Charmaine Craig - Miss Burma

“Come now, Benny,” his friend said, sweating over his soup. “Hang this beauty pageant business—”

But Benny was too far into an argument that, once made, he’d never be able to take back, she feared. “It would certainly give Louisa — and us as a family — a platform in the international sphere, wouldn’t it?” he sputtered. “Yes, that would be ‘an angle’ as the Americans put it. Might even get us back in the government’s good graces. And the money! It’s no secret that I’m an utter failure as a businessman, that Khin has had to make terrible sacrifices—”

“Stop,” she heard herself say weakly from her end of the table.

Her face was trembling, and it made her all too aware of how pathetic she must have appeared, like a debased servant who’d been made by her master to impersonate the mistress of the house.

“I can’t deny that the idea of Louisa being crowned appeals to my vanity,” Benny kept on. From his tone it wasn’t at all clear that he was still speaking facetiously. “To think of my daughter’s picture looming on their billboards. ”

To think of exactly that, for Khin, was suddenly to imagine herself becoming even less distinct. The more prominent her daughter became, the greater the shadow she would cast. And hadn’t Khin been at risk of standing in that shadow as far back as her freest days with Lynton? She could already see it. Lynton alongside Sunny in some army truck on some highway, coming across just such a billboard featuring Louisa’s outsize beauty.

But a thought occurred to her, one as frightening as it was rich with possibility. Well, and what if Lynton did confront such a glaring reminder of them?

Might not the memory of Khin outshine Miss Burma’s face?

Who was the ally and who was the enemy?

It was a question that preoccupied Benny soon after he was thrown into house arrest. It was a question that preoccupied him partly because the indefinite sentence was entirely benign given his sporadic meetings with the American (to whom he’d repeatedly insisted that Khin was ignorant of Lynton’s present whereabouts), and partly because all communications with Hatchet had abruptly come to an end. Of course, William Young might have given the tip that had done Benny in. If that had been the case, well, Young could have been placed in the field precisely to assess the Karens’ threat to America’s and Burma’s interests and relations. Or perhaps it was as simple as Hatchet having wanted to finish off their association the moment he’d accepted that Benny was never going to lead him to Lynton.

And it was a question that preoccupied him whenever he dared to consider the question of Lynton and Khin. Had she passionately loved that Karen warrior, who had managed to care for her and the children in Benny’s absence?

Benny had made the preposterous suggestion about Louisa running for Miss Burma with Lynton in mind. After all, Khin had been fresh from the man’s bed when she’d entered Louisa into the child pageant with the supposed aim of securing Benny’s release from Insein Prison. Her every act of loyalty since their separation — including her persistence now by his side, in this house-cum-prison — struck him as compensation for the greater happiness she must have known with that other man. And in the presence of their dinnertime guests, without really wanting to hurt her (but perhaps wanting to goad her into an outburst that might relieve them of everything that had gone unspoken between them), he had pushed so hard for Miss Burma as his new solution that she’d visibly cowered at her end of the table before saying, “If you’re so convinced, Benny, I’ll see what I can do about it.”

And, God Almighty, did she ever proceed to do just that!

Of course, he could have spoken up instead of mutely standing by (beside equally mute Louisa) while Khin went on to pore over fashion magazines and cut patterns for gowns and bathing suits, to be stitched together from her own dismantled petticoats and sarongs. Of course, when she later that year announced that she’d registered Louisa for the 1956 Miss Karen State pageant, he could have put his foot down and cried defeat, demanding this must not go on. But Louisa showed no sign of being negatively touched by her mother’s carrying on. Rather, the perpetually serene looks the now fifteen-year-old girl increasingly cast Benny seemed intended to reassure him that he shouldn’t trouble himself with concern about this pettiness. And he knew that to say anything to Khin would mean claiming responsibility for what he privately came to refer to as the Miss Burma problem . (“But I thought this is what you wanted ,” he could imagine her arguing. “A subject for your writing — what did you call it? An angle? A platform?”)

The truth was Khin seemed to have become invested in Louisa’s winning the ultimate title — as if, in addition to the potential financial and political rewards, her own self-worth might be salvaged by means of it. There was something personal and desperate about the way she began to harass the girl, constantly detailing how Louisa could improve upon herself (“Don’t tug at your bathing suit — it’s supposed to be tight — and pull your stomach in whenever you think of it.” “You could do some toning exercises.” “Are you washing your forehead up to the hairline? You don’t want pimples all over your face!” “You see the women in the magazines, how each of them stands without slouching, as though she’s wearing a beautiful necklace she wants everyone to see. ” “Your calves are too big — that’s unavoidable — but if you stand just so it will be less evident.” “You’re not going out without makeup, I hope!” “Pinch the tip of your nose for ten minutes a day — your father’s is so big.” “One scoop of rice, no more.” “Did you forget to apply your face paste? Your skin will be ruined.” “If you see Mrs. Ne Win, address her politely. She greeted me this morning. We’re making an impression!”).

Something unsuitable was happening to Khin. She seemed to be alternately harassed and exalted by the visions she was intent on conjuring out of the substance — certainly not the soul — of their eldest daughter (as though what she were conjuring were a perfected version of herself ). At any given minute, she might instruct the girl to put on some dress she’d sewn and call for the family members to come admire it (Benny was quite dazzled by the sight of Louisa, whose figure had worrisomely taken on the dimensions of various Hollywood starlets’, in a gleaming mandarin gown and gold lamé heels, the latter of which Khin had “borrowed from a friend,” or more likely purchased on credit). Then she would just as suddenly decide that her creation was inadequate, that the outfit in question had to be altered; and, after commanding Louisa to take the thing off, she would station herself at the dining table to rip out seams and reposition hooks, while inconvenienced Johnny would invariably skulk off, and the rest of the household would be thrown into disarray — the younger, neglected children grabbing for attention that Louisa and Hta Hta could only semisuccessfully supply. If Khin was determined to remake her own world, she was just as effectively unraveling their shared one.

Yet one day — about a week before the Miss Karen State pageant — Khin seemed to remember her stake in him. All afternoon, light had poured in through the window in his study, enlivening the dust motes that rose from his desk while he wrote a long letter to Rita (with whom, since his latest incarceration, his correspondence had again become of urgent significance to him). The night was already deep, though, the last light having left him alone — relentlessly alone with his thoughts of Hatchet and Lynton, of whom he dared write only in his private journals — when suddenly Khin appeared in his doorway.