Free Burma’s Spring: Real lives in turbulent times by Rosalind Russell Page B

wiped away silent tears as she listened to demands she probably believedwould never be met. U Hla Pe finished, took a sip from his water glass, his hand shaking, and was helped down from the wooden podium. He rejoined the NLD top brass seated behind him; two rows of noble, old men, their political dreams reduced to empty protocol. Most of the party’s best political minds were behind bars. Communication with their leader Suu Kyi was impossible. ‘We don’t speak to her, we don’t hear from her, no no no,’ said U Hla Thein, who had taken the seat next to me. ‘How can we know what she’s thinking?’ Rudderless and reduced by imprisonments, the remnants of the party were trying to decide whether to contest elections set for 2010, the first to be held since 1990. There was little prospect of a fair vote; everyone expected Burma’s generals would ensure that their puppet party, the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), would be the winner. Western diplomats had met privately with NLD leaders to urge them to participate in the vote, warning them that the party risked sinking into irrelevance otherwise. But party members had their doubts. ‘In the West you always talk of a level-playing field,’ another disenfranchised MP told me. ‘Here our game is played on the side of a mountain.’ He asked my nationality and thanked me for coming. I felt like a fraud, but I didn’t trust even this man enough to confess that I was a journalist.
    The meeting over, there were hugs and laughter and news shared among comrades who saw each other all too rarely. They streamed out, the men holding hands or linking fingers in that comfortable, unconscious gesture that is the preserve of Asian males. They made their way down to the bus stops at Shwegondine junction, with wary sideways glances at the spies across the street.
    I weaved through the crowd and crossed the road to my car parked in a small lot on the other side. Beneath the pavement of cracked concrete blocks, a trickling sewer exhaled its fetid gases. While focusing on each careful step, I became aware thatsomeone was following me. I swung round to see a man in a white shirt and
longyi
, his hair slicked down with oil. It is hard to describe, but regime people had a certain look – swarthy and sullen. They carried satchels for their notebooks. Instead of going straight to the car, with its NGO logo, I walked fast to the Yuzana Hotel, and straight to the hair salon, now an hour late for my appointment. Lying on a cushioned bed with my hair in the sink, next to a backlit mural of an Alpine mountain and sparkling stream, I surrendered to a head massage, turning over what I had seen in the NLD office. Basins of warm water were poured over my hair and my head was gently wrapped in a towel. The image of the man who followed me was fading from my mind, I was thinking about everything else, the privilege of witnessing this extraordinary meeting. By the time my hair had been dried, I had almost forgotten him.
    I stepped through the frosted glass door and stopped still. Across the lobby, sitting on a couch, there he was again, a newspaper in hand. Or was it him? I wasn’t completely sure. I couldn’t look again, and I couldn’t turn around as I walked fast, head down, towards the car, parked between the hotel and the NLD building. Horribly aware of the aid agency’s name clearly painted on both sides of the car, I quickly got in, and immediately wished I hadn’t. I could have got a taxi, or walked in the other direction towards the pagoda or a shopping centre, found a group to get lost in. But it was too late. I slammed the door and bumped on to the road, hitting the passenger side on the kerb. I accelerated into the middle lane and indicated right at the empty school. I checked my rear-view mirror and saw there were no cars preparing to turn with me. I breathed out. No tail, I thought. It was only as I pulled the steering wheel down that I spotted the motorbike.
    In