Raji, Book Three

“Have you always lived in Mandalay?” I asked.

“Yes. I was born in the Quang Ka quarter, just down near the river.”

We left the politics alone and talked about ourselves. Her mother died when Kayin was nine. She was raised by another member of her family. They didn’t have enough money to send her to school, but she learned English from a man she called Than-Htay. At fourteen, she was already supporting herself and made her way as best she could by selling fresh fruit on the streets. She was then hired by the hotel because of her knowledge of English.

I talked about my mother and father, the farm in Virginia where I grew up, Octavia Pompeii Academy, then medical school. In the spring of 1928, my mother moved all the family’s investments to government bonds. The returns weren’t so high compared to the roaring stock market, but investing in the stock market, she told me and Papa, was like riding a wild bull—it was surely exciting, but at some point the beast would throw you to the ground and perhaps trample you to pieces. Because of her good judgment, my family was financially better off in 1932 than before the crash of ’29. The good old U.S. government kept right on paying dividends on my mother’s bonds, despite the Depression.

I told Kayin about leaving school and hiring on the ship bound for India. I wrote to my mother but didn’t ask her for any money. With so many people suffering from the devastating economic depression, I felt I had no right to my family’s money. They’d built up the farm from nothing, and the bulk of their income now came from the government bonds and a small herd of miniature horses, but all that had nothing to do with me. I resolved to be as destitute as the vast majority of the world and try to make my own way.

By 3 a.m. on our first night together, Kayin and I knew almost as much about each other as we knew about ourselves. That was also when she began teaching me to speak Burmese. I’ve always had a knack for languages, learning Hindi very quickly from Raji. The grammar was a bit difficult, but slang was my biggest problem. Learning a nation’s slang is always the downfall when one tries to go native.

“What time do you have to be at work?” I asked her.

“Seven.”

I walked with her the few blocks to her home, a nearby apartment located above a shop, where she lived with another girl. I asked why she didn’t live at the hotel, and she told me it was far too expensive.

She would get only a few hours’ sleep before returning to work, so I decided to get up early and find things to do around the city. If she had to stay awake all day, then I would, too.

We met for lunch at the Yadana cafe.

“Do you not tire of restaurant food,” she asked, “all time, every meal?”

“Yes. It’s all right for a while, but then everything begins to taste the same.” I broke a cracker and spread a little butter on it.

She sipped her tea and glanced over at a waiter who picked up a few coins from a nearby table. “And it is also quite expensive.”

“I know.” I nibbled my buttered cracker.

“Will you not come to our home for dinner tonight?” Her teacup rattled into the saucer when she hit the rim instead of the center. Her face flushed a little as she looked down at the offending cup.

“Willingly,” I said. “But your roommate?”

“Lanna will not mind,” Kayin said quickly. “She shall be glad of the company.”

We set a time for me to drop by for dinner that evening as we walked back to the hotel.

“You must be exhausted,” I said.

“No, not at all. I found last night very delighted.”

“Delightful,” I said. “Does it bother you when I correct your English?”

“I am grateful to you for doing that. How else should I know?”

“And,” I said, “as you teach me Burmese, you can give the corrections back to me.”

“I will,” she replied as we came to the door of the hotel. “I will be looking for you tonight.”

Kayin touched my hand, and I had the distinct feeling she wanted to kiss my cheek but held back. I certainly wanted to kiss her.

She hurried into the hotel and back to work.

* * * * *

Lanna and Kayin’s home consisted of two small rooms and a tiny kitchen above a weaver’s shop in Hoa-Bin Road. They shared a communal washroom with some other families in the building next to theirs.

“Where’s Lanna?” I asked as I settled myself on the floor at a low table where Kayin had directed me.

She ran to the kitchen to attend to something on the stove. “She had to go on urgent family business, will return in two hours,” she said as she brought a large tray to the table. “More or less,” she added and gave me a quick smile as she took her place on the floor across the table from me.

What a wonderful dinner we had. Central to the meal was a large platter of steamed rice, with a delicious chicken curry, along with two large salads for us to share. One called lephet, and the other a ginger salad. The lephet was carefully arranged on a long plate with a multitude of ingredients, including dried shrimp, toasted yellow peas, sesame seeds, fried garlic, green peppers, lime juice, and green chilies, all mixed at the table according to one’s taste. For desert, we had a tasty coconut custard.

As we cleared the table and put away the food, I told Kayin it was the best meal I’d had since I left home for the academy, five years before. With typical Burmese modesty, she refused to take credit for the meal, saying Lanna had done most of the preparation before she left.

It was late, and Lanna hadn’t come back. Kayin showed no concern about her roommate, and I soon realized she probably wouldn’t be home that night.

Chapter Four

The technical difficulties I’d pondered over the proper approaches to making love never developed. We were simply sitting on cushions next to each other on the floor, listing to Glenn Miller’s music coming over the radio from the BBC, when she laid her head on my shoulder. I slipped my arm around her, then, almost as a continuation of my movement, she tilted her head back, leaving our lips on a slow collision course. From that point on, nature took complete control of our bodies.

The last thing I remember was hearing the words to Cole Porter’s Let’s Do It, Let’s Fall in Love. Then it was another night without sleep, but neither of us minded. I think Kayin realized from my fumbling that I’d never been in bed with a woman. She whispered into my ear that she wasn’t sure about what to do, so we’d have to learn together. By sunrise, we were both thoroughly initiated in the art of lovemaking.

All the next day, I prowled libraries, museums, parks—doing anything to stay awake. Finally, in the evening she came to my room. We didn’t bother with food or drink, but went straight to bed and slept soundly in each other’s arms until four in the morning. We got out of bed two hours later, and I walked her home so she could get ready for work.

* * * * *

A week later, early on a balmy Tuesday afternoon, I leaned on the counter, chatting with Kayin. I knew Mr. Haverstock, the manager, would be gone for at least an hour. Every day at around that time, he would leave, saying he had to inspect the rooms to make sure the employees had done a proper job of cleaning.

“The bloodless fool,” Kayin said as she tallied the hotel ledger. “Everyone on staff knows he is soundly sleeping in one of the vacant rooms. He naps for an hour or more, letting us think he is performing some sort of critical management duty. But we are happy for it. It is at that time we can relax and do what we want. It is not that we are lazybones or finding careless time; it is only that we can get more of our work done without him peeping over our necks every minute.”

“Bloody fool,” I corrected her slang.

“Yes, he is that also,” she said.

Suddenly, she became alert and her commercial smile came back. She looked beyond me, and I knew another guest was coming to the counter from behind me.

“Welcome to the hotel Nadi Myanmar,” Kayin said to the newcomer.

“Hey, sailor,” the guest said. “Goldbricking again and flirting with the lady, I see.”

I recognized the voice. “‘Bout time you got here, Raji.” I turned to face her.

She gave me a hug and kissed my cheek. As I leaned back to look her over, I saw her gaze pass over my shoulder. With a tiny smile, she nodded toward Kayin.

“Oh, I’m sorry...” I started to introduce them, but I could see half of that had already been done. Kayin held Raji with the coldest look I’d ever seen in my life. She then gave me that same hard stare.

“Ahem,” Raji cleared her throat. “Perhaps you forgot to tell her about me, Fuse.”