The Piano Tuner (35 page)

Edgar shook his head angrily. “Is this why you
called me to Mae Lwin?” It was dark now, and he stared into the
Doctor’s face, illuminated by the dull glow of his cigar.

The
end of the cheroot flickered light. “No, Mr. Drake, I brought you to tune
a piano. But situations change. We are, after all, at war.”

“And I am walking into battle unarmed.”

“Unarmed?
Hardly, Mr. Drake. You are with me. Don’t underestimate my
importance.”

Edgar’s pony twitched her ears at the
mosquitoes that buzzed around her head, the only sound. Her mane shivered.

There was a shout from the road ahead. A man rode up
on horseback.

“Bo Naw, my good friend!” Carroll exclaimed.

The man bowed slightly from his mount. “Doctor Carroll, the
princes are all here, with their armies. We are waiting only for
you.”

Carroll looked to the piano tuner, who returned his stare.
A faint smile ran across the Doctor’s lips. Edgar wrapped his fingers
once again in the reins. His face was still.

Carroll took his helmet
and fitted it over his head, fastening the strap over his chin like a soldier.
He took his cigar from his mouth and flicked it into the air, where it traced a
golden trajectory. He hissed.

For a moment Edgar waited alone. Then,
sighing heavily, he took the cheroot from his mouth and threw it to the ground.

It was nearly dark as they galloped down a trail that
passed between stone outcroppings. In the distance, Edgar could see the glow of
torchlights. They rode through a rough barricade, past vague silhouettes of
guards. Soon the trail rose, and they approached a fort, hidden in a dark grove
of trees.

The fort was long, and low, surrounded on all sides by a
stockade of sharpened bamboo. A group of elephants was tethered to the wall.
Armed guards saluted the riders. They stopped at the entrance to the stockade,
where a sentry emerged into the torchlight. He eyed the men suspiciously. Edgar
stared into the fort. The path that led up to the building was lined with more
men, and in the flickering light of torches he could see the glint of spears,
cutlasses, rifles. “Who are they?” he whispered.

“Armies. Each
sawbwa
has brought his own troops.”

Beside them, Bo Naw spoke in Shan. The guard walked forward and took the
reins of their ponies. The Englishmen dismounted, and entered the
stockade.

As they stepped inside the ramparts, Edgar sensed a movement
of bodies, and for a brief second he thought that it was a trap. But the men
were not advancing. They were kowtowing, bowing before the Doctor like a wave,
their backs glistening with sweat, weapons clanging.

The Doctor walked
swiftly, and Edgar caught up with him by the door. As they ascended the steps
of the fort, he looked behind him, at the vision of the backs of the warriors,
the fierce stockade, and the forest beyond. Crickets screamed, and in his mind
now echoed a single word. The man at the entrance had called Carroll not
“Doctor,” or “Major,” but “Bo,” the Shan
word that Edgar knew was reserved for warrior chiefs. Carroll took off his
helmet and tucked it beneath his arm. They stepped inside.

For several long breaths, they stood and stared into a
deep darkness, until shapes shifted slowly out of the dim light. There were
several princes, seated in a semicircle, each dressed in some of the finest
clothes Edgar had seen in Burma, bejeweled costumes like those of the puppets
that had danced at the
yôkthe pwè:
sequined jackets with
brocaded wings on the shoulders, crowns shaped like pagodas. The men had been
talking when they had entered, but the room was now silent. Carroll led Edgar
around the circle to two open cushions. Behind each prince, other men stood in
the darkness, barely licked by the dancing lights of tiny fires.

They
sat, still silent. Then one of the princes, an older man with a finely combed
mustache, spoke at length. When he finished, Carroll answered. At one point he
motioned to the piano tuner, who heard “Daly, Lieutenant-Colonel,
Hildebrand,” but he understood nothing else.

When Carroll’s
introduction was complete, another prince began to speak. The Doctor turned to
Edgar. “All is fine, Lieutenant-Colonel. You are welcome
here.”

The meeting began, and soon the night was lost, a blur of
jeweled gowns and candlelight, a canto of strange tongues. Soon Edgar felt
himself doze off, so that it all took on the quality of a dream. A dream within
a dream, he told himself, as his eyelids fell slowly, For perhaps I have been
dreaming since Aden. Around him, the princes seemed to float; the upturned
candleholders hid the floor from the flames. Only at occasional breaks in the
conversation did Carroll speak to him, “That man who is speaking is Chao
Weng,
sawbwa
of Lawksawk, next to him is Chao Khun Kyi, the
sawbwa
of Mongnai—whom you must recognize. Then that is Chao Kawng Tai of
Kengtung, who has traveled a great distance to be here. At his side is Chao
Khun Ti of Mongpawn. Next to him is Twet Nga Lu.”

And Edgar
asked, “Twet Nga Lu?” But Carroll had returned to the conversation,
leaving Edgar to stare at the man he had heard about since the steamer voyage,
who some said didn’t exist, who had escaped hundreds of British raids,
who was perhaps one of the last figures standing between Britain and the
consolidation of the Empire. Edgar stared at the Shan Bandit Chief. There was
something familiar about him that he couldn’t place. He was a small man,
with a face that was soft even in the angular shadows cast by the candlelight.
Edgar could see none of his tattoos or talismans, but he noticed that he spoke
with an eerie self-assurance, a half grin cast into the smoke-filled air like a
threat. And although he rarely said anything, when he did, the room quickly
grew quiet. Edgar then realized why he recognized the man, or if not the man,
why he recognized the confidence, the elusiveness. He had seen the same in
Anthony Carroll.

So to this dream of the Shan princes entered a new
character, a man Edgar thought he knew, but who now seemed as inscrutable as
the
sawbwas
who sat before him, who spoke a strange tongue, who held
the respect and fear of foreign tribes. Edgar turned to watch the Doctor, to
look for the man who played the piano, who collected flowers and read Homer,
but heard only a language of strange tones, words that even a man who
controlled the intricacy of notes couldn’t understand. And for one brief,
terrifying moment, as the glow of candles flickered upward across his face,
Edgar thought that he recognized the high cheekbones, the long brow, and the
intensity of stare and speech that the other tribes say make a Shan.

But this only lasted briefly, and as swiftly as it arrived, the haunting
left him. And Anthony Carroll was still Anthony Carroll and he turned and his
eyes flashed. “You holding up, old man? Is something wrong?” It was
late, and it would be many hours before the meeting finished.

“Yes, I am holding up,” Edgar answered. “No …
there is nothing wrong at all.”

The meeting
lasted until dawn, when sunlight finally began to trickle through the rafters.
Edgar didn’t know if he had been sleeping when he sensed a shuffling
around him and one of the Shan princes, and then another, rose and walked out,
bowing to the Englishmen as they left. As the others stood, there were more
formalities, and Edgar remarked on how gaudy and caricatured the costumes
seemed in the daylight, extravagance beyond the pomp and posture of their
wearers. Soon they rose too, to follow the princes. At the door Edgar heard a
voice at his back, and turned to find himself face-to-face with Twet Nga Lu.

“I know who you are, Mr. Drake,” said the Shan Bandit
Chief in a deliberate English, a smile slinking along his lips. He said
something in Shan and raised his hands before him. Edgar stepped back, suddenly
frightened, and Twet Nga Lu, now laughing, turned his palms down and began to
move his fingers before him in the mocking mime of a pianist.

Edgar
looked to see if Carroll had seen this, but the Doctor was engaged in
conversation with another prince. As Twet Nga Lu passed, Edgar saw Carroll
turn, and the two men stared at each other. It was a brief exchange, and then
Twet Nga Lu walked out of the room, where a group of Shan warriors fell into
formation behind him.

On the road back to Mae Lwin,
they spoke little. The Doctor stared out into the mist that covered the trail.
Edgar’s thoughts were thick with fatigue and confusion. He wanted to ask
about the meeting, but the Doctor seemed lost in contemplation. At one point
the Doctor stopped to point out a group of red flowers by the side of the
trail, but for the remainder of the trip he was silent. The sky was heavy, and
the wind picked up, whipping along the lonely crags and open road. Only when
they were climbing the hill above Mae Lwin did Carroll turn to the piano tuner.

“You haven’t asked what happened at the
meeting.”

“I am sorry,” Edgar said warily. “I
am a bit tired, that’s all.”

Anthony Carroll shifted his
gaze down the trail. “Last night, I received a conditional surrender from
both the Limbin Confederacy and from Twet Nga Lu, to end their resistance to
British rule in one month’s time, in exchange for limited autonomy
guaranteed by Her Majesty. The revolt is over.”

20

T
hey arrived in camp shortly after noon.
In the clearing, a group of boys came out to meet them, taking away the
men’s ponies. The camp seemed eerily silent. Edgar expected announcement,
movement, something to acknowledge the accomplishment. He had the unsettling
feeling that he had just witnessed history. But there was nothing, only the
customary greetings. The Doctor disappeared, and Edgar returned to his room. He
fell asleep still dressed in his riding clothes.

He
awoke at midnight, sweating, disoriented, having dreamed that he was still on
horseback, on the long ride from Mongpu. Only as he recognized the features of
his room, the mosquito net, his bag, the stack of papers, and the tuning tools,
did his heart slow.

He again tried to sleep but couldn’t.
Perhaps it was his thoughts of the Doctor, or his dream of a journey without
end, or perhaps it was only because he had been sleeping since the early
afternoon. He was hot, and dirty, and parched, and he found himself breathing
fast, Maybe I am sick again. He pushed aside the mosquito net and rushed to the
door. Outside the air was fresh and cool, and he took deep breaths and tried to
calm himself.

It was a still night, and a sliver of moon passed
between indecisive rain clouds. Below his room, the Salween was dark. He
slipped down the stairs and out across the clearing. The camp was silent. Even
the guard at the watch-post slept, seated outside the hut, his head rolled back
and resting on the wall.

As Edgar walked, the soil curled up against
his toes. He passed through the thicket of flowers and onto the beach. He was
moving faster now, tearing off his shirt and throwing it onto the sand. He
stepped out of his riding breeches. His toes touched the water and he
dove.

The river was cool and smooth with suspended silt. He rose to the
surface and rested, floating. Upriver, the rocks jutted into the river,
breaking the current into eddies which curled along the shore. He felt himself
move slowly upstream.

He finally climbed out of the water and stood on
the bank. Pulling his clothes back over his wet body, he walked barefoot to the
edge of the beach and picked his way over the rocks until he reached the large
boulder where the fishermen stood to cast their nets. He lay on his back. The
stone was still warm from the day’s sun.

He must have fallen
asleep, because he didn’t hear anyone walk down to the beach, only the
sound of splashing. He opened his eyes slowly, puzzled at who also might have
made the nighttime pilgrimage to the river, Perhaps the young couple has
returned. Slowly, carefully, so as not to reveal his presence, he turned on his
side and looked down the beach.

It was a woman, and she was kneeling,
crouched away from him, her long hair tied above her head. She was washing her
arms, lifting water in cupped hands and letting it run down her skin. She was
wearing her
hta main;
even in solitude, she bathed with modesty, as if
she knew well of the lecherous eyes of owls. The
hta main
soaked up
the water from the river and clung to her torso and to the swell of her
hips.

Perhaps he knew who she was before she turned toward him and saw
him, and the two of them froze, each aware of their mutual violation, the
shared sensuality of the river, of the sliver of moon. Then she moved hastily,
gathering up her other clothes, her soap. Without looking back, she ran up the
trail.

The clouds shifted. The moon returned. He walked onto the
beach. On the sand there was a comb, ivory, incandescent.

The Doctor left again on another “diplomatic
mission” and Edgar returned to work on the piano. With the arrival of the
rains, the soundboard had swollen, a nearly imperceptible change, perhaps
noticeable only to those who wish to tune.

For two days, he kept the
comb.

In moments of privacy, he would take it out and examine it,
running his fingers over the orphaned strands of black hair that wove
themselves through the ivory prongs. He knew he should return it to her, but he
waited, out of indecision or expectation, out of a sense of intimacy that grew
along with the waiting and the silence, that became more acute with each brief,
awkward conversation they shared in the unavoidable moments when they passed
each other on the paths.

And so he kept the comb. Convincing himself he
must work, he delayed returning it during the day, while at night he told
himself he must wait again until morning, I cannot go to her when it is dark.
The first night he stayed late at the piano, tuning and retuning. On the second
night, while he played alone, he heard a knock on the door.