The Viper

I was full, and I didn't want to be.

The food sat heavy in my stomach, and the house felt too small. I wanted to go somewhere, anywhere, before the evening came. I didn't want to become a monk. Not yet. My bodyguards were never far from me, even now. Two of them sat in the living room, facing the front door like dogs waiting to be fed.

Behind my father's door, there was silence. Then the lock clicked, the door opened, and my mother came out.

She looked normal. That was the strange part. Her hair was combed, her face powdered over the marks my father had left on her only hours ago, and she walked as if nothing had happened. She wore her face like the clothes she had bought me: smooth, expensive, and without a single crease. I wondered how many times she had practiced it.

"Wathone, it's almost time," she said. "Go and change. I bought this one for you."

On the table lay a shirt and a longyi, folded neatly, in smooth, expensive-looking fabric.

"Okay, Mom."

I went upstairs. My sister's door was locked. I hadn't seen much of her lately, and I didn't care enough to ask why. I showered, put on the clothes my mother had given me, and checked myself in the mirror. Ready.

"Wathone, are you finished?" my mother called from downstairs. "Come. They're waiting."

"Come on, Wathone," my father added. "People are waiting."

I came down. "Dad, is my sister coming?"

"No. She has homework. Don't mind her."

I followed my parents outside. In front of the house, a crowd was waiting for us: my relatives, all of them dressed in bright colors. I had never seen most of their faces before. When they saw us, they smiled and nodded at me, and they looked happy.

A small child, held in someone's arms, looked up at me with hopeful eyes that sparkled like diamonds. I hated it. I wanted to push my thumb into one of those eyes and see if the sparkle would go out.

A cameraman from my father's media team stood at the gate, filming.

"Look at them, Wathone," my father said, loud enough for the camera to hear. "Your family has high hopes for you. They believe you can change, and lead them into the future."

"Yes, Wathone," my mother said. "Be a good leader of this household, just like your father."

My father leaned toward her and whispered. "Thuzar, our family has always watched us like this when we hold a ceremony. What do they want?"

"I'm not sure," my mother whispered back.

She never looked at my father when she spoke to him. I had noticed that a long time ago.

The relatives began to clap. One by one, they came forward and tucked flowers into my pocket, and the camera followed every flower. Then an old woman stepped close to me. My grandmother, I assumed, though I had never seen her face before.

"Wathone," she said, "save us from this suffering. I believe you will change. I believe you will care for your own family and relatives. We are waiting."

"Okay, Grandma. I hope so."

Her fingers were almost touching my sleeve when one of my father's guards stepped between us. "Not so close, old mother," he said. Her hand stayed in the air for a moment, then slowly came down.

"It's time," my father said. "Get into the car, son."

I got into the car. My parents started chatting in the front seat while I looked out through the dark glass of the window at the relatives. They were far more excited than I was.

"Father, are they coming to the ceremony too?"

"Of course they are. They'll walk there."

"Walk?"

"Yes. Walk."

"But it's so far."

"It shows devotion," my father said. "And it photographs well. The camera car will follow them for the first mile."

The car pulled away slowly, and the crowd disappeared into the distance.

"Father, I never knew I had relatives."

"Haha. No need to care about them. Just focus on yourself."

"Okay, Dad."

"Wathone, look at me," my mother said. "I think my son can change. Pray every night and meditate before you sleep, and you will find peace. I believe my son's heart will change."

"Well, Wathone," my father said as the car slowed. "We're here."

"Wow. The monastery is huge."

When I stepped out of the car, a beggar rushed toward me with his hands open. "Please, sir, a little food, a little money."

"No. I don't have any."

He backed away slowly, pushed back by my security guards.

"Father, why are there so many beggars around the monastery?"

"No idea, son. People are just surviving. Life is hard here. Anyway, come here."

"What, Father?"

"You see this golden statue of the Buddha?"

"Yes. It's big and shiny."

"I donated it. For our merit and good luck. That's why we're here, and that's why they're here, Wathone. Those beggars must have done something bad in their past lives."

"How much did it cost, Father?"

"Oh, it's nothing. Only around five million dollars."

"Okay, Dad."

While we were talking, a luxury car drove in slowly. The media and the crowds began to gather around it, my relatives, my cousins, and many people I didn't know.

"Ah, there he is," my father said. "Wathone, be respectful to the famous monk."

"Okay, Father. I will."

A monk stepped slowly out of the car as his guard opened the door for him. When he saw my father, he smiled.

"Hey, long time no see! And who is this? The celebrity boy! I see you on the news now. Haha."

"Oh, yes, sir," I said.

"Come, come inside the pagoda. It's still hot out here, even this late in the day. Like hell itself. Hahaha!"

"Sir, when do we begin the ceremony?" my father asked.

"Oh, we can start now or later, anytime. Hahaha."

"Thuzar, what do you think?"

"Do it now," my mother said. "It's hot here."

"Okay, okay. Wathone, go and sit in the backyard of the monastery. We're coming."

"Okay, I'm going."

Why was this guard following me so closely?

Behind me, the monk and my parents laughed and chatted loudly.

I walked to the backyard and sat down. After a while, I saw a cat, a black cat. I shooed it away.

"Are you ready, Wathone?" the monk asked as he came out.

"He's fine, sir," my father said. "Go ahead and do the hair."

"Hey, Myint Naing! Come and do the hair."

"Yes, sir."

"Look down, Wathone. It's a sharp blade."

"Okay, sir."

I felt stressed. My breath was heavy, and I hoped it would be over soon.

"Wathone, stay down," my father said. "Don't look at me."

"Dad, I'm afraid. I'm going to get cut."

And I did. The blade cut me four times, and blood poured down through what was left of my hair.

"Press ice on it," my mother said. "Here."

"Yes, madam," Myint Naing said.

"Wathone, go and follow the monk," my father said.

"Yes, Dad. Who are all those people outside? There are so many of them."

"They're waiting for me to throw money into the air."

"Hahaha," the monk laughed. "Your family is always doing good deeds. The Buddha surely loves you all and will help you all."

"Indeed," my father said. "Go on, Wathone. Finish the monk's process."

"Okay, Dad."

"Say what I say, Wathone," the monk said.

"Yes, sir."

He began to chant in Pali. All I could think about was Moe, and the smell of her ear. My thoughts drifted away from the chanting, and I mumbled random words.

My phone rang.

Who was calling me now? I didn't recognize the number.

"Wathone, focus," the monk said.

"Ah, okay, sir."

"Now pray to the Buddha."

I did what he told me.

"Okay, Wathone. You are now a monk, a student of the Buddha. Learn the way of the Dhamma. It is enlightenment, and a way of living. Here, take this and change into it. You are no longer a normal person."

"Okay, sir."

"Wathone, you're finished," my father said. "Go and change in your room upstairs. We're preparing the feast for the guests. Go on."

"Okay, Dad."

"This way, Wathone," a student monk said, leading me up the stairs. "Right here. This room."

"Is this my own room?"

"Yes. Your own room. Good, right?"

"Yes. Excuse me, I need to change."

"Oh, of course!"

He closed the door behind him. I changed into the robes. While I tied the cloth, my phone buzzed on the bed. The same number as before, no name, one I had never saved. It rang six times and stopped. I turned the phone face down.

From the window I could see the courtyard. My father stood on the monastery steps with a canvas bag. He took out a handful of money and threw it into the air, and the crowd moved like water. People fell over one another. A woman lost her sandal and went back for it. Near the front, a little boy went down under a dozen feet, and a guard's baton came down on a man's shoulder to clear the way. The cameras didn't turn toward the man or the boy. They followed the money, rising and falling in the light.

I counted how long the boy lay there. Eleven seconds. Then a woman dragged him out by the collar. He was still holding one crumpled note in his fist, and I found that I was almost disappointed that he got up. My father laughed and waved with both hands, and the monk stood beside him, smiling, his palm raised in blessing.

Merit, my father called it.

There was a knock at the door.

"Wathone, can I talk to you, son?" It was the monk.

"Yes?"

"I've already talked to your mother. She's concerned about you. She worries about your mental health."

"Why would she say that? I'm fine."

"I know, Wathone. But your mother was crying when she talked about you. She wants me to help you, to change you, and I promise I will make you a good person. A man of great morals."

He chewed betel nut as he talked, studying me the way a man studies a cow he is thinking of buying. I didn't like it.

"What did she tell you?"

"She told me about the smell in your room. She said it's like something died in there."

My mother, who never spoke to my father about me, had spoken to the monk.

"A mouse," I said.

"A mouse," the monk repeated. He smiled around the betel nut. "Merit can wash away many things, Wathone. A donation here, a bell there. A man who sins in the right way can always be cleaned. For the right price."

I said nothing. The back garden, the flowerpot, the banana trees went through my mind like a slow film.

"Tell me, Wathone. Don't get the wrong idea. What is your desire?"

"I desire nothing."

"Hahaha. Do you do bad things?"

"I'm not sure."

"Okay, Wathone. If you do bad things, you will be punished in another life cycle. You don't want that, do you?"

"No."

"Good. Karma comes for all of us, Wathone. Hell waits for the evil." He lowered himself onto the edge of my bed, and the frame creaked under his weight. "Come. Let us try something together. Say the five precepts after me."

"I undertake to abstain from taking life," he began.

"I undertake to abstain from taking life," I said.

"I undertake to abstain from taking what is not given."

"I undertake to abstain from taking what is not given."

I said all five, in the right order, in a clear, careful voice, like a boy in a school play. The words fell out of me and meant nothing, the way a lock means nothing to someone who has already been inside the house.

"Good," the monk said, but he was frowning. "Now close your eyes. Think of someone you love. May you be well. May you be free from suffering. Let the warmth go out of you toward them."

I closed my eyes and searched for someone to love. My sister came first, and I let her go. My mother came next, and she flickered. Then I found Moe. Not her face. The smell of her ear. I wished her well the way a man wishes well a thing that belongs to him.

When I opened my eyes, the monk was watching me with his mouth a little open. "What did you feel?"

"Peace," I said.

He did not believe me. He took a long breath and tried once more, more gently now, the way you coax a dog out from under a car. "Wathone. Tell me the worst thing you have ever done. Say it to me, and I will carry half of it for you. That is what a teacher is for."

For a moment I considered telling him, only to see what his face would do.

"When I was a boy," I said, "I killed birds and cats around our house. I buried them, one hole for each."

The monk let out his breath. His shoulders dropped. "A child's cruelty," he said, relieved, almost grateful. "It can be forgiven. It is forgiven."

"Yes," I said. "That's all."

It was not all, and we both knew it. But I watched him choose to believe me, the way you choose not to open a door when you suspect what is behind it. He wiped his forehead with the edge of his robe.

"Some wells are too deep for any bucket," he muttered, not quite to me.

"Sure." I paused. "Do you believe in ghosts?"

"Yes. I believe there is a soul beyond our reach."

"Have you ever seen one?"

"Ha! I did, a few years ago. A family's house was haunted by a dead daughter. I went there myself to perform an exorcism."

"Really? I find that hard to believe."

"What? Wathone, I'm not—"

"If it's true, then they could be around me. I wish that were real."

For a second, the monk stopped chewing. I was thinking of Moe, and the bedsheet, and the ash I had left behind the banana trees.

"Wathone, I'm not here to argue with you. I'm here to put you on the right path and guide you as our Buddha did. A teacher of enlightenment."

My jaw had been tightening with every word he said. Karma, hell, the right path, from a man with betel juice on his teeth and a driver waiting outside.

"Lies," I said. I said it quietly, almost kindly. "The way of enlightenment is not about needing things. Just because you wear monk's clothes and drive an expensive car doesn't mean you get to tell me what I need to do."

I let my anger go and calmed myself again. The monk had gone pale. He didn't look like a teacher anymore. He looked scared.

"Well, okay then," he said. "I'll leave you to it, Wathone. Your parents are waiting downstairs."

I should go to my parents too, before they went home.

"Mom, how many days do I have to stay here?"

"Why? Son, you haven't even spent one day yet. Hahaha."

"What's the problem, son?" my father asked.

"Do I have to stay for a month?"

"Yes. Why?"

"Can it be just one week? I'm bored."

"It depends on your attitude, Wathone," my mother said. "Whether you change or not."

"Hey!" the monk said, coming up behind us. "The big boy is complaining, huh? Haha. By the way, Nanda, come, let's talk. Wathone, you too. Come on."

"Wait here, Thuzar," my father said.

"Yes, husband." My mother turned to me. "Wathone, go with your father."

"Hey, come on in," my father called to the crowd. "Come, come, sit down and eat."

The people from the town lined up for the feast. There were smiles everywhere, and the smell of sweat and perfume.

"Well, I didn't expect so many people, haha," he said. "Guards! Spread out."

"Yes, sir."

"Wathone, come."

I followed my father across the courtyard. At the back of the food line I saw them: my relatives, gray with dust, finally arrived on foot. A guard held a rope across them. The old woman who called herself my grandmother raised a thin hand toward me. My father walked straight past her. I looked at the food instead.

In the monk's office I sat down, and a student monk put a cup of coffee in front of me.

"What is this about, sir?" my father asked.

"Guards wait outside the monks' quarters, Nanda. It's the rule here." He waved a hand, and the door closed on my own guard's face. "Now. It's nothing, really. I only want to inform you about the people rebelling in the countryside. A group, perhaps. I saw signs of them when I went there for a ceremony."

"Yes, sir."

"I think you should remove these people as a group. They will become a threat to us. Killings and violence are very high around them. And my fellow Buddhist students are furious."

"Sir, I will enforce the law straight away."

My father, the general, the most powerful man I knew, nodded like a schoolboy. So that was who really gave the orders.

"Good, good. And for your luck and merit, change the color of your car and build a new building, so the people of your country will love you more, with the blessing of the Buddha."

"Yes, sir."

"And don't worry about your son here. He'll be fine. We can handle him."

Then I understood why I had been brought here. Not to be saved. To be held. A general who pays for his son's soul will pay for a long time.

"Sir, thank you. And how can my country's economy grow?"

"For that, remove the trees around Yangon, so the business comes your way."

"Yes, sir."

I listened as I sipped my coffee. None of it made sense. I wondered how my father could still believe him. I felt that faith was the strongest way to control people. The pastor had done the same thing.

"Well, you have to get going, Nanda."

"Yes, sir, I do. Wathone, be good. If you want anything, talk to the guards and they will get it for you."

"Okay, Father."

We walked down to my mother. She was laughing with a group of women, her friends.

"Oh, there he is. My son."

"Oh, so tall!" one of the women said. "Just like his father, haha."

"Well, Thuzar, we have to go home," my father said. "There's work to do."

"Yeah, okay. Wathone, be a good boy. Bye-bye, son."

"Bye, son."

"Okay. Bye."

I watched them get into the car and disappear into the distance. Then I looked at the monk. He ignored me and walked away. I should get some rest. I was tired, and annoyed by all the people here.

"Hey, Wathone. Welcome," a student monk said.

"Welcome, Wathone," the others echoed.

"My name is Paing Phyo."

"I'm Sein Htun," another said.

"Wathone."

"We saw you arrive, celebrity. How are you?"

"Well. Good."

"Follow me, Wathone."

"Wait," my guard called from the gate of the monks' quarters, where the rule stopped him. "What are you doing? You can't—"

"It's fine," I said. "Leave me alone for now."

I could have made him follow. But I was curious. I wanted to see what these two boys wanted from me. They led me away from the courtyard, past the kitchen, to the back of the building where the lamps stopped.

"You have guards?" Paing Phyo said. "Who are you?"

"Oh, you don't watch the news?"

"I do, but I haven't seen you. Maybe I don't follow the news channels. Whatever. Come on, man."

"Hey, Paing Phyo…" Sein Htun said.

The two of them whispered to each other as I followed them behind the toilets. Sein Htun looked back at me with a sideways glance. Something felt off about them.

"Well, we're here," Paing Phyo said. "Go on, get into the toilet. There's something I need to show you."

"What? No."

"Paing Phyo, I think this is a bad idea," Sein Htun said. "We don't—"

"Sein Htun, push him."

"What?!"

They pushed me into the toilet and locked the door from the outside.

"Hahaha! Welcome to the monastery, Wathone!"

"Hahaha. Good luck, little brother."

They had locked me inside a dirty toilet that smelled like diarrhea. I didn't pound on the door. I stood still in the dark and listened to them laugh. Paing Phyo laughed with his mouth wide open, loud, enjoying himself. Sein Htun laughed half a second late, checking Paing Phyo's face first. There is always one who leads and one who follows. I filed them away, both of them, the way I file away everything I mean to keep.

Unfortunately for them, these idiots didn't know there was a broken panel at the back of the wall. I crawled out through it. My robes were filthy and stank. But I remembered their names. I stood up in the dirt behind the toilet.

I touched the four scabs on my scalp. Four cuts, and I couldn't control my laugh. I burst out laughing.

"Hahahahahahahaha!"

Paing Phyo. Sein Htun. Thank you for making me laugh. I will reward you. And I will collect you very soon.

To be continued...