The Piano Tuner (29 page)

Finally he was ready to
fine-tune the piano. He began an octave below the string that had been
shattered by the bullet. He inserted lever wedges to mute off the side strings
of each note in the octave, so that when the key was struck, only the middle
string would vibrate. He struck the key, reached into the body of the piano,
and turned the tuning pin. When the middle string was tuned he moved to the
side strings, and when this note was in tune, he moved one octave
lower—as a builder would first lay the foundations of a house, he always
told his apprentices—falling into the familiar pattern, twisting the
tuning pins, testing them, key pin key, a rhythm only broken by absentminded
slaps at mosquitoes.

With the octave spanned, he then turned to the
notes that lay in between, to set them in equal temperament, so that the notes
were all equally spaced along the octave. It was a concept many apprentices
often found difficult to understand. Each note produces a sound at a particular
frequency, he would explain, Strings in tune with one another can harmonize,
while out-of-tune strings produce frequencies which overlap to produce a
rhythmic pulse, known as a beat, a synchrony of slightly discordant sounds. On
a piano tuned perfectly in a particular key, there should be no beats when
correct intervals are played. But then it is impossible to play the piano in
any other key. Equal temperament was an innovation that allowed for more than
one key to be played on a single instrument, the sacrifice being that no key
would be in perfect tune. To tune in equal temperament meant deliberately
creating beats, adjusting the strings finely so that only a well-trained ear
could discern that they were slightly, if necessarily, out of tune.

Edgar hummed softly as he worked. It was his habit, often to
Katherine’s chagrin, that while at work he became completely absorbed in
tuning. Do you
see
anything when you are working? she had asked soon
after they were married, leaning over the side of the piano. See what? he had
answered. You know, see anything, the piano, the strings, me. Of course I see
you, and he took her hand and kissed it. Edgar, please! Please, I am asking how
you work, I am being serious, Do you see anything while you work? How
couldn’t I, Why? It just seems that you disappear, into a different
place, maybe a world of notes. Edgar laughed, What a strange world that would
be, dear. And he leaned forward and kissed her again. But in truth, he did
understand what she was trying to ask. He worked with his eyes open, but when
he finished, when he thought back on the day, he could never remember a single
visible image, only what he had heard, a landscape marked by tone and timbre,
intervals, vibrating, They are my colors.

And so now, while he worked,
he thought little of home, of Katherine, of the Doctor’s absence, or of
Khin Myo. Nor did he notice that he had observers, three little boys who
watched him through slats in the bamboo wall. They whispered and giggled, and
had Edgar not been lost in the Pythagorean maze of tone and mechanics, and had
he spoken Shan, he would have heard them wonder how this could be the great
musician, the man who would repair their singing elephant. How peculiar these
British are, they would tell their friends. Their musicians play alone, and you
cannot dance or sing to such strange, slow melodies. But after an hour, even
the novelty of espionage wore off, and the little boys walked glumly back to
the river to swim.

The day drew on. Shortly past noon, Nok Lek brought
Edgar his lunch, a large bowl of rice noodles drenched in a thick broth that
the boy said was made from a type of bean, garnished with minced meat and
peppers. He also brought a jar of paste made from burnt rice husks, which Edgar
painted over the bottom of the soundboard before stopping to eat. After several
bites he returned to work.

In the early afternoon, clouds arrived, but
it didn’t rain. The room grew humid. He always worked slowly, but he was
surprised by his own deliberation. A thought that had begun to plague him when
he first started on the piano now returned. In a matter of hours, he would be
done with the tuning and would no longer be needed in Mae Lwin. He would be
forced to return to Mandalay, and then to England. But I want this, he told
himself, for it means I will be home again. Yet the immediacy of the departure
became more real as he worked, his fingers raw from the strings, the monotony
hypnotizing, crank, key, listen, crank, key, listen, the tuning spreading over
the piano like ink spilled on paper.

Edgar had three keys left to tune
when the clouds broke and the sun shone through the window, lighting the room.
He had replaced the lid on the piano overnight, and raised it while he tuned.
Now he could once again see the reflection of the view in the polished
mahogany. He stood and watched the Salween flow through its square of light on
the piano’s surface. He walked to the window and stared out at the river.

Two weeks until the piano needs to be tuned again, he had told the
Doctor. What he didn’t tell him was that now that the piano was tuned and
regulated and voiced, to keep it in fine tune would be relatively easy, he
could teach the Doctor, perhaps even one of his Shan assistants. He could tell
him this, he thought, and he could leave the tuning hammer, This is only right.
And then he thought, I have been away from home for a long time, Perhaps too
long.

He could tell him this, and he would, eventually, but he reminded
himself there was no need to rush things either.

Besides, he thought,
I have only just arrived.

15

D
octor Carroll didn’t return the next day as planned,
nor the day after that. The camp seemed empty and Edgar saw neither Nok Lek nor
Khin Myo. He was surprised that he thought of her only now, that he been so
absorbed in the excitement surrounding the piano. He had seen her only once in
the few days since their arrival. Then she had passed him while he was with the
Doctor, had nodded politely and stopped to whisper something to Carroll in
Burmese. She stood close to the Doctor when she spoke and looked past him to
Edgar, who quickly shifted his gaze out to the river. He had tried to see if
there was something in their interaction, a touch or shared smile. But she only
bowed slightly, and moved off gracefully down the trail.

He spent
the morning making minor adjustments to the Erard, fine-tuning some of the
strings, touching up areas on the soundboard that had not been covered with
enough resin. But he soon tired of the work. The piano was well
tuned—perhaps not his finest job, he conceded, as he didn’t have
all the tools he needed—but there were few other improvements that could
further help the piano, given the circumstances.

It was noon when he
left the Erard and walked down to the Salween. By the river, several men stood
out on jagged rocks that jutted into the water, casting fishing nets,
crouching, waiting. He laid out a blanket and sat in the shade of a willow and
watched two women beating clothes against a rock, naked save for their
hta
mains
that had been pulled up and tied around their chests in modesty. He
wondered if this was a Shan custom or merely an English import.

His
mind wandered, aimlessly, from the river, over the mountains, to Mandalay,
farther. He wondered what the army thought of his absence. Perhaps it
hasn’t even been noticed, he thought, for Khin Myo has also gone, and
Captain Nash-Burnham is in Rangoon, and he wondered, How many days have I been
away? He hoped they had not contacted Katherine, for certainly she would worry,
and he could comfort himself only with the thought that she was far away, and
that news traveled slowly. He tried to calculate how long he had been away from
home, but was surprised when he realized that he wasn’t even certain how
long he had been in Mae Lwin. The trip across the Shan Plateau seemed without
time, a moment, a kaleidoscope of silver temples and deep jungle, muddied
rivers and swiftly riding ponies.

Without time,
Edgar
thought, and he thought of the world outside suspended, It is as if I have left
London only this morning. He liked the idea, Perhaps this is so, Indeed my
watch stopped in Rangoon, In England Katherine is only now returning home from
the docks, Our bed still holds the fading warmth of two bodies, Perhaps it will
still be warm when I return. And his thoughts pushed forward, One day I will
climb out of the valley of the Salween and walk back across the hills to
Mandalay, and I will sit one more night and watch the
yôkthe
pwè,
and this time the story will be different, a story of return,
and I will take the steamer back down the river, and there I will meet soldiers
and over gin I will add my tales to theirs. Forward, The trip will be faster
now, for we will travel with the current, and in Rangoon I will return to the
Shwedagon and I will see how the turmeric-painted woman’s baby has grown,
I will board another steamer, and my bags will be heavier for I will carry
gifts of silver necklaces and embroidered cloth, and musical instruments for a
new collection. On the steamer I will spend my days staring at the same
mountains I saw when I arrived, only this time I will stand on the starboard
side, The train will speed across India as before, it will climb away from the
Ganges like a prayer, the sun will rise behind us and set before us, and we
will chase it, Perhaps somewhere, at some lonely station, I will hear the end
of the Poet-Wallah’s story. In the Red Sea I will meet a man, and I will
tell him I have heard songs, but not his. In the Red Sea, it will be dry, and
the humidity will be drawn from my watch in invisible vapors, it will begin to
work again, ticking, The time is no later than the day I departed.

He
heard the sound of footsteps enter his daydream, and turned. Khin Myo stood in
the shade of the willow. “May I join you?”

“Ma Khin
Myo. What a pleasant surprise,” he said, pulled from his reverie.
“Please, please sit down.” He made a space for her on the blanket.
When she had sat and smoothed her
hta main
over her legs, he said,
“I was just thinking about you earlier today. You vanished. I have hardly
seen you since we arrived.”

“I left you and the Doctor
alone. I know you have work to do.”

“I have been busy, I
know. I regretted not seeing you, though.” His words felt somehow
stilted, and he added, “I enjoyed our conversations in Mandalay, on the
way here.” He wanted to say something else, but felt a sudden awkwardness
about her being there. He had almost forgotten how attractive she was. Her hair
was brushed back and fastened with a needle of ivory. Her blouse rustled
lightly in the breeze that slipped through the willow branches. Below the
damascene border of the sleeves, her arms were bare, and she held her hands
folded together on her
hta main.

“Nok Lek told me that
you had finished,” she said.

“This morning, I think,
although there is still some work remaining. The piano was in serious
disrepair.”

“Doctor Carroll told me so. I think he feels it
was his fault.” He noticed that she tilted her head slightly from side to
side when she joked, a habit he had seen in many of the Indians. He had seen
her do it before, but was particularly struck by it now. It was quite subtle,
as if she was enjoying an inner joke that was much funnier, and much more
profound, than her words suggested.

“I know. He shouldn’t,
though. I am quite pleased. The piano will sound wonderful.”

“He did say that you seemed happy.” She smiled, and turned to
him. “Do you know what you will do, now?”

“Now?”

“Now that you have finished. Will you
return to Mandalay?” she asked.

He laughed. “
Will
I? Why of course—I must eventually. Perhaps not right away. I want
to wait to be certain the piano has no other problems. And after that, it is
only fair that after this long trip, I will get to hear it in a performance.
But then—I don’t know.”

They both were silent and
turned to look toward the river. Out of the corner of his eye, Edgar saw her
look down suddenly, as if embarrassed by a thought, and run her finger along
the iridescent silk of her skirt. He turned to her. “Is everything all
right?”

She blushed. “Of course, I was just thinking of
something else.” Silence again, and then suddenly she added, “You
are different.”

Edgar swallowed, startled. She had spoken so
softly that he had to ask himself if it was her voice or but the rustling of
the branches. “I’m sorry?”

She said, “I have
been with you for many hours, in Mandalay, traveling. Most other visitors would
have told me about themselves within minutes. And yet I only know that you are
from England, and that you have come to tune the piano.” She played with
the edge of her
hta main.
Edgar wondered if it was a sign of
nervousness, as an Englishman would finger his hat in his hands.

“I am sorry if I am too direct, Mr. Drake,” she added when he
didn’t answer. “Please don’t be offended.”

“No, I don’t mind,” he said. But he wasn’t certain
how to respond. He found himself surprised at the question, but even more that
she, who had been so reserved before, had asked it. “I am not used to
being asked about myself. Especially not by …” he paused.

“Not by a woman?”

Edgar said nothing.

“It
is fine if you were thinking that, I wouldn’t blame you. I know all that
is written about women of the East. I can read your magazines and I understand
your conversations, remember. I know what they say, I have seen the way the
sketch artists draw us in your newspapers.”

Edgar felt himself
blushing, “They are terrible.”

“Not all. Many of them
are right. Besides, to be painted as a beautiful dancing young girl is better
than being painted as a savage—as your newspapers show our
men.”