Her looks were the sort that made you sit up and take notice. I’d already taken notice, and now I sat up. I must have winced, because she asked me what was the matter.

“My shoulder,” I said. “I hurt it in a fall.”

“A long time ago?”

“About an hour.”

She came closer, set my backpack on the floor, and sat on the cane chair. She said, “Do you have anything to drink?”

“No.”

“It would probably do you good.”

“It generally does,” I said.

She took a breath. “That is one reason I came here,” she said. “I was at my window when you came into the hotel. I thought you might have some whiskey.”

“I wish I did.”

“Yes, I wish it, too.”

“I might have bought a bottle,” I said, “but I didn’t see it for sale anywhere.”

“Buddhists,” she said.

“They don’t prohibit alcohol, do they?”

“They discourage drunkenness,” she said. “The Fifth Precept is opposed to intoxication.”

“Well, so am I,” I said, “but that doesn’t mean I don’t like a drink now and then.”

“They sell whiskey in the big hotels,” she said. “But not in a place like this. And it is very expensive.”

“I see.”

“What is your name?”

“Evan.”

“Evan. It’s American?”

“Well, the name is Welsh originally, the Welsh equivalent of John. Like Ian in Scottish, or Ivan in Russian.”

“Evan. My name is Katya.”

“Russian?”

“The name is Russian. I am – I don’t know what I am. So many different things. Katya is a diminutive.”

“For Katerina.”

“Yes. In English it would be Katherine. What would you say for short, Kathy?”

“Or Kitty,” I said. “Or Kate.”

“Kate,” she said, trying it out. “That is so quick, is it not? So sudden, like fingers snapping. Kate. It is almost harsh.”

“Katya is a pretty name.”

“Maybe you’ll call me Kate. Maybe I like it. I don’t know.” Her forehead darkened. “Or maybe you will not call me anything at all because you want me to go.”

“No,” I said. “I don’t want you to go.”

“If we had some whiskey,” she said, “we could go to my room and drink it. My room is larger than yours.”

“Almost anything would be.”

“And not so barren. There are some pictures on the walls, a bit of rug on the floor.”

“It sounds cheerful.”

“No,” she said, “it is not cheerful. It is sad, like everything in this place. But it is a little better than this. Evan, could you give me some money? I will go buy whiskey.”

“Where will you go?”

“There is a night market a few hundred meters from here. They sell whiskey at one of the stalls, but you have to know to ask for it. It is not very good whiskey. It is made in Burma, so how good could it be? But it is whiskey.”

“How much is it?”

“Six hundred kyat. Five dollars if you pay in hard currency. I am not trying to cheat you, Evan.”

“I didn’t think-”

“Of course you did. A woman comes into your room and asks you for money, what else are you to think? But I am not after your money. You are welcome to come with me to the market. But I do not think you wish to leave the hotel. I saw your face when you crossed the street, and I sensed that tonight you do not care to be where people can see you.”

“Well,” I said, “you’re right about that.”

“Come to my room, Evan. I will look at your shoulder. And you can rest while I go for the whiskey. You will be more comfortable there than here.”

I sat on her bed and looked out the window, and I watched as she left the hotel and walked purposefully down the street. She turned at the corner and disappeared from view.

Her room was nicer than mine, just as she’d said. It was larger, and the bed was wider and the mattress thicker. She’d taped some pictures cut from magazines on the green-gray walls, and there was indeed a scrap of worn carpet on the floor. There were two chairs instead of one, and a small chest of drawers that held her neatly folded blouses and longyis. There was no closet, but a row of pegs on the far wall held other garments, and several pairs of shoes and sandals were lined up beneath them.

I was turning the pages of a year-old copy of Paris Match when the door opened and she burst in, carrying a bottle wrapped in a sheet of newsprint. She unwrapped it, a flattened one-liter bottle, and filled the two glasses from on top of the dresser.

“Ayet piu,” she said, handing me one. I thought that was the local equivalent of s Cheers! or Prosit! or Here’s mud in your eye!, but it turned out to be the name of what we were drinking. The name meant white liquor, and when I’d had much the same thing ages ago at a Macedonian get-together in Tennessee, they’d called it White Mule. In the west of Ireland it’s poteen, and other cultures call it other things, but whatever you call it, it tastes like fusel oil and kicks like, well, like a white mule.

“Ayet piu,” I said, even if it wasn’t a toast, and we both drank. “Piu,” I said, and shuddered. I wasn’t repeating the last name of the stuff, either. I was giving my considered opinion of its bouquet and flavor.

“It is terrible,” she agreed. “But it performs the task.”

“Performs the… oh, right. It gets the job done.”

And I have to say it did. As warm as it was in Rangoon – and it hadn’t cooled off much in the evening, either – I’d been starting to feel the chill that never entirely left my bones. But the ayet piu got right in there and fought the good fight. It smelled foul and tasted worse, but it got the job done.

I was working on my second glass of the stuff when Katya sat next to me and told me to take my shirt off. She clucked with concern when she saw my shoulder, and I could see why. It was already turning an interesting color. Her fingers probed the sore spots, and she didn’t have to press hard to make me cry out.

“How did you do this, Evan?”

“I was getting out of a car.”

“You said you fell.”

“It was more of a dive,” I said. “I went through the window.”

“Were you cut? Was it a bad accident?”

“It was the side window,” I said, “and it was open.” And I added a few words of explanation, without getting around to the question of why I’d thought it a good thing to leave a car in such an unorthodox fashion.

“But it’s just a bruise,” I said. “It’ll look bad tomorrow and worse the next day, but then it’ll start getting better.”

“I envy you,” she said.

“Why?”

“Because in two days you will start getting better. Days and weeks and months pass, and it never gets better for me.”

“What’s the matter, Katya?”

“What is the matter? I am in Rangoon.”

“I guess you’re not thrilled to be here.”

“I hate it,” she said.

“Why do you stay?”

“I stay because I can’t leave. To leave one needs papers. A passport, a visa to enter another country. One needs money for a ticket. I have none of these things. Christ, I had to beg you for five dollars for a bottle of bad whiskey.”

“It’s not that bad,” I said. “I’m starting to like it.”

“Well, I am not starting to like Rangoon. Or this – this castle I live in.” She extended a hand. “Look at it. I brought you upstairs because it is nicer than your room. But your room was just to sleep in. I live here, day after day after day. Look!”

“How long have you been here, Katya?”

“Forever.”

“That long,” I said.

“I do not even know how long,” she said. “I would have to count the months. What does it matter, Evan? You don’t want to hear my story, do you?”

“Why not?”

“It is not so interesting,” she said. “And my English is not so good, I am thinking.”

“Your English is just fine,” I said. “But what’s the easiest language for you to tell it in?”

“I suppose Russian. But it is not so good Russian, I am thinking. I have never been to Russia, so how do I know if it is good?”

In Russian I said, “Why don’t you tell me your story, Katya?”