The Art of Hearing Heartbeats (26 page)

“My dear nephew, welcome to Rangoon. It’s a pleasure to have you here with me at last.”

U Saw’s voice irritated Tin Win from the very first sentence. He could not interpret it. It struck no chord in him. It was friendly, neither too loud nor too deep, but it was missing something that Tin Win could not quite put his finger on. It reminded him of the buzzing from his ceiling. And the beat of his uncle’s heart was odder yet—expressionless and monotonous, like the ticking of the clock on the wall in the corridor.

“I trust the long journey was not too arduous,” U Saw continued.

“No.”

“How are your eyes?”

“They’re fine.”

“I thought you were blind.”

Tin Win heard the confusion in his voice. He sensed that it was not the right moment to embark on a discussion of blindness and the capacity to see.

“I only meant to say that they don’t hurt.”

“That’s lovely. Alas, I learned of your affliction only recently, through an acquaintance in Kalaw. Naturally I would otherwise have tried to help you sooner. A good friend of mine, Dr. Stuart McCrae, is head physician at Rangoon’s biggest hospital. He directs the ophthalmology department. I have arranged for him to examine you in the coming weeks.”

“I am humbled by your generosity,” said Tin Win. “I do not know how to thank you.”

“Don’t give it a second thought. Medicine is making great strides. Perhaps spectacles or an operation can help you,” said U Saw, whose mood was improving perceptibly. He appreciated his nephew’s obsequious tone. Already it rang with fitting gratitude. “Would you care for something to drink?”

“A bit of water, perhaps.”

U Saw poured water into a glass and set it—uncertain how he ought to give it to his nephew—with a loud noise on the table standing beside them. Tin Win felt for the glass and drank a sip.

“I have asked my cook to prepare chicken soup and fish curry with rice for you. I trust they will be to your liking.”

“Most certainly.”

“Do you require assistance to eat?”

“No, thank you.”

U Saw clapped his hands and called a name. The boy returned and led Tin Win to his chair. He sat down and felt the objects on the table in front of him—a flat plate with a deep bowl, beside it a napkin, a spoon, a knife, and a fork. At the monastery U May had once pressed these utensils into his hand and explained that the English ate with such things and not with their fingers. Having already sampled his noontime curry with a spoon, Tin Win had discovered to his astonishment how easy it was to use.

U Saw observed with relief that Tin Win could handle cutlery and that his blindness did not prevent him from eating decorously. Not even the soup gave him any trouble. U Saw had imagined, full of dread, that his nephew might need to be fed every evening, that he might drool, perhaps, or spill his food on the table.

Neither of them spoke. Tin Win was thinking of Mi Mi. He wondered how she would describe his uncle. Did he have chubby fingers? Was he overweight? Did he have a double chin like the sugarcane merchant in Kalaw whose heartbeat sounded similarly flat? Did his eyes sparkle? Or was his gaze as expressionless as the thumping in his chest? Who would help him, Tin Win, decipher this new world he had entered? The doctors? What would his uncle’s friend do with him? And would he be allowed to return to Kalaw once they realized there was nothing to be done? With a bit of luck he might be back with Mi Mi by the end of next week.

And if the doctors restored his eyesight? Tin Win had not considered this possibility until now. Neither in the preceding years nor since coming to Rangoon. And why should he have? He already had everything he needed.

Tin Win tried to imagine the consequences of a successful operation. Eyes to see with. Sharp contours. Faces. Would he retain the art of hearing? He pictured himself looking at Mi Mi. She lay naked in front of him. Her lean body, her small, firm breasts. He saw her flat belly and her
pubic hair. Her tender thighs, her genitalia. It was odd, but the image did not excite him. There could be nothing lovelier than to caress her skin with his tongue, to touch her breasts with his lips, and to hear her heart dancing ever more wildly.

His uncle’s voice interrupted this train of thought. “I have much to do in the coming days and will have little time to spend with you.” He set down his eating utensils. “One of the houseboys, though, Hla Taw, will be at your permanent disposal. He can show you around in the garden or even in the city, if you like. Tell him whatever you need. If I can arrange it, we will dine together on the weekend. The appointment with Dr. McCrae is on Tuesday.” U Saw hesitated. Had the astrologer prescribed how much time he ought to spend with the family member in distress? He could not recall anything of the kind. To make certain, he would call on him again tomorrow afternoon.

“I thank you, U Saw,” replied Tin Win. “I do not deserve your generosity.”

U Saw rose. He was exceedingly pleased. His nephew understood propriety. The thought that he, U Saw, might restore the boy’s eyesight delighted him. Such a gesture of magnanimity, a generosity that could hardly be taken for granted, would surely not go unrewarded.

TIN WIN LAY
awake at night and slept during the day. He had come down with diarrhea. The bathroom seemed farther and farther away, and he spent hours on the tiles in front of the toilet for fear he might not manage the trip.

Strange noises mocked or frightened him at every turn. Something was rattling and gurgling behind the walls and under the floor in the bathroom. The spider under his bed had turned ravenous. The flies in their death throes, the breaking of their legs, the sucking and chewing sounds of the spider—it all disgusted him. One morning he heard a snake slithering silently across the floor of his room. Her heartbeat betrayed her. He heard her approaching. Crawling into his bed. Across his legs. He felt her cold, moist body through the thin sheet. She hissed beside his head as if she wanted to tell him a story. Hours later she disappeared
through the half-open window. The geckos on the walls were having a laugh at his expense. More than once he covered his ears and cried out for help.

Hla Taw blamed it on the unfamiliar food and the heat. Tin Win knew better. He was sitting on a tree stump. Waiting. Soon, she had said.

He drew a deep breath and held it. Counted the seconds. Forty. Sixty. The pressure in his chest increased. Ninety. One hundred twenty. He started getting dizzy. His body screamed for oxygen. Tin Win did not give in. He heard his own heart stutter. He knew he had the power to bring it to a standstill. Good.

Death appeared in the distance, approaching with long strides, looming ever larger until he stood right in front of Tin Win.

“You summoned me.”

Tin Win was afraid of himself. He had summoned death, but didn’t yet want to die. Not yet. Not here. He needed to be with Mi Mi again, to feel her again, her breath on his skin, her lips at his ear, the song of her heart.

He inhaled deeply.

He would find out what his uncle wanted from him. He would do what was asked of him and then return to Kalaw as quickly as possible.

F
our days later Tin Win stood in the doorway to the terrace, listening hard. It was raining. Not a downpour,
but more of a steady, slow rustling and pattering. Tin Win liked rain, it was an ally. In it he heard Mi Mi’s whispering, that voice capable of such tenderness. It gave shape to the garden and the house, lifted a veil from his uncle’s estate. Drew pictures. The rainfall sounded different in every part of the yard. Beside him the water crashed on the tin roof connecting the kitchen to the house. In front of him it crackled on the stones of the terrace, whose size he could now precisely determine, thanks to the rain. The drops fell more softly on the grass. He could hear the path between the flowerbeds, the bushes, and the lawn. The sandy ground swallowed the water almost without a sound. It struck the large palm leaves, then ran down the stems; it gushed over the flowers, plucking and tearing at the blossoms. He noted that the yard was not flat, that water flowed, barely audibly, away toward the street. He felt as if he had gone to the window in his room, had opened the shutters and seen the grounds for the first time.

As the rain fell harder the drumming on the tin roof surged, and Tin Win stepped out onto the terrace. The water was much warmer than in Kalaw. He stretched out his arms. The drops were big and fat. He felt Mi Mi on his back. He wanted to show her the garden. He took a few steps, then broke into a run. He tore across the terrace onto the lawn, dodged a palm, ran around the tennis court, hopped over two small bushes, raced in a broad arc to the hedge that bordered the property and then back to
the terrace. A second time. A third. Running set him free. It released energies that had atrophied in recent days.

The rain wrenched him out of his anxiety; he was more alive with every drop. Mi Mi was with him. Because it was she who had opened his eyes, because it was she, in a very real sense, seeing for him, she would always be with him. All that came between them were his fear and sorrow. U May had told him: Fear blinds and deafens. Rage blinds and deafens. So, too, envy and suspicion. There was only one force stronger than fear.

Tin Win ran to the terrace. Out of breath, dripping with joy.

“Tin Win.” His uncle’s voice. Why had he left the office early?

“Doctor McCrae has sent word. We should go today. Right now.” U Saw observed his nephew quietly for a moment. “I saw you running. Are you really blind?”

So close to the truth, and yet so far.

The examination took only a few minutes. A nurse held his head. A doctor with powerful hands pulled at the skin around his eyes. Stuart McCrae leaned forward right in front of him. His breath smelled of tobacco.

McCrae did not say a word during the exam. Tin Win focused on the beating of his heart and wondered whether he might even infer the diagnosis from it. Its rhythm never varied. It was not unpleasant, merely alien. It sounded even, reliable. As did the voice. McCrae spoke in short sentences that started anywhere and ended just as abruptly,
uninflected by rises or dips. Not unpleasant, merely devoid of emotion.

The diagnosis was quick and simple. Tin Win was blind. Cataracts. Highly unusual at his age. Presumably a genetic disorder. Operable. Tomorrow, if they liked.

The injections were the worst part. They stuck him with long, fat needles above and below his eyes and near his ears. The cold metal penetrated deeper and deeper into his flesh, as if they were trying to skewer him. Then they removed the lenses. Tin Win felt the incisions but experienced no pain. They called for needle and thread and stitched his skin back together. Like a piece of cloth. He wore a bandage around his head for the next two days.

Now doctors and nurses were clattering about with scissors and tweezers, giving one another instructions Tin Win did not understand. They were going to restore his sight, they said. He would feel like a newborn. They would remove his bandages, and he would perceive light—warm, glowing light. He would recognize outlines and shapes, and in a few days, when his glasses were ready, he would be able to see again. Better than before he was blind.

Tin Win was not sure whether to believe them. Not that he mistrusted them or suspected they would knowingly mislead him. They meant what they said, but they seemed to be talking about something else. “What is more precious than our eyes?” Stuart McCrae asked before the
operation and also immediately answered: “Nothing. Seeing is believing.”

They acted as if they were liberating him from a prison. As if there were but one truth. The nurses bade him be patient but Tin Win wanted to tell them no one need hurry on his account. If he was impatient, it was only because he wanted to be with a young woman who moved about on hands and knees. She knew that one saw with more than eyes and that distances were measured not only in steps. To the doctor and nurses, however, Tin Win thought it best to say nothing.

“There we are.” McCrae undid the bandage. He rolled it up, and with each turn the tension in the room increased. Even McCrae’s heart was beating a tick faster than usual.

Tin Win opened his eyes. It hit him with the force of a blow. Light. Glaring, blazing light. Not dim, not milky, but white and bright. Truly bright.

The light hurt. It hurt. It burned his eyes. He felt a stabbing pain in his head. He pinched his eyes shut, retreating back into darkness.

“Can you see me?” his uncle cried. “Can you see me?”

No, he did not. Nor did he need to. The heartbeat was quite sufficient. It sounded as if U Saw were applauding himself.

“Can you see me?” U Saw repeated.

Tin Win squinted. As if squinting might filter the pain out of the light.

As if there were any going back.

THE GLASSES FIT
straightaway—on his nose, behind his ears.