The Art of Hearing Heartbeats (10 page)

“You have traveled far and wide, Julia, while I have seldom left our village. And when I did, my road took me no farther than to our little provincial capital, a day’s journey in a horse-drawn cart. My last excursion was many years ago, but you have seen the world. Who am I to contradict you?”

His humility angered me even more.

“If you say it is so,” he continued, “then I will gladly believe that there are no fathers or mothers in your world who cannot love their children, for whatever reasons. Perhaps only stupid, uneducated people behave that way, a further proof of our backwardness, for which I can only beg for your continued forbearance.”

“Of course I didn’t mean that. But for us it’s not about the stars.”

He looked at me and fell silent.

“I didn’t come six thousand miles to hear tales. Where is my father?”

“Please have a bit more patience. This is your father’s story.”

“So you say. Where’s your evidence? If at any time in his life my father had been blind, don’t you think that we, his family, would have heard about it? He would have told us.”

“You are certain.”

He knew I was not.

I told him I had no use for introspection and navel-gazing. I was probably one of the few New Yorkers who had never been to a therapist. I was not the type to go looking for the causes of all my problems in my childhood, and I had no respect for those who did. I reiterated that I could not believe my father had been blind at any time in his life, but the longer I talked, the less I was addressing myself to U Ba. He listened and nodded. It seemed as if he understood exactly what I meant and agreed with me. When I was done, he wanted to know what that was, a therapist.

He took a sip of his tea.

“I fear, Julia, that I must excuse myself for now. I am no longer accustomed to speaking at such great length. I often spend entire days in silence. At my age there is not much left to say. I know that you would like to ask me about Mi Mi, the woman to whom your father wrote. You would like to know who and where she is, and what role she plays in your father’s life and thereby—perhaps—in yours.” He stood up and bowed. “I’ll see you to the street.”

We went to the door. I was a full head taller than he was, but U Ba did not seem small. On the contrary, I was too big. His quick, easy strides left me feeling clumsy and stiff.

“You will find the way to your hotel?”

I nodded.

“If you wish, I can collect you there tomorrow after breakfast and show you my home. We would be undisturbed there. I could show you a few photographs.”

He departed with a bow.

I had turned to walk down the street when I suddenly heard his voice again, behind me. He was whispering. “And your father, Julia, he is here—very near. Do you see him?”

I spun around, but U Ba had disappeared into the darkness.

BACK IN MY
hotel I lay on the bed. I am four or five years old again. My father is sitting on the edge of my bed. The room is painted a light pink. A mobile hangs from the high ceiling—striped bees, black and white. Beside my bed two cases filled with books, puzzles, and games. Across the room a baby carriage in which three dolls lie sleeping. My bed is full of stuffed animals: Hopsy, the yellow rabbit, who brings me chocolate eggs once a year. Dodo, the giraffe, whose long neck I somehow envy. Arika, the chimpanzee who I know, when no one else is around, can walk. Two Dalmatians, a cat, an elephant, three bears, and Winnie-the-Pooh.

Dolores, my favorite doll, is lying in my arms with her scraggly black hair. She’s missing one hand. My brother cut it off to get even with me for something. It’s warm, a mild summer’s evening in New York. My father has opened
the window, and from outside a light breeze blows into the room, setting the bees dancing overhead.

My father has black hair, dark eyes, cinnamon skin, and a prominent nose on which his thick glasses rest. They are round, with black frames; years later I would discover a picture of Gandhi and marvel at the resemblance.

He leans over me, smiles, and takes a deep breath. I hear his voice, a voice that is more than a voice. It sounds like a musical instrument, a violin, a harp. He was never, ever loud. I never heard him yell. His voice could carry and comfort me. It could protect me and put me to sleep. And when it woke me, I woke with a smile. It could calm me like nothing and no one else in the world, even today.

Take the day I lost my balance on my new bicycle in Central Park and cracked my head on a rock. Blood poured from two gaping cuts as if from open faucets. An ambulance took me to the hospital on Seventieth Street. A paramedic bandaged me up, but the blood was leaking through the gauze onto my face and down my neck. I remember the sirens, my mother’s worried expression, and a young doctor with bushy eyebrows. He stitched the cuts, but still the bleeding wouldn’t stop.

Next thing I knew, my father was by my side. I’d heard his voice from the waiting room. He took my hand, stroked my hair, and told me a story. Not a minute had passed before the red stream from my head stopped. As if his voice had settled gently on my wounds, covering and stanching them.

These stories my father told seldom had happy endings. My mother hated them. Cruel and brutal, she said. Aren’t all fairy tales that way? my father asked. Yes, my mother conceded, but yours are confused and bizarre and without any moral and completely unsuitable for children.

But how I loved them—precisely because they were so peculiar, so completely different from any other stories or fables I had heard or read. They were all Burmese, these stories he told, and gave me a rare glimpse into his old life and mysterious past. Maybe that’s why they fascinated me so.

“The Tale of the Prince, the Princess, and the Crocodile” was my favorite. My father told and retold it until I knew every sentence, every word, every pause, every inflection by heart.

Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess. The princess lived on the bank of a great river. She lived with her mother and her father, the queen and the king, in an old palace. It had thick, high walls behind which everything was cold and dark and quiet. She had neither brothers nor sisters and was very lonely at court. Her parents spoke nary a word with their daughter. Her servants only ever said “Yes, Your Majesty” or “No, Your Majesty.” In the whole palace there was no one to talk to or play with. She was terribly bored, and filled with longing. With time she came to be a lonesome and sad princess indeed, who could not even recall the last time she laughed. At times she wondered if she had forgotten how. Then she would look into a mirror
and try to smile. She twisted her face into a grimace. It was not even funny. When she grew altogether too sad to bear it, she would walk down to the river. There she would sit in the shade of a fig tree, listening to the rushing current and hearkening to the birds and the cicadas. She loved the thousands of little stars the sunlight sprinkled on the waves. Then her spirits would rise a little, and she would dream of a friend who might make her laugh.

On the opposite bank of the same river lived a king notorious throughout his realm for his severity. Not one of his subjects ever dared to be idle or to daydream. The farmers toiled stalwartly in their fields; the craftsmen labored unswervingly in their workshops. And so that he might know whether all his subjects were truly hard at work, the king dispatched his inspectors throughout the land. Anyone found sitting down on the job caught ten swift strokes of the bamboo cane. Nor was the king’s son in any way exempt. The prince had to study from morning till night, day after day. The king summoned to his court the most revered scholars in the whole country to instruct him. He intended to make of his son the cleverest prince that ever there was.

But one day the young prince managed to slip away from the palace. He leapt up on his charger and rode down to the river, where he beheld the princess sitting on the opposite shore. She had tucked yellow blossoms into her long black hair. He had never seen a more beautiful girl and was immediately consumed by a single desire: to get across that river.

Now, there was neither bridge nor ferry to cross that torrent. Indeed, the two kings, harboring great enmity for each other, had forbidden their subjects to set foot in each other’s realms. Anyone who disregarded the ban paid with his life. Moreover, the river swarmed with crocodiles just waiting for a fisherman or farmer to venture in.

The prince first thought to swim across, but hardly was the water up to his knees when there came the crocodiles, wide mouths agape. The prince reached the bank only just in time. If he could not speak with the princess, though, he could at least watch her.

Henceforth he returned secretly to the river every day, where he settled himself on a rock and gazed, full of longing, across to the princess. So weeks passed and months until finally, one day, one of the crocodiles swam up to him.

“I have been watching you for a long time, my dear prince,” it said. “I know how unhappy you are, and I have taken pity on you. I would like to help you.”

“But how can you help me?” inquired the prince, astonished.

“Climb onto my back, and I will carry you to the opposite bank.”

The prince looked warily at the crocodile.

“It’s a trick,” he said. “You crocodiles are voracious and ravenous. You have never yet let a person out of the water alive.”

“Not all crocodiles are alike,” replied the crocodile. “Trust me.”

The prince hesitated.

“Trust me,” the crocodile said again.

The prince had no choice. If he wanted to reach the beautiful princess, he would have to trust the crocodile. He climbed up on its back, and it brought him, as promised, to the opposite bank.

The princess could not believe her eyes when the prince was suddenly standing before her. She herself had often observed the prince and secretly hoped he would eventually find his way across. The prince was embarrassed and did not know what to say. He stuttered, muddling every sentence, and soon the two could not help laughing. And the princess laughed as she had not laughed in a long, long time. When the hour came for the prince to leave, she grew very sad and implored him to stay.

“I cannot,” said he. “Great will be my father’s wrath if he learns I have been with you. He would be sure to lock me up, and I would never again be able to come to the river alone. But I promise you I’ll return.”

The kindly crocodile carried the prince back across the river.

The next day the princess waited, again full of longing. She had all but given up hope when she caught sight of the prince on his white steed. The crocodile was there, too, offering its faithful services. From that day on, the prince and the princess met every day.

The other crocodiles were furious. One day, in the middle of the river, they barred the crocodile and the
prince’s way. “Give him to us, give him to us!” they cried, stretching their mouths wide and snapping at the prince.

“Leave us in peace,” the great crocodile roared, swimming down the river as fast as it could. But after only a short while it was surrounded by the others. “Crawl into my mouth,” the crocodile cried to its human friend. “You will be safe there.” It opened its mouth as wide as it could, and the prince scrambled in. Not for one moment did the other animals let those two out of sight. Wherever they swam, the others followed, waiting and waiting. The prince would eventually have to emerge, after all. But the kindly crocodile was patient, and after several hours the others finally gave up and swam away. The crocodile crawled back to the bank and opened its mouth. The prince did not move. The crocodile shook itself and cried: “My friend, my friend, run ashore, run, as fast as you can.”

Still the prince did not move.

Then the princess, too, called from the opposite shore: “My dear prince, please, come out.”

But it was no use, for the prince was dead. He had suffocated in his friend’s mouth.

When the princess realized what had happened, she, too, sank to the ground, and perished of a broken heart.

The two kings decided independently not to bury their children but to burn them on the riverbank. As chance would have it, the two ceremonies fell on the same day, at
the same hour. The kings cursed and threatened one another, each blaming the other for the death of his child.

It was not long before the flames were roaring and the two corpses were ablaze. All at once the fires began to smolder. It was a windless day, and two great, mighty columns of smoke climbed straight up to heaven. And suddenly it grew quite still. The fires ceased their crackling, burning on without a sound. The river ceased its chortling and gurgling. Even the kings fell silent.

Then the animals began to sing. First the crocodiles.

But crocodiles can’t sing, I object at this point every evening.

Sure they can, answers my father very quietly. Crocodiles sing, if only you let them. You just have to be quiet to hear them.

And elephants, too?

Elephants, too.

And who sang next?

The snakes and the lizards. The dogs sang, then the cats, the lions, and the leopards. The elephants joined in, the horses and the apes. And of course the birds. The animals sang in chorus, more beautifully, in fact, than they had ever sung before, and suddenly, no one knew why, the two columns of smoke drifted slowly toward each other. The louder and clearer the animals’ song, the closer the columns drew, until at last they embraced each other and became one, as only lovers can.