Double karma, p.28
Double Karma, page 28
Khin Nyunt turns to me and grins, addressing me with my real name as if he had never mistaken me for a dead soldier. “Your father and I used to work together,” he boasts. “I was the one who helped him and the rest of your family leave the country on the night you were born.”
Dad, staring at Khin Nyunt, struggles for words as he tries to reconcile the young soldier from 1962 with the SLORC monster who, during the late eighties and early nineties, presided over the arrest and detention of some four thousand people; a man whose misdeeds were well-known throughout the world. While Khin Nyunt makes small talk, his former superior takes a deep breath. When he speaks up, Dad continues addressing the former statesman, somewhat rudely, with his youthful nickname.
Why, my father wants to know, did Kgyi-gan myat see warn him of his arrest and allow his family to escape? He took a tremendous personal risk in doing so. He could have been executed.
Khin Nyunt smiles again. Sometimes, he replies, again addressing my father as “Major General,” we are not who we appear to be. Your son — he turns to look at me — has proven this more than once. Khin Nyunt says he was a young man in early 1962: twenty-two years of age, his entire life ahead of him. Yes, he was a good soldier and loyal to superiors. But Ko Lin Tun was one of those superiors, too, and Khin Nyunt did not wish to see him or his family suffer.
Dad, dissatisfied with this answer, wants to know more. It never made sense, he says, Khin Nyunt’s being at the hospital. How did he know about Min’s birth?
“Well, Major General, that is why I have requested this meeting,” he replies in English. “Can we speak alone for a few minutes?”
My father turns to me. I shrug my consent. He turns back to Khin Nyunt and slowly nods his agreement. The former SLORC number two then takes my father by the arm, leading him to a room behind the cashier and closing the door. Robert and I return to browsing while we wait for the two men to finish their conversation. They are gone for nearly fifteen minutes. We are both growing bored from the wait, and I am getting restless knowing that we need to be at the airport soon. When they return, Dad is visibly upset.
“Take me to the car, now!” he mutters. “We must be on our way.” Walking ahead of Khin Nyunt, he proceeds out the gift shop door without turning around to say goodbye. Khin Nyunt has no reaction to this abrupt departure but stops at the cashier and puts his hands on his hips. He seems pleased with himself, despite having told my father something that has clearly upset him. At this I, too, dispense with good manners and leave without saying goodbye, running after Dad to prevent him from falling. Robert follows close behind.
“Dad, what happened? What did he say?” I ask once we’re in the limo.
My father says nothing but shakes his head, tears rolling down his cheeks. He is fumbling with something in his pocket, an envelope Khin Nyunt has given him. Robert and I remain silent. So does Randall Carson, who pulls the car away from the parking lot and proceeds toward Kabar Aye Pagoda Road. I look out the rear window to see Khin Nyunt standing in the driveway, watching us leave. Then he walks to a path behind the gallery and disappears. On the road to the airport, no one speaks as the limo passes beyond city limits. Dad, still in shock from his unexpected encounter with Khin Nyunt and what they shared in private, is staring straight ahead, quietly weeping. On the plane, Robert takes the aisle seat while I sit between him and Dad, who has the window. I wait until after takeoff, when Robert has put on a pair of headphones for music, before turning to my father.
“Okay, Dad. Speak up. What happened with Khin Nyunt?” He turns to look at me for the first time.
“Such a cold, terrible man. So awful!”
“Yeah, Dad. That’s kind of old news. ‘Khin Nyunt bad’ — got the memo.”
“He was so proud of himself, so proud of his disgusting lie. He called it the moment when he secured his future by saving his own skin. As if that were somehow a virtue.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The night of the coup! When he was there at the American Hospital. He said he had pledged to serve Senior General Ne Win in whatever capacity was required of him. He said he was loyal to me, but that only the Senior General could guarantee his future. So he took the path of least resistance. His every decision that night was based on whichever action would serve his own self-interest. And that meant betraying me.”
“But how?”
“He said that Ne Win wanted to teach me a lesson for opposing the coup. He would do something cruel. He would take something away from me that was precious. Oh, it could have been you, my son! Thank heavens it wasn’t. But still, such a terrible, terrible thing to do.”
“Come on, Dad. I don’t understand. What’s in the envelope?”
“He was lucky, the little rat. Kgyi-gan myat see. Because of what happened in the delivery room, it all worked out nicely for him. I was late arriving at the hospital, so he could betray me without my knowing it. Your mother couldn’t have known because she was unconscious, and Than Tun didn’t know because he was down the hall in a waiting room. Even Ne Win was none the wiser! Yes, Khin Nyunt followed his orders and gave him what he wanted without the Senior General ever finding out he had pulled a fast one because he made sure we were already gone.”
“Dad, I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. What happened in the delivery room?”
Dad stares into space for a moment, shaking his head. “We had no idea. I could not have imagined … We didn’t check for heartbeat. There was no ultrasound in Burma back then …”
“Are you talking about when I was born?”
“Not you, son.”
“Well, then who?”
Dad looks at me sadly, shaking his head. Then he reaches into his pocket and pulls out the envelope, handing it to me. Inside is a double-folded, legal-size sheet of paper: a notarized birth certificate, dated March 1, 1962. Signed off by the medical superintendent at the American Hospital in Rangoon, it lists the father as Maj. Gen. Ko Lin Tun and the mother as Nu Nu Lin.
The baby’s name is Aung Win.
“Your other brother,” sighs Dad. “Your twin.”
Note on Names
Key events in Double Karma occur in 1988. In May of the following year, the military junta renamed Burma and its then-capital city, Rangoon, as well as several other places. However, both the country and city are referred to throughout the text as “Burma” and “Rangoon” rather than “Myanmar” and “Yangon.” Similarly, the state known as “Rakhine” is referred to as “Arakan,” and “Kayin” as “Karen,” while other places, including rivers (“Ayeyarwady” becomes “Irrawaddy”) appear with their pre-1989 names. There are exceptions: citizens of the country who are residents, for example, use the new names, while “Rakhine,” which also refers to a specific Buddhist group from Arakan state, is used in that context.
At the time the changes were announced, the Bamar Buddhist-dominated military junta claimed that the country’s new name incorporated all Indigenous peoples. This is false. As one historian has noted, the SLORC administration “was moving in a nativist direction and looking for easy wins to burnish its ethno-nationalist credentials.”1 Many human rights activists, civil society organizations, and public intellectuals thus continue using “Burma” as a rebuke of the country’s military dictatorships: from Ne Win in 1962, the State Law and Order Restoration Council in 1988, and the State Peace and Development Council in 1997 to the current regime of Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, which deposed the elected government of State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy with a coup on February 1, 2021.
1 Thant Myint-U, The Hidden History of Burma: Race, Capitalism, and the Crisis of Democracy in the 21st Century (Norton, 2020), p. xx1.
Acknowledgements
As a work of fiction, Double Karma encompasses actual events and real persons, both living and dead at the time of writing. Because the story is set during a period ending in 2013, many events were still fresh as some of the research for this novel took place. A personal interest in Burma had already led me to hundreds of newspaper articles, academic papers, and NGO reports — and several dozen books — before I even began. Double Karma was thus influenced by many writers who have contributed to the literature on Burma, some of whom I would like to acknowledge. For general historical background, I am indebted to the works of Thant Myint-U; for the events of 1988, to the works of Bertil Lintner, especially Outrage: Burma’s Struggle for Democracy (White Lotus, 1990); for the dictatorial mindset, to Benedict Rogers’ Than Shwe: Unmasking Burma’s Tyrant (Silkworm Books, 2010); and, for women’s experience as political prisoners, to Ma Thanegi’s Nor Iron Bars a Cage (Things Asian Press, 2013). Among recent works about the Rohingyas, Carlos Sardiña Galache’s The >Burmese Labyrinth: A History of the Rohingya Tragedy (Verso, 2020) and Francis Wade’s Myanmar’s Enemy Within: Buddhist Violence and the Making of a Muslim ‘Other’ (Zed Books, 2019 edition) were most helpful.
In the decade it took to produce this book, I relied on the good will and generosity of many people. My first debt of gratitude is to the Pacific Burma Roundtable (a.k.a. Vancouver Burma Roundtable), whose commitment to the people of Burma inspired my earliest efforts for this book. I am especially grateful to Rod Germaine for his kindness and support over the years — not least for reading several drafts of the manuscript and even solving my search for a title. Thanks as well to Mike Orders, Joie Warnock, Brenda Belak, Maung Tin, Soe Naing, and PBR’s Burmese readers of the Double Karma manuscript: Tony Aung, Maria Hla Tin, and Margaret Nutt. I am also grateful to the late Helen Lee and another Burmese Canadian I interviewed who asked not to be named. Many thanks as well, to those who assisted my spouse and I in various ways while we lived in Rangoon for several months in 2013–14: Pana Janviroj, Daniel Collins, Benoit Trudel, Jerry Peerson and Kamil Pawlowski, and a group of Burmese friends, colleagues, and relatives whose kindness and generosity we’ll never forget but, for their own safety, are not named here. Special thanks to my employer, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, for granting me the leave of absence that allowed our sojourn in Burma.
Back home, I am grateful to many people for their assistance during the manuscript stage. The biggest thanks go to a couple of writer comrades, Carellin Brooks and Brett Josef Grubisic, for their endurance of multiple drafts. Thanks as well to fellow scribe Dennis E. Bolen and to Soressa Gardner, Don Larventz, Jeff Mildner, Erin Mullan, Walter Quan, and Luci Standley. Further character development and helpful input came from Brenna Bezanson, Rob Jandric, Jemmy Peng, and Kira Yee, and others who assisted with a different version of a major character. Thanks as well to family members, friends, and colleagues I haven’t mentioned who shared articles that kept me up to speed on Burma, sat through readings of excerpts, or otherwise expressed interest in this novel and waited patiently for its release.
I am most fortunate to have met Marc Côté at this stage of my writing life. My deepest thanks to Marc, not only for believing in Double Karma and having the faith I could pull off a novel but also for his guiding hand as editor, in advising me on the narrative approach and helping to bring the manuscript to the finish line. And thanks to the fabulous team at Cormorant Books — Sarah Cooper, Marijke Friesen, Angel Guerra, Sarah Jensen, Barry Jowett, Luckshika Rajaratnam, and Tiana Trudell — for their fine work.
Double Karma is in memory of my father, Paul Gawthrop, who I miss dearly.
It is dedicated to the people of Burma, whose yoke under military dictatorship has been interrupted by only a single decade since 1962. Atrocities inside the country have continued since the February 1, 2021 military coup, so please donate to one or more of the organizations assisting Burmese residents and refugees, including those aiding the Rohingyas.
Finally, Double Karma is for my spouse. Saw Aung Htwe Nyunt Lay — renamed Aung Htwe Nyunt Saw when he became a Canadian citizen, but better known as Lune — showed much patience and fortitude through the countless hours that I worked on this book. I thank him for his love and devotion, as always, but also for his help on the project: from the indispensable roles of guide, translator, and personal assistant while we lived in Rangoon to the photo he took at Inle Lake that graces the cover. Lune would never have come into my life had it not been for the scourge of military dictatorship in his homeland. More than anyone, this book is for him.
Daniel Gawthrop
New Westminster, Canada
December 2022
We acknowledge the sacred land on which Cormorant Books operates. It has been a site of human activity for 15,000 years. This land is the territory of the Huron-Wendat and Petun First Nations, the Seneca, and most recently, the Mississaugas of the Credit River. The territory was the subject of the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant, an agreement between the Iroquois Confederacy and Confederacy of the Ojibway and allied nations to peaceably share and steward the resources around the Great Lakes. Today, the meeting place of Toronto is still home to many Indigenous people from across Turtle Island. We are grateful to have the opportunity to work in the community, on this territory.
We are also mindful of broken covenants and the need to strive to make right with all our relations.
Daniel Gawthrop, Double Karma
