The Sixth Enemy and Other Stories by Ma Sandar

The Sixth Enemy and Other Stories by Ma Sandar

Translated by Mra Hninzi

Cover Design by Moat Thone

Published by TODAY PUBLISHING HOUSE Ltd. at Smashwords

Copyright June 2015 TODAY PUBLISHING HOUSE Ltd.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other except for brief quotations, not to exceed 400 words, without the prior permission of the publisher.

First Edition June 2015

* * * *

CONTENTS

A single sesamum seed, A single star and

A single drop of ink

Ko Mg Mg Than’s Business Plan

(Indifferent) Are you infected too?

Mother’s Baht gold necklace

The sixth enemy

Trust (Nine tamarind trees)

The story of eighty-thousand big horns

Finding true beauty

A tale of longing from a faraway shore

The tenacious housewife

The sabbath she kept

Diary of a flower

Man-like trees

The grasshopper’s winter

The tree growers

The sweet juice in the coconut

The philosophy of Mr. Six Beatings

Only human

Half a glass of water

Skin-deep (Ugliness akin to Beauty, Beauty akin to Ugliness)

A SINGLE SESAMUM SEED, A SINGLE STAR AND A SINGLE DROP OF INK

A single sesamum seed

The market was not far away.

What did you have,

Did you get to eat meat and fish?

-I had duck eggs and gourd

As Aye Nwe was standing in front of the duck egg stall, she remembered the lines from the prescribed Myanmar Primer which her young daughter used to read out loud. She smiled to herself. The question was ‘Did you get to eat meat and fish?’ but the answer was ‘I had duck eggs and gourd’!

‘Hmm…, the writer of this Primer must surely know the circumstances of the likes of us!’

Aye Nwe carefully chose bigger eggs from among the seemingly same- sized round eggs. It was nearing the end of month so her family had no choice but to have meals with duck egg curry in a row.

She and her husband both worked and so they had double income but they had two kids and she was expecting again so they were not in quite comfortable circumstances. When a new month began, their family meals were rich in variety with meat curries in oily gravy. As the end of month approached, no more meat curries, no more oily gravy. It was the family’s usual monthly situation.

After Aye Nwe had bought six duck eggs, instead of going to the meat and fish stalls, she walked around the veggie stalls absent-mindedly. When she saw hsoo-bote (acacia intsia), she was happy thinking it was a good combination for frying with duck eggs . She bought two bunches of it, 10-pya worth green chillies, 25-pya worth peeled garlic, and then she bargained two bunches of winged beans for 25 pyas (5-pya less than the usual price!). She decided she had enough items … time to go home. The eggs would be whisked with hsoo-bote and fried. The garlic and green chillies would be pounded and cooked in heated oil to make fish sauce curry to be eaten with the winged beans. Her husband liked to bite into and eat mouthfuls of a raw onion or two during meals and she was quite frustrated thinking of the hiking price of onions. To say ‘Don't eat mouthfuls of onions. They are expensive’ would be sheer cruelty to a husband who didn’t drink or gamble or go after sensual pleasures. He entrusted the whole amount of his monthly salary to her.

‘Well, mother also used to bite into and eat mouthfuls of an onion during meals. She refused to have it cut into quarters. She said biting mouthfuls of the whole onion tasted better!’

Now her wandering mind focused on her mother. Before she got married, she was not strongly attached to her mother. Now that she had become a mother herself, she grew fond of her own mother. But then she was a working parent and she couldn’t visit her mother as much as she wanted to.

‘Hmm…., I should leave for office early today and drop in on my mother. I hope she is not ailing or anything.’

She had not had a leisurely conversation with her mother for quite some time now. Her time after office hours was usually spent on preparing dinner and doing the washing up. No time to go out again and visit her mother. On holidays, there was the washing and cleaning up…. no adequate time even for proper housekeeping. So on any working day, if she wanted to visit her mother, she had to request her husband to take the responsibility of sending the two kids to the day nursery. Then she left the house early and dropped in at her mother’s place before going to the office. Mother and daughter talked for about 15, 20 or 30 minutes. It was not leisurely at all.

‘At the start of next month, I will make rice salad, my mother’s favourite, and take it to her’.

* * *

‘Aww, what an offensive smell!’

Aye Nwe was returning hurriedly to her house. As she turned into the short-cut lane she usually used, her breath caught a rising stinking smell. A huge rubbish dump was there to greet her!

The dump had been there for a number of years. The garbage collecting vehicle came twice or thrice a week but rubbish from the whole ward soon heaped up again. Starting from onion peels, potato peels, groundnut peels, ragged paper sheets, old boxes and bamboo containers, prawn heads and fish heads to used monthly feminine pads, all strewn about on the dump. The black bitch, queen of the dump, with her brood, was poking with her snout for eatable food.

‘Are you back from the market?’

‘Oh, Maung Aye Lwin’.

Maung Aye Lwin from the lane-end general store greeted her. He was holding in his hand

a paper packet tied with a rubber band.

‘What packet is that?’

‘Prawn heads, Aunty. In case they give out a bad odour..’

He then swang his arm and threw the packet onto the rubbish dump.

‘Funny you should think of suppressing the bad odour. It’s a rubbish dump anyway.’

‘I don’t want the neighbouring houses to get the bad smell. And packing it protects it from flies and rodents. Isn’t it so?’

‘Well….yes.’

Just as Aye Nwe was feeling a pang of guilty conscience for her own habit of throwing rubbish irresponsibly, the servant girl from the broker’s house came along with a square-shaped iron rubbish pail. She threw the contents towards the dump. Fish scales, prawn shells, broken pieces of glass and scattered pieces of paper spilled over.

Maung Aye Lwin said to the servant girl ‘Whenever you dispose the garbage, you always scatter like that.’

‘Then how should I dispose the garbage?’

‘Why don’t you pack up the prawn shells and fish scales first before throwing them away?’

‘What? Pack up the garbage? As if newspaper sheets are valueless. We can get 12 kyats per viss for old newspapers.’

‘If you don’t want to use newspaper, you can use any other old paper’.

‘I can’t do it. No time. Who takes the trouble to pack up the rubbish anyway?’

‘I do’.

‘Then you are a fool!’

The servant girl retorted with a sharp tongue. She banged the pail downwards against the ground to empty the remaining garbage and she looked sideways in anger at Maung Aye Lwin.

‘I’m no fool. I take the measure just for cleanliness.’

‘Hey, this is a rubbish dump. Why do you care for cleanliness?’

‘I do want it to be clean. A rubbish dump can be a source of diseases’.

‘Don’t overact. A single sesamum seed cannot render any oil !

The girl picked up her pail and went back. While the black bitch and her brood came running to mess up the dump, the tattered pieces of paper were being blown away loosely in the wind.

Aye Nwe glanced at Maung Aye Lwin. He was scratching his head looking up at the imposing rubbish dump.

A single star

‘Oh my! Don’t tell me the car is breaking down’.

The car engine was making coughing sounds like a person sickly with chronic tuberculosis so Aye Nwe became anxious. She took the bus everyday so buses breaking down every now and then was not a novelty.

‘Just when I want to visit my mother….’

A few minutes later, the hino bus became convulsive and just stopped altogether. Aye Nwe was distressed. Although she was a pregnant woman, there wasn’t always a seat for her. She had to grab the upper rail or the back rail and ride the bus staggeringly. This morning she had the fortune to be given a seat by a lanzin lu-nge girl (somewhat like girl scout) who called to her and gave her her seat. Aye Nwe smiled at the girl and took the seat. Now she could ride the bus comfortably. But the bus had broken down. If she changed buses, she might not secure a seat on the other bus.

‘Well gentlemen, let’s stretch our limbs and take morning physical exercise’.

The conductor boy asked for help so some young men in the bus got down to push the car. Those men who had secured seats didn’t move an inch afraid of losing their place. But some obstinate men who were not seated didn’t move either.

‘Hey….hey….push, push’.

Those who had got down, pushed the car with vigour. But the weight of the car topped by the weight of those on board made it too heavy and it was not too easy to push the vehicle.

‘Why don’t the rest of you help? If the engine catches up and the bus can proceed, you need not change buses and you can reach your destinations without losing more time.’

Because of the sweet words of the young conductor, some five or six more men went down the bus. Aye Nwe glanced upwards at the person standing near her. He was dressed neatly in a tetrex taikpone (overjacket) and a rakhine longyi. His age was probably around thirty. When Aye Nwe looked up at him, he was slightly embarrassed and brushed his nose with his finger. But he didn’t make any move.

‘Even middle-aged men have gone down to push the car but he is shamelessly and obstinately standing here’.

While Aye Nwe was thinking thus, the car engine made a coughing sound. She craned her head expecting the car to start but the engine quivered and stopped again.

‘Mother, your son had to give bus fare to push the bus!’, one young man jokingly shouted.

‘C’mon, you are hino, I am uncastrated bull, well no, bed bug, no, whatever, push, push !’

The car-pushers were shouting nonsensities but they were pushing with vigour. Aye Nwe became uncomfortable sitting in the car. She thought to herself that if she got down, although she couldn’t push the car, they would have over 100 lbs. less to deal with.

While she was vacillating between sitting on and getting down, the car engine made more coughing sounds and then went dead altogether.

‘Stopping at mother’s place is out of the question now!’

While Aye Nwe was thus thinking dejectedly, the bus driver and the young conductor announced ‘Well now, you all have to get off and take another bus’.

The car-pushers wiped their sweat and moaned ‘Whoo, we are so tired!’ The taikpon man beside Aye Nwe remarked ‘It is never convenient to ride a bus. The cars are so old and battered!’ and he breathed a sigh.

When his words were heard, the young conductor glanced around briskly and said with a straight face ‘Although the car is old and battered, its engine could have been ignited if some shirking males had gotten down to do the pushing !’ Upon this remark, the man seemed to be slightly embarrassed. He got off hastily. Nonetheless, he said in a low but audible voice in parting ‘A single star cannot brighten up the sky, my man!’

* * * *

A SINGLE DROP OF INK

When Aye Nwe got to the office, the doors were not opened yet. After waiting for about 5 minutes, office boy Maung Hla Wai arrived.

‘Sis, you are so early today’.

‘You are late. It’s already 9 o’clock’.

‘Yes sis, my mother is not well so I had to take her to the medical clinic’.

Maung Hla Wai then unlocked the office entrance door in a hurry.

‘As for me, I had to get off a bus because it broke down but fortunately I was given a lift by a friend. Her car was passing by the office so instead of going to my mother’s place, I came here direct. I have never arrived here so early. I usually have to try so hard to be on time’.

Aye Nwe picked up the rattan basket she had placed on the floor and entered the office. The spacious office room usually crowded with desks full of people and brightened with lights now seemed strange to her with no people and no lights. Then she heard creaking sounds from above so she looked up at the ceiling. Silver fans so worn out that they were colourless were spinning plaintively.

‘Look, U Soe Maung has been irresponsible!’ Maung Hla Wai said dejectedly while he was opening the windows hurriedly.

‘Last night, Uncle U Soe Maung and Uncle U Tun Han, the two of them, were the last ones left. They said they would play a game of chess and told me to leave saying they would close the office doors.’

‘Well, they said they would close the office doors, not the fans !’

Aye Nwe did some mental arithmetic to calculate the electricity charges for two ceiling fans spinning the whole night and thought what a waste it was. Those fans were old and ugly. When they were spinning, the creaking and moaning sounds were so unpleasant. But the blades were long so the strokes gave out more air. The poor old fans had to work the whole day in the suffocatingly hot office room. This time, they even had to work overtime throughout the night.

‘How come you are so early Daw Khin Aye Nwe. Perhaps you are aiming for the model employee award !’

It was Ko Tun Han who arrived after Aye Nwe. He went round turning on the fluorescent lights one by one. Under the brisk illumination, watermelon seed husks on the floor became clearly visible.

‘Oh Uncle, you should at least have piled up the watermelon seed husks on the desk,’ Maung Hla Wai said not too daringly. He then snatched the broom and started to sweep the floor.

‘No time to pile up the seed husks. That bugger Soe Maung was trying to trap my Queen and I had to be evading. I had no idea whether I was eating the husk or the pulp.’

Ko Tun Han was laughing heartily. Aye Nwe, sitting underneath the fan still felt hot so she folded a Shwe Thway journal (a children’s journal) and fanned herself.

‘Whether you ate the husk or the pulp of the watermelon seeds, you should at least have turned off the ceiling fans!’

‘That is Soe Maung’s fault. I closed the doors. He turned off the lights. Oh here he comes. Soe Maung, you forgot to turn off the fans, didn’t you?’

Ko Soe Maung entered the room languidly. He yawned while he put his leather bag and folding umbrella on the desk.

‘Really? I guess I missed those switches.’

He came and sat under the fan. Maung Hla Wai, scooping up the rubbish with a cardboard and putting them in the dustbin, again said not too daringly.

‘Both the two fans were spinning the whole night Uncle. What a waste!’

‘What waste are you talking about?’

‘The electricity charges’.

‘As if you have to bear the cost. Your good old office is paying for it.’

‘It’s one and the same thing. It’s the country’s money’.

‘You silly boy. Teaching the crocodile king how to lay in the water! As if the country’s expense is your concern!’

Maung Hla Wai checked himself and continued sweeping the floor.

Ko Soe Maung continued, ‘Just two fans spinning in the night. As if the country would be any richer if there was no such cost. What a laugh ! A single drop of ink cannot colour the sea blue’.

Then he turned to Aye Nwe and said ‘Isn’t that so, Daw Khin Aye Nwe?’

Aye Nwe pretended not to hear.

* * *

There is a saying.

A single sesamum seed cannot render any oil.

A single star cannot brighten up the sky.

A single drop of ink cannot colour the sea blue.

But an accumulation of sesamum seeds can render oil.

A group of twinkling stars can give out deep and dense illumination.

Similarly, an abundant number of ink drops can perhaps colour the sea blue.

* * * *

KO MAUNG MAUNG THAN’S BUSINESS PLAN

‘What do you think of Ko Mg Mg Than?’

When Ma Ma Lay asked the question, Htwe Htwe found it difficult to answer. Slowly putting aside the novel she was reading, she glanced at Ma Ma Lay whose inner thoughts could be spied from the look in her eyes.

‘Why? Have you taken a liking to him?’

‘I can’t exactly say I like him’.

Ma Ma Lay gazed at the perfume roses in the ceramic vase on the table and answered non-committally.

‘Hmm… not exactly liking him means you like him. Otherwise, you would have said ‘What rubbish!’. Isn’t that so’?

Htwe Htwe with her natural bent for bluntness did not mince words and Ma Ma Lay seemed slightly embarrassed. She cast a sideglance at Htwe Htwe and smiled imperceptibly.

Since then, Htwe Htwe perceived in advance that Ma Ma Lay would accept Ko Mg Mg Than’s avowal of love.

Although they were blood sisters, Ma Ma Lay was far more prettier than Htwe Htwe who resembled her father and was of darker complexion and shorter height. Her countenance was harsh and her speech was curt. That was why although she was not totally lacking in good looks, she was not exactly recognized as a beauty. As for Ma Ma Lay, she took after her mother and was fair and elegant. Her countenance was soft and sweet. Her tone was gentle and pleasing and could hold the listener’s attention. So at the time when Htwe Htwe was jokingly saying ‘I would love to have a boyfriend to comfort me when I’m down and out’, Ma Ma Lay was surrounded by suitors. Not only boys but even Htwe Htwe’s girl friends used to say ‘If I were a boy, I would try to win Ma Ma Lay’s love’.

So when Ma Ma Lay said ‘I am going to say yes to Ko Mg Mg Than’, Htwe Htwe was not taken by surprise but she worried in case the two might not hit it off.

Just as Ma Ma Lay was far more prettier than Htwe Htwe, her aims and ambitions were far more higher than her sister’s. Htwe Htwe was someone who, if she had a novel, a small mat, a pillow and a cosy corner, believed that life was complete. As for Ma Ma Lay, she was one who had the habit of saying ‘Tomorrow should be more fulfilled than today. My children’s lives should be of a higher status than mine’.

Ko Mg Mg Than was a doctor. Htwe Htwe had no idea if he was industrious or not but she was sure he was an honest person. But just as Htwe Htwe knew that honesty didn’t come hand in hand with prosperity, no doubt Ma Ma Lay would realize it too.

Moreover, although Ko Mg Mg Than was a doctor, he was neither the doctor son of a high ranking officer nor the doctor son of a rich man. Unlike the young doctors in some love stories who swish by in luxury cars, he was a doctor who waited at the bus stop. A far cry yet from riding in a luxury car. The reason was, he had many siblings and he was the eldest.

When Htwe Htwe commented ‘Although Ko Mg Mg