The Piano Tuner (33 page)

Another hour. Slowly, his anxiety began to lift. Perhaps the
Doctor has changed his mind, he decided, He has thought about this more
carefully and now knows that it is a misbegotten idea, that I am not ready for
such performances. He waited, increasingly convinced that this was true. He
went out on the balcony but could see only the women at the river.

At
last he heard footsteps on the stairs. It was one of the servant boys.
“Doctor Carroll give this to you,” the boy said, handing him a
note, bowing.

Edgar opened the letter. It was written on Shan paper
like all others he had seen, but the handwriting was slouched, hasty.

Mr. Drake,

I apologize for not meeting with you as promised.
The
sawbwa’s
emissary requires more attention than anticipated,
and unfortunately, I will be unable to speak to you about your performance. My
only request is this: As you know, the
sawbwa
of Mongnai is one of the
leaders of the Limbin Confederacy, with whom British forces under Colonel
Stedman have been at war for the last two months. I hope to propose a
preliminary treaty with the
sawbwa
while he is in Mae Lwin, and, more
importantly, to request that he arrange a meeting with the Confederacy. All I
ask of you is to select and play a piece that will move the Prince with
emotions of friendship, to convince him of the good intentions of our
proposals. I have
the utmost confidence and faith
in your ability to
select and perform a piece appropriate for this occasion.

A.C.

Edgar looked up, to protest to someone, but the boy was
gone. When he looked out over the camp, it was empty. He cursed.

He
spent the night in the piano room, at the bench, thinking, beginning pieces and
stopping, No that is not right, I cannot play that, thinking, beginning again.
Thoughts of what he should play alternated with questions of what the visit
meant, who the
sawbwa
was, and what the Doctor intended by the music,
by the meeting. He stopped sometime in the early hours of dawn, when he rested
his arms on the keyboard and his head on his arms and fell asleep.

It was afternoon when he woke with the impression that he
had fallen asleep in his shop back in England. As he walked back to his room,
he was amazed at how the camp had transformed itself overnight. The pathway had
been swept of the detritus left by the rains, and covered with fresh pieces of
timber. Banners were strung from the houses and fluttered in the light of dusk.
The only sign of the British presence was the flag hanging outside the
headquarters, which had been converted into a dining hall. It seemed oddly out
of place, he thought, he had never seen it in the camp before, which now seemed
peculiar—after all, it was a British fort.

He returned to his
room and waited until the early evening, when a boy came and knocked on the
door. He washed and dressed, and the boy led him up the steps to the
headquarters, where a guard instructed him to remove his shoes before entering.
Inside, the tables and chairs had been replaced by cushions laid out over the
floor before low wicker tables. The hall was quiet; the
sawbwa
and his
retinue had yet to arrive. He was led across the room to where Doctor Carroll
and Khin Myo were seated. The Doctor was wearing Shan clothing, an elegantly
tailored white cotton jacket hanging to the top of a
paso
of
iridescent purple. It looked quite regal, and Edgar was reminded of the day he
arrived, of how Carroll had stood by the river, dressed like his men. Since
then, Edgar had only seen him in European clothes, or army khakis.

There was an empty cushion between the two of them. The Doctor was engaged
in deep conversation with an older Shan man seated several cushions away, and
motioned to Edgar to sit. Khin Myo was speaking to a boy who crouched at her
side, and Edgar watched her as she spoke. Her blouse was of silk, and her hair
looked darker, as if she had just bathed. In it, she wore the same teak pin she
had worn on her walk. At last, when the boy had left, she leaned over to Edgar
and whispered, “Have you prepared what you will play?”

Edgar smiled weakly. “We will see.” He looked about the room.
He could barely recognize it as the drab clinic or office he was accustomed to.
Torches burned in each corner, filling it with light and the aroma of incense.
The walls had been draped with carpets and skins. Around the room stood
servants, many of whom Edgar recognized, others he didn’t. They were all
dressed in fine flowing trousers and blue shirts, their turbans clean and
impeccably tied.

There was a sound at the door, and a hush fell over
the room. A large man in glittering regalia entered. “Is that him?”
Edgar asked.

“No, wait. He is smaller.” And as she said
this, a short, plump man in an extravagantly sequined robe entered the room.
The Shan servants at the door dropped to the floor and kowtowed before him.
Even Carroll bowed, and Khin Myo, and—glancing to his side to imitate the
Doctor—Edgar bowed as well. The
sawbwa
and his retinue crossed
the room until he reached the empty cushion beside Carroll. They sat. They were
all dressed in matching uniforms, pleated shirts with sashes, their heads tied
with clean white turbans. All save one man, a monk, who sat back from his
table, which Edgar understood as a refusal of food, as monks are not to eat
after noon. There was something different about the way the man looked, and as
Edgar continued to stare, he realized that what he first thought was unusually
dark skin was a blue tattoo, which covered his entire face and hands. When a
servant came and lit a bright torch in the center of the room, the blue skin
stood out sharply against the saffron robes.

Carroll spoke to the
sawbwa
in Shan, and although Edgar couldn’t understand their
words, he sensed murmurings of approval around the room. The hierarchy of the
seating surprised him, that he should sit so close to the
sawbwa,
closer than the village representatives, and closer to Carroll than Khin Myo.
Servants brought out fermented rice wine in carved metal cups, and when all had
been served, Doctor Carroll raised his cup and spoke again in Shan. The room
cheered, and the
sawbwa
looked especially pleased. “To your
health,” whispered Carroll.

“Who is the monk?”

“The Shan call him the Blue Monk, I think you can see why. He is the
sawbwa’
s personal adviser. He doesn’t travel anywhere
without him. When you play tonight, play to win the heart of the monk as
well.”

And the meal was served, a feast unlike any Edgar had seen
since he had arrived in the Shan States, dish after dish of sauces, curries,
bowls of noodles served with thick broth, water snails cooked with young bamboo
shoots, pumpkin fried with onion and chili, seared pork and mango, shredded
water buffalo mixed with sweet green aubergines, salads of minced chicken and
mint. They ate much and spoke little. Occasionally the Doctor would turn to say
something to the
sawbwa,
but for the most part they remained silent,
and the Prince grunted his approval of the food. Finally, after countless
dishes, each of which could have culminated the meal, a plate of betel nuts was
set before them, and the Shan began to chew vigorously, expectorating into the
spittoons the party had brought themselves. At last the
sawbwa
leaned
back and with one hand draped over his stomach, spoke to the Doctor. Carroll
turned to the piano tuner. “Our Prince is ready for music. You may go to
the room before us, to prepare. Please bow to him when you stand and keep your
head low as you walk out of the room.”

Outside, the sky had
cleared, and the path was lit by the moon and rows of burning torches. Edgar
climbed the path, his chest tight with apprehension. There was a guard outside
the piano room, a Shan boy he recognized from the mornings on the Salween.
Edgar nodded to him, and the boy bowed deeply, an unnecessary action, as the
tuner had come alone.

In the torchlight, the room looked much larger
than before. The piano stood on one side, and someone had laid a number of
pillows over the floor. It feels like a true salon, he thought. At the far side
of the room, the windows that faced toward the river had been propped open,
flooding the room with the serpentine course of the Salween. Edgar walked to
the piano. The blanket had already been removed from the case, and he sat at
the bench. He knew he shouldn’t touch the keys—he did not want to
reveal the song, nor let the others think that he had begun without them. So he
sat with his eyes closed, and thought about how his fingers would move and how
the music would sound.

Soon he heard voices on the path below, and
footsteps. Carroll and the Prince and the Blue Monk entered, and then Khin Myo,
and then others. Edgar stood and bowed, low, like the Burmese, like a concert
pianist, for in this respect the pianist has more in common with cultures of
the East than those of the West, he thought, who choose to greet by taking the
hand of their visitor. He stood until they had reclined on the pillows and then
seated himself again on the piano bench. He would begin without introduction,
without words. The name of the composer would mean nothing to the Prince of
Mongnai. And surely Carroll knew the piece; he could explain what it meant, or
what he needed it to mean.

He began with Bach’s Prelude and Fugue
in C-sharp Minor, the fourth piece of Bach’s
The Well-Tempered
Clavier
. It was a tuner’s piece, an exploration of the possibilities
of sound, and a series that Edgar knew from testing the tuning of professional
pianos. He had always called it a testament to the art of tuning. Before the
development of equal temperament, the even spacing of notes, it was impossible
to play all of the keys on the same instrument. But with equally spaced notes,
the possibilities suddenly seemed endless.

He played through the
Prelude, the sound rose and fell, and he felt himself sway as he played. There
is much I could tell the Doctor, he thought, about why I have chosen it. That
it is a piece bound by strict rules of counterpoint, as all fugues are, the
song is but an elaboration of one simple melody, the remainder of the piece
destined to follow the rules established in the first few lines. To me this
means beauty is found in order, in rules—he may make what he wishes from
this in lessons of law and treaty-signing. I could tell him that it is a piece
without a commanding melody, that in England many people dismiss it as too
mathematical, as lacking a tune which can be held or hummed. Perhaps he knows
this already. But if a Shan does not know the same songs, then just as I have
been confused by their melodies, so might the Prince be confused by ours. So I
chose something mathematical, for this is universal, all can appreciate
complexity, the trance found in patterns of sound.

There are other
things he could say, of why he began with the fourth Prelude and not the first,
for the fourth is a song of ambiguity, and the first a melody of
accomplishment, and it is best to begin courtships with modesty. Or that he
chose it simply because he often felt so moved when he heard it, There
is
emotion in the notes, If it is less accessible than other pieces,
perhaps this is why it is so much stronger.

The piece began low, in
the bass strings, and as it increased in complexity, soprano voices entered,
and Edgar felt his whole body move toward the right and remain there, a journey
across the keyboard, I am like the puppets moving on their stage in Mandalay.
More confident now, he played and the song slowed, and when at last he finished
he had almost forgotten that others were watching. He raised his head and
looked across the room to the
sawbwa,
who said something to the Blue
Monk and then motioned for Edgar to continue. Beside him, he thought he could
see the Doctor smile. And so he began again, now D Major, now D Minor, and
forward through each scale, moving up, each tune a variation on its beginnings,
structure giving rise to possibilities. He played into the remoter scales, as
his old master had called them, and Edgar thought how fitting a name this was
for a piece played into the night of the jungle, I can never again believe Bach
never left Germany.

He played for nearly two hours, to a place where,
halfway into the piece, there is a break, like a rest station on a lonely road,
that settles in the wake of the Prelude and Fugue in B Minor. On the last note
his fingers stopped and rested on the keyboard and he turned his head and
looked out over the room.

18

Dear Katherine,

It is March, although I am not certain of the
date. I write to you from the fort and village of Mae Lwin, on the banks of the
Salween River, in the Southern Shan States, in Burma. I arrived long ago, and
yet this is my first letter home from here, and I apologize for not having
written to you sooner. Indeed, I am afraid that such silence must worry you
greatly, as by now you must have come to expect my letters, which I wrote so
often before leaving for the Shan Hills. Unfortunately, I don’t think you
will read this letter for a long time, as there is no way to get mail to
Mandalay. Perhaps it is for this reason that I have been hesitant to write, but
I think that there are others as well, some that I understand and others I do
not. When I have written to you before, it has always been about some idea or
event, or thought, which makes me wonder why I haven’t written since
arriving here, since much
has
happened. Weeks ago, I wrote to you that
what saddened me most about coming here was the feeling that I would leave
incomplete. Strangely, since I left Mandalay, I have seen more than I could
have imagined and I have understood more of what I have seen, but at the same
time this incompleteness grows more acute. Each day I am here, I await an
answer, like a salve, or water that satisfies thirst. I think this is why I
have postponed writing, but I have found few answers. So now I write because it
has been too long since I wrote last. I know that when I see you, the events I
describe in this letter will be old events, the impressions long past. So
perhaps I also write simply because I have a deep need to put words to a page,
even though I may be the only one who will read this.

I am sitting
beneath a willow tree, on the sandy banks of the Salween River. It is one of my
favorite spots. It is quiet and hidden, and yet I can still see the river and
listen to the sounds of people around me. It is early evening. The sun has
begun its descent, and the sky is purple with the gathering of clouds, perhaps
we will have more storms. Four days have passed since the rains first began. I
will remember that day better than I will remember the day I left Mandalay, for
it marked such a change on the Plateau. Indeed, I have never seen anything like
the rain here. The drizzle that we call rain in England is nothing compared to
the pounding of a monsoon. At once, the sky opens and soaks everything,
everyone runs for shelter, the footpaths turn to mud, to rivers, the trees
shake, and water pours off leaves as if out of a pitcher, there is nothing dry.
Oh, Katherine, it is so strange: I could write for pages only about the rain,
the way it falls, the different sizes of the drops and how they feel on your
face, its taste and smell, its sound. Indeed, I could write for pages only on
its sound, on thatch, on leaves, on tin, on willow.

My dear, it is so
beautiful here. The rains have arrived early this year, and the forest has
undergone a most incredible change. In only a matter of days, the dry brush has
transformed itself into explosions of colors. When I took the steamer from
Rangoon to Mandalay, I met young soldiers who shared with me stories of Mae
Lwin, and at the time I couldn’t believe that what they were saying was
true, yet now I know that it was. The sun is bright and strong. Cool breezes
drift up from the river. The air is filled with the incense of nectar, the
scent of spices cooking, and sounds, what incredible sounds! I sit beneath a
willow now, and the branches hang low so I can see little of the river. But I
can hear laughter. Oh, if only I could capture the laughter of children in the
vibrations of string, or put them on paper. But here words fail us. I think of
the language we use to describe music, and how we are unequipped for the
infinity of tones. Still, we do have ways to record it; in music our
inadequacies are confined only to words, for we can always resort to signatures
and scales. And yet we still haven’t found words for all the other
sounds, nor can we record them in signature and script. How can I describe what
I mean? To my left, three boys are playing with a ball in the shallows, and it
keeps drifting out to deeper waters, and a young Shan woman washing
clothes—perhaps she is their mother, or maybe their sister—scolds
them when they swim out to retrieve it. And yet they keep losing the ball and
keep swimming after it, and between the losing and the swimming there is a
particular laughter like none I have ever heard. These are sounds forbidden to
a piano, to bars and notations.

Katherine, I wish you could hear it
too, no, I wish that I could take it home, remember it all. As I write, I feel
both a tremendous sadness and a joy, a wanting, a welling from within me,
something ecstatic. I choose my words carefully; this is truly what I feel, for
it rises in my chest like water from a well, and I swallow and my eyes brim
with tears as if I will overflow. I don’t know what this is or where it
came from, or when it began. I never thought I could find so much in the
falling of water or in the sounds of children playing.

I realize what
an odd letter this must be for you, for I have written so much, and yet still I
have described so little of what I have done or seen. Instead I babble like a
child to the paper. Something
has
changed—you must know this
already by the way I write. Last night I played the piano for an audience, and
quite a distinguished one at that, and part of me wants to mark this as the
moment of change, although I know that it isn’t—the change is
something that has come more slowly, perhaps it even began at home. What this
change means I don’t know, just as I don’t know if I am happier or
sadder than I have ever been. At times I wonder if the reason I have lost track
of time is that I will know when to return not by a date, but when an emptiness
is filled. I will come home, of course, for you remain my greatest love. But
only now am I realizing the reason
you
wanted me to go, what
you
told me before I left. There is a purpose in all of this—you were
right, although I do not know yet what it is, let alone if I have even
accomplished it. But I must wait now, must stay now. Of course, I
will
return, soon, perhaps tomorrow. Now I write because I feel you must know why I
am still here. You will understand, dear, I hope.

Katherine, it is
growing dark, and even cold, for it is winter here, as strange as that may
sound. I wonder what others would think if they read this letter. For, by all
superficial appearances, I look the same, I don’t know if anyone else has
noticed a change in me. Perhaps this is why I miss you so, you always said you
heard me even when I was silent.

I will write more, for there are other
things that remain unsaid, if only for the limits of space and ink and
sunlight.

I remain,

Your loving husband,

Edgar

It is still light. There are other things that remain
unsaid—he knows this, but his pen trembles when he brings them close to
the page.

Khin Myo stood at the edge of the willow tree. Her face was
drawn. “Mr. Drake,” she said. He looked up. “Doctor Carroll
sent me to find you. Please, come. And hurry. He says it’s
important.”

19

E
dgar folded the letter and followed Khin Myo up from the
river. She said nothing, but left him at the door of the headquarters and
walked quickly back down the trail.

Inside, he found the Doctor at
the window, staring out over the camp. He turned. “Mr. Drake, please, sit
down.” He motioned to a chair, and sat on the other side of the broad
desk he had used for the amputation. “Sorry to disturb you, you seemed so
peaceful by the river. You more than anyone deserve a moment of repose. You
played beautifully.”

“It was a technical
piece.”

“That was far more than a technical
piece.”

“And the
sawbwa
?” Edgar asked.
“One can only hope that he felt the same.” The Prince had left that
morning on a throne mounted to an elephant’s back, the flash of his
sequins disappearing into the greenery of the jungle. He was flanked on either
side by horsemen, their ponies’ tails dyed red.

“Charmed.
He wanted to hear you play again. But I insisted that there would be better
times for that.”

“Did you get the treaty you were asking
for?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t asked for it
yet. Directness rarely works with the princes. I merely told him of our
position and asked nothing, we shared a meal, and you played. The, let us say,
‘consummation’ of our courtship will have to await approval of the
other princes. But with the
sawbwa’
s support, our chances of a
treaty are better.” He leaned forward. “I brought you to my office
to ask your further assistance.”

“Doctor, I can’t
play again.”

“No, Mr. Drake, this time it has nothing to do
with pianos, and all to do with war, regardless of my poetics on the meeting of
the two. Tomorrow night there will be a meeting of Shan princes in Mongpu,
north of here. I want you to accompany me there.”

“Accompany you? In what capacity?”

“Company,
only. It is half a day’s journey, and the meeting should only last a day
or a night, depending on when they begin. We will travel by horseback. You
should at least join us for the journey—it is one of the most scenic in
the Shan States.”

Edgar began to speak, but the Doctor gave him
no time to refuse. “We will leave tomorrow.” It was only when he
was outside that he realized Carroll hadn’t invited him out of camp since
their trip to the ravine that sang.

He spent the remainder of the
evening by the river thinking, bothered by the suddenness of the trip, by the
urgency he sensed in the Doctor’s voice. He thought of Khin Myo and their
walk in the rain, Perhaps he doesn’t want us together. But he dismissed
this, There is something else, I have done nothing wrong, nothing
improper.

Clouds came. In the Salween, women beat the clothes against
the rocks.

They left the following afternoon. For the
first time since Edgar arrived, the Doctor wore his officer’s uniform: a
scarlet jacket with black braids and his gold rank badge. It gave him a regal
and imposing air; his hair was combed, dark and oiled. Khin Myo came out to say
good-bye, and Edgar watched her closely as she stood and spoke to the Doctor in
a mixture of Burmese and English. Carroll listened, and took the sardine tin
from his breast pocket and selected a cheroot. When Khin Myo turned at last to
Edgar, she didn’t smile, but only stared as if she seemed not to see him.
The ponies were washed and groomed, but the flowers had been taken from their
manes.

They rode out of camp, accompanied by Nok Lek
and four other Shan on ponies, all holding rifles. They followed the main trail
up the ridge, and turned north. It was a beautiful day, cool with echoes of the
rain. The Doctor carried his helmet on the saddle and smoked pensively as he
rode.

Edgar said nothing, but thought of the letter he had written to
Katherine, folded in the confines of his bag.

“You are unusually
quiet today, Mr. Drake,” said the Doctor.

“Only
daydreaming. I wrote to my wife for the first time since I arrived in Mae Lwin.
About the performance, the piano …”

They rode.
“It’s strange,” the Doctor said at last.

“What’s strange.”

“Your love of the Erard.
You are the first Englishman who has not asked me why I want a piano in Mae
Lwin.”

Edgar turned. “Why? Oh, it has never been a mystery
to me. I have never seen a place more worthy.” He drifted into silence
again. “No,” he said. “I wonder more why
I
am
here.”

The Doctor looked at him askance. “And I thought you
and that piano were inseparable.” He laughed.

Edgar joined him.
“No, no … It must seem that way at times. But I am serious now. It
must have been weeks since I completed my commission. Shouldn’t I have
left long ago?”

“I think that is a question for you to
answer.” The Doctor tapped dark ashes from the end of the cheroot.
“I have not held you here.”

“No,” Edgar
persisted. “But you haven’t encouraged me to leave, either. I
expected to be asked to go, as soon as the piano was tuned. Remember, I am
‘quite a risk’—those were your words, I believe.”

“I enjoy your company, our conversations. It is well worth the
risk.”

“To talk about music? I am flattered, but really,
there must be more than that. Besides, there are those who know music much
better than I, men in India, in Calcutta, in Burma even. Or if you merely
wanted conversation, naturalists, anthropologists. Why would you make such an
effort for me to stay? There could be others.”

“There
have
been others.”

Edgar turned to face the Doctor.
“Visitors, you mean?”

“I have been here for twelve
years. Others have come, naturalists, anthropologists, as you say. They came
and stayed, never for a long time, only long enough to collect samples, or make
sketches, and expostulate on some theory or another on how the biology, the
culture, the history of the Shan States fit into their opinions. Then they
returned home.”

“I find that hard to believe. It is so
enchanting here …”

“I think you are answering your
own question, Mr. Drake.”

They stopped at the top of a rise to
watch a flock of birds take flight.

“There is a piano tuner in
Rangoon,” said Carroll when they began to move again. “I knew that
long before I sent for you. He is a missionary, the army doesn’t know he
tunes pianos, but I met him once long ago. He would have come, had I
asked.”

“I imagine that would have saved everyone a lot of
effort.”

“It would have. And he would have come and stayed
briefly. And left. I wanted someone for whom this would be new. I don’t
mean to mislead you, of course: that was not my primary intention in bringing
you here.” He waved the cigar. “No, I wanted to have my piano tuned
by the best tuner of Erard pianos in London, and I knew this request would
force the army to acknowledge how much they depend on me, that they know my
methods work, that music, like force, can bring peace. But I also knew that if
someone did make the journey all the way here to answer my request, it would be
someone who believed in music as I did.”