Paul Theroux - The Great Railway Bazaar

He was eager to talk, glad to have a listener, and he didn't need prompting questions. He spoke carefully, plucking at the cloth bundle, as he remembered a clause, and I hugged myself in the cold, grateful that all that was required of me was an occasional nod to show I was interested.

'I don't remember much about Rangoon, and we moved to Mandalay when I was very young. I can remember practically everything from nineteen hundred onwards. Mr MacDowell, Mr Owen, Mr Stewart, Captain Taylor – I worked for them all. I was head cook in the Royal Artillery officers' mess, but I did more than cook – I did everything. I went all over Burma, in the camps when they were in the field. I have a good memory, I think. For example, I remember the day Queen Victoria died. I was in the second standard at Saint Xavier's School in Mandalay. The teacher said to us, "The Queen is dead, so there is no school today." I was – what? – seven years old. I was a good student. I did my lessons, but when I finished with school there was nothing to do. In nineteen ten I was sixteen and I thought I should get a job on the railways. I wanted to be an engine driver. I wanted to be in a loco, travelling to Upper Burma. But I was disappointed. They made us carry coal baskets on our heads. It was very hard work, you can't imagine – so hot – and the man in charge of us, one Mr Vander, was an Anglo-Indian. He shouted at us, of course, all the time, fifteen minutes for lunch and he still shouted. He was a fat man and not kind to us at all. There were a lot of Anglo-Indians on the railway then. I should say most of them were Anglo-Indians. I imagined I would be driving a loco and here I was carrying coal! The work was too much for me, so I ran away.

'I liked my next job very much. This was in the kitchen of the officers' mess in the Royal Artillery. I still have some of the certificates, with RA written on them. I helped the cook at first and later became a cook myself. The cook's name was Stewart and he showed me how to cut vegetables in various ways and how to make salad, fruit cup, the trifle, and all the different kinds of joints. It was nineteen twelve then, and that was the best time in Burma. It will never be nice like that again. There was plenty of food, things were cheap, and even after the First World War started things were still fine. We never knew about the First World War in Burma; we heard nothing – we didn't feel it. I knew a little bit about it because of my brother. He was fighting in Basra – I'm sure you know it – Basra, in Mesopotamia.

'At that time I was getting twenty-five rupees a month. It doesn't sound so much, does it? But, do you know, it only cost me ten rupees to live -1 saved the rest and later I bought a farm. When I went for my pay I collected one gold sovereign and a ten-rupee bank note. A gold sovereign was worth fifteen rupees. But to show you how cheap things were, a shirt cost four annas, food was plentiful, and life was very good. I married and had four children. I was at the officers' mess from nineteen twelve until nineteen forty-one, when the Japanese came. I loved doing the work. The officers all knew me and I believe they respected me. They only got cross if something was late. Everything had to be done on time, and of course if it wasn't – if there was a delay – they were very angry. But not a single one was cruel to me. After all, they were officers – British officers, you know – and they had a good standard of behaviour. Throughout that time, whenever they ate, they wore full-dress uniforms, and there were sometimes guests or wives in evening dress, black ties, and the ladies wore gowns. Beautiful as moths. I had a uniform, too, white jacket, black tie, and soft shoes – you know the kind of soft shoes. They make no noise. I could come into a room and no one could hear me. They don't make those shoes any more, the kind that are noiseless.

'Things went on this way for some years. I remember one night at the mess. General Slim was there. You know him. And Lady Slim. They came into the kitchen. General and Lady Slim and some others, officers and their wives.

'I stood to attention.

' "You are Bernard?" Lady Slim asked me.

'I said, "Yes, Madam."

'She said it was a good meal and very tasty. It was glazed chicken, vegetables, and trifle.

'I said, "I am glad you liked it."

'"That is Bernard," General Slim said, and they went out.

'Chiang Kai-shek and Madame Chiang came as well. He was very tall and did not speak. I served them. They stayed for two days – one night and two days. And the viceroy came – that was Lord Curzon. So many people came – the Duke of Kent, people from India, and another general – I will think of his name.

'Then the Japanese came. Oh, I remember that very well! It was like this. I was standing in the bush near my house – outside Maymyo, where the road forks. I wore a singlet and a longyi, as the Burmese do. The car was so huge, with a flag on the bonnet – the Japanese flag, rising sun, red and white. The car stopped at the fork. I didn't think they could see me. A man called me over. He said something to me in Burmese.

'I said, "I speak English."

'"You are Indian?" says this Japanese gentleman. I said yes. He put his hands together like this and said, "India-Japan. Friends!" I smiled at him. I had never been to India in my life.

'There was a very high official in the car. He said nothing, but the other man said, "Is this the road to Maymyo?"

'I said it was. They drove on, up the hill. That was how the Japanese entered Maymyo.

'My wife was dead. In nineteen forty-one I remarried and had three more sons, John Henry, Andrew Paul, and, in nineteen forty-five, Victor. Victor, you know, because the war was over. I tried to retire. I was getting old, but the Burmese government called me back whenever there was a dinner – to Mandalay. I have not been to Rangoon since nineteen twenty-four or twenty-five, though I have been to Mandalay many times. I am coming from there now. There was a dinner two nights back, a large joint, two vegetables. Not as fancy as the Victory Dinner. I had full charge of the Victory Dinner in nineteen forty-five – for two hundred people. We started off with cream vegetable soup, then salmon mayonnaise, and roast chicken, vegetables, potatoes roast and boiled, and sauce. To finish there was sundae trifle and savory. Well, a savory might be anything, but on that occasion it was "Devils on Horseback". You wrap bacon and cheese around a piece of toast and fix it with a toothpick. They were all happy at the Victory Dinner. I worked hard and they all enjoyed it. Ah, this is Maymyo.'

There were houses upraised on poles, splashed with red, like festival ribbons fluttering from branches – these were poinsettia bushes, some eight feet high. Then, after a temple and monastery, whose wood was so weathered it had the look of tarnished bronze, more buildings appeared, a row of shop houses, a theatre, a mosque on a wide muddy street. The station had a wide unpaved platform, and, as it was still drizzling, parts of it were underwater and the rest had been trampled into a porridge of muck.

Mr Bernard said, 'Where are you putting up?'

I said I didn't have the slightest idea.

'Then you should come to Candacraig,' he said. 'I am the manager – shall I book you in?'

'Yes,' I said. 'I'll be along later -1 have to buy a ticket to Gokteik.'

Looking for the ticket office, I stumbled into the radio operator's room where a bearded Eurasian with a yellow cravat and slicked-down hair was seated, listening to Morse code and scribbling on a pad. He looked at me and jumped up, reaching for my hand. 'Is there anything I can do for you?'

The Morse code continued. I said perhaps he'd better listen to it.

'It's not very important,' he said.