Hasina: Through My Eyes Read online

  TITLES IN THIS SERIES

  Shahana (Kashmir)

  Amina (Somalia)

  Naveed (Afghanistan)

  Emilio (Mexico)

  Malini (Sri Lanka)

  Zafir (Syria)

  Hasina (Myanmar)

  This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.

  First published by Allen & Unwin in 2019

  Text © Michelle Aung Thin 2019

  Series concept © Series Creator and Series Editor: Lyn White 2019

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or ten per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

  Allen & Unwin

  83 Alexander Street

  Crows Nest NSW 2065

  Australia

  Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

  Email: [email protected]

  Web: www.allenandunwin.com

  ISBN 978 1 76063 728 6

  eISBN 978 1 76087 179 6

  For teaching resources, explore www.allenandunwin.com/resources/for-teachers

  Cover design concept by Bruno Herfst & Vincent Agostino

  Cover design by Sandra Nobes

  Cover photos: portrait by Julian Shnider; sunrise in Rakhine State by Pravit Unphet/Shutterstock

  Text design by Bruno Herfst & Vincent Agostino

  Map of Myanmar by Guy Holt

  Set by Midland Typesetters, Australia

  To the real Hasina,

  who fled for her life to

  the Myanmar/Bangladesh border

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Author’s note

  Timeline

  Glossary

  Find out more about …

  Acknowledgements

  Through My Eyes Books

  Myanmar is often still referred to by its former name, Burma. In this book, we use Burma to refer to the country prior to 1989. We use Myanmar to refer to the country after 1989. We use Burmese and Myanmar to refer to peoples and language of Myanmar throughout this story.

  Chapter 1

  Hasina has never heard anything like this strange sound coming from the sky. Tocata tocata tocata. It reminds her of her mother’s old sewing machine. But instead of coming from another room, it is coming from above.

  She stands in the middle of her family’s vegetable garden, blinking her dark eyes against the November sun, looking for the source of that sound.

  Tocata tocata tocata.

  The sound has distracted her from a particularly juicy geometry problem. She was pulled to the window of her home schoolroom and then out of the door and into the garden, the length of the right-angled triangle’s hypotenuse left unsolved on the desk behind her.

  Hasina isn’t the only one drawn by the sound. Araf, her six-year-old brother, was the first outside, racing ahead of everyone. In fact, all the pupils at her Aunt Rukiah’s makeshift homeschool – Tara from the end of her road, Aman and Rosie from the next street over – are staring upwards, while the ducks and geese that roam the garden rush about their legs. All of them have left the madrassa, the schoolroom with its shady thatch roof and woven bamboo walls that catch every breeze, to stand out here in the blistering sun. Even Aunt Rukiah has been lured outside.

  ‘What is it, Hina?’ Araf demands. ‘Is it nagars?’

  Hasina smiles.

  ‘No, Araf,’ scoffs their cousin Ghadiya as she limps towards them, the last one out of the madrassa. ‘It is not dragons. Dragons are not real.’

  ‘Are too,’ Araf mutters under his breath.

  ‘Maybe it is a plane?’ guesses wide-eyed Tara, fourteen years old like Hasina.

  Hasina has heard the planes flying over her town of Teknadaung twice a week, from Sittwe, the capital. No plane has ever sounded like this.

  ‘No,’ Ghadiya corrects Tara. Ghadiya is just thirteen, but her tone is superior. ‘Not a plane either.’

  Tocata tocata tocata. Like a needle going in and out of the cloth. A sewing machine in the sky. Except Hasina hasn’t heard a sewing machine for nearly four years, not since the electricity was cut. Now her mother only sews by hand.

  Hasina holds up her hand to shade her eyes against the late morning sun. That is when she sees them pop into view from the north. Eight bird-like creatures.

  ‘There!’ Hasina cries, pointing towards the eight dots. ‘I see them.’

  ‘Where?’ shouts Araf. ‘Where?’

  Hasina pulls him around in front of her and, bending low, rests her arm on her little brother’s shoulder. She makes a square shape with both her hands, framing the eight birds. ‘Look along my arm.’

  Araf does, pointing his own fingers too. ‘I see them,’ he squeals. ‘I see the – the birds?’

  ‘No, not birds either.’ Ghadiya’s voice is wary now.

  ‘What are they then?’ Araf demands.

  ‘Helicopters,’ Ghadiya says. It sounds like a warning.

  Hasina shoots her cousin a surprised glance. Even though Ghadiya and Aunt Rukiah have lived with Hasina’s family for years now, there are still things about Ghadiya that Hasina doesn’t know. How does she recognise these dots as helicopters?

  ‘Mama …’ Ghadiya’s voice is a little wobbly, and Hasina sees that her face is pale. ‘Helicopters.’ She limps over to stand close by Aunt Rukiah, who puts an arm around her shoulders.

  Hasina swings her gaze back to the eight dots, which are growing larger and larger. They are coming from over the Arakan mountains that wall off Rakhine from the rest of Myanmar. They seem to be headed south towards the ocean, the big turquoise Bay of Bengal. Why would they head out over the water? Is there a cyclone coming? When Hasina was little, Cyclone Nargis flattened parts of Teknadaung. She remembers how the terrifying winds howled and the sky went dark. But this morning the sky is clear.

  ‘Toca toca toca,’ Araf shouts, imitating the sound.

  ‘Time to go back inside, everyone.’ Aunt Rukiah’s voice has an edge of fear to it.

  But none of them move. Hasina doesn’t think she can move. The birds are too mesmerising. It’s the sound they make, the rhythm of it. Their metallic gleam. Araf is right. They are like the nagar, the mythological dragons from her grandmother’s stories.

  A nagar comes whenever the world is about to change. Is the world about to change?

  And just as this thought rises in Hasina’s brain, the eight birds do another strange thing. Something Hasina has never seen birds do before, except one: the hawk.

  The birds turn s
harply and suddenly. They do this as one, keeping their formation the whole time. Sunlight flashes from their rotors as they change direction. They are not heading for the ocean anymore. Instead, they are heading directly for Teknadaung. In fact, it feels like they are coming straight for Eight Quarters, her neighbourhood. For Third Mile Street. Her street.

  And instead of flying high, they are dropping low. All eight birds move in perfect unison. All of them swoop like the hawk does when it takes a mouse.

  Are they coming for her?

  Closer and closer. Louder and louder. They don’t sound like sewing machines anymore. They sound like a cyclone roaring onto land. The rhythmic toca toca toca becomes a wop wop wop so loud, so strong, that Hasina can feel it like she can feel her heart pounding inside her body.

  Suddenly, Ghadiya screams, ‘Mama, they’re green. They’re Sit Tat.’

  Sit Tat. The name for the Myanmar Army. A word to send chills down the spine.

  ‘Inside!’ Aunt Rukiah roars, her voice jagged with panic. ‘Now!’

  Tara, Aman and Rosie turn and race for the madrassa. Aunt Rukiah sweeps Ghadiya under one arm and Araf under the other and drags them inside. The ducks and geese scatter.

  But Hasina cannot move.

  Hasina wants to run too. She wants to take shelter before the helicopters reach her house. But the sound pins her to the ground, the wop wop wop pressing down on her. She is paralysed like the mouse when it feels the shadow of the hawk’s wing.

  ‘Hasina, run. Run!’

  Closer and closer, lower and lower the helicopters come. Her head feels like it will burst with the din. Each sweep of the rotors surges in her chest. She clamps her hands over her ears. Around her, the air begins to swirl.

  From inside the madrassa, Araf and Ghadiya are still calling to her. She sees their mouths opening and closing. Run, they are shouting, run!

  But she can’t.

  And just as she is sure she will be crushed by those massive rotors, the image of an empty soccer net pops into her head. And into the net flies a soccer ball. Right into the back corner.

  A perfect shot.

  Hasina has made exactly such shots herself … lined them up almost without looking. Imagined the ball into the net so that all she had to do was be part of the movement, swing her foot to the ball and the ball into space.

  Doors are rectangular, just like a soccer net.

  And now she knows what she must do. Aim, shoot and hope.

  The first of the birds nose low over the garden as Hasina finds her legs again. Dust stings her eyes as she half-runs, half-scrambles, then launches herself towards the madrassa door, helicopters thundering overhead.

  Chapter 2

  ‘Hasina! What were you thinking?’

  Hasina’s breath comes in rough gasps. She is flat on her belly, arms spread in front of her. Every bit of her aches from smashing into the hard-packed dirt floor. Outside, the helicopters continue to clatter past.

  ‘I said run.’ Aunt Rukiah’s face is furious as she pulls her niece from the ground. ‘Why didn’t you run?’

  How can she explain the way the wop wop wop pinned her to the ground when she doesn’t understand it herself? ‘I’m sorry, Aunty.’

  Aunt Rukiah’s hands shake as she brushes the dirt from Hasina’s bazu and htamein, cotton top and wraparound skirt. ‘You don’t mess with Sit Tat.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘You don’t know what they are capable of.’ Her aunt’s harsh tone sounds closer to tearful now. ‘I know what they are capable of.’

  Hasina has heard Rukiah’s stories before. They begin with Sit Tat or Buddhist thugs or crooked police. They end abruptly with her aunt sobbing or ranting.

  ‘I’m so sorry, maja-fu.’

  Aunt Rukiah pauses at the respectful term. The anger melts from her face as she tidies Hasina’s long wavy hair back into a plait. ‘I am glad you are safe. Don’t scare me like that again.’

  Aunt Rukiah and Ghadiya fled from the south of Rakhine province during the riots four years ago. Hasina doesn’t really understand what the riots were about, just that the Buddhist Arakanese were angry with her people. All she knows is that when Aunt Rukiah, her maja-fu or father’s sister, and Ghadiya came, it was without possessions. Almost everything they owned had been left behind. They came on foot, despite Ghadiya’s limp, an injury from when she was born. They came without permits. Unlike any other of the groups who live in Rakhine – such as the Arakanese – Rohingya aren’t allowed national registration cards and need special permits to travel. Worst of all, they came without Ghadiya’s father, Rashid.

  Hasina’s cousin and aunt rarely speak about what they saw on that terrible journey. Or how they were separated from Uncle Rashid. But Hasina has her suspicions. She shares her bedroom with her cousin and has heard Ghadiya’s nightmares, how her cousin calls out about men pounding at the door, and waves rising. Was it on that dangerous journey that Ghadiya learned about helicopters?

  The madrassa is dark after the intensity of the light outside, and Hasina still feels her eyes adjusting. Araf is at the window with the others, watching the helicopters pass. Ghadiya stands alone in the shadows of the room, her amber eyes wide in her round face as she listens to the sounds from the sky. Hasina can see the fingers of her right hand moving, as if she is counting the birds going past. Or maybe she is just willing them to go back over the mountains.

  In her grandmother’s stories, those rugged hills, covered with thick, emerald forest full of tigers and elephants, divide Rakhine from the rest of the country, so it feels like a land all of its own. Long ago, this was the kingdom of Arakan, an enchanted land according to her grandmother. Many of the people who live here feel it ought to be a kingdom once again, separate from Myanmar. Some of them, the Arakanese Army, are prepared to fight for this kingdom.

  The Rohingya, Hasina’s people, have also lived here for hundreds of years. That is the thing about this country, Hasina thinks; there are so many different types of people – Rohingya, Arakanese, Burmese, Mro, Shan, Kayan, to name just a few.

  But these birds are not part of any enchanted tale.

  ‘Heliwopters,’ shouts Araf. ‘Wop wop wop wop wop.’

  Tara turns from the window. ‘Are they going away, Saya?’ she asks, using the respectful term for teacher.

  Aunt Rukiah’s face is still pale. ‘I am not sure, Tara.’

  ‘Saya, will we be able to go home soon?’ asks Rosie.

  School was usually over after Dhurh, the second prayers of the day just before lunch. It must be well past Dhurh now, Hasina thinks.

  At least the wop wop wop is definitely fading.

  ‘They’re gone,’ Ghadiya announces to everyone, suddenly pushing away from her dark corner. She limps close to her mother and takes her by the hand. ‘And they won’t be back, Mama.’

  Her cousin seems very sure about the helicopters leaving. Hasina watches the way her aunt’s face softens with relief, how she nods to Ghadiya as if they are equals rather than mother and daughter. As if some secret knowledge is passing between them. If Ghadiya says the birds have gone, then as far as Aunt Rukiah is concerned, they have gone.

  Hasina knows only too well that the violence four years ago touched every Rohingya family in Rakhine State. Cousins, uncles, grandchildren had to run away and were now scattered across the world. Many boarded leaky boats to Malaysia and Australia, and some have never been heard from again. Maybe they had died when those leaky boats capsized at sea. Others slipped overland across the border into Thailand, hoping they wouldn’t be caught by army patrols or police. Others ended up in the internal displacement camps at Sittwe, Rakhine’s capital. Others, like her aunt and cousin, travelled secretly to family in the north.

  Even families like hers, here in the north where the Rohingya are in the majority, have been affected by the conflict her aunt calls the Arakanese War. First, the electricity, water and gas were cut off. Then schools were closed or started charging such high fees to Muslims that even ric
h families could not afford to send their children any longer.

  The violence has touched her family in other ways too. The changes in Hasina’s own mother, Nurzamal, for example. Hasina remembers when she was little how her mother used to laugh, her large dark eyes dancing with light. She even recalls her mother stopping on their way to the family paddy field so that Hasina could practise dribbling her soccer ball on the open area by the Farak River. Now, Nurzamal is obsessed about doing things the right way. First, it was ‘don’t play soccer’. Then it was ‘Hasina, be more modest. There are rules for Rohingya girls’. As if following rules more closely was the only way to keep safe. Even though all around them, it seemed the rules kept changing. And the more they changed, the less her mother seemed to want to hold Hasina or brush her hair or just laugh with her. Lately, Nurzamal has been talking about finding a husband for Hasina, someone to take care of her. To Hasina’s relief, her grandmother Asmah refuses to even consider such a plan, although this makes Hasina sad too – it hurts to see her mother and her grandmother disagree.

  Aunt Rukiah lets go of Ghadiya’s hand. She turns to Tara, Aman and Rosie. ‘School is over. It is safe to go home now.’ The three girls hastily gather up their books and head for the door. ‘Just make sure you finish your geometry before tomorrow,’ Aunt Rukiah calls after them.

  Hasina follows her friends into the garden. ‘Bye.’ She waves. ‘Goodbye,’ Tara calls back as she dashes through the gate.

  Hasina squints up into the blue. The eight helicopters are dots on the opposite horizon now, well past the Farak River that divides Teknadaung in two. She has to listen hard to hear that toca toca toca. She cannot help but wonder where they are heading. She steps further out into the garden for a better view when a sharp voice makes her jump.

  ‘Hasina! Back inside at once.’ Nurzamal hurries from the kitchen, which is separate from the main house, and across the yard towards the madrassa. Her face is stern.

  ‘Yes, Mama,’ Hasina replies.

  She turns and follows her mother into the madrassa.

  ‘Mama,’ Araf shouts, hurtling towards Nurzamal, who gathers him into her arms. Hasina’s heart falls. How she would love to be gathered up in her mother’s arms again, to breathe in her scent of kohl and clove and sandalwood.