Ritual

I was watching a movie in my room when I heard my father's voice downstairs, and under it the sound of a lot of other people. I was curious, so I went down.

My sister was sitting on the stairs again. I walked past her without saying a word. I could tell from the look on her face that she didn't want to talk to me.

The living room was full of people. Men in shirts of every color, red, green, yellow, blue, and a few women standing behind them. The air was thick with cigarette smoke and sweat, and the fans weren't turning, because the power was out again and the generator was only running the lights.

Why were they here? Some of them had dust on their sandals, as if they had come from very far away. They stood stiffly along the walls, holding their hands in front of them, and they spoke strangely, in languages I didn't understand.

I had never seen any of them before in my life.

My father was standing with some other men who looked rich, with bloated bellies like his. They smiled and talked to each other.

My father coughed, and the whole room went silent. He saw me and my sister on the stairs.

"Wathone. Come here." He put his hand on my back. "You see these people? They are your family. This is your uncle. This is your aunt. These are your cousins. And this is your grandma."

The grandma was a tiny old woman in a faded longyi, sitting on a mat on the floor because there weren't enough chairs. When my father said her name, she looked up at me, and her shaking hand came up off her lap, as if she wanted to touch my face. My father moved me along before she could.

"Why are they all wearing different colors?"

"Because they're different people, Wathone."

Someone shouted from the back of the room. "U Nanda, I want to—"

My father walked over and slapped him across the face.

"Shut up! No one talks!"

The man held his cheek and looked at the floor. Nobody moved. Nobody said anything. The old woman on the mat closed her eyes.

Then he came back and whispered to me. "They listen to me, Wathone. They can be a little rebellious sometimes. But a little bit of beating, and they're good again."

"Really?"

"Yes, Wathone."

The front door opened, and people with cameras and microphones walked into our house. The room filled with flashing lights.

"Today," my father announced, "my son Wathone becomes the one who will lead you all in the future. Today is a new era, and my country has a new successor. My son." He took a medal from a velvet box and pinned it to my chest. "From today, my son is recognized as a commander of the police department."

Everyone clapped. For me.

I looked down at the medal on my chest. The police. The same police who had Moe's case sitting in a file somewhere. The same police who were looking for a missing bartender from 17th Street. The same police who had put Kyaw Kyaw Aung in a cell for me.

Now they would salute me.

I tapped the tip of my nose.

"Son. I know you will do well."

"Dad, what is all this?"

"You will follow in my footsteps. You will receive absolute power."

"Okay, Dad."

The cameras kept flashing until my father raised his hand, and then the people with the cameras packed up and left, one by one, bowing to him at the door.

"All right, everybody. I'll see you all at the ceremony tomorrow." When the door closed behind the last camera, he laughed. "Go on now, you stupid pigs. Haha! Go on."

They went.

"Dad, what did you do to me?"

"I'm giving you a piece of my power, so you can learn."

"Thanks, Dad."

"Come. Let's go to the back garden."

"Oh. Dad, why?"

I was surprised, and confused. Did he know about KoMg? It didn't matter now. KoMg was just a little toy I had played with. And I was sure my father would never say anything about it.

We walked out into the back garden. My father kept his hand on my right shoulder the whole way. We passed the flowerpot. He didn't look at it. I didn't either.

He led me to the far corner, behind the banana trees, where the garden lights didn't reach. I had never gone that far back. There was a statue there.

It looked like a devil. Its tongue hung out of its mouth, and its red eyes stared straight at the house. Both of its palms were held forward, toward me. One was empty. The other held out a ring.

"Sit there and pray to him."

I did what he said. I bowed down three times.

My father put a small box in front of the statue. Into the box, he placed stones, a piece of wood, a rose, some seeds, and money folded into small squares. Then he looked at me.

"Every week, you do exactly what I do. So our power can be absolute."

I had never seen my father as a superstitious man. He goes to the pagoda. He feeds the monks. So why was he doing this? What about the Buddha?

"Father, do I really need to do this?"

"Yes. It's very important. You listen to me, and you do this every week. He is the power of this house. He is where our strength comes from. We need him."

He put the box into the statue's empty hand. Then he took a small can of lighter fluid from behind the statue, where it had been waiting, poured it over the box and lit it.

The flames jumped up, and the statue's face seemed to move in the light. Its tongue. Its red eyes. My father closed his eyes and said something under his breath, low and fast, words I had never heard before, not Burmese, not Pali, not anything I knew. Around us, the crickets had gone quiet.

I watched his face in the firelight. I had never seen my father look so calm. Not at work, not at dinner, not with my mother. Only here.

"Okay, Father."

"And be respectful to him. Now bow."

I didn't understand, but I did exactly what he told me to.

We went back inside. My father went straight to the kitchen sink and washed his hands for a long time, scrubbing the ash from under his nails, the way the maid scrubbed the dining room floor.

"Wathone. You look confused, son."

"What is that statue, Dad?"

"Oh, it's been there since your grandfather's time. It protects us."

"Okay, Dad. I'll do what you said."

"Go now. You have a ceremony tomorrow."

"Okay, Dad. Good night."

When I walked back to the stairs, my sister was still sitting there. She had watched everything we did. She didn't say a word.

I went to my room to sleep. Then I saw the pot in my wardrobe. I had forgotten about it.

I took off the plastic bags. Oh. It had already rotted. The smell was awful.

I checked on Moe, too. She had rotted as well.

I kissed her lips one last time.

I opened the window, but the smell wouldn't leave. The maid would smell it in the morning. She would smell it and look at me the way she had looked at me over the wine.

So I wrapped the pot and the box together in a bedsheet, and I went down the back stairs, through the dark kitchen, and out into the back garden. Past the flowerpot. Behind the banana trees.

The statue was waiting for me with its red eyes. The ashes of my father's box were still warm in its hand.

I put everything at its feet. The pot. The box. Moe. Then I took the can from behind the statue, poured my father's lighter fluid over them and set them on fire, the same way he had. The smell was terrible at first. Then it was only smoke.

I bowed three times. I didn't know why. It just felt right.

When the fire was finished, there was nothing left but black ash. I kicked dirt over it and went back to bed.

It's okay. I'll find new ones.

To be continued...