The Lizard Cage by Karen Connelly Read Free Book Online

source of embarrassment. He did not want to live from the proceeds of cleaning other people’s clothes. He wanted to be a rock star.
    But this was no solution either. In Burma, famous rock stars were just as poor as everyone else. Both the bass player and the lead singer in Teza’s favorite band lived in humble rooms at the bug-infested YMCA on Mahabandoola Street. If those two jeans-and-guitar-sporting icons could stand living at the YMCA, Teza realized, he had to tolerate living comfortably from the proceeds of a laundry. Taking cleaning orders after class and helping his mother to manage the accounts, he learned to ignore what he didn’t like.
    Aung Min, on the other hand, lacked the Burmese apathy gene. “Little Brother,” Teza said to him once, “you are not being a good Buddhist. You spend too much time thinking about the future and stewing about the past. What about the present?” He was only partly joking when he added, “Maybe you should go on a meditation retreat with May May.” Their mother was a disciplined meditator. “Remember the wisdom of the breath.”
    Aung Min raised a skeptical eyebrow. “I would breathe better, Teza, if I were not being suffocated every bloody day.”
    True to his mother’s wishes, Aung Min was studying medicine. Heused to come home from his classes and, like his doctor father before him, talk angrily and articulately about the idiocy of the government. But he was louder and more charismatic than his father, and to May May’s great consternation, he had a dirty mouth. Though he didn’t swear in front of her, his voice cut right through the walls. “In Southeast Asia, only Cambodia is more fucked up, and that’s simply because Pol Pot was so stupid and brutal that he killed everyone. But our old bastard Dictator Ne Win is smart and brutal enough to keep us alive! What good are dead slaves?”
    May May came into the kitchen, tongue clicking, and closed the windows. Speaking out against the dictator or his regime was dangerous on the street and at home; the MI had paid informers in every neighborhood.
    Listening to Aung Min’s latest passionate rant, Teza carefully masked the awe he felt for his little brother.
    “You remember what the country used to be called, right?
The rice bowl of Asia
. We were a huge rice producer. Now the farmers have to buy their own paddy back from the military. At [
pound!
] inflated [
pound!
] prices! [
pound!
] The farmers themselves don’t have enough rice to eat. One of my professors thinks that two children in five are malnourished. In isolated areas, probably three or four in five. And most of Ne Win’s cronies are so fat!”
Mataya wa-dey
was the phrase he used—
unjustly fat
. Teza burst out laughing.
    “It’s not funny, Teza.”
    “I’m laughing at the expression, that’s all. Hpo Hpo used to say the same thing, remember?” He smiled, hoping to lure his brother into calmer territory by reminiscing about their dead grandfather, for whom they shared a quiet love.
    Aung Min met his eye and said dryly, “You should come with me tonight.”
    “Uh-oh. Something tells me it’s not going to be a very fun party.”
    “The study group is meeting.”
    “That’s what I thought.”
    Teza lifted a cup of tea to his lips.
Study group
was a euphemism for the political meetings that Aung Min had been organizing on campus. Teza sometimes went to these gatherings, often to keep an eye on his little brother. If the elder student was known for his mellifluous voice and skill with a guitar, the younger was becoming famous for his big mouth.
    Aside from General Ne Win’s monster mouthpiece, the Burma Socialist Program Party, all political groups were illegal. Teza often chided his brother for not being careful enough; the MI had spies on campus too. The students met in each other’s cluttered dorm rooms or huddled around a table at an outdoor tea shop; voices would rise to an excited pitch when they were supposed to be whispering. Even a small