The Piano Tuner (34 page)

“And if I
hadn’t come?” asked Edgar. “You didn’t know me, you
couldn’t have been certain.”

“Someone else, more
visitors, perhaps the missionary from Rangoon. And they would have gone home
after several days.”

Edgar saw the Doctor stare into the
distance. “Have you ever thought of returning home?” he asked.

“Of course. I remember England very fondly.”

“You
do?”

“It’s my home.”

“And yet you
continue to stay, why then?”

“I have too much here,
projects, experiments, too many plans. I hadn’t intended to stay. I first
came for work. There was only a glimmer that it was for something different. Or
maybe it is simpler than that, perhaps I won’t leave because I am afraid
to hand over my command to someone else. They would not do this …
peacefully.” He paused, and took the cigar from his mouth. He stared at
the smoke seeping from its end. “There are times when I have
doubts.”

“About the war?”

“No, perhaps
I am expressing myself poorly. I don’t doubt what I have done here. I
know it is right. I doubt only what I have missed in doing it.” He rolled
the cheroot back and forth between his fingers. “I listen to you, and how
you speak of your wife—I had a wife once. And a daughter—a tiny
baby who was mine for one day. There is a Shan saying that when people die it
is because they have done what they needed to, because they are too good for
this world. I think of her when I hear them say this.”

“I
am sorry,” Edgar said. “The Colonel told me. But I didn’t
feel like it was my position to ask.”

“No, you are too
considerate … But I should apologize, Mr. Drake: these are sad, distant
thoughts.” He straightened his back in the saddle. “Besides, you
asked me why I stay. That is a difficult enough question. Perhaps, everything I
just told you about not wanting to give up the camp is wrong. Perhaps I stay
simply because I cannot leave.” He put his cigar back in his mouth.
“Once I tried. Not long after I began to work at the hospital in Rangoon,
another surgeon arrived with his battalion, to remain in Rangoon for a year
before moving up-country. It had been years since I visited England, and I was
given the option to return home for a few months. I booked a berth on a steamer
and traveled from Rangoon, where I was stationed at the time, to Calcutta, and
there boarded the train to Bombay.”

“It is the same route
that I followed.”

“Then you know how stunning it is. Well,
that trip was even more stunning. We were not thirty miles from Delhi when the
train stopped at a small supply depot and I saw a cloud of dust rise up over
the desert. It was a group of riders, and as they drew closer, I recognized
them as Rajasthani herders. The women were dressed in exquisitely colored
veils, which still glowed a deep red despite the dust that had settled over
them. I think they had seen the train from a distance and had come to inspect
it out of curiosity. They moved back and forth beside us, pointed at the
wheels, the engine, the passengers, all the time talking in a language I
couldn’t understand. I watched them, the passing color, still thinking,
and I boarded the steamer to England. But when the boat reached Aden, I
disembarked and took the next steamer back to Bombay, the next train back to
Calcutta. One week later, I was back at my post in Pegu. I still don’t
know exactly why seeing the herders made me turn back. But the thought of
returning to London’s dark streets while those images continued to dance
in my head seemed impossible. The last thing I wanted to become was one of
those sad veterans who bores any listening ear with disjointed tales of
unfamiliar places.” He inhaled deeply on the cheroot. “You know, I
told you how I have been translating the
Odyssey.
I always read it as
a tragic tale of Odysseus’s struggle to find his way home. Now I
understand more and more what Dante and Tennyson wrote about it, that he
wasn’t lost, but that after the wonders he had seen, Odysseus
couldn’t, perhaps didn’t want to, return home.”

There
was silence.

“That reminds me of a story I once heard,”
said Edgar.

“Yes?”

“It was not long
ago—three months, maybe—when I first left England. I met a man on
the ship in the Red Sea. An old Arab.”

“The Man with One
Story.”

“You know him?”

“Of course. I
met him long ago, when I was in Aden. I have heard many speak of his story. A
story of war is never lost on a soldier.”

“A story of
war?”

“I have heard soldiers tell me the same story for
years. I can almost recite it now; the images of Greece are so vivid. It turns
out the story is true, both he and his brother were just boys whose families
had been killed by the Ottomans, and worked as spies during the War for
Independence. I once met an old veteran from the War who said that he had heard
of the brothers, their valor. Everyone wants to hear the story. They feel that
it is auspicious, that those who hear it perform bravely in battle.”

Edgar stared at the Doctor. “Greece? …”

“Yes?” asked the Doctor.

“You are certain it was
about the Greek War for Independence?”

“The story? Of
course. Why? Are you surprised that after so many years I still remember
it?”

“No … I am not surprised at all. I too remember
as if I heard it yesterday. I
too
can almost recite it
now.”

“Is there something wrong then?”

“No, nothing wrong, I suppose,” said Edgar, slowly. “Just
thinking of the story.” Thinking, Was it different only for me, I could
not have imagined it all, this all.

They rode on, and passed through a
grove of trees with long twisted pods that made rattling sounds as they shook.
The Doctor said, “You wished to say something. That the Man with One
Story reminded you of something I said.”

“Oh
…” Edgar reached up and picked one of the pods. He broke it open,
the dried seeds spilling out over his hands. “It doesn’t matter. It
is just a story, I suppose.”

“Yes, Mr. Drake.”
Carroll looked quizzically at the piano tuner. “They are all just
stories.”

The sun was low in the sky as they
passed over a small rise to look down on a collection of huts in the distance.
“Mongpu,” said the Doctor. They stopped by a dusty shrine. Edgar
watched Carroll dismount and lay a coin at the base of a small house that held
a spirit icon.

They began their descent, the ponies’ feet
splashing in the mud of the trail. It grew darker. Mosquitoes came out, great
clouds, breaking and coalescing like dancing fragments of shade.

“Foul creatures,” said the Doctor, swatting at them. His
cheroot had burned to a short stub, and he took the sardine tin once again from
his pocket. “I recommend that you smoke, Mr. Drake. It will keep the
insects away.”

Edgar remembered the malaria attack, and conceded.
The doctor lit a cigar and passed it to him. Its taste was liquid,
intoxicating.

“I should probably explain a little about the
meeting,” said the Doctor as they began to ride again. “As you have
read, since the annexation of Mandalay, there has been active resistance from a
union of forces called the Limbin Confederacy.”

“We spoke
of this when the
sawbwa
of Mongnai came.”

“We
did,” said the Doctor. “But there is something I didn’t tell
you. For the past two years, I have been in close negotiation with the
sawbwas
of the Limbin Confederacy.”

Edgar took the cigar
awkwardly from his mouth. “You wrote that no one had met with the
Confederacy …”

“I know what I wrote and what I told
you. But I had reasons for that. As you probably know, at the time that your
boat was somewhere in the Indian Ocean, a force was established at Hlaingdet
under Colonel Stedman: companies from the Hampshire Regiment, a Gurkha company,
Bombay sappers, with George Scott as political officer, which gave me hope this
wouldn’t turn into a full war; he is a close friend, and I don’t
know anyone as sensitive to local issues as he is. But since January, our
forces have been engaged in active battle near Yawnghwe. Now the commissioner
feels that the only way to control the Shan States is through force. But
because of the overtures by the Mongnai
sawbwa,
I think we can
negotiate peace.”

“Does the army know about this
meeting?”

“No, Mr. Drake, and this is what I need you to
understand. They would oppose it. They don’t trust the princes. I will
put this bluntly—I, and now you, are acting in direct defiance of
military orders.” He let the words sink in. “Before you speak,
there is something else. We have also spoken briefly about a Shan
dacoit
prince named Twet Nga Lu, known as the Bandit Chief, who once
seized the state of Mongnai but who has since retreated to terrorize the
villages ruled by the true Mongnai
sawbwa.
They say that few people
have ever seen him. What they haven’t told you is what they don’t
know. I have met the Bandit Chief many times.”

He waved away a
swarm of mosquitoes. “Several years ago, before the rebellion, Twet Nga
Lu was bitten by a snake near the Salween. One of his brothers, who sometimes
trades in Mae Lwin, knew that we were only several hours downstream. He brought
the sick man to me, and I administered a poultice of local herbs that I had
learned from a Mae Lwin medicine man. He was nearly unconscious when he
arrived, and when he awoke, he saw my face and thought he had been captured. He
grew so angry that his brother had to restrain him and explain that I had saved
his life. Finally he calmed down. His eyes settled on the microscope, and he
asked what it was. He didn’t believe me when I tried to describe it, so I
took a sample of pond water I had been examining, placed it on the slide, and
asked him to look. At first he had trouble with the microscope—opening
the wrong eye and so forth—and looked ready to throw the instrument to
the ground when the light, reflected from the sun through the canted mirror,
met his eye, bringing images of the tiny little beasts familiar to any English
schoolboy. The effect could not have been more profound. He staggered back to
his bed, muttering that indeed I must have magical powers to summon monsters
from pond water. What would happen, he exclaimed, if I decided to set them
loose from the machine! He now seems to believe I have a form of magical vision
that the Shan believe can be found only in amulets. Of course, I won’t
protest, and since then he has returned to me several times, asking to see the
microscope. He is very bright and is learning English quickly, as if he knows
who his new enemy is. Although I still cannot trust him, he seems now to accept
that I personally have no designs against Kengtawng. In August last year, he
seemed increasingly distracted, and asked me if there was anything I could do
to block the signing of a treaty with the Limbin Confederacy. Then he
disappeared for three months. The next time I heard his name was in a Mandalay
intelligence briefing on an attack on a fort near Inle Lake.”

“And then he attacked Mae Lwin,” said Edgar. “They told
me this in Mandalay.”

There was a long pause. “No, no he
didn’t attack Mae Lwin,” Carroll said slowly. “I was with
Twet Nga Lu the day Mae Lwin was attacked. Mandalay doesn’t know this.
The villagers say that the attack was by the Karenni, another tribe. I
haven’t reported this because the army will certainly send troops, the
last thing we need here. But it wasn’t Twet Nga Lu.” Carroll spoke
more quickly now. “I have spoken to you in confidence, and now I need to
ask your assistance. We will be in Mongpu soon. This is the first time in a
long while that Twet Nga Lu has met the
sawbwa
of Mongnai. If they
cannot settle their differences, they will not stop fighting until one of them
is dead, and we will be forced to intercede with our armies. Of course, there
are many in the War Office, bored by the peace since the annexation, who are
anxious for war. If there is any chance of peace, they will destroy it. Until
the treaty is signed, no one can know that I am here.”

“I
have never heard you speak so candidly of the war.”

“I
know. But there are reasons. The Limbin Confederacy thinks that I have orders
from superiors within the British command. If they know I am alone, they
won’t fear me. So, today, if anyone asks, you are Lieutenant-Colonel
Daly, civil officer of the Northern Shan Column, stationed at Maymyo,
representative of Mr. Hildebrand, Superintendent of the Shan
States.”

“But the
sawbwa
of Mongnai has seen me
play.”

“He already knows and has agreed to keep this a
secret. It is the others whom I need to convince.”

“You
didn’t tell me this when we left,” said Edgar. He felt an anger
growing.

“You wouldn’t have come.”

“I
am sorry, Doctor. I cannot do this.”

“Mr.
Drake.”

“Doctor, I can’t do this. Mr. Hildebrand
is—”

“Mr. Hildebrand will never know. You will need
to do nothing, to say nothing.”

“But I can’t.
It’s seditious. It’s—”

“Mr. Drake, I had
hoped that after almost three months in Mae Lwin, you would understand, that
you could help me. That you were not like the others.”

“Doctor, there is a difference between believing that a piano can
help bring peace and signing treaties without orders, impersonating others,
defying one’s queen. There are rules and laws …”

“Mr. Drake, your defiance began when you came to Mae Lwin against
orders. You are now considered missing, perhaps already under
suspicion.”

“Under suspicion! For what …”

“What do you think, now that you have disappeared for so
long?”

“I do not need to participate in any charades. I am
due to return to Mandalay anytime now.” He gripped the reins
tightly.

“From here, Mr. Drake? You can’t turn back now.
And I know as well as you that you do not want to return to
Mandalay.”