Free Under the Dragon by Rory Maclean Page B

other Burmese nationals were sent to the penal reform institution in Pakkret, from where they were deported. In that brief period when Rangoon sanctioned repatriation, no brothel agents or Thai border-patrol officers could lure the women back to Bangkok’s red-light districts. They were not harassed in local jails or raped in reform houses. There was no need for them to buy their release papers. The Shan and hill-tribe prostitutes, not being ethnic Burmans, were less fortunate. The Burmese authorities forbade their return because they were members of a racial minority. They, like the fresh-faced girls who arrived every morning at Bangkok’s Northern Bus Terminal, were left to their fates in Thailand.
    On the flight home Ni Ni caught sight of golden Shwedagon. She watched the red earth of Rangoon rush up to meet the aircraft. She saw the delta-winged shadow flash over the dusty plain. She was taken to the North Okkalapa Female Police Training Academy. A doctor tested her blood. There were injections and tablets to be taken every day. The girls were told that they could go home as soon as their parents came to collect them. Some families were too poor to travel to the capital. There was no one to claim Ni Ni, and almost a year passed before she was released from the barracks.
    In front, behind. In front, behind. She worked the bamboo in pairs, picked up the right-hand weaver, moved it around the border. In 1994 Ni Ni had returned to Wayba-gi to find neither news of her father nor word from Louis. Her old neighbours had either died or been moved on. She needed to find work, and might have fallen back into prostitution, for in the intervening years the local sex trade had expanded to serve tourists and businessmen at the new hotels, but for the assistance of a foreign charity. In the absence of any government aid, it had established a sheltered workshop to reintegrate those who had been repatriated into society. There in its peaceful studio Ni Ni trained to be a basket-maker, picking up the right-hand stakes, weaving the frayed strands of her life back into order. Her small, sensitive fingers produced the workshop’s finest, most detailed work. The other women, who had chosen to learn to become secretaries or tailors, teased her, for the Burmese word hpa translates as both basket and whore. But Ni Ni worked on unbothered, even volunteering to draw other vulnerable girls into the training programme, so that they too might have a choice, so that they need never be trapped. In front, behind. Shape the form, trim off the ends. In the last summer of her short life Ni Ni had discovered that there were three things which matter most.
    First, how well did she love?
    ‘With both my hands,’ she might have answered, not lifting her eyes from the weaving, but laughing at herself for an instant.
    Second, how fully did she live?
    ‘As best I could,’ she could only reply.
    Third, how much did she learn to let go?
    ‘Not enough. Not enough.’
    There is an old story of a poor woman who came to Buddha weeping. ‘O Enlightened One,’ she cried, ‘my only daughter has died. Is there any way to bring her back to me?’
    Lord Buddha looked at her with compassion and replied, ‘If you bring me a basket from a house where neither parent or child, relative or servant has ever died, I shall bring your daughter back to life.’ The woman searched for many months, travelled to many villages and towns, and when she returned Buddha asked her, ‘My daughter, have you found the container?’
    The woman shook her head and said, ‘No, I have not. The people tell me that the living are few, but the dead are many.’

THREE
Ties of the Heart
    ‘YOU ARE RATHER LATE, MY DEARS,’ said Colonel Than in clipped Sandhurst English, tucking his burnished pocket watch back into his robes. ‘We shall miss tea.’ He let go of my hand then bowed to Katrin, a monk being forbidden to touch a woman, and his small round spectacles caught the reflection of