Playing Lady Gaga, Being Nan Pau. Steve Tolbert

like a sickness. Her eyes filled and she wiped them and they filled again. Before the massacre she’d felt shame if she cried. No longer.

      Nothing to see out there but the thick trunk of a banyan tree and a dirt path that led to the toilet, wash basin and tea shack. Mya went and lay down on the bed, looked up at the ceiling where green geckos – the story-book bad-dream catchers of her childhood – moved in bursts, froze. ‘How long will we be sharing this room?’ she asked them. Hours only, she vowed. Twenty-four at the most, then she was leaving, no matter what.

       ‘Be accepting. Be patient. You can no more …’

      Yes, yes. Mya went outside to the basin and washed, then went to the toilet before returning, her maddening monthly with her, accepted and no longer so maddening or painful. She watched the fan circle and listened to every sound: the hum of a generator, tea shack noise, the bell of a bike rickshaw, flip-flops passing the door. When she was little, she avoided ceiling fans, afraid they might crash down and slice her into pieces. Thant had told her they would.

      A vision of his last moments tracked through her mind over and over, until tiredness weighed her down, her eyelids refusing to stay open. She slept until chanting and gunshots invaded her dream, jolting her awake.

      Darkness. Street dogs barking a duet. She located herself and stood and turned on the light. A scrap of paper was under the door. She picked it up and read: Your room includes free meals.

      Reminded of her hunger, she took her bag and walked around to the tea shack. Tables lined two walls, while giant woks heaped in rice, noodles, skewered chicken parts and large pots of tea and soup simmered away along the wall to her left.

      He’d pinched his ear. ‘Remember, walls have these.’

      But there was nowhere away from walls to sit. A stool and small table tucked away in a back corner looked the best option. Mya went there and sat down, checking for wires, tiny speakers inside table-top shrines or under the table itself. A serving boy came and placed a bowl of fish-head soup, a slice of Indian bread and a glass of tea in front of her. He smiled and greeted Mya as though she were a regular customer. That relaxed her, as did the aroma of her first meal since leaving Yangon.

      Mya ate, devouring the bread between spoonfuls of soup until the scrape of a stool made her pause. She turned and looked into the smile of a thick-set man in a dark longyi and white singlet, his arms covered in blue-black tattoos.

      Her pulse quickened. Dignity, serenity, she reminded herself. She re-arranged her robe around her shoulders and ankles and took five deep breaths, concentrating on each one.

      The man sat down just as the generator quit, lights flickering then dying, the place suddenly as black as the outdoors. In seconds, torchlight beamed in the kitchen. Candles were lit.

      The serving boy brought one over and the man next to her emerged again, his fishy eyes wandering over Mya. She was struck by how quickly she could dislike someone trying to befriend her.

      He seemed to like what he saw. He leaned closer, still smiling, before his food came and moments later a glass of whiskey. He pointed to it. ‘Would you like one?’

      Breath that could melt plastic. Blind to her robe, shaved brows and head. Or maybe he was just mocking her. Mya did her best to smile, serenely, saying with all the self-control she could muster, ‘No, thank you,’ before she continued to eat.

      ‘Inside or outside the gut, it’s the best disinfectant in all of Myanmar. You’re still a bit young for it, maybe. Or maybe you’re so close to the Buddha you don’t need disinfecting.’ He chuckled then gulped down his whiskey like it was cold tea. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and nodded to the serving boy. Another whiskey came. ‘So which reason is it?’ he asked.

      ‘I prefer water or tea.’

      ‘And you have a tongue and you speak as well as pray, eat soup and bread, and dress in robes.’

      Mocking her and enjoying it, the pig. May he choke to death in his sleep and never be discovered, Mya thought as she forced another smile, rubbing a hand over the hem of her robe to reinforce who she was trying to be. She looked down. A section of the hem had come away and needed re-sewing. She lifted the hem to the candlelight. Another section had a small tear. If she wasn’t contacted by morning, she’d find a shop, buy a needle and some thread, and mend it.

      The man slurped his soup, sucking on the eyes and small bones before murmuring his approval. ‘Brains and eyeballs are the best part,’ he said, ‘Don’t you agree?’

      ‘Yes.’ She’d say nothing to contradict him. She should leave. But she was still hungry. She ate quicker, concentrating on remaining blind to his stares.

      The generator sounded and moments later the lights came back on. A mosquito was on Mya’s wrist. She slapped it: then came the shock of what she’d done.

      The man stared, a slow smile forming on his lips. ‘You’ll return as a dog in your next life.’

      ‘A mistake.’ She picked the remnants from her wrist and placed them carefully on the table. ‘Much regretted.’

      ‘The excuse being you’re just a novice prone to such mistakes.’

      If he happened to fall off his stool in the next minute, she’d kick him in the head, also by mistake and with deep apologies. ‘Perhaps.’

      A black cat entered the tea shack, examined the place and disappeared.

      ‘So which nunnery are you from?’

      As Mya, she would have been on her way to another table by now. ‘What?’ She’d heard, but she needed time to think of the name of the nunnery she’d passed earlier in the motorbike taxi.

      He repeated the question.

      Mya couldn’t remember. She only knew the name of one nunnery, and that was in Yangon. ‘Sanchaung.’

      ‘Ahhh,’ he uttered, as though some great secret had been revealed. ‘Far away from home, aren’t you?’ He stared at his whiskey before draining the glass and raising it in the air for another one.

      Mya finished her soup and stood up in one motion.

      ‘Leaving so early?’

      A quick nod and, without looking back, she left.

      Back in her room she felt panicky, trapped. She couldn’t read or settle. She listened for footsteps, a knock, the door handle turning. She wanted to find another room. Somewhere close by. So what about this? Go for a walk, find a room, return and tell the proprietor she’d met a girl she knew who lived with her family down the road. The girl had asked her to stay the night with them. She’d return in the morning.

      Mya grabbed her bag, opened the door and jumped back.

      In the doorway, the silhouette of a man. ‘Myanmar is beautiful this time of year,’ he said. ‘Don’t you think so?’

      The whiskey drinker? But he looked to be wearing trousers and seemed smaller. A hand reached out like it was about to grab her.

      ‘For you.’

      Another note, intercepted before it could be slipped under the door. Wary of that hand, Mya snatched the note quickly and stepped back into the light.

      Tomorrow Karen State. First bus for Hpa-an leaves at six am.

      ‘Who are you?’ she asked, looking up. He was gone. Mya dashed down the path to the road. No one: just sleeping dogs. She entered the tea shack. Two tables were occupied. She glanced at the faces. The whiskey drinker’s wasn’t among them.

      Back in her room she lay on the bed, watched shadows waver on the walls, listened to bats flitter about outside. At times she confused them for people about to knock or slide another note under the door. The bat noise ended. She dozed: Mister MI’s and the whiskey drinker’s claw-like hands gripped prison bars, eyes staring, mouths agape.