The Piano Tuner (23 page)

“Yes.” Edgar tried to match the Doctor’s enthusiasm. He
peered through the telescope at the bird across the river. It was small and
gray, but otherwise unremarkable from this distance. It flew away.

“Lu!” Doctor Carroll called. “Bring me my journal!”
The boy brought a brown book, bound with a string. Doctor Carroll untied it,
put on a pair of pince-nez, and scribbled briefly. He handed the book back to
the boy, and looked over his glasses at Edgar. “A lucky day
indeed,” he said again. “The Shan would say that your arrival is
propitious.”

The sun finally broke over the trees that lined the
bank. The Doctor looked up at the sky. “It’s so late
already,” he said. “We must get going soon. We have quite a long
way to go today.”

“I didn’t know we were going
anywhere.”

“Oh! I must apologize, Mr. Drake. I should have
told you last night. It is Wednesday, and every Wednesday I go hunting. I would
be honored by your company. And I think you would enjoy it.”

“Hunting … But the Erard …”

“Of
course.” The Doctor slapped his hand on the table. “The
Erard.
I have not forgotten it. You have been traveling for weeks to
repair the Erard, I know. Don’t worry, you will be tired of that piano
soon enough.”

“No, it is not that. I just thought I should
look at it at least. I am hardly a hunter. Why, I haven’t handled a gun
since a hunt in Rangoon. A long and terrible story … And then on the way
here—”

“On the way here, you were ambushed. Khin Myo
told me. You were quite a hero.”

“A hero, hardly. I
fainted, I almost killed the pony, and—”

“Don’t
worry, Mr. Drake. It is rare that I even fire a gun when I go hunting. Perhaps
I will shoot a boar or two, provided we have enough riders to carry them back.
But that is hardly the purpose of the trip.”

Edgar felt weary.
“I suppose then that I should ask what the purpose is.”

“Collection. Botanical mainly, although this often means medical as
well … I send samples to the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. The amount
there is to be learned is astounding. I have been here twelve years and
haven’t even begun to exhaust the Shan pharmacopoeia. Regardless, you
should come simply because it is beautiful, because you just arrived, because
you are my guest, because it would be rude for me not to show you the wonders
of your new home.”

My new home, thought Edgar, and there was
another rustling in the branches across the river as a bird took flight.
Carroll reached for his telescope and squinted into it. Finally he lowered it.
“A crested kingfisher. Not rare, but still lovely. We will leave inside
an hour. The Erard can survive one more day out of tune.”

Edgar
smiled weakly. “Might I at least have a moment to shave? It has been
days.”

The Doctor jumped to his feet. “Of course. But
don’t worry about washing
too
carefully. We will be filthy
within an hour.” He set his napkin on the table and spoke again to one of
the boys, who ran off through the clearing. He motioned Edgar ahead.
“After you,” he said, dropping the cheroot in the sand and grinding
it with his boot.

When Edgar returned to his room, he found a small
basin of water on the table with a razor, shaving cream, brush, and towel
resting at its side. He splashed the water on his face. It briefly relieved
him. He didn’t know what to think of Carroll, or of the postponement of
his work to go look for flowers, and he found himself troubled by vaguer
doubts. There was something disconcerting about the Doctor’s manner,
about how to reconcile the legends of physician-soldier with the affable, even
avuncular man who offered tea and toast and marmalade and became so excited
about birds. Perhaps it is because this is all still so
English,
he
thought, After all, a stroll, if that is what this is,
is
a proper way
to greet a guest. Still, he was bothered, and he shaved gingerly, pulling the
blade over his skin, and raising his palms to feel the smoothness of his
cheeks.

They mounted a pair of Shan ponies that had
been saddled in the clearing. Someone had tied little flowers in their
hair.

Soon Nok Lek trotted up on another pony. Edgar was glad to see
him again, and noticed that he carried himself differently than he had on the
journey; the youthful confidence seemed more subdued around the Doctor, more
deferential. He nodded to the two men, and Carroll motioned for the boy to
lead. He nimbly turned his pony and bounded off .

They rode out of the
clearing on a trail that paralleled the river. By the sun, Edgar reckoned they
were heading southeast. They passed through a small grove of willows that
stretched up from the riverbed. The foliage was thick and low and Edgar had to
duck his head to keep from being knocked from the saddle. The path turned
uphill and slowly rose above the willows, giving way to a drier brush. On the
ridge that sheltered the camp, they stopped. Below, to the northeast, a wide
valley stretched out, covered with small bamboo settlements. To the south, a
small series of hills pushed up through the slope of the land, like the
vertebrae of a disinterred skeleton. In the far distance, higher mountains were
barely discernible for the glare of the sun.

“Siam,” said
the Doctor, pointing to the mountains.

“I hadn’t realized
we were so close.”

“About eighty miles. This is why the
War Office is so worried about keeping the Shan States. The Siamese are our
only buffer against the French, who already have troops near the
Mekong.”

“And these settlements?”

“Shan
and Burmese villages.”

“What are they growing?”

“Opium, mostly … although production here is nothing like it
is to the north, in Kokang, or deeper into Wa country. They say that there are
so many poppies in Kokang that all the bees fall into deep opium sleeps and
never wake up. But the crop here is substantial enough … Now you
understand another reason why we don’t want to lose the Shan
States.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the sardine tin. He
put a cheroot in his mouth and offered the tin again to Edgar. “Changed
your mind yet?”

Edgar shook his head. “But I read about the
poppies. I thought it was forbidden by the Indian Opium Act. The reports
say—”

“I know what the reports say.” He lit the
cigar. “If you read closely, you would know that the Indian Opium Act of
1878 prohibited the growing of opium in Burma
proper;
at the time we
did not control the Shan States. This doesn’t mean that there isn’t
pressure to stop. There is much more fuss about it in England than here, which
is probably why so many of … us, who write the reports, are selective in
what we say.”

“That makes me worry about everything else I
have read.”

“I wouldn’t. Most of what is written
is
true, although you will have to get used to the subtleties, to the
differences between what you read in England and what you see here, especially
anything to do with politics.”

“Well, I don’t know
much, my wife follows these issues more than I do.” Edgar paused.
“But I would be interested in what you have to say.”

“About politics, Mr. Drake?”

“Everyone in London
seems to have an opinion on the future of the Empire. You must know much more
than they do.”

The Doctor waved the cheroot. “I actually
think little of politics, I find it rather, how should I say,
impractical?”

“Impractical?”

“Take
opium, for instance. Before the Sepoy Rebellion, when our holdings in Burma
were administered by the East India Company, opium use was even
encouraged—the trade was quite lucrative. But there has always been a
call to prohibit or tax it, by those who object to its ‘corrupting
influences.’ Last year, the Society for the Suppression of the Opium
Trade requested that the viceroy ban the trade. Their request was rejected,
quietly. This was no surprise; it is one of our largest cash crops in India.
And banning it really does nothing. The merchants just start smuggling the drug
by sea. The smugglers are actually rather clever. They put the opium in bags
and tie them to blocks of salt. If the ships are searched, they merely drop the
cargo into the water. After a certain time, the salt dissolves, and the package
floats back to the surface.”

“You sound as if you approve
of this.”

“Approve of what? Of opium? It is one of the best
medicines that I have, an antidote for pain, diarrhea, coughing, perhaps the
most common symptoms of the diseases I see here. Anyone who wishes to make
policies on such subjects should come here first.”

“I never
knew …” said Edgar. “What do you think then about
self-government, it does seem to be the most pressing question
…”

“Mr. Drake, please. It is a beautiful morning.
Let’s not ruin it with talk of politics. I know that after such a
journey, one would be interested in such matters, but I find it dreadfully
dull. You will see—the longer you are here, the less such opinions
matter.”

“But you wrote so much …”

“I wrote histories, Mr. Drake, not of politics.” The Doctor
pointed the smoking end of his cheroot at Edgar. “It is not a welcome
subject for me. If you have heard what some have to say about my work here, I
think you can understand why.”

Edgar began to mutter an apology,
but the Doctor didn’t respond. Ahead, where the path narrowed, Nok Lek
was waiting. The party dropped into single file and followed the trail into the
forest on the other side of the ridge.

They rode for
nearly three hours. Descending from the ridge, they entered an open valley that
rose slowly, south of the vertebral hills. The trail was soon wide enough for
two ponies, and while Nok Lek again went ahead, the Doctor rode alongside the
piano tuner. It became obvious very quickly that Carroll had absolutely no
interest in hunting. He spoke about the mountains in whose shadow they rode,
how he had mapped the area when he first arrived, measuring altitude with
boiling-point barometers. He told stories about the geology, the history, local
myths about each outcrop, glen, and river they crossed, Here is where the monks
keep catfish, Here is where I saw my first tiger on the Plateau, rare, Here is
where mosquitoes breed, where I am doing experiments on the spread of disease,
Here is an entrance to the world of the
nga-hlyin,
the Burmese giants,
Here is where Shan sweethearts court, at times you can hear the sound of
flutes. His stories seemed inexhaustible, and his tale about one hill only
ended when they passed another. Edgar was astounded; the Doctor seemed to know
not only every flower but their medicinal uses, scientific classification,
local names in Burmese and Shan, their stories. Several times, pointing to a
flowering bush, he would exclaim that such a plant was unknown to Western
science, and that “I have sent samples to the Linnean Society and the
Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, and I even have a species like it that bears my
name, an orchid, which they have named
Dendrobium carrollii,
and a
lily named
Lilium carrollianum,
and another,
Lilium scottium,
which I named after J. George Scott, the political administrator of the
Shan States, a friend whom I admire deeply. And there are other flowers
…” and with this he even stopped his pony and looked directly at
Edgar, his eyes bright, “my own genus,
Carrollium trigeminum,
the species name meaning ‘the three roots,’ a reference to the
Shan myth of the three princes, which I promise to tell you soon, or perhaps
you should hear the Shan tell it … Regardless, the flower in profile
looks like a prince’s face and it is a monocotyledon, with three paired
petals and sepals, like three princes and their brides.” He stopped
occasionally to pick flowers and plants and press them into a worn leather book
which he kept in a saddlebag.

They stopped by a bush covered with small
yellow blooms. “That one,” he confided, pointing, his shirtsleeve
rolled up over a tanned forearm, “has not been given an official name
yet, as I hope to send samples to the Linnean Society. It has been quite a
struggle to get any of my botanical work published. The army seems to be
concerned that somehow my writing about flowers will reveal state secrets
… as if the French didn’t know of Mae Lwin.” He sighed.
“I suppose I will have to retire before I publish a pharmacopoeia.
Sometimes I wish I were a civilian without the rules and regimentation. But
then I suppose I wouldn’t be here.”

As they rode further,
Edgar’s nervousness and disorientation began to dissipate under the
onslaught of the Doctor’s enthusiasm. All of his own questions, mostly
about music, about the piano, about what the Shan and the Burmese thought of
Bach and Handel, about why Carroll remained, and ultimately why he himself had
come, were temporarily forgotten. Oddly, there seemed nothing more natural than
marching on horseback to hunt plants without names, trying to make sense of the
Doctor’s river of stories, Shan histories, Latin nomenclature, and
literary references. Above them, a raptor circled and caught a rising current,
and he imagined what the bird must see, three tiny figures winding their way
along a dry trail that traced the collar of the karst hills, the tiny villages,
the Salween snaking languidly, the mountains to the east, the Shan Plateau
dropping to Mandalay, and then all of Burma, of Siam, of India, of the armies
gathered there, grids of French and British soldiers blind to each other but
visible to this bird, gathered waiting, while in between, three men rode
together, collecting flowers.

They passed houses on stilts, dusty roads
leading to small villages, their entrances marked by wooden portals. At one, a
tangle of branches was strewn on the pathway, and a piece of tattered paper
covered with swirls of writing was pinned to the portal. Doctor Carroll
explained that smallpox had struck the village, and the script was a magical
formula to fight the disease. “It is terrible,” he said. “We
vaccinate people in England now with cowpox—it has been mandatory for
several years—yet they won’t give me enough supplies to do so here.
It is a horrid disease, so contagious, and so disfiguring. If one
survives.” Edgar gripped his reins uneasily. When he was a boy, there had
been a smallpox outbreak in the slums in East London. Sketches of victims had
appeared daily in the broadsheets, young children covered with pustules, gaunt,
pale cadavers.