The Lizard Cage by Connelly Karen

Author:Connelly, Karen [Connelly, Karen]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780307487612
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2011-09-21T00:00:00+00:00

. 33 .

The morphine lets him sleep through most of the afternoon, but he’s relieved to wake up when the iron-beater strikes four o’clock. Free El Salvador will appear soon with his dinner, and Teza doesn’t want another misunderstanding like the one they had this morning. He unfolds the largest piece of cloth his mother sent him in her last parcel. Then he sticks his arms through the bars and lays the worn cotton on the floor. Carefully, he places various offerings there, then pulls his arms back in and surveys the picnic. Who knows? In exchange, maybe the kid will say a word or two. Then, to insulate himself from disappointment, he thinks, But it’s fine if he says nothing at all.

Like a suitor critical of his own gift, he puts his hands back out into the corridor and rearranges things. Craving agitates his fingers, makes his gut clench painfully. Hunger, hunger. It’s a second heartbeat. He looks down at the bounty on the other side of the bars. Don’t cling to what you cannot have. He pinches an ant off the display and drops it behind him.

When Free El Salvador swings around the outer wall and nears the singer’s cell, he sees the flat body of a dried, salted fish laid out on white cloth. It stops him in his tracks. Beside the fish, a package of green-black tea leaves, a pouch of sesame seeds, three more of peanuts and deep-fried beans and garlic. The boy frowns. The Songbird sits cross-legged, hands on his knees like a statue. His eyes are closed. The boy wonders if the prisoner is going crazy. He glances back to the food.

He takes a step forward, suspiciously. You never get something for nothing.

Teza still hasn’t opened his eyes. The boy cranes his head forward. Is the singer dead? Can you die sitting up?

No. He sees Teza’s skinny chest rise and fall. He’s meditating, like a monk. There have been monks in the cage before, in trouble, just like the politicals, and they do a lot of this sitting-breathing. The boy wishes the singer would open his eyes. If Teza gave him a certain kind of glance, the boy’s question (For me?) would be answered. Maybe the fish and the la-phet are for someone else. Maybe for a nat? Or Jailer Chit Naing, his friend.

He takes a step closer.

Not only the fish but Teza’s silence reels him in.

A few paces from the singer, he squats. Shoulders hunched, eyes flicking back and forth, he begins to eat the rice soup. He pauses to listen for the sound of boots. Slurping down the last spoonful, he peers up at Teza’s face.

The jolt of it makes him jump backward—the singer is staring right at him with big gleaming eyes. The startle upsets him like a bad practical joke. Teza whispers quickly, the same word he said to the boy on the first day, “Sa!” Eat.

With bony fingers pointing down, wagging inward, he waves Free El Salvador closer to the fish, the la-phet, the peanuts.

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