Double karma, p.1
Double Karma, page 1
Double Karma
Copyright © 2023 Daniel Gawthrop
This edition copyright © 2023 Cormorant Books Inc.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free 1.800.893.5777.
We acknowledge financial support for our publishing activities: the Government of Canada, through the Canada Book Fund and The Canada Council for the Arts; the Government of Ontario, through the Ontario Arts Council, Ontario Creates, and the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit. We acknowledge additional funding provided by the Government of Ontario and the Ontario Arts Council to address the adverse effects of the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Title: Double karma / a novel by Daniel Gawthrop.
Names: Gawthrop, Daniel, author.
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20230140963 | Canadiana (ebook) 2023014098X | ISBN 9781770866836 (softcover) | ISBN 9781770866843 (HTML)
Classification: LCC PS8613.A9813 D68 2023 | DDC C813/.6—dc23
United States Library of Congress Control Number: 2023930238
Cover design: Angel Guerra / Archetype
Cover art: Aung Htwe Nyunt Saw
Interior text design: Marijke Friesen
Manufactured by Friesens in Altona, Manitoba in March, 2023.
Printed using paper from a responsible and sustainable resource,
including a mix of virgin fibres and recycled materials.
Printed and bound in Canada.
Cormorant Books Inc.
260 Ishpadinaa (Spadina) Avenue, Suite 502,
Tkaronto (Toronto), ON M5T 2E4
www.cormorantbooks.com
For Saw Aung Htwe Nyunt Lay
and the people of Burma
In memory of Paul Cresswell Gawthrop (1927–2018)
Action is a disease of thought, a cancer of the imagination. To act is to exile oneself. Every action is incomplete and imperfect.
— Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet
My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape their consequences. My actions are the ground on which I stand.
— Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching
Contents
Cover
Half Title Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Part One 1
2
3
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Part Two 12
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Part Three 20
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Note on Names
Acknowledgements
Landmarks
Cover
Title Page
Table of Contents
Start of Content
Backmatter
Acknowledgments
Pagelist
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PART ONE
1
Rangoon, Burma
March 1989
My first day in another man’s identity began with a flash: the blinding glare of a ceiling light the moment I opened my eyes. I tried to speak but couldn’t, and if I could, my voice would have been muffled by the bandages wrapped around my head. I tried to turn over, but my whole body throbbed with pain. My head was clouded — I felt like I’d been brought back from the dead — and I hadn’t a clue what could have brought me to this state. What had happened? I recalled only the heat of flames, loud voices I didn’t recognize, and being picked up and dragged away. Where was I now? Lying on a bed somewhere, in a room with a window.
Within moments of my regaining consciousness, the room filled with people. A man in a white coat asked in Burmese if I knew my name. When I could not speak it, he spoke a name I didn’t recognize. Other white coats who came in called me the same name and “sir” or “captain.” They asked about people I did not know, places I hadn’t been, things I could not recall. I responded with a blank stare until one of them shook his head, saying, “Ah, poor Aung Win. The bump on your head has damaged your memory. Don’t worry, it will all come back.” For the next few hours, people came in with food, Buddhist pendants, garlands of jasmine, and giant chunks of jade, which they presented with great ceremony. These visitors were uniformed soldiers of the Tatmadaw, the national army. When I noticed that the white coats addressed each other by rank, it dawned on me: I’m in a military hospital. When I speak my first words, they’d better not be in English.
On the morning of my second day of consciousness, a nurse told me a special visitor was on his way. Minutes later, the clopping of army boots down the corridor signalled his arrival. The door opened. A Tatmadaw private stepped in, followed by a second man wearing tinted aviator glasses and an officer’s cap. I recognized him at once: Khin Nyunt, chief of Military Intelligence for the State Law and Order Restoration Council. The SLORC. Burma’s military dictatorship. A brutal regime that had stomped on the pro-democracy uprising the previous summer, squashing it like a bug. The junta I had fought in the Karen State jungle, when last conscious, beside student and ethnic rebels. An army whose soldiers I had shot at and killed using Thai-funded weapons.
My mouth dried up. I lost my breath for a moment. For I knew what no one else in that room did: I was not a Burmese national but an American citizen of Burmese heritage. A Western meddler. A foreign menace. Now here I was, facing one of the regime’s most dreaded figures. Since the crackdown in September, countless students and dissidents had been arrested and jailed before being tortured, executed, or disappeared under Khin Nyunt’s ruthless, beady-eyed watch. But the private, who didn’t have a clue what I was hiding, proudly introduced me to this monster as Captain Aung Win, a national hero. That’s when I remembered my own name and understood what was happening: I am Min Lin. They think I’m Aung Win. The other guy.
The private nudged me, reminding me to salute the spy chief. It took some effort to respond. I painfully and slowly lifted my right arm — still attached to an IV drip — in Khin Nyunt’s direction. The senior SLORC officer answered my salute with his own before scolding the private: surely, I needed more time to recover, he said, before my instincts could be a hundred per cent. Then he gestured to the door, inviting in a group of reporters and photographers I didn’t recognize. All were state journalists, some appointed after the coup. Flooding into the room, they surrounded my bed. Khin Nyunt stood next to me and placed an arm around my pillow. Then, he turned to the journalists. The flashbulbs started popping as he began to speak.
“Captain Aung Win’s bravery on the field of battle,” he said, pointing at me, “has been well-established from the moment he joined the Tatmadaw as a young cadet.” He went on to describe me as a true patriot and proud Bamar soldier who, in the most recent battle at Maw Pokay, had done the dangerous reconnaissance work necessary for my battalion to overtake the enemy’s headquarters and capture a key strategic base of the KNLA. I had risked my own life to save the lives of fellow soldiers, said Khin Nyunt. For this I had suffered a serious head injury.
Khin Nyunt turned to the private, who handed him what looked like a cigar box. The SLORC officer opened it and pulled out a circular bronze medal, its centre bearing an engraving of the Burmese chinthe, the lion symbol, inside a star. The medal was attached to a large red ribbon with a green stripe in the centre.
Khin Nyunt continued addressing the journalists. The government had asked enough of Aung Win on the battlefield, he said, so today I was being presented with the nation’s highest honour for gallantry, the Thiha Thura Medal. As of this moment, I was also being retired from active duty. Khin Nyunt then reached for my hand and shook it, congratulating me as more flashbulbs popped off.
I thanked him, stammering in Burmese that I did not expect such an honour. He did a double take at the sound of my voice. For an instant — not long enough for anyone else in the room to notice — his eyes narrowed as if sizing me up. Then, with the fake smile returning to his face, he carefully draped the medal around my neck, took my right hand and shook it again. More flashbulbs went off. A staff reporter for The Working People’s Daily, addressing the senior SLORC officer as if I weren’t in the room, asked what I would be doing once released from the hospital. Khin Nyunt squeezed my shoulder as he replied. Aung Win would not have to worry about his future, he assured the reporter, looking at me again, as a special assignment had been arranged for me to serve my country in a non-combat role.
An older reporter interjected, noting that Aung Win was only promoted to captain a few months ago, a rare distinction for a soldier so young. Surely, I should be returning to the field as soon as I recover, no? Khin Nyunt paused a moment to glare at the reporter. “For a man of Aung Win’s talents,” he said, “there are many ways to serve the Union beyond the battlefield, and he has earned the right to explore them.” Then, citing my need for rest, he ended the press conference and wished me a speedy recovery. I would receive my instructions soon enough, he said, pausing a moment before looking me in the eye and telling me not to worry — everything would be fine. I would be fine. Then he left.
* * *
I hadn’t been asked to speak and, apart from that polite thank you for the medal, hadn’t said a word. Now I’d been left alone with my thoughts. My first thought was that I must be going insane. How could my doppelgänger have appeared on a battlefield in Burma, from completely out of nowhere? I didn’t have a twin brother. Why did we look so alike? And how could our brief encounter have happened without a single witness before my look-alike vanished? There hadn’t been enough time to find out, and all those soldiers who’d spent most of their waking hours with this Aung Win — men who knew his every detail — had mistaken me for their beloved comrade. This mistake had also made it past the country’s senior intelligence officer who, inexplicably, had shown up to preside over Aung Win’s medal presentation. Why not the soldier’s battalion leader or some other lower-ranking Tatmadaw officer? The orderly visiting my room shrugged at my surprise. “U Khin Nyunt must crave the publicity,” he said.
Later, an Army private visiting from his Rangoon barracks told me that the rescue operation to take Aung Win out of Maw Pokay had taken twenty minutes. From the moment I was mistaken for him, I assumed, the urgency to save the captain’s life must have precluded a proper search for ID. After finding me unconscious, two soldiers put me on a stretcher and prepared my evacuation while the rest of the battalion chased the rebels into the jungle. I was then airlifted by helicopter to the Tatmadaw base at Hpa-an before being transferred by plane to Rangoon. It seems I had fooled everyone without the inconvenience of being awake. But, even with the real soldier now unable to speak for himself, how long would it take for the error to be exposed?
