Under the Dragon Read Online Free PDF Page A

step, a dismantled bicycle between his legs. Her father introduced themselves, but the man did not invite them into his house, despite their long journey, nor did he meet their eyes. ‘I am sorry, but your machine is no longer here,’ he said, unwilling to look up from a broken gear-changer. He gestured towards a long dark row of spiny acacias. ‘It is there, over the road in the military compound.’ Beyond the shrubs, behind the barbed wire, against the wall of a barracks, stood the green Triumph.
    Ni Ni had been wary of the army since the year two soldiers had tricked a neighbour’s daughter. The corporal had addressed his friend as ‘Major’, and the simple, trusting girl had believed the men to be officers. She had responded to his advances and, after the marriage, discovered that her major was an ordinary soldier. When his unit was transferred away from Rangoon he had left her with a child. The incident never failed to make Ni Ni laugh. In fact it was when confronting misfortune that her laugher came most easily. She had sniggered when first meeting the ice factory manager, even though he had torn apart her family, and thereafter giggled to drive away her father’s loneliness. Her humour helped her to rise above disappointment and to act with care, for every act had consequences for the soul’s future. But standing in the shade of a palm tree near the compound’s gatehouse she suppressed the urge even to smile. She knew that her father would never have brought her with him had he known about the involvement of the Tatmadaw . The Burmese army, once a respected and responsible force, had become the country’s corrupt ruling class. ‘I am staying with you,’ she insisted when he tried to send her home. Her concern for his safety was as great as his for hers.
    The warrant officer was not in his office, and a sentry directed them along Khayebin Road to the Tatmadaw Golf Club. They were kept waiting outside in the midday sun until he had finished his round. Two Mercedes limousines came and went. When the officer appeared Ni Ni’s father bowed, addressed him as Saya , teacher, and beseeched him to return to the compound. The young man was irritable. He had been looking forward to lunch and at first feigned indifference to such a minor matter as a stolen bicycle. But he relented, then, on the drive back to the compound, began to rant about the need to uplift the morality of the nation. Ni Ni couldn’t understand the relevance of a lecture on personal sacrifice.
    ‘Forgive me, Saya ,’ her father pleaded when they reached his office. ‘I am an ill-educated man, but at what are you aiming? Please tell me openly.’
    ‘I am telling you that the thief sold your bicycle to the repair shop, then ran away,’ snapped the officer. ‘And that if you wish it to be returned, then you must repay the hundred kyat.’ At the time a hundred kyat was the equivalent of two months’ rent. ‘Furthermore I am willing, in the cause of good civic relations, to accept the money on his behalf.’
    ‘ Saya , are you saying that I must buy back my own bicycle?’ Ni Ni was surprised to hear disapproval in her father’s voice. He tended to acquiesce in the face of difficulties. ‘That does not seem to be the right way.’
    ‘Younger brother, I am trying to help you to find the best way,’ said the officer. Ni Ni wanted to hide her tingling fingers in her lap, but they had not been invited to sit down. ‘If you refuse, then the bicycle must be sent to the police and a case will be opened. As you know, it will be kept in their care as evidence.’
    Ni Ni knew that once it was in their hands, the police would use the bicycle as their own. They would replace its good tyres with old punctured ones, strip the gears and maybe even steal its Flying Pigeon bell. To expedite the case her father would need to make frequent visits to the police station, bringing presents for the detectives on each occasion. His time and money would be