The Piano Tuner (14 page)

But in that moment, in the stillness of the day, as he
stands before the scene, he doesn’t move. The boy, the mother, the quiet
hush of branches, swayed by a sweet wind that swept over the stillness and the
screams. They stand, he and the other pale men. They watch the scene below
them, the mother shaking the little body, kissing it, running her bloodied
hands over his face, over her face, wailing in an unearthly tone which is both
so foreign and so familiar. Until at his side there is a rustling, flashes of
other women who rush in, falling by the mother, pulling her back from the boy.
Her body tenses forward, against gravity, a canceling of forces. A man at his
side, his face washed out in the sun, takes a step backward, staggers briefly,
balancing himself against the ground with the butt of his rifle.

That
night he awakes many times, disoriented. It will be two days before he
collapses in the rose garden, but he feels already that a tear has begun,
irreparable, like bits of paint lost as dust to the wind in the ripping of a
canvas. It has changed everything, he thinks, This is not part of my plan, my
contract, my commission. He remembers writing to Katherine when he first
reached Burma that he couldn’t believe he had arrived, that he was really
away. A letter that now probably sits on a mail train speeding toward home. And
I alone in Rangoon.

8

T
wo days later, Edgar received a message from the War Office.
They had secured an extra berth on a teak ship with the Irrawaddy Flotilla
Company. The boat would depart from the docks at Prome in two days. He would
leave for Prome on the train; the trip to Mandalay would take seven
days.

In his four days in Rangoon, he had hardly unpacked. Since the
hunt, he had stayed in his room, leaving only when called upon by various
officials, or occasionally to wander the streets. The bureaucracy of the
colonial operation astounded him. Following the shooting, he had been
subpoenaed to sign testimonies at the Departments of Civil and Criminal
Justice, the Police Office, the Department for Village Administration, the
Medical Department, even the Department of Forests (because, as the subpoena
stated, “the accident occurred in the act of wild game control”).
At first he was surprised that the event was even reported. He knew that if all
the men had agreed, it could easily have been covered up; the villagers would
never have found a way to complain, and even if they did, it was unlikely that
they would have been believed, and even if they had been, it was unlikely that
the officers would be disciplined.

Yet everyone, including
Witherspoon, insisted on reporting the incident. Witherspoon accepted a minor
fine, to be distributed to the victim’s family, along with army funds set
aside for such compensation. It all
seems
remarkably civil, Edgar
wrote to Katherine, Perhaps this is evidence of the positive influence of
British institutions, despite the occasional aberrance of hasty British
soldiers. Or perhaps, he wrote a day later, after signing his seventh
testimony, this is all merely a salve, a tried and effective method of dealing
with such terror, to absolve something deeper, The afternoon is already
blurring behind the screen of bureaucracy.

Witherspoon and Fogg left
for Pegu as soon as the paperwork was completed, arriving on time to relieve a
pair of officers who were returning to Calcutta with their regiments. Edgar
didn’t say good-bye. Although he had wanted to place the blame for the
incident on Witherspoon, he couldn’t. For if Witherspoon had been hasty,
he had only been two seconds hastier than the rest of them, all of whom shared
the bloodlust of the hunt. Yet each time Edgar saw him after the accident,
whether at meals or in government offices, he couldn’t suppress the
memory of the rifle raised against the heavy jowl, the beads of sweat running
down the back of the sunburnt neck.

As he had avoided Witherspoon,
Edgar avoided Captain Dalton as well. On the night before his departure, a
messenger brought an invitation from Dalton, once again inviting him to the
Pegu Club. He declined politely, excusing himself as too tired. In truth, he
wanted to see Dalton, to thank him for his hospitality, to tell him that he
held no anger toward him. Yet the thought of reliving the incident terrified
him, and he felt that all that he shared with the Captain now was that moment
of horror, and to see him would be to relive it. So he refused the invitation,
and the Captain didn’t call again, and although Edgar told himself that
he could always visit the Captain when he came back through Rangoon, he knew
that he wouldn’t.

On the morning of his departure, he was met at
his door by a carriage, which took him to the railway station, where he boarded
a train for Prome. While the train was being loaded, he stared out over the
bustling of the platform. Down below he saw a group of small boys kicking a
coconut husk. His fingers reflexively fingered a single coin that he held in
his pocket, that he had kept since the hunt: a symbol of responsibility, of
misplaced munificence, a reminder of mistakes, and so a talisman.

In
the chaos of mourning, when all had left, carrying the boy, Edgar had seen the
coin lying on the ground, tipped in the dusty imprint of the boy’s body.
He had assumed that it had been overlooked, and he picked it up simply because
it was the boy’s and it didn’t seem right for it to be lost at the
edge of the forest. He didn’t know that this was a mistake, that it had
been neither forgotten nor missed: in the sunlight it glinted like gold, and
every child eyed it and wanted it. But what the children knew, and he
didn’t understand, he could have learned from any porter who loaded
crates onto the train below. The most powerful talismans, they would have told
him, are those that are inherited, and with such talismans, the fortune is
inherited as well.

In Prome he was met by the staff of
a district army officer, who took him to the docks. There he boarded a small
steamer of the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company, whose engines had already begun to
turn by the time he boarded. He was shown to his berth, with a view of the left
bank of the river. It was small but clean, and his apprehension about the trip
was assuaged. As he unpacked, he felt the steamer push away from the shore, and
he walked to the window to watch the banks disappear. Still thinking of the
tiger hunt, he had noticed little in Prome, only some crumbling ruins and a
bustling market by the port. Now, on the river, he felt a lightening, a
separation from the hot, crowded streets of Rangoon, of the delta, from the
boy’s death. He climbed to the deck. There were several other passengers,
some soldiers, an older couple from Italy who told him they had come
sightseeing. All new faces, none of whom knew of the accident, and he vowed to
put the experience behind him and leave it on the muddy banks.

There
was little to the view from the center of the river, so he joined the soldiers
in a game of cards. At first he had been hesitant to meet them, remembering the
haughtiness of many of the officers he had met on the ship from Marseilles. But
these were enlisted men, and when they saw he was alone, they invited him to
play, and in exchange, he entertained them with news about the football
leagues; even month-old news was fresh in Burma. He knew little about the
sport, really, but he had tuned the piano of a London club owner and been given
free tickets to some matches. On Katherine’s suggestion, before he had
left, he had memorized some scores to, in her words, “facilitate
conversation and meeting people.” He reveled in the attention, and in the
soldiers’ enthusiasm for the news. They drank gin together and laughed
and proclaimed Edgar Drake a fine chap, and he thought how happy these young
men were, And yet they too must have seen terror, but here are content with
stories of two-month-old football matches. And he drank more gin, laced with
tonic water, which the soldiers joked was “prescribed by the
doctor,” for the quinine in the tonic fought the ague.

That night
he had his first good sleep in days, heavy and dreamless, and he awoke long
after the sun had risen with a heavy headache from the gin. The banks were
still distant, with little relief from the wooded shore other than scattered
pagodas. And so he joined another card game, and treated the soldiers to
several more rounds of gin.

They drank and played for three days, and
when he had repeated the football scores so many times that even the drunkest
soldier could recite them, he sat back and listened to them tell stories of
Burma. One of the soldiers had been at the battle for Minhla Fort during the
Third War, and he recounted the advance through the mist and the fierce
resistance of the Burmese. Another had served on a mission in the Shan States
in the territory of the warlord Twet Nga Lu and he told his story, and to this
Edgar listened carefully for he had heard the name of the brigand many times.
And he asked the soldier, Have you ever seen Twet Nga Lu? He hadn’t, they
had marched days through the jungle and everywhere found evidence they were
being followed, dead fires, shapes shifting in the trees. But they were never
attacked, and returned with neither defeat nor conquest; land claimed without
witnesses is never land truly claimed.

Edgar asked the soldier more
questions, Had anyone ever seen Twet Nga Lu? How far did his territory extend?
Were rumors of his ferocity true? To these the soldier answered that the
warlord remained elusive, and sent only messengers, and that few had ever seen
him, not even Mr. Scott, the political administrator to the Shan States, whose
success at forming friendships with tribes such as the Kachins was legendary.
And yes, rumors of his ferocity were true, the soldier had seen with his very
own eyes men crucified on mountaintops, nailed side by side to rows of timber
X’s. As to the extent of his territory, no one knew. There were reports
that he had been driven deep into the hills, beaten back by the
sawbwa
of Mongnai, whose throne he had usurped. But many felt this loss of
territory was insignificant; he was so feared for his supernatural powers, for
his tattoos and charms, for the talismans he wore beneath his skin.

Finally, when the bottle of gin drew near empty, the soldier stopped
speaking and asked why the good man wanted to know so much about Twet Nga Lu.
The heady feeling of camaraderie and acceptance overrode concerns of
confidentiality, and Edgar told them that he had come to tune the piano of a
certain Surgeon-Major named Carroll.

At the sound of the Doctor’s
name, the other men, who had been playing cards, stopped and stared at the
piano tuner.

“Carroll?” shouted one in a rough Scottish
accent. “Bloody hell, did I just hear the name Carroll?”

“Yes, why?” asked Edgar, surprised by the outburst.

“Why?” the Scotsman laughed, and turned to his comrades.
“You hear this, we have been on this boat for three bloody days, begging
this chap for football scores, and today he tells us he is friends with the
Doctor himself.” They all laughed and exchanged a clinking of
glasses.

“Well, not a friend, well, … yet …
,” corrected Edgar. “But I don’t understand. Why all the
excitement? Do you know him?”

“Know him?” guffawed
the soldier. “The man is as legendary as Twet Nga Lu. Hell, the
man’s as legendary as the Queen.” More clinking of glasses, more
gin.

“Really?” asked Edgar, leaning forward. “I
didn’t think he was so … notorious. Maybe some of the officers
knew of him, but I perceive many of them aren’t so fond of
him.”

“Because he is so bloody competent compared to them.
A true Man of Action. Of course they don’t like him.” Laughter.

“But you like him.”

“Like him? Any soldier
who has had to serve in the Shan States loves the bastard. If it wasn’t
for Carroll, I would be stuck in some stink of a jungle covered in mud and
fighting a bloodthirsty band of Shan. God knows how he does it, but he has
saved my pale arse, I’m certain of that. If we have a full-scale war in
the Shan States, each one of us will be strung up within days.”

Another soldier raised a glass. “To Carroll. Damn his poetry, damn
his stethoscope, but God bless the bloody bastard, because he saved me for my
dear mum!” The men roared.

Edgar could hardly believe what he
was hearing. “God bless the bastard,” he cried, and raised his
glass, and when they had drunk, and then drunk again, the stories began.

You want to know about Carroll? I haven’t met the
man, Nor I, Not I, just stories, Well none of us have met the man, hell raise
your glasses to that, the man is but a fairy tale, That’s right, a fairy
tale, They say he stands seven feet tall and breathes fire, Really, I
haven’t heard that one, Well I’ve heard that your mum stands seven
feet tall and breathes fire, Come on, Jackson, be serious you bastard, this
fine gentleman wants True stories about Carroll, Truth, raise your glass to
Truth then, hell I would be less in awe if the man did stand seven feet tall
and breathed fire, Have you heard the story of the building of the fort?
That’s a wild one, You tell it, Jackson, you tell it, Well then,
I’ll tell it, Quiet, you bastards, Mr. Drake, pardon my French, bit tipsy
you know, Get on with the story, Jackson, Fair enough, the story, I’ll
get fast to it, where does it start? No, you know what? What? I am going to
tell the story of the journey, that’s a better one, Tell it then, All
right I will, The
Story,
ready boys? Carroll arrives in Burma,
he’s been here a couple of years, medical stuff, couple of trips into the
jungle, but still this fellow’s pretty fresh, I mean, I don’t think
he has ever fired a gun or anything, but still he volunteers to set up camp in
Mae Lwin, secret stuff at the time, God knows why he wants to go, but he goes
anyway, Not only is the country overrun with armed bands, but this is long
before we annexed Upper Burma, so if he needs reinforcements, we may not even
be able to get there to help him, but still he goes, why, no one knows, every
man has his own theory, me, I think the chap was maybe running away from
something, wanted to get away, you know, far away, but that’s just my
opinion, I don’t know, What do you boys think? Glory maybe, Girls! the
bastard likes Shan girls, Thanks, Stephens, I should have expected as much from
your mind, this is a fellow who will skip church to sneak down to the Mandalay
bazaar to chase the painted
mingales,
How about you, Murphy? Me, hell,
maybe the chap just believes in the cause, you know, civilize the uncivilized,
make peace, bring law and order to an untamed land, not like us drunken
bastards, Poetic, Murphy, real poetic, Listen you wanted my opinion, All right,
how long is this story going to take, Where was I? Carroll heads into the
bloody jungle, Yeah, Carroll heads into the jungle, under escort, maybe ten
soldiers, that’s it, that’s all he will allow, says it isn’t
a military expedition, Well, military expedition or not, before they even reach
the site they are attacked, they are crossing a clearing, and suddenly an arrow
whizzes past and hits a tree above his head, The soldiers, they take cover in
the trees and ready their rifles, but Carroll just stands in the clearing, not
moving, mad as a hatter I tell you, all alone, but calm, real calm, calm that
would make a card dealer jealous, and another arrow flies by him, faster this
time, nicking his helmet, Crazy bastard! Crazy all right, and what does Carroll
do? Tell us, Jackson, Yeah tell us you bastard, All right all right, I’ll
tell it all right, what does he do? The crazy bastard takes off his helmet,
where he had tied a little flute that he likes to play on the marches, and he
puts the damn thing to his mouth and begins to play, He’s mad I tell you!
Bloody nuts if you ask me! You going to let me finish the story? Yeah go on, go
on, finish the bloody story! So Carroll begins to play, and what does he play?
“God Bless the Queen”? Wrong, Murphy, “The
Wood-cutter’s Daughter”? Damn it, Stephens, nothing dirty please,
Sorry for my friend Mr. Drake, and sorry, boys, but Carroll starts to play some
crazy song that none of the soldiers has ever heard, a weird little ditty, and
I met a soldier once who had served in the escort, and he told me about it,
says he never heard the song in his life, nothing fancy, maybe twenty notes,
and then Carroll stops and looks around, and the troops are all kneeling,
rifles to their cheeks, ready to fire if a bird chirps, but nothing happens,
everything’s still, and Carroll plays the tune again, and when he
finishes he waits, and then plays it again, and he stares into the forest
around the clearing, Nothing, not a peep, no more arrows, and Carroll plays
again, and from the bushes comes a whistling, the same damn tune, and this time
when the song finishes Carroll doesn’t stop but repeats it, and now
there’s more whistling and he plays three more times, and then they are
bloody singing together, Carroll and their attackers, and the men can hear
laughter and cheering from the forest, but it is dense and dark and no one can
be seen, At last Carroll stops and motions his men to stand, and they do so
slowly, they are scared, you can imagine, and they climb back onto their
mounts, and they continue their march, and never see the attackers again,
although the soldier who told me the story said he could hear them the entire
way, they were there, guarding the party, guarding Carroll, and this way
Carroll passes through some of the most dangerous territory in the Empire
without firing a shot, and they reach Mae Lwin, where the local chief is
waiting, expecting them, and takes the men’s ponies and offers them warm
rice and curries, and gives them shelter, and after three days of conferring,
Carroll announces to the party that the chief has granted them permission to
build a fort at Mae Lwin, in exchange for protection from
dacoits,
and
the promise of a clinic. And more music.