on
the gold dust and nuggets, even the white paper, the upathaka
fragrant roots, which are bartered or bought and sold near the
Mahamuni pagoda as religious offerings. Now, worried about his own
merit stores, the King thinks that the revenues from the pagodas
should not be amalgamated. Whomsoever appropriates such
properties, the King believes, will be born into a low family in the next
birth and forever thereafter, and will become bereft of prosperity, and
where such acts are legion they will also jeopardize the merit of the
kingdom. The King has ordered the pweoks, who are the monopolists,

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not to levy payments for the royal treasury on any goods used for
temple offerings, and not to take any duty, in kind or otherwise, on
gifts of merit. This includes gold leaf and other sundries, for use by and
in pagodas. The problem is distinguishing between gold that is sacred
and that which is trafficked for mundane and more profitable uses.

Which pagoda is this for?

He sees the girls body tense up. Her chin is tilted, defiant. Just
as suddenly he sees her glance at him again and as if in a single split
second shes weighing up the cost, him versus a few knuckles of gold.
Her body softens and now shes the supplicant, and the guards are
near salivating at the thought of filling their pockets.
Shwedagon pagoda, she says. Ask him. And she points to
the headman. He has the papers.
Ya Hmen looks around trying to pick out what horse was hers. His
eyes stop at a short scrappy thing, stocky legs and a head too big,
eyes glazed over and probably half-blind. Its the only horse thats
unattended so he figures it must be hers. He decides then and there
to make the queens horse his gift, if they get out of here, that is, she
looks like a good rider and the horse has quietened down, maybe all it
needed was a womans touch. But at least the horse is too old to
notice much. When he hoists himself up on her the others look up at

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him, shocked, as if its too early for that, no-ones told them they can
mount yet.
Hey! yells one of the guards.
But the other one is busy checking out the Puerh tea. It is
premium grade, from Dali, in Yunnan, aand it is worth almost as much
as the gold. Ya Hmen can smell the smokey scent as the guard fingers
the leathery black curls of leaf. A silver haired trader with a pockmarked face has set up the scales for him, and hes weighing them
out: one bag for the inspector, one for the guard, one for the minister.
Hey you, snaps another guard. Think your going anywhere on
that old beast? It can barely walk.
The other guard is his junior, he laughs uncertainly
Ya Hmen just stares off into nowhere, working his betel quid, the
one she slipped into his sleeve this morning. He chews up a mouthful
of saliva and spits it out in a red stream. Something about the every
day nature of this gesture loses the guards attention. They move onto
other lucre, hands feeling up saddlebags, under saddles. busy checking
another bag now.
The arms are stacked up in the corner, breechloaders and pistols
and sheathed knives. Ya Hmen counts them up and wonders how
many are there concealed under the saddles. In the bottom of the

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bags where even the guards greedy fingers dont reach because its
too much sweat and all they are really seeking is what they can cream
off the top.
Hes wondering where the opium is hid, too. The poppy is one
concession the king will never hand over, but Ya Hmen has a finer nose
for the dream powder than most. He knows its there, somewhere.
Under a hat, in a boot, rolled up in a coiled rug, maybe even strapped
to the matted hide of the beast hes on right now, or carried deep up
some unlucky arse in a metal case.
The minister is in a hurry this morning. But its another hour
before his men have checked each and every bag. Ya Hmen wonders
how many ticals worth of business the head of the caravan has lost,
and whether there will be fish in the mohinga noodles tomorrow, and
whether the head man knows who Ya Hmen is, and the extent of his
reach and whether he knows just how good a bargain the girl got him,
and last of all he wonders how the girl recognized him.
Its only as they are finally released, after fines have been issued
and new tolls taken, and they are back on the road, headed for
Rangoon, for the Shwedagon, that Ya Hmen realises where the poppy
powder is hid. Shed been crouched low, in the shade, rubbing it on
her face. Thanaka powder, the stuff of tree bark. Every woman in
Burma carried it on her, the sallow grinds of treebark. Known to guard

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faces from sunlight and insect bites. Shed squat low in a corner. All
the while hed been thinking shed been protecting him. But with that
single sideways glance, and after hed got up on the queens horse, the
guards had turned their noses his way.
What was a woman like that doing wrapped up in the schemes of a
rascal prince? Ya Hmen knew Myinguns games. Who he paid off, how
he spoke in different languages. Flattery and greed, anger and
impatience, scorn and contempt. Hed heard once that the prince had
a love outside the palace. But he knew better than to believe it. That
prince was all fantail and no spine. His brother was the one to trust.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN - 1885 - PONDICHERRY

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Looking around him at this shabby pretence of a town, Myingun feels

only regret that he has squandered his small fort in Benares for this
humid enclave. An hourglass town, he imagines turning it up and over,
up and over, its population reduced to grains of sand, black, white, and
mixtes, or Topaz. Walls on walls. Theres even a sea wall. And the wall
of water, the canal, that separates the white and black towns. That
ridiculous policeman, plainclothes, snooping around on the corner,
once a week, checking up on his underlings the Tamil spies. His belt,
buckled too tight, gave him away.
From his verandah, Myingun watches them every afternoon. He
takes care to appear on time. He knows their roster; when to expect
the mustached, rotund one who walks with a slight limp, when to
expect the muscular one who is always looking over his shoulder with
an exaggerated attempt at disguising his movement, so its like a tic,
like a character actor from a Burmese phwe, What he took for feigned
disinterest, he soon comes to realise, is something else. Here, between
the limp and the tic, in their thinly concealed boredom at his routine,
stir the first seedlings of his plan.
In Burma, he had felt the texture of the land in the plasticity of
his own flesh. Could map his movements, launch his rebellions, as
surely as the plains and the mounds on the palm of his hand. Here
there is nothing to guide him, except these sheets of paper that the

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ferenghis fight wars over. Every so often he pulls out the map, unfolds
it, spreads it out. But its as if hes looking through a sorcerers
eyeglass. The world he breathed is squeezed out flat, as if his kingdom
had been flayed and theyd handed him the skin. Sometimes he
caresses it, traces out his journey, as if seeking a pulse. But there is
only paper, once dry, now stained and salt-damp.
He has heard it so many times now even he has begun to believe
it.
His wife has vetted each of the servants. No spies among them,
she assures him.
But recently he has noticed a new look on their faces. Most
disappointing is that the look is shared by U Maung Lwin, his personal
secretary and translator. For days he has been trying to find words for
it, what that look reminds him of. Now he has it; its the look of
concealment and confinement, the look of expectancy, of being with
child. So, he is pregnant with plans, Myngun thinks. But his secretary
is his ally, too, he cannot tell his wife. Instead, he asks Ma May.
Suggests to her, that she might watch him more closely.
Myingun imagines his secretary nurturing them, the plans
feeding off him, growing thicker, stronger.
U Maung Lwin has been with him since the 1860s, he joined his
cause at West , he still speaks English with the hoarse Scottish tone of
his mission teacher. He sought him out across the border between

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Thibaws Burma and that governed by the Ferenghi. It was in the
1860s. Hes a crafter of plans and a drafter of letters. Is he biding his
time for an opportune moment to tell him, or has he no intention of
telling him? He turns the thought over and over. He has become more
dependent on U Maung Lwin than is perhaps wise.
Did they give him this house as a reminder of what he could not
have? Only the colonial mentality could try to make a prison of the
open sea. An ocean upon which he cannot trespass. But the whisper of
the sea breeze is enough to feed his dreams. What foreign form of
reasoning, of government, could stake a claim to water? Land offlimits; that he could understand. And yet he had travelled whole
swathes of territory without setting his foot down at all; hoisted up on
the shoulders of his palanquin bearers.
What was it in his blood, in his begetting, that made him want to
plant his feet firmly on the ground, to get his bearings in a manner
that was considered, simply, unbecoming. Uncourtly. Impudent.
Unprincely. Improvident. Unroyal. Often, when they set him down at a
new camp, his unused legs would be shaking for hours into the night.
He would cure the cramp, could only cure it, by pacing up and down in
his tent. When his aide de camp asked him what ailed him, and called
in the healer to knead his calves, he would not cure the restless ache
in his feet.
When he sits out here on his verandah, shifting his weight every

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so often against the silk cushions, a tray of betel quids and pickled tea
set out before him, and a servant positioned just above them to fan off
the flies, he fights against the promise of contentment, and scans the
horizon for a whisper of something more, the hint of a possibility.

He

tries to shrug off the memory of the Andamans, but cant. The pull of
the open has always directed his gaze to the sea, and yet that dirty
blue is also a reminder of a history hed rather forget. Except for the
stories hed shared, the camaraderie among thieves of glory. The
warden had ordered him a new Buddha. He did not understand that
there was nothing broken in the spirit of the relic that he worshipped.
He had appreciated the gesture and yet it had made him so angry. If
it had been anything else, a new bowl, or a trinket, he could have
smashed it against the wall, made of it a symbol of the warden, of the
prison. But a Buddha he could only treat with the utmost reverence.
The day Daine had visited him by train and insisted on giving up
his freedom to move in with Myngun, to join him in the island prison,
hed felt joy and desolation. He had failed to protect his brother, now
his brother was protecting him.
His mission is lonelier now, after the death of his brother. If the
weight of that loss has loosened his moorings, it has given him a new
conviction, a purpose. Although sometimes he wonders what his
brothers purpose was, besides following him, as if he, not the crown,
were his brothers calling. And now his brothers gone, there are his

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children, and his servants, to be repatriated or joined with him.
Is this what he had wanted; would he have ever swung that
sabre for this?
Leapfrogging from one colonial enclave to another. Chunar,
Bhugalopre, Benares for Chandernagore, which felt not much less of a
prison. From there, to another colonial discard: Pondicherry. A trinket
colony with two towns, la Ville Blanche, la ville Noire. A bungalow was
found for him somewhere in between. But there is nothing left,
nothing save the rings on his fingers. A guest of the French
government, a trophy refugee, a cause celebre, a snub in the face of
England. Dependant. There were no followers he could rally from
here, no-one to finance his cause. Only the sleepy police agents on
the corner, and the oppressive silence of the moneylender.

His uncle, the Einshamein, he can still scarcely believe that he

and his brother went along with the plan; it was as if the plan had
overtaken them, Mandalay marionettes, or actors at a phwe, except
there was no stagepaint, only the curiously banal, rusted smell of
blood. And the damp of the brick where hed surprised him. Had he
expected his uncles blood to smell any different, just because it was
royal?
Thicker than water, his Scottish friend Mackertoon had said, in
his letter of condolence about Daine. Blood is thicker than water. But

269
when he searches for a thread of that thickness in his sons, he feels
only the stirrings of disappointment. He does not yet know that they
will be his greatest heartbreak, but he still aches in himself to think of
their future.
Whats thicker than water is money, he thinks. The coin in the
bank, from Mackertoon, the merchant banker; the pledge of backing
from Thakur Singh, should ever he need it.
All along he knows, he still knows, that his father feels for them a
gratitude that for the sake of the kingdom, its unity before the British,
he cannot express; in this he must believe. Each year his father, the
King, sends him a letter, and sometimes, a Buddha image, wrapped in
silk, so that, he writes you might practice the rites of our faith,
wherever you might be. For his uncle, his father builds a huge
monument at the foot of the Mandalay hill, a stepping stone to sacred
places. How he misses the presence of the monks, the saffron strands
of their robes moving single-file through the streets of Mandalay, of
Rangoon.
Who was it who had planted that initial doubt, the whisper of
conspiracy; was it all on a whim, an imagining? He remembers each
day the sounds that changed his future; the horsehooves, frantically
drumming, and then the look on his uncles face, not of surprise, but of
sudden, bitter anticipation, as if even at this hour Myingun was only a
cog in the machine; a prophecy fulfilled.

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First at Chandernagore, now at Pondicherry: the sour taste of

dependence and its aftertaste: forced gratitude. It is on everyones
lips, in their hands, in their strange colonial habit of a half bisou, a
demi-kiss. A contraction, an embrace cut short by the sometimes
rueful recognition that his royal blood is still tainted by another race.
Sometimes he has to bite back his inner smile at their confusion,
and labour his other, courtly guise, benign. Its exhausting, the
measure of grace he has to produce, to work on, to cultivate, he wishes
he could wipe it away like a sheen of sweat.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

Pondicherry

Hazardous? Impolitic? Myinguns fingers quivered. He felt like

scrunching the letter up in his hands, but stopped himself. Paper was
all he had now; letters, lines of allegiance drawn in ink, stamped,
freighted with grease, carried across oceans, continents, nations.
Yes your highness, cautioned U Maung Lwin. A new, deeper level
of obsequiousness had crept into his mannerisms and voice, one that

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inspired Myinguns mistrust. It reminded him of the way his uncle used
to address him before he and his brother had discovered his plot, and
was matched by a new buouyancy in his gait, that in recent days,
could not even be suppressed by the encumbrance of his lower status.
When he walked into the room, crouched down low as befitted his
status, his head bobbing in agreement before Myingun had even
opened his mouth, he was reminded of the clockwork drummer boy
that Monsieur Pavie had so generously given his son on his last visit.
Pavie - another one who did not answer his letters.
In Pavie he had set his faith. His silence came as a personal snub.
The others, he could tolerate. For Pavie, hed felt a rapport, an
empathy, if only because of his ability to translate rough topographies
into a knowledge in his head, even if he did have to unfold that
knowledge and crease it into squares; it was the ability to read the land
they shared, to orient themselves from some compass embedded
deep.
But he is possibly worried about your welfare? suggested U Maung
Lwin.
Nonsense, replied Myingun. Governor Richards only concern is
the longevity of his career. And the closer he follows orders, the longer
and higher his office will be. Immediately he had spoken, he
somewhat regretted his words. Richard had at least not approached

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him with the contempt which the British officers had reserved for him.
Although in time, at Chunar, he knew he had gained the respsect of the
gaolers, wardens and sentries. It was a curious fact of prison life, he
mused, that one only earned the unmitigated respect of a warden
when one had executed the perfect escape.

[Crossref: Richaud, 16 Feb 85, AOM to Min of Marines and Colonies/

AOM FM affpol 54[

Myingun was dozing in his favourite chair, his feet up on the

chest that carried him here, pointed out, towards the window, in a
gesture of podiatric insult towards the French people he now sees as
his captors. His fingers still smell faintly of the Trinchipoly tobacco, and
its left a bittersweet aftertaste in his mouth that carries him back to
someplace whose odours he can only hazily recall. He is dozing, back
at the court, a young boy, with his brother, called to audience with his
father, his head bowed low, as if chained there, his heart full of fear
and awe. Your princeliness is here, his father had said, gesturing with
his bejewelled hand in a clear line forward and backward, then
upwards. Ancestral lines. He might as well have traced a spiders
web, and his uncle sitting in it, fat and greedy. Now Myingun has spun
his own cocoon, fed himself up to the French.
U Maung Lwin startles him. He swiftly repositions his feet, his

273
body. For another moment, he is back there in the court, a boy caught
in a foolish prank.
He begins a yawn, but the expression that meets him, steals it
away.
U Maung Lwin wears bad news like a spirit mediums make up.
His smile only deepens the effect.
What have you heard? Myingun asks.
This from our source in the British cabinet, Rangoon. Forgive me
your highness for bearing these bad tidings. The British residents and
merchants are still pressuring their government to depose Thibaw. His
excesses are daily more brutal, and trade revenues are falling.
This, of course, U Maung Lwin continues with a note of pride,
Was part of our plan. The rebellions in the Shan states have unsettled
livelihoods, things, people, goods; your Highness should be honoured
that your name has been mentioned several times, in internal reports,
as the root cause of this economic downturn. But the merchants are
unhappy. The British are not yet considering annexation, but some are
beginning to entertain the idea of replacing Thibaw with another. As
you know, Following your move to French territory, the British are now
considering Prince Ny - -
Nyoung-Yan? The name came out slowly, uncertainly.
That imposter? NYOUNG-YAN!
He raised his voice, repeating the insult, as he might have cursed

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a deserter from his ranks. Getting up from his chair, he had the
sensation he was back at sea, the ground nowhere beneath his feet,
his legs soft as coconut custard. Nyoung-yan, he said again.
U Maung Lwin confirmed with a look of regret.
There is more. Please, Your Highness, please sit.
More?
U Maung Lwin signalled to the servant behind him, who held out
a tray, on which was rolled a newspaper. With both hands, he moved it
across to the table.
Give that to me! snapped Myingun. When will you drop that
habit?
U Maung Lwin had grown up in a monastery, and still handled
newspapers as if they were religious manuscripts.
Myingun grabbed the paper with one hand and pulled it towards
him. Seeing that it was in Burmese, he partially forgave U Maung Lwin
his reverence. The printing was bad, and some words seeped into
each other in inky blots. France considering an alliance with Theebaw
he read. Is this true? he asked, lowering his voice, somehow wanting
to exclude the servant from the glimmer of a possibility that Myingun,
the fulcrum of Burmas sovereign future, was once again dangling on a
thread.
I am afraid it appears to be at least, if not the truth, a rumour of
substance, said U Maung Lwin, and gestured again to the servant,

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reaching over to take another newspaper from the tray. The Rangoon
Times, he said. Carries the same article although curiously, they are
for once behind the Burmese press in these issues.
So, it could have been planted. A mere ruse, to panic the British
into action.
That is certainly possible, father. But we cannot afford to base
strategy on the notion that a reported shift may be only a rumour. We
must prepare for all eventualities.
Myingun looked up, surprised. He had not heard his son enter the
room. Where did he learn to speak like this? He acknowledged his
contribution with a nod of the head in his direction.
Have my visiting dress prepared. Ready the carriages. We will
call on the Governor immediately.
But Your Highness, we have no appointment.
Did I arrive here by appointment? I came as a stowaway. They
took me in then. Now, I am their key to Burma. We need no
appointment. Remember your station. Organize my visit. We will need
yourself, and at least eight others. Two carriages. And make sure those
undercover agents on the corner are the first to know. That way he
might at least expect us.
Myingun moved over to the window and peeked through the
rattan blinds, pulled down low to deflect the glare of the afternoon sun.
In the next door rooms, the bustle began. A stir of excitement

276
ran through the womens voices. She entered the room. Your visiting
coat is ready, she said, her hands together and her body bowed low,
and signalled to him to come with her.
Were you the first to know? he whispered to her. She gave him
a playful glance.
Saw Chit, his dresser, eased him into the formal dress he always
wore to the Governors Offices. It is all he has left of his royal regalia.
Saw Chits voice is soothing, like a healers, urging him into his sleeves,
as if the wideness of his vowels were enough to coax his thickened
wrists into these narrow cuffs. He breathes in sharply as Saw Chit
buttons up the sides of the brocade tunic.
Of all his disguises, he finds this the most difficult to carry off. At
what point, he wonders, had dressing in his own clothes become a
masquerade?
Its almost twenty years since his third arrest, when the British
had forced him from Rangoon in nothing more than a bamboo cage
aboard a boat. Another ten since hed escaped from Chunar to
Chandernagor. A matter of months since he had left Chandernagore for
Calcutta, and then Pondicherry, trussed up like a carcass, in a trunk.
Hed escaped police attention in Calcutta by dressing as a
pauper. Hed traveled with the papers of a Tamil Christian to Colombo.
In Pondicherry, hed disembarked in the grubby sack-cloth and bare
shoulders of a sailor, his face still smeared with coal from the bunker

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where the captain had hid him for eight hours while the English police
combed the ship, his heart pounding thicker and faster than the ocean
deeps when they opened the door of the bunker and raked through a
pile of coals with the long muzzles of their guns, saved by the grace of
the gods, by a clocks pendulum, by the kindness of strangers, by the
thick salty voice of the captain calling Officers, by all means continue
your search, but it is eleven oclock, will you not partake with me of my
morning brandy?
From that point on, he had always treated his spirit mediums with
offerings of brandy.

But he needs more than spirits to fend off this

feeling. It comes from somewhere unreachable, nothing a needle and

thread can fix.
Its here, on this afternoon in February 1885 that he first feels
it.
This costume no longer fits.
Its not just the waist, which Saw Chit is letting out with his deft,
tailors fingers. How can a simple seam signal a betrayal? No, its more
than that.
He looks awkwardly at himself in the glass. Without thinking, he
reaches out to wipe the dust off the mirror. But there is no dust. Its an
abrupt, almost furtive gesture. The mirror swivels slightly on its pivots.
Saw Chit, his oldest servant, who is working to expand his sash, looks
up, and sees the prince staring with faint dismay at his fingertips, and

278
then back at the chalky face in the glass.
It was not just age, he knew; age grew wrinkles, lines. This was
different. In the space of a few months, his complexion had grown
sallow. Waxen. The astrologers and the Nats had always agreed on one
thing and one thing only. He would live until he had seen seven
hundred and more full moons. No, it was not decrepitude that had
settled on his features like ash. This was no deathly premonition.
It was the pallor of boredom, the floury texture of neglect. It was
the long wait, the sameness of every day, the repeated waiting for an
out. The unshakeable imprint of being suspended in a life interrupted.
Saw Chit smoothes down the princes shoulders, adjusts his
epaulettes, and then fetches a cloth.
Myingun watches him buff the gilt trim, sees it all in the mirror.
Was that a cobweb he saw him whisk from a tassel? If so, Saw Chit
does not let on.
And then he feels her hands, light as silk, adjusting the seams at
the back, and he can smell her too. But she is standing so squarely
behind him that he can see nothing of her. He knows without looking
that she has braided jasmine buds into her hair, and it is all he can do
not to turn around and bury his nose in that fragrant luxuriance and
drink her in.
Piece by piece, in Chunar, then Bhugalapore, then
Chandernagore, while his wife had grown more brittle, harder,

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secreting herself under layer and layer of glamour and glitter, as if
those tawdry sequins could bring back their palatial past, it was she
who had reassembled his plumage.
The packages appeared surreptitiously, quietly.
Money was one thing. Money could be raised, arms could be
financed, there was always a ready bankroller, a merchant ready to
back him, like a stud horse. But this was different; in these clothes,
these small packets, of pickled tea, of velvet slippers, of his favourite
incense, and simple, hand-woven longyis, here lay the promise of a
people. It was these small signs that kept him going, assurances that
his supporters were still there, working for him. How did they see him,
he wondered? Benevolent, headstrong? Did they forgive him for what
he had done, or despise him for not taking more lives?
He had killed only one man, only one with his bare hands.
Theebaw, the present King, had hundreds of deaths on his hands.
Courtiers and their children bundled into sacks and clubbed to death.
In Manalay, Dr. Marks had more than once strayed off topic, veering
from Latin to British History. But when Myingun had tried to impress
Arthur Phayre with his knowledge about Richard the III, and how he
had murdered his two nephews, Phayre had merely smiled. How can
you be so sure? Was it ever proved? Who was the real culprit? It was
Phayres favourite pastime, to play over that puzzle.
Come on, come on, quick quick, what is keeping you all? If you

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carry on dreaming like this, the Governors offices will be closed for the
day by the time you have dressed, his wife scolded, and she walked
across the room and right up to him. There, she said with admiration.
You see how well your royal dress has kept? The Governor will have to
listen to you now.
His wife had managed to adapt their routine to each new house
plan, to each new site on his journey, so that wherever they were,
however small or rudimentary, he sensed the decorum and the
structure of a court. Even in this small, stone, house. The stones were
cool enough. But he missed the echo, the ring, the chamber of sounds
that was the palace in Ava, in Mandalay, those halls of teak, he missed
the intricate carvings whose fragility somehow signaled the will of
time, the eternal skill of the craftsmen, and the resilience of of those
trees, felled, cleared, and remade.
Now timber was felled by the forestful, for boats, for weapons,
for telegraphs, for rail sleepers, for an architecture of wire along which
messages travel, the joinery of empire.

AT RICHAUDS OFFICE: (This taken from Richauds account of 16 Feb

85):

The ceilings rise high the chairs are upholstered with yellow silk,

281
from their smooth seats horse hair protrudes, silk cushions are tossed
over them.
Two crystal inkwells sit on the Governors desk, a large blotter,
and a gold stand for a quill-pen. The governor faces the room, his
guests, the view.
But I cannot believe that France, after having offered me such
generous hospitality, knowing the extent of my devotion for France,
and of my loathing for England, whose overtures I have always rejected
- can have concluded a treaty with my worst enemy.
M. Richaud is shaken, he gropes for words.
But your royal higness, and our most trusted and valued friend,
allow me to suggest that you have been, perhaps, hoodwinked by your
advisors; allow me to suggest that you have no proof of these matters
you yourself mentioned the newspapers as your source. I myself am
surprised by these insinuations. And the press the press! You know
these are often stories, and only stories.
Things have changedMyingun almost spits the words out, but
he steadies himself, his hands clasped in his lap, leaning forward
slightly, his feet, in the silk slippers, firmly planted on the ground.
Governor Richaud looks down at him.
Silence has its own weight, thinks U Maung Lwin. The unspoken
words grow between them, prodded by the Governors bulging eyes.

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He has a pen in his hand that, every so often, he dips in ink. A portable
ink pot, crystal cut, the light catches in the pattern.
U Maung Win, his translator, looks ill at ease. How can you
translate silence? He spreads out his hands, smiles. He cannot clear his
throat before the Prince. This is a royal silence, silence with a pedigree.
Richaud breaks the silence, with a glance at his fob watch, and
then the scratch of his pen. What notes can he be taking? Nothing has
been said. Impatience is spreading on his face.
Through the window, Myingun can se the Tamil spy, posted on
the corner, looking for the first time in a week with an air of curiousity
at the house. He remembers the struggles, the stench of blood and
hope and loss, yet here in this cushioned room he finds the struggle
harder still.
This is what changed Myingun starts again.
U Maung Lwine waits for the words to drop. Ripe fruit, sour,
worm-ridden, sweet: his job is not to seek or pick, but merely to turn
them on his tongue and chew them out for another palate. Ce quea
change But the Governor is there before him, It is fine, monsieur le
secretaire, we can speak English.
I am now a Pensioned Prince Myngun will say, they had
rehearsed it earlier. I have no freedom. And other phrases, too:

283
This forgotten corner of India is a tattered remnant of your grandeur
I loathe your deviance. Before, in Chunar, in Benares, in
Bhugalapore, my jailers were British. I had no rights, he wants to say.
Only a meager pension, to keep me quiet and good.
I have benefited from the kindness of the French government,
he says.
U Maung Lwin is careful to hide his disappointment.
The Governor sits back in his chair.
Myingun leans forward, his hands grippign the arm rests so tight
that he pulls the chair with him slightly, as if dragging a vessel out to
sea.
This is where Frances protection has got me! The English treat
me like an enemy, for having rejected their propositions. They want to
put Prince Nyoung Yan on the throne, a prince of no character, a hollow
prince, nothing but a name, and under whose rule my unfortunate
country will become a province on England, an annex of the Indian
Empire. France, in whom I have placed all my hopes, whom I have
given guarantees in return for hospitality, who has kept and is keeping
me prisoner - you are stopping me from responding to the call of my
supporters, they ll take me for a cowed prince, a prince whos happy
to turn away when his country needs him!

284
Richaud exchanges glances with his aide, who is folded up in his
chair like a clothes-peg, with close-set eyes, peeling skin and a thin
moustache.
France, my friend, making a treaty with the King, my enemy, the
persecutor of my partisans, the perpetrator of massacres that have
bloodied my country!
Myingun stops, his voice quivering, his hands trembling, he looks
directly to the side of the Governors head, across his desk, and trains
his eyes on the portrait of Dupleix, the founder of French India. There
was a man of courage, he thinks, a leader, whose vision surpassed his
personal ambition, a man who was not afraid of taking decisions, of
taking responsibility. It was not Dupleix who lost India, he thought, it
was bureaucrats like you, reining him in, afraid of the next election or
promotion. Governor Richaud is too comfortable in his position, too
afraid of failure, he thinks, I am wasting my time. But he needs to
perform, if only so his courtiers can report back, if only the news can
travel, growing with distance, of his courage in the face of adversity,
what other stage is left to him hear in this trinket town?
But Your Highness, said Richaud, his voice silky now, You are
hardly a prisoner in Pondicherry, we are treating you with the greatest
of respect, and will continue to do so, as a friend and as the future
sovereign of Burma.

285
Myingun calmed himself. Monsieur the Governor, he said, I beg
of you to ask your government for new instructions concerning my
case, and for detailed information about the Treaty they have
concluded, and for you to tell me loyally/truthfully what you plan to do
with me. My situation is intolerable. I am no longer sure on whom or
what I can rely. France can count on my devotion, but if only she would
not hold me back any longer from regaining my country, from winning
back the country of my ancestors.
France will have an ally in me. If she persists in this attitude, Burma
will be Englands (lit: English, anglais) before long.
He had wanted to hold sway, to leave with dignity, with calm.
But tears were prickling his eyes. Pumping through his veins was rage,
pure and simple. He stood up, and took his leave.
What madness had possessed him, to leave the relative freedom
of Benares, to leave the company of Myingoon, his younger brother, his
nieces and nephews, his life of pensioned ease, for this souped up
beach resort? If he had stayed there, perhaps the British would have
turned to him, instead of Nyoungyan.

[SOURCE: AOM FM affpol/54:

Richaud Pondi 16 Feb 85,Gov des Etats Francaises dans lInde to Min de
la Marine et des Colonie]]
The next day, Richauds aide was knocking on his door. After five
minutes, Myingun begged forgiveness for his rudeness, but complained

286
of a terrible migraine. When he was gone, he returned to his new
project, the letter to Colonel Sladen. Plunkett has turned up, another
one of his British afficionados, the one who crafted his memorial, [ NO
that is a lawyer, Clive] and is ready to assist him.
19 MARCH 1885, HRH Myingoon Mintha of Burmah, Pondicherry,
to Col. A. Sladen, Deputy COmmissioner of Akyab [Letter in IORC]
But Your Highness, said Richaud, his voice silky now, You are
hardly a prisoner in Paris, we are treating you with the greatest of
respect, and will continue to do so, as a friend and as the future
sovereign of Burma.
Myingun stops. He looks to the side of the Governors head,
across his desk, and trains his eyes on the portrait of Dupleix, the
founder of French India.
There was a man of courage, he says, and gestures. He leaves
the rest unsaid. Dupleix was a leader unafraid of taking decisions. It
was not Dupleix who lost India, he thought, it was petty officials like
you, reining him in, afraid of the next election or promotion. Governor
Richaud is too comfortable in his position, too afraid of failure, he
thinks, I am wasting my time.
But he needs to perform, if only so the news can travel, growing
with distance, of his courage in the face of adversity. What other stage

287
or dais is left to him here in this trinket town?
Monsieur the Governor, Myngun resumes, steadying his voice
as best he can, I beg of you to ask your government for new
instructions concerning my case, and for detailed information about
the Treaty they have concluded, and for you to tell me loyally/truthfully
what you plan to do with me. My situation is intolerable. I am no longer
sure on whom or what I can rely. France can count on my devition, but
if only she would not hold me back any longer from regaining my
country, from winning back the country of my ancestors.
France will have an ally in me. If she persists in this attitude,
Burma will be Englands (lit: English, anglais) before long.
He had wanted to hold sway, to leave with dignity, with calm.
But tears are prickling his eyes. He stands and takes his leave, his
hands shaking from a rage pure and simple.
[SOURCE: AOM FM affpol/54: Richaud Pondi 16 Feb 85,Gov des
Etats Francaises dans lInde to Min de la Marine et des Colonie]

The next day, Richauds aide was knocking on his door. After five
minutes, Myingun begged forgiveness for his rudeness, but complained
of a terrible migraine. When he was gone, he returned to his new
project, the letter to Colonel Sladen. Plunkett has turned up, another

288
one of his British afficionados, the one who crafted his memorial, and is
ready to assist him.
19 MARCH 1885, HRH Myingoon Mintha of Burmah, Pondicherry, to
Col. A. Sladen, Deputy COmmissioner of Akyab [Letter in IORC]
18 May 1885: Prince Myngoon of Burma to Baron Textor de Ravisi,
Officer of the Legion of Honour, St. Etienne:
After having been imprisoned by the British for seventeen years, I
came to Pondicherry, as a guest of France. For ten months now Ive
been living here, and although I have been welcomed by the local
authorities, I cannot obtain permission to travel to Saigon, to stay there
under French protection in conditions less prejudicial to my interests
than those to which I have submitted in Pondicherry.
Allow me to observe that I am a member of the royal family of
Burma, and that Upper Burma remains, and has always been, in
independent country, outside of all British jurisiction. That being so
then why, for seventeen years, did the British intern me in Benares as
a political prisoner? And why does France treat me like a political
convict, keeping me in Pondicherry, and preventing me from traveling
to Cochinchina to Saigon, where my interests would be better served?
U Maung Win paused. Myingun nodded, and blinked twice; a good
sign, thought U Maung Win. Myingun reached for another portion of
pickled tea. He was preempted by Ma Ma Kyi, the servant girl. Her

289
hand recoiled as if stung. He gathered up the tea between his fingers,
and savoured its exquisite simplicity, the smokiness that reminded him
of the firelit trails of his camping life . How bored he was of this life; as
if it was not enough that the Tamil police were outside surveilling his
every moment, without having young wenches eyeing each muscle
twitch so that they could predict his every need. Failing to conceal her
pout, she slunk back into the corner. Myingun cleared his throat, and
began again:
Burma has always been an indedendent country, outside of all
British sovereignty; thats why they imprisoned me at Benares.
Myingun surveyed the draft, then pursed his lips, and let his eyes
wonder again to the window. Correction he commanded U Maung
WIn. Scratch out prisoner. No, leave it. But insert DE FACTO. As a DE
FACTO prisoner here through the ARBITRARY will of ENgland who has
no AUTHORITY, no right of SOVEREIGNTY, that it can exercise against
my individual ABSOLUTE liberty.
SInce the local administration wont let me leave Pondicherry; their
motive must either be because France has given in to pressure from
England to act against my interests, or because Government of the
Republic seeks to substitute England in continuing Englands
seventeen year long violation of my rights and freedom.
All I desire is to go to Saigon. Help me, I implore you, to obtain the

290
permission of the President of hte Republic, whether through the
intervention of members of Cabinet, or the help of Parliament.To drag
my stay out further is as prejudicial to the interests of France, in
Indochina, as it is to those of upper Burma.
Do not forget the date, adds Myingun.
He had lain awake at nights pondering, of all things, the invention of
a new contraption, an abacus of sorts, that could translate the
Buddhist calendar days into the Roman calendar. At least that was one
thing the British and French agreed on, he did not need to date his
correspondence any differently. U Maung Win was rather slow at
making such calculations, and Myingun, tongue-tied as he might be in
French, could at least keep the upper hand here. 18 May, 1885. And
the title, he added. BARON Textor de Ravisi. He can see the Baron
now, scrunching up his left eye through his monacle, perusing his letter
as slowly as he chews his food, all the better to digest its contents.
Without thinking, he passed his hand across his upper lip; twirling an
imaginary moustache.

JUNE 1885; At last it has come, word from Colonel Sladen, on June 8
he wrote it:

291
My Dear Prince,
I was very glad to receive your kind letter from Pondicherry, and to
learn from it that there was a likelihood of your coming to a friendly
understanding with the British government.
I have always felt that in your own interests you made a mistake
when you left British territory, in placing yourself under the protection
of the French government.
When you wrote to me, some time ago from Chandernagore, I
would have interested myself in your behalf to the extent of advising
you to return to Calcutta
Dont you think, now that you have had Indian and English
experiences, that the innate corrupt system of the Burmese
government - the evil influences of the court - the intrigues and
jealousies of Queens, princes and courtiers - the rivalry of ministers,
and the ever present fear of rebellion and assassination, would soon
make it impossible for him to carry outhis final, good intentions.
Dont you think your only chance of retaining power, and govrning with
success, would depend on a cordial and confident alliance, on the aid
and advice of a powerful State with whom it would be in your interest
to seek an offensive and defensive alliance? Nothing would please me
more than to know that Upper Burma was under the rule of a strong
and powerful King - who was able to rule with

292
consideration/moderation and justice - my good wishes.
On 12 June 1885, Charles Bernard writes to Sladen from
Government House, and thanks him for letting him see Myinguns
most interesting letter. Now that there is a Change of Ministry we
are likely enough to have annexation pure and simple, he writes. In
the event of war with Russia, he writes I have no doubt the Upper
Burma Question will be taken up. I dare say, he writes, Lord Dufferin
might be for annexation. I myself would rather see a man like Myingun
on the throne, subject to the influence of our Resident. But I fear he is
too li with France for us ever to take him.

22 JUNE 1885: From the Secretary to the Government of India,

Simla to Prince myngooon Mintha of Burmah, Pondicherry:
I am directed to acknowledge the receipt of your letters of the 28th
May 1885, in which you express your attachment to the British
government and enquire whether the right of police would be
exercised over you in the event of your leaving Pondicherry for Upper
Burmah. I have laid your letters before His Excellency the Viceroy,
who has directed me to say that the British Government are at peace
with King Theebaw and that His Excellency cannot countenance any
hostile expedition direct by you into Upper Burmah whether by Siam or
by any other route. I have the honor to be sir your most obedient

293
servant H M Durand Secretary to the Government of India
30 JUNE 1885:
Pondicherry, to EB Sladen Esq, Akyab:
My dear friend, As I had promised to acquaint you of the result of
my memorial to His Excellency the Viceroy of India I herewith send for
your perusal the copy of the reply received from the Secretary to the
Governor of India
I had great confidence in His Excellencys sense of justice, but I find
by this letter that the British Government is against me, with best
wishes, I remain, yours very sincerely, Myngoon Prince, Eldest Prince of
Burmah

On 1 October 1885, He writes to Colonel Sladen.

From HRH Myingoon-Mintha of Burma, Pondicherry
To E B Sladen Esq, Akyab

My dear friend,
It is a very long time since I have not been forwarded with any
letters from you and I neither know anything about your health I
consider you my best and oldest friend and always cherish great hope

294
in your favour. The time is now come for me to seek the aid of good
friends, you will therefore as a good friend assist me in your valuable
and wise counsels.
I have just seen in all the leading newspapers that events are
now shaping themselves and that there is every probability of British
interventions in Burma very soon owing to the French making another
treaty with Theebaw and receiving large concessions from him but I
have to fear very little from such revolutions as I assure you that
neither of the contending powers could ever manage to put matters
righ in Burmah unless they deal justly with me and concede my just
claim.
He asks Sladen for his kind advice for the course I am to adopt.
I am greatly afflicted to hear about the present miserable condition
of the people of Burma and the toitering throne of my ancestors and
therefore eagerly desire for the peace and welfare of that nation.
If the English government be willing I would condescend to come to
any expedient terms, that would be beneficial to both parties, and I
would wilingly carry out the conditions laid out. ANy advice on the
matters would be received by me at this critical moment with every
gratitude and thankfulness. I shall never forget your kindess all the
days of my life.
I am in the enjoyment of sound health trusting that this will find you

295
the same. And an early reply is solicited. With best compliments, I
remain, dear friend, yours very sincerely,
MYINGOON PRINCE,
ELDEST PRINCE OF BURMAH

Two weeks, he reminds himself. By ordinary passage, four weeks is

how long it will take to secure a reply. But he has sent this message by
personal carrier, by express, by an obliging member of his retinue.
Within days of writing it, he already had word of its delivery. By the
third week, his agitation spreads outwards, to his eyes, fingers, brow,
and is most pronounced at that particular time of day when the mail
arrives, picked up by his messenger from the post office, Poste
Restante. [what are the mechanics of this?].
On 22 October, he writes again:
Pondicherry
22 Oct/85
E. B. Sladen, Esqre.
Akyab

My dear friend

296
It is a very long time now that I have not been favored with
any letter from you and prior to this I have addressed three letterse
to your house and I think that some of them may have reached you by
this time
I see that the affairs of Burmah are assuming a very serious
aspect, and the English are now determined to interfere and the
French will no further dispute the claims of the British in Burmah and
now Theebaw will have no one to back him juing from the present
weakness of the country and the determination of the English Govmt. I
am convinced that the Sovereignty of Burma will have a fall Your long
experience of the country and its nation will convince you that the
Sovereignty of Burmah will have a fall Your long experience of the
country and its nation will convince you that the talking of the Capital
from Theebaw will e very easy, but the settling of the country will be a
very difficult and hazardous task, and no tranquility can be restored
before many years, as the aggressions of the hill tribes will keep it in a
very unsettled state
I see in some of there papers that there is talk of me, that I have
offered my services to the British Government to upset Theebaw, but it
is suspected that I am acting under French influence and that I have
entered into a secret bargain with them to advance their interests
should I get the throne, no matter by whose aid, this is a very
prejudicial ???HINTL??? to my cause and it is very unjust for the

297
papers to think so I am well aware of the power of the English
Govnmt to know very well that the future welfare of Burmah lies on the
side of the English Further the English Govnmt have for nealy 10
years given me comfort and maintenance and I would not be so
ungrateful as to forget their kindness - My only object in leaving
British Territory was to be given my rights, and therefore I sought the
aid of the French, but if I find that they are quite unable to aid me, I wll
not be so foolish as to advance their interests in any way I will only
be the fast friend of that nation who will be my benefactor I myself
take precedence from the present Ameer o Afghanistan, Abdool
Rahman, who was also a pensioned prince of the Russians and lived in
their country for a long time, how he has shunned them, and has
fastened the bonds of friendship with his benefactors, and at this
moment of emerergency received every assistance from them
I would not therefore be so ungrateful and foolish as to obliterate
from my memory the kindness that I have already received from the
hands of the English and if ever I am assisted by them to gain my
rights; I will do my utmost to advance their interests and make it my
chief duty to accede to all their wishes
I am anxiously waiting to hear from you and solicit your kind
advice at the present difficult moment and I will not forget your
kindness all the days of my existence

298
Trusting that this will meet with the favor of an early reply with
best complimentsI remain
My dear friend
Yours very sincerely
Myingoon Prince
Eldest Prince of Burma

24 November 1885: he was wrong about Richaud, he has shown some

backbone after all; Myingun had shed tears, and with them some
dignity, but at last he has good news. He first writes to M. Freycinet,
the Minister of Foreign Affairs, tells him that Richaud has passed on the
Ministers permission to travel to Saigon, but counselled him
nonetheless to wait until the crisi has passed; I am filled with joy, he
writes to Freycinet, and for once this language is not hyperbole, his
mood has changed, uplifted, and with it that of his seaside court, there
is a new regality in his tone, in his step. His wife has called in the tailor
again, and has sent orders for new rolls of Burmese silk from her
special supplier in Moulmein.

299
If only you had allowed me to make this journey ten months ago,
then, with the help of my Shan princes and my Burmese supporters,
my journey would have been crowned with success. But I accept your
wise counsel, and I am ready to wait, and to place my trust in the
loyalty and generosity of France, to live up to her promise when
circumstances permit. I will do nothing against the will nor without the
consent of the French nation, in whom I place all my hopes, and to
whom I am most fervently attached.
You also alluded to an offer of services I made to the British
government, but there is nothing in that. I merely asked the British
government to allow me to return to Burma, while crossing her
territory, but my request was refused. I might also add that this was no
clandestine communication (demarche), but that I had also made my
opinion plain to Governor Richaud. My English friends have often
advised me to give myself up to the English, but I have always
adamantly refused, having retained such bad memories of the long
emprisonment to which they subjected me.
What are you trying to do? he asks, Create a sixth comptoir in
Burma? Or make her part of Indochina? Where will Burma fit in your
map?
***
It is November 1885. The Kings council, the Hltutdaw, send out the call

300
for troops to join up. Britain inspects its hand: three princes, different
suits. Myingun still with them. Nuayungyan has died in Calcutta, 26
June 1885. Nyaungyok attacked the Myda region in the border, 1880.
In November 1885, the British expeditionary force moves up the
Irrawaddy. On its boats is a clerk of the Chief Commissioner,
masquerading as the Nyaungyan Prince, hoping to nullify the effects of
kingship, to disarm Burmese resistance, to build on his appeal. [Ni Ni
Myint, Charney: one of them must be wrong re. dates/names. See
Keeton for better account].
No weapons are spared, no tactics, Buddha is brought in, the
Myingzain princes invoke the Dutthagami, King of Sri Lanka, 161-137
BC), who defended his country for Buddhism. Buddhism becomes a
rallying cry, it is not only their country they are defending, but their
stupas and temples from ruin and ransacking, from despoliation and
defacement, from looting not only for precious metals and rare icons
but for raw materials too, for stone, for timber, especially for timber,
by military officers, missionaries, noone is above plunder.

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CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

November, 1885 MANDALAY [Kinwun

Mingyi]

The Kinwun Mingyi stared into the embers. He brushed the ash off his
garment, then clasped his hands tight and felt the firelight course
through the gold bars of his rings. He had seen flames lick the horizon
that were too distant to feel but in whose fury whole villages had
burned, set alight by war, by carelessness, by poor craftsmanship or a
single tipped candle. But never had he witnessed so close this wanton
destruction.
In the flames, there in the yaws of that demonic blaze, sat his
past. There, too, lay his future.
Since the Einshameens murder, the fear that the court scribes
had kept some record of their talks had needled into him. At first hed
thought the feeling would pass, but over time, this sense of quiet dread
struck so deep that a limp set in whenever he approached the Hlutdaw,
the Council Hall where the records were kept. By the time the

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Einshameen was a year into his grave, the mere sight of those
buildings would reduce his legs to a state of semi-paralysis. To cover
up this reflex, he took to limping everywhere; as a member of the
council, there was no avoiding the Hlutdaw building. And whenever he
passed a scribe, he would force himself to look away. But always his
eyes slid back, searching faces, postures and hands for a clue that they
knew. Those fears were wiped clean now. He raised his fingers to his
mouth, stepped back into the shadows,closed his lips momentarily on
the taste and texture of ash, and smiled.
The fire was irrevocable. It devoured everything. In England and
Italy, on his tour with King Mindons handpicked team, he had seen
glass blown in flames, into thick bubbles teased out by a blue yellow
burning, that rendered quicklime and quartz sand into wasp-waisted
bottles. He had seen the red-hot blades of axes being turned in a
blacksmiths furnace, and the molten glow of horseshoes under the
hammer and anvil at the farriers. He had returned to Mandalay full of
new ideas for the King. Months later, his head dizzy with a passing
fever, he had taken a wrong turn on his way through the palace
compound. While passing a certain cell in the palace prison, he had
heard red hot irons put to other uses, to sear souls of the strongest
mettle, and prise out the most closely guarded secrets in ripe shouts of
pain.

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At the ready, over here! yelled an officer.
Behind him they came, like so many toy soldiers, arms loaded
with palm leaf texts, flat and shiny, in their lacquered, gold-rimmed
casings, and the thick paper scrolls, concertina shaped, known as
parabaik. The infantry didnt care for such distinctions. They muddled
the manuscripts up, passed them down in stacks that slipped and
shifted in their skinny, red-sleeved arms, then threw them onto the fire
as if theyd been no more than driftwood, nightsoil or the clothes of a
diseased man.
In this plunder was his salvation. The records were burned to
perfection. But as the Kinwun Mingyi looked closer at this fresh haul,
flames dancing in his eyes, something lit in him, too, a feeling buried
so long he had forgotten its bite. . A strange kindling.
The first palm-leaf manuscript, then the first parabaik caught
light. Sparks snapped in the air. Circling through the heat, and into his
eyes, there cluttered burned words, fragments, ash, dirt. These were
no court records. The fools had ransacked the libraries from the
monastery, too. The Buddhas words, holy syllable by holy breath,
rendered to smoke like a common cadaver.
The Kinwun Mingyi wanted to run forward, to snatch this sacred
cargo out of the fire. But all he could do was stare, mouth wide open.
Out there in the darkening crowd, he felt someones eyes on him.

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Since the King had first called him into his service, his arms still
pale from his monastic life, since hed shed his robes, and along with
them his vows of detachment from all wordly desire, he had built his
life, favor by favor, thorugh the art of concealment. But tonight the
Kinwun Mingyi felt his mask come unsteady. He shrank back into the
shadows, blinked but could not blink off that holy cinder trapped in his
lashes. Out there, those hidden eyes kept probing him.
He moved to the brim of the fire in quick long strides, pushed his
arm out. The parabaiks snapped and snarled and crackled, curled back
on themselves, dissolved into ash. He leaned forward, reached
through that blinding haze of his heat until his fingers glowed waxen. A
pair of scarlet arms pushed him back, upsetting his cane. He teetered
on one leg, barely able to regain his balance.
Stop, Get your hands off him! What do you think you are doing!
These are NOT your orders, yelled Sir Charles Bernard, the Queens
commissioner. This gentleman is the Kings counselor, I mean - The
Commissioner mopped his brow with his handkerchief as he searched
for words to end his sentence, I mean, the ExKings counselor.
Propped up by his tarnished cane, he regained his poise,
smoothed down his court robe, turned his head in Bernards direction,
and contorted his lips into the semblance of a smile. But Bernard had
already turned away, his broad back moving on through the ranks.

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The Commissioner turned to face him with a thinly disguised air
of amusement, grabbed a bayonet from the disgraced orderly, and
pushed its knifetip into the rim of the fire where Kinwun Mingyis cane
had dropped, raking it out of the ashpile. He reached down to pick it
up, its silver tip now blackened, the teak handle scorched, and held it
out to him, his smile dripping with the expectation of gratitude. As if he
were offering the Kinwun Mingyi alms. He dipped his head to mask his
expression. His thank you barely audible, he reclaimed his scorched
cane. He hoped, at least, that the crowd had not heard it.
In the white-hot contagion of the fire, in the carnival
atmsosphere of wreckage, in the time it took for a single manuscript
to catch, he had switched sides, had decided where his new allegiance
lay. He could feel more eyes on him now. With the King gone, he was
their next best hope.
If Sir Charles Bernard had not stepped in, he might have done
the right thing, done what felt right for the first time since he had left
those monastery gates, head turned to the palace. He might
havepushed the soldier hard into the flames to burn up like a Guy
Fawkes dummy alongside the holy manuscripts. Remember
remember, the street urchins had sung at him on his visit to London
last year Gunpowder, Treason and Plot.
Only hours ago, when the flames first licked the edges, as the

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orderlies moved from one pile to another, sprinkling them with oil from
a small can, he had relished the prospect of his release from the daily
anxiety of possible discovery. But now that fear seemed ancient,
irrelevant. His fingers now blistered and singed, what circled his mind
were the hands and hours, the painstaking devotion from which each
and every one of those records had been crafted, letter by letter, in Pali
and Burmese
Sparks jumped out of the ashpile. A group of children were raking
through the debris for trinkets, coins, anything they could take home to
their families.
The auctioneers would soon be here. Hed overheard the new
Commissioner Charles Bernard talking about a letter hed received.
The throne would have made good firewood. But it would not burn. He
had been there when Charles Bernard saw it, had led him into the
audience chamber himself, had seen the calculation flicker in his
shrewd blue eyes. The throne had a different value. The throne would
not burn. Would they hock off the royal throne, raise revenue from its
gilt and glitter, its intricate carpentry? He thought not. It would be
hoarded, collected, displayed in London or Calcutta, as a new boundary
stone, marking the final conquest, the last frontier of Queen Victorias
India. Did they not see that Burma was a separate country? Its slim,
ornate frame robbed of its occupant, the throne looked horribly

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diminished. The Kings banishment had given it a funereal quality.
What better monument than this empty seat to pronounce not just the
collapse of a dynasty, but the end of a monarchy?
Here, at his feet, spent, irretrievable, smoldered the real seat of
Burmese power. He looked down at his robe. Part of his hem was now
spattered with red wax, mixed in with embers. The air was bitter with
the taste of their foreign, illiterate rage.
The Kinwun Mingyi sidled back across to Charles Bernard, who
stood ramrod straight, hands behind his back, his moustached face
amber with the reflected glow of the evenings industry. As new fires
were laid and lit, he directed his subalterns through the raucous din
with the occasional lift of an eyebrow, a nod.
Your Excellency, if you need guidance in these matters of the
palace, if you need a record keeper for the new books that will replace
these, you know, I have visited London. Indeed, as you might verify
through the good offices of Captain Fytche, or if not he, then Colonel
Sladen: my English is actually said to be quite good.
As he spoke he had the odd sensation that something was
leaving him. It was as if someone had reached down his throat and
pulled out a silk scarf and with it, something else. Traveling with that
wrenching sense of loss, he felt rather than saw a black, shapeshifting,
thing to which he could put no name, diaphanous, yet formless,

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substanceless, spiralling into the heart of the pyre.
He waited for Bernards reply. In the corner, on the outskirts of
the crowd, hesitant, close to the wall, stood a woman whose face he
could not place.
Her features were set firm, and she was gazing into the fire. In
that backlit, smokefilled moment between one thought and the next he
saw her throat tighten. Then she looked square up across the bustling
courtyard at him, and for the second time that night, he dipped his
head, evading her eyes. He knew now where he had seen her before,
it was the way her eyes sloped up under her brows, and the stubborn
tilt of her chin, and the way she held herself up straight. He willed her
to move, but she stayed there, rigid.
His eyes were brimming red now with the glare and the ash that
caught on his lashes, and he stared into the heart of the fire nearest
him, into its callous appetite.
And then fleeting, twisted, transparent, weaving in on itself with
a thin, smokey urgency, something rose up out of those flames. It took
shape without solidifying, concentrated without gaining density, and
glided upwards, evanescent, into the night sky whose stars watched
silent, outshone by the embers and the glare and the grunting, sparkful
mayhem of the Council chambers, burning.

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CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

PONDICHERRY 1885

It is not just the British, Ma May reports to Myingun, a week after the
red-jackets seized the palace. It is the servants of the royal house, the
Burmese too, who are joining them in the pillage, in the burning of
state records. Everything is up in flames. She left Mandalay days ago,
has travelled on horseback and steamer and train to bring him this
news, but her lungs still feel thick with smoke, and something catches
at the back of her throat when she relives the scene for him.
Myingun had left the record-keeping to his brother; and, after

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Daines death, to his secretary, U Maung Lwin. He had never cared
much for the parabaik, the court documents, nor the sense that they
were worth much more than the palm leaves and stiff mulberry-leaf
paper they were inscribed on. Now he sees their value too late.
Whatever was written there - or not - was something on to which to pin
a script, a history, a story of the court. Now the histories are burned,
engulfed, theyve fed the flames for seven days, all is gone, only a few
saved, smuggled out, buried. Who will tell the histories now? How will
his father be remembered? And the Kanaung, how will his story be
told? And the murder of the princes and princesses, 18 February 1879,
how will that tale now be told?
Did the Kinwun Mingyi stoke the fires, or did he try to salvage
records?
Ma May does not know why she lies to him now. It is not the first
time, but somehow it feels the deepest breach of honesty. She has not
yet spoken, she is formulating the lie still.
Well? Was he there? You must have seen him?
Something in his tone takes her back to that smoke-hazed day,
to the street urchins grubbing at the flame, poking around, of the
Kinwun Mingyi reaching in. For that entire evening, it was he who had
most commanded her attention. His face was only ever a thick veneer,
a scaffolding, in his entire career he had not let slip a single sign of his

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inner emotion. But early that evening, standing there, as part of the
theater troupe, costumed, and therefore somehow invisible, she had
looked across and seen him struggle with a smile, and lose. Shed seen
him breach the essence of court decorum, and lick his fingers. And
then lunge and wobble into the circle of fire like a drunk, his face
contorted with what on any other man, she would have described as
anger. No, anger was too small a word: fury. What was he doing? Was
he trying to fan the flames, poking them with his stick? Then, later in
the evening, when she had changed out of her jewelled silks and into a
simple shirt and thamein with a speed that had ripped one side of her
pantaloons, she had returned to witness the Kinwun Mingyi scuffle with
the British chief. She had positioned herself in the shadows, absorbing
everything, so she could report it back to Myingun. But there was
something about the Kinwun Mingyi that night, she could not take her
eyes off him. She was searching for something, some deep grain of
dignity that had survived unstained by all the intrigue, the scheming.
She knew he had seen her. Her father had taught her to always pity
cripples, no more so than when her own fame as a dancer grew, and
perhaps that was why, much to Myinguns annoyance, she had always
tried to put a good word in for the Kinwun Mingyi, to shed another
perspective on events. Could anyone be so much of a villain as
Myingun made him out to be? She knew that her sympathy was tied to
his laboured gait, his pincered back, his reliance on a cane. And

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because that could all be traced back to Myinguns assault on the
palace, to the beginnings of his own sad exile, she somehow blamed
Myingun.
But that night, what had transfixed her most, was this. When he
put his hands into the flames, he was still limping. When he drew them
out, his fingers were singed, he teetered like a beggar for a moment,
and then he stood straight. He moved fine. He had lost his limp.
Standing witness, off in the dark perimeter, she had told herself that
what he had salvaged there in that pyre was the kernel of dignity he
had lost long ago through his own rude greed. Now she sensed a glint
of that greed in Myinguns voice, in his pushing her, probing her, for
more information about that night. She will tell him none of it.
For all his vanity about his ability to read people, she senses that
he has never been much good at reading people. He has never picked
up on her past lies.
The Kinwun Mingyi? she answers. Oh, he was there, I think.
But there was such chaos. It was hard to track him. I did see him
speaking with the Commissioner, Sir Charles Bernard.
***
By 1 January 1886, it is official. The Burmese monarchy are no
more, they have been painted out of British history, out of the history

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of Burmas future. Myinguns hands tremble as he reads the
proclamation. It has arrived by mail, by royal mail, by an official
source, no subterfuge here:
Viceroy of India PROCLAMATION By command of the Queen
Empress, it is hereby notified that the territories formerly governed by
King Thibaw will no longer be under his rule, but have become part of
Her Majestys Dominions.
A month later comes Lord Dufferins minute: a puppet king of
the Burmese type would have proved a very expensive, troublesome
and contumacious fiction. And yet by February, before parliament
returns, Lord Dufferin has predicted to Colonel Sladen, in a private
letter, the prospect of annexation, pure and simple. Annexation
followed by amputation; a severing of the royal house. By 3 March
1886, it is irrevocable. Charles Bernard issues a new proclamation:
NO BURMAN PRINCE WILL EVER RULE AGAIN IN BURMA. THE
QUEEN AND EMPRESS OF INDIA IS SOVEREIGN THROUGHOUT THE
WHOLE COUNTRY AND ALL THE PEOPLE OF BURMA ARE NOW HER
MAJESTYS SUBJECTS.

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CHAPTER 24

(For now)

PONDICHERRY

Here in this bungalow, with nothing but the large trunk which
transported him here and a withered map on which to peg his
memories, Myngun lives vicariously. He thrives outside this room and
yet rarely leaves it. In his wildest moments he imagines his spirit
drifting, circulating through the forests and jungle paths where his men
fan out, in Laos, in Battambang, in Pursat. The pact with the
Cambodian prince Sivutha was Ya Hmens genius, he and Mackertoon;
his men are now making their way into his rebel bands, into Cambodia
through Pailin, through the gem mines, others through Chantaboun,
through Pursat, some lured by gold, others by mercenary pay, others
by honour, but all fed along those routes, pushed in that direction, by
Ya Hmeng, his most strategic bandit, his chief of operations: CHOP
Mackertoon calls him for short, proud of his half-hidden code.
In linking his cause to Sivuthas he is trading on the Burmese
fighters reputation, on their impact on the morale of the other side,
they are much feared in Cambodia, seen as dangerous, masters of
magic, evil spirits to be avoided, his Burmese bandits. One of his men

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was wounded and captured by the French, in Kompong Chhnang, but
he did not reveal anything about this grander vision, at which Myingun
cant help but wonder, how much Ya Hmeng told his men? To tell them
nothing is wise to a point, but then he cannot claim their victory as his
own, as leverage off an alliance. But if Sivutha fails, if his men lose
out, then at least Myngoons support can never be traced directly back
to him, either by the French or by Norodom, the King.
Sivutha has drawn them into his fold, promising t hem riches and
honours when they take Phnom Penh with him. But Sivutha, they say
he is now a recluse, deluded, does he really believe he can take Phnom
Penh?
[SOURCE 1886 letter from Badens to Begin, Acting Governor General of
IC]:
Ive collected the information/gathered the intelligence you
asked me for in your Depeche No. 118 of 22 December, and I am
honoured to inform you that the Burmese, whose presence among
rebel bands has been noted on several occasions, are Burmese
APRIL 1887: CANTON: The Ministry of FOreign Affairs in Paris
receives news that the intrigues of the Myingun Prince are reaching
China; that the Myingun Prince wants to go via Cambodia and
Cochinchina to see his supporters pour faire echec a la domination
ANglaise. On 30 April 1887, a Chinese named Kwong-Tchang-Feu asks

316
to see the Acting French Consul about a matter of the utmost secrecy
and importance. I am a buinessmen with comptoirs (investments) in
India, Australia, Singapore and Burma. I have made it my project to
help the elder son of King Mindon of Burma, to regain his ancestral
throne, and to get the English to accept him as the rightful heir to the
crown of Ava (lit the hereditary prince of Ava), and to replace Thibaw,
who is now dethroned and dead (sic), so that the English will recognize
Myingoon Min as the King of an Indpendent Kingdom whose boundaries
will include the Chinese province of Yunnan in the North, SIam and
Tonkin in the East, This will need the agreement of France. The prince
is now in Pondicherry and wants to travel to Cochinchina, SIam,
Cambodge, Tonkin. He claims to have gathere d 5,000 supporters in
Canton, with their chief Leou Yong Fou and several military officers. I
will join him, and then go to the banks of the Irrawaddy, and to
TAPENG, on the frontier of KAKYUX, and Bhamo, by passing through
Yunnan. I will also rally all bands of rebels who are still Northeast of
Tonkin and on the Black River. I have raisd 300,000 taels of silver and
the help of the Viceroy of Yunnan, Hsien YonYu (or Hsein Yo-Yu). I have
men, army and the people of Laos and a tribe of Karens and Kakyens,
and Karens Rouges. It seems we should let him leave Pondi not allow
him to come to Cochinchine francaise or Cambodge. [AOM]

317
He begins to devour newspapers again, he scolds Maung Lwin
for reading them first, a habit he has now admitted to, for clipping out
the cuttings, he wants to crumple it in his hand, to hold the whole
world there between its pages, the world of British empire at least, he
thinks bitterly. Each week, weeks and weeks late, his friend Baron
Textor de Ravisi brings him copies of the Times. He scours them for
images and traces of Burma, U Maung Lwin spots it first, the letter
from Chan Toon.
Chan Toon? That scoundrel. Claiming to be Mindons nephew.
He writes eloquent letters about the annexation.
What is he up to in London?
Studying law, remember?
What use is their law, it is their law that has us here behind bars,
exiled from a sovereign kingdom under British law.
He remembers Chan Toon well. He was the brightest of the
princes, the most studious, the least courageous. London at least has
given him a voice, a pen. Where do his symphathies lie? He has the
lawyers gift of writing words that mean nothing, elegant treatises
without a point, a pilgrimage of words, The Times his shrine. Gilded
with scholarships, distinctions from the Inner Temple, not a monastery,
but a reliquary of sorts, a keeping place for all the laws and a training

318
for those who should uphold and keep them.
11 JUNE 1887: SAIGON 10 JUNE 1887 (FM 1 Affpol/ 54) Depeche Tel
Chiffre consul Bangkok informs two emissaries of prince Myingoun will
arrive Saigon bearing letter for Norodom. Mingoon to follow to take
back Burma via Saigon, Phnom Penh, Mekong with intention fighting
England, will be awaited by numerous followers, please cable your
attitude to prince and emissaries in whom I place all my hopes, and
to whom I am most fervently attached.
You also alluded to an offer of services I made to the British
government, but there is nothing in that. I merely asked the British
government to allow me to return to Burma, while crossing her
territory, but my request was refused. I might also add that this was no
clandestine communication (demarche), but that I had also made my
opinion plain to Governor Richaud. My English friends have often
advised me to give myself up to the English, but I have always
adamantly refused, having retained such bad memories of the long
emprisonment to which they subjected me.
11 JUNE 1887: SAIGON 10 JUNE 1887 (FM 1 Affpol/ 54) Depeche Tel
Chiffre consul Bangkok informs two emissaries of prince Myingoun will
arrive Saigon bearing letter for Norodom. Mingoon to follow to take
back Burma via Saigon, Phnom Penh, Mekong with intention fighting
England, will be awaited by numerous followers, please cable your

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attitude to prince and emissaries.

22 JUNE 1887: Ministry of Marine and Colonies to Governor of

Cochinchina: Forbid prince Myingoun from landing at Cochinchina or
Cambodia, he is free to go elsewhere.
From February to June 1888, reports are good. His support bases
still continue, not just in upper Burma, his heartland, but also in lower
Burma, in Tavoy, in Tharawaddy. In Tavoy district, the British are
concerned, the movement in favour of the Myingun prince is bubbling
away, enough to keep them anxious. At Sagaing and Mandalay, the
Bayingan Prince has acted in Myinguns interests. He is killed in action,
October 1886. He is known as the Viceroy Prince, started out in
Mandalay, won support for Myinguns cause from resistance leaders
and movements, moves north into Sagaing, casts his net wider; theres
a second Hyderabad contingency network (? From Nyi Nyi Myint?).
Some are paying with their life, some with their freedom. Bo Ya Nyunt
has been sentenced to death, he appeals for clemency, and gets exile.
He is sent to the penal colony of the Andaman islands.
In November 1887, still in Pondicherry, Myngoon writes to the
Minister of Colonies (?) M. Le Ministre, of his intention to go to Laos
Birman and the Independent Shan states, traveling through Tonkin, if
your government allows it. He plans to voyage by sea, from Haiphong

320
to Laokai.

He still has U Yits map, whenever he travels, he

disassembles it, conceals it in different book bindings, only when he is

stationary does he take the pieces out, gaze at them together, imagine
his next journey.

16 JUNE 1888: Prince Myngoon has sent three envoys to the heads of
the Shan states; they disembarked at Haiphong, and from there
journey to Laos. Textor Baron de Ravisi reveals these plans to the
Political Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Paris, whose
POlitical Director writes to Admiral Kranz, Minister of Marines and
Colonies, despairing of the Princes ambitious projects.
More and more people are gathering up, moving into the forests,
into the hills, taking their fight from their threshold to the British,
moving away from cities and suburbs, moving to the older forces and
promises, the rivets of history, the language they know. In July 1888, in
the Thraawddy district, seventeen adherents gather, led by a monk,
the Venerable U Thiriya.

Myingun is their rallying cry,

their symbol, but what goads them to fight is not just his gorgeous
royal plumage but the land tax, heavier with each new administration,
capitation, and a rapacious police taxation. The rebels rally around
Myingun, as long as rebellions swell and gather, he will be there, but at
what point can he ever, he himself, become their cause?

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28 FEBRUARY 1889: Letter from Prince Myngoon to the King of

Cambodge [Source: AOM FM affpol 54]:
The prince of Burma, the elder prince of the King of Ava, named
Maha-Siri Tamaja Sa (Mengoun) has the honour of addressing this
letter to Your Majesty, Norodom, King of Cambodia, who is a
descendant of the same race and who professes the same religion.
In the year 1228 of the Buddhist era (1866), following
disagreements with the Vang-na (Second King) of the Kingdom of Ava,
since deceased, I went to establish myself at Rangoon. In the year
1229 of the Buddhist era (1867), I left Rangoon for Moulmein. In the
year 1230 (1868), I returned to Rangoon, where the British authorities,
with no provocation on my part, arrested me and transported me to
the Nicobar iles [Andaman islands], where they condemned me to their
punishment.In 1240 (1878), the news of the death of my father, King of
Ava, plunged me into sadness, and filled me with fear at the danger
faced by my country and Buddhism. Soon after, I learned that my halfbrother had succeeded my father to the throne of Ava. I rejoiced at
this news, and yet, knowing that his capabilities were limited, I was
also afraid that my nation and religion would suffer and perish. In
these circumstances, high-ranking dignitaries of the Kingdom of Ava,
and Buddhist priests, also fearing for the prosperity and fortune of the

322
country, sent me an appeal, in which they revealed that the new King
Thibaw, lacked intelligence. After having understood the contents of
this request, I was overcome with the most profound sense of
desolation. In 1244 (1882), I fled British territory and reached
Chandernagor, a French colony. When the British authorities learned
of my escape, they investigated me, and sent emissaries along the
waterways and roads. In 1246 (1884) I left Chandernagor for
Pondicherry, where I received a friendly welcome from the French
authorities, who also sought ways for me to win back Burma. But then
they learned that Thibaw and the British government were on the brink
of war, and that the King and kingdom had fallen into the hands of the
English. Knowing that my country, my fellow countrymen, and the
Buddhist religion were thrown into chaos, I was profoundly afflicted,
and I resolved to save my country.
Not long after, two mandarins, Nga Jan and Nga-Nou, who live in
[the Shan state} of Xieng-Toung, travelled to Phnom Penh where they
received an audience with your majesty. Upon learning that they were
my people, Your Majesty bestowed favours on them, telling them that
formerly, the King of Cambodia and the Kingdom of Ava formed one
Empire and that our two peoples were as one. Then your majesty
confided a letter to Nga Jan adn Nag-Nou, which I received, and for
which I am deeply grateful. Now, I am sending one of my men,named
Kampo Xa Ja Tajasa, in whom I place absolute confidence, to your

323
Mayesty, bearing a letter for your majesty and with instructions for
him.
15 day of the rising mooon of the fourth month of 1247 of the
Buddhist era (28 February 1889).
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

PONDICHERRY 1888-9 before his

escape

Myingun looked at the globe, put his finger on it, span it. Auguste
Pavie had brought it for him, a special gift, courtesy of the Baron Textor
de Ravisi, who has now returned to Paris, seeking the care of
specialized surgeons for an affliction with all the disturbing symptoms
of the venereal disease that has ravaged India, although he insists that
he has only ever frequented the finest quarters, the Armenian brothels
in Rangoon, near Merchant Street.
The Governor of the French Establishments of India has
counselled him, he confessed to Myingun, to stay away from Diamond
Street in Chandernagor, had noted a reverse constellation between the
glint and glamour of street names and the consequences of visiting
them, of the drain, the reverse economic effect on ones pocket and
ones health.
The Baron has gone. In his stead, this enormous, bulbous gift,

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with its promises of global trespass, its breathtaking spinnability, its
sheer global reach. What Myingun loves above all is the pivot, the arm
of the globe, that holds it out, suspended.
On the days that drag out the longest, in this monsoon summer,
the tide full, lashing at the sea wall, here, in reach of the beach, when
the rain is sheeting down, when the mosquitoes are kept at bay only by
the clapping hands of his staff, when even telegrams are stuck in the
weather, the lines growing humid, static, inept, on these days
especially, he sits in front of the globe, and spins, and wonders.
China, when he shuts his eyes, this is where his finger rests:
China, Hong Kong, Canton, Yunnan, and down a bit, across the top, up
from the long tongue of Vietnam, that is where he will get in, cross into
Burma.
Lately his mind, his dream, his sleep, is one roll of parchment,
softened, hardened, frustrated, rolled out, packed away, always in
search of an exit, a journey, a trajectory, an end to exile. He has taken
to drink. Only U Maung Lwin knows.
It began with the Baron, with the cognac, with the snifters, the
sheer elegance of the crystal balloons, with the inhalation, the
swimming fragrance, the headlift, all of that, for years he had resisted
it, he had resisted the pull, women yes, but not this. But on that night,
when the Baron turned up, carrying only his soft leather briefcase, so

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soft, and lifted from it, first a simple cigar, and then the brandy,
Myinguns eyes had widened.
Cigars, he had had since youth. Was a reluctant admirer of
Kinwun Mingyis ode on tobacco rolling, on the leaf from the village, on
the taste, the offering. Always, no matter what: it was her cheroots, the
way she tied the string, that hit the back of his palette, that made him
yearn for more, of the silk of her thigh, in the heat of the night, or the
lapping of the Irrawaddy, of the grace of her hands, on that long trail to
Xiengtung, how she had reached in and darted through the waters and
embraced the slenderness of an eel, had brought it to camp, flayed it,
her tapered fingers never growing knotted, or roughened, or warped.
Since she had left for Mandalay he had not smoked. That night, he had
declined the Barons cigar, but the Baron had forced it on him.
It had grated on the back of his throat, sandpaper, like the rough
metal file he had used to slowly, insidiously, to wear away at the bars
of the prison in Benares. On that night, to take away the betrayal he
felt at closing his mouth on a cigar that other hands must have rolled,
he drank.
And so on that night, when the Baron had brought out his bottle,
the glass thick as a ships porthole, hand blown, and the glasses, the
clink of them: the feel of the porthole, an eye onto the life at sea that
had washed him up here, on this shore, their thick-rimmed, glassy lips,

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then he had succumbed.
The cognac had spread through him in not one but several,
golden arteries. Not like the short sharp boost of betel and lime.
So, the Baron had said, in that inimitable voice, (Myingun knew
this, he had spent long sessions in front of his mirror, after sending his
valet off for some impossible chore, trying and failing to roll his rs in
that way).
The Baron was open to ideas. His son had died in the FrancoPrussian war, twins, gone off to glory, in full battle dress. Ignorant of
Klauswitz, of Prussias call for swords into ploughshares, ploughshares
into swords, what matter, his sons were gone, the metal that had
shafted them all the same, part iron.
The globe was made of papier-mache. Myngun enjoyed the
texture, the feel that the traction between his fingerprint and the map
might guide his next journey. But then when he looked there was no
trace, no footprint, no fingerprint, only the globe spinning to a
handstill.
PARIS, he read. There, unmistakeably, pink, under his little
finger, the long nail curving downwards, trim, a pink rim, impeccably
finely filed.
Paris, my friend? The Barons voice had that mellow, stretched

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out tone to it. Paris? But whyever not?
And he had spun it again. They were still on the subject of Paris.
When it stopped the Baron absentmindedly patted, sent it into a third
orbit.
My dear friend, your most royal highness, I find it a most
splendid idea. And this, the perfect year. You shall travel the globe, I
shall be your host! Paris. The Exhibition. The Museum. Jules Guimet,
the wonder, the splendor, the India pavilion, all of this, and how
extraordinary, years after we hosted Theebaw, the slaughterer that
you, my rightful heir, should go! Cambodge will be there, I hear.
Annam, Tonkin. Why not Pondicherry? And Burma! Why should Burma
be confined to Crystal Palace, to the British pavilion. Je men fou des
anglais. Those shopkeepers! We have lost our monarchy, so we
understand it. They, they have what we have lost, they have royalty,
and yet all they covet is profit. My highness, it is a plan.
And as Myinguns cognac waned, and waxed, and waned, and
waxed, the golden liquid feeding his daydreams, these nocturnal
daydreams, and the sweet, handrolled tobacco, his fingers caressing
the string, the special knot in the cotton that was Ma Mays signature,
the red cotton that would be forbidden on his wrist, a signal of
marriage, of intimacy, of matrimony, that is somehow tolerated on his
cigar, a legitimate illicit intimacy, his thoughts turn to Paris, the huge

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petals enfold him. Soon he is asleep, adrift. No matter. The plan is set.
The next morning, his head still somewhere in the clouds, a fog,
a mist, the monsoon pelting down, his wife in the same sombre cast,
the thought of Ma May infusing a new lightness in his step, and with
only the Barons carte visite and the globe and his brandy breath as
proof that he was ever here, he summons U Maung Lwin.
Your Highness? There is an eagerness in his voice, a muted joy,
an anticipation. For days, weeks, months, perhaps? U Maung Lwin has
been idle, upset, channelling his own moods, his wordcraft, into forlorn
poetry that would have been shielded from Myingun had not Ma May
unfurled a crumpled leaf from the waste paper one morning.
You are spying on my most trusted confidante on Maung Lwin?
No, princeling, no, I always save paper scraps for the fire,
sometimes, if they are very pretty, gold stamped or in any way
particular, I harvest them, hoarde them, for your cigars.
Melancholy poetry was this what he had been smoking, was this
what imparted that taste, set off his dreamlike fugitive trail to Paris?
Secretary. Sit.
U Maung Lwin took his pew, there on what had served once as
footcushions, now as the appropriate furniture for the Princes staff.

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To Paris?
There is an exhibition. Reserve me four places on the
Messageries maritimes, Paris bound. October. No, we should leave in
September. Imagine, the opening ceremonies!
And - the expenses? U Maung Lwin had become bolder with
these queries. In Benares, money was a subject he never touched.
Rupees, Ticals, pound sterling, Mexican piastres, these were not part of
his vocabulary. The wheels of exile moved on a higher level, oiled by
political patronage.
Pondicherry, he could never help from feeling, was a demotion.
To compensate for these tired letters, these begging for an alms, for a
dana, that was secular, he had begun to cultivate another self, a poet.
His model was the Kinwun Mingyi, the bard of Mandalay, who had
sponsored monasteries and written Dammathats, legal treatises, and
had moved, like U Maung Lwins father, (although he liked to keep this
quiet), across dynasties with as much verve and agility as a court
acrobat.
Myingun cleared his throat, Sorry, sorry, murmured U Maung
Lwin, where had his thoughts taken him?
Paris, of course, the exhibition, it is essential that you go there.
Essential? I hardly think so, bristled Myingun. Find another

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word, his eyes said.
But U Maung Lwins vocabulary had atrophied in this tight corner
of exile, where the scripts were always the same.
Of enormous benefit to Frances interests.
A display of your loyalty?
You know the address, said Myingun. Write what you like.just
get me those four places, to Paris. Myself, the Princess, Thai Thingyi
and my secretary. Fetch me my carriage.
My carriage? Thought U Maung Lwin, the best he could do was
to call a gharry on the street, drawn by stunted, rickety ponies, and to
get the staff to go ahead of him, with the red Persian carpet, to quickly
outfit the carriage, give it a thin veneer of royalty, the sense of a
destination.
Yes, your highness, he says.
And the Queen mother?
She shall follow. First we secure our passage. Then she will
follow.
Myingun wondered, what would Paris be? In Rangoon, he had
had cause to imagine London, from the grand house fronts and the
wide streets, the swagger, the bristling moustaches, there was a sense

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of a capital an echo, he thought, of London although, he wondered,
what was Paris, what was a capital, without a king or a queen?
But from Pondicherry, from this narrow snatch of land, tossed up
like a random offering, from this, from these quarters, even with the
grandiloquent effigies of Dupleix, the horseback statue, the
broadbeamed pillars, the curlicues and yellow paint that had once
made de Ravisi weep for the colours of southern Provence, if only you
could see the sunflowers, the lavender! Yes, he could imagine a
patchwork of fields, thick with bees, but not a city, in all its intricate
enormity, not from this.
He had, begrudgingly, read Kinwun Mingyis account, but it spoke
of gasworks and sewers, of the mechanics that turn a city, not the
pivot, the pivot, like that suspending his globe, that suspended Paris in
the center of the world. The Kinwun Mingyi had traveled by train, he
had passed through Suez, he had seen Italy, and in Paris, he had seen
things through a politicians eye, with an eye for how power, resources
are apportioned, managed. He had stayed at the Hotel du Louvre
without a word about the Louvre. He had seen the destruction of the
war, the relics of Frances defeat by Prussia, the President was too busy
to attend to him, he was busy with the wounds of war, bandaging the
political fallout of carnage.
In Mandalay, Kinwun Mingyi had laid the canals. In Paris, he

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visited the sewers; in England, a biscuit factory; in Italy, a shipyard.
Baron de Ravisi knew none of these things.
Baron de Ravisi, adjusting his goldrimmed monacle, had scolded
him. Paris? You cannot imagine. The streets, the beauty, the royalty,
yes, the aristocracy, the empress of cities, a city fit for princes. His
cravat was silk, the colour of tamarind, of plums. Myingun had an eye
for texture and colour, for finery. But fools, he could not suffer.
Baron de Ravisi was a remnant of a lost aristocracy. Myingun
was his collectors piece, a chesspiece, a souvenir, of all that France
had lost. His restitution, the colonies, a projection of the possibilities,
the possibility of a restoration, the reversal of the revolution.
Naval officers, Catholic clergy, knitting together the sailcloth of
empire, of conquest, but France remained uninterested. What women
in her right mind would brave these parts, face malaria, disease, the
tropics, natives?
In the prince he found an honorable ally, tied together by some
thinly stretched, fine calibre thread of royalty, goldsmithed through
history, through blood.
This was how France worked still: through lobbies, contacts,
friendships, sealing wax, soft asides, unofficial mention at dinner
parties, at soirees, a word in someones ear, a look, this was how

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careers were soldered, a scions future vouched for, ambitions realised,
and confidences breached. This was how the globe turned. This, the
pivot.
Words, dictum meum pactum, men of honor, the real vanguards
of empire, who else was fit to determine Frances future? Not the
broad-craniumed proletariat whose metrics moved straight from the 13
arondissement to prison cells, swelling the call for more prisons, for
better cities, signalling Frances inevitable decline. These were the
detritus of the halcyon age of a monarchy now shattered. They were no
fit arbiters of Frances future. To Baron Textor de Ravisi, as to other
members of Frances discarded aristocracy, better a Burmese prince
then a Provencal proletarian, a royal niche of India than a slum strip of
Paris. In such alliances lay Frances salvation.
The Barons ample girth is draped in a marron silk dressing gown,
with huge-wide-winged lapels of quilted satin. His whiskers are
unkempt, his poached-egg eyes have a red, weary tinge. He has
recently presented a paper on Champa at the annual meeting of the
Oriental Society. A clipping of his tale is cut from the Oriental society
record and added to a file held by the Political and Secret department
of the Government of India. The barons name is underlined. The
clipping sits with surveillance reports on Maharaja Duleep Singh, the
Sikh who was once Britains darling and who now plans to return to

334
India to mourn the death of his mother and rise an army in his wake.
Your Highness, what an extraordinary pleasure, says the Baron,
and ushers him in, with a bow.
In his presence, Myingun feels somehow taller.
Behind the prince is his retinue of three: first the princes two
sons, and then his secretary, who he feels no need to announce.
These are my heirs. You have met, I believe?
But of course, mais bien sur, Ever the charmer. Secretly, what
does he think, of these sons of exile, hewn not by risk or danger or
determination, spawned in comfort, in the mildewed ridicule of an
offshore court. He strains to think, through his dim histories of the
classics, through Dante, Shakespeare: whenever has exile worked?
When have dynasties renewed themselves from afar? As the years
pass, the baron will come to see Myinguns life as a self-fulfilling
prophesy, another dynasty doomed to a slow expiry, propped up by
financial medications. But for now, he and the prince are centurions in
the same battle.
The baron has taken out rooms at Admiral Dupleixs former
residence. Split oak beams broad enough to strengthen ships, giltframed mirrors. Dwarfed by the high ceilings and the ample doorways,
is furniture that reminds Myingun of a dolls house Prince Damrong had

335
once shown him in the royal palace at Siam; a gift from the Prince of
Wales. Minute, intricately carpentered, candlesticks, cakes, sides of
beef, silver platters, Chinaware, a wooden bureau with a miniature roll
top desk, a crystal and English furniture, even, he remembered, a quill
that could fit in a dolls hand, and a scroll of parchment a fraction of his
fingernail.
Myingun is unsure where to sit; he selects his resting places by
calibrating heights, distances. He opts for the highest piece of
furniture, a raised pedestal, glistening mahogany. The Baron will not
have it, he insists on seating his secretary on this stool, and the Prince
on a chaise longue of emerald satin, with a scrolled armrest, whose
upholstery to the Baron is royalty writ large. To the prince, and his
secretary, this arrangement involves a surrender, an insult, the kind of
reversals, upheavals of their world order, that have become
pedestrian, expected, irreversible, but were unthinkable in Burma.
He finds himself seated below his secretary.
Myingun throws his arms wide, occupies the whole chaise
longue, commands the room as best he can, this his throne.
U Maung Lwin claims the mahogany stool as a writing desk,
kneels at the princes side.
The Baron takes a place in an old oak chair but is still looking

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down at him, his eyes set back in his brandy-flushed head that perches
too small on his long neck from which his square, gilt brocade
shoulders reach out like stunted wings.
In the corner, in a gold bird cage, the barons minah bird trills. Yo
Oyalhigh Ness, Yo Oyalhigh Ness. A faint smell of mold lingers around
the thick velvet drapes, dark as midnight, that hang in suspended
curtseys across the rooms lozenges of glass, thick glass.

Mynguns

joints feel thick and knotted, as if the sea air has seeped into them, in
through the aged sinews. The arthritis pains him more each day, this
dull and knotted signature of age. He forces a smile.
Thick red veins stand out on the Barons forehead. His throat is
swollen, lumpish, over the silken knot of his cravat.
A brandy snifter is set down before him, and one for each of his
sons. A thickwaisted, emerald-butted fly flails in the cognac, is stilled.
The baron opens out his hand, lays it out flat on his knee, and
studies his palm as if it were a map. His right hand grips his raised
glass, which he raises. Promises are his trade. But Myngun needs more.
Myingun wants tickets, passage, a program, moveme nt.
The baron talks on, drawls, through Burma, England, France,
London, exhibitions, technology, lobbies
Lobbies? asks Myingun. Can you tell me more?

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The baron explains, lobbies, parliament, kings and queens,
history, Emperors, armies, Bismarck, Prussia, France, decadence, until
his words weave into the thick tapestry hanging on the wall, a craft
displaced, lambs and monks and unicorns, an irrelevance, art, craft,
what has any of this to do with Myingun?
On the barons middle finger is a ring of thick gold, his initials,
intaglio, TDR. The family crest. On Myinguns hand sits the ruby, the
one jewel he has refused to yield. She had kept it safe for him
throughout those years in hiding. Inside, hidden, his motto.
The afternoon draws on, nothing has been achieved, they are an
audience, this is not how it should be, thinks Myingun. It is the lament
of the caged bird and the sight of the fly in the snifter that makes him
bold.
We have come to enlist your help in a most important mission,
declares the prince.
U Maung Lwins looks up, distracted, as if he had once again
been composing a sonnet in his head. His shoulders twitch.
Please do not take this the wrong way, Mynguns says. It is
not your generosity, your countrys hospitality, these are all so
extremely so very so highly gracious. It is not that.
It is that, he says, gesturing at the view, at the opaque glass window

338
between the velvet drapes, the glass that bottles the glimpse of a view
out of reach. It is that.
I am a prisoner here!, U Maung Lwin clears his throat, the sons
look first at each other and then away. Myngun gets up onto his feet,
and swings his arms out wide. It is insufferable he splutters I cannot
simply cannot tolerate this any longer.
The baron stops mid-speech.
TOL-ER-ATE it echoes the Minah bird, Toler
I cannot, says the prince in a tone that silences the mynah, any longer, You must help me. Otherwise, - But he knows that these
kala aristocrats will only work for grand causes. For money, gifts,
titles, gems: all these, yes but only in the name of grand causes.
If you do not come to my assistance, Myngun continues, My
dynasty, my fathers name, my legacy, will be gone. Stolen, trampled
on, eradicated. First by my thieving uncle, then by those British
The Barons hand flutters to his side as if he is reaching for the
hilt of a sword. There is no sword. He is here on a mission. His cousin,
a close confidante of Jules Ferry; Emile Guimet, the collector; he is
assembling these names and faces, marshalling his contacts, his
frontiersmen, the cavalry who will carry the prince to freedom, redeem
his rightful claim to the throne, capture France a decent corner of

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empire, with teak and gems and tin and phosphorus, will show these
Anglo-Saxons the real nature of diplomacy, will wire his name into
history, emboss his initials on the frontispiece of books, make the stuff
of legend, possibly even figure in the latest work of his friend the Duc
dOrleans?
I will settle for nothing less, Myingun says. He has their
attention now, he has dropped his voice to a whisper. The minah bird
has cocked his head; he cannot do whispers.
But it is im - begins the Baron, and then casts around at his
offshore coterie, and corrects himself. It is eminently, possible. With
the right planning
Your Esselensy,says a gloved sentry who has appeared before
him, carrying a silver plate on which is offered a name card. You have
a visitor.
The Baron peers at the namecard through his monacle, Show
him in. He turns to Myingun, How propitious. It is the captain.
The Captain?
Lieutenant Ibos, the Captain of the Tibre.
The sons exchange glances. The prince licks his lips and
hurriedly mops his face with a scarf that U Maung Lwin hands to him.

340
CAPITAINE, pipes up the bird, but the Baron has tired of his
repertoire, he picks up a shawl, tosses it over the cage.
In walks the captain, an echo of his heels, tap tap, tap. His jacket
is white, unblemished, and he walks with a slight limp. Tap TAP.
The baron has delivered.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

CROSSING FROM PONDICHERRY TO

COLOMBO

It was the captains idea, although the Baron will claim credit in his
memoir. To escape Pondicherry, Myngun can only travel by night,
when the flags are dipped, anonymous. He must cross through British

341
waters after dark.
He is to dress as a lascar, as a sea-hand, a sailor. They have a
name for him, Saveromotou. A name, and papers to match it, bought
or swindled from the Tamil Christian who once owned them.
U Maung Lwin had never found the words to tell him how he
would travel, and Myingun had been unable to close his mouth around
them when he held the tickets in his hand on that last morning.
Together they had stood in silence, Myingun studying the tickets, U
Maung Lwin studying the fingernail of his right hand. Third class?
In Burma Myngun had travelled through bush, thirst unquenched,
the skin of his royal heels cracked and parched, his lips blistered. It
had taken only days for those rough edges to appear. The stubble, his
hair dank with sweat, unbrushed, coiled up beneath his head-dress.
There was no need to name his rank. It was buttressed by body bows,
buoyed up by his followers. Third class? They had stood there in
silence, U Maung Lwin pretending not to notice the pulse racing in the
princes temples. Myinguns thick pride turned to shame to anger to a
curse against his useless sons, his thoughtless secretary, his wife.
His wife battled to conceal her triumph. From the start she had
been against this escapade, it did not befit his dignity, nor hers. She is
doubly trimphant in that it is Ma May who persuaded her, and this
confirms her doubts in Ma Mays wisdom and reasserts her mistrust in

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her common origins.
It is the means to the end, Ma May had explained. Once he is
in Saigon, once he calls you to join him, you will see. I hear there are
grand streets in Cochinchina, wide, with trees, and ice-houses and
pharmacies, and grand Magasins, the latest fashions from Paris, and
anything you want, not like here.
His princess wife purses her lips. What will we live on?
She knows the answer; if only Myngun could know it, too. Always,
always they will sup on the kindness of strangers, feed from the
mercenary love of diplomacy, on the need of others: for a belief, for a
cause, for a prop, for a scheme. This will be their third move, not
counting Chunar.
Their court has grown, but not through success, through death.
Daines retinue is now with them. His brothers two wives and his son,
Thaithingyi. All rivals for the princes attentions and affections.
You will travel as a commoner? his wife asks. It is not right.
Later, in the quiet of their room, she will ask him a question he
refuses to hear: Is this what you wanted, this?
It is Ma May who coaches him. No, walk like this. Your head is
too high. They will notice. They will be looking for you, everywhere.
You cannot walk like royalty. Slouch. Hang your head. Walk like, like

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she wants to say, walk like your sons, but she cannot bring herself to,
she knows he fears for them, for what they are not, for what they will
not become. She remembers a part she played, in London, for Mr.
Little. In the Mikado, Gilbert and Sullivan. She remembers seeing, too,
Pinkerton, but not him, not his upright, bouncing gait; was it a servant?
She struggles to remember, but she need not know the name, the part,
She needs only to remember the walk, servile, slow, ambling, the
rhythm shes seen in Liverpool, on the docks, on the streets of London,
and in Rangoon, in Pondicherry, where the waifs wait by the perimeter
of the market, scavenging. Walk like this, she says, and he tries, but
cannot.
It is Ma May who blackens his face, a smear of coaldust, and who
puts a cheroot in his pocket, and a tin caddy of dal and rice in his hand,
tied with string, and tucks the passport behind the cheroot, the papers
that call him Savaramoutu. The Baron has arranged everything.
The Baron comes soon after lunch, in the hour of the siesta,
when the regular surete agents are slumbering at home, and their
replacements are sleeping on their feet.
It has all been arranged. When the mail car comes, the mailboy
brings a packet, he needs to enter the house. The servants will not
speak of it. He enters the house. When Myingun leaves, he is dressed
as the postboy.

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Three mistakes, Myingun thinks: that was what Kinwun Mingyi

had got away with. Three mistakes and then gowned and crowned for
life. He is still alive, growing richer in coin and name through his titles,
revenue streams. His fiefdoms spanning three dynasties first King
Mindon, then King Theebaw, and now, Queen Victoria. And Myngun
squeezed out of everything. At first all he wanted was to bring the
Kinwun Mingyi down. Then to sully his name. There were times when
he wished that these thoughts would stop plaguing him. But now they
are the coin on which he feeds.
Myingun cant afford another mistake.
At the barons insistence, the Governor General has escorted him
to the ship. Still, at first, the captain refuses to let him on board. Hes
hesitant, his hands in front of him, hovering. If only Myngun could act
his part this well.
Myngun has already turned back once. It is the kings minister
who advised him to turn back, or the British would surely be after him.
What loyalty knits them together? In Burma, they might have been at
each others throats, the Minister armed with the cudgel, Myngun in a
sack. Its the common foe that brings them together, but only for so
long to size each other up. Even the British are not enough to unite
them. It is the kings minister, who has been passed over for

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promotion by the Kinwun Mingyi.
With a dark gleam in her eye, fresh from Mandalay, Ma May had
told him about the Kinwuns eternally rising star. And Myngun had told
her again his story, all he knew, how he was brought into his fathers
court as a fount of wisdom, a poet, a monk freshly disrobed, a patina of
virtue, beneath it? Greed, garden variety.
Myingun looks to the Governor General with an air of entreaty,
and then to the Captain.
M. Laffon, at your service, Captain of the Tibre. He is anchored
there, unbudging, tied to the mast of protocol, his wrists thick as
oakbeams, a ginger shock of hair untamed by his impeccable hat, eyes
glassy still, his frame blocking entry to the boat. Myingun hovers by
his side.
A delicate matter, says the Governor, eyeing the prince.
Might we consider steering our conversation to more private
premises? He is flanked by a gangly youth in naval uniform and a
whiskered policeman, and behind him loiter two Vietnamese orderlies.
By all means Your Excellency, my cabin awaits you, and with
the slightest nod of his head the Captain and his midshipman move
briskly ahead to open up the doors.

Come.

As for your companions - he nods to the Governors support

346
crew - they are most welcome to enjoy the view from the deck. Your
Highness, come.
Myingun would rather go any direction but back, but he has no
choice. The room is paneled with thick oak floors but he might as well
have been walking on quicksand. He props himself up, hands gripping
tight to a brass rail that runs along the captains well stocked bar. The
midshipman escorts him to a seat, then closes the door.
I have orders from Paris, the Governor General begins. The
prince must not disembark.
I very much regret, Monsieur Governor General, that the Prince
must disembark. I sail to Hong Kong in one hour. I cannot keep him on
board. His very presence, on British waters, constitutes a liability to
his fellow travelers, my vessel, my company and by extension to
Frances honor. And besides, he dropped his voice: You send him on
to Hong Kong, you deliver him into the hands of the English. Is this
what Paris wants?
I will not go to Hong Kong, no, the English, can you imagine
what they might do? Myinguns voice is unsteady, like the waves. He
passes his hand over his forehead.
Very well, since, Captain, you give us no option, we will keep
him here for one night only and send him back on the next available

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mailboat. I have already telegrammed Paris, and I am sure that our
Minister in the Quay dOrsay (anachronism? Think they set up there
later) can send orders to your superiors.
The captains face is rock still, but his body signals a victory, his
shoulders monumental, grand. He makes a slight bow to the Prince. It
was my very great pleasure to deliver you safely, he says.
Safely? Myingun is desparate for air. Traces of coal are smeared
across the Princes cheeks, as if the devil had squeezed his face. Eight
hours! he fumes. For Eight hours I am cooped up in that thing, how
did they call it in English? I will never forget in French: a suit, le soute
de charbon, a suit of coal.
Coal bunker, corrects Picquet hoping that his mustache,
prickling in this early morning heat, will shadow his smile. Myinguns
sailors garb is grey with smut. When he next speaks, his throat sounds
coated with coaldust, too.
I wish him a Legion of Honor for his bravery. He was worried the
British would find me. And they did not. Why? Myinguns shoulders
are hunched over, and his sailors cap bloated, overawed by the thick
coils of hair wound up inside. Why? he is unsure where his words
are taking him. Why? Why did the captain help him? Out of fear or
courage? Following orders, or his heart?

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This is why, says the Captain, gesturing to a tray of brandy
snifters, drained, upon his desk. When the British headed past my
cabin on their way to the coal bunkers the clock chimed eleven, the
perfect opening for my invitation, a momentary distraction, but their
search of the coal bunker was, how shall we put it, less exact as a
result? I stuck my head out and called them into my office, kids they
were, both of them no more than sixteen, poor things, so far from
home. And now, before you head for shore, Your Highness, allow us to
toast you.
But Myingun declines. Not out of rudeness, but because he can
barely stomach this feeling. Noblesse oblige, Dr. Marks had taught
them, but its him whos always obliged, this feeling eats at his gut, it
threads through his letters like a snake, to the British, to the French,
grateful, reconnaissant, its a word off balance, a tipped scales, a
feeling he cant repay, another debt, hes so deep in debt now hes
beginning to prefer the kind that can be reckoned on an abacus or
settled at a pawn shop. What has he to give in return? He clamps his
lips tight.
Come, Your Highness, surely you will not deny me the rare
pleasure of drinking with royalty? It is not often we have passengers of
your status. Or, I might add, your courage.
Myinguns mood brightens, and in that moment of hesitation he

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finds a glass of cognac pressed into his hand.
Then the captain held up his hand, palm facing out, and said:
Can you read palms, your Highness? They say a captains palm is a
map of his heart, but I can tell you thats nonsense, the lines on this
palm change faster than a womans affections.
And he told Picquet, in a torrent of French whose gist Myingun
could only peck at, snapping meanings from the air, gull-like, how his
midshipman had seen the last British policeman off the boat and had
then turned around and given the Captain a hand signal, at which the
Captain had insisted on taking over the wheel from the helmsman, if
only to feel himself the spokes of the wheel pressing against his hand,
nothing will substitute for that feeling, he says, Come. And he guides
them out on deck and over to the wheel now, Myingun is still holding
his glass he is unsure where to put it, come, come, feel it for yourself
he says, and Myingun feels the wood press into him and even though
the vessel is resting he feels a tremor there still, a shiver of what the
Captain might have felt, while he lay there down in the coal bunker.
All good Captains know that and they know too that once that
feeling goes, then it is time to trade our ocean drapes for another
calling. And so the spokes were pressing into me and a wind picked up
as if it had been standing their waiting for orders from the Messageries
Maritimes I waited forever to hear the waters action on the rudder, but

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that moment dragged on, the wind had died down, as if the British had
stopped the tide and put out search orders for the sea breezes, too,
and I glanced across at the Midshipman again and saw him hurrying
over to me, worried, and across on the shore the British were lined up,
guns pointed skywards, as if in mock salute. We did not dare call the
prince out and on board until we had pulled out to sea, until the sails
had filled, and so one and all, as if the archangel himself was
conducting from some invisible height, we began to whistle,
He pursed his lips.
Whistle, captain? Picquet was concerned, time was moving on,
he thought back to the empty bottles, dead soldiers theyd called them
at St. Cyr, and wondered how much cognac the captain had imbibed.
But you have never heard of whistling for the wind? Why Picquet,
a man of your bearing, you surprise me, did your grandfather never
take you out onn the waters? Dont worry, we have plenty more of
that he added, glancing at Myinguns glass, and signalled to the
midshipman to replenish it.
Myingun had not even realised hed drained his glass, it was as if
he was dipping in and out of consciousness, this moment was dragging
on for ever all he wanted was to leave the ship and plant his feet in
Saigon, in Indochina, but at the same time he could not leave until he
had heard the captain explain about the whistling. Cooped up in the

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darkness of his bunker, he had thought it was sea birds an albatross?
or he did not know what, he had never heard anything like it, it seeped
in through the air vents, an eery, primeval sound, gathering up as if
rustling in the branches as if they were in a forest bristling with
cicadas, not the wide flat open sea, he had thought he was going mad,
and over and above the whistling was the tinny ring in his ears and
the giddy drumbeat of his heart and the cramp, needling through his
limbs in spasms, and the slow agony of his hunched back.
The whistling, now I see, the whistling! Myingun tips the glass
again, then examines it, his lip on its rim is a leafprint, veins of
coaldust, That sound, I heard it, I did not know, I did not know, what
was it?
The engine did what it could but the wind had died, that
whistling was for you, you conjured it, there from your bunker, a royal
stowaway, in truth they were whistling for the wind, dont ask me
where that superstition comes from, but it came out here with us, even
our Indian oarsmen, the Tamil boatswains, the Madrassi laksars have
learned this from us, but perhaps I will be found guilty of treason, for
passing on our naval secrets. Whatever, the whistling, it was you who
rustled it up, word got round soon enough you were going it alone,
here, a stowaway signed off on by Paris.
I have my helmsman, my midshipman, my steward, my sextant;

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Governor Picquet stepped from shore to ship with four men no less,
and if you will allow me to hazard a guess, Governor, you have, he
winks, maybe somewhere, in the naval ranks, a watchful uncle. When
the Prince of Wales visited Colombo, no-one could keep count of his
servants. But you, Your Highness, you travelled alone.
If theres one thing a man at sea respects its not title or wealth
its risk, were all hostages of the ocean, risk is what we live and
breathe - and if theres another thing he loves its excitement, a sailors
life is always one or the other, heights of excitement, adventures these
come rarely, except those brought by storm, mostly, only, the long
drawn out days, the lassitude, and there you were, our own man-made
storm, how do the English say, our storm in a
Teacup corrected Myingun.
Bunker, Your Highness. I believe the English call it a bunker.
But this whistling, is scientific? He ventures, amused that these
European natives have such superstitions.
It is not scientific but it works. At least, this time. We raised a
wind and one by one the sails were filled and and as the ship gathered
way -
My dear captain, says Picquet, it is the other way around,
surely, If the whistling works, it must be scientific!

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Well a little science didnt hurt, we carried the fire engine to the
top, where its spout could not reach, and buckets of water were drawn
up and thrown on the sails, drenched every pore we did, to gather the
full pitch of the wind on the canvas.
Captain, interjected the Midshipman, may I remind you of the
time?
And with that Picquet clapped his hands and pulled out his
fobwatch. Captain, whose thick frame had softened, and who had
been lolling against the rails, the sunrise on his face and a boyish
gleam in his eye, pulled himself upright.
Myingun can barely stand. He thinks hes going to vomit again.
He hasnt told the captain about the mess in the coal bunker, as he
moves one hand off the the wheel his glass crashes, rolls to the ground
from the other, and he staggers over to the captain.
Reconnaissant, grateful, none of these words will do.
He steadies himself, begins to move his hands into a gesture of
respect, then lurches, grabs the captain by both hands, and squeezes
them tight.

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CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

TRANSIT FROM PONDI TO SAIGON VIA

COLOMBO

Myingun is crushed on all sides, the boat is packed, standing room

only, at least in his quarters. The air is fetid enough to make a sailor
gag. He passes a hand across his face, half-expecting to find gills. All
the familiar smells of the ocean, but the thrill of the chase is reversed.
He forgets everything Ma May tells him, keeps looking over his
shoulder, until he finds a wall against which to squeeze himself,
presses his back against the wallboards, then sits with his head
dropped to one shoulder, eyes half open, watching.
Sweat, grease, oil, skin, livestock, dal, hens with their clawfeet
tied tight together, tossed in string bundles, beak to beak. These are

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his fellow passengers. The boat is rolling side to side, his temples are
throbbing from the heat. They will dock in Colombo, where he will
offboard. The passengers are an afterthought, the boats real cargo is
words. Behind the wall against which he squats, cramped, is the
mailroom, sackloads of letters stacked in quiet comfort.
He is jolted, bumped, up against the wall by a family of six or
more that keeps growing, small children spring out of nowhere, a girl
who can be no more than fourteen is nursing a child, discreetly, under
a shawl, somewhere, someone vomits, he will not travel without his
ruby ring, but he has hidden it, it is tied tight, knotted into his loin
cloth. That and his amulet, concealed in the setting of his flesh for ten
years now. He presses his hand down over his forearm, feels the kink,
remembers. How far they have travelled, he and that scar, bevelled,
sewn in, fused over. This is his charm. This will get him through.
At first he does not drink for fear of having to pass water. He has
never traveled below deck before. Not that there is much to drink,
only a vendor with small tin cups of tea that sway on a tray suspended
from his neck, the glasses are emptied, rinsed, used, emptied, rinsed
with the same dirty rinsewater, re-used. He sees a man with ulcered
lips sip from the same glass as a girl in the blossom of youth. He sees
poverty dressed in scars and in beauty. He waits, feels the sea,
lurching through him. He craves water, tea, anything. He motions to

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the vendor, but the vendor stays put, cannot see his hand, or chooses
not to, he gets up to make his way across to him, the floor swaying.
Police announces a man. The word is followed by a blowing on
a whistle followed by a shriek. Order. A busy hush moves through the
crowd. Myingun staggers back to find his place lost, and forces himself
onto the edge of a wooden bench that folds out from the wall. He
remembers Ma Mays counsel and tries to act on it but cant. His
breaths are quick and hurried and his hands begin to shake. He stares
down at the floor. He is on his own.
The police push past him, then come back and ask him to stand
up, barely look at him, flip up the wooden seat. It is packed with
bundles of coal. Later, he will remember this moment, relive it from
another angle.
The police have tousled, odorous hair. Sweat spreads ovals on
their backs, under their armpits. One holds a whip, the others have
truncheons clipped to their belt and one a set of irosn suspended on a
chain from his belt. Thin, cruel scimitar of a mouth.
I am on my own, the Prince thinks to himself. His lover Ma May,
his wife Princess Khinpeay, the Baron Textor de Ravisi, his secretary U
Maung Lwin, the French Judge who helped smggle him out to his last
point of exile, are elsewhere. The baron may already have shared his
secret, is the most likely to spoil Myguns chances by boasting of his

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clever intrigue within earshot of the Surete. U Maung Lwin will be
arranging his papers, checking for news of his arrival at the Poste
Restante. There is no-one to help him out, only the false papers, and
the Parsee goldsmith on the top deck who cannot own up to knowing
him if he is caught.
A passport he can barely read. A name he can barely pronounce.
A heart pounding so hard he wonders if he will make it.
Will he arrive in a bag, stiff and blue, will they throw him
overboard when they discover who he is? This is his greatest fear. To
die alone, to disappear, be swallowed up, by an ocean, fed on by fish,
to simply disintegrate, his amulet adrift in a sharks belly. He holds
tighter to his ring: this piece of him at least will last, be washed up, be
found.
The prince has not swum in years, not since he and his brother
Daine speared fish in the Irrawaddy the day they were brought home,
reeled in and chided. But that was freshwater. He has never felt
seaweed, only ever once has he felt ocean sand between his toes.
Today was the second time, wading in and out of rowboats.
Goosebumps pimple his legs. The police purse their lips in disgust. The
galley stinks of vomit and rot and piss. Myingun has the sense he has
seen the police before. Years ago perhaps, in his fathers court, when
Captain Fytche visited. He was only ten then, it is not the same men,

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nor those that escorted him to the Andamans. It is their swagger that
they share. Henchmen, guardsmen, security guards, cavalry. The
same dirty, expectant look.
Myingun moves closer into the family, but an older man is
walking over now, a man whose sons snap their fingers in Myinguns
face, do not even ask him, with that simple gesture, and another hawking in the corner, a stream of betel-flecked saliva commands the
spot Myngun has claimed, for their father. The cruel-mouthed guard
draws in, whip twitching. Myingun lowers himself down onto the floor,
clutches his belly, feels the fear begin to froth up in his mouth. The
police lose interest, toss his papers back at him, begin to make their
way back through the throng, and the boat begins a slower movement.
Colombo. The word begins as a rumour, takes substance only
when the lights appear. What lights! Fireflies at large, gas-lights,
glittering in distant points, extraordinary, like candles encircling an
altar. When he saw those lights Myngun understood that Rangoon,
Burma, was nothing to the British. The port of Rangoon had only the
dimmest glimmer of lights to warn of rocks. The city itself was cloaked
in darkness at night. For this they had thrown him out, evicted
Theebaw, annexed the royal capital, demolished the monarchy.
Gas, and later, electricity, followed the circuits of power. Ma May
had hinted at Saigon, a city of glaces and bijouteries and rice-

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merchants and commerce, as a giant emporium, a place of lucre,
money, business. There are the lights, dancing on the oily waters, in
Colombo, Ceylon. Lanka, he would still call it that.
His father had once written to him, after his escape, advising him
that U Dhattatama and another monk whose name he could not
remember had travelled to Sri Lanka, after what his father called
Mynguns disgraceful episode, and paid homage, made merit. As if
Myngun should be beholden to his father for this ritual udoing of the
damagage his son had done to save his throne. He had told himself
that story for so long now he almost believed it. In Calcutta, a laywer
had written it into a Memorial, and seeing it in print had made it more
plausible.
He turns his thoughts again to Saigon, to the French quarter, to
somewhere larger, more magnificent, than Pondicherry.
He moves always so as not to draw attention to himself. Like a
shadow, Ma May had said. Imagine you are not yourself, but your
shadow, walk like a shadow, not like a man.
Saigon is bigger, brighter. More expensive? His courtiers are
leaving him already, peeling away, off to find new patrons, riding
slowboats back to Burma, one by one.
Wait one more year, they would have all fallen away; it would

360
have been only his mother, Queen of the Northern Chamber, and his
wife, the Princess. The sons he wishes he could be proud of. And Ma
May, always Ma May.
He feels he is walking in a series of shadows, as if everyone
there, huddled up, has their face to the ground. Except for the children.
They know no better, their faces are eager, bright, who wipe their
snivelling noses on their shirtsleeves, scramble up to the deck, are
beaten back down, with a kick, a shout, a threat. He feels hunger.
At Colombo, they transfer boats. He moves from the Tibre to the
Djemmah. He is still in third class. How he ogles, how he envies, how
they gawp at the monied classes. One of them drops something, a kid
scampers after it, picks it up. A menu. When Myingun asks for it the kid
refuses to part with it, and so Myingun trades it for his last cheroot.
What is it about that card, with its fancy lettering and a picture of a
trumpet, a cake, and a porthole, that he suddenly feels he must have?
He stands there looking at it, hands holding its gilt scalloped edges,
mouths the items on the menu, looks around him at the bare
floorboards, covered now with feet, bare or thinly clad. Black pellets
litter the floor; rat dung. There is a bucket in the corner, no semblance
of privacy.
COLOMBO. The name reverberates, through a megaphone,
carried thin, and the chop of the waters, the moon broken on them.

361
Myingun is walking on the top deck, headed for the exit, when he
hears Burmese. He turns around before he can stop himself. There is a
man behind him, formal, in long gowns, rich, supple fabric, the headdress of a palace minister. Myingun stands there, gazing, mouth halfopen.
When he turns his head, it is already too late.
He hurries forward, tries to lose himself in the crowd. A hand
grips his shoulder.
Kinwun Mingyi wants to speak with you. Myingun moves
forward. The hand grips him tighter.
He remembers Ma May, but not what she said. He struggles to
recall the Barons advice. What had he said, what shoud he do, if he is
captured? Act normal, act as if you really are Saveramouto, act as if
you dont understand. Be illiterate. Use your thumbprints for a
signature.
My thumbprint? But they have my thumbrint, he had screeched.
His thumbs, fingers, the girth of his skull, all these were measured and
recorded, first at the Andaman Islands, and then again when he had
landed in Benares.
He shuns the hand, moves forward, acts normal. Another hand
clamps his left shoulder. Tight.

362
Have you forgotten your Burmese? Let me try again: Kinwun
Mingyi wants to speak with you.
The hands steer him over to a dark corner.
One push overboard, the end of a dynasty.
You should head back, comes the voice, a voice that kindles in
him a yearning for the court, for power, for authority, for rank. It is a
voice with weight.
The British, they are looking for you. We were warned at court.
When you were a boy you would not remember I held you on
my knee. Why? Later, my counsellors scolded me. Dont pick
favorites, they said. I saw something in you then. You think your
disguise, your tattered clothes, a pinch of coal dust, can fool me? The
British, yes. But not me, the Kinwun Mingyi. I am here on a mission.
The mission is over. That does not concern you. What concerns me is
peace. Not war. Dont let the British find you. Do you want to be the
cause of a new war? Head home. Under cover of night. This is not
your time.
When is my time? Thinks Myingun. When?
Above them flapped the French flag. The British police are
looking for you, you see that crowd? Whos to tell which coolie, which
porter, which lascar, is a plainclothes agent? If you get off this

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mailboat, if you follow us off, I can do nothing for you. I am only a
British subject now, a subject of Queen Victoria. The French can do
nothing for you, this is Colombo. Their flag he looks up at the
Tricoleur is only as good as the waters it flies on. Cross this deck, you
cross that line. This is British territory.
Myingun looked out to the twinkling lights strung along the
landing post.
Reach your hand across the stern, and you can almost touch
British India. But whos to say the British could not amputate your hand
as you did so, and if it fell in British waters, the French could not
defend you without risking war. I have seen Paris, he said, his voice
hushed. And we are nothing to them. Our teak, our gems, the bigger
patch we win them on their flat, ugly maps that is all we are. They
care nothing for us. Dont be taken in. If only you had asked me,
sought out my advice, back then.
Myingun steps forward. Tell your men to take their hands off
me.
My men are protecting you from yourself. Will you not listen?
Tell me you will listen to my counsel. Your father would have wept to
see you once again locked away.
Still the same defiant look I remember from when you were a

364
boy, continued the Kinwun Mingyi. But then you were at court. Who
would not follow your hunches, grown men and women did your
bidding. How you led your brother on. And now? You did this alone?
You are traveling alone?
The others will follow, said Myingun. They will send my
secretary first, with my sons. Then the queen mother, the princess, my
daughters.
And you will reach Saigon, said the Kinwun Myingu. And maybe
one day, we will meet again in Mandalay, in Rangoon. But this is not
the time. Stay. Do not follow us off.
The Kinwun Mingyis men relaxed their grip, then released him.
Here, take this, said the Kinwun. For Princess Khinphea. He
beckoned to one of his porters, who moved towards him, arms piled
high. The Kinwun Mingyi pointed to a flat, black box stacked in the
middle of his load. One of his men removed it, handed it to Myingun. If
anyone asks you what we were talking about, tell them that you had
picked up my cane, and that I gave you this as my reward.
How did you recognize me? Myingun asks.
It is the first time he has seen the Kinwun Mingyi smile. At court,
when they were small, he and his brother would follow him around, just
far back enough so that his hand could not reach them. His father had

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told them of all people, watch U Gaung. Learn from him. Strive to be
like him, right-mindedness. Right-thinking. Right-talking.
I did not, answers the Kinwun Mingyi. It was you who
recognized me.
He moves his hand swiftly, and something in the gesture reminds
Myingun of something he had once seen. Not the furtive lovemaking.
Not the passion in his garden. Something else. There in the dusk, the
Kinwun Mingyi, before he had that title, when he was still only U
Gaung. When his reputation hinged on his devout practice, on his
scholarship in Pali. Myingun was pressed up against the wall, syping on
him; it was a game he and his brother played. There in his garden, the
future Kinwun Mingyi was practicing his sword strokes, the blade
floating on the air and yet slicing it, levitating and yet cleaving.
After Myingun had fled the palace, fragments of U Gaungs past
flocked to him, would seek him out. It was Ya Hmen who told him: U
Gaung? He laughed. A man of peace? We share the same master, he
and I. I too studied at a pwe-gyaung (martial arts) monastery, I studied
swordsmanship from the same saya. Years later, soon after your father
had given him the frontier posts along the border with Britain, I met
him How good his business was! He fattened his fortunes then,
Myingun thought. And those of his kin. In that sweet and easy money
must have begun his conversion to colonialism.

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And Ya Hmen had grabbed a dah and swung his arm down
through the air and lunged at nothing. Clothed with the utmost grace,
Myingun saw an echo of U Gaungs quiet moment of preparation, of
rehearsal, for what? That night in the garden, just days before he and
his brother had risen against their uncle. [SEE WORD DOC EDITS SYNC]
He waved me on; his juniors had plastered huge charges, unfair
charges, on my trade it was at Minhla. I protested, and demanded to
see their superior, and then I saddled my horse and rode off to the
main post at Minhla, and they sped after me, but not fast enough, they
could not keep pace. I rode up to the post and his guards raised their
muskets, old and useless muskets they were, one was new at the post,
he did not recognize me, the other took one look and blanched. It was
to him I spoke and demanded to see the manager of customs with a
complaint, when U Gaung walked out onto the porch from his post; he
had recognized my voice. He came over and without a hint of
recognition told them that I was a friend, not to be feared, and invited
me in. The one who knew me looked confused. I owe my life to the
hold I have on the trade along this border. Otherwise, he would have
gladly seen me gone, and with me that portion of his past. He treated
me like nobility, with small silver trays of pan and betel and good food
and wine. Then he leaned over and told me that if I ever revealed to
anyone his time at the monastery, I would be a dead man, and my

367
family to seven degrees of kinship, would be dead after and before me.
He said it with a smile on his lips, and in a voice as seductive as
jasmine blossoms at dusk. Then he waved me on.

CHAPTER 26 - MA MAY LONDON 1890s (THEATER SCENE)

What, not dressed? said Nancy. Youre on in five minutes. Mr Little will have your
hide.
Her figure bustled through the curtained door to emerge from the gloom, until she
occupied a good half of the dressing-room mirror, and then she lowered her head so that
our faces cleaved together in the glass. Two paraffin lamps flickered on either side of the
mirror in small wall brackets. Their bluish haze softened Nancys features.
I do not feel well, I said. I think it must be a fever, and braced my arms about my
body for I felt ill protected by the small wooden stool on which I sat.
Poor dear, said Nancy. She moved in still closer so that her stale skirts pressed against
my back and cupped a hand over my forehead, then just as quickly reached to snatch

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away the pork scratchings on which I had been nibbling to soothe my nerves. Starve a
fever, feed a cold, she said, and crammed the last scraps into her mouth, then drummed
her talons on the dressing table surface. Whats this then? she asked.
What? I said.
She reached up over my shoulder and traced a yellow question mark in the mirror.
This, she said.
I glanced from her artwork to the dressing table and shuddered to see the dust trail that
my thanaka powder had left.
Dont know. Something the last act left, I said. Along with the smell, I added, and
wrinkled my nose at the ale and cigarette fumes.
Looks like pollen, said Nancy, squinting at her fingertip. She lifted her finger to her
mouth, licked it and pursed her lips. Tastes peculiar, she said. Like talcum.
She traced her right index finger up along my neck. Then she cupped her hand around my
chin, clamped my jaw and turned my face towards her, as if she were examining some
colt at the market. Her breath was hot and smelled of gin and Parma violets.
Dont look sick to me. Eyes bright as a new penny, she said, and released her grip.
Besides, the exercise will do you good.
I mustered the heartiest cough I could. My throat is dry, I said after I had caught my
breath. And my bones ache.
Stick out yer tongue then. Say ahh.
I complied as Nancy dragged her fingers under my eyes, and pulled the skin down so that
she could peer into the rims of my eyes. Then she reached her fingertips back to her nose
and sniffed again. I held my breath. The thanaka powder had stuck fast. I had mixed it

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exactly as grandma had taught me. Just a little bit of tea, and it will stick like your own
skin.
On our first week in Liverpool, Mr. Little had confiscated my thanaka powder and
handed me instead a jar of white cream that smelled like pork fat. No need for that
Oriental foolery here, hed lectured the troupe, tossing my thanaka powder into the
rubbish pile in the corner of our dressing room.
The crowd wants what they paid for. Quality, he had said. What do the crowd
want? he had asked with the bombast of a preacher, and I had answered in a simpering
tone, Equality, Sir, but was careful to swallow the e. On that occasion as now, my
throat had turned quite dry.
I could not perform without my thanaka powder, crushed from tree bark and daubed on
faces across Burma to soften and protect fair skin from the sun. Prepared for me by my
grandmother as a parting gift, my thanaka powder had a separate and special power. It
guarded against not only the harsh elements (and what sun was there to protect me from,
in this dank country?) but also against vengeful spirits. These I sensed in plenty,
thronging the streets and docks of Liverpool as if stranded in some harbour of lost souls
and yet in my daily stride I feared them not. Only when on stage did I become vulnerable
to their gyrations. Grandma had instructed me to wear it whenever I performed in public.
She had measured out enough only for six months, as if this limited quantity would
guarantee my return to Burma upon its expiry. The night Mr. Little had confiscated my
thanaka powder, I had tripped up twice on the boards, earning me a beating in the
entracte. Mr. Little had circled me like a boxer in the crowded dressing room. He was

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no novice, and took care to punch me in the middle of my belly, where his fists would
leave no mark.
Theres educashun for you, he said as he delivered the first blow And if you dont
mind your step, theres more where that came from.
I concentrated all my strength on steeling my stomach muscles, just as Lu Pye had taught
me to do, back when my stage was Myinguns battlefield, and on the second blow it was
Mr Little who winced. How he struggled to hide his pain from the rest of the Burmese
troupe whom he had invited in to witness his acting lesson. I knew better than to show
him up in public. Instead, I feigned a grimace, clasped my hands to my stomach, eyes
downcast. And with a subtle hand gesture I communicated to the troupe who was the
clown. As the troupe followed him out of the stage room, their feet shuffling to Mr.
Littles victory tune (how he loved to whistle), I salvaged my pouch of thanaka powder
from among the chip papers and fish bones and pipe ash, and secreted it deep within my
dress. In eleven months of traveling, it was the first and only thing that I had seen Mr.
Little throw away - an indication of the value he placed on all things Oriental. Except for
us, his Burmese troupe. With us he could not dispense. He was our keeper, but we were
his keep, and we pulled in the crowds and the cash, nightly.
Look well enough to me, Nancy repeated, and I realized my thoughts had drifted as if
those ghouls were already reeling me in, and suddenly grateful for the robustness of her
presence, reached out to squeeze her hand, a gesture to which she responded with a
brusque slap to the back of my neck. Who might be getting sick is your fellow stars.
Cow Tit has been playing those drums so long
Ko Thet, I said.

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Nothing wrong with your hearing then. Cow Tit, Ko Thet, what do the audience care.
Playing those drums so long his arms must ache. Not to mention
Get a move on ladies, roared Mr Little. The shadow of his top hat moved across the
entrance to the dressing room.
Dont come in yet Mr. Little, Nancy said, lowering the dress off the hanger, her voice
thick with a new anxiety. Shes not hardly decent. Im just fixing her costume. Shell be
out in a jiffy, she continued, and gave a hollow giggle.
I stood up and she opened out the bodice and skirts of the dress . The gold and silver
weave made the fabric stand up stiff and I shivered all the more.
Nancy dropped her voice to a whisper. Dont want to lose money, do we? So lets get on
with it. What you staring at now?
Nothing.
Had I been given the choice I would rather have danced in my dirty cotton bodice and
drawers.
Get on with it then. Pull it on. Crowds getting impatient now. And you heard what Mr.
Little said. Hell give you two minutes tops to get out there.
I cannot wear it I said, although I wanted to, because what I heard in Nancys false
cheer was a fear that made me wonder at the kind of educashun Mr. Little gave her,
behind closed doors.
Beggars cant be choosers, said Nancy. Mr Little paid the earth for this. Looked like
hed won the crown jewels this morning when he came back from the docks. Gave a little
jig, he did. He wont have you coming on stage in anything else.
I cant. I already tried, I lied. It does not fit.

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Then we shall make it fit, said Nancy. I didnt work as a seamstress for nothing.
I half-shut my eyes, wrinkled my nose and gripped the costumes thick brocade collar,
fighting the desire to faint, and stepped into it pulling the stiff bodice and skirt up around
me with fingers so rigid that they belonged more to a winters day than to this summer
night. The fabric resisted my coaxing. The rich weave smelled of mildew. Something in
that odour caught at the back of my throat. It was the taste of monsoon.
Nancy rummaged around in Mr Littles stage bag and pulled out a small felt sachet. From
this she drew pins and a needle and thread. She stuck the pins between her lips and set to
threading the needle with hands that had grown as unsteady as her voice since the
apparition of Mr. Littles shadow.
Drat this, she said, holding the needle and thread out to me. Here, you have good eyes.
You do it.
I angled the needle up toward the oil lamp and did as I was told. Nancy took a quick sip
from the hip flask. I tied an extra knot in the thread and made a silent wish. Mothers
helper, dancers friend, Nancy said in answer to my raised eyebrow, then tucked the hip
flask back inside the stage bag.
Look at you, said Nancy, her voice a gin slur. Dont you look lovely. As she spoke,
the pins moved between her lips and I was reminded of what my grandma had taught me
about malevolent spirits. Their mouths are as thin as the eye of a needle and it is through
this that they eat the offerings we give them. How long it was since I had made those
rites, delivering plump egg bananas to the spirit house. Instead I spent my days placating
my ill-tempered manager, whose avarice for our labour was not unlike the restless
appetite of Burmas neak-da in its bottomlessness. I wondered at how my lack of

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attention to such family obligations might have angered my ancestors. I wondered
outwardly, whether they could ever find me on these shores, but I knew the answer only
too well.
You alright? asked Nancy, a new note of concern in her voice.
The stiff fabric resisted my flesh the way a bier might reject the wrong corpse.
Skinny-waisted as a wasp, said Nancy. Mr. Little searched the earth to find this dress
for you. Drove a hard bargain he did, got it off the last boat in from India. Job lot. With a
little help from his mates down on the dock. Still, cost him a pretty penny it did. Breathe
in tight now.
I shuddered as she began to stitch me into the dress. Pinches of dust powdered the air
each time Nancy straightened or cinched the fabric. But the smell that embraced me so
tightly was neither Nancys lavender water nor the stale tobacco fingerprinting the walls.
It was cordite. The heat and haze of fire. I steadied myself against the dressing table,
fingers clenched tight around its greasy ledge. I dared not look into the mirror for fear of
what I might find. Because what played behind my closed eyelids was a scene I had long
dared not think. The Kinwun Mingyi raking around in the embers as the British troops
burned the books in Mandalay, his face taut with distress. Some six years separated me
from that night in 1885, and how many thousands of miles I did not know, but I felt his
eyes upon me now as surely as I had on that night when, acting as Myinguns spy, I had
pressed myself against the brick courtyard and cowered in the dark, as with the certain
instinct of a predator animal the Kinwun Mingyi searched for me in the gloom. What
spared me from detection was his deep concern for the burned books and papers, and so
total was his focus on their fate that I had since spared little thought for what else might

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have been saved or stolen. It took all my courage to open my eyes and dispel the heat
and haze of that vision for the image now before me in the mirror.
For I knew with utmost certainty, had known since before I touched or smelled it, that the
dress into which Nancy was now forcing me like stuffing into a boned duck, was the
souvenir of a life cut short. I looked down, away from the trickery of the mirror, to the
more certain story of the fabric. I saw small dark circles left by the gemstones that had
been cut away. The tawdry sequins tacked on in their place bent easily under my stiff
fingers. I breathed in sharply. The shadow-circles left by lost gems told me that the
dress had once belonged to a woman of high rank. There was no doubting that it was
Burmese. It was amingala. That much I knew. Unlucky. Who knew what dead soul now
walked the world, plundered of this dress?
Although I knew it would only bring me more bad luck, I let my fingers knead the fabric
as if to milk its secrets. It was as Myingun had so often told me. Some knowledge was
best left alone. But curiosity had always pulled me the wrong way.
A stitch in time, said Nancy, pulling the needle tight. Now for the final touch. She
hummed as she worked at the final closure. Then she snapped the thread between her
teeth, and let out a sigh whose depth of satisfaction confirmed her prior vocation. I
wondered if she had been the seamstress of courtesans as well as actresses, and I
wondered at how she had met Mr. Little, and wondered again at the volatile relationship
between her index finger and her wedding band. She was not wearing it today, but its
presence was indented into the shape of her finger. I had heard the male actors parlay
stories of the parlours of ill-repute in which the discards of the theatre traded on their past
talents to enact the fantasies of well-born men, and I wondered too at the same-ness of

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those human foibles and the joinery of desire whose dark tracery, I suspected, worked the
sweat-glands and synapses of men the same way the world over.
The bodice was sewn so tight that it felt as if hands were pressing down upon my
collarbone. I stood erect as Nancy unscrewed the greasepaint jar and slathered on the
greasepaint, but felt safe in the knowledge of the Thanaka powder that formed its
foundation. From the wings came the metallic tap of Mr. Littles feet.
Nancy steered me out along the dimly lit corridor from the dressing room and into the
wing. Her hand was set firm between my shoulder bones, ridged now with the stiff gold
dcor that fanned out like two stunted wings. Then I smelt the meat and onions, and
heard the labored breathing, and sensed Nancy stand aside with a half curtsey, and felt
Mr. Littles large paw on my shoulder. His hand slid down to the small of my back and I
acquired fresh appreciation of Nancys tight stitching.
The stage smelt of paraffin. From between the flimsy velvet curtains that screened off
the wings, a bright light beckoned me on. Mr. Little gave me a firm push at the base of
my spine.
Amingala, the crowd seemed to be saying as they chanted and hollered.

My eyes

watered at the grease and smoke.

What would Myingun think to see me now, I wondered. Would he recognize me? And if
so, what part of me? What part of me remained what I had been?
But there was no time for such thoughts. The audience was stamping and clapping, their
yells and whistles smothering out the discordant twang of the un-tuned Burmese harp.
Their eager tumult seeped into my feet.

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I could no longer conjure Myinguns face. Nor could I see Mr Little, although I knew
him to be leering from the wings. I did not see the mintha, the Burmese male dancer, but
I did not need to. From the rhythm of the air I knew that he was moving across the stage
toward me with a serpentine, lissom grace.
What I saw was something else entirely. A young girl, no older than I had been on the
day when my grandma set off with me from the village to the court. A girl with a broken
neck, and flesh whiter than my own had now become under the stage-lights with Mr.
Littles special cream. She was laid out on a bier, wrapped in white. Under that shroud, I
knew, was the dress that I now wore. Again I felt the heat of the flames. And then I could
feel and see nothing at all.
-------Get up. Get up, girl.
It was Mr Littles voice, bearing down on me in the dark. I was stretched out somewhere.
My limbs were at once sore and yet felt unattached to my body. The smell of alcohol
took me back to the camp, after the Armenian doctor had amputated Lu Pyes poisoned
foot. For a full week, even as the rest of him turned from pale to green to black, he had
felt the pain of that venomous spider-bite and at times raged against the sores on his skin
and insisted on my massaging a foot that existed only in the bellies of those fish that
might have nibbled on it after the medicine man had tossed it into the river. I gasped in a
fright that came out in a cats cry and then moved one foot up against the other and the
relief filled my eyes with tears. I had learned too, to decipher alcohol. What I smelt was
Mr. Littles favourite tipple. Something prickled at my neck. Horsehair. A bolster. And
beneath me, a mattress.

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Mingled in with the whisky I could smell Mr. Littles breath, but the familiarity of
recognition brought little succour. There were other smells, too. Tobacco, paraffin wax,
boiling mutton, cabbage and playing cards, working at my nostrils like a smoke veil. Still
I could not open my eyes. Someone had laid something upon them. It was not
unpleasant. I caught the scent of lavender.
I knew from the smells and sounds that I was back on Howe Street. But this was not our
room. There was no soft padding in that room: the troupe slept on the floor.
The floorboards creaked, or was that the sound of someone settling into a chair? A clock
ticked. I heard a heavy tread, and sensed Mr. Littles retreat. No metal tap; he was not
wearing his outdoor boots.
The bedsprings beneath me gave a squeal. Someone had sat down on the end of the bed.
I tightened my mouth against whatever was being forced upon me, cold and hard.
And then I felt a drop of liquor. Dribbling down onto the back of my tongue. Not whisky.
Ko Thet? I can barely form the word, let alone speak it. Suu Chit?
But there was only the brooding silence of Mr. Little, and the soft purr of the cat.
Then Nancys voice floated towards me. Like a wisp of gaslight.
Gave us quite a turn, you did. Quite a turn.
I wrestled against the burn of the gin on my throat, but Nancy held me down, surprising
me with her strength. In panic I reached at my clothing and began to claw at what I
found beneath the blankets. They had taken the dress off me.
I sighed in blank relief. I was back in my bodice and bloomers.
Next door, or I though it was next door, muffled by some partition, some wall, came the
sound of pots clanking and a kettle hissing to a boil. Something furry brushed against my

378
palm. I pulled my hand back, hoping it was not a rat, and then heard a faint purr and for
the first time felt a sense of safety. But when I reached out to stroke the house cat, my
fingers landed not on that sweet creature but on the hirsute back of Mr. Littles hand. I
gasped and clasped my hands together, across my chest, glad of the thick blanket that
separated me from Mr. Little.
Took quite a turn, said Mr Little, and there came another creak, and a loud tap. I turned
my head away from his voice, and imagined him leaning forward.
I clasped my hands tighter and laced my fingers together. As I did so, I felt an unfamiliar
smoothness
My ring, I said. I tried to sit up, but the suddenness of my movement sent my head
spinning. I slithered back down again. Whatever had been on my eyes, a compress, had
fallen away.
Ring? Scared the living daylights out of us you did, and youre worried about some
ring? Lucky we called you back from the other side, said Mr. Little. And he gave a thick
laugh.
My temples felt taut as a drum. How I wished that Ko Thet or Suu Chit would hear me.
They would have brought me tiger balm to dab on my temples, or cardamom to suck on.
I opened my eyes. The room was so dimly lit it was hard to see.
Welcome to your new home, said Mr. Little.

What had tempted me to come on this journey? Myingun had not

forced me. The idea was all mine. I had only myself to blame. I had

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needed something new. Needed this sensation of dropping off the edge
of a stage, jumping into something new. I had seen too many ships
leaving, too many boats heading out to sea. I had wanted to be on one.

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

PONDICHERRY

Since the crossing in LHermittes trunk, it was an instinct. He always

walked with his back curved slightly to the sea, his shoulders braced
against that liquid fear. Even miles in land, Myingun could catch the
sea air on the edge of the wind.
Out to sea, the fishermen trawl, and close to the shoreline, young
boys comb the beach for washed up bottles, curious shells for which
the Europeans will pay good money, and other treasures. Here, men
fleece each other for information, for news, on the quiet or out loud.
It is the month of Divali, the festival of lights. The newcomers - an
old man and a lad in ungainly blue-framed glasses - clung to the edges
of the crowd of exile that met each dawn on the beachfront. Hesitant,
they tried to blend in with the other Sikhs. They walk with the dull,
downward expressions of those who are not only poor but make no

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effort to disguise it. By the third day, they have moved from the
ragged edges of the groups that gather on the beach, to its center.
Watching their progress, something prickles Myinguns spine, draws a
flush to his cheeks. It had taken him the best part of two years to work
his way through the perimeters of Pondicherry society of exiles to its
core.
The wide open sea gives them a false notion of security, as if the
waves steal their secrets away, as if they are simply spitting into the
wind. There are French spies here, too, and, of late, hauntingly
obvious, British agents.
Myingun puffs his chest out, recognizes something in the fine
lineaments of the old man, he is not sure exactly what. His movements
dislodge something in his memory; something stirs, limp and barely
identifiable, much like the washed up jellyfish that one of the boys is
poking with a long stick.
A faint hum moves around the newcomers as if it had climbed up
and off the ocean, out of the conches that used to litter the shore but
are now hoarded, guarded, rare finds. Myingun studies the shells and
their intricate shapes and sees it as a sign of their royalty that they
have been announced in this way. When he had questioned his
messengers to Norodoms palace about their reception to ensure that
they had been greeted in accordance with his station, they had told

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him of , the Brahmin conch-bearers, who conjured music from a silvertipped shell t.
The old man and his aides - or is that his son? - are dressed in a
mixture of whites and European clothes, and each wears a turban. The
old man has a generous paunch, and on either side of him are two
young men, so that the effect is of looking in a mirror, or at a statue.
The effect is magnified, strangely, by one of the younger mens large
blue spectacles. Their huge lenses are coated with sand. The boy takes
them off every so often to polish them with a cloth he keeps in his
pocket.
Myingun notices these details now where before he let others keep
watch. Freed from the large blue frames the boys eyes are limpid,
large, curious but he also has the look of someone disarmed,
unprepared, the nervosity of the short-sighted. Myinguns eyes crease
at the corners. When the boy looks out to sea, there beside his father,
their profiles layered like cameos on a brooch, Myingun sees a lineage
in their profiles.
Theres an energy in the young mans features that he wishes he
could find upon his own sons face. They are surely father and son.
Myinguns own son has noticed nothing, of course, he is contemplating
his hands, pouting slightly, and trying to keep his feet still. The breeze
is unusually warm today. Mixed in with it is a scent of coconut and

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incense.
In Benares, in Chandernagor, preparations for Divali would have
been evident everywhere along the Ghats. Myingun wonders how it
will be here.
They are being watched.
In the reverse symmetry of espionage typical of the British, the man
who is watching them has planted himself squarely in the middle of the
crowd. He is dressed in the nondescript garb that announces the British
spies so plainly and loudly that he might have well have planted a flag
or stood on a soapbox yelling Rule Britannia, although that would never
have done in Pondicherry. If he were dressed as a policeman, a soldier,
a naval captain, a judge, a colonial official, he would possibly have
gone entirely unnoticed. But he is dressed as no-one, and everyone
knows that noone with his shade of skin and hue of hair comes here
without a place, a plan, a pigeonhole, a uniform, a title, mufti, call it
what you will. He is not behind the counter of a store or stood at an
easel painting the scene in the way of the idle rich who have begun to
ply the routes of India. Nor does he have the slightly hurried, worried
look of a merchant. He is looking out to sea, darting quick looks
sideways. Every so often he moves, crablike, sideways almost, with
the quiet flicker of a ghost.
The sand is wet and silvered. The mounted police parade along the

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seafront, clip clop on the raised, flat stones.
Who is he?
Who is who?
Do you not notice anything? He snaps at his son.
Thakur Singh, says U Maung Lwin. He has recently moved
here from England. He has come with news of the Maharajah, Dulip
Singh. He is telling people that he is Dulip Singhs Prime Minister, that
the Maharaja is now in Russia, that he is raising an army, that his
bands of Sikhs will rise as one and topple railways, rip up telegraph
poles with their bare hands. That one with the spectacles, he is his son.
Smart, they say. He works for the British, in India. A collector, or some
such. He interprets for him. He speaks no English, nor French.
Invite him to visit me, says Myingun.
U Maung Lwin is about to say something, but quiets.
Tomorrow, Your Highness, would be a better day. We could bring
him some gift. I hear he has a sweet tooth.
Tomorrow, may be too late. Invite him now. There is a hiss in
his voice, a dry disparagement.
U Maung Lwin moves, then stops, a look of anticipation on his
face.

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Wait, not now. Wait for him to leave. Myingun nods towards
the man with the ginger moustaches.
Their wait is marked by the encroaching tide, but the British spy
shows no signs of leaving. Seagulls wheel overhead, or strut along the
shore with a self-assured stride of ownership that Myingun has come to
envy. He wonders if they are the same the world over, these birds.
The commotion around the Singh family moves, settles, stirs,
hops from one of the group to another, and then there is a sense that it
is over. Men are taking their leave of each other.
The sandflies speckle the band of bare flesh around his ankle,
hop up and down underneath the hem of his lungyi.
Now, hisses Myingun. What are you waiting for?
U Maung Lwin potters off. On the beach, his gait is even more uneven
than usual. The crushed pebbles murmur beneath his wide feet.
Something changes in the British agents posture. Instinct. His
back is bolt upright, his ears pricked up, hyena sharp. He is still
staring straight ahead, but he angles his body away, at the slightest
curve, away from the encounter which now holds his whole attention.
He checks his watch, feigns a look of concern at the time, a missed
appointment? He turns abruptly, heads off straight towards U Maung
Lwin, who is now talking to the one in blue glasses. Disdain ripples
behind him, dances through the glances, someone hawks then spits. A

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globule of phlegm lands just shy of his left heel. Victory can be this
small. Looks of hatred pass as clear as lines in the sand. There is no
need for words. Thakur Singh alone seems oblivious to it all, he is
holding his own small court. Mygingun suddenly feels isolated,
bereaved. No cards or papers, no books or letters, can change hands,
no invitations for a search. The gendarmes are posted in their usual
places.
Along the sea-walll, the braziers are lit. The skewered, plucked
and glazed bodies of birds are grilled on hot bricks. The scent of green
plaintain, of coconut, travels on the sea breeze. Slender hipped girls
work their way through the crowds balancing trays of sweets on their
heads.
There on the beach stands Thakur Singh, Myingun knows that
look, it is the look of a hungry man, a man living beyond his means.
On the 11th January 1885, the Foreign Department telegraphed to
Madras that Sardar Thakur Singh Sandanwalia is believed to be at
Pondicherry, with his son, a statutory civilian Gurbachan Singh,
employed in the Punjab. The following instructions are given: Please
have his movements and communications quietly watchd as far as you
can and reported here. It is probable that he had gone into French
territory for facility of communication with Dalip Singh. The Madras
Government wire on the 24th January that the Consular Agent believe

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the Sardars object in residing at Pondicherry to be as above stated. He
has received and sent correspondence by French mail steamer, and the
French Governor is said to have referred for instructions about him. On
the 1st February the Chief Secretary to the Madras Government wrote
to Foreign: The Consular Agent reports that Mons. Manes, the
Governor of French India, has yet done nothing beyond reporting to the
French Government the presence of man in Pondichery. The Sardar
has been making great endeavours to obtain a second interview with
mons. Manes and also an interview with mons. De Lanessan, Depute
de la Seine, who recently visited the colony, but without success.
The Private Secretary to the Viceroy wrote demi-officially to the Foreign
on 12th Feb. The Secretary of State desired a close watch to be kept on
the proceedings of the Sardar - Madras Government were accordingly
asked on the 11th Feb to report the movements of the Sardar weekly,
and to telegraph immediate information of anything of interest.a
telegraphic reminder was sent to the Madras Gov on 5th March - and
they replied that
Thakur Singh is still at Pondicherry, wrote the Madras Government
in its weekly report on the movements of the Sardar,. The Consular
Agent reported that he had posted letters to Dalip Singh at Paris, and
that he and his son, Gurbachan Singh, received packets and parcels
from the Punjab addres of Gurdit Singh, a man of straw.
In a demi official letter to Foreign on the 8th March, 1887, the Chief

387
Secretary Madras, forwarded a copy of a letter dated 5th idem from
Colonel Fischer, Consular Agent, reporting on his meeting with the Gov
of Pondicherry regarding Sardar Thakur Singh.
Ahh, the royal prince?
I consider the royal in that sentence, superfluous.
There are those that consider the prince quite superfluous.
Indeed, Sir. Indeed.
Colonel Fischers eyes shrank to glassy slits of refined amusement.
Your Excellency, I beg to inform you that the Prince as you would
have him, has no more royalty in his blood than the average man on
the street.
Governor Manes drew closer to him, as if trying to barricade off this
news from the rest of the room.
You mean to say, that he is not a prince?
I very much mean to say so, your Excellency. We have extensive
intelligence to that effect. Our men in India and London have kept a
close watch on him since he first surfaced at the Maharajahs side.
What he lacks in royalty and wealth, however, he more than
compensates for in his powers of persuasion, and, therefore, in the
number of his supporters. Such an intricate web of messengers,
porters, well-wishers and agents we have rarely seen.

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But what then draws him to the Maharajahs cause?
A knowing smile crept across Colonel Fishers face, a smile honed by
recollections of his own fathers foraging along the faultlines of good
society, for his sons current position.
Bankruptcy, poverty, prophecy; take your pick.
The Governor stepped back, as if seeking support for his next line
from the amply stocked bookshelves that, following the vanity of the
last incumbent, ran along the western wall of the reception room.
Occasionally he would pull a tome and find its innards eaten away by
termites.
I very much doubt that poverty was a factor, he said, pulling up
straight. And as for prophecy, he strikes me as an intelligent, rational
man. He and I have had several conversations whose content might
surprise you in its scope. Do you play chess?
A game of gentlemen, Your Excellency, should you ever honor me
with an invitation I should enjoy the opportunity.
If you ever want to see truly into the minds of your, what do you
call them? Objects of your suspicion - I highly recommend a game of
chess, it is an excellent lens on a mans mind. Your Sardar mixes in his
game bravery, bluff and nobility. I can imagine that in relation to the
question of his honor, your - how do you call them? Slooves -

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Sleuths, Your Excellency
Sloofs, are very much mistaken.
We have documentation, sir, of his financial plight.
The Governor leaned even closer in to the conversation, as if he,
too, were seeking new evidence of the Sardars men.
I presume you have men posted around his premises?
In Pondicherry, my dear man, the French Establishments in India,
here as elsewhere, I might add, pride ourselves in upholding the
standards of our Constitution and in maintaining an environment of
political liberty.
You might, then, be interested in our own observations.
Perhaps. I have not seen him since the day he called here two
months ago with his two sons. We did not meet for long, and owing to
his lack of proficiency in French, the conversation was conducted
almost entirely by his elder son, a very intelligent young man I might
add - in spite of his blue spectacles!
Indeed, you might be interested to know that part of his facility in
English he is much indebted for his training and the exercise of his
duties in his post as an appointee of the India Civil Service. His son,
Gurbachan Singh, I might add, has broken his contract with the India
Civil Service and has abandoned his position with neither notice nor

390
notification of intent to return to his post. He has greatly overstayed
his leave, and has been ordered to return on penalty of forfeiting his
position.
I had heard something of the kind, but it had quite passed my
mind.
Do you have any inkling as to his current whereabouts?
No, came the Governors hasty response.
I hope you have no intention of making another Mingoon Prince of
Thakur Singh; or I assure you that it would not be worth the candle.
Not I, exclaimed the Governor. He may be a fine chess player, but
he hardly merits that attention. I merely found him an interesting
character, and admire his bearing in adversity.
Sir Charles Aitchison, in a note of 24 Feb 1887, recommends the
Sardars arrest. There is no doubt that the change in Maharaja Dalip
Singhs attitude dated from Sardar Thakur Singhs visit to England and
I think Thakur Singhs residence at Pondicherry is less due to fear of his
creditors than to the convenience it gives him as a medium of
communication between the maharajah and his supporters and others
in India. Thakur Singh should be arrested under Regulation III of 1818
and locked up as soon as possible. But it should be done quietly.
[Next section - check for edited rewrite version] -

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Dalip Singhs messengers spread out as softly as a gloved hand.
They move in unison, in a silent choreography, driven by creed or
greed, by glory or profit. Some are plucked from the intricate
discharge of their routines, detained, locked up, interrogated. Some
keep tight, others squeal. They come in all ages, and a variety of
sizes. Some are tall, some are small. Some die.
559. EXTERNAL EXAMINATION OF THE BODY OF A MALE, NATIVE OF
INDIA, SAID TO BE A PUNJABEE, NAMED MOTI
F.
No. 17.

KOHABAD, KHORASSAN, JULY 29th , 1888, 9 AM.

Weather cool. Deceased said to have been dead twelve hours. Body
cold Rigor Mortis marked, hands being firmly clenched.
Comencing signs of decomposition on back and flanks. Abdomen
somewhat distended with gas.
Height five feet four inches. Age apparently forty or forty five years.
Body muscular and well nourished. Hair black, turning grey abundant,
unshaven, mustache and full beard. Features well formed. Face livid,
mouth, eyes and ears normal. Bloody and frothy mucus about nose and
mouth. A circular puckered sear (small pox inoculation mark) on back
of left hand, rather to the inner side, about the size of a shilling. No
other distinctive mark. Deceased has been circumcised imperfectly,

392
sphincter relaxed. No signs of external violence. There being no
instruments, an internal examination was not conducted.
2. History from the statements of Duffadar Ramzan Ali Khan in
attendance, it appears that deceased was quite well thirteen hours
before death, after which he lost into a somnolent state, with suffusion
of the eyes. This state passed rapidly into stupor and ultimately into
coma, with blowing respiration, the breath smelling strongly of opium.
It was found impossible to rouse him and after having several
convulsions he died. There was no vomiting or diarrhoea.
No opium or other poison was found about him before or after his
death.
There was nothing revealed in the external examination of the body
to negative the diagnosis of the death by opium poisoning.
Kohabad,

H. R. Wooler,

M.D.
July 29th, 1888.

Medical Officer, Mashed.

Letters travel, and bodies too; the corpse is transported along the
same lines as the messages; it is brought from Khaf to Hastadan, on 30
July 1888. On 28th July came the discovery of the body, and the story:
how he died, with whom. On 29th July the official evaluation, the post

393
mortem, carried out by H. R. Wooler. On 30th July, the corpse itself
travels. It is the body of a supposed Sikh of unknown name and
uncertain provenance, the only certainty is his death by opium, selfinflicted, and the corollary diagnosis (are these ever certain?) that he
poisoned himself on seeing the British governments man, it was the
fear of his being discovered, that did it.
Stories are excavated before the body is disposed of. When he first
arrived in Khaf he was dressed in rags and was first found in a certain
Malik Marwarids garden, eating mulberries. The post mortem makes
no mention of the mulberry stains that still thread his palms, nor of the
deep pockmark just behind his right ear. He was traveling with a Hindu
fakir. He had told people he wanted to go to Russia, to escape the
British, that he wanted to join up with Dalip Singh, to be free of English
agents. He had the look of a ghost, they said, long before he had taken
his own life.
Why so frightened? Asked Malik Marwarid, who took him in, just
discreetly enough so as not to draw the attention of the British or their
supporters, and indiscreetly enough to be seen as a hero by those
townspeople who were against the British. If the English saw him, they
would sieze him at once, and then he will have lost his value to his
host. He is destitute, in apperance; as General MacLean will later
write, more like a down country Mohammadan than a native of the
Punjab; is he an emissary from the Hindustani colony of fanatics? Was

394
he bearing letters for the Russian Agent in Mashed?
Word went round fast, with some ascribing insights they had
gathered after his demise, to their first sighting of him days ago,
munching on mulberrys from Maliks tree, dressed in rags. None could
quite find the words to describe the look of defiance, enhanced by his
protuberant chin. The man who found him ran with his arms aloft,
screeching like a hawk, as if he himself were possessed, to announce
that a jin, or genie, had taken possession of the beggar. Those who
flocked to his aid were rewarded with the vision of some dark magic,
which some felt was proper retribution for his trespass, and marvelled
that Malik Marwarids divine connections. He was lying crouched up in
his numdah, his limbs stiff and contorted, foaming at the mouth, his
flesh purpling. Some said that he was shamming. Others that he had
taken opium. Several, out of earshot of the British agents, had nothing
to discuss: they knew beyond doubt that only a jin could have racked
his body like that, turning his secrets to froth that bridled his gums,
and that the jin had been invited into his body not by the poison, but
by the act of poisoning; by a poisoner.
A quiet panic ran through the small town. Servants in outhouses
clustered together, and those with shutters on their windows drew
them tight, preferring to lock vermin and mosquitoes in then to risk
unknown intruders. Malik Marwarid doubled his tasters salary on the
spot.

395
Malik Marwarid is a generous host; he keeps a close watch on his
guests. On 27 July , he writes to General MacLean, who has asked him
to look out for a person coming from the Punjab to Mashed, should he
turn up at Khaf. His guest has arrived, he has traveled so diligently,
through such out-of-the-way routes, there is the slightest sense of
undulation in his movements still.
He has woven his way along the route of Quetta, to Mastuj, Mushki
Kandesh, Same, Sanghan, Buzhina, Samapur, Tarkasar, Bahbah,
Kirman,Bemah, Takpuchta, Turbat-i-Ia Khan, he has avoided sea routes,
he is wending his way to Bokhara, Russia. He is discovered munching
mulberries in Maliks garden. He is dressed in rags. Did he sense his
betrayal? Malik sent the letter on 27th July, the General receives it at
camp, that same evening. It is carried by hand.
The general wastes no time; he sends his orderly, Duffadar Ramzan
Ali Khan, to fetch the suspect. Unfortunately, writes the Brigadier
general C. S. MacLean on Special Duty, the duffadar had no
opportunity of conversing with the deceased or of learning anything of
his history from himself. What was unfortunate was not his death but
his timing; it was premature, before the story had been extracted, the
opium had begun its deadly business. to prevent his falling alive into
his hands, committed suiciede, apparently with opium, which he must
have kept secret about his person for such an emergency.

396
On 29th July, the body was taken to General Maclains camp. The
messengers corpse was now itself a message. In Hastadan, on 1
August, Maclean sent a telegram. The deceased was a short dark man
with a little grey beard and hair, about 40 years old, called himself
Moti, wanted to join Dalip Singh, and had appearance of a Patna
Muhammaedan.
Some die, but others live. Still they move along the lines hewn out
of the land by calloused, low-caste hands; along railway tracks, roads,
telegraph wires. The most valuable messages are never trusted to the
Post Office. What man of high birth or noble calling would entrust his
word to those burlap sacks, to the unknown carriers and sorters that
pick through the Mail? Nor does Dalip Singh waste his Maharajahs
breath on dictating telegraphs, or soil his private ambitions with the
grease of a printing press. He saves those services for that which he
wishes his oppressors to see.
Shashi Bhushan Mukherji, erstwhile Editor of the Beaver at
Chandernagor, will place a good story for 100 rupees. But Dalip, egged
on by his new Prime Minister, Thakur Singh, suffers from acute bouts of
nostalgia: when he traded his kingdom to the British as a boy, and
later, through those long afternoons when Queen Victoria lavished her
affections on him, whether at Windsor, or Sandringham, or
Buckingham, his whole notion of time becomes muddled, so that when
he remembers India, it is purely as a place of memory, a jewel in a box,

397
to be opened and closed, or an elaborate clockwork toy, waiting for a
key. Thakur Singh encourages him in these delusions, serves as his
translator, as the purveyor of the present, Yes, of course I know the
Mukherjis, his paper is the one, the absolutely only one, the very best,
we can go with no other, he finds that the Maharajah prefers to speak
in two tongues, and that he has a fuzzy knowledge of geography, a
glaucoma of the memory, that whatever sense of the land he might
have had as a child is now only a thin membrame. When Thakur Singh
speaks to him of all that awaits him on his return, the Maharajah sinks
back againt the thick velvet bolsters and gives out a slight purr. His
eyes are deeply hooded, creased underneath in thick folds. His teeth
oddly even and white, not the wolverine yellow of the people he meets
in England, of whatever class, despite their best efforts to hide their
teeth behind thin-set, unsmiling lips.
Thakur Singhs networks are faulty, he makes mistakes he can ill
afford, then convinces himself that the Gods are on their side when
things work out. He can certainly not afford to reveal to the Maharajah
that he has never heard of the Beaver, that he has never visited their
offices, nor to inquire as to the likelihood that they are still at the same
address since the Maharajahs last dealings with them over a decade
ago. Such is the stuff of great causes: some of their men will fall along
the way. The Beaver Newspaper is no more. Mukherji has long shut up
shop, has failed to make ends meet, bankruptcy has sent him back to

398
British territory, to Hyderabad.
It is here that the British capture Arur Singh, who has been sent on
a mission of great urgency by Thakur Singhs son, following receipt of a
message with the Maharajahs seal, instructing them to post a
particular story in The Beaver. A sum has been mentioned: 500 rupees
is to be paid to the paper. Arur Singh is ill-trained for such capers. He
is advised of Shashis new address not by some undercover network,
but by the Post Office.
His secret orders are sewn into the covers of books, of Alphabets
and Algebra primers. His learned envoys clothe their despatches in the
bookish endeavours of empires good children.
The treatment they receive, once captured, is anything but childish.
On 22 August 1887 Bernmore, Simla, D. McCracken Esq to H. M.
Durand, Esc CSI: I will try again whether Arur Singh can be induced to
speak, but do not feel at all sanguine. In case of failure, I have asked
for orders regarding his disposal. It is not advisable to keep him longer
than can be helped in the lock up here, for the police office is much
frequented place, and the fact of his being confined here is sure to get
out before long. I have, therefore, suggested his being sent to Chunar.
There seems no reason for treating him any better than he would be
treated in prision, if convictined of the serious offence of which he has
been guilty, and a little discomfort may possibly make him more

399
inclined to confess after a time.
Questioned about his plans to visit Thakur Singh at Pondicherry, he
is quiet; will only say that nothing is yet settled, that a piece is not in
place: Jawala Singh was sent into the Punjab by Thakur Singh to feel
the ground for Arur. But he has not yet returned.
On 22 September, Jiwan Singh, an alias for Karim Singh, arrives in
Hyderabad, attracting the attention of the Special Branch. He puts up
at the Nirbaid Akara, a Serai near the old bridge. The reports describe
him as thirty years of age, slightly pitted with small pox, fair, straight
nose and about 5 feet 9 inches to 5 feet 10 inches in height. His
movements are monitored, along with others known or suspected to be
in cahoots with the Pondicherry sikhs.
There is Narain Singh of the Patalia State, and a pensioned trooper
of the first cavalry; living under the false name, Atter Singh; as for the
other, not even his false name is known. There is Sham Singh, a great
chum of Nanu Singh. Colonel Ludlow believes Sham Singh to be a very
dangerous character. Sham Singh is in correspondence with the
Pondicherry Sikhs; he neither receives letters from, nor addresses
letters to, Dalip Singh. Such is the infuriating beauty of this game that
keeps Colonel Ludlow awake at night, counting stars in search of an
answer, for a glimmer of an insight into their constellation. Messages
pass back and forth between Dulip, Sham, all the other dangerous

400
people on his watch, through the Pondicherry Sikhs.
Colonel Ludlow has never been to Burma, which he regards as a yet
more farflung outpost of India than this godforsaken corner of
Hyderabad. He is as yet unaware of the existence of a Golden Temple
in Mandalay.
Finally, on 9 November, Arur Singh speaks: He tells them that he is
36 or 37. He tells them that he has served in the Kasmir Irregular
forces for 21 years, as a Sardar. He is a Sikh. After 17 years, he took
service in the Nepal army. He took leave from Kashmir in 1880 to see
to the marriage of his daughter. It was on the way from Kashmir that
he was induced to accept service with an agent of Raja Moti Singh of
Punch. He stayed for two years, then moved to Nepal, where he
became a Captain in the Nepal army. For four or five months, he saw
service with the Maharajah of Betiah, whose acquaintance he had
made while journeying to Calcutta on leave. Then he went to Patna.
He is still in charge of this information: he delivers it, in short bursts,
with dignity and finality, as if he were depositing, and setting out
neatly on a plate, stone by stone, the sucked clean pits of dates.
On the day after my arrival, I went to offer at the Thakurdwara.
Thakur Singh of Raja Sansi came up, went once round the temple and
the second time, Kishen Singh, his servant, said, he is Bawa Budh
Singh, on which Thakur Singh clasped my feet. Kishen Singh had seen

401
me at Kohali on my wayfrom Kashmir to Napal. I stayed 2 months as
Kohali then, Kishen Singh was then a sowar in the XI B.L. Which then
was in Ambala.
Then he is silent. He has told all that he will share.
Why has age done this to him? As a boy, he could endure any pain.
He was famous for it.

His diet was barely a handful of rice and a

smear of dahl, and yet he could flex his stomach to a wall of iron. He
dreamed of becoming a yogi, breaking bricks against his bare flesh.
He had been there, spellbound, when the village yogi put on a show for
those British doubters. How they shook their heads, as if trying to
shake off what they had seen. The yogi had levitated for longer than
anyone had thought possible. The villagers all got his message: they
would outstay the British, whatever supports the British took from
underneath them. And soon enough, the seven year old Arur Singh
was making bricks, not breaking them, and packing them onto a plank
on his back.
What can they have given him, to make him talk so? He has not
slept or eaten. They tried liquor, tried ramming it down his throat, but
this he resisted. This, at least, he resisted.
He imagines the information he has given, dispensed in neat
bundles. He thinks of the Beaver newspaper, the closed offices, the
nailed shut door. He drives the same nails through his lips. He shuts up

402
shop. No more. There is no more to give.
But his captors do not know the meaning of no more. To them, there
is always more.
After a day, his thirst has spread in a flame to his brain. When they
offer him tea, it takes everything not to grasp after it like a beggar. At
least he receives it with dignity. It tastes bitter. Who knows what herbs
these are that loosen his tongue.
For the next two or three days Thakur Singh kept urging me to
stay with him and sending food to where I was. I did not change my
quarters but I ate the food he sent and saw him daily. Later on I gave
him Rs. 100/- as a loan. Thakur Singh talked constantly of Maharaja
Dalip Singh whom he had seen in England as an inarnation of the deity
and said he was coming over soon to tke his kingdom and time of
troble for the Sikhs was over. At the Railway statoin Thakur Singh took
my ticket to Railway station Ayudhya (near Fyzabad), (I paid for it) and
told me our bad time was over, that Maharajah Dalip Singh would
come, he would be his Prime Minister and all pwoerful and that I should
get a good jagir. He then asked if I would help him if he asked me to.
I traveled to and fro, here and there. On the way to Kothi from
Ayudhaya, I stoppped at Mirpur in Jammu, Kishen Sing came to me
there from Thakur Singh at Patna, and said Thakur Singh had heard he
was suspected and wanted to know if I could get him into Nepal. I said

403
that was not in my power, and Kishen Singhh went back next day. This
was in Bhadon -
September 1886, sir, interrupts the clerk. Bhadon, he repeats.
September.
- when I went to Kothi. The North Western Railway was broken, I
had to go round by Reqari. Two months later Bir Singh, Thakur Singh s
servant came to me in Kothi and brought a letter in Gurmukhi. In it
Thakur Singh asked me to meet him quickly in Amritsar. Before I could
have got there, Thakur Singh and his family had gone to Pondicherry.
Bir Singh left me at Gujrat and went to Raja Sansi and I stayed at
Gujrat for 3 monhts and then on to Amristar, arriving on 3rd Holi. I
remained for two months in Boongas (Monasteries) attached to the
golden temple and then at the request of Partab Singh Granthi, I
moved to Thakru Singhs house.
In Gujrat I got a leter from Thakur Singh asking me to send my
brother Churran Signh forthwith, as his presence was indispensable. He
had gone to Nepal, so I sent Hari Singh, my servant with a letter saying
Thakur Singh might use him but should send his own man with him on
any duty. I provided funds for Hari Singhs journey and told him to take
sweets and combs as a present to Thakur Singh. This was in Phalgun
(Feb) 1887. In April, Hari Singh came and brought with him Kesar
Singh. They had a book on the pages of which were the alphabet and
rules of arithmetic (Muharani). In the boards were letters to Raja Partab

404
Singh of Kashmir, Ram Singh, his brothers, Amar Singh, Raja Moti Singh
of Punch.
From Col. P. D. Henderson to A. P. Howell (Demi-Official)
No. 93, Simla, 13h Oct 1888
A Punjabi informant of Colonel Henderson learned from a person at
Hyderabad in whom Jiwan Singh had confided:
Jiwan Singh said that he went to Russia to see Dalip Singh. On
arrival he was arrested by the Russian authorities, but was released in
a few days after Dalip Singh had communicated with [him?]. This
occurred at Kieff. He went to Moscow where DS Is living. The Maharaja
lives in a fine house guarded by Russian sentries. He does not receive
money from the Russian government, but from some bank which
supplies him with funds. Two Sikhs and a one-eyed Muhamedan are
with Dalip Singh. The Maharajah intends to move to Merv in November.
Jiwan Signh left Dalip Singh about three months ago and has
been to Pondicherry where he saw Sardar Gurbachan Singh. He intends
going first to Nander and then to Mian Mir . Is afraid of going to Lahore
where he will be recognized but will go over there after dark from Mian
Mir. He then intends proceeding to Jammu with letters. He has sent on
all papers ahead of him under registered covers so that, if arrested
,nothing compromising may be found on him. Says that there are many
supporters of Dalip Singh at Lahore. There are two or three other men

405
employed on the same work as himself but he does not know where
they are.
Jiwan Singh is said to be extravagant, and given to drink. He is said
to be a ver clever fellow. British sources determine that he was with
the Pondicherry people for a time, and cognizant of Dalip Singhs
intrigues.
On 19 November, the British capture Jiwan Singh. In Ankola, E. J.
Stephenson complains (Demi-Official, No. 123, to Colonel E. S. Ludlow)
after his arrest and internment, on 19th November 1888, that Jiwan
Singh is very violent in his manner, refusing food and saying he is a
political prisoner and should not be put into a lockup, etc. Mr.
Stephenson has since appealed to Colonel Grant to keep the prisoner
here for a few days: I hope to be able to get something good before I
am done with him.
At night in his dank cell, the one-eyed Mohammedan keeps a
constant watch on Jiwan Singh. This is the single thread of continuity
through the prisoners tangled dreams, confused sometimes with the
moon, at others with the dull beam of the guards torch as he paces
the corridors at night, and with others at the ache behind his eyes that
have seen too much and can never rest a whole night through. When
showing him to his cell, they had led him past a bare room with an
open door and a metal bed with chains attached to it and a long

406
instrument, like a poker, in the corner.
The guards had a routine. They joked with him, that if he did not like
his room well enough, they could always make arrangements to have
him transferred. That would depend on how well he performed in
interview.
That night, lancing up through the one-eyed Mohammedan, screams
singe the quiet.
On 20th November, Jiwan Singh reveals everything that they can
possibly know enough about to want to know. The rest, he keeps to
himself. This small parcel of honour acts like a salve on his inner
vision. He sleeps fitfully that night. They want more, they need more,
why else have they kept him, but what? What more can he give them?
He is not scared of the pain. What he fears most is losing something.
But he will not be made to talk. Talk or not, it will be at his own
choosing.
I was at Pondicherry from the 31st September 1887, to the end of
September 1888. I met Sardar Thakur Singhs sons there and was
employed by them as a Pujari and did other work also. If I am pardoned
and allowed to work, I will agree to do the following:
I can get hold of all the correspondence which has taken place
between Dalip Singh and the Sardars at Pondicherry. This
correspondence is in a box in a room where the Granths are kept and

407
read the box is placed under the Granths. When I was at Pondi, I had
free access to this room. The keys of the box of papers and of all other
boxes are locked up in one box. If I were supplied with a lot of keys, I
could open this box and then get the keys of the other box and
abstract all the correspondence without anyone knowing anything
about it.
He means extract.
After this confession, his eyes rest better at night, but he hears the
jangling of keys constantly, an odd tic in his inner ear.
Among these papers, there is, I think, a copy of a treaty which has
been made between Dalip Singh and the Russian Government, but I
am certain several of the letters refer to this treaty.
Gurbachan Singh, Sardar Thakur Singhs son, told me that Dalip
Singh had made a treaty with Russia. There are several copies of
letters which were sent to Dalip Singh by the Sardars to Russia among
the papers. There is also the order of Dalip Singh appointingin one of
Sardar Thakur Singhs sons as Dalip Singhs minister. All these letters
were sent from Pondi via Paris to Dalip Singh. They were sent to the
care of a certain company at Moscow.
2. There is a granth which is written by Guru Govind Singh in which
there are many things foretold about Dalip Singh, some of which says
that Dalip Singh will be king of the Punjab.

408
Here he hesitates, his throat parched. The guard, still with that
smirk on his face, pushes a glass of water at him, with such a careful
lack of care that most of the contents splash across the desk. The
interrogator yells at him, he could have spoiled the record.
Gurbachan Singh raises it to his lips, they are so dry the skin is
scabbing off them. He holds it there, savouring the moisture, and spills
more. Barely any makes it into his mouth.
At the perimters of his vision, there in the space where his memory
recedes and the story begins, the story he is telling, there pushes,
again and again, as if urging to be let in, the insignia of the peacock.
This he will keep from them. He will not give them all the keys. A
bright white light spreads in his mind, he feels scorched by it, theres a
burning inside, as if something is leeching out of him. He remembers
his cousin after the sulphur mines, [CHECK ACCURACY WERE THEIRE
SULPHUR MINES IN INDIA?] when the explosion happened, the
antimony, it burned him from the inside out, his eyes were glazed
shells, burnished and crystal white, white like when a crack forms in a
glass. His vision turned to curds. He feels his inner self leaking out of
him, his fingers quivering, and even his sweat has a different odor, the
battered tang of shame.
He clings fiercely to the shards that he will not tell them. He puts
the glass down. The interrogator snaps his fingers, the cell-boy scuttles

409
up to refill it, but he will not drink. He finds strength in this last
strength, in resisting their offer of succour. He will speak not for water,
not for any gift, but because he has chosen to.
There are 11 things foretold in this book., all of which refer to Dalip
Singh, none of them have come to pass and there are only two to take
place. One is that Dalip Singh will come to Ghazni in Afghanistan and
will either by force of arms or treaty get back the Punjab; he will be
assisted by a strange king, who this king is, is not mentioned.
Again the fanning of a peacocks tail, the unctuous, supple bowing of
the Burmese prince. Did he have a name? He only ever heard Your
Highness, always in English, or Votre Altesse, said warbling like a
songbird, that from the Thakurs son, the one with blue glasses. This,
he knows, is the one key he can withhold for ever, to a box they can
never unlock. The Prince had called for him on his second visit; he had
asked him how he had prepared the hookah, it tasted different,
sweeter, than those he had tasted in Benares, in Chandernagore, in
other houses. His eyes were soft and ragged and deliciously limpid in
the center, no opium there, and his teeth were stained red from the
betel, it was a wonder he could taste anything.
The slap of the Interrogators palm on the table brings him back into
the story. The second thing?
Of the two things to take place? The other is later two years after

410
coming to Ghazni Kalp Singh will mount the throne of Delhi and be the
king of Punjab. The original and a copy of this Granthi are now at
Pondicherry. I could hand it over to one who comes with me.
3. Gurbachan Singh, Narinder Singh and Gurdit Singh, all sons of
Thakur Singh, are in the habit of going out for drives towards the
English boundaries of Pondicherry. If arrangements were made, I could
drive them over the borders and entrap them.
But he will not poison them. He knows the British poisoned Thakur
Singh. Everyone knows. Azu-zadin, working for the British, poisoned
him.

MATHIVET LETTER _ BASIS FOR SCENE - rewrite as conversation

between Mathivet and Myngoon.
In June 1889, M. Mathivet, Gov of French Indies, writes to Under
Secretary of State to Colonies, in Paris, advising him that Myingoon Min
is on the brink of visiting France, at his own risk and at his own peril.
He has given Mathivet to understand that he has no intention to
attempt to conquer Upper Burma. He is limiting his ambition to the

411
independent Shan States; in consolidating their neutrality, he would be
giving us a buffer (literally: mattress (matelas) - between our IndoChina possessions, in the north west and the British territories. This
constellation was proposed to you by my predecessor, who attached
great value to/placed a great premium on its realisation, and I only
recall it here as a memory. I have formally declared to Myngoon that
as long as he is our guest, his security will be completely. He replied to
me that he could not live here, deprived of resources, as he is.
Indirectly, I sounded out his interest in currying up to the British
government who could hope for nothing better, at this juncture, than to
install an authentic heir to the throne, in Mandalay. The prince prefers
his current poverty to the captive opulence/opulent captivity that the
British can offer him. Although concerned about the suppression of his
pension, he displayed gratitude towards France. At heart, he has little
interest in cooperating in the pacification of Ava, which is constantly in
turmoil, and where, despite several recent proclamations by Lord
Dufferin, a state of war persists, that is quite distinct from ours in
Tonkin.
The princes of Pandjab have also recently revealed their intention to go
to France. They hope there to rejoin their uncle, Maharaja Duleep
Singh. They will support him, or so they believe, through the sale of
his diamonds and preicious stones. But the news of the Maharajahs
marriage and of his imminent return to Russia, has derailed them. At

412
present, the Sardars are rather, thinking of going to Odessa. They have
asked me if a passe-port for this destination could be delivered to them
here. I replied in the affirmative, adding that the French authorities
would be most interested in this voyage. I believe that I have
conformed faithfully to the views of the Department. [INSERT FROM
DULEEPS LETTERS]

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

SAIGON

Your Royal Highness, I wish there was something I can do, but believe
me, I have tried everything. There has been a change of government.
The cabinet has been Picquet picks up a packet of cards from his
desk, and shuffles them sharply between his hands.

413
Moved around. New people are in old positions, and old people
in new ones. People are saying we should look to Russia, to Europe, to
Africa, but Asia? In Paris, they say that Asia is too distant. They have
halved our budget, reorganized priorities, and robbed us of our last
shred of fiscal autonomy. I still sign the decrees, but I draw our checks
from shrunken coffers, and Paris decides my shopping list. Exiles are
no longer a legitimate expense.
His clock chimes nine, in a tinny timbre, the pendulum listing
oddly behind the polished glass.
Myingun is scarcely listening now, he is searching, in the slow
swing of Picquets neglected timepiece, through the book of faces in
his head, the list of names, who can he call upon in Saigon? He has
barely been here three years, for the first year his energies were
channelled into assembling his household. Whom can he call on?
His office, his household, his floating court, came in batches: the
monks, his secretary, his mother, his wife, his sons, his daughters, their
domestics. Smuggled across foreign waters, in mailboats, in the Tibre.
Pondicherry must have laughed to see us go, he thinks, to blow
their debts across the water, they are better off without us. For
months before his crossing, everyone had told him that Saigon was the
only place for him, a place where deals were struck and fortunes made,
an entrepot from which sealines and trade routes spiked up north to

414
China, or northwest into Laos, where you could travel under a Tricoleur
all the way to Paris, where boutiques with engraved glass windows
stocked French perfumes and fashions that never made it to
Pondicherry, where there was gas lighting and wide boulevards. Where
he could find Buddhist shrines in place of Hindu temples.
Within weeks, he had traded his circle of Creole reformers,
French lobbyists, Italian aristocrats, Sikh nationalists and Scottish
bankers for Chinese moneylenders and pawnbrokers. There were
Tamils here from Pondicherry, servants and financiers, Chettiyar
moneylenders for larger schemes and small-goods pedlars, he was
always astonished by what they managed to produce from their small,
shrunken bags. He told himself he would start afresh. That was his
first mistake. But once he had declared it, there was no going back. He
enjoyed the attention of his new well-wishers. How the tribute piled in,
in their first weeks there.
How quickly history moves. In Pondicherry, he was a prospect for
a French foothold in Burma. Here, in a matter of moons, rice harvest
you could count on one hand, the entire Burmese monarchy has gone
south, across the border;Thibaw and his Queen pensioned off in
Rattanagiri. France and England warming to some new understanding.
There is word of new enmities, Russia and Japan. And now a change
of government, a failure of memory.

415
Picquet shuffles the cards again, lets them fall in a rapid arc
between his fingers. As he does so, Myinguns thoughts settle on
Thakur Singh, the Sikh in Pondicherry whose business was diamonds
and who had promised to bankroll him if he would join up in arms with
him against the British.
But if I can be of any assistance in effecting their passage, says
Picquet, Please let me know. In this I may be able to help. How
many?
Myingun clears his throat, counts them off in his head, his tongue
clicking lightly against his palette as he does so.
Venerable U Ko Thun, Venerable Tun Aing Chan, Saya Myint
Thant, two monks and one scholar; the scholars wife and two
daughters; my wifes maidservants, the pastry chef; the list goes on.
Twenty nine in all.
Very well. Instruct your secretary to bring me a list of their
names by noon today. I will secure them places on the paquebot Tibre
departing next Monday. That gives you five days.
U Maung Lwin is already scribbling, nib scratching the paper, in
his neatest hand.

416
The Tibre (scene - describe Tibre at port)
His retinue have spared him the embarrassment of seeing them
onto the boat. They are travelling together, under cover of a story to
save him face. The story is that they are returning to Burma to work on
his restoration. Deceit is stamped across their tongues as loud as
counterfeit. No-one believes him, but most nod politely.
Rumours travel faster than the printed word; the whisper from
the pawn-broker, the gloved tip-off from the moneylenders, has
preceded them.
The Governor General Picquet has second thoughts. He could not
sleep last night. He sends his commanding officer to wave Myinguns
supporters off, to check they are all on board. He counts 30.
Thirty?
Thirty, I am quite sure of it.
Ma Mays departure is what aches Myingun most. It is also his
coup de grace. It was her idea. Thakur Singh is in on it, too; has
already claimed ownership of this ruse. His spies trawl the Punjab,
Afghanistan, Russia, for secrets and pledges, with papers secreted in
book bindings, news for different printing presses (each has its price).
The British agents are snapping them up like flies; their men are
everywhere, checking the train line at each stop en route to

417
Pondicherry. Disguises proliferate. Sikh notables masquerade as
beggars. This week they are looking for a pockmarked Sikh with a scar
running through his beard in a crooked line, next week for a clear-eyed,
high-browed man of thirty. The Lion of the Punjab, the British papers
say, has cast his claws wide. She is returning to Mandalay, to find work
with a dance troupe. She has recently heard word from her uncle who
runs a theater company, and has been contracted on an eight month
tour of England.
Myinguns heart swells. It is she who has saved him from his
desolation, from the shame that eats him nightly. His father Mindon
had dotted Burmas landscape with stupas, raised temples, laid thick
tracks of merit, gilded the Shwedagon pagoda. Myinguns purse
strings cannot run to two monks, and the shrine in his home has been
collapsed and rebuilt with each new address, it has the same fugitive
look he sometimes catches in the mirror.

418
Ma Mays departure both devastates him and fills him with hope.
It is he whom he sees, there on the stage, in London, in the center of
things, moving across continents, vicariously. Word in Duleeps
network travels faster than the cables and telegrams that cross
Picquets desk, faster than the traffic in mail. His words are freighted
with lucre, they travel in code, through moneylenders booths and
diamond merchants, his messages are wrought finer than goldlink into
chiffres and cyphers, wrapped lists of exchange rates, threats and
promises soldered into a menu of prices, through impossibly intricate
and deliciously invisible lines of command.
It is because of her that he changes his mind, that he shrugs off
his dark thoughts, recovers his humour. It is because of her that he can
walk, head held high, to the port, to see them off. For one more day,
they have possession of the carriage. Tomorrow, they must sell it, the
carriage and the horses. U Maung Lwin assures him he has found a
good buyer, but Myingun knows that his easy smile and generous
nature is what has got them in too deep, that there are no good
buyers. But for once, he has good timing.
Today he and his secretary will travel in style. He and U Maung
Lwin, his sons and his wife in the back, the sleek black horses in their
gold-braided harnesses, the driver in his scarlet sash and brocade
turban. The windows are open, the winds have changed. In the

419
southerly breeze that is carrying Duleeps coded messages across to
Madras, to Calcutta, he tastes something new.

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

MA MAY LONDON

When Id been promised a free trip to England with the troupe,

this was not what I imagined, not at all. 32 days on the Bibby Line
Steamer; Id expected polite audiences and stages like the ones shed
once seen at the Durbar, with velvet curtains and tents and ladies in
fine silks and men in their whites, not this. There were brawling,
smokey audiences, and the halls stank of beer and sweat, everyone
jostling, they sold those tickest so cheap, and it was not a stage at all,
it was what Mr. Dawson called a Big Top, rap rap rapping on his top hat,
each time he made the same joke. But when wed gone off to spend
some of our pitiful allowance on hats and English things, hed pulled us
to one side and given us one of his PET TALKS. It shocked me that in a
country of such wealth, that the poor had to pay to see entertainments that in Burma
would have been sponsored by people of rank. Nor was there any place for them to sit, so
crowded and narrow were the theatre stalls, and so their hard-earned pennies were spent
on standing room. How they shoved and pushed, men and women, children too, little
nippers Mr. Little called them, lining up for tickets.
Do you think people pay to see you dress up all English? They
are paying to see for you because you are Burmese, now do you want

420
this to be a success or not? Cause if we don't pull the crowds in, youll
be crowding the streets tonight, who do you think it is pays your rent
and puts meat on your table?
The headman of the troupe was Maung Chit U, and his wife was
Daw Daw Sein.
I knew from overhearing snippets of their conversation through
the paper thin walls of the boarding house that Maung Chit U had been
promised 165 rupees per month and his wife only 25 rupees. Theyd
performed in London for 23 days in a row, no rest in between, and then
on to Liverpool and were on for even longer, 46 days Id counted. But
Id balked at going to Germany, or Greece, or Denmark, those places
sounded too far away, too distant, and Id overheard too, how Messrs
Dawson and co. were behind on their payments, so I entered into an
agreement with Messrs Dawson and Maung Chit U, that she thought
suited them both. Id continue to perform, but as a lone dancer, only
with the Italian who dressed up and did the princes role, sometimes,
and Id also keep an eye on him and make sure they didnt do a runner
or try and pull any other funny stunts. I was to meet up with the
troupe back again in Liverpool, after their tour of Europe. But I did not
realise that Mr. Dawson had other plans for her; hed passed her
management over to Mr. Little, and once the troupe were gone, there
was no-one I could turn to. Not Maung Chit nor the cymbal player,
Maung Kya, notr the footballer Ko Thai, nor the actor, the weaver, the

421
interpreter, the

tailor, the lacquerer, the wire puller or the piano

player, nor the cigar roller; they were seven actresses in all, all married
to the performers, except for me, because my husband, Lu Pye, had
died. My aunt had said it would do me good, that it would take my
mind off him, and he had always promised me he would show her the
world.
Each night Mr. Little would take me in the same hansom cab on
the same route, she knew the hansom cab was an extravagance
beyond his means, and later I wondered if thats where the contract
had fallen apart; in his flawed logic, it was necessary for her to arrive in
a hansom cab so that I could claim, or he could claim, that I was a
princess of Burma, who would know the difference, he said, and hed
even got me a real princess dress, from the court at Mandalay, got it as
part of a job lot from his friends Wooton and Sons whod been
auctioneers to the government of India for 30 years, and a damn fine
job they did of it too, hed said. Id shuddered when she saw the
costume, it reminded her of the days I had spied on the palace, and
then of her visit to Myinguns house, in 1885, Pondicherry. That was
ten years ago, and Myngun was now in Saigon, a place that might as
well be in Paris, it was not part of British territory, and Id heard the
French would not let him back, that the French and British police traded
tidbits, information, were in cahoots over him and all the other political
prisoners. Theyd designed whole islands for it, to quarantine them

422
and their causes, but still the support flickered away.
I never discussed these things with anyone. It was Chau Yat who
had secured me this job with the troupe. He had seen how restless I
had become, and although he had pledged his brother that he would
look after me, he sensed, too, that I needed a mission. He suggested,
sotto voce, that I join up with a troupe that he had heard would soon
be leaving for England, and while there, somehow, he was not sure
how, but he would make arrangements, she could serve the cause.
But when his letters came, (so far there had been two), there
was no talk of arrangements, and I began to wonder if this were not all
some elaborate ruse to get me out of the picture. I wondered if I,
Myingun, all those associations were now bad for Chau Yats business;
and I wondered also if he were genuinely worried for her, on account of
those associations, she was a soft target, only really safe under his
protection, but that meant her being behind locked gates, and yet he
knew she was as free as spirit as his brother.
One actress had jumped ship at Colombo. She said she had had a
premonition, that when shed looked over the side of the pier as they
were offboarding, shed seen a reflection in the water of a shark. Later I
wondered if the shark had been wearing a top hat.
The others had scoffed and jeered, blaming the sip of whisky the
drummer had given her to cure her of her seasickness en route from
Pondicherry. I had been tempted to desert, too. I had had a different

423
kind of premonition, one that did not require visions but instead had
worked its way into my bones, so that I felt it with every tread. I would
not see Myingun again. This was no temporary tour, although sure
enough we would soon return, but what we returned to would not be
this. But superstition had led me in the opposite direction, resolutely
planting one foot off the other, facing down the gangplank to whatever
else lay in store. In the rippling of the flag, that rectangle of cloth, I felt
a fluttering of my own mission.
When I learned that the actress had left behind a newborn baby,
I had given her half of my savings. One gold coin, and had written,
hastily, the words tumbling out in no particular choreography, a letter,
to Myingun, and asked her to travel with that money and with the
message, from Colombo to Pondicherry. I addressed the letter to U
Maung Lwin, with whom I had a tacit understanding: anything that
arrived for him in my hand must go straight to the prince. Court
intrigue and deception was the stock in trade of that small residence,
and yet that subterfuge worked on some of his staff to hone whatever
muscles of honesty they were born with. I knew that, like a dancers
foot, human character could be fashioned through the persistence of
habit, and just as easily, warped or broken by some accident, an
obstacle, a miscalculation.
The young actress still had a thin skein of honesty and I feared
that it would snap and give just as soon as they landed in Liverpool,

424
and that for her at least, the shark she had seen was real. Something
in the girls eyes had made her trust her with this task. Over the top
corner of the letter my hand had hovered, mute, thinking of what to
write for a return address, and only then did it dawn on me that I did
not even have an address to which Myingun could write, except for c/o
Mssrs Dawson and Parry, Liverpool. So I wrote that address and trusted
that he or U Maung Lwin would find a way to reach me through their
other networks. .
And then one morning, the morning after Id woken up to find
that Mr. Little had stolen my rings, the morning after my fainting spell,
Id heard an urgent knocking on her window, and pushed up her sash
window, to look out across the roof opposite to the house next door
where an Indian servant cared for the ailing child of a retired colonel.
He was leaning out of the window, rapping on our windowpane with a
long cane, and then he threw into my room a letter, fastened around a
rock. He did not smile, did not frown, simply threw the letter and then
pulled his head back in as if nothing had happened, and pulled his
window to. Then, once he was safely inside, and our worlds divided
again, he gave me an odd little salute.
I unwrapped the letter and found only an address, an address in
London, and tied to the rock too, was a single gold sovereign, as if my
good deed to the young woman who had returned had folded back on
me. When I examined the paper more closely, I saw that it had been

425
ripped off a larger page, and saw the fringes of what looked like a
peacocks tail, the symbol of Myngun.
It was Sunday, and Mr. Little never came back from his pub lunch
until 3.30, and Nancy was out visiting her mum, that was their routine,
and they would talk openly in front of me, occasionally airing their
doubts, what if she were to run off? Not suspecting I understood more
than Hallo pretty lady, luvverly dancing, bye-bye. In the beginning, Id
let them think that way to emphasise my Burmese charm, Mr. Dawson
was not much different to Mr. Parry in that way, he figured Asian ladies
were put on this world to be Asian ladies and to make up for all those
feminist English ladies, and if he had his way, hed say some nights
after a few too many beers, those feminists should be packed off to the
colonies, the lot of them, and if the ship they were on went down lock
stock and barrel then wouldnt the world be a quieter place? They was
rocking the boat, he said, and Nancy would giggle and powder her
nose and adjust her bosom. So I kept my English quiet, and when they
sometimes aired concerns that I might do a runner, I kept quiet too,
but I heard clear enough where the spare key was, because Nancy at
least had a heart, and she thought it would be a terrible thing if the
building burned down and she in it, while they were off out, not just the
business of a fire breaking out, but how could they replace her? Mr.
Little had shaken his head and told her a fire would never break out,
dont be daft, but Nancy had pointedly patted the Russian tea urn and

426
nodded at me while Mr. Little had his back turned to refill his glass, and
made a sign of opening the door. She did not think I would do a runner,
this I could tell, for she could not imagine anywhere better than this
small corner of life with Mr. Little, nowhere better for me to run to.
And so I came to know that the spare key was kept in the
Samovar, an old silverplated urn that he would kiss once a week and
say youre my little treasure, I supposed because it was his most
valuable possession. Only Mr. Little and Nancy were allowed to touch
the samovar, and I knew better than to arouse their suspicions by
leaving my fingerpints on it when they were out. But after reading the
letter, and checking the clock nearly three already, I had rushed to the
Samovar and without even stopping to put my gloves on, Id reached
inside and searched for the key but it was not there. Then Id pushed
my finger into the spout, and wiggled it around, and out they fell, my
rings, and a few other pieces of jewellery, too.
I left the other pieces, but I took the rings, and then I lifted up
the samovar and saw the key under it, and took it out. I opened the
door and put it back in place, so that Nancy would not get a hiding,
and pushed the other rings into the spout, and then I did something
that I knew was stupid, idiotic, that risked ruining everything. Mr. Little
had a little silver matchbox, Id seen it many a time, and Id once heard
him boast hed filched it from a gentleman on the steamer, for Mr.
Little wasnt above a little redistribution of wealth, as he called it. It

427
was silver, with a slat in each side to strike the match against, and on
the front was a scene of a date palm and a temple, and on the back
was a design that reminded her of a peacocks breast. My hand
hovered on it, then drew back, and I packed my bag, a bar of soap, my
two spare skirts, and folded in with them the cloth and its red and
white checkers.

I still did not know why I carried the chessboard with me, rolled
up. What use was it with no pieces? I had learned the game the way
she learned languages, by watching and listening, sometimes peeking
from behind the curtain in U Maung Lwins cubicle, or, if I was in the
room, always careful not to give away what I knew.
I had taken good care of Lu Pyes pieces, had polished them and
cleaned them and packed them away, after he and Myingun played
each night at camp. The night before they reached Xiengtung, two
nights before, when the red king had gone missing, I had known this
was a portent. I thought it had rolled under the tent sides and been
carried away, it was one of the red pieces, and I had polished it to a
shiny brightness. I blame myself, the chess piece, the wind, for
everything that changed after that. For the spider smashed under that
rock. Had it been making for Myingun, or Lu Pye? I had never since
played chess. But always I carried the cloth.

428
Church bells chimed somewhere, snapping me out of my past. I
packed the chessboard, but not that haunted costume; that I would
leave. Maybe Nancy could even take my place the thought filled her
with pity for the costume, I imagined Nancy jerking it up her body,
squeezing herself into it - and got to the door, when I turned back. I
grabbed the matchbox off the mantelpiece where he had left it, and
something in that action quickened my pace too much; as I was
leaving, Ms. Gibbett, the landlady, stuck her head out of the door and
looked up at me from the downstairs landing.
Eveything allright she asked? Are you sure Mr. Little knows you
are going out now? Doesnt seem right to me, and she moved to bar
the lower door.
I loosened my reclaimed ring from my finger, and pretending
not to understand a word shed said, held it out to her. Ms. Gibbett
squinted hard at it, moved it to her downy lips, then bit the gold band.
With the ring between her teeth she looked up the stairs and out the
door, to check noone had seen anything amiss, and gave me a sly look
and the closest thing to a smile Id ever seen on her face, and stood
back to let me pass. I knew what lay behind that smile, and it was not
friendship. The smell of mutton fat had permeated the wood, the
wallpaper, Miss Gibbetts hair, and a kettle was whistling, and hearing
its whistle jolted Miss Gibbett back into action. I knew that as soon as I

429
was out the door shed be sending her son down the pub to fetch Mr.
Little, but I also knew that despite being crooked as they come, Ms.
Gibbett had some standards, and a trade was a trade. Honor among
thieves, I later learned, but that English phrase was not yet known to
me.

I walked to the corner as calmly as I could, and then I darted into

a doorway to catch my breath. I started out anew, headed for the

docks. Soon enough I had lost myself in the crowds. I knew that at the
dock I would find someone who spoke Burmese, there were all sorts
here, porters, offloaders, sailors, laksars, it was the laksars I was
interested in, their coppery sinewy bodies shrouded in coarse wool
jackets, blankets, pulled tight against the Liverpool air, cloth caps a
sign of their new geography. I signaled to one. I had learned only
snippets of their language, languages seemed to stick to me, to seek
me out, so that wherever I traveled, fragments of dialect, sayings,
words, stuck to me; a patchwork.
Id learned some Hindi in Mandalay.. When they saw me
signaling they looked bemused, and I was glad that when I had
stopped to pick up the silver matchbox, Id scooped up the cigarette
papers and the pouch of tobacco, too, that lay next to it. To London? I
asked, hesitant, and then I began to laugh at myself, for the first time
in what seemed like years; I had been picking through my brain for
scraps of Hindi, and come out with this, two English words.

430
How get to London?
He looked uncertain. How strange I must have looked, standing
there, unescorted, foreign, with my motheaten velvet dress, outmoded,
ruched up at the back but no hoops to hold it up, and the worn boots,
one laced through with a length of leather twine, one with a piece of
string Id dyed black from the scrapings of a tin of dubbing Id found in
Ms Gibbetts scullery, and my bonnet, only faintly hiding her duskiness.
And yet maybe I was not so strange. For when I looked closely at the
faces of the English girls, at their hair, their eyes, I would wonder how
many different journeys lay behind their powdered faces, how many
sea-crossings, lovers trysts, infidelities and adulteries were knit into
their blood, their hair, their coal-dark eyes.
Id seen Welsh ladies who could have passed for Chau Yats
Anglo-Indian governess at the house in Rangoon, and English
gentlemen with hair that curled with the faintest frizz, whose baby pink
cheeks and blue eyes were undone by a different fold in their eyelid, or
a hooked nose. Id learned to read faces from Ya Hmen, he had never
laid a finger on me all that time Id been in hiding with him, he had
pulled her to one side, each day they wound through the mountains in
the caravan, and ask me, at the end of the day, to describe all the
people with whom theyd traded and to list them in order of first,
honesty and second, position and third, wealth.

431
After a while, Id begun to see a linkage, an order, and he would
teach me the signs, how to read a gaze. But when I came to England
Id felt lost. Id had to start all over again. Only some of the rules hed
taught me seemed to apply here. Perhaps it was the vowels, she
thought, shed learned her a-e-i-o-u, only five vowels, perhaps that
paralysed faces, choked the expression out of people, and yet she
always marveled at how Mr. Dawson went on about inSCROOTable
Asiatics. Inscrutable, Id loved that word, almost as much as his other
favourite, ExSCROOSHiATing. So Id read the Laksars face.

knew how to pick my helpers, and I knew how to pick my exits too, how
to move so that I was always on the move, never retracing her steps,
always looking, even if I was uncertain of my whereabouts, as if she
had her destination in sight, a determined stride, STRIDENT, I liked to
call it, STRIDING out, but I walked still in buttery, quiet, close-together
steps, my mother would have expected nothing less of me, this at least
I would retain, if only this, of my mother.
Yes? he asked, and again that dizzy feeling crept up on me, and I
breathed in sharply. Yes?
To London? I asked, again, and I held the cigarette, freshly
rolled, between the tips of my teeth and lit it for him, the same way I
had done for Myingun, only ever done for Myingun, the same way Mr.
Little had trained the other performers to do for the show.
But he was not looking at me, he was looking at the silver

432
matchbox. If my mind had not been so fully on Myngun, I might have
thought to hide it. Too late I closed my fist around it hard, with this I
would not part - could not. I practically forced the cigarette upon him,
then turned as if to run, when I felt a hand upon my shoulder. It was
not unfriendly, and with it came a stream of Hindi came out, and then I
turned to see my neighbours servant. I cringed, was terrified he was
drawing too much attention to me.
It is quite alright, he told me, my master is declining in health
and his limbs may be wasting away, but there is nothing wrong with his
eyes, and after he saw you leave the house today, he called me to him
and asked me to go and see if you were alright, at which I suggested
that he might like to send an invitation to Mr. Little to join him for tea, I
had just brought down the tea and fruit-cake, and he gave a smile and
a wink and said he jolly well would, what a damn fine idea. My master
has released me for the day. I am instructed to take you to the train
station, and put you on the 3.22 to London Liverpool Street. Were you
planning on traveling by boat?
And then he saw the matchbox.
Where did you get this?
She shook her head, lowered her eyes.
I - borrowed it From Mr. Little?
He took my ring!

433
Never mind the ring, do you know anything about this matchbox,
where he got it?
It seemed a silly question, and I was getting annoyed, and began
to fret that I would never make the train, never leave Liverpool. I cast
about me and I did wonder if Mr. Little would be out looking for me. I
did not have a watch and I could not see the clocktower from where we
stood, but the train must be leaving any minute, it was barely 3.00
when I had left the house, and no cab would stop for him, an Indian in
native dress, of that I was sure. But I was wrong, and he bundled me
into a cab and together we rode to the train station, he standing up on
the outboard (wrong term), posing as my servant.
Night fell early, and the rattle of the train was making me feel
sick, the windows gave out on nothing but darkness, and I yearned for
the brightly lit first class carriage with its warm red velvet and clink of
crockery and tea and cake and sherry, Id seen a glimpse of it. In third
class there were no lights.I pulled my shawl around me and pretended
to sleep, clutching my bag tight all the time, and wondered how the
rest of the troupe was doing. Id heard nothing since they left. Theyd
be in Germany by now. Or was it Greece? I missed their upsets and tiffs
and disagreements, their petty rivalries and the deep camaraderie that
threaded through it all, and their laughter. It was the laughter that I
missed most.

434
She knew this was the right house, there could be no mistaking
it, shed been given the number and the street, and on the way to the
station the Indian, whose name she still did not know, had told her the
door was red and the knocker would be shaped like a swan and that
there was a small park opposite.
He described it so clearly that I wondered if hed worked here
before but she dare not ask. Hed told me it had dark green hedges
and a rosebush in the middle of the square, and that this is where the
Viceroy liked to take his early morning walks, usually with his paper,
but they did not call them walks, they called them
CONSTITUTIONALS. Id peered over the gates of the square on my
way up the street, in my determined slow-but-hurried gait.
I wasnt sure if it was the Viceroy. There was a man with a gold
fob watch and sprawling white whiskers and a buttoned waistcoat and
over it a coat that reminded her of a beetle carapace and the most
polished shoes Id ever seen, sitting on a bench looking at a
newspaper. A cane was propped up against the bench. Its silver orb
reminded me of the night she left Mandalay, the last time I had seen
the Kinwun Mingyi.
The woman who answered the door was ample in girth and her
broad face was creased and dimpled and she had a look of curiosity
about her and a seriousness which seemed feigned, as if she were
wrestling with a smile. This was Cook. When I showed up at the door

435
asking about the job the first thing she did was to grab my hands and
look at them. Cook had knuckles thick as garlic bulbs and skin was as
thick veined as freshly quarried marble. Id looked down at my own
pale tapered fingers and felt oddly comforted as cook pressed her
rough paws into me. Against her heft, my hands felt hungry,
neglected.
Married, eh? cook asked, and I glanced up to see her eyes
boring down on the faint indents in my flesh where my rings had once
been. Her fingers squeezed that bandmark, too.
No, Maam I said.
What line of work have you been in?
I was a maid before.
And before that?
Before that I was a maid, too.
Maid in Dresden if you ask me, look at those bones, pretty as a
China doll, said cook, and I stepped back a little.
Scrawny thing arent you? We need someone who can pull her
weight around here, and who knows the difference between a mop and
a pail, looks like bleeding royalty to me, lah-de-dah, she said.
I knew better than to talk back. I had taken off my earrings and
pulled my hair back in a bun, and had put on a frilly white cap that Id
found in Mr. Littles kitchen. I had almost forgotten the letter, the
Indian manservant had pressed it upon me as I boarded the train. I

436
drew it out from my muff. I have a letter of introduction, I said, and
cook studied the gold and blue crest on the back of the envelope and
raised her right eyebrow.
Well, I suppose we can give you a try, she said. When can
you start?

The cook wasnt interested in a reply. She threw Ma May an

apron, grabbed a pail and a bucket, and took her outdoors to the tap.
Her hands were almost translucent in the ocld, the tap had a leak and
cook showed her how to wrap her hand around it as she filled the
bucket, and then she got her to put the bucket down in the kitchen and
called SALLY!
And another girl, much younger than her with freckles from ear
to ear and a big gap in her teeth, slouched across the floor.
What is she going to be doing then?
Never you mind, said cook, and she took me back up through
the servant stairs. A dark blue curtain hung over them. The stairs
smelled of polish.
First rule of house, said cook, only ever come in by the back
door, only ever use these stairs. His Lordship was very upset by the
last maid, she spilt his inkpot all over his papers, silly girl couldnt even
read, lord knows what she was doing cleaning his desk, you are not to
go anywhere near his papers right, all you need to do is dust the books

437
and polish the chairs and keep those windows spotless.
Then she turned and I followed her back down the stairs, and had
to stop myself from crying out in fright half way down. There coming
up the stairs, holding a tray stacked with silver and toast and an egg
and something that smelled like fish, almost like nga-pi, was a man in a
black suit moving ghost-like. Closer to, his complexion reminded me of
a frog. His cheeks were drawn and sallow and slightly blotched, but his
throat was puffed out, and his white collar drawn tight. He did not
acknowledge cook or me, and walked with his nose and chin tipped up.
That, whispered cook when they were back in the kitchen, Was
the Head Butler. You watch your step with him, if anyone has the
Lordships ear, its him. Oh and by the way, cook said,
Always remember to curtsey if you ever pass the Lordship even
if its in a church, not that that would ever happen to you youre all
eathen over there, aint you, but you will be saying grace with the rest
of us, do you understand me?
From this Ma May learned, cook always saved the most important
information for her parting shot, and if you didnt catch it, so be it.
Cook never paused for breath between words, they came out in a
broken hiss like steam from the big copper kitchen kettle just before it
boiled. All I had to do to win her affection, or what passed for affection
in cooks book, was to screw my eyes up hard and listen so intently
that she was worried she would come away from this new mission with

438
frown lines etched deep in her brow. Cook liked the fact that she gave
her her full attention. Ma May knew from the first time theyd looked
each other over there on the back doorstep, that cook was smart as a
whip underneath all her bluster and aprons and business, and she
could tell the difference between the dumb, distracted looks of her
other servants whose yes maams were always one step ahead or
behind of her commands.

Back home the days stretched out long and light. In Burma the
sun climbed up then rose tilted spilling its light across the paddy fields,
through the leaves, so that even in the forests, the light would filter
and bounce through the green canopies, throwing the Buddha images
and stupas that dotted the jungle paths into soft relief. In Scotts market
on Strand Road, even when the shutters were down, there was a
softness to the shapes and sounds that made everything somehow
approachable.
But here in England light seemed rationed, bottled up, as if days
had shrunk, were shrinking into nothing but one slim strand of light
sandwiched between the mornings and afternoons. Here in England the
darkness grew like the ink blots on Lord Curzons blotting pad, and
sometimes up in the servants garrett her dreams would fill with that
darkness and shed find hers elf back home in Thatyetmo, ladling up
the water from the chipped urn at the back, with the coconut shell, and

439
instead of rainwater with its brackish, faintly earthy scent, thered be
ink streaming out over her, ink that she couldnt wash off but settled
over her in one dark birthmark enfolding her like a map, ink that
smelled of coal and tar and that bitter dark beer, peat-black. Noone
had told her England would be anything but cold and foggy, and she
knew by cold they meant not just the weather and the north wind but
temperaments, although every now and then shes chance across
someone warm. But mostly those faces would shut down and lock up
when she took off her bonnet and they saw her Burmese features.
One of her jobs was to help the coal man bring in the coal round
the back, and the coal would always rub off on her fingers, and she
wondered if cook had given her that job out of spite, because her
hands were so long and elegant and unspoiled from her life on the
stage. Each mealtime shed save a scrap of the lard they scaped on
their toast, mostly it was pig lard but on Sundays it would be mutton
fat, she save a little bit an dpinch it up into a ball and shed drop her
knife or spoon and as she reached to pick it up, quick while noone was
looking, shes lip the ball of tallow inside the top of her boot, until she
got nicknamed dropfingers and cook warned her she would lose her job
if she kept dropping things like that, so then shed just rub it into her
palms rith there under the table and press it in deep while they all said
grace. Everyone had to say grace, our dear father who art in heaven
hallowed by thy name for what we are about to eat and she wondered

440
if it was wrong to have bad thoughts about the food, she would silently
replace the lord with Buddha, and once she tried saying it in Burmese,
but cook had pulled her aside afterwrds and said they wouldnt have
that savage behaviour in this house, England is as England does, when
in Rome she said, and that was confusing.
At night shed go up to the attic room that she shared with Sally.
Sally flinched whenever she came near. In the morning, Sally made a
big fuss of wiping the washstand down and picking up the jughandle
with her washcloth protecting her from what she called, in muttered
breath, native germs.
There were birds nesting under the eaves. Ma May came to know
their rhythm, to like their comings and goings. When she was at her
most tired, and lay down at the end of the day in a body that seemed
as foreign as this land, for all the new muscles that she had grown,
sprouted by what cook called elbow grease, she would sometimes
close her eyes and breathe in softly and let her mind drift, and imagine
herself fluffing up her feathers and flying out there with them, back
across the skies, back south where the swallows migrated.
At night Sally would part her thinning hair, brush it out twentyone strokes each side, push it carefully into a frilled nightcap that she
clipped on with pins, and snuff out the candle with a longhandled metal
thing that she explained to Ma May in long, pained breaths, pushing

441
her lips out the way the kalamas had spoken to her in court when they
thought she was dumb, was Made in Sheffield where her uncle owned
a knifeworks. She never veered from this routine. When Ma May had
once leant across her and shown her how to pinch the wick out with
her fingers, Sally had complained that she didnt extinctwich it
properly, and that the inconsequently smutty air had given her sore
dreams. If you dont mind she had told Ma May, this was Sallys
responsibility since if it were not done properly, a fire might result.
Sally handled the Sheffield snuffer with great reverence, as if the future
of the British peerage lay in its scant dimensions. To Ma May it made
no difference who put out the light.
What mattered was that it was gone, that feeble flame that
illuminated the differences between them. With Sallys back turned
resolutely to her, Ma Mays would slowly exhale all the bad and unkind
thoughts she had had that day and send them upward through the
skylight - a skylight that Sally liked to pull tight lest the night air let the
chills into her bones and give her kidney stones. Lying on her back, in
the dark, was when she felt most at home. The absence of light had
never scared her.
Fear had little to do with the movements of sun and moon. This
much, Ma May knew. In Moulmein, when they were on the run, the dark
had kept them safe.

442
The deepest shade, she knew, came from within. In Mandalay,
she had seen darkness foul a sunlit day and blood drench the prison
floor in the pristine light of dawn. Shed seen how crime could congeal
on flagstones only to flake away, when the pariahs were picking over
the bones and the vultures still wheeling overhead.
The dark intrigued her. She remembered how uneasy Myingun
had felt at night, nervous at the slightest animal rustle on the trail,
startling at shadows, practically hugging that checkered cloth as he
and Lu Pye vied nightly for control of the chessboard. She knew, too,
that Myingun loathed constricted spaces as much as he feared the
dark. She often wondered how it had been for Myingun, in that trunk,
smuggled across an ocean, stashed away.
***
I dipped the pen into the crystal inkwell one more time, then took it
out, rested it on the blotter and stared at the stolen paper. I turned my
head to the window and got up from his chair, walked around Curzons
desk to the curtains and pushed back their heavy drape, squinting
slightly at the constellations and getting the full measure of the moon.
The night was clear and the silver fires of the moon and stars shone
bright. I let the curtains fall back into place then resumed my seat at
his desk and began my letter. Monday six waxing moon, I wrote.
It was a crime worth my job - at least the job that Sally and cook

443
and everyone here thought I had - to be sitting here like this. As for
that other job my assignation - whatever it was that Myingun
imagined I might be doing in England to further his cause was not
poaching Curzons chair nor swirling his lordships gold-nibbed pen in
his inkwell.
Curzon had gone off to his country lodge. Butler had been called
away on urgent family business; my attempt to inquire as to the nature
of it had drawn the sternest of looks from Cook, who was temporarily
in charge. I should have been using this time to rifle the drawers, to
find the key to Cursons writing desk. I should have been channelling
all the quiet, controlled movement of my dancing career into seeking
any documents that might help the princes cause. But I had grown
tired of waiting for clear answers as to what precisely my role here in
the heart of empire, should be.
It was past midnight. Sally had taken several surreptitious swigs
from the bottle of dregs Cook kept back each night for her cooking
wine, to give my dishes that extra edge. Even if Sally did wake up
and see me gone, she was being much nicer to me now since Id told
her the secret of mutton fat and let her rub in the last remaining grains
of my thanaka powder overnight. The thing Sally wanted most in the
world, I had discovered since her return from her fathers funeral, was
to make her freckles fade. Once she had confessed this, she had begun

444
treating me with something akin to affection, and once joked that I was
her older sister, and began to study my way with my hair and my
face each morning at the wash stand.
The writing paper on Curzons desk felt smooth as skin. I had
never felt paper like it, so much smoother than the stubs of tickets
from our music hall days, or the scraps of news the fishmongers and
butchers used to wrap their wares. In Burma, Chandernagore and
Pondicherry, I had acted as messenger for the princes missives, but
the envelopes he used were coarser than the neat pile of stationery I
found here tonight.

I traced my index finger over the raised lettering

giving the address of Baron Curzon of Keddlestone. For a moment, I

was Lord Curzon, and the paper a treaty, I, Lord Curzon, hereby
declare Britains rule over Burma null and void, and then, struck by the
enormity of my crime - this double theft of his seat and his stationery cast around for an alternative to the headed paper. But it was all that
was out here, alongside a tray of envelopes, and a crimson candlelike
thing. Sealing wax. I picked it up and turned it in my fingers and then
lifted it to my nose and as I did so something squeezed my heart so
strong that I winced in pain. The scent and feel of the red wax took me
back to one of my last memories of Lu Pye - when I, Lu Pye and
Myingun had visited the Sawbwa in Xiengtung. Although I had greedily
claimed credit when Myngun praised me, it had been Lu Pyes idea to
pack the red sealing wax in a small tube to seal our treaty. Deep in the

445
saddlebag it had hidden, affixed to a gold plate. It was years since I
had allowed my thoughts to turn to that time, and the remembered
sound of Lu Pyes laugh sliced like a rapier against the back of my
throat.
To steady my nerves, I turned my attention back to the task at
hand. I would warm the wax over the candle flame and seal the letter
with the embossed side of the silver matchbox whose reclamation had
led me on this nocturnal escapade. This had been Mynguns gift, and I
had foolishly let it drop from my muff where I clutched it on my first
visit to the house. Since the day Curzon had shown it to me and I had
pretended not to recognize it, worried lest he would trace the link to
Myngun, he kept it on his desk equipped with a small pack of matches
that slid in and out of the silver box. I considered how I would clean the
wax off the silver, and then worried whether that would make too much
of a mess. And then the enormity of what I was doing brought me
back to the reason I was seated here. My grandmother would turn
ninety in December. I had promised to send her news every month.
She would find someone to read the letter for her.
Dear grandma, I began, I am living quite comfortably. Two
months ago, when one of our troupe, Saya Kan Baw, left Europe to
return to Burma, I sent eight sovereigns to you and seven Longhis of
best Manchester cotton for Ma Nyiu, did you receive them? For your

446
grand-daughter Ma Thein (tell her that I miss her and make sure to
brush her hair nightly) I sent two jackets and three boxes of toy
teasets and a special bristle hairbrush with lion and unicorn and sign
by appointment to her majesty the queen on the handle. Besides
sending you a wicker basket, and bedding and two of my photos.
As I told you in my letter of two of waxing Jagu 1259 Buddhist
Era it was not at all as we had planned. Ko Jiu has gone to London. At
first we were paid weekly, but for the last seven weeks we were here,
and during which period we did no acting but the men built Burma
houses for a show, and then the others decided to go on the tour to
Europe to a country called Greece and also Germany, and now they did
not give us money for our passage back.
Mr. Little was not at all a good man to us. I was wrong not to
follow your teaching about close-set eyes when in same face with thin
lips. Bad intent. Now I will be more careful. But please do not entertain
any apprehension on our count we are comfortable. The period we
agreed to perform ceased last Nadaw. Now the others are going to try
to find a lawyer to collect Rupees 100/ for their passage back home
from the English men Parry Dawson and Company they cheated us
over here, but I am doing well and in good health, when you next see
U Saya, he said you would call on you every month, they are still there.
I knows before I finish writing that I will never send this letter. I

447
have never had Myinguns talent for deception. Untruths announce
themselves on my face in red flushes and will leap out of my words in
the same loud way. Better that she write nothing, than send grandma
these seeds of doubt and worry. Better to let the toy tea set, the
hairbrushes, and the Manchester cottons speak for her. I know that
grandma will have received the gifts. Saya Kan Baw, the drummer who
had found the funds to return to Mandalay, is an honest man who has
known my family for a long time.
Words are not mine to bend. Easier to dance a strangers heart,
to perform another life on stage, than to craft myself on paper.
She stared at the paper, at the spreading inkblot. Since Lu Pye
had died, since her mourning period was only days young, I had not
shed a single tear. I lifted up the pen and shook it gently until a black
drop bloomed in the nibs gold crease. Careful not to let it soak
through the paper onto Curzons blotter, I raised up the paper slightly
and rolled the liquid bead back and forth across the wording. Then I
folded the paper in half. My finger pressed down on the crease. Then I
unfolded it. A butterfly had formed, its wings blurred and seeping at
the edges.
I folded the paper neatly, like a concertina, until it was the
thickness of my middle finger. When I slipped it into the sleeve of her
nightshirt, and felt the goose bumps on my skin, I remembered how

448
cold she was. I had never had trouble seeing in the dark. Not like
Myingun. How scared of the dark he had always been. His phobia
worsened on the voyage to Saigon. The housekeeper there had once
complained to me about the number of candles and the amount of
lamp-oil they went through in a week, double what it used to be, she
said, and then: Maybe hell sleep better now youre here.
I wondered what Myingun was doing now, and what stage the
sun was at in the sky, had it risen yet? How did the days differ?
Midnight here was twilight there, she thought, but was not sure. Was
he looking through his window, a sign that he was in a good mood, or
did he have his back turned to it, a sure signal of a querulous day, or
did he have his back hunched over a chessboard, a sign that some new
escape route was unfolding in his mind?
A drop of hot wax spilled on her fingers. As if to snuff out the
thought of Myingun, I closed my fingers on the candle wick. But the
singed air only took me further away, back to Mandalay and the night
Id first seen the Kinwun Mingyi up close. The night the British soldiers
had pilfered the royal library and burned more books than Curzon could
ever cram into the shelves of this study. The thought of the Kinwun
Mingyi chilled me and I focused her mind back on the letter, and willed
her thoughts to travel to her mother, and puzzled at the perfect form
of the ink butterfly that had spread its wings across the pages. Was it

449
a sign?
When they had been on the road, Lu Pye had told her that signs
did not arrive with a Buddhas halo. They came when you least
expected them, and sometimes they did not reveal themselves to you
for years. For the first time in years, a tear pricked my eye. I bit my lip.
Then I drew myself up as tall as I could, walking almost on points to the
window, and took one final look at the moon. My cheek brushed
against the thick velvet drapes. The tear did not grow further. But its
beginning felt, to me, like a sign. I did not search the face of the moon
for a rabbit, as her grandma had taught her to do. I studied it as I
might have studied a peach or a dinner plate or any other thing on
earth. Then I let the curtain drop.
My right hand gripped tight around the candlestick, the other
feeling my way, I slipped out of Curzons study, into the paneled
corridor, between the black curtains that divided servants from
masters quarters, and back through the stairs and passages that led to
my attic room. I had come barefoot so that she could better feel the
way, and the cold pinched at my feet. By the time I reached our
bedroom door, I could barely feel my toes.
I had left the door ajar but when I entered the room and pushed
it slightly, it gave a loud creak. Sally startled and sat bolt upright.
Whats on the menu today then? she said, voice slurred, and I

450
knew she was only sleeptalking.
Goose livers in port wine, I said, and set the candlestick down.
High above the skylight hovered the moon. I eased myself back
into bed very gently, as if carrying some delicate ornament on whose
preservation her life depended. I opened and shut her eyes, trying to
massage the spent teardrop into something more, but nothing came.

CHAPTER THIRTY

The Typewriter

451
U Maung Lwin resisted the urge to check over his shoulder. His
hands hung suspended over the typewriter, like some lay-woman who
had sneaked past the temple custodians to apply gold leaf to the
Mahamuni image, only to find her limbs frozen with the pull of its
divinity and the gravity of her planned sin. HIs eyes widened.
Its exquisite symmetry, coupled with the solidity of its steel
casing, seemed to cry out for a propitiation or a consecration, whether
to a Nat or the Buddha, he was not sure. The more he struggled to
repress these thoughts the more they beckoned to be reckoned with.
His throat tightened at the thought that with its first use, he
would somehow set this contraption in perpetual motion, the way a
monk could bring a Buddha statue to life by blessing its eyelids. The
responsibility unnerved him, for unlike a monk, who had training in
such rituals, U Maung Lwin was no more equal to the occasion than a
virgin groom on his wedding night. His heart stopped for a second and
he glanced around him before breathing out in relief at the
confirmation that he was alone with his thoughts. And yet, faced with
the strangeness of this object and the gravitas of the moment, his
solitude scared him a little. He began to murmur softly to keep
himself company, voicing whatever words came into his head as he
searched for ways to describe it.
The more he stared the clearer it became that the image of the
Mahamuni Buddha did not fit at all. In searching for a connection

452
between the equipment before him and that sacred form, he supposed
that what had prompted him to link this gadget to such statuary was
its sheer amplitude, and its generative powers.
His splayed fingers shivered lightly, a cats whiskers breadth
above the keys. There was something ethereal in their metallic
levitation, each tab raised on its lever, air circulating between them.
Then, as he pondered the idiosyncrasy of such a majestic object, how
the z led back around to the a in no obvious sequence, he closed his
eyes for a moment of meditation. When he opened them again he was
met with a steel-toothed grimace, as if some capricious Nat had
slipped in between the crevices of the keyboard and now yawned at
him, waiting to be fed.
With faint surprise he saw that his hands had already made
contact, as if guided there by other, invisible digits. Sweat collected in
the keys as his fingers moved across them. He pressed down on its
disjointedness, and closed his eyes again as his fingers continued their
surveillance, scaling its metallic architecture, groping its skeletal form,
pressing hard until each key yielded a little against its spring, first one
by one, then with all eight fingers in unison, and then his thumbs. A
boyish smile lit across his lips. The clatter of metal forced his eyes
open.
The thing was done, the typewriter consecrated, its divine
essence unhinged. It was alive. Insect-legs were kicking up and out,

453
and then were just as soon locked in paralysis. He attempted to
memorize their pattern, fingering each embossed block, gently prising
them apart and back into their places. Then he lifted his hands off the
keys with a flourish, the way he remembered the black-suited pianist
doing the night the Baron had given him a spare ticket to the Opera.
The prongs clattered back. U Maung Lwin moved his hands out and
squeezed the flats of his palm hard against each side, as if he were
testing the resilience of a suit of armour, or attempting to milk music
from an accordion. Nothing. He shot a backward glance at the door.
He let out an embarrassed sigh and gave it one final caress.
Then he stepped back, moving his arms to his sides with an almost
martial formality. He walked across to the bureau and reached for some
paper. In a seasoned criminal, his slow, deliberate actions might have
concealed his guilt. But his cool and calm demeanor was so at odds
with U Maung Lwins normal gait that they merely highlighted his
unease.
He had still not told Myingun about his purchase.
He had placed the order on a whim three weeks ago. On a viscid
afternoon on a routine visit for stationery supplies. It was one of those
days that cried out for caution, where the raw heat gave everything a
hallucinatory quality.

Walking home, his heart beating faster than

usual, he had trained his eyes on the pavement, away from the vertical
haze where segments of the city seemed to totter in a hot shimmer,

454
and told himself that there was no need to consult the Prince about
such a mundane purchase. Far better to present this new acquisition
as a surprise.

Later, long after the heat had turned to twilight, he

had rehearsed his confession before a small glass which he had found
among Myinguns effects, and which Myingun told him had once
belonged to the Einshameen, his late Uncle.
The glass was spotted with age, but it functioned well enough,
reflecting back at him the rounded contours of his lips as they formed
such phrases as a most necessary investment, and in keeping with
Your Highness status and it is important to be -. But he could never
finish that phrase, and soon dropped it from his repertoire. Each time
he tried to mouth the word modern he choked on the second
syllable. Something about the word made him feel like a thief.
Not that it mattered. He had never got beyond these mirrorbound soliloquies. As he waited for the delivery of the typewriter, his
early morning walks around the small garden courtyard increased in
tempo, and every so often he would bite his lips to check he was not
talking out loud. With no warning, in among his pedestrian musings, it
came to him in a crack of sunlight one cloud-strewn morning that what
he had done was an act of virtue. The typewriter was a vehicle of
merit. This is how he would explain his actions to Myingun.
In U Maung Lwins hands, the typewriter would generate new
alliances which in turn would bring the prince more revenue and thus

455
augment his merit-making powers. The purchase had now become an
essential investment in the future of your cause. Not that the
typewriter had yet, exactly, been bought. For three days now it had
been sitting in its box, as if ignoring it could erase the extravagant
entry from the ledger.But since it would assist the Prince in his latest
business plans, there was no question that their account with Maison
Jacques would soon be settled.
Not until this morning had U Maung Lwin unsheathed it from its
packing papers. Once he had done so he had sat down and broke out
in a sweat.
Here in the princes house the typewriter looked very different to
the object on display in Maison Jacques. Against the rosewood desk
and lacquered pen-holders and box sets, its metalic symmetry spoke a
foreign-ness just short of treason. Amingala. The prince had a way of
whispering this curse far louder than any scream. Yes, he would see
this machinery as something amingala. Inauspicious. Amingala anglais.
And he would find some new way to punish U Maung Lwin. Give him
the most menial tasks. Show him up in front of their foreign guests.
Would - could - the prince dock his pay?
Perhaps the prince need never know. U Maung Lwin scratched
his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. It would be impossible to
hide. But already, U Maung Lwin had begun to consider putting it to
other uses. His frownlines dissolved as he imagined his translations of

456
poetry spiralling up out of it like smoke from an incense-wreathed
shrine.
A sharp tingling in his fingers drew him back to his senses. He
flexed his hands, cracked his knuckles and rubbed his palms together.
Holding his breath he unpacked the spool of typewriter-ribbon from the
box, and fed the indigo ribbon across from one spool to another. Blue
smudges grew on his fingers. He rubbed his hands against his longyi.
He picked up a sheet of paper from the ream of recommended
weight supplied alongside the typewriter with the compliments of
Maison Jacques, careful to keep his touch light so as not to leave blue
blemishes. He lifted up the bar, fed the page through just as he had
been taught on the display model, and smacked his lips at the
satisfying click as the bar sprang back, holding the paper in place.
The blank page stared back at him.
H R H, he typed, then stood back to admire his work before
returning to the keyboard. M-y-i-n-g-u-n M-i-n. He exhaled. Tap tap tap
went his finger on the space bar, until he had reached the far side of
the page. But there his fingers froze. He could not remember what
Monsieur Jacques had said about how to move the bar down to the
next line. U Maung Lwins ear for French was still weak, and Monsieur
Jacques spoke in a thick, cracked accent, and with every nod, U Maung
Lwin earned a fresh compliment on how good his French was to be able
to understand him so well. U Maung Lwin searched in the crate for the

457
instruction manual that Monsieur Jacques had promised him would
arrive, at no additional cost, with the delivery. It had 12 pages of
glossy illustrations. But the manual was not there.
Impossible that the fastidious store-hands would have neglected
to check for it. That rascal Thaitingyi must have been through the
crate already. No-one else in this house shared U Maung Lwins
fascination for such things.
The footfall behind him was soft and swift.
Are you looking for this?

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE 1890s - Looking to the Shan States/Taw

Sein Ko visit

The orders are in the air, traveling by wire. Telegrams are exchanged.
M. Picquet, the Governor of the French Indies, wires the Under
Secretary of Colonies.

Myinguns father (father-in-law?), he writes,

governs Hien-Hong (KengTung???).

In this area through which caravans pass to bring trade goods

458
from Yunnan into Burma, the commercial influence of France is being
felt in this vast region betwen the Mekong, Chinas southern frontier
and the valley of High Nam-Hou (Haut Nam-Ho). We must expand our
action into Sipsongbanna, where, if a power neither British nor Siamese
imposed itself, the chiefs of the Lai-Chan region would rally to us.
Auguste Pavie shares this view, and is delaying his trip to Kieng-Hong
(Keng Tung?) to the Autumn, at which time Prince Myngoon might be of
considerable assistance to us in facilitating our initial relationships with
this country. Myngoon writes to Pavie, cartographer extraordinaire and
Vice-Consul of Luan Prabang, who writes to the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs. He celebrates his friendship for France, and reminds Pavie that
he is still awaiting a decision on the matter of his departure for the
Shan and Lao states.
M. Le Myre de Vilers, Depute de la Cochinchine, also writes to
Pavie, pushing Myinguns cause. But Pavie is worried. Worried that
allowing Myingun free passage in the Shan states could create an
indigenous (autochtonous) state in Frances border regions. Pavie has
traveled in the Shan states, he has recently been on a mapping
journey with an old Indochina-hand, Lefebvre Pontalis. China would be
in favour of Myinguns return to the Shan states, Pavie reasons,
because he would create a buffer between Yunnan and the British.
But what would suffer, and, he implies, what matters more, is Frances
entente with England. He advises that nothing further should be done

459
on the Upper Mekong without Englands agreement. The French
government, Pavie writes, has taken on a certain responsibility in
assisting the princes passage from Pondicherry to Saigon. He
suggests a new home for the Prince: ., or Algeria.

[TAW SEIN KO SCENE]

His hair is prematurely grey. He is wearing a Mandarin collar

jacket fastened in the Chinese way. His wide black pants are fashioned
from fine Manchester woolens. His bag is what the English call a
satchel, leather, buckled, with the worn patina suggestive of a scholar.
His name is Taw Sein Ko, Brilliant Diamond, written in Burmese Chinese
and English on his visiting card. The card is large and stiff with a gold
rim. It announces him as Government Archaeologist.
Myingun has checked his pedigree. His father is a Chinese
merchant, his mother the daughter of a Shan chieftain. A brief
dalliance at Dr. Marks school for boys. In another life, their sons could
have been classmates. Taw Sein Ko is working for the British. His posts
are multiple. Translator, Guide, Interpreter. He has worked for Charles
Bernard, was with him when the British took Mandalay. He is passing
through Saigon on his way to Cambridge.
He has a good backbone. His temples are broad and honest.
Eyes bright and forward looking. But he sits with an awkwardness that

460
suggests another identity.
Your Highness, the Governor of India sends his best regards. For
my part, it occurred to me that you might enjoy some small taste of
Burma.
From his bag, he brings out a small bundle. The best pickled tea,
wrapped in banana leaf, fastened with straw. No airs and graces, no
tins of sardine paste or other affectations.
And this. A copy of the Rangoon times. Last to emerge is a
package dwarfed by his outstretched palm. From the Mahamuni
pagoda, explains Taw Sein Ko.
Gifts received must be returned in kind; but with what? Myingun
gives him his ear, his full attention. He signals to Ma May, to prepare
the finest foods. Their guest will stay for lunch.
Sir Thirkell White sends his regards.
Myingun cannot help but consider this a slight. He has never met
Sir White.
With what matter can I assist you? I am happy to deliver
counsel and advice to the British. Here I live in comfort, but his
voice trails off.
You see said Taw Sein Ko, his voice dropping to a hush.
Ordinarily he carries himself erect. Myingun has seen him stiff
and straight, his head lowered slightly too. There in the intimacy of
this room, he grows more supple. He is careful to keep his head and

461
shoulders lower than the princes.
As a proponent of a stable future for Burma, toward which goal I
have been working with the British, I thought it my business to - advise
you of a certain new development. I am here because the British have
placed their highest trust in me. Not having need of an interpreter, I
am here alone. I thought you might be interested in this. Taw Sein Ko
reached deep inside the cuff of his left jacket sleeve, and withdrew a
document, concertinaed to the thickness of his thumb, and no wider.
He unfolded it with arthritic fingers. Half-moons rose in unusual
symmetry at the base of his thumbnails. He began to read, his mouth
curved slightly downward. With guilt, Myingun thinks. It is guilt or
shame that pulls his lips down.
I have here the latest Confidential report of the Governor of
India. From which you will discern the high regard in which the British
hold you. The Governor writes of you, your highness, of Prince
Myngoon Min:

Is still a power in Burma, especially upper Burma, and as he

is not under Briitsh control, he might at any time raise his standard in
the Shan states. These facts constantly leave peoples minds disturbed.
..All necessary steps must be taken to enquire whether the Prince was
really willing to return to British territory and that it would be for the
Prince and his friends to make their own arrangement for evading

462
French vigilance. They further stated that they would look with great
suspicion upon any project to bring him to the Shan states.

Taw Sein Ko refolds the document and slips it back inside the
hem of his sleeve.
Questions snap and grab at Myinguns tongue but he is silent. A
skill exile has taught him.
Taw Sein Ko glances up at the map that Myingun has pinned to
the wall, with its out of proportion lines and veins and skeins of rivers
and mountain passes and crossing points. The map his son,
Thaithingyi, has sketched out, its curves and densely shaded
topographies mirroring those of France or England. Sequestered
elsewhere in this room are fragments of other plans. Hidden segments
of unmade journeys, the frail panels composed on this same chest, but
in another decade, another colony, by the mapmaker, U Yit. And the
tracks that bevel through Myinguns blood, for which his pulse is his
compass.
Through the Shan states from Yunnan, where the caravans of
Chinese Muslim traders come down from Talifu, though Toungooo,
serpentine, bulbous caravans of people and goods, 380 mules, 120
traders and porters, with pickled tea, paper for making umbrellas, gold
leaf, and the breech-loaders for protecting their revenue, 60,000
rupees worth. It was easy for Myingun to conceal himself. The British

463
commissioner was only too delighted to furnish them with papers for
the Railway Officals and Chief Collector of Customs in Rangoon, here
they would stock up on Manchester piece goods. Among the sweat and
stench of mule-spit and manure, he hid, princely cargo, their insurance
against bandits, all the more necessary now that the British insisted on
disarming them.
On another trip, 120 pack mules, 56 men, 35 muskets, 10 spears,
and 56 dahs. Myingun had trained himself to count, always had an eye
now for numbers, for sizing up the odds. Always his men were there,
surreptitious, just obvious enough to counter any threat. The traders
preferred to deal with the Sawbwas, who let them carry arms in the
Shan States, places free from excise. There were no tax or customs on
the Shan states. No palace monopoly. Trade was free. The Shan
Sawbwas were tired of the British, who make their gunrunning so much
harder. Under King Mindon, Myinguns father, the Shan traders would
furnish their broker with a list of arms, who would report to the
Hlutdaw, or Kings council, and received a Hlut permit to allow them to
carry arms. If the British are really strong, says the Sawbwa, they
would have come up to the Shan states long ago.
Myingoon had learned to listen, when he snuck into the back of
the Hlutdaw council, feigning boredom, or reverence for his uncle, or
an interest in the intricate wooden carvings, he would listen. He knew
that the trans-Salween states recognized neither British nor Siamese

464
suzerainty. He knew, from the times his father had received Sawbwas
in court, that the Shan chiefs spoke a language different from Burmese.
Myingun had picked up snatches of it, and he knew that the chiefs
were in disarray, that despite speaking a language that sounded much
the same to his young Burmese ear, they were at each others throats,
that whatever unity their language could have given them had
crumbled away, eroded by Burma, by China, by Siam.
He learned too the rituals of exchange. How what mattered was
not the parabaik, not the manuscripts elaborately updated by court
scribes, and guarded jealously by the Hlutdaws. No, what mattered
were the spoils of peace and war: the gilt umbrellas, the grandiloquent
titles, the tributes sent upward. Gifts that included princesses, the
kings own daughters, sworn away to seal an alliance. It was these
exchanges, the shimmer of the court ceremonies, the perfumed
trousseau of a new bride, not the stylus on the court records, that tied
his fathers kingdom to these outliers. And what he gave them was the
illusion of multiple kingships, endless kingdoms, each Sawbwa living as
a head of state in regal sway, after the fashion of a Burmese king.
His father, Mindon, had pioneered this conciliation. The older
Sawbwas remembered this. After Mindon died, they had begun to seek
him out. Through messages. Whispers and rumours that took months
to travel. By caravan, by pack-mule, by steamer. By mouth.
Burmas surveyors were still unfinished when Mackertoon visited

465
him and showed him a piece of paper, a map of unfinished business.
36 patches, signifying 36 states.
It was Mackertoon who had first told him about Taw Sein Ko, the
gentleman who now sat before him in his parlour, perched on the edge
of his seat, with small and delicate gifts that he draws with a patrician
air from a bag that, Myingun suspects, is otherwise empty of promises.
Myingun knows from court gossip that Taw Sein Kos roots run
deep into Shan territory. His heartland pitched somewhere between the
narrow allies in the bazaar at Bhamo where his father made the fortune
with which he bought the hand of Taw Sein Kos Shan princess wife.
Taw Sein Ko, Mackertoon told him, had suggested an intelligencygathering mission, sending sevveral Shan sawbwas in Mandalay to the
Shan states out back, over the hills of Mandalay, via Toungoo, into
China. As if they could gather intelligence the same way they gather
the poppy or jade clawed out of the seams of the earth and still cawled
in red dust.
Taw Sein Ko might be working for the British. But at heart,
Myingun intuits, he is a royalist, a conservative, who would rather see
Myingun on the throne of a Burma that is a province of British India,
than a Burma clinging to a foreign queens skirts.
Myingun has one small advantage. For all his colonial pedigree,
Taw Sein Ko is uncertain in this piece of France. For all his European
education, French is outside hes ken. Hes off his home-ground. He

466
will be more at ease in Cambridge, England, or conversing in Latin,
than in this bijou colony. But he knows his diplomacy. He, too, remains
silent.
Allow me to introduce the question of the imminent war, says
Myingun. May I venture to suggest that a European war is in the
making, and that the British will need to withdraw their troops from
Burma, and that when they do, rebellion is sure to follow?
As he speaks, his hands shuffle Taw Sein Kos miniature gifts of
tribute around in circles on the large chest that occupies the space
between them. He looks around him, impatient.
My chess set he commands his son, Thai Thin Gyi, the eldest.
He is sat in the corner, idly turning the pieces over. A pawn rolls off the
cloth chess-board as he scoops it up, brings it across, sets it down.
Not all of them, Myingun says. Thaitingyi picks out a few, sets
them down, retreats with the depleted chess-set bundled in the
checkered cloth.
There is only one condition under which I would surrender,
says Myingun. He looks up at Taw Sein Ko and smiles. His fingers close,
tweezer fashion, upon the shoulders of the King.
Taw Sein Ko is no chess player. But this move he can read. He
reaches into his bag again, withdraws a file. He holds its stiff board
covers, opens it at a narrow angle, and leafs through its contents.
On the question of your allowance, he begins, Her Majestys

467
Gov Allowance? Allowance? This is not a question of money. His
voice flutes up, like smoke from a sheesha. It is a question of
sovereignty, the future of my country. He pauses for air. May I
suggest a parallel, the case of Yakub Khan of Afghanistan? Recently
the British government have been looking after him very well, I
understand -
Myingun is still rankling from the copy of the internal
memorandum that Mackertoon had shown him. Mackertoon has a man
in the political department in Rangoon. A man, Mackertoon has
explained, who is sympathetic to their cause. Whose sympathies,
notwithstanding, from time to time, need a certain pecuniary incentive.
Taw Sein Ko has shared nothing with him he did not know. It is
what he is keeping from him that rankles Myingun. Myingun already
knows their price, and it bears no relation to his political value. The
British are happy to shell out Rupees 1,000./-, Mackertoon had advised
him, pointing with a hairy index finger to the smudged figure. The
prince, Mackertoon quoted from the grubby facsimile obtained by his
man in Rangoon, would be CHEAP AT THAT PRICE, AND HE IS THE ONE
MAN THAT COULD RAISE A GENERAL REBELLION IN UPPER BURMA.
Luncheon is served. They eat in silence.
Myingun claps his hands three times. Napoleon looks up from his
bolster, scuttles over to him, slobbers, and settles at his feet. Taw Sein

468
Ko gives a loud sneeze. Myingun resolves to seek the help of the
French in making his way into the Shan states. He wonders if
Mackertoons finances will stretch to keeping a closer watch on Taw
Sein Ko. When Taw Sein Ko draws on his postprandial cheroot and
exhales, he wonders, too, how Ma May is doing, in London.

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO - MA MAY - LONDON - BOMB SCENE

Ma May listened to the chime of the evensong church-bells and knew

that cook would be kneading dough in the kitchen and waiting for the
parsnips, checking the watch pinned to her breast, and cursing Ma May
under her breath. When the rain had started up she had drawn into
the first doorway she found and then felt her heart start up the way it
used to when she was on stage. Beneath her ugly, swinging dark
skirts, her feet tapped discreetly along to the music. Her nose was
running and her arms were wrapped tight around her to keep warm.
The horsehair doormat and her soaking boots were a far cry from a
stage, but still she could not tear herself away. She moved up closer to
the door. Her fingers found the letterbox in the gloom and she

469
crouched down and put her ear to it. Above but somehow part of the
music, came the voice. Elegant, mellow with age, rich and biscuity, it
rose and fall, dropped and soared. Arms in front of you it said. Then
the music, a distant hum, vibrating softly, and then the voice: Let us
do this again, encore, encore, and the music! And then you do a fast
count, and lets do two, one two, two UP UP, three, CLAP, CLAP, CLAP,
CLAP, Seven and EIGHT, and FORWARD MORE, PUSH YOUR STEP,
MOVE IN.
Ma May had sworn she would leave all that behind her now. Her
life had no place for music or dance.
But the music pulled her in. Her fingers felt for a crack in the
paneling. She peered in through the slit at the door hinge, but could
see nothing but red carpet, and another door closed. She stood back
upright and contented herself with the sound of, what was it? hard, like
drumsticks, rapping, rap, rap. Then the door opened, and a girl came
out, she had pink slippers on and nothing other than her underwear, it
seemed, and satin ribbons criss-crossed her legs. She walked across to
the door, and opened it slightly, just a crack, but wide enough so that
Ma May froze, shrank back into the corner, and peered out. And then
made her way back to the room, Still raining, she reported to its
inhabitants, and shut the door behind her.
Ma May been so absorbed in the music that the rhythm had

470
somehow overtaken that of the rain she was taking shelter from. On
her arm was a basket of shopping, drenched. Cook had said to be back
by five. How long had she been standing there? It was barely dark
when the rain had begun. Now it showed no sign of letting up, but she
could not stay here all night, shed be in enough trouble as it was
Inside the sound of the dancers feet drummed against the floors,
a heartbeat, and as she walked away she could still hear their teacher
ONE TWO, ARMS! ONE, TWO
Her feet fell muffled, cold, on the wet pavement.
She thought of the Burmese troupe, they were probably all
huddled up now, in Germany, Greece, wherever, sharing a beer or a
coffee, passing it round, or backstage, or even on a train headed for
their next show, but whatever and wherever they were, they were
together.
It was already November, her fourth week here in London, and
she had got nowhere with her assignment. The master of the house,
CURZON, kept all his papers tightly locked since the last maid had
messed up and spilled ink on them. She wasnt even sure which
papers she was looking for, or what she was doing in this house, and
deep down she couldnt help wondering that she was being used, that
shed been sucked into a plan that had nothing to do with her, nothing
to do with Myingun or his cause.

The butler was always snooping

471
around after her, his nostrils twitching, as if he smelled something
suspicious about her, and so far the only real piece of information she
had to report back was in her hands, no matter how hard she rubbed
those scraps of mutton fat in every night, the coalstains were there for
good. Her future as a dancer was ruined, but if she got out now, she
might at least take charge of her own destiny.
Her thoughts had led her nowhere. She had lost track of where
she was going, and she could not shake the music off, the rhythm
clung to her like the raindrops on her shawl. She shook her shawl
vigorously, but this only served to make her wetter still. She must
have stepped in a puddle, her right foot was cold and wet, and these
her only pair of boots. The rain had stopped its downward pelting, but
its after-breath was there all around, a fine fizz, settling on her face.
When she glanced around her to get her bearings, a cold shiver
streaked through her, clean as a bell. She had somehow turned off the
main street, where the bustling throngs had lost her in thought, and
was in a narrow ally, cobblestones underfoot, slippery in the wet. She
stopped, clenched her hands together, and was about to swing back
around when she saw, or sensed, something scuffling. A cat? As her
eyes adjusted to the dim circle of light cast by the gaslamp at the end
of the ally, she made out several figures, their backs to her. They were
huddled in the pool of sickly yellow light, and one of them, she was
sure, was wearing a turban. It must have been six or even seven

472
oclock, she pulled her coat tighter around her, and tipped her hat
down over her face. For seconds she stood there rooted to the spot,
she was already in darkness, but then she moved quietly back closer
into the wall, swung around, changed direction, and strode
purposefully away, as if her part had changed to a masculine role she
had only ever watched from the wings, from the forlorn maiden to
crown prince.
She moved back down the main thoroughfare, with the goods
laid out behind polished panes of glass, and the shop signs, dripping
wet, and the forlorn baskets of flowers, empty now in the winter except
for straggling trails of marbled ivy, and past the boisterous, yeasty
hum of the LAMB AND FLAG. The scene shed just left began to take
the unreal look of one of those shop displays, and she tried to put it out
of her mind.
Fireworks, Miss. Penny for the old guy? A little boy was
reaching out his hand to her from a doorway, what had Cook told her,
GUYFORKS day, dummies stuffed with straw, fireworks, she kept her
eyes down, she had no pennies to spare.
After a few minutes she turned down the side-street and heard,
creeping on the edges of the eventide traffic, the comfortable throb of
the ballet school, the piano music drifting across. Just one more look,
she thought. Might as well be hung for a sheep, she mouthed cooks

473
phrase.
And then out of nowhere, a whip seemed to crack across her
cheek. A sound like canonfire shook through her body. The shatter of
glass, two startled horses overturned a carriage. She realized she had
dropped her basket but also that it did not matter that cooks parsnips
would be ruined now. The whole of London seemed to be shaking,
vibrating. Screams were coming from the street. Ma May lay trembling,
crouching in the doorway, gulping for air.
The piano had stopped, her ears were ringing. Her body was
numb except for the splinter in her hand, or maybe it was a thorn, or
maybe glass. Silence. No piano music, no voice rising and falling, no
beat of feet. Everything drenched in quiet and dark and then a beam of
light pierced the gloom and cast its eye on her. She found herself
backing away from it, until her back was firm against the door.
You alright miss?
A man in a dark uniform was shining a torch in her face, she was
shivering, trembling, she looked at him startled, stuttering, she began
to get to her feet, yes, thank you, she said, and got up to push past
him, and then felt the rough certainty of his arm, the coarseness of the
cloth, saw his belted silhouette as he stood up, the unmistakeable hat,
and remembered what Myingun had told her if she was ever caught.
She took ten deep slow inner breaths and regained her calm, at least

474
on the outside.
Yes, fine, thank you.
But for once she could not control her voice. A tremor ran
through it. She tried to focus her mind the way she had taught Myngun
to, gaze into the quietest corner of your life, stay calm. She tried to
see but could not see: mango trees, rice shoots new and green, lotus
blossoms pink and buxom on a pond, Buddha, the touching the earth
mudra. All she saw was the policeman and his breath collecting in
urgent clouds in the air and behind him the sound of fear let loose on
London streets. She slipped her hand into her muff and squeezed so
tight on the silver matchbox that the metal rim began to cut into her.
She wanted it to cut into her, wanted somehow to punish herself for
being caught and also to steady her nerves.
Im really quite alright, she said, again.
But she was still shaking. She slipped one hand around one wrist
and wondered how handcuffs would feel. She stood up. At least she
was not crying. But it was as if the ground was shaking through her,
she had to steady herself, and as she did she looked out past him into
that darkness with its daytimes smells of manure and all the other
things that collected on London streets, the darkness that had been
jolted and it was as if time had slowed, everything had a dream like
quality, it was not just her, there were others, too, who had fallen, who

475
were picking themselves up, slim blades of movement in the gaslight.
Not so fast miss, you dont want to go down there, theres been
an - incident.
An accident? She parrotted.
Yes miss. Youre not from these parts are you? Where you live?
A note of suspicion crept into his voice. She knew then that she
was trapped in her part for some time to come, that there were no solo
roles, that she had to go back to those chill stairways and eery,
ancestral portraits whose eyes seemed to follow her; go back to
Curzons household. Even if cooks parsnips were ruined, and she
found herself frerting now about the parsnips as if any of that
mattered. For the first time she thought of Curzons mansion as a safe
house. No, more like, a safety net, something to catch her, lik the ones
theyd used when they first performed at Mr. Littles circus. She
mustered her most lady like voice, shed always had the power to
mimic sounds,
Thank you, it is really quite alright, I am just making my way to
the house of
And then she looked down at the basket and knew she could
never finish the sentence, that he would never believe her to be in the
service of so grand a lord. The eggs were broken, the parsnips had

476
spilled out down the steps, and the ball of suet had escaped its paper
wrapping. She stared at the trail and comforted herself with the
knowledge that cook would sort things out. And that it was Sallys fault
that shed had to come out in any case, because she hadnt reported
for duty this morning, and she was meant to have picked up the
groceries en route. And then she stopped. She remembered the turban
in the streetlight, and the violent explosion of sound, and knew that
she had to go back to the house, back to her daily routine in that
strange labrynth of oak panelling and brass knockers and wooden
banisters and servant bells.
The policemans hand was so tight on her now she couldnt think
clearly. Even if she could throw him off, the police here would think
she was somehow involved, guilty. IMP-LICK-ATED, she remembered
that phrase from eavesdropping on one of Myinguns discussions back
in Pondicherry. And then there was the other side to think about. If she
ran now, Myingun would think shed abandoned ship, even if it was a
ship of uncertain destination, and maybe theyd come after her, too.
Shed heard about the underground movements, the Indians who
wanted to win their freedom not from Calcutta or Benares or
Pondicherry, but from right here in London.
His fingers were closing in on her wrist. A handcuff would have
been preferable. There was a smell about him she couldnt quite

477
place. Tar, perhaps, or oil, or engine grease. Or playing cards, she
thought. She and Sally sometimes sat up late playing gin rummy. She
was always the shuffler, and the cards always left the faintest
aftertaste on her fingers. She struggled against him but his body
moved closer in on her.
She stepped back towards the door, and as she did so it opened
out, knocking her slightly off balance and out of his grip. As she stood
up, pressing her skirts, the policeman drew abruptly back from her.
Both turned their heads to the widening wedge of light as the door
opened onto the night. Frail, birdlike, slightly hunched up, a woman in
black stood in the doorway.
Constable, please tell me the source of that frightful commotion.
Not at liberty to disclose madame, said the Constable.
But it was an explosion, was it not?
Dreadfully sorry madam but An explosion? Asked Ma May.
No-one hurt, I hope? asked the woman in black.
Couple of horses went down, madam. We hope that is all. Time
will tell.
Ma Mays thoughts were sucked in through that open door, she

478
wished she could follow them into that slice of warmth. Outside, sirens
were sounding, like ships sirens, she thought. Foghorns. As the sirens
came closer, Ma May thought of the men crouched in the pool of
gaslight, and felt their image turning, like the beam of a lighthouse,
onto her. What had she seen?
And who, may I ask, are you? The woman with the bun turned
to Ma May.
And then without missing a beat, as if she were shouting SEVEN
EIGHT, ARMS IN FRONT OF YOU, the woman in the doorway continued,
Yes, of course I saw you perform at Crystal Palace. Have you
traveled that far? What a terrible night to choose to come to see me.
Come in, please. Wait there. She gestured towards a box seat in the
lobby, and Ma May sat down, resisting the urge to move down the
steps and tidy it all up, the eggs and parsnips, as if putting them back
in her basket could move time back to the moment before the
explosion.
Alright then, everything alright? Asked the policeman again, as
if any deeper questions were beyond his authority.
I assure you that I am quite alright. My girls,however, were so
terribly shocked by the sound, they have such delicate sensibilities.
Whatever could it be? Who could have wanted to plant a bomb here,
in London?

479
And she moved, wasp waisted, across the floor and called,
lightly, so lightly that Ma May wondered how she could muster her
other, booming voice, Cook! Brandy, and two glasses.
Ill be off then, said the Policeman, Plenty of others to check
on. He hurried down the steps, ONE TWO, ONE TWO.
Excuse me sir, but it is rather late and you will understand that
we are most shocked, so do forgive my impertinence, but can I see
your badge? The last in her command voice.
But he was gone, and she looked after him, scowling.
I am dreadfully sorry, he seems to have quite attached himself
to you, how very odd, said the lady. How very odd.
[reality check transition to next scene chaos of bomb scene and
trauma aftermath utterly absent, need to fix]
And then came the comforting clink of glass again, and Ma May
didnt care where she was, or what had happened, or why her world
had shaken in half. The rest of the troupe could travel to Timbucktoo
for all she cared. For once she was on the right side of the
compartment, she was traveling first class.
Mes eleves! Mes petites danseuses! It is time for bed! And the
dancers came out, one by one, curtsying so gracefully as they passed
them and went upstairs, saying, Good night Madame.

480
You have come about the job? Asked Madame. I am so glad,
and I am so, so very sorry, you had to suffer the attentions of that
policeman. Pestering a pretty lady on any pretext, I have a very good
mind to report him.
Oh no, please dont, please dont, said Ma May.
A new expression came to madame, a question mark, her
delicate eyebrows raised like a temple arch.
Its just, my troupe, from Burma - Mr. Little, in Liverpool - if he
found me, you see, we had a contract, and then he cheated us, and the
others have gone, and he wouldnt even pay my passage home, and ..
Here, said Madame, reaching for the decanter, on the tray that
her white-aproned maid had set down before them, there, quite
unusually, thought Ma May, in the middle of the lobby, on a little table,
a table with tiny mother of pearl inlay, hexagonal, delicate, and old,
she thought, and travelled, like her, from India, she thought, or maybe
even Burma, why did so much of what she saw everyday remind her of
home, and yet nothing, nothing reminded her of home, her thoughts
were racing again, she wished she could stop them. Here, this will do
you good.
Ma May had only ever sniffed brandy before, Myingun had taught her
that ladies do not drink, to sniff it was enough, but these huge

481
balloons, the golden liquid, the warmth of it all, she drank it in. One sip,
then another. The warmth shot down deep inside her, like a flame
licking away all her anxiety.
I am in trouble, she said, Will you help me?
Madame smiled, and put down her snifter. That all depends on
what kind of trouble youre in, she said.
Ma May looked down at her upturned palms. Shed once been
scolded by cook for putting the horseshoe back the wrong way after
shed polished it. His Lordship had inherited it from his grandfather,
and hung it up for luck at the entrance to the mews, but shed hung it
back upside down, Only be glad the Butler didnt catch you, said Cook,
didnt you know the luckll all run out if you hang it upside down? She
wondered if it was the same with her hands, if shed somehow let all
the luck leech out of them. She stared at her palms, and then cupped
them together.
She wishes she could joke about like cook could. Cook would
have said Ask me no questions and Ill tell you no lies, but Ma May
knew this wasnt the time for joking. She decided to tell the truth, or
at least part of it.
Well, Mr. Little will think I stole his ring, thats what hell have
told the police, but its mine, he slipped it off my fingers after I

482
swooned on stage, then I found it, you see then I just didnt know
where to go, Ive been working in a big house, a friend found me the
job, Im from Burma, but Mr. Little is in Liverpool, and I came with a
troupe but since I was the only one who could perform solo they said I
should stay, to keep an eye on Mr. Little, but then I got so afraid when
he started locking me indoors, and then I ran. That is my trouble. You
see, he owes them backpay, and they have no rent, and they gave me
the rings to look after, they werent even mine, you see. But I gave
one away. To Miss Gibbet, the landlady, otherwise, its hard to explain,
you see, she looked at me so strangely that last day, she was blocking
the door and wouldnt let me go, but. And -
Madame waited patiently, as if she knew there was more to
come.
Ma May didnt want to say anything more, that was all she
needed, shed already said too much.
Do you think you had better stay here for the evening? Asked
Madame. There is quite a commotion outside. It does not seem safe.
But the policeman he knows Im here.
The lady was so elegant, like a china doll, thought Ma May, like
one of the porcelain figures on the Lords mantelpiece, Dresden China,
cook said, only she spat the word out and always muttered after it

483
them Huns.

Ma May Butler Coffee

The grinding of the coffee was Butlers job, and his alone. He woud count the beans out
and push to the side, with a parched finger, any that did not make the grade. Burnt.
Bitter-smelling. Flaked. These imperfect specimens he would quarantine off into a small
copper tin to which he had cook affix a label declaring the contents Coffee Superior.
From this I surmised that Lord Curzons grounds were the most superior of all.

The coffee grinder, mounted on the wall, was made of white porcelain with a blue
motif, and a handle to turn its intriguing metal mechanism, which when viewed from
below reminded me of the workings of the tall clock in Curzons hallway, and a small
glass drawer that slid under it to catch the grinds as they travelled through it. Fastidious
to the extreme, Butler refused to allow anyone else to measure out the coffee beans,
which were always to be purchased at the same time of day on the same day of the week
and only from Mr. Samuel at the Stock Exchange coffee shop, but once the beans were all
safely deposited he would readily volunteer any ones labour for the work of turning the
handle, which he refused to oil, on the basis that the odour from any oil might spoil the
resultant beverage. And it was true that the beans themselves, if turned to the right
rhythm, would secrete their own substance akin to oil, as if each tiny whole, perfect bean
were equipped with glands. I wondered at this elaborate ritual since all knew that the
drink most appreciated in England was tea, which alone in the British diet offered me the

484
comfort of home, although the tea that made it to British tables would have been sold as
dross in a Burmese market, so crushed and flaking and dilute in flavour was it. But the
Butler handled the coffee with a reverence that he rarely showed tea, and the division of
labour that surrounded its production seemed to declare coffee a drink whose preparation
and consumption, was reserved for men.
In time, however, Butler blurred this distinction. For a long time I had felt his
glassy eyes upon me as I went about my chores. Often I would turn while winding a
clock or polishing a vitrine in the hallway to find him staring at me impassively. Being
his inferior in status, a determination compounded in his view by my heathen provenance
and the shade of my complexion, I was forced to render a quick nod of the head, but he
never made any acknowledgement of my presence. One morning however he turned to
me in the kitchen and signalled for me to turn the handle of the grinder.
My fingers were shaking so and the sheen of my sweat spoiled my grip, but I
went about that task with the discipline that I would have brought to the performance of
Sita during her abduction from the forest in the dance from the Ramayana, my
movements spare and measured as I resisted my captor and yet full of a melancholy
dignity. Once I had let that role settle on me a new calm came to me, until I heard butler
clearing his throat and knew that that was the signal for me to stop.
Wordlessly Butler removed the glass drawer and sniffed it and then measured it
out with an exactitude in the most level of teaspoons, the stiff set of his mouth relaxing
somewhat as the aroma of the grinds escaped.
One day it was market day - he turned to me and said: Cardamom.

485
That afternoon I returned from my chores with a small package of the spice, still
in its black husks. This was several weeks after I had located for cook the crystallized
ginger and nutmeg and jaggery whose quality had drawn a special complement from
Curzon, if one can call a raised eyebrow a complement. The raised eyebrow had been
noted by Sally as she waited at table that evening and she had, under duress, for Butler
had also been a silent witness at the scene, reported it to Cook. Had Butler not been there
the fact would have gone unremarked, for Sally still resented my presence deeply, and
was particularly irked that cook had begun to entrust me with visits to market, thus
cutting back from Sallys own excursions.
The morning after the move in his Lordships facial features, the butler had
presented me with the note. Cardamom. I had linked the letters in my mouth and mind
like beads on a necklace, and enjoyed their patter, but was oblivious to their meaning.
When Butler had gone upstairs with the coffee tray I presented the note for Cook, who
squinted at it before saying it out loud. Car-damson. She was unable to describe it, and I
was obliged to keep the paper and the word. When I took it to the Tamil vendor at the
market he gave a swift nod and turned to the jars that lined his shelves, all of which were
of an identical opaque ceramic, and stopped at two.
From one he pulled a black-husked pod, from another a green kernel, and he held
each out to me with a quizzical expression bordering on a smirk. He then proceeded to
open up the black husk and allowed me to inhale its interior, whose fragrance far
surpassed that of its naked twin, and I nodded at his right palm, then felt that I had been
too hasty, for so excited was I by the success of my mission that I had omitted to ask him
the price.

486
I returned with little change for cook, and it was fortunate that he had included a chit
sheet with his calculations of the price for cardamom was indeed expensive. I imagined it
in a curried meat dish or a pilaf. Not for some weeks did I discover Butlers intention.
Lord Curzon was to entertain the Maharajah Duleep Singh (etc.)
My heart quickened at the news and at the purpose this might give to my increasingly
dull routine. But still I had received no instructions from Myingun or his alleged
network, and so distant was he, and so accustomed had I grown to the warmth of cooks
hearth, and the sense of safety her kindly face and ample girth provided after the slippery
trickery of Mr. Littles circus, that I began to shield myself from the prospect of such
news and even to imagine the rest of my days unfolding here, in London.

[That night], after Sally had taken leave to attend her fathers funeral I could not
find rest. She had left her bed un-made, a sure sign of her distress, for at any other time
such a breach of propriety would have been condemned by her curt mouth as a cardinal
sin, for as Sally so often liked to remind me as she wiped down our shared toilet stand,
cleanliness was next to Godliness. At first I wondered if this untidiness was the source of
my discomfort, and moved across to pull the sheets and tuck them under. And then the
idea came to me to lie down in Sallys bed as if by so doing I might get a better feel for
her. I had seen how spirit mediums moved through worlds by donning the clothes of
others, and for all the spite and coldness Sally had shown me since my arrival on cooks
doorstep, the space her sorrowful departure had left filled me with tenderness and pity. I
lay down and buried my face in the coarse bolster and searched for a sense of her. But the
smells that lingered on in her bedding made little sense to me, so many elements were in

487
it that were foreign to the aromas that I grew up with and that had shaped my own senses,
that they seemed inseparable and yet also indecipherable. Except for the faint odour of
mutton fat, a smell so distinctive that, as Lu Pyes brother had once counselled me, the
Chinese invented a single character just to describe it and to cheer me. This he told me
some weeks after Lu Pyes death, and days before Myingun had come to us for hiding, to
cheer me; he drew the character out on paper and singled out the sign for sheep with its
rams horns, and pronounced it with such musicality that I laughed my first laugh for
weeks. To think that the rancid taste of boiled mutton could be locked into such an
intricate symbol and sound, then clapped my hand over my mouth as if to slap the laugh
back into me, and at this gesture not at the laugh - he had frowned. I sniffed again into
the coarses pillow and now that I had isolated that, other strands followed, as if my
wondering thoughts were unbraiding Sallys hair. Coal tar soap. A hint of lavender. And
soured milk. As I inhaled and pulled her coverlet closer to me, now rolled on my back, I
thought that this might help me to see the world as she did, or at least to feel it through
her skin, although the deep spite she carried in her and that seemed so easily transferable
mine one week, the garden-hands the next - was something still impenetrable to me.
For my bitterness was not for sharing. I had polished and honed it for so long, to an edge
sharper even than the blade of a Burmese dah, that it puzzled me to know that Sally could
spread her feelings around with the carelessness of a trader spreading out his wares. I
imagined my own resentment distilling, purifying, separate to all the other feelings that I
carried. And yet in time, although I did not see it then, that bottled rage, so carefully
preserved for the Kinwun Mingyi, would change its course.

488
I had thought that sleeping in her bed would settle me, for Sally was mostly sluggish in
temperament, of stolid build and a solid sleeper, but that night was one of the most
restless in my memory, peopled with characters from lands whose names and contours, I
knew Sally, did not know. From Pondicherry, Chandernagore, Colombo they came. And
I woke to sit bolt upright and hurled Sallys sheets to the floor, as if they were a shroud
with which I could banish my past, and looked up to see the cause of my anxiety full and
ripe above the sky-light , for the moon, clouded earlier in the evening, shone down at me
so round and full.
Sally returned from her fathers funeral more brittle and less anxious. There was a
slowness to her movements that made me think of a woman moving through water, and
yet encasing the stiff upper lip she put on for us all was an eggshell veneer. It infuriated
her that I shared the private space of her sobbing nights, and her coolness towards me
grew in direct proportion to the tears she shed each night. I acted as if I had seen and
heared nothing, but one morning while looking for her bonnet in her drawers she turned
to me with a face sharp as a ferret, pulled tight with fury.
How dare you, she said. How ever dare you, and pulled from the bonnet a fine black
hair, holding it up to the light as Nancy had once held out a thread for me to pull into a
needle.
I could not tell her that after the first night where sleeping in her covers brought me no
closer to her, I had stepped out of my clothes and washed myself with cold soapy water
so as not to leave traces of my toil, and towelled myself bone dry and then stepped into
her clothes, piece by piece, and tried for one more night to see into her world. That night I
dreamed of nothing. I woke with a sense of calm and comfort. I folded the clothes up

489
and returned them to her drawer. I had not gone near her bonnet, but a stray hair must
have entwined itself there.
I apologized and made up a story about having lost my bonnet and needing to
borrow hers.
After her discovery, and the violent outburst that followed it, for no reason that I
could discern, Sally grew much warmer with me.

How different it was, to be here in London with my head full of these concerns, how
different to the suspicion and speculation that fuelled the corridors of Myinguns court.
The corridors in the palace were of course not the long angular affairs of British stately
homes, they were broad and sweeping and remarkably open in their aspect. Not there the
closed doors and heavy hinges of the type I would polish and oil in Curzons residence.
The divides that screened a King from his courtiers were made not of timber but of
people. Advisors and poison-tasters, betel-nut carriers and Brahmin conch-blowers,
ministers and wives.
It was a constant source of worry to Myingun that he could not recreate these conditions
at his courts in exile. Some might have adapted their ambitions and passions to the small
walls and modest means now imposed upon the prince and his retinue. But instead, his
diminished trappings and what these bespoke about his straitened circumstances acted as
a magnifier in the glare of high noon, which, when adjusted to a particular angle, can
catch the suns rays and set the most common of fibres alight. It was with the fierce
concentration that I had witnessed deployed on one such occasion, that Myinguns
itinerant courtiers went about their business. Later this pattern would continue, jealousies

490
and pettiness rising in tempo with each new move, for each new move brought with it
new establishments, new appointments, and the clear realization on the part of all who
had allied their financial or political fortunes with Myingun, that the prospect of his
return to power was ever more distant. Myingun could see none of this, and as if in a
reverse formula, his reluctance to recognize what all could clearly see dug in deeper. His
clarity of vision was not helped by the flatterers and fawners who clustered around him,
seeking titles. And how easily he would dispense positions in his imaginary kingdom! A
timber merchant from Siam, on feeding him news of a possible logging concession, was
immediately promoted to the rank of Atwun Mingyi, or Interior Minister, and the princes
hapless secretary was despatched to the stationers to order up yet another set of cards
stamped in silver.
There was one alone among his retainers who I had time for, for he had a kindness to his
face and a softness to his lineaments that seemed in need of protection. His name was U
Maung Lwin, and he had wondered into Myinguns household with nothing but a pen and
a penchant for verse, declaring himself a secretary and translator. Of all those many
courts that assembled and dissolved across frontiers and time, it was he who stood by
Myingun to the end.
Suspicion and speculation, malice and resentment settled over everything and unsettled
everyone, and while the first few days in Benares were tinged with the excitement of a
new start, the stifling atmosphere shifting glances, furtive gestures, and those who read
the simplest of things as plot and treason, seemed to grow and thicken in the sepulchral
air. For it was to Benares that the faithful and unfaithful flocked to die, believing it a sure
stairway to heaven, and the air was tainted with the funeral pyres, spiralling their smoke

491
up through the air. Strange indeed it was to reflect on that sight from Liverpool, where
Mr. Littles smoke rings, puffed with such bravado from between thick lips, carried a far
more sinister air.
This pattern continued in inverse relation to the size of each new court. The filter and
screen between the words passed fom Myingun to another, so that even in Burmese to
understand the meaning was an act of translation. The effort came to exhaust me.

Ma May

I cannot recall the year in which Mackertoon first visited Myingun in

Pondicherry, but longans were in season. I know because the smell was still on my hands.
I know also that we had had duck for dinner. This I recall only because I heard
Mackertoon speak before I saw his face, and, perhaps because the taste of dinner was so
strong still in my mouth, I had expected from the tenor of his voice that he would walk
with a ducks gait.
I was stationed behind a screen, outside the doorway to Mynguns audience hall,
such as we called it, in reality a small salon. His voice had dropped low but the squeak in
it gave his words a jackal-sharp definition. Nothing was said of any significance. And yet
that empty exchange carried within it the future of the court of Burma.
As soon as I heard him, before I knew his name or station or the purpose of his
visit, I knew that Mackertoon was not to be trusted. His voice carried in it some
hollowness, an anxiety that vibrated tinnily.

492
As the two men walked past me and into the audience room, I pressed my spine
and shoulders up against the wall, holding myself as erect as bamboo, as if I could
translate myself into a feature of the furnishings. I expected to see a timid slouch,
sloping shoulders and rotund belly, thinning hair and an unsure gait emerge through the
doorway behind the voice that preceded it.
Instead I saw a man of some height, broad in shoulders and with a long neck. But
indirectiness of his gaze revealed a certain weakness about him, as did his arms, which
were slightly too short for his body, as if some withering disease had breathed upon him
just long enough to stunt him from the elbows down, and then moved to another host.
His hands, however, were huge, and Simian in shape, yet completely hairless.
They called him Mackertoon, and although I could not linger to read the card that
he placed on the calling tray, its elaborate gold lettering was a declaration of a man
posturing far above his station.
For the men of highest rank, I had learned, carried only plain cards with bold dark
print and curling letters.
That night as I lay on my rattan mat,

****

493
CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

Napoleon the French Bulldog

The dog was a gift.

Cached in a basket with a blue bow on the handle, it was mixed
in among the offerings from the rice-merchant, the pharmacists, the
grocery store, the bijouterie, and all the businesses that called on
Myinguns residence in his first month in rue de la Grandiere. The
puppy was curled up asleep, drooling from one corner of its mouth,
nestled in a bed of rice-husks, a bottle of cognac wedged into the other
end of the boat-shaped wicker basket.
When U Maung Lwin discovered the puppy, stashed among the
tribute as he drew up the inventory in his fine-lined ledger, he decided
that it was his to name.
Since he had joined the princes household, U Maung Lwin had
yearned to be asked for suggestions in the naming of the princes
expanding clan. Thaitingyi had been named after the blossoming
Thayinthi fruit pickle, a correlation U Maung Lwin suggested might be
more of a blight than a blessing. The prince had scoffed at his abilities you are my secretary, not my astrologer - and insisted that this naming
was most auspicious, twinning the pickled miracle and the boys
conception with the opportunity for recovery.

From then on, in the

matter of names, U Maung Lwin had kept his own counsel, while
privately relishing the boys increasingly evident spinelessness as proof

494
of his own insightfulness in the matter of naming. He would have
named the son after the comet, not the pickle, a choice he felt should
have needed no pointing out.
Napoleon, U Maung Lwin murmured, as he lifted the bottle out
of the basket and studied its label.
He reached for a soft cloth and polished the cognac bottle until it
shone. Then he felt in the basket for the visiting card of the gift-giver,
and pulled out a stiff rectangle with scalloped edges. HOA BIN ZHANGAll Goods Can Be Procured Small and Large Live and Invertebrate
Delicaces Gourmandises French Vietnamese Chinese. RUE CATAN.
Chinese characters ran under the French. The reverse was blank.
U Maung Lwin stroked the puppy. Its coat was firm and sleek.
He lifted it out of the basket. His hands around its middle so that
his thumbs pressed lightly into its warm rib-cage, he held it up to his
face so that its eyes were level with his own. The puppy squinted and
flexed its hindlegs. A jet of urine rushed down U Maung Lwins wrist,
and the puppy tumbled back among the goods. As he shook his arm,
then grabbed a clump of straw from the basket to wipe himself dry, he
decided to hand the mutt over to the servants.
Then he remembered that dogs urinate to mark their territory. He
lifted the creature out of the basket again, letting his hand linger over
the vibrations of its heart. Then he bent over, his thick waist creaking
slightly as he set it down on the floor, and watched it waddle on

495
unstable, squat legs. He scooped the puppy back up, sat down at the
desk, and sat it in his lap where it squirmed.
In this life of moving from place to place, claiming new spaces,
packing and unpacking, always at the beck and call of the prince, with
no land to call his own, no-one and nothing had ever claimed him.
He turned over the visiting card and reached for a pen.
He contemplated moving over to the washstand to rinse off the
taint of canine urine but the servants might already be moving about
the house, and he would only arouse their suspicion. What if Myingun
or his sons came in looking for him, they were due back from their
evening stroll at any minute? He must act now. Besides, the pee would
give the card a scent of authenticity. His fingers trembled as he began
his forgery.
A Gift For Your Secretary, he wrote in deliberately squared, if
somewhat unkempt, letters. He wrote them in a manner suggestive of
Chinese characters. In Our Sincere Appreciation of His Services.
Myingun woud never find out. He had no cause to deal directly with the
store manager. This was hardly theft. If anything, U Maung Lwin was
lightening the Princes burden.
Over the next weeks, U Maung Lwin suckled the pup with raw
egg mixed with fish sauce, feeding it from his finger. As the days grew
shorter, he let it eat sweetmeats from the palm of his hand.
But U Maung Lwin had not reckoned on some bone-deep intuition

496
that grew with the pup. This was about the only thing that kept
developing, along with its fist-faced stubbornness. The dogs form
barely filled our or lengthened, but its presence grew along with some
visceral sense of status. Despite U Maung Lwins best efforts to claim
it as his own, Napoleon sniffed out the center of power in the house
with such precision that U Maung Lwin wondered if the dog might not
be the reincarnation of some finely pedigreed court minister who had
fallen from grace for some murderous deeds to be reborn in this
thoroughbred but inhuman form.
The dog trailed Myingun wherever he went.
If there was one consolation, it was that the name had stuck.
But when U Maung Lwin whispered Napoleon, the dog would
merely open one eye and gaze back at him with unwavering disdain.
In time, the typewriter displaced the hound as the principal
object of U Maung Lwins devotion.

497

CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

SAIGON, 1900s

In the end what tired him most was playing himself. Disguises and
itineraries, deception and movement were what made him feel most at
ease.
And as he traded one town, one sponsor for another, what struck
him was not variety that was there in the outer signs, in costume,
clothing that he knew to be as meaningless as his own masks, in skies
and tides, trees and shrubs, and in scents and tastes. Scents and
tastes were where that outer world met his body; new places looked
him in the eye and mouth, choked and gagged and kissed, caressed
and sluiced and fingered him.

But the people whose services he

sought out or who sought him out - were invariably the same,
distilled from the same crude mix of wants and needs, hopes and loss,
weakness and fortitude, dullness and desire.

498
The same faded, jag-toothed women old before their time with
urchin eyes set in layers of thin and sagging flesh; the same salt-licked
sparkling, taut muscled youth running messages along the dock; the
same needling, censorious eyes of the plainclothes police, the same
desire of those agents or surete in French or British employ who went
plainclothes to wear their status in some ridiculously uniform and
conspicuous way: finely laundered longyis, starched bleached pinni
jackets, or, for the Europeans, an eccentric accessory: Pavies
broadbrimmed hat, Mackertoons Ouidian moustaches that stood out
from his thin, oval head further than a tigers, sometimes the most
lethal power took the most delicate of forms, their whiskery fragility a
declaration of his absolute authority, Myngoon wondered how many of
his houseboys had been tempted to cut them clean off while he slept,
and knew that had he woken up without them the whole household of
domestics may have been hung, shot, jailed or worse.

That was the time when he wanted to be the King of Burma

more than he wanted anything, more than he wanted Ma May, more
than his sons, more than the freedom to choose what he wanted,
because that want, the sheer enormity of it, blinded him to all the
lesser, more ordinary desires, all the wants and needs that keep us
hoping, keep us living, keep us loving. It was his ambition, dressed up

499
in different guises, a reflection of his own masquerades, that had not
just him, but his whole family on the run. And his trespass, that
followed him, darkly; his trespass on his fathers wants and visions and
plans.
Who had he deceived? He tells them that he had launched the
rebellion, gone on the run, faced arrest, taken them into exile, it was
for his kingdom, for the future of Burma, for the love of Budhdism, for
the salvation of the Burmese race, for the love of Buddha. But what is
he now? Age 23, what had he wanted? Were his wants so huge, so
well-defined, or did this all just start from a simpler desire when will
he admit that what he really wanted, what started him on this quest,
was her May May even when , or especially when, she was out of
reach, not just because she was not royal blood, not just because she
was betrothed to his best friends brother, but because, especially
because, he could not have her.
Not until Lu Pye died, fighting for his cause. That was the time
he wanted to be the King of Burma more than anything, but for another
cause; she was his cause, and yet now, widowed, desolate, more
beautiful than ever in her broken spirit, she is here, with him, in this
shrunken, ravaged court, fending for him, looking out for him, seeking
to make happen what she believes he most wants, to be King of
Burma. And if he could stop the clocks and set back time, to that night

500
in Mandalay, when they had lain together and he had given her the
ruby ring, and she had asked him of what he was most afraid, she who
was so free with her body, but not with her heart, then, if he had been
honest if only, if only ever he had been honest he would have said
that he was most afraid of losing her.

And did his wife know, he

wonders, did she always know, and was it her knowledge that drove
him to this constant refuge, was this exile nothing to do with politics,
even, was it only driven by the scarred landscape of his heart? He
remembers how he had traced the map of the palace on her spine, and
how she had learned from that, and how after the massacre, as if
blindfold, always the perfect witness, the most discreet agent, she had
felt her way through dark rooms that smelt of blood, to be his witness,
and it was then, weeks after, after she had made the passage down
through Mandalay and Moulmein and wound down and around and on
message boats and then finally, to report to him in Pondicherry, to
rejoin his house, under the watchful gaze of his wife, it was then he
wondered if he was not on the brink of madness, if he was somehow
trapped here, in this sad optical illusion, the eternally unfulfilled
prophecy, the unrealised possibility, of exile, all because of her.
The thought has been gnawing at him more now, in these last
months. His doctors have stopped talking to him directly, they save
their words for his wife. He knows his mind is wondering because
sometimes he calls for Ma May, and his wife she is not here, she has

501
gone on a mission. He has visions more frequently now, last night (or
was it this morning?) he had seen a seven-headed serpent, slithering
across the windowsill, and when he had called for Ma May, she had
come, and walked up to the window, and made a gesture of picking
something up.
He has brought up his sons not to show anger, his father brought
him up that same way, he knew that Theebaw, even while presiding
over the slaughter of 1885, had most likely not raised his voice or
stamped his foot, had maintained the even keel of a true sovereign, of
a trueblood, not that Myngun would grant him either title. But his sons
had gone too far, this time. They would not even tell him why.
He had called in all his cards, he had gambled his whole future,
possibly even that of his claim to the throne in Burma, on this single
hope, that his heirs, these vagabond, drifting sons of his, would find a
direction, would find a vocation, would even show interest in an
education, in Paris. First class! He had roared at them, and the sight
of Thaitingyi trembling, shocked, at the sound of his father raising his
voice, only goaded him further. A valet! You even had your own valet!
Do you know how I travelled? and he glared back in anger at the
smug glance they exchanged, how dare you he roared, How dare you.
Did you gamble away your passage? Did you press your unwarranted
and unwanted affections on a lady on board? Will you not tell me what

502
happened, to have you returned?
The youngest, Thai Thin Le, opens his mouth a fraction, then
thinks better of it.
Myingun does not stop to remember his own fear. He knows that
whether travelling in a trunk as a stowaway, or first class on a steamer
to Marseille, the fear of the unknown was only different in dimensions.
It was only the height and breadth of his stuffy trunk that separated his
sea-crossing from that of his sons. But when Thai Tingye made a
remark about being scared of the ocean, he felt only scorn, not the
faintest stirring of empathy. His success was their failure. They had
not even reached their destination. Their father had crossed empires,
continents. But they had not managed a one way journey to Paris. They
had jumped ship in Columbo, for no other reason, they eventually
confessed, than their embarrassment at arriving in the wrong clothes.
How many times had he explained to them that it did not
matter? That he had had to get their clothing on the cheap; that the
Military Academy would make an exception. But on board the
Tjembah, they had met other students, scions of the colonial elite, in
neatly pressed suits of white, and blazers with brass buttons, and they
had felt ashamed. What they could not tell their father was how he
was joked about, that when they presented themselves as the sons of
the Eldest Prince of Burma, they were greeted with polite silence, with

503
embarrassment at best, or stifled titters at worst, with traded glances,
and when they were invited to the casino, and for a drink of cognac at
the bar with their future classmates, that it would have been, or they
felt it would have been, unprincely to refuse. They had gambled away
the rest of their passage, the price of their cabin, and how dumb they
were, how dumb, to trust in others., had they learned nothing?
What stuff were they made of, his sons? Are you feathers or
fibre?, hed moaned. He sometimes even doubted their legitimacy, and
wondered, although he never dared ask, he would sometimes wonder,
dream even, that she had born him a son out of wedlock, he would not
care, would not care, if only he knew that somewhere, some place,
however remote and unreachable, he had left a trace of himself, of his
line, in a son of more mettle, of more conviction.
We never asked for this! Blurted out Thaitingyi. We never
wanted to go to Paris! We dont even speak French! And without
thinking, Myingun had grabbed his silver-topped cane, and drawn it up
high in the sky, but he had stood there too long, in his own confusion,
could this really be his son? And then she had come in, and he had let
the cane fall. It was an empty threat. He saw the look in Thaityingyis,
his youngest, sons eye, a glint of triumph. All through this life of exile,
while kingdoms rose and fell, it was she who checked his behaviour,
with a single glance, a look.

504
Desolate, despicable, hopeless sons! He wants to grab them by
the shoulders and shake them.
Instead he sits down, shaken. I will see you in the morning, he
says.
His sons were and are his last hope. Who else can succeed him?
Where was their nervousness, their cowardice, from, their uncertainty,
their lack of shrewdness, their absence of courage, where was this
from?
He remembers again waving them off, how proud he felt, and
how he had stood there, to the last, as the Tibre pulled out to sea,
huge, unassailable, unswerving in its mission, to deliver his boys to
France. When it had pulled out, as he watched it move, cleave the
waters, he had felt the beginning of something new, as if the whole
current, the whole tide of their lives was about to change. First class,
he had told so many of his friends, his followers, the princes were
travelling like Europeans, like the colonials, not down below deck, but
in their own cabin, paid for by the Government of France. And the
Tibre had sailed on to Colombo, and then to Marseilles, it had not
disappointed him.
He had stood their waving until his wife called him an idiot, a foolish
old man, and then he had just gazed after the ship, until the
mosquitoes began to set in on him.

505
And he puts his head in his hands and wonders when it all began to
unravel.
What had he been thinking? First Class? He had barely enough
of his pension left to pay for that months rice. First Class? How could
he have squandered his last hopes on his boys. Gamblers? He was the
worst gambler of all, but he played with peoples lives, not the clink of
coin and the shuffle of cards.

3 July 1907,
Government of Burma Chief Secretarys Office,
No. 861-T Confidential:
A. Leeds to Sir Louis DANE, KCIE, CSI, Secretary to the Government of
India in the Foreign Department
Sir Herbert White does not think it likely that the Myingun prince will
make any attempt to come to Burma for the purpose of raising a
rebellion. He is advancing in years; and it is improbable that he will
undertake a tollsome expedition with little prospect of success. At the
same time he still has many adherents in the Province, and any report
that he designs to come to Burma would cause some unrest. It is
therefore to some extent desirable that his return to India should be
secured.

506

CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE-

MA MAY , LONDON

In March, our ten month in England, we traded the squat streets of Bootle for Londons
dark sprawl. I would gladly have traded all the bustle of London for the sight and sound
of the gulls and the scent of the port, for in Liverpool I had always at least discerned in
those things the possibility of escape. But Mr. Little insisted on the move and, with not a
penny to rub between us, the troupe could do little but follow his call.
For all the dense feel of the city and its suffocating skyline, something in London lifted
Mr. Littles mood. His feet hovered a fraction higher between steps, and there was a new
briskness in his walk and, despite the smog, a regularity in his breathing. Nowhere was
this transformation more evident than in the institution which, within days of our arrival,
Mr. Little declared our local watering hole. The Lamb and Flag.
Three cobbled streets separated our cluttered, coal-faced lodgings from Smithfields meat
markets. Each morning, when we ventured out through the narrow door, my head turned
in the other direction, away from the smell of blood and sawdust, away from the sound of
flesh rent by hooks, a sound which in hindsight I now see I must have imagined, for it
could not have travelled through the meatpackers rowdy banter and the carriages and the
coal-carriers and the horses whinnying outside each morning. Each morning, I would turn

507
my head away from this and in the direction of the sea, as if by craning my neck I could
gain passage.
I had been born inland, near Prome, and had spent the best part of my years
quarantined from the ocean. But the sea travel I had taken in pursuit of Myingun
alongside my sojourns in Pondicherry and Saigon with his court in exile, had quickened
my pulse to the rhythm of the currents so that now, wherever I might be, my senses could
navigate the sea. I know not whence this inner compass came, nor can I say that it was of
any particular service to me during my stay in England, with the exception of the exit I
first made from Liverpool to Curzons household. But that comes later in my story.
By the end of March I had stopped searching for the stray gulls that had lost their
way and ended up in Hackney among the pigeons. And by April, when the green bulbs of
late-blooming daffodils poked their heads through the dry soil in the window-boxes that
adorned the two front windows of the Lamb and Flag, I was the first out of the door, arms
linked with Madame Kos, the two of us running the headcount of the troupe as it
stumbled out onto the streets, the Mintha, the male lead dancer, always the last to emerge,
and the most unkempt. Here we would wait in formation for Mr. Little, who had rented a
more spacious abode two doors down close enough to keep his sights on us, but distant
enough to lord it over us and lead his Burmese Ducklings as he called us, to the
Lamb and Flag. Some days Nancy would arrive with him, her hand through the crook of
his arm, never quite in step.
The Lamb and Flag opened at five each morning to serve the meat trade, and it
was here that Mr. Little inaugurated what became the weekly ritual of our liquid
breakfast. His unlikely generosity aroused suspicions in me, for which the rest of the

508
troupe would tease me as an ungenerous spirit. I was thus persuaded to accept his
hospitality, although I never took more than a sip of beer from the grubby tankard that
passed from player to player. But I drank up his stories.
It was in the Lamb and Flag, around a crowded table, as the packers offloaded
their meat-hauls and the days rehearsals loomed ahead of us, that I first heard mention of
Lord Sanger. We were one month into our new act, and it seemed from the buoyancy in
his gait that Mr. Little was not displeased with our takings. To celebrate our success, or
perhaps to assuage his guilt at not sharing so much as a pittance of the takings above the
bill for our room and board in our cramped lodgings with his cast, Mr. Little treated us to
a round and for the first time, something to line our stomachs other than beer pickled
whelks, pickled eggs and pork scratchings. These he sent Nancy off to fetch and were set
out on the table as if she were furnishing a banquet for a king.
Only when the food was laid out did he introduce us on one Spring morning on
the first of May, to a new ritual, what he termed a pep talk and, in a whispered aside to
Nancy, the gospel according to St Peter. From this I deduced Mr. Littles first name,
and shocked as I was at the license with which he sent fun up at the words of the lord,
albeit a God who was not my own, this play on words warmed me to him and I gleaned
from the intimacy of his irreverent jesting a new thread of hope that London, with all its
possibility, had soldered to him.
As he needled out the innards of a whelk that Mayday morning, Mr. Little
introduced the topic that would become the staple of all pep-talks for weeks to come:
Lord Sanger, and it was with far greater reverence than for any other man or God that he
uttered that name. George Sanger and he were on first name terms. It was Sanger who

509
had trained him in the arts of circus. Any day now Sanger would walk through these
doors and they would share a toast for old times sake. Lord Sanger could teach us a
thing or two. Lord Sanger exchanged letters with Queen Victoria.
At his mention of a pep talk most of the troupe exchanged vexed glances,
sensing some trouble. He never fully gained our trust. But for half an hour or so each
morning, Mr. Little earned our full attention.
When he walked through those doors and into the rancid air thick with tobacco
fumes whose coarseness would have been rejected by all but the most impoverished
Burmese farmer, Mr. Little became a different person, full of the bonhomie and friendly
chatter he usually reserved for his audience when introducing his Burmese wonders.
Those same qualities left him just as soon as he walked back out onto the street. But in
the haze of the pub, with the coals hissing in the grate, leaning into the trestle tables
stained with the wet rims of tankards, Mr. Little softened.
This will put some oomph into you, Mr. Little would say, as he ordered up the
beer. The Lamb and Flag was the only pub he took us where he did not start an argument
with the barmaid about the beer being bloody well watered down. Instead, he would
wink at the barmaids and talk up his duties as the guardian of the troupe and a provider of
Entertainment for the working men of England. I preferred my beer watered down. The
stronger it was, the more it turned my stomach. Whenever I raised the frothing tankard to
my lips I could feel grandmas eyes needling into me from across who knew how many
miles of ocean sand and swamp. The thought of it, I could hear her saying. A young
widow out drinking and in such company.

510
One sun-striped morning in late March Mr. Little had raised his tankard as we
leaned in towards him, waiting for his showmans hint of the day tricks of the trade, he
called them, and began Have I told you about the time when
He never finished his sentence, nor did the beer ever reach his lips. His eyes
popped wide open and he set down his drink. The color drained from his face but just as
soon returned, bringing a high polish to his cheeks and forehead.
The entire troupe turned as if guided by a single puppet-master to the source of
his distraction. At the bar, his back to the room, stood a man most ordinary in every
aspect save for his Top Hat. This he took off with a flourish and a slight bow towards the
bartender, revealing a balding pate, fringed with a russet halo of hair. Then he put his hat
back on and turned. It was a gesture that took in the whole room.
I had once paused by an art-shop window in London and seen a painting of a lady
whose eyes would follow you wherever you stood, no matter in what direction you
moved. The man at the bar had just this ability. Even from some distance, he made us all
feel as if he were looking each of us in the eyes. Or at least that is how I felt, and to shake
off that feeling I stared down at my palms.
Mr. Little gave a little laugh that melted away all of the bonhomie of the past
weeks. I glanced up from my hands to Mr. Littles face and saw his eyes lit with the
same slyness with which they had greeted us off the Queen of Marseille Steamer at the
Liverpool dock six moons ago.
The color returned to his cheeks and forehead in a high sheen, and he dabbed his
handkerchief at his moustache. Then he adjusted his collar. He stood up, steadying
himself with one hand on Nancys shoulder as the other reached in his pocket for the

511
silver top that he liked to place on his cane for special occashuns. He always carried it
on him, wrapped in a spotted silk handkerchief. Never know who you might meet, he
would say to Nancy as he took it out from time to time to show us, and she would scold
him for carrying valuables in his pocket. I wondered if he had known of Lord Sangers
arrival in advance, for he seldom carried his cane a slender staff of polished oak that
reminded me of the cane in the possession of the Kinwun Mingyi, back in Mandalay. It
had often struck me that the silver bauble was of little use. As for the cane itself, this
seemed to have more than a decorative function. I had once heard him refer to it as his
wife-beater.
Mr. Little was half way across the room. I had never seen him walk with such
purposeful calm, and pondered whether time itself had slowed. When Mr. Little reached
the bar, he held out his hand. The mans expression was hard to gauge as his features
were partly shaded by the brim of his hat. Then Mr. Little turned and gestured to our
table. At this the man turned to face us and removed his top hat, with the same gallant
flourish. My first impression was that of an open, jolly face, with none of the greed that
now wrinkled Mr. Littles brow. He then nodded at Mr. Little, gestured to him to take his
place beside him at the bar, and waved to the barmaid.
So much for our showmans hint of the day, said Ko Thet sourly. I was hoping
for some pork knuckles this morning.
Do you not know who that is? I said, and realized that I myself had only just
understood to whom Mr. Little was talking. In all of his stories, Mr. Little had not once
described Lord Sanger.

512
Lord Sanger, said Nancy. The words came out reed thin, as if she too had only
just come to this conclusion, and was piqued by my discovery. Her hand reached for the
gold locket around her neck. She had a habit of fingering this when she needed to calm
her nerves, as if to check that all was really still right with the world. She cleared her
throat, and then repeated his name, louder this time and more whole. Whoever would
have thought it, she said.
I studied the two men more closely, but detected not a germ of the familiarity
between Mr. Little and the childhood friend about whose antics he had regaled us in his
stories.
We might get some pickled eggs said Ko Thet, In his honour.
With what? asked Madame Suu, who had been sulking.
Save your money, said Min Zin, the drummer. Mr. Little is paying, all the way.
That is what is written in our contract.
My stomach closed in like a crabs claw at those two syllables. Whenever Ko
Thet mentioned the contract his voice thickened with awe, as if he were making mention
of a holy scripture. It was the only word in English that he could pronounce to
perfection. But I knew in that place where my stomach clenched that the contract we had
thumb-printed was worth no more than the old newspapers in which the fishmongers
wrapped fish and chips, and maybe less. At least the chip papers contained something.
Min Zin is right, said Madame Suu, moving her ermine stole closer to her
shoulders. Madame Suu was the wife of the head man. We all knew that she earned off
any proceeds Mr. Little chose to pass on. In their traveling household just as it would

513
have been back in Burma, it was Madame Suu who guarded the purse-strings. Perhaps
Mr. Little will be feeling unusually generous this morning, she said.
If he ever finishes talking, said Ko Thai. Ko Thai was Ko Thets brother. He
was listed on the contract as a football player, but what he played was not that rough
sport but chinlon, a Burmese game involving a small, cane ball that men lobbed to and
fro with their ankles. He could play it fast and nimble enough to win half the hearts of
Burma, but hed lost weight on this voyage. His eyes were downcast and his eyelids had
grown thicker and more hooded. But today he shone me a smile as I pushed the beer
tankard over to him, pretending I had forgotten that it belonged to Mr. Little. Che-zudin-ba-de he said in Burmese: thank you. Although it was an everyday word, something
in the way he said it filled me with an unspeakable longing for elsewhere.
I glanced again at Mr. Little. The floor beneath our feet was littered with sawdust.
We had been late arriving this morning and had lost our usual table. Instead, we were sat
near the doors. Each time they swung open the smell of blood seeped in from the streets
together with the noise of the meatpackers offloading and I felt queasy. Next to me,
Madame Suu produced a small powder compact and studied herself in the mirror. I
hoped she would not get one of her nasty turns again. The light here was most unkind.
Like Ko Thai, Madame Suu had lost her lightness of step and her creamy complexion.
Even her eyes looked tarnished. She applied some lipstick and smacked her lips together
and then straightened her back and snapped the compact to, and put it back in her purse.
She adjusted the ermine stole so that the poor creatures stiffened head sat up on her
shoulder. I shuddered at the thought of anyone wearing something so amingala, unlucky,
and averted my eyes from its glass-eyed gaze, hoped it would not bring its bad luck my

514
way. I reached up to touch my hairclip and marvelled that I had kept it through all these
years.
No-one could think of anything more to say. I stared at the wet circles that
marked the passage of tankards around the table, and then startled. Mr. Little was behind
me, his hand upon my shoulder.
Wake up Princess, he said. I would like to introduce you to an English Lord.
Lord Sanger, to be precise. His Lordship has met more queens and kings than you could
count on your pretty fingers. Our good Queen Victoria is one of his most ardent
admirers. And yet he has just revealed to me that he has never met a trueblood Burmese
princess. On the word trueblood he drove his fingers harder into my shoulder and I
clenched my jaw.
Funny little race they are, my Burmans, said Mr. Little, as if none of us could
understand English.
At this Ko Thet and Ko Thai exchanged glances and Min Zin signalled at them to
let the insult pass.
Delighted to make your acquaintance, said Sanger, and for the third time he
took off his hat and gave a small bow. I could detect mockery in a voice whatever the
accent, and I could sense none in his. Later I would reflect on the artfulness of those
performers whose stagecraft can seduce even those whose life is spent on the boards.
This is a most fortuitous meeting, your Highness, said Lord Sanger. There was
no disguising the clink of money in his voice. Up close, the jolly look had gone and his
expression was shrewd enough to make him Mr. Littles twin brother. He gave me a little

515
bow, at which Min Zin, the tattooer, sucked his cheeks in tight to stifle a guffaw, which he
then camouflaged as a cough.
We have only this week acquired a Burmese Royal Carriage of much elegance
which we desire to make the centrepiece of a new act upon which my wife and I are now
working. Mr. Little tells me that alongside royal blood you have a performers talent.
I stared down at my hands but knew he was looking at me.
Well dont just sit there, said Mr. Little, and then, as if suddenly remembering
my new station in life, he asked in a wheedling voice, Would your Highness kindly
consider allowing his Lordship the benefits of your advice and your visitation of his fairground. It is not far from here, and transport awaits us. Your Lady-in-Waiting will, of
course accompany you.
On the mention of this new addition to our troupe, he moved around the table to
Madame Suu. I could feel her eyes burn, and searched quickly for words to offset the
impact of this new appellation for she was, after all, my superior.
My Lady in Waiting happens to be the finest dancer in Burma, I said. She was
much coveted by the Court, and had the King not fled to India I have no doubt that she
would be performing for him now. Such are the sad and turbulent times in which we
live.
Mr. Littles mouth dropped wide open at my words, for never before had he heard
me string together a full sentence of English. I gave a polite nod to Lord Sanger, and
rose, stretching out my hand to offer him and wishing I possessed a pair of gloves.
Where and when shall we meet? I asked.

516
Mr. Little threw back his head and laughed. I had once seen inside the mouth of a
baby shark that the captain of our vessel had purchased from a whaling crew and set out
on display in the upper cabin. One dawn when the was crew busy with other concerns, I
had crept up to it and peeled back the tarpaulin and stared into its serrated grin, and
reached out my fingers to trace the line of its bite. When I drew them back I found
spidery welts of blood. For nights after my dreams had been plagued with its lethal
smile. I smiled back at Mr. Little.
Her Highness has a most elegant sense of humour, Mr. Little said. To think
that I would let her walk the streets alone. I shall be escorting you of course, as always.
Why, I would not want to let a pair of lovely ladies out of my sight, would I?
And as if she had been reading from a script Nancy declared, No that would
never do. She then gave Lord Sanger a look bordering on flirtatious, followed by a
pleading look to Mr. Little.
Nancy, you will stay here and tend to our troupe. Run them through the hoops
for tonights show. As he spoke Mr. Little took his silk kerchief out of his pocket and
fluttered it at Nancy, as if this could shake off her jealous mood.
But when will you be back? How can the troupe go on stage without Ma May?
asked Nancy.
We should return no later than five. But in case of a delay, you will figure it all
out, said Mr. Little. Wont you dear?
Madame Suu rose and linked her arm in mine. Together we made our way across
the floor, seeking the protection of each others warmth against the greasy overalls and
pawing hands of the pubs clientele who, far from parting to allow us passage, pressed in

517
against us. The elegant figure of Lord Sanger strode out in front of us. Next to him was
Mr. Little. I could see from his gait that he was trying his hardest to correct his stoop and
to arch his back, but his gestures of hand and eye, the way he rushed to open the door for
him, gave him the appearance of Lord Sangers manservant.
It was Lord Sanger who held the door open for us, and I wondered if the spark in
his eye was a tease, or whether he really believed Mr. Littles story, and considered me
royalty. The cool morning air was a welcome change from the stale odors of the pub, but
the sudden-ness of that mornings events had left me giddy, and for the first time in
months I found myself dumb to the strain of the ocean and its gulls, without a compass,
as Lord Sanger guided us towards a carriage, equipped with four horses, discreet in its
black and gold trim. There was nothing remotely circus about it, and I caught myself
wondering if he really was a Lord after all.
A footman helped us up into the carriage and Madame Suu and I took our places,
trying our best to look as if we were accustomed to the luxury that now surrounded us.
The seats were cushioned with black leather.
To Hackney Downs, said Lord Sanger. The chassis gave a quick tremor and
the crack of a whip jolted the horses into action
The pulse of the wheels against the cobbled street was oddly soothing, and as the
distance between us, the troupe, and the Lamb and Flag, widened, I was filled with an
inexplicable sadness. Since our arrival in England I had not allowed myself to mourn
the life I had left behind as I embarked upon this new mission in service of the prince. I
had steeled myself to the hardships of life with the troupe, enjoyed the warmth of our
camaraderie, however threadbare our surrounds. The sweet comfort of the carriage and

518
mixed in with it the taste of risk, the rhythm of the horses, all swayed me back to
adventures in Burma that I had long pushed to the back of my mind. I found myself
wondering what had become of the queens steed that the Bandit Ya Hmen had picked out
as his own mount on the night the troubles began. Lord Sangers voice clipped across
my thoughts.
My wife, Madame Sanger, will be so very pleased to make your acquaintance,
he said.
I looked back from the scene that rolled by outside our windows as brick
housefronts blurred into one another much like a folding pack of cards, intending to give
him a royal smile, but his eyes were not cast my way.
He was exchanging a look with Mr. Little that had the cold from outside seeping
straight into my feet. My ankle bones rubbed against the leather of my boots. Hand-medowns from Nancy, they were too big across the toes and I had to pull tight on the laces
to keep the boots from riding down my calves, parts of my anatomy that I had always
considered ungainly and too thick. I was glad of the wool socks; I had had no time to
darn the other ones yet, and I would have cut a sorry figure as a princess with a toe
poking through my stockings, even if no-one could see it. Nancy had confided in me, that
the boots now in my possession had once been ice-skates, and that she had removed the
blades after the toe had worn thin. This news had been imparted with a quick, giddy
laugh and she had run her finger along the bread knife with which she had been cutting a
loaf of bread into Mr. Littles luncheon, and said or perhaps I had imagined it Came
in handy, did those blades.

519
I looked back out of the window. The motion of the carriage worked like a
lullaby against those instincts that told me to remain on guard, and I found myself drifting
back towards a scene from some twenty years ago. It was not long after the death of Lu
Pye, and I was in hiding in Rangoon in the house of my brother-in-law Chau Yat, whose
wealth and status were such that no-one would have thought to look for me there. Chau
Yat had taken me to the ice factory in Rangoon. The way the light played on the blocks as
they were removed from under the burlap, the straw still clinging to them, gave me a
sensation of deep calm. How often as a young girl had I stopped to watch the icemerchants daughter in Bazaar Street lean over the block and saw throught it, the
serrations leaving tiny shavings. These the girls mother scooped up and put into cones
fashioned out of palm-leaves, and over them sprinkled sugar-cane juice. Chau Yat had
stepped aside to talk business with the ice-merchant, and his tone soon moved from one
of casual interest to barely contained rage; this I knew because Chau Yats voice never
escalated in relation to his anger, but rather became hushed. My brother-in-law had a
strong head for business. Lu Pye and I had used to joke that if Chau Yat had a religion
then its name was profit. But on that day I thought better of him. On the way back to his
mansion, Chau Yat told me that an Italian entrepreneur planned to establish an ice rink in
the city which, they had heard, would be closed to Burmese and which would make much
profit. What deep flaw in the souls of Europeans led them to charge a fee for
entertainment, Chau Yat remarked. It was the closest he ever came to symphathizing
with Myinguns movement.

520
My eyes were firmly shut and I sensed that floating feeling of near-sleep, and
allowed myself to be transported to the jerky motion of a village oxcart, when Mr. Littles
voice intruded on my thoughts.
Shake a leg, he said, and Madame Suu began shaking me so hard that I nearly
slid off my seat. The carriage shuddered to a halt.
We have reached our destination, said Lord Sanger. For the first time I detected
a hint of irritation in his voice.
No-one had yet explained to us precisely what our function would be in preparing
his wife for the new act. I had seen so many versions of things from China and elsewhere
described as Burmese that I felt more irritation than fascination at the prospect of seeing
the Burmese carriage of which he and Mr. Little had spoken.
When our own carriage door swung open, I flinched at the morning light. The
first thing I saw, looking down as I eased my way from the carriage, was Lord Sangers
gloved hand reaching up to me, and I wished that I could conceal my own hand. Although
it was marbled blue with cold, Lord Sanger gave my hand an admiring glance, and held it
a fraction too long. The grass was sharp with frost and gave a slight crunch as I stepped
down.
So this was Hackney Downs. An expanse of yellowed, mud-trodden fields, dotted
with tents, encircled with grubby chimney-stacks whose vigorous belching made me
wonder if they were the source of the dour shroud in which London sat each day. I saw
no evidence of a Burmese carriage. Madame Suu had emerged close behind me. Lord
Sanger had by now released my hand and so it was I who helped her down. We clasped
each others hands tight.

521
Well? asked Lord Sanger, and he motioned to a large shape, swathed in burlap,
and clapped his hands. Stop loafing around, he yelled, and help me unveil this
beauty. He clapped again, and two youths who had been eyeing us from a circle of
stools around an oildrum in which a fire was burning, stood up and moved over toward
us, took up position at either end of the carriage and began to roll back the burlap. First
to emerge was the front of the carriage, painted across with Lord Sangers name. My
breath left me for a moment, and I thought I would faint. I pulled in closer to Madame
Suu, who stared blankly on it and gave an admiring sigh. She recognized nothing.
I had last seen it in the palace at Mandalay. The sight of its intricate carpentry,
gilded with such care, now scratched and tarnished, stung me with a desolation beyond
speech or tears. Nor could I avert my eyes from it. Here before us, festooned with cheap
velvet ribbons, stood the royal carriage in which Myngun had once ridden. My throat
tightened and I felt their eyes on me, awaiting my approval.
The harder I gazed on it the clearer it became to me that the world which we were
all fighting to restore, Myngun from his house in exile in Vietnam, others through his
money-making schemes in Laos and Cambodia, and I from the fog-dipped streets of
London that world was gone. It was a world to whose future I had welded my own in
memory of the husband who had lain down his life for Myinguns cause.
Something in that sagging shroud of burlap, in Mr. Little and Lord Sangers
jocularity about Burmese royalty next to their pious pride in Queen Victoria, taught me
too that nobody cared about nor knew nor had heard of Myngun. Lord Sanger had more
hope of gaining the throne of Burma than the prince. There was no cause.

522
The wooden axels and wheels of the original had been replaced with wheels of
silver, giving the royal carriage a disjointed, harlequin look. I wondered at its ocean
crossing, and at what other dismembered pieces of the royal capital had travelled with it,
or on what other vessels, across what other sea corridors, to what other cities.
And with this sense of loss came a rush of anger, as if Myngun had cheated us all,
with his grand schemes of return. And it struck me staring at that thing of beauty
mounted on modern wheels of gleaming silver, marooned in this patchy grass, that each
one of us were harnessed to his cause by trickery or treachery, deceit or conceit. All
except for U Maung Lwin, his secretary, who wore his unswerving faith in the princes
return with a pert gait and an aura of implacable trust. These thoughts came rolling up at
me out of the elegant silverwork and I clutched one hand to the cheap gemstone brooch at
my throat and one to my chest to steady myself, and as the blood rushed to my temples I
pushed away the thought that I and only I was to blame and that other thought that
closely followed it: if that world were gone and Myngun doomed to perpetual exile, then
there could be no getting back at the Kinwun Mingyi, I had been tricked out of the means
to revenge that had tied Myngun and I together since that day in the jasmine garden. My
head darkened so with that thought, that that in spite of myself I felt the tears now well up
behind my eyes and closed them to a slit, the way Mr. Little coached us to do sometimes.
And for the first time I wished that the fires lit that night in Mandalay had spread out and
engulfed all of it, the better for our throne to die than to rise like a plucked peacock from
the ashes.
Well? Does it not look the part, your royal highness? asked Lord Sanger, with a
small, gallant bow, and waited for my reply.

523
I felt the fullness of his gaze upon me but I dug my toes into the ground and
lowered my eyes. It was Madame Suu who saved me, whether out of empathy for a
fellow Burman or through a sense of business as the headmans wife, I know not, for
even long after this episode, I found it too painful ever again to visit in our conversations.
Whenever the rest of the troupe asked us to recount what had happened that day, we
omitted the return of my muteness as if by agreement. For it was a good hour before I
could speak.
The carriage is very fine said Madame Suu. Her highness, sighting it, feels
sadness for her country.
No better response could I have made to confirm to Lord Sanger the genuine
nature of my royal descent. But men of business count time as if each minute has its
price. After a quiet pause he cleared his throat, as if to signal, now that I had been
afforded a decent enough interval to mourn, that my continued silence was a breach of
etiquette. When I did not speak he cleared his throat a second time, as if to signal that
now, as his guest, I should reciprocate the attention that had brought me here.
I could not speak. My mouth was stoppered with rage. And it was there, in
Hackney Downs, my eyes trained beyond the carriage on the smoking chimney stacks
that daggered the skyline, that I made my vow.

Not far from to the carriage stood four horses, their coats gleaming
and as pearly white as the finest grade rice, each one of them harnessed with
red and gold bridles and bits. I wished I had a lump of jaggery or something,

524
and as if hed read my mind, Lord Sanger reached into his pocket and pulled
out four big sugar lumps. He gave two to me and two to U Maungs wife, but
U Maungs wife was a nervous type, scared of horses, and she passed hers to
Ma May. Ma May went up to the horses and calmed her mind and opened her
heart the way shed learned from Yah Hmeng, and they nuzzled from her
palm.
Beautiful, she said. She often felt sorry for the boney old horses that
strained against heavy loads of coal and milk and the meat carts and waste
trucks, some of them were just skin and bones. These mounts were sleek and
well-treated.
Your Highness has a way with livestock, then? Asked Lord Sanger,
and there was a new note in his voice, bitter and sweet, as if hed been
sucking Sichuan peppercorns. This time it was U Maungs wife who came to
her aid.
Maybe you not know about Burma, sir, Lord, she stuttered in her
best, broken English. In Burma, royal family out, sent out, we on boat long
time to India, made friends horses long time. Ma May favorite princess, father
King gave her horses for gift many times. Queen also had horses from Italy.
Let us ride sometimes.
Here it is the other way around. I gave Queen Victoria the gift of a
white pony. One day, I will show you the letter she sent me.
Dahling, Dahling came a voice, riding on a cloud of perfume, thick
and sickly sweet, Who are these lovely ladles?
Dont mind my wife, said Lord Sanger. She still has trouble with
English.

525
Enchantee, said Mr. Little, and reached across to kiss her hand.
Lord Sangers wife was dressed in the most tightly waisted costume Ma
May had ever seen, her bosom was squeezed up and out, and on her head
was a metal helmet. She reached up and moved it off, and a mane of golden
hair tumbled down. Up close she smelled of powder. Her face was covered in
a thick layer of make-up. She handed the helmet to Lord Sanger as if he had
been her dressing boy, and went up to Ma May. She was looking at her as Ma
May might have looked at a dress in a store window, sizing her up, and she
began to walk around her when Lord Sanger, still holding the helmet, said:
My dear beloved, we have had the finest fortune today. I had stopped
in at Smithfields for old times sake, and who should I chance upon but a
Burmese theatre troupe whose leading lady is a Burmese Princess, no less.
Lightning could not have worked faster on his wife. She stood stock
still, whatever embarrassment she might have felt safely concealed beneath
her heavy coat of greasepaint, and gave an exaggerated curtsey.
Not every day we have the pleasure of Royalty.
It is my pleasure to meet the royalty of the circus, your Ladyship said
Ma May, and for good measure, added: Your name is even known in Burma.
Perhaps one day you might honour my countrymen and countrywomen with a
visit. They are thirsty for entertainment.
Lord Sangers wife widened her eyes.
Mr Little suggested that Her Highness might inject a note of
authenticity into our grand parade, said Lord Sanger.
Has she got a costume? said Lord Sangers wife, speaking across Ma
May, and then looking back to her dishevelled winter coat, her eyes sliding

526
across to the fox-fur around Maung Mays wifes neck with a thinly disguised
air of suspicion.
Her Highness doesnt like to go public, said Mr. Little. She keeps her
royal clothes in a trunk in the lodgings, and only wears them on special
occashuns.
I might have something for you, said Lord Sangers wife. Her eyes
had all but disappeared back into her puffy face, around which her aged,
coarse hair hung in stiff golden ringlets. Her lips were painted in bright red,
and a huge amethyst sat against her throat, set on a green velvet choker.
Ma May wondered what she might have that could possibly fit her, and
hoped that it might include shoes. She turned to Mr. Little.
Go on then, he said. Your Highness, he added, quickly.
Lord Sanger looked on, amused, and then checked his watch and said
well then, my works done for the day, at which his wife slapped him hard on
his coat tails and he let out a most unlordly laugh.
You will excuse me, Your Highness Lord Sanger said, and his voice
was brisk and business-like now, and Ma May wished she could slip voices on
and off so easily, she might be able to tell voices and dialects apart, but she
only ever spoke in the same way, a low warble, Lu Pye had called it, he joked
that she saved all her voice up to sing to the Gods, but that was before, when
she could still sing, and Mr. Little knew none of that, thank goodness, nor did
her Acting Troupe. She knew that when Lu Pye had died hed taken her
singing voice with her, and that was that.
U Maungs wife slipped her arm through hers, and she was suddenly
glad of her company and her pock-marked, buxom warmth, and drew in

527
closer to her as they walked behind Lord Sangers wife towards a shabbier
carriage. Ma May had been so focused on the golden carriage and on Lord
Sangers wife that she had barely taken in the larger scene. As they walked
she counted scores of horses in one makeshift pen, fenced off by flimsy
barriers from the main camping ground, and some fifty carriages, laden with
cases and boxes, and a huge shabby tent stretched across part of the field, it
was into this that lord Sangers wife took her and U Maungs wife .

The air

was rank and close, and Ma May grabbed U Maungs wifes hand tight, facing
them was a lion, pacing up and down, in a tiny cage. Not far off was a larger
cage in which was an elephant, swinging its forlorn trunk. Voila, allow me to
introduce my fellow, said Lord Sangers wife, and as she was walking them
through the animal cages she walked across to a smaller pen and reached in
to pet the prettiest lamb Ma May had ever seen. Nearly past her prime,
said Lord Sangers wife, but she has a few more weeks in her before shes
mutton.
A group of men were outside the tent smoking, they were dressed in
undershirts and breeches and Ma May had to force her eyes away from their
taut, firm, muscular torsoes. To her acute embarrassment, one of the group
came directly over to them.
He stood there, a cigarette poking out the side of his mouth, drooling,
his arms folded square across his chest.
Where are these two Turkish Delights headed he said. There was
something threatening in his voice, in the way he stood, and Ma May noticed
from the way she moved her body that Lord Sangers wife was threatened too
Turkish Delight my foot, It was Mr Littles voice, he was striding over

528
with his funny bowlegged gait, thumbs tucked into his waistband, he stood in
the tent entrance glowering their way.
Ah, cest vous Monsieur Little, allow me to introduce my son, said
Lord Sangers wife.
It was hard to believe he was in any way related to Lord Sanger.
Goosebumps stoud out across his bullneck, he had jug ears and a thick crop
of oily dark hair that was plastered to his head. But still Ma May felt a hot
flush. He plucked his cigarette out of his mouth and flicked off the ash and
then held it out to her. She cast her eyes down, and away.
Gerald, please, these ladies are not from Turkey, and one of them is a
princess. She has come to help us with the parade. Mr. Little has kindly
borrowed them to us.
Ma May blenched. Borrowed?
A smile twisted Geralds lips but he didnt move. He tossed the
cigarette onto the ground, where it stirred, a smoldering worm.
Mr. Little moved through the entrance.
Sorry Ladies, Im not after a private showing or anything, he laughed
at his own joke, Just wanted to take a butchers at the animals, get it? he
said, Take a butchers at the lion?
The lion flipped back his head and roared, then sprang toward the bars
of his cage and looked lazily at Mr. Little, much as a cat might size up a
mouse, thought Ma May. The ash from his cigarette sparked in the hay and
sawdust.
I wished too late that I had not moved to stamp out the embers. My
worn boot was now extended beneath my hem.

529
Borrowed, eh? Never heard of anyone borrowing royalty.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be, I said. The words startled me
Your son is right, Madame. Royalty cannot be borrowed or bought, it is
something you are born with, it cannot be taken away.
Proper little poet is this one, said Gerald.
The way he said this one, he might have been talking about this beer
or this meal or this show. I wondered how many this ones thered been.
Lord Sangers wife gave a shrill laugh. Dont mind him, he is always
trouble, she said needlessly, and wiggled her hips slightly, straightening the
flared hems of her tunic. Her waist was cinched so tightly by whatever
corsetry was under her scarlet costume, I wondered how she could breathe.
As she did so, a fresh pungency escaped her, the aroma of violets only
thinly overlaying the strong undertow of her armpits. Neither were equal to
the stench coming from the Elephants cage from which their came a low
grumble. I approached the cage and wondered at the thick hempen rope,
twisted over and over into a strong coil that ran from a chain around the
beasts neck to a huge metal ball.
I heard the clanking of metal and turned to see Mr. Sangers son
moving in through the gate. Under his arm was a cabbage, and I wondered
whether the circus animals had the same issues getting used to this stale,
tasteless fare as I did. I imagined the elephant in Burma, reaching up
through the trees or thickets for a banana, tamarind or bamboo leaves. I
looked at the pile of elephant poo and thought about how that would have
been put to use in Burma, turned into poultices and medicines. I knew from
our time on the trail that elephant shit could cure swellings and

530
inflammations, and I knew, too, that there were monks in Burma who could
have quietened that blessed beast with a whisper.
The elephant swung its trunk away from Lord Sangers son, his sad
eyes wondering over his surrounds but not settling on anything. Gerald went
up to the ball and squat on his haunches then put his hands around the
bottom of the orb and flexed his arm muscles. The elephant flinched, and
moved in the other direction, tightening its tether, and Gerald looked up and
glared. Stupid beast, he said. The only valuable thing about you is your
tusks. Just you wait - when youre gone well turn your tusks to cufflinks.
With all my heart I willed the elephant to swing his trunk hard enough
to knock Gerald over and leave him flat out cold. When that did not work I
took off my muff and threw it into the ring as hard as I could, hoping to startle
it. But the elephant was past rebellion. The muff simply bounced off its
wrinkled sides and landed in the sawdust, and Gerald gazed upon it as if I had
thrown him an invitation to dance.
Madame tugged lightly on my sleeve and said Come, it is time to go
to the dressing rooms now, later you can see the elephant in action, my son
is very skilful with this trick.
Au revoir, Your Highness, said Gerald. I pretended not to hear him.
Madame Sangers dressing room smelt of sweat and powder and stale
flowers and tobacco and cheap perfume. This came in pretty little glass
bottles but smelled as if it should have come in the large wooden barrels that
Mr. Little sometimes drank from at the pub, Something extra for the Big Man,
hed say, and order up Spirits. A brass rail ran along one side, swaying
slightly as Madame riffled through the costumes that hung there. Weeks

531
later, Curzons cook would describe someone as mutton dressed up as lamb
and whenever I heard that phrase, I would think of Madame Sanger.

CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

MA MAY LONDON - CURZON/ LIBRary

They were pinned up against the pale parchment, jewels frozen in

motion, iridescent and brilliant, wings stretched taut. They were all the
colours of a peacocks tail, and more. I stared through the glass and
felt my throat tighten. Beneath each one was a neatly written label. At
the top of the display case a small, brass plate declared BUTTERFLIES
OF BURMA.
My mind swarmed with the clouds of butterflies that moved
around Rangoon just before the rice harvest, flying up from the south
toward the north, in sky-borne shoals of tropical shimmer. Id never
thought of them as a harvest. They came and went in waves of

532
colour; first the skies would fill with yellow, then greenish-yellow, then
black, as if the world were darkening to the colours of their wingspan.
When the bandit Ya Hmen and I were on the run from Mandalay, wed
pulled our horses in to the side of the road and watched the butterflies
roll across the sky in the same shoals that had seen my grandma pick
up and run from our hometown. Hed said they were a sign of high
waters coming in the next season. Id told him that war was coming,
and Id wondered whose souls were migrating through those winged
clouds. I knew that when a person died, their soul leaves their body
in the form of a butterfly. But what happened when those souls were
punctured and kept under glass?
I turned my back to the glass vitrine and began dusting the
bookshelves. This was the first day that I had been allowed to work in
Curzons study. I had earned the privilege through hard work and I
turned my mind from the butterflies to Sallys rancor at my new place
in the household, but soon enough my mind turned again to whatever
my duster landed on, and I would stop and wonder at the gilt ridged
spines of the books that crowded the shelves and filled the room with
their scent. I couldnt help but think of the flayed skins that these
things must start out as. In Burma they used palm leaves and
mulberry-leaf paper, and in Benares since the new book businesses
and printing presses had begun, Id seen books fashioned of card and
cloth but never leather. And yet I could not help but marvel at their

533
rigid beauty. I had been instructed not to move any of the books. But it
was my first day and where this should have made me more cautious it
also gave me a license to feign ignorance of the walls, and who was
there to find me out? Butler and the Lord were busy with some visitors
from the India Office who were being received in the downstairs salon,
I had overheard him boasting of his duties to cook earlier that morning.
I found myself lingering in front of one of the books, my fingers
tracing its gilded spine. She had listened around and heard nothing,
no-one, just silence. The study had thick wooden paneling, and the
carpets swallowed the sound of my feet as I walked. I breathed in
sharply and shut my eyes for the count of ten and told myself
whichever book she stopped at as she trailed her finger along, that
would be it, she would just take a peek, the tiniest peek, and put it
back. TEN. She opened her eyes on a dull black book, very thin. If she
had been looking she would never have seen it. But her fingers had led
her to it somehow. She edged it out, put down her duster and looked
at the cover, which was blank. No gold tooling, no letters, only soft
black leather with a fine grain. When I opened it up I felt as if someone
had punched the breath out of my stomach. THE ART OF LOVE ran the
letters on the front page in tiny print I had to strain my eyes to read.
But that was not what made me draw my breath in. When I opend the
book a photo fell out, folded up in a concertina. The photo was on the
thinnest paper and I could not understand where it could have been in

534
the book, unless it had fallen out of the spine itself. The spine had
come unstuck a little, and I worried now that I had left a mark of my
curiosity. I looked over my shoulder quickly to check that she was still
alone. My heart thumped loud as horses hooves as I put the book to
one side and picked up the photo and straightened it out.
Staring up at me in sepia tint was a woman. Her short hair gave
her the look of a woman from Siam or Laos or Vietnam. I did not want
to think she was from Burma. She was stretched out on a chaise
longue and all she was wearing was a flower behind her ear and
nothing but a tiny fan in front of the v her legs made. On her face, I
was shocked to see, was a smile. But the smile had been pencilled on,
and the same artist had sketched around her breasts to make them
bigger, too. My fingers picked out the thin tracing of letters punched
on the back of the photo but before I had time to explore its
provenance further I heard a noise like wood creaking.
I pushed the book back in the shelf as fast as I could and picked
up my duster and there it was, still in my hand. I reached up in a flash
and pushed it under my bonnet, then whisked back around and started
dusting again. I sensed rather than heard him move across the floor. I
carried on, my movements as natural as I could manage, back on
stage.
Perhaps this might help you? It was a rich, plummy voice. A

535
voice Id only ever heard at long range, or muffled by the partition of
velvet curtains.
I turned.
He was taller than I remembered, and more fleshed out, too.
I reached my hand up to pull my bonnet tight.
Such a shame to hide that beautiful hair. A silky cocoon of a
voice. I could feel it settling on me.
He drew a step closer.
I moved sideways.
There are library steps to help you, he said, gesturing
needlessly to the miniature wooden set of stairs to my side. Didnt
Butler tell you?
I swallowed hard.
Girl of your height might find a use for them. Last maid was tall.
And as ham-fisted as they come. I told Cook to check out the hands
first of whoever came. Very grateful to Lord Eccleston for the
introduction, I must say. Jolly splendid choice. No substitute for word of
mouth. Good to know he still has an eye for the ladies. I jest of course.
Pardon me.
It felt as if a fever was burning up my cheeks. None of this made

536
any sense. I had thought I was here because of the princes doing.
Myngun seemed so far away now, ornamental almost, his house a
dolls house.
Curzon reached into his pocket, and drew something out, his
large fist closed around it.
Is this yours, by any chance?
He unfolded his palm to reveal the silver matchbox. I must have
dropped it with my shopping, the night the bomb went off. I was
careful to keep her eyes cast downwards.
No, I said. No, I have never seen it before.
Indeed, he said. Then I shall keep it. Fine craftsmanship.
Burma, Id say.
His thumb buffed the silver, rubbed against the box as he was
speaking, as if he was rubbing out the peacock feathers embossed on
it. I knew that part was worn already, Id rubbed it so many times, like
a good luck charm.
Youre sure its not yours, then?
I shook my head, and tried to remember where I had last seen it.

537

CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN

LONDON (MA MAY, CHAN TOON, TAW

SEIN KO)

In London, Ma May extends her walks to Regents Park, she is

scandalous, unchaperoned, only her and Sally, out on their Sunday
leave, once a month theyre allowed Sunday leave.
Look there, said Sally, jabbing her in the ribs. Whatever next?
Ma May looks up and sees, coming towards them, arm in arm, a

538
woman with a bonnet and a tired face and, next to her, her gloved
hand slipped through the crook of his arm, a Burmese man.
She cant help herself, anywhere else, if shed expected to see
him, she would have walked on, observed her decorum, acted like a
good Burmese woman should.
Instead (what must she look like? Out walking with a servant girl,
an empty shopping basket swinging by her side), she strides up to him.
Mingalabashin, she says.
Her bonnet is pulled low over her face, and he steps back,
startled. At first he takes her for an English girl. His wife takes off her
gloves, showing a gold ring, which she flashes triumphant. But her face
is thin, strained, with that dirty-pale look of a life undernourished.
Mingalabashin, he replies, and tips his hat, making to move on.
But Ma May cant help herself. Are there more like him? She has
seen Hindus and Sikhs and Nepalis, and those that cook labels Moors
and Mohammedans, she has seen them all, or so she thinks.
Something in the womans face softens. Mingalabashin, she
says, and smiles.
But when he asks her who she is, what brings her here, she
clams up, and now it is her who moves on, pulling Sally along with her.

539
How do you know him? Asks Sally.
I dont, what makes you think I know him?
But the more distance grows between them, the clearer his
features grow in her mind, until they have solidified, into a face she
remembers from somewhere. The ducks and swans are out on the
pond, and young ladies and lords are feeding them bread, and a boy is
playing with a small wooden sail boat, and a set of little soldiers, like
the ones in the story she reads sometimes to Curzons grandson.
After that day, she sees them everywhere, or thinks she does.
But he is usually alone, wearing a frown, and walking with the affected
mannerisms of an Englishman, a partial disguise, with his hat and his
umbrella, point down, tip tap, strutting along. She starts going a
different route to the market.
She finds her way to Temple Inn, she begins to study his haunts.
Once she comes across him deep in conversation with a Chinese
looking gentleman, they are speaking English. The Chinese man
carries a leather satchel that gives him a schoolboy air. Every so often
they drop their voices and, as if dealing contraband, speak in Burmese,
with furtive, embarassed looks. As if their language were something to
be ashamed of.
He has the languid look of royalty. Not the Chinese, he is brusque

540
and bustling. But the other one. She needs to know more, she is not
sure why, or for whom, more for herself than for Myingun, she needs to
know who this is, this Burmese gentleman, with his silver-tongued
English and furtive Burmese, and his black kid gloves, and his modern
umbrella, and his unreal gait, his body alternating between languid
ease and quick, grasping strides.
She follows him home. His home is a brown brick guest house
that calls itself a hotel. Hotel Dublin. There in a front facing window
where an oil lamp flickers, is the woman she saw walking with him in
the park. Her hair is drawn back into a bun, but carelessly. A shawl is
pulled around her shoulders and she is writing. Dark, heavy curtains,
pulled back and tied in a bow the way cook calls common, give the
scene a theatrical air, but she looks too absorbed in her task to be
aware of an audience. Ma May has to get up on her tiptoes and climb
up on to the stone ledge of the private railings on the square opposite,
to see in, to see her, and to see him going up to the front door.
She stays and watches, and sees others go in. Other travellers,
other lodgers.
From that night onward, she finds herself dreaming about the
shape of his mouth, his hands. Its overlaid on the old dreams, as if his
face is overlaid on Myinguns. A masque, she thinks. A Burmese
masque.

541
She scrubs her face extra briskly in the morning, until the water
in the chipped basin on their washstand turns murkier than shes ever
seen it. Her cheeks sting and smell of the coal tar soap cook had
given them each for Christmas. Normally she wears it away thinly,
slowly, as if each sudsy layer was gold leaf. But however hard she
scrubs, however pink and bright her cheeks, she cant wash the
thought of him away.
One day, her patience finds its reward. She is out on cooks
errand. It is her second year in the household. She has begun to
suggest new errands for cook, a new recipe, a different way of doing
things, a cheaper confectioner or grocer shes heard about. Now that
cook trusts her to return, she has given her a long leash. The other
servants shrink back from the city, they would rather spend their lives
up and down those stairs, she thinks, or in the deceptively home-like
surrounds of a kitchen that does not belong to any of them.
Pigeons straggle in the lamplight, and a drenched rat scuttles
along the gutter, so close she can see the scrap of bread between its
teeth. When the pinkish, ropey tip of its tail disappears into a drain,
she turns back to the doorway, and sees him moving from one foot to
another, then ringing the doorbell again, then banging on the knocker,
then fishing in his pockets for his keys.
He takes off his glove to work the key in the lock. She sees the

542
door give, the crack of light, and upstairs, as if oblivious to everything,
the woman, still writing, now looking up, her hand under her chin,
surveying the night, as if the curtains framed a stage for her to look
out onto. The door opens and he steps out of the foggy evening, and
into the light and warmth. The woman in the window gets up and
draws the curtains to.
Posh is as posh does, as cook would say. This street is posh as
anything, thinks Ma May, even the gas lamps look polished, and the rat
knew better than to lurk longer than it should. And yet the hotel had a
shabby air. Idiotic of her to stay, to stay and to wait, cooks errand
only completed halfway. The gaslamps flicker on, as if the lamplighter
has followed him up the street, just four feet behind, they are spaced
out neatly. In his impatience, she now sees, he has forgotten to take in
his briefcase.
She waits for the lamplighter to move onto the next one, and
then darts across the street, cursing this cold damp that slows her
joints, and slides up the stairway. The fog her cloak, she opens the
clasps and quick as she knows how, pulls out the first thing her hand
alights on, a few papers, she is not sure what, then, slowly as she
knows how, fastens the buckles again, remembering to stay calm. She
is barely back across the street when the door opens again.
She is panting, out of breath, she holds the papers close to her.

543
When she reads them later, Sally is flat out and snoring, her body
flung back against the sheets as if she had been slapped unconscious,
and the wind whistling under the door and through the chimney. She
sits up in her bed, a candle on the washstand, knowing Sally will ask
questions if she burns it down too low. She takes out the papers and
looks them over.
Dear Editor, reads one. It is a letter to the Times.
At the bottom: Chan Toon. His name?
He has given his address not at the hotel, but as Temple Inn.
She cannot understand all it says. There are unknown words in
it. SEDITION, she has heard that before. Behind it, clinging to it, as if
seeking refuge under it, is an envelope. She is doubly a thief.
But it bears no address.
In it is a newspaper clipping. Her fingers grope open the paper,
folded along the creases, trembling. She can read parts of it, 1898.
Tilak. 124A, George III Rex (Fex?) Libel Act 1792. Something about the
trial, a report. The paper is the colour of butter, and rough, and when
she looks back at her fingers she sees lines of print running across
them, a thieves tattoo.
Theres something else, in the bottom of the envelope. She pulls
it out: a rectangle, small, a name-card, she thinks. Her heart quickens.

544
But when she pulls it out and turns it over to read it, she discovers that
both sides are blank.
It is too late to head back out now without being discovered. The
rain is drumming down on the roof.
She imagines the Burmese man starting, halfway through dinner,
barely able to swallow. She wonders if he has been here long enough
to learn to savour the thick crusts of suet and the heavy dough, the
steak and kidney pudding. She imagines him excusing himself,
remembering his briefcase, and the relief he must have felt to find it
still there. Had he opened the briefcase? She imagined him in the
room, puzzling. Thinking he must have left some of his papers on his
desk.
Cook was in a sour fit when she got back, had set out a smaller
portion of leftovers than usual, as if to punish Ma May for breaching the
household curfew. Thatll teach me to trust your highfalutin notions,
shed said, Did you get it then? Shops been long closed, whatever
were you up to, youd better watch yourself young - but she had
stopped, unsure of what to call her, could she be both Asiatic and a
lady?
Ma May had said nothing. She had taken a small bundle from her
wicker basket and laid it on the kitchen counter and folded back the
paper. Cook couldnt help herself, she stared at the crystallized ginger

545
as if it were the crown jewels, turning it over. Wherever did you get
this? shed asked. She stood there marvelling at its sugarcoated
succulence, not wanting to sully his lordships sweetmeats with her
common fingers, and then putting them up high on a shelf. When Ma
May came down the next morning, quiet as a mouse, on her way out to
draw the water, shed reached up and looked at the package, and saw
that there were now only a dozen pieces, and she wondered if the
ginger would save her, if cook would forgive her on account of her find,
and the price she paid. Shed found it, and jaggery, and other things
that reminded her of home. These subtle hints of empire would slowly
make their way to Lord Curzons table.
She pulls back the curtain on her shelf of clothes, and knows that
she needs a new hiding place. The mattress is no good, Sally insists on
turning and airing it weekly. For now, she folds it up neatly and slips it
under the inner sole of her left boot, Nancy cut out the extra soles in a
rare moment of kindness, adding that she could not have her spraining
her ankle and ruining her dancer career on account of ill-fitting boots.
But there was a hole along the seam that only a cobbler could fix.
They could stay there for now, shed seen red clouds last night, red sky
at night, shepherds delight, today would be dry.

546

CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT

- NOTES - SAIGON/Myingun Reading

Tilak/Indian Sociologist

1909 Weave in Tilaks writings:

In 1908, he reads Shri Mahesh Mudrilaya, Gopipura, Sural (?), printed
and published by Dr. M M. Reyi, TILAKS MASTERPIECE BEING A
VERBATIM REPORT OF HIS ADDRESS TO THE JURY. In 1898, He is tried
under Section 124A, George III Rex (Fex?) Libel Act 1792: a now
discredited doctrine and exploded theory. The law is the same here
[in India] as in England; so far as the defence of sedition goes it is the
same in both countries. Since 1898, the law has been the same as

547
England. Whoever by words either spoken or written or by visible
representation or otherwise, brings or attempts to bring into hatred or
contempt or excites disaffection towards His Majesty or the
Government established by law in British India, shall be punished with
transportation for life or any shorte term to which fines may be added
or with imprisonment to which fines may be added or with fine. In
Tilaks address, he focuses on translation. He accuses judge and jury
of mistranslation, of misinterpretation. I am just reminded that I have
omitted a paragraph and wish to go back to it. It is this: Then why do
the English commit the great sin of castrating a nation. That is an
utterly wrong translation. You will recollect I put the sentence. The
word I used was malinera/malvera? but it has been translated
as..which means castrate. You will see from the extract that I read you
that the words should have been emasculation and not Castration
of the Nation. (Reads from Sir Pherozeshah Mehtas speeches at the 4th
National Congress in 1888 at page 283: the rason why I support this
resolution to by emasculating the natio). So you see that Mawiness
was intended by me and that manhood is not the proper translation.
Manhood refers to function; maliness refers to quality.
Tilak is sentenced to Mandalay for this intertwine this
with Myinguns story.
he reads Sri Aurobindos open letter from Pondicherry, in flimsy,
speckled paper, homespun paper, he thinks, coarse the colour of

548
turmeric almost, published by his brother. The position of the public
man who does his duty in India today is too precarious to permit of his
being sure of the morrow. I have recently come out of a years
seclusion of work for my country, a year? Myingun begins to count,
the years of his serial seclusion, seclusion and exclusion, counts them
off, links in a chain.
The man who has brought him this book, a present, sits quietly,
politely, studying his hands, while Myingun reads. Myingun reads
aloud:
The arbritrary law of deportation which dispenses with the
inconvenient formality of a charge and the still more inconvenient
necessity of producing evidence.The idea of some that the
(nationalist) party is extinct

On December 1910, the Indian Sociologist, a newspaper published in

Paris by a branch of the Indian nationalist movement (check), publishes
an article entitled A DISTINGUISHED BURMESE ALLY FOR INDIAN
INDEPENDENCE. It reads:
The friends of the Indian Independence movement will be
interested to learn that His Royal Highness Myingun Min, heir to the
throne of Burmah, has decided to make common cause with us in our
efforts for the emancipation of India from the cursed yoke of England.
HRH has been pleased to accord us permission to mention

549
publicly his intention to co-operate with us henceforward. We hope to
give in an early issue of this journal a brief account of the dramatic
career of this scion of the Burmese Royal Family.
It takes weeks to travel to the desk of the Secretary to the
Governor of India. Who knows who sent it his way. On 2 February
1911, the Secretary to the Governor of India in the Foreign
Department, after hearing a background report affixed to the cutting,
dictates a letter to the Prince.
The Indian Sociologist, he declares, waiting for the scratch of his
clerks pen on paper before continuing, a political newspaper
published at Paris and edited by Shiyamaji Krishnavarma, before
considering your 5 April 1910 letter to the Governor of India (it is only
now that this letter has come once again to light, flushed to the top of
the dusty pile by this article), I would be glad to know whether you
intend to repudiate the statement contained in the article?

4 March 1911, From: Le Princce Myngoon Min

To: Secretary to the Government of India in the Foreign Departmetn
SAIGON
I haste to let you know that I am quite stranger to this
publication which would have been from my part, at the present
moment, in consideration of the parley in course between us, a most

550
disloyal act.
I am writing to the editor
The subterfuge flickers, a shimmering veil, it appears again in
Minute Paper #4007, Secret Department, 17 October 1912. According
to Saigons French informant, the Myingun prince never really desired
to come to terms with us, and his feelings towards the British are the
reverse of friendly.

***
The fireworks traced their false light against the night, in red and white
and blue. Along the waterfront, upright torches burn, thick wax
candles, dimples of flame, flickering. Bastille day; Mygingun had first
learned of it in Pondicherry, some thirty years ago. Now hes in Saigon.
It is 1912.

In his own silent rebellion against the Bastille of exile, he

has instructed his family not to wear blue or white or red, not to wear
the colours of France the Tricolour or Englands Union Jack. They will
wear, together, the colours of the peacock. He is wearing European
evening dress and a green silk headscarf. His wife is dressed in a deep
purple tunic.
Myingun looks up at the fireworks and sees in their ephemeral
brilliance his own star rising, falling, disappearing. He is seated in the

551
tribune dhonneur, next to the King of Cambodia, in front of the
grandstand where they will review the garrison as it marches past. For
these seats he has struggled and petitioned, has been smuggled and
requisitioned. Hardly a cause for brimming with pride, and yet
yesterday that is how he felt, when his son read the Saigon press out
to him lOpinion . Demain matin sa majeste le roi de Cambodge
assistera a la revue aux cotes de notre GG, le prince Myingoon-Min et
lancien roi dAnnam, SM Than Tai, prendront place egalement a la
tribune dhonneur.
Myingun has finally made it to the second row, behind the
Governor General of Indochina and his suite, has won a seat of honour,
sat up front with the King of Cambodia and Than Than, the ex-king of
Vietnam. His son, who at last has taken an interest in such things, has
come back from a tour of the exhibition stands thrilled, his face
flushed, eager to share with his father an overheard remark from a tall
white man in stiff, formal dress and medals. The man had complained
that he is here in full uniform and that as His Majestys Consul, he had
expected better treatment, trust the French hed heard him whisper to
his friend, trust the frogs not to think of reserving a seat for the
Consuls! He findsout that its the consul from Hanoi, he says, he is here
in full uniform no less, gilt tassels and all, and he will complain to the
Ministry in Paris, oh theyll here from him alright, that he has not been
treated with due decorum, that he has been displaced for a puppet

552
king who is a wanted man in Burma, that he has not even been given a
seat. An air of quiet contentment warms Myingun, but it just as soon
disappears.
The fireworks, the candles, the music that is now beginning, the
candlelit barges plying the water, the images begin to fuse.Elaborate
floats in outlandish French forms. That woman in a bonnet, Marianne. A
replica of the Eiffel tower begins to teeter, to capsize, and as its
bamboo frame collapses in on itself, the flames catch. The four
oarsmen at cardinal points on its elegant platform leap off, into the
water. In this accident, in the towers teetering form, Myingun sees an
effigy of his own doubling. Except that hes a replica of something that
no longer exists in Burma. Once the British had conscripted a double
of his double, that feckless Nyoungyan Prince, hed heard that theyd
got some hapless Burmese clerk to dress up in his guise, and theyd
sailed him down the Irrawaddy, to break Myinguns spell, that was in
1885, the year when the moon of his return, the promise of his
restoration, waxed fullest.
He sees, for the first time, in the smoldering wreck of the
drowned monument, that he will never return, will never again be able
to press his lips to the bark of the banyan tree where hed had his first
lovers tryst, never again climb the winding stairs to mount Popa to rub
shoulders with the spirits, never again be able to lose himself in the

553
throngs of Scotts Bazaar. The float is no more than a dimple in the
water now.

CHAPTER THIRTY NINE

Saigon, 1912

U VILLASA

The monk came to Saigon in the cool season, carrying a letter of

introduction from a man whom Myingun could not remember ever
having met. He claimed to hail from Upper Burma. The year was 1912.
Myinguns secretary, U Maung Lwin invited him in to their house on
Rue de la Grandiere without so much as a question. Ushered him in,
practically scraping the ground in reverence at his saffron robes.
Napoleon, Myinguns French bulldog, snarled and yapped the moment
he entered the house, and when a bone failed to silence him, he was
shunted out back to the servants quarters. Myinguns wife was soon
ordering the servants to bring the monk a meal before it was too late

554
for him to partake of such vittels. With a blueish glint in his eye, the
monk told Myingun that he had travelled with nothing but the robes on
his back and his alms bowl.

Myingun had met monks who radiated inner peace and strength,
and monks whose voice, with one syllable, could turn your most selfish
impulses into a desire to fund their monastery for eternity. Hed met
monks who were made from some different stuff to mortals, who
seemed to walk without touching the ground, or who chanted with the
kind of voice that angels would kill for. And hed met monks whose
business instincts grew with each step through the cycles of exchange
that began when their parents handed them over to the monkhood for
merit, for a better next life, and whose business acumen grew in
stages, from cultivating promotions to negotiating favours, from
monks quarters to headquarters, from village to district, monk to
abbot, all the way up to the court. This one had that same kind of
mercenary quality. His name was U Villasa.
When Myingun quizzed him, his eyes darted round the room,
settling on objects. He told him that he came from Prome. That he
had studied in a dutanga monastery, with Abbot Aung, a forest monk
best known for his long sojourns in the bush, and his way with taming
elephants in musth. When he told that part of his story, he was looking
at an ivory carving on the mantelpiece, one that showed a tiger in

555
close pursuit of wild horses. But when Myingun asked him about his
parents, he stopped trawling the room for story-stones, and gazed right
at him.

U Villasas parents were born to the land, poor as the dirt they farmed,
with little over to make merit other than the extra turmeric roots his
ma found in the forests and the lotus roots his ba and a group of other
men would forage in the thick of night, from the moat outside the
palace where the lotus grew thickest.

The palace? Myingun askd.

U Villasa explained that he had only recently moved to Prome. As
a child, he had lived near Mandalay.
His mother was a sage in her own way, born with a gift for which
people would seek her out from as far as six villages away. She had an
eye for the way the seasons turn, and if this year she began to take
rice in twelve sunrises before the regular reckoning, word would get
round until villages six leagues away would be bringing in the harvest
early, although never early enough to stop the moneylenders from
stepping up early too, to claim their dues.
No-one knew where she got that gift, or if it had passed on to her
only son. But before she or any one else had heard the news about the
massacre of the princes, even, it seemed, before those scoundrels at

556
court had planned it, she as good as ordered her husband to drop his
night foraging for seven moons.
And then, in 1885, when her son turned nine, days before the
British had loaded up their gunboat, hours before King Theebaw had
sent his men out to conscript young boys, she handed U Villasa over to
the monastery with as much ceremony as she might have handed over
a fistful of rice for alms. From that day on, word was that she had lost
her gift for good.
That is something I do not tell people often, he said. In the
monkhood, the new schools now, they do not like this kind of magic.
He dropped his voice. Her gift, he said. They say it went to me. You
see, that is why I am here. I came here for a reason. I know it is the
right time for you to act.
Myingun was filled with doubt. U Villasa walked with the faintly
drunken sway of a spirit medium, a gesture of gyration. And there was
something almost vulpine in his expression. His eyes were shaped like
cardamom pods, and carried the same green tinge that Myinguns
grandma had once found cause to term a sign of too much desire.
Plenty of boys like him were offered up to monasteries by parents in
search of merit or simply shelter for their kids. But most drifted out and
away, disrobed and re-entered village life, got married, had sons, and
offered them up to their monastery when the time came.
The story did not fit. A concealed weapon might have explained

557
his swagger. But when Myingun ordered his servants to search U
Villasas clothes as he lay sleeping, his wife overheard him and threw a
fit until she was close to fainting. How dare he mess with a monk;
could he not see that this was a heavenly portent? U Villasa had
appeared out of nowhere, a message from something higher than
them. Couldnt Myingun for once let things run their course?
The next day, Myingun gave a third audience to U Villasa. This
time he learned that the monk could read a modern map, and that he
could speak Mon, Khmer, Shan, Thai, Lao, Hindustani, and British.
How much of any he spoke was anyones guess. But the map, that was
for real. U Villasa unfolded it on the trunk, and weighed each curled-up
corner down with a small stone.
Do you know where this is? The index finger of his left hand
pointed at a small dark stain in the maps left hand corner. Myingun
looked closer and saw a blob of red wax.
It was not marked on the map, U Villasa said. Most people do
not know it. French government does not like visitors to see it.
We, he said, Your house - Rue Grandiere - all in here. With
his right index finger he tapped on a spot on the other side of the map.
Sai-gon.
Here is Siam. U Villasa pushed his left finger out, slightly, west
of the dark circle, across a pink line. See this red wax spot, Pailin?
Used to be in Siam. Now, no more. Now the French and the Siamese

558
King they got together, make peace. Moved the line. Now Pailin is in
Siam. Here, he said. Do you have a piece of string?
Will this do? asked U Maung Lwin, and passed his pen across to
the monk. Perhaps you could draw it? The new line?
Bring us string, snapped Myingun. He asked for string
String is what we need, said U Villasa. Then we can measure
how far.
Cant you find some? asked Myingun. Send a boy out, get my
wife in.
U Maung Lwin left the room.
The monk moved his two index fingers together then apart. The
left finger moved Northeast over blank space, into a blue circle marked
Tonle Sap Lake, and then Southwest down a light blue vein. The right
one moved in a sharp arrow straight from Saigon, up a crack of blue.
He closed them pincer wise on a red circle on the map. This is Phnom
Penh, he said. The capital of Cambodia.
Then he moved his left finger back out again, back to the blob of
sealing wax in the corner. Pailin, he said. Now in Cambodia. But
before it belonged to Siam. Siam Mining Syndicate control it. Many
Burmese live there, work the gem mines. Burmese and Shans
especially. Your loyal subjects. Yes, loyal to you. I know. I have talked
with them. But there is one problem. Maung Swe.
Who?

559
Maung Swe. He is the Burmese chief who runs Pailin. Here is
Saigon. His right finger drummed on the spot. Like Phnom Penh; it is
a French city. Here is Pailin. Pailin is Maung Swes city. French have no
presence there. The British send their Vice Consul every year. To check
up on their subjects. Why?
By the time U Maung Lwin returned with the string, the monk
was bent over the map, using U Maung Lwins pen, doing some kind of
arithmetic. A shape with eight sides. Then rectangles, triangles.
There, he said. This is why. This is why France wanted Pailin in their
territory.
Myingun and U Maung Lwin stared at the strange pattern,
exchanged glances. A flush crept up U Villasas cheeks.
You see? Gemstones.
Myingun had heard that there was a place between Siam and
Cambodia, where Shans and Burmese and others mined gems. But
hed also heard that the mines were tapped dry. Hed heard it all from
the Baron Textor de Ravisi, and from the Barons friend whom he had
once introduced to Myingun as the Duke of Orleans. A man in tight
trousers, with thick, slow lips and too-small ears and a flop of golden
hair that kept falling in his eye, who was writing a book about his
travels. Hed heard from the Duke that the Burmese were leaving in
droves, that Burmese bandits and mercenaries had wound up there
after losing Sivuthas battles. Hed even heard a rumour, from Ma May,

560
that the bandit Ya Hmen, one of Myinguns best fighters, had ended up
there.
Yes Your Highness, Gemstones. Plus, from Burma: your loyal
subjects, repeated U Villasa.
He had a sibilant, nasal voice, sss that rolled on for ever, and
vowels that sounded like they were squeezed tight before theyd left
his mouth. Not the voice of a monk, thought Myingun.
Myingun stared at the place marked Cambodia, at the string now
laid across the map to show the new boundary.
Why I use string? asked U Villasa. Look. Take it away. No line.
Lines only exist on this piece of paper. In and out of this border - easy.
No border. Only guns.

Trouble dressed up as a monk is the worst kind of trouble there can be,
thought Myingun. But for the first time in what seemed like months he
felt a fresh buzz.
What U Villasa had was something different, something new. And
it came with a fraudulent spirituality. But Myinguns wife could sense
none of it. And if a shrewd woman like her could not sense it, and if he
had made his way here from Prome on the back of his business
instincts, in a monks guise, then perhaps Myingun could use him.

Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. Only a day away, U Villasa had

561
told him. Travel by boat. By pirogue, canoe. Only through the back
canals. By steamboat now possible for most of it.
Why had Myingun never visited Phnom Penh? the monk asked.
His men had fought for Sivuthas troops back in the mid-1880s, when
King Norodoms brother rose up against the French. Hed lined up his
allies, the Shan Sawbwas, and they had exchanged letters with
Norodoms court, and King Norodom had hinted that he would give
Myingun his backing, help him back onto the Burmese throne, unite
with him against Europe and its meddlesome troops. But that was over
twenty years ago. Sivuthas uprising had been crushed. Norodom was
dead. A new royal house was in power, the Sisowath, with whom
Myingun, having no shared history, felt no connection.
Myingun looked at the map, and then at U Maung Lwin.
He walked over to the chess board, the pieces still laid out as at
the end of his last game, and picked up three pieces.
Go fetch ThaithinJyphia, he ordered U Maung Lwin. Here, at
last, was a job for his son a mission.
One by one, he put the pieces down on the map.
The first thing we need, U Villassa explained, Is an address.
He shifted his gaze to Myinguns son. A house in Phnom Penh equal to
Your Highness royal station.
ThaitihinJyphia said nothing.
I will need letters of introduction from Your Highness to the

562
French Governor of Cambodia, and to His Majesty King Sisowath, and
to the Ministers of the crown. As for the rent -
Myinguns eyes brightened. U Maung Lwin moved across to the
bureau, reached for another piece of paper.
We will take care of the letter to the Resident, in Phnom Peh
first, said Myingun.

The letter to the king would be hours in the

making; but in letters to the French, both were now well practiced.
Suggest, no, request, that the Colony provide a subsidy, for his
rent, emphasise the services he can offer the French government in
light of his influence, as my son, the son of the last rightful heir to the
Burmese throne, to the Burmese in Cambodia. Rent, you say? How
much do you think?
600 piastres, he said. I will take care of all of the financial
management, you just need to give me the money.
U Maung Lwin dropped his pen.
In an envelope of course, the monk added. To my novice, that
is.
Not at all, said Myingun. That is not at all how we will do it. I
will have the French administration wire it to my son. He will need to
first set up an account at the Banque Indochine. Here, allow me to
write my own letter of introduction, he is an old acquaintance of mine.
Do not move too quickly. This must be done first, insisted
Myingun. Set yourselves up in Phnom Penh first. Acquaint yourselves

563
with the proper circles. Then move to Battambang.

Myngoon-Min, PRINCE Hritier of Burma

CABINET of the PRINCE
No. 39 A:

Prince Myngoon Min to Monsieur le Resident Superieur au Cambodge a

Phnom Penh Saigon, le 5 fevrier 1914

Monsieur le Resident Superieur,

I am honoured to request your assistance in facilitating the provision of

services requested of you by the bearer of this letter, the monk U
Villassa, a Burmese subject, of my longstanding acquaintance.
I would be grateful if you could provide him the assistance he desires,
in relation to the construction of a temple in Pailin. The Cambodian
authorities have already authorized it, all that is needed at this
juncture is your lofty approval.
With my gratitude, Monsieur Resident Superieur, please rest assured of
my most sympathetic friendship,
Myingoon Min

564
In Phnom Penh, Resident Outrey is delighted to help a Burmese monk
in the service of Prince Myingoon. He will dine out on this story for
months to come, in Indochina, and years later, as an elected deputy, at
parliament in Paris. Here in Cambodia he is learning more about
political process than he could ever have hoped to in Paris. There is an
elaborate sophistication in his discussions with the Palace Minister,
Thiounn, whom he convinces of the benefits of conferring on U Villasa
the rights to renovate and establish a disused temple in Pailin, a
temple the rights for whose construction were first given to a group of
Burmese monks by the sovereign of Siam in 1899. It is named the
Preah Chetday, or holy stupa temple.
The Council of Ministers take it one step further. The Council of
Ministers have heard rumours to the effect that anything can be
bought in Pailin, even monastic certificates, which exempt the holders
from income tax. U Villasa will not only rebuild the temple, they will
appoint him head monk, in which capacity he can help them manage
the monastic order, or more accurately, rein in the disorder, in this
shanty town where Burmese, Shan, Khmers and Lao jostle.
As head monk, U Villasa will be given the power to create a
register of bona fide Burmese monks in Pailin, and to confer certificates
of good standing on such personages.
In all of the shiftiness that is Pailin, there are two facts upon
which all agree. Fact one: Since France and Siam redrew the boundary

565
lines in 1907, Pailin is legally part of the French Protectorate. Fact two:
the French are powerless to influence the course of events in Pailin, a
one-man act of twenty thousand people, run by a gem-merchant,
Maung Swe the Chief of the Burmese Community at Pailin.
Maung Swe is backed to the hilt. His private army includes
thieves, bandits, dacoits and his outlay on their keep is all he needs to
secure the unconditional allegiance of everyone in town. From the
wealthiest trader to the poorest coolie, all will vouch for him.

CHAPTER FORTY

U VILLASA, PAILIN

Sweat breaks out across U Villasas forehead. His voice comes out in a
squeak, carrying his giddiness into the room. If the French resident of
Battambang detects some oddity in his tone, he does not let on. He
listens, stroking his long moustaches. Lets U Villasa tell his story, about
the prince, and the Kings permission, and the Council of Ministers, and
Resident Ernst Outreys backing, , and then - last night. The message
from Maung Swe.
Maung Swe is all that is wrong with the French Protectorate. Now
that the boundaries have been withdrawn, he has complete freedom
of manoeuvre. He no longer has to answer to a local lord, as he did

566
when Pailin was on the territory of Siam. There is no threat of
comeback, no checks on his authority, which he has accumulated
steadily since his reinstatement as the head of Pailin in 1910.
And then he begins.
The princes son is sitting there, inspecting his nails again. U
Villasa is furious. Cunning, dishonesty, obsequiousness; all of these he
can handle, even appreciate, as long as they are grafted to a purpose.
The princes son seems to have no purpose. No plan. Just this damn
lassitude.
After the meeting, Myinguns son, Thai Thin Gyi Phia proves his
usefulness, at some cost. They adjourn to a restaurant of the French
Residents choosing. He calls for a bottle of cognac and several of
Bordeaux and orders up foie gras, lingoustines, omelettes. As he
places the order, he apologises loudly to U Villasa that they are
partaking of food at an hour when he, in abidance of his monastic
vows, can no longer do so.
Indeed, it surely is unbefitting for a monk to be on these
premises, he says, Please do not let your good etiquette keep you
here.
U Villasa is reluctant to leave. What will they talk about, when he
is gone?
Thai Thin Gyi Phia looks over at U Villasa as if to say: Could you have
done any of this without me, without my fathers royal seal?

567
On pretext of his service to Prince Myingun who, U Villasa
explains, has
entrusted his son to his care, U Villasa declares that he will wait, on the
verandah. The Resident insists that he take shelter in the nearest
monastery, and gives him careful directions. U Villasa agrees, and
arranges to be back in one hour, to escort the Prince home.
Their horse drawn carriage waits. It is a days journey to Pailin. They
overnight in town, U Villasa in the temple, and the Prince in a part of
town that caters better to his tastes.
They are to meet the following morning, he will come with his horsedrawn gharry they have hired and pick up U Villasa from the temple.
The Resident will have none of it. Royalty must travel by car, he
declares.
U Villasa insists. What is comfort to a monk?
Thai Thin Gyi Phia thanks him, and declares that he will avail
himself of the Residents car for one day. It is near enough high noon
when he arrives. The driver drops him off at the monastery, takes off.
U Villasa is forced to call a gharry for the two of them. He does it
a short distance from the temple, where the monks will not hear him
haggle over the price.
But the gharry keeper is a pious Buddhist. The monk must ride free.
But the layman must pay.
Look, says Thai Thin Gyi Phia, as the gharry wobbles off, small

568
clouds of red dust fanning out from the spindly wheels, Stop! Quick,
here. My fathers sign!
Where? Asks U Villasa, anxious. Does the prince have other
men here, he wonders.
There, waving from that house - Thai Thin Gyi Phia flaps his
hand - Stop, Now!
As the gharry lurches to a halt, Myingun looks up to see a flag
stretched out taut on the breeze. Resplendent, embroidered in colours
more vibrant than anything Myingun has reproduced in his insignia, a
peacock fans its tail. Amethyst, lapis, green and gold, all the glister of
Burma is in its plumage. As they descend from the car, the wind drops,
the flag hangs limp.
You knew about this? asks U Villasa. Why did you not tell me?
The flagmast is attached to a shopfront, spotlessly clean. Under
it, dun sacks line the street front in neat rows, their wide hempen
necks rolled back to reveal different grades of rice. A woman is
polishing tins, and a young boy is shaking a rag to keep off flies. A
clockwork monkey, shiny and bright, sits in the window, facing them,
perched upon a pyramid of sardine cans.
Was this a secret embassy, the princes second headquarters?
Feeling the breeze pick up again, U Villasa glanced back up
overhead as the flag pushed out again.
Thai Thin Gyi Phias smile faded and just as quickly, rearranged

569
itself on U Villasas face.
There beneath the peacock, big and bold and red, was printed:
JARDINE SKINNER & CO. REG. COPY NO MR 10943. CALCUTTA.
U Villasa brought forth his alms bowl. The boy scuttled inside.
Ask her how much he whispered.
What? Asks Thai Thin Gyi Phia. Dont be ridiculous. You are
asking me, a prince, to haggle over the price?
Just do it. For your father. It does not befit me in my monks
robes to ask such questions.
How much for the flag? Thai Thin Gyi asks the girl.
Dont worry, dont worry, whispers U Villasa.
The girls eyes study the pair, look up to the flag.
Its not for sale, she says, folding her arms across her chest.
She turned around, calling after her brother.
What do you mean, it is not for sale?
It is my grandfathers, from old family business in Calcutta, it is
our shop sign, not for sale.
But I would like to buy it, said Thai Thin Gyi Phia.
The girl pulled herself up as tall as she could, almost to the
height of his ribcage, and stood more squarely on the ground. I am
sorry, but it is not for sale.
Can I speak to your grandfather? asked U Villasa.
No, said the boy, who had emerged from the shop with a tin of

570
sardines which he now lowered into U Villasas alms bowl.
Grandfather cannot hear you any more. He has gone to live with the
birds.
Ajlai, Ajlai, what is going on out there? came a shrill voice. A
woman hunched up in a dark sari, hobbled out of the doorway, pushing
before her a long-handled broom. She propped herself up on the
switch, angling the brush towards U Villasa and Thai Thin Gyi Phia, as if
about to sweep them back out onto the street.
How much you pay? she said.
Grandma! Said the girl, shocked. We promised.
You run inside. How much? the old woman asked again, and
jerked her head back. Grandpa will never know. See?
U Villasa strained his eyes and followed the motion of her head,
watching the girl as she moved back into the dim recess of the store,
behind a counter on which were stacked trays of pink and white
sweets, where the grandfather sat, his eyes vacant, drooling.

Hours later, clutching the flag, U Villasa looks at the skyline, picks out
the delicate scalloped edges of the temple roof, and begins the ascent
up the stairway to the temple. His blistered feet burn against the hot
dusty steps. He was not used to going barefoot. It was different in

571
Saigon, in Chandernagore; pretending to be a monk was no sweat
there. This place was the pits. No paved roads, even. He grimaced.
He has been working on this plan for years. Everything is in
place. His monastic credentials, enhanced by fake papers from a
seminary in Sri Lanka. First, gaining the knowledge of the gem trade.
Second, his travels in Pailin. Third, his procurement, through a valued
gobetween, of fake papers from a seminary in Sri Lanka. Last, and
most important, his alliance with the prince. A man in whose restless
eyes and slippery palms, he senses, he has found a kindred spirit.
He has to stop at each series of steps, to catch his breath. A
splinter catches in his big toe.
The stupa is huge, regal, pious. A monument to his cunning, he
thinks. He walks up to it, around it, finds the room they will make his
and ThaiThinGyiPhias quarters.
The princes son sits back, nonchalant, peeved, even, by the lack
of a villa. He is already calculating his return to Phnom Penh. U Villasa
will need to work on him to persuade him of the attractions of
Battambang. He will find him a real house, far away from the temple
and the monastery, but close enough to seek refuge in if things heat
up too much with Maung Swe. A house in which to entertain lady
friends, to run card games. To front the monks new business.

572

CHAPTER FORTY ONE

U VILLASA

PAILIN

PreahChetDey monastery had only been built twenty years ago, but
already it was crumbling. Doors hung off their hinges. The pretty yellow
roof that had first commanded U Villasas attention, proved to be
largely decorative in function. Clusters of tiles had fallen away. The
rafters were rotting in places. By day, bats worshipped here, wings
tucked up tight against their plummy bodies, teeth hidden, feet curled
around whatever foothold they could find.

U Villasa stretched out on his rattan sleep-mat, and looked up

through the roof into the star-jangled patches of night sky. The bats
had long gone hunting. The mosquitoes were at him again. He rubbed
his cheek and turned to check on Thaithingyiphia, propping himself up

573
on one elbow. To kill even the smallest living thing was a violation of
the doctrine. But Thaithingyiphia was deep in sleep, his face buried in
his pillow. U Villasa took aim at one mosquito, then another. On the
third slap, the whistling in his ears stopped, but now he was further
than sleep from ever. He stared back up into the rectangles of
deepening night, and wondered how long this job would take.
This temple would take some work. His back was already acheing
from his first night on the hard floor. As royalty, Thai Thin Gyi Phia had
claimed the only bed, even though this meant sleeping with not only
his head but also his feet, higher than a monk. U Villasas own mother,
her back curled up like dried shrimp from poverty and working the rice
paddies, had raised him better.
How had he let Myingun talk him into bringing this dimwit in on
his plan? Theyd spent their first week here in Phnom Penh, inspecting
properties equal to his status, and ended up installing him in a house
whose rent Myingun had charmed out of the French government. Hed
cut U Villasa out of the whole deal, with that fancy letter to the
Resident Superieure. And who hed cut in was some unknown third
party, unknown to U Villasa at least. The head of the Hokkien Chinese
congregation in Cambodia. He had family in Penang and Rangoon, and
was another of Myinguns web of dubious contacts, related to some
Chau Yat, an old business acquaintance who ran several saw mills and
rice mills in Rangoon. In rent alone, U Villasa reasoned, Myingun had

574
already cheated him out of two thirds of his rightful proceeds from this
plan. What had surprised him most was that the prince took such a
sharp interest in money. Word was out all from Chandernagore to
Saigon, that the prince was as good as marooned, that his creditors
were closing in on him, that hed pawned his every last bit of gold, the
only reason hed stayed out of court his royal status and some deal
hed struck with the French on taking asylum there in Saigon.
Outside, he heard a noise.
U Villasa glanced across to the gun that was standing in the
corner. He sat up on his rattan mat, stretched out on the floor, and
reached across up to the raised bed, and nudged the princes son.
The sound came closer. He should have followed Thai Thin Gyis
advice, should have arranged a durwan, an armed escort. Hed
preferred to keep that portion of their budget for himself. He had
convinced Thai Thin Gyi that a guard was not necessary, now that he
had the kings mandate. He had convinced him that his father was
deeply respected in these parts. Thai Thin Gyi had hung onto his every
word, his eyes bright with vanity.
The crackling of twigs had him sitting bolt upright. Must be a
wildcat. He hoped it was a wildcat.
Thai Thin Gyi rolled over. His lips were full, girlish almost, and a
trickle of saliva leaked out of one corner of his mouth.
Again U Villasa reached across, and nudged him. He rolled back

575
over. He could not shake him any louder, for fear of startling him into a
waking yelp. He could not raise his own voice, what if it were thieves?
Or kidnappers? But they had nothing to steal, and no-one could
imagine that the prince could be worth anything, not now. The noise
drew closer, heavier. Footsteps, one dragging. The sound of a cripple,
seeking shelter?
U Villasa crawled down low across the room, his palms against
the rough boards. He was just about to get up and reach for the gun,
when the door swung open.
In the doorway stood a bare-chested man, a torch burning in his
hand.
U Villasa shielded his eyes from the light and stood up, shaking.
The man lowered his torch away from the stray penants that
fluttered across the top of the door frame. But U Villasa was not looking
at those. He was looking at the tattoos on the chest of whatever giant
was holding that torch, at the serpents and symbols and pali charmspells and gods, that seemed to writhe in the torchs glow. He was
looking, too, at the muscles rippling under those spirited totems. He
wished he had a cloth to hide his own unpainted chest.
Maung Swe sent me, said the torchbearer.
He was missing one leg, which accounted for the strange
dragging sound. His peg-leg was fashioned of carved wood. It looked
like ebony, and U Villasa wondered at the strength of the body that

576
carried it.
U Villasa shrank into himself.
The man put his head inside the doorway, stepped across the
threshold, carrying the torch before him, and held it up over the bed to
inspect Thai Thin Gyi Phias features. He held the torch deliberately,
dangerously close.
This is the princes son? He asked, and then opened his mouth
in a wide grin. Myinguns son? A large diamond glinted in his front
left tooth.
I used to fight for the prince, he said. For his father, that is. And
he switched the torch from one hand to the other and raised his arm to
reveal a peacock tattooed from his armpit to his elbow. That, he
said, Was long ago. He looked down at his leg.
This, he said stamping his wooden leg on the floor, I lost this,
for that. He glanced again at the brandy-soaked prince, but this time
he spoke not with malice but with the pride of a man who had fought
for a cause.
And you? When did you ordain? Where? Which monastery? Who
was your teacher, your saya?
U Villasa said nothing.
Forgive me, said the bandit. For not bowing before a monk. My
pegleg, he said, and stretched his grin two tooth-gaps wider. This is
Maung Swes message: Leave town. Your life will be much simpler if

577
you do. There is no hurry. You have two weeks.
Does he not know about my new authority? Asks U Villasa. I
am here with the full approval even, with a mission from His
Majesty King Sisowath. Tell that to Maung Swe. I am here to reestablish the temple. And, he added, all the monks in town will
henceforth be reporting to me.
Show me, said the messenger. Let me see it.
No, that I will not do. Tell Maung Swe to meet me tomorrow.
With the colonial armed guard as my witness, and with the Princes son
here, we will meet, and I will announce the terms of my appointment.
I will call the chief of the Cambodian community, too.
That old drunk? Said the man. Very good. Two weeks,
remember.
And he turned, held the torch up for one last time over the
sleeping princes head, muttered something, and passed back out into
the night.
U Villasa clung to the doorframe. He heard him walking down the
monastery steps, but then nothing more. He ventured out of the
doorway and moved around to pull the door to when he saw him
sitting, on the bottom step, his torch driven into the ground beside
him.
U Villasa moved to the center of the stairs, enjoying a belated
moment of defiance. There were twelve steps between them.

578
The man reached a cigar from behind his ear.
Smoke?, he shouted up at U Villasa, without turning around.
U Villasa hesitated. No, he called back.
Tell me, said the man. Is she still with him, in Saigon?
U Villasa crept forward a few steps, crouching, suddenly alert.
Who?
The dancer.
Oh, her. U Villasa paused. I dont know, he said. But I think
so.
The man turned around to face him square on, and looked his
face over slowly, drawing on his cigar in long drags, as if for the first
time considering the possibility that he was a monk.
You think so? Have you any idea who I mean?

CHAPTER FORTY TWO

U VILLASA

PAILIN

U Villasa stared after the tattooed pirate as he loped off down the hill,

579
back down into Maung Shwes territory. His heart stung with new
doubt. It had been years since he had disrobed and left the monkhood,
but since arriving on the princes doorstep in Saigon three weeks ago,
it had never occurred to him that his plan would not work. That onelegged thug with rapier eyes had seen straight through him. Overhead,
the bats were moving back into position, drifting through the open
doorway, circling back through the broken roof. As if responding to
their calling, he turned around and followed them in. The door swung
lopsided on its hinges as he pulled it shut behind him. The princes son
was still sprawled out on the bed, oblivious, cocooned in a cognac
dream. The smell of guano clung to everything.
But then he thought of the house in Phnom Penh. Perhaps it was
worth it, after all. It had a grand entrance, wide wooden doors painted
in a shiny deep red. It had a large brass knocker in the shape of a lions
head, the ring running through the lions nose, and two huge potted
palms fanned out on either side.
And it came with a housekeeper who was widowed and lived with
her pretty, buxom daughter. His hand travelled further inside his
loincloth.
It was the first brick house he could ever call his own. Or nearly. Best
of all, it had a grand address. On his last job, in Chandernagor the
place where he had first heard about the prince he had lived in the
wrong part of town, a place of hustlers and drifters who lived so close it

580
was impossible to lose himself. It was here, from a Shan opium dealer
who had fallen foul of Maung Shwe, the chief of Pailin, that hed first
learned of Pailin.
If ever there was proof that hed inherited his mas gift for
timing and his bas gift for foraging something out of nothing, this was
it. As to the rest of it, that he could never explain. This was what he
was best at, what he had been put on this earth to do.

As simple as

that.
The Shan dealers tip-off had led him to Calcutta, where, for a
handsome bribe, hed earned an apprenticeship with some Parsi gem
dealers, and learned to tell the difference between a real jewel and a
fake. Most importantly, hed learned, after 12 months in the trade, the
skill of burnishing paler sapphires until they were so white they
resembled, and could be passed off as, diamonds.
But his timing was disastrous. The markets were in turmoil.
Chemistry was the culprit. The streets of Europe were flooded with fake
gems that looked as good as but sold for an eighteenth the price of,
the real thing. The market bottomed off. And even if it had picked up,
there was hardly a mineshaft in Pailin that could have fed it. He never
asked outright, was afraid to give away some of the genius of his own
plan, but he learned from eavesdropping on the gem dealers that the
sapphires at Pailin were almost all mined out. The Burmese were
drifting back across the border into Siam, and then wending their way

581
back to Burma, by the hundreds.

Cambodians and Laos remained,

coolies, but with their masters gone, they too soon began to leave.
Then, in 1907, talk picked up again. The ink was barely signed
on Frances treaty with Siam when the concessions began to take new
shapes, new owners. Mr. Beckerton moved in, of Siam Syndicates
Limited, representing Prince Damrong.
The time was ripe. His first move was to travel to Pailin himself
and figure out the lay of the land. His first trip he passed himself off as
a traveling salesman. Traveling seemed like a good idea given the
ounce of gold hed lifted from the Parsees business.
He set up with a pole over his shoulders and a bag of wares,
traded the gold for something he knew was in demand there and
everywhere, something that would leave no dust-trail, make no dent in
Maung Swes core industries. Something clean and light. Rare enough
for people to covet it enough to buy it, cheap enough for him to price it
low and still turn a profit. Before hed set off for Saigon to see the
Prince, while he was still laying these plans, for the first time in years,
he had traveled home to visit his mother, found her riddled with a
cancer that claimed her months later.
When he was a boy his ma had told him how to hold his hand out
flat and feel its mounds and ridges. Hed see each plane of flesh as his
future landholding. The day they announced the salt tax hed been out
on the alms round with the other monks. On the way he met his ma

582
who was returning from market to get more ngape, fish paste, with half
the usual amount because the price had soared. The trader told her it
was because of the salt tax. After that, his mother took to making it
herself, and her hands, her hair, took a permanent taint of fermented
fish. Then the head tax. At this the elders bridled more than at any
other ferenghi injustice. Each year, no matter what the harvest, the
same amount was due. In 1909, the harvest dipped. The landlords
began trying out new tricks. Their rice-measuring baskets grew bigger
as each harvest shrunk. And then there were the cheater weights, cast
in bronze. The British had called in all the old weights, had them
smelted down. This confused his mother. And it made way for the
trickster traders. Each year, pockets, stomachs and alms baskets
became harder to fill.
When he got word of her death, he was already on his way to
see the Prince in Saigon. But he had taken from her sickbed, among
her incoherent ramblings about the salt tax and the price of rice, one
last piece of good advice: trade in tiger balm. And when you trade
small, dont cheat. Sell good stuff. Dont mix it.
U Villasa had purchased hundreds of small tins of it at a Chinese
apothecary who worked in the backstreet of Mandalay, and bundled
them into a cloth. Tiger balm worked against fever, against
mosquitoes, against sore muscles and bad colds. It cleared phlegm and
throats and minds. It was cheap, and portable, and clean. It drew

583
stories out of people as sure as pond-water drew insects.
Selling it, by the roadside in Pailin, he got to squat on his
haunches and hear those stories, as they daubed samples of it on their
wrists. Over time, he pooled several small pots in one larger one, let
people take it - learned to chase away those who stuck two fingers in
it, or came back for more - and sat there, a cloth draped over his head
against the heat, listening in.
He soon began to form a complete picture in his head. Maung
Swe their chief, taxed anyone between 16 and 80, and he turned over
the head tax to the Treasurer of Battambang. For every head taxed ,
the Treasurer would issue a card. Every one in his district, every
Burman, had to carry a card, whether he was at home or on the road,
sleeping, shitting or eating.
Mostly Maung Swe let them think that they were buying the
cards direct from him. He played down the role the treasurer and the
French played, once hed passed them over it was not his business to
track in whose hand they ended up. As miners came and left, the
cards would circulate, until they become well-worn, thumbed with the
creases of deception. Mostly hed turn a blind eye. The cards
proclaimed their Burmese identity in Khmer characters. If Maung Swe
felt like it, or if the price was right, hed translate the Khmer into
Burmese or Thai. Since some of the miners were not literate in any
language, some didnt bother. Carrying this card declared them British

584
subjects - subjects of British police inquiries and laws. What they
bought, what Maung Swe traded, was protection against any law but
his own.
Without such a card, U Villasa would be vulnerable. But that part
of his plan could wait. For now, he was here to gather information.
Since October 1911, he learned, prices had plummeted. The
gem-mines had given up. It was like trying to harvest a field after
drought. And if they did find anything it was a sapphire cloudy and no
bigger than a rice grain. The coolies had started leaving en masse.
Cholera had taken hold. Maung Swe, head of the Burman community,
had tried to negotiate a lease. The Commissioner had requested, as a
first step, disarmament. His Burmese guards the gem-merchants,
the bazaar, the mines themselves - are armed with two hundred rapid
fire rifles.

The hardest thing about this new plan, from its inception, has been U
Villasas love of comfort. In Chandernagore, as an apprentice to the
diamond merchants, hed suffered sleeping out at the back with the
houseboys, but always the dream of comfort at the end of his travails,
had pulled him through.
From the age of nine, since his parents had given him up to the
monastery, U Villasa had always scoped out the softest mat, the
coolest corner. He had a knack for spotting the best place and time to

585
stand in line at memorials and house blessings so that hed get the
best choice of dishes on offer. Maintaining his comfort level required
constant negotiation of his position with others, but as long as they
were junior to him even by days, or if he could hone in on some other
weak spot, then that made his work - the work of looking after himself
a little easier. The chief abbot at the temple, Abbot Thuriya, slept
only on a rattan mat. He was trained as a thudong or forest monk, and
was famed in the region for his savvy with elephants and his resilience
to plagues. On holy days, villagers from both sides of the river traveled
in hordes to see the abbot. They came for stories of how he had
placated a tiger far out in the border, and stayed until they knew what
root plants from which corner of which jagged forest could cure
shortsightedness. They refused to leave until they had witnessed the
abbots ability to sleep upright. Abbot Thuriya wore patched up robes
and visited every house, even the poorest, on his alms rounds. That he
had survived cholera truly was a miracle.
None of this made any sense to U Villasa.
When the abbot led them on alms rounds, insisting that they visit
every house, and mix up all the offerings in the same bowl, he would
always be careful to position his bowl so that the juiciest morsels were
off to one side, and sometimes, surreptitiously, feed the offerings from
the poorest familes, to the dogs they passed off home. When the
abbot heard about U Villasas doings from the other monks, he never

586
praised him, but he would sometimes given an approving sign, or
present a sermon on the merits of making merit through kindness to
animals. If given the choice, U Villasa would rather go hungry than eat
low-grade rice. If the head monk sensed these motives in the young
monks displays of right conduct, he never showed it.
Over time, the abbots kindnesses fed U Villasas weakness.
When the abbot sought apprentices for trips into the forest, to do
thudong monk stuff, such as the forest monks practice of walking
endlessly among the elements, with only a single stick and cloth as
their protection against the sun and rain and wind, a crude contraption
called a dot that doubled up as umbrella and mosquito net, U Villasa
would be the first to think up new excuses for jobs around the temple.
He soon made himself an indispensable fixture on the monastery
grounds. By the time he had ordained, U Villasa was his own best
double agent. He had learned to imitate the outer contractions of
wisdom, to pontificate on suffering, and to chant with a mellow ring.
When the white soldiers brought cholera to Upper Burma, it had
decimated half of the village, and, through infected alms offerings, had
preyed on most of the monks in the monastery, killing several. But the
blight had stepped around the abbott and U Villasa both. The abbot, in
his bigheartedness, held U Villasa in a new kind of awe after that. But
U Villasa sensed another truth to it, that it was his own pickiness over
what he ate and where he slept, that had saved him. Villagers still

587
came from far and wide, but it was the abbott to whom they listened
longest, as if somehow they could already sense the fraud in U Villasa.
What grew on his alms rounds was not his charity but his desire
for a taste of those forbidden things that were only whispered about in
the monastery, but that he glimpsed daily on his alms rounds. Licquor,
gambling. Lewd women. Most of all he loved the clink of rupees and
taels, baht and piastres. More than anything, it was money that he
yearned to handle money and all it could buy.
When the British steamer surged up the Irrawaddy, its canonfire
rolling, word began that they were not just after the king, but after
Buddhism too. Some monks went into hiding, others named
themselves, or were named by their followers, heirs of the new order,
and took to the hills. U Villasa took a lively interest in their progress,
and wondered how he could make himself useful to these wealthy new
overlords. But when the Bengali cavalry, the Sikh and the Muslim
infantry who flanked the British officers, led the fledlging white infantry
in ransacking temples, digging out gems and silver icons from sacred
grounds, he thought of his parents.
How hard they toiled to make the smallest offering to the temple
on holy days, who dreamed of making just enough merit to be reborn
in their next lives as better farmers. It seemed wrong that these
precious statues, tiny silver ingots shaped in Buddhas image, and
even gold amulets, or rubies and sapphires inlaid into the outer

588
carapace of the stupas that dotted the landscape that stretched from
Prome to the royal court at Mandalay, had become such easy loot. And
wronger still that all that lucre was falling into foreign pockets,
travelling away, out of the royal heartland. The abbotts greatest fear
was that the kingdoms own stores of merit would travel out of Burma
with it. Scattered, dissipated, looted, tattered. Far better that a
Burmese should be profiting from this commerce. In this sacred trade,
he found his calling.

***

The cat wove between U Villasas legs. He leant down, stretched out
his hand, and patted her head. She stretched out her front paws,
arched her back, and began to purr. Then he picked her up by the
scruff of her neck, scooped her up in his arms, and held her up close
against his chest, stroking her matted fur. Then she climbed up on to
his shoulder, her look out post.
The statue was hewn from the best Mandalay marble. Even
from the doorway, its huge, beatific form towered over them,
embraced the temple.
Together they stood, the cat nuzzling deeper into the crook of his
arm, and U Villasa stroking her scrawny frame.

589
It had taken six men to unload the statue, and two more to help
hoist it up the temple steps and carry it over to the centre of the new
altar.
The statue had been delivered that morning. It was a gift from
the prince, quarried from the best, stippled white marble,
commissioned from a Mandalay stone-mason, sponsored by hundreds
of Myinguns supporters. The commotion had roused him from his
slumber, Nun had come running, and the Acharn was close behind her.
Soon, others were pushing their way in, children whod followed the
cart from the village then straggled behind the workmen as they pulled
and coaxed and lashed at the donkeys until they had strained at their
ropes and gnashed their teeth and dug their hooves in.
When theyd unpacked the statue from the tightly packed layers
of cloth and straw, there, impossibly small, almost as petrified as the
stone from which the Buddha was cast, cradled in the magnificent
crook of the Buddhas seamless elbow, her ribs as finely sculpted and
ridged as an effigy of a starving Gautama, was the cat.
U Villasa had been the first to see her. Over the next weeks and
months, the story of her finding would grow with the cat. They had
locked eyes; you should have heard it, the cat was purring in pali;
she had picked him out from all around; her eyes were two
gleaming, topaz slits, nun had thought they were two jewels, packed

590
there in a ball of fluff by some pious layman or laywomen, to be
attached to the Gotamas face; someone thought she was part of the
statue, a new design; the Acharn cursed the workmen and told them
to complain to the stonemasons, and send them a discount for the
damage, at which the whole crowd roared with laughter, how could a
cat leave traces on this solid marble?
He named her at once, without thinking. Hed reached up and
grabbed her by the scruff of the neck until she was mewing and
writhing in the air.

Nun rushed over to taker her off him, but he held

her fast, he could hear, feel, her fragile heartbeat through the cloth.
Go fetch some rice gruel, hed said.
Since then, shed clung to him like a parrot on a pirates
shoulder.

CHAPTER FORTY

THREE

U VILLASA

PAILIN

U Villasa reached into his monks bag and withdrew two small bundles,
wrapped in dark cloth. He put them on the table.
Thai Thin Gyis eyes were glazed, and the room had the sicklysweet pall of opium about it. Topaz hovered disdainfully in the
doorway. Thai Thin Gyis eyes dilated then focused in on her. What is

591
that?
Remember the new Buddha statue your father sent from
Mandalay? She was in the wrapping. She has eyes like yellow
sapphire, most valuable topaz in Burma, she will bring us luck.
Thai Thin Gyi looked doubtful. His hands were thinner than U
Villasa remembered, and his silk pyjamas hung off his arms.
She aleady has brought us luck. Look.
U Villasa gave a soft whistle, and a young, stout woman entered
the room. This is Sisongpanna, our new translator.
What languages?
Shan, French.
Comment-allez vous? asked Thai Thin Gyi.
The girl stuck her lower lip out and glanced nervously towards U
Villasa.
Her real art is translating gems, said U Villasa, beckoning her to
come towards him. Open them, he said, pushing the bundles
towards her.
The girl reached across and undid the hessian ties, laying flat two
thin circles of cloth that sat now like lotus leafs on the gleaming ebony
table. At their center stood two mounds of white crystals.

592
Rock salt? asked Thai Thin Gyi. This is your new venture?
U Villasa clicked his tongue against his palate. Why you live in the
dark? he asked.
Too hot, too bright, I have a headache, said Thai Thin Gyi.
Open the curtains, U Villasa ordered the girl. She padded over to
the rooms one, large, west-facing window and reached through its
metal grille to swing out the wooden shutters. Light streamed in.
Thai Thin Gyis eyes lit up, and he drew in closer to the table, his
mouth hanging slightly open.
Diamonds? he asked.
U Villasa shook his head. Tsss, tsss he hissed, turning around to the
doorway. Topaz walked across the room with a hunters swaying gait,
and leapt up onto the table, her spindly legs vibrating from the effort.
U Villasa pulled a tiny scrap of dried fish from his bag, and held it up to
her. This is her reward, he says.
For what?
U Villasa clicked his fingers three times. The cat sniffed one pile, then
the other. Then she turned around, stuck her tail in the air, and walked
away. Here kitty, here kitty, said U Villasa, and she pounced onto his
lap and snatched the tidbit from his fingers.

593
She has the knack, whispered U Villasa.
Thai Thin Gyi rubbed his eyes, and glanced at the girl, who was staring
into space.
Now your turn.
What?
Tell me, which one is diamonds, which one is not?
Thai Thin Gyi pulled at the edges of the cloth, one with each hand, so
that the twin glittering peaks slid over the table towards him. Topaz
arched her back and hissed.
Fake? You spent our money on fakes?
Thai Thin Gyi moved his fingers through one pile, then the other.
He picked out one crystal, then held it to the light. Then another. The
noon sun danced brilliantly off the rough-hewn facets, streaming
shards of rainbow light.
He laid one in his right palm, another in his left palm, then
crossed his hands like a magician.
I had a dream, said U Villassa. It is the same talent my
mother had. She only ever used it to dig for tumeric roots, she always
knew the right spot, right time. Lucky Lady came to me in the dream
Thai Thin Gyi looked again at the girl. Hardly a grandmother, she

594
was barely 15.
Not her, Grandma Yat, the spirit woman, she is Burmah like you
and me. The people in Pailin worship her, Lao, Khmer, Shan, Buddhist,
Muslim, everyone, she is very powerful. Nun told me all about her now
we have a shrine and I give her a lot of candy, then I learned she prefer
honey cakes and chicken, now she once appeared to me last night.
She lit a big fire and she threw a handful of gem sand in it and then
she reached in and out came a fistful of diamonds.
Huge beads of sweat stood out on Thai Tin Gyis forehead. Fan
him, ordered U Villassa, Go find his maid, tell her to do her job, where
is our tea?
I remembered then, he said. After the dream. I remembered
about Moulmein. The tournamaline. Green. In Moulmein one of the
gem traders taught me a trick, if you heat it up for as long as it takes
to roast a plaintain, it goes real white. Very white. In Pailin there are
only sapphires, pink sapphires, yellow sapphires, but no tournamaline.
So I sent her with three ticals to the market to buy some, to get the
cheapest kind, so we are not suspicious, I get her to say it is for the
awakening ceremony for the Buddha statue, to make merit for the new
mining season, for the whole village, that way she gets a discount.
When she comes back I get nun to heat a fire very hot, nun is very
cross with me, she says no good making us so hot in this weather, I

595
explain I am getting a fever, so she lays a fire with bricks and even
puts sand wet sand out around to stop it catching, she wants me to do
it outside, anyhow she lights a big fire, then she leaves, because she
embarrassed she knows I will take off my robe to sweat out fever. So I
ask every one to leave, even our new helper, he nods towards the girl,
its just Topaz and me, and the fire.
Topaz purrs, regal in his lap.
Its so hot I am fainting, but I dont want anyone to see, so I
shut the windows. I use this tool, from the doctors medical kit, he
lent it to me, old whitey mission doctor on the train, I had seen him use
it once to get out a splinter, he rummages in his bag, draws out a pair
of tweezers.
So then I ask him to see it and I forget to give it back. Anyhow I
bandage up at the top so as not to burn my fingers. The first one, a
sapphire burns, looks like scalded. Too close, second one too far, goes
all smokey black. Third one just right. You see, three jewels? Third
one just right, why, because just as I am about to put it in deeper into
the flame Topaz arches her back and hisses, and glares at me, and so I
pull it out just then, and it is white. Diamond white! I let it cool and
polish it. Then I do more, and more, finally I am too hot, and I think
this is something you can do! Here, in Phnom Penh, with your big
shady house, no-one will know.

596
Ten tourmaline, worthless stone, 1 Tical and 3/7.
Ten diamond, 870 Tical and 2/5. I checked it all in the market.
But we cannot sell in Pailin, they know too much, they know how to
check gems. We sell in Saigon.
CHAPTER FORTY FOUR

PAILIN - U VILLASA

The back of U Villasas throat had that prickly feeling that signaled
grim weather or bad news. He had slept with the louvres thrown wide
open. The sky was rinsed clean. Against its duck-egg blue, a faded
sliver of moon loitered like an unwanted guest.
He stretched out on the bed, thinking about the new padded
mattress that would be his before long, and strained his ears for any
indication of the time, hoping for the whistle of nuns pot, a
premonition of tea. But all was quiet. He sniffed, thought he caught a
whiff of something rank, but a breeze suddenly lifted through the
window, shaking the orange tree and the jasmine trellis outside, giving
new life to their night blossoms.
He propped himself up on his elbows and moved his feet around
under the thin, clammy sheet, looking for Topaz. But she was gone.
He imagined her silhouette, blunted by dew, whiskers bristling, claws
drawn, as she tracked her prey through the paddy, skipping from the

597
dyke ridges, and around the edges, disdainful of the wet

quiltwork

inbetween. Hed once seen her leap to a tree branch and from there to
a buffalos back quicker than it takes to blink, but not quick enough to
snag the bird that had been sitting there, nor to steady herself before
the startled beast flicked its tail so hard she fell off and landed in the
mudpat at its feet. Since then, shed worked at ground height. She
always came back by the first cockcrow, gloating, jaw clenched over
another broken offering, refusing to drop it or to let anyone else at it
until shed got her reward, her piece of dried fish. She was a hunter
and a trader. But what drew him to her most, what had glued them
together from the start, was her sheer talent for survival.
He ran his tongue lazily around his lips. Sipsongbanna. Her
success in getting discounted gems, had earned her a new title. She
was no long translator now, but his secretary. Hed instructed her to
meet him here before the alms round began, to brief him on the day
ahead. She had thick wrists and short, plump fingers with bitten back
nails, but the way she handled money and diamonds told him all he
needed to know. He saw the same look of awe in her eyes when she
looked at him. But there was a downside to that reverence. It would
take more than a new title to get those fingers on his skin.
He passed his hand over his head, working from his cheeks up to
his brows and over his pate, and groaned. Stubble. With all the

598
excitement of the last few days, no-one had seen to his grooming. So
much for his novices. That was their job. Perhaps he could add this to
Sipsongbannas duties. If only she werent so pious.
The wind picked up, banged the flimsy shutters to. There was
that smell again; a sniff of rust, an earthy undertow. He sat up and
pushed the shutters open. Outside, in the space of a cocks crow, the
sky had shifted to a brighter hue. He swung his legs over the side of
his bed, feeling for his slippers with his feet. But there was only one.
He reached his hand down under the rickety wooden frame, searching
for its twin, and then froze.
His hand had closed in on something soft and warm and wet,
some new nocturnal trophy. Something big. He pulled his hand out
and barely recognized it. Tiny feathers, pearly white or blood-flecked,
all soft, clung to his fingers and wrist.
The scratchiness at the back of his throat grew.
He knew before he bent his head down to look. He knew from the
softness of the down and the size of the thing. Under his bed, fresh
from the kill, impossibly big, impossibly there, was an owl.
Venerable, came her voice below his window. Its me,
Venerable

599
***

U Villasa had a jaunt in his step as he walked up the long wooden

stairway to the temple. The faint smell of mango spiced the air, and
the frangipani were in full flower on the trellised arch, their delicate
blossoms littering the walkway to the main hall.
The two novices picked their way up the steps behind him, their
full alms bowls a sign of U Villasas growing stature in the village. The
sweet, nutty fragrance of rice wafted across from the kitchen behind
the monastery, stirring his appetite.
The sky was a festive blue, as if even the elements were
preparing for the Taungzan day.
Venerable, Venerable came a gravelly voice.
The nun who kept the temple clean was hobbling towards him,
wielding a tray piled high with clementines and tea-cakes.
Are these for us? Asked U Villasa, eyeing the plump, juicy fruit.
Venerable, I am headed to the spirit house, these are offerings
for Grandma Yat, she is angry with us, she very angry, I think it is my
fault, I offer her pork scratchings instead of chicken yesterday, save
best for you Venerable.
Her eyes were full of tears.

600
Not now, said U Villasa, moving past her to the temple door. He
was impatient to sit down and eat, but he thought it undignified to rush
too quickly to the eating hall, he had explained to his novices on the
way up the hill that he would first enter the temple for a quiet moment
of meditation and reflection.
But Venerable Holiness
What? Why have you kept the doors shut he said, looking at the
main temple. How many times did I tell you to leave them open to air
out everything, the guano smell is too strong in there.
U Villasa marched up to the door and turned the handle. He
pulled it towards him, but it didnt budge.
Where is the key? He wanted to slap the old hag. In the
excitement, she had put down the tray of offerings to the spirit, to
catch her breath, and her whole body was now rattling with a wheeze.
I tried to tell you, she hissed, bent over like a dried shrimp.
The two novices were now abreast of U Villasa, one on either
side.
Maung Swe she stuttered out the words, choking on them.
Maung Swe, he locked it,and took the key.
You let him take the key?

601
The novices exchanged glances.
You let him take the key? repeated U Villasa. You let him lock
the door? And you have the gall to blame Spirit Lady Yiyiey Yat? Where
were you?
U Villasa pushed past them and began hammering at the door.
Help me, he snapped at the novices.
The nun began to snivel. At that moment Acharn Mae Tho
rounded the corner.
U Villasa turned to regain his composure, remembering the
breathing exercise his master had taught him.
He would not be treated like this. He was, after all, the
representative of the Myingun Prince.
The acharn glanced at the nun, who was staring at the ground,
her lip quivering like a scolded child.
U Villasas thoughts were racing. How could he explain this to
Prince Thai Thin Gyi? He was coming today to celebrate Taung Zan,
worse still, he was bringing with him the French Commissaire of
Battambang. He had invited the whole village to partake of the
festivities. And then the idea came to him. He need never know about
the matter with Maung Swe, none of them did, U Villasa could resolve

602
that later. Very well, he said. Let us go to the pavilion. We will
celebrate there. No need to bring them inside the temple hall!
Acharn placed his hands together. His bug eyes were cast slightly
downards, full of apology. He gave a light body bow. As he did so, U
Villasa noticed he had something rolled up under his arm, a small bolt
of cloth, folded outwards.. . JARDINE & SKINNER ran across the edge.
Where had he seen those letters before?
U Villasa grabbed the cloth from the Acharn with such force that
he staggered backwards. In the corner of his eye, the white robed nun
was tutting and shaking her head.
Why did you take this down? U Villasa yelled, unfurling the flag.
Its all creased! Whats this, a footprint? Did you trip on it. This is royal
heritage, he lied, hoping none of them could read English.
Not me, not me, Venerable, it was Maung Swes men. Theyve
taken over the pavilion. Now no longer Peacock Pavilion. They raised
the flag of the White Elephant.
What? Who? U Villasa felt his chest closing in on him, he felt he
was going to vomit. His eyes began to blur.
Maung Swe. First they took the key, then they moved across to
the pavilion. Maung Swe says he will hold his Taung Zan festivities
there today.

603
Well dont just stand there, U Villasa snarled at the novices,
Follow me.

CHAPTER FORTY FOUR

PAILIN

MAUNG SAY WINS THE BATTLE

By March 1914, Maung Swe is winning the battle. He has forbidden U

Villasa to access Pailin through the village of Byankyanin. On 7 March,
he orders U Villasa to leave the territory of Pailin. Hes also cut off his
supplies, and put out an order to everyone, not to carry food to U
Villasa.

On 12 March, 1914, Bonze U Villasa, Birman, Pailin, writes to Monsieur

Ernest Outrey, Resident Superieur au Cambodge, Phnom-Penh, Dated

604
12th March 1914.

Reference to your office letter no. 121 dated 16th fevrier 1914 to
Monsieur le Commissaire Delegue a Battambang and no. 250 dated
17th Fevrier 1914 for U Villassa undersigned request as follows:
(1) I have not receive a certified letter from Commissiare Delegue a
Battambang
(2) Contractor Maung Swe disobeyed the French Government orders,
and he ordered me to go out at once from Pailin and prevent all
persons not to send food to me. Because he was afriad that he cannot
do (unjustice) things whatever he likes. If he does any bad things he
was also afraid that I will report the matters to you, therefore please
order him strictly not to trouble me and must obey the French
Government
U Villasa

Upon receipt of U Villasas mostly English letter, peppered with French

titles, Outrey orders a translation to be made and sends it, on 19
March, to the Commissaire Delegue a Battambang attached to a
BULLETIN DE SOIT COMMUNIQUE, a special format document
containing a large empty column headed REPONSE. It is in this blank
slate that the Commissaire has typed, on 6 April 1914:

605
The Bonze U Villasa is living on bad terms with the Chief of Burmese in
Pailin, Maung-Swe.

It seems correct that the latter has used vexatious

means in order to get this monk to decide to leave the area.

Twice

already, I have made remonstrations with Maung Swe on this subject: I

will renew them with a strong voice when he comes next to Battambang.
Regrettably, we possess no means of effective pressure on the Chief of
the Burmese who is in effect the absolute master within the limits of
his mining district.

We are absolutely unarmed, and we will remain as

much when the current concession contract comes to an end of 1 April

1915.

Battambang, 6 April 1914, Commissiare Delegue.

On 22 March, 1914, U Villasa sends an anonymous letter to the

Resident Superieur au Cambodge, Pnom-Penh, Dated 22nd March 1914,
in a thin, spidery hand.

Sir,
Beg most respectfully and humbly request you as follows for favor of
your consideration on contractor Maung Swe of Pailin.

(1) He send the Opium to other countries, towns and villages for sale
to his servants and also he bought and sold the Shan Opium privately.
(2) He did not collect the Revenue Tax correctly and collect the tax
short; the remainder tax amount kept for himself privately.
(3) He kept the bad livelihood, thieves, dacoits and others and send

606
them for theft and dacoity.
(4) He took bribes of theft, rape, robbery, assault and other cases ie:
The above injustice cases on contractor Maung Swe can be found
easily, but beore enquiry, contractor Maung Swe must be in custody or
in prison. The enquiry officer must be a smart officer or Hkeikliu-Gyi,
otherwise the cases cannot be found, because all the persons of Pailin
are afraid of Maung Swe like King.
(5) And also clothes and other goods from India and Siam trading to
Pailin at least about 2000 monthly.
A commissaire who came to inspect the tax during this month are not
quite finish and complete.
So many persons whom are not receied their receipts for tax, but the
amount have been paid to Maung Swe
During the past year or this the sapphire sale priece was very low,
therefore persons are very short

The turf war escalates. Perhaps provoked by these reports, Maung Swe
begins to encroach on the pagoda grounds, gnawing U Villasas small
power base out from under his feet, so that the whole will crumble, like
a termites nest, vacated.

Myngoons son has made headway with connections, a vital prelude to

his request to train as a chemist, in Paris. On 1 May 1 1914, Prince

607
Myingoon writes to the Governor General asking for the cost of his
sons passage from Saigon to Marseille, so that he can finish his
studies in Chemistry, in France. He receives no reply, follows it up.
The Governor General makes discreet inquiries. The Governor of
Cochinchina has this to say about his sons prospects: On 30 July
1914, he writes: According to theinformation I have been able to
obain, it seems that the young prince THAITINGYI Myinguoon, after
having followed six months of courses at the Ecole Coloniale in 1898,
continued his studies, from 1905 to 1909, ath the Ecole Taberd, in
Saigon. He speaks French well enough, but I could not quite guage his
level of eduducation. The young prince told me that he was, at this
moment, working with M. M. Balliste & Moullie in a commercial
enterprise concerning the exploitation of phosphate beds? Mines?
Quarries ? CARRIERS in Battambang. Serious knowledge in chemistry
would be necessary for him to direct this extraction (exploitation), he
hopes to acquire such knowledge in France. When I observed that,
without any university diplomas, it will be impossible for him to follow
courses in a Faculty or in a special school, the young prince replied that
he has placed great hopes in the assistance of M. Governor General
SARRAULT who he will see in Paris, and under whose guidance
(bienveillance), he hopes to receive all useful information on this point,
and to receive a grant from the Ministry of Colonies. In addition, the
young Prince confided in me that he proposed to ask the GGI for an

608
advance of 4 or 500 piastres, to offset his initial travel expenses and
the cost of his establishment in France. It emerged from our discussion
that, on the one hand, the young Prince is not exactly decided on the
studies which he must undertake nor on the institution where he can
undertake them, and that, on the other hand, his living expenses in
France are somewhat problematic. It is to be feared, in fact, that Prince
Myngoon, whose already inadequate pension, most regrettably, cannot
sustain the lifestyle to which he is accustomed, in Saigon (de tenir son
rang a Saigon), will find it impossible to support the maintenance of his
son in France. [INDO GGI 42078]

On 18 June 1914 U Villasa writes to Ernest Outrey again, to the

Resident Superieur in Phnom Penh.

Its October 1914, Pailin has made news in the mainstream French
Indochinese press, LOpinion.

Back in Saigon, Myinguns son, Thai

Tin-Gyi, translates the article on Pailin.

Myingun is on the edge of his seat, waiting for mention of his
plan, his man, his monk. There is nothing.
Give me that, he grabs it from his son, calls U Maung Lwin, who
looks apologetically at the bristling Thai Tin Gyi. U Maung Lwin reads
the article, verifies the bad news, that there is no news, that his man in
Pailin is making no waves.

This is what concerns us, writes

609
an anonymous contributor. In the province of Battambang lies a big
center, called Pailin, whose population comprises mostly Burmese.
Theyve benefited from a tax regime that excludes them, until now;
this will all come to an end on 31 December, when new conventions
will be introduced. The Burmese tried in vain to extend their tax
advantage, or, at least, to delay the application of the new regime, for
a year. For now, all that we know for sure is that the chief of the
Burmans has at his disposal eight hundred rapid-fire rifles, not
counting the weapons provided by Siam that he can legally fire in case
of conflict. We also know that recently, the said chief exacted huge
taxes on the Cambodian monks who have set up on his territory,
leading to certain abuses of authority which will play out in the tribunal
of Battambang. Here, it seems, are some blatant warnings.

Information to be submitted to
the Resident Superieur aux Cambodge
Events in Pailin

Last 2 years ago, one Cambodgean rice trader, being sold his rice,
came back from Pailin to Batttambang, and he was robbed by dacoits
in the wood. The dacoits were 6 persons, amongst them, there were 5
Shans and 1 birman ((1) Mike Khan (2) Ywet Khan (3) Nga Oak son of
Chief du Village (4) Su Pyin-nya (5) and one other Shan and (6) Po

610
Min, a birman. All of them are under the auspices of the Contractor
and to the care of the same. The case is known well in Pailin as well as
in Battambong.
And as the Commissaire delege, being understand the affair asked the
Contractor Mg Swe to hand over the dacoits to the authority of the
French government, Mg Swe the contractor sent the head of one SuPyin-mya, one of the dacoits, who was beheaded by the command of
the Contractor who did not sent up other dacoits the followers of the
Contractor, Mg Swe sent up the only head of Su-Pyin-Mya to the
Commissaire delegue, though he could send the dacoit alive, is
because Mg Swe is afraid that the Government would found the real
facts of the (Su-Pyin-nya) was sent up alive. And Su-Pyin-mya had no
relations at all in Pailin.
Mg Swe arrested under pretence one birman named Nga Maung who
was quite innocent, and afterwards released without any inquiry. The
authority of French Government at Battambong did not know the real
facts in this matter, and the case is at last unknown. Many persons will
give evidence if your Excellency take up the case and enquire again.
(2) One Shan (Kula) named Nga Khong was shot and dead in the midst
of the village Pailin. But Mg Swe the Contractor did not make any
enquiry, though he (the Contracto) is agent of the French Government.
(3) One birman Htoon Tha was once also shot; but he did not
fortunately die. Htoon Tha reported the matter to the Contractor who

611
is also an agent of French government. But the Contractor did not
make any enquiry. At present the said birman Htoon Tha was shot and
dead by the command of the Contractor.
(4) 2 SHans (1) Mg Su and (2) Kanna who were in prisoned in
Battambong Jail with other shans in the case of opium, ran away from
Jail with the warders. The Contractor Mg Swe, having known that they
were prisoners,hid them in his house; and afterwards sent Mg Su to
Bangkok and Kanna to Calcutta with his expenses. At present Mg Su
returned to Palin and is working under the auspices of Mg Su the
contractor.
(5) One Ko Po, whose house was entered and some properties was
stolen by thieves, reported the matter to the contractor as an agent of
the French Government and requested permission to search the house
in which the thieves were living. But the Contractor did not take any
steps and refused the request.
(6) One birman U Phone was arrested and hand-cuff as a stolen
property receiver, by the confess of thieves who were arrested firstly.
But he (Mg Sw) released the thieves released the thieves without any
punishment, and demanded for some money from U Phone in order to
settle the case . U Phone, being innocent of the case and afraid of Mg
Sw, bride 23 ticals of gold to Mg Sw.
(7) One man named Po Hin who was once in Battambong Jail on a
conviction of robbery and one of the party of the dacoity case as

612
mentioned above no 1. Entered the garden of a woman named Ma
Sein to steal some property. The servant (Lza) saw the thief and fired.
The thief Po Min was killed.
The Contractor Mg Sw who was the protector of Po Min did not
reported the matters to the authority of the French Government and
demanded 1 horse, 3 ticals of gold and 50.$00 from Ma Sein the owner
of the garden in order not to take steps to the case.
(8) At Palin Village, there are resting places, wells, and public roads,
where no one allowed to dig mines. At present, Mg Sw, the contractor,
is digging mines with his followers the said plaes unjustly. The People
of Palin is now prosecuting the Contractor not to do so in Battambong
Court.
(9) One Myaw (a small canal in which precious stones are washing and
the very important instrument in working mines) cost about
10000.$00 belonging to Mg Ywet since 10 years ago, is forcibly taken
by the Contractor. So that the owner of Myaw is now prosecuting the
Contractor in Battambang Court.
The above informations are known to me during 3 years and many
people also know the above infomations as me. But there are many
injustices and unlawful events which were unknown to me. At present
the people of Pailin are afraid of Contractor for his injustices. So the
people are intending to go back to Siam and Burma.
I beg your Excellency to enquire all the matters in order to understand

613
thoroughly, through special Commissioners appointed by your
Excellency. And I am very pleased to give any assistance if your
Excellency desires me.
Phnom Penh, the 14th of November, 1914

U. Villassa

This report leads the Resident of Cambodia to write to his

counterpart/subordinate in Battambang, reporting that U Villasa, a
Burmese monk, head monk of the Prea Chedey Pail, has lodged a
complaint that Maung Swe has forced the closure of his temple.
Maung Swe has also pretended to be acting under the orders/with the
authority of the Commissioner of Battambang.

By December, U Villasas battle is lost, his cover blown. The Governor

of Cochinchina writes to his counterpart in Cambodia: It is my honour
to request from you any information you have that might shed light on
the head monk, U Villasa of Pailin (Battambang), touching on his
relations, his conduct, his reputation. This monk, a Burmese subject,
has been in truck with the Myingoon Prince for a very long time. He has
been visiting Myingoon two or three times a year, and is suspected of
acting as an intermediary between Myingoon and Burmese agitators.
His last visit to Saigon was in November last. Pour le gouverneur

614
absent: le directeur des bureaux charge de lexpedition de affaires
courantes.

In January 1915, the Resident Superieure in Phnom Penh sends the

Commissaire Delegue in Battambang a tres urgent cable from the
Governor of Cochinchina. Wheels within wheels, cables within cables.
EXTREMELY URGENT. CHECK UP ON HEAD MONK VILLASA OF PAILIN.
INC. HIS RELATIONS, CONDUCT, REPUTATION. THIS MONK LONG
ACQUAINTED WITH PRINCE MHYINGOON AND CALLS ON HIM TWO OR
THREE TIMES A YEAR. BRITISH GOVT SUSPECT HIM OF ACTING AS GOBETWEEN. BRITISH GOVT. ARE ADAMANT AND CLAIM THEY ARE NOT
MISTAKEN IN COMPLAINING OF THE ACTIONS OF THIS MONK.

TELEGRAM FROM PHNOM PENH TO HANOI, 0431 64 6 19H30 GG RES

SUPER PPENH CABLE GUILLEMETS CHARLE DAFFAIRES
DANGLETERRE LEGATION BANGKOK ME SIGNALE QUUN PRETRE
BOUDDHISTE FERAIT DE LAGITATION ANTI-ANGLAISE PARMI LES
BIRMANS DE PAILINH ET SE DONNERAIT POUR AGENT DU PRINCE
MYNGOON MIN. PLEASE CONDUCT INVESTIGATION AND SEND REPORT
BY TELEGRAPH.

15 February 1915: Telegram from BMB to RSC:

615
Monk U Villasa informed me yesterday that he must leave today for
Saigon where he has been called by Prince Myngoon-Min. Perhaps you
could question him about his passage to Phnom Penh, and on the
relations that he entertains with the prince, so as to provide
intelligence to the British.

PHNOM PENH, 27 march 1915, U Villasa, in the company of another

Burmese monk, also travelling from Battambang, left this morning for a
Chinese chaloupe bound for Chau-doc. Reports indicate that their
intended destination is Long-Nguyen.

20 April, 1915 M. Dupuis, Commissaire Central de police, a M. le

Resident Superieure de la Republique francaise au Cambodge. Im
honoured to inform you that the Burmese Monk Villasa who, after
disembarking in Saigon, went on to Travinh, arrived here yesterday
afternoon accompanied by another monk named PANANOU ad two
servants. These individuals were invited to leave Cochinchinese
territory as per the attached note which was carried by the Cambodian
intellectual (letter) who was travelling with them. Villasa informed me
that he was going to spend some time in Phnom Penh.

17 April 1915:

616
TRANSLATION OF TELEGRAPHIC CODE from M. Governor of Cochinchina
to the Resident Superieure, No. 55 Following your 65th of 27th month,
Monk Villasa and Passavon were found in Travin, and professed to be
seeking a meeting with the Prince Myin-Goon, with no other identity
papers than a card of the Prince. I asked an administrator in Travinh to
escort them back to Cambodia.

TRAVINH, Rep. Francais, 18 April 1915:

On the order of M. the Governor of Cochinchina, the two Burmese

monks, U Villasa and Pananou/Panavon and their domestics, named
Phome and Maung Sain, were invited to leave the territory of
Cochinchina and return to Cambodia. The Cambodian literati, DANH
HAN, was charged with escorting them to Phnom Penh.

617

CHAPTER FORTY FIVE - U VILLASA GOES TO COURT _ PHNOM

PENH/ SAIGON

The doctors wife was sitting at her mirror, pinning up her hair. The
room was dark the blinds were down and the day was shut outside. He
had acted fast, before she saw that he had gone through her wallet,
she was so startled, there, in the small salon he thought she had gone
out he dropped her wallet, but not before he had taken out a crisp 20
piastre note, he pushed it down into the crack of the Doctors faded silk
couch Outside came the sounds of the knife-sharpener and the breadseller doing the second rounds of the morning the light filtered through
the blinds but she drew them down, her eyes upon him, and then, dust
came off the silk couch, she had taken her scarf and blindfolded the
novice with it, he felt her hands upon him, and when he turned, she
whispered, caught in the act, there is no use hiding it now.

618
The air was thick with the smell of the jasmine bracelets she
wore, the ones the doctor bought for her everyday, with one
movement she let her hair down, something that made her seem
entirely naked, although she was still dressed, and this extraordinary
sensation of power, blackmail, he wondered, how could he use it? found out, caught redhanded by her already, she watching the novice,
blindfolded, malleable, and he behind the curtain, watching both of
them, astonished by the gall of the boy, there in his own image, an
apprentice of the truest sort, and yet even he bridled at this, maybe he
was too old, but as a boy of that age, he would never have dared, he
stood there, gloating,
Dont worry, the servant boy is out at the market she said, softly,
so softly he could barely stand the silence of it.
U Villasa could scarcely breathe, as he was searching her bag he
heard a hushed, rapid breathing coming from the inner chamber. He
pressed his body up against the wall and padded, softly, barefoot, until
his lips were up against the velvet drape that hung down dividing the
two rooms.
There he saw her lips were upon him, that scurrilous creep! Had
he learned nothing from his teachings? Or had he learned everything,
more than he would ever have dared to put in practice?
Outside, the clank of carts, the call of the knife seller, the bread

619
cart NUM PAAN, NUM PAAN, mixed in with the slow churn of a buffalo
bell.
He was about to shout out, but then noticed, immediately to the
right of the curtain, inside on an ornate commode, a wad of money
folded in a clasp.
In the commotion, as she was clambering onto the chaise
longue, the very same chaise longue on which the doctor would
examine his patients, and at the same moment, as if by some
mercenary magic, his ears heard the unmistakeable crinkle of
currency, and he saw the boy, his monks robe pushed up around his
chest by her ravenous hands, pushing a 20 piastre note out of the
way, impatient, as if it were an irritation, a hindrance.
Idiot, seethed U Villasa. He glanced back at the wad of money
on the commode, and then at the couple, and shrank in a rare flame of
conscience at the thought that he could be putting his meditation
training to this end, standing there, unbreathing, motionless, a conduit
of nothing, except his eyes, burning bright into his skull with all they
saw. He felt his own flesh harden, too.
Am I your first? She teased, thinking that she still thought he
was a real monk blinded him to something.
When U Villasa closed his eyes everything turned purple, the

620
world had gone purple, a deep dark purple, was the colour of her
lungyi, the silk feel of it, through the silk and the touch of the silk and
the feel of her skin, the softness of it, it rubbed against his coarse
monks robes, and he wrestled off her hands and then moved his down,
pushing off her robe, and all the while, the demerit of it.
The monk was a waif between her ample white thighs, and on
them he saw a pattern of purple bruising, greenish purple, and the
sight of them lit a flicker of pity in his heart, and as if in an act of
chivalry, as if to punish the doctor at those well-placed, well hidden
bruises, he reached in and grabbed the wad of money, his hand darting
soft and quick as a serpents tongue.
Wait, she said.
Better than the touch of the 20 piastre note, the taste of money,
and most of all betrayal, it was the taste of betrayal that he wanted to
rub between his fingers, savour, there in that room, the doctor out on
call, her body there before him, as if he had planned it all, this
poisonous scene, one swing of his arm, one word, and he could stop it,
but he stood there, watching, waiting, his own passion hardening, an
uncontrollable ache, he diverted his appetite, moved his thoughts to
the money.
When he had slipped it out, he sorted through it, he thought of
taking only a few notes, so that she would not notice, but then he

621
thought about it some more, why would she alert her husband to a
robbery when his own honor had been plundered under his nose, on his
patients couch, while he was on call?
He took the whole wallet, and then dithered some more, and
then plucked out a hefty wad, and returned at least the leather clasp
and slunk back to his quarters, and there he waited for the novice, and
leapt on him the minute he came back to their room, his hands on his
neck, and practically ripped the robe from him, grimacing at its damp
stain, the scent of drying semen, and ordere him to change robes, but
the boy wheedled that he was travelling with only one.
It lay twisted around his feet after their passion, this presented a
problem, but one which was soon solved, as it was the Kathen festival,
and the doctor had just purchased a set of nine robes to donate to
each of the main temples.
U Villasa had pushed him, this young boy who was travelling with
him, prodded him on the back, to make a trade, an old for a new, and
given him directions to the store room where the Kathen robes were
kept, he had spied out the whole layout o fhte doctors house on their
first night, under the pretext of needing to meditate in the cool night
air.
Wait, he said, and he had grabbed the cloth rudely from the boy
and folded it neatly so that he could exchange it without being noticed,

622
but how can I go out like this? Snivelled the boy, only his loincloth, and
U Villasa sneered. You have been seen with even less by the mistress
of this house, and trembling the boy stepped out, purple with shame,
as if her bruises had spread to him.
***
U Villasa had never been inside a courtroom before, through his long
and illustrious career he had avoided it, through skill, criminal
dexterity, and well-placed bribes. Now he was in the dock. There were
no witnesses there to defend him.
He looked around him. Where was Myingun? Where were his
sons?
The Burmese doctor was there, the plaintiff. Next to him was his
wife.
He was called first Charged with theft, stole 100 piastre from my
wallet.
Only 80, Myingun wanted to say. Look in the couch.
But he couldnt tell him, much less reveal that he had not exactly
stolen his wife, and he began to sweat and worry what was she doing
there? She was dressed in a prim cream silk pinni jacket, and her
thamein was a deep, respectable tamarind. There was no scent of
jasmine, nothing to remind him of that mad moment of passion. She

623
had a stiff little handbag perched on her knees, and looked away from
him the whole time.
The doctor was dressed in a colonial suit and by some ridiculous
vanity or affection h had brought his large doctors bag to court with
him
After the accusation, in order to preserve and maintain his
innocence, the innocence upon which he insisted, U Villasa had refused
to disrobe.
24 April 1915:
M. Dupuis, Commisaire Central, Police, to Resident Superior of
Cambodia:
With reference to the charges of the theft of 100 piastre, brought
against U Villasa by a Burman doctor who had offered him a place to
stay. The catalyst of this case was the elopement of the doctors
Burmese wife, with a young Burmese companion of U Villasa who
professed to be his disciple. Villasa has been given temporary freedom
(a ete laissse en liberte proviso ire).

The letter is on lined, slightly torn, paper, no heading, no insignia, a

page torn from a ledger of a lined notebook, written by a different hand
to his last letters; a new translator?, in ink.

624
The Resident Superior, Cambodge (undated)

I have received a letter from my laymen, Pailin, stating that the

Resident de Battambong, who had been to Pailin did not say anything
regarding with my affairs and did not decide the case of Maung Ywet
vs. Maung Swe, the agent de la mines aux Pailin.
My laymen Maung Ywet and Say Sanda went to see the
Resident de Battambong when he was in Pailin, and both of them (Mg
Ywet & Say Sanda) were informed that their case couldnt be decided
until the new Commissaire send up the report and examine the canals
to belongin to Maung Ywet & Say Sanda.
The case is now pending nearly 2 years and my laymen
had already spent nearly 10,000$.00 in the said case. The canal is
blonged to Maung Ywet and others for about 8 years; now, as Maung
Swe interfered with the matters Maung Ywet had lost his benefits etc.
etc. during 2 years . So I beg you to call for the report from the
Resident and decide the cases & my matters as soon as possible.

Sd/. Rev. U. Villassa.

26 April 1915: Res BMB to RSC> INFORMATION ON THE MONK U

625
VILLASA
Confidential: Monk U Villasa is an agent of Prince Myngoon in Pailin.
According to my informants, this monk left a village in Burma called
PROME after a semi-political, semi-legal affair. He only resumed
monastic robes in order to leverage a certain influence on the
population, but his clothing is the only religious thing about him.
He does not observe monastic precepts, he eats whatever is put before
him at all hours of the day, and hes even been known to keep the
company of gallant native women. His rivalry with MAUNG-SWAY
stems from a trade secret: U Villasa knows how to give white
sapphires a shine that could pass them off for diamonds, and there is
nothing he does not know about the gem industry.
U Villasa has a shocking reputation in Pailin. He is shunned by most of
the people and especially by all monks from the region who refuse to
have any dealings with him.

27 April 1915, Phnom Penh

Le Resident Superieur de la Republique Francaise au Cambodge a Son
Altesse Royale le Prince MYNGOON-MIN, SAIGON

Your Highness,
In response to your letter of the 15th of this month, I have the honour to
inform you that I asked the Resident of Battambang to advise me of

626
the outcome of the case of Mang-Ywet and Sari-Sanda against MangSay. Once I receive information, I will relay it to you.
I am taking advantage of this opportunity to discuss with you the monk
U-Villassa, who you have recommended to my care at various stages.
Allow me to inform you of rumours circulating in Pailin and
Battambang, and that have come to my attention, representing this
monk as leading a life scarcely worthy of his profession not enjoying an
excellent reputation. The word on the street is that he is a man of lewd
conduct which apparently explains the frequent presence of young
women in his entourage. He noes not seem to enjoy the esteem of his
fellow monks, either. It was in the company of two women acting as his
interpreters, that U Villassa presented himself to the offices of the
Resident of Battambang. I am also aware that he was and still is
involved in a battle of influence with Maung Sai, but the unfavorable
reputation which I echo here comes to me from an official source, and I
cannot but believe it.
Nor should I hide from you, the fact that this monk has a very bad
reputation among the population of Pailin; and does not enjoy the
esteem of any of his fellow monks.
I have therefore, felt obliged to prescribe a discreet enquiry into his
conduct and it is my duty to inform you that if the findings confirm the
rumours that have come to me, I will be obliged to discontinue the
goodwill/bienveillance that, on the basis of your high recommendation,

627
I have shown the monk U-Villassa up to this point the actions of this
monk, in order to enlighten myself as to his record. I would be most
obliged if you could apprise me of the title which attaches him to your
personage, and of the services that he is rendering you in Cambodge.
Please be assured, Highness, of the assurance of my highest
consideration and my most devoted sentiments.

30 April 1915, Telegram Official, Phnom Penh, RSC to the Governor of

Cochinchina, Saigon:a

Monk U Villasa sentenced to two months in prison on Monday by a

hearing before the correctional court (tribunal correctional), for the
theft of a wallet/bag (sacoche). On 30 April 1915, U Villasa is found
guilty of the theft of a handbag, containing 100 piastres. The charges
are pressed by a Burmese doctor in Phnom Penh, who claims that U
Villasa has stolen his property while abusing his hospitality. U Villasa is
sentenced to two years in prison. Charges are brought against him by
a Burmese doctor, for the theft of the wallet, stolen from his home
while he was giving U Villasa shelter. The police report notes a
possible connection between the doctors charges and the fact that U
Villasas traveling companion, a young Burmese man claiming to be his
disciple, had run off with the doctors wife.
Myingun appeals the verdict, and asks to go down to the court of

628
appeals in Saigon. The Prince Myingoon Min is informed of his affair.
Has sent to Phnom Penh one of his secretaries, named AUNG, fluent in
French, to travel with U Villasa to Saigon. STOP. Please inform if you
see anything inconvenient about this journey taking place.

1 May 1915:
Prince Myngoun Min to the Resident Superieur in Cambodia

I have the honour to inform you of receipt of your letter number 689 of
27 April last. I write to you in relation to the subject of the case of
Maung Twet and Sari Sanda against Maung Say, which you wrote to me
about, following information received from the resident of
Battambang.

It is true that I recommended U Villasa to your bienveillance, but that

was due to the veneration in which we Burmese hold Buddhist monks.

U Villasa is a Burmese monk, and I gave him my backing to help him.

(lit: je metais attach a lui pour lui rendre service). Outside of these
reasons, he has no claim or title that attaches to me.

It is a matter of the deepest regret to me that this monk has lost the
respect of his fellow Buddhists/monks. Please accept, M. le res Sup, the

629
assurance of my sympathy and friendship.

On 16 June 1915, U Villasa, apparently released from custody, the

charges eith dropped or settled out of court, glides once again into
French surveillance: M Dupuis, Central Police Chief, reports to the
Resident Superior of Cambodia that a Burmese monk, name unknown,
but who is undoubtedly U Villasa, arrived on Monday and took a
chaloupe to Kompong Chhnang, possibly bound for Battambang. With
him was his pupil, a young Burmese man, and his mistress (the
doctors wife?).

CHAPTER FORTY SIX

1914

SAIGON

630
On October 16, 1914, Sir Edward Grey encloses a copy of despatch no.
81 Confidential, from Chiengmai by Mr. Acting Consul Wood, dated
October 13 1914, to Th. H. Lyle.
On 7th October, a Siamese lord advised Lyle in confidence of an
alleged plot, said to have been formed by adherents of the Mingoon
prince, to stir up a rebellion in the near future, in North Siam,
Kengtung, in other British Shan States and in French Annam.
The Siamese lords informer is Mong Tun, a Burmese British
subject and lawyer. Revolts are to be made simultaneously in Kengtung
and Annam. Implicated in the business is a wealthy Burmese
contractor of Bombay Burma Trading Corp Ltd, named Maung Shway
Ngong; a Mong Backhon, of Chiengmai, and a Paka Kam and Chao Raj
Patikawong of Lampong.
Mong Shway Ngong had visited Saigon last year, and again this
year, and had seen the Mingoon Prince, who had appointed him to
some high office and promised to make him Governor of Wieng Papa
and Chiengrai district in the event of the plot being successful.
It was also asserted that a very large number of Shans and
Burmese had assembled in the neighbourhood of Chiengkoon. On 8th
October, Acting Consul Wood learned from another source that Mong
Shway Noung was in possession of a suspicious paper which he had
shown to one Mong Chaw Harn, a Burmese goldsmith there. He

631
questioned the goldsmith, Mong Chaw Harn, and learned that Mong
Shway Ngong had brought him a card with a peacock seal and some
writing on it and has asked him to make a facsimile in silver but he had
refused because it was too difficult. He asked him to get a copy of it
and he did (attached to p. 92 of IORC records) and on p. 93, attached
Theebaws seal.
The card itself is similar to that which you have probably seen
before, and which the Myngoon Prince at one time gave to a very large
number of Burmese. It bears however the following inscription:
LAtwinvon, porteur du presente est a mon service comme
Secretaire ecrivain en birman. Saigon, le 23 mai, 1913, and bears the
seal of the Myingoon Prince.
Maung Shway Noung had visited Saigon in early 1913 and received
some sort of nominal appointment in the service of the Burmese
Pretender. Atwinvon is translated as Minister of the Interior.
The card was very rudimentary.
It is an undoubted fact, continued Acting Consul Wood, that
there are a good many Burmese and Shan in Siam who entertain
feelings of sympathy and respect for the Myngon Prince, and who have
even gone so far as to give him money at different times. Mong Shway
Noung is doubtless one of these. Certain he visited the Prince at

632
Saigon earlier this year having gone there nominally to see the
Manager of the French East Asiatic Co. with regard to a business
matter, and it is alleged that he went again this year. Being a wealthy
man, he probably made the Prince a generous present, and received in
return an empty and worthless appointment. It is easy for a Pretender
to scatter titles or appointments broadcast, since they entail neither
expense nor responsibility. [Source: IORC L/PS/10 232]

SAIGON 1914 - March 26, Myingun sends Pavie a photograph, says its
the first time hes had one taken.

Maung Shwe Kyu? The characters were etched in gold on a

white background. A filament of memory turned in Myinguns head.
As he rotated the name card in his hand, it became that flat curio he
and Lu Pye had stared at in Dr. Marks school in Mandalay, as they
waited outside his office, sifting through his plate of calling cards as if
each contained some dark magic, some essence of the person who had
left it. The closest they came was that of a lady friend, cloaked in stale
perfume. Dr Marks had come up behind them, snatched it out of Lu
Pyes hand, and delivered his first lecture on etiquette. How strange
must England be, they had whispered to each other in the dorm at
night, if a card could substitute for a personal introduction. But now
his world turned on such things.

633

MAUNG SHWE KYU? He picked out the gold letters from the card.

He said you had never met, but he would like to take your
photograph.

Two coolies carried his trunk to the door. It was almost as tall as
Myingun, and made of some hard yellow canvas with leather corners
and neat buckles. Once inside, it rolled on wheels, like a miniature
wardrobe. One more carried, across his back, a large bundle of cloth,
and another, a roll of carpets. Last came the camera itself, its soft
drape hanging down over the strange, long-legged box like the hungry
folds of skin on some animal of prey.

Which background? Maung Shwe Kyu swung open the twin doors of his
portmanteau. Costumes hung on one side, and a set of drawers on the
other. From these he took out three books with leather and gold
spines, a carriage clock, and a China figure of a woman with roses on
her skirt. He snapped his finger, and his assistant collected them and
began to assemble them on a small table.

I prefer my own background, said Myingun.

634
U Shwe Kyu looked around the room. Try this, he said.

He snapped his fingers again, and the coolies unrolled a large

canvas which had entered the house hoisted up on their shoulders, to
reveal a Grecian garden scene with ornate pillars in the foreground.
Then they began to assemble a wooden frame.

I need no background, said Myingun. Let our little courtyard

serve as my backdrop.

Auguste Pavie, the French Cartographer, had once asked him for his
portrait, for a souvenir.
He did not say, no I would not risk that, having my image
captured, all the better to arm your police, against my escape. He said:
I regret I have led such a busy life to date, I have had little time for
such luxuries. But I assure you that in the future, should I manage, I
will send you my photograph.

Now he is here, before the camera. His room has become a small
theater. The coolies have dragged the backcloth up over the wooden
frame. He thinks of Ma May, on her own stage, in a place that is still
only a word for him, in Liverpool.

635
He eyes the dark hood, chews his lower lip.

No, Maung Shwe Kyu says, That is for me. His face is drawn
taut. Would you like to see it?

He lifts back the drape on the camera muzzle. Myingun gazes

into that thick concertinaed proboscis. Up close, it smells of rubber, of
spent fireworks, of metal.

The photographer suggests that he takes his position. Perhaps

you could stand more to this side? And your arms - like that, hanging at
either side.

Maung Shwe Kyu moved back under his hood. Myingun moved
his hands back to where they were, behind his back, clasps them so he
can feel his touchstone, the knot of luck incised in his skin. Too late to
call it off.

It is not just his fear of having his features filed away by Special
Branch, Foreign Department, Simla or elsewhere. His soul will be
snatched by the camera. A part of him, one of his butterfly souls, will
be sucked into that dark cloth.

636
He dare not ask what this would cost, he knew his eldest son was
running up fresh gambling debts. The last time he had had his
portrait painted was by the court artist, who had fled Mandalay after
Theebaws massacre, and made his way, eventually, to Benares. He
claimed loyalty to the princes cause, that he had been oppressed and
not free to move under Theebaw.
U Maung Lwin saw differently, and communicated as much to
Myingun.
He is on the make, where else can he make money? He is trained as a
court artist, trained in our conventions, where else can he make his
mark? But Myingun was not about to reject new partisans, especially
those who brought the gift of talent. So he and Myingundaine had
taken the painter in, had their portraits painted.
Myingun always marvelled on looking at that image, later, on
how the artists had captured his sons as anything more than rolling
balls of flesh, chubby faced, oblivious.

His youngest son was born in Pondicherry; he was not in this

portrait.

She (Lu Pyes ex-wife) refused to learn the bazaar words that all
the Bengali and Chinese traders spoke for the memsahibs servants
and boys. Most of the servants were Bengali/Hindi speakers, but still

637
they would pepper their orders with BREAD and MATCHES-ONE-BOX
and SARDINE-TWO-TINS and BIANCO-polish-one-tin and suchlike. She
had no truck with such banalities. If I learn their language, I will learn it
from the top she said, as if she could not bring her mouth, her tongue,
her teeth to fondle anything but words that were complex, almost
melodious. IN-COG-NEATO remained her favourite. Sometimes, even
now that her hair was threaded with grey and her skin, once as white
and translucent as the small grains of sticky rice, in those rare times
that they could still have together, here in this small house, with its
dusty clock, here where her body sometimes seemed all that remained
of his freedom, she would lie out beside him on the rattan mat, her hair
damp, her thamein skirt folded always neatly by her side, she would
sing softly to him in his ear, you are my incognito prince, and it didnt
matter how many moons passed between their trysts, her voice would
never age, he would shut his eyes and let her voice carry him, and
then she would turn her head away from him and lustre her face with a
saltwater sheen, and her hand in his they would honor Lu Pyes
memory.

In August 1915, Maung Shwe Kyu of Shwe Kyu and Company,

Rangoon, testifies before a government hearing in Rangoon. He
confirms that on his way to Japan he met the Myingun Prince at Saigon,
and that the prince had presented him with a copy of his photograph,

638
with a superscription that if the Burmese people help the British
Government in the present crisis they will be much benefited in the
long run, and had desired that reproductions of the photograph, with
its superscription, might be distributed among the Burmese people.
He forwarded the request to Mssrs Shwe Kyu and Company,
Rangoon, and the Lt. Governor, Local Govt, advised that there could
be little doubt that the dissemination in Burma of photographs of the
Myingun Prince and his two sons would excite among educated
Burmans, feelings which might lead to untoward results, detrimental to
peace and established order, and that for this reason any such
publications would meet with the serious displeasure of the local
government. [Extract from Dept. Proceedings, Confidential
Supplement, Sep 1915, II B, pp. v, viii, p. 65 of microfilm, IORC]. In
December 1915, Maung Shwe Kyu had abandoned the idea of
publishing any photographs of the Myingun Prince.

CHAPTER???? U MAUNG LWIN

U Maung Lwin had no notion of when it had started. He had begun to

hoard fragments of paper the same way cook hoarded cuttings from a
plant, to cultivate it and grow it anew. Each day while the prince was
resting at noon, U Maung Lwin would feed the typerwiter a piece of
paper and begin his work.

639
The force with which he had to move the typewriter keys was tiresome,
more so than writing with a pen, but there was something as addictive
as chess was to Myngun in the rhythm of those keys and the way he
could convert their stern casings into language, that drew him again
and again to that keyboard. Last week, he had resorted to theft, and
he wondered at the strange forces that drew Myngun to a dream of a
throne, his son to the dreamweed of opium, and himself, over and
over, to the magic of a blank page and the pull of words unmade. He
had begun to write in English, French, in notes, ugly, unkempt, and
then to unreel those pages from the typewriter and work in Burmese. A
translation in reverse.
He was terrified les the prince startled awake, it wsa a noisy business.
The princess and her servants never made it back to this part of the
house. Only Ma May had shown that nerve, and now she was gone. U
Maung Lwin had decided not to tell the prince about her letter.
It had arrived with Duleep Singhs men. There had been wads of
money; it was that that most interested Myngun. They had presented
the letter almost as an afterthought, wavering, uncertain, and then
turning to U Maung Lwin, as if to say that only Mygnun could be trusted
with money; as if it were some sort of compensation.
The letter was folded in three and held with a red wax seal into which
was pressed some abstract design.
It was addressed to Myngun, in a hand whose excessive neatness

640
suggested to U Maung Lwin love or hate or both. He was intrigued but
also insulted enough by the way the courier had at first refused to trust
him with the letter, to keep the news waiting. He did not open it until
the next day, in part hoping it was an urgent missive whose tardy
discovery would get the messengers in trouble.
When he opened it, working the letter-opener methodically
through its edges in a sawing motion, and found that it was from Ma
May, his body went weak as if she were there in the room with him. He
put it down and walked over to the doorway to pull the curtain across
it.
He told himself he would save it up for the next day, until the
prince had more time, was in a stronger frame of mind, that the letter
would shock him, the mere sight of her hand.
He noticed the address and copied it out: Mssrs, Dawson, Perry &
Co. c/o The Lamb AND Flag. It had the sound of a ship.

It had been

five months since she had set sail, and not a word.
[OR: He began to read it, and saw it was to her grandmother,
that it was not addressed to him at all, and began to stare as if in some
strange code, at the mention of her daughter.] The letterhead was
from the Baron of Keddlestone. He held it up to his nose, if only to
smell the traces of her. He did not so much as glance at the typewriter.
This letter would be in his hand.
Dear Ma May, he began, and then stopped.

641
He stared at the page as if he could force writing to bloom out
from its parched state but none came. He held his pen poised, and his
hand became rigid.
What did he U Maung Lwin, Secretary to the Prince have to
say? All this time he had learned to speak, to write, for others.
He remembered the rumour about Ma May, that she had played
mute at court, in some ways he is the same, he thinks, except he
speaks for others. Shapes their words. He remembered how, years
after she had fled that role, fled that court, joined the princes cause
that she would open her mouth to speak, and then pause, no sound
coming out.
He could write letters for others, compose poetry for his own
pleasure, even if it were not fit yet to share. But what did he have
to say?

MAMAY FRAGMENT: She had told him there was nothing left to
fight for, to stop, give in, that his fascination for the throne was no
different in kind or measure than his sons craving for opium. Except
that opium could be bought, measured, weighed, procured, inhaled;
that in form and substance, if not effect, it was finite. The kingship was
not a drug you could touch. It was not even power, of the type men
vied for, or that fuelled crazed dreams, that was the stuff of Mynguns

642
craving. His craving was in itself a crazed dream, fuelled by the desire
for power. But he would not listen, still he hitched his schemes to
causes larger than himself. For this she could have forgiven him if his
was a solo act, but they were all caught up in it, and all would go down
with him.
She had know from her aunt that his temper was unripe, he was
too easily flattered, needed to believe he was the one destined to
succeed his father to the throne, better the more because his father
looked askance at him, had passed his own son over as heir to the
throne for his flatulent uncle, the kings brother.
HE studied these masks in court, the masks of those men, how
they masked their anger the way MaMay silenced her speech. But he
could do neither.

CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN

SAIGON, 1919-1920

643
MYNGOON MIN Prince heritier de Birmanie, Saigon, 17 June 1919, to HE
the Minister of Colonies, Paris
Monsieur Minister, It is my sad duty to inform you that my
second son, Thaitinlat, died on the 10th of this month. Please be
assured, Monsieur Minister, of my highest consideration. HRH
MYNGOON MIN

15 APRIL 1920 M. OUTREY

HBM Consulate Saigon, Cochinchina
Report of conversation between J. Crosby (HMConsulate, Saigon) and
M. Outrey, the Deputy who represents Cochin-China in the French
Parliament, re. Myngun Prince:
Private dinner
The Deputy drew me aside in order to tell me that he was interesting
himself in the position of the Myingun Prince whose acquaintance he
had first made long ago when he (Monsieur Outrey) was a member of
the Civil Service in French Indo-China. the Prince, hitherto sponsored
by a subsidy of some 800 (?) dollars a month which (in addition to the
use of a house) has ben granted to him by the French authorities. M.
O. informed me that this sum no longer suffices for the Princes needs
owing to the extravagance of his sons, whose many debts have been
honoured by their father, with the result that the subsidy has been

644
hypotheticated (??) almost to its full extent, a monthly sum of little
more than $80 being left available for the maintenance of the prince
and of his immediate dependents. The question of increasing the
subsidy has thus arisen, but the Government of French Indochina is, for
political reasons, unwilling to take any steps in the matter. It is feared
that, were additional emoluments now allotted to the Myingun Prince,
the circumstance might be misinterpreted by ourselves, and that we
might suspect the French of still wishing to put him forward as a
pretender to the Crown of Burma. M. Outrey represented that, as a
matter of fact, importance no longer attaches to the personality of the
Prince who is a very old man and powerless to work mischief(Outrey
suggested that British authorities might perhaps be willing to allow the
Prince to take up his residence at Singapore or in some other suitable
Colony, and to grant him an allowance sufficient to enable him to end
his days in comfort and in peace. unofficial enquiries by Outrey, who
proposed to take it up by seeking a personal interview with the Early of
Derby in Paris.
M. Outrey described the plight of the Myingun Prince as being pitiable,
and considered that we should be performing an act of charity by
assisting him
I enquired if M. Outrey wished to suggest that the princes sons should
also receive hospitality at our hands. He replied that they were

645
worthless fellows who might be left to shift for themselves.
M. Outrey sailed from Saigon for France on the 13th instant, to resume
his parliamentary duties after his re-election as deputy.
It is not impossible the Governor of Indochina feels reluctant
to increase his allowance out of deference towards our own feelings
but he suspects motives of pure economy. Now that French designs on
Burma are, happily a thing of the past, and that the Myingun Prince has
therefore ceased to become a potential tool for use against us; it may
well be that the local treasury feels his maintenance is a burden.

***

Later, this day will intrude upon all his others. As vivid as the lines that
scar their tissue-thin maps. A partition.
Myingun is lying in bed, his limbs still heavy with sleep. He has
dreamed for the first time in months of the throne, not sitting in the
Calcutta museum as she has described it to him, but installed in
Mandalay, or was it Rangoon, was it Bishop Bigandets house? No
matter. The throne was firm beneath him and he was looking down on
the scene as if he were floating above it. The gold leaf was not peeling
off it as Ma May had described it. It was thick with new luster. He turns

646
the scene over and over, the way his son Thaitingle handles his glass
plates before images form.
An indeterminate, silvery light fringes his windows dawn? Or
not yet? Through the slits of his half-awake eyes he sees the pale
green fronds of the ostrich feathers, a gift from the Maharajah. The
pankawallah is still moving. He slides back into a second sleep, empty
and dreamless.
He sits straight up, sweat plastered to his back, unsure. The fan
is still moving to the same serene rhythm. Stop hisses Myingun. The
pankawallah stops.
The cries are muffled. come, no, and other sounds, groans,
sighs. Feet running.
Everything has a new weight, he can barely lift himself up off the
bed.
When he enters the room, Thaithingle is stretched out on the
couch.
They have spared me the worst, he thinks. So I can never mourn
fully.
His joints, bones, legs are askew, his head jerked back, mouth
lolling open like an idiots, eyes protruding, lips elephant-fish thick.
The room smells of durian fruit, as if his flesh had already turned.

647
His wife is kneeling, her back to the door. She hugs the end of
the chaise longue, her face up against his feet, one marbled heel in her
left hand, her right arm wrapped around his knees, her gold bracelets
bunched up around her wrists, denting his flesh, her face flat against
his calves, her shoulders racked with a trapped howl. He moves closer,
stretches out his hand to comfort her, then stops. Her back is angled at
him like a shield.
The windows are shut tight.
In the corner of the room, hunched against the walls, curled up,
facing Myingun but not looking at him, Thaitingyi is chewing on the
fingers of one hand. His eyes are glassy and his face opium white. His
other hand grips the severed noose, stroking it as if it were a favorite
horses harness.
Up above the couch, the rope is still quivering. Slashed short.
Frayed.
Myingun stares up at the strange root that grows upward out of
the rope, on the ceiling hook where it stays lodged, impossibly secure,
tied with a rare demonstration of focus. Tied by his son, whose knots
had always failed, slipped, yielded to impatience. He studies the knot,
its sinewy perfection.
He moves around to the head of the couch.

648
Someone has pulled a cloth up around his neck, hurried like their
footsteps. Its a bright burgundy drape, giving him the look of a court
jester. Behind it, a naked window, shut tight.
The room is moving, heaving with raw noise and stifled grief. The
domestics grief is laced with fretful glances. With each new household
passing, the livelihoods of servants die.
He reaches down, over his sons head, and grips the edge of the
coverlet, peels it back carefully, as if opening an envelope after
breaking the wax seal. He smoothes down the lapels of his velvet
smoking jacket, the worn, quilted lapels. Tosses the red curtain on the
floor. Lays his sons arms out across his chest. Puffs out the fresh
white cuffs. Sees the cufflink, gleaming; unusually, polished. It is the
one with his initials, the cause of bitter discord, the pair hed
squandered his student allowance on in Paris. Hed long thought them
gone, hocked, gambled. He checks for the other one.
Nothing. Begins to look for it, under the bed, in the corners, down
on all fours. Nothing.
He moves back to the couch, studies his sons neck, the bruising
and welts. Finds fibres still stuck in there. He begins to remove them,
to pick them out.
Who found him? he asks.

649
Found him? What does it matter who found him? We have lost
him, lost him, cant you see?
***
TELEGRAM, 21 MAY 1920, Further to my #902, 3rd this, received the
following telegram Governor Cochinchina:Last son of Prince Myngoon
Min age 32 suicide by hanging. Probable motive material difficulties,
resources reduced to minimum due to creditor pressure. Had to give
immediate aid of HUNDRED PIASTRES to the old Prince for his sons
funeral. LONG

Her Majestys Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs,

Foreign Office, London:
the Myingun prince is still living in Saigon, but that all his sons
are now dead.
From information which I have been able to gather, I understand that,
of the three sons who formerly lived with the Myingun Prince in Saigon,
the eldest died some months ago, both from the effects of a life of
excess, and that the third son hanged himself only last month, as
reported to you in Mr. Crosbys dispatch on the 18th of May last.
The only grandchildren of the Myingun Min now alive are all
females, and the male line is extinct. The Myingun Prince himself is
now an old man of about seventy-five years of age, and although said

650
to be still sound in health, is undoubtedly much weighed down with the
financial troubles which his rascals of sons have brought upon him.
Some few months ago, while the two younger sons were still
alive, he was visited, I am told, by a Burmese Buddhist Priest, who
came here from Burma with his passport in due order. It is surmised
that his purpose in coming was to find out whether, in support of the
alleged agitation now proceeding to re-create a Burmese monarch
under the British aegis, the Myingun Prince would make a suitable
candidate for the throne.
He is said, however, to have been disgusted with the appearance
of the two sons then alive, and, as the Prince himself cannot live much
longer, is presumed to have taken back an unfavorable report to
Rangoon.

On 29 June, 1920, the Under Secretary of State writes from Downing

Street, acknowledging receipt of Earl Curzons letter and wishing to
inform Earl Curzon that Lord Milner has no objection and if Government
of India desired to maintain the Prince at Singapore, it would be
necessary to consult the Governor of the Straits Settlements, to whom
a copy of this correspondence is being sent.

LETTER moved from front redraft:

He skims over the first paragraph, about his most pressing worries, his

651
reduction to misery by the pressure of his creditors, about the
exhaustion of his resources, the confiscation of all his family goods in
1885 by the British, when he left India, about the tailing off of subsidies
and support from his partisans, either because they are too heavily
surveilled, or discouraged. He begins at the bottom of the first page:
After having given the matter much thought, I think that a general
liquidation of my debts is possible. This would bring calm to my spirit,
and allow me to end my troubled life in peace. I know well that my
political role is finished.
He skims the bit about his debts now reaching $15,000 (a
detailed appendix is attached). Most are very old, and the usurious
interests represent a large part of his current commitments.
Read it, commands Myingun.
Here is what I desire, begins U Maung Lwin. His voice falters as
he searches for the tone that was once his to craft into words and is
now only a flutter in the princes throat.
A person who is officially designated by M. le Governor General
with the mission of liaising with my creditors and reducing their
demands to honest dimensions. I would propose either the Attorney
General of the Court of Appeal at Saigon, or M. Bertrand, the head of
the department of Government in Cochinchina, a man of
commendable sympathy and courtesy. The Governor General would
allocate, from his budget, and put at his disposal, a sum sufficient for

652
the liquidator to finally resolve my debts.
This sum would amount to about 300 piastres per month.
Enough would remain for me to live henceforth in a more comfortable
state than the misery to which I have been constrained in these past
months.
Dusk fills the room and outside the clatter of the street softens.
Carry on, says the Prince. Dont stop now.
The words curl and float around the page, catch in U Maung
Lwins eyelashes, fail to make the journey to his mouth. His thumbs
press down hard upon the paper.
Read, the prince commands again, his voice up at the edges
the way paper curls when set alight.
If this arrangement meets your approval, I will no longer have to
concern myself with my material predicament. But I must also think of
the future of my children. Of the two, the one who it is important to
establish as early as possible, is PrinceThai-Thin-Gyi-Phia, the son of
my brother MynGoonDin, who died in Benares. We must extricate him
from the effects of the enviroment in Saigon, from the desouevrement,
and from the difficulties that he must share with me, but which he can
never get used to. He has sought, with no success, the means to
support himself independently and honorably through work; and his
incompetences (deconvenues) have entailed great sacrifices on my
part. But he is intelligent, and energetic. He speaks and writes French

653
fluently, and also knows Khmer and Vietnamese. A change of scenery
would be of definite benefit to his character and morals. He could
make himself useful in France, as long as he was closely supervised
and trained. I think that the General Government could use his abilities
in the Civil Administration where he would serve informally/unofficially
(hors cadres), in an honorable employ, with adequate remuneration.
In the province of Battambang, for example, there are many Burmese
who engage in the trade and prospecting of precious stones. Might it
not be possible to put my adoptive son at the disposal of the chief of
the province, as a delegate who could attend to relations between the
French Administration, and Burmese
If not Battambang, then a similar position could surely be found in
Siem Reap or Sisophon. Or in Upper-Laos, in Sipson-Bannas, which, in
times gone by, was a tributary of the kingdom of my fathers. There,
certainly , Prince Thai-Thin-Gy-Phia could help the representatives of
the Protectorate in their relations with the Shan Chiefs.
My adoptive son is most loyal. He has grown wiser as he has
grown older, and is more aware of his obligations towards your noble
country, and would show himself worthy of any confidence you invest
in him.
My son Thai-Tin-Gale, also desires to serve the French
government. But he is sickly, and I would prefer to keep him close to
me, until that time when he can be given a position that I would leave

654
it to Your Excellency to determine. He speaks and writes French well
enough, at an appropriate time a functionary could interview him to
assess in what kind of sedentary occupations it might be possible to
employ him.
U Maung Lwin has reached the end of the letter. All that remains
is a salutation.
It is not as if I did not try, says Myingun. At least, he says,
at the very least, I tried.
And he wrings his hands, over and over, and U Maung Lwin gets
up to go.
No, stay with me.
Shall I call your wife?
No, you stay with me. She will have her time. Tea, tea, I am
thirsty.
U Maung Lwin pours him a cup. Hesitant, he gets up to restore
the letter to the files.
Read on, he says.
But Your Highness, it is late.
Then open the windows, let in the air, let them all hear. Read it
out loud.

His breath is more laboured now, U Maung Lwin feels he

can hear each particle of dust and clot of phlegm.

Call them in, he adds. Call them in, all of them. All who
remain, he adds. He stops to catch his breath. Since when was the

655
simple act of speech such labour? He gathers his strength, draws it up
from his fingertips, frail and hardened as they are. Call them in.
No, he says, suddenly strong, as if memory had unblocked his
airways. That can wait. First, let us rehearse it. I remember this
letter, it was our best. Remember how hard we worked on this? And
Thai Tin Gyi Phia, how long he spent on the French, that dictionary of
his. Remember? All thumbed through with brandyprints. His kidneys, if
only he had listened, the doctor told him brandy was no medicine, -
He is drifting, U Maung Lwin thinks, and his mind returns to his
typewriter, and the traffic in words he does each night, when the
prince is sleeping his cognac sleep, and he sifts through and stores the
loot of the day.
Read on, says the prince, lucid again. Just to the next
paragraph.
He remembers too, distantly, how his grandmother had told him
stories from the Ramayana, until he was deep in sleep, and how,
somewhere at the juncture between wakefulness and that blissful fall
into oblivion, she would startle him awake with a demon, or a giant.
Read, read, says the prince again.
U Maung Lwin sets his lips tight and turns to pour the two of
them some tea. The smokey dark leaves are bitter and the water
clouds as they unfurl.
Since 1885, when I reached Saigon, a city I only ever wanted to

656
pass through, I considered my interests to be the same as those of
France in the Far East.
I remember, for example, how in 1916 I brought about the arrest
of an agent working for the Germans, who had come to seek my help
in fomenting a Burmese uprising against the English.
Now, the Great War has strengthened the Entente Cordiale.
Some French think that Prince Myngoon and his family are nothing
more than useless and expensive guests. But a peaceful future cannot
always be guaranteed through treaties alone. One day will come,
perhaps, when the Pretender to the Burmese Throne (le pretendant
Birman) will regain his value in concert with French diplomacy. If you
share this view, it would behoove you to leave me with no anxieties
about the future of my race/line/lineage, and to let me know that the
hospitality that I have received, in Saigon, will also be granted, in the
same conditions, to he among my sons whom I designate as my
rightful legal heir.
It is also possible that the sympathy of the French Government.

657

CHAPTER FORTY NINE

SAIGON

Read to me, Myingun commands. Read to me, Burmese verse.

U Maung Lwin scans through the pile of books, stacked like soft
bricks, by his bedside. He discards the letter that is a book mark,
another reminder from his creditors. Folds in two the court summons.
From the bottom of the pile he eases out a parabaik. He begins
to read from the poetry of the Kunwin Mingyi.
I do not buy
But pick from the forest
A green leaf to make your cheroot
Keep it under my bed
To make a cheroot for you
Cut the edge with my teeth
Then roll the leaf up into your cheroot
Bind it with a cotton string
Passing it to you
Who is now in Innwa.

658
And in Myinguns mind, something shifts, like a floorboard that
comes loose, a loose rafter he thinks, something beneath or above
which maybe, maybe, something is hidden. But what?
Another one, says Myingun. Turn to one of his Dhammathat.
Sixteen false friends.
Read it.
His first memories of the Kinwun Mingyi were as a man named U
Gaung. He had a quick and greedy smile, and eyes that could chill you
faster than ice, but the finest tongue. Back then, words were his
treasury. He could spin them from thin air, retire to his rooms and
return with fresh-woven reams. He seduced Myinguns father King
Mindon with poetry. He remembers his wife, a sour-faced widow, forty
years his senior. Why had his father done that, married his new
advisor to that spent, barren woman, the widow of a judge? For fear
that he would have sons who might rival his own, or outwit them? And
he remembers, too, the Kinwun Mingys first mistake. The grains of
rice.
Rice? Asked U Maung Lwin.
He must have been thinking out loud. The grain of rice.
Remember, Myingun says, Remember how greedy he was? For a
horse, for a new pasoe, a bolt of cloth, but what he was most greedy

659
for was to be the one who got it right, who outsmarted that other
minister, what was his name? And when we were boys, how we hid
behind the pomegrante tree and lapped it up, watching U Kaung
watering his plants remember?
Rice, can you eat thirty times a grain of rice? Their father King
Mindon had asked. If you can, to you a steed and new putsoes.
Oh yes, of course I can, U Gaung had answered too quickly.
Hoping only for a steed and a pasoe
I promised to eat thirty times one grain of rice
The mistake was all mine
Unthinkable
Utter folly
Not to be repeated again
For my punishment, I am to water the plants
Come and see my beloved
My Sinkyan Mai, my lady love, lend me your hand
Beneath the poem, a scribe had etched in the following
calculation:
1

660
2
4
8
16
32
and on and on until he reached the total, 1,073, 741,823.
U Maung Lwin reads the numbers over softly.
You never had your fathers flair for riddles, he said out loud,
and then wished he could reclaim his words. But Myingun has heard
nothing, he is staring up above him, at the ceiling again, as if he were
trying to stare through a misted windowpane.
From his fathers lesson on rice and greed, from this at least,
Myingun had learned. Never snap at bait. Eyeball it, tease it, measure
it, then begin if you can.
U Maung Lwin laughs politely; but, he thinks, the prince is
confusing me with his brother now. From confusion grows clarity.
He caught us, says, Myingun, suddenly solemn. Remember that
day? He didnt say anything, but he saw us glowering at him through
the branches. Our father would have given us such a beating. But he
could not say anything. To report on the fact that we were laughing at

661
him would have been his ultimate humiliation.
It is what is not said. He remembers meeting the Wunduk in
Colombo, and in hushed conversation discussing the rising fortunes of
the Kinwun Mingyi. The Kinwun had returned to office, had been called
back to the court, in 1864. In 1865 he had laid the canals. In 1866 he
had tacitly encouraged Myingun and his brother to rise up against their
uncle. Or had he? Myingun could not remember. Was it a look? Or
more, or less? He senses, clutching at the gaps in memory, that it was
something unsaid.
1864. The Kinwun Mingyi was given a double promotion, he was
made Hluttaw Secretary, and Akunwun Revenue Officer. He was given
the revenues at Yamethin and Pyinmana; shaking ticals from those
great swaths of forest would have been as easy as shaking ants from a
tree.
The Kinwun Mingyi had committed three mistakes, he could not
afford to make more. Had he foreseen that their uncle, the
Einshameen, would be a check on his power? Had the Einshameen
been reconsidering his position? Had someone tipped him off? Why
hadnt the guards searched them, why had they let them wonder into
the palace like that, with their dahs tucked away in their sleeves,
surely they had sensed something wrong?
The year after the uprising, after the princes had risen up against

662
the Einshameen - and what was it, what was it, that the Kinwun Mingyi
had done or said, to encourage them? - That year, the Kinwun Mingyi
won his final promotion from King Mindon. It was his suppression of
the rebellion that had earned him his finest hour in court,: he was
awarded the title of MINGYI and designated Wundauk, he is now the
most titled, most illustrious, most revered and most untouchable of all
the kings ministers. His revenue zones expanded to border areas and
guard posts. It was his men who fleeced the caravans and traders
crossing from one zone of influence to another.
He went on to serve Theebaw. He was Burmas Thomas
Cromwell. Born the son of farmers, died the richest and most powerful
man in Burma. One who outlived dynasties. It was Myingun who had
given him this gift, who had paved his way to power. Without the
rebellion, he might have made another mistake, been stripped of all his
rank.
Myingun catches onto the thought, this thought worth more than
his ruby ring, more than his motto, more than the failed teak
concessions, more than the gem-mines in Pailin, more than his own
patchwork bid to carve out revenue.
He turns the thought in his hand. The chronicles, he thinks. All
those records. Did the Kinwun Mingyi preside over their burning, too?
U Maung Lwin, bring your pen. This is important.

663
What? Asks U Maung Lwin. Ready, he adds.
But the prince is asleep. His skin is marbling, growing cool,
waxen. There is no story, no more story to be told, no poetic plumage,
no legends to embalm him. Only the body.
Chapter 50

Postcript

Rue de la grandiere. Its a bustling street, a wide boulevard in Saigon,

named after the Admiral who conquered this colony. The inspector
appraises the wall, the garden, the steps, the crumbling stucco, the
position. South-facing. A corner of mould catches his eye. Three steps
behind him walks the inventory, in a folder carried by his Vietnamese
clerk.
The inspector lingers on the bronze knocker, shaped in a
peacocks tail, as he reads the motto, in French: THE BODY DIES THE
PLUMAGE NEVER. He knocks once only.
A servant comes to the door, opening it first in a sliver to survey
the intruder. The wrinkles on her brow run cobweb deep, but she opens
the door and ushers him in with a gesture of startling grace. She takes
his name card and calls out something in Burmese, her eyes never
leaving his face. Impudent, he thinks. Cannot have worked much with
Europeans. Before he has even crossed the threshold, he has gazed
over her shoulder into the foyer and begun to check things off,

664
beginning with the human cargo. The men have all departed he
thinks, first the princes eldest son, then his only nephew, then his
second eldest son, then the youngest, then the prince himself. One
wife, five daughters, three granddaughters. A womans dynasty. No
male heirs.
When he steps into the foyer she blocks his route. In accentless
English she says:
First you must remove those. Please leave them in that corner.
The Vietnamese clerk expresses his irritation for him.
But it is regulation for my master to carry weapons on duty he
says.
She doesnt take her eyes off him, and looks down to the parquet
floor at his feet.
Not the weapon, Sir. Those.
He glances at his watch before making the decision. He cannot
afford too much delay, he has three properties to check today. He takes
off his steel-capped boots and tells himself it is alright to do so in honor
of the dead. But he feels disarmed.
The clerk takes too long to unbutton his boots, and now the
inspector joins the servant in irritation.
Where shall we start?
Cest a vous monsieur. Je vous en prie. She speaks French with
an English accent.

665
She stands there, her lips set.
Foyer. There is nothing save a small stand on which sits a
silver tray into which his name card has been dropped. His clerk is
already studying the name-cards, his hand hovering.
Laisse-la, leave it, the inspector says.
Is the Princess in?
Yes, says the servant. But you will need to wait. You may
follow me downstairs only. Until she is ready. She catches him eyeing
his name-card, dropped silently onto the pile.
She knows you are here. She knew you would come today, she
says, and turns her back on both of them. I will show you.
His eyes strain against the gloom and he tightens his lips against
the taste of decay. She has moved to a window to open up the
shutters. The sunlight sends a fierce shaft through the room. It stripes
everything.
A large portrait scene occupies one wall. Cloth. A pity, he thinks,
might have been worth something. Burmese letters run across it, a
royal scene, elegant, drapes and a couch and on it. In gay costume,
like figures in a fairytale, sit a couple on a bolster. Behind them are
silks and Corinthian columns. Not so long ago he would have taken
them both for women, but he can see that one of them must be the
prince. To either side of them, on the floor, are children playing a
game. Or are they servants, crouched low?

666
In front of the portrait are positioned sofas and in front of these,
a small table.
On the table rests a chess board. A game is set out, he studies
the position with interest. The pieces are polished with use, red and
white, their contours nubbed. Persian? He wonders. One is missing. A
European bishop, conspicuously black, has taken its place.
The rest of the room has the feel of a pawn shop.
A huge mirror, opaque in patches, mottled, flecked with rust, its
frame gilt, ornate.
A birdcage, tarnished, empty.
A battered globe.
His clerk checks off the list. Three beds, he will report, seven
chairs.
He follows her to the princes room.
This used to be his study, she says. We moved him and his
things down here. She hesitates before she crosses the bed to make
her way to the shuttered window on the far side.
He moves over to the desk, runs his finger along the fine grain of
it. Rosewood. It has the look of a medicine cabinet now, cluttered with
bottles of ointment and small packets of powder.
Picks over a few ageing volumes, they are mostly Burmese, old
style, he reads off the names, if only to distract himself from all the
misery in this room, Octave Mirbeau, Lettres de lInde; he picks it up,

667
reads an inscription. John Chinaman. Pierre Loti, Linde (sans les
anglais), Oscar Wilde, The ballad of reading gaol.
Beds not clean. He makes a mental note.
Up against the far wall stands a wardrobe, he glances at the list,
reads Standing Robes: Two. He walks over to it, feels the wood, golden
grained, with a faint apricot hue: Rosewood, he thinks. He opens a
door. On his right are several small shelves, stacked with longyis,
checkered, cloth, silk, purple, green, blue, black white. Hanging up at
the back, stiff, mis-shapen, he has to open the door wider to see it,
gold thread, a court gown, scalloped collar, epaulettes, and folded up
beneath it, what looks like a dancers costume, and incongruous, a pair
of spotlessly, bleached, starched white spats.
The bed is still unmade, a crumpled shroud. There beside it is the
chest.
Too late he senses the indelicacy of all this, takes large, slow
steps as he leaves the room, soft-soled, as if he were picking his way
across a cemetery.
That is all? She asks. Are you done? Scorn runs through her voice,
thin and wiry, razor sharp. He is halfway across the floor. He turns
back, tries to screen his curiosity with an air of solemnity, and
approaches the chest.
He had us move it in here, said the maid.
A hole is bored at each end, and a large lock, initialled.

668
What did he keep in it?
Nothing.
He eyes the wood, then reaches his hand down to touch it.
Quick as an arrow she plants herself between him and the chest, so
quick his hand brushes against her. She flinches, pulls back, her body
arched away from him.
We were never allowed to keep anything in it. We used to gossip
among ourselves, say it contained his dreams. It is how he travelled
here.
She stands there, between him and this remnant of the prince,
this empty casket.

HACKNEY, 1931

When U Maung Lwin wrote to me of the prince's sickness I sat

with the letter in my lap for hours. I pressed it to my face to
inhale the scent of his demise but instead of satisfaction I tasted
salt. I ran my fingers underneath the typescript as if the papery
indentations were a substitute for the touch of him.
I would rather have learned of sudden death or disappearance
than this telegram with its prophecy of a body undergoing slow
decay.
His should have been a sudden death, a failure of the heart, or
a knife in the back. Not this erosion of all his dreams of return.
It was in the 1880s that we first met; in the time of tumult.
I could never fully admit to myself, most of all after Lu Pye's

669

death, that my attraction for Lu Pye had all along only ever been
the prince.

It was on the twelfth of December 1932 that you asked me for

it. You began with pleasantries, explained the winter solstice, and
drew from your briefcase a new offering, a miniature Christmas
cake decorated with a red ribbon. This you awkwardly set out
before me as if I were some guardian spirit to be placated.
You did not bow your head or meet your hands together or
light incense but instead spoke plainly. You ran your tongue
nervously around your lower lip twice . The mannerism reminded
me of a lizard, and my mind was back chasing geckos across the
kitchen wall of my grandmas home in Mandalay, staring at the
charcoal writing lessons, when I heard your voice cut across my
thoughts, asking me for all of my correspondence, for the burden
of proof.
I folded my hands in my lap and struggled to compose myself.
I wanted to reach out and hold you, hold fast to you before it all
evaporated. The roof of my mouth turned dry and I felt sweat on
the palms of my hands and as I breathed in deep to steady my
nerves I inhaled the scent of my own fear.
Our meetings had become as reliable a measure of time
passing as the milkmans visit. You marked the flow of weeks. By
this time you were my only regular visitor, and it had never
occurred to me that you, not I, would decide the point at which
our meetings would cease. That I could ever be no longer useful
to you. I knew you would stop seeing me, once you had got what
you came for.
I fashioned a smile, the way my aunt had taught me so long
ago, when she had talked me through her room of papier mache
masks. Wrestling behind the calm of my features I left the room

670

and headed up the stairs.

The look on your face when I returned, having spent what
seemed like hours in my bedroom dresser searching, told me that
you had expected much more: a thick diary, a bundle of letters,
folios tied with twine. You looked me over and, half-rising from
your chair, said - somewhat greedily I thought - "Do you need my
help?" as if I had returned empty-handed only because the
documents were too hefty for my frail frame to lift.
"That will not be necessary," I said. "I have everything here."
My voice startled both of us with its youthfulness. It was as if by
delving into that distant corner of my life I had shed all the
decades between that had made me bitter.
At that your expression was that of a little girl robbed of her
favorite charm.
The clock on my mantelpiece chimed two, just as it had on
that first visit when your rapping at the door had woken me from
my slumber. And I marvelled that the purpose that had shaped
your expression then had gone, leaving you slack in the jaw, but
startled in the eye. I sat down and steadied myself to regain my
compusure, settling my attention on Mawkish, whose fir was
bristling with the tension between us. As I watched her arch her
back and draw her claws I wondered if we were not connected,
my cat and I, by some affinity laced with cruelty.
But I was your prey, was I not, and your bait had been
company for an old woman: the kindness of strangers.
You sat perched on the edge of the easy chair, Mawkish now
rubbing your legs, and I chided myself for the jealousy that I
could feel over a mere creature. As if you could sense it you
lavished more attention on him at that moment than you ever
had, so much so that I was glad to see your eyes water and your
nose redden with a sneezing fit.
I put my hand into my breast pocket - a gesture as awkward as

671

my tweed jacket that I had donned that morning as if in need of

some formality, or protection - and brought out the letter.
I adjusted my pince-nez and looked up at you over their worn
gold rims. I must confess to enjoying the confusion on your face,
your uncertainty.
'This is all I have,' I said. 'It is all I can give you.'
And there it was: the letter that I had written so many years
ago, in Curzon's library.
You opened it, read it, and then your eyes strayed to the top of
the page.
Did you not say you wrote it on Curzon's letterhead? you
asked.
I had once seen, on opening night, a well-heeled awoman,
robbed of her handbag. How dishevelled she had become in that
instant, her voice and reedy in panic. You looked and sounded
much like her.
'I cannot be held responsible for lapses in my memory,' I said,
with a small smile. 'Heavens, I am not far short of ninety. But
the letter is real. There are no copies. Take it.'
I placed my hand in the lower pocket of my jacket and fingered
the silver matchbox.
You folded the letter and I pitied you then, for being lost for
words; you who were never lost for words, for wondering how, if,
whether any of what you had noted on your visits were true. Or
hether I was nothing more and nothing less than a Burmese
actress stranded in Liverpool on the eve of the new century due
to the penny-pinching perfidy of Messrs Dawson and Parry.
The matchbox was real enough. My fingers caressed the
embossed pattern of peacock feathers. I had half a mind to give
it to you. But when you stood up so suddenly and turned your
face from me I clasped the silver matchbox sleeve tighter, and

672

fought the urge to give it to you. What good would a generous

gesture do between us two hoarders, I thought. Best we part on
honest terms.
Your eyes glazed over. Stiffly you opened the door. There was
no cab on the curb.
You had expected to spend the night. You had come with a
small trunk, and lifted it with such ease that I knew you had
brought it empty, expecting to fill it with whatever cache you
believed nestled here under my eaves.
You will come back and see me? I asked. A bracelet of pain
squeezed me sharp beneath my ribcage.
Of course, you said.
Each of us looked elsewhere then. I at the mantelpiece clock,
you at Mawkish, as if demanding witness. We both knew that this
was the last time we would see each other.
***
After you had gone, I settled back onto the couch and drifted
off into sleep. When I woke the room was dark. I grasped the
cane by the chaise-longue and moved over to my bureau, feeling
my way across the room, and laid a fresh sheet of paper against
my blotting pad.
I reached for the candle, and dismissed the knotted hurt of my
fingers as I shook a match free from the silver matchbox sleeve,
then lit it. I pulled out the drawer of my writing desk and lifted
out the snuffer. Made in Sheffield. I had stolen it from Sally. You
would have judged that act, written it up as a travesty, but she
would have seen it for what it was: an act of devotion. In its
place I had left her my Thanaka powder, worn down to a thin
patina of minerals. I shut my eyes until I was back there in
Curzons library.
And I began a letter to U Maung Lwin. Since the prince's

673

death, he had settled in Benares.

When is a letter not counterfeit, I wondered. Are we not
always only ever writing to ourselves?