Edgar turned to the soldier. “What’s that on her face?”
“The paint?”
“Yes. I saw it on some of the women by the docks. But different patterns. Peculiar…”
“They call it thanaka. It is made from ground sandalwood. Almost all the women wear it, and many of the men. They cover the babies with it too.”
“Whatever for?”
“Protects against the sun, they say, makes them beautiful. We call it ‘Burmese face powder.’ Why do English ladies wear face powder?”
Just then the carriage jolted to a halt. Outside they could hear voices.
“Are we here?”
“No, still quite far. I don’t know why we stopped. Wait a moment while I look outside.” The soldier opened the door and leaned out. He pulled himself back into the carriage.
“What’s happening?”
“Accident. Look for yourself. This is always the problem of taking the small streets, but today they are repaving Sule Pagoda Road, so we had to go this way. This could take several minutes. You may get out and watch, if you like.”
Edgar poked his head out of the window. In the street in front of them, a bicycle lay sprawled amidst scattered mounds of green lentils, spilled from a pair of overturned baskets. One man, apparently the rider, nursed a bloodied knee while the lentil wallah, a thin Indian man dressed in white, frantically tried to salvage the few lentils that had not soaked up the muck of the street. Neither man seemed particularly angry, and a large crowd had gathered, ostensibly to help, but mostly to stare. Edgar stepped down from the confines of the carriage.
The street was narrow, flanked by a continuous facade of houses. In front of each one, steep steps climbed three or four feet to a narrow patio, now filled with onlookers. The men were wearing loosely tied turbans, and long cloth skirts wrapped around their waists, passed between their legs, and tucked in back. The turbans were distinct from those of the Sikh soldiers, and, remembering a traveler’s account of Burma, Edgar guessed they must be gaung-baungs, the skirts pasos. On women the skirts hung loose, and carried a different name, hta main, strange syllables that seemed breathed, not spoken. The women all wore the sandalwood paint, some covering the cheeks in thin parallel stripes, others with the same circles as the woman they had just seen from the carriage, others yet with swirls, with lines descending the crests of their noses. To the darker-skinned women it gave an eerie, ghostlike appearance, and Edgar noticed that some of the women also wore a red lipstick, giving the thanaka an aura of the burlesque. There was something disturbing about it that he couldn’t identify, but once his surprise wore off, he would admit in his next letter to Katherine that it wasn’t unattractive. Perhaps not befitting an English complexion, he wrote, but beautiful, and he added with emphasis, in the same way that one appreciates art. There is no need for any misunderstandings.
His eyes followed the faces of the buildings up to balconies draped with hanging gardens of ferns and flowers. These too were filled with spectators, mostly children, their skinny arms interlaced in the wrought-iron banisters. Several called down to him and giggled, waving. Edgar waved back.
In the road, the bicyclist had righted his machine and was straightening the bent handlebars, while the porter had given up on salvaging lentils, and had set about repairing one of the baskets in the middle of the road. The driver shouted something at him, and the crowd laughed. The porter scurried to the side of the street. Edgar waved at the children once again and climbed back into the carriage. And again they were moving, the thin street opening onto a wider road that circled around a vast gilded structure bedecked with golden umbrellas, and the Captain said “Sule Pagoda.” They passed a church, then the minarets of a mosque, and then, by the town hall, another market that was set up in the promenade before a statue of Mercury, the Roman god of merchants, which the British had erected as a symbol of their commerce, but who watched over the street merchants instead.
The lane widened and the carriage picked up speed. Soon the images spun past the window too fast to be seen.
They drove for half an hour and then stopped on a cobbled road outside a two-story house. Ducking their heads, the soldiers climbed out of the carriage one by one, while the porters scrambled onto the roof to pass the trunks down from above. Edgar stood and took a deep breath. Despite the intensity of the sun, which had now begun its descent, the air was cool compared to the stuffiness of the carriage.
The Captain beckoned Edgar toward the house. At the entrance they passed two stone-faced guards, swords hanging at their sides. The Captain disappeared down a hallway and reappeared with a stack of papers.
“Mr. Drake,” he said, “it seems we have several changes in our plans. It was our original intention that you would be met here in Rangoon by Captain Nash-Burnham, from Mandalay, who is familiar with Doctor Carroll’s projects. Nash-Burnham was here only yesterday for a meeting on efforts to control dacoits in the Shan States, but I am afraid the boat you were scheduled to take up the river is under repair, and he was in a hurry to return to Mandalay. So he left on an earlier ship.” Dalton paused to look through the papers. “Don’t worry. You will have plenty of time to be briefed in Mandalay. But it does mean that you will be departing later than expected, as the first steamer we could find you a berth on was with the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company, which leaves at the end of the week. I trust this is not too much of an inconvenience?”
“No, that shouldn’t be a problem. I wouldn’t mind a few days to wander about.”
“Of course. In fact, I was going to invite you myself to join us on a tiger hunt tomorrow. I mentioned the idea to Captain Nash-Burnham, who said it might be a fine way to pass the time as well as become familiar with the surrounding countryside.”
Edgar protested, “But I’ve never hunted.”
“Then this is an excellent way to start. Always a jolly good time. Anyway, you must be tired now. I will call on you later this evening.”
“Is there anything else planned now?”
“No schedule for this afternoon. Again, Captain Nash-Burnham had hoped to be here with you. I would recommend that you rest in your quarters. The porter can show you where they are.” He nodded to an Indian who was waiting.
Edgar thanked the Captain and followed the porter out the door. They collected his trunks and walked to the end of the lane, where they reached a larger road. A large group of young monks walked past in saffron robes. The porter seemed not to notice.
“Where are they coming from?” Edgar asked, entranced by the beauty of the shifting cloth.
“Who, sir?” asked the porter.
“The monks.”
They were standing on the corner of the road, and the porter turned and pointed in the direction from which the monks had come. “Why, the Shwedagon, sir. Anyone who is not a soldier in these quarters has come to see the Shwedagon.”
Edgar found himself standing at the base of a slope lined with dozens of small pagodas, rising to the golden pyramid that had winked at him from the river, now massive, towering. A row of pilgrims milled about the foot of the stairs. Edgar had read that the British army had established itself around the pagoda, but he had never imagined it was this close. Reluctantly, he hurried after the porter, who had already crossed the road and was continuing along the small street. They reached a room at the end of a long barrack. The porter set down the trunks and opened the door.
It was a simple space, used by visiting officers, and the porter told him that the surrounding buildings were also living quarters for the garrison, “So should you need anything, sir, you can just knock on any door.” He bowed and took his leave. Edgar waited only long enough for the sound of the man’s steps to disappear, before he opened the door and walked back down the lane, and stood at the base of the long flight of stairs leading to the temple. A sign read “No shoes or umbrella carrying,” and he recalled what he had read of the beginnings of the Third Anglo-Burmese War, when the British emissaries refused to remove their shoes in the presence of Burmese royalty. He knelt and untied his boots, and, carrying them in his hand, began the long walk up the steps.