Return to Mandalay (7 page)

She nodded. ‘Some call me Maya,’ she said. Her lips pursed together slightly.

I want to kiss them
, he thought.
Jesus
. He felt an ache, almost a pain, in his groin. What was the matter with him?

He offered what he hoped was a suave, confident but reassuring smile. ‘And you live here in Mandalay?’ he asked.

‘I live with my father, yes,’ she said. ‘Most of the time.’

‘And the rest of the time?’ Was there a man in the picture? Lawrence desperately needed to know.

‘Sometimes we stay in Maymyo. My father has a house there.’

Lawrence acknowledged this with a nod. The hill station of Maymyo was situated at a higher altitude than Mandalay and was cooler and restful. Some said it was like England with its grass and neat manicured gardens, its road names reminiscent of his homeland, such as Downing Street and Forest Road. And Lawrence knew that its Englishness was confusing to the Burmese – even the notion of a garden planted with flowers was confusing, since wild flowers were so abundant, why would one plant one’s own? But it wasn’t just the British who went there. Any Burmese family in Mandalay who had money would generally also have a place in Maymyo for holidays and weekends. Her admission had reinforced his previous impression. She was not a poor native girl. She was, for Burma, a class act.

‘And I have an aunt who lives in Sinbo. It is a small village on the Irrawaddy near Myitkyina.’ She looked down at her feet in the red silk slippers. ‘She lives alone and sometimes needs me to help her.’

‘Indeed.’ That was even more interesting. Because Lawrence was working in the jungle up near Myitkyina and her aunt’s village was only a few miles away.

She looked back up at him from under her eyelids. Was she flirting with him? It wasn’t the kind of flirting he was used to, but there was something, some dark knowledge in her eyes that drew him forward. He saw Scottie grind his cigarette under the heel of his boot, noticed that he was getting restless.

‘See you back at the club, old man?’ he asked with a wink.

‘Yes. Perhaps …’ What was the etiquette? Would she be welcomed in the bar there? Should he invite her? Lawrence wasn’t sure of the form. He wasn’t sure of anything anymore. ‘You could tell me more?’ he asked her, instead of what he had been going to say.

‘More?’ Her eyes were innocent and yet knowing.

‘About Mandalay. About your life here.’ Not the club, he decided. She didn’t belong there, he wouldn’t insult her.

She gave a little shrug as if Europeans waylaid her regularly to ask her such questions.

‘You must know the city well?’

‘My family has always lived here,’ she said. ‘My grandmother was a servant girl to the Queen.’ Her slim back was already straight, but as she spoke these words she seemed to stand straighter still.

‘Really? I say …’ Lawrence was brave enough to take her arm. Scottie had already strolled off. He only had one chance with this girl and he wasn’t going to chuck it away.

‘Yes,’ said Moe Mya. ‘It is true.’

‘About the blanket, sir?’ The stallholder complained. ‘You like the blanket, yes?’

‘Shall we walk for a while?’ Lawrence asked her.

She looked doubtfully around. And it was true that there wasn’t really anywhere to walk to.

‘To the Palace moat? It isn’t far.’ He could hear the recklessness in his own voice. But there was something. Perhaps she felt it too.

‘The blanket …?’

‘I’ll take it.’ Lawrence reached for his wallet.

She drew back, shocked. ‘You have not even agreed a price,’ she said.

Lawrence grinned. ‘How much?’ he asked the stallholder. ‘Name your figure and don’t be greedy or I might change my mind.’

He could see the cogs spinning.
How much would lose the sale? How unpredictable might a man like Lawrence be?
By this stage Lawrence didn’t even know the answers himself.

The stallholder named his price.

Moe Mya replied in Burmese. Lawrence had no idea what she said – he really must make more of an effort – but something must have been agreed because the stallholder argued briefly, then shrugged, nodded and began to fold the blanket into a neat square.

Lawrence passed over some money, tried not to feel that the initiative had somehow smoothly been taken out of his hands.

She passed him the blanket. ‘They will not respect you if you let them cheat you,’ she said softly.

He could feel her warm breath on his neck as she leaned closer. She smelt of coconut oil. This was the first time she had somehow separated herself from her people. Had she aligned herself with him?
Us and them
. Lawrence didn’t understand it, but for him he felt it was no bad thing.

‘You must barter. It is part of the game.’

The game … ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘And now?’

‘We will walk towards the moat of the Royal Palace,’ she said, as if it had been her idea all along. ‘And I will tell you about Mandalay.’

‘Do you mind if I join you?’

Eva looked up from her guidebook to see a tall blond stranger smiling down on her. For a moment she was almost blinded by the reflection of the sun on his hair. ‘Oh. Well …’

‘Only there are no empty tables.’ He indicated the café terrace around them and it was true, it was lunchtime and the place was heaving.

‘Of course I don’t mind, that’s fine.’ Eva was sorry for her initial hesitation.

She looked over at the busy street on the other side of the terrace. The people of Yangon were going about their business in the sweltering heat. Men and women in
longyis
, often carrying their wares on top of their heads in wide baskets as they elegantly threaded their way through the crowded streets. Different races, Sikhs, Shan, Indian, Thai, doing business on street corners. Street sellers and food-stalls, motor bikes and scooters with girls in
longyis
riding side-saddle, open-air trucks and trishaws … It was a riot of noise and colour. Eva had almost had heart failure when her taxi from the airport had hit a traffic jam. The driver had given a cursory
glance at the road ahead and simply continued, driving on the other side. No one had seemed to care.

There still weren’t many Westerners around in Yangon. And so when you saw one you tended to gravitate towards them to discuss local sights and the best places to eat. In other words, this blond stranger wasn’t coming on to her, he just wanted to have lunch.

‘Thank you. I appreciate that,’ he said, as he perused the menu.

She could tell from his accent that he wasn’t British. German, she guessed. His English was excellent though. And, like her, he seemed to be travelling alone. This was unusual. Most of the Westerners she’d spotted clustered in small groups with their tour guides as if Myanmar might otherwise taint them, though with what, she wasn’t sure.

‘
Min-ga-laba
. Welcome.’ A young Burmese waiter appeared. Like many of the Burmese he kept grinning and saying hello to tourists all the time. She’d had no reason so far to worry about travelling alone. The people in this city were the friendliest and most helpful she’d ever come across.

Earlier today, Eva had taken a taxi to the randomly placed gilded stupa of
Sule Playa
, at forty-eight metres high and positively glowing in the sunlight, it sat slap bang in the middle of the British-constructed grid system that made up downtown Yangon. And then, thinking of her grandfather, she’d got out, paid the driver and walked on to the grand colonial buildings on the waterfront. Already, the heat was all-consuming, the pavements baking and the Burmese were using
umbrellas as sunshades as they walked down the street. Her grandfather had told her what it was like arriving at Yangon on the steamer and, standing there, Eva could imagine. Stepping on to the jetty, walking on to the wide waterfront, faced by the Victorian High Court building, which could have been plucked from London’s Embankment, and the classic Strand Hotel. If
Sule Playa
reminded her that even in bustling downtown Yangon she was still in the land of golden temples, then these colonial architectural masterpieces were an equally resonant echo of the grandness of Imperial Britain.

Her grandfather had stayed in the Strand and so Eva stepped into its cool, air-conditioned interior, admired the luscious creaminess of the walls which set off to perfection the teak staircase, gallery and furnishings in the high-ceilinged foyer. It was pure, understated luxury. But her grandfather hadn’t strolled through hallways of precious Burmese art and jewellery as Eva was now doing. He would have stayed in a mosquito-infested room cooled by an electric paddle fan in those days. Even so, even before all its renovations, from what he’d told her, the colonial life in the Strand Hotel and elsewhere had been lavish and comfortable. At least compared to what most of the native Burmese had to endure.

After a restorative G & T in the plush bar, Eva had retraced her steps to the Indian and Chinese quarters where the locals squatted on their haunches among sacks of rice, lentils, heaps of noodles and, yes, definitely fried locusts. She grimaced. They chatted and laughed, their children playing nearby, as bicycles and trishaws careered along the narrow pot-holed
streets, and as they cooked Burmese curries in huge cauldrons on top of braziers, the scents of spices, dried fish and nut oil hanging ripe and heavy in the air.

She laughingly refused a trishaw ride, a rejection which inspired the driver to spit betel juice forcefully on to the road. A nasty habit, she thought, noting his gory, red-stained teeth. The trishaw looked ancient and possibly dangerous, its saddles supported by two rusty springs and the driver himself was bow-legged and certainly no spring chicken. He rattled his money pouch enticingly at her, but she decided not to dice with death on Yangon’s busy highway. Instead, she bought a bag of oranges and a pancake for her lunch and stood in the shade for a moment to take it all in. It was as if she’d moved from one side of the world to the other. A G and T in the Strand Hotel at one end and a Burmese pancake cooked in peanut oil at the other – the price of said G and T enough to buy dinner for six at the local open-air eatery.

Before coming here for lunch, Eva had visited Bogyoke Aung San market, where she purchased two
longyis
made to measure, one in magenta silk and one in indigo batik; two embroidered white cotton blouses and a pair of black velvety Burmese slippers, flip flops really, but made of softer fabric and clearly
de rigeur
in Yangon. And she’d enjoyed the shopping trip; the Burmese liked to barter, but it seemed it was just for fun. ‘I am happy; you are happy,’ more than one of the stallholders had said to her when they’d agreed a price. And they were right. Eva was glad that she had come here with some room in her suitcase, as her grandfather had advised.

Her companion, probably in his early forties, she guessed, had taken his time before ordering Myanmar beer and a Burmese noodle soup. There was a cultured look about him, in the suave confidence of his voice and manner, in the clothes he wore, which were casual but expensive. Was he a tourist? He looked as though he knew his way around.

He glanced across at her, friendly enough. ‘It is your first visit here?’ he asked.

She must have it stamped on her forehead under her widebrimmed straw hat. An innocent abroad. ‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘I only arrived yesterday.’

Yesterday, the agent from MyanTravel had met her at the airport and accompanied her in the taxi to the Agency Offices housed in a huge old colonial building where she had been given green tea and slices of juicy watermelon. She would have the morning to settle in, he’d told her and then she would be meeting with her company’s contact in Yangon who would collect her from her hotel at 3 p.m.

At three on the dot he had appeared in the hotel foyer. ‘I, Thein Thein,’ he said. ‘Now, I take you to the showroom.’ They had driven miles, finally arriving at a building that looked more like a shack than a showroom. The man who let them in looked rather shady too and already Eva was having doubts about what she was here to do.

The friendly little waiter brought the
kauk-sweh
soup, a thin broth with vegetables and stringy noodles.

‘How about you?’ Eva asked her companion. ‘It’s not your first trip, is it?’

‘No, it is not. I have been here many times,’ he told her. ‘The first in 1999.’

‘The city must have changed a lot since then.’ Eva poured herself more jasmine tea. The hotels seemed full and although all visitors must still bring only pristine US dollars to the country and there were few ATMs and internet cafés, she could see that other changes wouldn’t be long coming.

‘It has, yes. And you are travelling for pleasure, is that so?’

‘Yes and no. I’ve wanted to come here most of my life,’ she admitted. ‘But I’m here on behalf of the company I work for. I’m hoping to authenticate some antique pieces and arrange for them to be shipped back to the UK.’

‘Indeed?’ He took another spoonful of his soup. ‘You work for an antique dealer? You are an expert, perhaps?’ His blue eyes were twinkling and he had an open smile that she liked.

She tried to look modest. ‘It’s what I do,’ she said.

‘And what have you seen so far?’ He called over the waiter and ordered more beer for himself and tea for Eva. ‘If you do not mind me asking? I might even …’ He leaned forwards confidentially, ‘… be able to help you, if you are looking for contacts, that is.’

Eva remembered what Jacqui had said about looking around for more stock. ‘It’s possible that I might be,’ she said. He seemed nice enough and it was good to have some company for a change. Why not tell him what had happened?

‘It was a bit of a disappointment, I’m afraid,’ she said.

‘Oh?’

‘I can’t possibly examine them in this light,’ she had told Thein Thein. ‘It’s far too dim.’

A lengthy discussion followed between Thein Thein and the man in the shack. Voices had grown more and more heated but no one was actually doing anything.

‘Come on.’ Eva picked up one end of what she hoped was a nineteenth century scripture chest. ‘Give me a hand. Let’s get it outside.’