A Well-Tempered Heart

by Jan-Philipp Sendker

  Maung Sein did not react. He filled the bowls with rice and vegetable curry, handed one to her, and began to eat in silence.

  It was not long before they heard the monks asking for alms at the neighbor’s house.

  Nu Nu took the large plate of rice and the curry, laid a cloth over them, descended the steps, and waded through the muck to the gate.

  The rain was warm. The water ran down her face, neck, back, and breasts. In a matter of moments shirt and longyi clung to her skin. A long procession of young men filed past with their shaven heads and their soaking-wet dark-red robes. She devoutly deposited a small spoonful of rice and some vegetables in each wooden bowl. She accepted their grateful expressions and mumbled blessings, her thoughts all the while on Maung Sein’s body and the passion it aroused in her.

  When she turned around her husband was gone and the curtain was across the door.

  Her legs quivering with excitement, she stayed at the gate until the last monk was out of sight. She went back to the hut, climbed the stairs, and pushed the curtain aside.

  Maung Sein was lying on the mat waiting for her.

  Chapter 5

  SHE KNEW.

  She knew immediately and beyond any shadow of a doubt.

  As if she could sense something that for her body was imperceptible.

  As if she could see what to her eyes was invisible.

  A part of him would remain inside her. Implant itself. Grow.

  Even if her husband would later smile indulgently and object that it was impossible. That no one was that sensitive.

  What did he know of a woman’s body and feelings?

  Something about this morning had been different. It was not the way he moved, although he had been especially ardent and passionate. Nor was it the way he had inflamed and then quenched her lust.

  Her body had been saturated with a feeling she had no name for and could not describe.

  When it was over they lay beside each other breathing heavily. Nu Nu was quivering, and tears were running down her face, though she did not notice it right away.

  Maung Sein was worried and asked whether he might have hurt her in his abandon.

  No, she said, not at all.

  Why she was crying, then?

  For joy, she explained. For joy.

  He took her in his arms, and she only cried harder.

  Later she would often reflect on this moment and ask herself whether those were truly tears of joy that morning. Or did she already have an inkling in her heart of hearts of how it would all end? That every great happiness entailed a correspondingly great sorrow. That every beginning already contained its own end, that there was no love without the pain of parting, that every hand eventually turned cold.

  Had she, in spite of the many travails of her early years, only now fully understood what the Buddha taught? To live means to suffer. Nothing is permanent.

  “Say something,” whispered Nu Nu.

  Maung Sein propped himself on his elbow and stroked her hair solicitously.

  “What should I say?”

  “Anything,” she implored. “I want to hear your voice.”

  “I love you.”

  She clutched her husband. Maung Sein did not utter these words often. The way he said it now, it sounded like a gift.

  “Once more. Please.”

  “I love you.”

  She clung to him with all her might, as if she were afraid of sinking. Never in her life had she felt so vulnerable and defenseless. Why now, at the moment when her most fervent wish was starting to come true? Why could she not simply welcome the new life?

  “I love you, too.”

  NU NU CONTINUED to be extraordinarily sensitive for several days. She had difficulty falling asleep and woke up earlier than usual. At the market and in the field she avoided looking anyone in the eye, and she was happiest when no one other than her husband spoke to her. Her skin revolted. Red spots everywhere. She scratched until the blood ran down her arms and legs.

  Worse still than the gloom and the itching were the anxieties that plagued her, seemingly for no identifiable reason. It was a ubiquitous fear that constantly sought new justification. Sometimes she dreaded that Maung Sein, having stepped on a cobra, would come home dead from a short visit to the neighbors. Sometimes she woke in the middle of the night and flew into a panic, convinced that Maung Sein had stopped breathing as he lay there beside her. The sight of a well would alarm her because it led so deeply into the darkness, the heavy rains because they could wash away the entire village. The world had always been full of danger and threats. Now it was just a question of when she would fall prey to one of them.

  Maung Sein took greater than usual pains about his wife during these weeks. He would get up before her in the morning to cook for the monks. He fetched the water from the village well, accompanied her to the market, talkative like never before, in order to distract her from the sorrow whose cause he could not fathom. In the field he would never let her out of his sight. As soon as it seemed to him that the work was overtaxing her, he would bring her home and stay by her side.

  In the end, though, it was not Maung Sein who helped her. It was the certitude that something was developing inside her. It was the sensation of giving life even when on the outside there was no indication of it at all. A gentle twinge in her belly early in the morning, a slight pressure in her breasts—these were at first the only signs that something had changed.

  But her confidence in what was happening to her increased daily, so that two months later both anxiety and sadness had fled. She was going to have a child. A son. He would be healthy, and she would survive the birth. It was more than the astrologer’s prophecy; she felt it herself. Her fears gave way to an optimism that she had never experienced before, not even during the most blissful hours with Maung Sein.

  It did not take long for him to notice what was happening with his wife. It was not only the belly that caught his attention as it started to swell, but also the calm that she suddenly radiated. As if all her troubles had evaporated overnight. Her eyes beamed, her prominent lips were just a bit fuller, her slender body acquired curves, and he got to see a side of her he had never experienced before: her laughter.

  In the field and at home he had to work against her desire always to be active, because he worried she might run herself down to nothing. She wanted to borrow money to re-thatch the roof. To plant additional tomatoes in a fallow corner of the garden. To build a little chicken coop.

  One night Nu Nu felt a first movement in her belly. She wanted to wake her husband but then reconsidered. This moment should be hers alone.

  Hers and her son’s.

  She held still and listened into her body, breathless. Had it just been her imagination? A few seconds passed, and then she had the sensation again that she had felt something. A gentle tremor, the beat of a butterfly’s wing.

  Whenever she thought no one was watching she would lay both hands on her torso, stroking it and talking to her son. Telling him of a hut in which there was little more than love for him. Of a father who worked from dawn till dusk to keep the hunger away. Of a mother who was so looking forward to him that she took little interest in anything else. Of a life that would not be easy, he should be clear about that, but that nevertheless—in all its beauty and tribulation—was a life worth living. Mostly, at least.

  The larger her belly swelled, the more time she needed for herself and her child. Bending over to work in the field became wearisome. Every step taxed her. She found the housework increasingly challenging. Her legs swelled. At night there was no position in which she could lie comfortably. Regardless of how she moved, something always hurt. She liked best of all to sit on the top step with a thermos of tea, leaning against the porch, a blanket at her back, rubbing her belly and feeling her child.

  For once Maung Sein could not help her. On the contrary, there were moments when his presence annoyed her. When he tried to take her into his arms before falling asleep in the evening
she would turn away from him because the physical proximity was too much for her. When he came home from the field drenched in sweat she hoped he would go straight to the river; the same smell of him that she had loved not long ago now repulsed her.

  One evening—they had already extinguished the candles and were lying beside each other in the dark—she heard him grinding his teeth. Maung Sein did that only when restless and nervous.

  “Nu Nu?”

  She felt inclined to feign sleep.

  “Nu Nu?”

  She couldn’t resist that pleading tone. “Yes?”

  “Is something wrong?”

  She knew how difficult that sentence must have been for him. Her husband was not one who liked to ask questions. But there was no way she could tell him what she was going through. She did not wish to offend or hurt him. “No. Why do you ask?”

  “You are so …” He searched a long time for the right word. “Different from before.”

  “I have our child inside me,” she answered, hoping it would be the end of the conversation.

  “I know, but that’s not what I mean.”

  “What then? How am I different?” She would have liked to turn to him and kiss him reassuringly or stroke his head, but she could not do it.

  “I don’t know. Different. You hardly look me in the eye anymore. You don’t like it when I stroke you.”

  “No, really, I do.” She was not a good liar.

  “You don’t like the way I smell anymore.”

  “That’s not true. What makes you say that?” she replied weakly.

  “And now you are telling lies.”

  She heard how hurt he was. How much he needed her. Nu Nu briefly considered telling him how she was feeling. He wouldn’t understand.

  She herself did not understand.

  “Nu Nu?”

  She did not want to talk. She wanted to rest and be alone. Just mother and child.

  It was a strange, irritating feeling that she preferred not to think about. She had often heard of women who experienced bizarre mood swings during pregnancy. She did not want to create trouble. It would go away on its own.

  “It’s okay. Don’t give it another thought. Let’s just go to sleep.”

  “Is it something about me?”

  “No,” she answered so brusquely that he held his tongue.

  Maung Sein lay awake for a long time that night. He did not understand what his wife was going through and could explain her behavior only as having to do with the pregnancy. He was sure their old intimacy would return after the birth.

  Chapter 6

  DEATH STOOD WAITING at the door. Tall and lean. She could make out his dark silhouette clearly against the light of the rising sun. He had pushed the curtain aside and was about to step in.

  Nu Nu clamped down on the cloth the midwife had thrust between her teeth to stop her biting her lips bloody from the pain. She knew that her body could not take much more. She had been suffering already for a day and a night. It had started at dawn with a powerful contraction while she was distributing alms to the monks. Maung Sein had been with her and had been able to calm and distract her during the first few hours. When a gush of water had coursed out of her he had run full of concern to get the midwife. Two older women later came to her aid. They had reached inside her repeatedly with their long, bony fingers to determine the baby’s position and to feel the head. They were still full of optimism; it wouldn’t be long now, they said.

  Later they made an effort to shift it and turn it, to dilate her with their hands. Nu Nu had let it all happen, followed their instructions, stood, lain down, knelt, crouched on all fours. They had tried herbs, tinctures, and compresses. They had massaged her, and she had inhaled mysterious vapors, all to no avail.

  Her child did not wish to enter the world.

  Nu Nu could see in the women’s faces that it was getting serious. She was losing blood. She felt colder and colder. There was no doctor who could have cut her open, no anesthetic that could have eased her pain.

  The baby was not moving.

  For months she had felt it every day. The kicks, the thumps and rumbling in her belly had become a part of her.

  Now she could not feel it anymore. She had the feeling that she was carrying a weighty stone inside her that grew heavier by the minute and would pull her irresistibly into an abyss.

  The pains did not relent. The child had to come out, or they would die. Both of them.

  The women whispering. Their helplessness. They sensed what would unfold in the next few minutes. This year alone five women in the village had died in childbirth. It was the risk every pregnant woman took.

  The price one paid to give life.

  Nu Nu clamped down on the cloth again. Someone pushed the drenched hair out of her face and held her head.

  One of the women hurried out to fetch Maung Sein. He had left the hut in the middle of the night when he could no longer bear to watch his wife’s misery. For hours they had heard him chopping and sawing wood in the yard, in the dark.

  The next contraction came. She felt dizzy.

  Death still stood at the door, exuding his vile stench. Why did he not step in? What was he waiting for? Why did he torture her like this?

  She called to her husband. Called his name with all her might. Again and again. Why wasn’t he coming? She wanted him to be with her when she died. She wanted to be held by him, and only by him.

  The midwife stuffed the cloth into her mouth again. She heard Maung Sein’s footsteps.

  He sat behind Nu Nu and wrapped his arms around her so that her upper body was in his lap. When the next contraction came and threatened to carry her off for good, she clutched his knee, spat out the cloth and bit with all her strength into his forearm. Maung Sein cried out in pain and squeezed her with such force that it took her breath away.

  She had no memory of the next few minutes.

  When she came to again she heard the excited voice of the midwife.

  And the whimpering of a child.

  IN THE FIELDS or at the well few of the women she had spoken to could say much about the hours following a delivery. They were happy to have survived. They had older children to care for or had simply wanted to forget the torture. Not so Nu Nu. She remembered every detail even years later, in spite of her exhaustion. The blood- and slime-covered bundle that lay on her breast. Maung Sein’s distorted face, his arm and the big, gaping wound in it. He was missing a thumb-sized piece of flesh just by his elbow.

  Her quivering body, the almost unbearable pain.

  The smoldering fire with the big kettle where the women were boiling towels for her.

  Her son’s racing, thumping heart, his quick breath. His wrinkly little fingers and the way he looked at her out of his puffy dark-brown eyes. She would never forget that sight. Or the happiness that she felt.

  She hugged him tightly and was never going to let him go. He was a part of her and would remain so forever.

  Like it or not.

  Then she lost consciousness.

  Chapter 7

  NU NU SPENT the weeks following her son’s birth in a no-man’s-land between life and death. She was aware only in a blur of the hut, the fire, the smoke, and the faces bending over her. There was no more boundary between night and day. She slept long, to be woken only by a dreadful thirst or the whimpering of her hungry child. She nursed, ate and drank whatever Maung Sein offered her, then went to sleep again. The ministrations of the midwife, the juices she pressed for her, the salves Maung Sein massaged her with, she let them wash over her without stirring.

  She spent her few waking hours in a fog, too exhausted to stand up or even to exchange a few words. In her nostrils the sickly-sweet smell of decay.

  Maung Sein prepared the food. He boiled towels and clothes, changed her, washed her sweaty body, squatted beside her and talked at her in the hope that his voice might help her. Now and again, while his son was sleeping, he would lift her carefully and carry her in his arms into the
yard for a few minutes. He was taken aback to find how light she had become. Hardly heavier than a sack of rice. Although she opened her eyes only briefly and hardly responded, he would take her slowly around the house. She ought to see how the bougainvillea was blooming. The poppies. The yellow hibiscus, whose color she so loved. How the tomatoes he had planted for her were growing, the fruit on the banana plants.

  She ought to see how life was waiting for her. How sorely he needed her. Death was a silent visitor to whom one addressed no questions.

  Who took whomever he wished. But not Nu Nu. She mustn’t go. Not without him.

  In the evening—the midwife had long since gone home—he would sit alone at the head of her bed, trying to meditate. Without success. Instead he would gaze in the candlelight at the faces of his sleeping wife and son. He recalled the words of the monks he had lived with for so many years. He had learned from them everything he knew about life: that every individual is the author of his own fate. Without exception.

  But Maung Sein did not feel at all the master of his fate in these weeks. He was driven, not the driver. A slave to his fears.

  What crime must he have committed that he deserved to lose his wife and child? He did not wish to blame anyone other than himself for his sorrows, but was it really his fault if he wound up a young widower? What mistake had he made?

  Maung Sein knew the answer to his questions: He ought not to have married. He ought not to have lost his heart to Nu Nu. Had he not, then he would not now be suffering, he had to admit. Was that what the Buddha preached in his infinite wisdom? If he and Nu Nu had never conceived, he would not now need to fear for his child’s life. But what kind of existence would that be? A life without attachments. A life without people one feared to lose. The life of a monk. Not his. He feared nothing more than Nu Nu’s death.

  The price of love.

  He was no Buddha. Was not even on the right path, no matter how much he meditated. He was a human being. A simple, vulnerable human being, full of hopes and fears, full of desire and longing, whose happiness was fragile. He was sure he would eventually acquire a heart that he could not lose.