A Ship That Didn't Catch Fish

Sunlight came through the window and hit my eyes, and I opened them slowly. "Wathone, get up. It's already nine." My mother was standing in the doorway. "I made breakfast for you. Eat something and get ready for court."

"Okay, Mom. Give me a minute."

I sat up. My head hurt. I must have slept in a strange position. But I had slept well. I had dreamed about Moe and her mother all night. I checked the sheets and hoped I hadn't wet the bed again.

I took a shower. The sound of the water reminded me of washing my hands in Moe's tiny bathroom, and the longer I stood under it, the clearer my head became, clear as glass.

When I came out, she was there, where I had left her on my desk. Everything I had brought home. Her skin. Her eyes. Her ears. Her lips. The smell had changed. It was sour and heavy now, and it filled the whole room.

I picked everything up to take it into the bathroom and wash it. Then I stopped. If I washed her, the smell of her would go away, and whatever was left of her would go with it. I couldn't do that.

I breathed her in one last time, put everything back in the box, and pushed the box under my bed.

At the bottom of the stairs, Aunty, the oldest of our maids, stopped me.

"Sir, should I clean your room today?"

"Not today. Next week."

"Yes, sir. I only thought your room might need cleaning. Because of the smell."

I didn't like that. She was saying Moe smelled bad.

She saw my face. "Oh, sir, if I said something wrong, I'm sorry."

"It's fine. Look after the dog for me."

"Yes, sir."

My sister was in the living room. She had been angry with me before, but today she seemed fine. Happy, even.

"Hello, sleepyhead," I said.

"Stupid, stupid. If you punch me again, I'll stab you."

I smirked. "Okay, okay. I won't."

In the dining room, my father was already dressed in his uniform, clean and neat, and my mother was glittering with gold, so much jewelry that she almost shone. She was pinning the medals onto his chest, smiling the way she smiles at weddings, wide and bright and empty, as if none of it had ever happened.

"Wathone," my father said when he saw me. "Go and eat. We've been waiting for you. Even your sister has finished already."

My mother looked me up and down. "You're wearing that to court? Where's the outfit I bought you?"

"This is fine, Mom."

The moment I sat down, the smell of hot food hit me, and I ate like a pig. While I ate, I scrolled through the news on my phone. The case was everywhere now, all over the country, and nobody suspected me. They were too busy cursing the man from Pathein and arguing about what should happen to him.

"Wathone, if you're finished, let's go."

On my way out, I stopped by the kitchen. "Aunty, I left my plate. And don't let anyone go into my room today."

"Yes, sir."

I followed my parents out to the car. Poepoe watched us from the gate as we drove away.

In the back seat, while my parents talked to each other in the front, my sister leaned toward me.

"I heard the news. Did you—"

"Hey," my mother said sharply. "Why do you care? It's not your problem. And don't invite your friends over so often. The maids have to clean up after them."

"Mom, I'm just curious. My friends keep asking me about him."

"Your brother? He's a witness."

"Don't worry," I told her. "I'll be fine."

My sister was suspicious of me. She was smart, even with her bad manners. When had she grown up so much?

My phone rang. Thura.

"Dude—"

I hung up. Not with my parents in the car.

"Thura, right?" my mother said. "You can't go out tonight."

"Mom…"

"He's fine, Thuzar," my father said. "You go on your trip and stop worrying. I'm paying for it anyway."

My mother was flying back to Bangkok tonight. Her trips are always long, which is why we have maids in the first place. My father seemed to want the house to himself. Maybe he was planning to invite someone. Well. Not my problem.

I was still thinking about it when we pulled up at the court building. I walked into the hall confidently, and that was when I realized I had forgotten to read the paper my father gave me.

My mother was talking to a police officer, and my father was greeting people, laughing. My sister stayed near me, but not too close.

"Wow," she said. "This place is huge. I've never been here before. It's enormous."

Someone came up to me.

"Wathone! Do you remember me?" He was smiling so wide I could see his gums. "I'm the officer who cuffed you. I'm so sorry about that night, really. I was only following orders, you understand. A fine young man like you, in a place like that. Terrible."

"Ah. I see."

"No hard feelings, Wathone. Please, take this, to say sorry." He held out a pencil, an expensive American brand, and laughed too loudly. "Haha! Only the best for U Nanda's son."

"Oh. Thank you."

I turned the pencil over in my fingers. It was a nice pencil. Very sharp.

"Well," he said, still laughing, bowing a little as he backed away. "See you soon, sir."

"I doubt that," I whispered.

"Wathone," my sister said, "I'm going to look around and take some selfies. Tell Mom."

"Sure."

Then the media arrived, news channels with cameras, and they finally got their chance at me.

A woman pushed her way to the front. "Hello, young man. We'd like to ask you a few questions."

"Um. Okay."

"How did you see the suspect?"

People crowded around me, cameras and phones held up, microphones shoved toward my mouth. I hadn't read the paper. I said the first thing that came into my head.

"I'm scared about what happened. I didn't know he would do something like that. I saw him on the street. He looked like a thief. I saw him go up to the apartment."

Across the hall, my father saw me with the cameras. He turned and said something to one of his men.

"So why were you there?" the woman asked. "Do you have friends in Sanchaung?"

"Oh. Um—"

I couldn't find the words. It was a hard question to answer. I tapped the tip of my nose.

Then soldiers were in front of the cameras, pushing them down and telling them to stop recording. The cameras lowered, one by one. One of the soldiers took me by the arm and walked me back to my father.

I didn't know yet whether that clip would end up on the news, or whether anyone would care. I didn't really care either.

"Follow the officer," my father said.

"Come, Wathone," the officer said.

I walked into the courtroom. It was cold inside. Air conditioners hummed high on the walls, and rows of small white lights glowed in the ceiling. Everything else was wood: polished teak on every wall, a long raised bench across the front, and behind it a row of tall carved chairs. Above the middle chair hung the state emblem in gold. Down below, lawyers in black gowns sat at long dark-red tables on chairs with woven cane backs, papers and water bottles in front of them. A few of them nodded to me, as if we had already met.

The judge sat in the center chair, in a black robe trimmed with yellow and a gaung baung on his head, with glass screens on either side of him. He was an old man with reading glasses on the end of his nose. He wasn't looking at anyone. He was writing. Below him, at a smaller wooden desk, a court clerk in the same gaung baung sat in front of a computer screen.

My lawyer waved me over. "Wathone. Here."

I sat down beside him at one of the long tables. My father took a seat in the rows behind us, and my mother and sister joined him. Every bench behind them was full: reporters, police officers, people I had never seen before.

Then two guards brought the suspect in. His wrists were cuffed in front of him, and they walked him to a wooden dock with a low railing and made him stand inside it. Brown skin. Thick, curly hair. Strong arms, the arms of someone who works with his hands. He was still wearing the clothes he must have been arrested in, and he looked terrible.

The clerk stood up and read out the case number and the charge. "Section 302. Murder." He read it fast, the way you read something you have read a hundred times.

The prosecutor stood next, a tired-looking man in a gray jacket. He spoke for less than two minutes. The suspect had followed the victim home from the club. The suspect had been seen near the apartment. The suspect had no one to say where he was that night. Not once did he look at the suspect. Then he called me.

"Witness Wathone, please come forward."

I stood in the witness box. The clerk held out a small card with the oath printed on it, and I read it aloud, that I would tell the truth and nothing but the truth. The words felt strange in my mouth. I said them perfectly.

My lawyer stood. "Your Honor, my client was arrested by mistake two nights ago and released the next morning. He was not at the club that night. He was at home, having dinner with his parents."

Behind me, I heard my mother shift in her seat. She didn't say a word.

The judge wrote it down slowly, by hand, in a thick ledger. Everything said in that room went into that ledger. Every word.

"My client should not even be here," my lawyer went on. "He was wrongly accused. This case has nothing to do with him. He is an innocent young man. Thank you, Your Honor."

The judge looked up at me over his glasses. "Does the witness have anything to add?"

My mouth went dry. The paper was still folded in my pocket, and I hadn't read a single word of it. My hands went cold.

"My client has nothing to add, Your Honor," my lawyer said.

The judge nodded and wrote something down. I went back to my seat.

Then it was the suspect's turn. His lawyer was a young man with a thin folder he never opened. The court had assigned him. I doubt they had spoken for more than five minutes.

"Your Honor, my client came to Yangon to find work. He may have committed a serious crime. I ask the court for mercy."

"Kyaw Kyaw Aung," the judge said. "How do you plead?"

"No!" He was shouting, crying, falling apart, gripping the railing of the dock with both cuffed hands. "Please, Your Honor, I came here to work. My mother is sick. If I go to prison, she'll die. Please, sir."

"Answer the question."

"Please, Your Honor, I swear, someone told me there was a job in Yangon, and they told me—"

His own lawyer stood up and spoke over him. "Your Honor, my client pleads guilty."

For a second, nobody moved. Kyaw Kyaw Aung stared at his lawyer with his mouth open.

The judge wrote it down.

Then the guards took him. He was crying and screaming all over the room, and he wet himself as they dragged him out of the dock. He didn't even get to hear his sentence. It didn't matter. Everything had been arranged for him already.

"In the case of the murder of the young woman and her mother," the judge said, without looking up, "under Section 302, the court finds Kyaw Kyaw Aung guilty and sentences him to life imprisonment." He closed the ledger, then the file, and handed it down to the clerk. "Next case."

It was the fastest trial Yangon had ever seen. Nobody asked why.

"Okay, Wathone," my lawyer said. "You can go."

I hadn't even had to say a word. Well. That was good, in a way.

I walked back to my family.

"Wathone," my father said. "Next time, I'll slap you."

"Okay, Dad."

He didn't seem surprised or shocked by what I had done. He had probably just bought that man and set the whole thing up so he wouldn't have to worry about me anymore.

This was fun.

"Let's go," my mother said. "Your sister is hungry."

We drove to a restaurant nearby for lunch. My sister was so hungry she ate like a pig. Then, because I was curious, I asked my father.

"Dad, what do you think about that horrible crime in Sanchaung?"

If he stayed silent, he knew it was me. If he talked, he didn't.

"I have no idea. Someone killed them." He kept eating. "But it was better to clear your name first, since your story was tied to the girl from the club. Whoever murdered that girl and her mother, well, I hope they find him." He took a sip of water. "The fire destroyed most of the evidence."

I grinned. I felt butterflies in my stomach, almost as if he had praised my work. I liked it.

We finished lunch and drove home. I slept in the back seat with my head against the window while my sister played on her phone beside me.

I woke to the sound of the car door opening and my sister climbing out. I got out too, and Poepoe came running.

"Hi, Poepoe. Did you miss me?"

She barked and wagged her tail and followed me to the stairs.

"Wathone," my mother called. "You're not going out tonight. Remember. I'll be back in time for your monk ceremony."

I nodded, and my parents went to their room.

Then the new maid, a young woman from upcountry, came up to me, smiling.

"Sir, I cleaned your room. I opened the windows too. It smells much better now."

My stomach dropped. I ran up to my bedroom and pulled the box out from under the bed. It was still there. Someone had wiped the outside clean. I opened it.

Moe was still inside.

I was relieved. But not enough.

I walked back downstairs to the new maid, and I punched her in the face.

She fell. I kicked her in the stomach. I kept hitting her until my hands hurt. Every time my fist landed, I noticed her skin. Smooth, without a single mark on it, the way Moe's had been. Even with blood on her lip, her face was pretty. Too pretty for a maid.

"Ah, young master, please don't hurt her too much!" Aunty cried. "She only started last week!"

"Please, sir, I'm sorry!"

I turned on Aunty. "You bitch. You didn't tell her? You don't remember what I said?"

"I do, sir. I forgot to tell her. It's my fault."

I kicked the new maid in the stomach so hard she started gagging.

"Please, sir," she choked. "It was my fault. Aunty has nothing to do with it."

"Bitch!"

I stomped on her head.

My mother came out to see what the noise was. "Oh. What's wrong?"

"Mom, I told them not to clean my room, and she did."

"Oh, son. It's just cleaning. Why would you do this?" She sighed. "Go to your room and calm down."

I slammed my door. Through it, I heard her call, "Son, I'm leaving for my trip now! I'll be back soon!"

I didn't answer. She would be gone for weeks again, and the food would go back to tasting like the maids' cooking.

My head felt heavy. I lay on my bed and thought.

If she had seen what was in the box, why had she smiled at me like that? Then I understood. She was honest. She had never opened it. She had never touched my things. If she had, there would have been a lot more trouble.

I thought about her face, and that smooth skin with not one mark on it.

Whatever she was, she was next. I wanted to see what was inside her.

To be continued...