Read Online The Lizard Cage by Karen Connelly - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Karen Connelly
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Aung San’s face was and still is everywhere. It stared out from the front wall of every classroom Teza ever entered. They had a picture of him in the family sitting room too; it was the first thing you saw when you walked into the house. He remembers Bogyoke Aung San’s intelligent eyes turned toward a future they would never see. In that image the singer finds Daw Suu’s more delicate narrow jaw and cheeks, the fine bone structure visible through the flesh, giving both father and daughter a severe and haunting dignity.
Now the daughter’s face is iconic, revered in the same way, but it’s illegal, and very dangerous, to exhibit her portrait in public. As soon as she became politically involved, images of her started to circulate. Teza once showed her photo to people in a tea shop. Country folk, in the city to join the demonstrations for a day, they crowded around his little table and asked him hushed questions about the famous lady, daughter of the great man.
She does look like him. But her popularity can’t be explained solely by her link to Bogyoke Aung San. Part of her power, Teza thinks, lies in the fact that she is both Burmese and foreign. She has come from the outside world and chosen to stay in this isolated country. She is a refined Burmese woman, and a Buddhist—the latter is very important for the people. But what she carries from her life abroad is the future, which is already happening everywhere outside of Burma. She is the link between that future and Burma’s past.
The last time he saw her at the house on University Avenue was in mid-November 1988.
T eza became a member of the youth wing of Daw Suu’s party because he believed in the work, but he also liked being close to her. It confused him to have a crush on such an old woman. Even though she looked very young and was very beautiful, she was actually forty-three, and married, and a mother. He was very much in love with Thazin and couldn’t explain his attraction to this older lady. He worked hard at keeping his feelings a secret. After the youth meetings, he sometimes played his guitar and sang songs with other musicians. Daw Suu’s house was often filled with an eclectic bunch of people, not only senior politicians and activistsbut journalists and famous poets, well-known political comedians, actors. All of them agreed that Teza sang beautifully. Truly, his songs were written for the whole of Burma’s people.
Only Teza knew that he was singing to her.
If a beautiful woman laughs in a certain way, people will fall in love with her. Certain people will hate her for it too. The generals hated Daw Suu then, for many reasons, and surely they must hate her now, which makes her release more mysterious. Why have they freed her?
T eza picks up the pebble, and holding it between his fingers like a single prayer bead, he whispers, “If Daw Suu is really free, something will shift.” He holds his breath for a moment, listening as the cockroaches scratch out an incomprehensible code.
Rolling the stone between his palms, warming it, he steps to the center of the cell and closes one eye, aiming carefully at the spider’s window, the air vent. He throws. And misses. The stone falls to the floor. He retrieves it, aims again. Whatever the object, a small stone or a dried pea—he’s used one of his own lost teeth—the projectile must be thrown accurately and with enough force to make it through the vent.
After two attempts, the stone flies up and escapes. When he hears it hit the ground outside, he smiles, bows, dances a jig. He celebrates the lady’s release with the liberation of a stone.
. 6 .
I n the evening he prepares for the rest of the celebration.
Sitting cross-legged in the middle of the cell, the singer carefully places the cheroots in front of him. It’s a lucky thing that Sein Yun brought him two more today. Teza doesn’t like to perform the ceremony without at least ten of the long, slender cigars; the mathematical seriousness
Now the daughter’s face is iconic, revered in the same way, but it’s illegal, and very dangerous, to exhibit her portrait in public. As soon as she became politically involved, images of her started to circulate. Teza once showed her photo to people in a tea shop. Country folk, in the city to join the demonstrations for a day, they crowded around his little table and asked him hushed questions about the famous lady, daughter of the great man.
She does look like him. But her popularity can’t be explained solely by her link to Bogyoke Aung San. Part of her power, Teza thinks, lies in the fact that she is both Burmese and foreign. She has come from the outside world and chosen to stay in this isolated country. She is a refined Burmese woman, and a Buddhist—the latter is very important for the people. But what she carries from her life abroad is the future, which is already happening everywhere outside of Burma. She is the link between that future and Burma’s past.
The last time he saw her at the house on University Avenue was in mid-November 1988.
T eza became a member of the youth wing of Daw Suu’s party because he believed in the work, but he also liked being close to her. It confused him to have a crush on such an old woman. Even though she looked very young and was very beautiful, she was actually forty-three, and married, and a mother. He was very much in love with Thazin and couldn’t explain his attraction to this older lady. He worked hard at keeping his feelings a secret. After the youth meetings, he sometimes played his guitar and sang songs with other musicians. Daw Suu’s house was often filled with an eclectic bunch of people, not only senior politicians and activistsbut journalists and famous poets, well-known political comedians, actors. All of them agreed that Teza sang beautifully. Truly, his songs were written for the whole of Burma’s people.
Only Teza knew that he was singing to her.
If a beautiful woman laughs in a certain way, people will fall in love with her. Certain people will hate her for it too. The generals hated Daw Suu then, for many reasons, and surely they must hate her now, which makes her release more mysterious. Why have they freed her?
T eza picks up the pebble, and holding it between his fingers like a single prayer bead, he whispers, “If Daw Suu is really free, something will shift.” He holds his breath for a moment, listening as the cockroaches scratch out an incomprehensible code.
Rolling the stone between his palms, warming it, he steps to the center of the cell and closes one eye, aiming carefully at the spider’s window, the air vent. He throws. And misses. The stone falls to the floor. He retrieves it, aims again. Whatever the object, a small stone or a dried pea—he’s used one of his own lost teeth—the projectile must be thrown accurately and with enough force to make it through the vent.
After two attempts, the stone flies up and escapes. When he hears it hit the ground outside, he smiles, bows, dances a jig. He celebrates the lady’s release with the liberation of a stone.
. 6 .
I n the evening he prepares for the rest of the celebration.
Sitting cross-legged in the middle of the cell, the singer carefully places the cheroots in front of him. It’s a lucky thing that Sein Yun brought him two more today. Teza doesn’t like to perform the ceremony without at least ten of the long, slender cigars; the mathematical seriousness
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