Under the Dragon Read Online Free PDF

wasted. In the end it would cost as much as three hundred kyat to reclaim his bicycle by legal means. The officer knew this too.
    ‘I am afraid that I do not have a hundred kyat today, Saya .’
    ‘Of course; it would be foolish to travel with such an amount.’
    The warrant officer scribbled a few words on a leaf torn from an old diary. ‘Please sign this paper here.’
    Ni Ni helped her father to read the handwritten promissory note. He asked her to repeat its words to him twice. ‘But Saya , there is no mention of the bicycle here.’
    ‘That is not necessary. This paper says simply that the repairman has loaned you one hundred kyat and that you will pay him back – by way of myself – at the end of the week. When you return with the money, you may have the bicycle.’
    ‘The law comes out from their mouth, not from the book,’ Law San said later that day. He had loaned the money to Ni Ni’s father, aware that there was little prospect of repayment in this life. He hoped that the act might perhaps gain him merit in the next one.
    ‘We do not own our home, our children, even our possessions,’ hissed Ni Ni’s father, making light of a Buddhist precept. ‘They are only given to us for a short time, or until they fall into the grasp of the Tatmadaw .’ He and Law San had learned that the thief from whom the cousin had bought the machine had been a soldier. The warrant officer had become involved not to right a wrong, but because he had not wanted the soldier alone to profit from the robbery. He had seized the bicycle so as to get his own cut.
    ‘ Malok, mashok, mapyok ,’ Law San sighed. ‘Don’t do anything, don’t get involved, don’t make yourself trouble. That’s what I advise, Akogyi .’ In the end both he and his cousin had lost a hundred kyat. ‘Let’s get back to work.’
    Later Ni Ni tried to comfort her father, asking him about massage oils and encouraging him to teach her his techniques. Although it stung her hands she massaged his shoulders, chatting to him about her dowry of coins, but his thoughts drifted away from the Prome Road. The soldiers’ crime had kindled his discontent.
    It was towards the end of that summer that Ni Ni’s father lost his job. He was accused of discussing politics with foreigners, an allegation invented by a younger masseur who coveted his post. The hotel manager dismissed him without a hearing. It was better to sack a man than to risk trouble with the authorities. The irony was that Ni Ni’s father, while kneading bronzed Swedish backs and easing tired Thai muscles, had indeed been criticising the regime.
    In the spring of 1988 Burma’s military government had suppressed a small demonstration with bestial brutality. Peaceful protestors were beaten and driven into Rangoon’s Inya Lake to drown. The Lon Htein riot police stormed the university and arrested truckloads of students. In prison men were tortured and women gang-raped. Forty-one students suffocated to death in a police van. The official inquiry found that only two protesters had died, further incensing public opinion. A curfew intended to control the students misfired. Stall-keepers were prevented from reaching the markets. Food became scarce. A pyi of rice tripled in price over the summer. The daily wage of a manual worker remained fixed at 6.50 kyat. People could no longer afford to eat.
    The resignation that July of General Ne Win, the despot who had wielded absolute power for twenty-six terrible years, came as a complete surprise to the nation. The Burmese had as a rule accepted both misfortune and bad government with stoicism. Suddenly it seemed that they could unravel themselves from the economic decline and arbitrary cruelty. There could be an end to the reign of terror. A general strike was called in the hope of dislodging the rest of the military government. On 8 August – the auspicious 8.8.88 – a million hungry, hopeful people took to the streets without fear, with only elation in their