The Piano Tuner (30 page)

“Rubbish, mainly,” insisted Edgar. “I
wouldn’t pay much attention …”

“No, I
don’t mind, I only wonder, or worry, about those who come here expecting
their own imaginings.”

Edgar shifted uneasily. “I am sure
once they arrive they see it isn’t so,” he said.

“Or
they simply change us to fit that image.”

“I
…” Edgar paused, caught by her words. He stared at her,
thinking.

“I am sorry. I did not mean to speak so strongly, Mr.
Drake.”

“No … no, not at all.” He nodded now
with the resonance of a thought. “No, I do want to talk to you, but I am
somewhat shy. It is my character, really. At home in London, too.”

“I don’t care. I don’t mind talking. I get lonely here
sometimes. I speak some Shan, and many of the villagers speak some Burmese, but
we are very different, most have never left their village.”

“You have the Doctor—” Immediately he regretted saying
this.

“That is something I wish I had told you in Mandalay. If
only to save you from having to ask.”

He felt the sudden and
unique relief that comes when a suspicion is answered. “He is away
often,” he said.

Khin Myo looked up at him, as if surprised by
his words. “He is an important man,” she said.

“Do
you know where he goes?”

“Where? No.” She tilted her
head. “Away, only. It is not my concern.”

“I might
think that it is. You said you get lonely.”

She stared at him
longer this time. “It is different,” she said simply.

There was a sadness in her voice, and Edgar waited for her to speak again.
She was silent now. He said, “I am sorry. I didn’t intend to be
inconsiderate.”

“No.” She looked down. “You
ask me many questions. That is also different.” A tremor of wind ran
through the trees. “You have someone, Mr. Drake.”

“I
do,” said Edgar slowly, relieved now that the conversation had moved away
from the Doctor. “Her name is Katherine.”

“It is a
nice name,” said Khin Myo.

“Yes … yes, I suppose so.
I am so used to it that I hardly think of it as a name anymore. When you know
someone so well, it is as if they lose their names.”

She smiled
at him. “May I ask how long you have been married?”

“Eighteen years. We met when I was an apprentice tuner. I tuned her
family’s piano.”

“She must be beautiful,” Khin
Myo said.

“Beautiful …” Edgar was struck by the
innocence with which she had asked the question. “She is …
although we are not young.” He continued, awkwardly, if only to fill the
silence. “She was
very
beautiful, at least in my eyes …
talking about her makes me miss her dearly.”

“I am
sorry—”

“No, not at all. It is wonderful, in its
way. Many men who have been married eighteen years have fallen out of love with
their wives …” He stopped and looked out at the river. “I
suppose I
am
different, maybe you are right, although I don’t
know if I mean the same thing when I say this as you mean when you say
it—I love music and pianos and the mechanics of sound, perhaps that is
different. And I am quiet. I daydream too much … But, I shouldn’t
bother you with this.”

“You don’t have to. We can
talk of something else.”

“Actually, I don’t mind. I
am surprised only that you asked, that you noticed something, about me. Many
women don’t like the things I just told you about; English women like men
who join armies or compose poetry. Who become doctors. Who can aim
pistols.” He smiled. “I don’t know if this makes sense. I
have never done any of these. In England we live in a time of such
accomplishment, of culture, conquest. And I tune pianos so that others may make
music. I think many women would think that I am dull. But Katherine is
different. Once I asked her why she chose me, if I was so quiet, and she said
that when she listened to music she could hear in it
my
work …
Silly and romantic, maybe, and we were so young …”

“No, not silly.”

They were quiet. Edgar said,
“It is strange, I have just met you and yet I am telling you stories I
have never told friends.”

“Perhaps it is because you just
met me that you are telling me.”

“Perhaps.”

They were quiet. “I know very little about you,” he said, and
the branches of the willow rustled.

“My story
is short,” she began.

She was thirty-one years old, born in 1855
to a second cousin of King Mindon. Edgar looked surprised when she said this,
and she added quickly, “It doesn’t mean much, The royal family is
so large that, if anything, my ounce of royal blood meant danger when Thibaw
came to the throne.”

“You cannot mean you welcome British
rule?”

“I am very lucky,” she said only.

Edgar persisted. “But many people in England strongly believe that
the colonies should have their own governments. In some ways I am inclined to
agree. We have done some terrible things.”

“And some
good.”

“I wouldn’t expect someone Burmese to say
that,” he said.

“I think perhaps it is a mistake of the
ruling to think that you can change the ruled.”

She said this
slowly, a thought like water spilled, now spreading around them. Edgar waited
for her to say more, but when she spoke again, she told him that her father had
sent her to a small private school for the Burmese elite in Mandalay, where she
was one of two women in her class. There she had excelled in mathematics and
English, and when she left she was hired to teach English to students only
three years her junior. She had loved teaching and became good friends with
other teachers, including several British women. The schoolmaster at the time,
a sergeant in the army who had lost a leg in battle, had noticed her talent,
and arranged to tutor her himself in the hours after class. She spoke of him
the way one tells a story with a hidden ending, but Edgar didn’t ask her
more. The sergeant had fallen ill when his amputation site suddenly became
gangrenous. She had left school to care for him. He died after several feverish
weeks. She had been devastated, but she returned to school. The new
schoolmaster also invited her to his office after hours, she said, lowering her
eyes, but with different intentions.

She was dismissed two weeks
later. The spurned schoolmaster accused her of stealing books and selling them
in the market. There was little she could do to answer the charges, and she
hadn’t wanted to. Two of her friends had returned to Britain with their
husbands, and she shuddered at the thought of the schoolmaster’s pawing
hands. Captain Nash-Burnham, who had been a close friend of her father, arrived
at her home two days after she was fired. He said nothing of the schoolmaster,
and she knew he couldn’t. He offered her a position as a housekeeper in
the visitors’ quarters. The quarters, he told her that warm morning, are
usually empty, should you choose to have friends visit, or even hold classes.
That week she moved in, and the following week she began to teach English at
the little table beneath the papaya trees. She had been there for four years.

“And how did you meet Doctor Carroll?” asked Edgar.

“Like you, he was once a guest in Mandalay.”

They stayed on the riverbank for the rest of the
afternoon, talking beneath the willows, and Khin Myo spoke mainly of Burma, of
festivals, of stories she was told growing up. Edgar asked more questions. They
spoke neither of Katherine nor of the Doctor.

As they sat together,
Shan families passed on the way to the river to fish or wash or play in the
shallows, and if they noticed the couple, they said nothing, It is only natural
that a guest be treated with hospitality, the quiet man who has come to mend
the singing elephant is shy, and walks with the posture of one who is unsure of
the world, we too would keep him company to make him feel welcome, but we do
not speak English. He does not speak Shan, but he tries, he says
som
tae-tae kha
when he passes us on the trail, and
kin
waan
when he likes the cook’s food.
Som tae-tae kha
means
“Thank you.” Someone should tell him this, we all know he thinks it
means “Hello.” He plays with the children, this is different from
the other white men who come here, perhaps he does not have any of his own. He
is quiet, and the astrologers say that he is looking for something, they know
this from the position of the stars on the day he arrived, and because there
were three big
taukte
lizards in his bed and they all pointed east and
chirped twice, the woman who cleans his room remembered this, and she went to
ask the astrologers what it meant. They say he is one of the kind of men who
has dreams, but tells no one.

Dusk came, and at last Khin Myo said, I
must go, and she didn’t say why. And Edgar thanked her for keeping him
company, The afternoon was lovely, I hope to see you again.

I hope so,
too, she said, and he thought, There is nothing wrong with this. He stayed at
the river until the scent of cinnamon and coconut had drifted away.

Edgar awoke in the middle of the night, his teeth
rattling. It is cold, he thought, This must be winter, and he pulled another
blanket over himself. He shivered and slept.

He awoke again, sweating.
His head was hot. He turned and sat up. He ran his hand over his face and
brought it down wet with perspiration. He felt as if he couldn’t breathe
and gasped for air and tore off the blanket and pushed aside the mosquito net.
He crawled outside, his head spinning. On the balcony, he inhaled deeply, felt
a wave of nausea, vomited. I am sick, finally, he thought, curled his legs up
to his chest, and felt his sweat dry and grow cold, as the wind came up from
the river. He slept again.

He awoke to the sensation of a hand on his
shoulder. The Doctor crouched over him, his stethoscope hanging from his neck.
“Mr. Drake, are you all right? What are you doing out here?”

The light was dim; it was dawn. Edgar rolled onto his back, groaning.
“My head …” he moaned.

“What
happened?”

“I don’t know, last night was terrible, I
was so cold and shivering, I got a blanket, I was sweating so much.” The
Doctor put his hand on his forehead.

“What do you think is
wrong?” Edgar asked.

“Malaria. I can’t be certain,
but it definitely seems like it. I will need to look at your blood.” He
turned and said something to a Shan boy who was standing behind him. “I
will get you quinine sulfate, it should make you better.” He looked
concerned. “Come.” He helped Edgar up and led him to his bed.
“Look, the blankets are still soaked. You’ve gotten yourself quite
a nasty case. Come and lie down.”

The Doctor left. Edgar slept.
A boy came and woke him. He brought water and several small pills for Edgar to
swallow. Edgar slept again. He awoke and it was afternoon. The Doctor was
sitting by the bed. “How are you feeling?”

“Better, I
think. I am quite thirsty.”

The Doctor nodded and gave him some
water. “This is the usual course of the disease. First chills and then
fever. Then you begin to sweat. And then often, as now, you suddenly feel
better.”

“Will it come back?”

“It
depends. Sometimes it occurs only every two days, sometimes only every three
days. Sometimes it comes more often, or it is much less regular. The fever is
terrible. I know; I’ve had malaria uncountable times myself. I get
delirious.”

Edgar tried to sit up. He felt weak. “Go to
sleep,” the Doctor said.

He slept.

He
awoke and again it was dark. Miss Ma, the nurse, was sleeping on a bed near the
door. Again he felt his chest tighten. It was hot, the air was still, stifling.
He suddenly felt the need to get out of the room. He lifted the mosquito net
and slid out. He stood tentatively. He felt weak, but he could walk. He tiptoed
toward the door. The night was dark, the moon hidden by clouds. He took several
hungry breaths and lifted his arms and stretched. I need to walk, he thought,
and padded quietly down the stairs. The camp seemed empty. He was barefoot, and
the coolness of the ground felt good on his feet. He followed the path down to
the river.

It was cool on the banks, and he sat and breathed deeply.
The Salween moved past silently. From somewhere came a rustling, and a faint
cry. He stood and walked uneasily across the beach to a small trail that ran by
the river through thicker brush.

The sound grew louder as he walked
through the bushes. Near the end of the trail, he caught a glimpse of something
moving on the bank. He took two more steps through the brush and then he saw
them, and for a moment he stood still, shocked. A young Shan couple lay in the
shallows of the river. The young man’s hair was tied up above his head,
the woman’s hair was loose, spread out over the sand. She wore a wet
hta main
and it was pushed up her body, covering her breasts,
revealing a smooth hip sprinkled with sand and the river. Her arms wrapped
around the young man’s back, her nails gripping his tattoos, and they
moved silently, the only sound was the shifting sand and the river as it lapped
against four feet. She moaned again, more loudly now, and her back began to
arch, her
hta main
pooling down against her arms, her body turning,
wet sand falling from her hips. Edgar stumbled back into the bushes.

The fevers came again, stronger now. His body shook, his
jaw clenched tight, his arms curled up against his chest, he tried to grab his
shoulders but his hands only trembled, he shook the bed and the mosquito
netting. The water basin on the table rattled as he moved. Miss Ma awoke and
came and covered him, but he still was cold. He tried to thank her, but he
couldn’t speak. The water basin on the table rattled to the edge.

He grew hot again, like the night before. He threw off the blankets. He was
no longer shaking. Sweat beaded on his forehead and dripped into his eyes. He
tore off his shirt, it was soaked, his thin cotton drawers stuck to his legs,
and he fought the urge to tear them off too, I must be decent, he thought, and
his body ached and he ran his hands over his face to wipe off the sweat, over
his chest, his arms. He turned, the sheets were wet and warm, he tried to
breathe and tore at the mosquito net. He heard footsteps and saw Miss Ma go to
the water basin to moisten a cloth. She lifted the mosquito netting and pressed
the damp cloth to his head. It was cold as she ran it over his body, and the
heat retreated briefly, returning once the cloth had passed. Like this she
chased the fever, but it burned deeper now. He lost consciousness.