Missing In Rangoon

The bodies of Somchai and his crew had been dumped into a deep channel of the Irrawaddy River. Kati’s body had been stuffed in a barrel, filled with cement and shoved over the side of a boat in the same spot. Nobody inside Myanmar had looked very hard for them. They were foreigners who had come and gone. No one in the country cared what might have happened to them. The Thais remained silent. Not a bubble rose to the surface to burst with Somchai or Kati’s name. It seemed that everyone who remained alive was happy. But it is always a mistake to find happiness in silence. There are always unhappy people waiting in the margins.

Thiri Pyan Chi had got himself ordained as a monk, a tried and true way to escape the law enforcement system that involved voluntary impoverishment, celibacy and chanting morning and night. As he sat under a blue umbrella with a blonde and a tall tropical drink, his bald head glistened in the sunlight. The statues at the pagoda gave him a case of “uncanny valley” revulsion. They seemed like dolls whose too lifelike human appearance caused him to vomit his ham sandwich into the dirt.

After the applause died, Yadanar joined Udom’s table and Mya pulled back a chair and sat beside Alan Osborne.

“You sing beautifully,” Osborne said.

Mya had no idea that this was from a bitter old man who never gave a compliment.

“Rob wanted to come home,” she said. “He just didn’t know how.”

“My father was born in Burma. In a way it was home for him. I think of Rob as having gone home. But thank you,” he said.

Those were two of the most difficult words for someone who identified with the official class and looked with disdain on “Kipling’s natives.” He looked at her a long time, reached forward, pulled her head to his lips and kissed her forehead. Calvino had told him that she’d settled things in Rangoon. But he’d left out exactly how. It was best that way. Alan was as careless as he was bitter, and a bitter, careless man never keeps secrets, at least not for long.

Colonel Pratt put his arm around Calvino’s shoulder. It wasn’t a Thai thing to embrace a friend. Thailand wasn’t Spain or Argentina.

“When you see too much, it takes time for the image to pass away. But it will pass. You have to believe that when the train enters a tunnel, it will come out the other end.”

“You sounded great tonight,” said Calvino.

The Colonel removed his arm.

“If my playing were that great, you’d have come out of the tunnel. The words are nice, but they don’t ring true.”

“None of what happened there rings true, Pratt. Mirrors clouded with smoke and dreams.”

“That is a good description of Myanmar.”

Calvino suppressed a yawn behind his fist.

“It’s past my bedtime.”

“Before you go, see that it’s right between Rob’s father and Mya. You’ll sleep better after tha

t.”

Calvino liked his friend’s loyalty. The Colonel had emerged from the tunnel and only wanted the same for him. Each night Calvino struggled to stay awake until utter fatigue wore him down and dragged him under the radar of what he could control. As he drifted, the surface was no longer solid. Rangoon carried him back through the land of dreams and deposited him at the foot of its dreamers.

Calvino eased into a chair beside Mya, nodding hello to Alan Osborne.

“Stay away from Calvino. He’ll only get you in trouble,” said Osborne.

It was his English way of showing affection.

Her lips slowly stretched into a smile as if he somehow amused her, or she’d been amused by her own image of him bearing no relationship to the actual man.

“Mr. Osborne, thank you for coming tonight. I know you’re not well.”

Calvino watched as a tear slipped down Alan Osborne’s cheek. He made no attempt to wipe this one away.

“You can sing. I can grant you that.”

There wasn’t any response that would take away the old man’s guilt. Mya leaned forward and hugged him.

“Rob loved you,” she whispered.

“That’s a lie. A noble one, but that doesn’t make it any less false. He tried to love me and found what most people have found, nothing to love.”