*     *     *     *     *

     In late spring of 1940, at the height of the dry season, Dad transferred to the Lonywa Oilfield at Chauk, Burma, located on the east bank of the Irrawaddy River, approximately 300 miles upriver, as the crow flies, from Rangoon.  The Burmah Oil Company had offered my father a better position, and more money, if he’d make this transfer.

        In the end, dear reader, Pop learned there was a more Machiavellian reason behind this offer.

     So my folks shipped their household goods and servants by truck down to the Calcutta Docks, and followed them in their faithful Buick.

     Calcutta, India.

      Whereby everything and everybody was loaded onto a coastal freighter, and hauled by this listing, leaking steamer across the Bay of Bengal to Rangoon, Burma.

      Upon arrival their household goods and servants were transferred to a river boat, and shipped upriver to Chauk. 

      After a week of sightseeing and shopping in Rangoon, my folks, Pinkie and Tulah-Rhum followed in the Buick on the only highway at that time, which roughly paralleled the Irrawaddy River.  Tulah-Rhum helped my dad with the driving, as he had been trained in France by the British Army to drive cars and trucks.

         Rangoon Harbor, Burma.

     Shwedagon Pagoda, Rangoon, Burma.

     Three days and a number of adventures later, they pulled safely into the Burmah Oil Company’s compound at Chauk, and were assigned a bungalow.

     What a let down, dear reader. 

     The countryside wasn’t as lush and green as Digboi’s jungles; the vegetation being more scrub-like despite the wide Irrawaddy flowing through it.  As for the Burmah Oil Company’s compound it appeared sadly neglected; the lanes and gardens being in pretty bad shape, as were The British Club, golf course and bungalows.

     My folk’s bungalow sat on pilings coated in creosote to fight the termites, and had spacious rooms, but instead of a tiled roof, it bore a thatched roof made from bundles of elephant grass.  There was a separate structure in back that housed the kitchen and servant’s quarters, and all of this, plus the badly neglected garden, was enclosed by a ten-foot high bamboo fence as opposed to a well manicured hedge.  By its dilapidated appearance, the place looked as if it hadn’t been lived in for well over a year.  This was not good.  There were over a hundred species of scorpions in this end of the world - the “Indian Red” being the most toxic - not to mention the tons of spiders, centipedes and other poisonous insects, plus mice and rats.  When people moved out, these jungle critters moved right in.  War had to be waged to make the structures safe for human habitation. 

     Right off the bat Pinkie was shipped 137 miles north to Kālaw, a missionary boarding school; the road being so bad it took five and a half hours to drive her there in the Buick.

     Upon returning from this trip, Dad came down with a terrible bought of malaria; requiring Mom and Tulah-Rhum to drive him forty-seven miles downriver to Yenangyaung.  This was another oilfield, but with better infrastructure and a proper hospital.  Since there was no accommodation for her, Mother had to leave Dad there for the next two weeks and return to Chauk.

     Yenangyaung, Burma.

    

     The oil field at Yenangyaung.

     Two days later Mom awoke in her narrow, European-style, single bed - next to my dad’s empty bed - when it abruptly hit her that she was all alone.  For a moment her little world cratered in on her.  To get her mind off this depressive mood, she examined the mosquito net’s cocoon enclosing her bed for tears and holes.  Then she gazed up at the punkah fan, resembling a horizontal tapestry stretched on a frame across the thatched ceiling.  It was at a dead stop.  Mother clapped her hands, and called out, “Punkah-Wallah!”  Slowly the tapestry began to move back and forth...stirring the tepid air in her bedroom.

     Punkah-Wallah.

     The “Punkah-Wallah” was outside, under the bungalow in the shade, sitting with crossed legs - his back against a piling - pulling a chord, with his big toe, powering the punkah fan inside.  This was part of the air-conditioning system.

     The other part was “chics” made of a dried, fibrous plant, similar to hemp, constructed like a curtain outside the window.  Mom heard Kah-Mint, the house boy, start to throw buckets of water on these fibrous curtains.  In time the punkah, moving back and forth, drew air from outside the window through the wet chics...cooling Mother’s bedroom.  Mom told me - when wet - the chics gave off a perfumed odor that was pleasant.

     There followed a knock at my mother’s door.  Mom sat up and called out: “Enter...”

     Tony the cook came in with a tray holding Darjeeling tea, sliced mango, toast, butter and jam; pulling back the mosquito netting, Tony sat the tray on her bed.  Mother thanked him and he left.

     At that point my mother got out of her funk; chiding herself.  Here she was with people waiting on her hand and foot.  What the Devil did she have to bitch about?

     Oh yes, dear reader, here we go again.  Stick around.

     Mom happily wolfed down her breakfast, went into the bathroom, turned on the shower and climbed out her pajamas.  She slipped into the shower - reveling in the cool water cascading over her body - and started soaping herself up as she hummed a Glen Miller tune.

     At length - when she had finished with the soap and started rinsing off - something heavy dropped out of the thatched ceiling above her onto her shoulders and back.  It felt comparable to a coiled fireman’s hose.  As she struggled with it, while getting the hair and soap out of her eyes, and attempted to identify it; a monstrous hiss caused her to immediately focus.  Instinctively she found herself gripping the throat of a Golden Burmese Python; literally coming face-to-face with it!  Mom wisely uncorked a bloodcurdling scream! 

     Bela Lugosi would have been proud of her, dear reader.

     Golden Burmese Python.

     The 19-foot python had its mouth open, and was attempting to sink its teeth into Mother’s shoulder to achieve purchase.  Still gripping the python’s throat with both hands, she kept it from biting her, but at the same moment was giving the huge snake exactly what it wanted: purchase; allowing it to commence wrapping leaden coils about her body.  All at once Mom sensed a coil encircling her neck...and then it squeezed.  She dipped her head and twisted her body; because of the soap and water the thick coil lost its grip and slid off.  Undaunted, the python wrapped more coils round her ribcage and waist, while attempting to get another coil in a choke hold on her neck again.

     And so they turned and twisted, in their macabre dance of death, under the shower’s pelting rain.  Mother’s blonde, white body, struggling inside the muscular golden-white coils of the python; both glistening wetly and brightly in contrast to the dark, moldy bamboo cubicle.  In due course Mom started to run out of breath and strength; her legs and arms trembling badly.

     You have to appreciate, dear reader, that this goddamned python weighed more than my petite mother did, and she was carrying most of it on her shoulders, arms, waist and hips.

     Eventually Mother dropped to her knees.  Despite this she continued to fight, and she stared that python right in the eye - while gasping for breath and keeping its biting end away from her - saying over and over again: “I will not end up python shit...”

     As endless seconds ticked by though, the python proved to be stronger – outlasting her – and finally got a coil around her neck and cinched it up.  Mom began to grey out – her world shrinking to a narrow tunnel – then she fell into this black, bottomless pit.

     By all rights Mother should have copped it right then and there, dear reader, and I shouldn’t have been born.

     After a while my mother opened her eyes and became conscious again.  She was lying on her side as the shower continued pelting her nude body.  She rose up, shook her head and searched for the python.  She was all alone.  Placing her back against the shower’s bamboo wall, Mom drew her legs up into a fetal position, hugged herself and proceeded to sob violently.

     She was far from civilization and without her family, dear reader.  She had every right to lose it.

     At length she pulled herself together, got the hell out of that shower, dried off and dressed.  Then she headed for the servant’s quarters to raise the alarm regarding the python.

     She really needn’t have bothered, dear reader.

     When Mom reached the veranda, she gazed down into the back garden, and encountered Kah-Mint assisting Tulah-Rhum with the skinning of her “shower buddy.”

     The python’s severed head sat on the end of a bamboo stake, with its mouth wide open, still looking as if it wanted to bite someone in the ass.

     Previously, Tulah-Rhum had reached her just as she blacked out in the shower; whacking off the python’s head and pulling it free from my mother’s body.

     During that first year at Chauk, Tulah-Rhum dispatched a variety of thirteen poisonous snakes, along with four constrictors, both inside the bungalow and its garden. 

     As I stated before, dear reader, war had to be waged to reclaim that sadly neglected bungalow. 

     Mother also noted that they seemed to be having an awful lot of “chicken curry” during that first year.

           *     *     *     *     *