The End of “Little Burmese Story” – Part Two

 

© Kristian Leven

The next day Cherry Oo crossed Gabaye Pagoda Road, as she usually did, stopped at the Shwedagon Pagoda for a short prayer with incense in her fingers, and headed for the mother's shop.

The street was crowded with civilians and soldiers, and the rain didn't care about the differences in hammering the umbrellas and the roofs of the cars.

At four o'clock the elegant man, with his briefcase and umbrella, was waiting by the side of the door to the side of the shop, under the small shed with his eyes wandering from right to left in search of the girl.

When Cherry Oo saw the man next to the store she hurried up, her sneakers slaloming through the puddles in the asphalt.

“I apologize for the delay,” exclaimed the girl with a little breathlessness in her voice, while she was looking for the keys in the pocket of her jeans.

“No problem, I've just arrived from work too.”

The young man answered as he watched the street in front, remembering the time when there was not an empty hole between the crowd of demonstrators and the army that attacked them to disperse; it was still alive in hearing the dry sound of signs hit by sticks, the screams and shots fired in the air.

“Please take a seat.” Cherry Oo said as she turned on the small light bulb inside the shop.

The elegant young man entered with almost the same spirit and attention as when he enters a monastery, he even wanted to take off his shoes.

Everything remained the same, with the dark leather book on the sanghati packaging, the robes of the monks, the boxes of incense, the statues of the Buddha, and the little transistor radio hanging from a string on the side of the plastic chair.

As if time had stopped, nailed in its flow by the bullets of memory.

“This shop was her whole world...”

The girl said as she took small notebooks from the drawers.

The man noticed that the girl's eyes were holding back her tears.

“Did you spend a lot of time together?” The man asked curiously.

Cherry Oo replied as she searched for her mother's items scattered around the small shop.

“Well, I have school and she had to take care of my grandmother and the shop, but as soon as she found time we spent it together. For example, we had a ritual that we never skipped: when I passed an exam, grade 1 to 11, in high school, she came to pick me up from school and we walked to the nearby Inn Yer lake, there was a playground and May May kept me company. She never missed a day, at every exam: it was our intimate moment.”

“I understand. Did she die from the epidemic?”

The man asked gently as Cherry Oo opened the wooden panel to let in some air and light.

The girl nodded yes with her head.

“Here we are now dying either from this cursed epidemic or at the hands of the army...”, she paused briefly, “...we certainly don't die from the rain.”

She said with a smile as if to chase away the ghosts of sadness.

“It's true. If it weren't for your mother, maybe now, I also would be ashes in the air. That day there was a crowd filling the whole street ahead; then the army came and started hitting wherever it happened. They began to shoot at the crowd, to drag women, monks, and elders on the ground, to arrest them. Your mother let me in here. I didn't even know her, she was very kind. She just told me her name before I left.”

The man told with a lost gaze beyond the rectangle of rain and asphalt.

“Yes, May May was like that. She was happy with little. One song was enough for her.”

Cherry Oo said grabbing the little dangling radio and turning it on.

An old song was fading, between little guitars and the voice of a man who seemed to be singing from a distant century.

The young man stroked the transparent plastic of the monks' robes with his hand, while his eyes followed the trails of the rain-fogged car headlights.

 

© Nandy

“What a coincidence! This was my mother's favorite song!”

The girl's voice floated in the ocean the sky rolled over Yangon as she turned up the volume a little.

“Maung...

“If you believe in your heart

you have to get away from me, slowly...”

May Sweet's voice seemed to split, like the echo in a cave.

Then the man felt a hand settle on his gently.

He turned to the right and saw Daisy's smiling face.

He opened his eyes and mouth wide, petrified.

“You're back?” He whispered, looking at her hand, with the clear perception that there really was the woman's hand resting on top of his. He wasn't dreaming.

Daisy sang with her eyes fixed on him.

“If you love me until the next cycle,

you can never forget me for a second,

I'm going to be away from you....”

“Maunggg ... (darling)”, they sang in sync.

“Did you come back to stay?” He asked dazed with emotion.

She stroked his pale-skinned cheek.

“I came back for you to do what you should have done that day we met.”

He held his breath, then moved closer and closer to Daisy's face, until he felt her breath on his lips.

He closed his eyes.

They exchanged a long kiss.

A kiss as long as the river of time that went from the Pagan Kingdom of King Anawratha, to the fatal deeds of Kublai Khan, through the Konbaung dynasty of King Alaungpaya, until getting lost in a future that no one could glimpse but smelled of serenity.

A kiss as powerful as the step of the elephants in the forests and as warm as the deep voice of the monks in prayer.

A kiss as sweet as papaya pulp and salty as goodbye tears.

While their lips were one essence, the young man noticed that the warmth of Daisy's hand that he was holding vigorously seemed to recede, from the tips of her fingers to her knuckles, palm, and wrists. He seemed to be holding chrysalises. Even the beautiful features of the woman's face began to become filigree, fragile and hazy.

He pulled his lips away and with anguish that tore at his heart said: “No. Don't go away again. I beg you...”

Daisy, or rather her flesh in transparency, smiled again.

“We don't come or go anywhere.

We are always here.

In oblivion as in memory, a part of us always lives. I'm not going away from you because I will always live on your lips from now on.”

 

“Maung...

you can never forget me for a second.”

 

“Is fine? Gentleman! Is fine?”

The man focused his gaze and saw Cherry Oo waving the hand in front of his eyes.

He looked around, at his hands, then disguised his naturalness by arranging the bangs of the black hair over his thin eyebrows.

“Yes, yes. Everything is fine...”

“Looks like syou saw a nat*! I talked but you didn't listen to me. You did nothing but stare into space and chant “Maung”. You really likes this song! Just like my mother.”

She exclaimed, turning off the radio.

“Can we go now? My grandmother is waiting for me at home.”

The man bowed his head twice with the hands joined.

“Sure sure. Sorry again. I don't know what happened to me.”

Then he patted the plastic of the sanghati packs one last time as the girl closed the wooden panel and turned off the light bulb.

 

Cherry Oo locked the shop door and opened the umbrella.

“I hope this visit has been useful to you in remembering my mother.”

The girl said with a wistful smile.

“Absolutely. I don't know how to thank you.” The man answered her.

“And anyway your mother never left: she is always here with us.”

Cherry Oo smiled at him and nodded her head.

“I have to go now. Have a good evening.”

She greeted him and set off at a brisk pace, getting lost in the crowd of people returning home from work striving to live a normal life.

The man opened the umbrella. He took one last look at the shop and walked off into the crowd too, whistling the May Sweet tune.

 

The rain had not ceased to fall on Yangon for weeks now.

The black clouds seemed to envelop the tops of the golden pagodas.

 

© Nandy

In memory of Khin Cho Win Win - Daisy Kyawwin
R.I.P.
Yangon
October 30, 1972
July 31, 2021 - 4.30 p.m.

 Some words:

This story has remained in the hearts of many, in those who have read the book in Italian and here on my blog. As Prof. Antonia Soriente wrote in the Afterword to the book, the first story had an open ending that left the lives and emotions of the protagonists in suspense, just like the destinies of the inhabitants of Yangon in these terrible years for them.

Then death came with all its cruel realism and heaviness, strongly closing what I had left open with my imagination.

July 30 will be the anniversary of the first year since the death of Khin Cho Win Win. Her farewell left me friendship with her daughter. The memory of her mother lives on forever in that first story that Khin loved very much.

So I wanted to give a second turn of the wheel, not only to satisfy the requests of the many readers who wanted to know how the story had ended: if it were for me the first would have been enough. But it was also a request from her daughter Nandy, whom I sincerely thank for allowing me to use the real photographs of her and the mother, as well as telling me the details of her death. Because one of the presumptions, or illusions of art, is to make eternal what is not eternal.

But Khin really believed in that “next cycle” sung by May Sweet, as well as her daughter.

This is the meaning of the kiss.

“If you love me until the next cycle, / you can never forget me for a second, / I'm going to be away from you...”

Few times a pop song has enclosed so powerfully in its verses the profound meaning of people's lives: love, eternal memory, and abandonment.

This time it's for you little Nandy.

 

* Nats are divine spirits revered in Myanmar and neighboring countries along with Buddhism. They are divided between the 37 Great Nats and all the others (i.e., tree spirits, water, etc.). Most of the 37 Great Nats were human beings who suffered a violent death. There are two types of nat in Burmese Buddhist belief: lower nats or auk nats (အောက် နတ်), which may be named or unnamed, and ahtet nats (အထက် နတ်) or higher nats, dewa that inhabit the heavens.

Italian version