Missing In Rangoon

“Not if you have a bulk sale customer. Most of us sell bulk. It’s how we make our living. The aunties and schoolgirls who come through would hardly support our families.”

In her dream, when Khin Myat had appeared as a specially gifted monk, he had asked many questions. It seemed perfectly normal to Su Su that, having appeared in the flesh, he would ask many more. She couldn’t wait until closing to tell her husband, brother, mother and neighbor how Khin Myat had appeared at her stall and tested her with questions that only she could answer.

“You didn’t see the shipping label on the boxes going to Thailand, did you, by any chance?”

“Khin Myat, you’ve not been fooling me. You are digging for information for someone. I could see that from the way you were prowling around the market. What is it exactly you want?”

He leaned over and touched the baby’s forehead with his pinky finger, leaving a tiny tealeaf stain.

“That’s a blessing for your daughter. My dream last night said I must do this blessing today.”

He thought Su Su might swoon. She clasped her hands around his.

“Thank you, Khin Myat. I always said you were a good boy. I knew you would come back. I can see from your face that there is something troubling you. You can tell me. We are friends.”

“I’d really like to know the name of the person in Thailand that Thiri Pyan Chi ships those cold pills to.”

She flashed a smile and nodded.

“They aren’t shipped to a person. He ships them to a company—G.A.J. Electronics Ltd., at Warehouse 189A, Bonded Industrial Estate, Chonburi Province, Thailand. I see it on the packing labels every Wednesday. Regular as clockwork.”

“You haven’t changed, Su Su.”

Her large eyes wide open, she smiled at him.

“I am glad you’re back, Khin Myat. But my dream told me to expect you. And here you are at my stall blessing my baby. I want to buy two more lottery tickets. You choose the numbers for me.”

Calvino grunted as he listened to Khin Myat’s oral report. He trained his binoculars on the entrance to the Pha Yar Lan train station. They stood on the second floor balcony of Scott’s Market next to the retaining wall overlooking the street below. At the entrance was a black hole in the ancient stone wall separating the market from train station.

“You appeared in this woman’s dream?” asked Calvino.

Khin Myat nodded, observing how Calvino studied his face to see how much of this dream business Khin Myat believed in.

“We were at school together,” he said, to change the subject. “I hadn’t seen her in years. Hadn’t thought about her. There she was in the stall opposite the one you sent me to watch.”

“That was good luck,” admitted Calvino. “Had she changed much?”

Calvino answered his own question: “People rarely change. You ever notice that?”

Khin Myat watched as Calvino slowly moved the binoculars along the lane leading from the main street to the passenger entrance from the market into the train station. He paused, lowering the binoculars to examine the SUVs, cars, pickups and vans parked along the lane. He looked for a familiar face.

“Su Su was always different from the other children. But most of my friends are different from me now,” Khin Myat said.

“There’s your clue. It’s not that they’re different. You’re the one who’s changed. That rare thing called change is what New York is known to do to a man,” said Calvino, lowering the binoculars and turning to look at Khin Myat.

“I saw my wife with the union official at Occupy Wall Street one Saturday afternoon. They were holding hands. They looked happy. I went back to looking at security tapes that night but couldn’t get that image out of my head. So you’re right. New York does change a man.”

It was closing time at the main market, and vendors were packing boxes and crates into their vehicles. Not all that much had changed from 1926, when the British had built the market complex. Before Orwell had arrived in Burma, the resident administrator named the market after a colonial official who had introduced the Burmese to football. The father of Burmese football received the red card after independence, and the market was officially renamed Bogyoke after General Aung San, the short-lived father of the country and also the father of “The Lady,” Aung San Suu Kyi.

Aung San had died young and heroically, leaving a romantic legacy. Calvino told himself he’d left it too long to die young. The young were men like Khin Myat and Naing Aung—full of life and wanting to live forever. They believed in luck and dreams. He envied them.

“Have you checked in with Naing Aung?” asked Calvino.

“I thought I should call you first.”

“You did the right thing. Your information stays between the two of us. Understood?”

“You don’t trust Naing Aung,” said Khin Myat.