‘I often wonder.’ Especially when the rains didn’t come to take the logs off down the river, or when they lost an elephant to disease or accident. It was such bloody hard work. ‘I like to be close to the earth, to the soil, to nature,’ he told her, and perhaps this was what had first attracted him. He relished the rasping sound of the saw as the timber was felled, the creak of the complaining tree and the explosion as it fell, crushing everything in the forest within reach. He loved the sweet scent of the wood that could fill the hot, heavy air, and he had nothing but admiration for the elephant handlers who guided the great beasts, tied chains and fastened harnesses, so that the logs could be dragged to the banks of the
chaungs
, the wild and rushing mountain streams.
‘You have taught us how to use the power of the river,’ said Moe Mya. ‘And to harness the power of the elephants too.’ Although even as she acknowledged this, her small smile seemed to suggest that it was, after all, an insignificant thing.
What was not insignificant, thought Lawrence, was the way that with a boom and a crash, the logs would tumble downstream. And those logs could move. They’d hurtle singly or in packs, colliding into each other and everything in their path with a reverberation that could be felt all along the river bank. Or a log could get caught in rapids or heavy debris and in the blink of an eye there’d be a massive dam of the things until the force and weight of them made the obstacle give and a tidal wave of water carrying logs like missiles would pour down the mountainside. If you got in the way, you’d be a dead man.
‘It’s not all hard work, though,’ he acknowledged. There were terrific cold-weather days too in Upper Burma when you could go on a jungle-shoot for fowl, geese or even bison. And there were the Forest Headquarter hill-stations like Maymyo where you could take leave to play tennis and enjoy a whisky in the club and plain home-cooked food and British camaraderie in the chummery or simply rest and recuperate before returning to camp. Even in camp, there were compensations; there were men who specialised in ferrying supplies and luxuries out there. You could more or less order anything you wanted: cigars, whisky, cans of meat or sardines. You just didn’t know when it would arrive. ‘You never know what will happen next,’ he told her. ‘That’s what’s so exciting. You’re at the mercy of the elements. And you’re living – do you see? Really living.’ It was about as far from a desk job in the UK, working in the family stock-broking firm, as you could get.
‘You have great passion,’ she said, ‘for your work.’
And he supposed this was true. He’d come to Burma to escape duty and the desk and he’d discovered the world of nature, the world of wood and a landscape and people that had already crept into his heart. It was indeed a different life.
Forestry was an old trade. Teak had been shipped from Burma to India as far back as the early eighteenth century though Lawrence’s company had only acquired the forest leases, the elephant herds and the logging staff at the turn of this century when others had looked to the railways for their living. And the legislation was strict. Every teak tree in Burma belonged to the government and the Forest Department
supervised which trees were chosen for felling. They must be mature, they must be dried out for at least three years and seasoned so that they could float. There was a hell of a lot of forest in Burma, but the amount of trees in any given area that were allowed to be felled was inconsistent and the terrain was tough. This made Lawrence’s job still harder.
He quickly learnt to recognise unsound trees, to take into account irregularities of shape. The trees were felled by saw at ground level and that’s when Lawrence and his crew would visit each one, to measure and hammer-mark it to indicate the points at which it would later be made into logs. It was indeed a trade dependant on nature: on the earth, on the trees, on animals and on the seasons. They needed the rainy season to move the logs down the rivers and they needed the elephants to haul them there. It was quite a spectacle. And the terrain was far too hilly and broken by
chaungs
, the spread of the extractable trees far too random to use mechanical haulage means. He explained some of this to Moe Mya.
She seemed interested, watching his face as he spoke, occasionally nodding or pouring more tea. ‘And you like our elephants?’ she teased. ‘They work well for you, yes?’
‘Oh, yes. Without them we couldn’t do what we do,’ he said. He worked closely with the forest assistant to look after these sagacious beasts and he got to know them individually, you couldn’t help but. They were quirky and they had their likes and dislikes – which side they were approached from, for example (if you got it wrong, you’d get swiped from the swishing tail and that was no joke, as Lawrence had found
out to his cost) and the spot from which they liked to feed. They were sensitive too and had to be protected from sores and disease. Anthrax was the worst; you could lose an entire working herd of a hundred in a matter of days. And they needed lots of food, sleep and baths in order to perform at their best.
Their working day might be only six hours – by noon they’d had enough – but by God did they put the work in. Lawrence was in awe. Between May and October during the rains, unharnessed elephants would follow the logs downstream, breaking up the jams of wood that tended to occur in the feeder streams and tributaries until they reached the main swollen river and the point where villagers could retrieve the logs (not a job Lawrence would care to undertake himself) and make up the raft. It was a bloody long and hazardous journey.
‘I have seen the rafts many times,’ Moe Mya told him. ‘They are so big, yes?’
‘They are. They need to be. They even have grass huts to accommodate the raftsmen, their families and possessions.’ The whole family were involved with the retrieval of the logs, they would move location according to where was the best position to be stationed, children would keep lookout for the timber, skilled retrievers would bring in the logs which must be anchored, moored and then bound to make a raft of the size decreed by the timber company. But it was dangerous work. Men could die.
‘How strange it all seems,’ she murmured.
‘It can take a long time to get to Rangoon by river,’ he explained to her. ‘Weeks, sometimes months. One has to take everything one will need.’ The rafts were powered by the current of the river and guided by oars.
‘And when they get there? What will they do then?’ She was teasing him now, that spark in her dark eyes that he had noticed at the market, that meant that she understood him, even that she was laughing at him perhaps. Not that he minded. As long as she was there.
‘The company gives them rail tickets to return to their villages,’ he told her, keeping his back straight and proud. They weren’t so bad, were they? It wasn’t such an unsatisfactory job. What else would they do? ‘And they stay there until the next rains.’
‘Perfect.’ She laughed.
The cycle of the seasons, the cycle of life. It was something that perhaps Britain had lost somehow with its city ways and industry. But it was here, Lawrence thought now. It was here.
‘And when will you go back to camp?’ Moe Mya asked him, her face serene. Was she wondering when she would see him again? Did she want to see him again?
‘Just before the rains,’ he said. There was no sign as yet, but it couldn’t be long. All the extractions had been completed, the logs were arranged instream and the
ounging
herds were patiently waiting … It was a frustrating time. There was a sense of achievement but they needed that rain. And the heat went on.
‘They will come soon,’ she said. ‘And now, I must go.’ She rose to her feet. ‘Please excuse me.’
‘Oh.’ He almost stumbled as he too got up from the chair. They had been sitting there for so long and he had quite lost track of time.
She shivered as they stepped outside, though to Lawrence the heat still seemed to hang heavy in the darkness that had now fallen.
‘May I?’ He put the blanket he was still holding gently around her shoulders. ‘It is yours,’ he said.
‘Thank you.’ She looked suddenly vulnerable as she stood there on the street with the thin blanket around her.
On impulse, he bent down and very gently brushed her lips with his. She didn’t flinch as he’d thought she might, but neither did she respond. ‘I can see you again?’ He tried not to make it sound too much like a question – that way, she could refuse.
She bowed her head. ‘Of course.’
‘Good.’ He came to a sudden decision. ‘And I too will call you Maya,’ he said.
Eva walked out on to the wooden verandah at Pine Rise in Pyin Oo Lwin, previously known as Maymyo. The goods she had come to see in Mandalay weren’t ready to be inspected. She had emailed Jacqui who didn’t seem overly concerned and who had agreed that Eva could take a few days of her leave here. There would be plenty for her to see, Jacqui had confirmed, when she returned to the city.
After the stifling heat, the hustle and bustle and traffic spilling in all directions in downtown Mandalay: rundown cars, scooters, trishaws, bicycles weaving around one other, signalling their intent with sharp bursts of the hooter or rings of the bell, this was an oasis of calm. And so it must have seemed to her grandfather when he stayed here. Eva took a deep breath of the clean air. A taste of paradise. The wide and dusty teak verandah felt solid and reassuring under her feet and there was a freshness in the air and a lushness to the planting that felt like silk on her somewhat frazzled senses.
In Mandalay, Eva had braved the city madness and taken a hair-raising taxi ride on the back of a scooter to the first address her grandfather had given her. She’d plucked up the courage to knock on the door of the rather smart traditional
Burmese house and wondered.
Could this be where she would find her?
But the young girl with ebony hair and a big smile who said, ‘Hello, hello,’ to Eva as if she were a long lost friend had not been able to help her.
‘Gone ten year,’ she’d said, holding up both hands.
‘Do you know where?’ Eva had gesticulated to try and get her meaning across.
The girl shook her head sadly.
‘OK. Thanks.’ But now she knew. The family, or some of them, had survived the war. They had lived in this house until ten years ago. And Eva still had address number two.
The address written on the second slip of paper was here in Pyin Oo Lwin.
As soon as she received Jacqui’s email, Eva had checked out of her hotel in Mandalay and booked herself back in again for two days’ time. Then she’d made a reservation at Pine Rise. Her need to follow the trail was all-consuming. It was easy to get a driver and she’d enjoyed the journey this morning as they drove from the broad plain of the Irrawaddy towards the old hill-station of Maymyo. Already the landscape had changed. The earth was a rich red and the vegetation more abundant; oleander and tall bamboo, poinsettia and mimosa lining the way with red and yellow and bursts of shocking purple.
Pyin Oo Lwin itself was an elegant and leafy town with avenues of eucalyptus trees hiding mock-Tudor houses, grand red-bricked villas and white bungalows positively shimmering in the sun. The houses were set far apart and in
extensive grounds, their background, pine woodland and, in the distance, rolling hills of oak. They passed the Purcell Tower which her grandfather had told her housed a clock that used to chime with the same sound as Big Ben – how English was that?! – and a vibrant flower market. And finally, there it was. Pine Rise. Airy and light. All polished teak, clotted cream walls and glass chandeliers. Eva loved it on sight.
Her grandfather had spent a lot of time here, in the colonial guesthouse once owned by the company he worked for, now a hotel. It had provided rest and recuperation after a session working up in the jungle. It was a place in which to unwind, relax, recharge the batteries along with other company colleagues, before plunging back into the fray. He’d also spent time here recuperating from a bout of malaria.
Eva looked out over the lawn, where a carpet of yellow celandine-like flowers was just opening into bloom and, in the centre, a hexagonal wooden bench with a pergola above. Maya’s family had also owned a weekend- and holiday-retreat here, hence the address written in her grandfather’s hand in Eva’s purse. Apparently, many of the well-off Burmese still did. It was two hours’ drive from Mandalay, but at a higher altitude and so refreshingly cooler.
Eva trailed her fingers along the handrail. Her grandfather had stood here, perhaps even touching the same piece of wood, staring out at the same tropical gardens, which must have seemed a million miles away from the busy cities and steamy jungles he’d been working in. He, too, had climbed the highly polished teak staircase, which rose elegantly from
the foyer to open out at the top like a tulip, forming a gallery from which you could promenade all the way around and gaze down into the foyer, where there was a Victorian fireplace twice as tall as Eva. He had stayed in one of these high-ceilinged rooms with disused fireplaces, maybe her room? The thought made her spine tingle. She didn’t think she had ever felt so close to him. And the little chinthe was still safely tucked in her bag. He was on quite a journey too, though it wasn’t his first. She thought of her grandfather in the jungle. Had he carried the chinthe with him when he went to war?
It was 2 p.m. She returned to her room, picked up her wide-brimmed hat and her new colourful Shan bag and left the hotel, the slip of paper in her hand, along with a road map provided at reception. The house that had been Maya’s family retreat was less than ten minutes’ walk away, the receptionist had told her, and now she was so close, Eva wanted to take it slowly.
She found the house on a dusty road at the top of a slight incline, its entrance framed by bamboo fencing wound with frangipani. She paused just for a moment to drink in the scent, which was so rich she almost felt dizzy, and made her way up the wide driveway. It was another traditional house but grander than the one in Mandalay. Built of teak and intricately patterned bamboo, it was made up of two storeys, the upper having a wide verandah which swept right around the house. There was so much wood. Even the roof was constructed with wooden tiles and the panelled door was framed
by bougainvillea, which the Burmese called the paper tree, as her driver had informed her this morning on the way here.