Amitav Ghosh - The Glass Palace

The backfiring of the Skoda’s engine echoed through the streets as they drove away. The centre of the city was almost eerily quiet, emptier than Jaya had ever seen it before. But as they went northwards the traffic increased: there were cars, buses, small trucks. They came to a wide, tree-shaded avenue lined with large villas.

They parked a good distance away, and joined the many hundreds of people who were walking down the avenue.

They came to a house with a green and yellow fence. There was a large crowd outside. Not much was visible of the interior of the compound: the house was set well back from the road, surrounded by stands of tall bamboo. The gates were of metal, with spikes along the top. There were some ten thousand people gathered round them, most sitting patiently on the grassy verge that lined the avenue on both sides. The road was kept clear by volunteers and policemen, and traffic was flowing through, right past the gates, at a slow but steady pace.

The volunteers were wearing saffron tunics and green longyis: Jaya learnt that these were the colours of the democracy movement. Dinu was recognised by many of the volunteers. They waved him through to a vantage point that was quite close to the gates. The view was good and Jaya spent a long time looking at the people around her: there were many students and a fair sprinkling of Buddhist nuns and monks, but most of the people there seemed like ordinary folk. There were plenty of women, a large number being accompanied by children. The atmosphere was expectant but not tense; there were many food vendors making their way through the crowd, selling drinks and snacks.

Dinu nudged Jaya’s elbow and pointed to a photographer and a couple of men in wire-rimmed sunglasses. ‘M.I.,’ he said with a chuckle. ‘Military intelligence. They will film it all and take it back to their headquarters. Their bosses will watch it tomorrow.’ Jaya noticed that there were many Indians in the crowd. She commented on this to Dinu and he said, ‘Yes, you can be sure this fact hasn’t escaped the regime. . the official papers often describe these meetings as gatherings of evil Indians.’ He laughed.

Suddenly there was a great uproar. ‘There she is,’ Dinu said. ‘Aung San Suu Kyi.’

A slim, fine-featured woman stepped up. Her head was just visible above the gate. Her hair was dark black, and gathered at the neck. She was wearing white flowers above her hair. She was beautiful almost beyond belief.

Aung San Suu Kyi waved at the crowd and began to speak. She was using Burmese and Jaya could not understand what she was saying. But the delivery was completely unlike anything she’d ever heard. She laughed constantly and there was an electric brightness to her manner.

The laughter is her charisma, Jaya thought. She could hear echoes of Aung San Suu Kyi’s laughter everywhere around her, in the crowd. Despite the swarming intelligence agents, the atmosphere was not heavy or fear-filled. There was a good-humouredness that seemed very much at odds with the deadened city beyond. Jaya understood why so many people had pinned their hopes on Aung San Suu Kyi; she knew that she herself would have been willing to do anything that was asked of her at that moment: it was impossible to behold this woman and not be half in love.

Both she and Dinu were silent as they walked back to the old Skoda. They got back inside, and presently Dinu said: ‘It’s strange. . I knew her father. . I knew many others who were in politics. . many men who are regarded as heroes now. . But she is the only leader I’ve ever been able to believe in.’

‘Why?’

‘Because she’s the only one who seems to understand what the place of politics is. . what it ought to be. . that while misrule and tyranny must be resisted, so too must politics itself. . that it cannot be allowed to cannibalise all of life, all of existence. To me this is the most terrible indignity of our condition — not just in Burma, but in many other places too. . that politics has invaded everything, spared nothing. . religion, art, family. . it has taken over everything. . there is no escape from it. . and yet, what could be more trivial, in the end? She understands this. . only she. . and this is what makes her much greater than a politician. .’

‘But if that’s true,’ Jaya said hesitantly, ‘doesn’t it make it much harder for her to succeed — as a politician?’

Dinu laughed. ‘But she has already succeeded. . don’t you see? She has torn the masks from the generals’ faces. . She has shown them the limits of what she is willing to do. . and these limits have imprisoned them too. . she haunts them unceasingly, every moment. . She has robbed them of words, of discourse. They have no defence against her but to call her an imperialist which is laughable. . when in fact, it is they who invoke the old imperial laws and statutes to keep themselves in power. The truth is that they’ve lost and they know this. . this is what makes them so desperate. . the knowledge that soon they will have nowhere to hide. . that it is just a matter of time before they are made to answer for all that they have done.’

Dinu came to Jaya’s hotel to take her to the airport. On the way, as they were driving through the city in the Skoda, Dinu said: ‘You’ve been here seven days and we’ve never once spoken of my father.’

‘That is true,’ Jaya said guiltily.

‘Tell me about his last days,’ Dinu said. ‘Were you with him?’

‘Yes, I remember it very well. My great-aunt Uma had died just a few days before, you see. They were almost ninety, both of them. .’

They died within a few weeks of each other. Uma was the first to go: she died in her sleep and it was Rajkumar who found her. The news caused a stir: she was given a state funeral and the Governor came. The family was pushed quietly to the background.

Rajkumar died of a heart attack, a month later. His funeral was as modest as Uma’s had been grand. A few of his friends from the Burmese temple carried his body to the crematorium. Afterwards Jaya and Bela took his ashes to the river. Jaya scattered them in the water.

‘I remembered how he’d always said that for him, the Ganges could never be the same as the Irrawaddy.’

Jaya glanced at Dinu and saw that he was crying, tears running down the creases of his face. She reached for his hand.

‘You asked me about his last days,’ she said, ‘and the truth is that what I told you is quite different from what I remember.’

‘What do you remember?’

‘I remember a story my son told me.’

‘Your son? I didn’t know you had a son.’

‘Yes, I do. He’s grown up now. He’s been living in America these last few years.’

‘And what was his story?’

I was very young, maybe four or five. Lankasuka was my home too; I lived upstairs with my mother and my great-aunt, Bela. Rajkumar lived downstairs, in Uma’s flat, in a small room next to the kitchen. In the morning, on waking up, the first thing I would do was to go down to look for him.

That morning I went to Rajkumar’s room and found that his bed had not been slept in. I was alarmed. I went running across the flat to Uma’s bedroom, to tell her that my great-grandfather was missing.

Although Rajkumar had lived in Uma’s flat for some twenty years, there was never any ambiguity about their living arrangements or the nature of their relationship. It was understood by everyone that their connection was one of charity, founded on Uma’s affection for Dolly. Uma was a benevolent benefactress; he a near-destitute refugee. His presence in the household did not in any way compromise Uma’s reputation as a woman of icy self-containment, a widow who had mourned her dead husband for more than half a century.